Category: Aviation

Santa Catalina

by  on  in Blogging in Formation, Travel • 23 Comments

Over the past two decades I’ve traveled all over the country. All over the world, in fact, and my list of favored locations is long indeed. It’s hard to beat sitting on the beach next to the Sunset Bar & Grill in St. Maarten. I could spend a month in London taking in shows at the Globe, ENO or the West End. And who could say a cross word about any of the Hawaiian islands?

But if I had to choose just one place to call my all-time favorite, it wouldn’t even be a contest: it starts and ends with Santa Catalina, one of eight isles in the Channel Islands archipelago which sit just off the Southern California coast. Read more →

Flying is Not Driving

by  on  in Safety • 21 Comments

The mid-century era was a wonderful time for design, architecture, and even aviation. Unfortunately, it was also the top of a slippery slope in pilot proficiency which just happens to have coincided with a proliferation of nosewheel designs… and a maddening late 50’s advertising campaign by Cessna based on the concept that flying = driving. Every time I see this ad, all I can think is “no, No, NO!” I don’t care how many flying cars or roadable airplanes they build, flying will never be anything like driving. Read more →

Smelling the Roses

by  on  in Aviation • 13 Comments

Perhaps it’s a byproduct of our Type-A personalities, but pilots seem to spend much of their time looking for the Next Big Thing: the larger aircraft, next rating, better job, pay increase, or upgrade. There’s nothing wrong with ambition, of course… but if we’re not careful, a literal lifetime of flying can pass us by and we’ll have been so busy climbing the ladder that we never stopped to enjoy the moment while we were in it.

If you are one of the fortunate few who have the power to defy gravity, do yourself a favor in the year to come and stop to smell the roses every now and then. Read more →

Where Do You Belong?

by  on  in Opinion Leaders • 5 Comments

I’m often asked what flying professionally is like. It’s not an easy question to answer. A day in the life of a Alaskan fish spotter bears no resemblance whatsoever to that of a cruise pilot on an Airbus A380. The guy in the Gulfstream at Mach .80 isn’t in the same league as the one flying the blimp at 40 miles per hour. Each job requires different skills and talents, so it’s vital to honestly assess your strengths and weaknesses in order to find the career that best fits you. Read more →

Year of the Tailwheel

by  on  in Blogging in Formation • 37 Comments

My wife and I just returned from a fun and relaxing flight along the Southern California coastline in a vintage 1947 Stinson Voyager. It was a perfect start to what will hopefully be a safe and prosperous new year. It also got me thinking about what would make this trip around the sun a positive one for the world of aviation.

In the Chinese zodiac, this is the year of the horse. Conservation groups have designated it the year of the salamander. CNN claims it will be the year of the blame game. For aviators, I firmly believe 2014 should be the Year of the Tailwheel. Read more →

The Key to Good IFR: More VFR

by  on  in IFR, Safety • 48 Comments

The most common landing procedure used by IFR airplanes is the visual approach. It’s fast, efficient, and simple. So why did the crew of Asiana 214 have such a hard time with it on a good clear day? Because quality IFR flying starts with a solid VFR background — and VFR flying is something ab initio pilots see very little of. Read more →

Expectation Bias

by  on  in Opinion Leaders • 13 Comments

A massive Boeing Dreamlifter recently landed at the wrong airport in Wichita. As a pilot, by definition I live in a glass house and will therefore refrain from throwing stones. But the incident does provide a good opportunity to review the perils of what’s known as “expectation bias”, because this phenomenon can bite hard — if you let it. Read more →

Mandated Spin Training

by  on  in Safety • 83 Comments

The stick-and-rudder skill deficiencies in today’s pilots didn’t start today. It began years ago when they were learning how to fly. Fixing it will require a journey into the past. It’s time to get back to basics, and you won’t cover all the bases unless spin training is a central part of the mix. Read more →

Brazil

by  on  in Gulfstream, Travel • 17 Comments

Brazil has long been on my mental “bucket list” of places to visit. Not only is it one of the world’s largest countries both geographically and by population — fifth on both counts — but it’s also the center of attention right now because they are hosting 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics. Then there’s the Amazon rainforest; one in ten known species in the world lives in the Amazon, by far the largest collection anywhere. Anyway, recently a two-week trip came up that allowed me to cross this one off my list in the best way possible: on the company dime. Read more →

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