Pilot Proficiency

Plane & Pilot’s theme is simple—the title says it all. Airplanes and pilots interacting with one another in harmony. Just the other day, I was flying for my real-life company down into the Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport (KOPF) and came across a real-life ICON A5. I had never seen one before, and suddenly there it […]

January 1, 2020, was a red-letter day in the transition to automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B). ADS-B Out was required in Class A, B (including the Mode C veil), and C airspace in the United States, as well as generally above 10,000 feet. However, unless general aviation pilots decided to go a step further and equip […]

With his parents watching, an F-14A fighter pilot took off from the Air National Guard airfield adjacent to Nashville International Airport (KNBA) in Tennessee. He immediately pitched up more than 50 degrees, climbing up into the clouds in a noisy blaze of afterburners. The pilot became disorientated, lost control, crashed, and died. A Navy inquiry […]

There’s always potential for miscommunication whenever low-time pilots are involved with air traffic control. That doesn’t mean they should avoid all such entanglements. Whenever student pilots interact with controllers rather than fellow apprentices in the break room, there’s going to be much less forgiveness when mistakes are made. Learners are expected to absorb rapid-fire instructions, […]

Instructors, learner pilots, and DPEs alike will need to brush up on the new Airman Certification Standards (ACS) and a couple of Practical Test Standards (PTS) that went into effect nearly across the board May 31. The two unaffected categories are those of Aviation Mechanic (ACS-1) and Remote Pilot (ACS-10B). Updated categories include:  The individual […]

Are you working on your instrument rating? You’ll want to get the latest edition of The Instrument Pilot Oral Exam Guide from Aviation Supplies and Academics written by Jason Blair, a designated pilot examiner and frequent contributor to FLYING and Plane & Pilot. Blair based his writing on the original text by Michael D. Hayes, […]

Airplanes and cicadas are not a good mix. They make a mess when they hit the windscreen. They are distracting when they swarm you as you are trying to do a preflight inspection of the airplane. And sometimes, they can get into the equipment and make it fail. Over the weekend the crew of a […]

Of all the challenging tasks confronting newcomers to aviation, perhaps the least-appreciated and most difficult to overcome is learning to speak the language of aviation. Our lingua aerial is full of strange new terms unrelated to those of other activities that may have been encountered heretofore. “What’s a ‘pitot tube’ or ‘VOR?’” beginners will ask. […]

Flying into Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh (KOSH) for EAA AirVenture is not for the faint of heart. As this becomes the busiest airspace during the convention week, ensuring a successful sortie requires more than a cursory look at the procedures and policies needed for a safe journey. Before wheels up en route to OSH, […]

Forty years ago, most new pilots aspired to eventually own a retractable gear airplane. Accordingly, aircraft manufacturers built a plethora of gear-up models, with which transitioning upwardly-mobile buyers could satisfy their urge to go faster, in style. The problem is, those retracted wheels eventually have to be extended, in order to taxi to the ramp […]