There’s a consensus that much of the flight training system is broken, and has been for decades. It takes too long, costs too much, and the results are “irregular”—to put it charitably. The national average completion rate for private pilot certificates is about 20 percent.
When is a pilot in command not responsible for a takeoff gone wrong? What is the role of regulation and common sense? How do we learn from such events, and who pays afterward?
Have you ever been told that VFR was not recommended, or that there was moderate turbulence ahead, or icing—and nothing bad happened? Ever expected to have an easy flight, and all of those things happened?
One of the challenges pilots face in powered flight is what to do when the flight becomes unpowered. Clyde Cessna noted nearly a century ago that, “If the engine stops for any reason, you are due to tumble, and that’s all there is to it!”
Let’s face it, pilots sometimes find themselves in real “aw, shucks” situations. Despite superior skill, judgment, ingenuity, good looks, or enthusiasm, things just aren’t working out.
After more than 45,000 hours in the left seat of the AOPA Foundation, the Air Safety Institute (ASI), and its predecessor—the AOPA Air Safety Foundation (ASF)—it’s time to move to the jump seat and let a new crew pick up the flight.
It’s way too early to declare victory in the decades-long struggles to improve general aviation safety, but 2013 was very good in one segment: a drop in non-commercial fixed-wing fatal accidents.
Aircraft that fly without a pilot on board have been called a variety of names—some of them unprintable. Drones, unmanned aerial systems (UAS), and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) are a few.
Staying on the centerline is important for both pilots and organizations. On this seventy-fifth anniversary of AOPA’s founding, the organization’s objectives remain the same.
