AOPA Pilot Magazine

January 2010, Ashes in the airplane, by George Dalton

The worst flight I ever made was an attempt to do a favor for a friend. My friend’s grandfather had recently passed away, and his family thought spreading his ashes over his ranch in Oklahoma would be a memorable and fitting tribute. I had been flying for almost 20 years and was honored to be able to fulfill this simple request. I turned the jar sideways and pushed the open end into the open window, hoping the slipstream would carry the ashes away. The slipstream took hold all right, but not in the way I intended… Read More >>
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December 2009, Dark instrument panel, by Keith MacLean

On a clear winter day, I departed Burlington, North Carolina, for Jackson County Airport at the western edge of the state for a visit with my fiancé. I had just reached cruising altitude at 6,500 feet, established flight following with Greensboro Approach and engaged the autopilot for what I thought would be a smooth, comfortable, VFR flight. Then I felt a slight tremor in my A-36 Bonanza and glanced at the instrument panel. To my astonishment, it was completely dark. There wasn’t a single light or flicker anywhere. Read More >>
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November 2009, New York Fog, by Nick Carroll

I was a 100-hour private pilot working on my commercial and instrument ratings in 1967. It was New Year’s Day, and my wife and I had flown to Morristown, New Jersey, in a rented Cessna 150 for a New Year’s Eve celebration the night before. I didn’t drink at the party knowing that I’d be flying home the next morning so, amazingly, I was totally sober during the following series of mistakes. Read More >>

October 2009, Tower? What tower, by George Dalton

I was a freshly instrument-rated pilot and, as a rule, I didn’t fly anywhere without filing an IFR flight plan. I had recently flown from Dallas, Texas, to Nashville, Tenn., and the next morning I was scheduled to pop over to nearby Murphreesboro (MBT). The weather was severe clear, so I decided to skip the flight plan and fly the short trip VFR. I climbed in my Cessna 210 and got in a long line of about 20 other airplanes waiting for takeoff. By the time I arrived at the front of the line, I had all my navigation radios set and cockpit organized. Read More >>

September 2009, ‘Real-world’ training, by Jeff Swartwood

It was a typical July afternoon in Georgia when I strolled into Aviation Atlanta to spend several hours working on my instrument ticket. My flight instructor (let’s call him Jason) met me as usual with his excited and energetic attitude, ready to get to work and get into the air as soon as possible. We sat down and began going over the coursework that had previously been assigned and then we started to look at the flight planned for that afternoon. Then we both went to look at the weather. We planned to stay in the local area and shoot various approaches with a final ILS approach back into Peachtree-DeKalb International Airport (PDK). Read More >>

August 2009, Thunderstorm encounter, by Larry Bothe

I intended to leave for Chicago from my home base just north of Philadelphia at about nine in the morning. The weather was basically clear, but with the typical summer forecast of a chance of afternoon thunderstorms. And of course I would have a headwind on the way west so the trip in my Cessna 172 Skyhawk was going to take a long time. The plan was for me to drop my neighbor’s 16-year old daughter, Lori, off in northern Indiana so she could visit her grandmother, and then I would continue on to attend my business conference in Chicago. Read More >>

July 2009, Land, or die trying, by Frank I. Dougherty

I had always considered myself a safe and conscientious pilot. I read the safety articles, accident reports, analyses of accidents, and have even had articles on aviation safety published in a magazine devoted to the topic. I’m a knowledgeable, careful, cautious pilot, right? Unfortunately, no, I’m not. And here’s why:  A few years ago I took a cross-country trip during which I made so many mistakes and errors of judgment it’s a wonder I am still here to write about it. Read More >>
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June 2009, Prison landing, by Bob Hollister

I was climbing out of Hood River, Ore., on my way to Jean, Nev., for the last R.A.C.E. (Rutan and Composite Enthusiasts) air race of the year. I’ve always loved racing, and my LongEZ was a fast machine. It was November 8, 1997, and the weather was perfect. I cruise-climbed to 17,500 msl in about 20 minutes.  My airplane, “Speedracer,” was tricked out for racing with lots of aerodynamic modifications and a hot-rod Lycoming 0-290-D2 engine with angled valve heads and 10:1 compression. At some of the races, I would average over 200 knots for the 120-mile course. Read More >>
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May 2009, Fuel almost gone, by Brian Litch

I read AOPA Pilot, as well as a number of other aviation periodicals, diligently every month. I have read countless articles which chronicle the events leading to fuel exhaustion accidents. Invariably the pilots writing those articles previously felt that such an event could never happen to them. Although I’ve never quite run out of fuel in an airplane, that fact has more to do with dumb luck than anything else. I very nearly became a victim of fuel exhaustion, and even worse, I almost caused another pilot to run out of fuel. Read More >>
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April 2009, A blustery day in Poncé, by O. Lynn Justice

It was late May, 1970, a blustery day in Poncé, Puerto Rico, normally a no-fly day, at least for the kind of flying I was considering. But what the heck, I was an experienced twenty-seven-year-old pilot with a grand total of 180 hours of flight time and this flight would complete the last hour of a ten-hour contract for the local Volkswagen dealer. It had been about a year since I had established my aerial advertising business for extra income and for fun. I had flown approximately 60 hours, towing banners for various local businesses behind my fully aerobatic Champion 150. Read More >>
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March 2009, Terrain, by Rex Lewis

After any maintenance, an incomplete exterior and interior preflight inspection of your aircraft systems can endanger your life.  It is often difficult to be thorough because your normal check list procedure is inadequate. Read More >>

February 2009, Chicken sandwich, by Jerry Majda

One evening Mitch, a very good friend and flying buddy of mine, called to ask if I wanted to fly to Santa Fe, N.M., from St. Louis, Mo., in his Mooney Bravo for a weekend of motorcycle riding. My answer, of course, was yes. On the way out we stopped in Amarillo, Texas, to refuel and get some lunch at the English Field House, the restaurant on the field. There we enjoyed the finest grilled chicken breast sandwich with fresh avocado I’ve ever had. Right then Mitch and I decided we would return there for lunch on our trip home to St. Louis. Read More >>
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January 2009, Holy Toledo, by Robert I. Parry

It was many years ago and I had recently earned my instrument rating. I was one of those fortunate individuals who breezed right through instrument training. However, that experience birthed in me a dangerous overconfidence that almost cost my wife and me our lives. Read More >>

December 2008, The Missing Link, by Ken Steiner

“I really don’t like the idea of you taking this plane to Tahoe,” said the owner of the FBO who had just checked me out in the school’s Cherokee 140. I gave him reassurances that I was a very safe and competent pilot and, in fact, I had even flown in and out of the 6,200-foot-elevation airport in a Cessna 150. I was surprised at how unimpressed he was with this. I doubt the fact that I was a little over 17 years old with less than a 100 flying hours had anything to do with his attitude. Nonetheless, he allowed me to go but repeated his mantra of disapproval. Read More >>

November 2008, Up-Close Aerobatic Encounter, by Ken Leonard

It was my final solo—the long cross country before my private pilot test. Weather was great, I was comfortable with the plane—a beat up old rental 152—and I had high confidence in my ability to get there and back safely, even though I had never been to this airport before. The weather briefer told me the destination airport had occasional aerobatic training, but my instructor hadn’t mentioned it, so I didn’t consider it anything to get excited about. The whole trip was over rural western New Jersey and New York, with lots of woods and lakes and beautiful countryside. Since I had started flying in Cubs with no radio and was not very comfortable talking on the radio, flying between non-towered airports was all about fun, not worrying about saying the wrong thing for the whole world to hear. Read More >>

October 2008, Lost at night, by John Dolan

As I look back at my logbook, the entry for August 16, 2001, is very concise: “night work, lost @ night w/ patchy clouds;” 2.0 hr, 10 landings. I was just over 200 hours with a private pilot certificate, and Bill and I had recently purchased N8630T, a 1960 Cessna 182C. Most of my time was in Cessna 150s with maybe 20 hours in Cessna 172s. I breezed through the high-performance endorsement in about three hours, including my flight review. This was followed by some local flying and a couple hours of cross-country flights. Read More >>

September 2008, Gas pains in a Cessna 182, by Jim Jennis

Finally, I was flying again! After putting my love for aviation on hold for a number of years while putting the kids through college, my wife Mary had encouraged me to get back into flying. I went at it with enthusiasm, got current, and even completed my instrument rating. Getting into the air again also rekindled a friendship with my old flying buddy, Jerry. Read More >>

August 2008, Herc encounter, by Elizabeth Christensen

The wind favored Runway 27 at our home base of Madison County Airport in Central Ohio. My husband James and I were planning to practice a few maneuvers and simulated IFR approaches in our slightly worn, but loved, Grumman Tiger—and we had no inkling we were about to have a close encounter with a four-engine, C-130 “Hercules” military transport. Read More >>

July 2008, Complacent in the cockpit, by Bill Neail

It was a sunny January morning in Northern Baja, Mexico, when we landed at San Felipe. I taxied my Twin Comanche over to the fuel pumps as I had on nearly a hundred other occasions since I began flying as a volunteer pilot with Mexican Medical Ministries in 1992. Our team consisted of myself, my good friend and mission copilot Jon, and two women who were to serve as medical volunteers. Our plan was to refuel, clear Mexican customs, and fly another 350 miles south to Loreto, where we were to participate in a free medical clinic in support of a local church. Read More >>

June 2008, Canyon landing, by Bob Wall

Surplus military trainers were a common sight at airports throughout the Los Angeles basin during the late forties and early fifties, and flyable airplanes could be purchased for a little as $250. My Vultee BT-13A was made from the best parts of three other BTs—I bought it for $450 and had it relicensed for $65. Read More >>

May 2008, No shortage of challenges, by Bill Feinstein

For days it had been sunny and clear, and we’d waited five months to use our Piper Archer, N56607, which had been grounded for a long repair after being bumped in the tail. My wife and I departed Northampton, Massachusetts, for Worcester, to pick up our son and a friend for a weekend trip to Maine. Our planned departure was delayed, but I still hoped to get in a sunset paddle on a lake near our destination. Read More >>
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April 2008, Bird strike on landing, by Fleming Mattox

Every Tuesday, rain or shine, I fly my Piper Lance to Columbia, South Carolina, for business. On rare cases, I drive when the airplane is in the shop or the ceilings are too low; it’s only 100 miles each way, but the flight is a relaxing way to start and end my day. It also helps me stay proficient with my flying skills. Read More >>

March 2008, Propwash, by Guy Buchanan

The day began peacefully enough. I flew my Kitfox down to Montgomery Field to visit my friend Steve, who was doing some work on his Beech Sierra. It seems his landing gear failed to rise on the last flight around the patch. I admired his plane and we speculated about causes until it was time for him to leave. Firing up the Kitfox, I slowly wound my way out amongst the small city of T-hangars. Read More >>
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February 2008, A cold night in February, by Lee Smith

In February 2006 I was a brand-new flight instructor, and Dave was the first student I was taking through private pilot training. The mission was to fly with him on his night dual cross-country in our flying club’s Cessna 150 trainer from Blacksburg to Danville, Virginia, and talk flying with my then-fiancée, also a pilot, at a restaurant near the airport. It was a simple plan and a short flight, definitely doable without refueling even for the modest 150. Read More >>

January 2008, R22 night cross-country, by Roger Daisley

I had recently purchased a Robinson R22 helicopter and thought it would be a great idea to acquire a commercial license. Not that I ever intended to exercise those privileges, but I figured the added training would add to my depth of knowledge. I decided to travel to the same airport and school that I had flown with the prior year. I had flown quite a lot with a particular instructor and wanted to continue with him. Read More >>
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December 2007, Near brush with an NTSB report, by Rob Krieg

"The flight isn't over until the airplane is in the chocks!" I can't remember how many times I've heard that phrase, but I used to think it was nothing more than one of those snappy slogans that, over time, had lost its original meaning. Read More >>

November 2007, Fly the airplane, by Douglas Winters

I was flying our Piper Comanche from the University of Oklahoma Westheimer Airport in Norman to my home base at Altus/Quartz Mountain Regional Airport in Altus, Oklahoma. Everything seemed normal during the trip until I noticed the amber gear-up indicator light was not lit. Read More >>

October 2007, Night flight around the patch, by Frank Santoro

When I was diagnosed with testicular cancer in December 2004, flying was the farthest thing from my mind. Getting better was my first priority, and although this is one of the most curable cancers, a hard road lay ahead. Read More >>

September 2007, Lost dances, by Loren A. Bauman

Our adventure began flying low over the watery plains of northern Minnesota. My brother and I were vacationing in his 1958 Cessna 180 on Edo 2700 amphibious floats, with western Washington as our ultimate destination. After extensive preflight preparations, we were ecstatic to finally begin our 1,400-nm journey. Read More >>
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August 2007, Overlooking the obvious, by Jud Phillips

My student Mike and I had filed an IFR flight plan from Nashville International Airport to Warren County Memorial Airport located in McMinville, Tennessee, where he would take the oral part of his instrument check ride. The weather was not good enough for the practical test, but we figured this would be great real-world IFR experience for him. Read More >>
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July 2007, Sounds of silence, by William L. Hall

On the morning of July 16 there was no reason to believe that this day would be any different than others. My first grandson, Luke William Walker, was to be born in Hillsboro, Texas, and it was my wife's and my privilege to fly the airplane from the Chicago area to Texas to be present for that blessed event. But first I had to take care of a business obligation. As an insurance adjuster I had been assigned a major hurricane loss and I made arrangements for the inspection of the damage caused by Hurricane Dennis in Atmore, Alabama, approximately 500 miles to the east. Read More >>

June 2007, Fuel gauge on empty, by R. Ren Hart

I had flown two forensic scientists to view the site of an accident in the vicinity of Redding, California. They did their thing at the accident site, and by 2 p.m. it was time to head back to Monterey. Redding can get unbelievably hot, and this was one of those days when it was well over 100 degrees F. With three large persons and the extreme heat, I was concerned about the weight of the Cessna 172. So, I decided to limit refueling to 20 gallons, which — combined with the remaining fuel on board — would provide close to five hours of total fuel for the trip back. Read More >>
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May 2007, F-16 cross-country to Korea, by Jeffrey Stambaugh

It was a beautiful day in northern Japan as our four-ship mission of F-16s climbed out, headed for Korea, where the weather was forecast to be good also. Read More >>
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April 2007, Dead-stick into Muskegon, by Ed Haines

I received a complete briefing for my morning flight from Traverse City to Olney, Illinois, where I would inspect an oilfield service rig for a potential purchase. Traverse City and Olney were severe clear, so I elected to make the trip VFR in my Mooney and fly direct with GPS assistance. After climbing to 10,500 feet, I turned on the autopilot and set about updating my Jeppesen charts. Read More >>
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March 2007, Stress changes everything, by Thomas W. Shalhoub

I had just barely accumulated the minimum number of complex hours required to pilot the Piper Arrow without a CFI. I was on my way back to McClellan-Palomar Airport in Carlsbad, California, from a short cross-country flight to Banning, California, when I noticed that the ammeter registered zero. Toggling the alt switch a few times didn't produce any different results. All of the circuit breakers appeared to be in, and the rest of the gauges looked good. Read More >> Listen to iTunes podcast or download mp3.

February 2007, Our trip to Lake Placid, by James Berbee

The February Wisconsin day was cold and sunny. The outside air temperature was near zero degrees Fahrenheit as my wife, Karen, and I prepared to take our twin-engine Piper Seneca on a weekend trip to Lake Placid, New York. Knowing the next morning would be cold, I had asked the line crew the night before to keep the aircraft in a heated hangar overnight. Read More >>

January 2007, Almost gone with the wind, by Bill Keathley

I learn something new almost every time I fly, even if I set out to learn something else altogether. I was taking a 10-day, continuous, written and practical IFR training course in Manhattan, Kansas, in my Mooney M20C. The training center had a saying stenciled over a doorway: "Learn from the mistakes of others, you won't live long enough to make them all yourself." I hope telling this not-so-flattering-to-me story will help keep another pilot from making the same mistakes. Read More >>
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December 2006, New Year's resolution, by David Howe

"When a front is occluded, the weather is anyone's guess." Those words, spoken by my instructor years ago, nagged me as my wife and I finished dinner in Hickory, North Carolina, where we had stopped for fuel. Now we were waiting out the weather before completing our trip back to Atlanta's Dekalb-Peachtree airport. Our landing at Hickory two hours earlier had been in darkness, rain, and turbulence, with the ceilings down to minimums. Gale-force winds had been blowing all day long up and down the East Coast at 3,000 feet and above. Over the southeast, a cold front was chasing a warm front ahead of it — an occlusion that had been generating rough weather all day in Georgia and the Carolinas. Looking out the window, I noticed the heavy downpours sweeping the restaurant parking lot, more evidence of the unsettled conditions above. Read More >>
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November 2006, An unfamiliar aircraft, by Broadus M. Bowman

My good friend and I had each lost our airplanes the previous year in a hangar collapse resulting from the weight of a 24-inch wet snowfall in the Pittsburgh area. We were anxious to get back in the air, and we had been scouring the various trade publications looking for our replacement wings. My friend located a Piper Warrior at Bowman Field (LOU) in Louisville, Kentucky. Read More >>

October 2006, Lights out at 7,000, by Sam Wilson

I was a 100-hour private pilot working on an instrument rating. David, a certificated flight instructor, was with me on this training flight, and we were on an IFR flight plan although weather conditions were perfect for a nighttime VFR flight. Read More >>

September 2006, Brush with a storm, by Greg Richardson

My best friend and partner in a new Cessna Skylane and I were off on our first long cross-country excursion to test our newly minted instrument ratings. Our mission was to depart from Nashville, Tennessee, and explore the northern Bahamas. We planned the flight meticulously and had with us every instrument approach plate and chart for the Northern Hemisphere. Our route was to Albany, Georgia, then to Fort Pierce, Florida, before crossing the stretch of open water to Walker's Cay. We would switch pilot duties at each stop, and each pilot would flight-plan their own flight leg. Read More >>

August 2006, My first IFR flight, by J. Peter Perez

The weather was spectacular, and I was flying on an IFR flight plan for the first time. My flight instructor and I had just completed the leg to Southeast Texas Regional airport located in Beaumont, Texas, where we had made four instrument approaches, landed, and filed an IFR flight plan for the return trip back to Houston's David Wayne Hooks Memorial airport. We planned to complete this IFR training flight with a GPS approach back home at Houston. Read More >>

July 2006, I think I can, by C. Todd Hunt

It was my first day to tow gliders on my own. The Piper Pawnee was topped off with fuel, and I was eager to please the glider pilots who wanted a tow and the chief pilot who was monitoring my performance. Read More >>

June 2006, Chain of events, by Kirk Fowler

June 24, 1967. It was a CAVU morning and the delight of any pilot planning a cross-country trip. Mine was to be from Moline, Illinois, to Bartlesville, Oklahoma, where I would meet my mother to help her move to Tucson, Arizona. A quick check of current and forecast weather across Missouri and into northeast Oklahoma showed generally clear conditions with the possibility of afternoon scattered thunderstorms across central Missouri. Read More >>

May 2006, My crazy ride on Friday the 13th, by Brook Evans

Teaching people to fly has always been my special, favorite thing to do, and I thought it would be a lot of fun and an interesting change from our flying club's Cessna 150s to offer flight instruction in a conventional gear aircraft, better known as a taildragger. Several club members agreed, so I set out to buy one and lease it back to the club. Read More >>

April 2006, Perils of night VFR, by Charles Harmon

It was early in March 2005, and I was about halfway through my training for the instrument rating. I had been flying practice instrument approaches under the hood with my flight instructor two or three times a week, and I had reached the point in my training when I needed a break from the intensity of it all. Read More >>

March 2006, Denali's rough ride, by Donald R. Lee

On Monday March 7, 2005, as a pilot for Fly Denali Inc., I departed Talkeetna, Alaska, for a scenic flight around Mount McKinley with three passengers in a de Havilland DH-2 Beaver aircraft, N3307S. This was a Part 135 air-taxi operation. I filed a flight plan with the flight service station (FSS) at 10:38 a.m., Alaska Standard Time, for 1.5 hours of flight time — with three hours of fuel and four souls on board — to circumnavigate the mountain. Read More >>

February 2006, Hunt for a chart, by Matthew Kemp

This trip began like many others. A friend of mine had asked me to accompany him on a flight to Virginia to pick up his girlfriend and return to Pennsylvania for the weekend. He had requested my help because, as an instructor, I represented added encouragement to him in instrument conditions and a complex aircraft, in which he was building time. Read More >>

January 2006, A bad habit, by Barry Leff

January is the rainy season in Northern California, and when a cold front arrives off the Pacific Ocean the weather observation often calls for VFR conditions with mountain obscuration — if you wish to fly out of the San Francisco Bay Area this means you'll have to file IFR. Those were the conditions on a January day in 1996 when I flew my wife, my mother-in-law, and a friend from Palo Alto Airport of Santa Clara County to the Monterey peninsula for a business event that I was to host. The trip in the Cessna Cardinal RG to Monterey was a routine IFR flight with the majority of the 45-minute flight under actual instrument meteorological conditions, ending with an ILS approach that turned out to be a piece of cake. Read More >>

December 2005, Always check the oil, by Peter A. Gish

The weather forecast was good, with clearing skies typical of winter weather patterns in New England. I had booked my favorite Cessna 182 Skylane for an afternoon flight out of Laurence G. Hanscom Field, Bedford, Massachusetts, to Bangor International Airport, Maine. I had been logging a lot of hours lately in an American Champion Super Decathlon doing an aerobatics course, and I was looking forward to spending some time again in the Cessna in which I had accumulated most of my flight time. If all went well, I would touch down before sunset. Read More >>

November 2005, That queasy feeling, by C. Edward Young

She was a beautiful little 1963 Piper Cherokee 180. I watched her being meticulously rebuilt by our FBO. Read More >>

October 2005, Caught off guard, by Gene Wentzel

We had been trying to make this flight for three weeks now. There was always something that caused us to cancel the trip — an hour-long jaunt from my home airport in New Jersey to Reading Regional/Carl A. Spaatz Field in Pennsylvania with my fiancée. Read More >>

September 2005, Hurricane fool, by Brock D. Stefan

As an aspiring professional pilot living in southern Florida I had committed myself to building actual instrument time. I flew in the system, had flown several approaches to minimums as pilot in command, and achieved my commercial ticket at a great flight school. By August I had acquired about 500 hours' experience and felt confident I could handle or avoid most weather situations. My friend Jerry was an aspiring instrument pilot who wanted to observe flight in instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) and travel outside the state for once. He and I were coming back from a long cross-country trip to Colorado as Tropical Storm Bonnie lumbered through southern Georgia. I found myself peering at the radar that morning. I called flight service to file from Moultrie, Georgia, back to southern Florida in a tired but well-equipped (I had a Garmin GPSMap 296) Cessna 172, which was supposed to be back that day. The briefer remarked, "I can't believe you're actually considering flying today." With a season of southern Florida pop-ups under my belt, I felt that ahead of me was weather of the same intensity I had grown accustomed to dodging, just a lot more coverage area; so in my inexperience, I decided to give it a shot. The owner of the fixed-base operation, dressed in bright yellow, pulled us out of his hangar into the driving rain and we were off. Needless to say, the ride home was awful. I requested and received a 2,000-foot block of altitude because of the severe turbulence we encountered in IMC. The bad part lasted about an hour and once we were in it I had no choice but to tighten the shoulder harness. When we were handed off, a friendly Southern drawl on the other end at Jacksonville Center chuckled and asked me how that ride was. Like a low-budget aerial version of Dumb and Dumber we finally popped out. As we went into visual conditions, I glanced at my avocado-colored friend clutching the armrest in the fetal position, in silence. After our arrival home the owner asked us how our first tropical storm was. He later admitted watching us on a flight-tracking Web site. I remember joking about writing a "Never Again." Little did I know how prophetic those words were. Read More >>

August 2005, This never happened before, by Seymour Strongin

I have mulled over a long time the question of whether to inform others of the following experience because my adult son, Andrew, and I survived the event and believed that, sooner or later, it would be completely forgotten. But I have not forgotten it and finally have decided to share this experience because it might, just might, save some vacationing pilot from never returning home. Read More >>

July 2005, Framing the problem, by Mark A. Hiatt

My family had begun to enjoy the advantages of general aviation as we used our Cessna 182A for trips to visit relatives away from our home base in Indiana. On this particular weekend in July, we had planned a trip to Michigan to attend a wedding. We were going to go up on a Friday evening and return on Sunday, giving us enough time to attend the wedding as well as visit with family members we don't see often. Read More >>

June 2005, A Tiger's tale, by John Kwarsick

After a year of training and a lifelong yearning for the skies, I finally became a pilot, earning my certificate on the second to last day of 2004. Having logged all of my training hours in a Cessna 172SP, I had been looking forward to the day that I could fly one of the more interesting airplanes on my FBO's flight line. The airplane that I coveted was brand new AG-5B Tiger. Read More >>

May 2005, Fall from presumption, by Ursula Wiehl

After flying gliders for 13 years without any accidents or incidents — not even a scratch — I had the confidence of a seasoned veteran of the skies. I certainly knew my way around gliders, as well as around and over the mountains. Read More >>

April 2005, Runway incursion of the worst kind, by Lou J. Wipotnik

Back in the early 1970s, before runway incursions were a notable and common problem, I experienced my worst close call. After returning home from military service, I applied for the GI Bill, and I obtained my airplane flight instructor certificate. I returned to the flight school where I had learned to fly and received a job flying Piper Colts. Shortly thereafter I moved up to the modern and nimble, all-metal Cessna 150 and was much happier in that airplane. Had I been flying a Colt when this incident took place, I don't believe my student and I would be alive today. Read More >>

March 2005, When weather closes in, by Jerry Spiller

My particular "never again" brought back words of wisdom from my dad: "The only thing you can't teach is experience." Read More >>

February 2005, There's a T-28 on your tail! by Beth Ann Schneider

It was a beautiful spring day so I headed for Heber City Municipal-Russ McDonald Field in Heber, Utah, for a little pattern work in my Piper Clipper, N5773H. As a fairly new taildragger owner I have come to understand the true meaning of "practice makes perfect." Read More >>

January 2005, Night storm, by Andrew P. Jones

This was my third time around trying to get my night rating, which is an additional rating to the private pilot certificate in the Republic of South Africa. I'd received my private in 1998. Read More >>

December 2004, Empty! by Steve Millican

It was another one of those severe-clear days that western Colorado is famous for. I had just opened a new franchise in Montrose and the franchiser needed to fly to Mount Pleasant, Utah, from Glenwood Springs, Colorado. Read More >>

November 2004, Lights out, by Ronald E. Stone

Our daughter, who lives in Orlando, Florida, had called for help late on a Sunday evening as my wife and I were having supper with our son and his family in Kennesaw, Georgia. Our daughter had already missed a week of work caring for our sick grandson, and he was now worse instead of getting better. My wife going to baby-sit would allow my daughter to return to work so she wouldn't lose her job. Read More >>

October 2004, Yes, overconfidence! by Richard C. Schnepf

As I remember, it was a Friday afternoon in early October when I looked skyward over Van Nuys Airport in California. Weekends were open since my wife and son were still back East, busy selling our home on Long Island, New York. They were targeted to move to Los Angeles just prior to the holidays. I started a new sales job and patiently awaited their arrival. Friday afternoon was generally a slow time for making sales calls, perfect for getting away to build more stick time. Read More >>

September 2004, Trapped on top, by Stephen Debock

I was due for my flight review, and my friend and neighbor Bruce (a pseudonym) was an instructor. This was one of those brilliant blue autumn days, the kind that make their way onto a meteorologist's top-ten list, and when I noticed Bruce dutifully raking leaves in his yard I suggested that there might be a much better way to spend a Sunday afternoon. He readily agreed and put up his rake. Read More >>

August 2004, Lake mission, by George Vames

Late-summer evenings in Virginia can be very pleasant or they can be very uncomfortable. This day it was more the latter than the former. The visibility had been reported as five miles all day, but you would be lucky if you could see the ground two miles away at 1,000 feet agl. It would be hot and sticky in the airplane, uncomfortable, even for part-time flight instructors like me who were used to it. Read More >>>

July 2004, Annual nightmare, by Chris Owen

It was the warmest day of the year so far in Montrose, Colorado, as I examined my 1973 Piper Arrow on the ramp. The Arrow was fresh from an engine rebuild and annual inspection, and had a brand-new three-blade prop installed. The new engine had been run up on the ground the night before but had yet to fly. Read More >>

June 2004, Dangerous space, by Steve Lundgren

I could have seen the whites of the copilot's eyes — if he hadn't been wearing sunglasses.

Standing on the left rudder and heaving the Cessna 172RG Cutlass nearly to knife edge, I aimed for the tail of the Shorts Sherpa. In that instant of time-compressed consciousness I prayed it wouldn't be there when I reached that point in space. Read More >>

May 2004, Mission critical, by Paul V. Tomascik

Pelting rain pounded the Piper Aztec as it labored through the scud. The airplane was on a ferry flight en route to Thunder Bay, Ontario, where our crew would rest up for a night before flying to Geraldton to begin its aerial photo mission in northern Ontario. Read More >>

April 2004, Gravity waves: A pilot's perspective, by Gregory Bean

As pilots, we know quite a bit about many things. For instance, while we are not mechanics, we understand our aircraft's systems. We need not be air traffic controllers to navigate along complex routes. Similarly, we interpret weather without being meteorologists. Relying on official weather observers and forecasters, we add our experience to make important flight decisions. Read More >>

March 2004, Muted frequency, muted readback, by Thomas F. Gribble

A deep low over south-central Texas had settled in to stay for a while. It was bringing saturated Gulf of Mexico air up in a gradual arc across the southern Gulf States to the lower Midwest. There a high-pressure area centered over the prairie provinces joined forces with the Texas low to drive this mass of moisture westward, up the nearly imperceptible slope of the Great Plains. Read More >>

February 2004, Smoke on final, by Louis Glantz

Beautiful blue skies in the Northeast after weeks of freezing rain and snow created an irresistible urge to fly. My wife, daughter, and I had planned to fly to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on Friday morning for Presidents' Day weekend. Everything was "go" for an early morning departure from our home base at University Park Airport in State College, Pennsylvania. However, a winter storm in the Southeast would probably prevent our return until at least Tuesday, too late for my daughter's Monday morning classes, so Myrtle Beach would have to wait. Read More >>

January 2004, Pitch black, by Stephen Vige

It was early spring and I needed a 250-nm straight-line, nonstop solo flight as well as a minimum of two hours of night flight to satisfy the cross-country requirements for my commercial rating. This flight was a beautiful and uneventful 3.2-hour night flight from Van Nuys, California, to Mesquite, Nevada. Read More >>

December 2003, Pilot in command, by James Keldsen

As we stood on the edge of the runway, staring at the airplane, I felt incapable of talking. The airplane sat motionless, its fuselage at a 45-degree angle to the ground, the crumpled nose resting on the asphalt. The blades of both propellers curled back from their former shape, now useless. I was stunned, only able to think, "How did this happen?" Read More >>

November 2003, The last option, by Timothy Lewis

No matter how much water I drank, my mouth remained dry. This was my physical reaction to the danger to which I had subjected myself, my wife, and my two daughters. Read More >>

October 2003, Off radar in the Mojave Triangle, by Shelley Marquez

When my sister suggested that I meet her in Las Vegas for her fiftieth birthday last May, I decided to fly there; it had been a year since I had flown solo to a new destination. Read More >>

September 2003, Beached, by Richard Sherlock

In the summertime in Florida the cumulus clouds start building early in the day and can easily develop into thunderstorms as the afternoon heating feeds them. This fact was brought to my attention on my first solo cross-country flight in June 1954 in a Cessna 140. Read More >>

August 2003, Smilin' Jack's, by Richard Cummins

I was a low-time pilot with 188 hours total, 135 of those in a 1972 Piper Arrow I had purchased at a fair price from a business that might be called "Smilin' Jack's Pre-Owned Planes and Air Drayage." The Arrow was represented as having a recent major overhaul by Jack's A&P. The A&P at my FBO did a prepurchase inspection and gave the Arrow his OK, although he asked about the orange RTV (room-temperature vulcanizing, otherwise known as silicone sealer) beaded around the middle of the crankcase and cylinder bases. Jack's A&P said he had put the RTV on the engine because he was looking for a mystery oil leak that turned out to be the prop seal, and he just didn't bother to scrape it off. Read More >>

July 2003, Hot, high, and heavy, by Tom Carrington

It was just after dawn on a brilliant June Saturday in Colorado Springs. I was up early in eager anticipation of a short 40-mile flight to Pueblo, Colorado, consumption of the requisite $100 hamburger, and some area sightseeing before returning to The Springs, as we natives call it. I had just passed my instrument checkride, my confidence was through the roof, and I was looking forward to a nice, relaxing VFR pleasure flight. I had planned an 8 a.m. liftoff to take advantage of the cool morning temperatures, since density altitude is always a factor given The City of Colorado Springs airport's 6,184-foot field elevation and the limited performance of our mission aircraft, a Beechcraft Sundowner. This flight would be a welcome respite after more than 40 hours of grueling, nerve-wracking instrument training. Read More >>

June 2003, Hitting the wall, by Robert C. Holbert

I believe all active pilots will sooner or later have a serious close encounter with weather. Quite a few encounters, in fact — more than we would ever want. Read More >>

May 2003, Deer incursion, by Daniel E. Garriques Sr.

It was a clear, calm spring evening as we returned home from Hummel Field in Saluda, Virginia, after dinner. You could see every star in the sky and every light on the ground. Our Beechcraft Musketeer was treating us to quite a show as we turned southward to admire the beautiful lights of Richmond, Virginia. We set a course for Louisa County/Freeman Field in Virginia, our home base. Read More >>

April 2003, Pushing personal limits, by Ney Grant

I was delivering a presentation in Las Vegas one evening in late April when a casino worker interrupted my talk with a phone call for a friend and colleague who was in the room. My friend learned on the call that his 10-year-old son had just died in his wife's arms. We tried to arrange a commercial flight for him, but he lived in Monterey, California, with no direct flights from Las Vegas. It would be the next day before he could get home to his family — unless I flew him home that night. Read More >>

March 2003, The most exciting day, by Mark Borden

The most exciting day of my life was nearly my last. Total engine failure in the clouds over mountainous terrain in a piston single probably ranks right up near the top of the general aviation pilot's worst-nightmare list. We know about it, train for it, even like to read about it. But, probably like you, I never thought it would happen to me. Read More >>

February 2003, Winged porpoise, by Mark A. Lynch

Cheap lessons — the ones that scare the hell out of us but otherwise do no harm to pilot, passengers, or aircraft. With time, they become the dramatic "there I was" stories we laugh about with our friends. Underneath, however, we know these experiences aren't funny. They're serious and stay with us forever. Taken with the proper dose of humility, they make us better pilots. Read More >>

January 2003, The right number of mistakes, by Reilly Glore

Airmet Zulu: moderate rime and mixed icing in clouds and precipitation between freezing level and Flight Level 200.

Any pilot in the Pacific Northwest is familiar with this statement. In fact, I have received that airmet so often, and on the same day provided flight watch with my pirep of negative ice on the climbout and VFR on top, that I began thinking of the fable about the little boy who cried wolf — my first mistake. Read More >>

December 2002, Wind effects, by James Robert Ross

Although flying always fascinated me, as it did lots of us who grew up during World War II, it was not until about 1970 at age 36 that I finally had a chance to get serious about my childhood dream. I moved to Charleston, Illinois, only five miles from the Coles County Memorial. I signed up for a couple of lessons with the FBO, and then discovered that five men who had pooled their resources to purchase a Piper Colt had just started a flying club. One of the members had recently become a flight instructor and offered lessons to members of the club for $5 an hour. I can't remember how much the Colt cost — $11, or was it only $7 an hour wet? But I was in the air a couple of hours each week that fall and soloed well before winter. Read More >>

November 2002, Bad rush, by Chad A. Pensiero

We were on an overnight trip in Burlington, Vermont. I was the first officer on a Piper Chieftain, and my captain and I had been scheduled for a leisurely afternoon departure. However, the morning that was peaceful quickly turned hectic — as usual, things changed at the last minute, leaving us in a rush to depart that morning for a pickup in Philadelphia. To save time, my captain called in a fuel order to the FBO from the hotel, and soon we were rushing out to the airport. Read More >>

October 2002, B-25 adventure, by J. Gary Trichter

Heavy rains forced the cancellation of Sunday's performance for the Wings Over Houston airshow at Ellington Field. The deluge continued for another two days, which prevented most of the vintage warbird fleet from leaving. Indeed, the rains and flooding were so bad that local animals started to line up two by two, and I looked around for a guy named Noah. Read More >>

September 2002, Sweaty palms, by Paul McMinn

Early one May evening, I was working with an instrument student in his Cessna 182. After an hour of dual instruction and several practice ILS and missed approach procedures at Chester County Airport in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, it was time to land. The student accomplished the last approach without flaps, which resulted in the airspeed and subsequent groundspeed being too fast to make a normal landing. I instructed him to go around. He applied full throttle and made a normal climbout and downwind entry. Read More >>

August 2002, Power lines, by Tim Tracy

I was cruising at around 3,000 feet agl, looking at the cars below me and trying to guess how fast they were going, when it happened. First, a large shudder ran through the engine compartment. Then the rpm dropped by more than half, and the aircraft slowly started bleeding off airspeed as I tried to maintain my altitude. When I felt the shudder, I somehow knew that the airplane had run out of gas. Despite this, I very quickly pushed in the mixture knob and pulled out the carburetor heat, then checked that the throttle was in and the primer was locked. Just as I'd expected, nothing happened; the rpm remained the same. Read More >>

July 2002, Why I'll never forget my thousandth hour, by Andrew S. Markovits

I was feeling confident—not cocky, just comfortable—with my airmanship as I planned my cross-country with my two preteen kids, Scott and Claire, and a close family friend, Father Scott, a Catholic priest. He was jovial, loved flying, and, at that time, weighed 260 pounds. I was a mere 200; the kids were 100-plus each, and we had a full baggage compartment (probably another 80 pounds)—a goodly load for the club's aging Cessna 172. We left Watsonville, California, on July 16, 1977. We had spent the night at Sedona, Arizona, that neat aircraft-carrier-like airport perched on a 400-foot mesa. At 4,830 feet, the 5,100-foot runway wasn't much of a challenge, even on a hot Arizona day, with all seats occupied, full baggage and tanks. As one gentleman at the FBO said, "Don't worry—if you can get 10 feet off the runway you soon get another 400 feet below you at either end."Read More >>

June 2002, Is this an emergency now? by Laurence H. Steffan

It was a beautiful, typical flight in the warm deserts of Arizona in June 1999 with the vistas and thermals ever present in summer flying. However, when I experienced a total loss of oil pressure 25 miles from Flagstaff Pulliam Airport, my serenity fled with the oil. Read More >>

May 2002, Midair at Coeur d'Alene, by Ford Dunton

I was well into the third year after obtaining my private pilot certificate, with approximately 500 hours to my credit, when I had an experience that was humbling and terrifying. I doubt I will ever forget that instant when the probability of a midair collision depended upon a split second and a few scant feet. Read More >>

April 2002, Optical illusions, by Jay Kelley

With 1,800 hours' total time, I was hired for my first charter job with an air taxi company in Fairbanks, Alaska. I had been flying for the company for several months on the day I was to fly three round-trip flights between Fairbanks and Bettles. I would be transporting three Cessna 207-loads of construction workers who were finished for the season and glad to be heading home. Bettles is well north of the Arctic Circle in the southern foothills of the Brooks Range, about 200 miles northwest of Fairbanks. The weather was IFR ? single-engine IFR was still legal under Part 135 in the early 1970s—but the ceiling had been gradually rising throughout the day. It was mid-autumn and getting dark early. Read More >>

March 2002, Clear message, by Theodore Orr

A VFR pilot flew into IMC and lost control of his airplane. It was a tragic loss—he was a good pilot with 300 hours in this aircraft. Stories and reports such as these still send chills down my spine. Every time I call for a preflight weather briefing I think: What is the forecast for the area that I'm flying to? What is the en route forecast? What are the actual conditions? Then I ask the briefer for the winds aloft and the forecast for the alternate airport. I ask for the briefer's opinion and then make my decision to fly or not to fly. Read More >>

February 2002, Too-quiet twin, by Charles B. Husick

From the time I began to fly multiengine aircraft, I had always followed the precaution of allowing at least one minute to elapse between switching fuel tanks for each engine. I had been taught, and believed, that this procedure would reduce the chance of having both engines cut out at the same time. It always worked, until one day in 1972, when I was flying a PA-39 Twin Comanche back to Wings Field, near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from a visit to Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. Read More >>

January 2002, Tomahawked by ice, by Cal Harris

I knew that I was in big trouble when the aircraft flew differently than it ever had. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I was an instructor at one of three flight schools at Flying Cloud Airport in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. The recession of the 1990s was in full swing by the winter of 1992, and I had been employed as an instructor for four months. I had three full-time students, and my paychecks averaged $80 every two weeks. I was married with a 5-year-old daughter, and I held down a part-time job on most nights to help pay the bills. Read More >>

December 2001, Lucky? by Michael G. Parkinson

In early January of last year I learned that a good airplane and training could save a momentarily stupid pilot. Red More >>

November 2001, Carbon monoxide encounter, by James Schuster

My adventure began on a cold winter evening when a friend called and asked me to join him on a short cross-country the next day. His 1946 Ercoupe 415-C had been in for an annual inspection and he was anxious to get it back home. Read More >>

October 2001, One down, none to go, by Steven R. Frank

The meetings in St. Louis broke up early and everyone was rushing to the airport to try to get an earlier flight home. They had all questioned me about my "corporate Mooney" during our day together, and I had extolled the virtues of general aviation. I was feeling fortunate that my flight would be ready whenever I was. Read More >>