AOPA Pilot Magazine

A light drizzle had just begun around 10 a.m. on June 22, 2012, when the sound of thunder was interrupted by a loud bang followed by an airplane descending upside down and hitting terrain some eight miles northeast of Morgantown, West Virginia.

The tailpipe of the orange and white jet fills your windscreen as you follow it upward into a cloudless blue Texas sky.

This could be as much a story about an airline, family ties, and perseverance as it is about an airfield, and the struggle to honor history, legacy, and hard work.

By N70472, as told to Leonardo Correa Luna

Even though it was so long ago, it feels like yesterday that Bob Mohr picked me up at the Piper dealership in 1946. I was spectacular, and my fabric was shiny and new. I was ready to fly, but I was also nervous. Who was my new owner? What was he going to do with me? Was he a good pilot?

Turn around or land straight ahead?

By Sen. James Inhofe

After the coronavirus kept us apart last year, this year’s EAA AirVenture has a greater significance. As we come together to mark another Oshkosh, I can’t help but reflect on all the general aviation successes we have achieved over the past few years.

I have a recommendation for how the FAA can modernize first class medicals. Instead of resting ECGs (electrocardiogram), do stress ECGs or nuclear stress ECGs. Now hear me out before shouting.

This summer, Robert L. Sumwalt III, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, will retire after 15 years with the NTSB.

When I first signed up to coach my 9-year-old’s softball team, I did it for one reason: I grew up loving the sport and was lucky enough to play all the way through college.

A fellow flight instructor recently asked if I could recall my most unusual student. “That’s an easy one,” I replied. “His name was Tom Sullivan, and what made him so unusual was that he had been blind since birth.”

During the pandemic, my stir-crazy wife went on a painting frenzy. She never reads this column, so I can acknowledge here that she is not typically a great painter. Project by project, though, she got better and soon was approaching professional quality finishes to various walls and rooms around the house. If you need an accent wall, she can help you out.

Over the past year, I think we’ve all learned a simple lesson in appreciation. Most of us didn’t realize how much we’d miss the little things: a family gathering, a sporting event, and for us pilots, an airshow. Or to be more specific, the World’s Greatest Aviation Celebration.

By Sheila Harris

Justin Richmond, airport manager and owner of Aurora Aviation in Aurora, Missouri, had vowed since childhood that he’d live in southwest Missouri someday.

By Glenn Ponas

You can inspire tomorrow’s pilots by helping bring aviation STEM education to a high school near you.

The AOPA Sweepstakes Grumman Tiger will be on display at AirVenture 2021 in front of the AOPA tent.

It all started in a closet.

Whether it’s your first time or your fiftieth, the pilgrimage to EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh is a rite of passage for pilots.

Test questions for pilots

The virtual reality (VR) helmets and crisp video monitors give this U.S. Air Force Academy lab the look and feel of a high-tech gaming center—but the results are serious and lasting for each cadet at the half-dozen flight simulator stations.

At the confluence of the Susquehanna River and the head of the Chesapeake Bay is a historic waterfront town that celebrates Maryland’s natural resources such as its bay, waterfowl, seafood, and environment.

The National Aeronautic Association awarded its 2020 Robert J. Collier Trophy to Garmin for Garmin Autoland, the first certified autonomous system that can activate in an emergency to land an aircraft without human intervention.

By Tom Hildebrant

My wife and I started out flying on a recent Saturday to Port Aransas, Texas, in our Cessna 182 to have a day of fun in the sun with friends who had driven down the day before.

The exhaust valve is the most likely component of a piston aircraft engine to fail catastrophically. When one fails, combustion ceases in the cylinder, and the engine loses power and starts running rough.

Psychologists say that most of our learning occurs visually, and that’s especially true when it comes to evaluating weather features.

The typical pilot-induced oscillation scenario goes something like this: The winds at the airport are especially gusty so, to avoid an inadvertent stall, the pilot maintains a higher airspeed than usual.

By Peter Rez

In the never-ending quest to eliminate carbon dioxide emissions from aviation there is now lots of talk about hydrogen-powered aircraft.

By Doug Rozendaal

It is a low-IFR early morning departure with the entire family loaded in the Beechcraft BE-58 Baron for a weekend getaway.

Get a seaplane rating, add a multiengine rating, try a glider. There are dozens of ways to experience aviation anew, but one stands above as the ultimate combination of fun and utility. This is an argument for learning to fly helicopters.

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