AOPA Pilot Magazine

It took less than 10 minutes to set up the course: a landing pad; a rope stretched across the ground to align four small, wooden A-frame stands to which 20 2-gallon, white plastic buckets were attached. All of this became a test track for unmanned aircraft, taking up a sliver of a sprawling 12-acre field about a mile from William H. Morse State Airport in Bennington, Vermont.

Looking back on recent advancements in aviation, most people turn to technology. GPS has made navigation easier, widely available in-cockpit weather made us safer, and a slew of beefed-up backcountry airplanes made it all more fun. These advancements are incredible, but all ignore the rest of the aviation ecosystem, such as regulatory changes. And when you consider this, medical certification reform is paramount.

When multiengine students experience their first simulated engine failure, they’ve been told there will be a definite yaw to the side of the dead engine. What they don’t expect is that the nose of the trainer will skid—nay, gallop—to that side, as if someone else has taken firm control of the airplane, and they’re just along for the ride.

By Stacey Nilsen in collaboration with Keith West

From our front window, South Mountain looms in the distance. It’s the front range of the Appalachian Mountains, the Blue Ridge, and location of the Appalachian Trail in Maryland. It’s a constant reminder that a 10-minute drive will get us from home to a 2,200-mile-long hike, one of the most renowned treks in the world.

New Yorker Paul Seibert is awake hours before dawn planning an aerial photography mission over his beloved Manhattan skyscape as residents of “the city that never sleeps” are—in fact—sleeping. Seibert relies on helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft to capture dynamic, three-dimensional views of New York City landmarks.

Aluminum art captured pilots' imagination.

A pilot experiences an in-flight equipment malfunction but skillfully prevents an abnormal situation from becoming an emergency and lands safely. A few days later, an FAA inspector contacts the pilot to request a statement about the event along with a copy of relevant maintenance records. AOPA’s Legal Services Plan often hears from pilots in this situation.

An hour after our final air-to-air refueling, “Deuce” (the perennial nickname for Thunderbird 2) reported back with troubling destination weather. Nellis Air Force Base, our home outside Las Vegas , had ceased operations and was recalling all local flights because of worsening winds and visibility in blowing sand.

I am an excellent wife. I’m so good, in fact, that I often do things to make my husband feel smarter, like that time I called him from the driveway because my car wouldn’t start. “Do you have gas in the tank?” he asked, as I kicked myself for not thinking of the obvious. He brought me a container of gasoline and went back to work feeling like a hero.

As I stared at the wall of rock just off the end of Runway 25 at Colorado’s Eagle County Airport, I wondered if maybe it would be less intimidating in IMC than on this severe clear day. Is there any comfort in not being able to see the hard stuff, even if you know it’s there?

At one point or another, you’ve probably come across the “time, money, and energy” concept. Maybe you’ve read about it in an article or seen it depicted in a chart.

Until my son, Brian, turned 14, I had no way of knowing if he was interested in learning to fly. He had never said a word about it. Then one day it came out of nowhere. “Hey, Dad. Will you teach me to fly?”

By Jim Coon

Pilots are undoubtedly some of the most accomplished and skilled individuals to be found anywhere in the world. This unique experience of controlled flight is a compliment to American ingenuity, perseverance, and fortitude. Today, the United States accounts for nearly 80 percent of the world’s general aviation pilot population. What we have in this country is simply special and we must never take it for granted.

What does it take to lift a woman from being afraid to ride in an elevator to becoming a nationally ranked aerobatic pilot? In Cecilia Aragon’s case, it was a flight in a Piper Cherokee—a flight she sometimes can’t believe she agreed to take.

Test question for pilots

By Robert Lee Rohrer

I see a lot of general aviation aircraft flying around Davie County, North Carolina, and last fall I found the nearby Sugar Valley Airport. As I stood by the runway a flood of memories hit me and rekindled my interest in aviation.

By Rose Hansen

When I told my dad that I was flying to Death Valley, he laughed. As a young student pilot, he crossed the Sierra Nevada in a Cessna 120 and landed at Furnace Creek. It was 1959, decades before Death Valley became a national park. “There was nobody. It was nowhere,” he said. “There’s nothing there. You’ll probably like it.”

By Chalie Galliand

If you take the opportunity to fly the Hudson River Exclusion Special Flight Rules Area (SFRA), which is something you should do, I encourage you to continue north up the Hudson River about 25 miles. The scenery and historical significance of the area are just as awe-inspiring.

Thanks to the generosity of the James C. Ray Foundation, 124 AOPA members including high school students, ages 15 to 18; primary flight training participants; high school teachers; and AOPA members pursuing advanced ratings will each receive flight training scholarships in 2021. There were 4,014 applicants.

One new trend in eVTOL aviation has been the move to take these new ventures public. For this we can thank SPACs—special purpose acquisition companies.

Its rotors spinning furiously in the thin Martian atmosphere, NASA’s Ingenuity made mankind’s first controlled flight on another planet in the early morning hours of April 19.

Chuck Yeager. P–51. Cessna. Piper. These are names, makes, models, and manufacturers you know. But what you might not know is that they are also the names of the much-loved animal companions of pilots and aviation enthusiasts.

What makes the AOPA Sweepstakes Grumman Tiger so special?

By Charles Moore

It was May 7, 2008. I was so excited. The proud owner of a 1972 Piper Cherokee PA–28-140 and recently certificated, I was using my airplane for a business meeting for the very first time.

Make no mistake: We live in a world guided by GPS. And it’s not just the flying world. It’s the new standard, for everything from Google Maps to missiles.

Tucked away in the performance section of an airplane’s pilot’s operating handbook are performance charts and graphs assembled using data from myriad flight tests required for aircraft certification. Each curve on a graph reveals the way in which, say, climb rate depends on atmospheric conditions and I confess that my inner geek delights in such visualizations.

We pilots are not a very creative bunch. When it comes to choosing an altitude for a cross-country flight, many of us seem preprogrammed to select 3,000 feet, regardless of distance, terrain, or weather.

On March 2, 2008, a turbonormalized Cirrus SR22 was destroyed when it crashed shortly after takeoff in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, killing all four people aboard. Shortly after the aircraft departed from Runway 20, the engine lost power, and the airplane hit a building and exploded. Further investigation revealed that the aircraft had been refueled with Jet A instead of 100LL.

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