AOPA Pilot Magazine

A tiger elicits thoughts of a powerful, menacing feline poised to pounce upon an unsuspecting victim’s slightest wrong move. While the AOPA Sweepstakes Grumman Tiger exudes power and purpose, the pilot who will soon win the completely restored airplane need not fear. They will fly away in a fast, sophisticated, and beautiful cat.

Sucker holes. Deceptively good weather spots that lure pilots into bad decisions. They usually trap pilots anxious for a VFR gap in marginal conditions, but IFR pilots anxious for a flyable approach can be lured into bad decisions by an IFR sucker hole.

For many, the past few years have been as tumultuous as any period in their lifetimes. Given the major challenges the world has faced with health, security, and financial stability, general aviation has fared remarkably well. More pilots are active now than at any point in nearly 40 years; student starts are up; and the airplane market is strong. And at the center of it all has been AOPA, protecting your freedom to fly.

There’s something a newly minted private pilot certificate does not automatically come with: friendship.

Readers weigh in on our annual travel issue

An aircraft owner lends her aircraft to a longtime friend, who departs from a nontowered airport and conducts a routine VFR flight.

You have to sweat the right small stuff to achieve big performance. That’s my retort to the popular slogan, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” Grasping little advantages is an approach I adopted early in my U.S. Air Force career and ported over to my general aviation flying. Small items may not make for outstanding performance, but they can sure play a spoiler role.

Years ago, a young man contacted me about giving him lessons in his Cessna 172. When we met for the first time, I asked to review the aircraft documents and maintenance records. He handed them over with a big grin.

Every field of endeavor is plagued by myth, and general aviation is no exception. One persistent myth involves the operation of normally aspirated engines with constant-speed propellers.

This month we feature the most recent in a string of 25 airplanes AOPA has refurbished and given away since 1993: the AOPA Sweepstakes Grumman Tiger.

During my tenure at AOPA, general aviation has faced significant and complex challenges. Each time, our team answered the call to beat them back and even opened up some opportunities.

Watching seaplanes land in the East River from her advertising office in Manhattan, Sarah Tamar had an epiphany: Flying was the answer to destressing her life.

Love flying? We have an app for that!

AOPA on Capitol Hill

The customer: Married couple and a dog with places to go and a big budget.

Seems that every pilot owns the requisite aviator sunglasses, and we all know they’re designed for function as well as style.

A flight cap worn by Amelia Earhart dating to her 1928 crossing of the Atlantic Ocean was auctioned February 26, and the final price was $825,000.

While nothing in life is free, some FBOs go above and beyond with complimentary goodies for visiting pilots. Here are some of our favorites.

It started as a simple idea: share California’s San Martin Airport and love of aviation with our local community.

Civil War historians and big cat lovers will want to land at Roscoe Turner Airport in Corinth, Mississippi. It’s a Deep South airport named for a local aviator, in a town named for an ancient Greek city.

Nestled across the street from Santa Monica Municipal Airport (SMO) and next to the Museum of Flying is The Cloverfield.

By Sheila Harris

Judy Reynolds is helping keep general aviation alive with the monthly fly-ins she hosts, May through October, at Turkey Mountain Airport (MO00), near Shell Knob, Missouri.

By Glynn Dennis

As I write these words, it’s early fall 2021 on the central coast of California. Thanks to a stationary high-pressure system, we have been rewarded with two weeks of the most beautiful weather I can remember, for any time of year.

By Christopher Lyon

I am a 125-hour private pilot with about 55 hours of pilot-in-command time, and I am the son of a retired U.S. Air Force pilot.

Piston aircraft engines have a lot of moving parts. Way too many, if you ask me. The thought of thousands of separate metal parts reciprocating, rotating, wiggling, wobbling, and rubbing against one another thousands of times a minute ought to make you nervous—it sure does me. It’s something I try hard not to think about while airborne, mainly because I fly a lot better when not distracted.

There’s the letter of the law, and there’s the spirit of the law.

I often get a sinking feeling during checkrides. Both private and commercial pilot airmen certification standards require candidates to demonstrate a short-field takeoff and, for many aircraft types, that means flaps are extended prior to departure.

Those who have been reading my monthly “Proficient Pilot” columns in AOPA Pilot might recall that my first instructor was somewhat of a sadist.

A funny thing happened to the piston twin market on its way to oblivion.

It recovered. Or at least, it started showing signs of life.

The NTSB is frustrated. Year after year, they’ve had to investigate the same airplane crash. It’s a morbid version of Bill Murray’s Groundhog Day. Each time the cause is the same, only the tail number is different.