AOPA Pilot Magazine

February 2025

Featured

Date

List Grid

Feature

| February 1, 2025

Classic champion

The plan was ambitious. Five classic tailwheel airplanes. Seven tests. One day.

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Pilot Magazine

| February 1, 2025

It’s just before sunrise in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and already the sky is dotted with the red beacons and twinkling flames of the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta’s “Dawn Patrol,” a group of specially equipped nighttime balloon operators who have helped other balloonists get an early indication of wind speed and directions at different altitudes since 1978.

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Feature

| February 1, 2025

Never a dull moment

Aviation is at the heart of Big South Fork Airpark in Tennessee, but the surrounding national recreation area, river, and trails are the soul.

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Feature

| February 1, 2025

Keep them flying

It’s a rabbit warren of rooms and offices, closets and machinery, aircraft parts and blueprints, jigs and cowlings and fuselages hanging from the ceilings, and packed file cabinets with orders, manuals, and specifications, yet Jim Dyer knows where everything is and where to find even the most obscure item.

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Feature

| February 1, 2025

Pilot in command

January 1, 2025, marked a special moment as Darren Pleasance became just the sixth president and CEO in AOPA’s 85-year history.

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Magazine Columns

Date

List Grid

Pilot Magazine

| February 1, 2025

Flying blind

By Hamed Sajjadi

It happened on a cloudy but otherwise beautiful day, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the spring of 1999.

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Pilot Magazine

| February 1, 2025

The spirit of the maneuver

Abeam his intended landing spot while flying on the downwind leg of the pattern, my commercial pilot candidate, Eddie, pulled the throttle back to idle and set up to glide for the remainder of the flight.

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Pilot Magazine

| February 1, 2025

Curves ahead

By Bruce Williams

On the road, yellow signs warn you of curves ahead.

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Pilot Magazine

| February 1, 2025

Buyer be aware

Of all the pain points in the aircraft purchasing process, the prepurchase evaluation is the most ouchy. It’s difficult to bring together, the results are sometimes not definitive, and it’s expensive. It’s also essential.

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Commentary

| February 1, 2025

Getting the lead out

I’m eager for 100-octane unleaded aviation fuel to be available at every airport.

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Pilot Magazine

| February 1, 2025

Test Pilot

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Pilot Magazine

| February 1, 2025

My favorite co-pilot

By Ben Moses

Over the years I’ve had a lot of aviators riding right seat with me.

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Pilot Magazine

| February 1, 2025

A better view

If you are practicing flying an aircraft solely by reference to instruments with a safety pilot or instructor and the weather is VMC, you need a way to obscure your view outside the aircraft.

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Pilot Magazine

| February 1, 2025

Me and my airplane

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Pilot Magazine

| February 1, 2025

Night magic

Stars dot the sky above a brightly lit de Havilland DH.82 Tiger Moth, its spinning propeller cutting a shiny circular swath through the November night as the Gypsy Major engine fights for the attention of two dozen photographers pointing their cameras toward the red biplane at Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome in Red Hook, New York.

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Pilot Magazine

| February 1, 2025

Purpose-built firebomber by Game Composites

Game Composites is building a single-engine firebomber that its designer says will carry more and fly farther and faster than any other aircraft in its category.

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Pilot Magazine

| February 1, 2025

Virtually perfect

It’s rare that a technology comes along that’s so transformative it completely changes the way we think about training pilots. Virtual reality has that potential.

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Pilot Magazine

| February 1, 2025

Celebrating Black History Month: The Tuskegee Airmen

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Pilot Magazine

| February 1, 2025

Seeing it through

“I do not think there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.”

—John D. Rockefeller

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Pilot Magazine

| February 1, 2025

A problem of trust

If you are on a special issuance medical, you should also get a BasicMed qualification.

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Pilot Magazine

| February 1, 2025

Loose standard

The Federal Rules of Evidence (FRE), first adopted in 1975, govern how facts and conclusions drawn from evidence are used during trials in civil and criminal lawsuits.

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Pilot Magazine

| February 1, 2025

The price is right

Are you one of those drivers or pilots who will go out of their way to find the least expensive gas prices? Then you need to take advantage of a great AOPA member benefit—our fuel price map.

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Pilot Magazine

| February 1, 2025

Positive safety culture

Some pilots may think that a “safety culture” only applies to the airlines and other professional operations, but even a single, individual pilot can develop and implement their own positive safety culture.

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Pilot Magazine

| February 1, 2025

Behind the scenes

The AOPA media team produces the magazine stories you read here; videos to accompany those stories; fantastic photography; and reels and long-form videos on our Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok accounts.

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Pilot Magazine

| February 1, 2025

Arcadia Municipal Airport, Florida

If you were looking to get into the air “over there” in 1917, Florida was the place to be.

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Pilot Magazine

| February 1, 2025

A decade of inspiration

The AOPA You Can Fly High School Aviation STEM Symposium marked the event’s tenth year, concentrating on providing teaching professionals with tools to support students who have an interest in aviation and giving attendees the opportunity to meet and network with industry experts and aviation educators.

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Pilot Magazine

| February 1, 2025

AI comes to Sporty's

Sporty’s Pilot Shop has added an innovative feature it calls Sporty’s Aviation Intelligence to the company’s online Learn to Fly, Instrument Rating, and Commercial Pilot training courses.

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Pilot Magazine

| February 1, 2025

Continuing education

Installing a new suite of avionics is an exciting time for any aircraft owner.

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Pilot Magazine

| February 1, 2025

Your 2025 aviation calendar

Another year, another exciting lineup of events that will have AOPA members enjoying the world of aviation from the best advantage. From our own events at local airshows to showcases at the big shows like Sun ’n Fun and EAA AirVenture, we have an exciting year of flying and fun planned.

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