Flight Safety

The FAA hasn’t done a very good job of making it easy for pilots and controllers to say “I’ve got a problem here and I need some help right now.”Some pilots are under the mistaken impression that controllers are cops, just waiting to violate them for the slightest transgression of the FARs. And even if […]

FAA tiger teams are still trying to sort out exactly what happenedin the wake of an unprecedented, 45-minute power outage that shutdown all radar and radio communications at Oakland Center on Wednesdaymorning, August 9th. All ARTCCs are equipped with three independent sources of powerfor critical equipment. Each includes an emergency diesel generator,plus a bank of […]

The NTSB has released preliminary statistics covering aircraftaccidents during 1994. 1994 Aviation Fatalities FATALITIES 1994 1993Private Planes725 740Airlines237 1Commuter25 24Airtaxi63 42Foreign, unregistered21 16Total 1071 823 1994 Airline and Commuter Fatalities PART 121 (Airlines) DATE CARRIER AIRCRAFT LOCATION FATALITIESJul 2 US AirDC-9-31Charlotte, NC 37Sep 8 US AirB737-3B7 Pittsburgh,PA 132Oct 31 Am. EagleATR72-212 Roselawn,IN 68 Total: 237 […]

In 1980, the National Transportation Safety Board conducteda special study of air taxi operations in Alaska. The Safety Boardfound that for the study period, the rate of non-fatal air taxiaccidents in the state on the basis of hours flown was almostfive times higher than the national rate, and the fatal accidentrate was more than double […]

Traditionally, FlightSafety Internationaloffered simulator-based recurrent training only for pilots of piston twins, turboprops and jets. In 1988, however, the company inaugurated a new series of programs for single-engine pilots. FlightSafety now has single-engine simulators for Beech Bonanza 33/35/36, Cessna 210/T210/P210, and Mooney 201/205/231/252/TLS/PFM/MSE. The Beech and Cessna sims are in Wichita, while the Mooney sim […]

In 1986, FlightSafety Internationalconducted a statistical study to compare the accident rates of piston-twin pilots who had trained with FlightSafety to those who had not. This study analyzed US-registered Cessna and Piper piston twin-engine aircraft that were involved in fatal accidents during the years 1983 and 1984. Cessna 337 (centerline-thrust) aircraft were excluded. Out of […]

I never intended to buy a twin, actually. I was perusing Trade-A-Plane looking for a nice T210 or P210. But you know how it goes…it’s impossible to resist the urge to see what Lear Jets or King Airs or DC-3s are going for. And so it was that I noticed that the market for piston […]

In the TRACON version of CA, the process starts with a primary filter which runs through all possible pairs of tracked targets and eliminates those that are more than 40 seconds flying time from one another at their current groundspeeds. The track-pairs that make it through the primary filter are then analyzed by three different […]

Picture this. You’re flying a textbook VOR approach. You’re ahead of the airplane and doing everything right. ATC gave you a perfect radar vector turn-on to the final. Crossing the FAF, you started the timer, dropped the gear, and pulled the power back for a nice steep 1,000 FPM non-precision descent. You’ve committed the MDA […]

“Preferred routes.” Hah! Preferred by whom? Not us general aviation pilots, that’s for darn sure. A lot of the IFR routes that we get from ATC are positively obscene. Either they add 50% to the total trip mileage, or they take us over the most hostile possible terrain with MEAs above the freezing level, or […]