Flight Safety

For reasons not easy to explain, pilots don’t like to ask for help. Just why this is so would make a good topic for a graduate psychology thesis but certainly pride and machismo have a lot to do with it. At the least, fessing upto an emergency seems likely to reveal flawed thinking; at worst, […]

Ever notice how some towers seem to be more specific than otherswhen it comes to pointing out traffic? At some airports, you cancheck in with the tower and instantly be told “…trafficis a Lear Jet just off the airport, southeastbound.” That’sthe last you’ll hear about the Lear until he fills your windshield.Yet, at other locations, […]

During the winter, dozens of aircraft come to grief on ice andsnow-covered runways, sometimes after completing an otherwiseuneventful instrument approach. These accidents are rarely fatal but they do illustrate a harshreality of winter flying. We worry incessantly about airframeicing but slick runways, snowbanks and low visibility test thelimits of man and machine and very often, […]

Two thousand miles in an open-cockpit biplane. Richard Bach did it. Steven Coonts did it. Clearly nothing that I can’t handle! Never mind that Bach and Coonts did their biplane treks in thesummertime and carefully picked their weather. My journey wouldbe in November…the only time I could find four free days ina row to make […]

Introduction: The “Aviation Safety Initiative Review” in New Orleans(December 6-7, 1995) demonstrated the aviation community’s uncompromisinglong-term commitment to a safety standard of “zero accidents”.The two-day, industry-led meeting brought together the nation’saviation safety experts from industry, labor and government tobuild upon the initiatives identified earlier this year and toset the safety agenda for 1996. An updated […]

Interview by Aviation Consumer, 27-Oct-95 FAA Participants: Also Present: Aviation Consumer: The first area that I’d like to explore with you is the situation where Bob Hoover has recently been granted a special issuance of his second class medical certificate. Pilots are certainly happy that he has a U.S. medical again that will permit him […]

Anthony J. Broderick was named Associate Administrator forRegulation and Certification of the Federal Aviation Administration in July1988, after 17 years of government service. As head of the agency’s Regulation and Certification complex, he is principally responsible for: certification, production approval, and continued airworthiness of aircraft; certification of pilots, mechanics, and others in safety-related positions; certification […]

It’s sometimes difficult for pilots to understand why air trafficcontrollers do the things they do. They often reject our requestsfor altitude changes, vector us away from our destinations, oroccasionally request what seem like unnecessary speed adjustments.These delays are bad enough when IFR in real weather but they’redownright aggravating when you’re IFR in good weather. If […]