Category: Excerpts –  Page 2

Cross Country Solo – Part 2

The cross country navigation exercise is required to complete the JAR private pilot’s licence. It is effectively the first time the pilot is left alone with the plane, dependent on the new skills learned over the past few weeks. It is now not simply a case of handling the plane but also juggling the full…

Read more… 9 Apr 10

Cross Country Solo (Part One)

Now that the weather has started to show some semblance of Spring, a number of students are posting with excitement having finally completed their cross country solo. This is a flight that I think every pilot remembers, regardless of how long ago it was. I put off going solo for as long as I could,…

Read more… 2 Apr 10

Stick in the Mud

Shobdon Airfield started as Pembridge Landing Ground, a long strip in an isolated area used to support Army manoeuvres. In 1942 it was upgraded to “a proper airfield” by the military. Shaun McGuire has made a website dedicated to the Hereford Parachute Club at Shobdon and has reprinted an article found in Action Stations 3,…

Read more… 27 Nov 09

Mother Told Me Not to Come

This three-part story was originally published in the November 2007 issue of Piper Flyer magazine. Part One: If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Your Mother Part Two: Sylvia’s Mother Said After spending over two hours filling out paperwork at the Rome Urbe airfield, I asked the one friendly person in the place for details about…

Read more… 26 Jun 09

If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Your Mother

This three-part story was originally published in the November 2007 issue of Piper Flyer magazine. As a result, I received my first ever piece of fan mail – a reader asked if I could possibly put him in touch with my mother regarding a conference that he thought she might be interested in. As an…

Read more… 12 Jun 09

Just Like A Woman

Ask a CFI has done a post on Checkride Butterflies and it reminded me of my first time. “You fly just like a woman.” I blink. I am sitting in the left seat of a Piper, somewhere over the beautiful English countryside known as the Cotswolds. On my right is Bob, an experienced pilot and…

Read more… 20 Feb 09

Accident Reports

The Sad Story of the Seawind 3000 N8UU

For this post, I’m going to start with the NTSB report of an accident which took place on the 3rd of July 2021 on Lake Michigan. The aircraft was a…

Causal Factors of the Piper Malibu Crash near Guernsey

Sometimes it seems like these posts get longer every year that I keep doing this. This collection of details from the AAIB report that I left out of the Piper…

Demystifying

Questions and Answers: It's Your Turn

A Fear of Landing reader asked me a great question in email. Is there some way of asking general technical questions that relate to aircraft or airport operations rather than…

Wings for Wildlife: Aviation at Sheldrick Wildlife Trust

The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, founded in 1977, is a charity focused on the conservation, preservation and protection of wildlife and habitats in Kenya. Their well-written newsletters are always a joy…

History

The Mount Erebus Disaster

On the 28th of November 1979, a sight-seeing flight to Antartica crashed into Mount Erebus, killing all 257 on board. The Mount Erebus Disaster, as it came to be known,…

An Icon of Aviation

I have a guest post this week by Nicholas Brown, the Campus President of Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology. The college has been rebuilding a replica of Little Stinker,…

Fun Stuff

Funniest Thing You've Heard On the Radio

I’ve been struggling this week and was just panicking that I would not have a post finished in time for you for today when I discovered that Reddit had saved…

A Little Bit of Everything

There’s so much great aviation writing and video out there and I’m always appreciative when people send me fun things; it seems a shame not to share them! So here’s…