Category: Learning to Fly

Over-The-Top Gun: When Overconfidence Meets Gravity

I’m excited to share this guest post with you, by our own David Provan! It’s a great piece about his early experience flying the Champ. Over-The-Top Gun by David Provan I was eighteen in 1961. I’d not long done my first ever solo flight on an Aeronca Champion 7EC at Middle Districts Aero Club, Palmerston…

Read more… 7 Sep 24

Night Flying (PPL)

I’ll be in Switzerland all week, hoping that the weather is good enough for the AXALP 2023 airshow. To tide you over, I thought it might be fun to revisit an old piece that I wrote about learning to fly at night. Maybe it will shed some light on the recent night-flying posts. This was…

Read more… 15 Oct 23

Flight Instructor Stories That Will Make (Most) Student Pilots Feel Better

I have been sitting on this collection for some time now but I feel like we could use a bit of light humour today. I share these stories not to dissuade anyone from learning to fly but instead (I hope!) to encourage students; no matter how poorly you reacted to your first stall, I bet…

Read more… 30 Jun 23

Tell Me A(n Aviation) Story

As those of you who follow my personal newsletter already know, I’ve been taking part in a theatre event in Tallinn called Tell Me A Story. Every month, six storytellers get on stage and tell a story …but there’s a twist. Five stories are absolutely true and one story is a lie. There’s a question…

Read more… 14 Apr 23

Wheel Falls Off For Student Cross-Country Solo

This was initially brought to my attention by Tom Podolec Aviation on Twitter who posted about a Piper PA-28 in distress. The student pilot, a 17-year-old woman named Maggie Taraska, had just taken off when the right main gear fell off the aircraft on departure. Piper PA-28 in distress. Reported as the right main gear…

Read more… 14 Sep 18

Fourteen Lessons Every Pilot Must Learn

The posts have been very in-depth lately and I’ve not got the next one quite ready yet. However, I did find this great video by instructor Judy Robus. She’s taken YouTube clips and compiled them into a video lessons on the pitfalls of becoming complacent. It’s twelve minutes long and well worth watching, even if…

Read more… 2 Feb 18

Accident Reports

Hand on Thrust, Brain on Autopilot

On the 28th of June 2024 a Boeing 777-236, registered in the UK as G-VIIT, rejected a take-off after reaching V1 during the take-off roll on 26L at London Gatwick…

Challenger 300 Fatal Upset Wasn't Turbulence

On the 3rd of March 2023, a passenger in a private jet died after severe injuries in the cabin, which were originally reported as caused by severe turbulence. This was…

Demystifying

How to tell a Russian Su-27 from a British Typhoon

This is not an article that I ever thought I would feel compelled to write! However, given the confusion over a photograph chosen in a regional English paper, apparently it’s…

How to tell an F-16 Fighting Falcon from a Eurofighter Typhoon

There are a number of reasons why you might need to quickly point out the differences between a General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon and a Eurofighter EF2000 Typhoon. You might…

History

Gladys Ingle Inflight Wheel Change: Emergency Action or Stunt?

This video of a mid-air wheel exchange goes viral once a year or so, but I never get tired of watching it. Last week, it showed up on Reddit and…

The Disappearance of the Hawaii Clipper May Not Be as Mysterious as Was Thought

This week, we have a guest post by J.B. Rivard who wrote an article for the American Aviation Historical Society (AAHS) and used one of my articles as a reference.…

Fun Stuff

Friday Lightness: A Short Respite from Crash Reports

It seems a good time for something a bit more lighthearted. After weeks of analyzing serious incidents and technical failures, I thought I could a moment to appreciate aviation humuor…

Flights of Fantasy: Aviation April Fools Worth Celebrating

I’m going to admit that I’m not a great fan of April Fools’ pranks, especially not attempts to trick people into believing something and then pulling the rug out from…