Significant changes to the U.S. Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs) have continued to roll out, and are scheduled to take effect, after the commercial  publication in October of the FAR/AIM. Read more…

Want to become a better pilot? Then, go out and master the crosswind landing.

As many seasoned pilots will tell you, the crosswind landing can bring out the best, or the worst, in you. (Don’t believe me? Take a look at  the video to your left.)

Crosswinds require that the pilot know intimately, and almost instinctively, how to manage pitch, power and flight control surfaces to land straight ahead on the centerline. And, how to keep the plane on the centerline afterwards. Read more…

The Dreamliner lifts off at 1828Z on Runway 34 at Paine Field, in Seattle.

The Boeing Dreamliner took to the skies for the first time at 1827UTC (10:27 a.m. Pacific Time) today, to the cheers of thousands of Boeing employees at Paine Field in Seattle.

“Ready! Ready! Go!” Chief Test Pilot Mike Carriker said over the radio, after air-traffic controllers cleared the plane for departure.

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Ice and airplanes go together about as well as oil and water. But in a special place in New Hampshire, when the local lake freezes over, a new airport is born — right on the frozen lake. It may be one of the rare times when ice is a pilot’s friend.

The complete story appears in the Members Only section of the Aircraft Owners & Pilots Association Web site.

But, you can get a nice sense of what it’s like to land on a slab of ice, in this video.

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In the wake of a Utah aircraft accident caused by fuel exhaustion, figures from the NTSB have emerged showing that 245 aviation accidents have occurred in the past five years due to pilots running out of fuel. In the Utah crash, the 52-year-old pilot was critically injured, and the NTSB reports that 32 people were killed between 2004 and 2008 as a result of such accidents.

What happened in the Utah crash won’t be out for at least several weeks, as the NTSB continues its investigation.  But, the issue of improper fuel management for pilots is a huge one: More than 80 percent of all crashes are due to pilot error, and weather and fuel mismanagement are among the leading causes, according to various reports. Read more…