New year, new calendar, clean slate. Turning over a calendar seems to create in many of us the desire to do — and be — better. Sadly, all too soon, we fall back into our regular ruts and habits. But this year will be different, I hope. A friend of mine sent me a link […]
Opinion
A century’s passion lost and found
Because I’m a bit weird, I found myself reading through a stack of newspapers from the early 20th Century recently. In those pages I found something that I hadn’t seen in a while, something almost foreign to the American public in our current time. It was this: Absolute wonder and unrestrained excitement at the idea […]
No pilot? No problem!
An age-old component of aviation has been the pilot-in-the-loop. A pilot brings sophisticated human faculties to bear in solving problems of flight and making judgments on proper actions. But sometimes, the presence of a pilot can be detrimental — to the pilot. If an aircraft is to be subjected to dangers ranging from gun and […]
Dream differently
If you’re a pilot, you’ve got goals. That’s just the way it is. Maybe it’s the fact that we have goals that lead us to this life where we have it so good. Just ask anyone you meet wandering around the mall. Everyone knows pilots are rich elitists with wads of cash stuffed into the […]
What’s the proper mag timing for my engine?
Q: Hi Paul, you helped me out a few years back regarding a question on an O-290 D2B and I really value your advice and opinions, so now I’ll ask for your help once again. I’m new to a beautiful 1974 Piper Arrow, which still has the original IO-360 C1C installed. Total aircraft time is 3,395 […]
Are you dripping fuel? Do you know where your log books are?
When I sit back and look at the world, I find it a fascinating place. For me, the most interesting details relate to people. Specifically, their actions and reactions. If we slow down enough, there are a great many lessons to be learned from our fellow citizens of earth. Mark Howell is a pilot, mechanic, […]
All I want for Christmas, revisited
Since childhood I’ve experienced an onslaught of marketing messages that focus on a single, classic, opening to a sentence. “All I want for Christmas…” I suspect you’ve experienced something similar. At this slightly later stage of life (I tend to doubt any adolescents are reading this page) it might be time to revisit that idea. […]
Human Factors: Self-inflicted
Last year I gifted my readers with stories of men and women pilots who acted heroically, and lived to tell about it. This holiday season I’m going in a different direction. The Aviation Safety Reporting System reports I chose this time come from pilots who, in their own way, shot themselves in the proverbial foot. Failure […]
The importance of a good couch
In the back of my hangar sits the skeleton of a 1949 Piper PA-16 Clipper. It hasn’t flown in many years. That’s kind of sad. Hopefully, somebody will take on the task of restoring it to its former glory one day and it will become airborne again. I can only hope. In front of the […]