4 minutes checked out Like a great deal of pilots, a lot of my trips are around my house area in Andover, New Jersey, considering that I long back quit IFR money(my aircraft is a 1963 Super Cub and also purely VFR ). I intend a journey to OSH got on a pail listing someplace …
I Can’t Believe I Did That
The hex of the X
Life was great. I was seventeen as well as a brand-new senior high school grad, servicing my Private Pilot certification at a little, independently had aerodrome (N85) in northwestern New Jersey. It was time for my initial solo cross-country. I had actually striven on my trip strategy as well as happily provided it to my …
Low, hot, and humid
I recently received the December edition of EAA’s Sport Aviation magazine. As is my custom, I always check out Steve Krog’s “The Classic Instructor” commentary first. His article about density altitude brought back a memory of a long-ago flight. As a 500-to-600-hour private pilot, I thought I had an understanding of density altitude and its effects …
Who’s pilot in command? A faulty assumption leads to an accident
Maralinga is a 3,000 sq km section of desert in South Australia where the British Government tested atomic weapons in the 1950s. In the 1990s, the Australian government completed a successful decontamination of the site. Though my main work was based in Canberra, I needed to visit the Maralinga site about four times a year. …
A severe, multi-day case of “get-there-itis”
This summer I used the pause between the second and third waves of Covid to do some international flying. My plan was to fly from my native Slovakia via Czechia to Peenemünde (the test facility for V-1 and V-2 rockets in WWII) in northern Germany. This got cancelled due to a stormy front coming from the North …
Breaking news—and breaking the rules
I worked full time as an engineer for Sperry Flight Systems, but I also had a part-time job as one of three or four pilots that worked for Professional Aviation at Deer Valley airport in Phoenix, Arizona. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Professional Aviation had a “traffic watch” contract with radio station KTAR. …
A spur of the moment decision, and a missed NOTAM
Years ago, as a low-time, VFR-only pilot, flying a borrowed Cherokee 140, I invited a coworker along for a flight from Concord, New Hampshire (CON), to Carrabassett, Maine. There is a small, unattended field there, Sugarloaf Regional (B21), into which I had flown before. Another coworker had a camp in the Bigelow Preserve, and we …
Flying loaded: what could possibly go wrong?
I was a brand-new Private Pilot, my head was in the sky, eager to build my flying skills, and a perfect opportunity arose. The Barbershop Singing Lancaster, Pennsylvania, chapter needed some help transporting gear to Ocean City, Maryland, and my buddy Bob (always the organizer) we could fly the stuff from Lancaster to an airport …
Close call with a blimp
Like all pilots, I don’t like to talk about the stupid things I did in the early days of my flying career. I have filed this one (along with a few others) in the file that says “never again.” A big lesson was learned that night, and I made myself a promise to never again make low …
Get-home-itis: be on the lookout
If you watch any of the TV crime shows (my wife’s favorite is NCIS, in case you were wondering), they talk about BOLOs. It took me a while, but I finally got that this means “Be on the lookout.” This is a government agency’s terminology to alert their community to be alert to a person …