Professional Pilot

MAY 7, 2025

The plethora of general aviation airports in the US enables private aircraft operators to get close to a destination without using major airports, making movement less likely to be detected. In Nov 2024, a Spirit Airlines flight was hit by gunfire while on final approach to PAP (Port-au-Prince, Haiti).

Pilot

Plane and Pilot

AUGUST 27, 2024

Back in the early days of jet airliners, pilots long experienced in more forgiving two- and four-engine, piston-powered prop planes found themselves running out of airspeed, altitude, and ideas on the final approach to landing. Several of these unstabilized approaches resulted in major aircraft damage or worse.

Stability

Fear of Landing

AUGUST 9, 2024

An airfield traffic pattern, also known as a circuit, is a standard path used by air traffic approaching the runway. A standard pattern at a general aviation airport is a loop, usually to the left, shaped a bit like a race track. The gyroplane was on the base leg, approaching the runway from the south.

Runway

Air Facts

SEPTEMBER 13, 2024

What NTSB Reports Say About Impossible Turns and Angle of Attack—Part 2: Analysis, Questions Raised, and Next Steps The current emphasis in general aviation (GA) safety is on visual angle of attack (AOA) indicators and impossible turns (return to the airport following engine failure). One checkout was at normal weight and c.g.

Gross Weight

Pilot Institute

OCTOBER 16, 2024

Briefing A pre-landing briefing highlights essential points critical to the approach and landing phase. It also allows you to focus on flying during the last stages of the approach and landing. This allows you to configure appropriately and ensures a stabilized approach. Everything happens quickly as you approach the ground.

Airplanes

Photographic Logbook

SEPTEMBER 24, 2023

General Aviation to the rescue! We departed Sodus VFR and contacted Rochester Approach for our instrument clearance. I requested the RNAV-5 instrument approach from Albany. We also had tickets to the theater in downtown Rochester the afternoon before, with the show expected to end shortly before 5:00 pm.

Instrument Meteorological Conditions

Pilot Institute

SEPTEMBER 24, 2024

The ILS approach has revolutionized aviation and the types of weather we can fly in. Including how it became the most reliable approach for pilots in aviation history. The ILS is a type of approach pilots use to land. It is a precision approach aid based on two radio beams. What is an ILS? But what is it?

Knot

Photographic Logbook

OCTOBER 10, 2023

Among General Aviation pilots, there was great fear that private aircraft would be permanently barred from controlled airspace, particularly around the epicenters of those attacks in New York City and Washington DC. Although 9/11 marked the weaponization of commercial aircraft, the aftereffects are felt most keenly by General Aviation.

Transponder

Photographic Logbook

JULY 14, 2024

We reached the island shortly after numerous other arrivals, our five airplanes creating a small arrival push at the uncontrolled general aviation airport. Final approach, runway 28, Block Island State Airport. Aron and Ryan both ordered noodle bowls that were so generously portioned that they departed with leftovers.

Runway

Photographic Logbook

JULY 7, 2024

When we made the decision to flee Boston early all of those years ago, we reasoned that it was a short flight and access to downtown from an outlying general aviation airport was relatively simple via Uber. Approach called the Cirrus again -- because of course it was a Cirrus -- and issued him another vector away from Warrior 481.

Approach

AeroSavvy

AUGUST 20, 2021

I’m not Lindbergh… This trip was ambitious for me, but quite common in the general aviation community. The approach and taxi are time compressed; the landing is normal speed. Phoenix Approach Control gave us a few delay vectors before turning us onto final approach.

Density Altitude

Air Facts

SEPTEMBER 9, 2024

This broad scope approach is ultimately needed to help keep our friends, created in the image of God, alive. The current emphasis in general aviation (GA) safety is on visual angle of attack (AOA) indicators and impossible turns (return to the airport following engine failure).

General Aviation

Photographic Logbook

JULY 21, 2024

It was also a convenient location north of the Skyline Route where we could pick up flight following with New York Approach, thus streamlining entry into the procedure. While we were approaching the Orange County Airport, a student launched in a Cessna from runway 22. answered New York Approach brightly. A shift change!

Weight-Shift-Control

Plane and Pilot

SEPTEMBER 7, 2024

The Legacy General Aviation Fleet The beauty of so many legacy single-engine GA aircraft is that, when cared for properly, their aluminum airframes are quite resilient and resistant to fatigue. Maybe this is due to the slide rule and drafting table generation that designed them. So, what is an aircraft owner-operator to do?

Cockpit

Photographic Logbook

JANUARY 25, 2025

Not Cool, Man After transitioning across multiple sectors of Boston Center's vast airspace, the home stretch found us on with Boston Approach under a crisp, blue New Hampshire sky. Rolling out on final approach, I was surprised to see another airplane stopped right at the runway threshold. I went airplane spotting.

Runway

Pilot Institute

JUNE 26, 2024

Yet, statistics show that go-arounds are among the riskiest maneuvers in general aviation. A bad approach results in a bad landing. A go-around is a maneuver performed to abort or reject a landing on the final approach or once the aircraft has already touched down. In other words, it is an unstabilized approach.

Wind Shear

Jetwhine

FEBRUARY 21, 2025

Using HD cameras, controllers can zoom in on any given point within the cameras range, say an aircraft on final approach. What Happened at Leesburg Back in 2015, Saab approached the town of Leesburg in search of a US test site for their then-new Remote Tower technology.

Air Traffic Control

Photographic Logbook

AUGUST 3, 2024

While the whole thing did not quite go as planned because long general aviation cross country flights rarely do, it was a wonderful trip and a great opportunity to share some of the beauty of my home state with friends from the East who really had no idea what to expect. This lesson was rapidly approaching for Alyssa.

Airplanes

Plane and Pilot

NOVEMBER 13, 2024

said the company is the world’s largest privately owned aircraft manufacturer and was the number 1 seller of single-engine piston planes in the first quarter of 2024, according to the General Aviation Manufacturing Association (GAMA) figures. Clearing the final approach path, we extended full flaps and stabilized at 70 knots.

Knot