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My old man was a career fighter pilot, and he cautioned me about falling too far down the "checklist mentality" rabbit hole. Not that he (or I) thought checklists were bad - they're great and essential when used properly. But if you don't pay attention to what's really important (in addition...

I’ve just landed on one of the outer San Juans this evening, about 6-8 miles from the accident site. About half the surface right now is glassy-there’s regions of non glassy too. (Not a seaplane guy though). Who knows if that mattered. Impromptu aerobatics can be bad news, even for...

Well said by all above - I've nothing really to contribute, but this is the internet, so I'm typing away..... Some time back, I did the first flight on a beautiful Rans S-7 that a tailwheel student of mine had built. Good design, great build, loved everything about that airplane, except the...

Over my career in aerospace, I got to see a bit of the "old Boeing" and the "new Boeing", and even a bit of "old v new Boeing". I was mostly on the Defense side, but there was a story folks liked to tell (even though it wasn't quite right) about the 777, which was arguably the last product of...

Kinda agree here. Sorta. When students ask my opinion of what kind of flying should they look at going forward, if they really want to improve their skills, I tell them that they should: 1) Get an instrument rating, and use it enough to get proficient. 2) Learn aerobatics, and figure out how to...

Tools has it right there. I'm kinda surprised by this discussion. At intermediate speeds in the ground roll, adverse yaw from the ailerons is often more powerful in yaw control than the rudder alone (but a steerable tailwheel or nosewheel is more powerful than the rudder too.) Huh. --Tony

One of my Dad's Air Force buddies was a friend of Jimmy Buffett's. My Dad's buddy had been a USAF seaplane pilot (not many of those), and then in later years was flying Beavers, Otters and Twotters out of Manhattan, as a side/retirement gig. One day Jimmy Buffett asked if he could pick up a...

An additional thing to consider: After your students get their tickets, will you rent your airplane to them? Most will likely want to keep flying your airplane for proficiency, and because they're familiar with it. In a similar circumstance, I found that renting to rated pilots chewed up the...

Meh. I've always thought the "Seattle/Boeing Good, St Louis/MD Bad" story line was oversimplified. Phil Condit, the guy whose decisions started this sad story, was an old-head Seattle Boeing guy, and, in my view (I'm a Seattle guy) should get about 90% of the blame for Boeing's current state...

"I will not lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate those that do". Simple words, makes the decision clear. That does NOT mean the decision is easy.

Doug!

Ryan field is awesome! About 15-20 years ago, before he'd donated the field, I contacted Ben Ryan and got permission to fly in (also from the Seattle area). An old friend of mine had, late in life, gotten back together with his high-school sweetheart and they were getting married on the shores...

Swam away is more like it! I know the pilot - he's a great guy. CFI, tons of hours, ATP, IIRC. But even more important, one of the good guys. Glad he's fine. --Tony

Lots of opinions on this, but here's mine: This isn't on the FCC at all, it's on the FAA and RTCA. They're the ones that didn't do their jobs. Here's the background: Back in the 60's, the FAA and RTCA issued the TSO and supporting DOs for Radar Altimeters. The FCC had allocated a frequency...

+100! There's one thing (and only one that I know of) on the checklist where if you screw it up, you're guaranteed to crash: put the gear handle down. As you said - you can screw up just about everything else most of the time. Checklist, plus the critical item check is ideal. --Tony PS - I...

Doh! That's absolutely right, but the reduction in bending moment comes after the return to unaccelerated/steady state flight. All the hoppers that I'm aware of are in the fuselage, so @Matthew Johnson is right about the immediate response (short of the trim change you mention). That trim...

My take: you're both right (at least when the dumped load is in the fuselage). Background: I've got an ag endorsement, but I'm also a credentialed rocket scientist (Ph.D. Astrophysics) and engineer (Aero and Electrical both) - which means I know almost nothing about a lot of poop. Or maybe a...

Thanks, good info there. From just skimming it, the original specs laid out in the TSO didn't call for rejection of strong signals within 10% of the frequency band of the radar altimeters, which is right where folks want to put some 5G. Filters could help, but you'd be messing with...

220MHz is HUGE. As you infer, there's no excuse for a new design to suffer interference from a signal that far away in frequency space. But those signals were not there when these RAs were designed. Filtering probably won't address the entire issue - it would depend on the radar altimeter's...

My old man was a USAF fighter pilot, long career (F-100's, F-111's, F-4's, F-16's), but never flew the F-104. But several of his buddies did. Us kids were always asking questions, anxious for stories. One of my dad's friends was over once, and we were asking him about flying them. I...