Aviation Blog

Photo courtesy of the NTSB In 2018 a Falcon 50 super mid-size jet ran off the end of the runway at Greenville Downtown Airport, South Carolina. Both pilots were unfortunately killed, and the two charter passengers were seriously injured. As the National Transportation Safety Board investigated the charter company and pilot records, they discovered serious discrepancies in the operation of the aircraft. The acting Pilot in Command was only rated to act as a copilot in the Falcon 50, and the copilot was not rated at all to be operating a jet aircraft on any flight, let alone an instrument flight rules for-hire flight. Additionally, the aircraft was found to have a multitude of maintenance issues after a prolonged stay in storage. According to the charter company's Director of Maintenance, the repairs and renovations to restore the aircraft to service were only about 60% complete. So an aircraft was provided for the trip which was not airworthy, and flown by an aircrew which...

Why Fly Private?  It's a big decision time for your company. How do you manage a tight schedule, meetings throughout the region, and still find time for home and family? It seems like every day is another airline flight subject to cancellations, increasingly invasive security procedures, and certainly the risk of illness in such a confined area. Then, following the flight another hour on the road to and from an important meeting, a stay in the hotel, then repeat the next day. Is there a better way? How can a small business create more time in the day, or make each day more productive?  Corporate aviation offers access to nearly 4,500 airports in the United States alone that aren't presently served by airlines. Rather than arriving at the airport two hours early to deal with security and delays and spending hours on each end driving to and from your airline hub of choice (don't forget that connection in Atlanta) your business can arrive and depart from airports with...

When pilots talk about weather, thunderstorms are usually one of the greatest risks mentioned, and for good reason. Between turbulence, hail, microbursts, and tornadoes, thunderstorms are full of hazards. However, one often overlooked hazard which has contributed to more accidents in recent memory is the threat of aircraft icing. Icing can be difficult to predict, and in severe instances can form without warning and overwhelm an aircraft's anti-ice capability. A quick glance through AOPA's Air Safety Institute shows a handful of excellent videos discussing icing accidents involving a de-ice equipped Cirrus, a "Flight Into Known Icing" equipped TBM700, and many others. Icing can occur anywhere... we picked up ice on this descent into Iraq! Aircraft icing is formed when an aircraft flies through water droplets at below freezing ambient temperatures. On contact with the aircraft, these supercooled droplets turn to ice, disrupting airflow over the wings, forming over...

The Differences between US and Overseas Air Traffic Control Combat King Air after an 8 hour flight from the Aleutian Islands to Misawa AB, Japan In this week's blog I'll discuss some of the differences pilots can encounter between domestic United States flying and trips to other parts of the world, specifically based on my experience flying across the Pacific, in Mexico, Quebec, and the Middle East. While English is the international language of air traffic control, for many controllers outside the US it's a second language and likely to not be the only language heard. In Montreal for instance, it's common to hear a controller rapidly switching between French to one airplane and English to the next. I'll dive a bit deeper into what makes international flying a unique and interesting challenge.  Puebla's Air Traffic Control Tower In the United States we're very spoiled with GPS approaches and nearly constant radar coverage. Gone are the day...

(Private and military aircraft at Centennial Airport) As the world turns more and more towards aviation as an effective, efficient means of transportation for business and pleasure travel, the number one environmental impact continues to be aircraft noise (Visser & Wijnin, 2008). As people fly in record numbers both commercially and privately, more and more complaints are received every year regarding the noise from "low-flying" aircraft. The Denver area is a perfect example:  Denver International, the 20th-busiest airport in the world and 5th busiest in the US (Fly Denver, 2020) Centennial, the 3rd-busiest corporate airport in the country (O'Neil, 2020) Rocky Mountain Metro Airport  General and Business Aviation alone contribute more $2.4 BILLION dollars to Colorado's economy (CABA, n.d.). In addition to the three noted above, numerous city and county airports exist throughout Colorado to encourage local business, medical evacuation, flight tra...

As the country reels from the COVID-19 Pandemic the effects continue to create havoc on an economy which was pounding forward on all cylinders just a few months ago. Perhaps nowhere has the economic damage been felt more than the aviation industry. United Airlines management gave a startlingly honest review of the situation in a letter to employees, describing a 97% decrease in passengers for the first two weeks of April compared to the same period in 2019. United expects a 90% drop in passenger count this May compared to May of last (United, 2020).  (Dozens of United Aircraft sit parked at Denver International as demand plummets) In response to the turmoil of the commercial and corporate business aviation world, Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act in late March, almost unanimously (NBAA, 2020). The CARES Act provides unprecedented support to airlines and business aircraft operators to help pay employees through grants and loans, as ...