FAM trips – Bring them back!

February 18, 2011

Many years ago when I first started with the FAA, one of the benefits that I had heard from the older Controllers was the legendary FAM Trip. For those of you not familiar with the term, this FAA program allowed Controllers to ride in the cockpit jump seat on airliners. The program was conceived as [...]

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Photo Pilot Certificate Proposal

February 8, 2011

A lot of pilots I talked to recently seem excited to hear that they will soon get a pilot certificate that has their picture on it. I am sorry to hear this as getting a new pilot certificate with my picture on it is somewhere around the last thing I need. My certificate already has [...]

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Aviation Check List

January 4, 2011

GUMPS is not enough! Yesterday, I read about another general aviation inadvertent gear up landing. I wonder if the pilot used a written check list for landing? While doing flight tests or training in complex aircraft, I often see the pilot use the printed check list religiously for pre flight, starting and run up. Then [...]

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Should I Have Said Something?

December 14, 2010

World English Dictionary hindsight— noun “The ability to understand, after something has happened, what should have been done or what caused the event” Hindsight is great. 20-20 hindsight is even better. Have you ever had the feeling that you should have said something in a situation – any situation – and didn’t? Do we, as [...]

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Wind Sense

November 29, 2010

Brian Riis recently wrote about situational awareness and provided many good suggestions. One of the items he mentioned was to be “wind aware”. I would like to offer some additional ideas to improve one’s wind awareness. I often fly with pilots who seem oblivious to the wind until it starts to give them a problem.  [...]

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