Ice Ain’t Nice

Ice Ain’t Nice

I consider ice accumulation equivalent to an aircraft being on fire. You have to take immediate action or the consequences will be disastrous. Some pilots rely on the belief that there will be plenty of forewarning before things get serious. Perhaps, but it depends on...
Gearing Up for Trouble

Gearing Up for Trouble

One of my early claims involved a pilot who was flying his recently purchased Beech Bonanza and could not get the landing gear to extend. He conscientiously tried everything he could think of to extend the gear, but finally resigned himself to the fact that he was...

Enlightenment

Last week while flying back to the Bay Area, the topic for this article came to me in a flash. Well, actually several flashes. Over on the west side of the San Francisco peninsula nature was putting on one of its most dazzling shows. Brilliant bolts of lightning arced...

Don’t Go There

It was a beautiful summer’s day as the pilot and his family were flying back in the late afternoon after visiting friends in Sacramento. Over Concord the pilot could see that the marine cloud layer was blanketing the Bay Area with the coastal stratus just...