Ron Amundson on March 18th, 2011

The overall goal of a flight review is safety. Most assuredly such was in the minds of the legislators when 61.56 was written. The thing is, if one just looks to the regs, things dont work out too well, and in some cases, they can be counterproductive. Safe operations are not guaranteed by the minimum [...]

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Ron Amundson on February 15th, 2011

Shallow fog is defined by the AMS as the following. “In weather-observing terminology, low-lying fog that does not obstruct horizontal visibility at a level 2 m (6 ft) or more above the surface of the earth. This is, almost invariably, a form of radiation fog.” It is encoded in a METAR via the symbols MIFG. [...]

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Ron Amundson on August 13th, 2010

I came across the following article where the NTSB and FAA are at odds over the regs which provide for children under 2 years old to fly on their parents lap. It was interesting to note the comments… pretty much the same old, same old, parents arguing that they didn’t want to pay, and business [...]

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Ron Amundson on June 17th, 2009

My FIRC this time around has a section on tail stalls, and being the information is somewhat rare, I thought it appropriate to cover here. Bare in mind, this is generic information for airplanes under 12,500 lbs, the actual flight manual or pilots operating handbook, if updated is always the best source. Tailplane Stall Detection: [...]

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Ron Amundson on May 19th, 2009

Its in the airlines best interest to make money…. and as long as the probability of an accident has not changed appreciably from quarter to quarter, they will continue to reduce costs. Note, the key word appreciably… a 0.1% reduction in safety every quarter does build over time, even if its not noticeable on a [...]

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Ron Amundson on December 28th, 2005

If I look back to the day I got my private pilots certificate over 20 years ago, I don’t think I was ever as technically proficient. Sure, I couldn’t do the commercial manuevers, or shoot an ILS to ATP standards, but my precision, and finesse in take offs and landings was never better. It was [...]

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