10 don’ts from 1939

Published in 1939, Robert Winston’s book Dive Bomber takes us back to the exciting world of 1930’s US Navy aviation. It starts great — “Eighteen dollars an hour. That’s what they wanted for dual instruction at the flying school on Long Island. I had expected flying lessons to be expensive, but I didn’t think they were going to tear such a hole in my pay-check.” — and keeps going. He attributes this list of ten don’ts to any good flight instructor: Don’t try to take off or land down-wind. Don’t fool with the weather. Don’t accept a ’plane for flight … Continue reading 10 don’ts from 1939

Nerves of Steel book review

Remember the Southwest 737 that had an engine explode in cruise and a passenger die? The incident was much worse than we might have first guessed, much worse than a simple engine failure at altitude in the simulator. And turns out the captain has a wild backstory more interesting than most airline pilots. This new autobiography has all the details, and it’s a surprisingly great aviation read. When Tammie Jo Shults was growing up, girls didn’t become pilots. The inside story of what it was really like to be a woman in US military flight training during the ’80s is … Continue reading Nerves of Steel book review

Academic Airmanship Paper

This week I read an interesting research article on airmanship in standardized airline cockpits. The lead author is Torgeir Haavik, a professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology with an engineering background in oil drilling, who more recently earned a PhD in the sociology of risk and safety. The paper is wildly — for an academic journal — titled: ‘Johnny was here: From airmanship to airlineship’. It was published by Applied Ergonomics journal in 2016. So: Who’s Johnny? What’s airlineship? And can pilots learn anything useful from the journal Applied Ergonomics? Read on, all will be revealed! “Airmanship belongs to a … Continue reading Academic Airmanship Paper

1 in 5 biz jet pilots are stupid?

Ripped from the aviation press headlines: One in five business jet pilots don’t do a full flight-control check before takeoff. Actually one in five is a bit of an exaggeration. The would be 20%. The more precise number is 17.66%. And that’s actually a per-flight percentage, so maybe the percentage of pilots is a little less. But WTF Batman! 17.66%? You may have read about the fatal 2014 Gulfstream G-IV crash caused by the crew not doing a flight-control check and then trying to takeoff with the gust lock engaged. Well, now the airmanship onion has been peeled back a … Continue reading 1 in 5 biz jet pilots are stupid?