Low and Slow - Asiana Airlines Flight 214

This is one of the first and most important things you learn in flight training when learning to land - don't get low and slow!

Asiana Airlines Flight 214 was a scheduled transpacific passenger flight from Incheon, South Korea, that crashed on final approach to San Francisco International Airport in the United States on July 6, 2013. Of the 307 people aboard the Boeing 777, two passengers died at the crash scene (one from being run over by an airport crash tender), and a third died in a hospital several days later. One hundred and eighty-one others were injured, 12 of them critically. Among the injured were three flight attendants who were thrown onto the runway while still strapped in their seats when the tail section broke off after striking the seawall short of the runway.
Neither the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) nor the South Korean Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board has issued a preliminary report; both have held multiple press briefings to provide facts.
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Video:  Animated reconstruction of Asiana Flight 214
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10179596/Animated-reconstruction-of-Asiana-flight-214-crash-at-San-Francisco-Airport.html

Be sure to view this:
New Runway Approach Lights at SFO

Amelia Earhart namesake to re-create famed pilot's final flight

Amelia Rose Earhart, a namesake and distant relative of the famed aviator plans to re-create Earhart's attempted flight around the world next summer.

Earhart, an anchor for KUSA-TV in Denver, made the announcement Wednesday at an experimental aircraft show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, the station reported.

"One year from now I will be completing, symbolically completing, and recreating Amelia Earhart's historic flight around the world. It's a dream that I've had since I was about 18 years old," Earhart said.

Mystery has surrounded Amelia Earhart's fate since her plane went missing in 1937 in the South Pacific during her quest to become the first woman to fly around the world.

Earhart told KUSA-TV she plans to retrace her distant relative's exact flight path in a Pilatus PC-12 NG, a single-engine turbine aircraft.  Read more...

Nadezhda Popova, WWII ‘Night Witch,’ Dies at 91

The Nazis called them “Night Witches” because the whooshing noise their plywood and canvas airplanes made reminded the Germans of the sound of a witch’s broomstick.

The Russian women who piloted those planes, onetime crop dusters, took it as a compliment. In 30,000 missions over four years, they dumped 23,000 tons of bombs on the German invaders, ultimately helping to chase them back to Berlin. Any German pilot who downed a “witch” was awarded an Iron Cross.

These young heroines, all volunteers and most in their teens and early 20s, became legends of World War II but are now largely forgotten. Flying only in the dark, they had no parachutes, guns, radios or radar, only maps and compasses. If hit by tracer bullets, their planes would burn like sheets of paper. Read more...

Landing on the Nose Wheel

Lift that nose up and flare!!!

NTSB Investigating 737 Nose-Gear Failure


The nose landing gear collapsed as a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-700 was landing at New York's LaGuardia Airport at 5:45 p.m. on Monday. The gear failed rearward and upward, the NTSB said on Tuesday afternoon, damaging the electronics bay. The exterior fuselage also was damaged from sliding 2,175 feet on its nose along Runway 4 before coming to rest off the right side of the runway. All 150 on board evacuated the airplane. Three passengers and five crew were taken to local hospitals, where they were treated and released, according to Southwest. The runway was closed for over an hour.  Read more and watch the video...

Fuel: The Money You Save And The Price We'll Pay?

I thought this was an interesting article considering we all want general aviation to not only survive, but thrive.

April 18, 2013

by Glenn Pew

Contributing Editor, Video Editor

Tecnam USA CEO Phil Solomon thinks he sees the beginnings of a problem for general aviation, and we may all be a part of it.
Solomon believes he's watching a transformation take place in aviation. It's starting at the grass roots level and extending all the way to the FAA. And each level plays off the other for an overall negative effect. As Solomon describes it, this transformation begins with the desire for lower fuel costs but ends as a long term detrimental impact on general aviation. After hearing his concerns and experiences we went out in the world to learn if, or how, other people were affected. This is what we found.

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Exclusive: Lion Air crash pilot felt jet "dragged" from sky

Recently in the Bay Area we have experienced continued extreme windy conditions accompanied by major turbulence with SFO regularly reporting winds up to 45-50 kts.  Many of the smaller airports such as SQL, PAO, and HWD have reported winds as high as 28 gusting 38 kts. 

A few days ago around 2 pm a student and I were going out for some traffic pattern work at PAO.  The winds were manageagle but then started picking up dramatically as we taxied out.  By the time we took off the winds were 18 gusting to 22-25 kts about 30 degrees off the runway heading.  So I said to my student that the first one would be a test and we would make a decision wether to continue after that.

Sure enough it was quite turbulent, and then on final the preceding aircraft reported -15 kts of windshear.  Well that made the decision...and we terminated the flight.  ATC is required to announce the pilot report of windshear and then record it on the subsequent ATIS. When I flew for the airlines, any detection of windshear was an automatic go-around.

Exclusive: Lion Air crash pilot felt jet "dragged" from sky

By Tim Hepher and Trisha Sertori

PARIS/DENPASAR, Indonesia (Reuters) - The pilot whose Indonesian jet slumped into the sea while trying to land in Bali has described how he felt it "dragged" down by wind while he struggled to regain control, a person familiar with the matter said.

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All 108 passengers and crew miraculously survived when the Boeing 737 passenger jet, operated by Indonesian budget carrier Lion Air, undershot the tourist island's main airport runway and belly-flopped in water on Saturday.

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Life in a World Without Towers

by Paul Bertorelli
Editorial Director
March 28, 2013

So now that all the towers are closed, what are we to do? Will chaos reign? Have the dogs of doom been loosed? Not quite, but depending on where you fly, there could be some challenges ahead that will be unnerving. And just to put some numbers on it, the FAA-announced closures will shutter 149 of 516 control towers in the U.S. or 29 percent. It's not a trivial number so irrespective of safety or risk, many of us will have to adapt to operational changes.


On the other hand, for pilots already operating out of non-towered airports and who don't fly IFR much, if it all, it will be business as usual. It probably will not be business as usual for IFR operations, however. The control facilities which handle these—Centers and TRACONs—will be impacted by furloughed staff and controllers tell us service will inevitably suffer, we just don't know how much. One way to look at the tower closures is to consider VFR operations first, then IFR ops.  Read more...