Backcountry Pilot

Situational awareness in the clouds with modern equipment is so simple that a computer can do it. Situational awareness VFR at altitude is easy to handle with integrated contact and instrument awareness....

Mush control should not be an instrument maneuver. There are engine sounds and relative wind sounds and stick/yoke pressure and kinetic feel of lift/sink that must be learned for safety of flight. Is...

We desire, for safety of flight, zoom reserve airspeed on takeoff. Here we want to accelerate well enough to fly and maneuver safely while perhaps climbing. We must decelerate enough to remove zoom reserve...

If Vy is mathematically the most up for the buck, energy wise, why does it kill more pilots than ground effect to cruise and pitch to just over the obstacle?

Wayne Handley's excellent youtube video, "Turn Smart" covers what I call the energy management turn from both the Ag low altitude perspective and the high altitude acrobatic perspective. He did not, however,...

We have a number of ways to lose control of the airplane and we are taught recovery methods for both stall and stall/spin. We fall down a bit on the prevention of stall with a general admonition to maintain...

The force is energy. If you manage all the energy out there, the force will be available to you. Manage all wind energy, not just on takeoff. We fly in rivers of air. Use headwind to increase relative...

High Altitude Orientation Low Altitude Orientation Altitude is life ...

First I am neither a mathematician nor an engineer. I speak of airplane design features as a user and not as a designer. If my terms offend, just correct me. Nearly all the controls and the overall...

I've always heard, "step on the ball," to fix adverse yaw. Over many years teaching low altitude orientation, however, I have become uncomfortable with this admonition. Of course it is correct. When...

1.3 Vso is a good out of ground effect airspeed for getting us from way out on final to somewhere around a quarter mile out, you know, where we used to be on base. 1.3 Vso on short final, however, will...

Cameras mounted behind the student and instructor that both look out the windscreen from center cockpit and also capture the pilot's and instructor's yoke and knees put us in position to clearly observe...

What does the airplane want to do in the turn? Why does it want to do this? How many videos have we seen of stall/spin at the beginning of the turn crosswind after a steep climb? How many will we...

When at full throttle and pulling back on the stick does not result in climb, try pushing forward on the stick just a bit.

I was young once and had to consider bank angle every time I turned, especially in tired 65 hp airplanes at high density altitude. I expect I would have gotten very careful about bank angle. But then...

Ground loop is center of gravity movement not in the airplane's direction of motion. It is uncontrolled yaw that rapidly gets worse until opposite rudder movement is made exactly sufficient to yaw the...

These are Wolfgang's words, with his son's permission, concerning how we should be situated to land slowly and softly on the beginning of the relatively short runways of his day. Whether doing the round...

Eight of my thirteen low level forced landings followed the possible 180 degree turn. Was it luck, crazy good pilot skills, or something else. It was something else. It was energy management, total...