I Learned About Flying From That

Flying is unforgiving, soaring even less so. Hear how glider pilot Bob Katz turned a loss of lift out of range of his airport into a picture perfect off airfield landing on a golf course after his Plan A and Plan B didn't work out. But good outcomes of unplanned situations don't happen by chance, every flight is an opportunity to rehearse a "what if" scenario.

A low time instrument pilot launches into IMC with a gradually failing vacuum pump and learns a lesson about proficiency and instrument cross-checking. The wisdom to invite another pilot along as a second set of eyes in the cockpit likely changed the outcome of this lesson.

British pilot Mark Brooke has flown many different airplanes, from light singles and 727s for DHL to the Dassault Falcon 7X and even a Bucker Jungmeister. Hear how he handled a maintenance faux pas in a Beech Baron and his own faux pas on a downwind landing in a Tiger Moth.

Turbulence and windshear drove CFII Anna Serbinenko and her students to attempt a difficult diversion. Then, a search and rescue crew runs into trouble when they decide to push for their home airport following a hydraulic failure.

With a failing engine and unforgiving terrain all around, flight instructor Mark Henshall had a decision to make about whether or not to turn back to the runway. Also, picking up a mayday from a fellow pilot comes to a difficult end only to be followed by a surprising revelation.

Finding the right teacher can be complicated, but when a flight instructor falls asleep on a student’s first-ever lesson it raises red flags. Also, low visibility and a failure to communicate lead to a head-to-head close call in the pattern.

A pilot faces an instrument failure in the clouds and recalls how a decision to head home in the dark—despite having never flown at night—led to a harrowing experience in the pattern.

Experienced pilot Al Hewitt was proficient, current, and ready to go for a short IFR trip he’d made many times before, but when he broke out of the clouds on a familiar approach nothing was as expected.

Wanting to build flight time and under pressure from another pilot, a young aviator decided to take a jump plane up for one last flight in spite of dangerously low fuel indications and the approaching sunset.

During a night proficiency flight, a pilot was practicing partial panel IFR when he had an emergency he did not expect.

Pilot Victor Vogel was left with only a flashlight and a pencil following a total electrical system failure in his Beech Sierra—and he was headed straight for the nation's capital region.

Pilot Scott Tomlinson hopped into his RV-6, ready to take his girlfriend on a flying date to Ocracoke Island. But a skipped part of the preflight just about ruined their day together.

An Air Force Warthog pilot suffered an engine failure during a training mission, but was his course of action the right one?

Pilot Charles Turner witnessed an accident and tried to save one of the occupants. It took him 20 years to share the story, and where it led him.

Sometimes we conduct a careful preflight, and we still don’t find everything that might go wrong under the cowl. This Bonanza pilot discovered fuel all over the engine—after returning to the airport.

A pilot practicing aerobatics nearly lost a critical part of the airframe of his project Pitts S-1, a problem that couldn't be found during preflight.

Instructor Josh Harnagel acquired a Beech B36TC Bonanza and was flying on a work trip when the turbocharger failed, leading to an off-airport landing.

Pilot and instructor Doug Rozendaal recounts stories of flying the Douglas DC-3, Beech 18, and Cessna 402 across the upper Midwest for a freight operation—and key lessons on avoiding or mitigating icing encounters..

An expert pilot in the airshow and movie business recalls a shoot in Hawaii when a trio of cables appeared where they had not been before, and almost killed him.

A former flight test pilot for the U.S. Navy had two encounters with icing--in a Piper Seneca and in an Aero Commander--that he'll never forget.

A former Air Force pilot was taught to always follow the procedures—but a foray into weather almost cost him his life as a student.

Helping a cousin get to college orientation turned exciting for pilot Ford von Weise, and the ensuing emergency caused a VIP aircraft to break off its approach.

Pilot Tom Hill heard a loud bang and saw something fly off of the front end of his 1974 Cessna 210, and the closest runway was at one of the busiest airports in the U.S.

Pilot Ryan Worley suffered an electrical system problem in the Cessna 172 he was flying, exacerbated by the fact the ammeter wasn't working to clue him into the issue.

After the photo mission was done, the wake turbulence generated by a PT-19 trainer was enough to upset a Cessna 170, as pilot and photographer Leonardo Correa Luna found out.