AVWeb Classics

Richard Taylor continues his memoir with the final section of primary flight training: navigation, night flight, and IFR. After a short delay to avoid not one but two hurricanes in North Carolina, he graduates and is ready to go on to basic flight training in Oklahoma.

In the third chapter of his aviation memoir, Richard Taylor begins flight training in a Piper PA-18 Cub -- including being "kicked out of the nest" for his first solo before he had 10 hours of flight time -- and then moving on to the (comparatively) massive T-6 Texan.

In the second chapter of his aviation memoir, Richard Taylor and his new wife cool their heels in Ohio waiting to get called to flight training, and then quickly bounce to San Antonio for indoctrination and on to North Carolina to finally begin primary flight training.

In the first chapter of a new aviation memoir, Richard Taylor goes off to college and Air Force ROTC, gets bit with the flight bug in a Piper Cub and then during a familiarization flight in a T-33, and graduates ready to go on to flight training.

This month, AVweb begins serializing a new memoir by Richard Taylor, who learned to fly in the U.S. Air Force just after the Korean War and continued to fly for 47 years.

Weather, ice, and keeping track of all those instruments can keep you pretty busy during a routine flight, eh? Imagine staying on top of the gauges in a 1940s-era cockpit, with the boys at the front lines of World War II relying on you to deliver supplies in even the most forbidding weather. The thought crossed Rick Durden's mind recently, and he knew just who to consult - a pilot who flew under those conditions day-in, day-out. Dave Hertel joins Rick in the latest installment of "The Pilot's Lounge" to reflect on challenges that might give you a few gray hairs just to read about.

While it is fashionable in some circles to assert that society is falling apart and that if only we could return to the ways of yore, all would be well, in the world of Part 135 flying, it simply isn't true. The cowboy days of operators cutting every corner possible trying to make a buck while the FAA looked the other way killed way too many people.

Want to ace your check ride? Pay attention, stay sharp, and read Rick Durden's latest installment of "The Pilot's Lounge" to increase your chances.

Retirement? Now that the CEO is facing it, he recalls a prophetic flight with a retiring airline pilot in the jumpseat.

We demonstrate all manner of inherently unsafe behavior in airplanes to student pilots. Why not show them how to buzz?