Bill Crawford’s Flightlab Blog

When Flying magazine arrives each month, I turn to Peter Garrison’s column, “Technicalities,” first. If you like the wonky part of aviation—lift-over-drag ratios, laminar bubbles, and maybe the area rule if you need to go fast—Garrison is dependably interesting and informed. And he’s a wry fellow. I’m such a groupie that I actually rip “Technicalities” out each month and stash it for future reference in a file marked “Garrison.” My theory is that after reading the rest of the issue I can then safely toss the magazine and get on with life. I’ll bet psychologists have a name for this behavior, however, because the entire process, from evisceration upon arrival until a magazine’s belated farewell into the dumpster, still takes around five years. Magazines about flying are just inordinately hard to dispose of, violated or not, don’t you think? Read the rest of this entry »

There was a time—most of human history, actually—when people did not regard safety as a formal, conscientious practice, maybe because they didn’t think it would do much good. Not so long ago, most sober folk thought that tragic accidents were a form of judgment, an indication that God was getting annoyed. The Pilgrim Fathers—fairly sober founders of my home base, Plymouth Airport—believed that if you fell off the Mayflower the hand of the Almighty probably gave the shove. Spiritual intervention has supplied a convenient explanation down the ages, and I’ve come to suspect that the Evil One is indeed the reason my hangar door still leaks. But such arguments are not yet accepted by the National Transportation Safety Board, which so far has resisted any pressure to include “God’s wrath” among the contributing factors listed at the end of accident reports. The NTSB will say “slippery deck,” and leave it at that. Let’s hope the NTSB refuses to cave. Read the rest of this entry »

We usually anticipate a pilot’s ability by their hours flown, and we figure the more the time the deeper the skills. Of course, there must be a law of diminishing returns: The first one or two-thousand hours right after earning your wings are going to be full of challenges. But for a seen-it-all veteran with thousands of hours already, another thousand down the road may not produce much that’s new, other than seniority, unless the type of flying changes in a significant way. Read the rest of this entry »