A healthy energy boost for pilots

Meg Godlewski | Airshows & Fly-Ins, Products | May 21, 2012

It takes a lot of energy to cover an airshow or a fly-in. Over the years I have experimented with different ways to boost my energy levels. These methods include physically training for a show (running several miles a day or climbing stairs with a 20-pound pack on my back) and during the show ingesting lots of caffeine in the form of coffee, soda, and the dreaded energy drinks. At the Sebring Sport Aviation Expo in Sebring, Florida, earlier this year, an acquaintance who knows of my caffeine habit suggested that I give a new product, Pilot Chews, a try.

“I took them and within minutes the mental fog lifted — and they taste good,” he said in wonder, leading me over to the exhibitor who was offering free samples.

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From survivor to student pilot

Ben Sclair | Flight Training, People | May 17, 2012

Jennifer Julian, 54, is a double lung transplant survivor. Scratch survivor. She’s a “thriver.” And today, she is a student pilot.

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FBO reaches out to VIPs

Janice Wood | FBO | May 15, 2012

Bill Moltenbrey of Business Jet Center (BJC) at Dallas Love Field has added one more job to his growing list of duties — cleaning up after the FBO’s four-legged customers.

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A gift to remember

Jamie Beckett | General Aviation News | May 14, 2012

Jim Torphy has celebrated quite a few birthdays over the course of his life. At 90 years old, his personal anniversary has become somewhat more impressive though, and so his birthday party last month surpassed what most of us go through each year by quite a bit.

Torphy is a pilot. In fact, he’s a pilot’s pilot. He’s an airplane kind of guy, who loves gliders, too. He’s flown with wheels on the end of his gear, but is equally comfortable putting a set of floats down on the water. He’s the kind of man who is right at home in a Piper Cub, yet holds himself and his students to the highest standards.

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Cancer diagnosis leads pilot to pen memoir

Janice Wood | Books, Products | May 9, 2012

Angela McCartney Miro and her brother James F. McCartney recently teamed up to write a memoir on his aviation career in “Jim McCartney: My Life in Flight.” After being diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer, McCartney said he wanted to record his experiences in the air to pay tribute to his friends in aviation.

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Making safer general aviation pilots

Meg Godlewski | General Aviation News | May 6, 2012

Many years ago when I took my Commercial checkride, the Designated Pilot Examiner told me that a pilot’s commitment to safety ebbs and flows. We are at our safest right after a checkride. As we gain experience, our vigilance can diminish, replaced by a new-found confidence that can lead to complacency.

Over the years efforts to keep pilots at that just-back-from-the-checkride level of safety has led to the creation of FAA-sponsored safety programs. The most recent incarnation is the FAASTeam, the name derived from FAASafety Team.

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Charmed lives are chosen

Ben Sclair | Touch & Go | April 30, 2012

Our choices can lead us to amazing destinations…or nowhere.

“This kind of flying,” was Bill Langdon’s answer to my asking, “What kind of flying do you mostly do?”

We’d just lifted off from the back country mountain strip at the Minam River Lodge en route to nearby Joseph, Oregon, with a load of trash. [You can read about the Minam Airlift here.]

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Winners and losers

Jamie Beckett | Politics for Pilots | April 24, 2012

Regardless of what kind of business you are in, there is one common component that has massive influence on whether you experience economic success or disaster. That component is known as the customer. Yep, customers are the magic elixir of business, regardless of whether you’re selling toothpaste, muscle cars, or flight lessons. In the end it’s all about the customer.

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Looking for Clint Eastwood

Deb McFarland | Short Final | April 19, 2012

Folks haven’t seen us around the airport much for the past few weeks. An early and long spring has put the Old Man into a planting and building fervor. You name the vegetable and it’s probably planted in our garden. It’s really nice to have fresh produce, but many of the vegetables he planted in large quantities will be ready for harvest around mid-July. I hope he retains some of this enthusiasm when the temperatures are 90 squared (90°F and 90% humidity).

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SAFE in space

Janice Wood | Flight Training, General Aviation News | April 17, 2012

The Society of Aviation and Flight Educators (SAFE) recently entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Orbital Commerce Project (OCP) “to promote safety in the Commercial Human Spaceflight industry through excellence in training and education.”

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