767 cockpit preflight
Pilot Life

767 Flight Deck Preflight

Time for Work The flight crew arrives at the Boeing 767 freighter between 30 and 60 minutes prior to departure. If the pilots expect an on-time departure, they’ll be busy until pushback. This is a […]

Aircraft Systems

Aircraft Ice Detection

An encounter with inflight icing can be deadly for any aircraft. Ice detectors, installed on many transport aircraft, provide critical icing information to the flight crew and aircraft ice protection systems.

Aircraft Systems

Anatomy of a Freighter

Passenger and cargo aircraft look the same when flying over head. Most of the popular Boeing and Airbus passenger jets, like the 767, 747, A330, and A350, have cargo counterparts. From a distance, they all […]

Navigation

Flying the Grand Canyon

In June of 2021, our family flew a Piper Cherokee Six 1,300 miles from Louisville, Kentucky to Flagstaff, Arizona. The trip was amazing from the start to finish, but the highlight was a scenic flight […]

Odds & Ends

The Lindbergh Music Craze

On May 20, 1927, Charles Lindbergh made history flying his custom-built Ryan Aircraft monoplane solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Entrepreneurs quickly took advantage of the event by selling all sorts of commemorative Lindbergh and Spirit […]

Boeing Airspeed Indicator
Aircraft Systems

The Classic Boeing Airspeed Indicator

The Honeywell SI-800 Airspeed/Mach Indicator has been a standard instrument on the Boeing 737, 747, 757, and 767 for decades. Boeing stopped installing the stand-alone indicator in favor of modern, reliable flat panel displays. Airlines […]

Weather

Winds Aloft & Weather Balloons

Air masses are always on the move; changing direction and speed as they swirl around the globe. The movement of air across the earth’s surface is what we usually call wind. Wind and temperature data […]

Aircraft Systems

The Wheel & Brake Shop

Airline tires take a beating. When a tire reaches its service limit, maintenance technicians remove the entire wheel and replace it; the same for brakes. So, what happens to the old wheels, tires, and brakes? […]