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 […]
Recent Articles
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 […]
Aircraft Systems
Aspirated Total Air Temperature Probe
Large aircraft have a lot of probes for gathering data. One of my favorites on the 767 is the little guy that sits beneath the captain’s windscreen. On humid days, the aspirated total air temperature […]
Odds & Ends
2700 Miles in a Cherokee Six
A few years ago, I got the bug to fly small airplanes again. I trained for a few weeks at a local flight school, then rented a Cessna 172 to fly with my family. Renting […]
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 […]
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? […]