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I think you mean to say to avoid flight up to 8000' cabin altitude. Even a nice ride in a 787 with a lower cabin altitude or a drive over a 1200' pass would be a no-no for 12-24 hours. I always go conservative with 24 hours and 36ish if I've been on a dive boat for a week and I can feel my...

My parents ran an orphanage in Tegucigalpa (the capital) for a few years. Frankly, it's a bit scary. I'd never heard machine gun fire for real until I went there. Every gas station and store has a guy with a really big gun standing out front. They had a guy with a machete stand outside their...

Absolutely, buy the Li disposables. Ignore the cost, ignore the amount of life. The only thing you care about is shelf life in a cold environment. I've had a cell phone just about die on me before I got a helicopter in to get my poor broken body off a frozen waterfall. It's stressful. You...

I have to try that!

I second that. I"ve never used them for a full final, but we certainly intentionally came in high a few times and then used full spoilers and maximum slip right to the flare. Tons of fun! It's very intimidating the first time you try it to be coming down that fast and that sideways. The 2-33...

I haven't really flown in a couple of years. Just got some dual to shake off the rust and am now flying a Katana out of Victoria, BC (CYYJ). Last landing on my first solo flight in almost two years was pretty interesting. The controller had two Cessna 172s lined up on the runway. One had...

One of the guys I work with at Viking Air was on the Gimli Glider! I just talked to him about it today. He was actually working for Air Canada as a mechanic at the time and was riding back home from a job on the Gimli Glider when it suddenly got very, very quiet. He said the most amazing...

I've had an unintentional spin while solo in a glider and I certainly credit recent training (the day before in a similar aircraft) to a fast, automatic recovery. I didn't even think about it. I also lost very little altitude which didn't really matter at 3000' agl, but was nice to know. I...

Last time I spun was with a CFI in a DA20-A1. With the two of us it spun great. I've spun a C152 and a couple different kinds of glider, and the DA20 had a really nice snappy entry, throwing me around a bit. Tons of fun.

That is, of course, an excellent suggestion. This type of failure wouldn't prevent a safe go-around from a reasonably open area. If I'm on final into a tight spot (between a hanar and a row of trees or something), then it's conceivable that getting bumped by a large gust would have me suddenly...

You're certainly correct that the key here is the power of the static stability of the aircraft versus the power of gusty wind/thermals to upset the aircraft. I submit that I believe the latter is much more powerful than the former as evidenced by the fact that I have to use my ailerons a lot...

Can you explain how this would work in terms of the physics of the airflow over the wing? You pick up a wing by yawing the aircraft so that the air flows faster over one wing than the other, increasing lift on that wing. If I give the rudder a good kick, the wing picks up because I'm yawing...

I guess I think that there's a bit more to it than just not being able to turn quickly. For argument's sake, let's say there's not much wind but there's a parking lot just off the approach end of the runway and it's really sunny out. You've managed to keep her lined up with the runway all the...

A delay in recieving a photo won't make the photo wrong, if you want to take the analogy of the eye as a camera passing photos up to the brain. The brain is getting (slightly) old news. As others have said, the much bigger issue is that the brain takes in a huge amount of visual data then...

I'm leaning strongly towards bucking the trend here and saying pop the chute. There may be conditions when I could get in fine (virtually no wind and no direct sun), but I don't have the confidence all you folks seem to have. Why would I risk my life to save an aircraft? In typical conditions...

Any chance the person asking was out of date and they renamed the runways recently? Not sure how often this is actually done, but due to drift of the magnetic north pole, the runway names become inaccurate over time.

Ack! Thru is official? Cripes! That really sticks in my craw. Heck, check for cheque drives me nuts too, but it's not your fault that Americans can't spell.

I don't recognize my new one.

That was freaking awesome!

I know a guy who made a whole new wing leading edge out of beer cans for a Twin Otter after having his engine blown apart by a surface to air missile in Angola (he was flying landmine victims for the Red Cross). Cool part is, he flew 100 nm on one engine to friendly territory after taking the...