I Learned About Flying From That – Details, episodes & analysis

After an annual inspection, condition inspection, or even an oil change, the airplane needs to be flown to make sure it’s operating at 100%. And if you’re the owner, you’ve got to do that flying. One pilot did a simple check after factory maintenance, but on his way home, he got a surprise: smoke in the cockpit.  

This week is an amazing tale of a pilot doing something most would never want to do: ferry an airplane across an ocean. Meet the pilot, who in an unfamiliar plane, was forced to put it down in the Pacific and hear what he learned from the experience. 

With a failing engine and unforgiving terrain all around, flight instructor Mark Henshall had a decision to make about whether or not to turn back to the runway. Also, picking up a mayday from a fellow pilot comes to a difficult end only to be followed by a surprising revelation.

Finding the right teacher can be complicated, but when a flight instructor falls asleep on a student’s first-ever lesson it raises red flags. Also, low visibility and a failure to communicate lead to a head-to-head close call in the pattern.

A pilot faces an instrument failure in the clouds and recalls how a decision to head home in the dark—despite having never flown at night—led to a harrowing experience in the pattern.

Experienced pilot Al Hewitt was proficient, current, and ready to go for a short IFR trip he’d made many times before, but when he broke out of the clouds on a familiar approach nothing was as expected.

Wanting to build flight time and under pressure from another pilot, a young aviator decided to take a jump plane up for one last flight in spite of dangerously low fuel indications and the approaching sunset.

During a night proficiency flight, a pilot was practicing partial panel IFR when he had an emergency he did not expect.

Pilot Victor Vogel was left with only a flashlight and a pencil following a total electrical system failure in his Beech Sierra—and he was headed straight for the nation's capital region.

Pilot Scott Tomlinson hopped into his RV-6, ready to take his girlfriend on a flying date to Ocracoke Island. But a skipped part of the preflight just about ruined their day together.