Wishful Thinking, Darragh Owens
Confirmation bias is insidious and dangerous – and we all suffer from it. The detail was a long cross-country navigation exercise. My student Neil had planned a triangular VFR flight of some 200nm, landing at two distant airports, then back to home base. At the end of the day he was hoping for a ‘sign-off’ in his logbook, which would permit him to make the same journey solo, thus fulfilling one of the experience requirements for...
Tayside Aviation celebrates 50 years in business
Having flown an estimated 33 million miles since its launch in 1968, the equivalent of 70 trips to the moon and back. Tayside Aviation has trained over 5,000 commercial airline pilots since its inception, as well as 6,000 RAF cadets and flown 1,500 flying scholarships, including 300 from as far away as Hong Kong. Significant milestones in Tayside’s 50 year history have included: 1975 Former Lightning and Red Arrows pilot Ted...
L3 CTS launches new European airline academy
L3 Commercial Training Solutions (L3 CTS) has announced the introduction of its new European Academy into the company’s cadet pilot training offering. The L3 European Airline Academy facility, based at Ponte de Sor Airport, Portugal, has the capacity to provide training for up to 500 cadets a year. The new European Academy has been established following L3’s acquisition of the G Air Training Centre in October 2017. This location will...
2018 Cotswold Airport Aviation Scholarship opens for applications
The popular ‘Cotswold Airport Aviation Scholarship’, which launched back in 2007, has opened for 2018 applications, with a closing date on Friday 30th March. Twenty successful applicants will be invited to the interview stage of the application process on Saturday 21st April. Following the interviews, the 10 final scholars will be selected for the programme, which runs from Monday 6th to Friday 17th August (weekdays only). This unique...
Kick the Tires… James McBride
Before the flight of every aircraft there is a procedure carried out by the crew. In commercial aviation it is commonly referred to as ‘the walk round’. The function is to act as a final visual inspection of the airframe and engines prior to flight; there will be no further opportunity to inspect the ship. Given the importance of such a task, it is worrying that some pilots appear to treat it so casually. Of course those pilots are...
