Stories about Flying

My new friend, Ayal Shenkman, an Israeli F-16 pilot and history buff, visited the United States a few months ago to attend AirVenture and take in the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force for the opportunity to crawl around inside a classic B-17.

He left the US for Israel realizing there was much more that created the airplane's success than just a solid airframe, engines and its Norden bombsight.

I was hired by Chicago Aerial Advertising when I was in my mid-20s to learn how to safely drag a huge airborne advertising display around Chicagoland with a tiny 150-hp Citabria as the tow airplane

It turned out to be not only the adventure of my flying career, but also some of the most valuable stick and rudder training of my entire flying career. Over the course of two and a half years, I earned some incredible money for the time and also learned the intricacies of flying an airplane that regularly hung on the edge of a stall most of the time it was airborne. That meant learning to feel what an airplane was doing by using just my sense of touch, hearing and sight. There was no automation involved.

This experience made me a better pilot later in life when the airplanes were much larger nearly fully automated jets. While the job was a little scary at times, nothing ever taught me to be the master of an airplane that way this one did.

Much about the American Labor movement has changed dramatically in the past 100 years. But some of the more unsavory aspects of labor remain exactly the same as they were a century ago.

Here's why.

I reminisce about the adventure and the fun of adding a single-engine seaplane rating to my pilot certificate.

August 3 is the 45th anniversary of the infamous PATCO strike that cost 11,435 air traffic controllers their careers after they called a strike against the FAA.

Nearly five decades later, the nation's air traffic control system remains short of enough controllers to keep the system humming like it did before the strike. And since August, 1981 air traffic numbers have tripled.

Join Rob Mark as he blends a bit of aviation history with the realities of what the FAA is doing to make the ATC system work safely in 2026.

Ever wonder how pilots think during an emergency and why they never seem to panic?

Listen as I describe what happened aboard a British Airways 747 flight when they encountered the ash cloud created by the eruption of a volcano on the island of Java.

At a recent CAP Squadron meeting, a cadet officer commented about how unsavory the schedules could be for pilots. Having spent much of my life in a cockpit, I took his comment rather personally.

I thought more about his words over the next few days and came to realize that the aerospace industry really does need to get its act together to better balance an employee's personal life with their job if we want to attract more young people to the industry.

Rob's personal reflection on his lifelong fascination with space exploration and astronauts. It was recently highlighted by attendance at the Chicago premiere of Spacewoman, a documentary about Eileen Collins, a retired Air Force Colonel and the first woman to pilot and command a space shuttle.

The story explores a bit of Rob's identity as a “space geek,” shaped by growing up during the era of the American space race, including the Apollo 11 Moon Landing. The author recalls admiration for astronauts such as Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, Gene Cernan, and Charlie Precourt, emphasizing the excitement and wonder of human spaceflight.

The article concludes with the author admitting limited knowledge of international space programs, particularly Singapore’s efforts, before introducing aviation podcaster Grant McHerron, who attended the Singapore Air Show and offered to share his insights about the country’s developing space ambitions.

A routine instrument departure turns into a career-defining moment when poor cockpit communication and rushed decisions lead to a serious ATC deviation.

In this episode, Rob Mark shares how one flight exposed the dangers of weak Crew Resource Management (CRM) - and the hard lesson that remaining silent can be just as risky as making the wrong call.

Before 2009, pilots who wanted a career as an airline pilot could easily be hired with as little as 300 hours total time in their logbooks. That all changed after the crash of a Continental Express Bombardier Q400 turboprop with the loss of all aboard while on approach to Buffalo, New York.

Following an outcry from survivors of the Q400's victims, the FAA changed the rules the airlines would need to follow to hire new crewmembers. All new Part 121 pilots - both captains and first officers - would be required to hold an Airline Transport Pilot (ATP) certificate.

Louis Smith from FAPA.aero outlined the pay scales for the airlines which makes it pretty clear why airline pilot jobs are so highly sought after.

When a pilot earns their commercial certificate, it can seem like a very, very long road to earn the remaining hours needed to qualify for an ATP certificate. Myself, I towed banner and flew night aerial advertising aircraft, flew a couple of light twins for a company.

Some pilots see flight instructing as the only way to earn this additional time. But for me and a few others, there's an adventure awaiting if they choose to make the effort.

For me, logging the needed 1500 hours included many hours of ferrying aircraft around the country as you'll hear. But my friend Tom Horne - editor-at-large - for AOPA Pilot dove headlong into aircraft ferrying in his early years.

He shares stories about his adventures traveling around the world delivering aircraft across the ocean, at night and in IFR weather ... like his longest trip from St. Johns Newfoundland, to Bangkok, Thailand.

Rob Mark, Stories about Flying

No individual can enhance aviation safety as much as a flight instructor.

Flight instructors possess a powerful opportunity to make a tangible difference in someone’s life, very possibly the rest of their life. Whatever a student pilot learns – good or bad – they learn from us. The habits we teach them, not only how they fly but also how they think about flying, will stick with them long after their flying lessons are over too.

Some instructors today seem to believe their job is to log as many hours as they can. Now there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. But instructors also need to remember that learning to fly is a business and students are customers. Those students deserve a solid return on the time and money they invest with us.

An instructor sitting in the right seat whose only goal is building time might keep their job, but they don’t deliver on the unwritten promise between a student and the flight school. In addition to getting a student through their checkride that promise says that when we release a newly licensed pilot into the national airspace system, that person is competent and safe.

Here are a few tips to help anyone navigate the flight training industry.

Bare with me here, because in this brief episode, I'll be introducing Jetwhine readers to the Stories about Flying podcast.

Fledgling journalist Brian Coleman departed the US last week after snuggling up with a United Premium Plus seat enroute to the 2026 Singapore Airshow. This will be his first airshow adventure in the Asia/Pacific region. He'll be sending us back some regular reports as he explores the show ... especially after he hooks up with those whacky guys from the Plane Crazy Down Under podcast, Steve Visscher and Grant McHerron.

Enjoy!

Have pilots acting as armchair accident investigators gotten out of hand? Sometimes. But not all accident investigators are created the same.

In the early days of the airlines, there were no Captains or First Officers ... only First Pilots and Co-Pilots. This episode describes an early memo from American Airways about how new male pilots were expected to behave on the line. There were, of course, no female pilots, nor any pilots of color.