Articles by John E. McLain
Prior to his retirement as a career flight instructor, John McLain accrued over 18,000 flight hours of which more than 13,000 were dual given. He has conducted over 4000 flight tests in his twenty-five years as a designated pilot examiner. These articles first appeared in The Southern Aviator and are reprinted with John's permission.
Years ago when I was serving my time with Uncle Sam, a favorite phrase was “there are three ways to do something: the right way, the wrong way, and the Army way.” The more I become involved in flight training, the more I discover this axiom still applies, except now it is “the right way, [...]
The key to any emergency is the Boy Scouts’ motto: Be prepared.
The good multi-engine pilot must be prepared for an engine failure. But what goes into being prepared? And what elements must the pilot consider when faced with an emergency?
TIME
This is an often neglected consideration. Obviously if you are cruising at a reasonably high altitude, [...]
There seems to be ongoing confusion about who can log pilot in command time under the provisions of FAR Part 61. Unfortunately, most of this concern fails to consider the more important definition of pilot in command under FAR 91.3(a), which states very clearly that “the pilot in command of an aircraft is directly responsible [...]
Recently, a reader asked me to write an article on landing in high and gusty winds, and the time has come to do it. There probably are more ideas, theories and techniques for this than any other operation in flying. I will attempt to explain what I think is the proper technique to get the [...]
