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.
As a pilot you have just completed a certification flight test, proficiency training, biennial flight review or evaluation by your favorite flight instructor and have been certified or declared proficient as a pilot.
This process included many maneuvers and operations. Unfortunately, many were done under simulated conditions.
For instance, you may have demonstrated a short field landing [...]
Last month I discussed some flying concepts I considered important, but not substantive enough to warrant a complete article. I would like to continue with more of these kinds of ideas for improving the safety of flight and/or making life easier for you, the pilot.
First off, here is a little trick to help answer one [...]
After 14 years of writing this column, it sometimes becomes difficult to come up with new subjects. However, there are some topics I keep wanting to talk about, but I always seem to find they are not material for a complete article. So, to start the New Year, I’m going to meander around a bit [...]
The events of Sept. 11 were not only tragic, but they put a tremendous burden on the entire general aviation community. Severe restrictions on flight activities and some poor and inaccurate press about the flight training received by the alleged hijackers were the two most obvious. There were others and we can, unfortunately, expect to [...]
