Stories

I've always thought the best way to teach something technical is with a story. The lesson has more impact and you will remember is for longer. I think most of these stories fall into this category. Some of the stories, however, are here just because they amuse me.

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1794

Bernoulli — The man who invented lift.

1930

A Message to Copilots — From an airline's operations manager.

1974

Day One — Eddie's first day as a cadet.

Harmon Rule of Error — An engineering lesson worth remembering.

1976

Lock and Load — Learning a rifle and the path of least resistance.

1977

Caffeinated — Eddie gains an addiction.

1979

Air Mass — Dealing with a mass of air.

Ice-T — Turning Indicated Airspeed to True.

Spin Recovery — The "make it or break it" breaks it.

Crosswinds — Getting a little cross with the winds.

Course Intercepts — Charlie Brown meets Tom Collins.

Fix-to-Fix — In a fix.

Angle of Attack — Everybody has one.

Landing Speed — Learning that "Too Hot!" is not good.

Final Turn — The last 30 seconds of your life.

Duck Soup — Eddie's first engine failure at V₁ in a T-38.

1980

Climb Gradient — It Ain't Rocket Science

It's Magic — "PFM"

Penetrations — If You Have to Make it Hard, At Least Make it Simple

Under Duress — Never bring a parachute knife to a gun fight.

1981

No Time to Nap — Why you should never fall asleep at minimums.

Stupid Pilot Tricks — The infamous 90/270 episode.

1982

Burner Can — Bleeding internally

Fuel Leak — Electrons and fuel do not play well together.

Seriousness — The Tale of Four Bruces

Top of Descent — Getting Down, Gently

Vintage Gallo — The lessons you never forget.

1983

Tutti Fruiti — The exciting adventures of Lieutenant Tutti Fruiti

Visual Descent Points — Another way to get down.

1984

Rapid Depressurization — "The old man."

You Can't Go Unless You've Been — Lucky.

Engine Failure — V₁, the third time.

1985

60-to-1 — Learning cockpit math the Air Force way.

Danger Dave — You can’t cure stupid; but you can avoid it.

Fat Boy — Eddie is assigned a weight problem.

Salute Smartly Volume 1 (1985) — An unpublished manuscript.

1986

Holding Pattern Teardrop — "Close Enough" Math

Maximum Range — Getting every air nautical mile in the tank

Traffic Pattern Geometry — Bringing science to an art.

Wrong Airport — It just keeps happening.

1987

Engineers — You can always tell an engineer . . .

1990

A Bigger Screw Up — Just make sure your screw up is surpassed quickly.

Deck Angle — A loaded deck.

Discipline — "I'm blind!"

I've Never Been So Scared (Part 2) —

1991

Just Joking — "Do you have any grapes?"

1992

TLAR — "That Looks About Right" goes up against 60-to-1.

Block Times — As if it mattered

Smoothness — Don't be a jerk.

1993

Experto Crede — Indeed.

Cold War — Flying Where the Bullets Aren't

Meaconing — A pretext.

Fuji San — Up a volcano.

1994

Non-Instrument Napkin — Being a bit too flexible.

Survival Driving in Italy — Written in 1950, still true in 1994.

1995

Shot At — At Least They Aren't Shooting At Us.

1996

Surviving a Bureaucracy — The beast dines on people.

2000

I've Never Been So Scared (Part 1) — “In your own time.”

2001

Another shot? — A few too many.

The Worst Pilot — The award goes to . . .

2004

Medical Hobby Shop — The bottom half of the medical school class.

2005

Parlezvous Aeronautic — Teaching international operations.

2006

Negative Ways (Waves) — Number three of three.

2007

PhotoShop — Eaten by lions.

2008

Adventures in De-icing — Why does it cost so much?

Futebol in Rio — I hope to make it out alive.

On Safari in Botswana — Kudu biltong.

2009

Stan Evil — The top five busts.

Drift Up — Drifting up to ignorance.

2010

Milo — A considerate dog.

Todd Silver — In memorium

2011

April Snow — "An April's Fool, I."

2012

Course Corrections — An exhausted complaint.

2015

Old Man — How I found out I was an old man.

2017

Medevac — From Adrian Vargo

Vacation — Alaska and Japan

2018

Check Ride Nerves — Dealing with it.

Do Unto Yourself — The view from a clinical psychologist.

Stupid Pilot Tricks — No shortage of stupidity.

2019

Fake News — Our top story tonight . . .

Introducing Eddie's New Jet — A GVII-G500.

Lonely at the Top — A young aircraft commander's solitutde.

John Davey — In memorium

Honorable Mention — Eddie cheats and is rewarded

2020

Melancholy — Saying goodbye to an old friend

Oddball CAS — When the Crew Alerting System gets confused

En français

Danger Dave — En français

Never Been So Scared — "Je n'ai jamais eu aussi peur !"

Trust But Verify — Ici, on préfère l’esthétique à la fonction (1993)

The Rules.