July 2008 was full of aviation news, some good, some bad, and a lot carried lessons for all pilots. On the less good side, media focused on Qantas because one of their aircraft had a serious incident. A couple of week later a second Qantas aircraft had a minor issue and because of the first one, media jumped on it. Another company had a lot of media attention: a freighter Boeing 747 operated by Kalitta crashed in Columbia, six weeks after one has crashed in Brussels. Talking about accidents, I was deeply moved by the ATC recorded tapes revealing the last words of the Swissair 111 flight. Another incident report was released in July 2008 showing how quickly situations can evolve and decisions must be made. Because of a bird strike, a crew did interrupt the take-off of an Airbus 340 and this ended up in an emergency evacuation.

There’s always something to learn from accidents, and one was particularly relevant. A student pilot was asked to break his approach in a non-standard way during his second solo. This resulted in too much stress and a fatal accident. Talking about stress, I posted about the top three stressing in-flight moments.

From the IFR corner, I wrote a post about the possibility for non-certified pilots to bluff their way through an IFR flight. Is that only a remote possibility, or a daily reality ? I also wrote in July about a change around glass-cockpits. For a couple of years, flying glass-cockpit aircraft was remarkable, enviable thing. But it’s became more and more normal. Glass-cockpits changed from revolution to evolution. What is the next aviation revolution ? I think in the USA it could be the development of LSA category. Since July 2008, I’m particularly convinced by the ICON A5 Amphibian LSA.

The last post of July 2008 which is still valid is a simple list: 10 reasons why you should learn to fly.