Sully and the Music Box

by | Sep 15, 2016 | SavvyAnalysis Puzzlers

Like millions of others, last week I saw Sully recently. If you’re a pilot, I don’t see how you avoid wondering what you would have done with a powerless airliner at 2800 feet and no good options. I’m not giving anything away to tell you that...

Mag Check iMAGe MAGic

by | Aug 15, 2016 | SavvyAnalysis Puzzlers

In case there was any doubt, this Puzzler is about mag checks. Specifically, it’s to introduce a new way to display the data from mag checks. For a while now, analysts have been doing this manually and now we have a button that automates the process. And we...

Pattern Recognition

by | Jul 15, 2016 | SavvyAnalysis Puzzlers

Franklin P. Jones, a Philadelphia reporter, said that experience is what allows us to recognize a mistake when we make it again. That’s a mildly cynical approach, and the true value of experience should be to recognize the pattern that led to the previous...

First, Do No Harm

by | Jun 15, 2016 | SavvyAnalysis Puzzlers

I MIFfed my airplane this week. I was installing the passenger seat in my Bellanca Viking – something I’ve done many, many times over my 26 years of ownership, and broke a weld between the seat frame and the seat rail. It’s not a huge repair, and...

Decision Tree

by | May 15, 2016 | SavvyAnalysis Puzzlers

Every flight is a series of decisions. Sometimes the decisions are easy — weather’s too bad, pilot’s not feeling good, airplane’s not ready or equipped for the trip. This month’s Puzzler is a series of three flights, each with its own...