News from the US report that Richard L.Collins, well known editor in chief of “Flying” and “AOPA Pilot” and “Air Facts” has died aged 85 at his home.
Collins has a tremendous reputation as an aviation journalist over the decades of his work and was one of those people who supported GA throughout his long career.
Oh no, so Richard Collins has flown West ?! Sad loss, I always enjoyed reading his columns. RIP.
I also enjoyed his articles – in particular extracting great utility from very simple aircraft which he flew airways (UK speak for IFR), in particular the Piper Pacer and Cessna 172. He bought the Cessna 172 specifically to prove you could operate reliably in the system with a very basic, straightforward aircraft.
For many years he operated a Cessna P210 and all I recall was the many maintenance glitches he got from this complex type.
He may have written the most on the practical aspects of single pilot IFR in piston GA aircraft.
Richard Collins was one of my favorite aviation writers of all time. Always informative, always clear and with a message, and with everything based on tremendous knowledge and experience, and strict logic. For decades I read (and frequently photocopied) his articles, and I have at least one of his books.
One of his many bits of wisdom that I remember is that, if you should encounter structural icing and the situation for some reason would get complicated, then do not be so afraid of using the autopilot that you get behind the aircraft from not getting the relief. Although most 2-axis autopilots are prohibited from use during icing condition, RC’s point was that it would likely be much more dangerous to get overloaded hand flying than to let the autopilot help you for a short while in icing conditions while you get yourself up to task.
When writing about safety issues, he was never satisfied with common “wisdom”, but always dug up some evidence and statistics to find his conclusions. Ten or fifteen years ago, he wrote about the life saving effect of using seat belts in GA, and I mailed him and asked him whether the small GA-type airbags was worth anything. He kindly answered that it was his intention to find out, but that those airbags were still too few in use to tell.
Rest in peace.
I first read « the next hour: the most important hour in your logbook »
Then many, many things from him.
I learned a lot, and really liked his approach to flying, teaching, and from his manner of writing, probably just to « living ».
I’ll long think to him.
Nice bookshelf PCV.
Seeing some rather interesting french literature too. My collection includes a book written and signed by André Turcat, “Concorde essais et batailles”. Very interesting reading.
I well recall meeting him and sharing a flight together as well as reading pretty much every editorial he wrote for Flying – he was a gentleman and remarkable pilot and will be sadly missed.
He was a great pilot and a great writer. I’ve read several of his books. He has done more for GA than most individuals, in passing on knowledge which is not taught in the PPL or the IR.
So many great people have died in the last year or so. Maybe it is just a coincidence, or maybe just a lot of people of a particular age group symbolised a given era…
sharing a flight together
Fuji please share more – he had incredible understanding of weather, I wish I had a fraction of his weather knowledge.
Peter wrote:
So many great people have died in the last year or so. Maybe it is just a coincidence, or maybe just a lot of people of a particular age group symbolised a given era…
I guess it is also that we get to know about their passing much faster than we did in the “old times” that is pre facebook and so on. But also clearly, there is this generation of people slowly coming to their end of life. Many great proponents of GA are in that age. 85 after all is a great age to have lived to.
