Search Results for: vfr

I‘ve put it off long enough. We’re going to have to delve into this subject sooner or later. It might as well be now.Class, please pull out your copy of the Aeronautical Information Manual: Official Guide to Basic Flight Information and ATC Procedures. Open your book to Chapter 5: Air Traffic Procedures and turn to […]

VFR Tower Privatization Stalls Congress… While the administration tries to turn up the heat, the FAA Reauthorization Bill remains stuck on the back burner over a single clause that has split traditional allies in aviation and in politics. It’s been a long time since lobbyists and political tacticians have burned the midnight oil over an […]

Contract Towers Comparing “safety” at contract towers with FAA staffed towers is nigh onto impossible (Newswire, September 8). What is the unit of measure, metric? The OIG uses reported errors (systems errors and systems deviations) exclusively.And who is more likely to report that error/deviation: A manager who might be given two weeks notice by the […]

____________BRAINTEASERS Quiz #72 — Grab Those VFR Sectional Charts And FlyFAR 91.103 says that you need “all available information” before launching on any flight. Yeah, right. Where’s a PIC supposed to glean all that stuff? Surprisingly, much of what you need — IFR or VFR — is on the lowly VFR sectional chart. But you […]

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) has asked the DOT’s inspector general to rescind a recent analysis of contract control towers because of what it terms “critical misstatements” in the description of the facilities. As AVweb reported Monday, Inspector General Ken Mead issued a report saying the 189 FAA-funded towers that are run by […]

Canadian officials are wondering how an Air Canada Airbus A319 crew on a perfectly clear August day appeared to set up to land at a tiny municipal airport in British Columbia, instead of their real destination. The Transportation Safety Board (TSB) is investigating the incident in which the A319, with its gear down and flaps […]

Sometimes you need to be careful what you wish for. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA), which is in a pitched battle with the FAA over the proposed privatization of VFR control towers, recently asked the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) to compare the performance of 71 FAA-staffed towers, 69 of which are […]

If you’ve been reading my columns, you know I’m always going on and on about following the rules and the way things are supposed to work. I try to explain why and how, but I always feel like I’m not getting through to some folks. So this month I thought I’d try something a little […]

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Before taking my private pilot students on their first “real” cross-country, I’d usually have them do a sort of rapid-fire tour of the local area airports by drawing a crisscrossing pattern of destinations for the student to plot checkpoints between, calculate winds and fuel burn, and get airport information. It was a great way of […]