Search Results for: vfr

AVweb Special Report — Columbia, An Insider’s Perspective Dr. Jay Apt joined NASAs astronaut program in 1985 and has spent more than 35 days in space on four Shuttle missions. He is an active pilot with more than 4500 hours of flight time. Over the weekend, he graciously provided AVweb with his perspective on the […]

The genesis of E-Ox occurred several years ago when I stopped by the White Mountain Products Group booth at AOPA Expo in Atlantic City to look at a miniature emergency oxygen system they’d introduced. To be honest, my first reaction was skepticism. To begin with, I was a little put off by the melodramatic name […]

Midair Over Denver Leads To Safety Concerns… Five people died last Friday when a Cessna 172 and a twin-engine Piper PA-31T Cheyenne collided above a Denver neighborhood. Six people on the ground were slightly hurt, and a house was destroyed after it was hit by the Cessna and caught fire. Over the weekend, Denver Mayor […]

Tough Times Budget Crunch Squeezes FAA… Money’s tight all over, and as the U.S. House and Senate wrangle over the latest version of a budget bill for 2003, the cash deficit could translate to staff cuts for the FAA. Last week, the Senate passed a $390 billion “omnibus” budget bill, lumping together all the departments […]

From time to time it happens that several of the flight instructors here at the virtual airport wind up in the pilot’s lounge talking about all manner of things aeronautical. When that I happens, I may delay my drive home because the exchange is usually on a higher plane (sorry) than the usual “There I […]

ADS-B and Aircraft Separation With reference to your ADS-B story, controllers maintain 3 miles separation whether it is VFR or IFR. This is the separation standard for non-heavy aircraft. A heavy aircraft behind a heavy aircraft requires 4 miles separation, VFR or IFR. The difference between VFR and IFR is that during specific VFR conditions […]

…Environmental Issues Challenged… Matas said the draft plan by B.C. Parks Stikine Region suggests floatplanes are an environmental hazard, but she said that view doesn’t hold water. She said floatplanes are the only means of transportation that leave no permanent marks on the land. Trucks, all-terrain vehicles and even hikers need trails to get to […]

Missile Watch Public Enlisted To Spot Potential Terror Attacks… Last Wednesday, The Washington Post reported the existence of a task force created to assess the ground-based threat to air travel and try to prevent the use of shoulder-launched ground-to-air missiles that could theoretically be launched against airliners from beyond the airport security perimeter. While military […]

My two previous columns on the subject of attitude dealt with the hazardous attitudes within ourselves that have been identified by the friendly feds. This time we’ll be discussing the attitude of the flying machine itself as it makes its way through the air.What’s wrong with attitude instrument flying? In a word, nothing! That is, […]

This article appeared in the July 2002 edition of IFR Magazine and is reprinted here by permission. Most autopilots are happiest if they intercept the localizer four or five miles outside the marker from a 45-degree intercept. Most pilots are, too. Why then does a certain subspecies of pilot — Canis familiaris nocturnis, a.k.a., a […]