Features

For years, there was only two choices for a retrofit multi-function GPS navigator-either Garmin’s GNS430 or GNS530-or the current GTN650 and GTN750. Bendix King offered the KLN94 standalone GPS, but it wasn’t an all-in-one WAAS navigator with an open architecture. It also lacked a comm and nav radio and it didn’t have any multi function […]

“Would you like to declare an emergency? the controller asked with practiced coolness. Looking at the stopped and feathered left engine on the Cessna 310R Id had for just 10 days, there was only one possible answer: Yes. Moments before, the engine had started vibrating so violently I was afraid it would shake the plane […]

Letter of the Week:It’s the Instructors, Stupid I own a small flight school with three to five planes in central Massachusetts. It’s the kind where everyone is always greeted properly when they walk in, the kind the fosters a large pilot community, not just a pilot’s certificate. Otherwise, you’ll only watch them leave and their […]

Editor’s Note: A couple of weeks back, we ran a “Short Final” featuring a fictional genericized squawk code ending in 8 – and boy, did we get letters. Our favorite, though, was this “Short Final” follow-up recollection. Your recent “Short Final” reminded me of a funny story I got to participate in about two and […]

Approach, could you read back the arrival waypoints…we cant seem to find that arrival. The request got my attention because it came from the aircraft somewhere ahead of me in the soup of a thick overcast, headed to the same airport. The controller had just warned of a pending change to my arrival plans by […]

Rick Mathews, the president of AAP (Aviation Access Project) thinks that common sense is one of the key ingredients needed to reduce the 80 percent dropout rate in general aviation flight training. His goal is to reduce it to 25 percent or less while also doubling the pilot population to one million or more. Thats […]

Whilst flying back from Belfast to Blackpool in the U.K. several years ago, I heard a GA pilot behind me cleared for take-off by the tower. The tower then reminded him of the local noise regulations. The pilot replied that he understood and added helpfully that he would only be using one engine in this […]

It wasnt long ago that an entry-level, two-axis autopilot was priced around 10 grand-including installation. Today, that price is double. Add some options and the bottom line could soar toward $30,000. These big proposals have many owners repairing older autopilots. But as service parts for older systems become obsolete, repair costs are high, downtime is […]

It has happened about 50 years ago at the old Munich airport in Germany. The date was August 15, a Catholic holiday called Maria Ascension Day. In those days, there were often quiet moments over the radio. In one of these silent moments, a booming voice came over the R/T: Unidentified Pilot:“This is Maria, still […]

No one needs to tell you that air traffic congestion can delay issuance of your IFR clearance or cause you to suffer the dreaded Hold for IFR Release call with an indefinite departure time while the Hobbs goes tick, tick, tick. NextGen, the FAAs wide ranging overhaul of the Air Traffic Control System, is supposed […]