Features

During 1978 while working ground control, a C-152 from a neighboring airport’s flight school was getting ready to depart. Prior to engine start the pilot called the tower and was informed, “Clearance on request, contact ATIS prior to taxi.” The instruction prompted the following response… Pilot: Cessna 1234 ready to taxi and we contacted Patrick […]

As is the case with most of us here in the Pilot’s Lounge at the virtual airport, my involvement with state aeronautics commissions had, for years, been limited to paying a small annual fee and receiving a nice book that gave information on all of the public-use airports in the state, as well as an […]

Thirty-Minute DCA Rule Last week I flew into DCA on United 602 from ORD. We were told by the cabin crew that the 30-minute rule [all passengers in their seats] still applied in spite of media reports to the contrary. When questioned on it, they said the Captain told them it was so. On further […]

Occasionally heard on the MRI ATIS on slow days (and on dozens of other … ATII … across the country). Advise on contact you have information ECHO…Echo…echo…

Flying airliners has changed quite a bit during the past 50 years but the pilots have remained the same.They always appear to be dependable, clean-cut and boringly similar on their surfaces, but they possess traits that the flying public doesn’t detect.These personality traits aren’t just limited to airline pilots, although with the amount of time […]

Wings to Adventure I tried to tune in the program you advertised, “Wings to Adventure” on the Outdoor channel but it was only hunting, first for turkeys then for deer (News Features, May 29). Is this a paid-per-view program? I can’t get it for some reason. I have the outdoor channel but no aircraft programs. […]

Editor’s Note: This article first appeared in Twin & Turbine, Jan. 2005, and is reprinted here by permission. You know all those little cubbyholes at the pilot shop where you find Jeppesen aeronautical charts? Imagine a factory filled with thousands of them. Aisle after aisle of cubbies filled with charts stacked six feet high. You […]

Another day, another air show… I was “in the queue” for landing at Oshkosh a couple of years back. As everyone knows, landing aircraft are spoken to but don’t verbally reply to the FAA controllers. ATC to Two ahead of me: Brown Cessna, land on the Orange Spot. Rock your wings if you copy. (The […]