Short Final

Several years ago at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, I was one of a group of a half-dozen or so journalists—including the distinguished Peter Lert— passing the time of day chatting near the press headquarters. [If anyone else who was there reads this post, please corroborate that this is a true story in the comment section below.] […]

A while back we were transitioning Omaha’s airspace, and heard the following: Omaha: “American 123, climb and maintain 10,000, one zero thousand.” American 123: “One zero thousand. Your timing was stupendous, I was just picking up the mic to ask for higher.” Omaha: “Actually, the clearance just came in from Center.” After several unrelated calls, […]

A VFR Saturday morning this past December was a good time to exercise my Mooney 201. I decided to visit York, Pennsylvania, (KTHV) since it was close to my home base and I never had the pleasure of visiting there before. About 10 miles out I made my first call. Me: “York, Mooney 10 miles […]

One sunny afternoon in late Fall, several flight school Skyhawks and a Piper Seminole trainer were making the most of the beautiful VFR day by practicing maneuvers in the “Northeast Practice Area.” All these aircraft were self‑reporting their position and intentions on 122.75 MHz. Heard on frequency: Seminole (Student): “Northeast Practice, Seminole 123 over Carnation, […]

Over the years, I made several Bonanza trips from home base in New Jersey to EAA AirVenture. Without an IFR-certified GPS, I would flight plan to hopscotch along airways from VOR to VOR supplemented with my portable Garmin GPSmap396 for situational awareness. But I always expected to stick with the airways as a prudent IFR […]

In the early 1980s, I was working in the administration of East Coast Aero Tech (now part of National Aviation Academy), at Hanscom Field (KBED), Bedford, Massachusetts. ECAT was a top-rated Airframe & Powerplant (A&P) school, and part of my compensation agreement was that students would perform maintenance on my two-seat Grumman AA1-B—under the supervision […]

On the subject of favorite fixes, when I got my instrument rating of course I spent lots of time planning trips. One such theoretical trip was a return to Bowman Field (KLOU), where my wife and I had enjoyed a trip a couple years ago. When I pulled up the approaches I nearly fell out […]

Years ago, I had gotten pretty used to skirting VFR in my Grumman AA1-B around the western edges of New York’s Class B airspace as I headed north-south to-and-from my home in New Jersey. The busiest time on the radio was overflying Caldwell and Morristown Airports (KCDW and KMMU) because their airspace almost overlapped, and […]

Heard over Lake Michigan this summer: TBM 123: “Chicago Center TBM 123 with an unusual request when you have a minute.” Chicago Center: “TBM 123 go ahead.” TBM 123: “There is a SkyWest aircraft on the frequency, just behind me, also en route to Grand Rapids, and I am the very proud father of the […]

Years ago before GPS, when we only had two VORs, we were westbound against an extraordinarily strong headwind in a Cherokee, talking to St. Louis Approach. Through breaks in the clouds I could see that the big trucks on the Interstate below were making better time than we were. It was obvious we weren’t going […]