The Pilot’s Lounge

WhatHave You Got In Your Back Pocket? The Brits have such a good phrase for thistime of year, “high summer.” The days are still long, the Sun burnsthrough us on the ground so we fly as much as we can and wish we were flyingmore. A few of the pilots here in the Lounge just […]

Hot Fun In The Summertime? It has been a pretty good month in thePilot’s Lounge. Summer is here and the airplanes are beautiful. For the secondyear in a row we have had great weather, so the old saw, “what comes aftertwo days of rain in Michigan? Monday” is not holding up. As one of thepilots […]

Things have started to quietdown here in the Pilot’s Lounge since the FAA came out with its nutty interpretive rule stating that pilots are perse negligent if they do not hear an air traffic control clearance accurately. There isa deep-seated anger at some portions of the FAA among pilots, but the shouting andarm-waving has stopped […]

Yes, You Do Need To Be Concerned And, No, TheyAren’t Here To Help This Time The Pilot’s Lounge has been jumping all month. On thepropitious date of April Fool’s Day, our Friendly Aviation Administration published itsinterpretation of FAR 91.123 (a) and (b). Those regulations outline the responsibility ofthe pilot to comply with air traffic control […]

It was one of those goodevenings in the Pilot’s Lounge. Lots of flying during the day, the weather let us knowspring was truly coming and quite a few folks stuck around for coffee as the day wounddown. The conversation worked its way around to volunteer flying as we have a few pilotswho volunteer their time […]

Well start this month’s activities at the virtual airport with a classic jet trivia question: Boeing Aircraft Company numbered all of its jetliners with the figure “7” at the beginning and end of a three-digit number. With the purchase of McDonnell Douglas, Boeing is now reusing its designator “717” for what historically was the DC-9/MD-8X […]

Last month, I passed along some cold-weather operatingtechniques put together by the denizens of the pilot’s lounge here at our virtual airport.In the process, I mentioned the father of cold weather flying, Bernt Balchen, and said I’dtell you a little more about him this month. In the interim, I’ve also received somefeedback on cold weather […]

It had been a very good winter day. About adozen of us stuck around here in the pilot’s lounge after the sun went down, even thoughsnow was falling and a blizzard was forecast. We were getting warm after dealing with thechallenges of working with little airplanes in cold weather and talking about our daysand, of […]

It had been one of those busy Saturday mornings at the office. Itwas going to be nice to get out to the airport and spend a little time in the pilot’slounge readjusting my perspective on the world. I had a little time before an aerobaticstudent was scheduled and then it was going to be home […]

Following a driving vacation with the husband and kids last summer, Judy scheduled flying lessons. She has been aggressively going after her private pilot certificate. After one of her lessons, someone in the lounge asked her what caused her sudden desire to learn to fly. What Judy said reminded me of how very clearly new […]