Flight Planning

I was approaching Gainesville, Florida the week after the Florida Gators were destroyed by the Nebraska Cornhuskers in a bowl game and I listened to the ATIS. The code was Gator. When I called the tower I thought I would be cute so I said I had Cornhusker. The tower controller got me real good […]

When I was a callow lad, private pilot ground school was interactive. It was interactive not in the sense of the Pavlovian clicking of choices on a webpage, but of having a human instructor who actually talked and answered questions. Chalk was a thing then. One of the instructors must have been an old school […]

Most pilots have heard warnings about the timeliness (or lack thereof) of Nexrad radar. Better expressed as latency, the weather you see on your tablet, smartphone or multi-function display from providers like SXM or the FAA’s ADS-B could already be 15-20 minutes out of date. It can’t be said enough: What you see on your […]

Possibly the country’s only “clothing optional” airstrip is about to be officially recognized by the National Parks Service (NPS), and the Recreational Aviation Foundation (RAF) is urging members to let the NPS know they support the initiative. The Saline Valley Warm Springs Airfield, better known as the Chicken Strip, is located adjacent to an abundant […]

My student and I were nearing the Class C airspace at Palm Beach International airport (KPBI). We asked for clearance. Palm Beach Approach: “Cessna Five Tango Papa, squawk 1454.” This was odd since local squawks always start with 02. But we set what we were given. Approach (about 30 seconds later): “Cessna Five Tango Pop, […]

Toward the end of my flight, I had the following exchange with air traffic control: Approach Control: “N1234, expect visual approach Runway 32.” Me: “Any chance we can get the ILS 32?” Approach Control: “Well, there’s always a chance …” Me: “Well, capitalizing on that chance, we’d like to request the ILS 32.” Approach Control: […]