Flight Planning

On a routine day of bad weather flying me and the Captain overheard center calling ATC:“Cargo 244 Heavy descend to one seven thousand and hurry through flight level one nine zero.” Heavy: ” Roger, descend to one seven thousand and what rate would you like?” ATC:“HURRY” Heavy: “Were hurrying!, cargo 244!”

During a VFR approach in a busy airport in mostly-Catholic Colombia, a student pilot was given landing clearance. It seemed she didn’t understand the controller. Student: “Could you please confirm?” Tower:Sure: I confirm you in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son…” Of course the controller gave her the right instructions […]

It had been a busy flight with some heavy weather for a Cessna 182. I was anticipating the final vector for the ILS and fumbling with the tablet’s presentation of the approach plate (I had vowed to make friends with the electronic flight bag). The realization that the sound had unexpectedly changed brought me back […]

Regional Approach:Citation 123, please give a cloud description on your descent. Citation 123: They’re white. Regional Approach: … Citation 123: Just kidding. Tops were jagged 5,000 down to 4,500. Regional Approach: I literally had nothing to say to that.

President Donald Trump’s new budget includes privatization of air traffic control. The document tabled Thursday in Washington contains an outright endorsement of privatization as a move that “would benefit the flying public and taxpayers overall.” The airline industry has been lobbying nonstop since Trump’s election for the formation of a nonprofit corporation to run the […]

Not many controllers away from the northern border of the U.S. are familiar with Canada’s alphabetic aircraft registration system and it can cause confusion. C-ABCD: XXXX tower this Canadian Civil Charlie Alpha Bravo Charlie Delta. Request runway in use. No response C-ABCD: Again XXXX tower Canadian Civil Charlie Alpha Bravo Charlie Delta requesting runway in […]

On Presidents’ Day weekend, POTUS had West Palm Beach shut down with his TFR. Boca was swamped with corporate and private traffic trying to avoid the TFR restrictions. We were sitting in a long line waiting for departure, with numerous jets lined up for arrival, when a weekend warrior called up tower inbound asking for […]

Several hundred pieces of software written by NASA engineers for air and spacecraft design, business optimization, systems interaction and biomedical applications have been released by the agency for free public use. The software is being made available through the NASA Technology Transfer Program (motto, “Bringing NASA Technology Down to Earth”). The available codes are listed […]

There I was, sliding down from my cruising altitude toward my VFR destination, still 30 or so miles out. It had been a smooth ride, and Otto was following a heading and descending at the selected 400 fpm. I had let the power come up during the descent, along with airspeed. The big Continental in […]

While flying from the northeast to south Florida last week it was bumpy at all altitudes and everyone was trying to find a better ride. I overheard this conversation with ATC. United XYZ: Jax Center, were getting a rough ride here at 360. Do you have anything smoother? Jax Center: Yes, I-95 United XYZ (after […]