Flight Planning

Late on a low-traffic night, an Ozark flight requested landing instructions into Des Moines, reporting his altitude as 6,000 feet. He was given clearance since no other traffic was in the area. After a few seconds, the Ozark pilot again called, saying:“Uh, that 6,000 feet — that shoulda been 5,000 feet. Gee, this thing’s got […]

You are on approach in busy airspace with an even busier cockpit…you are changing frequencies, receiving vectors, looking for traffic. You are well into the descent phase. As you flip through your kneeboard to get ready for the final phases of flight, you instinc- tively start looking for the runway. You see one in front […]

It was the late 1980s, and a Pan Am 727 was holding at Berlin Tegel. Another Pan Am 727 made a less than graceful arrival, clouds of smoke from the tires, clouds of smoke from the reversers, horizontal stab shaking alarmingly, and the whole thing bouncing around until it safely vacated the runway. The Holding […]

Letter of the Week:Volunteer Controllers? My response to the letter from Tom Lanhamand his effort to justify the FAA charges for air traffic controllers at aviation conventions: Have any of you FAA controllers ever thought about volunteering? I was always under the impression that these guys were aviation enthusiasts and were volunteering, just like the […]

Winter may be doing its best to deal a one-two punch, but pilots are fighting back with fly ins this weekend. Our weekly survey of SocialFlight found events throughout the country, from the very cold climes to delightfully temperate. Our eyes were first drawn to an interesting one on our northern border: the 67th annual […]

A lightning strike that injured an air traffic controller at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport has exposed a potential vulnerability at air traffic control towers during storms. It has prompted Federal Aviation Administration officials to inspect hundreds of towers nationwide, according to The Associated Press. The FAA said in a statement that the accident was […]

SocialFlight has again presented us with a wide array of breakfast, lunch and recurrent training fly ins this weekend. Pilots can’t beat the deal at the Breakfast Fly In at Logan-Cache Airport, Logan, Utah. The sponsors are hosting a free pancake, egg, sausage and fruit breakfast from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. […]

Center asked an aircraft flying IFR:“Say altitude.” … and the pilot came back with:“Altitude.” The controller at center did not miss a beat and came right back with:“Say ‘cancel IFR.’” …. to which the pilot of the aircraft said correct altitude and “sorry” — nothing more. Had to be some “got ya” laughs in aircraft […]

Boeing showed it was on board with the hometown favorite Seattle Seahawks in Sunday’s Super Bowl game with a two-pronged assumption of the role of the team’s 12th member. The Seahawks have one of the game’s noisiest stadiums and the team calls its fans the “12th man” so Boeing ran with the theme when it […]

It’s the dead of winter, so it’s time to fight cabin fever by getting out of the house and getting yourself to a fly in whether it involves aircraft on wheels or skis-and both are happening this weekend according toSocialFlight’s trackingof the latest events. Up on the northern tip of the Door Peninsula of Wisconsin […]