Instrument Flight

General aviation pilots make IFR takeoffs in reduced visibility and low ceilings on a daily basis. We line up, launch, establish a climb, transition to the gauges and press on with the flight. Assuming there is an approach with adequate minimums at home plate or a nearby airport, we’re confident we can return and land […]

Each month IFR Refresher highlights an accident involving some aspect of IFR flying that an unfortunate pilot failed to respect. All too often, the pilots are professionals who have achieved considerable success in their career fields. The question often asked is; how persons with such a high personal performance standing can allow themselves to be […]

Every year structural icing claims a small but steady number of airplanes. Many of the accidents are on approach in clear air—after the airplane has already collected a load of ice. We look at them afterward and wonder—the airplane had been doing fine—why did it crash well after it escaped from icing conditions? Full-scale airframe […]

I was doing one of my periodic office de-clutters this week and up on the far northwest corner of one shelf, I found some interesting artifacts. Like an archeologist dusting off pottery shards, there was the last of my Jeppesen binders and a stack of paper charts, some dating to 1997. I can’t remember when […]

I’ve never felt it was appropriate that a pilot could obtain an instrument rating without flying in the clouds. From a safety standpoint—no matter what type of flying the pilot intends to undertake—it seems beyond ludicrous. I received instrument dual in IMC at a small airport in rural Iowa; one would think that it would […]

Aeronautical decision-making (ADM) is essentially the mental process of gathering and evaluating information pertinent to a flight; listing the options and their attendant risks; and then choosing the best alternatives. It is an iterative process due to the nature of the changing variables inherent in flight. ADM is often a relatively simple and subliminal process […]

Good judgment and quick thinking are hallmarks of the aviation mentality. Both pilots and air traffic controllers are in the decision-making business. For controllers, every moment our headsets are plugged in, we’re making choices that affect the safety and flow of traffic in our airspace. Some choices are easier than others, such as not clearing […]

Genysys/S-Tec is launching the first new design autopilot in several years and targeting the Part 25 market. Jamie Luster spoke with AVweb’s Russ Niles at NBAA 2016. Duration: 2:30 File Size: 2.7 MB download here

As simple and straight forward as the visual approach, is sometimes you might end up wishing you were in the soup to minimums. The visual approach has a few traps waiting to grab you. It is important to remember the visual approach is not an instrument approach even though you are still on an IFR […]

Just before I hurt my foot, I was at the dropzone sitting across the lunch table from a friend who was filling in his logbook, complete with little stickman icons showing the jumps we’d done for the day. I couldn’t resist. “Dude, seriously?” He looked startled, not realizing that my comment was really a defensive […]