Instrument Flight

Inside Conflict Alert

In the TRACON version of CA, the process starts with a primary filter which runs through all possible pairs of tracked targets and eliminates those that are more than 40 seconds flying time from one another at their current groundspeeds. The track-pairs that make it through the primary filter are then analyzed by three different […]

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Computer-Generated Safety Alerts

Picture this. You’re flying a textbook VOR approach. You’re ahead of the airplane and doing everything right. ATC gave you a perfect radar vector turn-on to the final. Crossing the FAF, you started the timer, dropped the gear, and pulled the power back for a nice steep 1,000 FPM non-precision descent. You’ve committed the MDA […]

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Outsmarting the *!#@% ATC Computer

“Preferred routes.” Hah! Preferred by whom? Not us general aviation pilots, that’s for darn sure. A lot of the IFR routes that we get from ATC are positively obscene. Either they add 50% to the total trip mileage, or they take us over the most hostile possible terrain with MEAs above the freezing level, or […]

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The Delicate Art of Negotiating with ATC

I‘m an IFR junkie. Let me admit that right up front. I file and fly IFR on virtually every flight that extends beyond the local traffic pattern. Even if the weather is CAVU. [The standing joke among my pilot-friends is that I file IFR every time I go to the toilet. That’s a lie! I […]

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