Flight Safety

The NDB approach is generally considered one of the tougher itemson the flight test for the instrument rating. If you asked abunch of instrument-rated pilots to list their favorite approachequipment, you’d probably get a list something like this: # 1 — ILS# 2 — LOC only (no glideslope)# 3 — VOR# 4 — NDB The […]

During a typical IFR flight, you probably make lots of decisionswithout much forethought. One of them is the altitude to fileand fly. Unless there’s ice around or known rocks in the cloudsor an intense head or tailwind, what difference does it make? All you have to do is look at the published MEAs and be […]

Near the end of a long trip, actual IMC and perhaps flown withno autopilot, being vectored to final can be a great relief. Butthere’s a downside, too. A pilot anxious to get established onthe approach and on the ground might be lulled into allowing positionawareness to lapse at a time when he or she can […]

If you’re like most instrument pilots, you spent a lot of trainingtime flying full approaches, muddling through procedure turnswhile you tried to figure out just exactly where the final approachcourse really was. Unfortunately, all that training wasn’t goodpractice for the real world; the full approach just isn’t theusual way of doin’ business. Vectors to final […]

The very idea of going around in circles in a hold at 150 knotsis pretty ridiculous, particularly when it goes on so long thatyou end up diverting to an alternate. Makes you wish you’d takenthe bus. Nonetheless, the feds really do want to minimize airborneholding and they use something called Flow Control to do it. […]

Remember when you were studying for your instrument written andyou came to the chapter on holding? Remember how your brain wentnumb and you had flashbacks to high-school algebra class? I realizethere are a few people who actually understood algebra (not me)and those same individuals probably understand how to enter aholding pattern while calculating their weight […]

I write this with considerable personal embarrassment, in thehopes that someone may learn from it. Sunriver, Oregon, is a lovely summer and winter resort communityabout 20 miles from Mt Bachelor, a popular ski spot. We renta condo there for a week every year, during the kids’ Spring break.I usually fly down with one or both […]

For reasons not easy to explain, pilots don’t like to ask for help. Just why this is so would make a good topic for a graduate psychology thesis but certainly pride and machismo have a lot to do with it. At the least, fessing upto an emergency seems likely to reveal flawed thinking; at worst, […]

Ever notice how some towers seem to be more specific than otherswhen it comes to pointing out traffic? At some airports, you cancheck in with the tower and instantly be told “…trafficis a Lear Jet just off the airport, southeastbound.” That’sthe last you’ll hear about the Lear until he fills your windshield.Yet, at other locations, […]

During the winter, dozens of aircraft come to grief on ice andsnow-covered runways, sometimes after completing an otherwiseuneventful instrument approach. These accidents are rarely fatal but they do illustrate a harshreality of winter flying. We worry incessantly about airframeicing but slick runways, snowbanks and low visibility test thelimits of man and machine and very often, […]