Flight Safety

Nearly all of the time, we end up landing out of a “for-real” instrument approach. An instrument approach gets us down pretty far — around 500 AGL for a non-precision approach, and 200 AGL for a run-of-the-mill ILS. It’s not very often that we’re not out of the clouds at minimums. If we’re not, the […]

Gone are the days when pilots were expected to know every nut and bolt intheir aircraft. These days, pilots aren’t expected to retain minute mechanicaldetails, but there is still much we need to know about our aircraft to staysafe_including enough systems knowledge to understand what the various cockpitannunciator lights and buzzers mean, and how to […]

As much as we might like to carp about the occasional circuitousrouting or ground delay, this much is certain: The U.S. air trafficsystem is arguably the best in the world. What’s less certainis how it got that way. How did we advance from the tenuous airmailroutes of the early 1930s to the sophisticated IFR system […]

April 19, 1996. There I was, 5,000 MSL (about 4,000 AGL) with my wife besideme in our 1954 Piper Tri-Pacer. The problem was that I was at full throttleand pitched for a standard climb, but we were descending.. I’d been cleared to 7,000 and instructed to contect Center upon reachingthat altitude TriPacer Zero Seven Papa […]

Situational awareness is more than knowing your position. It’salso about knowing what’s going on or anticipating what’s aboutto happen. There have been tragic results from the lack of situationalawareness. Some accidents/incidents haven’t ended tragically,but have resulted in FAA enforcement actions against the pilotsinvolved. Let’s review some of the occurrences and try to profitfrom the misfortunes […]

 As the prime winter icing season once again approaches, many ofus will be confronted with this sinister hazard. Every year, almostwithout fail, there are between 30 and 40 accidents involvingicing, about half of them fatal. As we’ve pointed out in previousissues, by heeding the pireps and taking decisive action at thefirst sign of ice, the […]

Many civilian pilots are aware, generally at least, of ground radarsbeing used to guide airplanes to landings through the clouds. The militaryhas used ground control approach (GCA) systems for many years. By the endof WWII and during the Korean War this was an established way of helpingpilots. Radar systems housed in trailers could be relocated […]

If you’ve looked at the instrument written booklet lately, you’llnotice that although there are some new questions here and there,not much has changed. The written is heavy on regs, theory andweather but light on the real meat-and-potatoes grit of IFR flying.This is especially true of how the feds treat SIDs and STARs. Consider, for example, […]

Cessna Three Four Uniform, cleared direct to the Lost at or above3000 feet, cleared for the VOR 24 approach at Podunk Muni, report the procedureturn inbound. The above is a routine clearance that’s probably issued a hundred timesa day by various ATC facilities. You’re instrument rated, so we’ll assumeif you hear a clearance like this, […]

Depending on your vantage point, there are lots of ways to viewthe FAA. From the inside looking out, we imagine the agency itselffavors the beehive view, which would have legions of workersshuffling important paperwork, all in the efficient advancementof air commerce. We’re kind of partial to the rock crusher analogy:The thing is just one big, […]