More Circle On a Straight-In In your October 2024 issue, you were spot on, per usual, with your answer for the primary reason someone would circle when attempting a straight in: too high and too close upon breakout into VMC. If the conditions are just so, then why not? There’s no VFR traffic to contend […]

This photograph gives new perspective to the adage “A survivable landing is a good landing.” Who says airport planners don’t have a sense of humor? Now where are you supposed to be looking on short final? Imagine the phone call: “Honey, I landed a bit long and ended up in the cemetery!” —Daniel Spitzer, Piermont, […]

Block 10 For a Flying Club Thank you for unraveling the mystery of flight plan block 10: “Equipment” in the May 2024 article, “Flight Plan Codes.” I belong to a large flying club that does not track the type of ADS-B equipment in each airplane. For those that are Performance Based Navigation equipped, does it […]

I was a new controller and just assigned to my first duty station, Falcon Field in Mesa, Arizona. I had a pretty good working relationship with my crew mate. It was slow and we had the radios on the speaker so we could use handsets instead of wearing headsets. Out of nowhere we got a […]

Spoofing Confusion I enjoyed your “GPS Jamming, Spoofing” article in June 2024. Would you please expand on your comment that “GPS satellite spoofing attacks are often detected by a jump in the time reported from the GPS.”?  Where would I check to see if there was a “jump in the GPS time”? Does that mean […]

I was flying IFR north of Toronto a year or so ago on a VFR day and talking on Center frequency when I heard this exchange. Toronto road traffic is known to be bad, particularly during the afternoon rush hour, which this was. ATC: “Air Canada xyz, expect Runway 23.” Air Canada xyz: “Roger, Runway […]

Can You Get There? Here’s the basic question: If no arrival from your inbound direction is published for your destination airport but one is published for a nearby airport, can you file and fly that arrival even though it is not charted to serve your destination? As an example, in Oklahoma City no arrival is […]

For your August OTA I sent you the photo (repeated here) of the Gulfstream that was towed to parking, but the ground crew neglected to set the chocks. Subsequently, it rolled into the Challenger behind it. I thought you might like to know the outcome. The Gulfstream has been repaired and is flying. The Challenger’s […]

Wind Gusts? I am trying to understand wind gusts, in particular those lower-level ones we encounter when we are landing or taking off. What is the actual cause of these? Are they sudden changes in the velocity of the wind (e.g. going rapidly from a 20-knot headwind to a 10-knot headwind and then back)? Or […]

IFR between the mountains and under the midnight sun gives a Sim Challenge that Wild West feel. So does firing up that vintage ADF.