If there’s anything I wish I could do for aspiring pilots or those struggling through their basic training, it would be to teach them to fly an airplane before learning to drive a car. The two-dimensional thinking employed when operating a surface vehicle becomes dominant—probably because we spend more time in a car than in […]

When an instrument-rated pilot thinks of an approach, he or she likely pictures a so-called standard instrument approach procedure, or SIAP, the published approaches we all have come to know and “love.” A SIAP is described in FAR Part 97 and in published charting data available from the FAA and Jeppesen, for example. Standard approach […]

It had been a long day: Several hours breathing O2 in the low teens, covering more than 1000 nm. But I was on the ground, safe and sound, at Cheap Gas Muni. I was all topped off and on the takeoff roll for the short hop to Cheap Hangar Field. I had to do some broken-field running to get here late on this summer afternoon, but thanks to Nexrad and ATC, I was able to avoid the big bumps and hadnt even gotten wet.