Editor’s Log

So, there I was droning happily along at 11,000 feet. My airplane was covering ground at the rate of 170 nm per hour, the weather was good and the ride was smooth. I had little to do on this fine Friday afternoon but monitor the autopilot and engine instruments, look for traffic and think ahead to my arrival in Lynchburg, Va. (LYH), to pick up my son.

I had been aloft and on an IFR flight plan for some three hours after launching from Floridas west coast and was creeping up on the Charlotte, N.C., area on a direct leg from the Savannah, Ga., Vortac to LYH. Another hour or so and I would be on the ground at LYH.

About this time, the Jacksonville Center controller who had been working m…

Weather And GA
It should come as no surprise that weather-related general aviation (GA) accidents continue to take their toll. For example, the AOPA Air Safety Foundations (ASF) 2004 Nall Report found that only 2.8 percent of all accidents involving single-engine fixed-gear airplanes were weather-related, but that weather was involved in 12 percent of fatal accidents involving these aircraft. The ASFs report goes on to note, The overwhelming majority resulted from continued VFR into IMC; quite simply, a pilot flying by reference to outside visual cues flew into low visibility conditions and lost control of the aircraft or hit terrain.

In September, the National Transport…

Stuck Mic
It promised to be an easy flight-just over three hours from Wichita to Oshkosh in advance of this years AirVenture extravaganza. A buddy and I launched my Debonair from his home drome and soon were established in cruise, talking to Kansas City Center.

Soon, an inexperienced female voice came on the frequency from her Skylane, asking for flight following. A patient controller coaxed from her the necessary information, she repeated it back and that should have been the end of it. Except her microphones push-to-talk switch never released.

Everyone on the frequency was treated to one side of an apparent conversation between two women discussing children, boyfriends,…

Pulling The Rug
One of the really neat technologies that has filtered down to personal aircraft in recent years is the FAAs Traffic Information Service (TIS). The TIS is a Mode S Data Link service that delivers automatic traffic advisories to pilots. According to the FAA, TIS provides an affordable means to assist the GA pilot in visual acquisition of surrounding air traffic. The TIS data stream includes location, direction, altitude and climb/descent information of nearby aircraft. The result is improved communication between aircraft and air traffic control (ATC), providing U.S. pilots with greater traffic awareness in busy terminal areas, says the company. All good stuf…

Let It Rain
For all of the grief pilots like to heap upon the FAA, some of its programs and activities are really quite good for an agency of the federal government. Certainly, across-the-board improvements can be made throughout the agency, but some of the things it does to reach out and provide continuing education and training to pilots are admirable. The Internal Revenue Service-another federal agency that regularly comes in for its share of criticism-could learn a few things from the FAA.

An excellent example of the FAAs outreach to pilots is the ongoing Operation Raincheck program, which the agency describes as one designed to familiarize pilots with the ATC syst…

Fly, Forrest, Fly!
Its spring here on the east coast, time when a young mans fantasies turn to flying. Unfortunately, some of those fantasies reportedly involve flying long distances without rudimentary flight planning or keeping tabs on the airplanes position and the airspace one might encounter.

So it was on May 11, when a Cessna 150 obliviously flew into the heart of the secure airspace surrounding the nations capital. The event involved a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CPB) Black Hawk helicopter, a CPB Cessna Citation and two U.S. Air Force F-16s and thousands of panicked government employees. Thankfully, the incursion ended without further drama at the outlying Freder…

One of the things about aviation that never ceases to amaze is the professionalism with which most participants try to treat each other. There are always exceptions, of course, but most people involved in this industry seem to enjoy themselves and work hard to do their jobs well and help others. Until a recent flight in the Washington, D.C., area where I base, I would have put the men and women of ATC in that category.

The bubble burst for me one clear, windy Saturday in February. I base my Debonair at the Manassas, Va., airport (HEF), a towered facility nestled completely within the Washington Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ). Ive been flying from HEF since 1978, and Ive watched…

By the time you read this, spring will have come to most of North America and all of us will be clogging the runways and taxiways at our local airports, trying to get airborne after a long, cold winter. And well make mistakes. Hopefully, those mistakes will be small, embarrassing ones, not the kind that bend sheet metal or fracture composites.

I dont know about you, but after even a couple of weeks between flights, Im not as sharp as I was the last time I pushed my airplane into its hangar. My cockpit flow isnt as good, Ill flub a few radio transmissions and I probably wont be as far ahead of the airplane as I should. I might forget to set the DG to the runway heading before lifto…

Plans B
Flight planning can take many forms, depending on the operation, the aircraft, the weather and a host of other factors. Kicking the tires and lighting the fires may be appropriate for short, local flights in daytime VMC, while hours spent poring over routes, fuel consumption and weather can be mandatory for others. It depends.

One thing thats not optional, however, is a back-up plan, a Plan B. This need was brought home to me over the holidays as I tried to complete several trips up and down the east coast without any drama. I almost succeeded.

Coming up into the mid-Atlantic region from the Carolinas on January 2, I sailed along serenely on top of an undercast u…

Pick Your Poison
Making the go-no/go decision is always a topic guaranteed to generate comments and war stories among pilots. Add family and friends to the equation, and the pressure to go becomes enormous: The war stories can sometimes lead into hearing someone say, Im glad I didnt go that time, but I really miss her(or him). Often, the choice is to go and risk life, limb and sheet metal or to stay, find an alternate transportation mode and suffer the wrath of those depending on you. Sometimes, you pick your poison.

All of this was brought home to me quite clearly last Thanksgiving. The day before, I needed to pick up my son at his college in Lynchburg, Va., and fly h…