Instrument Flying

Fuel exhaustion is a preventable threat. Planning and in-flight diligence are key to ensuring healthy fuel margins. / By Ryan Motte

Modern area navigation systems are incredible tools, but some of the terminology can create confusion.

You did what everyone told you not to do: fly into a thunderstorm. How will you get out the other side?

Proper use of time, resources and energy can tip the scales toward a favorable outcome.

Communicating with ATC is essential to safe, efficient operations while operating under IFR. What if you can’t?

There may come a day when GPS is not available, either regionally or worldwide. The fallback is a minimal VOR/ILS network.

Runway layouts can make it easy to get confused or forget the missed approach course when circling to land.

I live in Fargo, North Dakota, where winter lasts anywhere from six to 13 months of the year. When I first moved back to Fargo after living elsewhere for quite a while—Fargoans call it “living abroad”—I asked the Fargo airport manager how much it would cost per month to tie down my airplane on his ramp. […]

One of the many avionics advances in recent years is the autopilot. Not that long ago, the typical personal airplane didn’t have a working autopilot—it might have been in the panel, but it was rare for it to work, much less as well as a modern one does. For one thing, altitude hold or preselect […]

Everything seemed routine. My clearance included direct to the destination at a safe altitude for the high terrain along the route. Taxi and runup went smoothly. But before I switched to the tower frequency, ground called to say, “I have an amendment to your altitude.” Turns out the new altitude was too low for the […]