Unicom

I found the article on BasicMed (BasicMed Takes Effect, May 2017) very interesting. Im a big promoter of BasicMed and of AMEs doing BasicMed exams. I fully realize the article was written prior to the FAA issuing its final checklist (Form 8700-2), but allow me to share some observations.

Thank you for addressing the issue of VFR flight following (Hacking VFR Flight Following, May 2017)! Your piece was good enough that I recognize I sometimes have gotten short shrift from ATC due to some communications ineptitude. An item you didnt address was the loss, and subsequent efforts to reestablish, radio contact en route. Another clarification could be wording with ground control at Class C airports to request advisories prior to departure.

There is nothing wrong with the traffic pattern as it stands today. Just like with the emphasis on AOA indicators, we are not concentrating on proper training, which is the only way to reduce LOC-I accidents. Your article on slow flight (Revising Slow Flight, February 2017) was a great example of what CFIs should be adding to their flight reviews and checkrides.

I own and fly a Cessna 172, and a curved pattern (Circular Patterns, March 2017) would not be an advantage as I would not see the runway until I came out at the end of the turn. I realize the military used this approach but as you know they have very few high-wing aircraft. Also, you would not be able to see if another aircraft cut you off until the last moment. Why change something that has been working just fine?

I guess Im a dodo, but I use roger all the time. And I hear it all the time from ATC. The term is in the Pilot/Controller Glossary (November 2016 edition): ROGER-I have received all of your last transmission. It should not be used to answer a question requiring a yes or a no answer. Buffalo Airways still flies a DC-4 so maybe the articles statement is predicting roger will go out sometime in the future?

Kudos to Robert Wright on achieving 50 years of accident/incident free flying and receiving the FAAs Master Pilot Award (On Getting To 50, September 2016). I too have reached that milestone, but not without accident nor incident in my 6100-plus hours of private pilot flying, most of which has been recreational. My incidents occurred despite what I believed to have been reasonable risk management.

I read your magazine every month and have never written a letter on an article in my life, but will now. In the December 2016 issue, the first NTSB report involved a Vans RV-6 Experimental. The report states the commercial pilot and passenger were fatally injured; the airplane was destroyed…there was no noticeable damage to the fields corn stalks. Really? Someone should care about the corn stalks? Everything else was destroyed, including lives, but the corn stalks made it!

Octobers article, Where the Drones Are, has no place in Aviation Safety. The very tone of it offends my safety senses honed over 59 years of private, commercial and military flying. Think about where they are. Then dont go there. Silly. The entire article belongs in a Drones Today magazine.

I want to thank you for writing a balanced and fair assessment about the threat of drones to aviation (Where The Drones Are, October 2016). Your article is perhaps the first rational discussion related to the dangers of these little plastic radio-control models. I have been a pilot for the past 22 years, and owned a Cessna 172 for the past 12 years. I would certainly hate to hit one of these things.

I recently read Mr. Marcums excellent comments concerning the crash of JFK, Jr.s Piper Saratoga II. As a pilot and flight instructor, and as a clinical laboratory scientist for over 50 years, Id like to suggest there are additional factors that command consideration. First, with no reported passenger in the right seat, was there an asymmetric load on the aircraft which was initially compensated by the autopilot? Could the pilot have experienced a runaway electronic trim malfunction when resuming manual control of the aircraft?