On the Air

I regularly make a 25-minute flight in my 1946 Piper Cub from our local home airport in Pella, Iowa, to a grass strip in an even smaller town, Sully, Iowa, where I walk the five blocks to the local Coffee Cup Café for lunch and almost always a slice of their most excellent pie. On […]

While doing some pattern work recently at our small rural airport in Pella, Iowa (KPEA), I was practicing wheel landings and 3-point landings with my 1946 Piper Cub when on the CTAF I heard a local business’ Lear-45 announce their approach to the airport from 5 miles to the south. Though the corporate pilots know […]

A few years ago, I was flying to Henderson, Nevada, in our Cessna T206H with my wife, two daughters and one of their friends. During the evening descent, my passengers were talking excitedly about the Colorado River rafting trip we were to embark on the next day and pointing out the sights and brightening lights […]

I flew out of Boeing Field in Seattle and was assigned the CBAIN departure with fixes: GNEXX, KURRT, and CBAIN. If you depart in the opposite direction you might get the NRVNA departure (just the one fix, “NRVNA”). It doesn’t get much more Seattle than that! Eric Berman Woodinville, Washington As a controller, I occasionally […]

While I was flying into Boeing Field to pick up my Angel Flight passengers, I was on the ILS for 32L, which is a long (10,000 feet) runway. I was meeting my passengers at an FBO off the north end of 32R, which is a much shorter runway (3700 feet) roughly aligned at the north […]

Portland-Hillsboro has several flight schools on the field, and one in particular heavily recruits students from Asia who are not all fluent in English. Overheard last week: Portland Departure: “Skyhawk 1234, ident and say destination.” Skyhawk 1234: “Skyhawk 1234.” A few moments later… Portland Departure: “Skyhawk 1234, ident please.” Skyhawk 1234: “I am Skyhawk 1234.” […]

Flying into the Class D Purdue University Airport (home of the Purdue Boilermakers), I heard tower say, “N1234 enter right downwind for Runway 28.” A few minutes later the tower said, “N1234, I know you’re from Bloomington (home of Indiana Hoosiers), but it’s your other right.” Apparently the plane had turned left. Then someone else […]

A number of years ago we were talking with Edmonton Center. We heard Cessna 123 check in with Center requesting flight following to Calgary International. Edmonton responded, “Maintain VFR and contact approach on…” We knew the weather was not that great. We switched our number two radio to monitor the situation and we heard: “Calgary […]

My wife and I went out to a morning FAA safety seminar on Long Island. One gentleman in the audience said, “For flying, I love foreplay.” My wife looked at me and asked, “Is he talking about the mile-high club?” I said, “No, Dear. I think he means ForeFlight.” By then the laughter had subsided. […]

When I fly commercial, I usually grab the filed route from FlightAware and pop it into my EFB to follow along during the trip. On a recent flight from Fort Lauderdale to Denver, I noticed the waypoints after Liberal, Kansas were: HALEN-KOORN-IDOLL-NIXX-HAGGR-BSTON-BOSSS-DEN. I guess we were near the ROCKies! Jeff Ronner Boca Raton, Florida I’m […]