IFR Magazine

Its easy to munge DA and MDA into the single concept of minimums. Yet, decision altitude (DA) and minimum descent altitude (MDA) are very different concepts. As the names suggest, DA is a decision point while MDA is the lowest altitude allowed without visuals.

A low morning fog crept onto the airport as I cleared a CRJ-900 regional jet for takeoff. The RJ lifted, passing just above the vaporous wall, and I switched him to Departure. I waited, watching for something I dealt with every day as an air traffic controller, but had never witnessed.

Wingtip vortices aren’t the only type of disturbed air concerning pilots and controllers. According to the 7110.65’s Pilot/Controller Glossary, wake turbulence includes “thrust stream turbulence, jet blast, jet wash, propeller wash, and rotor wash both on the ground and in the air.” If an airplane’s got an engine, that engine’s going to move some air, […]

Advisory Circulars are perhaps the least-read material published by the FAA, quite possibly due to their bureaucratic-sounding name. But if youre willing to go on a little scavenger hunt, youll likely find in-depth information on some of your favorite topics. There are hundreds of ACs, from how to build an airport to the inner workings of airworthiness standards. Of course, most of these have limited appeal, but if you just want some good nuggets about operating in the system, there are plenty of pilot-friendly items, too.

Practice doesnt always require actual performance-it can be as simple as mentally reviewing the steps. Precision (and, as well see, CDFA non-precision) approaches provide time to accomplish a go-around review. Intercepting glideslope at 1500 feet AGL provides time to establish a descent and review a go-around before counting down to minimums.

As pilots, our biggest oxygen consumer is our brain. Night vision is one of the first things to go. The retinas rod cells, which provide night vision, are heavy oxygen consumers. Retinal function begins to deteriorate at altitudes as low as 5000 feet, and so will your night vision. Low perfusion of oxygen also reduces visual acuity. Blurred vision and tunnel vision are both common symptoms of hypoxia. If you experience these symptoms before reducing altitude or starting supplemental oxygen, they may linger.

In most of the world, a shiny, new RNAV approach that lowers minimums by 500 feet is cause for celebration. Not so at Anaktuvuk Pass, Alaska. At least thats what one Alaskan pilot and IFR reader tells me. Our phone call puzzling out a potential solution revealed limitations of cockpit tech, the practicality of old-school scud running, and a potential remedy by blending the two.

Were still running out. Dont make us resort to reruns. Please send us your cleverest (or most embarrassing) moment on the radio-or your favorite fix names or airport names-with a subject of OTA, to IFR@BelvoirPubs.com. Be sure to include your full name and location.

The Aviation Safety Reporting System, ASRS, is a means of confidentially and anonymously reporting unsafe conditions-including your own actions-in aviation, generally without fear of FAA enforcement. Most of us are at least somewhat aware of the ASRS program, but few of us really understand how it works. This is an important program that is of benefit to aviation at large and potentially to us individually, so we should all understand what the ASRS system is, what it can do for us, and how to use it.

After nearly 10 years of lobbying by general aviation advocacy groups, the FAA in March released a draft proposal aiming to overhaul light aircraft certification. Aviation authorities in Europe released their final report in March on last years fatal Germanwings flight, concluding that airline officials couldnt have done anything to prevent the crash, since nobody told anyone at the airline that first officer Andreas Lubitz was suffering from mental-health problems. Women in Aviation International held their annual conference in March, in Nash-ville, Tennessee, with more than 5000 people attending. Responding to a shortage of pilot applicants for entry-level airline jobs, JetBlue has launched an ab-initio flight training program, the first of its kind in the U.S.