IFR Magazine

Last month, with officials in Washington unable to agree on a budget to avert the stalemate called sequester, 149 contract towers across the country were told to shut down. But when lawsuits arose from all corners, the plan was put on hold. Another plan to force all of the nations air traffic controllers to cut back their hours produced nationwide backups and howls of dismay that quickly drove Congress to pass a new law in…

Pilots always complain about the price of fuel–but if they could buy avgas for $1 a gallon, would that really change their flying habits? That was the question the owners of Redbird Skyport, in San Marcos, Texas, set out to answer in October. Sales soared to 30 times normal, their staff wore down, and the supply chain started to suffer hiccups. They ended the experiment two weeks early, after collecting reams of data from pilot…

The first FAA-approved commercial drones launched on September 12 from a ship in the Chukchi Sea, off the North coast of Alaska. The ScanEagle unmanned aircraft system weighs just 44 pounds and has a 10-foot wingspan. It will conduct surveys of ice and marine mammals in the vicinity of drilling rigs. The UAS will be allowed to fly 24 hours a day at heights up to 2,000 feet and out of the line of sight of operators on the ground. The U.S. Air Force also said in September it has successfully flown the first of its mothballed F-16 fleet as a drone, which will be used for target practice.

Few situations require quick judgment like deciding to go missed with weather at minimums. Arriving at missed approach point or decision altitude, the pilot must determine if the runway environment is in sight and the required flight visibility is evident. If these conditions are met, is the aircraft in a position to land and is the runway condition suitable? All of this must be accomplished while flying through a sea of obstructions at about 150…

Long the purview of sophisticated flight data recorders available only to airlines, many of the popular integrated TAA systems being installed today can record all the critical-and embarrassing-data about your flight. Activating a data logging feature typically calls for little more than inserting a memory card in a slot; the machine does the rest. …

According to 14 CFR 91.173, an IFR flight plan and clearance are only required for flight in controlled airspace, yet most of us have to at least occasionally depart airports within Class G airspace, essentially the only uncontrolled airspace we use. Class G usually ends at 700 or 1200 feet AGL, though there are remote places where its all the way up to 14,500 feet. Other than this, there is little guidance in the regulations…

You dont have to know how sausage is made to enjoy it, but you might want to know about some of the ingredients. The same is true for instrument approaches. You dont need to know how they are made, but an understanding of the ingredients will help.

There is no question that pilots planning to fly IFR should always keep a current database in their approved GPS. Its not difficult and it demonstrates a professional attitude toward instrument flight and aircraft maintenance. In the perfect black and white world of flight schools and checkrides, this would be standard. However, in the real world of dumb luck and Murphys Law, this topic gets a little murky. …

If there was ever a high-performance document, the instrument approach procedure chart (plate) is it. Flying an approach asks a lot of us. Information needed for an IAP, SID or STAR must be retrievable quickly and correctly off the chart while minimizing head-down time away from the instruments.Until the mid-1990s, approach charts evolved without scientific study, driven instead by user feedback and flight safety. Liability proved a mixed blessing. Litigation motivates accuracy, but also makes…

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