Air Canada Flight 759 almost landed at night on a taxiway adjacent to closed SFO Runway 28L on July 7, 2017. At the last moment, the pilots aborted. The NTSB estimated it came within 14 feet of another aircraft. Investigators discovered the NOTAM closing the runway was buried on page 8 of their 27-page flight […]
Autopilots are great. First and foremost, they’re safety-enhancing devices. They free us from the mundane, but often consuming, task of simply keeping the airplane where it should be. This allows us to better manage the myriad other things we have to do. Plus, of course, it reduces fatigue. What could be better? Indeed, that’s all […]
FAA’s Office of Aerospace Medicine (AAM) in Washington, D.C., led by Dr. Susan Northrup, the Federal Air Surgeon, has jurisdiction over CAMI. The divisions of CAMI we care most about are Aerospace Medical Certification (AMCD), Medical Specialties, and the nine Regional Flight Surgeons (RFS), who can issue or deny most medicals. They can help resolve […]
Just like pilots, controllers get plenty of questions, comments, concerns, and sometimes complaints. Bonus: Writing these articles gives me an opportunity to address some items in print. Of course, I’ve dealt with my share of good and bad remarks on and off frequency. It’s not at all unusual for a pilot to wonder; “What is […]
A while back we were transitioning Omaha’s airspace, and heard the following: Omaha: “American 123, climb and maintain 10,000, one zero thousand.” American 123: “One-zero thousand. Your timing was stupendous, I was just picking up the mic to ask for higher.” Omaha: “Actually, the clearance just came in from Center.” After several unrelated calls, Omaha: […]
How Can They Do That? We have some Pilots and even CFIIs flying contact approaches into S50. The regulation for contact approach requires both flight and ground visibility of one mile. While there is some weather reporting on the field it doesn’t include any kind of visibility. Aren’t they breaking the rules? Shouldn’t ATC Approach […]
Canada Phasing In Space-Based ADS-B Canada has set Feb.23, 2023 as the deadline for compliance with the first phase of its space-based ADS-B mandate. Eventually all aircraft flying in controlled airspace in Canada will need ADS-B Out equipment that can send 1090 ES signals from belly and roof-mounted antennas or a combination unit that can […]
Recently I attended a Rusty Pilot session and learned (or re-learned as the case may be) several aspects of our aviating world that laid dormant in my little gray cells for far too long. Although I have been an active presenter of this constructive AOPA educational series for three years, it has been on hold […]
Low IMC approaches are often the highest-workload procedure for single-pilot, single-engine flights. But departures can be a handful, especially when the weather is between VMC and IMC. Counterintuitive, yes. That’s because there’s more than one option in addition to flying an IFR published procedure. Visual departures followed by IFR routing, obstacle departure procedures (ODPs) that […]
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