IFR Magazine

Upon first glance, the ILS or LOC RWY 23 approach [A] at Westover Air Reserve Base/Metropolitan (KCEF) appears to be a typical ILS approach. But looking closely we notice that the MSA (minimum safe altitude) is based on the Westover (CEF) TACAN [B]. The center of the MSA circle is the symbol for a TACAN, . […]

The weather was good in Houston, but traffic was heavy. My traffic display was a solid mass of aircraft that was so dense even on smaller scales that most targets were indistinguishable from one another. I’d just checked on with TRACON and overheard a controller giving vector and restriction after vector and restriction to one […]

Sitting in seat 34F of a 737 MAX-9, I’m leafing through the dog-eared inflight magazine. It makes a big fuss about the airline’s offerings. Wi-Fi onboard, A/C power, luxurious first-class (in which I am not seated, alas). What isn’t advertised? Unexpected aerial thrill rides. Who would’ve guessed violent maneuvers weren’t big sales movers for the […]

The FAA’s IFP Information Gateway offers all published Instrument Fight Procedures for download and status checks such as whether procedures are new, up for amendment, or on the block for cancellation. Uniquely, it gives pilots a fast, efficient way to query IFP designers concerning any issues. It even offers automatic notification of changes to a […]

Instrument training is littered with acronyms and abbreviations. Altitudes like MEA, MCA, MOCA, OROCA can end up being the bane of students. And that’s just the en-route altitudes. When we get into the terminal environment, we then have the procedural MEAs on SIDs and STARs and, of course, the minimum—and sometime maximum—altitudes for the various […]

Proceed on Course Can you address the topic of “Proceed On Course” vs. “Proceed Direct xxx”? Specifically, if after being vectored during a departure and ATC says “Proceed on Course” does that mean fly direct to the next fix or fly back towards my original GPS course line and follow that to the next fix? […]

5G NOTAMs Restrict Instrument Flight The FAA has published 1460 NOTAMs that restrict operations that rely on radio altimeters. The NOTAMs were issued just before the planned rollout of nationwide 5G cellular service by Verizon and AT&T. The companies are using a thin slice of the so-called C-Band of radio spectrum for the service and […]

Years ago before GPS, when we only had two VORs, we were westbound against an extraordinarily strong headwind in a Cherokee, talking to St. Louis Approach. Through breaks in the clouds I could see that the big trucks on the Interstate below were making better time than we were. It was obvious we weren’t going […]