When you stop and think about it, autoland in GA was inevitable. We’ve had the technology for decades, so it was merely a matter of the practical application of that technology getting small enough in size and cost to find its way into our realm. Of course, that’s not to diminish the required massive engineering […]
When the jet age arrived in 1959, little was known about wind shear. Aviation was focused on thunderstorm avoidance. In Joseph George’s compilation of Eastern Air Line’s forecasting techniques from that era, we find thunderstorms described in terms of turbulence, icing, and hail hazards. As jet aircraft were equipped with radar, it was assumed that […]
In the early 1970s, I was a captain in the Kansas Army National Guard flying a CH-54 Sky Crane helicopter IFR north bound off of Forbes Field, Topeka, Kansas. We were headed to annual training with Jeep on a four point load hung under the CH-54 for ground transportation upon arrival. We were level at […]
AIRMET Tango for turbulence was spot on. You’re given “climb and maintain six thousand,” but with the bumps you accidentally enter 7000 in the altitude preselect. Passing through 6,300 feet, you hear your call sign and, “verify level at six.” You stop the climb and head back down. All seems good until 10 minutes later […]
Visiting wineries has become a bit of a hobby of yours, and a perfect excuse to load up your Piper Malibu Mirage to make weekend getaways in the sometimes-remote places wineries seem to proliferate. You’ve exhausted most of what Northern California has to offer, so you’re now exploring further down the coast. You skipped out […]
In our previous episode, we shared seventeen of the most common pilot avionics errors identified in FAA and NASA studies. If 80 percent of consequences come from 20 percent of the causes, knowing even this little goes a long way. Now, using the classic learn-from-our-mistakes reasoning, the FAA then swaps its perspective from reactive (noticing […]
Believe it or not, air traffic controllers don’t issue radar vectors for amusement. I know it might seem like it when you’re getting strung out for a sequence or for traffic, watching the time-equals-money clock ticking away, increasing the costs of your flight. My goal as a controller is to get you on your own […]
Dangerous Identifiers I enjoyed Elaine Kauh’s article, “Making Do, Part 2” back in the August 2019 issue. It accurately reflects the decisions— and sometimes the mistakes— we make trying to use our airplanes. The similarity of the Kennett, MO and Texarkana airport identifiers (KTKX and KTXK, respectively), while it may have been presented as a […]
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