Technique

Recently, an airline began to receive notices that crews flying the RNAV (GPS) RWY 36 approach into Birmingham, Alabama (BHM) were receiving GPWS alerts while descending from the MDA to the runway. Since it wasnt an isolated incident, the airline suspected that the approach was flawed and notified the FAA, who flight checked the approach. The results of that inspection are educational to instrument-flying pilots at all levels.

My instrument instructor was a glass half-full kind of guy. His response to my first ILS was, Well, at least there is room for improvement. An ILS became the one approach I most dreaded. But now that Ive got a bunch of em under my belt, its actually the approach I prefer. Howd I get there? Im glad you asked.

As another year dawns bright on aviations horizon its time to glance back with jaundiced eye at what our fellow pilots have accomplished in the you-wont-believe-this department. Each year we scour the latest NTSB accident/incident reports for which probable cause has been determined and cherry pick those aviators whove made the supreme effort to ding a wing or to go the extra mile on the last whiff of avgas. We seek the best of the worst-the crme de lbuffoons-whove taken pranging airplanes to new lows and survived. Well analyze 2009, but given that we pilots try the same spar-bending antics over and over again, hoping for different results (the very definition of insanity), this could be from any year.

You asked for an iPad 4 last month, but the guy in the red suit brought you a mini. You want to visit him to discuss his error, so you plan a trip to the airport closest to the north (magnetic) pole: Resolute Bay. But, when you open the approach plates, youre confused.

Any activity that regularly kills between one half and one percent of its participants has room for improvement. Cutting the GA accident and death rate has been a cause celeb recently, and we heartily approve. Here at IFR, we decided to make our own contribution by delving into the accident rate specifically for IMC, focusing on where the outcomes were fatal.

Mark Twain once said, If you hold a cat by the tail, you learn things you cannot learn any other way. Thats also true of flying a Cat I ILS to minimums. No amount of training, except maybe in the best simulators, prepares you for what its like to reach DA and see … very little.

Our CRJ-200 was sliding down through an overcast layer, following the glideslope to Runway 28 at Chicago OHare. Everything was normal, just like it always is. My airline job means I make this approach a couple of times a week.

Circle-to-land gets a bad rap as a dangerous maneuver fit for only the expert or the insane. Then again, maybe thats a bit deserved. The circle-to-land maneuver is the proverbial enough rope: Give it to a pilot who isnt careful and hell hang himself on an unseen tower just when he thinks hes about to pull off another successful flight.

Years ago I was briefly involved in motorcycle road racing. T-shirts with the slogan, Crashing Sucks and a suitable graphic were quite popular. Even then, I thought how appropriate that slogan also was for aviation. Now we find ourselves with back-to-back airliner crashes while landing in visual conditions and Im reminded of just how appropriate that slogan is to aviation. Crashing sucks for all the obvious reasons, but we must also remember that aviation is a…

The circle to land has proven throughout aviation history to be one of the least understood, least practiced and most feared maneuvers. Add the inherent risks of low-level maneuvering in minimum visibility and you may have the most dangerous maneuvers in instrument flight. So much so that some operators prohibit such circling.