Technique

Fly the SimThanks very much for the October 2013 “Simplified Circling” article by Dog Brenneman. He mentioned that “we just don’t get a lot of circling practice.”I’ve been regularly flying the Redbird FMX motion simulator to practice circle-to-land maneuvers. I set the ceiling so that tight altitude control is required and adjust visibility, rain, day/night […]

Cruise through aviation forums on the Internet and you’ll find descent planning is a popular topic. Ask how people plan their descent and answers range from, “I wait for ATC to give me lower,” to a series of calculations, with a lot of rules of thumb in between. Wait for ATC to Assign LowerMany of […]

Why do holiday newsletters begin with, “It’s hard to believe another year has passed”? Have we not yet accepted the earth’s orbit around the sun? Or is it truly unfathomable that no matter what reality dictates we’re doomed to repeat the same dumb things year after year? And I’m not just addressing you folks in […]

Three interesting news items came through my e-mail today. The first was the NTSBs findings that, while there were some contributing factors, the pilots of Asiana 214 simply screwed up, particularly in their use of the automation in their aircraft.

The opposite of a dive-n-drive descent on an approach is called a Continuous Descent Final Approach, or CDFA. You might think of an ILS as the ultimate CDFA. More specifically, though, this technique is applied to a non-precision approach. So, well use the synonym, Constant Angle Non-Precision Approach (CANPA) for a CDFA on a non-precision approach. What are they? Should you fly one?

Early July saw a fiery crash of an Asiana B-777. That was followed by Southwests unsuccessful nosewheel landing and a UPS flight hitting the ground. While the NTSB grinds toward its final reports, lessons for us are emerging.