On the Air: January 2017

We flew N123CT to Dallas to visit friends on New Years Eve. Looking over the en route charts, I noted the MEEOW intersection southwest of Little Rock. As it happened, on New Years Day, we flew from Dallas to Little Rock with four feline-loving passengers aboard for a short day trip. Though off the direct route, it was possible to overfly MEEOW inbound to KLIT. So I requested routing Present position, direct MEEOW, direct.

Editorial Staff

Friday, December 16, 2016 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

Pilots share humorous anecdotes, such as routing over the uniquely named "MEEOW" intersection for passenger amusement.
Challenging flight conditions, like strong crosswinds during landing, test pilot skills and highlight the differences between aircraft types.
Air traffic controllers, particularly in busy airspace, may summarily deny overly ambitious or complex flight requests from pilots.

See a mistake? Contact us.

We flew N123CT to Dallas to visit friends on New Year’s Eve. Looking over the en route charts, I noted the MEEOW intersection southwest of Little Rock. As it happened, on New Year’s Day, we flew from Dallas to Little Rock with four feline-loving passengers aboard for a short day trip. Though off the direct route, it was possible to overfly MEEOW inbound to KLIT. So I requested routing “Present position, direct MEEOW, direct.”

After phonetically spelling MEEOW to a puzzled center controller, he obliged the request and I informed our passengers of the new routing. The passenger in the right seat coordinated a countdown, and at MEEOW, a loud “MEEEEOWWW” comes from all aboard. Happy New Year!