Search Results for: austin flight check

I swapped frequencies on the 430 and made my call to the controller. “Austin Departure, Cirrus Two Four Seven Sierra Romeo out of one-point-six for 4,000, one-five-zero on the heading.” “Cirrus 247SR, roger, climb and maintain 4,000. And Seven Sierra Romeo, uh, we have you down for 25,000 feet for your final altitude. Is that […]

The sight was breathtakingly sad. A middle-aged woman wearing a bright red blazer scurried across the tarmac to her waiting NetJets Cessna Encore. I sat on a bench just outside the entrance to our FBO, transfixed, wondering why she was hurrying. I had seen her before. A few minutes earlier I had watched as she […]

Some readers might remember that starting back about five years I wrote a series of articles about my experiences flying with two separate small airplane fractional ownership operations: OurPlane and AirShares Elite. The experiences were very positive, and I came to believe that shared ownership (as it came to be called) would be a major […]

With the coming age of very light jets (or whatever you want to call them) just around the corner, the question has been repeatedly raised but never really answered: How will pilots fare when transitioning from piston-powered airplanes to this new breed of little jets? It’s a much more complicated question than it at first […]

The craggy rocks of the northern California coastline stretch out in front of the Cheetah, offering sharp contrast to the dramatically swirling blue waters and white foam surf crashing violently against their sides as we make our way north. I’m busy contemplating possible reasons for the stretch of turquoise-colored water near the shoreline when Jeff’s […]

I recently stumbled across what just might be the coolest pilot software application ever: Keyhole. Well, Keyhole isn’t really intended as pilot software, but pilots are guaranteed to love it. Keyhole-the company was acquired by Google last fall-takes a huge (20 terabytes) database of high-resolution satellite photography-some areas of the country have more detail than […]

Here I sit in the right seat of a fine old 172, inside the marker on an ILS approach, my first ever instrument student refusing to correct for the wind. I watch the localizer needle drift off and feel myself twisting my entire upper body to force it back to center. Should I tell him […]