Pilot Proficiency

Just as learning doesn’t stop with earning your license, debriefing doesn’t have to stop when there’s no instructor around. Seasoned pilots wanting to increase their proficiency can review and debrief their own flights, thanks to data conversion software such as CloudAhoy. Developed by instrument-rated pilot and software engineer Chuck Shavit, CloudAhoy allows pilots to replay […]

The only IFR approach to Auburn, Washington (S50), is hardly a procedure anyone would consider straightforward, despite the airport’s 63-foot field elevation. Also known as Dick Scobee Field, named for the late Challenger shuttle commander, Auburn sits just a few miles southeast of the busy Sea-Tac Class B, while farther southeast the terrain rises to […]

It’s the final Gold race for the Sport Class at the Stihl National Championship Air Races outside Reno, Nevada. I’m in an Aero Vodochody L-39 Albatros, making circles at 8,500 feet above the Reno-Stead Airport, watching as a group of eight Lancair Legacies, Super Glasairs and Thunder Mustangs battles it out at high speeds around […]

It’s a warm, sticky August morning in Florida, and even the stiff breeze swirling in through the Cub’s open door fails to refresh. I wipe my brow and adjust my ball cap, then peer intently at the lake we’re approaching. It’s not just the climate making me sweat; I’ve been working hard, and things just […]

For tens of thousands of aircraft owners, the deadline has been looming. ADS-B will be required on January 1, 2020, in airspace that now requires a transponder. It was clear to John and me that we wanted to meet the requirement before the deadline — because without ADS-B our old jet would become useless. And […]

An instrument landing system (ILS) uses two separate ground-based radio transmitters to provide both lateral and vertical guidance to pilots during an instrument approach procedure that normally includes the lowest landing minimums. A Category I ILS approach, for example, typically offers a 200-foot decision height above the ground. ILS approach visibility minimums are measured either […]

Around here, we call it the “trip of a lifetime,” though that hardly does it justice. You might remember last month’s column that left off at an improbably tasty restaurant in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland, after just the first day of a 23-day private jet tour of Europe. Air Journey organized the trip, and it featured three […]

I totaled my airplane on May 27, 2018, at 10:30 in the morning. I was departing Telluride Airport in Colorado. It was a Sunday. She was a V-tail. I loved her. She was fast and strong and easily the most exotic thing I have ever owned. And I killed her. They say it’s better to […]

In 2018, a Junkers Ju 52 crashed in the Swiss Alps while attempting to cross a 10,000-foot saddle from south to north amid gusting winds.

Milwaukee ILS/Loc Rwy 1L is a complicated simple procedure. Scroll over the interactive image below for details.