VFR/IFR And Dragons

Joseph E. (Jeb) Burnside

Wednesday, December 22, 2021 at 02:42 PM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

Pilots can strategically use short IFR clearances to quickly depart local IFR conditions (like marine layers), then cancel IFR and pick up a full IFR plan later, especially useful in busy airspace.
While applying maximum nose-up trim *may* help attain best glide in some aircraft, pilots should test this technique in their specific plane and typically establish best glide first, then trim.
A significant majority (62.1% in 2019, per AOPA/ASI) of non-commercial general aviation accidents are pilot-related, a category that includes insufficient owner/pilot maintenance management.
Type-specific pilot proficiency programs offered by aircraft clubs (e.g., Mooney PPP, ABS BPPP) provide highly effective and challenging recurrent training from experienced instructors, dramatically improving pilot skills, especially for instrument flight.

See a mistake? Contact us.

I enjoyed your article “VFR on an IFR Clearance” in the November 2021 issue. I owned and operated a King Air E90 for about 15 years and frequently flew into Watsonville Municipal (KWVI) near Monterey, California. Unless it was a short hop, I almost always flew on a full IFR flight plan and was almost always above 18,000. Watsonville frequently had its marine layer for most of the morning starting at about 500 feet and rarely over a thousand feet thick, but definitely IFR. Filing a plan and getting a clearance and release out of Watsonville given the busy Bay Area airspace was frequently problematic to the point where I would bring a handheld radio and sit on the stairwell talking to NorCal through the remote outlet.

Then one day I heard a local guy in some twin call up asking for a quick IFR release to NALLS intersection, the final approach fix for the Localizer Runway 02 approach. He got it immediately and took off. Never heard from him again since I was still on ground remote, but presumably he canceled with NorCal at or near NALLS and headed VFR on his way.