mtrescott

Instrument Flying with GPS—What Your Flight Instructor Didn’t Teach You

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Here’s a sample from my new Max Trescott’s GPS & WAAS Instrument Flying Handbook.
Three Ways to Fly an Approach
“Most instrument approaches can be flown in either of two ways: via own navigation, also called pilot navigation, which often involves a procedure turn and via radar vectors from ATC. In addition, many GPS approaches can be flown a third way, which involves being cleared directly to the intermediate fix of the approach. We’ll discuss that third option in detail in Chapter 10.

“Own navigation is used in the real world when aircraft are below radar coverage and ATC can neither see nor vector the aircraft. In that case, aircraft can safely fly the approach on their own, provided they fly the instrument approach exactly as published. This is usually more work than flying an approach via vectors and often includes flying away from the airport before turning around using a procedure turn to fly inbound to the airport. Own navigation is also used heavily in training, so that pilots become familiar with its intricacies.

Book Review: Lane Wallace’s Unforgettable: My Best 10 Flights

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Review of Unforgettable: My 10 Best Flights by Flying magazine’s Lane Wallace. Many of Lane’s unforgettable best flights are in her beloved Grumman Cheetah. She shares with readers the joy of fish tacos in Baja Mexico, her serendipitous encounters while hop scotching between small airports in Texas, and the contrast in a Florida flight that started in bad weather and ended in joy. In other non-Cheetah flights, she takes readers through the Alps in a blimp, on two trips years apart to small villages in war-torn Sudan and to the stratosphere in the back seat of a U-2 high altitude reconnaissance aircraft.

Twelve Days of Christmas – FlyAbout DVD movie for Aviation Lovers

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I wish that everyone who loves aviation will buy a copy of the movie FlyAbout and watch it with their family. Better yet, buy it as a gift for a young person to help inspire them to get their Private certificate.
Words are inadequate to describe the beauty of this 74-minute film. FlyAbout chronicles a young woman’s four-week trip with her father flying a Cessna 172 around the continent of Australia. Against the backdrop of the trip, you’ll see beautiful scenery and exotic animals. But best of all, you’ll see the introspection of a young woman in her twenties working through conflicts that emerge as a result of her being a more experienced pilot than her strong, German father.

Northwest Airlines Flight 188 Pilot Explains How Plane Overshot Minneapolis

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Ever since the pilots of NWA 188 overflew their Minneapolis destination, speculation has been rampant about what actually happened in the cockpit. It was widely assumed that the pilots had fallen asleep. Their subsequent explanation that they’d been out of radio communication for 78 minutes because they became distracted while using their laptops seemed strange enough that it might indeed be true. Still, most pilots wondered how both pilots could have totally lost situational awareness for so long.

Cirrus SR22 crash lawsuit Video

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11-minute video interview with the attorneys for plaintiffs awarded $16.4 million in damages for a January 2003 fatal crash of a Cirrus SR22. It’s noteworthy that the NTSB probable cause puts full blame on the pilot. Nonetheless, the plaintiffs who successfully sued were the families of the pilot Gary Prokop and his passenger James Kosak. Cirrus and University of North Dakota were each found 37.5 percent negligent and Prokop was found 25 percent negligent. The jury awarded $19.4 million. The Prokop family’s portion of the award was reduced by 25 percent for his negligence, which brings the total recovery for the plaintiffs to $16.4 million. Pilots and instructors should look closely at this case for the lessons they can learn from this video.

Get the Instrument Rating in a Glass Cockpit or Round Gauge Airplane?

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If you’re studying for the instrument rating, you may be wondering whether to do your IFR training in a round gauge (sometimes called steam gauge) airplane or in a modern glass cockpit aircraft such as the Garmin G1000 (Cessna, Diamond, Mooney, etc), Avidyne Entegra (Cirrus SR20, SR22, etc) or Garmin Perspective (Cirrus SR22, etc). Like many of life’s questions, the definitive answer is: “It depends.” Beware of people telling you that you should definitely do it one way or the other. While well intentioned, their opinions might not be based upon solid data.

Drunk Airline Pilot Video – United Pilot Arrested in London

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On Monday, British police arrested a United Airlines pilot after he failed a breathalyzer test. The pilot, who apparently had already boarded a Boeing 767, was preparing the fly the aircraft from London’s Heathrow airport to Chicago. Scotland Yard reports that they charged the 51-year old pilot, Erwin Washington of Lakewood, CO, with having too much alcohol in his system while working as a member of aviation staff. The flight was cancelled and the plane’s 124 passengers were rebooked on other flights.

This incident comes on top of a series of recent pilot lapses that…

New Garmin aera Portable GPS Comparison

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Garmin’s announcement today of four new portable GPS products—the aera 500, 510, 550 and 560—essentially refreshes all but the high end of their portable aviation GPS product line. To help pilots understand these products, I’ve put together a comparison chart that compares the aera GPS with the Garmin… 296, 396, 495 and 496 units that … Read more