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AVIONICS

Keeping the Lights On

While the COVID-19 pandemic raged around us, I was standing in our approach control’s radar room and my supervisor had just taken a call...

Tech Talk: Stall-Warning Systems

Aerodynamic wing stall accidents have been a concern since the canard was removed around 1910. Approximately 40 percent of General Aviation fatal accidents are...

What’s Your Profile?

Let’s discuss profiles—for flight, not social media—that provide whatto- do-at-each-point guidelines that govern how you fly your airplane. During an IFR lesson, I often get...

Got GPS?

Our IFR avionics are getting evermore capable, allowing us single-pilot fliers to shoot RNAV approaches once reserved for the big iron. While most standard...

Do You Know ICAO?

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) dwells in the deep recesses of general aviation operations. We now file ICAO flight plans, only vaguely aware...

Vmc Analyzed

Training for my multi-engine rating years ago was in a Piper Apache. It was a good, inexpensive training aircraft, but it lulled me into...

Between The Cracks

During my high school years, I got a lift home from a friend. Approaching my neighborhood, I said, “Turn left here.” I expected my...

You Could Fly a Cat II ILS

Category I ILS approaches, long our low-weather mainstay, offer us minimums as low as 200 feet above the touchdown zone with RVR 1800 feet...

AFCS: Friend or Foe?

Full-regime automatic flight control systems (AFCS) consist of at least a flight director (FD) and an autopilot (AP). “Full regime” means the AFCS has...

Advanced Avionics Errors

The FAA and NASA have identified errors commonly made by pilots using advanced avionics. Each of the errors discussed below were unearthed during research...

Towered Field Ops

It’s Saturday morning at 0730. Weather is VFR and a million, and most of the flight schools and weekend warriors are calling up Ground...

How We Die, Part 2

Too many pilots have died because they attempted instrument flight without a thorough working knowledge of their GPS navigators. Do you need to know...