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Technique

Smooth Way Down

Southern California, the land of Zen mountain centers, surfer vibes, and the Big Lebowski, is one laid-back place. Is there a better spot then,...

Right Approach Speeds

Our training for the instrument ticket focused on flying by reference to instruments, how to shoot approaches, holds etc. By that point pilots were...

Near Midair Collisions

These reports of near midair collisions, NMACs, should be deeply frightening to any pilot. The pilots’ experiences strongly suggest more vigilance and, ultimately, increased...

Don’t Hit the Ground

Every year, the Aviation Safety Reporting System staff selects 50 of the most profound reports in a category, here Controlled Flight Toward Terrain, and...

Random Holds

Holds are the bane of many pilots’ existence. The variety of helpful and not-so-helpful tips, tricks, and other “aids” tells us how big a...

Dilemmas At Dusk

While we train for the essential ability to fly approaches to minimums, that’s not always enough preparation for real-life weather, which can conjure up...

Fly the Procedure Turn

We all learned how to fly procedure turns when we got our instrument rating. We probably even had to fly a procedure turn or...

Finish The Job

The second leg of your Tennessee-to-Kentucky journey (see January IFR) is going more smoothly than the first, but there are yet some tough decisions...

Incommunicado

Airborne communications failures can be uncomfortable at best. It’s eerie hearing the radios go quiet when they should be bustling with transmissions, and you...

Stupid Pilot Tricks

Yes, we’d done as we were told. The hushed voice on the phone had promised a copy the 2019 Golden File from the Official...

Don’t Cancel Yet

The flight to your vacation destination ended a few miles short with an unplanned overnight in Virginia. The trip started from home base in...

Which Way Is Up?

Expect vigorous debate on how best to orient your moving map. Here, I’ll address that debate about the best orientation. But rather than reiterating...