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There are a lot of things in the FARs that I have a hard time remembering and a lot that I find confusing at first glance. I figured that if I have trouble others might too so I’ve collected my thoughts here. There are lots of things that I find interesting that appear here as well.

The Detroit/Pontiac branch of NOAA’s National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office had a glossary of weather terms that you can get through the Internet Archive. It includes common terms that every airman should know like Air Mass Thunderstorm as well as less common terms like Alberta Clipper that apply to certain areas of the country. […]

Update: 2017-02-23 I can’t find anything in the AIM or FAA docs about RITTRs so I suspect that they never happened or were test areas for Terminal Arrival Areas (TAA). From the Piper Flyer article RITTRs Understood. “The NPRM defines a RITTR as a low altitude route based on Area Navigation for GPS-equipped aircraft designed […]

I’ve been listening to the JFK tower and approach on LiveATC. It is interesting to listen to the takeoffs and landings at parallel runways like JFK, Las Vegas, or LAX. Landings usually take place on the runway farthest from the terminal and then the planes taxi and hold short of the active takeoff runway. Even […]

I was listening to the tower at JFK and pulled up the airport diagram to follow along. I noticed the notation EMAS and 392 × 226 at the approach end of Rwy 22L. The Google Maps image below shows what it looks like from the air. It turns out that there are many airports that […]

AOPA has a good course on GPS usage. Garmin has a simulator that you can use to explore the features of their GPS products. GPS has a 100′ horizontal accuracy. If augmented with WAAS it has 10′ horizontal accuracy. The WAAS capability also allows approaches with vertical guidance—LPV and LNAV/VNAV. LPV—Localizer performance with vertical guidance. […]

As pilots we often talk about night flying and daytime flying meaning when it is dark or light, but for logging time and for currency there are specific definitions that we must pay attention to. FAR 1.1 General Definitions Night means the time between the end of evening civil twilight and the beginning of morning […]

Most pilots in the US are more familiar with temperature in degrees Fahrenheit than in degrees Celsius as reported in METARs, with the winds aloft forecasts, and in most aviation reports. And most pilots that I know don’t think in Celsius but need to make the conversion to Fahrenheit. If you know a couple of […]

Finding the reciprocal of a compass heading. The easiest way to find the opposite direction on a compass is to use a two step process. If the current direction is less than 180, add 200 and then subtract 20. If the current heading is greater than 180, subtract 200 then add 20. So for a […]

The use of the GUMPS check has never made any sense to me. It is usually taught to students flying simple trainers and doesn’t really apply. I’ll describe an alternative after I dissect the current practice. GUMPS usually stands for Gas, Undercarriage, Mixture, Prop, Safety. Sometimes GUMPRS, adds Radios to the list and C-GUMPS for […]

As an airplane moves through the air it also can rotate about its center of gravity in three axes. Rotation along the lateral axis (found by drawing a from one wing-tip to the other through the body of the plane) is called pitch and is controlled by the elevator. Rotation along the longitudinal axis (found […]

If you listen to the tower and traffic at a local airport you’ll get a feel for the landmarks that the tower uses for incoming traffic. At SBP for example, traffic that is straight in is asked to report abeam the landfill. Sometimes it is phrased as “report four-mile final”. If you are in the […]

Logging of PIC time is important for currency, insurance, and for experience necessary for obtaining ratings. The rules are not necessarily the same in all instances. FAR 61.51 covers what must be included in logbooks and gives guidance on how to log experience. To interpret the regulation correctly it is important to first understand the […]

The pilot of an aircraft in VFR conditions is always responsible for seeing and avoiding other aircraft. This list is a quick shortcut to help you identify aircraft in the pattern. You can find pictures and info on all of these planes at Airliners.net. When identifying your aircraft while approaching the pattern it helps others […]

A student pilot normally learns to fly in an airplane that has one propeller and fixed-wheel landing gear. The student is usually pursuing a “Single-Engine Land Rating”. Once the required tests are passed the airman is issued a pilot certificate that has a single-engine land rating. The certificate never expires and allows the pilot to […]