October 23, 2004 12:00 1.6 hrs. (1.0 actual) First solo IFR, 2 approaches in actual! A warm overcast day with a slight breeze. Everything was reporting broken skies from 2200 up to 8000 where it was supposed to be overcast. A few patches of blue sky here and there made the "occasional IFR along...

I was flying in Northern California the other day, VFR without a cloud in the sky, and asked Oakland Center for a practice ILS approach to Chico, a nearby towered airport. I said I would terminate the approach with a missed approach and then depart the area without flight following. The...

How can I find out where the FAA thinks MEPTE is? On the NOS IFR charts it's charted as in the water (or over it), but when I fly it, it's over land. I know the NOS charts are not all that accurate (for topography) but I'd like to know where it is, for a certification flight for our GPS. Any...

Where can I find approach and departure charts for rural airports in the Sierra Madre mountains that surround Puerto Vallarta, Mexico? I realize many of these mountain airports are little more than a dirt road next to a farm and do not have published instrument approaches, but I would still like...

Hi, I'm European and I'm looking for time buiding in US. I've found that: http://www.aussie-air.com/ Is anybody have feedbak about this flightschool ? or if you know some serious flightschool which propose time buiding, just let me know. Thanks in advance. Skybe

Santa delivered Flight Simulator and a Cyborg joystick this year. I plan to use it to help maintain instrument currency when I don't have time for the real thing. I'm finding the learning curve for FS to be a little steep initially and it is taking a while to get things like the joystick...

Most RNAV approaches have the notations: "GPS or RNP - 0.3 required", and "DME/DME RNP - 0.3 not authorized" 1. The "or RNP .3" seems to imply some navigation unit other than gps can have rnp .3 Any idea what? 2. If an FMS with rnp .3 is able to conduct this approach, wouldn't it need a gps...

I am planning a flight from Los Angeles to New Orleans for some much needed R&R during holidays. My wife does not like to fly more than two 4-hour legs a day, so my plan is to fly from EMT to ELP for fuel & lunch than to AUS overnight. Next morning we continue to NEW. For return trip, we will...

Hello Does anyone have any tips for a new Instrument Pilot (me) I did my first flight today (C77-UGN-C77) And about 45 minutes of it was in IMC. It was kinda cool. My first appoach was missed due to a late (6mi) turn by ATC but the next 2 were probably 6-8 out of 10. It was the ILS 23 ant...

A few weeks ago I flew a practice GPS RWY 24 approach into ELM. I don't recall the exact heading coming in, but it was in the sector leading to CIMAN. I'm new to GPS approaches having just returned after several years of inactivity, and still haven't got all the nuances figured out. I expected...

Is there such a thing?

The Garmin 480 now supports LPV approaches which are ILS like approaches using WAAS-GPS for both LNAV and VNAV. My question. I'm assuming the LPV approach would target 1000ft down the runway as the TDZ (just like an ILS). Does this mean that LPV approaches will not be added to the airports with...

In Flight Simulator 2004 (FS9), is it possible to set/change the location to somewhere besides an airport? I want to practice instrument approaches and start off at a waypoint or IAF. I remember FS98 (or an earlier version) having a "Go to location" menu item. You could then set the...

I got mine last week. I'm very disappointed. Although there is a lot of valuable material in it and the graphics are very, very nice, it is possibly the worst organized book I have ever seen. Both in the writing and in the layout & typography. For example, three levels of unnumbered headings...

Hello I have some questions about the ATC-flightplan and how to fill it out. 1. Field 10, standard equipment ILS means localizer AND glideslope, right? DME is not part of standard equipment, right? 2. Field 10 R means RNP. Do I need to write e.g. R5 for RNP5? Or is no value needed? (is

Ok, I just stepped up to a better plane with a certified GPS and am about to go on a cross country (likely IFR). The Direct path takes me across a couple of Restricted Airspace. Should I plan to avoid or file direct and let ATC handle it with the clearance ? Larry.

I think that GPS can be helpful for airport ground navigation and avoiding runway incursions. For some reason, I never see this mentioned in any of the material on runway incursion. It's not perfect, but if you have one in the cockpit it might help you maintain situational awareness on the...

Snowbird wrote: What can happen -- what's happened to us -- is that the tower controller doesn't worry his head about your flight plan. Yes, but it has to be typed in and accpeted by the computer. At all the class C airspaces all the controllers work all the positions at various times...

What's the latest thinking on the GNS-430 vs. the CNX80? I'm planning a panel upgrade and have read all the magazine articles, including the comparison in Aviation Consumer, but it would be interesting to hear from some actual users on how they compare. It seems the general impression is that the...

Subject: Garmin too big for their britches? (Fixed Pricing) From: (TripodBill) Date: 7/14/2004 12:09 AM Central Standard Time Message-id: Many readers appropriately picked up on one of the most important issues in my earlier...