I'll take a few flights between Rochester, NY and the Detroit area this summer. Going through the Canadian airspace just seems so much shorter. I can go IFR. My questions is: * I don't need to deal with customs at all, as long as I don't stop at Canada, right? * Do I need to use the ICAO...

Just found out at work the other day that NACO/FAA have started publishing their own approach plates on line. They're actually pretty crisp looking, even when printed. You can view them here; http://www.naco.faa.gov/index.asp?xml=naco/online/d_tpp Just click on the current date range and then...

My Garmin 296 indicates 330 MSL at KHKS, which is correct. My Echo Flight GPS indicates 140 MSL. Both are locked on to WAAS. How can I have such a large discrepancy? Both units seem to be functioning properly other than this.

A fine example of the quality results of Tarver Engineering work. As singed off by John Tarver with applicable 8130. http://www.aart-jan.net/images/aart_in_vliegtuigwrak.jpg photograph courtesy of Aart-Jan, (its not tarver in the pic, it's Aart's father inspecting the fine work completed by...

Let's say I want to file a standard instrument arrival route (STAR) on my IFR flight plan. For example, flying to Henderson Executive (KHND), south of Las Vegas. I want to fly from Palmdale VOR (PMD) to Hector VOR (HEC) to BASAL intersection to Daggett VOR (DAG), to Henderson (HND)...

Kindly take a look at the ILS runway 26 approach to Astoria (KAST). I tried to fly this in my sim and I'm not at all sure that I did it correctly. In my case, this is what I did: I was on V187 from Seattle at 6000. Once I was within 25 nm of AST, I descended to 4300. About 12 nm away from AST,...

Does anyone know how to perform a master reset on the Garmin 196?

I was taught that, if I needed to file an IFR flight plan in the middle of a trip, I should contact FSS first to file and get clearance, then contact ATC. On the other hand, I hear frequent references in rec.aviation to pilots who just contact ATC directly. Does this depend on how busy ATC is -...

Tom Fleischman wrote: If you want to read something really disturbing, this is it. Is there something specific that is disturbing, or are you referring to the entire report? I read through it and, while it is always disturbing when an accident...

Can I descent below minimums on an intermediate stepdown segment of an IFR approach if I have the runway enviroment in sight? On a very steep approach such as the backcourse loc-A to Santa Maria,CA, I would like to start descending below 1700 feet prior to reaching PATER, in order to facilitate a...

"Ryan Ferguson" wrote: If one's SA is what it should be, ciphering out which of the three standard entries to use becomes a waste of time and therefore counter to safe practice. Shouldn't require any ciphering out. Once you visualize where you are and where the hold is, figuring...

http://ronsvideos.fliggo.com/video/uIgc0dP9 This video was shot in a Cessna 206 taking us to a game reserve in South Africa. Watch the fuel gage in the upper right corner.

A couple of weekends ago I was at Half Moon Bay Airport (KHAF) a non-towered field near San Francisco, CA. It was a beautiful, sunny, Sunday afternoon, so that traffic pattern was full. I made calls in each leg of the pattern, except base and final, because I could not get a word in edgewise....

I just brought my XM service then found this: http://www.katu.com/stories/83441.html Any inside scoop?

I've been watching the icing airmets for some time now, and it seems to be getting more and more conservative to the point of being unrealistic. For example, right now the freezing level is at 5000 ft, MEA is at 2500 ft, yet we have an airmet Z that goes all way from SFC to 18k. How could you...

jeff wrote: I need an answer for tomorrow morning. how often is the VOR test done for instrument flying? Quoting from the FARs- hint ;) Sec. 91.171 VOR equipment check for IFR operations. (a) No person may operate a civil aircraft under IFR using the VOR system

What do you use for extra and backup lighting in the cockpit for IFR flights at night? Some airplanes have pretty decent lighting built in. Others can have decent cockpit lighting and poor panel lighting. Others have shadows in poor locations, or areas of the panel/cockpit you'd really like to...

Earth shattering news for GNSS, commercial availability of Chip Scale Atomic Clock (CSAC) For 1st generation CSAC, amazing: 16 cc volume (1 cu inch) 35 grams weight 115mW of power 4 orders of magnitude better clock stability than typical frequency

PDF from NTSB http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/2006/AAB0601.pdf

I recently flew my first DME arc transition using my Garmin GNS-530. It's always fun and challenging to figure out what the Garmin thinks it's doing; see my list of "Garmin gotchas" for examples: http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Garmin/ Below is the newly-added entry on my DME arc experience. --...