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Jeff Van West is one of my favorite modern-day aviation writers. His article, Seeing Double in the November issue is a fine example of Jeff taking us by the hand through important, but oft overlooked and esoteric aspects of our IFR life. But his use of the word declination instead of the correct word, variation, is a fingernail on the blackboard kind of irritant, if you remember blackboards. I have these old yellowed books that I studied in the 50s: AF Manual 51-40, Air Navigation Vol 1, by the Department of the Air Force (1959), page viii, and The American Flight Navigator by John Dohm (1958) page 324.

Not sure if this is a question or a frustration, but after reading the August 2016 quiz about PIREPs, it made me wonder why there are so few PIREPs in the system. It appears that most reports of icing, tops, and bases that are given to ATC never make it into the PIREP system. Most of us frequently report these conditions when departing or arriving, however I seldom take the time to change frequency and submit an official PIREP. Is there a process or key phrase that we can say to ATC to ask them to submit the PIREP on our behalf. Seems like if a pilot reports icing in climb or in descent to departure or approach, ATC should submit that report as a PIREP.

This gets into how these various Advisory Circulars are updated. Once an AC is issued, its assigned a number and a version letter, such as AC 00-45G, Aviation Weather Services. That version can be revised by issuing changes. So, the full specification of the most recent document is AC 00-45G, Change 2. The main document-original version-is what is returned by the various searches; youve got to dig just a bit further to find the changed versions.

When I was based at PDK airport, a very busy airport in Atlanta, GA used by many business jets, the tower would routinely route smaller aircraft approaching from the east to cross over mid-field at or above pattern altitude and enter a left downwind for Runway 3L. Doing so while there were other aircraft in the pattern, landing and taking off. The reason was to keep the longer Runway 3R open for business jets landing and taking off. In this instance, a pilot would be crossing over two active runways.

In the June issue, a reader had a question regarding the TERPZ FIVE departure at BWI. Your response in a lost com scenario was that you should climb to TERPZ at 11,000 then climb to your filed altitude after 10 minutes. I disagree. In the regs, 91.185 offers clear altitude guidance in a lost com situation. It is simply the highest of 3 altitudes-the altitude in your clearance, the altitude you were told to expect, and the highest IFR altitude. No mention is made about waiting for 10 minutes nor about a filed altitude.

The minimum vectoring altitude near my home drome is about 3000 feet MSL because of our distance from the radar site. Thats higher than the 2000-foot crossing at the FAFs so we always get cleared for a full approach. However, our ADS-B reception is currently around 1000 feet MSL/700 AGL. After 2020, when the traffic picture is nearly full via ADS-B and closer to the ground, do you foresee MVAs being lowered in areas that have been limited primarily by poor radar coverage?

I found the reader question and your response about squawking standby in the May issue interesting because Mode S transponders and especially ADS-B Out configurations have SBY/ALT positions when a GPS position is received rather than ON/ALT without a GPS position. At least that is how my Avidyne IFD540/AXP340 system works. The transponder powers up in SBY mode and automatically switches to ALT mode during the takeoff run. Perhaps Im wrong, but my understanding is that the SBY position has a different transmission profile for Mode S than the ALT mode and that is reflected in what ATC sees.

Certainly following the airways and the MEAs, and then descending over an initial approach fix or hold would be best. I was just thinking of a case when we werent on an airway, like between Keflavik, Iceland (BIKF) and Narsarsuaq, Greenland (BGBW). We wanted to make sure we were above the OROCA and MSAs for that area when we were descending. I guess we could have stayed at our filed FL170 until over the hold, but given that the airport is at sea level we wanted to start a prudently safe descent beforehand.

In aircraft terms it is somewhat analogous to the F mechanism on most aircraft. The Flap is generally used on descent, provides drag to reduce speed and per Bernoulli and/or Newton or some other dead scientist, converts energy into additional lift. The B on the Prius (and other hybrids) shifter is generally used on long descents to produce additional drag via the engine/generator, which in turn converts energy into additional electrical charge to store in the battery.

Reading your explanation of the TERPZ FIVE DEPARTURE at BWI, which was in response to a question regarding altitude restrictions and expectations, I am not convinced that the procedure as published is clear.

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The author did a good job summarizing the report but should have inserted the report language about the entry to the stall and left out the speculation about the crews actions. It is clear from the video and the report that they were only passengers from the time the cargo broke loose with no ability to control the aircraft trajectory or flight path.