Technique

Several months back reader Jim Gibertoni in Alaska forwarded me a letter he wrote to the FAA administrator, Randy Babbit. Heres a line from that letter: My question is simple: How does one FAA Part 91 pilot in Fairbanks, Alaska, get the attention of the FAA before the next crash happens in Fairbanks?

I vividly remember my first VFR flight into the Washington, D.C., Special Flight Rules Area (SFRA, previously the D.C. ADIZ). Arriving into Leesburg, Va., I ducked under the Dulles Class B airspace and entered the downwind behind another aircraft. Thats when I heard the voice: Watch your altitude. I figured Potomac Approach somehow smelled fresh blood and would have a SWAT team greeting me on landing.

As an instructor for GLASS Simulator Center in Sugar Grove, Ill., I see a lot of pilots execute missed-approaches. Theyre all instrument-rated and flying the sims for type-specific aircraft training. Most have considerable IFR experience.

Say what you like about pilots flying around with their heads up their MFDs rather than looking outside the cockpit, but when it comes to spotting traffic more than dozen wing-lengths from the airplane, a glance at traffic display is worth a hundred FAA-approved, 10-degree scans out the window.

Ive come to believe that single-pilot IFR in a fully loaded, glass-cockpit-but without using an autopilot-can be the toughest IFR flying you can do. The past month has found me in the clouds with and without students in a couple different airframes that I hadnt recently flown. Thats important because I wasnt in the groove with known power settings and trim. Theres more load on the scan when the plane is less familiar and thats where glass shows its biggest weakness: Visual channel overload.

Bob and I are flying back to Connecticut, IFR in his Cessna 182, after a fabulous experience with my first visit to Oshkosh. We depart with full tanks.

I read with interest-and a chuckle at the question why no one wants to be a pilot today-your editorial, Pilot Shortage Arrives in April 2013. Bottom line is that its just too damned expensive. Getting into the game costs tens of thousands and takes precious time people do not have these days. They see no value in being a pilot. People today have many alternatives for their hard-earned discretionary/recreational funds.

Remember when Garmin first came out with their GNS 430? What a wonderful list of features it had. But, even after a few years in service, it turned out that many pilots were intimidated by the sophisticated routing capability and few ventured beyond using direct-to for navigation.

I remember a few years ago I watched my captain try vainly to intercept the localizer. He had a good intercept angle, but the needle just wouldnt come in. Interestingly enough, though, my HSI showed a completely different-and more reasonable-picture.

Some approaches achieve a certain celebrity status by nature of their difficulty or mind-bending design. Such is the famous (some say infamous) LOC/DME-E into Aspen, Colo. It leverages two different localizers to give you at least a remote chance of slipping down between the mountains and seeing the runway, or slipping back up between the mountains to tell the tale if you dont.

I wanted to cry. It was my Initial Operating Experience for the jet after transitioning from a turboprop and we were going into OHare. In a snowstorm. During rush hour. Wed just gotten our third approach change. I was so lost that I was little more than a voice-activated systems interface for my instructor pilot. If my brain had any spare cycles, Im sure it would have been thinking about truck-driving school.

Non-standard is one of those tricky terms that could mean anything from a trivial change to a detail critical enough to change your whole game plan-or ruin your day if ignored.