Points for Pilots

Flight plan with GPS waypoints When we fly a complicated route over rugged and sparsely populated terrain, we would like to file a flight plan that tells the exact route. Unfortunately, today's format of flight plans was formulated in the olden age of Telex communication, where each character was considered an expensive item to transmit. As a result, there is no way to tell the flight service precisely where we are going, even if we add some description of the route in the remarks section. Come the modern way of defining and storing routes to the rescue. In our case, we use the Garmin Pilot, where the route can be graphically modified and then displayed with GPS coordinates for each waypoint.  We use that information as follows. First, we file the regular flight plan, with limited information as constrained by the current form.  We include the phone number of a contact person who will monitor our flight. That is, upon landing at the destination, we have agreed to cal...

Typical windy afternoon at Hale County in Plainview, TX . Toward the end of a commercial flight, the captain always announces, "Flight attendants, prepare for landing." We need to do that, too, when we fly our little planes.  Should be easy, shouldn't it. Well, things can become difficult, as we shall see in two cases. The first one we handled poorly, but the second one, well.  Let's go back to captain Chesley Sullenberger, who landed an Airbus A320 with both engines out on the Hudson River and thus saved all lives. We learned later that he had the habit of regularly checking destination weather, regardless how far away.  It seemed a splendid idea, and we have gotten into the habit of doing that every 30 minutes. It has turned out to be an excellent idea. On to the first story. We are flying from Aero Country, our home base, to Plainview, TX. The main destination runway is being repaired, but the alternate runway has ample length.  While enroute, we...