Here There Be Dragons: How To Fly LNAV+V

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“+V Rocks!” It’s an almost universal response when someone flies an approach with a WAAS GPS receiver for the first time. “Look! A glidepath where there wasn’t one before!!!” It’s almost enough to make one giddy (but not quite).

Many pilots think, “GREAT! I can couple my autopilot to the glidepath and let George do all the work.” Nope. In fact, if you have a tendency to fly an LNAV+V with the same procedures you use for an ILS or LPV approach, you may some day find yourself in a world of hurt. Obstacles close to the runway environment may reach up and smite you from the sky.

You need a different technique.

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Viva Climb Via!

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Las Vegas. Sin City. What Happens Here, Stays Here. Las Vegas conjures up images of deviance. It’s also a hotbed of pilot deviations.

Nestled in the center of Vegas Valley, surrounded by the Sierra Nevada and Spring Mountains, Las Vegas combines cramped geography with seasons that are hot, windy and dry. Maximum temperatures often exceed 100 degrees F in the summer, sucking the life out of aircraft engines. A dense combination of airports tucked under the Class B airspace of McCarran International (the ninth busiest airport in the US) makes navigating the Vegas Valley a supreme challenge. Departure Procedures, in particular, are fraught with potential for error.

The FAA is trying to make things better. Continue reading →

Can You Give That To Me In English?

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Sometimes you’ll get an IFR clearance that will be a complete head-scratcher. It’s almost as if ATC deliberately tries to come up with the most incomprehensible language possible. The very first clearance I ever received was just like that. Departing San Carlos (KSQL), I was instructed:

Fly runway heading to the diamond shaped waterway, turn right heading 120 within two miles of the airport, radar vectors Woodside, Victor 25, Salinas, direct, maintain VFR at or below 1,100 until crossing the Oakland 165 Radial, then climb and maintain 2,000, expect 5,000 after five, blah blah blah.

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ATC Breaking RNAV

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The relationship between pilots and ATC is a complex one. We pilots are required to follow ATC instructions, yet we remain the ones “in command.” It works in theory, but not as well in practice. When you spend an entire flight following instructions from ATC, it’s hard to remember that the pilot always must decide whether ATC instructions are right or wrong.

There is a growing pandemic of bad instructions from ATC. It appears to have started in Texas, it has definitely spread to Colorado and now it appears to be infecting other ATC facilities. It sounds something like this:

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Radials, Routes and Courses

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I was having an outdoor lunch in Camarillo with the Ventura County Ninety-Nines the other day when a tourist walked up to us and asked, “Can you tell me how to get to In-N-Out Burger?” I told him:

Continue present heading until you hit the Factory Outlet Mall (FOM) zero four five radial.

The other pilots giggled while the tourist gave me the stink eye. Sheila quickly took pity on him:

It’s just one more exit down US-101.

We then watched the tourist drive out of the parking lot and turn the wrong way.

This kind of confusion happens between ATC and pilots all the time, and I think automation is making things worse.

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YAGVG—Yet Another G1000 VNV Gotcha

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There’s a corollary to the old saying that no flight is perfect: You learn something every flight.

The other day, I was giving instrument instruction in a Lancair Evolution equipped with the G900X (Garmin’s experimental version of the G1000 series of glass panels). During that flight, the vertical navigation (VNV) feature failed to perform as expected. This will come as no surprise to G1000 pilots, as VNV is one of the most finicky G1000 feature. However, I was able to capture exactly what happened and re-created it back in the office on the G1000 PC Trainer. What I learned caused me to change my VNV procedures.

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Brian’s Flying Book

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There are tons of flying books out there, some good, some not so good. I had the pleasure of reading “Brian’s Flying Book” by Brian Lansburgh recently, and I found myself nodding my head at a series of unconventional, even downright heretical, notions about flying and flight instructing. Does that make me a heretic too?

This fast read from a former air-show clown, full of delightful anecdotes and funny stories, goes right to the heart of how to become a safer pilot—mastering stick and rudder skills well beyond what you’re taught to earn your pilot certificate. Sound familiar? I got so excited after reading Brian’s book, I immediately signed up for some lessons with him.

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The Dangerous Downwind Turn

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[Thanks to xkcd.com for the use of their comic.]

In a recent post on his blog, Left Seat, J. Mac McClellan (former editor-in-chief of Flying magazine and current editor of EAA’s Sport Aviation) re-ignited the controversy about whether or not turning downwind can be dangerous because it will cause a loss of airspeed due to the inertia of the aircraft. Many pilots responded to disagree with McClellan’s post, and I won’t copy all those discussions here. Rather, let’s take the MasterFlight approach to this problem: break it down and put it back together with recommended procedures and techniques.

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