Author Archives: David Megginson
Dash-8 incident out of Kingston
This morning, I read a CBC story about a control problem on an Air Canada Jazz Dash-8 flying from Kingston to Toronto on 2 September 2004. From the story, it was pretty hard to figure out what had actually happened, … Continue reading
Tagged maintenance, news
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Mind reading and ATC
I’ll guess that 80% of my flying is done in continuous radio contact with ATC, either IFR, VFR in class B/C/D airspace, or VFR with flight following in class E/G airspace. This kind of flying has its own challenges, but … Continue reading
Training and false alarms
The story goes (true or not) that 911 gets more than its share of calls about airplanes in distress over the practice area west of Ottawa. I don’t blame the people calling in — stall practice is (hopefully) too high … Continue reading
Tagged news
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LOP debate goes mainstream
The lean-of-peak debate, which I’ve written about before, has just gone mainstream — check out this Forbes piece, part of a series of online articles about institutional stupidity. The focus is on Lycoming’s business practices (deny evidence that you cannot … Continue reading
Cirrus owner's review (mixed)
Back in July 2005 (updated in September), Philip Greenspun published a detailed owner’s review of his factory-new Cirrus SR20, the 200 hp (cheaper) sibling of the Cirrus SR22. Philip has flown his plane pretty seriously around a huge part of … Continue reading
Tagged aviating, maintenance, owning
6 Comments
Canada/US descent below minima
I was discussing this approach with some U.S. pilots before I revised the numbers up — at the time, I remembered not seeing the runway until below 100 feet, though now I’m fairly certain I saw it at 130 feet. … Continue reading
Tagged canada-us, regulations
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Ground support
Most commercial pilots, from the 747 captain to the freight dog and flight instructor, have something that most private pilots lack: ground support (did you think I was going to write something like “gumption”?). Today, the professionalism of a charity … Continue reading
Tagged aviating
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A low approach, and the lights
[Update: after a night’s rest, I’ve gone back to the approach plate to get the threshold elevation, and have tried to remember the exact reports I gave North Bay radio; as a result, I’ve revised all altitudes up a little.] … Continue reading
Tagged places, regulations, system
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Surface temperature and the TAF
When you’re looking at the weather around a specific Canadian or U.S. airport, the METAR (current observations) includes surface temperature and dewpoint, while the TAF (forecast) does not. Why? It’s true that pilots have to worry about more than just … Continue reading
Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, David …
I flew home from Atlanta by airline this morning. I had been forced to cancel my plan to fly myself down early Monday because of severe mechanical turbulence around Ottawa up to 6,000 feet (confirmed by a PIREP from a … Continue reading
Tagged places
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Land and Hold Short 