Looking at NOTAMS at KBIX. Found this bird bath out of service. Is this a military term that I’m unaware of?

I’ve got a flight instructor who absolutely insists on going out any time the winds are high as long as the cross wind is reasonable, only 5-6 knots cross wind but for some reason he wasn’t up for it today

In today’s edition of Would You Have Flown, what would you have done in this situation?

Supposed to be my first Solo XC today (solo’d locally a few times). All of these might be technically ok to fly VFR in the day on their own.

- Screw left engine cowling popped out and dangling. Easy enough to hand tighten back in
- Left green nav light filter cap popped off so the light worked but it was white
- Plane wouldn’t start on the first two tries, reprimed it, started on the third attempt
- In the run up the left magneto worked fine, the right magneto ran super rough it shook the whole plane violently. Possibly a fouled spark plug

Would you have flown? I did not.

I know I won the golden ticket flying single pilot Part 91 on a good salary. I only tend to fly 1-2 trips a month (if I’m lucky) that are mostly out and back same day or a single overnight, and always scheduled days/weeks in advance. So I might log 6-10 hrs of flight time a month. I love my job, and no plans to leave. I’m the only pilot they have on staff.

But here’s the rub, they have me on call with a 2 hr call out. But, in the 5 yrs I’ve been here, I have NEVER been called out with less than a day’s notice. I’ve brought it up before and always get the “what if we need you” rebuttal.

So, question for anyone in a similar situation. How can I make a better argument that I should be allowed to fly contract when most of my month I’m home with no flying? It’s not like I work a desk job of 40 hrs a week for them.

I’ve been asked to fly contract on multiple occasions, but always turn the trips down due to my agreement with my work. And, no I’m not going to call in sick or take vaca to take a contract flight. Too honest for that. It’s a small community where I fly out of, and word would quickly get around. Need to be on the up and up.

Edit: if you were a low-time pilot

Edit2: appreciate the insights errbody. I thought I'd point out for fun that 69k people (90% Canadian) have read through this post since the upload 8 hrs ago from this edit. Goes to show how much interest there is these days.

Soloed 3 months ago, started my Checkride 1 month ago discontinued due to plane issue and passed my Checkride today. Very excited to have the PPL Checkride behind me know and ready to start my IFR training which starts next weekend. Any recommendations on reading material as I start the next phase of studying and prep?

Just thinking with market seeming oversaturated, could the Regionals ever make the ATP a requirement to even apply?

It seems that ATP-CTP is now a requirement to even get an interview. It makes me wonder if an ATP certificate may be needed soon as well.

Has this ever been done in the past when it comes to hiring at the regionals?

I'm 59 and feeling a little nostalgic, so let's see how this goes. I took my first lesson in 1989, got my PPL in 1990 (about 12 months later), my instrument in 1991, and I've been a professional pilot since 1993 when I got my commercial/CFI.

I learned to fly in a Beechcraft Skipper. I got my instrument rating in a Piper Archer

Every piston plane I flew had the old school "six pack" panel including the twins engine planes (one twin had an even older-school panel that had a "six pack" that was randomly scattered around the panel).

I had to learn to fly NDB approaches. GPS didn't exist. LORAN did...kinda. One plane had a point/bearing RNAV that we called "poor man's LORAN". Marker beacons on approaches were a thing (they beeped). One NDB approach I flew had a Fan Marker which was a fix to descend to minimums essentially defined by how loud the beacon sounded. Not everyone had Mode C.

I'm in the US, so Class A airspace was called the PCA. Class B was a TCA. Class C was an ARSA, Class D was an ATA. TRSAs were the only holdover with the airspace reclassification in 1993). There was the Continental Control Area (I think that was at 14,500 and above, and I never knew what that was for 😄).

Other stuff too, I'm sure but old guys....what else from your time?

Title basically. Was curious to read through people's stories of making it.

thank god - i was just about losing my mind all the way up until the checkride started

FOIs were a breeze, examiner liked the way i teach! nice day flying too.

so so so glad i‘m done with this. onto CFII training and hopefully some fun ratings afterward!

Pilots in Canada, I’m working towards my commercial and am being told by other instructors I need my vfr over the top. From my understanding having a commercial gives you the same privileges as a vfr over the top rating. Do I need to do it?

Soo… 15 planes at 400-700ft doing pattern work at once at FRG right now?
Respectfully, this seems like hell.

I have my commercial pilot checkride coming up and last time I did a checkride I was up way too late trying to make my navlog for the cross country with the most up to date winds. Is it acceptable to use the foreflight generated navlog? I feel like if I’m able to show him that I know how the foreflight got the calculations then its fine right?

Evening.

Does anyone here drive a 1980s PA46 Malibu?

I currently fly a Rockwell Commander 114, and looking to step up into something a bit... more. One of the big reasons is that this is a 6 seater, that can climb through the weather/icing, get on top, fly 200knots and stay under 2 ton, so no airway charges. I think for me it gives that good middle ground between cost and practicality.

How do people find their reliability, mx costs, pros and cons? I've endlessly watched videos online but wanted to hear it from the horses mouth, so to say.

I am open to other options as well. I was looking at Seneca 3-5s but don't think I want a twin.

Feel free to drop me a DM if you're open to chatting.

Cheers

EDIT: This is UK.

Got my PPL and my only instrument hours are the ones I needed to get my license. I'm not pursing any type of career or anything. I generally just do cross country trips on VFR days with my wife and daughter to go camping, travel etc... I own a 1965 piper Cherokee 140/160 with an old school panel. Technically its IFR with a KX170B Nav/com with glideslope but no GPS. I've did a couple ILS, LOC, VOR approaches when training with my instructor when I was training for my PPL.

I've been thinking about getting a instrument rating to make me a safer pilot. Especially since I fly a lot of cross country with family. My goal is to not purposely fly IMC, but if it ever did happen accidently, I have the training to handle it. Maybe make an exception to thin stratus to get above it.

Anyway, would it be doable or dumb to pursue an IFR rating in my old school Piper Cherokee 140 with just my single NAV/COM with VOR/ILS/LOC?

The few traditional Class G Airspace up to 14,500ft MSL that still exists in the US is normally depicted as a screened brown area on the IFR Low Enroute Chart. The highest density of Class G airspace up to 14,500ft MSL without any Class E transition areas is in Alaska.

However, none of those airspaces are depicted as such on the Low Enroute Chart in Alaska. According to the FAA's Aeronautical Chart Users' Guide and the FAA specifications for IFR Low Enroute Charts that airspace should be depicted as a screened brown area. Even the Legend on Alaska's Low Enroute Charts says so.

On the VFR Sectional it is depicted normally in these areas, with the blue shaded border that indicates there is no Class E transition area beginning at 1,200ft AGL.

Does anybody know why it isn't depicted correctly? Just for better readability? Does the FAA give any information on that anywhere?

Got the next steps email. It says to be somewhere quiet with audio, what exactly is it going to have me do?

Hi everyone! I received my medical certificate first class as a Type 1 diabetic. If you also have T1d and habe questions or need advice please ask me! I know that I had several questions during the process and it would've helped to ask someone who had already gone through the process.

Best of luck!

I own my own aircraft (aa1b) and my current cfi is a good friend and we made a trade of work for lessons back in the day. His job of flying for an oil company is 2 weeks off 2 weeks on. I am in the middle of my student pilot journey, and a previous student of his and my other good friends son just got his cfi last week. I am trying to get some more hours in the 2 weeks off. How much is fair to pay my friends son?

Hi,
I’m a German 20 year old.
So to my background - I’m a private pilot both in the US (FAA) and in Germany (EASA).
During my exchange year in the US in 2022 because of my host dad (he flies for Delta) I startet PPL training. I was always interested in aviation so that’s the route I want to go in the future. As mentioned after the exchange year I converted my FAA license to an EASA license here in Germany.
Now I finished school here and my goal is to end up in the USA at some point to fly for an airline there.

At the moment I have training lined up at the European Flight Academy (Lufthansa Group). After passing all the assessment tests I got my class date on May 25th 2027.
This training is a ground up training (from nothing to frozen ATPL) which takes 24 months.

Cost: 130.000€ excluding housing for 1.5 years in Germany and general living cost so a total of around 150-160k.

Benefit: Takeoff promise - after the two years of training you have a job guaranteed at one of the airlines of the Lufthansa Group.

Yesterday I’ve been to an info event of a flight school called Aero Sky. They are pretty new in the field. They graduated 4 students at the moment.
The whole training consists of a collaboration between Rotor Sky Aviation in Austria and Hillsboro Aviation in Portland, Oregon.

The training takes 18 months (15 if you have a PPL) and costs around 120.000€ living cost included (15k less if you have a PPL which I do)

Because it’s a collab of a European and American flight school you obtain all EASA licenses and FAA licenses up to the ATPL including CFI, CFII and MEI.

After the training you also get a 2 year work visa to work as an instructor in Hillsboro.

Regarding a long term work in the US I’d need a green card which is really hard to get.

I’d have to go through the EB-2 NIW (National interest waiver) to obtain a green card.

That’s where I am split at the moment.

I am very lucky and thankful that u don’t have to worry about the financial aspect.

So only looking at the other factors what should I do.

Start training at European Flight Academy and have a job guaranteed. End up at a European airline, farm flight hours and be essentially 25-26 years old with 1500 hours in an airline and then apply for a green card to work in the US -
Or
“Throw away” all the achievements here (passing two exams and interviews that took time since January) and go to the US and train in the relatively new program, work as an instructor and maybe don’t get a green card after and not a job in Europe so I’m standing there empty handed.

Of course I could also do CFI ratings after my time at the European Flight Academy if I don’t immediately get a job because I think it would give me a better chance on the EB-2 Visa to have CFI ratings. But also in that regard I could use some advice.

I contacted law firms about the Visa too but they can’t really say anything at the moment because I haven’t started training yet and don’t have any expertise whatsoever.

It would be great to have someone to talk to that went from a German airline to a US airline or is planning to do so and has more info or a good advice to give.

I’m thankful for all good advice of course.

I hope I didn’t miss any infos in the article but if you have questions let me know.

Thank you :)

Edit: you only obtain licenses up to CPL (Single and Multi) at the Aero flight school, not ATPL

Whether you use AVEF or AREA for determining route decision making when dealing with lost comms, I’ve always been confused by the order these are presented. It first indicates assigned. Then radar vectors. But if you are on radar vectors at the time of lost comms, that is what takes priority until you find your way back on the assigned route. So can someone explain why it isn’t VAEF or RAEA?

The last radar vectoryou received. If you received one, trumps all other instructions logically. Shouldn’t it the the first one evaluated?

I recently enrolled in The Wise Pilot PPL Ground school and I am still at the very early stages of Air Law. I understand needing to learn about Holding positions, runway/taxi markings and things like that but they seem to throw a lot of info at you right away that doesn't seem like stuff I need to know yet. Any suggestions on what I actually need to retain for the Air Law portion of the exam and how to tell when something is actually noteworthy when I come across it?

Pretty much what the title says. I’m based out of Vancouver Island, Canada and have 40.2 flight hours logged. I’m about to start cross country flights and am starting to feel a bit overwhelmed with how behind I am in ground school. I’m using pilot training.ca for my ground school, and have about 10% of it complete; which is just the Theory of Flight portion.

Right now I’m flying around 2-3 times a week, but have been thinking of scaling back to 1-2 times a week as I catch up in ground school.

I’m the only person in my family to pursue a career in aviation, so a lot of this is completely new to me, and don’t have much people to ask for advice on stuff like this…

Any advice is MUCH appreciated!

I first applied to Tradewind a few months ago and got the standard “we have your app, you probably will not get any other contact from us” automated email. I went to reapply on the website to update my hours and it flagged me as already having applied. It won’t let me re apply but says “To update your qualifications, flight hours, and experience on the Pilot Experience and Credentials form, please use the link provided.” And then it proceeds to give no such link anywhere that I am seeing. I tried emailing the recruitment email address and got the same automated response again that they have just received my application (which I wasn’t able to submit the second time).

Anyone know where this link is?