Those aircraft owners who are involved (as much as is permitted) in the maintenance of their own aircraft might be interested in a case that came before the Transport Appeal Tribunal of Canada (TATC) in June 2018.
Every aircraft owner has bits of equipment on their aircraft that stop working on occasions. And few aircraft owners have the resources, time, or availability always to be able to fix whatever isn’t working before the next time they want to fly. How then can an aircraft owner tell if their aircraft is legal to fly when they know some piece of equipment isn’t working?
Scenario: You’re flying a series of touch-and-go’s for practice, and the Tower controller gets on the radio: “Unable touch-and-go due to wake turbulence, Dash 8 departed thirty seconds ago, what are your intentions?”
What does this mean, and how should you reply?
Your small airplane has landed in a grass strip, or field, or other confined area, one with which you’re not familiar. There’s a runway of sorts, but it’s muddy in places, or the grass hasn’t been cut for a while. Also it’s not level, like the tarmac runways you’re used to. There’s a bit of an up-slope here, and it definitely slopes down over there.
I was talking recently with a friend and fellow aircraft owner, and he was telling me his preparations for flying out of the Island (CYTZ) and what he’d do if his radios gave up in flight and he was unable to contact the control tower to get permission to re-enter the control zone or a clearance to land.
A friend asked me to estimate the force exerted by the tailplane on the fuselage of a Cessna 182, this week. In the course of answering I located and/or worked out some information that might interest you.
Here’s an introductory video to one of my favourite weather websites.
The Canada Flight Supplement (CFS) is the official bible of aerodromes and airports in Canada, and it’s an essential publication for students and licenced pilots. Produced by NavCanada, a new edition is published every 56 days (8 weeks).
For anyone reading this who already has a pilot licence, who do you take along when you fly? I don’t mean who are your passengers, people who are physically in the aircraft with you. I mean … in your head.
When people ask me, socially, what I do, I tell them I teach people to fly. Most of the time I get two replies, one after the other. First, “wow, that’s so cool. (People are very kind, aren’t they?) And then, very often, “I’ve always wanted to learn to fly … how much does it cost?