Instrument Rating

I received some feedback from Thomas, another young pilot who wrote the following in an email to me:

Hey Mike

I am currently working on my Instrument Rating, cannot wait to get that checked of my list, than probably my Commercial. What did you find the toughest when working on your Instrument?

In this post, I will write about what the Instrument Rating is like, what it took to obtain my Instrument Rating, and I will highlight the most challenging aspects.

Any pilot who has his Private Pilot license can obtain the Instrument Rating after meeting the FAA requirements. Unfortunately, I let a friend borrow my book of Federal Aviation Regulations, so I cannot list each specific requirement now. However, I do know that you must have a certain amount of cross-country flying time, classroom time on the ground, and time conducting approaches and holds to list a few. To the new Private Pilot, all of this may take time to acquire since Instrument flying is rather different than a typical flight in VFR (Visual Flight Rules) conditions.

First of all, flying by reference to your instruments can be difficult to become accustomed to because you are flying ONLY by reference to your instruments. To the readers who aren't pilots, imagine you are sitting in a cockpit and someone blocked out your windows so you can't see outside and you can only look at the instruments in your cockpit. That's essentially what instrument flying is all about. You must be able to fly the aircraft safely without reference to the ground. How would you figure out where you are? Where you're going? How long it will take you to get there? What will you do if one of those instruments fail?

In fact, pilots who are training for their Instrument Rating will wear "foggles", a type of goggles that the trainee pilot will wear so that he/she can only look down at the instruments while the instructor watches outside for any traffic.

In my response to Thomas, I wrote that the Instrument Rating requires that the pilot think a lot further ahead and conduct more planning. For example, I never conduct an instrument approach to an airport without briefing myself and the other pilot if one is present. Instrument approaches are rather complex, so I want to make sure that I understand exactly what I need to do, what I should not do, that I have the right frequencies in my radio, and that I know what to do in the event that I have to abort the approach. Whenever I need to conduct a hold, I'll always brief myself over what type of entry I need to conduct, which direction I will make my turns, how long my outbound legs are, and I will take note of the wind direction and speed for course correction.



The Instrument Rating also requires better decision-making skills. What if the weather at your destination is close to the minimums required for the approach there? Will you go? Are you sure that you are comfortable flying in those conditions? If you do go, what are your options in case you are unable to land at your intended destination? It's always better to ask yourself as many questions as possible and have a strong answer for each of them. But remember, a good pilot makes good decisions to avoid situations which require superior decision making skills.

That's a good segway to my next point: personal minimums. Just like any other pilot, I learned that just because the plane is able to fly and the pilot is legally able to fly doesn't mean a flight should be conducted. The sooner a pilot learns this, the better. For example, if the cloud ceiling was 0ft and the visibility is 0 miles, I can legally go to the airport and take off since I have my Instrument Rating. Is that a good idea? NO WAY. First of all, I do not feel comfortable flying in conditions as low as those. Second of all, I would not be able to legally land anywhere with similar conditions. Every Instrument pilot should have is own personal minimums that depend on: the type of plane to be flown, the pilot's level of experience, and more. My personal minimums are 500-600ft cloud ceiling and a 1.5mi visibility. Also, I don't feel comfortable flying by instruments if the wind gusts at either airport are over 21kt.

Since Instrument flying involves flying in weather below VFR minimums, Instrument pilots must, not surprisingly, be taught the concepts of weather. This includes weather patterns, convective weather (thunderstorms) along with the signs to predict them, icing, and much more.

So now I will cover my journey to obtaining my Instrument Rating. What I remember is that I spent a lot of my time building time to meet the total time requirements for the checkride. Those time building flights were most often cross-country flights that I flew along with my instructor as simulated IFR. In other words, the conditions weren't always IFR, but we filed a flight plan for each flight and I wore the 'foggles' as well. That allowed me to gain a lot of experience as an Instrument pilot and gain time as well. I don't remember having too much difficulty with the training because at that point I had been flying for five years and thus I didn't have trouble flying the plane. Furthermore, I was already knowledgeable about a lot of Instrument-related topics and concepts.

As the checkride got closer and closer, my instructors had me focus more on approaches, holds, regulations, and more specific aspects to prepare for the practical test with the FAA examiner. This is when I really got proficient on my approaches and I felt really prepared for the practical test because of this.

To sum it all up, a pilot must learn to consistently shoot approaches well, make good decisions, and learn about weather to obtain an Instrument Rating. It's definitely worth it because you further your knowledge of aviation and you become that much better of a pilot. Of course, you're also extended more privileges and the benefits that come with them like being able to fly more frequently, enjoying the view above the clouds, etc. In my opinion, no Private Pilot's license is really taken advantage of unless the Instrument Rating accompanies it.

Once again, thanks for reading. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for another topic, send me an email to mike_stangy@msn.com. Also, be sure to check out my flickr site for photos and youtube page for some videos (links on the right side of this page). Comments are also appreciated on those sites.

Fear of flying

So, I am finally writing about the fear of flying. To some it's a touchy subject because it just hits home. It's that fear that causes people to squeeze their armrest during takeoff or landing. It's that fear that makes people pay more to drive somewhere than to fly. What I want to know is, "why?" Naturally, as a pilot I cannot understand this fear, where it's foundations come from, or why it is mentioned when there are so many other dangers we face in our everyday lives. Quite frankly, it annoys me. Through this post I hope to offer my point of view and offer some comfort to those who find air travel uncomfortable.

How would you define fear? Besides that physical gut-wrenching feeling, how would you describe it in words? Some common definitions are, "a distressing emotion caused by an impending danger," or, "concern," or, "anxiety." However, I would like to offer another definition that applies to the fear of flying. I would define fear as an irrational human response to the unknown. In other words, a lack of knowledge causes fear. For example, I would say that some people are afraid of ghosts not only because of their 'scary' appearance, but also because their origens or how they came about are unknown. If we know how ghosts exist or where they come from then perhaps we wouldn't be so afraid of them. People may be fearful of other people's cultures because they know little about it, when in fact that culture is anything but threatening.

With respect to flying, passengers don't know everything that is going on during every flight and thus when something strange occurs or if their gut says something is wrong, fear takes over their mind. However, through all of my years in school, I've learned that human instinct is wrong more times than it is right. I guess the only thing I can say about this is that if something's wrong, the flight crew WILL let you know. When the airlines say their top priority is the safety and comfort of their passengers, they're not kidding. They are professionals who train twice year, sometimes more (even doctors don't face recurrent training), to be sure that they are up to date with the correct procedures and to maintain proficiency. These flight crews are tested to their limits and face training in many more and complicated emergency situations than one would experience in an entire lifetime. Do you know what happens if they fail? They lose their job. Bottom line: trust your flight crew, even if they don't greet you with a warm smile, because I guarantee that they know what they are doing and they have the experience to prove it.

Air safety is not some unorganized network that is rarely enforced. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has its own set of Federal regulations dictating what must be done to ensure safety before flight. If an airline does not comply, they are simply breaking the law. I wish you could see the book of Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs) sitting on my desk. It's two inches think with small text and two columns per page (front and back), covers everything from unmanned balloons to commercial flights, and keeps getting thicker. For example, you know that announcement flight attendants make before every flight that your baggage must be stowed in the overhead compartment or underneath the seat in front of you? Well, that's actually a federal regulation. FAR91.523 specifically says, "No pilot in command of an airplane having a seating capacity of more than 19 passengers may permit a passenger to stow baggage aboard that airplane except under a passenger seat in such a way that it will not slide forward under crash impacts severe enough to induce the ultimate inertia forces specified in part 25.561(b)(3) of this chapter." You see how specific that is? When a company like Boeing manufactures an aircraft, they also must abide by these regulations during the construction. That's a good segway into my next point. Bottom line: although it's a government organization, trust the FAA and its regulations.

Aircraft are manufactured and engineered to be safe. I know this may be hard to believe, but people are smart. Smart enough, in fact, that they can devise a way to make thousands of aluminum tubes fly at high altitudes and subsonic speeds with a very very very very very very very tiny rate of failure. Additionally, they are tested FAR beyond their operating limits. Take the new Boeing 787 as an example. It just conducted its first flight about a month ago, and it is not even close to its first revenue flight. In the next nine months, it is going to experience situations inflight that will likely never happen under normal circumstances. During these flights, technicians are collecting momentous amounts of data through their computers that relay even larger amounts of information. Take a look at this video as well: Boeing 777 wing test. This video was taken in 1995, when the Boeing 777 was still in testing. Here, the aircraft is undergoing its wing flex test. All wings bend or 'flex' a little inflight because more load is placed on them than when the aircraft is on the ground. In the video, cranes are attached to the wing tips and pull the tips up vertically to simulate extreme conditions. The wing structure does not rupture until it reaches 154% of its design limit. That's smart engineering at its best. Bottom line: trust the engineers and designers because they're smarter than you.

Lastly, trust the numbers. This one bothers me the most by far. Countless studies confirm that air travel is the safest form of transportation, but yet people still fear air travel. I don't care what doubts you have about statistics. I have my doubts too sometimes about them but I have to agree with them when it comes to air travel. Statistically speaking, you have to fly every day for 20,000 some years before you are involved in an aircraft accident. How many people died in car accidents in the U.S. 2008? The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's estimates show that 31,110 people died in crashes from January through October of that year. How many people died in plane crashes tha same year? 502 according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA). That's the global result too, not just in the U.S. Imagine the difference between the 502 global aircraft deaths and the god-knows-how-many global automobile deaths. I'm sorry, but when someone says they don't want to fly because they don't want to be another statistic, it simply holds no ground at all. Period. I could literally spend days supporting this point with endless amounts of studies and other evidence. How can you not trust that evidence?!?! Perhaps the only reason people still fear flying is because the media concentrates on a plane crash whenever one happens. Yes, it's certainly tragic that people died and it seems more tragic that more died at one time. What I really wish the media would do is cover every single car accident in the U.S. that occurs and report the number of deaths as well. I GUARANTEE that you would never set foot in your car again. If you're willing to accept the risk of sitting in your driver seat every day, then sitting in a plane for a couple of hours should be a walk in the park. Bottom line: trust the numbers, because numbers don't lie.

To conclude, I would like to refer back to my definition of fear: an irrational human response to the unknown. What I want you, the reader fearful of flying, to take away from this is to realize the lack of rational behind your fear and to be completely calm and comfortable in that aircraft 7 miles high. Furthermore, realize that air safety is really a complex network of preventative measures handled by professionals and very intelligent people who live their lives working to make it even better. Lastly, realize that you are in fact hypocritical and irrational if you step into a car without second thoughts but have a breakdown upon boarding an airplane. I know that you may still have many unanswered questions, so please do not hesitate to send me an email at mike_stangy@msn.com.

Also check out my flickr page for new photos! I uploaded a few new videos to my youtube page as well, including one of my friends and I from the University of Michigan flying around: Flying around Michigan. If you have a youtube account, please subscribe! As always, comments on my blog, photos, or videos are always appreciated.

I'm back

Well, it has certainly been a long time. Based on the date of my last post, the last time I accessed this blog was in January. I can only attribute my sudden absence to the higher workload I faced in the second half of my Senior year in High School with getting ready to graduate and move onto the next phase of my life, college. It is somewhat ironic that I decided to return to this blog now, just at the end of my first semester at the University of Michigan, when I've seen the most work ever. However, I received an email inquiry from a reader, asking me how my road to becoming a pilot has progressed. Obviously, a lot has happened since January, so I'll start with that.

In January, I already had my Private Pilot's License along with an Instrument Rating. At that time, I was conducting many cross-country flights to build flight time toward my Commercial License. In order to obtain my Commercial License, I had to obtain at least 250 hours total time, in addition to a bit of instructing time to learn new maneuvers and become familiar with new regulations. As I got closer to obtaining my Commercial License, I learned what it was really about.

First of all, the Commercial License allows a pilot to 'fly for hire'. Yes, up until a pilot receives his Commercial License, it is illegal to the pilot to receive any compensation. 'Compensation' is also a term broadly defined by the FAA or whoever writes the Federal Aviation Regulations. It can be defined as monetary compensation a pilot may receive in exchange for his services, or it can even mean the flight hours the pilots gain. In general, if the pilot benefits in any way, any way that can be defined as 'compensation,' that pilot is treading on thin ice. Many people tend to confuse the Commercial License with flying big airliners, but that is far from actuality. When a pilot obtains his Commercial License, he often trains to become a Certified Flight Instructor (CFI) but may also fly tow-banners, fly crop dusters, conduct photo flights, traffic reports, etc. Personally, I want to become an instructor.

Second of all, the Commercial License exam tests your knowledge of applicable regulations. The coverage of the new regulations associated with a Commercial License is vast. One must be able to differentiate between the rules that cover a flight under hire and a flight not under hire. For example, if a pilot is carrying a group of people for hire and the route of flight involves flying over water out of gliding range, are lift jackets required? The answer is obvious, and it is yes. But what if the flight is still overwater but is not for hire? For example, if I were just flying a group of friends somewhere and we were all splitting the costs? The answer is no, life jackets are not required. That doesn't mean, however, that they aren't recommended. Does having a Commercial License mean that I can charge anyone I want to fly somewhere? No. I must be working for a commercial operator such as a flight school. Those are a few examples of the regulations that I must be familiar with.

The Commercial License also tests a pilot's ability to control an aircraft under advanced maneuvers. A few of these new maneuvers were called: lazy eights, eights on pylons, chandelles, slow flight, steep turns, power-on and power-off stalls, power off accuracy landings, soft field and short field takeoffs, and more. The majority of these maneuvers are tested during the checkride with an FAA examiner, and the pilot taking the checkride only gets one chance to get them right. Therefore, it takes a lot of preparation and practice to get them right. Furthermore, the pilot is held to higher expectations and official standards during these maneuevers. For example, when I complete the lazy eight maneuever, my altitude and airspeed is only allowed to vary so much (about 100ft and 10kts, respectively). If those limits are broken, the examiner can fail me. To get an idea of what these maneuvers look like and what they involve, look here: http://www.av8n.com/how/htm/maneuver.html. That website is dense, so keep scrolling down until you see the names for the maneuevrs I listed if you don't want to read everything else.

Lastly, by the time a pilot takes his Commercial License exam, he is expected to have a better ability to make smart decisions. This decision making capability should have developed significantly during the period that the pilot was building time, hence the reason why the FAA demands at least 250 hours total time. Everyone makes mistakes, and pilots are expected to learn from their mistakes, determine what they could have done differently, and then never make the same mistake again. As a pilot builds more time, the more experience he gains and thus the better decision he makes, which is why the guys in the front seats of an airliner are paid the big bucks. To put the decision-making process into perspective, one of my instructors told me that, "A good pilot is a pilot who makes decisions to avoid situations that require superior decision making."

So, I spent months building flight time, learning the applicable regulations, and preparing myself for the exam and checkride. I passed my written and oral exam and I took my checkride in November in Ann Arbor. Like I mentioned above, the checkride involved various maneuvers that I had to ace the first time, and I passed! My next step is to begin training to obtain my Certified Flight Instructor (CFI) certificate sometime in the next few months. Then I'll be able to teach, fly, and get paid at the same time and I'll have another good summer job and a part-time job during college.

I'll do my best to post again soon. I have a few ideas about what I'll write about; maybe fear of flying or the airline industry. If you have an idea for a topic that you think I should cover or if you have any questions/comments, send me an email at mike_stangy@msn.com. Lastly, don't forget to check out my youtube and flickr pages (links on the right side of this page). Thanks for reading!

More news from a mile high

I was hoping to get another update written before the end of this month, and it looks like I just made it! The last month has been an interesting one with respect to aviation, with a miraculous emergency landing into the Hudson River and a new plane for me to get my hands on. The rest is comprised of my normal cross-countries, which are always eventful in some way or another.

So, I'll begin with my cross country flight from Allentown to Georgetown/Sussex County, Delaware. I completed this flight utilizing a Cessna 172RG. The "RG", as you may know from my earlier posts, stands for retractable gear, a feature no longer available on the model 172s. Despite its age (manufactured in 1980), the aircraft, N5176V, is still reliable and it gives me the ability to gain time in a "complex" aircraft, that is, an aircraft with a constant speed propeller which allows for a faster cruise speed.


Anyway, the route of flight was essentially directly south, taking me over Pottstown, then to the west of Philadelphia over Wilmington where I crossed the Delaware River to the Delaware side. Afterwards, I overflew Dover Air Force Base and began my descent into my destination. The air traffic at this small, uncontrolled airport was surprisingly dense that day. This type of situation is one which calls for traffic spotting and separation skills, which are obviously VERY important. Some believe that it is better to learn in a controlled environment, but I hold strong to the necessity to learn basic and necessary skills like this. In the long run, it really pays off. I ended up making a safe landing, although not my smoothest, possibly due to the strong crosswind.


I've actually wanted to explain crosswind landings for a while, and so I'll take the opportunity to do so now. In an ideal situation, a takeoffs and landings are made into the wind. Why? A headwind shortens the takeoff and landing rolls which has many advantages. For example, in the event of a rejected takeoff, you would want to have as much runway remaining as possible in order to bring the aircraft to a stop safely. Similarly, a pilot strives to use as little runway as possible during a landing, while having the rest to use in the event of an emergency or another anomaly. Anyway, in most cases, the wind doesn't point directly down the centerline of the runway. Often, it crosses the runway at an angle, which gives a crosswind. Some unique techniques must be applied to manuever correctly in a crosswind environment, which mainly consists of one of the following (see here for more):


The crab. This crosswind landing technique carries this odd name because during the final approach, there is the illusion that the aircraft is almost moving sideways, like a crab. Essentially, the pilot will adjust the direction of the nose so that it is slightly pointed into the wind. As he does this however, the aircraft will continue along it's track towards the runway (the track is the path the aircraft takes over the ground). This wind correction angle is held all the way until touchdown. One would think that the aircraft would continue to roll off of the runway, but due to laws of physics (which are far too complex to explain here), the plane actually continues the track it was taking in the air. One of the disadvantages to this technique is that, upon touchdown due to the wind correction angle, a lot of lateral force is placed upon the tires. Due to enhanced strength in their landing gear, larger aircraft are more capable of this strain, but smaller general aviation aircraft cannot handle it. Therefore, this technique is generally not recommended. Take a look at this video to see the technique in action. See how the aircraft corrects itself immediately after touch down? Now onto the second technique.


The de-crab/sideslip. These are actually two different, yet very similary crosswind techniques. Both involve the use of aileron (bank or roll) and rudder (yaw or horizontal movement) to correct for the wind correction angle. So, instead of landing at an angle, the pilot will apply downwind rudder and opposite aileron inputs. For example, if the wind were coming from the left, I would apply right rudder and left aileron to keep the nose aligned with the centerline of the runway. The only difference between these two techniques is when to apply these control movements. In the sideslip, the entire approach would be flown with these special control inputs. In the de-crab situation, these controls are inputed in literally the final moments of the approach, only seconds before touchdown. Here's a video of a Singapore Airlines Boeing 747-400 landing at Zurich, Switzlerland, using the de-crab technique.


So, I took off from Georgetown only a few minutes after landing, and I was on my way home once again. Just like the flight to Sussex County, I passed Dover AFB, some ships in Delaware Bay, and west of Philly once again before descending into Allentown. Unfortunately, I made another rough landing at Queen City Airport. I hope I don't keep this up!


On my next flight, I was off to Danbury, Connecticut with my mother. I hadn't been to Danbury for a while, but I sure did remember the interesting terrain surrounding the airport. The first time I flew into the airport, I was surprised by the high hills which essentially surround the entire field. This made for an interesting arrival, especially since it was at night. As a result, the approach was a bit higher and longer. As a precaution, there are several lighted towers along the top of the hills to warn pilots of the high terrain. You can get an idea of what I am explaining in this photo.


I conducted this flight only two days after the famed landing of U.S. Airways flight 1549 into the Hudson River, in which all passengers and crew miraculously survived. To and from Danbury, I got a view of what the passengers and crew might have felt when I observed the ice-covered waters. I am still amazed by the fact that only a few passengers were treated for hypothermia and not more.

As I flew over eastern Pennsylvania on the way home, I also admired the snowy landscape of the region where I live.

I saved the best news for last, and that is that the flight school I attend finally attained a new airplane! Not only is it a new airplane, but it also has the very advanced Garmin G1000 avionics! In addition, it has been outfitted with leather seats for even greater comfort. Needless to say, I think this is going to be my new favorite plane :-) Just look how it shines! However, in order to fly the aircraft on my own, I need to complete a checkout with an instructor which simply consists of three hours of flying time with the CFI. The aircraft is the same, but the systems are very different and advanced, so I must take some time to familiarize myself. I was able to fly it for roughly an hour and a half one weekend, and as my instructor put it, the machine flies like a cadillac.

Although it's a 2005 model, the plane still flies like it were brand new and the features included in the avionics give a plethora of information that previously was not available to me. For example, I can now receive XM weather (with about a 20 minute delay) and traffic information. However, these features aren't top of the line. For instance, since a 20 minute update delay exists for the weather information, it should be used for general awareness of any weather phenomena, not last minute deviation. The same goes for the TIS, or Traffic Information Service. This feature is a few steps below Traffic Collision and Avoidance System (TCAS) which is a more advanced system common on most airliners. It will display aircraft in the nearby vicinity, but it is still up to the pilot to spot the traffic and avoid it visually, not depend on the computer. Nevertheless, despite the limitations, this additional information and capabilities make flying all the more safer.

Tomorrow, February 1, I will be going flying in the new plane again to finish my checkout, and hopefully I will be able to capture some photos in-flight to give a more in-depth look at the systems.

Make sure to check my flickr site often, as I will often upload new photos long before I make a new post on this blog. Also, I am always looking for new readers, so if you know someone that may be interested in my sites, make sure to refer the links to them! Furthermore, if you'd like a more detailed explanation of a concept that I have discussed in one of my posts, feel free to send me an e-mail at mike_stangy@msn.com. In addition, I've added a few new links on the right side of this page, so also feel free to check them out! Lastly, I would really appreciate any comments on any of my sites (here, flickr, youtube) so I can be a better writer for you and/or receive some feedback. Thanks for reading!

What I've been up to

I'll just be honest and say that blogging has become a big task for me lately. School has really been getting to me (especially a certain class - some will know what I am talking about), and I tell everyone the same story: when I'm not doing homework, playing tennis, swimming, or flying, I'm sleeping. A lot. I'm averaging about 13 hours of sleep per day over the weekends, and now that I'm on Christmas break I hope to try and return to a normal schedule. Whenever I did have free time on my hands, I opted to do something else instead of write here. Yes, I procrastinated.

However, while finding the time (and the willpower) to write about my flying experiences has been challenging, I still enjoy sharing my stories with others. I find it odd that I finally sat down and began to write at 1:55am on December 23, 2008. A lot of good that is for my sleep schedule, right? Well, I'm awake, alert, and ready to write, so here it goes.

On November 14, 2008, I had a day off from school due to a teacher in-service (essentially the teachers go to school for the day but students don't), and my friend and I had planned to spend the day flying to State College, PA to visit Pennsylvania State University, better known as Penn State. Unfortunately, the weather was very bleak that day, and my departure from Queen City was delayed about 2 hours because I wanted to wait for the cloud ceilings to lift a little in Allentown.

After the ceilings finally lifted to my liking, I decided to get underway for the one-hour flight to University Airpark (UNV). The aircraft was the retractable-gear aircraft that I have been flying lately, a Cessna Cutlass 172RG designated N5176V, and it's still a wonder to fly with the increased performance. The flight was normal, with nothing out of the ordinary to mention, except perhaps for the wavey clouds we encountered enroute over the ridges approaching Penn State.

The flight on the way home was one of the flights that I learned something from. The weather at Penn State and Allentown was solid IFR, like when I left earlier that day, but at or above my comfort zone. Enroute, however, the picture was even gloomier. The cloud ceilings were down to about 200ft, which is incredibly low even for airline standards. Inflight, the cloud ceilings at Allentown had dropped dramatically to my surprise to 200ft. Immediately, I began to consider diverting to my alternate airport which had an ILS, as I would not be able to conduct the approach into Queen City. Shortly thereafter, the ceilings rose back to 600ft, which was sufficient for me to land at Queen City as I planned.

After landing safely I spoke with my instructors, who were also concerned about the conditions that I faced, and they convinced me that it would have been a better idea to have either stayed the night in Penn State or delay the flight a few hours until conditions were guaranteed to be above my comfort zone. This is why personal minimums have been created. There are always the legal minimums, but every aviator should have his own personal weather minimums, especially in general aviation, to conduct any flight.

Two weeks later, it was Thanksgiving, and my entire family was home to celebrate. This finally gave me the opportunity to take my three sisters on a promised flight to the Hudson River Corridor to experience the awe of Manhattan. As a matter of fact, "awe" is probably an understatement of what they felt. "Shock" would be more appropriate. Every person that I have taken on this special flight has been knocked out of their world because he/she never could've imagined how close he/she really gets to New York City. For example, one of my sisters fell asleep enroute to the Hudson River, and my other sister nudged her when we were right next to the the skyscrapers, which was followed by a very loud gasp. Not everyone can say that they've flown at 900ft above the Hudson River along Manhattan, below the peaks of many of the buildings. See for yourself here (click "watch in high quality"!). My passengers attempted to take pictures, but they all turned out blurry due to our speed and proximity to the island. My camera with a fast shutter speed would've worked, but I was flying and I could not explain how to operate it.

This next flight was quite eventful. I decided to fly VFR from Allentown to Atlantic City, a common destination for my cross-country flights. Today however, a TFR (Temporary Flight Restriction) was in effect over the city of Philadelphia, which was directly along my route of flight. Luckily, the TFR did not take effect until after I arrived in Atlantic City, but it the extra restriction would still pose a challenge for the leg home. Apparently, President Bush was arriving in Philly on Air Force One for the Army-Navy football game. Basically, there would be a 15 mile radius around downtown Philly that would be designated as a no-fly zone, and a 30 mile radius around the same point in which any aircraft could fly, but only with ATC clearance.

As I said, I didn't have to worry about the TFR for the flight to Atlantic City. Rather, I would be flying directly through the middle of the Class Bravo airspace, so spotting and avoiding other aircraft was going to be my primary job. Just as I was over downtown Philly, I spotted an American Airlines MD-80 (Super 80) which was inbound to Philly International (PHL). About a minute later, he was directly over me, above 500ft above me. One of the pilots of that aircraft informed ATC that he got a TCAS (Traffic Collision and Avoidance System) warning due to my proximity to him, and began to climb for an extra margin. From my perspective, there was still plenty of space, but I'm sure the AA pilot was binded by rules to climb anyway. Just to be safe, I descended as well. TCAS is a system common mainly in larger aircraft, which detects and tracts other aircraft in a certain proximity. While there are many versions and features, the type on this Super 80 likely had the TA/RA features, which stands for Traffic Advisory and Resolution Advisory. Essentially, the traffic advisory informs the pilot that there is other traffic nearby with an aural alert (normally "Traffic, traffic"), while resolution advisory will give commands on the best course of action to avoid the other aircraft (like "Climb" or "Descend"). I've read articles on near-misses in the air, and this sophisted technology has certainly been the saviour in many of those cases.

The rest of the flight to Atlantic City was normal, but as I mentioned, the flight home was going to be interesting because of the TFR. Before I left the ground, ATC was already asking me for more information such as my full callsign, home airport, etc. With this information, I was allowed into the outer ring of the TFR on a northerly route along eastern Philadelphia and Trenton before turning direct to to Allentown. Remember how I said the President was flying in? Well guess who I heard on the radio? As I was over Northeast Philadelphia, I heard in my headset, "Philadelphia Approach, Air Force One with you descending through 9,500." Although I was 6,500ft above the ground, my jaw still hit terra firma. I've been to Andrews Air Force Base in Camp Springs, MD, the home of Air Force One. There I had the rare opportunity of being about 100ft from the presidential transporter, but that was the first time I heard the callsign over the open radio. That really made my day.

My last flight to comment on was another routine cross-country flight to Harrisburg Capital City Airport (CXY). This is another easy trip and one of my shorter cross countries, but there is still a lot to look at. On the way, I passed Reading and on the approach to Harrisburg, I saw Three Mile Island. Some of you may be familiar with the incident at Three Mile Island, which is still an active nuclear power plant. Long story short, there was a meltdown at the plant, but for more details, I would read more here. After takeoff on the way back to Allentown, I also managed to capture a shot of downtown Harrisburg. When I wasn't picking out landmarks, I just admired the beauty of rural PA. As you can see, I managed to get above the clouds on way home. I realized that it was a much smoother ride above the clouds compared to the flight to Harrisburg when I was below them. See the video (click "Watch in high quality"!).

I noticed that I used the terms "routine," "normal," and "uneventful" in this post. In reality, I think this particular post demonstrates how every flight is unique! Perhaps the last flight to Harrisburg was more normal than others, but how often do I get to fly above the clouds? Not often. In the last month, I've flown in IFR conditions, learned a thing or two about weather and decision making, heard Air Force One on the radio, and came within 500ft of an American Airlines jetliner. I'd say these flights have been anything but routine! Don't forget to check out my flickr site (see link to the right) and my youtube page (also to the right) to see more videos and photos! Comments on this site or any of my sites are always appreciated!