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What’s your favourite airport approach?

Aileen's Cannes July 036-w480-h480

VFR approach into Cannes

I was part of a judging panel for PrivateFly’s favourite approaches poll. My three suggestions (which I have flown myself) were:

Cannes

When you fly the VFR approach, you fly right over the centre of the town, over a beautiful medieval walled village and then turn south and fly down to the actual runway with a view of the sea ahead. It’s utterly beautiful.

Amsterdam

The VFR approach to Amsterdam is insane. There’s a short-ish GA runway and you approach from the East at low altitude and only turn finals when you are over the midpoint of the runway. But the truly beautiful approach is the ILS for the GA runway that takes your right over the centre of the city. In good weather, the view over the canals is beautiful.

Belfast

Perhaps not as glamorous as Cannes or Amsterdam but my memories of flying into Belfast City at night are very strong. I popped through a cloud layer at about 4,000 feet and the city was lit clearly below me and, after a long flight, it felt very welcoming. I had to go to Belfast to get my Visa for my CPL training so it was a quick overnighter and a great example of how flexible you can be if you have an instrument rating and a well-equipped plane like the Cirrus at your disposal.

So, what are you favourite approaches? Comments below please. Also take a minute to vote at PrivateFly.com on the shortlist we chose.

Should pilots fly with a head cold?

CFI Kyle_Wright6 has posted an interesting question on the Ask a Flight Instructor website where he asked readers whether or not he should go flying with a student pilot while down with a slight cold:

Planning on doing steep spirals with my commercial student in a Cessna 172RG tomorrow morning. Will be starting at approximately 4,000 ft. MSL. Problem is I have a bit of a cold right now. I’m not EXTREMELY congested but let’s just say I’m not exactly clear right now. What do you think? Weathers been garbage for days and I really need to take advantage of the absence of cloud cover.

Bob Watson responded by writing how he had some steep spirals from 9,500 to 3,500 feet with what he thought was a slight head cold and by the time he got to 3,500 feet, he thought his eye was going to pop right out of the socket. So he eased off the descent only to land in excruciating pain with only one eye functional and then it took half an hour for the sinus pressure to equalize. Bob added that his experience might not happen to someone else and he hopes it does not happen to him again.

Matthew Waugh then commented that “If you are careful and follow the guidelines from AOPA et. al. you can medicate away some of the issues with colds and altitudes.” However, he also added that pilots need to be VERY careful as you don’t want to take the wrong drug and then go flying.

Finally, let me add that perhaps a decade or more ago, I was on a commercial flight with a stop over on a route I had regularly flown and what Bob described had happened to me on both descents. That was in a large pressurized commercial aircraft so I can only imagine it being worst in a small general aviation aircraft. However, I can’t imagine taking any kind of sinus or cold medicine and then flying my own aircraft – even if its approved by the AOPA.

With that in mind, what would you suggest to Kyle? Also, have you ever experienced what Bob or I experienced while flying?

Marriage proposal seen from the air has a BIG typo

ABC News Blogs has mentioned a creative marriage proposal that involved an airplane and a plowed field with just one problem – a spelling error. Farmer Loren Lentz of Clayton (Washington) decided to plow a marriage proposal into a 200-acre field near the Deer Park Airport. However and after an hour and a half on the tractor, Lentz’ 10 year old daughter pointed out that instead of plowing “Jody Will U Marry Me,” he had plowed “Lody Will U Marry Me” as he got the “J” backwards.

His sister suggested taking some straw to cover up the problem and redo it, but fixing a 150 yard long “J” would require too much hay for a thrifty farmer plus it would look funny from the air. After thinking about it some more, Lentz decided he would not be able to easily fix it and so he hoped for the best.

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving when the weather cleared, Lentz convinced his girlfriend to go flying with a pilot friend of his to look for a service truck that had gotten stolen over the summer. Luckily for him, she agreed without much of a fuss.

While flying over the area, Lentz asked her to take some pictures of his hay stacks and that’s when she saw the proposal and he pulled out a ring. Despite the spelling area in her name, she said yes and the wedding is planned for January 19th as the couple does not believe in long engagements because “when you know, you know.”

Santa’s pre-Christmas flight check…

Santa Claus, like all pilots, gets regular visits from the Federal Aviation Administration, and the FAA examiner arrived last week for the pre-Christmas flight check.

In preparation, Santa had the elves wash the sled and bathe all the reindeer. Santa got his logbook out and made sure all his paperwork was in order. He knew they would examine all his equipment and truly put Santa’s flying skills to the test…

The examiner walked slowly around the sled. He checked the reindeer harnesses, the landing gear, and Rudolph’s nose. He painstakingly reviewed Santa’s weight and balance calculations for the sled’s enormous payload.

Finally, they were ready for the checkride. Santa got in and fastened his seatbelt and shoulder harness and checked the compass. Then the examiner hopped in carrying, to Santa’s surprise, a shotgun.

“What’s that for?!?” asked Santa incredulously.

The examiner winked and said, “I’m not supposed to tell you this ahead of time,” as he leaned over to whisper in Santa’s ear, “but you’re gonna lose an engine on takeoff.”

Originally posted here.

Awesome aerial videos of New Zealand the world’s only flying WWII Mosquito Bomber

Hat tip to the MRC Aviation in New Zealand for posting this great HD video (except for the lousy music!) of the world’s only flying WWII Mosquito Bomber taking off from Ardmore Airport and then flying in formation with the Spitfire and Vampire around the Auckland CBD:

A quick look at YouTube reveals another video from the Heletranz Helicopters (with perhaps better music) that does a great job of showing off just how beautiful New Zealand is from the air:

Finally, Heletranz Helicopters has also taken this aerial footage of flying around Auckland along with the West Coast, Piha, Waiheke and Taranaki:

British Airways biofuel plant set to open in 2015

It appears that a British Airways jet biofuel plant known as the GreenSky project is set for take off by 2015 with the airline recently announcing that it has committed to buy the 50,000 ton output of the facility at market-competitive prices over a 10-year period. The deal had originally been announced back in 2010 with US based Solena who would construct a biofuel plant in East London by 2014. The plant would then produce 16 million gallons of jet fuel annually from 500,000 tons of waste that would otherwise end up in British landfills. That’s enough biofuel to power all of British Airways flights from London City Airport.

Forbes contributor Peter Kelly-Detwiler has written some detail about the process known as Fischer-Tropsch synthesis that will be used to make the jet biofuel. That process was discovered some 90 years ago by German scientists and involves converting a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide into liquid fuels. During World War II, the process was used to keep the German war effort going (accounting for an estimated 9% of German war production of fuels and 25% of the automobile fuel) and later it was used by South Africa when it was under sanctions during the apartheid era.

The facility itself will be the first of its type in the UK and British Airways chief executive Keith Williams says it will help the airline achieve its vision of making sustainable aviation fuel a reality by 2015. In addition, the plant is part of British Airways’ goal to have “Carbon Neutral” growth from 2020 with biofuels making up 2% of the company’s fuel.

British Airways is not the only airline looking into biofuels as KLM, Lufthansa and United Airlines are also apparently taking the plunge as well. No word on when biofuel may start powering British general aviation, but certainly the GreenSky project is a step towards more sustainable commercial aviation.

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