2024 Texas Top Aviation Shangri-La Fly In

Weather Avoidance

ByHank Gibson October 31, 2014

I began flying a Piper Malibu earlier this year.  For those of you not familiar with the original PA-46, a Malibu has a Continental TSIO-320 engine, with 310 HP.  It’s pressurized and cruises at about 185-200 KTAS.

A few things are introduced to the equation when pilots start flying higher, faster, and farther.  When you start flying over longer distances, weather becomes more of an issue.  On a quick hop from, say, Austin to Dallas, you can be pretty sure of what the weather will be since it’s a short trip.  When you fly from Austin to LA, leave in the morning, land once along the way, and arrive in the afternoon after spending six and a half hours in the air, weather can change a lot in that amount of time.

A must for any pilot flying high and over long distances is some kind of Nexrad system, whether it be a Garmin 696, or it shows up on your GPS or MFD.  Having this situation awareness is very helpful when planning ahead as to what to do about weather.  A stormscope is also a handy tool, since you can see where the lightning is with it.

Cold fronts can be pretty nasty, depending on how strong and how fast they are moving.  A strong, fast moving cold front usually has a lot of convective activity associated with it.  The tricky thing with storms associated with fronts is that storms form in lines, most of the time.  If you’re trying to cross a front in the morning, you can usually get high enough over the clouds with a pressurized airplane since the temperature is still relatively low to get clear of the cumulonimbus clouds.  The cloud tops will only be around ten or twelve thousand feet.

Crossing fronts in the afternoon when daytime heating is pushing the tops of the CBs up to the 20-40 thousand foot range, it’s best to land, have a meal, stretch your legs, and wait till the sun starts to go down before pushing on.  Do not, under any circumstances, try and go through the cumulonimbus clouds associated with a cold front in a small airplane.  Not only is it uncomfortable (the turbulence bounces you around pretty good), but you’ll get ice, scare the passengers, and, if you’re in the heart of a storm, the plane could come apart.

When crossing mountains, the weather is always highly unpredictable.  If it’s a clear day, no matter your altitude, you’ll probably pick up some turbulence from all the rising air off the peaks.  If there is moisture in the air, there are going to be isolated to scattered thunderstorms in the summer time.  The advantage of flying high when there are isolated or scattered storms is you can utilize the see and avoid method.

See and avoid is simple.  When the storms aren’t embedded in other clouds, it’s actually rather easy to spot the big, rising clouds and go around them.  The same concept holds true when avoiding those pesky pop up thunderstorms in humid areas like Houston and Florida.

One thing that I learned this summer was this.  Sometimes, with an area of closely grouped storms, the cloud base is actually quite high (some storms I went underneath in New Mexico had cloud bases of 15,000 MSL).  The thing to do here is just stay below the bases of the clouds and go around the areas of rain.  These will be visible and you’ll be able to navigate around them.  With bases even as low 9-10 thousand feet, it’s a much better idea to stay below the clouds, sacrifice some speed, and dodge the rain shafts.

The most important concept to take away is don’t fly into a thunderstorm.  If there are a bunch of really high clouds in front of you and you don’t see a safe way around them, descend down and land, wait it out, and then continue on your way.

Direct to the FAF

ByHank Gibson December 9, 2017December 13, 2017

A common practice when ATC is setting an aircraft up for a visual approach is giving a clearance direct to the Final Approach Fix (FAF) for the approach for that runway.  The theory is, the pilot will fly to the FAF, then he’ll pick up the airport and fly visually in.  It is a handy way of setting the pilot up for a 5 mile straight in visual approach.

For anyone who flies with a Garmin GPS, whether is be a 430, a G1000, or a GTN 750, you have probably discovered a little nuance with going direct to the FAF.  Once an approach is loaded into the flight plan, whether is is loaded via vectors or via an IAF, all the waypoints on the approach go into the flight plan.  If the FAF is selected in the flight plan and the direct to command is given, the plane turns to the FAF and flies direct to it.

The fun starts once the plane gets to the FAF.  The Garmin doesn’t sequence to the next waypoint.  It just keeps the FAF as the active waypoint and the airplane just continues on the course it had to get to the FAF. This has probably caused some stress and frustration as the pilot is expecting the airplane to turn inbound (if the autopilot is engaged), but then it keeps flying, usually away from the runway.

How to fix this?  If a Garmin GPS is closely inspected once the direct to the FAF command is selected, the pilot will notice that the GPS goes into Suspend mode.  The Garmin programers thought this was a good idea to do.  

How to get it to sequence properly?  Well, once the FAF is the active waypoint and the airplane is flying direct to it, simply unsuspend the GPS, then the airplane will turn inbound on the final approach course and track inbound and the glide slope will pop up.  On the 430 or 530, just press the OBS key.  On the G1000, press SUSP.  On the GTN 750, tap UNSUSP on the bottom of the unit.

Hopefully, this will lead to reduced frustration on what otherwise should be a simple approach to an airport.

Angelina County Airfest

ByHank Gibson September 11, 2015September 10, 2015

The Angelina County Airport in Lufkin, TX (KLFK) will be hosting the Angelina County Airfest on Saturday, October 10th.  The airport will open up at 9am.

Prepare for a day of food, fun, and some great performances.  There will be warbirds and many other classic airplanes on display, not too mention a number of aerobatic performances as the day goes on.

To learn more about the Airfest, visit the Angelina County Airfest website.  Tickets start at $10 for adults.

Picking Up an IFR Clearance

ByHank Gibson October 30, 2015November 5, 2015

Picking up an IFR clearance at first can seem very simple.  But, when taking off from an untowered field, especially if a pilot is based at a towered airport, it can be a little more complex.  Based at an untowered field?  The towered procedures are a little more streamlined, but still different.

Towered Airports

Class B or Class C

At Class B or Class C airports, there is a dedicated frequency to get an IFR clearance and VFR departure instructions called Clearance Delivery.  It is published in the airport facilities directory as well as most approach plates.  Before you call Clearance Delivery, get the ATIS and tell the controller you have it as well as where you are located on the airport.

Class D

Some Class D airports have a Clearance Delivery frequency (see KADS, Addison, TX), but for the most part, you’ll get your IFR clearance on the Ground frequency.  If there is a dedicated Clearance Delivery frequency, the ATIS will specify whether or not to get your clearance on it or on ground control.

Class D towers are only part time towers, usually closing between 7pm and 10pm local time, depending on how busy the airspace is.  These airports usually have published Clearance Delivery frequencies to contact either the local approach control or center to pick up an IFR clearance on the ground.  They will be published on approach plates and in the A/FD.

Untowered Airports

Class E

There are a number of Class E airports that are Class E all the way down to the surface (see KLFK, Angelina County).  At these airports, there will either be a Clearance Delivery frequency or you call on the Center or Approach frequency to get your clearance (at KLFK, you call Center as there is no Clearance Delivery frequency.  At Temple, KTPL, there is a published Clearance Delivery frequency which you would be talking to Grey Approach).

Class G

There are two ways to pick up an IFR clearance at a Class G airport, one typically a little safer than the other.

The first option is to take off and maintain VFR while calling Center or Approach control.  They will give you your clearance making you IFR and allowing you to enter the clouds.  This option can be unsafe depending on the terrain surrounding the airport and how low the ceiling is.  If the ceiling is overcast at 1,000, you can legally remain VFR in Class G airspace at 500 AGL, but that isn’t the safest option and you might not be able to raise ATC at that altitude.

The second, and safer option, is to call on the phone.  Flight Service has a nationwide Clearance Delivery phone number that every pilot should have saved in their contacts (888-766-8267).  Typically, you want to wait to call them until after you are done with your runup because they only give you a five or ten minute window to get off the ground.  With bluetooth equipped headsets, this usually isn’t a problem.

Be prepared when calling Clearance Delivery on the phone to wait a few minutes.  Us pilots aren’t good at being patient sometimes, but the FSS has to call Center on the phone to get your clearance and release and this can take a few minutes.  Be prepared for that going in and just be patient.  Remember, this is the safer option!

There are a handful of Class G airports around the US that have a GCO, a Ground Communications Outlet. With a GCO, you tune up the frequency, then click the mic 4 times to talk to ATC or 6 times to talk to FSS.  Each mic click must be at least one second, so if you click the mic too quickly, it won’t work.

At certain airports that are underlying an approach control’s airspace, you can actually call the TRACON directly and get your clearance from them (5C1, the Boerne Stage Airport, for example.  San Antonio approach is the controlling agency and you can call them directly to pick up your clearance).  It’s a good practice to get the TRACON phone number and save that in your contacts as well.

Hurricane Harvey

ByHank Gibson August 29, 2017August 29, 2017

Texas Top Aviation wants to express our heartfelt concerns and prayers for those affected by Hurricane Harvey along the Texas Gulf Coast and in Houston.  We have several customers in Houston and hope and pray that they are all safe.

If you would like to donate to the relief effort, there are several organizations that are accepting support.  A few are below.

Samaritan’s Purse

American Red Cross