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I'm a little ashamed, given my background, that I don't know the answer to this, but a coworker and I were discussing it. Can somebody who owns any normal GA airplane, let's say a Cessna 172, install a TACAN receiver and actually use it to fly TACAN approaches under IFR? TACAN approaches, of...

I owned an aircraft for 11 years, it was the first and only airplane I owned, so I have a certain emotional attachment to it. I sold it 9 years ago, and like many former owners I'm sure, I look it up every so often on flightaware to see how much it's flying, and where. I know it has been through...

I was in Phoenix this week and had a need for an Uber/etc. I had been seeing all these Waymo cars around, and decided to try it out with my daughter. It worked great! I know there are likely a lot of people out there who don't like the idea of not having control, but I probably take an average...

Found this cool bit of aviation history hanging in my mother-in-law's house. The "W. R. Burrows" is my wife's grand-uncle (my MIL's uncle) (?). Unfortunately my MIL has Alzheimer's and can't remember anything about it. It's dated 1963 and signed by C.R. Smith who was the CEO of AA at the time...

When I look at flights (especially training flights) on Flightaware, I notice that often during touch and goes or full-stop-taxi-backs, Flightaware splits this into two (or more) flights in the "Past Flights" section (web version, similar with the apps). Like this: This was one flight with a...

On one of our recent zombie threads, I posted a screenshot of the warning we get if we are considering resurrecting one. The thread I picked for the screenshot was about 19 years old, yet the warning just said the thread was 365 days old (doesn't even say "more than"). I'm wondering if this is...

Got another insurance "Pilot History" form yesterday from a client. It was sent to him directly from the agent. While it was a PDF, it's pretty clearly a scan of the paper form. And from previous experience with other companies, it seems like this is pretty common. So I guess they intended me...

In the Jan 2024 issue of AOPA Pilot, Barry Schiff writes in his column that in 1956 he found a loophole in the regs, and went into an FAA office and requested a balloon rating. The inspector looked it up and found there were no requirements for the certificate, just that you were a pilot with a...

In my flight department, we fly under both Part 91 and 135. We mostly fly with two fully-PIC-qualified pilots (as we are required to do by the regulations or type certificate of the airplanes), swapping PF/PM duties (and seats) on a daily basis. However, for each itinerary, one of the pilots is...

It used to be that if you had a SID or STAR loaded into your FPL, that you could tap the SID or STAR and one of the options that would show up would be “Show Plate”. This would open up the plate in the “Plates” tab. This was a very useful feature to quickly access such a plate, but I no longer...

Been flying down near (and over) Mexico a lot the past few weeks, and hearing lots of the XAxxx callsigns got me thinking. When I hear ATC tripping over their tongues trying to get out something like "Charlie Foxtrot Golf Foxtrot Alpha" or "X-Ray Alpha Quebec Yankee Zulu", instead of something...

If you listen to an AWOS/ASOS on the radio, or call it on the phone, the weather is up-to-the-minute current. However, if you bring it up in an app, or on the internet, even at aviationweather.gov, the recency of the report varies widely. These sources all get the weather through a system...

It feels like a scam, but I'm not sure what the scam is. Yes, yes, Facebook is awful, etc., etc., I know. But it's a useful tool when used the right way. So here's what's happening recently. I have both a "personal" FB profile (my name), and a "CFI business" profile (my name followed by CFI)...

It seems to me that a whole lot more flight schools are using "callsigns" on the radio now than there used to be. I'd say it's in the last few years, but that also coincides with me getting a new job where I end up at a LOT more smaller airports, so perhaps I'm just seeing it more. Formerly...

I travel the airlines a little more than average, and have noticed recently that it seems they are no longer announcing their names, at the least the pilot/copilot, and sometimes not even the cabin crew. When did this start? Is it universal, or airline dependent? Have I just been on the wrong...

You can buy flashlights like this pretty much everywhere - Walmart, hardware stores, everywhere: But they all use 3 or 4 AAA batteries. What I'm looking for is one of similar form factor that uses AA batteries instead. I realize the 3 AA batteries would be a little fatter than 3 AAA's, but...

I've always had a beef with Foreflight logbook generally logging 0.2 to 0.3 more than the actual hobbs or clock time. This is one of the reasons I don't use it, and when students do, I typically edit the time logged to better reflect reality. But I do use Foreflight's automatic track logging...

A silly, but fun project that resulted from my wife asking me, years ago, if I had ever flown on (such-and-such) a date - like Christmas maybe, or something similar. That was back in 2010, and resulted in me going through my logbook with a single-page calendar and marking off which days of the...

I'm sure we have a lot of USAA members on the forum, so I'm looking for any advice you might have. I was involved in a 2-car accident this evening. (Everyone is fine.) It was at a 4-way stop sign. I stopped, let the other cars go in the order they arrived at, and then proceeded through the...

(I mean for viewing the airplane itself, not aerial photography or Youtube.) As I look at the camera on my phone and realize how tiny it is, I began to wonder why you don't see cameras permanently mounted on new aircraft, and displaying on the MFD, as a safety aid. I'm thinking a couple...