Recent content by mcheathe

I have kept pretty good records of the 40 vehicles I have owned over my 60 plus years of driving. I have owned Chrysler, Ford, GM and some imports. Many have been good vehicles. Without question, on the whole on my experience, Fords have been the worst vehicles I have owned and I have received...

After WWII, when commercial airlines were growing by leaps and bounds their main customer were business flyers, traveling from a major business to another major business center. Air carriers and military made up 95% of the IFR traffic until the early 70s. Most carriers operated on a linear point...

SIAP are generally non-published IAP created for a specific company or airport owner. Terms and conditions for the use of the approach are governed by Letters of Agreement between the FAA and the “owner” of the procedure. They typically have verbiage on the approach plate restricting the use of...

Dog leg airways are created for many purposes. There could be obstructions along a route that would require a high MEA. They could be created to correspond to sector boundaries within or between ATC facilities. They are used to avoid overflying special use airspace such as MOA, Restricted or...

I was working the mid-shift at Denver Center around 3:00 AM. The controller next to me was working a T-29 that departed Ellsworth AFB heading for ABQ area. The course for the airway his was flying was 179 degrees. He also had a freight dog out of Denver headed to Rapid City on the same airway...

Yes, it is now Goodyear. During its heyday, there were thousands of aircraft on the field. During the Vietnam conflict, many hundreds if not thousands were returned to flight status including a hell of a lot of Douglas A-1 Skyraiders. There was an ongoing scrapping operation on the field while...

When I was at Litchfield Park in the mid 60's, it was the Navy's boneyard. The facility closed in the late 60's and the aircraft they wanted to keep were moved to Davis-Monthan AFB at Tucson.

Retired now. US Navy at Litchfield Park, AZ, Midway Island and Kingsville, TX and FAA at Abilene, TX Rapcon/Tower, Houston, TX Tracon and Denver Center. Much preferred enroute. Nearly always busy and complex traffic situations kept you challenged.

I was working as tower controller at KABI in the late 70’s. A Bonanza was on a 1 mile final for 17R being followed by a King Air 200. The King Air had the Bonanza in sight trying to go slow, but was catching up. I advised the King Air to be prepared to go around. Shortly after the Bonanza...

ATC is a demanding, stressful occupation and over time, can be physically debilitating. It requires a sharp, agile mind that reacts quickly to unexpected changes and one that can quickly arrive at a solution while complying with an extraordinary complex assortment of rules, aircraft operating...

I cut out Direct-TV 3 years ago by installing a Home Theater (HT) system for my home. I used an older Celeron processor computer dedicated to the HT system. You will want a computer with quite cooling fans. The only software on this computer is dedicated to HT system, mainly Windows 7, which...

For Skidoo: If you look at the IFR En-route Low Altitude Chart L-13, almost the entire area from 20 miles North of Kalispell to 50 miles South of Missoula has a white background indicating that this area is controlled airspace, generally Class E in which the floor is either 1200 FT AGL or...

For roncachamp: What has this to do with declining a SID? It is a continuation of discussion of techniques for dealing with IFR departures from non-towered airports located in uncontrolled airspace. For aterpster: What are the airport's surface winds? Surface winds...

There has been a lively discussion going on in another thread, “Can You Decline a Sid.” In order not to hijack that discussion, I am going to start another thread that will be over some similar topics as in the original. See the scenario below and respond to the questions. ATC (1) If you...

All of the foregoing discussion boils down to this If an airport has a control tower or an IAP, controlled airspace starts at the surface and extends upward to the overlying controlled airspace If an airport does not have either a tower or an IAP, controlled airspace begins at 700 ft or 1200...