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A family friend's 18-year-old son has wanted to be a pilot for ages. Spends all his time on Flight Simulator. Decided he was going to college to focus on aviation and was getting all the paperwork together last August (2018) before showing up to school. They were at the doctor's office...

Have been to Midway several times in our Bonanza. The $9.00+ 100LL (with oil almost in the $70s per bbl) will get your attention; however, I believe it's the best choice if your destination is near downtown. (It's a shame about Meigs -- still -- over a decade later.) Anyway -- Chicago...

I put my money on a fuel issue as well. It was by no means hard IFR, even for someone with not a ton of experience. I've flown our Bonanza out of Midway, late in the evening, coming back home to Little Rock 6-7 times in the last couple of years. The place is probably 70-80/30 jets to...

When I bought my first airplane and got acquainted with the hanger shortage here, I naturally thought market forces were out of whack -- there was a supply / demand mismatch. I looked to increase the supply and quickly became acquainted to the local aircraft commission board -- and learned...

Ditto here. Have had my IR for 900 hours -- of which I've been on a IFR plan probably 80-90% of that. In that time, I've been given a grand total of 1 hold: heading into a small airport and 4-5 planes show up at the same time with a low ceiling. The weird vectors do seem to be en-vogue...

That's exactly what I do -- with a CIIIc was well -- I was hoping the OP had found some really cool way to do an unpublished hold, fully coupled, with a 430/530... 'Was going to be the post of the year in my book.

Ahhhh... I was reading your account thinking there *was not* a published hold at the FAF - and thought that would be a very sneaky thing to pull in a checkride. You'll have no problem -- sounds like your 2nd ride won't last 20 minutes... Good luck!

When you say the DPE wanted full automation, do you mean he wanted the 430 giving GPSS guidance to the AP to fly the hold at the FAF of the ILS? If so, was the hold published, selectable in the approach? If the hold was not published, how would you make that hold happen - with full...

...And if no approach available, choose Direct-To the airport, switch to OBS mode, choose a custom radial from the fix that corresponds to a desired runway and one should be roughly lined up well before you arrive... Making picking out even hard to find airports without an approach easier...

One other minor ancillary benefit of flying IFR I haven't seen metioned: not getting frozen out of a Class B. Granted, it's not that common, but I've flown to NYC 6 times and heard the controllers deny VFR traffic entry on 2 of those occasions. Never have heard it in the other dozen or so...

Go-around with flaps and gear extended, low climb rate, clipped building?

I'm muddying the water here a little, but we own 2 Bose A20 and 2 Lightspeed Zulu headsets. They both are good, but between the 2, I prefer the Lightspeed. Yet on top of that, I bought some in-the-ear headsets -- the Quiet Technologies Halo's -- mainly for a backup pair or when all the...

I don't know where you're flying, but it's rare for me not to use or need it -- and I usually fly anywhere from 5000-12000, not in the FLs. The last 10 flights I've logged has had some sort of IMC -- 4 of the 10 had me doing approaches well below 1000 AGL at my destination. It was IFR or...

To that point, I came across a webpage many moons ago titled "How my Century Autopilot tried to kill me today"... I got a good laugh from it -- yet understood what they were talking about. I treat mine with great suspicion, watch it like a hawk on the approach, and keep a finger on the...

When we bought our A36, the first thing I did was remove the ADF and DME, cleaned up the panel, and slipped in an Aspen. To my complete surprise, ADFs are commanding a good amount of money overseas -- or at least they were about a year ago. Specifically, I sold mine to a Quantas pilot for...

I think a large part depends on where you live. Some parts of the country see IMC just about every day. In some other parts of the country, you could likely fly all year VMC and never really need it. If you start doing long cross-countries to different regions, I'd submit it's...

My home field is a rather large Class C and after landing there hundreds of times, I still have a hard time picking it out at night from time to time -- or even during the day sometimes. Over the years, I've gotten to just loading a vector-to-final approach nearly every time when it's VMC for...

Congratulations -- and congratulations. I applaud you getting your Private and for wanting to get going on the IR. I greatly preferred my IR training over the PPL, Commercial, or CFI because I found the IR was the most practical and no-nonsense of any of them. The IR may seem like an...

Got my Private and had accumulated a whopping 80 hours, and went flying one beautiful, crisp, Fall day in a rented two-seater. 'Depart a rather busy Class C airport and head out of the area to just mess around. While still on with Departure, the radio/GPS starts playing country music loud...

Ok. That's it. I will no longer get on any commercial flight who's flight # is prime. :)