This whole fiasco surrounding ATC Dad was created and blown out of proportion by the FAA. The controversy started ATC Dad back in February when a LiveATC listener heard a seven year old on JFK ATC. He then proceeded to record the boys transmission and share it on YouTube. The ATC Controller’s only mistake was that he did not consider the PR his action would create. Some of the facts surrounding this incident:
- All the planes were on the ground
- The controller could interrupt his child if something was going wrong
- The pilots knew ahead of time a child would be transmitting
The real problem with this incident is how the FAA worded their press release. Had they said, “Air Traffic Controlling is an exciting and challenging career, and we occasionally children to explore this field under the supervision of an experience controller.” Or if they were even smarter they could have been proactive and release a possible press release before the media caught wind of the youtube video, “Today, pilots at JFK airport heard a different kind of voice on the radio, as part of the FAA’s mentoring program.” If they were to have done this, then this news story would have made the Friday feel good story of the day.
For further commentary on this story, Robert Mark of JetWhine shares his opinion.
For everyone who wants to celebrate Barack Obama’s first visit to Canada, you may want to listen to the ATC for the Air Force One callsign. Conviently, LiveATC.net has the terminal, tower, ground and cleareance frequencies setup for Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport. You can find the link to the streaming audio here, or if you would like a diagram of the airport to look at, check out cyow.ca. I believe Air Force One usually lands at Ottawa Macdonal-Cartier, but someone once told me that there is also a Canadian Air Force base near by where it sometimes lands, maybe in the event of an emergency. I wonder if the controller will say something funny when they make radio contact.
The green Air Force One pictured above is an April Fouls joke from How Stuff Works.com. It was suposedly a new version of Air Force One that uses hybrid fuel technology. Something the US government should get cracking on anyway. I wonder if it’s more fuel efficient to fly the president in a F-18 than it is to fly him in a Boeing 747.
Obama will arrive at approximately 10:30am ET on February 19th.
I took an hour and a half flight from Dryden to Thunder Bay today in a Cessna 172SP. The winds were calm, but light flurries as I took off. Things cleared up when I got close to Dryden. Landing was a little hard and could use a bit of work. This flightw as flown IFR, but for the most part it was VFR conditions after I got outside of Thunder Bay.
I’m thinking I’ll head to Winnipeg next.
This is an amazing photo taken by Janis Krums of the rescue attempt of U.S. Airways Flight 1549. It beats CNN by far! I believe it was taken from a ferry helping with the rescue. Amazing job by the pilot making an emergency landing.
There’s one thing the Bernoulli principal does not explain: upside down flight.
I’m listening to a lecture by Ira Flatow from Insight Cruises where he is explaining why the Bernoulli principal is wrong. Instead of explaining all the details, you can listen to the lecture here.
I wonder if this has any effect on X-Plane’s wind modeling in their flight simulator.
I noticed that you can now listen to the air traffic control frequencies for Thunder Bay International Aiport on LiveATC.net. They are currently streaming the frequencies for:
Thunder Bay Ground: 121.9
Thunder Bay Tower: 118.1
Thunder Bay Terminal: 119.2
Winnipeg Center (CZWG) – Marathon Sector (GND/FL280): 132.125
I just heard a CF-18 flying over my house, and then the controller said, “Follow the F-18 inbound.” And later I heard, “F-18 is departing the runway.” I think the actual radio for the pilot of the F-18 was too faint to hear, so I couldn’t hear what he was saying. It sounded like he was asking for clearance to fly the pattern again, but the controller said no because he has seven Cessnas inbound.
So have fun with this! If you’re a Grounded Pilot like me, you’ll enjoy listening to real ATC. I think the future of flight simulators will embed real live ATC and traffic data so you can fly alongside real world traffic.
I read an article from AOPA’s Flight Training magazine talking about the checklist of seven basic skills to master as a pilot:
Rudder control
Pitch control
Ground track
Altitude control
Planning ahead
Aileron control
All of these skills are covered in the book Microsoft Flight Simulator X For Real World Pilots, which I discussed in my last post. Prior to reading the book, I could never figure out why I could not properly align my airplane with runway when flying with real world weather (crosswinds). Nor did I know how to correct my flight path to compensate for this problem (slips). Something else I noticed when flying with the realism settings turned up was that the airplane would have a tendency of drifting to a heading left of my desired heading. This was caused by P-Factor, and can be corrected by using a little rudder. Also, I was always wondering why the aircraft would start drifting to the left of the runway during takeoff. Again this can be corrected with a little rudder.
So if you have a chance, check out the article, there’s a lot in there to learn that will help your simulator flying.
Since I lack the time, the money, and the knowledge of how to find a flight school that would fit my schedule, I have resorted to learning to fly using a flight simulator. The book that I’ve found and have chosen to walk me through each of the nuances of flying is the book, “Microsoft Flight Sumlator X For Pilots: Real-World Training.”
As I have worked through the first couple of chapters, I have to give this book credit for its emphasis on teaching the reader to watch for visual queues outside of the plane. Non-real world flight simulator pilots will probably never realize this, but flight instructors often notice that simulator pilots who become real world pilots often spend too much time looking at the instruments. For example, one valuable thing this book as taught me is to focus on a object out side of the plane and apply enough rudder to keep that object still. The object should not move until the ailerons are returned to neutral.
Still, a flight simulator won’t beat the real thing, but it’s better than nothing!
