The Flying Reporter Pilot Briefing May 2024 

Nice chatting today briefly at Private Flyer South & great work MC'ing. Burden of competence. 🤣👍 regardless of whether you continue or not you have added value to GA.

Thanks Jon, always good to hear these things. I was pondering how my complete ineptitude at remaining at a specified altitude has come to be a boon, as I'm now finally able to maintain any altitude I select and have, for some time, had a preference for the more unusual fractions between the circular rule levels.

Thank you, Jon, I do look forward to your polished pilot briefings 👌🏻👍🏻

‘They’ only want money out of you. Another excellent video.

We check the mode C readout to within a +/-200ft margin, and we only see 100ft increments on the radar. No need to over think it!

Why are we are we flying overhead VOR’s and along tracks between VOR’s ? Those of you who have Garmin GPS units can laterally offset your track to the left or right. This GPS function is extremely useful when flying in choke points like along the northern or southern LHR zone.

Not sure I understand the logic. Two planes came within 1/10th of a mile laterally i.e. 600ft give or take so the suggestion is to fly +/- 50ft vertically just in case. Not convinced that’s going to reduce the chances of a mid air collision. I would think a far more effective approach is to keep a good look out the window, especially around hotspots such as vor’s and major vrp points.

Great update. On the electric aircraft I wonder why the motor, or shaft, didn't detach when there was that much vibration and force. Passenger jet engines are designed to fall of should they have such high forces within them.

Picking random 50foot altitudes… pretty pointless since barometric altimeters have an inaccuracy of +_ 2 Mb anyway. If flying direct lines between radio navigation aids but VFR. Just do what you’d would do if following any other line feature and oddest your track parallel to the right a small amount.

Fly odd hundreds Eastbound and even hundreds Westbound

A bit puzzled about an issue which to me is filed under 'The Blindingly Obvious'. Back in my PPL days I went about my hour building toward a professional licence by flying every suitable day the length and breadth of the UK.. plus the odd trip to the continent.. Having once come close to a mid-air approaching a VOR, I looked at my aircraft after landing and realised that in fact, its verticle profile was less than ten feet high..From that time on I elected to fly at any number that occurred to me on the day, at 3500ft I might fly at 3570, or maybe 3485ft.. it doesn't matter.. ATC work within 200ft of the assigned altitude.. if you state that you're 3500ft and you happen to be flying at 3570ft, they're not going to come down on you like a machine of fate ! Build in a common sense safety margin, move the odds in your favour. Additionally, I got into the habit of never flying directly over a VOR.. keeping eyes inside looking for the needle to move is not the best practice when approaching a nav beacon.. unless you're on your IR flight test.. a quarter of a mile is good enough and you can keep your eyes where they'll do the most good.. Outside !

With regard to fifty foot altitude spacing I seem to recall when using a GFC500 autopilot the height knob only allows for selection in 1,000s of feet, I.e., no provision for setting 50 foot differentials, although I might be mistaken.

Who flies at a planned, constant, consistent height anyway? That's not "flying".

With the airprox, is this not a a prime example of the much bigger and more important issue surrounding the difficulty in getting anything from Farnborough, never mind just a Basic Service!! I cant speak for Oxford as I don't use them as much but the attitude and service from Farnborough is staggeringly bad, no doubt some of the attitude is as a direct result of the lack of investment in controllers. It is only a matter of time before there is some sadly deadly consequences.