Should we are should we not?

On Thursday afternoon a friend and I decided to take a quick flight after work. As we talked about where to go we thought about either a Chicago lake front tour or a flight to Racine, WI. I mentioned that I had never landed at Midway Airport and suggested we fly along the lake front and then do a landing at Midway.

We were very hesitant to fly there, we thought about have difficult that it might be. The busy airspace, the controllers, and the Airliners intimidated us. We almost changed our minds but figured that we should fly down the lake front and if we decided not to land at Midway we could just go a little further south and go around them and then head back home the DuPage.

Before the flight we made sure that we had the proper charts and made notes of all of the Frequencies that we would need. We took off and headed to the lake front. First we called up Chicago Executive Airport and transitioned their airspace and then headed south. As we approached Montrose Harbor we listened to ATIS and then called up Midway Tower. The gave us a transponder code and told us to expect Runway 31R. We lined up on a right base and were soon cleared for a touch and go. The landing and take off were very uneventful and we were give a heading to fly after take off, just like any other controlled airport, go figure. On the flight back to DuPage we talked about how easy that that flight was. We had almost talked ourselves out of this flight because we were intimidated by the large airport. But we did a little bit of planning and to was no big deal.

Next time you fly try and do something a little different, try a new airport, go to a controlled field if that is something you normally do not do. Just go out and be safe and have some fun.

Next time I will talk about the benefits of not being afraid to talk to controllers.

The Front

I often use www.aviationweather.gov but had never noticed a link at the bottom of the page. It is for an aviation weather newsletter called The Front. The Front is provided to enhance aviation safety by increasing the pilot's knowledge of weather systems and processes, and National Weather Services products and services.

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New FAA Handbooks coming in April

The FAA has released two new handbooks. One is dedicated to advanced avionics and the other is related to risk management. I have seen the digital versions of these books and the appear to be very well done. The FAA has been using industry experts to write the newer handbooks and they are a lot more readable than those of the past. I will post a link to the new books as soon as they are available.

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