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Come fly our new Piper Arrow IV

Get ready for spring and ready to travel in our new Piper Arrow IV. The Arrow is a four place, complex airplane, and this one is really meant for cross country flying. It features a color moving map Garmin 530W with autopilot, XM Weather, Strike Finder and 72 gallons of useable fuel. Combine this with its 140 knot true airspeed and you will want this plane when you travel!

If you do not have a complex endorsement, you can use the opportunity to knock off your winter rust, or get a flight review. If you have a complex endorsement already, you’ll be able to sign up for a renter’s checkout with your favorite instructor beginning in mid April. See you soon! Click here for more information.

Reader Responses from Airline Call Signs

Thank you to all of our customers and readers who took the time to send your thoughts about the article about identifying airline call signs. Here is a great email that I received from retired American Airlines Captain, Tony Vallillo.

Call signs are, for the most part, a piece of aviation history. Most of them go back a long way.

The major airlines have used the company name and the flight number as a call sign for decades, all the way back to the origins of radio telephony in the 1930's. Continental, as was pointed out, uses simply “Continental” plus the flight number. In fact, for airlines, it is always the company call sign plus the flight number, even for ferry or other non-revenue flights. With but a few exceptions: Read more...

Is Flying Really Safe?

Any person who is fearful of flying will be shocked to hear that Premier Flight Center logged nearly 3,500 flight hours in 2011! The inspiration for this article came about when several people at our flight school were having a discussion about how to advance awareness about how safe flying really is and how to combat the general public’s negative perceptions of flying.

During the discussion, one person remarked that, “We know flying is safe because we at Premier fly a lot, and we do it safely. I mean, clearly we couldn’t fly as much as we do without problems if flying wasn’t a basically safe activity.” Still: How to present that…

Then, I realized we should present just that: The numbers! And when I got them, we were pleasantly surprised by them! We found our airplanes flew 3,491 hours in 2011. What made it so surprising was that, here in the Northeast, most people’s recollection of the year 2011 is best summed up as, “Wow, can you believe all that weather?!?”

What amazed us even more though was Read more...

Ever Wonder: Which
Airline Has Which Call Sign?

Have you ever been on frequency with air traffic control (ATC) and heard an airliner’s call sign and wondered just which airline it is? I sure have!

Premier Flight Center, where I work, is a busy flight school based out of Hartford-Brainard Airport (KHFD) in Hartford, Connecticut, and we’ve got Bradley International Airport (KBDL) just north of us. We regularly receive VFR flight following, and we also do a lot of IFR training, so we are on Bradley's frequency quite often. Beyond that, from our corner of Connecticut, it’s not too tough to end up in the airspace owned by Boston or New York. Accordingly, I hear an assortment of call signs. Oh yes, and I’m a LiveATC.net fan as well…

Continental Airlines (pictured above) is pretty straight forward. They're called “Continental”... I figured out “Cactus” is the call sign for US Airways, but that only came to me through the media coverage of the comms between ATC and the highly skilled pilots of “Cactus 1549”, the flight that landed in the Hudson River in January 2009. I think “Brickyard” is another awesome call sign, but I never could figure out which airline they are.

Who knew?

It was a dark and rainy night... I was bored and at home so I began rummaging about the FAA’s web site (yes, I’ve been told I “really need to get a life”). Regardless, I found out that Read more...

When Should You Begin Planning Your Flight?

That's the question I'm often asked: When should flight planning begin? My answer is, “Well, it all depends.” Of course, that's a real helpful, straight, and direct answer for you! What I teach my students is “When you begin your flight planning is dependent on the type of flight you’re contemplating.” If it will be a cross-country flight, then I would urge that, when possible, your planning should begin about a week prior to your scheduled departure. If it is simply a local refresher flight, possibly to include a battery of takeoffs and landings, then I would argue that it’s sufficient to begin planning the night before, or even the day you head to the airport.

Let’s focus first on the “week’s worth of planning” that I am proposing before a cross-country flight. Those first 6 day’s “planning” primarily involves watching weather patterns developing across the route of flight, i.e. being aware of the big picture of frontal movements in order to help you 1.) understand the type of weather you’ll hear about during your briefing, and 2.) give you insight about why the weather you’ll encounter developed so you can anticipate how it may continue to change. Your choice of the actual route of flight will usually be reserved for within 6 hours before departure, once the weather has been studied – and based on a “go” decision. Read more...

FAA Changes Regulations for Renewing Instrument Currency!?!

Did that headline catch your eye? A remarkably similar statement certainly caught my ear while milling about our flight school’s office! I couldn’t fathom having missed such a sweeping change to the FARs, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t have happened.
Read More...

Amazing
Miniature Airport

If you have ever marveled at a miniature creation, this video will leave you awestruck!

For the story behind this amazing model and to view some still photos, click here.

Lightning Strikes Passenger Plane Sitting on the Ramp

Mother Nature can be the source of the most amazing performance around, especially when it's the power of thunderstorms that is used to provide the display. Watch carefully, though the lightning strikes the tail of this jet, it exits through the nose gear and sends an object that appears to be a manhole cover, next to the nose wheel, soaring toward the approaching tug operator. Fortunately, it appears all of the ground crew were uninjured!