Pilot Institute

FEBRUARY 22, 2025

Flying under Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) can, at times, feel like deciphering a complicated puzzle, especially when you’re staring at an approach chart filled with intricate details. Approach charts, often referred to as approach plates, become your guide when visual cues are scarce. What Is an IFR Approach Chart?

Approach

Pilot Institute

JUNE 9, 2025

If it is obvious that the bad weather is transitory, air traffic control may ask approaching aircraft to take up a holding pattern while the weather subsides. To avoid airplanes constantly changing direction and approach procedures, ATC may ask them to take up the hold while the airport is reconfigured. Want an example? Is that it?

Airplanes

Air Facts

OCTOBER 30, 2024

Then, we’d meet in Signature’s lobby, IAD’s FBO, and go over the day’s lesson: destination, altitude, maneuvers, approaches, and completion standards. After startup, I’d record a VOR check in the aircraft log while waiting for our clearance. We flew the usual approaches: VOR, ILS, and the now extinct NDB.

NDB

Fear of Landing

JANUARY 3, 2025

On the 25th of December 2024, Azerbaijan Airlines flight 8243, a scheduled passenger flight from Baku, Azerbaijan to Grozny, Russia, crashed on approach to Aktau International Airport in Kazakhstan with 62 passengers and five crew on board. The flight crew requested an NDB approach to Grozny and were cleared for approach to runway 26.

Weather