Customer Reviews

Flying in Congested Air Space: A Private Pilot's Guide (Tab Practical Flying Series)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

While it was a good try Mr. Garrison seems to have forgotten that private pilots generally do not fly jets. This book was published before the introduction of GPS and so does not include any information on its practical use in the cockpit. Much of what the author has written could have been gleaned from other publications. When he talks about one of his most helpful suggestions, the autopilot, he failed to grasp that at that time, the majority of small airplanes did not have such installed. Today's much more expensive aircraft all seem to come from the factory with an autopilot so the advise given then would be more approriate now. The majority of the complex airspace focus is around the Atlanta Terminal Control Area (now Class B) which is okay. However, at the time of publication, Hartsfield wasn't even in the top twenty busiest airports in the country and there were only a couple towered airports around it. Today Hartsfield is one of the busiest and there are a few more towers at airports surrounding it. At the time of publication of the 100 plus paved public-use airports in Southern California, more than 50 had operating air traffic control towers and it was one of the most complex pieces (still is) of airspace in the country. It also had the most traffic, up to 500 airborne targets during one radar sweep of the Los Angeles basin which also contained four of the top ten busiest airports in the country at that time. The San Francisco Bay area had two more of the top ten busiest. When the author gave example airports, he talked about Los Angeles International and San Francisco International, airports few private pilots need nor want to fly into. And his recommended plan of arrival used Profile Descent Procedures which were used (the have been integrated with Standard Terminal Arrival Routes today) to allow airliners to fly a continuous descent to the arrival airport from their enroute Flight Levels above 18,000 feet. Few small planes fly that high. Overall, the book needed a better focus or at the very least, a change in subtitle.