Land and Hold Short

I’ve expanded my original OurAirports tagging to include all airports of entry and U.S. landing rights airports that I can find under Canadian or U.S. control. You can now use my tag “customs” to find either, for trip planning purposes. Here’s the map zoomed in on the Vancouver/Seattle area, showing only airports where you can clear customs:

Map of customs airports near Vancouver and Seattle

Zoom out and drag to see other parts of Canada and the U.S., or start with the full customs map.

Note that some airports have only seasonal service and/or limited operating hours, and that U.S. “landing rights” airports sometimes charge a fee for customs services. I have not included CANPASS-only airports on the map, because they are available only to pilots who have preregistered in the CANPASS program. I have also excluded unofficial (but frequently-used) customs airports like Maxson Field and Sanderson Field that are located near border crossings.

I flew from Ottawa, ON to Washington, DC (400 nm) today, with a few pilot firsts:

• First time flying south of the Mason-Dixon line.
• First time flying outside the 40-49 degree north latitude band as PIC.
• First time flying into the Washington, DC ADIZ.
• First time dealing with turbulence, icing, IMC, thunderstorms, and extensive routing changes in unfamiliar airspace all at the same time (with no autopilot).

In the U.S., AOPA president Phil Boyer wants to know how to stop the pilot population from declining — it has fallen below 600,000, and is still heading downhill.

No surprise, really. Flying is a fuel- and land-intensive pastime, when both oil and real estate are expensive and in short supply.

Canada

In Canada, as of September 2007, there were 61,109 pilot licenses and permits in force, with an additional 7,683 student permits [Transport Canada]. If we had the same population as the U.S., that would be the equivalent of nearly 628,000 active pilot licenses. Granted, that’s licenses/permits and not pilots, and a few pilots will hold multiple licenses or permits (e.g. fixed-wing, helicopter, and glider), but it’s probably true that Canada has proportionally more pilots than the U.S. Furthermore, the number seems to be holding fairly steady — ten years ago, in 1998, there were 61,241 licensed pilots (excluding student pilots?) [Transport Canada].

Positive or negative vibes?

What’s the difference? After all, we’re paying slightly more for fuel than the Americans are. One thing might be the hysteria about security and terrorism in the U.S., which paints pilots and planes as, if not exactly potential terrorists, certainly high risks.

Why get involved in a pastime that will make people look at you suspiciously, where your state or city will try to run extra security checks on you, where you read in the news about small planes being intercepted in constantly-changing TFRs, where the less talented investigative reporters will sneak onto your little community airfield to see if your Cessna’s door is unlocked so that they can run a scare story on the news that evening?

That won’t turn everyone away from flying, of course, but it will make some difference — we’re all sensitive to what our friends and neighbours think. In Canada (and, I suspect, parts of the U.S., like Alaska), people still generally react positively when they hear that you’re a pilot, though they learn quickly not mention the weather as a topic of conversation.

The allowed answers for each question are “Canada“, “U.S.“, “both“, or “neither” (for the sake of this quiz, “U.S.” refers only to the continental U.S., excluding Alaska and Hawaii). I’ll post the answers in a comment later.

1. Which country requires pilots to have a clearance to enter class C airspace?

2. Which country requires pilots to file a flight plan for all VFR flights?

3. Which country misuses “class F” in a non-ICAO-standard way to refer to restricted airspace?

4. Which country requires pilots to enter the downwind leg of an uncontrolled airport at a 45-degree angle?

5. Which country requires pilots to have a clearance to fly along (or cross) most Victor airways at or above 12,500 feet?

6. Which country’s controllers will issue landing clearances for more than one aircraft (not flying in formation) landing on the same runway?

7. Which country requires private aircraft to carry liability insurance?

8. Which country levies a fee for customs services for private aircraft?

9. Which country publishes updated VFR charts on a fixed schedule?

10. Which country requires VFR pilots to have copies of current charts on board the aircraft?

11. Which country has a standard, nationwide VHF radio frequency that pilots can use to obtain weather updates and file PIREPs?

12. Which country requires pilots always to use supplemental oxygen at a cabin pressure of 12,500 feet?

13. Which country publishes traffic circuit/pattern direction information on its 1:500,000 VFR charts?

14. Which country plans to require private aircraft to carry 406 MHz ELTs?

15. Which country would charge a Cessna 172 pilot/owner a fee for each IFR flight?

16. Which country has class G airspace above 18,000 ft?

In the U.S., in an attempt to avoid user fees for general aviation, AOPA (the main G.A. advocacy group) worked with the FAA to outsource flight services (briefings, VFR flight plans, etc.) to Lockheed-Martin. AOPA didn’t realize that they were about to break the whole system.

The system broke badly — while some calls do get through, there are numerous reports of dropped calls, 30+ minute wait times, confused briefers, and more. For U.S. pilots, it’s almost as if flight services has ceased to exist, and judging from discussion on the mailing lists, they’ve pretty-much stopped filing VFR flight plans (which aren’t mandatory in the U.S.) except when required for ADIZ or cross-border flights.

Pilot, clear thyself

Things have gotten so bad that there’s now a new wiki, ClearanceWiki, devoted entirely to collecting information on how to pick up IFR clearances from small airports without having to call Flight Services — it lists radio frequencies or direct ATC phone numbers that are or might be available at each airport.

When I couldn’t close my flight plan

My own experience with Lockheed-Martin’s new U.S. FSS has been mixed. I appreciate that I can now call from a Canadian landline or cell phone to reach U.S. flight services (when the FAA ran the system, non-U.S. area codes were blocked), and most of the time I have been able to get through (do foreign callers get better service?), but I’ve had some bad experiences.

The worst was last week, when I landed at Alexandria Bay/Maxson in Upstate NY to clear customs. I had filed a cross-border VFR flight plan (as required by law), but Maxson has no RCO frequency, and I could not get through to anyone by phone to close the flight plan while my search-and-rescue time fast approached. I decided that my best bet was to take off and climb until I could reach someone (I also had to pick up an IFR clearance for the rest of the flight, but it was VFR in Maxson).

Once in the air, I explained the problem to Wheeler-SAC approach at Fort Drum, and they started trying to reach FSS for me on their own dedicated lines, also with no success (they were able to give me my IFR clearance quickly, though). Finally, I was high enough to pick up a Burlington RCO transceiver, and at the same time, Burlington had heard enough of a call from Wheeler-SAC (before the line went dead) to close my flight plan.

Not ideal in Canada, but better

While I’d rather not pay my ~$75 annual Nav Canada fee and the avgas tax, and I’m seriously p*ssed with the extra $10/takeoff fee coming up for using big airports like CYOW, we do get excellent FSS service here in Canada. I almost never wait on hold on the phone for a Nav Canada briefer, and when I do, it’s usually a few seconds at most; in fact, a couple of times I’ve called Nav Canada from the U.S. to get a briefing because I can’t get through to U.S. flight services — they’re always understanding and happy to help.

Some of you (like Paul Tomblin, who manages navaid.com) have probably already run into this problem, but it turns out that there are at least three airports in the world that cannot safely be assigned to any country, at least not without causing a diplomatic incident. This is a problem for database architects as well as ambassadors, because the normal way to organize airports in a database is to sort them by country (and to assume that every airport has one).

[Update: Boing Boing bought into the airlines' side on this and went even further, confusing airport development funds with ATC costs and somehow making it sound like 25% of the cost of each airline ticket subsidizes rich people in bizjets. To their credit, they ran a couple of follow-up corrections from readers. Thanks to Mark for the tip.]

In this speech, U.S. FAA administrator Marion C. Blakey defends a new, fee-based U.S. system on these grounds:

“Tell you what. If the FAA really wanted to kill GA, as our critics claim, we’d just sit back and do nothing. We’d leave the air traffic system just the way it is, and let congestion slowly squeeze them out.”

What pilots know (but the public doesn’t) is that we have procedures for handling every part of a flight without help from air traffic control (ATC), and that thousands of flights every day go from point A to point B without ever talking to an air traffic controller, just like car drivers can manage a four-way stop without the help of a traffic cop. We have rules for departing (landing traffic gets right of way for the runway), rules for enroute (different altitudes for different directions of flight), and rules for arrival (everyone joins a circuit or pattern and takes their turn to land). In the Canadian north, as Aviatrix can attest, we even manage IFR just fine without ATC help.

These rules work great, but they do require that everyone slow down and get in line, and that’s where ATC comes in. Sure, a 737 could slow down to (say) 180 knots, fly a wide pattern, and wait its turn to land, but the airline doesn’t want it to (gas is expensive, and passengers hate being late). When the weather goes down, the airlines don’t want their jets and commuter turboprops stacked 20 deep in a hold following the one-in/one-out rule for uncontrolled airports in IFR. They don’t want to have to slow down to near propeller speed in terminal airspace in VFR so that they can see and avoid other traffic reasonably.

Because of all that, we have a special system in place to help the big guys out. There are controllers at busier airports, terminal controllers, and enroute controllers to help them get in and out of airports faster, without having to get in line and wait (at least, not as much). Huge amounts of airspace are reserved so that only aircraft talking to ATC can use them, again, almost entirely for the benefit of the airlines.

Remember that the sky belongs to everyone, and all this special accommodation for the airlines this is a bit of a pain for us G.A. pilots (long waits for clearances around class B/C or long detours, etc.), but we can get used to it, just like drivers get used to bus lanes. And sometimes (rarely), we even get our own tower at airports with extremely heavy G.A. traffic, just to help things along. It really adds insult to injury, though, when airlines complain that G.A. is not paying its fair share of the cost of this system (even though we already pay a fuel tax on both sides of the border, and a small fee in Canada, to subsidize a system designed largely for the airlines’ benefit), and it’s even worse when organizations like Nav Canada or the FAA start acting as lobbyists for the airlines.

My 15 March (2007) editions of the Canada Flight Supplement (airport directory) and Canada Air Pilot (approach plates) just arrived in the mail, and they have a new look. Just before I started flying in 2002, the CFS had a green cover (I saw old copies lying around), then it switched to blue. Now we’re going to have to get used to grey with fancy gradients.

More seriously, Nav Canada sent a letter along with the new pubs promising significant changes beyond just the cover colours. I wonder what they have in store for us. Up-to-date information about landing fees? Better diagrams for airports without instrument approaches? We’ll have to see.

According to AOPA, the biggest issue facing general aviation in the U.S. is the risk of user fees. I agree with Phil Boyer that user fees could hurt GA, especially if they are per use (as in Australia) rather than flat fees (as in Canada, with one misguided exception); however, I think that there are even bigger issues facing North American general aviation. Here, on no scientific basis whatsoever, are my top five:

1. The end of AvGas: Almost nobody makes AvGas any more, it’s expensive to transport, and environmentalists rightly hate it because it’s leaded. Watch for it to get rarer and more expensive, with more and more shortages, over the next few years, at the same time as ethanol in MoGas renders it unsuitable for the few aircraft engines that could use it. The solution? Diesel engines, but they’re still expensive to install (nearly the whole cost of my plane), probably won’t ever be approved for all existing models, and do not yet have a significant North American maintenance network in place. Most old planes will have to be retired, and most pilots won’t be able to afford to replace ‘em, so they’ll retire with their planes.

2. (In)Security: It’s there, and it’s not going to go away. The general public has always been afraid of airplanes (I’ve posted in the past about how we exacerbate the problem by promoting air shows), and general aviation in particular scares them because it’s so lightly regulated. In the 2004 U.S. presidential election, one of the candidates was a GA pilot and went out of his way not to cause problems for his fellow pilots; in 2008, we probably won’t be that lucky. And the next time something bad happens, watch for GA to be the scapegoat even more than in 2001: we could be regulated right out of existence on either or both sides of the border.

3. Airport closures: New residential neighbourhoods, either on reclaimed industrial land in the city or former farmland in the country, almost always mean bad news for general aviation. Airports are useful only when they’re near somewhere you want to go, so the most useful airports are typically also the most threatened: Toronto City Centre Airport is constantly under seige from nearby condo dwellers, for example, and even little Rockcliffe Airport struggles with community noise complaints (note that both of these airports have been there since before World War II). Airports aren’t the only ones who suffer from the soccer-mom onslaught: in rural areas farmers have to deal with complaints from new subdivisions about noise and smell, hunters have to go further away to hunt, and so on.

4. Maintenance: Most of the GA fleet is, and will remain, old — very few of us can shell out $300K-$1M for a new light plane, so we have to settle for spending $20K-$150K on something older. It would take only a couple of expensive Airworthiness Directives from the FAA or Transport Canada to knock a huge part of the fleet out of the sky by requiring a repair worth more than the planes’ resale value. Furthermore, the shops that maintain these planes for us often operate on a shoestring, billing much less per hour than an auto shop, and in the U.S. a few of them are starting to refuse to work on older planes for liability reasons (U.S. law protects manufacturers from being sued once the planes are a certain age, so the shop would be the only one to go after in a crash).

5. User fees: We’ve been paying these in Canada for a while now, and since they’ve remained low and fixed (thanks to COPA), they don’t seem to have had any impact at all on GA. However, that could change easily. If either Canada or the U.S. introduced a pay-per-use system, flying could quickly become too expensive and/or too dangerous for most GA owners. For example, if you had to pay $100 each time you filed IFR, scud running might become a bit more tempting; if you had to pay $25 for a weather briefing, you’d be less likely to talk to a specialist about icing. Realistically, I don’t think this is as big a threat as the others, but I’m still grateful that COPA and AOPA (I’m a member of both) are looking out for our interests.

I’m flying to Boston on Sunday for the week to chair the XML 2006 conference. When I fly to New York City, I usually land at Teterboro Airport and park at Atlantic Aviation — the gas is expensive, but my Cherokee doesn’t use much, and since U.S. customs is located right at Atlantic I can fly non-stop from Ottawa, shaving 45 minutes from the trip.

I thought about trying the same thing with Boston this time by flying into Laurence G Hanscom Field Airport (aka Bedford), just west of the city. The Signature FBO is typical for a big city — expensive gas, $25 handling fee waived if you buy a minimum amount of fuel — so that’s not a problem. MassPort, who runs the major Boston airports, also tacks on a $10 landing fee and $12.75/night parking charge, but again, that’s not too bad.

After that, it starts to get strange. For example, some busy airports offer reduced landing fees at night where there’s not much traffic, but MassPort goes the other way: there’s a $49 surcharge for each landing between 11pm and 7am, and it doubles to $98 if you do it more than 5 times in a year. I guess that’s for noise abatement. MassPort also requires a prop lock on all parked planes, and there used to be a $10/day rental fee for them, but Signature now loans them out for free. Finally, the kicker is a $65 user fee for the privilege of clearing customs at KBED in a four-seat plane.

So much for that. I’ll add 45 minutes to my trip, clear customs for free (in Massena, NY or Burlington, VT), then land at one of the airports just outside MassPort’s ring of control and ride the commuter train in, as I’ve done three times in the past. Check out the MassPort fee page to see how easily bad government can take the fun out of flying — it makes the forthcoming Nav Canada big-airport user fees look tame in comparison.

Yesterday, under a low ceiling and poor visibility in showers, I made my shortest-ever point-to-point trip in an airplane, flying the 7 nm from Ottawa/Macdonald-Cartier to my plane’s new home at Ottawa/Rockcliffe.

There are dozens, if not hundreds of light aircraft based at Rockcliffe, of all descriptions: the largest is a shorter-bodied version of the Piper Navajo, and the smallest are Cub-sized two-seaters and similar. There are many vintage and unusual aircraft tied down along the long rows of the flightline.

While one of the Rockcliffe instructors and I were standing in the rain kicking, raking, and digging through the mud trying to find the long-disused tie-down chains in my new spot, he mentioned that he thought my plane was the only Warrior on the field (though there are many other Cherokees). Who’d have figured that a Warrior, of all planes, would stand out on a flightline? I’m glad I don’t fly anything more mundane, like, say, an Ercoupe — I’d hate to blend into the crowd.

Note to American readers: while the Warrior is a very common training plane in the U.S., it’s not very popular in Canada — until the mid 1990s, spin training was required for a Canadian PPL, and unlike the Cessna 172/150/152, Warriors are not certified for intentional spins.

I just finished a three-day business trip to Boston, once again using the very friendly Norwood Memorial Airport (the Wikipedia article needs some TLC) to the south of the city. Boston has a nasty airport security zone with high security fees, required prop locks, etc. Norwood is far enough to be outside the zone, but is near stations on two MBTA commuter lines, making it easy to get in and out of downtown.

When I’m flying, I usually leave my cell phone turned on (a grey area, I know) so that I can get access quickly in case of emergencies. During this trip, however, I noticed something strange: once I was in the U.S., I had either no signal or an extremely weak one with no bars. This continued all the way into Boston, even over cities and Boston suburbs. Coverage was great as soon as I was on the ground, so it wasn’t a problem with roaming.

I think that the cell phone company who partners with Bell Mobility (Sprint?) must be refitting their towers to block out signals coming from above. I’d guess that this is the first step to allowing cell phone calls from airliners, before setting up satlink cells inside the planes themselves. This change is significant for pilots like me, who hope to be able to use the cell phone for last-ditch emergency communication if all else fails. As an historical footnote, this change would also would have prevented the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 from finding out about the WTC and Pentagon attacks and deciding to fight back against the highjackers. That said, the change is probably inevitable for simple business reasons.

Almost the second I flew across the St. Lawrence River from New York State into the province of Ontario, all of the bars on my cell phone lit up again.

Update: Alas, no longer — by August 2006, my cell phone was not working with U.S. flight services again, and a reader left a comment to the same effect. It was nice while it lasted.

A bit over a year ago, I wrote a posting linking to a PDF list of local U.S. flight service numbers. At the time, the U.S. 1-800-WXBRIEF number did not work with Canadian land lines or even Canadian cell phones roaming in the U.S., so without a list of local numbers, there was no way to get a briefing or even to close a VFR flight plan in the U.S. using your cell phone — as a result, I always carried a printout of the list in my flight bag.

Recently, the U.S. privatized its flight services, outsourcing them to Lockheed-Martin (though ATC is still public). I decided to try the 1-800 number again, just in case things changed with the privatization. BINGO! The call goes through from my Canadian land line or my cell phone with no problem (and the specialist knew what he was talking about — I take that for granted in Canada, but have not always been able to do so in the U.S.).

The U.S. government has released its 2005 Federal Radionavigation Plan [PDF, 74 pages]. Here is what they are proposing for each type of aviation-related navigation aid:

GPS

Will be the primary federally-provided radionavigation system for the foreseeable future. Will continue to work on augmentation, both through initiatives like WAAS, and by providing two new civilian signals, L2C and L5, to support special operations (like lifesaving).

Loran-C

Will continue to operate until the end of 2006, while evaluating long-term need. Promises at least six months notice if the system is going to be shut down.

VOR

Will phase down the VOR system (enroute and approach) beginning in 2010, based on anticipated decline in usage, but will still a “minimum operational network” (MON) of VORs as a backup to GPS.

DME

Will maintain the existing DME service to support RNAV systems. Plan to install more low-power DMEs to support ILS precision approaches.

TACAN

Will keep the air-based TACAN system until all military aircraft are properly integrated with GPS for national and international controlled airspace (not sure if this applies to all NATO aircraft, or just the U.S.). Sea-based TACAN will continue indefinitely.

ILS

Will reduce the role of Cat I (regular, 200 ft DH) ILS approaches as GPS precision approaches come in, beginning in 2015. ILS will still be available at major terminals.

MLS

Not installing any more systems. Will phase out existing installations beginning in 2010.

NDB

Most NDBs will be phased out, except for those that serve International Gateways, and those in Alaska (for LF airways, similar to the airways in northern Canada). Some may be kept for missed-approach procedures. Phase-down began in 2005.

Marker Beacons

Will be phased down, replaced (in many cases) with published DME distances, navigation waypoints, etc.

So, I’ll be good for IFR in my Warrior for a few more years without an IFR-certified GPS, but I’d better start a savings fund if I want to do precision approaches after 2015. It looks like the DME receiver in my panel will be useful for a while longer, though.

Some related postings

• Fogged in without an ILS
• Upcoming changes to Canadian airspace
• Do you like your ADF? (Not as much as these guys.)
• Thumbing it: Playing with the Rule of 60

Transport Canada has agreed to extend the U.S. Superbowl TFR into Canadian airspace. Here’s the NOTAM:

060014 CYQG WINDSOR PART 1 OF 2

CYQG DAH IS AMENDED AS FOLLOWS:

1) CYR540, WINDSOR ON, CLASS F RESTRICTED AIRSPACE IS ESTABLISHED WITHIN THE AREA BOUNDED BY A CIRCLE OF 10 NM RADIUS CENTRED ON 422025N 830243W (FORD FIELD, DETROIT MICHIGAN) OR THE YQG 305 RADIAL 11.1 NM, EXCLUDING US AIRSPACE. SFC TO BUT NOT INCLUDING FL180. NOTE THAT A SIMILAR TEMPO FLT RESTRICTION (TFR) AREA HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED IN ADJACENT US AIRSPACE. SEE US NOTAMS.

NO PERSON SHALL OPR AN ACFT WITHIN THE AREA DESCRIBED EXCEPT FOR STATE ACFT, MIL AND POLICE OPS, REGULAR SKED COMMERCIAL PASSENGER AND CARGO CARRIERS, HUMANITARIAN AND EMERGENCY FLTS SQUAWKING A DISCRETE TRANSPONDER CODE ASSIGNED AND AUTH BY CLEVELAND ACC (440) 774-0510.

WITHIN CYR540, THE RULES OF FLIGHT FOR THE EXISTING AIRSPACE STRUCTURE AND CLASSIFICATION APPLY, WITH THE FOLLOWING EXCEPTIONS.

ASSIGNED DISCRETE CODES SHALL BE SQUAWKED PRIOR TO ENTERING AND AT ALL TIMES WHILE IN CYR540.

ALL ACFT OPR IN CYR540 SHALL REMAIN IN TWO-WAY RADIO COMM AT ALL TIMES WITH ATS AND SHOULD ANTICIPATE POSSIBLE DELAYS.

2) CYR541, WINDSOR ON, CLASS F RESTRICTED AIRSPACE IS ESTABLISHED WITHIN THE AREA BOUNDED BY A CIRCLE OF 30 NM RADIUS CENTRED ON 422025N 830243W (FORD FIELD, DETROIT MICHIGAN) OR THE YQG 305 RADIAL 11.1 NM, EXCLUDING CYR540 AND US AIRSPACE. SFC TO BUT NOT INCLUDING FL180.

NO PERSON SHALL OPR AN ACFT WITHIN THE AREA DESCRIBED EXCEPT FOR STATE ACFT, MIL AND POLICE OPS, REGULARILY SKED COMMERCIAL PASSENGER AND CARGO CARRIERS, HUMANITARIAN AND EMERGENCY FLTS, OR IFR/VFR ACFT ARR OR DEP LOCAL AIRFIELDS WITHIN CYR541 AND TRANSITING CYR541.

Since when are commercial sports games a vital national security interest for either country? This pretty-much shuts down Windsor Airport to general aviation, and places restrictions on several other airports in the area. We faced similar restrictions here in Ottawa when President Bush visited a bit over a year ago, but the president is not even planning to attend the Superbowl.

I was discussing this approach with some U.S. pilots before I revised the numbers up — at the time, I remembered not seeing the runway until below 100 feet, though now I’m fairly certain I saw it at 130 feet.

I was taken aback when one of the U.S. pilots asked me if this was a confession. It turns out that the U.S. regulations for descending below DH or MDA are different from the Canadian regulations — in Canada, once we’ve seen the required visual reference (such as approach lights, or the PAPI), we’re OK to land — legally, if not safely — even if we don’t actually see the runway until the wheels touch it. See RAC 9.19.3 Landing Minima in the Canadian AIM for details.

The American regulations in FAR 91.175 have similar required visual references, but there is an important addition of a step-down altitude when you spot the approach lights first:

(3) Except for a Category II or Category III approach where any necessary visual reference requirements are specified by the Administrator, at least one of the following visual references for the intended runway is distinctly visible and identifiable to the pilot:
(i) The approach light system, except that the pilot may not descend below 100 feet above the touchdown zone elevation using the approach lights as a reference unless the red terminating bars or the red side row bars are also distinctly visible and identifiable.
[...]

That extra 100 foot restriction isn’t in the Canadian regulations. In fact, AN (SSALR) approach lighting doesn’t even have red side row bars, and the terminating bar is green.

Like most Canadian pilots, I’m running pretty late updating my AIP, so I just noticed the contents of Aeronautical Information Circular 10/05 from last April. It’s worth quoting in full:

Removal of the phrase “VFR flight not recommended” in pilot briefing

Until now, a flight service specialist was required to state the phrase “VFR FLIGHT NOT RECOMMENDED” at the beginning of a pilot briefing for a VFR flight when extensive instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) or conditions that may affect the safety of the flight were reported or forecast to occur along the planned route of flight. The phrase was advisory in nature and the conditions that prompted the use of the phrase were then to be stated and the pilot was to be asked if a briefing was still required.

Pilots have requested that the phrase no longer [be] used in briefings. It was reported that flights were cancelled because the phrase was used even though the flights could have been conducted.

NAV CANADA recognizes that the responsibility for determining if a flight should be conducted or not rests solely with the pilot. The requirement for flight service specialists to use the phrase “VFR FLIGHT NOT RECOMMENDED” is discontinued and the phrase will no longer be used at the beginning of a pilot briefing. Significant meteorological information that could influence the pilot to alter or cancel the proposed flight will continue to be provided at the beginning of the briefing in accordance with current practice.

Kathleen Fox, Vice-President, Operations

Most U.S. pilots I’ve talked to hate the phrase “VFR not recommended”, but I don’t remember ever having heard it in Canada, even before this circular went around. This is similar to the attitude towards icing — Canadian forecasts mention icing only when there is a strong possibility of moderate-to-severe, while the U.S. puts out a standard icing NOTAM if there is even a small chance of trace-to-light. I’m not sure which side is safer to err on.

The weather at the airport is reported below minima — is it legal to try the approach anyway, just to take a look, before heading to your alternate? This is one area where the rules in Canada and the U.S. seem to differ quite a bit.

In the U.S., aircraft operating under FAR Part 91 (private and some commercial operations) have no restriction at all: they are free to try an approach even if the weather is reported as 0 ceiling and visibility. U.S. aircraft operating under FAR Part 135 (charter and commuter, sort-of) are not allowed even to attempt an approach unless the weather is at or above minima. This is probably a gross oversimplification, but it gets the rough idea across.

Canada falls somewhere in between these two extremes. We have something called the Approach Ban, laying in out gory detail when the pilot of any flight (private or commercial) is allow to attempt an approach based on Runway Visual Range (RVR) reports from transmissometers located at the runway threshold (RVR “A”) and mid-runway (RVR “B”):

• When only RVR “A” or RVR “B” is available for the approach runway, it must be reporting at least 1,200 ft.
• When RVR “A” and RVR “B” are available for the approach runway, RVR “A” must be reporting at least 1,200 ft, and RVR “B” must be reporting at least 600 feet for fix-wing aircraft (any value is OK for rotorcraft).

If these conditions are not met, then an aircraft is not allowed to complete an approach past the outer marker or final approach fix. There are a whole bunch of exceptions, though:

1. if the aircraft is already inside the OM or FAF inbound when it receives the report, it may continue;
2. if the aircraft has informed ATC that it is on a training flight and plans to go missed, it may continue;
3. if the RVR is fluctuating above and below, and the reported airport visibility is at least 1/4 SM, the aircraft may continue; and
4. if the aircraft is conducting a CAT III approach, it may continue.

Even more importantly, the ban applies only to airports operating transmissometers on the approach runway — if you’re flying into a medium or small airport, or even approaching a smaller runway at a big airport, there are usually no transmissometers, and therefore, no approach ban.

That said, as far as I understand (never having sat through commercial ground school), commercial operations all have Transport-Canada-approved operating manuals that can place additional restrictions on what pilots flying for the operator are allowed to do, and these may go far beyond the approach ban (especially since they’re usually ammended after every an accident or incident).

Corrections and elaborations are welcome in the comments, especially from pilots who have sat through commercial groundschool on either side of the border.

Doug Robertson in Calgary is about to start training for his instrument rating, and has mentioned that there are few online resources specifically about IFR training in Canada. Obviously, though, there are a lot of American resources. Here are some of the differences between Canadian and U.S. IFR training, based on my own experience in Canada and many conversations with U.S. pilots:

• Partial-panel work is heavily emphasized in the U.S., and forms part of the IFR checkride, where there is often (always?) a partial-panel approach as part of the test. In Canada, you might do a bit of partial-panel work on the sim or in your plane, but it is not automatically part of the flight test (though the examiner can simulate some kind of a failure), and you are very unlikely to be asked to do a partial-panel approach.

• Recovery from an unusual attitude under the hood is part of the U.S. IFR flight test, but not part of the test in Canada.

• In the U.S., NDB training is something that usually happens during IFR training and is then abandoned; in Canada, NDB is still a practical, day-to-day part of life, especially if you have to fly up north, so people seem to get less stressed about it, and thus, have a lot fewer problems with it (an NDB hold can actually be easier than a VOR hold).

• The Canadian IFR flight test is almost unbelievably short. The in-air portion involves mainly tracking a radial from a navaid, performing one hold, and flying two approaches, one of which must be a precision approach for your first test (the second one is usually your return home). Other stuff, like showing an ability to accept clearances and talk to ATC, happens automatically during the test. You might spend more time checking your radios and taxiing than you will actually flying. There’s also an oral portion before the flight, as in the U.S.

• On the other hand, you have to retake the IFR flight test every two years, while the U.S. test is valid for life.

Once you’ve passed, note also that the 6/6 rule (six approaches in the last six months to stay current) becomes in Canada the 6/6/6 rule (six approachs and six hours real or simulated IMC in the last six months). However, your flight test makes you current for a year, so you’ll have to worry about the 6/6/6 only every second year.

One other nice point about the Canadian test is that, since there’s no requirement for partial panel or unusual-attitude recovery, you can take the test in actual IMC. I managed to schedule my first test two years ago for a nice, foggy morning with 400 foot ceilings and silky-smooth air, and I ended up not having to wear the foggles (which I hate almost as much as the hood).

Last week I decided to go for a short round-robin IFR flight between Ottawa and Pembroke. While I was still in cloud and on the airway, cruising at 6,000 ft, Montreal Centre gave me missed approach instructions and then said

Bravo Juliet Oscar, cleared for an approach to the Pembroke Airport.

That kind of a clearance can sometimes be disconcerting for people (like me) who are used to doing vectored approaches to busy airports with every turn and altitude change micromanaged by ATC. There’s a whole lot that Centre expected me to remember to do after giving me the clearance:

1. read back the full approach clearance, for the tapes
2. select an approach (in this case, there was only one)
3. turn off the airway and self-navigate towards the initial approach fix (IAF), which, in this case, was an NDB 21 nautical miles away
4. begin descending from cruise altitude to minimum safe altitude (MSA)
5. fly the approach and missed

The fourth one might trip up American pilots, especially if they get the clearance a long way from the airport. In Canada, clearance for an approach automatically includes clearance to descend to the minimum charted IFR altitude, which is most typically the 25 nautical mile MSA around the initial approach fix (but may procedure turn altitude on a vectored approach, or a published transition altitude, or even 100 nautical mile safe altitude if you get the clearance a long way back). In the U.S., the MSA is for emergency use, and clearance for an approach does not include clearance to descend before established on the approach, as far as I understand.

In other words, in Canada, MSA is an operational altitude, like the procedure turn altitude, a step-down altitude, the minimum descent altitude (MDA) or the decision height (DH); in the U.S., it’s just a safety advisory.