Clued up

The Civil aviation authority has started a yearly magazine which it sends free of charge to all pilot licence holders registered with them. It is called "Clued Up' and I received my 2008 copy yesterday morning.

As you may expect from the CAA the prime driver behind this publication is safety and compliance to procedure. As such it contains articles about reducing airspace infringements, identifying and dealing with Carb Ice issues (a great little article written by my RT examiner Irv Lee) and links to various documents/PDF's and standards from the CAA website.

There is also a link to the Fly on Track website which I have identified on this site before as being useful. In particular the radar replay's which show what happens when GA pilots (or indeed military pilots) infringe on controlled airspace. These are well worth reviewing if you are looking at flying anywhere near controlled airspace.

One of the best articles was about Red Arrow airspace infringements (i.e GA aircraft infringing airspace when a Red Arrow display is occurring. This happens every year and causes the Arrows to cancel the remaining parts of the display). Whilst it may seem like something that is difficult to identify and know, there are clearly marked notices of this and the information can be found in NOTAMS on the AIS web site, or by calling 0500 354802 prior to departure.

Other articles to read include a fascinating one about the Air Accident Investigation board, the us of flight simulators in training, and information from a PhD student studying Information Flow and it's relevance to flight safety. There are also articles from experienced pilot talking about errors they have made and what caused them as well as ten tips for safer flying. I will be replicating that article on this site over the next couple of days as I think it is a well written and very useful piece.