VFR MASTERY SCENARIOS
This month's scenario Look Out, Dear #99 | OCTOBER 2026 You and your spouse are flying your V35 Bonanza into the private strip at Windsock Village, NH to meet another couple who are based there. After an overnight stay you’ll all continue to Owl’s Head, ME for the weekend. On arrival, a miscommunication involving the words “gear” and “deer” leads to a late go-around … and a direct hit on a deer. You climb away safely, but you’re unsure what damage, if any, was done to the prop, nose gear, or engine. The couple on the ground confirm the deer strike, but say that the runway is clear, and that there’s no obvious damage to your (still down) landing gear. As the sun sets, you weigh your options: try to land here again, or head elsewhere for bigger runways and better services.Start scenario →
Having a Field Day
Practice is the stuff of prevention when it comes to avoiding bad outcomes in flying. There is a catch, however: If your practice isn’t fully thought through, it can create exactly the situation you’re trying to prevent. Now you have little more than your reaction time to pick the strategy that separates a survivable ending from disaster.
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The Heat of the Moment
Killing time on a routine flight, you explore some less-used pages on your engine monitor and make a surprising discovery. The reading seems sure to be wrong—especially because the airplane is happily ticking along—but what if it’s not? And if it is real ... is this an emergency or just something to tell maintenance about when you get home?
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Roll Reversal Out of Renton
Wake turbulence training focuses on avoidance rather than recovery. That’s fine until, despite avoidance plans, you find yourself upside down with a windscreen full of runway. Can you save yourself this late in the game? And could you have avoided it in the first place?
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My Grandmother Came This Way
Did you ever dream of flying airplanes in the Golden Age? You know: No radios, no GPS, no moving maps, no datalink weather, limited forecasting abilities, and reliance on a stopwatch plus your eyeballs to find an airport before you ran out of gas. Yeah, us too.
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Can You Make Canton?
What’s the best thing when your engine calls in sick on the descent to a metropolitan airport? Do you stumble along over the populated area even though the motor might quit? Do you trek over a less-populated area to a different airport? Or do you land off-airport even though the airplane is still flying?
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Prickett Predicament
Everyone has had a great day at a local fly-in in a rural town. The departure poses some challenges that aren’t exactly what you planned and aircraft performance isn’t a simple calculation. So long as you have a solid plan to abort, there’s no issue in trying the takeoff, right?
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Latch Me If You Can
Having a door pop open on takeoff is neither uncommon nor dangerous ... or is it? When aircraft damage and personal injury might actually be realistic concerns, perhaps the motivation to get back down quickly is legitimate. Is this the time to wind the watch or act without delay?
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Rocky Mountain Milestone
You know high-altitude flying, as it’s where you trained. You have a capable airplane and a clear plan in mind. The devil is in the details when it comes to calculated performance, though, and a few extra degrees can make all the difference in getting off the pavement.
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Which Way Into the Wild?
Flying through Alaska is a bucket list item for many pilots in the lower 48. Before you can fly through Alaska, you have to get to Alaska. What’s simple and direct exposes you to dire consequences, and what’s roundabout has hidden compromises. Which way will you go?
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Next Step, Climb?
How hot is too hot in an airplane with simple engine instrumentation and showing no other sign of distress? What do you do when the POH guidance provides no useful guidance at all. Is this an emergency, business as usual, or something in between?
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Something’s Come Up
Passenger airsickness is an annoyance that almost every pilot has had to deal with at one time or another. Landing ASAP is the rule, but VFR above the clouds complicates the execution. The passenger might not be the only problem as well. Maybe you shouldn’t have ordered the fish.
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Diamond in the Rough (Air)
Flight following should make your journey safer and easier. If not, participation is voluntary so you can always simply opt out, right? The truth is it’s not always that simple. An ATC instruction can create a conflict that’s not so easy to solve.
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A Swift Decision
A pre-takeoff briefing exists to remove hesitation and doubt from split-second emergency decisions after takeoff. The problem is that most real-world departures present several opportunities to go off script. Some of those improvisations could turn an off-field crash into an uneventful runway landing—or a disaster.
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A Slippery Situation
The saying is that when in doubt, you should go around. Does that include after the airplane is on the runway? What about when the runway is a sheet of ice, with the airplane sliding sideways towards a snowbank and nearly certain damage?
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A Fuel’s Errand?
Flight planning is a fine balance between thinking through every possibility and going with the flow. When a fuel stop reveals the fuel isn’t flowing at the pump, will you backtrack with a tailwind or press on with a “creative solution”? Or is it time to exercise Plan C?
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Chilling in Gothenburg
After an unplanned overnight at a small Nebraska airport, you start a takeoff run for the remaining trip in clear skies and cold air. The airplane doesn’t seem to have its normal vigor at rotation speed and wallows into the air. Then it climbs normally—while the airspeed goes to zero. Is this a big deal or no?
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How Will You Get to Herlong?
The weather is perfect and the flight is just a quick hop to pick up a friend. However, the destination airport is virtually surrounded by a fortress of Class C and D airspace. The communications and coordination could be a nightmare with two radios—and you only have one. Is there a simple and safe solution?
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Sightless in Seattle
It’s another installment of “You are the controller.” In today’s episode, you’re the lifeline for a VFR pilot who is stuck in IMC. Do you provide guidance the pilot requested—direct to the nearest airport—when you’re certain that’s not the best solution? And if not, what will you offer to a pilot who’s barely holding it together?
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Just 200 Miles to Burlington
You and a friend have made it nearly across the country in a recently purchased Tomahawk. Now scattered thunderstorms complicate the last leg home—where your friend needs to be by sundown. Is there a route that allows enough flexibility to weave your way home safely or should your friend find a rental car?
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Everyone Arrives at Oshkosh
It’s on almost every pilot’s bucket list: Airventure at Oshkosh. Before you can land on the dot, however, you’ll have to fly a complex arrival procedure and avoid all the other aircraft doing the same. What will you do when the procedure says one thing but safety might dictate something else?
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