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Here's what Marty Scwtz had to say about his experience:

First Person Accounts of the
New York City Airport Tours

Marty Schwartz
Professional engineer from Worcester, Massachusetts

My wake-up alarm clock went off at 4:00AM, but I really didn’t need it, not having slept very well anyway.

Although Bob had offered to meet me closer to my home base at the Worcester Regional Airport (KORH) in Massachusetts, I decided the pre-dawn cross-country flight to Buffalo, NY would be a fun and challenging part of the overall experience.

A huge dome of high pressure, from Chicago to Boston, had settled in, so the weather promised to be ideal for VFR flying; cool crisp clear air.

I filed IFR and departed KORH at 5:00AM in the pitch black. As I flew westbound, the sun started to rise behind me bathing the flat stratus layer below me in an orange glow. The air was as smooth as glass and I felt that this was all starting off on the right foot.

After meeting Bob and a pre-flight briefing off, we flew southeastward to the New York metropolitan area.

Enroute, “Ooops,” Bob exclaimed, the “GPS satellites all went off the air”, as he turned off my KLN90B and handheld GPS. “Now what are you going to do?.”

Dealing with that situation all the way to New York, particular through the complex NOBBI Two arrival route, was just the beginning.

He next had me recover from several unusual attitudes while under the hood using only the rudder, without using the attitude indicator or the yoke! As a bonus, the stratus layer I flew over coming into Buffalo hadn’t burned off yet, so Bob requested lower, which put us into real IFR weather. By now, I knew this trip was not going to disappoint!

The clouds eventually dissipated, leaving behind spectacularly clear weather over the New York metropolitan area. We filed an IFR plan from the White Plains/Westchester Airport to LaGuardia. We launched and were handled in a most respectful and expeditious manner.

It really seemed that the controllers enjoyed working us. We must be viewed as sort of a change of pace to the same old giant kerosene burners.

After lunch at LaGuardia, (make sure Bob pays for lunch), we were number one for takeoff, bound for JFK. Once again, we were handled expeditiously. Upon landing, the ground controller offered to assist us find JFK's FBO as we taxied among a long line of giant 747 cargo ships.

After a quick pit stop and paying the required $25 landing fee, we departed JFK VFR for our trip up the Hudson River VFR corridor. We followed the Brooklyn shoreline, around Coney Island and into the famous New York harbor at just 500' AGL!

We made a big U turn at the George Washington Bridge near the north end of Manhattan. We flew back down the river to the Statue of Liberty. Bob also helped with the radios and our request for landing at the Newark Airport.

After a few turns around the Statue, the controller cleared us for a visual approach to Newark's Runway 11. After fueling up at the FBO (believe it or not, we got a discount without asking, and the 100LL was cheaper than at my home base), we filed back to Buffalo.

It was pretty quiet on the trip back as Bob listened to his classical music and I absorbed the whole experience. Back in Buffalo, Bob took care of my logbook, I took a quick nap before heading back to Worcester, MA at sunset.

I let the autopilot do the flying home, as I ate my Peanut M&M’s and Diet Pepsi for dinner, scanned for traffic and monitored the gauges. It was a clear and spectacular night, with twinkling lights below and above….the radios were quiet and with a modest tailwind.

When I got home my wife asked “How did it go?”………How do you answer THAT question?

Dale Thuillez
Attorney from Albany, NY.

We had just departed New York's LaGuardia Airport when the controller handed me off to Kennedy tower.

I tuned into what sounded like an auctioneer selling landing slots to heavy jets from around the world.

I was scanning the gauges as fast as I could, listening to more foreign accents than I had ever heard. They were Egyptian, English, American, Italian, French — all responding to ATC in rapid-fire fashion.

It quickly occurred to me that this instrument approach was going to be different than any other I have flown. ATC insisted that I give them 150 knots all of the way down.   I kept it there until I took off my foggles at 200 feet.

If you want to have the thrill of a lifetime and learn more than you could imagine about instrument approaches into the busiest airports in the world, you must take a trip with CFI and OTA editor, Bob Miller, into the five major airports serving New York City.

As a bonus, you get to fly up and down the Hudson River at just 500' AGL, which is well below the tops of the Manhattan skyscrapers, while helicopters and other light aircraft zip by.

You also get to spend about seven hours in the air with a great guy and great instructor from whom you cannot help but learn many important tips about flying.

As we traveled into and out of each NYC airport, I realized that the controllers treated us exactly the same as everybody else. They expected no more nor any less of us than the other pilots. They did not talk down to us in any way.

This was true throughout the day, at all the airports. They expected us to respond immediately, just as the professional pilots do.

Also, when controllers want us to do something, they expect it to happen NOW, not after we think about it, figure out what to punch into our GPS or autopilot. They want it NOW!

Leaving Westchester, we continued over to LaGuardia (KLGA). I didn't have to worry about the routing since Bob was sitting right beside me. This was the only approach where the female tower controller told me that I could slow down on final. What a nice lady.

A special treat at LaGuardia was having lunch at the original Marine Air Terminal that serves general aviation traffic.   We took time to study the building. It was originally opened in 1941. It was where most all international air travel from the east coast originated in the 1930s via large Pan American flying Clippers. By the way, the food in their coffee shop was very good.

It was rush hour when we left LaGuardia. We were number 21 for departure. Although we were the only prop driven aircraft on the three taxiways approaching the departure runway, we were treated the same as everybody else.

We were instructed to follow a United 737 on Taxiway Papa, which was a couple of taxiways over. We kept an eye on him. Curiously, not one airliner tried to jump ahead of us in line! It was much more civilized than an intersection at your local shopping mall.

I could go on about the various interesting occurrences at the airports, but you should take this trip yourself to discover your own experiences.

I’ll just say that the trip up and down the Hudson was worth the price of admission in and of itself.   At Newark, Donald Trump’s helicopter landed next to us, but it was gone before I had gathered together all my charts to file for the last leg.

In closing, when I read Bob Miller's offer in OTA to fly to Westchester County, LaGuardia, JFK, Newark, Teterboro, and the VFR corridor up the Hudson River alongside Manhattan all in the same day, I couldn’t resist. It was better than I imagined and something I’ll never forget. It was one of the best flying days I’ve ever had!

The New York City tour is an excellent way to sharpen your ATC communications skills. Flying through some of the busiest airspace and into and out of large, complex airports not only builds skills, it is also a big confidence booster.

For IFR pilots, there is simply no better way to finely tune your GPS button pushing, OBS twisting, frequency changing, and needle chasing skills than to go nose-to-nose with some of the fastest talking controllers this side of the Mississippi. You can also log an IPC and BFR in the process!

For the casual VFR pilot who might like to treat his or her family to an occasional day of shopping, dining, and entertaining in arguably the greatest city in the world, the NYC tour will provide you with some insider tricks on how to get around the Big Apple in style and class!

Click HERE to learn more about it.