Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2023 i Flying

A LAND FROM which fairy tales find us… and where Walt Disney drew the inspiration for King Stefan’s castle in the feature-length cartoon Sleeping Beauty. Certainly the Alps of central Europe spiral high in the dreams of mountain-seeking pilots, who have traversed their dangerously beautiful peaks since human flight first came to this part of the world. For the cover feature in this issue, we took the opportunity to vary our course between Friedrichshafen in southern Germany, on the Alps’ north-central edge, to Wiener Neustadt, Austria, near Vienna, also tucked up near the eastern end of the same large range. Along the way, we did “turns around a castle” as photographer Emmanuel Schawaller captured our steep banks against the cliffs that soared above the castle’s spires. We still had the…

WHEN YOU PURCHASE a new-to-you home, it is common to live with it as-is for a bit, and then you start to think about remodeling to make it more suitable to your needs and lifestyle. Upgrading the instrument panel on a new-to-you airplane works the same way. You might have purchased it with a VFR panel, then decided to add IFR capability. Or perhaps the technology has evolved to the extent that your IFR panel is obsolete. It’s time to see what’s out there in panel upgrades, and what will work in your airplane. Ten years ago, the most common panel conversions were from round dial, also known as legacy or steam gauge panels, to initial glass cockpits. According to Aspen Avionics in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Advanced Flight Systems…

AN INTRODUCTION There is a fantastic book, Charles E. Taylor: 1868-1956 The Wright Brothers Mechanician, by H. R. DuFour with Peter J. Unitt, currently out of print. The text has a foot in two worlds, part biography and part technical manual. DuFour led a colorful life, working on the Manhattan Project in Chicago during World War II helping to develop the atomic bomb. As with many of us, the aeronautical spark ignited early for DuFour. According to A Dream Fulfilled: The Replica of the 1903 Wright Flyer at Wright State University by Peter Unitt, DuFour noticed a photograph of the Wright Flyer on the wall of Detroit Technical High School, beginning a lifelong interest in the Wright brothers and Taylor. DuFour continued to educate people about Taylor until his death…

LOOKING DOWN THE western slope of our home airstrip, one’s first impression is of a lot of very large trees, both bounding the runway and beyond. The second thing you notice is the striking, stirringly vertiginous wall of the Olympic Mountains, seemingly close enough to touch, but in fact a good ten miles distant, across the Hood Canal. The terrain carries no threat to the flight Dawn and I are about to take, but the trees are another matter, for they thoroughly blanket the four miles of rolling terrain from here to saltwater’s edge, with nary a scrap of pasture to put down the ship in case of trouble. I am conscious of this fact every time I take off, but especially so today, for it has been nearly eight…

MISTAKES ARE PART of the learning process. Expect to make some as you learn to fly, or when you pursue additional certificates and/or ratings. Be careful where you get your information from—when you are beginning the journey, you don’t know what you don’t know. And sometimes myths and rumors abound from fellow learners. But we’re here to help: We’ve put together a list of some of the most common mistakes that fledgling pilots make. 1. Trying to steer with the yoke on the ground With the exception of the two-axis Ercoupe, you steer an airplane on the ground with rudder pedals and differential braking. If you know how to drive, you may try to steer with the yoke on the ground, using it like a steering wheel. Break this habit…

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IS in the news these days. Hardly a day goes by without an apocalyptic warning that AI is going to destroy the human race, or worse, deprive writers of their livelihood. Alarmed by these portents, I decided to see whether I was, in fact, in danger of being replaced by a digital text generator. It would have compelling advantages over me: It would be omniscient and would work for free I logged in to OpenAI.com and asked to speak to ChatGPT. It presented me with a box where I could insert a question. I began with the most basic of all aeronautical questions: How does a wing produce lift? “An airplane wing produces lift due to the principles of aerodynamics,” my interlocutor rather tautologically began. It then said…

Sisto Memories Enjoyed Pete Garrison’s “A Harm-less Prank,” Issue #936. Captain “Chuck” Sisto was in Ernest Gann’s class of 3-13-1939 at American Airlines. Gann mentions him in [his book] Fate Is the Hunter. You can also read his appeal to the Civil Aeronautics Board online in “Sisto vs. the CAB,” 10-11-49. Before being hired by American, Sisto flew for Waldo Waterman, inventor of the Waterman Air Car out in California. After American, he flew briefly for Orvis Nelson’s Transocean Air Lines. Capt. Joe Henderson, US Airways A330 (retired)via email Aspiring Pilot Yours is the first magazine I’ve ever subscribed to. I picked one issue up last month at my local municipal airport, and I was blown away by the beauty of the design and photography, the texture of the paper,…

The hills surrounding the Bodensee roll quickly into mountains as we depart Friedrichshafen Airport (EDNY) in southern Germany. Though I’d made it to AERO on the banks of the massive lake bordering Switzerland and Austria several times before, this marks the first time I’m taking off under my own pilotage. The icing on the lebkuchen? I’m with Martin Scherrer, head of flight operations and training for Diamond Aircraft—and we’re climbing away in the new Diamond DA50 RG. We’re speeding towards Diamond’s EU home of Wiener Neustadt, Austria, just south of Vienna, but we have cameras on board the DA62 that’s chasing us. We plan a couple of special stops along the way—those mountains keep soaring up ahead—the German Alps. It would be so wrong not to twirl a couple of…

The epitome of a cross-country flyer, the Beechcraft Bonanza Model 35 series—with its distinctive V-tail—debuted in 1947, produced in Plant II at the Beechcraft manufacturing facility at Beech Factory Field (KBEC) on the east side of Wichita, Kansas. The company had already made its name with the stately Beech 18 and Beech 17 Staggerwing—but it was ready to enter the modern, post-World War II era with an airframe that would incorporate all of the latest advancements in instrumentation, aerodynamics, and reliability. And, it would have a tricycle-gear configuration novel to the times—but clearly the wave of the future for pilots operating out of improved strips. Retracting that gear would also allow them to gain the most in speed advantage at the same time. The early Bonanza 35s started off as…

A FORMATIVE MEMORY of my childhood is standing on the street in front of my house in Staten Island. It was summer. Late afternoon. I already had the overactive imagination that would come to serve me later as a screenwriter. Sometimes I think it was put to better use back then, as I didn’t understand what constraints or limitations were. Certainly none that you’d find in a POH. I was a six-year-old playing alone on the sidewalk when I heard the sound of a jet overhead. It must have departed KJFK, as it was still low enough for me to recognize it as a Lockheed L-1011 Tristar. I couldn’t make out which airline, but it was flying into the sunset. I stood and stared until it disappeared over the horizon.…

WITH LAKELAND ONLY a short distance from our home in Florida by car or air, attending Sun ‘n Fun Aerospace Expo is a no-brainer. Although reduced in number to a trio, the airport crowd from my Connecticut days always plans the annual journey south. None are airline pilots, but they are passionate about aviation and the camaraderie. On this trip, we inducted my JetBlue check airman friend, Mike Strauss, into the fold, a dubious honor considering the nonstop harassment involved. After waiting out the low visibility and low ceilings of early morning fog, a 35-minute flight in Mike’s V-tail Bonanza from Ormond Beach (KOMN) got us to the Lake Parker entry point for the arrival into Lakeland Linder International (KLAL). Let the fun begin. Though I had performed this arrival…

THE BEECHCRAFT MODEL 35 Bonanza’s V-tail silhouette strikes a modern tone, even more than 75 years after it first rolled off the production line. In FLYING, we have featured the 35 and its younger sibling, the Model 36, several times on our cover—but most compellingly when it graced the stylish January 1961 issue. We reviewed the latest version at the time—the N35—which added horsepower, along with an increase in gross weight, useful load, range, and window area. And the push-button start gave way to a turn-key ignition. We shot an earlier 1954 E35 model, serial number D-3901, for our report in this issue, thanks to owner and Sun Country captain Jason Fischer of Rochester, Minnesota, who is shepherding his classic Bo into its seventh decade with a host of upgrades.…

ALASKAN FLYING ENTAILS decisions and improvisations that pilots in the contiguous U.S. seldom contemplate. Remote locations, rugged terrain, and harsh weather on one hand, and, on the other, the urgent human needs that airplanes fulfill, create a press-onregardless mentality. It takes a hardy pilot to survive. In June 2000, near the Yukon River in the state’s southwestern corner, a Cessna 337 crashed shortly after takeoff, killing one such pilot. The airstrip near the remote town of Marshall then consisted of 1,940 feet of hard gravel surface, 30 feet wide, 90 feet above sea level. The wind was calm, the sky clear, the landscape illuminated by the late-evening twilight of the Alaskan midsummer. There was one witness, not of the crash itself, but of the events that preceded it. The starter…

DIAMOND AIRCRAFT launched its first single-engine piston airplane into the European market in 1992 with the two-seat Dimona—later Diamond—DV20 Katana, powered by a Diamond Wankel engine. It made only a minor splash when a Rotax 912-powered DA20-A1 ver-sion was produced in Ontario, Canada, and introduced into the Canada and U.S. markets in part because the training market was still entrenched and married to more traditional powerplants, such as the Continental O-200, and the IO-240 that replaced the Rotax in “Evo-lution” and “Eclipse” versions produced alongside the DA20-C1. The DA20s formed the basis for the four-seat DA40, also known as the Diamond Star. While the company’s design philosophy driving to-wards higher levels of safety isn’t unique, its approach is. Crashworthiness is key—particularly in the containment of fuel in order to mitigate fire…

The Pacific coastline is littered with aviation gems–some well-known, others not so much. While many general aviation airports in California are located a short drive from the beach, such as Carlsbad, Santa Monica, San Luis Obispo, Monterey, and Arcata, only a few will take you within walking distance of rubbing your toes in the sand. One such beach airport that I have visited many times is Oceano County Airport (L52), which is located about a 10-minute walk from Pismo Beach. While it’s terrific for a light single-engine airplane such as my Mooney M20C, its 2,325-foot long by 50-foot-wide runway is quite sporty for many privately owned airplanes. While working on an article about the Epic E1000 in the early summer of 2020, I was introduced to another beachside airport. Epic…

DO YOU WANT to fly to Lakeland and back?” It’s my friend Tom with an offer to fly from Tampa Executive Airport (KVDF) to KLAL, a distance of 17 nautical miles, for an airplane swap. By airplane swap, I mean just that. Tom owns not one, but two Aerostars. We’ll take Mike Echo to Aeromech for an annual and fly back in Juliet Alpha. How could such an enticing invitation turn my mood so sour? Actually, I started out already feeling somewhat bummed. I’ve been licking my wounds ever since selling our Cessna Citation CJ1 jet. Insurance costs have increased dramatically, especially for older singlepilot ops in jets. Looking for a new (to me) airplane has been depressing. I’ve had it with the ominous, threatening letters from the Manager, Aerospace…

FLYING FROM CINCINNATI west to Columbus, Indiana (KBAK) is popular with local pilots because it’s only about 60 miles and the airport restaurant is great. Naturally, it’s also popular with the locals, so getting a table for 6 or 8 fly-in airplane pilots usually involves a wait. I don’t mind because I like remembering so many interesting hours (and days) in that terminal building doing Part 135 flight checks and type rating rides in Rhoades Aviation Douglas DC-3 freighters. What a bunch of characters—not to mention, what a collection of hard-used DC-3s. This gig began (for me) in the 1980s when I was an inspector in the Indianapolis FSDO, and a guardian angel nudged somebody in the FAA to send me to DC-3 flight training with Hector Villamar at Opa-Locka…