Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2023 i Flying

EVERYONE WANTS TO hold on to the last of the light—and the warmth that goes with it—as the winter days approach. We thought we’d deliver one last dose of that light with this month’s image described by photographer Timothy Dantuma—who also contributed the “Next Great Flight: Tail Chase” installment for our November 2021 issue: “Close your eyes, just briefly. You’re strapped into the ejection seat of an L-39 Albatros, behind pilot Ron ‘Pucker’ Staley. The weight of the parachute harness rests over your shoulders, and the release handle lies against your chest. Air whistles into the engine intakes on either side of your helmet. Now, squint and open your eyes, enough to let the golden sunset shimmer past your eyelids. Silhouetted beside you in lead is Bill ‘Sparty’ Shortt and…

• Fly supplies into a strip for a work project. • Provide camping gear to a team on a project. • Make baked goods to help feed the workers. • Donate your time and skill with back office tasks—just ask what the need is. • Suggest to friends and family that you’d accept a donation to the RAF in lieu of a present for a birthday or other special occasion. After all, the work serves all of us who fly, whether we make it into the true backcountry or not.…

SOME YEARS AGO, I visited a friend of mine who is the manager of a private mountain airstrip. He said he had something to show me. We jumped in a side-by-side and drove up into the surrounding hills on a fire road. We then exited onto a freshly cut dirt trail that went directly up the side of a mountain. After a few minutes of a steep, rough ride, we emerged into a clearing in the otherwise dense forest. Burn marks surrounded the mysterious, misshapen circle, and the ground was scorched black. Looking around, I could not find the culprit. It looked as if a fiery, pancake meteor had hit the earth, resulting in a non-crater. Turns out it was an airplane. From the lack of a debris field you…

I STEPPED ACROSS the cockpit door threshold. The captain was in the process of testing the weather radar on board our Boeing 727. Shuffling behind the flight engineer and slithering into the copilot seat, I glanced at the green screen of the old but reliable RCA display. It took more art than skill to operate. With a scowl on his face, Captain Dave turned to our wet-behind-the-ears flight engineer and said, “Call maintenance. The radar is spoking in the video band.” Staring at the unit, I saw nothing but a green scan sweeping across the display. Hmm. What the heck was a video band? Thinking this seasoned captain could impart some valuable knowledge, I made the biggest mistake of the three-day trip. I asked the question out loud. Dave’s response was…

OUR SON AND his family have a house on a ridge. On both sides, oak-forested slopes sink steeply into shaded canyons. Surrounded, even below, by open space, the place is congenial to birds. Particularly conspicuous are the frantically active red-capped acorn woodpeckers that dash around, noisily testing the trees and utility poles, and the little stiff-tailed industrious wrens that work the ground. One big, many-trunked oak, right next to the house, scintillates in the early morning with a polyglot crowd of unseen songbirds. Afternoon brings the shrill complaints of red-tailed hawks, night the velvet interrogatives of owls. Most sublime, however, are the turkey vultures—ugly, roadkill-gobbling, baldhead, wryneck creatures, but calm and silent and steady in their flight like no others. When they are airborne, their repulsive heads are small and…

After the Engine Failure While I agree with Peter [Garrison’s] answer about how to react to an engine failure in a single engine plane (Ask Flying, Issue 943), I think there is a better way to pick a landing spot. Calculating glide distance and figuring out what is X miles from where we are isn’t that easy while you are troubleshooting the problem, communicating with whoever, and flying the plane. By practicing in the pattern of a low-volume airstrip, I knew that my plane could glide to the spot under a reference point on the plane (row of rivets on low wing, spot on wing strut, and “inch” over the nose). This worked well for me after two engine failures (one in the mountains and one on a moonless night…

ACCORDING TO A RECENT report from Alaska Public Media, that state’s rate of fatal general aviation accidents was about twice that of the rest of the country until 2016 when, for unspecified reasons, it began to decline. It still remains higher than elsewhere. The gist of the article—which was motivated by the death of Eugene Peltola, husband of U.S. representative Mary Peltola, in a Piper Super Cub—was that the main problem for Alaskan pilots was lack of weather information, since the density of automated weather reporting stations in the state is half that of other parts of the country. Actually, it would be difficult to define the main problem for pilots flying in Alaska. There are so many of them. And there is an additional problem that is created by…

In the 40 years since he became a pilot, and 20 in the aviation business, John Armstrong of LifeStyle Aviation has flown his share of light twins. But the Diamond DA62 is the airplane of choice to fly every week. “It’s my go-to airplane, and I love it,” Armstrong says, because it requires relatively little effort from the pilot compared to others in the piston-twin segment. That sentiment echoed through the voices of the four DA62 owners FLYING interviewed for this article. From high time pilots, such as Armstrong and Scott Thompson, to brand-new ones, like Brett Swanson and John Chaffetz, everyone agreed that the DA62 ranked among the lowest in pilot workload and commensurately high in capability and capacity for their respective missions. Bill Craven purchased serial number 177…

You’ll find a little piece of your soul in one of these places, I bet you. The airstrips defended and nurtured by the Recreational Aviation Foundation have triggered an urgent message to keep them safe. They represent some of our most precious resources—places for pilots to touch down and gather—beyond the physical runways they contain. Whether a manicured landing lawn in Maryland, or a sandy strip hideaway in Florida, or a desert oasis in New Mexico, or a gravel bar by a lake in Oregon, these points on the map string together the lives and hearts of the RAF volunteers who have kept them up over the past 20 years—building friendships along with the fences and branded fire rings they leave behind. Founded in 2003, when a handful of aviation…

IN 1981 WHEN the first Microsoft Flight Simulator was born, I was a young teenager—the spirit of adventure and realism of flight hit me like a storm. Suddenly, my intense model railroad hobby, complete with a huge basement layout, took a back seat. This technical marvel, hosted on this heavy, metal box of a newfangled PC, captured my heart and imagination forever. I wonder if my parents were grateful for this weekend “babysitter” as my dad hauled his computer home from his office for me to play with on Friday nights. It certainly kept me home and out of trouble, with no mischief or calls from the local police late at night. I was obsessed. Once college approached, I knew I was going to become an airline pilot, and I…

IT IS HARD to imagine this old dog could learn a new trick or two, but it just happened. On a route I’ve flown a zillion times, epiphany! Because of a painful, expensive, nine-week-long annual on our Beechcraft P-Baron in Florida, my family found itself in New Hampshire without a way home to Tampa, Florida (KTPA). I know that sounds ridiculous, but hear me out. Our rescue lab mix is an aggressive dog not welcome on the airlines, so Rocco has become accustomed to (spoiled by?) the wonders of general aviation. He’s traveled in a variety of excellent airplanes, including the Baron, a turboprop, and two jets. He’s made the trip in fine style in this manner. Yet our airplane was more than 1,000 miles away. We needed help on…

“FOLKS WHO SAY there’s nothing new in general aviation haven’t been watching Diamond Aircraft,” wrote Richard L. Collins in the July 2006 issue of FLYING. “That company’s new Twin Star [DA42] is about as revolutionary as an airplane can be, and still have wings and a tail.” Collins drew comparisons to another airplane featured in our pages 17 years later—the Piper PA-30. “Back in the olden days when there were many piston twins in production, there was always a good argument between Piper Twin Comanche and Beechcraft Bonanza salesmen. The airplanes were close in performance and sold for about the same money.” In today’s market, the big sister Diamond DA62 levels up performance while sipping the same jet-A fuel that propelled the DA42—and simplifies matters even further for the pilots…

The light twin has long straddled the line between the added security of its second engine and the control challenges presented if one engine quits. Since the first of its kind—the Wright Flyer, if you go back all the way—airplane designers have addressed the tension between power and control in a variety of ways. Some with centerline thrust, such as the Cessna 336 and 337 Skymaster, and others with pilot support, such as the Beechcraft King Air’s latest autothrottles—both under supplemental type certificate and standard in new models—taking flight in the one-engine regime into “easy day” territory. But Diamond quietly achieved the latter in elegant ways with the DA62, starting with its first flight in April 2012. Now, more than 11 years later, the twin has become a darling of…

A vintage aircraft, if properly maintained, will last for decades. But there may come a time you want to make changes in the name of safety and convenience. It can be a challenge, as the Boyd family from Puyallup, Washington, learned when deciding to do an extreme makeover on the panel of its 1960s-era Piper Twin Comanche, also known as the PA-30. The Boyds are an aviation family. John Boyd is an A&P and retired Boeing 737 captain from Alaska Airlines. John’s sons, Jason, 32, and Justin, 30, both hold instructor ratings and are planning aviation careers. Jason is also an A&P. The family also owns a Cessna 182 Skylane that it flies regularly. In summer 2017, John Boyd decided it was time to get something a little more comfortable…

We’ve all been there. Unless you have recently earned your private pilot certificate, making a decision to launch on any given day can be truly agonizing depending on the weather and other circumstances. Maybe you are planning a flight to visit your grandkid on their first birthday, or perhaps you are flying to EAA AirVenture for the very first time. Even more excruciating is the decision to press on to your destination when the weather encountered in flight is far worse than what you originally anticipated or had hoped for. A flight with some initial acceptable risks and challenges now becomes one with discomfort, and perhaps disappointment for you and your passengers if you must turn around or land short of your final destination. If you have some self-awareness, that…

IT’S A BEAUTIFULLY still Saturday morning in mid-September, with the last wisps of overnight fog gliding along timbered shorelines and curling into the moist air. Dawn and I and our dog Piper are in our Stinson, winging our way northeast across Puget Sound to Skagit Regional Airport (KBVS) in Burlington, Washington. We are making this short flight to attend EAA Chapter 818’s monthly meeting, where I am to be featured speaker. This is only my second public speaking engagement since college, and despite the rather humble occasion, I have a noticeable twinge of nerves. Today I’m making the conscious decision to stretch myself. It helps to remember that some of my favorite writers were also noted speakers, including some who wrote for FLYING. I’ve subscribed to this venerable periodical since…

ONE OF THE MOST talked about challenges at the NAFI Summit in October in Lakeland, Florida—which attracted several hundred current and aspiring instructors—was how to sustain quality flight instruction when the majority of those who hold current CFI certificates are building time, geared toward advancing to the airlines. During the summit, I shared a table with David St. George, designated pilot examiner and executive director of the Society of Aviation and Flight Educators. St. George noted that most flight instructors teach for about a year before they move on. They often train through accelerated programs, where the goal is to meet the requirements and pass the check ride in as little time as possible. This “hurry-up-and-get-it-done” model is repeated by these instructors. Stereotypical behavior includes “check-the-box instruction,” where the flight…

I WAS SCRIBBLING NOTES on the blank half of a magazine page with an ad for bed pillows as I thought about this column. It seemed appropriate to use “Me, Too” instead of “Us, Too” since it’s remotely possible some readers might disagree with me. I’m a plain-Jane, single-engine-land private pilot with an instrument rating now, but I spent many years and lots of flight time instructing, testing, and examining, both in and out of the FAA. And, heaven knows, as well as the FAA and a large part of the flying and nonflying world, that I don’t always play by the rules. But there’s a particular emergency that bothers me and needs discussion because tragic accidents related to it keep happening. It involves those engine failures after takeoff, and I’ll…