Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2016 i Plane & Pilot

By the time you read this, there might not be quite as much buzz surrounding the remarkable film by Academy Award®-winning director Clint Eastwood and starring Academy Award®-winning actor Tom Hanks, which chronicles the so-called “Miracle on the Hudson ” Then, again, with award season getting underway, the film might be generating a different kind of buzz altogether. As everyone knows by now, the incident in question and the subject of the film was the short soggy journey of US Airways Flight 1549 captained by Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger. With the assistance of his crew, Sully brought the Airbus A320 to a safe landing on the Hudson after both engines were destroyed after ingesting much of a flock of unwitting Canada geese. The miracle, we pilots know, wasn’t a miracle at…

DELWYN SCHMIDT 1 Fatal The private pilot taxied out and departed for the personal flight from a private grass runway in an unregistered homebuilt airplane. A witness reported that, when the airplane reached 150 feet above the ground, the engine stopped. The pilot then turned the airplane back toward the runway, and it then dropped and impacted terrain. The airplane did not have an airworthiness certificate, and no maintenance records were found. Examination of the engine pistons found evidence of scoring, consistent with piston seizure. The accident is consistent with a loss of engine power due to piston seizure and with the pilot subsequently losing airplane control while maneuvering back to the runway. PROBABLE CAUSE: The unregistered airplane’s loss of engine power due to piston seizure. Contributing to the…

“Be a savvy customer before engaging an instructor and know if your instructor’s experience is going to be a good fit for your needs. It’s perfectly fine to ‘interview’ your instructor and critically evaluate if they have the experience to provide the training you’re seeking.” Would you want a surgeon to operate on you if he or she had never performed the procedure before? Most people would say not only “No”, but, “Heck, no!” So why would you want to get flight training from someone who’s a new instructor? While there are some limitations of “newbie” instructors, much like a surgeon, just because you’re their first customer doesn’t mean they haven’t been trained, aren’t competent or don’t know what they’re doing. After all, even a surgeon has to have a…

Part 23. Provides airworthiness standards for issuing a Type Certificate to airplanes in normal, utility, aerobatic (up to a max. takeoff weight of 12,500 pounds) and commuter categories (max. takeoff weight of 19,000 pounds). Part 25. Provides airworthiness standards for issuing a Type Certificate to transport category airplanes that include jets, lowered aircraft with 10 or more seats or a max. takeoff weight of 12,500 pounds or more, and propeller-driven aircraft with more than 19 seats or a max. takeoff weight of 19,000 pounds. Part 61. Provides Airman Certification Requirements for private pilots, flight instructors and ground instructors. Part 91. General operating rules for all aircraft. Part 121. Provides a set of rules for scheduled (airline) carriers.…

When I started to learn to fly, I began reading aviation magazines and soon heard about the big, big annual fly-in called “Oshkosh” I heard about this amazing EAAhosted gathering of airplanes, pilots and enthusiasts somewhere or other in Wisconsin. I have to admit, I was intrigued mostly because I had been wearing a pair of OshKosh B’gosh overalls, my favorites. I practically live in overalls, which, to me, are the perfect article of clothing—practical, cute and comfortable, and, oh, those pockets. The idea of visiting the place that was famous for overalls seemed almost as interesting as the fly-in itself. The IAC Aerobatic Championships used to be held in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, just a few miles down the road from Osh. The competition was well attended and attracted…

ForeFlight recently released the latest version of its über-popular aviation app and there are changes galore, including some improvements that transform the essential nature of the app. The overwhelming popularity of the do-everything mobile aviation charting app ForeFlight has prevented some reviewers from identifying the rough spots in the product, but they are there, or at least I should say they were there. With Version 8, the list of things to gripe about—at least as much as one can do with a product that’s so capable and satisfying—has greatly diminished. Drumroll: First and foremost, ForeFlight 8 now has what are called “data-driven” maps. This is a huge deal, and it represents a complete redrawing of the way the company builds the app. Data-driven maps aren’t new—both Jeppesen and Garmin have…

If you’ve been around aviation for very long, you’ve watched airport fences get taller and more robust. At most airfields, the days of just walking up and introducing yourself are long gone. You must have security checks, key cards and a blessing from the Vicar of Christ on Earth to gain access to the ramp these days, it seems. Okay, maybe you don’t need the Pope’s approval. But, even with an Airline Transport Pilot certificate in my pocket, and as a certified aircraft mechanic, it’s still intimidating to wander up to an airport and try to find a way into the action. The fences aren’t only around the flying fields. We’ve built fences within the flying profession, as well. Grieving relatives of passengers from the Colgan accident in Buffalo petitioned…

The airplane we flew for this report was a factory-owned production model outfitted with a three-screen Garmin G3000 integrated flat-panel avionics suite with two GTC 570 touch-screen controllers. Equipment on the airplane included digital color weather radar, standby digital multifunction primary display, dual AHRS and air data computers, Jeppesen ChartView electronic instrument procedure charts, Garmin SafeTaxi, TCAS, TAWS and more. BASE PRICE: $4.5 MILLION ENGINES: 2 WILLIAMS FJ-44-1AP-21 (1,965 LBS. THRUST EACH) TBO: 5,000 HOURS SEATING: PILOT, PLUS SIX TO SEVEN PASSENGERS WINGSPAN: 47.2 FT. LENGTH: 42.6 FT. HEIGHT (AT TAIL): 13.9 FT. CABIN LENGTH: 11 FT. CABIN WIDTH: 4.8 FT. CABIN HEIGHT: 4.8 FT. BAGGAGE CAPACITY: 46 CU. FT. MAX RAMP WEIGHT: 10,900 LBS. MAX TAKEOFF WEIGHT: 10,700 LBS. USEFUL LOAD: 3,810 LBS. FUEL CAPACITY: 3,309 LBS./404 GALS. FULL…

1. Below 1,000 AGL in a skidding left-hand-turn, cross-controlled stall, what should your first recovery action be? (a) Simultaneous stick briskly forward, level wings, then power (b) Release control pressures, increase power, then wings level (c) Simultaneous level wings, stick forward and power (d) Level wings, stick forward, power 2. In the above scenario, what’s your most likely stall evolution? (a) High-wing stalls first, plane rolls and nose breaks to the right, entering a spin (b) Both wings stall and aircraft enters a falling leaf descent (c) Low-wing stalls first, nose pitches down and aircraft rolls sharply left and enters a spin (d) Nose pitches down, wings roll level 3. In normal or utility category day-to-day flight operations, of the total possible flight envelope (pitch and roll), approximately what percentage…

“Although the airplane had a stick pusher system to force the control column forward to prevent a stall, there’s no indication it activated... The investigation determined that if ice protection was on, the stall warning would have gone off about 20 seconds earlier when the airplane was 1,000 feet above the ground...” By all accounts, the pilot of the EMB-500 Phenom 100 jet that crashed on December 8, 2014, while on approach to Montgomery County Airpark (KGAI), Gaithersburg, Maryland, was a brilliant man. The 66-year-old medical doctor was the chief executive officer of a pharmaceutical and medical device research company he founded. He also was the winner of numerous business and technology awards. He received a Master’s degree in epidemiology and biostatistics from Harvard, and was an adjunct professor at…

When you think of it, it’s a natural, incorporating a logbook utility into your favorite aviation app. After all, the app knows where and when you fly and for how long, so it can keep track of your flying even if you’re one of those pilots who could be better at keeping the logbook up to date. With its feature-packed logbook, ForeFlight has your back. Logbook, while not really new to Version 8 but still worth the mention, keeps track of your flights automatically, yet gives you the ability to add details, like the kind of approach you might have flown on that dark and stormy night. With all this data, ForeFlight does what’s arguably the most important thing of all: keeps track of your currency, including for landings, night…

As you doubtless know by now, the FAA has issued new Airman Certification Standards (ACS) for the Private Pilot certificate and instrument rating that take the place of the longstanding Practical Test Standards. The FAA has also revised the knowledge test and the questions that compose it to adhere to the ACS standards. The FAA’s awareness of and commitment to ending loss of control accidents are clear in the changes that affect Parts 23, 25, 61 and 121 and Part 91. The current minimum standards for practical test performance of tasks won’t change generally—the change is to a holistic approach, adopting an approach to the test and to grading it that more accurately represents the way we fly in the real world, the knowledge and tasks associated with a typical…

“In contrast, a general aviation airplane is more like a flying version of my old Austin-Healey, good visibility straight ahead and behind, to both sides, nearly straight down and even straight up if you leave the top down, something you can never do in an Airbus or Boeing...” Telluride nestles in a pristine mountain valley elevated nearly two miles closer to the sky in southwestern Colorado. The surrounding peaks rear up another 3,500 feet above the valley floor on three sides, steep, forested inclines, challenging and unforgiving to the unknowing. It’s one of the most spectacular alpine venues in the Rockies, ideal for skiing (experts only), breathing, shooting commercials, TV and motion pictures, mountain photography, counting elk and just plain, uncomplicated living. At 9,000 feet up, only the athletic need…

Attitude: a key concept in aviation, which is the position of an aircraft relative to the wind, but also discussed frequently in addressing a pilot’s judgment and the resultant probable level of safety. But there’s a deeper version of “attitude” at work in those of us who yearned—and then learned—to fly. It’s an attitude born in the joy of the moment and delivered through time. Congratulating me on getting married, a senior co-worker said in passing that he never missed mindfully kissing his wife goodbye and saying “I love you” every time they parted. I asked, “Why so adamant?” (I was young and immortal), and he said, “Because I never know if it’s the last we will see each other” My aviation career took off and then began to climb,…