Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2023 i Flying

ALASKA: LARGER-THAN-LIFE and adventure in every direction. Its massive size, range upon range of jagged mountains, never-ending glaciers, and countless places to land offer pilots with the right aircraft and skills to match something magical that exists nowhere else on Earth. The pilots who call Alaska home and hone their craft here are the real deal. To be able to spend a week flying with a few of them and experiencing just a taste of what the state has to offer was truly the trip of a lifetime. Three airplanes, three friends, Wisconsin to Alaska and back with more than 80 tach hours and 6,500 miles—it was an adventure that has to be experienced to understand. The beauty of this place is beyond words. This shot is of Jeff Russell…

View From Above Julie [Boatman], I enjoyed your column in the latest FLYING issue, especially about the progress GA is making toward sustainability. I’m glad there were no protesters at AERO 2023. I expected there would be. I would not be surprised if some showed up at Oshkosh, which after all is one big Fossil Fuel Fest. Protesters chained themselves to the door and gate of my FBO recently, protesting private jets. I am very concerned about what’s coming and when. I am an environmentalist as well as a lifelong pilot. I currently fly a gas-guzzling piston twin. We need to cut emissions to zero—and soon. Countries around the world are setting dates to ban the sale of internal combustion vehicles by dates as early as 2030. A couple of…

DO YOU REMEMBER the first time you wore an active noise reduction (ANR) headset? The new Bose A30 makes you appreciate the genre all over again. I remember the first time I wore an ANR headset. I had thousands of hours underneath a pair of 1980s-era David Clarks—when I hit the power-on button, there was a noticeable reduction in noise, and transmissions became more clear. I understood why the Bose A20s were so popular with pilots. That was back in 2010. The latest generation of Bose headset, the A30, was released in late March, and FLYING had the opportunity to test the headset before release. My review started with an assessment on the ground, and then time in flight focusing on the volume and clarity of the transmission. Although it…

There’s no doubt that terminal aerodrome forecasts, simply known as TAFs, are perhaps the most detailed aviation forecasts available to a pilot. Within them lay a piece of forecasting critical to understand, and that’s for low-level wind shear. If you call Flight Service for a standard briefing or get an automated briefing through one of the many heavy-weight apps, you can bet the farm that any TAFs along your proposed route and at your departure and destination airports will be a part of this briefing. There are, however, some finer details about the forecast found in TAFs that instructors fail to pass along to their primary students possibly owing to their own lack of knowledge. The top one on the list includes a forecast for nonconvective low-level wind shear (LLWS).…

OUTTA SIXTEEN-FOUR FOR TWO THREE OH.’ “Lotta guys miss that call.” I sit there wondering if this is for real. It isn’t. It is just Bill being Bill. On another trip, after grinding westward for four hours into 60-knot headwinds, I turned southwest as instructed by approach control to set up for the RNAV 4L at Midway International Airport in Chicago (KMDW). The airplane and its occupants are exhausted. Quietly, I hear Rob say, “We can save about 15 miles if we go direct to the airport. Want me to call the field?” Of course, that’s the right thing to do. I wish I’d thought of that myself. It wasn’t a command and it wasn’t a rebuke. It’s just Rob being Rob. Other than a sense of humor, what do…

THERE ARE PROBABLY as many kinds of flying clubs as there are airports (or grass strips) in the country—everything from two or three pilots sharing an airplane to the large clubs I’m writing about. I think the most unique was one created by a guy at Lunken Airport (KLUK) some years ago who sold shares in his “Cub Club.” He had a ratty old J-3 that gullible pilots bought into for a mere $6,000—and there were 12 members! Everything ended when he was giving dual tailwheel instructions to a member, and they broke the Cub. The CFI/club president/registered owner announced there was no insurance, and he wanted to be paid for the damage. As an old friend used to say, “Sooner or later, every crook ends up at the airport.”…

“I’VE BEEN WATCHING the Weather Channel, so I probably can use an abbreviated brief,” said the pilot. He had called Flight Service for a trip from Diamond-head, Mississippi (66Y), to St. Louis Regional Airport in Illinois (KALN). “You’ve been watching, and you still want to go?” the briefer asked. “Baby needs a wash,” joked the pilot, 66, a recently retired judge who was known for his “well-honed” sense of humor. “Oh, he’s going to get a wash job,” the briefer said. “We do have a lot of rain and convective activity. It’s becoming pretty solid. I can’t see you doing much dodging trying to get around.” “It looks like it subsides as it goes east,” the pilot suggested, and then added, “Question mark.” “Well, yeah, question mark,” said the briefer.…

The courtyard of the Castello di Faicchio spans maybe 50 yards from crenellated pillar to stone post. That was wide enough for two boys—ages 10 and 11—to contest each other in a mad sprint, or to watch as their latest model glided down from a balcony perched up on its walls. Before World War II would topple portions of those ramparts, southern Italy in the late 1930s didn’t provide much in terms of resources, except for the space in which the boys would construct models late into the night, hiding from their father—and sometimes to the detriment of their schoolwork. Much like it was during the early days of Popular Aviation—FLYING’s precursor—one of the first aviation magazines in Italy, L’Aquilone, featured plans for building model aircraft used by enthusiasts enamored…

When I moved my airplane into its new hangar at Sussex Airport (KFWN) in New Jersey late last year, I gazed at the rows of adjoining units and wondered what types of rare and interesting machinery lay behind the dozens of bifold doors. A few weeks later, I found that a distinguished neighbor resided next door. A contractor had opened the hangar door to adjust the cables, pulleys, and motor that control its movement. The shape of the aircraft parked inside left no doubt regarding its identity. It was a Boeing Stearman Model 75, also known by its military name, the PT-17. This one clearly had not flown in many years—at least 15 according to airport gossip. It had all the signs of a long slumber, such as deflated tires…

Buying any airplane, especially one that is pre-owned, is an adventure. It does not matter whether you are buying the airplane from your hangarmate or from halfway around the world. No matter how well you do your due diligence, there are bound to be some unpleasant surprises. Just ask Sacha Botbol of New Paltz, New York. THE MAN AND HIS PLAN Botbol, 51, is an operating engineer, merchant mariner, and former owner of several Alaskan commercial salmon-fishing vessels. He is also a general aviation pilot with 1,000 hours—Botbol soloed at 16 in 1987. “I was an ‘airport rat,’ polishing planes in exchange for rides," he says. He purchased his first airplane, a 1963 Cessna 150, in 2006, and earned his private certificate two years later. Now he holds a commercial…

I HAD JUST FINISHED entering our route from Seattle to Phoenix into the Boeing 737’s flight management system when John clattered down the jet bridge with his Rollaboard, thumped onto the jet, and entered the cockpit with a cheerful greeting. “Hey, great seeing you again!” I welcomed my first officer du jour. “What’s it been, three or four months?” In reality, though I recognized John and was pretty certain I enjoyed flying with him, I could not for the life of me recall a single detail of our last trip, or even about his background. In normal work life this would no doubt be an embarrassing faux pas, but in the airline world, and particularly at a large base like Seattle 737, it’s an entirely common experience and little reason…

“YOU MAY NOT REMEMBER ME…” is how the e-mails often begin. They come from people I flew with in the past who have become flight instructors. They share the news with me because I played a part in their journey. I love hearing from these folks, and I feel privileged to have played my part. I became a CFI on July 23, 2023, at 4:48 p.m. when designated pilot examiner Bob Roetcisoender handed me my temporary certificate. I became a flight instructor because I wanted to teach aviation. Teaching someone to fly is life changing for both parties involved, like teaching someone how to swim, read, or ride a bicycle. Do you remember learning those things? Learning to swim gives you confidence. Learning to read opens up the world through the…

IF YOU'RE BEGINNING to entertain the idea of purchasing your first airplane, you likely have dozens of aircraft reviews and buyer’s guides bookmarked in your browser. You’ve probably learned how important it is to match an airplane’s capabilities to the sort of flying you expect to do most often. And if your daydreaming has evolved into analysis, you might have already begun to narrow your choices to a handful of potential candidates. In part 1 of my series featuring Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 initial setup (May 2023/Issue 937), we discussed the importance of making instant views to use all the time when flying. Positioning yourself and creating the proper “captain’s eye point” is crucial in being able to fly like a real pilot would, as well as correct sight positioning…

I LOVE TO EAT. I also love to fly. An opportunity to combine the two makes me feel like Dom DeLuise in the 1981 movie History of the World, Part I when he realizes he’s going to bathe in treasure from the orient. “Treasure…Bathtub…Treasure bath…I’m going to have a treasure bath! Treasure bath!!!” I’ve written in these pages about combining my love of racing motorcycles with aviation, flying to distant race-tracks and sometimes even landing on the track itself. Aviation sweetens the pot for any adventure. It’s a simple equation: Anything you like to do + Aviation = A Win. Food pairs exceptionally well with aviation. In fact, one of the oldest cliches in aviation is the $100 hamburger (now pushing $300 in many modern airplanes) whereby you fly to…

OTHER THAN AMELIA Earhart’s fate, civil aviation has no greater mystery than the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 on March 8, 2014. The Boeing 777-200 departed Kuala Lumpur International Airport (WMKK) in the very early hours of the morning, destined for Beijing. It never arrived. Having flown a 777 for nine years and having responsibly contributed to the media frenzy as an aviation analyst, the story resonates on a personal level. Perhaps that’s why I take issue with the Netflix three-part docuseries MH 370: The Plane That Disappeared. But more than my own angst, it is a disservice to the families and friends that lost loved ones to focus on theories that defy the facts for the purpose of generating a profit. Spoiler alert: Among other topics, this column…

IF YOU FOLLOWED the launch of SpaceX’s megarocket in April, you may remember hearing, amid the tumult of voices in the background, someone calling for a certain Max Q. I did. I wondered, who the heck is Max Q, anyway? He seems to be either a Leonard Zelig or Forrest Gump-like character who manages to be present at all important space events, or a kind of Waldo hidden in the crowd, or even a modern-day Tsiolkovsky or von Braun. Is he perhaps related to Q of James Bond fame? Well, OK—you can just stretch a dumb joke so thin. Q—uppercase here because it’s starting a sentence but normally lowercase—is the symbol aerodynamicists use for the dynamic pressure, or impact force, of moving air. It is the thing captured by your…

“THE PARTENAVIA’S CONFIGURATION, above all, makes it unusual by current standards,” wrote Nigel Moll in his review of the P68-TC Victor in the April 1983 issue of FLYING. “It is a high-wing, fixed-gear twin, a layout shared by few other designs still in production, notably the Twin Otter and [Britten-Norman] Islander.” Why the fixed gear? Tucking up the wheels complicated things, according to il professore, Luigi Pascale, whose meticulous calculations made the P68 “unusually sleek, with a fuselage profile that resembles an airfoil section,” Moll said. The P68-TC’s turbocharged Lycoming TO-360s—at 210 hp apiece—pulled it through the air at 148 kias/181 ktas at 12,000 feet. The P68 finds its legacy in the P2012 Traveller, Tecnam’s unique piston-powered, high-wing twin made to eat up the grass and carry loads of people…