Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2024 i Flying

IN SEPTEMBER 2019, in a sparsely populated part of South Dakota near the Nebraska border, a father and son went flying in their Cessna 140. When they did not return, sheriffs began a search. The next day, the wreckage of the 140, its front end crushed, was found a few hundred feet northwest of the pilot’s private strip. Since the flaps were down, it had evidently been approaching to land when it stalled and spun. There was no way to know why the mishap occurred, but the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) report on the accident noted that conditions were such that carburetor icing was likely. Stall spins are, and always have been, a common cause of fatalities in general aviation. They often occur during turns at the base-leg end…

CubCrafters is unique in aviation in that it sells FAA-certified completed airplanes, provides airframe kits into the homebuilt world, and also offers a builder-assist program that blurs the lines between factory- and individual-built aircraft. To be licensed as an experimental/amateur-built aircraft, there has to be an individual builder (or group) on the paperwork who has convinced either the FAA or a representative that they’ve completed a “majority” of the work. This is colloquially known as the “51 percent rule.” Defining what makes up a “majority” of the work is made easier by an FAA-accepted checklist of typical build tasks, including both assembly and fabrication. This list of tasks, used by all the popular builder-assist programs, helps define what the builder needs to do and what the factory is allowed to…

Every January 1 I tend to have the same New Year’s resolutions that involve losing at least 5 pounds by year’s end, exercising daily, and making at least one pilot weather report on every flight. I do a fair job with the weight and exercise goals but seem to find myself falling short on making those pilot reports. Somehow, I manage to dream up a bunch of lame excuses not to make them. Pilot weather reports, more simply known as PIREPs, are those rare commodities that general aviation pilots yearn for during preflight planning or while en route using datalink weather. They are vital since they answer these basic questions: At what altitude will I likely encounter ice? What is the severity of those icing conditions? What is the severity…

EVER PULL OVER and ask someone for directions only to be met with a minutes-long diatribe whereupon halfway through you realize that the person doesn’t actually know how to get to where you’re going? It’s like they just want to hear themselves talk. Imagine pulling that around 5:30 p.m. on a Friday in Class C airspace. We’ve all heard that student pilot stutter their way through a transmission with enough “umms” to fill a Vinyasa yoga class in Santa Monica. Succinctness is the single most prized quality a pilot can exhibit when on the radio. It’s almost as if that little push-to-talk button is buried on the backside of the yoke so as to remind you to only use it when necessary. Break glass in case of communication. This is…

MOST OF US are familiar with the idiom “six degrees of separation.” The theory, based on a 1929 short story, supposes that we are all connected by a chain of five other people. Essentially, it’s the small world philosophy. Airplanes make the world even smaller. Such was the case on a day that my flying coincided with a friend that lives miles away. In addition, it was the same day in January that an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 lost a door plug in the fuselage, providing a harrowing experience for both passengers and crew. One of my favorite Florida airports is Albert Whitted (KSPG), situated on Tampa Bay in St. Petersburg. Its location is within arm’s reach of downtown. The airport’s history is a nostalgic mix of aviation’s golden…

CUBCRAFTERS CARBON CUB DEVELOPED AS THE SUCCESSOR to the iconic Piper Cub, the Carbon Cub line from Yakima, Washington-based CubCrafters officially came onto the scene in 2009 with the delivery of the first Carbon Cub SS light sport aircraft (LSA). The Carbon Cub didn’t stay an LSA, however. Known for its strong STOL performance and suitability for backcountry flying, the design continued to evolve with models including the experimental/amateur-built FX-3/EX-3 and Part 23-certified XCub. “With as much as 1,088 pounds of useful load, a top speed around 150 mph, stellar climb performance, and a slew of creature comforts prior Cub owners could only dream of, the XCub is a terrific and versatile airplane, and a modern tribute to Piper’s successful Cub series,” Pia Bergqvist wrote in the July 2016 issue…

WHEN I LEFT you hanging last month, dear reader, my wife and I and Kiwi flight instructor Matt McCaughan had just taken a Cessna 172 on a tight, slow flight circuit around a cloud-scraped, rock-walled thimble of an alpine lake in New Zealand, exiting with a rakish wingover down the enormous 2,000-foot waterfall cascading from its outlet. This was the fourth or fifth stunning sight in just the first two hours of a planned weeklong flying tour of the country’s South Island with FlyInn, McCaughan’s self-fly vacation operation. Describing these two hours required three pages crammed with significantly more words than my usual monthly allotment, and yet I promised to cover the balance of the tour in a single additional installment. Well, here goes nothing. I won’t even attempt to…

IT HAS LONG been said that the private pilot certificate is a “license to learn” as it is the foundation of a person’s flying career. The FAA has said we may log an instrument approach if we are in actual or simulated conditions inside the final approach fix [Ref:§ 61.51(g)(3) and § 61.57(c)]. But think about whether you were in actual IMC or not. As one example, you’re on a straight-in visual on a clear evening with the setting sun directly in your eyes, making any visual references in front of the aircraft useless. Although there’s not a cloud in the sky, you loaded the precision approach for belt-and-suspender situational awareness. That was a good call because the early evening sun is blinding any attempt to look out the window.…

HAVE YOU EVER been a passenger in a private jet? Imagine sweeping up those stairs and finding just the perfect seat in the back. As you fasten your seat belt you hear the clunk of the door as it is secured. You note that the first officer has checked the locking pins. Drinks, anyone? I’ve been a lucky passenger on five such flights, and I have found them to be exciting and fun, but frustrating. The first was the most impressive. At dinner one night many years ago I offered how I was flying commercially from Tampa, Florida, to Chicago the next day. My dinner guests said they were too—only they were chartering a jet. Would I like to join them? Well, OK. I promised to bring sandwiches for lunch…

IT’S MID-JANUARY in the Midwest, and I’m in a funk over something you’ll understand—the weather. We don’t have much violent weather in the Ohio River Valley, but we suffer through weeks of low, gray skies, rain/snow mix, and gusty surface winds. The surface winds at the moment are 240 degrees at 14 gusting to 22 knots with a light rain/snow mix. Ceiling is 1,300 feet overcast with rime ice reports up to 9,000 feet, plus a wind shear alert—winds at 2,000 feet are from 210 degrees at 50 knots. And that wicked witch, Mother Nature, plans even stronger surface winds with high temperatures in the single digits. I go down to the airport, KLUK, and sit in the airplane, thinking maybe I ought to take it around the patch a…

‘Chart Wise’ for Sim Training I look forward to each issue of FLYING, most particularly the “Chart Wise” section by Jason Blair and also the discussions of (and tips for) flight simulators by Sean Siff. These two articles of the magazine hit home to me for a couple of reasons. For one, I have been a flight sim enthusiast for over 20 years, so I can appreciate the various flight sim topics that Siff mentions in his articles. Secondly, Blair was the DPE that issued a private pilot certificate to me on July 2, 2021, at KBEH [Southwest Michigan Regional Airport in Benton Harbor]. In preparation for my instrument rating, I have been practicing each of Jason’s carefully selected (and meticulously dissected) instrument approaches on my home flight simulator. I…

CubCrafters vice president Brad Damm pointed vaguely to a sprawling ranch in the bare hills that surround Yakima, Washington. “We’re going over there,” he said, “and you can practice some takeoffs and landings.” Although Damm gave me a heading, I still wasn’t seeing the airport. “Keep going. You see that house and workshop on the top of the hill?” Yes, I do. “OK, the dirt strip is just to the west of that, aligned roughly east-west.” I kept looking to where the elevation appeared to flatten slightly, trying my best to pick out anything that looked like an airport. No luck. Sensing my frustration, Damm helped: “You’re looking in the wrong place. See that hill?” I see Damm’s finger over my left shoulder. “That’s the runway.” For a moment, I…

FROM CHAIR FLYING to use of FAA-approved Level D full flight simulators (FFS), simulated flying experiences have been a long-standing part of aviation training. They often provide a more focused and less expensive way to develop necessary skills separate from handling the aircraft. While at home flight sims might seem like a game—to those who haven’t tried them—they can play a significant part in the learning process. If you haven’t yet explored this sector of the flight sim world, there are some intriguing options for developing skills, such as communications and procedures, from home. Among them is PilotEdge, a company that aims to provide a virtual air traffic control (ATC) network that is accurate and professional enough to be used for real-world pilot training. Origin and Expansion Founded in 2008…

OF ALL THE CHALLENGES that arise from a flight instructor moving on to their next job, gaps left in a learner’s logbook are the most prevalent—and the most challenging. Often the instructor leaves a space or empty line to record a dual instructional flight—or forgets to sign it off because the end of the lesson was hurried. Either the CFI, learner, or both had someplace else to be. There was the intention to sign off on the flight time later, but before this could happen the CFI moved on. Without the instructor’s signature, those hours of dual don’t count toward the experience requirements for a certificate or rating. In essence, the learner may end up paying for these hours twice. Both the learner and CFI need to take responsibility for…

AT A POINT IN MY meandering journalistic career, I found myself behind the wheel of a Porsche 911 Turbo on a Southern California racetrack. One of the turns was a 90-degree elbow of essentially zero radius that came at the end of a long straightaway on which the sports car would reach 120 mph or so. The problem—which resembled the game of chicken in the 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause and which I was shamefully slow to master—was to use maximum braking just in time to arrive at nearly zero speed right at the corner, but not a moment sooner. Slowing down matters as much as accelerating in most auto racing, and the same is true of STOL Drag racing. Unlike traditional Reno-style pylon racing, which involves no slowing…