Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2015 i Plane & Pilot

EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2015 is in the history books, and what a week it was! In the 32 years I’ve attended “Oshkosh,” I can’t remember a week of better weather. It was the kind of weather that causes Wisconsinites to choose to live here year around…crazy people that we are. No doubt that great weather helped boost attendance, which EAA has estimated at 550,000, but so did an outstanding array of featured aircraft, from the Airbus 350 to the B-52 to the F-35 to the Wingfoot One airship from Goodyear (my personal favorite, along with all the great homebuilts). And certainly, the good weather encouraged pilots to fly in. More than 2,660 show planes registered throughout the week, including 1,031 homebuilt aircraft, 976 vintage airplanes, 350 warbirds, 130 ultralights and…

New, Free Option For TSA Security Awareness Training CFIs have a new, free online way to meet their annual TSA training requirement. TSA Security Awareness Training for CFIs from King Schools can be completed in about an hour using any Internet-connected computer or tablet. It provides a TSA-acceptable graduation certificate and qualifies for WINGS program credit, which is automatically submitted to the FAA upon course completion. “Most CFIs receive this training every two years as part of completing a Flight Instructor Refresher Course, but they still need a way to complete the training in years between FIRCs,” Martha King said. To register for the free King TSA Security Awareness Training course, go to www.kingschools.com/tsa. AirClassics Pilot Backpack With its new AirClassic Pilot Backpack, ASA delivers the functionality and practicality students…

Most musicians and guitar aficionados know about the legendary and mystical “Custom Shop” located deep in the bowels of Fender Musical Instruments’ headquarters in Corona, Calif. It’s here that drool-worthy dreams are made, and where custom, one-of-a-kind guitars and amplifiers are born. The shop is populated by the finest luthiers and builders in the world, and their passion and dedication to their artistry is evident everywhere you look. As a musician, I was lucky enough to visit the Custom Shop, and I’ve never experienced another place like it. That is until I had the pleasure of spending a few days with Todd and Jo Peterson of Peterson’s Performance Plus in El Dorado, Kansas. This is where the equally mystical and unique King Katmai is crafted, and where Todd and Jo…

We’re afloat in constantly updated technological innovation everywhere we turn. Today’s newest super “iGadget” tops tomorrow’s “so last week” pile. And customer service, when you can reach a human being, often earns a single descriptor: fail. It’s refreshing then to find a company, and its flagship product, that continually raises the bar of technical innovation while cleaving to an old-fashioned ethic: the customer as valued partner. Shane Woodson and Walter Boyd, leaders of Adventure Pilot, are two longtime flyboys with serious software engineering chops. Five years ago, they perceived a market vacuum, and they filled it. They felt all those high-priced, small-screen moving-map GPS units were due for a serious competitive comeuppance, so they created one—the iFly 700, which sold for a pittance: $500. I found their booth five years…

Probably the greatest responsibility in aviation is training new pilots. If any of us look back to our student pilot days, many of the things we do today are carryovers from those early flights. Whether you had a great instructor or a lousy one, some of what he or she taught you is still with you. While not for everyone, the weight of that motivates many in aviation to give back—to pass their own skills and ideas on to a new generation of pilots. Enter the certificated flight instructor or “CFI.” The FAA knows that the CFI is the first and most important line of safety in aviation. For this reason, the national failure rate of first-time CFIs stands at around 75%. It’s a tough certificate to get simply because…

This is the first in a series of Legacy Pilot Reports featuring aircraft from the Plane & Pilot archives that sport enduring, timeless features and have a classic appeal. Cessna naysayers would complain that the company’s line of high-wing singles has changed little since its inception, save a continuing, but sometimes diminutive, evolution of enhancement and refinement. But at a recent gathering the company put on for its network of dealers, a sneak preview of the 2004 Skylane turned so many heads that more than 300 of the new C-182s, as well as Skyhawks and Stationairs, were sold—in a single day. Beginning in the second quarter of this year, Cessna will begin shipping its 230-hp four-seat singles with Garmin G1000 glass panels. From a distance, the 2004 Skylane isn’t particularly…

The sun rises and sets at peak travel periods, during the early morning and afternoon rush hours and many drivers find themselves temporarily blinded while driving directly into the glare of the sun. Deadly accidents are regularly caused by such blinding glare with danger arising from reflected light off another vehicle, the pavement, or even from waxed and oily windshields that can make matters worse. Early morning dew can exacerbate this situation. Yet, motorists struggle on despite being blinded by the sun’s glare that can cause countless accidents every year. Not all sunglasses are created equal. Protecting your eyes is serious business. With all the fancy fashion frames out there it can be easy to overlook what really matters––the lenses. So we did our research and looked to the very…

American Legend Aircraft Company recently announced a twofold partnership with Sporty’s Pilot Shop. First, Sporty’s will award a new Legend Cub as its next sweepstakes aircraft. Second, Sporty’s will offer new aircraft sales of the Legend Cub through its FBO, Eastern Cincinnati Aviation. Michael Wolf, Sporty’s President & CEO, said, “The Legend Cub was a hit for our 2013 sweepstakes, and we know a winner when we see one.” Sporty’s customers are automatically entered into the Sporty’s Legend Cub sweepstakes with every purchase. In addition to the sweepstakes, Sporty’s Eastern Cincinnati Aviation FBO will now offer sales and service of new Legend Cub aircraft. Chuck Gallagher, president of Eastern Cincinnati Aviation, said, “American Legend, through its Legend Cub and Super Legend aircraft, has put the fun back into flying. Whether…

Since its introduction more than 30 years ago, Piper’s PA-46 Malibu has undergone a series of significant performance enhancements, while its cabin, often less noticed, has seen corresponding makeovers of its own. As we lounged in the back of N350CS, a new M350 on the ramp at Columbia Air Service in Groton, Conn. (GON), Gordon Ramsay, Piper program manager at Columbia Air Service, commenting on vintage Malibus, said, “At the time, they seemed very comfortable; now we realize they were fairly Spartan… this is refined” Indeed, in this update of the Malibu Mirage introduced this spring, with its interior by Boston’s trend-setting Blokx Design, passengers in the all-leather seats can listen to Internet radio, recharge their personal devices at USB ports or make phone calls through the optional Iridium Satellite…

The year 2015 has been one of upheaval with respect to aviation careers. The big news, of course, is the shortage of pilots that began affecting regional carriers last year; that has reached a point where flights are being cancelled. Just weeks ago, Republic Airways Holdings—parent company of Shuttle America and Republic Airlines—notified its partner airlines and investors that it wouldn’t be able to meet contracted schedules over the next 12 months. The reason: problems staffing flights with pilots. At the same time, the U.S. military is offering unprecedented bonuses for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) pilots, and foreign airlines (especially Asia and the Middle East) are doing just about anything to keep their airplanes flying. A shortage that has been ramping up for the last five years, and one which…

I was three hours out of Reykjavik, Iceland, on my way to Wick, Scotland, when I sensed, rather than heard, the engine begin to spool down. Not a good place to lose power. Somewhere below, in fact, everywhere below, the cold, angry North Atlantic rolled on toward the pole, 30-knot winds blowing the crests off 20-foot breakers. The new Maule M6-260 I was flying was fitted with amphibious floats, but they’d be more a liability than an asset if I needed to ditch in the ocean. I was level at 9,000 feet, immersed in freezing glop, and I had been running with carb heat half on for most of the leg. Nothing unusual about that. The ocean between Iceland and Scotland is where the ice gods hold their parties. The…