Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2016 i Plane & Pilot

“The biggest factor that creates new planes and new pilots, however, is always the same: new technology.” The new Plane & Pilot stands for a lot of things the old brand did, including our embrace of low-and-slow and alternative forms of committing aviation. Beyond that, we stand for a few more beliefs that bear comment, some of which are right in line with what P&P has always believed and shouted that fact loudly. Others are things we always believed, but never said out loud, and still others, as you see, approach flying from a different perspective. Here you go, and please, after you’re done, I’d love to get your feedback. My email address is rgoyer@madavor.com. WE’RE ABOUT THE FLYING While others lose their way into the worlds of drones and…

I got the chance to go flying with the Garmin GTX 345 all-in-one transponder recently, and it became clear to me that Garmin has gotten the product just right, answering the needs of many of its customers and doing it at a price that may not be as low as many will want, but that’s half the cost of what we all figured ADS-B would set us back when we started doing the calculations several years ago. Now, it’s not very often I test-fly a transponder. Back in the day when Mode C was the epitome of surveillance technology, going flying to see how your transponder worked was about as interesting as trying out the flip/flop switch on your King comm radio. “Yup, it seems to work, time for lunch.”…

If you’re ready to fly, but held back by a reluctant spouse or partner, that’s usually because they perceive the risk to be too high, the expense too great or the time commitment too extensive. Perhaps information from this article will help you to convince your spouse otherwise. Also very important, though, is to give him or her a sense not only of the flying itself, but of what that activity often brings along: community and passion for you, activities and adventures for you and your family to share. It’s a new world, and while nothing really worth doing is free or easy, things worth doing are worth doing. The population of active pilots has been shrinking for some years, and not by a little. A few years ago, Richard…

“...I heard on the ADF that St. Helens had just exploded. I slapped the Piper Seminole I was flying into a hard, 180-degree left turn and watched in amazement as the ash cloud expanded straight up toward the stratosphere.” Mountains have always represented the ultimate nemesis to some pilots. Though I understand the apprehension, I grew up in Alaska and California, so I accepted vertical terrain as normal, perhaps the ultimate and most spectacular manifestation of Earth’s variety. Learning to fly in Anchorage and Long Beach, I dealt with mountains during practically every flight, watching the clouds pile high off the Chugach or San Bernardino ranges and gauging their effect on winds and weather below. In Alaska, at age 13, I used to look north after takeoff from Merrill Field…

Total number of “airports” in 1903: 1 Total number of U.S. airports in 2014: 19,299 Total number of U.S. airports in 1980: 15,161 Number of public-use airports in 2014: 5,145 Number eligible for federal funding: 3,300 Number of public-use airports in 1980: 4,814 Number of airports used by U.S. in support of WWII: 2,308 State with the most public-use airports: Texas, 393 State with the fewest public-use airports: Rhode Island, 7 Oldest U.S. active airfield: College Park Airport, Maryland (KCGS), established in 1909 Oldest U.S. continuously operating commercial field: Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, Minnesota (KMSP), since 1920 Busiest GA airport: Van Nuys, California (KVNY), 250,000+ annual operations Number of towered U.S. airports in 2014: 516 Number of towered U.S. airports in 1974: 417 Highest-elevation airport in the 50 United States:…

AVIAT A-1C HUSKY 1 Uninjured The pilot reported he was practicing touch-and-go landings. When the airplane touched down on the runway, the airplane veered to the right, he applied left rudder, but had applied too much and the airplane veered to the left. The pilot reported that he applied right rudder, but had once again used too much and the airplane ground-looped to the right, and departed the runway surface. The left main landing gear collapsed and the left wing impacted the ground. The airplane sustained substantial damage to the left aileron. The pilot reported that there were no preimpact mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation. PROBABLE CAUSE: The pilot’s failure to maintain directional control during the landing roll, which…

Regional airlines have long been the conventional steppingstone for civilian pilots to get to a legacy airline. Lots of hopeful pilots signed promises to lenders and racked up debt—often into the six-digit range—while chasing their dream to fly. “I’ll pay it off when I’m at Delta,” many reasoned. Changing times made us reevaluate those goals. “Well, if the upgrade to captain ever comes along, I’ll get more paid off,” seemed reasonable, and then some of us gave up and just kept driving our 300,000-plus-mile cars until the wheels fell off. Flying for a living never felt less glamorous than the day my noble Toyota gave up the ghost, and I sat beside the highway trying to decide if the scrap value would offset the towing bill to get it to…

The airplane we flew for this report was a full production-conforming HondaJet outfitted with the Garmin G3000 integrated flat-panel avionics suite with two touch-screen controllers. Features include a three-screen panel, digital color weather radar, ADS-B Out and ADS-B In (an option), standby digital multifunction primary display, dual digital flight control with envelope protection, speed control and automatic descent capability, instrument charts and SafeTaxi, terrain awareness, traffic alerting and more. » PRICE AS EQUIPPED: $4.95 MILLION » ENGINES: TWO GE HONDA HF120 TURBOFANS OF 2,050 LBS. THRUST EACH » SEATING: SINGLE PILOT PLUS FIVE OR CREW OF TWO PLUS FOUR; OPTIONAL SIDE-FACING SEAT » WINGSPAN: 39.76 FT. » LENGTH: 42.62 FT. » HEIGHT (AT TAIL): 14.9 FT. » CABIN LENGTH: 17.8 FT. OVERALL (12.1 FT. FOR CABIN) » CABIN WIDTH: 5…

“Some days when I taxied the Pitts, I turned into a little red crab skidding across a sheet of glass...” In the winter of 1985, we decided to bring our Pitts to Alaska. Some might question the sanity of flying any airplane to Alaska in winter, much less one so small it weighs the same as a Harley Fat Boy, but then, some people are always up for an adventure. It seemed like a good idea to fly all winter to keep up my G tolerance and, well, it would just be fun to have it nearby. I called a friend in Texas who had said if we ever needed an airplane delivered to Alaska, we must call him first. He picked up the airplane in Tucson and got as…

“Night flying is a different kind of beautiful.” The scene is in a thousand movies. A clear night sky and a glass-calm ocean. A million brilliant stars, every one of them reflected by water. The horizon is difficult to find. Then some ship enters the scene, slowly, and the water is swirled in its wake, troubled just enough to mark the border between ocean and sky. In the theater, staring over seas of buttered popcorn and diet soda, the audience sighs. “That’s very pretty,” they think. “I’d love to see that someday.” If there’s a pilot in the theater, though, the sigh never comes. Instead, there’s a grin. “Almost,” the pilot thinks. “That’s almost the best thing ever.” Imagine a Cessna 172 in a takeoff roll, runway Nine at Fargo,…

Pilot POV The lightweight 360fly camera ($399.99) makes it simple to share your unique view of the world from the cockpit—you can wear it or mount it to just about anything—providing an immersive 360º HD video of your flight. With WiFi, a Bluetooth interface and included 360fly app (download required), you can edit content, instantly or later, to share from a mobile device to social media. The tiny, rugged 360fly is resistant to sweat, rain, liquid, sand and dust. The camera features a built-in mic and 32 GB of internal storage, and includes a USB cable, tilt mount, lanyard and neoprene pouch. iOS 9 and later/Android 4.4 and later are supported. • 360fly.com  • sportys.com/pilotshop Glare Killer We love using our iPads in flight, but the glare from tablets can render them…

“It’s okay to say no. For any reason. Even if it’s just that you’re too tired to do the flight, say no. If the airplane has an equipment problem...say no.” Imagine yourself with a flight planned for the morning that will take you from Michigan to Texas and back in the same day. You expect icing along the route, but you’re flying a known-icing-equipped aircraft; however, it won’t climb above the weather. There will be thunderstorms along the route that you hope will be out of the way before you get to that section of the route. After the stop in Texas, your return trip is going to bring you back to a different place in Michigan that was experiencing a snowstorm at the time of your original departure—in fact,…

One of Honda’s biggest boasts is that it has the best cabin in the class, and in some ways, it’s hard to argue against that claim. The jet is beautifully appointed, though that doesn’t set it apart from the two other entry-level jets on the market—their interiors are very nicely finished. The HondaJet, however, is larger, both in fuselage diameter and in cabin length. The effect of the bigger fuselage is greater comfort in just about every dimension, but most notably in legroom, where occupants in the club-cabin seating arrangement can sit without getting their feet tangled. The lav is also the nicest in the class, with a counter and wash basin, as well as what appears to be, but isn’t, a skylight. The seats can be moved inboard and…

Flying has always been in my blood, and I expect that’s true for almost all pilots, no matter how old they are when they start training. I know how I got infected. My father flew B-17s with the Eighth Air Force in World War II, and his stories about those years were the most vivid stories he ever told. I always gravitated naturally toward science and technical things, which we didn’t call technology back then. I read everything I could find on flying and the new space program. So, if it was in my blood, why did I not start training for so long? What are the obstacles for anyone who waits to start flying, and then what changes as people get older to get them unstuck? TIME AND MONEY…

The NTSB recently issued its report on a “loss of control” accident from October 10, 2013, in which a Cessna 340A, a cabin-class, pressurized piston twin, crashed while maneuvering during a missed approach on a low-weather day at Hampton Roads Executive Airport (KPVG) in Norfolk, Virginia. The fatal mishap involved a complex combination of factors. Unfortunately, the Safety Board, as is too often the case, took a simplistic approach in its probable cause statement and never really did provide the kind of analysis that’s helpful to pilots seeking to learn from the unfortunate experiences of others. The Board determined that the Cessna 340A crashed because of the pilot’s failure to maintain airplane control due to spatial disorientation in low-visibility conditions while maneuvering during a missed approach. It said that the…