Innholdsfortegnelse for January/February 2018 i Plane & Pilot

Great ideas sometimes take on a life of their own, and make no mistake: Th e High Sierra Fly-In is a great idea. Th e three-day event, which takes place annually on a remote dry lakebed in Nevada called Dead Cow Lake (we kid you not), got done with its long weekend of shared aviation insanity in late October, and it was the biggest High Sierra Fly-In yet, though next year’s will be bigger, as will the one the year after that, and so on. What exactly the High Sierra Fly-In is, is hard to say. Big picture: It’s an informal gathering of like-minded pilots, many of them old friends, who get together to fly, to enjoy each other’s company and to celebrate the magic that’s created when you combine…

Southern New Hampshire University is a school you’ve been hearing a lot about lately, and for good reason. Located in one of the most picturesque regions in the country, SNHU offers the best of all worlds, with a beautiful, modern campus along the scenic Merrimack River near Manchester, New Hampshire. With thousands of students living and learning on campus—that’s in addition to even more distance-learners around the world—SNHU students enjoy a fun, active, engaging and busy academic and social life. And it keeps getting better, with a brand-new 300-bed residence hall, a state-of-the-art library and media center and a cuttingedge engineering center—the College of Engineering, Technology, and Aeronautics (CETA). With 20 varsity athletic teams, regular on-campus concerts and events, a radio station, active fraternity and sorority organizations and numerous honor…

If you’re determined to make an airplane fly faster, traditional wisdom suggests there are three ways to realize that goal. In ascending order of difficulty, you can increase the power, improve the aerodynamics or reduce the weight. Perhaps no class of airplanes exemplifies the need for speed more than unlimited air racers, and few pilots have pursued the quest for ultimate velocity as tenaciously as ex-Navy aviator Lyle Shelton. When Shelton opted to build a competitive unlimited air racer in the late 1960s, he attacked all three problems—on a budget. Unfortunately but inevitably, unlimited air racing is a rich man’s sport, and Shelton had no bottomless pit of cash. He became an airline pilot after his military service, but even that salary wasn’t adequate to feed the unlimited race plane’s…

I’m tooling around at 37,000 feet the other day— minding my business with 175 peeps comfortably lost in their own personal 2 square feet—when I overhear my lead attendant making an announcement seeking medical assistance. I tap my copilot on the shoulder and signal to him—picture a monkey see, monkey do routine—to listen in on the intercom. He hears the last strains of the announcement, turns off his cabin intercom switch, says, “Glad you’re the captain,” and returns to his distance learning. I return to my thoughts and gaze out to the Colorado skies and mountains beneath, knowing this development moving 500 mph behind me will soon become my focus. I ponder my half-eaten salad perched precariously on my lap, supported by the aircraft logbook. So far so good; the…

It was one of those days, a long one, replete with delays and crabby passengers and thunderstorms. After 12 hours on duty, five legs, and three different airplanes, my crew welcomed the approach of the jetway at the Huntsville International Airport like a marathon runner rejoices at the sight of the banner. On such days, the Walter Mitty in me always conjures an image of my crew, in fleece-lined bomber jackets, nursing a tattered B-17 across the English Channel with one main gear hanging down and smoke trailing from a couple of engines. Needless to say, I was ready for the hotel. I optimistically said that hours in the logbook make a difference, that practice makes perfect. These assertions may well be true. Accident statistics tell a more complicated story.…

If someone were to tell you that there were lots of high-paying jobs in an industry that offers a rewarding lifestyle in a fascinating area, you’d want to find out more, right? Especially if, on top of it all, you’d get to work with some of the most interesting people in the world and get great starting pay as well. As you no doubt have figured out, we’re talking about aviation, a field that’s so hot right now—with no end to the demand in sight—that job seekers today have better options than ever before. When people think of aviation jobs, they often think of one in particular: being a pilot. And these days, it makes sense to do just that, because there’s arguably no hotter field in the world than…

»“When I jumped in the water in full U.S. Navy flight gear and was told to swim the length of the Olympicsize swimming pool, I thought, ‘Swim? You’re kidding me!’” It began at the NAS Oceana O Club at the end of a successful airshow weekend in late September, 1999, when U.S. Navy Captain and Commander of the Strike Fighter Wing Atlantic John “Lites” Leenhouts joined our table. I’m not sure where Lites got his call sign, but he is the kind of person who lights up any room with his personable, enthusiastic nature and great sense of humor. We started talking about cool airplanes, and Lites asked if I’d ever been in a Hornet. I hated to admit that I had flown with the Blue Angels during a practice…

A couple of weeks ago I did cross one off the bucket list when I flew a paraglider for the first time. I’ve always been fascinated by early flight and by very minimalist kinds of flying, and paragliding is about as minimalist as you can get. Th ere’s you, the wing (which is what these kinds of “parachutes” really are), the sky and the earth. With just a few pounds of equipment, an experienced paraglider can spend hours aloft, sometimes traveling a good distance, maybe even hundreds of miles, in the process. It’s about as close to flying like a bird that you can get (though wingsuit enthusiasts might see it differently). It happens rarely, but in this case I can identify exactly what inspired me to want to strap…

First pneumatic airplane-specific tire: Goodyear 1909 Number of tires on the Antonov AN-225 freighter: 32 Typical cost of a tire for a light plane: $100-$250 Cost of the tires on the Airbus A380: About $5,500 apiece Number of retreads a tire can take: Up to 10 before replacement Composition of almost all aircraft tires: Rubber, steel and fabric Length of time it takes NASCAR pit crews to change a tire: A few seconds For ready-to-go crew to change a tire on an Airbus A320: 45 minutes Inflation pressure in a typical car’s tires: 35 psi Inflation of the tires in a Lockheed Martin F-16: 320 psi Inflation gas in a light plane: Air In an airliner: Nitrogen Reason: Nitrogen is inert, so it doesn’t react with the rubber at high…

Sporty’s, the company that has made its name for more than 50 years with an ever-increasing number of ever more technologically advanced training products, has spent the last year-plus overhauling its most popular courses by updating much of the video to 4K, so it’s even better quality than many of us can even display right now (the operative words being “right now”). There are 32 new video segments, including all of the step-by-step guides to flying the required maneuvers for the flight test. In fact, Sporty’s overhauled much of the content to make it even fresher, more graphically appealing and engaging. I recently went through a couple of the company’s new offerings—its ForeFlight training guide and its Instrument Pilot course—and came away impressed by the work. I’ve been an instrument…

On a clear October night in 1968, I took off from Westchester County Airport (HPN) at 7 p.m. in a Mooney Statesman with two non-pilot hunting buddies. The destination was Quebec City in Canada. I passed my private pilot check ride in July 1968, and this was my second long cross-country flight and my first night cross-country. My reason for learning to fly was to save time traveling on weekend trips from New York City to Vermont during the hunting and skiing seasons. Leaving work at 5 p.m. on a Friday, it took six to seven hours of non-stop driving to make the trip from Manhattan to northern Vermont by car. Alternatively, I could drive to HPN and be airborne in the flying club Mooney in 90 minutes, then fly…

AERONAUTICAL ENGINEERING The Aeronautical Engineering (B.S.) degree program is designed for people who want to be part of imagining and building the future of the aviation industry. In addition to helping students develop a strong base in math, science and engineering theory, the program emphasizes understanding engineering in global, societal and environmental contexts. From careers in testing the latest aircraft and aircraft systems to designing and developing the next stage of air transport, this degree will help students reach their aeronautical goals. It’s not just about time spent in the classroom. In-flight experience is invaluable when it comes to imagining new aviation possibilities. To give students the strongest foundation possible in the field, SNHU operates its own light airplane. And that’s only one of the ways in which the program…

From airfactsjournal.com Disruption is a hot topic these days, but the 16th century had plenty of it, too. In the span of a generation, the printing press (and the Protestant Reformation) fundamentally changed the way many Christians practiced their religion. Instead of listening to a priest interpret the Bible, the average churchgoer could read it in his native language and make up his own mind. This movement wasn’t universal, and it wasn’t without controversy, but for many, power had clearly shifted from the pulpit to the pews by 1585. Aviation is experiencing a similar shift, although it probably won’t change the world in such a momentous way. Thanks to the ubiquity of internet access, the power of software, and the diversity of mobile devices, pilots no longer have to depend…