Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2016 i Plane & Pilot

This is my 25th Oshkosh airshow event. By EAA standards, 25 isn’t a big number. I’m a relative newbie, in that regard. There are people wandering the show with jackets stitched with patches dating back to before I was born. Oh, to have been able to see all that they’ve seen. Oshkosh is aviation history condensed annually into a weeklong volume. In my time coming to OSH, I’ve witnessed some incredible aviation history. I’ve seen amazing airplanes—Concorde, the Boeing 787, the Airbus A380, F-22s and jump jets, B-29s (well, one B-29, so far), B-1Bs, Seabees and BD-10s. I’ve witnessed the perplexing surprise arrival of a single-engine Eclipse jet, an entry-level jet from Honda, the unveiling of a new lineup of Cessna next-generation piston singles that never came to pass, a…

PILATUS PC12 1 Uninjured The operator reported that during the takeoff roll, at the moment of rotation during night visual conditions, the pilot observed two white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) running across the runway. The pilot maneuvered the airplane to avoid the deer, however, one of the deer impacted the nosewheel. The pilot decided to continue the takeoff, the airplane orbited the airport for about 1.5 hours, and then landed without further incident. A postflight inspection revealed substantial damage to the fuselage. The operator verified that there were no preimpact mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airframe or engine that would have precluded normal operation. As a safety recommendation, the operator stated that wildlife strikes can be dealt with proactively through accurate reports from the airport users and airport management establishing…

We had departed Runway 34 at Westchester County Airport (HPN) for a cruise down the Hudson and were abeam midtown Manhattan at 3,500 feet when the Piper Mirages Lycoming TIO-540-AE2A began sputtering and the prop froze upright in the windscreen. In the right seat, Bill Inglis, with more time in these cockpits than just about anyone on the planet, punched up the “nearest” list on the G1000, and I banked hard left toward JFK, trimming for best glidespeed on my way through the emergency checklist. Spoiler alert: No need to pucker. We were in a flight simulator. Not much novelty in using a ground-based device as an alternative or adjunct to training in an actual aircraft. But what provoked a startled reflex as much as the sudden simulated emergency and…

Ever forget? Me, too—in fact, frequently. It’s probably not improving with age, either. Already this week I’ve forgotten to set out the trash, pick up the dry cleaning and a couple of other things I’m too embarrassed to admit (hopefully, my daughter forgives me). Every day, we overlook a variety of little things, because forgetting about them has only minor consequences. Thankfully, with each of the things I forgot this week, no one was injured—physically—and the biggest inconvenience was not having access to my favorite shirt. When it comes to flying, however, the consequences of oversights and omissions are much more severe and absolute. As pilots, we’re obligated to take steps to mitigate risks and embrace a safety-minded culture with checks and double-checks. Like me, you probably wish you were…

PRICE AS FLOWN: $1.3 MILLION SEATS: 7 ENGINES: 2 AUSTRO AE-330 TURBOCHARGED COMMON-RAIL-INJECTED WITH FADEC HORSEPOWER: 180 EACH PROPELLER: 2 MT THREE-BLADE CONSTANT SPEED WINGSPAN: 47 FT. 9 IN. HEIGHT: 9 FT. 3 IN. LENGTH: 30 FT. 2 IN. EMPTY WEIGHT: 3,505 LBS. MAX TAKEOFF WEIGHT: 5,071 LBS. USEFUL LOAD: 1,565 LBS. FUEL CAPACITY: 86 GALLONS/576 LBS. FULL FUEL PAYLOAD: 989 LBS. MAX SPEED: 190 KTAS BEST CRUISE (75%): 171 KTAS MAX RATE OF CLIMB: 1,029 FPM MAXIMUM RANGE (60% POWER): 1,283 NM TAKEOFF GROUND ROLL: 1,574 FT. TAKEOFF OVER 50 FT. OBSTACLE: 2,897 FT. CERTIFIED CEILING: 20,000 FT. SINGLE-ENGINE CEILING: 14,000 FT.…

It sounds like the setup to a bad aviation joke: What do an F-16 and a Cirrus have in common? Let me think: One shoots and the other chutes? Except, in this case, the real punch line isn’t funny. It’s tragic. The answer is that, in both cases, a leading cause of fatalities is controlled flight into terrain (CFIT). That’s the name for accidents in which there’s nothing at all wrong with the aircraft, yet the pilot finds a way to fly into the ground. Such loss of control and awareness might be set up by weather, night conditions, an unusual flight attitude—and the tragedy can unfold quickly or slowly. Say you’re an F-16 jet jockey, screaming along a high desert canyon on a low-altitude bombing run. Get just a…

Tonight, I fly in my own sensory deprivation chamber, a semi-anechoic capsule seemingly isolated from reality. The sun rolled down beneath the Earth hours ago, leaving me in a blackness well beyond merely dark. It seems there’s no outside light above or below, forward or aft, left or right. I’m suspended in an obsidian void of nothing. My little cocoon of darkness flies into the wind at 150 knots with no visible means of support. A high overcast blocks stars, and mostly uninhabited Northwest Texas swallows what few lights might otherwise join together to suggest there’s an Earth below. The regular subdued flicker of my strobes startles the night as if to confirm that I’m once and truly alone. My tiny universe seems to end at my airplane’s spinner and…

I’ve done it. You’ve probably done it, too: allowed an unqualified individual to manipulate the airplane’s controls. Usually, it’s a child or first-time-flying adult. I strictly limited them to a few gentle turns or push-pulls of the control yoke. But, I’ve heard tales of passengers handling the throttle, setting transponder codes, operating the flaps, even flaring for landing—not too smart, unless you’re a qualified instructor and have briefed the person on what’s allowable, how to do it and the consequences of doing it wrong, and have hair-trigger reflexes to take over at the first hint of trouble. You disagree? Consider the NTSB’s recently released report on an accident at South Bend, Indiana, in which the pilot of a business jet allowed an unqualified friend to fly, while trying to teach…

A couple of years ago, it looked as though newfangled smart watches were going to be a must-have item for every connected pilot. Turns out the interest in the technology far outweighed its actual appeal. While glorified step counters are selling like hotcakes at their mostly sensible price points, smart watches like Apple’s haven’t inspired consumers with anything resembling the passion they had for the company’s seminal iPhone and iPad products. My argument is that consumers aren’t as sheepish as marketers think they are. In the case of both of those successful Apple products, the proof was in the utility. iPhones and iPads do a lot for you. Watches, as it turns out, aren’t yet as useful as everyone hoped they would be. With the noteworthy exception of watches designed…

Not too long ago, I was completing a pre-flight walkaround of a Boeing 747 at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas. On a dusty and windy winter night, it was easy to imagine what I couldn’t see at that late hour—the deserts and mountains beyond the city, stretching off in all directions, the great Western wilderness that makes even the glittering sprawl of Vegas look isolated and contained when you see it from high above. As I came around the forward section of the port wing, I paused to look up at the refueling team. Maybe it was because I’d recently been on a binge of Star Wars films, but something about the sight of the two guys in their dusty uniforms, standing on their equipment in the howling wind…

“You can learn a lot from listening, and while it’s nice when someone recognizes your talent and dedication, sometimes you also have to ask for help. The people who helped me with advice and coaching when I was competing had a selfless devotion to the sport of aerobatics. Like the very best sportsmen, they knew that the better their competition did, the better they would do and how it would enhance the overall sport. Clint McHenry really embodied these qualities.” Through life and career, we undoubtedly pick up mentors, heroes and role models. Everyday life is a challenge, leaving us wondering how to act, and we have to rely on others to show the way—overtly as you might expect from a coach or inadvertently when we like a character on…

“We fly over the grain elevator in Prosper, North Dakota... We’re sightseeing. No moving map, not even a transponder. We’re following our curiosity... This isn’t about speed, I think. This is flying. Just flying. This is holding a bird in your hands.” Three thousand feet above the North Dakota prairie, on a warm, clear-sky morning, Mike Paulson gets a smile on his face. “Check this out,” he says. Mike takes his feet off the rudder pedals and puts the airplane into a bank to the left. Almost immediately, the nose squirrels hard to the right. “Adverse yaw” he says, correcting the turn. “It’s been engineered nearly out of new aircraft, but not this one.” He puts the airplane into a bank to the right and the airplane dances again. We’re…