Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2018 i Plane & Pilot

It’s hard to overestimate the good that was done when the federal government reauthorized the FAA. The agency has for decades gone from one stop-gap funding bill to the next. With its long-term plan to fund the FAA, Congress said it got it. There’s important work for the FAA to do, including modernization and capacity improvement, and with its funding buttoned up for the next four years, it can focus on the real work. But the biggest win of all wasn’t really a win but the dodging of what has been one of the two or three biggest threat to GA in our history, ATC privatization. With the defeat of the airlines’ takeover of air traffic control, we avoided being at the mercy of a historical enemy to GA. And…

ATC PRIVATIZATION PLAN SHELVED The Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee announced in late February he would no longer pursue legislation to shift management of the nation’s air traffic control system away from the federal government. The plan, supported by the president, would have placed ATC in the hands of a non-profit organization. AIRCRAFT DELIVERIES UP IN 2017 The General Aviation Manufacturers Association’s annual report detailed promising gains for the GA industry during 2017. Highlights included piston airplane shipments, which rose 6.5 percent in comparison to 2016, and total airplane shipments, which ticked upward 2.5 percent over last year. CIRRUS VISION JET VIES FOR COLLIER TROPHY Cirrus Aircraft’s Vision SF50 is one of nine nominees under consideration for the 2017 Robert J. Collier Trophy. In the running alongside…

iOximeter Smartphone Pulse Oximeter iOximeter’s Smartphone Pulse Oximeter ($49.99) offers high-altitude flyers the opportunity to track their oxygen and pulse levels directly from their smartphones. The finger-clip oximeter, which is compatible with iPhones and iPads as well as many Android devices, connects directly to a user’s electronic device via the headphone jack and requires no power aside from that provided by the phone or tablet itself. In addition to delivering oxygen and heart rate readings, the iOximeter app allows users to set alarms that will trigger if their levels get too low or too high. The app can record continuously for 12 hours and also takes note of a user’s daily highs and lows for easy tracking and data analysis. There is no additional charge for the accompanying iOximeter app.…

When you’re VFR, choice of route and altitude is yours — except when restricted by ATC. It’s part of what frightens some VFR pilots away from Class B airspace. They fear screwing up compliance with some ATC instruction and getting in big trouble. This can lead to some huge diversions, or check-clenching, low-altitude flights, to avoid the Class B. Before you go there, see if there’s an alternative…or three. With tablet flight planning and continuous, scrolling charts, it’s easy to forget about Terminal Area Charts (TACs) and the information in the margins. Here you might find a VFR Corridor, like the Los Angeles Special Flight Rules Area. These are “tunnels” through the Class B airspace. They show a specific route and altitude you must fly, but they don’t require a…

Even though they might be technically correct, when an NTSB report cites loss of control as the cause of a crash, it’s really not much help. It’s only slightly more informative than saying that colliding with terrain was the cause of the accident. It’s not really the cause. It is the accident. We already know what happened. We want to know why it happened, why the pilot lost control. Sometimes that part gets left out because the investigator doesn’t know. Truth is, sometimes there really is no way of knowing, especially when there are no witnesses or data recorders. Most of the time, however, we have a really good idea of what caused the crash, and, sadly, the same causes come up again and again. LOSS OF BLAH, BLAH, BLAH…

It’s a given that air traffic controllers like to talk. I mean, why else would we have chosen this career? I like to talk, and to my credit, most pilots hear what I say. But the question is, how many of them hear what I mean? Over the years, I’ve spoken with pilots from around the world who want to know the answer to that second part. What do we mean by…fill-in-the-blank with your favorite confusing controller phrase. After a few questions, I can usually figure out precisely what phraseology they’re asking about. That’s the easy part. The next part is way more difficult: What did the controller really mean by it? It’s complicated. Some of it is rooted in the regs. The relevant documents, the United States’ FAA JO…

Model 35 first flight: December 22, 1945 First delivery: 1947 Years before comparable Cessna (retractable gear, opposed engine, variable speed/adjustable prop, no-strut wing) appeared: 20 Construction: All-metal*, low-wing, monoplane *Note on construction: First few dozen Bonanzas had fabric-covered flaps and ailerons Covering for flight control surfaces after that: Magnesium alloy Cruise speed of original Bonanza: 152 ktas Standard horsepower for original Bonanza: 165-hp (Continental E-185-1 engine Horsepower of today’s G-36 Bonanza: 310 (Continental IO-550G) 1949 Bonanza non-stop world record: William Odom, Bonanza A35, Hawaii to Teterboro, New Jersey, 4,957 miles, 36 hours, two minutes Throwback control: “Throw-over” yoke. One set of transferable controls for both front seaters First Beech with throw-over yoke: Model 17 Staggerwing, produced 1933-1949 Popular Bonanza modification: Dual yoke conversion Last Bonanza with throw-over yoke: 1983 Model…

When I bought my 1970 Piper Cherokee 180 and the pre-buy and annual were completed, it was time to introduce my wife to our new bird with a short flight around our area. I was hoping to make a good impression. The airplane stance was wrong as we approached our plane on the ramp. The nose was sitting way too low. Ouch. The front strut was collapsed. Because it was a Sunday afternoon, the Augusta Aviation maintenance shop was empty. I contacted the manager and was told that nothing could be done until the next day. I told my wife that our first flight would be another day, and we went out to eat. The joys of airplane ownership. The next morning, I arrived to find my strut serviced with…

Flight reviews come to all of us every couple of years, if not supplanted by an equally rigorous evaluation and training requirement. Under Federal Aviation Regulation 61.56(c), no person may act as pilot in command unless a flight review (or equivalent) has been successfully accomplished within the preceding 24 calendar months. “Successfully accomplished” means the flight instructor giving the flight review endorsed the pilot’s logbook, attesting to satisfactory completion. So much for the grizzled old aviator who says, “I’ve got so many hours that I don’t log my flying time anymore.” That’s fine, but there has to be some way to show compliance with the recent-experience requirements of FAR 61.57. And FAR 61.56(c) specifically says “…that person…has a logbook endorsed…” Thus, it would appear we have to dig out the…

I was waiting in the lobby of the local Millionaire at Long Beach Airport when an early Citation 500 lifted off runway 30 and started uphill. An older couple were waiting for their Centurion to be staged, and I overheard the pilot say to his wife, “You see that. That’s a Learjet. They can fly at the speed of sound up at 50,000 feet.” Well, no, it wasn’t, and no, they can’t, but the mistake was forgivable. It’s hardly surprising that the pilot misidentified the airplane as a Learjet. Lears have become the most iconic examples of business jets since the first model 23 took flight in 1962. Contrary to popular belief, Lears were far from the first private jets. The premier pure jet for civilians was actually a converted…

ACROSS 1: Makers of the N4050X 6: Take ___ 8: Last number in a NASA countdown 9: Was in command of the cockpit 12: Diagram used in weather analysis and forecasting 13: Memo intro 14: AOA, 3 words 17: Promotional piece 18: Making a landing you know you shouldn’t try, for example - 2 words 22: Spiral descent 24: Pen point 26: App for flight planning 31: Fluid on a maintenance checklist 33: Makers of the N77648 36: Function 37: Desert description 38: 1957 Cessna 172 ____-Tail Skyhawk 39: Mil. fliers DOWN 1: One who’s expert in aviation maintenance 2: Skill 3: Defense Department, abbr. 4: Letter that indicates compressor speed 5: Go back to 0-0-0 for example 6: Oshkosh Air Venture, the alpha and ____ of U.S. air shows…

“Descend and maintain” is such a staple of IFR communications, it might as well be a single word. Yet there are times when that’s the last thing you want to do. Maybe those clouds are bumpy, and you have the family on board. Maybe they’re icy, and you need to minimize your exposure. Maybe you just like the tailwinds where you are and want to keep them for as long as possible before you absolutely must descend to land. If ATC issues a descent you’d like to delay, reply with: “Request descent at pilot’s discretion.” IT NEVER HURTS TO ASK Pilot’s discretion on descents (or climbs) means the pilot essentially owns a block of altitude from the current one down to the new altitude. The pilot can change altitude when…

“Suddenly, it was like someone poured glue on my brain. The windshield was covered with ice. I stared unbelieving at the windshield at first, refusing to accept what I saw.” Crammed into the tiny, 18-inchwide cockpit of a Cassutt lllM, the roar enveloped me, battering my ears mercilessly. Watching the red tachometer needle dance over the dial in front of me, I saw the propeller vanish into the velocity of its own spin. The craft was alive, trembling under me with only the brakes clamping it in place on the concrete pad. The noise hammered my ears. Throttle up, brakes released, the G-force pressed me hard into the seat back as she ripped down the runway clawing at the air. Her tortured vibration smoothed as the hangars blurred by. The…

When Cirrus Aircraft launched its G6 model last January, I was impressed, and I’m not the kind of pilot to get easily impressed by an SR22. But the G6 was something different. Even with many of its advances—better flap speeds, room for three in back, and a great fit and finish—having been introduced in the previous generation, the G6 was still that much better, and the new G1000 NXi-based avionics completed the upgrade. It gave the distinct impression of an airplane reaching the pinnacle of development after more than 15 years of production. I’ve known the folks at Cirrus Aircraft since right around the time they were getting started with their first airplane, the VK-30, back in the early ’90s. If you’ve never heard of the VK-30, you’re probably dating…

I am a neonatologist (a doctor who takes care of premature and sick newborns). I accidentally got into flying in 1979, when I was in my second year of residency at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Florida. I had never thought of becoming a pilot but was invited by another resident to attend a presentation by a flight school in the hospital cafeteria. It was 7:30 at night, and I had not eaten anything all day (Jackson Memorial is the third-busiest hospital in the country after Cook County’s Chicago hospital and LA County, and it was not unusual to go all day on only a few snacks). In the cafeteria, I found a portly looking guy with a few flyers about learning how to fly and how much fun it…