Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2018 i Plane & Pilot

First bombing: 1911, just eight years after the first flight by the Wrights Place: Libya (Italo-Turkish War) Payload: specially designed steel bombs containing picric acid. Casualties: zero First purpose-built bombers: 1913, Bristol T.B. 8 (British) and the Caproni Ca. 30 (Italian) First use in war: November 25, 1914 Maximum Payload: 120 pounds First strategic bombing: WWI, city of Antwerp, Belgium Other WWI bombers: 1915, Zeppelins, which dropped bombs on towns near London Deaths from these attacks: 557 Max payload: approximately 8,000 pounds Loss rate for Zeppelins: 40 percent Casualties from bombing in WWII: as many as 5 million on all sides Most-produced bomber WWII: Consolidated B-24 Liberator, 18,482 built Top speed: 290 mph Number of airworthy B-24s remaining worldwide: 2 Most famous WWII Allied Bomber: Boeing B-17 Liberator, 12,731 produced…

My first flying lesson was in a Piper J-3 floatplane on the Hudson River in 1967. That exciting day led to a private pilot license and 300 hours of land plane time. I often returned to that Peekskill seaplane base on the Hudson to admire a Lake Amphibian based there. One day the owner invited me for a ride. We taxied down the wooden ramp into the Hudson and, without ground or tower radio contact, we were airborne in minutes. That was the day I decided I wanted a Lake of my own. So when I moved to British Columbia in 1974, I was delighted to find an ad in the Vancouver Sun offering a 20 percent share in a new Lake for $5,000. I called Ed, the Western Canada…

If I am called upon to evaluate a pilot’s airmanship, the one series of maneuvers I’d like to see is a crosswind takeoff, circuit and landing. That tells me if the person at the controls truly has gained command of the aircraft, because airplanes do not cope with a sideways wind on their own. Left to their own devices, they will be happy to depart the narrow confines of the runway, drifting away under the influence of an angled wind. Of course, we were all taught the rudiments of crosswind operation in the early days of our piloting career, but it never hurts to review the basics of hands-on flying. The objective, during any runway operation, is to maintain landing gear alignment with the aircraft’s track, which hopefully will be…

ACROSS 1 Makers of the SR22 4 The L in LSA 8 American Air fighters, abbr. 9 Adding ____ increase stall speed, 2 words 11 Snoop 12 Pulled off 13 How to pull out of a high speed dive 16 It’s measured in knots 18 Alien flier, in film 20 Where every aircraft flight terminates 22 What an “Iron” instrument does 26 Pilot’s medium 27 Specially made for one client 28 Aircraft landing area, for short 31 What most “jet” engines use 32 BRM ____, a carbon fiber sport plane 34 Communications authority, abbr. 35 Once around the course 36 Sudden increase 37 A tower controller might tell you to “keep them square” DOWN 1 Useful safety feature on small aircraft 2 Indicates, as a gauge on the instrument panel…

Plane Industries Boeing 737 Cowling Chair The Boeing 737 Cowling Chair from Plane Industries allows flying enthusiasts the opportunity to enjoy a unique piece of aviation within their own homes. Built using a refurbished 737 engine cowling, the design pairs the polished metal frame of the former powerplant with a dark leather interior for a striking contrast and chic aesthetic. The large cowling stands in the same orientation as it did in its former life on the ubiquitous airliner, making for a bowl-like chair that spans a whopping 6.5 feet in height, depth and width. The seat rotates atop a spun aluminum base. The chair is one of several furniture pieces crafted by Plane Industries in Bath, U.K. Some of the company’s other offerings include clocks, tables and cabinets, all…

“The shrapnel exploded through the thick aluminum fuselage and whizzed through the air at full speed, lodging itself into the airman’s boot with such an impact that it immediately and forcefully threw him off his feet.” That’s how the pilot of the B-17, Madras Maiden, described the horrors that the Flying Fortress’ crewmembers faced flying missions into Nazi Germany during World War II as we climbed into the nearly 80-year old Boeing heavy bomber. My interest in the 10-man-crewed bomber began long before when I became acquainted with the most famous B-17 of them all, Memphis Belle, and later became even more fascinated by the Flying Fortress when I had a chance to tour the National Air Force Museum at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, in 2006. Maybe it was…

The FAA has released updated guidance on how we pilots are expected to fly traffic patterns, and the updates are fairly extensive and for the most part really smart, too. Here’s a breakdown of some of the biggest changes contained in the new document, Advisory Circular 90-66B. Altitudes: The FAA has long given license to airport operators to set their traffic pattern at non-standard heights. Most patterns for piston planes were 1,000 AGL (or thereabouts) but many were 800 feet and some were even lower than that. The new rule calls for those patterns to all be 1,000 ft AGL unless there’s a good reason for them not to be such as obstacles or competing airspace. Turbines would be at 1,500 feet AGL with similar caveats, and ultra-lights are to…

JUST AIRCRAFT SHOWCASES ULTRALIGHT The company behind the Just 103 — a single-seat, sub 254-pound aircraft designed to fall within the FAA’s Part 103 requirements for ultralights — put the airplane on display this spring. The bare-bones flier, which maxes out at a top speed of 63 mph, will be available in both kit and pre-built versions. SIEMENS TO POWER ALL-ELECTRIC SUN FLYER 2 A Siemens SP70D motor will serve as the power source for Bye Aerospace’s Sun Flyer 2, which seeks to use renewable energy to deliver lower operating costs for GA fliers. The electric motor offers a 90 kW peak rating (115 hp) and a 70 kW continuous rating (90 hp). GARMIN PILOT GETS NEW FEATURES Garmin Pilot 9.3 rolls out several new updates aimed at enhancing pilot…

There’s many a VFR pilot who flies an IFR-equipped aircraft. If this describes your aviation situation, then a valuable skill for your longevity is loading an instrument approach for a VFR arrival at night. Remember that an approach that names a runway has straight-in minimums and a final approach course aligned within 30 degrees of the runway. Usually, it’s aligned perfectly with the runway. Select and load the approach, usually using a PROC button on most modern GPS units, and then activate vectors-to-final. This provides a magenta line in the night to help you orient to that runway until you see the lights. Extended runways on a tablet do the same for you, but it’s easier to have it up on the GPS or MFD when you’re tired and ready…

It would be fair to say that, since the Rotax 912 arrived onto the general aviation scene 29 years ago (in 1989), the Nine-series of Rotax engines have transformed GA. At first, it was an engine used solely in homebuilt aviation, as the LSA category was still 15 years in the future. In Europe and amidst a busy U.S. light sport scene, the engine was a godsend. It speaks highly of the vision of the company that Rotax had the foresight to predict the need for a relatively light-weight yet powerful engine. With its innovative design of air-cooled cylinders but liquid-cooled heads, relatively small capacity and a mechanical reduction gearbox, the Rotax was a whole different animal from the reliable air-cooled Lycoming and Continental engines that most of us grew…