Innholdsfortegnelse for January/February 2019 i Plane & Pilot

What a glider is: Non-powered aircraft that is not lighter than air Derivation of the term “glider:” Unknown Other common term for gliding: Soaring Difference: In soaring, pilots gain altitude in flight Glide ratio, Cessna 172: 9:1 Best high-performance sailplane: Better than 70:1 Northern flying squirrel: 2:1 Steinway Piano: Infinitely poor zero:1 Methods for altitude gain: Rising air (thermals), updrafts from terrain (ridge lift) First claimed glider flight reports: Monks in England, around the year 1000 Reported distance of the flights: 200 meters Likelihood of reports being true: About zero First credible short glider flights: Around 1849, George Cayley Aeronautical principles Cayley identified: Four forces (lift, drag, thrust and gravity), the cambered airfoil, dihedral and others Pioneer of gliding: Otto Lilienthal First flights: Germany, early 1890s Launch pad: Man-made hill…

ACROSS 1 Cessna 404 4 Flight Deck 8 Kid of “Easter” with rain and wind 9 One goes on the cover of Plane & Pilot 10 Kind of “track” you fly over lots of water 11 Triumphs over 13 Late aerobatics great Loudenslager 14 Two hated letters when it comes to FAA orders 15 DME ___ 16 Pertaining to birds 17 ___flight checklist 18 Several LSA versions of this are in the works 19 Stuff that Cubs and Huskys like to play in 21 Scheduled to arrive 23 ___ Aviation, beleaguered maker of Eclipse Jet 25 PIREP, for example 27 Light Sport aircraft from Flight Design 31 Strong lightweight material used in plane construction, 2 words DOWN 1 Their over-the-nose visibility is not great 2 What ADS-B is all about…

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IF THERE’S A PLACE in this country where flying is still fun, where people become inspired by airplanes, and where aviation friendships are made, it’s at the High Sierra Fly-In. Not far from the Black Rock Desert, the High Sierra Fly-In is a larger-than-life flying event where pilots can be found emerging from tents at 6 a.m. on a Saturday morning in October, wiping playa dust from their eyes, starting up bush planes with big tires, and flying formation around the back country. By nightfall, the same pilots enjoy food and drink next to a roaring bonfire, light off fireworks, and tell epic “so there I was” stories. It’s a fly-in with a Burning Man-Meets-Oshkosh vibe, big enough for sponsorships and big-money raffle prizes yet small enough to maintain the…

The first time I flew a small airplane with TAWS on my own and at night was on a trip to Southern California about 10 years ago with my family in a brand-new Mooney Ovation with the Garmin G1000 flight deck with terrain awareness and warning system (TAWS) built in. I’d flown with TAWS before, but it had always been during the day. On that long trip, we’d be arriving later in the day, and with the shorter days of winter, it would be dark by the time we arrived. And it was. The airport we were flying into, Apple Valley, California, was and is surrounded by granite in all four directions, but because I was familiar with the field and because I was current at night, it seemed a…

Back in 1963, when a young Bob Dylan pulled out his Gibson flattop guitar and started singing a folksy tune that would become the anthem for a generation, a song entitled The Times They Are A-Changin’, it was at about the same time that the first Learjets were emerging. And while the song didn’t specifically discuss the subject of future air transportation, it was about how the world was changing in ways that no one was ready for, so we’d better all get prepared for things we couldn’t even fully imagine at the time. In 2018, after all these years, all I can say is, it’s still a good point, Bob. Though Dylan wasn’t the opening act back in October at the National Business Aviation Association Business Aviation Convention &…

THRUSH AIRPLANE GAINS FAA CERTIFICATION The new Thrush 510G Switchback, a single-engine air tanker that can deliver 500 gallons of fire retardant and land on unimproved surfaces, received its official certification from the FAA in late October. The model is already being put to use, with the first two 510G airplanes delivered to the Georgia Forestry Commission. NBAA WRAPS UP ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL CONFERENCE In October, NBAA/BACE 2019 wrapped its three-day run at the Orlando Orange County Convention Center, once again hosting a thousand exhibitors, attendees from nearly 100 countries, more than 100 aircraft on static display and countless educational, networking and other opportunities. GE MAKES PROGRESS ON AFFINITY ENGINE General Electric has completed the first design phase of a new supersonic engine that will meet Stage 5 noise and environmental…

Circle-to-land approaches get a bad rap. Granted, they earned it by breaking a bunch of aircraft, and they can lure the unprepared out of bounds in an eye-blink. Yet to say, “I never circle-to-land…” can be just as dangerous as going cavalier because circling approaches aren’t one-size-fits-all. Best case, a circling approach is essentially ending your instrument approach by flying a traffic pattern to the runway of your choice. We don’t think of joining the downwind in visual conditions as circling, but it is. Few people would call that an inherently a risky maneuver. Of course, conditions may dictate flying the “pattern” lower than normal—potentially within 300 feet of the ground. (Well, within 300 feet of the highest obstacle, but you get the idea.) This could be done in low…

When was the last time you buckled yourself into the cockpit of your plane, tuned in the ATIS, prepared to taxi and thought, “I wonder if I’m going to hit a drone when I take off today?” The answer is probably never, and that may be appropriate for 2018. The chance of a collision with a drone today is probably less than being hit by a bus as you cross the street or winning Powerball, or both of those things happening at the same instant. The problem is that the odds are going to get higher for drone/aircraft collisions, as the numbers and types of aircraft occupying our airspace are expected to increase dramatically soon, with most of that increase expected to be due to drones. Drones are here to…

You might call the approach to the runway at Funchal, Madeira Islands, Portugal, challenging, especially if you’re flying on an even modestly windy day. In my case, I went into Funchal in a typical wind event, flying a new Cessna T303 Crusader, a medium twin intended to compete head-to-head with Piper’s wildly successful Seneca. It was December of 1981, and “my” Cessna T303 was the first Crusader to be ferried overseas. My destination was Johannesburg, South Africa, roughly halfway around the world. Under contract to Globe Aero of Lakeland, Florida, I’d picked up the airplane at the Cessna factory in Wichita and hurried down to Lakeland for tanking. Two days later, I flew the Crusader to Bangor, Maine, then on to St. John’s, Newfoundland, the following day. The next leg…

A certain theory about contrails holds that these long linear clouds presumably produced as a by-product of high-altitude flight of aircraft are often in actuality chemical weapons being used against the populace. It might sound crazy, but a recent survey revealed that around 10 percent of respondents believed whole-heartedly that chemtrails were a real phenomenon, and 20 percent believed the theory at least in part. Are these folks deluded, or is there something to the contrail theory? THE BACKSTORY Anthropogenic, or homogenitus, clouds, are those made by human activity instead of by natural forces. The history of anthropogenic clouds is a long one, dating back at least to the beginning of the industrial revolution, when clouds formed above industrial plants, still a common occurrence today. But by far the most…

“[I] made an announcement that I would be over-flying the field from west to east at a thousand feet. It was a Friday morning and I didn’t observe any other traffic, so I expected to continue my route of flight, uninterrupted. In that moment, how was I to know that my whole life was on the brink of changing forever?” I recently heard a friend say that she wasn’t ready to get another dog because she was still very sad about the loss of her previous dog about a year earlier. A few months back, a different friend told me that he was reluctant to try online dating because he didn’t want to get hurt. Entering the dating arena placed him and his vulnerability front and center. We sometimes say…

There’s no difference between flying in daylight and flying at night—except you can’t see anything. So goes the sage advice from my old flight instructor, and he’s essentially right. The airplane doesn’t know or care that its pilot is visually impaired during the hours of darkness. It performs and responds just as it does in daytime. However, we, as the human pilot, are the weak link in the conduct of successful night flight. Accordingly, we must respect our limitations, and they are manifestly increased when we fly in the dark. We are supremely blessed with our freedom to fly as we choose in the United States, and this liberty extends to the FAA’s tolerance of night flight. The FARs make few restrictions on our ability to fly after sundown, mandating…

When I was growing up in Japan, China was known as Red China, a forbidden land. My family and I occasionally sailed out of Yokohama on an American President Line cruise ship to Hong Kong. We sailed through the Straits of Formosa, followed by dolphins numbering in the thousands, and I was fascinated to see, like a mirage, the mysterious China mainland and small Chinese fishing boats precariously crossing our path. I asked the crew if the boats ever got run over by the ships in the passage, and the answer was “sometimes.” Why was China forbidden? Were there really so many people? Why were the communists so xenophobic? Those were the questions I asked. So recently, when the invitation came to fly an airshow in China’s Autonomous Region of…

“I loved that plane from afar, as I frequently watched it flying at airshows all over Europe as the French military had set up a demonstration team, Cartouche Doré, that wowed the crowds on many occasions.” As for so many pilots, it all started for me in a C-150. My very first flight in the small Cessna trainer was one I’ve never forgotten. In an extreme climb, my pilot friend took me high up, ending the climb with a stall. “That is what happens when you force an aircraft to stop flying,” he said after he took the aircraft out of its misery to head back to the airfield. I was immediately hooked on flying, with or without the aerobatics. I never progressed further into flying than obtaining a private…