Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2016 i Plane & Pilot

The passage into law of the 3rd class pilot medical certification just last week as I write has changed the way hundreds of thousands of pilots will get their medicals. It’s a fundamental change in regulations for private aviation that I’ve been pushing for these past 20 years, and it’s finally here. Victory for the good guys, with props to EAA and AOPA for getting behind it with their own years-long lobbying efforts. Your membership dollars at work. Hooray. The reaction in the industry has been one of unreserved optimism, with few exceptions—thank goodness for the few curmudgeons still taking a skeptical view of aviation’s evolution. I guess, in this case, I’m one of them. So I’m not misunderstood, let me make it clear that I, too, view the reform…

As I stood in front of 15 excited and anxious student pilots in the first meeting of my private pilot ground school class last fall, I started to lose their attention as I kicked off a discussion on navigation tips, tools and techniques. The majority of them didn’t have one hour of flight instruction in an aircraft, as many of them used this class as their initial introduction to aviation. With this, it was my job to deliver the information required to pass the private pilot written exam over the course of 12 classes in a clear, concise and interesting manner that was engaging and, ideally, memorable. Rewinding to a few years ago, perhaps one of the pivotal moments in my learning experience as a student pilot was realizing that…

We recently got the chance to fly with David Clark’s new DC ONE-X headset, and it is at the very least a product that a lot of pilots will want to consider before making their next headset purchase. The latest product from the legendary Worchester, Massachusetts, company, the DC ONE-X sells at online retail sites for right around $900. Like all of the company’s headsets, the latest model seeks to find a pilot niche that makes sense by providing a great product at a good price. If David Clark were to have a motto, it might be “different missions, different headsets.” Indeed, it’s hard to find a company with a broader range of headset products for pilots who fly different kinds of aircraft on different kinds of missions. It will…

Pilots on reserve are used to the phone ringing constantly. They’re the pinch hitters and relief pitchers of the airline world. I was signing in for my trip when the company called. It wasn’t scheduling explaining that my trip had changed—it was my chief pilot calling from his office a few yards away. “Let me walk across the hallway and we’ll talk in person” I said. This wasn’t going to be a fun conversation. From across his desk, my chief pilot told me the same story he’d shared all morning as he called other first officers. I don’t recall precisely his words, but the letter that came a day later has a forever home in my “do not trash” box: …It is for this reason that with sincere regret I…

I’m sitting in a hotel in Waco, Texas, watching what has been advertised as tornado weather blow through. Virtually all flying at Waco Regional, including my appointment to fly the Blackhawk King Air 200, has been canceled for the day because of the threat of tornados. As I sit in my room, watching the Brazos River race by below and thunderstorms gallop past overhead, somehow only appropriate in Texas, I can’t help but marvel once again at the simple majesty of clouds. Victims of a tornado or thunderstorm may fail to see the beauty, but if you have the luxury of viewing nature’s whirlwinds from a safe distance, it’s almost impossible not to be impressed. As late afternoon morphs to evening and the sky darkens, I can begin to distinguish…

“While the accident would have been avoided if one of the pilots had seen and avoided the other aircraft...it also would have been avoided if any of the contributing factors identified by the NTSB, and some not singled out, weren’t lined up waiting to entrap an unsuspecting pilot.” No one is surprised when the NTSB declares that the probable cause of a midair collision is the failure of one or both of the pilots to see and avoid the other aircraft. The statement is used so often that it has become an aviation safety cliché. In its recent report on the collision of a Cirrus SR22 and a Robinson R44 II helicopter near Maryland’s Frederick Municipal Airport (KFDK), the Safety Board said it again. They also identified several contributing factors.…

CESSNA 180 Skywagon 1 Fatal The private pilot was conducting a personal cross-country flight in instrument meteorological conditions. The airplane wasn’t certificated for flight into icing. A review of radar data and radio communications recordings revealed that, after an air traffic controller issued the pilot a descent from 10,000 to 8,000 ft. msl, the pilot reported that he was having engine trouble and had encountered possible icing. The pilot subsequently declared an emergency, and 3 minutes later, radar contact and communication with the airplane were lost. A day after the accident, search and rescue personnel found the remains of the pilot along the eastern shoreline of Culross Island. The left main landing gear strut and tire were also recovered. The rest of the airplane wasn’t located, and it’s presumed to…

There are a lot of reasons why I love to fly, but the one that’s the foundation of them all is freedom. In airplanes, as in dreams, I rise above the mountains and the mundane. I can see over the trees. I’m in charge and in control of my destination, my destiny. The world becomes accessible, smaller. And because I’m lucky enough to fly in this country, I can go where I want and when I want. When I open the hangar and look at my 1959 V-tail Bonanza, I don’t see a collection of metal parts; I see a flying work of modern art capable of opening a world of possibilities to me. Where will it take me, how far will I go? A friend of mine just flew…

As in other parts of life, in flying we count on numbers, infinite streams of digits, or more to the point these days, ones and zeroes, describing what we do in the physical world, and in the operational one, too. With due deference to poets and screenwriters, aerodynamicists explain how we fly not in terms of wonder and joy, but by using math. Numbers define our airfoils and rotation speeds, our winds aloft and ILS minimums, our fuel burn and estimated time enroute. Numbers rule, and rule absolutely if we look deeply enough. If rotation speed varies from takeoff to takeoff, it’s not because the math changes, but because there are other variables—temperature, runway surface, tire inflation or bugs on the leading edge—to be taken into account or, if lacking…