Plane & Pilot November 2016

By the time you read this, there might not be quite as much buzz surrounding the remarkable film by Academy Award®-winning director Clint Eastwood and starring Academy Award®-winning actor Tom Hanks, which chronicles the so-called “Miracle on the Hudson ” Then, again, with award season getting underway, the film might be generating a different kind of buzz altogether. As everyone knows by now, the incident in question and the subject of the film was the short soggy journey of US Airways Flight 1549 captained by Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger. With the assistance of his crew, Sully brought the Airbus A320 to a safe landing on the Hudson after both engines were destroyed after ingesting much of a flock of unwitting Canada geese. The miracle, we pilots know, wasn’t a miracle at…

Active business jets in the U.S. in 2014: Approximately 12,500 (on-demand charter included)* Number in 1980: 3,000* Number projected in 2035: 20,815* First bizjet: Lockheed JetStar Year introduced: 1957, to U.S. Air Force Number of engines: Four, fuselage-mounted, two per side, 14,800 lbs. thrust total Seating: 2 crew, plus 10 passengers Max weight/speed/range of JetStar: 44,500 lbs./476 kts/3,000 nm Number produced: 200 First civilian bizjet (disputed): North American Sabreliner Number produced: 800 (600 for civilian market) Typical seating: 2 crew, plus 7 passengers Max weight/speed/range of Sabreliner: 17,760 lbs./478 kts/2,170 nm First light jet: Learjet Model 23 Meaning of the “23” designation: First Part 23 bizjet and Lear’s last Part 23 model Designation of Learjet’s follow-on: Learjet 24 (a Part 25 model, go figure) Year Model 23 introduced: 1963 Learjet…

A Yuneec View Of The World The FAA predicts 7 million pilots of Unmanned Aircraft Systems, or drone users, to be operational by 2020 (see our update on current FAA drone regs in the October issue at planeandpilotmag.com). The Yuneec Typhoon Q500 Drone with 4K HD Camera ($899.99) is designed to appeal to new users with its ease of use right out of the box, but experienced drone pilots will appreciate its advanced features. Sporting a stable quadcopter, an intuitive remote control and an integrated 4K video camera with amazing quality, the Q500 has a built-in, 12-megapixel 4K HD camera that captures smooth, steady aerial video and still images in vivid detail, with 3-axis image stabilization and the ability to record video in an immersive 130° field of view. A…

DELWYN SCHMIDT 1 Fatal The private pilot taxied out and departed for the personal flight from a private grass runway in an unregistered homebuilt airplane. A witness reported that, when the airplane reached 150 feet above the ground, the engine stopped. The pilot then turned the airplane back toward the runway, and it then dropped and impacted terrain. The airplane did not have an airworthiness certificate, and no maintenance records were found. Examination of the engine pistons found evidence of scoring, consistent with piston seizure. The accident is consistent with a loss of engine power due to piston seizure and with the pilot subsequently losing airplane control while maneuvering back to the runway. PROBABLE CAUSE: The unregistered airplane’s loss of engine power due to piston seizure. Contributing to the…

ForeFlight recently released the latest version of its über-popular aviation app and there are changes galore, including some improvements that transform the essential nature of the app. The overwhelming popularity of the do-everything mobile aviation charting app ForeFlight has prevented some reviewers from identifying the rough spots in the product, but they are there, or at least I should say they were there. With Version 8, the list of things to gripe about—at least as much as one can do with a product that’s so capable and satisfying—has greatly diminished. Drumroll: First and foremost, ForeFlight 8 now has what are called “data-driven” maps. This is a huge deal, and it represents a complete redrawing of the way the company builds the app. Data-driven maps aren’t new—both Jeppesen and Garmin have…

When you think of it, it’s a natural, incorporating a logbook utility into your favorite aviation app. After all, the app knows where and when you fly and for how long, so it can keep track of your flying even if you’re one of those pilots who could be better at keeping the logbook up to date. With its feature-packed logbook, ForeFlight has your back. Logbook, while not really new to Version 8 but still worth the mention, keeps track of your flights automatically, yet gives you the ability to add details, like the kind of approach you might have flown on that dark and stormy night. With all this data, ForeFlight does what’s arguably the most important thing of all: keeps track of your currency, including for landings, night…