Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2021 i Plane & Pilot

The president of WACO Aircraft delivered a presentation on the company’s growing facility and production capacity—they’ve averaged up to four-and-a half airplanes a year in the past, but larger facilities and efficiencies realized in their production process have boosted them to be on track for eight deliveries a year. Suprisingly, the company has also entered the food service business after the idea to create a healthy cafeteria on-site expanded to a full restaurant serving locally sourced cuisine has blossomed into a successful enterprise with WACO Kitchen. A second location is coming soon, and more airports have approached WACO with interest in similar dining setups at their locations. But the big news is, WACO Aircraft will embark on three new designs. But wait! The surprises don’t end there. WACO will add…

MyGoFlight subsidiary SkyDisplay announced that it has earned FAA STC approval for its SkyDisplay HUD (head-up display) in the Cirrus SR22, the first such approval for a HUD in a light plane. It’s a huge deal. I’ve had the chance to fly behind HUDs on about a dozen different large business aircraft or commercial jets. I’ve also had the chance to speak at length with people who have created HUDs, delving into the technical challenges behind developing and fielding them. Before I go into detail, let me just say, there is nothing simple or easy about creating a HUD, and the folks at SkyDisplay have pulled off something really big. A HUD is, of course, a way to create and/or enhance a view of the outside world by projecting an…

My husband, Dave, and I are both pilots and had been renting an aging but sturdy twin-engine Beech Baron 55. On a summer visit to his family’s condo at Lake Lure, North Carolina, the forecast was clear the whole weekend. However, a good pilot knows that unexpected weather can pop up any time. So, we weren’t surprised when our return trip forecasted thunderstorms, so we left early to stay ahead of the weather. Our pre-flight weather confirmed a front was moving up from the southwest, but we were confident that we’d get home before the front moved in. “Looking south, we could see white towers billowing up through the haze, like beautiful airborne icebergs. Beautiful, yes, but we knew they housed sharp vertical drafts, which could wreak havoc on any…

It’s rare when a passenger somehow ends up behind the controls of an aircraft they don’t know how to fly, but it happens. Most of the time, the results are tragic, but the chances of survival go up if the accidental pilot can figure out how to use the radio to reach out for help. In those cases, either another pilot in the area or air traffic control will attempt to talk them down calmly. There are at least seven known cases where an individual was able to land an aircraft they weren’t qualified to fly. One of the most incredible cases was in the 1960s, when an engineer conducting ground testing in an XM135 Lightning, one of the fastest aircraft in the world at the time, accidentally took off.…

BACKGROUND When Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier in 1947, it was one of the coolest moments in aviation history, even if it did take a while to be revealed to the public at large. The impressive feat was accomplished in the experimental Bell X-1 rocket plane, nicknamed “Glamorous Glennis” after Yeager’s wife. Designed with a streamlined fuselage and thin, unswept wings, the X-1 was dropped from the bomb bay of a Boeing B-29 Superfortress at 25,000 feet. From there, it rocketed to 40,000 feet and broke the sound barrier at 662 mph. In the years that followed, major advancements were made in supersonic aircraft technology. Yet, to date, propeller-driven aircraft have been left puttering slowly, subsonically behind. Fun FactThe “crack” sound made by whips is actually a sonic…

ACROSS 1 Engine with cylinders in motion 4 ____ Whirlwind engine 9 They can be ones to remember or ones to learn from 10 Empennages 11 What a pilot might say when troubleshooting works 13 F-16 or 7X 16 More than required, as in “thrust” 17 The h in mph 18 Creators of the awardwinning Autoland 20 They might be Fowler or slotted. 23 As well 25 Word before “down” and “dye” 26 365, for short 28 It built the IO-720s 29 ____ L-12 engine 33 State well-known for its country music, abbr. 34 Address of endearment 35 Turbine’s lowest setting (goes with 36 Across) 36 See 35 Across DOWN 1 Brit. fliers, abbr. 2 ____ Centurion 1.7 engine 3 Sound of support 5 It also builds snowmobile and watercraft…

It’s remarkable how far aircraft engines progressed after Charlie Taylor did his magic at Kill Devil Hills. Taylor was the Wright Brothers’ engine guy and, by definition, the world’s first bona fide aircraft mechanic. It’s funnier still how simple light aircraft engines have remained over the intervening 118 years. The engines in most of our Cessnas, Beechcrafts and Pipers would be completely recognizable to Taylor in 1903. The same cannot be said about large engines. Over the course of their time in development, around 10 or 20 years less than that of small engines, big powerplants have swapped technologies five or six times before settling, for the most part, on a formula that delivers ungodly amounts of power with unbelievable levels of reliability. But it wasn’t always that way. PRATT…

To say that Oshkosh AirVenture 2021 was highly anticipated is a vast understatement. It might not be wholly accurate to say that every pilot wanted to be here, but it’s not far from the truth. And the numbers of planes at Wittman Regional, home field to Oshkosh AirVenture, and when they arrived, clearly demonstrated that level of enthusiasm. It was record-setting fly-in activity. EAA head Jack Pelton said that there were around 2,000 more planes that arrived on site (so, not counting the outlying airports) by the end of Sunday, which was the day before the event officially began. It was clearly demonstratable. The camping areas by Sunday evening were jam packed, and planes were parked in places on the field where they’d never been parked before. The event was…

EAA released the final tallies for Oshkosh AirVenture 2021, and it came close to being a record-breaking year, with 608,000 visitors, more than 10,000 fly-in airplanes and a record number of warbirds and vintage planes, as well. A sightseeing plane, a de Havilland Beaver, crashed at Misty Fiords National Monument, killing the pilot and all five passengers aboard. The passengers were from a cruise ship that docked in Ketchikan. Visibility was low at the time of the crash. The NTSB is investigating. The Michigan Department of Transportation announced that the Michigan National Guard was landing its aircraft on a state highway (Michigan M-32, to be exact) west of Alpena, Michigan. A couple of the planes were a C-146 (Dornier Do-328) and an A-10 Warthog. A Super Cub taking off from…

Model 300 Pocket Carbon Monoxide Detector A life-saving device right in your pocket, the Model 300 Pocket Carbon Monoxide (CO) Detector is equipped with a loud, vibrating alarm that signals dangerous levels of CO. It has an easy-to-read backlit display that shows CO levels in 1 ppm increments up to 500 ppm. It’s light enough at 1 ounce to fit on a keychain, making it portable and easy to use. It self-checks upon start and comes with a one-year warranty. Its affordability makes it a popular item on a pilot’s must-haves list. Price: $134.95. Available at www.aircraftspruce.com. Vertical Climb T-Shirt Wear your aviation passion! Suit up for your next airshow with this Vertical Climb T-shirt, printed on all sides to show off your love for flying in 360 degrees. Part…

I NEVER FAIL, AT SOME TIME DURING AN introduction of flying to an eager student, to point out the linkage of engine power and the airplane’s attitude. Without the correct mix of these two elements, I stress, successful outcomes are impossible. “This,” I intone, “is the E=mc2 of aviation—Power Plus Attitude Equals Performance,” finger-writing my words on an imaginary chalkboard. However, there is a third ingredient in our ability to execute flight: “Energy Management.” Taking a basic understanding of the primal relationship of attitude and power, and then managing those two inputs is the essence of flying. Therefore, whenever I’m asked, “What does it take to make an airplane fly?” I always reply, “Power, Attitude and Energy Management.” Fighter pilots locked in mortal combat with a wily opponent know that…

WITH THE TENS OF THOUSANDS OFairplane models that have been built and flown since the days of the Brothers Wright, how is it even possible to come up with a list of the greatest planes of them all? It’s a fair question, and it’s one we’ve spent a great deal of time discussing before we even embarked upon the journey. At first glance, the exercise seems a bit silly. After all, planes come in so many different shapes and sizes, with an equal number of mission types to match. How could you possibly choose just one? But the more we thought about it, the more sense it made to us. To start with, we needed to acknowledge that there are a lot of great airplanes. There are also a lot…