Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2021 i Plane & Pilot

THE MYSTERY What happened to the British South American Airlines (BSAA) flight that disappeared on Jan. 17, 1949, and could its fate be tied to that of another BSAA flight that vanished almost exactly a year earlier? BACKGROUND It was an otherwise lovely Monday morning when Captain John Clutha McPhee prepared his Avro 688 Tudor Mark IV aircraft, Star Ariel, for a flight from Kindley Field, Bermuda, to Kingston, Jamaica. The weather was idyllic across the planned route—calm, clear skies with no incoming storms. Star Ariel was supposed to be grounded that day, but the plane originally scheduled for the flight, BSAA Star Lion, had suffered an engine failure on its approach to Bermuda, though it had landed without incident. With 13 passengers and six additional crew onboard, the Avro…

WHEN I STOPPED BY ICON’S EXHIBITION SPACE AT OSHKOSH in July to say hi and meet some of the new folks at the company, I wasn’t really prepared for what I found. The company has transformed itself, and I say this even though I went into the meeting knowing that it had. The breadth of the change, the apparent commitment to safety that’s driving it, and a commitment to transparency wholly lacking in years past were on full display. Smiles. Friendly back-and-forth. Real answers to tough questions. I was and remain impressed. But the thing that captured my imagination was the company’s new app, called Icon SMART, that prompts a pilot to input the major risks associated with the proposed flight and, at the end of the process, issues a…

This year’s Plane & Pilot Plane of the Year is the Diamond DA50, the big single from the Austrian plane maker that has been more than a decade in development, which makes its certification by EASA last year even more meaningful, seeing that it was so hard fought. It’s one of the most unusual and, in some ways, compelling piston singles to emerge in decades. If the year 2020 was a hard one for general aviation, and it was, for manufacturers, 2021 was even tougher. Plane builders were hardly immune to the kind of global pressures we’ve heard so much about, including scarce materials, supply chain disruptions, worker shortages and reduced FAA availability, all of which have conspired to make it hard to build existing designs, let alone develop and…

Becoming a pilot, whether as a hobby or a career, is a dream shared by many, and rightfully so—defying gravity in a big metal bird is incredibly fulfilling! Unfortunately, achieving that dream can often require deep pockets and, for some, the costs are prohibitive. Earning a private pilot certification can run the average flight student well over $10,000, a number quadrupled, or more, for a commercial certificate. While scholarships and grants are available, they are generally reserved for those on the career track and aren’t easy to come by. As a result, fewer people are taking to the sky these days, and some small airports are being forced to close up shop. Even the airline industry is suffering, with current predictions that it will be short more than 12,000 commercial…

SOME AIRPLANES ARE UBIQUITOUS and ordinary, attracting mostly temporary followers until replaced by something more desirable. Others ignite fires of passion upon their introduction, dying down to smolder after the initial blaze. And then there are the true cult airplanes, those for whom devotees never waiver in their loyalty. Put down the plucky little Mooney M20 series as belonging in the latter category. Mooney owners truly believe in their plane, and they stand by it through thick and thin—and there’s been a lot of thin in Mooney’s history. Those of us who enjoy rooting for the underdog have certainly been kept busy over the company’s checkered times. How did Mooney Aircraft (under various corporate names) manage to survive over its 70-odd years of existence? For one thing, it has always…

Rolls-Royce has made the first flight of its all-electric Spirit of Innovation experimental plane, with which it intends to establish an all-out speed record for an all-electric piloted aircraft. The program is chock-a-block with acronyms, many of which are about the company’s desire to promote its green initiatives—Rolls-Royce is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of fossil fuel-burning large-jet engines. Spirit of Innovation took off from Boscombe Down airfield and flew for “approximately 15 minutes,” a length of time that was once common for first flights, though today they tend to be much longer, allowing the test pilots—the pilot of this single-place plane was not named in Rolls-Royce’s release—to complete tasks on the flight test card. In this case, the short first flight, not much more time than to do…

ACROSS 1 Vintage military planes 6 DA 40 Tundra ____ 9 Expert flier 11 Lockheed’s P-80 ____ ____ (2 words) 12 Any lighter-than-air craft that is powered and steerable 13 Sun Devils’ school, abbr. 14 Popular 15 Light wind 17 Gee or Bumble plane 19 In a crosswind or tailwind, this can be tricky 20 Hinged metal cover over an engine 24 Coat or soup 25 Electric urban air taxis 27 Aviation acronym for required 28 Instability in the atmosphere DOWN 1 Apple state, abbr. 2 The document stating the level of required achievement, abbr. 3 Bring back on board in a company 4 Mechanical horizon enabler (2 words) 5 Bounce, in basketball 7 Japanese aviation company offering a multicopter kit aircraft 8 Send a plane to a different airport,…

Ask any pilot what they struggled with most in their training, and I bet the majority will say, “The radio.” My first 22 years in aviation were spent as a maintenance technician of one sort or another. I’ve been an avionics tech, A&P, IA and director of maintenance (D.O.M.). I’ve spent a lot of time taxiing jets around various-sized airports, mostly GSO and CLT, so I felt pretty confident about my radio skills. Until I started flying. I showed up for my first flying lesson in the mighty Aeronca Champ early in February 2017. When my instructor and I talked about communications, I proudly declared that I was already familiar with using a radio, and I felt pretty good about it. My instructor hand-propped the airplane, got in the back…

PILOTS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN ABLE TO TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS as they were flying, but it wasn’t easy, and it was, at times, questionably smart. But the advent of the camera phone (along with the meteoric rise in its ability to capture not good but great photographs) has allowed pilots to snap away. The results are wonderful, as you will see—a window into the flights that our friends make, a glimpse of the beauty that formerly we could only describe, which was always a poor substitute. So, to all who entered our Wingtip Wonders photo contest, thank you! And to our finalists and winners, thanks, and congratulations! FIRST PLACE The judges for our Wingtip Wonders photo contest were unanimous in selecting Mark Paulda’s brilliant skyscape that we are calling “Sunset Connection.” In…