Índice para February 2018 em Flying

Aviation educators John and Martha King have long preached that general aviation doesn’t have a “safety” problem, it has a “risk management” problem. In his column last month, John underscored his long-held conviction that we shouldn’t even be using the word safety in aviation. “Flying is not safe,” he says. It’s the “big lie” that general aviation pilots have been telling themselves for years. The real issue, he contends, is that pilots don’t do a good job of assessing and mitigating the risks they are taking. John is exactly right. But I’m here to tell you about another big lie in aviation. The fact is, a great many pilots aren’t as interested in mitigating the risks of flying as they are maximizing the rewards. They don’t say it out loud,…

Unless you are flying an LSA, pulling the airplane in or out of the hangar or moving it to a specific spot can be more of a workout than you might have bargained for, particularly if there is any slope to speak of or the fuel tanks are full. Best Tugs makes it easy with its full range of electric tugs. The company recently introduced the Alpha tug, its smallest model yet. The standard Alpha is designed for light single-engine airplanes; it can pull 3,000 pounds. The upgraded Alpha Plus is capable of moving up to 4,500 pounds. The motor on the Alpha Plus has 50 percent more torque than the base model, making the tug quicker too. A feature called pulse-width modulation (PWM) ensures that the tug produces full…

If you’ve ever sat in a window seat aboard a commercial airliner, one with engines slung beneath the wings, you’ve probably had a ringside seat to view the thrust reverser operations, normally one for each engine. Reverse thrust, working in conjunction with brakes and ground spoilers dumping lift from the wings, helps bring the aircraft to a halt in the shortest distance possible. Thrust reversers are created in a number of styles, including clamshell, target or cascade type. The action begins after touchdown when the thrust reversers — two large, rounded pieces of metal consisting of an upper and lower door, sometimes called buckets — begin sliding back from the rear of each engine in a move called deployment. The reverser panels align themselves near vertically to form a clamshell-like…

RELEVANT DISCUSSION: FAR 91.126(B), 91.127(A), AIM 4-3-1 THROUGH 4-3-5, P/C GLOSSARY, AC 90-66, FAA-H-8083-16, 8083-25T LANDING AT AIRPORTS IN CLASS G OR E AIRSPACE — AIRPORTS WITHOUT AN OPERATING CONTROL TOWER: 1. Even pilots on an instrument approach — once they have visual contact with the airport — must follow the regulatory and/ or local rules concerning left or right turns in the traffic pattern at airports without an operating control tower. 2. Aircraft approaching to land at an airport in Class G or E airspace must make all turns to the left unless visual markings or lights (or the chart supplement) indicate right turns. 3. “Straight-in” approaches are permitted and are legal — as long as they do not interfere with other aircraft operating in the appropriate left or…

“Almost all fatal flying accidents are caused by loss of control during a turn.”—Wolfgang Langewiesche, Stick and Rudder, 1944 The National Transportation Safety Board’s decision to add “loss of control” to its 10 Most Wanted list of safety improvements in 2015 served as another clarion call for help to stem what has become the top killer in airplanes of all shapes and sizes. While pilots losing control of their aircraft is not a new problem, a number of high-profile commercial aviation accidents — including the 2009 crash of Continental Flight 3407 in Buffalo, New York — brought the topic front and center to pilots over the past decade, with the NTSB’s listing putting a harsh spotlight on the issue. The Buffalo accident led to Public Law 111-216, which will soon…

AURORA ENCOUNTER Boeing 777 first officer Bradley Aiken shared with us this image he captured recently while en route high over Edmonton in Alberta, Canada. “It was honestly surreal,” he said of the encounter, his first time seeing the Northern Lights. “When I watched it start to form, I questioned whether I was just tired and seeing things. Sure enough, the farther north we flew, the more the lights developed, and that was when I took out my camera. We had turned the cockpit lights all the way down, and it was an incredible feeling just to sit in a quiet cockpit and watch something I’d dreamed of seeing as a kid.” Have a compelling photo you’d like to see printed in Sign Off? Send it to us at edit@flyingmag.com.…

DEALING WITH DISTRACTIONS Les Abend illustrates one of the most pernicious safety issues in modern airliner flying: pre-departure flight deck distractions [“The Vomit Comet,” November]. As illustrated by Capt. Abend, many of these are unavoidable, and while they are a safety concern in major airliners, pre-departure distractions are a particular concern to regional airline operations. In regional operations, turns at the outstations at my airline are scheduled for 25 minutes. That’s 25 minutes to deplane the passengers, offload bags, on-load bags, enplane passengers, service the jet and complete FMS programming, finish pre-departure briefs, digest a flight release that often literally is 10 feet long and get the door closed. With such time pressure, flight deck distractions pose a significant safety issue and must be managed. In my 22 years of…

Delivering on a promise set when the airplane was first announced in 2013, Pilatus Aircraft achieved both FAA and EASA certification before the end of last year for its PC-24 Super Versatile Jet. Not only did the Swiss company keep its promise in terms of the timeline, but it also over-achieved on some key performance numbers. “The PC-24 delivers a maximum speed of 440 knots compared to the contractually agreed 425 knots — to cite just one example,” said Pilatus chairman Oscar J. Schwenk. Pilatus produced three test airplanes for the certification effort, with 2,205 hours of flight testing in the books. As with all certification work for aircraft in this category, the PC-24 was put through testing at the edge of the flight envelope, flying through icing and extreme…

With light-sport aircraft manufacturers seemingly popping up all over the world like mushrooms sprouting after a good rainfall, you may wonder why any company would decide to get into this saturated market. In fact, light-sport guru Dan Johnson currently lists 143 LSA models on his bydanjohnson.com website. But after Glasair was bought by the Chinese Jilin Hanxing Group in 2012, the Arlington, Washington-based company decided to enter the market anyway. The plan was to design and build an LSA primarily for the budding Chinese market, but the airplane could very well become a winner here in the United States as well. Like the predatory bird from which the name of Glasair’s new LSA stems, the Merlin is small and light, and has a certain fierceness about it as well. Similar…

During the winter months, when the temperatures drop in Northern climes, the sky turns gray and days are cut short as the sun spends more time on the opposite side of the equator, there are fewer opportunities to fly for most of us. Airplanes begin to collect dust, and some engines even get pickled as owners succumb to the fact that they won’t fly for several months. For other airplane owners, the coldest season presents some of the most enjoyable flying experiences of all. These pilots trade their wheels or floats for skis, and take to the skies with a whole new perspective. “It’s a great way to fly year-round,” says Steven Schwister, owner of TrickAir Skis. Fields, dirt roads, meadows, lakes and even rivers become prime makeshift airstrips for…

For pilots who want to listen in on aviation radio frequencies while also having the choice to listen to their favorite audio, Sporty’s Pilot Shop has introduced the Air Scan aviation radio. The unit features high-quality built-in speakers plus the ability to plug in a headset or external speaker. The radio can scan aviation frequencies for activity, or you can program in up to 10 preset stations. An Aviation Interrupt feature lets you listen to music or a ballgame on the AM/FM radio that will be paused momentarily anytime a transmission is received over the scanned aviation frequency band. The feature we liked best was the ability to pair a smartphone or other wireless device to the unit to pipe Bluetooth audio to the Air Scan radio. We imagine the…

Sometimes, a single customer is afforded the opportunity to define what a new airplane will be. That was certainly true for FedEx Express, which asked Textron Aviation to develop an all-new utility twin to serve its feeder routes. The result is the newly announced Cessna SkyCourier 408 utility twin, an airplane reminiscent of a Twin Otter but with a modern pedigree that will make it the ideal package hauler. Cessna engineers essentially started out by taking three standard LD3 shipping containers and building an airplane around them. The SkyCourier will feature a large rear cargo door and pilot and copilot doors up front. Preliminary performance specifications call for a 6,000-pound max payload capability, 200 ktas cruise speed and 900 nm max range, all numbers that put the new model in…

I was irritated to receive a phone call assigning me to a flight the next day, which was both my wedding anniversary and Thanksgiving, but such is the life of a charter pilot. I would be riding right seat in our Piaggio Avanti with its regular captain, Mike, taking a family on a last-minute flight to Memphis, Tennessee, for the holiday. Little did I know just how much of an influence that one day would have on me throughout the rest of my career. Moving into professional aviation in my mid-30s, I had become a CFI four years earlier, and had just about completed my first year of employment as a pilot for a local charter company. I had also just completed my first “school,” Beechcraft King Air 200 Part…