Índex per February 2017 a Flying

FOR THE INTERACTIVE VERSION OF CHART WISE, VISIT FLYINGMAG.COM/CHARTWISE. FLYING DOWN TO MINIMUMS Many instrument procedures, such as ILS approaches, allow you to fly your airplane very close to the ground while in clouds. When the decision altitude or decision height is as low as 100 to 200 feet above the ground, it is particularly critical to know the approach procedure and make sure that your altimeter is indicating correctly. Here are some tips on how to fly down to minimums while keeping it safe.…

Just a little bit lower.” Those words are a great way to star in an NTSB accident report (right up there with “watch this”), since they usually precede a dangerous maneuver. While low passes are certainly not a new invention, the motivation for them seems to have evolved lately, and we can thank the smartphone. Instead of showing off to a friend on the ground, the goal is to get the perfect picture for Facebook. After all, life nowadays is measured in likes. It’s easy to understand the temptation: We each carry in our pocket a device that would have been the best camera on the planet 20 years ago. Then, of course, there’s the irresistible pull of social media, which has created a powerful way to share the fun…

The crisp Michigan air afforded a visibility of at least 30 or 40 miles as we approached Mackinac Island (KMCD) in Ken Ross’ Eclipse 550, N140NE. The airplane sported a jazzy black-and-gold paint job that already had me thinking the flight would be different from the one I’d taken in the original Eclipse nearly eight years earlier from Chicago Executive Airport. Sitting in the right seat and with me in the left, Ross suggested we shoot the GPS Runway 26 Approach at KMCD to give me ample time to align with the island’s single runway, a strip that can be tough to pick out on this island community where the trees easily outnumber the people. The approach plate reminded me that KMCD’s runway is a moderately lengthy 3,501 feet. The…

An Airbus A320 crew departs Chicago O’Hare Airport for Minneapolis. It is the first flight of a three-leg day, using the same airplane. Throughout the day, the pilots and flight attendants experience a “musty socks” odor. On the last flight, from Chicago to Boston, ATC gives a frequency change for the next sector. Despite having the capability to enter the frequencies directly into the radio head, as is typical procedure, both pilots can’t seem to remember the numbers and have to write them down. In addition to a tingling sensation, the copilot eventually realizes that he is beginning to suffer the effects of tunnel vision. He dons the oxygen mask and his symptoms abate. In the left seat, the captain is slumped and barely conscious. Shaking him, the copilot manages…

BRIAN NEIDHARDT NICOLAS LIVERY Friend or Foe? The “pilot passenger” turns a foe when the PIC does not clarify who is in charge [“Sky Kings: Pilot Passenger — Friend or Foe?” Dec. 6, 2016]. And that, my friends, is part of your preflight briefing. Keep in mind that most of the time, your passengers want to be useful and part of the game. Give them some tasks that don’t badly interfere with your duties. Just make sure your passenger doesn’t do something you never asked for. Your Shots YOGAIRFORCE Share your flying adventures with #FlyingMagazine. Remembering John Glenn Readers responded to the news of John Glenn’s death at 95 years old. Glenn was a Mercury 7 astronaut and U.S. senator. LARRY REED Along with many of my Kennedy Space Center…

Denver-based Boom Technology recently unveiled a demonstrator for its supersonic airliner, which is expected to enter the market in 2023. The prototype, XB-1, affectionately referred to as “Baby Boom,” is a one-thirdscale version of the passenger jet, but it is expected to match its stellar Mach 2.2 top speed. First flight for Baby Boom is planned for later this year, while the commercial Boom version is not expected to fly until 2020. The initial subsonic flights of XB-1 will be conducted near the company’s headquarters at Centennial Airport. Virgin Galactic’s Spaceship Company will assist Boom with the super sonic flight-test program, which will be conducted at Edwards Air Force Base in California. Boom has not yet selected an engine manufacturer for its passenger aircraft, but it will have three medium-…

NO. 912 “I LEARNED ABOUT FLYING FROM THAT” I was a 30-year-old 600-hour instrument instructor with half ownership in a well-equipped Piper Archer II and a good job to pay the bills. I felt I had a good understanding of my personal minimums and promised myself never to break them — a policy that has paid off many times. But that almost wasn’t the case on one chilly October day in New York. Ever since I’d started flying out of Westchester County Airport (HPN), my brother Gene, who has a passion for gems and minerals, had urged me to take him to Herkimer, New York, to search for crystals. That region of upstate New York has a reputation for growing some beautiful clear gem formations within the mountainsides — so…

Anyone who knows the airline industry will agree that it faces one pressing and indisputable issue: High-seniority pilots from the regional airlines are being recruited by the major carriers to crew growing fleets, creating an acute shortage of qualified pilots coming into the regional airline system as first officers. The shortage of qualified pilots in North America is impacting operations in ways no airline has experienced before, but it’s a problem many saw coming after the passage of Public Law 111-216, aka the Airline Safety and Federal Aviation Administration Extension Act of 2010, which went into effect on August 1, 2013. This law emerged as a result of the Colgan Air Flight 3407 crash on February 12, 2009, which killed all 49 passengers and crew as well as one person…

In 1958, as a stunt intended to promote the new Hacienda Hotel in Las Vegas, two pilots, Robert Timm and John Cook, stayed aloft in a Cessna 172, regularly refueled from a racing pickup truck, for 64 days and 22 hours. (Why they didn’t stay up another two hours and make it an even 65 — retirement! — I don’t know. Perhaps the engine had reached TBO.) At any rate, that flight put an end to a decades-long craze for setting endurance records, an activity with no more practical value than flagpole-sitting. Timm and Cook have gone to their rewards, but their airplane hangs — now aloft, with the help of a few cables, indefinitely — from the ceiling of the baggage claim area at Las Vegas’ McCarran Field. Time-aloft…

For the past 30 years, aviation has benefited from traffic collision avoidance systems (TCAS) installed in large airplanes. The newest version of this safety technology, TCAS II, provides aural and visual warnings to pilots as well as resolution advisories instructing, for example, one airplane to climb and another to descend to avoid a midair collision. Here’s how TCAS II works. RADIO INTERROGATION Aircraft equipped with TCAS send out and receive radio signals several times per second over two frequencies. Signals received in the 1.03 GHz radio frequency from the transponders aboard other aircraft provide a constantly changing 3-D map of the traffic picture, which allows TCAS to perceive and react to target threats. At the same time, TCAS sends out signals over the 1.09 GHz frequency that can be received…

RELEVANT DISCUSSION: FAR 91.121, 91.144, AIM 7-5-6, FAA-H-8083-15, FAA-H-8083-25, AC 61-27 PRESSURE ALTITUDE 1. Pressure altitude is the indicated altitude when an altimeter is set to 29.92 (1,013.2 mb). 2. It is the height above the standard datum plane; it can also be determined by applying a correction factor to the indicated altitude displayed when it is set to the reported altimeter setting. 3. Pressure altitude is used by all aircraft in the United States and Canada at and above 18,000 feet. 4. Aircraft performance charts are usually based on pressure altitude (or sometimes density altitude). 5. On that very rare “standard day,” pressure altitude will equal true altitude. DENSITY ALTITUDE 1. Density altitude is pressure altitude (29.92) corrected for non standard temperature, and is considered for aircraft performance. 2.…

FLYING Opinion The last time I flew my flying club’s 1940 J-3 Cub, it really should have been with the door open and warm breezes wafting through the cabin, passing low over rolling pastures and smelling the verdant earthiness of a rural Minnesota summer. This is the way every pilot should experience flying at least once in his or her life, and I am fortunate to have enjoyed it many times over my past five years in the club, based at Airlake Airport, south of Minneapolis. But alas, my penultimate day as a Cub owner was cold and brisk and steely gray, with little autumnal sunshine to illuminate the few golden leaves still clinging to their branches. My brother Steve and I were bundled up, and we kept the door…

In the dozen or so years since Garmin’s G1000 integrated flight deck made its debut in Cessna and Diamond singleengine airplanes, the cockpit has steadily evolved to offer new features and improved displays that have managed to keep it fresh and relevant. Even in the face of Moore’s Law, the idea that suggests electronics double in speed and capability every two years, G1000 has remained at the forefront of the general aviation avionics world by changing incrementally instead of radically. Now, it would seem, Moore’s Law has finally caught up with the original Garmin glass cockpit. The big news is the introduction of G1000 NXi, the new iteration of G1000 under development for the past 18 months, which is now certified for retrofit in the King Air 200, 300 and…