Índex per May 2017 a Flying

The White House’s proposal to privatize our nation’s air traffic control system is nothing new. The original en route air traffic control system developed in the late 1920s, in fact, was owned and operated by the airlines. But by the late 1930s, after a number of high-profile airline crashes, the federal government and airlines jointly decided that a central authority should be in charge. The obvious answer was for the government to run the ATC system, which it has ably done for the past 80 years with a safety record unmatched anywhere in the world. In the mid-1990s, the Clinton administration pushed for ATC privatization with a plan to create an autonomous corporation called the United States Air Traffic Control System, which would remain part of the Department of Transportation.…

TEMPERATURE CORRECTIONS REQUIRED To ensure the aircraft clears obstacles on the approach path, the altimeter must be adjusted when outside temperatures drop to much lower than standard values. MISSED-APPROACH OBSTACLES It is critical to precisely identify the missedapproach point as well as follow the missedapproach procedure, should its use become necessary, due to the close proximity of very tall man-made and natural obstructions near the airport. MISSED-APPROACH COURSE CHANGES As if flying an LDA approach to minimums weren’t challenging enough, this missedapproach procedure demands some fancy maneuvering within the first 60 seconds, with an initial right turn to a 348 heading quickly followed by a left to intercept the 102 radial of the Squaw Valley VOR. FREQUENCY CHANGES Because there is no control tower at TVL, the pilot can expect…

Flying is always deeply satisfying, but for the past 30 years or so, what has mad e it especially so for Martha and me has been flying together as a two-pilot crew in an airplane that requires two pilots. To us, it is a graceful dance — a special way for us to enjoy intense and intimate teamwork while sharing our deep love of flying. Flying together hasn’t always gone so smoothly for us. For 10 years, Martha and I flew our Cessna 340 on a circuit to 50 cities a year, teaching our ground-school courses. The Cessna 340 was, of course, a single-pilot airplane. Because we’ve both spent a lot of time as flight instructors, it was all too easy for the pilot not flying to slip unsolicited into…

I was the first NTSB investigator to arrive at the accident site. The fire was out, but the smell of burnt wreckage and jet fuel permeated the air. I was escorted to near the end of Runway 11 and began walking on the centerline toward the airplane. I noted tire marks from heavy braking near the end of the runway that continued until just before the end of the paved 1,000-foot overrun. The ground sloped down from the end of the overrun to a small service road, and then there was grass. As I walked on the grass, I saw three distinct sets of ruts consistent with the tires on the airplane’s nose, left main and right main landing gear. As I continued walking, I saw the debris path, which…

Something told me to check the 777 simulator clipboard for a schedule change. I glanced at the name listed as the check airman for my 0945 time slot. Yup, there had been a reassignment. I smiled. Capt. Scott Meade was now in charge. In a former life, Scott was the chief pilot at my New York crew base. We had worked together when I was a 767 check airman. As I approached the briefing room, Scott was grinning and shaking his head. A man-hug later, we sat down and attempted to mutually update each other on our respective lives. Unfortunately, we were both aware that the allotted twohour briefing didn’t allow much time to socialize. Socializing required a different venue and a beer — or two. Despite the time constraint,…

The automation in Honda Aircraft’s HA-420 HondaJet makes it a terrific airplane to fly as a single pilot. Lights turn on automatically, the icing system is almost entirely automatic and the airplane even handles some emergency situations, such as a loss-of-pressurization event. However, it doesn’t fly itself, and at 400 ktas things happen quickly. For our photo essay of Executive Editor Pia Bergqvist’s type-rating course at FlightSafety International, visit flyingmag.com/HondaJetTraining.…

XTI SWITCHES TO HYBRID-ELECTRIC PROPULSION XTI Aircraft Company has partnered with Bye Aerospace Inc. to produce a hybrid-electric prototype of the TriFan 600, a futuristic-looking VTOL aircraft that is currently in the design phase. XTI had initially planned to make a 65 percent subscale version of the TriFan, but with the new partnership the company plans to build a full-size prototype instead. The heavy engines, as well as the transmission, gears and other components, will be replaced with two electric motors, batteries, generators and a single smaller turboshaft engine, said XTI CEO Robert J. LaBelle. TriFan 600 Switches to Hybrid-Electric Propulsion {cont.from page 16} “Advanced electric power for aircraft makes the hybrid-electric configuration compelling for the TriFan,” said Bye Aerospace founder, chairman and CEO George Bye. “We can now bring…

On a stormy afternoon in August 2015, a Cessna 310 crashed in the Indian River, near the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The accident occurred as the airplane was executing a missed approach in extremely heavy rain. The pilot, who was alone in the airplane, was killed. According to his brother, who was interviewed after the accident by a local journalist, the pilot, 59, a retired Navy captain and active electrical engineer, had been flying for 20 years, had owned several airplanes, was instrument rated and “could fly anything except a jet.” He had about 1,000 hours, including 300 in the Cessna 310, but the extent of his actual instrument experience could not be determined. The pilot was “always very cautious,” his brother said. “He wouldn’t have gone up flying…

It was past 10 o’clock, and we were beat after eight hours grinding around Illinois and Wisconsin on check rides for a new Part 135 airtaxi company. Goldie and I were sitting in the dark, deserted terminal building at Rockford Airport while Don went back out on the ramp to see if the mechanic was getting anywhere with the right engine on N47CE. Don had rejected two takeoffs in the DC-3 that night when, just before reaching Vr, the right engine oil pressure light came on. “That’s for real, Don. I didn’t do it,” I said from the right seat. The odd thing was that everything checked out OK — no light and good oil pressure — when we did static run-ups, even at high power settings. Flying with Golverdi…

RANDOLPH SUNGLASSES Pilot sunglasses cut glare and protect from extreme exposure to solar radiation, but they’ve also become a fashion statement. Randolph Engineering’s Aviator line provides both protection and style that pilots rave about. Gradient-tint lenses provide increased protection on the top half of the lens while offering a clearer picture below. The frames come in several sizes, and the bayonet temples are designed to fit under headgear. They can break the seal of a noise-canceling headset, but they rest nicely above the ear cup.…

Runway visual range, or RVR, precisely measures the distance that a pilot flying an ILS approach might expect to see when looking down the runway in those critical seconds just before touchdown. Because landing and some takeoffminimums are based on visibility, an operating RVR system is a vital operational element to support the high arrival and departure rates demanded at busy airports. A typical RVR system is created around a visibility sensor, an ambient light sensor, a runway light intensity monitor, a data processing unit and a control display unit. RVR units are typically connected to an airport仹s automated surface observing system to capture additional data points. The RVR readout display is normally found in both the control tower and the IFR radar room of an airport, where air traffic…

Tonight I am nestled in a cozy corner of Windbird’s enclosed cockpit, feet propped on her helm and a rum drink in my hands as I watch her dance to and fro across the anchor chain in the faint light of a milky half-moon. We are in the Bahamas’ Berry Islands and have tucked into a serene sandy cove for the evening — but the mood is hardly tropical, for at sunset the wind picked up to nearly 30 knots from the southwest and transformed the turquoise water of the anchorage into an inky froth. A cold front is approaching in the darkness; a falling barometer and a towering line of squalls to the west foretell its arrival. Both the storms and the abrupt wind shift upon frontal passage present…

Each of us, or maybe just most of us, has a parental figure who looms large in our day-to-day lives. I know I do. My tall, imposing father held us kids to high standards, and for the most part we benefited mightily from these great expectations. As I grew up, I would project onto other authority figures the attributes that so defined my father — sometimes at my own peril. When I became the boss of a surgery department, I realized that many people in the group — faculty, residents and support staff— imbued in me something that was of their own making. I had begun to fulfill a parental role in their lives. In most cases, I had little or no way to understand much about their upbringing or…

In 1909, the French experimenter Louis Bleriot made the first crossing of the English Channel by airplane. The aircraft he used, his Model XI, was similar in its general configuration to what we consider conventional today: engine in front, pilot close behind a monoplane wing, horizontal stabilizer and rudder at the tail end of an extended fuselage. The resemblance to a modern airplane is especially striking in light of the fact that just 11 months earlier Wilbur Wright had demonstrated in France a mastery of flight far beyond anything yet achieved in Europe, and had done so in an airplane entirely different in configuration from Bleriot’s. It must have taken considerable strength of mind to resist copying the Wrights’ design. As history shows, however, Bleriot was right, and the Wrights…