Índex per September 2020 a Flying

Bucking your first rivet is a seminal experience—whether you take tutelage from a senior member of your extended family or you follow guidance laid out by experts. It’s a relatively simple process at first glance but, like many skills, takes practice to perfect. And it’s just one part of the hundreds of elements that go into building an airplane. Richard VanGrunsven—known to his friends and colleagues as “Van”—didn’t set out to launch 10,600-plus kitplanes, but he took a look at the host of one-offs and show specials that formed the heart of the homebuilt segment and figured there was a better way to indoctrinate more potential builders into the joys of producing, and flying, your own airplane. Van’s Aircraft now provides that expert guidance, along with a fully staged program…

Single-pilot IFR is the hardest thing most people will ever do. If you’re a heart surgeon, you might disagree, but for almost everyone else, there’s nothing that compares. The combination of high stakes and an unrelenting workload makes for a unique challenge, and there’s no undo button. Instrument training should embrace that challenge, with a focus on both attitude-instrument-flying technique and a true pilot-incommand mindset. That means more than just physical skills—a good instrument pilot has good habits, ones that automatically build in safety margins. And approaches are where habits matter most. In 2020, these have less to do with identifying VORs and more to do with managing technology, but the fundamentals remain the same. Brief Every Approach It doesn’t matter if an airline crew has flown the same approach…

OK, picture some far-in-the-future archaeologist exploring an area that ancient maps call North America and stumbling on an odd-looking site—long strips of concrete radiating out from a once-paved, open area. Combing through the ruins of a nearby structure, he unearths a barely discernible, crumbling document covered with peculiar characters. If only there were accompanying hieroglyphics, this could be a Rosetta stone—the key to deciphering the language of a long-extinct, strange culture. CIGARS-LCA-BLITTS-FLAREGUMPS-CLIFF-MPG-CCCCFACTS-FLARE-MIDGET-TTTTWIRETAP-APTATEN-HAMSACCAAAAA-PARE-CRAGS-PAVEDECIDE-OODA-IMAIR-PASTSMACFM-ALARMS-TOMATOFLAMES-NDRUMS-TITS-AVEFMSHITTT-CEFLAGGS-GAARFCIA-CRAFT-CAAAMRF-DVABUMPFH-FMUBPS-ABCDEFMOST-FIST-DNSCRAM-TESTBOAT-TSAFE-AWARE-ROVADROVV-ONCAL-TTMPPFFISCHPUFF-PRWAMCN-IREX-FMQDCMARRRTHA-FMUTBSLCLEAROFF-FMQD-MAX SAYS WINTER FLYING GIVES ME A BACKACHE-PARK OFF PIGS-30-FOOT DUCKS-TRUE VIRGINS MAKE DULL COMPANIONS-CAN DEAD MEN VOTE TWICE-EAST IS LEAST, WEST IS BEST. Any of these sound familiar? Well, if you’re having trouble reading them, try researching and collecting 57 (and counting) mnemonics that pilots have devised as memory aids to replace or augment printed (and electronic) checklists.…

Airplanes and Gliding Peter Garrison’s Technicalities article “How Does an Airplane Glide?” in the June+July 2020 issue put me into a brain rant. Peter mentions the “tilted-lift-vector theory” but stops short. Then he suggests that high-velocity air flowing around the leading edge of the wings creates low pressure, “pulling it forward.” Let’s call the object an airplane and the force R. R is a primary force along with thrust and gravity. These are the three forces of powered flight. For convenience, we can visualize the components of R we call lift and drag. A component isn’t an independent primary force; it is a graphical representation and not really there. It can’t pull the glider forward. It is a mathematical application of R, which is pulling up and rearward. Understanding that…

Tucson International Airport (KTUS) sits on the far east edge of 100,000 square miles of the Sonoran Desert in Arizona. Daytime temperatures during the summer can top 100 degrees in Tucson, though, luckily, the humidity seldom climbs out of the mid-30s. The airport normally sees considerable local and VFR itinerant traffic, with an active ATP Flight School on the field, as well as airline service and some 15 percent of the local traffic made up of military aircraft. Davis-Monthan Air Force Base’s 13,600-foot runway sits just 5 miles northeast of KTUS. The airport offers parallel runways and terrain that can present challenges to pilots unprepared for flying the RNAV (GPS) 29 Left approach. A Approach Made to the Shorter Runway Most airports offer an IFR approach to the longest runway,…

Dark gray clouds scudded low overhead, pewter waves slapped Windbird’s hull as it heeled in a gust, and a fine, cold mist obscured the low black line on the horizon that defined our island destination, now 7 miles away. Given the sullen weather, you wouldn’t know it was July 5 if not for the steady stream of post-holiday vessel traffic headed in the opposite direction. “Intensely variable conditions are just part of the bargain for any New England cruise,” I mused, “no matter the season.” As we rounded the Tuckernuck Shoal Buoy, its haunting discordant gongs echoing across the chop, I tightened Windbird’s sheets and hardened our course toward the harbor entrance. Our sturdy sailboat dug in its heels and surged windward with renewed vigor, spray flying over the bow…

Call it renewal or redemption, but flying has taken on a more important, maybe even precious, role in life. COVID-19 made sure that flying for all of us was sharply diminished. As we started to come back, I found the cadences and clearances to be more like diamonds, each exquisite and pleasing in a lapidary way. Quarantine wasn’t much effort for me, I’ve got to admit. Living in Florida, my wife and I were away from the accelerating deaths in New York and Boston. We had plenty of space, access to Instacart for groceries, bicycles to amuse us, and light weights to fool us into a sense of health. Until then, our flying had been active, interesting and very occasionally challenging, but we were oblivious to the approaching storm housed…

In Spring 1927, while Spirit of St. Louis was being built by Ryan Airline Company in San Diego, Charles Lindbergh corresponded with the Standard Steel Propeller Company of Pittsburgh regarding the best pitch setting for its ground-adjustable propeller blades. The aluminum-alloy blades were off-the-shelf items, using a Clark Y airfoil and a twist distribution suitable for Ryan’s mail planes, upon which the design of Spirit was based. The Clark Y was a profile commonly used for propeller blades, not because it had any special aerodynamic advantage but because its flat bottom made fabricating blades and measuring their pitch angles easier. Because the propeller’s pitch could not be changed in flight, Lindbergh had a ticklish decision to make. He could pitch the prop for best efficiency in cruise, but it would…

A By challenging pilots to improve upon each flight, Starr Gate is intended to help you form better flying habits. B If your aviation friends use the CloudAhoy app to track and score their flights, you can compete against each other for the best score, and crank up your skills a notch in the process. C The iPadbased app allows you to buy renters insurance on a month-by-month basis, saving costs for you when you’re not flying as often. D By knowing how well you did on each segment of the flight, you can fine-tune any practice session, or seek additional instruction if it looks like you need it. Starr Aviation, part of Starr Insurance Companies in New York, has introduced its Starr Gate app tailored for renter pilots. The…

Roy Halladay was a pitcher whose work ethic and perfectionism were legendary. So were his talents. In 2010, he pitched a perfect game for the Phillies, and followed that rare accomplishment with an even rarer one: a postseason no-hitter, only the second in major-league history. (The Yankees’ Don Larsen threw the first during a World Series against the then Brooklyn Dodgers, 54 years earlier.) Halladay, who left baseball in 2013, was the son of a retired professional pilot—military and airline—and was himself a 700-hour private pilot with multiengine and instrument ratings. He owned a Cessna Caravan and, in October 2017, acquired an Icon A5, a light-sport amphibian. He loved the Icon, raved about it, and said flying it low over the water was like flying a jet fighter. “Take it…

Recent data from the National Transportation Safety Board says, over the past decade, the trend in general aviation accidents has been headed in a positive direction—down. In 2012, the board recorded 1,471 GA accidents, 273 of which were fatal. Those accidents claimed the lives of 440 people. The latest NTSB data available from 2017 lists 1,233 accidents, with 203 fatal accidents that cost 331 lives. So, what can the industry do to continue driving down that trend? Back in the mid-1990s, the commercial aviation industry was also wrestling with uncomfortable accident numbers that cost the lives of hundreds aboard Part 121 carriers. The industry decided it had reached a breaking point, creating the Commercial Aviation Safety Team in 1997 around an ambitious plan to take a bite out of the…

At the age of 27, having just made my first film, Boiler Room, I found myself riding a brand new BMW K1200RS south on the Henry Hudson Parkway in Manhattan. The bike was a gift from Ben Affleck (it’s customary to buy the director a modest gift when you wrap a film, but this was generous by any measure). This is a relevant detail because I thought the world belonged to me at that age, and an ancillary effect of that foolish thought is the sense that you are immune from harm. Or as some refer to it: your 20s. I was in the left lane on the elevated section around 68th street, and I was flying—90 mph and threading the needle around slower traffic in front of me. I…

It wasn’t very often during four years of aviation training at Purdue University that my eagerness to attend class was less than enthusiastic. But it waned on the bad-weather days when the substitute for flying an airplane was the 1950s or ’60s Frasca simulator. After an airline career of referring to a sophisticated, multimillion-dollar Level D, six-axis simulator as “the box,” it’s now sobering to realize that I trained in a version from which the slang namesake originated. No argument that the clunky, coffinlike machine was aptly christened. When my friend Wayne Harrison, a freshly ordained CFI and CFI-I, mentioned a desire to visit a company that has engineered an innovative professional simulator for around $100,000, I expressed interest. My experience with computer-based general aviation simulators extends only to Redbird…

Show—don’t just tell. We know mentors shine the light for us in so many ways. Fly for the Culture seeks to achieve that by promoting diversity in aviation. Formed in August 2018, it works “through exposure, outreach, improved access, and the elimination of barriers to equal opportunity,” says founder Courtland Savage. “The best way to connect with youth is through social media. I decided to use [that] to capture the attention of our youth.” The results from the group’s efforts: “Seeing someone who looks like you has a huge impact on a young person.” The smiles (above) demonstrate the results. Follow the group at @flyfortheculture.…