Table of contents for July 2017 in Flying

If you believe the naysayers, BasicMed is an abject failure. Thankfully, the litany of objections I’ve heard from the chronic complainers out there since the FAA adopted the medical-certification reforms are as colorful as they are devoid of truth. Here’s what the detractors would have us believe: • Doctors who aren’t aviation medical examiners won’t sign the BasicMed form out of fear of liability exposure. • The BasicMed checkup from a personal physician costs more than a third-class medical exam from an aviation medical examiner. • Aviation insurance companies won’t cover pilots who fly under BasicMed. • Our privacy rights are being trampled upon. • And (probably my favorite), I heard my doctor has to look at my butt, so forget it. I was among the first to gain qualification…

Head-up display systems have been widely used in the military for decades, and the business jet market has also seen the value of presenting flight data in the pilot’s view out the window. With Garmin vying for a bigger chunk of the bizjet market, it has launched its own head-up display system to supplement its highly acclaimed integrated flight decks. The Garmin GHD 2100 HUD delivers a 30-degree, wide-angle display of pertinent flight information in front of the pilot’s eyes, minimizing the time spent looking down and easing the transition from IMC to visual conditions. The GHD 2100 displays information that is found on the PFD. This includes primary flight data, synthetic vision, and flight path and attitude information. A flight-path-marker-based flight director on the GHD 2100 shows an exact…

“I LEARNED ABOUT FLYING FROM THAT” Flying is the only magazine I subscribe to. I always make a point of reading each issue front to back, although sometimes out of order, and I’m always eager to read the stories in the I Learned about Flying from That column. Now I have my own story to tell of a recent adventure — or rather, misadventure — that involved flying a Piper Cherokee 140 to Brunswick, Maine, on business from my home airport in Groton, Connecticut. I learned many lessons on this flight. The first was never to take a two-day forecast at face value. I had decided two days in advance against a morning departure for my trip because the forecast was bad. I noticed midmorning the day of my trip…

After 24 years of flying fighters in the U.S. Air Force, including a tour with the Thunderbirds, I retired in 2006 and started a new career as an airline pilot. Concurrently, the Patriots Jet Team, flying Experimental Aero L-39s, invited me to join its aerobatic team. After coming up as a pilot in general aviation in the early 1980s, I was excited to recultivate my civilian aviation roots. I had always believed that the FAA existed to promote a safe and mature approach to aviation. Little did I know that my assumptions would be severely challenged after a series of flights in January 2014. This article is about two FAAs. One comprises cogent, smart, experienced administrators who approach aviation regulation and safety with maturity. The other FAA is an agency…

BOB MARTIN CUTTING OWNERSHIP COSTS There was only one mention of joining a flying club, but that’s what I did. My club has 64 members, but only about 12 fly regularly. We’ve also enjoyed a recent influx of new, younger members. They’ve been enthusiastic, have great attitudes and have brought new life to our club. DJORDJE JOVANOVIC FAA: MANUAL STICK SKILLS STILL LACKING I was a pilot engaged in long-range operation. Once, a dual hydraulic failure over the Atlantic forced us to fly manually. It was an excruciating experience. Our practice, however, was to hand-fly up to clearing noise abatement at departure and below 10,000 feet for landing. It allowed good feeling of the aircraft and practice for abnormal situations. YOUR SHOTS PETER NEAL Shoot! I hate it when I…

If you’ve flown in reduced visibility or on a clear, moonless night and wondered what was ahead, you’re not alone. Pilots flying aircraft equipped with an enhanced vision system receive increased situational awareness information delivered to the cockpit in limited-visibility situations both day and night. Manufacturers such as Max-Viz, Kollsman and Rockwell Collins produce infrared sensors like those in forward-looking infrared (FLIR) cameras used by the military and law enforcement. EVS infrared cameras detect the heat of objects to create a blackand- white image of the world ahead, whether it’s a person standing on the ramp, mountains to either side of the approach path or lights on the active runway . Typical EVS components include one or more infrared sensors, an image processor and a display device. The EVS camera…

RELEVANT DISCUSSION: (FAR 71.41, 91.117, 91.126, 91.127, 91.129, 91.130, 91.131, 91.155, 91.215, AIM 3-2-1, 3-2-3) CLASS B AIRSPACE: 1. Surface to 7,000 feet msl (e.g., in Miami) or up to as high as 12,500 feet msl (e.g., Atlanta) surrounding the busiest airports. (The illustration above is an example only.) 2. Individually tailored upside-down wedding cakes — and contain all instrument approaches. 3. The word “cleared” into Class B is required before entering. 4. All operations require a two-way radio. 5. Airports listed in section 4, appendix D, of Part 91 require at least a private pilot certificate. Solo student, sport and recreational pilot operations are not permitted at these locations. 6. VFR operations — Ceiling: 1,000 feet — Visibility: 3 sm — Clear of clouds (or special VFR). 7. IFR…

There are days in every pilot’s life that are destined to be remembered forever: first solo, the Private Pilot check ride, the first time landing a taildragger or seaplane. Those of us who fly for the airlines don’t have many memorable flights, which is by design. Airline flying, done properly, is a mildly enjoyable experience, and a perfectly forgettable one. That said, even at the airlines there are a few prominent milestones, and upgrading to captain for the first time is a big one. All who have done so distinctly remember their first time in the left seat. In my case, it was April 15, 2008, and I was flying an Embraer 175 with 76 passengers from Minneapolis to Washington’s Dulles International Airport. As I lined up on Runway 12R…

It was scary. We were more than a mile from the short runway, skimming the treetops in a Chinese-made Socata Trinidad look-alike. We were so low we couldn’t even see the runway. It took me a little while to figure out what was going on. This was the pilot’s idea of how to make a shortfield approach. His technique was to get down low and drag it in. A pilot’s first inclination on a short-field approach is often to drag it in like this. But the recommended method of making a steeper, stabilized approach to a short field helps dissipate speed in the flare and actually results in a shorter landing. Plus, it has many other advantages. But it is counterintuitive. So why didn’t this pilot know better? Well, the…

ONLY RARELY DOES A BENCHMARK AIRPLANE COME ALONG THAT DEMANDS THE CREATION OF AN ENTIRELY NEW CATEGORY IN WHICH TO PLACE IT, ONE THAT SHATTERS CONVENTIONAL THINKING WITH RADICAL LEAPS IN DESIGN AND OPERATING EFFICIENCY. THE SF50 VISION JET FROM CIRRUS AIRCRAFT IS ONE OF THESE UNCOMMON AIRPLANES. AS SUCH, THE TYPICAL SPIN AROUND THE PATCH — A FEW STEEP TURNS, MAYBE, FOLLOWED BY THREE TAKEOFFS AND LANDINGS — WOULDN’T SUFFICE FOR OUR FLIGHT REPORT IN AN AIRPLANE AS IMPORTANT AS THIS. CLEARLY, FLYING THE VISION JET CALLED FOR AN EXPERIENCE BEFITTING THE OCCASION. There’s a great scene in the classic John Hughes film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off in which Ferris (Matthew Broderick), having “borrowed” his friend Cameron’s father’s 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California for a day of top-down reverie…

I find myself — and I’m sure I’m not alone in this — consulting Google Maps before setting offby car even to places I know perfectly well how to reach. The Google lady knows even more than I do about the roads. She checks all the shortcuts. She tells me there is “usual traffic” and that I will arrive at 3:03. She is almost never wrong. I’m a far cry from our forebears, who expected no better than “I’ll meet you at Laramie in August.” A woman who was learning to fly spoke to me of that “lost-in-thesky” feeling. (She had felt it on a solo cross-country, somewhere south of Bakersfield, California.) I had to reach back a long way to know what she meant. The sense of place occupies…