Table of contents for May 2015 in Flying

A BOLD AND INDEPENDENT LOOK AT AVIATION’S BIGGEST ISSUES Since they were enacted decades ago, the FAA’s medical certification rules have been built on bad science, bad policy and bad faith, resulting in a system that asks a lot of pilots but returns little in the way of improved safety of fight. Under intense pressure to update its rules, the FAA last year put out a proposal that would have liberalized the third-class medical certificate but with restrictions so great it would have been meaningless reform for many pilots. The agency then put the regulations on the back burner, so Congress stepped in. The bill going through both the House and Senate outlines a greatly simplified third-class medical certificate, essentially eliminating it for many pilots. There are several major ways…

It used to be that if you wanted the ultimate sunglasses for flying you picked up a pair of classic Ray-Ban Aviators and headed for the airport. Not anymore. These days you can choose from dozens of great aviator-style protective glasses, some designed for serious piloting duty and others intended to make a fashion statement. The Mustang aviator line of eyewear from Scheyden, a maker of precision sunglasses, watches and flight bags, is one of the few we’ve tried that manages to do both. With a lightweight titanium frame featuring superthin tapered arms, these sunglasses fit comfortably under any headset. The highcontrast, nonpolarized bronze lenses we tried are also among the best at cutting through haze, coming in a close second only to Vedalo’s remarkable Azzurro2 aviator sunglasses. Where the…

ACCIDENT ANALYSIS THAT GOES BEHIND AND BEYOND THE NTSB REPORT A Mooney M20J with two aboard, flown by a 300-hour private pilot, began its takeoff roll on Runway 19 at Kansas City Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport (MKC) at intersection Kilo, with 5,313 feet of runway remaining. The pilot retracted the landing gear immediately after liftoff and began a climb, whereupon the engine lost power. The pilot declared an emergency as the airplane settled to an estimated 10 feet above the surface with the gear still retracted. The engine then returned to life; the pilot told the tower “I’m OK,” and he resumed climbing. Twenty seconds later, when the airplane was at an estimated 300 to 400 feet above the end of the runway, the pilot radioed, “We do have…

TALES OF WHEN FLYING, DISCOVERY AND LIFE CONVERGE We were bumping through the clouds at Flight Level 300, unable to escape the clutches of a low, winter jet stream thanks to 167 burly souls on board and 26,000 pounds of jet-A sloshing in the tanks. Under such conditions this Mc-Donnell Douglas finds itself just a little short of wing, and the prudent pilot won’t climb too high lest the indicated airspeed slip to the backside of the power curve — a very bad place popularly known as “coffin corner.” Jacksonville Center had just called out opposite direction traffic at FL 310, and I was straining to spy a telltale wisp of contrail through ragged breaks in the clouds when a faint metallic snap barely punctured my consciousness. That sounded kind…

CUTTING THROUGH THE MYTHS TO GET TO THE FACTS OF FLIGHT In my March Aftermath column on the 2012 crash of a Pilatus PC-12 in Florida, I faulted the National Transportation Safety Board for mixing up indicated and true airspeeds. Actually, it was I who misread the report. I am indebted to reader Timothy Burtch, an accident investigator with the NTSB, for pointing out that the maximum speed of 338 knots that the airplane reached in a spiral dive before it broke apart was, in fact, an indicated airspeed, not a true one, and that the airplane did, therefore, exceed its maneuvering speed by 175 knots as the report stated. The Pilatus, with a family of six aboard, was climbing through FL 250 in IMC. It was at 109 kias,…

DO YOU HAVE A SUBSCRIPTION QUESTION? GO TO FLYINGMAG.COM/CS. FLY LIKE A GIRL It was interesting to see the article “Learning to Fly Like a Girl,” about what appears to be a propensity for women to fly more safely than men [Sky Kings, March 2015]. As a CFI, I have held this opinion now for about 10 years. I find that my students are pretty evenly split between men and women, and that the women tend to be more goal-oriented rather than ego-oriented. In a training environment their focus is on achieving the stated lesson goals without concern for how their performance appears. And if the stated goal is “safety,” then that becomes the focus. Thank you for the thought-provoking article. Brian Lloyd Online comment The article “Learning to Fly…

The Carbon Cub series of airplanes, produced by Yakima, Washington-based Cub Crafters, is ready to take its backcountry capabilities to the next level: The company recently started delivering airplanes with Aerocet’s amphibious Model 1500 floats. No specific performance numbers have been released, but Cub Crafters’ marketing manager, John Whitish, said the cruise speed with the floats installed is comparable or slightly better than that of a Carbon Cub with the 26-inch tundra tire installation. “The Aerocets are very solid and user friendly,” said Scot Warren, the principal at Warren Aircraft, one of Cub Crafters’ sales centers. “Getting on the step is a nonissue except you are almost flying before you get there.” In addition to water operations, the amphibious floats allow the Carbon Cub to land on rough strips, thanks…

ForeFlight recently released its latest version, ForeFlight Mobile 6.7, introducing new capabilities for the popular aviation app. With this latest update, ForeFlight has upgraded several features and increased its connectivity capabilities, allowing the app to communicate with Dynon’s panel-mounted SkyView avionics. The app connects from the iPad or iPhone to SkyView wirelessly. The connection is made through a small Wi-Fi adapter, which is attached to the Dynon unit’s USB port. The USB Wi-Fi adapter is available to purchase directly from Dynon or from its dealers. The adapter costs $35, and a separate one is required for each Dynon screen. Once set up, the wireless connection allows the user to sync fight plans back and forth between the units with a few simple taps on the screens. The system allows the…

THE FOLLOWING ARE EXCERPTS FROM NTSB REPORTS OF GENERAL AVIATION ACCIDENTS VAN’S RV-6 Sauk Rapids, Minnesota/INJURIES: 2 Fatal About 5 minutes after the experimental amateur-built RV-6 airplane departed from a local airport, an air traffic controller notified the pilot that an Airbus was 30 miles southwest of the airport and inbound. About 7 minutes later, the pilot reported that he had the Airbus in sight and then stated that he was going to take a picture of it. No further communications were received from the pilot. A witness reported observing the RV-6 “rocking back and forth” before the “nose went down” and then seeing two objects come off the airplane when it entered a descent. Another witness reported hearing engine noise before observing the airplane enter a steep nose-down descent.…

A NO-HOLDS-BARRED LOOK AT PILOTS, PLANES AND LIFE IN THE AIR The service was at a Presbyterian church in a small town east of Cincinnati — about a 30-minute fight in the Cessna 180. I had planned to f y there and commandeer the airport’s retired police car, but my airplane wouldn’t start. When I jumped in and “cranked,” it wouldn’t f re — odd, because it was fresh out of an annual and always lights right off. So I drove across the ramp, asked the guys at a shop to check it out, and got on the road for the two-hour drive to Hillsboro, Ohio. Sue Soderstrom had been killed in the crash of her Beech 18 just after takeoff from a small airport in the sparsely populated farm…

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FLYING THE HEAVY METAL WITH AN AIRLINE CAPTAIN As I shuff ed charts and pages of the latest Jeppesen revision into various binders and folders, my copilot introduced herself. Lisa had recently returned from medical leave and was glad to be back at work. Upon ref ection, perhaps the medical leave aspect was a foreshadowing of what was about to come. Our f ight planning review proceeded as normal, with nothing out of the ordinary except for a WSI weather chart depicting various blobs of green, indicating that most of the North Atlantic was forecast for turbulence. Turbulence is a common winter characteristic, caused mostly by the high winds of the jet stream dipping farther south. Undaunted, Lisa and I marched to our gate and our 777-300. I completed a…

A LOOK BACK AT FLYING MAGAZINE 25 AND 50 YEARS AGO 25 YEARS AGO OUR COVER FEATURED A BEECH BONANZA V35B PROUDLY DISPLAYING ITS V-TAIL WHILE FLYING INTO THE DISTANCE. DESPITE AN ONSLAUGHT OF SAFETY QUESTIONS REGARDING THE TAIL A FEW YEARS PRIOR, THE QUINTESSENTIAL DESIGN MADE OUR LIST OF THE TOP 10 BEST USED AIRCRAFT THANKS TO ITS GREAT PERFORMANCE AND BARGAIN PRICE TAG. Flying veteran Len Morgan took Airbus’ new fl y-by-wire wonder, the A320, for a spin. “It was like sitting down to play the world’s greatest video game,” he said of the experience. We reported on the approval of Gulfstream’s most advanced cockpit technology of the day, which brought autothrottles as well as three-dimensional navigation to the G-IV. The package, known as the “Phase II” avionics…

NO-NONSENSE RISK MITIGATION FOR PILOTS LIKE US After just over two years of flying our Comanche, Martha and I “needed” a second engine, and more knobs, levers, switches and gauges. In short, we “needed” a Twin Comanche. But we couldn’t afford one. That’s why the “bargain” Twin Comanche in Trade-A-Plane caught our eye. We knew the airplane would be rough, but we could swing it financially. So, in October 1972, off to Teterboro, New Jersey, we went in our Comanche. We arrived late morning, did a quick flight in Twin Comanche N7026Y, and bought it on the spot. As anticipated, it was rough. The logs revealed this training plane had had five gear-up landings. The autopilot did not work. The door had no seal, and the heater didn’t work. Our…

One of the greatest aircraft compromises — in a good way — in history is Cessna’s franchise model, the 172 Skyhawk. The iconic Kansas-based airplane maker has turned out more than 40,000 of the sheet-metal birds since the model’s debut in 1956, and the utilitarian singles continue to roll down the line and out the hangar doors. While the 172 has changed in a thousand little ways over the years, with new tail shapes, engines, seat tracks, radios and countless other tweaks, the shape, performance and flying qualities of the bird have remained very much the same. The Skyhawk remains a frisky runabout, a trusty trainer and a passable shorthaul transportation airplane, the same today as in the beginning. One thing that has changed a lot is the price of…

FROM THE OPERATING ROOM TO FLIGHT OPS: A SURGEON’S JOURNEY Grumble, grumble. It was a bad morning around the breakfast table at the Hilton near Teterboro Airport in New Jersey. There were three crews altogether. Two of us pilots were billeted at the nearby Holiday Inn, definitely not to be confused with a Ritz-Carlton, and we’d driven over to join the others. It was a cold February morning, still snowing and cold, cold, cold. Welcome to the Part 135 rituals and conceits. Our laments have a predictable, almost formulaic sound to them. We no longer enjoy breakfast vouchers at some hotels, now that the company has renegotiated various contracts. I never had a breakfast voucher in my life before now, but miss them I do. In fact, for 40 years…