Flying June 2023

A LAND FROM which fairy tales find us… and where Walt Disney drew the inspiration for King Stefan’s castle in the feature-length cartoon Sleeping Beauty. Certainly the Alps of central Europe spiral high in the dreams of mountain-seeking pilots, who have traversed their dangerously beautiful peaks since human flight first came to this part of the world. For the cover feature in this issue, we took the opportunity to vary our course between Friedrichshafen in southern Germany, on the Alps’ north-central edge, to Wiener Neustadt, Austria, near Vienna, also tucked up near the eastern end of the same large range. Along the way, we did “turns around a castle” as photographer Emmanuel Schawaller captured our steep banks against the cliffs that soared above the castle’s spires. We still had the…

YOU MIGHT THINK that a large general aviation trade show in the heart of the European Union these days would draw ire from the public—or at least a protest or two. But I saw nothing of the kind during my time at AERO 2023 in Friedrichshafen, Germany in April. While I admit to breathing a sigh of relief, you only had to look around the series of large halls filled with innovative, sustainable—and often downright green—aircraft, powerplants, and equipment to understand that, were there protests afoot, they would definitely be barking up the wrong tree. General aviation has always been a major source of our best new thinking in the overall aerospace industry. And at this event in southern Germany, which celebrated its 29th year, you could talk directly to the…

THE FLYING MEDIA GROUP growth story continues. In the first quarter, revenues were up 249 percent, year-over-year, with the largest amount coming from new FLYING subscriptions, which have exploded in recent months. In fact, FLYING magazine subscriptions were up in the first quarter by 532 percent over the year before—a demonstration that the investments we’ve made over the past year are being noticed by the aviation community. Who says print magazines are dying? Thank you again for your support. We are committed to making additional investments in our content and delivering even more value for your subscription. All of the profit that FLYING has generated since we acquired the business almost two years ago has been reinvested, focused on expanding our content and experiences for the FLYING readers and aviation community.…

AFTER TWO FAILED attempts to attend the AERO trade show in Friedrichshafen, Germany—both times because of pandemic-influenced cancellations in 2020 and 2021—I was elated when our flight touched down at EDNY this April. Framed by the Dornier Aircraft and Zeppelin Museums on opposite sides of the runway, Friedrichshafen has a rich aviation history. So it is fitting, in this small city located on picturesque Lake Constance, with views of the surrounding Austrian and Swiss Alps, thousands of Europeans with a passion for aviation gather here. This was my first time at AERO, so my expectations were driven by positive reviews from industry associates and some general awareness of the state of aviation in Europe. German influence was clearly evident in the halls of Messe Friedrichshafen. Architecturally beautiful, pragmatic, and methodically organized,…

Sisto Memories Enjoyed Pete Garrison’s “A Harm-less Prank,” Issue #936. Captain “Chuck” Sisto was in Ernest Gann’s class of 3-13-1939 at American Airlines. Gann mentions him in [his book] Fate Is the Hunter. You can also read his appeal to the Civil Aeronautics Board online in “Sisto vs. the CAB,” 10-11-49. Before being hired by American, Sisto flew for Waldo Waterman, inventor of the Waterman Air Car out in California. After American, he flew briefly for Orvis Nelson’s Transocean Air Lines. Capt. Joe Henderson, US Airways A330 (retired)via email Aspiring Pilot Yours is the first magazine I’ve ever subscribed to. I picked one issue up last month at my local municipal airport, and I was blown away by the beauty of the design and photography, the texture of the paper,…

Gone are the days of navigating with a sextant. Until the early 1980s, my former airline actually utilized a sextant viewing port aboard the Boeing 707 as a secondary means of verifying position. This remained until the airplane was retired from service. Even inertial navigation systems (INSs) have virtually become extinct. Today, inertial reference systems (IRSs) that include laser ring gyros operate within three separate onboard inertial ref-erence units (IRUs). Position data from the IRUs is combined with GPS position, VOR position, and DME position. The combined data is processed by two separate flight management computers (FMC) that communicate with each other to provide a more accurate real-time position in addition to numerous other complex functions. Failures are rare, but the IRS is capable of navigation with only one IRU…