Indholdsfortegnelse for July/August 2024 i Flying

URBAN AIR MOBILITY, or UAM, is beginning to create murmurs within the aviation industry. And the Middle East is shaping up to be the technology’s proving ground. UAM manufacturers—many of them based in the U.S.—are developing electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) air taxis, electric short takeoff and landing (eSTOL) planes, and other outlandish aircraft with unique propulsion sources and flight characteristics. These companies have garnered billions in investments and the support of key airline partners, such as United Airlines and Delta Air Lines. No market has been more welcoming, however, than the United Arab Emirates, UAM manufacturers told FLYING in April at the inaugural DriftX—a two-day event in Abu Dhabi that showcased the latest technology in air, land, and sea transportation. “There’s nowhere on earth that’s been as positive…

IN MAY 2022, a STOL Drag event took place at Wayne Municipal Airport/Stan Morris Field, (KLCG) in Nebraska. Training for novices would begin on Thursday and continue into Friday. Qualifying heats would be on Friday afternoon, and the races would continue through the weekend The contest, which typically occurs on grass or dirt areas parallel to paved runways, was to take place alongside Runway 5-23. On Friday afternoon the wind picked up. It blew out of the northwest across the STOL Drag course. Qualifying heats were postponed until the next day. A number of the competitors then decided to conduct an impromptu “traditional STOL” event, omitting the drag racing component. They would use the grass Runway 31, which was conveniently aligned with the wind. The pilots, organizers, and FAA inspectors…

Surface analysis charts are issued every three hours by meteorologists at the Weather Prediction Center (WPC). On some you may have seen a tan dashed line with a label “OUTFLOW BNDRY” nearby. This is what meteorologists call a convective outflow boundary. Convective outflow boundaries emanating away from thunderstorms are generated as cold, dense air descends in downdrafts then moving outward away from the convection to produce a mesoscale cold front also known as a gust front. Some gust fronts can be completely harmless or may be a precursor for an encounter with severe turbulence and dangerous low-level convective wind shear. The direction of movement of the gust front isn’t always coincident with the general motion of the thunderstorms. If the gust front is moving in advance of the convection, it…

“I BELIEVE I JUST INGESTED A FLASHLIGHT.” That statement is precisely what one does not wish to hear when test-running an aircraft following a maintenance event. The situation worsens when the aircraft is a $109 million F-35A Lightning II fighter. In January, Stars and Stripes reported that on March 15, 2023, “a hand-held flashlight left inside an F-35 engine by maintainers at Luke Air Force Base last year caused $4 million in damage.” It seems that after using a flashlight to inspect the poorly lit intake of the F-35, the maintainer failed to clear the tool before test-running the engine. During the post accident investigation, investigators found a flashlight missing from one toolbox. The 56th Fighter Wing aircraft suffered an excess of $4 million in damage to the engine. Thankfully,…

I WAS AT 5,500 feet somewhere over Vermont when I received the text from my friends Paul and Marla. It was a photo of an overcast sky in Niagara Falls, New York. This was on the morning of the last total eclipse North America will experience until 2044. They had declined a ride with me in my Bonanza because they booked a nonrefundable hotel room and wanted to road trip it with their dog. A mistake as it turned out. My plan, though better, changed by the hour. I was meant to meet my friend Kip in Middlebury, Vermont, but he called me early that morning to tell me there was a good chance of cloud cover. I was secretly relieved. The night prior I found a U.S. Navy site…

ON MAY 2 AT EDWARDS Air Force Base in California, U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall climbed aboard an F-16 test bed dubbed VISTA (Variable In-Flight Simulator Test Aircraft) that was retrofitted with an artificial intelligence platform. Secretary Kendall and a back-seat test pilot went along for the ride without touching the controls while another human-controlled F-16 engaged VISTA in a mock dogfight. Reading between the lines of media reports, it would appear that the demonstration was a draw between the two fighters. I applaud Kendall for placing himself in harm’s way, but the grandstanding performance served a purpose. It was very much a public endorsement of AI for airborne warfare. Airborne warfare is certainly a viable application for AI, especially if it can save lives. But what about civilian…

THE PIPER MERIDIAN, predecessor to the M700 Fury, adorned the cover of FLYING’s March 2001 issue. Then-editor-in-chief J. Mac McClellan and editor-at-large Richard L. Collins offered opinions and shared their discoveries about the new owner-flown, pressurized turbine single. While a bit skeptical at first about expecting to find nothing more than a Malibu with a PT6 up front, both seemed equally impressed with Piper’s execution of creating a new aircraft whose only meaningful connection to the Malibu was its ramp appeal. The M700 finds itself in a much more crowded turbinesingle space than its forerunner, the Meridian, which is good news for potential buyers if not for sellers. Those of you in the market for a turbine single now have another bird to consider. Enjoy the hunt.…

Father Knew Best in the Air I grew up in the ’50s and ’60s in the small town of Rocky Mountain House [in] Alberta, Canada. My father, Eugene, helped form the first flying club in Rocky with the initial craft being an Aeronca Chief. He later advanced to a Super Cub, Cessna 170, 180, 175 (with a Franklin 220) and 336 and 337 Skymasters. I spent many exciting hours in my childhood copiloting with Dad in all of those planes. He spent years hotshotting oil rig parts into northern Alberta airstrips. There were few navaids in those days. You flew outbound ADF headings but mostly navigated by good map reading, dead reckoning, and accurate navigation skills using the compass. Dad was a skilled pilot. His saying was IFRR (I follow…

ON JANUARY 15, 2009, approximately two minutes after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport (KGLA) in New York, US Airways Flight 1549 encountered a flock of birds. Several were ingested into the two engines, resulting in a nearly complete loss of thrust. Out of power, altitude and options, Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger and copilot Jeffrey Skiles ditched the aircraft in the Hudson River near midtown Manhattan. There were 155 souls on board. There were injuries but no loss of life, and the term “Miracle on the Hudson” was coined since it was viewed as one of the most successful ditchings ever performed. What Is Ditching? According to the Aeronautical Information Manual (AIM), ditching is defined as “a controlled emergency landing of an aircraft on water.” If the aircraft isn’t equipped with floats,…

It’s Sunday, July 17, 2022, exactly one week before the real-world EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, and I am at Fond Du Lac County Airport (KFLD), heading north on taxiway Alpha. Behind and ahead of me is an impressive number of general aviation aircraft, all being piloted by fellow flight sim pilots from around the world. Many of us selected KFLD as our departure point to fly the famous Fisk VFR arrival to Wittman Regional Airport (KOSH). After starting up, calming my nerves, keying the mic, and receiving my taxi clearance, I joined the slow parade of aircraft taxiing up to the departure point of Runway 27. This looked startlingly familiar to the long lines of aircraft I’ve seen for years on the taxiways at KOSH during the real AirVenture. Fond memories…

With the exception of the Space Needle, there is perhaps no image more iconic than a floatplane flying over water with Mount Rainier in the background. Floatplanes are as much a part of Seattle as Starbucks and the early days of Boeing Aircraft Co. As such, there are two seaplane/floatplane training operations in the area: Seattle Seaplanes, located on the southeast corner of Lake Union (0W0), and Kenmore Air, with two locations, one on the northwest side of Lake Union (W55) and another on Lake Washington on the north tip of Renton Municipal Airport (KRNT). Who Gets a Seaplane/Floatplane Rating? There are three kinds of people who attain seaplane ratings. The first are those who do it as a bucket-list item. They may never get near the water again, but…

UNEARTHING MEMORIES OF aircraft mechanics I’ve known (the good, not-so-good, and downright bad), I guess I’ll begin with the first I ever encountered—60-some years ago. Those guys are gone now, but the T-hangars on the south line at Cincinnati’s Lunken Airport (KLUK) where they worked are still there, close to where that little Ercoupe that my sister Mary and I came to fly was roosting in the grass. N341 (we should have kept the number) had been generously loaned to us by a friend who hadn’t flown it in some time. It needed an annual inspection, which Carl Garlough and his two helpers did, as well as repairing a few things like a hole in the gas tank before we took to the skies. Carl was an amiable, sort of…

It is about speed. Because it is always about speed. For Piper singles, it started with the Malibu since Piper had long wanted to build a pressurized piston single that would outrun Cessna’s pressurized 210. Delivered at the end of 1983, the PA-46-310P Malibu, with its cabin-class appointments did just that. Naturally, Cessna’s nose was out of joint, so it developed the R model of the P210, which was introduced in 1985 and was one whole knot faster than the Malibu. Forty were sold before production ceased for good. Of course, Piper couldn’t let an out-of-production Cessna be faster than its top-of-the-line single. By 1989 it was delivering the PA-46-350P Malibu Mirage, which whistled along at a maximum cruise speed of 213 knots. However, about that time there was a…

IT’S NO SECRET that the politically polarized 118th Congress hasn’t been able to accomplish much. In fact, this Congress has passed fewer bills in its first full year than any since the Great Depression—only 34. As a matter of perspective, the 117th Congress passed 362 bills during the Joe Biden administration and the 116th Congress passed 344 during the Donald Trump administration. While precious little meaningful lawmaking occurred in year one of the 118th Congress, there is one very bright spot in year two—the 2024 FAA Reauthorization Act. This legislation demonstrates the good work that can be accomplished when the gap between the party aisle gets as narrow as the aisle in a regional jet. Since most people understand the value of aviation as a safe and efficient time-saving mode…

MY LOVE AFFAIR with Alaska began in June 2011, when I rode my old BMW motorcycle there from Minnesota on an epic 8,000-mile round trip. Alaska was my 50th state to visit, and I had purposely avoided taking the airlines up to the “Last Frontier” in favor of a more adventurous arrival. I had grown up on my dad’s shaggy-dog tales of pushing an ancient Oldsmobile station wagon up the unpaved Alaska Highway of the 1970s. The Alcan, the Yukon—these were fanciful, faraway places that loomed large in an 8-year-old’s fertile imagination. Discovering their real-world counterparts for myself as an adult made for a joyous, memorable journey—all the better for sharing it with my frequent riding partner, Brad Phillips, and my wife, Dawn, on her first big trip on her…

IT WAS A HOT DAY when the rather frazzled-looking young man came into the FBO with the dispatch book of the Cessna 150. He complained there was something wrong with the airplane. The engine wasn’t producing enough power. He had attempted two takeoffs and wisely chose to abort, as it did not lift off when he expected. “ It pretty much ate up the whole runway!” he said. When asked if he had done the performance calculations, specifically accounting for density altitude, he acted like a deer in the headlights. He had not performed the computations because he didn’t think the conditions warranted. The field elevation was approximately 492 feet—certainly not what you would consider high elevation, and the temperature was in the mid-80s Fahrenheit. He was from Arizona, where…

LIMA, PERU, IS OVERCAST, as usual. We try to cancel IFR and turn on course once we’re on top, but the controllers insist on keeping us with them until Salinas, 40 miles down the coast. We finally cross Salinas at 12,000 feet and swing around northeastward. The Andes are close, rearing out of the stratus deck into a cloudless sky. At 15,000 feet I notice that the fuel pressure is fluctuating. I watch the gauge intently. The tempo of the engine is unsteady. The fluctuations become larger and longer. The fuel selector valve and feed lines are under a floorboard beneath Nancy’s feet. I nudge her legs aside and remove the floorboard. I can see the fuel in the plastic lines on its way to and from the engine. Normally…