Innehållsförteckning för November 2018 från Flying

Our lineup of columnists is an eclectic bunch. We have an airline pilot who spends half the year letting his beard grow long on a liveaboard sailboat in the Caribbean (Sam Weigel), another airline pilot who writes aviation-inspired mystery novels (Les Abend), three folks who fly personal jets (Dick Karl and John and Martha King), a self-taught aerodynamicist with a Harvard English degree who builds and pilots airplanes of his own design (Peter Garrison), a master flight instructor and Citation jet captain who’s an absolute whiz with an iPad (Bret Koebbe) and a guy with an enviable amount of PC-12 time who, oh, by the way, also flies his own Robinson helicopter to work when the mood strikes (John Zimmerman). And then there’s Martha Lunken, who’s as eclectic as they…

A. SIDESTEP MINIMUMS This approach to Runway 1L offers special minimums for a "sidestep" maneuver to Milwaukee’s parallel Runway 1 Right. Essentially that means flying the approach to Runway 1L, breaking out of the clouds and making a turn off course to actually land on Runway 1R. This maneuver is recommended only for aircraft capable of landing on Runway 1R’s short 4,183-foot surface. Note that a sidestep doesn't bring the aircraft down to the lowest ILS minimums, but it does allow a pilot to descend lower than circle-to-land minimums. Sidestep is sometimes used when a slower aircraft is being overtaken by a faster aircraft, and allows ATC to create greater separation between aircraft using the same ILS procedure. Two different touchdown zone elevations (TDZE) are noted in the profile view.…

Last August, a sightseeing flight crashed in the Swiss Alps, killing all 20 aboard. The airplane, a Junkers Ju 52, was attempting to cross a 10,000-foot saddle from south to north. The wind was out of the north, gusting to 25 knots. Witnesses said the airplane approached the saddle, then banked sharply to the left and suddenly dived to the ground, “as if following a plumb line.” The official analysis of the accident will not emerge for some time. I don’t have an opinion as to what actually caused it. But the accident did bring to mind some aspects of downwind turns that are worth discussing. SOME PILOTS THINK TURNING DOWNWIND IN A STEADY WIND MAKES AN AIRPLANE LOSE AIRSPEED BECAUSE THE HEADWIND BECOMES A TAILWIND. First, as a matter…

Around here, we call it the “trip of a lifetime,” though that hardly does it justice. You might remember last month’s column that left off at an improbably tasty restaurant in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland, after just the first day of a 23-day private jet tour of Europe. Air Journey organized the trip, and it featured three airplanes: two Cessna CJ3+s and “our” Cessna M2. I say “our” because my wife, Cathy, and I were guests of Pete and Shardel, the actual owners of this glamorous Garmin-bedecked M2. Thierry Pouille and his wife, Sophie, run Air Journey. They accompany or arrange flights for people with capable airplanes and outsize — some might say outlandish — travel dreams. For instance, while we were rambling around some of Europe’s most intriguing destinations, their daughter…

ROMANCE ON THE RUNWAY I am writing in response to August’s editorial “Romance on the Runway.” I began flying when I was 15 years old. The first person who taught me was a man well into his 70s, and while I felt esteem for him and his harsh, old-school style of instruction, our relationship was purely professional. I completed milestones with him that I will never forget: first solo, first cross-country, first check ride. What I felt afterward included personal joy and accomplishment, but no feelings of romance for my instructor. To say that a young woman simply cannot fly without falling madly in love with her instructor is to say that women cannot have a passion for something that isn’t driven by romance, let alone one that could be…

It’s a warm, sticky August morning in Florida, and even the stiff breeze swirling in through the Cub’s open door fails to refresh. I wipe my brow and adjust my ball cap, then peer intently at the lake we’re approaching. It’s not just the climate making me sweat; I’ve been working hard, and things just aren’t clicking, though this is my 18th or 19th landing of the flight. “OK, Sam,” says my young instructor, Chris Taylor, from the front seat, “go ahead and set up for a glassy water landing.” It’s an apt choice; the conditions won’t be simulated this time, for the wind has very nearly died. Besides, my landings have been pretty ugly with depth perception. Perhaps I’ll do better without it. I go through the “WLNOT” checklist,…

Although it’s old news, the accident involving a joyride by a ground service employee flying one of Horizon Air’s Bombardier Q400s from Sea-Tac Airport on August 10 still resonates. The flight terminated in a fireball on Ketron Island, approximately 30 miles southwest of Seattle. After almost four decades as an airline pilot, I’m left shaking my head. Why would this seemingly under-the-radar (pun not intended), likable 29-year-old make a decision that jeopardized lives on the ground, ultimately ending in his untimely demise? But before answering the million-dollar question, exactly how was such an event possible? First, all airline employees are vetted through the application process. Items such as background checks, criminal history, work experience and so forth are involved. Safety and security being the primary goals, it’s in the airline’s…

For tens of thousands of aircraft owners, the deadline has been looming. ADS-B will be required on January 1, 2020, in airspace that now requires a transponder. It was clear to John and me that we wanted to meet the requirement before the deadline — because without ADS-B our old jet would become useless. And the FAA insists the deadline will not change. The future of the ATC system will be based on transponders that broadcast the aircraft’s identification, position, altitude, velocity and other information every second or so. It’s called automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast because it’s based on automatic transponders that are dependent on WAAS GPS for their data, enabling surveillance by broadcasting their information without being interrogated. Those of us who have been maintaining aircraft for a while know…

What is this voodoo? I’d been glancing outside the airplane, a last check for traffic on short final, as Eric Smedberg, chief pilot for Innovative Solutions & Support, swung the Pilatus PC-12 onto the runway and engaged the autothrottle system with a simple press of a button. I looked down just in time to see the power lever advancing from the idle position to max continuous takeoff thrust, which on this day was a little more than halfway to the forward stops. Seeing the autothrottles in action on a business jet or airliner is no big deal, but in a PC-12 powered by a Pratt & Whitney PT6A lacking full-authority digital engine control, that lever shouldn’t move by itself. It was like a ghost was in our presence — a…

I totaled my airplane on May 27, 2018, at 10:30 in the morning. I was departing Telluride Airport in Colorado. It was a Sunday. She was a V-tail. I loved her. She was fast and strong and easily the most exotic thing I have ever owned. And I killed her. They say it’s better to have loved and lost than … yeah, not ready to hear that. I had a passenger with me. And my dog. No one was injured. My friend says she’d go up with me again. The dog says no chance in hell. A National Transportation Safety Board investigator later told me she doesn’t often get to speak with people who had the experience I did — meaning they’re not around to have the conversation. I’ll get…

There are those who have flown them and those who have not, and it is idle for the former to try to explain matters to the latter.” A Vickers Supermarine test pilot, Jeffrey Quill, was talking about the Walrus, an amphibious biplane flying boat designed in 1929 by RJ Mitchell, who a few years later would create the fabled Spitfire. Quill, perhaps wishing to produce some music for the ears of his employers, described the ungainly airplane as “perhaps one of the best and most useful … ever produced.” Such fulsome praise seldom flows from the pens of experimental test pilots, whose job is to detect the flaws of new designs and then to “explain matters” to the designers. The Spitfire prototype, wearing an all-over aqua blue paint job, Royal…