Innehållsförteckning för April/May 2021 från Flying

What aircraft would you buy—really—if you won the lottery tomorrow? We asked our audience this question on Flying’s various social media channels, and it’s clear: Pilots fancy a wide range of aerial conveyances. Percolating to the top? Utility still forms the basis for most of our dreams; many of us pilots tend to be literal, practical, and it shows. Variants in Daher’s TBM series: the 900, 930 and 940 ranked high, along with the Pilatus PC-12 and a nod to the PC-24 jet. Mooneys and Diamond DA42s and DA62s came up, because those pilots identified airplanes they felt they’d adapt to easily, if they weren’t checked out in them already. Another kind of practicality that adds elements of fun: STOL aircraft, such as the Aviat Husky, or mods to make…

On a Sunday morning in April 2004, an air-ambulance helicopter approaching to land in VFR conditions found a blanket of fog forming over the Ukiah Municipal Airport (KUKI) in California. The automatic surface-observation system reported a 100-foot overcast and visibility between 1 and 1¾ miles. The ATP-rated pilot obtained a clearance for the localizer approach to Runway 15. In VMC at the north end of the fog bank, he dropped down to see if he could get a glimpse of the runway. He couldn’t. Concluding that the report of a 100-foot overcast was correct, he flew over the airport at 1,500 feet msl and estimated that the tops of the unbroken layer were at 1,300 feet. Monitoring the unicom frequency, he heard the pilot of a Piper Saratoga announce that…

I am driving down a quiet two-lane road through dark, still Florida mangroves, going eastbound toward the sea and a horizon that has barely begun to brighten. It is early—well before my normal rising hour. My younger sister, Sarah, is in the passenger seat, chatting quietly so as to not wake her three kids dozing in the back. We come upon a break in the mangroves, and I pull over, pointing across the marsh. There, a few miles away, is a brilliant white SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket gleaming in the floodlights of Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A on Merritt Island. It is an impressive, stirring sight, and I imagine similar early morning views of the Saturn V rockets that launched man to the moon from this very spot. Falcon…

When the text blipped across my iPhone screen, I couldn’t help but grin. My friend—and JetBlue captain—Mike Strauss and his wife, Christa, were inviting my wife and I to his newly purchased home in Colorado. One of the attractive aspects of the invitation was that the trip out west would be flown in his Cessna 180 Skywagon, an adventure in itself. The fact that our coronavirus exposure would not include airport-terminal crowds was an added bonus. We had been resigned to forgoing our annual ski trip because of the pandemic. But what about the dangers of two airline pilots—one current and one retired—flying more than halfway across the country in a single-engine airplane? Was it a recipe for disaster or a lesson in sound aeronautical decision-making? I’ll let you be…

Flying Contributors Although barely even an armchair pilot myself, I grew up with a father who loved airplanes and had gotten his own private pilot’s license at age 18 by saving up a few dollars each week from his job at the local A&P grocery store in the South Bronx, New York. Finances prevented him from ever flying after that, but he took me to airshows, bought us a flight in a Waco biplane to cruise around Mount Washington, New Hampshire, in 1975, and flew model airplanes with me and more recently with my own children. When the opportunity arose to subscribe to Flying a decade or more ago, I gave it a try—and the magazine has impressed me continuously ever since. I most appreciate your devotion to the cause…

I.L.A.F.F.T. I learned about flying from that NO.959 The flight began normally. Little did I know how crazy and funny things would end up becoming. It was my student’s last flight before his first check ride in the private pilot portion of our Part 141 curriculum, which comes just before a student’s first solo. We were flying a Cessna 152. We had a long taxi because the main runway nearest the flight school was closed, as it would be for the rest of the summer as it went through updates and repairs. Taking off just behind us was a SkyWest CRJ. Our takeoff was normal, and everything was going fine—until about 50 feet agl, when I saw something small fly off the dashboard and straight into my student’s lap. I…

I became a private pilot 20 years ago, not long after my 19th birthday. Like every new pilot, I couldn’t wait to take my first passenger for a ride. The day after the check ride, I called one of my best college friends and invited him to the airport for a sightseeing flight in a Cessna 152 around Cincinnati. He didn’t hesitate and appeared at the airport a few hours later. We departed from the Clermont County Airport in the middle of the afternoon. It was a typical Midwest winter day with a steady breeze and choppy turbulence down low (strike one). I didn’t provide any guidance on what to wear, so like any normal person preparing for an outdoor activity in the winter, he bundled up in a snowsuit…

Fear is something I frequently confront in many of the activities I choose to do with my free time. From motorcycle racing to surfing to backcountry snowboarding, I am often faced with that familiar chemical release when my brain believes I’ve written a check my body can’t cash. Daniel T. Blumstein, an ecologist at UCLA, wrote a book titled In the Nature of Fear: Survival Lessons from the Wild. The book is a history of the emotion itself. Fear is fascinating. Blumstein describes fear as fundamental in all animals, but that it requires nuance to be effective. We need to be aware of dangers but not so afraid that we are paralyzed by them. We balance our inclination to stay away from polar bears with our need to leave the…

Just when it seemed like the threat from the coronavirus was subsiding, fall turned to winter, and many of us were forced back inside. We soon got sick and tired of being cooped up. Our national mood seemed to be: enough already with the distancing, masks, 6-feet-apart thing. It soon became clear that people interpreted the threat and recommended public-health measures differently. It also became apparent that the situation could be used to further individual agendas. For example, I am an extrovert married to an introvert. One (me) wanted to invite friends to our home for dinner. The other (she) wanted to eat at a restaurant. We cautioned (shamed?) each other and stayed in and had no dinner parties. Now, when it comes to flying airplanes, I will admit to…

In 1971, budget carrier Air Southwest’s founders Rollin King and Herb Kelleher sought a better name—and so, Southwest Airlines was born. Three Boeing 737 aircraft were purchased to serve its new Dallas-Houston-San Antonio routes, with fares as low as $20. Fun-loving, chain-smoking, Wild Turkey-drinking Kelleher became the airline’s icon while the New York Stock Exchange referred to Southwest as “LUV.” When Southwest began using the tag line “Just Plain Smart,” South Carolina-based Stevens Aviation claimed that it had first rights to the slogan. Kelleher suggested a winner-take-all arm-wrestling contest with Stevens CEO Kurt Herwald to settle the ownership question. Kelleher died in 2019, but Southwest Airlines has continued to make history.…

As we gear up for the summer flying season, a lot of us are flight planning the cross-country trips that might take us anywhere from the High Country to the beach. Flight Outfitters recently released a new series in its line of aircraft-ready baggage and apparel aimed toward use in the challenging (and soggy) floatplane environment. But if you’ve ever dropped your flight bag into a puddle on the ramp, you know that we all could use extra-tough bags with squish-ability, allowing them to pack into all kinds of cargo compartments. The Flight Outfitters Seaplane duffels come in two sizes, 40 liters and 60 liters, and they’re crafted from ripstop fabric with a thermoplastic-polyurethane layer that repels water and wipes clean. A special storm flap over the U-shaped main zipper…

As pilots north of the Mason-Dixon Line continue wrestling with the snow and ice of another winter, a few lucky aviators have been planning flights to much warmer destinations. And where better to head than sunny, warm Florida with pristine beaches and daily temperatures in the upper 70s and low 80s? As unlikely as it might seem to pilots headed to the panhandle state, there are actually times when an instrument approach might be needed to land at one of Florida’s 140 available airports. That’s why we picked Key West International (KEYW) this month, an airport surrounded by water—and one that might seem least likely to demand any IFR skills. Rob Mark is an award-winning journalist, business-jet pilot, flight instructor and blogger. Jason Blair is a flight instructor, an FAA…

I’m a nobody who has never done anything remarkable or heroic in the aviation world—well, if you don’t count the years I was remarkably successful at pretending to be an FAA inspector or heroically winning (most) landing contests with the spring-steel main gear on my Cessna 180. I’ve usually kept Beech 18s somewhere near the middle of the runway, survived sim training for a type rating in the Fairchild SA-227 (aka the “San Antonio Sewer Pipe”), and most proudly, wrestled around Douglas DC-3s with minimal damage for 20 years. While my teaching and then conducting hundreds of check rides had some impact, it was nothing unique. I’ve lived 60 years in the aviation world, blessed from childhood with a weird fascination for airplanes and doubly blessed to learn to fly…

Malcom S. Harned had a distinguished career in aerospace. He led development of the supersonic ramjet at General Electric, directed the Air Force’s nuclear-jet-engine program, managed development of a turbine helicopter at Hughes, and—after a stint at Gates Learjet—oversaw the development of the Conquest and Citation as president and chief operating officer of the Cessna Aircraft Co. In 1979, a year after his retirement from Cessna and a year before he died, Harned addressed a meeting of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics on the subject of the future of general aviation. He correctly anticipated advances in the use of digital electronics in the cockpit and of composites in structures. Foreseeing an increase in the number of affluent families over the next 20 years, he concluded—incorrectly, as it turned…