Innehållsförteckning för February 2025 från Flying

Major inflection points in GA are rare and only occur every couple of decades. GPS and glass cockpits are two examples from the past 40 years, and both have provided profound, long-term impacts on safety and efficiency. Skyryse’s SkyOS, which it describes as an operating system for flight, has the potential to be another transformative change for helicopters and possibly fixed-wing aircraft as well. If you’re a fixed-wing pilot, it would be easy to dismiss the Skyryse One helicopter—a single control stick, IFR-certified version of the Robinson R66—as a curiosity that doesn’t apply to you, but please keep reading. Skyryse is in the process of revolutionizing the way helicopters are flown, making it easier and safer for anyone to fly those equipped with SkyOS. In fact, some of the first orders…

On October 8, four XtremeAir Sbach 342 aerobatic aircraft took off from Montenegro’s Niksic Airport (LYNK) and flew a circuitous course through the Dinaric Mountains, following the Mala Rijeka river. Ahead of them was their objective, the Mala Rijeka Viaduct, which carries the Belgrade-Bar railway across the river valley. And at 660 feet above the valley floor, the structure is recognized as the highest rail bridge in Europe. As the group flew over the bridge in a tight diamond formation, flight leader Stanislav Cejka eased the stick forward, cresting at the top of the loop, and gradually arcing his aircraft into a vertical dive. With airshow smoke on, the rest of the team, including left wingman Jan Rudzinskyj, right wingman Jan Tvrdik, and slot Martin Spacek, followed Cejka down. “When…

IT WOULD be interesting to take a poll to see how many of us have been subjected to an FAA ramp check. I’m willing to bet it would be a very low number because this relatively rare occurrence is usually delegated to brand-new hires who really aren’t qualified to do much else. I guess it was a ramp check which was my first job when I was a fledgling inspector at the Chicago Air Carrier District Office. A middle-of-the-night phone call dispatched me to an air carrier ramp at O’Hare (KORD) because one of United’s Caravels (I think) had no compass correction card mounted in the cockpit—a discrepancy that would severely compromise the safety of its scheduled flight to New York or somewhere. Thank the Lord, somebody found a crumpled…

I RECEIVED a call from a recruiter for a regional airline who had stumbled across my CFI résumé someplace. As I have well over 1,500 hours, he wanted to know if I would like to fly for it. “No, thank you,” I replied. There was an awkward pause. He seemed puzzled, repeating the question slower as if I had not heard him the first time. He asked why I was working as a flight instructor if I wasn’t trying to build hours for the airlines. While it is true that most people become CFIs as a means to quickly build their hours for other jobs, there are some of us for whom flight instruction is a passion and vocation—and not a steppingstone. The age of the person and even their…

THE U.S. is in the midst of a second Space Race, and NASA is in a time crunch. The space agency is preparing to send American astronauts to the moon for the first time since the Apollo era. But after delaying the Artemis III lunar landing twice in 2024, there is much work to be done. And experts believe NASA is on the clock. “The world finds itself in Moon Race 2.0, this time between the United States and China,” said Clayton Swope, senior fellow in the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)—an influential space defense think tank on Capitol Hill. “But the United States already landed humans on the moon…The real race is to Mars, both for a human landing and also…

PARK CITY, UTAH IS widely known for its stunning landscapes and year-round outdoor recreation offerings. With roots in mining, Park City’s identity has always been the byproduct of the mountainous terrain that surrounds it. The world-renowned town has a population of less than 10,000 residents. Visitors during the warmer months often find themselves fly-fishing, rafting, hiking, mountain biking, horseback riding, or enjoying a number of other outdoor activities. A multitude of shops, restaurants, and galleries are a highlight as well. With nearby elevation that varies between 7,000 to 10,000 feet, snow may first arrive in early fall—and the town is typically ready to welcome winter sports enthusiasts in mid- to late November. The start of ski season is dependent upon accumulated snowfall and overall weather and can last into May.…

In all of my years of instrument flying, there’s nothing more inspiring than climbing up through a cloud deck to bust out on top into a clear blue sky or bright full moon illuminating an endless sea of clouds below. If that weren’t enough, flying a couple thousand feet over the cloud deck all the way to your destination is majestic, in of itself, especially when the sun is low in the horizon. Besides the amazing view, the bonus is often glassy-smooth air with no airframe icing and unlimited visibility. So, it is no surprise that for many pilots knowing that magic altitude that keeps you comfortably on top is like a search for the Holy Grail. If I look at my blog’s search statistics over the last few years,…

I HAVE spent a remarkable amount of time over the last year thinking about Alaska, writing about Alaska, and trying to fly a small plane to Alaska. You could say that the state in general and Alaskan aviation in particular have become a bit of a personal obsession. If you don’t share my fascination with America’s Last Frontier, well…apologies. I’m about to spill several more pages worth of ink over it. This will be the last time for a while, though, I promise. In November’s Taking Wing, I recounted the woeful tale of how my wife, Dawn, and I finally embarked on our longplanned journey north in our Stinson 108, only to break a rocker arm on our old Franklin engine on the second day out. By the time we…

YOU HEAR a lot about how terrible airline flying is: delays caused by rowdy passengers, crews timing out, ATC staffing shortages, and all manner of weather. Most of us have experienced some mind-blowing travel failures. I once arrived at JFK for a flight to London only to learn that our aircraft hadn’t left England yet. Luckily, a bar was conveniently available. Two recent airline forays could be classified as sublime and ridiculous. After Hurricane Idalia stormed up Florida’s west coast in August 2023, friends and neighbors sent videos of our backyard in Tampa to my wife, Cathy, and me. Our boat dock was destroyed. There was debris everywhere. I decided to take a look with a proposed 36-hour trip from our New Hampshire cottage to Tampa and back. Because the…

“WHAT IS that guy doing?” That guy was the pilot of a Cessna 172 doing right traffic for Runway 15 at a nontowered airport where the published traffic pattern was to the left. This was particularly alarming as there were three student pilots in the pattern already, and one of them was mine on his first solo. A quick call on the Common Traffic Advisory Frequency (CTAF) advised the C-172 in right traffic that this airport utilized left traffic. The wrong-way pilot replied he didn’t know how to do left traffic and abruptly left the pattern. The airplane traced back to a flight school at a nearby airport that had a right traffic pattern for Runway 16. I wondered how he’d made it to solo and been signed off for…

IN DAYS of yore, the phrase “a doctor in a Bonanza” referred sarcastically to a pilot of unwarranted arrogance. But I’m dating myself. Perhaps the equivalent today is a hedge fund manager in a TBM. In this case, however, it really was a doctor, and it really was a Bonanza. The fatal accident occurred in November 2022 at Tucker-Guthrie Memorial Airport (I35) in Harlan, Kentucky. The 3,500-foot runway is situated atop a flattened-out ridge, several hundred feet above the surrounding valley. Just short of the threshold of Runway 8, the plateau drops off vertically, like the stern of an aircraft carrier. The airport is served by a single GPS instrument approach to Runway 8, with minimums of 1,400 feet agl and 1.25-mile visibility. At the time of the accident, the…

After my previous two FLYING articles focusing on optional hardware improvements to your home simulator, I received correspondence from readers that prompted me to write on the topic of what non-hardware improvements you can make to your sim to deepen your immersion and learning. Over the course of this and my next few articles, I’ll cover some budget-friendly next steps that you can take to help get the most out of your home flight sim cockpit. For me, each one of these addons to my simulator has enhanced my experience significantly, allowed me to learn more about real-world flying, and brought me deeper into the hobby. And compared to hardware upgrades, the following suggestions have relatively low cost or no cost. Also, they can be added to your simulator at…

LAST MONTH I wrote about my preference for RNAV approaches versus ILSs in most but not all situations. Earlier this year there was a fatal accident in a Cirrus SR22 in Bar Harbor, Maine, in which the pilot’s choice of an ILS versus an RNAV approach had a direct impact In his book Pre-Accident Investigations, safety expert Todd Conklin wrote that “aviation accidents are the unexpected combination of normal aviation variability.” In this accident, if some variables were different, there could have been a more positive outcome. Instead, as you’ll see, the challenges this pilot faced kept stacking up. It was a lousy day with low ceilings of 200, 300, and 500 feet across most of Maine. In those circumstances it pays to be fat on fuel, because if you…

THE SEGMENT between JINAT and FURRY on the ILS Zulu approach to Runway 16 right at California’s Van Nuys Airport (KVNY) is 4 miles long. It requires a descent from 4,900 feet to 3,800 feet. In the clouds with a full workload between flying, communicating, and navigating, the last thing I want to start calculating is what engine settings to use to descend in a controlled manner. Not only that, the gear will come down at the end of the segment as I intercept the glideslope, materially changing whatever setting was just working in the initial descent. There’s also fuel, seat belts, and weather to be checked. Oh, and don’t forget to switch from GPS to LOC or you won’t pick up the ILS signal. There’s a lot going on,…

WITH A hesitant gait, I walked over to the counter where the crew sign-in sheet was located. It was to be my first unsupervised trip as a flight engineer. Perhaps noticing a hint of nerves, Chuck, the ops agent, introduced himself with a friendly smile and handshake. “Welcome, new guy!” he said with an unmistakable New York accent. After our brief conversation, I couldn’t help but notice a large sheet cake laying on top of a cafeteria-style table. The decorative piping of captain somebody was written on the cake in addition to the words, “Happy Retirement!” A small handful of people were in the room when a not-quite-smiling, stocky, gray-haired man wearing a captain’s uniform strolled in. He glanced at the cake and nodded. A barely audible and pathetic clatter…