Índex per June 2018 a Flying

Weather impacts pilots more than any other external factor, and yet it’s the least understood subject in aviation. Many pilots, even instructors, are uneasy with the topic. Despite this — or maybe because of it — weather training for pilots usually touches only on the basics. Meanwhile, weather-related accidents continue to plague general aviation. Something has to be done. The good news is recent advances in weather observation and forecast accuracy mean we’ve never had access to better weather information. Yet when it comes to understanding weather, general aviation pilots remain pretty clueless. A case in point is a recent Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University survey that presented pilots with 95 questions on a range of weather topics. Most who took the test failed miserably, with student pilots and non-instrument-rated pilots faring…

The new Evolution E5 flight instrument from Aspen Avionics is an ingenious answer to lower-cost displays from Garmin and Dynon aimed at the thousands of light general aviation airplanes that could benefit from a switch from traditional vacuum-driven six-pack flight instruments to modern glass. The E5 display replaces electro-mechanical instruments by consolidating traditional attitude indicator, directional gyro and course-deviation indicator into a single unit that retails for just under $5,000. The E5 also includes global positioning system steering (GPSS), air-data computer and attitude heading reference system (ADAHRS) and a backup battery in case of a loss of electrical power. Buyers can upgrade to the Evolution E5 display and a compatible TruTrak Vizion autopilot for less than $10,000 plus installation costs, Aspen says. Best of all, the E5 display is brighter…

For a supposed airline pilot and aviation writer, I’ve spent a scandalous amount of time at sea level over the past year. In late October, my wife, Dawn, and I cast off the lines from our summer dock in the Chesapeake and pointed our 42-foot sailboat, Windbird, southward to the Caribbean. From the eye-popping waterscapes of the Bahamas to the lush jungle of the Dominican Republic to the glittering, serrated archipelago of the Virgin Islands, it’s been the adventure of a lifetime. Over the same period, I’ve worked a grand total of 14 days, two of those in the simulator, thanks to the happy circumstance that my airline’s Boeing 757/767 fleet is usually overstaffed in the winter. Now, I hasten to note that Dawn and I are far from independently…

The FAA rule says that by 2020, U.S.-registered aircraft must carry compliant ADS-B Out equipment to fly in Class A, B (and Mode C veil) and C, plus Class E airspace above 10,000 feet but not below 2,500 feet (i.e., in the mountains out West). So, in general you’ll need ADS-B Out most of the places you need a Mode C transponder today, and if you aren’t buying a new ADS-B transponder, you’ll need to keep your old Mode C transponder because radar will continue to be the backup for ADS-B. That leaves lots of places where ADS-B Out avionics won’t be required — including many Class D airports with control towers — but if you do any sort of long-distance transportation flying you’d better plan on upgrading.…

Nestled between the Pacific Ocean and the rolling, oak-clad hills of central California lie the fertile farmlands of Salinas, the largest community of Monterey County, with a population of about 160,000. Aptly referred to as the “Salad Bowl of the World” due to the intensity of local agriculture, Salinas is home to many low-income immigrant farmworkers who dedicate their lives to producing the food that shoppers so easily collect from the produce sections of their local grocery stores. Fewer than 60 percent of the city’s residents 25 years or older have completed high school, and only about 12 percent have achieved a bachelor’s degree, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Nearly 19 percent of the people in Salinas live in poverty. An unfortunate side effect of the area’s poverty is…

About an hour away from JFK I pressed my truck’s radio button and listened to the XM traffic and weather station. No major traffic issues. Good news. A snowfall was predicted for the return home, but only a couple of inches. Again, good news. Via internet notification I had been unceremoniously assigned the early evening three-day London trip the day prior. I had flunked our new schedule bidding process (the scheduling app requires a Ph.D.) and been awarded a month of reserve. Perhaps my lack of computer acumen set the stage for what was to come. The evening began with a mechanical problem that involved the left electronic engine control (EEC). The EEC is the equivalent of a fadec system on a GA airplane with slightly more sophistication. Before my…

Year after year, the National Transportation Safety Board and FAA nag pilots about accidents caused by “loss of control – in flight,” which usually means a stall. The topic is well covered in training too. Dozens of questions on the subject appear on the knowledge test, and stalls are performed on the practical test and are part of any decent flight review. And yet while accidents caused by weather and controlled flight into terrain are declining, stalls remain one of the leading causes of fatal accidents in general aviation. Clearly, something is not working. The AOPA Air Safety Institute tried to remove the emotion from this subject last year by diving more deeply into the data about stall accidents. The result is a well-researched study that reaches some sensible conclusions.…

This is where most of the confusion about the ADS-B mandate arises, but really it’s not that complicated. If you never fly in the flight levels or internationally, you can get by with a universal-access transceiver broadcasting over the 978 MHz link, which is the same feed that transmits subscription-free weather and traffic data to properly equipped airplanes. If you fly at FL 180 or above, or outside the United States, you’ll need a 1090 MHz extended squitter unit. Both options are rule-compliant ADS-B Out solutions. You’ll also need a WAAS GPS receiver. If you also want to receive subscription-free weather and traffic information, you’ll need ADS-B In capability, which is built into many rule-compliant units or could be gained from an ADS-B portable device, such as the Stratus 2S…

It’s been said that you don’t actually remember an event from your past; what you recall is your last memory of it. Maybe, but I’ve kept little day books since about 1970, so I can usually reconstruct events with some degree of accuracy — both fortunate and unfortunate because it’s all there, the good and the not so good. My sister has solemnly sworn to destroy this cache before the dust settles and/or all parts of me and the airplane are recovered. But since these reminiscences precede those logs, I’ll do my best. Mary and I began flying in winter 1961-62, in what was, I suspect, a far-less-than-airworthy 1946 Ercoupe squatting in a muddy field on the south line at Lunken Airport. When we showed up for our first lessons,…

With so many flight bags on the market, why would there be a need for a new design? Apparently, Flight Outfitters saw the demand and sought to meet it with the Centerline backpack. The bag has a simple, clean design that includes a slew of pilot-friendly features. On one side is a slot for a standard fuel tester, along with a mesh pocket with an elastic top that prevents gear from falling out. The other side of the bag has a full-length zipper opening up to a padded compartment that has slots for two large electronic devices. Covered with a large flap held down by quick-release straps is the main compartment, which can be split in two to provide a headset pocket that can be opened from the side. The…

In an era of WAAS GPS navigation systems on board even the smallest aircraft, flying a localizer back-course approach could seem rather archaic. Indeed, for years many pilots viewed a LOC BC approach as more of an afterthought at airports, simply because the procedure was built off the back side of a full ILS system already in operation to the opposite end of the same runway. But still, today, LOC BC approaches, despite being nonprecision, can serve as a valuable resource because they provide fairly precise ground-based guidance to pilots flying airplanes that might not use terribly sophisticated avionics. All that’s needed to fly a LOC BC to minimums is a VOR receiver with an omni bearing selector, an instrument-current pilot and a method of tracking time inbound from the…

In November 2016, two friends, both pilots and airplane owners, flew from their respective homes to meet at Melfa, Virginia, where one of them was building a second house. They stayed overnight at Melfa, and on the next day, a Saturday, flew to Hummel Field (W75), across Chesapeake Bay, for an early dinner. Afterward, they both refueled their airplanes — one had a Cessna 182, the other a Navion — and then took off, the 182 heading back to Melfa, the Navion north to Ocean County Airport (KMJX) at Toms River, New Jersey. As they flew, the two pilots communicated on 123.45. It was a dark, clear night. The pilot of the 182, on reaching Melfa about 35 minutes after leaving Hummel, attempted an approach but encountered wind shear sufficiently…

Remember all the dire predictions about the FAA’s upcoming ADS-B equipment mandate, the ones that warned aircraft owners of a projected logjam of necessary installation work as the January 1, 2020, deadline approached? It’s looking more and more like those prognostications were spot on. With a year and a half left to go before the ADS-B deadline, the situation for general aviation appears grim indeed. Some 13,000 $500 rebate checks out of a total allotment of 20,000 went unclaimed when a government program aimed at spurring ADS-B installations ended last September without gaining the hoped-for traction. As of the last official count, only about 35,000 Part 23 general aviation airplanes have been equipped to fly in ADS-B airspace. That leaves well more than 100,000 airplanes still without approved ADS-B Out…

Hey, can you hand me a ballpoint pen?” “You’ll like this one,” says Cathy, my wife. Sure enough, she’s right. The pen says “Kaiser Air,” complete with phone number and Arinc frequency. I just love these pens, worth little in terms of construction cost, but worth a lot to me. This one is white with stylish green lettering and reminds me immediately of last week’s flights to the West Coast, especially the ILS to Runway 32 at Santa Rosa, California (KSTS), called Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport. The approach fixes include LUSEE and PIGPN. I’ve swiped a lot of pens from a lot of places. I just love seeing where I’ve been and thinking about what I was doing. I have a pen that says “Jet Clean” that I got…

In our March issue, a short article about the Vulcanair V1.0 — an Italian four-seater strongly resembling a Cessna 172 — mentioned that it uses “a steel-frame and aluminum structure, which was the standard for decades.” I beg to differ. It’s true that the Vulcanair has a steel frame under its aluminum skin — I suspect only in the vicinity of the cabin — but it is not quite true that this has ever been the standard style of construction, let alone for decades. It is a relatively unusual hybrid of two styles. Two other companies that have used this system, Mooney and Meyers, come to mind; I’m sure there have been others. Owners of airplanes built this way often claim that the steel cage in which they sit makes…