Índex per October 2019 a Flying

Flying magazine and its predecessor publication, Popular Aviation, have given top-notch storytellers a platform to share their adventures with our readers since 1927. While this mission won’t change, the men and women who tell these stories will. When I first began reading Flying in the 1960s, writers such as Jonathan Livingston Seagull author Richard Bach, Fate is the Hunter’s Ernest K. Gann, Peter Garrison and Richard Collins were featured regularly. As they moved on, Len Morgan, Peter Garrison and Gordon Baxter became well-known inside the pages of Flying. Today, our dynamic masthead of columnists includes Ben Younger, Martha Lunken, John and Martha King, Sam Weigel, Dick Karl, and—oh, yes—Peter Garrison, all with engaging stories to share every month. Of course, Flying editorial-staff members join and leave us as well. You…

The nicest part of the old walkie-talkies we played with as kids was the simplicity of their operation. Push the button and talk. No numbers to punch in, no prompts, nothing. Now, ICOM has linked up with Iridium Communications to take person-to-person communications back to those days of simplicity, but in a phone incorporating modern technology. While ICOM built the new IC-SAT100, this push-to-talk unit depends on Iridium’s network of 66 cross-linked, low-earth orbit satellites to connect you with your coworker, whether they’re 7 miles away or on the job in a remote area. The IC-SAT100 offers the best of both worlds as both a PTT walkie-talkie-like radio and a global satellite telephone because it can be quickly programmed with members of a specific group the user needs to communicate…

I’ve been both a pilot and sailor going on 25 years, but only in the past five years have I taken to regularly crossing large bodies of water on the wing and under sail. Our “small world” gets a whole lot bigger when one traverses the great expanses of salt water that make up 71 percent of the planet’s surface. Living and cruising aboard Windbird has given me a keen appreciation of life on and under the oceans, but I’m not enough of a graybeard mariner to fancy myself at home while at sea; I often rather feel like a trespasser in a vast foreign realm. Landfall, then, is a highly anticipated event, one that carries promises of safety, accomplishment, and the sentimental pull of hearth and home. I feel…

In 1984, when I was 12 years old, Ferrari built a car called the 288 GTO. I had a poster of it on my bedroom wall. I knew everything about that car like it was my job. I knew its origins, lineage, performance capabilities. I was obsessed. It was the first machine I had ever lusted after. I understand why the 12-year-old me loved that car. It was fast, beautiful and did not suffer fools. Sound familiar? My V-Tail Beech Bonanza can easily be described in those same terms. Interestingly, if I had the means to buy a 288 today, I wouldn’t. It feels excessive now. Frivolous. Wasteful even. I imagine the average layperson views GA aircraft ownership in a similar fashion. And yet, the things we love about our…

Congress created the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in 1915 “to supervise and direct the scientific study of the problems of flight with a view to their practical solution.” What would eventually become the world’s largest and most productive aeronautical-research establishment began as a committee of 12 unpaid men with a budget of $5,000 per annum. The acronym “N.A.C.A.” was originally pronounced as single letters and preceded by “the,” but over time the periods and article fell away. At least in its adjectival form, the name has come to be pronounced “nacka,” as in nacka cowl, nacka scoop and nacka technical report. The name of the N.A.S.A., its successor, proved similarly deciduous. I have on my shelves a couple of large, heavy books—of the sort that is especially suitable for…

SEAREY & ICON I was excited to see Rob Mark’s article on the Searey vs. Icon [“Adventures on the Water,” August], as I have a friend who has been vacillating between the two for a few months, and I was anxious to show it to him. But after reading it, I changed my mind. The entire “comparison” section emphasizes how very similar the two aircraft are, with the only significant difference being that the Searey is faster. Then the author mysteriously concludes: “In truth, the A5 is the superior airplane, and it isn’t even close.” Where in the world did that come from? Certainly not from anything prior in the article. And the last paragraphs seem to want to shame anyone with $400K from even considering the Searey. I got…

In January 1998, a Learjet 25B crashed 2 miles short of the runway at Houston George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH). It was on a positioning flight from Houston Hobby, across town, to pick up passengers for a Part 135 trip to Fargo, North Dakota. Both pilots died when the Learjet descended hundreds of feet below the glidepath, struck trees, disintegrated and burst into flames. An improbable convergence of human and mechanical failures led to the accident. The captain, 52, an 8,800-hour ATP, had logged 610 hours in Learjets in the past year alone. The first officer, 39, was a commercial and instructor pilot. She had 2,250 hours and was qualified as a second pilot on the Learjet 25 and 35 for three Houston-area Part 135 operators. On the morning of…

This feels a little bit too much like going to confession, but I’m going to come clean and admit I’m a paper-chart girl. Always have been, always will be. One of those rare, soon-to-be-extinct dinosaurs who still subscribes to printed charts. But before your jaw drops any farther, it might help to know I’m not exactly a purist. I love those Garmin boxes in my Cessna 180—a WAAS-enabled, IFR panel-mount GPS and a 696 portable with SiriusXM weather. And then there’s the ForeFlight app on my iPad and iPhone. But in spite of all this electronic wizardry, I wouldn’t dream of slipping the surly bonds without IFR en route charts, bound paper approach plates and those beloved sectional charts in my airplane. And, yes, I use them flying VFR or…

Bose Corporation released the original ProFlight headset in 2018, and reactions from professional aviators flying turbine equipment weren’t quite what the company was expecting from people willing to pay $1,000 each. Many gave up their trusty A20s on a promise that the new lightweight headset at 4.9 ounces would represent a radical upgrade from what some saw as the brain-numbing 12 ounces the older over-ear units weighed. The ProFlights were also fully Bluetooth capable. When cockpit crews began using them—such as the people at Flying who evaluated the ProFlight—they found the headset awkward to put on each flight, as well as keep in place as the person turned their head as they must during flying activities. The unit Flying tested regularly fell off the pilot’s head almost completely. Additionally, many…

The relationship between the chief pilot and the principal is extraordinary. Like our entrepreneur friend, Bill Cook, and his chief pilot, Bob Harbstreit, people in this relationship become mutually entwined. They develop very respectful and trusting relationships. I know of no parallel relationship outside of aviation. It is not unusual for entrepreneurs to fly as crewmembers in their company airplanes. When that happens, it can intensify the relationship with the chief pilot. We know one entrepreneur who regularly flies intercontinentally with his chief pilot. It means they work hard and handle stress together. They are like war buddies. But what does the chief pilot do if the principal who flies as a crewmember gets in too much of a hurry or cuts corners? One chief pilot reported that while he…

Stop, you’re getting your head down. Tell the pilot monitoring what you need. You seem to want to do everything by yourself.” So said Capt. Andy when I was the pilot flying early in my tenure on the Cessna Citation CJ3 at JetSuite. He was right. Up until then, all my flying had been single pilot, and I wasn’t eager to share the fun with anybody else. The truth is, I didn’t know how. Soon, however, I came to enjoy, even relish, the shared cockpit. No doubt some of this pleasure was the consequence of the circumstances in which I had landed. Almost all my colleagues at this Part 135 company were amiable and easy going. They were also much better pilots than I was. When I bid a reluctant…