Table of contents for October 2018 in Flying

Depending on when you learned to fly, you can probably pinpoint some aviation “first” that was a momentous part of the experience. A few years back, there were those lucky first student pilots who folded away their paper sectionals and instead called up electronic charts on an iPad. Back in the 1990s, a new generation of pilots learned to follow course lines on LCDs as they navigated by satellite for the first time. At some point, the first student to fly a tricycle gear general aviation airplane soloed. When I learned to fly in the 1980s, the first PC-based flight simulators had just emerged. It was a pretty big deal. I’d already logged many hours in front of the green phosphor glow of a monochrome computer monitor at the virtual…

It wasn’t great flying weather. A sigmet called for numerous embedded thunderstorms with tops to 35,000 feet, possible tornadoes, 2-inch hail and 70-knot gusts. The route of the proposed flight from New Orleans to Sarasota, Florida, ran along the middle of the squall line, which extended from Texas to the Atlantic and was moving eastward at a brisk 30 knots. The pilot had obtained a briefing the previous evening and had filed an IFR flight plan. He got a second briefing in the morning. When the pilot, his wife and another couple arrived at New Orleans Lakefront Airport, numerous thunderstorms were in the vicinity. Someone asked the pilot why they did not wait until tomorrow, when the weather would be better. “It’s no problem,” the pilot said. “I can handle…

Some cravings are easily sated. A waffle cone of soft-serve ice cream, for example, or a hot greasy Big Mac (with a supersize side order of regret). Other, more deep-seated desires, however, seem only to intensify once indulged. Wanderlust is that way for me: The more that I see, the more I’m compelled to roam and explore. And aviation is probably the most insatiable compulsion I’ve ever known. Perhaps I could be weaned off it, slowly but surely, while my attention was diverted by glittery gewgaws — but give me one little taste of the good stuff and I’m back, baby. It’s more addictive than hard drugs, and twice as expensive to boot. So after flying an Ikarus C42 microlight at Germany’s Mainz-Finthen Airport (Taking Wing, September 2018), my latent…

Swaid Rahn is the quintessential grass-strip owner, manager and care-taker. Having grown up with flying in his DNA, Rahn is a high-time pilot, air racer, ATP, A&P and runway builder. He has competed and won his class at the Reno Air Races, and even in far-off places like Thailand. He now runs a repair station from his grass strip (2GA2) in Georgia, where he repairs, restores and rebuilds general aviation aircraft. Never satisfied with the status quo, Rahn spent seven years building an intersecting grass runway to complement the original strip on his ancestral property. Rahn even plans to illuminate the new strip using LED runway lighting. FLYING: How much time and money did you invest in your grass strip? Rahn: It took me seven years from start to finish,…

What would you call a trip to Quebec City; Bluie West Eight, Greenland; Reykjavik, Iceland; Stravanger, Norway; Amsterdam; Cannes on the French Riviera; Ljubljana, Slovenia; Salzburg, Austria; Lucerne, Switzerland; Tallinn, Estonia; Stockholm; and Edinburgh, Scotland? A trip of a lifetime? What if it were in a private jet? How about if you were the copilot, invited by the owner and his wife? What if, for good measure, these ridiculously generous people invited your wife to come along too? What would you call all that? Never mind the helicopter ride to the vineyard in Cotes de Provence and the private Mozart dinner in Salzburg. Just the flying bit is all we have time to contemplate here. Let’s start by admitting that such an experience beggars all description — that previous employ…

I used up my entire allotment of blunders for the year in our July issue, where 1) I incorrectly referred to a Robertson STOL conversion as Robinson; 2) I said that the small forward lifting surfaces on the Robertson Wren 460 (a modified Cessna 182) were nicknamed “Wren’s teeth,” when in fact that name applied to rows of movable vortex generators on the wings that assisted in roll control at very low speeds; and 3) I described the Beech Starship as a “2,000 hp VariEze” when in fact it was a 2,400 hp VariEze. The Robertson errors were particularly unforgivable, since I had just written an article about the company in the September 1982 issue of Flying. Well, if Homer can nod, so can I. A reader in New Mexico,…

WEATHER WOES I totally agree with the writers in the August Inbox. Learning about weather is a continual process. I also agree that weather symbology, charts and information can be simplified. In this day of computer-driven weather reports, the FAA makes it extremely hard for beginning pilots. As a former ground instructor for a major flight school, I can safely say that weather and the associated tests for the private pilot exam and the instrument exam are unnecessarily complicated. AOPA and other organizations should get behind a weather simplification program and present it to the FAA. I do not encourage dumbing down the process, but pilots need help with weather topics, and tests should enter the 21st century. Jame L. Hibbert via email NORMALIZATION OF DEVIANCE Thanks to Les for…

Mention Morristown to an active pilot, and they’ll probably be quick to pinpoint it as a busy New Jersey airport 20 or so miles west of downtown Manhattan. This month’s Chart Wise, however, focuses on another Morristown, population 29,000, this one in Tennessee, a half-hour northeast of Knoxville. For readers wondering what kind of educational opportunity a small-town airport like Morristown’s Moore-Murrell (MOR) might offer, speaking in aviation acronym-ese, the answer is SDF, or simplified directional facility. SDFs are disappearing around the United States, like many other ground-based approach facilities, but of course, that doesn’t mean you might not run across one in your travels. An SDF is a localizer-based approach that generates a signal width fixed at either 6 degrees or 12 degrees as necessary to provide maximum flyability…

RELEVANT DISCUSSION: AIM 1-1-17 THROUGH 1-1-20, 1-2-1 THROUGH 1-2-3, 5-1-16, 5-3-4, 5-4-5 THROUGH 5-4-7, P/C GLOSSARY, OPSPEC C052, FAA-H-8083-16, AC 20-138, AC 90-97, AC 90-100, AC 90-101, AC 90-105, AC 90-107, AC 90-108, TSO-C161, TSO-C162, TSO-C196, FAA ORDER 8260.19 1. GBAS (Ground Based Augmentation System), aka GLS (GBAS Landing System), aka LAAS (Local Area Augmentation System). GBAS augments GPS and provides corrections to aircraft to improve GPS navigation for approaches. It is considered a precision approach. LAAS is synonymous with GBAS. LAAS was the term initially used by the FAA, which has since migrated to the ICAO term GBAS. GLS is the FAA’s official term for a GBAS approach (e.g., GLS RWY 23). GBAS and WAAS standards are different, so GBAS datalinks must be supported by compatible avionics in the…

The invasion of Normandy, also known as D-day, was one of the most horrific days in history, but it was also the beginning of the end of a horrific war — World War II. Most of the hundreds of thousands of men, women and children who died on that day remain nameless in the history books. The same is true for the airplanes that led the heroic efforts. The attacks came from several fronts on that fateful day, with ships dropping troops on the beaches of Normandy and airplanes deploying droves of people and ammunition from the skies. Once the war was over, most of those aircraft were destroyed or recommissioned, and their historic significance evaporated like the fuel that burned in their engines. Even some of the most notable…

Who would have thought that a 600-foot alteration of the departure track out of Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., could make the difference in almost completely eliminating accidental incursions of the infamous P-56, the prohibited airspace over the White House? As an added layer of prevention, pilots are also provided with better visual awareness via flight displays and procedures. How was this done? My pilots union, through coordination with our airline’s flight department, the FAA and the Secret Service, found the solutions. But this circumstance is just one of many in which my union has been an active participant. Some of you might have preconceived notions when the word union is mentioned. It conjures images of Jimmy Hoffa and corruption, picket signs, strikes and work stoppages. Union work is…

Here’s an emerging safety story that hasn’t received much attention: Fatal accidents caused by weather are declining. Nobody should be popping Champagne bottles just yet, but there is enough data to suggest a steady downward trend over the past few years. What’s the cause of this encouraging course reversal? There are probably many, but the increasing use of datalink weather in the cockpit deserves serious attention. Over the past 10 years, the number of pilots flying with some type of cockpit weather, typically either ADS-B or SiriusXM, has exploded. Portable ADS-B receivers in particular really took off about five years ago, right around the time the fatal weather accident rate started declining. Datalink weather is hardly a miracle cure, as the National Transportation Safety Board and FAA have frequently reminded…

Recently, an iconic figure in the flying world celebrated his 80th birthday by soloing an Aeronca Champ — the very same Champ he first soloed on his 16th birthday in 1954. How sweet is that? This career airline pilot, author of numerous books, narrator of aviation programs and videos and, for 55-plus years, writer and columnist for another “obscure aviation rag” has managed to worm his way into the left seat of an astonishing 357 different types of airplanes. Now, this ought to be a record, but it seems a Royal Navy test pilot, Capt. Eric Brown, lays claim to 487 different types. So you can’t quit at 80, Barry Schiff; you have a lot more flying ahead to catch up with that Brit. Birthdays are usually happy occasions, but…