plane & pilot

Editor-in-Chief Isabel Goyer Associate Editor J. Ana F. Beckett Senior Editors Bill Cox, Lou Churchville, Jeremy King Contributing Editors Peter Katz, Jason Blair, Jeff Van West, Bethany Whitfield ART & PRODUCTION Art Director Carolyn V. Marsden Senior Designer Nate Silva SALES & MARKETING Vice President, Media Solutions Stuart Crystal Media Solutions Manager Michael Echevarria617-279-0216 | mechevarria@madavor.com Client Services clientservices@madavor.com Marketing Director Andrew Yeum Audience Development Analyst Ryan Gillis Marketing Associates Shawn Daniel, Tommy Goodale Social Media Manager Tim Doolan Content Marketing Supervisor Anthony Buzzeo Content Marketing Associate Sarah MacDougall OPERATIONS VP, Circulation Strategy Jason Pomerantz Operations Supervisor Andrea Palli Operations Coordinator Toni Eunice Human Resources Manager Alicia Roach Client Services Supervisor Cheyenne Corliss Senior Client Services Associate Tou Zong Her Client Services Aubrie Britto, Darren Cormier, Rachel Nee Accounting Director Amanda Joyce Accounts Payable Associate Tina McDermott Accounts Receivable Associate Wayne Tuggle DIGITAL OPERATIONS Senior Director, Digital Products Renee Dextradeur WordPress Developer David Glassman Senior Digital Designer Mike Decker EXECUTIVE Chairman & Chief…

the aviation culture wars are here, thank goodness

Last month, Plane & Pilot eNews published a story about the successful forced water landing of a Beechcraft Bonanza off the Pacific Coast in central California. The emergency landing came after the plane’s engine failed outside of gliding distance off shore. The pilot of the Beechcraft, David Lesh, executed a perfect ditching, which was captured on video by an occupant of the camera plane above. After the Bonanza came to rest, Lesh and his female passenger successfully escaped the sinking plane, leaving the pair treading water while awaiting rescue as the camera plane orbited above. Forty-five minutes later, a Coast Guard helicopter, which had been doing practice runs over the bay, picked up the pair and flew them back to dry land. It was, however, a long, cold 45 minutes in…

search and rescue (sar)

Largest fleet of single-engine aircraft in U.S.: Civil Air Patrol (CAP) Fleet: 560 Primary aircraft: Cessna 172s & 182s Date chartered: December 1, 1941 Members: 61,066 Inland SAR missions performed by CAP: 90% Successful rescues last year: 158 Over water missions carried out by: U.S. Coast Guard Emergency locator transmitter (ELT) activations: 8,898 Actual distress cases: 112 False-alarm rate: 98% Main cause of false alerts: Mishandling during testing and maintenance Activation rate in actual crashes, 121.5 MHz models: 12-25% Rate with newer 406 MHz models: 73-83% Location precision of 121.5 MHz vs. 406 MHz ELTs: 12 mi. vs. 330 ft. Average rescue time for aircraft with functioning ELT: 6.8 hrs. Without ELT: 40.7 hrs. Without ELT and no filed flight plan: 42 hrs., 24 min. Location precision for personal locator beacons (PLBs): ~300 ft. Frequency: 406 MHz Temperature range for operation: -40°F to 131°F ELT & PLB signal transmission length: At…

one small step for who now?

MYSTERY Did Neil Armstrong flub the first sentence ever delivered from the surface of another heavenly body, the famous “One Small Step” line, or did we misunderstand what he really said? BACKGROUND It was Sunday, July 20, 1969. Millions of people huddled around their television sets in anticipation as one of the greatest feats in human history was about to take place almost 240,000 miles away from Earth. Three American astronauts, Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins, had rocketed to a lunar orbit, and Armstrong and Aldrin had then landed on the Moon’s surface, touching down on the Sea of Tranquility at 4:17 p.m. EDT with a mere 30 seconds of fuel left in reserve in the lunar module known as “Eagle.” Armstrong reported the moment down to mission control in…

cross check

ACROSS 1 Famous Steve of landing gear fame 5 What RV pilots use as planes and maybe courtesy vehicles 9 Non-pilot complaint about planes 10 Most things compared to aviation 13 Contributor to high DAs 14 Light sport aircraft—seaplane/amphibian, 3 words 16 Whitney’s partner 18 Direction for a takeoff 22 Connect 23 Before “down” and after “bus” 26 Bird that specializes in night flights 27 New aerobatic plane introduced at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2019, 2 words 29 Good advice for throttle jockeys, two words 31 Takes a little bite 32 Put a new plane through its paces, 2 words DOWN 1 Get one’s ___: become a pilot 2 Horizontal stabilizer, archaic 3 Precedes “Day” and completes “Curtis Le___” 4 Small market segment 6 Unit of measurement for a generator 7 Categorizes 8 Progressive Aerodyne _____ 11 Eighth letter of Hebrew alphabet 12 Chomped on 15 Plane category, for short 16 Traffic ____ 17 ____ P2002 Sierra Mk2 19 Metric…

news of note

FAMOUS INVESTIGATOR LAUNCHES SEARCH FOR AMELIA EARHART PLANE Underwater archeologist Bob Ballard is launching a search for Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Model 10-E Electra, which disappeared in 1937 as she and navigator Fred Noonan attempted to circumnavigate the globe. Ballard, 77, is famous for finding the wreck of the Titanic (1985), the Battleship Bismarck (1989), the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier Yorktown (1998) and the wreckage of John F. Kennedy’s famous PT boat in 2002. He has a track record not only of big goals but also of monumental successes. Using state-of-the-art submersible technology, Ballard uses the best in tech to find things that were long given up as lost forever. His joining in the hunt for the famed aviator marks a major change in the story. The key to Ballard’s joining the…