Sunday,
April 16, 2006
Vol. III No. 8 |
Sunday,
April 16, 2006
Vol. III No. 8 |
Welcome
to the
Over the
Airwaves
aviation journal. This complimentary bi-weekly e-mailing
is being sent to pilots and aviation enthusiasts around the
world. Its aim
is to promote
flight safety, encourage students and new pilots, and to build
enthusiasm for aviation in general.
Dear Pilots and Aviation Enthusiasts:
We all know them. These are the pilots who took the path of least resistance to obtain their ratings. They searched out and found the cheapest flight instructor. They memorized the private pilot knowledge test answers. Some enrolled for a "quickie" instrument or multi-engine course. They obtained their biennial flight reviews (BFRs) from the least demanding CFI they could find. You never see these guys at safety meetings. These are the guys who "kick the tires
and light the fires" and launch before their engine oil
has
Curiously, rogue pilots are not just the cavalier stick and rudder jocks. They also include the timid, "Mr. Milquetoast" kind of pilot who mindlessly ignores the rules, flies as if he were in a world of his own, oblivious to others of us in the skies. How do we fix the problem of rogue pilots? As in medicine, we can either (1) treat the symptom; (2) cure the disease, or (3) prevent it in the first place. From a prevention perspective, the flight training community has a responsibility to stop rogue pilot candidates in their tracks long before signing their FAA Form 8710 (Airman Certificate and/or Rating Application). It does not require a Ph.D. in psychology to identify a dangerous or irresponsible behavior pattern. The first sign of such behavior is typically revealed while watching students prepare for a flight. Do they ALWAYS check weather? Do they ALWAYS perform a comprehensive pre-flight inspection? Do they exhibit a cautious attitude versus a "macho" approach to aeronautical decision-making and risk management assessment? Personally, I have stopped several flight students in their tracks, refusing to provide them any further flight instruction. Painful? Yes . . . but I likely saved their lives! Such prevention is far easier than curing those already afflicted with the rogue pilot disease. What do we do about those rogue pilots who are already in the system? Charles Darwin's theories on survival of the fittest does have an effect here. Many will eventually die as a direct result of their faulty attitudes and skills. Unfortunately, however, some of these rogue pilots are our friends and relatives. Worse, some of these rogue pilots take our friends and relatives for rides in their airplanes! At a minimum, every time one of these rogue pilots wrecks an airplane, we can count on another insurance rate hike at policy renewal time. Similarly, we can count on some elected official proposing tighter flight restrictions on GA aircraft. So how do we reach these guys with the safety message?
Continued attention to regulatory reform is always a good idea, but the rogue pilot is largely unaffected by regulatory restrictions, unless it impacts his ability to retain his certificate. The Alphabet organizations???
The Flight Training Community??? Bingo! Here is where the fixes should start. Nobody comes closer to understanding the minds and hearts of rogue pilots than those who trained them. A CFI has a pilot for weeks and months. The designated pilot examiner (DPE) has them, at best, for only a couple of hours.
We flight instructors must also stop using the practical test standards (PTS) as a teaching tool. Instead, our training syllabus must take students out of the practice areas and into the real national airspace system where the impact of sound ADM and risk management skills are honed. It will then be in the context of the national airspace system that the elements measured via the PTS will be learned. We the Pilots???
Let us do our part to be-friend the rogue pilot. Rather than condemning or criticizing these guys, we need to set an example of professionalism. Invite them to a safety meeting or to join our local EAA chapter. Hey, let's send them a link of "Over the Airwaves!" Together, we pilots and we flight instructors have the keys to improved GA flight safety. The FAA provides only the minimum standards (PTS) and the rules of the road (FAR/AIM). AOPA, EAA, and the other alphabet groups are business organizations that protect our interests. It is the single CFI that sets the pilot's attitude. And is we, the other safe pilots who provide the example. That's how we improve GA flight safety!
Of the many ways to sharpen our piloting skills, spending six or seven hours in tight formation with another aircraft is one of the best! This is what Dan Maloney and I did earlier this week all the way back from Sun 'n Fun in Lakeland, FL to Buffalo, NY. Dan and co-pilot Greg Barnhard flew the wing position in the red RV-4 (photo below). I flew lead in my T-210 (photo below) with co-pilot Keith Harlock while Kelly Brannen slept peacefully in the back seat.
Never too old to learn! When a former F-16 pilot (Dan Maloney) offered to help me sharpen my formation skills, I jumped at the chance! But this wasn't your typical formation stuff. Instead, we filed an IFR, flight of two, plan with the intention of finding some real IMC to operate in. This IMC opportunity presented itself shortly after liftoff from Lakeland. We had to climb through a 2,000' layer of dense clouds to reach our cruising altitude. As we penetrated the layer, Dan maneuvered his RV-4 directly under my left wing in order to maintain visual contact with us through the dense clouds. This, of course, adds an entirely new dimension to one's instrument scan. Not only must you maintain proper heading and altitude solely by reference to your instruments, you also have to maintain your position relative to your formation partner tucked less than 50 feet below your wing!
FAR 91.111 Quite Liberal! The FARs are quite liberal when it comes to formation flying. The only requirements, per FAR 91.111 are that (1) you cannot fly too close to cause a collision hazard; (2) pre-arrangements between participating pilots must be made in advance of the flight; and (3) neither flight can be for hire. Other than that, you're on your own. Like everything else in aviation, formation flying is best performed only after proper instruction.
I recall as little boy be taken to the shoe store by my mother. With feet growing faster than my family's budget, mother would always purchase the largest shoe size possible. That meant trying on a pair of shoes then sticking my feet into a large x-ray box. Both she and the shoe salesman would then look down into the box and view my foot's bone structure positioned inside of the shoe. It was a great idea at the time. It was also very dangerous! Obviously, this shoe store practice was outlawed long ago. I think about this experience whenever I use my WX-500 stormscope and on-board weather radar in my T-210 to maneuver around thunderstorms. I also think about this experience when a flight student or OTA reader queries me about uplinked XM weather sent to either their multi-function display (MFD), their Garmin 396, or even their cell phone. All of this technology is good but, like using x-ray machines to check shoe size, can it get us into more trouble than it is worth? Answer: Like everything else in aviation, in the hands of a properly trained and weather-savvy pilot, any such on-board weather detection equipment can be worth its weight in gold. To the untrained, weather-challenged pilots, this technology can lead one into very bad places!
So which technology is best? Given a choice, any pilot would like to have all three weather detection capabilities on board. Uplink weather provides the big picture with a 5 to 10 minute delay; stormscopes and strikefinders point out convective activity that comprise thunderstorms on a real-time basis without the 5 to 10 minute delay. Radar display rain cells ahead, which may be relatively safe downpours or showers (places to obtain a free in-flight plane wash) or mature thunderstorms. Unfortunately, radar does not distinguish between safe and deadly rain cells! Having used all three technologies extensively, I would rate them in the following order of importance in keeping one safe in stormy weather: (1) stormscope/strikefinder; (2) live weather radar; and (3) uplinked WX weather. If forced to decide between a stormscope and uplinked WX weather, it would be no contest! I'd take the stormscope every time simply because of the rapid changeability of violent weather. The the 5 to 10 minute delay inherent in the uplinked weather renders it nearly useless in navigating through a large area of airmass thunderstorms. So what is the inherent risks of using of onboard weather detection equipment? On-board weather detection is a two-edged sword. While these devices can be useful in helping us to steer clear of dangerous weather, they can also lead us into places where angels fear to tread. Below is an extract from my book titled Adventures in Flight. It recounts a flight I took several years ago in my radar and stormscope equipped T-210 around a line of thunderstorms enroute to Oshkosh. This experience proved to me that even the best weather avoidance equipped airplane is not immune from the sudden forces of nature!
Try as we will, man has not yet been able to accurately predict the course of weather. We can look at, measure it, and even attempt to guess what it will do in the future. In the end, however, weather still claims more pilots than any other flight risk. Having weather avoidance equipment on board is a good thing. The key is NOT to use it as a license to venture into areas where your knowledge, skills, and aircraft capability may not be sufficient to resolve a bad navigation decision! I have learned this the hard way more times than I care to write about!!!!
This would be an acceptable philosophical position if this CFI had the prerogative of placing the following restriction on his graduates' pilot certificates: "Flight in other than flatland areas is prohibited." Not all airports have clear, obstacle-free routes of departure Meeker Airport in Meeker, Colorado is just one of hundreds of public use airports throughout the United States that can sucker a less than proficient instrument pilot right into the ground! Looking at the approach plate for this airport (below), one can see that dramatically rising in all quadrants requires special departure considerations.
Departure procedure for Meeker: So how does one take-off from Meeker in IFR conditions? The Departure Procedure shown below makes it clear.
How Departure Procedures are determined: According to the FAA's
Instrument Procedures Handbook,
standard departure design criteria assumes an initial climb of
200 feet per nautical mile (NM)after crossing the departure end
of the runway (DER) at a height of at least 35 feet.
Assuming a 200 foot per NM climb, the departure is structured to
provide at least 48 feet per NM of clearance The slope, known as the obstacle clearance surface (OCS), is based on a 40 to 1 ratio, which is the equivalent of a 152-foot per NM slope. As a result, a departure is designed using the OCS as the minimum obstacle clearance, and then further clearance is provided by the greater 200-foot per NM minimum climb gradient. The departure design must also include the
acquisition of positive course guidance within 10 NM of the DER
for straight departures and within 5 NM after turn completion on
departures requiring a turn. In a perfect world, the 40 to 1 slope would work for every departure design; however, due to terrain and man-made obstacles, alternative requirements are required to accomplish a safe, obstacle-free departure design. In such cases, the design of the departure may incorporate a greater climb gradient, an increase in the standard takeoff minimums to allow the aircraft to “see and avoid” the obstacles, a specific departure route, or a combination of these options. The climb gradient in this case is based on the
required obstacle clearance (ROC) 24 percent rule. When the
climb gradient is greater than 200 feet per NM, 24 percent of
the total height above the starting elevation gained by an
aircraft departing to a minimum altitude to
Confusion Reigns! Unfortunately, the FAA continues to allow a great deal of confusion to exist between departure procedures and SIDs (standard instrument departures).
SIDs were graphically depicted, preplanned
departure procedures produced by the FAA Air Traffic Service (ATS).
In December of 2000, in an attempt to bring the creation and
development of departure procedures into a common processing
system, the FAA shifted responsibility to a single creation
group and also changed the associated terminology. Due to the confusion both internally among
pilots in the U.S., and externally among foreign pilots (the
term SID is used abroad), the FAA has decided to return to a
modified version of the original naming convention. Departure
procedures will be divided into two groups, SIDs and
Clear as mud, right? So while the FAA is not quite sure what to call them, we pilots better have no confusion in our own minds when launching from airports with rising surrounding terrain or obstacles!
Airplane camping at either Sun 'n Fun or Oshkosh is ALWAYS weather adventure. Temperatures can either be very hot or very cold and thunderstorms can either be non-existent or severe! This year at Sun 'n Fun we experienced near-perfect temperatures. Thunderstorms were another story altogether. A severe line of thunderstorms passed directly overhead at 3:00am two nights before our planned departure date. Winds and near-horizontal rains flooded our tent and snapped one of the poles. We spent the next day drying out our sleeping bags and clothes!
Pictured above (l to r) are Kelly Brannen, Keith Harlock, Bob Miller, Greg Barnhard, and Dan Maloney. This shot was taken just after breaking down the tents prior to departure.
It was a dark, rainy night several weeks ago in Watsonville, CA when the purchaser of a Mooney M-10 arrived to pick up his airplane. Apparently anxious to get on his way to his home in Texas, he refused recommendations from several observers that he first get a checkout in the airplane. Weather that night was IFR. Several local pilots encouraged the purchaser to wait until morning before departing. Complaining that he had to be home before Monday, the purchaser reluctantly agreed to wait 'till morning. The next morning, the pilot refused a second recommendation for a checkout in the airplane. After looking at the declining weather to the east, the pilot decided to fly VFR down a valley to south before turning east towards Texas. The weather at his departure time was 1,600' ceiling with 5 miles visibility in rain. You guessed it! Following is an extract from the Preliminary NTSB Report of this fatal crash:
What happened? While the preliminary NTSB report does not issue a probable cause finding at this time, weather conditions combined with a description of the crash site strongly suggests a stall/spin scenario. No flight plan was filed. The report does not tell us if the pilot was instrument rated. We do know this. He was in a hurry to get home; he refused several recommendations for an aircraft checkout; and he refused to wait for better weather before crossing the mountains. Pilot impatience is often a major contributing factor in most fatal GA accidents. He or she is in a hurry to launch. Key items on the pre-flight check are missed. Marginal weather risks are down-played, so he launches hoping to sort things out when aloft. If you feel rushed . . . . STOP!!!
The first and most important self-assessment symptom is IMPATIENCE. It is easy to diagnose but very, very difficult to treat! We're trying to beat incoming weather or we're trying to get home before dark or, as happened to me last week . . . we're trying to arrive at our destination airport before it closes for an airshow! The safest thing we can do when experiencing impatience is to STOP in place. Assess our situation, look at the risks, pause, then decide what to do. Following this process, we may still elect to launch, but at least we've looked all the risks and made an objective judgment call. If we all do this before every take-off, few of us would ever come to the same fateful end that the pilot above did!
Remember, you can now open the most recent issue of "Over the Airwaves" simply by typing "overtheairwaves.com" in your internet browser! If you have not as yet signed up for your free subscription, click Free Sign Up
Everything seems to be going along just fine. You are locked on the VASI (vertical approach slope indicator). Power is properly set and your airspeed is nailed as you descend over the fence to the waiting runway below. You flair at just the right altitude, then . . . . it all seems to suddenly fall apart! For some reason, your airplane refuses to stop flying. Instead, it floats along the runway surface in ground effect. What do you do? Push, Pull, or Power?? The actions you take during this floating period can have either a very positive or very negative on the safe outcome of this flight.
If you push the yoke or stick forward to "force" the airplane down to the runway, you run the very great risk of mashing the spinning prop on the runway surface. So, it is best that you not push! If you pull the yoke or stick back to raise the nose and thereby create more drag to slow things down, you run the very great risk of stalling the wings. When this happens, the nose will drop and the spinning prop will strike the runway! So, it is best that you not pull! Adding power will not do much for you other than to extend the distance of your float.
WAIT!!!!! The only reasonable action we can take when our airplane floats along in ground effect is to wait for it to stop flying! Curiously, "waiting" is something that many pilots do not like to do. Instead, they feel compelled to take some action and, in the process, they exacerbate the problem! By waiting, we allow the forces of drag to slow the airplane to the point where it gently settles to the runway surface. Remember, however, as the airplane slows, the downward lift on the horizontal stabilizer is reduced. This causes the nose to become heavier, thus requiring increasing levels of back pressure on the stick or yoke to keep the nose up. Perfect practice makes perfect . . . . We can improve our response to the landing "float" by practicing hover taxiing along the runway. Do this by descending to within two feet of the runway surface, then keeping enough power dialed in to maintain this two foot altitude along the entire length of the runway. Success in this exercise requires the correct combination of pitch and power. Too much power, the airplane will climb. Too little power, the airplane will drop to the runway. Remember, perfect practice makes perfect. Instructors . . . be sure to include this exercise in your training program.
Imagine the following scenario: Your destination just went below minimums and every airport within the range of your airplane is blanketed with fog. Hmmmm . . . . With considerable help from ATC, you managed to salvage the day but bent some metal in the process. How are you going to explain what happened to the administrative law judge hearing your case? If your flight plan failed to include a filed alternate, even my crack aviation attorney Dean Drew can't help you. Count on an FAR 91.169 (IFR Flight Plan - Required Information) and a 91.103 (all available information) bust and a 91.13 (careless and reckless) thrown in. FAR 91.169 was written to prevent this scenario in the first place! FAR 91.169 requires that pilots operating under instrument flight rules (IFR) must include an alternate destination airport on their flight plan under the following conditions: When their primary airport HAS an instrument approach procedure: For at least 1 hour before and for 1 hour after the estimated time of arrival, the ceiling at the destination airport will be below 2,000 feet above the airport elevation OR the visibility will be less than 3 statute miles. When their primary airport has NO instrument approach procedure: An alternate airport must be included in the flight plan when the destination airport has no published approach procedure. Selecting a suitable alternate . . . remember the rules? Many instrument pilots believe that if the airport has a precision approach, the 600/2 rule applies and if it doesn't, the 800/2 rule applies, right? Wrong!!!! FAR 91.169(c)(1)(i) says that the alternate airport minima specified in that procedure are the minimum weather conditions that apply. If none are specified, then the 600/2 and the 800/2 rules apply. If the filed alternate does not have a published approach procedure, ceiling and visibility must permit a descent from the MEA, approach, and landing under basic VFR.
We find the key to those alternate airport minima in the upper left corner of the selected alternate airport approach plate. If you see an the letter "A" inset in a black triangle, non-standard minimums apply. Knowing this, you will have to look elsewhere for what those non-standard are. If you see the same "A" with an "NA" beside it, then that approach procedure to the alternate airport cannot be used. Does the controller know if you have filed an alternate??
Answer: Of course not. The controller will not even know where your filed alternate is (if you filed one). That's because your filed alternate does not appear on the your flight data strip. At best, the controller in this scenario would say, "Nxxxxx, say intentions." Will you automatically go to your filed alternate? Answer: Not likely! Since your filed alternate is likely to be some distant airport, you can query the controller about which nearby airports are still above minimums. Or, under Part 91, you can elect to fly the approach anyway and see for yourself if it is below minimums. Commercial operators are prohibited from doing this (which is a good rule for everybody to follow). In summary, the requirement to file an alternate airport, even when the weather is good, makes sense. Things change, a TFR could suddenly take your destination airport out of service. Every proficient pilot ALWAYS has a plan B. This includes always having a suitable alternate!
Airframe icing and embedded thunderstorms are the two greatest weather risks to the instrument pilot. As with all such risks, the proficient pilot never allows himself to be boxed in without a back door. He must know where can he instantly bolt to if either of these risks materialize? One of the most useful back door tools in the instrument pilot's bag of tricks is a local minimum vectoring altitude (MVA) chart. If he does not have an MVA chart, he should at least know what the MVA is for the area he is operating in. Sample MVA Chart
What is a the Minimum Vectoring Altitude? Minimum vectoring altitudes (MVAs) are
established for use by ATC when radar ATC is exercised. The
minimum vectoring altitude provides 1,000 feet of clearance
above the highest obstacle in nonmountainous areas and 2,000
feet above the highest obstacle in designated mountainous areas.
Because of the ability to isolate specific obstacles, some MVAs
may be lower than MEAs, Very simply, the MVA is the lowest altitude you can be cleared to when operating on an instrument flight plan.
What if you are a NEWLY rated instrument pilot? What if you are a newly rated instrument pilot and you want to get some solo practice in the clouds. Having a VFR back door is something you will always want to have until you become both confident and proficient on the gauges. Here is where knowing the MVA for your area really helps. If the cloud bases are above the MVA, ATC can quickly clear you to VFR conditions below . . . . just in case you need them!!! How do you obtain an MVA chart for your area? Good question. You can't!! That's right. MVA charts are not available outside of the ATC world. You can, of course, visit your local ATC facility and request a copy of their MVA charts. Or, you can simply call ATC by radio and ask the controller to tell you what the MVA is for the area you are operating in. The important thing is, always know your MVA when the flight risks you are experience may dictate a quick descent to your planned backdoor!
Maybe it is the increased engine and propeller noise that gives us a false sense of security. For whatever reason, the airspeed slowly decays to the point where the wings stop flying. The nose suddenly drops. This all occurs just as the four left turning tendencies combine to produce a serious yaw. The left wing instantly drops. The hapless pilot, caught unaware of his stalled airplane, yanks the yoke or stick in the opposite direction to level the wings. This action aggravates the stall and a spin results. When this scenario occurs just after liftoff or in IMC, the results are nearly always fatal. Similarly, when airspeed increases on the climb, the hapless pilot may not be climbing at all. Instead, he lifts off the runway, fails to establish the required climb gradient, and impacts rising terrain or obstacles just ahead. Airspeed Indicator is the primary instrument when in a climb!
The reverse is also true. If airspeed
drops by one-half, lift diminishes by a factor of four!
Thus, establishing and maintaining the proper airspeed is key to
safe climbs. Remember, climb at Vx to clear the obstacles,
then lower the nose and climb at Vy up to your cruising
altitude.
These are just a couple pieces of information you can quickly obtain from the FAA's aircraft registry database. Simply click HERE.
As charitable as we would like to be with our fellow pilots, particularly one who has just been involved in a fatal accident, we still have to wonder how they would spell the word, "stupid?" In the final NTSB probable cause report released last week, the pilot of a Mooney M20M sensed something was wrong when he heard the horrible sound of his spinning propeller strike the runway as he was about to touch down on runway 6 at the Summerville Airport in South Carolina. The thing that was wrong was his apparent failure to lower the landing gear, but that is not the stupid part. Okay, we're human and gear up landings happen to the best of us.
It is important that we preface our conclusions by saying that we do not know what was going through the pilot's mind during the final minutes of this accident nor do we have any information regarding this event other than the NTSB report. That said, the apparent stupid part occurred when, after hearing the prop strike the runway, the pilot applied take off power and attempted to go around! Miraculously, the damaged propeller managed to get the airplane aloft again. Unfortunately, the damaged engine (resulting from the prop strike) gave out before he could return for a second attempt at landing. The airplane fell short of the runway, impacted trees, and caught on fire. The pilot managed to escape through the rear cargo door. His front seat passenger was not so fortunate. The story gets even more unbelievable! No pilot wants to admit to a gear up landing. This probably explains the accident pilot's actions. In statements given to the NTSB, the pilot said that "he ran through the normal landing check list including putting the landing gear down. At touchdown, the wind picked up and the airplane was going "a little to fast." The airplane bounced and I elected to do a go-around and try again." When asked why the gear was found in the UP position in the wreckage, the pilot said he "pulled the gear back up to gain lift . . .and that he kept the landing gear up to avoid getting them caught in the trees." Now for the actual facts! Here is an excerpt of the NTSB report,
Break the accident chain at the very first link . . .
The next and potentially fatal link occurred when he heard the nasty sound of the spinning propeller strike the runway below. It was at that link that he had no other choice but to allow the airplane to land and come to a stop on the runway. Had he done so, his passenger would likely have been alive today. The lesson here is more obvious than most. Anytime the structural integrity of our airplane is damaged, whether by prop strike, bird strike, or mid-air collision, the first step is to get it on the ground without delay! Similarly, any steps we elect to skip in the process of piloting an airplane, e.g., reading a checklist, are generally the very first steps in the accident chain. Our objective should always be to correct the problem at the earliest possible link in what could be a resultant accident.
There it is, encapsulated in a single, un-named online forum post. It points directly to one of the most insidious shortcomings in the GA flight training industry. That shortcoming are the flight schools that train only when the weather is severe clear, free of challenging winds, disturbing visibility, and threatening precipitation. Even in my home drome, I have often launched in safe but windy or low ceiling conditions while other other instructors have their students sitting around in corners doing ground work. All things considered, their students would be better off flying on those challenging weather days and saving the sunny ones for ground instruction!! Think about it! How is the primary or instrument student going to acquire challenging weather flight experience?. This is another major component of the "dirty little secret" nobody likes to talk about in the GA flight training community. "Yes, but you should see our simulator!"
He is are correct! We should not believe it! There is no way, other than in a full-up, multi-million dollar airline-type simulator, that students can master weather flying in a stationary flight simulator. To suggest otherwise to their primary and instrument students is not only a professional disservice, it also creates a false sense of confidence that may later cause those students real problems when they eventually solo in real airplanes. Stationary flight simulators DO play an important role in flight training, but they should not be substituted for real airplanes when preparing pilots for challenging weather flying. We don't teach weather flying because we are not comfortable in weather flying!!
As descendents of a long lineage of weather-adverse CFIs, many of today's CFIs, including instrument instructors, have never flown in turbulent clouds or down to ILS minimums, in stiff cross-winds, or in freezing visible moisture. While well-intentioned and certainly desirous of providing their students with the best flight training possible, these weather-adverse CFIs are the first to cancel instruction when the winds kick up to 12 to 15 knots, when the clouds drop to pattern altitude, or when the visibility approaches marginal VFR conditions. From a safety perspective, there is nothing wrong with being weather-adverse . . . but it does little to prepare tomorrow's pilots for the very real, and often unpredictable, weather threats that take far too many pilot lives. Weather is the #1 Pilot Killer! Let us not forget that weather remains the number one contributing factor in all fatal GA accidents! Pilots earn their ratings with little or no real weather flying experience. Down the road, they believe that because they have an FAA issued airman's certificate with an instrument rating in their pocket that they are now capable of handling all that nature can dish out!
Student pilots DO need to experience challenging weather including crosswinds, IFR conditions, convective clouds, and freezing temperatures. When such training is provided by skilled and experienced instructors, future pilots are far more capable of making appropriate decisions to fly or not to fly, or to stay the course or divert. These kinds of decisions, when properly made, have the potential of producing more improvements in GA flight safety than any other single initiative! If you do not have solid weather flying experience or if your CFII is weather-adverse when it comes to training, do yourself a potentially lifesaving favor and secure meaningful weather-flight training from a skilled and experienced instructor.
Upstate New York Pilots . . . don't miss this year's Rochester Wings Aviation Expo and Fly-in on Friday and Saturday, May 5 and 6, at the Greater Rochester International Airport. Click HERE for more information.
Click HERE to view what other readers have had to say about "Over the Airwaves."
Over the Airwaves
is not intended to be your typical training,
official news, or club-type social journal.
Instead, its intent is to stimulate thought,
enhance aviation critical thinking skills, to
encourage the strong pilot, and to disturb the
weaker pilot. With this breadth of scope,
Over the Airwaves will evoke a number of
reactions. Please feel free to share these
reactions with me by clicking
HERE.
Past Issues of Click
HERE
to open any previous issue(s) of Over
the Airwaves and to search for any past articles.
|
reached
room temperature. A menace to the traffic pattern and
the unnamed enemy of local air traffic controllers, these
rogue pilots eventually earn a starring role in an NTSB
report. And in the process, they tarnish the image of
every proficient general aviation pilot in the nation.
If
we place the burden of reaching rogue pilots on the FAA,
we will all likely suffer through oppressive and often
needless rules and regulations. Yes, changes to
FAR Part 61 are long overdue. Annual rather than
biennial flight reviews is a good place to start.
Good pilots always welcome opportunities to learn from
skilled flight instructors. The rogue pilots will
resist, but that's okay. They have a choice to
comply or stop flying!
Besides,
they depend upon membership dues to exist. If they
hammer rogue pilot members too aggressively, their
revenues could dip. If that happens, their
effectiveness in protecting GA rights is weakened.
We
flight instructors must understand that it is one's
attitudes, not aptitudes, motor skills, or intellectual
capacities that contribute to ultimate flight safety.
We
pilots are the other one-half of the solution. We
are the ones who share the ramps, fuel pumps, and
hangars, taxi and runway, and traffic patterns with
rogue pilots. 
For
a $50-per-month subscription fee and the
installation of some equipment, pilots can receive Nexrad weather radar graphics, satellite mosaic
depiction, echo tops, winds aloft and on the
surface, lightning, storm cells, metars, TAFs,
airmets, sigmets, TFRs, freezing levels and
forecasts. This information is displayed on
almost any digital screen in the the cockpit.
For
a one-time charge of about $4,000 to $8,000, pilots
can have the ability to instantly identify the
location and intensities of electrical discharges in
the atmosphere. Created by shifting columns of
air, groupings of such discharges signal the
formation of thunderstorms which, in turn, are
displayed on a screen in the cockpit with distance
and direction information.
Roughly
the same technology that developed in WWII to spot
enemy aircraft and now used by ATC to track
airplanes, on-board weather radar is tuned
specifically to look for rain cells, not airplanes.
A radar beam is sent out and is reflected by
raindrops back to the radar antenna. The size,
distance, and direction of rain cells are displayed
on the radar screen in the cockpit.
I have a colleague CFI at a nearby airport here in the
flatlands of Western New York who insists that training flights
to distant airports is a waste of time and a convenient but
unethical way to "pad" instructor fees. After all, he
insists, one airport is the same is the next! 
Again, according to the the FAA's Instrument
Procedures Handbook, prior to 2000, instrument departure
procedures (DPs) were published in two separate formats: IFR
departure procedures and standard instrument departures (SIDs).
IFR departure procedures were textual obstacle clearance
procedures published by the Office of Aviation System Standards
(AVN).
ODPs.
While the date of conversion is not exact, it is currently in
work. 
Self-diagnosis
is something we talk little about in flight instruction.
Sure, we learn to pre-flight our airplanes, how to interpret
weather, and even compute weight and balance. Few of us,
however, really appreciate the importance of an objective
self-analysis. 
Very
high on the list of pilot frustrations is being aloft in
declining weather with minimal fuel and nowhere to go! 
Suppose, as in the above scenario, your primary airport went
below minimums, will the controller automatically clear you to
your filed alternate?
Have
you ever launched into sub-freezing clouds and wondered what you
would do if you suddenly encountered icing conditions? How
about launching into clouds where the presence of imbedded
thunderstorms might play a factor in your flight?
There
is something about not paying attention in the climb that leads
to numerous fatal stall/spin accidents. Perhaps it is the
distraction caused by obstacles ahead, or ice on the wings, or
the sudden penetration into IFR conditions, or the loss of a
horizon during a moonless night departure, or simply one's
impatience to reach a high altitude. 
Has
the airplane you are thinking of
purchasing ever involved in an incident or accident?
Do you want to know the name and address of the owner of the airplane that taxied carelessly in
front of you? 
The
stupid part . . .
The
apparent first link in this accident chain occurred when the
pilot failed to run his pre-landing checklist. Okay, so
all of us have done this from time to time. 
"I'm
in a 141 flight training program. One thing that
ticks me off is how unless conditions are severe
VFR, we don't go flying (and I'm working on my
instrument, go figure)!"
When asked about weather flying, one
of my
neighboring flight school instructors said, "Bob, you
should try our flight simulator. I can dial in
crosswinds that you will not believe!"
It
was not until recently that I came to understand the
reluctance of many Part 141 flight schools and independent
CFIs to train in anything other than near-perfect VFR
conditions. The reason is very simple! Most such
instructors, themselves, never received any form of weather
flying training or experience. 
Like
newly minted 2nd lieutenant infantry platoon leaders who
never experienced the ugly heat of battle, these new pilots
boldly press on, often ignorant of the fact that weather can
kill! Fortunately, in the military, these
platoon leaders report directly to company commanders who do
have such experience and can keep things in check. Not
so in general aviation!
United States Readers:
"From
my first look at your site, I'll be
a frequent reader. Heard about you
from BackcountryPilot.org.
Thanks"
"Over
the Airwaves is full of everyday
useful information."
"I
so enjoy each and every one of your
OTA Journals. There is so much in
each one to digest. I hope you know
how much good you are doing to help
pilots like myself become better and
safer."
"Bob:
I hope that your statement about the
electrical system reduncancy (sic)
was simply as the result of
ignorance on your part and not the
result of some ulterior motive. You
need to do the following two things
to salvage your credibility. First,
in your next article you need to
correct this statement and better
explain the reduncancy (sic) of the
Cirrus electrical system. Second,
you need to explain the virtues of
the load shedding diode in
protecting the essential buss from
damage due to short circuits in the
main buss, (something unique to the
Cirrus)." 
Sign
Up for "Over the Airwaves" 