Sunday,
April 22, 2007 Vol. IV No.
8 |
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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:
Weather Flying
As proficient pilots, like all other professionals, we continually strive to improve our skill sets. We read, discuss, and practice this thing we do with the same intensity as a professional athlete, a concert violinist, or research scientist. Unlike professionals in most other endeavors, however, we airmen, whether test pilots, airline captains, or light sport guys or girls, have one distinguishing characteristic. That is, when we fall short of a required skill set, we die and, sadly, we often take others with us!
Curiously, there is an entire cohort of general aviation pilots who quickly dismiss all of this. These unfortunate souls believe themselves to be immune from making mistakes in their airplanes. They do not read, discuss, or practice like other professionals. Instead, these folks simply meander out to the aerodrome, climb into their flying machines, and takeoff whenever the mood strikes. Tragically, these are the folks who populate our daily NTSB accident reports. If I did but this one thing! Looking over the entire skill set spectrum required of proficient pilots, there is not enough time (or money) to be on top of our game at everything! Thus, if we all had but one aspect of aviation to focus upon, what should it be? Answer: Weather! The data backs up the fact that if every GA pilot had a practical understanding of meteorology, our fatal accident rate would tumble by 50 percent or more. For example, according to the NTSB report, the Cirrus SR22 pilot mentioned above attempted to evade a thunderstorm by climbing above it. Was that his best choice?
When reviewing a METAR report, would a dew point temperature above 21d C. concern you? Are you familiar with the lifted index? Does a wintertime low have special significance to you? These are just a couple of the dozens of critical weather factors that can spell the difference between glee and gloom in any flight we take. Become a weather savvy pilot! Becoming a weather savvy pilot involves more than reading about meteorology. While not discounting the importance of ground study, we proficient pilots spend a lot of time aloft in actual weather. We get out and observe first hand those weather factors that affect the safety of flight.
Are the winds running 50 degrees across the runway at 22 knots? If we are not comfortable launching alone, we need to find a qualified instructor to go with us. Has the visibility gone down to approach minimums and we haven't been in the clouds in several weeks or more, we need to find a qualified CFII and re-soak our ticket. Weather demons get far too many well-intentioned pilots. It's up to each of us to master these demons. Fly safe, Bob
Miller, ATP, CfII Getting Ready for the Summer Bumps!
Our first consideration in any flight is, of course, safety. A close second, however, is the kind of ride can we expect. If the ride is silky smooth, our passengers enjoy the experience. If we take them through turbulent air, they may never ride with us again! Finding smooth air should be every
pilot's objective. Sometimes we need to only look UP
to find it. Yep, smooth air is often found just
above
A quick reference to the above graphic illustrates the effect of rising columns of warm air called thermals. Created by a variety of forces including the differential heating of the earth's surface, these columns of air cool to the point where their temperature matches the dew point. That's when they produce those white puffy cumulous clouds. Bumps below . . . smooth above! Recreational pilots seem to enjoy picking altitudes of, say, 7,000' AGL and below where a combination of terrain and thermals create often bone-jarring bumps. Air at these altitudes often reminds me of my childhood summers spent at Jones Beach on Long Island, NY. We'd dive through the crashing surf, swim out 40 yards or so, then body surf back into the sandy beach.
Remember . . . non-pilot passengers do not like the bumps! If we want our friends and families to fly with us, we need to climb above the boundary layer that marks the transition from terrain induced turbulence and the continental airflow AND above the tops of those white puffies to the clear blue sky above. This may require climbs to 8,500' or above to achieve. Do it . . . your passengers will appreciate it. CFIs Beware - It's rare but this stuff happens!
What do you suppose this CFI can do if the student freezes on the controls while the airplane enters the second or third turn of the spin? You're right, nothing! The Scenario: This was the likely scenario last year near Phoenix, AZ where required spin training was being given to a CFI candidate. According to the radar tracks, the airplane showed a gradual climb of about 380 feet per minute until reaching 6,100' MSL. The target maintained a northerly path around 6,000 feet msl for several minutes until it made a turn to the west. It then made several counterclockwise circular revolutions and zigzags. The radar returns indicated an oscillation in altitude of approximately 1,000 feet over 1- to 2-minute intervals. It then showed seven similar patterns where there was a short climb followed by a quick loss of altitude. The last two radar returns are consistent with a descent from 2,100 feet to 1,250 feet above ground level (agl), in 20 seconds. These returns were consistent with spin maneuvers. The weather was perfect and the aircraft was within its required weight and balance limits. The wreckage:
The first identified point of impact was a crater of
disturbed soil located 100 feet from the main wreckage. The
propeller was found in between the initial crater and main
wreckage. The engine was displaced from its mounts and came
to rest a few feet to the east of the firewall. About the lady instructor pilot . . . According to interviews with her other flight school students, this 900 hour lady CFI was a careful pilot who always provided detailed ground instruction prior to conducting spin training. She would go through the same procedure each time, beginning with climbing to a safe altitude, clearing turns, slow flight, power-off stalls, then spin entries that were always limited to three turns or less. About the candidate CFI receiving instruction . . . Investigators interviewed another Pan Am Flight Academy instructor about his experiences teaching the second pilot of the accident airplane. He stated that he instructed the second pilot in about 10 to 12 flights. This
instructor classified
the second pilot's piloting skills as "good" within the
training environment, but lacking in areas requiring
piloting in situations "outside the box." He recalled the
second pilot acting impulsively on numerous occasions when a
stressful situation was simulated, such as failing an engine
or stalling the airplane. The instructor
stated that during ground training of spins, the second
pilot asked numerous questions about spins and seemed very
nervous about the upcoming spin flight. As part of a restart attempt, the instructor pilot pushed the control wheel forward to utilize the airflow to help in mobilizing the propeller. The airplane pitched nose down and the second pilot panicked, grasping the control wheel and holding it firmly aft. The second pilot would not relax his grasp and continued to lock the control wheel toward him. The instructor
jabbed the second pilot in the leg in an effort to encourage
him to relinquish the controls. The second pilot finally
released the control yoke and the instructor reprimanded
him; the engine eventually restarted and the flight landed
without mishap. Knowing the other flight school instructors' experience with this pilot, would you have taken him up for spin training? Imagine weighing just 100 pounds and sitting next to this nervous 230 pound man as you take him through his first experiences with stalls and spins! Here's what the NTSB concluded in its probable cause findings:
Instructors - Beware! Most experienced CFIs have encountered "surprising" student behavior from time to time. Should this behavior catch us off guard, the results can be tragic. For
example, I had a student pilot stiffen on the controls
recently during a full flap go-around . Fortunately,
the result was not tragic but the experience served to remind me that CFIs must ALWAYS be
Lastly, as in all other aspects of flight, CFIs need "backdoors" as well. What is our plan should we get in a wrestling match with a panicky student for control of the airplane? Tough question . . . but we need an answer! Maybe it is a pen jab to the leg or a karate chop to the neck (kidding??). Whatever it is, CFIs are responsible for the safe outcome of every training flight we conduct, regardless of the student's behavior. Have a plan; be prepared! Master the Surface Analysis Chart! If you had but one weather report product upon which to base your pre-flight planning, it would have to be the surface analysis chart. Updated every 12 hours, this wonderful depiction of the atmosphere looks ahead at 12, 24, 36, and 48 hour intervals.
The above surface analysis chart was posted on the web this past Monday, April 16th just as the Northeast was being pounded with rain, snow, and ice. Notice the low pressure area sitting atop of New York City as converging warm and cold fronts serve to anchor the low in place. This produced three days of the nastiest weather of the season. Also note the tightly packed isobars around NYC's low. Swirling winds moving counter-clockwise around this low served to draw warmer air off of the Atlantic Ocean and mixed it with sub-zero air over the New England states. Bingo . . . a sure-fire ice machine was at work wreaking havoc aloft. Note the high pressure areas stretching southward from Wisconsin to the Gulf of Mexico. A warm front over Iowa was pushing this improving weather eastward, thus promising some relief this weekend for those of us in the northeast growing weary of this long, cold winter. Each OTA issue contains active links to the surface weather charts, along with other valuable weather products. This link is titled "Pre-flight Briefing" and is located on the top banner of this page. Concerned About Your Next
Today, Jim is a svelte 175 pounds with a BP of 120/80! And he accomplished this remarkable 90 pound weight loss without South Beach, Atkins, Jenny Craig, or other fad diets. He did not have surgery. He did not take weight loss pills. Photo left: The gray haired gentlemen are actually before and after pictures of Jim Pawlicki! A little Photoshop work made it possible to show "fat" Jim (left) standing next to "slim" Jim (right) as Jim's son looks on in the middle. So how did Jim do it? "Easy," says Jim. "I cut back food portions and made a ceremony out of pushing my plate away with a bit of remaining hunger. I also began walking at first, then I gradually increased my daily exercise routine." Jim was kind enough to share the details of his victorious battle with weight in a special article prepared for Over the Airwaves. You can access this article by clicking HERE.
Thunderstorms - The bad boys of summer!
The key, of
course, is to have a basic understanding of the
meteorology that makes them happen. This is
followed, of course, by always having a plan when
encountering them.
What causes a thunderstorm?
While the underlying complexities of thunderstorm
development are many and varied, we can reduce the
main elements to three basic requirements as
described below:
There are three primary causes of atmospheric
instability. The first is produced by rising
columns of warm air called thermals.
These are produced by the uneven heating of the
earth's surface.
The second cause of instability is a phenomenon
called a convergence. Here, two
different air masses near the earth's surface
collide and force air upwards.
The third cause is air currents being lifted
up as they move over mountains.
(2) Heat:
(3) Moisture:
Lastly, we need moisture. When high humidity (moisture) is added to the
mix, exciting things begin to happen. As this
moisture condenses, it gives off heat which, in
turn, lifts the rising air further into the
atmosphere.
More moisture condenses, giving up
more heat, and the higher the whole thing goes.
This process creates the updrafts typically
associated with thunderstorms.
Rain
falling out of the downdrafts is often caught up by
the updrafts where some of it evaporates, then
re-condenses which, in turn, re-kindles the heat
making process.
The remaining rain freezes at the
higher altitudes, then begins to fall out as hail.
Some of this hail is, again, lifted up where it
takes on additional moisture and re-freezes.
This produces ever-increasing larger hailstones.
This thunderstorm development process quickly
takes on the characteristics of a nuclear reaction.
Heat created by condensation plus the cooling of the
surrounding air by evaporation and falling rain drops
together produces a
self-perpetuating meteorological chain reaction
that, in the worst scenario, spawns catastrophic
tornadoes!
Credit University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign for graphics in this article.
GA Flight Risks Examined by University
Researchers
Reporting in the April 11, 2007
issue of the Journal of the American Medical
Association, researchers report that
"general aviation flights are
82 times riskier than commercial airline trips and
represent the overwhelming majority of aviation
crashes and casualties in the United States."
They also blame GA's safety
risks on "pilots flying while intoxicated, sudden
incapacitation (heart attack or other health issue),
older age, being male, having a nonconformist flying
style (e.g. being a daredevil) and having a prior
record of an aviation crash or violation. Physician
pilots are also found to crash at a higher rate per
flight hour than other pilots."
Click
HERE for more
information on these study findings.
Thanks to OTA reader Mike
Stevens for passing this information along to
us. Mid-Air Collision . . . who's to
blame??
Taking off right
behind him was a student and instructor on a
training flight in a Cessna 172RG. The tower
issued an IFR clearance to the 172RG pilot with
instructions to make a right 270 degree turn back
over the airport per the published departure
procedure. He was then instructed him to
contact Southern California (SoCal) Departure Control.
Both flights were heading for
Brown Field Municipal Airport, San Diego,
California, located 15 miles to the south.
The Cessna 172RG was in radio
The Cessna 182Q had switched off frequency from the
Gillespie Air Traffic Control Tower and was assigned
a VFR transponder code of 1200.
Unknown to either pilots, their aircraft were on
a collision course!
What the witnesses observed:
A professional airline pilot on the ground in a
nearby residential area observed the two airplanes
flying approximately at 1,800' MSL. One was flying
southwest and the other moving eastward.
The airplanes were still in
the Gillespie Field Class D airspace when the
eastbound airplane impacted the right side of the
southwest bound airplane. A collision threat
alarm sounded in the TRACON, but was apparently not
noticed by controllers working the flights.
Upon impact, there was an
instant ball of fire and the wings separated from
the fuselages of the airplanes as they descended to
the ground. The controller acknowledged,
another pilot confirmed the report.
According the the NTSB report, the airplanes
collided in flight over a six block, densely
populated area of El Cajon and debris showered into
neighborhoods and into Harry Griffen Park, located
in the city of La Mesa, California.
As the right wing of the Cessna 182Q landed in
front of a residence, fuel sprayed from the fuel
bladder onto the front of the residence, which
subsequently sustained considerable fire damage. The
left wing of the Cessna 172RG landed on a residence,
penetrating the structure. The right wing
landed in a parking lot and a parked vehicle
sustained fire damage.
This system detected a conflict
between the Cessna 172RG and the Cessna 182Q,
sounding aural alarms and placing flashing red
warnings next to both aircraft targets on the sector
radar displays. The aural alarm sounded for two
five-second periods, and the flashing warnings
sounded right up until the collision occurred. Probable Cause Finding:
The National Transportation Safety Board
determines the probable cause(s) of this
accident as follows:
"The pilots of both airplanes failure to maintain an adequate visual
lookout due to their relative flight
paths, which limited the available
visual cues." "Factors were the
failure of the air traffic controller(s)
to issue a conflict alert to the Cessna
172RG after repeated visual and aural
warnings of an impending collision and
the task load of the certified flight
instructor." Lessons Learned: An airplane on an IFR flight plan and receiving ATC vectors collides in flight with another airplane in Class D airspace. Sure, it's easy to hang the blame on ATC. But in this case, the primary responsibility for collision avoidance lies squarely with the pilots.
According to AC 90-48C, "…the flight
rules prescribed in Part 91 of the
Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs) set
forth the concept of "See and Avoid."
This concept requires that vigilance
shall be maintained at all times, by
each person operating an aircraft,
regardless of whether the operation is
conducted under IFR or VFR. In summary, collision avoidance, whether IFR or VFR, remains the pilot's responsibility whenever visual conditions exist.
AVSIG - Oldest Online
Aviation Forum!!
Some of these forums are
overseen by a moderator who helps to maintain user
decorum. Others, like AOPA's popular online
forum, are unsupervised free-for-alls where
anonymous and often ill-informed posters freely
"flame" (read: insult) those who do not agree
their particular points of view. My favorite online aviation forum is "AVSIG" - meaning Aviation Special Interest Group. Originally founded back when CompuServe was a household name among fledgling Internet users, "AVSIG" is populated by aviation professionals and serious enthusiasts. No "flamers" or anonymous participants are permitted. AVSIG, you'll find FAA insiders, air traffic controllers, aviation publication editors, TERPs specialists, and airline and corporate pilots who, together, possess more aviation wisdom than an aviation reference library. But don't be intimidated. AVSIGGERS welcome newcomers as well! You can visit AVSIG by clicking HERE.
Donations needed to spread the OTA flight safety message around the globe!!If you found Over the Airwaves helpful to you personally and/or beneficial to general aviation and would like to support its continued publication, please consider making a donation to the effort. Simply click on the button below to access a secure link through which donations can be made. Those wishing to mail a donation can do so by making a check payable to Bob Miller, 124 Delaware Street, Tonawanda, NY 14051.Your donations are used exclusively in the preparation, advancement, and promotion of Over the Airwaves to and for pilots all over the globe.
OTA's goal
is that every certificated pilot in the world will have FREE
access to the flight safety reminders contained in each
bi-weekly OTA
issue. We need YOUR financial help to make this goal a
reality. Get Intimate with Your Airspeed
Indicator: It could save your life!! All of our flight instruments are
important, but take away our airspeed indicator (ASI), we
could be in deep trouble without even knowing it!
After all, it's airspeed that creates lift, and without
lift, we know what can happen - particularly if we are in
the clouds. Yep . . . . we can stall, then spin, then
_____________ (you fill in the blank). The above diagram illustrates the inner
workings of a conventional airspeed indicator. As you
will note, the ASI is a differential pressure gauge that
measures the dynamic pressure of the air through which the
aircraft is flying. Dynamic pressure is the difference in the
ambient static air pressure and the total, or ram, pressure
caused by the motion of the aircraft through the air.
These two pressures are taken from the pitot-static system.
As the pitot pressure increases, or the
static pressure decreases, the diaphragm expands, and this
dimensional change is measured by a rocking shaft and a set
of gears that drives a pointer across the instrument dial.
Most airspeed indicators are calibrated in knots, or
nautical miles per hour; some instruments show statute miles
per hour, and some instruments show both.
A conveniently color coded airspeed dial provides the pilot with critical airspeed information at a glance. Be sure you understand the significance of each of these colors! Type of Airspeed When an air traffic controller calls and asks your airspeed, what do you tell him (or her)? True airspeed? Calibrated airspeed? Indicated airspeed? Equivalent airspeed? Hmmmm . . . it does make a difference! The answer, of course, is your indicated airspeed. That's the speed you read off of your airspeed indicator. Let's review this and the other types of airspeed.
Lockheed Martin FSS Transition - Poor Results So Far!
Not so, at least in my experience over this past week. I was flying between South Central U.S. cities every day of the week. After frustrating delays in getting through to a FSS briefer prior to each flight, I finally gave up and resorted to the remarkably reliable computerized DUATS system to obtain pre-flight briefing information and to file my instrument flight plans. The first problems I encountered with the centralized Lockheed Martin FSS system was dealing with its voice recognition program upon initial call up. A pre-recorded female voice comes and says, "If you want to speak with a briefer, say briefer." My repeated attempts at making this work suggested that I speak in a slow, southern style before she could recognize my spoken word.
Finally, a real live briefer who hails from Montana came on the line. Hmmm . . . I wondered why it was necessary to say the state I was calling from. What did this guy from Montana know about possible lake effect snow showers? Problems repeated daily . . . And so it went on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Thank goodness the little airport in Pickens County, SC had dial up access to the Internet last Thursday morning, otherwise I would still be there waiting to file! Lesson Learned . . . Having experienced the feds troubled past efforts to privatize public functions, I'm not confident that these FSS problems are going to be resolved anytime in my lifetime, so I've resorted to carrying a web accessible laptop in my airplane just in case any of the rural airports I depart from do not have a computer. I suggest other OTA readers do likewise. Be sure to register with DUATS by clicking HERE. AOPA also hosts of a very capable flight planning website HERE.Unfortunately, these FSS woes are creating more than an inconvenience to pilots. They are also likely to exacerbate our flight risks by frustrating the efforts of well-intended pilots to obtain a pre-flight briefing prior to every launch. OTA would like to hear of your FSS experiences. Perhaps if we can get enough of us on record, more aggressive corrective actions might result. Click HERE to send in your comments. Steep Turns Close to the
Think again! They did have trouble! The Weather The weather on January 27, 2006 at the Oakland County International Airport (PTK), near Pontiac, Michigan was about as good as it gets, with light winds out of the west. The Mission The pilots were engaged in doing touch and goes on Runway 27L, lots of them. In fact, the tower had issued a total of 24 touch and go clearances during the 67 minute training flight, yielding an average traffic pattern circuit of less than 3 minutes between landings. These guys were humming! The Pilots The rear seat pilot held airplane single and multi-engine land, airplane single engine sea, glider, and instrument airplane ratings. He also held a certified flight instructor certificate with airplane single and multi-engine, glider, and instrument airplane ratings. He had logged 2,757 hours of flight experience. The front seat pilot held airplane single and multi-engine land, and instrument airplane ratings with a total of 373 hours. The Tower Controller The tower controller stated that after the airplane had completed a touch and go landing, he offered the pilot runway 9L since the pilot was terminating his pattern work. He added that the pilot accepted this offer and was cleared to land on runway 9L. He said that the airplane made a tight right turn off of the departure end of runway 27L and, "The next thing I knew he was on the ground." So what happened? Witnesses reported seeing the airplane in a steep bank turn before it descended and impacted the ground. Another witness reported seeing the airplane flying in the traffic pattern prior to the accident. He reported that he was in another airplane positioned at the approach end of runway 9R, conducting a maintenance run-up when he witnessed the accident airplane. He said that he saw the accident airplane performing touch and go landings on runway 27L. He stated that he saw the airplane performing steep bank turns that were "not normal" within the traffic pattern. The witness further stated that he saw
the airplane in the dive prior to impact. He stated that the
airplane was in a dive and struck the ground in a nose low
and left wing low attitude. Both pilots died in the crash. Got the Picture? Clearly, we cannot get inside the minds of these two experienced pilots. They were likely feeling pretty good about their hour long training exercise. It was time to quit. With just one more final landing to go, they banked hard right for a tight downwind landing. Somehow, they let their apparent declining airspeed go unnoticed. Excessive right rudder may have been applied just as the steeply banked Citabria approached its two-G bank-induced higher stall speed. Sensing a loss of altitude produced by the steep bank, one of the pilots may have pitched up at precisely the worst moment in this likely yawed flight configuration. An aggravated stall resulted with one wing falling out from under them. Too close to the ground, this event was unrecoverable. Here's what the NTSB had to say:
Lessons Learned: The first and most powerful lesson for all of us is that lots of flight experience and multiple ratings do NOT exempt us from possible mishap. Second, spins can ONLY occur if the wing is stalled. Prevent the stall, the spin cannot occur. This always occurs above Vs (stall speed). Next, remember that banking while maintaining level flight increases the load factor. As load factor increases, stall speed increases. Lastly, steep maneuvers close to the ground leave NO "backdoors" for recoveries. And one final word of caution: Mishaps often happen FAST. This can easily catch us off-guard!
Human nature is a wondrous thing. Given enough money, ego, and encouragement, many of us believe that we can fly safely by kicking the tires, lighting the fires, and pressing a couple buttons. And when things go wrong, we can reach up and pull the ballistic recovery chute handle, advise the insurance company, then go out and fly another day.
These folks see general aviation as a way out of the tortuous airport security lines, cramped seating, frequent delays, flight cancellations, and lost baggage. They are the captains of industry who, like me 30 years go, decided to take control of their travel requirements by learning to fly themselves. The good news/bad news Like most societal trend changes, there is both good and bad news in all of this. The good news is, airline industry-induced passenger abuses are driving general aviation in a positive direction. These abuses are fueling an ever-expanding new customer base for new GA aircraft. Armed with new cash and predictions of heightened sales from these affluent pilot wannabes and frustrated airline travelers, GA aircraft manufacturers are giving us new, sleek designs and performance not even imagined a decade or two ago. Think VLJs (very light jets). Are the airlines nervous about this potential loss of business customer revenue? You bet . . . and that's a large reason why they are pushing user fees, but that's another story.
Flight instructors can be persuaded to skip many of the foundation and aeronautical decision making (ADM) skills development steps required to make a safe and proficient pilot. When a student with a powerful persona and a strong ego says, "I don't want to do that," weak-kneed CFIs yield without a fight. Catering to the demands of this new-age flight student, we alter the training syllabus. We spend less time in the airplane and more time in the simulator. We teach to the PTS (Practical Test Standards) and little more. Take the lowly rudder, for example. In days of old, most flight students received at least a few turns around the pattern in a tail-dragger. It didn't take many x-wind landings to learn what to do with our feet. How about stalls? Most of us learned what happens when the instructor mashed the rudder just as we passed through the critical angle of attack. More importantly, we soon learned how to recover from these aggravated stalls before they developed into fully coupled up spins. Instrument training? My CFI simulator aficionados tell me that their simulators can re-create everything from light chop to severe turbulence caused by cloud-to-cloud lightning along with induction ice starving our engine all while we suffer a total electrical failure. I believe them. But they cannot create the paralyzing fright that can grip their graduates in their first REAL solo IFR penetration. Simulators aside, glass cockpits, moving maps, and integrated autopilots in real airplanes have replaced needle, ball, and airspeed instruments. Up-linked weather and GPS have made advanced flight planning little more than a couple button pushes. It's a brave new world Yes, Virginia, it is a brave new world out there and we need to embrace it. I am not arguing against new teaching methods and simplifying our cockpit demands. But I am vigorously arguing against a flight training system that removes the airplane from the process and the pilot from the system. In short, I am arguing against sending up new pilots, whose skills are basically limited to activating the autopilot and pulling the ballistic recovery chute, in the latest generation airplanes. The foundational skills must be there first. Influence, money, and egos all have a place in the corporate boardroom. When combined in the cockpit, with inadequate or incomplete flight training, the results can be disastrous.
Maybe we simply need a new placard affixed to the panel on
each new airplane coming out the factory door.
"Caution: Money, ego, and buttons do not enable user to
fly." Fly safe, Bob
Miller, ATP, CFII Upcoming Events of Note
May 4 and 5 - Rochester WINGS - Rochester International Airport (KROC) Over the Airwaves will be hosting an exhibit booth. OTA collaborator, Keith Harlock and I will be signing up new OTA readers. Please stop by and say hello! Click HERE for more information. Supporting Sponsors
APS Emergency Maneuver Training specializes in upset recovery training, stall/spin awareness, aerobatics and spin recovery training.
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Take,
for example, an airliner lining up on the wrong runway
for takeoff. How about an inadvertent yawed
stall as we maneuver from base to final?
What about a glass panel that toasts in the clag . . .
as happened to an Cirrus SR22 pilot earlier this month?
Can we maneuver effectively on our backup instruments?
When
encountering unexpected icing conditions, would you
change headings or change altitudes? When
passing through severe turbulence, would you hold
heading, concentrate on maintaining altitude, or reverse
course? Sure, these are no brainers to the weather
savvy pilot.
Chance of thunderstorms in the
forecast? That's no deal killer. Launch, but
remain VFR and put 25 miles or more between you and
those beasts. Observe from aloft how they form and
how they move. Observe the difference
between frontal and air mass thunderstorms. Learn
how to select your escape routes.
Seasons
change . . . and with them come changes in the way we flight
plan.
those
puffy white clouds that dot the summer skies.
Take
a well-respected and talented 100 pound female CFI and sit
her beside a nervous-type 230 pound male flight student in a
Cessna 152 and go do some spin training. 
ready for
the unexpected when any other pilot, particularly a student
pilot, is at the controls!
Buffalo,
NY pilot, Jim Pawlicki, age 56, tipped the scales at 265
pounds 15 months ago. His resting blood pressure, on
good days with medication was 155/90. 
Free
sign up for
Over the Airwaves
In the
winter, it's ice. In the summer, it's
thunderstorms. Each of these potentially
lethal weather phenomenon are essentially non-events
to the proficient pilot.
The
second requirement is heat. As
the air is lifted up, it
produces clouds that are warmer than their
surrounding air. Normally, this rising air
cools, condenses, and produces white, puffy clouds.
Compounding
this process is the cooling of the surrounding air
by the rain produced in the condensation process.
This cooling air produces the downdrafts in the
typical thunderstorm.
Researchers
at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public
Health recently concluded that changes are needed to
improve the safety of general aviation.
It
is a lovely VFR day in February, 2006. A
Cessna 182 private pilot took off from Gillespie
Field Airport in El Cajon, California, a Class D
airport. He departed VFR to the west and made
a left turn, while climbing in a southeasterly
direction.
contact
with the SoCal TRACON and was
assigned a discrete transponder code of 5276.
The
SoCal TRACON is equipped with an Automated Radar
Terminal System (ARTS IIIE) with conflict detection
software that is intended to alert controllers when
an aircraft is, or is predicted to be, in unsafe
proximity to other aircraft.
With
the growing popularity of the Internet, there is no
shortage of aviation chat rooms or forums.
Each aircraft affinity group has one.
Membership organizations also have their forum
followers.
The
ASI mechanism consists of a thin, corrugated phosphor-bronze
aneroid, or diaphragm, that receives its pressure from the
pitot tube. The instrument case is sealed and connected to
the static ports. 
Okay,
so the first day in their new centralized digs didn't
go so well. Long delays in answering pilot calls ruled
the day, but one would have though the wrinkles in this $1.9
billion effort would have been resolved in short order.
She
then asked me to say what state I was calling from.
Again, after several attempts to articulate in my finest
airmen's voice the words, NEW YAWRK, she finally accepted my
reply, then put me on an interminable hold. I waited,
and waited, and waited. 
One
would think that a highly maneuverable airplane like a
Citabria in the hands of an experienced flight instructor in
the backseat and an instrument and multi-engine rated pilot
up front would have little difficulty doing pattern work.
Indeed, the times are changing. We are seeing a new
breed of private pilots hanging around the FBO coffee pot.
Unlike dreamy-eyed kids who used to populate our flight
schools, we're seeing more early to mid-life professionals
and business executives who have grown weary of the abuses
of airline travel. 
Now
for the bad news. Flight schools and independent CFIs
can be easily taken in by the demands of these influential
new flight students. 
