Sunday,
July 15, 2007 Vol. IV No.
14 |
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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.
ATTENTION: "AIRVENTURE 2007 NOTAM" - Click HERE.
Choices Imagine you are aloft in a single engine Mooney. The engine suddenly quits. You look down and see a large four lane highway passing under you. Just beyond that you see a large open field. And beyond that you see some large trees. Then you see the airport. Where are you going to put down? Statistically speaking, the odds are greatly in our favor that we will never have to face such a choice. Despite their antiquated design, piston aircraft engines are remarkably reliable. As the old Timex watch advertisement says, "They take a beating and keep on ticking." Unfortunately, there was a Mooney M20K pilot who did face this choice with precisely the same options as described above. Shortly after departing the Golden Triangle Regional Airport (GTR), near Columbus, Mississippi, his engine quit. Below is a transcript of his radio exchanges with Memphis Center during his climb-out from the airport.
The time between the first communication and the last is approximate 1 minute and 32 seconds. The pilot reversed course
The pilot elected not to make a dead stick landing on the four lane. Nor did he opt for the large open field. No . . . the temptation to make it back to the runway was apparently too strong, despite the row of trees looming in his path. According to the NTSB report, the airplane struck a large oak tree nearly one mile short of the runway. The pilot was killed in the wreck. We always have choices As the opening quote at the top of this page says, a live dog is better than a dead lion. You may prefer the old adage about birds in the hand. Either way, when faced with choices in airplanes, the safest choice always trumps trying to save the airplane. Remember, ownership title to our aircraft transfers to our insurance company the instant the engine quits aloft! Don't try to do them any favors!
Far too many of us try to save our airplane. We enter a stall/spin when trying to make an immediate return to the airport. Or, as in the instance above, we try to stretch our glide to make it back to the airport. We venture on through threatening weather rather than diverting to a safe and secure airport below. Imagine, if ALL of our piloting decisions err on the side where the probability of safe outcome is the greatest, our fatal accident rate would drop dramatically!
Turns Around a Point . . . Know the trick? Veteran pilots remember them . . . . student pilots practice them. They are those pesky little turns around a point that the examiner uses to assess the pilot's ground tracking skills. While some pilots "feel" their way around the point, there is a more scientific way that always works out. That way, of course, is to correlate bank angle with ground speed. The faster the ground speed, the steeper the bank. Look at the illustration below:
As always, the maneuver is begun with the prevailing wind at our back. Our ground speed is fastest, hence our bank angle is greatest, as we pass abeam the point. From there, our ground speed steadily decreases as we complete the next 270 degrees of a 360 degree turn. Consequently, our bank angle decreases steadily in one continuous motion through the same 270 degree arc of the turn. Then it's back to the steepest angle as we, again, enter the downwind leg of the turn. Go out and practice this. You'll be surprised how easy this maneuver can become! Consider the Missed When Configuring for the Approach! Most of us have our hands and brains full when we're flying an instrument procedure down to minimums. We're focused on keeping the needles centered as we jockey pitch and power as required to keep things stabilized. But what happens if we have to go "missed?" Is it simply a matter of advancing the throttle(s) and pitching up?" The answer is a solid NO!
Simply adding power and pitching up may work in the flat lands of Kansas or Iowa, but don't try it around mountainous airports. Similarly, don't try it while carrying ice! Configure for the "missed" In our hearts, we may desperately want to complete the approach and get on the ground. Our heads, however, should be focused on the likelihood of not being able to get in and the steps necessary to execute a safe missed approach.
Getting set up for the "missed" begins, of course, inside the final approach fix (FAF). This means setting the mixture, prop speed, and flaps for takeoff settings. While we may attempt to reconfigure the airplane for this "missed" as we pass over the MAP (missed approach point), this is a lot to do at such a critical phase of flight, particularly in single pilot operations. Unexpected IMC . . . Formula for Disaster
The pilot held a commercial pilot certificate. He had received his instrument rating just a couple of years earlier. He had logged a little over 1,000 hours total time. Following dinner around 8pm, the two lady passengers climbed into the rear seats and strapped themselves in. The pilot and other passenger secured themselves in the front seats, then taxied to the runway for departure. According to a local taxi driver who had
driven the foursome to
No flight plan had been filed. Their world suddenly ends According to witnesses, the airplane took off and "...at an altitude of approximately 150 feet, the airplane made an abrupt left descending turn of about 45 degrees." All four people died in this classic stall/spin event that sent this aircraft nose-first into the Gulf of Mexico. Curiously, the witness also pointed out a memorial located at the end of runway 23, which had been placed there after a 1980 aircraft accident, that said, "Horizon will not be present during a night takeoff to the west." This . . . . could happen to us! Our weather briefing assures us that the weather is good VFR. Day slips into evening. The moon is not present. We take off over water and suddenly discover the absence of any visible horizon. Our instrument skills are rusty (or perhaps totally lacking). We struggle for orientation. We look out and see a single light ahead. Is it a boat? Is it airplane? Is it a star? Up and down look exactly the same. The airplane sounds get louder. Our airspeed is building and the sound of air rushing over the fuselage increases dramatically. Sensing that we are descending, we pull back on the yoke. The G-forces in the cabin triple. Passengers begin to scream. We can't believe this is happening. The instruments are all a blur. Nothing we do with the yoke helps. Seconds seemingly turn into minutes and even hours, then it is all over. Mercifully, we die instantly as our airplane rams the water at close to red line speed, thereby saving us the pain and anguish of experiencing the results of our actions and the grief caused to family and friends we leave behind. Sorry to be so graphic, but this is very close to what happens when we suffer spatial disorientation in the clouds and quickly enter a stall/spin/spiral configuration, followed by the impact of water or ground. We pilots need to be intimately aware of this all too familiar scenario. We need to understand that even a momentary lapse in our orientation is all that it takes to transform a fun flight into headlines for the evening news. Again, it only takes a couple of seconds! An ounce of prevention . . . Night VFR flight presents its own set of unique challenges. On the one hand, bright stars and the twinkling lights of the city below can all add up to a spectacularly beautiful flight. On the other hand, the absence of moonlight, haze, and featureless terrain can make for IFR conditions even though it is a clear VFR night! Simple recurrent training may be all that is necessary to keep our instrument skills sharp. Find a qualified CFII, go into the clag. Get comfortable! Stabilized Approach: Is it airspeed or power setting? One sure-fire way to kick off a hangar flying debate is to make a hard and fast statement about the best way of doing something in an airplane. When setting up for an approach to landing, for example, some pilots focus on their airspeed. Others use power settings. In truth, of course, it's both! The key is to arrive at the runway surface, power off and at the proper touchdown speed.
Approaching the traffic pattern on a 45 degree entry to the downwind leg in the venerable Cessna 172 as an example, I prefer to lock the power at 2,200 RPM and trim for level flight (at traffic pattern altitude). Airspeed is not a factor at this point. Once abeam the landing end of the runway, I slowly reduce power to 1,900 RPM and give a gentle push on the yoke. The airplane begins to settle downward at about 500 feet per minute. Ten degrees of flaps are dialed in at the same time.
Another 10 degrees of flaps are applied on the base leg and power is reduced to 1,600 RPM. A quick glance at the airspeed indicator confirms that we are between 70 and 80 KIAS. Works every time! Airspeed rules on final . . . Airspeed aficionados can begin to relax now. Airspeed DOES rule on the final approach leg. Now stabilized on final, we finely tune our airspeed with slight pitch adjustments to cross over the trees at precisely 65 KIAS (gusty days, 70 KIAS). Then we settle on the runway at 50 KIAS. Again, this works every time! These power settings and airspeeds are tailored to specific make/model aircraft. The important thing is that we know what they are, then we adhere closely to them . . . every time! A word about winds . . . Winds, of course, play an important role in achieving a stabilized approach. Gusty winds typically call for an increased indicated airspeed on final. Increasing headwinds on landing also dictate a slightly steeper glidepath so as to avoid "dragging" ourselves in low and slow.
In summary, we can see that the power vs. airspeed debate should never really happen. Power settings and airspeed each play a role in a stabilized approach. Each, however, is primary at different points in the approach sequence. Beware of those who always see the world of aviation through "black and white" glasses. We OTA readers know, of course, that it is really shades of gray!Thunderstorm Birthing The photo below was taken earlier this week as primary student John Kalonaros and I were returning home from a cross-country flight. It illustrates the rapid transformation of clouds from the benign white puffy stage, to the towering cumulonimbus, and eventually into the mature thunderstorm stage. While this still photo cannot depict the speed at which this transformation occurred, it was fast . . . about 10 minutes! The distant sky was unsettled as heat, moisture, and atmospheric disturbance all conspired to create a field of air mass thunderstorms.
When occurring in VFR conditions, as existed on the day this photo was shot, these t-storms are easy to see and avoid. When they occur in IFR conditions, however, we may not see them until it is too late. Yes, uplinked NEXRAD images help, but a delay of just several minutes may be too long. Remember, too, that uplinked radar shows only precipitation. It is the convection that hurts us, not the rain. A stormscope/strikefinder combined with live weather radar is the best bet when operating in the vicinity of thunderstorms.
Get Comfortable in Those Holding Patterns Non-proficient instrument pilots often tremble at the thought of being sent into a holding pattern. Fortunately, it doesn't happen very often, but when it does, a little bit of advance planning is in order.
Think about what happens when ATC calls and says, "Nxxx, I have holding instructions. Advise when ready to copy." The first thing we do, of course is grab a pencil and paper. "Ready to copy," comes our dutiful reply. Next, we draw the holding fix and the radial, airway, or navaid that defines it. We then insert the race track holding pattern in the proper position over the holding fix. Lastly, we begin maneuvering the airplane into the hold. CFIs and DPEs would like us to execute the proper holding pattern entry procedure, e.g., parallel, teardrop, or direct, but here's a little secret. ATC doesn't really care how we enter the hold (they cannot even see how we do it).
A couple of things to remember . . . There's not much that we can do wrong in a holding pattern, but there are a couple of things we MUST do correctly. The first is, we must maintain our assigned altitude. The same holding fix is often used to put multiple airplanes, separated by a mere 1,000 feet. The second thing is . . . we must remain on the protected side of the hold. This is to ensure proper separation from obstacles on the non-holding side. Practice holds . . . . Look at the holding illustrations above. Note how the holding patterns are drawn in response to the holding instructions contained in the little white boxes in each illustration. Then go out and practice holds. Go under the hood but be sure to bring along a qualified safety pilot. Formation Flying is Fun . . . but only with the proper training! There are many joys that proficient pilots can enjoy. One, of course, is formation flying. The photo below is of Buffalo, NY pilot and good friend, Lee Rousselle in his beautifully restored V-tail Bonanza. I took this picture last week while giving formation flying instruction to another good friend, Mike Adragna, also of Buffalo. Each of these pilots and I are members of Buffalo's EAA Chapter 46.
Like all flight instruction, the best place to begin formation flight training is on the ground. Terms like "flight leader" and "wingman" are carefully defined. Procedures like "lost wingman" must be understood by each member of the formation team. Radio communications, ATC coordination, and even hand-signals are critical pieces of the formation flying pie. The American Bonanza Society (ABS) offers some of the best formation flight training in the world. These folks coordinate the arrival of over 100 Bonanzas to Oshkosh every year flying in a single formation!!! You can learn more about formation flying by clicking HERE. Aero-News.Net Features OTA in Podcasts
The most recent two Aero-News.Net podcasts address density altitude and diversions. You can hear these 15 minute interviews with Bob Miller and any of the previously conducted podcasts by clicking on the titles below:
By the way, Aero-News.Net is a FREE daily online publication that is packed with aviation related news. It is the first thing I read every morning. You can log on to Aero-News.Net and subscribe for your free subscription by clicking HERE. Practice Something Meaningful We all enjoy getting into our airplane and flying to a neighboring airport for breakfast. Any such flying has recurrent training value, but doing the same things over and over does not stretch our flying envelope. Instead, we should include something that will better prepare us for unexpected things. For example, the 180 degree power-off landing is something we could be doing nearly every time we fly. By perfecting this maneuver, we maximize the probability of a safe outcome should our engine ever fail in flight.
The procedure is simple. We reduce the power to idle when arriving at the downwind leg key position (see illustration above). Then we continue on the approach just as if we were flying a powerless sailplane. Keep in mind that winds make a HUGE difference in executing this 180 degree power off maneuver. That's why we need to practice it often. Try it from 5,000 or 6,000 feet AGL
Here's the critical part . . . time the turns so as to arrive at the downwind leg key point at precisely pattern altitude (1,000' AGL). From there, simply execute a power-off, 180 degree turn to the runway. The emergency GPS approach Lastly, practice higher altitude descent to the downwind key point while using a view limiting device (with a safety pilot along, of course). Use your GPS (hand-held or panel-mounted) to locate the airport. Using the moving map, begin a steep descending turn while remaining over the airport. Upon reaching the downwind key point, remove your view limiting device and execute the same power-off approach to landing as described above. This emergency maneuver should be mastered by EVERY instrument rated pilot. It will save the day should we ever go powerless while either in or above the clouds! Help Spread the Safety Word Over the Airwaves boldly goes where few other GA publications dare to go. It speaks boldly, provocatively, and it focuses the light of day on our dark little GA secrets. While not every OTA reader agrees with all of the OTA content, there is sufficient substance in each OTA issue to get us all thinking about we do aloft. And when we think, fewer mistakes get made. Please help spread the safety word by clicking on the red button below. Then enter the email addresses of other pilots who could benefit from some of this thinking. Please note: You are NOT signing your friends up for an unsolicited OTA subscription. Instead, you are simply inviting them to open the OTA web link. If they like what they see, they can sign up.
Albert Einstein may
not have been a pilot but he did hold the truth as to why
general aviation cannot improve its deplorable fatal
accident rate.
The problem begins with our first flight lesson. The dutiful flight instructor hands the new student a checklist. He explains that everything that needs to be checked is included this checklist. He then pulls out the Pilot's Operating Handbook (POH) and tells the student that the POH specifies precisely how this airplane is to be flown. Moving into the classroom, the student is sold a fat paperback book titled, FAR/AIM. The CFI points out that the FAR portion of the book tells how to obtain your pilot certificate and that the AIM tells how to keep it! The conversation between CFI and student then shifts to the great rule-maker in the sky . . . the FAA. Here, the CFI exhibits his absolute allegiance to the one true arbitrator of all that's right and wrong in the sky. By now, the new student is beginning to feel comfortable about surrendering any remaining independent thinking and judgment skills he once had. He's beginning to feel himself being molded into the obedient pilot role that makes the flight school proud.
Having been stripped of most of his thinking skills, he's now ready to surrender to the absolute control of his training department, his dispatch department, and his company management. He has emerged as one of the "Stepford Wives" of the airline industry (with apologies to my airline pilot friends!). Curiously, blind obedience works in airliner flying but NOT in general aviation!
Simply put, there is no way we GA pilots can learn to fly by the book. The book is too big, too cumbersome and, frankly, too poorly written for most of us to fully comprehend. Yet we have flight schools and independent CFIs preaching blind obedience to a system that is not geared to the needs of a general aviation pilot. Disagree? If you disagree, please explain why there are no take-off minimums for instrument pilots under FAR Part 91. Explain why no instrument flight plan needs to be filed for IFR flight in Class G airspace up to 14,500' MSL. Do you really believe a non-pilot can step into a light sport aircraft and learn to fly it safely in the national airspace system with just 15 hours of dual and 5 hours of solo, per FAR 61.301? How about this . . . explain the precise rules governing flight in non-known ice certified airplanes in the winter. Do you really understand what the book has to say about loss of two-way communications when in IFR conditions? Does it really make sense to you, operationally? Still disagree? An FAA safety specialist, who prefers to remain anonymous, told me recently that more than one-half of all the aviation accidents he investigated involved no violation of the regulations. In other words, compliance with regulations provides no assurance that we will not be involved in a serious airplane accident. Burn the rule book for GA pilots, right?
First, we in the flight training community must stop holding up the FAR/AIM as the Holy Grail containing the immutable truth and divine wisdom of all that's right and safe in aviation. Similarly, the FAA is not the Wizard of Oz, the supreme being, or master of the universe. Second, it is us, not FAR 61.56, that determines the frequency and content of our recurrent training needs. We must come to grips with the fact that our flying skills are more perishable than fresh strawberries. We renew them weekly, or we lose them. Third, we must stop believing that the primary mission of our big GA membership organizations is to look out for our flight safety. In truth, these organizations are there to promote their respective constituency interests. For example, GAMA pushes airplane and component parts sales. EAA pushes our freedom to build and fly experimental airplanes. The NBAA promotes business flying. AOPA protects our GA flying freedoms. These issues are, of course, critical to GA's economic future, but they do not speak specifically to GA flight safety. Sure, each of these organizations are quick to play the "safety card," but that is not their PRIMARY purpose. The sooner we all understand this fact, the sooner we will take responsibility for own flight safety education. Let's put this in our pipe and smoke it!
More than this, we have a responsibility to stand up and challenge authority. Several years ago, for example, my local FSDO (FAA Flight Standards District Office) told me that I could not count route segments of less than 50 miles for logging as cross-country flight for purposes of pilot qualification. I appealed their wrong interpretation to the FAA's Office General Counsel in Washington, DC and got it corrected. More recently, I challenged the FAA's vague interpretation of what constituted "known ice." This set off a fire-storm of debate. While not fully resolved, the matter IS being fixed . . . which will ultimately place the interpretation in the pilots' hands where, of course, it belongs. Early in May, the FAA gave us a grossly screwed-up reorganization of the Flight Service Station (FSS) system. Using the growing influence of Over the Airwaves, I helped to bring this "careless and reckless" problem (I use the FAA's own preferred phraseology) to public light. The matter is slowly being fixed.
This is a terribly redundant sentence, but blind respect for authority places too much authority in that authority. Instead, we should certainly respect that authority and obey its legitimate rules and regulations, but not at the cost of surrendering our own authority as pilots-in-command. In summary, if you insist on blind respect of the regulations, place it specifically in FAR 91.3(a). That regulation says, "The pilot in command of an aircraft is directly responsible for, and is the final authority as to, the operation of that aircraft."
Bob
Miller, ATP, CFII
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As
mentioned above, a four lane highway, a large open
field, and a row of trees stood between him and the
airport when his engine quit. 
All
of this, of course, comes under the broad heading of
aeronautical decision making (ADM). It is the
process of considering our options, then making a
decision that ensures our survival and the welfare of
our passengers. Our airplanes are expendable.
We are not.
It was a beautiful VFR evening in
February over Central Florida. The temperature was a
cool 58 degrees F, visibility was 10 miles, sky clear
and light winds out of the southwest. The pilot of a
1980 Cessna TR182 and three passengers boarded in
Gainesville, FL and headed over to the west coast community
of Cedar Key for a sunset dinner.
the airport, it was a
"dark" night
with no visible stars. "Light haze" appeared at the
water's surface. Patches of fog had begun to develop
around the airport.
Again,
airspeed is not a factor simply because a specific power
setting and aircraft configuration in trimmed level flight
produces a specific true airspeed. Physics, not
pilot opinion, governs this principle. 
Free
sign up for
Over the Airwaves
A
really effective variation of this practice maneuver is to
arrive over our destination airport at cruise altitude.
After making appropriate traffic calls and visually scanning
the area, reduce power to idle. Then initiate a steep,
descending turn at normal glide speed.
There,
captured in the ten quoted words above, is the reason why we
continue to see one fatal GA accident a day, on average.
Like
molten metal, the new pilot is being forged for what may
become his ultimate achievement - an airline pilot.
We
GA pilots are worlds apart from our airline brethren.
Nobody makes decisions for us. We have no training
department hauling us in every 6 to 12 months for recurrent
training. We have no dispatch department to sort out
the weather and our routes. We have no FOs (first
officers) to second guess our decisions. We have no
triple redundancy in our aircraft systems. We have no
"ops specs" that govern our every move.
No,
exempting us GA pilots from the rules is certainly not the
answer. But there are some things we could all do to
improve our personal safety aloft. 
Einstein
was right. "Blind respect for authority is the
enemy of truth." Those of us who believe this also
understand our own abilities and our limitations. We
know precisely what we must do to acquire and maintain our
flight proficiency.
