طارق الشويهدي by tarek eshoweihdi

AIRLINE CAPTAINS

NEW CULTURE OF DISRESPECT?

KILLER FRONTS

SURVIVING THE OUTFLOW

ADVENTURE QUEST

WARTIME ODDITIES LUFTWAFFE’S LAST STAND

THE WORLD’S MOST WIDELY READ AVIATION MAGAZINE -MARCH 2014-

DOING GOOD WITH AN ATTITUDE

Plus ANDROID AVIATION APPS AND TABLETS GALORE

HOW TO CROSS

PILOT SHORTAGE? AN INSIDER’S SKEPTICAL VIEW

BORDERS:

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TAREK ESHOWEIHDI

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M A R C H

CONTENTS 2 0 14

V O L U M E

1 4 1

I S S U E

ON THE COVER

THIS QUEST KODIAK WAS PHOTOGRAPHED BY PAUL BOWEN IN NORTHERN IDAHO NEAR THE COMPANY’S MANUFACTURING FACILITIES.

QUEST KODIAK

THIS MODERN-DAY DE HAVILLAND BEAVER IS MAKING A NAME FOR ITSELF IN THE BACKCOUNTRY BY STEPHEN POPE THUNDERSTORMS AND THE DRY LINE

CROSSING BORDERS 52

EXPAND YOUR HORIZONS WITH THESE INTERNATIONAL FLYING TIPS BY PIA BERGQVIST

HOW TO SPOT THIS FATAL PHENOMENON BEFORE IT STRIKES BY MARGARET W. LAMB

F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 1 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

ANDROID APPS IN THE COCKPIT 64

WE REVIEW THE HOTTEST CHOICES ON THE MARKET BY ROBERT GOYER

WARTIME ODDITIES LUFTWAFFE’S LAST STAND BY PETER GARRISON

CONTENTS 82

AIRLINE CAPTAINS NEW CULTURE OF DISRESPECT? BY LES ABEND

ON THE WEB

LINKING IFR AND MEDICALS MAKES OUR SKIES LESS SAFE

FLYING ’S 50 AMAZING ENGINES FLYINGMAG.COM/50ENGINES

FLYING NEWS & NOTES

FLYING SAFELY

FLYING OPINION

08 GOING DIRECT

26 I LEARNED ABOUT FLYING FROM THAT

40 TAKING WING

FROM GLASS TO STEAM

BY SAM WEIGEL

MEDICAL REFORM AND IFR BY ROBERT GOYER

12 FLYING MAIL

BY BRADLEY SUNSHINE

WHAT SHORTAGE?

70 UNUSUAL ATTITUDES

FEEDBACK FROM OUR READERS

AM I MY BROTHER’S KEEPER?

READER LETTERS

BY MARTHA LUNKEN

15 AIRWAYS

THUNDERSTORMS IN THE DRY LINE: EXTRA WARNING SIGNS FLYINGMAG.COM/DRYLINE

74 GEAR UP

THE LATEST IN AVIATION NEWS

INITIAL OPERATING EXPERIENCE

EDITED BY PIA BERGQVIST

BY DICK KARL

30 AFTERMATH

78 TECHNICALITIES

KANDAHAR KING AIR

BENT-WING BIRDS

BY PETER GARRISON

34 ON THE RECORD

82 JUMPSEAT

BRIEF ACCIDENT REPORTS FROM THE NTSB

AIRLINE CAPTAINS: ARE THEY A DYING BREED? BY LES ABEND

EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: FLYING IN THE BAHAMAS

36 SKY KINGS

88 FLASHBACKS

FLYINGMAG.COM/BAHAMAS

AFTER WE HAD OUR ACCIDENT

50 AND 25 YEARS AGO IN FLYING

BY JOHN KING

BY BETHANY WHITFIELD

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Flying (0015-4806) (USPS 504-930), March 2014, volume 141, issue 3. Flying is published monthly by Bonnier Corporation, 460 N. Orlando Avenue, Suite 200, Winter Park, FL 32789. Periodicals postage paid at Winter Park, FL, and additional mailing offices. Authorized periodicals postage by the Post Office Department, Ottawa, Canada, and for payment in cash. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Flying, P.O. Box 420235, Palm Coast, FL 32142-0235; flyingmag.com/cs; 386-246-0411 or 800-678-0797. If the postal service alerts us that your magazine is undeliverable, we have no further obligation unless we receive a corrected address within one year.

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GOING DIRECT F LY I N G N E W S & N O T E S | B Y r O b E r T g O y E r

Medical RefoRM and ifR Linking MedicaLs and iFR is a Bad idea I’m baffed by the decision by the FAA and the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association to support a kind of reform in Third Class medical certifcation regulations that would allow for liberalized standards like those for the U.S. Sport Pilot certifcation. For readers who are unfamiliar with the subject, Sport Pilot rules allow pilots to use valid driver’s licenses as a means of showing compliance with medical standards. This is great for pilots but of dubious logic. For one thing, there are essentially no meaningful medical certifcation standards for driver’s licenses in most states. The last time I spoke to a department of motor vehicles employee here in Texas was almost 10 years ago, when I frst got my Texas license. There is no end to the number of medical issues I might have faced between then and now, and while physicians are required to report a few

kinds of conditions to authorities, it is a short list compared to the gargantuan inventory of disqualifying conditions on the FAA’s rolls. So in essence, the driver’s license equivalent is a cheat, but it’s one that I’m fne with, as I’m of the opinion that FAA medical standards are so fawed and the system so riddled with abuse as to make the current regs meaningless to begin with. Just don’t tell anyone I said so. My real gripe is with the decision of the authorities and the alphabet groups to get behind a part of the rule that would prohibit pilots with the Third Class-EZ certifcate from fying IFR. If there’s any logic behind this distinction, I have yet to discover it. The proposed restriction seems to stem from the misguided notion that IFR fight is somehow riskier than VFR fight. From what we can discern from the accident

A Bold And Independent look At AvIAtIon’s BIggest Issues

Update piReps the national transportation safety Board’s 2014 hit list for improving flight safety calls for better communication of weather hazards. For once, this is a great idea. pilots today have access to more data than ever, but pilot reports, the best potential source of data, are mired in 1940s technology. By utilizing automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast and other technologies, we have the means to create a semiautomated weather reporting system, with planes and pilots sending weather conditions perhaps automatically or with a few button pushes. those reports could then be relayed back to other pilots in need, providing dozens or even hundreds of up-to-the-minute pireps for specific locations and altitudes.

when instrumentproficient pilots encounter imc, they should have the legal authority to fly by ifr, regardless of the class of medical certificate in their wallets.

F lY I n g M A g . C o M / 8 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

G o I N G d I r e c t | F LY I N G N E W S & N O T E S

statistics, the opposite is true. Pilots fying by VFR are far more likely to become a statistic than those making use of IFR. So how did the restriction arise? My best guess is that it’s window dressing, plain and simple. For people who know little about fying, the idea of fying in the clouds seems like a daredevil’s feat. So preventing pilots with questionable medical statuses — why else would they avoid the aviation medical examiner? — from fying on instruments seems to make good sense, until you think about it for 30 seconds. Imagine this scenario: An experienced, instrument-rated pilot decides to forego the aviation doc and get the medical the easy way and is fying along with a plane full of passengers when unforecast weather starts to close in. Legally, what does he have to do? Scud run? Find a sucker hole and go and land? Pull the chute? The same dilemma arises for all kinds of meteorological conditions. In fact, it’s safe to say that every tricky scenario that an IFR rating solves becomes a potential danger point for this proposed new class of regulatoryhobbled pilots. The only conclusion I can come to is that this new class of pilot and his passengers are all going to be at greater risk. I hope the alphabets reconsider the dubious wisdom of this proposed restriction and throw their weight behind supporting the rights of all qualifed pilots to make use of the best tools to effectively limit their risks and successfully complete their fights in cloudy or clear weather. SaFeN up! Not surprisingly, many of our readers have responded enthusiastically to the arrival of John and Martha King to the pages of Flying. The warm reception is not a shock. The Kings, by virtue of their educational products, have been a fxture in aviation for decades. Their success has always been closely linked to two things: the effectiveness of the products in helping pilots pass their knowledge tests and in the couple’s infectious enthusiasm for fying. One of the Kings’ most endearing

qualities is that they are nothing if not honest, and as part of that straightforward approach, they readily admit their fying mistakes. This attitude gets them in hot water with some readers, and I think I know why. By talking candidly about their mistakes, the Kings are laying bare the myth that safe pilots are safe by force of character. This notion is closely related to the idea that there are people who are born pilots. Based on decades of observations, I’ve come to the conclusion that this is not the case. There are, I will admit, pilots who are remarkably talented at manipulating the controls of an airplane, but I would argue this does not make them good pilots, just good at maneuvering the airplane.

upsets some of our readers. One of the Kings’ pet peeves is the word “safety,” something with which I wholeheartedly agree. In one of my favorite The Simpsons episodes, inept safety counselor Homer Simpson is baffed by what to say to his fellow workers to help cut down on accidents at the nuclear power plant where they all work. So he tells them simply to “safen up!” It’s funny because it underscores the mindless approach to safety that fails to see the connections between bad outcomes and the actions that led to those outcomes. It’s as though uttering the word “safety” is some kind of magic cure-all that will safeguard everyone. The only certain thing about this approach is that it doesn’t work. This then leads to the question: What is

foR people who know little about flying, the idea of flying in the clouds seeMs like a daRedevil’s feat. Being a natural stick has two potential outcomes: making one a somewhat safer pilot by allowing pilots to escape jams through their outstanding mechanical skills, or making one a far riskier pilot, as the overconfdence and thrill-seeking attitudes that great stick-and-rudder pilots bring to the game put them in risky situations over and over again. A couple of the best “sticks” I’ve ever fown with were also a couple of the most dangerous pilots I’d ever met. The truth is safe pilots are pilots who give risk a wide margin. The Kings address risk honestly. By talking about our fallibility, we bring to the table the lessons we’ve learned from our previous mistakes. Those pilots who’ve never made a mistake are either oblivious to the mistakes they did make or are lying about the whole thing. John and Martha talk about safety in whole new ways, which is another thing that delights me and greatly F lY I n g M A g . C o M / 1 0 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

safety? If safety is the absence of bad outcomes, then I’d argue safety is nothing but a description of a particular state of affairs. Moreover, by advising pilots to be safe, safety counselors are in essence telling pilots not to have bad outcomes. While wellintended, it’s not useful advice, as few pilots want to have bad outcomes, partly because they tend to raise insurance premiums and scratch the paint. The question then becomes: If the concept of safety is a useless one in preventing accidents, what do we talk about? The obvious alternative is the actions that led to the accident. What did the pilots do? Why did they do those things? And fnally, what can be done to prevent those things? So, in the absence of a discussion of safety, John and Martha will spend their time on these three questions, which turn out to be the most complicated ones imaginable. I, for one, look forward to their insights.

FLYING MAIL

dO YOu HAve A subsCRIptION questION? GO tO FLYINGMAG.COM/Cs

F LY I N G N E W S & N O T E S | F E E D B A C K F R O M O U R R E A D E R S

forever learning

Sky kingS

CloSe to home

In “Fat, Dumb and Happy” [I Learned About Flying From That] in the January issue, Jim Gunn perfectly demonstrated what a pilot’s ideal course of action should be in an un-ideal situation. While textbook knowledge is undeniably pertinent in emergency situations, the frsthand accounts of pilots able to negotiate dead aircraft to the ground and walk away seem like good sources to draw from during a sudden loss of power right after takeoff. Thank you to all the pilots like Jim Gunn who have gone before me and shared their experiences with the next generation of high fiers. Vincent Papotto Lilburn, Georgia

door in a high-wing airplane but not in a low-wing airplane. Your other readers and I would be curious to know the rationale of this, since I believe it is wrong and, more importantly, unsafe. Luca F. Bencini-Tibo Weston, Florida

I read your article “Too Little, Too Soon” [Aftermath, January 2014] with a special interest and with sadness. This pilot’s fnal was long, and his approach was low and slow. I’ve been extending my downwind because it gives me more time to get set up. As the article suggests, the danger in this is it gives more time to get distracted. The long fnal is an excuse for sloppy work. This pilot had no passengers to chat with. Was his right hand on the throttle? Was the stall horn blaring? So many questions. If he can bobble this approach so badly, then so can I. And just when I was starting to get comfortable. Greg Spicer Michigan

As a CFI and a Mooney Ovation owner, I was quite surprised that article writer Jim Gunn told his friend not to crack open the door prior to the offairport landing [“Fat, Dumb and Happy,” I Learned About Flying From That, January 2014]. Furthermore, he implies that it is OK to open the

The subject of cracking open a door for a forced landing is problematic. The idea is to prevent a door from being jammed closed from structural damage incurred in a rough landing. Such damage can happen in either low- or high-wing airplanes. However, opening a door can reduce the structural integrity of the airframe, though by how much is anyone’s guess. POHs vary on the subject. That said, in an emergency the PIC has great latitude. In some cases, I think I would unlatch the door prior to making an emergency landing on a rough feld, as the upside — a better chance of quick egress — seems to outweigh the downside. — Ed.

I was truly impressed with John King’s article in the January issue of Flying [“The Tipping Point,” Sky Kings]. For a long time, I have been trying to teach the new CFIs with whom I’ve worked that if you cannot put the “bull’s-eye” on yourself, admit you’ve done some things that might be questionable — if not downright dangerous — then you will have a hard time teaching others. For John to openly write about a succession of events leading up to the “one” that changed his behavior was both enlightening and impressive. Unfortunately, the path is not uncommon and is littered with those who never got to the changing event. It is our job as instructors to get people to that point and beyond. Telling our own stories honestly is certainly one way to do it. Alan C. Davis Via email I read John King’s article [“The Tipping Point,” Sky Kings, January 2014] three times over, amazed at his tales of imprudent risktaking. I was struck by the honesty of his story and the courage it took to tell of his experiences and the mistakes he and Martha made, especially considering they are well-known icons in general aviation. Thank you, John, for your candor. I look forward to your future columns. Robert A. Ebersole Via email

CoSt verSuS value As a private pilot and Archer owner, I appreciated the article, “How to Save Money on Insurance” [January 2014]. You should always ask your broker or a fellow pilot how an insurance company performs on claims handling. It’s great to have lower premiums, but if you do have a claim, it’s then too late to fnd out the insurance company has a poor track record for claims service and payment. Sometimes cheapest isn’t always the best way to go. Michael W. Smith Via email

 Send mail to: edit@flyingmag.com or flying magazine, P.o. Box 8500, Winter Park, fl 32789 F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 1 2 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

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on the PiSton Side, textron’S PUrchaSe of beechcraft addS the baron and bonanza to a ProdUct mix that incLUdeS the ceSSna Skyhawk, SkyLane, Stationair and ttx.

TexTron BuyouT Brings Beech and cessna TogeTher Landmark $1.4 biLLion deaL creates Wichita aviation poWerhouse Cessna parent company Textron is buying Beechcraft for $1.4 billion, placing two of general aviation’s most iconic brands under a single corporate umbrella. The deal gives Beechcraft a solid foundation for growth a year after successfully emerging from bankruptcy, while Textron benefts from adding Beech’s coveted King Air turboprop line to its aviation portfolio. Cessna and Beechcraft models will continue to be sold separately after the acquisition closes, when Textron will form a transition team to study ways to increase effciency at both manufacturers. The purchase also includes the type certifcates for the Premier IA and Hawker 4000, but the business jets won’t re-enter production. Instead, Hawker Beechcraft Services, which Textron is also buying, will continue supporting those customers. “The acquisition of Beechcraft is a tremendous opportunity to extend our general aviation business,” Textron chairman and CEO Scott Donnelly says. “From our

customers’ perspective, this creates a broader selection of aircraft and a larger service footprint — all sharing the same high standards of quality and innovation.” With the purchase, Textron also gains Beechcraft’s AT-6 Texan military trainer, which could be a good ft with the recently launched Scorpion light attack jet from Textron AirLand, a new subsidiary launched with assistance from Cessna engineers. It’s too early to say how Textron might seek to integrate the products. The Scorpion doesn’t have any customers as yet, but if it enters production as planned, Textron could use it and the Texan to position itself as a budgetconscious defense supplier. Beechcraft exited bankruptcy with about 5,400 employees worldwide, including 3,300 at its Wichita, Kansas, headquarters. There is little overlap among the product lines of Cessna and Beech. Because of this, U.S. government approval of the deal is expected to come swiftly. The sale is anticipated to be fnalized this spring. — Stephen Pope F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 1 5 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

TexTron’s AviATion PorTfolio CessnA AirCrAfT Headquarters: Wichita, Kansas Employees: 8,000 Year Founded: 1927 BeeChCrAfT Headquarters: Wichita, Kansas Employees: 5,400 Year Founded: 1932 Bell heliCoPTer Headquarters: Fort Worth, Texas Employees: 11,000 Year Founded: 1935 TexTron AirlAnd Headquarters: Wichita, Kansas Employees: 200 Year Founded: 2013 lyComing Headquarters: Williamsport, Pennsylvania Employees: 400 Year Founded: 1929

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hondaJeT Leaps Toward markeT inTroducTion certiFication oF hF120 engines brings the Light jet cLoser to First deLiveries

now that ge honda aero engineS’ hf120 engine haS achieved certification, honda aircraft PredictS the new Light twinJet wiLL be ready for certification and market introdUction earLy next year.

ondaJet employees had much to celebrate over the holidays. In the middle of December, GE Honda Aero Engines received the FAA Part 33 sign off for the HF120 engine, which powers the light HondaJet, enabling the jet to meet its most recent certifcation target. While the HF120 will initially be produced at the GE facility in Lynn, Massachusetts, GE Honda Aero Engines expects to relocate production to Honda Aero Inc.’s facility in Burlington, North Carolina, this year. Just days after the HF120 engine certifcation news was released, HondaJet announced it received the Type Inspection Authorization for the airplane. The TIA proves that the HondaJet has met specifc

design requirements, and it paves the way for the FAA’s test pilots to begin the fnal testing phase. Provided the airplane lives up to the numbers shown in the engineering testing phase, the HondaJet’s cruise speed will top out at 420 knots, beating out competitors in its segment by about 15 knots. HondaJet has also taken steps toward having a support network in place once the airplane enters the marketplace. Its customer-service facility, which is headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, has received Part 145 certifcation. Initial services will be limited to component-level repairs, but the company expects to provide additional services, such as heavy maintenance and major repairs, there at some point this year. — Pia Bergqvist

production update THE PRODUCTION FACILITY IN GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA, IS IN FULL SWING, WITH SIX HONDAJETS MAKING THEIR WAY DOWN THE ASSEMBLY LINE. THE FIRST CUSTOMER AIRPLANE IS NEARLY COMPLETE, BUT IT WON’T BE HANDED OVER TO ITS NEW OWNER UNTIL THE CERTIFICATION PROCESS IS FINISHED.

F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 1 6 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

ge honda hF120 engine THE NEWLY CERTIFIED GE HONDA HF120 ENGINE IS RATED AT 2,095 POUNDS OF THRUST AND BOASTS AN IMPRESSIVE 5,000-HOUR TBO. HONDAJET’S UNCONVENTIONAL DESIGN MOUNTS THE ENGINES ON TOP OF THE WING, WHICH THE AIRPLANE-MAKER CLAIMS LOWERS THE NOISE IN THE CABIN AND MAKES THE AIRPLANE MORE FUEL EFFICIENT.

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brs parachute increases useFuL Load For cessna 182 saFety device provides severaL additionaL beneFits

FLying counts doWn the best poWer pLants ever

s much as we pilots love the almost magical power of wings, we should arguably have an even keener appreciation for the power plant, that one piece of hardware that creates every pilot’s best friend in times of need: thrust. Coming soon to fyingmag.com, we’ll unveil our tribute to the greatest power plants ever, starting the roll call with No. 50 and counting down to the No. 1 most signifcant engine to ever power an airplane. There are no spoilers here, but we will tell you that the list contains some remarkably well-known engines — you might be able to guess a few of them — but it also shines a light on some that will surprise you, including one that might ignite some controversy about the whole global warming debate. Along the way, we’ll highlight some engines that were among the most produced in history, as well as a couple that barely reached double digits. We’ll showcase engines that produce unbelievable amounts of power and others that produce so little it’s a wonder they ever got an aircraft aloft. And if you think you might know which engine we’ll name as the top dog, well, we think you might be surprised. We are, however, willing to give a few hints. Think lots of heat, shiny metal and abundant noise, and you’ll be on the right track. To check out Flying magazine’s 50 Amazing Engines, visit fyingmag .com/50engines. And be sure to tell us what you think!

aircraft Power PLantS have made an incredibLe tranSformation Since a 12 hP engine firSt ProPeLLed the wright brotherS into fLight. check oUt oUr LiSt to See oUr take on the moSt amazing engineS of aLL time.

brS cLaimS more than 300 LiveS have been Saved aS a reSULt of PiLotS PULLing their ParachUteS in SitUationS SUch aS LoSS of controL and StrUctUraL faiLUre. After more than three decades in business and more than 30,000 parachutes installed, St. Paul, Minnesota-based Ballistic Recovery Systems has established itself as a major player in the aviation industry, providing parachute systems for an increasing number of general aviation airplane types, including some light-sport aircraft. However, for some owners the reduction in the useful load that results from the installation of the BRS equipment has been a deterrent. But Cessna 182 model P and Q owners who are interested in the system will no longer have to worry about losing load capabilities. BRS recently announced that due to an increase in the gross weight of 160 pounds, the installation of its system will now give Cessna 182 owners an additional 65 to 75 pounds of useful load after the STC installation for the BRS parachute equipment has been completed. No additional modifcations or hardware are required. “Now, operators can fy with the assurance of a BRS on board and have an additional 65 to 75 pounds of useful load to utilize as they wish,” says Boris Popov, founder and senior vice president of BRS Aerospace. “This is a win-win opportunity for operators.” Ñ P.B.

F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 1 8 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

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a I r w a Y s | F LY I N G N E W S & N O T E S

cessna ciTaTion m2, sovereign+ Faa cerTiFied

deLiveries oF neW airpLanes commence aFter green Light

WHEN IT’S YOUR JET,

essna marked two important milestones recently and added a few new additions to its bizjet feet with the certifcation of the company’s Citation M2 and its updated Citation Sovereign, now referred to as the Sovereign+. The jets received the offcial FAA nod in December, two years after the M2 was frst introduced in 2011 at Cessna’s Wichita, Kansas, headquarters and one year after the Sovereign upgrade was announced by the company at the National Business Aviation Association Convention. The seven-seat Citation M2 is certifed for single-pilot operation and targets Cessna Citation Mustang pilots looking to take the next step up in performance. Powered by dual Williams FJ44 engines, the M2 maxes out at a top cruise speed of 400 ktas and a range of 1,300 nm. The nine-seat Citation Sovereign+ is an upgraded version of the company’s original Sovereign, which customers have been fying since 2004. The airplane now features Garmin G5000 avionics, winglets and autothrottles. The jet’s range tops out at 3,000 nm, and its dual Pratt & Whitney Canada PW306D engines provide enough thrust for a top speed of 458 ktas. The Sovereign+ is being offered with a Sovereign Shield maintenance program that covers all parts and maintenance costs for the jet for the frst fve years or 1,500 fight hours. — Bethany Whitfeld

bizjet specs CiTATion m2

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F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 2 1 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

EXPERIENCE MATTERS Cessna’s service professionals have more than 10 years of experience on average. That’s longer than some of our competitors have been in business. When it comes to the service of your aircraft, trust the experts. Cessna: This is aviation authority. FIND US ONLINE AT CESSNA.COM/CITATION-SERVICE

a I r w a Y s | F LY I N G N E W S & N O T E S

dick koenig To Lead corporaTe angeL neTwork Former FLying pubLisher joins business aviation charity for cancer patients to treatment centers using empty seats on business jets. Koenig is replacing Peter Fleiss, CAN’s longtime leader, who is retiring.

Photo courtesy of Scott Slocum.

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F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 2 2 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

“The board is delighted to have Dick join CAN after 37 years with Flying, 26 of those as the magazine’s vice president and publisher,” CAN Chairman Randall Greene says. Koenig is a former Army and Air National Guard helicopter pilot with 7,000 hours in rotary and fxed-wing aircraft. His fying time includes tours in Vietnam and Korea. He also sits on the boards of Women in Aviation, Sun ’n Fun, the Lindbergh Foundation and the National Aeronautic Association.

“I am honored to have been selected to follow in Peter’s footsteps after his extremely successful leadership term,” Koenig says. “Along with CAN’s highly talented and experienced staff and a cadre of dedicated volunteers, we plan to continue Peter’s work. I am looking forward to working with the many fight departments, cancer treatment centers and the countless industry supporters representing every segment of the aviation market.” Fleiss has been named executive director emeritus. During his tenure, the organization tripled the number of patients fown. Since arranging its frst fight in 1981, CAN has provided almost 45,000 fights to adults and children traveling to cancer treatment centers that are often hundreds, or even thousands, of miles away. Volunteers and a small staff coordinate the medical travel needs of patients by scheduling fight activity with more than 500 participating corporations (including half the Fortune 100) resulting in about 250 patient fights each month, according to the organization. Last year, CAN received a Flying Editors’ Choice Award for its efforts. — S.P.

PHOTO BY Jim KOePnicK

Former Flying Publisher Dick Koenig has been named executive director of the Corporate Angel Network, an organization that arranges free fights

a I r w a Y s | F LY I N G N E W S & N O T E S

aopa announces FLy-in daTes and LocaTions piLot organization brings events cLoser to its members Last fall, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association announced that it is doing away with its big annual AOPA Aviation Summit convention and

focusing instead on smaller gatherings around the country, events named AOPA Fly-Ins. These regional fy-ins will feature exhibits, static displays,

clinics, pilot town hall meetings and more. The fy-ins will be strategically spread around the country at various locations each year. AOPA recently released the locations and schedule for this year’s events, of which there will be six evenly spread around the United States. In addition to the six regional events, AOPA is bringing back the annual “homecoming” fy-in at its headquarters in Frederick, Maryland. AOPA representatives have said that the group will reinstate the annual Aviation Summit unless thousands of people attend the regional events. But with the fy-ins taking place closer to members; with similar offerings as far as exhibitors and seminars; and with incentives, such as free lunch, the events have great potential for becoming successful. AOPA also hopes that since the events are closer, pilots will be inspired to fy there themselves, which would give a much-needed boost to aviation businesses around the country. — P.B.

AoPA’s 2014 fly-in sChedule: APril 26 San Marcos Municipal Airport, Texas mAy 31 Indianapolis Regional Airport, Indiana July 12 Plymouth Airport, Massachusetts Aug. 16 Spokane Felts Field, Washington sePT. 20 Chino Airport, California nov. 8 Malcolm McKinnon Airport, Georgia

F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 2 4 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

a I r w a Y s | F LY I N G N E W S & N O T E S

experience FLying With the redbird jay simuLator sim brings the stories Within FLying magazine to LiFe This latest ski plane scenario is part of an ongoing series that will allow Jay fiers to try their hands at the obstacles and circumstances that fll

the pages of Flying every month. Learn more about how to access this Flying scenario by visiting fyingmag .com/jay-march. â&#x20AC;&#x201D; B.W.

new simulation scenario is available for users of the Jay fight simulator from Redbird Flight Simulations. This month, aviators using the simulator will have the opportunity to fy a Maule M-7-260C ski plane from Talkeetna, Alaska, up the Ruth Glacier to the Don Sheldon Amphitheater, which is nestled within the rustic beauty of the Denali National Park & Preserve. Once there, sim fiers will land and pick up two passengers before returning to Talkeetna through the arresting scenic views provided by this one-of-a-kind landscape. The Redbird Jay was frst launched at Sun â&#x20AC;&#x2122;n Fun last year. Marketed in partnership with the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, the Jay was crafted as an easy-to-use simulator that would specifcally allow pilots to fy scenarios that pushed their limits. The Jay comes with a screen display, yoke, trim, throttle and mixture control, among other features. Rudder pedals are optional.

To locate your Robinson dealer, visit www.robinsonheli.com or call 310-539-0508.

F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 2 5 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

I LEARNED ABOUT

FLYING

FROM THAT

F LY I N G s a f e ly | B Y B r a d l e y s u n s h i n e | N O . 8 7 7

From Glass to steam

FLYING ReAdeRs sHARe LAstING LessONs FROM CLOse CALLs ANd NeAR dIsAsteRs

once you’re hooked on automation, can you turn back?

I adjusted the captain’s seat a fnal time and exhaled a hushed whistle. My eyes darted across the DC-9’s cluttered instrument panel. Endless dials and knobs were embedded in the gray metal. A seasoned DC-9 pilot would view the layout as a smile from an old friend. I felt like I was shaking hands with a stranger that had been crisscrossing the skies for decades. When the DC-9 frst few in 1965, I wasn’t even a blip on its green-and-black radar screen. The aircraft’s impressive production run was nearly over by the time I was born. This meeting between old and (somewhat) young continued as I reached up to the overhead panel, my fngers brushing against the DC-9’s beefy switches and square blue lights. The faded white labels etched into the blackness around them were a timeless guide to operating this classic. The introduction concluded with me lightly tapping the attitude indicator. Gone were the colorful EFIS tubes of modern aircraft, the prominent and centralized FMS computers preceded by bulky radio knobs. GPS and moving maps weren’t even a glint in the DC-9’s windscreen. The 10,700-foot runway beyond wasn’t electronically displayed — it was simply the way skyward where

the DC-9 was most at home. I lightly gripped the paint-chipped yoke with my left hand and gently placed my right atop the thrust levers. I eyed the rectangular master warning and master caution lights, half-expecting them to illuminate as the DC-9 sensed my unfamiliar touch. Turning to my friend Matt Pieper in the right seat, I asked, “Are you ready? Shall we see F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 2 6 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

I L e a r N e d a B O u t F LY I N G F r O m t h a t | F LY I N G s a f e ly

if we can fy this thing?” “Absolutely,” Matt grinned. “Alright, we’ll proceed as briefed.” I scanned the instruments and looked toward the runway’s end. The cockpit foodlights contrasted with the gray overcast lingering 200 feet above. My feet slid off the brakes and down to the rudder pedals. Slowly, I nudged the thrust levers forward. The clocklike engine instruments edged upward and the Pratt & Whitney JT8 engines’ whine cycled higher. “Here we go,” I half yelped as I pushed up the throttles. “Set thrust.” Matt’s left hand guided the twin levers toward our target setting, but the DC-9 continued crawling along at near idle thrust. It seemed to move when it was ready. Several seconds later, seemingly satisfed, the JT8s spooled to a muffed roar. I was pushed against my seat as we accelerated. Imperceptible rudder pedal pressure kept the DC-9 tracking centerline. “Thrust set,” Matt said. I placed my hand back on the throttles. The nose wheels below the cockpit thrummed against the pavement as they picked up speed. “Eighty knots,” Matt called. “Checks.” The runway’s distance markings began passing quickly, white fashes disappearing beneath the DC-9’s venerable wings. My brow furrowed as the time to abort our fight narrowed. “V1,” Matt announced as we exceeded

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takeoff decision speed. My right hand moved to the yoke’s other worn grip. We were committed — there was no turning back now. Then a few seconds later: “Rotate.” I eased back on the yoke and grinned as the DC-9’s nose slowly and smoothly lifted off the centerline. The runway’s pavement steadily fell away as gray sky enveloped the windscreen. The control forces were a mixture of balance: heavy but responsive, stiff but stable. Their sturdiness felt wonderful in my hands. “Positive rate,” Matt announced. “Gear up.” I centered the aircraft at 15 degrees of pitch on the attitude indicator. The airspeed and altimeter needles pointed faster and higher. When the cockpit darkened seconds later, the DC-9 was engulfed in cloud; its landing lights refected the gloom. As the JT8s pushed us deeper into the grayness, I hoped their whine wasn’t a horrid protest. Exploring an unfamiliar aircraft on the ground was acceptable; taking it airborne was another matter. Matt and I weren’t rated in the DC-9 and had never received training in the type. Perhaps most glaringly, our careers involved only aircraft with computerized glass instruments displaying airspeed trend vectors and GPS maps that redefned the term “situational awareness.” The DC-9’s steam gauges indicated only essentials. Pilots rely on traditional instrument scans and mental math to calculate time, speed and distance. If issued an altitude crossing clearance, a DC-9 driver would mentally compute the required descent rate; I would reach for the FMS keypad. My eyes strained amidst theses differences. Looking at the DC-9’s panel was like scrutinizing a newspaper’s fne print. I glanced at the master warning and caution buttons. They remained dark, but they felt like two angry eyes watching me, appalled that I had taken the DC-9 aloft. Fortunately, this experience occurred in a simulator — not an actual DC-9. The device is owned by ABX Air Services at Wilmington Air Park in Ohio. ABX Air no longer operates the DC-9, but it still provides the simulator to companies fying the aircraft. Ironically, the “box” is practically brand new. Manufactured in 2003 as a F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 2 7 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

DC-9-30 model, it utilizes the latest in simulation technology. I had always wanted to fy this distinguished aircraft. As I manipulated its yoke, I imagined the thousands of airmen that had coaxed the DC-9 across time. Pilots that few the aircraft in the 1960s may have grandchildren piloting it today. If only for a while, it was gratifying to experience the DC-9’s history — a durable link between aviation’s past and present. Yet I had some questions: How well could two EFIS pilots fy the DC-9? How diffcult is the transition from automated cockpits to fight decks devoid of technology? Would our instrument scans be adequate to fy the aircraft “raw data” — the fight directors buried within the DC-9’s panel? When I trained 12 years ago in the CRJ, my frst glass airplane, the instructor insisted that going from steam to glass was easy. Returning to steam from glass, though, was like sending an email through a telegraph. I currently fy next-generation Boeing 737s, and Matt pilots Embraer 145s. Both have glass cockpits. We were going to learn if the instructor was correct. Matt and I tried to prepare. We discussed what calls to make and checklists to utilize. We spoke with my friend Joe Seymour, a former DC-9 instructor pilot who provided various details concerning pitch and power settings and approach profles. We reasoned this expertise and our briefngs would suffce. They certainly helped; however, the DC-9 had other plans. “Where are we?” I asked. After some air work, we prepared for Wilmington’s ILS 22R. My basic attitude instrument fying was acceptable, but there was a problem: We were lost. “We’re on a right downwind,” Matt replied. “So we’re past the airport?” “I think so. Stand by.” When the DC-9’s trim switch is held for three seconds, a loud buzzing occurs to remind the pilot of the horizontal stabilizer’s movement. It could’ve also signifed disgust at our lackluster situational awareness. Spoiled by GPS maps, we struggled to interpret the DC-9’s indications. I pulled my thumb off the electric trim. Eventually, Matt tuned the nondirectional beacon that was the ILS’s

I L e a r N e d a B O u t F LY I N G F r O m t h a t | F LY I N G s a f e ly

outer marker. The ADF needle on the small radio magnetic indicator swung directly to the right. “We’re abeam the outer marker.” “Flaps 5, please. We’ll start slowing.” I glanced at the radio magnetic indicator, having completely ignored it in my scan. The instrument was obsolete in modern cockpits yet pivotal in the DC-9. We continued toward the approach. When established on the localizer, we confgured to Flaps 15. The DC-9 responded well to subsequent pitch and power changes. The trim buzzer sounded, but it was expected as my thumb jabbed forward. Matt and I tried to determine if we needed any wind correction. While EFIS cockpits display wind direction and speed, the DC-9 makes its pilots derive their own crabbed headings. When the glideslope came alive, we extended the landing gear and the faps to 25 degrees. When the diamondlike symbol centered, I called, “Flaps 40, fnal items.” As we slowed to our approach speed of 135 knots, I advanced the thrust levers to maintain speed. The DC-9 settled into its fnal approach attitude, its nose held high. Minor control inputs kept the localizer and glideslope centered, the needles familiar constants in the time-frozen panel. “Five hundred feet above ground,” Matt said as we slid down the glidepath. The clouds stubbornly remained. “Slightly left of course.” “Correcting.” The DC-9 was nimble during all phases of fight, but it wouldn’t prevent a go-around if my fying resulted in an unstabilized approach. My hand tightened around the thrust levers, ready to shove the JT8s to go-around thrust. Matt peered over the glareshield in search of the runway environment. His head nodded as he periodically crosschecked the altimeter. My lips pursed — a silent plea willing my harried instrument scan to endure a bit longer. “Approaching minimums,” Matt called. I bumped the thrust levers forward. “Checks.” Matt leaned closer to the windscreen, as if a few extra inches would matter. Streaks of gray raced over the windows, the runway still behind the veil of reduced visibility. Perhaps it was ftting. Attempting to conquer steam gauges

with our glass experience was admirable; assuming the DC-9 would tolerate this challenge was foolhardy. Flying the proven aircraft to minimums was our punishment — a careful-what-youwish-for admonishment cloaked in the ghostly beeps of NDB identifers yet to go off the air. There were two possibilities when the altimeter’s needle reached decision height: see the runway or go around. My eyes lingered on the instrument a second too long. When I shifted my scan to the left, the localizer was creeping off center. Matt’s voice was the reprieve. “Runway in sight,” he announced. “Twelve o’clock.” I looked up and saw the pavement unfolding across Wilmington’s green

There was a thud as we touched down — not a jarring impact, but the DC-9 made it known it was on the ground. Its speed-brake handle screeched backward as the nose gear thumped against the centerline. We deployed the thrust reversers, although most of our momentum seemed to be absorbed in our frm landing. We stopped about 6,000 feet down the runway. With the parking brake set, I slid backward and exhaled. My shoulder harness whipped free. The DC-9’s instruments were motionless, a steam gauge laboratory fnally at rest. I actually felt like a wild-eyed scientist as the creator of this experiment, with my glass cockpit background as the control. My eyes were also tired from reincarnating my dormant analog scan.

the old instructor was riGht: it’s more diFFicult to transition From Glass to steam than vice versa. felds. We were slightly off centerline, and I corrected visually. Approach lights fashed beneath us as we descended toward the runway’s threshold. “Landing,” I replied. The master warning and caution buttons were in my peripheral vision as I concentrated on the touchdown zone markings. If their blankness indicated surprise, there was still opportunity to witness failure. Of the nearly 1,000 DC-9s built, the number of landings feet wide was incalculable. My touchdown wouldn’t scratch this tally, but I could still dent some aluminum. Pavement began unrolling beneath the DC-9 at 50 feet. We passed over the runway’s numbers, the white centerline markings splayed before the aircraft’s lifted nose. At 30 feet, I applied back pressure and eased the thrust levers toward idle. The main gear should have touched as the thrust levers bumped their stops. Unfortunately, as the engines idled, the DC-9 still streaked above the runway. I nursed the yoke, willing the mains to kiss the rubber stains beneath them. F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 2 8 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

The old instructor was right: It’s more diffcult to transition from glass to steam than vice versa. Rather than sending an email via a telegraph, I likened our DC-9 experience to an old rotary telephone. We remembered how to dial, but its circular wheel had to be conjured from the depths where obsolete things are stored in our minds. The DC-9 had a dial tone; it was simply hard to hear over the spinning gyros powering its steam instruments. A week later, I was prefighting the 737, tapping the FMC’s keypad reassuringly. Our route displayed on the inboard display unit, indicating the exact time between waypoints. As I silently typed, I heard the thundering roar of turbojet engines. I looked up and saw a DC-9 climbing away, dark exhaust spewing from its JT8s. I refexively waved. It was a greeting to an aircraft I had the pleasure of meeting. It was also a heartfelt acknowledgement of its timeless success. I smiled as the DC-9 disappeared from view, its pilots connecting the aircraft’s dynamic past to the present.

From the Wright Flyer engine that started it all to the powerhouses that propelled the Space Shuttle to new horizons, Flying names the most vital power plants of all time. Visit FlyingMag.com/50engines to see the entire list of engines and explore how the technology behind them shaped the course of aviation. E x c l u s i v E ly o n l i n E a t f ly i n g m a g . c o m / 5 0 e n g i n e s

AFTERMATH

ACCIdeNt ANALYsIs tHAt GOes beHINd ANd beYONd tHe RepORt

F LY I N G s a f e ly | B Y P e T e R G a R R I s O N

Kandahar King air A high price to pAy for A moment’s inAttention Since 2009, 42 Air Force MC-12Ws have been deployed to war zones in the Middle East. The MC-12W is a modifed Beech King Air 350, externally similar except for a plethora of antennas and several unsightly bulges, including a huge belly pack. Communications and surveillance equipment and stations for two technicians replace the usual executive amenities. Last April, an MC-12W crashed during a surveillance mission 110 miles northeast of its base in Kandahar, Afghanistan, killing its crew of four. The terrain elevation in the planned working area was between 6,000 and 7,000 feet. On arriving, the crew began to orbit in left turns at FL 200. A large cumulus was building; the airplane circled into and out of it, encountering some precipitation and moderate turbulence but no lightning or icing. The airplane was not equipped with a fight data recorder, and so investigators reconstructed the accident sequence from the cockpit voice recorder. Thirty-seven minutes after takeoff, the pilot requested and received clearance to climb to FL 230 to get out of the clouds. He started the climb on autopilot, evidently using the vertical speed, or V/S, mode. Signifcantly, he did not use the fight level change, or FLCH, mode. In FLCH mode, the autopilot holds airspeed; the rate of climb to a target altitude depends on the power setting. In

V/S mode, the pilot selects a climb rate and the autopilot adjusts speed — that is, angle of attack — to maintain it. According to the Air Force accident report, V/S is habitually used by “half the pilots” — presumably meaning MC-12W pilots — for altitude changes even though there is a slight risk that with insuffcient power the autopilot will maintain the climb rate by raising the nose until the wing stalls. And that is what happened. Not long after the start of the climb, the pilot noticed his airspeed decaying and said, “A little slow, correcting.” Seven

warning horn and then the clatter of objects fying around, suggesting the temporary weightlessness of a spin departure. The bank angle warning stopped, but that did not mean the airplane was upright. Instead, it meant the PFD had shifted to its “declutter mode,” in which distracting information is removed and red chevrons appear pointing toward the horizon. Twenty-two seconds after the start of the upset, the mission commander took control of the airplane. It was then descending at more than 11,000 fpm. Two seconds later, the overspeed

the autopilot was disengaged, and a warning tone indicated the angle of banK had exceeded 50 degrees. seconds later, the mission commander, who was the senior pilot but occupied the right seat, said, “All right, frewall.” A second later, the autopilot was disengaged, and a warning tone indicated the angle of bank had exceeded 50 degrees. The mission commander again called for full power and ordered, “Eyes inside, eyes inside,” meaning that the pilot should rely on the instruments rather than outside visual cues. The CVR recorded the stall

warning sounded; the airspeed had surpassed 245 kias. The King Air crashed less than a mile horizontally from the location where the stall occurred. Debris was confned to an area 100 yards in diameter with the exception of the right wingtip and winglet, which separated before impact and came to earth a third of a mile away. The investigation suggested that the accident was initially precipitated by loss of airspeed due to pilot distraction — the

F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 3 0 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

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pilot was changing orbit position at the same time as the autopilot was taking care of the altitude change — and that rapid application of power at a high angle of attack caused the nose to slice to the left and the airplane to enter an incipient spin. Although the pilot’s reaction to the stall appears to have been inappropriate — at one point he exclaimed, “Whoa, pull up!” — the wing seems somehow to have gotten unstalled and the spin to have been replaced by a rapidly rotating spiral. It’s likely that neither pilot fully understood what was happening, even after the airplane emerged below the clouds. Although this accident was of an unusual kind, several things may be learned from it. First, vertical-speed hold is a potentially risky autopilot function for climbing and should be used only when ample excess power is available to ensure that speed will not be lost. It does not relieve the pilot of the need to monitor airspeed. Second, the leftward pull of noncounter-rotating propellers is most severe at low forward speed and maximum power and will cause the nose to swing to the left if the pilot does not anticipate it. Sudden application of power also commonly causes a pitch-up, as does the gyroscopic moment of the propellers with left yaw. Everything, in other words, conspired to pull the King Air into a spin departure to the left. Third, the appropriate pitch command in both a spin and a developed spiral is nose-down, not nose-up, regardless of what the PFD chevrons may say. The mechanics of stall recovery are familiar enough to all pilots, but those of recovery from a “graveyard spiral” are less so because the characteristics of a fully developed spiral cannot be simulated in training. In the fnal moments of its dive, the King Air was pulling suffcient G — probably at least fve, implying a bank angle of around 80 degrees — to break off one wingtip. Obviously, a further pitch-up command, as recommended by the horizon-seeking PFD, wasn’t going to help. What was needed was right roll to level the wings and a pitch-down command to ease the G-loading during the pullout. Lowering

the landing gear, regardless of gear speed limitations, would also have helped slow the airplane. In a spiral, part of the pitch-up correction from the horizontal stabilizer is directed inward, toward the center of the turn, rather than upward, and so it does not tend to reduce speed as much as it would if the wings were level. At the same time, the curved fight path tends to overcome what lateral stability the airplane has — most have little or none to start with — and to steepen the bank. The hallmarks of the spiral are ever-increasing speed, ever-increasing bank angle and ever-increasing rate of descent. The Air Force investigation of the accident found its cause to be “a stall due to insuffcient airspeed.” A nonpilot reader or newspaper reporter might conclude that such stalls occur of their own accord and have nothing to do with pilot actions. Three factors were said to have contributed to the stall. First, impeded visibility because of IMC weather; this, however, ought not to have been a factor for an instrument-rated King Air pilot. Second, the pilot’s inexperience in the MC-12W; he had only 21 hours as PIC in type, but, again, he was an Air Force-trained pilot, and the basic elements of speed control and autopilot use are not substantially different in a King Air from those in other airplanes. Finally, the report cited “known MC-12W program risks associated with sustaining required combat capability in theater.” The risks arose from the brief preparation time available for pilots entering the program and the lack of qualifed instructors at the operating bases. The implication was that things like this are bound to happen now and then in a war zone. The same could be said of aviation in general, but that does not prevent us from mentioning, from time to time, the importance of attention to airspeed. This article is based on the U.S. Air Force’s report of the accident and is intended to bring the issues raised to our readers’ attention. It is not intended to judge or to reach any defnitive conclusions about the ability or capacity of any person, living or dead, or any aircraft or accessory.

F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 3 2 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

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Call (800) 276 5206 or visit avemco.com/FLYinG Get a personal quote and get a free hat. *Not all coverages or products may be available in all jurisdictions. The description of coverage in these pages is for information purposes only. Actual coverages will vary based on local law requirements and the terms and conditions of the policy issued. The information described herein does not amend, or otherwise affect, the terms and conditions of any insurance policy issued by Avemco ®. In the event that a policy is inconsistent with the information described herein, the language of the policy will take precedence. Free hat offer not available in New Mexico. A subsidiary of HCC Insurance Holdings, Inc.

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ON THE RECORD F LY I N G s a f e ly

THe FOLLOwING Is AN exCeRpT FROM AN NTsb RepORT OF A GeNeRAL AvIATION ACCIdeNT

CESSNA A185F

Blanding, Utah/INJURIES: 3 Fatal

The pilot departed in the airplane with his father and a fight instructor who had extensive experience fying in the local canyon areas. The intention was to perform a sightseeing fight, with multiple stops at backcountry airstrips. The fight instructor was carrying a personal locator device, which transmitted position data at 10-minute-intervals but no altitude information. This data revealed that the airplane landed at three airstrips. Shortly after the airplane departed the third airstrip about midafternoon, the instructor’s personal locator began a series of transmissions all from the same location, about 1.2 miles from an unused airstrip. These transmissions continued from that location for about the next 12 hours; however, no emergency or alert notifcations were received from the personal locator or the airplane’s emergency locator transmitter (ELT) during that period. When the airplane had not returned to the original departure airport by nighttime, search and rescue efforts were initiated. The wreckage was located in the early morning hours the next day on the edge of a plateau in remote wilderness, at an elevation of 6,900 feet mean sea level. The airplane wreckage came to rest on an uphill slope and was mostly consumed by postimpact fre. The terrain north and east of the accident site fell away to steep canyon walls, which descended to a confuence of rivers 1,500 feet below. Area weather conditions included low-level thermal activity, wind gusts, and light turbulence, which would have been further exasperated at the accident site due to the surrounding terrain. The fight instructor and the aft seat passenger were fatally injured on impact; however, the pilot sustained serious injuries and was able to extricate himself from the airplane.

However, he eventually succumbed to his injuries before the airplane was discovered. Although the airplane was equipped with a 406-MHz ELT and evidence suggests that it activated during the accident, it had become separated from the airplane’s structure (and thus its antenna) during the impact sequence, which limited its transmission range. As a result, no ELT transmissions were received by search and rescue (SAR) satellites. Had the ELT remained connected to its antenna, it would have effectively transmitted an alert signal, thereby providing SAR personnel with a rapid indication that an accident had occurred. Under such circumstances, the airplane would most likely have been discovered earlier, possibly during daylight hours. The pilot’s injuries fell within the “severely” injured category, and analysis of emergency evacuation and trauma treatment resources revealed that with prompt ELT notifcation, medical response would have been greatly augmented, and he may have survived the accident. Furthermore, although a personal locator device survived the accident intact, it was ejected from the airplane during the accident sequence and was not within easy reach of the pilot.

PROBABLE CAUSE(S):

THe pILOT’s FAILuRe TO MAINTAIN AIRpLANe CONTROL duRING LOw-LeveL MANeuveRING FLIGHT. CONTRIbuTING TO THe pILOT’s deATH wAs THe LACk OF A TIMeLY eMeRGeNCY ResCue RespONse due TO THe LACk OF eFFeCTIve eMeRGeNCY sIGNAL TRANsMIssIONs FROM bOTH THe AIRpLANe’s eMeRGeNCY LOCATOR TRANsMITTeR ANd THe peRsONAL LOCATOR devICe, wHICH weRe bOTH ejeCTed FROM THe wReCkAGe.

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SKY KINGS F LY I N G S A F E LY | B Y J O H N K I N G

after we had our aCCIdent A BIG WAKE-UP CALL PROMPTS NEW LESSONS There is nothing like an accident to make you think about changing your fying ways. After Martha and I had our accident, we urgently wanted to avoid another one, but we didn’t intuitively know what to do differently.

We did know that somehow our attitudes about risk-taking had to change. It was pretty clear that we should quit doing “stupid stuff,” but those things never seem that stupid when you are doing them. F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 3 6 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

NO-NONSENSE RISK MITIGATION FOR PILOTS LIKE US

As “experienced” pilots, we had begun accumulating a long list of things we weren’t going to do anymore. Each scary experience gave us a new lesson. After our accident, we felt especially lucky to have survived that particular test in order to get the lesson. The problem was that we were learning a lot of individual lessons, but we kept putting ourselves at risk to learn each new one. And even a super-long list of things we weren’t going to do anymore didn’t prepare us for something we hadn’t thought of or tried yet. Our method clearly was not a good one. Plus, as ground instructors on a regular circuit, we were meeting other pilots who were learning lessons the same way, and too many of those pilots — and their passengers — weren’t surviving the tests in order to get the lessons. The death of one of these pilots in particular prompted us to start thinking and talking a lot about what could be done to improve not only our own risk management but also that of other general aviation pilots. A necessary frst step, in our view, was for the GA community to start admitting that there are risks associated with fying. Our philosophy was that if we deny the risks of fying, we probably won’t do a very good job of managing them. We had for too long been telling what Martha and I call “the big lie.” A big lie is one that you have been telling so long and so often that you have come to believe it yourself. The big lie in GA is, “The most dangerous part of the trip is the drive to the airport.” It is a great saying, and it is true for fying on the airlines. But sadly, it isn’t even close to being true for general aviation. You are seven times more likely per mile to be involved in a fatality in a GA airplane than you are in a car. To get that fgure, compare the fatal accident rate per mile for cars from the National Highway Transportation Safety

S K Y K I N G S | F LY I N G S A F E LY

Administration to the fatal accident rate per hour for airplanes from the National Transportation Safety Board and assume an average speed of 150 miles per hour for airplanes. In March 2001, Flying magazine courageously provided us a venue to start a national dialog on this controversial subject via an article titled “Battling the Big Lie.” This prompted a letter from Jim Lauerman of Avemco Insurance basically saying, “OK, wiseguys, you’ve identifed the problem. What are you going to do about it?” As a result of Jim’s encouragement, we decided we should work to develop risk management tools that pilots would fnd practical and useful. The important part was to use an acceptable vocabulary and frame things in a way that was insightful and new to pilots. After all, as the Greek philosopher Epictetus observed, “It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.” The frst tool we, along with folks from The Ohio State University and the FAA, came up with was what we called the PAVE checklist. The idea was to help give pilots a way to systematically identify the risks associated with a fight by putting them into the categories of Pilot, Aircraft, enVironment and External pressures. “External pressures” refers to those things, such as the pressure to make a schedule or to meet someone at the destination, that tend to make a pilot ignore all the other risk factors of the fight. A pilot’s hard-wired tendency to complete whatever goal he has set for himself belongs in that category. The idea behind the word “external” is that these pressures originate from things mostly outside of the fight. Many pilots look at PAVE and the other acronyms that we developed and think, “Give me a break. Do you expect me to say ‘PAVE’ out loud to myself every time I go fying?” The answer is no, we don’t. And I’ll let you in on a little secret. We don’t say it out loud every time either. What, then, is the beneft of the acronym? The process of learning about PAVE makes you think about identifying the risks of a fight. After that, when you see a risk you think things like, “I am extremely tired tonight. That is a pilot risk factor, and I need to fgure

out some way to mitigate that risk, like departing in the morning instead of tonight or taking another pilot with me.” So learning PAVE actually helps you identify risks and makes you more alert to them when they occur — even if you don’t go around muttering “PAVE” to yourself. The same thing goes for the CARE situational awareness scan. CARE stands for Consequences, Alternatives, Reality and External pressures. The idea is that as soon as you get airborne, all the risk factors of a fight start changing. The pilot is getting progressively more fatigued. The aircraft is getting lower on fuel. The environment is changing. You are fying over changing terrain and in changing weather,

you of the importance of identifying a different alternative or landing early. There is one acronym we do actually think about and use on every fight, and that is the CHORRD checklist. We use it in the run-up area before takeoff. CHORRD stands for Conditions, Hazards, Operational changes required, Runway required and available, Return procedure and our Departure route and altitudes. It is a great situational-awareness tool that we use to help us remember to take a fnal look just before takeoff at current conditions and what will happen next. It provides one fnal opportunity to manage the risks of takeoff and departure. Now, does all of this make any difference? Pilots have told us it

If rIsk management Is not a habIt that Is developed durIng flIght traInIng, pIlots are left to develop It on theIr own afterward. and it is getting later in the day and closer to darkness. Reality changes, but pilots often go into denial when the changes interfere with their plans. That’s why we had our accident. The “R” in CARE reminds you to deal with reality instead of denying it. And fnally, the external pressures become more intense the closer you get to your destination. It is much harder to land short of the destination than it would have been to not depart in the frst place. The thought behind the CARE acronym is to remember to be aware of your new situation when those changes take place. Once again, we don’t keep muttering the word “CARE” during a fight, but CARE does come to mind when changes occur. For instance, when weather changes begin to make an alternative go away, the fact that you have learned the CARE acronym reminds F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 3 8 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

does. Pilots have told us they and their passengers are alive today because they used these tools. But in order for them to work, risk identifcation, assessment and mitigation have to be a habit, and they will work best as a habit that is learned and practiced from the very frst fight lesson. If risk management is not a habit that is developed during fight training, pilots are left to develop it on their own afterward. That is what pilots have had to do in the past, and it has not worked all that well. During the process of fight instruction, instructors do a pretty good job of managing the risks of fight, but they are not yet doing as good a job of passing those skills along. As soon as a pilot leaves fight instruction and goes out on his or her own, the likelihood of an accident jumps by almost 50 percent. We can do a whole lot better than that.

TAKING WING F LY i n g o p i n i o n | B Y S A M W E i G E L

TALES OF WHEN FLYING, DISCOVERY AND LIFE CONVERGE

WHEN MY FRIENDS AND I MOVE ON TO THE MAJOR AIRLINES, WHO WILL FLY THE REGIONAL JETS?

what shortage? IT’S KINDA, SORTA, MAYBE HERE As an airline pilot, I generally try to stay out of the newspapers. Finding oneself on the front page of The New York Times usually means you’ve bent some metal, partied too hard on an overnight or fnally lost patience with the TSA and sucker punched one of its goons while cellphone cameras rolled. And yet lately, I have found myself the subject of numerous articles in the various papers of record, and the news has actually been quite good. According to these stories, I am in possession of certain skills that are shortly to be in high demand, and I can expect to be rewarded accordingly. Excellent!

You would think that my fellow crew members would share my enthusiasm for this serendipitous turn of events, but their reactions tend to be surprisingly cool: shrugs, eye rolls, even scoffs. It seems I am fying with a rather jaded lot, who, after years of industry turbulence, is not quite ready to accept that good times are just around the corner. Perhaps they don’t want to jinx it. Perhaps they are natural pessimists. Perhaps they’ve heard it all before. When I waved a Wall Street Journal article on the forthcoming pilot shortage at a doubting coworker, he dismissed it thusly: “Yeah, F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 4 0 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

I’ll bet they quote Kit Darby.” Well, yes, as a matter of fact, that article — like most on the subject — does quote the inexhaustible Mr. Darby, who has been loudly proclaiming the imminent arrival of the pilot shortage since the 1980s. Many of my peers consider Darby something of a snake-oil salesman, given his unceasing optimism in the face of industry turmoil. But it’s not like Darby has been making up pilot shortages out of thin air. He’s been quoting many respectable sources and pointing to authoritative studies commissioned by major industry players. And every one of those studies would have been dead accurate if industry conditions had conformed to optimistic forecasts by the FAA, airlines, aircraft manufacturers and others with a vested interest in predicting never-ending, unbridled industry growth. I don’t know of a single forecast that accounted for the dot-com bust, the 9/11 attacks, a prolonged spike in oil prices or the 2008 fnancial meltdown. Neither did anyone guess that senior pilots would mount a successful challenge to the Age 60 Rule, causing a fve-year pause in retirements. And thus, the pilot shortage failed to materialize. Of course, the failure of past predictions does not mean the present forecasts are also wrong, and the evidence for a big crunch in the U.S. pilot labor supply is compelling. Retirements at the major airlines will dramatically increase over the next 10 years, peaking in 2023. By 2027, Delta, United and American will have retired almost 24,000 pilots, or 64 percent of their current workforce. UPS and FedEx face only slightly lower retirement rates. Nonlegacy carriers, such as Southwest

t a k i n g w i n g | F LY i n g o p i n i o n

and JetBlue, have a more even mix of young and old pilots, and will see more steady attrition. Such a large number of retirements would not be concerning if suffcient numbers of new pilots were entering the industry to replace the retirees, but alas, the number of new entrants is trending in exactly the wrong direction. The FAA issued fewer commercial certifcates in the last three years than any other period since the early ’80s. It turns out that 13 years of furloughs, bankruptcies, pay cuts, outsourcing and other highly publicized woes have made airline careers less popular with America’s youth than they once were. Who could have seen that coming, right? Mind you, the shortage will affect some industry sectors more than others. The major airlines that are retiring the most pilots will have no problem recruiting their replacements. Besides the trickle of sought-after military pilots leaving the service, the major airlines will be able to replenish their ranks from the almost 22,000 pilots currently fying for the regional airlines. Who will replace these pilots is the real question. We saw the beginnings of a pilot shortage at the regionals from 2006 to 2008. At that time, many regional airlines dropped their hiring minimums to 250 hours and offered large signing bonuses, and they still couldn’t fll new-hire classes. The global recession and pause in retirements intervened before things got too desperate. Now, the shortage is picking up right where it left off in 2008, and this time, the 1,500-hour rule means that the regionals don’t have the option of hiring inexperienced pilots. At Great Lakes Airlines, which pays its new frst offcers fewer than $15,000 per year, the results have been predictable: empty classes, a workforce halved by attrition and hundreds of fights canceled for lack of crew. Other regionals are being more proactive; American Eagle Airlines, for example, is offering a $5,000 signing bonus and has, so far, been able to meet its modest demand for pilots. It’s not like there aren’t any experienced pilots out there. According to FAA estimates, there are 134,374 active ATPs younger than 65 and another 111,562 commercial pilots, compared to about 80,000 pilots employed

by U.S. airlines. For now, the shortage is primarily of qualifed pilots willing to work for poor wages. Common sense would dictate raising pay to attract more pilots. Yet the regionals, squeezed by their major airline partners like never before, are desperately trying to lower costs in order to survive. The former Pinnacle Airlines attempted to diversify by acquiring two smaller regionals but botched the merger, went bankrupt and was bought by Delta. It then used bankruptcy to squeeze concessions out of already low-paid employees. Meanwhile, pilots at PSA Airlines voluntarily voted for lower pay to secure 76-seat fying. ExpressJet pilots are voting on a similar measure as I write this. And now American Eagle, even as it offers

a blind eye to my modest proposal and will instead fght the shortage piecemeal with limited success. The major airlines will keep squeezing the regionals, and the regionals will keep squeezing their employees even while offering signing bonuses to lure in new pilots. When this fails, major and regional airlines will work more closely to recruit pilots by offering them a defned career path. Ultimately, I could see a system where a pilot is hired by a major airline straight out of fight school contingent on them going to a partner regional at 1,500 hours and fying there for a preset amount of time. As a last resort, major airlines may have to subsidize increases in regional pilot pay or even sponsor ab-initio training, as is done elsewhere in the world.

For now, the shortage is primarily oF qualiFied pilots willing to work For poverty-level wages. $5,000 hiring bonuses, is telling its pilots to accept concessions or see their airline shut down. Perhaps the reason my co-workers are so cynical about the pilot shortage is that the airlines themselves are taking actions that will only exacerbate it. The reality is the regional airline business model is dying. It was always based on much lower costs than the majors, but that gap no longer exists. A visionary airline CEO could easily solve the pilot shortage by bringing regional fying in house. The mainline unions would no doubt agree to competitive wages on regional airplanes in exchange for adding so many pilots to their ranks. Qualifed pilots would still apply to the major airline, knowing that their time on lower-paying equipment would be limited. Prospective pilots would be much more inclined to make the substantial investment in pilot training if they knew they could go straight to the likes of American or United at 1,500 hours. Alas, I expect management will turn F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 4 2 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

So while I do believe there is indeed a pilot shortage in the offng, I must concede that it probably will not make any of us wildly rich in the near future. That said, timing is everything in this career, and many of my friends are very well positioned to take full advantage of the coming wave. Those who have languished at the regional airlines for a decade or more will fnd themselves advancing very quickly at the major airlines. Those who are qualifed to get hired at a regional will have to contend with continued instability in that sector but will advance to the majors much more quickly than my generation did. And those beginning fight training in the next few years should have much smoother careers than most who have gone before. I hope my fellow regional pilots will resist saddling these future aviators with substandard contracts. Now, at the beginning of the biggest pilot shortage in history, professional pilots ought to recognize the value of our skills and not ask anyone to fy for a penny less.

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BY STEPHEN POPE

QUEST KODIAK WiTh MOre Than 100 airPLanes deLiVered, The highLY CaPabLe KOdiaK is QuiCKLY CeMenTing iTs rePuTaTiOn as a baCKCOunTrY Legend.

F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 4 4 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

In 2010, I traveled to Haiti to deliver medical supplies in the aftermath of the powerful earthquake that leveled much of the area in and around impoverished Port-au-Prince. It was no surprise that the crew of a Quest Kodiak beat me there. After all, the Kodiak was created to serve as a primary workhorse for missionary and humanitarian organizations in the harshest environments they fy. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been doing that job, and many others, exceptionally well in the more than six years since Quest handed over the keys to the frst customer airplane.

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by blending a rugged airframe with a roomy interior, the kodiak represents a superb mix of utility and comfort.

ven though I’d been hearing and reading quite a lot about the Kodiak since it arrived on the scene as a certifed airplane, it still offered up a few surprises when I fnally got the chance to fy it a couple of months ago. Among the eye-openers was the rotation speed I was quoted: 50 knots. In this hulk of an airplane, I asked? Lynn Thomas, Quest Aircraft’s sales director, assured me the number was correct. I knew the Kodiak had a penchant for getting in and out of some impressively tight places, and even though we were quite a bit lighter than the Kodiak’s max allowable gross weight of 7,255 pounds, I was still a little skeptical about a VR that matched that of a stock Cessna 172.

With half fuel, no passengers and our weight tipping the scale at around 5,000 pounds, Thomas noted we’d be rotating closer to 40 knots if we were departing from a rough strip in some inhospitable corner of the world — precisely where the STOL-minded Kodiak was born to excel. Wow. We had 6,000 feet of smooth, hardsurface runway ahead of us as I swung the Kodiak onto the active at Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport (KFXE) in Florida — in other words, I wasn’t sweating the takeoff. With a healthy dose of right rudder trim dialed in and 20 degrees of faps, I advanced the throttle to takeoff power and let her rip. The Kodiak catapulted forward with impressive eagerness, courtesy of the 750 shaft horsepower Pratt & Whitney PT6A-34 bolted to F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 4 6 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

the front. I didn’t even have the chance to blink before the airspeed was coming alive on the Garmin G1000 display and spooling toward the magic 50. Pulling on the yoke, I noted its heaviness in my hand. Just as I’d suspected — she wasn’t quite ready to fy. As quickly as that thought ricocheted through my brain, our speed was passing through 60 then 70 and headed for 80. We were climbing — briskly, I noted. I was pulling harder until we were climbing sharply at 85 knots indicated. To my satisfaction, I noted that the vertical speed readout showed better than 1,500 fpm. Before I even had a chance to decide whether I thought the control feel was heavy or light, balanced or not, we’d reached our initial level-off

altitude, and I was swinging the Kodiak west to keep us away from Miami’s busy Class B airspace. It was a gorgeous day for fying, with fat cumulus clouds casting big shadows over the Everglades. There were a few bumps, which the Kodiak soaked up easily. The control feel, I fnally decided, was just right. This was a nice airplane. Life was good.

Gone souTh I couldn’t help but recall the “fun” I’d had a day earlier swinging a snow shovel like a pickax and chipping an inch of black ice from my driveway after a nasty winter storm clobbered the Northeast. Now, I was sitting comfortably in the Kodiak’s left seat, one hand gently cradling the leatherwrapped yoke as the Everglades’ inhospitable sawgrass marshes slid underneath. Content with the knowledge that the alligators were down there and I was up here, my only real concern was where we’d have lunch once we got to Key West. Heading to the Keys had been my idea. After all, when somebody offers you the left seat in a brand-new, $2 million turboprop that you’ve been itching to fy and asks where you’d like to go, you’d better make it someplace good. The plan was to meet up at the Kodiak’s temporary home base at the Banyan Air Service FBO at KFXE early in the morning. Since we didn’t have any high-country airstrips nearby — what with the Bitterroot Valley situated many thousands of miles to the west — Key-hopping seemed like a perfect choice to put the Kodiak through its paces. “Great,” Thomas said when I suggested Key West. “I was afraid you’d want to just go out over the Everglades and do steep turns and stalls.” Well, I wanted to do that too, but I was eager to use the Kodiak in a way I might if I owned one. The Kodiak is not a common sight in the Keys just yet (three different controllers needed help fguring out just what type of airplane they were dealing with), but it’s starting to become less rare as more people realize this brawny single, an airplane that was created to serve a higher calling, can make one heck of a nice personal airplane too. If you’re unfamiliar with how

Quest Aircraft came into existence, it is a pretty amazing story. It all started with some back-of-the-napkintype conversations between Tom Hamilton, co-founder of StoddardHamilton Aircraft (former maker of the experimental Glasair and Glastar), and Dave Voetmann, a veteran of missionary aviation. The pair felt the world needed a modern turbinepowered airplane that could allow missionary and humanitarian organizations to perform their demanding work. The Cessna 185, de Havilland Beaver and Helio Courier could all get the job done, but with avgas growing scarcer and costlier in remote places, PT6 turbine power just made sense. That’s when they hatched a plan to develop a clean-sheet airplane specifcally suited for humanitarian duty.

with about 170 employees and is controlled by a not-for-proft trust.

Turboprop on a Mission Lately, Kodiaks are also being snapped up by entrepreneurs who are using them as jump planes and foatplanes and for on-demand charter. Governments have bought them for special-mission use, and a number of wealthy individuals have come to view the Kodiak as an ideal aerial SUV, equal parts workhorse and plaything. That’s long been a niche owned by the Cessna Caravan and Pilatus PC-12 — but after fying the Kodiak, I have to admit it can play in the dirt just a little harder than its contemporaries from Kansas and Switzerland. Besides offering shorter takeoff and landing distances, the Kodiak is

BesIdes OFFeRING sHORteR tAkeOFF ANd LANdING dIstANCes, tHe kOdIAk Is ALsO stuBBIeR tHAN eItHeR tHe CARAvAN OR PC-12, ALLOwING It tO tuRN AROuNd IN tIGHteR PLACes. Quest Aircraft was founded in 2001 with investment money from missionary organizations that agreed to buy early airplanes. The fedgling company soon built a 27,000-squarefoot factory at Sandpoint Municipal Airport in Idaho and started work on a prototype. Two years later to the day, in October 2004, the Kodiak made its frst fight. Just two and half years after that milestone, in May 2007, the FAA certifed the airplane. Six months later, Quest delivered the frst customer Kodiak, an impressive development timeline. Since then, Kodiaks have operated across the globe in places like New Guinea, Indonesia, Africa and elsewhere. The airplane I few was on its way to its new owner in Ecuador. In keeping with its humanitarian roots, every 10th Kodiak is sold at cost to nonproft organizations that use them the way Quest’s visionary founders intended. Headed by industry veteran Sam Hill, the company’s new CEO, Quest is a for-proft company F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 4 7 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

also stubbier than either the Caravan or PC-12, allowing it to turn around in tighter places. While it might resemble a Caravan, the Kodiak has a shorter fuselage and wingspan. In fact, the Kodiak can land and turn around in just about the same footprint as a Cessna 206. That’s not a coincidence; it was a key design parameter. It’s not surprising that some people mistakenly assume there are similarities galore between the Kodiak and the Caravan. After all, they each seat 10 in an unpressurized cabin, have a high wing and strong tricycle gear, sit at about the same ramp height and get their power from a PT6A. But rather than being a Caravan knockoff, Thomas says the Kodiak should really be thought of more as a modern-day de Havilland Beaver — the original heavy-hauling bush plane. The Kodiak can do things a Caravan was never designed to even attempt, such as land on the side of a mountain in a thin strip of cleared jungle with a full load of supplies.

with its powerful pt6 and stol wing, the kodiak can take off at full gross weight in fewer than 1,000 feet.

That’s not an indictment of the Caravan — which is in some ways a more capable humanitarian airplane because it has the room inside to carry more — but rather a testimony to the Kodiak’s versatility. Once we were well out over the Everglades and had climbed high enough, it was time to try some maneuvers. I started with left and right steep turns to get a feel for the airplane, which I noted had a satisfyingly heavy feel while still being quite responsive, without a hint of adverse yaw. The Kodiak comes equipped with an S-Tec 55X autopilot, but we didn’t use it much. Except for a brief few minutes turning it on just so I could say I did, I never touched it again. The more I hand-few the Kodiak, the more I realized what a pilot’s airplane it really is. Power-off stalls in the Kodiak were truly impressive. The airplane incorporates a cuffed wing similar to the design on a Cirrus — as angle of

attack increases and the burble of air migrates outward, full aileron control is maintained deep into the stall. At max gross weight, the Kodiak stalls at 48 knots indicated. We were reasonably light, and so the stall didn’t break until the low 40s. A wing dropped and the nose fell through the horizon, but that’s about as dramatic as it got before I recovered. On the next stall, Thomas suggested I hold the airplane in the stall and try some shallow turns. With a rate of descent of around 700 fpm, I was able to walk the Kodiak left and right with the stall-warning horn blaring. Talk about a confdence booster. Once we fnished playing over the Everglades, I pointed us south toward the Keys. We joined up with the chain around Islamorada, showing 168 knots true along the way at our relatively low altitude, and then hung a right turn to follow the string of islands that connects the mainland with the Conch Republic. We F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 4 8 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

scanned the turquoise water for manatees but didn’t spot anything other than the occasional sailboat. It was hard to say who was having a better time, but let’s be honest — it was us.

Cheeseburgers in Paradise Approaching bustling Key West, we swung south out over the water to avoid the Class D airspace surrounding the Naval Air Station Key West on nearby Boca Chica Key. I reduced power to bring us to 110 knots for the downwind and then turned base, putting in a notch of faps and slowing to 90 knots. Final was fown at 75 knots, a speed that seemed more suitable for a Cessna Skylane than a big, bulky turboprop. Perhaps I forgot what a long-legged airplane I was fying, because the fare didn’t last long before the mains touched. At least we didn’t bounce. With a fstful of beta thrust and light braking, I turned us off the

PHOTOS BY STEPHEN POPE (RIGHT)

runway and headed for parking at the FBO, where we grabbed a cab and headed over to Duval Street for cheeseburgers. We shared a ride with three gentlemen who’d flown to Key West from France in their TBM 700 — all they wanted to talk about on the way was the Kodiak. What speed did Thomas usually flight plan for? One hundred seventy-five knots. What was the fuel burn? About 40 gallons an hour. What was the takeoff ground roll? Today, probably about 600 feet. They seemed impressed, as were we with their epic journey. In the end, we all agreed both the TBM 700 and the Kodiak are really cool airplanes. After grabbing lunch and iced teas at the Rum Barrel Bar and Grill and taking in some of the sights, we headed back to the airport and prepared to depart. During the preflight, I had a chance to explore some features of the Kodiak I’d missed back in Fort Lauderdale. It was easy to understand why aviation mission fliers, humanitarian organizations, doctors and others love this airplane. The cabin is essentially a big aluminumwrapped box measuring 54 inches wide, 57 inches high and almost 16 feet long. There’s room for eight passengers in back in the midlevel Timberline interior installed in the airplane I flew. The utility interior is the Tundra, which is designed for light weight and durability. There is also an executive interior called the Summit package, which includes a club-seating layout. Entry and exit is a cinch thanks to the Kodiak’s three big doors — one for the pilot, one for the copilot (or nonflying passenger) and a large clamshell door in back for passengers and cargo loading. The rear door includes automatically retracting and extending steps built into the lower section. Another hallmark of the Kodiak is the cabin floor track system that allows for quick reconfiguration of the seats, which can be removed swiftly and stowed, allowing for a variety of layouts. Once the seats are out (a process that takes one person about 10 minutes to complete), the floor panels can be lifted to reveal all the mechanical and electrical components that might need attention. From an

THE LARGE CARGO POD ATTACHED TO THE KODIAK’S BELLY PROVIDES AN ADDITIONAL 63 SQUARE FEET OF STORAGE SPACE.

DESIGNED TO BE EASY TO WORK ON IN THE BUSH, THE KODIAK SHOWS THE CONSIDERABLE THOUGHT THAT HAS BEEN GIVEN TO ACCESSING MECHANICAL ITEMS THAT MIGHT NEED ATTENTION.

THE KODIAK’S CUFFED WING ENSURES AILERON EFFECTIVENESS IS MAINTAINED EVEN AFTER THE WING ROOTS HAVE STALLED.

SIMPLICITY IS A HALLMARK OF THE KODIAK, AN AIRPANE DESIGNED TO BE FLOWN AT THE RAGGED EDGES — OFTEN BY NONPROFESSIONALS.

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2014 Quest KodiaK

The Quest Kodiak we few for this report featured a Garmin G1000 avionics system with synthetic vision technology, TAWS, traffc, GWX 68 weather radar and an S-Tec 55X autopilot. Additional options include a 10-seat Timberline leather interior, TKS ice protection, air conditioning and more. Price as flown and tyPically equiPPed $1.975 million

standard full fuel Payload 1,391 pounds

seats 10

wing loading 28 pounds/square foot

engine Pratt & Whitney PT6A-34

Power loading 9 pounds/hp

thrust 750 shp takeoff, 700 shp continuous

Max useable fuel 320 gallons/2,144 pounds

ProPeller Hartzell 96-inch diameter four-blade, full-feathering, reversible

Max rate of cliMb, sea level 1,371 fpm

length 34.2 feet

certified ceiling 25,000 feet

height 15.25 feet

takeoff ground roll 934 feet

wingsPan 45 feet

takeoff over 50-foot obstacle 1,212 feet

wing area 240 square feet

landing ground roll (no reverse) 915 feet

Max raMP weight 7,305 pounds

landing over 50-foot obstacle 1,681 feet

Max takeoff weight 7,255 pounds

high-sPeed cruise 185 knots

standard eMPty weight 3,770 pounds

range (12,000 feet, 75 Percent Power) 1,005 nm

Max landing weight 7,225 pounds

stall sPeed, clean 77 knots

Max useful load 3,535 pounds

stall sPeed, full flaPs 60 knots

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ease-of-maintenance standpoint, it is abundantly clear that the Kodiak was designed by pilots and mechanics who had spent considerable time living with their airplanes in the bush. Starting the Kodiakﾃ不 PT6 is a simple and straightforward affair. The normal procedure involves switching on the master and aux fuel pump, hitting the igniter and introducing fuel at 14 percent N1. You keep the starter engaged until reaching 50 percent and then switch off the igniter and aux fuel pump and turn the generator and alternator on, all while monitoring the gauges. On the way out, we taxied past a Key West Seaplanes Stationair on foats. I couldnﾃ付 help but imagine a couple of Kodiaks on foats serving as great additions to the feet. (Quest offers Wipline 7000 foats to buyers, and an

the kodiak’s cockpit is utilitarian without feeling unrefined. controls and switches fall easily to hand amid the big, bright garmin g1000 flight displays.

additional foat option is coming soon, Thomas says.) We took off to the east, retracing our path until we reached Marathon Key, the location of the only other public-use airport in the Keys. From there, we headed north toward Florida Bay, climbing over some showers that had moved into the area. The Kodiak, by the way, loves to climb. We went as high as 9,500 feet, a touch lower than the altitude where the airplane normally cruises. Though it’s certifed to a ceiling of 25,000 feet, the low teens are more typical. Negotiating the Florida airspace as we approached Miami was no trouble thanks to the G1000, which in the Kodiak comes standard with synthetic vision, electronic checklists, TAWS and available options, including Jeppesen charts,

traffc and XM weather, plus Garmin weather radar, icing protection and air conditioning.

QuesT’s ChallenGe On the way back into Fort Lauderdale, I shot the ILS to Runway 8 with a 10-knot wind right down the pike. At our light weight, Thomas suggested a power setting of 420 footpounds of torque to put us at 72 knots indicated inside the marker. This would be a simulated short-feld landing, and I’d be using the numbers as my imaginary touchdown point. By now, I was much more accustomed to sight view in the fare. We touched down right on the centerline after minimal foat, and I exited the runway at the second turnoff, again using braking and beta F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 5 1 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

thrust to shorten the ground roll. Quest’s biggest challenge now will be in continuing the good thing it started with the highly capable Kodiak. I wondered if that might mean introducing another airplane at some point (maybe a twin?), but that discussion has barely started, Thomas insists. Quest is simply too busy at the moment delivering on its promise of building a reliable, simple, powerful and good-fying bush plane that is as equally adept at carrying a load of doctors and medicine into a disaster zone as it is alighting on a fun quest for a cheeseburger in paradise. With additional options and refnements on the way — and more capability being added to the Garmin cockpit with each new software release — the Kodiak will remain a potent performer for years to come.

B F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 5 2 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

a how-To guide for visiTiNg NeighBoriNg couNTries. By pia BergQvisT

The Basic Needs As an international fier, the frst thing you need to do is dig out your passport and make sure it is valid for the duration of your trip. Depending on your nationality, you or your passengers may need a visa to enter the destination country and return to the United States. Visa applications can take time, so you may need to plan ahead. The rules are different for each country, but as a U.S. citizen, you don’t need a visa to visit our neighboring countries. You also need to get a U.S. Customs Service decal for your airplane. In the past, you were able to purchase this decal at airports of entry, but now you must buy one through the Decal/Transponder Online Procurement System. In this simple online process, you pay a $27.50 user fee that covers the airplane for one calendar year. It may F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 5 4 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

take awhile to get the sticker in the mail, so if you haven’t received it by the time you plan to depart, you can simply bring your receipt as proof that you paid the user fee. In most cases, your aircraft insurance will cover you across the border. Many pilots believe that Mexico requires additional liability insurance. However, this is not necessarily the case. According to AOPA, as long as your liability coverage is equal to or greater than $300,000 and Mexico is included in your area of coverage, you are good to go. But regardless of the country you are about to visit, check with your insurance carrier to make sure you are covered. There is also a list of documents and equipment required for airplanes traveling internationally, some of which you should already have in your airplane. See the sidebar on the next page for more information. One basic requirement that applies to all international fights is an IFR or VFR fight plan or a defense visual fight rules fight plan if you are crossing an air defense identifcation zone. Remember to open and close the fight plan. Many countries also require you to be on a fight plan

Photo courtesy of tobias alt (left); Pia bergqvist (right)

ou may be intimidated by the thought of international fying, particularly with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Electronic Advance Passenger Information System — eAPIS — which was implemented in 2009. While you are subjected to major fnes if you don’t comply, it is not a very complicated system. It simply involves an online portal process, and the compliance rate for eAPIS is greater than 99 percent for general aviation pilots, according to Tom Zecha, Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association’s manager of aviation security. Zecha is aware of only a handful of fnes that have been levied, and those were in cases where there was blatant disregard for the law. But eAPIS is only one step in the process of crossing our borders, and a fair amount of planning is defnitely required. For some, the prefight planning is part of the fun and excitement of international fying. Others would rather have someone else handle the process. After you’ve completed your frst international fight, you will likely fnd that it is not that complicated, and subsequent trips will be even easier since you know the procedures.

visiT our frieNdly NorTherN NeighBor To discover BeauTiful mouNTaiNs aNd prisTiNe glacial lakes.

The wesT coasT of mexico offers maNy exciTiNg airporTs, wiTh greaT whale waTchiNg aNd fishiNg NearBy. while fying within their borders, and some countries prohibit VFR fight at night. When crossing the border, you will also need to squawk a discreet code, and as always, it’s best to communicate with air traffc control whenever you can. A minimum of one hour before your airplane leaves the ground when departing or arriving in the United States, you need to fle an electronic eAPIS report. While it takes some time, the sign-up and activation processes and data entry for eAPIS are very straightforward for anyone who has used a computer and email. The information is stored, so planning subsequent trips will be much quicker. Once your information has been loaded into the system, you can fle either a notice of departure or notice of arrival. If you are unsure of the Internet accessibility at your destination, you can manifest both your

departure from and return to the United States at the same time. About one minute after you fle your manifest, you should receive an email with instructions for your fight. Make sure you bring this email on the trip either in a printed or an electronic format. In addition to these basic requirements, there may be a list of things that need to be addressed depending on what you are bringing, the type of airplane you fy and which country you choose to visit. Make sure you do your research before you go. Here are some basic tips on how to visit our neighbors to the north, south and southeast.

caNada Canada is a paradise for outdoorsmen, with its vast forests and stunning mountains offering ample opportunities for hiking or hunting and oceans and rivers providing excellent boating and fshing. Canada also has a rich native cultural heritage, and a wide range of cultural exploration and unique shopping opportunities are available in Canada’s big cities. Our neighbors to the north are known for being a friendly bunch F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 5 5 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

Documents RequiReD foR inteRnational flights Pilot Documents:

. Passport for each occupant . Pilot certifcate (with English

profciency endorsement) . Medical certifcate . Restricted radiotelephone operator permit

aiRcRaft Documents:

. Airworthiness certifcate . Aircraft registration (no pink slips) . Operating limitations . Weight and balance documents . Radio station license (for the airplane) . U.S. Customs Service decal . Insurance documents . 12-inch registration numbers (if crossing ADIZ) . General declaration form

equiPment:

. 121.5 MHz and/or 406 MHz ELT

(varies with country) . Mode C transponder . Two-way radio . Survival gear (requirement varies) . Navigation charts . Cash (some airports don’t accept credit cards for fees or fuel)

and so is the country’s Canadian Border Services Agency. You do need to bring the basic documents listed on the previous page; plan to fy to a CBSA airport of entry and alert CBSA via telephone between two and 48 hours before your arrival. In this case, the CBSA, unlike agencies in most countries, wants the pilot, not a representative, to call directly. Once you arrive, you will likely be greeted by a CBSA agent who will ask some questions and look at your documents. In some cases, however, your representative might not be around even if you arrive at your ETA. In this case, call the CBSA phone number again, and you may be cleared to enter over the phone. If you plan to travel regularly to Canada, you can get what is called a CANPASS, which allows you to land outside of CBSA offce hours and at CANPASS airports that are not regular airports of entry. The application process takes four to six weeks, according to the CBSA website, and the CANPASS is valid for fve years. Canada does recognize the U.S. Sport Pilot license. However, a

medical certifcate is still required for light-sport aircraft pilots. You should also be aware that if you are bringing a child into the country and both parents are not on board, a notarized letter from the nonpresent parent or parents is required. In addition, special equipment, such as shelter, signaling equipment and the means to make a fre, must be carried in the aircraft in some areas of Canada during certain times of the year.

mexico Mexico is a big, multifaceted country with plenty to offer. Whether you want to get away from it all on a remote beach, hang out at a luxury resort, visit ancient ruins at one of several UNESCO World Heritage sites or take in the hustle and bustle of a big city, there is something for everyone. On Dec. 31, 2013, Mexico implemented its new Advance Passenger Information system, its version of the data collection of crew, passengers and fight information for aircraft entering its borders that many countries, including the United States with its eAPIS, have introduced. The Mexican government has contracted with communications giant ARINC as the sole provider of its API system. This makes Mexico the frst country in the world without a public portal, according to Rick Gardner of Caribbean Sky Tours. An ARINC F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 5 6 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

Photo courtesy of neil glazer

The islaNds off our souTheasT coasT have maNy sceNic Beach-side airporTs, such as sTaNiel cay airporT iN The Bahamas.

subscription runs in the hundreds of dollars a month, so you will most likely go through a third-party fight-planning provider. Several companies are already offering this service, including ftplan.com, Universal, National Business Aviation Association and several international travel companies (see “Get Help” on the next page). Jeppesen says it is in the process of developing a system separate from ARINC’s. The implementation of the new system was fraught with confusion and misinterpretations, and it was initially not clear whether the rules applied to private aviation. The reason for this was that some rules don’t make sense for smaller airplanes. For example, data must be sent electronically to the Mexican government after the doors of the aircraft have been closed. Regardless, it does appear that the system applies to all aircraft. Some airports may not yet be enforcing the system, but the Mexican government can come after you later, according to several sources. A one-time entry can be bought for $35 or less if you have a subscription with a flightplanning provider. That is money well spent since fines for noncompliance can be steep. In addition to complying with the API requirements, several documents need to be in the airplane. According to Gardner, you will need a private pilot certifcate or higher since a Sport Pilot certifcate will not be accepted. You can enter Mexico at any airport of entry (be aware that if you are arriving from a country other than the United States, other rules may apply), where you can expect to be greeted by army fatigue-clad guards with machine guns. They may look intimidating but are generally very friendly. Once you enter the immigration offce, you will pay for an entry permit, which is good for 180 days. The price for a single-entry and a multipleentry permit, which allows for unlimited border crossings for the year, is the same. Depending on the airport, the immigration process can be a bit of a song and dance, with several desks to visit and possibly a few additional fees to pay. According to Gardner, there are three different

types of airports in Mexico: private, government-run and governmentowned but privately operated. While the government-owned airports have standard fee structures, the privately owned airports can set their own fees. Some pilots are reluctant to fy to Mexico because they fear losing or having damage done to their airplanes. Gardner, who has fown extensively in Mexico for decades, says that airports where the Mexican military is present provide the best security. “If the military is not present, then you should verify what kind of security is offered,” Gardner says.

your homework. You could even save yourself some money by doing a little extra research. For example, Air Journey founder Thierry Pouille says that recently the Bahamas implemented a $50 arrival fee and a $25 departure fee, making a lunch visit quite costly. However, the Bahamas Out Island Promotion Board is running a promotion through the end of April where pilots receive a $150 fuel credit if they stay two nights at certain hotels and visit two islands or a $300 fuel credit for four nights or more. Similar promotions may be available in the future there and in other countries.

The islaNds

comiNg home

You can’t beat the turquoise water, sandy beaches and subtropical temperatures of the Bahamas and Caribbean islands. Besides enjoying the great food and drinks, you can snorkel or scuba dive to a shipwreck, go zip lining, or take a nice, relaxing walk on the soft sand. Animal lovers can swim with dolphins, ride horses on the beach or share some bananas with a few monkeys. Shopaholics can also get their fx on some of the islands with local arts and crafts and great duty-free shopping. Regardless of which island you fy to, you need Coast Guard-approved life jackets for the pilot and each passenger. You can rent life jackets and rafts, which are recommended, at several FBOs in Florida. Since the islands constitute different countries, the rules and fees vary signifcantly. Familiarize yourself with them when you plan your fight. In general, countries will require several copies of a general declarations form related to the fight. You can expedite your time at the customs offce by flling these out at home before you depart. In addition to the general declarations forms, the Bahamas require a C7A form for pilots planning to fy to more than one island. Some Caribbean countries require a Caricom eAPIS manifest to be submitted prior to arrival, departure or travel between those countries. Again, things are always changing, and while the rules are never complicated, it is important to do

When returning to the United States, the rules are different depending on where you are arriving from. When arriving from Canada, you may proceed to any airport of entry. However, Zecha recommends landing near the border in case something happens en route, such as a weather or bathroom diversion. You can alert CBP via fight service en route if your plans change, but it may be less of a hassle to simply plan on landing close to the border. When arriving from Mexico or the Caribbean, you must land at the frst airport of entry along your route of fight. There is, however, a way around this by applying for an overfight exemption. You need to call the customs offce at your airport of entry and inform them of your arrival. Note the name of the agent you speak with in case there are questions when you arrive. You need to arrive within 15 minutes of your recorded ETA. If your ETA changes, alert CBP via fight service en route. Upon arrival, you need to stay inside the airplane until approached by a customs offcer. Pouille says you can expect to have to unload the airplane. Before you have taken your frst trip across the border, fying internationally may seem like an onerous task. But once you have tried it, you will fnd that it is not that diffcult. You may even become addicted to the fun and adventure that fying across our borders in your own airplane provides.

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Get Help When it comes to crossing our borders, don’t rely on friends’ past experiences. Rules and regulations can change, and fnes can be steep if you make serious mistakes. There are several companies that specialize in helping pilots fy internationally. And if you want to make your border crossing stress-free, you can join a group fight organized by a professional organization. The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association has good information about crossing our borders on its member website, including some video tutorials. aopa.org The National Business Aviation Association ofers its members a portal shared with ARINC that allows for electronic data submission for entry into many countries, including Mexico. nbaa.org Air Journey organizes group trips to destinations around the globe but can also provide individual advice to those who want to travel alone. The company also provides low-cost eAPIS services. airjourney.com

Bahamas & Caribbean Pilot’s Guide is a printed resource for pilots wanting to travel to the islands. It includes detailed information for public airports, including images and frequencies. pilotpub.com Caribbean Sky Tours is a membership association that assists with private fights to Mexico, Central America, the Bahamas and the Caribbean islands. Mexican API services are also available. caribbeanskytours.com Bush Pilots International, formerly known as Baja Bush Pilots, ofers international travel assistance services and guide books and plans group trips, mostly south of the border. bushpilotsinternational.com Fltplan.com, Jeppesen and Universal provide assistance with fight planning and are all set up with the new Mexican API system. These companies ofer various levels of services, generally through subscriptions. ftplan.com, jeppesen.com, universalweather.com

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THUNDERSTORMS AND THE DRY LINE DRY LINES SpAwN TORNADOES AND TREACHEROUS UpDRAfTS AND DOwNDRAfTS. HERE’S HOw TO SpOT AND SURvIvE THEM. bY MARgARET w. LAMb ILLUSTRATIONS bY MATTHEw LAzNICkA

layton, New Mexico — way east of the Rocky Mountains, out on the Great Plains. A humid June afternoon. We had fnished up in court and were sitting around in the judge’s offce. The phone rang. The judge handed it to me. My friend, the airport weather forecaster, spoke abruptly: “Margaret, if you’re gonna go, you’d better git!” So after a quick weather briefng — scattered thunderstorms — I prefighted my Navion and took off on the 160-mile fight west to Taos. I few regularly from Taos to Clayton for a day’s work. Taos, at 7,095 feet above sea level, is bordered on the east by the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, which rise to 13,161 feet at Wheeler Peak. I usually few over a lower part of the range before settling down to 7,500 feet along the treeless prairies east of the mountains. Flying to Clayton meant descending to 4,965 feet a few miles from the Texas/Oklahoma border. On the plains, the only airport along the route was in Springer, New Mexico, about 85 miles from Clayton. So when I took off from Clayton that afternoon, I was fying over terrain that was very well known to me. I was familiar with the occasional working windmills that gave me surface winds, with the various

abandoned ranch houses, with the little volcanic hills that speckled the plains. I was familiar, even, with where to look for the white rumps of grazing antelope. And now in the air, a line of huge cumulus buildups loomed right and left of course, but there was plenty

a small funnel cloud drooped out of the cumulus, twisting down in a spidery, gray thread then retreating. of open sky between them. That’s what “scattered” meant to me. If I needed to turn away, I had a straight shot 90 miles south to Tucumcari. And to the northwest appeared an avenue of clear air beyond the mesas, 85 miles up to Trinidad, Colorado. These were safe airport havens. Flying toward a wide space ahead, I could see far distant to the western plains at the base of the mountains beyond the line of clouds. Leveling off at 8,500 feet, I checked the panel: 21 inches manifold pressure, 2,150 rpm, fuel F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 5 9 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

pressure 13 psi, oil pressure and temperature normal, EGT and CHT where I wanted them, ammeter showing a slight charge. Everything was good. When I looked up, those cumulus clouds towering on both sides surprised me. They seemed to be meshing together high above me. I was too close to view the tops. Columns of rain had formed and were falling some miles off to the south and north. So I dropped down closer to the ground, where I could still see farther west, tightened the strap on the mountaineering helmet that I always wore while mountain fying and persevered. Slogging along, I studied the turbulent, massed clouds closely. Above to my right, a small funnel cloud drooped out of the cumulus, twisting down in a spidery, gray thread then retreating. I’d never seen a funnel cloud before. My escape route to the southeast toward Tucumcari was still open, so I motored on, peering at the writhing patterns in the cumulus ahead. Next time I looked back, the escape route behind me was blocked. All too gradually I realized that I was approaching the outer edge of a huge circle of cloud, a great, dark vault that rose overhead. Thunderstorms and virga — columns of

precipitation that don’t reach the ground — fanked the sides of my route. The airplane engine droned steadily on, and I few under the eastern rim of the dome. The air was nice and clear under there — inviting, opening a course westward beyond the far rim out on to the sundappled plains. The needle on the rate of climb indicator twitched and rose to 500 fpm. Intending to stay level, I trimmed nose down. The air was perfectly smooth. The vertical speed indicator continued to rise: 1,000 feet per minute. Now I was really going up. I glanced at the height of the arch overhead — evil-looking lemon gray, slightly roiled by wind. Now the far border of the dome in front of me was lower than my fight path. It was too late to turn around. The air was still smooth as stainless steel, but the airplane was ascending steadily and peaceably at 1,000 fpm up into the center of the canopy of cloud. Suddenly, I saw that my shiny Navion, and I with it, was being siphoned up into the maw of a thunderstorm. Quickly, I reduced power to idle and pointed the nose down. Soon I was at VNE, 195 mph, with the nose slanted down and the throttle all the way back, but I was nonetheless rocketing up toward the height of the dome. I didn’t lower gear or faps to slow down because gear-down speed is 100 mph. That tough Navion airplane structure, designed like its ancestor the P-51, could withstand exceeding VNE. I just concentrated on the dive and watched the approach of the black rim of cloud on the far side of the dome as I plunged forward. But I wasn’t losing any altitude. I was knifing down the updraft, edging into the thunderstorm on its side. Below, I could now see sunlight on the ground and blowing dust whirled up by the storm. Finally, I reached the edge of the updraft and started actually descending, hurtling toward safety and the Earth. And without warning, the airplane was snatched from its smooth dive, torn like a leaf from a branch, fogged this way and that, tumbling left to right. It was uncontrollable. I gripped the seat pan with both F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 6 0 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

hands, braced myself between the rudder pedals and seat back, and scrunched my body into its smallest possible shape but was still thrown violently against the side of the cockpit and the roof. My hard hat whacked against the Plexiglas window and the aluminum windshield pillar. In between lurches, I leveled the wings with rudder as gently as I could, and when I could fnally grasp the throttle, I added power. Refuge lay in that sliver of air close to Earth. The air smoothed out. Perhaps 200 feet above the grasslands, my small silver airplane bumped along over the whorls of dust and then in bright sunshine fnally relaxed into its normal rhythm. Picking the microphone up off the foor, I radioed Albuquerque Center

finally, i reached the edge of the updraft and started actually descending, hurtling toward safety and the earth. and asked if they were painting a thunderstorm east of Springer. “Yes,” they replied. “Tops?” I asked. “Tops are at 48,000.” “Thanks and good day,” I said. There, ahead in the late afternoon sunlight, were the two mesas I used as guidelines for my route across the mountains. I climbed up to 10,500 feet and skimmed across the ranges toward home. So that was a dry line thunderstorm. The Great Plains dry line is a surface boundary, aligned north/south, between two different air masses: dry air, heated as it rides east downhill from the high terrain of the Rocky Mountains, rumbling into moist, cooler air trending up to the west from Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. The atmospheric pressures, wind directions and humidities of the air masses are different. Where F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 6 1 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

they meet, powerful convection is forced by mixing, and the result is a line of huge powerful thunderstorms. Storm chasers revel in the dry line as it is the source of supercell thunderstorms. The dry line is not called a front because the general weather doesn’t change essentially on either side of the line. The dry line retreats toward the mountains at the end of the day,

and later the next morning, it fows east again toward lower terrain as the atmosphere heats up and the warm air slides down along the plains. So the dry line sloshes, as it were, back and forth across the eastern plains of Colorado, New Mexico and west Texas. It is most prevalent in late spring and early summer. Because no terrain feature exists to interrupt the fows, thunderstorms F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 6 2 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

continue building along the dry line, fed by the collision of the differing air masses. You can fnd the dry line forecast on aviationweather.gov under the heading “Forecasts,” then “Prog Charts,” then “Surface,” which will bring up fve panels reaching out 48 hours. The dry line, if one exists and is forecast, is depicted on the prog charts as an orange line with orange

all along this line, fight routes to Casper, Cheyenne, Denver, Colorado Springs, Albuquerque and El Paso might be hazardous or blocked. In addition, this particular dry line showed a prominent bulge over eastern Colorado. Research indicates that higher altitude westerly winds initiate the bulge. To put a very complicated process simply: The wind shear involved in a dry line bulge may cause its burgeoning storms to lean over, twist and hatch tornadoes. If your weather briefng mentions scattered thunderstorms in the forecast for the Great Plains, you should check for a dry line. “Scattered thunderstorms,” according to the National Weather Service Glossary, means an “area coverage of convective weather affecting 30 percent to 50 percent of a forecast zone.” So it is tempting to take off toward scattered thunderstorms because you imagine

a dry line implies much more hazardous circumstances than mere scattered or isolated thunderstorms.

scallops on the eastern side. If you are fying across the Great Plains in spring or early summer, you should always check the progs for the dry line. Take, for example, the prog chart for June 20, 2013. It showed an extensive dry line plotted all the way from the plains of Wyoming south across eastern Colorado and eastern New Mexico down to southwest Texas. Assuming thunderstorms formed

your route might be available over half the terrain. A dry line implies much more hazardous circumstances than mere scattered or isolated thunderstorms. If on the way you are talking with Flight Watch and observe a bulwark of building cumulus, ask if there’s a dry line and if severe thunderstorms are forecast. If that’s the case, retreat. Dry line thunderstorms metastasize unbelievably fast. We all know about not fying through the beautiful blue of a sucker hole. Usually, we think of sucker holes as something rather small that might wrap you fast in gauzy, bumpy clouds. In the case of storms coalescing along the dry line, a nice, miles-wide sucker hole will grab you quickly with lethal updrafts, downdrafts and extreme F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 6 3 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

turbulence. Sometimes, if you are fying west in a moist air mass toward a dry line, you will not be able to see the buildups because of poor visibility in the damp air mass. An early sign of a severe thunderstorm is virga, curtains of rain or snow sinking toward, but not hitting, the ground. Not many pilots are acquainted with virga. Virga mark skies that are very hazardous. The descending columns of precipitation are cold and therefore heavy. Virga displaces air, so right next to the downdraft is an updraft. The shear between downdraft and accompanying updraft really tosses you around. Rainy virga is usually gray, and snow, white. In snow virga, you have no forward visibility at all. Often, lightning fashes along the shafts of virga. In thunderstorm weather, if airports are few and far between, you may have no other option but to fy under virga. Sometimes, the least rough air is a few hundred feet above the ground, but to fy low, you must be familiar with the terrain and watch out for antennas and towers that may have sprouted in uninhabited places. When you’re fying in turbulence near virga, don’t fail with aileron against a wing drop. Level the wings gently with rudder, or if you’re thrown into a steep bank, use coordinated controls to regain level fight. You steer with your feet, not the yoke, remember? And when you are approaching an airport threatened by thunderstorms — and you have no other place to land — keep one radio tuned to the AWOS, and each cycle, listen for wind and pressure changes. Depending on the circumstances, you may need to select a different runway at the last minute. So what are the major signs of dry line thunderstorms to look out for? During the prefight, check the dry line forecast and search for high dew points in airports east of the dry line. In the air, be on alert for nasty-looking virga streaming below cumulus clouds that are bulking up in all vectors ahead. Lightning and funnel clouds should also serve as warnings that it’s time to turn around, land in a hospitable Great Plains town and look forward to taking off in benign skies early the next morning.

Android Apps in the CoCkpit Taking a BiTe ouT of The Big apple. by robert goyer

When I set out to WrIte a roundup of the androId apps avaIlable for avIatIon, I Was ready for a quIck assIgnment, as the Words “androId” and “avIatIon” have not, up to noW, been closely assocIated. happIly, thIs Is changIng. today, there are several avIatIon apps WIth IndIvIdual features that approach or, In some cases, match those of the best apps buIlt for ios. F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 6 4 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

There are good reasons why the leading aviation apps are built to run on Apple’s iOS mobile operating system. The ubiquitous software from the Californian personal computer giant is stable, widely available, controlled by one company instead of dozens and free with the purchase of an Apple device. The biggest reason for Apple’s aviation dominance is even simpler than that. It is due to the wide popularity of the iPad itself. Introduced in 2010, the iPad took the computing world by storm, offering consumers a big-screen, touch-controlled tablet that worked easily out of the box. With hundreds of thousands of these mobile tablets out in the world, the environment was ripe for aviation app developers to do their thing, and they did just that, coming out with a range of aviation apps that turned an everyday tablet into a powerful in-cockpit aviation tool. Some of those app developers, such as ForeFlight, focused exclusively on devices that run on Apple’s iOS platform, which, for all intents and purposes, are iPhones and iPads. Others, such as Seattle Avionics, Garmin and Hilton Software, created apps — or had pre-existing programs — for other operating systems. Those applications, for good or for ill, have taken a back (way, way far back) seat to those companies’ iOS products. One follows the money, and the money follows the marketplace. Another issue facing developers is the lack of commonality in the Android operating system itself. Many Android devices, even brand-new ones on store shelves, have versions of the operating system that are a couple of generations old. So when creating and supporting apps for Android devices, developers need to take into consideration not only the latest version of the OS but older versions too. Of course, this is also true for iOS devices, but there are far fewer versions and devices with which to be concerned. On top of that, backward

compatibility (meaning that older devices will run current apps) is better with Apple. The hardware can also be a hindrance. In this case, it’s that Android-powered gadgets tend to have a variety of hardware interfaces, as opposed to the common interface (with a few connector/interface changes) on Apple products.

android edge While Apple remains a dominant force in the market, consumers have numerous other options, with Android-based devices making up the most common ones. Analysts say Android devices already rival iPads in global sales, though that share is divided up

the androId galaxy of avIatIon apps Is small but has some real stars. among dozens (if not hundreds) of manufacturers. The leaders are wellknown companies, including phone giant Samsung, whose numerous Galaxy phones and tablets are the biggest challengers to Apple’s dominance. Other major players include Asus, which offers a variety of tablets ranging in size from handhelds to large convertible devices with detachable keyboards. Internet mammoth Amazon has its Kindle Fire, which boasts one of the best displays in the tablet world. In addition to these and other major makers with high-quality Android tablets, there are numerous import options available, including some surprisingly high-quality ones and others that aren’t worth the postage required to import them. The tablets we used for this story were the Nexus 7 (an iPad mini F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 6 5 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

competitor) and the 2014 Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1-inch model. Both tablets are capable, attractive, lightweight models with good battery life and fne displays. The Nexus 7 is a close rival to the iPad mini, with largely the same capabilities and performance. It has a better screen and lesser cameras than the original mini but not as nice of a display as the latest mini with Retina display. The Galaxy Note 10.1 is also a worthy rival to the latest iPad. It is very light, though slightly heavier than the iPad Air, has a comparably great battery life, a terrifc display that can be dimmed very low, excellent front and back cameras and nice little builtin speakers. It comes with built-in WiFi and Bluetooth and has one feature lacking on any iPad: a slot for a microSD card to allow for additional storage, which is great for those giant aviation databases. In addition, the Galaxy Note has the ability to run two apps at once, a feature that is surprisingly useful when prefight planning, as you can call up two different weather or fight-planning sites. The Android galaxy of aviation apps is small but has some real stars. There are numerous aviation weather apps available on Android, and you can, of course, access the Internet. Like iPads, some Android tabs are WiFi-only and some offer a cellular data connection, for which you must pay a phone company a monthly fee.

navigation apps There are a few apps really worth taking a look at, including a couple you’ve probably heard of and a couple more you might not know. A general disclaimer: While the results of our tests are good for the versions of the apps (the latest available at the time of this writing) and the devices we used, your experience might vary. Here are some of the most popular Android aviation navigation apps available in the Google Play store.

Fltplan.com

Cost to buy Free! Key Features Moving map, fight-plan info through ftplan.com (free subscription required), fuel prices, fight tracking, weight and balance, FBO information, airport/facility directory, predeparture clearances Geo-reFerenCed Charts No

Fltplan.com’s Android app works very well. It’s relatively fast, there’s a lot of data available, including charts for Canada and the Caribbean, and it has a slick interface for importing your

ftplan.com fight plans into the app. You can get in-depth weather briefngs, import airplane-specifc performance specs — they had not only the SR22 but also the Turbo model — and add waypoints to your route with a touch. The downside is the map part of the app, which is what most pilots look for in these products, is not very fullfeatured or well-integrated. Its graphical planning capabilities are slow and a bit clunky, its fight-planning interface is not particularly user-friendly, and its learning curve is steep. That said, its strengths recommend taking a look. Fltplan.com offers users access to world-class fight-planning and weather data, including international fling and briefngs. You get fight tracking, an electronic logbook, free charts and even high-end features, such as predeparture clearances. The cost — it’s free with registration on ftplan.com — is unbeatable, but there are some items you’ll miss, such as georeferenced charts and the ability to interface with automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast receivers.

Avilution Aviation Maps The surprise star of the Android world, Avilution’s Aviation Maps app is a very slick package. For less than you’d pay for top-tier navigation apps like ForeFlight (available exclusively on iOS devices) and Garmin Pilot, Avilution’s all-in-one pilot app offers a comparably impressive feature set with excellent usability. You get downloadable charts (georeferenced with the premium version), fight planning and fight-plan fling, automatic dependent surveillancebroadcast connectivity with slick onscreen weather through SkyRadar and Dual receivers (among others), and nicely implemented split screen displays — so you can display charts or nearest airports or weather updates or whatever else your heart desires alongside the map. Screen refreshes are a snap, charts are sharp and quickly zoom-able, and on-map

rubber band FliGht No FliGht-plan FilinG Yes ads-b Compatibility No split sCreen No panel emulation No Features were current as of evaluation date. Not all features were listed.

F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 6 6 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

Naviator banding fight-plan modifcation. Map interactivity is limited. On other apps, touch a waypoint, an airport for example, and you get a wealth of information (Garmin Pilot is the Android leader in map interactivity). The charts are relatively quick to download but lack the sharpness at close zooms that other apps have. There are some cool extras, including a vertical nav calculator, outputting of your GPS track for playback on Google Earth and integration with Lockheed Martin’s fight-plan system for direct fling of fight plans through the app. Naviator is a bit complicated to set up, with a few tiers of subscription required, but the pricing is very competitive. Like all the other apps here, there’s a generous trial period during which you get most of the features of the app. A relative newcomer to the mapping scene, Naviator is a basic app that features scanned charts. Georeferencing for approach charts is available through a separate annual subscription of $35. The interface takes some study — the learning

curve is moderately steep — but once you are comfortable with it, there are some great features, including automatic dependent surveillancebroadcast weather display, traffc through Zaon’s PCAS XRX sensor, split screen and very good rubber

trial period 30-day free trial

fight planning is quirky but quick once you get the idea. Note to developers: Users want true rubber banding so they can drag and modify the course line without a second thought. That said, Avilution has an exceptionally handy Victor airway routing feature that prompts you to add a new waypoint if it is along an existing airway as part of an airway routing, potentially saving dozens of subsequent inputs. Nice. There are few downsides. The biggest in my mind is stability. I had a few crashes on each of my Android test platforms. This is an issue that might get solved quickly, but part of the Android dilemma is having to fx bugs for numerous software builds and devices. Still, for those looking for a fullfeatured app for Android that does just about everything the big boys do, Avilution is defnitely worth a look.

Cost to buy $54.95 per year, standard $144.95 per year, premium Key Features Moving map, terminal charts, data storage on SD card, DUATS support, search-andrescue patterns, approach charts, Nexrad, metars, TAFs, icing, notams, progressive briefng strip and much more

trial period 30-day free trial Cost to buy $34.99 per year or $4.99 per month $14.95 one-time fee Key Features Moving map, Nexrad, animated weather, airmets, sigmets, graphical metars, winds aloft, terminal charts, terrain database, altitude optimizer for winds aloft, bring-your-own-charts feature, fight recording, Google Earth integration Geo-reFerenCed Charts Yes (purchased through Seattle Avionics) rubber band FliGht Yes FliGht-plan FilinG Yes

Geo-reFerenCed Charts Yes (with premium subscription)

ads-b Compatibility Yes (Dual XGS170, iLevil and others)

rubber band FliGht Yes

split sCreen Yes

FliGht-plan FilinG Yes

panel emulation Limited, HSI emulation

ads-b Compatibility Yes (SkyRadar, Dual XGPS170 and others) split sCreen Yes panel emulation No Features were current as of evaluation date. Not all features were listed.

F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 6 7 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

Features were current as of evaluation date. Not all features were listed.

Garmin Pilot For those who want the counterculture appeal of Android tablet computing along with the proven performance of an industry leader, there’s only one app at this point that fts the bill: Garmin Pilot. This app from the successful general aviation avionics manufacturer is very similar in nearly every regard to the company’s iPad app of the same name. There are a few features missing on the Android version, though Garmin’s developers have been working quickly to bring its Android offering up to the current state of the iOS art. Today, this means that Garmin Pilot on the 2014 Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet has geo-referenced charts, fight-plan fling, automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast connectivity through the Garmin GDL 39, split screen capability, panel display and

trial period 30-day free trial Cost to buy $9.99 per month Key Features Moving map, fight planning, dynamic fight-plan editing, dynamic waypoint info, terrain database, geo-referenced weather through Internet or in cockpit, animated radar, winds aloft, safe taxi, terminal charts, en route charts, fuel prices and much more Geo-reFerenCed Charts Yes rubber band FliGht Yes FliGht-plan FilinG Yes ads-b Compatibility Yes (Garmin GDL 39) split sCreen Yes panel emulation Yes Features were current as of evaluation date. Not all features were listed.

the ability to upload fight plans from the app to the Garmin D2 pilot watch. The iOS app at this point can display images from the Garmin VIRB, the company’s terrifc high-defnition action cam, and can also control multiple cams though the software. It’s a great feature, but unless you have a VIRB, it’s not something you’ll miss. We wouldn’t be surprised to see that capability migrate to the Android app soon. The bottom line is that Garmin Pilot on the Android platform offers a worldclass navigation experience with all of the bells and whistles you’ve come to expect from the best aviation apps.

Other Options There are other options in the Android universe, though we did not thoroughly test them. Among them are Avare and Anywhere Map, and there are apps specifcally designed for European users, such as Sky-Map. Additionally, you can get cheap or free apps for downloading weather, checking runway conditions, viewing charts or completing aviation-specifc calculations.

Is Android for You? The question is with the availability of great all-in-one navigation apps on Apple devices from the likes of ForeFlight, Garmin, Jeppesen, Hilton Software and BendixKing why would anyone choose Android? The answers are both obvious and a lot more complicated than you might imagine. First, there’s cost. Apple has historically charged a premium for its products, asking almost twice as much for its computers as its major-player PC and Android competitors ask for their products. The truth is with an Android tablet you can get a lot more device for the same money or the same basic device for a lot less. The Nexus 7 made by Asus on which we ran these tests costs around $300 with 4G cellular connectivity and 16 GB of storage (memory on most Android tabs is expandable, unlike the fxed-memory Apple products). That’s almost $250 less than the competing iPad mini with Retina display. The larger 10-inch class Android devices from Samsung, Asus and others typically go for 20 to 30 percent less than Apple’s iPad Air with comparable specs. So if price is an issue, Androids rule. The other factor is one of brand choice. For many pilots, Apple represents a safe, industry-leading company that makes great hardware and gets an arguably fair price for it. For others, Apple is the big company charging a premium and attracting fans for the brand name as much as for the product. For many of those anti-bandwagon types, Android (despite being digital mega-player Google’s initiative) represents the best alternative. F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 6 8 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

7 Get extended seven-year warranties on King Air engines, airframes and avionics. Sign a deal on any new King Air C90GTx, 250 or 350i before March 31, 2014,* and we’ll extend the ﬁve-year warranties for the Beechcraft airframe, Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A engines and the Rockwell Collins ® ProLine 21 1™ avionics by two years. That means you get a full seven years on all three. And if you own a King Air that’s ten years old or less with an excellent inspection history, Beechcraft is actively seeking out aircraft like yours. Don’t miss your opportunity to trade in and trade up to a new King Air today. Visit us at Beechcraft.com. For more information, contact: U.S. and the Americas +1.316.676.0800 EMEA +44(0) 1244.893.851 • Asia-Paciﬁc +65.6423.0321

*Other restrictions apply. Contact your Beechcraft sales representative for more information. ©2014 Beechcraft Corporation. All rights reserved. Beechcraft and King Air are the registered trademarks of Beechcraft Corporation.

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A NO-HOLDS-BARRED LOOK AT PILOTS, PLANES AND LIFE IN THE AIR

ROLLING THE DICE WITH FUEL MANAGEMENT WORKS JUST FINE -— UNTIL IT DOESN’T.

aM i My broTher’s keeper? DON’T BE AFRAID TO SPEAK UP WHEN YOU’RE CONCERNED ABOUT A FELLOW PILOT My friend Justin is a superb fight instructor with considerable experience in real-world fying and is charmingly full of himself. He amuses me by constantly working deals that involve fying really nice airplanes to major league games, rock concerts, ski resorts, airshows, Mardi Gras festivals, NASCAR races and weekends at somebody’s oceanfront condo. Last week, I stuck my head in his offce at the fight school as he was about to leave in a Cirrus, fying with somebody to a bowl game in the Carolinas; he couldn’t remember if it was North or South. When I checked aviation weather that evening (a nightly habit), conditions looked pretty grim between southern Ohio and the Carolinas. It’s

at the end of December when low clouds, precipitation, cold temperatures and mountains can spell trouble for small airplanes. So I texted Justin to see if they were back or had stayed over and was relieved when he called to report they got out early enough to escape the bad stuff and made the fight home under a high overcast. Which got me thinking about my “brother’s keeper” syndrome … On a beautiful Sunday morning in May, an experienced pilot and fight instructor made an uneventful fight back to southern Ohio in a Cessna 210 with three friends on board after a weekend in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Another airplane, a Piper PA-28 Archer, was along on this anF LY I N G M A G . C O M / 7 0 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

nual trip with the two co-owner pilots up front and two passengers in the back. Home base for both airplanes was a small country airport, and the guy fying the Archer was a former student of the guy fying the faster, more powerful Cessna. But the PA28 didn’t leave Myrtle Beach with the Cessna that morning. Opting to stay at the beach as long as possible, they departed in the late afternoon, crossed some rough mountainous terrain after nightfall and arrived back in Ohio late in the evening. The Piper owner/pilot had been licensed for several years, but it was common knowledge that he rarely few; in fact, he’d logged little, if any, time since making the same trip to South Carolina the year before. Everybody in the Cessna had gone their separate ways after getting home that afternoon. The weather en route had been good, and nobody was concerned about the Archer. Some people in the sparsely populated area around their destination later reported hearing a loud noise that night. But it wasn’t until early the next morning that a farmer spotted the wreckage: an airplane lying upside down in a feld about a half-mile from the airport. Emergency responders found the pilot and two occupants dead, but one back-seat passenger was still alive — barely. Unconscious, he had hung upside down from his lap belt through the night. Without fight following or a fight plan and an ELT that either malfunctioned or was damaged, nobody realized they were missing. The National Transportation Safety Board’s report: Two private-rated pilots and two passengers departed Myrtle Beach at approximately 1800. Their destination was approximately 415 nm, and the magnetic heading was approximately 324 degrees. The winds aloft at

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U n U s U a l a t t i t U d e s | F lY i n G O p i n i O n

the cruise altitude of 8,500 feet were 290 degrees at 25 knots. The calculated groundspeed was 83 knots. The airplane departed with 50 gallons of fuel. The accident occurred at approximately 2220, about .5 miles from the destination airport. Post crash examination of the wreckage revealed 10 ounces of fuel in each wing tank. The NTSB’s probable cause: The failure of the pilot to assure an adequate fuel supply and his failure to refuel en route. But there’s a little more to the story than an isolated case of poor judgment. As mentioned before, the pilot’s lack of experience and currency were no secret around this small country airport. True, the year before he made the same fight in the same airplane and successfully got back nonstop. Maybe the winds aloft were more favorable or maybe he leaned a little more aggressively because while he got the Archer on the ground, he had to be towed off the runway to the gas pump — the tanks were bone-dry.

A 40-year-old fight instructor was friends with a young man serving as chief pilot for an air freight outft fying a Beech 18, a Piper Aztec and a Beech BE58 Baron. This CFI was anxious to get beyond instructing and move up into the more glamorous world of fying night freight in the Baron. His chief pilot friend agreed to let him come along on night runs, fying the Part 91 legs and logging it as training. After a month and maybe four or fve fights, the chief pilot signed the CFI off as having completed the required training and passed him on Part 135 profciency, competency and route checks. On his second single-pilot night run in the BE58, the new “freight dog” was carrying a load of canceled checks from Cincinnati to Cleveland and had a deadheading passenger who was chief pilot for a large Part 135/121 carrier. (Carrying another certifcated aircarrier pilot is legitimate and not uncommon). This passenger later remarked how “uncomfortable [and] quite nervous” he felt during the fight because, even though the weather was fne, the pilot was “thoroughly saturated with the Baron.” The pilot explained

that this was only his second fight for the company — his frst had been the night before — and that he had “about 30 to 25 hours total multiengine time.” When his passenger, who was intimately familiar with Part 135 requirements, expressed surprise, the pilot said he was lucky and had the job because “he got to know” the chief pilot. A few nights later, that same passenger saw the pilot at the FBO in Cleveland after he had landed in the Baron. The weather that January night was IFR and very cold, but he said the pilot was “soaked in sweat.” The new guy left Cincinnati’s Lunken Airport for Cleveland again the following night on his fourth or ffth single-pilot Part 135 fight. The Baron had 155 pounds of canceled checks in 23 bags, there were no “squawks”

of the departure runway. The angle of the cuts in the trees on initial impact showed the right wing was down almost 45 degrees, and the fnal impact in the feld indicated a nose-down attitude of about 30 degrees. You can imagine the devastation I saw that night at the accident scene. The NTSB’s probable cause(s): Failure of the pilot to maintain control of the aircraft after becoming spatially disorientated in night instrument meteorological conditions (IMC). Factors related to the accident were: the pilot’s lack of experience in the type of operation, his lack of recent instrument experience and inadequate surveillance of the operation by the chief pilot/company management. FAA and NTSB investigations revealed signifcant unexplained

The weaTher ThaT nighT was iFr and very cold, buT he said The piloT was “soaked in sweaT.” or deferred maintenance items, and the airplane had been refueled in Cleveland the previous night. Lunken weather was 1,700 overcast with 8 miles visibility and the wind from 030 at 11 knots. At 10 p.m. EST after taking off to the northeast, he contacted Cincinnati Departure Control at 2,300 feet and, after a short vector, was cleared to “resume own navigation, climb to and maintain 9,000.” Acknowledging the transmission, he climbed 300 feet, made a slight turn in the wrong direction and in the next 14 seconds descended 1,400 feet at a rate of nearly 4,000 fpm and deviated 52 degrees to the right. Cincinnati lost radar contact and voice communications about one minute after the pilot’s initial call. Three minutes later the FAA got the frst report that an airplane had crashed near Newtown, Ohio. There had been no distress calls from the pilot. The Baron hit trees and impacted a soft, muddy feld about 3 miles north of Lunken and along the centerline F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 7 2 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

discrepancies between the pilot’s company resume, his personal logs and company records. As of three months before the accident, the pilot’s logbooks showed a total of 32 hours multiengine time and 66 hours of instrument time. The chief pilot, his good friend, had “documented fight experience,” which was not consistent with the pilot’s personal logbook or the verbal comments the pilot made six days before the accident. Pilots value the freedom and independence that go along with fying airplanes. So it’s risky to pipe up when you think somebody’s making a bad decision about making a risky fight, and maybe that risk is more about his capabilities, attitude and currency than about weather. But we’re traditionally a band of brothers and each of us — certainly instructors, chief pilots and check airmen — has some responsibility as his brother’s keeper. Both of these accidents could have been prevented by advice from wiser heads; I will always wonder if they sleep soundly at night.

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FROM tHe OpeRAtING ROOM tO FLIGHt Ops: A suRGeON’s jOuRNeY

InItIal OperatIng experIence

jetsuIte’s Cj3s ANd pHeNOMs ARe kNOwN As “Red stRIpe” —- NOt tO be CONFused wItH tHe beeR —- ON AIR tRAFFIC CONtROL FRequeNCIes.

Driving from Tampa, Florida, to KPBI for class at JetSuite’s Palm Beach base, Phil Smith and I are reunited for one last time. Indoc and sim partners for almost a month, we are both about to fy as frst offcers for the frst time; each of us has been assigned to a “B” captain for our initial operating experience. It is about to start in earnest. Capt. Fred Pollino and I are going to Dayton, Ohio; Phil is heading to Boston. It is a slow start for me but not for Phil. Fred and I airline to Dayton and check into a Holiday Inn Express. Phil sends me a photo of himself in the left seat of a CJ3 at Flight Level 450 taken earlier on the same day. Fred senses my frustration and takes me to our airplane. We practice removing and replacing the engine and pitot covers, prefighting the airplane and then engine starts. With no trip on for today, we are “released” and repair to a local Hooters where I mistakenly

and I learn a lot from him, not just about the airplane but also about airspace. Returning to Florida from the Bahamas, he notes that Miami has us on radar and has acknowledged us but hasn’t given us a clearance. I fret about this, as there are thunderstorms about, but Fred reassures me. “He’s got us, but by delaying our clearance, we can maneuver at 16,500 feet, stay clear of the clouds and still enjoy the controller’s fight following.” We land at KPBI at dusk, go through customs and prepare for a leg to JFK in New York. I am exhausted and am secretly pleased when fow delays into New York put us out of duty time and we agree to fy the JFK leg frst thing in the morning. I sleep soundly, which is a good thing as we have a 4 a.m. show for a 5 a.m. trip to JFK. It is my leg to Kennedy. We climb right up to Flight Level 450. Fred hears a “noise,” but I don’t. I don’t know the

Flying For real For the First time

order a martini — not Hooters’ forte. The next morning, we reposition to Cincinnati’s Lunken Airport for the next day’s trip. I am in the left seat for the 20-minute fight, most of which goes by in a surreal blur as Fred holds my hand. The landing is remarkably soft given my innocence. I will soon learn to love the trailing link gear. Day three brings some real fying. We carry a family of fve to Florida — Fred fies. A reposition leg to Miami’s Opa-Locka Executive is mine, and I do well enough with a ton of help that Fred tells me it is my leg to North Eleuthera in the Bahamas with clients on board. JetSuite is great about getting everybody experience. The company hires relatively high-time pilots — with an average of about 8,000 hours each — and expects everybody to be current and profcient. Every captain is generous with fight time. Fred is a former air traffc controller, F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 7 4 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

G e a r u p | F LY I N G O p i n i O n

airplane anywhere near as well as he does. Concerned that there might be a pressurization problem, he has me don an oxygen mask. The noise dissipates as we climb, and after 20 minutes in the AFM, Fred makes the diagnosis. No harm, no foul. As the sun rises over the Atlantic, I marvel at our altitude, the sight and my good fortune. I have always dreamed of this, and here I am. We’re fying to Kennedy, no less. Kennedy is advertising ILS to 4L, and we join the early morning parade. There is a crosswind of 10 knots that seems to be of no concern to Fred, to the tower controller or the airplane. It is easy to land. We taxi to Signature and wait for our passenger. I grew up in New York and have always had an emotional and admittedly grandiose connection to this pavement that launches airplanes to Beijing and Moscow. Now, I am here with the big boys. Loaded up, we are just in front of an Air China 747-400 on the taxi out. We’re going to Bedford, Massachusetts, and a delay in our departure from New York means that we will have to hurry after landing to get back to White Plains, New York, in time to take a famous professional baseball player and his family to Baltimore. Now we are hustling, and Fred is essentially on his own as the Rockwell Collins Pro Line 21 has me befuddled. After landing in Baltimore with its three-quarter-mile visibility and low ceilings, we turn around to White Plains. Once we’ve landed, I help clean the airplane and try to look like I know what I’m doing. The airplane is headed to Nassau in the Bahamas with another crew. It works even harder than we do. A car service takes us from White Plains to Teterboro Airport in New Jersey. Even though it is the peak of afternoon rush hour, our driver takes us into New York City and back out via the George Washington Bridge. Our protestations go unheeded, as we don’t speak Korean and the driver doesn’t speak English. The trip — a distance of 33 miles — takes close to two hours. Day fve features a bouncy trip from KTEB to New Haven, Connecticut, to pick up a passenger bound for Baltimore. The KTEB to KHVN has me busy; it is rough, and heading/altitude and speed instructions come blisteringly

fast. There is a big crosswind at New Haven, but again, I am lucky. Our passenger is delightful and asks for a Coke Zero, which we don’t have. Fred makes a note of this in the JetSuite computer program that we update after each fight. Two months later, I see her name on the manifest again and persuade an FBO attendant in Syracuse, New York, to take me to a grocery store to get Coke Zero. When we get to New Haven later that night, our passenger is thrilled. I am a little high on the approach to Baltimore and kick off the autopilot. It is easier for me to hand-fy than to input the correct heading and altitude commands. Fred reminds me that the aim is to use the automation but not to lose stick and rudder skills. After landing, we both race to catch a fight home.

to Charlottesville, Virginia, a remarkable trip in a CJ3 that is possible only with a modest tailwind. Our company policy is to land with 600 pounds of fuel. Most captains, I now know, think 1,000 pounds is prudent in most instances. The airplane holds 4,710 pounds. Jets are different because you can get to an alternate a lot quicker than in the Cheyenne that I am used to. As night settles around us, we cruise over St. Louis at Flight Level 450. I spent six great years down there; I can see KSUS, my old airport. The tailwinds have materialized, and our MFD suggests that we’ll be fat, more than 1,000 pounds, upon landing. We are on time and safely in by 10 p.m. We have tomorrow off and plan to take the same passengers back to Oakland on Sunday. Fred sends a message to

as the sun rIses Over the atlantIc, I marvel at Our altItude, the sIght and my gOOd fOrtune. A week later, Fred and I meet up in Palm Beach again. This time I will be in his hair for nine days. “Sixty hours from now, you will call me and say this is easy,” Fred reassures me. Getting from here to there will be interesting. We launch for Muncie, Indiana, and then take folks to Louisville, Kentucky. From there, we fy into a setting sun to Denver’s Centennial Airport. These are all my legs. I have a hard time picking out the airport in Colorado, but Fred’s been here many times. The FBO has free liquor, and I am tempted. It has been a long day. Instead, we opt for the free dinner at the DoubleTree. I look longingly at the Fleming’s Steakhouse next door. Tomorrow we head west then east. The takeoff from Centennial is arresting because of the beauty of the Rockies; though it is only October, snow tops most peaks. After climbing to Flight Level 430, we settle in for the morning trip to Oakland, California. The weather is gorgeous. The United States is huge, even at 410 knots. We pick up a family of four and head F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 7 6 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

the chief pilots and check airmen. I am signed off to fy the line. The University of Virginia is playing Georgia Tech, and it is homecoming weekend. We are quartered in a hotel that caters to the visiting team. Fred and I are on standby until 5:30 p.m., so we spend a pleasant day enjoying the college scene. It is almost enough to make you want to go back to college. We go to bed early though we don’t leave for Oakland until 4 p.m. tomorrow. The next day while waiting for our passengers, we chat with other crews who are doing the same thing. A pilot for PlaneSense has his Pilatus parked next to our CJ3. I ask him to say hello to Chris Loprinze, the amazing chief pilot at PlaneSense who was instrumental in getting me an interview for a job there. I never made it to the interview, as I had taken the offer from JetSuite. After contemplating all this, the pilot looks carefully at the big blue turboprop and the sleek white Citation with the red stripe and says, “Well, I guess it sure worked out for you.” I should say it has.

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technicalities F LY I N G o p i n i o n | B Y p e t e r g a r r i s o n

Bent-Wing Birds

EnginEEring history is madE to bE forgottEn The inverted gull wing, bent downward to keep the gear legs short and the huge prop clear of the ground, made the F4U Corsair instantly recognizable. Other airplanes, however, had used this feature before the Corsair, particularly during the era of fxed gears enveloped in voluminous fairings or “pants.” An early example was the Ha 137. Ha stands for Hamburger Flugzeugbau — Hamburg Airplane Factory — a subsidiary of the great German shipbuilding frm of Blohm & Voss. A dark horse in a Luftwaffe dive bomber competition, the sleek 137 lost out to the famous Junkers Stuka, which also had an inverted gull wing as well as its own built-in air-raid siren and the ability to dive perfectly vertically. The designer of the Ha 137 was named Richard Vogt. A protégé of Claudius Dornier, whose designs were manufactured under license by

Kawasaki, Vogt worked in Japan in the 1920s, then returned to Germany in 1933 to become head of aircraft design for Blohm & Voss. He remained there until the end of the war. Vogt’s name is little known today, but he was a designer of great originality whose work spanned eras from the biplane to the cruise missile. An unusual design of his that still pops up from time to time is the BV 141; in fact, it popped up in this column a few months ago. A proposed reconnaissance plane, the 141 was dramatically asymmetrical, with a single-engine fuselage offset to the left of center and a glass-enclosed gondola to the right. The horizontal tail projected entirely to the left of the fn to give the gunner in the rear of the gondola a wider feld of fre. The oddity of the design caused much merriment at the time but also made the airplane unforgettable. Many of Vogt’s designs were F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 7 8 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

CuttING tHROuGH tHe MYtHs tO Get tO tHe FACts OF FLIGHt

tHe FeRtILe bRAIN OF RICHARd VOGt pROduCed MANY OddItIes. tHe bV 141 wAs tHe Oddest OF ALL.

foatplanes or fying boats. One of these, the three-engine Ha (later BV) 138, started life with another gull wing, right side up this time, intended to get the propellers as high as possible above the water. Twin booms emerged at the dihedral breaks to support the empennage, and the third 600 hp Jumo engine sat atop a pylon in the V formed by the slanted inner panels of the wings. This arrangement turned out to have bad stalling qualities, and a second version of the design used a straight wing, a deeper hull and a central nacelle towering above the rest. I fnd the result rather rakish looking, but the British magazine Aeroplane scoffed: Richard Vogt, that original man, Turns out aeroplanes uglier than ’Most any other designer can.

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This design was followed by a fourengine, long-range mail plane, the Ha 139, which returned to the inverted gull wing, this time on foats. Three were built. Catapult-launched from ships and cruising at 130 knots, they crisscrossed the South Atlantic in the prewar years carrying mail and cargo

for Lufthansa. They were followed by the BV 222 Viking, a six-engine fying boat of 150-foot span and 4,000-mile range intended as a transatlantic passenger carrier, also for Lufthansa. A structural peculiarity common to most Vogt designs was a tubular wing spar welded of rolled steel sheet. He

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brought the idea with him from Japan and applied it to larger and larger airplanes; by the time it got to the Viking, the tube was almost 6 feet in diameter. A tube is not quite so effcient at handling bending stresses as the more usual I- or box-beam, but tubular spars carried twisting loads very well, doubled as fuel tanks, and they lent themselves to simple, standardized fttings for attaching engines, fuselages and so on. In the 1930s, the fying boat was widely considered the logical type for transoceanic travel, not only for safety but also because there existed few runways suitable for such heavy airplanes. A still larger model, the BV 238, succeeded the Viking. It was the heaviest airplane in the world, with a gross weight of over 200,000 pounds, a wingspan of almost 200 feet and six liquid-cooled 12-cylinder engines of 2,000 takeoff horsepower each. The 238, like the Viking, had a straight wing and relied on a very tall, narrow fuselage to keep the propellers away from the water. These airplanes were conceived in a Germany confdent of victory. With postwar civilian travel in mind, Vogt sketched an even larger fying boat similar in scale to the Hughes “Spruce Goose”: the P 200 — P stood for Projekt — with eight 4,000 hp engines, a 280-foot wingspan, a threestory fuselage resembling a miniature ocean liner and a takeoff weight of 450,000 pounds. Hermann Pohlmann, the designer of the Stuka, who later wrote a history of the aeronautical activities of Blohm & Voss in the Vogt years, noted that the P 200, with its emphasis on spaciousness, comfort and elegance, refected a mistaken conception of the postwar travel market. As the pragmatic American manufacturers of what would become the DC-6 and Constellation had already perceived, “speed makes comfort superfuous.” We continue to suffer the consequences of that insight today. In March 1944, with the factory a likely target for enemy bombers, the BV 238 prototype few to a lake near Lübeck for testing. By then, fotillas of Allied night bombers were reducing cities to ashes while, by day, fghters roamed the countryside strafng targets of opportunity. Inevitably, but rather

T E C H N I C A L I T I E S | F LY I N G o p i n i o n

sadly, the giant fying boat, moored in the Schaalsee under heavy camoufage, was spotted, strafed and sunk. When Germany found itself on the defensive on both western and eastern fronts, increasingly bizarre and inventive designs fowed from Vogt’s pen. There were slender-winged glider bombs that resembled sailplanes packed with high explosive and a weird machine, the P 163, whose crew of four occupied two gondolas at the tips of the wing. The P 170 was a “fast bomber” with three big radial engines, two of them way out at the wingtips. The crew sat at the extreme tail of the central fuselage where, despite the asymmetric-thrust issues raised by the wingtip engines, there was no vertical fn at all. Vogt designed a small engineless interceptor whose prone pilots, towed into the stratosphere by Me 109 fghters, were supposed to dive into bomber formations, ramming their tails — a

suicidal style of combat that to Stuka designer Pohlmann seemed more appropriate to Japanese culture than to German. There was a series of tailless fying wings, mostly single and twin

establishment, he worked in comparative anonymity. In Germany, he had been more of a fgure, and in old photographs one sees him, short in stature but lean and good-looking,

increasingly Bizarre and inventive designs floWed from vogt’s pen. jets, with stabilizing surfaces offset aft from the wingtips on small pylons. Time was running out for the Third Reich, but Hitler’s appetite for novel “reprisal weapons” was undiminished. After the war, Vogt, along with many other German scientists and technicians, was brought to the U.S., where he enjoyed a career with American aerospace frms, including Boeing. In the vast American aerospace

laughing with the test pilot Hanna Reitsch or showing der Führer around the Blohm & Voss plant. Richard Vogt died in 1979 in Santa Barbara, California, at the age of 84. Most of what he produced is forgotten today. It is the curse of engineering, unlike the other creative arts, that the constant evolution of technology leads us not only to discard obsolete productions but also to wipe them from our memory.

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JUMPSEAT F LY I N G O P I N I O N | B Y L E S A B E N D

aIrLIne CaPtaIns: are they a dyIng breed? THE EROSION OF CAPTAIN’S AUTHORITY It’s probably not surprising that author Ernie Gann, a former captain for my airline, is one of my heroes. His poetic words epitomized the very beginning of commercial air travel — when it was romantic to fy. Captains were given the ultimate authority over nearly every aspect of their fights. But interestingly enough, he challenged that authority in his screenplay of The High and the Mighty. The 1954 flm was the frst in a series of airline disaster movies. If you are a connoisseur of the classics, the scene of First Offcer John Wayne slapping Capt. Robert Stack in the cockpit of a DC-4 is a trademark. Why the insubordinate slap? As background, the airplane had departed Honolulu destined for

San Francisco. One of the engines loses a propeller past the infamous point-of-no-return. The ensuing fre creates a fuel leak that places the fight in jeopardy of making landfall. The story line leads us to believe that the mounting stress of command causes the captain to panic. He makes the decision to ditch instead of continuing toward SFO. John Wayne, our well-seasoned and PTSD-inficted copilot, slaps sense into his captain. It seems to me the prudent decision would have been to perform a planned ditching. The Coast Guard had already launched a search-andrescue operation. Besides, a remark in the script at the end of the flm indicated that just 30 gallons remained in the DC-4’s fuel tanks. A F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 8 2 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

FLYING THE HEAVY METAL WITH AN AIRLINE CAPTAIN

documented successful planned ditching occurred in 1956 aboard a Pan Am B-377. All passengers survived. Sounds to me like John Wayne was being a little reckless, but hey, it’s the movies. Could this corny flm have heralded the erosion of captain’s authority? A few years back, my schedule assignment was a 757 trip from Miami to San Francisco. I arrived at the gate with the frst offcer. We began our prefight preparations. During the process, I was unoffcially informed by a fight attendant that one of the passengers about to be boarded had arrived from Guatemala City with a health condition that had forced the crew of that fight to declare a medical emergency. The passenger had been treated by airport paramedics in Miami and sent on his merry way despite an appearance that didn’t quite scream miraculous recovery. What was the medical condition? Symptoms of a heart attack. Uh huh. With a roll of my eyes, I marched off the airplane and had a conversation with the gate agent. Among other facts, I discovered our on-site medical department hadn’t examined the passenger. Understanding my resistance to board this passenger, the gate agent indicated that it wasn’t our call. Excuse me? Yep, I was to take my concerns up with our customer resolution department. I picked up the gate phone and dialed the number. My rational argument that it would probably be in everyone’s best interests if the passenger was delayed at least one day for observation was not met with the logic I anticipated. Instead, I was told that we had no valid reason in our company rulebook to deny boarding. And if I took it upon myself to make such a decision, another crew would be faced with the same issue. Wonderful. Not wanting to pass the buck, I reluctantly agreed to take the passenger.

J U M P S E A T | F LY I N G O P I N I O N

Halfway across the Gulf of Mexico, I answered an intercom call from the No. 1 fight attendant. “Remember the Guatemala passenger?” the fight attendant asked. I sighed and replied with a “Yes.” “According to a nurse, he appears to be showing signs of cardiac arrest.” I gritted my teeth and rolled my eyes for the second time that day. “We’re diverting to Houston Intercontinental. You have approximately 20 minutes to prepare the cabin for landing.” We declared a medical emergency and landed without incident. The passenger survived and was removed by paramedics, then diagnosed with a heart attack. While reviewing fight plan paperwork for our impromptu leg from IAH to SFO, I called the customer resolution department just to report on the wisdom of the decision that had almost cost a man his life and had cost the company a few bucks, not to mention the inconvenience to the remaining passengers. Not surprisingly, the individual I had spoken to while in Miami was nowhere to be found. I shook my head at the phone with the thought that captain’s authority had been usurped by a customer resolution offcial sitting in a cubicle detached from the world and the airline. Great. I’ll fast forward to a more recent event. For those of my colleagues that have experienced the joys of crew member screening at this thriving European hub, my anecdote is for you. Because this airport is one of the world’s busiest international destinations, security procedures are strict. Prior to departure, crew members are driven via their hotel transportation buses to specifc control posts located around the perimeter of the airport. The buses proceed through a quarantined gate where crew members disembark into a screening area. Crews are subjected to physical body searches, physical bag searches, wanding and an X-ray machine. Liquids, gels and any other items deemed suspicious are confscated and recorded on a bad crew member list. Considering that I have responsibility for 303 lives and a 777,000-pound airplane, I question the hyper-scrutiny of my 10-mililiter Visine bottle not

being placed in the approved gels and liquids Ziploc bag. But it’s their country, and I have to respect them for their attempt at protecting the world. In contrast, JFK, an equally active international hub, has a portal available for crew members to bypass security through a prescreening process approved by the TSA. Background checks and fngerprinting are just some of the compliance requirements in order to take advantage of this portal. And JFK is not the only airport in the United States that utilizes this process. That being said, I comply with the rules and don’t waste energy challenging security agents at this particular European airport. I passed through the magnetometer and got the dreaded beep, a frequent

agent will be facing some form of disciplinary action. I refected on the implications of the experience. Perhaps one security agent had taken his responsibility too far, but what did that say about the ability of this individual to question the authenticity and authority of a captain, not to mention the implied lack of respect? Did this event defne a new culture? It has also come to my attention that an element among the fight attendant training department at my airline may also be defning a new culture, if not a new attitude. The FAR that legally deems the PIC to be in charge of the entire crew has not been receiving the emphasis it deserves. Apparently some of our fight attendant trainees have been

I was asked, “dId you buy your wIngs, or dId you earn them?” but allegedly random occurrence. I was curtly instructed by the security agent to remove my shoes, despite the fact my footwear was purchased and tested to be magnetometer-friendly. As anticipated, the agent began a physical pat-down, asking if I had removed all sharp objects. I replied that the only sharp objects not removed were the wings pinned onto my uniform shirt — a true statement. I was then asked, “Did you buy your wings, or did you earn them?” Incredulous, I responded, “You didn’t really ask me that question, did you?” The agent replied, “Well, you could be a fake pilot.” I glanced down at the ID hanging from the lanyard around my neck that had just been scrutinized after passing through the magnetometer. A few unprofessional comments ran through my head, but rather than vocalize unsavory thoughts, I chose to remain silent. After conveying my experience to the appropriate managers, I received an apology for the behavior. It appears the security F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 8 3 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

told that this command responsibility can be challenged. When this subject matter came up in conversation, one of my colleagues conveyed a discussion he had with a new fight attendant. The new hire claimed to have been told that an option to deal with disagreeable pilots was to add a splash of Visine to their coffee, a legendary airline recourse that is rumored to cause serious upset stomach issues. To the best of my knowledge, poisoning pilots is a federal offense. In my book, incapacitating both pilots on a two crew member airplane might also be deemed suicide. No doubt, captain’s authority has eroded since Ernie Gann’s era. The evolution of the airline environment has created this new culture. I agree that some situations dictate crew resource management skills. But sometimes captains just have to be captains simply because they were trusted with that responsibility on the day they added the fourth stripe to their epaulets. I, for one, do not take that responsibility lightly.

FLASHBACKS

BY BETHANY WHITFIELD

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WE FLEW the British Edgley Optica, a unique design meant to capture the ideal mixture of a helicopter’s visibility and an airplane’s easy operation. The craft’s 260 hp Lycoming drove a ducted fan in the wing’s center that also acted as a wing spar.

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WE TOOK a Beechcraft Staggerwing — that aesthetic beauty of past eras — up for a spin and reported on the enjoyable ﬂight. While the airplane lacked lateral stability, its sensitive response to pilot inputs, high speed and great visibility made it a pleasure to ﬂy, not to mention look at.

A LOOK BACK AT FLYING MAGAZINE 25 AND 50 YEARS AGO OUR COVER FEATURED THE SLEEK, FRENCH-MADE SOCATA TOBAGO. EASILY DISTINGUISHABLE BY A VERTICAL FIN LOCATED AHEAD OF THE STABILATOR, THE PISTON SINGLE’S APPEAL EXTENDED BEYOND FRANCE AND ACROSS THE POND.

WE REPORTED on the brawn of a British Aerospace BAe 125-800 that sustained a missile strike while cruising at 35,000 feet over Botswana. The airplane, which carried thenBotswana President Quett Masire, suffered a rapid decompression but landed safely after the weapon failed to detonate.

OUR COVER FEATURED A PIPER CHEROKEE 235 FLYING OVER THE BEAUTIFUL, RUGGED TERRAIN OF BRYCE CANYON, UTAH. ANTHONY LINCK PHOTOGRAPHED THE AIRPLANE FROM HIS MOONEY SUPER 21 AS PART OF THE ISSUE’S PIECE ON AIR-TO-AIR PHOTOGRAPHY. In “The Flying Dinosaur,” WE DETAILED the history of the Bristol Brabazon, an eight-engine, 225 mph cruiser built by the British after World War II. The airplane was meant to carry 100 passengers from London to New York in luxury but was overtaken by the more capable and economical de Havilland Comet.

F LY I N G M A G . C O M / 8 8 / M A R C H 2 0 1 4

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