AVmail
AVmailSelected email from AVweb members. Contributions for possible publication in AVmail are welcome at editor@avweb.com. The views expressed in this section are strictly those of the contributors, and are not necessarily shared by AVweb, its staff or management.
NOTE: If we select your email for publication, we reserve the right to edit it for length and to excise language we deem offensive. We will post your name unless you specifically ask us not to do so.
| Dan
Larsen
31 Aug 2001 |
High Fees at Meigs Field In a response to Dick Lawrence's letter [AVmail 27 August 2001] regarding the high fees at Meigs, Mike Busch cites DCA as an example where one pays a premium to the airport folk for convenient access to the city. I'd like to correct his error. On the occasion that I utilize Signature DCA in a C172, it costs me $30 for a quick turn. That includes the ramp fee and landing fee, but not the parking fee. I'm sure if I was there for any amount of time, I'd pay at least $50 for the privilege of saying "hi" to the nice folks at Signature. Mike implies that if one parked at an outlying airport, he would spend at least $50 getting into town. I'd like to set the record straight. For access to downtown DC, one may utilize College Park Airport (CGS) which is a three block walk to Washington's Metro, and one may travel downtown for less than $2. To my knolwedge, CGS only charges a nominal overnight fee. Admittedly, since CGS only has a 2600' strip, that may preclude larger aircraft from using the field. The nearest suitable alternative is probably Montgomery County Airpark (GAI) which is about a $12 cab ride to the nearest Metro station. I just thought I'd take the time to set the record straight.
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| R.
Scott Cameron
31 Aug 2001 |
Negative TV Coverage of General Aviation Please accept these comments on the media's recent reporting of aviation events as coming from an ATP with a true enthusiasm for flying. The Cessna 172RG belly landing was extremely well executed by a pilot who apparently kept a cool head in a stressful situation. I happened to watch this live on CNN and the media seemed to be longing for a catastrophe. Once the flight ended without disastrous results, it was quickly on to another story. CNN did, however, have John King "live on the telephone" during the final seconds of the incident. In their attempt to make more of this than the safe result that actually occurred, they asked John "If the plane was totaled". John apparently (from his first comments) was not watching the event unfold and only heard what was going on from some news source (perhaps the CNN reporters on the phone with him). Shame on you, John!!!!! He commented that the airplane was most likely "totaled" (an economic decision). I believe that most who saw the live video (or one of the multiple replays) would now agree that the damage to the airplane was most likely reasonably minor and the craft will be flying again fairly soon. Let's send a message to John King and others, "Please don't be so anxious to grab a CNN (or other media) spotlight that you compromise the daily efforts of the thousands of us that promote the safety and convenience of general aviation. One misplaced comment can undue the hard work of many.". Why not a simple comment that he didn't see the actual event and really can't asses the damage in that instant just minutes after the landing that he didn't see. Last night ABC's Prime Time Live aired a piece on vacuum pump failures. It was chock-full of errors and misstatements. For me, however, the highlight of inflammatory journalism was when a high time (13,000 hours) professional pilot asked the reporter to close her eyes while he placed the aircraft in a gentle bank. When she opened her eyes (on his calm instructions) she screamed when she noted the bank angle (less than 30 degrees). How dramatic! Also, how silly! There were comments, reported as facts, such as these vacuum pumps fail with "absolutely no warning". Sure, some of our older aircraft have no warnings and sure, there are many aircraft out there that have not had some sort of a backup system installed but most of those are not flying hard IFR as was depicted in the Primetime Live show. How do we get the message to the media that sensationalism has no place in responsible reporting and if they don't want to be taken to task and made to look silly , they should have qualified consultants that review the final product before it gets aired. I have had the pleasure of appearing many times on live TV. and radio to discuss aviation issues. Each and every time I attempt to be factual and I'm not afraid to defer a question if I'm not certain of the answer. You know the saying the flying fraternity repeats "Hey, let's be careful out there"..... well, that should not only to our hours in the cockpit but also to our time spent as ambassadors of general aviation.
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| Ian H.
Leverton, M.D.
31 Aug 2001 |
Lean Of Peak? I own and fly a P210. The engine seems very "temperature sensitive" so I have a natural interest in correct leaning procedures both from the safety and engine longevity perspectives. I am not at all interested in micturating contests between John Deakin and A&Ps in general, but only in "doing it right." My own mechanic, in whom I have great trust based on my complete satisfaction with his work, agreed that it would be beneficial to fit GAMIjectors, but only on the condition that I ignored their leaning instructions! On the other hand John Deakin comes loaded with data supporting LOP operations. Unfortunately all his data is GAMI data. Rarely does anyone accept the seller's data as sole proof of worth. So what is someone like myself who is very interested -- yet in many ways very ignorant -- supposed to do? The recurring question I have is "what do the engine manufacturers say?" Surely, of all people, they should be the ones with the data and experience to give the correct answer to the question. Or, if there isn't a correct answer, the appropriate perspectives. I would appreciate your comments.
AVweb responds... Ian, let me respond to you by stating right up front that I am a "quiet proponent" of LOP operation. I don't talk about it a lot (the way John does in his columns and forthcoming book), and for various reasons I don't lean quite as aggressively as John does (I still operate ROP for takeoff and climb, then switch to LOP for cruise and descent). But I operate my own airplane LOP -- a Cessna T310R with GAMIjectors that has two TSIO-520-BB engines that are quite similar (although not identical) to the one in your P210. FYI, TCM's published TBO on my engines is 1400 hours. In 1990, I majored both engines after running them 500 hours past TBO (1900 hours since new) and never having a jug off either engine. The factory-original TCM cylinders still measured within new limits at 1900 hours (the overhaul shop was completely astonished), so we just gave them a light hone, replaced the valves and valve guides, and slapped them back on for another run. At this point, in 2001, those engines are now at about 1400 SMOH (i.e., published TBO once again) and the compressions are all still in the 70s, with most 75/80 or better. The engines are running great, the oil filters and oil analysis reports are clean, and I fully intend to run them as far past published TBO as they want to go. (In addition to being a strong believer in aggressive leaning, I am also a strong believer in ignoring published TBO and overhauling strictly "on condition.") My point in relating this to you is this: Anyone who tells you that aggressive leaning will shorten the life of your engine simply doesn't know what he or she is talking about. This is a very widespread belief among both mechanics and pilots, and it is simply wrong. The truth is that running HOT will shorten the life of your engine -- but running HOT and running LEAN are not at all the same thing. I have owned my T310R for 14 years, and I do 100% of the maintenance on it myself, so I know this airplane inside and out about as well as anyone can be said to know any aircraft. I have not always operated the engines lean-of-peak. In the dark days before the advent of GAMIjectors, the engines would not run smoothly lean-of-peak because mixture maldistribution would cause them to run unacceptably rough when they got that lean. So for nearly a decade, I ran my airplane right at peak EGT (i.e., as lean as I could get without roughness), and kept temperatures under control by running at very conservative cruise power settings -- typically 60% power, obtained by leaving MP high (around 30" in my airplane) and reducing RPM to very low values (typically 2100). This high-MP, low-RPM, peak-EGT method of operation pretty much violated all the conventional wisdom about how to make an engine last, but my research led me to believe that it was the way to go, and certainly the remarkable longevity of my engines bore this out. When GAMIjectors became available, I was an early-adopter (George Braly and I had been friends for years, and had similar ideas about powerplant management), but I didn't jump whole-hog into LOP operation once I installed them on my precious engines -- I tippy-toed into LOP as my comfort level permitted. My comfort level increased dramatically a few years ago when I had the opportunity to spend a couple of hours in the control room of GAMI's test cell in Ada, where George and his colleagues have put together what is unquestionably the most complete and sophisticated instrumentation package ever used on piston aircraft engines. I've visited the engineering and production test cells at TCM in Mobile and at Lycoming in Williamsport, and I can tell you firsthand that both are unspeakably crude compared to the setup that GAMI has in Ada. (So you'll have to forgive John Deakin for using so much GAMI-supplied data in his columns, but that's really the only good data available -- TCM and Lycoming simply haven't taken the trouble to instrument their powerplants and gather data on what's going on inside those cylinders the way GAMI has.) While in Ada, I spent a couple of hours running (and abusing) an old TCM IO-470 engine in GAMI's test cell, running it at all sorts of combinations of MP and RPM and at all sorts of mixture settings from full rich to 100F lean-of-peak, and watching what was happening both inside the combustion chamber (pressure traces) and outside (CHTs, EGTs, torquemeter readouts, etc.) After beating up on George's test-cell engine, I felt a whole lot more comfortable with the idea of running my own precious powerplants in the lean-of-peak regime, and that's what I've been doing ever since. Let me offer a few more data points in support of the idea that lean-of-peak operation is not the evil that most (apparently including your trusted A&P) believe it to be. 20 years ago, TCM itself recommended cruise operation at 50F LOP for the Piper Malibu engine (TSIO-520-AE, if memory serves). Then, when TCM came out with the IO-550 engine, they once again formally endorsed LOP cruise operation for these engines. You need to understand that the Malibu engine and the -550 series are virtually identical in design to the TSIO-520 engines in your airplane and mine. Same dimensions, same metallurgy, mostly interchangeable parts. The only reason TCM does NOT officially permit LOP operation in our engines is because our engines were certified before TCM understood the benefits of LOP operation, and TCM virtually never goes back and modifies its recommendations for older engines. As you probably know, TCM's latest and greatest product is their new TCM/Aerosance FADEC electronic engine control system, which has now been certified on a few engine models and should be certified on most TCM engines within a year or so. With this system, the pilot no longer has a mixture control, and a computer automatically regulates both mixture and ignition timing. Three guesses where this FADEC system sets the mixture while in "economy cruise" mode? That's right: about 50F lean-of-peak! Let me return to the subject of your trusted A&P for a moment. As you probably know from reading John Deakin's latest column, I very recently earned my own A&P mechanic certificate after 14 years of supervised wrench-swinging. As a result, the memory of studying for the three knowledge tests and the 8-hour oral & practical exam is still very fresh in my mind. I can tell you with absolute certainty, therefore, that A&P mechanics receive ABSOLUTELY NO TRAINING WHATSOEVER in the proper operation of powerplants. There is next to nothing on this subject in the FAA-mandated A&P training curriculum, and what little is there is archaic information that's mostly just plain wrong. So whatever your A&P thinks he knows about powerplant management is undoubtedly based on world-of-mouth information from sources unknown. Since I'm now an A&P, and since you're an M.D., permit me to offer the following simile: Asking your trusted A&P about how to lean is a bit like asking your trusted orthopedic surgeon how to kick a 40-yard field goal. Both individuals are highly trained to fix things when they're broken, but very few know much about how to optimize them during normal operation. Most great football coaches have never gone through medical school, and most great orthopedic surgeons have never coached a football team. In a perfect world, you'd be able to get good advice on leaning and other powerplant management issues from your CFI (the closest thing to a coach that we pilots have). Unfortunately, the vast majority of CFIs simply don't have a clue, although I'm happy to say that the situation is slowly improving in that regard. (I've been a CFI for 30+ years, so I'm allowed to say that, too.)
That's a terrific question, Ian. The best advice I can give you is to fly your P210 down to Ada, Okla., and spend an hour in the GAMI test cell putting an engine through its paces the way I did, exploring all those corners of the operating envelope that you wouldn't have the nerve to explore in your own airplane. This experience will give you a whole new level of understanding about what's actually going on inside those cylinders, and improve your understanding of powerplant management by an order of magnitude. You'll learn that these engines are really a whole lot more robust than most pilots imagine, and that a great deal of what you've been told about mixture management and detonation are simply incorrect. (John Deakin's columns are full of good information, but with all due deference to John's writing skills, there's no substitute for seeing this stuff for yourself with a real engine in an instrumented test cell.) You should always operate your engines inside your own "comfort zone." It's obvious from your note that you are presently uncomfortable with LOP operation, and so long as that is the case, you should not be running your engines LOP just because I or John or George tell you we think it's a good thing to do -- nor should you avoid LOP operation just because your A&P tells you its a bad thing to do. Instead, you should try to learn all you can about the subject and decide for yourself what makes sense to you, and what makes you comfortable. I think everyone (including your A&P) would agree that the most important factor in aircraft piston engine longevity is temperature management. Above all other considerations, you need to keep your CHTs at or below 400F and your TIT below 1650F, and if you can run them a little lower than that, so much the better. There are lots of ways to keep those temperatures under control, and LOP operation is only one of them. I happen to believe that it's an excellent method for the cruise and descent phases of flight (cool, clean, efficient), but at the moment I'm still more comfortable with controlling temperatures with ROP mixture during takeoff and climb (although I've been known to change as I learn). Others use LOP during all phases of flight and get excellent results doing that. And for nearly a decade in the pre-GAMIjector era, I operated at peak EGT and reduced power settings and had outstanding luck with that, too, despite being told by lots of "experts" that I was abusing my engines terribly. There are an infinite number of ways to manage a piston powerplant -- some of them are wrong, but there's no one right way. Learn all you can, decide what makes you comfortable, and go with that. Be skeptical of the advice you receive from others, even if they're purported engine experts or TCM factory tech reps or 30,000-hour pilots or even editors-in-chief. <g> It's your engine. Let me offer one final comment, prompted by the fact that you're a doc: In recent years, I've learned a lot about aircraft maintenance, and I've also learned a lot about medicine (especially oncology), and I've been struck by the remarkably close parallels between the two seemingly-unrelated disciplines. In both aircraft maintenance and medicine, I've been astonished and dismayed by the frequent lack of diagnostic skills, and the tendency to prescribe therapy dogmatically without first obtaining adequate diagnostic data to support the therapeutic decisions. I could tell you some horror stories from my own personal experience (both in medicine and maintenance), but I'm sure you have plenty of your own. In any event, I believe that if you approach the health of your aircraft in much the same way as you'd approach the health of your own body, you're probably on the right track. --Mike Busch, Editor-in-Chief |
| Alan
Barnett
30 Aug 2001 |
Jury Awards $480 Million in Cessna Seat-Slip Case There are many things wrong with the tort system, among which are rules by which the trials are run. Four years ago I served on a jury in a medical malpractice case, and the only thing I was sure about at the end of the trial was that our jury was not competent to decide the case. We heard eight full days of rather technical testimony from hired "experts," but during deliberations we were not permitted to read the trial record, but had to rely on notes we took! We heard lawyers read excerpts out of context from textbooks, but were denied the right to see the rest of the textbook. We were not permitted to ask questions to clarify incomplete or confusing testimony. And we were forbidden to learn on our own anything about the condition in question. As far as the "expert" testimony is concerned, there are two possibilities: (1) the experts on both sides tell the truth, and really did disagree, or (2) one or both of the "experts" lies. The jury system fails in either case. In case #1, I don't believe a jury with no technical knowledge can be expected to decide the case if competent experts honestly disagree. In case #2, the jury's judgment will be an evaluation of how convincingly the "expert" witnesses can lie. I expect the jury in the recent Cessna found itself in a similar situation. |
| John F.
Navratil
30 Aug 2001 |
Negative TV Coverage of General Aviation AVweb wrote:
With all that time to set up, local -- and national -- media had a field day with the event, which ended less than dramatically, with a safe, and extremely well-documented, belly landing. << The next day Fox News (through their affiliate KTTV in Van Nuys) had two talking idiots commenting on "some sort of Cessna or Beechcraft" (it appeared to be a Piper Seminole) as it circled the airport with gear down but apparently not locked. It was unclear who was more clueless, the reporter or the "expert". The reporter asked such things as "when would the pilot first get an indication that the landing gear had malfunctioned?", or "how long after the pilot has jettisoned his fuel does he have to land?" To which the "expert" would reply that he was not familiar with "this particular aircraft", but would prattle on with some inanity or another. I had to leave for a flight before I could see the end of the "crash", but wondered what would happen if the plane simply landed and taxied off to the flight line. When I got home there was no mention of anything on the news, so I presume that is precisely what happened. So let's recap this newsworthy event. Two fools commenting wildly a plane circles to burn fuel before landing. What's newsworthy about that? What could possibly be the purpose of this except to build an audience for the possibility of viewing a crash? It was simple blood lust. I hope the news audience was terribly disappointed. I was. |
| Les
Josephy
30 Aug 2001 |
Negative TV Coverage of General Aviation I happened to catch MSNBC's live broadcasts of the C-172RG and the Beech Duchess possible gear-up landings one of the most cynical displays of "journalism" I've ever seen. I feel that they were appealing to humans attraction to pain. I think these "journalists" were hoping for a fiery crash, while stating that gear-up landings are "usually non-events." If these are non-events, why spend so much time airing these stories real time? |
| Norman
Woods
30 Aug 2001 |
Mooney Bankruptcy Just a note to let you know that since Mooney filed Chapter 11, there is a lot of talented aircraft mechanics unemployed and just aching to be doing what they do best: build Mooneys. I have worked with these people for 15 years, and have considered it a privilege to have worked with so many fine, talented and dedicated people that were proud of the product they were producing. We belong to a big family -- the family of aviation -- and family should stick together in good times as well as bad. We have fallen on tough times but I am confident we will be back and stronger and prouder than before. It has always amazed me how these people could take lifeless metal and turn it into such a fine aircraft. With every Mooney that flies is a piece of every employee at Mooney that had a hand in making that airplane fly. We fought the good fight, we lost, but we will pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and try again. We would also like to see a little more support from the aviation community. AVweb responds... I'm sure I speak for the entire AVweb staff when I say that we're rooting for Mooney to make a comeback under new ownership and new management. --Mike Busch, Editor-in-Chief |
| R. C.
Morton
30 Aug 2001 |
Enforcement Survival School I just wanted to let you know that your three-part article on how to deal with the FAA regarding enforcement was just excellent. I believe you provided accurate and very helpful information to the general aviation pilots that read it. As an aside: I am a current FAA inspector (operations) at Riverside FSDO -- sort of the office dinosaur (been there the longest). I support the idea that airmen should be very aware of how to deal with us. You did a good job of doing that. I have always felt we (the FAA) get short sighted in our alleged quest to keep the skies safe. Sometimes I wonder if we have anything to do with safety and a whole lot to do with just checking the "blocks."
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| Bill
Wright
31 Aug 2001 |
Negative TV Coverage of General Aviation In Thursday Prime Time on ABC (30 August 2001), once again we (general aviation) have been presented in a false light due to inaccurate, biased reporting by a media that doesn't have a clue. I sincerely hope that any pilot who watched this bunch of sensationalistic tripe last night lets ABC know what kind of disservice they do when they continue to report in this manner. Of course this is the kind of "investigative reporting" these rumor-monger, hype-shows thrive on. The sad result is that most of the watching public (those that don't fly) have no expertise to fall back on, and thus believe what they are being told. Don't want to rant unnecessarily but I had to get this off my chest. And yes, I certainly believe if a company produces a faulty product, they should be held responsible, but we pilots also bear a large part of that responsibility if we elect to fly in a situation that demands currency should we lose some of our nav capability. We also need to remember that there are no perfect systems (gyro pumps included). Hopefully, AVweb will continue to report and editorialize with accuracy and truth, and never get sucked into the trap that so much of the media finds themselves in today.
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| Thomas
Hinkel
31 Aug 2001 |
Negative TV Coverage of General Aviation ABC's "Prime Time" on Thursday, 30 August 2001, did a commentary on GA and the vacuum pumps that drive the gyros used to fly instruments. After watching this I would be surprised if some congressman or senator didn't float a bill to suspend GA instrument flying, if not GA in total. If you were to believe the rhetoric that the reporter was spewing, pilots and their aircraft are all accidents waiting to happen. It is just a matter of time. To someone, like my wife, who is not trained or knowledgeable about flight and piloting, last nights expose' would lead you to the conclusion that everything to do with instrument flight depended on the vacuum pump. To compound this belief there was their so called "expert" pilot who demonstrated and commented on how dangerous it is to fly a GA aircraft in the clouds because of this unreliable vacuum pump. They further accented this belief by playing voice transcripts from aviation accidents where pilots lost control of their aircraft, in clouds, because of "gyro failures". I don't think that anyone in the field of aviation will argue with the proposition that instrument flying is the most demanding of all tasks (night vision goggle flying for you army aviators excepted) and requires the most proficient of skills to be maintained. But it is safe and is executed by GA pilots daily. When you lose your gyros, it is pretty exciting in the cockpit, but it is not necessarily going to be catastrophic like ABC wants the general public to believe. I didn't hear them talk about the compass or the VSI, or the altimeter, or the airspeed indicator, or the turn and slip indicator as part of the total package that pilots should be using when they are scanning during instrument flight to "cross check" the reliability of all the instruments. Instead they focused on only two, the DG and the AI and then related it to the vacuum pump which they made all to believe to be very unreliable. Freedom of the press is one thing, fuzzy truth is another. GA has been attacked and attacked unfairly with innuendo and partial truths. A review of the NTSB accident reports shows very few accidents where the pilot lost control of his aircraft because of a gyro failure while in the clouds. ABC's producers demonstrated their depth of knowledge of GA when they panned to a Bonanza and said "it was a Cherokee like this one that pilot..." It is regrettable that this type of journalism is allowed to flourish without accountability, because of it we in GA will be forced to start all over again in convincing our ground-bound brethren that aviation of any type is safe and reliable. |
| Steve
Kretsinger
29 Aug 2001 |
Yes Pogo, the Enemy Is Us Right on!!! I am a multi-engine, instrument, commercial pilot and instrument instructor. I have a 1938 Fairchild 24 that I took to Oshkosh last year and Arlington, WA (the third largest air show behind Oshkosh and Sun 'n Fun) this year. I won Grand Champion for Antiques at Arlington. I am also an Air Traffic Controller. I have worked at Long Beach, CA when it was the seventh busiest airport in the nation. I have worked at the temporary tower at Arlington for the last two years and hope to work many more. I have seen the circus that Rick Durden described in his column first hand. Rick is absolutely right that some pilots come unprepared and are doing/causing things to happen that will ruin it for the rest of us. I have seen a Lancair at Arlington come blasting through a whole line of airplanes (that are all flying at the appropriate speeds and altitudes) at over 200 knots (of course gear and flaps retracted), make it to the airport only to be sent back by the tower to try again. Second time around, guess what? 200 knots and blasting through another line of airplanes. I also saw a Twin Bonanza flying like a true pro. I actually heard him for miles before I actually saw him. He appeared from behind the trees with gear and flaps down, growling along at 90 knots and following the traffic ahead of him. He actually could have flown an alternate altitude and speed (135 knots), but elected to fit in the flow. I thank him very much. I can only hope that we all continue to try to get the message out that people need to come prepared -- read the NOTAM's and special procedures and then study them!!! Thank you for a well written article.
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| Name
Withheld
29 Aug 2001 |
CHP Grounds Cessna Fleet AVweb wrote:
I own a new Cessna 206H, I was concerned about three engine-failure-related problems in new 206s experienced by the CHP, so I talked with a CHP spokesperson unnofficially who expressed the utmost concern with the safety of the new airframe powerplant combination. I was also informed of an engine failure in another new 206 (100 hours old) by a flight instructor in Leesburg Va. I called Cessna Aircraft Co. warranty division to ask how many powerplant warranty claims have been submitted on new 206s, but Cessna has not returned my call. I beleive that the time for a full disclosure of the facts, and a thorough investigation is before someone is killed or injured. AVweb responds... Given the recent SAIB issued by the FAA on this subject, it's pretty clear that the feds are actively looking into this situation. AVweb is trying to do its part by alerting owners and pilots to the developing situation. --Mike Busch, Editor-in-Chief |
| Robert
Riggs
28 Aug 2001 |
Charging Airlines for Airport Congestion AVweb wrote:
This is not the solution to the problem since the FAA is 50% of the problem. I would suspect that if the FAA were to enact such a fine that they would artificially cause delays just to collect more fines for their out of control irresponsible spending. What the FAA needs to do is upgrade their equipment and work with the airlines on their schedules to reduce the congestion. |
| Chris
Lowenstein
28 Aug 2001 |
Air Transat Airbus Glides One In I have a question ... how much farther can a 747 or A340 with no fuel fly than a 777 or A330 with no fuel? I'm thinking not even as far, since you now have four huge windmilling, drag producing speed brakes rather than two! |
| Lin
Hall
28 Aug 2001 |
Air Transat Airbus Glides One In I have just read the AVweb item on the Air Transat A330 landing in the Azores -- the Canadian official was reported in your columns as saying:
Maybe he forgot about the famous case of the B767 that landed on a drag strip in Canada (had been a military base in earlier times). So Canada now has two instances (and the only two?) of large twin passenger aircraft with fuel problems causing unplanned landings! You'd think that Transport canada would have a better corporate memory than that! |
| Richard
C. Broussard
27 Aug 2001 |
Delta Pax Awarded $1.25M for Post-Traumatic Stress AVweb wrote:
I have often noted AVweb's weak attempts at humor at the expense of those who suffer as a result of negligent actions by aviation entities and personnel. I understand that you are trying to kiss up to those to whom you sell advertisements, i.e. manufacturers, etc. Trust me, they do not respect your insensitive insults directed to accident victims. They regard your pathetic insults as exactly that. The fact that it is obviously not mere ignorance but greed that motivates your comments makes what you are doing even more egregious. Try to wake up to humanity. Try imagining how you would feel if you lose a member or your family or their health to a negligent railroad and some industry rag trying to make brownie points ridicules their suffering. It stinks. You should apologize to the accident victim who you ridiculed in your last AVweb because she was compensated by the court for the damages she suffered. Your willingness to ridicule someone of who's damage you are totally ignorant is cheap and pathetic, not funny.
AVweb responds... You broke the code, Richard. I'll admit it ... that's precisely what we were trying to do with that news story -- "kiss up" to Delta Airlines in hopes that they'd become an AVweb advertiser. I guess we underestimated the intelligence of readers like you who saw right through our devious scheme. (Sheesh!) --Mike Busch, Editor-in-Chief |
| Brian
Perry
27 Aug 2001 |
Air Transat Airbus Glides One In I'm not sure who writes the AVweb NewsWire but I think your blurb about the A330 that recently suffered a double engine failure needs to be rethought. You stated that "The incident raises new concerns about ETOPS rules..". Really? Why? Its simply not possible to fly the Atlantic and be within gliding distance at all times of some divert field in a "big twin" like the 767, 777, or 330. At this point we have no firm idea of why the engines failed. But I'd be willing to bet that when we do find out why it happened that we'll also learn that 1 or 2 more engines probably wouldn't have helped. Which makes ETOPS a mute issue in this accident. I would also challenge you to find examples of jet aircraft that suffered two engine failures for causes that were unrelated. Because that's really what ETOPS is all about. As has been demonstrated many times having 3 or even 4 engines is no guarantee that you can't find yourself flying a glider. |
| Robert
L. Kay
27 Aug 2001 |
Air Transat Airbus Glides One In If the A-330 glider had a fuel problem what difference would it make how many engines the airplane had under each wing or in the tail? For Extended Twin OPs contaminated fuel, low fuel quantity, cold soaked fuel, etc doesn't factor in any differently than for three or four engined airplanes. In most "fuel problem" events, one or ten engines installed would make no difference. Mismanagement, fueling errors, flight planning errors, and other human factor errors have nothing to do with ETOPS either. ETOPS is about reliability, not running out of fuel. Just because a controlling agency pulls a company's ETOPS ticket doesn't mean ETOPS is the culprit. It would be only prudent to look into all aspects an operation before allowing them resume business as usual. |
| Tom
McBroom
27 Aug 2001 |
ETOPS I read your comments about fuel loss and ETOPS operations. I believe if you think about it, the number of engines is not a factor for a fuel loss senario. Regardless of the number of engines, if there is no fuel they won't run. American operates AIRBUS A300-605R aircraft. On the inaugural flight of our first aircraft from JFK to SJU in 1988 the crew encountered a fuel leak problem. What had happened was a piece of metal left in the fuel tank during manufacturing (probably a bolt) was sucked into the fuel feed. It made to first stage of the engine driven fuel pump. It's a centrifugal pump and the impeller ejected the bolt completely through the housing. An impressive fuel leak followed. The crew was able to determine that the right engine was the cause and shut it down. Unfortunately the fuel pump continued to turn as it is mechanically driven. Additionally the AIRBUS design at the time did not shut the spar valve when the engine was shutdown by the fuel engine run switch. So the fuel leak continued. The crew was faced with ditching the aircraft as they tried to make Bermuda. Their radio conversations were overheard by an Eastern Airlines crew who suggested pulling the fire handle. Our crew tried that and since pulling the fire handle shut the spar valve, the fuel leak ceased and the flight landed in Bermuda. It will be interesting to find out the scenario that led to the landing at Lajes. I couldn't help but to wonder if AIRBUS changed their design. I'm not familiar with the A330 systems as we do not operated them. |
| Brian
Loewecke
27 Aug 2001 |
Air Transat Airbus Glides One In I had to chuckle at the headline:
Precisely how many engines must one have before fuel loss is no longer a concern? |
| Ben
Bertram
27 Aug 2001 |
San Jose's Squadron 2 Faces Showdown In what maybe it's last fight, San Jose's Squadron 2 is going to meet the Airport Board over it's right to operate as flying club at San Jose International Airport (KSJC). At an Emergency All-Members Meeting last week, Frank Mason, club founder and director, told everyone that the September 10 meeting with the Airport Commission may be the beginning of the end. Squadron 2 has been the airport's largest club, a KSJC fixture for 23 years. Although the club hired an attorney to go the distance, it seems that the way the airport has arranged the basing and business structure, the club is doomed at SJC. A hand vote of all who wanted to stay at SJC and fight it out was an overwhelming yes, but the reality is even if the Sept 10 meeting goes well, the city's expansion plan will force the club out anyway in two to three years. The alternative is to move to the county airport at Reid-Hillview a few miles away. No instrument approach, and too short to safely operate the club's cabin-class twins. GA is not welcome at San Jose ... unless you are Gulfstream V, of course, and it's not after dark. |
| Carl B.
Jordan
27 Aug 2001 |
Air Transat Airbus Glides One In It would seem that the dig against ETOPS and twin-engine operations across the big water was a bit off the mark. You assert that the loss of power on both engines was due to a "fuel problem." ("Airbus Glider" - 8-27-01). Are we to believe that "fuel problems" will only plague twin-engine birds operating under the auspices of ETOPS, and that four-engine (or three-engine) birds are immune to such things? It's difficult to blame ETOPS for engine failures that are related to fuel systems, I.E., fuel contamination and such. Obviously, such problems would affect four-engine birds just the same as twin-engine birds. Personally, I don't like the idea of crossing the drink in a twin-engine airliner. However, as long as foreign carriers opt to do so, then US carriers also have to do so in order to remain competitive. What it all boils down to is "foreign relations," pure and simple - - - unfortunately!
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| Ted W.
Yellman
27 Aug 2001 |
Air Transat Airbus Glides One In AVflash reported that the emergency landing of the A330-200 in the Azores due to a fuel problem "raises new concerns about ETOPS rules". I don't know why it should raise concerns about ETOPS (which stands for Extended Twin-Engine Operations) -- because there seems to be no indication that the problem had anything to do with the number of engines on the airplane. ETOPS rules are applicable to 2-engine airplanes only. But if a fuel leak develops during a flight, or an airplane is dispatched without enough fuel, it can run out of fuel regardless of whether it has 2, 3, or 4 engines. Therefore, if this event raises concerns (and it should), it should raise them for all airplanes flying long flights with few alternative airports along the way. AVweb responds... To all those who wrote in about this... The "concerns about ETOPS rules" came from Canadian officials, not AVweb. Our headline should have made this clearer. Obviously, in cases of fuel exhaustion or starvation, the number of engines is moot. Nevertheless, anytime a twinjet on a transoceanic route experiences a power loss, the question of ETOPS is bound to be raised. --Mike Busch, Editor-in-Chief |
| Dieter
Zube
27 Aug 2001 |
Air Transat Airbus Glides One In Without attempting to go into the questions why the Air Transat Airbus ran out of fuel in the first place, and what it all means for ETOPS operations, can anyone answer the question why the aircraft was evacuated after landing, apparently causing "significant injuries"? An aircraft makes a reasonable emergency landing, there obviously was no danger of an imminent fire (ha ha...), and the crew still elects to conduct an emergency evacuation in 90 seconds. "Despite the tire failures, the pilots managed to stop the plane on the runway. Ninety seconds later, the A330 was empty." From recent experience, it looks like that the most hazardous part of an emergency landing is the following rapid evacuation of the aircraft. Are there any regulations that require an emergency evacuation or is it at the discretion of the crew to make the decision between a controlled or a "stampede-style" evacuation? Something to think about...
AVweb responds... Yup, we've noticed the same thing. It seems as if "going down the slides" is SOP for just about every non-routine air carrier landing. I'm sure some of our readers can enlighten us as to why. --Mike Busch, Editor-in-Chief |
| Jason
Zawodny
27 Aug 2001 |
Concorde Crash Cause I believe at least a note is due to your readers as to the "alternative" theory of the failure sequence that led to the fiery Concorde crash and ensuing scramble to "fix" the problem. The latest "Air & Space" magazine has a well-written article that discusses many aspects of the case that have been missing from general media coverage, as well as your online magazine. Among the ideas discussed in the article is the notion that the tire blowout occurred well before the tire encountered the piece of titanium wear-strip on the runway. The blowout and handling problems on the runway, it was hypothesized, were caused by a spacer that was mistakenly omitted from the landing gear assembly during work prior to the accident. The missing spacer caused the airplane to "pull" down the runway and built up enough heat and stress in the tire to cause the tire failure and the accident. No observed coverage of the accident until that article had mentioned the missing spacer, nor discussed the possible ramifications of that mistake. Clearly, Air France would prefer to have the official cause be listed as the freak occurrence of tire blowout following foreign body contact on the runway. If the official cause were to be attributable to a maintenance error, the airline's liability in the accident would be astronomically higher. The inference is clearly drawn that the French government is simply continuing its sponsorship of the Concorde program by choosing the "lesser of two evils" as the accident cause. I hope that this topic will at least be discussed in AVweb, and perhaps your research can turn up more interesting and startling aspects of this story that have been glossed over by the general media. On the whole, I find your coverage and commentary of aviation events to be refreshing and honest. Please commend your staff for their hard work. Please note that while I do work for a company "in the business" that the opinions expressed in this message are attributable solely to myself. AVweb responds... I spoke with a British Aerospace engineer who told me, "They showed us the tape [FDR data], and that airplane was pulling to the left from the start ... Can't put that on Continental ... They forgot the spacer and the wheel was doing like this [wobbling] ... Those tires are operating near maximum temperature and pressure, anyway." --Glenn Pew, News Writer/Editor |
| Dick
Lawrence
27 Aug 2001 |
High Fees at Meigs Field I recently got back into flying after taking off for 17 years and really enjoy it again- especially the gains in avionics. My first plane was a Tri-Pacer with a Narco Mk II radio- now I have two KX155's and a gps- wow- what a difference Have you ever had to "whistle-tune" a radio to communicate and then get back to the VOR to navigate? Memories! Now I have a '68 Arrow 180 which is getting a K2U kit and new wing tips with landing lights. I need all the help I can get flying in and out of the small grass strip near where I live (2E8)! I live in SE Michigan and fly to Illinois and Wisconsin on occasion. I would like to fly to downtown Chicago and was planning on doing that before Meigs closed. I talked to a pilot who had done it and he warned me that it is expensive, so I called the FBO. The cost to stop by for a few hours is $12 landing fee, $12 ramp fee, and another $9 if you don't buy fuel from them (at nearly a dollar a gallon more than elsewhere.) $33 parking fee to spend a few hours at Meigs/Chicago! This makes it a corporate or "rich man's" airport. Most GA pilots flying on their own can't justify that kind of expense. Many airports that have landing fees waive them for single engine aircraft. Meigs seems to discourage small planes from using their fieldand thus loses support from this segment of the flying population. It may be surprising how many GA pilots flying small aircraft feel that way about Meigs. We don't like to see small airports close, but Meigs is already effectively "closed" to us, so I won't spend any effort or say many kind words to the GA community about trying to keep Meigs open. They could gain support from more of the GA pilots if they re-structured their fees to enable those of us who fly recreationally to use that airport. Do you know whether the fees will be waived for the forthcoming Meigs Open House? AVweb responds... You are absolutely right about the fees, and it's one of the biggest hurdles we have to overcome, the feeling you and many others have that Meigs is already "closed" to them. The difficulty, of course, is that those who set the rates are those who are trying to close the airport. If we were running the show, we'd do it right (work to keep fees low, develop alternate revenue streams, promote more use, etc.) but at the moment, we're the "disaffected public" banging on the gates. I will tell you that we did manage to stop another 25% price increase a couple of years back through our protests. Unfortunately, we have to preserve the airport first, then work on those improvements. I think you'd agree that a properly priced, promoted, and improved Meigs Field would be a very popular attraction to pilots like you. We hope we can get there from here, but we can't if we don't save the airport first. The Open House is Sun. Sept. 30 from 10 am to 4 pm. Display aircraft fees are waived, but the display ramp space is getting scarce. If you have an interesting aircraft (antique, classic, homebuilt, warbird, etc.) you'd be willing to share, write Walter Larkin at aircraft@friendsofmeigs.org. If not, come anyway...it's a lot of fun. For a light single fees are $12 to land, $12 to park over an hour, and $10 to Signature if you don't buy their fuel. (Fuel is discounted on the weekend, but still pricey.) --Steve Whitney, President, Friends of Meigs Field Dick, from my vantage point 1,500 nm west of Meigs, things look a bit different to me than they to you or Steve. While the fees at Meigs are high, it seems to me that they're really not unreasonable compared to the cost of landing at an outlying airport and taking ground transportation into downtown. The same situation exists at other airports that are right in the heart of big metropolitan destinations -- Washington National (DCA), for example. --Mike Busch, Editor-in-Chief |
| Jim
Houston
27 Aug 2001 |
Jury Awards $480 Million in Cessna Seat-Slip Case I read Mike Busch's response to the criticism of the jury award re the Cessna seat problem [AVmail, 23 August 2001]. Part of his response was "we don't know what instructions the jury received from the judge". This is one of the problems in our judicial system today. Juries don't HAVE to follow the instructions of the judge. If more citizens opted for jury nullification (which basically says that if a jury thinks a law is wrong, they can find a person innocent of violating that law) this country would be in a lot better shape. Judges typically tell juries that "they must judge based ONLY on the facts as presented in the trial". This is not constitutionally correct. Do some research when you have time, read what John Marshall (Chief Justice of the Supreme Court) and others wrote on this subject, and I think you will agree with me. Too many judges in this country are overstepping the legal limitations of their job (per the Constitution) and this is reflected by the numerous, ridiculous awards coming from juries in the last few years. |
| Ron
Rapp
27 Aug 2001 |
"But My Mechanic Says..." I think most GA aircraft owners are more than willing to pay for good maintenance. I pay $65 an hour to American Aircraft Maintenance (formerly Southern Aviation Maintenance) at John Wayne Airport, Santa Ana, Calif., to have my Skylane worked on. I never once complain about the rate. I think part of the problem is that these airplanes are far more expensive to operate than most people are willing to admit. I fly my Skylane about 200 hours a year. What do you think it should cost to operate it? Does $120 an hour sound too high? Well that's what it's costing me. At 200 hours a year, there are people telling me I should be paying something like $50/hour, all-inclusive. That's insane. Even at $120 an hour, I could be spending WAY more on that airplane. And this is a normally-aspirated, carbureted, fixed gear single. Anyway, I am not trying to complain, but I do think that $65 an hour is a more than fair price to pay for quality maintenance. Sure, auto mechanics may make a few bucks more. But lets face it, our planes are in the shop way more often than our cars, and when they're in the shop, even simple tasks take a long time. It takes less than an hour to replace a windshield in my car. How long would it take to replace the windshield on a Skylane? |
| Mike
Palmer
25 Aug 2001 |
Say Again? -- A Wing And A Prayer While Don Brown hasn't mentioned it in his "Say Again?" column (yet), there is a new type of voice communication in the works called "VDL Mode 3." (VDL stands for VHF Data Link, and there are different stages of implementation, from Mode 1 to Mode 4.) VDL Mode 3 (also known as "NEXCOM") is what making phone calls over the Internet would be to aviation communication. By packetizing digitized voice, there are some interesting things you can do. There are also a bunch of downsides. One VERY big down side to VDL-3, from an ergonomic view, is that you lose the party line, which is a very big safety issue. Since each voice packet is coded and sent only to you, you are the only one who hears it. I've saved my own bacon many a time, and I'm sure you have to, by using "situational awareness." By listening in to what's going on between other aircraft and controllers, you can often times tell when you need to take action. (Weather, delays, lost/confused pilot, bad clearance (same altitudes, cleared for T/O with lost aircraft on ground, etc.) This ability will be lost with VDL-3 Not good. Another problem with VDL-3 is that there is a provision for the controller to do "Manual Override," whereby the controller can nix all other messages (preventing aircraft from transmitting, by not sending a "Clear to Send". VDL-3 requires ground station intervention, much like an Ethernet requires a hub.) Ostensibly, this is for safety in time of emergency - but there are times when I have an emergency when *I* need to override. (Besides, presently, the controller's radio is stronger than most everyone else's, so there's no need for this draconian measure.) The main idea behind VDL-3 - structured, ordered communications, with no more "you were blocked" and no more heterodyne squeals when two transmitters key up at the same time - is enticing. But really, 90% of all communication on Center frequencies are frequency changes (Contact approach now on 123.4) and the obligatory readback. As soon as autotune gets here (I think that's part of Mode 3 also), frequency congestion on Center freqs will go away, allowing plenty of space for approach clearances, special requests and emergencies. Quieter Center freqs may allow consolidation, so that there are more freqs available for approach. That way, Approach frequencies won't be as crowded either. |
| Robert
Coakley
23 Aug 2001 |
"But My Mechanic Says..." If the mechanics do not tell the pilots how to fly their airplanes and the pilots do not tell the mechanics how to fix the planes or how much it should cost, everybody will be happy. When the pilots ask other pilots about how to lean the engine, do they not get bad advice? Ask most any question in the pilot's lounge at any FBO and you are sure to get at least as many answers as there are people. Mechanics make judgments based on what they see in the shop. These opinions -- free to all -- should be listened to in that they may point out a problem in the operation of the aircraft. Lycoming and Continental tell them what probably caused the failure or wear. Mike Busch wrote in his AVmail response: "But most aren't, and would do their customers a service by confining their advice to their area of expertise." This would be nice in a lot of areas (press, lawyers, doctors, pilots, politicians, FAA, NTSB, etc.) but advice is free and everywhere, take it at your own risk. Let's not single out mechanics. AVweb responds... Your points are very well-taken, Robert, and I agree with you 100 percent. --Mike Busch, Editor-in-Chief |
| Gilbert
Pierce
23 Aug 2001 |
Internet Wether Providers To Face Standards AVweb wrote:
Why is it that our Government employees want to make sure that the general public is controlled in everything we do. Your Thursday, August 23 News Wire on Internet Weather Providers To Face Standards really cranked me up. Why is it we are too stupid to get the weather from numerous sources available and then make our own decision. Licensing so to speak weather providers will not provide any better data then we get today. If I take my airplane to 5 FAA licensed mechanics I will get varied opinions on what needs to be done so why does the FAA think licensing Weather Providers will be any different. You still have to get everyone's opinion, weigh the facts and then make your own decisions. How many times I have heard lately, "VFR NOT RECOMMENDED" and then encountered no significant weather. One time after hearing that I flew 500 miles and never saw a cloud. |
| Tom
Bishop
23 Aug 2001 |
Say Again? -- A Wing And A Prayer Don Brown's first "Say Again?" column was great. As a pilot, we get to read lots of columns by other pilots, but successfully using "the system" requires a true partnership between pilot and controller. Getting some "from the horse's mouth" advice on how the world looks from the other side of the microphone is wonderful and long overdue, and AVweb should be congratulated for giving Don a column. And despite his disclaimers, Don's writing was just fine ... don't change a thing!
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| Brian
Finnegan
23 Aug 2001 |
But my Mechanic says... In response to Mike Busch's comments to Dave Schober's response to John Deakin's recent "Pelican's Perch" [AVmail, 21 Aug 2001], it is Mike's and John's broad brush generalizations that we at the Professional Aviation Maintenance Association (PAMA) take such visceral exception to. With descriptives like "their local mechanic," "constantly receiving," "many A&Ps," "not all" and "not most," "widespread," "he or she will accept...and pass it on," "so many A&Ps," "whole lot of A&Ps" you put the integrity and airworthiness of our entire industry on notice. It that what Mike and John are saying, the our aircraft are unairworthy? They don't seem to have met a real aviation maintenance professional. Can that be true? AVweb's forum is huge and your substantial credibility is not easily questioned by its readership. In fact, I had to read John's article twice before I recognized the subtle dismissal of A&Ps in general. However, before we head down the "...and the horse you rode in on," path, let me just say I know the there is a gulf between airworthiness and operations. At FAA, there used to be a physical wall between the two disciplines at the local FSDO (GADO). Throughout our industry, there are still psychological walls between the two resulting in a tremendous communications barrier. We need to fix that -- together. Our system requires pilots to receive re-qualifying tests at regular intervals, depending on the rating. Except for IAs, no recurrency training or testing is required for mechanics. Even air carriers only have to have a training program in place - minimum training is not spelled out. I'll bet the local mechanic that you find so out of touch with reality would love to continuously train and learn the evolving methods of maintaining operational efficiency. I'll also bet his or her boss often won't pay for it because of its effect on increasing the shop rate. Are you willing to put your beloved shop rate on the table? You see evidence of how continuous education could improve the quality of your maintenance. You see evidence of how great it would be to have qualified and experienced professionals working on your and your reader's aircraft. But will you pay more than it costs to get your lawn mowed ($45 to $65 per hour) to have your finely engineered aircraft maintained? How do you expect to attract and retain the kind of professionals that we need to keep general aviation safe? Yes, Mike, its about the money. You won't believe the number of professionals who would love to spend their days maintaining our fabulous general aviation fleet. It is wonderful out on the ramp, as you well know. But as long as the flying community continues to refuse to pay the wages of a professional, just like they do to have their automobiles repaired -- not just the Lexus and BMW, but VW ($75 in DC) and Ford trucks ($80 in DC) - then you place the future of general aviation maintenance in jeopardy. I notice that neither Mike Busch nor John Deakin (nor George Braly) are PAMA members. Are you affiliated with any other associations which hold the professionalism of aviation maintenance as the force driving their agenda? I think not. We would love to have your support and influence on our side as we strive to raise the bar of professionalism in aviation maintenance.
AVweb responds... Brian, you and I haven't spoken in quite some time, but I did listen to the "OSHtalk" interview that you did with Rick Durden during AirVenture 2001. It struck me when listening to that interview that your remarks were focused almost exclusively on AMTs who work in air carrier and large corporate environments. That seemed especially odd given the setting of the interview, under the wing of a venerable Beech 18 and surrounded by the world's largest gathering of small piston-powered aircraft. I wonder whether it's possible that you have lost touch with just how far the maintenance infrastructure for small piston-powered airplanes has eroded in the past 20 years? Let me tell you: It's a very, very sad situation. My view may be a bit more jaded than most, because as a tech rep for Cessna Pilots Association for the past 10 years, I hear mostly from aircraft owners who are at their wit's end with some maintenance problem, and are coming to the CPA for help as a last resort. The usual sort of thing I receive from these folks goes something like this:
Such correspondence often reveals a mechanic who has little understanding of the system involved, not to mention the fundamentals of troubleshooting, and is reduced to the shotgun approach of changing components (usually starting with the most expensive) and hoping to get lucky. It also often reveals an aircraft owner who is not very maintenance-savvy and hangs on every word uttered by his mechanic as if it were inscribed on a stone tablet. Unfortunately, an alarming number of these maintenance-naive owners seem to be getting poor advice and outright misinformation from their mechanics, and accepting it as Gospel. I'd love to share some of this correspondence with you sometime ... I'm sure you'd find it as appalling as I do. Your email accurately cites many of the factors responsible for this awful decline in the piston-powered GA maintenance infrastructure: low pay, lack of continuing professional education, reluctance of owners of piston-powered GA aircraft to pay for top-notch maintenance, and so forth. We're both guilty of talking in sweeping generalizations, of course. There are GA shops that pay their mechanics decently, and offer a good benefits package. There are GA mechanics who regularly attend continuing education programs and employers willing to foot the bill. Just not very many. As for the owners of these airplanes, I've been receiving feedback from several of my GA-maintenance-shop-owner friends that this situation is changing ... although not in a way that I'm convinced is good for the industry. What I'm hearing is that the middle-class airplane owner is fast becoming a dying breed, and that the GA owner population is becoming bifurcated into two distinct segments: the wealthy aircraft owner for whom money is no object, and an underclass of aircraft owners who are just hanging onto the aircraft by their fingernails and forced by economic constraints to cut corners to a frightening extent. Another problem that you didn't mention, but one that I consider to be a major factor, is the shift in the low-end GA infrastructure from specialists to generalists. When I bought my first airplane in 1968 -- a brand-new Cessna 182 that I picked up at the factory in Wichita and flew home -- the maintenance was done by the local Cessna Service Center, staffed by A&Ps who worked on Cessnas all day, every day, and knew those airplanes like the backs of their hands. Today, that same 1968 Cessna 182 is still flying (although I sold it in 1972), and I'll wager that it's being maintained by an A&P who works on everything from J-3s to C-421s (and maybe the occasional BE-90, Agwagon, and RV-6). As a CPA tech rep, I know very well just how hard it is to stay on top of all the technical information concerning Cessna piston aircraft. In my tech rep role at the CPA, I concentrate on the Cessna 300/400 twins and big-bore TCM engines (there are four other tech reps who concentrate on other models), and staying on top of just that is a full-time job. There's no way that any A&P in today's typical GA shop can possibly be knowledgeable about all the aircraft he or she is required to maintain. I wish those A&Ps would take more advantage of the in-depth technical expertise that exists in some of the type associations like the CPA -- that they'd call us first before shotgunning a problem -- but the tech support calls and emails we get come overwhelmingly from owners and very seldom from mechanics. That's too bad. The Cessna Pilots Association offers a series of in-depth maintenance-oriented type-specific two- and three-day courses for most of the single-engine Cessna models. The tuition is $250-$350 and the courses are typically sold-out a year in advance. Attendance is almost exclusively by aircraft owners who want to learn more about the maintenance aspects of their aircraft. CPA would love to offer similar (but more advanced) seminars for working A&Ps, but the demand simply doesn't seem to be there. (Probably for the reason you mentioned: The mechanics can't get the time off, and their employers won't foot the bill.) Last October, I spent a week in Mobile, Ala., at Teledyne Continental Motors' factory maintenance school for AMTs. It was an outstanding course, and I learned much more than I expected (given that I started out quite knowledgeable about TCM engines beforehand). TCM holds this weeklong class once a month. There were about a dozen students in the class. Three of them were me and two friends that I brought along (one of whom was AVweb's executive editor Jeb Burnside). Three were TCM employees. The remaining six were working A&Ps ... and half of those were from overseas! So the total number of working A&P attendees from the U.S. was three (plus or minus one ... my recollection might be faulty). That's pathetic! On a personal note: After 33 years of aircraft ownership and 14 years of supervised wrench swinging, I finally decided to bite the bullet and pursue my own A&P certificate -- and to do it "the hard way" (i.e., without going through an approved AMT school). In June, the FSDO signed off on my documented 5,200 hours of maintenance-related experience over 14 years as meeting the 30-month experience requirements of FAR 65.77. In July, I studied for the three FAA AMT knowledge tests, which I've now passed (with scores of 96, 99, and 99). On Saturday, August 25 -- a day that may live in infamy -- I passed an eight-hour Oral & Practical exam (the A&P equivalent of a checkride) and received my temporary airman inscribed with the words "Mechanic" and "Airframe & Powerplant." I've earned lots of certificates and ratings during my 37-year involvement in aviation, but none has been more challenging than the A&P and none has made me more proud. The www.pama.org Web site has been offline this weekend, but as soon as it comes back up, I intend to sign up online as PAMA's newest regular member. My request to you, Brian, is that you find a way to use my $35/year PAMA dues to improve the level of knowledge and troubleshooting skills of your members who swing wrenches on small piston-powered GA airplanes. Find some way to get these folks to take the courses available at terribly reasonable tuitions from TCM and the Cessna Pilots Association and many other sources. Find some way to persuade these folks to make use of all the free expertise at their disposal these days (most of it only a mouse-click away) before they shotgun a problem or mislead an aircraft owner with bad information. It's the piston-GA mechanic in the field -- the lowest-paid and poorest-educated of the AMT profession -- who really need PAMA's help the most right now. --Mike Busch, Editor-in-Chief |
| Thomas
Funchess
23 Aug 2001 |
Jury Awards $480 Million in Cessna Seat-Slip Case As I read more about the Cessna seat-track "failure" that resulted in the outrageous $480 million settlement recently, I think back to the time that I had something similar happen to me. And before the lawyers in the audience start foaming at the mouth, I'll go ahead and tell you ... IT WAS MY OWN FAULT. I was taking off from my local airport, and shortly after I advanced the throttle, my seat slipped back to the point that I could hardly reach the rudder pedals! Of course, I had my hand on the throttle, and I pulled the power off immediately. Certainly, in this configuration, with the seal in the far aft position, I did have some difficulty coming to an immediate stop, but I was able to stop directly ahead on the runway. I pulled the seat back up into position, made sure the seat was solidly in place this time, and then taxied my BEECHCRAFT BONANZA back to the departure end of the runway. I then took off without incident... Now, BEFORE EVERY SINGLE FLIGHT, I "wiggle" my seat to make sure that the mechanism is latched to prevent the same thing from happening again. In fact, I now do it in every GA aircraft I fly in - I understand the limitations of the mechanisms that are used in these aircraft and that it is to a great extent, MY responsibility to ensure that the mechanism is engaged properly. That very first line on my "Before Starting" checklist, the one that says
now gets my 100% attention, every single time. My point is that I don't feel that this is solely a Cessna issue... None of our General Aviation aircraft are perfect and totally foolproof... They simply cannot be. We, as pilots and owners of these aircraft, must accept the responsibility of knowing the systems in our aircraft, how they work, and what their areas of weakness are. We must be diligent in our maintenance, and make sure that we stay up to date on the manufacturer's information on our particular make and model. |
| Jim
Mehling
23 Aug 2001 |
Kudos to AVweb What exactly is in the office water cooler at AVweb? Today's issue of AVweb News contains a picture of buzzards alongside the Mooney article and then tops that with a picture of Carnack the Magnificent (Johnny Carson) next to the article about ATC predicting flight paths. Your writing style and your sense of humor make for a wonderful package. I used to read the e-mail version of the newsletter until I realized how much I was missing by not reading the Web version. By the way, I rate the value of your articles by the amount of crank mail you receive on the subject.
AVweb responds... Something we don't empathize enough is that the AVflash email newsletter is only a summary of AVweb's online news. Those readers who make the effort of a mouse click or two to get to the Web-based NewsWire online are treated to a little more in-depth coverage, more detail, links to source material and other interesting stuff, and a few graphics just for good measure. Irreverence is not just encouraged here at AVweb, it is a condition of employment... Sometimes we're able to express that without ever typing a single word. What you saw was a test Jim, to see if anyone was paying attention. You passed. --Bob Kaputa, Managing Editor |
| Mike
Palmer
22 Aug 2001 |
FAA Oversight of Small Repair Stations Question: How many FAA Inspectors does it take to perform an annual inspection of a Repair Station? Answer: It depends whether you complained last time or not. At the Indianapolis FSDO, they sent four Inspectors to a one man radio shop to fish through 300 Work Orders. Why? Because last year, they busted this guy for stupid things like replacing a burned out bulb in a transponder without having an up-to-date manual for the unit -- and the guy told them, politely, in so many words, "that's stupid." He also contacted his Senator and various alphabet groups in an attempt to bring some common sense into the government. But much like telling an IRS Auditor the country could be better served if she were slopping chicken at a truck stop, these bureaucrats just can't handle criticism, and abuse their authority to extract revenge. If they can spare four inspectors to descend on a one-man shop at the Indianapolis FSDO, it sounds like they have too much time and money on their hands. Anyone know a way we can get their funding cut back and prune the dead branches off? AVweb responds... In the immortal words of my hero Jim Croce, "you don't tug on Superman's cape..." --Mike Busch, Editor-in-Chief |
| Pete
Levine
21 Aug 2001 |
Jury Awards $480 Million in Cessna Seat-Slip Case I get very worked up about aviation. It is after all a passion, so I am wont to get passionate about it. That's very unfortunate for my wife, as she is usually the one to suffer the brunt of my enthusiasm. She is the one who has to grin and bear her way through my discourses on how cool flying an approach to minimums can be or how much I felt like a bird when I tried out hang gliding at Kitty Hawk. She knows how important flying is to me, and while she waits patiently for me to fall out of love with it (right when flying pigs arrive in a frozen hell), I bore her silly with stuff that I care deeply about. When I read in the paper over the weekend that a jury had returned a $480 million verdict, naturally I turned to her to engage in a discourse on how tragic the settlement is. I tried to ease her in with a subtle lead while on the drive back to the Detroit Metro airport the morning after a wedding in Ann Arbor. "This settlement is the death of personal and maybe even commercial flying." She feigned interest in the topic long enough for me to bare my soul to her on this topic. "Do you know how many pilots got hired last year?" I told her it was a bunch, over 19,000. "Can you guess how many joined out of the military? A lot less than 50 %., there's no cold war churning out pilots anymore." I didn't really know how many, but thought that number had to be conservative. "So?" she asked me, "What does that matter?" "Almost all of those civilian pilots got their wings in a small plane. They didn't jump right into a big jet." "OK..." She was still listening. "Do you know why it is that all of the planes that I flew while getting my license were older than I was?" For the record I'm 28, so these planes were not actually that old. At least, that's what I will keep telling myself for another 20 years. "Because, in the 70's and 80's, the one-two punch of an economic downturn and horrible product liability exposure closed the doors on a bunch of light plane manufacturers. Like Cessna for instance. So, between 1980 and the late 1990's there really were not many basic single engine planes being built. Which is why the burnt orange interior of the Archer I learned in was so ugly, it was a product of the 70's." "OK, Peter, what's your point?" "My point is this. A few years ago, a law was signed that limited the term of product liability exposure on planes to 18 years. Right after that, Cessna, which hadn't produced small singles since the 80's announced they would get back in the game. Between the economy and the change in law, GA has rebounded. You've seen the new 172's at the FBO, other than the paint job they don't look that different on the outside, but on the inside, there's no burnt orange! And, that plane I told you about with the parachute in it, the Cirrus. Remember, you immediately said it was the only one I was allowed to own." "Uh-huh." I could tell I was losing my wife's interest. So, I built up to my climax. "So, this is a fragile industry, just getting its sea legs back. And along comes this lawsuit and hacks at its weak foundation. $480,000,000 for Cessna translates into roughly 2,400 planes sold, based only on revenue! Based on cash flow, I would guess that that you would have to sell around 8,000 or 10,000 planes to cover the cash flow hit. I think Cessna has sold around 3,500 planes since they began building again. If I were Textron, I would look hard at that settlement and the earnings exposure it brings to the company and think twice about the benefits of single engine sales. When a $200,000 prop plane can carry a $480,000,000 contingent liability or exposure, not all that different from the exposure on the $8,000,000 jet plane, given equal margins I'll stick with the $8,000,000 plane." I took a breath and continued. "So back to my original point. If these small plane manufacturers are put out of business by these ridiculous settlements and a slowing economy, eventually the number of small planes available to train the thousands of civilian pilots out there will dry up (or fall apart). The cost for the ones that are left will skyrocket. So, flying will be priced out of reach for those that like to do it recreationally. All of those hour hungry CFI's who are counting on both the commercial and the fun seeking pilots to build their time will have no one to gain experience with other than other airline pilot candidates. This reduction in overall usage will also force the cost of flying up and at the same time, reduce the number of hours a CFI can be expected to build in a year. This forces airlines to hire less experienced pilots because to force CFIs to suffer through low 5 figure wages for any longer than they have to today will just dry up the pool of pilot candidates willing to endure that trial. So, putting less experienced pilots in the cockpits of sophisticated planes will have two results. The first will be more accidents, the second will be a continued push to turn the pilot into a tech support person to manage the computer that flies the plane. When both of those happen, you'll have more $480,000,000 settlements when the big iron falls out of the sky and commercial flying will become so expensive, we'll actually start riding Amtrak again!" My wife looked at me like I was insane to be so passionate about this topic. "So you don't think these people deserve anything if Cessna screwed up?" "I have no idea what the truth is in this case. But, even if Cessna did screw up, I think the punishment ought to be more closely linked to the size of the market that Cessna, not Textron, plays in. Punitive damages that force a company out of business or out of a particular sector are, at least in this case, a detriment. I think a reasonable amount to offer would have been $20,000,000 or so." "Uh-huh... So, what did you think of the wedding last night." Clearly, I had exhausted her supply of aviation-related patience. AVweb responds... You're a lucky man, Pete. I wish my wife had half that much aviation-related patience. --Mike Busch, Editor-in-Chief |
| David
Schober
21 Aug 2001 |
"But My Mechanic Says..." I usually enjoy reading John Deakin's articles, but when I read his most recent Pelican's Perch ("But My Mechanic Says..."), it raised the hair on the back of my neck. Whenever a journalist uses generalities to attribute negative qualities to Airframe and Powerplant mechanics, it diminishes the worth of aviation in general and, frankly, the legitimacy of an otherwise valid discussion. As Manager of Government and Technical Affairs for the Professional Aviation Maintenance Association (PAMA) -- which exists in large part to enhance professionalism and recognition of the aviation maintenance technician -- I feel the need to take issue with those characterizations. Unfortunately, Deakin's article paints PAMA's constituents in a particularly poor and unfair light. The idea that owners and pilots, referencing advice from their mechanic, get "some statement that sounds downright silly" is offensive, regardless of the topic -- and it is laughable that Deakin says mechanics can't back up their statements with research. His sophomoric introduction to an otherwise valid discussion is completed when he actually attribute to mechanics inflammatory imaginary quotes that no professional would utter. The image of the aviation mechanic has been downtrodden for a long time exactly because of inaccurate portrayals like Deakin's. I am in agreement on the need for a complete overhaul of the FAR Part 147 curriculum and the FAA's method of testing and I would love to engage in discussions on methods of advancing the standard for aviation maintenance education. Just to be fair, I suggest we examine the tests and texts on the pilot side, too. Those FAA materials are less than ideal and in many cases have their facts blatantly wrong. Pilots, like mechanics and every other FAA certificate hopeful, must learn the knowledge as well as learn the tests. It is unbalanced reporting for Deakin to single out maintenance training for a whipping when the problem is really industry wide. As the column pointed out, Old Wives' Tales are hard to kill. Once an idea, whether it be "running over square" or "running to lean" or a "downwind turn after take off" is started, it's next to impossible to kill. The Old Pelican Tales you tell about mechanics are no more valid than the OWTs you purport to hate, and just as difficult to dispel. PAMA supports placing the Part 147 curriculum with a coalition of industry, education and government advisors to keep the standard of professional maintenance constantly evolving and advancing. The bottom line is that I agree with much of the technical information Mr. Deakin professes in his article. However, rather than wag his disapproving finger at the aviation maintenance professional, he might have focused his comments on the antiquated method of evaluation the FAA imposes on Part 147 schools and mechanics. As a critical step in that direction, I invite Deakin and his readers to join PAMA in support of reforming this critical foundation of our aviation safety infrastructure. David Schober, A&P, IA AVweb responds... David, can we make that "John" and not "Mr. Deakin"? <grin> Thanks for taking the time and trouble to write, I do appreciate it. While I'm happy to get favorable mail, it is mail like yours that makes me think, and that can only improve my own feeble efforts. It was absolutely not my intention to "slam" A&Ps, but to criticize the training many get, the misinformation they receive. That misinformation is then hammered home by the FAA knowledge tests, which were the primary target of my column. I'm frankly a bit surprised at your reaction, and will go back and re-read my column with your comments in mind to see if I can understand why you feel as you do, from your perspective. I think you may have taken the column much more personally than you should have, certainly more than I meant! With all that in mind, I cannot fault any A&P for having misconceptions, or for sticking with what he "knows." But once anyone starts hearing some widespread information that "doesn't compute," he owes it to himself and his customers to pursue further knowledge in an intellectually honest manner. Many mechanics (and many pilots) don't, and they deserve criticism. Perhaps it will serve as a wakeup call. Please be clear that in my column I was ranting at the SYSTEM, and the misinformation "out there." I was not tarring all A&Ps with one brush, and I'm sorry that you got that impression. As for my "inflammatory imaginary quotes that no professional would utter," I'm sorry, but I speak from personal experience. Contrary to what you may believe, It DOES happen. It HAS happened. It happens every day. The quotes were real. Check the recent Lycoming Service Bulletin for some examples. Does that mean YOU would say those things? No, of course not, so you should not feel tarred with that brush. As for your suggestion to widen the discussion to the FAA pilot knowledge tests, point taken! I think I did obliquely refer to the rest of the FAA tests, I certainly did not mean to limit my comments to the A&P. It's just that I'm doing so much research and writing on engines and combustion, that particular test got my attention. I fully agree that ALL the FAA tests desperately need a major overhaul! --John Deakin, Columnist (Pelican's Perch) David, let me jump in here to add my two cents' worth, since I'm the guy who suggested John write this column, and provided him with much of the ammunition for it. For the past decade or so, I've served as a member of the technical staff at Cessna Pilots Association (CPA) and answered literally thousands of maintenance questions from the Cessna owners who make up the CPA's membership. Most of the time, these owners contact the CPA as a last resort after their local mechanic or repair station has repeatedly failed to fix or troubleshoot some elusive problem with their aircraft. As such, I am constantly on the receiving end of these "but my mechanic said..." stories, and I can vouch for the fact that many A&Ps in the field are doling out large portions of misinformation to their owner/operator customers. I would never suggest that all A&Ps are guilty of this, or even that most A&Ps are, but without question it is a widespread problem. As John Deakin mentioned in his column, after 35 years of aircraft ownership and 14 years of supervised wrench-swinging, I finally decided to pursue my own A&P certificate. In the process, I had the eye-opening experience of going through the FAA's three voluminous A&P Handbooks and studying for the three FAA Aviation Maintenance Technician knowledge tests (General, Airframe and Powerplant) -- which, by the way, I passed with scores of 96, 99 and 99, respectively. In the course of my studies, I was frankly appalled at (1) some of the misinformation being promulgated by the FAA to fledgling A&Ps, and (2) the anachronistic nature of much of the material, particularly in the powerplant area where the overwhelming majority of the material focused on radial engines with pressure carburetors, while almost nothing was said about modern horizontally-opposed fuel-injected turbocharged powerplants. When I earned my CFI certificate several decades ago, one of the things covered in the "Fundamentals of Instruction" segment was something called "the law of primacy." Basically, this says that what a student learns first is extremely difficult to unlearn later, so that it is very important that a student be taught correctly in the first place. Needless to say, the law of primacy applies not only to student pilots but also to student mechanics. If a fledgling mechanic is taught that "leaner is hotter and richer is cooler" or that "rich mixtures burn faster and lean mixtures burn slower" as he or she is going through AMT school and studying for his or her FAA knowledge tests, you can bet that he or she will accept this as Gospel and pass it on to customers and other newbie A&Ps for the duration of his or her maintenance career. One more point: I've long found it somewhat amusing that so many A&Ps are so free about offering their opinions to their owner/operator customers about how an aircraft or powerplant should be operated, or indeed that aircraft owners solicit and accept advice from their A&Ps about such operational issues as how to lean properly. Mechanics are not trained to be experts in how to operate an aircraft -- they are trained to troubleshoot and repair aircraft that are broken. Certainly some A&Ps are also aircraft owners and high-time pilots and know what they're talking about in a wide range of areas from aircraft maintenance to aircraft operation. But most aren't, and would do their customers a service by confining their advice to their area of expertise. We at AVweb support PAMA in its efforts to upgrade the AMT profession. But part of those efforts must include assisting AMTs to recognize their own weaknesses and to remedy those weaknesses. While we'd like to see the FAA overhaul its AMT training materials and knowledge tests, there are a whole lot of AMTs in the field who came through the old system and need to unlearn some of the misinformation they absorbed in the process, the law of primacy notwithstanding. --Mike Busch, Editor-in-Chief |
| Ed
Wahler
17 Aug 2001 |
When An Agenda Gets In The Way Of The Facts I ran into Lou Dobbs' pilot at the airport the other day. He flies a Sabreliner for good ol' Lou of Moneyline/CNN. Evidently it is quite a status symbol among CNN on screen talent (or lack there of) to have a jet and fly around in it. If all of this is so unsafe, how come CNN doesn't mandate their expensive performing properties fly commercial only? AVweb responds... Perhaps if they did, those "expensive performing properties" would go work for Rupert Murdoch at the Fox News Channel? --Mike Busch, Editor-in-Chief |
| Byron
Blake
17 Aug 2001 |
Global Hawk -- No Pilot On Board AVweb wrote:
Take note, the FAA has issued numerous ADs (Airworthiness Directives) that PROHIBIT the use of autopilots when flying in icing conditions. Pilots of ATR-42, ATR-72, Beech 1900C & 1900D, Dash 7 and Dash 8s take note. Sometimes only the pilot can tell when aerodynamic handling has degraded to such a point that vacating an altitude, changing routes or even diverting to an alternate [airport] is necessary. Every educated and sane pilot knows that technology can aid us to do our job safer and more efficiently, it cannot replace us. Technology fails, GPS, pressurization and a host of other systems can and do fail. A pilot is required to either correct the failure or take appropriate action. A good example of failures during remote flying is the "NASA" experiment in crashing a Boeing airliner with a fuel additive that was suppose to reduce the explosion during the crash. First, the results of the test showed that the fuel additive didn't work, but more importantly, the remote control pilot missed his mark and crashed the aircraft not according to the design/test criteria.
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| John F.
Navratil
17 Aug 2001 |
Federal Rule of Evidence 407 There has been a recurring theme in the discussion of aircraft and avionics in which the claim is made that improving a product is discouraged by our litigious society as making the improvement is tantamount to an admission that the product was defective. This is a charge which gets the blood of reasonable thinking people boiling. The following is the Federal Rule of Evidence #407 which seems, to this lay-person, to suggest that such an allegation is inadmissible.
I'm no friend of the trial lawyers, but we ought to make sure we have our facts in order. Perhaps someone trained in the law can comment. AVweb responds... The Federal Rule you cite is designed to encourage parties to make changes or corrections after an accident and not have the act of making the change deemed an admission of liability. In some federal cases the fact that a manufacturer or operator has made the post-accident change is kept from the jury. However, note the last three lines of the Rule. These are the exceptions to inadmissibility. Further, the federal courts have further interpreted the Rule to create even more exceptions. Also, be aware that in many states the Rule is even less restrictive. If the party offering the evidence can convince the judge that the post-accident remedial measure evidence is being offered only to prove one of the exceptions, then the judge will let the evidence be heard by the jury on the subject of the exception. The jury is instructed by the judge NOT to consider the remedial measure as an admission of liability. Let's take an example: Say the pilot victim, the passenger victim or the operator suing the manufacturer, claims that the manufacturer could have and should have made the change before the accident and not after. They could offer the evidence to show the "feasibility" of making the change before the accident but not to prove that the post accident change is an admission. This is a fine distinction and as you might suspect, many jurors just figure that "where there's smoke, there's fire." They tend to treat the evidence as an admission regardless of what the judge tells them. This is one of the weaknesses in trial practice. A fair-minded juror with the mental discipline to logically evaluate the facts should be able to follow the judge's instructions. But I can tell you from experience in debriefing jurors after trials involving aircraft manufacturer liability that many do not have that type of mental discipline. --Phil Kolczynski, Aviation Law Editor |
| John
Washbrooke
17 Aug 2001 |
NASA's "Helios" Solar-Powered UAV After reading the article on the hi flying UAV, I realized that the staff at AVweb must all be young people. The background to that thought is, downunder the Jindivik RPV flew to over 60,000 feet in the 1950s, with the pilots sitting at a radio control desk. So its is good to see people are becoming aware that UAVs are out there and working. I believe the Wright Bros. had a UAV (model) flying before they tried to fly (with help from an Australian: Lawrance Hargraves). Sorry folks, my gray hair must be showing,
AVweb responds... Yours isn't the only gray hair that's showing, John. Each year, my AME runs a tally of my brown hairs versus my gray hairs to determine whether I may still write down "brown" as my hair color on the medical application under the FAA's 51-percent rule. (My wife Jan says I "went gray" ten years ago, but what does she know?) --Mike Busch, Editor-in-Chief |
| Joe
Della Barba
17 Aug 2001 |
Yes Pogo, the Enemy Is Us I guess it is a good thing CNN didn't go to Oshkosh instead of "investigating" small jet aircraft. CNN must really have forgone any kind of research, since corporate jet aviation is by far the safest form of GA there is. OSH arrivals could easily be improved by two things:
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| Warren
Witt
17 Aug 2001 |
Yes Pogo, the Enemy Is Us It's too bad to hear how angry Rick Durden is with his fellow pilots. Unfortunately not everyone with a license to fly is a rocket scientist, but to say that someone is responsible for your friends death is a big mistake. I am an airline pilot. And in my day-to-day flying I too see a lot of stupid stuff done by professionals and others. That is aviation...That is life. I don't want to discount what Rick saw, or how he feels ... I just hope he is not always this angry and critical over the rest of us. A good pilot should be ready for anything. A good pilot should always be in control of his airplane. And as a flight instructor, Rick should know good pilots are hard to find. I'm sorry for his loss. I hope he can see the brighter side of things to come, and get rid of his resentments. I'm guessing he are a great guy, and a great pilot. I look forward to reading more inspirational copy from him. AVweb responds... Rick is indeed a great guy and a great pilot. So was his friend (and mine) Ben Moyle, who died in the crash of his Glasair in the Oshkosh traffic pattern on arrival to AirVenture 2001. --Mike Busch, Editor-in-Chief |
| Roland
Boucher
16 Aug 2001 |
NASA's "Helios" Solar-Powered UAV AVweb wrote:
I first proposed the concept of a solar-powered plane that could fly for months at a time in 1972. I even submitted patent applications on both an electric plane and a solar powered one. The first was granted the second was not. Project SUNRISE was a 1/3 scale model of the 100,000 ft version and was designed to climb to 78,000 feet. it flew in many times 1974 on solar power alone but was destroyed in turbulence. Funding was from the ARPA .. I still have pictures of the 32-foot-span plane.
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| Michael
Johannsen
16 Aug 2001 |
Yes Pogo, the Enemy Is Us Let me start by saying that Rick Durden is right-on about the lack of professionalism on the part of some pilots at Oshkosh -- it's no secret. I did not like the way his article was written, however. The thing I dislike about his article is the "victim mentality" that is present throughout. We live in a society increasingly filled with people playing the part of the victim, and our legal system tends to reward those people. If you don't like it, scream loud enough and someone will take care of it. People need to take care of themselves. If you don't like something, do something within your power to correct it. Complaining will get you nowhere. In the Right Stuff, Pancho says, "We've got two categories of pilots around here; we've got your PRIME pilots that get all the hot planes and we've got your pud-knockers who DREAM about gettin' a hot plane." Since 1903, there have been pud-knockers out there. So what. If it becomes too much of a problem for you, go do something else. You are the only PIC of your aircraft, not the guy in front of you or behind you. The FARs are very clear about giving PICs every inch of authority to do what is required to safely conduct flight. So, why does there seem to be so many idiots at OSH lately? It wasn't like this 10 years ago, was it? Well, I've heard a story of a guy in a 172 fogged in at Madison. He was dying to get to OSH, but didn't have any instrument charts. So this guy goes into the FBO, borrows someone else's approach plate and hand draws the approach on a napkin. That was 1977. I think the reason it seems like there's more is because of what has happened to EAA & Oshkosh. It started going down-hill in the mid 90s, maybe earlier. It's all about big money now. "We'll teach dogs to fly if we can collect some dues from them." This isn't a fun event anymore to a lot of people interested in FLYING and it's attracting more ground-pounders and suckers. Just take a look at a current Sport Aviation issue and compare it to one in the 70s or 80s. Things sure have changed. We're going to some new fly-ins now, and they're a lot more fun than Oshkosh. And they haven't been found-out by the pud-knockers because we haven't told them where we're going! Someday that will change too, and the idiots will flock. And when they do, we'll go somewhere else. It's just the way things go. You can't expect things to be the same forever. I miss the old Oshkosh like a lot of people do, but I'm not going to hang on to it forever. I'm really sorry about Rick's friend, and again, I really understand where Rick is coming from. These people should receive violations. But you can't fly everyone's airplane for them. |
| John
Clark
16 Aug 2001 |
Where Have All The Real Pilots Gone? AVweb wrote:
I am a retired Northwest Airlines Pilot, and I saw this coming years ago. I personally know pilots who couldn't check out (ATP) in an DC-9 who are now captains on the A-320/319 Airbus...They very seldom fly the plane manually. It scares me somewhat to think of what might happen as far as pilot judgment and abilities during critical and emergency phases of flight is concerned. Thank you for a wonderful publication.
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| Bill
Moore
15 Aug 2001 |
AVweb's GPSMAP 295 Giveaway at AirVenture Thanks very much to AVweb for holding the drawing at Oshkosh 2001 for the Garmin GPSMAP 295 giveaway. I can't tell you how excited I was when the email from Ann Devers of the AVweb marketing staff showed up in my email box saying I had won one of the Garmin 295s. The unit arrived just yesterday and I am already planning flights to put it to use. While luck-of-the-draw was in my favor, my thanks go to all the folks at AVweb and Garmin for making this possible. Like most of us I never seem to win drawings like this, but this was truly my lucky day. I am a part-time CFI based at VAY in New Jersey, so this unit will gather no dust. Guess it's time to retire my tired but true Garmin 55. Thank you!! AVweb responds... Our pleasure, Bill. Congratulations on winning the GPSMAP 295 (my favorite portable aviation GPS, by the way), and thanks for stopping by the AVweb booth and registering for the drawing. --Mike Busch, Editor-in-Chief |
| John
Gilding
15 Aug 2001 |
Yes Pogo, the Enemy Is Us Many thanks to Rick Durden for his article about the stupid pilot tricks at Oshkosh. I've flown in there twice, and both times I had a printed copy of the NOTAM in my hand well before I reached Ripon. I'll never forget the guy in the Grumman Yankee who approached me on the ramp at Madison right after I departed OSH. (I was in a 150, so frequent fuel stops were prudent!) This guy, who was well into his forties, asked me if I had just come from Oshkosh, and if I knew what the frequencies were for the approach there! After a minute of stunned silence, I gave him my printed copy of the NOTAM and advised him to study it carefully before going up there. I've always wondered if he made it, or if he screwed it up for somebody else. |
| Dan
Ronan
15 Aug 2001 |
Yes Pogo, the Enemy Is Us Rick Durden's column on Oshkosh was right on target. I was flying in the Chicago area that weekend -- heading back to Atlanta -- and I was amazed at the number of fellow pilots who appeared totally out of their element, flying into a very busy and big Class B airspace. I was IFR and west of Chicago, as I was turning east towards the Northbrook VOR, I came close to having a midair with some VFR pilot who flew along side me, inside my bubble, unaware of how close he was. It terrified me. None of us are perfect, we all make mistakes, but not reading the NOTAM and understanding it, there's no excuse and not keeping your speed up on approach jeopardizes the safety of all of us. As for the guy in the Mooney, he's a jerk and some day he'll get his, let's pray there are not other people with him in the airplane. I started flying two years ago (on my 40th birthday) and just yesterday I passed my commercial written exam and the checkride is coming up soon. I have nearly 500 hours in 20 months of flying. I'm a television reporter in the Atlanta area with Fox News/WAGA-TV and it's my goal to cover aviation on a nearly full-time basis. I believe if you're going to be around aviation, you should know as much about it as you can. AVweb responds... From your mouth to Ted Turner's ears, Dan! --Mike Busch, Editor-in-Chief |
| Lisa
Eagleson-Roever
15 Aug 2001 |
When An Agenda Gets In The Way Of The Facts Great presentation. I hope CNN gets inundated with copies of it. I am usually a big fan of CNN, but that transcript disappoints me terribly. |
| Steve
Krog
15 Aug 2001 |
Yes Pogo, the Enemy Is Us I just finished reading Rick Durden's column concerning OSH arrival and departures. I've been a general aviation flight instructor since 1973, and Rick touched on a strong pet peeve of mine concerning OSH. His column should be reprinted in its entirety in every EAA publication! Now, and again in May - June. I'm also a board member for the Vintage group and will bring it up at our next board meeting. Thanks, Rick, for capturing so well my thoughts on this matter. |
| Don
Mawhinney
15 Aug 2001 |
Yes Pogo, the Enemy Is Us I'm sure I won't be the only one to congratulate Rick Durden on well-written words about the non-pilots among our ranks ... or be choked up by his thoughts on his friend's death ... or become infuriated by the specific instances he outlined. Unfortunately, I have the feeling that those who should read this and be reborn won't see it. As I was learning to be a pilot, I marveled at how much more aware I became in driving my car. The "non-pilots" Rick wrote about are the same people who park in handicapped spaces, or otherwise just put their cars anywhere they want for their own convenience. Rules are for others and they're too arrogant to be aware of consequences to others I have always been somewhat alarmed by various initiatives to encourage more people to become pilots. I fear that the sales job will only bring more of those types you write about to "try it out" and we don't need that type of individual in the air. I have never been to "the show" and fear for my life now that I've read about the lunacy that occurred this year. I am always concerned when a pilot with many more than my 250 hours goes down, particularly when the circumstances aren't known. It gives me religion every time. I don't want to imply that Rick's article shouldn't have been written, but I want to suggest that an alternative may be to work with the regulators. I would like to see an FAA presence on the field to immediately confront pilots who don't follow the rules and if warranted to yank their certificate on the spot. The pilots who fly with obvious disregard for established procedures and practices do it all the time and since they get away with it, it becomes "standard" for them. They need some immediate religion That Mooney pilot who turned south in spite of instructions to the contrary should have been met at his destination and had his ticket pulled for at least six months. Those who feel the need to slow down two miles out forcing go-aounds, should be required to take remedial training before being turned loose on the rest of us. I think that bringing the FAA presence onto the field would not only contribute to a greater sense of safety, but demonstrate to the regulators that we don't need more regulation. Only better enforcement of those already on the books.
AVweb responds... Be careful what you wish for, Don. --Mike Busch, Editor-in-Chief |
| Parker
Johnstone
14 Aug 2001 |
Yes Pogo, the Enemy Is Us Thank you to Rick Durden for his column. That fault is solely ours -- the CFI community. We have an opportunity every 24 months to correct the wrongs of the past. Every year that I've attended Oshkosh, I have been shocked by the vast display of poor piloting techniques -- at the very time when you think we pilots would be at our very best.
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| Dan
Horton
14 Aug 2001 |
Yes Pogo, the Enemy Is Us Rick Durden's critical review of the poor skill level displayed by some pilots at OSH (or any other fly-in) is well taken, and all too true. There is another problem on the horizon, one that the aviation press may help head off. We'll soon have some sort of Sport Pilot program. Most of the aircraft in the Sport Pilot category will be unable to maintain 90 knots on the inbound leg of the Ripon or Lake Parker approach. There is currently no other practical way to get these aircraft into the GA side of the show. I have some personal experience with the problem. I took my L-4 to S&F a few years back. I didn't enjoy flying wide-open throttle (80 mph) with faster aircraft flying nose up and blind on my tail. Understand that I tried my best to arrive during a non-peak time, an evening two days before the start of the show. After arriving at the downwind entry, I could plant it anywhere the controller requested, but the inbound wasn't fun. My most recent project is a scale Curtiss JN-4C. Like the original, cruise is 60 mph. Heck, VNE is 75 mph! I elected to take it into the ultralight strip at both OSH and S&F, so as not to screw up the GA approach, although I very much would have prefered to display the aircraft on the main flight line. It may be time to review the existing approach procedures. The NOTAM 'high route" for faster aircraft seems under-utilized. Perhaps the low route could be changed to "less than 80 knots" and the high route could become "more than 80". Perhaps the creation of a whole new "slow approach" is justified. For sure, something has to change. Those of us who fly light experimentals and antiques do not enjoy being flying roadblocks. The situation is going to get worse if we do not start thinking ahead now. |
| Steve
McGreevy
13 Aug 2001 |
Yes Pogo, the Enemy Is Us Thank you, Rick Durden! In your article "Yes Pogo, The Enemy is Us" you were able to communicate to the pilot community what we say off the frequency during "AirVenture" every year. I am a controller at Chicago Center, and work in the North Area, we are the radar approach controllers for the IFR arrivals to OSH. I am also the owner/pilot of a classic 1953 C170B, an EAA and AOPA member. Year after year, for the past 18 years my co-workers and I are continually amazed at the lack of understanding pilots have for the NOTAM concerning arrival/departure procedures. I don't know whether it is blissful ignorance, or just plain bravado, that pilots would arrive so unprepared for such a complex operation. I am sure you will receive many negative responses to your article, but somebody needed to give the flying community a wake up call on the subject of preparedness, and professionalism in general aviation flying. Fly Safe.
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| Bill
McClure
13 Aug 2001 |
Yes Pogo, the Enemy Is Us I found Rick Durden's article on the OSH fatalities this year to be powerful, moving, and right on target. Almost every "good deal" lost during my aviation career can be traced to incompetence, negligence, or lack of proficiency on the part of some other pilot. There aren't many of us flying in GA these days, taken as a percentage of the population at large. The sad fact is that even at that number, there are many that shouldn't be flying due to lack of proficiency, and more often, attitude. I too fear that one of my most prized freedoms as an American, the freedom of the skies, might well be diminished as government makes more and more constraints upon us. Aviation has always depended upon the assumption of personal responsibility in order to exercise our privilege to fly. In this era of avoidance of personal responsibility at all costs, I question whether it is realistic to assume that the status quo will continue. I have flown the OSH and S&F arrivals many times. About two thirds of those of those times, I witnessed the kind of idiocy mentioned by Rick. Planes appearing out of nowhere between the initial entry point (Lake Parker or Ripon), and forced themselves into the stream that already has its spacing. Not all parts of the arrivals are visible by the controllers, not much they can do. How do you, as a pilot properly spaced, deal with that? This last S&F, I followed two of our finest flying separate Grumman Tigers coming in from Lake Parker as they literally S turned left and right seemingly aimlessly. I simply could not fly a proper arrival while staying behind them. This continued until I sucked in the downwind properly, and was cleared by the tower to cut them off on a quick base. The meandering approach flown by these "aviators" could have easily led me to become dangerously distracted. This brings me to my final point. Obviously, no matter what happens around you, it is the responsibility of the pilot in command to ensure that his aircraft is flown safely. Period. If the shenanigans of your fellow "aviators" are compromising your safety, it is time to get out of there and go somewhere else. This at least partially explains why I have parked my plane at Green Bay. If constraints become necessary, why not require the satisfactory completion of a course of some kind in order to be permitted to fly in on the NOTAM'ed procedure? |
| Wim van
der Horst
13 Aug 2001 |
Santa Rosa (Calif.) Airport The situation at Santa Rosa airport (STS) is going downhill rapidly. Not only is the management lacking but they are allowing a hotel to be build at the end of 19 within .8 mile. They built a high school within 1.8 mile in line with 32 and they are building new housing developments within walking distance of the runways. The situation is bad enough that there is an organization being formed called "the Friend of Charles M Schultz Sonoma County Airport" in order to address the many things the GA pilots are upset about. We are even losing the United Express service because they are going to larger, more efficient aircraft and Sonoma County has failed to increase runway length to accommodate them. The is no FBO and the fuel trucks are not allowed to go to the aircraft to refuel. Waste oil cannot be gotten rid of, etc. etc. As a balloon pilot I have been served with a summons to appear because of a criminal trespass on a field OUTSIDE the airport near the tower that we have been using for take-offs and landings for 20 years. As balloon pilots we are now told to pay a $25 landing fee which no other pilot else pays. I have to go to small claims court on Wednesday because I, just like the other balloonists, refuse to pay these fees. At a public county supervisors meeting the Deputy Director of Transportation and Public Works was asked about the airport and he put his thumb and forefinger about 2 mm apart and said "This is about as much interest I have in the airport, there are more important things such as wastewater and the dump. The airport is at the bottom of my list". Now that we are losing the United Express service he sings another tune, mostly to the effect of: Oh, we'll be losing parking fees and maybe the restaurant will go out of business. The local tech and wine companies are none too pleased with the developments. We really could use some help.
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| Jim
Green
13 Aug 2001 |
Yes Pogo, the Enemy Is Us Whenever anyone in our community dies in an accident, it diminishes all of us. It is especially painful when we can see that it was unnecessary, and more so when it appears to be due, at least in part, to someone's fault other than the victim. We all choose to engage in this admittedly risky activity. The fact that it is much riskier than it needs to be (with the attendant calls for more control whenever there is an accident) is the thing we need to focus on. The accident itself is what gets the attention of the public, not the reason for the accident. The Bonanza pilot who cartwheeled on 27 got (some of) what he deserved, unfortunately we all will share the "rewards" of his misadventure in the form of insurance premiums, regulations, and public sentiment. In the case of those like your friend who met their end due perhaps in part to the activity of others, we have to look inward and consider if we would have been up to the challenge or would have done the same thing. A dispassionate look at the two accidents reveals few differences. Both aircraft were incorrectly flown, and met their fate due solely to pilot error. In both cases, we know what should have been done; presumably both of these experienced pilots knew what should have been done as well. Blaming another pilot for flying too slowly is somewhat of a cop out -- you or I would not have followed so closely to begin with, or would have broken out and done a 360, kept the ball in the center while s-turning, or taken some other corrective action. There is an intersection near my home where cars on the main street tend to run the red light. Whether it is placement of the signal, timing of the light, or some other cause is of no matter. I warn my friends about the danger, and I would consider it the victim's fault if they are involved in an accident at this intersection after being informed of the danger. The fact that the other car ran the red light might have some legal significance in placing blame and collecting for the loss does not relieve (in my mind) the victim's blame for not operating with extreme caution and adequate skill in this known dangerous environment. Whenever we have the means to protect ourselves (through increased vigilance, training, equipment maintenance, etc) and fail to do so, we have ourselves to blame for the result. This should not be construed as blanket license for the idiots to behave as recklessly and incompetently as they like with the rest of us getting the blame for their mistakes, but more as a wake-up call -- how do "we" keep from becoming "them"? I have been flying for 30 years, and have seen many dunderheads like those that Rick Durden describes. So far, I have been (fortunate / alert / skillful / lucky) enough to avoid reaping the rewards of others' (and perhaps more than occasionally my own) ineptness. While I share with Rick the desire to rid the world of incompetents (and not just in aviation), I realize that coupled with the effort of education and policing our ranks, we also share a need of doing all we can for self preservation, even when it is the other guy's fault. Short of the rare midair collision, accidents are almost always the pilot's fault ... and even midairs are usually the fault of one of the pilots.
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| Don
Miller
14 Aug 2001 |
Yes Pogo, the Enemy Is Us Although Rick Durden and I do not know each other, we share many things in kind. I am in public safety, both police and fire/rescue, 20 years worth. It tears at my heart when I read and/or experience the tragic loss of human life due to the negligence of others. I did not know Rick Durden's friend Ben Moyle, but Rick have done us all a great service by his writings. Rick's comments were refreshing blunt, to the most important point, and void of profanity that "graces" writings today. I sincerely hope his expressions for all to view will strike each and every current pilot, and those practicing to be. More importantly, I hope his eloquent eulogy for his friend allows him some peace, and lets the healing process to begin. I am not a pilot, but have every desire to be one. It started when I was approx. 8 years old.. Remember the old Benson Gyrocopter in Raleigh, N.C.? That is when it happened. I was denied entry for being a fighter pilot due to my eyesight, but I assure you, my feet will not leave the ground as pilot in control, until I have met the requirements that deems me competent to fly. Rick Durden's writings reinforced my attitude. I hope others in the aviation community pay attention to what he posted, and I wish that our paths would cross for my future training. Thank you, Rick. My deepest condolences to you for your loss, I must go, my eyes cry.... |
| Matthew
Rule
14 Aug 2001 |
Yes Pogo, the Enemy Is Us I've had my private pilot certificate for about a year, and just received my instrument rating. I read AVweb regularly and generally enjoy the articles. However, it is apparent that Rick Durden's column on Oshkosh was written while he was upset. His points are all very valid, but the manner in which he presented them was surprisingly unprofessional. May I humbly suggest that Mr. Durden think a bit more before publishing???? His article perhaps has a longer reach than he might think. Articles such as this one erode the leadership role that he and other AVweb columnists currently enjoy. And trust me -- with the current level of training out there -- new pilot's need all the mentors we can find. By they way, I feel I am a fairly precise pilot, and I wouldn't fly into Osh in a million years by myself. My opinion??? The arrival rules need to be severely tightened up -- despite Rick Durden's objections. Heck, the arrival procedures at my local airport (Ft. Lauderdale Executive) need to be tightened up.
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| Henry
Weber
14 Aug 2001 |
When An Agenda Gets In The Way Of The Facts I just read Jeb Burnside's editorial online at AVweb. What he is describing and pointing out are the same problems that motorcycles, abortion, and gun control suffer. The media is paid by big bucks business and will lie through it's teeth to make the sponsors happy, even to the point of trying to remove the constitutional rights of the people. Glad to see the aviation industry added to the hit list of yellow journalists. AVweb responds... Henry, does the fact that aviation is on CNN's hit list mean that we've finally arrived? --Joseph E. (Jeb) Burnside, Executive Editor |
| E. G.
Tripp
14 Aug 2001 |
When An Agenda Gets In The Way Of The Facts I enjoyed Jeb Burnside's commentary on the CNN "report" on non-airline civil aviation safety, etc. He is correct to observe that GA still has a long way to go. GA has been seeking legitimacy since the 1920s (in fact, all of aviation was back then). My fifteen seconds arrived in the late 1960s when (it was thought with the support of ATA), a sensationalist yclept Donald Bain wrote a diatribe titled The Case Against Private Aviation. I debated him on radio and (I think, but I may be glorifying myself) local (New York) television after the modest magazine I then edited (Air Progress) published a retort titled "The Plot Against...". Mightier journals have traditionally been anti-general aviation, including the otherwise-esteemed Wall Street Journal. The challenges have not changed since the air transport element of aviation began to gain respectability in the early 1930s. In a wider area of concern, Thos. Jefferson had it right when he observed that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Keep noting, reporting and informing. AVweb responds... Ed, thanks for the kinds words. Yes, this is by no means a new problem for GA. What struck me about the CNN "episode" was their blatant failure to even give the appearance of having an open mind or to have performed basic research on the topic. I will give them credit for putting on NBAA's Jack Olcott but, in the event, their anchor couldn't even find the time to listen to his responses. In addition to critiquing the CNN piece, my purpose was to somehow ensure that AVweb readers kept in mind that this battle to educate the general public on GA issues -- safety, operations, noise, access, etc. -- is far from over. Keep up the good work, Ed. We'll do everything we can on this end. --Joseph E. (Jeb) Burnside, Executive Editor |
| Tim
Sparks
14 Aug 2001 |
Yes Pogo, the Enemy Is Us I am a retired Naval Aviator who now flies for FedEx. This is the first piece written by a civilian in the aviation community that tells it like it is. Well done! People die because of other peoples carelessness. I'm going to print out Rick Durden's column and pass this out at our next EAA Chapter meeting. |
| Dylan
Smith
14 Aug 2001 |
Yes Pogo, the Enemy Is Us I agree with Rick Durden that the Oshkosh arrival procedure is really not that difficult (and I did it for Oshkosh 2000), and that no one has an excuse for not knowing it. However, it is flawed. For 2000 Oshkosh at least, there were two arrivals. One for aircraft that can fly at 90 knots, and as the NOTAM said, "if you are unable to fly at 90 knots, fly this way at 120 knots". There is a problem with this. Walk around Oshkosh and look at the significant numbers of aircraft that cannot fly at 90 knots. No, I don't mean look at the slick homebuilts. Look at the Pietenpols and Cubs. They physically can't go as fast as 90 knots (so 120 knots is a joke!) All they can do is hold up the 90 knot arrivals because they have no other option - other than not going, and it'd be a shame to miss out on seeing the slow planes. During my arrival I got stuck behind one of these aircraft which are physically incapable of maintaining 90 knots (except in a steep dive). Fortunately, my plane could still fly since it'll happily go 60 knots with some flaps. Others in faster planes had simply no option but to overtake - and there's nothing in the NOTAM about overtaking. The overtakers just had to follow the FARs on the issue and hope for the best! Oshkosh needs another arrival for planes that simply won't go as fast as 90 knots because there is quite a few of them. This will help avoid some of the screwups. Perhaps a 60 knot arrival stream, so slow antiques, J-3 Cubs and other low and slow planes have a real procedure of their own instead of holding up the 90 knot arrivals? Why didn't the FAA/EAA think of this - surely they expect slow planes to arrive for this event?
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| Rick
Galati
14 Aug 2001 |
Yes Pogo, the Enemy Is Us Thanks to Rick Durden for his lucid and extremely frank perspective relative to the Oshkosh 2001 experience. Years ago, no one had to constantly remind people to clean up litter at Oskosh. It was more like a shared secret. A few weeks ago, (on the flight line no less), I watched a mother toss a used paper product to the ground in front of her own children. Scores of people were eating food and drinking beverages where they were not supposed to. Some example to the next generation, I thought. As a long time owner of a small Cessna based at 3SQ in the St. Louis Missouri area, I have over the past few years noticed a marked increase in the number of rude, dangerous, and just plain incompetent pilots. Some of these guys never heard of entering a standard traffic pattern and will make their presence known at any angle, altitude and airspeed. Then there are the taildragger guys who will operate on a runway at right angles to the runway in use during periods of high traffic volume, completely oblivious to the separation problems they pose at this small uncontrolled airport. There are people who never use the radio, and there are those who never shut up. There are those who take the active and sit and sit and sit while planes in the pattern are announcing, and flying down final. Oh, and have you ever started monitoring your home airport's unicom from dozens of miles and many minutes out following a long cross country and not heard a single peep until you announce your proximity and intent to land, then two or more bozos suddenly pipe up with their very same intentions to the very same airport? I do not pose as anything but an average VFR pilot with average flying skills. But I keep current and fly like I play golf -- mindful of those in front of me, and those waiting behind me. In short, I try to fit in. Its a consideration, that seems, is in danger of becoming something of an antiquated curiosity today in this sue happy, me first, righteous, not my responsibility, you owe me, get out of my way, butt in line first, self-important environment we are (sadly) a part of. Thank you for allowing me to vent. |
| Randy
Lervold
14 Aug 2001 |
Yes Pogo, the Enemy Is Us Thanks to Rick Durden for tackling this issue head on, and without sugar coating it. Although I have not personally flown into OSH, I attended the Arlington fly-in this year, entering and exiting the airport numerous times, and am continually amazed at the number of pilots who are oblivious to the NOTAM and/or don't comply with the clearly specified procedures. Indeed, the controllers and fly-in staff do a very admirable job of keeping things flowing in spite of these "knotheads". When flying in to Arlington I print the NOTAM from the event web page, study it in advance until I know it thoroughly, and make myself a little cheat sheet with abbreviated instructions and frequencies that I put on my kneeboard in the cockpit. When I fly into OSH next year I wouldn't consider doing so with any less preparation. How do we get the yea-hoos among us to get with it? I'm sorry, I really don't know, but it distresses me also. As Rick points out, they can ruin it for all of us. Frankly one of the things that attracts me to flying is the discipline and efficiency required by it, and the fact that this ethic is shared by the majority of the pilot community. It's very unfortunately that we have among us a few pilots without this sense of discipline.
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| Eric
Whyte
14 Aug 2001 |
Yes Pogo, the Enemy Is Us I just finished reading Rick Durden's column about the accidents at Oshkosh this year. (Like Rick I can't seem to change to calling it "AirVenture" ) I wanted to tell Rick that I agree with him 100%. I think that this article should be reprinted in Sport Aviation for all EAAers to read. I am a CFI and ATP rated pilot. I fly a mix of airplanes from my 7AC for fun to the King Air 200 I fly for work. I have also noticed that every year at Oshkosh we get a display of "amateur night." To me there is no reason for this. You don't need to be a professional pilot to fly to OSH, you just need to act like one. As a CFI I can't imagine anyone letting a student fly into the convention. That is criminal. I know it happens because it has happened before. I have volunteered parking airplanes in the homebuilt area for 18 years and we have seen all sorts of stupid things. People taking off and landing in the parking area, on taxiways, (Not the ones that are used for runways either! But the black top ditch in front of the crowd. Thank you, Rick, for writing that article, I intend to share it with my EAA Chapter. As a note I had the opportunity to meet your friend with the Glasair. I frequently fly into Flying Cloud and whenever I go somewhere I am always looking for homebuilts. I saw N425HP is the hanger and introduced myself to the owner. We talked for 30-45 minutes. He seemed like a great guy, they kind that will be sorely missed at Oshkosh.
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| Greg
Carboy
14 Aug 2001 |
Yes Pogo, the Enemy Is Us As a current instructor and attorney specializing in aviation product liability defense, I have seen some pretty stupid acts by general aviation pilots. I personally believe that the prosperity that has allowed the revitalization of general aviation has also brought with it a level of arrogance among the the pilot community not observed ten years ago. This new arrogance has resulted in tragic accidents and death. I do not know whether your article will give the arrogant pilot pause because he already knows everything and is not willing to listen. But please keep trying.
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| Name
Withheld
13 Aug 2001 |
Yes Pogo, the Enemy Is Us There is a fraction of the homebuilt aviation community that has a genuine disdain for authority. They don't preflight, don't file flight plans, use flight following, get weather briefs, read NOTAMS, do annuals, keep log books, get medicals, get biennial flight reviews. It doesn't matter if any of these things are good ideas, the simple fact that they are associated with authority means that they are rejected Some of them are terrific sticks. But they are horrible pilots. If you choose to publish this, please withhold my name. |
| R.
Scott Puddy
13 Aug 2001 |
Yes Pogo, the Enemy Is Us Rick Durden's Oshkosh post-mortem (which I regret is too befitting a term) struck a nerve. Good job. The FAA will conclude that Ben Moyle died because he failed to maintain flying speed -- and they will be right. Rick's purported audience is the group of folks who don't maintain their flying skills and don't bother to read the NOTAM. I'm sure he realizes that, they'll never read the article. They don't even bother to conduct recurrent training or read the crucial information pertinent to their planned flights. Rick's true audience is the conscientious pilot (like Ben) who reads AVweb regularly along with any other bit of information about flying (s)he can obtain. The message is: "If you plan to fly to Oshkosh, you have to do more than prepare to fly a precise procedure in crowded skies at airspeeds that may or may not match up well to your specific aircraft. You must also prepare for the possibility of carrying out that task while surrounded by idiots." It's a message that Rick shouldn't have to send and one that we shouldn't have to hear. However, events reflect that the message is necessary, and thanks to Rick for conveying it. I'm sorry Rick lost his friend. I appreciate his efforts in writing a fine article. |
| Jonathan
Birge
13 Aug 2001 |
Yes Pogo, the Enemy Is Us Rick Durden seems to have sympathy for his friend who couldn't keep an airplane from stalling, but none for the Bonanza pilot who at least managed to crash and live. Many times I've been as frustrated with flying as Rick seems to be, but I recognize that the problem is that flying is a ridiculous thing to do. God help me I love it, but it's ludicrous that we fly machines with controls that offer such a fine line between "land nicely here" and "kill me in a fire ball." How many machines offer such easily accessed "kill me" buttons? All airplanes do, and you hit that button not by necessarily being an arrogant fool, as you imply all these errant pilots (save your friend) were but by simply being human. You get thousands of people flying all at once and a few of them will be having bad days. We need safer airplanes, not self righteous indignation. The price for ignorance, bad judgment or simply having a bad day shouldn't be your life, but in flying it usually is. It worries me that most people (including you, apparently) accept this as a given, with the only solution to the horrible safety record of GA being better training and absolutely consistent piloting ability. It will never happen. (Such a response is almost as useless as the other common response: legislation and regulation.) We need solutions to the problem, not unrealistic expectations that would require human nature to change. Have you never made a stupid mistake in an airplane that almost cost you your life?
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| Marc
McNaughton
13 Aug 2001 |
Yes Pogo, the Enemy Is Us Rick Durden's column on Oshkosh will be posted at every airport near me. 'Bout time somebody came out and said this. |
| Graham
Bird
13 Aug 2001 |
Yes Pogo, the Enemy Is Us I read AVweb regularly and often nod sagely when reading an article, but Rick Durden's column moved me profoundly. I'm an exiled Brit in California who still takes great delight in the freedoms of aviation in a supportive and well planned system. I hope I never loose the sense of wonder and delight that I get to play with 'toys' I do and meet with and learn from the pioneers of aviation. Rick captured exactly my delight at attending OSH and mingling with and listening to many of aviation's greats. It's still difficult to believe that such a place exists, and that we get to chat to such legends. We also get to walk amongst and examine historic and advanced experimental aircraft, sit on a display line with no barriers and spend our time in a clean litter free environment inhabited by polite, knowledgeable aviation experts. My dream was shattered in a much more trivial way than Rick's. A few years ago, I parked my car -- yes, I harbor dreams of flying in in my Pitts one year (next year?) but as a low time (400-hour) pilot I still find the pucker factor too high compared with my skill and experience. Back to the story. I parked my RENTAL car, it happened to be on the end of a row. When I returned in the evening, the rear was gouged by the fender of a car making a wide turn. No note, nothing! I couldn't believe that this could happen at OSH! All those polite, friendly knowledgeable aviators - none of them would do that and leave without putting a note on the windshield. Would they? It sounds trite and trivial when looked at in the light of your article. But it was a defining moment for me. Since then, I've been lucky enough to get involved with the aerobatic community and to fly some high performance machinery. And to learn some new attitudes - not bad, but not the shining examples I hope for either. From all types of pilot, flying all types of machinery. The folks who fly right traffic -- through our hot aerobatic box -- in spite of the announcements on CTAF and the FAR requirement for left traffic. My friend in his Pitts why asked an apparently student Cessna pilot in the pattern if he was "doing a straight-in from LA."' "Why do we have to talk to the local community, we have a right to fly here." "The *&#*% FAA can't make me turn on my transponder." And so on. As someone born and raised in a different, arguably more conservative environment, I admire and respect the freedom, the "gung ho" attitude and the self assurance of my newer friends and neighbors. It is the key reason that I count myself privileged indeed to live and work in California. But we need some balance. The area where we need it is attitude. We need to find a way to temper the above, largely positive, attributes with an appropriate sense of responsibility. Rick Durden's straight talking is good. Thanks again for the article, It'll stay with me for a long time.
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| Kirk
Lindberg
13 Aug 2001 |
Yes Pogo, the Enemy Is Us I only wish there was a way to get Rick Durden's message to EVERY pilot that flies into Oshkosh (I can't say "AirVenture" either...), or anywhere else for that matter. Too bad he may be preaching to the choir of people who care enough about flying to read AVweb. Maybe they should be forced to read Rick's article before they get a reservation into Oshkosh. I stopped flying my Velocity into Oshkosh a few years ago and started renting a motor home for the same reason I stopped riding motorcycles -- I was afraid of the other idiots trying to kill me. |
| Ryszard
J. Zadow
13 Aug 2001 |
Yes Pogo, the Enemy Is Us I read with great interest Rick Durden's article about some of the stupidity that went on at OSH. It goes on all over the place, but at a place like OSH it's just more visible. I'd like to add that you can't blame all of it on pilots. We flew up there as a flight of two Vari-eze's on Thursday, July 26th. I've been there before many times, am an ex-Navy pilot and airline pilot. My wingman was a 300-hour Private Pilot with about 50 hours in his Eze. We briefed, planned, and tried to execute our plan. But we couldn't complete our plan because ATC didn't stick with theirs! When I first went to OSH in 1986, the Arrival NOTAM was a single page stuck in a copy of Sport Aviation that you tore out and took with you. This year, I went to the EAA website to download the NOTAM and found out it was 36 pages! In that NOTAM there are specific arrival procedures not just for OSH but for Fond du Lac as well. We knew we where running late and might not get there before 3 pm when Wittman field would close for the airshow. We briefed to divert to FLD if that happened. Enroute we re-briefed the FLD arrival procedure. Fifteen miles out we switched to the arrival frequency. If you read the FLD arrival procedure it specifically says you "cannot go direct to FLD if Wittman Field is closed. Use the FLD arrival procedure." The FLD arrival procedure begins at Rippon, you fly up the railroad tracks and at Fisk they'll tell you to go to FLD instead of OSH. So here we are barreling down on Ripon at 3:03 pm. We're on the arrival frequency and it's dead quite. Then a voice from above says "Wittman field is closed... All aircraft remain clear of Rippon.. repeat, Wittman field is closed... All aircraft remain clear of Rippon.. " Although my wingman was somewhere behind me, I could tell he had a huge question mark appear above his canopy. So did I. I'm used to following procedures. What do you do when the published procedure gets thrown out the window? We got to FLD, but they where using nothing like the published arrival procedures and it was a lot more confusing then anything I've seen on the Rippon arrival! Unbelievably, they had three or four gyrocopters doing touch-and-go training in the pattern during all this. |
| Jay D.
Miller
13 Aug 2001 |
When An Agenda Gets In The Way Of The Facts At CNN, their agenda is their God. This is why their motto should be:
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| Sal
Marinello
13 Aug 2001 |
When An Agenda Gets In The Way Of The Facts Great piece on the CNN story ("When An Agenda Gets In The Way Of The Facts"). I was fuming and started to scream at my TV when the host was so blatantly biased and didn't understand the issue. While watching, I commented to my family that I hope somebody fires off a letter correcting all the mis-information (I did) and that I hope somebody makes news of it!
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| Mike
Palmer
13 Aug 2001 |
AirVenture 2001 Attendance Statistics. Am I the only one who questions the almighty EAA? When they say the attendance was such and such, but your senses tell you otherwise, who ya gonna believe? Do you think the EAA would ever release negative news? (I'm still trying to find out where all their money goes . . . but that's another story.) |
| Don
Gunderson
13 Aug 2001 |
Yes Pogo, the Enemy Is Us As one of the pink shirt Tower supervisors this year, I agree with Rick Durden ("Yes, Pogo, The Enemy Is Us"). It's hard to get 10,000 planes on the ground and out again without a few screw-ups. Pilots may have some excuses that are worth listening to, but not reviewing the NOTAM before showing up is crazy. Rick said it well, |
| Vance
Atkinson
13 Aug 2001 |
Yes Pogo, the Enemy Is Us Well written article about Oshkosh. I was there and observed some of this chicanery. Every year It gets worse, I don't know why some pilots cant follow simple instructions...
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| Mark
Hutchin
13 Aug 2001 |
Yes Pogo, the Enemy Is Us I fly a T-6 for a living at OKV, in Virginia.I make six flights a day, weather permitting, so I am in and out of the traffic pattern a lot. I see the kinds of things that Rick Durden mentioned in his article about Oshkosh, I see these things EVERYDAY ... the most common is flying a departure route through the arrival path ("downwind departure?, turning crosswind at mid field and then climbing through the downwind or 45 entry), crossing midfield for a left down wind (when there is established traffic already on downwind or the 45), descending into the downwind from a midfield cross wind, flying a bomber pattern, entering on a crosswind at the departure end of the field, so departing traffic are having to look into the sun on climb out, and on and on. No radio procedures, no thoughtfulness. I had a member of our airport commission, a retired navy and airline pilot, enter a right base during a busy Saturday, with the pattern full, and then explain to me that the established left hand pattern at our airport was not "regulatory" on recommended, and he could do as he pleased... I always enter at least two miles (usually five miles) out on a 45 entry , at pattern altitude ... or if I am on the upwind side, I overfly at at least 500-1000 feet above, I cross a midfield, and then from five miles out, descend and enter on the 45. This process has worked very well for a busy pattern and has not conflicted with departure traffic. On departures I always climb straight out to 1000 feet above pattern altitude (usually two or three miles from the departure end of the field) and then I turn on course, and thereby never fly through any arrival path. On initial contact for an airport advisory, instead of saying "Winchester, Cessna 1234, airport advisory", I say "Winchester unicom, North American 1234 is ten south at 2500, landing Winchester, airport advisory." They say wind 280 at six, traffic is reported using 32. I say, "Roger, North American 1234 will be entering on a 45 for 32, full stop, Winchester." On departure I say "Winchester traffic, North American 1234 is departing 32 Winchester, straight out to two thousand, five hundred, with a left turn to the southwest climbing to four thousand five hundred, Winchester." In both arrival and departure scenarios, anyone in the area, will be able to anticipate my position, path, and whether I am a potential conflict. If you are flying the normal arrival or departure path, I should never be a potential conflict..... This concept that I have outlined is what I see missing in the thoughtless (careless and reckless?) bastards who are operating from my home field..... |
| Andrew
Manning
13 Aug 2001 |
Recreational Pilot Certificate In response to Howard Fried's column about the Recreational Certificate. I have my own opinion, for what it's worth, as to why that certificate never caught on. For many people at our flight school the real motivational hurdle is the written test, which for the rec. license is not much different than the PP. That is where we see the most dropouts - people who have most or all of their flying but never take the written. What do a few cross country trips and night training amount to anyway, as far as effort goes? As far as cost, one saves oneself one examiner's fee and three hours' dual prep by ignoring the rec. license. Add that to the limited radius of operation and night restriction for a rec. pilot and it doesn't seem to add up for most people. |
| Addie
Busch
12 Aug 2001 |
Wake Turbulence AVweb wrote:
Dear Mike, How ever did you know? I find waking to turbulence (that's the way my daily life goes) much more stresssful than any turbulence sleeping might involve. Now, the turbulence that may affect the lucky ones at the end of their awake times and before their sleep sets in is a whole different story which you're much too young for me to expand on... Love, Mom P. S. 80 isn't so old that I don't know everything that you youngsters of 40 and 50 know, and then some. Except maybe the current vocabulary. AVweb responds... Go back to bed, mom. --Mike Busch, Editor-in-Chief |
| Arnold
C. Staton
12 Aug 2001 |
Letter to an Airport Kid In his recent column in AVweb titled "Letter to an Airport Kid" Rick Durden made these remarks about Civil Air Patrol;
I can certainly understand Rick's reluctance in recommending the Cadet Program to a young person with a desire to fly. I myself have been a member of Civil Air Patrol for close to 10 years as both a Cadet and currently as a Major in the senior program. As I have personally seen the best and the worst that CAP has in its ranks. As a former squadron commander, I have also see what Rick refers to as "frustrated General Pattons" in CAP circle we refer to the as wanna-be's, and this fact is the biggest shame of the program. But for a prospective cadet I would recommend them visit several units (where possible) more than just once. Now I am not a "knee-jerk who defend it (CAP) unthinkingly", but you need to realize that the Cadet Program is about more than teaching cadets to fly -- I personally know many cadets who have learned to fly through CAP -- and for Rick to refer to wearing uniforms, marching, and practicing customs and courtesies as a waste of time is an insult to every cadet both past and present. Rick chose to ignore that CAP is the Auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force, and our cadets are eligible for advanced rank in all branches of service should they enlist, he even noted it as a excellent route to military academies, and the very things he refers to as a waste of time are of profound importance to the military, and he failed to even note or mention that the Cadet Program also manages to incorporate excellent aerospace education, and leadership education programs and has produced so great Americans such as Scott O'Grady. If all a prospective cadet wants to do is learn to fly then I would recommend them look elsewhere, but if they would like the flight opportunities, along with learning the become a role model, and a leader then CAP would definitely be a good program for them.
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| Kevin
Stuart
12 Aug 2001 |
Letter to an Airport Kid I just read Rick Durden's article from AVweb. I'll bet you do get a couple of CAP members giving you a hard time, but I will not be one, I hope. Rick's right that sometimes kids join CAP and don't do the amount of orientation flying as they should, and some squadrons are not the very best ones. But remember that CAP is a group of volunteers, doing the best that they can. The units have to do everything for themselves, from raise money, to recruit new members, to find their own facilities and much, much more. I am lucky in my squadron. We meet on an airport (Hartness State Apt in Springfield, VT) and we have our own building. I have a fantastic mix of adult members, with about 1/3 prior military and 2/3 no military background. We have a 50/50 mix of male and female adults and I have 5 pilots. What I do not have now, is an aircraft, because here in VT we have only three corporate aircraft and none of my pilots has the needed 200 hours PIC time to fly as O-Flight Pilots. When we fly our Cadets (which are doing today), I need to schedule pilots and and aircraft from another squadron to come to our meeting place. This as you can see means that we can not do flying weekly. But we do work very hard to give our Cadets and Seniors the best quality program that we can. Our Aerospace Education Program is very good, with a 23 year old non prior military pilot doing a fantastic job working with the Cadets. We also have access to several telescopes at the Stellafane facility nearby. The Stellafane area is a group of amateur telescope makers who own a large area of land and have two great telescopes that we have access to. Another of our Senior Members is very much into aircraft models and RC Aircraft, we have yet another Senior who is into model rocketry. So you see, even though I can not get my Cadets up flying weekly, we do give them the chance to learn about a lot of Aerospace areas... We even won the Aerospace Education Display comp at our state conference last May, and will go to the region comp in October. This was an overall effort by our Cadets with mentoring from Seniors on L. Rosenthal. I know that Rick's article did not trash us, but I wish that more of AVweb's staff and readers would come and join an help to do just what you said, Get the kids flying in a great well-rounded organization. If you would like to learn a little more our unit, please go to our web site at http://sites.netscape.net/catamount007/ and take a look. You can also follow a link to Stellafane from our AE page. Of course, as with all websites, ours is always changing. I hope I didn't rant too much, but I know how hard most members of CAP work to make a good program. But we are not perfect, just volunteers like those in the Boy Scouts of America..
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| James
Garlough
12 Aug 2001 |
Letter to an Airport Kid Like Rick Durden, I am an attorney and like him, I learned to fly many years ago when I was an "Airport Kid." Since learning to fly I have enjoyed many remarkable adventures in the air and I have been privileged to meet many extraordinary people. I have always been glad that a pilot came over to talk to me when I was at the airport fence. Unfortunately, I didn't take all the advice he gave to me that day, or really thank him, but there was one piece that I did follow. I joined the Civil Air Patrol cadet program. I knew that if I worked hard in CAP that I could learn to fly. I asked hundreds of questions and pestered the seniors. I made sure to join a squadron with an airplane and an instructor. I made sure to show up every time the plane needed washing or the pilots needed help. I attended every meeting and worked hard and it paid off. I earned a pilot's certificate. It was not handed to me, I earned it. I mowed lawns, whined at my parents, delivered papers, shoveled grain, worked a menial part-time jobs making $2.25 an hour and did anything I could think of to earn money toward that license. If it hadn't been for the CAP I could never have afforded to know what it meant to reach out my hand and touch the face of God. CAP rented me the airplane, without fuel for $10.00 an hour. The instructor was free. What an incredible deal. Even today, twenty-five years later, the average unit can still supply a wet C-172 for around $35.00 to $40.00 an hour or so, and the instructor is still...free! You cannot match that very many places, and the deal is only available to kids from 14 to 21. This brings me to my point in writing. Rick Durden wrote an incredible letter to his "airport kid." Frankly, it brought tears to my eyes, until I reached the part where he slammed CAP. Was that really necessary? Sure, CAP is flawed; deeply so in some ways. But couldn't Rick have made his point without slamming CAP? Couldn't he have said something like the following:
That makes Rick's point without the broad negative brush he painted CAP with and it gets the point across. There's enough negativism out there today anyway. Why he had to spoil such a beautiful letter of encouragement with unnecessary poison is beyond me. |
| Wendy
Brough
11 Aug 2001 |
Letter to an Airport Kid I just want to say that Rick Durden's column titled "Letter to an Airport Kid" was very inspiring. I am a student pilot and as early as six months ago I was an airport kid as well. I am 17 years old and I have 35 hours now. I am working four jobs this summer (swim coach, lifeguard, swim teacher, and I work at a pilot store) and Rick is right on that part of flying costing everything you have. But of course it's completely worth it. I have met many very interesting people along the way, and I feel like I'm just picking up momentum. So thanks for the good article. 30 years from now I have vowed to myself to do the same thing: I got started by going to a pilot shop and talking with the employee. He was a pilot and offered to take me flying. Next thing I knew, he offered me a job there and he made me realize that yes, I can be a pilot if I REALLY want it! I don't know where I get my drive because my mom isn't a pilot at all, and my dad is scared of flying!!! |
| Lamar
Johnson
11 Aug 2001 |
Fuel Tank Inerting If the FAA has determined that no additional safety measures need be applied to Jet-A fueled aircraft (and there are a lot of 'em in the USAF alone), then WHAT brought down TWA 800? I would think that the insurance companies alone would demand nitrogen purging at the very least ... IF that was the cause. Something does not wash here. In fact, it stinks. AVweb responds... Lamar, according to the NTSB report, the cause of the TWA 800 explosion was the heat generated by the 747's air conditioning system in close proximity to an empty center fuselage tank. The FAA correctly determined that this problem can be eliminated through operational changes only, and does not require a fuel system redesign. --Mike Busch, Editor-in-Chief |
| Ken
Mattsson
11 Aug 2001 |
A Portable TCAS for Renter Pilots This question has been bugging me a long time. Why is nobody making a decent portable TCAS for renter pilots? After all, us renters must be the vast majority of general aviation pilots, so we constitute a big market. And when there already seem to be the technique available, just not put together in one unit, it really is amazing nobody is taking up the challenge. I mean, take a look at the market. There are two portable TPAS units out there, that work by listening to the transponders. Then there is at least one portable altitude warning device (AirSport I think), that reads the altitude by listening and decoding the transponder signal. Now, it cannot be hard, technically, for a professional electronics designer to use these circuits and add whatever is needed to get a warning device that takes into account the nearest airplane's transponder distance and the altitude coding it is constantly sending out, giving warnings only when the nearest traffic is on the same altitude as you are, or if it is at a nearby altitude climbing or descending towards your altitude, AND closing into you. There are many goodies out there even for renter pilots. Many of us wanted their own headset and purchased one, many of us wanted a good portable gps and purchased one. Many of us even got a portable transceiver, in case that aging electronics in most renter planes give up on us, AND IT DOES SOMETIMES, so we got a nice tranny with even a nav in it too. Given a chance of buying a true portable TCAS, I personally would be very willing to pay as much for it as for a all bells and whistles portable GPS! Anybody else out there that shares my hopes for a decent portable TCAS?
AVweb responds... Ken, I passed your note to my friend Darryl Phillips of AirSport Corporation who has looked at this issue extensively. His response follows. --Mike Busch, Editor-in-Chief Ken, the short answer is that the transponder was designed to benefit ATC, not benefit the pilot. For example, the innards of your transponder knows when it is communicating back and forth with nearby TCAS, it knows when those heavy aircraft are getting closer, but it won't give you any indication whatever. The slightly longer answer is that the transponder is still based on WWII-based IFF (Identification, Friend or Foe). The transponder standards were set before the advent of microelectronics. And believe it or not, although computers continue to get faster every year, the newer Mode S actually uses longer (slower) pulses than the decades-older Mode A/C. The problem with listening to other transponders is that everyone is on the same frequency (1090 MHz) and everyone in your neighborhood is transmitting at the same time. That just touches the surface, Ken. A great deal of work has been done, and is being done, and if we didn't have the FAA to deal with we would be offering collision avoidance at very competitive prices. I could have sold hundreds of systems at Oshkosh this year. There is even one transponder program underway to subvert the FAA standards, just to give us the added safety that FAA should be promoting. But it is no trivial matter to sort out weaker signals from other aircraft in the presence of a 100- to 250-watt onboard signal on the same frequency at the same time. And no trivial matter to decode an altitude when the feds didn't have the foresight to make the altitude code somehow distinct from the squawk code. For instance, code 001111010000 might mean you are reporting 4000 ft, or it might mean you are squawking 4720. Both squawk 4040 and altitude 6700 ft are represented by 001000001000. That is the coding pattern that resulted in the downing of an Iranian civil airliner a decade ago, and FAA is making no effort to correct the problem. As you noted, there are a couple of TPAS units marketed today and they have received some good reviews. My tests have been less positive but you may want to try them. We've also played with everything from thermal imaging to strobe light detection, -- those technologies are difficult in fixed installations and totally impractical in a portable unit. But stay tuned, new stuff is coming out every day and eventually we'll have velcro insrument panels where you can plant all that new unapproved equipment and fly safely, then remove it at the end of the flight and be legal again! --Darryl Phillips, AirSport Corporation Ken, let me add that AVweb's avionics editor Tom Rogers (of Avionics West) has recently flight-tested a couple of these low-cost TPAS units without success. Quoting what Tom wrote on the Avionics West site:
I've seen some of the same positive reviews in the aviation glossies that Darryl mentioned above, but frankly I remain skeptical. --Mike Busch, Editor-in-Chief |
| Dave
White
10 Aug 2001 |
Fuel Tank Inerting AVweb wrote:
The Lockheed C-5A/B has been flying for almost 30 years with just such a system. Not only does the system inert the air above the fuel in the tanks and put a slight positive presure inside the tank, it also has fire fighting capabilities for other parts of the airplane. I flew this aircraft in the reserve for 10 years, with over 3,000 hours logged in it, and I know of several incidents where this system caused what could have been major accidents to be rather minor events. One was even at an airshow with thousands of people looking on, thinking that the smoke coming from the wing was part of the airshow (Travis AFB, 1976) This system is one reason for this amazing aircraft to have an impressive safety record. I wish Lockheed would design such a system for the Boeings I fly now. And I'm sure the families of passengers on TWA 800 would agree. |
| Ensen
Mason
10 Aug 2001 |
PDAs in the Cockpit I noticed that Mike Busch mentioned awhile back that he wasn't crazy about idea of PDA-based GPSs. I thought it was a great concept so I purchased one. I found that it was difficult to see in sunlight and was a kludgy addition to my cockpit. Not to mention that the first GPS didn't work and tech support from Control Vision was non-existant. After this experience, I think I'm going to bite the bullet and purchase a panel mount GPS. AVweb responds... Jeb Burnside and several others of us have tested various PDA-based packages, and we've found that the PDA displays leave a great deal to be desired for cockpit use, particularly in bright sunlight. We're told that the next generation of PDAs will have screens that are easier to read in direct sunlight, but we'll believe that when we see it. --Mike Busch, Editor-in-Chief |
| Ensen
Mason
9 Aug 2001 |
Boeing's Air Traffic Management plan Boeing has proposed a new air traffic management plan that they claim will reduce traffic congestion today and in the future. The plan has three components. First they are going to have the onboard flight management systems (FMS) send trajectory and other flight information to ATC so they can better foresee problems. The second is a common network of information such as weather and gate assignments. These first two sound like a good idea that's overdue. The third is somewhat disturbing to me. Since ATC will better be able to manage traffic, they want to completely redesign airspace as we know it today. The new design will allow more traffic to occupy the same space. Separation rules are there for a reason. And what happens to the average General aviation user that doesn't have expensive FMS systems? I realize Boeing isn't too concerned with that aspect of aviation. But compromising safety and pushing the little guy out doesn't seem like the right approach.
AVweb responds... Yes, Ensen, the existing 3- and 5-mile lateral IFR separation rules are indeed there for a reason. The reason is that using current ATC radar technology, controllers only have a relatively vague idea of where each aircraft is. Using GPS-based position reporting and ADS-B technology, ATC will know with great precision where every aircraft is, whether it's a B747 or a C152. Even more importantly, each pilot will know with equal precision where every other threat aircraft is. Given that information in those hands, there's no conceivable reason that aircraft need to be kept 5 miles apart. While I'm not suggesting that we compress IFR aircraft to Oshkosh-arrival-push spacing, we sure can do a damn sight better than 5 miles in-trail! That doesn't require a fancy FMS, just a GPS/ADS-B setup and inexpensive threat display. That equipment isn't prohibitively expensive, and will be the price of admission to the system of the next decade just as a Mode C transponder was during the past decade. I just hope we get it before I lose my medical. <sigh> --Mike Busch, Editor-in-Chief |
| Jack O.
Foley
09 Aug 2001 |
USAF Gets Back to Business at COS Let me tell you folks, I am just sick and tired of all the people that have to complain about noise when it comes to training kids to go fight for our country. These same whiners around Colorado Springs (and other places) sure don't have any trouble climbing on a commercial aircraft and blasting off over somebody else's home when they want to get somewhere. And they will never squawk about all the revenue the Air Force Academy generates for their community. Also, (and more disturbing to me), what has happened to the concern about defense for these freedoms? We all have to pay a little of the price, be it via tax dollars or a little noise outside.. Disgusted!
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| Stan
Solomon
9 Aug 2001 |
California's Threatened GA Airports Meanwhile, re: California's airport-eating developments, I doubt whether the people responsible really did emigrate from inside-the-beltway, despite the conventional anti-government attitude. NOPE! These people have the typical California Republican "I'll do what I want when I want and no one will tell me otherwise!" overgrown-adolescent attitude. It accounts for developments with postage-stap backyards, shoddy building codes, look-alike shopping malls, etc. It goes hand-in-glove with Californian's death-wish/out-of-my-way driving habits and their children's rude behavior in public. "Paradise?" My foot!
AVweb responds... I think most of those typical California Republicans you're complaining about must all be down in Orange County, because most of the folks here in San Luis Obispo County are registered Whigs. --Mike Busch, Editor-in-Chief |
| G. C.
Jones
9 Aug 2001 |
Proposed AD on Cessna Single-Engine Landing Gear Actuators AVweb wrote:
If this AD is issued, only drug cartels, or Bill Clinton with his new $12 million book deal, will be able to afford own these aircraft. In all the years airplanes have been manufactured, one would think that the design and manufacturing process would have been refined to the point of near perfection. They did it with cars. They went from crappy trouble prone American cars of the 70s and 80s to near trouble free, reliable, long lasting cars led by the Japanese. Perhaps legislation is needed requiring the posting on each aircraft, and in all advertising material for a particular aircraft of all ADs required on that aircraft, and the estimated cost of compliance. I buy a new or used Lexus and expect to drive it 200,000 miles with little more than routine maintenance, and belts, brakes, tires etc.as required. I buy a new or used airplane, and am socked with thousands in unexpected ADs. Is there a solution? AVweb responds... Two salient points here. First, the problem with the Cessna landing gear is caused by inadequate maintenance, not by a design flaw or manufacturing defect. Second, so far as we can tell, this problem hasn't caused anyone to be seriously hurt, nor is it likely to do so in the future. For both reasons, issuance of an AD is inappropriate in this case, and owner organizations such as the Cessna Pilots Association will strongly resist any such action by the FAA. --Mike Busch, Editor-in-Chief |
| Mike
Dey
9 Aug 2001 |
Mooney Aircraft Bankruptcy So what's with the silence on the Mooney situation? Before and during AirVenture, there were updates on Mooney in every OSHflash. Then last Friday, the AOPA electronic newsletter had the bankruptcy news, followed by AviationNow and even the normal version of Aviation Week. I thought the absence from Monday's AVflash might have been an unusual oversight, but no mention today either? And nothing in Reader Mail? I hope AVweb's normally candid, high-integrity reporting isn't being compromised for some reason. Your silence on this issue is suspicious.
AVweb responds... Mike, AVweb broke this story the day Mooney filed for Chapter 11 and had that news on the street the next day. The other aviation news outlets you cite (AOPA ePilot, AviationNow, Aviation Week) were merely playing catch-up to our coverage. AVweb had them at something of a disadvantage, since we were publishing daily when the Mooney story broke, and they weren't. Since then, there really hasn't been anything to report: The company is still in Chapter 11, employees are still on furlough, no airplanes are being manufactured and the creditors are still in line to be paid. No news there at all. As we reported at the time, one of the reasons Mooney filed Chapter 11 is to minimize its debt and make the company more attractive to potential investors. Early official word from the company was this was happening. However, since no deals have apparently been inked as of yet, their optimism may have been premature. AVweb is continuing to monitor the situation at Mooney and will report anything newsworthy that happens. So far since our last coverage, that's been a big goose egg. --Joseph E. (Jeb) Burnside, Executive Editor Jeb, I think you may have missed the point of reader Dey's note. I think maybe he's talking about those brand new Mooney Eagles that the company promised to give each of the senior AVweb editors if we'd keep our mouths shut. Unfortunately, the deal fell through when we told them we wouldn't settle for anything less than their top-of-the-line Bravos. (Jes' kiddin', folks!) --Mike Busch, Editor-in-Chief |
| Tim
Urban
8 Aug 2001 |
Recreational Pilot Certificate Reading Howard Fried's column on the recreational pilots' license, I wanted to respond by telling you how much I enjoy all of Howard's writing, and add my own hypothesis as to why more would-be pilots are not asking for recreational license checkrides. I have been told that many FBOs will not rent aircraft to pilots holding tickets below that of private pilot (excepting their own instructors' solo students). This has been explained as related to insurance requirements, but I didn't see an actual policy and can't testify to the accuracy of that statement. If, indeed, there is an effective "no rental to recreational pilots" situation out there, you pretty much have to own an airplane to get much benefit from the recreational ticket. This is ironic, since the whole purpose of creating the recreational ticket was, I thought, to attract the group of individuals who were less committed to aviation (and probably less likely to spend $30,000-$200,000 on a plane).
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| Dave
Clark
7 Aug 2001 |
AVweb's Coverage of AirVenture 2001 Thank you for AVweb's excellent coverage of the Airventure 2001 event! I have been attending every year since about 1971 and have been judging Antique Aircraft for the past 17 years. I will be bringing my laptop next year and checking your coverage every day and not wait until I return home. I have told several people about your website and they enjoy it as much as I do. The older, general aviation aircraft are of special interest to me, obviously and I would like to see more coverage of them in the future. Thanks again from an "older" pilot who LOVES the Internet and computers! I am a retired pharmacist who is now starting to work on an A&P license. |
| Greg
Bullough
6 Aug 2001 |
Cherokee 6 Down in Alaska I was sorry, but not surprised, to read of the six deaths in a Cherokee 6 on the glacier near Juneau. We took a similar tour out in that area in a Cherokee 6 a couple of years ago. Flown by a (very) young pilot, we flew up the canyon where the glacier was, often only several hundred feet high. That seemed to be the MO for that tour company. They did have one twin on the line. I would have insisted on flying in it, had I known where we were going and how low. As I private pilot, I recall being rather uncomfortable in a single-engine aircraft that low and with nothing but crevasse-corrugated ice below us. There were NO emergency landing surfaces even remotely available throughout most of the half-hour tour. It struck me then, as it does now, as a really inappropriate use of a single-engine aircraft. Not a good place to be at all, where one mechanical failure nearly guarantees six fatalities. If I had it to do over again, I'd say 'My wife and I are flying in the twin, or we're getting our money back.' |
| Dick
Buck
06 Aug 2001 |
Confederate Air Force Name Change I wonder who finds the name offensive, I will always refer to them as the Confederate Air Force. We didn't try to change the name of the NAACP. |
| Dennis
Whitehead
6 Aug 2001 |
Countdown to Kitty Hawk Re: my comments about Gustav Whitehead vs. the Wrights [AVmail, 25 Jul 2001], and Mike Busch's somewhat cavalier response... I doubt I'm related to Gustav since my Dad's family was from Ireland and Gustav was from Bavaria (changed his name from Weisskopf when he came to the US). I became interested in this because of the common surname, but my research over the years leads me to believe he was indeed the first to fly. Sure, I take a lot of flak about this because of my last name, but I tell my children to stand up for what is right even when it's inconvenient, then I should do the same. There is no question the Smithsonian, which should be intensely interested in this, has a closed mind on the issue: my queries to them yield a "never heard of the guy" response, most curious since volumes of evidence supporting Whitehead have been sent to the Smithsonian over the last 100 years. Their policy is to support the Wrights, major financial contributors to the museum over the years. Whitehead, like many pioneers, died broke. It's always easiest to go with the common viewpoint, even if it's wrong. Wouldn't be the first time the correct guy didn't get the credit. Check the websites and look into it; let me know what you think. Then we can work on getting North Carolina, and now Ohio, to recall their calumnous license plates! Keep up the great newsletter.
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| Hytech
6 Aug 2001 |
Taps for the Tritanic I am very sorry to learn that Delta's last Lockheed 1011 has been retired. I have always considered this jumbo as a class design with perhaps, the best safety record per hours flown of any airliner. I will miss riding in this sturdy beast but I have had countless TWA and Delta flights since the 1011 was first introduced. In my humble opinion, this was the most comfortable airliner in the sky. I loved to see the big Lockheeds lined up at the LAX Delta apron as I cruised by on Sepulveda Blvd. They are there no longer and I miss them.
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| Bob
Huckabee
3 Aug 2001 |
Thanking Our Mentors Thanks to Michael Maya Charles for sharing his thoughts about his friend and mentor Don Hissam ("Thanking Our Mentors"). I have known many Don Hissams in my short (57 year) life. There are far too many great things to behold of life (flying) than can be done in one short human term. I have been living and breathing aviation since I can remember. There may be many blowhards around but aviation's industry, science and arts could not have come so very far in the last 100 years if there were not many many more Dons than there are blowhards. Thanks for one more in the long string of very good contributions to aviation MMC has made with his writing. |
| Andy
Eichelberger
3 Aug 2001 |
Anywhere Map at Oshkosh? I was somewhat surprised and disappointed that AVweb's Oshkosh coverage did not mention Control Vision's Anywhere Map moving map software. After Control Vision's popularity at Sun-N-Fun (I believe they were rated the most popular booth at the show), I expected lots of interesting news from Oshkosh, especially since they were unveiling some major new features including in-flight weather overlays. Flying Magazine and AOPA Pilot have both featured the system in recent issues, and there is quite a "buzz" on the internet. This software seems to be taking the aviation world by storm--why isn't AVweb covering it? AVweb responds... I suppose because none of us have been particularly impressed with PDAs as practical cockpit displays. --Mike Busch, Editor-in-Chief |
| Marlies
Campi
2 Aug 2001 |
Public Benefit Flying I've been reading about Public Benefit Flying in AVweb, a way of flying which if I'm not wrong is not known here in Spain. The reason I'm writing to you is because I would like to get more information about PBF. Can you provide the current legislation that applies for PBF or tell me where I can get it?
AVweb responds... Hola Marlies. Pilots in the U.S. fly their missions under FAA Part 91 -- the same as if your passengers were family or friends. There was a question a while back if taking the tax deduction meant that you were receiving a monetary benefit and therefore flying under the commercial regs -- Part 135. But that issue was settled and Angel Flights are officially Part 91 now. Each PBF organization has its own requirements for membership. Some insist on instrument-rated pilots or a certain minimum number of hours and some don't. It would really be up to your organization -- and the risk-tolerance of your organization's insurance -- to make up your requirements. PBF gained popularity in the U.S. because of "holes" in our health care system. People with certain ailments found they qualified for treatments they couldn't afford if they could just get to the treatment. That's how it got started. I don't know how the Spanish healthcare system operates, so your country may not need that service. But PBF in the U.S. has grown to include flying groups of people -- children with severe burns, for instance -- to camps where they can share their experiences and make new friends. I'm sure that need prevails everywhere. Let us know how your program develops in Spain. Buena suerte! --Joe Godfrey, Columnist (Profiles) |
| John
Hauck
2 Aug 2001 |
PATCO Strike Anniversary Re the comment that Reagan fired the PATCO controllers to teach them a"lesson": The strike was illegal. Or are unionized government workers above the law? They were given plenty of time to return to work, but decided otherwise. I attended the NBAA convention that year and the pilot's anger was directed at PATCO (which was picketing outside the hall), not Reagan. AVweb responds... No argument with any of that, John. The PATCO strike was illegal, and President Reagan had no choice but to do what he did. --Mike Busch, Editor-in-Chief |
| Rob
Edward
1 Aug 2001 |
Liberty XL-2 As a "Founders Club" member (meaning I am one of the first 50 happy souls to have placed a deposit on a Liberty XL-2), I wanted to bring you up to speed on the construction of airplane. In AVweb's most recent release, in a brief article about TCM's FADEC, you mention that the XL-2 is an "all-composite two-seater." Two-seater it is, but all-composite it ain't. Unlike the Europa, from which it has evolved, it has a steel "rolling chassis" ... a welded truss-like affair, which, according to Liberty, "takes the loads of the engine, nose gear, main gear and wing attachments. [It] also carries the control system assembly, fuel tank systems and seat harness attachment." The wings are of aluminum construction, with the skins bonded rather than riveted. The other flying surfaces (stabilator, rudder, flaps, ailerons and anti-servo tab) are of similar construction. However, the fuselage, which includes the vertical stabilizer, is "constructed from modular carbon fiber mouldings supported on the sub-frame/chassis." What we have here is a little Hawker Horizon with a propeller! |
| Name
Withheld
01 Aug 2001 |
PATCO Strike Anniversary You are wrong about what Reagan did about the Air Traffic Controllers. I had to work with them and I know how the troublemakers were vectoring airliners into or toward thunderstorms, how they cost the airlines billions of dollars in fuel, causing airliners to hold in the air without reason, causing diversions because airliners couldn't wait our their delay due to fuel, causing millions of passengers to miss their connections, to land at alternate airports and causing many other problems. Reagan got rid of the trouble makers in good time and the skies were safer the next day and from then on. Don't badmouth Reagan when you don't know how unsafe the skies were with that bunch of hoodlums.
AVweb responds... Our story on the 20th anniversary of the PATCO strike didn't badmouth President Reagan and didn't side with PATCO or suggest in any way that their strike was anything other than illegal and stupid. On the other hand, if you think the skies were safer in 1982 than in 1980, you clearly don't understand the situation. --Mike Busch, Editor-in-Chief |