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Homebuilders Workshop: Quickbuilds – the Long but mostly the Short of It
By Ed Wischmeyer
In the beginning of homebuilding were plans. Then came complete plans that included details like the canopy and the cowling. Then along came the first kits, which had all the materials you needed for the plane, a major advancement, even if it was all raw stock. Perhaps it was the Christen Eagle that first had pieces more or less ready to assemble, but the FAA started to get concerned that the builder wasn’t doing enough work.
Then the arguments proliferated, real and specious. One argument that prevailed was that a builder didn’t need to drive all 50,000 rivets for “education and recreation,” the FAA’s accepted motivations for homebuilding. A few hundred would be enough. And a builder shouldn’t have to build all 36 wooden wing ribs… you get the idea.
Flying into Writing: LA Photo-Shoot
By Eric McCarthy
Climbing out of Palomar (KCRQ) on the Alpha North departure, we remained relatively low as we turned north over the coastline. Cleared to change frequencies, we contacted SoCal Approach and requested VFR Flight Following for our photo mission in the LA Basin. We had several sites to photograph, the most challenging of which would be a site just south of downtown Los Angeles. I knew we’d be handed off a few times before we got to our sites, so I made sure they knew we had several sites but focused on the first and second when describing our intentions.
I’m happy to provide detailed descriptions of our proposed routing, but I didn’t want to tie up the frequency unless requested to. I also know from experience that little of my explanation would be passed on to the next controller; they’re busy and primarily want to know where we’re headed on this leg, what altitude we’ll be at over the target, when we’re “on-station,” when we’re done, and where we’re headed next. Much beyond that is superfluous.
As we approached Oceanside, the controller reminded us that R-2503A was active, so we planned our flight to be about two miles off the coast to avoid Camp Pendleton’s traffic. Approaching John Wayne (KSNA), we descended to 1,300’ to remain clear of their Class C airspace. The plan was to fly to Emmy and Eva, the two oil platforms just off the coast north of the Huntington Beach Pier, then fly over the Seal Beach VOR (SLI), and Los Alamitos AAF (KSLI) to the first target.
Upon reaching the oil platforms, SoCal requested that we continue on our “present heading” for traffic, but quickly cleared us to turn on course and transit the Los Alamitos airspace at 1,500’. Our site was about eight miles north of the airport, in an industrial park in the congested Norwalk area. I identified our site a few miles out, and we prepared for the photos. I turned over the controls to my trusty copilot, Jerry, strapped on the Nikon, opened the window, and slid the seat back. A few turns over the target, and we were off to find the LA site.
Downtown Los Angeles (Eric McCarthy)We had to stay down low to remain clear of the Class Bravo, which started at 2,000’ along our route. ATC called traffic ahead, and we spotted a police helicopter crossing our path 500’ below and a couple of miles in the distance. As we approached downtown Los Angeles, we located our next target site just a few hundred yards from the high-rise buildings towering over the city, their tops reaching to our altitude. The location provided us with a spectacular view of the great skyscrapers of the city and the Hollywood hills beyond.
At our location, the controllers turned LAX traffic from downwind to base directly overhead. We had airliners of all description passing over us as we circled the site, but the most impressive were the big Boeings and Airbuses, like this Emirates Airbus A380, turning base for runway 24R. With a takeoff weight of more than 1.2 million pounds, an overall length of 238 feet, and a wingspan of 261 feet, the double-decker A380 is a big bird, and it looks even bigger when it’s hanging, apparently motionless, a mere 1,500’ over you!
Homebuilder's Workshop: Serious Cross-Country
By Ed Wischmeyer
One of my definitions of “rich” is not having to take the airlines. So, trying to be rich, I reserved a cottage in Arizona for the month of May to help determine if I wanted to retire there. I then loaded the RV-9A to the gills and set off on a planned three-day trip from Savannah. Six days later, I arrived, thanks to embedded severe thunderstorms, low IFR, and high winds. Not to be deterred, I decided to fly myself home rather than trade the RV-9A in on something faster, like a unicycle. I set off on the three-day trip and got home, you guessed it, six days later.
The RV-9A was adequate for this trip, but barely big enough. I had a cardboard box in the right seat that held the oxygen bottle (O2 significantly increases my tolerance for turbulence), snacks, and everything heavy that I wanted to keep out of the baggage compartment to keep the c.g. under control. Part of the problem was that with a bar across the fuselage, shoulder height, right behind the seat backs, it’s extremely clumsy to access the baggage compartment in flight, so the right seat got converted to in-flight-accessible storage space.
Contrails: The Dream
By Steve Weaver
Most people dream. Scientists say that in fact everyone dreams, just not everyone remembers dreaming.
Of the ones who do remember, a small percentage will tell you that they have reoccurring dreams. These are the same or similar dreams that return to us, unbidden and seemingly without a waking connection, hijacking our regular nighttime programming.
I’m not sure what opens the door to our subconscious and lets out reoccurring dreams, but no doubt something from our waking hours has touched us. A hope or a fear that we’ve given thought to, or perhaps a reminder from our past has sent an unseen signal that calls for a rerun of the dream.
Flying Into Writing
By Eric McCarthy
Hello world! Welcome to my first column in In Flight USA magazine. I’m excited to share my experiences of the past, present, and future with you. I look forward to bringing you along as I explore my new home in the southwest, present “lessons learned,” and advance my aviation knowledge and skills. This should be fun!
Allow me to provide a little background: I earned my Private Pilot License in 1980, fresh out of college – I’m a long-time flyer, if not a high-timer. My father, an MIT-trained aeronautical engineer, had introduced me to flying at a young age. He earned his PPL and took me up in a rented Cessna 172 when I was in third or fourth grade. It was a short hop from Hanscom Field (KBED), just west of Boston, to Norwood Airport (KOWD), just south of Boston, but that was all it took. To see the world from a few thousand feet was just magical to a young boy! I was hooked! I couldn’t get enough of it! I loved the maps and figuring out the “secret” codes they contained about the airports, terrain, and obstacles. I’d read and cut out pictures of airplanes from his Aviation Week and Flying magazines, often before he’d had a chance to see them – drove him crazy!
What's Up: Service
By Larry Shapiro
I’ve had so much fun thinking about how many times and places we see and use the word: “service.” Here are a few of my thoughts on this important word. (Please feel free to share some of your favorites and not so favorites).
I know I’ll miss some, but for starters, I was in the Service … and I’m very proud of it. How many times have you heard the word used when there is a uniform involved?
I couldn’t guess the amount of service stations I’ve used, and how I evaluated each of them. I still do. Ever wonder why they’re called “Service Stations?”
A great meal at your favorite restaurant with bad service becomes a least favorite place. On the other hand, great service at your favorite greasy spoon or drive through becomes a regular. I’ve always loved this: A good meal served badly ends up being a bad meal. Bad food coupled with good service is what you remember and will go back to.
In conversations about retail stores, hotels, and other places of pleasure, the questions of service always comes up. We can’t help ourselves; we all are aware of the “service” provided.
What's Up:
I know I get credit for more than my share of headaches bending your ears over my favorite subject; “No more third class medical.” I’ve shortened the words for space reasons, but I had little or no support from many of you that it might actually happen. Well, if I were a bettingman,who come to think of it I am, I believe it’s going to happen.
If you know me, you’ve probably heard me use the words, “Pilots have no common sense!” Well, in the end, I am going to be right; we just don’t have too much common sense, and I wish we had more, heck, I’d be happy if we just had some.
Keep your logbooks crossed that I’m right on this one … I have to be. It just makes good common sense.
“Connectivity or Distractibility: One Pilot’s take on Smart Devices in the Cockpit”
By Shanon Kern
As a “Millennial,” my generation has grown accustomed to seeking out and purchasing the latest and greatest smart technology.
We are a connected generation who depend on technology to pay for our coffee, buy our music, reserve an airplane, and control the appliances in our homes. The cockpit, for me, provided a new space to connect with my devices. With a phone and a tablet, I had instant en-route access to my connected world. In theory, I could book a plane, check the weather, and navigate across the country with the same device I use to write this article. Until recently, the use of connected technology in the cockpit seemed like a no-brainer. I found a plethora of different “apps” that allowed me to do almost everything flight related digitally. Soon, I had no need for my analog E6B flight computer. My tablet was much lighter and easier to manage in-flight than sectionals, approach plates, and AFDs. My access to information seemed to be limitless.
Contrails: Twisted Humor Stalks the Skies
By Steve Weaver
I’ll admit it, during the years that I was instructing, as much as I loved to fly and to teach flying, there were times when I needed a break. The years that I was running the little country flight school in the late sixties and teaching eight to ten hours a day for weeks without a break, I sometimes longed for a change of pace. It was hard, unrelenting work.
But the schedule of the flight school dictated the hours that we flew and in the summer, we tried to take advantage of the long days. We harvested every hour that we could to help us stand against the long, dark winter that was to follow, and summer days when I could just relax were few.
So sometimes I did dumb things that amused me, just to break up the routine a bit. It was nothing that I could go on the road with, but those incidents served to give me chuckles and most of the time, they gave them to the whole airport.
Fighting Flight
By Shanon Kern
C-FHAD making a water landing. (Courtesy Shanon Kern)On a warm June day, in Vancouver B.C., my family and I watched in awe as small single engine air taxis took off from the bay and disappeared over the horizon. I could see the amazement and wonder in my children’s eyes as the single engine caravan taxied out to the center of the bay and magically lifted upward. In an instant, I was transported back to my own childhood amazement of flight. My Father, a newly minted commercial pilot, flew the “Sports book” from Laughlin, Nev. to Las Vegas, Nev. every night for the casinos. I was his sleeping stow away. By the age of five, my mind was convinced that I would be a pilot like my father.
By the age of seven, my father had changed careers and stopped flying. Somewhere over the years, as life progressed, I had forgotten about my young dreams of becoming a pilot. I was left instead with a completely unfounded and debilitating fear of heights and flying. I spent my entire twenties distancing myself from the dreams of the younger “me”.
EAA to FAA: ADS-B Mandate Fraught With Hurdles for GA
Cost, Compliance, Lack of Benefits Preventing Adoption
EAA Vice President of Advocacy and Safety, Sean Elliott, told the FAA on Oct. 28 that while the recreational aviation community is willing to work toward a modernization of the national airspace system, mandated ADS-B compliance is still fraught with too many hurdles to motivate general aviation aircraft owners to install the costly equipment.
Speaking at an FAA-sponsored “call to action” summit on ADS-B and NextGen in Washington, D.C., Elliott emphasized that the low installation rate in GA aircraft thus far–only about 6,200 aircraft out of 157,000 in the fleet––is due to a dubious cost/benefit ratio for aircraft owners. The FAA has mandated that ADS-B be installed in those aircraft by 2020 as a cornerstone of the NextGen system.
Safe Landings: November 2014
Non-Towered Aircraft Operations
At an airport without an operational control tower, sometimes referred to as an “uncontrolled” airport, communication is one of the key elements in maintaining proper aircraft separation. Use of the Common Traffic Advisory Frequency (CTAF) helps to assure the safe, orderly flow of arrival and departure traffic. FAR 91.113 cites basic right-of-way rules and FAR 91.126 establishes traffic-flow rules at non-towered airports. The Aeronautical Information Manual (AIM) and FAA Advisory Circular 90-66A expand on these regulations to define procedures for operations at non-towered airports. Staying visually alert is the final measure of defense against aircraft that may be operating without a radio or without regard to the standard non-towered airport procedures. The following ASRS reports highlight some of the problems commonly associated with non-towered airport operations.
Unexpected Opposition – Two Opposite Runway Takeoff Incidents
A C680 Flight Crew had to abort their takeoff when an aircraft made an unannounced departure on the opposite runway. It is not known if the “other airplane” failed to use a radio or did not have one. For aircraft without a radio installed, the use of a hand-held transceiver is highly recommended at busy non-towered airports.
What's Up: November 2014
Un-Controlled Airport Traffic
By Larry Shapiro
I am aware that this subject is not going to change the entire aviation world and that we’ve all got our own opinions about this stuff, but how often do you actually think about the possibility of a mistake in your choice of the active runway on an airport without a tower? Remember, it’s just a bunch of pilots like you making the calls and they are seldom if ever challenged.
I believe the rules say no straight in approaches at a non-tower airport… but then, I guess rules are still made to be broken now and then, and I’d have to line up behind those of you that have done exactly that, made a straight-in approach to one of those do-it-yourself airports. With that said, I’d like to put this on the agenda for your next hangar flying meeting. You’re a few miles out getting ready to announce to the world that you intend to land on the above-described airport, no tower, no one sitting in an airport office pretending to be a controller, and any other options I may have forgotten about.
What's Up - March 2014
The Food was Great… But How About the Service?
By Larry Shapiro
I know, you’ve never heard or said these words before, but I know better! I can’t count the times I’ve said them. I know that great food sometimes prevails over bad service, but more than often it’s the other way around. Wonderful meals have been ruined by bad service.
We live in a world where the word “service” is used, and used often. It is not only used often, but also used in so many other ways and sometimes misused.
On Sundays and other observed Sabbaths, “Did you enjoy the Service?”
Learning to Fly in the 1940s
By Charlie Briggs
Charles BriggsAviation buffs read a lot of flying stories from pros who write articles on a regular basis. While often entertaining and informative, hearing from professional pilots sometimes lacks the real world experiences of the hundreds of thousands of aircraft owners and flyers who were never professional pilots, but simply lived with an airplane as a permanent family member. Such is the case with Charlie Briggs, a pilot for more than 65 years, having a career that included ranching, agricultural services and consulting, computer technologies and business concept development. In Flight USA invites readers to join Charlie as he reminisces about flying and life. You will experience a side of aviation that is informative, entertaining and personal. Enjoy.
My father was always interested in flying. He started flying Culver Cadets just as WWII occurred. Of course this stopped all private aviation. At the end of the “curfew,” after the defeat of Japan, Dad resumed his flying, mostly for business purposes. Being in the cattle “order” buying business, having your own plane was a real creative help, especially before the super superhighways and extensive commercial airline network matured.
General Aviation Airport Makes Comeback in Texas
By Dan Namowitz, AOPA
When a private airport south of Lubbock, Texas, invited the public for an October Saturday of flying, food, and family fun, the airpark’s new owner summed things up with this comment on his airport’s Facebook page: “Wow is all I can say!”
The Oct.19 fly-in event at Lubbock Executive Airpark was clearly a hit with area aviation fans who turned out in hundreds to celebrate the re-emergence of an airport that as recently as last spring had appeared headed for other uses. That unhappy prospect had evaporated when Mark Drake, a local businessman and pilot who was keenly interested in keeping aviation alive at the airport, intervened.
Contrails - October 2013
Simpson Field Days
By Steve Weaver
The mid ‘60s is a time in my aviation past that I look back on with great fondness. Although almost my entire working life has been in aviation, the time of my casting off into the world of flying is special to me. It was a sort of total immersion of mind, and perhaps of soul as well, in everything aviation and I find the extent of it really hard to describe. Although it would be several years before I would be flying for a living, I think my interest and enthusiasm for airplanes and the people who flew them was at its apex during this era. Aviation consumed me, seeming to come pulsing and red hot from my very core, and there was seldom an hour that I was awake when I wasn’t having thoughts aeronautical.
At the time, I was employed as a rep for a national company and traveled three states by automobile, selling their products. I spent days and nights on the road, traveling from town to town, and while I wasn’t unhappy with my job, it was something that I did in order to be able to spend time at the airport. Evenings in fine weather and when I wasn’t away from home would find me either flying or tinkering with the Luscombe that I owned and based at the Clarksburg airport, about a mile from my home.
Contrails: An Errant Airman
By Steve Weaver
This shot of the Beechcraft Twin Bonanza was taken at the Aurora, IL airport in 1987. (Glenn E. Chatfield)In my early days in aviation, many of the errant airmen that I happened upon were WWII vets and sometimes ex Army Air Corps flyers; as a young pilot, their age and experience seemed to me to afford them a certain license to be… well, different.
One of those types that come readily to mind would be Richard. Richard B. was the owner of a Beechcraft Twin Bonanza and he and the airplane were memorable to me, since they were the only twin/pilot combo that dared to frequent our 1,600-foot sod strip. He was from Elkins, just a few miles to the east of us and he flew the mighty Twin Bo in pursuit of his business as a lumber broker. He also flew it in pursuit of a covert heart’s interest that happened to reside in our town, hence the frequent visits by the big twin.
Magnetic Compass Requirement Dropped from Private Pilot Task
By Dan Namowitz (AOPA)
The FAA has reworded a navigation task in the Private Pilot Practical Test Standards (PTS) for Airplanes (FAA-S-8081-14B) to allow applicants to train and take their flight tests in aircraft equipped with magnetic direction sensing systems other than a magnetic compass.
The action, explained in a note added May 30 to the current version of the PTS, will spare some flight-training operators thousands of dollars in added costs to install compasses in training aircraft.
The problem arose after an element of the pilotage and dead reckoning task was changed in the current version of the PTS — without explanation — specifying that a magnetic compass be used to demonstrate turns to a heading.
Contrails - July 2013
Flying Odd
By Steve Weaver
If you enjoy interacting with people who are just a tick off of the homogenous type our cookie-cutter world seems to turn out, you’ll find that aviation is the mother lode of really interesting characters. Our industry seems to attract the person who is off a half beat or so, in marching to the drum that society thumps for all of us.
Through the years I’ve met many of these flying mavericks, and while my experience with them wasn’t always a wonderful thing at the time, it was never boring and I look back with a certain fondness to almost all of them.
One that comes readily to mind is Dwight. Dwight D. was an unforgettable and unwashed escapee from a John Steinbeck novel and one of the first local pilots I met when I came to the almost deserted little airport in Buckhannon in 1968.
Buckhannon became home for my flying school by default in a way, when I was declared persona-non-grata at the Clarksburg Airport, where I had been instructing flying students. This banishment came about when the owner of the airport’s existing flight school, who conveniently was also the airport manager, one morning took off his flight school hat, put on his airport manager hat and wrote me a letter on official airport letterhead asking me to cease and desist my instructing activities.