Sommaire pour Winter 2022 de Flying

Flying|Winter 2022

FLYING CONTRIBUTORS

PETER GARRISON began his career with FLYING in 1968 as a contributing writer, and he eventually signed on as an editor. He shares his expertise on a wide array of aeronautical subjects including engineering, aircraft design, performance, and safety analysis. MARTHA LUNKEN first took to the skies in the early 1960s, not far from Lunken Airport in Ohio, where she still flies. She’s operated a flight school and served as an FAA inspector and designated pilot examiner—but now she simply enjoys flying for the sheer joy of it. LES ABEND is a 34-year veteran of American Airlines, now in semi-retirement. He bases his Piper Arrow in Florida, where he can enjoy flying to new destinations in mostly good VFR weather—though he sometimes misses having a first officer. DICK KARL spent his career in…

2 min

Flying|Winter 2022

THE EVOLUTION OF A LEGACY BRAND

IN 1995 WHEN I joined FLYING the National Science Foundation and its partners were just beginning to open up their World Wide Web for commercial use. The internet was in its infancy, with 20,000 websites in existence and little to no pathway to them for consumers. The tide slowly started to change with the launch of Google in 1998. Even so, magazine publishers had not made investments in digital publishing as it wasn’t a thing…yet. I am forever grateful to have started at FLYING when I did, as it instilled in me a great appreciation for print media and the role it plays in providing a focused and stable environment for readers to indulge, to learn, and to be inspired, free from distraction. I believe this is vital in aviation, where…

3 min

Flying|Winter 2022

TO INFINITY AND BEYOND

THE U.S. SPACE FORCE (USSF)—the nation’s newest military service branch and the first created in a generation—stands ready to engage in a new era of national defense where commercial space and military interests collide. Pushing military capabilities “to infinity and beyond” isn’t exactly new. The U.S. military began space research following World War II and prior to the formation of the Department of the Air Force. Nearly four decades later, the U.S. Air Force (USAF) unified efforts by establishing the Air Force Space Command in 1982. That mission later expanded into cyberspace as well as providing space-based communication and navigational support for U.S. forces deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. In December 2019, the command was authorized to stand alone when Congress gave the green light to the creation of the new…

5 min

Flying|Winter 2022

THE DRAW OF STOL DRAG

Short takeoff and landing. STOL. It was once just a way to describe a mod kit that put drooped wingtips and stall fences on a high-wing Cessna or Maule, lowering the stall speed in order to help a stock single-engine airplane get in and out of cool airstrips in the backcountry. Or, perhaps, it simply described the techniques needed to make the technical approaches into those hard-to-reach strips. But the term took on a whole new meaning when fat bush wheels and hopped-up engines got involved, enticing pilots to try their skill with shorter and tighter landing spots. Some of those strips look just like that—spots on the chart. Many of them lie within the mountains, in wilderness areas. But others are carved out of corn fields in the Midwest,…

5 min

Flying|Winter 2022

INTO THE LAYERS

For someone accustomed to the sounds and vibrations of an aircraft factory, the quiet hum feels nearly imperceptible at first. The industry surrounding you takes place in vignettes, where one person sits in front of an autoclave, another pirouettes fingers around an electrical board, and still another checks the tiniest bits of solder as they line up in place. And robots join human hands. One twists around an assembly, articulating in Muppet-like motions. Another tests the next assembly by dunking it over and over into a bath—be it electrolyte or another kind of liquid: water. A third traverses the floor taking one basket to another point on the assembly line. After all, it is a production line—but it takes a while to mentally place all of those elements on your…

11 min

Flying|Winter 2022

ALPINE ALTIPORTS

“The child who lives at the foot of the mountains considers with astonishment mixed with terror the gigantic world where there are entwined glittering glaciers and dark rocks, this world which is the infinite, the allpowerful.”—MAURICE HERZOG, “LA MONTAGNE” FLYING HIGH Courchevel (LFLJ) is well known as a challenging airport worldwide, with stunning views, and a staggering appearance to the neophyte and expert pilot alike. When we pinned back the curtains on this place, we confirmed that caution, dedicated training, and careful planning are key to enjoying this runway cradled in the Alps. The Courchevel Altiport is one of nine high-elevation airports in the French Alps with the “altiport” designation. The network of altiports, which are improved and generally paved, complements a series of “altisurfaces” that include grass strips…

9 min

Flying|Winter 2022

WINTERIZE YOUR FLYING

Lots of pilots hang up their wings during the winter—but it doesn’t have to be like that. Though shorter days and chilly weather combine with ice, snow, and rain to make flying more of a challenge, there’s no reason WEATHER WATCH With the explosion of robust weather sources available through apps and other digital platforms, there is no such thing anymore as a single “official” FAA weather briefing. However, obtaining reports that require a discreet login or a call can be helpful—if something goes wrong, one of the first things that an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) looks for is if the pilot obtained a weather briefing. A bonafide login or the pilot’s voice on a tape provides proof. Looking out the window doesn’t count. Because winter…

7 min

Flying|Winter 2022

WHERE TO GO IN AN AIRPLANE?

GO-TO SPOTS for an airplane getaway change over the years as you, your access to airplanes, and the capability of those airplanes evolve. Where a short trip from Hayward Executive Airport (KHWD) to Nut Tree Airport (KVCB), just north of Travis Air Force Base, was great fun in a Cessna 172 when you were 25, now you’re thinking Cabo San Lucas in the Cirrus, with a spouse and a kid or two. For that matter, a dream destination might mean something different to your spouse/partner/love interest or “just friend” than it does to you. For the pilot, the flight is the thing. For the pax, the destination is the focus. Your special friend may like the exotic feel of a Bahamas destination, but for you it is all in the…

6 min

Flying|Winter 2022

SECOND SOLO

IT FELT AS THOUGH I were flying through a time warp…like it was March 1962, when I made my first solo flight. But it wasn’t 1962. It was December 2021, and I was “first soloing” for the second time in my 59-year career as a pilot. My instructor, Emerson Stewart, signed me off at a uniquely charming grass field—Red Stewart Airfield (40I) in Waynesville, Ohio—named for its founder, Emerson’s grandpa “Red” and operated continuously by succeeding generations of the Stewart clan since 1946. With my Cessna 180 in for annual, I was learning to fly again and taking the private pilot practical test in one of the Stewarts’ Cessna 150s. The painful nine-month hiatus—imposed by the FAA for my misbehavior—was finally over. I don’t know if you remember your first…

5 min

Flying|Winter 2022

OLD FRIENDS WHO’VE JUST MET

TO RECALL A LINE from the sweet song, “I’m Going to Go Back There Someday,” that Kermit the Frog sings in The Muppet Movie: “We’re old friends who’ve just met.” After decades of a similar format, FLYING has evolved into a new version of an old friend. As pilots, when we move on to new aircraft—upgrading or transitioning—we often find ourselves looking for familiar anchors in the new space. Part of the continuity we latch onto in a new-to-us airplane lies in the instrument panel. It was once the standard six-pack of dials, and the BendixKing KX-155 Silver Crown series com radios we knew how to use without thinking. When we jump into new airplanes now, we’re often confronted by new displays and GPS navigators in the panel—or perhaps we have…

3 min

Flying|Winter 2022

ASK FLYING

That knowledge is securely stored in the brains of Raytheon retirees and seldom-visited Textron Aviation file cabinets, but the most likely explanation is simply that they found that a boot on the fin wasn’t necessary. Ice accretion on the fin would have a negligible effect on the weight and drag of the airplane, but it might affect rudder effectiveness and therefore VMC (minimum controllable airspeed with one engine producing power). Historically, most business jets, with engines close to the centerline, have not needed fin deice, but turboprops—with more widely-spaced engines—have. When Beech enlarged the original King Air and converted it to a T-tail, the airplane acquired a longer fuselage and a significantly larger vertical fin. Between the increased fin area, the longer tail moment arm, and the tip-plate effect of…

1 min

Flying|Winter 2022

FLYING IN WINTER

WE’RE NOT GOING to talk about “winter flying.” This is about flying in winter—when you are on a scheduled commute. It’s about adding extra time to warm up the airplane and clear the ice and snow from in front of the hangar. And, it’s about all the things that can go wrong when you are trying to warm up the airplane and clear ice and snow from in front of the hangar. During my first years of flying from Maine to Massachusetts, I didn’t have a hangar, so I didn’t have to clear the ice and snow from in front of it. Instead, my airplane, a 160 hp Piper Tri-Pacer, The Rocket, was parked on the ramp at Central Maine Regional Airport (KOWK) at Norridgewock. I had hired a local…

8 min

Flying|Winter 2022

THE PILOTS OF STOL DRAG

There is no wind at the Dead Cow lakebed northwest of Reno, Nevada. Yet the sand-colored dust swirls above the ground, obscuring two small airplanes, running side-by-side, spinning around nose to tail. The engines rev up and the pilots push them to the max before pulling the power to idle around halfway down the course. In a cartoonlike drag race, the pilots pull their airplanes into a slip to slow down quickly, land beyond the line from which they had started—2,000 feet from the turn-around line—and hit the brakes to come to a complete stop. This is the World Championship Short Takeoff and Landing (STOL) Drag competition at the High Sierra Fly-In (HSF). Like cowboys racing their horses around barrels, the pilots push their airplanes through the course, intent on…

6 min

Flying|Winter 2022

EXPANDING THE SAFETY ENVELOPE

TWO RECENT RELEASES from Garmin, Smart Rudder Bias and Smart Glide, show the evolution of enhanced stability protection (ESP)—Garmin’s "telepathy" that kicks in to assist pilots when the airplane strays outside of normal-category operations. In an interview with Garmin flight test engineer Joshua McKinney, I asked about how these newest safety features fit into the Autonomí suite’s philosophy. “The thing that helps people understand what is expected of the machine and what is expected of the pilot [is that] a lot of things happen up front automatically, but after that initial assistance, then nothing happens automatically,” McKinney said. Garmin’s lead demonstration pilot Jessica Koss and I flew with both Smart Glide and Smart Rudder Bias on back-to-back days so I could understand how each played a role in expanding the…

2 min

Flying|Winter 2022

A FLYING FOUNDATION

It is not hyperbole to say that had it not been for Charles Lindbergh’s flight across the Atlantic, FLYING magazine might not exist today. Lindbergh’s epic flight and the excitement it created inspired William B. Ziff—advertising executive and publisher of a humor magazine—to branch out into the world of aviation. Ziff, who served in the Army Air Service during World War I, envisioned the publication as a source of information and entertainment that would encourage people to pursue aviation as either a hobby or a vocation. Ziff partnered with Bernard Davis, a publishing executive, to launch the publication in 1927. THE 1920S Popular Aviation Premieres In August 1927, the first issue of Popular Aviation hit the newsstands, published by the Popular Aviation Publishing Company of Chicago. The first cover featured…

14 min

Flying|Winter 2022

AFTER THE STORM

ON THE BRIGHT BLUE morning of March 12, 2020, my wife Dawn dropped me off at an eerily quiet Orlando airport, where I commuted north on a strangely empty airplane to a bewilderingly uncrowded Atlanta airport to begin my first day of line flying as a newly-minted Boeing 737 captain. I checked in at the main crewroom, which normally thrums with activity—it was dead silent. There were plenty of pilots there, but they mostly wandered alone, gray and ghostlike, eyes studiously averted. A few gathered around the north wall where three TVs were silently replaying the unthinkable announcement: The U.S. borders were closed, indefinitely, to most citizens of the European Union. The modern world’s busiest commercial air routes were severed, my airline’s bread and butter swept clear from the table…

6 min

Flying|Winter 2022

A NIGHT TO REMEMBER

I REALLY WANTED TO get home that night. It was approaching 9 p.m., and I had already flown twice and taught a ground session earlier that day. Now I was scheduled to do a multiengine checkout, at night, with a student who had just completed their multiengine instructor check ride hours earlier. Up until this point, I had accrued nearly 1,000 hours of multi time over the preceding calendar year, except that leading up to this flight, I hadn’t been in a multiengine airplane in nearly three months. I was bunching up against my 90-day currency window, and I admittedly was a little anxious about the flight to come. Incidentally, earlier that week, I completed a line oriented flight training (LOFT) session for recurrency. LOFT is carried out in a…

6 min

Flying|Winter 2022

A GIANT LEAP FOR THE ONE PERCENT

WE HEARD A LOT in August 2021 about the “edge of space” and the life-changing effects of going to it. But wait a minute—does space even have an edge? Space is everywhere. It permeates everything, as water does a sponge. In fact, the volume each of us occupies in the world is mostly empty space. What Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, and their clients went to the edge of was not space, but the Earth’s atmosphere. And of course, the atmosphere does not have a real edge either; it just gradually gets harder and harder to detect. People realized, way back at the beginning of our spacefaring era, that defining the edge of “outer” space—that is, all space that is not within a certain matter-rich sphere, precise diameter to be determined—would…

6 min

Flying|Winter 2022

CAPTURING THE VISION

WE HAVE SPENT the last few months reimagining the future of FLYING’s print edition, and we are excited to present our first issue capturing the vision that we’ve developed as a team. The new FLYING has almost twice as many editorial pages, higher quality paper, bespoke photography, and long-form stories, all focusing on what it means to be a pilot and an aviation lover. We are fanatical about aviation at FLYING and wanted the new version of FLYING magazine to reflect this. We had one overarching goal with the new edition: to make FLYING so engaging and captivating that it would be something that you would be proud to prominently display on the coffee table in your home, office—or hangar. We know that many of you already collect issues stretching back…

2 min

Flying|Winter 2022

EL MONTE, CALIFORNIA VOR-A

THE POMONA VOR on the VOR-A approach to El Monte, California (KEMT), may not be on the FAA’s “keep list,” when considering the eventual transition to a minimum operational network (MON) of VORs. But it’s a good example of a VOR approach for our analysis. A VOR approach procedure may look simple at first, but it can get a little complex. For as long as the VOR serving this approach remains in service, if you happen to fly it, take your time and understand the details. A FEEDING ONTO THE APPROACH A pilot might choose to use the PDZ VOR or the PRADO intersection from the enroute environment when establishing themselves onto the approach. Both points serve as initial approach fixes (IAFs) with feeder routes (denoted by the heavy black…

3 min

Flying|Winter 2022

ROTOR RESEARCH

AS A WORLDWIDE bestselling author of 25 forensic thriller novels, Patricia Cornwell has sold more than 100 million books, translated into 36 languages, to readers in 120 countries. Her novels are known for having intricate, well-thought-out storylines, with many thousands of hours of research used to add factual details as the plot unfolds. Since 1999, much of that fact-finding has been done from the right seat of one of the many helicopters she has owned and flown. Cornwell has owned two Bell 407s, a Bell 427, and a Bell 430, and she’s leased other helicopters over the years. A private pilot with a rotorcraft rating, she has gained a new perspective on her 1,400 flight hours by viewing research locations from the air. When Lucy, a character in her novels,…

6 min

Flying|Winter 2022

MODS FOR STOL DRAG

Like a car tuned for a particular kind of race, the airplanes that compete in STOL Drag events need an extra touch—whether their pilots take the starting line at Reno, High Sierra, or any of the local meets in between. At the top of the competition, in the gold class, a stock aircraft is officially a thing of the past. While a stock—albeit stripped—aircraft could potentially capture a podium position in the bronze class, the gold class requires much more modification to be competitive. The silver class is another story—this class remains somewhere in the middle—and through 2022, you may be able to see an aircraft with little more than a powerful engine capture a win. However, modifications are up and coming in this class, as well, as more players…

4 min

Flying|Winter 2022

LUSCOMBE 8

Study aircraft types long enough and you begin to realize that for each mission there are typically a handful of suitable options from which to choose. Each offers its own individual blend of strengths and weaknesses. Narrowing the field becomes a matter of choosing the blend that seems most appealing to you. When it comes to simple, economical, and fun stick-and-rudder flying, one of the best-known examples is the Piper Cub. The Cub is a well-loved, fabric-covered airplane with tandem seating. More than 20,000 Cubs have been built. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, though, and for nearly half the price, similarly fun stick-and-rudder flying can be had in the Luscombe 8. Less popular than the Cub—but still relatively common—nearly 6,000 in the series have been produced since 1937, and…

9 min

Flying|Winter 2022

HONDAJET 2600 CONCEPT

IMAGES COURTESY OF HONDA AIRCRAFT Chatter filled the Honda Aircraft exhibit at the National Business Aviation Association’s Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition in Las Vegas in October 2021. Dramatic music came on over the loudspeakers along with a video showing the original HondaJet, and then the outline of a larger bizjet on the drape. A gasp, then hands clapping could be heard from the large crowd gathered around as the drape fell, revealing a full-scale mockup of the HondaJet 2600 Concept. The original HondaJet has seen great success, with about 200 airplanes delivered since its certification in December 2015. However, some customers have expressed a need for a larger HondaJet family member that can go “coast to coast and carry more than three passengers comfortably,” Honda Aircraft Company’s president and…

4 min

Flying|Winter 2022

CONFIRMATION ‘BUY’IS’

A GOLD 1982 NISSAN 280ZX: I loved this car from the moment I set eyes on her in the local classifieds. She had lived a full life when I took possession, and though I tried to revive her, the damage was already done. Instead of the wild, romantic partner I had imagined I would be, I became her hospice care worker, throwing good money after bad to merely keep her alive. The poet Emily Dickinson wasn’t alive when Nissan Motor incorporated, but she anticipated my romanticism, my stupidity: “The heart wants what it wants, or else it does not care.” The previous owner did not trick me, or withhold any information. I had made my decision to buy long before we ever had contact, in my bedroom looking at that…

5 min

Flying|Winter 2022

A CONTRAIL OF TURMOIL LEFT BEHIND

OFTENTIMES, I AM ASKED the question, “Do you miss flying for the airline?” I sense an expectation that the reply should be an affirmation that my profession defined my identity. For some pilots that might be true. Perhaps the type-A captain mentality has become ingrained in my character. (Camera pans to spouse and friends: Chins nodding; eyes rolling.) The simple answer is, “No, I don’t miss the airline.” Most folks assume my response is because of COVID-19, inclusive of lunatic passengers, inconsistent schedules, and more. I don’t envy my colleagues, but virus protocols wouldn’t have dictated my early departure had I still been employed. The industry is not a stranger to turmoil, nor are we strangers to the resiliency required to perform the mission of safely flying people, regardless of…

5 min

Flying|Winter 2022

A SUPER ACE KEEPS FLYING

THE DO-IT-YOURSELF spirit permeated the early days of flying, just as it does today. FLYING’s predecessor, Popular Aviation, included drawings and instructions for crafting a pilot’s own version of the Corben Super Ace so that anyone could manufacture the brilliant little bird. In a series of four articles, from April to October 1935, the designer himself, O.G. Corben, detailed how to build the light airplane—powered by a Ford Model A engine—from plans. Today, owner Steve Thomas cares for his own Super Ace, NX17288. The project was started in the 1970s by craftsmen Dave Warren and Curtis Corn, and completed in 1984. Photographer Leonardo Correa Luna captured this Ace in flight, like a time capsule from the past, as shot from a Cessna 170 flown by Tina Thomas near Poplar Grove…

1 min