Indice dei contenuti per Spring 2022 in Flying

MORE THAN 150 STARTUPS worldwide claim to be developing electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft—also known as eVTOLs. In 2021 and into 2022, a handful show real signs that they’re closing in on success. The eVTOL movement aims to create emissions-free air taxis that provide short, environmentally friendly flights over traffic-congested cities. The past year brought several encouraging trends for this fledgling industry. First, air taxi manufacturers cut deals with some of the world’s most successful and respected passenger airlines. Also, more auto manufacturers threw their chips on the table. On Wall Street, investors upped the ante—declaring a front-runner and predicting that the eVTOL market will be worth more than $1 trillion by 2040. All the while, major eVTOL companies reported significant progress toward type certification. For years, eVTOL companies…

Do you look at a Beech 18 and see the heritage in its lines? The model has become so iconic to the modern pilot’s eyes that we tend to look at its silhouette in the sky, and see a reference only to that classic twin. But those radials thrusting skyward have an inheritance from the design that came before it—the Beech Model 17, known to most as the Staggerwing—in those very engines, and much of the technology used initially to turn the company’s flagship single into a multiengine work of art. MODEL DEVELOPMENT More than half of those originally sold to new owners in the 1940s went to pilots who already knew the Beech 17, according to Robert K. Parmerter, author of the comprehensive Beech 18: A Civil & Military…

THROUGH THE AIR, over the ground, across the water. Gravel, dirt, grass, asphalt, snow, and ice. Short distances. Long distances. A body in motion tends to stay in motion. I am that body. There is an essential truth about human beings and movement. It’s in our genes. We were made for motion. We have figured out a way to move in all environments where most of our neighbors on this planet excel in only one. A penguin can walk, but it isn’t pretty. A human can outpace a horse over the distance of a marathon. Dissatisfied with terrestrial bonds, we refused to stay in our lane and took to the skies—something our bodies are still millennia behind in terms of evolution. Go get your instrument ticket if you’d like to…

THE AXIOM IN THE SUBTITLE provokes a smile in most of you…or at least a smirk. Not only does it endorse materialism, but it suggests the pursuit of toy accumulation is competitive. Although we won’t admit it, most of us accept that not only is such a pursuit unattainable, it shouldn’t be the focus of our lives. That being said, it sure is fun to dream. I was fortunate enough to spend a day doing just that with one classic Piper Arrow and about 3,500 classic cars. For a few years I have annoyed my wife with the notion of purchasing a car to match my birth year. The idea was unrealistic. The logistics of storage and maintenance intermingle with the trepidation that such an automobile could only be seen…

THE AERONCA “COLLEGIAN” zoomed through the pylons on the cover of the October 1933 issue of Popular Aviation, to entice readers to participate in a model contest that would take the winner on a “coast-to-coast air trip” or one of 20 other prizes. That trip? A 6,000-mile journey on one of the new “United Air Lines” Boeing 247s—the all-metal, twin-engine, low-wing precursor to the Douglas DC-3. Alternately, you could look to the classifieds in the back to buy your own Aeronca C-3, such as the one featured on the cover—and the one flown in 2019 for photographer Leonardo Correa Luna by pilot Jim Rollison (pictured above), who earned his wings after surviving a congenital heart defect and subsequent surgeries. His father, Jimmy Rollison, is a captain for FedEx Express.…

IF YOU'RE JUST STARTING TO FLY, you can get your initial private pilot certificate in gliders with an aero-tow or other endorsement: - Be 16 years old - Pass a knowledge test - Fly with an instructor for 30 to 40 flights pre-solo, and then log at least two solo hours and a total of 10 hours in gliders - Pass a practical test If you already have a pilot certificate with an airplane rating, you can add the glider rating by: - Flying with an instructor, and then logging 10 solo flights - Passing a practical test (no knowledge exam is required)…

There’s good reason why flight instructors place weather limitations in a student pilot’s logbook. These limitations must be in place because most student pilots don't have the experience to determine where their skill ends and luck begins. Once you’ve earned your sport or private pilot certificate, it’s your responsibility to establish your personal weather limitations—and abide by them on every flight. The purpose of having personal limitations is to mitigate risk. Personal limitations are predicated on pilot experience level, familiarity with the airplane, knowledge of the area, the weather, and the nature of the mission. They cover much more than just weather considerations. IMSAFE AND PAVE As a student pilot, you learned about the “Swiss cheese model” that results in accidents. When all the risks line up—the holes in the…

ANOTHER TYPE OF WEATHER limitation strikes when thunderstorms boil up in the region in which you plan to fly. Most pilots have heard a common safety rule: Stay clear of any storm by at least 20 nm. If storms fall in a line, passing through that line then requires you to have a 40 nm gap between cells in order to make a safe transit. This is probably one of the most readily “busted” weather limits out there, as pilots commonly fudge that distance by half. They get away with it—for a while. And then, inevitably, they find there’s a good reason for the safety margin. That’s because cells often generate severe turbulence and toss out precipitation far from their primary visible cloud formations. This is one personal limit you…

WE’RE GOING TO TEXAS. “I doubt it,” I thought, after looking at the radar. There was a line of thunderstorms associated with a cold front stretching north to south across our route. “Nah,” said Jason, “We’ll fly above that stuff.” Such was my introduction to flying jets, in this case the Learjet 31. With a service ceiling of 51,000 feet, there weren’t many clouds we couldn’t top; at least theoretically. I say theoretically because getting a Lear to Flight Level 510 before running out of jet-A was a challenge. Nonetheless, I was learning about the benefits (and perils) of high-altitude flight. Starting out in a Cessna 150, altitude was a pretty simple matter. With careful attention to density altitude, most takeoffs were possible and cruising altitudes were seldom much more…

AS A CHILD, I thought Christmas Eve was hands-down the most magical time of the year, but December 24, 2021, was over the top. That morning I became a “real” private pilot…nine months since the revocation of all my certificates and ratings. Though I could pursue getting all of them back, at this time in life I won’t go for anything else except an instrument rating. I don’t need anything more. Sure, it’s nice to remember flying that single-pilot Lockheed Lodestar alone, instructing and testing pilot applicants for thousands of hours, and logging nearly 1,000 hours in a bunch of Douglas DC-3s. And I had loads of fun playing with an Aeronca Chief, a de Havilland Beaver, Piper Super Cubs, and a Republic Twin Bee on the water (even under…

ACCORDING TO THE PILOT’S own account, he and his lady friend were on a weekend jaunt to Saline Hot Springs, a tiny, rather charming clothing-optional oasis located in the middle of nowhere on the eastern edge of Death Valley in California. He approached the 1,350-foot gravel and rock “Chicken Strip” at 60 knots in his Grumman Yankee, landing uphill, as recommended. Something went wrong, and the Yankee came to rest upside down at the far end of the strip. The pilot broke out what was left of his side of the canopy, and he and his friend crawled out uninjured. The airplane, however, was a total loss. That happened in June 2016. Seven months later, the pilot flew his other airplane, a Mooney M20, into a mountainside in Southern California.…

“THE TECH MAKES YOU A BETTER PILOT.”BRAD MCKEAGE Vice President of Flight Operations Embraer Executive Aircraft, Melbourne, Florida We were halfway through an initial briefing on the Praetor 500—my full-scale orientation to the midsize business jet—and McKeage's statement caused me to pause my notetaking and consider the principle. Embraer has had decades to develop its proprietary fly-by-wire flight control systems (FBW FCS), the technology to which he was referring. The company launched its initial FBW FCS with the AMX International attack aircraft in 1984, saw it through two generations of regional jets—the E-Jet and the E2—and in 2015, iterated it again for the C-390 Millenium military transport. In flight, I’ll witness its evolution and intelligence working behind the scenes—but it operates just under the pilot’s ability to sense it, as…

Deciding on an airplane type with a limited budget is an exercise in balancing strengths and weaknesses. One type might provide great cruise speed or payload, but less expensive examples might come at the cost of a high-time engine or old fabric. For the same price, it might be possible to find a different type that has been freshly restored with a low-time engine, although chances are, it will have fewer seats and less capability. But what if one type’s perceived weakness is something that can be addressed with awareness and appropriate training? In the case of the Piper PA-38 Tomahawk, its unique stall and spin characteristics resulted in accidents and a poor reputation early in its production run. The reputation lingers today, but owners agree that if one is…

THE AIRSTRIP, SEEN from above, is little more than a momentary slash through the brooding forest between Green Mountain and Wildcat Lake; blink and you’ll miss it. I refrain from blinking, announce turning downtown on the seldom-used CTAF, and configure the well-worn rental Piper Cherokee for landing. I’ve landed at this strip exactly once; by backcountry standards it’s not a terribly challenging field, but it’s not your usual paved public airport either. I can’t see the runway as I turn base, but I can see my neighbor’s hangar and the crease in the trees that denotes the runway threshold. Turning an offset final, 2,400 feet of beautifully manicured grass reveals itself through a slot between some truly monstrous Douglas firs, and my wife, Dawn, exclaims at the glittering apparition of…

IT’S APPROACHING THAT time of year when you might be thinking of taking that long trip you have envisioned. Sure, you have flown shorter cross-country flights before, but the trek that you have in mind won’t be like the old times. It’s easy to be biased about multiple things—your airplane, your ability, your experience—that will goad you into thinking this trip will play out like ones before, but these assumptions could be costly. Planning a long flight alone may involve some additional risk. To combat any gaps in your knowledge, my first recommendation is to have a flying partner go along with you, even just for some company. Another pilot in the airplane can work the radios to reduce your workload and help you stay alert. If you must go…

MY FATHER AND HIS elder brother Otto were not fond of each other, and so I know little about Uncle Otto that is not in the public domain. He was born in Germany and emigrated to the United States, settling in New York, where he and his wife, Ilse, founded an art gallery: the Gerson Gallery. (“Garrison” was a youthful indiscretion of my father, which he regretted late in life.) After Otto’s death in 1962, the Gerson Gallery merged with the Marlborough Gallery, and so on. It’s all in Wikipedia. In a separate thread, an old friend of mine, Tom Shima, married Barbara Kallir. It took several years of knowing Barbara for me to learn that her grandfather, Otto Kallir, had been a gallery owner in New York, and shared,…