FlyingWinter 2022的目錄

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…