By Scott Spangler on February 7th, 2010 | 2 Comments »
One of the greatest joys I found in flying was diverting to some intended destination, usually to hide out from the weather. These stops were not an inconvenience to my schedule, they were an opportunity for adventure, to explore someplace I’d never been before, which is why I was happy to land at MachNoneFlying.com, “the online newspaper of low, slow, affordable and fun flying.”
I landed here because powered paragliders fascinate me. A PPG? It’s the fabric wing you wear like a parachute that’s powered by the meat grinder on your back. Yeah, I want to fly one, so I’ve been wandering around this afternoon looking for someplace to learn how, once it gets warmer.
In the PPG section it has a number of embedded videos that took my breath away. In one a Canadian mounted a camera in his canopy, and when he took off from the frozen lake, the snow looked like clouds and reminded me of those shots you see of the Space Shuttle orbiting Earth.
The second appears to be in a warmer clime and season, humming across agricultural lands and coastlines. Ah, now this is flying. No airports, no hangars or tie downs, no ATC, and no traffic. Keep the rig in the truck; freedom as close as humans can approximate to the birds. The ultimate antidote for thaasophobia. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to resume my research. There has to be a PPG school somewhere close. –Scott Spangler
By Robert Mark on February 2nd, 2010 | 16 Comments »
I’ve actually been trying to write this article for quite awhile. It was much tougher than I thought simply because I’m what my wife the psychologist would call conflicted, unsure of where I stood, or at least I was until a few days ago.
If you follow us here, you’ll by now know I wrote a couple of articles on the two Northwest/Delta guys who blew past MSP last October. The Feds quickly decided the best recourse to stem the tide of public paranoia about pilots asleep at the switch was to revoke the certificates of the two cockpit crew members. Surprisingly, even to me, I agreed with the Fed’s decision.
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So what else is there to say you might be wondering if I’ve already decided that hanging these guys out to dry was the right course of action. That’s where social media all took over.
One said I’d turned quite cynical, another reader said I was crazy and wouldn’t have put up with the Fed’s action if it had happened to me while another said he was surprised overall at how quickly we seem ready to throw our brothers and sisters under a bus when they screw up. Actually, I believe he used the phrase “eating our young,” which made the point pretty graphically I’d say.
So here’s the deal. My job as an editor and a teacher is to comb the industry for topics and issues that Scott and I can both react to in a sort of teaching moment, which is of course, pretty convenient since Scott and I both moonlight as teachers. But a true teacher must also be a good listener. They must be open-minded enough to consider the views of others and maybe, on occasion, rethink a few of their own philosophies. In this case, I think all our readers who told me both online and off that I was goofy might just have been right.
But if I were going to rethink the whole NWA188 issue, I’d need to figure out just why I stood with the Feds, which traditionally I’d never do. Hence, the delay of a couple of months in writing this post. And seriously folks, I woke up a few nights thinking about this so I knew it was serious.
By Scott Spangler on January 27th, 2010 | 2 Comments »
Ground school has been—and always will be—the most important part of learning to fly any aircraft. Whether it’s a Skyhawk with steam gauges or a glass-packed Skycatcher, the flying machine itself is just a training aid, the training tool where students practice what they have learned in class.
Despite its importance, the quality of ground school instruction is the greatest variable in the flight training equation. Cessna has removed this variable (at least at its more than 280 Cessna Pilot Centers) with its new Part-141 approved Sport/Private Pilot Course, which went online late last year and delivers consistent, high quality education in a virtual classroom to students when they are in a mood to learn.
Cessna gave us a preview a little more than a year ago (see Next-Gen Challenge: Selling Aviation), but based on the online demo, the company heeded an essential aphorism of success: under promise and over deliver. Half the credit should go to the good folks at King Schools, Cessna’s educational partner, who developed and maintains (or so it seems, given the URL) the virtual classroom.
By Robert Mark on January 24th, 2010 | 1 Comment »
When I give talks around the country about social media, I always try to mention what I call the primary intangible about these new tools … the opportunity to connect with new people, folks who are often in a position to help a younger person find their way within any industry. I’ve met people both inside and outside of the aviation and marketing world that I would never in my wildest dreams ever had the opportunity to connect with if I had not started my new career a few years ago as a blogger, Tweeter and podcaster.
I’d like to introduce you to one young fellow I recently met through Facebook, my least well organized social media tool by the way.
Art Ramey’s, a junior at the University of Alabama. He’s an aviation junkie like so many of the rest of us, but he’s not planning on storing all his career eggs in a single basket. It took me much of my life to really understand the need for a career duality to make a living in aviation. Art apparently had the right mentor because he’s also focused on Operations Management and Global Business in Tuscaloosa.
Art tracked me down at work a few weeks ago because he was searching for a little career advice on how to break into the business side of aviation before he graduates next year. He was persistent too and mentioned he’d called a number of people he didn’t know for advice. That’s drive. Cold-calling is one of the hardest chasms to cross when you’re searching for the right opportunity. Most students avoid it like the plague, in fact.
It didn’t take too long on the phone for me to realize that Art’s an atypical student. Despite the state of the aviation industry, Art wants in and is willing to do whatever it takes to get one of his shoes in the door. And he’s not going to take no for an answer. Most importantly, he’s not complaining about the industry is not at present, nor is he sitting around waiting for someone to deliver him the career he believes he wants. Read the rest of this entry »
By Scott Spangler on January 18th, 2010 | 1 Comment »
A subscriber to the FAA Safety Team notices, I immediately open and read emails with “Emergency Notice” in the subject line. On Saturday, January 16, Emergency Notice NOTC 2101 said:
“The FAA has been made aware of an issue with an update to a navigation database that became effective on 14 January 2010. To date, the known affected models are: Honeywell Bendix/King KLN 35, KLN 88, KLN 89, KLN 89B, KLN 90, KLN 90B, KLN 94, KLX 100, KLX 135, KLX 135A, KLN 900.”
After production and distribution of the Cycle 1001 databases (effective date 14-Jan-2010), Honeywell was informed by our data supplier, Jeppesen, that the data file delivered to Honeywell contained incorrect Dynamic Magnetic Variations for all terminal and en route waypoint records. For that reason, it is imperative that the incorrect databases NOT be used for arrival, departure, or approach operations.
In other words, airplanes with avionics that use the affected database are grounded until pilots download and install the corrected replacement. Fortunately, correcting a database error is a lot easier and expedient than correcting the same error on paper charts. It’s a pain, for sure, but imagine the inconvenience if pilots had to wait for new charts?
Magnetic variation is a term familiar to all pilots, the result of incorrect data is clear, an increased chance of metal meeting something hard, with an unfortunate outcome. But what in the heck is Dynamic Magnetic Variation?
By Robert Mark on January 15th, 2010 | 4 Comments »
It’s nice to be the editor of an aviation blog like Jetwhine.com because I’m lucky enough to connect with people from all parts of the globe, folks I would never have a chance to meet in my everyday life. A few weeks back, Josh Saul sent me a note about his blog, wondering if I might go take a look. I look at every blog anyone sends me to, but honestly few are worth very much, I’ve found. Josh’s is different and pleasantly so.
Josh is the editor of Bush Pilots at the Alaska Dispatch. His is a blog you’re going to want to spend a little time with because airplanes in Alaska mean something totally different than they do down here in the Lower 48. Bush Pilot is full of original stories and video from pilots in the 49th state. The still photography is astounding and the videos are creative and insightful if not doggone funny. Take a look at this one with a Beaver taking off from a truck. Only in Alaska. Or this interesting arrival into Seward. Have any white-knuckled tales or pictures from your Alaska flying? Email Josh at jsaul(at)alaskadispatch.com. Tell the folks at the Alaska Dispatch that the folks down in the nice warm Midwest said hi while you’re there.
UND is quick to point out that, right now, the military is the primary career opportunity for UAV pilots (see UAV Pilot Shortage & Military Intelligence), but let’s be honest, the no-pilot airliner is just around the corner.
The US Navy has been using the Category III Automatic Carrier Landing System for years. It’s so reliable Uncle Sam’s Yacht Club has reduced the number of cross deck pendants, from four to three, on its new nuclear bird farms, so the technology exists for demanding flight environments. It’s only a matter of time.
On a sunny day when the wind speed is 10 times the single digit temperature, giving into web wanderlust beats the hypothermia that awaits outside. An interest in historic byways lead me to the National Park Service’s National Register Travel Itineraries.
Created in 1995, I learned, the register connected public and private destinations by interest area to highlight thousands of sites on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2003, as part of the Centennial of Flight celebration, they launched Aviation: From Sand Dunes to Sonic Booms, which has an international reach.
It lists more than a hundred aviation sites by category – from the Wright Brothers and Aviation Pioneers to Air Power, Modern Aviation, and Space – and by state. Naturally, it includes all the well-known sites, like Kitty Hawk, but it was the unexpected sites that caught my attention and led to a list of warm-weather plans, because now would not be the time to visit Attu Battlefield and U.S. Army and Navy Airfields in the Aleutians.
At a time when most people don’t give space travel a second thought, I wanted to share this short clip of the Apollo 11 flight – the first time a human – Neil Armstrong – set foot on the face of the Moon. It took place just over 40 years ago and was a very big deal to those of us back then as thousands of people worked together to make President Kennedy’s dream of putting a man on the Moon a reality. Their focus on a commitment, that ability to bring all these people together for a common purpose was something to behold.
As we enter another decade, ask your self whether we as Americans are as focused on anything so monumental as we were 40 years ago. We’re superb at taking partisan positions on just about everything today, but as the final flights of the Shuttle fleet quickly approach, where does space flight and the quest to look beyond our own planet for the answers to life’s questions fit into our national priorities?
I’ve had the pleasure of meeting a couple of the Apollo guys over the years. Even had lunch with Frank Borman and Jim Lovell a few years back. I still get all goose bumpy thinking about it. What’s going to do that for kids these days?
By Robert Mark on December 30th, 2009 | 4 Comments »
As if President Obama’s anger over the security leak that allowed a Nigerian man to nearly blow up a Delta Airlines flight inbound to Detroit on Christmas were not enough, the White House now needs to contend with a PR quagmire created entirely by the TSA. Two aviation bloggers were yesterday served with subpoenas demanding they release the name of the source they used to obtain a security document the Department of Homeland Security said should not have been made public.
This is sure to become a precedent setting confrontation between journalists/communicators and the administration.
We spoke to Runway Girl, Mary Kirby, a blogger and journalist who was right in the middle of the debacle.
By Scott Spangler on December 27th, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Flipping through the channels the other day I paused on Ellen DeGeneres’ talk show because the guest, Zach Braff of Scrubs fame, said a word that caught my ear, “Cirrus.” It seems he’s a new pilot, and to appear on the show, which is taped in California, he flew himself across the nation from his home in New York, and the audience cheered and applauded this announcement.
Saying that learning to fly was the fulfillment of a lifetime dream, Braff showed pictures from his flight, him smiling at a rear-seat passenger from the left seat and the left wing of the Cirrus above a solid blanket of clouds the color of burnished butterscotch in the late afternoon sun. Trying to describe the ineffable feelings of climbing through the layer and being the only living thing in sight all he could says was, “It is amazing.”
Google led me to an article, Super Fly, Braff penned for BestLife, by the editors of MensHealth. Of learning to fly he wrote, “I earned my pilot’s license this past November, and it was one of the coolest moments of my life.”
His enthusiasm for flight and all of its benefits was an early Christmas present in a year buried in coal. As this year, which has not been the kindest to aviation, winds to a welcome close, my holiday hope is that 2010 will embody the enthusiasm of all new pilots and will begin a gentle cruise climb to better days that are peaceful and prosperous because people in all endeavors are working toward a common goal, not fighting each other for a larger slice of a shrinking pie. – Scott Spangler
By Robert Mark on December 20th, 2009 | 5 Comments »
I can’t believe it’s Christmas time again. Our thanks to the folks at Junior Flyer for this great Santa graphic too.
Scott and I are going to take the rest of the week off to hang out with family, but we both wanted to leave you with a couple of cool things to keep in mind this week while you wait for the arrival of the big guy.
First there’s the NORAD site that tracks Santa on the way to your house. Great fun for the kids. It also brings new meaning to use of the phrase bio-fuel.
And as they approach the North Pole on the way home, they need not worry about the weather as long as their Electronic Flight Back (EFB) is equipped with the proper North Pole approach plates.
Finally, what would Christmas be without a good FAA flying joke.
Santa is about to take off on Christmas Eve for his annual ride when an FAA inspector approaches him in front of the hangar. “How long has it been since you’ve flown this sleigh,” he asks the Big Guy. “Exactly one year tonight,” Santa replies. “Well,” says the inspector, “I’d say you’re out of currency. We’d better take a ride together.
Wondering of course whether he did indeed turn in his paper certificate for a plastic replacement, Santa invites the inspector aboard. Being pretty quick, Santa couldn’t help noticing the 45 strapped to the inspector’s belt. “Why would you need a gun on a checkout flight?” Santa wondered.
“Well, I’m not really supposed to tell you this,” the inspector replied, “but you’re going to lose one on takeoff.”
Merry Christmas to everyone around the globe. Thanks for reading Jetwhine in this, our third year.
By Scott Spangler on December 15th, 2009 | 18 Comments »
After World War II the airlines sealed the fate of railway transportation by offering an equivalent level of reliable, safe service more expeditiously. After more than a half-century of being the only way to go, the airlines grew increasingly dismissive of the people they supposedly served, all but shaking them inverted by the ankles to capture spare-change fees before folding them into a barren tube. And this after the government has disrobed them at the airport doorway. Stir in misguided management focused on quarterly bottom lines, and it’s wonder that the airlines are in decline.
At the same time, the number of people traveling by train has been increasing, its growth limited by its atrophied infrastructure of rails just 56.5 inches apart. In early December my wife and I needed to be in Reading, Pennsylvania, for the wedding of her youngest son and for interviews and photos at the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum for an in-the-works article. Anticipating the multi-flight airline trip with the enthusiasm of a death-row inmate about to roll up his sleeve, on a whim we visited the Amtrak website, which proved a welcome surprise.
Our combined round-trip fare–which included sleeping accommodations and all meals–totaled $580, an amount about equal to the fees the airlines, as best as I could discover, would charge above and beyond the ticket price for baggage and other “services.” Granted, the train travel takes time. The Capitol Limited left Chicago at 1840 Central and arrived in Washington, D.C., the next day at 1340 Eastern. After a 2 hour layover, we’d board the speedy Northeast Regional Acela express for Philly. As railway virgins, we didn’t know what to expect, but we agreed it couldn’t be any worse than flying the airlines. It wasn’t…it was way better, and like many of the people we met along the way, we’ve become railway converts.
The two pilots were distracted for some reason we were unaware of at (Photo: Fokker Aircraft) the time and blew past the Top of Descent (TOD) point, that spot where a Flight Management System (FMS) tells the crew, “In case you weren’t paying attention, we need to start down now in order to be in a position to land.” In some major cities, it’s not at all uncommon to hear that command 100 miles from touchdown.
These guys missed that message, and quite a few others too as they blew 150 miles past MSP. The only real questions was what these two professional aviators were up to that so distracted them from their primary job of flying the airplane. Apparently they were playing on their laptops. What really surprised me more than anything else after the Feds pulled the licenses of these two yahoos, were some of the reactions I read here and at other blogs.
Some said the FAA was being too tough on these guys who, until that moment had spotless records. There were even testimonials flying around that I posted here and that my pal Max Trescott ran again the other day. “Please give these guys a break. They’re family men,” one note said. “The local parishoners are behind them,” said another, as if this could or should excuse the conduct of these two.
This week though, the pilots began pointing fingers elsewhere, first at the Denver and Minneapolis Center controllers along the route. There might well have been a controller briefing screw-up somewhere along the way between some sectors with all the craziness as ATC tried to raise the crew.
But air traffic control wasn’t in charge of the airplane. The captain, Tim Cheney was, or should have been I guess. The regs say the person in the left seat is ALWAYS the final authority when things go wrong. Sorry, no finger-poking at ATC this time!The crew broke ranks when the first officer decided he’d rather not go down with the ship. He claimed the captain should really take most of the rap since he really was in charge anyway.
By Scott Spangler on December 4th, 2009 | 3 Comments »
To maintain my face-to-face social skills and keep my mind nimble I am a substitute teacher for the local school district. Getting an early morning call from the high school offers the added treat of hearing how its principal is progressing toward his private pilot certificate.
He started training just before the 2008-2009 school year ended last June. Just before Thanksgiving he was halfway through his checkride; the weather turned nasty during the oral. He was hoping to fly over the weekend, and the weather was good, so I’m eagerly awaiting my next call so I can learn the outcome.
Little different from others I have talked to, his trials, tribulations, and well-earned joy at overcoming obstacles and surmounting learning plateaus are more poignant and riveting than any contrived TV reality show. Becoming a pilot might make a good reality show, but it would not inspire many to crash the airport party.
By Scott Spangler on November 29th, 2009 | 4 Comments »
After reading “Fly the Sleazy Skies,” an editorial in the November 26 New York Times, my first reaction was to say unkind things about politicians. In public they say bad things about business aviation, and then they get to eat their cake when the Federal Election Commission gives them a loophole that allows them to accept discounted use of a company’s corporate jet.
As pointed out in the editorial, after the Jack Abramoff corruption scandals the Senate said its members had to pay the full charter rate for corporate aircraft use, and the House banned it all together. Then the FEC interpreted this to be effective only when the politician was traveling as a candidate, not when he was on party committee business. The FEC is supposedly independent, but it was created by the Congress.
After my ire equalized, it struck me that it takes two to play this game of favors, a politician who needs to go somewhere, and a corporation looking to gain favor by providing corporate travel at a discount. And given the current state of corporate ethics…
Here’s a wild idea that will never grow wings, but wouldn’t it be nice if the corporate czars who seek favors through use of the aerial chariot so publicly criticized by politicians just said no when those same pols wanted to avoid airline travel? It wouldn’t be pretty, or easy, but I’ll bet it wouldn’t take long before the politicians were speaking about business aviation in kinder tones and, maybe, actually doing something to make it better. – Scott Spangler
By Scott Spangler on November 23rd, 2009 | 11 Comments »
In a recent Fast Lane post, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood wrote about the first meeting of the new aviation advisory committee that reports directly to him. Its members hail from airports, air carriers, management, labor, manufacturers, general aviation, and consumer groups.
Their mission? “To examine the industry, its competitiveness, and its ability to address evolving transportation needs, challenges, and opportunities of the global economy,” he writes. “This is not going to be just another advisory committee, and I am not commissioning some report to fill space on my bookshelf. This committee will make a difference.”
Uh huh. Sure. If you say so. I was born a skeptic and started polishing this trait to a professional sheen at the J-school in Missouri—the Show Me state. Around the time I graduated, 1982, is when America started its transformation into what it has become today, a transformation that has made me (and many others) cynical citizens.
By Robert Mark on November 19th, 2009 | 36 Comments »
One of the truly enjoyable parts of life – for me at least – is the chance to travel often aboard a business airplane. If I’m not in the left seat, I’m usually pretty close as I was last week on board an Embraer Lineage enroute from West Palm Beach Florida to Teterboro.
In the hours before this New Jersey trip I’d gotten to know the two Embraer pilots – Edson and Prado – pretty well since they’d functioned as my flight instructors during my left seat time on the E-190. It was all part of a Pilot Report I was writing for one of the aviation magazines.
Just prior to engine start this warm, sunny Florida morning, they’d both been telling me about how impressed they were with U.S. ATC, commenting there was none to compare with it anywhere in the world. I pretty much agree, especially having flown across the Brazilian rainforests these guys call their homeland.
As we taxied out to runway 9 Left at West Palm Beach, the local controller at PBI got snippy with the pilot, enough so that I’d like to have climbed off the jump-seat and hidden beneath it rather than continue listening.
By Scott Spangler on November 16th, 2009 | 10 Comments »
Tests are an important part of the learning process because they assess the knowledge students have acquired—and retained. This measurement is as important for students as it is for teacher. As anyone who’s taught any subject for the past century or so will tell you, going over the test questions missed—replacing misunderstanding with the right answer—closes the circle of learning.
For most of the the past century, or at least as long as it has been giving and grading knowledge tests, the FAA has not seen the educational benefits of sharing missed questions—never mind the correct answer—with test takers. The best it could do was the examination report with cryptic subject matter codes identifying general areas of deficiency. Finally, it seems, this is starting to change.
For decades the National Association of Flight Instructors, with the support of AOPA and EAA, has been talking to the FAA about changing this policy, to little avail. The latest conversations with AFS-600 about it was last August, says NAFI Executive Director Jason Blair. Then, in October, out of the blue, and with no warning, the FAA said it would give test takers a peek at their missed questions starting November 9, 2009.
By Scott Spangler on November 10th, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Aviation is all about change, and it makes rapid advances in short spurts of time. World War I was once such spurt, and World War II was another. Capabilities soared and crew size shrank as progress took the place of navigators and radio operators.
The latest, and still burgeoning spurt, started about the time powered flight celebrated its centennial. Pondering the changes it has wrought, which seem more revolutionary than the evolutionary, has inspired a Wright moment, Steven, not Wilbur or Orville.
Most pilots who learned to fly with steam gauges learned a number of proverbs of aviation safety from their flight instructors. Preeminent among them was, when things started circling the drain, “First, Fly the Airplane.”
Remember that one? Does it still apply when the autopilot does most of the flying? And what about the little blue button marked LVL in the Cirrus Perspective system? Should spatial disorientation strike, pressing the little blue button engages the autopilot, which establishes straight-and-level flight, allowing afflicted pilots to cage their inner ears.
Hmm. Perhaps its time to rewrite First, Fly the Airplane. How about, Always Fly the Autopilot?
But how does that affect our beloved logbooks, which we lovingly care for as the repository of our enumerated experiences? FAR 61.51 says that the “sole manipulator of the controls” gets to log pilot-in-command time. Before powered flight, everyone pretty much agreed that those “controls” were the stick, rudder, and throttle. Now they are buttons, knobs, and switches.
Do we need a new column in our pilot logbook? Maybe there should be a column for the programmer in command.
