Category: Flying

Stories about flying planes and helicopters, discussions of technique and teaching.

The least insane electric aircraft vendors at Oshkosh

by philg

The typical electric aircraft company is stuffed with cash on one end (e.g., “Joby Aviation raises $1.6 billion in SPAC merger at $6.6 billion valuation”) while huge promises come out the other end. So far there is little evidence of delivery on the promises that were made years ago, much less on the more recently made promises. Example promise: Joby now says that they’ll be operated eVTOL air taxis in 2024; they tout the fact that they got an air carrier certificate using, apparently, a Cirrus, as evidence that they are progressing toward this goal.

Generally speaking, the electric aircraft folks who showed up to Oshkosh 2022 had the same promises that they were making at Oshkosh 2018, e.g., “we’ll be certified and flying commercially in three years.” It doesn’t seem as though any progress has been made. The batteries are the same as in 2018. The computers and software that enable autonomy and/or idiot-proof human piloting are functionally the same as in 2018. The overall aircraft architectures are the same as in 2018. What these folks are doing with their $billions is a mystery. Let’s keep in mind that the U.S. involvement in World War II spanned the same time period: four years. Admittedly the percentage of GDP devoted to improving aircraft technology was larger, but the changes from 1941 to 1945 were dramatic indeed (B-17 to pressurized B-29, for example; development of the Lockheed P-80 jet fighter).

One area where it seems as though electric-powered aviation has a good chance of near-term success is carrying cargo, e.g., for “last mile” deliveries or going out to islands. What vehicle is already big enough to carry 200 lbs. of cargo and doesn’t need a runway? A single-seat helicopter! These have always been niche products since there aren’t a lot of folks who want to build and fly their own one-seat helicopter that is even trickier to fly than a Robinson R22. But what if the cabin is turned into a cargo compartment and the flying is handed over to a computer with the fast reflexes required to make this kind of machine safe? The folks behind the Mosquito helicopter, in partnership with a Canadian company, are doing just this:

At least for the moment, the heavy lifting will be done by a conventional gasoline-powered engine. Since Oshkosh is more about the human experience of aviation, including building one’s own aircraft, the biggest companies in drone cargo weren’t there, but the event reminded me to check in with Amazon. A June 2022 press release says “We are working with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and local officials in Lockeford [California] to obtain permission to conduct these deliveries and will continue with that collaboration into the future.” So it could happen next week, next year, or next decade!

Readers: What’s your best guess as to when it will be possible to get an aerial Uber in at least 5 U.S. cities? And your best guess as to when it will be possible to get packages delivered by drone to your suburban house in at least 5 U.S. metro areas? Given the technical and regulatory challenges, I’m going to say 2028 for the Ubers and 2026 for the delivery-to-house drones. I think there will be regular drone-based delivery services to at least 5 remote areas of Canada, however, by 2024 (smaller population means it will be easier to get everyone to agree).

Related:

  • NASA at Oshkosh (thinking about how to ensure that these autonomous vehicles are airworthy on a continuing basis)
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A light airplane route out of Florida to the Great Smoky Mountains

by philg

For Floridians hoping to cool off, the nearest mountains are the Appalachians in TN/NC, i.e., the Great Smoky Mountains. It’s an 11-hour drive from Palm Beach County to Cherokee, NC, the southern gateway to Great Smoky Mountains National Park and a 12-hour drive to Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge, TN, the northern gateway and home to Dollywood. In a small airplane, however, the trip can be done in approximately 3.5 hours to KGKT (550 nm). A 3.5-hour flight in a vibrating noisy bathroom-free piston-powered airplane is too much for most pilots and nearly all passengers. Where to stop, then?

The simplest route from flat Florida to mostly-flat eastern Tennessee bends around the west of the Appalachian Mountains via Chattanooga. Why go over these mountains, which generate all kinds of clouds and bumps, when you can instead relax on windward side, entirely free of turbulence and with a much wider range of altitudes to choose from? (as shown below, the FAA considers any altitude lower than 6,600′ to be risky with respect to terrain)

On our way to Oshkosh, however, we enjoyed a rare day on which thunderstorms were not forecast, except on both coasts of Florida (see Garmin Pilot app screen shot from halfway through our first leg). The winds aloft were forecast to be light and therefore there was no risk of powerful downdrafts on the lee side of the mountains. So we planned a scenic crossing of the Appalachians with a first stop in Lake City, Florida (KLCQ). The kids learned to appreciate our pool table by playing on a table with trashed felt using cues with no tips.

Our next stop was KDNL, the “downtown” airport for Augusta, Georgia. There is a flight school on the field and the learning continues even in the men’s room, however Ketanji’s panel of biologists might define the term “men”:

We hopped in the courtesy car and headed downtown to the Morris Museum of Art, “the oldest museum in the country that is specifically devoted to the art and artists of the American South.” It is situated on an attractive river walk and right next to a good restaurant, Augustino’s, within the Marriott hotel.

One of the paintings above is John Steuart Curry’s Hoover and the Flood, celebrating the heroics of America’s only engineer-turned-President, the most skilled technocrat ever to attempt technocratic management of the U.S. economy, in the context of the Climate Change-induced Great Mississippi Flood of 1927.

The final leg required a climb to 10,500′ and weaving to stay out of the clouds and bumps. The forecast was accurate regarding the lack of thunderstorms, but there was still some pop-up convection that made an indirect route seem wiser.

A Cirrus about 15 miles north of us apparently went into one of the above small rain showers and reported “severe turbulence” to Air Traffic Control (“large and abrupt changes in altitude and/or attitude and, usually, large variations in indicated airspeed. The airplane may momentarily be out of control. Occupants of the airplane will be forced violently against their seat belts.”). A combination of NEXRAD and ATC kept us out of anything upsetting. Upon landing, we found that our Enterprise Cadillac(!) sedan had been pulled up next to our airplane by the alert line staff at KGKT.

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NASA at Oshkosh

by philg

I hate to be the person who says that government should be smaller except when it comes to spending on his/her/zir/their personal passion. On the other hand, research is an area where Econ 101 says that companies will inevitably underinvest and, therefore, society will underinvest unless government steps in. Any fundamental breakthrough is going to be copied by competitors, which means that the developer of a breakthrough is not going to get the full benefit of the investment.

Much of aviation today is based on research done by NACA, the predecessor to NASA. For example, the airfoil on a typical wing will be a NACA-developed shape. NASA is still in the business of helping the aviation industry, albeit as a pimple on the butt of the womanned space program, as measured by funding.

NASA had its own pavilion at EAA AirVenture. The front neatly illustrates America’s progression from a slender 1960s spacefaring nation to an obese scooter-dependent one:

Unique among exhibitors at Oshkosh, NASA keeps the coronapanic flame alive. #Science says that a simple surgical mask is ample protection against 100,000 daily visitors spewing out aerosol Omicron:

At first glance, NASA is seemingly working on one of my pet ideas: ADS-B should sequence airplanes at nontowered airports? (2018) In talking to the folks at the pavilion, however, I learned that the goals of their Data & Reasoning Fabric and DANTi are far more grand and nebulous. Instead of solving the near-term problem of ADS-B being useless at preventing the mid-air collisions that are actually likely, NASA will solve the problem of a Jetsons-like flight environment in which the number of aircraft is 100X what we have today.

One NASA program that struck me as valuable is Fit2Fly. All of the people making heavy super drones for package delivery, etc., are working on certification and sales. NASA asks “What about maintenance? What happens after a few months when these things start to break and there is no pilot on board to hear and feel an abnormal vibration?”

How about reducing fuel consumption for commercial air travel? NASA promises a more extended timeline than the companies that have been harvesting $billions via SPACs. A hybrid turboprop airliner will fly in about 3 years and will be commercially available… in 2035(!). The electric motor is just for takeoff and climb and the fuel savings come from having smaller dinosaur blood-powered engines that suffice only for cruise. The result, assuming that the next 13 years pan out as hoped, will be a 10% savings in fuel.

NASA is also bringing back the biplane. The airliner wing will be made long and thin, like a glider’s, and then braced with a strut, like a Cessna 172, so that the long/thin wing doesn’t snap off. The strut itself provides some lift. This will cut fuel consumption by 8-10%.

The most substantial fuel reduction that NASA is hoping to achieve is via SUSAN, a single engine turbofan project with electric motors on the wings that will yield a 25% improvement.

If the agency were returned to its NACA roots, NASA could truly revolutionize general aviation by funding open-source medium-cost low-power turbofan engines, fly-by-wire flight control systems, etc. What’s the agency doing instead? A $1 trillion project to put a golden retriever on Mars. Here’s a poster that was being handed out at Oshkosh:

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Boeing plants the rainbow flag at Oshkosh

by philg

The shop in the Boeing pavilion at EAA AirVenture (“Oshkosh”):

Did the programmers and system engineers who built runaway trim into the 737 MAX identify as 2SLGBTQQIA+? If so, will the family and friends of the 346 people who died in Ethiopia and Indonesia be interested in this fact?

How serious is Boeing about Rainbow Flagism? Boeing did not host any 2SLQGTQQIA+ events at its pavilion. They did not bring any 2SLGBTQQIA+ employees to wear the rainbow shirts and talk about being 2SLGBTQQIA+ at Boeing. They didn’t invite the NGPA to occupy a corner of their pavilion in show center and, consequently, this group had a booth tucked away in a side hangar:

(I’m a supporter of NGPA! It is a refreshing change to hear a message about gay people from actual gay people and, as it happens, “[the] mission has been simple: to build, support, and unite the LGBTQ aviation community worldwide”. In other words, the NGPA is about the success of gay pilots, not about their victimization.)

Should a company get virtue points simply for printing the corporate logo in a rainbow scheme? If so, wouldn’t that make Justin Trudeau a heroic advocate for people of color because he was brave enough to wear Blackface and Brownface?

Separately, at the same shop, one learns the gender ID of those who assemble aircraft:

Related:

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United Airlines at Oshkosh

by philg

First time at the Oshkosh airshow for United Airlines. Their senior captains did some yanking and banking in a 777 in front of the crowd. The most frightening maneuver was approaching the crowd (west side of the runway) from the east in a dive and then climbing over the crowd. Some years ago I was in one of the jump seats of an empty Boeing 757 being ferried out of JFK and the captain put the plane into a 40-degree bank so that a friend on the ground could get a photo. The avionics were unhappy, shouting “bank angle, bank angle” repeatedly.

As the plane carved up the sky, the United announcer proudly disclosed the quota-based hiring policy for the company’s new flying school. Only 20 percent of the slots would be available for white males while 80 percent would be allocated to “women” (however that term is defined by the airline’s team of biologists) and “people of color” (however that term is defined by the airline’s team of diversity consultants). Curiously, there is no quota for student pilots who identify as 2SLGBTQQIA+. Numerous folks sitting near me grumbled angrily on hearing the airline’s plan of sex- and race-based discrimination. It is unclear why United thought that this message would be warmly received by the audience at Oshkosh. General aviation is overwhelmingly white, male, old, and conservative. The young people there who talked about pursuing a dream of professional aviation were also overwhelmingly white and male (i.e., they’d have to fight for the 20 percent scrap at the United school). Here’s the United AVIATE booth within the “EAA Career Center”:

It seems that United has taken over Lufthansa’s old school in Goodyear, Arizona, perhaps because Lufthansa could no longer get students in and out due to coronapanic. Cirrus SR20s with air conditioning are used for primary training.

If United were serious about diversifying its pilot group, the company would offer a “no-overnight” schedule (see Ryanair: airline that is not a hotel customer for how the world’s lowest cost airline does this). Right now, the only people who can consider flying for the U.S. airlines are people who are willing to be away from friends and family up to 22 days per month (trending down to 10 or 11 for the most senior pilots in a seat, but it can take decades to reach this level of seniority as a captain at a major U.S. airline). This makes it a terrible job for anyone who might become a parent. When the mostly-at-home spouse files the inevitable divorce lawsuit, he/she/ze/they is a slam-dunk winner to obtain primary custody, a free house, and a river of child support cash under a typical U.S. state’s family law that looks to see “who was the primary historical caregiver of these now-lucrative children?” How many women want to fly around for a few years and then spend the rest of their lives paying a former husband to hang out at home with what used to be her kids plus some new sex partners from Tinder?

If we visit the EAA official merchandise market, we can learn that pilot and astronaut are already jobs held exclusively by females.

Airplane constructor is also exclusively a woman’s job, according to EAA’s merchandise selection. Here is the only plane-builder featured:

Pilots identifying as “women” can get a free T shirt and participate in a variety of exclusive events at Oshkosh under the rubric of WomenVenture, a 15-year-old event started just in time for the term “women” to become undefined. As a measure of progress, what had been the “innovation” pavilion at Oshkosh, showcasing new technologies, is now the “WomenVenture Center” (complete with pink theme).

Meanwhile, gender ID is somewhat less fraught at the SOS Brothers tent, “BeerVenture” until some litigation with EAA forced a re-titling. Here are the “bikini bartenders” that EAA complained about in its lawsuit:

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Glacial pace of innovation in non-electric aviation slows due to coronapanic

by philg

Certified fossil fuel-powered aviation has been notable for the slow pace of innovation. As the world of the consumer has been transformed, the typical aircraft flying is a refined version of what pilots operated during World War II. Through 2019, it would not have been unfair to characterize the pace of innovation as glacial. Coronapanic, however, has slowed the pace to geologic. Garmin, the 500 lb. gorilla of general aviation avionics, had nothing new to show. “All of our engineers have been working on getting certification to use substitute parts in existing designs,” explained a senior sales exec. “Even with the substitutions, we had a 9-month backlog that is now down to 90 days.” Three months to get an 11-year-old nav/com doesn’t seem like a great situation for consumers, but the sales guy said, “It takes 4-6 months to get a slot at any avionics shop, so our lead time doesn’t slow anyone down.” (This does not seem to be true for autopilot installations; Garmin has been shipping partial kits and, if the shop starts work based on Garmin’s forecast delivery dates for the lagging items, the result is that airplanes are grounded for months waiting for the full kit to arrive.)

(The good news is that Garmin bought a container full of displays for the ancient 430/530 nav/coms, so if you like 25-year-old technology they will keep supporting it!)

Small competitors such as Avidyne and Dynon did not have anything new at Oshkosh either.

The electric “super drone” companies don’t have certified products and they do not seem to have been slowed down as much by coronapanic, at least if we measure by hype. Back in 2018, Uber said that customers in Los Angeles would be fleeing the traffic-clogged streets in electric aircraft by 2023 (post). Maybe the electric super drone is always 5 years in the future? Joby came to AirVenture with a sim and no aircraft. They predict Uber using their 5-seater the day after certification in 2024.

The experimental aircraft folks seem to have maintained their work efforts while everyone else pretended to work from home. The RV-15 was conceived in 2019 and flew in 2022:

(There are more than 10,000 Van’s Aircraft kit planes flying today, which exceeds the number that Cirrus has built.)

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The flying-to-Oshkosh part of flying to Oshkosh

by philg

I am back from EAA AirVenture (“Oshkosh”) in the Cirrus SR20. It took only 4 days to get from Wisconsin to South Florida by air, a trip that would have taken 22 hours by minivan. The route as mapped by SkyVector:

With forecast winds, this should be 16 hours of round-trip flight time according to SkyVector. How long did it actually take? 18.3 hours in the air, according to the meter in the plane.

Amazingly, the 2.5-week trip was done entirely VFR and proceeded almost precisely on the originally planned schedule. A student pilot could have flown all of the legs that we did and been challenged only by a 25-knot crosswind landing at Appleton, Wisconsin (simultaneous landings on two intersecting runways for maximum capacity) and a 25-knot crosswind landing in Cedar Rapids, Iowa (no runway there is oriented into the wind that we encountered). We delayed our departure from Indianapolis up to Appleton (one airport north of actual Oshkosh (KOSH)) due to a line of thunderstorms, but our friend who came in via Southwest to Chicago was delayed over 3 hours due to the same weather. Our family had a good time at the Indiana State Museum while hoping to avoid a long detour around the cells (we ended up adding about 20 minutes of meandering). Instrument flying skills would have been unhelpful to us, just as they were to Southwest, because flying through a thunderstorm isn’t a practical transportation strategy.

Most of the trip happened between 7,500′ and 11,500′ due to trying to stay over the bumpy cumulus clouds and avoid roasting to death in the unairconditioned Cirrus.

KDNL in Augusta, Georgia is a great stop due to the Morris Museum of Southern art. If you follow Science and are from Massachusetts or California, you’ll like KMWA in Illinois. According to the FBO, the on-field marijuana shop was open every day that the Chicago Public Schools were closed.

I had a 10:30 am brisket breakfast at Rob’s Pit BBQ, which was superb.

The stops that are not self-explanatory are KPDC (Effigy Mounds National Monument; an afternoon hike accessed via the crew car) and KCID (the Amana Colonies; two nights and one full day to tour).

I’ll write more about Indianapolis. There are a lot of great museums, especially for kids. We spent two nights there.

Pilot friends will appreciate that the cheapest fuel purchased was from Signature(!) in Cedar Rapids, Iowa where leaded dinosaur blood was dispensed at $6.90 per gallon with the “Oshkosh discount”. On the third hand, though I had reserved a “car” at Cedar Rapids, Hertz delivered a Ford Expedition Max:

What I saved on 100LL I paid out at the local BP station to feed this uncomfortably bumpy monster.

Thanks to all of the jet charter companies having their best years ever (they and their clients all standing under a shower of federal cash), the level of staffing and service at FBOs is high anywhere that a Gulfstream might land. Air Traffic Control was operating smoothly and provided VFR advisories for the entire trip except for the last 40 miles into the Oshkosh area. The rental car crisis seems to have abated as long as you’re willing to pay 100 Bidies per day for a car that used to be $50 per day. Ubers, too, were plentiful (Indianapolis and Chattanooga).

The view out the front approaching our home airport of Stuart, Florida:

Best views on the trip: Mississippi River climbing out of KPDC; crossing the Appalachian Mountains; approaching to land at Chattanooga; the marshes around Amelia Island, Florida (KFHB).

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The true spirit of Oshkosh

by philg

I’ll be writing about EAA AirVenture (“Oshkosh”) over the next few weeks, but today is the last day of the actual gathering. The true spirit of Oshkosh, I think, is best captured by this story from EAA:

Ken Swain, EAA 102241, flew his VariEze, N4ZZ, into Oshkosh for the 45th year in a row this year. From life in the Air Force to flying for United Airlines, and now in retirement, Ken’s aircraft has been a constant.

Ken has proudly owned his VariEze since Burt Rutan first released it, even flying it into Oshkosh just two years after the prototype was shown.

“In 1976, Burt showed up in the homebuilt prototype,” Ken said. “Once, again, he was mobbed. The plans were out there, and a couple of really fast builders showed up in 1977 along with Burt, and in 1978, there were at least 14 … and I was one of them. That was my first time [at Oshkosh].”

“The first three years I stayed [at UW-Oshkosh], and every year since, I’ve stayed in the campground,” Ken said. “I’ve seen the way the campground has evolved …. That’s changed a lot, and yet it hasn’t changed. The society of campers is its own extra convention separate from the daytime convention. It has to be experienced, and not just one or twice, but over a number of years to understand. It’s a whole other vibe.”

This guy hits every note. He built his own airplane from plans. The plane is a Rutan design. He camps with his plane. Let’s just hope that he came in on Sunday rather than a day early. The weather for the event was perfect, sunny with highs around 80 degrees every day. Saturday, July 23 was a different story:

What it looked like in the Garmin Pilot app around 7 pm Central:

I’m not sure when they arrived, but here are a couple of guys who got two tents and two full-size bicycles into an A36 Bonanza:

Also a candidate for the True Spirit of Oshkosh award, a family that rebuilt a 1938 Staggerwing… twice (second rebuild necessitated by a hangar fire):

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Oshkosh begins; let’s celebrate the Miracle on the Quinnipiac

by philg

Captain Sully, the single-pilot hero of the Airbus A320 protagonist of the Miracle on the Hudson, may have to move over because no dog was saved during the river landing. By contrast, in the Miracle on the Quinnipiac, a Bonanza pilot did a beautiful water landing after an engine failure and a Great Dane was able to exit the aircraft onto a sandbar.

From a photo album:

06/30/22 New Haven, CT – A plane flying over the city had to make an emergency landing into the Quinnipiac River near Front and Pine Sts. The plane came to rest about 200 yards from the Waucoma Yacht Club. There were two people onboard as well as a Great Dane. All were able to exit the plane and were rescued by members of the yacht club using their boats. The people and pet were uninjured. The Coast Guard also responded with a boat. New Haven firefighters made a search of the plane and found no other people on board. The plane was submerged half way and had to be refloated and towed to the dock for further investigation. The cause of the crash is being investigated by the NTSB and FAA.

From a Fox TV station:

Late Thursday afternoon, the pilot of a single-engine plane made an emergency landing on the Quinnipiac River in New Haven, which resulted in no injuries, to any of the three occupants aboard, including a Great Dane

The pilot of the Beechcraft Bonanza, whose name was not released, was calm when he realized he wasn’t going to make it to Tweed New Haven Airport for an emergency landing. … . But, while the plane landed on the edge of the channel, on a sandbar, where the water is only a couple of feet deep, the tide was rising quickly.

EAA AirVenture starts today in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. So it is a great time to celebrate the hero of the Miracle on the Quinnipiac!

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Meet at Oshkosh? (I’m teaching two classes)

by philg

Almost time for EAA AirVenture (“Oshkosh”), a safe space for pilots of light aircraft where nobody will say “That is a stupid hobby.”

I’m giving two talks:

  • introduction to helicopter aerodynamics and operations (targeted at those with some airplane flying experience), at 8:30 am on Wednesday, July 27, Forum Stage 6
  • Instrument Flying Ground School, Lesson 1 (using the materials previously offered here) where lessons 2 and 3 will follow as free Zoom classes. Wednesday, July 27, at 10:00 am, Forum Stage 6.

For background on the event, see a lunchtime talk from our MIT ground school class:

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