Category: Flying

Yesterday was a sad one for aviation enthusiasts due to the Boeing B-17 crash near Hartford, Connecticut.

Friends and reporters have been asking me about this, but it is tough to say much. A plane of that vintage does not have the hooks necessary to feed a flight data recorder (“black box”). There wouldn’t be any reason for the plane to have had a cockpit voice recorder either, though that would be comparatively simple to install.

Currently, the only clue as to what might have gone wrong is the following exchange with Bradley Approach:

• Pilot: Boeing 93012 We’d like to return to the field.
• ATC: November 93012 Sorry, say again.
• ATC: What’s the reason for coming back?
• Pilot: The number four engine. We’d like to return and blow it out.

The italicized words are a bit tough to make out, but I think that is what one of the airplane’s pilots said. My friends who fly planes with radial engines don’t know what this means and neither do I. Certainly it doesn’t mean anything for pilots of a conventional piston-powered Cirrus or Cessna.

[Speculation: Aviation gasoline is leaded to prevent detonation. Spark plugs are subject to lead fouling and a fouled plug will cause the engine to run rough. In the event of a failed magneto check during the preflight run-up, a technique for clearing the fouled plug and restoring the engine to smooth operation is to lean the mixture (less fuel per unit of air) and run the engine up to a reasonably high power setting on the ground. I haven’t heard anyone refer to this procedure as “blow it out,” but perhaps that is what was meant.]

After this exchange, the radio exchanges were essentially ordinary until the plane landed short of Runway 06, damaging the approach lights (out of service by NOTAM issued shortly after the crash: “RWY 06 ALS U/S 1910021702-1910092000EST”), and eventually veered off into the de-ice area to the right of the runway (airport diagram). The ILS 6 procedure says that the runways has an ALSF-2 approach lighting system and this FAA document says that those lights should start about 2,400′ before the runway pavement begins.

Flying a multi-engine plane after an engine failure is challenging due to the fact that the plane wants to yaw and roll (good explanation). If the pilots do everything right, the plane will fly slightly sideways and with reduced performance. That’s assuming a working feathering mechanism for the propeller on the dead engine, though, so that the prop blades can be turned into knife edges rather than massive speed brakes. After the initial reconfiguration and getting the prop feathered, touching down is the trickiest part. A plane flying slightly sideways through the air is inefficient. A plane going sideways off the runway is crashing.

[When I was fresh from my multi-engine instructor rating, I wrote up this page on how one trains for the failure of an engine on one side. See also my post about how I was unable to pull on the correct lever during my own training and our MIT ground school class, in which this topic is covered during Lecture 19 (PPT and video linked and free to download).]

Both pilots of this airplane died in the crash (Hartford Courant) so we may never find out exactly what happened. I looked them up in the FAA Airmen Registry:

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Airplanes heavier than 12,500 lbs. or powered by turbojet engines required specific training and a checkride to add a “type rating” to fly that type of aircraft. The B-17 can take off at more than 50,000 lbs. and therefore requires a type rating for the captain. I believe that it also requires a two-pilot crew at a minimum (and in World War II was flown with two additional flight crew members: a flight engineer and a navigator). Depending on the operation, the second crew member need not be typed.

Michael Sean Foster, described in the media as the “co-pilot,” had a significant amount of aviation experience. He starts out with an Airline Transport Pilot certificate, the highest level, and is typed in three Boeing airliners, the DC-10, and the Learjet. He also holds an FAA Flight Engineer certificate, which would have qualified him to serve in this position in planes such as the DC-10. He was a Navy carrier pilot veteran. Ernest Herbert McCauley, who was serving as the “pilot”, held a Commercial certificate and was typed in the B-17. The NTSB credited McCauley with 7,300 hours of B-17 time; a World War II bomber pilot might have come home with 250 hours of total time in the B-17 (from 25 missions). He also held an FAA A&P certificate to perform maintenance on certified aircraft.

Weather cannot have been a factor. Tower reported “wind calm” just before the plane returned. The plane took off at 1348Z (9:48 am local time). The METAR from three minutes later: KBDL 021351Z 00000KT 10SM FEW110 FEW140 BKN180 23/19 A2981 (“Bradley Airport, October 2, 1351Z time, wind calm, 10 statute miles of visibility, few clouds 11,000′ above the airport elevation, few clouds 14,000′ above the airport, broken layer of clouds 18,000′ above the airport, temperature 23C, dewpoint 19C, altimeter setting 29.81”).

The Collings Foundation is a great organization, based here in Massachusetts as it happens, and everything that I’ve seen them do has been done with meticulous attention to safety, detail, and historical accuracy on a spare-no-expense basis.

Not having any B-17 training or time myself, that’s all that I know. It was good weather at a great airport, an aircraft that was likely maintained as well as possible, a plane that can fly safely on three engines, and two pilots with a tremendous depth of experience. Very saddened that it didn’t work out better.

Related:

• a post regarding the NTSB preliminary report on this accident

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Today marks 18 years since 9/11, one of the darkest days in aviation history.

Of course, we should remember those who died in 2001. But let me use today to highlight a more cheerful facet of aviation: the air show.

Oshkosh has the most varied air show of which I am aware and 2019 provided a lot of great experiences.

Mike Goulian demonstrated the most athletic and gyroscopic performance in a single airplane. An aerobatics expert companion rated him #1 among the performers for sheer flying skill.

The Rock Mountain Renegades were the most thought-provoking daytime act. They answer the questions “What if civilians did all of the same stuff as the Blue Angels, but at 1/3 to 1/2 the speed? And in airplanes that they built themselves?” They fly RV kit airplanes and, except for the lack of earplug-level noise, deliver a lot of the same thrills. One odd choice, especially given the use of homebuilt airplanes, is the use of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” song, which includes lyrics regarding “suicide machines” and “death trap.”

On the slower-paced and elegant side of things, Patty Wagstaff was great as usual, as were Jim Pietz in his Bonanza(!) and David Martin in his Baron(!!!). Martin just finished flying every day for 5 years (1826 days in a row).

The night airshow was awe-inspiring. The Twin Tigers delivered something so unusual that you have to watch the video. Nate Hammond was back in his Super Chipmunk (video). There was a SubSonex Jet that proved a homemade turbojet can do aerobatics at night… while spewing fireworks (and piloted by Bob Carlton, well into AARP territory). Redline proved that homebuilt RV kit planes do the same… in formation.

If reflecting on 9/11 has you down on aviation, maybe plan a trip to Oshkosh 2020 as an antidote.

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One of my personal highlights at Oshkosh this year was a demo flight in the Icon A5.

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I’ve been something of a skeptic regarding Icon at its $400,000-ish price (but the company has been making a lot of changes recently, so perhaps it will be re-priced soon?). But there is no way to justify any airplane as a rational purchase. A $30,000 Honda Accord is a much better machine for transportation, and generally quicker (when you subtract out all of the required training time, currency time, hanging out with friends at the airport time, and waiting out the weather time) than a $1 million Cirrus. The Icon is not “more irrational” than the Cirrus. They’re both simply “irrational” and, if someone has the money and enjoys the toy, why not?

First, the summary: the A5 is actually a great airplane for the owner of a lake house who wants to use it like a Jetski and zip around for 20 minutes before returning to base. The airframe, designed by Rutan alum Jon Karkow (who received a posthumous shout-out from Burt Rutan at Oshkosh this year), seems to have met all of the design goals. There are no sponsons underneath the wingtips to catch in the water and thereby capsize the aircraft while taxiing (see Lake Amphibian!). The plane seems to be quite forgiving in terms of landing attitude. It would be difficult to dig in and flip as is straightforward to accomplish with a Cessna on floats. As discussed below, the avionics should be more advanced.

Why does anyone care about a two-seat amphib? It seems that those who are jaded regarding small planes on wheels still love the idea of a seaplane. I posted some photos from the Icon A5 demo flight on Facebook and watched the Likes pile up. A comparable post regarding the Cirrus SR20 would have elicited only yawns.

Considering how few two-seat amphibious seaplanes are out there, this is a surprisingly active corner of the airplane industry. In addition to Icon, there is the Searey, the ATOL (a wooden design from Finland whose executives were at Oshkosh talking about how it will soon be certified in Europe and will have more payload than the Icon (but can wood hold up as well as the solid block of carbon fiber and plastic that is the Icon?)), and the Brazilian Petrel, plus probably a few more purely experimental designs.

Life is a lot simpler if you can set up Icon’s special dock (my video):

(This is why the Alaskans love their Cessnas on floats; pull up to any boat dock.)

After we left the dock, some water came into the cabin through the air vents, presumably due to the 8-12″ waves (close to the limit of what is reasonable). This is a non-issue as the Icon is at least half watercraft. A bilge pump will move the water overboard.

It is easy to maintain directional control at low speeds thanks to water rudders. Unfortunately, the pilot needs to remember to extend these below 10 knots (via a panel switch) and then retract them or risk them being ripped off during a high-speed taxi. Given that the GPS knows the aircraft’s ground speed, why can’t this be automatic?

With two average sized American guys on board, staying under gross weight is possible only with one hour of fuel and some prayer. Despite being right at gross weight, on a hot day, and in rough water, the A5 had a reasonable take-off run and climb performance. Getting up on the step is much simpler than in a conventional plane on floats.

Cruising around in the pattern with the side windows removed, the experience is noisy, even with Bose noise-canceling headsets. This is definitely not going to be comfortable for a long trip. But, again, if the mission is “take a weekend guest up for a unique and fun experience,” fatigue from the noise is not an issue.

Landing is almost idiot-proof (though, despite being a legal seaplane CFI, I was happy to have the Icon factory CFI sitting in the right seat!).

What didn’t I love? The gear handle and gear lights are not in the primary instrument cluster. They are down and to the right. A pilot with tunnel vision won’t find these in his or her scan. Absent avionics smart enough to say “Your wheels are down and yet you aren’t headed for a runway in the GPS database. Remember not to land wheels-down in the water,” there is a risk of landing wheels-up on a runway or wheels-down in the water.

Is this a real-world risk? With only a handful of planes delivered to customers, we already have “Icon A5 Flips On Water Landing” (June 25, 2019):

Both pilot and passenger suffered minor injuries after their Icon A5 flipped on landing at Okanagan Lake, West Kelowna, British Columbia. Police reports and post-crash video suggest that the Icon’s gear was extended for the water landing, likely to be the cause of the flip-over.

Rumor has it that at least a couple of owners have landed gear up on runways (oftentimes not reported to the NTSB and not in the accident database).

The Garmin portable GPS that is mounted in the center of the panel is the opposite of smart. It shows runways and water. Apparently running the stock Garmin software for a plane on wheels, it shows a red warning every time the Icon A5 is properly configured for a normal wheels-up landing in the water (that’s an impact with terrain as far as the Garmin knows!).

Summary again: If I had a lake house, I would seriously consider buying one! It is a reasonable value and a great achievement in terms of airframe design. Evaluating the Icon A5 against a Cessna on floats is an apples to oranges comparison that doesn’t make sense. The Icon is its own thing and the airframe is a huge improvement over the competition.

Related:

• my Icon A5 review following AirVenture 2010
• https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2017/08/02/time-for-a-robot-assistant-up-in-the-dome-light-of-the-cockpit/
• https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2018/10/04/icon-a5-pilot-review/

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During lunch at EAA AirVenture, I encouraged my companions to accompany me to a talk by the crew of Southwest 1380 regarding their emergency landing following an uncontained engine failure during a flight from New York to Dallas. “So what,” was one GA pilot’s response. “They ran a checklist.”

It is Labor Day, however. Maybe we can celebrate people who simply show up to work and do whatever it is they were trained to do in the sim.

Was the Southwest 1380 incident truly just like an engine failure in a sim, with the remaining working components of the airliner adding up to a much better aircraft than 99 percent of the planes parked at Oshkosh?

The question was answered by Tammie Jo Shults and Darren Ellisor, captain and first officer appearing side-by-side on stage (see “Captain Tammie is the anti-Sully”).

First officer Darren was the pilot flying when the incident began. He described the autopilot quitting and the airplane rolling to roughly 41 degrees left. He responded by grabbing the yoke and pulling back thrust levers to stop the asymmetric thrust. “I knew we had some kind of engine problem and that we had to start down.”

Captain Tammie said that she remembered the Air France 447 crash in which two pilots gave the plane opposite inputs. The roaring noise from the decompression prevented oral communication, but once she saw that Darren was on the controls, she used hand signals to show that she was taking her hands off. Both pilots described vibration severe enough to make it difficult to read instruments or checklists.

Tammie continued to display her anti-Sully personality by explaining that the only reason she took over the controls was that Southwest requires captains to land emergency aircraft. She credited Darren with being perfectly competent to fly the plane and also with identifying Philadelphia as the best destination. She took over after most of the descent was complete and that left her to fly and handle radio calls while he ran the checklists.

The pilots noted that tasks in the cockpit kept them too busy to contact the flight attendants and explain what was going to happen. “Our first contact with the flight attendants was at 8,000’ [after coming down from 32,500’].” That meant roughly 15 minutes in which folks in the back had no idea whether they were going to walk down stairs at an airport or land in a cornfield. (See “Southwest 1380: think about the flight attendants”)

In addition to highlighting the efforts of the cabin crew, Captain Tammie recognized two passengers for heroism. “These guys left their oxygen masks and families to try to try to pull Jennifer [Riordan] back into the plane,” she said. “They took the risk of being pulled out themselves in the event of additional structural failure, which they had no way of predicting.”

(The passengers were able to get Ms. Riordan back into the plane after the airliner had slowed down and turned base, but unfortunately she died from her injuries.)

Once the oxygen masks were on and the plane was slowed down, did it fly like the sim then? No. There was a lot of extra drag on the left side. Darren explained that the failed engine’s cowling had spread out “like a thrust reverse” and that fragments had damaged the leading edge of the wing. It was difficult to make right turns and he later said that he wasn’t sure if the plane could have held altitude on one engine, even at 200 knots.

Partly due to the circumstances and partly due to Air Traffic Control’s repeated requests for the same information after every frequency change (e.g., souls and fuel on board), the crew finished only 1 checklist (“severe damage”) out of 7 that Darren thought should have been run.

The landing was uneventful despite the fueled-for-Dallas plane being 10,000 lbs over max landing weight. In keeping with the U.S. love for security and bureaucracy, Tammie said “the first person to come onboard the aircraft was FBI.” (i.e., the first people to enter the landed plane were not EMTs to help Jennifer Riordan).

Asked by an audience member why they didn’t ignore ATC’s requests for information after the first answered one, Tammie explained that they were afraid being intercepted by fighters.

There was continued confusion after landing regarding which frequencies to use to talk to the fire and rescue personnel at the Philadelphia airport.

Sidenote: both pilots are huge fans of Boeing and consider the 737 MAX to be perfectly safe. “I’d put him on it any time,” said Darren regarding the young son who’d accompanied him to Oshkosh. Boeing desperately needs to hire these two!

Both pilots are back at Southwest. Darren has completed the upgrade to captain that had been scheduled for shortly after the 1380 incident. Captain Tammie went back to work 3.5 weeks after the engine failure “because I wanted a little slice of normal. Getting back and getting to fly again was great.” She hand flies to 18,000’ for proficiency.

Jeff Skiles, first officer of “Miracle on the Hudson” US Airways 1549, was in the audience, attending Oshkosh mostly for the same reasons as everyone else.

Related:

• Nerves of Steel (remember that publishers choose the title, not authors!) comes out in October. Darren Ellisor is mentioned even in the Amazon blurb on the book, so I don’t think this can be said to be an attempt to turn this into a single-pilot incident.

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Destination Moon at the Museum of Flight in Seattle is on through September 2, 2019. The exhibit is a great experience, made better by the retired engineers who serve as docents.

Feel better about your achievements at the entrance…

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Ignore the awesome permanent collection:

You will be reminded that the Lunar Roving Vehicle (Moon Buggy) was built by Boeing…

There is a lot of great explanation of the Saturn V engines, some of whose core features were carried over from the German V-2.

Some of the advanced technology that each person in Mission Control had on the desktop custom-made consoles…

(For younger readers: You turn the dial to make a phone call.)

The Museum of Flight is not infected by an Oshkosh-style blind patriotism and reminds visitors that JFK may have launched the Apollo project to distract Americans from the “disastrous failure” at the Bay of Pigs (Eisenhower made the same point).

The museum’s compliance with current political orthodoxy is incomplete. On the one hand, the folks who designed and built Apollo are described as “A Diverse Workforce” because they had “many backgrounds and educational levels”. But on the other hand, Margaret Hamilton is not credited with writing the code for the Apollo Guidance Computer. Consistent with histories written in the pre-woke age, the software was written by programmers who identified as men prior to her joining the project. She “verified and installed programs,” according to the museum, which makes sense from a historical timeline point of view if not from a social justice one.

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Want to be famous? Don’t be Russian. Here’s the first woman in space. Compare her fame to that of Sally Ride, an American who followed her into space 20 years later.

Want to be famous? Don’t be part of the sixth mission to land humans (some identifying as “men”?) on the moon:

How many of the above names were familiar to you?

Don’t like physics homework? There is an easier path to becoming a rocket scientist at NASA:

One of the most poignant and confusing parts of the museum is near the front entrance. A statue depicts Michael Anderson, mission specialist and then payload commander on two Shuttle flights. The plaque says “Dreams really do come true.” Yet Col. Anderson died on that second flight, of the shuttle Columbia. Surely that was not his or anyone else’s dream.

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My advice: Hop a flight to Seattle, stay at the new Hyatt Regency, chow down at Din Tai Fung (I picked out some food to order there and asked a Chinese-American friend to critique: “That’s like going to Pat’s or Geno’s and ordering a hot dog”), and spend a day (before Sept 2) at the Museum of Flight.

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