Category: Flying

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

Helicopter talk at Oshkosh (AirVenture) tomorrow morning

by philg

Slides for my talk on helicopters tomorrow at Oshkosh (EAA AirVenture, officially): https://tinyurl.com/AirVenture2019Helicopters

If you want to come, set your alarm! The talk is at 0830 in Forum Stage 6. Given that the venue seats hundreds, it will be a Spinal Tap-style situation of audience-to-seat ratio.

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How to get a free tie and wristwatch

by philg

Day 2 of EAA AirVenture and the air is filled with fast jets.

Martin-Baker, the family-run English company that makes ejection seats, won the Aero Club of New England’s Cabot Award this year. The British executive accepting the award failed to adhere to American Facebook standards. He said “it is an honor and a pleasure,” not “we’re honored and humbled.”

Thinking of taking politicians’ advice to go into STEM? One engineer in the early days ejected 18 times. Those first devices required the pilot to pull a parachute rip chord after being rocketed out of a plane (the company still operates two Gloster Meteor World War II jet fighters plus a Wile E. Coyote-style rocket test track near Belfast (for which expired air-to-air missile rockets are used)).

Roughly 80,000 seats have been made and 7,600 used (latest). The company refrained from offering a “Mk 13” version of the seat. Martin-Baker is managed by engineers and the product is far more complex than one would expect. Numerous airbags deploy in precise sequence to try to prevent a pilot from being injured during the ejection. (John McCain is the most famous pilot to have been injured by the process; the injuries that some people imagine he sustained as a POW were actually inflicted by not being positioned properly during ejection. The latest and greatest Martin-Baker seats require less of the pilot.)

The highlight of the award lunch was meeting Col. Joe Kittinger, who has used a Martin-Baker seat twice. He wore the tie that the company gives to everyone who ejects and the watch that Martin-Baker gives to pilots who shoot down an enemy plane and then are forced to eject. (Apologies for the iPhone photos taken in dim light; where’s the Google Pixel when you need it?)

As with the B-17 bomber crews who went out to Germany in 1943, I am not surprised that someone would go out on that first mission, but it is tough to imagine going out for the second.

Here’s to the guys like Joe Kittinger II whose bravery took most of the risk out of the flying that we do today and thereby enabled a mass aviation celebration like AirVenture (“Oshkosh”).

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New history of GPS; when $1 device works better than $100,000 receiver

by philg

Opening day for EAA AirVenture (“Oshkosh”). I hope to see readers during and/or after my Wednesday talk on helicopter aerodynamics (0830 on Forum Stage 6).

One big theme at Oshkosh is the innovation and excitement in the world of experimental aircraft world compared to the glacial pace of progress in the world of certified aircraft.

The month of June was not exactly a success story for regulation. A certified helicopter that lacked even 1% of the intelligence of a DJI drone was crashed into a building in New York City (NYT). Less dramatically, the FAA-certified GPS ($100,000?) in the Canadair Regional Jet that I used to fly failed due to a software problem (AOPA). Meanwhile, the GPS chips inside phones ($1?) continued to work nicely.

[On nearly the same day that these regional jets were back to using VORs, a Facebook friend linked to a post from The Female Lead:

Of course, I couldn’t resist commenting “She also invented the semiconductor transistor and the silicon integrated circuit.” This was greeted approvingly.]

The FAA became a lot more nimble starting a few years ago regarding the approval of avionics that could make small aircraft safer. So it will be interesting to see this week whether there is more innovation in the kit or certified world.

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Flight school lobbies should have a fleet position display

by philg

National Flight Centre in Dublin has an interesting functional decor item next to the front desk: two big flat-screen televisions showing the location of the flight school’s fleet (why two? a view of the traffic pattern and then a view of the region). ADS-B is not mandated in Ireland currently so they are doing this with portable GPS trackers that are in a key/notebook bag that students take out to the plane when renting. For a U.S. school in a transponder-required area, however, I think the same thing could be done with software pulling ADS-B data from public sources.

When customers and potential customers come in they can see all of the fun that is happening. For our school it would be planes out on Cape Cod, up in Maine, etc. (Would need to program the software to show the last received position so that the plane does not disappear from the Martha’s Vineyard airport once shut down.)

Readers: What’s the easiest way to build this using ADS-B data? What source?

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New York helicopter crash: why not robot intelligence?

by philg

Last month, New Yorkers were stunned when a helicopter crashed into a building on a miserable cloudy day. The NTSB report describes the machine as an Agusta A109E, the “Power” edition of the twin-engine helicopter that came standard with an autopilot.

Thus we have a machine with autopilot servos that can manipulate cyclic and collective. The machine came with a glass cockpit so it also should have at least two digital attitude sources (whether the helicopter is pitched up, banked left, etc.). Finally, it almost surely had a GPS receiver and a digital terrain database, which would have included the obstacles of Manhattan.

Media coverage centered on the pilot’s lack of an instrument rating (example: CNN). (In fact, being capable of instrument flight does not help that much unless one is actually planning an IFR flight from airport to airport with established procedures for departure and approach/landing.)

Nobody seems to have asked “If it had autopilot servos, attitude sources, and a GPS, why couldn’t a $10 million helicopter fly itself through the low clouds, away from the buildings, and to the destination? A DJI drone would have been able to do that.”

We expect so much of our phones and so little from our aircraft!

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Cougar 91 lesson: on-board computers should run the checklist flowchart

by philg

I recently had occasion to go through materials regarding the crash of Cougar flight 91, a nearly new $20 million Sikorsky S-92 that went into the water off the coast of Newfoundland.

The helicopter featured five big bitmap displays, all driven by on-board computers. From the (Canadian) TSB report:

Following the sudden loss of oil in the main gearbox (takes power from the two engines and sends it up to the main rotor and back to the tail rotor), the screens were displaying a MGB Oil Pressure red warning message and a main gearbox oil pressure of 0 psi. The pilots were supposed to get out the paper checklists, see that MGB red light plus < 5 psi implies “land immediately” (i.e., ditch in the sea), and then act on the result of this IF statement. It turned out not to be easy to find the correct checklist (2.5 minutes) and it was ultimately 6.5 minutes after the catastrophic oil loss that the pilots realized that Sikorsky’s recommendation was to “land immediately” (i.e., ditch in the sea despite the risk of rolling over and potentially drowning).

There were a bunch of changes recommended after the accident, but nobody seems to have questions that it was the task-saturated pilots’ job to get out paper checklists and run flowcharts.

It was a computer that was displaying the red message and a computer that was displaying the oil pressure number.

Shouldn’t the computer have an additional two lines of code to run the algorithm itself and display a “MGB FAILING: LAND IMMEDIATELY” message?

[Why wasn’t it obvious to ditch rather than try to make it back to land? In aviation it is more common to have an indication problem than a real problem. If a gauge is showing “unhealthy” but there aren’t unusual sounds or other secondary indications, it usually does not make sense to take immediate drastic action. Putting a helicopter down in the open ocean, even a helicopter with pop-out floats, entails the risk of a rollover and then occupants having trouble escaping.]

Intro to the emergency checklist section of the S-92A RFM:

After a bunch of distracting preliminary pages, the RFM does say that the reading of oil pressure below 5 psi is a secondary indication to the red warning:

Keep in mind that it is one thing to find this page in a massive book and then follow its logic while sitting at a desk drinking a latte and quite another to do it in a stricken helicopter with 16 passengers in the back and an 8-foot swell in the cold Atlantic Ocean below.

Related:

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Getting together at AirVenture (Oshkosh)

by philg

Here are some places I hope to be at AirVenture. I would be happy to get together with any readers. Maybe the best way to reach me is via text: 617-864-6832. The guaranteed meeting would be on Wednesday morning, since I’m the speaker!

Tentative schedule… (I usually execute on about one third of these plans!)

Monday, 2:30 pm: USAF pilot training, Forum Stage 4 (conflicts, unfortunately, with David Martin in the Beech Baron in the airshow)

Monday afternoon: Aeromart (swap meet and the good stuff is picked over quickly).

Monday evening, July 22: Cirrus pilot dinner at the Hilton Garden Inn, 5:30 onward. Non-COPA owners may register.

Tuesday, 8:30 am: PT6A operations for PC-12, Workshop Classroom C.

Tuesday, 10 am: Over Both Poles in a Homebuilt by Bill Harrelson, Homebuilders Hangar. Tough competition from Back-Country Flying with SkyChick (Ramona Cox) on Forum Stage 11.

Tuesday, 10 am: Designing the Perfect Paint Scheme, Forum Stage 10. I did this last year (report) so I won’t go again, but highly recommended.

Tuesday 11 am or noon: Try to catch a Vintage Aircraft Tram Tour from the Vintage Red barn (every hour from 9-1).

Tuesday 11:30: Mad MAX-style kit helicopter and gyrocopter demonstrations at the Ultralight runway.

Tuesday, 1 pm, Theater in the Woods: Southwest 1380 talk by both pilots (imagine that, Captain “single pilot” Sully! Tammie Jo Shults brought her first officer Darren Ellisor into the spotlight!)

Tuesday, 2:30: Aerovie App, which looks like it has some interesting features, including an 8-day weather profile view (original idea is from WeatherSpork, I think), Forum Stage 9. (But it isn’t free, so how can it compete with modestly-priced market leader ForeFlight, now owned by Boeing? The plan is that Boeing will move some of its 737 MAX programmers onto the ForeFlight team and thereby destroy the product?)

Tuesday, 3 pm: Learn to use your weather radar, Part II, BendixKing Pavilion

Tuesday, 4 pm: Boring but important… Suzanne Meiners-Levy talks about business use of aircraft under the latest tax law. Forum Stage 10.

Tuesday, 5:30: EAA Press HQ social media meetup.

Wednesday morning, 0830: a talk on helicopter aerodynamics, Forum Stage 6. I should be finished talking (God willing!) by 9:00 am. Add another 15 minutes for questions from anyone crazy enough to have gotten up for 0830 and we can have a reader get-together at 9:15. We can walk over to the WomenVenture Group Photo at 11:00 am and see if we can get a T-shirt and be accepted in to the photo by saying “I woke up this morning identifying as a woman.” (I was previously rejected from the Air Race Classic despite offering to identify as a woman; apparently aviation is not transgender-friendly.)

Wednesday, 11:00 am: Learn to use WX Radar, Part I, Bendix/King Pavilion

Wednesday, 11:30 am: ForeFlight for experienced users, Forum Stage 8.

Wednesday, 1 pm: Flying to Mexico and Central America. Forum Stage 1. (Nobody told the pilots, mechanics, air traffic controllers, airport administrators, et al. down there that it is unsafe and they all must flee to the U.S. in a caravan (Cessna Caravan?).)

Wednesday afternoon: evening air show from Aviator’s Club: don’t want to miss Patty Wagstaff and Mike Goulian in their Extras or Jim Peitz in his inspiring Beech Bonanza (we can all do this in our family four-seaters!). The other theme will be The Death of a Tax Dollar, with the F-22 being demonstrated.

Wednesday, 6 pm: EAA WomenVenture – Celebrating Powerful Pilots, Theater in the Woods.

Wednesday evening: night air show from the Aviator’s Club. If sufficient energy, follow this up with the short aviation films at the Airbus fly-in theater

Thursday, 8:30: NASA Langley talk about pimping out a Cessna with the Mother of All Autopilots, Forum Stage 1. (it is unfortunate that most of NASA’s budget is wasted on pointless manned space missions; when these folks turn their attention to aviation the results are usually fantastic). During the same time slot, some folks are talking in the EAA Museum about creating a 270′-high “triumph of flight” monument. I.e., to celebrate aviation they are creating a dangerous obstacle!

Thursday, 8:30: Helicopter Safety Team, Forum Stage 3.

Thursday, 10:00 am: Innovation Showcase (“aviation innovation” is typically an oxymoron if we’re talking about certified!) in Aviation Gateway Park

Thursday, 11:30: Meet the FAA Administrator, Theater in the Woods

Thursday, 11:30: Flying the Concorde, Forum Stage 8 (i.e., EAA thinks 30X more people will be interested in hearing from about bureaucracy compared to hearing about supersonic flight)

Thursday, 1 pm: Burt Rutan talks in Theater in the Woods. Our age’s greatest airplane designer and also a climate change heretic (good thing he isn’t trying to get a job at Google!).

Thursday, 2:30 pm: ForeFlight for experienced users, Forum Stage 8 (if missed the above)

Thursday afternoon airshow: Jim Peitz at the beginning in the Beech Bonanza and David Martin near the end in the Beech Baron. I love these demonstrations of what ordinary aircraft can do when flown by someone skilled.

Thursday, 8 pm: Double Rutan action in the Theater in the Woods: Starship to Spaceships.

Thursday, 9:30 pm: U.S. premiere of a film about the Lafayette Escadrille in the Airbus theater.

Friday morning: Seaplane base! (maybe stay for the 1:30 “Floats Up” talk by Mary Build, a seaplane CFI from Maine) The want-to-go items below probably will have to be skipped.

Friday, 10:00 am: The Women of NASA, Theater in the Woods: “The speakers will encourage women to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.” (i.e., the speakers will encourage women to choose a career that times out at age 50 and pays 1/10th to 1/3rd of what a physician earns!)

Friday, 10:00 am: Solar System Science with the James Webb Space Telescope, Forum Stage 6. The interesting part of NASA gets a small stage at the same time.

Friday, 11:30 am: Designing the Perfect Paint Scheme. Forum Stage 6. I did this last report (report) so I won’t go again, but highly recommended.

Friday, noon: Vintage Aircraft Tram Tour if did not already get it in.

Friday, 1 pm: Gyroplane 101, Ultralight Forums Tent. If these folks want to fly for about 200 hours low and slow in a two-seater, why don’t they simply buy a nearly timed-out Robinson R22?

Friday 1 pm: Hot Topics in Aviation Law, Forum Stage 9.

Friday, 2:30 pm: Airline Pilot Job Market, Forum Stage 8

Friday, 4 pm: Airport Secrets by a consultant to airports. FAA Aviation Safety Center.

Saturday, 0600: mass balloon launch (probably will sleep through!)

Saturday, 0630: 12 Step Recovery Meeting, Nature Center – Tent 3. Anyone crazy enough to get up for 0600 on a Saturday is probably suffering from a disease worse than alcoholism.

Saturday 0700: Ford Tri-Motor Flights (something to do before the show really starts).

Saturday 0730: Warbird Tram Tour

Saturday, 0900: Combating the Startle Effect, International Federal Pavilion.

Saturday, 10:00 am: Registering to fly in the D.C. FRZ. Recover the use of three airports buried in red tape after 9/11. Register ahead of time.

Saturday, 11:30 am: New in Foreflight, Forum Stage 8.

Saturday, 1 pm, EAA Museum, Wrights v. Curtiss patent wars. Americans have been leaders in aviation and nobody touches us when it comes to litigation. Let’s see what happens when these themes are combined!

Saturday afternoon: wander around EAA Museum (air-conditioned!) and the rest of the stuff in that area. Museum closes at 6 pm.

Saturday, 3 pm. Drone Obstacle Course in the Drone Cage. (if done early at museum).

Saturday, 6 pm: Homebuilt Aircraft Awards, Homebuilders Hangar.

Saturday evening, starting 8 pm: night air show from the Aviator’s Club.

Saturday, 9:30 pm: short aviation films, Airbus theater (if missed)

Sunday, 9:00 am: DJI Drone demo. Drone Cage.

Sunday, 9:00 am-4:00 pm: The exhibitors will be burned out, but there aren’t a lot of talks, etc. scheduled for today.

Sunday, 12:30 pm: DJI Inspire 2 demo. Drone Cage. This is the big one!

Sunday afternoon, 1 pm: Airshow? Don’t want to miss David Martin in his Beechcraft Baron(!). More tax dollars will be destroyed by an F-22. Also potentially interesting is Kyle Fowler in a Rutan Long-EZ. The F-35 and A-10 will also be demonstrated. (Wouldn’t it be nice if they could bring an enemy to do the announcing during these displays of military might? The North Korean guy could say “Whoa! Now I am truly frightened and will do whatever Donald Trump tells me.” An Iranian could say “Now that I’ve experienced the power of the F-22, there is no way I am going to keep building nukes.”)

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What’s great about the United States?

by philg

Happy July 4th!

To have complete sovereignty over our own country, we killed a lot of people, enslaved millions more for an extra generation (the British freed most slaves in their empire in 1833), and stole a ton of additional land from the Native Americans (west of the Proclamation Line, which the British had honored).

Let’s talk about the dividends from this sacrifice (mostly paid for by others!).

Readers: What do you think is great about the U.S. compared to other countries, especially the UK?

My personal vote is our aviation infrastructure. On a recent trip to Canada, we landed at CYHM (Hamilton, Ontario), which has a 10,000′ runway, no 100LL fuel, and, despite imposing a CAN$50 ramp fee, no chocks sized for a Cirrus. We then repositioned to CYSN (near Niagara Falls), where the FBO has only one person on staff to pump fuel and run credit cards. The woman who was working on the Friday when we arrived said that she had never added oil to an aircraft.

Compare to the U.S., where the 100LL truck may pull up to the airplane before you’ve gotten out and where the line personnel push to learn and do everything that they can. No plane? We have a higher density of flight schools and rental clubs than anywhere else in the world.

How about innovation? At a small airport here in Massachusetts, I stumbled on a hydrogen-powered hexcopter that seats five and is close to ready for tethered flight. The energy density of hydrogen is much higher than today’s best batteries (Toyota has placed huge contrarian bets on hydrogen fuel cells for cars, where weight is much less of an issue), so this aircraft can have vastly superior range and payload to a battery-powered plane or multicopter. Flight control is accomplished by varying the speeds of the six motors (not blade pitch, as in a conventional helicopter). If things go truly south, there is an airframe parachute, as with the Cirrus. The full-scale carbon fiber test vehicle is impressive and the company, Alaka’i Technologies, seems to have ample funding (big boost received in 2018) and a full slate of industry veterans.

Readers: What do you love about the U.S., especially things that are different from the U.K. or a result of our being an independent sovereign nation?

Related:

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