Category: Flying

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

Private versus Government infrastructure costs

by philg

I was chatting with the owner of a small public-use (but privately-owned) airport. He’d gotten $3 million in state funding to repave the sub-3000′ runway and a parallel taxiway.

I said “That’s nuts. How do the airparks afford to maintain their runways when they might have only 30 houses?” (It would make a lot more sense to build the hangar homes next to a quiet publicly owned airport that is eligible for federal and state funds, but the regulations around “through-the-fence” access are complex.)

He said, “Oh, if you did it with private money it would be $1 million. When the state runs a project, the costs are a lot higher.”

He went on to explain that he had recently installed a Siemens-manufactured VASI next to the runway (these are the red/white lights that tell pilots whether they are above or below the standard glide slope for landing). With a bit of pitching in by based aircraft owners, the cost was $8,000. A nearby publicly owned airport installed the same Siemens-built equipment with federal money. The cost was $120,000 (15X).

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Jacksonville Boeing 737 crash shows value of grooved runways?

by philg

Friends have been asking me about the Boeing 737 that ran off the runway approximately 9:40 pm last night at the Jacksonville Naval Air Station. Here’s the METAR:

KNIP 040153Z 13003KT 2SM +TSRA BR SCT010 BKN021CB OVC035 23/21 A2998 RMK AO2 TSB04 SLP149 FRQ LTGIC OHD TS OHD MOV E T1 SET P0074 T02280206

That’s May 4 at 01:53 GMT. Subtract four hours and we get to 9:53 pm local time, roughly when the crash occurred.

The rain wasn’t all that heavy because the visibility was still 2 statute miles. There was essentially no wind (13003KT = 3 knots from 130, favoring runway 10, which is what was being used). The notes are definitely scary, e.g., “frequent lightning overhead thunderstorm overhead,” but perhaps a Florida-based crew has become inured to this.

The 9000′ runway length is a little longer than standard for a 737.

What wasn’t standard? Unlike almost any U.S. civilian airport that receives commercial jet traffic, the runway wasn’t grooved (compare KNIP to nearby KJAX, for example, or even our flight school’s home airport KBED). A truly flat paved surface makes hydroplaning much more likely. In fact, at our Delta Airlines regional jet subsidiary we didn’t adjust landing distance for rain on a grooved runway. A grooved runway was always considered “dry”.

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Brave/Crazy French helicopter pilots planning around-the-world flight

by philg

“Two pilots to fly around the globe in Cabri G2” (Vertical) is about a two-seat trainer helicopter that seldom gets farther than 5 nm from its home airport and two French guys who will take it all the way around the world.

(The Robinson R22, despite its challenging low-inertia rotor system and not being designed for training, is a more popular trainer due to its low cost and high reliability. The Cabri costs about the same as a four-seat Robinson R44.)

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Cirrus SR22T Engine Management

by philg

Sharing a “Cirrus SR22T Transition and Engine Management” page in case it is useful to other flight instructors. I found that there wasn’t anything good out there, even from Cirrus, for pilots who already knew how to fly the SR22 and needed differences training for the SR22T.

People are actually buying these $1 million non-pressurized piston-powered machines. That’s the magic of (a) the parachute, and (b) Cirrus’s incremental annual improvements. General aviation would be a lot more popular, in my opinion, if the Piper Malibu had entered true mass production. Passengers want a quieter ride, to be above the weather and not wearing an oxygen mask, to walk up the airstair door, etc. But Cirrus has done amazing by focusing on the pilot. The G6 airplanes, for example, will automatically turn off the yaw damper below 400′ AGL. No more wondering how the rudder pedals got so crazy stiff on landing!

I would love to see Cirrus do a clean-sheet piston-powered airplane that concentrated on passenger comfort: pressurization plus dramatic reduction in interior noise for a start.

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Another airplane that fights the pilot if one AOA sensor is bad: Cirrus Jet

by philg

In another triumph for American engineering, it seems that the Cirrus Jet‘s stick pusher activates if a single AOA sensor fails mechanically (FAA Emergency Airworthiness Directive 2019-08-51). The system isn’t quite as badly designed as the Boeing 737 MAX’s silent gradual pusher, but it is nowhere near as robust as the early 1990s design on the Pilatus PC-12 (Swiss engineering). An important difference is that it is obvious to the pilot(s) when the Cirrus system is operating and the disconnect button is right on the yoke (just the usual A/P disconnect button).

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Reasonable to blame right-seat Labradoodle for the go-around accident?

by philg

A two-seat light sport plane crashes near the runway while a 13-knot wind is blowing. The 90-year-old pilot is killed. Who is to blame? Jasmine, the right-seat Labradoodle, according to the NTSB report. The probable cause:

The pilot’s decision to fly with his large dog in the two-seat, light sport airplane, and the dog’s likely contact with the flight controls during landing, which resulted in the pilot’s loss of airplane control and a subsequent aerodynamic stall when the airplane exceeded its critical angle of attack.

Without a cockpit video recorder, how exactly do we know this?

A witness, who was piloting another airplane in the traffic pattern, reported that, while he was on the downwind leg, he saw the accident airplane on final approach to the runway.

Based on available ground track and engine data, the airplane crossed the runway 27 threshold at a calculated airspeed of 48 knots. About 3 seconds later, the airplane turned right away from the runway heading, and the engine speed increased to takeoff power.

Given the ground track and engine data, it is likely that the dog contacted the aileron and/or stabilator controls during landing, which resulted in the pilot’s loss of airplane control and a subsequent aerodynamic stall at a low altitude when the airplane exceeded its critical angle of attack.

Does it make sense to blame Jasmine? She was manipulating the flight controls? Maybe. But wouldn’t a Labradoodle be more likely to push nose-down rather than grab the yoke with her teeth and pull nose-up? And the Labradoodle was also responsible for initiating a go-around by adding full throttle?

(Separately, as is typical with car accidents that kill humans, the supposedly inferior canine more or less walked away:

After the accident, the witness saw the pilot’s dog, who had been onboard the airplane, running out of the cornfield where the airplane had crashed. First responders were able to catch the dog, who was treated for minor injuries by a local veterinarian.

)

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Aircraft types that I have flown

by philg

I was asked to fill out a form showing the aircraft that I have flown and it turned out to be a longer list than expected…

  1. 8KAB (Decathlon)
  2. AA5 (Grumman Tiger)
  3. AC95 (Twin Commander 1000 turboprop)
  4. B200 (King Air 200 turboprop)
  5. B206
  6. B505 (new Jet Ranger)
  7. BE36
  8. BE55
  9. BE58
  10. BE103 (Beriev twin-engine seaplane!)
  11. C172
  12. C182
  13. C210 (in southern Africa)
  14. C310 (crazy noisy!)
  15. C510 (Cessna Mustang jet)
  16. CJ3
  17. CL65 (Canadair Regional Jet)
  18. COL4 (Columbia 400/Cessna 400)
  19. DA20 (Diamond Katana)
  20. DA40 (Diamond Star)
  21. EMB-500 (Phenom 100 jet)
  22. Evolution (experimental turboprop)
  23. Gamebird GB1
  24. HK36 (motor glider)
  25. M20T (turbocharged Mooney)
  26. PA12 (Piper Super Cruiser… on floats!)
  27. PA28
  28. PA32
  29. PA34
  30. PA38 (with a very slender student!)
  31. PA44
  32. PA46 (Malibu; the dream family airplane as long as one can get a letter from God promising that the engine won’t quit)
  33. PC12
  34. R22
  35. R44
  36. R66
  37. SGS 2-32 (glider)
  38. SGS 2-33 (glider)
  39. SR20
  40. SR22
  41. TBM850

Adding to this blog so that the information doesn’t get lost. I was thinking that it would be good to put the favorites in bold, but I realized that at least half of the above aircraft would need to be marked. Most of them have at least some great characteristics.

The list would be a bit longer if I included variants, e.g., the turboprop versions of the PA46, the retractable version of the PA28, or the turbocharged version of the SR22.

Despite FAA English proficiency requirements for certificate holders, I am having some trouble understanding this new copilot. I think that he is complaining about the lack of A/C in the Cirrus:

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Sultan of Brunei owns Piper Aircraft

by philg

“Piper’s financial ties to anti-gay Brunei stir up controversy, with Harris caught in crossfire” (Florida Today):

Vero Beach-based Piper Aircraft Inc. has become embroiled in an international controversy, as a result of its ownership by the government of Brunei, which has just implemented a harsh new law that punishes sex between men and adultery with death by stoning.

Jackie Carlon, senior director of marketing and communications for Piper, said that, while “the shareholder of Piper Aircraft is the ministry of finance of Kingdom of Brunei,” and “we’re very, very aware of” the policy in Brunei, “I can’t control what they do in their country.”

Carlon said Brunei currently doesn’t profit from Piper’s business, but rather reinvests the profits back into the company.

I.e., so far this has been a money-sink for the Sultan. Surprise, surprise! (Who told him that general aviation would be a good investment? That Piper had already gone bankrupt twice in its history so plainly a third bankruptcy was impossible?)

Cirrus, the market leader in family-sized aircraft, was formerly owned by the First Islamic Investment Bank, ultimately renamed Arcapita, “the premier source for Shari’ah-compliant alternative investments” and “a global leader in Islamically acceptable alternative investments.” It is unclear if Arcapita maintained traditional Islamic views regarding sexual activities. Cirrus today is owned by the Chinese government, basically, and China does not comply with U.S. standards regarding, for example, same-sex marriage (Wikipedia).

Maybe the answer is to pay up for an Embraer Phenom 300? The company is Brazilian, part-owned by the Brazilian government, and same-sex marriage is available in Brazil (Wikipedia). If you’re passionate about flying and matters LGBTQIA, but approximately $10 million short of the $10 million necessary for a Phenom 300, Cessna is owned by Textron, which earned a perfect score in the 2019 Corporate Equality Index (“Rating Workplaces on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Equality”). New and used Cessnas are available to suit nearly every budget.

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Boeing 737 MAX crash and the rejection of ridiculous data

by philg

“Boeing 737 Max: What went wrong?” (BBC) contains a plot showing the angle of attack data being fed to Boeing’s MCAS software. Less than one minute into the flight, the left sensor spikes to an absurd roughly 70-degree angle of attack. Given the weight of an airliner, the abruptness of the change was impossible due to inertia. But to have avoided killing everyone on board, the software would not have needed a “how fast is this changing?” capability. It would simply have needed a few extra characters in an IF statement. Had the systems engineers and programmers checked Wikipedia, for example, (or maybe even their own web site) they would have learned that “The critical or stalling angle of attack is typically around 15° – 20° for many airfoils.” Beyond 25 degrees, therefore, it is either sensor error or the plane is stalling/spinning and something more than a slow trim is going to be required.

So, even without checking the left and right AOA sensors against each other (what previous and conventional stick pusher designs have done), all of the problems on the Ethiopian flight could potentially have been avoided by changing

IF AOA > 15 THEN RUNAWAY_TRIM();

to

IF AOA > 15 AND AOA < 25 THEN RUNAWAY_TRIM();

About 10 characters of code, in other words. (See the Related links below for the rest of the flaws in the MCAS system design, which the above tweak would not have fixed.)

We fret about average humans being replaced by robots, but consider the Phoenix resident who sees that the outdoor thermometer is reading 452 degrees F on a June afternoon. Will the human say “Arizona does get hot in the summer so I’m not going to take my book outside for fear that it will burst into flames”? Or “I think I need to buy a new outdoor thermometer”?

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Cheaper planes for fatter Americans

by philg

Thirty years ago, 85 percent of students and instructors could conduct training in a two-seat airplane. Today, 85 percent of students and instructors need to use a four-seat airframe. It would be inconceivable for four typical GA-interested American adults to take off within safe weight & balance limits for the typical 1950s or 1960s-designed airframe.

Cirrus responded to the changed circumstances by making the SR22, a four-seater with 1,000 lbs. more gross weight and twice the horsepower compared to a 1960s four-seater.

Piper has done something interesting. They’ve taken a seat out of their four-seater (1960 design), put in an experimental glass panel, and delivered a new IFR-capable three-seat airplane, including the fantastic Garmin GFC 500 autopilot, for $285,000 (down from more than $370,000; compare to a Cirrus SR20 at $455,000 before options). And it probably will be able to take off with three adult Americans circa 2020!

One issue: the airplane will be called the “Pilot 100”. Did the marketing staff at Piper recently come over from Dorco USA?

See this article from Plane&Pilot.

One unusual twist is using a 180-horsepower engine from Continental, now under Chinese ownership. Industry experts say that Lycoming makes a more reliable engine, especially the IO-360 Lycoming. Also that Lycoming support is far superior. Cirrus recently dropped Continental as a supplier for its lower-powered model, the SR20.

(Out of a handful of SR22s in our T hangars, the premature failure rate on the bigger Continental engines has been high. One failed catastrophically at 300 hours. Another failed at about 900 hours (supposed to last 2,200) and one month after its three-year warranty expired. Continental refused to do anything for the customer other than sell him a new engine at the standard price.)

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