Category: Flying

AOPA has a comparison of the Boeing 737NG versus the Airbus A320 from a pilot’s perspective. Here are some excerpts:

As far as pilot comfort goes, the Airbus is a leap ahead of the Boeing. The 737’s forward fuselage is the same as that of the 707, which was designed in the mid-1950s. It begins tapering to the nose in the first-class cabin, and by the time you get to the cockpit it’s a pretty small tube. The Airbus keeps its beamy width all the way to the cockpit, providing a commodious workplace for the pilots.

Airbus took its time designing the cockpit, resulting in a clean, logical layout that is well marked and void of any lights during normal operations. Everything is covered in plastic, so pilots don’t see the construction details underneath. There are ample air vents to keep you cool in the summer and (optional) foot warmers to keep your toes warm in the winter. There’s plenty of room for all your baggage, two jumpseaters, and all the duty-free purchases you can bring on. There’s no massive yoke, either, so you can cross your legs if you want. There’s also a clever table that extends from the panel on which to lay your charts/iPad or crew meal. No eating off your lap like in the 737. Finally, the Airbus cockpit is noticeably quieter than the 737.

Speaking of landings, the Airbus is much easier to land smoothly and, for pilots, it goes a long way to stroke our already-inflated egos. If you can consistently grease a 737NG landing, you’re a better pilot than most. The problem with that airplane, especially the long-bodied models, is that it lands so fast. Because tail strikes are a big threat for the long, low-slung airplanes, approach speeds are in the 150- to 160-knot range, which is about 40 knots or more above stall speed. All that extra speed keeps the long-bodied 737s flat to avoid tail strikes, but it also causes them to skip right back in the air at initial touchdown—just a few inches. It’s just long enough for the ground-spoiler system to sense wheel spin, at which point the spoilers deploy—right now! And it’s that second plop to the ground that makes the NGs one of the more difficult airplanes to consistently land well.

This also brings up a safety issue. There have been more than a few runway overruns in long-bodied 737s. They are heavy, they land fast, and they have only four main-wheel brakes—unlike a 757, which has eight brakes. Pilots who like to use all of the runway’s touchdown zone trying to squeak out a good landing are playing with fire in this airplane, especially on wet or contaminated runways. Remember, style points don’t count if you run off the end of the runway.

Separately, I’m wondering if the passengers on Flydubai 981 would all still be alive had that airplane operated Airbus A320s with envelope protection. The cause of the crash is thought to be improper stick-and-rudder handling? An Airbus would therefore have protected itself and the passengers by preventing a stall. On the third hand, AirAsia 8501 was supposedly stalled by the pilots. Wikipedia says that with the autopilot disconnected they also lost any envelope protection.

Young pilots: Think JetBlue!

[Also in the same issue, we learn that there is only one thing worse than starving as a freelance aviation photographer: “I was a Java coder and I couldn’t take it anymore.”]

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This is the time of year when everyone in the general aviation world strives to get stuff finished so that it can be shown at Airventure (“Oshkosh”). Things got off to a bad start with a USA Today expose on the dangers of flying around in 60-year-old machines flown by 75-year-old guys all regulated by FAA and NTSB bureaucrats who set deadlines for technological progress by reference to the timeline for the Sun entering its Red Giant phase.

The most exciting little airplane of 2010 was the Icon A5 amphibious seaplane. Deliveries were promised for 2011. I didn’t attend this year’s Oshkosh but apparently the company proudly showed off a prototype made from production tooling. This will be used for FAA-required tests in hopes of customer deliveries in 2015 (press release).

Honda is at roughly the same stage with the HondaJet, promising deliveries in 2015 as well. (release) The original delivery date was 2010.

Cirrus is claiming that its long-delayed single-engine jet will finally ship by “end of 2015” (i.e., for New Year’s Eve). The plane was first flown in 2008.

Terrafugia, whose flying car I wrote about in 2009 (posting), did not bring a flyable aircraft to Oshkosh, indicating that 2015 might be an optimistic date for delivery to customers.

BendixKing (Honeywell) introduced a retrofit glass panel for turboprops such as the Beechcraft King Air. This could be exciting for about 700 owners of legacy Pilatus PC-12 who have not spent the $200,000+ to put in a Garmin G600 panel.

How is the aviation world doing? If you reflect on the fact that the proven way to add safety is a two-pilot crew, airline-style, the pace of progress in general aviation is indeed slow enough to lend credence to the USA Today series. (See my 2008 article http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/ground-monitoring, for example, for what might help.) As noted in this posting and associated comments about a recent Gulfstream crash, the level of systems integration and useful automation in piloted aircraft seems destined to remain low. If we take that as a given then the only way to achieve safety is via a two-pilot crew running checklists. Certainly the USA Today idea of bringing the entire general aviation fleet up to 2014 certification standards is not practical and probably wouldn’t even be very helpful. An original 1956 Cessna 172 can probably be flown more safely by a two-pilot crew than the latest four-seat propeller-driven airplane can be by a single pilot, who might be tired, distracted, or overwhelmed by circumstances.

Perhaps there is a product idea here. If the full two-pilot crew via telemetry idea (link above) is not practical, why not a self-contained robot second pilot in the aircraft? The robot would look at all of the gauges with a little camera, listen to the radio and intercom, and be able to say things like “Do you want to run the climb checklist?” and “You’re two miles from the final approach fix; shouldn’t you be putting in flaps and and slowing down?” and “You’re at 500′ above the runway and still working on the power, gear, and flaps. Should you go around and trying again to achieve a stabilized approach?” The robot could get additional inputs from the latest generation of portable AHRS and ADS-B boxes with WiFi/Bluetooth (see the Stratus and Garmin GDL 39).

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Oshkosh has the following segments:

• the general carnival atmosphere the results from bringing together hundreds of thousands of people
• gearheads and engineers showing off new technology that they claim will revolutionize some aspect of aviation
• certified airplane companies who have hired engineers and have worked through or are working through the FAA bureaucracy in an attempt to put all of the pieces together legally before running out of money
• light sport airplane companies (nearly 100?) that have collectively sold about 1750 two-seat airplanes and that hope to sell a lot more by promising consumers simplicity and economy
• displays of amazing pilot technique by aerobatic competitors and military pilots plus families who come in primarily to see the daily airshow
• individuals who fly ordinary airplanes to Wisconsin every year to socialize with others who share their love of aviation
• individuals who have restored antique airplanes
• individuals who have built, and sometimes designed, their own aircraft

In many ways, my favorite groups were the last two: antique airplanes and homebuilt. These are folks whose interest in aviation is closest in spirit to ancient human dreams: escaping the Earth and getting a bird’s eye view. The home-builders are also the most inclusive. My favorite was a 249 lb. all-metal low-wing airplane called the “Hummel” (site). It qualifies as an ultralight and requires no license to fly. With 37 HP it can lift a 200 lb. pilot, full fuel (5 gallons), and still be 70 lbs. under gross weight. With a 45 mph approach speed and hardly any instruments, there is no need for a 7000′ runway, control tower, and instrument landing system. Given the objectives of the pilots of the Hummel (short, local, daytime flights in excellent weather), they can probably be safe after just 10 or 20 hours of training.

Although the range of homebuilders includes some who are superb craftsmen, some who have done significant engineering work, and some who are expert and highly experienced pilots, the message is “anyone can do this”. And indeed there are quick-build kits, factories who provide builder assistance, and airplane designs that are extremely slow and forgiving.

As far as the most significant innovation on display, my vote goes to envelope protection for light airplanes. Introduced on the Airbus A320 in 1988, envelope protection discourages or prevents pilots from stalling or overspeeding an airplane. Stalls often lead to spins and are a common source of low altitude maneuvering accidents, e.g., by pilots preparing to land. Envelope protection is now available in the Avidyne autopilot, an easy retrofit to the popular Cirrus four-seater, and in new airplanes with the Garmin G1000 panel (“Garmin ESP”). This technology would have saved the passengers of Colgan 3407 (previous post).

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Oshkosh is a great place to see the might and cleverness of the U.S. military on display. Our cargo planes were represented from the C-47 (DC-3), celebrating its 75th anniversary, right through the modern C-130, C-17, and C-5. Fights from World War II, such as the P-51 Mustang, were heavily represented. The crowd was shocked, awed, deafened, and shaken by heavy modern jet fighters. Our ground operations were represented by an MRAP, a made-in-Oshkosh $500,000 replacement for the Hummer (at least $5 billion in taxpayer funds will be spent on this program). The one guy who does not seem to be impressed by our fancy technology, i.e., Osama bin Laden, was nowhere to be found among the crowd.

The quasi-military branches of government were showing off as well. The TSA had a booth where they explained all of the great new stuff that they’re doing. Customs was there to show off its new reporting requirements for arriving and departing the U.S. Technically these guys have grown the GDP by making the procedures so difficult and time-consuming. The companies that formerly assisted aviators in dealing with Third World bureaucracies, such as Sudan’s, are now making money helping people travel between the U.S. and Canada in Cessna 172s. The Border Patrol had a booth trying to recruit 3000 new agents to work on the southern border. I asked how hard that could be, with 15 million Americans being unemployed. The agent responded “It just opened up last week; we haven’t hired anyone for about a year.” The Border Patrol brought in an Astar. Apparently the Department of Homeland Security keeps Americans safe from Mexican workers by sending $2 million over to France for a helicopter and some spare parts and then sending additional funds to Hugo Chavez to buy jet fuel to keep the machine flying in circles.

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The Chinese presence at Oshkosh, the world’s premiere general aviation event, consisted primarily of two aircraft: the Cessna 162 Skycatcher and the Yuneeq electric airplanes. The Skycatcher was approved by the FAA in the Light Sport category last year. However, only eight examples have been produced in the Shenyang factory. So far it is not a great example of the power of Chinese manufacturing applied to light aircraft, though some of the delay in production may be due to problems with the aircraft’s spin characteristics.

The Yuneec E430 got a lot more attention. It might be fairer to call it a one-seat motorglider rather than an airplane, but it has substantial range and points toward electric airplanes with a lot of practical value, e.g., for flight training. Since the Chinese are the world leaders in battery manufacturing they presumably should have a good chance in becoming the world leaders in electric aircraft (though with the Solar Impulse, the Europeans are also doing some very interesting stuff).

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Getting around Oshkosh involves a lot of meandering through parking lots. As many as 100,000 people will drive in to enjoy the show on any given day. Thus tens of thousands of cars with Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan plates surround the airfield. Having lived in Massachusetts for decades, I’m accustomed to cars whose owners have chosen to show the world how much smarter they are than average. The typical Prius in Cambridge, for example, will display bumper stickers showing that the owner voted for a slate of politicians who’ve promised to make the world a better place. These are augmented by direct statements of the owner’s plans for how other people should behave, e.g., a “Coexist” admonition with various religious symbols juxtaposed. How do they do it in the Midwest? The posteriors of the thousands of cars I walked by were shockingly naked. The handful of bumper stickers that I did see were references to obscure products for which the owner presumably had an enthusiasm. I did not see a single political bumper sticker nor any advocating a social cause.

Most of our evenings in Oshkosh were occupied with dinners for Experimental Aircraft Association supporters. At one we sat next to a quiet Air Force veteran named Blair Bozek. He had served as a crewmember on the SR-71 for 70 operational missions. Did he have any problems with the machine? we asked. “Just the usual hydraulic and electrical glitches,” was his response. We later Googled and found out that he’d had to eject out of a failed SR-71 and swim around in the South China Sea for a while. We decided to give him our “Master of Understatement” award.

A fundraising dinner for the EAA Young Eagles program yielded $2.1 million for a variety of items in a live auction. Generally the TV cameras would swing around to show the happy high bidder at the end of the auction for each item, e.g., a $375,000 customized Ford Mustang. Seemingly invariably it would be a pudgy grey-haired white guy sitting next to an attractive young blonde. I can’t quite figure out why Young Eagles needs so much money to operate, since the program is organized by local volunteers at various airports around the country. The actual rides for young people are given by local airplane owners who are not compensated. I have mixed feelings about the program. If someone said “I introduce young people to something fun, unnecessary, dangerous, and expensive”, my first thought would be “drug dealer”. There are a lot of programs to encourage young people to pursue careers in aviation. Is it kind to steer a young person toward a career in which there are 10 qualified people for every job? When the same young person could go into medicine and pick from 10 job openings for every qualified person?

Six of us found ourselves free one evening and of course ended up at Naughty Girls. My previous experience with gentlemen’s clubs had been in Canada. How does the American/Wisconsin strip club experience differ? Let’s just say that as a 6′ tall guy carrying some extra middle-aged weight you would have to abandon any idea that the strippers should be lighter than you. The high point of my evening was watching the youngest member of our gang (about 24 years old) put a dollar bill into a dancer’s panties while seemingly standing in a different zip code.

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We arrived at Oshkosh on Tuesday after stopping in Buffalo to pick up Thurman Thomas (a VIP guest of EAA). Arriving in a turbojet IFR meant that we didn’t have to follow any of the traditional Oshkosh “look for the water tower” and “rock your wings” procedures. After landing Runway 27 we turned right and parked and were whisked away to a little caravan of RVs. Then we were given a tour of the convention by an unassuming volunteer, Jeffrey Gentz, who lives in the area and has been volunteering at Oshkosh for 30 years. We had to ask if he had any flying experience himself. “Mostly on the MD11 at UPS,” he noted, “where I also do training, but I’ve also flown the 757/767.” Jeff delivered us finally to a Schweizer 333 for a helicopter loop around the grounds.

We arrived back at the core of the vendor exhibits at about 6 pm, just as tens of thousands of people were walking back from the flightline where they’d been viewing the airshow. The legacy piston airplane manufacturers, Piper and Cessna, had shut down their booths and gone home. Tens of thousands of potential customers streamed past, some stopping to look at the parked airplanes but there were no salespeople to answer questions. The Cirrus booth, on the other hand, was fully staffed and engaged with the eager public. It is not hard to understand how Cirrus took 50 percent of the market away from the legacy companies.

The traditional Oshkosh mishap starts with a guy spending three years in his garage building an airplane. During this time he does not practice flying because he is busy turning wrenches. Anxious to show off his newly completed aircraft, he gets in the plane in North Carolina and embarks on his first real cross-country flight. The plane is wrecked at some point during this trip, though not always at Oshkosh itself, which has long wide runways. This year was a little different, with a $6 million Beechcraft Premier jet pancaked into the ground and split in half (story). Fortunately both pilot and passenger seem to be recovering well.

Oshkosh is not short on infectious enthusiasm. Hundreds of thousands of people come to explore their dreams of flight. Hundreds of startup companies set up booths to show off their wares. This is a market strangled by government regulation and, at least in the U.S., clouded by the economic depression (the sectors of the U.S. that the Politburo has favored in the latest Five Year Plan are government, Wall Street, and health care, none of which are natural users of light aircraft (government folks can stay in their state or in Washington, D.C.; doctors can stay in their hospitals; Wall Streeters mostly stay in Manhattan or head out to Shanghai; a regional real estate developer or retailer would be a natural customer for a light airplane)). Yet entrepreneurs show up with a fiberglass mockup saying “we expect to be certified in 2-3 years” and “we just need to close the next round of financing”.

Some energetic young people from Korea showed up their new four-seat airplane, to be certified in two more years. The plane is made of plastic, exactly likely a Cirrus SR22. It has four seats, exactly like a Cirrus SR22. It has a turbocharged Continential IO-550 engine, exactly like one version of a Cirrus SR22. I asked how much it would cost. “Less than $700,000,” was the response. So the plan is to make a virtual copy of the market leader’s airplane and sell it for the same price. In what other industry would people persist with this kind of plan?

An industry veteran in a new company (he’s a friend so he’ll remain nameless) was kind enough to talk to me about his new company. I asked “Not to be rude, but who would be stupid enough to invest in a yet-to-be-certified design? Think of the risks of the plane being delayed by the FAA and then the risks of liability once the plane goes out the door.” He challenged me to name an investment that would be lower risk. I said “Pizza Hut franchises in Brazil and China.” He replied that a Pizza Hut would face competition from local restaurants and therefore an investment in his company was far safer.

The company that might change the industry is ICON Aircraft. The PR, Web site, brochures, and industrial design are all competitive with what an automobile manufacturer might accomplish. If you called up Central Casting and said “I need a square-jawed business executive who used to be a fighter pilot” they would send over someone just like Kirk Hawkins, the founder and CEO. He stood up and gave a talk reminiscent of Tom Cruise’s motivation speeches in the movie Magnolia. He skipped over questions such as “Given that seaplanes cannot typically be operated safely even by 20,000-hour airline pilots, how are your customers going to avoid wrecking all of these?” (30 percent of ICON position holders have no flying experience and are planning to get their Sport Pilot certificate after 30 hours of training and jump in (an idea encouraged by the ICON brochures)) or “What happens when you put the wheels down by mistake and land in the water?” (answer with every other amphibious airplane: the plane flips over and often the occupants drown, which is why amphib insurance costs a lot more than helicopter insurance). The plane/boat costs $139,000 and seats two.

The Achilles Heel of the ICON is that everything is optional, even stuff that you would need such as wheels. This will presumably drive up the cost but more importantly will drive up the empty weight. The “useful load” will be 420 lbs, typically equipped. That includes two passengers, baggage, oars, life jackets, headsets, water emergency gear, etc., etc., and fuel. The tanks hold about 20 gallons and gasoline weighs 6 lbs. per gallon. The legal full fuel payload is therefore 300 lbs. for a two-seater. I predict that this airplane, if it is ever certified as a Light Sport Airplane and delivered, will almost invariably be operated over gross. Therefore the customers won’t be able to rely on any of the book numbers for runway length and stall speed. The engineers seem to have anticipated this and the most prominent instrument in the panel is a military-style angle of attack indicator. This will show how close the wing is to stalling, irrespective of how overloaded the plane is.

Experienced seaplane pilots at the convention did not like the ICON. “For about the same price, I can buy a used Lake Amphibian [four-seat certified seaplane]” they would note. I think that ICON stands a good chance of expanding the market, something that Light Sport has thus far failed to do (mostly Light Sport pilots are ancient guys who are expert certified airplane pilots but who can’t hold an FAA medical anymore).

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Jon Davison came over from Australia back in September. He is doing a book on Robinson helicopter operators worldwide and was kind enough to take some air-to-air photos of N404WT, our first R44, flying over various sights in the Boston area. Enjoy the slide show.

[Tech details for my photo.net readers: Jon was using his Nikon D200 and Sigma 28-200, $240, the kind of superzoom that I have always told photo.net readers not to buy. http://photo.net/learn/aerial/primer shows some images taken with standard Canon lenses (taken by me when I wasn’t busy flying the helicopter in formation).]

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My summer of travel precludes a trip to Oshkosh, Wisconsin this year for the big fly-in, but some interesting news is filtering out. Aspen Avionics will be starting sales of a glass cockpit for older certified airplanes costing between $15,000 and $25,000 (installed) for a complete set of instruments that will fit into the holes formerly occupied by mechanical gyros. This is less than half the cost of existing systems from Garmin, for example, which also tend to require more reengineering of the airplane’s dashboard. The primary flight display, showing attitude and heading, is about the same price as the mechanical instruments that it replaces.

In other news, Eclipse Aviation ripped one of the engines out of its very light jet. The new single-engine plane will enjoy a lower price, longer range, slightly slower cruise speed, and the same 41,000′ service ceiling to get above weather.

The Light Sport category of two-person airplanes heated up. Cessna revealed details of its 162 SkyCatcher, which will be delivered late in 2008 with a glass panel at a cost of $109,000. Full fuel payload, at 346 lbs. (stripped aircraft, presumably, with no options), will be inferior to the 1995 Diamond Katana. A good plane for anorexics. Cirrus, which has been slowly taking away all of Cessna’s piston-powered business, will be in the Light Sport market slightly earlier, with a product adapted from a design already certified in Europe.

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