Because Flying has had coverage of the G1000 system in other airplanes over the past several months, we’ll look mainly at the differences in the system as it is installed in the Mooney Ovation2.

One difference is that the G1000 in the Ovation shows flaps and pitch trim positions on the MFD. The whole G1000 system lights up whenever the master switch is turned on and there is no separate avionics master switch. The system should be displaying XM WX downlinked weather on its MFD by the time you read this.

The G1000 system will talk to you in the Mooney. It’ll call traffic either with the standard TIS system (with which it’ll also tell you when traffic information is not available); it’ll tell you to check the landing gear if the throttle is retarded with the gear up; and it will tell of an impending stall. As a nice touch, the pilot has the choice of a male or female voice for the advisories.

Even though the FAA requires only that essential equipment operate for 30 minutes after the failure of a charging system, Mooney has gone well beyond this requirement in its glass cockpit all-electric airplane. The Ovation2 has two separate full-size 24-volt batteries and two alternators. The second alternator is a 20-amp engine-driven unit from B&C Specialty Products that is finding its way onto a lot of new airplanes and that can be retrofitted to a lot of older airplanes. Twenty amps is enough, in the case of the Ovation2, to run the entire G1000 system off an emergency bus. When this is done, the battery circuit breaker is pulled and the two batteries are held in reserve for an arrival with everything playing.

The audio panel and the autopilot are not on the emergency bus and if use of those is desired, as it would be a lot of the time, the number one battery might be used until it gets low, then the emergency bus might be activated with the second battery held in reserve. However it is done, there are plenty of electrical options in this all-electric airplane.

The current autopilot offering in the G1000-equipped Ovation is an S-Tec 55X. The altitude pre-select, heading select, and navigational cues for the autopilot come from the G1000. Separately, the autopilot has a vertical speed hold mode to use for climbs and descents.

The standby instruments are at the far right side of the panel. There’s a mechanical airspeed indicator and altimeter plus an electric artificial horizon. The position of these is not ideal but they are clearly visible from the pilot’s seat and would be flyable. Their use would not be required unless both G1000 tubes were to fail, because the primary flight display is available on either tube, or unless there were unlikely multiple failures in the electrical system.

Equipping with the G1000 adds only about $20,000 to the price of the airplane when compared with one using steam gauges, and all sales are currently of airplanes with glass though the standard airplane is mechanical and still available.

As with all airplanes, a glass cockpit changes the personality of the Mooney. Where airplanes evolved over the years and instruments, avionics and switches were arranged and rearranged, complete order is restored to the panel with the G1000. Everything appears to be “on purpose” and in a logical place.

When flying with the G1000 the feeling is that you are operating the airplane through the avionics system, which is the way it has been in jets and bigger turboprops for years. Certainly any system like this has to be learned and once it is understood the pilot both flies the airplane and operates the system. That might not appeal to folks who prefer to live in the past but, for most, hooking all this electronic wizardry to a fine airplane like a Mooney creates the best of everything.

The fit and finish of new Mooneys is excellent and a plush leather interior gives you a great place to enjoy the flying and the flight. A Mooney is not the easiest airplane to get in and out of, but for normal-size people it’s a comfortable ride.

For years, Mooneys didn’t have rudder trim and even with much smaller engines than the Ovation’s 280-horsepower Continental IO-550, it needed rudder trim. It’s there now, electrically operated, and with the readout of trim setting shown on the MFD. This, and everything else, is carefully checked before takeoff.

The propeller on these airplanes has gotten a lot of attention. Mooney has used two-blade and three-blade props, always seeking the optimum balance between climb and cruising speed. The current airplane has a three-blade Hartzell scimitar prop that seems to be ideal for the airplane.

The Ovation2’s IO-550 Continental engine turns but 2,500 rpm maximum for takeoff to make 280 horsepower. The engine is rated at 300 or more horsepower in other applications where it turns 2,700 for takeoff.

Takeoff acceleration is good, though not brisk. With takeoff flaps selected, the airplane flies cleanly away at 70 knots. The prop and throttle are left full-forward for climb and at 110 knots the rate is well over 1,000 feet per minute.

The optional Bose active noise-canceling headsets enhance the smooth engine operation by making it quiet as well. The atmosphere is serene indeed, even at climb and maximum cruise. Riding around at 2,500 feet above the ground at max cruise power, leaned to best power using the handy exhaust gas temperature feature on the MFD, the indicated airspeed was flirting with the yellow, which begins at 175 knots. The fuel flow was 16.5 gallons per hour.

When all the cruise options for trading off speed for range for altitude in the Ovation are considered, it comes across as being one of the most flexible airplanes around, even when compared with turbocharged airplanes.

Max cruise in the Ovation comes at 8,000 feet where it will true 192 knots. That is a lot of knots to use against a headwind and rare would be the day when the westbound groundspeed would drop much below 150 knots. If you need to go higher to get to smooth air, an Ovation will still be near 190 knots at 10,000 feet.

Where the airplane shines brightly is when eastbound in the windy season. At 15,000 feet the airplane will get close to 170 knots and do it on just over 11 gallons of fuel per hour. The airplane has a lot of span which helps it get to those higher altitudes with a normally-aspirated engine. Add a typical tailwind of that altitude and the Ovation2 will vault half way across the country nonstop and with a generous fuel reserve. An oxygen system is optional on the airplane.

Standard fuel for the Ovation2 GX is 102 gallons so, even at max cruise at 8,000 feet, the airplane has an absolute endurance of about six hours, or longer than most people want to sit. Fly higher and seven or more hour flights with reserve could be the norm. That, though, probably wouldn’t involve passengers because nobody but truly dedicated pilots will sit in an airplane for that long.

An interesting airframe option is a rear bench seat with three belts. Somebody in the engineering department must have three kids because that’s what this would be for. Certainly pilots with three kids have often raised the question of whether or not it is legal to put two under one belt in the back seat of a four-place airplane. They don’t have to ask the question when an Ovation2 has this feature.

The flying and riding qualities of the Ovation2 are great. The airplane is responsive to the touch and about the only thing a pilot might notice on a first flight is the pitch change with flaps extension and retraction. It is strong.

The airplane has speed brakes that enable high rates of descent with the engine developing enough power to stay warm. These are more effective at higher speeds though some pilots use them for glidepath control at slower speeds. It’s okay to land with them out, but should a go- around become necessary they need to be stowed quickly.

The S-Tec 55X autopilot flies the airplane quite well, even in turbulence. Electric trim is part of the autopilot, but I still use the manual trim wheel between the seats. It just seems more natural.

One thing that the Ovation2 GX does not have is a flight director. Some manufacturers are putting a flight director in the airplanes with glass cockpits and S-Tec autopilots but, because the autopilot is rate-based and doesn’t know the attitude of the airplane, the flight director does not behave in the same precise manner as does one with an autopilot that gets information from an attitude indicator.

I always psyche myself up for the first Mooney landing in a while. The airplanes are well-behaved and easy to land but only if you do it right. The one thing they have no forgiveness for is the high and fast approach. If it looks like that is in the offing, best give it up and come around for another try, even with the speed brakes. The goal in the airplane is to come over the runway threshold flying at 75 knots with full flaps (and the landing gear down, please). If that is accomplished, all that’s left is to flare, float for just a second, and land. Add 10 knots to that approach speed and you’ll float 1,000 feet before landing according to a Mooney expert.

There was a 30-degree crosswind on the runway with gusts into the 20s for my first Mooney landing in a while, but the effective controls took good care of the crosswind component.

There is some good price news on the Ovation2. The last one Flying reviewed, a 2000 model, was well-equipped and priced at $428,800. The price of a 2005 Ovation2 GX is $418,150. The option list is short, too. A Stormscope is available but the XM WX weather downlink system will include lightning information. A Skywatch would be nice and is $16,950. A TKS ice-protection system, approved for flight in icing conditions, is $39,900, which is substantially less than it has been in the past. Bose headsets are $990 each, but the hot-wire plug for them is standard. An oxygen system is $7,500 and air conditioning $26,900. Most pilots would eschew some or most of those options to keep the price and weight of the airplane down because the airplane is a pretty complete package as it is equipped.

It has never been a secret that Mooney as a company has gone through periods of instability throughout its history. It has always been interesting to me, though, that even in periods of inactivity as far as airplane building goes, Mooneys have always had product support. In its present incarnation, recently established, it has become the Mooney Airplane Company. Last December was a record-setting month for deliveries, mainly because they had built a lot of GX airplanes but couldn’t start delivering them until the FAA approved the installation in November.

I’ll add one last thought. My first ride in a Mooney M20 was 50 years ago. Some of the shapes are the same, in tribute to an original first-class engineering job, but a half century later the new M20s are as modern as tomorrow.

The Ovation2 GX is partnered with the turbocharged Bravo GX, powered by a Lycoming TIO-540 rated at 270 horsepower. The airplanes are sold through dealers in some territories and by factory reps in other territories. For more information, go to www.mooney.com.

The post Mooney Ovation2 GX appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

“At 0930, the controller reported to the pilot that the ‘lightest weather’ was ‘about a one nine five heading for seven miles and then it looks like you will be able to get back to Richmond.’

“At 0933, the controller informed the pilot, ‘looks like direct Richmond will work out for you now, and … should be exiting all of that weather I am receiving in about two miles.’ The pilot responded, ‘yes sir, that’s, uh, pretty much what we are looking at.’

“At 0935 the pilot reported, ‘echo mike is turning direct Richmond.’ He additionally reported to the controller that there was ‘a lot of lightning’ in the area; however, the turbulence was light.

“At 0936 the pilot reported, ‘echo mike, we just, uh, we got a problem. Looks like we just lost … we lost attitude.’

“The controller responded, ‘okay, uh, five echo mike, roger I’m showing you northbound right now and, uh, do whatever you need to, ah, the weather is off to your, uh, right from about your twelve o’clock back through your six o’clock on the right side and it’s about four miles east of you.’

“No further transmissions were received from the pilot.”

The Twin Comanche hit hard, likely out of control. The above is from the NTSB preliminary report. The final report with a probable cause will be a while coming, but will likely include the phrase “loss of control” and the word “thunderstorm.”

Business jets and airliners have few accidents. Of the ones that they do have, a loss of control or en route accident is rare indeed. In general aviation, en route losses of control, as in the accident just related, are common occurrences. Sure, the jets fly above much of the en route weather, but the fact that we might fly in a few more clouds is no explanation for anything other than the fact that we do a lousy job of flying in those clouds.

In total, accidents involving IFR flights, where the accident sequence begins with the airplane on an IFR flight plan and flying in instrument meteorological conditions, account for about 25 percent of the fatal accidents in certified airplanes in the contiguous 48 states. Almost half of those accidents involved a loss of control when flying in terminal and en route airspace in the most recent three-year period. That does not include a few cases where the pilot lost control inside the final approach fix on an approach.

Why is the loss of control so prevalent as an accident type?

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, because I have said this many times before, a lot of this can be laid squarely on the training and proficiency work that is done in general aviation. En route weather strategy and cloud flying is not generally taught and, until and unless a proposed change in the FARs is enacted, there has been no requirement that we do en route flying to stay legally current. The emphasis on repetitive approaches and holding patterns is badly misplaced.

Even though we fly down in more clouds than the jets do, not a whole lot of time is flown IFR in instrument meteoro-logical conditions. I fly on an IFR flight plan all of the time and have been doing so for many years. Yet less than 10 percent of my hours are “real” IFR, or that flown in clouds. Other pilots report similar percentages. As pointed out before, 25 percent of the serious wrecks in 10 percent of the flying outlines a high risk area.

Further, when studying this subject, a lot of accidents fall into the “approach” category, which suggests a pilot coming to grief while sniffing for asphalt. That’s not the way it works in real life. For it to be a real approach event, it would have to take place relatively near the airport. A lot of so-called approach accidents occur well away from the airport and involve a loss of control.

The actual low approach, where the risk does indeed increase the closer you get to the ground, starts at the final approach fix, inbound.

One thing needs to be added about approaches before addressing the en route problem. With WAAS, we get vertical guidance on GPS approaches. Will that make it safer? Apparently not. More serious accidents occur while pilots are negotiating ILS than non-precision approaches. I don’t know of any definitive information on the number of each type approach flown by general aviation airplanes, but I’d bet we fly a lot more non-precision approaches and will continue to do so until most users have WAAS and thus vertical guidance. Apparently the quality of the flying counts for a lot more than does the type approach.

When there is a terminal/en route loss of control, there is often a distraction. That distraction is often turbulence as found around thunderstorms as well as in frontal zones and areas of wind shear. Just a moderate amount of turbulence can make cloud flying a nightmare in a light airplane. Certainly what seems like reasonable bumpiness in clear air feels like it is magnified many times when we are flying in clouds. Flying in turbulence under a hood is not a very good simulation of what goes on in clouds, either. Just rain drumming on the windshield can be a major distraction.

Even though more weather radar information is available on the ground as well as in the cockpit, the number of thunderstorm-related en route accidents appears to be increasing.

The pilot in the accident related at the beginning of this story apparently had some form of weather in the cockpit. The pilot said that he had it and that it gave him information every five minutes. That’s the general update rate on Nexrad from most of the weather services, so that is apparently what he had.

From the discussion, it sounds like this pilot was avoiding the areas of heavier rain. But that is not all it takes. There can be turbulence, really bad turbulence, around thunderstorms and in any clouds associated with thunderstorms, whether or not rain is falling.

The pilot said he lost “attitude.” He might have meant “altitude” but, whatever, the airplane got away from him and turbulence was the likely reason for this.

Using Nexrad information for close storm avoidance is not a good idea. It’s a strategic tool and should be used to avoid, not penetrate, areas of weather. If it is not used strategically, the NTSB folks are going to find an ever-increasing number of handheld Nexrad receivers in the wreckage of airplanes that are lost en route.

I remember the day this accident happened. It was an active day and visually the clouds in the area where he was flying would have appeared fearful. I say that only to emphasize the fact that if it looks mean to the eye it probably is mean, regardless of what a Nexrad picture might show. Best look at stuff like that from a distance.

High-performance singles and light twins stand out in the IFR/IMC accidents, with, I think, proportionally more singles on the list. There are a few engine-failure wrecks, in singles and twins, but these are a drop in the bucket.

One equipment item that these piston airplanes have in common is an autopilot. From the types involved, virtually all have this item of equipment.

For the person flying single-pilot IFR, an autopilot is an absolute necessity. However, if a pilot does not understand everything about the autopilot, it might cause trouble for the pilot when the going gets rough.

Many autopilots have disconnect parameters. Turbulence could cause these parameters to be exceeded. In that case, the autopilot would simply shut down and the pilot would have to hand-fly or, at least, reset the autopilot. These parameters are in the autopilot supplement in the pilot’s operating handbook, and knowing all about them is important for each autopilot in each airplane that you fly. Pay special attention to any parameter that could be exceeded in turbulence.

Then there are some general autopilot features you need to understand if the device is to help you maintain control of the airplane in turbulence.

If the turbulence is convective, that means there are up- and downdrafts. That also means that if the altitude (or vertical speed) hold is engaged, the airspeed will reflect the effects of the vertical currents. The aggressive use of power may or may not allow the airspeed to be kept within limits. If the airspeed strays far away from maneuvering speed, that is definitely not good. Also, in a downdraft (or in ice or near the ceiling of the airplane), the autopilot can fly into a stall.

On a rate-based autopilot, all the device knows is rate of change. It doesn’t know anything about attitude. Thus the pitch function of such autopilots is counterproductive if convection is present. Turn the pitch function off? Unfortunately, that is not possible with some popular autopilots, so if operating in turbulence with up- and downdrafts, the whole autopilot might have to be turned off and the airplane hand flown. To me that is double jeopardy and the separation of pitch and roll should be enabled on any autopilot that is to be used in clouds.

One more thing about rate-based autopilots. In roll, in turbulence, they might cause the airplane to wallow about. That’s because they can’t instantly react to the rolling motion in turbulence. A rate of turn has to develop to call the autopilot to action. I have found, with my rate-based S-Tec autopilot, that it is best to use the wings-level mode, not the heading or nav mode, in turbulence. That way the autopilot concentrates on getting the wings back to level, not on chasing a selected heading or nav track. It thus flies a bit more smoothly.

When the air gets really rough, wings-level is the challenge, too. When control of an airplane is lost, it’s almost always roll control that is lost first. When that progresses far enough, into a steep enough bank, then pitch control becomes unavailable until the wings are brought back toward level. It is that steep bank and subsequent loss of pitch control that results in a spiral dive and those 15,000-feet-per-minute plunges to earth that are found in some accident reports.

An attitude-based autopilot does better in turbulence. The best thing is to let it fly, not on altitude or vertical speed hold, and let the airplane ride with the currents in a level pitch attitude. Air traffic controllers are usually helpful in assigning block altitudes to allow the airplane to ride up and down. If the autopilot has an airspeed hold, as the new Garmin does, maneuvering speed might be selected. I have not flown one of these autopilots in any serious level of turbulence, though, so I would reserve judgment on that.

If a light airplane is flown into the most serious turbulence of a thunderstorm, neither a real pilot nor an autopilot can likely keep it under control. The swirls in the air caused by the updrafts and downdrafts rubbing together might engulf the airplane and cause rolling and pitching moments that exceed the available control authority. That is scary to contemplate and underlines the best way of dealing with thunderstorm turbulence: abstinence.

Thunderstorms are obvious. Stay well away. When it comes to other turbulent clouds, it is best to minimize the time that you spend in them. For example, if a front is located pretty well along your course line, offset the flight by a hundred miles to get some of the flight away from the frontal zone. Certainly the way to get through a front with the least bumps is to fly through it at a right angle.

Frontal turbulence outside of thunderstorms or building cumulus is related to wind shear. This can be enthusiastic turbulence, with the most pronounced found as fronts are occluding. That is definitely something to stay away from.

Wind shear turbulence lacks the up- and downdrafts of convective turbulence, but it can be just as pesky and, when encountered while cloud flying, can be a handful in any airplane, especially in a light airplane. It can be real wham-bam stuff and is what beats the jets up while cruising near jet cores or streaks, where strong winds aloft are surrounded by wind that isn’t so strong.

There are plenty of other factors that lead to a loss of control but none compare with turbulence. Ice can be the distraction that leads to a loss of control and there the loss might come in the form of an original departure from controlled flight in a stall. That could evolve into a high speed event or, in some cases, airplanes just come spinning out of the clouds.

Instrumentation problems have long been a factor, whether because of a problem with systems, such as vacuum or electric, or with the instruments themselves. After any such failure the pilot’s ability to keep the wings level with what is left is the determinant of success.

There are also loss of control events where there is no identified reason for the occurrence. Spatial disorientation might be the culprit, or the pilot might have become impaired or dozed off.

Whatever the cause, we get back to the basics in looking for a cure. Some pilots take upset training, and any training is productive. All pilots, in the course of getting an instrument rating, perform recoveries from unusual attitudes. These techniques might help a pilot snatch control back at the beginning of an event, especially if the landing gear is extended and the throttle closed, but I doubt that they would do much good after a pilot has fully lost control of an airplane.

To fully lose control, a pilot has to become thoroughly discombobulated, confused and lost in space. To say that such a pilot can reach back and find what it would take to get out of that fix is a stretch. Pilots just don’t fly so poorly that they screw everything up and then suddenly become so smart that, with a burst of brilliance and fancy footwork, it all gets put back together.

So, the moral to the story is that staying in control is what keeps your name out of the paper. And the first and foremost element of staying in control is the ability to keep the wings of that puppy level, or close to it, no matter what. Simple, isn’t it?

The post The IFR High Dive appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

• Study the airport diagram and locate general aviation parking.
• Not all busy airports are predominantly airline, so study up before you go to Teterboro or Van Nuys, to name a couple.
• Don’t go to a beehive at night unless you are familiar with the airport. The view from a light airplane can be of a sea of blue lights.
• Don’t cross any yellow lines unless you are absolutely and positively sure it is OK to do so. Be a pest and ask the controller anytime you have a question.
• Bone up on wake turbulence avoidance procedures.
• If going VFR, spend the $4.25 for a VFR terminal area chart and study it in advance. Look at the regulations on the airspace, too.
• If instrument rated, go IFR. It is easier.
• IFR or VFR, don’t plan on arriving with minimum fuel. Even with no holding, vectors can add a lot of time to the flight.
• Make sure the batteries in your ANR headset are fresh.
• Don’t go if a request to keep the speed up on final upsets your applecart. Remember that after a fast dive-bomber approach you still have to make a normal landing.
• Always ask yourself if there is a better place to go.

Back to BE PREPARED!

The post Dick Collins’ Big Airport Checklist appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

One of my first impressions when I started using the 530 was that it is almost the only piece of equipment in the avionics stack that I use on a regular basis. It handles all the communications and all the navigation, with my other two (three if you count handhelds and four if you count older navcom sets) navigators serving in a standby role or displaying information that I am not showing on the 530. The 530 is also a lot like a personal computer in that it will do many things in a lot of different ways and pilots will use it in different ways. Call it a personal navigator, plus, if you will.

I had a thought about this while flying along. The last time I had an avionics system where one unit served as primary was in my Piper Pacer, in the 1950s, when a Narco Omnigator was numero uno. The Omnigator had a comm transceiver, did VOR and localizer functions (nobody had a glideslope at the time) and had a marker beacon receiver. There were other radios in the panel, but the old Omnigator did most of the work.

Narco advertised that the Omnigator would fit into a standard glove compartment, so it was about the same size as a GNS 530, except the Omnigator required an enormous power supply stuffed full of vacuum tubes and transformers. That big box usually got stuck in the baggage compartment. The Narco had a whopping eight-channel transmitter, and it was said to be the most accurate VOR receiver on the market. The Omnigator weighed 18 pounds compared with 8.4 for a GNS 530. It was accurate enough for IFR flying, and I used it for just that.

At that time pilots were having as much trouble learning to use “omni” as some say they are having with GPS today. Fifty years ago, my father, Leighton Collins, wrote in his Air Facts magazine about the Omnigator. His piece started: “It is easy to imagine some fellow getting a new Narco omni set installed in his airplane, getting out and getting hopelessly confused, and coming back and saying it is no good.” Then, in 16,800 words he explained it. That it took that much space to explain something as dirt simple as an Omnigator says it all about pilots and new equipment. His words about the pilot saying it is no good because the pilot was confused have strong parallels to GPS today, as some whine that it is too complicated.

The new avionics are not complicated; it’s just that in a system like the 530 you have a device that does so much more and presents more information than was available from all sources when I was flying with that Omnigator. The 530 also does a lot more than the avionics it replaces in today’s panel. The challenge with a 530 is to get it set up the way you like it and use it in a way that gets you where you are going and that pleases you most.

For starters, I have become a great believer in stored flight plans and have all 20 flight plan slots filled in the 530 to cover my frequently traveled routes. If I am going to a new place, I put the flight plan in on the previous trip if I know of that next flight at the time. Failing that, I usually enter the whole flight plan in after starting the engine but before taxiing. If the clearance isn’t “as filed” then I fix it in the navigator before takeoff.

The Garmin 530, as well as the smaller 430, has four basic operating modes to cover navigation, waypoint detail, nearest airports and navaids and auxiliary functions. The 530 has four nav pages, two of which are used a lot for primary information. The default nav page, nav one, has a compass arc at the top, with the present ground track displayed like heading is displayed on a directional gyro or horizontal situation indicator. There’s also a digital readout of track and a bearing pointer that does just that-points to the active waypoint. When flying, if I keep the track and the bearing pointer in alignment, presto, the airplane gets where I want it to go.

The nav one page displays the IFR approach selected. The approach is also shown on the nav two page, the true map, but I think that the nav one gives a clearer picture of what is going on with the approach. There is an auto zoom feature on both the nav one and the nav two page that keeps reducing the range of the map as you approach a waypoint, but I like to control the range myself using the rocker switch to adjust the scale of the map. With the auto zoom feature selected, the waypoint moves further away on the map picture as the scale zooms in, and somehow having a point automatically get farther away, on the screen, as I approach it is not my cup of tea.

Other items displayed on the nav one screen, which also includes aviation information and prominent bodies of water, are the pilot’s choice. My choices are bearing and distance to the waypoint, groundspeed and estimated time to the waypoint. Some pilots like to display desired track on this screen. That is the line from the last waypoint to the next or from where you were when you selected a direct to the next waypoint. I don’t show that because my relationship to the desired track is shown on the horizontal situation indicator as well as on the 530’s course deviation indicator, which is only on the nav one screen.

The emphasis on track on this screen is good because track gets you where you want to go, and the word “track” could replace a lot of other words we use in airborne navigation that are at best confusing. For example, we have omni-bearing selectors, but they really select the desired track. A radial is nothing but an electronic signal from a VOR that defines a track across the ground. A course deviation indicator shows us where the desired track is in relation to our position. The bearing to the waypoint, be it digital or with a pointer, just tells us what track we have to fly to get from here to there. If GPS had not had to be laid over an existing airway navigation system and pilots were taught to fly IFR using the terminology of GPS, everything might well be called just plain old track.

The second nav page on the 530 is the map page. Where I use the nav one page when flying approaches or other procedures, I do almost all the rest of my flying with the nav two page displayed. Why? Because it’s fun to have a map. I’m an avid sightseer, and while there’s not much of the country that I haven’t gazed at from a light airplane, I still like to know the name of every town, river or lake. If it doesn’t automatically show on the map, there’s a cursor that can be used to extract the name of points on the map.

The items of information in the stack of data fields on the right side of this screen are also mostly the pilot’s choice. The top one is always the active waypoint, and below that I have bearing, track, groundspeed and distance as my selections. This information can be deleted for a larger map, but I fly with the stack displayed all the time. I found a new use for the map cursor feature on a recent trip that bisected Lakes Erie and Michigan. You can put the cursor on any point and it will tell you the bearing and distance from where you are to that point. Thus you can know the distance to the other side of the lake when starting across and can always know how far you are from either shore as you make the crossing. I had previously figured that out in other ways, but it is a lot easier with the 530.

I learned something on this trip, too. I have always calculated the distance and flown high across Lake Michigan to be within gliding distance of land all the time but haven’t bothered as much with Lake Erie. Guess what? It is just as far across Erie. It might not be as deep, but it’s still over my head.

I usually select the 50-mile range for the map, which, in the track up (as opposed to north up) mode, means that the map is 50 miles from bottom to top. The symbolic airplane is not at the bottom of the map; it is up about 30 percent of the distance regardless of the scale selected. That means, on the 50-mile scale, that you are actually always looking about 35 miles ahead of the airplane. However, when that cursor function is used, the symbolic airplane will fly up the screen to the point you selected. In other words, the airplane, not the map, becomes the moving feature. If desired you can use the cursor to pan around the area without changing the range of the map.

Another neat map feature is the depiction of state lines. I know that this does not have a lot to do with aerial navigation, but I often have passengers ask what state we are flying over. Maybe that tells me they have so little confidence in my navigation that they think the state is the closest I could guess our present position. With the 530 you can always show them. The map range can be extended out to 2,000 nautical miles, so you can show where the airplane is in the big picture as well. Or the map scale can be reduced to 500 feet. And, yes, it will show you right in the middle of the runway when you are right in the middle of the runway. The things displayed on the map at various ranges are up for pilot selection, and it takes a little experimenting to get them the way you want them and not have the map too cluttered at any range selection. Once it’s done, though, it’s unlikely there will ever be any desire to change.

There are a lot of other pages in the 530, and there’s so much information that it’s seldom necessary to look up frequencies or anything else. I didn’t consult charts much before adding the 530 to the stack, and now I almost never use charts. For example, as you are flying along, the third nav page gives all the frequencies for the destination airport you entered in the flight plan, so there’s no need to look up an ATIS, ASOS or any other frequency. This information is available for the departure airport, too, and can be viewed for any other airport along with available approaches and everything else.

The fourth nav page is where you go to see the satellite status and analysis of navigation accuracy, as well as the GPS- calculated altitude of the airplane. The vertical navigation page will calculate the required rate of descent to reach a specified point before the destination at a specified height above the ground. Because I fly IFR most of the time, I start the descents when the controller says, but at a glance I can see what rate of descent to go for when a clearance to descend is issued.

The procedure key is used to select any IFR procedure that you want to fly. It makes these easy to reach, and loading and activating any procedure, whether it be SID, STAR or IFR approach, is logical. The menu key is an important one because it’s where you look to find the available options for whatever page you have displayed. It is where you activate a flight plan or invert and activate a flight plan, for example.

Just because I think of my 530 as primary, that doesn’t mean that I don’t use the other equipment at all. I have an Icarus NavAlert mounted just left of the airspeed indicator and use it to display cross-track error (the difference between desired and actual track) when en route, track when flying an approach and groundspeed if there is any suspicion of wind shear. My Garmin GPS 155XL is used as a backup for the 530. It is always on the current flight plan or approach and ready to become primary.

The trusty old Bendix/King KLN 88 loran navigator still serves as a backup and for some other things. It drives the number two nav indicator, and for some reason the autopilot tracks best when coupled to this. So, for all the GPS finery in the airplane, when the autopilot is nav tracking it is usually doing so using a loran signal. I also keep half the KLN 88 screen on the page to tell what time I took off, how long I have been flying, how long it will take me to get there and what time I will get there. This has to be used with some care. If there’s precip static and the 88 drops off line, the time it is off line is not included in the displayed time that you have been flying, which might foul up a fuel reserve if you were not paying attention. The number two navcom just rests and waits to be called upon to do something. That other thing over there is an ADF that I haven’t used in years. Does it even work?

The final 530 backup is a Garmin GPS III Pilot handheld. I have sung the praises of this relatively inexpensive device many times, and whenever flying in clouds I have it on, running, with the current flight plan in it, ready to be the ultimate standby if everything else flickers and goes away.

The post Flying the Garmin GNS 530 appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

They have a demo cockpit of both airplanes that is not a full simulator but that has a wraparound visual and all the good stuff on the panel. And you can really fly them and simulate combat missions. I’ll tell you up front that I bagged a bunch of MiGs and some tanks.

From a distance, there seems to be a lot of similarities between the two airplanes, but in the end they have entirely different personalities. They are both quite stealthy, which is a great advantage in a combat situation, both from the standpoint of other airplanes and surface-to-air missiles. The Pratt & Whitney engines, of which the F-22 has two and the F-35 has one, are from the same family. The systems and capabilities of the airplanes are similar, and because the F-35 is following the F-22 in development and deployment it will have the benefit of lessons learned while bringing the first and larger airplane on line.

The number one design criteria for the F-22 is performance. Number one for the F-35 is affordability. Maintainability is high on the list for both airplanes, and both promise significant savings over airplanes currently in the inventory. Both airplanes will carry enough munitions internally to make a lot of mischief. External stuff can also be carried, but this compromises the stealth properties of both airplanes. Both airplanes will carry more fuel and have greater range than the airplanes they will replace.

The F-22 is a long-range, high-altitude air superiority fighter with what they are calling supercruise ability. It’ll do Mach 1.5 at 40,000 feet without the afterburner lit. The engines have 35,000 pounds of thrust and have thrust vectoring, which augments maneuverability. The thrust vectoring is automatic?the pilot just uses the control stick to make the airplane maneuver as desired. It’ll do a lot, too, including angles of attack up to 60 degrees.

As with all new airplanes, the electronics are a big jump ahead of anything now in use. Multisensor integration puts information from different sources into one picture. It displays processed information, not data. There are not a lot of black boxes, either. Everything is basically in one box into which modules are plugged to perform the various functions.

Let’s see how this works, first with a flight in the F-22.

The airplane is flown mainly by reference to the head-up display on the windshield. The combat solution is with reference to one of the screens on the panel, and targeting is done with a cursor. Just put the cursor over the bad guys to identify them for a firing solution. The advantage of stealth is that you can “see” (with the radar) them before they can see you. The head-up display shows the identified targets and the heading to which you need to turn to engage. The screen showed the range of their radar, and they were well within the range of my missiles before I was in range of their radar. Identify the individual targets with the cursor and feed them one missile each. Scratch four MiGs.

The approach and landing in the F-22 demonstrator is entirely conventional, with an approach speed of about 155 knots. Again, the head-up display is used to fly the approach.

The F-35 is actually three different airplanes. There’s a version for the Air Force, a conventional airplane. The version for the Marine Corps has new-to-me terminology. It’s a STOVL airplane(stoh-vul), for short takeoff, vertical landing. The Navy airplane, the carrier variant, has more wing area, 620 square feet as opposed to 460 square feet for the others. This reduces approach speed from 150 knots to 135 in honor of carrier landings. This will be the first single-engine combat jet operated off carriers by the Navy since the A-4 and A-7 were phased out some years ago. So, as with the choice made by so many civilian pilots, the affordability of a single has caused it to be chosen over a twin. As expected, there’s at least a little grumbling in the ranks about this, especially among the younger pilots who will be around when the airplanes come aboard later in this decade and who have flown nothing but twins.

The F-35 follows the F-22 in development by a number of years. Where the F-22 has four primary big screens and a couple of smaller ones, in the current configuration the F-35 has one big screen and one smaller one. The demonstrator has a head-up display on the windshield; the plan is for a helmet-mounted display in the production airplane.

The F-35 simulated in the demonstrator is the Marine Corps version, the STVOL. A short takeoff was made?short means 450 feet according to the spec. Then we went out and dropped bombs on a couple of tanks and toasted some more MiGs.

Then it was a return for a vertical landing, which was easily possible because of the weight reduction caused by fuel burn and munitions used.

There are three configurations for the power. One is selected when you just want this version of the F-35 to be an airplane. The second is for transitioning to the vertical mode and the third is used as the airplane is brought into hovering flight. The transition begins at 180 knots on the deceleration; the hovering mode is selected at 100 knots. The point over which you want to hover is selected with a cursor, and all you have to do is fly the commands on the head-up display and select the proper power setting to bring the F-35 to a hover over the desired point. The throttle is then used to control the height of the hover. Pedal turns with the rudder will adjust the heading, and the stick can be used for lateral movement over the spot.

In the hover, the thrust from the tailpipe is deflected downward. A shaft-driven ducted fan right behind the cockpit generates an equal amount of thrust forward, and there are thrusters out on each wing for roll control. Yaw is controlled by the rear nozzle that will move 12 degrees right or left. The computer manages all this as you tell it what you want to do. Landing from a hover is a matter of reducing the power to get the desired rate of sink. Once it touches, power off does the trick. All that is how the cockpit demonstrator is now flown. As the program evolves, some things might change.

The F-35 has a sensor system that lets the pilot see (on the screen) anything around the airplane. It gives complete visibility in every direction.

While looking at these systems I couldn’t help but compare them with our GPS navigational systems, such as the Garmin 530. You tell it what you want to do?fly a flight plan, for example?and it tells you what to do to fly that flight plan. Same principle in these next-generation fighter aircraft. Incidentally, when they have young folks aboard for a demonstration they figure it all out much more quickly than older folks do. Computer skills have become an important part of flying sophisticated airplanes. Also, you have but to operate one of these demonstrators to imagine that these airplanes will fly combat missions without live pilots at some time in their deployment.

They are not taking orders from civilians, but the F-22 is about $119 million a copy in 2002 dollars. There are eight of the airplanes now at Edwards AFB in test, and the airplane is in low-rate production. The current plan is for it to become operational in 2005, and from 295 to 339 airplanes are on the current order book-the exact amount to be determined by exactly how much they cost. The F-35 will be in the $40 to $45 million range with the conventional airplane the lowest cost, the STOVL version next, and the carrier airplane the most expensive. Apparently the complexity of the carrier airplane?things like folding wings?adds more to cost than does the complexity of the STOVL system. Two F-35s were built for the fly-off that resulted in the award of the contract. The first flight of a conforming aircraft will be in 2005, and first deliveries of the airplanes are planned for 2008. There’s a potential for 6,000 F-35s worldwide (half for our services), and some allies are participating in the development program. If that number sounds like a lot of airplanes, 4,000 F-16s have been built and the production line is still active.

The post The Newest Fighters appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Since getting that unit approved I’ve changed, evaluated and upgraded units and now have a Garmin GNS 530 and a Bendix/King KLN 94. Several other navigators have been in the panel along the way, but there has always been an approach-approved GPS in my airplane.

The pervasiveness of GPS is evident in the number of approaches that I have flown using various navaids. Since getting that first approval, I have flown, in actual conditions, 65 GPS approaches, 46 ILS approaches, five localizer approaches, one back course localizer approach and one VOR/DME approach. There is still an ADF in my airplane, but I haven’t flown an NDB approach since starting with GPS.

A lot of those GPS approaches were overlays of existing non-precision approaches, and I still monitor the raw data from the VOR and DME when flying an overlay of one of those approaches. That reflects no lack of confidence in GPS; it’s just that if I happen to have a belt and suspenders, I’ll wear them both.

En route, GPS has been the primary navigational aid, though I do still run my trusty King KLN 88 loran. Occasionally I’ll monitor some en route navigation with a raw VOR signal, and I am always reminded of how the VOR signal wanders around, where the GPS is completely stable.

A great feature of GPS units is the flight plan function. I know what routes are likely to be approved in the area that I fly the most, and I always use the flight plan function of the GPS and input the plan before takeoff. If cleared as filed, that means that all the en route navigational chores were done in advance. All the autopilot has to do is keep the needle in the middle, and all I have to do is sit and watch as the airplane automatically follows the flight plan. That leaves plenty of time to monitor everything else.

The FAA originally promised a lot on GPS that hasn’t yet been delivered. In an exclusive Flying briefing on the subject, FAA officials told us, in late 1994, that there would be 8,000 GPS approaches with vertical guidance in place in five years. There’s a big difference between zero, the actual number, and 8,000, but the FAA is plodding slowly toward the implementation of those approaches with vertical guidance. Still, I doubt that GPS will replace ILS approaches in the foreseeable future.

The FAA officials also said there would be no new Category I ILS installations after late 1995. There have been many. Further, the FAA said that the phase-out of VORs and NDBs would start in 2001 and that it had little interest in maintaining loran as a backup. Maybe a few NDBs have been turned off, but the VOR/DME system has hardly started phasing out and loran is still going strong. Certainly the Victor airways system is still 100 percent intact, is in use every day and is likely to stay that way for quite a while.

What the FAA has done well, and on a timely basis, is design and implement a lot of stand-alone GPS approaches, and more are being added on a regular basis. The air traffic control folks are great at approving long en route direct legs, too.

Some flight schools still teach VOR and NDB, usually because they don’t have an approved GPS in their fleet, but in airplanes used for travel, GPS has become the standard.

If anything is lacking in GPS it is in pilots taking full advantage of the equipment. I’ll digress for a moment here on a point that suggests that at least a few pilots are trying to take too much advantage of the equipment. Handheld GPS units are wonderful devices that are as accurate as the installed ones. They are not “approved” for anything, though they can be used for en route navigation. Just ask the controller for a heading to fly until receiving Los Angeles and fine tune that heading with the handheld GPS.

The trouble comes when pilots try to use handhelds for instrument approaches. They are neither approved nor designed for this, and their databases do not contain the full approach, as is required. And there have been at least two fatal accidents where a pilot was apparently using a handheld to fly a GPS approach in low weather. The only time that should be attempted is in an emergency.

With the installed and approved GPS navigators, a lot of pilots just won’t learn all there is to know about using the system, and one veteran pilot told me the other day that he still uses VOR for approaches, where available, because he doesn’t like to go to the trouble of setting up the GPS for an approach. That’s too bad, because it has so much to offer.

One of the neat features on a GPS approach is the fact that in the final stages of the approach, the GPS gives distance to the end of the runway, not the airport reference. That is fine information, not to be used to cheat on minimums but to heighten situational awareness.

GPS gives a readout of the track being made good over the ground, and this is useful en route and downright wonderful on an approach. The track that we make good is what gets us where we are going, and by flying track instead of heading, all the guesswork is taken out of allowing for wind drift and changing wind. GPS groundspeed is also pinpoint accurate, and the units will calculate the winds aloft for you with great accuracy.

Then there are the maps. There’s just nothing quite as helpful as a map showing both your position and the approach that you are flying. The way GPS ladles on information that gives situational awareness was evident one day as I was flying a GPS approach at Batavia, Ohio.

The approach was to Runway 4 and my arrival was from the east. There were numerous other airplanes inbound, but from the gist of the conversation I gathered that I’d be first for the approach. It was set up on both the Garmin GNS 530 and Bendix/King KLN 94. I told the controller I’d take a turn onto final right outside the final approach fix, and he assigned the heading to make that work.

From the assigned heading it was obvious that the controller was indeed vectoring for a turn in just barely outside the FAF. He did a masterful job as I watched the map and the digital readout of the distance the airplane was from intercepting the final approach course. The final heading before intercept was just right.

That could have been done by the controller had I not had a map, but with the map I was in the loop all the way. Without the map, and the other available GPS information, I wouldn’t have much other than a full-scale quivering needle until the time it started to come to center, and I likely wouldn’t have been comfortable with an intercept that close to the final approach fix.

Later that day, headed back home, the weather appeared that it would be a good idea to set up for the approach. The published portion of the VOR or GPS approach to Runway 9 starts at the 246 radial off Hagerstown (Maryland) at 10 miles. I have that waypoint in the GPS as a user waypoint. My right seat person this day was Drew Kassal, call sign “Doc,” a 26-year veteran at Washington Center, and he asked for direct to the 246 at 10. It was approved. I activated the unit for vectors to final and then just flew the little airplane on the map to the 246/10 waypoint symbol where the final approach course was intercepted and the approach flown-in the same manner it would have been done had the controller vectored us to the 246/10.

All that is good and exciting, but the other things that GPS enables, and will enable in the future, are going to bring further evolution to the way that we fly.

The hot avionics item right now is the equipment that delivers weather information, including composite Nexrad displays, to the cockpit. GPS is an integral and essential part of this. It locates the airplane on the map of the weather and shows the track of the airplane in relation to the weather.

Also, when metars and TAFs are called up, the Bendix/King system uses the GPS to give the en route flight plan and destination weather and uses present position to give the location of the nearest weather. When the metars map is selected, where it shows weather symbols depicting VFR, marginal VFR, IFR and low IFR, GPS information positions the airplane symbol on the screen.

The new general aviation ground prox system (called TAWS by the FAA, for terrain awareness and warning system), is all about GPS. The airplane’s position in space, both vertically and horizontally, is determined by GPS and is compared with a database of terrain, obstructions and airports. Appropriate warnings are given if the airplane is getting too close to something, or if the sink rate is too high, or if other parameters are exceeded. Fly correctly and you never hear the TAWS speak, except for one thing. It’ll tell you when you are “500 above” on every approach just to remind you of where the ground is located. This is also a reminder that it is there waiting quietly, ready to tell you in advance if you are about to do something really dumb.

The use of GPS information as a gyro replacement, or to enhance gyro performance, has been bandied about for a while, and Garmin is first to make some application here, with the handheld GPS 196. This new unit has more features than a panel-mount GNS 530, at a fraction of the price. There’s even a screen that shows an HSI, altimeter, airspeed, vertical speed and a turn-coordinator-like depiction, a kind of “partial panel” arranged in the normal pattern of instruments. The screen is big enough to be useful. The database for this unit supports all the instrument approaches, and at first sight it appears to be a wonderful backup should all the lights go out on a dark and stormy night.

Flying with it, though, will convince you that to successfully get an airplane down using nothing but GPS-derived information in this form would take a lot of skill and even more luck, and Garmin forbids using the GPS 196 for actual instrument flying. For one thing, to set up for an approach you have to get out of the instrument panel screen, which wouldn’t be practical.

From a flying standpoint of trying to stay right side up using only the GPS 196, the biggest problem is with the simulated turn coordinator information. It shows rate of turn but the update is only once a second because the GPS operates at one Hertz, calculating a new position once each second. That may sound fast, but trying to fly in rough air with something that has that much delay is totally demanding. The only way that I could fly the GPS 196 in simulated instrument conditions was to not move anything until a definite trend was shown on the simulated turn coordinator. To turn, the best way was to make a half standard rate turn and, if things got dicey in the bumps, to go back to a no turn indication and settle down before attempting further turn. The vertical speed indication has quite a bit of lag, too. The “airspeed” indication is actually groundspeed, so that has to be used with a knowledge of winds aloft. The HSI is fine and might even be a little more usable in determining whether or not the airplane is turning than is the simulated turn coordinator. There’s no slip/skid indication, so you have to rely on feel for that. I did manage to keep the airplane under control for a half hour and find the airport using the GPS 196 only in simulated instrument conditions.

I would judge the GPS 196 instrument panel display, especially the simulated turn coordinator depiction, as a little crude and difficult to fly. However, the concept is good, and I’ll bet we will see a lot of development in the use of GPS-derived information for things other than navigation. If Garmin can integrate these basics into a handheld unit that retails for a $1,000, just think what might come next.

All this sounds good, but there are currently some negatives on GPS. The GPS satellite constellation is said to be at less than 100 percent now, and I think that I can detect that when using handheld GPS units without an external antenna. My little Garmin GPS III used to work perfectly, all flight, every flight, when perched (with Velcro) atop the control wheel of my airplane. Now it only works about half the time in that location and often has to be perched atop the panel to get an adequate view of satellites. Flying with the 196, it lost the signal a few times when mounted on the control wheel with the supplied device. When you are using it to try to control the airplane, a loss of signal is truly a serious business. Even the units installed in the panel flash an occasional RAIM alert more often than before, meaning the accuracy isn’t adequate for approaches.

The government that created a system that sent us all scurrying to the avionics store to buy this wonderful stuff doesn’t seem to have as strong a commitment to maintaining the system as it had in getting the ball rolling. Nor is anyone able to predict when or how the satellites that are now working perfectly will degrade.

It is said that there are plenty of satellites in inventory, ready to be launched, but there aren’t available rides into space for these satellites. And, in the past few years, three launches have been unsuccessful or delayed.

The Defense Department runs the GPS system, and it is obvious that it will take some help from other sources to keep GPS on track to eventually be a sole-source navigational system. The question of electronic jamming of the GPS signals must also be addressed. This affects a lot more people than pilots, too, as the GPS signals are used for timing in internet and cellular communications.

Now you know why Garmin put a VOR and ILS receiver in its popular 430 and 530 navigational systems.

Everyone who has put the effort into taking full advantage of GPS systems sure never wants to go back to the bad old days. But we do have to temper enthusiasm with the reality that the GPS system probably can’t ever achieve the reliability of the ground-based systems with their distributed transmitters and diverse technologies. Where in that 1994 briefing the FAA told Flying that the backup system for GPS would be GPS enhanced by local area augmentation and wide area augmentation, that may not come true, at least for a long while. The ILS system will stay around, and the prediction that the shutdown of the VOR system would begin in 2001 not only didn’t come true, it likely won’t come true in the foreseeable future. The decision that I made to leave the KLN 88 loran in my panel looks better every day.

In reality, the ultimate backup system for GPS might become the ground-based radar system coupled with the retention of some VORs plus the ILS system. And, hopefully, some more satellites will go flying soon.

The post GPS 10 Years Later appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Maybe “tandem twin” can be made to stick. Whatever, Adam Aircraft has created a twin built mostly of composites that looks back a bit but that is all new and optimizes the concept of the tandem twin, the power available and the current technology.

The airplane pictured and flown is the second Adam A500 built by the company. (Scaled Composites built an initial proof-of-concept airplane that looked similar but really wasn’t.) The first Adam-built airplane has been retired to static test, and flight testing is continuing with this second airplane. A third airplane is now being built and may have flown by the time you read this. The third airplane will be the first to fully conform to production standards.

A lot of people have seen the Adam A500 at airshows, in a crowd. The airplane has a different personality when you see it alone, in a hangar or on a ramp. Everyone agrees that it looks bigger. It is. With a 44-foot span, 36.7 foot overall length and 9.5 foot height, it compares dimensionally with a Cessna 421 and is substantially larger than the four-seat Cessna Skymaster. The size is enhanced by the fact that it has more pieces than a conventional airplane. The booms are large and gracefully shaped as they arch up to the horizontal tail, which is high above the power pulses from the props. The tail is quite shapely and couldn’t have been as nice had the airplane been made of metal.

The wings are nicely shaped, too, and have removable leading edges for access to control cables and TKS deicing components. The horizontal tail also has a removable leading edge. The TKS system was recently chosen as the ice protection for the airplane after Adam considered deice boots and other ice protection technology.

It apparently made more sense for the control surfaces to be metal, so they are. Different things affect designs in different ways because in transport airplanes a first move to composites has been in control surfaces.

The airplane I flew had a removable door with no hinges and no steps. It was not pressurized and may never be. It did not have nosewheel steering as the production airplane will have. Nor did it have cabin heating or much of an interior. The two seats installed, in the cockpit, were fixed, not adjustable. The airplane was being operated as an experimental, approved by the FAA for market survey work but restricted to day VFR conditions.

The two A500s have flown more than 200 hours, but there is much flight testing left to be done, and the FAA will want data from testing with the fully conforming third airplane. The airspeed envelope had been examined out to 180 knots indicated airspeed, which is well within the green arc on this particular airplane. Airspeed limits will be established in the final testing phase.

Boarding the Adam A500 is currently done with one of those three-step ladders, just like the one that I carry around so I can look in the gas tanks and that my wife likes to use boarding our P210. The production airplane will have an airstair door. The door opening is large and the cabin is entered just aft of the cockpit. With no seats, the cabin looks huge and promises to offer luxurious seating for four in a club arrangement.

The flight deck is spacious and, because the fuselage is wide, elderly or portly pilots won’t get a cramp in the old tummy trying to wedge in there.

The instrument panel is conventional. The circuit breaker panel is to the left, and many breakers on this airplane are banded because of equipment that isn’t installed or operational, such as ice protection and an autopilot.

The instrumentation is conventional. Adam plans to evolve to a glass cockpit, but for now the concentration is on certifying the basic airplane.

The power controls appear to be low on the panel compared with other twins, but the controls come naturally to hand, so the location is fine. The left controls are for the front engine, the right for the rear.

The panel is a little farther forward than most. Somehow a panel farther away is easier to scan than one that is right in your face. This one seems especially spacious because of the generous width of the airplane.

The panel’s most wonderful feature, though, is that there is no control wheel jutting out of it, taking space and obstructing the pilot’s view of the panel. The Adam A500 is flown with a sidestick, which is being embraced in most of the new-design airplanes and which is a great way to fly.

The Adam is an all-electric airplane with two buses and two batteries. Excellent work has been done in this area, both by the FAA and the manufacturers, and those short-lived old vacuum pumps are just not going to be found on a lot of new-design airplanes.

For engine instrumentation, the A500 has a Vision Microsystems VM 100 engine management system. This was, to me, not a great step forward. The old Cracker Jack box mechanical instruments are easier to interpret, but then I’m used to them and not to the Vision system.

The airplane also has a Vision electronic checklist and caution advisory system that seems to cover everything.

Glenn Maben, one of the best demo pilots I have flown with, briefed me on the airspeeds to be used and offered one bit of advice about the sidestick. When the ailerons are neutral the stick is maybe 20 degrees to the right of being straight up and down. Apparently some pilots have wanted it straight up and down and have thus found the airplane rolling to the left at liftoff.

On Cessna Skymasters we used to always start the rear engine first. On the Adam they have been starting the front Continental TSIO-550E first. Full authority digital engine control (FADEC) will be available on the airplane but is not fitted on this particular airplane. That will eliminate the mixture control and automate the operation of the engines.

The starting is like any injected Continental, and even with the front engine running it is plain that the rear engine is coming on line just fine.

The visibility is great, and taxiing with the non-steerable nosewheel is no problem. Certainly if the production airplane had the steering of this one it wouldn’t be a problem.

I look at a lot of things on a new design to try to form an opinion of what that first takeoff will be like. The location of the A500 main landing gear suggested to me that the liftoff would be just right. If the landing gear is located a bit aft of where it really should be, the forces required to unstick are often high, meaning there will be a tendency to over-rotate, which often results in a little pilot-induced pitch oscillation after takeoff.

The Adam sits on the ground at a neutral angle of attack. This is also ideal for takeoff because the airplane neither gets light on the wheels in the roll nor requires a big tug for liftoff.

Finally, when the Adam is viewed from behind you can’t see much of the prop blades. This often means that the static thrust isn’t going to be too whippy.

The airplane had 120 gallons of fuel on board (total capacity is 270 gallons) and two standard people, so it was what you would call “light.” Remember, too, as I relay thoughts about the A500, that the airplane flown was of a design that has flown only a couple of hundred hours and that is in a state that is subject to change and constant refinement.

My advance thoughts about the takeoff were right and they were wrong. The wrong part relates to the static thrust. It felt very good as the 700 horses were allowed to gallop down the runway. The sense of acceleration felt much like that found in a conventional twin. Maybe good propeller work by Hartzell helps on that static thrust.

The transition from the roll to flight was neat, too. It’s a challenge to think about how to do it just right and a reward when the airplane agrees with the way it is done. Vr was 85 knots and the speed was up to about 95 when the rear wheels broke the surly bonds.

Because we were operating under the Atlanta Class B airspace (from Dekalb-Peachtree, PDK), the initial climbing was done at cruise climb. The indicated airspeed was 140 knots and the rate of climb probably averaged 800 to 1,000 feet per minute in the roiling air of an enthusiastic spring day.

I will give a report on my impressions of the sidestick when the flight is completed.

Once the last ring of the TCA had passed above, as shown on the two Garmin GNS 530s that will be standard, Glenn advanced the power to full and we went for the best rate of climb airspeed where the vertical speed vaulted up to 2,000 feet per minute. The airplane is going to be a strong climber.

After a little of that we were passing through 10,000 feet. Glenn reduced power on one engine to zero thrust, and by the time everything settled down we were at 12,000 feet and climbing at about 500 feet per minute. The airplane is going to remain a strong climber even with but one engine running.

The need for speed determines how much money we spend on airplanes, and the A500 does well in this regard. An upwind/downwind GPS run at 10,500 feet verified that production airplanes should cruise at least 200 knots at that altitude while burning 40 gallons per hour total. This airplane didn’t have main wheel well doors, which I understand will be fitted; it had a test boom, it had that temporary door that probably added some drag, and it lacked the final aerodynamic tweaking that is always good for a few knots.

Given the likely specific fuel consumption of the engines, 40 gallons per hour is about 75 percent power. So, lets say the conforming airplane will do 205 at 10,500 feet. Using the speed increase with altitude that is found in most other turbocharged twins, that would equate to a cruise of about 235 knots at FL 250, which will be the airplane’s maximum certified ceiling. If the temperature aloft is warm, though, the engines probably wouldn’t make 75 percent power at 250. In standard temperature, the engines are said to be able to maintain full 350 horsepower to 17,500 feet. The cabin will be at 8,000 feet at FL 250.

On descent I pulled the power back enough to stay comfortably below that 180 knots to which they have tested and to get a healthy rate of descent that brought the power to well below 20 inches.

At higher speeds the airplane rode well in the bumps. In fact, from what I saw, the airplane really does give a good ride in turbulence at any speed.

As we got close to PDK, the tower asked if we could land on Runway 27. Glenn said we could, though it appeared that we were a little close and high. I slowed to 140 knots, the speed they are using in test for the landing gear extension, and Glenn extended the gear and takeoff flaps. The airplane started coming down well and with just a little widening of the pattern we were able to turn final with the visual approach slope indicator saying “yes.”

Glenn said to use 105 as a Vref with full flaps and we did. As the end of the runway was approached, I reduced the power to idle, the airplane floated just a bit and then touched down. The trailing-link landing gear helps the pilot’s ego on landing.

Glenn then informed me that I had set a record by landing the A500 on the shortest runway, 3,378 feet, that it had ever used. With enthusiastic use of the brakes we could have turned off 2,250 feet down the runway. There was about a 10-knot headwind component on the runway and for a serious short field the Vref could be reduced to about 95 knots, which is still more than 1.3 Vso.

I thought the sidestick in the airplane is great. In roll, especially at higher speeds, the stick forces are on the high side but no higher than in my P210, for example. In pitch, everything seems just right. There are no big changes when the configuration of the airplane is altered and the coolie hat for the electric trim is at your thumb. Glenn asked what I thought of the speed at which the trim moves. It was a little fast for me, but the speed at which the trim runs will be determined during S-Tec autopilot certification, which should be under way as you read this.

The only thing I would look at on the sidestick is the relationship between the grip and the armrest. On this airplane my arm was not level on the rest when I gripped the stick. This meant that some of the roll commands were with arm as opposed to wrist motion. That did give more leverage but it also meant that roll commands were not as smooth as they should have been.

Because this airplane isn’t “finished,” I couldn’t make a guess on how the sound level will be, but I will say that the cabin was quieter than I thought it would be. My expectations were low, though, because sharing a composite tube with two engines can be like relaxing inside a drum. There was some low-order vibration that usually comes when the engine moves in the cowling under power and touches something.

The A500 was in Atlanta for, among other things, a showing to owners at AirShares Elite, a fractional provider that currently operates 14 Cirrus airplanes.

AirShares finds a great deal of A500 interest among its Cirrus shareholders and has ordered three of the airplanes. The deal is $170,000 for an eighth share, $1,600 a month for management and $160 for each hour flown. David Lee of AirShares reported six verbal commitments for A500 shares after the airplane was shown in Atlanta. He also reported that the insurance weenies were mentioning an instrument rating. One thousand hours total time with 100 multiengine, factory training and 25 hours in type are the requirements to fly the airplane solo.

The 100 hours multiengine requirement seems beside the point. There is simply no similarity between the technique required to handle a twin with wing-mounted engines after one fails and that required to handle a tandem twin after an engine failure. With the tandem you fly exactly as you would in a single with no power. Maintain the proper airspeed and follow the proper procedures and things work as well as possible. No fancy footwork required.

The Adam A500 isn’t a revolutionary airplane, but what it does is give the advantage of tandem power with no performance penalty and no flying qualities penalty, as was found in the Cessna Skymaster. Any pilot who is competent in a high-performance single will be perfectly suited to fly the A500 with the extra safety potential of a second engine. In fact, when you compare the A500 numbers with those of the Cessna 421, everything is close without the potential flying challenge of dealing with the asymmetric thrust if an engine fails.

Adam projects certification by this summer, but that looks ambitious to me. There are too many battles yet to be fought. And the elements that affect every new design-primarily weight and cost-have to be addressed every step of the way. Adam does appear up to the task, though, and I’m looking forward to a nice long trip in an A500 and to hearing them on the frequency and seeing them on the ramp. It’s a great and unique new shape in the sky.

The post Adam A500: First Flight appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Ed started flying when he was 16, soloed and got his private at 17 and earned his instrument rating at 18.

His aspirations: “I’m not set on anything, really, other than flying as much as I can and hopefully making a career out of it. Ten years from now I could be doing anything from flying airliners, bush planes, or maybe I’ll still be instructing.” His experience teaching kids to swim prompted this comment: “I think flight instructing is going to be fantastic.”

Ed flies rental airplanes and got his instrument rating in a Cessna 152. He also flies a Piper Arrow and takes some trips with friends and family in 172s. He’s also flown a Diamond and a Warrior.

He does fly IFR and night IFR but the latter only if conditions are benign or his instructor is along. Ed has flown seven hours of actual, four of those without an instructor on board. He has also logged 45 hours of simulated instrument time in the past year.

There have been two actual approaches in the past year. Both were related to tower en route control flights with a 2,000 to 3,000 foot thick marine layer with bases around 500 feet and visibility of about a mile and a quarter. Both were ILS approaches.

Ed has already had two “events” in his flying. One was on his long solo cross-country as a student pilot. The engine started losing power and running rough as he was climbing through 4,000 feet about seven miles northeast of John Wayne. He ran through the proper procedures to no avail as the engine became even rougher. Power was reduced to lessen the vibration. He told Socal (Southern California) Approach that he’d like to return to the airport due to engine problems, and they told him to proceed to a VFR checkpoint on the other side of the airport. Not wanting to do that, Ed declared an emergency and was cleared to land on any runway. He took the big one, 19R, and landed without further incident. He later learned that the power loss and roughness were caused by a cracked cylinder.

The other incident came on his first solo IFR flight in IMC. There was a marine layer that topped out at 3,000 feet, and he was flying a 172. Even though everything had checked out on the ground, the radios filled with static as soon as he took off. He was quickly in the clouds and following lost comm procedures. After breaking out on top he was able to contact ATC, and the rest of the flight was uneventful. No word on what caused the screeching in the avionics. He now flies with a handheld transceiver but hasn’t yet had the budget for a handheld GPS.

Most of the airplanes that he flies don’t have autopilots, but he does fly a relatively new 172R occasionally, with a Bendix/King KAP 140 autopilot, and he feels that he has a good understanding of this equipment. The airplane also has a KLN 94 GPS, but the database is not kept up to date, so he can’t use the IFR approach function. He does find great situational awareness value in the KMD 550 moving map display.

As for redundant equipment in most of the airplanes that he flies, there is none. But, he says, “I have two eyes, two legs, two hands, and two ears.”

Looking to future airplanes he might fly: “Anything I get paid to fly.”

As for the risks in general aviation flying, Ed offers this: “I believe the absolute greatest risk in GA is pilot ignorance of the risks. You simply cannot manage the risks if you don’t know what they are or fail to take them into account.”

He goes on to offer examples. One relates to VFR night flights in an area where there are frequent marine layers and very large mountains. He says that an understanding of the risks would prevent the VFR-only guy from even trying to fly in adverse conditions.

Another potential problem comes from “The pilot who does not recognize complexity for what it is.” He adds, “Obviously, the more complex the airplane is, the more there is to monitor and do, but if the pilot is not up to the task, he or she should fly something less complex or put in the time and study necessary to fly the airplane safely.” Finally, Ed observed that “most pilots do a pretty good job when things go well. It’s the times when things go wrong that set the good risk managers apart, and in many cases this is life or death.”

The fact that Ed is learning to fly in some of the busiest airspace in the United States is a positive. He’ll be ready for any airspace thing. It’s interesting to ponder the difference between his training experience and that of a person learning to fly at the local small-town airport in a sparsely populated part of the country. The end result would be two different pilots.

It is also true that all of us tend to have weather knowledge that relates mainly to where we fly, or where we learned to fly. It will be important for Ed to be aware that as he flies away from where marine layers are the biggest deal to where thunderstorms, or stationary fronts, or ice, are the items of consequence, he’ll have to develop new weather senses.

He is working toward a degree in psychology, which is good. A four-year degree is a requirement for airline pilots.

Shame on that FBO who doesn’t keep the database current in the KLN 94 GPS so it can be used for approaches. By not doing so, he is depriving renters and students of the opportunity to learn the current navigational system. Certainly VOR is a past system, the use of which is fading away, and it is a shame that some training entities are still teaching it as primary. If I were Ed, I’d find a place that keeps databases current and learn to use GPS for everything.

His handling of that engine problem sounds exemplary. Most pilots fly through a career without having major engine problems, and he had an event early on. That’s a positive because he now has firsthand knowledge that engines do have their moments. The same goes for his radio problems, though it would be good to know what caused them.

I especially like his observations on complexity. There are a lot of pilots out there who could lower their risk markedly if they would think like he does.

It’s also interesting that he astutely and realistically puts a “life or death” condition on good performance. It is critical that all pilots be aware of how their actions affect that little choice.

It’s hard to say much other than “carry on” to a young pilot who comes across this well. But it’s easy to say that someday there’ll be a Captain Ed Graham if that’s what he wants.

Flying Check Ride is a feature based on readers who express a desire to participate. Richard Collins follows up with e-mail questions and then prepares the report. We’d like to hear from readers who want to participate. E-mail and tell us about your flying. Remember, though, that Richard can pick only one a month.

The post Ed Graham and his Rentals appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

I had been flying the full-motion flight training device (FTD) for a few minutes and was lining up for an ILS to Runway 4 at New York La Guardia when I asked Rich Kaplan, proprietor of Flight Level Aviation, the name of the hurricane in which we were flying. The motion system was grunting, groaning and pitching like a rutting hog, and the instruments were dancing around like crazy.

That training device is but one element in a training program that is both unique and valuable. The main element is Rich Kaplan, a CFI-I, aviation medical examiner, Cessna P210 owner, and a teacher who is almost evangelical in the way he wants to cover every base with pilots who engage his services.

Flight Level Aviation is located on the airport at Waynesburg, Pennsylvania (KWAY), about 30 miles south of Pittsburgh. The primary offering is the service of Rich and the simulator for $500 a day. That would include flying in the student’s airplane, or his P210 is available for an extra $125 an hour, which is a real value. His airplane is well equipped, including TKS approved deice, so valuable experience can be had there. Any instrument pilot who wants a real workout would find this a rare bargain.

The flight training device, built by AST, which has been in the business for years, is far from a bizjet/airline quality simulator. This is the first one with the motion system, and it has a visual system as well. Consider that this unit costs about five percent or less of what a real simulator runs when you contemplate its value and quality.

The visual system is basic, and in flying the FTD the main useful thing I saw here was the breakout on an instrument approach. There, the view of the approach lights and the appearance of the runway is at least somewhat realistic.

The motion system is also not particularly realistic. Certainly no airplane that I have ever flown reacts in turbulence quite like this device does. On the other hand, flying light airplanes in bumpy clouds is hard work, as is flying the device with the turbulence level turned up, so there is value to be found in doing this.

The FTD is programmed with Cessna 210 speeds and power settings, but the similarity ends there. The instrument panel is quite generic.

Most folks who operate simulators or devices like this always like to have their gotchas, things that show mere mortals where they will fail. Rich Kaplan is no exception. He gave me a wake turbulence encounter even as I was flying two dots high on the glideslope. Boom, it’s upside down. I managed to recover but felt the demo had no value except for one thing. It can reinforce the reason you should fly two dots high on the glideslope when following a heavier airplane. I don’t think the fact that I recovered in the device means that I could recover in an airplane. Same goes for other unusual attitudes.

Same also goes for flying with the ailerons hooked up backwards and with a split flap condition. There are just things in flying that are best managed by avoiding them, and nothing you experience in a flight training device is going to ensure that you can successfully survive the same thing in an airplane.

The best feature of Kaplan’s flight training device is the fact that it has Garmin GNS 530, Bendix/King KLN 94 and Apollo GX50 navigators installed. These are the actual units, and the interface is the same as in the airplane. Here is a place where a pilot can truly experience everything and do everything with these devices and come away with the GPS proficiency that is eluding most pilots.

You can do things in the device that you might not try in the airplane, too. Rich had me at 10,000 feet, southwest of the Hagerstown VOR, and he took away the power. The challenge was to parlay the altitude into a landing on the runway at Hagerstown.

He teaches folks to use the vertical speed required feature on the GNS 530 for a dead stick approach, which is one way of doing it. I have always gone through problems like this using one flying mile per thousand feet of altitude agl. Most all airplanes glide better than that, but all will come down at that rate and there are no tails to twitch and no buttons to push to do it this way. If you have fewer thousands of feet of altitude than miles to the end of the runway to fly, it’s time for maximum range glide. If the reverse is true, increasing the rate of descent is easy. I’ve been doing it this way in simulators for years, and it works. I recall reading of a successful F-16 dead stick landing and guess what? That was the procedure used there. One mile per thousand feet.

If ever you had an engine failure while flying along IFR, having gone through the process of learning how to make the altitude and the miles come out even would be invaluable.

The flight training device is also useful for simulating instrument and systems failures. Certainly it is more realistic than slapping a cover over an instrument in the airplane.

The device doesn’t have an autopilot, and that’s unfortunate because the interface between the autopilot, the airplane and IFR operations is one of the most important things to learn in IFR flying. Rich says, though, that he covers the use of the autopilot in the airplane, which might be the best way to do it because of differences in autopilots. I did get the feeling that he is one of the many instructors who don’t agree about the importance of using the autopilot in IFR operations.

It is all good stuff. Currently Rich Kaplan is spending about half his time in aviation and the other half in medicine. I think that if the aviation business increases, he’ll put more time there.

He has a website, www.flyimc.com, that should be visited before a pilot opts to invest in this training, whether it be recurrent or initial training in a 210 or Malibu or other high-performance single. Or you can call 724/880-2948. Certainly for a pilot who feels like value would be found in a good workout, including actual IFR flying in the airplane, this is easily worth $500 a day. Most of his students come for two days, and they have come from far and wide. Rich Kaplan will push from start to finish, and the result will be experiencing just about everything there is to experience. The insurance company will love the fact that you did it, too.

The post Flight Level Aviation appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Don Stephens, 67, is a (retiring), as he puts it, builder/developer. He has been flying out of the Lakeland, Florida, airport since he started 37 years ago and has owned a Cessna 152, two 172s, and currently has a 1998 Cessna 182S Skylane, “which has every conceivable instrument known to man.” As this was prepared, he was moving ahead on plans to add a BAC Strikemaster single-engine jet warbird to his fleet, which, he says, “might sound a little crazy at my age, but it’s just something I need to do.”

A few years ago he built a SeaRey amphibian and flew it for a couple of years. He described that as “one of the most exciting and enjoyable events of my aviation life.” There are a lot of lakes around where he lives, “and I think I landed on most all of them! What a trip!” Type “SeaRey” into Google and you’ll see that it is a neat looking small amphibian with a Rotax engine.

Stephens has the ideal aviation set-up, too. He bought the defunct Aviation Career Academy, which was in the old Piper corporate and sales building on the Lakeland airport. He liquidated the assets and now has his office overlooking the airport, located just above the hangar for his airplane(s).

In 37 years, Don Stephens has flown over 2,400 hours and is currently flying 125 hours a year. The most he has flown in a year is 150 hours. He has a private certificate with seaplane and instrument ratings. He flies IFR and night IFR when necessary and in the past year has flown four low approaches in actual conditions. All were ILS approaches, and two were at his home base. His average trip length is 175 to 200 miles, and his average passenger load is three. He frequently flies night VFR and he’ll fly into the night, depending on the weather. His Skylane has Bendix/King nav/coms, a KLN 94 IFR-approved GPS and a Bendix/King IHAS 2000 system that provides uplinked weather, traffic and terrain mapping. He says, in regard to this recently installed equipment, “I absolutely love it.” The airplane also has a WX-500 Stormscope.

Stephens doesn’t have any routine maintenance other than oil changes and annual inspections, and in flying his Cessnas he hasn’t had an engine failure or engine problems nor has he had vacuum or electrical problems. His Skylane came with dual vacuum pumps.

He did have a control system problem in the SeaRey that he built. The elevator stuck in the down position and he was unable to keep the airplane from descending. By cycling the trim several times he was able to break the control loose and regain control. He sold the SeaRey shortly after that adventure.

He flies practice approaches with a CFI-I on a monthly basis but doesn’t do any formal recurrent training nor does his insurance company require any.

The Skylane has a KAP 140 autopilot. Stephens feels like he understands the autopilot, and he uses it about 75 percent of the time, but he hand flies the airplane on low approaches in actual conditions.

In regard to the approach-approved GPS, he says, “I understand most of it, and I do use it both for en route navigation and approaches. I’m still learning GPS approaches.” He doesn’t have a handheld GPS, but he does fly with a handheld transceiver and he uses an active noise reduction David Clark headset.

His next airplane will be that Strikemaster jet warbird that will be in addition to his Skylane, which he intends to keep. It has 1,400 hours left on the engine before overhaul, and at his level of activity and age he feels like he and the airplane might hang it up at about the same time.

The greatest risks that Don sees in general aviation flying are crowded skies and flight into adverse weather conditions.

This is all pretty neat. An office/hangar on the airport where he has flown for 37 years, a late-model Skylane and a jet warbird on the horizon.

The Skylane is a combination of ingredients that really works for a pilot who flies 100 or so hours a year and takes 175- to 200- mile trips. It is fast enough to go somewhere, the flying qualities are exemplary as long as you remember to limit flaps to 20 degrees unless someone is in the back seat, and it’s a great platform for a pilot who flies IFR, but not often and not a lot.

It’s good that he flies with an instructor on a monthly basis, too. Instrument flying is demanding in any airplane, and in that Stephens is not the youngest pilot on the block at 67, he’s facing the fact that everything slows a bit as more pages fall off the calendar. Also, his level of activity isn’t too high, so that monthly exposure to a CFI-I can help keep the rust away.

If he is still learning GPS approaches, that would certainly be something to work on monthly.

The equipment in his Skylane is neat, too, especially the IHAS 2000 system. The more pilots fly with uplinked or downlinked Nexrad pictures, the more they appreciate the value of having this. Florida has no shortage of thunderstorms, so it is especially useful there.

It’s great that Don has flown all those Cessnas with no electrical or vacuum problems, but that control system problem in the SeaRey was not a good deal. That airplane is in his past, though.

The Strikemaster jet will be exciting but had best be approached with a lot of care. Trying on his first jet at age 67, with nothing other than light airplane experience, will be a huge challenge and will involve a lot more risk than he has found in the Cessnas. There’s a big difference between a 235-horsepower Lycoming and a 3,410 pounds of thrust Rolls-Royce Viper turbojet.

As this was prepared, Don had flown the Strikemaster three times and he says, “Each time I fly it I feel a little more comfortable, but it still intimidates me because everything happens so fast.” The safety record in the warbird jets is marred by pilots playing with them, doing aerobatics at low altitude, and by the occasional power failure for whatever reason. If he’ll stick to normal flight the risk will be lower.

Don is the first in this series to identify the crowded skies as one of the main risks in general aviation flying. He has TIS (traffic information service) in conjunction with his Bendix/King IHAS 2000 system and this provides traffic information on the screen when he is in range of an approach control radar that provides this service. That is an aid when it is in range, and the only other way to manage the midair risk is through vigilance. The risk will always be there, though, and even acknowledging it and trying hard to do all the right things can’t be a complete shield from that bit of aeronautical bad luck, with emphasis on luck.

“Flight into adverse weather” is a recurring theme, and it is great that so many of our check ride pilots have singled out weather as a big risk factor. That’s the good news. The bad news is that, for pilots using airplanes for transportation, weather is still the number one accident factor, even in docile airplanes like Skylanes.

Most of us are nomads, and it’s pleasant to find a pilot who has been at the same airport since he started flying. That must be fun.

Check Ride Checklist: Don Stephens and his Cessna 182 SkylaneExperience: 2,400 hours spanning over 37 years Annual Use: Currently flies about 125 hours a year Recurrent Training: Nothing formal, but he flies approaches with a CFI-I every month. Equipment: His Skylane hasall of the good avionics things in it. Maintenance: As required, which is just fine for a Skylane flying 125 hours a year Wishlist: As this was prepared he had decided to buy that Strikemaster jet. He plans on keeping his Skylane for the duration.

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