Thomas Turner Article Matches:
by Thomas Turner
True, most gear-up landings don’t cause great injury or damage to the airplane, but it can still take months (and tens of thousands of dollars) to fix the plane -- and the cost does *not* go away.
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by Thomas Turner
'ATIS Information Bravo, 1150Z: Sky condition 300 overcast, visibility one and one-half miles, light rain and mist...'
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by Thomas Turner
One of the most critical aspects of flying cross-country is dealing with the weather, but almost all the weather information available for our preflight briefings comes only from areas near major airports -- and close to the ground.
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by Thomas Turner
There's a lot to consider before beginning your single-pilot approach.
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by Thomas Turner
Ice is the last great unknown in instrument flight -- although wide areas of suspected icing conditions may be forecast, there is *no* technology that can tell you specifically where you’ll encounter ice.
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by Thomas Turner
Editor’s note: A
very inside look at a very expensive problem that effects us all.
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by Thomas Turner
The most commonly glossed-over subject on complex checkouts could cost you several knots in cruise and a couple hundred hours of useful life from your engine.
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by Thomas Turner
Insurance is a gamble: When you take out an aviation insurance policy, you’re gambling that you
may have an accident and need the insurance company’s help to pay.
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by Thomas Turner
“Altitude busts” heighten the risk of a midair collision, FAA enforcement action, and, in a descent, controlled flight into terrain.
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by Thomas Turner
A Piper Arrow pilot lands without extending the landing gear... A jetliner takes the runway, when the crew discovers they forgot to start an engine...
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by Thomas Turner
Carbon monoxide (CO) is a natural by-product of combustion, it is poisonous and, as long as your engine is running, it is present near your cockpit.
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by Thomas Turner
Lightning flashed and torrential rain blew in sheets as the 747-400 lined up for takeoff.
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by Thomas Turner
by Thomas Turner
“The keys are in the airplane. Just fill it up when you get back.”
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by Thomas Turner
The annual is done, repairs are complete, the modification is installed ... whatever the reason your airplane was in the shop, it’s all buttoned up now, and ready to fly -- or is it?
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by Thomas Turner
Your mechanic should have test-run the engine(s) before signing off the airplane as airworthy, but it’s unlikely that he or she test flew the airplane.
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by Thomas Turner
The Cessna 152 was 200 feet above the ground when its engine quit.
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by Thomas Turner
'
VFR Flight Not Recommended....' How often have you driven instead of flown, only to fume the entire way as you drove through good flying weather?
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by Thomas Turner
No, it's not the beginning of a very bad joke ... hopefully.
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by Thomas Turner
Last week we discussed the difference between a broker and an agent -- this week, we discuss another distinction that could save you money...
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by Thomas Turner
Instrument pilots routinely bet their lives on the gauges and even VFR pilots depend on the instruments at times, especially at night...
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by Thomas Turner
Partial panel flying isn't hard, but it does take practice -- frequent practice -- and there are a few tricks that will make your chances of getting home with a partial panel a lot easier.
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by Thomas Turner
Flying a C172 toward Columbia, MO, one day, I grew nervous as the ATIS spoke of lower and lower visibilities.
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by Thomas Turner
Why would anyone in their right mind subject themselves to another written test and a checkride ... especially this one?
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by Thomas Turner
Yes, there
will be a test -- study …
hard.
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by Thomas Turner
It’s time to prepare for the flight test.
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by Thomas Turner
The day has come and it's time to show your stuff. You’ve amassed the flight experience required for the Airline Transport Pilot certificate.
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by Thomas Turner
Is it worth it to get an instrument rating -- or will it just encourage you to fly in poor weather when your instrument skills haven't been used for weeks?
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by Thomas Turner
One of the “rites of passage” of learning to fly is learning to compute the center of gravity -- but how many pilots keep plotting c.g. after their checkride and just how important and how useful is it? You may be surprised...
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by Thomas Turner
A recent poll revealed that 60% of all pilots consider an alternate route or diversion airport when they plan a flight --
that’s 40% too low.
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by Thomas Turner
Don’t you just hate it when you show up to fly your rental airplane, and it’s not there?
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by Thomas Turner
Most instructors do a great job of teaching the
basics of flight -- unfortunately, there's more to it than that.
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by Thomas Turner
Through your windscreen, the runway rolls into view ... growing by the instant, with your extreme approach.
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by Thomas Turner
Sometimes it's the plane... sometimes it's the pilot... often, it's the way the two fit together -- or don't -- that brings an end to them both.
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by Thomas Turner
Who’s the wisest pilot -- the one who flies below the clouds, the one who flies above them, he or she who deviates around clouds, or the pilot who files instruments and flies through?
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by Thomas Turner
It was a cloudless, hazy morning when the Cessna Skylane pilot preflighted for a hundred-mile business trip.
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by Thomas Turner
Most of the time, “
silent flight” means hitting the intercom’s “
pilot isolation” switch to keep the passengers’ conversation from overpowering Air Traffic Control... most of the time.
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by Thomas Turner
There’s a maneuver -- it's both easy to enter and easy to recover from -- that, when left unchecked, almost always ends in death.
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by Thomas Turner
Very recently, in the dark of night, six persons aboard a piston twin died near Joplin, Missouri.
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by Thomas Turner
“Come to work for me. Here’s what I’ll pay you. And oh yeah, here’s your Baron.”
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by Thomas Turner
Stomp hard on the rudder to control the yaw; force the pitch to stay slightly above the horizon, for blue line airspeed; bank into the good engine to combat the roll. Three seconds ago you were flying a twin... now you’re flying a single...
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by Thomas Turner
The yellow and orange Aeronca Champ reflected off the bright morning lake as the pilot drew his craft ever closer to the water.
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by Thomas Turner
'Baron 600 Romeo Victor, you’re cleared from the Hardwick Airport to the Hardwick NDB, then hold as published...'
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by Thomas Turner
Winds were calm, the Saturday morning skies hazy with scud, and I was in the right seat of a 1998 Cessna 172 flying the ILS/DME approach to Runway 1 at Rome, Georgia.
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by Thomas Turner
This is not amateur-hour: Making sure you stay out of the wrong airspace can take some fancy footwork, so make sure you know how to execute the proper maneuvers at the proper time -- there have never been worse days to end up in the wrong airspace, by mistake and in the blind.
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by Thomas Turner
Far down on the list of national priorities, but still part of the collateral damage of the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks, is the backbone of general aviation as we in the United States know it -- the Fixed Base Operator.
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by Thomas Turner
Your choice of instructor determines the time it takes to meet your goal -- therefore, how much money it’ll cost -- how safe you’ll
really be on completion, and whether you’ll ever earn that certificate or rating at all.
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by Thomas Turner
The night before, Flight Service reported a morning forecast with a 900-foot ceiling, visibility at two miles in rain showers with heavier rain showers along my route for the planned very-early-morning departure in the company Baron.
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by Thomas Turner
A plane slices through thickening fog, the pilot straining to find his destination ahead; another drones over an empty forest into a fierce headwind, sweat on the pilot's brow as the fuel gauges bounce closer to empty.
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by Thomas Turner
If you plan to fly with very young children, you need to be especially careful to protect her or him from the rigors of flight.
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by Thomas Turner
Two months ago I could casually jump in an airplane and fly about wherever I wanted...
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by Thomas Turner
With a little guilt and the same morbid curiosity that prompts viewers to watch footage of the same tragedies over and over on television news channels, I check the FAA and other accident-reporting web sites daily.
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by Thomas Turner
You're a fortunate pilot: you own your own airplane, but don't kid yourself, eventually someone is going to ask if they can fly it.
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by Thomas Turner
It’s too sweet a deal -- your friend says you can fly his/her airplane, but before you jump in and fly away, you need to remember that borrowing someone else’s airplane is all about responsibility and trust... and rules.
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by Thomas Turner
Most pilots want two things: to fly fast, and to log as much time as possible -- the problem is that these are contradictory goals.
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by Thomas Turner
It’s expensive, it’s dangerous, it takes a lot of time to learn, and even more to stay current -- flying is just a rich snob’s way of avoiding the interstates and the airline terminals crowded with “common people.”
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by Thomas Turner
Boy, it’s been a long time since I’ve done THAT! It feels good to know I still can.
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by Thomas Turner
The Skyhawk's directional gyro died during vectors for the Instrument Landing System (ILS) approach -- while I was 250 miles from home...
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by Thomas Turner
A 'first flight' experience can make or break a passenger -- or even a pilot -- for life.
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by Thomas Turner
Type clubs are organizations for owners, pilots and enthusiasts of specific makes and models of airplanes -- today, they have the ability to be much more.
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by Thomas Turner
“I’m on a mission,” wrote an
iPilot reader, ”there’s a huge problem lurking on the general aviation horizon...'
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by Thomas Turner
It's not always easy to get into an advanced / well equipped airplane when your experience is minimal, but there are ways within your power.
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by Thomas Turner
You’re four thousand feet above the ground and having the time of your life... when -- without warning -- the smooth purr of your engine chokes into a coughing fit that becomes sudden silence...
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by Thomas Turner
Our piston airplane engines are
extremely reliable -- but fly enough and you may have an engine problem.
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by Thomas Turner
What’s required, and how does one
teach mastery of a “
conventional gear” airplane? This weekend, I’ll start checking out a friend in a tailwheel airplane...
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by Thomas Turner
Barry’s grin was so wide I swear I could see it from the back seat of the Bellanca Citabria.
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by Thomas Turner
Barry had endured quite a bit of lecture to help prepare him for his tailwheel checkout -- eventually, though, we had to actually get into the airplane.
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by Thomas Turner
Barry, friend and student who is working toward his tailwheel endorsement and the 10 hours of flight instruction required by insurance to fly as pilot-in-command of the Bellanca Citabria, took to rudder control and thinking ahead of the airplane pretty quickly... in calm wind conditions.
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by Thomas Turner
Many of us pilots (and pilots-in-training) are highly motivated, goal-oriented types, always reaching for the next step.
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by Thomas Turner
A recent purchase reminded me that, as much as things change through avionics upgrades and regulations, the spirit that lures us to flight has endured in its most basic and shared form for all the years man has yearned for the sky.
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by Thomas Turner
'
I love night flying and, in fact, will be making some night flights out of necessity -- however, I often read that flying a single engine airplane at night is a huge risk...'
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by Thomas Turner
When the only thing keeping you above an unwelcome encounter with unseen terrain below is a single powerplant, you'd better know what you're doing.
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by Thomas Turner
You don’t have to be going for your Commercial certificate, suffering the strains of aerobatics or trying to get a fighter off your tail; the chandelle will improve your stick-and-rudder skills, make you less likely to have a stall-spin accident and they're fun, too.
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by Thomas Turner
I’ve taught hundreds of pilots in airplanes and simulators and, to my horror, one of my students died flying his airplane.
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by Thomas Turner
“Just pull the red knob until the engine runs rough, then push it in a bit” ... oh really.
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by Thomas Turner
The air temperature was about 80 degrees, which is hot for an airport 7700 feet above sea level in the Rocky Mountains.
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by Thomas Turner
I’m taking my son and his cub scout den to an airshow this weekend. It’s one of the bigger events, featuring the U.S. Air Force “
Thunderbirds” and a number of well-known civilian acts...
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by Thomas Turner
Seventy-five years earlier, nearly to the minute, the dirty silver monoplane touched down outside Paris, France, over 33 hours and an epoch of human achievement after splashing skyward from a muddy field in New York.
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by Thomas Turner
A Bonanza’s forward cabin door pops open as it takes off into blue skies, and in his rush to return the aircraft to the ground and secure the door, the pilot forgets to extend the gear.
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by Thomas Turner
I was in the right seat of a Beech Baron over Hutchinson, Kansas. KHUT is a sleepy little controlled airport just northwest of Wichita (it has a great restaurant, too!). My student and I were on a left downwind for Runway 31 toward the end of a long day's training.
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by Thomas Turner
Perhaps the ultimate unforgivable sin in aviation in aviation is fuel exhaustion, and while you may never do it chances are you'll come close...
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by Thomas Turner
“
This is likely one of the most unusual calls you’ll ever receive,” said the voice on the telephone...
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by Thomas Turner
Faulty or imprecise navigation could put you in prohibited airspace, or controlled airspace without proper clearance; these days, that could lead to loss of your flying privileges -- or it could
get you killed.
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by Thomas Turner
'Confused VFR Pilot' writes: 'I'm ready to start working toward my IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) rating, but I'm confused by the options available.
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by Thomas Turner
'Cessna 172 Yankee Alpha, turn left heading 060 degrees, descend and maintain 2000 feet; expect to break out near Fisk on the Oshkosh visual arrival, cancel IFR once in visual conditions.'
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by Thomas Turner
The weather briefer told me there'd be 'nothing' between me and home for the 2.5 hour flight -- so why am I seeing towering cumulus up ahead?
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by Thomas Turner
I am a new pilot and would like to immediately start working on my IFR. Several of my friends who got their licenses have basically put off the IFR and frankly I wonder if they will ever get it.
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by Thomas Turner
A recent television documentary discussed the “crisis” in general aviation safety. “600 people die every year in little airplane accidents,” heralds the narrator as scenes of post-crash devastation and amateur video of a Cessna in a deadly spin play and replay across the screen.
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by Thomas Turner
When a pilot falls ill (or worse) at the controls of an airplane, it sometimes leaves a frantic passenger at the controls. Pilot incapacitation is a factor in less than one percent of all general aviation accidents; chances are one in many millions that the pilot won’t be conscious to land the airplane.
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by Thomas Turner
Flaps full. Power to idle. Hold the nose off ... hold it up, hold it up, let the speed bleed off to the stall, inches above the pavement.
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by Thomas Turner
Get set for another "one year since 9/11" retrospective … but this time, from the point of view of a pilot.
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by Thomas Turner
I changed the oil in the Beech Sierra on a hot, humid morning in July … and found it's a great way to enjoy personal aviation.
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by Thomas Turner
I faced aeronautical temptation this weekend... a lot of temptation.
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by Thomas Turner
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) calls it that -- they even publish an Accident Prevention Program Bulletin by that name to warn of its dangers.
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by Thomas Turner
You've been cleared to "taxi to the runway" when you come up to a red "ILS" sign and double-stripe, yellow taxiway marking -- can you taxi further?
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by Thomas Turner
Cell phones are handy, but there are potential 'gotchas' when using a cell phone to talk to Flight Service or Air Traffic Control that you should be aware of.
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by Thomas Turner
It's that time of year again -- know what the dangers are, know your defenses...
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by Thomas Turner
Turning base to final, I saw a Piper Cherokee sitting on the centerline at the arrival end of the runway. "Keep an eye on him," I told my student as we rolled level onto final approach. "Be ready to go around if he doesn't move soon."
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by Thomas Turner
We pilots take pride (and some even revel) in our ability to overcome obstacles -- but sometimes, the deck is stacked against us. No flight, from the "dawn patrol" cruise to an ocean-spanning instrument odyssey, is completely without hazard -- to fly is to accept, and to manage, risk.
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by Thomas Turner
Last week, we reviewed four of the eight "high risk situations" that lead to almost all lightplane accidents -- taking off with a known problem, midair collision, controlled flight into terrain, and flying an unstabilized approach.
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by Thomas Turner
The air was absolutely still save for the far-off putter of an O-320 Lycoming at low power. A Cessna 172 hung silhouetted against high, scattered clouds stained yellow by the rising sun.
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by Thomas Turner
The "categorical outlook" is a very general description of ceiling and visibility conditions contained in the Area Forecast. How can we use this extremely broad description to make a good go / no-go decision?
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by Thomas Turner
If you’re flying under a U.S.-issued pilot certificate, your days are numbered.
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by Thomas Turner
"I was climbing on top of the fog, looked down at my instruments, and when I looked up I saw the power lines..." Miraculously, all three aboard the Beech Bonanza escaped injury when the slick six-seater hit the power lines and slammed into a pasture. The aircraft was consumed in a post-crash fire.
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by Thomas Turner
I owe my life to aviation mechanics. For one, my father was an A&P (certificated airframe and powerplant) mechanic (now called "maintenance technicians"). But even if you don't so literally derive your very existence from airplane wrench-turners, you almost certainly live today because of the skill and professionalism of aviation professionals who keep the airline and general aviation fleet going.
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by Thomas Turner
Ten gallons -- about thirty bucks worth of avgas -- what'll it get you?
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by Thomas Turner
For a given amount of engine power, the higher you fly, the faster your true airspeed. If your engine is very powerful, and especially if it's turbocharged or a turbine, your airplane can fly to well above 15,000 feet -- getting spectacular cruise speeds.
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by Thomas Turner
There's a saying among pilots of retractable gear airplanes, "
there are those who have, and those who will" have gear-up landings. A couple of years ago we discovered that landing-gear-related mishaps account for nearly half of all accidents involving retractable-gear, piston-engine airplanes. Have we learned anything since we last visited this issue two years ago?
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by Thomas Turner
"Man, my airplane is fast," boasts a pilot. "I was getting 150 knots true groundspeed."
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by Thomas Turner
I knew the pilot of the Piper Cheyenne turboprop that January 24 collided with a Cessna 172 near Denver. Midair collision -- it's a terrifying prospect. Running into another airplane, followed by an uncontrollable descent to the earth, may be the greatest fear among general aviation pilots.
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by Thomas Turner
Pop Quiz: Is it against the Federal Aviation Regulations to take off with ice and snow on the wings? Will “dry snow” blow off the wings and tail during takeoff? Can you eliminate any takeoff ice hazards by “polishing” frost on the wings until it’s smooth?
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by Thomas Turner
Recently this column focused on the collision between a Cessna 172 and a Piper Cheyenne just west of the Denver Class B airspace. Five aboard the two airplanes died in the tragedy; six on the ground were hurt, and at least two homes were heavily damaged.
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by Thomas Turner
I was in the right, front seat of a new Beech Baron. My student, owner of the factory-fresh Beech, had smoothly taken off, beginning a wide, standard-rate turn to the left, away from the airport and toward our practice area. The morning was cool and bright, the sun muted through a thin layer of cirrus clouds far above.
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by Thomas Turner
Which is safer: a well-used rental airplane flown by dozens of pilots, from students to high-timers; or a personally owned airplane, flown regularly by only one, certificated pilot?
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by Thomas Turner
Remember when airspace rules were about avoiding collisions with other airplanes? Return with me now to those days of yore, when Class B airspace and MOAs were designed to keep us safe, not secure.
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by Thomas Turner
"The pilot stated that he set 10 degrees of flaps for takeoff from the relatively short runway. The 'aircraft was slow to climb' and once (it) was airborne, he raised the flaps. The airplane settled and collided with the ground. Additionally, the pilot said that the aural stall warning was operating throughout the attempted climbout."
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by Thomas Turner
Rosanne Roseannidanna warned us years ago: "It's always something." As pilot-in-command you may have meticulously planned your takeoff, and used the five-point method of predicting and evaluating takeoff performance. No takeoff will ever go exactly as predicted in the Pilot's Operating Handbook. Like the animal on the runway, there are often some outside influences, some extenuating circumstances that result in the true takeoff performance achieved -- and whether you will have to abort a takeoff.
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by Thomas Turner
Aborting a takeoff can be as uneventful as simply reducing power and rolling to a stop. It may even take the form of noting a problem during your engine run-up, and never taxiing onto the runway at all. A takeoff abort may require a quick "chop" of the throttles at rotation speed, or even a few feet in the air over the runway. In the worst case a takeoff abort may have to begin at a point where you can't come to a stop on the remaining runway.
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by Thomas Turner
Sometimes, the choice to abort is complicated by other possibilities -- the unpleasant things that will likely happen if you stay on the ground but not on the runway.
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by Thomas Turner
An airplane is a terrible classroom. It's noisy. It's cramped. It's hot -- or it's cold. It can be a high-pressure environment. It's difficult for the instructor to control training, because of weather, other traffic or airspace issues. And it's hard for students to "step back" from the physical tasks of controlling the airplane long enough to assimilate new information.
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by Thomas Turner
My MD-88 flight from Atlanta rocketed down final approach at the Class C primary airport in Florida this hot Monday morning. From seat 19A I spied a Seneca in the run-up area at the end of the eastbound runway. (A lot of flight training originates from this airport.) The twin Piper sat cocked into the wind, the forward cabin door open as the instructor tried despondently to capture some of the last of the prop blast before sentencing himself and his student to the broiling cabin.
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by Thomas Turner
As far as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is concerned, there are only two ways for a civilian to learn to fly... either the school you use is FAA approved, or it is not.
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by Thomas Turner
I leveled at 11,000 feet as Santa Fe slid beneath the left wing. Turning southeast onto the airway that runs the pass between the San Juan de Cristos to the north and the Sandias to the south, I set the Bellanca Super Viking's power and tweaked the trim for cruise. Reaching to the floorboards I moved the fuel selector to the AUX position, for auxiliary-tank fuel placarded "for use in level flight only." "Level off checklist complete," I spoke to myself after completing the level-off "flow pattern." But then...
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by Thomas Turner
Joe Marsh was the airport manager at Sedalia, Missouri, when I first began giving flight instruction 15 years ago (Joe's now manager at Easton, MD -- drop in and say hello for me!). Retired from the Air Force, Joe had served first as a navigator and then as pilot on lumbering C-124 four-engine, propeller-driven cargo airplanes. In the mid-1960s, Vietnam was a common destination for Joe and his crew.
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by Thomas Turner
Some years ago I was deposed as an expert witness in the case of an aircraft accident. The aircraft manufacturer was being sued over a fatal accident where the airplane's cabin door had popped open just after takeoff and the airplane stalled.
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by Thomas Turner
Most aircraft engines are limited by the structure of the atmosphere -- the higher you go, the less air is available to create power. Turbocharging, or mechanically compressing inlet air to provide more power at altitude, overcomes this limitation by boosting the air pressure to something greater than “natural” levels. Turbocharged engines particularly shine above 10,000 feet MSL, where sea-level (or greater) power is combined with reduced air resistance to provide spectacular true airspeeds.
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by Thomas Turner
All pilots share a common trait. Is it money? Background? Education? Daring, or caution? No, pilots come from a wide variety of backgrounds ... all economic classes, upbringing, schooling and personalities. There is one thing seemingly all pilots share, though -- that big stack of old aviation magazines. And there they are, just lying around waiting to do all of us a world of good ... maybe in ways that aren't so obvious. Yes, you've been misled. This is not a story about magnetos.
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by Thomas Turner
This Centennial of Flight finds me grateful to the Wrights for their ability to attack dangerous trial-and-error with analytical science and ultimately open the door to the world of flight we so enjoy. It was a longer road than most might imagine, full of fascinating history few people know...
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by Thomas Turner
We all know the story of the two bicycle-shop brothers from Ohio who built and flew the first successful heavier-than-air aircraft from the dunes of North Carolina on December 17, 1903. From our vantage point one century later, though, many of us fail to appreciate the meticulous work that led to the dawn of aviation ... much of it done not by the Wrights themselves, but those who had come before. Last week we learned just a bit about Sir George Caley, William Sanford Henson, Felix Du Temple and more. This week it's on to more familiar names...
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by Thomas Turner
We all know the story of how two bicycle-shop brothers from Ohio built and flew the first successful heavier-than-air aircraft from the dunes of North Carolina on December 17, 1903. Last time we looked at the path of science and imagination that created the atmosphere in which the Wright Brothers began their work. This time we'll look at how the Wrights adapted that experience to finally conquer the air.
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by Thomas Turner
Success! After years of experimentation, building on the work of countless others yet furthering the science of aeronautics well beyond any others before them, Wilbur and Orville Wright had solved the elusive problem of aircraft control in gliding flight. The ultimate prize, however, was to combine that control with power to go when, where and however long they wished. The Wright Brothers needed an engine.
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by Thomas Turner
Maybe one of the best "flying lessons" I ever got took place 60 feet below ground level! Back in the Bad Old Days of the Cold War I served as an Air Force Minuteman launch control officer. How I came to do that for a living, when I took command of the Air Force's Precision Sitting Team, the "Thunderchairs," and why I actually launched an ICBM in 1987 are all stories for some other forum. But the pressure-cooker environment of potential total nuclear war, 60 feet under the Missouri plains, strangely did much to prepare me for the single-pilot cockpit of a piston airplane. One thing the "missile business" did for me was to teach the concept of minor, major, and critical errors.
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by Thomas Turner
When I was a kid I was always looking to the skies. One of my earliest memories is seeing the Goodyear Blimp float past my dining-room window. Absolutely guaranteed to make my youthful heart race was the silhouette of a pair of wings, stacked around a single airframe -- a biplane, what my father called, in his transplanted West Virginia drawl, a "double-winger."
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by Thomas Turner
Let's say right now you're in your 20s, and you want to learn to fly. Unless you're among the vast minority who at that age can afford to buy a new airplane, (or fortunate enough to attend school with iPilot contributor Paul A. Craig and his school's new fleet of Diamond Stars), you're probably going to learn to fly in someone else's old Cessna or Piper.
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by Thomas Turner
The average age of the U.S. general aviation fleet is already past 30 years, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Despite new-plane manufacturing, this average continues to keep pace with the march of time -- FAA forecasts for the year 2020 show the typical single-engine, piston-powered airplane will be nearly 50 years old. The simple truth is that the rules under which virtually all of these airplanes were certified -- the old Civil Aviation Regulations Part 3 -- had no standards for use- and age-related fatigue or continued airworthiness. No one really knows what the ravages of time will do to airplanes.
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by Thomas Turner
Sometimes it's hard for experienced pilots to remember what it was like to be wide-eyed with the newness of flying airplanes. Often pilots and instructors get challenged with what sound like very basic questions from lower-time pilots ... and if we're smart we'll treat these "simple" questions as educational opportunities for those joining our ranks, not irksome distractions cast aside like Jepp charts previous revision. Remember, one of these new pilots might be sitting to your left in the cockpit of a Regional Jet when you get laid off from your "major airline" or corporate job in the future <grin>.
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by Thomas Turner
Airplane owners know the dread -- that Number 10 envelope in the mail from the Federal Aviation Administration. Using your airplane registration information (you did update the FAA last time you moved, didn't you?) they've hunted you down to tell you... it's time to spend more money on your airplane.
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by Thomas Turner
Cirrus Design may have fired the first shot in the personal aviation revolution -- integrating airline-style, CRT flat-screen avionics into light airplanes with the phenomenal SR22 composite single.
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by Thomas Turner
Last time we talked about the avionics revolution, the introduction of Primary Flight Display (PFD) and Multifunction Display (MFD) equipment into light, personal airplanes. Flat-screen avionics hold the promise of vastly improved situational awareness, the pilot no longer having to mentally combine input from as many as a dozen different (and frequently less intuitive) indicators and instruments across the width of the airplane's panel.
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by Thomas Turner
Airplane engines suck. Pistons move up and down (or in horizontally opposed engines, in and out) and create tremendous suction that draws air in through the induction system. Although some engines benefit somewhat from "ram air" induction, and others have turbochargers to boost the airflow, all depend primarily on this internal suction to draw air in for combustion.
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by Thomas Turner
It's nearing midnight. A damp fog rolls lazily off the Gulf of Mexico, thick clouds blurring the lines between earth, sea and sky. Lights pierce less than a mile through mist and fog under a 100-foot overcast. Dark silence envelopes the salt marshes of the Florida panhandle. Suddenly an otherworldly shriek shakes the trees and swamp, a wail punctuated with a dull thump, the squawking of birds, then a return to silence. An airplane lay mangled in the steaming marsh, its pilot dead at the controls. Why?
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by Thomas Turner
There it is, in my logbook in May of 1990…0.5 hours in a Cessna 172 over central Missouri, one NDB approach under the hood…and an instructor sign-off for an instrument competency check, what is now known as an instrument proficiency check (IPC). In the mind of my CFII (certificated flight instructor-instrument) I'd demonstrated enough competency in that short time aloft for him to bet his career and fortune (and my life) that I was safe to fly in weather of my choosing. I was too new a pilot at the time to know any better.
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by Thomas Turner
Once a year, aircraft owners lay their airplane bare while an expert methodically checks and prods it for any indication the standards under which it was produced or modified are no longer met. It's called the annual inspection. A vital task to assure airworthiness (all too often this is the only real going-over an airplane gets each year), the "annual" is a pass/fail exam ... and owners wonder what their options are if the inspector turns thumbs down.
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by Thomas Turner
It’s hard to argue the '
single vs. twin' debate ... especially with someone who had just put a single-engine airplane down off-airport following a catastrophic engine failure. This endless debate has no statistically provable answer (many twin-engine failures end with a successful single-engine landing and no accident report, and even some in-flight engine failures in single-engine aircraft end up with a glide to a runway and don’t land in the record books). I do have some information, however, that helps draw some conclusions about the relative safety of single- and twin-engine airplanes.
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by Thomas Turner
In a single-engine airplane engine failure introduces relatively few decision steps. The airplane's tendency during the emergency is to continue ahead in a straight line, descending. This characteristic helps prevent either a stall or a spiral. In a twin, engine failure introduces a
large number of sequential pilot decisions, each with potentially adverse consequences ... all while the airplane (under the influence of asymmetric thrust) is attempting to radically
diverge from a controlled path in all three axes. It takes regular, intense training (ideally in a simulator where such things can be realistically presented and safely practiced) to be proficient in overcoming aircraft tendencies, and making safe and proper decisions.
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by Thomas Turner
Recently we looked at engine-failure case studies of aircraft that are close to identical in design and performance -- except for the number of engines. We discovered that significant, regular pilot training is needed to enjoy the safety advantage of a second engine.
Translation: For many pilots (those with 'twin' ratings, included) the single-engine airplane may actually be the safer machine.
And yet, regardless the number of engines, there's still that pesky engine failure scenario, especially hazardous in the clouds. If you fly a single-engine airplane, you need to prepare for the catastrophic power loss in instrument conditions.
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by Thomas Turner
Much has been written about Diamond Aircraft’s spectacular DA40-180 Diamondstar.Almost
all the recent press has surrounded the Diamondstar as launch customer
for GARMIN’s G1000 Primary Flight Display (PFD)/Multi-Function Display
(MFD) integrated suite of flight instrument, navigation, communication
and engine management equipment.But very little has been written
about the DA40’s suitability for a mission in which it is rapidly
finding a niche…ab inito primary and instrument training for students
on the professional-pilot career path—an airline pilot trainer.
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by Thomas Turner
Much has been written about Diamond Aircraft’s spectacular DA40-180 Diamondstar.
Almost all the recent press has surrounded the Diamondstar as launch customer for GARMIN’s G1000 Primary Flight Display (PFD)/Multi-Function Display (MFD) integrated suite of flight instrument, navigation, communication and engine management equipment.But very little has been written about the DA40’s suitability for a mission in which it is rapidly finding a niche…ab inito primary and instrument training for students on the professional-pilot career path—an airline pilot trainer.
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by Thomas Turner
The engine failure didn’t happen suddenly.... I was flying a Mooney M20C in clear, cool air, 7500 feet above the Kansas/Oklahoma border. I’d flown the 1962 speedster from Augusta, Kansas (just easy of Wichita) to Oklahoma City, picked up a passenger and flew to a meeting in southeast Oklahoma, and was now, on the solo leg of my trip homeward. My first clue of impending trouble, however, appeared much earlier that day.
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by Thomas Turner
Move up from most training airplanes into high performance aircraft and you’ll confront a number of new gauges and devices. One of these, so very basic yet commonly misunderstood, is the manifold pressure gauge. Let’s look at what the manifold pressure tells us—and what it doesn’t.
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by Thomas Turner
Propellers on most multiengine airplanes, and even some singles, have an unique capability to feather, to be brought to a stop in the event of an engine failure. This dramatically reduces drag, as the stopped blades twist to nearly align with the slipstream and no longer present a disc to the relative wind. The result is substantially improved glide performance for those few feather-capable single engine airplanes, and the difference between a slight climb capability and a steep descent in most piston twins. But there's a trap that may befall the pilot of a feather-capable airplane if an in-flight engine restart isn't successful. How can we avoid the propeller unfeathering trap?
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by Thomas Turner
A friend of mine has a turbocharged, single-engine airplane. Part of the appeal of the turbo is the ability it provides to “overfly the weather.” He and his wife were happily cruising at Flight Level 200 (20,000 feet) when something happened…and manifold pressure dropped in half. Where seconds before they were racing above a bank of clouds 15,000 feet thick, now they were sliding down into the deck with but a fraction of their available power…and the clouds were full of ice.
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by Thomas Turner
It can happen to anyone. And it does with alarming regularity. At minimum, nearly half of all mishaps involving piston engine, retractable-gear airplanes result from failure of the pilot to properly operate the landing gear.
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by Thomas Turner
Landing gear-related mishaps (LGRMs) account for nearly half of all reported accidents involving certified, piston-engine retractable gear aircraft. Up to 15% of these gear up and gear collapse mishaps happen when you'd least expect it: during dual flight instruction. Certainly much less than 15% of all RG flying happens with a CFI on board. How can we account for this high rate of dual instruction LGRMs, and more importantly, how can we use this knowledge to avoid this sort of mishap?
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by Thomas Turner
Gear-up and gear-collapse accidents (what I call collectively 'Landing Gear-Related Mishaps,' or LGRMs) account for nearly half of all reported incidents in certified, piston-powered retractable gear (RG) airplanes. There is a fairly strong correlation between these LGRMs and, of all things, a weather phenomenon-strong or gusty surface winds. How might surface winds exceeding 15 knots contribute to gear up and gear-collapse accidents?
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by Thomas Turner
Nearly half of all reported mishaps in retractable-gear airplanes are related to the landing gear system. The vast majority of those appear to be related mainly to pilot action or inaction, often under the stress of distraction. There is a small component of the Landing Gear-Related Mishap (LGRM) record, however, that is a function of aircraft maintenance.
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by Thomas Turner
For several months we’ve been looking at the pandemic Landing Gear-Related Mishap (LGRM) rate in certified, piston-engine, retractable gear airplanes. Wrapping up, here are 10 Tips for Avoiding LGRMs.
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by Thomas Turner
An instructor friend of mine wrote: You mentioned in a recent presentation that the only things that are of a legal nature in the Pilots Operating Handbook (POH) are those things listed in the Limitations section. Otherwise the pilot can basically do as they please (or words to that effect). I think I get the general idea of what you meant. One of my students, however, interpreted this to mean it is quite acceptable to:
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by Thomas Turner
I was in the right, front seat of a 1999 A36 Bonanza as we launched on an IFR training mission in northern California. A gloomy overcast had rolled inland off San Francisco Bay and we heard traffic holding overhead when Center gave us our clearance to go. My student, new to the Bonanza, did a superb job of holding attitude as he arced over the now-unseen hills while we turned inland; the holding pilot, now cleared for his approach, asked the Center controller about the weather at our departure airport.
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by Thomas Turner
Efficient in quickly developing pilots, traditional aviation training nonetheless leaves significant knowledge gaps that contribute to the vast majority of aircraft accidents. It’s up to pilots to seek out knowledge to fill those gaps…here are three ways to increase your knowledge and safety.
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