I appreciate David Jack Kennys take on the value of keeping up with performance and ground-reference maneuvers after the checkride (Maneuvers, September 2018). Ive found that they definitely help me to build confidence when Ive been out of the left seat for a while, and can quickly restore the feel of the airplane. The same is true when confronting an unfamiliar type or when assessing skills of a new pilot-acquaintance.
True, it wont tell you how far youll have to go to find good barbecue, or even whether theres a courtesy car. It will, however, give you the hours at which someone should be there, the kinds of fuel available and whether theres 24-hour self-service, phone numbers for the airport manager or to request after-hours services (if available), the dimensions and pattern orientations of all runways…plus latitude and longitude, bearings and distances to the nearest navaids, frequencies for approach control, weather, and the CTAF or tower and descriptions of possible conflicts such as banner tows or skydiving. It even details what repair services are available, though you might have to look up the codes. (S4 means major airframe and powerplant.) Thats a lot of information for seven bucks-and the batteries never run down.
The right-hand diagram on page 32 (July 2018) depicting an alternate midfield entry when approaching from the side opposite the traffic pattern was (and I believe still is) the standard approach taught across Canada when I began flying over 50 years ago. When approaching from the same side of the traffic pattern, we were taught to enter downwind parallel to, slightly wider and slightly further upwind than usual, rather than the 45-degree entry in the U.S. The preferred entry (left-hand diagram) involves a short period where you are blind to everything that may be happening in the pattern and thus may pose unnecessary risk.
We were in IMC at 4000 feet, on a vector for the VOR-A approach at the Wichita, Kan., Colonel James Jabara Airport. The airplane was an A36 Bonanza and I was in the instructors seat on the last approach of a day-long training session. This was in the era before GPS, long before iPads and moving-map handhelds, and the owner of this then-well-equipped 36 had ignored the short-lived Loran phase. So we were eastbound on a long downwind, and crabbing into a northerly wind before intercepting the westbound final approach course before circling to Jabaras north/south runway.
Boeings 727 has always been one of my all-time favorite airplanes. Ive never flown in one as anything other than self-loading freight, but Im old enough to remember when the 727 (and the DC-9) brought jet comfort and performance to smaller, outlying airports where the eras long-haul mainstays-707s and DC-8s-couldnt operate. These days, of course, economics-fuel burn, plus the need to pay three pilots-and noise regulations have relegated the venerable three-holer to tramp-freighter status or the scrapyard.
As part of its charter to help minimize GA accidents, the General Aviation Joint Steering Committee (GAJSC; see the article beginning on page 4 for background) earlier this year published a Best Practices Guide designed to ensure airplanes equipped with turbocharged reciprocating engines fitted with turbocharger to tailpipe V-band coupling/clamps, remain in their original type design configuration. It will also help to effectively manage the risk associated with the use of V-band coupling/clamps in this application.
My Debonair had to go to the avionics shop recently for its 24-month pitot/static and transponder checks, and to diagnose an autopilot that wouldnt. As I feared, autopilot system components had to go out for factory attention, and the removal work would take longer than my schedule allowed. So I left the airplane and Uberd home. Before I had the free time to retrieve the airplane, my part of Florida was seeing a constant flow of moisture and showers coming in from the Gulf of Mexico.
1) A Piper PA-32R-300 Lance attempted to take off from a 3200-foot-long grass runway on a June morning with flaps retracted. It lifted off at the end of the runway, then descended into a shallow valley, touched down and lifted off a second time, before settling back to the ground and colliding with a barbed-wire fence. It was later determined to have been 188 pounds over its maximum gross weight with its center of gravity 0.15 inches aft of limits. Density altitude was about 1800 feet above field elevation.
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