Features

Aircraft manufacturers would have us perform a recommended preflight inspection before every flight. Sometimes, that’s necessary and appropriate, especially when we’re unfamiliar with the airplane, it’s a rental and/or we find something on a cursory examination making us want to dive down deeper into determining whether the airplane really is airworthy. On the other side of the coin, you may want to go far beyond the handbook’s recommendations. One example is when the airplane is just out of the maintenance shop. The trick is knowing how close a look the aircraft really needs One answer is experience, but that’s not something all of us have in abundance.

Among the concerns expressed by a brand-new student pilot I was talking with recently was what I took to be a strong fear of stalls. I didn’t have the opportunity to ask him where he learned stalls should be feared. I did, however, relate they were important but—at least when understood—weren’t anything to fear. Which is not to say they shouldn’t be respected. Key to understanding stalls, of course, is knowing why and how they occur, why we practice them and how we can use the knowledge and experience gained during that practice to prevent more dramatic behavior, like deep stalls or spins, especially when close to the ground.

Among the first things pilots learn is what to do if something goes wrong. Instrument pilots get to learn what to do when instruments or the systems powering them fail and how to get back on the ground with what’s left. Back in the days when each instrument was a separate, physical thing instead of a software construct presenting symbols or alphanumeric data, their presentation was relatively well known and predictable. These days, however, those same instruments often have been replaced with what is essentially a computer screen. What happens when it fails?

If you haven’t noticed, the days are becoming shorter, it’s not as warm out and—depending on where you are—the trees probably have changed color. Welcome to winter, sometimes a seasonal smorgasbord of aviation weather conditions. May we interest you in some unexpected fog? Perhaps a premature sunset? How about a nice mix of solid overcast, low sun angle and variable winds? If you’re a fair-weather pilot, you may be tempted to hang up the headset for a few months, at least until it’s time to adjust the clocks forward. For the most part, that’s the wrong reaction, but it’s clear the short days, low sun angles and long shadows, and freezing precipitation winter brings can tax our individual systems.

Congratulations. You just spent the last three hours in the clag, smoothly and calmly managing ATC, your GPS navigator and the autopilot while successfully piloting yourself and your passengers from Big City International to Non-Towered Regional for your business meeting. Breaking out on the GPS final, you cancel IFR and switch over to the CTAF to announce your straight-in approach, only to look up to see a Skyhawk-filled windshield. After the few moments of stark terror it takes to dodge the traffic, you slam the mains onto the runway and taxi in, still shaking, wondering what the heck just happened. Where did that guy come from, anyway?

Among the three weather phenomena that get my greatest attention, thunderstorms occupy the top two slots (icing gets the third). It’s not that I’m scared of thunderstorms; rather, it’s that I respect them. I’ve been in them—on the ground—and close enough to them in the air that I understand their power and unpredictable nature. One of the last places I want to be is in an airplane in the middle of one. My main tactic when dealing with thunderstorms is to remain in VMC. I’ll enter IMC, but only if I know what’s on the other side, based mostly on my Mk. I, Mod 1 eyeball. When approaching a group of storms, I’ll maneuver the airplane to ensure what I’m looking at is clear sky and not just some sky-colored cloud hiding an angrier one.

Anyone spending much time around personal aircraft sooner or later will be forced to confront the increased risk flying them can entail. It might be after a close call in the traffic pattern, or a rough-running engine without a decent landing area in sight. And we won’t even mention trying to intelligently discuss general aviation safety with a skeptical co-worker, nosy neighbor or unimpressed mother-in-law who’s convinced those little airplanes we fly are deathtraps. The fact is, flying personal airplanes does increase our risk of death or injury. So does engaging in many other activities—skiing, motorcycling, rock climbing, scuba diving—as well as things as mundane as commuting to work or taking a shower. Basically, everything we do carries some risk. Understanding and mitigating those risks is key to our longevity.

The U.S. air traffic control system is a living, breathing thing, one borne from necessity. As the system has matured, new procedures and technologies have been implemented, and many of those developments have impacted our cockpits. Even so, the men and women who staff the ATC system today perform many of the same basic tasks their predecessors tackled 50 or more years ago. Air traffic continues to grow—the airlines are doing okay, even as GA activity remains relatively flat—so plans are in place for even greater system automation, the Next Generation Air Transportation System, or NextGen. Meanwhile, the controller workforce also is undergoing changes, some of them self-inflicted, but all of them having an impact in our cockpits.

These days, vacuum- or air-pressure-driven instruments in an otherwise glass panel seem like the proverbial fish out of water: All that spiffy new technology parked next to stone-age holdovers. Vacuum/air pumps and the unreliable spinning gyros they feed are pre-WWII technology, heavy and involve problematic plumbing systems. The irony has many owners thinking of removing their air/vacuum system entirely. Though it’s not without its drawbacks—which we’ll get to—going all-electric has several benefits, including weight savings, simplified maintenance and troubleshooting, and elimination of the failure-prone dry pumps and plumbing once and for all.

I had just been hired to instruct in the manufacturer’s authorized pilot training program for the Beechcraft Bonanza. Part of my orientation was a check flight with Norm, the lead instructor of Bonanza training (whom I was replacing as he moved up the product line). We were in an older A36 about 4000 feet over Anthony, Kan., when he reached over and pulled the throttle, choking off the Bonanza’s tired, TBO-busting IO-520 engine. I immediately found the local airport, pointed the Bonanza toward it, and transitioned to a glide as I stepped through the emergency checklist from memory. Norm declared my restart efforts moot, so I pulled the vernier prop control to the low rpm position and committed to a glide.