Unicom

Grossing Out
I very much enjoyed the article on weight and balance (Positioning Pounds, July 2004). It is my understanding that the poor full-fuel payloads we see in virtually all of our Part 23 single-engine aircraft have to do with the manufacturers meeting the rather arbitrary 61 knot Vso requirement.

For instance, the new TBM 700C2 max gross weight was increased by 815 pounds because Socata took advantage of an exception to the 61 knot Vso requirement. It had to provide crashworthy seats able to tolerate 20-G decelerations. The Vso for the 700C2 is 65 knots. Same wing and same engine as other TBMs, yet it gets a tremendous increase in max weights. Also, the FAA grants…

Right-Of-Way?
Your July 2004 article, Five Pattern Sins, includes the statement, The classic conflict is the straight-in approach that T-Bones an airplane on base leg which, technically, has the right of way. I dont think the FARs agree.

While the lower aircraft is usually the one with the right-of-way, an aircraft on final approach has the right-of-way over all other aircraft in flight. This means downwind, base and anywhere other than on final.

Final approach is not defined in the regulations; the AIM attempts to define as the leg of the pattern between base and the runway along the runway centerline, but its not a comonly accepted definition. The Pilot/Controll…

Readers sound off on recent articles involving traffic patterns and aircraft loading while finding a few mistakes.

Experience Yourself
Paul Bertorellis article (June 2004) describing a flight from Florida to Oklahoma through a line of thunderstorms ended with his co-pilot wondering aloud how a less-experienced pilot-say a new Cirrus owner with 300 hours-could learn to do what they had just done. It got me thinking how Ive been approaching the answer to this question.

I am just shy of 300 hours and earned my Instrument rating last fall. Ive actively sought out flyable IMC, amassing 50 hours of actual instrument time, and I purchased a well-equipped Grumman Tiger. Knowing your personal flying machine is a prerequisite for safe IFR flying. For me, thats been the easy part. I bought a ma…

Whos Safer?
As a lifetime subscriber to your magazine I just want to tell you what a great job you are doing. Your magazine has made me a much better pilot. I do have a question, though: Have you done any studies regarding high-time pilot accidents vs. low-time pilot accidents (GA only)? Are high-time pilots safer (or at least involved in fewer accidents) than low-time pilots? Seems to me that for every 200-300 hour pilot who has an accident, there is 2000-3000 hour pilot who has an accident as well.

-Kevin Hughes
Via e-mail

Were glad you keep coming back, Kevin.

To answer your question, we turned to the NTSB, and its Annual Review of Aircraft Accid…