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Remember that propeller blades are airfoils moving in a plane different from and usually perpendicular to the direction of flight. As an airfoil, the amount of lift the blade creates when moving through the air depends on its angle of attack, and its angle of attack-plus drag-can depend on a variety of factors, including the airplanes pitch attitude. Remember, too, that the outer portions of long prop blades move faster-they cover greater distance in the same amount of time-than shorter ones.

Knowing of the low overcast, if that pilots autopilot had this auto-capture feature, his motivation would have been to ease his workload and obviate spatial disorientation during transition into the clag. The effect of his action would have been to capture the airport elevation as target altitude. The TruTrak, at least, takes a few seconds to process and implement settings, so that the airplane would be expected to do exactly what it did: ascend into the clouds and a few seconds later return to the preset target altitude of the runway.

This issue likely will hit your mailbox just before the Sun n Fun International Fly-In Expo in Lakeland, Fla. The annual event informally kicks off each years air show season, and 2019 will be no different. If you plan to attend SnF or any other fly-in event (cough, EAA AirVenture, cough), youre not alone. In fact, thousands of your closest friends are planning the same thing, and well all want to arrive and depart at more less the same time.

Fine article about bounced landings. Preventing them should be primary but when we do get a bounce, for some airplanes the recommendation is not to save the landing but just to go around. A number of years ago, there was a series of fatal Cirrus bounced landing accidents. Im not sure if there were official findings that gave common cause, but one theory was that the fixed landing gear acted like a pogo stick and was unforgiving of too much energy on touchdown. The finesse that you describe to salvage this type of bounce was not easily done by some pilots.

Tom Turners February 2019 article, The Big Picture, highlighted for me that we should find ways to continuously improve the way we operate within the National Airspace System (NAS) and one way I can help-to give back, if you will-is to try explaining to pilots more about what goes on in the towers, Tracons and Centers throughout the U.S. Its not mysterious or difficult to understand, but it may be different from what you have been told, or told to expect.

Upon raising the landing gear after takeoff, the gear motor continued to operate longer than normal, and the pilot heard an abnormal sound toward the end of the sequence. The right main gear was hanging at about a 45-degree angle, and the left main gear was not visible. The pilot completed the appropriate checklists, without change. The pilot declared an emergency and ATC confirmed during a fly-by that the main gear was not extended. During the landing, the nose gear remained extended and the two main gear were retracted. The airplane came to rest on the runway and the passengers egressed without further incident.

I had an interesting experience following recent painting of my Cessna 182. I flew it back from the paint shop uneventfully enough, but after tying it down following that two-hour flight home, we had a windstorm with 50-knot gusts, and the wind put enough force on the right wingtip to cause the screws holding it in place to drop out. So, the wingtip peeled off, and smashed into the cowling, creating a dent/crease just forward of the windshield.

It fascinates me that many GA pilots of single-engine airplanes cruise at such low altitudes. Theyre apparently oblivious to the fact that they are flying behind a single engine and if it fails you are on short final to somewhere! Extra altitude not only increases your radius of action, it also adds extra time for trouble shooting (which might eliminate the initial problem altogether) and increases the probability that a Mayday call might be heard. The side benefits include greater aircraft efficiency, cooler temperatures in the summer and possibly a smoother ride, in addition to less-congested airspace. Those long, low, flat, power-on final approaches can put you in the trees if your engine even coughs on short final. Keep a little energy in the bank and make it SOP to shoot for a reasonable aiming point on the runway.

I ts widely accepted that having good situational awareness is vital to safe and efficient flying. But what does situational awareness even mean? How do we develop and maintain the good kind? How do we fit ourselves into the big picture, and why is it important to do so? And once we understand these aspects of situational awareness, how can we use it to make things easier? On three recent flights, I feel I had a high level of situational awareness and used it to make a difference. In one I used my knowledge of my place in the big picture to help another pilot. In the second I used it to help myself. In the third I used it to eliminate a possible delay on an approach. Heres what Im talking about.

As the morning waned, the weather picture improved greatly, with only scattered showers and clouds over the Mojave Desert and clearing over the west side of the Tehachapi Mountains. We ended up filing to go over Victorville and into Bakersfield to visit family. Soon, we were cruising in VMC at 10,000 feet and looking at the activity over the Mojave. Ahead, there were Pireps for icing above 8000 feet, so we asked for and received routing over Edwards AFB at 6000. Based on what we saw visually and on the FAAs flight information system (FIS-B), we thought we were well out of danger.