He complained there was something wrong with the airplane. The engine wasn’t producing enough power. He had attempted two takeoffs and wisely chose to abort, as it did not lift off when he expected.

“It pretty much ate up the whole runway!” he said. 

When asked if he had done the performance calculations, specifically accounting for density altitude, he acted like a deer in the headlights. He had not performed the computations because he didn’t think the conditions warranted. The field elevation was approximately 492 feet—certainly not what you would consider high elevation, and the temperature was in the mid-80s Fahrenheit. He was from Arizona, where the temperature routinely topped 100 in the summer, so this was not hot, and it didn’t feel humid out there, at least not by Midwest or Gulf state standards—also places he had been.

“Don’t you need all three to create density altitude?” he asked.

No. No, you don’t.

• READ MORE: The Importance of Embracing Proficiency Culture

He was surprised to learn that a single one of those factors can reduce aircraft performance, which is why those numbers need to be crunched and double-checked before every flight. And I mean every flight.

Of all the skills that go by the wayside after the check ride, determining aircraft performance is right up there next to “obtaining a weather briefing” and “weight and balance.” If you don’t make it a habit to use these skills, they fade—and quickly. I will never forget the private pilot who had her certificate for all of four months yet couldn’t remember how to access a weather report or read a takeoff performance chart and therefore had no idea how long the takeoff roll would be.

Consider what is off the end of the runway as well. If the performance chart says you need 1,120 feet to clear that 50-foot obstacle at the end of the runway, and the runway measures 1,900 feet, ask yourself where could you go if something went wrong? Is there a golf course? An industrial park? A lake? Don’t forget to review the short-field takeoff checklist and review the fine print, especially with regard to leaning the mixture for best power.

Watch the Weight

We can’t control the weather, but we can manage the weight of the aircraft. On warmer days, it is not uncommon to limit the fuel load of an aircraft to adjust for its reduced performance.

Most flight schools that use scheduling software have a place to put notes in the rental reservation where you can leave a remark such as special refueling instructions, such as do not refuel after flight. To be safe you might want to add a Post-it note in the dispatch binder or on it, or a note on a whiteboard in the CFI cubicles can work. This is a belt-and-suspenders and a staple-gun approach, but if your flight school doesn’t have the ability to expediently and safely offload fuel, it can save a flight. 

Don’t forget to note the time to climb in your calculations. It is a bit chilling to have planned for a climb rate of 500 feet per minute to clear a ridgeline but then notice the aircraft is struggling to achieve 300 feet per minute. This is one of those times you will want to fly  a shuttle climb, going back and forth in a confined space.

Protect Pilot Performance

High altitude, heat, and humidity also degrade the performance of a pilot. Most aircraft in the training fleet don’t have the same caliber of environmental controls as modern cars, so pilots, especially flight instructors, have to be creative. (You know it is a hot day at the airport when the CFIs keep the door of the aircraft open during taxi and don’t close it until just before takeoff.)

You can try to work around it by scheduling flights early in the morning or late in the evening but if that is not an option you have to adapt.

• READ MORE: Separation Anxiety: When Your Instructor Moves on, Your Logbook Tells the Story

In the Seattle area, anything over 90 degrees is unusual, and our homes, airplanes, and bodies aren’t used to it. There was one summer where it really got us. I still had to fly, so I scheduled as many of my learners as I could in the cooler part of the day—two before noon and one for when the day began to cool. I had learned that even if I used those products advertised to control sweat and stink and wore a cotton T-shirt under my flight school uniform (a black polo made from a material that nature never knew existed), by midday my shirt was sweat soaked and I felt as though I needed a bath in tomato juice.

I started changing my T-shirt at least twice a day, and when the temperatures reached the 100s, drew upon primacy, drawing upon my days as a teenage girl at slumber parties: I froze my own T-shirt. It’s not quite what we did back in those days, but the principle was sound, and I highly recommend it. Put a clean, dry T-shirt in the freezer overnight. Wear it the next day during the flight. You will be surprised how comfortable it is and how long it stays cool. 

On those hot days, I learned to carry frozen bottles of water in the airplane. Put the bottle in a clean tube sock to absorb the condensation. Sip from the bottle in between maneuvers, and in particular before landing, as dehydration can manifest as fatigue and slow down your reaction time. Also, you can be dehydrated without being thirsty. You may find it useful to take a few sips off water bottles as part of your before-landing checklist, as it increases alertness.

The Difficult Conversation

Using deodorant and daily bathing is not a universal thing. This was explained to me by a colleague who had some bad experiences with learners from other cultures, to the point her flight school added a page on hygiene information to its welcome-to-our-school packets. The CFIs told stories of using air fresheners in the cockpits and classrooms and using lemon-scented polish on the aircraft windows to try to mask the odor.

It is particularly awkward when it is a co-worker who needs the talk. I was forced to do a Redbird training session with a CFI who was a heavy smoker, and frankly smelled like a cross between an ashtray, a latrine, and a skunk. I’d been warned, but that did not do the situation justice. My eyes were watering, and I cut the lesson short—then promptly went to the gym around the corner, showered, and changed my uniform.

I had two more learners that day, and I wanted the focus to be on flying—not fragrance.

This column first appeared in the July/August Issue 949 of the FLYING print edition.

The post How to Beat the Summer Heat When Flying appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The term was coined by a co-worker during the first week of August to describe the private pilot candidates who were running out of time to complete their private pilot certificates before they headed back to high school or college in pursuit of nonaviation degrees. The message was that once the school year began they would not have the time or opportunity to complete their training. They had to be done, lest they turn into a pumpkin à la Cinderella’s coach.

If this describes your situation, know you are not alone. Although aviation may take a back seat for a while, with a little bit of planning and creativity, you can protect that hard-earned knowledge and, to some extent, those flying skills as you pursue a nonaviation education because continuing flight training just isn’t an option at this time.

FLYING has a few suggestions to help you hang on to that aviation knowledge until the next time you can get into the air. And these tips hold true for anyone facing a pause in flying—not just students.

Join or start an aviation club at school

Many high schools and colleges have clubs already. They are a place to talk about aviation with like-minded souls. Sometimes, when they are paired with engineering or computer gaming clubs, you can take on projects like building a cockpit-style flight simulator gaming console.

While it’s not a way to build hours toward certification, flying the device can help keep procedures sharp and keep you thinking about aviation.

Sign up for the FAA Safety Team (FAASTeam)

This doesn’t cost anything and can be tailored to your location. You will be notified by email of upcoming FAASTeam events in the form of seminars and webinars. The FAASTeam also offers online courses covering everything from aviation maintenance to hot topics such as avoiding runway incursions. A great many of the activities can be completed for credit in the FAA’s WINGS program, which is designed to encourage and reward pilots who seek to make flying safer by expanding their knowledge and skills.

Practice flight planning

The knowledge you gained in ground school is a perishable commodity—especially the ability to plan a flight by hand. Make a list of places you want to fly to and plot the trips on paper. That’s right—paper. You may be completely electronic in the cockpit, but for this exercise, go old school using a paper sectional, navigation log, and plotter. There is something about looking at the sectional and actually drawing the course line on it and using the plotter to determine the true course that keeps the rust away.

The true course, distances, and altitudes required to clear terrain won’t change. You can use these “navlogs” in the future, so put them in a folder for safe keeping. When you return to flying, you just need to drop in the winds, do the aircraft performance calculations, and off you go. Every now and then, plan one with the weather available just to make sure you can still determine aircraft performance and fuel burn.

Practice decoding weather

It’s easy to pull up a weather briefing and hit the “decode” button. Be sure you can take weather in the raw format and still process it. This is akin to being able to do basic math with a pencil and paper rather than a calculator. Do this enough, and you may become the meteorologist for your social circle.

• READ MORE: Decoding the Weather

Practice weight and balance and performance calculations

You know you’re supposed to do these calculations before every flight, but sometimes get-in-the-air-itis robs you of your sanity. It is very easy to forget how to do these things, so make yourself practice. Get your hands on a POH for the airplane you trained in and, every now and then, review the process and graphs if applicable to make sure you can still read them.

Pro tip: You may find the application of flight planning, weather assessment, weight and balance, and aircraft performance calculations make for easy topics if you are called upon to demonstrate the use of math or give a speech about a technical skill.

Keep in touch with the flight school

If able, make plans to fly when you are on holiday breaks and—here is the most important part—fly with a plan. If you soloed, but it has been months since you touched the controls of the airplane, takeoffs and landings to regain currency may be a good use of your time. Keep in mind it may be that your CFI has moved on to another job (read that to the airlines), so be flexible and prepared to fly with someone else.

Determine what you need to finish

Before you take your break, sit down with a CFI and go through your logbook line by line to see what has been done and needs to be done under FAR 61.109 in order to qualify for the check ride. Make a list and keep it in the logbook for quick reference. Do you need another 1.2 hours of flight solely by instruments? Another dual cross-country or night flight?

When you return to flying, advocate for yourself to fulfill these requirements. It is distressing that some learners think they have to start all over again, which usually isn’t true but may be an attempt by the flight school to pad the bill. The first flight after the break should be an evaluation flight, similar to a stage exam. This will allow the CFI to see where your skill level is and what you need to work on.

Be realistic about your expectations

If you have not flown in a while, expect some rust on both your knowledge and skills. If you are post-solo and that endorsement has run out or was from a different CFI under Part 61, don’t expect the new instructor to automatically grant solo privileges. The new CFI will likely run you through the tasks of FAR 61.87 to make sure you have the appropriate skills for the task, and there will be another pre-solo exam.

Keep track of your logbook

You don’t want to have to pay for your hours twice. Protect your logbook, making sure the instructor endorses what needs to be and signs off on the appropriate lessons. There are times when a CFI is in a hurry and says something to the effect of, “You fill it out. I’ll sign it next time,” and then disappears. Try not to let this happen.

• READ MORE: Guard Your Logbook

This column first appeared in the October 2023/Issue 942 of FLYING’s print edition.

The post When You Go Back to Flight School, Don’t Lose What You’ve Learned appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Looking back now, it dawns on me that most of what I know today did not come from the normal, required syllabus training but from life experiences, along with an occasional hair-raising event, one of which I can finally share.

Like many pilots, most of my private pilot training took place in a two-place Cessna. My CFI actually weighed a morbidly obese 350 pounds and was in his upper 60s. Were we always overloaded upon takeoff? No, because being a hard-working, skinny, 25-year-old, I carried maybe 120 pounds. My first solo, however, gave me a startling surprise, though, when the Cessna 150 trainer shot up so rapidly…I had just shedded 350 pounds and struggled to acquire the new, lighter “feel.”

Transitioning from a lighter to a heavier single is a process we learn largely on our own without much training. Check rides are a helpful measure of safety and highly recommended. The larger the aircraft, the heavier the controls, and while often more stable, it is always different. Moving up to more advanced aircraft enhances our joy of flying. Plus, the heavier the airplane, the more sophisticated it often is. Constant-speed prop, retractable gear, etc. Even more challenging are those “category/class” transitions (seaplane, twin-engine, etc.) that take us to the next level.

By the time I had accrued some 140 total flight hours, a friend mentioned that his wife and her sister were returning home from a trip back east. It was late June. To save them the expense of a night’s lodging in Dallas, I agreed to fly to Love Field (KDAL) and fly them back to the now long-abandoned Butterfield Trail Airport just north of Abilene. I had never met the two passengers-to-be, but Phil, a nonpilot, was a fit, lean, future Navy sailor who spoke often of his active wife and sister-in-law. I was ready to log some additional quality time in my flying club’s Cessna Skyhawk 172 (N3707R).

At this point, I had been checked out in the club’s Cessna 182 Skylane and its mighty 210 Centurion, but I didn’t see the need for a larger, more expensive option. Now I was in for a gut-wrenching surprise. My lack of experience caused me to select an aircraft unsuitable for the flight.

The flight to KDAL with Phil was pleasant and uneventful, and I anticipated the return flight would be equally smooth. Love Field was Dallas’ primary airport in 1967, and there was no delay entering its airspace and getting taxi clearance to the general aviation area. We did not wait long at the GA terminal for our passengers to arrive.

What I felt when first meeting Tillie and her sister, Emma, was a sense of astonished shock. These women were not obese. They were, well…ladies of significant size. And they each had a fairly large, old-style heavy suitcase. I’m sure I silently gasped when I realized suddenly that our little Skyhawk was destined to be dramatically overweight. Overweight, that is, if we could even fit them into the rear seats with their bags. We were going to be massively overloaded and probably out of balance. Should I tell my passengers, “No, I’m sorry. We cannot do this”? Should I warn them of the risk?

As a weight/balance experiment with satchels of bowling balls, I had once safely “test-flown” a friend’s Skylane while being perhaps several hundred pounds over the maximum takeoff weight. Perhaps somehow by having completed this ill-advised and unauthorized experiment, it validated my faulty decision to proceed.

Even if we could shoehorn the passengers and baggage in, I knew we might have to abort. The Skyhawk baggage area was about 90 pounds maximum, but the space was too small to accommodate a large suitcase. We discovered that we could partially squeeze one into this minuscule space, thereby sacrificing a good deal of headroom. The other bag would just have to ride on their laps. Very uncomfortable, but it was only for an hour and a half. At this point, I was just concerned whether we could get airborne.

The weather briefing confirmed widely scattered showers with hot, very humid conditions, and calm winds. Not helpful conditions, to be sure, with high density altitude in effect.

• READ MORE: A Wing and a Prayer

I taxied to Runway 18, 8,000 feet in length, as I recall. The tower said, “Cleared for takeoff. Right turnout approved.” We started our takeoff roll. And we rolled. I was ready to abort if necessary. We kept rolling.

Not expecting to use more than about 4,000 feet, but already passing that halfway point, I became aware that we might not be airborne anytime soon. But lots of pavement still remained. Finally, though, our speed was sufficient and we lifted off, albeit very slowly. But what is this? We weren’t climbing! If anything, we were just mushing along. And we’re running out of runway!

Clearing the fence and crossing Mockingbird Lane, we couldn’t have been more than 50 feet above passing buildings. Any additional problem at this height could have been catastrophic.

Some 20 minutes later, we were level at 6,500 feet msl. Reaching the cooler altitude made things easier. My passengers were silent but likely aware that we had just been given a free pass by the powers that be. We were grateful for our good fortune.

But the day was summed up with some valuable lessons subtly delivered and taken to heart. First, I learned to never assume your passengers will weigh the average standard of 170 pounds, as it was then. Don’t be reticent about asking their weight and baggage sizes. Second, know your aircraft’s capacities. It might be helpful someday to know your storage area dimensions. Finally, and perhaps most redundantly, always be prepared to cancel your plans, even if that means unhappy passengers and a bruised ego and wallet.

This column first appeared in the September 2023/Issue 941 of FLYING’s print edition.

The post Weight, Weight, Don’t Tell Me appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

While the rest of the party was out shooting, the private pilot, 48, and one companion got some isopropyl alcohol de-icing fluid from a hardware store, borrowed a ladder from the hunting lodge at which they had stayed, and spent three hours chipping snow and ice from the wings. The ladder was not tall enough to allow them to reach the upper surface of the T-tail, but the pilot was satisfied that the rest of the airplane was sufficiently clean.

Video of the Pilatus taxiing out showed snow falling heavily and white clumps adhering to parts of the fuselage and vertical tail. A couple of inches of snow (and presumably some ice) lay on the top of the horizontal stabilizer. The takeoff was recorded as well. The Pilatus roared down Runway 31, lifted off, banked to the left, and faded from sight in the snow and mist.

No one at the airport knew it at the time, but it crashed less than a mile from the runway. Of the 12 people aboard, three survived with serious injuries. The pilot was among the nine dead.

Thirty years ago, it would have looked like an open and shut case. Whatever residue of ice remained on the wings must obviously have triggered a premature stall. But we live in a different era now, with flight data and cockpit voice recorders in wide use. They tell accident investigators not what must have happened, but what really did.

The National Transportation Safety Board’s probable cause finding made no mention of snow and ice. It attributed the loss of control after takeoff and the ensuing stall to “the pilot’s improper loading of the airplane, which resulted in reduced static longitudinal stability.” Another contributing factor was “his decision to depart into low instrument meteorological conditions”—although that seems unfair, since the whole point of having an instrument rating and a powerful airplane equipped for flight in known icing is to be able to do exactly that.

The cockpit voice recorder picked up the sounds of passengers boarding the airplane, stomping snow from their shoes, clicking their seat belts. One passenger commented on how many pheasants they had bagged. Another recited a prayer of gratitude for various blessings—it was Thanksgiving weekend—and went on, with eerie prescience, “Father in Heaven, we ask for a special blessing now that we take off in this not-so-great weather and that [Thou wilt] watch over and protect us. Impress upon the mind of [the pilot] that he might know how best to travel this course that we are about to do, and we are thankful for this airplane and ask that You will watch over and protect us.” A collective “Amen” followed.

The pilot and the right-seat occupant radioed the airport manager, who was plowing the runway, to ascertain its condition. Their exchange was somewhat acerbic. The manager frankly told the pilot he must be crazy. The pilot good-naturedly replied that the snow berms on either side of the plowed portion of the strip were not a concern. As it turned out, he was right.

The pilot back-taxied to the approach end of Runway 31 and succeeded in turning the airplane around. The power came up, the Pilatus accelerated, and after 30 seconds it rotated. The pitch angle increased to almost 20 degrees, then eased back to about 10. Practically from the moment of liftoff, the stall warning sounded and an automated voice intoned the word “stall” over and over, no fewer than 19 times. Eleven seconds after rotation, a porpoising motion began, increasing in magnitude and rapidity. The bank angle increased to 64 degrees; the stick pusher actuated and, at a height of 380 feet, the Pilatus stalled.

With granular information from the flight data recorder, the NTSB conducted simulations to ascertain whether the airplane had been controllable and whether the accumulations of snow and ice remaining on it could have been a factor in the accident. The conclusion was that the airplane should have been controllable, and that the snow and ice had not significantly degraded its performance, though they may have affected the elevator control forces.

READ MORE: Classic Aftermath

The data recorder stored a number of previous flights, and the NTSB noted that the pilot, who had 1,260 hours in type, habitually rotated somewhat abruptly, tending to slightly overshoot the desired pitch attitude and then correct. Another pilot who regularly flew the airplane used a gentler, more gradual rotation, which the board found made speed control easier.

The board compared the accident flight with the previous day’s trip from Idaho Falls to Chamberlain. The cabin loading had been similar, and there were pitch oscillations after takeoff on that flight as well. The crux of the matter, in the NTSB’s view, was the combination of heavy weight—the airplane was 107 pounds over gross—and the CG location, several inches behind the aft limit, that resulted from 12 people, none of them lap children, and a great many dead pheasants occupying a 10-passenger airplane. An aft CG is associated with diminished stick forces and weak speed stability, conditions that may be difficult to manage on instruments.

The stall warnings that were heard practically from the moment the airplane rotated were due to the design of the Pilatus’s ice protection system. When ice protection is on, the triggering speeds for both the stall warning and the stick pusher increase considerably. According to the flight manual, the target rotation speed at max gross in icing conditions was 92 knots. The pilot rotated at 88, possibly because he wanted to get clear of snow build-up on the partially plowed runway. When the actual stall occurred, however, the indicated airspeed was only 80 knots. 

One can speculate about what passed through the pilot’s mind during the few seconds between the liftoff and the stall. The aural stall warning must have taken him by surprise. Since he had just spent hours removing snow and ice, his first thought may have been that it was caused by some lingering contamination on the wings. But now he was in near-whiteout conditions, and too low to risk pushing the nose down decisively. The airplane may not have responded to a gentle push on the yoke. Pitch oscillations made speed control difficult. There was little time to analyze or adapt—only enough for an exclaimed “Oh no!”

The pilot was the kind of person whom you would expect to follow rules. Yet he ignored the CG limits. Did he feel undue pressure to get his passengers back home? Probably not. There is no indication that he hesitated or considered the takeoff dangerous; in fact, he seemed less concerned than his prayerful passengers were. Did he understand how the extreme aft loading could affect the airplane’s flying qualities? He had made a similar flight the day before. Did he begin this one thinking it would be exactly the same? 

Sometimes you don’t know how near the edge you are until you go over it.

This article is based on the National Transportation Safety Board’s report of the accident and is intended to bring the issues raised to our readers’ attention. It is not intended to judge or to reach any definitive conclusions about the ability or capacity of any person, living or dead, or any aircraft or accessory.

The post A Wing and a Prayer appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

And that would just be, well, wrong, because it may mean you’re missing functions that could not only make your planning easier, but maybe even make your entire flight run more smoothly—or more safely.

At EAA AirVenture 2022, ForeFlight is hosting a series of forums that go over new and popular features alike—and we have a round-up of those key elements here. So, whether you’re a newb or a “power user,” you may find something to like with ForeFlight that you didn’t know before.

Per Leg Altitude Planning

While it may seem like a simple thing, ForeFlight now gives pilots the ability to select multiple altitudes over a given flight, based on the leg. You know you rarely fly the single altitude you entered in your initial plan—you may need to duck around the weather, navigate airspace, or avoid terrain along the way. Now the app lets you reflect this in your planning stages.

Hazard Advisor Enhancements

One of the best parts of ForeFlight is its ability to help you foresee hazards and plan to mitigate them, via Hazard Advisor. New functions enhance this capability, including:

• Altitude preview, to manually control Hazard Advisor’s altitude before a flight, and
• Auto Hazard Advisor, which transitions HA into auto mode after you take off, following your current altitude for a view of the surrounding terrain

Global Graphical NOTAMs

Once only available in Europe, graphical notices to air missions (NOTAMs) can now be shown on the app around the world. The new NOTAMs map layer color-codes the advisories in red, yellow, or gray depending on whether they are active, and their type and severity.

Toggle Airways, Waypoints, and Navaids

A feature driven directly by user input? You can now customize your ForeFlight map display by toggling between airways, navaids, and waypoints, quickly decluttering the screen—these were formerly included in a single toggle.

Enhanced, Integrated Weight and Balance

The weight and balance planning feature in ForeFlight was once an isolated portion of the app—and now it is built into the Flights function, automatically incorporating fuel quantities and cargo loads, and instantly responding to changes.

• READ MORE: FLYING‘s Complete Coverage of EAA AirVenture ’22

New features such as Saved Loads and Standard Weights streamline the weight and balance planning process overall.

Influencers and Experts at OSH22

If you make it to AirVenture this week, ForeFlight offers a host of forums and opportunities to talk with its roster of experts and popular pilots you may follow on social media channels, such as Steve Thorne, aka “Flight Chops,” and Emily Norman, from “Between Two Wings.” Catch the full schedule here.

The post Did You Know ForeFlight Did This? appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Enhanced Weight and Balance

The new weight and balance view allows for simpler weight and balance profiles to be created, edited, and planned. It offers fields for entering load information, the weight and CG graph, significant weight values, and detailed weight and balance information.

The new features are designed to help streamline the planning process by allowing the pilot to choose standard weight options, male, female, or child, or to select from saved loads. 

Weight and Balance Integrated with Flights

In addition to a newly customizable weight and balance tab, the new ForeFlight Performance software is equipped with the ability to directly integrate weight and balance with flight planning. This update aids in preflight workflow and produces more accurate time and fuel calculations. The new integration will make responding to last-minute payload changes and accessing the load manifest seamless in the “Flights” view, instead of requiring pilots to switch back to the weight and balance tab. 

Hazard Advisor Altitude Preview

For Pro Plus subscribers, there’s a new feature that makes planning around terrain much easier. The Hazard Advisor Altitude Preview can aid in finding the safest route around hazardous terrain at different altitudes before or during flight. 

ForeFlight Military Flight Bag customers also have additional features, such as defining custom hazard altitudes beyond the four default options. The manually controlled Hazard Advisor can detect terrain between 100 feet and 30,000 feet msl, moving in increments of 100 feet up to 4,000 feet, and then in increments of 500 feet. In the viewing window, default settings will display all hazards and obstacles within 100 feet in red and hazards within 1,000 feet will show in yellow. These standard altitude settings can be changed in the map legend. 

Organized Track Systems on Jeppesen Enroute Charts

Performance customers with Jeppesen chart coverages can now view organized track systems on Jeppesen’s IFR enroute map layers, in addition to the aeronautical map. The IFR maps can be viewed east or westbound or be disabled altogether. 

The post ForeFlight Rolls Out Update with Hazard Advisor Altitude Previews appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

ForeFlight has integrated several key features into a single flight planning and in-flight source for business aviation operators. The dispatch, runway analysis, and weight and balance functions—among other tools—can be shared across a flight department.

ForeFlight’s executive vice president of sales and marketing Stephen Newman and marketing manager Sam Taylor gave FLYING a briefing on the new features for the National Business Aviation Association’s Business Aviation Conference and Exhibition (NBAA-BACE) in Las Vegas this week.

“Dispatch features bring it all together,” Taylor said. Introduced in 2019 at NBAA-BACE, Trip Support collects documents and messages into one place.

Runway Analysis for business aviation aircraft tied directly to the same base—such as a corporate flight department—combines those numbers for the aircraft with runway data and provides a fuel burn analysis as well as performance figures.

“It makes everything more efficient,” Taylor said.

Brand-new RNAV-based departure procedures replace VOR-based ones that had been developed in-house by Jeppesen and incorporate RNAV waypoints for smoother transitions.

How Can I Get It?

The Fuel Advisor feature will be available to purchase later this quarter, Newman said. It’s an add-on purchase that integrates contract fuel prices that are market-based or from available data. The function incorporates uplift fees and any minimum purchase amounts to help operators determine just how much fuel to tanker for best efficiency and cost savings—also taking into account obstacle data, runway available, and weight and balance limits.

“It’s linked to dispatch so that it happens within that session,” Taylor said.

The dispatch features are priced by tail numbers segmented into weight class to allow for utilization by more pilots within a department or company.

Runway Analysis uses a similar pricing structure, per flight department, by aircraft tail—for example, if you purchase the feature for your operation, and you have two Gulfstream G650s, you can purchase the feature for each tail to be used by as many of those pilots as the department has. Fuel Analysis will also be priced accordingly when it’s released.

The post ForeFlight Integrates Features into Single Source for BizAv Operators appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

It was my first flying job—the one you dreamed about having all your life. The one for which you strove, saved and worked so hard, and it was finally real. I had to leave my native New Zealand and move to the Australian Outback to get it, but that just made it all the more exciting, away from the familiar and out into the vastness of that huge sunburned country.

I was based on Elcho Island, off the north coast of Arnhem Land, about 200 miles to the east of Darwin. To say it is remote is an understatement. No roads, no shops, one radio station and one TV channel. At least we had a paved runway. Most of the airstrips I would be flying to were red dirt, which meant, in the wet season, red mud.

We had a ragtag fleet of Cessnas, mostly 206s, 207s and 402s—all old and high-time but well-maintained. These were working bush airplanes, carpets long gone and replaced by painted plywood floors and high-density vinyl seats. It was worth getting out of bed early because the last person in had to fly the 207 for the day—and on short-strip work in the tropics, this was to be avoided. It was not so affectionately known as the “Lead Sled” or “Ground Gripper.” Ours had started life ferrying coffins around with an undertaker in Arkansas.

The first year passed without incident. I was, as the chief pilot put it, “greener than pea-and-frog pie,” and I knew it. I was cautious and careful.

The closest strip to home was Marparu, 16 miles away on the mainland. We went there almost daily, supplying the aboriginal community with pretty much everything. Food, doctors’ visits, teachers in and out, and medevac. If it could fit in the Cessna, we flew it.

A fellow Kiwi, Ian, was building a new schoolhouse there. It was a large job for one man, but he worked tirelessly, and slowly over the months, the school took shape. I flew food and supplies into him every few days, and every two weeks, I flew him out so he could catch up with his wife who lived in the local mining town an hour or so to the east.

Check out our new content: I.L.A.F.F.T. Podcast

At last, the school was completed, and Ian asked me to do a couple of flights to get his tools and leftover building supplies. One of the things he needed to get was a set of plank stands about 10 feet long, so it was going to be a job for the 207.

The runway at Marparu is about 2,800 feet long, literally cut out of 50-foot-tall trees. There’s a clearing at each end, another 1,000 feet or so of felled-but-not-cleared trees. The surrounding terrain is dead flat. To prepare for the trip, I removed all the seats except for the one behind the pilot’s seat, so we could have as much cargo space as possible.

The day was typical for the wet season: high humidity, low QNH (airport pressure setting), high temperature at around 95 degrees Fahrenheit, and not a breath of wind. I was sweating just thinking about loading the airplane. Upon landing, I was confronted with a mountain of gear next to the strip. There were tins of paint, lengths of wood, jerrycans of diesel, a concrete mixer complete with single-cylinder diesel engine, nails, three large truck batteries, and all manner of other things dear to a builder’s heart.

I did some calculations and figured we could lift about 1,000 pounds. I only had some bathroom scales to weigh all his stuff, so a fair bit of guesstimating went on. A lot of the stuff was “dangerous goods” and shouldn’t have been put on at all, but with some serious complete-the-mission focus and wanting to please my friend, a lot of warning signs were ignored.

The 207 looked a little saggy on its undercarriage, but the strip was long, and I’d flown out of there many times at max weight, so I wasn’t overly concerned. I made sure to use every inch of the runway and swung the tail around over the clearing to get maximum length. About halfway down, there was a painted-white fuel drum. I figured that if I didn’t have two-thirds the speed I needed by the time I passed the drum, I’d abort and offload some gear.

The 207 jumped forward with a reassuring eagerness. Sixty knots came up as we passed the drum, and I was lulled into thinking this was all going to go to plan. At about 65 knots, though, it just stopped accelerating. It took me a couple of seconds to notice this, but what I did notice was that the end of the runway was approaching. Quickly.

Read More: I Learned About Flying From That

For a fleeting second, I thought about aborting anyway, but we were too far in for that now. As the end of the runway arrived, I rotated, and with the stall-warning horn wailing, we staggered into the air. We were far from out of trouble. Though airborne, we were over the clearing and still had 50-foot-tall trees to clear. Those trees seemed a very long way above where I was sitting. Half my brain was screaming at me to push forward because we were on the verge of the stall, while the other half was yelling to pull back to avoid the trees. All of my brain was telling me that this wasn’t really happening.

All that flammable cargo would shortly turn us both into a flaming crash site, miles away from any help. I braced for the impact, but it didn’t happen. How we got over those trees I’ll never know. A breath of wind, the hand of God—I have no idea. We skimmed along in the tree tops for what seemed like minutes and then ever so slowly climbed into the sky. I milked the flaps up in 1-degree increments. I kept in full power for a full five minutes. It took more than five minutes to climb to 1,500 feet.

During the whole one-hour flight, we never got above 3,500 feet or 105 knots. The magnitude of my foolishness had begun to sink in. How had all that training and all that carefulness been thrown aside so easily? I’d let wanting to get the job done and look capable and fearless in front of my friend cloud my judgment very badly.

When we landed, I had trouble getting out of the airplane because my legs felt like jelly. Ian looked at me with a strange expression on his face. “Was that as close as it looked?” he asked. “I thought the wheels were going to start turning in the treetops.” I gently put my arm around his shoulder and made a tiny gap between my thumb and forefinger. “This close to dying,” I said. He laughed. I don’t think he believed me. We unloaded the supplies onto several trollies. Luckily, it had started to rain, so no one came out to help us. The boss would have probably fired me on the spot if he’d seen it all.

That was 25 years ago, and I’ve never forgotten the lesson I learned that day. Work within the limits, be careful, and if it feels like a bad idea, then it probably is.

This story appeared in the January-February 2021 issue of Flying Magazine

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