The contest, which typically occurs on grass or dirt areas parallel to paved runways, was to take place alongside Runway 5-23. 

On Friday afternoon the wind picked up. It blew out of the northwest across the STOL Drag course. Qualifying heats were postponed until the next day. 

A number of the competitors then decided to conduct an impromptu “traditional STOL” event, omitting the drag racing component. They would use the grass Runway 31, which was conveniently aligned with the wind. The pilots, organizers, and FAA inspectors who were present held a safety briefing, and the participants were divided into four groups of five or six aircraft to prevent clogging the pattern. The objective of the contest was to see who could come to a full stop in the shortest distance after touching down beyond the target line.

Each group completed two circuits without incident. Two groups had completed a third circuit, and now the third group was landing. The third airplane in that group was a modified Rans S-7, the fourth a Zenith STOL 701—unusual among the participants in having tricycle gear—and the last a Cessna 140. The S-7 landed, came to a stop in less than 100 feet, and taxied away. The 701 was still a fair distance out, and the 140 seemingly rather close behind it and low. 

• READ MORE: A Cautionary Tale About Pilot Freelancing

A STOL Drag representative who was coordinating the pattern operations radioed the 140 pilot: “Lower your nose. You look slow.” The 140 pilot did not acknowledge. Half a minute later, the coordinator again advised the pilot to lower his nose. 

A few seconds later, the 140 yawed to the right, its right wing dropped, and with the awful inevitability of an avalanche or a falling tree, it rolled over into a vertical dive and struck the ground an instant later. A groan went up from the small crowd of onlookers. “Oh, my God, what happened!” one voice exclaimed. What had happened was all too clear—a low-altitude stall-spin that resulted in the pilot’s death.

The 140 pilot, 45, had an estimated 470 hours total time, more than 300 of which were in the 140. He had already qualified for STOL Drag competitions at a previous event.

The wind at the time of the accident was 15 knots gusting to 21. (As with all aviation wind reports, the 15 is the sustained wind and the 21 the maximum observed; no information is provided about lulls or wind speed variations below the sustained value.) The pilot of the 701 said that he had been maintaining about 50 mph (44 knots), as he had on several previous approaches, and that the wind on this approach felt no different than on the others. 

The 701 is equipped with full-span leading-edge slats, which make it practically incapable of unexpectedly stalling. Operating at a likely wing loading of less than 7 pounds per square foot, it could probably fly at around 35 mph. For the 701, an approach speed of 50 mph was conservative. The 140’s wing loading was only slightly higher, but its wing was not optimized for extremely slow flight. The 140’s POH stalling speed at gross weight was highly dependent on power setting, ranging from 45 mph power off to 37 mph, flaps down, with full power.

• READ MORE: Two Fatal Cases of the Simply Inexperienced

An FAA inspector who witnessed the accident reported his observations to a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigator. He noted that the 140 generally took longer to get airborne than other airplanes in its group, in part because the pilot, after first lifting the tail, rotated prematurely, so that the tailwheel struck the ground and the airplane continued rolling for some distance before finally becoming airborne. The pilot, he said, would climb steeply at first, but then have to lower the nose to gain speed. He appeared low and close behind the 701 on the last approach.

Earlier videos also showed that, on landing, the 140 rolled farther than other contestants, despite braking to the point of almost nosing over.

On previous circuits the pilot had used flaps, but on his last approach he failed to put the flaps down. The omission could account for the coordinator’s observation that the nose seemed high. Full flaps would have resulted in a more nose-low attitude.

The NTSB blamed the accident on the pilot’s obvious “exceedance of the airplane’s critical angle of attack.” It went on to cite as a contributing factor the “competitive environment, which likely influenced the pilot’s approach speed.” Since there were many knowledgeable observers of both the accident and of several previous takeoffs and landings by the 140, and everything was recorded on video from several angles, the NTSB’s diagnosis could probably have been even more specific and mentioned the failure to use flaps and the premature downwind-to-base turn.

If, by a chance misjudgment, the 140 pilot found himself too close behind the 701, he still had options other than slowing to the lowest possible speed. Since there was no one behind him, he could have gone around or made a 360 on final. The aircraft waiting to take off would have had to stand by a little longer, but only a fool would grumble because another pilot was being wisely cautious.

• READ MORE: Three-Mile Limit: Novice Pilots Succumb to the Perils of Total Darkness

Instead, the 140 pilot chose to maintain his spacing by flying as slow as he could.

The decisive factor in the accident was most probably the failure to use flaps. It was almost certainly inadvertent. He probably forgot to put the flaps down, then believed they were down—because he had them down on the previous circuits—and chose his speeds accordingly. Adding flaps would have brought the stalling speed down 3-4 mph and also obliged him to use a little more power. Actually, it would have been quite a bit more because he was low, and the added power would have given him still more cushion.

The 140 was a goose among swans in this flock of dedicated STOL airplanes that possessed a near-magical ability to take off and land in practically no distance at all. Still, it was OK to be an outlier. The point of the contest was to have fun. You didn’t need to go home with a trophy—not that there even was one for this impromptu event.

But integrating an airplane with somewhat limited capabilities among more capable ones required special attention to speed and spacing. It would be easy to make a mistake. Once the mistake was made, and compounded by the failure to use flaps, all the pilot had left to lean on was luck—or willingness to recognize an error and go around while there was still airspeed and altitude to recover.

Note: 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 reach any definitive conclusions about the ability or capacity of any person, living or dead, or any aircraft or accessory.

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

The post Nothing Short of a Fatal Mismatch appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Alaska was my 50th state to visit, and I had purposely avoided taking the airlines up to the “Last Frontier” in favor of a more adventurous arrival. I had grown up on my dad’s shaggy-dog tales of pushing an ancient Oldsmobile station wagon up the unpaved Alaska Highway of the 1970s. The Alcan, the Yukon—these were fanciful, faraway places that loomed large in an 8-year-old’s fertile imagination. Discovering their real-world counterparts for myself as an adult made for a joyous, memorable journey—all the better for sharing it with my frequent riding partner, Brad Phillips, and my wife, Dawn, on her first big trip on her own motorcycle. 

And yet there was an unexpected element of frustration. As I gained an appreciation for the grand scale and severe beauty of the landscape, so did it become evident that the few roads here are the slenderest ribbons of civilization that barely scratch the surface of the wilderness. All the really interesting bits seemed to start at the untracked horizon. The epic distances also limited the amount of backcountry exploration possible, even if we’d been equipped for off-road travel. This is vast country that begs to be explored by air. 

Indeed, the farther north we went, the more we found ourselves in airplane nirvana. Every Tom, Dick, and Harriet we met seemed to own a tricked-out Super Cub or a 185. Light plane traffic was a regular feature even above the loneliest stretches of road. When we got to Anchorage, I went bug-eyed at the vast rows of rugged taildraggers parked cheek to jowl at Merrill Field (PAMR)—a mini-Oshkosh without end. And then more of the same at the Lake Hood gravel strip, plus hundreds of seaplanes and amphibs around the lake. I’d found bug-smasher heaven.

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On the return leg of the trip, Dawn and I detoured from the Alaska Highway via the Haines Cut-Off, and then took the Alaska State Ferry down the Lynn Canal to Juneau. There we rented a straight-back Cessna 172 on bush tires, accompanied by a grizzled Alaska veteran of a flight instructor, and set off for several hours of exploration around spectacular Glacier Bay, including a low-altitude inspection of Muir Glacier. It was a highlight of the trip for both of us, and we talked about flying an airplane of our own to Alaska someday. 

Five years later, it almost happened. Having decided to sell everything, buy a sailboat, and escape to the Caribbean for a few years, we set off on one last hurrah with our 1953 Piper Pacer. We visited friends in New England, Florida, and Phoenix, explored Mexico’s Baja California peninsula, and revisited old haunts up the West Coast. But then, in Vancouver, Washington, our mid-time O-320 engine nearly self-destructed—I was lucky to land in one piece. Instead of enjoying one last adventure to Alaska and selling the Pacer there at a profit, I sadly gave her up as is/where is, absorbing the $12,000 loss philosophically.

Since then, I’ve spent quite a bit of time up north for work. On the Boeing 757 and 767 I occasionally flew to Anchorage, and since being based in Seattle as a 737 captain, both Anchorage and Fairbanks have featured heavily in my summertime bidding strategy. Of course, Alaskans will tell you that the best thing about Anchorage is that it’s so close to Alaska. I enjoy that proximity, the ever-present GA activity, the scruffy cast of interesting characters to chat up over a brew at Darwin’s Theory, and the occasional hiking or fishing adventure.

When Dawn and I bought our Stinson 108 in August 2022, there was no question of whether we’d fly it to Alaska. It’s a tail-dragging, tube-and-fabric natural for the north country. The question was when? Building our hangar and attached living quarters came first—and that project was largely finished by July of last year. More seriously, the plane was unproven after a complete rebuild. And while the restorer did an excellent job of returning the Stinson to 1946 factory spec (plus modern radios with ADS-B), there were some updates that needed to be made before taking it farther afield. 

Since then, I’ve put about 100 hours on the tachometer, with a few minor issues cropping up. My A&P/IA encourages owner-assisted maintenance, which has been great for getting to know the airplane. We’ve added an Airwolf spin-on oil filter, installed shoulder harnesses, retrofitted LED lighting, and swapped out the ancient, venturi-powered turn coordinator for a modern uAvionix AV-30C primary flight display. I’ll never fly the Stinson IFR, but inadvertent IMC happens, and I feel much better having adequate instrumentation to survive a 180-degree turn. 

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Weather permitting, we’re taking the Stinson on a shakedown cruise to Northern California in a few weeks. It should be about 13 hours round trip, our first longer cross-country with the airplane. If all goes well, we’ll head up towards Alaska the following month.. The general consensus seems to be that late May to early July is the best weather period, after incessant lows stop roaring ashore from the Gulf of Alaska but before the thunderstorm and wildfire seasons get going. In reality, weather can be extremely variable any time of year in this part of the world, and our itinerary will stay accordingly flexible. 

I should be able to bid a work schedule with about three weeks off. There are a few potential routes north. Having regularly plied the coastal route in the flight evels, I’d love to go that way, but the chance of getting a long, reliable weather window (in an area with notoriously poor weather and few airports) is pretty slim. In all likelihood, we will clear Canadian customs in Abbotsford, British Columbia, and head north to Prince George via the Fraser River Valley.

From there we can head northeast to join the Alaska Highway, northwest to the Cassiar Highway, or straight up to Watson Lake via MacKenzie and the infamous roadless Trench. The last two are more direct than the Alaska Highway but feature far fewer airports and little weather reporting. The Stinson’s relative lack of range is a big factor here. We can only do about 300 sm in still air with one hour reserve. We’ll likely need to carry jerry cans.

Frankly, given the potential for lengthy bouts of poor weather, I’ll be happy to just make it to Anchorage, where we have several sets of friends. Anything beyond that is a bonus. We enjoy the Kenai Peninsula and wouldn’t mind exploring around there and visiting family friends in Homer. It would also be nice to get up to Denali in good weather. Time permitting, we’d like to land above the Arctic Circle at Bettles, though I doubt we’ll have the time to get all the way up to Deadhorse or Barrow. If we really hit the weather jackpot, I’d love to visit Prince William Sound and the Gulf of Alaska coastline from Valdez to Juneau on the return leg. We’ll see how it goes. 

For the first time in ages, I’ve bought a bunch of paper charts and pubs, as we’ll be in areas too remote to depend on an iPad. Paper is also good for getting a feel for the lay of the land and war gaming various weather scenarios. The plane is nearly ready. I’ve ordered the FCC radio station license and CBP user fee decal. I’m currently getting together camping and survival gear and will shortly begin the weighing and winnowing process. I’m also spending a lot of time looking at flight procedures and weather sources for Canada and the various areas of Alaska. 

I’ll admit that I’m a bit nervous. This is a big trip that will definitely stretch my comfort level. It’s the most ambitious thing I’ve done in a light plane in at least eight years, perhaps ever. But most everything I’ve done in my life that was worth doing started out with this exact feeling. In every case I’ve been able to stay calm, take each challenge as it comes, think things through, and come up with solutions that get me through in one piece, usually with some more great stories to tell around the campfire.

With any luck, I’ll have a few more to tell you in the coming months. 

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

The post Love Affair: The Last Frontier Awaits appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Mathematically, the term describes the shortest distance between two points on a sphere. Metaphorically, it describes the great arc of a journey that led me to this point in my aviation career—while it wasn’t a direct route, it’s the destination that matters.

My journey began with a flight at age 6 from the College Park Airport (KCGS) in Maryland. Long before I knew there was a FLYING Magazine, I was passionate about flying. The years between then and now were filled with the familiar milestones of all great odysseys–a circuitous route, complete with disappointment and triumph, missed opportunities and eureka moments, and great joy.

As this is both my first column in FLYING and our EAA AirVenture issue, I thought it might be fitting and fun to share some history of AirVenture’s past highlighting just a few projects that I brought to life on the grounds of the world’s largest airshow—the vestiges of some are still visible if you know where to look.

During my Cirrus years, and for a few years thereafter, a fully airworthy SR22 would mysteriously appear in Oshkosh at the Fox River Brewery in the outdoor dining area between the restaurant and the river—3.5 miles from the nearest airport. Back at the show, a 30-foot Cirrus control tower was designed to help visitors locate the Cirrus display from anywhere on the grounds as far away as then-Aeroshell Square.

Years later, after rebranding Columbia Aircraft, pilots flying into Wittman Regional Airport (KOSH) may have been asked by a controller to “look for the Columbia barn” with a 50-foot wide Columbia Aircraft logo painted on its roof near the RIPON intersection. There was also an exciting partnership with FLYING and Sean D. Tucker who flew a complete stock, then-Columbia 400 in an aerobatic routine at AirVenture. 

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Beyond AirVenture, during the Great Recession, I created FLYING Magazine’s Parade of Planes. The events were designed to shorten and refine the aircraft purchase process by connecting consumers with the necessary resources to make informed decisions by leveraging the top finance company, most knowledgeable tax adviser, and strongest insurance provider.

And when it was time for Gulfstream to launch the truly revolutionary G500/G600 with its side-stick Symmetry flight deck, FLYING was the obvious choice for the dramatic six-page, double-gatefold advertisement inside the front cover showing the dynamic flight deck evolution from Gulfstream I to G500 revealed in imagery. 

Regardless of what the creative branding brainstorm may have been, I always found a way to include FLYING because it was then, as it is today, the best way to reach the aviation enthusiast.

As an aviation journalist, I’ve contributed to both FLYING and Plane & Pilot (both Firecrown media companies), written white papers on aviation technology, and served as editor-in-chief for two other aviation publications. 

For the past 25 years, my work in aviation journalism, marketing, brand management, event marketing, and business development has prepared me for this new FLYING endeavor.

There is no more prestigious title or more respected enthusiast publication with greater longevity than FLYING Magazine, and I am both thrilled and honored to be the editorial director and part of the growing Firecrown family of aviation companies.

Since 1927, FLYING has evolved to be exactly what readers wanted it to be. What hasn’t changed over time is the desire of our team to continue to be the world’s most widely read aviation publication and a knowledgeable source of essential aviation content in print and online. 

On behalf of the entire Firecrown aviation consumer group, thank you for being a FLYING reader. This is your magazine and it’s our job to help shape it into exactly what you want it to be—a trusted voice for all things aviation that engages, entertains, and educates readers about our collective passion: flying.

Thank you for taking the journey with us as we approach 100 years of serving the aviation community. 

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

The post The Great Circle Route appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Pilot weather reports, more simply known as PIREPs, are those rare commodities that general aviation pilots yearn for during preflight planning or while en route using datalink weather. They are vital since they answer these basic questions: At what altitude will I likely encounter ice? What is the severity of those icing conditions? What is the severity of turbulence at my planned altitude? And the most frequently asked question: What altitude will I find the cloud tops?

Perhaps there’s a PIREP or two out there that might just fill the void and answer one or more of these basic questions.

Other Consumers of PIREPs

It’s important to know that pilots are not the exclusive consumers of your reports. Meteorologists, air traffic controllers, dispatchers, briefers, and researchers are all extremely interested in your PIREPs. On a visit to the Aviation Weather Center (AWC) in Kansas City,

Missouri, nearly two decades ago, I asked one of the forecasters if PIREPs were important to him. He responded without hesitation, “Oh, god, yes!” as if his job depended on it. While he could continue to do his job without PIREPs, a forecaster can do his job better with more of them in the system.

Some meteorologists that issue terminal aerodrome forecasts (TAFs) examine the latest PIREPs before constructing their forecast. By far, the forecasters that depend on PIREPs the most are those located at the Center Weather Service Units (CWSUs) and those at the AWC. Let’s say an urgent pilot weather report from a Boeing 767 comes in for severe icing. An audible alarm will sound on the forecaster’s terminal at the AWC alerting them to the urgent report. They must click the alarm to silence it. AWC forecasters affectionately call this the “blue light special” since the alarm button turns that color.

• READ MORE: How to Wrap Your Head Around Weather

Such a PIREP will likely trigger the AWC meteorologist to pick up their “bat phone” and start a conversation with a CWSU meteorologist. They put their heads together to determine if there’s a need for a SIGMET or perhaps just a simple center weather advisory (CWA). The goal is to avoid advisories that may conflict and create confusion for pilots, although it does happen from time to time, especially when the weather is rather extreme.

As such, SIGMET advisories for severe or extreme turbulence and severe icing literally live and die by PIREPs. An urgent PIREP (UUA) of severe icing or severe or extreme turbulence may trigger an AWC forecaster to issue a SIGMET based solely on the conditions reported by a single pilot or aircrew. In fact, if you read the SIGMET or CWA text carefully, you will likely notice it often says, “RPTD BY ACFT” or “RPTD BY B767,” which tells you the SIGMET was issued due to one or more PIREPs of severe conditions.

At the other extreme, the AWC forecaster may cancel a SIGMET because there are no longer reports of severe icing or turbulence in the area. It may just be mostly moderate reports. Again, the decision to let the SIGMET die or extend it largely comes from PIREPs.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with a forecaster issuing a SIGMET without pilots reporting severe conditions. However, many forecasters want to see “ground truth” before issuing one. This is because issuing a SIGMET for severe ice, for example, makes the area a no-fly zone for most GA aircraft. Your TBM 960 can no longer legally fly through this area since it is not certified for flight into severe icing conditions. The FAA will no doubt pull the SIGMET as evidence that you should have known better if you turn yourself into a flying popsicle and need assistance.

Automation Ingests Your PIREPs

Your PIREPs are incorporated by weather guidance such as the Current Icing Product (CIP) and Graphical Turbulence Guidance (GTG) product found on aviationweather.gov. Both of these use PIREPs for icing and turbulence, respectively, to build the product’s analysis.

For example, a positive icing report helps CIP to increase the confidence there’s icing at the altitude reported by the pilot at the time the guidance is valid. Conversely, if the report is for negative icing, it might decrease the icing probability at that altitude.

But don’t try to fool the algorithm. If you were to report moderate ice in an area where the sky is obviously clear, it will be able to toss out your bogus report since it also relies on other observational data, such as satellite and surface observations (METARs). Sure, it’s unlikely any pilot would file a bogus report on purpose, but at times turbulence PIREPs are miscoded as reports for icing or the VOR identifier provided in the report for the location is miscoded (e.g., ODG instead of OGD).

Filing That Report

If you are like me, you undoubtedly find it difficult to file a pilot weather report. This is especially true when flying in busy terminal airspace, where it often matters the most. Whether flying IFR or VFR with flight following, it’s a challenge.

First, you need to leave the frequency. That involves asking the controller permission to switch frequencies so you can make that call to flight service. Once you’ve received permission, then you have the chore of finding the correct frequency and hoping someone on the other end will answer. When the weather is challenging, expect to hear, “N1234B, you are number four, standby.”

• READ MORE: Flying Through the Center of a Trough Should Have Been Uneventful

Can you just give the controller your PIREP and skip the call to flight service? Sure, but the controller’s primary job is not to file your report—it is to separate IFR aircraft from other IFR or special VFR aircraft.

In other words, there’s no requirement for that controller to take your report and forward the details to flight service so the rest of the stakeholders in the aviation industry can take advantage of it. If you are reporting severe conditions, such as severe or extreme turbulence, severe ice, or low-level wind shear, the controller should be passing this along. However, in busy airspace, the controller may just say, “Thanks!” and that’s as far as it goes.

If you are lucky enough to have an internet connection in the cockpit, there are resources to file the report online. You may find that some of the heavyweight apps provide this service. There is one such portal on the aviationweather.gov website.

Just be aware that you have to create an account and then make direct contact to provide your name, airman’s certificate number, and specific affiliation (e.g., airline, flight school, government, military, etc.) for validation purposes. Once this validation is complete, you can sign in and file a report directly online. Those reports are appended with “AWCWEB” in the remarks like this one:

OVE UA /OV KCIC/TM 1515/FL260/TP B737/TB MOD/RM 180-260 AWC-WEB

However, to make the process even easier, download the Virga app (search for “Fly Virga” in the App Store or Google Play Store). This is a great option since it is fully integrated with the aviationweawther.gov PIREP portal. Visit www.flyvirga.com for more information. Note that you still must have a Wi-Fi or cellular connection to file the report.

When making a PIREP, be sure to be specific. Avoid general terms, such as “icing during the climb” or “turbulence during descent,” unless you specify the altitudes you experienced icing or turbulence in the climb or descent. This is critical since nobody knows what altitude you climbed to or descended from. Moreover, the CIP and GTG analyses depend on these specifics in order to utilize your report effectively.

Also, for turbulence reports, add details such as whether or not you were in or outside of the cloud boundary. This is to differentiate turbulence related to convection (i.e., cumuliform-type clouds) versus clear air turbulence.

Age Makes a Difference

How long is a PIREP useful? While it’s difficult to pick out a particular length of time, reports of icing conditions more than 75 minutes old are typically useless to a pilot and to the CIP algorithm. Not unlike thunderstorms, icing conditions and intensity can change rapidly in time and space. Precipitation and clouds come and go as the synoptic, or big weather picture, changes. Clouds become supercooled due to rapid cold-air advection, and other clouds become glaciated (all ice crystals) as temperatures fall below minus-20 degrees Celsius.

• READ MORE: Go or Stay? Getting Personal with Your Pilot Minimums

From an aging perspective, turbulence PIREPs have an even shorter shelf life than icing PIREPs. Turbulence is highly transitory. An eddy of air might be propagating to a lower altitude after a pilot encounters it. Twenty minutes later, the next pilot at that same altitude may not see any bumps since the cause of the turbulence is now at a lower altitude. Again, it’s hard to agree on a specific time, but after about 45 minutes an isolated report of severe turbulence is probably too old to trust.

Required PIREPs

According to 14 CFR § 91.183 (b), a pilot flying under IFR in controlled airspace must report “any unforecast weather conditions encountered” by radio to ATC. Given this broad-brush regulation, you should limit your report to any forecast errors strictly significant to aviation operations. Unless it is urgent, there’s no need to make a big deal out of it either.

For example, let’s say you depart an uncontrolled field that has a TAF issued, and the forecast suggests that ceilings will be 2,000 feet at the departure time. As you climb out, you penetrate the lowest cloud deck at 900 feet AGL—this is significant to aviation, and you should report it to ATC. “Cirrus 1WX, one thousand two hundred, climbing four thousand, ceiling niner hundred overcast” is all you need to say.

While ATC may make use of this report for its own purposes, it is highly unlikely it will assemble your report into an official PIREP. To be sure this is relayed to the rest of us inquiring pilots, take a moment to file that report with flight service when you have the time.

Catch-22?

One of the comments I repeatedly hear from pilots is, “If I report icing, won’t I be admitting guilt if I’m piloting an aircraft not certified for flight into known icing conditions?” I’m not an attorney, however, I believe the answer is yes and no.

There was a similar concern from pilots when cockpit voice recorders (CVRs) were first introduced. Could the FAA use the recording against a pilot? The FAA said that wasn’t the intention, and CVRs were strictly added to improve safety of flight to learn why mistakes are made—not to bust the pilot during some random audit.

Similarly, there are no PIREP police waiting to nab you at the FBO in random fashion. Now, if you reported icing conditions and then had a hard landing that caused a prop strike due to a load of ice on the airframe, it’s likely the FAA will use your own PIREP against you.

Controllers are there to help you out of a bad situation. As always, confess to them that you are quickly becoming a flying popsicle. Be assertive with your request— tell them exactly what you need. For example, “1WX is in moderate icing and needs an immediate descent to four thousand.” If necessary, don’t hesitate to declare an emergency because doing so will likely get you priority handling.

Just remember that PIREPs are not just a private conversation between you and flight service. They are broadcast to the world. So, try to challenge yourself on each and every flight to file at least one PIREP.

So it doesn’t matter if the weather is extremely challenging or “oh-so boring.” Sometimes the best report is one that states smooth conditions and negative icing. There may be a pilot out there getting their back fillings jarred, and your report of glassy smooth conditions just 2,000 feet above them will help make their flight more enjoyable.

The hardworking folks at the AWC only complain when they don’t get enough PIREPs. So, let’s file those reports and not give them a reason to complain. I can tell you from firsthand experience, there’s nothing worse than a whiny meteorologist.

This column first appeared in the April 2024/Issue 947 of FLYING’s print edition.

The post The Ins and Outs of Pilot Weather Reports appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Our visit was almost perfect, with exciting matches, great competition, and enough spare time to enjoy some of the city’s attractions. The only downside was the drive, which took about six hours from our home in New Jersey. As we crept on a congested section of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, I glanced at Ben and said, “Let’s fly next time.”

I have learned to make such suggestions in a confident tone that belies the complex, often unpredictable nature of traveling in light aircraft. High winds , freezing rain, or any hint of a winter storm could scuttle our plans with little notice. If things go as planned, though, Dad might look like he knows what he is doing. It all worked out this year.

Getting There

Ben and I planned to fly right after school dismissal on a Friday afternoon so we would arrive in time to meet up with teammates for dinner. As usual, though, a number of delays conspired to grant us a departure at the tail end of sunset. Cleared for takeoff from Essex County Airport (KCDW), I lined up on Runway 22, applied full power, and soon Annie, our Commander 114B, was rising above suburban New Jersey, bending to the north to avoid nearby Morristown Airport’s (KMMU) Class D and heading straight for Pittsburgh.

Within 15 minutes the orange sky just above the horizon faded to black, and we were cruising through darkness, listening to radio traffic and acknowledging occasional handoffs from ATC. We also monitored our progress across Pennsylvania’s vastness based on the clusters of lights marking waypoints on the ground.

• READ MORE: New Orleans Is a GA-Friendly, Fly-In Locale

Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, and Hazleton, a solo cross-country destination from my student-pilot days, slipped by quickly. Getting past Harrisburg to our south, however, seemed to take forever. The headwind at 6,500 had risen to 30 knots almost directly on the nose, adding to the sense of slog. Still, we were making far better time than the many closely packed headlights on the turnpike below.

Ben had retreated into slumber long before Harrisburg but awoke in time to see the encouraging glow of Altoona, followed closely by Johnstown before Pittsburgh loomed ahead. Soon we had our runway in sight and were cleared to descend and contact the Allegheny County tower. After shutting down I checked my watch. The trip took 2 hours and 30 minutes, which was not bad considering the wind and far better than a six-hour drive. We picked up our rental car and got to the hotel before the kitchen closed. Just.

The Airport

There are several airports convenient to Pittsburgh, from turf strips to the 2-mile-long runways of Pittsburgh International Airport (KPIT). Many general aviation pilots have long considered Allegheny County Airport (KAGC) the most convenient access point because it is in town, close to the places business and personal travelers want to visit. For those approaching from the east, as we did, KAGC is especially efficient because it is nearly 20 nm short of KPIT, tucked beneath the big airport’s 4,000-foot Class B shelf.

Opened in 1931, Allegheny County Airport succeeded Bettis Field, an airport developed in the 1920s on former farmland as part of the rapidly growing airmail network. Bettis became an aviation crossroads that hosted a number of notable pilots, including Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart. KAGC was the primary field serving Pittsburgh until KPIT opened in 1952. By that time it was clear that the old airport was too small to handle the jet airlines that were on the way. Standing on the ramp now, however, it is easy to imagine DC-3s, DC-6s, and other propeller-driven transports operating there.

• READ MORE: New Orleans Is a GA-Friendly, Fly-In Locale

To understand what a big deal the airport was, GA pilots have to visit the original art deco terminal. Typical of early airline terminals, the building is beautifully decorated but impossibly small by modern standards, without the space required to handle modern ticketing lines and TSA checks. Airplanes and the flying public were smaller then. The Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation added the airport to its list of historic landmarks in 1981.

Things to Do

Pittsburgh is a stunning place, beginning with its geography. The famous three rivers—the Ohio, Allegheny, and Monongahela—converge downtown, and parts of the city sit high above atop steep inclines and sheer cliffs. Beginning in the 1800s, steam-powered incline planes, also called funiculars and gravity railways, were used mainly to transport coal but quickly caught on as passenger services connecting many of the hilltop communities with the busy riverbank districts below.

More than 20 funiculars operated through the early 20th century before ridership gradually declined and most of the tracks were removed. Today you can ride the restored Duquesne and Monongahela inclines that have long provided direct access to the hard-to-reach Mount Washington and Duquesne Heights neighborhoods high above the city. The funiculars’ hilltop stations provide some of the area’s best views.

• READ MORE: Mackinac Island Is Especially Stunning by Air

Visitors could spend weeks walking and driving across the city’s many bridges and studying their varied designs. With three rivers meeting downtown, Pittsburgh’s transportation network revolves around the bridges. Anyone interested in architecture could also become happily lost among the wide-ranging styles of Pittsburgh, where one can find colonial-style taverns sandwiched between steel and glass high-rises and Brutalist apartment blocks.

Historical groups offer numerous walking, bicycle, and bus tours that can give visitors concentrated doses of Pittsburgh’s rich history in specific areas of interest. One example is “Fire in the Valley: Carnegie Steel and the Town That Built America,” an in-depth tour of the Steel City’s industrial past, including sites of former mills and pivotal events such as the 1892 Battle of Homestead, a clash between members of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers union and Carnegie Steel’s security force.

There is so much to see that you might want to stage your own walking tour by choosing a group of waypoints within a reasonable distance. During breaks in the volleyball tournament, I joined groups of parents to check out local shops, galleries, and the vibrant craft beer scene. Our hotel was around the corner from the Andy Warhol Museum, a must-see for any visitor and a wonderful resource for anyone interested in learning more about the late artist and Pittsburgh native. Warhol is buried in St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery in nearby Bethel Park.

Pittsburgh is not a small town, but it feels like everything is close. Its sports venues are in town, all of them easily walkable. Acrisure Stadium, where the NFL’s Steelers play, sits in a picturesque spot near a riverfront promenade. Last year our downtown hotel was across the street from PNC Park, where the MLB’s Pirates play. The PPG Paints Arena is home to the NHL’s Penguins and is situated within a few blocks of the convention center where our volleyball tournament takes place. Our rental car remained parked for most of our stay.

One thing you should think about when planning a visit to Pittsburgh is when you might be able to make a return trip. There will always be something that you missed because you ran out of time. Even if you carefully choose your points of interest, you are bound to meet someone who will recommend an attraction you had not considered.

In our case it was the Mount Washington neighborhood, once known as Coal Hill. After the tournament we wound up spending hours exploring this one-of-a-kind community and its challenging terrain. It is the kind of place that impressed even teenage Ben, who took dozens of photos and kept asking if we could walk just a bit farther to see what was around the next corner—a minor miracle.

Eventually we got back to the airport and prepared for another night flight. I had planned to be airborne earlier but could not complain because the Mount Washington stop was so much fun. As usual, Ben poked fun at the headlamp I wear when preflighting at night. He finds it almost too nerdy for words, but I would not fly without it.

We took off toward the city, taking in a beautiful parting view before making the 180-degree turn that put us on course back to KCDW. ATC cleared us to climb through the Class B, and soon we were cruising at 5,500 feet. Ben fell asleep before we cleared the Mode C veil, leaving me with the hum of Annie’s IO-540 for company. The 30-knot winds aloft from Friday night were still with us, too.

Only on the tail this time.

Allegheny County Airport (KAGC)

Location: West Mifflin, Pennsylvania

Airport elevation: 1,251.5 feet msl

Airspace: Class D

Airport hours: Continuous

Runways: 10/28, 13/31

Lighted: Yes, all runways

Pattern altitude: 1,000 feet agl for all traffic

This column first appeared in the April 2024/Issue 947 of FLYING’s print edition.

The post Pittsburgh Offers Steel, Coal, Culture, and Much More appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Succinctness is the single most prized quality a pilot can exhibit when on the radio. It’s almost as if that little push-to-talk button is buried on the backside of the yoke so as to remind you to only use it when necessary. Break glass in case of communication.

This is for a good reason. There are times when multiple pilots are trying to talk to a controller in busy airspace. Without concise communications there will quickly be a backlog of speeding airplanes no longer in their original positions. At some point, this transitions from a nuisance to a danger. And so we are taught to be frugal with our words.

Say who you are, where you’re at, and what you want. Do so using the fewest number of words. Like a chef making a reduction, distilling the information I need to convey to its purest essence is a joyful exercise for me. The sauce just tastes better.

Becoming a writer, and later a pilot, taught me that words are powerful, have distinct meaning, and should be used sparingly. As an added benefit, people will plain like you more when you’re succinct. Certainly air traffic controllers. I remember being at a wedding with my dad when a known yapper in the family took to the podium to make his speech. My father stretched his legs out, slid down in his chair, closed his eyes, and proclaimed, “Nap time.” Even as a 10 year old, I had a conscious thought that I never wanted anyone to have that reaction to me opening my mouth.

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Flying south from Sullivan County Airport (KMSV), my home field upstate, toward New York Class B during rush hour, things sometimes get a little unruly—at least on the radios. Combine a collection of airplanes all trying to check in at once with a tired controller toward the end of his shift who possesses a strong New York accent, and I will find myself wishing I had popcorn on board.

New York Approach: “OK, everybody stop talking! JetBlue 2073, heading one-eight-five, climb to one-seven thousand. I got two Pipers calling. The one near Kingston, say request. Everyone else, standby!”

Let me tell you, pilots become wonderfully concise when responding to a stern call like that. Everyone just tightens it up. Short and sweet. Good sauce. Nom. Nom. Nom.

Whenever I’m entering the pattern at KMSV, my instructor, Neil, will come on the radio after I’ve made my initial “10 miles from the field” call. “Hello, Ben. How are you?” KMSV is pretty far from anyone or anything, and there isn’t ever much traffic. Yet it still makes me anxious to talk on the CTAF if it’s anything more than calling out my turn to left base. When I answer him with even the shortest pleasantries, I feel like I’m breaking some rule, or at the least, betraying some code. It just feels wrong. My replies are so short you’d think I disliked the man.

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I sometimes take this quest for succinctness too far. Tail numbers should be read back in full when other aircraft in the pattern have similar numbers as yours. My Bonanza is N1750W. When another pilot calls in with a tail number ending in “four-zero-whiskey,” that is not the time to be signing off with my usual, “five-zero-whiskey.” You spell it out in that case. Common sense.

Altimeter readings are a toss-up. When checking in with a new controller, I don’t repeat back the altimeter numbers unless there’s some monstrous difference from the last reporting station that would signify a weather change I’d want to confirm. Short of that, I just give my trusty “five-zero-whiskey.” It means I heard them, and I’m not gonna take up even one extra second of their precious time.

Creativity is not usually rewarded on the radio, but I will admit I love reading back anything with three zeros as “triple nothing.” Sue me. In life outside the cockpit, this desire for brevity has not served me well. Sometimes in conversation I will understand the point someone is trying to make long before completion. It takes everything in me not to stop them midsentence and say, “I got it,” and then summarize in two sentences what they’ve spent the last three minutes (and counting) trying to convey. This is decidedly not a great way to make friends. And apparently I’m not very good at hiding this aversion because even when I manage to keep my mouth shut, people will ask me if I am in pain. On the inside. Yes. I am.

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Screenwriters are like pilots: We have to get the most information across using the least amount of words. While a novelist can use language without any constrictions to paint a vivid physical and emotional landscape, we are beholden to some basic limitations. Screenplays are generally 120 pages, which universally correlates to one minute per page and yields your average two-hour movie. Reminds me of an old-school timing approach from the FAF to the MAP. 

There are levels, of course. Some of us are merely good on the radio. Some of us are heroes. I have heard recordings of pilots who have just declared an emergency that sound like they’re on muscle relaxers signing up for a meditation class. I am in awe of these pilots. I’ve only declared an emergency once in my 13 years of flying, and I have zero interest in hearing that tape. I was on my heels, scared, and my little brain added a whole bunch of unnecessary words to every transmission. 

I’d like to think my dad would appreciate my radio calls—emergencies notwithstanding. He passed long ago. But if he’s up there listening, I hope he gets to hear me read back a revised IFR clearance departing New York airspace with clarity and an economy of words. That or a really good wedding speech.

The post The Wisdom of Keeping Transmissions Short and Sweet appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Since I was planning a flight the following week during the day from Paine Field (KPAE) in Everett, Washington, to Jefferson County International Airport (0S9) to take a taxi into Port Townsend, then fly back to Paine after dark, I needed to get night current. Having not flown at night much over the last couple of years, I thought that I would prepare in advance.

I rented a Cessna 172 from Regal Air at KPAE and scheduled company CFI Nick Butterfield to come along to make sure that I was up to speed. Instead of just doing three stop-and-goes on Paine’s 9,010-foot-long runway, I asked Nick to put me under the hood to see if I could keep a heading and altitude without looking at outside references, then do a couple of night landings at “JeffCo.” 

The hood work turned out to be a very good idea. I was very rusty on instruments. “That’s harder than I remember,” I told Butterfield as he asked me to climb from 2,500 to 3,500 feet while changing directions from west to south and descending down to 2,700 feet while turning to north and then back to the west. Keeping straight and level at a prescribed altitude provided a challenge. It seems that I had trouble with my scan. Focusing on the altimeter caused my heading to drift and vice versa. It took several attempts before I could get it right.

After the hood work, it was well after dark but a beautiful, clear, calm night to fly 20 miles over Puget Sound, picking out city lights on the shoreline. As we got near JeffCo, I let Butterfield know that I had flown there many times, even back in the day when it was the only U.S. international airport with a grass field, but never at night.

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Butterfield shared that he had not either. He said he avoided that airport at night since it was set in forests that, in the dark, looked like a “black hole.” He also heard that wildlife could be a problem in those conditions.

“It looks like we are both in for an adventure,” I said. Around 7 miles out near Port Ludlow, we headed toward Port Hadlock to avoid overflying a Navy-restricted area on Marrowstone Island. We switched to JeffCo’s frequency, and Butterfield checked the weather and learned that the winds were calm and that there was no other air traffic. He then asked me what I planned to do next.

I told him that I was going to continue along the shoreline, get the airport lights in sight, turn west from the shoreline, and then go on a 45-degree entry to a left downwind to Runway 27 for a full-stop landing. He responded, “Right answer.” After beginning a descent to pattern altitude of 1,100 feet, it did seem like we were over a black hole with only a couple of cellphone towers and the distant runway lights in view.

After turning on the 45, the airport complex came into full view, and my first night landing in a long time was OK. The second was a bit better. After landing, we exited the 3,000-foot runway and taxied back to 27. 

Along the way, I let Butterfield know that there was a very good restaurant called the Spruce Goose Cafe at the airport that is definitely worth a breakfast or lunch flight and that the Port Townsend Aero Museum offers a great variety of military and civilian aircraft. But one of the best reasons to fly to JeffCo is that it is just a 10-minute taxi ride from the historic seaport of Port Townsend.

At the end of the taxiway, I came to a full stop and looked around, announced our intention to depart on Runway 27 for a left downwind departure, and began to enter the runway. Then we both saw a deer scamper away from the south side of the runway, and I came to a full stop on the centerline. We both looked around and did not see any more critters.

I pushed in the throttle and began the takeoff roll. Suddenly, another deer ran from the north side of the runway, coming to a dead stop on the centerline and staring at our landing light. I yanked the throttle out, hit the brakes hard, and stopped less than 10 feet from the deer.

After pausing to look at us, the deer sprinted to the south side of the runway, disappearing into the darkness beyond the runway lights. Butterfield and I took a deep breath and stared at each other. “That was quite a wildlife experience,” I said.

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“If you hadn’t hit the brakes,” he said, “that would have been very messy.” 

Not exactly sure where we were on the runway, and a bit excited, I decided to taxi to a midfield exit and go back to the start of Runway 27 for another attempt. Fortunately, that takeoff was uneventful.

We headed back to KPAE, where there are no blackholes around the big complex that includes one of Boeing’s large facilities to the north of the runway. However, the tower closes after 9 p.m., and there were five aircraft in the pattern, all trying to get night current. Adding to the multiple headlight scenario, a Horizon Air pilot announced, “Inbound for landing on 34 left, 10 miles out.”

Those of us in the pattern extended our downwind legs a few miles before attempting to land. I gave myself a “B” grade on the first attempt. The next try was a squeaker I deemed worthy of an “A.” Time to call it a night and talk more about deer in the headlights. Butterfield filled in my logbook: “Four night landings; one deer near miss.”

After that experience, I will follow Butterfield’s lead and avoid JeffCo after dark. The next week, I took off just before dark from the airport—avoiding more deer in the headlights—and got back to Paine before the tower closed so it could direct traffic.

Tom Murdoch is the director of the Adopt A Stream Foundation (www.streamkeeper.org), conducting aerial wildlife surveys and taking aerial photos of the organization’s stream restoration projects.

The post Finding a Deer in the Headlights appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

I’ve been a lucky passenger on five such flights, and I have found them to be exciting and fun, but frustrating. The first was the most impressive. At dinner one night many years ago I offered how I was flying commercially from Tampa, Florida, to Chicago the next day. My dinner guests said they were too—only they were chartering a jet. Would I like to join them? Well, OK. I promised to bring sandwiches for lunch as partial (miniscule) compensation.

The next morning I arrived an hour early, loaded with expectations and roast beef sandwiches. I watched as the crew prepared the Challenger 604. There was a stain on one of the leather seats. The first officer arranged a blanket in an artful manner that hid the stain. Soon my friends arrived, the door was closed, and we started up. I sat as far forward as possible on a sideways-facing seat to get a glimpse of the cockpit.

Before I could stow the sandwiches, we were out of 6,000 feet msl and climbing. I spent the next two hours kneeling between the two pilots and occasionally making a big deal out of serving sandwiches to my hosts. I did not split my time evenly, and my behavior is best described as rude. I think they had to clean up the sandwich wrappers themselves. All too soon we were on the arrival into Chicago Midway (KMDW). My hosts wanted to know if I would like to join them in the limousine into town. Sure, I answered. Big mistake.

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Straining against the seat belt, I watched as we landed and taxied in. The crew shut down, opened the door, and got the luggage. Handshakes all around. And then an unexpected disappointment: We got in the limo and turned onto the grimy streets of the South Side of Chicago. There was no time to linger. No time to put the pitot covers on, no time to savor the magnificence of flying 900 nm in a morning in absolute comfort at FL 380. I sat in the limo, straining again against the seat belt, looking forlornly out the back window as the FBO and my friends’ many thousands of dollars disappeared into the gloom. Wow.

A few years later the same benefactors offered my wife, Cathy, and I a flight from White Plains, New York, to Tampa. This trip was in a Beechjet, so the magnificent stairs thing wasn’t happening, but the airplane was plenty roomy, and I got that seat that allows for cockpit survey. I was glued to the flight deck and let Cathy handle the niceties of polite conversation. Did I notice low fuel lights? I was too naive then to know what they might look like.

Speaking of naive, I was totally out of it when John and Martha King (yes, John and Martha—you read that right) offered us a ride in their Falcon 10 from Lebanon, New Hampshire (KLEB), to Tampa (KTPA) with a stop in Savannah, Georgia (KSAV). Oh, do I wish I had been typed in that airplane, or any jet, when we took that flight. It was just as you have seen in their videos—except no one was taping the trip. Their interactions were textbook. Their generosity was overwhelming. I still remember arriving at KTPA, taxing into our home base. Yes, I’m with J&M, everybody.

• READ MORE: Bam! In Life and in the Air, Things Can Change in a Hurry

The latest (and greatest, so far) was the shortest. John Raskai took nine of us in his Embraer Phenom 300 from Tampa to Savannah to visit the Gulfstream factory. That’s right, there were 10 of us in total. The Phenom has seven seats, a belted lavatory, and two pilot positions up front.

Raskai is a story in his own right. Newly married out of high school and driving a delivery truck, his is the quintessential American dream that now has him flying his own Phenom. I had never met him, yet here he was, taking us to Georgia. This is the kind of unreal generosity that seems not unusual among self-made jet owner-operators. I’ve benefited from it before.

After introductions all around, we boarded. There was no rush. John and his copilot, Christophe, had flown together before. We were like school children on a field trip. Everyone in the back was a pilot—most were high time ATPs. Raskai’s flying skills were about to be scrutinized by 100,000 collective hours of flight time.

Door closed and locked, I could hear the welcome litany of the checklist—in a French accent. Engine start was at 9:09 a.m. We took to Runway 1R at KTPA at 9:16 a.m. With 10 souls on board and 2,700 pounds of jet-A, we were still 2,000 pounds below MTOW and scheduled to land with a comfortable 1,300 pounds of fuel.

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The next few seconds were unlike any acceleration I had ever experienced. We were airborne in seconds. ForeFlight showed climb rates of up to 5,000 fpm. Rocket. As impressive as the jet was, the piloting was seamless. From the back I could see a knob turned (altitude preselect?), a button pushed (I’m guessing Flight Level Change), and then the gentle application of power until our deck angle had to be 20 degrees nose up. Our landing in Savannah on Runway 10 was smooth and right on the aiming point, allowing us to make the turnoff leading directly to the FBO. Pro all the way.

Our flight home left me staring out the window at a vivid sunset, thinking about airplanes and the people drawn to them. Everybody in that aircraft is romantic about them, and every one of them has been amazingly generous to me. We were treated to an instrument landing at KTPA. The light rain made the landing even sweeter. When we taxied in and shut down, I was suffused with a sense of well-being. I just sat there until everybody else had deplaned. Then I helped Raskai reset the seat belts the way any jet owner will understand—just so.

I was the last man out of the airplane, but nobody was in a hurry to leave. We hung around and watched John put on the pitot covers, stood around awkwardly, then reluctantly said goodbye.

This column first appeared in the April 2024/Issue 947 of FLYING’s print edition.

The post Riding in the Back of Some Nice Private Jets appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Often the instructor leaves a space or empty line to record a dual instructional flight—or forgets to sign it off because the end of the lesson was hurried. Either the CFI, learner, or both had someplace else to be. There was the intention to sign off on the flight time later, but before this could happen the CFI moved on.

Without the instructor’s signature, those hours of dual don’t count toward the experience requirements for a certificate or rating. In essence, the learner may end up paying for these hours twice.

Both the learner and CFI need to take responsibility for this. Structure the lessons so that you have at least five minutes to fill out and sign the logbook—if you are going to be late, you are going to be late. This is that important.

Log the Time Correctly

Logging the flight incorrectly can also void the experience. FAR 61.51(b) provides the details on what should be logged in a “manner acceptable to the administrator,” and that includes total flight or lesson time, type and identification of aircraft, flight simulator or training device, and flight or ground training received.

The logbook is a legal document, and precision counts. Write out what maneuvers were done, how long the flight was, and include any ground discussion—your logbook might read 1.2 flight, climbs, turns, descent, 0.2 under hood, and then note the number of takeoffs and landings.

Flight instructors should also include the time spent in pre- and post-flight briefing. I denote this with a “G” and a description of what was discussed—for example, 0.3 G “ground reference maneuvers.”

• READ MORE: Make Flight Reviews for CFIs Worthwhile

If the lesson is all ground discussion, that should also be logged, and some logbooks have a preprinted section for this. Again, give details. “Review aircraft systems” is too vague. Instead, go with “aircraft systems for Cessna 172N, pitot static vacuum, electrical, engine, oil, gyroscopic.” If the logbook doesn’t have a predetermined section for ground instruction, create one—the same can be done for AATD instruction.

Make sure to have the CFI clearly label instruction given in any “areas found deficient” from the knowledge test, as this is required and needs to be appropriately accounted for. The examiner will want to see that during the check ride.

Details, Details

Do you remember the first time you put the details of the flight in your first logbook? Some flight schools have the learners do this from day one. The CFI tells the learner what to write, then the instructor reads the entry to make sure it is correct and signs. Some CFIs learn the hard way not to sign and then let the learner fill in the details. While most people are honest, there are some learners who take advantage of the instructor’s trust and pad their hours.

If the learner believes the CFI is looking for shortcuts, the learner will likely be looking for them too. It’s not uncommon to find a logbook filled with line after line of “pattern work,” “practice area,” or “VFR maneuvers” under both dual instruction and solo flights. What maneuvers? Please be specific. Was one of those flights completed for currency? A proficiency flight? A particular solo lesson from the syllabus? Label them as such.

• READ MORE: Who Is Teaching? Low Time and Social Media Make for a Bad Combo

Learners and pilots, please take ownership of your training—initial or recurrent. As you fill up a page in your logbook, total the numbers, check your math, and then go back through the FAR/AIM to the experience section for the rating or certificate sought and determine what requirements have been met, what needs to be done, and then discuss with your CFI how to meet them.

The Long Goodbye

“When he gets back in town, we’re going to fly again,” the learner said. His CFI was now flying right seat for an air ambulance company. His schedule was two weeks on, one week off. If your CFI is being pulled in multiple directions, you need to be realistic about whether this business relationship still meets your needs.

Learners can get very attached to their CFI and won’t want to fly with anyone else. If the CFI is only available once a week, the training spreads out, with very little skill progression. It’s like going to the gym just once a week and expecting to see results. The lack of progress leads to frustration, which often evolves into apathy and sometimes the termination of training.

• READ MORE: Practice Crosswind Landings Whenever You Can

The CFI can suggest someone for the learner to fly with, and a meeting between the involved parties will make sure the transition is seamless. But even this doesn’t guarantee a good fit. A learner who had a good relationship with a professional CFI may find themselves in the clutches of a time builder who ignores the previously logged experience and demonstrated skills and makes them repeat it. It is particularly egregious if the learner is enrolled in a Part 141 program, where the change of CFI should be seamless, but there are some sleazy flight schools that insist learners repeat the training so they can pad the bill.

Under Part 61 the learner should insist on a stage check using the syllabus and airman certification standards (ACS) as the performance metrics. Sadly, there are some instructors who eschew the syllabus because they weren’t trained with one and will say the ACS is not required until the check ride. If this is the attitude you encounter, keep looking.

Plan the Departure

If you are the CFI who intends to move on, let your learners know your plan and work together to get the learner to a hard-stop point, such as the check ride, past solo, or particular stage check before you go.

No matter what, advise the learner to expect a skill evaluation with the replacement CFI. This should consist of both a ground session as well as flight. Remind the learners to manage their expectations. They shouldn’t anticipate a single flight to lead to a solo endorsement for check ride signoff. That’s just not realistic.

Working Around the Gap

As a final note, if you have a gap like this and the CFI is no longer locally available, reach out to your former instructor to see if they are comfortable writing out the required entry and signing off then taking a digital image of it and emailing it to you. Some DPEs are comfortable with that means to document experience. You can also call the local Flight Standards District Office for guidance.

This column first appeared in the April 2024/Issue 947 of FLYING’s print edition.

The post Separation Anxiety: When Your Instructor Moves on, Your Logbook Tells the Story appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Describing these two hours required three pages crammed with significantly more words than my usual monthly allotment, and yet I promised to cover the balance of the tour in a single additional installment.

Well, here goes nothing.

I won’t even attempt to adequately describe the remainder of the first day, which involved a lot of probing around the Fiordland’s misty maze of mountains and glacial valleys with several minimum-radius turnbacks from socked-in passes before finally finding a clear one that dropped us into perfectly named Doubtful Sound. When I finally landed ZK-WAX back in Wanaka, our home base for the week, I was thoroughly exhausted, exhilarated, and emotionally spent. It was the most visually intense day of flying in my life, not to mention a great deal more work than I’m used to putting in these days. A good cigar, glass of scotch, and eight full hours of sound sleep were in order.

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I was glad to find it wasn’t just me: Adam Broome, the North Carolinian piloting FlyInn’s other Cessna 172 (ZK-TRS) with his wife, Lissa, and FlyInn instructor Nick Taylor, confirmed that he was equally wiped out. And then McCaughan informed us that thanks to the weather window holding, we would be moving up our exploration of Mount Cook and the Southern Alps to the next day, never mind the wind forecast. This was akin to starting with the caviar and moving straight on to the crème brûlée—or perhaps more like competing in back-to-back Ironman triathlons.

The day began with calm winds, fair skies, and a short field approach into a 1,500-foot crop-duster’s strip in a cow pasture (very recently used, as I discovered soon after landing). From there we jaunted across to Lake Hawea and up the scenic Hunter River valley. The farther north we went, though, the windier and more turbulent it got.

At McCaughan’s urging, I moved farther and farther toward the downwind side of the valley until my right wing seemed to almost scrape the rocky slope— and then we were in a steady, powerful lift, riding the elevator upward at 1,500 feet per minute in relatively smooth air. My experience flying gliders came in handy, especially the bit of ridge soaring I’ve done. I became increasingly good at visualizing areas of lift and smooth air throughout our windy week and started to really enjoy surfing the ridges. Dawn, for her part, gamely endured the occasional solid thumping in the back seat, the price of admission for a whole week of world-class scenery.

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Now climbing through 10,000 feet, the immense, icy form of the Mount Cook massif rose ahead. This was familiar territory, as we had camped and hiked in Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park the previous week. Mount Sefton, which had towered above our campsite in the moonlight and blazed in the morning alpenglow, slipped inconspicuously under our right wing. The Tasman, Hooker, Fox, and Franz Josef glaciers, whose gravel-strewn terminuses we had glimpsed from below, revealed themselves for the colossal blue giants they are, emerging from one enormous ice sheet draped around the shoulder of 12,218-foot Mount Cook. Climbers’ huts clinging to desolate rock ledges gave perspective to the landscape’s epic scale.

As Dawn and I gazed around, McCaughan sent a constant stream of radio position reports since flightseeing is popular here, and Mount Cook lies within a mandatory broadcast zone. There’s a standard circuit around the sights, but we were deviating to stay out of strong rotors downwind of the peaks. In any case, there weren’t too many sightseers braving the maelstrom, the conditions of which reminded me a bit of the long-ago winter I spent flying freight up California’s Owens Valley. The Southern Alps are a lot lower than the Sierra Nevada, though, and the winds aloft weren’t nearly as fearsome as during a West Coast frontal passage.

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After landing for lunch at Glentanner, we headed west to Lake Ohau and started up the fertile, ranch-dotted Hopkins Valley. As we approached Mount Glenmary the wind started really kicking again. Turning up a side tributary, we surfed up the leeward slope to clear a low saddle under Mount Huxley then ducked into the calmer Ahuriri River drainage. Working our way south, beyond Lindis Pass we descended into a gorgeous, golden valley with green fields, farm buildings, and an airstrip at the bottom.

This is Geordie Hill Station, the 5,500- acre ranch where five generations of McCaughans have raised Merino sheep and beef cattle and where Matt and his wife, Jo, started FlyInn. Originally, guests stayed at the ranch. Now accommodations are in the lake resort town of Wanaka, a 10-minute flight west. Dawn and I came to really enjoy Wanaka, but I think we would have been equally happy staying in the beautiful, peaceful surroundings of Geordie Hill Station.

The next day, Matt McCaughan’s ranching duties took precedence, and we were paired with affable, experienced instructor Peter Hendriks for an overnight trip to the southeastern coastal city of Dunedin. The wind was still kicking, but at least lower terrain made for a less intense workout. From the central Otago crossroads of Cromwell we crossed into the Nevis River valley and followed it down to the verdant Southland Plains. We stopped at Mandeville’s pleasant little grass strip for lunch, checked out the Croydon Aviation Heritage Centre’s beautiful collection of vintage de Havilland aircraft, and made a quick flight with just Hendriks and I to complete the training requirements for my New Zealand PPL validation.

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Job done, Dawn clambered back into ZK-WAX and we headed south to the Catlins, a beautiful stretch of remote, craggy coastline straight out of western Ireland. We followed the wild coast northeastward, put in a good word with the controllers at Dunedin International Airport (NZDN), and landed at nontowered Taieri Airfield (NZTI). FlyInn put us up in a very nice hotel in central Dunedin, an atmospheric college town with a strong Scottish accent. Dawn and I had a good afternoon walkabout, then joined Hendriks, the Broomes, and Taylor for a lovely seafood dinner at an excellent restaurant tucked away by the seaport.

The next morning, we took a two-hour harbor cruise with local wildlife expert Rachel McGregor, spotting blue penguins, sea lions, and magnificent northern royal albatrosses at Taiaroa Head. A few hours later, we viewed the harbor from the air before heading up the coast to Oamaru and then inland via the Waitaki River and its series of impressive hydroelectric dams.

The weather window finally collapsed with a strong cold front bringing more wind, rain, and clouds than even a Kiwi pilot might care to tackle, giving us a Saturday off to poke around Otago wine country by car. Sunday dawned clear but windy, which we planned to mitigate by transiting Queenstown and Lake Wakatipu en route to Glenorchy. Queenstown Tower thought otherwise, given the steady stream of jets arriving down the Kawarau Gorge, so we were ordered to remain clear of controlled airspace. Alas, we bounced our way west across the mountains north of Queenstown, emerging from Monument Saddle to spiral down over the gravel-strewn Dart River on the way to landing on yet another beautiful grass runway.

After a ride into Glenorchy and a pub lunch, we headed back up the Dart River, this time via jet boat. It was a fun and beautiful journey, as the shallow draft and rapid speed took us 20 miles upriver into some rather gorgeous wilderness. It was well into the afternoon when we departed for the quick flight back to Wanaka, except there was so much interesting scenery that we dawdled and wandered, our track resembling a Family Circus cartoon. In particular, the spectacular Rob Roy Glacier near Mount Aspiring offered a perfect semicircular amphitheater to hang the flaps out and make a slow pass close inside the perimeter. ZK-TRS beat ZK-WAX back to the stable rather handily, and neither we nor Hendriks minded one bit.

Our last full day of flying circuited rural Otego, and I expected a fairly tame day out. McCaughan was back, his business with the spring lambs concluded, but he accompanied the Broomes while we nabbed Taylor, a very cheerful chap and laid-back instructor. After dropping in to visit the historic gold rush town of Clyde, we followed the popular Otago Central Rail Trail northeast to the Ida Valley and a little township called Oturehua. Now, Oturehua doesn’t have an airport, but there is a fairly level sheep paddock alongside the highway that Taylor assured me was fairly landable.

So much for a tame day out.

It seems the sheep had been absent for a few weeks as the grass was quite a bit taller than expected, but ZK-WAX handled lawn mower duties with aplomb. We visited 19th century farm-implement factory Hayes Engineering Works, with its fascinating water-powered, leather-belt-driven machine shop. Everything still works. The old-timer docent gamely powered up the shop and demonstrated use of the original lathe, press punch, shears, band saw, and more. After our visit, we enjoyed a beautiful flight surfing the ridges to Geordie Hill Station, where McCaughan gave us a longer tour, and Jo McCaughan cooked a fantastic lamb dinner. It was a really nice way to cap off our FlyInn experience.

We ended up moving our departure back by one day to do some more hiking near Wanaka and up around Rob Roy Glacier. The following morning we flew ZK-TRS to Queenstown to catch our airline flight home. True to form, New Zealand gave us a windier-and-cloudier-than forecast sendoff, with a slightly dicey ridge crossing and a good couple final thumps of turbulence.

I now hold a NZ PPL validation, which gives me solo privileges in New Zealand through June, should we care to return. We’re sorely tempted. My wife Dawn and I fell in love with the people, landscapes, and aviation scene in New Zealand, and I learned a great deal about mountain flying and NZ operations during our time with FlyInn.

If you have the time and money for a flying tour of New Zealand, I would highly recommend it. It’s a grand adventure, and a true bucket list experience.

This column first appeared in the April 2024/Issue 947 of FLYING’s print edition.

The post Part 2: Exploring New Zealand’s Grand Islands by Air appeared first on FLYING Magazine.