ON THE ABSURDITY AND INSANITY OF FLYING UBERS AUGUST 2017

FIRST FLIGHTS:
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inside
AUGUST 2017 VOL. 53 NO. 7

Cirrus SF50
Vision Jet
PAGE 30

❯FEATURES
30 CIRRUS SF50 VISION JET
An epic light in the irst truly
46 REDBIRD G.I.F.T.
A virtual CFI for light sims.
personal jet. By Kate O’Connor
By Robert Goyer

44 10YEARS
THOUGHTS ON 80
50 THE NINE MOST
BEAUTIFUL GA AIRPLANES
OF THE CUB There are a lot of amazing-
The Cub is such an icon of light looking airplanes in the general
aviation that it’s easy to forget aviation universe. We pick the
some important things about the nine most beautiful ones. You
actual airplane. get to pick the tenth.
By Robert Goyer By Plane & Pilot

❯ VISIT THE PLANE & PILOT® WEBSITE AT PLANEANDPILOTMAG.COM

p nee pilootma om
pla m
inside ❯SPACES
8 GOING DIRECT
On The Insanity Of
Flying Ubers
By Robert Goyer

10 PLANE FACTS
Fuel

12 GEAR
Cool Pilot Stuff

16 ACCIDENT BRIEFS
Reports From The NTSB

18 AIRFARE
15,000 Hours
By Dustin Joy
44
22 RISK
Inoperative Equipment
We Learn To Live
Without
(And Shouldn’t)
By Jason Blair

26 LESSONS LEARNED
ABOUT FLYING
(and about life)
Lost In Alaska
By Patty Wagstaff

48 MODS
Custom Wiring
Harnesses For 72 66
Homebuilts
By Plane & Pilot

64 LET IT ROLL
Six Cool Ways To
Push Your Envelope
By Patty Wagstaff

66 CROSS-COUNTRY LOG
The Joys Of Flight
Testing
By Bill Cox

68 AFTER THE ACCIDENT

Culture Of Carelessness? ON THE COVER: The Cirrus
SF50 Vision Jet showing off its 46
By Peter Katz
one-of-a-kind geometry over the
Paciic coastline.
72 CONTRAILS
Proceed To PANIC
By W. Scott Olsen

2 AUGUST 2017 Ç Plane&Pilot

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 GOING DIRECT
By Robert Goyer

On he Insanity
Of Flying Ubers
300 pounds for, I don’t know, 10 miles with an endurance
he emotional appeal of the lying car is something I of at least an hour, probably more like 90 minutes, or even

T don’t understand. Airplanes have been around for a

long time, and they’re really good at doing what they
do. Cars have been around even longer, and they’re even
more when the FAA has its say, which it will. he Feds will
be intimately involved in this because there’s a name for a
drone that carries a person: “aircraft” and to be more exact
better at doing what they do, better, to explain, in that cars “air carrier aircraft.” But to be charitable, we’ll stipulate 300
are supposed to stay irmly planted on the ground instead pounds and an hour.
of ighting with all of its design might to avoid just that fate. Propulsion? Well, I don’t think the FAA will start certiicat-
So when I go somewhere, I like to ly there, and then, once ing aircraft without giving the engine its blessing, so we’re
I’ve arrived, I just get a car to drive around. here are free or talking about a certiicated or to-be-certiicated engine
cheap cars just about everywhere I’ve ever lown. And with capable of carrying a 275-pound person. I say 275 pounds
a couple of good car share apps on my phone, I can always to apply a factor for passengers being optimistic about their
just summon an Uber. weight. I supposed a weight-on-wheels sensor could ferret
But, for some reason, many ind the appeal of a lying out the overly optimistic riders, but then again, autonomous
car irresistible, to the point where a number of drone customers would self-select as optimists
lying cars have been built, though only two of to begin with.
them ever produced, with only a few examples ❯❯ “The most For a close analog, let’s talk a Robinson R22,
of each, at that. Several others are currently at optimistic scenario? the best-selling two-seat helicopter ever. It
various stages of development. Thousands of big, makes use of giant blades and a 180 hp engine
And with the rise in drone technology— autonomously de-rated to around 130 hp, and it features a
another subject endlessly fascinating to people, typical fuel payload of around 380 pounds. At a
and with some good reasons—it seemed inevi- controlled lying max weight of 1,370 pounds, that’s a pretty good
table that someone would comingle the lying taxis humming analog, right. So our imaginary drone would
car and drones and even go a step further, call- below rooftop level need to be at least 80% as powerful, so, let’s say
ing for a huge leet of on-demand autonomous in bustling city 110 hp, around the power output of a Lycoming
lying cars that customers can summon with the O-235 piston engine, which is a popular engine
lick of an app and away you go. Simple! Right? centers carrying live for light airplanes. Of course, we wouldn’t use a
It’s not, and here’s why. humans. Hmm.” piston engine at all, but a powertrain consisting
For starters: physics. We pilots know that it’s of an electric motor or motors drawing current
impossible to escape the realities of it (except in marketing from a stack of batteries.
meetings, of course). So let’s be generous and assume that the Let’s say that that combo of batteries, motors and props
aero design works out and you’ve got a lyable craft capable and supporting structure weighs in at the same as the fuel,
of performing its mission—carrying a single person from prop and powerplant of the small piston engine I suggested,
point to point with close to 100% reliability. his is, of course, and we’re looking at a weight for the aircraft, occupant
a huge assumption to make, but for the point of argument, included, of around 1,000 pounds, and, again, I’m being
we’ll concede that. Also for the sake of argument, let’s say generous here.
that every customer will be a single person and not a couple, Which brings me to the next point: Where will these
again a big concession. Let’s establish an upper weight limit things ly? I’m going to assume it will be around city centers,
LARA TOMLIN

of, say, 300 pounds. because that’s where people want to go and want or need to
Okay, so we need to envision a craft capable of carrying be, as shown by the large number of people in cities every

8 AUGUST 2017 Ç Plane&Pilot

day. So for the lying Uber to make any
sense at all, it would have to literally
go to town.
So here’s the most optimistic sce-
nario: a leet of big, autonomously con-
trolled lying taxis humming below roof-
top level in bustling city centers carrying
live humans. Hmm. hey will, after all,
have to land somewhere, right? But
where that is, I have no idea and no idea
about where to start iguring out where
to put these landing zones scattered
around the city for dozens or hundreds
of these lying taxis. And it couldn’t be
a single spot…that would defeat the
entire idea of lying taxis. People want
to go somewhere speciic.
Even if we were to assume that the
landing zone issue was solvable, what
would these drones do when, not if, they
have mechanical issues? Would they
autorotate down sans power but props
still spinning into the madding crowds of
pedestrians below, a thousand pounds
or more of whirring propeller blades?
It’s not a pretty picture to imagine for
the safety of pedestrians or vehicular
traic below. A whole-aircraft chute
makes great sense, but only until you
factor in the lack of suitable touchdown
zones or the additional weight, which
would require an even larger and more
powerful machine than we’d hypoth-
esized originally.
I could ask how today these problems
are being addressed by other small ly-
ing aircraft, helicopters. How do they
ly buzzing here and there low level in
the big cities? But the question would
be facetious. Nowhere in the world do
helicopters ly in such a fashion, for the
very reason that it would be a logistical
and safety nightmare.
I’ll skip the mechanical obstacles,
because it would be highly speculative,
but suice it to say that there will be no
magic involved in getting this aircraft of
the ground or keeping it lying.
In the end we’re looking at 1,000
pounds of metal, composites and lith-
ium-polymer batteries tooling around
the skies while avoiding wires, skyscrap-
ers and other lying craft while dealing
with the same kinds of complex weather
phenomena that today’s aircraft deal
with but in and among towering walls
of stone, glass and steel.
his is all, of course, assuming that
the FAA would give thumbs up to a
single-power-source craft of a type
never certiicated before performing
passenger-carrying commercial activi-
ties. For those of us who ly or know
about lying, we can chuckle. It might
happen, but not in my lifetime, and
I’ve hopefully got a handful of good
decades to go.
So I’m not worried about the safety of
the lying taxi passenger public. hey’re
in no danger. his idea might generate
publicity, as it has here, but in terms
of practical products, it’s not going
to happen.
here’s one really good thing it might
do, though. Such development will very
likely inspire new design ideas that
could be used in practical aircraft to
come, ones that ly much the same kinds
of proiles as we ly today and not imagi-
nary mission scenarios. hat kind of
research could do some real good. PP
planeandpilotmag.com 9
 PLANE
FUEL
Most commonlyusedaviation gasoline for
piston engines:
100LL
Dye used in 100LL: 1,4-dialkylaminoanthraquinone
(also called C.I. Solvent Blue 98)
Dye color: Blue
Average cost of 100LL in the U.S., April 2017: $4.75/gal.
Average cost of avgas in the U.S., 1980: $1.95

Density of avgas (all grades) at 15° C:

6.01 LBS./U.S. GAL.
Density of avgas (all grades) at -40° C: 6.41 lbs./U.S. gal.
Freezing point of avgas: -58° C
,TPZZPVUJVLɉJPLU[VMH]NHZ!18.4 lbs. CO2 per U.S. gal.
Octane rating: measures how much the fuel can be compressed
before it spontaneously ignites (knock/detonation)
Determining factor for minimum octane rating
needed in an engine: compression ratio
)LULÄ[ZVMOPNOLYJVTWYLZZPVUYH[PV!
more power for a given fuel burn
Tetraethyl Lead (TEL): additive mixed with gasoline to allow
increased engine compression without detonation
Chemical formula of TEL: C8H20Pb
Amount of TEL per 1 gal. 100LL: 1.2-2 grams
Chemist credited with discovery of efectiveness of
TEL as an antiknock additive:
THOMAS MIDGLEY JR.
Year of Midgley’s discovery: 1921
Also discovered by Midgley: use of ethylene bromide to expel
lead in exhaust to help prevent buildup in engine
/HYTM\SLɈLJ[ZVM;,3PUO\THUZ!lead poisoning; many
OHYTM\SLɈLJ[ZPUJS\KPUNUL\YVSVNPJHSJLSS\SHYHUK
immunological damage
Exposure risk: TEL can be absorbed through skin contact
with fuel or inhalation of exhaust (GA pilots most at risk due to
J\T\SH[P]LLɈLJ[ZVMYLN\SHYL_WVZ\YL
Problems with TEL in engines: spark plug fouling, lead deposits
in engine (especially if fuel octane rating
is too high for the engine)
Amount of lead (Pb) in 1 gram TEL: 640.6 milligrams
Only non-Chinese company producing TEL:
INNOSPEC SPECIALTY CHEMICALS,
HEADQUARTERED IN ENGLEWOOD, COLORADO
Use of TEL: banned for automotive use in many countries,
including the U.S.
Reason TEL is still used in avgas: no operationally
safe alternative is available yet
Most commonly used aviation gasoline for
turbine engines:
JET A-1
Freezing point of Jet A-1: -47° C (-53° F) or below
7YPTHY`KPɈLYLUJLIL[^LLU1L[(HUK1L[(!Jet A-1 is required
to have an anti-static additive
Density of Jet A-1 at 15° C: 6.71 lbs./U.S. gal.
Type of fuel, Jet A and A-1: kerosene-based (unleaded)
Color: straw-colored
,TPZZPVUJVLɉJPLU[VMQL[M\LS!21.1 lbs. CO2 per U.S. gal.
Average cost of 1 gallon Jet A, April 2017: $4.17
Average cost of 1 gallon Jet A, 1980: $0.87
Amount of aviation gasoline
produced in the U.S., 2016:
4,080,000 BARRELS
(TV\U[VMRLYVZLUL[`WLQL[M\LSJVTTLYJPHS
produced in the U.S., 2016: 576,317,000 barrels
Number of U.S. gallons per barrel: 42
(S[LYUH[P]LZ[V[YHKP[PVUHSQL[M\LS!biofuel and biofuel blends
Some biofuel components: municipal solid waste, used cooking
VPSQH[YVWOHJHTLSPUHHUKZ\NHYJHUL
Alternatives to 100LL: unleaded substitutes under development
via the FAA’s Piston Aviation Fuels Initiative (PAFI)
PAFI goal:
FINDING AND QUALIFYING UNLEADED AVGAS SUBSTITUTES
THAT WILL SAFELY WORK FLEET-WIDE
Members of PAFI Steering Group: AOPA, EAA, GAMA, NATA,
NBAA, FAA
Date PAFI began: June 2013
Original PAFI entrants: 17 formulations from 6 companies
Number of formulas that made it to Phase 1 testing: 4
Current status of PAFI: engine and aircraft testing of selected
formulas (Phase 2 testing)
Number of formulas in Phase 2: 2
Date Phase 2 began: Summer 2016
Date Phase 2 is scheduled to conclude: 2018
Phase 2 Formulas: Shell UL100 and Swift UL102
Only unleaded high-octane avgas to have an ASTM Production
:WLJPÄJH[PVUHWWYV]HS!Swift UL102 (ASTM D7719)
Number of U.S. GA aircraft that rely on 100LL for
safe operation: Approximately 167,000

10 AUGUST 2017 Ç Plane&Pilot

GEAR
Surprise: Garmin
Now Makes HuDs
Available on the new Cessna Citation
Longitude, the Garmin Head-up Display is an
eye-opening product in a number of ways
BY ROBERT GOYER
At the European Business Aviation
Convention and Exhibition (EBACE) in
Geneva, Switzerland, Garmin unveiled its
irst head-up display. The irst plane to get
the new HuD will be the Cessna Citation
Longitude, a super-midsized, long-range jet
closing in on certiication.
If you’re not intimately familiar with the
technology, a head-up display is a system
designed to enhance landing safety. As
you’re no doubt aware, a HuD projects all the
critical aircraft information on a glass lens
through which the pilot views the outside
world and, hence, the landing environment,
including the runway and all of its lights.
Such a system allows pilots to keep looking
outside the airplane while on approach
instead of alternating between looking out-
side for the runway and looking down to see
the light instruments, which on a HuD are all
right in the pilot’s line of vision and focused
at ininity, so the pilot doesn’t have to refocus
on the display after focusing on the runway.
HuDs make use of external sensors that
can see in darkness and through clouds to
give the pilot, under most circumstances, an
unobstructed view of the runway. Because
of all of this, HuDs can lower the landing
12 AUGUST 2017 Ç Plane&Pilot
minimum on a 200-foot DH ILS to 100 feet
AGL. A few years ago, I landed a Gulfstream
G650 back at Savannah, Georgia, in a
rainstorm that sent every other arriving light
packing to an alternate airport. We broke out
of the soup and saw the runway lights right
at 100 feet and I was able to plant the gear
on the aiming point, despite not being able to
see the runway until the last few seconds of
the approach. There’s been a lot of research
on HuDs that show they’re highly effective
at helping pilots ly more stable approaches
and make more consistent landings, even in
broad daylight.
HuDs have been improving in a few
important ways in recent years. Perhaps
most noteworthy is that sensors are getting
better at seeing through different kinds of
clouds, haze and smoke. Improved sensors
mean that pilots lying an approach behind a
HuD get higher-quality information and can
ly more accurate approaches. HuDs have
also gotten a lot more compact, especially
the ceiling-mounted units that project the
images onto the glass. Today, more informa-
tion than ever can be displayed on a HuD, a
trend that will likely continue.
No one should be too surprised that
Garmin is launching its own line of HuDs.
After all, the company’s business philosophy
has been, in ideal circumstances, to create
entire systems of Garmin-manufactured
equipment, instead of coexisting with other
products. We should remember that at one
point Garmin didn’t make autopilots, terrain
awareness gear, lat-panel displays or trafic
awareness utilities. HuDs, while arguably
the most complex hardware Garmin has yet
created, are consistent with the com-
pany’s roadmap.
The Garmin Head-up Display will be
integrated with its light decks, starting
with the G5000 on the Citation Longitude.
It will, says Garmin, have symbology that’s
consistent with other Garmin products, so
it won’t seem to the pilot that there are two
separate systems, but just one integrated
Garmin system.
And in yet another ambitious move,
Garmin says that it plans to integrate its
highly regarded Surface Watch ground
operations awareness utility into the Garmin
Head-up Display so that pilots will be able
to, presumably, keep their eyes outside
the cockpit from engine start to engine
shutdown. • garmin.com
 THE DIFFERENCE IS

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C ESSN A TT x

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14 AUGUST 2017 Ç Plane&Pilot

 ACCIDENTBRIEFS
CESSNA 172 SKYHAWK
Jay, Oklahoma: 1 Fatal
he private pilot was conducting a personal cross-country light.
Fuel records indicated that the pilot had purchased 9.56 gallons
of fuel the day before the accident. A witness reported observing
the pilot use fuel cans to add fuel to both airplane’s fuel tanks. he
witness saw the pilot taxi up and down the runway multiple times
and subsequently depart; he then drove to the nearby airport (the
pilot’s intended destination) to pick up the pilot. When the pilot did
not arrive, he reported the airplane missing. Responders tracked the
emergency locator transmitter signal, and a helicopter pilot spotted
the airplane in a ield near a tree line.
Upon examination, the propeller blades did not exhibit any
chordwise abrasions or leading edge nicks, consistent with the
engine not producing power at the time of impact. he fuel system
was found intact except for a separated line near the left fuel
tank. About 6 gallons of a blue-colored liquid consistent with the
smell and color of aviation gasoline (avgas) was recovered from
the right fuel tank. About 2 gallons of liquid consistent with avgas
was recovered from the left fuel tank. Each fuel tank could hold
21 gallons of fuel, of which 2.5 gallons was unusable. here was
some liquid consistent with avgas found in the carburetor bowl
and in the irewall-mounted strainer bowl. All found and recovered
liquid samples were tested for water contamination, and no water
contamination was observed. Observed airplane damage was
consistent with impact with trees and inverted impact with terrain.
he fuel valve selector handle was found in the “right tank”
position. However, no securing pin was installed in the selector
handle, and during postaccident examination, pressurized air
applied to the main fuel line at the irewall was observed discharging
from the left tank’s fuel line, which showed the selector valve fed
the engine from the left tank. he engine operated normally during
postaccident engine test runs. Based on the evidence, it is likely
that the engine was starved of fuel when the fuel selector handle
did not move the fuel selector valve to the desired position because
the necessary securing pin was missing. he airplane’s most recent
annual inspection was completed about 8.5 years before the
accident. he lack of routine maintenance on the airplane likely
eliminated the necessary opportunities for the missing securing pin
to be corrected.
PROBABLE CAUSE: he pilot’s negligent maintenance of
the airplane, which resulted in improper fuel management, fuel
starvation, and a loss of engine power during takeof due to a missing
securing pin in the fuel selector handle, and a subsequent forced
landing on unsuitable terrain.
PIPER PA-17 VAGABOND
Keene Valley, New York: 2 Nonfatal
he pilot reported that he attempted to hand prop the unoccupied
and unchocked airplane, but was unsuccessful. He returned to
the cockpit to prime the engine, but then decided to instruct his
passenger on how to enter and exit the cockpit, which she then
16 AUGUST 2017 Ç Plane&Pilot
practiced multiple times before exiting the airplane to watch the
start procedures again. he pilot further reported that he attempted
to hand prop the airplane a second time and the engine started and
accelerated to a high revolution per minute (RPM) setting. he pilot
was unable to restrain the airplane by holding the right wing lift
strut and the airplane made a right circle, entered a wooded area,
and impacted trees.
he airplane sustained substantial damage to the wings and
fuselage. he pilot later reported that the airplane was not equipped
with a parking brake.
he pilot reported that there were no preimpact mechanical
failures or malfunctions with the airframe or engine that would have
precluded normal operation.
Federal Aviation Administration’s Airplane Flying Handbook,
FAA-H-8083-3A, contains a section titled “Hand Propping” which
states: An engine should not be hand propped unless two people,
both familiar with the airplane and hand propping techniques,
are available to perform the procedure. he person pulling the
propeller blades through directs all activity and is in charge of the
procedure. he other person, thoroughly familiar with the controls,
must be seated in the airplane with the brakes set. As an additional
precaution, chocks may be placed in front of the main wheels. If this
is not feasible, the airplane’s tail may be securely tied. Never allow a
person unfamiliar with the controls to occupy the pilot’s seat when
hand propping. he procedure should never be attempted alone.
PROBABLE CAUSE: he pilot’s failure to use the proper hand
propping procedures, resulting in a runaway airplane and an impact
with trees.
ZENITH CH-750
Morristown, Minnesota: 1 Serious
he private pilot reported that he had started, warmed up, and
then shut down the engine about 1 hour before the accident light.
Shortly after takeof for the personal light, the airplane’s engine lost
total power. Subsequently, the pilot conducted a forced landing on a
hill, which resulted in substantial damage to the nose landing gear,
fuselage, and left wing.
he pilot said that he had fueled the airplane that morning
with 82-octane automotive fuel that he had recently purchased
from a service station. However, postaccident examination revealed
that the fuel was yellow in color and smelled like “aged” automobile
fuel. he top spark plugs appeared aged, and the electrodes were
corroded, which could have afected engine performance. he
airplane was not equipped with a fuel vapor return line to prevent
fuel vapor lock. Given that old automotive fuel was found in the fuel
system and that a fuel vapor return line had not been installed, it is
likely that the engine lost power due to vapor lock. It is also likely
that the corrosion of the spark plugs and the spacing of the electrode
gaps contributed to the loss of engine power.
PROBABLE CAUSE: A total loss of engine power due to fuel vapor
lock. Contributing to the loss of engine power were the corrosion of the
spark plugs and the spacing of the electrode gaps.
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 AIRFARE
By Dustin Joy
15,000 Hours
We all talk about it, but what is experience,
and why does it matter? 
S
ometime next month, I’ll write an entry in my logbook
signifying that I’ve spent 15,000 hours lying airplanes. his
strikes me as a momentous, but arbitrary number. Most peo-
ple don’t keep a detailed log of their work hours, nor do they break
those hours down into neat categories. Within my 15,000, I’ve spent
just shy of 13,000 hours in multiengine aircraft—just over 4,000
hours in turboprops and about 9,000 hours in jet aircraft. I’ve made
nearly 7,000 landings (some soft, and some, shall we say, irm).
15,000 sounds like a big number. When you cipher it out, that’s
1.71 years lying airplanes. When I relect that each light hour is
accompanied by several hours of planning, pre- and post-light
inspections, van rides to and from airports, and, of course, many
hours in hotel rooms, I’m sobered by the total. I get to do what
I love but, in the process, have spent many hours away from the
ones I love, my wife and kids.
What does it amount to, all this time? Does doing anything for
15,000 hours make you better, faster, stronger? Malcolm Gladwell,
in his book Outliers, proposes that 10,000 hours of “deliberate
practice” are required to become “world class” in any ield. He
proiles successful people who have reached the apex of their
professions. Gladwell says that the Beatles, for example, were
talented and lucky, but also, they practiced like crazy and spent
more than the requisite 10,000 hours playing gigs before they hit
it big. Lest you think I’m trying to cleverly include myself in this
cohort, I’ll concede that the only thing I have in common with
the Fab Four is that I have the same handsome nose as Ringo.
Some have criticized Gladwell’s theory. hey cite studies
showing that natural talent trumps practice and experience for
predicting success. Gladwell admits, “Practice isn’t a suicient
condition for success. I could play chess for 100 years and I’ll
never be a grandmaster. he point is simply that natural ability
requires a huge investment of time in order to be made manifest.”
I’m with Gladwell. Native talent may be necessary for the loftier
levels of success, but it’s not suicient. Genetic predisposition was
probably required for the phenomenon called Michael Jordan,
but that, alone, wasn’t enough to make a superstar. Jordan had
to take what he was given and work like mad to capitalize on it.
I was a light instructor before becoming an airline pilot. I
trained about 40 students in all. Included in that number were
a smattering of naturally gifted pilots, a handful who lacked
any “natural talent,” and the rest who fell in the middle of that
continuum. Also, when I consider my former students, I ind a
18 AUGUST 2017 Ç Plane&Pilot
few who worked their butts of every day, some who couldn’t be
persuaded to put forth any efort, and the majority who, again,
fell in the middle.
So, were the naturally talented folks also the hard workers?
I never found such a relationship. When the two phenomena
inhabited the same person, that person was unstoppable. But
when a talented person refused to put forth the efort, he often
failed. he inverse wasn’t necessarily true. Sometimes hard work
and practice overcome a lack of inborn talent.
I’ll give you an example. My student, Mark, was assigned to
me soon after I became an instructor. He was a hard worker.
He came to the lessons well prepared and with his assigned
reading completed. He had a deft touch on the yoke and didn’t
struggle with the basics of aircraft control. He had an intuitive
understanding of the relationship between thrust, drag, lift and
weight. He sped through the syllabus in minimum hours. When
it came time to let him solo, I had no reservations. Mark is now
a pilot for a major airline, and I feel conident that he’s a good
one. How could he not be?
Simultaneous with Mark’s enrollment, I was assigned a student
named Linda. Linda was smart. She was, in fact, a mechanical
engineer by trade when she decided to become a pilot. She was
organized, thorough and hard working. As an engineer, she
understood the physical forces and vectors involved in light.
What she didn’t have was “natural talent.” I think it was puzzling
and demoralizing to her. She could explain it all, but couldn’t
make it happen. She struggled with each maneuver. She did
landings over and over, but she simply didn’t have that “seat of
the pants” feeling. She couldn’t tell when she got too slow. She
couldn’t tell when she was too fast. She lared too early. She lared
too late. And she got frustrated. And I got frustrated. I did my
best to cheer her up and keep her motivated. And Linda didn’t
give up. She persevered. She’s now a pilot for a regional airline
like mine, and I’m conident that she’s a good one.
Finally, there was Alan. Alan came from an “airplane family.” His
dad was a captain for American, his mom was a light attendant
for U.S. Airways, his brother was a irst oicer at United, and his
grandpa was Chuck Yeager—probably. He came in with a lot of
hubris, a sense of entitlement, and I must admit, a great deal of
natural talent. Alan could ly “straight and level” in a remarkably
short time. He could land the plane in a remarkably short time.
And he ticked me of in a remarkably short time.
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 Alan, talented and smart as I think
he was, couldn’t be persuaded to study.
He wanted to ly airplanes, not learn
Bernoulli’s principle or FARs. Apparently,
he didn’t learn them. He failed his irst
checkride before he ever set foot in the
plane and made me look bad in the pro-
cess. he check airman told me that Alan
couldn’t explain basic VFR cloud clearance
requirements. I can assure you that he was
never put up for another checkride with-
out a torturous grilling the night before.
Alan went on to inish his private and then
dropped out of the program. If he went
on to the airlines, I never heard about it.
Talent is a great thing, if you have it,
but hard work is necessary, and it gives
the rest of us a ighting chance.
What about experience, the 15,000
hours? Talented or inept, hard worker
or slacker, am I a better pilot now than I
was at 100 hours, or 1,000? he answer is
clearly, yes. Experience makes you better.
It gives you a baseline for what normal is.
After 7,000 landings, I’ve seen what too
low looks like, and I’ve seen what too high
looks like. Do I still make hard landings?
20 AUGUST 2017 Ç Plane&Pilot
Yes, but fewer of them. After listening to
my little regional jet hum and buzz and
whir for 9,000 hours, I have a pretty good
sense of what sounds right. I know what
problems are serious, and I know what
problems are merely inconvenient. I’m
better at setting priorities now that I’ve
set the wrong priorities and dealt with the
consequences. After lying in the clouds
for many years, I can usually discriminate
between a benign pufball and an angry
towering cumulus. Do I always judge cor-
rectly? No, but I do so more often than I
used to.
Oscar Wilde said, “Experience is simply
the name we give our mistakes.” I say that
experience makes you better because it
gives you a catalog of mistakes to avoid
in the future. How do you get to Carnegie
Hall? Practice, practice, practice. Only by
hitting a lot of sour notes do we learn to
play the sweet ones.
A question I’ve been unable to answer
is this: Are some types of experience better
than others? Do hours spent in a modern
airliner with a competent irst oicer at
your side hone your lying skills like lying
sorties over Iraq in an F-16? Does landing a
Twin Otter on a gravel bar in Alaska make
you a better pilot than practicing stalls in
a Cherokee over the Florida Everglades?
It’s hard to say. Are hours in the logbook
just hours in the logbook? We all know,
intuitively, that they’re not.
My 15,000 hours shuttling passengers
between Dayton and Dulles is one kind of
experience. Perhaps those hours haven’t
had the impact of Lindbergh’s 33 over
the Atlantic or Sully’s four minutes over
New York City. But when I wake up my RJ
on a crisp fall morning at O’Hare, and my
smiling light attendant ofers me a hot
cup of cofee, and a little girl on her way
to grandma’s house in Des Moines sticks
her head in the cockpit to give me a crayon
drawing of me and my plane (with an extra
arm and an extra wing?), I’m content.
hat’s the kind of experience that goes a
long way in anybody’s logbook. PP
Dustin Joy is a Captain for a U.S. regional airline and a
former light instructor. He lives in western Illinois with
his wife and three kids where he enjoys ishing, garden-
ing, and beekeeping, none of which he’s very good at.
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 RISK
By Jason Blair
Inoperative
Equipment We
Learn To Live
Without (And
Shouldn’t)
Allowing yourself to get used to broken
equipment in your aircraft isn’t a
good solution
O
h, sorry, that hasn’t worked for a while,” the pilot said when
he noticed I was trying to tune the DME in his aircraft while
lying a couple of instrument approaches for his currency.
“What do you do when you ly an approach that requires
DME?” I asked him, hoping the answer was that he didn’t do
those since it wasn’t working.
“Well, I don’t actually do many IFR approaches, but when
I do run across that situation, I kind of rely on this,” he said, as
he pointed to his yoke-mounted portable GPS.
his led to a longer discussion about why it wasn’t appropri-
ate to use noncertiied equipment for instrument approaches,
but it also highlights something I see many times: pilots leav-
ing equipment inoperative in their aircraft instead of getting
it ixed or having it removed.
his is just one example of the many times I’ve found pilots
with something broken in their aircraft that obviously had
been inoperative for a signiicant period of time. hey have
“learned to live without it.” Unfortunately, it causes them to
either degrade their capabilities or rely on equipment not
properly certiicated to get the job done.
It’s easy to let this happen. I’ll even admit I’ve done it in
aircraft I’ve owned, even though I know better. It’s expensive
to get things ixed or replaced, but not doing it can lead to bad
habits, or worse.
When something breaks, say a panel light burns out, and
we don’t ind it critical to our typical light, we tend to ignore
it or at least delay ixing the problem. In fact, many times as
22 AUGUST 2017 Ç Plane&Pilot
pilots we “learn to live without” certain things that just don’t
work on our planes. Doing this increases the risk we encounter
on every light. hese risks can range from conducting lights
with less than ideal equipment resources to potential electrical
ires or even failure of light-critical systems.
Some of the most common things I see left not working
include second navigation and communication radios, DMEs,
ADFs, panel lighting and interior lights, to name a few. But
I’ve also seen aircraft being lown with nonfunctional turn
coordinators, and even lap motors and gear lights.
here are certainly things that pose greater risks than oth-
ers when left inoperative, but anything left uncorrected poses
a risk to the light, which should be mitigated. Inoperative
equipment leaves a pilot with fewer resources to complete their
intended light operations. A nonfunctional DME leaves a pilot
potentially forced to complete an instrument approach with
noncertiied equipment or without all of the required infor-
mation. An inoperative second glideslope indicator leaves the
pilot without the backup for the primary glideslope indicator
if it fails, the reason it was put in the aircraft in the irst place.
An inoperative light above a CHT gauge may leave the pilot
unable to notice a developing problem if the temperatures are
rising and it goes unnoticed on a night light.
While leaving less critical equipment such as a panel light
nonfunctional may not seem like a big deal, it may indicate a
more serious problem. For example, the reason for a failure of
this could be a bulb, or it could be an indication of something
shorting out. If that’s the case, it could result in a bigger problem
than just a faulty light, such as an electrical ire.
In a recent example, a fellow examiner called me about a
student he was going to be doing some lying with, asking ques-
tions about a speciic turbocharged aircraft. Something seemed
of to him when the student told him that he was experiencing
rising cylinder head temperatures, but that if they just turned
on the “hi-boost” pump the problem went away. For an aircraft
engine that was normally to be operated on a “low-boost” fuel
pump setting, the fact that the “hi-boost” needed to be turned
on when it was intended more for emergency or priming pur-
poses shouldn’t be a normal light procedure. he owner had
“gotten used to” doing this because it solved the problem. But
LARA TOMLIN
it doesn’t actually solve the underlying cause of the problem,
which is probably indicative of something more serious that’s
 +

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developing and is now being masked by a
nonstandard pilot action that has become
part of his “normal” light operations. he
examiner friend of mine has now strongly
encouraged the aircraft owner to seek
maintenance support before continuing
any additional light operations.
A potential side efect of “learning
to live with” some things not working
is that it develops complacency in the
pilot and the changes in our behaviors
may mask developing or more serious
conditions. his may lead to a tendency
to fail to address more critical systems
failures based on a habit of getting it
done with less than available equip-
ment functioning.
What should a pilot do when there’s
inoperative equipment in their aircraft?
Well, I typically advise owners to actively
follow a 3 R’s approach: repair, replace
or remove.
Repair. If something is broken, talk
with your maintenance provider and get
it ixed. Fixing a broken piece of equip-
ment ensures the pilot has all the proper
resources available to them in the aircraft
and limits the risk that an inoperative
component could result in greater prob-
lems. I know there’s a cost associated with
doing this for everything that’s broken,
but the cost of not ixing it could be more
than money; it could become a matter
of safety.
Replace. When something is broken,
Minutes from Cincinnati
s 'ATED FLY
IN COMMUNITY PERFECT FOR FLYING PROFESSIONALS
❯❯ “A potential side effect of
‘learning to live with’ some
things not working is that
it develops complacency in
the pilot and the changes
in our behaviors may mask
developing or more serious
conditions.”
it may not be the best idea to simply try
to ix it. Some equipment is harder to
ix, and replacing it may be necessary.
Older equipment is getting harder to
always directly replace and may be an
opportunity to replace and upgrade at
the same time. Is that old KX170B radio
not working in your instrument panel?
Why not upgrade it to a modern GPS/
Nav/Com unit that its in the same posi-
tion and will upgrade the capabilities of
your aircraft?
Remove. In some cases, there really
are items that can be removed. Most of us
aren’t lying NDB approaches anymore,
especially if we have an IFR-capable GPS
in our aircraft. If your aircraft has a non-
functional ADF in it, have it removed
s "UILDING SITES STILL AVAILABLE instructor and FAA Designated Pilot Examiner
at your next annual to eliminate the
potential that whatever is causing the
device not to work properly could cause
other problems. Some things will never
work again. Still have a LORAN in your
aircraft? No matter what your avionics
shop does to it, it isn’t going to get a signal
since the towers have long been turned
of. Removing inoperative, unused and
unnecessary equipment will mitigate any
potential risk it presents and clean up
your panel, and it also will give you back
a little weight and balance. If you have
equipment that’s really not being used,
consider removing it from the aircraft
completely as a viable option.
So what’s the worst thing I have
seen “let go,” you may ask? Well, there
have been a wide variety of things, but
I deinitely remember the checkride I
showed up to do, only to ind that the
pilot had taped down the circuit breaker
for his alternator. When I queried why
the alternator breaker was taped down,
the answer I got was, “It keeps popping;
the tape keeps it from doing that.” My
mind quickly imagined all the poten-
tial problems that could result from not
allowing the breaker to do its job, the
irst in my mind being an electrical ire.
I followed this answer with a discussion
of the potential problems this could be
masking and the risks that were present
with a breaker that was popping that was
forced to be held in place and not allowed
to do its intended job. Obviously, we
didn’t complete the checkride until
the problem was ixed.
As owners, it’s easy to get “com-
fortable” with some inoperative
equipment in our aircraft. Doing this
causes us to take additional risks
and may precipitate other problems
in our light operations. Flying with
inoperative equipment is a risk we
shouldn’t allow to become a normal
part of our routine. Mitigate the risks
of inoperative equipment by actively
dealing with current problems to
avoid developing future ones. PP
Jason Blair is an active single and multi-engine
s 0AVED LIGHTED RUNWAY WITH INSTRUMENT APPROACHES
s .O PROPERTY TAX ON AIRCRAFT BASED IN /HIO
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SANDY’S AIRPARK
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with 4,900 hours total time and 2,850 hours
instruction given. In his role as Examiner, over
900 pilot certiicates have been issued. He
actively works within the general aviation indus-
try and actively lies volunteer missions.

24 AUGUST 2017 Ç Plane&Pilot

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LESSON EARNED
ABOUT FLYING (AND ABOUT LIFE)
Lost In
Alaska
Changing weather and unforgiving terrain
make it all too easy to lose your way
By Patty Wagstaff
M
y logbook
entry on May
29, 1984, says
Cessna 185,
N93033, Dillingham to
Bethel, 1.5 hours, “Lost.”
he writing is small,
sheepish, hard to admit.
I was excited about my
irst big solo trip in the 185.
he 185 was the irst small
airplane I had lown, and
I had since been working
on my ratings, learning
aerobatics and getting tail-
wheel experience. I started
lying in Dillingham, about
300 miles southwest of
Anchorage, only accessible
by airplane or boat. My job
there took me to the region’s
native villages, and I had to
charter a small airplane to
get around. On the irst leg
26 AUGUST 2017 Ç Plane&Pilot
of my irst chartered light,
our Cessna crashed at the
end of a muddy airstrip
after our young pilot didn’t
use the entire length of a
short muddy runway. We
were shaken but not hurt
when we climbed out of
the upside-down Cessna,
and as I walked back to the
village, I realized that hav-
ing been around aviation
all of my life and having a
deep ainity for airplanes,
I could learn to be a much
better pilot than this guy.
One week later, I met Bob
Wagstaf at a dinner party.
He had lown to Dillingham
that day in his Cessna 185
and invited me to ly with
him the next time I was in
Anchorage. I couldn’t wait to
take him up on what would
be my irst lesson.
he Cessna 185 is a clas-
sic bush airplane. It’s solid to
ly, but is a bit heavy on the
controls and can be a bear
in crosswind landings. My
biggest challenge, however,
was its ergonomics. Most
Cessnas are designed to
accommodate an averaged-
sized man; the seats are only
so adjustable, and I had to
use two cushions to sit high
enough to see out the wind-
screen. But when I was sit-
ting high enough to see, my
arms weren’t long enough
to reach the lap handle on
the loor. So to add laps,
which is usually done in the
traic pattern or close to the
ground, I had to embrace
the yoke with my left arm,
then reach down to pull up
the laps while craning my
head up to see out in front
of me. I found ways to make
it work. I also was really ex-
cited that Bob agreed to turn
me loose with his airplane.
I had taken my irst lesson
in this airplane and now
taking it on this trip would
feel like an accomplishment,
closing the circle.
I lew the 185 from
Anchorage to Dillingham
to pick up my friend, Sue,
who was joining me on a
weeklong trip around west-
ern Alaska and the Yukon,
Denali and then ending in
Anchorage. After loading
the airplane with our gear,
we took of for our irst
stop about 150 miles to the
northwest, Bethel, a village
on the Kuskokwim River. he

country west of Dillingham
is some of the most pristine
GABRIEL CAMPANARIO
remote wilderness in the
world, including the Wood
River Tikchik Lake System, a
necklace of clear water with
fjord-like lakes renowned for
their diverse beauty and ish
and wildlife. he weather
was clear, and the visibility,
as it usually is in Alaska, was
unlimited. We continued
west toward the scattered
Ahklun Mountains, the high-
est mountains we would
have to cross before spilling
out onto the wide lat drain-
age of the Yukon Kuskokwim
Delta that would lead us to
Bethel.
he weather was clear
as we lew west, but just
after passing the chain of
lakes, the ceilings started
lowering, the sky started
darkening, and the terrain
started rising. he tall peaks
of the mountains ahead
started disappearing into
the clouds. he valleys in the
foothills lost their deinition
because the peaks were
their identifying feature,
but since I had conidence
in my ability to ly by
pilotage and IFR—I Follow
Rivers—I would bank on my
experience, and I continued
lying west.
Weather in Alaska isn’t
like weather in the Lower
48. It’s more extreme and
changes very quickly. Weath-
er reporting was almost
nonexistent, and today is
still a challenge. Learning to
read weather and knowing
when to turn around was a
key component to surviving
lying in Alaska. here are
huge distances between re-
porting stations or airports,
and you’re truly on your
own. We sometimes iled
multiday light plans with
multiple locations, but the
state is so big and remote, if
you have to land of-airport,
it can take days, even weeks,
to ind a downed airplane
equipped only with an ELT,
which is why the FARs re-
quire, when lying in Alaska,
onboard survival gear and
food for several days.
As we lew deeper into
the rising foothills, I was
following a river up a valley
that I thought would lead to
an exit on the other side, but
as the valley was narrowing
I started to doubt whether I
had identiied the river cor-
rectly. It all looked the same
and then it started snowing.
hat’s when it hit me like
a bullet that I didn’t know
where I was. I had no way of
knowing if I was following a
river into a valley that would
dead-end in a box canyon.
I had to turn around. Like
I’d been taught when in
this situation, I did a quick
180-degree turn before it
was too late to do one.
he visibility behind us
was better, but the ceilings
were low enough that we
were hemmed in on all sides
and I couldn’t see where
our “out” was. Which way is
out? We circled over a long
north-south valley and I was
tempted to follow it, but it
could have also been a dead
end into rising terrain. Hav-
ing some local knowledge
of the area would have
been invaluable.
At this point I was
thinking about my choices:
One, I could land in the tun-
dra, not wreck the airplane
and hope someone would
ind us, a humiliating defeat
after a long search-and-
rescue mission; two, I could
keep trying to ind my way
out of the maze of valleys
and mountains with deterio-
rating weather and possibly
run into a piece of granite; or
three, climb into the clouds
and try to ind our way back
to Dillingham. I didn’t really
have a choice; there was only
one way out, so I started
climbing. I had my instru-
ment rating but was afraid
to ly in the clouds by myself
and so had never gotten my
ticket wet—lying IFR solo.
I’d spent a lot of time lying
IFR with my husband, but he
was the pro and always lew.
planeandpilotmag.com 27
At this point I didn’t want to
scare Sue or have her doubt
me or cause me to doubt
myself, so I tried to sound
cool. I said I wasn’t comfort-
able pushing the weather so
we were just going to climb
up IFR and head back to
Dillingham. No big deal! I
have an instrument rating
and the airplane is equipped
with two VORs and an ADF.
She nodded and smiled and
seemed okay.
I’m a very resourceful
person. When something
starts to go wrong, I’m
already looking for the
solution and the next step.
But to be resourceful you
have to have resources. In
aviation, you have to always
have something in your hip
pocket that will get you out
of trouble—experience, lo-
cal knowledge, a 180-degree
turn, the rating, an “out.” We
always carried paper charts
with us, and I was using
either a Sectional or a WAC
chart, where each segment
of land is marked with its
highest obstacle. I was used
to noting this, and instantly
knew by my chart that the
highest peaks in the area
were about 6,000 feet. I spi-
raled up through the clouds
hoping we wouldn’t drift
out of position very much,
but there was no real way of
knowing, so I was incredibly
relieved when we climbed
past 5,900 feet and above all
the granite below us. I had
already known a couple of
people who had run into
mountains and didn’t want
to be one of them.
I climbed to over 10,000
feet where I could start to
relax and ly a compass
heading toward the east,
hoping to pick up the
Dillingham VOR. I could
have continued on to Bethel
but we had no way to know
what their weather was like.
28 AUGUST 2017 Ç Plane&Pilot
Still in the clouds, I tried
not to let Sue know how I
felt but I was tense waiting
for the VOR signal to come
in. Until then I had no way
of knowing how far from
Dillingham we were. Finally,
I saw the faint movement
of the VOR needles and the
signal coming in; we were
60 miles out. I started to re-
lax and my view came into
focus but looking outside,
I saw the left tire had a big
glob of rime ice covering
it. Did this mean the wings
were getting covered in ice,
too? I needed to descend
into warmer air, but with
mountains still below us I
couldn’t do that. I watched
and waited. he ice hung
on to the tire and a little on
the wings, but it didn’t seem
to get any worse. I told Sue,
“Piece of cake! We’ll be
home soon.”
he cockpit was quiet.
he radios were silent.
here was no one to talk
to, no ATC, no towered
airports and no cell phones.
On the plus side, we had a
lot of fuel and could have
lown for a couple of hours
more but there was really
nowhere else to go. I don’t
know if I emanated calm
and cool, but I think I had
Sue fooled. Maybe I was
fooling myself, too. he irst
time I soloed, I thought,
“Wow, they let me do this!”
as though I wasn’t really
capable, but deep down I
knew I was. And now I was
using all of the tools I had
learned as an Alaskan pilot
to get me out of trouble,
so maybe I shouldn’t
have been surprised that
I really was prepared. I
had training in decision
making, understanding
weather, how to get out of
snowstorms and turning
around in box canyons, car-
rying the right charts, lying
the right airplane.
I wasn’t looking
forward to shooting the
non-precision instrument
approach into Dillingham.
I had no idea how low the
ceilings had gotten and I
had never shot an actual
approach alone in the air-
plane, but when we inally
got the Dillingham ATIS I
think I must have willed it,
because it reported clear
skies right over the airport.
It was hard to believe when
all I could see were clouds,
but sure enough, when we
got there we descended
down through with the
runway in sight and landed.
Afterwards when tying the
airplane down, a pilot I
knew walked by and asked
where we came from. He
said, you must have been
IFR, in the goo? I nodded,
nonchalantly. Yeah, we
were. Later I called Bob
and told him about the trip
and he was proud of me. He
knew I was ready.
I still have the “Lost” in
my old logbook to remind
me of that metallic taste
of fear and disbelief. It
reminds me how quickly
things can go wrong and
how a pilot always needs to
be one step ahead and al-
ways have an out, as well as
how important developing
and practicing good proce-
dures is because we always
revert to those in a tight
situation. Interesting, too,
is that I think compassion
played a part in my ability
to deal with an uncomfort-
able situation because I
wanted in no way to upset
or endanger my friend. In
the end, of course, luck and
fate always play a part. I
could have lown one more
minute with fatal results, or
I could have popped out on
the other side of the valley,
I’ll never know, but I do
know it’s best to only lirt
a little with fate and not
tempt it too much.
he next day Sue and
I took of again into much
improved weather and
had a fun and memorable
journey. My logbook says
Bethel, Aniak, McGrath,
Galena, Ruby, Tanana,
Fairbanks; Ruth Glacier
Amphitheatre, Talkeetna,
Merrill Field; Kuskokwim,
Yukon, Tanana Rivers.
Whenever we landed peo-
ple were surprised to see
two girls get out of the 185,
and I thought it was great.
Why not?! he favorite
line we heard on the entire
trip was after landing in
Aniak: “I’ve seen one girl in
a 185, but I’ve never seen
two of them!” PP
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Cirrus SF50
Vision Jet
An epic light in the
irst truly personal jet

BY ROBERT GOYER
 p where we were, it was
smooth, cruising along
at Flight Level 270, Utah’s
Painted Desert, swaths of
reds, browns and golds pan-
ning behind us as we lew. Just like the
light, we were, as they say, golden, with
pilots in other planes at altitudes both
below us and above squawking nonstop
about the rough rides they were sufer-
ing. Here in the 20s, not only were we by
ourselves—the airliners thousands of
feet above us and the pistons thousands
below—but we were also apparently the
only ones enjoying a smooth ride. Not a
bump anywhere.
It’s an apt metaphor for the remark-
ably successful Cirrus Jet, a single-engine,
300-knot 5-7-seat personal jet, that exists
in a space all its own. here’s no airplane
that’s a direct competitor, only ones that
are possible alternatives.
Part of this is because, well, the SF50,
for which Cirrus earned type approval
late last year and production approval,
impressively, just a few months later, is
the only single-engine jet. And at a price
of $1.96 million, the air gets even more
rariied. he airplanes that are competi-
tive in terms of price aren’t as fast or
can’t go as far, or both, and the would-be
competitors that can match or beat its
performance cost a lot more. It’s been
a kind of sport to beat up on the SF50’s
performance numbers, but that takes
performance in a vacuum, removed from
the very real issues of purchase price and
direct operating costs, not to mention the
di
veery real and more diicult to quantify
quuality-of-life issues.
I’ll admit that for years I misunder-
stood the aircraft. I was confused when
th
he company announced the jet and its
peerformance targets, and I was baled as
orrders built, eventually rising to around
600 orders today. Still, I wanted to ly the
jet. I have seldom, if ever, been so anxious
to get to ly a new model. In part, I admit,
it was because I igured I must have been
missing something.
I was right. I was.
he Cirrus SF50 Vision Jet is one of the
most talked about airplanes in GA his-
tory, and its on-again-of-again business
history underscores the great risk and
challenge of bringing a jet of any descrip-
tion to market. he costs, complexity,
regulatory hurdles and engineering
budgets surrounding an efort like this
would tempt any inancial analyst to
abort takeof before decision speed, that
is, the speed at which you need to hit the
brakes right now or commit to taking of.
I was up in Duluth, Minnesota, the
then-home of Cirrus Design, not yet
Cirrus Aircraft, when the company
launched the jet with a full-sized mockup.
Over the intervening years, the company
went through struggles related to the
economy and to bringing a jet to market.
It was a rocky road getting there, a subject
about which I could devote a long article,
but the bottom line is, they succeed.
SINGULAR CHALLENGES
When it comes to designing a single-
engine jet, there are a number of engineer-
ing challenges that one can best describe
as treacherous.
he Cirrus brain trust, in fact, designed
several of those problems out from the
get-go, giving the jet a ceiling of 28,000
feet, the same as single-engine turbo-
props, which routinely ly in the mid- to-
high 20s, where a pressurization failure,
while still an emergency of the irst order,
isn’t nearly as potentially lethal as such
a failure would be in the high 30s. he
ceiling also eliminates the need for the
manufacturer and owners to get RVSM
approval, which is a diicult task.
It’s also important to remember the
SF50 isn’t a particularly powerful jet.
Its single engine, a Williams FJ-33, is a
smaller version of the hugely popular
FJ-44, which debuted on the CitationJet
in the early ’90s and which has racked up
an impressive record of reliability and
performance. It’s safe to say that many
of the potential problems for the FJ-33
were discovered and solved decades ago
on the larger engine. So, in this case, the
introduction of a new engine didn’t come
with the same degree of risk as it might
otherwise have carried with it.
he 1,800-pound thrust Williams pow-
erplant is also, well, sized just right for
the Cirrus jet. With its ine speciic fuel
eiciency numbers, the jet gets good
range even in the 20s, where turbofans
are less eicient than turboprops and
where the air is slightly thicker, allowing
slower true airspeeds. Bottom line: Jets
typically belong in the mid-30s and above,
but with less power comes less potential,
so the fact is that the Cirrus Jet probably
isn’t leaving too much on the table by
not sticking with sub-RVSM light levels.
Oh, and for ice protection, Cirrus went
the conventional route, with boots for the
wing leading edges and tail leading edges
and TKS for the other vulnerable areas.
here’s also, as you probably know,
too, a whole-airplane-recovery parachute
system, which features a giant canopy.
Unlike the mechanically deployed chute
in its singles, the chute in the jet is tied in
with the autolight system. When the pilot
pulls the big red handle, the system slows
the plane to the max deployment speed
of 135 knots before the rocket is ired.
he interval between pull and the rocket
iring can be lengthy, but automating the
speed target, says Cirrus, takes a lot of the
risk out of the deployment.
Another good thing about the lesser
power of the FJ-33 is that the Vision Jet
doesn’t exhibit a lot of pitch deviations
when power is applied or reduced, a
result, in part, of putting the engine very When you’re lying a jet you don’t want just any kind of door; you want an airstair door, and Cirrus
close against the fuselage and, again, with knocked it out of the park on this one. Light, easy to operate, impossible to close incorrectly, and
still big enough to allow easy entry, the SF50’s door makes getting into a Cirrus easier than ever.
it being a lower-powered turbofan.
he other part of the equation is the
design of the SF50’s tail. As you see in well, with the exception of the chute, in back ofer enough room only for kids
the accompanying photos, the tail, while about which I hoped I’d learn very little. or the occasional lying-friendly pooch,
reminiscent of the empennages of some with the center seat, located just behind
other models, is unlike any GA plane ever CABIN RULES but directly in the middle, leaving the
produced. he V-tail shape isn’t necessary he SF50’s cabin, like many other ele- space in front of it empty and afording
for a single-engine jet, but unless you ments of the jet’s design, is unlike any- that middle-back row seat about six feet
want to put the engine inside the fuselage thing you’ve seen before. here’s a single of leg room. For all intents and purposes,
or mount it as part of the vertical tail (as door on the left side of the plane, so the SF50 is a ive-seat airplane with two
Piper did with its short-lived PiperJet), the everybody boards via that portal. It’s jump seats.
V-tail is the route to take, as it frees up not easy to make a great door, and it’s Up front, the pilots’ seats are well
the real estate for the turbofan’s exhaust even harder to build one that’s light in situated, with a good deal of headroom,
to shoot out. weight, but Cirrus pulled it of. he bifold and the shoulder room is so good Cirrus
This isn’t unique to light GA but door opens to reveal a good-sized open- probably could have wedged a third seat
another feature of it is: the dual strakes ing. he pilot’s seat slides far forward to in there. he windscreen is divided in the
on each ruddervator. he strakes are give the back-seat passengers easy entry, middle by a structural member, but the
controlled not by the light controls but and there’s plenty of room for the right- forward visibility is nevertheless quite
by computer, to help control the ten- seat occupant/co-pilot (it is, of course, a good while the side view is nothing short
dency of such tails to exhibit instability single-pilot jet) to get into the right seat. of spectacular.
in Dutch roll. Cirrus left a huge open area in the he avionics suite is the Garmin G3000
In addition, Cirrus designers canted center of the cabin. he two middle-row system, which Cirrus has tweaked to be
the engine’s outlet, based on the results of seats are situated at the side of the cabin. a great it for the Vision Jet. here are
light testing, to further ine-tune stability. Behind them are three seats up against two big, 14-inch displays up front, while
I would soon see how well it all worked, the rear bulkhead. he two outward seats a step below and closer to the pilots are

32 AUGUST 2017 Ç Plane&Pilot

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LEFT: Cirrus’ Matt Bergwall (near right) and the
author at FL270, cruising along at 300 knots on
67 gallons of Jet A per hour.
BOTTOM LEFT: The start sequence on the Cirrus
Jet will make pilots type-rated in most other jets
long for such simplicity.
BOTTOM RIGHT: The passengers in the SF50
have huge amounts of legroom and headroom,
and fantastic views of the outside world.
three touch controller displays mounted
sideways, the far right one being a more
or less dedicated comm controller. Like
its piston-single counterparts, the SR22
and SR20, the SF50 features side-sticks,
though these are actual sidesticks and
not side yokes, which travel fore and aft
like a conventional yoke, as is done on
Cirrus’ piston planes.
Without going into a great deal of
detail on G3000, suice it to say that the
system is a great it for the Vision Jet, and
that this installation has a number of
features that I’ve never seen on Garmin’s
touch-controlled system before. A few of
them would come in very handy down
the road.
here’s also a irst for a Cirrus, real-
time radar, which is a great addition but
will certainly present a learning curve for
new jet pilots, and I suspect that some
34 AUGUST 2017 Ç Plane&Pilot
time will be spent during training for
the type certiicate on just that subject.
FINALLY FLYING THE SF50
I had agreed to meet Cirrus’ Matt Bergwall
in Van Nuys, California (KVNY), the
famous jet port, the perfect spot to
ly the latest in jet technology. It was
Sunday morning when we climbed into
the jet for the trip, and from the start
lying the jet was illed with new, unex-
pected experiences.
he light-planned mission was to ly back
to Austin, Texas. he idea was to give me
the chance to get a feel for how the jet
would perform in real-life missions and
not as a chariot for getting to the latest
classic car show, golf weekend or marlin
ishing tournament.
Even the prelight was a pleasant sur-
prise. here are a number of tasks that
you need to do in a jet that are either
not required or are routinely shrugged
when lying a piston single. In the SF50, a
number of those tasks normally done with
pencil and paper are automated, includ-
ing weight and balance, which you can do
graphically, as well as the calculations for
takeof and landing speeds.
Likewise, again, thanks to ingenious
design by Cirrus and Garmin with the
Perspective Touch system, the start
sequence on the SF50 is just as easy. After
you initiate the start, the system runs its
own series of checks on everything from
TAWS to ire suppression. he start itself
is just as easy. Move the dial from “OFF”
to “RUN,” push the start button just above
it, and watch the Williams FJ-33 start
itself. In case of a bad start, it even will
shut itself down. For those observers who
understandably questioned how well less
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 experienced pilots might transition to the
many technical details of lying jets, the
user-friendly design of the start sequence
indicates clearly that Cirrus was ahead
of that issue.
Once you get rolling, forward taxi vis-
ibility is terriic. You steer the jet with its
steerable nosewheel, but if you’re coming
from an SR22 and are used to using dif-
ferential braking, well, that will actually
help matters considerably.
We were pretty close to max take-
of weight for our departure from the
8,000-foot runway, and as we got cleared
for takeof and I poked the takeof/go-
around button on the thrust lever, which
made the light director chevrons magi-
cally appear on the PFD, showing me
graphically what I knew already, that
my pitch attitude was going to be sub-
stantially less than on any jet I’d lown. I
looked over at Matt, made a quick check
of trim and laps and engine parameters
as I pushed the thrust lever to takeof
power, and away we went.
Rotation speed that day was 90 knots,
and it took a while to get there on that
warm morning. I, again by training,
couldn’t stop myself from looking for
V1, the speed at which you’re committed
to go lying in the event one of the engines
fails. here’s no V1 in this jet because if the
one and only engine quits on you, you’re
not going anywhere except for the brakes
regardless of what speed you’re at. his is
one of the downsides of a single-engine
jet, the lack of redundancy, and nowhere
will this be more acutely felt than at this
juncture of any light.
Needless to say, it wasn’t an issue, and
I rotated the jet at 90. While still a very
satisfying feel, the control response of the
SF50 is heavier than I’d expected, though
I’m not sure why I expected diferently.
he procedures for takeof are more like a
high-performance single than like any jet
I’ve lown. Positive rate, gear up, laps up

TOP: The Williams FJ-33 hugs the top of the

fuselage and creates very little pitching moment
when power is applied or reduced.
MIDDLE: The V-tail features a pair of strakes
that are computer-controlled to manage yaw
and dutch roll. It works great.
BOTTOM: The Vision Jet features large, nicely
placed windows, good for passengers and pilots
alike. An emergency escape hatch is seen at
the right in this shot.

36 AUGUST 2017 Ç Plane&Pilot

at 115 knots and pull back to maximum
continuous power when it’s safe to do
so. I felt supremely un-busy, though I did
have the advantage of Matt running the
radios while I got to know the airplane.
Unlike on other jets, where busting
the speed limit for the airspace you’re in
is a real risk, you don’t need to worry so
much about that in the Vision Jet. Its one
1,800-pound thrust engine isn’t going to
rocket you through 250 knots in a hurry,
so that’s one less thing to worry about.
In fact, I found it really easy to manage
while hand lying the step climb imposed
upon us on a surprisingly busy weekend
morning in the Valley.
he light director will give you 160
knots indicated for the climb, which is a
typical igure for the jet, and at that setting
and MCT, we were burning 75 gallons per
hour. In jets you typically go by pounds per
hour, which takes a while for pilots to get
used to when transitioning to turbines,
but on the Vision Jet, Cirrus chose to go
with the more piston-pilot-friendly gal-
lons per hour index, which seems suitable
since the igures are so low.
In no huge hurry, we enjoyed a long,
vectored circumnavigation of the south
San Fernando Valley, step climbing all the
way. he visibility was so good we might
have been able to see, forget Catalina,
Hawaii, had it not been for the curvature
of the earth. After a bit, we got turned
northward, in smooth air, and continued
our climb above and beyond the San
Gabriel Mountains, passing just south of
Rogers Dry Lake and Edwards Air Force
Base, where they’ve tested a few jets in
their day as well.
One of the greatest and most over-
looked achievements of the SR22 is
the simplicity of the power and fuel
38 AUGUST 2017 Ç Plane&Pilot
management chores. hese same tasks
in the jet are, if anything, even easier.
he power management is via FADEC,
so that’s even easier and smarter than
the simpliied power management on
the singles, and keeping an eye on the
fuel involves pretty much just keeping
an eye on it, as the system automatically
switches the fuel tanks it’s drawing from
based on the levels.
“IT WILL TAKE PILOTS WITH
EXPERIENCE IN OTHER
JETS SOME GETTING USED
TO WHEN THE SF50’S
WINDSCREEN FILLS WITH A
VIEW OF THE TERRAIN BELOW
AND THE AIRSPEED SOMEHOW
MAGICALLY REFUSES TO
BUILD MUCH.”
he trip was around 1,200 nm, and
with a forecasted 25 knots of tailwind,
we could have probably made it nonstop.
Matt likes the word “probably” about as
much as I do, and I was looking for a little
more hand lying anyway, so we scheduled
a no-brainer stop about halfway to Austin,
in Taos, New Mexico. But as we lew, the
temps out that way were rising faster than
forecast, and with moderate turbulence
and wind shear expected, we decided
to go to Santa Fe instead, for its longer
runways and slightly lower elevation.
Cruise in the SF50 is much to my
delight exactly what Cirrus said it would
be…no, actually, it was consistently a
little better even than that. Heading east
at FL270, we were truing 300 knots or a
couple of ticks higher while burning just
over 65 gallons per hour of jet fuel. he
view was amazing. I took a lot of photos
with my iPhone, some of which featured
the striking landscapes of the American
Southwest as framed in the cool oval
windows of the jet.
ARRIVAL
As we got cleared for the descent into
Santa Fe, we made use of the Garmin
G3000’s Vertical Descent Proile display
on the MFD to see exactly where we were
on the descent and where the terrain was,
too. Going into Santa Fe from the west, we
lew directly at the ridgeline to the east of
the airport, which was more disconcert-
ing in visual conditions than in IMC, I’m
certain, before getting the turn to inal.
As we descended, we encountered
strong moderate turbulence below the
ridgelines. Matt and I were both happy we
had opted for Santa Fe. As we descended
on the arrival and turned inal for the
RNAV for the 8,300-foot-long Runway
20, I extended the irst notch of laps and
watched the airspeed melt away. For those
pilots used to the relative challenge of
speed control in the SR22 (which requires
more art than technique, I sometimes
think), nailing the speeds in the SF50 is
cake. With laps that can come in at 190
knots and go to full at 150 knots, along
with the gear, which you can extend at a
high 210 knots, you’ve got tools galore.
In fact, it’s so easy to ly the SF50 in
its slow speed regime it has powers that
RIGHT: Our light in the Cirrus SF50 Vision Jet was far from an afternoon
stroll in the park. Our last leg was into an area of fast-building convective
activity, but with a plethora of information on the status of the storms,
we kept the wings dry and made an uneventful landing near our original
destination.
BELOW: Everything from startup to shutdown is done through the
Perspective Touch cockpit. The Garmin suite features three landscape touch
controllers, the far right of which is a dedicated comm panel. With large,
multi-pane-capable displays, the avionics suite gives SF50 lyers the option
to customize the view to meet the needs of every phase of light.

previously only turboprops could boast.
For lack of an oicial term, I call it heli-
copter mode. At dinner the night before
our long light, we ate with a number
of Cirrus demo pilots who were in Van
Nuys for a sales event. A couple of them
referred to the nose-down attitude you
can cop in the jet, and in Santa Fe I saw
it irsthand, and frankly, it will take pilots
with experience in other jets some getting
used to as the windscreen ills with a view
of the terrain below and the speed some-
how magically refuses to build much. In
my notes for the light, my one remark
about helicopter mode was comprised
of a single word, “Wow.”
Our reference speed for our approach
was just 90 kias, so when Cirrus jokes
about the SF50 being the slowest jet,
it’s a backdoor brag, too. he jet doesn’t
need a lot of runway. My irst landing was
terrible, and I made every mistake Matt
warned me not to make, which shows that
Matt pays attention and also how slow

planeandpilotmag.com 39
 Cirrus SF50 Vision Jet
The Cirrus SFR50 Vision Jet we lew for this report was a nicely equipped 2016 factory demonstrator outitted with TCAS, TAWS,
Vertical Situation Display, Garmin color weather radar, Iridium satellite communciations, envelope protection, and much more.
» PRICE: $1.96 MILLION
» MAIN CONSTRUCTION: COMPOSITE
» ENGINE: WILLIAMS INTERNATIONAL
FJ33-5A, 1,800 LBS. THRUST
» AVIONICS: CIRRUS PERSPECTIVE
TOUCH BY GARMIN
» SEATS: 5-7
» BAGGAGE CAPACITY: 300 LBS.
» EMPTY WEIGHT: 3,541 LBS.
» MAXIMUM RAMP WEIGHT: 6,040 LBS.
» MAXIMUM TAKEOFF WEIGHT:
6,000 LBS.
a learner I am. I lared too high, as Matt
predicted I might, and my recovery was a
bit ham-handed, too. he entire approach,
in my defense, was Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride,
with multiple episodes of plus or minus
10-knot wind shear and squirrely, gusty
winds once we arrived above the tarmac.
he learning curve has to do not with
the landing qualities of the jet—it’s really
very conventional—but with the sight
picture. First, the visibility is so good
it’s hard to get a good read on how high
you are—apparently, the efect is that
you think you’re lower than you actually
are. he good news is that even with a
40 AUGUST 2017 Ç Plane&Pilot
» FULL FUEL PAYLOAD: 498 LBS.
» USEFUL LOAD: 2,499 LBS.
» FUEL CAPACITY: 2,000 LBS.
USABLE/295 GAL.
» WINGSPAN: 38.7 FT.
» LENGTH: 30.7 FT.
» HEIGHT: 10.9 FT.
» CABIN LENGTH: 11.5 FT.
» CABIN WIDTH: 5.1 FT.
» CABIN HEIGHT: 4.1 FT.
» PRESSURE DIFFERENTIAL: 6.1 PSI
high lare, a short recovery and a bit of a
bounce—the trifecta—we still used well
less than half of our runway length. And
it was in spite of and not because of my
brilliant technique.
INTO THE STORMS
After lunch and much talk of the jet, Matt
and I headed out again. After a routine
takeof, we climbed out, direct to FL270,
which was in stark contrast to our earlier
step-climb tour of the Los Angeles basin.
Expect around 2,000 fpm for the climb,
again, substantially less impressive than
in any entry-level twinjet.
» MAX CRUISE SPEED: 308 KTS
» CRUISE SPEED: 300 KTS
» MAXIMUM OPERATING ALTITUDE:
28,000 FT.
» MAXIMUM CLIMB RATE: 2,500 FPM
» MAXIMUM ECON RANGE: 1,200 NM
» STALL, LANDING CONFIGURATION:
67 KTS.
» TAKEOFF DISTANCE:
2,036 FT./3,192 FT. (50-FT. OBST.)
» LANDING DISTANCE:
1,628 FT./3,011 FT. (50-FT. OBST.)
We also saw that on the Sirius/XM
weather that the earlier FAA forecast for
possible convective activity in Central
Texas, where we were headed, was look-
ing like a big understatement, as mul-
tiple lines of storms formed and marched
southwest to northeast.
As we lew what was planned with an
ETE of one hour and ifty minutes, we
watched the storms on XM grow. First,
they engulfed San Antonio, just south of
our destination of San Marcos, and we
began looking for alternates farther north
and farther west. To avoid a particularly
nasty area of weather just southwest of
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the Dallas Class Bravo, we got a longcut
(is that a word?) to take us east with a
planned 75-degree turn to the right. By
then, however, the storm had moved
farther north and San Marcos was get-
ting hit hard. Our next alternate, Austin
Executive, north of the international air-
port in Austin, was our next great idea,
until the storms started moving north
toward it, too.
In the stormy darkness, we finally
decided on Temple, about 60 miles north
of Austin, because it still had marginal VFR
conditions and no nearby storms…yet.
As the controller descended us down to
3,500 and toward our alternate, we broke
into the clear below what looked to be a
uniform ceiling above us at around 4,000
feet. With good visibility and no sign of
storms visually or on either radar between
us and the airport, we decided again to
give Austin Executive another look. Sure
42 AUGUST 2017 Ç Plane&Pilot
keep the temps in the green with margins much
tighter than most humans are comfortable with.
the autopilot is astounding. It will even slow the
enough, as we approached we saw a clear
path with storms visible but not in the way.
We cancelled IFR in visual conditions and
I hand lew the approach, going directly
to the runway. As we approached, Matt
demonstrated again the helicopter mode
descent and despite our cutting the corner,
the glidepath marker was soon centered
and our approach stabilized. Matt handed
me back the plane and I made my second
landing in the jet, lightning blazing along
a storm wall 10 miles to the northwest.
My second landing of the day was, well,
not perfect, but really good, and I braked
aggressively and exited the runway at an
intersection that piston singles some-
times miss.
I was home and I was sold. All of a
sudden, the success of the jet made a lot
of sense to me. Here you have a 300-knot
jet with economy and comfort that rival
or surpass some turboprops while ofering
LEFT: FMS waypoint information displayed on
the far-left controller makes it easy to keep
track of the light plan and make changes.
BOTTOM LEFT: The FADEC Williams FJ-33s
BOTTOM RIGHT: The range of capabilities of
jet down to optimal chute deployment speed.
an ease of operation comparable to some
high-performance piston singles.
Cirrus has 600 orders for the jet, and
while a lot of those early orders were locked
in at a price of around $1.4 million, there’s
a healthy market for those positions with
buyers gladly paying a premium—some-
times over the current $1.96 million ask-
ing price—to get their SF50 sooner. he
company hopes to turn out 40 of the jets in
2017 and 80 in 2018, ramping up from there.
Once again, as it did with the intro-
duction of the SR20 and SR22 with their
revolutionary design innovations, Cirrus
has disrupted the aircraft manufacturing
industry. Today, there’s a sub-$2 million
option for proicient pilots of high-perfor-
mance singles and twins to move into the
world of lying their own single-engine jet.
And after my light, I saw that it did, indeed,
make a lot sense. Again, my one-word note
on the subject applies. “Wow.” PP
planeandpilotmag.com 43
 he Cub is such an icon of light aviation
that it’s easy to forget some important
things about the actual airplane
B Y RO BE RT G OY E R
T
he Piper Cub is coming up on
80 years young. Expect to see
lots of them, plus a number of
Cub-related special events, at
this year’s Oshkosh AirVenture. As you
know if you’ve been reading my views
on things for very long, I’m not a big fan
of anniversaries, but if there’s a purpose
to them, it’s to remind us to look at the
big picture of our lives and the world
around us and relect on it all for a few
minutes—at least between our email
notiications and Facebook feeds.
So it is with the Piper Cub, whose 80th
birthday is being celebrated this year.
And I’ve been thinking about the J-3,
and relecting upon its odd place in the
aviation pantheon. So, in no particular
order at all, here are 10 musings on the
greatest muse in aviation history.  learn, however, that it seemed that way
10. WHAT BIRTHDAY?
he 80th anniversary, as 80th anni-
versaries often do, falls just
five years after the 75th
anniversary of the little
taildragger. If you do
the math, that puts the
Cubbie’s b’day smack-
dab in the middle of
1938. hat’s a problem.
44 AUGUST 2017 Ç Plane&Pilot
As you probably know, the J-3 Cub is,
in nearly every respect, the same air-
plane that C.G. Taylor designed almost
a decade prior, and the immediate pre-
decessor, the J-2 Cub, sold more than
a thousand copies. he Taylor Cub is a
two-seat taildragger you solo from the
back seat. he J-3 and the “Piper” brand
name were both a result of Bill Piper
taking control of the company from his
former partner. Admittedly, in terms of
sheer numbers built and notoriety, the
J-3 is the real star of the lineage, but the
distinction between J-2 and early-model
J-3s is minimal, at best.
9. AN ANTIQUE LONG
BEFORE ITS TIME.
By convention, an antique is considered
an item that’s 50 years old or older. So,
if the Cub seems antique to you today,
it should. You might be surprised to
to pilots of the day less than 10 years
after it debuted. he pace of aviation
innovation was rapid in the 1930s,
so technologically speaking,
the Cub got left in the
wake of sleeker, faster
planes from its incep-
tion. Consider that the
Beech Bonanza came
about just 10 years
after the Cub and was
twice as fast, carried twice as many
people and could go three times as far
as a Cub. 
8. ADVERSE YAW MUCH?
he Cub isn’t a great lying airplane,
though it’s an airplane that’s great fun
to ly. It has a lot of what’s known as
adverse yaw, so when you make a turn
in the plane, by its aerodynamic nature it
gets uncoordinated, a condition that the
pilot corrects for, as much as possible,
with the rudder pedals. Adverse yaw
can be largely designed out of an air-
plane, as it would be in the soon-to-come
Bonanza and in countless Pipers that
would come down the road as well. hat
all said, pilots love the lying manners of
the Cubbie, quirky or not. In fact, some
believe that the Cub’s challenging lying
“PIPER J3C-65 CUB” BY VLIEGEND MUSEUM SEPPE - CC BY-SA 2.0/FLICKR
manners make pilots into real pilots
because they have to use their feet to
ly the Cub. I wouldn’t argue their point.
7. THE CUB
WAS UNDERPOWERED.
he irst Cub featured a whopping 37
horsepower. he optional “high-per-
formance” package boosted that to a
mind-blowing 40 horses. Customers
wanted more, and Piper kept on upping
the horsepower, but 65 horses was all the
J-3 would ever get. hat was okay. Sixty-
ive ponies seemed just right.
There will be a lot
of Piper J-3 Cubs
at this year’s EAA
AirVenture, with
a planned mass
arrival of dozens
of the yellow-
winged wonders.
6. PIPER STARTED
UPGRADING ITS ICON
FROM THE BEGINNING.
Bowing to customer demand, Piper
introduced new models of the Cub, some
with side-by-side seating, others with
improved entry and still others with
shorter wings for better performance and
better handling. Ultimately, the lagship
Piper tube-and-rag taildragger wasn’t
a taildragger at all. he Piper Tri-Pacer
had 160 horses, a claimed cruise speed of
better than 130 mph, room for four and
a nose gear. It’s a pretty ungainly-looking
bird, and, yes, it did take me a minute to
come up with “ungainly” instead of the
other “U” word. Sorry, Tri-Pacer fans.
5. THE CUB WAS
SAVED BY WWII.
Over the years, Piper built nearly 20,000
J-3 Cubs (counting military variants).
hat number would have been less than
half had it not been for the 10,000 copies
the military ordered for reconnaissance
and pilot training. Had it not been for
the war, Piper might have phased out
the J-3 completely by the early 1940s.
Despite the boost the J-3 got from the
war, Piper cut the model from its 1948
lineup. Production lasted a decade.
Compare that with the nearly 60-year
life (and still going) of the Piper PA-28.
4. THE CUB IS A PAIN IN THE
BUTT (SOMETIMES LITERALLY
SO) TO GET INTO AND BACK
OUT OF.
he truth is, the seating design of the J-3
is a disaster. It’s probably not true that
there are as many diferent techniques
for getting into a Cub as there are Cub
pilots, but it’s not far of. he key is, you
back into the thing through the odd
barn door arrangement and then swing
your legs in after you, if you can. More
than a few pilots of the day timed out of
their aviation careers not because they
couldn’t ly anymore but because they
couldn’t get into the Cub anymore.
3. NO ONE KNOWS WHAT
“CUB YELLOW” IS.
Want to start a ight in an aviation
forum? Just post a pic of a Cub and say
that this is the “real Cub Yellow.” My
research a few years back showed that
over the years there have been as many
as seven “official” Cub Yellow hues.
Today, there are two pretenders to the
throne, and they’re very diferent shades
of yellow.
SEAN O’CALLAGHAN
2. THE CUB IS THE MOST
IMPORTANT LIGHT AIRPLANE
IN LIGHT AVIATION HISTORY.
Okay, there are some who might dis-
agree with me on this, but the Cub is at
least in the conversation along with the
aforementioned Bonanza and the Cessna
Skyhawk, to name a couple of other
contenders. For decades, non-aviation
types referred to all light airplanes as
“Cubs,” and the plane has been featured
prominently in so many stories, ilms
and hangar talk tales that it’s impossible
to overstate the cultural importance of
the bird.
1. I LOVE THE PIPER J-3 CUB.
Despite its quirks, or maybe because of
them, I adore the Cub. he Cub was the
irst airplane I ever “lew” when, at the
age of 12, my dad handed me the con-
trols of a Cub we were borrowing from
a neighbor and let me take it around the
patch. I was convinced I would never
get the hang of lying. But I did. he
Cub was my irst and best teacher, and
remains that every time I get the chance
to merge Sky Blue and Cub Yellow and
take a little time—no hurry, as things
happen slowly in a Cub—to relect on
the world below. PP
planeandpilotmag.com 45
 Redbird GIFT
Redbird’s
virtual CFI
comes alive
B Y KAT E O ’ C O NNO R
W
hen I irst heard about Redbird’s Guided Independent
Flight Training (GIFT), I was curious. So many recent
advances in transportation technology have been
moving us toward increased automation and computer-driven
decision-making. hat has its good points and its bad ones, but
how does that trend extend to teaching someone to ly?
GIFT—a series of smart scenarios designed by Redbird to be
lown in its simulators—acts almost as a second light instructor,
albeit one that exists somewhere between the Internet and the sim
software. It has the ability to grade a student’s performance and
provide a certain level of review and feedback.
I recently had a chance to run through a few of Redbird’s GIFT
training modules. Going into the demo, I was of two minds: either
it would be a gloriied version of a light sim computer
game or it would be a step too close to removing
actual people from the teaching aspect of light train-
ing. he former would be largely useless, the latter
deeply unsettling.
I was in for a very pleasant surprise.
FLYING GIFT
When I met with Redbird’s VP of Marketing, Josh
Harnagel, for the demo, we were in a Redbird FMX
simulator. For those who haven’t run into them, the
FMX is an all-electric, three-axis, FAA-certiied AATD. It can be
plugged into a wall outlet and has interchangeable yokes and panels
so it can be set for a variety of single- and multi-engine aircraft (glass
or analog). For testing out GIFT, the FMX was conigured as an
analog 172. At the moment, GIFT is only available for the 172 (both
glass and analog), but there are plans to add more aircraft types.
After Josh gave me my USB key, we set up an account. It was
quick—I just had to enter my name, email address and license
number, and create a PIN. Once that was done, I had access to all
of the GIFT private pilot lessons.
46 AUGUST 2017 Ç Plane&Pilot
he private pilot program currently boasts around 32 modules.
Each module addresses a light-training mission—generally, a
maneuver or transition. We started with the Normal Takeof module.
I sat down in the sim and inserted my USB key, which unlocked the
GIFT modules on the FMX. he USB also acts as a backup, record-
ing scores in case there’s a problem with the simulator’s Internet
connection. hen it was just a matter of plugging my PIN into the
website on Josh’s iPad and hitting the start command.
he module began with a short video describing the procedure
and goals of the maneuver. he videos can be watched at anytime,
so they can be reviewed as many times before and after the lesson
as the student wants. After the video, we started the scenario.
For the normal takeof, GIFT talked me through applying
power and set up a target line on climb-out for me
to try to follow. For the Short Field Takeof module I
did later, the target line had been removed, though
GIFT still tracked my ability to maintain centerline
on departure. GIFT does provide guidance if you
deviate signiicantly, prompting you to correct things
like being too far left or right of runway centerline,
too slow, etc.
Once the maneuver was complete, my light review
popped up under the Normal Landing module in my
account on the website. GIFT tracks relevant data
for the entire light and compares it to standards based on the
FAA PTS. For my normal takeof, I was graded on airspeed and
distance from centerline, but GIFT has no trouble simultaneously
measuring everything from rate of turn, altitude changes, rate of
climb and so on.
When I opened the Normal Landing module, an option to
debrief my last attempt was available. From there, I could review
my performance numbers throughout the maneuver. he debriefs
are primarily graphical, allowing the student to see comparisons
of the tracked data.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
GIFT is designed to be as technique-neutral as possible. It’s based
on the idea that there’s no one right way to ly a maneuver well
(though there are wrong ones, and GIFT will call you out if you think
a good landing means dragging it in 10 feet of the deck even if you
do touch down in the right spot). It leaves it up to the instructor and
light school to teach the technique. GIFT just tracks the results
with an eye on the PTS.
he scoring is geared toward realistic light expectations. Most
maneuvers have non-scored windows to allow the pilot to establish
a correct light attitude. For example, you might get the irst 20
degrees of heading change in a turn to stabilize before deviations
count against you. For the Normal Landing and Normal Turn
modules, there were gates to ly through. For those modules, they
appeared as green brackets in the sky. For some modules, the gates
are invisible, though passing through them at the right time and in
the right coniguration counts.
he modules are made to be used in a logical but lexible way.
hey don’t have to be completed in a particular order. However, the
Short Field Takeof module does assume you’ve had some experi-
ence with normal takeofs.
Josh described GIFT as working like a spell checker. It catches
the errors, but doesn’t create the content or make decisions about
it. It’s a training tool designed to work in concert with an instruc-
tor, not without one. GIFT’s job is to do what computers do best:
keep track of and compare multiple data streams. It doesn’t teach
aeronautical decision-making. Instead, it observes the light,
keeping a constant eye on things that are more diicult—or even
impossible—for a human instructor to watch.

HOW MUCH, AND WHERE?

$249 will get you your own GIFT license. Purchase comes with
a USB key and a license number that will go with you anywhere.
You don’t have to always use the same simulator or ly at the same
light school. Licenses can be purchased at Redbird or through
participating light schools and sales partners.
GIFT is currently available on Redbird’s FMX, MCX, MX2, SD and
LD models. GIFT does need to be installed on a particular simulator
before it’s available. he installation is an automated process as
long as the sim is connected to the Internet, so it should be readily
available for compatible units. As long as a sim has GIFT installed,
you can just hop in, plug in your key and PIN, and you’re good to go.
TOP: The light doesn’t have to stop once a GIFT mission is complete.
Though it won’t count toward the module score, you can choose to
continue lying after the lesson is inished.
MIDDLE: In some modules, green gates act as markers so you can
gauge your performance during a maneuver.
BOTTOM: GIFT provides visual markers as guidance when a new skill
is being taught.
or reminders, making it an adaptive teaching tool. here also was
some mention of looking into developing a cockpit version one day.

WHAT’S NEXT? REVIEW

GIFT will be oicially launching on July 24, and there are already
a lot of big plans for this little program. At the moment, GIFT is
available for private pilot training only. Instrument, commercial
and multi-engine training all look to be in its not-too-distant
future. Redbird is also planning on making it available on its TD/
TD2 and Jay models.
More modules likely will be added to the private pilot course,
including missions like cross-country lying. As mentioned before,
Redbird also will be expanding the types of aircraft GIFT training is
available for. Once other aircraft types are added, GIFT will auto-
matically switch to whichever aircraft the simulator is set up as.
he part I’m waiting for is the bit where GIFT learns from the
student. hough it doesn’t yet, eventually GIFT should be able to
identify an individual student’s patterns and issue early corrections
So how did it actually feel to have a virtual instructor leaning over my
shoulder with an eye on all of my gauges? I loved it. GIFT provided
exactly the kind of data I could see using to perfect my maneuvers
and diagnose laws in my technique.
Overall, I found it to be an excellent balance of automation and
human-driven learning. It will give students the ability to practice on
their own and receive constructive, objective feedback that they can
review immediately and with their instructors later. If it works like
it demoed, it should be a great tool for improving student readiness
while freeing up instructors to work on the more complicated stuf
like teaching new pilots when it’s safe to go lying. PP
Learn more about GIFT at gift.redbirdflight.com.

planeandpilotmag.com 47
MODS
Custom Wiring
Harnesses For
Homebuilts
For builders of Experimental airplanes,
building a wiring harness can be a
daunting task. Good news—professional
help is available.
By Plane & Pilot
or those of you who have actually inished an amateur-
F built plane, you get the old saying that the last 20 per-
cent of any big job takes half the time. When it comes
to homebuilding, that last 20 percent of the job is typically
associated with installing the engine, applying paint and,
yes, installing avionics.
hat last one, avionics, might sound easy until you’ve
tried it yourself. In fact, installing radios can be a bear. Even
after you’ve fabricated the radio racks, the job is a lot more
than merely sliding in the new radios, lipping the avionics
master and iring up XM radio for a little celebratory music.
here are a number of challenges associated with avionics
installs, but arguably none is as complicated or, if you, heaven
forbid, wire something incorrectly, as hard to troubleshoot
as wiring your new avionics system. Indeed, it’s one of those
48 AUGUST 2017 Ç Plane&Pilot
jobs that you learn as you go, so the irst time you do it is
when you make the mistakes you’re supposed to learn from.
Only problem is, with this kind of job, that second chance
comes at a cost, in both time and dollars.
here are a couple of ways to save time and money and
head of complications. If you’ve got that friend who knows
aircraft wiring inside and out (okay, mostly inside), you can
ask or beg for help, and, if they say yes and they’re good, you’re
in luck. For those of us less fortunate, we can always go to
our local avionics shop, though that can get more expensive
than we might have the budget for, and it eliminates much of
the savings you hoped to realize by buying your own radios
in the irst place, instead of from the dealer/installer.
One option that we discovered recently might help
homebuilders with all of these concerns. Aircraft Spruce
& Specialty (aircraftspruce.com) last year launched a cus-
tom wiring harness shop that will build harnesses for
homebuilders based speciically on the airplane they’re
building, the radios they have selected to go in their panel
and any other considerations, such as remote mounting or
standby installations.
Aircraft Spruce technicians do the work at the company’s
shop in Corona, California, and the quality of the work—
we had a chance to witness irsthand a harness being put
together—was top-notch. You get high-quality wiring and
connectors, just the right length, so there are no bad surprises
of the too-short variety, and you avoid the extra weight and
hassle that homebuilders often create for themselves when
they play it safe and make their runs longer than really nec-
essary—as a “little” longer than necessary often turns into
“way” longer than necessary. PP
 THE NINE MOST
Beautiful GA AIRPLANES

here are a lot of amazing-looking

airplanes in the general aviation
universe. We pick the nine most beautiful
ones. You get to pick the tenth.

BY P L A N E & P I L O T

MARCOS LÁZARO BURIGO

50 AUGUST 2017 Ç Plane&Pilot

 t’s no secret that we pilots love air-
planes, though the reasons why we
do are, well, not so much mysterious
as wide ranging and, at times, hard
to pin down precisely. We love air-
planes for what they are, where they can take
us, and for reasons that are more related to
aesthetics than utility. We feel that airplanes,
at least some of them, are beautiful to behold.
Part of that is the emotional mystery behind
airplanes. hey are, after all, doing something
that, until 150 years ago, was impossible. So we
have a reverence for aircraft that at its root is
steeped in wonder.
Not everyone believes that beauty is a mys-
tery. For the past couple of decades, mathemati-
cians have been attempting to quantify what
we ind beautiful, notably in human faces, by
probing the relationship of parts and their
arrangement to the whole and trying to arrive
at some kind of equation of beauty. Other sci-
entists who are interested in the question of
what we ind beautiful are teaching computers
to learn to replicate the judgments we make in
inding things beautiful, so far mostly in photos
of nature and people’s faces and not airplanes.
At least not yet.
In formulating this list of beautiful GA
planes, we’ve done none of that. Instead,
we’ve relied upon the judgment of hundreds
of thousands of other pilots, some still lying
and some gone west, by naming airplanes
to this short list that pilots for decades have
been remarking upon in general as beauti-
ful examples of lying machines. hese are
planes that pilots, when they see one on
the ramp or at an airshow, will often stop to
gaze at, sometimes for a long while.
In the process, we’ve surely picked a few that
hardly anyone would disagree with. You’ll see.
At the same time, it’s almost certain that we’ve
picked a couple that you might disagree with,
perhaps strongly.
To give our audience a voice in the process,
we’ve decided to pick only nine of the most
beautiful GA planes while giving you the chance
to select the tenth. Later this year, we’ll take a
poll based on your suggestions and reveal that
choice. So, as you read, think about it. What
beautiful GA plane did we leave of the list?
Let us know simply by emailing us at editor@
planeandpilotmag.com.
And as you’ll notice, too, we’ve only selected
conventionally certiicated GA planes, so you
won’t see any P-51s, Constellations or Lancairs
here, even if they are sometimes under the GA
umbrella. We’ve also stuck to piston-powered
planes, so bear that in mind, as well. And we
can save all of those other conversations for
a later date. Also, so as to make this a living,
breathing list of the most beautiful GA planes,
we decided to limit the ield to airplanes built
and produced within the lifespan of people who
were alive to remember the era of World War
II. Some of those people served in the Armed
Forces and many of them later came home to
become the pilots who would fuel the rise of
general aviation in the United States into the
segment that created some of the most beautiful
machines ever made.
So, without further ado, we present nine of
the 10 most beautiful airplanes in GA history.
planeandpilotmag.com 51

CESSNA CARDINAL
The Cessna model 177 Cardinal is proof that beauty isn’t necessarily
synonymous with utility. Cessna introduced the Cardinal as a replace-
ment for the somewhat ungainly-looking 172 Skyhawk, but it never
came close to that, in part because the Skyhawk is a remarkable
airplane, though admittedly one that didn’t win many beauty contests.
The Cardinal, on the other hand, is the opposite: a gorgeous plane
that’s limited in terms of utility. Like its older Cessna hangar mate,
the Cessna 195, the Cardinal makes use of a cantilever wing, and
while the Cardinal was intended by Cessna to be the replacement for
the 172 Skyhawk, the plane never came close to competing with the
Skyhawk as a do-everything lyer. Instead, the 177 became an iconic
52 AUGUST 2017 Ç Plane&Pilot
“CESSNA 177RG CARDINAL RG N2033Q” BY ALEKSANDER MARKIN - CC BY-SA 2.0/FLICKR
personal airplane, one that’s adored as much (or more) for its beauty
as it is for its utility. While the wing is deinitely the thing that sets the
Cardinal apart, Cessna designers did a masterful job of integrating
the silky-smooth lines of the wing into the rest of the bird, to the point
that the tail on early models was pretty but not particularly effective.
Other distinctive features include the forward placement of the front
seats, the low-slung gear, the wraparound windows—the Cardinal is
perhaps the best sightseeing Cessna ever—and the cool wheelpants.
The retractable-gear version, while a bit busy-looking on the ramp, is
a true beauty once airborne, and opinions vary on which of the models
is the prettier.
HUGUES DROUIN

CESSNA 195
The Cessna 195 is one of the oldest planes in our lineup, and its beauty is
inextricably tied both to the technology of the era and Cessna engineers’
ingenious attempts to ind ways around those technologies. The look
of the Cessna 195—dubbed by the company the “Businessliner”—is
dominated by a handful of features that are impossible to miss. First is
the big nine-cylinder Jacobs 300 radial engine up front (and the gorgeous
annular cowling that surrounds it), which gave the plane a lot of juice and
a serious attitude. Second, the plane is unmistakably and unapologeti-
cally a taildragger, which was by the mid-1940s, when the nosewheel
began to dominate, as much a statement of philosophy as a coniguration
choice. Though inspired by designs from the 1930s, the 195 didn’t ly
54 AUGUST 2017 Ç Plane&Pilot
FLORENT PERAUDEAU
"CESSNA 195" BY BOMBERPILOT - CC BY-SA 2.0/FLICKR
until after the war, in 1945. As such, it’s an amalgam of prewar thinking
and WWII-era materials. Despite its vintage (even then) radial engine
and taildragger coniguration, the plane features modern sheet-metal
construction both inside and out. Another signature feature of the 195 is
its beautiful cantilever (strut-less) wing, the last high-wing Cessna to go
without struts until the Cessna Cardinal in the late 1960s. While the ’40s
were giving birth to new music and new fashions, the interior design of
the 195 is Art Deco classic. Featuring beautiful branding details and a
number of luxury-level lourishes, the generous cabin of the 195 is done
up with an eye to craftsmanship and beauty as opposed to the bare-bones
look of Cessnas to come.
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LUSCOMBE SILVAIRE
The Luscombe Model 8 Silvaire was produced in an era where there
was no shortage of affordable two-seat light planes, including the proto-
typical example, the Cub. The Silvaire was different, though. In terms of
coniguration, the plane is nothing unusual. A two-seat taildragger with
cozy side-by-side seating, the Silvaire, if anything, was a bit harder to land
than its close competitors, thanks to its narrow gear and slightly higher
center of gravity. Still, with its sheet-metal design (the wings were originally
covered in fabric), the Silvaire was slipperier than its rivals by as much as
20 knots. People loved the plane and locked to it—nearly 6,000 were
BEECHCRAFT DUKE
The old saying about something looking fast when it was standing still
applies to Ferraris and Jaguar Type Es alike, but when it comes to planes,
they often look like they’re set in concrete while sitting on the ramp.
There are exceptions, but we’d argue that no plane in any segment
comes close to achieving the swept-back, rakish, in-your-face look of
the Duke. With around 600 produced from 1968 to 1983, the Duke was
a successful plane for Beechcraft and an important one for its place
in the history of airplane development. A pressurized twin with good
speed and great range, it illed a coveted niche and competed directly
"LUSCOMBE 8E MODIFIED" BY BILL LARKINS - CC BY-SA 2.0/FLICKR
built over the years—though its attraction wasn’t just for its performance,
and it certainly wasn’t for the elbow room. For many Luscombe Silvaire
lovers, it was the beauty of the thing. The Silvaire name resonated, and
while many were bare metal birds, and hence were literally silver, many
others were painted, and fans of the model make convincing arguments
for each approach. Either way, the beauty is undeniable, though admittedly
it’s hard to know just where to give credit. The plane is just a beautifully
balanced delight, a shiny sheet-metal dragonly of a plane, light, agile,
silvery and…timeless.
against Cessna’s pretty 421 Golden Eagle. The pilots who bought a
Duke were inspired by its looks. They were the kind of customer who
might have a Porsche 911 in the garage at home. They were people
who liked fast machines that also looked fast. Designers of the Duke
achieved its striking look by taking the concept of “swept back” and
applying it everywhere, and it worked. The combination of the swept
tail, swept winglets, elongated pointy nose—like that of a hypersonic
jet—and angular windows created a look that sold many a Duke before
the buyer even climbed inside.
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CESSNA 310
It’s hard to make a twin look pretty. By deinition you’ve got to hang those
engines somewhere, and sticking them on the wing is about the only
thing that makes practical sense with a piston-powered multi-engine
model. So the design achievement of Cessna with its archetypal 310 light
twin is remarkable. Unlike some models, the 310, which was produced
from 1954 until 1980, seemed to look better with each passing model
upgrade. The long, low-engine nacelles, the pointed nose and rakish tail
all added to the allure. Like many twins, the early 310 suffered from a
lack of range, so tip tanks were added. As opposed to some planes, on
which wingtip-mounted tanks look like tacked-on afterthoughts—which
they pretty much are—on the 310, the effect is pleasing. They somehow
58 AUGUST 2017 Ç Plane&Pilot
"CESSNA 310R" BY ANDRÉ AUSTIN DU-PONT ROCHA - GFDL 1.2/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
improve the appearance of the plane. Even more, the effect is to take the
Buck Rogers spacecraft feel of the 310 and amplify it, making it one of
the slickest-looking planes you’ll ever meet on the ramp, even with those
engines hanging off all over the wings. Inside the 310 is arguably even
cooler, at least those rare ones with their original interiors intact. Over
the years, Cessna interior designers worked their magic on the plane like
none other in the inventory. There were plaid interiors, Western-themed
ones and even butterscotch tweed versions. Many of those masterful
time capsules have been sewn over in the intervening years, covered with
simulated leather for what is perhaps a more saleable used plane but one
that lacks the time stamp and personality of the original.
“G-FFWD” BY ALEC WILSON - CC BY-SA 2.0/FLICKR
GLOBE SWIFT
The genesis of the Globe Swift is an odd one. Developed from an exist-
ing design, the Culver Cadet, the Swift somehow bore only a passing
resemblance to its inspiration. While the Cadet was a decent-looking
airplane, the Swift is a true beauty. Introduced in the postwar era, the
Swift was, in a few important ways, the embodiment of the most famous
ighters of the day in a miniaturized, and to be honest, an underpowered,
package. An all-metal taildragger with a sleek low wing, the Swift mim-
icked the shape and style of planes like the American P-51 Mustang or
British Supermarine Spitire. And the Swift was up for the comparison.
Though it wasn’t intended to go fast—the irst model had an engine of
BEECHCRAFT
BONANZA
What a difference a few years make, especially when those years were
the era of World War II and the world had changed irrevocably. In terms of
aircraft design, there’s no better dichotomy to illustrate the change than
two Beechcraft products separated by about a decade in calendar time
but by eons in terms of approach, mission and aesthetics. When it created
the Staggerwing in the early 1930s, the design team at Beechcraft came
out with an Art Deco masterpiece, all inely igured wood and excess. The
Bonanza, in contrast, was minimalism, eficiency and performance personi-
ied. The all-metal speedster was and is beautiful, but in such a different
way than the Staggerwing that it seems impossible the two came from
the same century, never mind the same side of Wichita, Kansas. With its
"GLOBE/TEMCO SWIFT" BY D. MILLER - CC BY 2.0/FLICKR
just 85 hp—the Swift had a lot of style. With spry handling qualities and
a big glass canopy (that looked like a sliding canopy even if it wasn’t),
the Swift is an airplane that makes it easy to check your six, if you’re so
inclined. In the end, Globe, with the help of fellow manufacturer TEMCO,
built more than a thousand of the little two-seaters, though within a few
short years it was building far more of them than it could sell. Today, the
Swift is a hot used plane for pilots looking for lying fun on the cheap.
Many modify it with a true sliding canopy and a more powerful engine
while swapping out, in true warbird fashion, the classic yokes for arguably
even more classic sticks.
“BEECHCRAFT BONANZA C35” BY ALEKSANDER MARKIN - CC BY-SA 2.0/FLICKR
all-metal design (there was a little fabric on the early models), cool V-tail
and retractable nosewheel landing gear, the Bonanza was more modern
than any production light plane that would appear for the next decade.
It didn’t rival the most modern automotive design standards; it foresaw
future approaches. On the Bonanza, the V-tail is the deining component.
Indeed, it’s hard to come up with another aircraft feature that so immediately
confers the essence of the machine. The tail isn’t without its critics, though
few ind fault with its style. When Beech came out with the straight-tailed
Debonair model in the early 1960s, some pilots went in that direction while
others pointed at the vertical tail of the new offshoot, shook their heads
and pronounced, “That’s not a Bonanza.”

STAGGERWING BEECH
Technically designated the Beech Model 17, this beauty from a bygone
era is known almost universally as the Staggerwing Beech. As only a few
other planes, it’s named after a design feature—the placing of the lower
wing staggered ahead of the upper one. Designed way back in 1933, the
plane was born during the era of high-stakes air racing, where speed was
pursued at all costs. The Staggerwing, with its dramatic lines and short-
coupled fuselage, looked for all the world like it would be right at home
at the Cleveland Air Races, rounding pylons with the fastest air racers of
the day. Unlike some designs with radial engines, the Staggerwing’s look
PIPER J-3 CUB
You might be asking why we would choose the Piper Cub as one of
the most beautiful GA airplanes ever. Good question. By all objective
metrics, the Piper J-3 is all knees and elbows, a plane that looks
like it was designed by committee, with a boxy fuselage, a too-long
wing, its belly low to the ground and its nose sporting engine parts
sticking out here and there. But when pilots see a Cub, we see a
thing of beauty, and that might be because the plane is so central
to our identity as pilots, whether we’ve lown one of them or not.
And the parts, far from looking thrown together, complement each
62 AUGUST 2017 Ç Plane&Pilot
"STAGGERWING" BY LUKAS GANCARZ - CC BY-ND 2.0/FLICKR
wasn’t dominated by the radial engine—the plane was outitted with a
number of different radial engines, from 280 to 710 hp, over its lifetime.
If anything, the shape of the plane underplayed the powerplant, making
it something other than the driving element of the look of the craft. With
small, short-rise windows, the fuselage, as was common in the day, looks
more like a fortress than an observatory, but again, somehow that adds
to the mystery and intrigue of the design. Some think of the Staggerwing
as a rare bird, but Beechcraft actually sold nearly 800 of the planes in its
lifetime, which stretched out until the last delivery, in 1949. Beauty dies hard.
other, the big, long glider wing providing shade for a pair of seats set
in tandem, its horizontal Dutch door providing as much a maze and
obstacle as a portal, and the cowling not ill-designed but intentionally
showing off its buried treasure, 65 horses of just the right kind of
sound. And then there’s the best part, the Cub yellow, the lightning
bolt, the little Cub logo, all of which are odd on their own but blend
together to create an identity that sings like a clear Pennsylvania
morning as the tires clip through the tall grass headed airborne.
Beautiful? Beautiful beyond description. PP
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 LET IT ROLL
By Patty Wagstaf
Six Cool Ways…
…to push your envelope
M
ost aviators want to be the best they can be. We all
want to be Maverick in Top Gun, ruling the skies and
greasing on every landing. Whether we ly a 747 or a
Piper Cherokee, when we get in that airplane and lip on the
switches, we are pilot-in-command. he world awaits. But once
we’ve mastered our airplane and the type of lying we do, things
can seem easy, almost routine. One might think this is a good
thing, but in aviation, ironically, it isn’t. he more we stay in
our comfort zone and the less we push our envelope, the more
at risk we are to become overconident and complacent, and
that’s not a good place for Maverick to be.
It’s human nature that we need to push ourselves to stay
challenged, and to stay humbled. here’s risk in taking on some-
thing new or something you don’t like. It can be intimidating.
For example, I don’t like public speaking. My dread and
fear of it has been the hardest thing I’ve
ever had to overcome, and it still creates
a lot of anxiety. But there are times when ❯❯ “A comfort zone
I can’t turn down a request because of is deined as a
the great opportunity associated with
it—perhaps reaching out to young women psychological state
or speaking about something that I’m in which things feel
passionate about. I have to push myself
to accept speaking opportunities and not familiar to a person
avoid them, knowing it can be rewarding and they are at ease
and worth it.
Risk can be deined as exposing your- and in control...”
self to danger, but I prefer to think of it as
opportunity. Don’t get me wrong—I would never advocate
being reckless or stupid—but we have to push ourselves. Some
of us are naturally more risk takers than others but certainly
there’s also an element of risk in anything we do, especially
when we step out of our comfort zone. We ask ourselves: Will
I be good at this? What if I fail? What if I hate it? What will I
do with what I learn later? It can be a lot easier to stay in your
comfort zone where you know what the outcome is.
In any form of self-improvement, we either have to learn
something new or identify things we’re not as good at, or
dislike, and work on them. Finding new opportunities in
aviation isn’t hard to do—get a new rating, learn to ly a new
64 AUGUST 2017 Ç Plane&Pilot
airplane. Identifying what we aren’t good at might be harder
for Maverick because he already knows he’s good, but some-
times it’s the things that are hardest for us that turn out to be
the best teachers.
I’ve discussed with other CFIs how pilots are sometimes
reluctant to get additional training. What we see with upset
training is that even though pilots know they need it, they tend
to avoid it because they don’t know if they’ll like it. It’s a risk
for them to take that step. Maybe it’s human nature that the
better we become at something, the more we enjoy the comfort
level we’ve achieved, the less apt we are to step outside of it.
But we all know, when you take on something new, you almost
always wind up feeling inspired.
With all of this in mind, here are a handful of great ways to
keep yourself inspired and, as a bonus, make your
lying skills a little—or a lot—sharper:
Get Rated. A good way to energize your ly-
ing is to get a new rating. You can upgrade to an
instrument ticket, which is perhaps the most
bang for your safety buck. And for those with
more exotic interests, how about a type rating
in an antique, like a DC-3? here are all kinds
of opportunities for all of us pilots to add to
our repertoire.
Seaplane Flying. A seaplane rating is an awe-
some way to stay energized. I’ve heard people say,
“Why should I get a seaplane rating? I’ll probably
never have the chance to ly one again.” But it will surprise you
how much you’ll learn about airplane control and landing
techniques. Not to mention “ASES”—Airplane, Single Engine
Sea—looks pretty cool on your pilot’s certiicate.
Aerobatics. Obviously, I’m a big proponent of learning aero-
batics, so take an aerobatic lesson or an upset training course.
his isn’t even a shameless plug to come to our school! Come
and see us, for sure, but if you’re looking for something closer
than Florida, try the International Aerobatic Club’s Aerobatic
School Directory at www.iac.org. You may never ind yourself
LARA TOMLIN
in an upset situation or want to do another loop again, but this
certainly will push your envelope and expand your situational
awareness. Besides, do you want to ly
your whole career wondering, “What if?”
DIY: Crosswind Landings. Some
pilots try to avoid crosswind landings.
You can’t avoid them forever because,
if you do, the usefulness of your pilot’s
license will be really limited. If you’re
only comfortable with a 10- to 12-knot
crosswind, go practice in those conditions
until you can stay on the centerline and
you feel your technique is solid. hen,
hire a good instructor to help you work
on landing in stronger crosswinds until
you’re comfortable. hen start the process
again with practice. You can do it.
DIY: Cross-Country Flying. Cross-
country flying is one of my favorite
things to do, but some pilots I know,
even airshow pilots, surprisingly don’t
like it. Maybe they didn’t have very good
instruction, have scared themselves or
just don’t like talking on the radio. If long
trips aren’t for you, ask yourself why and
then remember that a long cross-country
is just a series of short ones, airport to
airport. A good way to gain cross-country
experience is to hire a CFI to ly with you
on long trips, but sooner or later you
know what you have to do—start plan-
ning and pack your bags.
Lend A Hand, Or A Paw. here are
lots of ways to get outside your personal
envelope in aviation by trying something
new—airplane type ratings, seaplane
rating, advanced air and ground ratings,
even lying more often by volunteering for
Angel Flight or Pilots N Paws. hey will
all help you expand your repertoire, keep
you challenged and help you remember
why you learned to ly in the irst place.
here’s more risk in not pushing your
envelope. If you don’t ind ways to push
yourself, you’ll feel stale, frustrated.
Woody Allen said, “I don’t respond well
to mellow...if I get too mellow, I ripen
and then rot.” On the other hand, the
beneits of achieving something new,
changing your outlook and improving
your skills not only will make you a bet-
ter pilot, it will give you a deeper sense
of satisfaction.
A comfort zone is deined as “…a
psychological state in which things feel
familiar to a person and they are at ease
and in control of their environment…
In this zone, a steady level of perfor-
mance is possible.” It’s also described as
an “anxiety-neutral position” and “where
we feel we have some control.” As a pilot,
it might seem safer and more competent
to stay in this zone, where we “feel we
have some control,” but putting yourself
in new situations on a regular basis is
more than just self-improvement. It has
real beneit and actually makes you more
safe and in control.
According to a description of
Performance Management, “Stepping
out of a comfort zone raises anxiety and
generates a stress response. his results
in an enhanced level of concentration
and focus.” he enhanced level of con-
centration and focus is what I’m look-
ing for in my lying. I’ll never get it just
right, but I know there are always ways
to improve. PP
Patty Wagstaff is a 3-time U.S. National Aerobatic
champion, and one of the world’s top airshow pilots.
Visit pattywagstaff.com/school.html or reach Patty via
email through pattyaerobatics@gmail.com.

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planeandpilotmag.com 65
 CROSS-COUNTRY LOG
By Bill Cox

he Joys Of
Flight Testing Today’s highly reined SJ-30, now produced by SyberJet.

It can be fun, challenging and, prototype was fully painted outside, but like many test articles,

“SINO SWEARINGEN SJ30-2” BY SERGEY RYABTSEV/RUSSIAN AVIAPHOTO TEAM - GFDL 1.2/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
it had no upholstery inside other than seats for the light crew.
at times, a little scary Carl commented that the coin corner between stall and
Mach bufet wasn’t that critical on the SJ-30, but he didn’t want

I
t was June 1991, and I’d been hired to ly right seat in the to get anywhere near overspeed or stall at extreme altitude
one and only Swearingen SJ-30 light test article from San where the air is so thin that recovery might be a problem.
Antonio to Le Bourget Airport, Paris, for the Paris Air Show. Another squawk was our long-range navigation systems. We
My captain was Carl Pascarell, a former Navy attack pilot who had two VLF/Omega nav receivers onboard, and by the time
had lown A-7 Corsairs of aircraft carriers during the Viet Nam I arrived, the day before we were scheduled to leave for Paris,
War. Pascarell was now chief test pilot for Swearingen Aircraft. the airplane had already burned up three sets of the exotic
My job was to help Carl in any way possible and expedite the low-frequency nav systems. Swearingen’s engineers had tried
trip across the Atlantic and back. several tricks to keep the VLF/Omegas cool, and they thought
Trouble was, the airplane wasn’t even close they had the problem solved. I hoped so, as that
to being ready. It had only about 30 hours of would be our only source of precise navigation
light testing logged and still had a number of ❯❯ “Carl had been talking on the ocean crossing.
squawks. here seemed little chance we could to ATC as I was checking Somehow, miraculously, we launched on
make it to Paris before the impound date, two time the following morning for the leg from
days before the show opened. After that date,
the hydraulics, and he San Antonio to Bangor, Maine. Flying light,
we couldn’t be admitted to our exhibit space. suggested I take my seat, with only two pilots and full fuel, the SJ-30 was
Ed Swearingen, the brilliant but volatile as we’d be orbiting to a rocket ship in climb, high-jumping to FL410
designer, had made it clear we would be there in just under 30 minutes. We settled in for what
on time. Bill Lear had been Swearingen’s
burn off fuel for several we hoped would be an easy leg to Bangor.
mentor, and like Lear, Swearingen felt most hours... I knew we had a No such luck, as it turned out. Within an
corporate jets of the time were larger than pneumatic blow-down hour, both VLF/Omegas had failed again and
they needed to be, and their sheer size and we were reduced to the VHF system for our IFR
large equivalent lat-plate area reduced their
system for emergency light diagonally across the country.
potential performance. Swearingen believed gear extension, but hen, as we were approaching Memphis, we
business jets should be fast and long-ranged, neither Carl nor I had were startled by a loud bang from the back of
with strong climb and tall altitude capability. the aircraft. We scanned the instruments and
Pascarell had been lying the number-one
much faith that it immediately spotted both hydraulic gauges
prototype for two months and had encoun- would work.” losing pressure.
tered a variety of problems that aren’t at all All the plumbing for the hydraulics was
unusual for high-performance jets. One of those squawks located behind the aft cabin bulkhead, so I unbuckled and
was a runaway pitch trim. Pascarell had the elevator trim run made my way aft past the bare metal walls to the access port: a
away twice during early lights, and one of those had been at simple, improvised Velcro® panel. I separated the access panel
FL470 directly over San Antonio. Accordingly, Carl had placed and shined a lashlight into the darkness.
a large, bright red tie wrap around the overhead elevator trim here was red hydraulic luid spattered all over the back
circuit breaker so he could identify it quickly at the irst hint of the airplane. I went forward, tapped Carl on the shoulder
of a pitch runaway. and told him both hydraulic systems had just self-destructed.
LARA TOMLIN

I took a short familiarization ride with Carl in the proto- I looked at the two hydraulic pressure gauges, and they were
type jet the afternoon I arrived and we climbed to FL450. he both showing 0 pressure.

66 AUGUST 2017 Ç Plane&Pilot

 Carl had been talking to ATC as I was
checking the hydraulics, and he suggested
I take my seat, as we’d be orbiting to burn
of fuel for several hours. We also got Ed
Swearingen and the engineering staf on
the com link to ofer suggestions. I knew
we had a pneumatic blow-down system
for emergency gear extension, but neither
Carl nor I had much faith that it would
work. Pascarell went over the blow-down
procedure with Ed three times, all the
while shaking his head.
We gradually descended to 5,500 feet
above the Memphis airport, held our
breath and popped the emergency bottle.
Sure enough, there was a soft “phtttt”,
and we got the nosegear and right main
green lights.
We lew by the tower twice, and they
suggested that all three wheels looked
down, but the left main obviously wasn’t
locked. Memphis had closed the west
side of the airport for us, and with the
equipment in place, we lined up for
the approach.
As we crossed the airport fence, I took
a quick look at the hydraulic pressure
gauges, and one of the needles seemed
to be ticking slightly.
I punched the pump, and watched
the left gear light suddenly glow green
about two seconds before Carl simultane-
ously shut down the engines and touched
down. We rolled out normally, happy to
be chased by ire engines and ambulances
that now had nothing to do.
We’ll never know if a little shot of
residual hydraulic pressure did the
trick, the gear was down all the time
but the microswitch was inhibited by
a speck of dirt, or if the hot, turbulent
air near the ground helped lock the
left gear in place.
And we didn’t care. he SJ-30 pro-
totype was still in one piece, and that
was all that mattered.
An hour after our pseudo-emer-
gency, a Lear 36 from San Antonio
arrived with a full team of mechanics
and an entirely new hydraulic system.
Carl and I were taken to the airport
hotel and showed up the next morn-
ing to ind the crew had worked all
night, replaced everything, hopped
back into the Learjet and lown home.
he SJ-30’s hydraulics were totally
rejuvenated, and we were ready for
the rest of the trip.
We departed Memphis and headed we lew no higher than FL410 on our trip
northeast for Bangor once again. he to France.
Williams FJ-44-2 engines were running Reykjavik was our next stop after
perfectly, and the airplane zipped along Greenland, and we elected to RON and
at .80 Mach, scoring about 440 knots. continue on the inal 1,200 nm leg to Paris
We landed at Bangor, checked in with the following day. We landed at Le Bourget
customs and continued to Goose Bay for six hours before the curfew.
the overnight. During the show, I hiked over to the
he next morning, we launched for American Pavilion and contacted Tim
Narsarsuaq, Greenland, 680 nm across Casey, aviation products manager of a new
the Labrador Sea. It was June and the Far avionics company named Garmin to see
North was luxuriating in clear skies and if they had anything that could provide
warm weather, even ofering a slight push accurate GPS position information for
as we drifted up toward 60 degrees North. the trip home. At the time, the 24-satellite
he SJ-30 drew a crowd at every stop, NavStar constellation was only about half
as no one outside of San Antonio had seen complete and wouldn’t be certiied for
the airplane. It was a comparatively small another four years, but Garmin’s Casey
jet, and several pilots were interested in dropped by the Swearingen Chalet at the
all the details. We didn’t really need to conclusion of the show and left me a beta
stop for fuel in Narsarsuaq, but the uni- version of his company’s irst product, a
versal rule on the North Atlantic is the portable GPS called the GPS 100 AVD.
only time you can have too much fuel is We didn’t receive continuous readouts
if you’re on ire. on the Garmin GPS, but there were enough
One nice feature of the SJ-30 was the to keep ATC happy.
airplane’s 12 psi diferential pressurization In the next three days, we lew the $80
system. his allowed us to ly with the million Swearingen SJ-30 prototype jet
cabin at sea level when we were lofting 5,000 miles back to San Antonio with a
nearly eight miles above the ocean. It $900 portable GPS Velcro®-ed to the top
was apparent that Ed Swearingen had of the panel. PP
succeeded at creating exactly what he’d
wanted—a fast, high-altitude, long-range As of January 1, 2016, Senior Editor Bill Cox has logged
corporate jet that could ly high and fast 15,100 light hours in 321 types of aircraft. He also holds
with everyone breathing oxygen-rich, 28 world city-to-city speed records, has made 211 inter-
sea-level air. Max operating altitude was national delivery lights, and owns and lies a LoPresti
eventually approved for 49,000 feet, but Mooney. You can email Bill at lybillcox@aol.com.
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planeandpilotmag.com 67

AFTER THE ACCIDENT
By Peter Katz
Culture Of
Carelessness?
Examining a tragedy in Alaska as a charter
pilot seems to succumb to pressure to
make a light despite low weather.
O
n June 25, 2015, about 24 miles east-northeast of
Ketchikan, Alaska, eight passengers and the pilot of a
loat-equipped single-engine turboprop de Havilland
DHC-3 Otter were killed in yet another controlled light into
terrain (CFIT) accident. he pilot was under pressure from
a closing time window in which to get the passengers back
to Ketchikan so they could reboard their cruise ship, and
then begin his next tour light. he accident airplane was
one of four operated by a tour company, Promech Air, Inc.,
taking cruise passengers from Ketchikan to the Misty Fjords
National Monument Wilderness and back.
Weather conditions left something to be desired, and the
pilot had a choice to make: whether to take a longer route
largely over various bodies of water, which would allow
him to duck below low-lying ragged clouds without having
to worry too much about terrain features and even make a
water landing, if necessary, or take a shorter route, which
would save about ive minutes. he shorter route would take
them largely over land, which included undulating hills,
ridges and modest mountains. Even though some higher
terrain, and even lower terrain, was obscured by clouds,
the pilot decided to take the shorter route.
he accident took place during the second round of tours
that day. Earlier, the accident pilot had to ly his plane as
low as 375 feet over water to remain VFR, the company’s
president had to ly his plane as low as 250 feet, and a third
pilot got down to only 225 feet above the water. hat pilot
told investigators that when he arrived for work that morn-
ing, he told Promech’s president he was worried about the
weather, but his concerns were dismissed. his pilot said
that during the tour, the weather conditions encountered
were so bad that he felt lucky to return from that light. He
was surprised that the company continued operating that
68 AUGUST 2017 Ç Plane&Pilot
day. he owner of another tour company told investigators
that, after lying one tour, she decided to cancel.
he airplane was owned by a company in Minden, Nevada,
and was operated on the Part 135 on-demand sightseeing
light by Promech. Promech shut down its Ketchikan opera-
tions in August 2016 and a competitor purchased its assets.
Promech could ly both Part 135 on-demand and com-
muter lights. Between 2005 and October 2014, it lew air
taxi and scheduled passenger lights, carried the mail for the
U.S. Postal Service and was the biggest air freight operator
serving some communities in Southeast Alaska. However,
another company landed the mail contract, and Promech
began losing money during the winters because of a fallof in
passenger loads. he company shifted its focus to air tours
and lodge transportation. By the summer of 2015, about 90
percent of its business came from air tours.
At the time of the accident, it had contracts with cruise
ship operators to provide sightseeing tours to their pas-
sengers. It operated nine airplanes in Ketchikan and two
more in Key West, Florida, where it also ran air tours. he
company President/CEO, Director of Operations, Assistant
Chief Pilot and Director of Maintenance were located in
Ketchikan, and the Chief Pilot was located in Key West. he
management personnel also had lying duties.
he DHC-3 Otter was designed in the early 1950s. he
model was originally powered by a radial engine; however,
the accident airplane was modiied to use a Pratt & Whitney
PT6A-135A turboprop engine in accordance with an STC.
he airplane was maintained under an FAA-approved
inspection program that required regular inspections and
maintenance, but didn’t ix a speciic overhaul time for the
engine. A review of maintenance records showed that, as
of the day before the accident, the airframe had 24,439.5
hours, the engine had 14,575.9 hours, and the propeller had
3,700.4 hours.
he airplane was equipped with an electronic light
instrument system (EFIS), which included two identical
display units that could be conigured either as a primary
light display (PFD) or a multifunction display (MFD). he
PFD showed data such as altitude, airspeed, vertical speed,
heading and attitude. Among the displays that could be
put on the MFD was a moving map showing position and
navigation information. It could also show terrain warn-
ings when obstructions loomed ahead. he equipment
was old, however, and had been provided free by the FAA
when it was operating its Capstone Project in Alaska from
1999 to 2006. Capstone was the forerunner of ADS-B. he
EFIS in the accident airplane didn’t have updated software
installed, which meant that bodies of water were displayed
in the same color as land, instead of in blue as on displays
using updated software.
he MFD could depict potentially hazardous proximity
to terrain as a red warning or yellow caution overlay on the
terrain map and issue an aural warning. Some company
LARA TOMLIN
pilots interviewed by investigators reported that the red
and yellow overlays could, at times, obscure the terrain
depiction. One Promech pilot described the short route based on his personal turn around in Ella Lake earlier in the
this as an issue if a pilot needed to use observations that the weather was gen- day because of low clouds.
the map for situational awareness in a erally improving. One pilot told investigators that
CFIT-avoidance situation. he pilot of the second Promech during initial training, the company’s
he system also included a switch light to depart Rudyerd Bay said that Assistant Chief Pilot told him and a
that could be used to turn of the aural he decided on the long route because group of other Promech pilots that they
and lag alerts. Data recovered from the he saw low clouds and didn’t like what had to bend the rules when it came to
accident airplane’s EFIS revealed that other pilots were saying on the radio. weather minimums because they were
the terrain warning alerting function He recalled hearing fragments of radio operating in Alaska. he Assistant Chief
was turned of at the time of impact. conversations, speciically the words Pilot reportedly said that if one pilot
he toggle switch itself was found in the “scattered layers” and “ragged.” He told turned around while the others made it
inhibit position in the wreckage, and a investigators that he had been forced to through, he and that pilot were going to
digital image from the camera of
a passenger on the accident light
showed that the switch was in the
inhibit position during the light.
Specifications for the terrain
warning system met FAA require-
ments allowing a clearance of 700
feet AGL during cruise light and 500
feet AGL during descent. However,
because it had loats, the airplane
was legally allowed to cruise over
water with as little as 500 feet clear-
ance. hat would result in aural
and on-screen terrain warnings
being triggered during normal tour
operations. Several Promech pilots
reported that frequent nuisance
alerts sometimes prompted them No more tucking your cell
to inhibit the terrain warning system. phone under your headset
On the morning of the accident, or using various cords and
the four Promech airplanes, three adapters in the cockpit.
DHC-3s and one DHC-2, were sched- Experience wireless cell
uled to depart Ketchikan Harbor phone communications
Seaplane Base at 11 a.m. with cruise and your personal music
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terrain in the Misty Fjords National
1-888-GO-PILOT
Monument Wilderness.
or go to
At 11:20, the accident airplane www.pilotblulink.com
was the third to take of. he com-
pany President/CEO made a radio
transmission to the airplanes, saying,
“Hey, guys, don’t forget about your
12:30 all-aboard.”
he airplanes took the longer,
30-minute route to Rudyerd Bay,
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Rudyerd Bay said he decided to take
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planeandpilotmag.com 69
“have a conversation.” his pilot chalked
it up to the culture in Alaska; “…it’s like,
‘we push through, we push through.’”
One pilot, who had about 26,000
light hours with 5,000 hours in loat-
equipped airplanes, described lying a
trip and, upon seeing the accident pilot’s
airplane disappear into clouds, making
a radio call to ask, “How’s the weather
up there because it looks IFR here?” He
said that company management had
heard the radio exchange and ridiculed
him for mentioning IFR on the radio. He
said that he was told to never say “IFR”
on the radio or he would be ired.
he accident pilot, age 64, held a
commercial pilot certiicate for single-
engine land and sea airplanes and an
instrument rating. His second class FAA
medical certiicate required glasses. His
estimated light experience was 4,070
hours, including about 500 hours in
DHC-2 airplanes and about 40 hours
in the DHC-3. He accumulated about
1,200 of his lying hours in Alaska. he
pilot received training from Promech
in avoiding controlled light into ter-
rain. He had about 152 light hours for
the company.
Data recovered from the EFIS showed
that as the airplane transited terrain
named Ella Narrows, it descended
rapidly from about 1,300 feet to about
P&P FLY MARKET
70 AUGUST 2017 Ç Plane&Pilot
❯❯ “One pilot told
investigators that during
initial training, the company’s
Assistant Chief Pilot told
him and a group of other
Promech pilots that they had
to bend the rules when it
came to weather minimums
because they were operating
in Alaska. The Assistant Chief
Pilot reportedly said that if
one pilot turned around while
the others made it through,
he and that pilot were going
to ‘have a conversation.’ This
pilot chalked it up to the
culture in Alaska.”
1,000 feet MSL before gradually climb-
ing again. After going through the nar-
rows and reaching the northeast end of
Ella Lake, the light was at about 1,200
feet and turned southwest and over-
lew the lake while climbing to about
1,300 feet MSL (about 1,050 feet AGL). It
subsequently turned west and climbed
to about 1,500 feet MSL while crossing
over a ridge on the lake’s west shore.
he airplane continued on a relatively
constant heading between 1,400 and
1,500 feet MSL for about 30 seconds.
Investigators recovered photos from
the camera of a passenger on the acci-
dent light. One photo, looking down,
determined to have been taken 28 sec-
onds before the collision, showed some
treetops partially obstructed by cloud
cover. A picture looking ahead through
the right windscreen, taken about 7
seconds later, showed that the terrain
was mostly obscured. Rain can be seen
on the windscreen.
EFIS data showed that, about 2 sec-
onds before the collision, the airplane
began to pitch up rapidly, experiencing
about 2 G’s of vertical acceleration and
climbing before it collided with terrain.
he airplane struck the terrain at an
elevation of about 1,600 feet MSL.
he Safety Board said that evidence
from the accident tour light and the
pilot’s previous tour lights support the
conclusion that the pilot’s decisions
regarding his tour lights were inlu-
enced by schedule pressure; his attempt
to emulate the behavior of other, more
experienced pilots whose lights he was
following; and Promech’s organizational
planeandpilotmag.com
For more information about
advertising contact Mike
Echevarria at 617-279-
0216 or send an email to
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culture, which tacitly endorsed lying in
hazardous weather conditions.
The NTSB determined that the
probable cause of the accident was: 1)
the pilot’s decision to continue visual
light into an area of instrument meteo-
rological conditions, which resulted
in his geographic disorientation and
controlled light into terrain; and 2)
Promech’s company culture, which
tacitly endorsed lying in hazardous
weather and failed to manage the risks
associated with the competitive pres-
sures afecting Ketchikan-area air tour
operators; its lack of a formal safety pro-
gram; and its inadequate operational
control of light releases.
While all of that’s supported by the
NTSB’s report, the Safety Board over-
looks the fundamental law identiied
by the accident pilot’s colleagues and
reported by the NTSB’s own investiga-
tors, which all pilots would do well to
identify and eliminate: a false belief of
being invincible.
As I mentioned, one pilot told
investigators about a tour in which he
was behind the accident pilot’s plane
when it disappeared into what looked
like instrument conditions in the Ella
Lake area. He radioed the accident pilot
about the weather, and the accident
pilot stated that it was ine. his pilot
thought that the accident pilot seemed
to think he was invincible or more
skilled than he actually was. Another
Promech pilot said that, early in the
2015 season, he was lying out of the
Ella Lake area when he encountered
the accident pilot lying in the other
direction. He warned him that the area
was closed due to weather, but the acci-
dent pilot disregarded the report. he
accident pilot continued toward Ella
Lake but had to backtrack out of the
area and ran low on fuel.
Both of those pilots described warn-
ing the accident pilot via the radio about
an area of severe downdrafts that they
had encountered in the Rudyerd Bay
We muzzled the P&W
1340. Think we can
handle your noise?
“I tried the premium brand
headsets & neither one could
handle the noise. It would
overwhelm the system. Today
,ÀHZZLWKWKH'5(DQG
not only did it easily handle the
3 :UDGLDOQRLVHEXWWKH
radio calls were loud and clear.
I am very pleasantly surprised.”
area during a previous Misty Fjords
tour. hey said he disregarded their
warning. hey said when the accident
pilot attempted to ly through the area,
he encountered a downdraft, and the
airplane’s loats struck trees. An entry
in the accident pilot’s logbook that
investigators determined was for that
light, dated June 14, 2015, included the
note, “Misty Trip, hought I was dead.”
If only the pilot had allowed his motiva-
tion to write that note to also trigger
some soul-searching and rethinking of
his approach to aeronautical decision-
making, he and his eight passengers
might have survived the “Misty Trip”
just 11 days later. PP
Peter Katz is editor and publisher of NTSB Reporter,
an independent monthly update on aircraft accident
investigations and other news concerning the
National Transportation Safety Board. To subscribe,
visit www.ntsbreporter.us or write to: NTSB Reporter,
Subscription Dept., P.O. Box 831, White Plains, NY
10602-0831.
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planeandpilotmag.com 71
 CONTRAILS
By W. Scott Olsen
Proceed To
PANIC
Waypoint names are FUNNY things
remember the early days, staring at a paper Twin Cities sec-
I tional, dreaming about places I still might go.
Leave Fargo, I thought. Leave the Jet Center and head
vaguely southeast. I didn’t know how to cross the Canadian
border to the north, and I had friends in Alexandria, Minneapolis
and Chicago, so I put my inger on the map and traced the light
blue line, the airway heading 116 degrees away from town,
imagining the adventure of some future light. Where would
I land for fuel? How would I get through the big city traic?
Where was my E6B?
hen, I stopped. Still under the TRSA, I saw two crossed
arrows on the air route. Just a waypoint, I knew. But then I saw
the name. WIRDE. hat’s weird, I thought, smiling.
I traced the line just a small bit farther and then I laughed
out loud.
In my mind, the conversation couldn’t have been more clear.
ATC: Cessna ive three two nine bravo, proceed to PANIC.
29B: Do what?
ATC: Depart WIRDE and proceed to PANIC. Hold there, at
or below three thousand.
Someone, I thought. Someone leaning over an illuminated
map in a darkened room, the someone responsible for naming
things on maps, was having way too much fun.
here are waypoint names at every, well, waypoint. Many
of them are on sectionals. A great many more are on approach
plates. Each of them is ive letters long. Put them in your iPad or
Garmin, and presto, there you are. According to a spokesperson
for the FAA Oice of Communications, the names often have
some connection to local culture or history. Requests to establish
ixes and names are sent to the FAA’s Aeronautical Information
Services, and there’s a vetting process to make sure the names
aren’t inappropriate. After that, it seems, anything goes.
Some waypoint names are famous, a part of lying lore.
Outside Orlando, you can ly to BUGGZ, GOOFY, MINEE and
PIGLT. At Wichita, you can FOLOW YELOO BBRIK RROAD.
here are the somber references. Outside Washington National,
the charts say WEEE WLLL NEVVR FORGT SEP11. And there
are the profoundly silly ones, too. Outside Portsmouth, New
72 AUGUST 2017 Ç Plane&Pilot
Hampshire, you can enter a light plan that says ITAWT ITAWA
PUDYE TTATT IDEED.
Las Vegas hosts LUCKY. It also gets FUZZY and POKRR
and CHIPZ.
If you’re ofshore, skimming the North Atlantic on your way
into New York, you get WAVEY.
Some are random. Columbus, Ohio, gets PIZZA. here’s a
BUICK north of Seattle and a CHEVY east of Dallas. here’s a
KMART west of Dallas, as well.
I don’t know who she was, but there’s a BERYL in the Escalante
Desert. ALICE is outside Tuscaloosa. SUSAN is north and east
of Pensacola. here’s a WOMAN in New York.
here are four SCOTTs, but none of them is in the U.S. here
are ive DAVIDs.
here’s no CRASH (thank heavens). No STALL. But there are
four SANTAs. One in the Paciic south of Hawai’i. One in Spain.
One in Mexico, and one in Guatemala.
In Minnesota, where Norwegian culture is large, we have
Ole and Lena jokes (with a bit of Sven thrown in when the joke
needs a third). So, of course, there are waypoints named OLLEE
and LEENA. For baseball fans, we have KBREW (named after
the great Twins slugger Harmon Killebrew), too.
here’s a STORM in Oregon, BARBQ outside Kansas City
and TNDRA outside Green Bay. BEARS is near Soldier Field.
ATC: Two nine bravo, after you see CHEVY, proceed to KMART
then pick up BERYL. After that, FUZZY, CHIPS and POKRR.
Yes, I think, someone has to propose a waypoint name.
Someone has to think of a ive-letter word that, if at all possible,
connects to the landscape or culture below. A committee has
to consider, debate and inally approve that name. It has to be
right, or at least not wrong.
Sure, not all of them are FUNNY. Some are simply VERRY
CLEVR. Some are JUSTT a LITLE SILLY. But they’re also enter-
taining, enlightening, a moment of fun in the sky.
Imagine laughter, or at least a CHUKL, in the cockpit as we
FLYBY. Perhaps we SMILE as we wonder who BERYL may have
been. It’s possible that someone must REALLY MISSS her. PP
LARA TOMLIN
W. Scott Olsen is a professor of English at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota.
He holds the world and national records for the fastest light across North Dakota in a
Cessna 152. Scott’s books include “Hard Air,” “Never Land” and “Prairie Sky.”
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