ADVANCED PILOT TIPS AND TECHNIQUES (FOR CFIS, CAREER BUILDERS, AND OBTAINING NEW RATINGS)

»
Begins on page 45

01.14

flighttraining.aopa.org

+ MASTERING
the
Forward Slip
p. 40

POWERLESS Remain Calm

and Continue Flying p. 26

MAINTENANCE MEMORY
REMEMBERING
TO DO IT ALL p. 32

MAKE NEW FRIENDS

START A CLUB,
LEARN A SKILL p. 36 A Publication of AOPA
CONTENTS flighttraining.aopa.org
VOLUME.26 / NUMBER. 1 01.14

32
FEATURES MEMORY FIX
A simple way to recall required
aircraft inspections.
How to make sense of the

26
staggeringly complex world
of required maintenance.
By Natalie Bingham Hoover

36
THE OWN-TO-LEARN
COVER STORY »
CLUB
THE ZEN OF Join a club and take the hassle out
ENGINE FAILURE of flight training.
Finding your happy place when Consider making friends and
forming a club before you start
the worst happens. training.
What's going to help you reach nirvana
when you're on the ground after an engine By Budd Davisson
failure? Stay calm by being prepared.

By Jamie Beckett 46
TECHNIQUE
Forward slip.
Come on down, you're next
for landing.
By Ian J. Twombly

See page 29.

"BLACK SMOKE
SPILLED FROM
THE EXHAUST
STACKS, AND
THE OIL PRESSURE
NEEDLE WAS
FLICKERING AND
FALLING."
—DAVE HIRSCHMAN

ADVANCED PILOT TIPS AND TECHNIQUES (FOR CFIS, CAREER BUILDERS,

AND OBTAINING NEW RATINGS)
»
Begins on page 45

01.14

flighttraining.aopa.org

ABOUT THE
COVER »
+ MASTERING
the
Forward Slip

illustration by
Charles Floyd. POWER
RLESS HOW TO REMAIN CALM
In the Face of an Engine-Out
Emergency p. 26
MAINTENANCE MEMORY
REMEMBERING
TO DO IT ALL p. 32

MAKE NEW FRIENDS

START A CLUB,
LEARN A SKILL p. 36

JANUARY 2014 FLIGHT TRAINING /1

 CONTENTS flighttraining.aopa.org
VOLUME.26 / NUMBER.1 01.14

DEPARTMENTS
4 Member Benefits 42 Weather
Pay it forward to a pilot Danger potential
in training By Jack Williams

20 Checkride 53 Advertiser Index

Pushing the envelope Aviation marketplace
By Bob Schmelzer
56 Debrief
22 Flight Lesson Debbie Travis King
Loud and clear
By Michael DeBerry

22
COMMENTARY

6 Right Seat 18 Around the Patch

Sound of silence December anniversary
"'ARE WE AVIATORS By Ian J. Twombly By Jill W. Tallman
OR ARE WE
ACCOUNTANTS?' 8 Letters 24 Flying Carpet
THAT RHETORICAL Lapsed pilots Touring Texas
QUESTION FROM By Greg Brown

REDBIRD'S JERRY
GREGOIRE SUMMED PREFLIGHT
ADVANCED PILOT
UP THE ATTITUDE 45 CFI to CFI
AND MUCH OF THE 10 Mountains Majesty
Confidence builder
FOCUS AT THE 12 Success Stories By Frank E. Cahill
2013 REDBIRD
MIGRATION." 13 How it Works

15 56
47 Instructor Report
—IAN J . TWOMBLY Fanning while flying
14 After the Checkride
By Rod Machado

15 News
48 Career Pilot
16 Training Products Hiring intelligence
Final Exam By Wayne Phillips

17 ASI News 49 Career Advisor

By Wayne Phillips

50 Accident Report
No hurry
By David Jack Kenny

48
51 Instrument Insights
Up-down-right-left
By Les Sanders

FLIGHT TRAINING (ISSN 1047-6415), JANUARY 2014 (VOL. 26 NO. 1), is a monthly magazine produced and distributed by the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. Flight Training membership dues are $45 per year. Current FAA student pilot cer-
tificate holders can receive a complimentary six-month Introductory Membership by completely filling out a request form or by sending their name, address, student-pilot certificate number, and the name and address of their flight instructor and school
to P.O. Box 471, Frederick, MD 21705-0471. Periodicals postage paid at Frederick, Maryland, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Flight Training, P.O. Box 471, Frederick, MD 21705-0471. No material may be used or reprinted
without written permission. Printed in the USA. For change of address: Call 800-USA-AOPA or e-mail flighttraining@aopa.org

2/ FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG
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MEMBER BENEFITS
A COMPLETE LIST of member
benefits is online (www.aopa.org/
membership/membership-options.
aspx).

PAY IT FORWARD TO
A PILOT IN TRAINING

D
id you know that student pilots who are members of AOPA are three times instructor/owner, borrowing or renting
more likely to earn their private pilot certificate? AOPA offers student aircraft, full-time or part-time, we can
pilots a free, no-risk six-month introductory AOPA membership. Pay provide comprehensive coverage for both
it forward to a student pilot and help them succeed. They’ll get instant professional and personal use (www.
access to a wealth of tools and resources to support their primary training, including: aopainsurance.org/cfi).
• Six free issues of Flight Training magazine filled with tips, techniques, and guidance LIFE INSURANCE. We also protect you
that every student needs to become a safe, confident, and competent pilot. and your loved ones in the air and on the
• Free weekly ePilot: Flight Training edition filled with the latest training news, cost- ground with term life insurance, emer-
saving tips, product information, and more. gency assistance, and AD&D insurance
• Access to online resources including AOPA’s flight planner and flight planning tools, (www.aopainsurance.org/life).
such as AOPA Weather and AOPA Airports, with printable (kneeboard format) taxi PILOT INFORMATION CENTER. Experi-
diagrams. enced pilots and CFIs are available on
• A dedicated flight training helpline, which is a confidential hotline to support and our toll-free helpline (800-872-2672).
assist student pilots who have training questions, concerns or issues. You can also go online (www.aopa.org/
• Interactive safety courses and quizzes to help students gain knowledge and pilot-resources/pilot-information-
proficiency. center.aspx) for access to information
• And more! most often requested by our members.
Pay it forward today by telling a student pilot about AOPA’s free six-month introduc- FLIGHT PLANNING. Robust flight-
tory membership available online (ft.aopa.org/refer)—enrollment is quick and simple. planning capability; airport directory
information; and aviation weather for your
MEMBERSHIP. Modify your student trial AOPA AIR SAFETY INSTITUTE. A wide smartphone, iPad, or computer (www.
membership or take the next step and array of interactive online courses, safety aopa.org/flyq).
become an official member of AOPA. You’ll quizzes, webinars, and seminars to help WEATHER. Online graphical real-time
continue receiving all of the following you increase your knowledge and become aviation weather information (www.aopa.
great benefits, services, and discounts a safer pilot (www.airsafetyinstitute.org). org/weather).
while supporting the organization protect- AOPA LIVE. Weekly webcast show AIRPORT INFORMATION. Online
ing your right to fly. Plus, trial members recaps the week’s news and showcases directory with vital preflight information,
can join AOPA at a special reduced rate aviation feature stories (www.aopa.org/ updated daily (www.aopa.org/airports).
of just $25 (www.aopa.org/membership/ aopalive). LEGAL AND MEDICAL HELP. AOPA Legal
membership-options.aspx). CAR RENTAL DISCOUNTS. AOPA mem- Services Plan/Pilot Protection Services
ADVOCACY. Taking on regulatory and leg- bers save on car rentals with our strategic safeguards pilot and medical certificates
islative threats to GA at national, state, and partners: Enterprise, National, and Alamo from FAA action (www.aopa.org/pps).
local levels has remained the association’s (www.aopa.org/cars). AOPA FOUNDATION. Your tax-deductible
primary focus for almost 75 years (www. AOPA LIFESTYLES COLLECTION. Save donation provides funding for important
aopa.org/advocacy). money with exclusive members-only dis- work that membership dues alone cannot
MAGAZINES. As a student member you’ll counts and special offers from top aviation support: safety, education, growing the
continue to receive Flight Training maga- and nonaviation companies (www.aopa. pilot population, preserving airports, and
zine (print or digital). When you renew org/lifestyles). providing support for good work being
your membership, you’ll have the option of RENTER’S INSURANCE. When you done in general aviation (www.aopa
selecting AOPA Pilot magazine to keep you rent or borrow an aircraft you could foundation.org).
in touch with the ever-changing world of be personally liable for repair costs AOPA AVIATION FINANCE COMPANY.
general aviation (flighttraining.aopa.org). and legal defense fees should damage We know what it’s like to own an air-
NEWSLETTERS. Customizable weekly occur. A renter’s policy with plane. Whether you’re purchasing one for
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4/ FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG
RIGHT SEAT By Ian J. Twombly
THE SOUND
OF SILENCE
ENGINES RARELY QUIT WHEN TREATED WELL
O
ne afternoon early in my career as a young flight instructor,
an old-timer who used to hang out at the grass strip where
I taught was telling fish stories. “I’ve had eight engine
failures,” he boasted. I remember thinking the poor guy
needed to start carrying more fuel.
What various calamities led to this
man’s rather unfortunate problems, I don’t
know. It’s safe to assume he wasn’t flying
an average airplane in an average situation,
because no one’s luck is that bad. Because
despite all the practicing we do to respond
to engine failures, the statistics show that
the vast majority of pilots will fly an entire
career without anything close to a total
failure. Provided, that is, they remember to
put gas in the airplane.
It shouldn’t be surprising that a major
cause of engine failures in piston air-
planes is fuel exhaustion. There are more
still for fuel mismanagement, sometimes
AS ANY GLIDER PILOT WILL TELL YOU,
LANDING WITHOUT AN ENGINE IS NO BIG
DEAL—PROVIDED ONE TRAINS FOR IT.
attributed simply to selecting the wrong
tank or not knowing how to use the
system. In 2010 there were nearly two
fuel-exhaustion accidents a week on aver-
age. Although it may be the most obvious
thing you hear during your training, the
engine needs fuel to run. Why some 80
people a year don’t understand that is
anyone’s guess.
Regardless of whether from fuel or
mechanical problems, engines can and do
fail. Our aircraft engines are meant to run
at close to full power for extended periods.
Most don’t feature electronic engine
controls, and a fair amount still employ a
carburetor. Our primary engine technol-
ogy is decades old, so they just aren’t as
reliable as modern car engines. When was
the last time you heard of one of those
throwing a cylinder through the hood?
6/ FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG
When you first start training, this can
be a bit disconcerting. Lucky for us, the
wings aren’t connected to the engine, and
instead of dropping like a rock when the
engine fails, the airplane simply turns into
a glider. And as any glider pilot will tell
you, landing without an engine is no big
deal—provided one trains for it.
That training will involve simulated
engine failures with approaches to land
at farm fields, airports, and anywhere else
the airplane can be put down. We drill this
over and over so that if the time comes and
we have to do it for real, it will be second
nature. We also practice to control the
emotional response to such a situation.
This month we cover the mental process
of an engine failure scenario in “The Zen
of Engine Failure,” beginning on page 26.
In it, a pilot with thousands of hours in
all types of aircraft describes what really
happens from his point of experience
after a dozen engine failures. I would say
he needs to carry more fuel, too, but since
that experience includes some unusual fly-
ing scenarios, I think it’s safe to assume his
rate of engine failures is atypical.
Good maintenance, a careful preflight,
and the right amount of fuel ensure the
odds are stacked in your favor for a flying
career free of unwelcome surprises.
Email Editor Ian J. Twombly at ian.twombly@aopa.
org; Twitter: ijtwombly; and visit Flight Training on
Facebook.
VISIT OUR WEBSITE!
http://flighttraining.aopa.org
Publisher | Mark Baker
Senior VP, Media/Editor in Chief | Thomas B. Haines
Editor | Ian J. Twombly
Editor at Large | Thomas A. Horne
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Technical Editors | Mike Collins, Jill W. Tallman
Senior Editors | Dave Hirschman, Alton K. Marsh
Media Production Specialist | Sylvia Horne
Administrative Assistant | Miriam E. Stoner
Contributors | Pete Bedell, Greg Brown, LeRoy Cook,
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Design Director | Michael E. Kline
Art Directors | Elizabeth Z. Jones, Jill C. Benton
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Copyright © 2013, Aircraft Owners and Pilots
Association. All rights reserved. No part of this monthly
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by electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
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LETTERS Talk back
LAPSED PILOTS
NEVER TOO LATE TO LEARN?
I
would like to comment on the articles about bringing lapsed
pilots back to the sky in recent issues. I was a lapsed private
pilot myself, single engine land, with only 184.6 hours total time
at the controls in 1977. My pilot logbook shows a gaping lapse of
flying fun and exhilaration between 1977 and 2007.
My excuse was that I got married and
my mind was on other things—among
them a new mortgage that didn’t make a
lot of room for a lot of other discretionary
expenses. Playing with my new wife was
more important than flying. Happy wife,
happy life, right?
I took up flying again in 2007. I began
with taking a few flying lessons with an
instructor to test the water. The instructor
felt that I could become current again in
about five to 10 hours of flight time com-
bined with a mini written exam to test my
theoretical skills.
To me it sounded reasonable and some-
thing worth pursuing. After 5.2 hours of
daylight flight instruction, and one hour
night flight instruction, and passing the
mini written exam with almost clean
flying colors, he signed me off to carry
passengers on my own. I felt also that I
was competent at the controls and was
ready to go it on my own without endan-
gering man or machine. Since that time
I have passed the annuals with different
instructors and have am regarded as a
competent pilot. I also passed the instru-
ment ground course, but decided not to
pursue an instrument rating because of
the expense, but it was a good theoretical
supplement because I was not up to speed
on the new regs and weather technology.
Based on my own experience I will take
issue with your assessment of currency
estimations for lapsed pilots. My 30-year
lapse would have meant that I would
require 30 hours of flight instruction. This
is far in excess of what the FAA requires for
a first-time pilot and does not seem reason-
able at all for pilots who have had a good
8/ FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG
WE APPRECIATE YOUR
COMMENTS. Please email letters
to flighttraining@aopa.org. Letters
will be edited for style and space.
flying record in the past. I strongly encour-
age a lapsed pilot to test the waters with a
not-for-profit instructor and make his/her
own decision based on his/her judgment.
Svend Strandbygaard
Falmouth, Maine
I’m a lowly CFI-S trying to make a busi-
ness out of providing flight training for the
sport pilot certificate. I’m getting worn
out by the articles on “how do we grow
general aviation?” This deal is a huge
failure and it is not the general public’s
fault and it is not the CFI’s fault. It is the
FAA and the insurance companies and,
yes, I include AOPA itself in the failure
system. First off, the gross weight is too
low to include the Cessna 150, 120, 140,
152, and all of the other training aircraft
that we have. Next the FAA got rid of the
Experimental LSA exemption waiver,
which doesn’t leave us many options for
training aircraft that are affordable. But
the single biggest problem is the insur-
ance companies. If we CFIs cannot buy
liability insurance on our operations and
our aircraft, you for darn sure are going
to see a drop in the available lower-cost
entry level flight training.
Wolf Emonds
Portland, Oregon
I must be in the minority but I would
love to see an article geared towards
new “older” pilots and what careers are
available to us. I didn’t realize my dream
of flight until I was 48 and would love to
explore possible careers, but it seems the
vast majority of information is only for
younger pilots. Is a second career even
 As seen on Flight Training's
Facebook page
Steve Brite passed his checkride
November 1 after overcoming
some of life’s obstacles. Here are Mark Fryburg
two of the many comments he
Beaverton, Oregon
received on Facebook:

“
AOPA Member Since 1988
"GOOD JOB! KEEP
YOUR EYE ON THE Pilot Protection Services
PRIZE AND DON’T LET
ANYTHING STAND IN Total Time: 2,175 hours
YOUR WAY. ONE CAN Member: Hillsboro Flying
AND WILL OVERCOME Without AOPA Pilot Club
MANY OBSTACLES, Regularly flies: C-172, C-182,
JUST KEEP WORKING Protection Services, & BE-33 Debonair
AT IT!" Occupation: Government
NATHANIEL HABELT I wouldn’t be flying right now.
Affairs Representative
"WE LOSE SO MANY
PILOTS TO THE They’ve helped me through
SETBACKS THAT YOU AOPA Pilot Protection Services
several “ticket threatening” guards your pilot and medical
MENTIONED. SO GLAD certificates to protect your freedom
THAT YOU KEPT AT IT. spots with my medical. Given to fly
CONGRATULATIONS
AND MANY HAPPY that even minor medical or Legal Services Plan:
- Legal defense for FAA alleged
LANDINGS." violations
KURT NELSON legal problems can be very - Legal defense for state or local

”
www.facebook.com/
enforcement actions
AOPAflighttrainingmag big deals to the FAA, the little - Unlimited legal consultation on most
covered aviation matters
extra I pay AOPA for help is Medical Assistance:
possible for my age group? Many in my - Help with medical waivers
age group had to give up our dreams in well worth it! - Medical record review to avoid
delays (Plus Level)
our teens and twenties because of finan- - Personal advocacy with the FAA
cial constraints, et cetera, only to return Mark Fryburg
- Unlimited medical consultation
later in life. I don’t see any opportuni- AOPA 00382425
ties for my age group; most won’t hire us Beaverton, Oregon Tips and Advice:
because of age. Are we stuck only to enjoy - Weekly articles
- Monthly eNewsletter
aviation recreationally or are there oppor- - Monthly webinar
tunities out there for us also?
Tim Goke Protect Your Right to Fly
Waupaca, Wisconsin with Affordable Legal and
Medical Coverage
ERRATUM
In the December 2013 “Flight Lesson:
Visit AOPA.ORG/pps or call 800-872-2672
IFR or VFR?” author Stephen Crimaudo’s
name was misspelled. Flight Training Each case is different-past success does not guarantee future

regrets the error. results. Legal coverage provided by the AOPA Legal Services
Plan. See plan description at aopa.org/pps for complete
coverages, exclusions, and limitations. LEGAL | MEDICAL
JANUARY 2014 FLIGHT TRAINING /9
PREFLIGHT
TRAINING NEWS AND NOTES

MOUNTAINS MAJESTY. Few places evoke the

grandeur of the United States wilderness more
eloquently than Alaska—and few destinations rank
higher on any given pilot’s bucket list. Alaska is a
pilot’s Mecca—a state so vast that general aviation
is the preferred mode of transportation for people
and goods. Planning a trip to Alaska means crossing
Canadian airspace (and possibly a fuel stop) before
returning to U.S. airspace, so international proce-
dures for flying to Canada apply to that part of your
trip. Careful flight planning is a must, but for those
who venture north, the rewards are great.

WHAT: Cirrus SR22

WHERE: Ketchikan, Alaska
PHOTOGRAPHER: Chris Rose

10 / FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG
DOWNLOAD THIS PHOTO » http://flighttraining.aopa.org

JANUARY 2014 / FLIGHT TRAINING / 11

PREFLIGHT»

SUCCESS STORIES

A special signature
I WAS EXTREMELY nervous before my
checkride. The last time I had any form of
a test in my flight training it went terribly
wrong. I was close to throwing in the
towel.
Luckily, I found a great and under-
standing instructor, John Cronley at
Long Island Aviators, and he helped me
overcome my fears. He soloed me after a
few lessons. Together we worked toward
my checkride and I gained confidence
with my flying.
Once I had made it through the oral
exam, the hard part was over. I was
beyond excited to go show off my flying
ability. Each maneuver I took in turn. I
stayed in the moment; I wasn’t thinking
about what I had just done or what I still
had to do to pass. It was the best I ever
did most of my maneuvers. It felt abso- ture calligraphy. He wrote in black and NAME: Caitlin Lyons
lutely amazing. orange and drew pumpkins in celebra- AGE: 24
After I had completed my best soft- tion of Halloween the next day. Now my EVENT: Private pilot checkride
field landing and shut the airplane down, logbook isn’t only pink, but has calligra- WHERE: Republic Airport (FRG),
my DPE told me he had one last question phy in it. Farmingdale, New York
for me: “How does it feel to be a private By far this is the hardest and greatest AIRPLANE: Cessna 152
pilot?” My smile still hasn’t gone away! thing I’ve accomplished in my life, and
The best part of the day was him I’m glad I overcame my fears instead of
filling out my logbook with his signa- quitting.

NAME: Kobey Durham
AGE: 16
EVENT: Solo
WHERE: Fairbanks International Airport
(PAFA), Fairbanks, Alaska
AIRPLANE: 1978 Cessna 152 Sparrow Hawk
II (modified with a 125-hp engine)
Adrenaline rush
ON MY FIRST solo, I felt very ready. It all
went by so fast. We did a few laps in the
pattern and my flight instructor had me
taxi back. He was a bit iffy on soloing
me that day because it was so busy. He
asked me if I felt comfortable, I con-
firmed, and he got out of the airplane
and said something like, “Do one touch
and go, and one full stop. Bring it back in
one piece, and have fun!”
I taxied out; I was nervous but so
happy in the moment. After my runup
and a long wait for traffic, I was finally
cleared for takeoff. It was an adrenaline
rush hearing my call sign and the words
“Cleared for takeoff.”
As soon as I pushed the power in, I
already knew the airplane would fly
light. I did a normal right closed traffic
pattern; the first landing was a greaser.
I wasn’t happy with my second one as
I was a foot off the centerline and I flew
a bit too fast. I noticed my instructor and
a few others from the flight school, just
off of the runway, waving me by to go
again, as the traffic had died down. So, I
brought the flaps up, turned off the carb
heat, and pushed the throttle forward.
I did my next lap. My third landing was
a greaser. Right on the centerline. I will
always remember that day.
Share your experience on Flight Train-
ing’s Facebook page (www.facebook.com/
AOPAFlightTrainingMag).

12 / FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG
 HOW IT WORKS BY IAN J. TWOMBLY

Rotor blades
A wing with a fling

HELICOPTERS MAY SEEM to fly only by magic, but the founda-
tion of rotorcraft flight is the same as that of an airplane—the
wing. Helicopters are sometimes called rotary-wing aircraft
because their main rotor and tail rotor are essentially wings in
motion. Each blade of a helicopter’s rotors is an airfoil with a
chord and camber, just like those of an airplane. Whereas an
airplane’s wing is fixed to the airframe and moves at the same
speed as the fuselage, a rotor blade rotates from a central hub
to generate lift. Rotary-wing pilots control the amount of lift
the main rotor blades generate through the collective con-
trol and the throttle. The throttle remains relatively constant
throughout flight, and some helicopters, such as the popular
Robinson R22 and R44, can maintain the power setting auto-
matically. As a result, most of what the pilot controls is the
blades' angle of attack. Pull up on the collective, the angle of
incidence, and thus angle of attack increases, and the heli-
copter goes up. Push down, and the opposite happens. This is
exactly like an airplane, where pushing forward on the yoke
decreases the angle of attack, decreasing lift and forcing the
airplane to go down.

» SLOW SPIN
Despite hauling the entire
airframe, passengers,
and fuel into the air, the
main rotor spins at a fairly
leisurely pace. The main
rotor on a Robinson R22,
for example, turns at about
530 rpm.

PLUS See how the blades operate.

THE TAIL ROTOR

As the main rotor of a helicopter spins, the laws of physics say that the fuselage below it will twist in the opposite direction. This
torque must be counteracted, which is the tail rotor’s function. Like the main rotor, this smaller rotor mounted on the tail spins
at a fairly constant rate, and moves more or less air, based on changing angle of attack. The pilot controls that through the anti-
STEVE KARP

torque pedals, which happen to look a lot like rudder pedals.

JANUARY 2014 FLIGHT TRAINING / 13

PREFLIGHT»
AFTER THE CHECKRIDE
Mix it up
Dogfighting is alive and well
ROUTINE FLYING IS predictable: Take off, fly
straight and level, land. What’s the oppo-
site of predictable? Dogfighting. We’re not
suggesting that you square off with another
pilot at your local airport. Take your pilot
certificate to a company that specializes in
staging mock aerial combat.
CHECKLIST...
Here are four places to try:
Air Combat USA, Fullerton, California
www.aircombatusa.com
Prices start at $1,395 per person for basic air combat
maneuvers in an Extra 300L or SIAI Marchetti SF-260.
Barnstorming Adventures, San Diego, California
www.barnstorming.com
Prices start at $596 for a dogfight in a Varga VG-21.
14 / FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG
These sessions aren’t inexpensive, but
they include ground instruction, specific
training on fighter maneuvers, and possibly
a video of your victory. All of that, while
allowing you to explore your combative
side in a safe, controlled manner.
Fighter Combat AZ, Phoenix, Arizona
www.fightercombat.com
Prices start at $895 for basic air combat maneuvers in an
Extra 300L.
Sky Combat Ace, Las Vegas, Nevada
www.skycombatace.com
MIKE FIZER
Prices start at $1,499 for a session in an Extra 330LC.
 NEWS BY IAN J. TWOMBLY

Spirit of innovation alive and

well at Redbird Migration
“ARE WE AVIATORS or are we
accountants?” That rhetori-
cal question from Redbird’s
Jerry Gregoire summed up
the attitude and much of the
focus at the 2013 Redbird
Migration in October.
As Redbird moves for-
ward, it’s clear the company
is focused on controlling
the costs associated with
FLIGHT TRAINING magazine
all facets of aviation—from was featured at the Redbird
learning to fly to owning Migration.
an airplane. And Gregoire
answered his own question. “We’re avia-
tors and we’re going to fix it,” he said.
In its third year, the Redbird Migration
is a variation on a traditional conference,
bringing together flight training profes-
sionals and industry executives quick to
confirm their commitment to this impor-
tant end of the aviation market. Most
presentations had the energy of an indus-
try more focused on innovation, big ideas,
and the need to take risks to increase the
pilot community and flying activity.
Gregoire defended the role
of motion in flight training.
Redbird has spent the past
year studying students who
learned maneuvers first in
the simulator and then tran-
sitioned to the airplane. “The
total training time didn’t
decrease, but the airplane
time did,” he said. Gregoire
also introduced Redbird’s
helicopter motion training
device, a platform he said
can save rotorcraft students
thousands of dollars in training. The com-
pany is expected to officially release the
simulator at Sun 'n Fun 2014.
Craig Fuller, chairman of the Redbird
board of directors and former AOPA
president, presented the findings of the
Skyport’s $1-per-gallon avgas experiment.
Much to Gregoire’s relief, they found that
cheaper fuel did increase activity. Over the
period of a few weeks, Redbird pumped
90,000 gallons into 1,016 unique aircraft
that came from 300 different airports.

Cessna CEO says Skycatcher has ‘no future’

BY ALTON K. MARSH
CESSNA AIRCRAFT PRESIDENT and CEO Scott Ernest gave updates on nearly the
complete lineup of Cessna products during the National Business Aviation Association
convention in October—but made it clear there are issues he doesn’t want to talk about.
Those issues include the Skycatcher and the incident involving the Cessna 182 JT-A
equipped with an SMA diesel engine that had an off-airport landing August 21 after an
engine failure. Ernest spoke to reporters at a press conference held at NBAA.
The diesel-engine Cessna 182 JT-A is moving along the certification track. Asked
if the cause of an engine failure has been determined that occurred during testing 30
miles west of Wichita, Ernest deferred, pointing out certification is continuing. Ernest
referred further questions to Senior Vice President for Engineering Michael Thacker,
who said after the press conference that he could not discuss the type of testing in prog-
ress at the time of the engine failure.
Asked about the Light Sport Skycatcher by another reporter during the press confer-
ence, Ernest summed up the aircraft by simply saying, “No future.” After the press
conference, Jodi Noah, who heads up the propeller-driven product line at Cessna, said
the company had Skycatchers available for delivery and that it was still in their product
line. A recent check of FAA records suggests that about 87 of the light sport airplanes are
still owned by Cessna. None are currently in production, she said. Ernest said after the
news conference that the airplane simply failed to find a home in the marketplace.

JANUARY 2014 FLIGHT TRAINING / 15


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A DIVISION OF THE
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PREFLIGHT»
PRODUCTS
‘Practical Guide to
Winter Flying’
New online course
PROFESSIONAL PILOTS UNDERSTAND
the many considerations of winter fly-
ing, because they don’t have the luxury
of shrugging at snow on the ground and
heading back inside. Two such pilots, Len
Costa and Carl Valeri, have produced an
online course aimed at increasing pilot
skill level in cold weather.
The Practical Guide to Winter Fly-
ing delves into ground ice, in-flight ice,
fluid deicing techniques, wing versus tail
stall, flight into known icing, autopilot
concerns, and exit strategies, among
other topics. There’s plenty of informa-
tion here, whether you are a student pilot
working through the meteorological
portion of ground school, or an instru-
ment-rated pilot for whom in-flight icing
is a very real concern.
Costa and Valeri are cohosts of the
Stuck Mic Avcast, and their rapport—a
hallmark of the podcast—also is evident
in this collaboration. They pepper the
academic portion of each lesson with
pertinent anecdotes drawn from their
experiences as flight instructors and
airline pilots. The effect is like taking
a ground school class with some flying
friends who happen to be quite knowl-
edgeable. The production quality is on
the minimalist side, which is to say that
it’s more like viewing a narrated slide-
show rather than a full-blown video
course the likes of which are produced
by King Schools and Sporty’s. Still, the
creators deserve points for making the
material accessible and relevant.
PRICE: $47
CONTACT: www.stuckmicavcast.com/
practical-guide-to-winter-flying
16 / FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG
Final Exam
Think you know your stuff? Quiz yourself
with some of these FAA test questions
1. VFR approaches to land at night should be
accomplished
a. at a higher airspeed.
b. the same as during daytime.
c. with a steeper descent.
2. When making routine transponder code
changes, pilots should avoid inadvertent selec-
tion of which codes?
a. 0700, 1700, 7000.
b. 7500, 7600, 7700.
c. 1200, 1500, 7000.
3. The amount of excess load that can be
imposed on the wing of an airplane depends
upon the
a. position of the center of gravity.
b. abruptness at which the load is applied.
c. speed of the airplane.
4. Which cruising altitude is appropriate for a
VFR flight on a magnetic course of 135 degrees?
a. Even thousands plus 500 feet.
b. Odd thousands plus 500 feet.
c. Even thousands.
5. (Refer to the figure below) The segmented
circle indicates that a landing on Runway 26
will be with a
a. right quartering tailwind.
b. left quartering headwind.
c. right quartering headwind.
6. The numbers 8 and 26 on a runway indicate
that the runway is oriented approximately
a. 008° and 260° magnetic.
b. 080° and 260° magnetic.
c. 008° and 026° magnetic.
7. (Refer to the figure.) The traffic patterns
indicated in the segmented circle have been
arranged to avoid flights over an area to the
a. southeast of the airport.
b. south of the airport.
c. north of the airport.
Answers on page 53
PLUS Take the quiz.
 ASI NEWS

New online course arms pilots against

VFR flight into instrument conditions

YOU’VE PROBABLY HEARD of pilots who
have taken foolish weather risks and
placed their passengers and themselves in
danger by flying into deteriorating visual
meteorological conditions (VMC) while
lacking an instrument rating or profi-
ciency to deal with instrument weather.
Even pilots with the best intentions can
get into trouble when they fail to recog-
nize a deteriorating situation and don’t
take corrective action. How can we learn
to anticipate conditions that spell trouble,
and recognize common scenarios that can
lead us to go against our better judgment?
The Air Safety Institute’s new online
course Weather Wise: VFR into IMC
(www.airsafetyinstitute.org/vfrintoimc)
takes a new approach to the problem. The
course provides the basic weather knowl-
edge it takes to anticipate poor conditions
and explains common weather scenarios
that can trap unsuspecting pilots, helping
users to understand the complexity of
decision making and judgment and how KEEPING PILOTS SAFE.
these can be compromised.
Weather Wise: VFR into IMC was SAFEGUARDING THE
developed with funding from the National FUTURE OF GA.
Weather Service. It includes commentary
by Rod Machado and AOPA Pilot’s Tom
Horne.
This is ASI’s first course optimized for
use on the iPad and designed for touch-
screen use, making it easier than ever to
navigate.

New ASI winter/spring seminar

Accident Case Study: Live comes to a location near you this January

REVIEWING AIRCRAFT ACCIDENTS lets us learn from others’ mistakes, helps us think
critically about our skills, and provides a mental “nudge” if we find ourselves in
similar situations. The Air Safety Institute’s winter/spring seminar, Accident Case
Study: Live, aims to put a new spin on safety-oriented accident analysis. Working DONATE TODAY!
with several compelling real-life cases, presenter and audience will play the role of Call Toll Free 800-955-9115 or Donate
Online www.aopafoundation.org
accident investigator—starting at the crash scene and working backward through
physical evidence, eyewitness testimony, and other leads to figure out exactly what
went wrong, and why. Visit the website (www.airsafetyinstitute.org/seminars) for
dates and locations near you.

JANUARY 2014 FLIGHT TRAINING / 17

AROUND THE PATCH By Jill W. Tallman

DECEMBER ANNIVERSARY
WELCOME TO OWNERSHIP

and were quite brittle—and it probably

would be advisable to replace them. In
that situation, the only thing to do is gulp
and write the check. Or, as my colleague
Dave Hirschman says, “Put that money in
the cannon and fire it.”
So, yes, I grumble. But I don’t grumble
too much. Ownership has a lot going for
it. My airplane is ready when I want to go,
so I can fly on my schedule. That seems
downright luxurious. I can make the kinds
of flights I wanted to do while working on
my private pilot certificate. I can spend
a morning in pursuit of a $100 breakfast
without having to worry about being back
to the airport in time for someone else’s
lesson. I can plan and execute cross-coun-
try trips because there are no restrictions
on taking the airplane overnight, and no

D
ecember marks my third year of aircraft ownership—the third requirements that I must log a certain
anniversary of a winter morning when I flew out to an airport amount of Hobbs time to do so. Since
in Pennsylvania in AOPA’s ultra-gadgety Diamond DA40 and purchasing 7301J, I’ve flown her from
flew back in a Piper Cherokee 140 with a working automatic Maryland to North and South Carolina,
direction finder. I know that it works, because about 30 miles out from Tennessee, Missouri, and Wisconsin.
Frederick Municipal Airport, my colleague in the right seat fiddled I can land on a grass strip if I wish. I
with the device and picked up a bizarre broadcast of someone singing haven’t managed to do that yet, but there’s
a Christmas carol a cappella. always next year.
I can leave my headset and flight bag in
On that flight home, 7301J’s radios $1,295 plus the cost of installation. I look the airplane without worrying that they
started a work-when-we-feel-like-it at it as a long-term safety investment, will become someone else’s property.
pattern that persists to this day. My first which somehow makes it a little easier When I open the hangar, the airplane is
repair bill was from a visit to the avionics to swallow. there, in the same state as when I left. That
shop for some troubleshooting. Welcome Outside of annuals, I’ve had to purchase means nobody else’s trash is there, and
to ownership. a new tire and a new battery, and replace there’s nobody but me to blame if I forget
I grumble (I think the entitlement to a seal in the nose gear. While inconve- to clean off the bugs, or don’t top off the
grumble is expressly noted somewhere in nient—although I guess unscheduled tanks. I like the fact that when I open the
the pilot’s operating handbook), but the maintenance can’t ever be considered hangar, the airplane inside is mine—bow-
cost of ownership has been manageable. “convenient”—none of those repair bills tie yokes, cigar lighter, ADF, and all.
The yearly insurance tab for a 40-some- was horrifying. I’ll probably be grumbling when the
thing airplane with a 160-horsepower The annuals themselves are fairly pitot and transponder inspection comes
engine is reasonable. When I compare it to straightforward, thanks to Mr. Piper’s due. But the good thing about ownership
the checks I’m constantly writing to State simple design and the seemingly inde- is that it causes short-term memory loss.
Farm to cover two young-adult drivers, it structible Lycoming engine. This year I You forget those maintenance bills as soon
seems like a bargain. did get a double whammy in the form of as you open the hangar door and ready the
Both of those young adults fly with an airworthiness directive that required airplane for your next adventure.
me from time to time, so I upgraded the an inspection of the stabilator cables  
Cherokee’s front lap belts to B.A.S. Inc. and turnbuckles, coupled with my A&P’s Email Technical Editor Jill Tallman at jill.tallman@
shoulder harnesses. The kit was about revelation that the fuel lines were original, aopa.org; Twiter: jtallman1959.

18 / FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG
IV
CHECKRIDE By Bob Schmelzer

PUSHING THE ENVELOPE

SHORT-FIELD OPERATIONS

I
t’s probably no surprise that accomplishing short-field takeoffs to finely tune your approach path while
and landings is one of the biggest challenges—and sometimes adjusting the power to finely tune and
obstacles—to the private pilot applicant during checkrides. maintain your desired short-field approach
Because these procedures demand precision control, there is airspeed—all the way down the final
less room for error, making proper practice of these maneuvers critical approach and until the landing flare is
to safe and consistent behavior on checkride day. started. In gusty conditions, it would be
prudent to add about half of the gust factor
The designated pilot examiner (DPE) an obstacle. But if the nose is raised too to your published short-field approach
will observe how you would determine steeply, the airspeed will decay toward speed. If your approach is over obstacles,
the runway length required for a particu- the stall speed. Not wishing to scare the avoid the temptation to suddenly reduce
lar takeoff and/or landing, perhaps on a examiner, rapidly scanning the airspeed power to idle as you pass over them, result-
grass runway or over an obstacle. This and making appropriate, timely pitch ing in immediate approach destabilization:
usually occurs during the ground portion adjustments to maintain VX is the best rapid airspeed decay, high sink rate, hard
of the practical test, sometimes referred to way to keep everyone happy—and safe! landing—or all three.
as the oral exam. But it’s during the flight Once all obstacles are cleared, smoothly If the approach path is clear of obstacles,
portion of the exam, where the rubber reduce the pitch attitude to accelerate set your aim point for the runway thresh-
meets the runway, that problems more to your best rate of climb speed (VY) as old. While locked onto your aim point,
often develop. you retract the flaps incrementally, all adjust power to maintain your target
approach airspeed, being careful not to
RAPIDLY SCANNING THE AIRSPEED AND reduce power to idle until beginning the
MAKING ADJUSTMENTS TO MAINTAIN VX IS THE landing flare. Although power should be
BEST WAY TO KEEP EVERYONE HAPPY. used during the approach, carrying power
during the flare only extends the touch-
With the short-field takeoff, properly without losing any hard-earned altitude. down point. After touchdown, maintaining
configure the airplane for the special Maneuver complete. full back-pressure on the yoke will maxi-
takeoff early, so you won’t forget. This Next, you’ll demonstrate a short-field mize aerodynamic braking and the extra
usually means extending the flaps to the landing. The real key to success here is download on the horizontal stabilizer
recommended setting. If you’re con- flying a stabilized approach—airspeed will put a heavier load on the main tires,
sidering a high-altitude takeoff (airport and approach angle. Begin your approach providing greater brake effectiveness and
elevations above 3,000 feet), adjust the as usual, setting power and flaps to begin a shorter ground roll. But be careful not
mixture for maximum power, as described slowing and descending when abeam the to apply excessive brake pressure, causing
in the pilot’s operating handbook for runway threshold. Consider extending the tires to skid. Heavy braking—yes—but
your aircraft. Remember to use the entire your downwind leg to permit a longer not too much. Some manufacturers even
available runway. Hold the brakes so the final approach. This will give you more recommend raising the flaps during the
airplane won’t roll forward as full power time to get fully stabilized. ground roll to increase brake effectiveness.
is applied. After quickly scanning the The final approach should be power on However, this should not be necessary in
engine instruments for proper indications, (above idle), adjusting the pitch attitude most situations.
release the brakes evenly while keeping Accomplishing all of this demonstrates
the yoke just slightly aft of the neutral TAKEOFF AND LANDINGS: to the examiner that you have achieved
position. The objective here is to obtain DETERMINING AN ABORT POINT mastery of your airplane, even during
the maximum possible acceleration rate. When it comes to making a safe takeoff, these most demanding maneuvers. In the
As the airplane approaches rotation there are simple rules of thumb we can all end, that’s exactly what any DPE really
speed (VR), smoothly raise the nose to live by. Knowing when to abort a takeoff wants to see.
the climb attitude needed to stabilize the is one of them. Learn how to choose an  
airspeed at best angle of climb (VX). This abort point in this Air Safety Institute Bob Schmelzer is a Chicago-area designated pilot
is the critical part. If the pitch attitude is online video (www.aoap.org/Education/ examiner, a United Airlines captain, and a Boeing
too low, excessive airspeed will reduce Safety-Videos.aspx). 777 line check airman. He has been an active flight
the climb performance needed to clear instructor since 1972.

20 / FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG
 The Wright partners can make the biggest
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AOPA thanks our Corporate Partners for their program support, as well as the special

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FLIGHT LESSON By Michael DeBerry
LOUD AND CLEAR
LISTEN TO YOUR AIRCRAFT
I
t wasn’t long after I got my pilot certificate that I encountered my
first emergency landing. It was a day I will never forget.
I was scheduled for a ground lesson at 8 a.m. My instructor was
going to teach me how to fly a Nanchang CJ-6, a high-perfor-
mance complex aircraft. When I arrived at Herlong Recreational Airport
in Jacksonville, Florida, my instructor,
Hank, was pulling the airplane with its
33-foot, six-inch wingspan out of his han-
gar. We began the ground lesson, and as I
took notes, I couldn’t help but think about
how I was going to be flying something
that was aerobatic and faster than a Cessna
172SP. Hank discussed variations in wing
design and how it affects aircraft perfor-
mance. A proud veteran of the United
States military, he explained that he had
flown F/A-18s and was able to relate how
the wing’s structure made that magnifi-
cent change in aerodynamics.
Next, we discussed the importance of
flaps and how they increase the angle of
descent without increasing airspeed. This
particular aircraft’s flap lever didn’t have a
10-, 20-, 30-, or even a 45-degree posi-
tion—it only had one position: flaps down.
About 30 to 45 minutes into the ground
instruction, we took a brief break to walk
around the aircraft and complete the
preflight checklist. As we walked, Hank
described some key features and high-
lighted unique aspects of the aircraft. I
climbed eagerly into the backseat of the
22 / FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG
two-seater and fastened the shoulder har-
ness. Once I gave him the thumbs up, he
instructed me to turn the magnetos to the
Both position. The starter engaged, and
the aircraft came to life. The sound of the
engine is still fresh in my mind.
As we taxied to the run-up area, I
couldn’t help but wonder how Hank was
taxiing. To operate the brakes, you had to
pull a lever located on the joystick. As we
pulled out of the run-up area, I closed the
canopy as if I were closing the sunroof to a
sports car.
We started the lesson by entering into a
stall, which went off without a hitch. Then
the fun part was next—aerobatics. We
flipped the aircraft in and out of loops with
speed and grace. It was almost as if the
Nanchang were dancing in the clouds.
Now it was my turn. We landed and
switched seats. We headed toward the sec-
ond practice field southeast of Naval Air
PLUS How much do you know about
high performance/complex aircraft?
Take the quiz.
FLIGHT LESSON offers the
opportunity for pilots to learn
from the experiences of others.
Fly this scenario on your AOPA Jay.
Station Jacksonville. Just as we reached
1,000 feet, the engine began to sputter
and the fuel pressure began to drop. We
contacted the NAS Jacksonville tower
to alert them to our engine troubles and
declared an emergency.
We were coming in hot for Runway
10. The tower initially instructed us to
set up for Runway 28, the active runway.
However, we had already decided that
Runway 10 was the best option because
it was closest. Our approach was slightly
high, so we put the flaps down to increase
drag and added a forward slip to get down
quicker. As the airspeed began to bleed
off, we were inches above the runway.
The airplane touched down, and as
we stopped we were greeted by Navy
security. They shook our hands and stated
they were glad we made it down safe.
I gave my driver’s license and my pilot
certificate to the base security to fill out a
report. After things began to settle down,
I called my dad to tell him what had hap-
pened and ask for a ride back to Herlong.
While Hank and I waited for our ride,
we contemplated the cause of the power
loss. He suspected that the fuel pump had
gone bad, causing the engine to fail. His
mechanic confirmed this after repairing
the aircraft.
The moral is, don’t waste too much
time analyzing the problem; in our case,
the airplane was talking to us loud and
clear that something was not right. We
had to make a decision and aggressively
get the aircraft on the ground since we
were losing power.
I learned to not let air traffic control
talk me into something that is not in my
best interest during an emergency.
Altitude is your friend, and making sure
you have the runway made before slip-
ping or having your ailerons opposite
to rudder is key. When you are assured
of the runway, be confident in how to
perform a forward slip. Most pilots do
ALEX WILLIAMSON
not practice slipping, and in many cases
during unplanned/forced landings, the
pilot finds himself high and fast—and
overshoots as a result.
 Discover. Explore. Become.
FREE! Sign Up Today!
aopa.org/av8rsfly

Are you ...

1. Passionate about flying?
2. Interested in a career in
aviation or aerospace?

Teens between the ages of 13 and 18 are Your Member Benefits Include:
eligible for a FREE AOPA AV8RS membership, • AOPA AV8RS Scholarships
compliments of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots • Flight Training Magazine Digital Edition
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We’ll help you discover your potential as a • AOPA Flight Training Helpline at 1-888-232-7456
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Brought to you by the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association • www.aopa.org/av8rsfly • Member Services 1.800.872.2672
FLYING CARPET By Greg Brown

PLUS View the slideshow.

DOWNTOWN FORT WORTH’S Sundance

Square, glimpsed through a hole in the clouds.

and Texas. It’s always astounding cross-

ing just a handful of towns in five and a
half hours over the endless Southwest.
Arriving the day before Summit proved
painless. Upon crossing the convention
arrival procedure's inbound reporting
fix, we were cleared direct to Fort Worth
Meacham International Airport.
“Welcome to Texas!” Sergio texted after
we landed. Clearly he had been follow-
ing our progress. At Summit, Jean and
I caught up on new technology and old
friends. We joined fellow conventioneers
at the town’s famed Stockyards for barbe-
cue, classic country music, and a rodeo.
We’d known that the cold front we’d
escaped in Arizona would eventually catch

TOURING TEXAS us, and that happened as we departed for

Fredericksburg. Thunderstorms weren’t
a problem, but we’d be cloud-flying. I’m
BEST MILKSHAKES EAST OF THE PECOS rarely assigned instrument departure pro-
cedures when flying the desert Southwest.

T
his year’s AOPA Summit had long been marked on my calen- So, when issued a particularly complex
dar. I’d never been to Fort Worth, Texas, unless you count in one departing Meacham, I asked clearance
pilot parlance, “I’ve flown over it.” And just two states from delivery to go over it with me.
Arizona, it initially appeared within reasonable Flying Car- “Wait, I’ll pull out my chart,” the con-
pet range. I was soon reminded, however, of how big those states really troller cheerfully replied, and together we
are—we faced an 11-hour round trip. Then Jean was invited to a San reviewed it. “Radio back with any more
Antonio meeting the week after Summit. I phoned Texas pilot friend questions,” he drawled. “Y’all have a good
Sergio Schaar to ask where to relax over the intervening weekend. flight!” Departing Meacham, I glanced
downward through a hole in the clouds to
“Consider Fredericksburg, in the Texas turbulent, powerful tailwinds urged us discover Fort Worth’s Sundance Square,
Hill Country,” he said. “It’s known for along ahead of the approaching cold front. where we’d enjoyed the past five days.
wine and German cuisine, and you could Poof! Jogged by a bump, Jean’s elbow After 90 pleasant minutes between cloud
stay at the Hangar Hotel right there on the popped open the passenger window some layers, we emerged into hazy visual condi-
airport.” Sergio suggested that we could 60 miles out. After recovering from that tions near Fredericksburg, so I cancelled
take advantage of the $1-per-gallon avgas ear-bending shock, we motored unevent- the instrument flight plan and abandoned
promotion at San Marcos Airport, “though fully over eastern Arizona, New Mexico, my programmed GPS approach.
I’ve heard there’s a two-hour wait.” Land-
ing at San Marcos also would allow me to TRAVEL LOG: GILLESPIE COUNTY (T82)
tour Redbird Skyport’s touted “aviation
laboratory.” Each additional destination Runways: 14/32, 5,001 X 75 Location: Three miles Extra: The Hangar Hotel
made the long journey more attractive. feet southwest of Fredericksburg (www.hangarhotel.com) is a
re-creation of a World War II
We fled Flagstaff ahead of a huge storm Elevation: 1,695 feet military hangar.
system rolling in from the west. Although

24 / FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG

“Where’s the airport?” Jean asked. But
I couldn’t see it—nor, for the moment,
remember how to cancel the loaded
approach. So I aimed in the general direc-
tion and, assisted by Jean and her tablet
GPS, found Gillespie County Airport hid-
ing behind some low hills.
Fredericksburg’s legendary Hangar
Hotel was booked, but Jean and I strolled
from our tiedown to check it out. The desk
clerk showed us around and boasted of the
adjacent Airport Diner.
“Best milkshakes east of the Pecos
River,” she said, so we moseyed next door
into an old-style stainless-steel diner for a
huge vanilla malt.
“Who makes the best milkshakes west of
the Pecos?” I asked, back at the hotel. The
woman blushed and shrugged. Jean has
volunteered to conduct further research.
I resist hard appointments when pilot-
ing, but sometimes they’re unavoidable.
Departure morning found us still under
the shadow of the lingering front. I wanted
to land at San Marcos to experience $1 fuel
and Redbird Skyport, but the forecast sug-
gested we might get stuck there.
It’s work flying instruments in unfamil-
iar territory, especially not knowing local
fixes on a short 35-minute flight. So early
on our San Antonio hop I requested and
dialed in an approach to Stinson Municipal
Airport, but we departed the clouds before
getting there and landed in the clear.
“You made a good decision flying direct
today,” said Sergio that night over dinner.
“Thunderstorms bracketed San Marcos
after you took off.”
“Is Sergio seriously tracking our entire
trip on his computer?” asked Jean.
“Yes,” laughed his wife, Deanna. “When
it comes to airplanes, no amount of detail
is too much for Sergio.” Then our talk
turned to weather. That same gargan-
tuan cold front was now stalled in a great
stormy arc from West Texas to Michigan.
“I’m afraid you’re not flying home
anytime soon, Greg,” said Sergio, and it
appeared he was right.
Greg Brown is an aviation author, photographer,
and former National Flight Instructor of the Year.
(www.gregbrownflyingcarpet.com).
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/ 25
 » Cover story

THE ZEN OF
ENGINE FAILURE FINDING YOUR HAPPY PLACE WHEN THE WORST HAPPENS

» Jamie Beckett
ILLUSTRATION BY CHARLES FLOYD

T
he simulated engine failure is
ubiquitous in aviation. Every
pilot applicant has been through
the drill. We rehearse for the big
event until the steps are centered
in our heads, thanks in part to the
frequency of the repetition, and in
part because our flight instruc-
tors require us to be able to repeat
the checklist items on command.

Fly an engine-out scenario on your AOPA Jay.

26 / FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG
JANUARY 2014 FLIGHT TRAINING / 27
 Pitch and trim for best glide speed; pick
an emergency landing spot; head toward
it; troubleshoot and attempt a restart;
make a Mayday call; review the emer-
gency checklist. Fly the airplane.
The practical test standard is a bit more
specific. The FAA wants to know you will
exhibit a satisfactory level of knowledge
relating to the various elements of an
emergency approach and landing. The
agency wants to be sure you can appro-
priately analyze the situation and select
a reasonable course of action. The FAA’s
standards for airspeed allow for up to 10
knots above or below your airplane’s best
glide speed. It will test your ability to plan
a pattern that avoids obstructions while
putting you in a survivable setup to land—
and that you’ve considered your altitude,
the wind, the terrain, and even the pos-
sibility of a field full of livestock. Finally,
your examiner wants to see you use the
appropriate checklist.
BEYOND THE PTS. Is that enough for an
actual engine failure? Maybe not. Des-
ignated pilot examiner Frank Gallagher
would like us to think beyond the PTS,
envision a more realistic scenario, and
prepare for it before we ever get into the
aircraft. When it comes to engine failures,
he says, “It’s either an inconvenience or
a disaster.”
The key to a successful outcome may be
as simple—and as difficult—as the thought
processes of the pilot experiencing the
failure. That’s the challenge inherent to
emergency training: working successfully
with the least-reliable and most accident-
prone component in the aircraft, the
human element.
Although the causes of engine failures
deserve our attention—because many are
easily preventable—Gallagher is focused
on more than the question of what made
the propeller stop spinning. “You need
to think about yourself and how you’re
going to react if an emergency like this
occurs,” he warns.
A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy
and a retired colonel in the U.S. Marine
Corps, Gallagher’s flight experience spans
careers in the military and civilian worlds.
He’s held positions as an instructor and
28 / FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG
a test pilot. He’s flown fixed-wing and rotary-wing
aircraft, single engine and multiengine—and he’s lost
an engine in all of them over the years. While most of
us claim a total experience of zero in real engine fail-
ures, Gallagher is working on recording his second
dozen in his flight log.
During a presentation at the Emil Buehler Center
for Aviation Training and Research in Melbourne,
Florida, Gallagher fleshed out his personal experi-
ences losing power while airborne in everything from
a Cessna trainer to a Vultee BT-13 to a multiengine
military helicopter. “Let’s talk about panic,” Galla-
gher says. “Panic is an out-of-control situation. The
way to prevent it is training.” To simulate an engine
failure, he advises pilots to pause for at least four sec-
onds after closing the throttle. That pause will mimic
what is likely to happen should you ever experience
an actual engine failure.
According to Gallagher, that first four seconds
is critical. Your airspeed will fall rapidly while you
briefly go into denial. The first thought that most
likely will go through your head is This can’t be hap-
pening to me—not lower the nose and trim for best
glide. Training to deal with emergencies is valuable
if it is continuous and realistic. When confronted
with the real-life situation you will react as you were
trained to react. Hence, if your training is sporadic or
unrealistic, your reaction to the real thing may very
well be insufficient to the event.
Stress is part of your reality in an engine failure.
You are a human being, and you will react as human
beings react when confronting a potentially danger-
ous situation—which is to say, not very well—unless
you train for the experience. “Deep breathing works
really well,” Gallagher says. He encourages new
student pilots as well as veterans to learn calming
techniques that can help us work through our prob-
lems when airborne. Gallagher teaches his students
to talk out loud as they react to the emergency. “One
of the most soothing things for you in this type of
situation is to hear your own voice.”
“Your reaction has to be automatic and correct,”
says Gallagher of the engine-out scenario and your
response to it. The basics of the PTS serve us well
on this point, but Gallagher encourages pilots to go
beyond the generic task the PTS sets out for us, a task
that far too many CFIs take at face value and present
to their students without any additional context.
THE REAL THING. In real life you may have a pas-
senger sitting beside you who is a nervous flier. “How
is your passenger going to react?” Gallagher asks.
“Are they going to be calm and quiet or will they be
a distraction?” Gallagher’s advice is to give your pas-
REAL-LIFE ENGINE-OUT
Senior Editor Dave Hirschman was
ferrying the Commemorative Air
Force’s SBD Dauntless from Deland,
Florida, to its home near Atlanta,
Georgia, in 2004 when the air-
plane’s Wright 1820 engine started
coming apart.
It started with a few loud knocks
and a noticeable loss of power, but
the engine kept running and gauges
were reading normally. Hirschman
initially suspected a blown cylinder
and turned back toward Deland, 25
miles to the south, intending to land
and diagnose the problem there. In
fact, a connecting rod had broken,
and a piston was disintegrating.
Six miles from the airport, the sit-
uation deteriorated. As Hirschman
relates in an article originally
published on AOPA Online:
“Black smoke spilled from the
exhaust stacks, and the oil pressure
needle was flickering and falling.
Engine power was set at 30 inches
of manifold pressure, but the engine
was clearly in agony and indicated
airspeed dropped from about 150
knots to 120 knots.
“A straight-in approach would
mean flying directly over the town
of Deland, and I was trying to
decide whether to do it when
the engine made the decision for
me. It lost power all at once, and
we were too far away to glide to
the airport.
“Fortunately, there was a grass
strip, Lee Airport, a sleepy place
mostly used by gliders, just off our
left wing. The wind was blowing
about 20 knots out of the southeast,
and I maneuvered sharply to enter a
right downwind and base turn.
“I lowered the landing gear
handle and the two main gear
free-fell into position. Even though
this was a grass runway, it was a
runway, and I saw no reason to
make a gear-up landing.
“ATC asked if I wanted emergency
equipment sent to Lee Airport and I
nearly shouted, ‘Send it!’
“During a close-in right base
turn, the airplane felt like it was try-
ing to stall and spin to the right. It
took nearly full left rudder and left
aileron to prevent the airplane from
DAVE HIRSCHMAN (above on left and below) and Charles Burcher with the
Dauntless after the emergency landing.
ATC ASKED IF I overbanking. I later learned that the
WANTED turning moment was caused when
EMERGENCY the engine seized and the spinning
EQUIPMENT prop abruptly stopped, twisting the
SENT TO LEE crankshaft like a Tootsie Roll.
“Fighting off the turn ate up
AIRPORT AND
energy, and on short final, the
I NEARLY
airplane appeared too low. I was
SHOUTED, sure the wheels would hit a group
"SEND IT!" of greenhouses at the approach end
of the runway, but that was better
than making the fatal error of trying
to stretch a glide and stalling. To
my astonishment and great relief,
however, the wheels cleared the
obstacles. I hauled the stick full aft
over the runway, and the airplane
touched down firmly—very firmly—
about 100 feet from the threshold,
then rolled to a stop in about 1,200
feet. It was my first and only no-flap
SBD landing.”
Fellow CAF volunteer Charles
Burcher, who was in the Daunt-
less with Hirschman, ran to the
front of the airplane with a fire
extinguisher as soon as they were
stopped. Twenty gallons of oil were
sprayed on the sides and belly of
the Dauntless.
PLUS Hear Senior Editor
Dave Hirschman’s
Mayday broadcast
during his engine failure.
JANUARY 2014 FLIGHT TRAINING / 29

THE ABCS OF AN
ENGINE FAILURE
AIRSPEED. Pitch and trim for best glide
speed, even if it’ s only a rough estimate
initially.
BEST FIELD. Look in every direction (includ-
ing straight down) to find the best available
field for an emergency landing. Change your
mind once if you must, because of winds, field
conditions, distance to the field, etc. But do
not change your mind a second time. Your
altitude and glide distance is decreasing with
each passing minute.
CALM/COMMUNICATE. Use calming
techniques as needed to keep from being
unnecessarily distracted or giving way to
resignation. Communicate with a brief
radio call that provides information that
will explain your situation and help rescuers
find your location.
30
30 // FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG
FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG
senger a task to do. Have him pull out the pilot’s
operating handbook and flip to the emergency
procedures section. If you thought ahead, you
might have tabbed that section to make it easier to
find. I tab the emergency section of my POH with a
red plastic flag. Making that section easy to find in
a stressful situation eases my mind, and hopefully it
will occupy my passenger’s mind if we ever need to
flip to those pages.
In an emergency, “You fly as you fly,” Gallagher
warns. If you’re used to left traffic patterns with
moderate banked turns, set yourself up to make left
traffic and use moderate bank turns. Don’t give way
to your impulse to maneuver radically in order to
get down quicker or stop shorter. Don’t set yourself
up for a long straight-in approach if you don’t have
a lot of experience judging altitude and sink rate in
long straight-in approaches. “If you’ve never done it
before, why are you doing it now?” Gallagher says.
In those last minutes in the air, take time to accli-
mate yourself to the area in which you are preparing
to land. Are there houses? Is there a road? If you
need to leave the airplane, which direction will take
you toward the help you may need? These questions
may be lifesavers in a scenario that puts you down
in a short field filled with rocks. Similarly, the newly
mown field that looks so attractive from 2,000 feet
msl may turn out to be on a hillside with an unex-
pected 20-degree slant to it.
Often we think of the engine failure scenario as
concluding when the airplane comes to rest at the
end of its ground roll. That may be the case. Then
again, it may not. “Now you’ve landed and you’re
hanging around. Who’s coming looking for you?”
Gallagher asks. “Who’s even going to know you’re
there?” Those questions may be the best argument
for filing a VFR flight plan. You may survive the
forced landing only to find yourself lost and disori-
ented on the ground. That advice to fly the airplane
doesn’t stop with the stick and rudder. You are the
pilot in command, after all. Whether you’re airborne
or in a field several miles from town, your passengers
will be looking to you for guidance and assistance.
Make sure you are in a position to give both in a way
that genuinely benefits your precious cargo.
We imagine that when faced with an engine-out
scenario we’ll simply land the airplane, walk to the
road, and get a ride back to town. That’s not neces-
sarily the way an emergency landing is going to
work out. “The longest I’ve ever been in a field is
two days,” says Gallagher. He asks the audience how
many carry emergency rations when they fly, or
clothes that will protect them from the sun, wind,
mosquitoes, or chilly nights.
 There is far more to the emergency landing than
the PTS might suggest. That slender book presents
us with a good starting point, but it is up to us to flesh
out the scenario and give it realism when we practice.
This is the time to envision what happens after the
wheels touch the ground, and to plan for making the
best of that situation for ourselves, our passengers,
and those at home worrying about us. When the
engine coughs and the prop comes to a stop, that
is a lousy time to start thinking, I wonder
what I should do now?

Jamie Beckett is a writer and flight

instructor living in Winter Haven,
Florida.

DECEMBER
JANUARY2013
2014 FLIGHT
FLIGHTTRAINING
TRAINING / 31
/ 31
32 / FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG
 MEMORY
FIX
A SIMPLE WAY TO RECALL REQUIRED AIRCRAFT INSPECTIONS

» Natalie Bingham Hoover

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRIS ROSE

Twenty-four. That’s the number of maintenance-related regulations a

private pilot must know. Eighteen. That’s the number of different sections
outlined in Part 43 of the federal aviation regulations (FAR), which is the sec-
tion that deals specifically with maintenance and inspections of aircraft. Of
these 18, each section contains numerous subsections and appendices. Part
43, however, is not the only section that deals with maintenance.
That would be too easy.

JANUARY 2014 FLIGHT TRAINING / 33

 Part 91 also contains several regulations that deal
with equipment inspections. And it doesn’t exactly
read like a good fiction novel. The FARs are filled
with legal language so convoluted it will make the
typical student pilot’s head spin. For example, FAR
91.409 is titled Inspections and it outlines which
maintenance inspections aircraft must have in order
to be compliant.
“Except as provided in paragraph (c) of this
section, no person may operate an aircraft unless,
within the preceding 12 calendar months, it has had
an annual inspection in accordance with Part 43 of
this chapter.” Simple enough, right? Not exactly. The
regulations say that “no person may operate an air-
craft carrying any person for hire, and no person may the twelfth calendar month, in aviation lingo). Who
give flight instruction for hire in an aircraft which
that person provides, unless within the preceding 100 and powerplant (A&P) mechanic with inspection
hours of time in service the aircraft has received an
annual or 100 hour inspection…paragraphs (a) and
(b) do not apply to an aircraft that carries a special
flight permit, a current experimental certificate, or a an annual inspection signed by an IA within the past
light sport, or provisional airworthiness certificate... 12 calendar months.
or a turbine powered rotorcraft…
or an aircraft desiring to use a
progressive inspection.”
A
So, every aircraft needs an
annual, but some also need a
100-hour inspection. Which ones,
exactly? The previous sentence
alone lists six exceptions to the
rule. Also, this section references
only the annual and 100-hour
inspections of the airplane as a
whole. It does not cover what
inspections are required for the
individual components of the HOW DOES THE
aircraft, such as a transponder, PRVATE PILOT
altimeter, static system, or emer- OR AIRCRAFT
gency locator transmitter. OWNER MAKE
When reading further into SENSE OF
the regulations, the student pilot
SOMETHING SO
is confronted with a new set of
STAGGERINGLY
questions born from confusion.
Is a transponder check required
COMPLEX?
when not flying in airspace that
requires an operating Mode C
transponder? Are the altimeter
and static checks required only
for IFR operations?
The subject of aircraft
inspections can be confusing,
especially when compounded
by the requirements of different
airspaces and different types of
34 / FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG
flight operations. How does the private pilot or air-
craft owner make sense of something that seems so
staggeringly complex? How exactly should a student
pilot answer that loaded question on the checkride
when the examiner asks, “What are the required
maintenance inspections on your aircraft?” It turns
out that there are quite a few inspections that actu-
ally are required for VFR flight. While the language
describing them is complicated and tough to dissect,
the requirements are fairly simple to remember if you
think of the acronym AVIATE.
AVIATE: The “A” stands for annual and airwor-
thiness directives. According to FAR 91.409, every
airplane needs an annual every year (or by the end of
exactly is authorized to complete one? An airframe
authorization (IA) must approve the airplane for
return to service after an annual inspection. So, sim-
ply find an endorsement in the maintenance logs for
V I
The airworthiness directives are not as
simple to find. ADs are basically recalls of
items found to be defective or unsafe on
aircraft. To make sure all mandatory ADs
have been complied with, you first must find
out exactly which ADs have been issued for
your make and model of aircraft. The FAA
website (www.faa.gov) has an AD link on its
homepage and is an easily accessible web-
site that lists ADs by make and model. Once
you find out what has been issued, you can
look through the maintenance records to
ensure compliance with each one individu-
ally. Hopefully, the AD endorsements are all
together in one tidy place, or you may find
yourself looking through years of mainte-
nance logs in search of signoffs.
The “V” in the acronym stands for VOR
check, which is required every 30 days, but
only for IFR flight.
 The “I” is actually a “1” for the 100-hour
inspection that is required (in addition
to the annual) on any aircraft operated
for hire, according to FAR 91.409. This
includes aircraft rentals for the purposes
of flight instruction. A 100-hour inspection
can be passed, but only up to 10 hours if “en
route to a place where the inspection can
be done” according to paragraph (b) of the
aforementioned section (and any overflown
time must be subtracted from the next 100-
hour total). Some people tend to confuse
the 100-hour with the annual requirements
because the inspections are very similar.
In fact, an annual can take the place of a
100-hour inspection. Just remember, while
a 100-hour can be completed by any A&P
mechanic, only one with an inspection
authorization can sign off on the annual.
The second “A” stands for altimeter and
static system, which must be inspected
every 24 calendar months if operating
fied every 24 calendar months
whether for IFR or VFR flight,
according to FAR 91.413. We all
know that FAR 91.215 requires a
transponder in certain air-
spaces—basically in, above, and
around Class A, B, C; above
10,000 feet; and in certain
specially designated areas. So
it certainly makes sense that
ALTHOUGH THE a transponder check would
LANGUAGE be required when operating
DESCRIBING THEM in those areas. However, what
IS COMPLICATED if you are operating in areas
AND TOUGH TO where a transponder is not
required? Do you still have to
DISSECT, THE
REQUIREMENTS ARE have the transponder checked?
The answer is yes. FAR 91.413
FAIRLY SIMPLE TO states that you cannot turn on a
REMEMBER IF transponder anywhere unless it
YOU THINK OF THE has been tested within the past
ACRONYM AVIATE. 24 calendar months. It is crucial
for the transponder and alti-
tude reporting systems to be
accurate because this is what
ATC uses to monitor aircraft

A T
under IFR, according to FAR 91.411. Here’s where
it gets tricky. Part 43, Appendix E, describes the
manner in which the altimeter/static system tests
are to be performed and mentions that the altitude
reporting system, transponders, and altimeters must
be integrated within 125 feet of each other. Clear as
mud, right? Does this mean that anywhere we use
our transponder—VFR or IFR—we also must check
the altimeter and static systems? No. This section
in particular confuses many people. But remember
that it refers to the FAR 91.411 test, which is required
only for IFR flight. So, if you are flying VFR, there is but required inspections don’t have to be. The next
no 24-month inspection requirement on the altim-
eter and static systems. However, the flight school
may certify the altimeter and static systems when
the transponder is inspected. The cost for all three
inspections is only slightly higher than having a
single transponder inspection performed.
The “T” is for transponder. If your airplane is
equipped with one, it must be inspected and certi-
E
movements and keep traffic
safely separated.
The “E” is for emergency
locator transmitter or ELT.
This piece of equipment will
send help your way if you are
ever so unfortunate as to crash
your airplane. That’s why it is
so important to make sure that the ELT inspection is
completed every 12 calendar months in accordance
with FAR 91.207. A mechanic will be checking for
things such as proper installation, battery corrosion,
and signal strength—three things that will be mighty
important to you if you ever have to use that ELT as
a lifeline. In addition to the inspection, you also must
make sure your ELT battery is replaced or recharged
when the ELT has been used for more than one
cumulative hour or half of the usable battery life.
So many subjects in aviation can be mind-boggling,
time you find yourself deep in the maintenance regula-
tions and frustrated over their complexity, take a deep
breath and remember it is not that hard. All you have
to do is AVIATE.
Natalie Bingham Hoover, ATP/CFII/MEI, has given more
than 3,000 hours of dual instruction. She lives in Germantown,
Tennessee.

JANUARY 2014 FLIGHT TRAINING / 35

 JOIN A CLUB AND
TAKE THE HASSLE OUT
OF FLIGHT TRAINING

» By Budd Davisson
ILLUSTRATION BY ASAF HANUKA

f there is one universal thought

that permeates the student pilot
population, it is to learn to fly as
efficiently and inexpensively as
possible. “Inexpensive” and “learning
to fly” are not terms normally found in
the same sentence. Fortunately, there
are ways to reduce the cost while mak-
ing the training schedule more flexible.
One of those methods is to create a
flying club that is organized specifically
for the purpose of teaching its mem-
bers to fly.
Flying clubs can range from four or
five individuals owning a Cessna 150
to more than 100 members who own
an entire fleet of airplanes. One of the
main advantages of the instruction-
only club over a traditional flying club

PLUS Interested in starting your

own club? Find out what’s involved
in this webinar.

36 / FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG
JANUARY 2014 FLIGHT TRAINING / 37
is simplified scheduling (in addition to
being less expensive). Flying clubs are
often besieged with scheduling problems
because the members want to use the
airplanes for cross-country flights, so air-
craft are unavailable. This isn’t the case
with an own-to-learn club, because a
majority of the flying would be one-hour
instructional hops.
CLUB ORGANIZATION. Regardless of how
an own-to-learn club is operated (own-
ing the aircraft, leasing, et cetera), certain at least three different scenarios, each of
basic rules apply to its organization. These which has its own pros and cons:
include but are not limited to:
The legalities. A lawyer should be
employed to set up the agreements to limit • The club owns and maintains the air-
each member’s legal liability. There are a
number of ways to do that, but establishing instructors.
the club as a limited liability corporation
(LLC) and placing the airplane in a sepa-
rate LLC is a common tactic.
By-laws. Each member’s rights and
responsibilities should be clearly spelled
out and agreed to in a signed document so
there are no recriminations later.
Buy-out clause. All clubs have a buy-out
clause so members know exactly what will
be required to get out of the club, which
may include the other members approving
those to whom a membership will be sold.
Buy-out clauses are important, particularly
if, in a learn-to-fly club, the membership
decides that a member must sell his share
as soon as he earns a certificate or is no
longer working on ratings.
Terms of use. To protect the members,
the use of the aircraft depends upon the
members adhering to a clearly defined
code of conduct, for example if a member
purposely does something that is deemed
unsafe or violates club rules, the other
members can ask him/her to leave.
Basic buy-in cost. The memberships
would be valued as necessary to acquire
the aircraft in question. This includes
38 / FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG
licensing fees and initial support costs.
Support cost/dues. Fixed costs in the
maintenance and support of the aircraft
or any other club activities—accounting
services and the like—would be spelled
out and shared by the members as a
monthly charge. Variable costs would be
part of the hourly charge.
OPERATIONAL SCENARIOS. Once the
internal organization is established, an
own-to-fly club could be operated along
• The club buys the airplane and puts it on
leaseback to an established flight school.
plane but contracts with a flight school for
• The club could view itself as a mini-flight
school, hire its own instructor(s), and do
everything required of a flight school.
OPERATIONAL APPROACH. When
evaluating the way the aircraft is to be
operated, it’s important to recognize that
to many new pilots the mental burdens
(as opposed to financial burdens) of air-
craft ownership may be too much. They
want to learn to fly; insurance, mainte-
nance, and scheduling concerns may be
too distracting. Setting up something
such as a club—with all its expenses and
possibilities for personality conflicts—
isn’t for everyone.
Many established flight schools look
for aircraft owned by those who want to
learn to fly so they can operate them on
leaseback. This allows the operator to
have an airplane on the line that entails
no acquisition cost, which the operator
maintains (usually) and gets to fly his own
students in, as well as the owners. The
owners pay a reduced cost per flight hour
and, depending on their legal arrange-
ment in organizing the ownership of
the airplane, they may get a healthy tax
deduction because of depreciation and
operating losses.
The leaseback arrangement is con-
venient and demands the least of the
owners, but in exchange they’ll have to
put up with some scheduling conflicts
with outside students, although they can
usually stipulate in the lease agreement
that they get scheduling priority.
In exchange for a much lower per-hour
cost (there is no profit mark-up), a learn-
to-fly-club can absorb all of the fixed and
variable costs associated with operating
an airplane. This includes the acquisition
cost, the insurance (including hangar
insurance, if applicable), the annual and
variable maintenance, and operating
costs. Then they contract with a flight
school for instructors or hire a freelance
instructor. The pros of hiring their own
instructor(s) rather than contracting with
a flight school for them is that they’ll be
working with the same instructor start
to finish, rather than working from an
instructor “pool” in which they seldom
get the same one two times in a row.
One of the real disadvantages of own-
ing and operating the aircraft is that
you are very dependent on the number
of hours flown to reduce the per-hour
cost to a reasonable number. If members
lose interest, or there’s a serious bout
of bad weather, the fixed costs (hangar
rent, insurance, et cetera) continue,
and the cost per hour goes up. For that
reason, the hourly rate should be based
on a conservative estimate of how much
flying will be done, versus an optimistic
one. Always better to build a surplus in
the treasury than to have to ask mem-
bers for contributions to overcome
revenue shortfalls.
SETTING UP A MEMBER-OWNED FLIGHT
SCHOOL. The most extreme method
of creating an own-to-learn club is to
establish the entire training school
environment minus the fixed assets—in
other words, no regular office or staff
other than a full-time instructor, who
would also act as maintenance coordina-
tor, scheduler, nursemaid, and secretary.
He’d get a regular salary, although paying
him as an independent contractor may be
simpler from a tax and accounting stand-
point (consult your lawyer and certified
public accountant).
MAKING IT ALL WORK. While the concept
of buying an airplane and setting up a
training situation around it may sound
great, it can be loaded with pitfalls if the
way it is operated isn’t well thought out
ahead of time. More than one flying club
has gone bankrupt just because there
wasn't enough time spent working out
all the details in the way the club would
be run.
Although flying is a hobby to most
people, the club has to be viewed and
operated as a business. That means each
hour the aircraft is flown has to generate
revenue and records must be kept—even
though a profit margin isn’t part of that
revenue. Members must pay their bills
when they are due.
Accounting is one area in which it is
well worth hiring a local independent
bookkeeper to come in once a month.
The bookkeeper can do the billing and
accounting at the same time.
Scheduling can make or break mem-
bers’ satisfaction with the operation.
Online scheduling will make everything
easier if enough thought is given to how
flying actually works (a one-hour flight
will generally tie up an airplane for an
hour and a half, minimum) and every
effort is made by both student/mem-
bers and the instructor to adhere to the
published flight schedule. This is more
difficult than it sounds, and it must be
stressed with everyone concerned. The
instructor also has to be careful about
how he sets up his schedule, because the
briefing, preflighting, debriefing, and
aircraft servicing can easily run to 1.8
hours per flight.
CROSS-COUNTRY TRAINING SCHEDULE
EFFECTS. Different students will be at dif-
ferent stages of their training at different
times, so cross-countries will some-
times eat up blocks of time. They must
be planned with a reasonable cushion
inserted at both ends of the time allotted.
This is where cell phones can save a lot of
inconvenience.
Even things as simple as oil changes
become major scheduling obstacles if
sufficient planning doesn’t accurately
project when they are likely to come
due. This requires someone to monitor
the planned flight time far enough ahead
that maintenance is done when it is due.
If not, maintenance always becomes
a crisis, which causes scheduling con-
flicts and tends to drag maintenance
past set deadlines. This also requires
a relationship with a reliable mechanic
or maintenance shop that recognizes
the necessity of maintaining the sched-
ules to keep from inconveniencing
student/members.
DO YOUR HOMEWORK. With spread-
sheet software commonly available,
it’s easy to insert fixed operational
costs such as insurance, hangar rent, et
cetera, and instantly know how much
it will cost simply to own the airplane,
much less fly it. Then fuel, oil, and other
hourly costs are plugged in so the vari-
able cost per hour is known. Then the
variable and fixed costs are combined
and divided by a number of different
assumed hour scenarios to be flown a
year. When that is done, the cost per
hour that must be charged to support
our flying addiction lets us know the
break-even point, in terms of hours
that must be flown per year to make the
entire concept feasible.
Don’t be surprised if it won’t work,
simply because it’s difficult to fly the
number of hours required. Adding
just one member could suddenly
reverse the equation.
AND WHAT AIRPLANE SHOULD BE
CHOSEN? The choice of airplane will have
drastic effects on the hourly operational
costs and the maintenance numbers,
but there is at least one simple conclu-
RESOURCES
Many more flying club resources, including a geographic finder, sample rules and
bylaws, and a cost calculator, are available at AOPA Online (www.aopa.org/
Pilot-Resources/Flying-Clubs.aspx).
sion that can be reached through basic
considerations.
If the aim is to get training costs as
low as possible, then what is needed is a
two-place airplane that burns the least
amount of gas, has very few complex
systems, is so reliable it seldom needs
maintenance, and costs very little to
buy. In other words, we need a Cessna
150/152. But not just any 150/152. We’ll
be willing to pay a slight premium,
$25,000 to $30,000 for the right one.
This means it has a low-time engine,
fairly current (not antique) radios, good
tires, et cetera. We’ll buy at the top of the
market, because we’ll be able to sell it for
what we paid for it when we’re all fin-
ished learning to fly. Plus, a high-quality
airplane will save greatly in maintenance.
There are lots of two-place airplanes,
including Light Sport aircraft, that
could fit the bill, but we ignored them
on purpose. We did so because the sheer
numbers of 150/152s available means the
“right” airplane is bound to be out there
for the right price.
The most important ingredients in
making the own-to-learn concept work
are advanced planning and flexibility. Sit
down with the spreadsheet and be very
conservative. Lower the expected num-
bers that will be flown, and increase the
expected costs. This way any surprises
will be kept to a minimum.
The own-to-learn concept is a sound
one, so analyze your situation carefully
before you put out the word that you’re
looking for like-minded people who want
to learn to fly. They’re out there and will
be eager to join. Have fun!
Budd Davisson is an aviation writer/photographer
and magazine editor who has written approximately
2,200 articles and has flown more than 300 different
types of aircraft. Visit his website (www.airbum.
com).
JANUARY 2014 FLIGHT TRAINING / 39
TECHNIQUE

FORWARD SLIP
Come on down, you’re next for landing

» By Ian J. Twombly
ILLUSTRATION BY CHARLES FLOYD

No approach to landing is perfect. If things are really off track, there are some tools you can use to try and
return everything to normal. If you’ve already lowered flaps and put the power to idle, the next thing to do is a
forward slip. Forward slips are like a down elevator, scrubbing off altitude without building up airspeed.
They are one of the easiest of the required private pilot maneuvers, but there are a few key points to consider.

CESSNA SLIPS
Certain models of the Cessna 172 with 40 degrees
of flaps have a note in the pilot's operating
handbook to avoid slips with full flaps. This isn’t
a prohibition, but given that the flaps can reduce
airflow over the tail, it’s not a bad idea to heed the
PLUS Watch a forward slip.
advice.
PRACTICAL TEST
STANDARDS
Objective: To determine that the

5
applicant:
RECOVER
1. Exhibits satisfactory knowledge of To come out of the slip, simply release rud-
the elements related to forward slip
to a landing. der pressure and neutralize the ailerons. The
airspeed will come up quickly without the addi-
2. Considers the wind conditions, tional airframe drag. If needed, you can apply full
landing surface and obstructions, and
selects the most suitable touchdown flaps at this point.
point.

3. Establishes the slipping attitude at

the point from which a landing can
be made using the recommended

4
approach and landing configuration
and airspeed; adjusts pitch attitude
and power as required. FINE TUNE
Once into the slip, rudder is held full, the
4. Maintains a ground track aligned extended centerline is held with aileron and the
with the runway center/landing path,
and an airspeed, which results in mini- glideslope is tracked with pitch. Because most
mum float during the roundout. training airplanes will have a tendency to pitch
up slightly and slow down with the side of the
5. Makes smooth, timely, and correct
control application during the recov- fuselage against the wind, it will likely take a
ery from the slip, the roundout, and positive nose-down input on the yoke to maintain
the touchdown. a safe speed. Somewhere around 10 knots above
6. Touches down within 400 feet the normal approach speed will maintain a safe
beyond a specified point with no drift, margin above stall speed.
and with the airplane’s longitudinal
axis aligned with and over the runway
center/landing path.

3
7. Maintains crosswind correction and
directional control throughout the
approach and landing sequence.
MAKE THE CONTROL INPUTS
8. Completes the appropriate A slip is by definition a cross-controlled situation.
checklist.
Start by applying full rudder toward the downwind
side of the approach. As your foot comes through
about the halfway point of full deflection, apply
opposite aileron into the wind.

2 CHECK THE WIND

The biggest drop in altitude happens with the
airplane banked into the wind. Check the wind-
sock or reference the weather report and make a
mental map of where the wind is coming from.

1 CONFIGURE THE AIRPLANE

An efficient forward slip is performed with power
at idle. Flaps are at the pilot’s discretion, and can
usually be positioned safely in all configurations
(see “Cessna Slips”).

JANUARY 2014 / FLIGHT TRAINING / 41

WEATHER By Jack Williams
COLD FRONTS generally move from
northwest to southeast.

cP
A
P
m

mP

m
T

T
m
cT mT

NORTH AMERICAN
air masses—the initials
on arrows are air mass

DANGER POTENTIAL
abbreviations—arctic (A),
continental polar (cP),
maritime polar (mP),
continental tropic (cT),
and maritime tropic (mT). WATCH OUT NEAR WEATHER FRONTS

Y
ou’ve probably learned from weather segments on local television
news shows that fronts bring weather changes, such as relief from heat
waves or cold weather. Weather fronts are important to pilots because
of their potential to delay or endanger flights.

The National Weather Service’s online
glossary defines a weather front as “a boundary
or transition zone between two air masses
of different density, and thus (usually) of dif-
ferent temperature.” A moving front is named
according to the advancing air mass. When
the cold air is advancing, it’s a “cold front.”
The leading edge of advancing warm air is a
“warm front.”
FRONTS START WITH AIR MASSES. The atmos-
phere creates air masses by allowing large
PLUS Learn more areas of air—maybe more than 1,000 miles
about weather fronts in
this Air Safety Institute across—to remain over an area with generally
online course. uniform characteristics long enough for a deep
layer of the air to take on these characteristics.
For instance, air that sits over frigid land for
several days becomes cold and dry for some
distance aloft. Warm, humid air masses form
over warm oceans, while warm, dry air masses
form over deserts. Humidity as well as temper-
ature help to determine the air’s density. Cold,
dry air is denser than warm, humid air, because
humid air is less dense than dry air.
The air masses that affect North America are:
Continental arctic: Extremely cold air with
low humidity; usually forms north of the Arctic
Circle.
Continental polar: Cold and dry, but not as
cold as arctic air; usually forms over Canada and

42 / FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG
is more common than arctic air masses. On weather maps, cold fronts are violent weather. This is one reason why
Unlike arctic air masses, these form during shown as a blue line with triangles on cold-front thunderstorms often are most
summer. one side, pointing in the direction of the violent in the spring when the contrasts
Maritime polar: Cool and humid; forms front’s movement. Weather map lines are the greatest.
over the northern Atlantic and Pacific for all types of fronts show the front’s
oceans. surface location, not what could be WARM FRONTS. Warm fronts, especially
Maritime tropical: Warm and very happening aloft. in the winter, can bring some of the year’s
humid; forms over the Gulf of Mexico and Often the clouds and precipitation with worst weather for those on the ground
the Atlantic Ocean south and east of the a cold front are confined to a few miles and in the air. As warm air advances, it
Gulf Stream. ahead of and behind the location of a rides over the cold air since it’s less dense.
Continental tropical: Hot and very dry; front on a map, but sometimes you’ll find Warm air is replacing the cold air at the
forms over the U.S. Southwest and north- clouds and rain behind a cold front. ground where you see a warm-front
ern Mexico deserts during summer. The violence a cold front produces symbol on a weather map—a red line with
depends in part on the temperature red half-circles indicating the direction
MOVING AIR MASSES CREATE FRONTS. contrast between the air masses ahead of movement. The half-circles are on the
When an air mass—for example, cold, dry of and behind the front. The greater side of the front where it’s moving into
air from northern Canada—moves south, it the differences, the higher the odds of the cold air.
eventually runs into warmer, often more-
humid air that’s less dense. Instead of OCCLUDED FRONT
merging with the warm air, the dense, cold
air mass shoves under the lighter warm
air mass, pushing up the lighter air. When
warm air is on the move, it rides over
heavier cold air.
In both cases, as warm, humid air rises,
it cools and its moisture begins condensing
to form clouds and precipitation. The kind
of front determines the kinds of clouds
that form and precipitation that falls.
The fronts we’re most interested in
and the ones shown on weather maps
COLD FRONT
are where air masses meet at the Earth’s
surface. Air masses are domes of high-
pressure air with the highest pressures
in the centers of the air masses. Fronts—
where air masses meet—are elongated
areas of low pressure known as troughs.
(On weather maps you usually see
“trough” spelled “trof.”)
Let’s look at the different kinds of fronts.
Each of the images at right shows a cross-
section of a kind of front with locations WARM FRONT
on the ground that give you an idea of
the extent of potential weather generally
associated with particular fronts.

COLD FRONTS. Cold fronts are usually the

most dangerous to pilots because they nor-
mally cause thunderstorms. Cold air that’s
charging across the region can give warm,
humid air a vigorous shove upward. If
conditions are right, this can lead to strong
thunderstorms along the front.

JANUARY 2014 FLIGHT TRAINING / 43

WEATHER»

As the warm, humid air rises over the
cold air, its humidity condenses into
widespread areas of clouds and pre-
cipitation. If it’s a winter warm front,
the precipitation can include snow, sleet,
freezing rain, and ordinary rain. The
clouds and precipitation can stretch 300
or more miles from the surface front. The
bad weather can last for a couple of days,
since warm fronts move slower than cold
fronts. Hazards include widespread areas
of poor visibility and low ceilings, and
supercooled water drops in clouds that
can coat aircraft with ice.
STATIONARY FRONTS. As their name
indicates, stationary fronts aren’t moving.
Often a stationary front forms when an
advancing cold air stalls and the differ-
ences between the air masses are fading
away. Sometimes the front disappears
over a few hours. New storms often form
on stationary fronts.
A stationary front can remain mostly
in place for a few days, maybe briefly
moving toward the north as a warm
front and then back to the south as a
cold front. Surface weather maps depict
stationary fronts as alternating red and
blue lines with red semicircles on the
cold-air side and blue triangles on the
warm-air side.
Upper-level disturbances frequently
travel along stationary fronts, creating
low clouds and precipitation. Station-
ary fronts can create a few days of poor
flying conditions over wide areas (see
“Weather: Don’t Go With the Flow,”
November 2013 Flight Training).
OCCLUDED FRONTS. An occluded front
is an area where warm, cold, and cool
air masses are in conflict and can bring
a combination of the kinds of weather
found in both warm and cold frontal
zones. The image on the previous page
shows a mass of cold air moving into
another mass of cold air, which has
pushed the warm air up off the ground.
The cold air to the left should be called
something like “frigid” air to indicate
that it’s colder and thus denser than the
cold air it’s replacing at the surface.
The main thing pilots should know
is that when they see a purple line with
alternating purple triangles and half-cir-
cles on the same side of the map there’s
an occluded front in the area with the
possibility of the most dangerous fea-
tures of both warm and cold fronts.
Dangerous weather can be found far
away from fronts. But, a front across
your planned route of flight is always a
sign to be alert for potentially dangerous
weather.
Jack Williams is an instrument-rated private pilot.
His latest book is The AMS Weather Book: The Ultimate
Guide to America’s Weather.

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 ADVANCED PILOT
TAKING YOUR TICKET TO NEW FLIGHT LEVELS
CFI TO CFI NEWSLETTER
Whether you're actively
instructing or getting back into
instructing, sign up now to re-
ceive the Air Safety Institute's
free online CFI to CFI newslet-
SARAH HANSON
ter (http://flighttraining.aopa.
org/cfis).
CFI TO CFI
CONFIDENCE BUILDER
When greeting a new student, assume nothing
» By Frank E. Cahill
HARVEY YOUNG AIRPORT is a small airstrip in
northeast Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was bristling with
activity in 1979—the result of the GI Bill of that
era; there were thousands of Vietnam veterans
seeking advanced ratings through the program
that paid 90 percent of their training costs. I
earned advanced ratings and my instructor
certificate through one of these programs at a
Harvey Young flight school, and then stayed
with the same school to train new candidates.
It was a part-time job, so I usually worked eve-
nings and weekends.
The ink on my temporary certificate was
about two weeks old when I reported for work
one summer evening. There was a visitor
chatting with the boss at the reception desk.
The stranger’s hair was cut close and neat, and
his cleanshaven face was pink from the sum-
mer heat. The visitor was dressed in slacks
and a sport shirt; his gig line was straight and
starched. Like most veterans of the period, I
noticed things like a gig line; it’s the line formed
by the edges of the shirt flap, belt buckle, and
zipper flap of the slacks. The neat and trim new-
comer’s line was perfect.
He looked sharp. It was unusual to see some-
one so clean cut and neatly dressed in this era of
long hair and platform shoes.
JANUARY 2014 FLIGHT TRAINING / 45
ADVANCED PILOT»
“This is Ed,” the boss told me as
I joined them at the counter. "He’s
visiting friends in town and would
like to rent a Skyhawk to take them
for a ride, so he needs an insurance
ride.”
Ed’s firm handshake confirmed
my first impression. I invited him
into a training office for a pre-
flight interview. Regular renters
are familiar with the insurance
qualification procedure where air-
craft systems are reviewed, flight
maneuvers and the stall series are
demonstrated, and several takeoffs
and landings are completed. My
first question was about his flying
background. “Have you been flying
regularly?” I asked.
“Yes, sir. I’m in the Navy,” he
replied.
“Oh? What do you fly?” I asked.
“The F-4.” There was no bravado
in Ed’s voice. His answer was pro-
fessional, matter-of-fact, without
overstatement.
“That’s a lot of airplane com-
pared to a Cessna. What’s it like to
blast off the deck in one of those?”
“Well,” he told me, “you go from
zero to 170 in about three seconds
when the catapult releases. It really
pins you to the seat. You can’t move
your arms, so you start with your
hands off the stick.”
“What are carrier landings like?”
“Night landings are the hardest.
The landing deck can be rising or
falling, and you can’t tell if it’s the
airplane or the ship riding on ocean
swells. You just set up the approach,
follow the deck signals, then try to
stick it on the spot.”
I was overwhelmed by his
extraordinary experience. With
only two weeks experience as a
new instructor, I confessed, “You
THERE ARE ALL KINDS OF FLYING.
EACH ONE IS DIFFERENT AND
REQUIRES A DIFFERENT TECHNIQUE.
46 / FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG
can probably teach me a few things.
Have you ever flown a small air-
plane like the Cessna 172?”
“Not really,” he said. “About all
my time is in military aircraft.”
After reviewing the systems
and numbers, he completed the
preflight checks and asked some
great questions about the sys-
tems and mechanics. I thought to
myself, There won’t be much to this
checkout.
Ed flew the Cessna with preci-
sion. Stalls, steep turns, and slow
flight were flawless.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“Different,” he confessed, “but it’s
a hoot. Gives you plenty of time to
do a little sightseeing.”
“Are you planning to take your
friends on a short trip?” I asked.
“We thought we would fly
around one of the lakes with her
friend. They’ve never been in a
small airplane.”
“Well, let’s go back and do a few
landings, then I think we can turn
you lose to take them flying.”
Pattern entry was a precision
event as Ed took the airplane
through the numbers to short final.
Everything was lined up, speed was
perfect, and the approach angle
was dead on. I relaxed, like many
instructors do when riding with a
proficient pilot. I folded my arms
and became a spectator as Ed drove
the airplane on a rope to the spot.
But he never flared.
Wham! Before I could react,
we slammed onto the runway and
bounced high. It felt like 50 feet at
the time, but was actually about five
feet or so. Still, it was very high.
“I’ve got it,” I told him as I took
the controls and settled the Cessna
to the turf.
“We’d better taxi back and check
for damage,” I explained. “We hit
pretty hard.”
“I’m really sorry,” Ed apologized.
“I didn’t dream it would bounce
like that.”
I realized that Ed was not accus-
tomed to flaring for a landing. His
carrier training and daily flying
routine on a carrier deck was an
entirely different type of flying from
mine. He was a great pilot. He did
what he was trained to do—he stuck
it on the deck. On a ship, the arres-
tors and rugged landing gear take
care of the rest.
After reviewing the differences
in technique we selected a differ-
ent Skyhawk for more practice.
Of course, he picked it up in no
time and was able to accomplish
full-stall landings right out of the
flight manual, so I signed him off for
rental privileges.
I meekly walked to the main-
tenance hangar to check on the
Cessna we had bounced. The boss
was there, talking to the mechanic.
“What happened?” the boss
asked.
I nervously told him. He said,
“You’re in charge when you’re in
the right seat. He’s a hot pilot, no
doubt. But there are all kinds of
flying. Each one is different and
requires a different technique.”
I was despondent, but the boss
said, “Don’t let a more experienced
pilot intimidate you when you
accept the responsibility of the right
seat. You need to have confidence in
yourself and stay on your toes.”
“Thanks,” I acknowledged with
a whisper. “How’s the bird? Did we
break it?”
“It’s OK,” was the mechanic’s
good news. “No damage. These
spring gear systems can take a lot of
abuse. Maybe not as much as an F-4
gear, but they’re tough.”
Relieved, I realized on my drive
home that I had learned a solid
lesson for all pilots and instruc-
tors. Assume nothing, and have
confidence in your training and
experience.
Frank E. Cahill is an AOPA member from
Springfield, Missouri.
 INSTRUCTOR REPORT
Fanning while flying
An old (old) landing technique for your toolbag
» By Rod Machado
FANNING? WHILE FLYING? Yes, but
it is not something you do after
landing hot. Fanning is a technique
used to help student pilots learn to
land. It involves pulling the yoke
or joystick aft in small increments
during the roundout and landing
flare, giving the elevator surface the
appearance of moving up and down
just like a fan.
Fanning is a technique that was
once popular among old-time flight
instructors. When I say old-time,
I mean old-time. I first read about
the technique in a 1928 book titled
Practical Flight Training, written by
a U.S. Navy flight instructor named
Barrett Studley. The technique was
popular among flight instructors
trained during World War II but
seemed to completely disappear by
the early 1970s. That’s unfortunate,
because I’ve used the technique
with great success over the years.
As the student approaches the
height at which the roundout
occurs, he begins moving the
yoke or joystick aft in a series of
quick, short movements. Studley
expresses the idea this way in
regard to landing a taildragger,
but the same principle applies
to tricycle-geared airplanes: The
plane is leveled off...by a series of
quick backward movements of the
stick. These movements are contin-
ued in order to raise the nose until
the airplane stalls. After each one
[aft stick movement] the stick must
be allowed to go forward again...if it
is held back even momentarily the
plane is likely to climb.
Yes, it’s true that during a stu-
dent’s first few landing lessons,
the nose will appear to be moving
upward in small increments. No,
it’s not oscillating up and down as
might be surmised from the small
aft (and release) stick movements.
The nose is being raised in small but
distinctly visible increments some-
what like using a hand-cranked
jack to raise a car and change a tire.
These increments should not be
jarring or particularly jerky if the
technique is performed properly.
Control is maintained by a slight
excess in the magnitude of backward
movements of the stick, which causes
the nose to rise in a series of small
steps following each other in rapid
succession.
The value of fanning lies in the
student having an opportunity to
IT'S A STEP TOWARD ACQUIRING THE SKILL OF MAKING A SMOOTH,
CONTINUOUS PULL ON THE ELEVATOR FOR LANDING.
make, recognize, and correct for
the mistakes he or she is likely to
make with the elevator during the
first few hours of training. Fanning
is ultimately a mistake-making
technique. It gives the student a
chance to see a lot of tiny mis-
takes (i.e., raising the nose in small
increments), and then correct
those mistakes by releasing a slight
amount of elevator back-pressure.
Seeing a lot of little mistakes all
at once accelerates learning. [You
want the student to] ...keep the stick
in more or less constant and regular
forward and backward motion. The
net result of this will be a marked
decrease of the fluctuations in the
plane’s height. This tendency is nor-
mal at this time, as the student can
progress only by making, recognizing,
and correcting mistakes. Free use of
the elevators is one of the first things
that must be learned.
Fanning might appear to be more
complex than just teaching some-
one to make a continuous aft pull
on the yoke for landing. In reality,
the technique is much easier on the
beginner than attempting to use a
continuous, precise aft pull on the
elevator for rounding out and flar-
ing at this early stage of training.
While learning to land, it is
simpler to keep approximate control
of motion already initiated than to
commence movement of the eleva-
tors at the proper instant and control
its magnitude precisely.
Keep in mind that fanning is not
the ultimate goal in terms of land-
ing skill. It’s simply a step toward
acquiring the desired skill of mak-
ing a smooth, continuous pull on
the elevator for landing. Speaking
early in the last century, Studley’s
words on this matter still ring true.
Fanning is suggested, not as a
method of landing, but solely as a
step in instruction.... If fanning is
used it should be commenced dur-
ing the third or early in the fourth
hour. By the end of the fifth hour
the student should be able to land
consistently by its use. The excess
motion of the elevators must then
be steadily decreased until it is
practically eliminated. Otherwise
precision will be seriously interfered
with. Prior to the first solo consis-
tently good landings should be made
without frequently repeated forward
movements of the stick.
So become a fan of fanning and
add it to your bag of flight instruc-
tor techniques. You might find it
useful.
Rod Machado is a flight instructor, author,
educator, and speaker. He has been a pilot
since 1970 and a CFI since 1973. Visit his blog
(www.rodmachado.com).
JANUARY 2014 FLIGHT TRAINING / 47
ADVANCED PILOT»
CAREER PILOT
Hiring intelligence
The scoop on airline recruitment
» By Wayne Phillips
IF THERE IS any doubt that the thaw
in the hiring freeze has begun, this
bit of information should do the
trick. American Airlines, the last
of the legacy carriers with throngs
of pilots on furlough, announced
it is accepting applications. The
company has been recalling about
40 pilots per month since January.
Sources indicate the first class was
scheduled to start in late fall, two
classes a month at least through the
summer of 2014.
As further proof that the turn-
around is under way is this fact:
Some regional airlines, like Ameri-
can Eagle and Republic, are now
offering “hiring bonuses” in the
range of $5,000 or more. It doesn’t
seem that long ago certain regionals
were compelling new hires to pay
for training.
For anyone yearning for a win-
dow seat on the flight deck of an
airliner, hiring intelligence is a valu-
able asset. Over the decades, two
firms have specialized in providing
such data to aspiring airline pilots:
Kit Darby’s AIR Inc, which shut-
tered its doors a few years back, and
the former Future Aviation Profes-
sionals of America (FAPA).
48 / FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG
FAPA’s team provides regular
hiring updates for its member-
ship. Here is a snapshot of what
was being reported recently. At the
very least, it shows who the players
are in the hiring game. Further,
for those cynics who say that “No
one is hiring,” the facts speak for
themselves.
AMERICAN EAGLE: Started classes
every two weeks beginning January
7, 2013. Hiring had been at approxi-
mately 50 new pilots monthly.
CAPE AIR: Had been hiring and
expected to continue.
COMPASS: Reported to be hiring as
Darby continues to provide cus- of September.
tom airline industry research and DELTA: Resumed hiring in late fall
analysis for select clients through and anticipates about 300 new
The Consulting Group. FAPA has pilots, most of whom will come
reinvigorated itself as Future Active from furloughed returnees and the
Pilot Advisors. FAPA’s guiding light Compass and Mesaba flow-through.
for more than 40 years has been EXPRESSJET: Heavy hiring reported
Louis Smith, a retired Northwest recently. New domiciles were
Airlines captain whose avoca- scheduled tentatively to open
tion and passion is publishing and August 31, 2013. Losing about 31
organizing information that helps pilots per month from attrition.
current and future commercial FEDEX: No hiring reported.
pilots succeed in their careers. FRONTIER: Accepting applications
FAPA continues to offer such ser- for Denver and Florida-based first
vices as interview prep assistance, officers.
airline hiring minimums and salary GOJET: Holding classes every
information, airline application pro- month through at least May 2014.
cedures, and periodic conferences GREAT LAKES AIRLINES: Hiring
such as the upcoming Global Pilot continued through 2013.
Career Conference and Job Fair HORIZON AIR: 12 hired in July and
in Miami scheduled for January 20 in August. Applications were
10. Hopeful airline pilots meet and being accepted.
greet recruiters and may be inter- JETBLUE: Expecting to hire 200 to
viewed right there on the spot. 250 pilots in 2014.
PILOT INFORMATION CENTER AS CLOSE AS YOUR PHONE
The AOPA Pilot Information Center is a skilled group of pilots and flight
instructors who have more than 30,000 hours of collective flight experience
and play a pivotal role in AOPA's missions and objectives. It responds to
more than 200,000 member questions each year. The AOPA Pilot Informa-
AP IMAGES
tion Center puts some of GA's most experienced pilots as close as your
phone or email. Call 800-USA-AOPA (872-2672) or pilotassist@aopa.org.

MESA: Has been hiring for immedi-
ate openings to support expansion
with US Airways and United
Airlines.
PIEDMONT: Six hired in July and
eight in August. Eighty to 100
pilots hired in 2013. Piedmont has
adjusted minimums to accommo-
date R-ATP applicants.
PSA: Had been hiring pilots.
Reduced minimums to accommo-
date R-ATP applicants.
REPUBLIC: $5,000 signing bonus
plus $500 referral. 50 pilots per
month were needed through 2013.
SKYWEST: 30 pilots hired in Sep-
tember. E175 openings may become
available in 2014.
SOUTHWEST: Anticipates hiring an
additional 200 pilots. These pilots
will be trained during the first
quarter of 2014 to position SWA
for the impact of the FAR 117 duty
and rest requirements to balance
for future attrition and increased
vacation.
SPIRIT: Actively hiring pilots and
expects to hire 20 pilots per month.
TRANS STATES: Two classes to be
held every month in 2013.
UNITED: Recalled all furloughed
pilots and is now hiring new pilots.
UPS: As of October, 20 pilots were
on furlough.
US AIRWAYS: Hired nearly 80
pilots in the first quarter of 2013.
Thanks to the investigative work
of FAPA, job hunters can focus
their hunt where the best chances
lie for a job. If you are well quali-
fied and on the verge of applying,
consider that January conference
to connect with airlines directly
(www.fapa.aero).
Wayne Phillips runs the Airline Training
Orientation Program (ATOP).
www.atopjets.com
CAREER ADVISOR
Close, but no cigar?
Auxiliary service may not satisfy ATP requirements
» By Wayne Phillips
» Q: I am 45 years old with a
multiengine rating and single-
engine commercial certificate and
instrument rating. I have roughly
900 hours total time and 500 multi
with 100 hours of turbine experi-
ence. I have been flying for the U.S.
Coast Guard Auxiliary, fixed-wing
operations. Does this qualify me for
the 750-hour rule as prior military?
Under Coast Guard regulations,
once I am on orders, my aircraft
and I are considered on active duty.
I have run out of training money,
and it would be a shame to stop my
quest now.—John
» A: What a creative thought!
You are referencing the following
provisions in the new ATP rule. In
essence, the regulation permits a
pilot to earn an airline transport
YOU MAY BE FLYING AN AUTHORIZED MISSION, BUT I SUSPECT
"CAREER MILITARY PILOT" DOES NOT APPLY HERE.
pilot certificate (restricted) without
the stipulated 1,500 hours in these
situations:
• Military pilots with 750 hours
total time as a pilot;
• Graduates holding a bachelor’s
degree with an aviation major with
1,000 hours total time as a pilot;
• Graduates holding an associate’s
degree with an aviation major with
1,250 hours;
• Pilots who are at least 21 years
old with 1,500 flight hours.
I am thinking that flying for
the USCG Auxiliary or the Civil
Air Patrol does not make you a
military pilot.
FAR 61.160(a)(1)(2) says:
U.S. military pilot or former U.S.
military pilot may apply for an
airline transport pilot certificate
with an airplane category multi-
engine class rating or an airline
transport pilot certificate concur-
rently with an airplane type rating
with a minimum of 750 hours of
total time as a pilot if the pilot
presents:
(1) An official Form DD-214
(Certificate of Release or Discharge
from Active Duty) indicating that
the person was honorably dis-
charged from the U.S. Armed Forces
or an official U.S. Armed Forces
record that shows the pilot is cur-
rently serving in the U.S. Armed
Forces; and
(2) An official U.S. Armed Forces
record that shows the person grad-
uated from a U.S. Armed Forces
undergraduate pilot training school
and received a rating qualification
as a military pilot.
You are a civilian providing a
service to your country. You may
be flying an authorized mission,
but I suspect that the term “career
military pilot” does not apply
here.
Anyone who purports to
interpret a regulation that is
ambiguous—and this includes
FAA inspectors—is walking that
proverbial slippery slope. The best
way to acquire a legal interpreta-
tion of an FAA regulation that will
hold up in court is to solicit an
opinion directly from the FAA’s
Chief Counsel’s Office in Washing-
ton, D.C. You can find a database
of opinions on the FAA website
(www.faa.gov).
Send your career questions to careers@
aopa.org and we’ll publish the best ones
here.
JANUARY 2014 FLIGHT TRAINING / 49
ADVANCED PILOT»
ACCIDENT REPORT
No hurry
Speed is about the worst possible response
» By David Jack Kenny
IF AN AIRPLANE loses an engine during
climb out, its pilot had better lower the
nose now; likewise, low-altitude power
loss in a helicopter requires entering
autorotation without delay. In an engine
fire, heaven forbid, every extra second lost
shutting off the mixture and fuel selector,
and getting that aircraft on the ground,
diminishes the chance of survival.
But in most situations, hurry is about
the worst possible response. Doing the
wrong thing faster rarely helps.
A student pilot flying a Cherokee 140
»
at night tried to stop for fuel at an unat-
PROBLEM: In-flight emergency
REACTION: Too quick on the response
SOLUTION: Stop and consider
tended airport. Clicking the microphone
didn’t bring up the runway lights, so
he tried to land without them, aiming
for two lights he thought marked the
threshold. He was almost on the ground
before he realized they were actually on
a building; his go-around was too late to
avoid hitting the airport fence.
It turned out he had the correct fre-
quency tuned on Comm 1—and the radio
selector set to Comm 2. It would have
been a good moment to remember that
he didn’t have to get down right now.
Taking a few minutes to circle the field
while reviewing the frequencies listed in
the airport/facility directory, checking
the sectional for other airports nearby,
and maybe sneaking another glance at
the panel would have been time well
spent.
West winds led the pilot of a kitbuilt
Tiger Moth replica to land toward the
setting sun. The glare kept him from
seeing the runway, but he decided he
could “get through the blind spot” and
continued. The airplane’s left wing hit
a tree. This happened just 17 minutes
before sunset, so flying around a little
longer would have seemed like a reason-
able option.
A Cessna 182 landed long and slid off a
turf strip because power lines at the far
end made a go-around look risky. Turns
out the landing was downhill as well as
downwind; the pilot said he would have
gone around sooner if he’d known the
grass was wet. Good call!
David Jack Kenny is the Air Safety Institute’s
manager of aviation safety analysis.
 INSTRUMENT INSIGHTS

Up-down-right-left
Maintaining your orientation
» By Les Sanders

THE INSTRUMENT RATING is one of the
most challenging feats in aviation. With-
out visual reference to the surrounding
environment, maintaining orientation in
relation to up-down-right-left is a substan-
tial challenge using only airplane cockpit
instruments. Instrument flying requires
extensive training, study, and effort.
There are many books and publications
available—my favorite is the Instrument
Flight Training Manual by Peter Dogan.
The FAA’s Instrument Flying Handbook
(FAA-H-8083-15A) is also valuable.
Nearly all published instrument training
material and maneuvers are designed to
help the pilot develop a consistent instru-
ment scan and instrument interpretation,
then apply appropriate control input to
maintain aircraft control. I have discov-
ered a maneuver very useful in instrument
training that requires a constant instru-
ment scan and control input to achieve
the desired result: The purpose of this
maneuver is to develop smooth, small con-
trol inputs while maintaining a constant
instrument scan. Climb to precisely 4,000
feet agl and align on a cardinal heading
(270 degrees works well). Set power that
will achieve an approximate 500-foot-per-
minute rate of descent (usually around
2,000 rpm in most single-engine training
airplanes). Simultaneously initiate a stan-
dard rate turn to the left at that 500 fpm
descent rate and start a timer. Maintain an
exact standard rate turn and descent; upon
reaching 180 degrees of turn (090 degree
heading), roll smoothly into a standard
rate turn to the right while maintain-
ing the exact descent rate. Continue this
procedure through a series of four turns;
you should now be on a heading of 270
degrees, 2,000 feet agl, and exactly four
minutes on the timer.
When properly executed, this maneuver
requires very precise instrument scan and
control input to achieve the desired results
in time and altitude. In the interest of
safety, it is important to have a safety pilot
as well as ATC radar flight following to
avoid conflict with other airplanes while
performing this maneuver.
Les Sanders is a CFII, MEI, ATP with 5,800 flight
hours who lives in Marysville, California.

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JANUARY 2014 FLIGHT TRAINING / 53

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54 / FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG

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JANUARY 2014 FLIGHT TRAINING / 55

DEBRIEF A pilot's perspective
FIFI is the only airworthy
B-29 in the world.

DEBBIE TRAVIS KING STARTED IN AVIATION...I’ve

been flying since I could walk.
My dad flew for American
FIFI’S BFF Airlines. I started taking lessons
in high school and in college got
A woman hadn’t flown a Boeing B-29 my private and started working
Superfortress like the Commemora- on instrument; I became a CFI
tive Air Force's FIFI since 1943, directly after college.
when Women Airforce Service
Pilots (WASP) Dora Dougherty and HARDEST LESSONS...
Dorothea (Didi) Moorman were Navigation and pilotage was
demonstration pilots for the massive something I had to actually sit
bomber. That changed when Debbie down and learn because it did
Travis King joined CAF’s B-24/B-29 not come naturally. I got lost a
Squadron on its Airpower Tour in couple of times. You drop down
2013, flying FIFI as well as and look at water towers, and
the B-24 Liberator you climb your way out of it.
Diamond Lil. Although
relatively new to the FAVORITEPASTIME...Touring
squadron that shep- with the CAF, hands down.
herds the airplanes, It’s the most rewarding, fun,
King has put in hard job I’ve ever had. It’s
many hours with exhausting, but at the end
the volunteer of the day you realize you’ve
organization, spent your day doing some-
starting as a child thing worthwhile and you’ve
tagging along been talking about the Greatest
with her father, Generation. How many people
who is also a CAF get to do that?
volunteer.
FAVORITE AIRPLANE...
I’m very partial to the B-29. I
think it’s the historical connec-
tion. [Col.] Paul Tibbets was
in charge of the B-29 training
WHO: Debbie Travis King
program. The men were scared
OCCUPATION: of it; they’d lost a couple in
Corporate pilot, flight training and [the airplanes]
instructor were considered firetraps,
HOURS: About 3,500 [with] the wings catching on
fire…. He chose [Dougherty and
EXTRA: As a charter
Moorman] and told them, ‘Take
pilot, King has trans-
ported the Dallas it around the country and get
Mavericks. out and show them you’re
a woman.’

ADVICE FOR STUDENTS...

PLUS Debbie King tells her story in this video.
Learn the basics, because basic
airmanship will never, ever fail
you. If everything goes to heck
in a handbasket, you can fall
back on your basics.
CHRIS ROSE

56 / FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG
 JULY 22,
2012

APRIL 10,
2004
©2013 CIRRUS DESIGN CORPORATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

THE CIRRUS
AIRFRAME

72 Lives Saved To Date.

PARACHUTE MARCH 15,
SYSTEM (CAPS™) 2009

The jury is in. The case is closed. CAPS works

and it saves lives. In fact, there are 72 people alive
today because a Cirrus pilot deployed the parachute
in time to avert a tragedy.

Hear their stories at cirrusaircraft.com/caps.

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