My father got his private certificate when I was a tyke. He logged about 800 hours in his life. He never owned his own airplane, but I grew up around aviation enough to have caught the disease very early. Though he was the one who actually taught me to fly, he was not an instructor. I went through the formality of earning my private certificate in 1983 at the age of 26. I did this at the Grosse Ile Municipal Airport (KONZ) in Michigan, located on an island in the mouth of the Detroit River where it empties into Lake Erie. I always loved flying, but now I was rabid about it.

In those days I was working very long hours, and with a fresh ticket and access to a Cessna 150, I squeezed in flights whenever I could. That involved more night flights than was probably advisable at that point in my experience. But I loved being up at night and my regular routine of flying up the river and around downtown Detroit at 1,000 feet. Taking in the tapestry of lights was always magical and intoxicating.

One night the urge to fly welled up within me, and I headed to the airport where the 150 was tied down outside. Perhaps the most dangerous thing in life, and most certainly in aviation, is that you don’t know what you don’t know. And there were things I needed to know but did not. (Obviously, as I had been stupidly flying around at 1,000 feet at night.) As was a completely ordinary thing in Detroit in the winter, it had snowed. Per my training, I got out the broom and brushed off all the snow from the airframe. But (cue scary music here) there had been a bit of thaw, and under the snow was just a bit of ice. Not much, mind you. It was just a bit of crustiness, so I thought it couldn’t weigh very much. I figured it wasn’t a big deal since it was just me flying with partial fuel in the tanks.. It was a cold, clear, still night. Plenty of lift in this cold air, right? And, dang it, I wanted to fly so badly.

Everything else checked out just fine. I fired up the Continental O-200 and made my way across the big, dark, completely deserted field to the longest runway, did the run-up, lined her up, and shoved in the throttle. All seemed completely normal until I was out of ground effect, maybe 50 feet up. She felt saggy. This thing was not climbing. I was staring ahead into the inky blackness, where I knew a tall stand of pine trees was waiting for me at the north end of the runway. The accident chain instantly marched across my consciousness: inexperience, winter, night, ice, overeagerness, and drag, you idiot! I had stacked the deck against myself, and it was all going to end in those trees in a few seconds. There was really no better option than straight ahead, so I uttered a short prayer and waited for the impact.

It didn’t come. In the pitch darkness, I held the attitude indicator where I thought it should be and realized from the altimeter reading that I must have cleared the trees. I was soon high enough to have visual reference from the lights on the ground to the north. All I could think of was “climb.” The little 150 ponderously clawed its way up, while the altimeter moved at about the pace of hands on a clock. I eventually got up to a couple thousand feet and realized with terror that I was at that moment a test pilot in an unknown machine. I had no idea how to get it back down safely. I decided I needed to find out what the stall speed was with this stuff on the wings, so I would know what approach speed to use to avoid falling out of the sky. I decided I had enough drag already, so flaps probably would not be a good idea. I slowed down with my eyes on the airspeed indicator and waited for the break. To my surprise, the stall occurred at about the same speed it would normally. OK, I guess I’ll approach at the normal speed. I got her back to the field and lined up.

• READ MORE: Life Lessons of an Iced-Up Mooney

Grosse Ile airport is basically surrounded by water, and going in there on a moonless night one cannot see the surrounding trees. The runway lights are all you’ve got. It was a scary ride down the hill, and I carried a little extra speed anyway. At first, all seemed normal, but then almost too late, I realized that stalling wasn’t going to be my problem. This thing was coming down like a brick. The sink rate registered on my brain, and I firewalled the throttle, once again terrified that I was going to settle right down into those pine trees. The O-200 roared (like a mouse in a lion suit), and the laden little 150 somehow lumbered over the unseen treetops. I kept full throttle until I was just over the pavement. Fortunately, the runway was plenty long and I settled in smoothly. It was over, except my heart was about to pound its way out of my chest.

I vowed right then and there to never again fly any airplane with even a hint of anything on the wings. But perhaps even more importantly, I came away from that near miss with a constant question on my mind for any situation: What about this do I not know? Finding the answer is well worth any time and effort it takes. This has served me well in airplanes and in many other areas, such as just getting along with people.

This feature first appeared in the November 2023/Issue 943 of FLYING’s print edition.

The post Ice on the Wings Brings About a Near-Miss Episode appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• READ MORE: A Wing and a Prayer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As we drove back home, I said to Dot, “It must be great to learn how to fly.” Dot said, “Why don’t you try it?” To which I replied, “No, I can’t. It would cost too much and take too much time.” So, there I was, two days later at Appleton International Airport (KATW) in the pilot’s seat of a vintage Cessna 150, clutching my student pilot certificate and taking my first flying lesson. In December, with my consulting work finished, we moved back to Massachusetts. After we resettled, I continued my flying lessons at Marlboro Airport (9B1). With its 1,659-foot runway bookended by extremely tall pine trees, there couldn’t be a better place to practice landings and takeoffs. I finally earned my private pilot certificate on May 14, 1975. After we got home, Dot and I held a proper champagne celebration. Then we had a serious discussion about flying, and I promised her that the one thing I would never do was buy an airplane.

Besides, renting would be fine. A month later, I was reflecting on that decision as I was sitting in the left seat of my newly purchased 1958 Piper Comanche 250 at Minute Man Air Field (6B6) with its 2,700-foot runway in Stow. Wow. My landings didn’t have to be precise at all, not after my Marlboro short-field training. In July 1976 with my flight hours adding up, and my wanderlust afoot, I thought it might be fun to try a cross-country flight in my “Baby Airliner.” What better destination than a trip to Oshkosh for another air show? At that time, Burt Rutan was selling his VariEze homebuilt kits to builders around the country—a composite, canard, high-performance aircraft. Burt would occasionally visit some of the builders to help them assemble the kits. There were three kits being built at Stow that would be flying to the Oshkosh show. We planned on meeting them there to see how well the airplanes performed. We had the privilege of working with Burt for a few days.

The Oshkosh show was scheduled to start on July 31, so we started planning for our big adventure. We were to be joined on the trip by Mal Bennert, a good friend of ours who was also a certificated pilot. We spent Saturday packing clothes and thoroughly preflighting the airplane, cleaning, topping the gas tanks, double-checking our checklists, planning the flight route, etc.

Later that afternoon, my son Bill and daughter Sharon dropped by to see how we were doing. Because it was early and a beautiful day, we asked if they would like to take a final sunset sightseeing trip before we left. It would include a stop at Manchester Airport (KMHT) in New Hampshire for the proverbial hundred-dollar hamburgers. It was probably a good thing that we took that flight because later, when I radioed my landing intentions, my second radio was dead. It was an emergency because I would not launch on this trip without both radios working. After we landed, I told our mechanic my problem. Fortunately, one of the local pilots said he had a radio he could lend us for the trip. We spent Sunday replacing and testing the radio. I slept soundly that night, and we left early Monday morning in kind of an overcast day.

• READ MORE: Leaving in the Chocks

Because I wanted to keep both tanks as full as possible, our first fuel stop was planned for Binghamton Airport (KBGM) in New York. We had been flying for about two hours, which put us over the Allegheny Mountains—not too hospitable on the ground. I was pilot flying for this first leg, and all was going well. Dot was in the back, reading a magazine, and we were just cruising along. Suddenly, I thought I heard a skipped cylinder from the engine. I asked Mal on the intercom if he heard that. He said, “Heard what? I didn’t hear anything.” I said, “Yeah, that nothing is the noise I’m talking about.” Just then, the engine coughed for a few beats then a few more until finally it went quiet. Nothing like a shot of adrenaline to liven up a dull morning. I wanted to start down the checklist for “Engine Power Loss During Flight,” so I said, “Mal, you’ve got the airplane.” He answered, “I’ve got the airplane.” I wanted to be free to check the obvious things that can stop an engine, the most likely being fuel starvation. The fuel selector was on the floor between the pilot and copilot. Looking down to move it would have taken my eyes off the horizon—not a good idea. I said, “Leave the flaps and gear up and trim for 100 mph.” Mal answered, “Flaps and gear up, trim for 100.” (For youngsters reading this, we were still using miles per hour back then.)

I looked down at the fuel selector, and it was positioned on the right tank, which was the correct one that I had selected before we left. I turned it to the left tank, pushed mixture to full rich, pulled carb heat on, and turned on the fuel pump. The prop was windmilling nicely, which was a good sign. The best sign, however, was the sound of the engine coughing twice, spitting a little because the carb heat was on, and then coming up to full power. “Now,” I thought, “pretend you’re a professional pilot. Just take a deep breath, wipe the sweat off your brow. Return all settings back to cruise. Continue with normal flight.”

• READ MORE: Why Do Pilots Use Checklists?

When we landed in Binghamton, I immediately dipsticked the right tank. It was dry as a bone. What had happened? As is so often the case, a series of small errors can result in a major problem. After we took the sightseeing flight Saturday, I had every intention of topping off the tanks when we returned, but I was totally distracted by the new problem—the dead radio. While working with that on Sunday, I completely forgot the needed gasoline, thus causing the right tank to be partially empty and run dry before my predicted time.

Is there a moral here to be learned? I don’t know. Checklists are only good when used at the right time. But how do you know when that is, and who checks the checklist checker?

This column first appeared in the August 2023/Issue 940 print edition of FLYING.

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My ride that day was a brand-new Piper Archer, N2876K. It was well equipped for that era; it even had a two-axis autopilot and DME—a luxury in those days. The flight was planned for four hours plus, with a stop in Indianapolis for fuel and to check weather at the Combs Gates FBO. I filed my first solo instrument flight plan and departed at 8:30 a.m. local. The weather was VFR all the way to Indianapolis International Airport (KIND)with only early morning haze to contend with. After picking up my IFR flight plan from Cleveland Departure, I climbed with the sun at my back into a cloudless blue sky. I felt like I belonged.

A quick 2 hours and 15 minutes later, I was taxiing up to Combs Gates with a real sense of accomplishment, maybe even more than four days earlier when I passed my checkride. After all, I was flying in the “system” with no supervision—entirely on my own. However, that was about to change. The next segment between Indianapolis and 50 miles east of St. Louis produced one of those life-altering moments for an aviator, one that shaped every aspect of my future flying career.

As I topped off the tanks and had a sip of Coke, I had a pleasant conversation with a flight service specialist who gave me a standard briefing that included: “VFR along the entire route but with a chance of isolated thunderstorms.” Your typical Midwest summer forecast.

Fair weather cumulus started to form, but nothing in the briefing hinted at a go/no-go decision. In fact, the briefer mentioned the cloud bases reported along the route were at least 7,000 feet. Just for safety, I filed for a westbound altitude of 6,000 feet on Victor 14. I wanted to be on an IFR flight plan—just not hard IFR.

I headed west above the haze and leveled at 6,000 feet. As I approached Terre Haute, Indiana, I saw a confusing solid wall of clouds extending many thousands of feet above my altitude. The clouds didn’t look like cumulus. A quick call to Indianapolis Center confused me even more. The controller said he wasn’t “painting” any weather from my position all the way to St. Louis.

At this point, I considered canceling IFR and landing at Terre Haute. But I scrapped that idea. My ego got in the way. After all, I had just passed my check ride in actual, and I was beaming with confidence. Onward I flew into the cloud bank. The initial ride generated an occasional bump at worst. I felt confident I had made the correct decision to continue. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Soon I was handed off to Kansas City Center over eastern Illinois. By this time, the Archer was jolted by continuous moderate turbulence. My confidence quickly turned into real concern. I keyed the mike and asked the new controller about the weather in front of me, but he only came back with “light to moderate” precipitation for the next 50 miles. At this point, the airplane was still on autopilot and handling the chop and occasional upset.

Then the situation got worse. Torrential rain, continuous lightning, severe turbulence, and—most upsetting to me—the vertical speed indicator was first pegged up to the stops and then pegged in the opposite direction. I reduced power for an indicated airspeed lower than maneuvering speed (V_A), but I knew I was in trouble. I was convinced the wings were going to separate from the airframe. I felt more like a helpless passenger than PIC.

I called Kansas City Center again, but this time I confessed my unfortunate position. I was on the verge of tears. There was little or no controlling my altitude. The updrafts and downdrafts were so strong I knew any attempt to maintain altitude would cause a break up.

• READ MORE: Racing a Storm Is Not the Best Choice

I needed help, quickly. The controller sensed the urgency in my transmission and calmly said, “Stand by.” A few moments later, the controller handed me off to a new one. I was to be his only customer, and he volunteered that he was only “painting” light to moderate precipitation, but I told him the airplane was in severe updrafts and downdrafts. He said to keep the wings level, and he would try to steer me clear of the heaviest precipitation.

Time stood still. I have no recollection of how long he vectored me. He kept saying not to worry about altitude and just try to keep the wings level. The controller continued to “suggest” headings followed by “How’s the ride now?” I wasn’t reassured, but I did robotically turn as suggested, all the time going up and down the elevator. I was soaked through with perspiration and exhausted.

This went on until just south of Litchfield, Illinois, when he cleared me down to the minimum en route altitude (MEA), and I broke out of the cloud bases. Now I had a fighting chance of surviving. There was lightning in all quadrants and sheets of virga I had to dodge, but that was manageable. While the updrafts and downdrafts had subsided, there still was continuous moderate-to-severe turbulence. My head hit the side of the airframe, the headliner, and the glareshield. And without warning, just as I was handed to St. Louis Approach, the airplane broke out into CAVU VFR.

I landed at Spirit of St Louis Airport with the aircraft in one piece—but I was scarred for life. I had been sure I was going to die and would be just another low-time pilot who flew into a thunderstorm. I was so grateful the controller had helped me through, but I knew I would never look at instrument flying the same way. Thousands of hours later, I am still haunted by that flight.

This article first appeared in the July 2023/Issue 939 print edition of FLYING.

The post Humbled for Life appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

to coordinate the bank’s activities with the  factory and normally took the car, which made  for a round trip of approximately six hours. This  time—and considering the beautiful weather—I  decided to take the airplane instead.  With barely 150 hours in my logbook, I  felt that I should invite my former flying instructor, who had a total of approximately  20,000 hours, to accompany me to south Switzerland, which required a crossing of the Alps.

It was the most beautiful October day when we left relatively early in  the morning from our military air port in the alpine upland in a Cessna  FR172 Reims Rocket. The 172, how ever, was not IFR-equipped and  didn’t have an autopilot.  

The flight down was uneventful and beautiful. There was no wind, and my gorgeous country lay at my disposal as far as the eye could see. 

I had a busy and successful day and met with my instructor at around  4 p.m. at Lugano Airport. Working all day and meeting after meeting did not give me time to think about the return flight—or prepare with any flight planning at all.  

Because the weather was so beautiful on both sides of the Alps when we left, I do not remember if we even checked the weather. 

On the way back, the flight north was great—quiet and nothing to worry about until we approached the valley where our home airport was situated. The valley runs almost straight from south to north and, on both sides, is surrounded by a couple of mountains, all at a height of  around 10,000 feet.  

A solid cloud layer of fog was  creeping up the edges of the valley,  and when we reached the vicinity of  the field, it was completely covered. We kept going on and discussed  what we could do. I definitely had  “get-home-itis” and did not want to go back south and take a train home, which meant missing dinner and missing the boys before they went to bed.

So I sheepishly suggested that— because the layer might not be thick—we could enter the cloud in the middle of the valley, follow its course, and “fall out” underneath the cloud layer after only a very brief descent. Much to my surprise, my former instructor consented. We agreed that, entering the top at around 8,000 feet, we would execute a climb and return to the top at no lower than 6,000 feet if we didn’t have ground contact. I reduced power and slowly but cautiously approached the layer.  The moment we entered it, the whole world changed—from bright sunshine to near darkness; from a normal-sounding engine to a muffled, distant-feeling motor; from a happy, cheerful cockpit to a quiet and  worryingly narrow environment. The valley ran a course of approximately 010 degrees—nearly due north.  So, I followed it precisely and let down with a descent rate of about 500 fpm. Upon reaching 6,000 feet, we were still solidly in the soup. 

Instead of opening full throttle and resuming a climb, I kept descending, hoping my former teacher would not realize that I was reneging on our agreement to stop at that altitude. 

At 5,000 feet, we were still in it. Suddenly, I realized that we could have encountered crosswinds in the valley, and though I kept diligently to  the heading, we could drift sideways and be pushed completely off course. 

The next thought that crossed my mind was to imagine how it would feel if we were to hit a mountain at a speed of about 100 mph. Realizing this could actually happen any second, I advanced the throttle, pulled up carefully and ascended on that same course, making sure not to pull too hard on the controls and watching my airspeed cautiously.  

The next minutes were deadly quiet in the cockpit—and for certain the longest of my life. The urge to pull back a little harder in order to expedite the climb had to be fought against and required all my self-discipline.  A lot of thoughts—both important and minor—crossed my mind. Am I going to see my family again? How is the insurance coverage in such a case? How do I get from the airport to the train station in Lugano? When would I get the airplane back to the  home airport? 

As we cleared the cloud tops again at 8,000 feet, we were exactly where we were supposed to be, and the sun was still the same one and as bright as before. We turned back south, landed at the airport from which we had departed  approximately 40 minutes prior, and took the train back.  

It was the first time in my life that I enjoyed a train ride more than a flight. I have read ILAFFT since the early 1970s and learned something from most of the stories.  

I do hope that no serious pilot learns from this article. I would hope that there are no aviators who would try the same as I did with youthful recklessness and without the gadgets available today, such as GPS and the associated instrument approach procedures. The question remains, though, whether today, with all these marvelous toys, the story would have ended differently. Maybe the temptation to risk such an adventure is even greater now, but then there are other  challenges, such as vertigo, somato gravic illusion, stalls, icing and even  military IFR traffic (because we did  not monitor any such frequency).  

So, the answer is to not even think about doing what I did.

The post I.L.A.F.F.T.: Just A Thin Layer From Disaster appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read More: I Learned About Flying From That

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

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

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

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

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

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

The post Overloaded Takeoff in the Outback appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

A lot has been written over the past few years about pilots relying on the automation to fly the airplane to the detriment of actual hands-on-the-stick piloting skills. I have long been baffled by pilots’ reliance on the autopilot. But perhaps this attitude comes from my Air Force training early on and particularly from a black, black night at low altitude over the Atlantic Ocean. In October 1973, the war in Vietnam was winding to a close. For the previous three years or so, I had been flying the Lockheed C-141 Starlifter to Southeast Asia and all over the Pacific Ocean, supporting the US missions in that part of the world. Then, a new crisis: Israel had once again been attacked by Egypt, and the Air Force was tasked with supplying arms to Israel.

From its birth as a modern nation in 1948, Israel has fought its neighbors for its survival. In 1967, in the famous Six-Day War, Israel had defeated the adjacent countries (Syria, Jordan and Egypt) in one week. Six years later, on the holy celebration of Yom Kippur, it was happening again. But this time, it was against a slightly different background. The oil-rich countries of the Middle East announced that they would cut off all oil shipments to any country that supported Israel in the conflict. This included any nation that aided in the resupply of any materiel. That meant that if the United States wanted to support Israel, it would have to do it without the air bases outside of its own borders.

The Lockheed C-141 was the Air Force’s second-largest cargo aircraft. Its four jet engines allowed it to cruise at just under Mach 0.8 with a range of 5,000 miles. It weighed about 70.5 tons empty and more than twice that fully loaded. It was the perfect aircraft for the mission. So here was the plan.

The US Air Force Military Air Command would pick up bombs and small arms ammunition from supply depots in the States, fly to Lajes Field air base in the Portuguese Azores (where we still had landing rights), and then to Tel Aviv, Israel. Aircrews would rest at Lajes; the airplanes would keep moving. This was a normal operation, but there would be two new wrinkles that nearly put me and my crew into the Atlantic. First, we were not allowed to fly over any other country’s airspace or land in any other country en route. Second, under no circumstances would we leave an airplane on the ground at Tel Aviv. The Air Force did not want to see a burning US aircraft at Tel Aviv on the evening news.

My logbook entries from that time show that my crew and I picked up loads in Indiana and Arkansas, then flew eight hours or so to Lajes to rest, then picked up an incoming airplane and flew it for seven to eight hours to Tel Aviv, and then the same distance back to Lajes for a beer and bed. We flew two uneventful trips from Lajes to Tel Aviv and back. We flew past the Rock of Gibraltar and then straddled various airspace boundaries as we made our way east across the Mediterranean Sea. About 150 miles west of Israel, a pair of Israeli F-4 Phantoms showed up off our wingtip and escorted us nearly to touchdown.

As we taxied in, we opened the cargo doors so we could begin offloading as soon as we came to a stop. The refueling truck slid in next to us as we stopped, and while we sat with the engines running, we received a weather briefing, filed our flight plan for the leg back west, unloaded our cargo, and filled with fuel. Then, it was time to call for taxi and head back west for another eight hours. Not one extra minute was spent on the ground.

The third trip, on October 28, was different. The first four hours of our flight east were uneventful. Then, the master warning light illuminated, along with the small warning light that indicated that the elevator artificial-feel system had failed.

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While small aircraft have cables running from the control yoke to the elevator, large aircraft do not. Movement of the yoke on large aircraft causes hydraulic valves to open and close, which, in turn, moves the elevator. The pilot gets no sensory feedback from this movement of hydraulic fluid. So, to give the pilot the sense of aerodynamic feel that we are all accustomed to, the good engineers at Lockheed included the elevator artificial-feel system. This was a system of springs that sensed the aircraft airspeed from the central air-data computer and adjusted the amount of pressure that the pilot would feel from movement on the yoke. Just as in smaller aircraft, the greater the airspeed, the harder it was to pull back on the yoke. Great system, and it worked almost all the time.

When the system failed, it generally failed in the mode that required more back pressure on the yoke than expected. There was an in-flight reset procedure, but if that did not work, the system had to be reset on the ground by the maintenance folks. So in our case, the system failed, and when we disengaged the autopilot, the nose of the plane dropped immediately—and hard. The copilot and I regained control of the airplane, reengaged the autopilot, and had a long chat with the flight engineer and the books about our approach and landing. The plan we devised was that we would fly an ILS approach with the autopilot engaged, and then we would disengage just as we needed to flare. At that time, the copilot and I would jointly haul back on the yoke and get the nosewheel up just high enough to land, and that worked ok.

We had no maintenance support at Tel Aviv, and the flight engineer was not able to reset the system. On another day, we would have left the airplane for the maintenance folks, but that was not an option. I knew that I could have refused to fly the airplane, but I also knew that it was going to be moved by somebody, immediately. I felt that it was not fair to put someone else into this situation, not knowing how to react. At least we knew what to expect and how to handle it. Our takeoff briefing was normal, with one addition: At rotation speed, both the copilot and I would pull back on the yoke, and as soon as we got the aircraft into the climb-out pitch position, we would engage the autopilot.

Another eight hours back, and we had time for a lot of conversation. The aircraft was certified for Category III landing operations, meaning that if we had the proper ground equipment, we could let the autopilot capture the localizer and glideslope, engage the autothrottle system to hold the airspeed, and allow the autoland system bring up the nose at 50 feet agl and set the airplane on the centerline. What could go wrong?

It was nearly midnight on a moonless night. The only lights to be seen were those on the island, about 20 miles away. We descended to about 2,000 feet, rechecked all frequencies and switch settings, and prepared to watch the autopilot do its thing. Though I had never done this before in an aircraft, I had done it over and over in the simulator.

Flaps were set at the approach setting, landing gear was down, and airspeed was established for the approach. We were on a 45-degree intercept to the final approach course for Runway 15, about 15 miles out. The localizer needle started to move off the edge of the case, and the aircraft began a left turn to intercept the final approach course to Runway 15. As the airplane began to roll out of the turn, we realized that there was a problem with our plan. We just did not know what.

We were all set for some type of downward runaway pitch excursion. Both the copilot and I were set to pull back on the yoke if necessary. However, as the airplane started to roll out of the turn, it began a smooth but rapid nose-up movement. Simultaneously, the airspeed began decreasing toward the stall speed. We already had gear and flaps deployed, exactly the worst position to be in with the airplane moving toward a stall. This was where training just kicked in.

Read More: I Learned About Flying From That

I don’t remember what I said, but I remember simultaneously disengaging the autopilot and autothrottles, rolling into a steep turn to the left and smoothly shoving all four throttles forward, and staring hard at the attitude indicator as I did so. As soon as the nose moved up, the lights of the island went out of sight—there was no horizon to be seen. To the left as we turned, there was nothing but black. No ocean, no sky—just black. Aircraft attitude and airspeed were all that mattered.

The copilot and I performed a steep turn on instruments, not much different from the ones that instrument students still practice. All that training kicked in without thinking. Fly the airplane. Attitude, airspeed, altitude, roll out on a heading of 150. Re-intercept the localizer. The autopilot worked on the earlier approach into Tel Aviv—try it again—carefully. The only thing we did differently this time from our earlier approach into Tel Aviv was using the autothrottle. So, skip the autothrottle, and see if that solves the problem. We would fly this approach exactly like the approach we flew eight hours before. Except it was night, and we had the lack of visual cues that nighttime brings on landing. This entire event, from pitch-up to rollout back on final, took less than two minutes—the time it takes to make a 360-degree steep turn.

Landing was otherwise uneventful, except that our adrenalin levels were sky high. It all went quickly. The rest of the crew did not know how close we came to putting the airplane into the ocean. It was just us two pilots that were shaking.

We were met, as was normal, by the maintenance crew. We pilots and the flight engineer described what had happened as best we could. The maintenance crew said, “Hmm,” and we all went to bed.

It was quite some time before I realized what had happened. I was so focused on the malfunction of the elevator artificial-feel system that I did not realize that the aircraft was making the same rookie error that every student pilot makes. When we roll an aircraft into a bank, we need to increase our lift, because our lift perpendicular to the horizon has decreased. We do this by increasing the angle of attack, and the only way we can increase the angle of attack and hold altitude and airspeed is to increase power. The airplane did this and added the correct amount of nose-up trim to hold the level turn. However, it was slow to add power to hold the airspeed—just like a student pilot.

A failure to increase power will result in either a loss of airspeed or altitude. This is true in Cessna 172 or in a Boeing 777. Or in the Starlifter. In our case, the aircraft was calling for more power because the altitude was fixed and the turn to final was causing the airspeed to dissipate. But just like a beginning student learning steep turns, the autothrottle system was behind. It was trying to add power, but it came in late. When the airplane rolled out on final, the plane was low on airspeed, and the only thing it knew to do was to increase the pitch to hold altitude, which just caused the airspeed to drop more. Bad cycle. The solution for any impending stall is to decrease the angle of attack, while following up with increased power. I have always thanked Lockheed for giving us an aircraft with an abundance of power—because we had enough to make the runway.

This story appeared in the December 2020 issue of Flying Magazine

The post Final Turn in the Azores appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

I’ve been flying for 30 years and never experienced a hiccup from an airplane engine while airborne. That changed a few minutes into a recent flight. This story can’t rival a sudden engine stoppage and forced landing—it’s a story of an engine that seemed on its way to quitting—but I hope it provides some useful lessons.

It was unseasonably warm on February 23 in the Upper Midwest, with a bell-clear, blue-sky day beckoning for some flying. I never have to worry about finding something to do in an airplane because I have an ongoing project of landing at every airport in North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Wisconsin, the four states neighboring Minnesota, where I’d already landed at all 135 airports.

If there’s flyable weather at my home base of St. Cloud Regional Airport (KSTC) in Minnesota, there’s a good chance there’s good weather in one of the other states. So a friend and I headed out to northern Iowa in my Mooney, starting out in the northwest part of the state and heading east toward Decorah (KDEH), landing at all airports along the way. We ended up at Decorah an hour before sunset and fueled up for the return home.

We took off uneventfully in fine weather on an instrument flight plan to Anoka County-Blaine Airport (KANE) in Minnesota, climbed to 6,000 feet, settled into cruise and leaned the engine to rich of peak. After about two minutes of conversation, I began to feel a vibration. It felt exactly like the roughness you feel when going lean of peak and beyond, to the point where the first cylinder or cylinders begin to lose power—that is, “leaning to roughness.” However, the vibration continued to get worse, and the engine seemed to be on its way to destruction, peaking in about 10 seconds, so I knew I needed to land as soon as possible. I hoped for an airport because I still had power, though Iowa farm fields would be an option if necessary.

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I started a left turn toward the nearest airport, holding altitude in order to maximize my glide range. During that turn, I considered specifically where I wanted to go. I could make a 180-degree turn back toward Decorah, where I knew they had an FBO with repair facilities. Or I could do a 90-degree turn back toward the nearest airport at the time, Cresco, Iowa (KCJJ), where we had been earlier. I decided to go to Cresco; I learned quickly that when your life is on the line, all other inconveniences are secondary.

This is where I confirmed that an iPad running a big moving map—the ForeFlight app in my case—can be a lifesaver. When making that turn, I knew generally where Cresco was because I was just there but not a specific heading. I simply turned the airplane in that direction by pointing the symbolic airplane using the moving map. I identified the town visually, and I adjusted my heading to maintain a ground track straight to where I knew the airport was. If I had used the nearest-airport feature on the GPS, it would have taken longer.

I declared a mayday call to the Rochester, Minnesota, approach controller with whom I was already in contact, and she provided information on direction and distance along the way.

Once established toward the airport, the glide-range circle shown on ForeFlight told me I was not yet within gliding range, and for that reason, I maintained altitude. All of the above took place in 20 seconds. At that point, I turned my attention to the engine, and at once, I found that the engine monitor flashed that cylinder No. 3 in my Lycoming IO-360 was running at something like 450 degrees F. I left the throttle wide open and pushed the mixture in full rich. A few seconds later, the engine started to become smoother and restored to normal after no more than 10 seconds. The cylinder-head temperature dropped rapidly. I waited until I was within gliding range, stayed high for a couple of miles beyond that, began a descent into a tight traffic pattern suitable for a possible dead-stick landing, and landed uneventfully.

Read More: I Learned About Flying From That

We taxied to the ramp and were quickly greeted by the local police and the airport manager who had been called by Rochester. Cursory inspection of the engine revealed nothing unusual. The airport manager, Clair Pecinovsky, put me in touch with Mike Connell, an airplane mechanic at Decorah, and he graciously offered to come to Cresco to look over the engine, including the fuel injectors, spark plugs and borescope. In the meantime, we returned home via a rental car.

The inspection revealed no damage to the engine, but one spark plug on the misbehaving cylinder No. 3 had a cracked insulator. After conferring with Connell, my own airplane mechanic and some more research, the best theory was that the No. 3 fuel injector experienced a partial obstruction leading to a leaner mixture, demonstrated by the resulting higher exhaust-gas temperature—as shown in the data dump from the JP Instruments EDM 700 engine analyzer—which led to a detonation or preignition event perhaps instigated by the cracked plug (most likely detonation).

The spark plug was replaced, and the next week I hitched a ride in a friend’s airplane, circled the airport to confirm all was well, and flew home uneventfully with a deliberately rich mixture. At a safe altitude over my airport, I put the engine through its paces of various mixtures, RPMs and power but could not cause any anomalies.

I’ve been a Monday morning quarterback and came up with the following suggestions for others:

• Don’t have regrets about calling mayday. I received a benign call from the FSDO afterward, and that was it.
• Don’t wait—reflexively push that mixture in full rich as you start your turn to see if that helps. It apparently did in this case.
• The engine went back to normal so promptly, I briefly considered proceeding home. Resist the temptation. Make the precautionary landing.
• Go to the nearest airport. All other considerations are secondary when it comes to threatened power loss.
• If you don’t have an engine monitor, get one. I’m considering getting an audio alert for temperature alarms because I still can’t believe I didn’t see that flashing cylinder-head temperature. I’ll be checking more frequently, at least for that flashing warning.
• Invest in a panel or yoke mount for your iPad or other moving-map display; it provides a wealth of safety information.

This story appeared in the November 2020, Buyers Guide issue of Flying Magazine

The post Detonation Grounds a Mooney appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

It was a beautiful March day in 1976 in South Texas, and I was excited to be flying my Sweet Adeline women’s barbershop quartet from San Antonio to Amarillo, Texas, for our regional barbershop singing contest. My husband and I owned a 1965 Mooney M20C—yes, with a Johnson bar—and we flew it quite a bit just for pleasure, always alternating as pilot in command. I was really happy that Julie, Carole and Kathy trusted me enough to fly with me. After all, at that time, a woman pilot was a member of a rare breed.

With Carole in the front seat and Julie and Kathy in the back, we departed San Antonio International on a 270-degree vector. There was an overcast layer at about 2000 feet agl, and being a VFR pilot, I was flying under it when I saw a big hole in the clouds over to my left, in the vicinity of Kelly Air Force Base (now officially Kelly Field), which was an active ­military airport at that time. The cumulus layer didn’t look very thick, so I asked for and was given ­permission to divert to the southwest and ascend through the hole.

I reached the large hole in the clouds and started spiraling upward, thinking: “This is great. Just a few more minutes, and we’ll be on top and on our way to the contest.” However, as I continued to climb, the hole was getting smaller and smaller until it disappeared altogether, and I found myself in the clouds. Having experienced loss of spatial orientation when my instructor put me through recovery from unusual attitudes, as well as having spun in the vertigo chair at a ­flight-safety ­meeting, I was well-aware that I was susceptible to losing spatial ­awareness. That really scared me. So I established a very shallow bank and kept my eyes riveted to the instruments, making sure that I didn’t increase my bank as I continued to spiral upward through the overcast. I tried to keep a confident bearing and act like this was an everyday occurrence for me so I wouldn’t make my passengers any more uncomfortable than they naturally were, not being able to see anything outside. But, truthfully, I was petrified. Of course, I didn’t report being in IMC.

The controller would ask me, ­periodically, if I was on top yet, and I would give him a negative response.

Then a new masculine voice came over the radio, saying, “You girls sing pretty up there in Amarillo.” I was stunned. Who could that possibly be, knowing who we were and where we were going?

Kathy, in the back seat, asked in an awe-stricken voice, “Was that God?” I couldn’t imagine who it was, but we found out later that it was the ­husband of one of our chorus ­members, who was a test pilot.

I kept on climbing, until finally ­someone broke in with a pilot’s report: “To the lady trying to get on top, be advised that the tops are at 16-5.”

Clearly, this dictated that I abort my plan and return to a lower altitude under the overcast, so I told the controller we were coming back down. “Back to the airport?” he asked hopefully. “Negative,” I said. “Just back down under the clouds.” I changed to a descending spiral, still being very careful to watch the instruments and keep my bank very shallow.

It’s difficult to keep an outward show of confidence when you are pretty scared of the situation you are in, but I think I managed pretty well. Carole said she looked back and saw Kathy as white as a sheet. She didn’t say that I was, so I guess I faked it pretty well. Julie told me later that she didn’t know we were spiraling upward and trying to get above the clouds—she just thought we were flying. She said she was a little uncomfortable not being able to see outside but had ­complete confidence in me.

Read More: I Learned About Flying From That

The controller would ask now, ­periodically, if we were under the clouds yet, and he finally said, “Well, I hope you get there soon—you’re holding up all the traffic at San Antonio International and Kelly Field.” Gulp.

Eventually, I reported that we were under the clouds, and the controller, sounding very relieved, vectored me towards the northwest. At that point, I decided to check the weather once more, and the Amarillo forecast for our ETA had been updated: 12 degrees Fahrenheit with winds at 35 knots gusting to 45, at a 35-degree crosswind to the active runway. That was the last straw for that ill-fated flight. We returned to the ­airport and—yes, you could do this back then—bought tickets and boarded a ­commercial flight for Amarillo.

I felt bad about causing such a ­disruption, but then I told myself that the controller should have never given me permission to go up through a hole in the clouds in the first place. Maybe he didn’t know about sucker holes. I know I didn’t.

But in my defense (and that of my instructor), I learned to fly in a tiny oil town in West Texas, west of Lubbock and near the New Mexico line. We didn’t normally have clouds down low that could form in layers with holes to tempt the unsuspecting pilot.

An oil company had blessed our little town with an airport, and we had two paved runways: 09/27 and 03/21/22. (The southwest runway had a 10-degree dogleg near the end and a pump jack close beside it.) Runway 27 was the most challenging. The homeowner just across the street from the approach end had installed a ­300-foot TV tower over his house “so ­airplanes wouldn’t hit his roof.” So you had to clear that and then slip down to the runway. The wind was always blowing from south of due west, so you were dealing with that crosswind while slipping. A few seconds later, the huge school-bus barn blocked the wind, so you had to ­correct your crosswind configuration. And then, suddenly, you were past the barn, so still another adjustment. Woe to the unsuspecting pilot landing there for the first time.

We built hangars out of ­scavenged pipe and corrugated steel. Our ­personally owned ­1,000-gallon ­barrel held avgas purchased at 19 cents a gallon. Rent on the Cessna 150 was $12 an hour, and our instructor charged $8 an hour. The local banker financed our planes with the same type of loan he made to the local farmers: pay only the interest. That’s how a couple of teachers could afford to fly in 1969 and ’70.

The post Clouds From Both Sides Now appeared first on FLYING Magazine.