Golf Hotel Whiskey

Cirrus SR-22 Perspective in San Francisco

Seriously, with a title like that I don’t need to add any hype to get you to read this post. It can hardly get any better than flying a brand new plane with the latest avionics in one of the most beautiful parts of the world. Well, actually, it does if you fly with a great instructor like Max Trescott. He literally wrote the book on the G1000 / Perspective and he’s great fun to fly with.

I flew for two afternoons with him. We met at the Sky Kitchen at San Carlos airport. It’s a classic American diner with an airport out of the window. The airport ICAO code is KSQL, presumably named for the Oracle database company which has its headquarters nearby.

On the first day, during lunch Max and I had a great chat about aviation and blogging. We were so absorbed in the conversation that the waitress threw us out because we were hogging the table but we hadn’t noticed that we’d finished eating. (If I had noticed, I assure you I would have carried on eating. An empty plate is a challenge for me.)

After lunch, though, the work began. We went to the West Valley Flying Club where Max briefed me on the basics of the Perspective cockpit. Then we went out to the aircraft – a beautiful, almost-new Cirrus SR-22 Turbo with Perspective avionics and all the toys. It was in its own hangar and so it was spotless and shiny; unlike the planes I fly here which live outside. There’s a little electric tow truck so you don’t have to break a sweat getting it in and out. To get fuel, you just radio the fuel company and in minutes a nice chap comes and fills the tanks. I think the US is aviation heaven.

We flew east towards Stockton where we did some auto-coupled and hand-flown approaches using the GPS and ILS. The weather was perfect – good visibility above cloud but a nice thick cloud layer from about 2,000 feet down to about 300 feet. Perfect for actual IMC practice.

Since I hadn’t flown for six weeks and there was a lot of new stuff to deal with, I felt very rusty. But Max was very patient and the whole thing felt relaxed and unstressful. Certainly, the Perspective makes it very easy to fly providing you get it set up properly. The highway in the sky indicators make it very simple to fly an approach and the autopilot will fly holds and other complex stuff that the Avidyne system I normally use won’t do. I also like the ability to climb at a given airspeed on the autopilot; this is going to help people avoid autopilot-induced stalls and improve engine cooling on hot days.

Other cool features include: satellite weather, XM radio for long trips, Jeppesen charts and the range circle which adjusts in real time as you lean the engine. With the keypad on the centre console, it looks, feels and works pretty much like an airliner FMS.

I had two concerns, which may resolve themselves with more familiarity. The first is that there is a lot to learn. I had a few “why is it doing that” moments. It’s all very logical but you need to understand how it thinks. For example, you can set the autopilot to fly an approach and it will descend with the procedure or glideslope automatically. Except if you have a higher altitude commanded on the altitude bug. The logic is that it doesn’t want to descend lower than the higher of the two settings. But if you don’t know that you can find yourself levelled off when you were expecting to keep going down.

The second concern is a more minor one, but I like the way I can switch the Avidyne MFD between north up and track up. With north up, I can make position reports and estimate distances easily – this is important with airspace restrictions and intensive ATC around London – and then I can switch to track up for terrain, TCAS etc. While the Perspective will switch, it requires major hackage in the system settings and so we flew with track up all the time.

The second day felt more comfortable. I was beginning to get the feeling for the basic features of the system so that I could concentrate on the details, the approaches and my checks. This time we headed southwest towards Salinas and Monterey. We did a bunch of different WAAS and GPS approaches, some with the full procedure using the autopilot. I love the way it can just fly itself into the hold and then sit there all day until you tell it where to go next.

The view out over the Pacific was fantastic and it was a real treat to be flying into Monterey. Max says that you can see whales sometimes.

Heading back towards the Bay Area, the low cloud looked great over the peninsula.

As a special treat, we also flew an approach into Moffett Field for a close look at the airship hangars.

I won’t say that the best bit of the trip was putting the plane back in the hangar. It wasn’t. I was sad to be done with my flying on this trip. But getting to drive the electric tow tractor was a big compensation.

The other Space Shuttle

At a time when NASA is looking forwards by going backwards – reusing bits of the Saturn and bits of the Shuttle and a 4-6 person capsule – it’s interesting to read about the USAF’s X-37 mini-Shuttle project. This article in Air & Space Smithsonian does a nice job reviewing the history and future of this programme. The first flight of the unmanned spaceplane is expected in April 2010.

After 40 years, we’re getting the successor to the X-15 and X-20 Dyna-Soar. Neil Armstrong flex the X-15 and was slated to fly the X-20 before it was cancelled. I wonder if he would have been as famous for making the first flight on that as he became for landing on the moon. Probably not, but it’s an interesting piece of counter-factual history to wonder whether the US space programme would be in better shape today if it had taken a piloted, gradual, winged approach instead of Von Braun and Kennedy’s big bang. Or perhaps they did but it’s classified.

What’s in a name? Is it whiskey or whisky?

I published this on my other blog, BadLanguage.net, but I thought readers of this blog might find it interesting too because it explains how I came up with the name for the site.

It replaced earlier sites of mine, including HappyLandings.net (which sort of worked but I didn’t have the .com domain name) and ModernPilot.com (which was supposed to be a magazine but didn’t really take off in terms of readers or advertising).

How not to pick a good name

I wanted a name that was good for a flying blog but which reflected the idea that I would be reviewing pilot-friendly golf courses, hotels, restaurants and pubs near airports as well as writing about aviation in general and my own flying experiences in particular.

Of course, ‘golf’, ‘hotel’ and ‘whiskey’ are from the phonetic alphabet used by pilots so I hoped that would say something about aviation. They also have the double meaning of golf courses, hotels and drinking which reflected the intention of the site.

However – big lesson, this – ‘clever’ names don’t work. While most civilians sort of get the joke when I explain it, pilots seldom do. I don’t know why this is but there you are. My name mystifies my primary audience. D’oh! But at least I got the .com domain and I do like my logo very much.

Whisky or whiskey?

There was also the flood of complaints (well, one, actually) about the choice of ‘whiskey’ rather than ‘whisky’ without the ‘e’. This offended a Scotland-based reader. As P.G. Wodehouse famously remarked, “it is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine.” (Seriously, I love Scottish people and I want to make that perfectly clear before the tartan taliban force-feed me to death with deep-fried Mars bars.)

In fact, I registered domain names with and without the ‘e’ to catch accidental misspellings of the site name. But I choose ‘whiskey’ because that is the spelling used in the phonetic alphabet. It seemed more ‘pilotey’.

Repeat history

The evolution of the word itself is interesting. This is what Wikipedia has to say on the subject:

The word "whisky" is believed to have been coined by soldiers of King Henry II who invaded Ireland in the 12th century as they struggled to pronounce the native Irish words uisce beatha [ɪʃkʲə bʲahə], meaning "water of life". Over time, the pronunciation changed from "whishkeyba" (an approximation of how the Irish term sounds) to "whisky". The name itself is a Gaelic calque of the Latin phrase aqua vitae, meaning "water of life".
At one time, all whisky was spelled without the "e", as "whisky". In around 1870, the reputation of Scottish whisky was very poor as Scottish distilleries flooded the market with cheaper spirits produced using the Coffey still. The Irish and American distilleries adopted the spelling "whiskey", with the extra "e", to distinguish their higher quality product. Today, the spelling whisky (plural whiskies) is generally used for whiskies distilled in Scotland, Wales, Canada, and Japan, while whiskey is used for the spirits distilled in Ireland and America. Even though a 1968 directive of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms specifies "whisky" as the official US spelling, it allows labeling as "whiskey" in deference to tradition and most U.S. producers still use the historical spelling. Exceptions such as Early Times, Maker’s Mark, and George Dickel are usually indicative of a Scottish heritage.
In the late Victorian era, Irish whiskey was the world’s most popular whisky. Of the Irish whiskeys, Dublin whiskeys were regarded as the grands crus of whiskeys. In order to differentiate Dublin whiskey from other whiskies, the Dublin distilleries adopted the spelling "whiskey". The other Irish distilleries eventually followed suit. The last Irish "whisky" was Paddy, which adopted the "e" in 1966.
"Scotch" is the internationally recognized term for "Scotch whisky" however it is rarely used in Scotland, where blended whisky is generally referred to as "whisky" and single or vatted malt whisky as "malt".
In many Latin-American countries, whisky (wee-skee) is used as a photographer’s cue to smile, supplanting English "cheese". The Uruguayan film Whisky got its name because of this.

So, there you are. Whiskey is also the high-quality version of the name. Cheers!

Awesome low-level aerobatics (Video)

Check this out. I bet you wish you could do this in your Extra!

What’s your preflight routine?

For pilots, state of mind is as important as engine health or electrical power. Accident reports are full of stories about pilot error: fatigue, inattention, distraction and, yes, chatting about crew rosters and missing their destination altogether.

When it comes to single-pilot GA flights, your mental state is even more important. There is no ‘spare pilot’ to catch your mistakes.

It’s a big topic but I’d like to focus on one area where we have the greatest level of control. It’s often overlooked but I think it is very important. It is the time between leaving the house to go flying and the time you start up the engine and begin taxiing.

Your preflight routine can make a big difference to the safety and success of a flight and yet it is almost completely overlooked as a critical stage of flight. So, what can go wrong?

Stress. Traffic delays, passengers who don’t show up on time, planes that have been left in a bad state by previous pilots etc. I read one accident report about a British student pilot who was a doctor. At the airport before a solo cross-country flight, he was called over to help with someone who had fallen ill. The poor chap died and yet our doctor continued with his flight despite having experienced a very stressful event.
Forgetfulness. On my second flight into Amsterdam Schiphol, I arrived at the airport without the approach plates. Ouch! Luckily, TAA UK were able to print out the basic plates in time for my flight. But this kind of thing is best avoided.
Plane problems. I fly a shared group aircraft. This means that I often find it low on fuel, strewn with garbage or with small tech problems that require a check in the MEL or POH to be sure I’m legal and safe to fly. Just taking the wing and body covers off can take a while.
Passengers. Nervous or first-time passengers need extra time and help. I’ve also taken some friends flying who thought that they could arrive any time they liked since it was a ‘private plane’. They were nearly two hours late and I had to repeatedly refile my flight plan etc. for the Isle of Man.
Weather. I occasionally find myself sitting in a crew lounge or the flying school at Denham waiting for fog to lift or rain to stop. My home base is VFR-only and just inside the Heathrow control zone which puts special restrictions on my ability to fly there, even with an instrument rating.
Slot times. Eurocontrol and ATC can play havoc with a well-planned departure. I’ve been sat on the ground several times at French airports waiting for a delayed departure slot or for a controller to find a ‘missing’ flight plan. For VFR trips, fast-approaching night time can also be a restriction. Nobody enjoys night landings at Denham. I think carrier pilots could use it for night training.

How avoid the problems?

Leave earlier. Just as there are fuel margins for a possible diversion, I like to give myself a time buffer. I like to be at the airport an hour before my planned departure, especially if I have an airways flight and slot time booked.
Park passengers. I prefer doing my preflight inspection and cockpit preparation alone so that I don’t get distracted by questions or interruptions. Passengers prefer staying in the lounge until the flight is ready. Frequent flyers who can help or who know how to sit quietly can join me but generally, I like to park my passengers until I’m ready for them.
Leaving home checklist. I have a pre-flight planning checklist that I use to make sure I’ve done everything I need to do with the flight plan etc. But it also includes items such as: passport, Euros, camera, charts etc. so that I don’t leave home without them.
Go bag. I like to repack my flight bag after each trip so that it is ready for the next one. I also get my charts – I print them out from Jeppesen Flightstar – bundled up with all my other flight documents such as the weight and balance schedule and put them in the pocket of my flight bag the day before. That way, it’s very hard for me to forget them.
Risk analysis. I put together a risk analysis table that takes account of currency, weather, airport familiarity, type of approach etc. to give me a quasi-objective ‘read’ on whether the proposed flight is routine, requires extra care and planning or whether I should just go back to bed. Because I can easily get myself in an indecisive funk about the weather, this helps me take the stress out of the decision.
IMSAFE. This acronym – illness, medication, etc. – is built into the MFD on the Cirrus and it’s a useful reminder to check in with yourself before committing to a flight.
Remember, it’s just a hobby. My biggest problem comes from the feeling that I need to complete a flight once I have committed to it, especially if I have passengers. However, the flight must be safe, legal and FUN. It’s very important to remind yourself that you can always go flying another day.
iPhone. My lovely iPhone has changed the way I fly. With Homebriefing.com, I can amend flight plans or send delay notices. With Avbrief.com and meteox.com, I can get accurate, up-to-date weather and rainfall radar information. When I’m overseas, easy access to this information is invaluable especially in that short window before you take off when you really need to be up-to-date with the latest information.
Timetable. For each flight, I compile a single sheet with the timetable for the day with everything in Zulu, London and local time. This makes booking restaurants and taxis easier. In the past, I’ve been on too many trips where I haven’t planned carefully enough and found myself turning up at restaurants for lunch at 2.30pm or having to rush back. I also put the main phone numbers for the day on the sheet – passengers, handling companies, restaurants etc. This means that I have everything to hand when I need it.

By using checklists and procedures in the hour or two before the flight just as we all use them in the air, you can reduce stress and enhance safety.

Fuel starvation – myths and reality

This is a guest post by Jason Schappert from the highly recommended M0A blog.

“Aviation officials say there’s a simple way to prevent hundreds of small plane crashes: fill up the gas tank.”

This is the statement I woke up to in my RSS reader the other morning. It’s this very “compelling” statement that has caught the eye and ear of many major newspapers and newscasts.

For some of us general aviation maybe a hobby for others it maybe a career. I can effectively speak for both departments. Regardless of our purpose in aviation we all have to do our part to shed the real light on general aviation.

I’m a huge advocate for general aviation and to see articles like this with headlines like above breaks my heart. It’s our job as pilots to conduct a proper preflight, calculate fuel burn, weight and balance etc…

However let’s defend our position. The very next line in that report states: “The National Transportation Safety Board says running out of fuel has been a cause or factor in 238 small plane crashes in the past five years.”

After some quick research I found that in 2008 alone there were over 26 million hours flown! That’s in 2008 alone. So assuming these “5 years” the article refers to the yearly hours flown would be quite similar.

In other words out of an estimated 125 million hours flown there were 238 crashes related to fuel exhaustion. That’s less than .1%!

Yet there are two sides to every story. Yes, fuel starvation related accidents are low. However couldn’t they be lower? What can we do to prevent them. After looking over several NTSB reports related to this topic they all end with “The loss of engine power due to fuel starvation as a result of the pilot’s failure to manage and monitor fuel usage.” Or something to that nature.

Pilots don’t go flying expecting to run out of fuel. Fuel management is the most preventable general aviation accident yet still year after year a handful of pilots turn their aircraft into impromptu gliders!

This situation won’t be solved by simply saying. “only leave the ground with full tanks” because we know that’s not possible. Rarely can I take a student, myself, full fuel, and flight bags on a flight in my little 150. It’s just not safe.

How do I avoid this problem, while still staying within my weight limits? I plan. Before each flight I say: “Okay, this will be an hour long instructional flight my 150 burns 4.5 gph during flight instruction. However I’d rather be safe and call it 6. During my instruction flights I require my students to have an hour reserve. (although the FAA only requires 30 mins) So we’ll tack on an additional 6 gallons. (Again rounding high). It looks like there is some weather to our south so just to be safe let’s add another 45 minutes and make sure we’re within our weight and CG limits.”

That is a typical conversation in the hanger while preflighting. Shouldn’t you be thinking of these things? Yes the FAA says 30 minutes additional fuel for VFR day. But why not tighten the rules? Why do just enough to get by?

My friends aviation is a wonderful thing, let’s defend it and stick up for it. We’ll always have nay-sayers. Be safe, fly your best, and remember, a good pilot is always learning.