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Confessions of a New Corporate Pilot
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In the Citation III Confessions of a New Corporate Pilot
Life would be sweet, I thought, now that I’d successfully passed my Cessna Citation III (CE-650) type rating check ride (this was a few years back). It meant I’d be flying my first swept-wing jet. Surprisingly, my first day at the new job at Chicago Executive Airport (PWK) would also be the first time I’d been up close to a real Citation III since all the training and even my check ride happened in FlightSafety’s full-motion simulator.
From my research, though, I knew the 650’s cabin was roomy enough for eight, and its rocket-like performance was nothing short of spectacular with a VMO (maximum operating Mach) of Mach 0.85 and 39,000 feet on a standard day. In its day, M.83 was pretty fast. That meant we could make the West Coast out of PWK with four people in the back. I learned quickly, too, that the 650’s awesome performance meant I needed to stay much farther ahead of the airplane than I’d had to in the much slower Citation II (CE-550) I’d been flying in a 12-pilot charter department.
A privately held corporation owned this Citation III and I was the junior of three pilots. The chief pilot, my new boss, brought experience from several other flight departments, while the other pilot, I’ll call him Tom well, I was never really too sure where Tom had come from because the guy kept to himself as much as possible and wasn’t the chatty type. That made three-hour flights long when the entire conversation at FL390 ended with an occasional shrug of the shoulders.
But who cared what one guy acted like, I thought. I was there to learn how to fit into a flight department that needed another pilot on their team. Just like in charter flying, my job was to keep the people in the back happy. I came to know these passengers much better than we ever did in the charter world. These folks sometimes invited the flight crew to their home on Nantucket when we overnighted there.
The Interview
Looking back on this job now though, I guess the 10-minute interview the chief pilot and I engaged in before he offered me the job should have been a tip-off that maybe something was a little odd. But with a four-year-old daughter growing up at home, the chance to dump my charter department pager that always seemed to ring at 2 a.m. beckoned hypnotically.
Cessna Citation CE-650 Corporate line training began right away with me flying in all kinds of weather, where I regularly rotated flying left seat with the chief pilot and Tom. Having flown left seat on the Citation II, I wasn’t brand new to jets, just speedy ones.
After a few months, however, I began to notice a few operational oddities that started making me a little uncomfortable. Some sketchy flight planning and questions I asked were sometimes answered with annoyed expressions. If I appeared not to agree, someone might ask if I’d finished all the Jepp revisions (In those days there were no electronic subscriptions. Updates were handled by hand). I found the best solution for getting along seemed to be to just shut up and fly the airplane. Ignoring those distractions did help me pay closer attention to the little things that made my flying the jet smoother.
Then again … On one flight back from Cincinnati (CVG), I was flying left-seat with the chief pilot in the right. I wanted to add fuel before we left since the Chicago weather was questionable, but the boss overruled me explaining, “We’re fat on fuel.”I didn’t say anything. As we approached PWK, the ATIS reported the weather had worsened, considerably. The Swiss cheese holes began to align when Chicago Approach dumped us early. We ended up burning more fuel than planned. I flew the ILS right down to minimums, but my scan uncomfortably included the fuel gauges every few seconds. After a safe landing, we taxied in with 700 pounds of Jet-A, not much for an airplane that burns 1,800 pounds an hour down low. What if we’d missed at Chicago Executive Airport and needed to run for Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport I wondered? We’d have arrived on fumes. The boss looked at me after we shut down. “Don’t tell me that whole thing bothered you. It all turned out fine, didn’t it?” (more…)
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Remembering Gordon Baxter: Bax Seat was a Flying Magazine Reader Favorite
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(Reposted by request)
Each time I stand near my desk, my eyes naturally focus on the framed cover of the August 1983 Flying magazine. Below it is page 100, the “I Learned About Flying from That” (ILAFFT), where my first column appeared. On it, the author of Bax Seat, scrawled in brown ink, “To my friend Rob Mark. His story, my push. Gordon Baxter, August 5, 1983.”
Many months before, Gordon Baxter had given me the Flying editor’s phone number. When I rang with my brief pitch, all I heard was “yes.” I suddenly had an assignment for my first column. That 1983 issue was the first, but not the last, time my name and stories appeared in the aviation industry’s iconic magazine. That same issue also ran a pilot report about the then-new Cessna Citation III, an aircraft I later added to my list of type ratings. Looking back, there were so many aspects of my aviation career that came to life around Bax and that August 1983 issue, not the least of which was that we became friends.
Gordon Baxter, Bax as he preferred folks call him, helped shape my career as an aviation journalist like no one before him and only a few people since. The author of 13 books, Bax’s own magazine writing career at Flying spanned 25 years. His monthly column, Bax Seat, focused on vivid descriptions of his adventures. It was known simply as “Bax Seat.” Did I mention he was also a long-time radio personality in Beaumont, Texas, another interest we shared.
A Bit of Bax’s Background
I first met Bax in the mid-1970s. He brought his show, his act, or whatever the heck he called his evening of storytelling, to the Stick and Rudder Flying Club at Waukegan Airport. I was a tower controller not far away at Palwaukee Airport. Having been an avid Flying reader since high school, I switched shifts with another controller so I wouldn’t miss the event. Bax captured the audience for over an hour with stories from his flying career and his columns that often alternately “em rollin’ in the aisles” with gut-wrenching laughter and an emotional Texas-guy style that also brought tears to many an eye. Another way to think of Bax’s storytelling night was like an evening of improv but all about flying and airplanes.
Born in Port Arthur, Texas, he learned to fly after World War II following his stint as a B-17 turret gunner. Bax was no professional pilot—just a guy with a private certificate, an instrument rating, and eventually his beloved Mooney. On the back cover of one of his books, appropriately titled Bax Seat, Flying’s Stephan Wilkinson said “Bax tries to pass himself off as a pilot, but don’t believe him. He never could fly worth a damn. But Gordon feels airplanes, loves and honors them in ways that the rest of us are ashamed to admit. And he’s certainly one of the few romantics who can express what he feels so perfectly.” I couldn’t have written that myself, but I, too, felt it.
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Making the Brazilian ATR-72 Spin
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Note: This story was corrected on August 10th at 10:23 am, thanks to the help of a sharp-eyed reader.
Making an ATR-72 Spin
I wasn’t in Brazil on Friday afternoon, but I saw the post on Twitter or X (or whatever you call it) showing a Brazil ATR-72, Voepass Airlines flight 2283, rotating in a spin as it plunged to the ground near Sao Paulo from its 17,000-foot cruising altitude. All 61 people aboard perished in the ensuing crash and fire. A timeline from FlightRadar 24 indicates that the fall only lasted about a minute, so the aircraft was clearly out of control. Industry research shows Loss of Control in Flight (LOCI) continues to be responsible for more fatalities worldwide than any other kind of aircraft accident.
The big question is why the crew lost control of this airplane. The ADS-B data from FlightRadar 24 does offer a couple of possible clues. The ATR’s speed declined during the descent rather than increased, which means the aircraft’s wing was probably stalled. The ATR’s airfoil had exceeded its critical angle of attack and lacked sufficient lift to remain airborne. Add to this the rotation observed, and the only answer is a spin.
Can a Large Airplane Spin?
The simple answer is yes. If you induce rotation to almost any aircraft while the wing is stalled, it can spin, even an aircraft as large as the ATR-72. By the way, the largest of the ATR models, the 600, weighs nearly 51,000 pounds.
Of course, investigators will ask why the ATR’s wing was stalled. It could have been related to a failed engine or ice on the wings or tailplane. (more…)
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How the FAA Let Remote Tower Technology Slip Right Through Its Fingers
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In June 2023, the FAA published a 167-page document outlining the agency’s desire to replace dozens of 40-year-old airport control towers with new environmentally friendly brick-and-mortar structures. These towers are, of course, where hundreds of air traffic controllers ply their trade … ensuring the aircraft within their local airspace are safely separated from each other during landing and takeoff.
The FAA’s report was part of President Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act enacted on November 15, 2021. That bill set aside a whopping $25 billion spread across five years to cover the cost of replacing those aging towers. The agency said it considered a number of alternatives about how to spend that $5 billion each year, rather than on brick and mortar buildings.
One alternative addressed only briefly before rejecting it was a relatively new concept called a Remote Tower, originally created by Saab in Europe in partnership with the Virginia-based VSATSLab Inc. The European technology giant has been successfully running Remote Towers in place of the traditional buildings in Europe for almost 10 years. One of Saab’s more well-known Remote Tower sites is at London City Airport. London also plans to create a virtual backup ATC facility at London Heathrow, the busiest airport in Europe.
A remote tower and its associated technology replace the traditional 60-70 foot glass domed control tower building you might see at your local airport, but it doesn’t eliminate any human air traffic controllers or their roles in keeping aircraft separated.
Max Trescott photo Inside a Remote Tower Operation
In place of a normal control tower building, the airport erects a small steel tower or even an 8-inch diameter pole perhaps 20-40 feet high, similar to a radio or cell phone tower. Dozens of high-definition cameras are attached to the new Remote Tower’s structure, each aimed at an arrival or departure path, as well as various ramps around the airport.
Using HD cameras, controllers can zoom in on any given point within the camera’s range, say an aircraft on final approach. The only way to accomplish that in a control tower today is if the controller picks up a pair of binoculars. The HD cameras also offer infrared capabilities to allow for better-than-human visuals, especially during bad weather or at night.
The next step in constructing a remote tower is locating the control room where the video feeds will terminate. Instead of the round glass room perched atop a standard control tower, imagine a semi-circular room located at ground level. Inside that room, the walls are lined with 14, 55-inch high-definition video screens hung next to each other with the wider portion of the screen running top to bottom.
After connecting the video feeds, the compression technology manages to consolidate 360 degrees of viewing area into a 220-degree spread across the video screens. That creates essentially the same view of the entire airport that a controller would normally see out the windows of the tower cab without the need to move their head more than 220 degrees. Another Remote Tower benefit is that each aircraft within visual range can be tagged with that aircraft’s tail number, just as it might if the controller were looking at a radar screen. (more…)
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Bigger Doesn’t Always Mean Harder to Fly
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A long voicemail from my nephew is not what I expected after I ignored a call from an unknown number. Recently married, he was on his honeymoon in Cartegena, Colombia, and from their hotel they could see the airport. This led to what he described as an “argument” about whether it was easier to control a prop plane like a crop duster or an airliner like a Boeing 737. His wife asked, “which is more complicated to fly?”In a series of back-and-forth voicemails and texts we defined “harder” and “complicated” as a pilot’s fundamental stick-and-rudder inputs needed for a safe flight. It took some time to explain why airline pilots have an easier time flying than those flying prop planes like ag aircraft.
Once he grasped the contribution made by an airliner’s flight management system and autopilot, and how it pretty much takes the airplane from Point A to Point B, he accepted the idea that airline pilots are busiest making the takeoff, landing, and taxiing to and from the gate. (And based on my simulator flights in a Boeing 737, 777, and Lockheed Tristar, steering an airliner around an airport with that twitchy tiller is the stuff of nightmares.)
Making the airliner’s flight even easier, I briefly explained the structured environment in which it flies. It is a routine and regimented operation defined by federal regulations, air traffic control, and the airline’s standard operating procedures that are supported by an expanded team that includes dispatchers and other experts in subjects such as meteorology and air traffic management. And the airline pilot is the member of a two-pilot team, each of whom have clearly defined duties and responsibilities.
A prop plane pilot, I explained, more often than not is the sole manipulator of the controls and, therefore, responsible for every aspect of conducting a flight safely. More often than not, prop pilots are not flying on an instrument flight plan, required for entry in the more structured air traffic-controlled highway in the sky system. There are regulations, like hemispheric cruising altitudes, that are supposed to keep these pilots from running into each other, but ultimately, they are individually ultimately responsible for seeing and avoiding each other.The stick-and-rudder challenges ag pilots face are even more daunting because they so often fly so very close to the ground. Often their altitude, sometimes a single digit above the crop top, depends on the chemical they spreading. And just to make their flights more challenging, adjusting for whatever the wind is doing, they must plan each pass to ensure no plant goes unsprayed while avoiding obstacles such as trees, powerlines, wind turbines, and cell phone towers.
As our text conversation reached its conclusion, it seems that my nephew’s wife was arguing on behalf of the prop pilots, because he reported her “jumping around in victory.” — Scott Spangler, Editor
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Can GPS Spoofing Fool a Flight Navigator?
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Given the state of the world, GPS spoofing has been in the news with unsettling frequency. Transmitting a counterfeit GPS signal to override the real deal serves the real purpose of guiding aerial, maritime, or terrestrial vehicles where someone other than the vehicles master wants to go. Because the mind works in mysterious ways, reading the spoofing articles led me to wonder, does the FAA still issue the Flight Navigator Certificate, and do people still pursue them?According to the US Civil Airmen Statistics, the FAA is still issuing flight navigator certificates, but in rapidly decreasing numbers. It certificated 126 navigators in 2013, 102 in 2015, 64 in 2017, 40 in 2019, 30 in 2021, and 29 in 2022. The 2023 numbers aren’t out yet, but if you hold a navigator’s certificate, I would love to talk with you. If you’re interested, you can email me through my byline link at the end of this post.
Next stop, 14 CFR 63, Subpart C—Flight Navigators. The certification requirements are in the ATP realm, at least 21 years old, read, write, speak, and understand English, hold at least a second class medical, and comply with the knowledge requirements in § 63.53, the experience requirements in § 63.55, skill requirements in § 63.57. As expected, there’s a written test and a practical test, which is itemized in Appendix A.
(Good luck trying to find, let alone rent an airplane for the flight test: “An applicant will provide an aircraft in which celestial observations can be taken in all directions. Minimum equipment shall include a table for plotting, a drift meter or absolute altimeter, an instrument for taking visual bearings, and a radio direction finder.”)
The knowledge requirements start with flight navigation, flight planning, cruise control, and practical meteorology, including analysis of weather maps, weather reports, and weather forecasts; and weather sequence abbreviations, symbols, and nomenclature. Then there’s the types of air navigation facilities and procedures in general use and how to calibrate and use air navigation instruments.
Applicants must be a graduate of an FAA-approved flight navigator course or document “(1) Satisfactory determination of his position in flight at least 25 times by night by celestial observations and at least 25 times by day by celestial observations in conjunction with other aids; and (2) At least 200 hours of satisfactory flight navigation including celestial and radio navigation and dead reckoning.” (Google did not reveal any approved civilian navigator courses. There is, however, FAA-H-8083-18 Flight Navigator Handbook. I couldn’t find it on the FAA website, but the Abbott Aerospace UKK Techniccal Library has it for download. )Scrolling through the list of exam areas in Appendix A was revealing…a few examples:
Identify without a star identifier, at least six navigational stars and all planets available for navigation at the time of the examination and explain the method of identification.
Take and plot one 3-star fix and 3 LOP’s [Line of Position] of the sun. Plotted fix or an average of LOP’s must fall within 5 miles of the actual position of the observer.
Demonstrate or explain the compensation and swinging of a liquid-type magnetic compass.
Demonstrate or explain a method of aligning one type of drift meter.
Demonstrate or explain a method of aligning an astro-compass or periscopic sextant.
Prepare a cruise control (howgozit) chart from the operator’s data.
Determine ground speed and wind by the timing method with a drift meter. When a drift meter is not part of the aircraft’s equipment, an oral examination on the procedure and a problem shall be completed.
There’s way more. Technology like GPS now provides most of this information, but that reconnects me to the challenge presented by spoofing. How do pilots gather the information to safely reach their destinations? Scott Spangler—Editor
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What Makes an Ace in the 21st Century?
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When it was revealed in a BBC interview, The Fighter Pilots Hunting Houthi Drones Over the Red Sea, that Marine Captain Earl Ehrhart, an AV-8B Harrier pilot aboard the USS Bataan, had downed seven drones, subsequent stories on this action hailed him as America’s newest ace, the first since the last helo left Saigon in April 1975.“The Houthis were launching a lot of suicide attack drones,” says Ehrhart, and to be effective against this rebel group, the marines needed to adapt, the BBC story reports. “‘We took a Harrier jet and modified it for air defence,’ Ehrhart tells me. “We loaded it up with missiles and that way were able to respond to their drone attacks.’” In the next sentence, the experienced fighter pilot said he intercepted seven Houthi drones.
Nowhere in the BBC article is the word ace. It seems that aviation editor and authors applied this appellation without fully contemplating the necessary attributes of becoming an ace beyond five victories. For some concise insight, I turned to the American Fighter Aces Association, founded in 1960 to recognize the over 1,450 combat pilots from World War I to the present that achieved the status of American Fighter Ace by destroying five or more hostile aircraft in air-to-air combat.
Given their intent and mission, the Houthi drones are, without a doubt “hostile aircraft.” And Capt. Ehrhart and all the other AV-8B and F-18 pilots have certainly destroyed these pilotless drones. But the key ingredient missing in earning the title of ace is, as the American Fighter Aces Association clearly states, is destroying these “hostile aircraft in air-to-air combat.”Downing a drone with a missile does not meet the definition or spirit of aerial combat, “a fight between individuals or groups.” Yes, the Houthis are a group, but all they are doing is programming their drones to hit terrestrial targets and ships, not defend themselves against a Harrier or Super Hornet. When artificial intelligence matures and undertakes a drone’s defensive capabilities, destroying it in air-to-air combat will count toward the title of ace. And if AI destroys its opponent, it will be one tally closer to the title.
Until that time, lets appreciate and recognize our aviators for the multitude of risks they face on every sortie but reserve the accolade of ace for those who achieve it in a competitive arena. — Scott Spangler, Editor