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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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Christy Kincaid, Keeper of the Air Zoo Artifacts
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Illuminating the spectrum of science, technology, and engineering opportunities embodies for people of all ages is one of the premeditated objectives of the Air Zoo Aerospace & Science Experience in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Its many hands-on youth and adult education programs are the foundation of this effort. Built on it are volunteer and internship opportunities that reveal previously unknown professions such as the archivist who preserves and keeps track of a collection’s artifacts.“I’ve been at the Zoo almost 14 years,” said Christy Kincaid. “I started as a high schooler and never left.” Education was one of the majors she worked her way through in college, she said, but she found the structure imposed on classroom teachers stifling. “It really takes the creativity out of being a teacher. I wanted to teach in a more informal setting, and that’s how I ended up as a museum person.”
Teachers are students who share what they’ve learned with others. An archivist since 2003, Kincaid interned at the Air Zoo and moved through a variety of roles. “Last February, before the pandemic hit, I was promoted to manager. It’s been a fun and interesting time. The majority of an archivist’s skills are learned on the job. I’m always learning, reaching out to my colleagues and different museums about the best ways to take care of something. My job is always fun—never boring. I’ve always got a project going on.”
One of them is guiding a team of colleagues and volunteers who are building a new computer database that keeps track of the Zoo’s menagerie. “We have about 100,000 objects and archival materials in our collection,” she said. “Everything will get a picture and tag and its own number. Only about 40,000 items in the collection are in the new database, so we have a lot of work ahead of us. One of my volunteers doing a high-level index said it’s taken her a month to work her way through one file drawer [of Guadalcanal contents] because she keeps going down an interesting rabbit hole.”Beyond the aircraft on display, the collection “deals with everything from the weaponry pilots carry when they are flying and the everyday items a paratrooper has in his pack to the recognition cards Coca Cola created [during World War II] for citizens so they would feel more connected to the war and their loved ones in the service. We even have a happy birthday letter Hitler wrote to a member of his staff. The Guadalcanal collection is one of our pride and joys, and we rotate the items on display to help preserve them.”
Not quite as vast as the storeroom in Raiders of the Lost Ark, it’s still a good walk from the door to the back wall. Almost everything is organized by category, Kincaid said. Weaponry, machine guns to pistols. Everyday items services members carried—Bibles, playing cards, matches, cameras, glasses. Turning down another aisle between towering shelving units, “we have four aisles of pints and patches, and we’re reorganizing them; here are our NASA patches.” Not far away is the space collection. “We got it from the Jackson Space & Science Center in 2007, 2008. Most of our space collections is Skylab based, and it’s another collection we hope to ramp up and be able to tell a more present story.”
A couple of aisles down is the Zoo’s textile collections, a supersized closet organized by service—Marine, Navy, Coast Guard, Army, Air Corps, and Air Force—and conflict, World War I, World War II, Korea, and so on. Flags and banners are one of Kincaid’s favorite projects. “They were stored in tubes. After visiting other collections and learning more about how to preserve them, we took them out of the tubes, photographed them, researched them,” layered them in acid-free archival gauze, and wrapped them loosely around an acid-free cardboard tube. Pointing to the tag with a photo of the protected artifact, she said, “This is a Nazi banner that was draped outside a building.”A few aisles back, the shelves are open-faced hangars for intricate, detailed model aircraft standing alone or in the center of a diorama that depicts a past moment in time. Beyond that is the odds and ends aisle. In addition to “toys, commercial aviation items, the trench art collection, if anything comes off one of our airplanes, like the panel removed from the Corsair so guests could see the machine guns in the wings, those things come here so we can keep them nice and safe.”
Preserving artifacts and keeping them safe is a multifaceted challenge that is often expensive. Sometimes it’s a matter of deciding how to organize the artifacts, like all of the artwork, posters, and other graphics in the long lines of flat files recently donated by Western Michigan University. Pointing to a letter-sized acid-free archival document box on a shelf, Kincaid said it cost $15. “To have one made for oversized items can run more than $300. Two years ago, I attended a workshop to learn how to make boxes. Figuring out how to make a box for a big artifact has been a tremendous challenge, but making them exactly how I need them has saved us a ton of money.”Most of the artifacts on the shelves and on display were donated by individuals and families who gave the Air Zoo a piece of their personal history. “We have a lot of treasures here,” said Kincaid.
If you enjoyed this story, why not SUBSCRIBE to JetWhine, if you haven’t already, and please share it with anyone who might find it interesting. — Scott Spangler, Editor
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The Air Zoo, an Extraordinary Aerospace Destination
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Mostly because of its alterative name, I’ve known about the Kalamazoo Air Zoo for decades, but despite a number of trips to mitten Michigan on other assignments, I never made time to visit its home at the southwest corner of the Kalamazoo/Battle Creek International Airport. If you’re considering a visit, don’t make my mistake and think the Zoo is just another small-market museum.
Far from it. The Air Zoo Aerospace & Science Experience is an extraordinary, must visit aerospace destination that embodies the premier elements of well known and visited destinations such at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum and the national museums of naval aviation and air force with unique combination of inclusive, hands-on experiences unavailable at any other institution I’ve ever visited (and as my wife will attest, I’ve visited way too many of them).
At EAA AirVenture this year I ran into the hulk of an SBD-1 fished out of Lake Michigan in 1994 after its last, and unsuccessful operation in 1942 on the training carrier USS Wolverine during World War II. It was on a trailer, bound for restoration at the Zoo. Knowing that the Navy is finickily particular about its aerial artifacts and the institutions it deals with, it drove me to plan a visit. Learning that the Zoo is the only civilian institution with a F-117 that it is restoring on its exhibit floor made a visit imperative.
This was not an easy decision. From my home outside of Oshkosh, as the crow flies, Kalamazoo is 190 miles away. If you’re not a crow, driving over the top of Lake Michigan covers 589 miles; driving under it 330 miles. Either way, it’s an all-day drive thanks to the toll roads and eternal traffic of the Chicago metroplex. We split the difference and splurged on the SS Badger, the car ferry and National Historic Landmark that connects US 10 between Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and Ludington, Michigan.
Research did not emotionally prepare me for the Zoo. An airplane I’d first met in 1976, Sue Parrish’s Pink P-40N, filled the atrium airspace in the Flight Innovation Center. With her husband, Pete, a World War II Marine aviator, Sue, a WASP, co-founded the Zoo in 1979. I met her and her airplane when she visited her friend and sister WASP, who operated the flight school at Long Beach, California, where I was learning to fly. On the walls that protected the P-40 were banners for upcoming events, including weekend cockpit crawls in different airplanes during September.
Troy Thrash, the Zoo’s president and CEO since 2013, led me down a serpentine cloud tunnel that led to the main exhibit hall, which opened in 2004. The wide-open panorama stopped me dead. With so much to take in, my brain disconnected from everything but my eyes. Tracing the history of flight from the first hot air aeronauts to space exploration the Zoo synergistically coordinated its artifacts with a 30,000-square foot hand painted mural created by two artists over 11 months.
Artists had similarly painted the exhibit hall’s floor. Grass and pavers covered the left side of the hall that spanned early aviation to World War II. Setting on It were a Sopwith Camel and Spad from World War I, a Ford Trimotor, B-25, and the world’s only surviving Curtiss XP-55 Ascender. Amidships was the bow of the USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63) with an F-14 nose-down and ready for launch. Next to it was an F-8, with an F-18 cued up for the catapult. Above and behind them was the carrier’s island. And to their right was the world’s only surviving SR-71B, the two-seat Blackbird.
The main exhibit hall was designed “to be a different environment for an air and space museum,” said Thrash, describing it as part museum and part theme park with four rides, in balloons, biplanes, and parachutes. “People who love airplanes love airplanes. At the same time, there are so many people who don’t realize that they love the science and technology behind the airplane, and their history as well. So, we designed this space to display different reasons for people to come to the Zoo.”Describing the diversity of the regional and Kalamazoo community, “we want everyone, especially young people, to see themselves reflected in these heroes of aviation and space that we celebrate,” said Thrash. “A small piece of that is this Smithsonian exhibit called Black Wings, American Dreams of Flight. It traces the history of Black Americans from Bessie Coleman to Mae Jemison and Ronald McNair.”
The Zoo crew continues to expand the big women in aviation and space exhibits that are situated throughout the museum and highlight women from the “real riveting Rosies of World War II” to today, Thrash continued. Exploring later on my own, the mural, among other things, subtly but without equivocation, reinforced the level of detail the museum employed to reflect the community it serves. While airplanes of the different eras fly on the mural near the exhibit hall ceiling, families and individuals enjoying picnics at the floor level make it clear all are welcome here.To be continued—If you enjoyed this story, why not SUBSCRIBE to JetWhine, if you haven’t already, and please share it with anyone who might find it interesting. — Scott Spangler, Editor
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PreFlight Camp Introduces Girls to Aviation Opportunities
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Meeting at U.S. Air Force survival school in 2007 and reflecting on the unexpected opportunities that introduced them to aviation, Liz Greene and Kristen Franke conceived an idea that became the nonprofit PreFlight Camp whose mission is to make girls 11 to 14 aware of aviation and its career opportunities.“We’re past the point of receiving negative feedback. Gender representation is turning around in medicine, engineering,” said Franke. “It just lacks exposure, reaching out to half the population is what the aviation industry desperately needs. You can’t be what you can’t see!”
The founders didn’t know flying was an option because they’d never been exposed to it or had someone explain the opportunities to them. For Franke, it was an ROTC officer at the University of Missouri who urged her to take all the pilot tests.
“I just wanted a job. My grandfather was an Air Force pilot who flew heavy airplanes, but he died when I was 5, so he wasn’t an influence,” she said. “My grandmother took me to some air shows, but the thought of becoming a pilot never entered my head. When the recruiter encouraged me to take the pilot tests, I didn’t know about the 10-year commitment. Take the tests, he said, you can change your mind later. So, I did, and I owe him for encouraging me to try something I never considered. Nobody told me I couldn’t do it; it just never occurred to me.”
Greene’s story is similar, Franke said, and they bonded during their weeklong overlap at survival school and sustained their friendship over time and distance. Greene was a C-21 and KC-10 pilot stationed at Ramstein, Germany, and Franke was a C-17 pilot out of Charleston, South Carolina. “We went to Ramstein all the time.”
The founders left active duty in 2014 (Franke now flies the Airbus 221 for Delta and the C-17 for the Air Force Reserve and Greene flies for Hawaiian Airlines) and met in South America, where Greene was on a four-month travel journey. “I had some time off, too, so I flew to Colombia, went for a hike, and cruised from Cartagena to Panama on a chartered sailboat.”
It was during that trip that Greene delivered her “brain baby” that became the PreFlight Camp, said Franke. “I was just the enabler. “We didn’t know flying was an option for us initially, we fell into it, and we thought, in the spirit of the WASP legacy, sisterhood, and as role models, we could do better for the next generation.”
PreFlight Camp debuted in 2016 as a six-day, overnight camp held at Texas State University in San Marcos. The following year the founders participated in EAA AirVenture’s AeroInnovate business accelerator. As a 501c3, PreFlight Camp was the first nonprofit booth at EAA and received an Aeroinnovate grant.
The camp returned to Texas in 2018 and 2019. After the pandemic standdown in 2020, it adapted as a day camp at Colorado Skies Academy in Centennial, Colorado, and 12 campers and two junior counselors participated from July 26-31, said PreFlight’s president and board chair Morgan Mitchell. The camp counselors, recruited through social media and word of mouth, are (like the four-member board) all volunteers.
“Flexing to the day camp option instead of the overnight was great and we didn’t have any problems,” said Franke. “Colorado Skies Academy enabled us to hold almost all of our activities in the large cafeteria with garage doors. We kept the garage doors open whenever we were holding camp and the campers and volunteers were required to wear masks if they were unvaccinated.”As it has at preceding camps, the week consists of lessons, hands-on activities, and introspective discussions in Aircraft Components, Aerodynamics, Weather, Weight and Balance, Communication, Navigation and Goal setting.
“We close each activity with an introspective question to help the girls think about what they are interested in. The four forces of flight is an example; related to life, what drags you down, what lifts you up, and how do you keep them in balance? Ultimately, PreFlight gives girls the courage and confidence to look around the corner, to do something different,” said Franke.
“We were also able to take all the campers on a tour of the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs where they got to tour the airfield and campus, sit in a glider, use the simulators, and hear from some awesome female pilots that work there,” she added.
“At the end of camp, they all got a discovery flight with a female CFI provided by Aspen Aviation and learned how to preflight the plane. While they waited their turn for the discovery flight, they had the run of the Exploration of Flight Museum as well as the opportunity to check out 2 T-6’s that flew in from Randolph AFB, Texas. To cap it all off, Col Kim Campbell, (first female solo demo Thunderbird pilot, now retired) spoke to the girls during graduation,” Franke said.
“We liked the day camp format so much we’ll probably stick with it for the foreseeable future. We plan to hold camp in Colorado in 2022 as well as tentative plans to hold a second day camp in Texas.” And efforts to grow the organization continue as well, seeking funding to support multiple camps and pay staff. Ultimately, the people behind PreFlight Camp “focus on quality, not quantity,” said Franke.
Mentoring campers is an open-ended commitment. “The mother of an Indian girl who attended our inaugural camp called us and said her daughter, who wants to be an engineer, also wants to be an astronaut; what classes should she take in high school? We didn’t know, but we found someone who did.”
If you enjoyed this story, why not SUBSCRIBE to JetWhine, if you haven’t already, and please share it with anyone who might find it interesting. — Scott Spangler, Editor
