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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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A Sign of Ice
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American Champion 7KCAB Although this story is old, the details and the learning experiences are as valuable today as they were years ago. Rob
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Inexperience, stupidity, get-home-itis — take your pick. Any of them applied to me one late November evening as I cruised over Chicago’s Loop with an electric night sign slung beneath the belly of an old, but well running Champion Citabria 7KCAB.
It was supposed to be a routine advertising sign trip over Soldier Field adjacent to Merrill C. Meigs Airport (CGX) on the lakefront. I’d flown the trip many times before and I knew the area well. At the time I had about 400 hours and a commercial certificate under my belt. I was working on my instrument rating.
The Job
The night sign – a conglomeration of wires and lights – was usually hung under the Champ in the fall when the nights were longer. It was an old design that resembled an early mobile billboard, a chicken-wire cage running from wing tip to wing tip underneath the airplane and would show whatever message was programmed into it. To the aircraft owner the sign meant extra income. To a pilot the sign meant a paycheck too, but it also represented extra drag.
As I prepared for the flight from Palwaukee Municipal Airport (now Chicago Executive), I was aware that light snow was forecast, but not for nearly three hours after that night’s job would end. Unfortunately, as I approached the plane, I noticed it leaning to one side because the right main tire was flat. After some quick phone calls to the customer about the delay, I managed to find the night mechanic to fix the tire. More than an hour late, I rushed to get airborne into the now darkened sky.
I hadn’t checked the weather for almost two hours, but when I did, DuPage Airport to the west was still good VFR. I didn’t think to check the weather at Rockford, about 30 miles northwest of DuPage. If I had, I would have known that it was already reporting a 200 overcast and a half-mile in snow.
Night signs slung beneath some aircraft. I turned on the night sign while still about six miles north of the target, figuring the customer had the extra bit of time coming. I circled around the target many times, and the conversation with the tower controller at Meigs made it tough to tell who was more bored.
The Weather
I’d been over the target for perhaps half an hour when I saw lightning to the west of the city. I called Chicago Flight Service and learned that DuPage was IFR in snow, with a thunderstorm, too. I had to do something. But with only $3 in my pocket, I wouldn’t even be able to pay for the cab ride back to my apartment if I landed at Meigs. I made a few more passes around the target to give the customer his money’s worth before I bade the Meigs controller good night and headed north up the Lake Michigan shoreline toward Palwaukee. Actually, Palwaukee is northwest of Meigs, but I didn’t feel comfortable flying over the city at night in a single.
Three miles north of Meigs, drizzle began that sounded like thousands of tiny grains of sand hitting the plexiglass windshield. The visibility was still good, so I figured that I was home free, even though the outside air temperature was near freezing. As I looked toward my destination, I realized that some of the city was beginning to disappear in the precipitation. I thought about it for a minute and decided that it was time to break my rule and fly over the city.
The intensity of the rain seemed to increase, but only for a short time. Then, the only sound was the constant drone of that 150-horsepower Lycoming. It took me a few minutes to realize why much of the noise had disappeared and why I no longer saw the rain streaming across the windshield. The precipitation was freezing. I saw tiny drops of ice clinging to the struts and tires; but, most of all, it was clinging to the hundreds of feet of wire on that big night sign.
My Decisions
As I looked behind me to the shoreline, I decided it was too late to turn around. Palwaukee, now six miles ahead, was reporting three miles visibility in freezing rain. I did the only thing that I thought I could — I climbed — hoping to give myself more time once this big block of ice decided to come down. Straight ahead, the rotating beacon of what was then the Glenview Naval Air Station seemed to beckon. For years, I’d been told that civilian airplanes were not allowed there except in emergencies. The lights of Glenview’s 7,000-foot runway reflected off the ice on my sign as I passed over the field.
Palwaukee was two-and-a-half miles away as I flew a straight-in approach to Runway 30 Right. Even though I was still holding full power, the aircraft was beginning to descend. A mile out on final, I was down to about 400 feet agl. The icicles hanging from the night sign looked like stiff tinsel. I held full power almost to the ground. About six feet above the runway I began easing back on the throttle. As the rpm slowed through 2,250, the old Champ gave up the fight and fell to the runway. I don’t think that airplane rolled more than 200 feet before it stopped. The snow, sleet, and freezing rain were now so heavy that I could barely see the tower half a mile away.
As I taxied closer to the fuel pumps, I watched the line attendant’s eyes widen in amazement. I shut down and took a few deep breaths before I got out. Now it was my turn to look surprised. The little taildragger looked as though it were encased in clear plastic.
After I tied down the airplane, I headed for the airport restaurant and some coffee. I ran into one of the charter pilots I knew and told him what had happened. “Why didn’t you land at Meigs?” he asked. “Why didn’t you declare an emergency and land at Glenview?” he continued. “Why didn’t you keep closer track of the weather? What kind of decisions are those?” By now, I realized that most of my decisions had been pretty poor.
I had been presented with plenty of options but had been too single-minded on getting home to see them. That night I learned there are always other options … you just have to look out the windows to see them. When you see them in a worst-case scenario, as in the airplane and you might not survive, the decisions come much easier.
This story was originally published in AOPA Pilot.
Rob Mark
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Promote Aviation With Inclusive Participation
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Over the decades, the Young Eagles program has given millions of youngsters what, in many cases, were their inaugural flights in an aircraft smaller than a transport category airliner. This includes my kids and my grandchildren, which gives you an idea of how long pilots have been participating in the program. Unfortunately, its desired outcome—inspiring youth to become members of the pilot community—has not achieved the desired or hoped for magnitude.Certainly, there are many factors contributing to the anemic number of Young Eagles who act on their inaugural inspiration. One I had not considered came to mind after reading about a new program in Washington that introduces a diverse cohort of newcomers to hot air ballooning. Unlike a Young Eagles flight, a passive, one-and-done experience akin to a theme park ride, the balloon program encourages the aeronauts to become volunteer members of the team necessary for every flight of a hot air aerostat.
Similar opportunities exist with gliders or sailplanes. Unlike powered aircraft, where a single person, usually the pilot, can prepare them for flight, gliders and balloons cannot fly without the contribution of others. Besides the pilot, gliders need at least two other people to take flight, someone to connect the tow rope and run with the wingtip in hand until the ailerons take effect, and another person to pull the tow rope, such as the tow-plane pilot or tow winch operator.
There are many more opportunities for hands-on participation on a balloon crew, which is always supervised by the pilot. A single person cannot wrestle the basket and propane fuel bottles in position. Nor can the pilot spread out the envelope, set up the fan to start inflating it, and operate the basket’s burners to heat that air, and then run to the top of the envelope to hold the rope that keeps the balloon from lifting off or drifting in the breeze. It takes a team, a group of individuals whose effort is repaid, over time, with a ride and, often, hands-on piloting experience.
Unlike gliders, aerostats go where the wind takes them, so the launch team is also the recovery team. Someone needs to drive the truck and trailer or van, someone else communicates with the pilot via radio, while others maintain visual contact with the balloon and do their best to translate its windborne flight to terrestrial roads and pathways. It really is an exciting challenge that encourages critical thought and problem solving. And it promotes appreciation of the efforts of every member of the team because they experience it from their own and the pilot’s airborne point of view.Over the past four decades I have not yet encountered a balloonist or glider club that did not welcome visitors with open arms and invite them to join in the fun as a volunteer member of the team. And the situation is right, there’s often a ride upfront to set the hook. As participants in every aspect of the flight, from preflight briefing (and balloonists get into the nitty gritty in their weather briefings), it redefines ground school. If there is a downside, it is that the aeronauts often arise well before the sun to drift into the new day. But it has always been worth setting the alarm clock for the opportunity. The challenge is for powered aircraft pilots to create similar hands-on opportunities that encourage inclusive participation in the joy of flight.
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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Living Life by Pragmatic Absolutes
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Mentally treading water in Afghanistan’s déjà vu cesspool, I take little comfort in the images that bracket my office clock and remind me to live a life guided by pragmatic absolutes. In the right hand frame, some of my shipmates are pushing over the side two of the 29 South Vietnamese UH-1 Hueys the USS Blue Ridge (LCC-19) had to park in the ocean so the circling helos filled with refugees could escape the fallen city of Saigon in April 1975.These images remind me one of life’s two absolutes—gravity. Its absolute partner is death. No one gets out of life alive.
In the left hand frame is US Ambassador Graham Martin. Arriving at o-dark-thirty, the admiral who was the task force commander guides him across the Blue Ridge’s flight deck. The ambassador is my poster boy for delusional hubris. While fighting for $750 million in continued support that he assured President Gerald Ford would finally turn the tide and save South Vietnam, he delayed many of the preparations that would have made for a smoother bug out from an ill-considered conflict.
Given the unyielding absolutes, I’ve lived a life guided by practicality rather than idealism, and never forget that we are ultimately responsible for the consequences of our decisions. Among the most important of these is learning from the mistakes of others, so we won’t have to convene our own learning experience by repeating them.
When faced with a decision, especially one of import, I look at this image of a man whose hubristic allusions of what he thought should be were visibly shattered by reality. After asking what he would have done before he landed on the Blue Ridge, I do the opposite. In other words, I strive for pragmatism, a philosophic doctrine that emphasizes facts and/or practical affairs, often to the exclusion of intellectual, emotional, or artistic matters.
The only thing worse is thinking you’re better than other mistake makers, clever enough not to repeat the errors they made, that you can outsmart the unimpeachable absolutes. No matter the situation or environment, each of us is responsible for the consequences of our decisions whether it’s bugging out of an ill-considered conflict or pushing the wind, weather, and fuel on a cross-country flight. You can point all the fingers you like, but gravity still wins and the pilot in command pays the price.
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
