Jetwhine

Aviation buzz and bold opinion

Flight Training

Aviation: It’s ALWAYS About The Passengers

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Last Saturday was not a good day for transportation, but for once the bad news was not about aviation. An immense cruise ship — the Costa Concordia — capsized in the Mediterranean Sea off the west coast of Italy where rocks near the shore sliced open the ship’s hull with Titanic-like fury. Most of the 4,200 people are accounted for and while nearly a dozen people lost their lives, any losses were needless and simply compounded by some actions of the crew.

The captain told the BBC and Italian television that he believed they were sailing a few hundred meters from where the rocks were charted and that he had no idea why the ship ran aground. Surprisingly, large ships use the same sort of GPS guidance and autopilot systems we see on board an aircraft, systems designed to prevent just such a mishap … unless of course some human gets in the way. On board, cell phone videos captured the panic among the passengers as they sought safety.

But How?

The real story of this accident though is how a ship of this size in 2012 could run aground despite millions of dollars of safety equipment designed to prevent just such an accident. Back to the crew again as reports have emerged that Captain Francesco Schettino and many of his staff abandoned ship before all the passengers were accounted for. So it would it would seem that the captain was either lying through is teeth or was simply incompetent. The captain has been jailed adding fuel to the international debate of personal liability for crew negligence in such a crisis. Not all violations are quite so clear. [Read more…] about Aviation: It’s ALWAYS About The Passengers

A Budding CFI, a New Writer

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Editor Note: At least a couple of times each week, someone sends an unsolicited story trying to convince us to publish it. More often than not, the material simply doesn’t fit. It’s either too long, too sales focused or – as happened today in fact – completely inappropriate ( they wanted us to run a story about dental hygiene).

When I first heard from today’s author – Travis Bedwell – he didn’t try to suggest I publish anything actually. He merely wanted to know how I got started as a writer. Clever guy this Travis.

My break as a writer, in fact, came from a guy many of you might never have heard of,  former Flying Magazine senior editor Gordon Baxter.

During the course of a couple of e-mails with Travis, I realized he was a passionate aviator (training for his CFI at Southern Illinois University) with some solid reasoning behind his current flying options. But I also noticed he possessed a talent for putting words together. In the end I asked him to offer Jetwhine readers a few insights into the world of learning to fly from the right seat.

Without further ado, may I present Travis Bedwell, a young man I hope we’ll hear more from over the next few years.

Rob Mark, publisher

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“Left rudder, left rudder” says my flight instructor as I manage to touch our Cutlass down on the right main wheel first (Note to self: next time touch down on both mains at the same time for a smooth landing).

It doesn’t seem that flying in the right seat should be any different than the left, despite the fact that those instruments that I’ve been staring at for my entire flying career are gone. However, acquiring the skills and traits required to be a certificated flight instructor is the greatest challenge that I have encountered in my flight training.

I chose to pursue CFI training because I want to share my love of flying with others. Some of my colleagues are bypassing the flight instructor route and obtaining more multi engine time hoping to go to a regional carrier. I love flying twins, but that time and place will come later for me. I want to instruct not only to share my passion of aviation, but to become a better pilot as well.

Like any other flight rating, I have ground and flight lessons. The majority of my ground time consists of me teaching for an hour and a half with a thirty-minute debrief; it’s a brutal 90 minutes. Trying to explain topics, such as aerodynamics and weather theory, give a new meaning to migraines. To add to the challenge, my instructor makes me explain the same topic using a variety of methods and visual aids before moving on. Although I shoot him a dirty look, I know that his reasoning is solid. [Read more…] about A Budding CFI, a New Writer

Simulated Intro Cuts First-Flight Stress, Cost

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At the August meeting about the AOPA Student Retention Initiative, a CFI in the audience suggested replacing a real airplane, the most expensive line of the flight training bill, with a simulator. Not totally, mind you, but enough to get students started, and to ease the natural anxiety arising with the noisy, demanding, distracting environment of the real thing.

ATRC Wannabee a Pilot LogoThe Aviation Training & Resource Center, I recently learned, is trying just such a program. Called Wannabee a Pilot, for $599 students get 5 hours with a CFI in a Redbird FMX1000 full-motion visual sim, complete with ground school and pre- and post-flight briefings. The time counts toward a private ticket, and given the 21st century proclivity for virtual experiences, this may be the perfect introduction to flying the real thing.

Let’s face it, to people who lived in a carefully controlled world where risk is managed at every turn, the cockpit of a single-engine general aviation trainer is a scary place. It’s loud. Glass or steam gauges gush with relentless and incomprehensible flow of information. You steer with your feet. And everybody is talking to you at the same time. The tower talks faster than you can listen. And the person sitting next to you is explaining everything in a foreign language. Oh, and you’re paying a lot of money to be here.

Honestly, my initial reaction to the simulator suggestion and, later, the Wannabee a Pilot program, was not positive because I compared them to my old-school life experiences. Fortunately, among the voices that mount my mental soapbox is a contrarian who objectively dissects initial reactions before they dribble from my mouth or fingertips. By putting me in the previous paragraph, it became immediately clear that a simulator is the perfect place to start the training of today’s pilots.

[Read more…] about Simulated Intro Cuts First-Flight Stress, Cost

AF 447: Final Moments, a Few Thoughts

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I have always felt I’d be doing my flight students a disservice not to mention that while soaring aloft is an unmatched experience, it can and will snuff out a life in a moment if the pilot becomes too complacent … no matter how sophisticated the aircraft’s on-board equipment.

We’ve been reminded of the seriousness of that warning again as the investigation into the crash of Air France 447 continues. A CNN story Friday highlighted some of the elements again, but also walked listeners through a few of the final words of the pilots in the cockpit two years ago, moments before the aircraft hit the water after a 4 1/2 fall from 36,000 ft. The words were part of a new book written by French journalist Jean-Pierre Otelli that includes yet unheard portions of the crew’s cockpit conversations. Granted, Otelli is known as a bit of an ambulance chaser, but the words we hear are what’s important, not necessarily his motivation is recording them.

Having read the other transcripts, this one too seems to confirm that the crew was indeed overwhelmed by the cacophony of lights and aural alerts they must have been confronted with a very short time span. I was saddened just to listen, but also well aware that this could have been any of us in this situation and also, that there is much yet to learn from this watershed accident. [Read more…] about AF 447: Final Moments, a Few Thoughts

North Dakota Aviation: Front Door to Growth

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Lately there hasn’t been much good news about aviation, general or otherwise. Then I went to North Dakota for a story on a one-tech avionics shop halfway between Fargo and Bismarck. A flight school was setting up in the next hangar, an indicator of better times at the airport, said Greg Earnest at Jamestown Avionics, because new pilots mean more airplanes. In passing, he mentioned the state’s Flight Training Assistance Program, which defrays the cost of bringing a CFI to airports where none live.

Say what?

Greg aimed me at the North Dakota Aeronautics Commission. Its website was as open, friendly, helpful, and positive as the people I’d so far met in Jamestown. “The state aviation system is an attractive front door to our state’s economic growth,” reads the first sentence of the commission’s philosophy. Here’s the rest of it: “To ensure this growth, the system needs continual enhancement with state-of-the-art technology. With this goal, continued flexibility and responsiveness by the Aeronautics Commission will fulfill the needs of the aviation community.”

Which brings us back to the flight training program. Keeping track of FAA pilot statistics, the commission decided to do something about the declining pilot population in the state—down 22 percent, from 4,095 to 3,207 over the past 30 years. Its analysis revealed a disproportional decline between rural and urban areas, in part attributed to the dearth of CFIs at rural areas. North Dakota law says that the commission shall cooperate with towns to develop and coordinate aviation activities, this includes educational grants, i.e. the Flight Training Assistance Program.

[Read more…] about North Dakota Aviation: Front Door to Growth