Aviation Myths, Part 2
[For the first five myths, see Part 1] Myth #6: Only an FAA-certificated mechanic can perform maintenance on an airplane. This myth can cost you — big time. A typical GA maintenance facility can charge $100 per hour, and aircraft spend far more time in the shop than even the most maintenance-prone automobiles. Do the math and you’ll see that, especially if you don’t fly your airplane at least a couple hundred hours per year, maintenance can easily top all other ownership costs combined. Why pay that much when you can do much of the work yourself? Experts agree: Aircraft owners who studiously and routinely do some basic maintenance themselves, rather than waiting for the 100-hour or annual inspection, not only might save money...
Read MoreAviation Myths, Part 1
Over the past decade and a half I’ve been keeping a mental list of frequently encountered misconceptions about flying. For some reason, I recently Googled “aviation myths” and found quite a few articles on the topic and it inspired me to finally set my own list to virtual “paper”. This list is not exhaustive, but it does represent the myths I encounter most frequently. Some of these are misconceptions held by non-pilots, others are more common among student aviators or even experienced professionals. I’ve written about a few of these in the past, but thought it might be worthwhile to throw the whole list out there for others to chew on. I’m planning to make this a three-part series, with five myths per post. Have you...
Read MoreSTOL Flying
Few people outside the aerospace sector are aware of the breadth and depth of our admittedly insular little world. If it’s not an airliner or fighter jet, it’s pretty much off the radar for the general public. I’ve been fortunate to partake in a wide variety of different flying activities throughout my career: aerobatics, sea planes, instructional flying, tailwheels, antiques, formation, skywriting, experimentals, warbirds, crop dusting, and now the rarefied world of high-end jet charter. But there’s one particularly tantalizing segment of aviation I’ve yet to delve into: the low level back-country “bush” flying you’ll find in places like Idaho, Alaska, and Canada. There you’ll find aircraft with astounding...
Read MoreVmc Rollover
Last month a Beech Queen Air experienced a low-altitude failure of the left engine shortly after takeoff. The aircraft crashed into a densely populated area of Parañaque City in the Philippines and resulted in 14 fatalities. The Queen Air was a precursor to the King Air 90 — essentially a large cabin-class twin with supercharged reciprocating engines. I’ve logged more than 2,000 hours of flight time in a military derivative of the King Air known as the U-21A, so the accident certainly piqued my interest. During my years flying that aircraft, quite a bit of time was spent talking, thinking, training, and otherwise preparing for just the kind of scenario encountered by the pilots in this accident: a sudden engine failure while low on altitude and...
Read MoreInsanely Great
Statistics show that as of today, there are about 71 million web sites running WordPress. Those sites publish 500,000 new posts per day and are viewed by more than 320 million people every month. Mind boggling, isn’t it? Kind of like the national debt or the number of stars in the cosmos, it’s difficult to even wrap your mind around a figure of that magnitude. I’ve been a WordPress user for — what, probably seven or eight years by now. Before WP, it was Movable Type. Remember that one? Yeah, it still out there. Let’s see, prior to Movable Type my site was developed and maintained using nothing more than Windows’ built-in Notepad program and an ancient version of Photoshop. That goes all the way back to the site’s...
Read MoreThe Year in Review
Welcome to 2012, the year it’s all supposed to end. Everyone likes to joke about the Mayan calendar, but perhaps they simply knew the election cycle would be tedious enough to make the entire planet take the Jonestown route. The turning of another page on the calendar reminds us of the passage of time. Or at least, it would if anyone had a calendar with physical pages to turn. For most it’s now done with the click of a mouse or flick of the finger on the iPhone. Even that is becoming passé — now you can simply talk to Siri and have her handle the scheduling for you. I wonder how long it will be before we can say things like, “Siri, load the ILS 19 approach and fly it for me. After we land, please taxi to Atlantic and have them add...
Read MoreBest Bang for the Buck
With a title like that, you’d think I’m about to expound on the virtues of a massage parlor which offers the proverbial “happy ending”. Alas, it was only the alliterative qualities of the title which I was after, and so we’ll be sticking to aviation topics today. And P.S., please get your mind out of the gutter, my friend. Anyway, aviation is a tough place for the dollar store crowd. When it comes to bargains, the list is short. Nowhere is this more true than when it comes to owning an airplane. The first thing any veteran aircraft owner will tell you is that there’s no such thing as an inexpensive airplane when it comes to overall cost of ownership. Sure, you can buy a piston twin in today’s market for almost...
Read MoreInstagrams
Social