More stick time for pilots?
It is being reported in the Feb. 7 edition of AvWeb, that the FAA is concerned about a lack of ‘stick time’ for pilots. According to the pending Advisory Circular (AC) 120-FPM, which is in ‘draft form’, with the subject being ‘Flightpath Management’(FPM), this AC addresses “manual flight operations, termed ‘MFO’, including managing automated systems, pilot monitoring (PM), and energy management.’ That’s mouthful.
More ‘stick time’ is needed by pilots
What it amounts to is nothing new. We’ve been saying this for decades. With the increased reliance on automated systems in the cockpit, the FAA is now concerned that pilots ‘stick ‘n rudder skills’ are deteriorating, and more ‘stick time’ is needed by pilots, to maintain proficiency.
A question: if this is being proposed by the FAA for airline and charter pilots, then what does this say about GA pilots, some of whom fly very sophisticated, very capable airplanes with lots of automation. Many are more sophisticated than some Boeing or Airbus aircraft. Heck, even single engine turboprop aircraft like the TBM 900 series boast very high-end avionics.
So, some questions for you, the reader. What’s your take on this? Are modern cockpits becoming too automated? If you the reader are a pilot, how automated is the cockpit of the airplane you fly? Do you have an autopilot? If so, how often do you use your autopilot?
Post your comments below.
Crosswind Landings
Challenging Crosswind Conditions
We recently had ‘Santa Ana’ conditions here in SoCal. What causes this? Typically, it’s due to a high-pressure system over Utah or Nevada, with its clockwise flow, which funnels hot dry air southwesterly through the mountains surrounding the LA basin. When that happens, there is a strong northeasterly flow in parts of the basin, which means strong, gusty north-northeasterly surface winds at some airports. This creates very challenging crosswind conditions for takeoffs and landings. How proficient are you with this?
Many pilots struggle with crosswind landings. This is because they don’t fly enough on windy days. They are simply out of practice. How about you? Do you ever fly on days like this? I can help. Get in touch with me.
5-7-9 Rule
Are you familiar the 5-7-9 rule of thumb, for crosswinds? It’s easy to use. See the diagram to the left. If the winds are 30° to the runway at 10 knots, the crosswind is 50% of the wind value. So, for runway 36 shown here, if the wind is 030 at 10, there is a 5-knot crosswind. 
If the wind is 45° to the runway, or 040 or 050 at 10, the crosswind is 70% or about 7 knots. If the wind is 60° to the runway, or 060 at 10, the crosswind 90% of that, or about 9 knots. This is all based on (Algebra) and Trigonometry but is simplified for our purposes. What’s the demonstrated crosswind for the airplane you fly?
How comfortable are you with crosswind takeoffs and landings?
If you would like to get some practice with crosswinds, please get in touch with me and I’ll work with you to improve your crosswind skills.
Looking forward in 2022
Guinness World Record
Zara Rutherford, only 19, recently completed her ‘RTW’ (‘round the world) flight, with many stops, in Wevelgem, Belgium, on Thursday, January 20, 2022. She was flying SOLO and has set a Guinness World Record in the process!!
Congratulations, Zara!! She flew a Shark Ultra-Light, a small single engine aircraft built by Shark.aeros.r.o., certified in both Germany and the Czech Republic, that was modified for this flight. She took off on this journey, August 18, 2021, and she finished 155 days later. This is simply amazing. She is an inspiration to many! It should be pointed out that both of her parents are also pilots.
What is she looking forward to next? She says she’d like to become an astronaut! Naturally.
Safety
This being January, and with the rest of the year ahead, looking forward, let’s see what we can do to make 2022 safer than 2021. What can be done to reduce the number of aircraft accidents, especially fatal accidents? This is no small challenge.
The NTSB has released their preliminary report on the Learjet crash that occurred on December 31, 2021, at San Diego’s Gillespie Field. A big question is why the pilots elected to circle-to-land, at night, in marginal weather? This is never a good idea.
Having said this, in my previous job, in my work as a simulator instructor I have performed this maneuver countless times in the simulator, during my own training, using a nighttime ‘visual’. My clients have practiced ‘circling’ many times, as well. We used Memphis, TN, (KMEM), because KMEM meets all of the required criteria for a circling approach.
When I took my Citation recurrent training at LOFT Aero, in Carlsbad, CA, in December, in their Citation Ultra simulator, we used JFK Int’l Airport in New York (KJFK). It also meets the FAA’s circling requirements. The Circle-to-Land instrument approach procedure is required by the FAA to be completed during training. The airlines, with much larger jets, do not allow their pilots to perform the ‘circle-to-land’ maneuver. They only fly ‘straight-in’ approaches. However, we spend time carefully ‘briefing’ or discussing the approach and what is required beforehand, so the clients know what is involved.
Was this crew simply anxious to get home? Probably. Did this influence their fateful decision to attempt this maneuver, instead of a safer, straight-in approach? Probably. But we’ll have to wait and see what the NTSB says when they finish their investigation and issue their findings in about a year or so. In the meantime, what are your thoughts about this accident?
Looking back at 2021
As is reported in the Safety Trends story in the December 2021 issue of Plane & Pilot Magazine, looking back, what can be learned from the accident record?
The good news, GA flying is getting safer. Is there any bad news? Well, the accident rate has not changed or improved much lately. Is that bad? Well, it’s not getting any better. It’s basically been flat for several years. The reports cover the years up through 2020. It’s too soon to know anything about last year. And there was the terrible accident literally at years end on December 31, when a medivac Learjet, crashed while maneuvering to land, at night, in marginal conditions, at San Diego’s Gillespie Field. All onboard perished.
In the Safety Trends story, is there a typical accident? While accident reports vary widely, it generally comes down to pilot error, or a mechanical problem. After that, its’ weather, which could be continued flight into IMC conditions, with a pilot who is not instrument rated. The results of this are usually fatal. According to statistics, 66% of accidents are related to pilot error, 18% are mechanical, and the remaining 16% are something else.
There’s really nothing new here. We continue to make the same mistakes. Complacency sets in and we see the same mistakes being made over and over. It’s cycle that repeats itself, with alarming regularity. What can be done about that? Hard to say.
Some pilots are simply more safety conscious than others. This is just human nature. And some people are more conscientious than others. Many pilots will only do the minimum to stay current, if that. Egos get in the way: “I don’t need this!’. This mindset is hard to change. So, with that said, our challenge is to find a way to change this way of thinking, if possible.
What are your thoughts on any of this? This is not rocket science. What can be done to make a change in the thought process of some, who will likely be the culprits that cause an accident?
Air Traffic Control Mike Fright
Do you have Air Traffic Control Mike Fright? Are you unsure about what to say, or how to talk to ATC?
Want to get over Air Traffic Control Mike Fright? You are not alone. Many are unsure of what to say.
As an experienced CFI (Certified Flight Instructor), I’ve seen this with students and heard it many times before. It can be intimidating, especially at busier airports where they issue clearances at a rapid-fire pace. I can help.
How to deal with Air Traffic Control Mike Fright
You have to know what to expect. Then, think BEFORE you ‘key’ the mike/push the ‘PTT’, “push-to-talk button”, and know WHAT you are going to say. Avoid long pauses (…ahh), which only tie up the frequency for everyone else.
Follow this simple formula:
- Who you are calling (facility or airport name), and the ‘controller’ position; Long Beach Ground, Tower, or Clearance, for example. Don’t just say ‘ground control’, or Long Beach Ground Control. That’s very amateurish.
- Who YOU are (aircraft make/model and ‘N’ number, i.e.; Cessna or Skyhawk 12345). In the US, you don’t have to include ‘November’ in a US registered aircraft. Only outside the US is that required.
- Where you are/your position (if in flight 10 miles north etc. or position on the ground, Transient ramp, FBO, etc.)
- Your intentions (what you want to do…reposition to parking, taxi for takeoff…takeoff/land, etc.)
Air Traffic Control will reply with your call sign and instructions on what to do, as appropriate, using their terminology. This is all referenced in the Aeronautical information Manual, (AIM for short) Chapter 4, Section 2, (4-2-1 thru 13)) Radio Communications Phraseology and Techniques. You reply by acknowledging and reading back your clearance, that you understand what you are expected to do, using appropriate terminology.
Here is an example.
You; “Fullerton Ground, Cessna 12345, Transient Parking, VFR West bound (direction of flight), Taxi with Alpha (ATIS code)”.
Fullerton Ground; “Cessna 12345, Fullerton Ground, taxi Runway 24 via Alpha.”
You, reading back; “Cessna 12345 taxi runway 24 via Alpha.”
The reason ATC talks fast is:
a. They might have several aircraft to communicate with, so they keep their transmissions short and to the point. Concise. Notice ATC also leaves out most ‘prepositions’; remember those from English class way back when…as they are extra words that take up time on a busy frequency. It makes a difference.
b. They give this clearance 100’s of times each day, to every pilot who calls for taxi clearance. They don’t have to think about it.
Suggestion: as stated above, before calling; note your position, either on the ground or in flight. Where are you and what are your intentions? Now you know what to expect from ATC. Then, using shorthand, either write down the important elements of your clearance on a pad of paper, OR if using an iPad with ForeFlight, and maybe an Apple Pencil, you can draw it on the airport diagram using the highlighter feature on the app. That way you have a record of your clearance.
Any questions or thoughts about this? It’s standard phraseology. It works anywhere. The AIM also spells out radio use at non-towered airports. This can be found in the AIM in section 4-1-9.
What has stumped YOU with using the radio? Or is there any particular airport or ATC facility that you find intimidating? Let me know. I can help.
Fly safely!
John
Cross-Country Flight Planning, Common Mistakes
How long since you’ve done any cross-country flight planning?
Maybe your flying is local in nature, less than 50 miles from your home airport for the $100 burger, so it’s been a while. Well, there are common problems that some pilots encounter with cross-country flight planning, among them, basically; not understanding weather well enough; inadequate fuel planning, and not checking the weather again while en route. Add to this, being overly confident the weather will improve. Overflying fuel stops, and fatigue. And the 180° turnback.
An aviation magazine, “Plane & Pilot”, published a list of common mistakes with cross- country flight planning a while back.
Here they are again:
- Not checking the weather or getting a good wx briefing
- Flying too low and CFIT.
- Inadequate preflight inspections
- Inadequate preflight planning
- Failure to use IMSAFE checklist
- Running out of fuel. Thinking Distance, not Time!
- Distractions with technology in the cockpit
My approach to cross-country flight planning
I have not flown a long cross-country in many years. Most of my flying in recent years, in my airplane, which has bare-bones avionics, and just a basic ‘6-pack’ for flight instruments, has been limited to local flying in the LA basin, for breakfast or lunch with friends. Always for fun. Seldom was any flight planning required. Just a check of the local weather, TFR’s and NOTAMs, though I would call 1-800-WXBRIEF just to avoid surprises and make sure I covered my bases. I was reluctant to take it a long distance simply because it is not well equipped for that kind of flying. Flight planning for long cross-country flights is different. Of course, it’s more involved, depending how far you go. I’ve done it, but many years ago when flying for an airline. Not recently.
But, after buying my 1970 Cessna 150, almost 2 years ago now, in October 2019, that started to change. Suddenly, I started to branch out and fly to a few more distant places, and then with friends, I was flying farther for lunches, up and down the California coast, from San Diego to Santa Barbara, for example. Then, fast forward to this year. Because of the pandemic, many activities and events had been put on hold. Then, as this year progressed, various organizations started to plan activities and events, including AirVenture, in Oshkosh. With that in mind, I began to think seriously about flying my 150 back to Oshkosh and AirVenture!
This was a BIG step for me! I had never considered this before. But I had flown enough cross-country flights to enough places in Southern California, that my confidence had grown to where flying back to Oshkosh was doable!! So, with that in mind, I started planning.
So, how to approach this? My approach? Carefully, and conservatively. I’m flying a Cessna 150, which has very limited capability. Basically, low and slow with limited range/endurance. It’s just a two-seat trainer. First, consider the airplane you are flying, and its’ capabilities. How much speed, altitude capability (turbo-charged?), and what kind of range/endurance does it have? And what is your comfort level? Seriously. How long can your bladder comfortably last? 2 hours, more or less? Depends how much coffee or water you drink.
For the 150, with about a 95-knot cruise speed, and a 22.5-gallon usable fuel capacity (~5 gal/hour), it is limited to about a 2 hour/200-mile range, give or take. And then depending on the winds, headwinds, or tailwinds, that will obviously make a BIG difference. And, in a smaller, slower airplane like a Cessna 150, headwinds or tailwinds will make more of a difference.
I don’t want to push it. The general rule of flight planning: land with at least 1 hour of fuel onboard. The FAA only requires 30 minutes for Day VFR, 45 minutes for night VFR. Ref. FAR 91.151, VFR fuel requirements. Remember, these are minimums! Again, FAA regulations are minimums. You want to exceed these. So, plan to arrive with at LEAST 1 hour of fuel on board. You will think much better with adequate fuel reserves, and you will have more options available to you if you land with more reserve fuel. That’s always a good thing!
Also, very important for this kind of flying, especially in the summertime when afternoon thunderstorms are likely, is to leave early in the morning, at daybreak, if possible (weather permitting), well before the heat of the day and convective activity, and then plan to be on the ground by mid-day, somewhere, before the afternoon thunderstorms begin.
For flight planning, I primarily used ForeFlight (FF). And for this trip back to Oshkosh, I also purchased paper charts/Sectionals (yes, you can still get them), covering the expected route of flight, as a backup. I also used the website, www.airnav.com, which is a great resource, for checking FBO’s, and local fuel prices, and can also be used to check lodging for an overnight stop. And I also used the www.1800wxbrief.com website. So, generally speaking, I would use FF and open the flight-planning window at the top, then input my 150 and start inserting airport identifiers and navigational fixes in the flight-planning box. FF then tells me the distance, time and fuel required for each leg. So, it’s easy to see how long a given flight will take. I would plan conservatively, limiting each leg to about 1 ½ – 2 hours, or less depending on the availability of airports with fuel and services.
Using social media and more
And I actually decided to use social media for this as well. I posted the question on a Facebook airplane group: what route(s) do you recommend from the LA basin across AZ and NM on the way to AirVenture? And the answers I got were, basically from the Phoenix area, head southeast and then follow the 10 freeway across southern AZ and NM and then head north to Albuquerque, and from there It’s east to Texas, then north and east across the plain’s states of Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa to Wisconsin. Good information!
With that in mind, I worked out a tentative flight plan, with as many as 15 or 16 ‘legs’, that would take about 3 days, depending on the weather. I tentatively planned on 4, 2 hours legs each day, including fuel stops. I would be waiting out any bad weather in my 150, safely on the ground. I also watched the weather very closely, and decided to plan a northerly route also, just in case.
Then, as luck would have it, and as I have mentioned in a previous blog post, my 150 suddenly developed a bad cylinder (#3), and was grounded, and could not be repaired in time. So, I reached out to another pilot friend who was also planning to fly to AirVenture. He readily agreed to have me fly with him. I simply modified my flight plan for a Cessna 170 performance numbers instead, which is slightly faster, and has twice the fuel capacity. It worked out well. We decided on flying 90-minute legs, and then we stopped for fuel, food and a pit stop, as needed.
And because I had not flown this route before, I would self-brief using my iPad and ForeFlight, and would then back that up with a call to Leidos (1-800-992-7433), and talk to the weather briefer, to see what they could tell me. The idea being to avoid surprises!
We kind of followed the plan I had made, except that instead of going south and following the 10 freeway, we took a more northerly route, following US 40 instead, over northern AZ, and NM, before reaching Albuquerque, NM, (KAEG) then onto Santa Fe (KSAF) for lunch. Then we headed east, stopping in Tucumcari, NM, (KTCC) on the way to Amarillo, TX (KTDW) for the night. Then it was north and east across the plain’s states, stopping at Liberal (KLBL) and then Hays, KS, (KHYS) then Lincoln, NE, (KLNK) and then east across Iowa. It took us 2 days to get to Clinton, IA, (KCWI) and the Cessna 150 fly-in. We had a short but fun 1 ½ days there, and then a short flight northeast to Juneau/Dodge County, WI (KUNU) for the mass arrival into Oshkosh on Saturday.
KGUP KSXU N4319B 7500FT
KCWI KUNU 9500FT
On the return trip, due to frontal activity, and thunderstorms to the south of Oshkosh, we decided to delay our departure by one day. So, we left on a Sunday morning. The weather had improved considerably by then. After taking off from Oshkosh, we flew about 45 minutes to the small town of Portage, WI, (C47) and landed there for a quick fuel stop. Then onto Des Moines, IA (KDSM) for fuel and lunch, then onto Manhattan, KS, (KMHK) for the night. The next day we left early and pressed onto Dodge City, KS, (KDDC) then to Dalhart, TX, (KDHT) for lunch, and fuel, then onto Santa Fe, NM (KSAF) for the night. Finally, the 3rd day, we departed Santa Fe, early, then onto Gallup, NM, (KGUP) for fuel, Flagstaff, AZ (KFLG) for fuel, then Lake Havasu, AZ, (KHII) where it was a sultry 109°, for lunch, then Twenty-Nine Palms (KTNP) for fuel, and finally, El Monte, CA, (KEMT) and home!
What a trip! Lots of fun, lessons learned, seeing small town America at each stop. It was fascinating to me as well as I watched the terrain changing below us on our way south and west across the country. You don’t see this when you’re in the flight levels on the airlines. I still enjoy this!
Any questions or comments on any of this? Reach me at johnmahanycfi@gmail.com
Fly safely,
John