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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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AirVenture Reset: Marketing to the Masses
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Selling aviation stuff to pilots and flying aficionados is one of the foundational enterprises of EAA AirVenture Oshkosh. It is a multilayered effort. EAA sells indoor and outdoor exhibit space to companies, and employing a variety of tactics, some more effective than others, those companies do their best to snag the attention of the multitude of passers-by, and in this post-pandemic AirVenture reset, the exhibit buildings were busier than I’ve seen them in more than a decade.Before the pandemic, the media presentations at EAA Press Headquarters were an integral component of this effort. The News Conference/Media Event Schedule, posted online and on the wall of PHQ, subdivided every day into 45 minute blocks, and in years past, almost everyone of them was spoken for, with the only blank spots showing up gap-toothed on the final weekend. This year the schedule essentially ended Wednesday afternoon, with only the EAA media briefings taking spots during the rest of the week.
This really wasn’t too much of a concern because most of aviation’s primary marketers stopped announcing their new products in dog-and-pony presentations on AirVenture’s stage years ago. They transferred that effort online because it’s economically efficient, and it doesn’t have a time limit or av-hardware technical problems. Another benefit of announcing new products and services online is the ability to capture their customer’s attention one-on-one, usually in the quiet, comfortable environment of their own home.
Garmin took that comfort to the next level for its AirVenture reset by air conditioning its vast exhibit pavilion, where potential customers and the curious could get a hands-on lesson from Garminites who know the ins and outs of the spectrum of avionics equipment. It was a constantly busy place and people were crowded around the panel displays at least two or three deep.The other avionics companies, Aspen, Avidyne, and Collins each had anchor positions in separate exhibit hangars, and their representatives were likewise surrounded by the curious craning their respective necks to see what button-and-touch-screen-ology was taking place. And as I paced my way through the buildings, it was good to see many of the familiar avionics shops in their usual places and usually in deep, demonstrative conversations with customers.
Exhibit building density is one of my markers for overall AirVenture attendance. I had to recalibrate this several years ago when EAA, several years before the pandemic came to town, socially distanced the width of the exhibit hall aisles. This year, EAA added some equally wide side-to-side aisles, but at two different times on two different days, all of these aisles were as busy as the old narrow aisles were about a decade ago. On my pre-pandemic exhibit building excursions, I would peruse every aisle in a minutes-long nonstop stroll. This year, it took more than a half hour of moist, close quarters creeping.
At least that was the case in three of the four exhibit hangars. Exhibit Hangars A and C on the north side were the busiest. On the south side, Hangar B was noticeably less crowded than A and C, but it was way busier than Hangar D, home to many of the non-aviation exhibitors and the Federal Pavilion, which was sparsely populated because the pandemic precluded travel for nearly all of AirVenture’s foreign participants.
The Fly Market, just west of Hangar D was essentially unchanged, and it looked like most of its long-time denizens survived the pandemic. During the downtime it seems like they undertook some projects of their own, like mounting a DC-3 fuselage on a truck frame to make it a street-legal (?) air show hauler. But the best deal of the show this year was found at EAA’s site-wide merch tents, AirVenture 2020 t-shirts for $5.
An unexpected surprise was the pretty much naked faces of the “For Sale” bulletin boards, just east of the tower and EAA Merchandise building. Usually they are furry walls of paper fluttering in the breeze, but not this year. Could this be that people have nothing for sale, or might this reset be, like classified ads in ink-and-paper publications, another casualty of the internet?Another surprise was how full the grounds remained on Wednesday, traditionally the crowd turnover day. With severe weather working its way east, pilots were bugging out all day, but their departures were sporadic rather than a consistent stream. The unknown reset facets have made this AirVenture interesting and unpredictable and its every day dawns with anticipation.
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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Day Zero: Resetting an AirVenture Attitude
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After we all took a year off in 2020, I hit the road this morning for Wittman Regional Airport with a tick of trepidation nibbling at my soul. It’s Zero Day, the Sunday before the show starts and all the exhibitors are scurrying about trying to get set up for AirVenture official commencement on Monday.If Mother Nature cooperates, Zero Day is when the first horde of airplanes descends on Oshkosh, and the ATC folks start issuing instructions like auctioneers on speed. There are usually a good number of cars as well, but with all the changes to the airborne and four-wheeled arrival paths, not to mention all of the site changes, especially to the parking lots, I didn’t know what to expect, which laid out a buffet of trepidations.
Just before noon, the traffic was essentially nonexistent. That’s because everyone, it seemed, has already arrived! Over the years, EAA has extended Camp Scholler to the organization’s southern property line, West Ripple Ave. Across the street is the new Alro Steel Warehouse. For most of the year, it is a green field dotted with signposts. This morning it was an RV lot jammed packed with land yachts of every sized and description. Rarely did I see an open spot.
Appropriately credentialed, I parked in my usually assigned lot, which this year has a new moniker. Warming up my feet, I avoided the “Do Not Stroll Zone” that encompasses the four exhibit buildings and center stage aircraft display plaza. This makes setup easier for the exhibitors, and for the first time for my eyes, florescent-vested volunteers were enforcing (finally) the no-stroll rule, politely turning people 180 degrees.
Turning into the showplane parking areas that extend westward from the Runway 18/36 flight line, the grass was still green and pretty much devoid of amateur-built experimental airplanes. And there didn’t seem to be that many airplanes making their arrivals. ATC was playing over the flight line speakers, and the controllers were talking conversationally, welcoming the arrivals to Oshkosh and complimenting them on their good work at putting their airplanes on the green dot or red square. Later in the afternoon, around 1400, the controllers were having two-way conversations with the arrivals, which I’ve never before heard.Following homebuilt parking down to the taxiway that separates it from Warbirds, I turned left and swam through a neatly parked sea of RVs to reach the shoreline of homebuilt camping. There was barely an open spot, and the lines were filling up quickly. An elephant walk of maybe a dozen RVs buzzed down the taxiway as the parking crew marshaled them into line. Their props had barely stopped turning before their occupants popped out of the cockpits and started pitching their tents.
This scene was repeating itself in the Vintage camping area, and across the empty Warbird’s greensward, it was easy to see that the North 40 camping area was similarly congested with campers. The Warbird RV corral was a hive of land yachts with buzzing air conditioners, so I guessed that the airplanes were out rehearsing for next weekend’s show celebrating the end of World War II (plus one).
Clearly, AirVenture 2021 is resetting itself as the year of the camper. Thinking about it, we shouldn’t be surprised. How many stories have we seen and read during our solitary pandemic confinement about people escaping to parks (city, state, and national) and hiking trails. Still, the dense-packed spectrum of campers at OSH stunned me. But not as much as Mother Nature will when she welcomes the tent campers to late July in Wisconsin.Making the grand tour on Zero Day, there really wasn’t anything different in the museum; they’ve moved some airplanes around. Outside, work is progressing well on the addition. If I have to complain about something, I vote for the new wristbands. They are twice as wide as the old ones, and the plastic is flimsier. Instead of the plastic button customizing the fit with a series of holes, the new fastener is adhesive, and if you aren’t careful, it’ll be too tight, a sweaty reminder that it is late summer in Wisconsin. Finally being able to remove it is the only reason I’m looking forward to the show’s conclusion. If not for that, it would be nice if it would run for two weeks, so we could make up for what we missed last year.
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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AirVenture – Int’l Home of the Young Eagles
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AirVenture 2021 is really happening next week in Oshkosh beginning July 26 and the pent-up demand for aviation excitement/geeky experiences is expected to run high. Each year – except 2020 of course – the show attracts tens of thousands of parents and kids, many for their first aviation experience, some ready for a trip aloft. For new aviators, nothing quite matches that first flight … often in a general aviation machine.Mine came by chance years ago in a Bell 47 helicopter when the EAA Airshow was still being held at what is now the Chicago-Rockford International Airport. I was maybe 10 at the time and my aunt and uncle were shepherding me around the show when we stumbled upon the helicopter sitting on the ground with a sign that said, “Helicopter Rides with Captain Rick.” Want to go, my aunt wondered? A fraction of a second later – or at least it seemed like it – I was in the right seat of the same helicopter I’d watched on the old Whirly Birds TV show that ran in the late 1950s. I have no idea how long that flight lasted but I cherished every moment.
Today offering young people their first ride is much easier and better organized than was my random experience thanks to the EAA’s Young Eagles Program headquartered at AirVenture’s Wittman Regional Airport. To date, they’ve already given more than 2.2 million kids their first aviation experience, often from small airports around the US.
Jetwhine contributor Micah Engber recently attended a Young Eagles rally in Maine and although they told him he didn’t meet the age requirements for a Young Eagles ride – under 18 only – I think you’ll enjoy his report of watching the fun (script below).
Rob Mark, publisher
