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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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ASRS Callback Humility Recalibration
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Humility is the absence of vanity or excessive pride, a state or quality of being humble. Humble individuals are conscious of—and acknowledge—their defects or shortcomings. They are modest and not overly proud. Humility is an essential element in aviation safety, and it needs to be periodically recalibrated at least annually.This self-assessment depends, on large part, on how the aviator’s year has gone. If it could have been better, most likely these less than happy events have already recalibrated a pilot’s humility. On the other hand, if a pilot has had a good year (or consciously forgotten the unfulfilled consequences of less than stellar decisions), then the aviator should take stock and recalibrate because no one flies without fault.
There is no better place to reassess one’s aeronautical humility than Callback, published by NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System. It receives, processes, and analyzes thousands of incident reports that pilots submit annually. It publishes the more interesting incidents in each issue and publishes the ASRS Year End Roundup in December, which is perfect for a pilot’s annual humility evaluation and recalibration.
In tune with the season, the Callback roundup is a “lighthearted medley” complied from the 108,000 reports ASRS received this year. Although I’d wager that the pilots making the reports were not so lighthearted when the situations they described were unfolding.Imagine, you’re a private pilot winging your way out of the Washington, DC, Special Flight Rules Area when your 50-pound dog jumps from the back to the front seat. In the process it hit the panel and cleared the flight plan out of the Garmin 430, pulled the cigarette lighter power cord for the GDL 39, knocked the tablet to the passenger side floor, and “ripped the microphone port of my headset out at the connector.”
The pilot didn’t realize that his dog had disconnected his mic when ATC’s calls made clear that they could not hear him. It took him a while to untangle the cord from his dog and its leash while trying to fly the plane and not bust the Class B or the Flight Restricted Zone.
If, at any time while reading this report, or any other, you thought that “I’d never do that!” or “That would never happen to me!”, then you need to recalibrate your humility. In one form or another, it can happen to all of us. All it takes is a moment of inattention or assumption.
Just ask the ASRS Roundup pilot whose twin Bonanza was topped off with Jet A. In a hurry to secure the airplane in weather, he requested “top off main tanks only” without specifying what to top them off with. He likely assumed that the new line service guy would read the 100LL placards, and if that failed, the Jet A duckbill nozzle would prevent him from putting the wrong go juice in the airplane.
But that didn’t happen. The Jet A truck didn’t have a duckbill nozzle, and the gas guy was new to aviation. Fortunately, the pilot caught the error when he saw the big JET A label on the truck, but he didn’t see it until his tanks were topped off. Pilots who think this could not happen to them either watch every drop that goes into the tanks, or they trust their lives to the line crew. In either case, a humility adjustment might be in order.
Ultimately, it is to every pilot’s benefit to read each issue of the ASRS Callback. This not only keeps pilots humble, it builds a mental library of less than safe circumstances that might grab their attention and arrest their progress on the error chain. — Scott Spangler, Editor
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MCAS Certification a Human Factors Failure
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During the interviews for a story on avionics interfaces, one source made a passing reference to interface failure of the Boeing 737 Max MCAS (Maneuver Characteristics Augmentation System). The significance of this observation did not resonate until I started reading FAA Advisory Circular 25.1302-1, Installed Systems and Equipment for Use by the Flightcrew, dated May 3, 2013.The guidance in the 62-page AC “is intended to minimize the occurrence of design-related errors by the flightcrew and to enable the flightcrew to detect and manage errors that do occur.” I added the italics because the 737 Max interface certainly did not enable the crews of the two doomed 737’s to detect and deal with the MCAS errors. (And why the FAA conjoins flight and crew is beyond me, so I’ll separate them in the following sections of the AC.)
The AC addresses the design and approval on installed flight deck equipment and makes “recommendations for the design and evaluation of controls, displays, system behavior, and system integration, as well as design guidance for error management.” The complexity of the system design “from the flight crew’s perspective is an important factor that may also affect the means of compliance” with the certification requirements.
Part 25 requires manufacturers to design installed equipment whose behavior is “operationally relevant to the flight crew tasks…predictable and unambiguous.”
Operational relevance is the combined effect of the system’s operational logic, control function and placement, displayed information, and the crew’s perception and awareness of the system’s operation.Complex controls that are inconsistent with each other or other systems are a source of errors. The family of controls includes buttons, switches, knobs, keyboards, keypads, cursor control devices, and touch screens.
After reading the guidance on “system behavior,” one wonders what obtuse rationalization laid the foundation for this aspect of MCAS certification.
Chapter 5 of the AC says a predictable and unambiguous system “enables qualified flight crews to know what the system is doing, and why. This means a flight crew should have enough information about what the system will do under foreseeable circumstances as a result of their action or a changing situation that they can operate the system safely.”
Clearly, this guidance did not lead to the desired safe outcome on two occasions. — Scott Spangler, Editor
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Giving Thanks: Bach in Nothing By Chance
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Seeking refuge from the gloomy, overcast skies that are growing darker as a winter storm crawls across Wisconsin, I turned to my bookshelves in the hope that the title of a tome once read would catch my eye and lift my spirits. As my eyes slid across the books written by Richard Bach, they came to a full stop on Nothing By Chance, A Gypsy Pilot’s Adventures in Modern America.Reading those words instantly recalled his word pictures of barnstorming through the Midwest in his 1929 Detroit-Parks P-2 biplane, powered by a Wright Whirlwind engine. A then 19-year-old Stu MacPhearson, the Great American Flying Circus’s parachute jumper rode in the biplane’s front cockpit and a photographer-pilot flew his Luscombe. Their goal was to see if they could survive as barnstormers, selling rides over small-towns for $3 a head.
What I did not remember is when they had their adventure. It was the summer of 1966. “Incredibly, these sky-gypsies found small-town Midwest America largely unchanged since the original barnstormers had passed through,” read the back flap of the dust jacket. William Morrow & Company published its 223 pages in 1969. Doing the match, I received it a half-century ago. Most likely, it was a gift from my parents on my 16th birthday, which that year was the Monday before Thanksgiving.
After making a mug of Earl Grey, I snuggled in my rocker and turned my back on the weather. The story begins over Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, where three of the Great American Flying Circus returned to the modern world and their pilots’ commitments to it. That left Bach, MacPhearson, and photographer Paul E. Hanson in his Luscombe
“We had thrown away our aeronautical charts, along with the time they came from, and now we were lost,” Bach wrote. “I thought we might be somewhere over Wisconsin or northern Illinois.” Running low on fuel, they circled a grass strip at the edge of some small town and then landed. The black block letters on the silver water tower read RIO.“Rio was a hill of trees rising out of the low hills of earth, with rooftops down beneath the green and church spires like holy missiles poised pure white in the sun,” Bach wrote. “Main Street stretched two blocks long, then fell back into trees and houses and farmland. A baseball game raged at the school field.”
Curiosity dragged me willingly to Google. What state were they over? There is a Rio, Illinois, but it is way south, between Davenport, Iowa, and Peoria. And it does not have an airport. Huh! Rio, Wisconsin, is roughly 65 miles southwest of my front door. Pronounced rye-oh, the village was home to 1,059 people in 2010. The Census counted 792 in 1970 and 788 in 1960.
With an airport on the west side of town–Gilbert Field–Rio Aero Club (94C)—this had to be the Rio Bach wrote about more than a half-century ago. Owned and operated by the Rio Aero Club, which flies a Citabria, the public-use field is still grass, with Runway 9/27 measuring 1092 feet by 66 feet. The 94C airport information says the airport is unattended and without fuel, but the aero club’s website has cameras.And the club does a big fly-in/drive-in pancake breakfast in June. Something to look forward to is always welcomed over the winter. I wonder what other surprises await me on the following pages. So if you will excuse me… –Scott Spangler, Editor
