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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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Flying Cars & Urban Air Mobility
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It’s tempting to forge a synonymous connection between flying cars and urban air mobility (UAM). That would be unfair because, for a number of reasons, the latter has a viable future where entrepreneurs have unsuccessfully been developing, promoting, and trying to sell the former for more than 70 years.Many of them have appeared and disappeared from aviation’s grand stage in Oshkosh over the past half century. Certainly, each new iteration of flying car promised improvements over those that preceded it, but nothing has matched the rapid technological long jump better than urban air mobility.
If you doubt this, look at the tent above, which sits at the apex of the Aviation Gateway Park at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh. The attached drone cage is still there, giving the curious a hands-on opportunity to pilot a quadcopter through a 3D obstacle course, but the drone merchants that once packed the tent are long gone because the technology they introduced as already morphed into urban air mobility vehicles that have filled their exhibit footprints.
Visually, wheels are the biggest difference between the two. By definition, a car must have them. Most of the urban air mobility vehicles I’ve seen so far have skids, perfect for vertical takeoff and landers. But the differences that separate potential success from almost unavoidable failure are not as clearly seen. Let’s start with…
Mission Capabilities
Because they must operate in disparate realms—the National Airspace System and the interconnected web of Interstates, US Highways, County Roads, and paved and unpaved residential streets—flying cars must multitask. Studies of machines and humans have clearly demonstrated that multitasking is the ability to do several things inefficiently compared to something or someone dedicated to a single task.
Urban air mobility defines that single task. Instead of traversing the diverse expanse of American airspace and roadways, UAM vehicles are designed to transport a fixed number of people between fixed and predetermined points within the confines of a metropolitan area. And, as explained by those pursuing urban air mobility, each of these fixed points will be purposely designed and built to efficiently meet the vehicles’ needs.
At its outdoor display, Airbus exhibited its Vahana, a self-piloted, zero emission electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) technology demonstrator. One of two Airbus Urban Mobility eVTOL demonstrators, the sign said it has made 80 full-scale flights at more than 100 mph.Economic Viability
Not to be obvious, but we all know that anything connected to aviation is expensive. From the start, flying cars have always targeted individual customers. That was a more realistic customer pool in middle of the 20th century, when the middle class was more robust. But today, as the general aviation production and billing numbers make clear, most new airplanes (and flying cars) are well beyond the economic reach of 99 percent of Americans.
The economic reality of modern American life has also brought forth cultural and social changes. The newest members of the workforce are starting their careers while dragging an anchor of student debt. And many of them can only find a job in or around a city, which imposes a higher cost of living.
On the plus side, in a city, they don’t need the car they can’t afford in the first place, a reality that challenges the futures of automakers. When they need transportation some distance they cannot walk, they hail a ride from services like Uber and Lyft. That companies such are these are interested and investing in urban air mobility should surprise no one. And, because the UAM vehicles are essential to their planned operations, their purchase price is factored into their cost of doing business.
Certification Challenges
Earning one’s driver’s license at 16 used to be an eagerly anticipated rite of passage. The reasons for this distill into need, expense, and personal priorities. Now combine this reality with the requirement that the operator of a flying car also needs a pilot’s license. At best guess, today that will cost you more than $10,000 and take maybe six months or more.
But the operators are not the only participants needing certification. A number of flying cars have earned FAA airworthiness certificates, so they have this requirement addressed. For urban air mobility vehicles, it seems a question, but one that is not insurmountable. But I’ll wager that the Boeing 737 Max grounding will not make it any easier to certify the software that flies these computerized fly-by-wire UAM vehicles.
The regulatory framework for certification of the UAM pilots and their employers operations already exist in Part 61 and the air taxi regulations compiled in Part 135. And NASA is already working on urban air mobility ATC systems. Things will get interesting, however, when automation replaces the UAM pilots.Scoff if you will, but given the velocity at which the technology of urban air mobility has advanced, that day will dawn sooner than many may expect. In the waning days of AirVenture 2019, Opener announced that it was donating its BlackFly eVTOL to the EAA Aviation Museum. Opener introduced the BlackFly at AirVenture 2018. — Scott Spangler, Editor
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AirVenture Surprises & Snowbird Respect
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As it seemed last year, the U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels low-level fly-by at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh this year seemed to catch many people by surprise. I don’t mean to shatter your illusions, but nothing at AirVenture happens as a surprise, especially when it involves airplanes. Every flight is carefully planned and coordinated with the AirVenture Air Boss and ATC. And every morning at Press Headquarters, the legendary EAA communication director, Dick Knapinski, spoils the day’s surprises in detail.
On Thursday morning, he told the handful of us in attendance (given the goodies he shares, I’m surprised more members of the media don’t attend) that the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds would, at the start of the air show, make four low-passes during their fly-by appearance as they, like the Blue Angels, traveled from one scheduled performance to the next. But the next item is what caught my attention. Around 2 p.m., a Canadian Forces Snowbird would be arriving in his CT-114 Tutor. And rather than performing, “he’ll be camping in the Vintage area,” Dick said, qualifying his camping spot by noting that his jet was made in 1964.
Certainly, the military forces of different nations can’t be that different. Flying a squadron bird from the Snowbird home base in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada, on a camping trip to EAA AirVenture Oshkosh would be akin to me using one of the ship’s small boats to go fishing when I was aboard the USS Blue Ridge (LCC-19) in the mid-1970s. My curiosity put a ring through my nose and led me to Vintage to wait.
Right about 2 p.m., the red and white Tutor made a couple of low passes, landed, and taxied to vintage camping. A tug arrived to position it on a finger of pavement next to the grass that would be the pilot’s campsite. The aviator in the red flight suit, with Blake McNaughton embroidered on it, was obviously in command. A captain in the Canadian Forces, he’s the Snowbirds’ flight safety officer. (I didn’t get the name of his squadron mate, who was attired in standard-issue green Nomex.)Before I could ask the obvious question, the Thunderbirds made their appearance, and McNaughton was clearly more interested in filling out the necessary aircraft paperwork and putting his Tutor safely to bed after the tug driver jockeyed it into position. “Oh, yeah, we camp just like everyone else at Oshkosh.” And when the entire Snowbirds team performed at AirVenture in 2016, a couple of us tent camped.”
But a solo camping trip? “Our chain of command understands that Oshkosh is a cultural icon. [Camping] is what you do when you come here. We don’t take ourselves too seriously; we have a good time. We set up tents and camp. It’s great! We want the full, rich Oshkosh experience.” (With no room in the jet, they made separate travel arrangement for their tents and camping gear.)
Perhaps there are differences in the military attitudes among the national forces. On reflection, a solo camping trip to AirVenture is some genius guerilla PR, a subtle statement that supports the demonstration squadron’s ambassadorial mission. But McNaughton demonstrated an even more forceful example of the character and quality of the Canadian Armed Forces. Kneeling on the wing, digging the wheel chocks out of little compartment behind the cockpit, when he heard the first few notes of America’s national anthem, he sprang to attention. (His squadron mate, clearly sat at attention.) He stood there, in rigid contrast, as the flight line mass of U.S. flagpole patriots fluttered about in self-absorbed oblivion. — Scott Spangler, Editor
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August 3, 1981 – PATCO Strike Remembered 38 Years Later
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Ed note: It was 38 years ago today that the U.S. aviation system was turned upside down out. What have we learned in those decades since? Many controllers today are again working 10-hour days six days a week.
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JDA Solutions photo I remember the morning of August 3, 1981, vividly as I turned on the TV to find news stories of air traffic controller members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization-PATCO-marching with picket signs at the base of the tower at Chicago O’Hare and other airports all over the nation. They’d simply run out of patience with their employer the FAA and took matters into their own hands.
Many of the people I saw on TV were friends. Most lost their jobs later that week when they refused President Reagan’s ultimatum, “Return to work or you will be fired.” Few ever returned to air traffic control again, in fact.
There’s little point today in talking about how the strike could have or should have been handled. PATCO stuck its neck out and lost. It’s done, it’s over.
What is interesting about our nation’s air traffic control system today nearly three decades later is how little the agency that runs the system – the FAA – seems to have learned from their own mistakes of that era.
