Points for Pilots

Nuts for fighting fatigue Years ago when an autopilot was a luxury option, homebuilt airplanes mostly did without them. But then innovative engineers, for example of the TruTrak company, came up with low-cost autopilot installations. That option, wonderful as it was, brought a new aspect to long-distance flying: the effect of fatigue. Surprised? Well, if your plane doesn't have an autopilot, nodding off due to fatigue is not an option, and if done anyway, it may prove deadly. Hence there is strong motivation to stay awake. With an autopilot on board, the plane flies itself for an extended period without any pilot input. Thus, nodding off is tempting, but wrong, of course. "Maybe I should close my eyes for a few seconds,'' the pilot reasons. "It cannot possibly cause a problem,'' the argument continues. Of course, all this is wrong. Seconds easily become minutes, with potentially disastrous consequences. How can a pilot fight this temptation? This post supp

OceanSignal PLB1 Beacon If your plane is equipped for emergencies with a 121.5 MHz Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT)  like my Zenith HDS601, you are depending on old technology in case of a crash. The ELT is designed that a force exceeding 5g triggers transmission of a beep signal. Who will pick up the signal? It will unlikely be a ground station due to the line-of-sight limitation of the signal. This leaves any aircraft overhead that is monitoring 121.5.  All commercial airliners are tuned in to the frequency, so most likely one of them will contact Air Traffic Control (ATC). They will send out  Search and Rescue personnel. Lots of things can go wrong with the process. The ELT antenna may be damaged, the plane may be partially immersed in a creek, . . . Your imagination is the only limit for the possible bad scenarios. If the ELT seemingly cannot transmit the signal, you can remove it from the plane, extend its built-in antenna, and manually trigger the transmission. In my plane, th

  Hale County airport reporting VFR Our flight from Aero Country (T31), our home airport near Dallas, to the Hale County airport (KPVW) in Plainview, TX hasn't been very pleasant. There have been low clouds, forcing us into 1,000 ft AGL flight.  Not to worry.  There are no nasty obstacles or troubling magenta areas on our route. All airports along the route are reporting at least marginal VFR, with ceilings predicted to rise, so ceilings cannot come suddenly down and trap us. The news ahead is even better. Hale County has been reporting VFR for the past hour, with ceilings rapidly rising. But Hale County is just the first stop of the day. Following the excellent advice of C. Sullenberger, the famous pilot of the miracle landing on the Hudson, we look ahead every 30 minutes and examine the weather-reporting airports right up to the final destination of the day, in this case the Grants-Milan airport (KGNT). We have been particularly concerned about the Clovis AFB since it was IFR and

As we approach Weatherford, OK, our first refueling stop on the way to the Rocky Mountains and Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, the Garmin Pilot displays an astonishing situation. A puzzling display of airport traffic The blue-green numbers and arrow heads look like a swarm of bees converging onto the airport. Yet the display rule for these symbols says that each of them is an airplane. How is this possible? Three hours earlier, we had taken off in the dark from Aero Country airport in Texas, the home for our Zenith 601 HDS, N314LB. Shortly thereafter we experienced a spectacular sunrise. Sunrise worthy of Texas The leg to Weatherford is purposely short, to be followed by a longer leg to Goodland, KS. We plan to reach Goodland shortly after noon and stop for the day. You may wonder, why stop so early and not go on? The reason: In the summer, significant turbulence always starts in the mountains shortly after noon.  It isn't fun to fly in the turbulent air, and can even be dang

When we started flying four decades ago, we asked friend Jack, a very experienced pilot, aircraft mechanic, and computer science guru, "What are the odds of an engine failure in flight?" He responded, "About once in your lifetime." We just had that rare event and hope it is the only one for the remainder of our flying career. Here is the story. The Flight Departing at 6 am from the Aero Country airport north of Dallas, TX, a strong tailwind pushes us north to the Lee’s Summit airport near Kansas City, MO in four hours. The new carburetors that we installed a few weeks ago on the Rotax 912 engine of our Zenith 601 HDS have cut fuel consumption. We burn just 12.2 gal in those four hours. We refuel with 91 octane Mogas, help another pilot figure out the self service refueling system, and take off. It’s less than three hours to our final destination, the Boone Municipal airport north of Des Moines, IA. Perfect weather, a strong tailwind, a purring engine. What could pos

You discover that an exhaust pipe of your engine has failed. For example, the pipe has broken apart, going from something like this . . . . . . to these two pieces.  Failed exhaust pipe This isn't difficult to fix. You get a replacement for the broken-off segment, cut the pipe appropriately, and weld the two pieces together. For the fitting and initially tack-welding, you install the two pieces on the airplane, secure them in place, and tack-weld them together. You remove the resulting single piece, carefully weld what so far has just been tacked together, and get a finished piece that is guaranteed to fit. But what do you do if the airplane is at a remote airport and you must create the repaired pipe off-site? We recently had that situation, involving a looming engine failure ; it was a first for us during 40 years of flying. Here is our six-step solution. Step 1 You first tack-weld together the two existing pieces so that a one-piece pipe with correct shape results. Of course, th

The plan was perfect. Fly to Albuquerque, NM and help daughter Ingrid around her house for a day. Then fly to Flagstaff, AZ and drive with a rental car to the Grand Canyon. Camp and hike for a few days, then do everything in reverse to get back to Dallas. The flight to Albuquerque is uneventful except for some turbulence and a strong headwind as we cross the mountains east of Albuquerque and fly toward the Double Eagle airport, our destination. The next day starts with a surprise. The TAF (Terminal Area Forecast) for Flagstaff predicts strong and turbulent winds for the Flagstaff airport, with winds 22 kts gusting to 34 kts.  See below the forecast for the period 16:00Z to 20:00Z, which corresponds to 10 am to 14:00 pm MDT (Mountain Daylight Time). The Z means Zulu. It refers to Greenwich time. Terminal Area Forecast for Flagstaff (KFLG) For the same period, the Garmin Pilot predicts headwinds for the route Albuquerque to Flagstaff at 30 kts. Some headwind had been forecast when we pla