Whoooops.
My mistake.
Are flying squirls afraid to fly since 9/11?
Actually, what I want to ask is: Is there more supervision of some sort since 9/11? You mentioned being able to just go up and fly out in the boondocks. What provisions are there to stop a boondock flight from becoming a mini 9/11?
Well, do they have miniatures of the World Trade Centers?http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/04/18/italy.milan/
Costs vary somewhat.
If you are willing to leave your airplane outside, an assigned spot can be had for as low as $25 a month. That includes anchor points used to tie down your aircraft - and you do need to literally tie them down. This is cheap, but you risk damage from high winds, ice, hail, and so forth. Cleaning frost and snow off an airplane in the winter is a real pain in the backside. Cloth covered airplanes - they’re often called “rag wings” - deteriorate much faster outside due to weather and sun damage. After a certain point you have to replace the entire fabric covering, which costs several thousand dollars.
By keeping your ragwing inside, you can extend the life of its skin many, many years longer than by leaving it outside. Even for metal airplanes, indoor storage is much better. Among other things, it helps keep moisture out of your electronics - frequently, the radios and navigation equipment in a small airplane is worth more than the basic airframe itself. So, whenever possible, indoor storage is preferred.
A garage for an airplane is called a “hangar”. You can rent space in a community hangar, where your airplane shares space with many other airplanes. It will be inside. It may even be a heated space - which largely means it’s kept above freezing - which means you don’t have to clean ice off it, you can pre-flight out of the wind, and it’s easier to start the engine on really cold mornings. A spot like that costs anywhere from around $50 a month to hundreds at a big airport like, say, Midway. Electrical power may or may not be available in such a hangar. As a major downside, line personnel may not be as careful with your airplane as you are. And in a community hangar, where the airplanes sit closely and resemble interlocking puzzle pieces, they’ll be taking planes in and out and re-arranging them all day long as this person wants that plane or they need to put another one in. This can lead to “hangar rash” - damage that occurs when airplanes collide, rub against each other, or otherwise are handled less than carefully. Usually minor, but not always.
A private or semi-private hangar - one rented or leased for just one or two people, or by a flying club with joint ownership of some airplanes, I think is around $180 a month at my airport - of course, if you have “roommates” you can split the costs. A hangar like that can cost thousands at a big airport. These hangars frequently are outfitted with couches, chairs, toolchests, cabinets, refrigerators, BBQ grills and other amenities provided by the tenants for their own comfort. Others prefer to keep things simple - just the airplane and things needed for maintenance. Such services as snow removal may or may not be included in the cost of rental.
Hangar space always seems to be in short supply. The waiting list for private hangar space at my airport is averaging two to three years. This is not unusual.
Fuel costs vary somewhat. “Avgas” is basically high octane leaded gasoline, and right now at my local airport it’s running $2.87 a gallon (compared to $1.80 for the stuff that goes in the car. At a big city airport, it may run in excess of three or even four dollars per gallon. When Fulton county’s airport was selling avgas at just under $2/gallon last summer, folks were flying in from Illinois and points up to 150 miles away to fill up.
You also need oil. I don’t know what a quart of airplane oil costs right now, but you’re supposed to change the oil after every 50 hours of operation, and that’s 6-8 quarts each time, plus oil filter, safety wire, and lots of paper towels to clean up the inevitable spills.
There’s other stuff, like properly inflate landing gear tires, changing landing gear tires, spark plug replacement, and so forth that need to be done and can be done by the owner without the need for a mechanic, if the owner feels up to the task. A licensed mechanic is running $50 an hour and up, mostly up.
There’s an annual inspection for privately owned airplanes. You can hand your bird over to a mechanic’s tender care and just pay the bill. Or you are allowed to assist the mechanic, which will likely reduce the amount of his time required and the amount of money extracted from your wallet.
I have a friend who last year replaced all the windows on his 30 year old airplane - the first time that was done, but they were all yellowed with age and scratched. Set him back a couple thousand, but it was worthy it. A lot of stuff like upholstery and windows can go decades with proper care, but eventually it needs work. Paint eventually needs to be re-done as well, although if you keep the airplane inside most of the time a good paint job can last 20-30 years.
So, if you have a good year, you may only spend a couple thousand, particularly if you’re sharing space with a friend. But every so often you need to put more money into it. I know a number of folks who, every time they fly, put a certain amount of money into a savings account dedicated solely to airplane maintence so when it’s time to pay for this they have the money (or a good portion of it). Flying clubs typically charge monthly dues, which again go into an account devoted to airplane maintenance. If the club is well run, it will be able to schedule maintenance and repair, and be able to even pay for something like a new engine when the time comes. Of course, not all flying clubs are that well managed.
Nope.
Mach Tuck covered most of the issues with this. I had considered at one point getting my commercial license partly to do some very small time stuff like air rides or maybe glider towing, but financial problems this year have severely impacted my flying, much less training for further ratings, so that project is on hold for the near future.
So, for now, I can split the cost of renting an airplane with friends, even if those friends aren’t pilots, but I’m not allowed to profit off my flying at all. Pilots do, sometimes, split the cost of a trip, and if a passenger wants to chip in for some gas/rental money I don’t turn them down. On the other hand, I don’t insist, either. I like giving people rides. I do not, however, ferry people from place to place. If they’ve GOT to be someplace at a certain time I suggest they take another form of transportation because, to be honest, the weather can play havoc with a schedule. When I take a long trip I have to allow for delays, and I usually have a back up plan in case I have to land and spent the night in a hotel. I don’t play games with the weather. I have limited skills, and I fly airplanes with limited capabilities. As long as I stay withing those capabiltiies I feel quite safe. Straying outside those lines can be quite dangerous. I’m in this to have fun, not terror. i’ve been forced down into a field because of bad weather and I’m not eager to repeat the experience.
I’ve also had situations where people are screaming at me, calling me horrible names, because I told them point blank we aren’t flying today. Look, that’s just too bad - I’m not running an airline, and I don’t like to scare people. If the weather isn’t right, or the airplane isn’t right, we ain’t going and that’s final. Other people are very understanding about the rules - I have a friend who will drive an hour and half for a chance to go for a ride, and if she shows up and I have to tell her well, the weather turned or I found something wrong on the pre-flight she takes it like a good sport and I buy her lunch (when we do fly, she buys me lunch). Her, I’ll invite her to come fly anytime because she understands that when I say no it’s for a darn good reason. Truthfully, sometimes I don’t feel up to it - that’s one advantage to doing this as a hobby instead of a job. If I feel tired or a little off I just don’t go - I don’t have to worry about losing my job over it. And there have been times I’ve cancelled a flight because I didn’t sleep well the night before, or I’m preoccupied with some problem I’m having at work or with the family. Sometimes, I’ll catch a ride with someone else, where I don’t have to take on the responsibility of being the pilot and I can just sit back and enjoy being a passenger.
Don’t worry about it - for some reason it’s a common mistake. Why, I dunno - no one’s ever mistaken me for a guy in real life.
Then again, most pilots ARE men (by about 20:1), so if you run into one on-line the odds are heavily in favor of the person being a guy. Maybe that’s it.
Generally, I’m amused by it more than anything else, so don’t worry about offense or hard feelings.
Also I Follow Rivers and I Follow Railroads 
Great thread!
My question: Have you ever had a chance to fly an ILT aircraft?
A friend would take me up a few years ago in his Cessna 337A Skymaster and was teaching me the basics. I found the “Mixmaster” (as he called it) a very easy plane to fly and very forgiving for a beginner such as myself.
And do you know of any other craft utilizing inline thrust like the 337?
Well, for starters, the amount of damage I could do with a small airplane like I fly is severely limited. They aren’t designed to withstand impacts, for one thing - if someone rammed a Cessna 172 into a small brick building you’d wind up with a totally crumpled and destroyed airplane, and minor damage to the building. They actually DID have a C172 slam into the White House during the Clnton years, and that’s about what happened - smashed airplane, dead pilot, some minor touch-up paint for the White House. I’m not going to say it’s impossible to do damage with a small airplane, but threat is pretty low. There’s probably more reason to be concerned about Ryder trucks full of fertilizer and diesel fuel wired to blow.
I think at present there’s more concern about small airplanes being used to scout out potential targets than anything else.
Rather than attempt to keep an eye on the entire continental United States - a huge and very expensive proposition - the emphasis has been more on identifying potential targets and keeping an eye on those. There are a few areas we aren’t supposed to go anymore. For instance, we have to keep our distance from a nerve gas storage area in rural Indiana (which I never even knew existed before 9/11) and if you get too close the air force will pay you a visit.
For awhile, there were folks who wanted us to stay 30 miles away form every power station in the country. Problem is, that would kill general aviation entirely - there are too many power plants. And really, there’s no way a small airplane could possibly penetrate the outer shell of a nuclear reactor containment building. They built them to withstand jet impacts and actually did some real crash tests. So now they say it’s OK to overfly a power plant as long as you’re clearly just passing by from point A to point B. If you start circling over one you’ll get a visit from the authorities.
Some of the new things involve keeping unauthorized people away from airplanes, or preventing theft. There are new rules about securing aircraft like crop dusters. Airplanes like I fly also come under some new rules and minimum standards for security.
But despite what some TV shows would have you believe (I hear “24” is really bad for that) a small airplane is unlikely to make a good terrorist weapon. Want to blow something up? Use a car bomb - your average sub-compact can carry a LOT more Bad Stuff than my Cessna or Piper. Mohammed Atta was a pilot and he frequently rented airplanes - if small airplanes were so suitable for mayhem why did he go to the bother of hijacking a big Boeing?
Like I said, mostly it’s a matter of forbidding us to approach certain areas too closely, or without permission. There have been pilots intercepted, forced down, and arrested for violating those areas over the past few years. When the alert level goes up, some of these areas expand in size. When it goes down, they shrink (usually). Truth is, some of this is still being worked out - the system as it currently is was designed for traffic control of honest people, not national security.
Security DID increase for several months immediately after 9/11, and I do know several people who were intercepted (one guy three times in a month! Poor man - brown skin, foregin accent, climbing into an airplane… some folks got a little hysterical. He was actually our chief flight instructor at a local school and head charter pilot at my airport.) But as things calmed down and got more organized some of that eased up.
There are also hot lines available for pilots to call in reports of suspicious activities and people, and the safety seminars sponsored by the FAA and local airports have been going over the new procedures and what to watch out for on a regular basis for a couple years now. Pilots do have an incentive to cooperate and prevent trouble - one more air attack we could all lose our privileges and our airplanes will become very expensive lawn ornaments. We were all pretty damn offended at what happened - pilots don’t have a formal ethical code written down, but if we did it would have stuff like you’re not allowed to harm or scare people on the ground in it. (we’re talking civilian pilots, not the military) Really, pilots view someone using civilian aircraft to delibrately harm others probably like doctors view a monster like Josef Mengele. It is so NOT what we do!
This thread has been rather informational (and it seems like you’re in the same general area of the country as me, so even more so).
So, you can’t enter a busy airport’s airspace, unless they’re aware of it. How do you determine their airspace, especially if you’re flying visually? Do you just estimate it and say, “Well, they’re off over there, so I’m clear,” or “Well, I can see their tower, I guess I’d better let them know who I am.”?
Also, the county where I live in Illinois has its own airport (DNV), and one county over has its own airport (CMI). Is this typical, that two small public airports would be that close together, or are small airports relatively rare?
How do the controls of a small airplane compare to the controls of a car, in terms of complexity, number of dials and switches, etc.?
::stepping on Broomstick’s toes::
I’m much less wordy than Broomstick is, so I’ll just answer simply: That’s what charts are for. And why pilots are taught to navigate visually. The airspaces around “big airports,” known in the lingo as “Class B airspaces,” are charted with big heavy blue lines. If you’re operating from an airport near one, you know (or will be taught) how to navigate around the airspaces and what are the safe altitudes, to fly under the Class B airspaces.
There’s nothing “relatively rare” about small airports. I don’t know the exact numbers, but there’s something like 4-5,000 public use airports in the U.S. alone and close to 20,000 if you include the private airports (i.e., ones in people’s backyards). It’s kind of like Starbucks; they can be clustered together in one area, and some places you can go miles without seeing one. It all depends on how much the community needs and will support one (either an airport or a Starbucks 
)
I guess I’m just interested in the translation of lines on a chart to landmarks. You just learn generally what landmarks on the ground correspond to the airspace, is what I’m getting.
There’s really no correlation to driving, because if you cross a state, city, or county line there’s always a sign that says “Welcome to:” So basically it’s as if I learned that “Once I pass this tree, I’m in Illinois,” or something like that?
All Class B airspaces are different, to be certain. But they all have a basic layout, sometimes described as the “upside-down wedding cake.” There is a surface layer that extends from the airport, usually to a five-mile radius, and then two or three successive layers above that, out to a maximum of usually 20 miles. If you have the proper equipment, you can find out your distance from the airport’s beacon and be sure you’re staying outside their airspace. Most times, though, it’s as simple as, “once you get past the power lines, you’re safely outside the 10-mile ring and can climb to 2,000 feet.” Just substitute the appropriate landmarks.
Well, they’re sort of similar. Instead of one you get six. But it’s not that bad.
You get a speedometer. It’ll be called an airspeed indicator but that’s not right either. It’s a dynamic air pressure gauge. That’s no big deal, though, 'cause dynamic pressure is what all pilots really care about anyway. The good news is that it will show miles per hour for most conditions, more or less.
Since you’re not restricted to the surface of the Earth you get a vertical odometer, aka the altimeter.
And since we’ve added another dimension let’s give you a vertical speedometer. This’ll be the VSI, or vertical speed indicator. Sometimes the geeks name these things just right.
Since you’re free to wander all over God’s green Earth in your, what was it again…a P-38?, you’ll need a compass. Ususally it’s a gyrocompass but I’ll not let technicalities stand between posters on a fine Sunday evening.
The remaining two instruments are superfluous in terrific weather. CAFB is the technical term for nice conditions. One of the instruments is an artficial horizon. It shows an horizon with a little plane superimposed upon it showing what the hell your airlane is doing with respect to the real world.
The last gauge is a weirdo. It’s the turn and bank indicator, or sometimes turn indicator. The bottom half is a ball in an arc filled with oil. As such it acts as a centrifugal force indicator. My buns tell me more than this things does. The other part of the gauge, and much more impotant, is the turn indicator. It’s a little airplane and the degree to which its wingtiips deflect is an indication of how fast my heading is changing. So if some ATC folk tell you to turn at 3 degrees per second to the left you can comply.
I think it started as a good idea that has steadily acquired a useless crust on its trip through the rule-making process and will not come to be until it has been modified sufficiently as to render it almost useless.
But I’m not sure that’s really the answer to the question you were really asking.
The aircraft it covers are the “heavy ultralight” variety. Many are fixed wing, but there are others such as trikes (a seat under a hang glider wing) and powered parachutes (PPs) that most pilots are completely unfamillar with. And in some cases the fixed-wings are not three axis machines, they’re only two axis, which requires you to think differently about some of the things you do.
The three axis fixed wings won’t be too difficult for your average spam can pilot to convert to (but see quibbles below) but trikes and PPs use different control systems and a pilot moving from fixed wing to one of those is going to have to spend some time in training.
One big problem the ultralight crowd, and to a lesser extent, the light homebuilts, have had for years is with folks not getting enough transition training. If someone used to flying a Cessna 182 (to mention one of enipla’s favorites) steps into, say, a two seat Quicksliver without some transition training there is a very good chance of an accident in the near future. Yes, these airplanes do obey the same laws of physics, but they are so light, so full of drag, so slow, that the way you plan a landing is different. On the lighter end, they behave in a 10 knot wind like a four-seat metal airplane behaves in 25 knots. Even on the fixed wings, the controls may not be conventional, or conventionally placed (the oddly placed fuel lever in John Denver’s last airplane, for instance). IF a pilot sits down and carefully considers the differences beforehand they can successfully transition themselves… but that’s like saying because the Wright brothers taught themselves to fly everyone can. Everyone can’t. Although most pilots are disciplined, most aren’t that disciplined, thoughtful, or cautious. That’s why we invented dual instruction. It lets more people survive their early mistakes.
As mentioned, there are also things like trikes where you may need to learn new emergency techique recoveries. A big problem for fixed wing pilots moving to trikes is that, whicle stall recovery in a fixed wing means moving the controls forward, in a trike you move the control bar back, towards you and not away. Very important to get this correct in an emergency… and very dangerous to have the wrong reaction for the aircraft you’re flying to be the ingrained habit.
So mandating that a private pilot (or more advanced rating) MUST receive transition training for these is a very good idea.
I think it’s also good that there will be a clear way to make things such as two-seat trikes legal under the system - at present, they don’t really fit the system well. A few have been N-numbered, but the process has been inconsistent.
However, sport pilot also means the loss of the training exemption for ultralights. Now, when (if) sport pilot is fully up and running this will not (in theory) be an obstacle, you just take training in a two-seat version of your ultralight, or something near to it, then move to your single-seat. However, they’re ending the exemption before sport pilot comes into effect - which will leave us with a gap in the training system. We’ll be back to the early 80’s, when death rates from teach-yourself techniques were higher than anyone considered acceptable and a lot of bad things happened – which is why the FAA granted the traning exemption that allowed dual instruction for ultralights in the first place. Doing things this way will drive our most experienced lightestplane instructors out of business.
The insistence on certified, factory built trainers for sport pilot will drive training costs up. I’m somewhat divided on that one - I think more consistent construction of trainers is a good thing, but higher prices… a little is tolerable, a lot is not.
But the biggest stumbling block, in my opinion, is the “driver’s license medical”. For those of you not aware of the regs, at present all licensed pilots much pass periodic physicals (how often and how thorough depends on whether or not your operating as a private pilot or a commercial pilot, and also on your age). One of the more controversial proposals for sport pilot is the idea that if you’re healthy enough to drive a car, you’re healthy enough to fly one of these airplanes, and so if you have a valid driver’s license that will count as your certification as healthy enough to fly.
That’s more stringent than the current US ultralight rule, which doesn’t require ANY form of medical certification. Someone prone to epileptic seizures can legally fly an ultralight in the US. They can’t fly anything else. (But as far as I know, this has never happened - most epileptics can figure out why this might not be a good idea)
What it comes down to is that the FAA will let you kill yourself, but not someone else. Ultralight instructors, like glider pilots and balloonists, have to “self-certify” they are medically safe to fly, and even then they are only supposed to be flying students, not tourists (even for free).
As soon as you have the potential for someone sitting in a seat next to the pilot, someone who may know nothing about aviation and have no means to judge either the soundness of the machine or the competence of the pilot, things get complicated. Originally, the recreational pilot certificate was supposed to be a self-certify medical - but the DOT wouldn’t stand for it and insisted on a class three medical, just like a private pilot. And by the time they got done with the rule, recreational pilot was so close to private pilot almost everyone just opted for private.
I see the same thing happening with sport pilot. They’ll put so many rules and restrictions and stuff into it that, when it’s done, it will be another recreational pilot and 99% of folks will just go and get a private and be done with it. Especially since I don’t think there will be sufficient sport pilot instructors. A few folks will use it for two-seat trikes and powered parachutes, but for the rest… they’ll stick with the current homebuilt and experimental regulations, which give you many more privileges for only modest increase in time, money, and regulation.
The only way sport pilot can be a success is with the “driver’s license medical”. That will pull in a number of former pilots who can’t pass a third class anymore but still want to fly, which will provide enough numbers to support an industry serving sport pilot.
How do I feel about the driver’s license medical qualification? Well, sport pilot airplanes are pretty darn limited, and under the rules it’s strictly daytime clear weather flying - which is about as unstressful and easy as flying gets. I think that, yeah, if you’re healthy enough to fly a car you’re most likely healthy enough to handle one of these (once you complete your training). The problem is, there are a lot of folks driving cars who shouldn’t be. So again, I have some mixed feelings about this. A couple high-profile accidents could tar everyone in aviation.
Yeah, I’m wordy.
Thanks. Out of curiousity, do you know what the most common medical problems people have that they can’t get a 3rd class medical?
I’m thinking something like this:
http://www.airplane.cz/news/news-2004-04-20.htm
(more like dreaming, but slightly more realistic dreaming than something like
http://www.superthree.com/ or http://www.centaurseaplane.com )
I do transition training for any plane type I fly (Ie.g I traiuned in a 150 and transitioned to a 172 and a 177), Even something minor as a change to a 182 I’d train for. Now it is likely to be only a couple of hours but still I’d do training.
Something like a low wing piper with different fuel controls would require more training.
Brian
Well… really I was trying to make a point of true necessity vs. preference.
The utility of small aircraft for routine transportation varies considerably. If you live in a desert area the lack of precipitation may enable a VFR pilot to use a small plane for routine transportation. In someplace like Alaska, where there is a lack of roads, it may be the only practical way to get around with any speed. In island areas like Hawaii or the Carribean it’s another way to cross the water. In very rural/wilderness areas a lot of farmers and ranchers have planes to survey their land, keep track of livestock, and get to civilization quickly instead of spending hours and hours on back roads.
In an area like Chicago and surrondings, it is less practical. For one thing, the severe winters impose stress on the humans - you can get seriously chilled doing a January pre-flight outside, and the heaters in these things aren’t the greatest - and the humidity in the air at all seasons leads to fog in the summer (for which an IFR rating might help you… but sometimes the pea soup goes right to the ground and even an instrument rating won’t help you land safely) and ice in the winter time, both potentially lethal hazards. I know there are several air traffic controllers in the area who commute to work via airplane when the weather allows, but all spend a significant number of days driving rather than flying to work.
I do know of a woman in Oregon who has used her ultralight to commute to work… she also organizes a 1200 mile trip to the Grand Canyon almost every year as well. I’d say she’s an unusually dedicated ultralight pilot and has far greater than average navigational skills. So it’s also partly dependent on the individual as well.
I used to fantacize about flying into Meigs Field, and I might have done it a few times if it hadn’t been for the landing and handling fees - total charges for a C150 or C172 were around $90 shortly before the place was wrecked. I’m sorry, a $90 parking fee was over the top even by Chicago standards (and the place still had 35,000 landings its final year!) A fee $20 or less - comparable to parking your car downtown - and I would have done it. I mean really, a 15 minute commute instead of an hour! What’s not to like? But it would have cost more to land and park than to rent the airplane!
Around here, if you have to fly regularly for business reasons an IFR rating is somewhere between worthwhile and mandatory. Other places - Death Valley, for instance (which does have an airport, by the way) daily commute by air might be entirely practical.
Thanks!
Off topic? I don’t think so.
Anyhow, I started in ultralights, that was my first two years of flying (which is one reason folks are sometimes puzzled to hear how many hours I have vs. years I’ve been flying - my ultralight hours do not “count” according to the FAA and do not appear my official FAA logbook).
After a couple of years I realized that I wanted to share flying, which left me only a few choices:
-
Fly illegally. This did not appeal to me for a variety of reasons.
-
Become an ultralight instructor (but I wasn’t interested in teaching)
-
Get licensed.
I chose number three.
Ultralights DO still exist, but they’ve mutated from their early appearance and now frequently resemble their larger cousins the real airplanes.
There’s also some complicated stuff regarding what is and isn’t an ultralight, weight limitations and “fat ultralights” and so forth which I will go into if anyone is interested in hearing about it.
Yep, there’s the rub.
I have been in a number of threads where someone will say you don’t need something. For myself a 4x4 is a necessity. But some people will argue that I don’t need it because I could always get another job and move. This argument gets taken to such extremes that you can’t even use the word ‘need’.
So Broomstick how often to you get to fly and how many hours per month to you manage to get in? I quickly re-read the thread to see if this was addressed and forgive me if I missed it.