Ask the small airplane pilot

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

The 336, 337, Adam A500, Moynet Jupiter, and Rutan Defiant are the only centerline thrust twins I know of. It’s a sound concept, but cooling that rear engine can be a problem. Also, if you get your multi rating in a centerline thrust twin, you can only fly twins with centerline thrust. Earning your multi in a centerline twin doesn’t prepare you for the hell that breaks loose when you lose an engine in a conventional twin. :slight_smile:

Interestingly enough, since the Defiant is an experimental, you don’t even have to have a multi rating to fly it. HOWEVER, the inspector may add the requirement as part of your experimental operating limitations.

42

Now that I finally read the link I wanted to address this a bit, because I know it’s something folks worry about.

I also want to point out that this is an accident. Accidents will happen as long as we have airplanes at all.

This is about the worst damage a four-seat airplane, by itself, is going to do. Yes, it’s serious. But compare it to 9/11 - you’re looking at 1 death vs. close to 3,000.

In accidents such as these, those aboard the plane almost always die, and frequently anyone at the immediate point of impact. But the building stays standing and the damage is repairable. Other injuries vary considerably - when the Empire State Building was hit by an of-course bomber there were few injuries outside of the airplane. In this case, there seems to have been more. But there have been far more deaths and injuries caused in accidents where a car plowed into a crowd of pedstrians on a sidewalk.

Certainly, we want to prevent accidents of this sort - indeed, the article mentions that normal flight paths avoid this part of Milan. When possible, flight paths follow the path that would minimize risk and damage to those on the ground in the event something bad happens. For instance, the traffic for Meigs Field always flew over the water, not over Grant Park or the skyscrapers nearby. That way, if something happened the airplane would fall in the water and not on people. And when things did go wrong (and there were some accidents over the years) that’s what happened - the aircraft went into the drink, not the tourists.

Then there’s the problem that, even if you build an airport in the middle of farmland, there’s a tendency for the city to sneak up on it. This happened to both Midway and O’Hare. I think Midway was originally an onion field, and surronded by small farms. Not anymore! There are houses right up to the airport fence. Same for O’Hare - originally that was rural territory, now it’s entirely urban all the way around the place. So, back in the late 70’s when a DC-10 had an engine fall off and the airplane crashed, it crashed into houses - because people built houses next to the airport. Had a somewhat similar issue at Palwaukee - a developer built an apartment complex a couple miles off the end of runway 34. The airport kept telling everyone the buildings were too close - they were at risk if there was an accident. Well, pretty much no one listened. The airport put up a crash fence, and a couple berms, and hoped for the best. Then, back in 1996 (if I recall correctly) a Gulfstream IV business jet cartwheeled on take-off. One of the flaming engines came to rest 10 feet from the apartment buildings and some cars in the parking lot were destroyed.

They’re talking about building another big hub airport out in Peotone, in farmland, where there are few neighbors to annoy and lots of greenspace buffer. Well, IF they ever build the place I guarantee that within 20 years you’ll have house rash all around the place and commercial developers wanting to build buildings so tall they threaten to interfere with flight paths (they’ve had exactly that in Schaumburg, Illinois for years - no joke, folks want to put up skyscrapers directly under the flight paths of passenger jets taking off and landing and don’t seem to understand why this is a Bad Idea)

So, there’s this push pull between safety and what everyone else wants. You can tell people until you’re blue in the face “don’t build so close, it’s not safe” but they do anyway - and then complain about the noise! People who move in next to O’Hare? Excuse me, you didn’t notice that there’s a jet going by overhead every 90 seconds when you were looking at the place???

At my local field, the owner recently bought two properties off the east end of the airport both to allow for some runway expansion but also to keep people from building to close to the airplanes. You need a buffer zone around airports… but too many see that as “wasted land” that could be developed for profit rather than a safety need.

A current problem we small plane pilots are facing are cell towers. These are frequently 200 feet or shorter, which means they don’t have to be lighted, they are typically white or grey, white means they blend into haze really well, and they’re springing up all over the damn place. When they spring up near an airport they’re dangerous. And the people who build them that close seem to be clueless to this fact, and impervious to reason.

Once flew out of an airport called Winnemac. Well, there I am on runway, ready to take off to the east. I get in position and look up. There’s a freakin’ tower lined up with the runway centerline off in the distance - but not far enough in the distance. From a pilot’s perspective this is somewhat like planting a 100 or 200 foot tall tree in the middle of a highway on-ramp. Well, the weather was good, I could see it plainly, but I still had to dodge left or right after the wheels left the ground to feel really safe about the whole matter. Stick that tower a quarter mile north or south and everyone will be a lot better off - as it is now, someone is going to smack into that thing sooner or later. Man, try to talk to these people and they’ll say something like “well, we were told a Lear jet could get over that no problem”. Well, yeah, it could - but I don’t fly a Lear. And, guess what, Skippy, neither does anyone else using that airport. At least stick a light on the damn thing so it’s easier to see.

That, by the way, is how situations like this can occur. The more tall objects near an airport, the more likely there is to be an accident. It’s simple, really. Accidents happen for three reasons:

  1. People make mistakes
  2. Machines break
  3. Only God controls the weather

Sooner or later, you’re going to have someone either screw up, an engine that isn’t working right and thus does not allow the airplane to climb properly, bad weather that makes the tower impossible to see, or some combination of the above.

You see, if something goes wrong with my airplane (and that has happened to me) or the weather gets real bad real fast (and that has happened to me) or national security demands I land immediately (and once upon a time that happened to all of us) I can do so - one advantage of my type of airplane is that I can land in a very small space if I have to - but you have to allow me a place to land. If you build tall buildings right up to the airport fence, allow unchecked proliferation of towers, and otherwise hem me in we’re both screwed. Me, because I’ll be trying to land in your driveway. You, because I’ll probably damage some of your property doing do. Or maybe land in your corner office on the 10th floor. Let’s be honest here, niether of us wants that. Which is why I generally prefer to fly someplace other than over heavily urbanized cities like Chicago. Yeah, I’ll fly over Chicago if I have a reason to do so, and I have done so, but when I’m looking down and the best looking emergency landing spot is the roof of a shopping mall… well, I’m just not real happy about that sort of situation.

43

(I admit before I ask it that this is a question with a lot of variables involved.)

How much does it cost to learn to fly? Assume I can get my license in about a year, taking the average number of hours. It’s something I’ve thought of doing for a while, and I’d like to have some good idea what it’s going to set me back. (I’m in the Puget Sound area; I assume location also makes some difference.)

Also: what books about flying would you recommend reading? William Langewiesche’s Inside the Sky; anything else you’d recommend?

44

Broomstick or other small airplane pilots, is it true that they tend to hire very young, very attractive ladies to man the small airplane (private plane) terminals/airports?

I recall Broomstick had a thread about a girl who worked at one being harassed, but I can’t remember if you discussed this or not. My SO flies a lot in various private planes and says this is true…even more so he says that it’s something of a joke that some of these girls flirt a lot with the plane passengers–almost that they are paid to flirt… And he claims the flirting depends heavily on the type of plane…for instance when he flies with his friend in a 182, there’s not much flirting, but if he uses the KingAir or the Beechjet he has to peel the girls off of him (he;s almost 60).

Yes, I know this is stereotypical, but does it happen?

45

My private certificate was around $4000. The private pilot certifcate usually costs between $4500-$6500, nowadays.

I would try to get it done faster than that. Try to fly at least three times a week, everyday if you can. The faster you do it, the more you retain from lesson to lesson, and it will take fewer hours to get your certificate. That translates into a LOT less money. Also, try to have as much of the money up front as you can. If you have to take time off from flying to save up more money, you will only end up costing yourself more in the long run.

I flew as often as I could, and I got my private in 43 hours over 2 1/2 months. That’s way below the average, and it saved me a lot of money.

Stick and Rudder, by the same author.

46

Absolutely - I second Stick and Rudder.

The book has been in continuous print since 1944… that’s darn impressive. I just bought by third copy - seems when I lend it out it doesn’t always come back.

Anyhow - available at Border’s, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and a whole bunch of other booksellers.

47

Although on second reading, I feel compelled to point out it was Wolfgang Langewiesche who wrote Stick and Rudder, not William

48

Not yet.

We do have a fellow at the local airport who owns a Skymaster, so maybe one day I’ll at least get a ride in it. But, man, that airplane is loud! I was coming in to land one day and I could hear his engine over the sound of mine as I passed him waiting next to the runway.

Right now? Zero (unfortunately). Between my husband losing his job and then spending a week in the hospital money got a little thin for awhile. I hope to get back in the air in June. Meanwhile, I lurk on message boards or go down to the airfield to beg for rides… really, I’m quite pathetic, going puh-LEEEEEEEZE take me up pretty puh-LEEEEZE I’ll wash your airplane or change the oil just puh-LEEEEEEZE take me up —

But, when life is going well, um… 4-8 hours a month. Over the course of a year… about 60-70 hours logged, plus time aloft that’s not loggable which I don’t much bother to keep track of. February, May, and August are usually terrible months around here, so almost nothing those months, more some of the others.

49

Except for Skyharbor in Phoenix, Arizona. That Class B airspace is most definitely rectangular. Not aware of any others like that.

If you’ve ever been there, it’s obvious the shape is dictated by local topography.

50

Actually, when the guy at my airport with the Skymaster bought his plane the local FSDO told him that the FAA had discontinued the in-line thrust rating and wanted him to get a conventional multi rating.

He wasn’t happy.

In fact, he was so not happy he wrote a multi-page letter to the FSDO explaining that he wasn’t interested in flying any other multi-engine airplane, only his multi-engine airplane, which was in-line thrust. He pointed out that the emergency procedures concerning single engine operations in an in-line thrust set up differed considerably from those of a conventional twin, and that the standard multi-engine requirements would, in fact, NOT prepare him to properly deal with such a situation in his airplane. He also pointed out some other stuff I wasn’t too clear on, something about being unable to demonstrate certain things done in conventional twins in his plane because of the differences in thrust lines. He then asked for an in-line thrust rating, and even mentioned where and with whom he would undertake this training.

The FSDO countered he had a point, but if he took that course his multi would be restricted to solely in-line thrust multis and there weren’t too many of those. It would be a restriction on his certificate blah, blah, blah

He said no problem, he didn’t care about a line on his license say “in line thrust only” next to “multi-engine”, all he wanted was to fly his Skymaster safely and legally, blah, blah, blah

I think there was one more exchange of letters.

He now has an in-line thrust only multi-engine rating.

You can always ask. Sometimes, you even get.

Whoa!

Not true!

If you are the actual builder you do not need a multi rating to fly a Defiant, but if you are NOT the original builder (presumably, you bought it from the builder, or from someone who had) then you DO need a multi-engine rating to be legal.

One of those fine distinctions people keep tripping over.

51

D’oh!

(No, I am *not * trying to pad my post-count. Maybe I just need to preview more)

Berkut, you forgot the second Rutan in-line thrust design - and so did I until just now.

Voyager is an in-line thrust twin.

Granted, there’s only been one ever built. So, technically, it’s the Rutan/Yeager Voyager, N269VA if I recall correctly. And it’s probably the only twin ever built that was intended to run single-engine most of the time. But then, if it was an ordinary airplane it couldn’t have spent nine days going around the world on just one fill-up of avgas, could it?

If I also recall correctly, it is the rear engine that’s critical on both Voyager and the Cessna Skymaster. For in-line thrust, is the rear engine always/usually the critical engine? (See - small airplane pilot asks questions, too!)

52

So what’s ILT?

I’m really good at aerodynamics and physics but I sometimes fall apart on the frequent acronym usage.

I can tell what IFR is and even CAFB but help me on ILT.

And if you can give me a quick reminder on airpsace classes. Class A is the most restrictive, with class E (?) the least restricted? A smidge of help, if you can spare it.

53

Sorry - ILT=In Line Thrust, meaning one in front and one in back.

And airspace - runs A-G. Without bogging down into exceptions, roughly

A - anything above 18,000 feet, an instrument flight plan and instrument rating are required to operate in that airspace. Working radio and an altitude encoding transponder required.

B - a really big, really busy hub like O’Hare, JFK, Skyharbor, Atlanta, LAX, Heathrow, etc. Working radio and an altitude encoding transponder required.

C - a large airport, like Midway, Milwaukee’s Mitchell Field, and a bunch of others. Working radio radio required… and I think a transponder (oops, time to review that reg again!)

D - big enough to need an air traffic control tower, but on the smaller end of towered fields. Working radio required.

E - Um… well, this might be an airport, but it’s also federal flyways (in the US) and some of the airspace in between airports. At this point, you don’t have to have either a transponder or radio, unless you want IFR services while in the airspace, in which case you need at least a radio.

F - The US doesn’t use this, so I don’t know. The US also happens to have the remnants of an airspace category no one else uses called TSRA’s, but why bore ya’ll?

G - a.k.a. “uncontrolled” airspace. Just what it says - air traffic control services are not available. No radio or transponder required. You can’t get an IFR clearance because there is no radar coverage. East of the Mississippi this exists mostly between the ground and 800-1200 feet. West of the Mississippi, you can actually have great big patches of this existing up to the floor of Class A.

If I have this correct. Class A goes up to something like 60,000 feet. Above that and I think you’re back to Class G again. Unless they come up with a new designation for low Earth orbit.

54

av8rmike covered some of this a little earlier. There are maps published and updated on a regular basis for just about everywhere in the world. Navigation in airplanes is different than in a car, because in the sky there are neither roads or nor roadsigns

There are also radio navigation aids that send out signals most cockpits are equipped to detect. There’s GPS. There are a couple other systems, but they’re much less common.

And there’s always landmarks if you’re flying VFR. After some practice, you can become pretty good at judging distances like 5 miles or 10 miles away from you, although weather effects like haze or smog can throw you off.

In my own area I know the landscape and can tell where I am just by looking out the window. When I travel to areas I’m less famillar with I rely more on major landmarks like big lakes or rivers, towns, and so forth. In those cases you also have to keep track of your progress - “Let’s see, I’ve been flying this heading for 42 minutes at this airspeed, and accounting for the wind that would put me here”

Experience can make you quite good at this. I believe I mentioned an ultralight pilot in Oregon who takes trips of over a thousand miles - I don’t know if she’s bought a GPS yet, but I do know that as of 5 or 6 years ago she was still navigating strictly by map, compass, and watch because her aircraft doesn’t have radio nav aids.

Small airports greatly outnumber big airports. There’s only something like 40 big passenger hubs in the US, and over 5000 “small airports”. Then we have the guys flying out of their backyards… (obviously, you need a fairly large backyard)

So, you’re downstate Illinois? DNV was my second solo cross-country back in my student days. Hard for a student to find, with all the relatively featureless farmland around. Which forces them to use the radio equipment and their ded reckoning skills (in other words, it’s a good learning experience).

As for proximity - my airport, Gary airport, and Lansing airport are all within less than 10 miles of each other.

Paulwaukee is only eight miles from O’Hare. Schaumburg is even closer to O’Hare (although not so close to Palwaukee). So sometimes they can be quite close together.

There’s a lot more small airplane activity out there than most people are aware of.

55

I know MonkeyMensch answered this earlier, but I’m putting my two cents in anyway.

Your basic control is either a yoke or a stick. The yoke is the one that looks like a steering wheel. The stick looks like… well, a stick. They both do the same thing, though. It’s the equivalent of the steering wheel on your car. It provides the right/left, up/down (oh, dear, I’m already in trouble - purists, I’m trying to keep this simple, OK?). Actually, it points the nose up or down, which may or may not result in the airplane going up or down. See the previously mentioned Stick and Rudder for an explanation, or the early in this thread Angle of Attack posts.

The rudder pedals are for steering on the ground (when learning, it’s common to make the student keep their hands in their lap so they don’t try to steer with their hands) although if your moving around in strong winds you’ll also need to use the yoke/stick because even on the ground that wing is still affected by the air around it. Rudders also help keep your turns neat, but they aren’t normally used to make the turns.

I usually tell people that if you can handle a stick shift car (and most of us can, even if we haven’t had a reason to do so) you can steer an airplane.

Many (but not all) airplanes also have flaps, which are used during landing. Many also have “trim”. It allows for fine adjustments of the control surfaces on the wings and tail, which relieves the work load on the pilot. In some respects, it’s like cruise control for your car.

The dials and switches are usually stuff like radios, heaters, circuit breakers, and stuff like that. MonkeyMensch mentioned the “six pack” of flight instruments, but the rest of what’s on the “dashboard” isn’t so much airplane controls as accessories. Which is not to dimish their role at all - especially when flying on instruments alone, in bad weather, those “accessories” are abosolutely vital to life and limb.

I stick to fair-weather flying in simple airplanes. In many cases, there has been less stuff on the control panel than there is on my car dashboard.

When I was flying ultralights I typically had only an airspeed indicator and an altimeter - or as we sometimes put it, a “how fast” and a “how high”. If you’re flying in your local neighborhood and stick strictly to good weather it’s really all you need.

Once I had an airplane with a complete electrical failure - alternator died, and a drained battery. I got someone to help me hand prop it to get the engine started, climbed in, and flew home. Because there was no electrical, just about none of the instruments worked - the whole panel was dead except the airspeed, altimeter, vertical speed indicator, and turn-and-bank. No gyros, no radios (although I had my handheld back up with me so I used that), no nav aids, no nothin’ that wasn’t strictly mechanical. No big deal. I followed roads back home, the weather was fine, and the landing uneventful. At least until I started swearing about the FBO giving me a rental plane with a bad alternator.

Of course, the more complicated the airplane, the more controls. Airplanes with retractable gear need someting to make the gear go up and down, and something to make sure it is all the way down before you land on it. There are airplanes with props you can adjust in flight for greater efficiency, which is another control. Multi-engine airplanes need controls for each engine, and gauges for each one, too.

However, even though the interior of a Boeing 777 cockpit looks insanely complicated (and it is), there’s still a yoke and a set of rudder pedals for each pilot. The Airbus has a stick and rudder pedals. Some things just don’t seem to change.

56

Sorry, but your statement is incorrect. FAR Part 61 states:

You do not need a multi rating to fly an experimental with two engines, as experimentals are not divided into classes.

The exception to this is when a multi rating is specified in the operating limitations of that particular aircraft. It doesn’t matter a bit who built it. It’s an experimental no matter who built it. Now, the person who built it is the only one who is eligible for a Repairmans Certificate for that particular airplane, which may be what you are thinking of.

57

Yes, that’s exactly what I said in my previous post.

58

If you want to see the difference, here’s a pic of a typical cockpit. That’s a Piper, here’s a Cessna. It looks like a lot of dials but it’s just for instrumentation to let the pilot know exactly what’s going on.

Broomstick, I may have missed it, but what kind of plane(s) do you normally fly?

59

First of all, it would have been helpful if you had specified FAR 61.35(k) when quoting chapter and verse.

Secondly, my statement was based up my experience with homebuilders and the FSDO’s in the Great Lakes region. Now, either those FSDO’s have been routinely issuing experimental certificates to fixed wing and rotorcraft specifying such limitations, or else they have an entirely different interpretation of the rules than you do. Personally, I do not wish to argue with South Bend, DuPage, or Milwaukee about this issue. I believe their interpretation has been that FAR 61.35(k) is for such things as trikes registered under the experimental rules rather than for machines that are clearly airplanes, even if experimental airplanes. And if it looks like an airplane, flies like an airplane, and has more than two engines they want you to be either the actual builder or have a multi-engine rating (actually, they prefer folks building their own multis to get multi-ratings if they don’t have them already, but they can’t enforce that requirement by their own interpretation so there you go)

And yes, my dear, I do know the difference between a repairman’s certificate - which no, was not what I meant - and category and class of both aircraft and pilots. Are you sure that you do?

For the licensing of pilots, aircraft categories are airplane, rotorcraft, glider, powered-lift, and lighter-than air. Those are the categories of aircraft a pilot is authorized to fly. Under airplanes, you have the classes single-engine land, multi-engine land, single-engine sea, and multi-engine sea. Rotorcraft classes are divided into gyroplanes and helicoptors.

However, for aircraft certification there is no mention of single or multiple engines. For aircraft the categories are normal, utility, transport, acrobatic, experimental, and restricted. (there are actually a few others like provisional and primary as well).

So do not confuse part 61 - which deals with the certification of pilots - with he the certification requirements for aircraft. My single-engine land rating with no additional frills allows me to fly a fixed wing aircraft that has one engine and does not have water-going capacity, whether that airplane falls under normal, utility, acrobatic, or experimental. But it does not allow me to fly a multi-engine anything, unless I am the builder of said creation. (There’s also some stuff about I’m not to fly complex, high performance, or traildragger airplanes until I get some additional training, but how muddy do you want these waters?)

60

Actually, it’s 61.31(k)(2)(iii).

Look, I have already quoted the relevant FAR, I can’t help you any more than that. Here it is in a bigger font:

(2) The rating limitations of this section do not apply to—
(iii) The holder of a pilot certificate when operating an aircraft under the authority of an experimental or provisional aircraft type certificate;

And here is the key, probably what your FSDO has been doing when they issue airworthiness certificates to homebuilts: You need a multi-engine rating ONLY if it’s been specified in that particular aircraft’s experimental operation limitations.

It’s probably even standard practice to do so now, but that changes nothing. You DO NOT need a multi-engine rating to fly a multi-engine experimental, unless that particular aircraft’s operating limitations specify it.

Period.