WardHolbrook

A while back I was asked to participate in a career fair at the local high school. A retired American Airline pilot and I manned the Aviation Booth. It's a fairly large school and they also bused over kids from the local Jr. High. It was pretty disappointing - although all of the school kids walked past the booth at one time or another, a grand total of TWO kids came and spent time with us talking about career possibilities. (One of the those was working on her private license.) A friend of mine is the chief flight instructor at a local 141 flight school. He said that the flight training business is at an all-time low for them, essentially non-existent. Personally, I don’t think that GA is in its death throws, but it is certainly being stressed. How can young people afford $125+ per hour rental rates or the ownership costs while they are in their career building years, especially when the airlines and business is in the state it's in? It has always taken a certain amount of career fixation and tenacity to make a successful career in aviation, perhaps even more so now.

Thank you!

The photo that Aaron posted is quite dated. Here's one taken recently of him at the computer...

Ah yes, dear old Cap'n Piche. He and his crew totally screwed up and nearly lost their Airbus and everyone on board after running it out of fuel out over the Atlantic. But wait there's more... They then gained rave reviews for saving the day by deadsticking it in the Azores. Reminiscent of that famous quote by a local sheriff that responded to an aircraft accident: "The good Lord was with that man. If he had not run out of gas, the plane might have caught on fire when it crashed." ~ Monroe County Sheriff Cecil Cantrell What's the old saying... A superior pilot uses his superior judgement to avoid having to demonstrate his superior skills. All that being said, if I were King of the World I would require every fixed-wing power pilot to have glider, tailwheel and aerobatic experience. The glider time will give you confidence and skill for that time when your engine decides it's had enough and teach you things about how aircraft performance and how they fly that aren't taught by your typical CFI in his trusty C-172. The tailwheel training will teach you what your feet are for. And that basic aerobatic training will come in handy when some yoyo controller accidentally cuts you in a little too close behind that B757 ahead of you on approach or when you get distracted and get just a little too slow in the traffic pattern.

Glider flying has many benefits that will carry over directly for power pilots and those skills really come in handy when your "bullet-proof" Lycoming decides it's had enough.

Very easy actually. I've taken both a 28 hp 2-cycle powered ultra-light and a 65 hp Aeronca 7AC Champ up to 17,500' by simply flying them like they were gliders. I also was able to get a Turbo Commander to maintain altitude and even climb a bit with the power levers at Flight Idle doing the same thing.

They don't take civilians up anywhere near as high as they do military personnel. That being said, thank you for your service and your sacrifice (brain cells). People react differently. A person's reaction to reduced O2 can occasionally vary or change over the years - I know mine did. The one common denominator is a feeling of well being - "I went up to 17,000 and I did just fine." Yeah, I'm sure you did, please tell me what other classic symptoms did you exhibit? Some people will sit there fat, dumb and happy until the lights suddenly go out. Some people will do this, other people will do that. It's important to know what your personal symptoms are. Mine frightened me - I don't like it that I think everything is perfectly fine then blamo, the lights go out. Hypoxia is nothing to mess around with. The training is important, even if it's just to the altitudes that they take you to as a civilian.

All of you guys who occasionally find themselves above 10,000 ft MSL really should take the time to attend one of the altitude chamber courses offered around the country. Guaranteed, it will be a real eye-opener (actually eye closer ) and well worth the cost. I've been twice at the University of North Dakota, but I understand that the Air Force will get you in theirs at a very nominal cost (Free?) Here's a link to the FAA website covering the training... http://www.faa.gov/pilots/training/airman_education/aerospace_physiology/

In my opinion, Pinerunner hit it spot on... "If you're flying around mountains there may not be one, simple, good answer to this question. If you were to get into good lift you might get an astounding altitude and if you got into bad sink you might struggle to get 10,000 ft. I was brought up around small mountains in Maine and the White Mountains and it mattered there." The MEAs are high for a reason. Just because you can coax an airplane up to its service ceiling (or even beyond) doesn't mean that you've got enough available performance to deal with the sink that also comes with flight in mountainous terrain. If you're IFR and struggling to maintain a 14,000' MEA what are you going to do when you encounter sink? Same question if you're VFR. It's not too difficult to come up with scenarios where the outcomes are very bad. Read the accident reports, they are not uncommon. The is simply no good, fast, easy, rule-of-thumb on how to deal with this. This is where judgement and experience enter into the equation. Weather, winds aloft, and time of day all enter into it as well.

The problem with unplanned excursions above 10,000' msl is that frequently, the pilot doesn't have O2 available to use. I don't care who you are, once you go above 10K without being on supplimental O2 your judgement starts getting pretty iffy pretty quickly. As for the question of how high can you fly a normally aspirated Mooney M20C, I have no idea. I have flown a 28 hp ultra light and a 65 hp Aeronca Champ up to 17,500 ft using standard, off the shelf soaring techniques. I could have easily gone higher, but I just had a nasal cannula. I'm sure that, given the right conditions, you could coax a Mooney M20C much higher. Of course, that would be pretty much useless on a routine cross country.

I wish that you guys could watch the crew in a professionally-flown cockpit - airline, corporate, military or charter. It's poetry in motion. Everything is done in a timely manor and at a very deliberate pace. There is little wasted motion. Over the years, I've have the opportunity to work with many individuals (at least a dozen) who were making their initial transition into jet aircraft. One of the "newbie" common denominators that I've seen in both the sim and in the airplane is their apparent need to constantly be doing something. It's a bad habit that needs to be broken. You don't have to earn your living in a cockpit to fly your Mooney in a professional manor. It's a mindset and the approach you take. You won't see many professionals screwing around raising flaps during the rollout unless there is a legitimate need to do so. You won't see a professional screwing around with cowl flaps, fuel pumps and frequency changes or whatever else while rolling down the runway. A pro will run the flows and follow up with the checklist. Everything will get done, every time and at the appropriate time. OK, I'm off of my soapbox.

Sorry

Read your POH suppliments. I'm surprised they are not labeled. My guess would be TOGA, CWS and Transponder.

Aerodynamic braking? What are you flying an F-15? A couple of serious questions what is the need for aerodynamic braking in a Mooney and just how efficient is it? I've flown a Lear that had a drag chute. Below about 70 knots it's effect was negligible. Left to it's own devices, a Mooney will roll to a stop, without touching the brakes, within the confines of most of the runways that most of us use most of the time. In order to get any meaningful amount of aerodynamic braking, you've got to be going fast enough to hold the nose off, way off, the runway. Go watch the boys in the Air Force do it. Merely pulling back on the yoke during rollout is going to have little, if any, effect. I'd bet the difference would be best measured in feet, if not inches. I don't want to come across as picking on you, but it just might be that you are one of those guys I was talking about. Sometimes, it really is better (and safer) just to sit on your hands for a while. A Mooney is a model of efficiency. Some Mooney pilots are anything but. You don't need to be doing something just to be doing something. Oh well, sorry about that, I'll takeoff my CFI hat and climb down from my soapbox.

Flying to ATP standards isn't the issue. Any instrument rated private pilot should be able to handle that. I think the real issue is the experience level of ATP applicants. Given the accident record, at some point, you would have had to expect that the government would step-in and mandate some changes. However, I do agree with your assessment. I foresee the sim training providers coming up with affordable package deals to keep some of their "less popular" sims busy. Market demand and competition should make it affordable. As far as sim training requirement goes, it is a good thing. It really is. There's not a lot that they can do to you during training or checkrides in an airplane. Not so in a sim.

All of this "guessing" at the appropriate approach speed goes away with an AoA. Remember a stall is based upon a specific, constant angle of attack regardless of aircraft weight, not a specific airspeed. I don't own a Mooney (yet), when I do, it will have one on the glareshield.

Like this one?...

I've been a CFI for a very long time. The biggest error I see Mooney pilots consistently make is with airspeed control. There is a tendency to fly way too fast in the pattern and crossing the fence. This causes many guys to start compensating for one poor technique with one or two other poor techniques. It's just that simple. If you are one of "those guys", go find a GOOD Mooney CFI and fly enough patterns with him/her until you can break the old habits and form the proper new ones.

My favorite moments (in no particular order) are: Flying an ILS to minimums and looking up to see that the runway is really there. That feeling never gets old. The feeling of "levitation" you get when you punch through a cloud deck at about 4,000 fpm. Believe it or not, the only other time I get that same sensation is when I'm working strong lift in a sailplane. The sunsets. The sunrises. Northern Lights The feeling of acceleration when you stand the power levers up in a lightly loaded jet. Hearing the traffic on the highway below you when you fly overhead in a sailplane. Doing anything in a Supercub with the door and window open. And the list goes on and on and on...

In the Falcon 900, we do not have fuel dumping capability like we did on most of the other jets I've flown. It can make for some interesting ref speeds limited only by our 195 knot tire ground speed limit. Of course, the sim instructors seem to take great delight in setting up the most interesting scenarios - like Bogota.

You are preaching to the choir my friend. Go back and read though my posts over the years, I preach recurrent training and plenty of it. You've got to practice this stuff on a regular basis - period. Even in the Falcon we do no flap landing practice in the sim. That's a real hoot, but we only practice that particular manuever in the sim. (I've had to do it two or three times over the years in various airplanes because of systems failures.) Depending upon weight, ref speeds in swept-wing jets without flaps can get eye-watering and the conditions that usually would result in no flaps being available also leave you with compromise braking capabilities. It makes for interesting approaches to very long runways. At work, I take advantage of dead-head legs to practice the occasional maximum effort landing. Even in the Falcon 900, I can consistently plant it on the numbers and make the turn off 2200' from the threshold. I would never do it with the boss on board, it's borderline violent and we wouldn't want him to spill his coffee, but I do get compliments from the tower everytime we do it. (Grin) You're right, you need to do stuff like that on occasion to keep the apple polished.

Like I said, "If you're flying off of a 2000' or shorter runway that's one thing." You're doing it the way I would be doing it under those conditions, but the point remains, most of us aren't operating off of a 2000' runway.

Of course, that goes without saying, but seriously, how often do you need "maximum braking effect"? If you're flying off of a 2000' or shorter runway that's one thing. If you're like most of us and could takeoff and land two or three times on one trip down the runway, that's something else. The term "maximum braking" means something when it comes to airplanes. It is an abnormal manuever, normally saved for "special" occassions. You probably wouldn't like it as a passenger in an airliner or bizjet. Just as you wouldn't like it if someone did it all of the time in your car. All I'm saying is that for most of us, most of the time, there is no need and nothing to be gained by screwing around with anything during the landing roll out. There are times when you are best served by just sitting on your hands.

My advice would be NOT to touch or move anything during the landing roll out that is not absolutely necessary - flaps, air brakes, cowl flaps, radio frequencies, anything. It's a bad habit that really can come back and bite you. Occasionally, there may be some times where reconfiguring would be necessary (ie a touch and go), but those are exceptions to the rule. In a jet, few things will draw the ire of captain faster than having the guy in the right seat start to flip switches during the roll out. You are not saving any time or being any more efficient. All you're doing is distracting yourself from the task at hand. (In my airplane, I tells guys that do that that I will break their fingers if they screw around like that again.) Now, if you've got a ways to taxi prior to clearing the runway, then you might call "Taxi speed" once the deceleration phase of over and then run your after landing check list, but the last time I checked, decelerating during the landing roll out was considered part of the landing and you need to concentrate on the task at hand. When it comes to flaps or gear, I ALWAYS look and verify that I am on the proper lever before I move it. In some airplanes it's all too easy to grab the wrong one. Take your time, be deliberate. What's the rush?

Since you asked, yes they can - on turbojet aircraft.