WardHolbrook

Wise choice

A torque roll like this isn't intentional. Those WWII single-engine fighters have massive engines in relation to the size of their airframes. At slow speeds, with a sudden application of power, the torque is simply too much for the flight controls to over come. It's a rookie mistake. I understand the guy was getting checked out in the airplane with a CFI.

Over the years I've witnessed 3 fatal accidents. It's a very sobering experience. I sounds like a torque roll to me. RIP.

I was in an Aztec when be broke out the lunch sacks. We had a cooler in the back where we kept the lunch and a 6-pack of soft drinks. The guy right behind me was the first to open his can of Coke. You can probably guess what happened next. What a mess - Coke a cola was everywhere, carpet, headliner, sidewalls, back of my head, on the instrument panel, Not one of my best days. It took a long time to get everything cleaned up.

Are you checking sites like FlightAware or FltPlan.com to see what routing ATC is giving aircraft with comparable performance prior to filing? I've found the secret to filing into of out of Class Bravo airports (or any tower controlled airport for that matter) is to find out what their departure and arrival gates (fixes) are and file appropriately. I would also suggest you give them a call on the phone and ask that their departure routing criteria is. (I guarantee that it's not an arbitrary decision made at the whim of some controller.) Knowing that and filing accordingly is a time saver for all concerned. Like I said earlier, I've come to expect "cleared as filed" clearances pretty much 98% to 99% of the time. You've got got to do a little homework prior to filing your flight plan. Most of the time it's just a matter of looking up what ATC has given other aircraft on those two websites.

Me too. I also log it if ATC clears me for the approach even in VMC. It's a common procedure at some airports for jet arrivals.

I think so, but honestly, I've never used the app much. I've always gone online and did everything at home then headed out to the airport.

Oh that I could hear those words from my wife!

When it comes to a traditional paper vs an eLogbook, I would say that if you only can have one, then you pretty much need to go the paper logbook route. That's the way I went for about 35 years or so. Later, I gave up logging time all together. I had other ways to prove currency - FlightSafety ProCard for IFR currency and company records for night and landing currencies - but I did keep copies of my aircraft trip sheets just in case. Finally a few years back, I found myself with a bunch of free time and the need to update my resume. For grins, I bought a copy of Logbook Pro and started entering all of my flights from Day 1. It took a couple of years worth of extremely part-time effort but I finally got all 47 years and just under 15,000 hours entered. It was a lot of work, but when I was finished, I was very glad that I took the time to do it. At least now, with the Logbook Pro iPhone app it's simple to keep the logbook current after each flight and it automatically syncs to the program on my home computer. I appreciate the speed and ease at which you can mine your database for information and print out just about any report or summary is amazing. For me, the best part about Logbook Pro is their optional Route Browser add-in. It overlays your flights onto a US or World map or Google Earth. I've attached a copy to show what it looks like. You can break it out pretty much any way you'd like. This view shows all of the domestic US city pairs that I've flown to. I've flown between most of these pairings many times and as I'm approaching the end of my career, it's pretty neat to see what you've accomplished. It's something that I'm glad I took the time to do I've got similar maps for the rest of the world. Once a year, I print out the sheets to update my paper logbook and I back up master copies to a thumb drive, an external hard drive as well as the cloud. I'm not worried about losing it. .

No, PDC is something totally different. PDCs are actual IFR clearances that preclude the need to contact clearance delivery and are the same as a verbal clearance . FlightPln.com does have a PDC service that you can subscribe to, but it is for turboprop and jet aircraft. Here's some more info... http://www.fltplan.com/pdcinfo.htm?

I am not aware of any why to get the actual clearance online, but there are at least a couple of ways to get your expected ATC routings - one through FlightAware.com and the other through FltPlan.com. You can set them up to send you a text or email (or both) as soon as your flight plan enters the system. (Up to 2 hours prior to your ETD.) The messages will give you your expected ATC routing and delays. You can also set them up to provide notices of departure and arrival to via text or e-mail to family and friends. In the jet, all flights are IFR and these services are worth their weight in gold. I can't tell you the last time I received a clearance that was different than what we were expecting. It has happened, but in the 100 or so flight plans I filed over the last 12 months it happened only once or twice. It makes life easy to have the routing displayed on your smart phone as you're taking down your clearance. As always, there are some caveats when using the “expected ATC routes” function of Fltplan.com and other similar websites: The Planned ATC Route is not an ATC clearance. You must still contact Clearance Delivery, Ground Control, FSS, or Departure Control to get a valid ATC Clearance. The Planned ATC Route is not a PDC. The Planned ATC Route is what ATC is planning for your flight, and will most likely be the Route segment of your ATC clearance. So you can expect to receive the standard routings/vectors to the applicable departure and arrival gates. The Planned ATC Route will usually be available about 10 minutes after the flight plan is transmitted to the ATC system. For international departures to the U.S., the Planned ATC Route is usually not available until 30 minutes before the scheduled departure time. The Planned ATC Route is for informational purposes only and may differ from what you actually get from Clearance Delivery. If you guys aren't using Fltplan.com you're missing one of the best bargains and most useful tools out there. If you wait until you've started your engine to get your clearance and figure out if your routing is going to be as filed, you're making things much more difficult than necessary on yourself. There is a lot of value in a handheld that you keep in your flightbag as a safety backup, but the true utility is to use it to check ATIS and get your clearance far enough in advance to get everything sorted out in your mind prior to engine start. It's pretty much SOP in the corporate and airline world to get your clearance 20 to 30 minutes prior to engine start and taxi. With a handheld you can do the same thing.

It's been my experience that it would be pretty much impossible to fly any of the jets I've flown without instrument reference. At least not to the standards required. That said, I only log as actual instrument time that time when I am actually IMC, in other words, only that time that I am actually in the clouds. There are other times when you could log actual, but I've never bothered to do it. You're not going to impress anyone with the argument that "all of my instrument time is hand-flown. I don't use autopilots." It's easy enough to tell if a guy knows how to hand-fly instruments, it seldom takes more than a few minutes. At some point, instrument flying becomes second nature, just as flying visually is.

15,000 hours total. 1056 hours of actual instrument and 1623 instrument approaches (Plus another 600 hours in sims and 100 hours of hood time.) over the 40 years I've been instrument rated. You don't get a lot of actual in jets.

Does anyone still argue against LOP? That's so 2008.

1. Not necessary. There are many GU landings caught on video. Has there ever been one where the aircraft caught fire? I honestly can't remember any. 2. Because most guys end up missing it. 3. Potentially very expensive. I understand that if the airport offers it, they pay for it. If you request it, you pay for it. I have heard that it's not cheap and the insurance companies won't pay for it. Would I request it? No. Would I accept it if they offered it to me? Probably.

I don't think that applies today. You'll hear ATC trying to contact pretty much all of the aircarriers on guard from time to time. Only occasionally do you hear them asking company to try and contact the errant flight "on company". I could be wrong.

The requirement to monitor guard is a holdover from the 9/11 national disaster. It was originally implemented, if I recall correctly, back in 2004 and is effective until further notice. It's probably worth reading the entire NOTAM... https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/ifim/us_restrictions/fdc_notams/pdf/FDC%20NOTAMS%204-4386%20and%204-0811.pdf It's not about listening for ELTs, it's about communications redundancy - theirs, not ours. When you read the entire NOTAM, it covers things like flares, knowing the official intercept procedures and the possibility of the use of force for non-compliance. The guys with the machine guns in the Blackhawks and F-16s know all about this NOTAM. I also suggest you keep a copy of the official intercept procedures in your flight bag. You never know when you might accidentally bust a TFR on a cross country flight. Knowing how to properly respond might be something worth knowing.

No, 123.45 is still the international and oceanic air-to-air frequency and one of the "unofficial", but widely used domestic US air-to-air frequencies. http://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Order/6050.32B%20Chg%201.pdf

You ought to listen to it up in the flight levels. It gets so busy that sometimes I'm forced to stop monitoring it. It will overwhelm what's going on on the ATC frequency. It didn't use to be that way - before the notam the only time you were even on it was when ATC called you and asked you to listen for an ELT. It was a desert.

What part of "ALL AIRCRAFT OPERATING IN UNITED STATES NATIONAL AIRSPACE, IF CAPABLE, SHALL MAINTAIN A LISTENING WATCH ON VHF GUARD 121.5 OR UHF 243.0" is a recommendation? It sure reads like a requirement to me. Why then is it standard procedure on airline, military and corporate flight decks?

The requirement to monitor "guard" is contained in an FDC NOTAM from back in 2004 and is in effect until further notice... https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publicat...nd%204-0811.pdf ...ALL AIRCRAFT OPERATING IN UNITED STATES NATIONAL AIRSPACE, IF CAPABLE, SHALL MAINTAIN A LISTENING WATCH ON VHF GUARD 121.5 OR UHF 243.0... It's pretty definite - if you've got the capability you need to maintain a "listening watch" (monitor) 121.5. Period. Now if you don't have a radio, you don't have the capability. If you've only got one radio you will need to use it for other things, but when you're not using it to talk to ATC or Unicom or whatever else you've got the capability. If you've got dual comm radios you've got the capability to monitor 121.5 most of the time. You'll notice that VFR or IFR isn't even mentioned - it applies to everyone. Practically speaking, I only monitor "Guard" once I've leveled off in cruise. Things are usually too busy for us during climb and descent or while we're in the terminal area. It's very common to hear ATC attempt to contact aircraft on Guard. In many ways it really simplifies reestablishing contact with ATC when you find that it's been too quiet for too long.

What he said.

The jury is still out on this one, but that doesn't minimize the fuel management aspect of this. It doesn't matter what engine you've got up in the nose, or how varied your fuel flows are, the technique will work. I know, because it works just fine on the 3-hole Falcon 900 that I fly at work. I plan on 3200 pounds of fuel for the first hour and 2400 pounds per hour after that. I use those numbers to back up the computer flight plan and guess what? On a coast to coast trip I can typically predict what my next fuel up load will be within 10 gallons. That's 10 out of 2,850 gallons capacity. I'm not a super pilot or a math wizard, I just know what numbers to use and how to read a clock. If you're ending up with more fuel than you had planned, you're not using the correct numbers. Perhaps 3/22/13 aren't quite right for your airplane, the way you are flying it. It sounds to me that you're actually doing better than that. It's all about keeping your head in the game for the entire flight. In aviation, we call it situational awareness. Fuel issues don't suddenly pop-up out of nowhere, they develop over the duration of the flight, Take a look at any accident where the pilot ran the airplane out of fuel, how many suitable airports were over flown during the last 60 minutes of the flight? There are almost always several. Aviation is both an art and a science. The science part of it is very straight forward, but the art introduces the variables. The science gives us the winds aloft and weather forecasts, the precise fuel flows and speeds, etc. The art part tells us that Mother Nature doesn't always bother to read the weather forecasts and ATC can, and occasionally does, muff up the best, most well thought out flight plan. But it can not fool a wrist watch. All of us fly with a watch, many of us have fuel computers interfaced to our nav systems and all of us have access to the same free computerized flight planning that turbine pilots have been using for years. Using a watch alone, there is no excuse to run an airplane out of fuel. Throw a fuel computer with a GPS interface and a computerized flight plan and you simply have no excuse. But you still have to keep your head in the game and have the fuel where it can be readily and easily accessed without distraction when it is needed. I'm sorry about the rant, but this topic happen to be one of my pet peeves. I'll shut up now.

I'm of the opinion that you should be able to know your total fuel onboard to within a gallon or two at any given point in the flight. You don't need fancy electronics or bang on fuel gauges either, the most accurate fuel gauge in any airplane is still a wrist watch. Every one of you guys know exactly how much fuel your airplane burns every hour. (And if you don't you should.) We each fly our airplanes the way we fly our airplane and the fuel burn never varies much. When there's only 1 hour of fuel left, you should be on the ground or at least on short final. How difficult is that? I don't mean to be flippant, but it's simple math, not rocket science.

Yes, you can move your airplane into an experimental category - it's something that's done every day. However, it's typically done for short duration. For example, a few years back, we needed to get an RVSM STC approved for the bizjet that I was flying at work. This required some negotiations with our insurance company and moving our airplane into the experimental category for a day while we went flying with some flight test engineers. I think what you're thinking about is the Experimental - Amateur Built category. Obviously, that's not an option because your airplane wasn't built by amateurs. That leaves the Experimental - Exhibition category and you really wouldn't be happy with all of the restrictions associated with that one.