From the Experimental/Amateur-Built category’s emergence in 1947 through the founding of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) in 1953, the classification grew slowly—in part because building on your own meant doing everything: welding, working with fabric, painting, upholstering, wiring, and plumbing. Once you’d found all the raw materials you needed, of course.

It wasn’t until the 1970s that the idea of “kit” airplanes became a serious thing. Frank Christensen is often credited for kick-starting the industry as we know it, providing builders of his Christen Eagle virtually everything they needed to build the airframe. All carefully packaged. All accounted for and tested to work with his airplane. No more cut-and-try, no more scrounging for a set of brakes that might work—or only work with serious modification. For a large part of that project, the parts fit together, turning what had often been a lot of hand fabrication into much more of an assembly process. Then came Burt Rutan and his moldless-fiberglass machines, first the VariEze and then the Long-EZ—to be followed by dozens of similar airplanes that promised greatly reduced build times alongside their impressive performance credentials.

• READ MORE: Ultimate Issue: Are You the One for That First Flight?

By the 1980s, the speed race was on, with Glasair and Lancair battling it out to make the fastest sport airplanes available. They hewed to a simple idea: Put as much horsepower into as small an airframe as you could get away with. Impressive top speeds came, but the real impact was actually behind the scenes. As the designs got faster, they had to become much stronger. Early homebuilts pulled from a rich tapestry of Piper Cub-like airplanes (along with the Cub itself, naturally), where speeds were necessarily low, aerodynamics comparatively forgiving, and the horsepower count was mostly what you could afford.

When the engineering requirements increased for the “average” homebuilt, so did expectations of what the kit would encompass. Early designs anticipated that you’d be able to weld your own fuselage tubes, engine mount, and exhaust system, for example.

From the late 1970s and into the next two decades, builder expectations changed radically. Every new kit was designed to be easier to build, either because the design itself was simpler, or because more of the tedious work had been done at the factory. In time, every flight-critical component would come to be built by professionals, either at the factory proper or by trusted subcontractors. They, as pros, used the right tooling and had the expertise to ensure that the parts were accurately built, typically to a much higher standard than the typical builder could muster.

• READ MORE: Latest CubCrafters Design Looks Back and Ahead

Which brings us to the opening question: Why aren’t there new kit companies popping up left and right, like we had in the latter part of the ’70s and through the ’80s? It’s a simple question with a multipart answer.

Let’s start with builder expectations. For the last three decades, experimental aviation has been in its maturity phase. The best-run and -funded companies chose to incrementally develop their products while working to build better factories. Investment in new tooling technologies, including CNC (computer numerically controlled) machining and, especially, punch-press machines, helped drive almost unseen development. If you look at, say, an early Van’s RV-6 and then consider a recent-build RV-7, you might conclude they’re very similar airplanes.

They’re not. The early RV-6 required a lot more fabrication by the builder and had, by modern standards, fewer semi-finished components. Meaning, the builder was responsible for a great deal of both assembly and alignment because of the need to locate parts relative to one another and drill holes in exactly the right place. Moving on to the current version, which uses something called matched-hole construction, the job gets significantly easier because the parts become self-aligning. Each mating part has the rivet holes placed in such a way that they only go together one way. You’re either way off or right on.

Even with that, though, the earlier versions required the builder to partially assemble large parts of the airplane, drill those locating holes to final size, then disassemble to remove burrs from the drilling process, primer between skins, and commit a few other steps before the parts could be reassembled and then riveted. Today’s technology involves the factory making those holes to final size, meaning that no further drilling operations are required. Assemble the pieces, make sure the surfaces align properly and there are no burrs or defects with the holes, then begin riveting. Removing builder steps helps cut the assembly time and reduces the chances of a mistake. And while it’s true the factory can make mistakes, it’s far more likely any “oops” will come from the builder’s hand.

These time-saving steps cost money for the builder but especially for the company. And they’re really not optional in today’s kit world. Builders expect a high level of completion and that every effort be made to reduce  both build time and the chances for builder error.

I asked this question of a handful of kit companies: Let’s say a tornado came through on a weekend and leveled your plant, what would it take to start again? The answer: between $5 million and $15 million. And that’s assuming you have your design and other intellectual properties already in place. Start the whole effort from zero? Perhaps double, according to my sources.

There’s more keeping this industry in the mature phase than pure economics. In the early days, there was a lot more tolerance for building one-offs and taking risks with startup companies. But those heady days were punctuated by a few marginal companies taking deposits and going under before all the kits or aircraft components were delivered. Some of these companies, trying to elbow their way to the front, found themselves unable to commit the kind of arduous, expensive development process all really good airplanes require. Not that they were dangerous, necessarily, but in many cases the last few clicks of refinement didn’t happen, at least not right away.

As a result, builders became more conservative over time, favoring the established companies that seemed to perform the development work and proved to have the financial grounding to continue producing kit components in a reasonable amount of time. They were also trending toward being followers rather than pioneers, in the sense that choosing a popular make and model gave them a built-in support group at the airport. That’s how the most popular brands became the default choice, making it harder for new entrants to gain a foothold.

• READ MORE: Van’s Aircraft Announces Recovery Plan

Cost is also a factor. Established companies have the advantage of amortizing the cost of the factory, which puts less of a burden on today’s kit prices. In fact, most kits have gone up in price mainly due to increases in the cost of raw materials. And that’s before you look at powerplant and avionics price increases. The kit market has always been price sensitive, so a company that has a stable product line with moderate costs, plenty of happy builders, support groups, and numerous flying examples has an unfair advantage over the newcomers.

But change is coming with the expansion of 3D printing and other new manufacturing techniques. Not that airplanes will, in the near future, be 3D-printed appliances, but that the technology allows for faster prototyping and the possibility of better, more accurate, more easily changeable molds for composite aircraft. (Traditional molds are intensely time consuming to create, which is why companies try to get the most out of them by not changing or updating models any more often than they have to.) And we’re not even considering the possibility of electric aircraft or other powerplant alternatives.

We may look back on this period of homebuilt aircraft as a decades-long time of stability and conventionality, but it’s not for a lack of imagination or wonder. Today’s Experimentals are the product of mature, relatively conservative companies providing the market precisely what it wants.

Tomorrow? Good question.

This feature first appeared in the Summer 2024 Ultimate Issue print edition.

The post Ultimate Issue: It’s Time to Air Out the Kit Question appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

And if you are lucky and you become a docent at an aviation museum, you get to share your knowledge with people from all walks of life. Most, if not all, are volunteers who donate their time and expertise to educate the public about aviation. Museums simply could not function without them.

They may volunteer at a museum once a week (or more) or work alternate weekends. They often wear a uniform of sorts, such as a polo shirt with the museum logo or a jacket or vest and have a museum ID lanyard around their neck. A great many also wear a “fun meter” button with the needle pegged to maximum.

• READ MORE: Earhart Museum to Explore Evidence Related to Aviatrix’s Disappearance

The reason? They love what they do.

As someone who spends a great deal of time at aviation museums, I can tell you they all have their own character and energy, and they all rely on volunteers to operate. Some of the volunteers bring special skills and restore airplanes to their former glory. But many more are the faces of the museum to the public—the docents. You don’t necessarily have to be a pilot, mechanic, engineer, or retired from an aviation career to be a docent—you just need to bring your enthusiasm.

EAA Aviation Museum (Oshkosh, Wisconsin)

“Storytellers are the best docents,” says Chris Henry, manager at the EAA Aviation Museum in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. “They can help make the planes pop to life and make you inspired

to learn more at home. A good docent should lead you to wonderful stories, leaving you wanting to know more and wanting to go home and research further.”

Henry notes the museum has a large cross section of society as docents coming from different walks of life and age ranges.

• READ MORE: New Museum of Flight Exhibit Explores Living in Space

“We have everything from WWII veterans to current high school kids,” he says. “It’s helpful if the docent has a passion to keep learning, and they are passionate about sharing what they learn, and they just enjoy showing people new things that they have never seen or heard before.”

Museum of Flight (Seattle)

The larger the museum, the more docents it has.

According to Brenda Mandt, docent programs supervisor at the Museum of Flight (MOF) in Seattle, the docent cadre is made up of 162 volunteers.

“Most of them work one day a week, and they work the same day and shift each week,” says Mandt.

To become a docent at the MOF, a person must take a 12-week basic training class that acquaints them with museum policy and procedures and teaches how to build a tour.

• READ MORE: Michigan Flight Museum Sells Centerpiece B-17 ‘Yankee Lady’

“Docents have a great deal of freedom to create tours that interest them most,” says Mandt.

Many of the docents either have or have had careers in aerospace or the military and often build tours around their experience.

For example, docents Jim Frank and Dave Cable are retired Navy aviators who served aboard aircraft carriers, so they know about “landing on a postage stamp.” Frank’s talk on the history of carriers is informative and entertaining, and Cable’s tour of the A-6E Intruder, the airplane that brought him home many times, and the F-14 Tomcat are quite moving and bring a smile to the face of museum visitor Jack Schoch, a retired Navy chief who served on five different carriers, including a war cruise during Vietnam aboard the USS Enterprise.

That’s one of the best parts of these tours—the docents are able to make them relatable to visitors.

Palm Springs Air Museum (California)

Requirements for docent training vary by museum.

At the Palm Springs Museum in California, the applicants are required to go through a background check and approximately 40 hours of training, “most of which can be done online,” says spokesperson Ann Greer. They also undergo on-the-job training in one of the 10 different areas of the museum.

“We have over 300 docents, and the museum is run with military precision,” says Greer. “They work four-hour shifts, [and] they may be in one of the hangars or on the hot ramp [where aircraft move] or in the library or gift shop. In the hangars we have a crew chief who keeps an eye on things, and if we want to talk to a particular docent, we have to ask the crew chief. There is a chain of command as the docents’ main job is to interact with the visitors and keep an eye on exhibits and airplanes.”

Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum (McMinnville, Oregon)

At the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum, docents in training will spend at least 50 hours under the wing of Don Bowie, a retired Air Force aviator who has been with the gallery for 26 years.

Although the facility is most famous as the location of the Howard Hughes HK-1, the flying boat famously known as the “Spruce Goose,” according to Bowie, there is a lot more going on besides that popular exhibit.”

The museum features two buildings—one houses the HK-1, and the other is devoted to the Space race. Bowie works the floor, helping visitors and docent candidates learn about the aircraft and spacecraft on display.

“You are a volunteer here, and the job has to be fun and you have to be a people person,” he says. “You meet people from all over the world.”

Bowie says the best part of being a docent is when someone comes in and asks about a specific aircraft that is special to them, and there is a docent who shares their interest.

Docent Schedules

Because docents are volunteers, they aren’t required to put in massive amounts of hours on the job, but many do because it is a labor of love. Most museums ask for a commitment of at least one day a week, and often the docents rotate working weekends.

The docent’s typical day often begins with a crew briefing before the museum doors open. This is when they learn about special events at the museum, such as school tours or corporate meetings, and when exhibits are being installed or removed.

This column first appeared in the Summer 2024 Ultimate Issue print edition.

The post Ultimate Issue: Being Aviation Docent Simply Labor of Love appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Cooler heads observed that the majority of unintentional spins occurred in the traffic pattern, particularly on the base-to-final turn, where there was no room to recover even if the pilot knew how to. So knowing how to spin and recover served no purpose, besides its entertainment value—which, to be sure, was considerable.

Under the new dispensation, pilots were taught, in theory at least, not how to recover from a spin but how to avoid one. Nevertheless, stall spins, usually in the traffic pattern, still account for more than a tenth of all airplane accidents and around a fifth of all fatalities. Because they involve a vertical descent, stall spins are about twice as likely to be fatal as other kinds of airplane accidents.

• READ MORE: A Cautionary Tale About Pilot Freelancing

Why has the FAA’s emphasis on stall avoidance not done more to reduce the number of stall spin accidents? There are probably many reasons, but I think the lack of realism in the training environment deserves some blame. The training stall is a controlled maneuver, briefed in advance, approached gradually, calmly narrated, and recovered from without delay. The real-life, inadvertent stall is sudden, unexpected, and disorienting.

The pilot does not see it coming and so does nothing to prevent it. The training stall is so reassuring that pilots fail to develop a healthy fear of the real thing. After this preamble, you may guess that I am going to talk about a fatal stall spin.

The airplane was a Van’s RV-4, an amateur-built two-seat taildragger with a 150 hp Lycoming engine. It had first been licensed 13 years earlier and later sold by its builder to the 48-year-old pilot, a 1,300-hour ATP with single- and multiengine fixed-wing, helicopter, and instrument ratings. For the past six months, the pilot had been on furlough from regional carrier Envoy Air, where he had logged 954 hours in 70-seat Embraer ERJ-175 regional jets.

On the day of the accident, he added 24 gallons of fuel to the RV and flew from Telluride (KTEX) to Durango (KDRO), Colorado, a 25-minute trip, to pick up a friend. They then flew back to Telluride, where the temperature was 1 degree Fahrenheit, and a 10-knot breeze was blowing straight down Runway 27. The density altitude at the runway was about 9,600 feet.

Entering a wide left-downwind leg at about 100 knots, the pilot gradually decelerated and descended. By the time he began his base-to-final turn, he was about 200 feet above the runway and was going to slightly overshoot the extended centerline if he didn’t tighten his turn. His airspeed dropped to 50 knots, and the airplane stalled and spun. An airport surveillance camera caught the moment—a blur, then a swiftly corkscrewing descent. It was over in a few seconds. Both pilot and passenger died in the crash.

• READ MORE: Two Fatal Cases of the Simply Inexperienced

The National Transportation Safety Board’s finding of probable cause was forthright, though it put the cart before the horse: “The pilot’s failure to maintain adequate airspeed…which resulted in the airplane exceeding its critical angle of attack…” Actually, the opposite happened: The pilot allowed the angle of attack to get too large, and that resulted in a loss of airspeed. It was the angle of attack, not the airspeed, that caused the stall.

Still, it was an airspeed indicator the pilot had in front of him and not an angle-of-attack indicator, so to the extent that the pilot was consciously avoiding a stall, he would have had to use airspeed to do so. 

The published stalling speed of the RV-4 at gross weight is 47 knots. In a 30-degree bank, without loss of altitude, that goes up to 50.5. Individual airplanes may differ.

But in any case it’s misleading to make a direct, mathematical link between bank angle and stalling speed, although the NTSB frequently does just that. When you perform a wingover, your bank angle may be 90 degrees, but your stalling speed is certainly not infinite. In the pattern, you can relieve the excess G-force loading associated with banking by allowing the airplane’s downward velocity to increase—assuming that you have sufficient altitude.

On the other hand, with your attention focused on the simultaneous equations of height, position, glide angle, and speed that your mental computer is solving in the traffic pattern, you may not even be aware of a momentary excursion to 1.2 or 1.3 Gs.

• READ MORE: Three-Mile Limit: Novice Pilots Succumb to the Perils of Total Darkness

The RV-4, with a rectangular wing of comparatively low aspect ratio and no washout, stalls without warning in coordinated flight but is well-behaved and recovers readily. Uncoordinated, it can depart with startling abruptness. It resembles all other airplanes in being less stable when the center of gravity is farther aft, so maneuvering at a speed just a few knots above the stall may be more perilous when there is a passenger in the back seat. Like most small homebuilts, the RV-4 is sensitive to fingertip pressure on the stick and easily overcontrolled.

The NTSB’s report on this accident does not include any information about how many hours the pilot had flown the airplane or how many of those were with a passenger. The FAA registry puts the cancellation of the previous owner/builder’s registration just one month prior to the accident, suggesting the pilot may not have had the airplane for long.

The pilot never stabilized his approach. He descended more or less continuously after entering the downwind leg several hundred feet below pattern altitude—to be sure, the pattern at Telluride is 400 feet higher than normal—and never maintained a steady speed even momentarily. His speed decreased more rapidly as he entered the final turn, perhaps because he felt he was a little too low and instinctively raised the nose. Besides, the terrain rises steeply toward the approach end of Runway 27, possibly making him feel he was descending more rapidly than he really was.

A final factor that may have played a part in this accident is the altitude. The runway elevation at Telluride is at about 9,100 feet. Density altitude doesn’t matter for speed control in the pattern if you pay attention to the airspeed indicator, because all the relevant speeds are indicated airspeeds. But your true airspeed, which is 10 knots greater than indicated, can still create the illusion that you have more speed in reserve than you really do when you are making a low turn to final.

There’s a reason that students are taught to establish 1.3 V_s on the downwind leg, begin the descent abeam of the threshold, and maintain a good speed margin throughout the approach. It helps keep the stall-spin numbers down.

Note: This article is based on the National Transportation Safety Board’s report of the accident and is intended to bring the issues raised to our readers’ attention. It is not intended to judge or reach any definitive conclusions about the ability or capacity of any person, living or dead, or any aircraft or accessory.

This column first appeared in the Summer 2024 Ultimate Issue print edition.

The post Ultimate Issue: Analyzing a Fatal Final Turn appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

It’s been the catch phrase used everywhere the last few years, and it has become the gold standard of top quality aircraft or those so realistic and so well designed that you could study them to obtain actual type ratings and pass an initial course.

Most add-ons are of simpler design and varying levels of quality, but over the years, these study level aircraft for the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 (MSFS20) and X-Plane 12 (XP12) platforms have grown in numbers.

I am old enough to remember the old fighter sim called Falcon 4.0 in the late 1980s and early ’90s. It came with a thick paper manual that felt like a novel. I miss those days of real boxes, manuals, and reading material.

Some of the most detailed aircraft add-ons come loaded with PDFs to study, and some have nothing at all, leaving it up to the customer to go online or just obtain the actual real aircraft’s study manuals. It seems lazy to not bother to publish a manual for an aircraft release, but then again, if it’s so realistic that the only PDF says “go obtain a real Airbus A320 POH” for more information, I’m sold. If something is that good and complete, then I think the developer is allowed to be lazy, or perhaps a bit big braggish.

Most commercial pilots, or experienced aviators in general, were dismissive of flight sims at home. Twenty years ago, I was embarrassed to come out of the sim closet for I’d be a victim of skepticism or at least a target of laughter. “No flight sim can do anything close to what ‘real pilots’ deal with in Level D sims,” I was often told. Or, I’d hear, “Oh, yeah, that little Microsoft Flight Simulator, I played with it once. It looked like a cartoon, so that won’t help anybody.”

• READ MORE: Turn Up the Heat in Sims With Density Altitude Games

This is what every older-and-bolder, gray-haired retired airline pilot said when seated to my left.

Now that I have gray hair, I am all too happy to encourage the younger generation to get active with sims when they aren’t flying the real thing. It’s also accepted among almost all real pilots I know as a really useful tool now that photorealistic graphics are everywhere and far exceed the quality of a $20 million sim the FAA approves. For as little as $2,000, you can rival those simulators at home.

I am not going to mention every study level aircraft available—that would require a book.

Yet over the years before and even right through MSFS2020 and XP12, several come to mind and most are quite famous and have been around for a long time:

Precision Manuals Development Group

The company has been around since the early 1990s. It’s the longest add-on group ever for any sim, and in my opinion, the finest. Everything about it is study level.

Its entire Boeing products are the gold standard of what an add-on should be, and nobody has rivaled it in producing a Boeing 737NG, 747-400, or 777. Now since the release of MSFS2020, we have been enjoying the entire 737NG set, including BBJ. Almost every system, failures, controls accuracy, autopilot, performance, switchology, sounds, visuals, etc. have all been reproduced perfectly.

• READ MORE: The Art of Simulated Long-Haul Flying

Years of development for just one airframe. You’d ace a type rating in the real aircraft after spending time with PMDG products. I wish I could go get a 737 type rating just to test this theory myself. I feel I know no other aircraft as well as this one, due to my years with PMDG 737s. Now, we are about to get its 777 finally after years of waiting patiently. It will be released this year and continue the outrageous quality and realism we all crave from a company that really only releases masterpieces.

Fenix

This company is a new entrant that stormed onto the stage just last year with its completely detailed A320 for MSFS2020. Upon release, it quickly became accepted as the most detailed Airbus for any sim platform.

In my opinion, the early release suffered from performance and frame rate issues as it couldn’t compare to the smoothness and fidelity of the PMDG lineup. But a year later, with all the refinements and the recent release of the update or Block 2, it is now a masterpiece. Detailed systems right down to individual circuit breakers are modeled. Engine modeling and accuracy is key. All that has been done, and now the IAE version is included, each with its own systems, sounds, and realistic performance.

• READ MORE: Taking Risks at a Trio of Mount Rainier Airstrips, Virtually

Some say it has blown past the PMDG. Whatever the opinion, I share the zeal. It’s smooth, precise, and many real airbus pilots online tout it as basically perfect. A true study level that you’d absolutely use during type rating school. I’ve enjoyed flying it now, as much as I have over the years with the PMDG lineup.

SimMarket

This company sells the Maddog MD82 for MSFS2020. I am not as familiar with the older airliners, so I will defer to the majority of sim fans online holding this up to the level of the Fenix.

For MD fans, this is also a real keeper. It represents a blend of systems modeling and accuracy all from the later ’70s to later ’80s replicated at a high level. In a battle for the top, this is often referred to as the best airliner ever made for MSFS2020. I’ll have to learn it better to give my own opinions, as I have used it little, never being a Maddog fan. But I see the reviews touting it as in the top few airliners ever released.

X-Plane

It has the outrageously in-depth Felis 747-200 series for the X-Plane sim. It is one of the most complete jetliner simulation add-ons I have ever used—from nose to tail. This is one of the reasons I still use XP12.

I cannot say enough about this masterpiece other than I wish it was available on MSFS2020 as well. You need to be three pilots at once to handle this beast. Setting up view points is key, as you’ll not only be pilot and copilot but flight engineer as well, often manipulating the systems as you sit sideways. You can feel the quality, heaviness, and momentum.

X-Aviation

The company sells the most renowned and sought-after bizjet for any sim, the Hot Start Challenger 650. This completely study level jet is once again simulating entire circuit breakers from head to tail. Setting the bar so exceedingly high, it’ll be what all future bizjets are compared to.

Sadly, only X-Plane 12 has it, but again, that’s another reason I still use it. The accuracy, realism, handling, etc. is all spot on. I fly a similar aircraft in real life and find this exceptionally close to the real thing. Again, it’s a type rating quality example to learn from. Many have called it the best jet ever designed for any sim, and it’s impossible to disagree. It certainly rivals the airliners above in total quality and experience.

Flysimware

It has a Learjet 35A that was recently released in “early access.” I have featured this in many an article so far, and it is well on its way to what I would call an honorable mention study level aircraft.

Its blueprint quality visuals, scaled parts, and cockpit clarity make this a winner right out of the gate. I’ve never seen such a beautiful reproduction in an early access or beta-style release. The flight quality, accurate avionics, sounds, and more make this a really promising product when the final version comes out.

It is the best pure bizjet built specifically for the MSFS2020 lineup so far. Let’s leave the jetliners behind now, as accuracy and study level can go down a category and be just as advanced.

A2A Simulations

The company has the 1960s Piper Comanche 250 featuring its coveted Accu-Sim 2.0 technology to bring a living, breathing aircraft to your desktop. This example must be run as gently as a real one, maintained and babied, or else face what real owners face: expensive repair bills.

You can damage and destroy the airplane if you’re a ham-fisted pilot. The aircraft requires a full preflight and walk-around inspection. You can test the fuel and do everything a real pilot would during a flight.

Continually monitoring its wear and tear, systems, and cleanliness is all part of this intensely realistic model that keeps its constant state alive, meaning it will remember its health on a continual basis, even if you fly something else in between on different days. You even get to perform an overhaul and other yearly tasks.

This airplane has quite a following and has been labeled by many as the best general aviation aircraft ever designed for any sim. I believe A2A is leveraging its AccuSim technology to future releases, and it certainly has captured the immersion of owning, operating, and maintaining a personal airplane like no other.

Conclusion

These are all my experiences with what I own and fly in the sim world. Your opinions may vary, especially when you get into the smaller airplanes as it’s much easier to simulate a simple single-engine in study level than an airliner.

In some ways, many of the default or add-ons for GA are close to this namesake already. A basic default Cessna will accelerate any new student pilot right to the top. The graphics of MSFS2020 and XP12 aircraft are good enough and photorealistic enough to permanently lodge in the brain of anyone learning to fly and stay current.

It’s a great time to study and learn in today’s flight sim environment. Compared to what we had in 1981, everything now is study level.

This feature first appeared in the Summer 2024 Ultimate Issue print edition.

The post Ultimate Issue: Taking Sim to a New Level appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Meanwhile, many airlines are actively hiring for one particular behind-the-scenes job. Aviation Maintenance Technicians (AMTs) are in high demand throughout the United States and around the world.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics anticipates four percent growth for aircraft and avionics mechanics through 2032. Aviation training company CAE projects a need for 138,000 AMTs by 2033. While only two out of the five largest U.S. airlines are currently hiring pilots, all of them are hiring AMTs.

• READ MORE: AMT Day Offers Opportunity to Inspire Next Generation

AMTs play a critical role in the world of aviation and becoming one opens the door to a challenging and rewarding career. Here is what you need to know about being an Aviation Maintenance Technician:

What Is an AMT?

AMT is the term for a licensed aircraft mechanic in the United States. There are two ratings under the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) certification for AMTs: airframe and powerplant. Most jobs require applicants to have both, with the term “A&P” (airframe and powerplant) often being used interchangeably with AMT.

What Do They Do?

The role of an AMT is wide-ranging. AMTs can work on any type of aircraft, ranging from small general aviation planes to widebody jumbo jets. Similarly, AMTs can perform maintenance of all parts of an aircraft. An AMT’s work can consist of anything from making a small pre-departure repair to an airliner at an airport gate to working on an engine overhaul in a hangar.

As a result, there are diverse career prospects for AMTs. While many choose to work for airlines, there are also opportunities to work for other employers like business and charter companies, government bodies, and maintenance contractors.

How Much Do They Make? 

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median salary for aircraft mechanics in 2023 was $75,400. The median annual pay for those working at airlines was $101,500

How Do I Become One?

The FAA requires AMTs to meet a set of basic requirements before they can be licensed. Prospective AMTs must be at least 18 years of age and be fluent in English. In addition, they must meet either a training or experience requirement.

AMTs can meet the training requirement by graduating from an FAA-approved Aviation Maintenance Technician school or by completing the Joint Service Aviation Maintenance Technician Certification Council training course for military personnel.

Alternatively, they can demonstrate that they have had 18 months of practical work experience with airframes or powerplants or 30 months of experience with both systems.

After meeting these requirements, an AMT must pass three FAA exams (written, oral, and practical) before they can be licensed.

How Long Is AMT School?

Most AMT training programs are designed to be completed between 14 and 24 months. The exact length can depend on the program and student.

Students learn about a wide variety of topics to prepare them for their future careers. Upon completing AMT school, graduates can apply for the FAA AMT certification.

Editor’s Note: This article first appeared on AirlineGeeks.com.

The post AMT Jobs Could Be Part of Aviation’s Next Hiring Boom appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Once there it gathered more parts as though magnetized and consumed money like, well, a suddenly well-paid merchant marine on extended shore leave. You embraced one and tolerated the other. In time, the list of to-be-completed tasks shrank, and the possibility of it actually flying came into view, almost mirage-like.

The path from having a huge pile of airplane-kit components in the driveway to a flying example has complications beyond the construction process, all of which you learn as you go—with help from KITPLANES, naturally. But the ultimate goal for most is to have a flying airplane. (Truly, for some, the journey is the driver, not the goal.) And it’s the step from an assemblage of airplane-looking parts to an actual flying machine that is unique to homebuilding.

• READ MORE: Latest CubCrafters Design Looks Back and Ahead

Every Cessna you’ve flown has had a professional test pilot commit its first hour or more of flight. For your homebuilt, the task is on your shoulders. Probably.

The question, of course, is: Should you? It depends. How experienced are you overall? How many different aircraft types have you flown? What is your experience level in airplanes the same or very similar to your project? How recent is your flight experience? These are all fixable things, meaning if you have spent most of your budget on the build, it becomes smart, as you get near the end of the project, to start investing in flying time.

Begin with whatever you’re most comfortable with or what is locally available. At this getting-back-to-it stage, it is less important to be in an airplane similar to your homebuilt than it is just to get the stick or yoke time. Find an instructor who will not let you fly sloppy and who will keep you honest. Also, don’t fool yourself into thinking that an hour or two of dual instruction after years away from the flight deck will do it. You need to get well and truly current and, more importantly, proficient.

Then it’s time to consider training in airplanes similar to yours. The average homebuilt has more power for any given gross weight. Consider that the Van’s RV-7A typically has as much installed power as a Piper Archer, yet is 750 pounds lighter. It also has less wing area but, more important, far lighter controls. While the RV series in general has predictable stall characteristics, they are not as “mushy” as your common four-seat family airplane. Training only in the Piper will not prepare you for the RV.

For some of the most popular brands, again we’re talking Van’s RV series, transition training is available, which is highly desirable. In fact, many insurance companies effectively demand it for the first flights. If training is available in your make/model of homebuilt, find the money and do it. There is nothing better than recent experience in an airplane likely to be very similar to the one you just built.

• READ MORE: This 2022 Van’s RV-14 Is a Homebuilt, Cross-Country ‘AircraftForSale’ Top Pick

How important is this training? Accident statistics around homebuilt first flights illustrate the need. About a third of all reportable accidents during first flights fall into the broad category of “pilot miscontrol”  or improper handling of the airplane. Nothing in the airplane broke or caused the accident; it was pilot error.

Of those mishaps, the greatest single category involves stalls, followed by a bad flare or bounced landing, followed by misjudged approaches and loss of control during landing. Sometimes misrigging can make an airplane touchy near the lower end of the speed range, but more often than not, it’s just flown with inadequate margin. In the first few hours, you really don’t know what you don’t know.

Just because you feel ready doesn’t mean the airplane is. In the past, Experimental/Amateur-Built aircraft were required to have something called pre-cover inspections, basically a partway check by a designated airworthiness representative (DAR) or inspector to help ensure you’re doing a good job. That’s no longer required, but you do need to have a DAR or an FAA representative inspect the airplane prior to first flight.

More often than not, this is a spot check of critical systems—flight controls, in particular—and a thorough review of the paperwork to support that you did build the airplane and that you’ve completed all the forms. It is not necessarily a guarantee of airworthiness. That’s up to you as the manufacturer.

What most builders do today is host a last-look party. Invite other builders around for an afternoon poring over your airplane. Best are those who have built and are flying the same type you have, but those with keen eyes and a mechanical bent are also helpful. Open up the airplane, stand back, and let them find stuff. Stow your ego. They will find things wrong—missing cotter pins or rivets, wires rubbing, bolts not properly secured, all kinds of things. Fix every single defect they find before you fly.

Why is this so important? Because it can prevent problems. In a recent survey of first-flight accidents, 20 percent were attributable to builder error—most often mistakes building or configuring the fuel system (22 percent of the total builder-error accidents) with problems involving the carburetor, propeller or rotor, and airframe each accounting for 18 percent of the accidents.

• READ MORE: Buying a Van’s RV-4 Is an Experimental Adventure

Some of these accidents begin when builders try new ways to do things—as in the fuel-system design, for example—but sometimes it’s just poor execution of common and well-understood systems. A core truth in homebuilding is that the closer you stay to the plans—meaning that you’re building an airplane as much like the factory’s efforts as you can—the happier you’ll be in the long run. Every divergence from plans is a place where you lose the fleet experience and the engineering savvy others have gained for you, sometimes at the expense of other accidents.

In the not-too-distant past, builders who planned to perform first flights (as well as the rest of the flight-test program, defined as Phase I flight test by the FAA) could piece together elements of a good program, but it wasn’t ready made for them. It is now, thanks to the EAA’s Flight Test Manual and the accompanying Flight Test Cards. The manual provides step-by-step instructions on how to commit the most common portions of Phase I flight test, including the first flight, so there’s no need to freelance the materials.

Moreover, the test cards make each flight into bite-sized missions that focus on specific aspects of airplane control and performance. The concept is to commit the flight, note the results on the cards, and then continue only when the test is completed successfully.

In fact, the flight test cards underpin a new program in the Experimental world called task-based flight testing. Before this idea, all homebuilts were subject to a Phase I flight test based on hours flown, most commonly 40, but sometimes as few as 25 when the engine and propeller combination was a certified duo. Experimental LSA are the exception. But for the most common homebuilts, the new task-based system allows builders to complete Phase I once all the tests are complete.

Most of us have found that the last few hours of Phase I was a matter of trundling around, burning time. It’s too early to tell if Phase I hours are really reduced, but some have completed all the tests in 30 hours or less.

The last question is a hard one: Are you willing to treat your airplane like the machine that it is? If the engine quits on takeoff, you have to be willing to put it into the trees off the end of the runway. Because you’ve spent years building has no bearing on the outcome. You must be willing to sacrifice the airplane to save yourself. Builders have come to grief trying to stretch the glide after a problem, trying to make the airport or a softer landing spot because they don’t want to bend their new bird.

Truth is, doing your own flight testing takes more than piloting skill—though it absolutely starts there. You need to be careful, thoughtful, disciplined, and laser focused on the task at hand. When you land after the first flight and someone asks you how it felt, your answer should be more than “pretty good.” Instead, be precise: “Well, rudder trim’s a bit off, number 3 CHT is a little high, and I think the right main brake is sticking a bit.” Write that down (or, better, review the in-cabin video you so wisely employed), pull the airplane into the hangar where you can uncowl it, and inspect it like it’s the first time.

Then, once the adrenaline has worn off a bit, fist pump all you want. Just remember you have a bunch more of this ahead of you before your dream airplane is real.

This column first appeared in the Summer 2024 Ultimate Issue print edition.

The post Ultimate Issue: Are You the One for That First Flight? appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

I am coming up on 21 years as a CFI, and there are stumbling blocks I’ve seen freshly minted CFIs trip over. Here are 12 suggestions to help make your journey as an educator a smooth one for both you and your learners:

1. Use a syllabus

Even if you were not trained with a syllabus, or the school you are working at is Part 61 and doesn’t require it, please use one, be it paper or electronic form. It will help you stay organized and deliver lessons in a logical order. Make sure your learners have a copy and bring it to lessons.

Pro tip: If your learners don’t have a copy of the syllabus, you’re not really using one with them. They need to have a copy for best results.

2. Introduce FAA certification standards on Day 1

The Airmen Certification Standards (ACS) is required reading for both the CFI and learner. A learner can’t perform to standard unless they know what those minimum standards are. The ACS spells them out quite clearly.

Don’t wait until just before the check ride to bring them out and apply them. Use the ACS in the pre-brief so the learner knows the metrics for which they are aiming.

• READ MORE: The Importance of Embracing Proficiency Culture

3. Stress the use of a checklist

This starts with the preflight inspection. Have the checklist in hand. Teach to the premaneuver, cruise, and of course, prelanding checklists as well. Emergency checklists should be memorized.

Bonus points: Show the learner the pages in the pilot’s operating handbook or Airplane Flying Handbook from which the preflight checklist was derived. Teach them to use that if the checklist disappears— as it often does at flight schools.

4. Teach weather briefing and aircraft performance

Teach the learner to obtain and interpret a weather briefing and to calculate aircraft performance from Day 1. Discuss weather minimums and how their personal minimums will change as their experience grows.

If the learner does not want to fly in certain weather—such as especially turbulent days or if the weather starts to go bad during a lesson—be ready to terminate. Flight instruction is about teaching good decision-making in addition to flying skills.

5. Manage your schedule for the learner’s benefit

While it is true that most CFIs are building time to reach the airlines, do not overload your schedule at the expense of the learner. The learner should be able to fly at least twice a week, though three times is optimal for best results. Manage your student’s load so you are flying six to eight hours a day—that’s a hard stop at eight hours.

Be ready to go at least 10 minutes before the learner arrives. That means scheduling lessons so the aircraft is on the ground at least 15 minutes before the next lesson so that it can be serviced if needed and you can take care of the debrief and logbook of the previous client. Be sure the person who does the scheduling understands the limitations of scheduling, such as when you timeout at eight hours.

Pro tip: The quickest way to lose a client—and possibly your job—is to disrespect a learner’s time. There will likely be a time when you miss a lesson or are late. Apologize and make it up to the learner by giving them a free lesson, even if it means you have to pay your employer for the use of the airplane and your time. You won’t like it, but it’s about character and doing what’s right, especially if the school has a “no-show, you-pay” policy for the learners.

• READ MORE: Separation Anxiety: When Your Instructor Moves on, Your Logbook Tells the Story

6. Don’t spend too much time on the controls

This is a hard habit to break. Try holding a writing implement in your hand while you hold your other arm across your body. If you are going to fold your arms on your chest, tell the learner it’s to show them you’re not on the controls.

Some people interpret this posture as being angry, so make sure you say something up front.

8. Eliminate the ‘pretty good’ metric

“Pretty good” is not a pilot report on weather conditions or an assessment of the learner’s performance. Teach them to be precise on weather observations, such as “light winds, ceiling at 3,000 feet,”, and for learner performance use metrics, such as “altitude within 200 feet,” for performance review.

Ask the learner how they would like feedback on their performance—in the moment or at the end of the lesson in the debrief. Some learners prefer the CFI to sit there quietly while they flail around with the controls. Others prefer real-time correction, such as “your heading is off by 10 degrees,” which allows them to fix it.

9. Don’t pass up the opportunity to teach a ground school

That is when you really find out if you really are a teacher of flight or a time builder. Teaching in the classroom and demonstrating something in the airplane involve vastly different skill sets.

Reading slides off a screen or material out of a book is not teaching. To be an effective teacher, the CFI needs to get the learners engaged in the material. The best teachers are memorable.

• READ MORE: Make Flight Reviews for CFIs Worthwhile

10. Allow the learners to make mistakes

Mistakes are part of learning. In aviation, they happen quite a bit, and as long as no metal is bent, no one is physically hurt, there is no property damage, or broken FARs, allow them to happen.

If things go badly and the learner is upset, the worst thing you can do is tell them to sit there while you fly back to the airport. This can destroy their confidence. Instead, try having the learner review and practice a maneuver already learned. Strive to always end the lesson on a positive note.

11. Plan for poor weather or mechanical delays

Always approach each day with two plans for each learner—flight or ground. Let the learner know in advance what the plans are: “If we fly, we will do this; if we cannot fly, we will do that.”

There is the option to cancel if the flight cannot be completed, but you should be prepared to teach. For example, if the weather is below minimums or an aircraft is down for maintenance and the shop rules permit it, take the learner into the hangar and do a practical pointing using the aircraft engine or cockpit instruments.

12. Make time for your own proficiency and currency

Protect your flying skills. You can do this in part by demonstrating takeoffs and landings or by asking the learner if they are OK with you doing a few at the end of the flight with the understanding you will be paying for that aircraft time and will adjust the bill accordingly.

Don’t neglect your instrument skills either. Use the advanced aviation training device (AATD) if the school has one and shoot a few approaches and holds a couple times a month, or pair up with another CFI during off-peak hours to do some real-world IFR flying.

An instrument rating is part of the requirement to be a CFI, so make sure you keep it ready for use.

This column first appeared in the Summer 2024 Ultimate Issue print edition.

The post Ultimate Issue: First Few Hours of Being a CFI Are the Hardest appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

It is a lovely, peaceful spot set on a knoll, but most of the remains—people who went down the Ohio River and settled on the flat ground below in the late 1700s—were reinterred up here above the floodplain. That large, flat area, called the Turkey Bottoms, would become “Sunken Lunken” Airport in the early 1920s.

I’ve heard comments about how many approach and takeoff paths take you right over graveyards, but I never realized how many cemeteries are located on airport properties.

• READ MORE: Perusing Some Old Logbooks

Maybe it’s not such a bad idea. The ground between or alongside runways and taxiways is flat and well cared for, and what could be a more appropriate resting place for pilots and aviation aficionados? The thought of resting in a place with airplanes soaring into the sky nearby…hey, that makes sense to me.

But since Lunken (KLUK) hasn’t yet seen things my way, I have a plot in a little and very old cemetery at the base of the Mount Washington neighborhood water tower, sitting on a hill about 4 miles from the airfield.

The airport beacon is mounted on top of the tower, and many a night I’ve navigated home fi nding my way toward that bright light.

Out of curiosity, I “uncovered” information about the incredible number of airports—large and small—where an old cemetery is found on the property. And it’s fascinating how the problem is solved.

A Chicago field, originally called Orchard Airport and the site of the Douglas Aircraft Company, was renamed O’Hare (KORD) in 1949, and in 1952, graves in Wilmer’s Old Settler Cemetery—0.384 acres on O’Hare Airport property—were removed by court order because they were in the path of a proposed new runway. Reportedly, 37 whites and an unknown number of Native Americans interned there were reburied in three nearby cemeteries.

Just how long a grave can be “reserved” for sole use by the original inhabitant seems to depend on state and local practices. It’s common for cemeteries to rent plots, allowing people to lease a space for up to 100 years before the grave is allowed to be recycled and reused.

In Ohio, it’s 75 years, but I could find no universal law here. It seems that much depends on the preference of surviving—if any—family members. Sometimes a court order is required.

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (KATL) consistently wins the title of the world’s busiest airport and it continues to grow, engulfing more and more small communities. When a fifth runway was added in 2006, it vastly increased the number of possible operations, but it also enveloped two century-old cemeteries.

• READ MORE: Sometimes the Flying Weather’s Fit Only for Turkeys

Authorities decided that these two small family and church burial grounds, Hart and Flat Rock cemeteries, would simply be incorporated into the airport’s master plan. Despite being located between runways with takeoffs about every 30 seconds, they are still publicly accessible via a dedicated access road with signs showing the locations.

Probably the most famous—and curious—on-airport remains can be found at Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport (KSAV).

Members of the Dodson family, Daniel Hueston and John Dotson, are buried alongside Runway 10, while Richard and Catherine Dodson’s graves are actually embedded beneath that runway. If you look really hard out of an airplane window, you can see the markers.

On quiet Saturday mornings, local pilots have been known to ask ground controllers for the “Graveyard Tour.” If cleared, this allows one to taxi out to the Dotson grave markers on Runway 10/28 so passengers can snap a picture before taking off.

Everything is haunted in Savannah and ghost tours are big business, but thus far, no one has figured out how to monetize the graveyard tour at the airport. Perhaps the two flight schools on the field could start incorporating a ghost tour into their sightseeing flights.

When Smith Reynolds Airport (KINT) in Winston- Salem, North Carolina, acquired property in 1944 to extend a runway, about 700 graves in the private African American Evergreen Cemetery were relocated to a new location. But it seems some marked graves remain in a wooded area within the airport complex.

• READ MORE: The Man Who Saved the Iconic Hartzell Propeller Company

If you watch carefully while driving on Springhill Road south of Tallahassee International Airport (KTLH) in Florida, you’ll see a break in the security fence. Pull in there and drive between the fences with signs proclaiming it is a restricted area, and you’ll come upon gravestones of a cemetery around which the airport runways were built. It’s known as Airport Cemetery and was originally a pauper’s graveyard. About 15 graves are designated with stones, but it appears there are about 20 other sunken depressions marking graves.

I’m betting you know many others, but I found one at Burlington International Airport (KBTV) in Vermont, where the graveyard is surrounded on three sides by the facility. And there’s Florida’s Flagler Executive Airport (KFIN), North Carolina’s Raleigh-Durham International

Airport (KRDU), New York’s Albany International Airport (KALB), and Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport (KSHD), where Revolutionary War veteran Mathias Kersh and his wife, Anna Margaret, rest—all sites of small family plots. The behemoth Amazon recently added 210 acres as part of its air cargo hub at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (KCVG) and is seeking permission to move 20 graves from the land it owns there.

No discussion of final resting places and cemeteries would be complete without a mention of a glorious shrine to aviation built a quarter mile off the end of Runway 15 at California’s Hollywood Burbank Airport (KBUR), formerly known as Bob Hope Airport. It’s called the “Portal of the Folded Wings.” The 78-foot-tall structure was designed by a San Francisco architect and built in 1924, intending it to be the entrance to a cemetery called Valhalla Memorial Park.

With its location so close to Burbank Airport—then called Union Airport—and the site of the Lockheed Company, aviation enthusiast James Gillette wanted to dedicate it as a shrine or memorial to early aviators. It took Gillette nearly 20 years, but it was finally dedicated as the final resting place of pilots, mechanics, and aviation pioneers in 1953. In addition to the ashes of those actually interred inside the portal, a number of brass plaques honor famous aviators resting elsewhere, such as General Billy Mitchell and Amelia Earhart.

Familiar aviation pioneers whose ashes are found inside include Bert Acosta (Admiral Richard Byrd’s copilot); Jimmie Angel, whose remains were removed and scattered over Angel Falls in Venezuela, where he crashed flying a Cincinnati-built Flamingo; W.B. Kinner, builder of the first certified aircraft engine as well as Earhart’s first airplane; and Charlie Taylor, who built the engine for the Wright Flyer and operated the first airport on Huffman Prairie in Dayton, Ohio. You can visit the site in Valhalla Memorial Park in North Hollywood, California.

But I can’t write a story about aviators who legally rest on airport properties without mentioning who knows how many ashes that have been surreptitiously scattered from airplanes flying over the deceased’s beloved home airport.

This column first appeared in the Summer 2024 Ultimate Issue print edition.

The post Ultimate Issue: The Connection Between Airports and God’s Acres appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

They were rare in general aviation airplanes until 2014 when the FAA simplified the requirements for installing them. A proliferation of aftermarket AOA systems followed, ranging in price from around $300 to more than $3,000. I don’t know how widely these devices have been adopted, nor do I know whether any study has been made of their impact on the GA accident rate.

Despite its well-known shortcomings as a stall-warning device, the airspeed indicator remains the only AOA reference in most airplanes. It has the advantages of being a mechanically simple system, intuitive, and familiar. Speed is an everyday experience, while angle of attack, for most pilots, remains in the realm of the theoretical.

Theoretical or not, I think, to start with, that we could improve the terminology. “Angle of attack” is really a proxy for something else, namely “the amount of the maximum lift available that is currently in use.” So it would be more meaningful to speak of a “lift indicator,” “relative lift indicator,” or “lift fraction indicator.”

• READ MORE: The Craft of Providing Variety in Airplanes

One of the advantages of thinking in terms of lift fraction is that almost all of the important characteristic speeds of any airplane—the exceptions are the nonaerodynamic speeds, such as gear-and-flap-lowering speeds—fall close to the same fractions of lift regardless of airplane size, shape, or weight. Best L/D speed is at around 50 percent and 1.3 V_s at exactly 60 percent. Stall, obviously, is at 100 percent. A lift gauge is universal: It behaves, and can be used, in the same way in all airplanes.

A few years ago, in a column titled “A Modest Proposal,” I suggested demoting the hallowed airspeed indicator to a subsidiary role and replacing it with a large and conspicuous lift indicator. I borrowed the title from a 1729 essay by Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver’s Travels, in which he satirically proposed that poverty in Ireland might be relieved if the populace were to sell its manifestly too numerous babies to be eaten by the rich. My appropriation of Swift’s title was meant to suggest that I considered my proposal was about as likely to be adopted as his.

At the time I wrote my article, I was not yet aware of a 2018 paper by a team led by Dave Rogers, titled “Low Cost Accurate Angle of Attack System.” Using a simple underwing probe and electronic postprocessing, Rogers and his group achieved accuracy within a fraction of a degree of angle of attack with a system costing less than $100. That’s more accuracy than you really need, but better more than less.

• READ MORE: Looking at the Physics of STOL Drag

The low cost is made possible by the availability of inexpensive small computers— Rogers’ team used a $20 Arduino—that can be programmed to do the math needed to convert the pressure variations read by a simple probe into usable AOA data. Processing is necessary because the airplane itself distorts the flow field around it and makes it all but impossible to read AOA directly with a vane or pressure probe situated close to the surface of the aircraft. Besides, configuration changes, like lowering flaps, alter the lifting characteristics of the wing.

Designing an accurate system is only half the challenge, however. There is also the problem, perhaps even more difficult, of how best to present the information to the pilot. Little agreement exists among current vendors. Some presentations use round dials, some edgewise meters, some various arrangements of colored lights or patterns of illuminated V’s and chevrons resembling a master sergeant’s shoulder patch.

In 1973, the late Randy Greene of SafeFlight Corp. gave me one of his company’s SC-150 lift indicators for my then-just-completed homebuilt, Melmoth. The SC- 150 used a rectangular display with a moving needle. There was a central stripe for approach speed flanked by a couple of dots for climb and slow-approach speeds, and a red zone heralding the approach of the stall. The probe that sensed angle of attack was a spring-loaded, leading-edge tab, externally identical to the stall-warning tabs on many GA airplanes.

Apparently, some people mounted the SC-150’s display horizontally, but that made no sense to me at all. Given that I wanted it vertical, however, Greene and I did not see eye to eye about which end should be up. Greene was a jet pilot used to a lot of high-end equipment (SafeFlight made autothrottles, among other fancy stuff, for airliners). He understood the device as a flight director—as you slowed down, the needle should move downward, directing you to lower the nose.

I, who despite having acquired in my younger days a bunch of exotic ratings, am really just a single-piston-engine guy, saw it as analogous to an attitude indicator and thought that as the nose went up the needle ought to do the same. Greene saw the display as prescriptive; I saw it as descriptive.

Recently, Mike Vaccaro, a retired Air Force Fighter Weapons School instructor, test pilot, and owner of an RV-4, wrote to acquaint me with FlyONSPEED.org, an informal group of pilots and engineers working on (among other things) practical implementation of a lift-awareness system of the type described in Rogers’ paper. The group’s work, including computer codes, is publicly available. Its proposed instrument can be seen in action in Vaccaro’s RV-4 on YouTube. 

The prototype indicator created by the FlyONSPEED group mixes descriptive and prescriptive cues. Two V’s point, one from above and one from below, at a green donut representing approach speed, 1.3 Vs, the “on speed” speed. The V’s are to be read as pointers meaning “raise the nose” and “lower the nose.” An additional mark indicates L/D speed. G loading, flap position, and slip/skid are also shown on the instrument, along with indicated airspeed.

Importantly, the visual presentation is accompanied by an aural one. As the airplane slows down, a contralto beeping becomes more and more rapid, blending into a continuous tone at the approach speed. If the airplane continues to decelerate, the beeping resumes, now in a soprano register, and becomes increasingly frenetic as the stall approaches. Ingeniously, stereo is used to provide an aural cue of slip or skid—step on the rudder pedal on the side the sound is coming from. The audio component is key: It supplies the important information continuously, without the pilot having to look at or interpret a display.

This system—it’s just a prototype, not a product—is pretty much what my “modest proposal” was hoping for, lacking only the 26 percent-of-lift mark that would indicate the maneuvering speed. Irish babies, beware.

Now I just have to figure out what we’ll do with all those discarded airspeed indicators.

This column first appeared in the Summer 2024 Ultimate Issue print edition.

The post Ultimate Issue: AOA Gets Revisited—Again appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

For the 1956 model year, the company applied the nosewheel concept to its tailwheel 180 and smaller sibling 170, creating the 182 and 172. Thus began a sales tour de force that continues to this day. Where the 172 became the most popular general aviation airplane in history, the more powerful and capable 182 became the big-engine, reliable, go-almost-anywhere, powerful climbing, carry-almost-anything, good-handling, comfortable old boot that could be found nearly anywhere on the planet where there was space into which to shoehorn an airplane.

In the first decade of manufacture, Cessna fine-tuned the 182 with a wider and deeper fuselage that made the cabin truly comfortable for four, added a panoramic rear window, as well as beginning steady gross weight increases so that what was soon named the Skylane became the utility infielder of the GA world.

• READ MORE: We Fly: Embraer Phenom 300E

The original design was eventually stretched to become the models 205, 206, 207, and, with retractable landing gear, the 210 and retractable 182.

In 1962, Cessna became the first to successfully bring a form of turbocharging to general aviation with its model 320 twin. A turbocharger is an air compressor that pumps more air into an engine, allowing it to develop greater power at higher altitudes than a normally aspirated engine as intake pressure drops with altitude. A turbocharger uses exhaust gas to turn a turbine, to compress and boost intake pressure. When there’s more air entering the engine, more fuel can be added to the fuel/air mixture resulting in greater power.

Turbochargers have been around since World War I, but their complexities and fiery operating environment prevented their widespread use in GA until the Cessna 320 debuted with a system that was reliable and didn’t require a degree in engineering for pilots to operate safely. The 320 sold like mad, so Cessna expanded its turbo offerings.

For the 1981 model year, Cessna turbocharged the Skylane, but with a relatively primitive, fixed-wastegate system that involved significant pilot workload. Nevertheless, it proved popular, outselling the normally aspirated 182 until Cessna’s hiatus on piston-engine production in 1986.

When that production began once more in 1996, the 182 was reintroduced in its normally aspirated form. In 2001, to start out the new century, a new turbocharged 182—the T182—was offered with important updates, including aggressive corrosion-proofing and aerodynamic tweaks to the airframe. Motive force now came from a Lycoming engine with slightly more power, the 235 hp TIO-540-AK1A with 2,000-hour TBO. Most significantly, the turbocharging system was a sophisticated set-and-forget type.

A sloped controller in the system sensed manifold pressure and modulated the wastegate to keep the correct amount of exhaust gas going through the turbine section of the turbocharger to maintain the desired manifold pressure. The wastegate is a valve that adjusts to direct exhaust gas through the turbine section of the turbo until the system decides the amount is appropriate, and then it directs any excess into the overboard exhaust pipe.

There was one more pause in Turbo Skylane production—in 2013—when Cessna explored replacing it with a diesel version. I’ve heard various reasons that the diesel didn’t work out but don’t know if any are true. Cessna, wisely, in my opinion, reintroduced the T182T with deliveries starting in 2023. The newest version included the latest Garmin G1000 NXi avionics suite, a heated prop, and upgraded interior amenities. Max operating altitude is 20,000 feet. Base price is currently $760,000.

As an aside, the first “T” in T182T refers to the Cessna’s way of saying that the flying machine is turbocharged. The second letter designates the specific model (as type certificated) of 182. The first model 182 had no alphabetical suffix—it is called the “no letter.” Each subsequent model change received a new letter, although some letters were skipped. The current normally aspirated 182 is the 182T.

The Basics

The T182T I flew was the first off of the assembly line in the 2023 production restart. It was flown as a demonstrator for 240 hours before being purchased by Phil Preston of Poplar Grove, Illinois. The airplane came with most available options including electric air conditioning, oxygen, and a striking interior.

The T182T’s Lycoming engine is a “max continuous power” engine—it develops its full-rated 235 hp continuously at 32 inches of manifold pressure, 24 gallons per hour (gph) fuel flow, and a quiet 2400 rpm all the way to 20,000 feet. There is no time limit on full-power operation.

• READ MORE: We Fly: Cirrus SR G7

Empty weight of the airplane I flew is 2,191.5 pounds. With a maximum ramp weight of 3,112 pounds (max takeoff weight is 3,100 pounds), it has a useful load of 920.5 pounds. (Cessna’s advertising claims a 998-pound useful load.) Max landing weight is 2,950 pounds, so 192 pounds of fuel (27 gallons) must be burned off following a max-weight departure. Fuel capacity is 92 gallons in the integral wing tanks, of which 87 is usable.

With full fuel—522 pounds—398.5 pounds can be loaded into the cabin. At first blush that doesn’t seem like much for a legendary load hauler like the 182, but the huge fuel tanks make the airplane a camel. At 15 gph, full tanks give well over five hours endurance.

Still, with all the options, this airplane is heavy. Putting four 200-pounders in the cabin means the airplane is over its maximum landing weight without any fuel aboard, so juggling fuel and passengers is required. Assuming having 10 gallons of fuel on board when landing at maximum landing weight after burning off 27 gallons following a gross weight takeoff, the maximum possible cabin load for the airplane we flew is 698.5 pounds, or three large adults and baggage. Maximum baggage is 200 pounds—split between three baggage areas.

Cessna singles have a reputation for some of the longest center-of-gravity (CG) ranges in the industry. The T182T lives up to its reputation. I ran several weight-and-balance scenarios and found that in none of the occupant and baggage combinations I tried was the airplane out of the forward or aft CG limit. That’s impressive.

The fuel system is simple. Two tanks and a fuel selector that offers left, right, and both and off positions. Leaving it on the “both” position means getting all the available fuel and minimizes the risk of selecting a tank that doesn’t have fuel in it. To avoid inadvertently shutting off the fuel, the selector valve must be pushed down before it can be rotated to the “off” position. I was impressed by the accuracy of the fuel gauging system, something important when launching with partial fuel may be routine.

The electrical system is straightforward—dual bus, 28-volt DC, powered by a 95-amp alternator with primary and standby batteries. The standby battery will power the equipment on the essential bus for about 45 minutes.

Walking around this new T182T revealed excellent fit and finish, a beautifully applied paint job and some of the aerodynamic touches made over recent years to maximize speed, such as smaller steps, low-drag wheel fairings, and a low-profile beacon.

The Cabin

Opening one of the large cabin doors, you notice little touches, such as their solid feel and the easy step into the cabin itself. Preston has owned several airplanes, high-wing, low-wing, and biplane. He told us that he chose the 182 because of the ease of entry: “I don’t like climbing up onto a wing to get in and out of the airplane.” He also likes the high wing because he’s loaded and unloaded airplanes in the rain many times and prefers to be able to stay dry.

The seats are delightfully comfortable and adjust far more easily than older 182s to fit a wide variety of pilot sizes and shapes. Cessna has been a leader in GA crashworthiness going back to 1946 when it began offering shoulder harnesses as optional equipment for all seats in its singles, continuing through the 1960s when it did full-scale crash testing and later when it donated some 172s to NASA for its crash research. Where it shows in this new T182T is with the best occupant restraint systems available in general aviation—AmSafe airbag seat belts for all four seats.

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The clean panel is dominated by the Garmin NXi two-screen display with all controls, switches, and knobs easily accessible to the left-seat pilot.

Flying It

Start-up is not simple. The process, including system checks, takes nearly a minute before the starter switch is engaged. On my flight the engine started easily on the first try, even though it was hot. Preston told me that he has not had any problem with hot starts.

Once the avionics were on, Preston showed how easy it was to load a route into the Garmin NXi system. He said that he appreciated its wireless database and flight plan loading capability.

Taxiing out, I was impressed at how easily the airplane rolled and the lightness of the nosewheel steering—there’s no sense of a heavy engine pressing down on it as there is in older Skylanes. On the hot morning of our flight, I came to quickly appreciate the electric air conditioning. It cooled the cabin rapidly.

I used Cessna’s recommended 10 degrees of flap for takeoff. Lined up, and throttle forward, I monitored the manifold pressure to make sure that it stopped at the 32-inch redline. While the turbocharger control is automatic, if the engine oil is cold, the control can be sluggish, and it’s possible to overboost the engine slightly. If 32 inches is reached before the throttle is fully open, just stop pushing it forward until the control system catches up. Acceleration is rapid, and right rudder is most definitely required, especially once the nosewheel leaves the ground.

The aggressive takeoff performance of the turbo Skylane reminded me that the T182T meets the U.S. Department of Defense’s definition of STOL aircraft right out of the factory—no mods required. At sea level, it will take off or land over a 50-foot obstacle in less than 1,500 feet. Few production airplanes are that capable. For a short field takeoff, 20 degrees of flaps are used.

Cleaned up and holding V_Y, 84 kias, loaded about 200 pounds below gross on a warmer than standard day, the rate of climb approached 1,000 feet per minute (fpm)—book is 1,015 fpm on a standard day. When I pulled the power back to what Cessna calls for in a “normal” climb—25 inches of manifold pressure and 16 gph fuel flow, while maintaining the full 2,400 rpm—the rate of climb sagged off by nearly half. At the suggested 95-knot airspeed, it was only 550 fpm.

Frankly, in my opinion, making a power reduction for climb in an airplane with a max continuous power engine makes no sense. It greatly increases the time to altitude and burns slightly more fuel—according to the POH—than a climb at full power. In addition, in case of an engine failure after takeoff, the higher it happens, the better the radius of action for a forced landing. Using full power and climbing at V_Y, the time to 20,000 feet per the POH is only 23 minutes from sea level and burns 9.2 gallons.

For a “normal” climb, it takes 24 minutes just to get to 12,000 feet and burns 6.3 gallons. Comparatively, at full power and V_Y, it takes 13 minutes and 5.1 gallons of fuel to get to 12,000 feet.

As with all but the oldest Skylanes, control forces on the Turbo Skylane are not light.

However, if sufficient pressure is applied to deflect them, the airplane is quite responsive with a most satisfying roll rate. Pitch forces are heavy, mostly due to the downspring in the elevator system that allows the long CG range. The first rule of thumb when flying a Skylane is to use the trim when any change is made in power or speed. With trim, the Skylane is a pure pussycat to fly—one of the reasons it has been so popular for so long. With trim, steep turns are a piece of cake. The solid stability of a Skylane in slow flight could set the standard for GA aircraft—the T182T proved no exception.

The Garmin Electronic Stability and Protection system kicked in while I was maneuvering (it can be disabled). It is a safeguard to protect the pilot while hand flying. Once the aircraft is rolled beyond a selected angle of bank or gets faster or slower than set speeds, it applies control forces to roll the airplane toward wings level or pitch up or down to control speed. Given that in-flight loss of control is well up there when it comes to risk of fatal accidents, I like this system a lot.

Stalls—hey, what do you want? It’s a Cessna. Power on, power off, full flaps, or clean, it’s a nuthin’ muffin. With the ball centered, it breaks straight ahead. A little pitch reduction, and it’s flying. Adding power (right rudder, remember!) turns any descent into a climb forthwith.

Preston and I then looked at cruise power versus airspeed. As much as I despise the overused phrase “power packed,” that describes this Lycoming engine. For pilots used to maximum cruise at 75 percent power, this engine gets one’s attention because it can be run, and leaned, at as much as 87 percent power—204 hp on a 235 hp engine. At 10,000 feet, the POH quotes a cruise speed on a standard day of 155 knots and 17.8 gph at 87 percent—that’s moving in a 182. At 20,000 feet on a standard day, 82 percent generates 165 knots while burning 16.3 gph.

Some time ago, I was told that Cessna does its cruise speed testing by launching above gross weight so that the airplane is at gross at altitude—and therefore the book speeds will be conservative. For over 40 years I’ve cross-checked book versus actual speeds on new Cessnas, and that’s always been the case.

Descending to 10,000 feet and setting up 75 percent power, at 15 degrees above standard temperature, the book called for 144 ktas. Preston and I saw 145, however, our fuel burn was 13.8 gph versus the book’s 13.6. Want to save some fuel but still move along nicely at 10,000 feet? Pull the power back to 60 percent and get a quiet decent 131 knots at 11 gph. Want to go far? According to Cessna, max range is 971 nm at best economy power.

Leaning leads to an issue that is troubling for an airplane of this sophistication and a useful load that is, let’s face it, not exactly great. Lycoming’s recommended lean mixture setting is 50 degrees rich of peak turbine inlet temperature (TIT). (Lycoming certificated the engine, so Cessna must follow Lycoming protocols.) With what we know now from published data from sophisticated general aviation engine test facilities, 50 degrees rich of peak is not at all good for an engine.

It is the power setting for the highest combination of heat, internal cylinder pressure, and minimum detonation protection—and may necessitate cylinder replacement prior to engine overhaul. For best power, Lycoming calls for 125 degrees rich of peak TIT—which is better for detonation protection. Per the POH, best economy is at peak TIT. That setting is not wonderful because it is still in the range of maximum heat and internal cylinder pressure as well as lower detonation protection.

Lean of peak (LOP) operation is not “approved.” As far as I can tell, it’s not a limitation, so it is a recommendation. Still, it makes no sense to me. Lycoming engines have a reputation for excellent mixture distribution between cylinders and have been run LOP for decades. LOP reduces fuel burn 2 to 3 gallons per hour and dramatically reduces CHTs as well as internal cylinder pressures.

In an airplane that is heavy to start with, having to burn 2 or 3 gph more than necessary isn’t a stellar idea. It means having to carry extra fuel instead of payload. For a trip of several hundred miles, that can mean an extra hour of endurance wasted. To make a good airplane even more capable by reducing fuel consumption, extending engine life and increasing payload, one wonders why Cessna hasn’t leaned on Lycoming to come into this century with engine operating guidelines.

As we flew, I purely enjoyed working with the Garmin automation in the Turbo Skylane. Preston demonstrated that not only did the autopilot engage smoothly, programming it to do what we wanted was easy.

Millions of words have been written about Garmin automation, so I won’t add more here, other than to say it was intuitive, easy, worked well, and seamlessly integrated into the T182T.

Approaching our towered airport, I was asked to keep the speed up until short final. Those are magic words to a Skylane pilot. The T182T smoked down a long final at 150 kias until 3 miles out—then I took advantage of the high flap speeds. The first 10 degrees of flaps can come out at a blistering 140 kias, 20 degrees at 120 kias, and all of them at 100 kias. The airplane slowed so quickly that it was a piece of cake to be stabilized at 60 kias while still several hundred feet up.

I’ve heard pilots complain that 182s are nose heavy. They aren’t. The reality is that with just two aboard, the airplane is near the forward CG limit, so a lot of nose-up elevator is necessary to flare. Plus, if the airplane isn’t trimmed, it’s going to take a lot of effort to heave the yoke aft because of the downspring in the system and the airframe’s attempt to nose down to maintain its trim speed.

The POH says that the demonstrated crosswind level is 15 knots. With the effective flight controls of the T182T, I suspect that number is conservative.

Conclusion

The Cessna 182 became the four-place airplane everyone wanted because it does almost everything well—it’s the SUV of the general aviation world. With turbocharging the T182T takes that utility and performance to new heights and new capabilities, giving a pilot more options and more ability to deal with weather and winds.

Spec Sheet: Cessna T182T Skylane

2024 Base Price: $760,000

Engine: Lycoming TIO-540-AK1A

Propeller: (Manufacturer, metal or composite, number of blades) McCauley, metal, three blade

Horsepower: 235

Length: 29 feet

Height: 9 feet, 4 inches

Wingspan: 36 feet

Wing Area: 174 square feet

Wing Loading: 17.8 pounds per square feet @mtow

Power Loading: 13.19 pounds/hp

Cabin Width: 42 inches

Cabin Height: 49 inches

Max Takeoff Weight: 3,100 pounds

Max Zero Fuel Weight: N/A

Standard Empty Weight: 2,114 pounds

Max Baggage: 200 pounds

Useful load: 998 pounds, depending on options

Max usable fuel: 87 gallons

Service Ceiling: 20,000 feet

Max Rate of Climb, MTOW, ISA, SL: 1,040 fpm

Max Cruise Speed at 82% Power at 20,000 Feet: 165 ktas

Max Range: 971 nm [45-minute reserve]

Fuel Consumption at 82% Power: 16.3 gph

Takeoff Over 50 Ft. Obs: 1,385 feet [ISA, sea level]

Landing Over 50 Ft. Obs: 1,335 feet [ISA, sea level]

This feature first appeared in the Summer 2024 Ultimate Issue print edition.

The post Ultimate Issue: We Fly the Cessna T182T Skylane appeared first on FLYING Magazine.