Climb and Maintain ...

The flying adventures of a software engineer in the Pacific Northwest.

Monday, July 31, 2006

Hailey, Idaho

Milen and I are running out of (interesting) destinations nearby, so most of our trips lately have been taking a bit longer. This weekend, we went to Hailey, Idaho (aka. Sun Valley). I've always wanted to go to Sun Valley to go skiing, so going there in the summer to check the place out seemed like an excellent idea.

Going into Hailey in a small plane during the summer requires some advance preparation... First and foremost, density altitude. At Hailey there is a 7,000 foot runway, so takeoff and landing distances are not a problem. However, what happens after takeoff? Your climb performance will be reduced. Second, how's your crosswind technique? Or, have you landed with a tailwind? But more on that later...

I may be tempted to say that some things didn't go our way on this flight. Let's list some:
  • First, equipment change at Paine Field. The attitude indicator decided to fail - fortunately on the ground. Time to go swap our 180hp Skyhawk for a 160hp, since that's the only one that was left. Hmm, even less climb performance than I previously thought. Quick weight and balance said we're still OK, but we decided to load as much as possible into Baggage Area #2 to get the center of gravity further aft.
  • Density altitude... The IFR report "Salt Lake Center, Cessna 863CP, 6,900 for 9,000, 300 feet per minute" says it all.
  • Turbulence on approach and wind shear. "Attention all aircraft inbound to Sun Valley, a Hawker jet reported windshear on approach, loss of 20 kts passing thru 100 feet AGL" also says a lot. We decided to fly the final approach at 80 knots instead of the usual 65 to provide for a more adequate stall margin. Since I didn't actually get any windshear during landing, I reported "negative windshear" to Hailey Tower for the benefit of the Cirrus landing behind me.
  • Possibility of a tailwind landing - Hailey seems to always land on Runway 31, even when winds are 170 at 10. Fortunately, when I landed, the winds were a very nice 280 at 4.
  • Headwinds when coming back... We barely got 95 knots ground speed - and that was at 1000 feet above ground level. Needless to say, we decided to come back VFR, at least to our refueling stop at Pendelton. We got beat up with continuous light chop during that leg of the trip...
  • Lower than expected freezing level, plus a somewhat worse weather picture than actual painted by a FSS briefer forced us to go through Portland on the way back, adding 1 hour to the flight.

Hey, you might say - what's this about crosswind landings then? Well, the next day, when we departed, winds were in general about 220 at 10 gusting 15 knots. Hailey has a single runway 13-31, with runway 13 used for departures and 31 for landings. If you look at this photo, you can see why: Hailey is surrounded by mountains to the north, west, and east, and there is an open valley to the south. In fact, the mountains are so close to the airport that the valley in which the airport is located is only about a mile wide, and pilots are warned not to use the airport at night unless they are familiar with the area.

So, while we were number one for departure at runway 13, there was a small plane landing on runway 31... After I hear "cleared to land" over the radio, the next thing I hear is "sir, do you need any emergency equipment out there?" I looked up, and sure enough, there was a lot of dust at the other end of the runway. Hmm... Turns out the guy ground-looped because of the strong crosswind (although it probably wasn't too bad, since he was able to taxi to parking on his own)! The crews took about 30 minutes to inspect the runway, and during that time, it got crowded with a line of airplanes waiting for takeoff. Inbound aircraft were stacked up over the Hailey radio beacon while waiting for the airport to reopen. [We took off without incident].

And, that wasn't the only incident at Hailey that day! While in contact with Boise Approach, we overhead the following exchange:

  • Controller: Cessna 123, be advised, the Sun Valley airport is now closed, say intentions.
  • Pilot: Hmm, that's probably because of the winds out there... We might go to Twin Falls. Let me talk to my passenger and see what she wants to do.
  • Controller: Roger, I can find out for you exactly why it's closed if you'd like.
  • Pilot: That would be great, thanks.
  • [Pause]
  • Controller: Cessna 123, it appears they've had a couple of aircraft groundloop at Hailey today, and the second one will take a while to get cleaned up. The airport right now is closed, and they don't know when they're going to reopen.
  • Pilot: Uh, in that case, we'd like to return to Boise and go shopping instead.

So, the lesson is: be careful out there during crosswinds, especially in taildraggers!

Anyways, 11.9 hours on the airplane and we were back at Paine. Those were some strong headwinds on the way back! More photos from the trip can be found here.

Friday, July 28, 2006

Aircraft Engines

Everyone says that fuel injected aircraft engines can be harder to start than carbureted ones. Is that really so? I think that depends on the engine. I've flown carbureted Cessna 172's, fuel injected 172's, a fuel injected 177RG, a fuel injected 182, and a fuel injected Piper Arrow, so I figured I'd do a quick comparison:
  1. Carbureted 172's: generally easy to start. However, if the engine is warm, they recommend you don't prime the engine. That can sometimes result in rapid opening and closing of the throttle because the engine is under-primed. Then again, that depends on the engine. The 150hp's were always easy to start, and on the 180hp's the rule was always give it a shot of prime no matter what. 160hp's were the most finicky.
  2. The fuel-injected 177RG: this 200hp engine gave me the most trouble out of them all (when hot). One time, while at Hoquiam, it wouldn't start no matter what I did: normal start, hot start, flooded start... I figure it was due to vapor lock. I had to get someone to start it using the most unorthodox method possible: throttle/mixture pumping, aux fuel pump on, etc. Maybe it was poor pilot technique, or maybe the Cardinal is just hard to start.
  3. The fuel-injected 172's: this is probably the easiest fuel injected engine to start in my experience - both 160 and 180hp models. Cold - prime until the fuel flow starts indicating, then start. Warm - quick wiggle on the mixture to prime, then start.
  4. The fuel-injected Piper Arrow: this one is also very easy to start. Just don't use the same warm start procedure as for the 172 - meaning don't wiggle the mixture! Otherwise, it will probably flood, and you'll have to do a flooded start.
  5. The fuel-injected 182: this one requires some care. If in doubt, don't prime. It will usually start without any priming if the engine is hot, even if it's been a couple of hours on a toasty airport ramp. In the worst case you can do a flooded start - works every time. Just make sure you push the mixture in when you're done starting, otherwise the engine will die, and you're back to square one (gee, don't ask me how I know).

So there you have it; of course, your mileage may vary. I'm not responsible for any fires from the exhaust stack! :-)

Saturday, July 22, 2006

Northern Idaho

I just got back from a trip to Northern Idaho, specifically to Sandpoint. Milen and I went for no particular reason... We just like to fly, and we sure had a great day for it in the Northwest today! And the flight was as perfect as the weather. Just about the only thing to deal with was the smoke from a wildfire near the north end of Lake Chelan. And that smoke did reduce the visibility enough to where we had to deviate slightly around it.

It turns out that Sandpoint is not super-close to town. But, folks at small airports are so nice sometimes!! There was a guy sitting in the FBO who offered us a ride into town, but because we thought it was a 10 minute walk, we thought we'd just walk along the road. Big mistake... It was hot, and the walk was much longer. After 20 minutes of walking we were nowhere close to the town. It turned out that just about that time, the guy from the FBO drove by, lowered his window, and said "are you still up for a ride?" We gladly accepted! Not only did he show us where the restaurants were - he also drove us to the City Park which hosts a nice beach on Lake Pend Oreille. The water was warm, and I couldn't resist getting my feet wet!

Check out the photos from the trip!

4.1 flying hours from Paine Field in Everett to Sandpoint - not bad! Airplanes sure beat driving - by car, that would have been a ~12 hour round trip (plus a chance of getting caught by the omnipresent Washington State Patrol.)

Friday, July 21, 2006

What if you don't have G1000?

If all this reading on G1000 has you wanting new digital technology in your old cockpit, then Garmin, among others, may have a solution: a powerful handheld. These nowadays feature goodies such as XM Weather right in the box. Although these boxes are VFR-only, they're still quite powerful from what I can tell. I haven't flown with one, but I keep thinking about buying it for increased situational awareness...

In fact, Garmin a couple of days announced that they're releasing a GPSMAP 496 - which probably means prices for the 396 are going to come down in the near future! Check out the press release; it's mindblowing what you can get in a portable GPS nowadays.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Trip to a Big Airport, and more G1000 moments

A couple of weeks back, my flybuddy Milen and I took a trip after work down to Portland for dinner. The weather has been beautiful, with nothing but clear blue skies pretty much everywhere in the Western states. Although it was a bit warm, it was still a perfect evening to fly. We took the G1000 equipped Cessna 182, which I got checked out a couple of weeks before. Milen would fly the trip down to Portland, and I would fly back (Milen's single engine night currency ran out a few days before).

I always wondered what it'd be like coming into a big airport - meaning one served by big jets. Will we get squeezed in for an approach? Will they ask us to keep the speed up on final because a 737 was right on our tail? What about wake turbulence because we could get sequenced in between two 737's, or maybe a 757, which is infamous for the wake it produces? Well, none of that happened. It was as simple as "Cessna 716LR, enter right downwind, runway 28R, cleared to land." The only reminder that we were flying into a big international airport was that there was jet traffic landing on the parallel runway. That traffic actually provided the first, and so far only, experience with the traffic feature on the G1000. Right as Milen turned base-to-final, the system announced "Traffic", and the jet's position and relative altitude was highlited on the MFD. (Sadly, around Seattle, even though the traffic feature is supposed to work because we supposedly have appropriate radar coverage, all I ever see on the display is "Traffic Unavailable.")

The FBO at PDX is FlightCraft, and these folks couldn't be nicer. They give a free ride to/from the excellent Tri-Met light rail system, and 20 minutes later, you're downtown. They even waived the usual $10 or so handling charge - and we didn't buy any fuel, either.

The return trip was flown IFR, since it was night time - and I wanted some practice with the G1000 button pushing in the IFR system. Surprise, surprise... In the left seat, I was a bit rusty on the buttons, and it's only been two weeks since my last flight! I had the flight plan already put in, but Portland Clearance blessed me with a different routing. So, there I was, sitting on the ramp, reprogramming our flight plan. Forever I couldn't make sense of the comments that others have made about the G1000 system not understanding airways. But, I immediately understood why these comments were right on the money: when you're given "716LR is cleared to Paine Airport via the Portland Five Departure, vectors to Battle Ground, V287 Paine", and when it's night time - so you have to juggle the chart, flashlight, and the GPS buttons - it sure would be helpful to enter that clearance into the navigator and have it figure out that from Battle Ground VOR (BTG) to Paine VOR (PAE) via V287 it's actually BTG-OLM-ARPEE-PAE. Nevertheless, I got the route figured out and put into the GPS. But I still wished for at least two things: (1) for the G1000 to be airways-aware, because not everything is "direct to", and (2) for the Cessna 182 to have some glareshield lights so that I wouldn't have to fumble around with the flashlight while trying to reprogram a GPS.

In any case, prior to departure, Milen suggested, rightfully so, that I should probably put in the BTG VOR just in case ATC had me intercept V287 prior to BTG for some odd reason (V287 extends past BTG and goes down thru Oregon). We did that, and we switched the HSI pointer to be driven off the #1 VOR.

As you probably suspect, I'm setting up for a "I learned about the G1000 from that" moment. And here it comes: after takeoff, ATC issued an instruction to proceed direct to Battle Ground. What do I do? Well, I get confused! I'm thinking: the green arrow thingy is the RMI pointer to BTG, so I'll just turn to where it points. Of course, that's completely wrong. The green arrow thingy is the course pointer on the HSI! And, since it was set to something like a 040 heading, it actually made me believe that BTG was in that direction. Ouch. Fortunately, Milen pointed out the error by looking at the huge MFD moving map right in front of him.

I asked myself: was any of this due to the G1000? My answer was, unfortunately, "yes". In a "normal" airplane, I'd tune in the VOR, and when I'm told to go directly to it, I'd center the CDI with a "to" indication, and turn to the appropriate heading. No need to figure out what the pointer means - because there's only one needle, and that's on the CDI. One might notice that often the #1 CDI is coupled either to the NAV1 radio or to the GPS, and that there is a separate NAV/GPS switch that controls the coupling... Yes, you could make the mistake of not pushing that switch. But, if the coupling is to the GPS (in leg mode), the needle won't move no matter how much twisting of the OBS knob is done. That's a pretty obvious mistake to spot, and if I ever see that happen, I've got enough experience to tell immediately that it must be the NAV/GPS switch that is not set correctly.

So now, the error is figured out. How do we go direct BTG? Hmm, center the CDI needle. Uh, how do I do that? Where's that knob for changing the HSI course? I realized suddenly that I haven't really done much flying the "old fashioned" way with the G1000 system... Everything was off the GPS, with strong reliance on the "direct to" button. Uh-oh. I ended up switching the CDI source to GPS, punched in direct BTG, and off we went. It all happened rather quickly, and I doubt that anyone in the radar room even noticed that something was amiss.

Which brings us to the conclusion: the only "old fashioned" flying on the G1000 that I ever did was a VOR approach. That wasn't enough. Fortunately I realized this omission early on, in visual conditions, with a more experienced G1000 pilot on board.

Speaking of the G1000: John over on AviationMentor has some excellent tips for flying with this wonderful new system. Check out his blog!

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Gear Down?

My commercial training has been placed on an unexpected hold... Turns out that the Arrow I'm training in (the only one at the flight school) had a gear up incident yesterday. While I don't know whether it was due to mechanical difficulties or pilot error, I thought I'd take a moment to re-emphasize the importance of checking that the gear is down and locked, and, even though I'm not a CFI, point out some strategies that you can use to avoid the dreaded gear-up landing.

John & Martha King actually outline these strategies very well in their Practical Risk Management for Takeoffs & Landings video. In particular, they mention that you should put the gear down at standardized points during your approach to landing:
  1. On downwind, abeam the numbers. This is where you can perform a GUMP check: (G)as, (U)ndercarriage, (M)ixture, (P)ropeller.
  2. Whenever leaving the pattern altitude. This rule may seem like a repeat of #1, but consider that probably the most common cause of a gear up landing is a distraction. Maybe the tower asks you to extend your downwind, and you don't put the gear down abeam the numbers as a result. Or, maybe you're flying a non-standard pattern, like straight-in or base-leg entry.
  3. On an ILS, do the GUMP check when you're about to intercept the glideslope - maybe within a dot. In some airplanes, like a Cessna Cardinal RG, if you reduce the power to the recommended setting (17" or so, if I remember) and simultaneously put the gear down when you're one dot high on the glideslope, you'll get a nice glideslope capture combined with an approximately 500 fpm descent - perfect for flying the ILS.
  4. On a nonprecision approach, do the GUMP check as you cross the final approach fix (FAF).

When you're on final, it also wouldn't hurt to reconfirm once more that the gear is indeed down, together with other items such as mixture and prop settings. I can say from experience that this little check has saved me once on an instrument approach, already past the FAF: "fuel pump is on, gas is on fullest tank, mixture is set, prop is full forward, gear is ... oh, darn, the gear!!" I had a CFII in the right seat, who saw the whole thing - but didn't say anything so that I could spot my own mistake. I probably learned more from that one flight than from all the times I heard people say "put the gear down".

You can have other methods, such as flows, for ensuring that the gear is down. But whatever method you develop, use it, and help eliminate the saying: "retractable pilots fall into two categories: those who landed gear up, and those who will."

Sunday, July 16, 2006

Back in the Arrow

Today I was back in the Cherokee Arrow practicing for my single engine commercial ticket. We did steep spirals, eights-on-pylons, power-off 180's, and some landing practice. Things went pretty well; I think I'm doing OK on the maneuvers, but they still need some finessing. During the week I'll hopefully be able to go after work on my own to practice some of these.

Some joking was happening on the frequency after landing: the tower at Paine Field actually asked us to make a short approach because they had traffic on final. We did, and it gave me one more chance at a power-off 180 (which I landed slightly short, yikes!) Tower actually said "thanks for your help today," to which I replied "no problem, it's helping me with my commercial." They laughed, and said "good luck!"

Friday, July 14, 2006

G1000 Transition, Part 2

It was perfect VFR weather for my first IFR flight in a G1000 airplane, so I went under the hood. The plan was to fly from Paine Field down to Shelton (ah, that precious cross-country time), then to Tacoma Narrows, and then back to Paine. Originally this was scheduled for a Saturday, but I ended up doing it one evening after work, as I didn't remember that promised to take some folks to Friday Harbor that Saturday... Anyway, after 10 minutes on the G1000 simulator to show that I remember how to enter flight plans into the GPS, it was off to the airplane! My turn to do the button pushing, this time in an IFR environment (I did a basic VFR maneuvers flight in the airplane the week before).

It took what seemed like forever to put in the flight plans in the runup area. I put all 3 in, as opposed to putting in the one for Paine-Shelton and then putting in the rest while in flight (although that did result in some added time on the engine = more $$$ spent). I figured I should learn all the buttons and stuff on the ground, so I could concentrate exclusively on the MFD. Looking back at how long it took me to put in the flight plans, that was definitely the right choice!

Straight-and-level flight was no problem. I heard that it's hard to maintain altitude on the G1000, but if you just set the altitude bug, it's much easier: you watch the bug move instead of watching the numbers change. On the other hand, climbs and descents were sloppy at first - especially descents. For some reason, I just had a hard time maintaining a 500 foot-per-minute descent into Shelton. Maybe it was the C182, maybe it was the Garmin, or maybe it was just me... In any case, I did learn some first important lessons on the leg to Shelton. (1) Even if you set the altitude bug, write down what altitude you were cleared to. It's far too easy to move the bug by mistake, and if you do it in a climb or descent, then you invariantly ask yourself "uh, was that 3,000 or 4,000 feet that I was cleared for?" (2) As a corollary to #1, look at which button you're pushing or which knob you're twisting before you push/twist it!! (3) Lesson #2 goes double for buttons that have an inner and outer knob... I found myself changing the barometric pressure when I intended to change the course on the HSI. Oops!

Approaches themselves are a piece of cake if you've flown any GPS approach before. The G1000 makes everything so easy with the big moving map on the right, and a mini moving map right on your PFD.

On the leg from Shelton to Tacoma Narrows, we tried out the autopilot. In this installation it's the Bendix/King KAP140 system, and I can finally say that I think I got this autopilot, at least for enroute operations. It seems like the autopilot gets skipped on a lot of aircraft checkouts, and it shouldn't be that way. At Tacoma, it was another GPS approach, followed by a missed and vectors back to Paine Field.

We terminated the lesson with an ILS 16R approach into Paine. Surprise there? Of course. We forgot to "activate" the approach in the GPS, and although strictly speaking it's not required, it does make it easier to shoot the missed, since in this case, the missed procedure calls for intercepting a bearing to the locator outer marker. We ended up following the moving map instead. If we had to shoot the missed, we could always have put in the identifier for the LOM manually into the GPS and then switched it to OBS mode to intercept the required bearing to the NDB. But, if you do it "right" by loading and activating the approach first, it's much easier.

The next flight was local approaches into Paine Field. We did the VOR 16R full procedure, VOR 16R from a DME arc, and then an ILS. This flight went much better than the flight to Shelton and Tacoma. For some reason, I seem to have gotten how to make steady rate climbs and descents in this airplane. The scan was noticeably better, too. BTW, flying a DME arc with the G1000 couldn't get any easier. Not only does the CDI needle move to indicate where you need to go (just keep the needle in the center, and you'll fly a perfect arc) - but if you get a bit off course, the G1000 suggests a heading to get back on track!! So much for the old "turn 10, twist 10" technique that I learned when I got my instrument rating.

So, after about 3.5 hours in the airplane, I was checked out in the G1000. Am I going to take it into the soup? Maybe, with a more qualified pilot. But for now, I'm going to get some hood time to get more comfortable with the buttons! :-)

Sunday, July 09, 2006

G1000 Transition, Part 1

I promised before that I'd write about my training experiences in a G1000 equipped aircraft... Time has come for the first installment.

The first step in getting checked out in the technologically advanced 182 was G1000 Ground School. It was just over 5 hours in length, and it ended up with a 1:1 student to instructor ratio, as there were two instructors and only two of us in the class (I'm told that normally the ratio provides for a good learning atmosphere, but it is not THAT good). The syllabus covered the G1000 systems, and then it focused on scenario-based training on the PFD and MFD. It was great that we got to use computer simulators for the G1000, as this made scenario-based training much more realistic. On this system, it's one thing to watch the buttons being pushed, and entirely another to do the button pushing yourself!

Some interesting quirks about the G1000 came out during the class - some are specific to the Cessna 182 and some are not. For example, why is the active frequency for the NAV on a different side from the active frequency for the COM (yes, people will be quick to point out that it's always the "inside" frequency that's active, but to me it doesn't make that much sense as the traditional active/standby arrangement on the Bendix/King KX165 radio). Why is the glideslope indicator up on the attitude indicator portion on the PFD, and not on the HSI display, like in a traditional HSI instrument? And, why is the audio panel's split-com (where the pilot talks on COM1, and copilot on COM2) functionality disabled on Cessnas? I'm told that Cessna blames Garmin for not engineering the COM boxes correctly, thereby causing bleed-over from one radio to the other. Garmin blames Cessna for placing the COM antennae too close. Go figure... But in the meantime, split-com is disabled. Not that you need split-com that often, but it does somehow drive me crazy that the standard Bendix/King KMA28 audio panel in our 172's allows for this functionality, while the advanced Garmin boxes do not.

An interesting fact about the Cessna 182 installation is that it still uses a Bendix/King KAP140 autopilot, as Garmin's autopilot unit was not yet certified at production time. This particular autopilot is a rate-based unit, meaning that it needs a turn coordinator to derive its input from. So, if you take out the Garmin MFD display from the Cessna 182 panel, what do you see? You guessed it, a turn coordinator! Not a big deal, just an interesting piece of information to know.

Next time I'll cover my first IFR flight and some approaches! Stay tuned. :-)