AOPA Pilot Blog: Reporting Points

Tossing a basketball out of the backseat of a Super Cub–in flight–and having it go right through the hoop? That’s the latest feat accomplished by Dude Perfect, six college roommates from Texas with a history of slick trick shots. Their Cub caper is part of a series of commercials for GMC Trucks.

What may be even more incredible than the shot itself is their claim that it was made on the second try. Are they pulling our tiedown chains? There’s no real reason for them to do so; they’ve been quoted as saying they keep trying until they succeed. And in the background, the pilot appears to be performing a thorough preflight.

OK, I’ll give them the three-pointer. But I’ll bet it takes ‘em more than two tries to learn how to land the Super Cub, even on a grass strip. (You can see more of their shots on the Dude Perfect website.)

Do you think pilot reports are becoming a lost art? Do you remember any times when a good pirep really help you out? What’s the most unusual pirep you ever heard–or made?

Have you ever flown into Leadville, Colorado’s Lake County Airport, which at 9,927 feet in elevation claims the title of highest public-use airport in North America?

Bragging rights are climbing in China, which plans to build the world’s highest airport–at an elevation of 14,554 feet–in Tibet, Britain’s The Guardian reported. Let’s see, under U.S. regs, at that lofty height pilots will need supplemental oxygen just to taxi; better make sure the bottle is full.  On second thought, never mind; the field elevation is higher than the service ceiling of anything I’ve flown recently.

Construction is planned to begin in 2011, take three years, and cost more than $263 million (in U.S. dollars). The newspaper said the project is part of an effort by China to make air travel accessible to more of its population, through the construction of 97 new airports by 2020.

Did you know that today is National Aviation Day? It wasn’t at the top of my mind, either, until I heard it mentioned on the radio while I was driving to work this morning.

August 19–the birthday of Orville Wright–was designated National Aviation Day by presidential proclamation in 1939. Don’t confuse it with Wright Brothers Day, which commemorates the anniversary of the brothers’ first successful powered flights on December 17.

While National Aviation Day hasn’t captured as much of the nation’s attention as, say, Labor Day, we as pilots should celebrate the occasion in an appropriate manner. Let’s go flying! And what better occasion to introduce our passion to somebody unfamiliar with general aviation?

What were you doing 40 years ago today? Those of you who know me know I’m not the Mike Collins who orbited the moon as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took mankind’s first steps on the lunar surface. But I certainly was among those watching the black-and-white images of those historic steps dance across the tiny screen of a black-and-white television.

It was my pleasure, however, to meet that Mike Collins one cold December on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, at the annual commemoration of the Wright Brothers’ first flights. Collins was a guest of the First Flight Society, which established the Paul E. Garber First Flight Shrine at the Wright Brothers National Memorial; the Apollo 11 crew is among its honorees. I introduced myself and we talked for 20 minutes about other people who were trying to capitalize on our good name. 

Those original videos of the first moonwalk have been enhanced and can be seen on the NASA Web site, along with other interesting links the agency has collected that relate to Apollo 11 and its anniversary. Check them out.

How do you control the cost of your flight training? Do you try to fly frequently, to maximize retention and minimize repetition? Do you use a simulator–and if so, do you fly one at your flight school or a PC-based flight sim at home?

Please respond below, and let us know what’s worked for you (and what hasn’t). We’ll share the best ideas in a future issue of AOPA Flight Training magazine.

My wife loves to read online wikiHows and subscribes to a newsletter that delivers a “how-to” of the day.  She forwarded me yesterday’s, which was “How to Land an Airplane in an Emergency.” No, this isn’t an April Fool’s hoax–you can read this wikiHow here.

Is it any good? I felt the text was well organized but, as you might expect, the topic was greatly oversimplified. My guess is that much of the information came from one person’s limited experience. For example, step #4, “Call for help on the radio,” tells you to ”Look for a hand-held microphone, which is normally to the left of the pilot’s seat just below the side window, and use it like a CB radio.” The handheld mics I’ve seen to the left of the pilot’s seat usually are in a storage pouch on the door, often buried under the POH, not even plugged into the aircraft.

Comments can be found on the wiki’s “Discussion” tab and there was a lot of speculation as to whether somebody without at least some piloting experience would have any hope of landing an airliner. Frankly, I think a lot of that is academic; today, if both pilots of an airliner are stricken, it’s unlikely that any passenger would be able to breach the hardened cockpit door.

Read the Wiki and share your thoughts. Personally, I’ll continue to recommend the Air Safety Foundation’s Pinch-Hitter course, which is also available online.

Did you read about Ken Hill in this morning’s New York Times? Hill is an airplane repossession specialist–a bounty hunter. I first envisioned a bad reality TV plot, with a captured airplane roaring down the runway just as the sun’s disk breaks the horizon.

But Hill’s reality is not so Wild West in nature (at least, not usually). Which makes sense, because Hill also is an aircraft dealer. If he can’t retrieve the logbooks along with the airplane, it’s unlikely he’ll be able to sell it for as much as he could if the paperwork was complete.

Hill typically repossesses 30 airplanes a year, according to the New York Times article. Last year he retrieved 50–a number that he told the newspaper could double in 2009.

How’d you like to be an aircraft bounty hunter? Would you buy an airplane from one?

The news yesterday that creditors advanced Eclipse Aviation’s bankruptcy from Chapter 11 (reorganization) to Chapter 7 (liquidation) when funds for an anticipated sale didn’t materialize was disappointing, if not a complete surprise.

It seemed like only yesterday that Vern Raburn’s upstart set up shop. I had the unique opportunity to look inside the startup in late 2000, when the Eclipse 500 was being designed at the Williams International facility in Walled Lake, Michigan. A sign on a cubicle wall read, “What are you going to do today to reduce the weight?”

A lot has happened since then. The Eclipse team moved to Albuquerque, and the Williams engine was abandoned for a Pratt & Whitney product–among many other changes. Raburn left the company. But today it appears that the sun has set on Eclipse; those cubicles are dark and empty (and their occupants left without at least one paycheck and their accrued vacation pay).

Or has it? There still are assets to be sold. Could there be a buyer in the wings? Time will tell.

Regardless of its ultimate fate, Eclipse and Raburn get credit for creating the very light jet category. Isn’t imitation the sincerest form of flattery? Alas, history doesn’t always reward innovators.

A conversation over lunch turned to flight schools as a fellow pilot talked about the poor customer service he experienced on his vacation while checking out in an airplane. Although we all may have similar stories to tell, I challenged those around the table to think about some of the good experiences they’ve had at flight schools–beyond the basic thrill of slipping the surly bonds of Earth.

And there were many bright spots. I heard about schools that always had a pot of coffee brewing, at least during these chilly winter months, and it was complimentary (each cup said, “Hey! Great landing!”). One pilot’s school sponsored weekly cookouts and other social activities. A flying club arranged monthly fly-outs of one to three days; students shared the flying and the expenses, and enjoyed sharing new experiences as a result. (You thought these were all going to be about food and drink, didn’t you?)

What do you like the most about the flight school where you trained, and why? What did that business do right? How did your instructor or school staff keep you coming back for more, especially as you struggled with landings, navigation, or whatever it was that you struggled with in training? I’d like to hear your thoughts.