AOPA ASI Blog: Leading Edge

Got a request from a reader in Canada who was confused by FAA wording on a placard. Imagine! Usually they’re pretty clear, including the near-worthless death and destruction placards that adorn many new aircraft as a result of our overly litigious society.

See the photo: No English teacher would have written it that way. In my opinion, this could be far more clearly stated by saying, “All acrobatic maneuvers, including spins, are prohibited.”  I recommend a modest proposal to the FAA that they remove the word “approved” from the current verbiage.

Now to make things a bit more complicated, some aircraft are certificated in two categories depending on weight and balance envelopes, such as the one shown here. There is a normal category which prohibits aggressive activities; utility category allows increased Gs from 3.8 to 4.4. That’s quite a bit and in some aircraft, it will allow one to conduct spins if, and only if, those loading conditions are met. That usually means a forward CG. The C-172 fits this description: normal category—no spins, utility category—OK to spin. Some aircraft, like the A36 Bonanza, are also certificated in two categories, but spins are prohibited—period.

There are some CFIs who think that because normal category aircraft have been flight tested to recover from a one turn spin that one can tiptoe right up to the edge of the envelope by only doing one turn. This is not a great idea because those intrepid factory test pilots usually have: 1) a spin chute on the aircraft, 2) a parachute firmly attached to themselves, 3) some even have modified the doors on the test aircraft to make egress easier. Impromptu escape options usually don’t measure up to that. Awhile back I spoke to a young pilot who said she and her instructor had been doing one turn spins in a Cessna 210. I advised in the strongest terms possible of the above.

Describing chandelles, lazy 8s, and steep turns as acrobatic is pushing the definition. They are definitely maneuvering flight, but as long as one is not exceeding 60 degrees of bank or more than 30 degrees of pitch (by inference from FAR 91.303) they can be done in utility category aircraft.

Don’t forget if you’re practicing spins (in an appropriately approved aircraft) that parachutes may be required. If one is training for a CFI-airplane certificate, it is not required, but everyone else must wear a chute. This rule gets winked at a lot. Some CFIs introduce their primary students to spins without a chute on the premise that the student will someday become a CFI. That’s a stretch in my view although attorneys make a great living debating such things.

My opinion, not backed up by any statistics, is that the chute is there largely for psychological comfort. In most aircraft, unless the doors have removable hinges (quickly) or a canopy that jettisons (quickly), the odds of getting out are pretty slim if the machine is disintegrating around you and spinning earthward. We’ll have an upcoming segment on the topic on AOPA Live later this spring.

Would love to hear from someone who did escape with or without a chute, and the circumstances.

Any smart pilot or organization manager studies Murphy’s Law: life’s wonderful reality that if something can go wrong, it will! There are dozens if not hundreds of corollaries that remind us that complex airplanes are veritable breeding grounds for Murphy mischief.

In the March Issue of AOPA Pilot, I wrote about Air France 447, the Airbus 330 that went down over the south Atlantic after all three pitot tubes froze up. This caused the air data computer to leave the premises, and the automated systems, which the Airbus has raised to an art form, began cascading failures. The crew lost total situational awareness and the junior first officer, after some gyrations, pulled the big ‘bus into a stall and held it there for about three minutes for a final plunge from about 35,000 feet. Lots to learn from this one!

The saga of automation acting out continues. Here are two more incidents involving the Airbus where, once again, frozen pitot tubes discombobulated the autopilot, auto-throttle, and flight director. The crew managed to control the aircraft, but had to divert to an alternate airport because they couldn’t remain in reduced vertical separation maneuvering (RVSM) airspace and fly manually to the tolerance required. Guess keeping the tubes warm and dry is problematic.

The other incident involved a non-stabilized approach into Paris with another A340. This one had more help from the crew, with possible ATC assistance, in getting to the arrival gate not only high, but fast for a Cat III approach! The glideslope eluded them most of the way down. The aircraft at some point decided to go around, and a difference of opinion ensued between the crew and the ‘bus. It’s too long a story to relate here, but the crew and the automation never got on the same page, and let’s just say the outcome of the maneuver was seriously in doubt.

Before you think me anti-Airbus, recall that the Boeing Dreamliner, in pushing the performance envelope, has had a few miscues as well. Teething pains are one thing though, and ongoing incidents are something else—where one stops and the other begins is for your conjecture.

The principle concerning multifunctional devices states that the fewer functions any device is required to perform, the more perfectly it can perform those functions. Put more stuff on an aircraft, car, computer, home theater, or anything, and the reality is that it will break more frequently. DC-3s and Cessna 172s are prime examples of long-lasting simplicity.

Regarding automation for light aircraft, a certain amount is really good, and single-pilot flights in IMC without a simple and solid autopilot is much more work and distraction than it needs to be. However, remember Johnson’s First Law: When any mechanical contrivance fails, it will do so at the most inconvenient time.

My question is: How does it know?

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Several weeks ago as the sequestration was looming, we discussed the wholesale closing of contract control towers at GA airports. Last week the ax fell, indiscriminately in many pilots’ opinion. This is an emotional issue, but as stated in that blog post, now is the time for a clear-eyed view of what is needed—not what is nice to have. Operational needs should always take a back seat to political expediency— or should they? I’m always confused by such things.

The hit list was pared down to about 139 facilities. As Katie Pribyl, AOPA’s Vice President for Communications, noted, the money invested in building the towers was committed only after careful review of the need. In a few cases the towers had only been open a year or so!

In addressing hundreds of pilots over the last several weeks in speaking engagements, many of you agreed that aircraft fly just fine without ground guidance, and there were towers we did not need. But the end justifying the means isn’t always the best way of accomplishing an objective.

My concern is three-fold:

1) The FAA’s “process” appears to have had little operational consideration, or at least not that the FAA was willing to discuss. Transparency in how the decisions were being made other than the “trust us” approach would have been appreciated. A better way to accomplish this might have been to set up a non-political advisory group with the FAA, users, ATC, and affected communities to look at the facts.

Yes, I’m insane, but this worked very well about 15 years ago when the National Weather Service needed to close about 400 weather offices around the country. You can imagine the uproar, but such a group was commissioned to do it based on fact—I was the aviation representative, along with NWS management, the employees union, heavy scientific representation, etc. It worked against the goal of no degradation of service. It took much longer than a few months, but airport operations are a much less arcane science than weather prognosticating.

2) The second concern is re-establishing non-towered habit patterns in the transition. Notams, that wonderfully dysfunctional system of burying critical information within the irrelevant, will become vitally important. Airports that had ATC flexibility may now revert to preferred right-hand traffic patterns in some cases. This can all be handled, but it’s going to take a lot of eyes outside the cockpit, good radio procedure, and solid preflight planning. To refresh everyone’s memory, the Air Safety Institute’s Operations at Non-Towered Airports Safety Advisor is strongly recommended as a review, as is the Say It Right: Mastering Radio Communication online course.

3) Logic would also have suggested that this change become effective with the new sectional chart cycle which is staggered to keep things manageable. Don’t forget that hundreds of instrument approach procedure charts will soon be incorrect and will need to be updated as well. There were some cost savings in here somewhere.

May the FAA focus the rest of its budget cutting on non-critical areas that do not disproportionately target GA.

Can we do this better? What do you think?

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