AOPA ASI Blog: Leading Edge

Dave Hirschman, AOPA Pilot’s senior editor, and I frequently commiserate on the high cost of flying. For too long the industry has tried to avoid the fact that new piston aircraft are priced above what most of the market can afford. There’s a saying that goes, “It isn’t what you pay, it’s what you get that equals value.”  My observation is that what we pay for new airplanes has increased significantly over the past decades while the transportation and recreation value of aircraft has improved marginally. That leaves us with elastic demand and significantly fewer pilots at higher costs. The business model is on life support, and we wonder why more people don’t want to fly?

Dave will expound more in an article he’s doing for Pilot on the electronic ignition installed on his experimental RV-4. As you might suspect, the Lycoming really likes it. It starts easier, burns less gas in cruise, runs smoother, and can use automotive spark plugs at about one tenth the cost of the approved aviation equivalent. What’s not to like? More reliable than the old mags? There’s a fair chance that they are.

It should be noted that the FAA’s Small Airplane Directorate, AOPA, the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, and others are working feverishly on reforming FAR Part 23 certification as it applies to simple aircraft. All I can say is make all haste because the sales of manufactured light aircraft are almost non-existent and so far, we haven’t figured how to fly without wings. I’ve spoken to many potential pilots who would learn to fly immediately, but they are priced out.

Safety

Moving onto safety, 30- and 40-year-old aircraft are safe enough, but some of the new technology affords better equipment. Stuff does wear out and it corrodes or deteriorates. This may trigger some different opinions. A few examples: Airbags are now almost standard in new aircraft—great improvement! Shoulder harnesses have been standard since the mid-70s and really should be on all aircraft. Some of the older ones do not have suitable attach points. Fuel valves are better designed, making it harder to inadvertently move to the “off” position. One of my favorite aircraft, the J-3 Cub, has a fuel tank that sits right behind the engine—very bad in a crash. The new LSA Cub-derivatives move the fuel much farther from the ignition source. Cockpit lighting is far better, and on and on.

Some of this can be retrofitted to older standard aircraft, but the experimental world is way ahead of certificated aircraft in many respects. The previously noted electronic ignition is just one example. Non-TSO’d avionics are another area where I’d like to see some statistics showing how much safer the TSO’d versions are. There are orders of magnitude in cost differential. Why? Any factual basis?

A huge success story is datalink weather in the cockpit. The FAA had little to do with it, and there are all manner of systems. It is supplemental, and the industry has made phenomenal strides to develop and expand the capabilities. Doesn’t mean there isn’t an occasional miscue, but please name something that doesn’t get misused by some humans.

There are other factors including liability, high manufacturing costs, etc., but there may be ways of resolving those as well. Fixed costs are the bane of manufacturing, and when they get too high and management raises prices, that usually depresses demand further. At one point, companies could make money building light airplanes, and many people, not all, could afford them. Seems like we need to climb into the Way-Back machine and figure out how that was done.

What do you think?

Safeguarding the future of general aviation is a task we take seriously at the AOPA Foundation, and your donations help us move the needle forward. Consider a donation today.

My flight to Sun ‘n Fun in a G-1000 equipped DA-40 involved two kinds of towers, or lack thereof. A lunch date in Aiken (KAIK), S.C., coincided with a minor golf tournament (the Masters), and since IFR slot reservations were required, VFR in good weather seemed the easy way to go. (Mark Twain noted that golf was a good walk ruined, but I digress.) With all the discussion surrounding the closing of control towers, it was instructive to note how the heavy iron types were managing at non-towered AIK. Most everybody was sequencing very nicely, calling the turns and positions just as recommended in the Non-towered Operations Safety Advisor. A Lear announced on the left downwind when a King Air shortly afterward decided that he would fly a right downwind. Somebody noted that it was a left traffic pattern. For a moment it looked to be a most interesting final approach when a semi-sarcastic voice said, “Niiiice.” The King Air pilot, thinking like a controller and seeing the conflict immediately, advised that he was turning midfield crosswind over to the left side behind the Lear, and a standoff was averted. Clever policing technique, I thought. It does require heads up (and out) with courtesy. Meanwhile, AOPA and other groups are having a serious discussion with the FAA on what really should be closed and what should stay open. All the Air Safety Institute seminars for the near future will have a short refresher module on NTA operations.

Then it was on to Mt. Pleasant (KLRO), another non-towered airport in the Charleston, S.C., area for an overnight and dinner meeting. It’s one of those big city reliever airports that has a nice small town feel to it, and you’re sorry to have to leave. Everybody knows everybody, and transients are treated like royalty. Southern hospitality!

Next morning a broken layer at 1,200 feet dictated an IFR clearance, but 10 mile visibility underneath made an airborne pickup reasonable as there was no radio ground access. In an unfamiliar area, it’s good to study the chart beforehand for towers, and there were several BIG ones. The AOPA online airport guide noted, Two 2000 Ft Towers Approx 4-6 Miles East of Arpt, but said nothing about two others that that reach up to 834′ msl and 1039′ msl about 6-8 miles southwest of the airport. The controller was discussing clearance details as I leveled at 700′ msl to stay well clear of the clouds in Class G. My attention was divided between the towers and the controller when the G-1000 decided that there was some danger of my seriously disrupting local TV signals/cell phone coverage for at least the rest of the day. The nice lady in the box rather abruptly announced, “Obstacle less than one mile,” and there was a large depiction of it on the screen. By this time the controller also noted that we were getting too close. I was looking right at the tower, had altered course, and was absolutely certain we weren’t going to hit it or the guy wires, but it was comforting to know both ATC and Garmin were concerned.

Note to self, it’s better to be your own primary line of defense. It’s never a bad idea to review the IFR departure procedure, even VFR, and this one notes that one should climb runway heading to 1,400 feet before turning on course. Had I flown runway heading instead of turning on course neither the controller nor Garmin would have alerted. The key point is “See and Avoid” means just that! That’s the strategy I’ll use where I can’t get to a minimum IFR altitude before getting a clearance. For VFR pilots, all this information is now available for free online. Maybe it’s time to consider some voluntary VFR departure procedures and publicize them.

My prediction is that terrain avoidance warning equipment, used intelligently, will leave us with fewer CFIT and tower encounters, but a conservative approach is better than a tower entanglement.  For non-towered ops—using caution and courtesy is always the way to go.

Safety advisors, seminars, quizzes, and other safety education products are brought to you by the AOPA Foundation’s Air Safety Institute at no charge thanks to donations from pilots who are committed to improving the safety record of general aviation. Help us keep those products coming with a donation to the Foundation today.

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.