AOPA Pilot Magazine - December 2012 - 14

LETTERS
Waypoints

simple answer
Making the weather go/no-go decision
When i WriTe about using my Beechcraft Bonanza for transportation, I frequently get questions from members asking how to best plan for weather contingencies when flying a single-engine piston airplane. Good question. I wish there was a single, simple answer. My first question to myself when considering a trip where weather is a factor is about the capabilities of the airplane and myself. Is this the sort of weather situation that can be handled in a single-engine piston airplane? Let’s face it, while we like to crow about the utility of flying ourselves, there are limits, especially when flying airplanes like mine. Without even turbocharging to get into the flight levels, no ice protection except pitot heat, and no pressurization, my options are limited. No airplane is immune to weather, but with a turboprop, pressurization, and icing protection—and maybe even airborne radar—you can get through more situations than those of us who fly more pedestrian machines. Putting the gear aside for a moment, how am I doing? Instrument current and confident? Rested, hydrated, and nourished enough and feeling up to a challenge that may be a couple of hours down the airway—after I’ve been sitting at 9,000 or 10,000 feet all that time? And am I really up to the challenge today? I’m usually game for going for a look-see, but there is an occasional day where I simply don’t feel like running the flight planning gauntlet and the hassle that may come from having to stop short of the planned destination. Those are the days I just stay home or buy a ticket and let someone else do the work. However, making challenging flights is how we grow in our weather experience and decision making. Staying home when the sky darkens is a sure path to not getting much utility out of an airplane. Next step for a lot of people is to sell the airplane, because they aren’t using it enough. Most important for me is a flexible schedule. As I’ve said before, I don’t plan on traveling by GA anytime I have a hard and fast deadline to meet. If I don’t have the schedule flexibility to leave a day early or later and the forecast is for severe weather along the way, it’s not a trip for an airplane like mine. If I can take off in visual conditions and face building thunderstorms down the road, but know I can easily turn back to improving weather, that sounds doable. If the weather is isolated enough that I can easily get around it without nudging into fuel reserves—another

By Thomas B. haines Editor in Chief

AOPA SummIT

Editor in Chief Tom Haines will be a featured speaker at AOPA Aviation Summit in Palm Springs, California, October 11 through 13 (www.aopa.org/ summit).

good possibility. If the weather is at the destination, I’ll want to know how far it is to the nearest airport with visual conditions. A fuel stop may be required. Once you take off, the plan may go out the window. Maybe that big gap between those storms fills in or the fog that is expected to lift at the destination doesn’t; then what? That’s when you act on the plan you made before takeoff—turn back or go elsewhere, or you dream up another one with the help of the onboard weather gear, Flight Watch, and ATC. This is when it’s great to have a co-pilot aboard who can seek weather information for other airports and routes while you fly the airplane. Did I mention how nice it is to have even a basic autopilot for such trips? Call me spoiled, but I won’t fly in weather anymore without datalink weather. It’s changed the way I fly and the utility I get out of my airplane. Returning from EAA AirVenture in July, Flight Training Editor Ian Twombly and I left beautiful weather in Appleton, Wisconsin, bound for Maryland. A line of thunderstorms stretched from Cleveland eastward. More storms were developing over West Virginia, but it looked like we had a clear path over Pittsburgh. As we progressed that afternoon (our schedule didn’t permit a morning flight) the two systems began to merge. Climbing to 11,000 feet to stay visual, we maneuvered among cloud tops and had to turn due south toward Parkersburg, West Virginia, to get through the narrowest part of the line. Thanks to the datalink weather, Stormscope, and ATC, we were in clouds less than five minutes and never got wet—despite some impressive thunderstorms east of our course. Once south of the line we turned east and paralleled it all the way home. Returning from Wichita after flying the Cessna 182 JT-A diesel airplane (“Jet A for Your Skylane,” page 52), AOPA Live Executive Producer Warren Morningstar and I skirted similar weather in about the same place— again at 11,000 feet and with supremely clear skies behind us. We passed through beautiful sunset-lit cloud canyons and dodged to the south as dusk turned to darkness. We could see lightning in the clouds well north and south of us, but we weren’t in IMC more than five minutes during the entire trip. Challenging and satisfying flying, but started only with options available.AOPA
EmAIL thomas.haines@aopa.org

“I will save a copy of this article in my great article file. Do not change anything, it’s great. Tom Haines is 200-percent correct. Articles like this are why I subscribe to AOPA Pilot.”
Jim Gibertoni, AOPA 1482748, Fairbanks, Alaska

to the candidates, so that the candidates’ staff could have researched them and prepared answers in advance? Are we getting the word-for-word responses of the candidates or has the interviewer clipped and edited the responses?
Carol L. Healey, AOPA 1108903 San Francisco, California

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16 | AOPA PILOT October 2012

As noted in the introduction, the identical questions were submitted to both campaigns and the written responses were published verbatim. —The Editors

Adrian was recommended for performing a borescope inspection of the cylinders. One phone call convinced me traveling from Wisconsin to Virginia would be well worth the trip. What I received was as much an education as an inspection—sincere, compassionate, and, yes, passionate about Bonanzas. Adrian told me he has seen a lot of airplanes and said, This is a gem, so I knew I found my airplane. We are lucky to have Adrian as a valued resource.
Andy Nahas, AOPA 7214586 Boscobel, Wisconsin

Simple answers
Tom Haines’ “Simple Answers” article was simply brilliant (“Waypoints”). The remarkable fact is that the general aviation fatal/nonfatal incident/accident rate has not improved significantly in more than 10 years. The attitudes and thought processes learned early on, especially in accelerated training programs, influence the behaviors throughout an entire career (truly lasting a lifetime, for better or otherwise). I thank him for his courage—and diligence.
Mordechai Levin, AOPA 1232822 Richmond, Illinois

Pilots
is; his response contrasted so poorly to Obama’s that my initial reaction was, of course I have to vote for Obama. Then I started wondering, who did the interviewing; was it a liberal reporter who wanted to put Obama in good light and make Romney look like a dumb idiot, or is Romney truly unable to tell the difference between air carriers and Cessna 172s? Did the interviewer give written questions in advance The October spotlight on Adrian Eichhorn was well deserved. Individuals like Adrian are priceless to the aviation community. I had been cautiously looking to take that big first step into ownership. I followed the excellent guidelines put forth by AOPA when considering a purchase but there still remained What if I unknowingly purchase a money pit? When I discovered a Bonanza I was interested in,

Erratum
In “Pilots: Dana Holladay and Meredith Tcherniavsky,” December 2012 AOPA Pilot, the name of their book is Fly the Airplane. Pilot regrets the error.
We welcome your comments. Editor, AOPA Pilot, 421 Aviation Way, Frederick Maryland 21701 or email (pilot@aopa.org). Letters may be edited for length and style before publication.

Election 2012
Thank you for the article reporting the candidates’ responses to seven questions. The responses by President Barack Obama were full of facts, figures, and information that clearly reflected he had a good understanding of GA, and at least he plans to exempt piston aircraft from his user fee plan; initially, I assume, but once those fees get going they will surely expand. The responses by candidate Romney were brief, generic, and reflected a complete ignorance even of what general aviation
14 | AOPA PILOT December 2012

While photographing a race from Maryland to Florida between a Smart Car and a Remos Light Sport aircraft— AOPA’s sweepstakes airplane at the time—AOPA photographer CHRIS ROSE met a Coast Guard helicopter crew at one of the airports along the way. They had guns, but seemed friendly enough and said their job was to shoot out the engines of drug-smuggling boats. Intrigued, Rose suggested Senior Editor AL MARSH do a story on the subject. Finding someone with authority to approve a visit was difficult until Marsh took a video-editing class months later in downtown Washington, D.C., and discovered a top Washington Coast Guard public affairs officer was a classmate. That led to a visit to Jacksonville, Florida, and two training flights aboard MH–65 Coast Guard helicopters, as you’ll

HANGAR TALK

see in “FORCE FROM ABOVE,” on page 54. Rose and Marsh took seriously their new roles as enemies of the drug cartels. When celebrities are lost in aircraft accidents it reverberates through both the media and the general public. The loss of singer/ songwriter John Denver in a heavily modified Experimental aircraft was no exception (“SAFETY PILOT LANDMARK ACCIDENT: NOT SO EASY,” on page 62). While the proximate cause was determined to be fuel starvation, the builder who modified the original kit design— and was certainly allowed to do so— may have inadvertently contributed to the mishap by attempting to solve one problem and creating another one, says AOPA Foundation President
BRUCE LANDSBERG.

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AOPA Pilot Magazine - December 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - December 2012