Cessna's New Skycatcher C162

Cessna loaned the Production #1 C162 Skycatcher to King Schools in September so we could begin flying it to provide a model performance on video of the maneuvers a learning pilot has to demonstrate.

We love it. In fact we think it is a game-changer. It gives new hope for an exciting future for flight training.

It is as wide as a Cessna 206. Nearly everyone who took lessons in a C150 or C152 has stories about the difficulty of fitting two people in the airplane. In the Skycatcher you have a feeling of luxurious spaciousness.

It is easy to get in and out of the airplane. The struts connect to the fuselage aft of the cabin doors and the gull-wing doors move up and out of the way. Although the seats don’t adjust (we use cushions), the rudder pedals do adjust forward and backward, and the control stick comes from the panel, leaving the floor area clear.

We loved our time with Cessna's first Skycatcher!

The visibility is fabulous. The view over the panel is great. The side windows come down lower than on most airplanes and, along with the aft strut placement, result in an unrestricted view of the ground passing below. In warm weather it is a delight to taxi the airplane with the doors up for an open air feeling.

It has plenty of power. It seems to just leap off the runway. The great performance is probably the result of having so much power for its weight plus an improved wing.

The G300 avionics system is nearly as capable as the G1000 and is very intuitive and easy to operate.

And to cap it all off the control feel is wonderful—the controls are delightfully responsive without being overly sensitive. This airplane is flat out fun to fly.

I have to tell you that initially we were skeptical about this whole light sport aircraft concept. Our reaction was, “What’s the big deal?” Well the big deal is that Light Sport Certification let Cessna build a far more capable and fun airplane than a Cessna 152 at a price far lower than what the Cessna 152 would cost if it were built today. Cessna really got it right, and that is great news for our entire industry.

I suppose understanding any skill better can lead to greater enjoyment. Perhaps because stress drops when you know more. Or, maybe knowing more just means you get to do more. Whatever the mix, I’m convinced it´s some of both.

You may not know this, but John and Martha hold every FAA category and class of pilot and instructor rating available on their certificates. What has been interesting for them is the discovery that with each new rating or certificate achieved, they would fall in love with flying all over again.

If you are mulling over a 2010 resolution, consider what would “renew your spirit.” Perhaps a new rating is just the thing. And given that it is the dead of winter, studying now will have you ready when good flying weather returns.

If you do commit to a new rating or certificate as your resolution, you´ll want to take an approach that ensures your success. “New Year´s Resolution experts” suggest these tips for getting you there:

• Choose your own path. Choose what you really want in life. If you have a passion for flying, commit to it.
• Make one resolution. Focus your energy on a single goal and you´ll increase the probability of success. It should be a SMART goal: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-based. This makes a rating or certificate a perfect fit.
• Create a plan. A goal without clear steps is just wishful thinking. If you choose to self-direct your study, you´ll want to review the FAA requirements and create an outline covering all the appropriate areas. KING courses provide you with this plan and automatically track your progress through it.
• Create your plan now. “Those who wait capitulate!” In spite of what we hear about broken resolutions, several studies show that those who commit to a resolution are 10 time more likely to succeed than those who don´t put their plan into action. In short, if it´s worth doing, it´s worth committing to right away.
• Tell your friends and family. If folks know what your goal is, they will ask about it, giving you motivation to keep going. Even better, find a buddy who wants the same rating or certificate and commit to encouraging each other.
• Remind yourself of the benefits. A new rating or certificate has huge payoffs in freedom and experiences. It will help to recall this at regular intervals. If you´re a VFR pilot, think about life above the clouds with your Instrument Rating!
• Reward yourself at smaller milestones. If you use self-directed study you´ll need to figure out where these milestones fit into your plan. KING courses are designed as bite-size learning segments and your progress through the course is automatically tracked, so it will be easy to know when you´ve reached a milestone—we tell you!
• Develop a ritual. With either self-directed study or KING courses, you can study anywhere and anytime. However, you´ll want to make sure you set aside a consistent time to study. This will limit the interruptions and will help set your own expectations.
• Expect the occasional setback. Convince yourself that difficulties encountered are temporary, and need not be a reason to give up altogether. Smaller milestones help here, too. For self-directed study, find sample FAA questions for your current section of study and test yourself to see if you understand what you are learning—you don´t want to find this out after you´re done studying. If you use a KING course, we´ll provide you with targeted FAA questions at the end of each short segment, so you´ll always know your true progress. And our courses automatically create review segments for those areas where you need a little extra work.

By the way, our KING test courses come with both a 30-day satisfaction guarantee and a full refund if you fail the FAA test within one year—which I am confident you won´t.

Still have more questions? Give us a call at 1-800-854-1001. We have a lot of pilots here who would be happy to help.

Happy New Year,

Barry Knuttila
SVP of Marketing and Technology, CFII, MEI

The Garmin G1000 Version 8 offers a new look and feel, plus new capabilities like FlightCharts and SafeTaxi

But now, even during these hard times, our aviation world is changing blindingly fast.  With avionics like the G1000 being computer-driven, a software change can alter how things work with little or no change in the hardware.  For instance, beginning with version 8 of the software, the Garmin G1000 now has a new look and feel, and a lot of new capability such as FliteCharts, SafeTaxi, and the way flight plans are entered and displayed—including the ability to put altitudes and airways into a flight plan. 

 This rapid rate of change has kept us at King Schools busy revising our avionics courses to make sure they match the current version of the software.

 We now have available the latest version of our G1000 course that covers operation of the version 8 and higher systems with the new capability, and their new look and feel.  If you will be flying an aircraft equipped with the G1000, you’ll want this course.  If you have purchased a previous version of the course, we’ll update your old course at half-price—just give us a call to make arrangements.

 As with previous versions, this latest G1000 course includes our procedures trainer so you can practice what you just learned.  Our promise is that after taking this course your hands and eyes will automatically go to the right place.  You’ll be ready to put your new G1000 proficiency to use with a safety pilot. 

 Although with these wonderful new avionics systems it takes a lot of effort to stay current, you’ll never hear us reminiscing about the good old days when the simple words, “Take us back to the airport” could strike fear into the heart of a student.  All it takes these days is a glance at the map on the multi-function display.  Life is good, when you have a G1000—it’s even better when you know how to get the most from it.

We just finished a major upgrade to our course on the Garmin G1000, version 8 (Flying the Garmin G1000). We’re excited about how the course turned out, especially the integrated procedures trainer (no need to sit in your plane to learn your G1000). But while we were teaching mastery of the 125 knobs and buttons on the G1000, we found ourselves appreciating the wonderful tools available to today’s pilots.

Recently, we have been flying the C162 Skycatcher, making video for a new Cessna course (YouTube: First Skycatcher flies to King Schools).  Even that wonderful light sport aircraft has a glass cockpit, and we love flying with the G1000 in our Cessna 172SP (the sweepstakes plane we’re giving away in January!).  Even our super-old Falcon 10 has glass in it, since it was updated to have EFIS and an MFD some time back.

Occasionally, when we take a “round dial” airplane up, we are reminded just how much things have changed. So we thought we’d take a moment and fly through the waypoints of civilian aviation navigation history. Let’s see how this technology came together to enable GPS, the foundations of avionics, and the G1000 in particular:

Departure: ca 1761

Some say the best place to start is at the beginning. So, to see where it all began, we’ll jump back to 1761 when the chronometer combined with the compass and the sextant to give mariners complete open-sea navigation. This was about as low-tech as you could get, yet using a number of stable reference points provided by nature (stars and time), travelers could triangulate their location across the expanse of the seas. As much as technology has evolved, we find that even the most sophisticated navigation system shares traits with this earliest approach.

The earliest set of navigation instruments used star position and time to determine position

Beacons Beckon – Keeping the Home Fires Lit

Fast forward to 1919, when pilots decide to make their own “transmitting” navigational aids—bonfires. Pilots found this simple approach could be used for visual reference flight at night.  Later, these were replaced with light beacons.  Still no real tools or electronics required; just good pilotage and dead-reckoning.

By 1929, the first four-course radio range went into service.  This was a real electronic breakthrough for flight.  Twin towers emitted alternating signals that converged to a steady tone when you were “on the beam”.    The technology was widely used during WWII.  It was a great navaid if you wanted to be “on the beam”.  Anywhere else and you were “on your own” with your gyroscope and altimeter.

Sometimes Delays are a Good Thing!

LORAN Station from the Aleutian Island Chain, ca 1943

It took 10 years before the next historical waypoint to GPS navigation would come along.  It was the war-time development of LOng RAnge Navigation, or LORAN.  This 1940’s system introduced the concept of measuring the time-delay of a signal traveling to a receiver to calculate position—still used in today’s GPS.  Whereas the four-course radio range told you where you should be, LORAN told you where you were.  Knowing where you were as well as where you wanted to go was a big step.

Around the same time that LORAN started, the first Ultra-High Frequency (UHF) radio was used for scheduled airline navigation.

By the 1950’s VHF Omnidirectional Radio Range (VOR) was widely available for US navigation.  Like the four-course radio range, VOR used two transmitters.  But in VOR, the first signal broadcasts an omnidirectional reference signal and the second signal rotates a line-of-sight beam, much like a lighthouse.  This second signal goes 180 degrees out of phase when it rotates 180 degrees from magnetic North.  

When this second signal sweeps the plane, the receiver calculates the phase difference of the two signals and uses this to determine the plane’s current radial from the VOR station. With two VORs, the aircraft’s position can be fixed over the ground.

Alternatively, Distance Measuring Equipment (DME) was added to many VOR stations.  It was based on WWII Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) systems and used relayed pulse signals and measurement of time delay (remember 1940’s LORAN?) to determine the distance (slant range) to the ground station. Eventually, enough of these VOR stations were linked together to form over 45,000 miles of air highways, or “Victor airways”.

In the 1960’s, we entered the era of solid state and the VOR’s were upgraded to this new, more reliable circuitry.  At the same time, these ground stations took over the duties of their older four-course radio range ancestors and extended “Victor airways” and “jet routes” worldwide.

Navigation Takes it Up a Notch—Way Up

Up ‘til now, much of the groundwork for electronic navigation was already in place.  But the key word here is “groundwork”. That’s because no satellites were used yet and beacons were stationary.  That changed in 1964, when the military navigation satellite constellation known as TRANSIT or the Navy Navigation Satellite System (NAVSAT), became operational. 

Satellite for the TRANSIT system, also known as NAVSTAR

This first Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) exploited a discovery made after the Sputnik launch in 1957, when folks realized that the Doppler shift of a moving spacecraft’s (satellite’s) radio signal could be used to determine the location of a receiver on Earth. Satellite navigation was an amazing feat.  Still, for us pilots, there was a serious trade-off.  Although its range covered the entire Earth with 200m accuracy, hourly updates were the most it could deliver–a win for ships, but not too useful for planes.  And since it was military use only, even that point was moot.  At least satellites were now on the stage.

The Birth of Avionics

For avionics, 1968 was a banner year.  Components in the aircraft of the day each had their own dedicated wiring and connections.   With the advent of many new devices, things under the hood were getting pretty complicated.  This is when the military’s idea of a “multiplexed avionics data bus” first surfaced, an idea not too different from today’s USB port. The thought was that if you could take the data from each component, tag it with an “address”, then send all the data down a single wire to be sorted on the other end, you could eliminate lots of wires, connections and weight.  That year, an F-15 was tested with such a platform and out of this came Mil-Std-1533B.  This was the interface standard that would shape the future avionics, making them more reliable, lighter and cheaper.

It’s the 70’s.  And while folks were starting to try on clothes made of  new “synthetic fabric”, the military was working to synthesize flight information.  To date, most flight systems were individual mechanical, electric or magnetic components, with radio being the most sophisticated thing on board.  Wanting more “intel”, the military set out to integrate various types of new sensors into aircraft, with the goal of tying this information together using “aviation electronics” or “avionics”, a  buzz word we still use today.

The military was also beginning to build out GPS.  The first of dozens of satellites to follow launched in 1976.

This NASA 737 cockpit shows the co-pilot's position upgraded to monochromatic electronic flight displays. The pilot side was not yet modified. ca 1974

NASA was busy, too.  Recognizing how complex transport aircraft had become—with more than a hundred cockpit instruments and controls—NASA sought to develop a way for pilots to display “situational awareness”.  The result?  The first full glass cockpit demonstrator.  It was a rousing success and the commercial industry quickly adopted the concept, with the MD-80 first to roll out “glass” in 1979.  Other commercial planes were soon to follow.

Around that same time, the ground-based Omega very low frequency worldwide navaid was being used by the airlines.  It could be considered a very low frequency version of LORAN.  Although it had 1-2 mile accuracy, those who could afford it could supplement it with expensive self-contained Inertial Navigation Systems (INS)—think big gyroscope coupled with an ability to track every change in position from a pilot-entered starting point.

So, now, we have a proven satellite navigation system (still military) and a glass cockpit (still commercial).  We just need to put the two together and make it available and cheap enough for General Aviation!

The ball would be set rolling by a tragic event in 1983.  Due to the inaccuracies of current commercial navigation systems, Korean Air Lines Flight 007 was shot down when it unknowingly wandered into USSR airspace.  President Reagan responded by issuing a directive to open up GPS development for civilian purposes.

GPS Goes Up, Civil Avionics Speeds Up

In 1987, the first glass cockpit went into non-airline service.  Gulfstream had taken a big chance and bet on a cockpit whose dials were “drawn” by cathode-ray tubes.  The bet paid off and the Gulfstream IV business jet set a new standard in civil aviation.

Gulfstream delivers the first General Aviation craft delivered with a glass cockpit

At this time, GPS was not yet ready for use, yet several parallel developments were based in it.  Among these was the successful project in 1991 that interfaced the first portable/panel mounted GPS with autopilot.

In the beginning of 1994, the 24th GPS satellite was placed into in orbit, completing the constellation.  By early 1995, the new GPS system, called NAVSTAR was declared fully operational. Now, just like the earliest mariners, travelers could look to the “stars” for guidance.

GA Gets a Constellation Prize

In 1996, President Clinton, recognizing the importance of GPS to civilian users, declared it a dual-use national asset.  At this time, in the interest of security, only a Selective Availability (SA) signal was made available to civilians.  SA effectively increased positional error, but GPS receivers were now approved for IFR!  The military also made GPS their primary system and decommissioned their TRANSIT system. 

In 1998, Vice President Gore commissioned the upgrade of GPS to provide two additional civilian signals enhancing accuracy and reliability for aviation use.  Two years later, Selective Availability was removed, instantly improving civilian GPS precision.  Within 10 years, 31 GPS satellites would be in orbit, providing redundancy and precision to 15 meters.  Why not better than 15 meters?  We’ll get to that in a moment.

Crystal Glass

Let’s catch up on the glass cockpit.  By the end of the decade and with the help of mass-marketed PC’s and TV’s to drive costs down, the vibrant color, reliability and low power requirements of Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) screens had replaced cathode-ray tube displays.  Today’s familiar full-color screens became available at a cost we GA pilots could finally affordafford, GPS and all!

Final Approach…

That brings us back to where we started, which is today’s Glass Cockpit.  So, here’s a review of the events or “waypoints” that got us here:

Historic events that enabled GPS for GA

• The earlier mariners looked to space for their navigation
• The 1919 bonfires showed us that we can “transmit” waypoints
• In 1929, we learned that radio signals could establish navigation paths
• In 1940’s LORAN, we learned that signal transit times could be used for triangulating position
• In 1957 Sputnik showed us that satellites could be used for navigation
• In 1994 the 24th GPS satellite completed the constellation
• In 1996 President Clinton made GPS available to General Aviation

Historic events that enabled the Glass Cockpit for GA

• In 1968, the idea of a “digital data bus” made way for lighter, cheaper and more reliable avionics systems
• In the 1970’s the military adds new sensors to aircraft and integrates the results
• At the same time, NASA demonstrates the first all-glass cathode-ray cockpit
• In 1987, the first GA Glass Cockpit goes into service
• In the late 90’s, LCD screen production for PC’s and TV’s lowers the production cost for LCD-based cockpit screen.

GPS in the Nutshell

Since we’re here, let’s take a closer look at how GPS works for us pilots.  Then we’ll circle back to the finish what we started on—the G1000. 

GPS receivers use the constantly emitting GPS satellite signals that all the satellites send in unison.  Based on the time it takes to receive three satellite’s signals and the Doppler Effect of each signal, a series of computer calculations can narrow the position of your receiver to one of two places—a point close to Earth and a point far into space.  It’s a reasonable assumption (we hope) that you are not in space, so the computer can always pick the point closest to Earth.  From this, your position relative to ground can then be determined.

But believe it or not, the speed of light causes some trouble for us here.  It is used in the calculations and since the satellite signals travel for only an extremely short duration, (micro-seconds) GPS is very sensitive to the accuracy of your GPS receiver’s clock.  To address this, you simply need to have a really, really expensive atomic clock on board, right?

We know that the cost of GPS has come way down, so we couldn’t possibly have an atomic clock in our receiver.  The receiver manufacturers must have done something, right?  What did the manufacturers do?  Actually, some very cleaver folks realized that if they used a fourth satellite, they could check where the first three satellites say you are, then compare this to the distance to the 4th satellite—four equations (4 satellites) for four unknowns (x,y,z,time).  Since the satellites all have atomic clocks, any discrepancy would be due to error in your clock.  The good news is that this can be used to compensate your system and provide you with accurate (and inexpensive) position results down to 15 meters!  Amazing!

Why not better than 15 meters?  Because GPS uses signal timing to determine position and although we figured out the expensive clock issue, there was another troublemaker lurking in our atmosphere.  Apparently, when the ionosphere “billows”, it slows down the GPS signals, throwing off our readings.  Once again, cleaver folks stepped in to figure this out and with a few more ground stations and satellites, came up with the Wide Area Augmentation System or WAAS.

WAAS first became available to General Aviation in 2003.  Using what’s called Differential GPS, its sole job is to tell your receiver how to compensate for changes in the atmosphere.  If you have equipment that supports WAAS, then you can count on accuracy down to 3 meters.  Sounds almost good enough to use for automated landings, but that’s LAAS and that’s another story!

It’s been a long journey through history.  We hope you’ve enjoyed your flight.

We started this blog by talking about our updated G1000 version 8 course, which lead to looking at the historical breakthroughs that made GPS and avionics possible.  The exciting part is that this is just the start.  Within the GPS and avionics framework, so many other navaids became possible.  For the G1000, it is things like:

• Moving map display
• Flight Director and Autopilot
• Vertical Navigation
• Terrain display and warning
• Real-time weather overlays
• 3D Virtual Reality landscape
• Traffic Information Services (TIS) alerts
• Wide Area Augmentation Service (WAAS)

And these merely scratch the surface of what the Garmin G1000 can do.  Like most avionics today, it only helps if you know how to use it!  We think you’ll agree that GA cockpits have come a long way and we like where they’ve landed.

Even so, most of us never give any thought to supporting business aviation politically. We rely on organizations like NBAA to carry our water for us. That’s what they do. And I might add that they do it very well and very professionally. Most of us just want to run our businesses and leave the government to NBAA. All we want from the government is to be left alone. We are a self-reliant group.

The problem is that government isn’t going to leave us alone. Business aviation is taking it on the chin in Congress and in the sphere of public opinion. If we want to keep things the same, we’re going to have to make some changes.

As good as NBAA is, and they are the best there is—we couldn’t have better representation than them—they can’t do it without us.

The problem is that they are professionals, and they are seen that way by members of Congress and their staff. When a member of the aviation community speaks up, they have much more authenticity.

OK, so what do I want you to do? Well first of all, if you use your airplane for business, and you haven’t already done so, you should join NBAA. You may think NBAA is just for the big operators with multiple big jet airplanes. That’s exactly what those in Congress who oppose business aviation would like you to think. They want to divide and conquer. NBAA strongly supports all business aviation, and they need our support.

Then I think you should go to the NBAA Convention in Orlando October 20th through 22nd, to learn more about the issues. They have a track for business operators with only one or two aircraft, from pistons up through light jets.

 
They’ll have all these airplanes on display.

They’ll have seminars on subjects like:

• Contract jet fuel programs that can save us up to 50 cents per gallon on nearly every purchase
• How to save money and hassles through good tax planning for your airplane
• How using the internet and mobile technology can make it much easier to plan our trips, file our flight plans, and know in advance the clearance ATC plans to give us

Plus, Martha and I will do a seminar on stepping up to jets. We’ll tell folks the things that we wish we had been told before we made that big step—including the big-time and expensive maintenance surprises that were in store for us.

Finally, when you are needed, step up to the plate and tell your Congressman, Senators, and local politicians the reality about issues involving business aviation.

Folks, please join us in Orlando October 20th through 22nd. You’ll be glad you did.

We’ll see you there.

EAA and AirVenture are all about engagement. Do you have a particular area of aviation that really turns you on? It’s there. Interested in space? You got to see the White Knight 2 fly. Fascinated by the advances in airliners? You saw the huge Airbus 380 do multiple passes, then land and taxi up to the ramp to be available for tours. Interested in antique airplanes? Which one? It’s there. Same with warbirds, aerobatic airplanes … you get the idea.

 And it’s not just the aircraft, it’s the people. Want to meet Jack Pelton, Chairman and CEO of Cessna? You can walk right up to him in the Cessna exhibit. Want to see Sully Sullenberger and Jeff Skiles, the two pilots who landed the Airbus A320 in the Hudson? They roamed the grounds and were interviewed by David Hartman, formerly of ABC, in the Theater in the Woods.

Interested in how women have fared through the years in aviation? Martha King and Peggy Chabrian (President of Women in Aviation International) conducted interviews of Dawn Seymour (a World-War II WASP), Lt. Colonel Jill Long (who flew 50-plus combat missions in Afghanistan in A-10s and is also an airshow pilot), Julie Clark (a former airline captain and an airshow pilot), and the most unbelievable of all, the inspiring Jessica Cox (who was born without arms and became a Sport Pilot flying an Ercourpe with no mechanical accommodations whatsoever). Among the questions Martha and Peggy asked these remarkable women was, “Who helped you along the way?” The stories were moving.

Panel Discussion with Miles O'Brien, Patty Wagstaff, Rich Sugden, and John and Martha King

For those interested in how airplanes can be a tool to help the environment, Martha and I, along with Miles O’Brien, Patty Wagstaff and Rich Sugden, participated in a panel discussion after the showing of “Over Africa”—a movie about the Lindbergh Foundation’s  project to support the training of the pilots of the Kenya Wildlife Service. Patty started this outstanding program, and the rest of us were delighted to participate this year.

Meeting some of the great folks at Oshkosh

And talk about people—Martha and I must have talked with thousands. We wanted to get the message out about the new Cessna Sport/Private Pilot course that we’ve been working on for over a year. AirVenture is the place to do it. The editor or writer you want to talk with is right there. You might check out my my interview on AVWeb. I tell Russ Niles in that interview that I think the course’s emphasis on scenario-based training and preflight risk management analysis just may change the way people learn to fly forever.

Now that we are back from AirVenture, Martha and I are just exhausted—and how could anyone not be? It is an aviation smorgasbord without end. It is the event of a lifetime—until next year.

That came to mind the other day as I was preparing to give my recent testimony before the Congressional Homeland Security Subcommittee on Transportation Security and Infrastructure Protection.  I was being coached for the questions I might get.  I was told I would be asked why we flew our own airplane from San Diego to Washington, when there was perfectly good airline service between those cities.  The correct answer is that it is a lot more fun to fly your own airplane than to ride on the airlines.  But I couldn’t give that answer.  I had to give them practical, business reasons.  We had those reasons, but the real one was an unacceptable one—fun.

Martha King testifies before the Congressional Homeland Security Subcommittee on Transportation Security and Infrastructure Protection

The subject of the July 15 Congressional hearing was TSA’s proposal to require very strict rules for aircraft that happen, like ours, to weigh more than 12,500 pounds.  The TSA proposal included such things as requiring us to submit a list of our passengers to TSA and get approval to carry them in our aircraft every time—even if they had been approved to go with us before.  Also included was a prohibition from carrying some 80 items, such as golf clubs and other instruments that the TSA deemed to be potentially dangerous.

The concern is, where will this stop?  If the TSA gets this rule through, will we then have similar rules for smaller airplanes?

The good news is that TSA has had a wake-up call.  They have heard from some 7,000 pilots, and they are paying attention.  NBAA has been a strong advocate for GA, and is continuing to negotiate in our behalf with the TSA.  We will have to accept some form of control on large airplanes—after all, this is the TSA—but we might get away with just background checks for the pilots, who will then be responsible for who and what is carried on the airplane.  Not a big deal—pilots have always been responsible for that. 

But the tone of the Congressional hearing did make me wonder.  Will there be a time when flying an aircraft just for fun will not be acceptable?

As I write this we are getting ready for AirVenture—the world’s ultimate celebration of the fun in flying.  Given the experience of defending before Congress our ability to fly, I am eager to share in this celebration.  If you go to Oshkosh this year, and I hope you will, come hear our talk on Wednesday July 29 at 1 pm, in the FAA building.  We hope we can help you better manage the risks we all take whenever we leave the ground.  Better yet, stop by our booth in Exhibit Hangar A.  We’ll have some specials to make your flying more fun that you won’t be able to pass up.

Martha

As a little boy I watched him on our black and white TV as he told me “The Way It Was” about World War II.  Then when I was a young man, I listened as Walter told the nation we would have to negotiate our way out of the Vietnam War.  He was a factor in all of our lives during those years.

So when a flying buddy who also happened to be a reporter at CNN asked if we could fly Walter Cronkite from New York to Merritt Island, Florida in our Citation, the answer was an unhesitating yes.  John Glenn was going into space for the second time and Walter and another flying buddy of ours, Miles O’Brien, were to co-anchor the coverage for CNN.  The problem was that Walter was to receive an award from the United Nations the night before.  And the only way to get to Cape Kennedy in time was by private airplane.  Walter would be comfortable in our relatively small airplane, our old Citation—his wife, Betsy, had learned to fly and Walter himself had taken flying lessons.  So it was John and Martha to the rescue. 

Martha was to be the captain and I was to be elevated to my obvious level of incompetence as co-pilot.  The route that ATC gave us between La Guardia airport and Merritt Island airport was incredibly complicated.  We put the first few legs into the GPS and planned to fill the rest in after we got airborne.

Martha and I had a habit of putting our charts on the floor between the two pilot seats, but they did have the occasional tendency to slide backwards when we pitched up for a steep climb.  This time when we rotated for take-off, every chart we had slid clear to the back of the airplane and landed between Walter’s two feet.  As the lowly co-pilot it was my job to unbuckle and go back and retrieve the charts.  As I embarrassedly reached down between Walter’s feet to retrieve the charts, he gave me one of the basic truths of navigation, “Aw, just fly south.”  Walter had it perfectly right, but I was pretty sure that was not the way New York Center would feel about it.

As an old sailor, Walter had the essence.  Just hold your heading.  If only I could have had him tell New York Center, “That’s the Way It Was.”

Blessed with fine self-image

We pilots are usually very confident people. In fact you might say we are “blessed with fine self-images.” And you wouldn’t want it any other way. After all, if you are a passenger, you want your pilot to be confident.

But there is a fine line between confidence and overconfidence that can too easily be crossed. Insurance company representatives are often forced to make a decision—is this client merely confident, or overconfident? There is actually a pretty easy way to tell the difference. The overconfident pilot is a know-it-all. They can’t be told anything. They are the ones who most vigorously resist a training requirement for a new aircraft. Guess what. They are the very pilots with the highest accident rates. They aren’t necessarily fool-hardy risk-takers. They just think they are exempt. So they fail to proactively identify and manage the risks of flight.

Sometimes you wonder if you can see the results of overconfidence in the quotes from the aftermath of a fatal accident. “He was such a wonderful pilot.” You have to ask, did they actually have an opportunity to evaluate his flying skills, or did everyone think he was a wonderful pilot because he displayed such supreme confidence around the airport?

The truly best pilots are the ones who know that they don’t know everything and are continually learning. If you’ve been out of the habit of learning about flying, now is the time to get re-engaged in learning. It will put new excitement in your flying and make you a more aware and safer pilot.

Cessna SkyCatcher

On March 19, 2009, the second Cessna SkyCatcher crashed in flight testing due to an unrecoverable spin  (See SkyCatcher First Flight).  In each case the pilot walked away, but the program was hit with a significant setback. 

Folks, this is wonderful news.  We couldn’t be happier about this.  Are we crazy?  Some people might say so, but in this case it makes perfect sense to be happy about these crashes. 

The ASTM standards that the SkyCatcher is being certificated under don’t require this level of testing.  But Cessna does.  From the start, we knew that the SkyCatcher would be a true Cessna—a safe, reliable airplane.  To ensure this, Cessna is testing the SkyCatcher in a way that no Light Sport Aircraft (LSA) has ever been tested before.

The fact that they found an area of the envelope from which the current version of the SkyCatcher did not recover—and will most assuredly fix it—means that some unsuspecting student or flight instructor will not be the first one to find the problem.  I say, hurray for Cessna!  Thanks for taking care of us so well.