Category Archives: Aviation

When asked by someone how much money flying takes:

Why, all of it!

— Gordon Baxter

People often get a concerned expression when I tell them I fly helicopters and planes. Even if they don’t outright ask it, you can see the question in the look on their face. “Isn’t that dangerous?” Inevitably, the second question is always “Isn’t that expensive?” I’d like to share a small story from my training that demonstrates why the answer to the first question is “no,” the second question is “yes,” and how they are tied together.

With nearly thirty helicopters at the flight school, it was relatively common to be switched to a different ship for maintenance reasons. Sometimes there would be minor discrepancies that could wait until the next down-time to be repaired. In this case a restrictions would be placed on the helicopter to ensure it remained safe and legal. A common one was a “day only” restriction for burned out lights.

On one particular flight, the dispatch board simply said “Dual Only.” This could mean any number of things, but was no concern for me since I was flying with an instructor. I was surprised to find during the preflight that the reason it had been restricted was a missing foam hand grip on the pilot’s cyclic control. Why in the world would a $10 piece of foam ground an aircraft? (Let’s be realistic. It’s probably $65 from the factory because it is “aviation grade” foam.)

It wasn’t until we began the start-up procedure that it became apparent. During start-up and other ground operations, you sometimes clamp the cyclic stick between your thighs to keep it from moving. Without the foam grip, the bare metal was too slippery to securely hold in place. Worst case, a gust of wind could grab the disk and chop off the tail. The solution was to have your crew (the instructor) take the controls while you took care of other tasks.

If something as simple as this can affect the airworthiness of a $300K machine, how can it possibly be safe with all the complicated systems involved? The answer is simple. The level of detail and care shown by the maintenance department and dispatchers is systematic from the engine and transmission, all the way down to the yaw string (aviation grade yarn: $78). Inspections are carried out religiously. Parts are replaced as soon as they are out of tolerance, not just when they start causing problems. Some of them have a “use by” date and are replaced even if they have sat in the hangar with 0 hours on the tach.

This is the same reason that 70 year old airplanes are routinely still flown, while my 12 year old Honda Civic is starting to feel like a rattletrap. Much like Theseus’ Ship, so many parts have been replaced and upgraded over the years it can be left to the philosophers to debate whether it is even the same aircraft. If I took care of my car the same way I would an aircraft, it would drive like new too.

Of course this dedication to safety comes at a cost, and that cost is money. The parts are initially designed and tested to a high degree of reliable and to have a large margin of safety. The acquisition cost is correspondingly greater than an equivalent part in the automotive industry for instance. When you start adding on the regular inspections, replacements, time, and well-intentioned safety regulations the answer is “yes, it is very expensive.”

It takes a special sort of crazy to think it is a good idea to spend your hard earned money drilling holes in the sky, but that same obsession allows us to see the elegance of the machines we fly. Everything in a plane is there for a reason. When you strap in, the only thing on your mind is the flight. There is little room for baggage of the physical, or mental varieties. Flying is a consequence of mechanical refinement, crystalline mental clarity, and the call of the heavens. It’s the best “high” you can get.

2/28/15

Cessna 172 – N734KU

The worst thing about stalls is the anticipation. The actual stall, and recovery is tame in comparison to what you are expecting to happen. As stated in a previous entry it is actually quite difficult to get an entry-level aircraft to stall.

As I was driving to the airport my car was getting tossed around by the wind, so I was anticipating a rough flight, if not being grounded outright. By the time I got to Twin Oaks things had calmed down a bit though, and while there was a bit of rough air getting up to altitude, we managed to find smooth flying up at 4000 feet. After the last lesson in the 150, I wanted to give the 172 a try for comparison. From the outside it doesn’t look much bigger, but the little bit of extra elbow room makes all the difference for comfort. It feels like a real airplane. Pre-flight is almost identical, except the engine cowling does not open for visibility. There is only a small access panel for access to the oil dip stick and gascolator. 4KU has the 180HP engine. While I didn’t note the climb speed, it felt quite happy to take the two of us to altitude.

Trim is a whole new concept to me, coming from helicopters. While we had the trim adjust for cruise flight, it was an on-off device and didn’t really do much in the first place. Control pressures in the R22 were very light even during the most aggressive maneuvers. I can finally see what all the fuss is about properly trimming your airplane for each flight regime.  This was dramatically apparent when recovering from stalls. The most important action in recovering from a stall is to decrease back-pressure on the yoke. The first couple attempts at stall recovery I had the trim too far forward, so when I released back-pressure the nose pointed way down. We lost quite a bit of altitude before leveling out. By trimming more proactively, and being conscious of how much control inputs were actually required my stalls smoothed out to non-events after a few tries.

We practiced three flavors of stalls on this flight: power-off, power-on, and turning stalls. Power-off, and power-on are similar, although in a real emergency, they tend to occur in different phases of flight. A Power-on stall might result from an overly steep climb-out in a clean configuration. Can anyone say high DA! A power-off stall might occur during landing. For practice purposes, power-on stalls are difficult because it can be really difficult to get the darn plane to actually go slow enough to stall, without dipping into the territory of aerobatics.

Turning stalls are perhaps the most interesting, because they exhibit some counter-intuitive behavior. Due to aerodynamic effects, the outside wing of a turn actually stalls first (because it sees a higher angle of attack). This means that if you are turning to the right, a stall is going to drop the left wing. The recovery in all cases is to release-back pressure and apply rudder, not aileron, to correct developing turns. Aileron inputs can increase the angle of attack on the wings and deepen an already developed stall.

I will be taking a break from flying for a short time as I shop for a plane of my own. With luck, my next entry will be from my new training aircraft.

2/24/14

1.3h – Piper Cherokee PA-28 140

I actually did it. I scheduled a flight in a Piper Cherokee. The Cherokee is one of the top contenders on my used aircraft shopping list along with the C-172, so I wanted to have an informed opinion of the PA-28 before committing to it as an option. I had a pleasant flight out of Aurora State Airport with Sylvia Manning of Willamette Aviation. Sylvia grew up flying her father’s Cherokee so had some insight to offer on the model. The purpose of the flight was primarily to evaluate the aircraft, but we did some steep turns and touch-and-goes to add to my repertoire.

Walking up to the aircraft, the first impression is that it is bigger than the 150 I flew for my first lesson. The second thing you notice is that the thing only has one door! Sylvia had done the pre-flight beforehand since we were short on time, but the low wings would obviously make it easy to check and add fuel compared to a 172. Large cowl covers also make pre-flight inspection of the engine compartment easy.

To enter the aircraft you step up on the passenger side (right) wing and in through the single door, pilot first. It’s quite a bit roomier than the 150, but comparable to the 172 which I’ll touch on later. The method of entry and low to the ground sight picture make it feel a bit like a mid-size coupe.

Every cockpit is a little bit different, but the big things were the fuel selector/fuel pump, and the method the flaps were deployed. Because it is a low wing design, the fuel cannot be gravity fed to the engine. There is an electric boost pump that is used for startup and critical phases of flight. Relatedly, the wing tanks were separately sourced. There was no “both” setting on the fuel selector. The flaps in this Cherokee were actuated with a manual Johnson bar control. Having tried both electric, and manual flaps now, I am actually fonder of the Johnson bar. You can completely raise flaps in one smooth motion during go-arounds, and it seems, in my opinion, simpler and less likely to fail.

Another minor difference was that the throttle, mixture, and carb heat were all levers rather than push-pull knobs. I liked the aesthetics of the lever controls, but having used both I think I prefer the push-pull style better because you can use a finger on the panel as a reference when making fine adjustments. As a general note about panel layout in small planes, I am disappointed by the number of widgets that are blocked from view by the yoke. I know the space is limited, but you really have to stretch to be able to see some of them.

Starting up the engine immediately felt more powerful than the 150, no surprise there. The nose-wheel had good authority during taxi and I had to do little differential braking. The improved visibility was already apparent during taxi. It’s nice being able to keep an eye on the sky for situational awareness. My only complaint during run-up is that there is no way to see the tail besides the very tips of the stabilator. You just have to trust that the rudder is working correctly.

Aurora is a bit of a crazy airport. After waiting for a gap in traffic we rolled out to runway 35 and put in full throttle. It tracked down the runway with little effort on my part. Rotation speed is 60-65. Pulling back for rotation on the other hand took a surprising bit of effort. Climb out speed is 85. At 85 we saw 900 feet per minute of climb. Not too shabby.

After climb-out we turned to the South and did some basic climbs, turns and descents. The visibility in flight is the best part about the low-wing design. You can’t see the landscape as much for sight-seeing, but as a pilot I’d rather see the NORDO headed right at me. Plus, the low wings give a sense of being held up by something substantial, which passengers might like. We moved on to slow flight, a stall demo and some steep turns. The Cherokee in trim is almost completely hands off. To prove this Sylvia had me trim it out in a 45 degree turn and let go of the yoke. It held the bank and altitude solidly on its own for a good few seconds. I gave in before the plane did. Awesome! Rudder inputs are almost non-existent after takeoff. I would have to be careful about this. It could make you a really lazy pilot. Slow flight is comfortable. Stalling it is incredibly difficult. Even at full up trim you have to basically use two hands on the yoke to get it to properly stall.

Having covered all the basic maneuvers we headed back to KUAO for some touch-and-goes. It is going to take me awhile to get used to the approach angle in an airplane. The 3 degree normal approach in an airplane seems incredibly shallow compared to the 15 degree normal approach I’m used to in the R22. Touch-and-go procedure is straight-forward and logical: Raise flaps to reduce drag, carb heat off for max power, and advance throttle to full.

That was about it. We did a couple more touch-and-goes and taxied back to Willamette. Talking with Sylvia afterword, she is a big fan of tailwheel aircraft like the Citabria and Decathlon. Her second favorite are the 172s, with the Cherokee taking third. I talked her into letting me sit in one of the 172s just to get a feel of the ergo and sight picture before meeting with the aircraft broker on Friday.

My impression of the 172 is that it feels like an extended cab Ford Ranger or similar. You step up into the cockpit. Things are tight, but not necessarily cramped. There is a sense of carrying capacity. The panel and sight picture are pretty much identical to the 150.

I learned a couple additional things from talking with her and independent research since then. The high-wing aircraft are much cooler in sunny weather because they have built in shade. The 172 also has fully opening side windows, not just a vent. Fuel related accidents occur almost twice as often in low-wing aircraft which require a pump, and source management. The nose wheel of the Cherokee is of a much different design than the Cessnas. It is tied directly to the rudder pedals which gives it greater authority while taxiing, but can cause problems while landing if you don’t center it before lowering the nose. Cessna on the other hand always points straight until weight is applied to the Oleo strut, so landings issues are mitigated at the expense of limited steering range during taxi (requiring more differential braking).

What a day.

2/22/15

1.5h

Met up with Ron Larson at Stark’s Twin Oaks (7S3) and took Cessna 150 N19333 up. Weather was clear skies. The wind was gusty at the surface, but not bad above 2000 feet. We went over basic maneuvers: straight and level flight, turns, climbs, descents, and combinations of the preceding. Ron was impressed with my procedural approach to flying, and that I talked through what I was doing. Shout out to my helicopter CFI Tyler Fees who beat those habits into me. I got a half hour “under the hood,” a first since we don’t have attitude instruments in the helicopter.

One of the interesting things I noticed is that the magnetic compass lead-lag is much more pronounced in an airplane. I had never noticed more than a few degrees of discrepancy rolling out of a turn in the R22, but in the C150 I counted an almost 100 degree lag that took more than 5 seconds to correct itself. Perhaps a result of the much steeper bank angles the fuselage experiences during a normal turn? I can see why UNOS is important now. The gyro heading indicator was much more on course.

The carburetor heat seemed much easier to manage in a fixed-pitch plane because the reduction in RPM is an obvious reminder that you are at a lower power setting, whereas in the helicopter your engine RPMs remain constant even as the throttle is closed automatically when lowering pitch.

After the basic maneuvers we ended with a bit of slow flight, and demonstrated some stalls. Getting into slow flight is an incremental business. Deploying the flaps really puts the brakes on so you want to do them ten degrees at a time and stabilize the pitch and speed before continuing. The stalls were interesting because it is actually quite difficult to get into a stall in straight and level flight. The stall buffet is pretty obvious, and recovery is an automatic lowering of the nose, and not so automatic addition of power.

Return to the airport was relaxing after all of the maneuver practice. Visibility in the plane is quite a bit less than the heli. I actually lost the airport turning upwind to crosswind and inadvertently flew right over the numbers.

Next lesson is going to be flown in a 172 for comparison. The 152 is quite capable, but it is “cozy” if I am being polite.