New Pilot

Learning without enduring

We should all be proud of our flying experiences. Good or bad, our experiences are the weave of a rich fabric we have lived, the stuff of which fond memories and sprightly tales are made. Sure, we have all made a few mistakes within this fabric, including some that we would rather forget, but if we have learned from our experiences — both the ones carrying bragging rights and those best attributed to others — we will certainly be better for it.

When reflecting on our experiences, emotions of satisfaction, joy, accomplishment, anxiety, and — perhaps — shame come flooding forward. Each data point contains circumstances that exposed us to a new and different set of situations, situations that could have been hazardous to our health or that of our passengers. Wouldn't it be great if we didn't have to learn our lessons the hard way?

The takeoff from the little strip in the Sierras on a hot day with four adults in the 150-horsepower Cessna Cardinal left an impression of trees rushing rapidly toward the windscreen. Did I have to learn this the hard way, endangering myself, my passengers, and the anemic airplane? Probably not; but the point is, I didn't know any better. More accurately, I knew about the consequences of high and hot takeoffs but had not experienced the consequences; therefore, I did not appreciate the situation.

Shooting the second nonprecision approach at my alternate on one dark and stormy Pennsylvania night, with fuel reserves rapidly dwindling, left me with the lasting memory of the taste and feel of fear.

Although there is scant solace in it, our fellow pilots will tell similar tales of woe when they are drawn into "truth or dare" conversations. They did not need to engage in any of their derring-do, either. Are we so stupid as to expose ourselves to such hazards and surprises? I hope not, but we certainly could have used some previous experience to keep us from our self-imposed strife.

From the moment we first sign up for flight lessons, we are gathering aeronautical experience. Our ability to assimilate, catalog, and remember our experiences allows us to continue our piloting careers with increasing levels of confidence and capability. The first long cross-country after getting our private pilot certificate, first encounter with marginal VFR weather, first wrestling match with a squirrely crosswind, and first inability to find the destination airport all make us better pilots. But suppose we don't survive these first encounters unscathed. Off-airport landings and bent wing tips, or worse, are a part of the experience process, too — but are events with extreme consequences that are to be avoided.

Suppose we could gain experience in a controlled manner, in a fashion where we would still learn and retain valuable lessons without exposing ourselves to hazardous situations? Is it possible to gain experience without generating potentially negative consequences — gain without pain? If you think about it, your entire private pilot course was an exercise in controlled experiencing, filled with events learned by personal encounter. And, if the instructor did his job correctly, the encounters were low-risk ones.

It is possible to safely build your experience level beyond what is required by the FAA's Practical Test Standards, using the same CFI who dragged you through the initial experience. But, choose your mentor carefully; those who know only how to get you a pilot certificate need not apply for the job. Only those who understand and appreciate the critical aeronautical "moments of truth" need apply. CFIs describing themselves as "sadder but wiser" may have the right stuff; their hard-won experiences may save you from making the same mistakes that they made.

Receiving such practical experience amounts to a true graduate degree in piloting arts and sciences and not merely mastering a set of maneuvers that will lead to additional privileges on your pilot certificate. The objective is to gain many different experiences during your first few hundred hours of flying, not the same few experiences hundreds of times.

The real measure of pilot wisdom is understanding the severity of upcoming encounters, having the requisite experience to discern the possible outcomes, and using good judgment to accept or reject the situation — "Excellent pilots are those whose superior knowledge and judgment make it unnecessary for them to demonstrate their superior piloting skills." Most pilots have adequate knowledge but lack the experience necessary to know what counts and what doesn't.

Using an experienced instructor to simulate a high-and-hot takeoff and go-around should make you more knowledgeable and wary of the real thing when you start your takeoff roll in a 172 at Leadville, Colorado. Poking around marginal VFR weather with your instructor, especially lowering weather, will teach you why you don't want to try this on your own. Seeking out mountainous terrain on windy summer afternoons will teach you the real meaning of the term orographic and the limits of the aircraft's performance.

The really dangerous experiences that statistically contribute to the demise of many pilots each year are difficult to simulate accurately and realistically. Controlled flight into terrain/obstacles, adverse weather, low-altitude stall/spins, fuel mismanagement/exhaustion, and continued visual flight into instrument conditions are the killers in our community, but difficult in which to gain experience other than through contrived situations or discussions. Perhaps the real key in these areas is a healthy respect for the situations that may lead to the disastrous experiences.

But simulation is possible. A carefully planned encounter with a tall tower (one well-known to the instructor) during MVFR training will create a lasting impression. Visually transferring the altitude lost during a stall maneuver at altitude to the picture received while on final approach will drive home the need for controlled flight near the ground. Simulating 15 minutes of fuel remaining while still 20 minutes from the planned destination tends to sharpen the senses, especially when terminated by a simulated engine failure when the time in the tank expires.

Adverse weather is possibly the most hazardous phenomenon confronting pilots. Weather-related accidents have the highest fatality rate of all causes. Weather experience should come from the correct interpretation and analysis of the hazardous weather that results in its avoidance rather than its encounter. One learns little from floundering around in the clutches of a thunderstorm or airframe icing except that these phenomena should be avoided in the first place.

None of us can obtain all of the experiences needed to prepare us for or protect us from the bad things that may occur while airborne. But, there are many valuable experiences available for the asking at the hand of an experienced and creative instructor. Learn from them and become a better pilot. Learning the hard way is foolhardy and may be hazardous to your health.

Practical Experiences Checklist

Weather

• High/gusty winds (during takeoff and landing)
• Thunderstorms
• Icing
• Low visibility/ceilings

Maneuvering

• Very low flying — collisions with terrain/objects
• Stall/spins/other loss of control
• Mountain flying
• High density altitude

Landing/takeoff

• High wind/crosswind
• Night — "black hole"
• Low visibility

Fuel

• Mismanagement
• Exhaustion

Disorientation

• Geographic (lost)
• Spatial
• Instrument weather
• Night

John Sheehan is president of Professional Aviation Incorporated, a consulting firm providing management, safety, and training services to air taxi operators and corporate flight departments. He holds an ATP certificate and is a practicing CFI.

Fears of Flying: Answer to a Prayer

An engine problem has unexpected consequences

BY BETTY WALD

You wouldn't think that an emergency landing would cure a fear of flying, but in my case it did. We were on our way from North Carolina to our New York home when my husband, Arnold, had to land his Piper Warrior unexpectedly at a small airport in New Jersey. The effect on me was surprising.

This was to be our first long flight — to a family wedding in Chapel Hill. Arnold estimated that it would take close to 5 hours' flying time. He was eager; I was apprehensive. I usually avoided all but the briefest of flights and chose to remain ignorant about any and all aspects of flying. But Arnold had recently retired, and I knew that he wanted to fly more and wanted me by his side. This trip was important to him. How could I refuse?

The day we left New York was warm and clear, and the flight was smooth. We stopped in Richmond, Virginia, en route, and by the time we landed at Raleigh-Durham International Airport, both of us were elated. I had actually relaxed during the trip and thought maybe there was a chance that I could overcome my fear. I didn't even miss the rosary beads that I had forgotten to bring along. I usually finger them during any flight.

On Sunday's return trip, the weather was cold and clear, the earth below revealing intense beauty. When we landed in Easton, on Maryland's Eastern Shore, to refuel and have lunch, I felt as if my world was expanding.

"Let's fly here one day soon and explore this area," I told Arnold. "And the North Carolina coastline, too." I could see trips everywhere. I was still nervous but no longer felt that awful anxiety, that fear that the airplane might crash.

We filed a new flight plan before taking off for Westchester County Airport in White Plains, New York. We were flying on an IFR flight plan even though it was VFR weather. My husband is instrument rated and prefers to fly "in the system" for reasons of safety and practice. We were given a routing that would take us on Victor 44 over the Atlantic Ocean, 40 miles off the coast.

"I can't accept that," Arnold said to the air traffic controller. "I have a single-engine airplane and don't want to be over water that long."

Reluctantly, they routed us up across Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Looking down over Lancaster, Pennsylvania, at the symmetrical brown and green ribbons of farmland, I added this area to my wish list of trips to take.

But as we crossed the Delaware River into New Jersey, I suddenly realized that something was wrong. The engine didn't sound right to me, and Arnold was fiddling with the controls and looking concerned. I heard him declare an emergency.

"We're losing power," he told me. We dropped from 3,000 to 2,000 feet and then lower.

"We've lost you on radar," the controller said. "Try to climb."

"I can't," Arnold said. "Where are those airports?"

The controller had given us vectors for two small airports not too far away, but straining our eyes ahead, we couldn't locate anything that resembled one. I reached into my pocket for my rosary. Empty. "Oh God, please help us," I said. I began making promises I knew I'd never keep, like attending daily Mass if we survived.

"Where's the damn airport?" Arnold said. We were at 1,200 feet. By this time I was saying the "Act of Contrition" and looking for open fields. Then I looked down to my right.

"I see two airplanes on the ground," I shouted. It was a small airport called Sky Manor in Pittstown, New Jersey.

We banked steeply, circled, and got down, the wind blowing us off the asphalt and onto the grass. There was a woman with a mobile phone looking up as we landed. This was Gail Cherry, the airport manager, along with her husband, Don. The controller had called her, telling her to call 911, summon the rescue squad, and expect the worst.

When the airplane came to a halt, I burst into tears. We were safe. My husband had remained cool during this whole episode, earning my great respect — and I didn't do so badly either, considering all my fears. I learned that I don't emotionally fall apart in an emergency, that the airplane doesn't always crash at the first sign of trouble, that the controllers can be very helpful, and that my husband can be relied on to handle situations calmly and competently. He is well trained and it showed. Thank God he knew when to say no to a routing that wasn't in our interest. Had we been over the ocean when this happened, the outcome might have been less successful.

We were lucky to have landed at Sky Manor. Don and Gail Cherry couldn't have been nicer, and we were fortunate to find Marty Cress, a terrific mechanic, working there. We left the airplane in his good hands, rented a car, and went exploring in the area, which was beautiful — definitely another destination to add to my growing list. On the next day Marty told us that we had lost compression in a cylinder because of a faulty valve guide. Leaving the airplane for a few days while it was repaired, we explored nearby Pennsylvania before flying home.

After this happened, my friends expected me to say, "I'll never fly again." But, to the contrary, this emergency shook up my misconceptions and has made me resolve to become a better flying partner. Prior to this incident I had chosen to remain ignorant about flying. Now I want to become more knowledgeable about the airplane, more comfortable, and more helpful to my husband. I am studying an AOPA Air Safety Foundation Pinch-Hitter Course Pilot Training Manual and am planning to take a Pinch-Hitter course.

I think perhaps it was my husband's prayers, as well as mine, that were answered that day.

Betty Wald is a retired counselor and teacher enrolled in a Pinch-Hitter course at the Westchester County Airport. Her husband, Arnold, AOPA 988547, owns a Piper Warrior.

Practice Area: Towing Banners

They didn't shoot at 'Drink Dr Pepper'

BY WILLIAM K. KERSHNER

I went from 40 cents an hour for washing airplanes to $20 an hour for towing advertising banners right after I got my commercial certificate in the fall of 1948. Twenty dollars an hour for a just-barely 19-year-old was, at that time, good money indeed. Recently I heard that the current going rate for towing banners is $10 to $15 an hour (that's 1997, not 1948, dollars), so pilots haven't made any financial progress. There are a lot of young pilots who would fly anything to get the experience and hours. (Bless you, young people; I've been there.)

I doubt if many people have had an instant income increase by a factor of 50, and I had plans to buy a car and get a bird dog (the hunting type). I figured if I could tow banners 500 hours a year, I could make $10,000 — a fabulous sum in those days.

DRINK DR PEPPER and DUNLOP'S GARAGE were two of the banners I towed. Life was good; maybe I ought to buy an airplane, too. Vultee BT-13s were still available — not at the immediate postwar prices of $150 each, but still reasonable. I could start off with one BT-13, convert it for cargo, and fly fresh seafood from the Gulf Coast to Nashville. This would be followed by a fleet of airplanes flying seafood and then being CEO of an airline, starting off with maybe 10 DC-4s and a couple of Connies.

The method of launching banners with a Meyers OTW was to lay the banner out ahead of the airplane at a slight angle so that the 400 feet of cable would allow a run of nearly 800 feet, or approximately twice the cable length.

The airplane was held on the ground to assure a good airspeed and was then pulled up sharply so that the banner peeled up with no damage.

In the winter the open-cockpit Meyers was not a comfortable place, even in Tennessee. It seemed that no matter how much clothing I put on for flying, I was so stiff after an hour of towing that I was hard put to get out of the cockpit. But the money was good, and I thought about investing in a boat while I was at it.

Then the boom was over and I was glad to get 40 cents an hour washing airplanes — plus, with the recent addition of a flight instructor's rating (it was a rating then), I could get $3 an hour for flight time only. I started knocking off, one by one, the DC-4s, Connies, and BT-13s.

There was one brief surge in the summer of 1949 when I towed a banner from another airport, dropped it, and then did a "death-defying demonstration" that consisted of some e-shaped loops and a serious (but not completely successful) attempt at an eight-point roll. The Cole Brothers Air Show had no worries about competition on the airshow circuit.

When the Korean police action broke out, I reported to Naval Air Station Memphis after eating 6 pounds of bananas to add to my 130 pounds (on a 6-foot frame) to meet the minimums for flight training. I reported to Pensacola the next day after eating another 6 pounds, but the why of two banana encounters is another story. Suffice it to say that I do not eat bananas anymore.

Because of my previous flying time, I skipped a few flights and got my wings. During advanced training I got to tow a target once in an F6F-5 Hellcat. At graduation I was not in the group that included a 4-foot-tall graduate, but I heard about it. The story was that at the wings ceremony the admiral asked how he got into the flight program and he admitted that he had lied about his height. I often wonder about that story.

After an 8-month deployment as a night fighter in Corsairs on the USS Philippine Sea, I wound up as an instructor in T-33s (the Navy version was a TV-2) and the SNB-5 Twin Beech, as well as the chase instructor in a Grumman F9F-6 Cougar for my squadron, VC-3, at NAS Moffett Field, California.

The squadron ordnance men wanted to test the idea of pulling gunnery targets in the swept-wing Cougar and were looking for pilots with towing experience. I modestly implied vast experience in that field, hinting that my towing experience included many types of airplanes.

I didn't want to bother folks with details — such as the fact that, except for one Hellcat tow, the last time I pulled a banner was 6 years earlier in a 1942 biplane at 80 mph.

The method of attachment to the Cougar was that "my" end of the cable was wrapped around a short length of pipe; said pipe then was inserted in the speed brakes under the fuselage. The speed brakes, when closed, would have about 1,500 psi pressure holding the pipe/cable inside. (Nobody mentioned what would happen in the event of a hydraulic failure, but the speed brake was supposed to stay closed and, because of its interior makeup, the pipe holding the cable would hold, according to my figuring — but 40-plus years have dimmed the details.)

The procedure here was to have the banner laid out behind the airplane with the leader bar lying on its side and having rollers to facilitate the movement along the runway. The "banner," instead of being a series of letters, was a large plastic mesh sheet in which painted tipped projectiles would leave holes rimmed with the different colors assigned to the various shooting airplanes.

The launch went OK, and the rendezvous was made for firing at a point over the ocean well west of San Francisco.

The Cougar was stable (but slow), as the banner acted as a sea anchor (and produced about as much relative drag). I figured that this would be pretty interesting. It was really interesting.

It was most interesting when the pilots, who started shooting at the banner when they were 90 degrees to its flight path, would get enthusiastic and continue firing as they curved around behind the banner, which also happened to line them up with my airplane.

Such remarks as "@!%!! — You're flattening out still firing!" and other such exchanges, as to the ancestry and sex habits of those involved, were heard between me (the shootee) and the shooters.

After several tows the concept (as well as the banner) was dropped. On one downwind leg, while getting ready to make a slow, low pass by the runway for the banner drop, I was over a very populated area, and habit kicked in when I automatically pushed the speed brake button. The clunk of the pressure starting to open the brake caused me to stop and reverse the process, but for a second I thought that the banner and 1,000 feet of steel cable would be dropped across houses and high tension lines(!), with the result that Iwould be Laundry and Morale officer for a barely existing base on Attu, Alaska. I was saved by the sluggishness of the hydraulic system, an operating condition that I had previously cursed.

My pay for this Cougar flying, based on a 24-hour day, was slightly more than $1 per hour, or for an 8-hour day, the pay was a little more than $3 per hour. I had made much more money when I was towing a DRINK DR PEPPER banner in the Meyers, although I don't remember any shooting around the Meyers.

But I proved that my skill at towing banners in three widely diverse types of airplanes was fully as great as my ability to drop handbills or dry ice. (See " Practice Area: Dropping Objects," December 1996 Pilot.)

How It Works: Magic Buss

Inside the electrical system

BY MARC E. COOK

For some aviators — student pilots and old hands alike — electricity is as indecipherable as a David Copperfield act. After all, you can't see electricity, and if you cut open a wire, the volts and amps won't come spilling out. Certain old flight instructors have been known to suggest that electricity is merely an illusion. (Does that make the big red switch that turns on the electrical system the master of illusion?)

For most simple airplanes, trainers in particular, the electrical system exists to start the engine and provide power to the radios, instruments, and lights. Once the engine is running, the electrical system becomes somewhat less important — that is, you could flip off the master switch and yank the wires from under the panel and the engine would continue to run. (Until electronic ignition comes into widespread use, electricity to power the ignition system comes from within the magnetos themselves; there's no need for outside juice. And Unison's LASAR system will have mechanical, self-powered backup capability.) Even in the new Diamond Katana, whose Rotax 912 uses an electronic ignition, the spark system is completely independent from the rest of the airplane's electrical system. And, of course, basic airplanes up through the first half of this century got by just fine without electrical systems.

If you think of the electrical system in terms of household plumbing, many of the abstract concepts will seem a bit more concrete. Some of the terms are different, of course. To measure electricity's potential, we use the term volt. This is equivalent to water pressure. Electrical current is measured in amperes; think of this as the rate of flow. To get a better handle on the amount of work being done by the electricity — or the energy dissipated by some component, like a light bulb or motor — we used the term watt. You may have noticed that your airplane has a 12-volt electrical system, is equipped with a 60-amp alternator, and uses a 100-watt landing light.

At the core of the light airplane's electrical system is the battery. Think of the battery as the connection to the main water line or to the well — it gives the system a reservoir of power, called electromotive force in the parlance. Obviously, it's this reservoir of power you're using to start the engine, converting the electrical potential into motion at the starter motor.

Batteries in light airplanes are typically of the lead-acid variety, with plates of lead (lead dioxide on the positive plates and spongy lead on the negative plates) submerged in a liquid electrolyte of sulfuric acid and water. A typical 12-volt battery is made up of six 2-volt cells in series; each cell will have its own compartment inside the battery case. When a load (a light bulb, or the starter motor, for example) is connected to the battery terminals, a chemical reaction with the lead plates and the electrolyte will cause electrons to move from the negative plate, through the load, and then back to the positive plate. As you might guess, a battery has only so many electrons on the negative plates to give, so extended use will eventually cause the battery to "die." How long a battery will last is given in ampere-hours. A 20-amp/hour battery, for instance, is theoretically capable of powering a 20-amp load for an hour, or a 5-amp load for 4 hours.

Replenishing the battery is the job of the alternator or generator, in concert with the rest of the charging system. Put simply, the charging setup takes "power" or rotational energy from the engine — in many cases, from a flange on the crankshaft behind the propeller. A rubber belt connects this pulley to an alternator. (None of this transfer of energy is free, of course; the alternator extracts a small drain in engine power to supply the airplane with electricity to both recharge the battery and power the equipment on board.) The alternator has a set of windings encircling a central (spinning) field pole assembly. The idea is to convert into electricity the magnetic fields produced by the passage of the spinning-magnet assembly. As the name implies, an alternator produces alternating current — that is, pulses of positive and negative voltage, much like home electricity. A rectifier pack on the alternator uses a series of diodes (think of one-way valves) to filter this alternating current into direct current. Some older airplanes use generators.

An alternator, uncontrolled, will produce voltage in relation to its rotational speed, its operating temperature, and electrical-system load. Obviously, a wildly fluctuating electrical source is undesirable. Because alternator output is proportional to the voltage applied at the field coil, some mechanism is necessary to keep this electromotive roller coaster in check. This is the job of the voltage regulator. As mentioned, the alternator needs voltage at the field windings to make the electromag-netic properties work. By managing the voltage applied to the field circuit, it's possible to tame the wild alternator and make its output consistent and useful. In many cases, apparent alternator faults can be traced to the voltage regulator.

In a typical trainer the alternator does more than simply recharge the battery. If everything is operating normally, all loads put on the electrical system — by the lighting, radios, and instruments — are borne by the charging system. Ideally, there's just enough capacity left over to keep the battery "topped off."

Most airplanes have an ammeter in the cockpit to help you to keep tabs on the charging system. The common "zero-center" ammeter shows the rate of charge or discharge of the battery. If you flip on the master switch and turn on all the radios and lights without starting the engine, you'll see a significant discharge rate. By contrast, right after starting the engine, you may notice a high charge rate; this is normal and indicates that the charging system is restoring the battery's charge.

Inside the airplane, you'll have to deal with a number of electrical items. The master switch, as the name implies, controls all electrical functions; the reason that it is usually prominent and colored red is to give you a quick way of cutting power in the event of an electrical fire aboard the airplane. Most master switches are paired with the alternator-control circuit. The Alt side of the switch does not control the high-current output, but rather routes voltage to the field circuit; shut down, the field circuit and the alternator will cease putting out electricity.

To further protect components and wiring, aircraft use either fuses or circuit breakers. If, say, a radio suddenly experiences an internal fault that directs the ship's power right to ground, the current draw will skyrocket. To save the wiring — the sizes of which have been selected to carry the intended load and a little (not a lot) more — the fuse or circuit breaker will blow. A fuse is simply a section of metal foil in a glass tube; you need to gain access to the fuse and visually inspect it to see whether it has been blown. A circuit breaker, on the other hand, is much easier to diagnose; the head of the device, protruding through the instrument panel, will extend, indicating that a circuit has been disconnected. Before you attempt to reset the circuit breaker, try to determine why it popped in the first place. Never repeatedly reset a breaker that trips right away. More sophisticated airplanes will have circuit breakers that you can manually "pull," thus removing that circuit from the main power supply, or buss.

Electrical systems are intended to have a modicum of redundancy, on the premise that you could limp home (or to the nearest airport) on the remaining circuits. Airplanes that have electric oil pressure and temperature gauges, for example, will often have them powered by separate circuits. Moreover, the battery capacity for any given airplane is sized so that you should be able to fly for about 30 minutes on a full load before everything goes dark. It's a better tactic, though, to shed load in the event of a complete charging-system failure. Turn off unneeded nav and com radios, minimize exterior-light loads as appropriate for the condition of flight, and plan on making a no-flaps landing in airplanes with electrically operated flaps. In a retractable, you may also want to rehearse the emergency gear-down procedures in case the battery has no oomph left for the task.

Before you resign yourself to a battery-only conclusion of the flight, try a few troubleshooting steps. Turn the radios off — individually or with the avionics master, as appropriate — and cycle the alternator field switch. Many over-voltage controllers will respond to a momentary spike in line voltage by shutting down the alternator field circuit; cycling the switch will restore the field power. If that doesn't work, check to see if the Alt circuit breaker has popped; if so, reset it once and see what happens. If it pops again, leave it alone and head for home. Most important, of course, is that you fly the airplane first and troubleshoot second. If there's any doubt about how to reset the system, just get on the ground and let the mechanic perform the magic act.