Flight Forum

In the July 2000 issue, David Montoya writes a story titled "Above It All" about mountain flying. He writes that the airplane will "...require a higher angle of attack to achieve a normal rate of climb, even though the indicated best angle and rate of climb speed remain the same as at lower altitudes." This is a real concern to those of us in mountain country.

Out here, our most common fatal accidents are caused by density altitude. By interviewing the 10 percent or so of pilots who survive such accidents we have pinpointed nine misconceptions which are leading to these problems. One of the nine is the misconception that best rate of climb speed is the same at higher altitudes as it is at sea level. In reality, indicated best rate of climb speed decreases with altitude for nonturbocharged general aviation aircraft. Therefore, pilots should fly at lower indicated airspeeds when climbing out from mountain airports than they do at sea level airports. By climbing at the same indicated airspeed (or even a little more, just for insurance) at altitude as they do at sea level, pilots are sacrificing what little climb performance their airplanes have available and are flying into terrain.

Scott Gardiner
Seattle, Washington

Flying In New Directions

I appreciate your article "New Directions: Changing careers at midlife" (July 2000). This article was written just for me. I too am looking at changing careers at midlife. With four years left of a 20-year career in the Navy as a hovercraft instructor, I have aspirations of attaining my airline transport pilot cer- tificate and working for one of the national airlines. I am currently in the last month of my instrument training and started on my private pilot training exactly one year ago. The article gave great insight on the reality of changing horses in the middle of the stream and what ducks to have in a row.

Scott Greathouse
Oceanside, California

Rules For Rentals

In Mark Twombly's article on compression checks ("What It Looks Like: When a mechanic records a compression check," July 2000), there is a factual error in the statement, "Each time an airplane undergoes a scheduled inspection - annually, or every 100 hours if the airplane is rented or used for commercial operations...." This is a common misconception born, I suspect, of the fact that most FBOs rent out airplanes, and they happen to be the same airplanes that the FBO uses for giving flight instruction for hire.

Section 91.409(b) of the federal aviation regulations says in part, "...no person may operate an aircraft carrying any person (other than a crewmember) for hire, and no person may give flight instruction for hire in an aircraft which that person provides, unless within the preceding 100 hours of time in service the aircraft has received an annual or 100 hour inspection...." The issue of renting is not addressed in 91.409.

The distinction between "rented" and "for hire" is not well defined in the regs, and it escapes many people. I had a discussion with a FSDO inspector many years ago that taught me a simple way of explaining it. He said to think of hiring a taxicab and renting a car. The difference is that the driver is furnished with the taxicab.

John Filhiol
Monroe, Louisiana

Action First, Talk Second

As a student pilot, I digest everything that is in your magazine and especially enjoyed Ralph Butcher's article titled "Ignore the Fluff" (July 2000). He was exactly right. It's not a good idea to attempt to hone your communications skills by announcing that you're going down when you're really going down!

In fact, if you read the NTSB accident reports, this doesn't usually happen. Most pilots in trouble are trying to get out of it and don't really care who knows what problems they are having.

Jim Bard
Via the Internet

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