The top technologies influencing GA
All these new technologies are great, but I am reminded of that old saying that the fancier the plumbing is, the easier it is to stop up the drain (" The Top Technologies Influencing GA," August Pilot). When they fail — and they will fail — it will still be up to the pilot to fly the airplane and navigate it to safety. It is all the more reason to learn and emphasize dead-reckoning navigation and stick-and-rudder flying. To borrow a line from another article in the same issue, "Does It Make Sense?" You bet your life it does!
Sunset, Louisiana
The top technologies article in the August issue is why I signed on to AOPA. And your Internet presentation is terrific. Love to see more of this in the future.
Annapolis, Maryland
The list of 40 marvelous new devices, facilities, and types of aircraft benefiting GA is indeed impressive. What is missing is vertical takeoff and landing, or VTOL. Helicopter VTOL performance with fixed-wing cruise speed, flyable by fixed-wing pilots without rotorcraft training, is the Holy Grail of general aviation. A general aviation VTOL is as fast as a VLJ, will need no airport, and will not compete for runway capacity. The military has spent four decades and $40 billion to develop the tilt rotor with 300-knot cruise. At a time when general aviation needs innovation, what could be better than to compete in both fixed-wing and helicopter markets?
Rock Island, Illinois
Your list of "Top 40" technologies may have benefited your readers with a mention of the growing interest in air-cars and roadable aircraft. I noticed that AirVenture 2006 in Oshkosh had seven forums on air-cars and three on personal air vehicles.
Dayton, Ohio
I wish to take exception to the comments made about multifuel and diesel engines in the August edition. Ever since 80-87 octane avgas became unavailable, I have been using car gas in my Piper Cherokee 140's O-320 and occasionally 100LL for the valves. The 100LL contains four times the lead that 80-87 did and all it does in the low-compression engines is foul the plugs and turn the oil into gray sludge after only a few hours.
In regard to the Thielert engine, to say it is not a diesel because it doesn't burn diesel fuel is nonsense. A diesel will run on bunker fuel, recycled cooking oil, kerosene (Jet-A), or diesel fuel, and it's called a diesel because it was invented by a German by the name of Diesel in the 1930s. Diesels are more reliable, produce more power on less fuel, and don't need system redundancy.
Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada
Go-fast Turbo 182
Rich Karlgaard writes about his Cessna T182T (" Go-Fast Turbo 182," August Pilot). I'm glad he is happy since he has one of the finest small airplanes ever built. I've owned four of them. However, Karlgaard is wasting money running his Lycoming TSIO-540 the way he does. I have had several Skylanes, and the Lycoming 540 is almost bullet proof. If he wants it to run until TBO and beyond he should take the Cessna Pilots Association course on Skylanes.
He will learn that the slower the engine turns the longer it will last. Also there is no problem in the 540 running it over-square. In other words, set up a sensible 25 inches manifold pressure and run it at 2,100 rpm. This can substantially cut fuel consumption — from 17 gph to 12 gph — while adding many hours to the life of the Lycoming 540. The turbo will last until TBO too if it isn't abused — like setting the power at 32 inches just because it will do it.
Stuart, Florida
Feet first
Thanks for offering an interesting article about jumping out of airplanes as a means of understanding emergency bailouts from aerobatic airplanes (" Feet First," August Pilot). I was sorry to read that when the author made his first tandem jump he was told repeatedly to keep his hands off the controls. A better instructor would have encouraged him to fly his body in freefall, touch, and then pull the ripcord, and assist with flying and landing the parachute. I was also disappointed that the author didn't discuss the significant differences between conventional round emergency parachutes, and the advanced rectangular "ram air" parachute he used for his sport training. A good training program will point out those differences so a pilot will be better prepared to handle a landing with a round parachute carried in an emergency bailout rig. The author wrote about throwing a drogue to begin his deployment when jumping in the AFF (accelerated free fall) program. A drogue is only used for tandem equipment and serves the additional function of maintaining a slower fall rate when in tandem droguefall. Contemporary freefall rigs use a pilot chute to deploy the main parachute.
Londonderry, Vermont
Human nature vs. hardware
I enjoyed Bruce Landsberg's piece (" Safety Pilot: Human Nature vs. Hardware," August Pilot), particularly the "Bozo" factor regarding fuel exhaustion While I am sure there are bozos out there, I prefer to consider the bulk of pilots involved in fuel-exhaustion incidents were challenged by a more insidious problem, having to guess at the numerator and denominator in the equation "flying time is equal to fuel available divided by the burn rate." The only way to determine the fuel available with any assurance is to fill the tanks full. The fuel gauges are of little value as the certification standard for fuel gauges is that they read empty when the tanks are empty. They can read anything else in any other state and pass the FAA certification standards. Some pilots resort to dip sticks to approximate the fuel available. But tilt the aircraft and these estimates may be off enough to result in fuel exhaustion. The fuel totalizer offers the best instrumentation to the pilot to assess both fuel remaining and fuel burn. Why not provide financial incentives for owners to install these instruments, provided by insurance companies? Perhaps it is time to change the fuel gauge certification rules to something meaningful so we don't have to depend on guesses to keep airplanes from falling out of the sky.
Vienna, Virginia
The prop stops here
In reading Alton Marsh's " The Prop Stops Here" (August Pilot), I was reminded of the training I received in 1954 at Gary Air Force Base in San Marcos, Texas. Near the completion of the primary phase, we were taught and executed true dead-stick landings. The procedure was to position our aircraft (Piper L-21s) over the center of the field, on the runway heading, pull the mixture full lean, mags off, pull the nose up to a near stall to stop the prop, establish best glide speed, turn to downwind, then mixture full rich and mags on. Continue the approach and land or, if a go-around was required, engage the starter and hopefully the engine would start. During my training no one to my knowledge failed to make the field.
A couple of years after receiving my wings I was flying L-19 Bird Dogs on border patrol in Germany. We had a 1,500-foot strip and I thought it would be fun on returning from patrol to make a stealth deadstick, and surprise my ground crew. I did it a couple of times and was able to coast silently up to the hangar. I thought this was great fun until the last time I landed just short enough that I didn't have enough momentum to make it to the hangar. It was my last time to attempt a real deadstick. You probably know why. That's right, I could not get the engine started and had to get a tow to the hangar! Had I needed power to make the field or make a go-around I might not be telling this story.
Irving, Texas
Dealing with distractions
I can suggest a way to close the cockpit door of a Bonanza without landing (" Waypoints: Dealing with Distractions," August Pilot). I owned a B-33 Debonair for many years and had the door pop open several times. Eventually I learned that the door refuses to close because of the pressure differential between the interior of the cockpit and the side of the fuselage. The solution is this: First, take a deep breath and realize nothing catastrophic is going to happen. Climb to a safe altitude, throttle back, and trim for level flight at best glide speed. Then open the vent window. This equalizes the pressure. Now lean across and slam the cockpit door. The most important thing to remember is step one. Only a few days before my last open-door experience, a Bonanza pilot departing Dekalb-Peachtree in Atlanta had his door pop open on takeoff. He tried to reach across and close it while hanging on to the yoke. Naturally, he pulled back on the latter, nosed up, stalled, and got himself killed.
Buchanan Dam, Texas
Errata
In " Defining Technology" (August Pilot), RAIM should have been defined as receiver autonomous integrity monitoring, not random. In " Pilot Briefing: Earn Your Bat Wings" (August Pilot), adventurer Felix Baumgartner was identified as an Australian; he is Austrian. In the same story, the United States Parachute Association was misidentified. Pilot regrets the errors. — the Editors
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