Weekend retreat. Deep in the northern woods of Maine, Igor Sikorsky III hosts “Sikorsky Weekend” each year, taking visitors seaplane flying and fishing. Sikorsky’s remote, 100-year-old Bradford Camps, located at the center of the 3.5-million-acre North Maine Woods, is accessible only by rugged logging roads or seaplane.
What: Cessna 180 floatplane
Where: Munsungan Lake, Maine
Photographer: Chris Rose
2016 fly-ins announced
AOPA covering the country
After two successful years of hosting regional fly-ins—more than 27,000 people have attended—AOPA will keep the momentum going by hosting four events in 2016. These are the four locations and dates:
Beaufort, North Carolina. May 21, 2016. Michael J. Smith Field (MRH).
Bremerton, Washington. August 20, 2016. Bremerton National Airport (PWT).
Battle Creek, Michigan. September 17, 2016. W.K. Kellogg Airport (BTL).
Prescott, Arizona. October 1. Ernest A. Love Field (PRC).
The fly-ins are free and offer on-airport camping as well as seminars, exhibits, and displays. Many will feature aircraft demonstrations and a Friday night Barnstormers Party. Pancake breakfasts and on-site lunch options are also a part of the events. There will not be a regional fly-in at AOPA headquarters in Frederick, Maryland, in 2016; it is anticipated that will be an every-other-year event.
(www.aopa.org/fly-ins)
Getting help to learn to fly
2015 Flight Training scholarship winners announced
Twenty-four individuals have been selected as winners of the 2015 AOPA Flight Training Scholarships, a program designed to help people of all ages earn a pilot certificate. The scholarships are funded by donations to the AOPA Foundation.
The winners—who included 10 female aviators, three helicopter pilots-in-training, 11 high-school and college-age student pilots, and one recipient in her sixties—will receive grants ranging from $2,500 to $12,000.
The 2015 recipients were selected from an initial applicant pool of more than 700 that was narrowed down to 36 finalists, and then 24 winners, by a review team of AOPA staff members that included flight instructors and student pilots.
“We recognize that the cost of learning to fly can sometimes be a barrier for student pilots,” said Stephanie Kenyon, AOPA Foundation vice president for development and communications. “And with generous contributions to the AOPA Foundation, our donors are helping us provide scholarships to these deserving, aspiring pilots.”
The AOPA Flight Training Scholarship program launched in 2011 with a focus on facilitating a positive flight training experience, which would encourage student pilots to achieve their goals. By helping to produce new pilots, the scholarship program also strives to ensure general aviation’s future, with scholarship recipients serving as ambassadors for GA and flight training on a grass-roots level.
Four awards were made in the program’s first year. Its growth to 24 scholarship awards in 2015 was made possible by the generous donations of organizations and individuals.
$5,000 Blackburn Flight Scholarships
Noah Brands, Vancouver, Washington
Malia Johnson, Monmouth, Oregon
$5,000 Breitling Aviation Scholarships
Diane Abela, New York, New York
Matthew Ehrlein, Franklin Square, New York
Stacey Hales, Wichita, Kansas
Frederick Hoffer, Douglas, Massachusetts
Trenton Jensen, Bountiful, Utah
Charlotte Kaber, Sherman Oaks, California
Mindy Nye, Los Angeles, California
Thomas Quirk, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Sandra Urias, Lake Hughes, California
Desiree Whittington, Steeles Tavern, Virginia
$7,000 Buddy Flights Scholarship
Connor Frank, East Lansing, Michigan
$5,000 Richard R. and Gretchen E. Harper Scholarships
Chase Burnes, Rome, Georgia
Robert Rolley, Youngstown, Ohio
$12,000 Noe-Singer Flight Training Scholarship
Isaac Wilson, Ramah, New Mexico
$2,500 Erral Lea Plymate Memorial Endowment Scholarships
David Chuke, Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois
Abby Devarennes, Davis, California
Stephen Gilmer, Chicago, Illinois
Brock Longley, New London, North Carolina
Xaleon Shields, Ellenwood, Georgia
$5,000 Gina Santori Flight Training Scholarship
Shirleen Bergren, Suffolk, Virginia
$5,000 Richard Santori Memorial Scholarship
Zachary Huffman, Muncie, Indiana
$7,000 Ceci Stratford Flight Training Scholarship
Genevieve Zasada, Honolulu, Hawaii
First look
Flight simulator used in actual flight
Los Angeles-area innovation company has pilots seeing things
By Alton K. Marsh
The pilot next to you has a helmet with a computer-generated image placed over the actual outside view. You have no idea he is about to collide with another airplane. To the pilot with the helmet, the simulation is real enough to cause a scare.
Systems Technology of Hawthorne, California, began testing its in-flight simulator last spring with grants from NASA. The funds allowed the system, consisting of a helmet and a simple laptop computer, to be tested at the National Test Pilot School in Mojave, California.
The simulation has provided a computer-generated image of a refueling tanker 70 feet ahead, a refueling line flowing behind one wing. A NASA pilot who flew the simulation ended up with pilot-induced oscillations, causing him to admit after the flight that his legs were shaking. The technology also could be used onboard a tanker aircraft to help refueling operators conduct a mission with a trailing aircraft that isn’t actually there. Another obvious use is for training pilots in formation flying.
The simulations may also allow pilots to land on a fake airport, runway and all, at 5,000 feet. Once the pilot with the helmet begins a full-stall touchdown, the safety pilot takes over.
Systems Technology CEO David R. Landon said a new series of joint Air Force and NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center tests will begin in 2016. Researchers will put the system in a Beechcraft King Air and fly formation on another King Air without it. They will also compare virtual runway landings with those made by a King Air without the system. Landon said a commercial jet manufacturer has expressed interest in using the system to check new aircraft performance.
Landon, a former Navy pilot, said the system could be used in small aircraft to simulate instrument approaches. Cost is not yet determined but depends on advancements in helmet-mounted devices that are becoming less expensive. If helmets reach a few hundred dollars, flight schools might find the system affordable, Landon said.
“Now every aircraft becomes a simulator,” Landon said. “You can put it into formation flight. If you run into the simulated aircraft, no big deal.” All flights are recorded. The system could be ready for commercial use in a year, he said.
Courtesy Systems Technology
Avionics
TFR avoidance solutions
ForeFlight and Garmin team through AOPA efforts
Flight planning app provider ForeFlight and aviation technology leader Garmin are making AOPA’s TFR avoidance and intercept procedures available as downloads. ForeFlight has made available for download the NORAD TFR avoidance and intercept procedures card. The one-page kneeboard card tells pilots how to check for TFRs during preflight planning, directs them to other planning resources, and presents the intercept procedures used by NORAD and the FAA—including how an intercepted pilot is expected to respond. ForeFlight also released an update notifying subscribers that the information is available. Garmin informed AOPA that it would include the information in a future release of Garmin Pilot.
“No GA pilot deliberately flies through a TFR, but it still happens about 500 times per year. Through making information available and having everyone—NORAD, AOPA, and flight planning providers—work together, we believe it will help decrease the frequency of TFR violations,” said George Perry, senior vice president of the AOPA Air Safety Institute.
AOPA provides several tools to help, including a TFR email alert system and flight planning tools. “Having ForeFlight and Garmin make information more readily available to pilots is a good thing,” Perry said. “The world has changed for GA since 9/11. As pilots we have to do our part to keep the skies safe.”
“Enhancing the availability for pilots to access TFR and safety data should increase the likelihood that a bad situation can be avoided,” said AOPA President Mark Baker. “It’s great when AOPA’s Safety and Government Affairs divisions are able work so closely with the military and commercial vendors to find common-sense, simple solutions that improve safety.”
Just for fun
Strict, or fun
Which type of instructor do you like?
By Alton K. Marsh
Wayne Mathis went to the Bismarck, North Dakota, airport many years ago to learn to fly and asked the first person he saw, “Who is the best pilot on the airport?” The answer was Bob Watts, a pilot who flew “The Hump” in China during World War II. He and his brother founded Capital Aviation and taught hundreds of pilots to fly. Both were inducted into the North Dakota Aviation Hall of Fame; Bob died in 2010, at age 92.
“It’s a hazardous activity and I wanted to learn from the best,” Mathis recalled from his home in Helena, Montana.
But boy, was Watts strict. Mathis strapped into a Cessna 150 with Watts for a lesson filled with rigorous standards. Hold your altitude to within 50 feet. Hold your heading to within three degrees. Keep your airspeed within 10 knots of the assigned speed. Do not lose more than 50 feet in an aerodynamic stall. Your figure-eight pattern will be precise, and your turn about a point will be the same distance from the center no matter what the wind.
Mathis would come home and tell his wife, “I will never fly with him again.” Then he would decompress and the next day he was ready for Bob again. There was another choice on the field: Ralph. Ralph was as fun as Bob was strict.
Mathis soloed in eight hours and got his private certificate in 60. He was one of five students from Capital Aviation, the school run by the Watts brothers, who were ready for the checkride at about the same time.
“I was the only one that made it, and I was the only one who had flown with Bob,” Mathis said. The others had flown with Ralph.
What’s your preference, strict or fun?
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