Member News & Notes: Battle Creek bash

Rain doesn’t deter AOPA Fly-In visitors, and that’s a proven fact. In all, an estimated 172 airplanes flew in, including more than 40 that took their places in the static display. In the exhibitor hall, companies were set up to sell their wares.

Highlighting the static display were a wide variety of airplanes, ranging from the B–25D Yankee Warrior of the Willow Run, Michigan, airport; to a 1959 Cessna 175 Skylark owned by the local Hangar 20 Flying Club; to a rare, fully restored 1964 Piper Comanche 400. Of course, the Waco Aircraft Corp.—based at Kellogg Field—also had a fleet of brand-new Waco YMF–5s on the ramp, as well as its Great Lakes by Waco biplane. Textron Aviation brought a new Baron G58, Cessna 182, and Cessna Caravan to the show; Pilatus had its new PC–12NG; One Aviation displayed its Eclipse SE demonstrator (on loan from the Veterans Airlift Command); Mooney its new Ovation; and even an Aero Vodochody L–29 Delphin was on site.

The Recreational Aviation Foundation brought a Piper Cherokee, and Paradise Bound Ministries its Peterson-modified Cessna 182, with cowl-mounted canard and 300-horsepower engine. On November 19, Paradise Bound will award a trip for two in the 182 to Guatemala, where it has a mission.

The pilot seminars, always a hit, were well attended, with the Rusty Pilots Seminar taking the cake with a full house at the You Can Fly pavilion. Big crowds also flocked to AOPA Air Safety Institute Senior Vice President George Perry’s Mind Over Matter safety talk at the main stage tent, as well as Adrian Eichhorn’s seminar on night flying. AOPA President Mark Baker finished the fly-in with the latest details of the victorious new third class medical reform initiative, as well as AOPA’s efforts to spark and renew interest in boosting the general aviation pilot population. Baker, Experimental Aircraft Association CEO and Chairman Jack Pelton, and AOPA Senior Vice President of Government Affairs and Advocacy Jim Coon took questions from the audience.

So far, 37,460 aviation-minded people have attended AOPA Regional Fly-Ins since the events began in 2014.

Products and Services: Pilot Protection Services

When to descend

Cleared for the instrument approach

By Jared Allen

In a cautionary case of misunderstanding approach clearances, we find our pilot maintaining a previously assigned altitude and receiving radar vectors to the initial approach fix of an ILS approach to a towered airport. Prior to reaching the fix, our pilot is “cleared for the approach” and immediately begins a descent to the published altitude of the first segment of the instrument approach procedure (IAP). However, ATC quickly instructs our pilot to return to the assigned altitude and informs him of a possible pilot deviation.

Since our pilot was receiving vectors and was not established on a segment of a published route or IAP, the effect of the approach clearance is defined by subsection (i) of FAR 91.175, “Takeoff and landing under IFR.” The FAR states, in relevant part, that “when operating on an unpublished route or while being radar vectored, the pilot, when an approach clearance is received, shall, in addition to complying with [the minimum altitudes for IFR operations], maintain the last altitude assigned to that pilot until the aircraft is established on a segment of a published route or IAP unless a different altitude is assigned by ATC.”

Although this FAR places responsibility on the pilot, the FAA order that prescribes ATC procedures and phraseology instructs controllers to issue an approach clearance to aircraft operating on unpublished routes only after the aircraft is established on a segment of a published route or IAP, or after the aircraft has been assigned an altitude to maintain until it is established on the route or IAP. While the FAA generally defines “established” as being “stable or fixed on a route, route segment, altitude, heading, et cetera,” the order also notes that “an aircraft is not established on an approach until at or above an altitude published on that segment of the approach.”

The FAA’s Instrument Flying Handbook states that “the pilot should plan for and request a descent to the appropriate altitude prior to the initial approach fix or transition route depicted on the IAP. When flying the transition route, a pilot should maintain the last assigned altitude until ATC gives the instructions ‘cleared for the approach.’ Lower altitudes can be requested to bring the transition route altitude closer to the required altitude at the initial approach fix.” As always, if there is any doubt as to the meaning of a clearance, ask ATC for clarification.

Jared Allen is an in-house attorney with AOPA’s Legal Services Plan and an instrument-rated private pilot.

Products and Services: Ask Jim

Friend to friend

Get your own policy

By Jim Pinegar, AOPA Insurance Services

Q: What insurance do I need if I want to be pilot in command of a friend’s aircraft? What insurance should they have?

A: Review the “open pilot warranty” clause on your friend’s aircraft policy. This will describe what your friend’s insurance carrier will require for his or her basic coverage (aircraft physical damage and liability) to apply to non-named insured and non-named pilots.

But remember that your friend’s policy is for him, and was designed to make him whole in the event of a loss—not necessarily to protect you. There are instances when someone has flown under a friend’s open pilot warranty, only to find that the policy wasn’t valid for any number or reasons (i.e., nonpayment of premium). You’re on your own, so I would recommend you consider a nonowned policy. This way, you can be certain that you have coverage in place—in the amount you selected—should an accident occur. That is the reason I carry my own nonowned coverage, even when I fly another person’s aircraft and clearly meet their open-pilot warranty.

Jim Pinegar is the president of AOPA Insurance Services.

AOPA Foundation: Air Safety Institute

Look out below

Exploring the hazards of low-altitude flight

Airport traffic patterns for light aircraft generally are about 800 to 1,000 feet above the airport elevation, providing a process to separate departures and arrivals. But they also put airplanes at close proximity to the ground—and sometimes to each other.

It’s that closeness to the ground that should give us pause when we’re flying to and from the pattern, setting up for landing, or doing multiple takeoffs and landings during flight training. The airlines adhere to a sterile cockpit below 10,000 feet agl, meaning no chitchat, no distractions, and no extreme maneuvering when flying in that sacred region during climbout, descent, approach, and landing. But in general aviation, it is up to the individual pilot to incorporate rules that protect himself from mishaps at low altitudes and in the pattern.

The AOPA Air Safety Institute analyzes accidents and their causes to pinpoint safety lapses in the aviation community that could benefit from deeper insights. ASI recently discovered that despite repeated practice of stall recognition and recovery in primary training, unintended stalls at low altitude continue to be a leading cause of fatal accidents among GA pilots. This may well be because the stalls we practice in training often look and feel different than stalls in real-world scenarios. Cockpit distractions, pilot and/or air traffic control miscommunications, and plain, sloppy stick-and-rudder skills also precede mishaps that snag airplanes in the traffic pattern.

ASI developed Margins of Safety: Avoiding Traffic Pattern Stalls  to help pilots understand the complexities of flying a traffic pattern, and the ways in which our actions or inactions can land us in hot water—all at an altitude where an inadvertent stall or spin may be unrecoverable. ASI thinks of this altitude as the “red zone,” where you must concentrate on keeping the airplane, you, and your passengers safe. Consider this statistic: Hard landings because of energy mismanagement resulting in a landing stall usually are survivable. However, uncontrolled descent from a stall at 100 feet agl increases the impact force drastically: Half of these accidents are fatal compared to less than 2 percent of landing stalls.

Develop your own sterile cockpit rules and implement them 10 minutes before arrival and below 2,500 feet.

Please share this video with others on social media and at your flight school or flying club—so they, too, can increase safety in the traffic pattern.

Video made possible by The Tom Davis Fund.

A puzzling instrument approach

Instrument flying can be challenging, as you’ll discover with ASI’s IFR Quiz: The Almost ILS. You’re intercepting a localizer and glideslope on this approach, but you’re not flying an ILS! What gives? Find out why things are different on this unique instrument approach to Runway 6 at Virginia’s Roanoke-Blacksburg Regional Airport. Have fun!

ASI seminar: Trivia Night!

Visit the website for dates and locations near you. Icons identify if it’s a fly-in or unique aviation location.

Enter the Captain Jepp Challenge

If you’re excited about aviation safety and interested in honing your aviation skills and knowledge, then take part in the quarterly Captain Jepp Challenge. AOPA and Jeppesen recently teamed up to create a lineup of free courses, videos, webinars, and in-person events that serve as entries in monthly drawings for gift cards and the grand prize drawing for a trip for two to EAA AirVenture 2017 (two-night stay and airfare included). A combination of free safety programs from the AOPA Air Safety Institute and Jeppesen highlight decision making, weather, charts, and more. Jump into the challenge for your chance to win. New challenges launch in October and January.

Tips from PIC

Timely content

Listen, watch, and learn with our podcasts and webinars

By Ferdi Mack, Senior Manager AOPA Pilot Information Center

Did you know that AOPA’s Pilot Information Center has an aviation podcast feed? One of the great benefits of the digital age is that a few people can produce content that is accessible by many recipients. This one-to-many model applies to online videos, webinars, and podcasts, all of which are used by the Pilot Information Center to provide educational aviation content to AOPA members. Our podcast feed has a few thousand followers who listen every month.

Podcasts do not take long to write, record, and produce, so they let us move fast and choose timely topics based on recent aviation events. For example, when the FAA published a final rule changing the regulations on student pilot certificates, we quickly produced a podcast that helped both instructors and students to understand the details involved, beyond the switch from paper to plastic certificates.

More recently, the FAA revealed its plan to develop a new part of the Federal Aviation Regulations on small unmanned aerial systems, namely the new 14 CFR Part 107, so we produced a podcast on that topic. We have also covered popular subjects that members ask us about, such as aircraft purchasing, aircraft upgrades, and aviation finance and insurance basics. Many of these topics have counterpart resources on our website such as subject reports and webinars that go into more detail as well.

To listen to the PIC podcast feed, point your browser to aopa-pic.podomatic.com, or on your mobile device just search for AOPA in your store or podcast app and look for Pilot Information Center. If you have comments or suggestions on topics that you would like us to cover, drop us an email at pilotassist@aopa.org with “podcast” in the subject line. We’d love to hear from you.

Contact the AOPA Pilot Information Center at 800-USA-AOPA (872-2672), Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern time.

Answers for pilots

Part 91.146

By Ron Golden and Kathy Dondzila

Pilots often ask how to sponsor a fundraising charity/nonprofit/community flying event. We tell them that FAR Part 91.146—Passenger-carrying flights for the benefit of a charitable, nonprofit, or community event—applies.

Allowable events are specifically defined. There are restrictions on sponsors, pilots, and aircraft. For example, any private pilot acting as pilot in command must have at least 500 hours of total flight time. The aircraft (airplanes or helicopters only) must be airworthy, hold a Standard airworthiness certificate, have no more than 30 passenger seats, and a maximum payload capacity of 7,500 pounds. Flights must depart from a public airport in VFR conditions, remain within a 25-statute-mile radius of that airport, and return to the same airport with no intermediate landings 

The sponsor must provide the local FSDO at least seven days in advance: (1) a letter describing the event, including the sponsor’s name; the event’s purpose; its date, time, and location; and all prior events in which the sponsor participated during the current calendar year; (2) a photocopy of each PIC’s pilot and medical certificates; (3) logbook entries showing each pilot’s currency and, for private pilots, at least 500 hours of flight time; and (4) a signed statement from each pilot listing all prior events in which that pilot participated during the current calendar year. Pilots and sponsors are each limited to a total of four such events a year, including no more than one community event; each event may be no longer than three consecutive days. 

Review FAR 91.146 carefully as failure to completely comply can subject you to additional requirements, such as drug/alcohol testing and 49 CFR Part 119.  Questions? Call AOPA, 800-USA-AOPA (872-2672).  

AOPA Finance

What credit score is a good score?

Credit score only plays a small part in determining rates for an aircraft loan. Lenders rely more heavily on cash flow, debt-to-income ratios, and credit history in determining credit worthiness. Rates themselves are based on the loan amount, aircraft type, and usage. Lenders typically expect credit scores of

700 and higher to be considered for financing. Lower scores are considered on a case-by-case basis and can result in higher rates, higher down payment, or shorter terms. —Adam Meredith, President AOPA Finance

Visit http://finance.aopa.org/Resources/Articles/2016/july/Adam-Answers