Letters from our February 2019 issue

I really enjoyed Mike Busch’s “Errors of Distraction.” As a former automotive shop owner, pilot, aircraft owner, advanced ground instructor, and grandparent, I can testify to the abundance of distractions in life.

Having owned two aircraft over the years, I experienced sloppy work and potentially dangerous oversights. The most aggravating experience was with my “new” Grumman Tiger. The local FBO was asked to do an oil change for me. When I looked at my new shiny airplane and saw oil all over the nosewheel and cowling, I asked what happened. I had a quick drain on the engine, so they just let it drain and did not clean it. No hose was installed. Then I did my preflight and smelled a strong gas odor. On looking further, they had broken a primer line. Just forgot to tell me. With calmness—hard to do— I explained to the FBO owner what had happened to my airplane. He apologized and said he would get the corrections made. I bought the airplane through him, so he knew his crew was responsible.

Back to my automotive shop. Our shop had one major rule: No phone calls when you were working. Our mechanics had to finish the particular job they were on before retrieving their phone calls from our receptionist. If an emergency occurred, and our mechanics had to be interrupted, they were required to update me on the exact status of the job. When the work was finished, it was my responsibility to road test the vehicle, raise the hood, double check all the work that was done. In my opinion, these distractions can be reduced, but it takes dedicated effort by all involved in the service process.

James L. Hibbert
AOPA 647779
Walterboro, South Carolina

Generating change

“Turn and Face the Change” was a nice article. My personal belief is electric is where all this will lead, including heavy jets. If I look forward enough I see electric-driven propulsion—not by batteries but by small nuclear generators. They already drive various spacecraft, have energy density that far exceeds so-called fossil fuel, and should be able to be designed to take up the space of a few thermos bottles with eventually little weight. Look at the thrust of a high-bypass fan jet. Eighty percent or so of the thrust is produced by the turbine blades accelerating air that never sees the combustion chamber. It could just as well be driven by some kind of electric motor powered by a nuclear generator.

Let’s really start thinking out into the future where, I’ll wager, we’ll find no barriers—only the ones we create ourselves.

Rob Bender
AOPA 1430506
Golden, Colorado

Top 10

I was dismayed to read in Richard McSpaddens article “Our Top 10” that AOPA “experts” would include airframe parachutes on their list of top 10 safety advances. The other items listed no doubt have dramatically increased safety for a broad spectrum of hundreds of thousands of pilots. If you include passengers on transport aircraft, the number of lives saved is probably astronomical.

But the airframe parachute has only been implemented in a minute segment of aviation. McSpadden asserts in the article that 400 lives have been saved by airframe parachutes. I wonder where that statistic comes from? Is that the number of inflight activations of airframe parachutes? He asserts in the same paragraph that “most off-airport landings do not end in fatalities.” I’ve heard a figure of 90 to 96 percent, but even if we interpret the word “most” to mean 75 percent, that suggests that only a hundred lives might have been saved. While 100 lives is impressive, it hardly qualifies to compete with the broad safety impacts of the other nine items on the list. And it doesn’t account for the pilots that were more comfortable pushing the envelope because they had the get-out-of-jail-free card.

I would have put AOPA’s integrity above what comes across as a thinly veiled plug for BRS. Is there accurate data to suggest otherwise?

Michael Mock
AOPA 911939
Townsend, Georgia

Landing tale

Barry Schiff’s “Give ‘er the Slip” article in February’s AOPA Pilot magazine reminded me about a flight on a Boeing 727–2A. I was flying with a first officer who was a great stick and a lot of fun to fly with. On the last leg into DTW, I wanted to pull his leg a little. They asked me if we had the field and without asking Mike I keyed the mic: “Yessir, we can take a visual.” Mike was straining against his straps trying to get a view of the airport on my side. “OK, sir, you are cleared to land on 3L.” Mike asked me how it looked. “Oh, you’re fine, a little high, that’s all.” He banked the airplane and exclaimed, “Are you nuts? I can’t make that!” I assured him he could, flaps 2, 5, 15, gear down, 30 degrees. Mike said he’d never make it. I said, “You wanna bet?” He threw his arms up and said, “You got it!” I placed the left wing down ever so slightly and top rudder and we flew right into the glideslope. I pushed them up at the outer marker and made a grease job. “Flaps up after landing,” I intoned. Mike gave me a dirty look, said, “I never would have believed it.” Schiff is right; if you’re smooth nobody knows back in the cabin. But, one person did on that flight. I was last off the airplane, putting on my coat and hat, and an elderly lady in her eighties stopped by the door smiling. She asked, “Were we flying sideways?” I smiled back and said, “Oh, just a tiny bit, glad you enjoyed the flight.” She said, “At least you made a nice landing out of it.”

Kenneth Eckstein
AOPA 7684106
Simpsonville, South Carolina

Clarification

While many World War II airborne soldiers were drafted into the service (“Re-Living History,” February 2019 AOPA Pilot) airborne duty was voluntary, and remains so today.

Hangar Talk

“Flying in the jump seat was not my first time in a jumbo jet cockpit, but it sure was my first time flying around with a state-of-the-art hospital in the trunk!” said Editor in Chief Tom Haines about his experience in the Orbis International MD–10 Flying Eye Hospital. The 46-year-old airliner lives a leisurely life of 100 flight hours or so a year, but hauls a big, life-changing load. It even has a cool call sign: Orbis One. Most impressive, though, said Haines, is the commitment of the Orbis organization, the staff, and the volunteers to stamping out debilitating eye conditions around the world. “Every person I came in contact with was absolutely on point regarding the mission and the idea of service, including Nate Morrissey. Nate’s a GA pilot and an FAA inspector in real life, but is a passionate volunteer determined to make pilots everywhere more aware of the Orbis mission. Like others at Orbis, he’s all in to keep the program growing and healthy. I came away with a great admiration for the organization and impressed, yet again, by the difference aviation can make in the world.”