AOPA Pilot Magazine - Turbine Edition

There are three types of credit scores in the eyes of an airplane lender: really good credit, good credit, and bad credit.

Let there be no doubt: Turboprop and turbofan flight activity is reaching new heights of popularity.

When Eric Garen gets interested in something, he immerses himself in it. When he fell in love with astrophotography, for example, he built an observatory on his house in Heber City, Utah. That love eventually manifested into a children’s book about the stars, Poems of the Planets.

As a U.S.-trained and -based pilot, every trip through Europe in a light jet presents me an opportunity for some abject humbling.

By J. Mac Mcclellan

Selecting a cruise altitude for a long trip is easy. Consider aircraft weight, forecast air temperature, winds, and any expected turbulence levels, and you can find the answer in your airplane documents. Or better yet, any of several performance calculation services can nail the answer for your specific airplane.

The eVTOL movement came on the scene around 2012, promising fast, point-to-point, intra-urban transportation—after an Uber-in-the-sky vision. Their futuristic looks and eco-friendly, mainly lithium battery-powered electrical propulsion systems garnered plenty of publicity and enthusiasm. A blizzard of designs ensued.

Torrents of saltwater spray from the metal floats as the DHC–3 Turbine Otter begins its takeoff run in bustling Ketchikan, Alaska, on the canal packed with gargantuan cruise ship, yachts, fishing boats, and U.S. Coast Guard cutters.

Avenger Field (SWW) in Sweetwater, Texas, resembles much of the landscape surrounding it: flat, brown, windswept most of the time. Two huge hangars stand on the southwest side of the airport, and a Texas state flag ripples in the breeze.

In the town of Belle Chasse, Louisiana, there is a little boy who is obsessed with fish. Obsessed as only a 4-year-old can be—let’s go fishing! I want to fish! I caught a fish!—his joyful young voice in harmony with the hum of seaplanes along the waterway that is home to his family’s business, Southern Seaplane, Inc.

Owning, flying, and selling the ‘most unusual’ aircraft that Barry Schiff has flown

I saw an epidemic in pilots at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh this summer, and it was not COVID-19. It was obesity. This is not fat shaming. This is about health and enjoyment of aviation for a long time.

Standing amid the rugged Wyoming backcountry, I should have been admiring the dramatic scenery: spectacular peaks to my left and right and a clear running river just a short walk away. Not a road or a sign of another human was in sight, and all of it under an unblemished blue sky. A tender breeze occasionally gave relief from the summer heat. The breeze, though, was the problem. The frequency of the occasional northern wafts seemed to be increasing. Fireside chats with backcountry mentors and some good personal experience taught me to be wary of those puffs, which can be ripples before a tsunami.

An airport friend of a friend once asked me to stand in as his safety pilot while he practiced some instrument approaches. I jumped at the chance, as I’d never flown with the man before, and he was highly respected at the airport.

There are few aviation activities that I enjoy as much as ridge soaring in Hawaii. So, it was a few decades ago when I found myself strapped in the cockpit of a Schweizer SGS 2-33 sailplane preparing for a five-hour endurance flight over the western tip of Oahu. My goal was to satisfy one of three requirements needed to earn a Silver Badge, an internationally recognized soaring award.

One of my favorite subjects to cover over these past 36 years is emerging technologies. Of course, some of those then emerging technologies are mainstream today—GPS navigation; WAAS (wide-area augmentation system, which allowed GPS position to be good enough for low approaches); RNAV approaches; ADS-B; electronic cockpit displays (EFIS); in-cockpit weather; synthetic vision; terrain awareness; collision avoidance systems; and many more.

By Jim Coon

Appreciate what you have, do not take things for granted, stop complaining, and instead be a part of fixing the problem—we have all heard these missives at some point, and they all ring true regardless of time, place, or circumstance. When it comes to general aviation advocacy, you can do all these by being an AOPA member.

Swayne Martin is not your typical social media influencer. Professional, prepared, and humble about his social media’s reach, Martin eschews the perception that many people who post are nothing more than shameless self-promoters.

AOPA continues to make pricing transparency a priority after hearing from thousands of pilots who were surprised by egregious fees, including ramp fees, drop-off fees, tiedown fees, and other surcharges after they had parked their airplanes.

Quiz for pilots

By Mitchell Gossman

As a fellow Minnesotan and private pilot, I felt compelled to get to know Charles Lindbergh better somehow. I considered flying my Mooney from New York to Paris, a route many, including his grandson Erik, have flown.

Full disclosure: My son planned his wedding on this small island off the coast of San Juan, Puerto Rico, and because of the pandemic it took three tries before it finally came together.

The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum will reopen half of its flagship building at the National Mall on Friday, October 14.

Every day tourists visit Rockefeller Center in midtown New York City, to tour the studios of Saturday Night Live or The Tonight Show, or to spend their vacation dollars in the vast souvenir shop.

Rachelle Spector received a scholarship to learn to fly in 2010. After earning her private pilot certificate and adding multiple ratings, she decided to pay it forward to other women interested in learning to fly.

Into Flight Once More is a new documentary that follows 15 groups of dedicated pilots, mechanics, history buffs, and veterans who devoted themselves to locating and restoring vintage Douglas DC–3s to recreate their heroic wartime flights on the seventy-fifth anniversary of D-Day in 2022.

Paul Cunningham is a veteran of the U.S. Marines who says he had always been frustrated with traditional baseball caps because the curved brim would push his sunglasses down onto his nose.

The customer: Successful business owner with regional offices

By John Jacobi

My old man was an original jet fighter jock in the North American F–86 Sabre during the Korean War. He taught me a lot of adages regarding flying. One in particular would prove correct: “Being a pilot is hours of boredom, with moments of sheer terror.”

Every aircraft owner dreads a mechanical breakdown while away from home on a trip. In the five and a half decades that I have owned an aircraft—I bought my first airplane in 1968 and have always flown lots of long trips—I’ve been the victim of such mechanicals more times than I have fingers.

A slip is a favorite technique that finely tunes my descent profile in the pattern, especially since I routinely fly steep approaches.

The internet is loaded with aviation weather websites and other related aids in flight planning, but one of the most popular has been run by the National Weather Service’s Aviation Weather Center (AWC) on aviationweather.gov.

As a nonpilot member of the staff of an aviation organization, AOPA Director of Photography Chris Rose puts his faith—and life—in the hands of many different pilots, from our highly rated staff pilots to pilots he meets on story assignments.

If you have not reviewed your insurance policy for a while, it may be a good time to refamiliarize yourself. Piston aircraft prices have been trending up.

In just six short months, an idea became a club thanks to the AOPA You Can Fly Flying Club initiative. The 200th flying club that AOPA helped launch is the Lake Shelbyville Flying Club from Shelby County, Illinois.

Every pilot learns that meticulous preparation before boarding the aircraft is the most effective method for avoiding in-flight mistakes. But do all pilots give equal weight to each of the three facets of thorough preflight planning?

Sun and fun—that’s what we think about when we envision a trip to Florida.