Weekend Edition

Weight, Balance and Density Altitude

By Peter Conant - This past Wednesday I listened to a small part of the Plane Talk webcast on IMC Radio, with Radek, Derek and Dave discussing performance charts. The topic is near and dear to my heart since I've had a few experiences flying at gross weight (and even over gross) in high density altitude conditions which hammered home the need to "run the numbers" when I am near the limits of the chart. As Derek said at one point, "Flying at gross weight is like you're flying a whole different airplane."

Which is a good way to put it. Those of us who fly out of sea-level fields can get a bit blasé about those performance numbers. On one hot and humid afternoon in Maryland, soon after earning my PPL, I offered a high school friend along with his wife and daughter a sightseeing flight in my Archer. I checked the weight and balance but didn't look too closely at the performance numbers. Sure enough, we were slow to accelerate, took fifty percent more runway to lift off and sort of staggered up in the warm moist air. If you've never had the opportunity to fly at or near gross weight on a hot day (even at a sea level airport) you don't really know how your plane performs (or doesn't perform) at the limits of the envelope. It's truly like flying "a whole different airplane."

Or try this: head out to the Rocky Mountain states and see how things are done. I was in Albuquerque some years ago and was sightseeing in a Skyhawk with an instructor. The runup procedures were unique and something I hadn't seen before. Rather than departing with the mixture at full rich from a high altitude field, the instructor held the brakes, ran the engine up to 2,200 RPM, and then leaned the mixture from rich down to a point where the RPMs increased to around 2,350. He then throttled back, pushed the mixture knob in about 1/8th inch, and said "Now the engine is leaned for max power." I think I had read about this but never seen it done before. And on approach to landing, he never went "full rich" as I expected. Something to remember.

Likewise, flying out of Centennial Airport in Colorado, elevation about 4,500 MSL with a friend and my daughter on a clear cool morning, my daughter asked ìWhy is it taking so long for us to get off the runway?î Same deal. The Bonanza A36 I was flying supposedly had an altitude-compensating engine driven fuel pump so that, according to the POH, the need for leaning at a high altitude takeoff was not necessary. Uh huh. I think I'll do the "leaning on the ground" drill every time I'm in high country.

But the all-time weight and balance winner in my logbook is my ferry flight in a Cherokee Six from Maine to Greece back in 1996. This was a delivery to a Greek buyer who had learned to fly in Massachusetts and bought a plane which he promptly outfitted with new interior, avionics, engine and paint. I've written about this before but thought I would repeat the experience here since it certainly got my attention. My co-pilot and I had an extra 100 gallon ferry tank behind the front seats, so with 180 gallons of fuel we could comfortably fly for fourteen hours, meaning at any point we could do a 180 back to our point of departure. (That's 180 degrees, not 180 gallons.) Anyway, the morning of our departure out of Reykjavik Iceland was chilly and cloudy but with clear skies forecast over the North Atlantic enroute to Norway, passing over the Faroe and Shetland Islands.

We were near or slightly over gross weight with our six hundred pound ferry tank, though we made sure that we were within CG limits and knew we'd be flying out of airports with long runways. We had had no problems flying in and out of Labrador and Greenland the day before so we did not anticipate any problems. The clouds were forecast to contain a "chance" of ice.

Turning east and climbing to our assigned altitude of 9,000 MSL, we entered the clouds at 4,500 feet. And there was the ice. Our plane had the 260 horsepower engine and we were a bit over gross weight, but now we were picking up a bit of rime along the leading edges and wrapping around the VHF antennas strung from the top of the vertical fin to the left wingtip and from the wingtip to the top of the fuselage.

Our rate of climb began to decrease: 600 FPM, 400 FPM, 200 FPM. At 100 FPM, we were barely climbing at 65 knots indicated and 7,000 feet. It felt like trying to coax a reluctant elephant up a ramp! And then came the point where the climb stopped. Any further back pressure only produced a loss of airspeed (60 knots), with a distinct pre-stall rumble felt through the yoke. Time to activate plan B. We were cleared to descend down to 4,000 where we were out of the clouds, ice melting off and clear of terrain. As we crossed the coast and headed out over the ocean, the clouds parted and clear skies prevailed.

Flying over gross weight in IMC while picking up ice over hostile terrain is not one of my fondest memories. Thankfully my "co-pilot" was a pilot in the Norwegian Air Force who had made over a dozen Atlantic crossings. And the only ice we saw during the entire 35 hours of flying was in Iceland. Go figure.

NORDO

By Peter Conant - We don't think a whole lot about our radios. Our communications with ground, tower, departure, center and EFIS are automatic. I started carrying a portable radio after an incident in Lansing, Michigan where I lost communication with the tower on final, but the second radio in the panel made this event a non-event. And ever since packing a portable comm I've never once had to use it. Complacency? You bet.

Now that I'm renting things with wings, a lot of different panel equipment connects to my headset jacks. Sometimes the plugs need buffing (I'm told using a soft pencil eraser helps burnish the contacts) or often the plug receptacle is loose or wobbly, resulting in a sporadic connection. I carry a Leatherman to help tighten any loose bolts and often have to contort my frame under the panel for a proper fix. Sometimes there is bleed over on the audio signal from the ADF identifier or transponder, or perhaps the audio panel gives off a mysterious rhythmic clicking, which often drives me nuts.

Staying ahead of the checklist, going through the familiar motions we all take for granted, is a potential trap. Just as we cycle the prop, check the mags, carb heat (if you fly a carbureted engine) and ammeter, I believe that checking the radios and their connections is just as critical. My "plug in and go" mentality is now undergoing some serious revision, especially now that I'm thinking more like a flight instructor. Do I really understand all the intricacies of this particular audio panel? Do I check each light, switch, marker beacon and annunciator before EVERY flight? I think the trap is when our checklists are seen only as something to be completed before we fly and our focus is getting into the air instead of exploring in detail all the items that could malfunction while we're still on the ground.

A friend of mine who learned to fly at a non-towered field south of Boston would always, before launching, check with Unicom to confirm both radios were operational. A good idea for any pilot, but especially when you are about to launch into the clouds. At our last IMC Chapter meeting here in Norwood, MA we were presented with a scenario where an IFR flight in low clouds was cleared into Teterboro, NJ for an approach and promptly found the radios had died. What to do? I realized this "what if?" question rarely crosses my mind, intent as I am on frequencies, altitudes, speed and chart profile during an approach. So here was this pilot, coming into some of the busiest airspace in the country, with no means of communication. I suppose squawking 7600 would help, but that was about the only transmission available. Several scenarios were presented: exit the terminal area, descend and find a VFR airport (bad idea), go to the filed alternate, complete the approach, and so forth.

After the discussion, I realized I would be definitely behind the airplane if something like this happened to me. So I am now becoming a zealot when it comes to studying accident reports containing communications failures and committing to memory the procedures specified for such an event. As we all know, it's much nicer being on the ground wishing you were in the air, than being in the air wishing you were on the ground. My radio check is now a much more detailed process than just seeing if I can transmit and be heard.

IMC Club Expands Board of Directors

By Peter Conant - When EAA's Sun-N-Fun starts next week in Lakeland Florida, your IMC Club will be there to celebrate our growing numbers of Chapters around the country and indeed around the globe. We are especially pleased to report that our Board of Directors now includes some big name aviation personalities from the worlds of manufacturing, flight training, aerobatics and more. This year, Redbird Flight Simulations has generously agreed to share their exhibit space with us at Lakeland-Linder Airport.

Our board meeting next week in Lakeland will be the first time all the new directors will have the chance to meet together and plan for your IMC Club's continuing expansion. "Organized Hangar Flying" is our method of involvement at the Chapter level, and with the addition of people like Jack Pelton, Michael Goulian, Joe Brown and Jerry Gregoire we are poised to expand into new areas of pilot training and continuous sharing of experience.

Jerry Gregoire is the founder and Chairman of Redbird Flight Simulations, Inc., the worldís largest manufacturer of full-motion flight simulators for universities and flight schools. Jerry holds an Airline Transport Pilot rating and a single-pilot type rating for Cessna Citation 525 jets.

Joe Brown is Chief Operating Officer of Hartzell Propellers. Joe has a passion for the principles of lean manufacturing, waste reduction and development of self-directed work teams. He is an instrument rated pilot and a Lifetime Member of the IMC Club International, Inc.

Millions of airshow spectators around the globe have witnessed the ferocity of a Mike Goulian airshow performance. He has won the United States Unlimited Aerobatic Championship and was honored to represent the United States at the World Aerobatic Champion on three separate occasions.
As an airshow superstar, Mike continues to redefine what is possible in the air.

Jack Pelton retired as Chairman of Cessna Aircraft Company in 2011. In his career Jack has had more than three decades of extensive aviation experience. He is now the Chairman of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) and serves on the boards of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and the Corporate Angel Network. While at Cessna, Jack was responsible for new aircraft design and development, flight testing and improvements, and certification.

Other board members include Steve Sullivan, Chairman of the Board and founder of Wild Blue Flight Simulators; Gary Oberstein, Managing Partner at Nixon Peabody, a national firm of attorneys; Radek Wyrzykowski, IMC Club's Founder and President Founder and President; and myself.

As you can imagine, we are thrilled to have this caliber of aviation professional available to us at the IMC Club. And if you're at Lakeland-Linder Airport next week, please look for the Redbird Flight Simulations display booth. We look forward to your stopping by to say hello to the Redbird staff and the IMC Club International's people. See you there!

By Peter Conanat - Being something of a dinosaur, I am thinking that perhaps I should investigate what's going on with all the new glass technologies and new airplanes. For the record, I have virtually no time flying behind a glass cockpit display, except for two VFR flights in a new Mooney Ovation and a recent Columbia 350, both with a Garmin 1000 system. Both these flights were with an instructor. I have a portable Lowrance 2000 GPS which I bought at Sun-N-Fun a few years ago. The simple graphics are an amazing aid to situational awareness in the clouds and over water. But I know nothing about using an iPad in the cockpit, much less TAWS, TCAS, XM Weather, ADS-B and electronic PFD's and MFD's except for what I have read. Yes, I was "checked out" in the Columbia but would never go up by myself without more instruction and study. I've only flown one GPS approach using a Northstar M3 without a moving map. I thought the digital readouts were simple to follow.

A while back before I had my Lowrance, I flew an AngelFlight from Boston's Logan airport down to Martha's Vineyard. My passengers were an Aquinnah Indian and his wife. It was a clear, calm day in the fall with visibility practically unlimited. After settling them in the rear seats of the Cherokee Six (easier for loading disabled adults than having them step up on the wing), I outfitted them with headsets and prepared for departure. After starting the engine and activating the intercom, the wife spoke up and said "Most of the other pilots we fly with have a moving map. Since you don't have one, I'm wondering if you're going to be able to find Martha's Vineyard!"

I assured her that it would be no problem, and continued with my passenger briefing. But it got me to thinking. If passengers are becoming accustomed to glass cockpits, am I unknowingly causing them some anxiety by flying "steam gauges" or legacy gauges as they are now called? Is the airplane or even the pilot flying with mechanical analog indicators now seen as an antique relic of the goggles, silk scarf and leather helmet days? Or is the new technology just another gimmick to sell airplanes? And if you're a pilot who has never flown behind legacy gauges, can you step into a glass cockpit without a thorough familiarization and study of all the systems? I don't think so.

Since I'm in the process of getting my CFI rating I realize I'm going to have to know how to use the new and the old cockpit displays. What is going to be the best way to do this, do you think? A Cirrus SR22 rents for over $250 per hour, wet. A Cessna 172 with a Garmin 1000 display rents for $155 per hour, wet. No problem making a decision there. And I'm aware that Garmin, King Schools and YouTube have courses to train with. I think that's probably where I should start. The iPad looks like a winner also, and is relatively cheap with affordable apps from ForeFlight and many others. At a recent Air Safety Institute event I attended, Bruce Landsberg asked how many pilots were flying with iPads. About a third of the 500 participants raised their hands.Does anyone out there know if an Android tablet can do the same things as the iPad?

So, in my attempt to morph from a coelacanth to a modern day aviator, I'm also considering buying an airplane. I've been really interested in diesel engine technology and most recently in the Cessna 182 JT-A. The 230 HP engine, built in France by SMA, has been certified to a 2,400 hour TBO, burns jet fuel at 11 GPH (as opposed to the 235 HP Continental Engine which burns closer to 15 GPH), and helps solve the problem of what all the 100 LL burning piston engines are going to do when the EPA and other environmental groups lower the hammer. Jet fuel is going to be available into the foreseeable future, although only at the larger airports. On the other hand, I know about the trials suffered by Thielert diesel engines in the Diamond Twinstar.

Someone told me once, though, that the lead additives necessary to run a 100 LL engine are so lethal that if you took a barrel of the vile stuff and dumped in into the Mediterranean, it would be a devastating catastrophe of unimaginable proportions for all people and animals that live near the shore and under the water. Hmmm.

Lots for me to think about, for sure. Added to which, the projected price for the Jet-A burning Cessna 182 is north of half a million dollars. Not exactly affordable at my pay grade. However, I do have an idea.

Diamond Aircraft recently unveiled a program they call Diamond Shares. A single pilot owner can contract with other pilots to pay $995 per month to rent a DA-40 XLS for 100 hours per year. This is a dry rate: the non-owner pilots pay for gas and landing fees. This works out to about $120 per hour dry. Certainly not cheap, but just a little more expensive than a G1000 172 and not nearly as much as the Cirrus SR22. The maximum number of pilots for any particular airplane is limited to 4 or 5, after which the insurance premiums skyrocket since the carrier assumes you are operating the plane as a flight school or a club. All pilots would be named insured on the policy, and scheduling would be through a simple Google calendar.

My question then is this: What do our IMC Club members think of spending $995 per month for 100 hours a year of access to a Jet-A diesel engine Cessna? I plan to try this out at Norwood and see what the response is. With three shareholders plus myself, it looks financially feasible to carry a note. Of course, there's also the need to come up with a 20 percent down payment.

Having owned four airplanes in the course of my 33 years of flying, I can say from experience that having a small group is definitely the way to go. I would be extremely interested and grateful for any thoughts my readership has about glass technology, diesel engines, or a small group of named pilots flying a new airplane.

Please stay tuned for my reports of how this goes. Cessna aircraft are not my aircraft of choice (except for aerial photography) because I'm rather tall (some refer to it as my "freakish height") and it's hard to see out the side windows. Is there an STC for putting a diesel engine in a low-wing bird? Does Diamond plan to offer their Austro Diesel engine on the DA-40? Your thoughts, comments, and wisecracks are always appreciated and fun to read.

Twins: Twice As Much Fun?

By Peter Conant - Although I have a twin-engine rating I don't have a lot of twin time, maybe 80 hours. My twin rating was done in a Piper Seneca I, which wasn't all that much faster than an Arrow but was a good learning tool. I took a trip to Kalamazoo, Michigan in the Seneca soon after receiving my rating in October, 1993. Crossing Lake Erie after dark in a snowstorm is something I would never do in a single, but the presence of that second engine gave me and my wife a sense of security. Later I found out just what a false sense of security that could be. Still, I enjoyed the snow being lit by the strobes over Lake Erie as a sort of stop-action film. It was a clear night in Kalamazoo and I appreciated the tower clearing me for the visual, but I asked for and got the ILS. Note to self: always fly an approach, if there is one, after dark when landing at an unfamiliar airport, especially one with lots of lights and three runways.

A few years later I checked out in an older Cessna 310. Whereas the Seneca had, as I remember, 160 HP engines, the 310 had 265 HP on each side. It had a phenomenal climb rate, huge amounts of space inside, great load hauling capability and great flying qualities. My checkout was in February with the whole drill again that I'd seen in the Seneca: stalls, single engine minimum controllable airspeed, Vyse climbs (single engine best rate), single engine landings, instrument approaches under the hood with an engine failure inside the marker, go around procedures and more. My instructor told me to remember "puff" for a go around: Power, Undercarriage, Flaps, Flaps (for cowl flaps). The 310 didn't have cowl flaps though.

In late July of that same year, my wife and I decided to fly up to Grand Manan Island in New Brunswick, Canada. Grand Manan is sometimes referred to as the cork in the Bay of Fundy. Grand Manan airport only had an NDB approach but we saw clear skies forecast for the trip of just under two and a half hours from Bedford, Massachusetts.

It was a hot day when we departed after 1 PM from Bedford. After climbing to 5,000 MSL I leveled out, brought back the engines to 65% power in cruise, and started leaning the mixtures just as I had been taught.

Without warning, the right engine began to surge. We were swinging left and then back to center as the right engine died, coughed, caught, coughed, died and generally acted cranky. The first thing I did was to shove the mixtures to rich. The second thing was to calm my wife, who was asking "Is this normal?" Oh sure, I said, we practice this all the time in training, all the while thinking "What the hell is going on with these engines?" I kept the mixtures full rich for about 20 minutes before cautiously leaning them. Whatever the problem was had apparently gone away. Blocked fuel lines? Air bubbles in the fuel? Faulty maintenance? I just could not think what the problem had been.

The Bay of Fundy was shrouded in clouds when the arrived and I prepared for the NDB approach. But just then, the island showed through a break in the clouds. The entire island no less, radiating enough heat through the fog to create its own column of rising air. Or maybe we just got lucky. I made a great landing (he said modestly) and even impressed myself. Grand Manan airport is an Airport of Entry, allowing us to clear customs in record time. Our rental car was waiting for us and the driver, also the rental agent, took us to his house where we signed the necessary documents at his kitchen table. It turned out the car was his own personal car and we were being given the use of it for the weekend. A very pleasant, laid back and congenial way to start our visit to Atlantic Canada.

Grand Manan was once the center of a thriving sardine industry. It also produces dulse, a dried seaweed which the Canadians eat like potato chips, but to us was way too salty. The sardine docks and packing houses are largely abandoned but a few have been bought up by a New York architect and remodeled into his waterfront vacation home. He even has one building identified with a sign as the "Sardine Hall of Fame" with displays of Grand Manan's historic past. To top that off, he's got a boat in the harbor in the shape of a sardine can with the top partly rolled back.

We enjoyed our hikes to the cliffs, dipping our toes in the cold ocean waters, touring the lighthouse and enjoying the geology of this unspoiled island. Had we more time we would have gone on a whale watch or taken an afternoon trip to Seal Island to watch the pinnipeds and puffins in their native environment. The weather was cool in the afternoons and cold in the evenings. In the morning as we were getting set to leave, we stopped by a fish market which sold us cod which had just been brought in on the fishing boats. Then to a local baker who sold us several loaves of freshly baked bread, and wished us goodbye by saying ìGood Appetite!î Atlantic Canada still has its remnants of French culture, which although more concentrated in Quebec still remains alive along the New Brunswick seacoast. I realized as we drove away that what he had said was "Bon Appetit" in English!

The weather at the airport was close to zero-zero. I walked the length of the runway to check the visibility and by the time I reached the middle I could not see either end. Even with a twin, I was not prepared to take off in those conditions. We still had the rental car, which the owned said he would pick up later at the airport, so we headed back into town to do some serious beachcombing and get warm with hot coffee.

After a few hours we returned to the airport, only to find the airport manager politely telling us that the Canadian Air Traffic Control people were looking for us. Oops! I hadn't realized that in Canada you need to cancel your IFR flight plan rather than just let it run out. Unless they hear from you by radio or phone, they assume you have departed and have lost communications. Whoops! Big mistake. I re-filed the IFR, apologizing to the very tolerant and understanding flight service people.

We waited until the ceiling got to what I estimated as 200 to 300 feet with a half-mile visibility. I decided to launch. Everything went fine and we popped out on top at 2,500 and took up our course to Bangor, Maine. I leaned the engines with no ill effects. By now it was mid-afternoon and after landing we decided to stay in Bangor for the night. The next day dawned bright and clear and warm. I fired up the 310, launched the big bird and turned toward Bedford. Leveling off at 6,000 I leaned the engines.

And guess what? A surging right engine greeted me! As we rocked and rolled from side to side I set the mixtures back to full rich which cleared up whatever the engine problem was. Again, after about 20 minutes I was able to lean without any difficulty.

I reported the incident to the owner and to the flight school I had rented from. Several months later, my instructor called me to say he had been looking over the POH and found this statement: "When flying at altitudes over 12,000 feet MSL, or when operating in extremely high temperatures, do not attempt to lean the mixtures until at least 15 minutes after takeoff. Allow the fuel flow to stabilize, after which leaning procedures can be attempted." The 310 had no cowl flaps, and the heat-soaked engines were vaporizing the fuel in the lines. Even though these were fuel-injected engines, the heat of the day plus the heat of the engine acted to block the fuel lines, which were located at the top of the engine block.

Flying in new conditions, atmospheric or otherwise, should always bring with it skepticism about whether the airplane will perform the same way it did when you were checked out. And now I ALWAYS read every word of the POH for whatever airplane I'm flying.

Embedded CBs
(reprinted from "Things My Flight Instructor Never Told Me" by Michael Leighton)

In 1990 I finally had bought an airplane that was capable of serious cross-country flight and I was enjoying it. The 1977 Mooney M-20J was pretty well equipped for a light plane of its time, with dual Nav-Coms, ADF, DME, audio panel with intercom, and a Century 2 autopilot. It was a step up in performance from the Cessna Cutlass I had gotten my instrument ticket in.

I had owned the plane for several months and received plenty of dual from a very experienced instructor I had befriended when I moved to Florida. Feeling good about the airplane and myself, I decided it was time to take the Mooney cross-country. My wife and I headed off with another couple from our base in West Palm Beach, Florida toward Morristown, New Jersey. The weather was typical east coast in the early summer. Haze and low flight visibilities, surface temps in the 90s along the entire route of flight and, of course, the possibility of thunderstorms.

In Florida, if you don't fly anytime there is a chance of thunderstorms in the forecast, you may only be able to fly 25 days a year. But in Florida, thunderstorms are easy to see and avoid, and typical flight visibilities in the summer are better than 10 miles. I completed my preflight and got an updated weather briefing. The trip, from West Palm to Morristown with a fuel stop in Florence South Carolina, would take about seven hours.

The first leg to Florence went well. Early morning skies over Florida were clear and as we crossed into Georgia we began to see the haze. The visibility at Florence was a questionable five miles, but clear of clouds. While we fueled I checked the weather. The radar was showing a small line developing west of Victor 3 on a roughly northwest-southeast line, moving east at 20 miles per hour. I elected to amend our flight plan to take us up Victor 1, which runs parallel to Victor 3 but is 80 miles to the east on average. The destination weather was good and once north of Richmond, Virginia it appeared we should have a nice trip.

As we taxied out, we were advised of a new sigmet which had just been issued for our route of flight. After takeoff I called flight watch for an update on that sigmet. The line of thunderstorms I had viewed on the radar less than 20 minutes earlier had turned nasty. We had filed for 7,000 feet and as we approached Richmond we began to hear aircraft asking for deviations from the weather. Again, I called flight watch to check on the situation, just as I had been taught. Flight visibilities were now nil, and we were in solid IMC at 7,000 feet. Flight watch reported that the line was moving as before and that we were at least five miles east of the nearest echo. Switching back on the center frequency we could now hear regional airliners frantically requesting course deviations for weather.

Less than a minute later it got really dark in the cockpit. The sky turned that grayish green color that you know is associated with nasty weather. Then I saw the first lightning flash. I turned to my passengers and told them to tighten their seat belts. Then we hit the updraft. I'll never know how strong it really was because the VSI was pinned in the 3,000 fpm up position. I turned off the autopilot, closed the throttle, lowered the landing gear and put the nose down and trimmed to maneuvering speed. Still going up. As we went through 9,000 feet, center asked me to say my altitude. I told them 9,000 and climbing. He asked if I had been assigned 7,000. I answered affirmative but that I was in a cell right now and was just trying to keep the wings level.

He cleared me to deviate as necessary and suggested a heading of 088 degrees. Just as he gave us that heading we hit the downdraft. The VSI swung around in the other direction. Full power, gear up, nose up to Vy and still going down . . . in excess of 3,000 fpm! At that point we penetrated the rain shaft. The noise was unbelievable. The turbulence wracked the plane left and right and as I attempted to turn to the right toward the assigned heading, the plane went up on the right wing at close to 90 degrees of bank. Full left aileron and rudder took nearly five seconds to recover to wings level.

All of a sudden, we popped out of the side of the towering Cu into a clear blue cloudless sky. The feeling of relief lasted on a few seconds as an horrendous sound filled the airplane. It was the sound of 2 to 3 inch hail striking the airframe at nearly 200 mph. We had penetrated the cell from behind and came out the front, under the anvil and the falling hail. We had survived the encounter with the storm only to be assaulted in clear air by ice balls the size of golf balls.

The full extent of the damage didn't become apparent until we deplaned. The entire leading edge of both wings, the tail and top of the rudder looked as if a madman had attacked us with a ball peen hammer. Blue fuel stains on the bottom of the wings indicated we had ruptured every fuel tank seam on the plane. It was a miracle we didn't lose the windshield.

That night I lay in bed replaying the day over and over in my mind. I did everything right, everything I had been trained to do. So how did I get so close to becoming a footnote on an NTSB report? Nowhere in any of my instrument training had anyone ever mentioned that you should never, ever fly in IMC in embedded thunderstorms. That thunderstorm avoidance is strictly a visual thing. And that thunderstorm avoidance gear such as Stormscope and radar (which was not that common in singles in 1990) are absolutely mandatory and still not foolproof for operating in those conditions.

What I should have done, and now do, is operate at an altitude that puts me above the haze so I can see the buildups. I fly around what I can't fly over. This often means operating at 10,000 to 12,000 feet or higher in the summertime. All my aircraft have been equipped with storm detection equipment of one sort or another and I carry a small portable oxygen bottle.

I now make it a point when giving instrument dual to take my students on a cross-country trip that puts them in this situation so they can see for themselves what you can and can't safely fly through. Even fast building Cumulus that haven't begun to spark yet can be dangerous.

The bottom line: DO NOT FLY IN INSTRUMENT METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS WHEN EMBEDDED THUNDERSTORMS ARE PRESENT OR FORECAST! Something my flight instructor never told me.

Watching Good Training in Action
(reprinted from "Things My Fight Instructor Never Told Me" by Michael Leighton)

The other night I had an interesting experience. After a long day of flying, we got back to our base airport well after dark. My chief pilot, who flies his Cessna 172 to work from his home on a private grass strip just seven miles from the one I live on, agreed to fly me home and spare me the hour plus drive.

His airplane, a mid-1970's model 172, featured a new engine and a Powerflow exhaust system. The rest of the plane is factory standard 172. We did our run up, called the tower and departed. I commented on how nicely his plane climbed with two on board. The tower cleared us out of the Class D to the south. My buddy reached up to flip off the landing light and when he did, the lights in the cockpit dimmed. I looked at the amp meter, which was showing full deflection discharge, and snapped on the flashlight that I always have in my hand or nearby when flying at night.

I pointed out the anomaly. He went through the usual checks, resetting the alternator breaker, turning the master switch off and then back on. It only got worse.

So, here we were 2,000 feet over somewhere in the dark with a flashlight. The ceiling was 2,500 feet. We knew this because we had just flown through it a half hour before.

Hard IFR
(Reprinted and condensed from "Things My Flight Instructor Never Told Me" by Michael Leighton)

Experience is by far the best teacher. When it comes to learning things in aviation, I have found that it is always more comfortable to venture beyond your own personal experience while in the company of some who has been there and done that. That way, if thing do go to hell in a hand basket you have the voice of experience to listen to. But if you fly long enough, the day will arrive when you know a lesson is coming and you're going to have to learn it alone.

So it was for me on the morning of March 4th. Our charter company had a trip scheduled in a King Air and, me being the lowest time captain in our group, it was decided that I would fly this particular trip.

The morning weather map was a classic late winter picture. A cold front extending from over the Great Lakes into the Gulf of Mexico was dumping snow all over the Midwest. A warm front, created from the remnants of the last cold front, had backed up over the state of Florida and was moving north, attached to a low moving northeast out of the Gulf up the cold front.

Our trip was from our base in Palm Beach, Florida up to Jacksonville, pick up our client and then on to Teterboro, NJ for the night. The next morning we were to go on to Bradley International in Hartford, CT, pick up three more passengers and return to Jacksonville, and then on home to Palm Beach.

The northbound trip was a cinch, featuring clear skies and great visibilities, not to mention a 25 knot tailwind ahead of the approaching cold front. We landed within five minutes of our projected ETA. After putting the plane to bed and catching some dinner, my copilot and I sat down to look at tomorrow's forecast.

The weather in the morning in the northeast would be fine. The front would not make its presence felt there until later afternoon, at which time we would be a thousand miles away. But as the warm front (now across northern Georgia) moved north, a trough emanating from the low over Louisiana would begin to move north and east. The same features that gave us those welcome tailwinds would now create strong headwinds, and it was likely we would not be able to make the trip from Hartford to Jacksonville non-stop.

But the die was cast. We were supposed to be professional pilots. The chief pilot didn't want to hear about weather. The customer didn't want to hear about weather, and I was pretty sure the three passengers we were picking up in Hartford didn't want to hear about it either.

Fortunately, my client is a pilot and a close friend as well and does not suffer from "get-there-it is" at all. So I always had the "wait until tomorrow" card to play if the weather exceeded my personal comfort level. Knowing this, I went to bed early because one way of another, tomorrow was going to be a long day.

After checking the winds and weather, I dialed up the "Wind Optimize" feature on my laptop. Tell the computer what you want to do and it will tell you which altitude will give you best speed vs. best fuel burn. No matter how I sliced it, we were not making it non-stop without eating into our one hour fuel reserve. I filed for a fuel stop in Salisbury, MD where the weather was forecast to be VFR through the morning.

The next morning, our first leg from Teterboro up to Hartford and the second down to Salisbury went off without a hitch. But it was apparent that the winds were definitely stronger than forecast and our groundspeed confirmed this. When we picked up the weather at Salisbury for our trip to Jacksonville, it was showing airmets for turbulence at almost all altitudes, sigmets for ice and low ceilings, with our destination weather forecast to be 1,500 and three on arrival. Higher altitudes meant higher headwinds, but also much lower temperatures, thus a lower chance of severe icing, plus better fuel burns.
We filed for 22,000 feet.

100 miles south of Salisbury we were in solid IMC and minus 22C. We didn't see any ice until well south of Norfolk. By the time we were north of Charlotte, NC we were picking up ice fast enough that I had to cycle the boots every few minutes. The big feature was the wind. The groundspeed was down to 130 knots, a hundred knots right on the nose.

Approaching Savannah, the controllers advised us of convective sigmet Echo 21 for a line of thunderstorms 30 miles west of Jacksonville to Ft. Myers, moving northeast at twenty knots. We were now in a horse race. I figured we had about an hour until the line of thunderstorms reached Jacksonville. South of Savannah, Jacksonville was reporting better than 5,000 and five. Descending through 8,000 feet we could see the coast through the undercast and the line of thunderstorms appearing on the edge of our airborne radar's range. We were told to expect the visual to runway 14.

As we turned base to final the radar swept to the west revealing the imminent deluge lurking in the gloom just west of the field. As we taxied in, a lightning bolt struck a tower on the airport. As my passengers deplaned, the first large super-cooled water droplets began to fall on the ramp. We waited in the FBO for an hour until the storm passed to the east and we were able to proceed to Palm Beach. We touched down 12 hours to the minute from departure at Teterboro.

The moral of the story? If I had been in a lesser aircraft and not a twin-engine turboprop with all of its high altitude and known ice protection, we would not have gone. Our decision making process was sound and based on aircraft and pilot capabilities. Having the "out" plan ready if the destination weather went to hell prior to arrival as well as the command authority to "just say no" in the first place all played a role in flight planning.

There is nothing that I can think of in my flight-training syllabus that could have prepared me for this decision train.

Real World Flight Training

By Peter Conant - In this month's issue of Flying Magazine, Robert Goyer talks about clouds. His focus is how we train primary students to decide when they are in over their heads and how to get out of deteriorating flight conditions. We all remember when, as newly minted pilots, we flew into weather which was beyond our capabilities. Goyer then talks about how new pilots and even many seasoned pilots are reluctant to divert to another airport. He has a number of suggestions about how new students are, in many cases, not exposed to real world conditions.

All this is of interest to me because this month I will begin my training as a CFI. I am fortunate to have the best of the best, Radek Wyrzykowski, as my instructor. Radek told me last week that flight instruction is about teaching and how an instructor goes about imparting years of experience in a structured, methodical and systematic way. Flying is the subject matter, of course, but the real test is examining the way in which a CFI prepares his or her student.

I would therefore like to offer some of my own ideas for how to make flight instruction challenging and relevant for the novice pilot. There is a book I would recommend, Things My Flight Instructor Never Told Me, by Mike Leighton, which lays out a number of his own mishaps and difficulties he handled throughout his career. Many of these have to do with ground operations, interactions with ATC, and mechanical glitches.

My own flying began in 1979. In those days, just as I do now, I loved to take long cross-country trips in a Piper Archer. This was before the days of GPS, Nexrad, TCAS and such. My pilotage skills were pretty sharp and I made it from Boston out to Minnesota on more than one occasion, also flying to Oshkosh and down to Maryland. I think it may still be valuable to teach pilotage and navigation but I wonder if anyone does this anymore, with inexpensive portable GPS units so available. I think pilotage and looking out the window are things I would want to cover with my new students.

On the matter of diversion, obviously knowing where you are is rather important. You can press the "nearest" buttons and find yourself on a moving map, but I think I would have been better served had I practiced a diversion to a new and unfamiliar airport during my training. And I wonder what you, my growing readership, think is the best way to quickly get the information needed when a diversion is necessary. My AOPA Airport Directory always accompanies me and I find this more helpful than an AFD. But for recent diversions I find myself looking at the instrument approach charts (assuming my diversion airport has an published IAP) to quickly get the runway diagram, elevation, length, and frequencies. Would it make sense to train a VFR student pilot in the use of the NOAA IFR approach charts? I would welcome your ideas.

Diverting in Arizona some years ago to a gravel strip without an IAP found me breaking out the AOPA Directory in heavy turbulence while flying toward a thunderstorm. Nowadays I would simply use my Lowrance 2000 for airport information. Is there any use in carrying an AFD? Well, I suppose one reason is that the AOPA Directory is not an approved source of aviation data. Handy, but not approved. Nor is, I don't believe, a handheld GPS.

Besides training with a hood, I also wonder if a new student might benefit from an actual trip inside a cloud. That is something I never did in training and wish I had. After receiving my PPL, I once advertently flew into clouds south of Albany, over the Catskills. I did a one-eighty and landed at a small uncontrolled field, waiting until the weather blew itself out. That was my first time in actual, and it felt totally different from being under the hood.

I once had an instructor who showed me his method of making a short field landing in the Archer. As we were settling in the flare toward the runway, he retracted one notch of flaps and set us firmly on the pavement. "Don't ever tell anyone I showed you this" he warned. But since the statute of limitations has probably run out on this instructional maneuver, I think I might show this to a new student when they are getting sharp on their landings. I know I have used this many times when I'm landing on a grass or short field. Get the wheels down firmly on the surface so you don't bounce back up. Makes the braking more effective, too.

So I'm hoping you pilots out there can help me here with your stories and ideas of what you think real world flight instruction should include. For example, my first really difficult crosswind landing was at Akron-Canton Ohio. A stiff west wind was gusting enthusiastically but only the north-south runway was available. Talk about the need to make a diversion! But, just as Goyer tells it, many long trips end with a laser focus on the intended airport and the idea of going somewhere else just doesn't occur. That landing had me up on the right wheel, full aileron deflection into the wind, and the left wheel just refusing to come down. It was something I'd never seen before and wished that I had practiced earlier, rolling down the runway with a pronounced thirty degree tilt.

My First Experience in IMC

By Peter Conant - Here is another story entered in our essay contest about your first time boring holes in the clouds. I found this one interesting because the instructor described in this story made what to me are some rather questionable decisions during two training flights. I will reserve my comments for next week and, in the interim, welcome your opinions about how you think these instructional flights were handled by the student and by his instructor. Terrence Rogers is the pilot writing this. His story is written quite clearly and has been ever so slightly edited by me.

"My first experience in IMC was as a student pilot on a VFR cross country with my instructor. The weather wasn't due to get bad but living on the coast weather fronts can build rather quickly. We had just completed our second leg of the cross country and my instructor had me under the hood for part of that second leg. We completed the flight, landed and went over my abilities and discussed what improvements I needed to make to better control the aircraft. We checked the weather and our final destination was showing VFR conditions. We climbed into the aircraft and we took off with no issues, but as I turned toward our home field it was evident that we weren't going direct. Clouds were building along the coast and so we headed inland and requested a weather update from center. Center indicated clear skies between us and our destination; we proceeded to give then a pilot report and informed them of our conditions. My instructor wanted me to handle the communications so he sat back and only advised me I should do as I saw fit, so it was up to me now.

I continued to track along the leading edge of the cloud bank but it became obvious that we would have to either enter the IMC conditions or go to an alternate airport. I informed Center that I would need a lower altitude to stay VFR and that if conditions worsened I would have to go to an alternate airport. That was when my instructor broke in on the radio an informed Center that I was a VFR student on a cross country and requested an "on the fly" IFR flight plan. He then told me to get ready to give Center the information they would need for the IFR request. I fumbled with my flight plan paperwork and flipped the page over to IFR. As Center came back with the request for the IFR information I started calling out what was listed on the plan. Center cleared us IFR to our home airport and gave us a cruising altitude that took us into the clouds and clear of any obstacles. This was my first time in IMC and we were getting bounced around a bit but my instructor just kept telling me to watch my instruments and fly the plane. As we got closer to the airport I turned the second radio to the AWOS frequency to get the weather and they were stating VFR conditions with 10 miles, clear and no ceiling. I looked at my instructor and questioned the report, but he stated that they were only reporting the weather inside the airport dome and that it could actually be clear.

As we got closer, the clouds did start to break up and when Center transferred us to the Tower, we had broken VFR conditions as the Tower vectored me around to the active runway. We broke out of the clouds and sure enough the airport was clear, but for me it was an experience that made me pursue my instrument rating. Which brings me to my next story.

After taking IFR instruction during my time off from work (working 6 weeks on and 6 weeks off) it was hard to carry over the lessons learned during my previous instruction periods (usually 2 hours a week when I could fit it in). My instructor had me on our usual flight plan, flying to a VOR near a neighboring airport then into a hold followed by a GPS at the second airport, then back to the ILS/LOC at our home airport. We left on a clear day and I had filed my flight plan and picked up my clearance. We took off and the tower transferred me over to ATC, but when I contacted ATC they came back with a Direct To clearance. I informed Center that I was on a training flight and that I had requested the VOR approach. Center came back with the "Direct To" the VOR and then asked how the flight would terminate. I stated that it would be a miss and that I would then enter the hold. I made the VOR approach with little difficulty and when I contacted Center letting them know I had gone missed, the same ATC controller asked my intentions. I stated that I was on a training flight and requested the Hold. He came back and gave me a "Direct To" the hold point. Well at this time I didn't have the GPS up and my instructor was a little ticked at the controller so my instructor jumped on the radio and stated that I was flying on standard instrumentation and would fly the intercept course that the approached called for.

Well, this didn't sit well with the controller and it wasn't doing me much good either because it was a distraction that I didn't need. ATC came back with a vector and informed me to turn to that heading. I confirmed the vector and made my heading change. Looking down at the approach plate I noticed that I was parallel rather than perpendicular to the intercept. I flew as directed until my instructor had enough and he contacted ATC informing them that we would continue to the hold on our own and would contact them for the rest of our clearance once we had completed the hold. He then instructed me to the hold point and told me to bring up the GPS.

As I did so the whole matter got me flustered and in doing so I missed some of my time during my hold. Once I was back on track my instructor told me to contact ATC once I complete the hold. As I came to the hold point I contacted ATC and the controller again came back "what are your intentions" at this my instructor had had enough and told them to cancel the IFR flight plan, requested flight following and told them we would be using our own navigation to my next airport. They confirm the request and from then on I took my directions from my instructor. The day was a nightmare but all in all I did learn to handle distractions and that at time ATC may not be aware of your situation and or your skills so it best to inform them when you need their assistance in getting where you want to go. Also my instructor showed me that sometime you need to tell ATC how you are going to address their requests."

I have some strong opinions about this instructor's decisions. Please let me hear yours. This is real life stuff. I know an instructor's attitudes and decisions become primary and formative experiences for a student. How well do you think this instructor performed? I'm always interested in learning something new and in hearing your comments.