CAPS Save!

On 7 JAN 2012, Richard McGlaughlin and his daughter were flying their 2004 Cirrus SR22 to the Bahamas, when they lost all oil pressure, completely seizing the engine at 9500’.  Richard declared an emergency with Miami Center and turned directly towards the closest land.  After configuring his aircraft for best glide, and at about 2-miles from Andros Island realized that he wasn’t going to make it.  At around 2300’ he pulled his aircraft parachute (CAPs or Cirrus Airframe Parachute System), which is standard equipment on every Cirrus aircraft.   Both Richard and his daughter survived without injury. 

It’s situations like this that make me happy to be flying a Cirrus!  If it wasn’t for the chute, the outcome most likely wouldn’t have been as good!

http://www.d7publicaffairs.com/go/doc/586/1270987/

http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archives/avflash/2100-full.html#205996

How Do They Do It - Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS)

Here is a great little video on how the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS) came to be and how it works.  In my opinion, this is one of the greatest inventions ever and should be standard an ALL small aircraft!

My First Angel Flight

On Wednesday 28 December 2011, I conducted my first Angel Flight mission.  This is something that I had wanted to start doing for a long time now, since Angel Flight provided my wife and son with the same great service back in 2003 when I was deployed.  Angel Flight is a non-profit service that provides children and families in need air transportation.  Pilots donate their time, skills and a plane, to fly patients for free to help support their respective situations.  I was very lucky to have this support and now it feels great to give back and provide the same support others. 

On this day, I flew my SR22 to St. Mary’s, GA and picked up my first passengers.  It was a young husband and wife that needed to be flown to Augusta, GA to the burn unit there.  The young gentleman tried to put out a grease fire in his kitchen and ended up getting third degree burns all the way up his right arm.  What made this even more special was that neither of them had ever flown in an airplane at all, so they were thrilled to see our beautiful country from the air.  I flew them to Daniel Field in northern Augusta and then waited for them while he was at his appointment.  About an hour later, they returned and we flew back to St. Mary’s.  Flight time was approximately an hour each way, but still significantly shorter than driving all the way from southern Georgia.  The weather was perfect with smooth air and very little wind.  I really couldn’t have asked for a better first flight and it was extremely special to share my passion with them.  For any pilots out there reading this, I very highly recommend signing up to do Angel Flights.  It’s an extremely rewarding way to give back, and a great way to add flying time instead of just burning holes in the sky for no reason.  If you don’t own an aircraft that is fine, rentals work great too.  There are many organizations out there that provide this type of support.  For those in the south eastern United States, check out: http://www.angelflightsoars.org/

Fantastic Airport!

Every pilot has a favorite airport.  Some like the scenery, some like challenging conditions or approaches, and some like the amenities.  This past weekend I found what has become one of my favorite airports of all times.  Dekalb-Peachtree(KPDK) in northern Atlanta.  KPDK is a large, busy feeder airport that supports northern Atlanta in Georgia.  What has made me fall in love with this airport is its charm, in that it’s a pilot’s airport.  First off, we stopped and parked at Epps Aviation on the West side.  The service was fantastic to say the least.  They are located right off the runway (very close to the runway, which I will discuss shortly) and they had our rental car waiting for us before we even got to our parking spot.  The ground crews were super friendly and helped us to unload the plane, so that we could quickly depart.  The facilities were clean, updated and homey.  All of the staff was fantastic.  After arriving we decided to get a bite to eat for lunch.   We were directed to go eat at the “Downwind Café” at the other end of the building.  Little did we realize that it was right next to the runway, overlooking the approach end of RW34.  The food was really good and the view was awesome.   To be able to sit that close to the runway, watch jets and small planes land while eating a burger, is paradise for a pilot!  Right next to the restaurant, the airport has a viewing stand that overlooks both runways and also has a really nice playground for the children.  This is a fantastic stop for those cross country trips since everything is right on the field.  There are also plenty of instrument approaches as well.

Part of the ramp in front of Epps

Downwind Cafe

Epps Aviation

The deck overlooking RW34 from Downwind Cafe

Playground

Flight to Airventure 2011, Oshkosh, WI

Flying to the Oskosh Airshow, also known as Airventure, is a dream of every pilot.  It is the world’s largest airshow and becomes the busiest airport in the world for the seven days that the airshow is going on.  I have been to this airshow now maybe five times, however this is the first time that I have actually flown into KOSH to enjoy the show and camp out under the wing of the plane. 

This trip had bad timing written all over it, but I was determined to make it this year, since I missed it last year.  Just prior to this event, I had moved my family from Platte City, MO down to Fort Rucker, AL for a new assignment.  After getting to Alabama, I took my family to Destin, FL and then on to Panama City, FL from which I would catch my commercial flight to Memphis and then on to Kansas City.  Once at Kansas City, I met up with my brother Bil, a MD-11 Pilot for UPS, who on this trip would assist me in navigating the challenging arrival into OSH as well as enjoy a day of the show with me.  It was an honor to have him fly with me since we don’t get to fly together very often.  In Kansas City, one of my Army buddies Reed picked us up and took us to the Downtown Kansas City Airport (KMKC), where we would fly out of for the very last time in Holly.  We departed KMKC for a quick 5-minute flight to KGPH to get some fuel since the pumps were broken again at the downtown airport.  After topping off the tanks, we departed at 3:15 PM for the 1:45 minute flight to Oshkosh.  Our flight was IFR, GPS direct from KGPH to the DLL (Dells VOR) and then VFR on to the RIPON arrival point (which is also a small town), to FISK and then to KOSH itself.  Airventure publishes its own NOTAMs for this airshow to handle the thousands of aircraft that fly into KOSH every year.  IFR arrivals are limited to a slot system and is really limited only to turbo prop and jet aircraft.  The VFR arrival procedure also known as the FISK Arrival has all VFR aircraft approach the RIPON waypoint.  As a pilot approaches this point, he turns his transponder to standby (ATC can’t handle all the blips), and pilots must listen to the ATIS to get the current conditions on the arrival procedure, field conditions, and parking status.  If there are many aircraft coming at the same time, ATC will put them into one of two holds.  The first hold is just SW of RIPON around Green Lake.  The second hold is around Rush Lake, just NE of RIPON and West of Pickett.  Planes will arrive at either one of two altitudes.  The first group will arrive at 1,800’ and maintain 90 knots or less.  The second group for planes that can’t fly that slow, will arrive at 2,300’ and maintain 135 knots.   

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FISK VFR Arrival & Holding Procedure

Once you arrive at RIPON the idea is to find an aircraft that is the same speed as you and follow him in at 90 knots and maintain at least ½ mile separation.  If you can’t keep the separation, then you need to peel out and come back around and reenter.  This is what happened to us as we approached.  It was busy, but not busy enough to have to hold, so we found a white high-wing tail dragger and I slowed the Cirrus down to 90 knots (using 50% flaps), but we were starting to eat him up, so I peeled out to the North and reentered behind a faster brown high-wing tail dragger.  Once we spotted him, we followed the rail road tracks NE towards FISK and maintained our distance behind the brown high-wing.  As we moved along the arrival procedure, it was interesting to hear ATC getting after people to follow directions as published in the NOTAM – like “fly over the rail road tracks.”  Really people, how hard is it to do that?  Keep in mind though that you are not actually talking to ATC since they don’t want people talking on the radio.  Once you get to FISK, they will identify you and ask you to “Rock Your Wings” to acknowledge your instructions.  Our example was something like this:  “white low-wing over FISK rock your wings,  good rock, turn to a heading of 090 and follow Hwy N, contact tower on 126.6.”  The brown high-wing aircraft was sent the same direction, so we continued to follow him, however as we approached the crosswind leg at the south end of RW18R, he started to slow down and ATC got after him because we were about to eat him for lunch.  Next came the approach, which was really cool as well.  Since we were landing on RW 18R we were told to expect a long and or long approach.  Originally as we turned base towards the Blue Dot we were told to land on the Yellow Dot however at the last minute we were instructed to land on the Pink Dot and then “land before the Pink Dot if able Cirrus,” which we did.  We touched down and turned right into the grass.  It was awesome!  I also have a really cool video of it and it’s neat to see how low we were turning base to final to land.

Once on the ground, you put up a sign in your window that tells the ground crews where you want to go.  In our case we put out a GAC (General Aviation Camping) sign and followed all the flaggers.  It was amazing how well orchestrated the ground volunteers are that marshal us around to the different areas.  I was guided all the way around the airport to a place called “The North 40.”  We ended up in row 533 which was right next to the road on the end and right next to the showers.  We couldn’t have asked for a much better spot.  That night I stayed with my brother, but the following days I spent camped out in the North 40.  Staying at Air Venture was really cool since there is just so much to do.  Everyone there is an aviation fanatic, you will find that everyone wants to just hang out and talk planes and flying.  I met some great people that were neighbors to me.  During the evenings there is much to do from watching movies to attending seminars on many different topics.  There are some exhibits open late as well.  My first night there (Sunday night) I was asked to attend a free social put on by Cirrus Aircraft that was awesome.  Free food and beverages and I even got to talk briefly with Dale Klapmeier one of the founding brothers of Cirrus Aircraft.

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Bil & I just after landing (Parked in the North 40)

Planes, planes & more planes

My "campsite"  (Red building in background was the showers)

My neighbors

Another amazing thing that I got to do was attend the Tribute to Bob Hoover interview.  Bob Hoover is an amazing flying legend and war hero.  His stories about WWII were amazing and almost unbelievable.   There are few people like him left in the world and I’m really glad I got to attend this interview.

After four days of fun, I decided that I needed to get moving since bad weather was coming.  My calculations (and the NOAA weather predictions) showed that on Wednesday afternoon, OSH would be getting hit with a huge thunderstorm.  Many of my fellow pilots were planning on departing early Wednesday morning, so that they wouldn’t get stuck on the ground from the rain soaked turf.  When we woke up, we were surprised to see that the rain was already upon us and it rained constantly for about five hours.  I did some last minute shopping since I couldn’t get an IFR slot clearance.  Around noon time I was barely able to taxi in the wet grass and had to keep my speed up to prevent getting stuck.  I made my way though the wet grass and mud to RW13 which was being used as a taxi way and followed the guidance to line up behind a bunch of other aircraft on taxi way A for departure on RW27. 

Waiting for the rain to pass

VFR Departure Procedures

In line waiting to depart

Throughout the departure process you don’t use your radios as all.  I put a sign in my window that said “VFR”, to show that I was departing using visual flight rules and as I got to RW27, I was told to “line up and wait” on the left side of the runway while a yellow Columbia 400 lined up and departed on the right side.  As soon as he was wheels up, I was cleared to take off.  The interesting part about the departure procedure is that you must fly runway heading until clear of the Class D airspace and you must stay at or below 1,300’ MSL or 492’ AGL.  This is basically like flying nap-of-the-earth for 4-5 miles which was really fun.  I followed a Piper Lance and the Columbia until the Columbia and I got right next to each other and then did a little informal formation flying until we were clear of the area and all the arrival traffic.  Once cleared, we waved to each other, he peeled left and I went full throttle and quickly climbed up to altitude to get clear of any incoming traffic arriving.  Once at altitude, I proceeded direct to Southern Wisconsin Regional (KJVL) to get fuel and eat at the airport café. 

My informal flying partner

After stopping for lunch and fuel at KJVL, I departed for Smyrna, TN (KMQY), a 2:15 flight.  I stopped here for the night since I got a late start and I since I could really use a good night sleep.  Total flight time for the day was just over four hours.  I parked the plane at Smyrna Air Center and got a room at the local Holiday Inn Express.  The next day, I had a beautiful day to fly the final leg to Dothan, AL.  My last leg of just over two hours was very uneventful as I descended through the cumulous clouds to land at our new home at KDHN.  This was truly an amazing trip and I look forward to doing this many times in the future!

Descending into Dothan, AL

iPad, changing aviation one app at a time

After months of deliberating over spending the absurd amount of money on an Apple iPad, I finally took the plunge and bought one. I had been eyeing these since they first came out and I have tried several Sony e-readers and even a Kindle, but none of them showed approach plates very well and were just too cumbersome to use. My wife bought the first iPad when it came out and I downloaded some plates just to see how it worked and it was simply amazing. My experience with her iPad was limited though since she loved it so much, she wouldn't let me use it all that much. It was only a Wi-Fi only version, so it had limited aviation applications since it had no GPS.

So for aviation purposes, you really need to get a 3G version from either AT&T or Verizon. This provides you with the ability to use it anywhere you need to, which is extremely helpful if you ever fly into a small airport with limited facilities. The 3G version also has the built in GPS with allows for the use of numerous aviation programs. Although I have yet to try it, I'm told that you can track your flight while in the air as well. If you purchase the Georeference package from Foreflight, you can even have georeferenced instrument approach plates that will show you where you are at, as you fly an instrument approach.

There are numerous applications out there for the iPad now, but so far here are the ones that I have/use. Some of these are iPhone applications, but others have been "upgraded" to iPad versions:

Aeroweather - This is by far one of the best weather apps out there! It is easy to use and a great reference tool for pilots.

CirrusPerform - This is a must have app if you own/rent/fly a Cirrus aircraft

FlightPlanForm - Although this app has a few glitches, it is good to help guide a briefer when calling in a flight plan

AOPA Airports - A great source for airport data

ForeFlight - This is an AMAZING application! It has more functions than you can ever imagine!

JeppTC - This app is only good if you have already paid the outrageous subscription for digital approach plates for your CMAX or other digital chart programs. If already have CMAX, then you really don't need an iPad unless it's to be used as a back-up.

AirCheck - This is a handy app for making digital checklists.

FlightPlan - This app is decent and has some good conversion tools

FltPlan - Another airport data app.

DUAT - an ok, but bland app for flight planning. You can link into DUAT using ForeFlight or Garmin Pilot My-Cast and have a better tool.

Garmin Pilot My-Cast - This is another very good flight planning/all purpose aviation tool.

PilotWiz - This is a pretty good flight planning tool. I especially like the weight and balance functions since it allows me to create my own.

LogTen Pro - This is an ok app, but as a professional pilot it might be a very handy tool. As a PP it doesn't fit the bill for me.

MyRadar Pro - This is a great radar tool!

myE6B - Another flight planning tool.

These are only a few of the applications available to use for aviation. The iPad in my opinion is a game changer just like XM - NEXRAD Radar and GPS. It provides pilots with lots of information for flight planning and also allows a pilot to have all the necessary tools like IFR approach plates, enroute charts, and sectionals, all without having to lug around 20lbs of books, or having to find a place that actually has those products for sale. Oh and if you get stranded due to bad weather, you can watch movies, listen to music, surf the internet, play games, or check your e-mail. Other than the price, the iPad is a perfect tool for pilots at any level of aviation.

Flight Review

Today (18 JUNE 11) I took my first ever Flight Review (previously referred to by the FAA as a biennial flight review, or BFR). This is a flight review required by the FAA (14 CFR 61.56) for pilots to be considered "current to fly" and must be completed every 24-calendar months for active holders of a U.S. Pilot certificate. The flight review consists of at least 1-hour of ground instruction and 1-hour in-flight instruction with a qualified flight instructor. The FAA and instructors seem to be quick to point out that it is not a test. There is no pass or fail criteria, although the instructor giving it can decline to endorse your log-book that a flight review has been completed.

Being this was my first one (my previous requirement was met by completing my instrument rating) I was a bit nervous since I didn't know what exactly to expect. My instructor Joel was the same instructor that I did my Cirrus transition training with, and a fantastic flight instructor, so there wasn't any worries from that aspect. I just wasn't exactly sure what to expect.

Since I had to meet Joel at Gardner (K34), I departed KMKC at 0645 for the quick 10-minute flight to Gardner. This turned out to be kind of fun since the paved runway there, RW 8, is only 2960' x 39' which being narrow makes it seem like you are flying way too fast on final. The flight over was uneventful and I linked up with Joel to execute the flight review.

N779WC at Gardner Municipal (K34)

Ground Training - For this part of the exam I had prepared a XC flight from KMKC to KOMA and we used this as a basis to "chat" about IFR procedures, Airspace requirements, and flight rules. Instead of getting a machine gun list of questions, Joel turned the discussion into an exam without really making it feel like one! It was quite awesome really. We talked for about 1.5 hrs and then stepped out to the plane.

Flight Training - We loaded up in 9WC and departed on RW26 and headed out to the west to do some basic maneuvers. We did stalls, steep turns, slow flight and then shot an ILS into New Century RW 36. After this we did some touch and goes into RW 8 at Gardner which were a blast because of the narrow runway and then because of the quick turn to the north in order to stay clear of the Class-D airspace. When looking at the airspace you would think that it would be right traffic, but it's not! When looking at the Garmins or MFD it actually shows you inside of the Class-D airspace, however Joel assured me that we were safe and not actually inside the controlled airspace. After a couple of these, we stopped and the flight review was complete. It really turned out to be a pretty fun training experience!