Looking for something different to do this Spring Break week?
Consider checking out the First Annual MODAERO NextGen Aviation Festival in Conroe, TX. It’s a fly in event, complete with camping opportunities, at the Lone Star Executive Airport, KCXO. The festival itself is being held right next door to the airport at the Lone Star Convention Center.
What’s the draw, do you ask? Not only are there going to be representatives from all the major aircraft manufacturer’s (along with tons of airplanes), there will be a multitude of speakers and live music. There are even drone races! The live music sets the event apart from the well known national fly in events like Osh Kosh and Sun N Fun. It’s a different type of Festival, geared toward the younger generation of pilots.
For more information or to register, check out MODAERO’s website. The festival runs from Wednesday through Saturday, March 16-19.
Avidyne’s plug and play replacement for the Garmin 430, the Avidyne IFD 440, finally received certification from the FAA last week. The touch screen GPS unit is being marketed as a simple swap out for the Garmin 430. This release follows up Avidyne’s release last year of the IFD 540, also a plug and play replacement, but for the Garmin 530.
The features and touch screen of the GPS units sound quite nifty, but it will be hard for Avidyne to compete with the GTN 750 and 650 from Garmin. The unit prices for the IFD 540 and 440 will be less (and installation is simpler), but we will see how the company does.
The STC allows for installation in 1,000 makes and models of aircraft, according to the company, so there are a lot of possibilities for installs.
In conjunction, Avidyne also released a new version of it’s software for both GPS units. According to Avidyne, this will unlock multiple features that enhances the capabilities of both units.
To read more on the IFD 440 and it’s bigger brother, the IFD 540, check out Avidyne’s website.
The FAA defines personal minimums “as an individual pilot’s set of procedures, rules, criteria, and guidelines for deciding whether and under what conditions to operate (or continue operating) in the National Airspace System.” Have you actually given thought as to why we choose the personal minimums we do? From the beginning of initial pilot training, weather minimums were established for day-to-day training and during solo flight. I didn’t realize it at first, but I later learned these limits were not just an insurance mandate, but these minimums were set at the time to safely operate an aircraft based on my “then” current experience.
So here’s the question: what are your personal minimums and WHY do YOU have them? Do you ever lower or raise your minimums? Are your minimums based solely on your overall experience level or do they take into account other variables such as advanced avionics? For pilots that fly multiple aircraft like I do, can and do your minimums change in regard to category or type of aircraft you are flying? It’s a judgment decision on how you chose your minimums. However, it’s important that time is taken before you strap into the cockpit for each flight to critically think about the different risk factors and variables which may affect your decision for the minimums you choose.
To guide us, let’s try briefly apply the FAA’s Personal Minimums Checklist to see how risk factors might shape what personal minimums or decisions we make for the day. Remember, just because you have been flying with a certain set of minimums one day, doesn’t mean you can’t adjust your minimums to a higher value given an ever-changing situation.
The acronym most pilots have heard is PAVE:
Pilot– We all should be familiar with the acronym IMSAFE associated with this. It addresses variables such as Illness, Medication, Stress, Alcohol, Fatigue, and Emotion. But how do you adjust your personal minimums using this guideline? Have you ever thought about raising your minimums for a training flight if you only got 4-6 hours of sleep, instead of 8? Or if you anticipate a hard IFR flight with a long day, maybe taking a safety pilot to mitigate the chance of a mistake if you’re forecasting having to shoot an approach to your weather planning minimums.
Aircraft– Personally, this is a really important factor for me when deciding what minimums to apply. I often spend a large majority of my time asking myself; is this aircraft properly equipped for the flight? This question goes beyond just looking at the logbook for a properly equipped and legal aircraft. A professional pilot should think further. Am I flying a traditional 6-pack “steam gauge” layout, non-slaved compass card, with a separate OBS gauge for course guidance? What if the aircraft doesn’t have an auto-pilot? What if I’m flying an aircraft equipped with a dual auto-pilot, dual GPS with an integrated glass cockpit? I can comfortably say my personal minimums change depending on the equipment I have available.
A pilot should also look at his/her recency with the aircraft. For example, if you are qualified to fly both airplanes and helicopters, maybe you should choose to have higher personal minimums in one particular airframe or if you haven’t flown that airframe within 30, 60 or 90 days. This is a very important factor for the owner/pilot.
EnVironment– Most of the time, when we think of environment, we ask ourselves, is the weather legal for me to take off and, more importantly, can I conduct this flight safely? Basic flight planning should have taught us to take into consideration crosswind limits, day versus night, and the type of airspace the flight is conducted in. Thought should also be given to how you set your personal minimums in regards to the particular type of environment you might rarely encounter. Flying an approach to your minimums in the flat plains of Texas during the day is one thing, but how would you adjust your weather minimums flying to a new airport, at night, with no moon illumination, in the mountains of Colorado? Could you reduce the risk and adjust your minimums in this scenario with two pilots?
External Pressures – What external pressures are affecting your flight? Passengers, the owner, “get-there-it is”, the desire to impress someone? Although external pressures should never be a factor when conducting a flight, they almost always play a role in your decision whether to conduct the flight or not. For example, a professional pilot gets hired to do a flight and the weather is below their personal minimums. The pilot could be tempted to lower their minimums by 100 feet to take the flight for a paying customer. This scenario plays out every day across the country whether it’s a professional pilot or owner/pilot. It would be foolish not to consider this type of pressure. Always make sure you have a plan if and when you encounter this situation. Planning your flight and having a plan to deal with these potential scenarios ahead of time ensures you stick to your minimums. It can be as simple as telling your passengers, or the owner, well ahead of your flight what your personal minimums are to accept the flight, and to ensure they, or you, have a back-up plan!
Most pilots will never break a hard limitation such as an airframe cross wind limitation, or engine limit, but the chances of breaking a personal minimum are realistic. Think about the last time you went on a diet and broke your plan because you were tempted by your friends or family during an outing. Self-imposed personal minimums can be hard to enforce and we need to acknowledge this as humans. Here are a few techniques that you can use to assist in making a decision using personal minimums and help reduce the influence of external pressures.
Step 1: Sit down with your CFI/CFII and fill out a personal minimums worksheet. Filling one out by yourself is a good start but having an outside objective view will help in making sure your personal minimums are realistic. Remember, it is easy to convince ourselves that we can do something even though we have set personal minimums. Talk with other pilots to see if you have set realistic expectations.
Step 2: Preflight planning must start a few days in advanced. It can be as easy as checking what the forecast might be and looking at the projected route, near-by alternate airports, and various approaches. This can be done quickly and will give you a heads up on whether the flight can be safely conducted or not. By alerting the passengers or owner early enough, alternate plans can be developed. An extra pilot can be added, the passengers can fly commercial, bring along a CFI, or cancel the trip altogether and seek alternate transportation. The main point is the decision was made well ahead of the flight when conditions didn’t look favorable. This helps in removing external pressures and ensures you don’t go below your personal minimums.
Step 3: Never be afraid to ask for a second opinion. Part 135 operators have set procedures for conducting flights which assist the pilots in making decisions. These set procedures help remove external pressures by allowing the pilot to say, “The rules don’t allow for this, or this is how we will conduct the flight!” However, under Part 91, the pilot has to take ownership for all phases of the flight. This is where talking it out with another pilot helps with mitigating external factors and the environment. Ideally, this person should have more experience and be able to talk through the situation. For instance, if I’m flying to a new destination, I often seek the advice from another pilot who’s familiar with the area. They may have key insights into weather patterns, preferred approaches, or hazards to avoid. In certain situations, asking for another pilot’s opinion might be what influences your go/no-go decision! You’ll be amazed how much you can learn just from talking to other pilots.
Step 4: Continue to build your experience and knowledge base. Building experience requires us to push our abilities, and sometimes this may be to the limit. However, this can be done in a controlled training environment or just going out and experiencing it. Get a new license, fly regularly with a CFI/CFII, and always try and take advantage of training opportunities. For example on your next flight from point A to point B, practice hand flying an approach, do a short field landing, a quick steep turn, etc. Quality flight time is always better than quantity. Continue to challenge yourself and try not to become complacent.
Personal minimums are a tool to assist in every pilot’s aeronautical decision making process. Use your personal minimums to guide your final go/no-go decision and remember to stick to the plan. I encourage you to review the FAA’s Risk Management Handbook (FAA-H-8083-2). Appendix B has Sample Risk Management Scenarios and reviewing them will give a better understanding how to apply the techniques discussed to your everyday flying.
Pedro Vargas-Lebron is a King Air 200 and uH-60 Blackhawk Instructor pilot with the Texas Army National Guard. Pedro is a CFI/CFII/MEI both in airplanes and helicopters with over 4000 hours of flight time, half as an instructor pilot.
The closer we get to 2020, the more innovative companies are getting with ADS-B out solutions. There are a myriad of transponders out there that have been released in to meet the ADS-B out requirement and to offer ADS-B in options. L3 has the Lynx transponder line (and hardware to upgrade an already installed GTX 327 or GTX 330), Garmin has the GTX 345 and offers upgrades to the GTX 330, Appareo has it’s Stratus ESGi ADS-B out transponder, and Avidyne offers it’s AXP340 transponder, among others.
Most of the ADS-B solutions require some kind of panel work, whether it’s pulling out the Garmin GTX 330 to send off, or making panel modifications to fit the L3 Lynx in. Very few are actual slide in replacements, so there is some labor involved in swapping transponders.
Want a simpler and more innovative solution? uAvionix, a Montana based company that makes the recently released Scout portable ADS-B In solution, has a product for you. Meet the SkyBeacon.
What is it? The uAvionix SkyBeacon is simply a navigation light replacement that bolts on your wing with a fin that hangs down. All the ADS-B out transmitting equipment is placed behind the nav light on the device. It has an integrated WAAS GPS unit, can work with any Mode C or Mode S transponder wirelessly, and it mounts directly in to where the original nav light was, same screws and everything. No additional hardware needed. uAvionix claims installation should take 10 minutes.
Configuration is super easy too, as it is all done on a smart phone on the uAvionix app.
Right now, the uAvionix SkyBeacon is only approved for experimental aircraft, but, according to their website, uAvionix expects FAA certification in early spring. With a price tag of only $1,500 and a strobe light to be added as well, this is your simplest and easiest ADS-B compliance solution.
The Malibu & M-Class Owner’s and Pilot’s Association recently released their MMOPA Vision Video. It is a great video detailing the history of the Piper PA46 & the history of MMOPA. The PA46 would have ceased to exist without the founding of the original Malibu Coalition.
Checkout the video above (and Texas Top Aviation’s Hank Gibson even gets a cameo!).
I began flying a Piper Malibu earlier this year. For those of you not familiar with the original PA-46, a Malibu has a Continental TSIO-320 engine, with 310 HP. It’s pressurized and cruises at about 185-200 KTAS.
A few things are introduced to the equation when pilots start flying higher, faster, and farther. When you start flying over longer distances, weather becomes more of an issue. On a quick hop from, say, Austin to Dallas, you can be pretty sure of what the weather will be since it’s a short trip. When you fly from Austin to LA, leave in the morning, land once along the way, and arrive in the afternoon after spending six and a half hours in the air, weather can change a lot in that amount of time.
A must for any pilot flying high and over long distances is some kind of Nexrad system, whether it be a Garmin 696, or it shows up on your GPS or MFD. Having this situation awareness is very helpful when planning ahead as to what to do about weather. A stormscope is also a handy tool, since you can see where the lightning is with it.
Cold fronts can be pretty nasty, depending on how strong and how fast they are moving. A strong, fast moving cold front usually has a lot of convective activity associated with it. The tricky thing with storms associated with fronts is that storms form in lines, most of the time. If you’re trying to cross a front in the morning, you can usually get high enough over the clouds with a pressurized airplane since the temperature is still relatively low to get clear of the cumulonimbus clouds. The cloud tops will only be around ten or twelve thousand feet.
Crossing fronts in the afternoon when daytime heating is pushing the tops of the CBs up to the 20-40 thousand foot range, it’s best to land, have a meal, stretch your legs, and wait till the sun starts to go down before pushing on. Do not, under any circumstances, try and go through the cumulonimbus clouds associated with a cold front in a small airplane. Not only is it uncomfortable (the turbulence bounces you around pretty good), but you’ll get ice, scare the passengers, and, if you’re in the heart of a storm, the plane could come apart.
When crossing mountains, the weather is always highly unpredictable. If it’s a clear day, no matter your altitude, you’ll probably pick up some turbulence from all the rising air off the peaks. If there is moisture in the air, there are going to be isolated to scattered thunderstorms in the summer time. The advantage of flying high when there are isolated or scattered storms is you can utilize the see and avoid method.
See and avoid is simple. When the storms aren’t embedded in other clouds, it’s actually rather easy to spot the big, rising clouds and go around them. The same concept holds true when avoiding those pesky pop up thunderstorms in humid areas like Houston and Florida.
One thing that I learned this summer was this. Sometimes, with an area of closely grouped storms, the cloud base is actually quite high (some storms I went underneath in New Mexico had cloud bases of 15,000 MSL). The thing to do here is just stay below the bases of the clouds and go around the areas of rain. These will be visible and you’ll be able to navigate around them. With bases even as low 9-10 thousand feet, it’s a much better idea to stay below the clouds, sacrifice some speed, and dodge the rain shafts.
The most important concept to take away is don’t fly into a thunderstorm. If there are a bunch of really high clouds in front of you and you don’t see a safe way around them, descend down and land, wait it out, and then continue on your way.
Mooney announced last week the redesign of their current Ovation and Acclaim models. The biggest change that Mooney pilots will love is the addition of a pilot’s door, allowing the pilot to enter on the left side instead of having to crawl over the passenger seat.
Other upgrades include a keypad for easier data entry on the G1000 and an all in one, digital standby instrument that includes attitude, airspeed, and altitude.
This raises the question, will Piper and Beechcraft follow suit?
One thing that I learned this summer was this. Sometimes, with an area of closely grouped storms, the cloud base is actually quite high (some storms I went underneath in New Mexico had cloud bases of 15,000 MSL). The thing to do here is just stay below the bases of the clouds and go around the areas of rain. These will be visible and you’ll be able to navigate around them. With bases even as low 9-10 thousand feet, it’s a much better idea to stay below the clouds, sacrifice some speed, and dodge the rain shafts.