Selecting the Proper Altitude

The Piper Saratoga Turbo

ByHank Gibson June 20, 2014June 20, 2014

Recently, I assisted with the delivery of a 2007 Piper Saratoga Turbo from San Antonio to New York City.  It was a very nicely equipped airplane, complete with a Garmin G1000 panel, an STEC 55x autopilot, and air conditioning.  The owner joined me on the flight back to get trained in the airplane, getting him comfortable in it over our 2 day excursion back to NYC.  Total flight time was 12 hours, though that did include several stops along the way and landing practice at the airports we stopped at.

The 6 seat Turbo Saratoga is a very comfortable, very capable flying machine.  It is made for hauling, with a gross weight of 3,600 pounds, but that’s not to say it isn’t lacking in comfort, either.  The rear cabin has 4 seats, 2 facing forward and 2 facing rear.  It would be a little tight for 4 full size adults in the back seat.  To avoid knee knocking, the plane is an excellent 4 person and bags aircraft (or 4 adults and 2 kids).

The really nice part about the Piper Saratoga is the baggage door.  Unlike the Bonanza, the Piper Saratoga has a baggage door that opens to the baggage compartment, creating a much easier way to load and unload baggage.  The nose baggage compartment, which holds an additional 100 pounds, is a very nice feature, allowing the bag load to be spread out.

We typically saw cruise speeds of 155-165 KTAS depending on altitude.  The highest we went was only about 9,000 feet, so we didn’t get up real high to see what the single turbo could do.  Even though the Lycoming TIO-540 engine burns about 20 gallons an hour, with 102 gallons of gas on board, the fuel consistently outlasted our desire to continue flying.

Being equipped with the G1000 was a very nice feature of this particular Piper Saratoga.  The screens are nice and big, larger than the displays on a high wing Cessna or a Corvalis.  That allows for easier viewing of approach plates, NEXRAD, and the engine gauges.

There are always downsides to an airplane, and the Saratoga is no exception.  The STEC Autopilot leaves some to be desired as I felt it hampered the capability of the G1000 when shooting approaches because the 12 knot crosswind limitation on the autopilot. You can still use the autopilot on an approach with higher than 12 knot crosswinds, but the autopilot tends to search around for the final approach course.

The air conditioning works very nicely, though it did have a tendency to freeze up at altitude.  We discovered that quickly and just decided to turn it off and leave the blower on, since it was cool enough up high anyway.

Overall, the Turbo Saratoga is a very nice airplane.  The speed leaves a little to be desired (you can get 10 KTAS more out of a Bonanza with a Continental engine, about 20 knots more if it is a Turbo Bonanza), but it is very high on comfort.  The Piper Saratoga makes for a good family airplane or as a hauler.  I liked the airplane a lot and thoroughly enjoyed my time in it.

A Takeoff Briefing

ByHank Gibson January 22, 2015January 27, 2015

Takeoff briefings are one of those things that most pilots are taught when they first learn how to fly, but once they get into flying themselves around, quickly fall by the wayside.  There is a reason student pilots are instructed to perform a takeoff briefing before departure.  It gets them thinking about what the plan is after they get off the ground and what to do if something goes wrong.

Takeoff briefings are a good habit to get into.  Airline crews do a takeoff briefing before every departure, even though they have performed a takeoff in that particular airplane thousands of times.  It enhances safety and provides repetition, keeping that knowledge at the forefront of the crew’s minds.

In general aviation, a takeoff briefing should cover what the takeoff procedure is, what the abort plan is, and what the plan after takeoff is.

Takeoff Procedure

Most pilots fly the same airplane all the time, so the familiarity with what goes into a takeoff is there.  But, habits should be formed to brief the takeoff procedure as part of the takeoff briefing.  It doesn’t need to be extensive, just covering the basics of how the airplane is getting off the ground.  Something like this:

• Throttle setting (if turbo charged, will full throttle cause an overboost?)
• Rotate speed
• Expected takeoff roll

That’s it.  Nothing fancy for the takeoff procedure.

Abort Plan

What is the plan if something goes wrong?  It doesn’t have to be an engine failure, maybe the engine coughs when full power is added or maybe the engine doesn’t produce peak RPM.  Maybe the takeoff roll is longer than anticipated and something doesn’t seem right.  Maybe on climb out a door pops open.  Maybe the engine fails at 1,000 feet.  It’s good to keep the plan in the foreground for what to do if an abnormal or emergency situation takes place.

• Brief the aborted takeoff procedure
  • Pick an abort point on the runway based on the expected ground roll
  • What is the procedure if the airplane isn’t off the ground by then?
  • What is the procedure if the engine quits on the runway?
• Brief the engine failure procedure at low altitude
  • If the engine fails over the runway, will you try to land on the runway?
  • What altitude would you elect to turn back as opposed to landing straight ahead?
  • If the plane is too low to turn back, would you land straight ahead or aim left or right?
  • What airspeed will you aim to hold if the engine fails?
• In a Cirrus, what is your minimum parachute deployment altitude?

After Takeoff Plan

After the airplane is off the ground, what’s the plan then?  Are you staying in the pattern or departing the area?  Do you need to adjust your power at a certain altitude?  What altitude are you climbing to?  What heading are you going to fly?  Is your flight plan in your GPS?  This is an excellent time to set up altitude and heading bugs if your airplane is so equipped.

Get in the habit of doing a takeoff briefing before you call the tower or announce your departure.  It get’s your mind focused on the task at hand and then what is going to be happening next.

A Complex Clearance?

ByHank Gibson August 25, 2017August 29, 2017

I was flying in the Rio Grande Valley in south Texas a few weeks ago and heard an IFR clearance given to a King Air that pricked my ears up.  It was a clearance from CRP to LRD, but the routing was one you don’t hear too often anymore.  Because of active military airspace, the routing was via a radial and DME off the CRP VOR (so a point defined by the radial and DME) to another radial and DME point off the LRD VOR.

It took me a second to think about how to do this the easiest (without setting up the VOR and watching the DME).  After a moment’s thought, it’s actually a snap with the G1000.  You create 2 user waypoints, one for each Radial/DME spot, then put those 2 user waypoints in your Flight Plan.

Here’s how.

Step 1

Using the big knob, go to the Waypoint chapter.  Once there, scroll down to the User Waypoint page using the small knob.

Step 2

Press the New soft key.  If you want to name the waypoint something specific, you can do that at the top of the page.  If not, it will default to something like VOR 1 or VOR 2.

Step 3

Under Waypoint Type, use the small knob to select RAD/DIS (stands for Radial/Distance).

Step 4

Under Reference Waypoints, again using the small knob (or your keypad), type or dial in the VOR identifier, the radial from that VOR, and the DME distance.  Press enter and you are done.

Once you have both User Waypoints created, then just put them in your flight plan (if you forget what you named them, you can just go back to the User Waypoint page), and off you go.

New Houston Airspace Procedures

ByHank Gibson May 29, 2014

If you are based in Houston, or heading into or out of the Houston airspace under IFR, have you updated your charts?  If not, you may hear a clearance stating: “N67889, cleared to Amarillo via the BORRN 1 Departure, CRGER Transition, Direct.  Climb via the departure, expect 8000 in 10 minutes.  Departure frequency 123.8, Squawk 3365.”  You manage to get the clearance written down, but have completely messed up the spelling of both BORRN and CRGER, so you have no idea where the intersections are.  After stumbling through a readback, you ask ground to spell the fixes for you.

Then, more bad news.  You haven’t updated your GPS cards yet, so the departure isn’t in your 430.  It’s an RNAV only departure, so you can’t fly it based on the NAV Radio.  You were planning on updating your iPad when you got to Amarillo, so you don’t have the departure on there, either.

This has probably already happened to a few people today already.

Houston airspace got a major overhaul today.  There are 20 new DPs and 29 new STARs guiding IFR traffic into and out of Houston airspace (including one named the DOOBI 1 Arrival, named after the Dooby Brothers band).

The FAA’s goal in all these changes, according to AOPA, is to “bring fuel efficiencies, time efficiencies, and reduce carbon emissions” (from Benet J. Wilson’s May 15th article on AOPA.com).  The FAA issued a NOTAM today valid until June 6th describing what routes for pilots to file.  The NOTAM also contains contingency plans for pilots flying without updated charts (like our example above).

Pilots should expect these wide scale procedure additions and changes to start showing up in other Class B airspace across the country.  As always, make sure those charts are updated, GPS databases are current, and you do some studying of your route before you file your flight plan.

Flight Service Station

ByHank Gibson October 29, 2017

When is the last time you talked to the Flight Service Station?

Believe it or not, FSS is still in existence.  Over the past 10 years, they went from FAA run, the being bought by Lockheed Martin, to now being privately run by a company called Leidos. 1-800-WX Brief will get you connected with a weather briefer, but you’ll hear “Leidos Flight Service Station” now when the briefer picks up.

Since the advent of Foreflight, most pilots these days get their weather briefings digitally on the iPad. Foreflight has come a long way since it’s inception.  The briefing part of their Flights page is quite comprehensive, with lots of information, and counts as a legal weather briefing (which pilots are still required to get before a flight).

Why does a pilot even need to call Flight Service?  Well, when’s the last time you tried to interpret everything the Briefing on Foreflight told you?  As I said before, it’s a lot of information and a lot of it can be confusing.  Pilots are not fully trained on interpreting Prog Charts and getting an overall weather picture for a flight.  A weather briefer is.

I have over 5,000 hours and I still call a weather briefer before almost every flight.  On the way to the airport is a great opportunity to get a weather briefing.  I get a great picture of what’s going on in my area or over my route, frontal movement, bad weather areas, and whether or not it’s a good idea to even take off. Calling in the car alleviates the main complaint I hear about calling the Flight Service Station, which is it’s inconvenient and causes a delay since you have to call them on the phone.

I don’t do much private pilot training anymore, but when I do, I always teach my students how to get a weather briefing from the Flight Service Station.  I’ll show them how to get the briefing on Foreflight too, but usually their eyes bug out of their heads when they start trying to read everything.  A breathe of relief is released when I tell them there is a trained professional just a phone call away who can clear everything up.

The other thing that the Flight Service Station provides that is important to a lot of folks are PIREPs.  It’s vital in sketchy weather areas for the FSS to get a report of what’s actually going on in the air.  This helps other pilots out greatly as they are getting information about icing, cloud bases and tops, turbulence and a myriad of other things from airplanes who are actually in the conditions.

Finally, the most used portion of the Flight Service Station is the Clearance Delivery line (888-766-8267). At airports without a tower or a clearance delivery frequency, with IFR conditions present, the only way to get your IFR clearance is to call Clearance Delivery.  Yes, it can take a little time sometimes, but you will get a clearance every time, unlike taking off and trying to dodge the clouds without hitting anything, while trying to call Center on the radio (which isn’t safe or legal).

Been a while since you’ve talked to the Flight Service Station?  Give them a call, either on the phone or on the radio.  Odds are, they are bored and just wanting someone to talk to, just like you are on that long cross country flight!

Checkout 1800WXBrief.com to see all the cool stuff the Flight Service Station does.