On March 30th, Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued an Executive Order mandating that all travelers (including Texas air travelers operating or traveling in private aircraft) from the following designated areas were to self-quarantine for 14 days (or the extent of their stay in Texas, whichever was shorter) upon entering the State:
California
Louisiana
Washington State
Atlanta, Georgia
Chicago, Illinois
Detroit, Michigan
Miami, Florida
If you traveled to Texas by air from any of the above designated areas, you are required to fill out the Arrivals from Areas Designated for Mandatory Self-Quarantine Form. Failure to do so could lead to a $1,000 fine or 180 days in jail, or both. For private aircraft owners/operators, put your Tail Number in for Flight Number and “Private” for Airline.
Aircraft owners, stay away from the designated areas listed above and you won’t have any worries. A lot of you reading this are from Texas, so make Louisiana a fly over state for now and don’t make any landings in Cajun country.
It’s winter time, which means it’s time to use those Piper PA46 de-ice boots a little more often. Most of us know the winter flying rules, don’t stay in ice, get rid of frost, etc. However, most of us aren’t as familiar with how to maintain those Piper PA46 de-ice boots. The do need some TLC every couple of months to keep them in tip top shape.
Below is the recommendation from Goodrich (the maker of the boots) on what to use to clean and polish the boots and how often to do it.
Steps 1-3 below are your twice a year items to make your Piper PA46 de-ice boots last through the lifetime of the aircraft.
Step 1-ShineMaster Prep
ShineMaster Prep strips all the dirt, grime, grease, oil, silicone products and old ShineMaster on the Piper PA46 de-ice boots to prep them for Step 2.
AgeMaster is your second step the in the Piper PA46 de-ice boot preservation and protectant process. AgeMaster is a rubber preservative that protects against weathering, ozone, and ultraviolet rays.
Make the first application when your de-ice boots are 6 months old, then re-apply every 150 hours (or twice a year) after that.
Step 3 in the Piper PA46 de-ice boot care is ShineMaster. As the name implies, ShineMaster shine’s the boots up after getting rid of all the old gunk & grime with ShineMaster Prep and after AgeMaster is applied. 2-3 coats should be sufficient.
During icing season, Goodrich recommends ICEX II. ICEX II is an ice inhibitor that should be applied every 50 hours during ice season. This will help prevent ice from sticking to the Piper PA46 de-ice boots. ICEX II can be found here.
Finally, for general cleaning of the boots after each flight, utilize Goodrich Aerospace Cleaner to debug, then follow up with Goodrich Aerospace Protectant. Goodrich claims their Protectant will resist dust, soiling, and staining. There may be less bugs to clean each time!
With just a few hours a couple times a year spent working on the Piper PA46 de-ice boots, owners will never have to worry about the hefty price tag of boot replacement!
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.
Just south of the equator in the mountains of Papua, Indonesia on the island of New Guinea, pilots spend their days carrying food, building supplies, doctors, pigs, and passengers into some of the most remote and extreme airstrips on the planet. That’s where I fly.
Each morning I load my Cessna Grand Caravan with 2,600 lbs of (insert strange cargo here) and depart my home base of Wamena just after the sun sends its first rays of light across the waking skies above. I spend my day winding through narrow valleys and crossing high altitude mountain passes with building clouds and poor communication, only to land on short, narrow airstrips with steep slopes and little room for error. Most of these one-way in, one-way out runways require me to commit to landing well before touchdown due to terrain that is too close to allow for a safe go-around. Everything better be right when I cross that decision point or I could be in for some excitement.
The need to keep wide margins of safety might seem obvious in environments like mine, but that doesn’t make them any less important where you fly. You may be a new pilot or an old timer, but keeping your margin should always be on the top of your priority list.
Let’s unpack this further. Margin is not just maintaining the regulatory requirements for cloud clearances or minimum altitudes. It’s more than planning for an alternate airport or carrying the required fuel reserve. Margin is breathing room. It is that extra maneuvering room, the Plan C, the well thought out options that provide you multiple “outs” in any given situation. Margin is what gets you home when things take a turn for the worse.
Margin comes in all shapes and sizes. For myself it includes maintaining double my required turn radius in narrow valleys or choosing not to land when my groundspeed is just 1 knot too high at a short and slippery airstrip. For you, it could be determining a ceiling or visibility minimum requirement that is more conservative than the legal ones or setting a wind limitation that you know is reasonable. When it comes down to it, keeping your margin means you don’t push to the ragged edge of your skill or the aircraft’s capability.
Margin can also refer to your mental or emotional capacity. Are you mentally prepared to divert and miss that important event because the weather is getting bad? Are you ready to handle the disappointment of passengers when you arrive over your airstrip and choose not to land due to approaching rain or a factor that is difficult for a non-pilot to understand? Are you willing to cancel a flight on an important client because you are coming down with a cold or didn’t get adequate sleep? As the PIC of your flying machine, you alone are responsible for the safety of the aircraft and the people on board and those are the tough calls that only you can make.
Fatigue, overconfidence, and complacency are the biggest obstacles to keeping your margin. They are all very subtle dangers and you may be experiencing them without even recognizing it. Fatigue can slow down your thought process leaving you behind the plane and backed into a corner before you know it. Overconfidence might cause you to push weather or commit to a course of action that has no favorable alternatives. Complacency will lead you to believe that, because you have 2000 hours in a particular make and model, you don’t need to do a thorough preflight or complete the pre-landing checklist.
Regardless of experience level, operating environment, fancy avionics, and level of proficiency, margin is something that we all need plenty of. So as you go about your upcoming flights, be asking yourself what you can do to build in more margin. It just might be what gets you home.
Pete Greenwald is a transplant to Atlanta, Georgia who has fallen in love with all things Southern, including his wife, Ashley. As a pilot and A&P with Mission Aviation Fellowship, he flies the Cessna Grand Caravan in Papua, Indonesia serving people who live in isolation. In his spare time he is on the hunt for the best burger around.
You have just received the keys of your shiny new (to you) airplane complete with a beautiful Garmin G1000 glass panel flight deck. Synthetic Vision, WAAS, and ADS-B are all installed. You are ready to cruise in high technology.
You turn on the PFD and MFD and notice one problem. All your databases are expired. No big deal, right? Your Garmin 530W was easy as pie to update with it’s single data card.
You start looking around and can’t find the data card. Then you notice that there are several SD cards in slots on the panels. SD cards won’t fit in your Blue Jepp Skybound card reader. Confusion sets in which quickly leads to full on panic.
What have you gotten yourself into?!
No need to fear, Texas Top Aviation is here to help with your Garmin G1000 database update confusion (and hopefully not panic).
Database Update Providers
First, you have to choose who to get your Garmin G1000 updates from. You have two options. One is Garmin (fly.garmin.com; always use either Firefox or Chrome to update, don’t use Safari). The other is Jeppesen.
Honestly, there is no difference between the data that each provides. If you had a 530 or 430 before, you used Jepp already. Just keep the Jepp account, call them, and have them get you set up for your Garmin G1000 updates.
If you didn’t have a Jepp account before, I would use Garmin, for a couple of reasons. You get multiple downloads in case you mess something up (Jepp NavData gives 1 download per month, while Safe Taxi, etc. you get 2-3). On Jepp, you have to call in and have them reset the account, which can be a pain if it’s after hours or a Saturday or Sunday.
The other problem with Jepp is since Boeing bought Jeppesen, I have found it extremely difficult to find online where to set up a new account and purchase databases. Yes, you can always call, but, again, problematic after hours or on a weekend.
The only problem with Fly Garmin for your Garmin G1000 updates is Garmin is constantly updating their program. You have to update their downloader quite often, which can be a bit frustrating.
I’m going to use Fly Garmin as my example.
What to Buy
Garmin gives you a couple of different bundle options for your Garmin G1000 updates, the OnePak and the PilotPak. The main difference between the two is the PilotPak includes approach charts that display on your PFD and the OnePak doesn’t. Therefore, the OnePak is about $200 cheaper.
Both include Navigation Data, SafeTaxi, Obstacles, Airport Directory, Terrain, and the BaseMap.
How to Update
Once you have followed all the instructions on Garmin’s website (or gotten Jeppesen set up), here is what to put on which SD card.
NOTE: YOU WILL NEED TO PURCHASE ONE OR TWO BLANK SD CARDS FOR THE NAVIGATION DATABASES. DO NOT PUT THE NAVIGATION DATA ON THE SD CARD THAT IS ALREADY IN THE TOP SLOT ON THE MFD. THAT IS FOR ENGINE DATA LOGGING ONLY. NO NAVIGATION DATA SHOULD EVER BE PUT THAT ON THAT CARD.
Bottom Card, PFD
SafeTaxi
Obstacles
Bottom Card, MFD
SafeTaxi
Obstacles
Airport Directory
Flite Charts
Top Card, PFD & MFD (This is the new blank SD card(s) you bought)
NOTE: REMOVE THE TOP SD CARD IN THE MFD THAT IS ALREADY IN THE SLOT AND DON’T PUT ANY DATABASE INFORMATION ON IT.
Ignore everything above and put all databases on the bottom card of the MFD. You have database sync, so you don’t have to mess with multiple cards. When you do an update though, go to the AUX chapter on the MFD and scroll down to the Databases page. Ensure that all dates match what you just put on the SD Card.
For you Jeppesen users, check out the new Bad Elf Wombat updater that works with the iPad JDM app for updates.
Sadly, in January, a pretty great airplane was put out to pasture. Textron (the conglomerate that now owns Cessna, Beechcraft, Hawker, and Lycoming) announced it was ceasing production of the Cessna TTx. With the end of the Cessna TTx production, an airplane that was the main “competitor” to Cirrus (if you can call it competition; Cirrus consistently outsold the Cessna TTx by a wide margin each year), it leaves the SR series to stand alone atop the High Performance piston single market.
I got to go through Cessna’s FITS Accepted Instructor (CFAI) course back in 2012 and have flown in the Cessna 350 and 400 (which is what they were known as at the time; the Cessna TTx name came around in 2011) for about 120 hours. I really like the airplanes. I’m partial to the Cirrus, but the Cessna 350 & 400 are fast airplanes and great for 1-2 people. I flew a 350 (the non-turbo charged version) from New York to San Antonio last fall and routinely saw 170 knots at 12 GPH.
Columbia started out making the 350 & 400 (the turbo-charged version) in the early 2000s, but went bankrupt in 2007. Lancair started Columbia to make a certified version of their popular kit planes. If you see a Lancair ES floating around, you would swear it’s a Columbia with only 1 door. Cessna bought the design from Columbia in 2007 to begin manufacturing the airplanes themselves.
Cessna then made a huge mistake as they moved the production facility from Bend, Oregon to Mexico. Production completely halted in 2009 as the planes coming out of Mexico were found to have defective composite work. The sales never really recovered, even though Cessna put the Garmin G2000 panel in the Cessna TTx, complete with a touchscreen key pad. A FIKI system was added as an option in 2012.
A prospective buyer can still get a great value on a used 350, 400, or TTx, as they are valued a little lower than a Cirrus. The 350, 400 or TTx all make excellent single pilot or two person speedsters with very comfortable amenities.
6th Annual Armed Forces Weekend Celebration & Fly-In, May 20-21, in Brady, TX and Curtis Field (KBBD)!
Friday Night on the Square – FREE
Fly-In Saturday, 9-4 – FREE
A Night in London with Sentimental Journey Orchestra
Saturday night 7-11 PM
Tickets for Dinner & Dance, $30 available at www.morganmilitaryaviationmuseum.com.
