Land and Hold Short: on flying small planes.

The Internet Death Clock says that I’ll die on 30 August 2038, 30 years from this summer (it doesn’t take into account the longer average life span in Canada). That’s good news, because now I don’t have to worry about running through my preflight checklists, flying VFR into IMC, going up in severe icing, running out of fuel over the mountains, etc. — after checking the death clock, I feel a lot more confident about my flying from now until July 2038.

In the U.S., AOPA president Phil Boyer wants to know how to stop the pilot population from declining — it has fallen below 600,000, and is still heading downhill.

No surprise, really. Flying is a fuel- and land-intensive pastime, when both oil and real estate are expensive and in short supply.

Canada

In Canada, as of September 2007, there were 61,109 pilot licenses and permits in force, with an additional 7,683 student permits [Transport Canada]. If we had the same population as the U.S., that would be the equivalent of nearly 628,000 active pilot licenses. Granted, that’s licenses/permits and not pilots, and a few pilots will hold multiple licenses or permits (e.g. fixed-wing, helicopter, and glider), but it’s probably true that Canada has proportionally more pilots than the U.S. Furthermore, the number seems to be holding fairly steady — ten years ago, in 1998, there were 61,241 licensed pilots (excluding student pilots?) [Transport Canada].

Positive or negative vibes?

What’s the difference? After all, we’re paying slightly more for fuel than the Americans are. One thing might be the hysteria about security and terrorism in the U.S., which paints pilots and planes as, if not exactly potential terrorists, certainly high risks.

Why get involved in a pastime that will make people look at you suspiciously, where your state or city will try to run extra security checks on you, where you read in the news about small planes being intercepted in constantly-changing TFRs, where the less talented investigative reporters will sneak onto your little community airfield to see if your Cessna’s door is unlocked so that they can run a scare story on the news that evening?

That won’t turn everyone away from flying, of course, but it will make some difference — we’re all sensitive to what our friends and neighbours think. In Canada (and, I suspect, parts of the U.S., like Alaska), people still generally react positively when they hear that you’re a pilot, though they learn quickly not mention the weather as a topic of conversation.

The allowed answers for each question are “Canada“, “U.S.“, “both“, or “neither” (for the sake of this quiz, “U.S.” refers only to the continental U.S., excluding Alaska and Hawaii). I’ll post the answers in a comment later.

1. Which country requires pilots to have a clearance to enter class C airspace?

2. Which country requires pilots to file a flight plan for all VFR flights?

3. Which country misuses “class F” in a non-ICAO-standard way to refer to restricted airspace?

4. Which country requires pilots to enter the downwind leg of an uncontrolled airport at a 45-degree angle?

5. Which country requires pilots to have a clearance to fly along (or cross) most Victor airways at or above 12,500 feet?

6. Which country’s controllers will issue landing clearances for more than one aircraft (not flying in formation) landing on the same runway?

7. Which country requires private aircraft to carry liability insurance?

8. Which country levies a fee for customs services for private aircraft?

9. Which country publishes updated VFR charts on a fixed schedule?

10. Which country requires VFR pilots to have copies of current charts on board the aircraft?

11. Which country has a standard, nationwide VHF radio frequency that pilots can use to obtain weather updates and file PIREPs?

12. Which country requires pilots always to use supplemental oxygen at a cabin pressure of 12,500 feet?

13. Which country publishes traffic circuit/pattern direction information on its 1:500,000 VFR charts?

14. Which country plans to require private aircraft to carry 406 MHz ELTs?

15. Which country would charge a Cessna 172 pilot/owner a fee for each IFR flight?

16. Which country has class G airspace above 18,000 ft?

My U.S.-manufactured 1979 Piper Warrior II was originally registered as N22309, until it was imported into Alberta, Canada in 1988 and reregistered as C-FBJO. It wasn’t the only plane to use that registration number.

The first N22309 that I can find was a Cessna 150 based in the Phillipines. On 28 May 1973, a solo student pilot was executing a go-around (touch and go?) at Plaridel Airport before heading to Clark Air Base. Unfortunately, things didn’t go so well, and the plane ended up flying into the trees. The 35-year-old student pilot survived, but the plane was a write-off (summary).

The N-number lay dormant for six years, until it was assigned to a new Piper Warrior II in 1979. The plane kept the number until 1988, when it was exported to Canada (and later bought by me in 2002).

The N-number lay dormant for another seven years, then was reassigned once again in 1995, this time to a Ryan RX-6 (a type I can find almost nothing about). The plane didn’t have it for long, however — it was canceled in 1998. All the database says is “Reason for Cancellation: Destroyed”. There’s no accident report in the NTSB database, so let’s hope it was destroyed while parked on the ground, with no one in it. The number has been available for 10 years now.

Anyone interested in a slightly used N-number?

Here’s what it cost to own and operate a 1979 Piper Warrior II in Ottawa, Canada in 2007 with 80 hours air time (a bit more flight time, of course). Since the US and Canadian dollars are basically at par now, there’s no need to convert:

These are real costs, including sales taxes, not the BS costs you hear people throwing around at the airport. Reserves are $20/hour for engine and paint. I also pay about $500/year for charts and recurrent training, but I’d pay the same as a renter, so I don’t count those as ownership costs.

2007 was by far the cheapest year I’ve had with C-FBJO, and also the fewest hours I’ve flown (I’m usually over 100). I was parked at a less expensive airport and used less gas (flying less), but the biggest difference was maintenance — annual maintenance for a small plane like mine can be $2,000 one year and $10,000 the next, depending on what goes wrong (and even the simplest plane has a lot that can go wrong). I’m keeping a nearly 30-year-old plane operating, so stuff wears out and has to be replaced all the time, just as it would with a 30-year-old car; unlike with cars, however, buying a new plane isn’t a solution — I read recently that routine inspection and maintenance for an SR-22 runs $8,000-$10,000, and that’s without any problems coming up.

Fees include tie-down (and required club membership) at my home airport, transient landing and parking fees during trips, and the compulsory $75/year Nav Canada and $27.50 US customs fees. Consumables are oil (mainly), filters, fluids, etc.

When so many of the costs — tie-down fees, insurance, and (most) maintenance — are fixed, I can see the logic in taking one or two partners. You’ll still pay just as much for fuel and engine/paint reserve, but you slash the other overheads. I don’t think I’ll take a partner in C-FBJO at this point, but if I move up to something bigger like a Cherokee Six, I probably won’t try it alone.

So where did this money take me and my passengers (besides the Ottawa area) in 2007? In chronological order, Maniwaki QC, New York City (Teterboro), Drummondville QC, Pembroke ON, Toronto ON (Buttonville), Sault Ste. Marie ON, Toronto ON (City Centre), Brockville ON, Waterloo ON, Toronto ON (Buttonville) again, Sundridge ON, Sault Ste. Marie ON again, Toronto ON (City Centre) again, Burlington VT, Boston MA (Norwood), Alexandria Bay NY (Maxson), New Jersey and New York City (Caldwell), Montreal QC (Trudeau), Baie Comeau QC, Maniwaki QC again, and Burlington VT again. Not all that exciting a year, but it kept the rust off the wings (mine and the plane’s).

A couple of months ago, Google Maps quietly added a Terrain layer to their maps. I’ve enabled that in OurAirports now, so that you can get at least a rough idea of the terrain around an airport (or in a region, country, etc.).

For example, here’s why there are so many accidents around Hope, BC when the weather gets low.

I’ve finally gotten around to adding free data downloads to OurAirports. You can now download nightly CSV-formatted data dumps of all the airports, countries, and regions in OurAirports at

http://www.ourairports.com/data/

These will open with most spreadsheet and database programs (make sure you import them as UTF-8).

All data is released into the Public Domain and comes with no warranty. If you have any corrections or additions, please make them in the spreadsheet and then send them back to me.

You’ve probably all seen this already, but today the Gimli Glider takes its last flight as an Air Canada aircraft, almost 25 years after its famous power-off glide to a landing in Gimli, Manitoba.

The original pilots and some of the crew members are on board as it heads from Montreal to Tucson on its way to a bone yard in the Mojave desert.

Here’s a statement from the U.S. Air Transport Association (ATA) — the airlines’ lobby group — about variable landing fees for U.S. airports (e.g. higher at peak times, lower other times):

“Unfortunately, [the policy] does nothing to fix the primary cause of delays - our nation’s increasingly antiquated air traffic control system,” ATA CEO Jim May said. “Additional fees . . . will only increase the cost of flying for the consumer.”

Yes, the U.S. ATC system is antiquated, and yes, higher peak-hour fees at big airports may mean higher ticket prices, but how is ATC the problem? Flights don’t get delayed because a controller has to use a voice line to coordinate hand-offs or stare at a cold-war era radar screen; they get delayed because runways at big hubs can handle only a limited number of landings per hour. The proof is in the fact that there are almost never delays flying to small airports. (Ever had a ground hold waiting to fly to Massena, NY? Didn’t think so.)

Let’s make it really easy for the ATA:

• Big airport (called “hub”) has one active landing runway.
• Runway can handle 40 landings every hour.
• Your members (airlines) schedule 50 flights per hour into the hub.
• Planes land late.

Give the FAA as much new shiny technology as you want, but if there aren’t enough runways, it won’t help. Do you really want to be flying heavy jets a minute apart or less? Fancy navigation technology won’t get rid of wake turbulence.

OurAirports now includes heliports and floatplane bases as well as fixed-wing airports: in the last 24 hours I’ve added 828 floatplane bases and 5,911 heliports, all from Canada and the U.S. (and a couple of U.S. dependencies like Guam).

Here’s a screenshot of a map of the Vancouver area — you should be able to make out 3 floatplane bases, 7 heliports, and 6 airports (you can jump to the live map to explore further):

Thanks again to George Plews for collecting the Canadian data. Does anyone have a good reference for heliports and floatplane bases outside of Canada and the U.S. (or even for more fixed-wing airports)?

Any logged-in member can now add placemarks to the map for local spots at an airport (FBOs, visitor parking, fuel, restaurant, customs, or whatever), and more importantly, anyone — even Anonymous Flyers — can comment on those spots.

Take a look at Ottawa Rockcliffe or Teterboro to see some examples, then mark some of the spots at your local airport so that I’ll know where to park, fuel up, and eat next time I fly in.

Pilots often already have their watches set to UTC, so this should be easy. At the exact minute of the winter solstice tonight, at 06:08 UTC, is the second annual Global Orgasm for Peace

To effect positive change in the energy field of the Earth through input of the largest possible instantaneous surge of human biological, mental and spiritual energy.

The web site doesn’t specify that this has to happen in pairs — presumably, it helps the Earth’s [their capitalization] energy field just as well alone or even in groups.

If you need to be behind the controls of an aircraft at 6:08 UTC, however, you might want to substitute eating chocolate.

From a news story about a new U.S.-run military flight training school in Iraq:

The mission shift is particularly acute for [Lt. Col. Mark] Bennett, who flew 15-hour combat missions over Iraq in 2003 and now finds himself forming steadfast friendships with the Iraqi pilots he trains.

“The B-1 is a symbol of air power, and of weapon strength. Now I’m flying a Cessna — a symbol of training and guidance,” said Bennett, a 39-year-old San Antonio, Texas, resident who commands the 52nd Expeditionary Flying Training Squadron. “Frankly, I like this role better.”

This posting is not intended to make any moral statement, positive or negative, about the war in Iraq. I just want to share a nice perspective on flying, especially for people in small planes who fantasize about flying big military aircraft — it seems it can work both ways.

Cessna 172 photo from Wikimedia Commons.

Like pilots, flight attendants are highly-trained professionals; remember that next time you’re tempted to treat one like a waiter or bellhop (though you shouldn’t treat waiters or bellhops that way, either).

To see just how important they are, check out this high-res video of China Airlines Flight 120, the Boeing 737 that caught fire when a bolt punctured the fuel tank after the plane taxied to the gate at Naha Airport in Okinawa last August. The flight attendants had about a minute to evacuate 165 passengers and crew off the plane before the heat became so intense that it started warping the airframe (long before the firefighters arrived):

http://podcast.sankei.co.jp/movie/news/wmv/070820china_air.wmv

It’s terrifying how fast the fire can intensify and spread. It’s fortunate that they were already on the ground, and that the plane had already burned off some (most?) of its fuel during the flight.

Cheers to the flight attendants who got everyone out alive.

Jeers to the moron passengers who you can see carrying coats, carry-on bags, etc. with them on their way out — each item could have cost a fellow passenger’s life.

In about 650 hours of flying — most of it in my Warrior — I’ve seen and done just about everything I can see and do at this level and live to tell about it. I’ve flown into busy international airports and into short gravel and grass strips; I’ve fired back rapid responses to NY approach, flown over big cities day and night, carried my family most of the length of the seaway from Lake Superior to Gaspe (and beyond to Cape Breton), bounced around in severe turbulence over the mountains of New Hampshire and Vermont (not fun), spent hours fighting headwinds that made me feel like I was moving backwards, logged many hours of actual IMC (both benign and nail biting), successfully flown an ILS approach where I saw nothing but a few approach lights at DH, seen other planes come way too close, blundered into a thunderstorm cloud (do not repeat), been forced down to an unplanned airport landing in marginal VFR turning to IMC (before I had my instrument rating), experienced icing first hand, been praised and tongue-lashed by controllers (sometimes by the same one), repaired or replaced a huge part of my plane, crouched in the ice and snow out on a field changing a landing light in the dark at -25 degC gripping the screwdriver with numb fingers, and watched the beauty of the light and dark world rolling beneath the plane in a long, post-midnight cross-country flight.

So now what? The plane is still a useful tool, especially for business and family trips, and I do enjoy the challenge and surprises of Hope Air flights, but there’s nothing exciting about pushing the throttle forward and leaving the ground any more — it feels almost exactly the same as backing the minivan out of the driveway. Here are some of my options:

• learn to fly a taildragger (but once I’ve learned, there’s none that I can fly)
• learn to fly a multiengine plane and get my multi-IFR (ditto)
• learn to fly a floatplane (ditto)
• learn to fly a helicopter (ditto)
• sell my Warrior and buy a share with some partners in a high performance plane like a Saratoga (and pay a lot more for gas)
• upgrade to a commercial license (just for the challenge — I don’t plan to leave my day job)

I know I don’t want to instruct — I used to be a university professor, and while I loved teaching, I don’t want to go back. Any suggestions? What have other people done? After my kids leave for university in a few years, I could spend a couple of months flying around the U.S. and Canada coast to coast, but that’s not practical with the demands of caring for kids in high school and middle school.

In the U.S., in an attempt to avoid user fees for general aviation, AOPA (the main G.A. advocacy group) worked with the FAA to outsource flight services (briefings, VFR flight plans, etc.) to Lockheed-Martin. AOPA didn’t realize that they were about to break the whole system.

The system broke badly — while some calls do get through, there are numerous reports of dropped calls, 30+ minute wait times, confused briefers, and more. For U.S. pilots, it’s almost as if flight services has ceased to exist, and judging from discussion on the mailing lists, they’ve pretty-much stopped filing VFR flight plans (which aren’t mandatory in the U.S.) except when required for ADIZ or cross-border flights.

Pilot, clear thyself

Things have gotten so bad that there’s now a new wiki, ClearanceWiki, devoted entirely to collecting information on how to pick up IFR clearances from small airports without having to call Flight Services — it lists radio frequencies or direct ATC phone numbers that are or might be available at each airport.

When I couldn’t close my flight plan

My own experience with Lockheed-Martin’s new U.S. FSS has been mixed. I appreciate that I can now call from a Canadian landline or cell phone to reach U.S. flight services (when the FAA ran the system, non-U.S. area codes were blocked), and most of the time I have been able to get through (do foreign callers get better service?), but I’ve had some bad experiences.

The worst was last week, when I landed at Alexandria Bay/Maxson in Upstate NY to clear customs. I had filed a cross-border VFR flight plan (as required by law), but Maxson has no RCO frequency, and I could not get through to anyone by phone to close the flight plan while my search-and-rescue time fast approached. I decided that my best bet was to take off and climb until I could reach someone (I also had to pick up an IFR clearance for the rest of the flight, but it was VFR in Maxson).

Once in the air, I explained the problem to Wheeler-SAC approach at Fort Drum, and they started trying to reach FSS for me on their own dedicated lines, also with no success (they were able to give me my IFR clearance quickly, though). Finally, I was high enough to pick up a Burlington RCO transceiver, and at the same time, Burlington had heard enough of a call from Wheeler-SAC (before the line went dead) to close my flight plan.

Not ideal in Canada, but better

While I’d rather not pay my ~$75 annual Nav Canada fee and the avgas tax, and I’m seriously p*ssed with the extra $10/takeoff fee coming up for using big airports like CYOW, we do get excellent FSS service here in Canada. I almost never wait on hold on the phone for a Nav Canada briefer, and when I do, it’s usually a few seconds at most; in fact, a couple of times I’ve called Nav Canada from the U.S. to get a briefing because I can’t get through to U.S. flight services — they’re always understanding and happy to help.

Novelist Hugh MacLennan referred to the English and French in Canada as Two Solitudes, but that’s not a great working model for aviation. In eastern Canada, we do have to deal with both languages on the radio; I’ve developed an marginal passive understanding of aviation French from a few years of flying out of Ottawa, and I thought it might be worth collecting some of the most common terms I happen to remember — these are important words you may need to understand on the radio, not a complete French-English aviation glossary. Please let me know if I get any wrong — and does anyone know the French word for “FBO“? (It’s “exploitant d’aérodrome privé” according to Nav Canada, but “le FBO” in real life — see comments for more info.)

à destination de

heading for …

l’aérogare (m)

terminal (building)

l’aéroport (m)

airport

l’aire de stationnement (f)

apron (parking)

l’amerrissage (m)

water landing (c.f. “l’aterrissage”)

l’approche (f)

approach

l’approche finale (f)

final (leg); “en approche finale” on final

l’approche interrompue (f)

overshoot/go-around; “en approche interrompue” on the overshoot/going around

l’approche manquée (f)

missed approach

attendre à l’écart

(to) hold short

l’atterrissage (m)

landing (c.f. “l’amerrissage”)

l’atterrissage complet

full stop (landing)

l’avion (m)

aircraft

le calage altimétrique

altimeter setting

le cap

heading

le circuit

(traffic) circuit/pattern

le contrôle sol

ground control

le côté inactif

inactive/upwind side of the runway (in Canada, pilots usually approach an uncontrolled airport from the upwind side “du côté inactif” and cross overhead the field to join the mid downwind)

le décollage

takeoff; “décoller” to take off

l’étape de base (f)

base (leg); “en étape de base” on base

les installations (f)

airport buildings; more generally, the airport/field (e.g. “cinq milles des installations” five miles from the field)

le mille (marin)

(nautical) mile

le pilote

pilot

la piste

runway; “la piste en service” active runway

le posé-décollé touché-décollé

touch-and-go (landing)

remonter (la piste)

backtrack (on the runway)

le seuil (de piste)

(runway) threshold

le tour (de contrôle)

(control) tower

le vent arrière

downwind, tailwind; “en vent arrière” on (the) downwind (leg)

le vent debout

upwind, headwind; “côté vent debout” the upwind side

le vent traversier

crosswind; “en vent traversier” on (the) crosswind (leg)

verticale de

above/over; (e.g. “à vingt-cinq mille pieds verticale de Lachute” over Lachute at 2,500 feet)

le virage

turn (change in direction); e.g. “virage à droit”

la voie de circulation

taxiway

le vol

flight; “en vol” in the air

There’s a much more complete glossary here (also from English to French), but these are the terms you’re most likely to hear on the radio.

Cuba has a nice selection of small-town/rural airports, including many with good, paved runways, judging from the satellite views. When I zoom in, though, they are mostly sadly deserted, with sometimes a single piston twin parked in the middle of an empty apron. Who are they maintaining these airports for? The military doesn’t need so many so close together, and I doubt that many Cubans could afford to fly private aircraft even if they were allowed to.

Now that Fidel is pretty-much confined to writing OpEd pieces in the party propaganda rag and Raúl, who’s running the show, is making speeches about opening up the economy and talking seriously with the U.S., maybe it won’t be long until U.S. pilots are allowed to visit again. Cuba’s an easy flight from Florida, and it looks like it will still be able to offer some decent flying, with lots of nice, rural airports to go along with its friendly people. Cuba’s already a huge tourist destination for Canadians, though I don’t know anyone who’s flown his/her own plane down (it would have to be via Mexico).

Maybe change isn’t too far away …

About three hours ago, a homebuilt Zenith 250 lost power after takeoff from Ottawa/Rockcliffe (my home airport) and made a forced landing in a wooded area a couple of miles east of the airport (CBC News story).

It’s a big flying club, and I don’t know the 68-year-old pilot, but the fact that he walked away uninjured suggests he did a good job getting the plane down. The news story says that the plane landed “nose down” — it might have settled nose down, but I doubt that it initially made ground contact that way when the pilot wasn’t hurt. Still, there was nothing annoying, obviously inaccurate, or sensational in the story, which is a good sign — no discussion of “narrowly missing” houses and schools only half a mile away, etc. Good for the CBC!