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.

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.

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?

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?

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).

The incident

I flew through some light snow showers on my way to Kingston with my daughter this morning, so I turned on the pitot heat just before joining the circuit to make sure the pitot blade was clear. At the end of the downwind leg I slowed the engine, reduced power, dropped flaps, verified 70-80 knot airspeed, turned a tight base over the icy water of Lake Ontario, then looked again at the airspeed indicator (ASI).

35 knots. Way below stall speed.

But the plane was flying fine. The nose wasn’t high, the controls weren’t mushy, the stall buzzer wasn’t blaring, the wings weren’t buffeting, and most importantly, the ice floes weren’t spinning and getting larger in the windshield. I gently pushed the nose down enough to speed up 5-10 knots, but still the needle didn’t move. I checked the altimeter and it was behaving properly, showing a slow descent towards field elevation. That meant a pitot failure.

The trickiest part was the turn to final, almost immediately after the failure, when I’d barely had time to process it — it’s easy to lose airspeed in a turn, even with a functioning ASI. After that, it was pretty much a normal approach and landing (no point declaring an emergency when the runway is less than a minute away). The ASI flickered back to life on short final to show that I was 5-10 knots above my normal approach speed. It froze again at some point during the flare and landing (I don’t look at the panel once I’m past the airport fence), then gradually climbed to 90 knots as I taxied in to park the plane.

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.

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.

“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.