Table of contents for Ultimate Issue 2024 in Flying

What is this term “study level” we often hear in the flight sim community? ¶ It’s been the catch phrase used everywhere the last few years, and it has become the gold standard of top quality aircraft or those so realistic and so well designed that you could study them to obtain actual type ratings and pass an initial course. ¶ Most add-ons are of simpler design and varying levels of quality, but over the years, these study level aircraft for the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 (MSFS20) and X-Plane 12 (XP12) platforms have grown in numbers. ¶ I am old enough to remember the old fighter sim called Falcon 4.0 in the late 1980s and early ’90s. It came with a thick paper manual that felt like a novel. I…

Academy Award winner Jimmy Stewart was a decorated WWII bomber pilot and starred in a series of aviation-themed movies after the war, most notably 1957’s Spirit of St. Louis. With the emergence of reality TV, most pilots will admit to having binge watched some sort of program about flying, usually based in the cold northern regions and always involving perilous situations and larger-than-life characters. Ice Pilots, Flying Wild Alaska, and Airplane Repo immediately come to mind, and each has featured general aviation airplanes in a starring role. However, turn the clock back a few years and TV and movie star pilots were nothing new in the post-World War II American landscape. Academy Award winner Jimmy Stewart was a decorated WWII bomber pilot and starred in a series of aviation-themed movies…

There’s no differentiation in the eyes of the FAA, but I’m going to make a distinction. Once a pilot adds an instrument rating, they’re legal to fly an ILS in blowing snow all the way to 200-foot minimums with an 1,800 RVR. But few of us would actually attempt such a demanding task with only our training and perhaps a bit of experience in actual conditions under our belt. I’ll call those folks “pilots with an instrument rating,” differentiating them from someone with more experience who would confidently undertake that operation. I’ll call that person an “instrument pilot.” So, if your goal is to gain high levels of proficiency, experience, and comfort to ultimately grow from being a pilot with an instrument rating into an instrument pilot, how can you…

Everyone talks about the weather, but no one ever does anything about it.” Stop me if you’ve heard that before. The same could be said about managing the risk of general aviation. We—both FLYING and the industry as a whole—spend a lot of time preaching to pilots about the mechanics of understanding weather forecasts, determining if the aircraft is capable, and making honest evaluations of our own performance in considering how and when to conduct a flight. But once we identify the need to mitigate a risk, we sometimes have little space left over to describe the tools we can use. Let’s try to fix that. The typical GA pilot is exposed to three broad areas of risk: weather, aircraft suitability, and pilot capability. When the proposed flight raises complications…

Experimental aviation has been a serious thing since, well, the beginning. Orville and Wilbur were homebuilders, for sure, but it wasn’t until after World War II that the FAA agreed to carve out a licensing path for airplanes built in your barn or garage. From the Experimental/Amateur-Built category’s emergence in 1947 through the founding of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) in 1953, the classification grew slowly—in part because building on your own meant doing everything: welding, working with fabric, painting, upholstering, wiring, and plumbing. Once you’d found all the raw materials you needed, of course. It wasn’t until the 1970s that the idea of “kit” airplanes became a serious thing. Frank Christensen is often credited for kick-starting the industry as we know it, providing builders of his Christen Eagle virtually…

The question, of course, is: Should you? It depends. How experienced are you overall? How many different aircraft types have you flown? Your airplane project has been a part of life for a long time, it seems. Out there in the garage or in the basement, perhaps, it eventually outgrew the nest and found its way to the airport. Once there it gathered more parts as though magnetized and consumed money like, well, a suddenly wellpaid merchant marine on extended shore leave. You embraced one and tolerated the other. In time, the list of to-be-completed tasks shrank, and the possibility of it actually flying came into view, almost mirage-like. The path from having a huge pile of airplane-kit components in the driveway to a flying example has complications beyond the…

In 1949, the Civil Aeronautics Authority (the precursor to the FAA), reacting to the number of training accidents involving spins, removed the spin from the private pilot syllabus. Some pilots who knew how to spin an airplane suspected that anyone who didn’t wasn’t really a pilot. Cooler heads observed that the majority of unintentional spins occurred in the traffic pattern, particularly on the baseto-final turn, where there was no room to recover even if the pilot knew how to. So knowing how to spin and recover served no purpose, besides its entertainment value—which, to be sure, was considerable. Under the new dispensation, pilots were taught, in theory at least, not how to recover from a spin but how to avoid one. Nevertheless, stall spins, usually in the traffic pattern, still…

After cutting a new instrument panel and all the other labor-intensive work that tags along with the retrofit, flagship big-screen EFIS (Electronic Flight Instrument System) upgradescomewitheye-wateringinvoicesand lots of downtime. While these big projects could make sense for some, we suspect the majority of buyers look for ways to keep the budget and complexity in check. ¶ Enter small-screen EFIS, otherwise known as a budget glass upgrade. These are generally two solid-state gyro instruments—an electronic attitude display and electronic HSI. ¶ While you’ll sacrifice screen real estate, you’ll also save big on install labor because mini EFIS units can fit the existing three inch instrument cutouts without having to cut new metal, and in some cases, even retaining the old-school plastic overlay. Here’s a primer on the budget EFIS market, where…

It has been my privilege to observe and participate in the development of what we enjoy today as general aviation, starting in the late 1950s. More than anything else, it was my subscription to FLYING Magazine, beginning with the January 1955 issue, that created a thirst for additional knowledge and achievement. I was not alone. A lot of builders and dreamers were entering the private aviation industry in that era, helping transform it from a time of tube-and-rag taildraggers to sleek transportation aircraft. In the mid-20th century, America was uniquely positioned for the creation of a modern noncommercial aviation system. There was a need for airplanes that could transport families and business people across the vast distances of North America, we had an airport of some sort in nearly every…

For as long as I can remember—I started doing this in 1968—writers for FLYING and other aviation publications have been singing the praises of angle-of-attack (AOA) indicators. They were rare in general aviation airplanes until 2014 when the FAA simplified the requirements for installing them. A proliferation of aftermarket AOA systems followed, ranging in price from around $300 to more than $3,000. I don’t know how widely these devices have been adopted, nor do I know whether any study has been made of their impact on the GA accident rate. Despite its well-known shortcomings as a stall-warning device, the airspeed indicator remains the only AOA reference in most airplanes. It has the advantages of being a mechanically simple system, intuitive, and familiar. Speed is an everyday experience, while angle of…

Congratulations! You earned your flight instructor rating, and now it’s your turn to teach someone else how to fly. But just because you now carry the title of CFI doesn’t mean you know all there is about teaching flying. I am coming up on 21 years as a CFI, and there are stumbling blocks I’ve seen freshly minted CFIs trip over. Here are 12 suggestions to help make your journey as an educator a smooth one for both you and your learners. 1. Use a syllabus. Even if you were not trained with a syllabus, or the school you are working at is Part 61 and doesn’t require it, please use one, be it paper or electronic form. It will help you stay organized and deliver lessons in a logical…

When it rolled out of the de Havilland factory in Toronto in 1956, the DHC-2 Beaver registered as CF-JOS was launched into the typical life of the most iconic bushplane ever built. That is to say its life has been anything but typical because it was purpose built to challenge the norms of aviation in the postwar era. ¶ Tough as nails, able to get in and out of small unimproved runways or high mountain lakes, while carrying a ton of freight, ponderously slow and superbly stable, the Beaver led a renaissance in backcountry air service. It also set standards for safety and reliability in the far-flung wilderness of northern North America. It spread those attributes around the world, achieving previously impossible results from the Sahara to Mount Everest and…

There are three key elements for surviving a hardened aircraft insurance market—training, loyalty, and downsizing. It’s no secret that pilots of complex and high-end aircraft have been dealing with the trend of higher rates and even non renewed policies, especially older pilots and those with limited experience in type. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to sunset your flying career once you reach 70—the point in life where underwriters consider you a “senior” pilot. Moreover, with a savvy approach, some compromises and hard training requirements, insurance can be available for younger and green pilots stepping into tailwheels and turbines. Plus, insurance pros unanimously say to find an insurer you’re happy with and stick with them for the long term because loyalty matters. At the same time, show the underwriter…

Evoke Aviation is an aircraft paint facility owned by Jonathan McCormick in Gadsden, Alabama. McCormick and his team perform high-end paint jobs on experimental aircraft that take homebuilders out of the dream-like, sometimes nightmarish, build phase and into the next chapter—reality. Imagine being past the hard part and turning your nearly finished airplane over to McCormick and his well-trained staff to put the cherry red on your sundae. Finally, it’s time to fly—and turn some heads. What started as a desire to offer more elaborate schemes has since become Evoke Aviation and Evoke Aircraft Design, the graphic design portion of the business. Evoke’s portfolio includes more than 50 EAA Air-Venture award-winning homebuilts, such as Steve Thorne’s (“Flight Chops” on YouTube) Van’s RV-14. “I would say our customers are people who…

Aviation for many people isn’t just a hobby or a career—it’s a passion. And if you are lucky and you become a docent at an aviation museum, you get to share your knowledge with people from all walks of life. Most if not all are volunteers who donate their time and expertise to educate the public about aviation. Museums simply could not function without them. They may volunteer at a museum once a week (or more) or work alternate weekends. They often wear a uniform of sorts, such as a polo shirt with the museum logo or a jacket or vest, and have a museum ID lanyard around their neck. A great many also wear a “fun meter” button with the needle pegged to maximum. The reason? They love what…