Plastic Pilot

The text below is from a comment I received via my “Any question ?” page, from a grad student in Wichita SU. I took his survey myself, and decided to publish it as a post, as it is a serious thing, with potential improvements to flight safety.
“Hello,

My name is Libby Culpepper, and I’m a grad student at Wichita State University. I’m working on my doctorate degree in Human Factors in Aviation, which entails research on the pilot community. I would like an opportunity to post a link about a survey, that I’m conducting regarding aging and flying. This study is completely anonymous and open for all (pilots and non). If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me. I hope you will take the time to check out the survey, as well as our HF lab. I have constructed a brief bio and some information about the survey. Please let me know if you have any questions about it. The web address for the survey is as follows:

www.pilotsurvey.notlong.com

Thank you in advance,

~Libby Culpepper“

Keeping a proper level of theoretical knowledge is a challenge for each and every pilot, and it’s not so easy ! This does matter when it’s time to renew a license / rating, but it can also be a life saver at any time… Unfortunately, the training material is sometimes a bit too… let’s say… academic… I personally used the Oxford books for my IR rating. They are extensive, expensive, and not exactly fun.

To make review as fun as it can be (…), I propose you two books, one for meteorology and one for radio-navigation.

The first one is simply called “Aviation Meteorology” (ISBN 3-9522668-2-5), and has been written by K.H. Hack. You can get it from good aviation stores, or from www.aviamet.ch. A part from being edited by Pilatus, and featuring a PC12 on the cover and a PC21 on the backside, this book has the interest of presenting one concept per page. It covers the whole ATPL syllabus, and each page is illustrated with schemas and real-life photos.

Climatology has never been an easy topic, but the approach used by the author to each subject is really pedagogic, and makes things as clear as possible. Beacause of the one subject per page principle, this book is also very good as a quick reference.

The second book is called “Never get lost” (ISBN 3-00-008643-9) and is all about radio-navigation. It has been written by Wilhelm Thaller, and you can find it at www.nevergetlost.at. Many pilots are scared by radio-navigation because they beleive it involves mental calculations. This book makes clear it’s obviously wrong. All principles are presented with schemas in which the plane and the beacons are depicted on top of the instrument dials, to illustrate spatial orientation.

If you sometimes have doubts about the direction to turn to re-intercept a QDM, or about which kind of holding entry you should fly, this book is a must ! After reading it, you’ll fly using spatial orientation, not calculus.

I wish you good reading sessions, this will make you safer. Any other books sugestions are welcome in comments !

The G1000 glass-cockpit popularity continue to increase, and learning to use it is definetly an asset. As already mentioned earlier on this blog, some Cessna Citation will be G1000 equipped… A new step has been reached as Socata anounced a G1000 version of the TBM 850 !

It is now possible to envisage a complete career flying only G1000, as it is available in all kind of airplanes:

• Basic single engine piston (SEP): C172, DA40
• Complex single engine piston (SEP): Bonanza, PA32, DA50 (to come)
• High Performance Aircraft (HPA): PA34 Malibu
• Multi engine piston (MEP): Baron, DA42
• Single turbine engine (SET): TBM 850
• Multi engine turbine (MET): Kingair 200
• Jet: Cessna Citation Mustang

This means that a pilot could move up from C172 to Citation Mustang without having to re-learn avionics at each step ! This is the miracle of modern avionics, and it will certainly reduce the number of incidents caused by pilots being distracted because they don’t know their equipment perfectly.

The question then is to know when Boeing or Airbus will integrate them … as a de-facto standard !