PlasticPilot.net

If you ever wanted to know more about me but never dare to ask, this post is for you. To share more of my experience I decided to list the eight types of aircrafts I flew, in chronogical order.

At first, the swiss built AS-202 Bravo, the basic trainer on which I got my private license. A very simple two seater, 999kg maximum take-off weight (to reduce landing fees), and clearly underpowered with its 160 HP engine. It cruises at 90 knots and stalls are really… impressive. This makes it a very good basic trainier.

Next came the Piper PA28 Archer (and Warrior). A true four seater with better performance. 160 HP for the Warrior and 180 HP for the Archer, and a cruising speed around 120 knots. It’s a much better glider, and managing speed on final became a bit more of an issue. It is on this type that I also discovered autopilots !

Next step up, still in the Piper familly, the PA32R-301 Saratoga. Retractable gear, variable pitch prop, and 300 HP for six seats and a cruising speed of 150 knots ! This is the first complex plane I flew and at the time of writing the type I flew the most, and to the greater distance. I made the transition to prepare for my IFR ticket. Two axis autopilot, GNS430, HSI, … and lot of fun !

For the IFR training, I flew on a Beechcraft Bonanza F33A. It was wonderfully equipped: dual GNS430, Air Data Computer, dual needle RMI. And I’ve been truely seduced by its aerodynamics, requiring precise flying skills.

My next transition was to the first “plastic plane” with a “plastic engine”: the DA40 TDI. I wrote a lot about his in the modern aviation category. FADEC, composite body, a very easy to fly plane. The stalls are impressively stable. Not exactly rocket speed (115 - 120 kts) with the Thielert engine, but fine to fly leisurely. I also flew it IFR with a G1000… making it fully modern ! This picture is the source of the PlasticPilot logo.

I have only 19 minutes and two landings in my logbook with the PA28-236 Dakota. 235 HP, variable pitch prop, but fixed gear. I flew it when my instructor invited me to land on a frozen lake !

When I started the FADEC challenge, I needed more opportunities than the DA40, so I took a familiarization training on Cessna 172 TDI. It was my first Cessna, and first high wing plane, but after the Saratoga and the Bonanza, training on a simple airplane again was not exactly hard.

I had the opportunity to test fly the Liberty XL2 in summer 2007, and to summarize it is a funny little plane once in flight… the hard part is getting it in the air.

I don’t know yet what will be the next one, but it could be PA18 SuperCub for some glacier landing, DA50 when available, or may be a turbo Saratoga. If I get millionaire, I will probably start flying PC-12 or TBM850.

It’s night VFR season again ! Even where airports close for private traffic at 10 or even 8pm, the shorter days allow for enough night time to exerise our night VFR privileges.

My night experience is not huge as you can see in my logbook. I trained for the night VFR rating mostly because it is a prerequisite for instrument rating. The training was fun, flying at night is exciting and the view from the cockpit is really impressive.

Statistics show much more accidents per hours flown by night than by day, and this challenges both our navigation and spatial orientation skills. I personally use three rules to make my night flying as safe as possible: ready - in contact - cristal clear. Be ready
Each flight requires a detailled preparation, and this is even more true at night because looking for something in a dark cockpit is not exactly easy. Visual avoidance of obstacles is simply not possible at night, even with a bright moon. Antennas and buildings are lit-up, but this is not the case of hills and mountains, so avoiding them is a question of navigation.

You have to plan your route and altitude so as to maintain ground clearance. Also on your alternate routing ! When planning your routes, also take care of restricted airspace, as by day. As it is not possible to use lakes, railways, motorways or towns to navigate, night VFR is mostly a radio-navigation and GPS exercise. Are you prepared for a GPS failure ?

Needless to say, an electrical failure at night is an emergency. Be sure to have a flashlight at hand, as well as a handheld radio, possibly with a VOR receiver, and a handheld GPS. I’m not a big fan of using mobile phones on board, but in case of electrical failure at night, having the number of a local ATC facility could be decisive.

Be in contact
Managing an emergency situation is much complex at night, and I don’t even talk about a precautionary landing. ATC can provide great help if you start getting disoriented, or give a good kick-start to the search and rescue teams if something more critical occurs.

In Europe, most of the flight information centers (FICs) - the “information” frequencies” - are not staffed at night. This does not mean you can’t be in contact with ATC. You can remain on local tower frequency even when outside their airspace, and if you go farther away, request to be transferred to an en-route control center frequency.

The ATCO will not offer a lot to you, but if any problem pops-up, he will already know about you, your route, and your intentions. If you’re not in contact, you will first have to find a frequency, which is not easy while managing an engine failure, and then tell the whole story to the controller (call-sign, type of aircraft, departure, destination, route, nature of the emergency)…

Crital clear weather only
Applying the “see and avoid” principle at night is very easy. It is even easier to spot strobes at night than a plane by day. The major issue with “see and avoid” when flying at night is that clouds are not lighted ! Ok, thunderstorm clouds are, but no way flying close to them, be it day or night !

Entering a cloud at night should not result in collision with terrain as long as the route is well planned. Spatial orientation is more challenging, but part of the night training is about maintaining a correct attitude with sole reference to the instruments. The two major risks when entering a cloud at night are carubrator and airframe icing, and collision with another traffic being in or near the same cloud.

My rule for night VFR is easy: 3000 feet above ground, 3000 feet below cloud, no rain, no fog, no haze.

Links
NTSB safety alert: http://www.ntsb.gov/alerts/SA_013.pdf
ASF hot spot: http://www.aopa.org/asf/hotspot/night_vfr.html

The winds and heavy rainfall generated by thunderstorms are serious obstacles to air traffic. When in cruise, airfracts avoid thunderstorm, and when one gets caught by surprise, the resulting damages can be quite impressive. For more information about flying and thunderstorms, look at this post.

To illustrate how bad weather can be under a thunderstorm, I took this series of photo from my balcony. The interval between pictures is about one minute. I tried to stay immobile and did not modify the zoom.

The distance to the large building in the background is 210 meters, according to Google Earth. The visibility reduces each minute, and this is already well below ILS category I, and this is only the begining…

As I used a simple compact camera, I had to turn off the flash to avoid pictures of bad quality, but this lead to too long exposure times, making the pictures fuzzy. However the effects of the wind on the tree are quite impressive.

The most active part of the storm is here. The picture in the middle is in another direction, because nothing was visible in the direction of the tower. The trees on this picture are less than 30 meters away.

Within the three next minutes, visibility increases quickly, and wind speed reduces. The storm is not over, it just moved away.

Needless to say, all approaches to the airport located two miles away were stopped, all planes waiting in holding patterns. I was listening to the approach frequency, and when the storm was over the airport, the controller made the following call: “All stations, surface wind variable 35 knots, gusting 50 knots“.

No pilot answered this call.