You’re flying a single engine aircraft and your engine fails shortly after take-off. What do you do? You’ll lower the nose to maintain airspeed and land somewhere in front of you, not to far left or right. Because you know that turns will cost you altitude, and you don’t want to make a tight 180 degrees turn towards the runway behind you. There is a reason why this is called the impossible turn, isn’t it? Flying steep turns at low altitude without power is what you learned NOT to do. Because this ends in stall and possibly spin. The type known as graveyard spin.

You know that because your instructor told you. May be you even simulated that. Turning back towards the airport is tempting because this is a place you know, where you can land and get assistance easily. Save the plane. But you first duty as pilot in command is to save the occupants, and turning back to the airport is not the best way to do it.

Why this post? Why now? Because sometimes unusual things happen. Look at this video before you continue reading…

It look like this Mooney pilot did fly the impossible turn. At first, kudos to him to saving the plane and its occupants. Now, a few observations:

• The engine noise is scary and this must be very stressing
• It’s hard to say if some power was still available or not
• The altitude and position of the airport are not easy to guess
• The turns seem really steep to me
• There are lots of openings, and also this other runway available

The camera view being much narrower than the human vision it’s hard to get a good idea of the whole situation. But it pretty much looks like the pilot did fly the impossible turn. There have been lots of discussions because this video has been released by the AOPA Air Safety Foundation and many think it’s not a good example.

Seeing it does not change my ideas about the impossible turn. I think that pilots are smart enough to recognize something out of the ordinary when they see it, and won’t try to make this at home. This pilot certainly quite experienced and knows this plane well. He made something great happen but we must not forget about all those who failed while attempting to do the same thing.

Do you feel like you could do it? Then I suggest that you go out and try with a GPS and possibly an instructor. Why the GPS? Because you’ll need a waypoint to reproduce the exercise shown in this video.

If you can do it, let me know. I’d love to publish your video then. But for now, I still consider the impossible turn as being impossible.

For the last eight years I carried my Sporty’s SP-200 NAV/COM handheld radio in my flight bag. I used it only to listen to ATIS or get IFR clearances before starting the engine. I never had to use it in an emergency, but knowing that it is behind the co-pilot seat, ready to be used, makes me feel much safer.

I played with the VOR / LOC receiver in flight a couple of times to make sure I remembered how to use it. I can imagine coming back to the airport in the dirtiest electric emergency using this radio only, as long as there’s a VOR or localizer approach. Apart from changing the batteries every now and then, I never had any issue with this radio. A real pilot’s best friend… but… you know… there’s this new guy around now…

Sporty’s new NAV / COM transceiver is known as SP-400 and is an even better version of the SP-200. The screen got bigger, the keys of the keyboard as well but the whole case got a bit smaller. Thanks to the bigger display more information is available in VOR mode and it is also possible to list more stored frequencies. But the real improvement is the ILS mode.

For the first time, a handheld radio includes a complete ILS receiver with localizer and glide slope. If your nastiest emergency is coupled with low ceilings, you now have a chance to bring your aircraft back to the airport by flying an ILS approach. The frequency flip-flop button from the SP-200 is still present, allowing to switch between two frequencies rapidly. This is perfect to switch from and ILS to the tower frequency and back.

From the demo video available from the SP-400 page on sporty’s website it seems that the glide-path indicator moves in steps and not really continuously. This can make flying a smooth approach a bit harder, but hey! We’re talking of saving your life and your aircraft…

At $399, the SP-400 is a great complement to your flight bag if you don’t have a handheld radio yet. Don’t forget to buy a headset adapter. There is no way you can use the speaker in the cockpit if your engine is running.

The Pitot tube is used to drive the airflow to the airspeed indicator. If something blocks this small air intake the airspeed indicator stops working. When aircraft are parked their Pitot tubes must be protected to make sure that they stay clean. Dust, dirt, grass, bugs… many things can block a Pitot and possibly damage it.

The easiest way to protect a Pitot tube is to use a so-called Pitot cover. This can take the form of a fabric, leather or plastic cover shaped to fit the Pitot tube. They are usually fitted with a long “REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT” tag. Some are custom made, and some are even home-made. I’ve seen this one recently and loved it. Particularly because it is not protecting the Pitot tube of an experimental aircraft but of a Learjet 45.

The hazard associated with the use of a Pitot tube cover is simple: forget to remove it before flight. Flying with a non-working airspeed indicator is not something a pilot wants and there are two mitigation measures to avoid it: a good pre-flight inspection and the “speed is alive” call-out during the take-off roll. If the Pitot cover remains on, the airspeed will not rise and the take-off should be aborted.

I recently discovered an other way to protect a Pitot tube without using a cover. It is made of a small metallic cache that obstructs the tube’s opening. It is mounted on a pivot and when there is sufficient airspeed the cache pivots upwards. The airflow itself opens the tube.

The assembly is designed in such a way that if it fails the closing part can’t stay on but will detach and leave the tube clear. This is a very simple and clever device and I like it. If you have experience with it, I’d like to learn more from you. I’m particularly interested to know how this behave in icing. Is it safe to be mounted on a heating tube, and is there not a risk that the ice closes it down?

Flying in Switzerland and in the Alps is very attractive to a lot of pilots. The Alps offer spectacular scenery at all times of the year and landing at mountain airports like Sion, Saanen or Samedan is a great experience. But flying in the Alps is also demanding and can be intimidating. I learned to fly in Switzerland and when I fly in the Alps it is with great care and respect. Pilots understand that mountain flying is slightly different and I often receive questions from foreign pilots who want to fly in Switzerland and look after tips for flying in the Alps.

I’m always happy to answer such requests and now I compiled all my tips and tricks for flying in Switzerland in an eBook covering the following topics about flying in the Alps:

• Flying at higher altitudes
• Hypoxia and optical illusions
• Navigation and weather
• Operational and Safety tips
• Safety pilot?
• Where to start

Beyond general aspects of flying in the Alps this eBook also contains detailed description and pictures of my favorite alpine routes, including recommended altitudes. This can help you to plan your flying and find the best route for your flying in the Alps.

Each country has specific flying rules and customs and Switzerland is no exception. This eBook covers the following topics to make your flying in Switzerland a breeze:

• Customs and flight plan filing
• Airspace structure and radio communications
• Controlled and uncontrolled airports
• Flying the pattern the Swiss way
• PPR and operating times
• Fees (not my favorite chapter, though)

Last but not least, this eBook contains in-depth reviews of the following airports:

• Geneva
• Sion
• Saanen
• Samedan
• Zurich
• Gruyères
• Bern
• Les Eplatures
• Grenchen

The reviews include VFR and IFR procedures, pictures, airport specifics and recommendations for tourism at these airports. Many of them are linked to videos.

If you plan a flight to Switzerland this book is a must.  Here’s what other pilots said about it:

I like this a lot. It’s nerve-wracking flying to a different country and this will make a pilot feel much more secure about how to deal with things. The reviews are interesting – I love the mixture of factual details and stunning mountain photographs – and you keep things short enough that it doesn’t feel like a text book.

- Sylvia, the pilot behind fearoflanding.com

That’s a nice guide. I was in a Flight Safety Gulfstream 550 simulator last week observing some pilots doing special airport training at Samedan and Sion and so it’s really neat to read about the airports in your guide and see pictures of the real thing. The sim visuals were pretty accurate, especially at Sion.

- Matthew, pilot and editor of golfhotelwhiskey.com

You can buy you own copy for $9.95. This is less than the landing fee at most airports you will visit in Switzerland, and this book will save you lot of preparation time. Make your Alpine flying easy and safe with this pilot-to-pilot briefing on flying in Switzerland and in the Alps.

Flying in the Alps eBook
PlasticPilot's guide to flying in Switzerland and flying in the Alps
Price: $9.95

ADF receivers are easy to understand. They measure the direction from where the signal from the station is coming. Then, if you turn right, the needle’s head will go left, and if you turn left, the needle goes right. Easy. But with a VOR receiver, even if you fly a 360, the needle won’t move. Not at all. Even the TO / FROM flag will not see any change.

Back basics: how VOR works?

Many pilots struggle with that and I think this is because the name TO / FROM flag is misleading. Going back to the basics is the best way to understand how VOR works and why they don’t care about the aircraft’s heading. The VOR ground station transmits two signals which can be compared to waves:

• The reference signal is the same in all directions
• The variable signal is different in different direction

North of the station, the reference and variable signals are synchronized. The top of both waves reach the receiver at the same time. East of the station, the top of the variable signal’s wave is delayed and reach the receiver a quarter of the cycle’s period later. By measuring the time difference between the reception time of both waves’s tops, the receiver can know it’s east of the station. South of the stations, the variable signaled is delayed by half a cycle, and so on.

Because the VOR receiver measures this difference in time – or, for engineers, in phase – they are completely independent from the aircraft’s heading. Whatever the heading flown, the received time difference is the same. What the CDI needle and the TO / FROM flag indicate are not direct reading from the receiver, but the difference between an arbitrary radial selected by the pilot and the measured one. Yes, this is the radial selected by turning the OBS knob.

What’s really driving the VOR TO / FROM indicator

Once the selected radial is defined, the VOR receiver splits the airspace in two sectors along a line going through the station, perpendicularly to the selected radial. The part that contains the selected radial is the FROM sector, the other half being the TO sector. Nothing to do with the aircraft’s heading, only its position relatively to the station and the selected radial.

Need an example? Let’s make it easy. The selected radial is 360, the line starting from the station and extending towards North. The perpendicular line is the one going from East to West. So the two sectors are North and South of the VOR. The one containing the selected radial is the one North of the VOR. This is the FROM sector. The part south of the VOR is the TO sector. Whatever aircraft heading, if it is located north of the VOR, the display will show a FROM flag. If the aircraft is in the FROM sector and flies a 360 degrees turn, it remains in the FROM sector. No flag change.

This sounds complicated? May be even scary? Does it remembers you of overheard stories of VOR being sometimes misleading? Yes, VOR can mislead you and a needle to the left can mean you have to turn to the right… but only if you don’t use it the correct way.

Click here to read more about how to use VOR the correct way and never get betrayed by your indicator.

I don’t like to memorize long checklists, because this is a good way to forget things. Pre-flight checks are usually the longest and each aircraft type has specific items. For renting pilots – like me – it requires good discipline to check the all what is required.

However there are some common points that are part of every aircraft pre-flight checklist. You don’t want to miss them, here are the reasons why

• Ignition off - you don’t want the engine to start while you inspect the aircraft. This could cost you a hand, or more
• Oil level - you don’t want to come back because of an high oil temperature or high oil pressure indication. Even if you do, you can’t add oil in a warm engine
• Cowlings free of birds nests – you don’t want a nest on fire under your engine’s cowling
• Prop free of cracks – you don’t want to loose a blade and have an unbalanced prop make your engine fly away
• No droppings – you don’t want an aircraft that can’t break, looses oil or fuel
• Tires - you don’t want a tire to explode on landing and loose control of your aircraft
• Ailerons free and opposite – you don’t want an uncontrollable aircraft, and as you really don’t want it you’ll check that during the pre-take-off check as well
• Fuel caps – you paid enough for your fuel, you don’t want it sucked out of the tanks
• Pitot / Static free – you don’t want a blocked altimeter or an airspeed indicator acting as an altimeter
• Baggage doors latched – you don’t want to have to land back because of an unlatched baggage door, nor do you want to loose it in flight

Have you noted that for almost all aircraft type, this series is organized as a gigantic flow pattern? This list does not replace the specific one published for each aircraft type… obviously.

What are your must-do items for pre-flight check?

Learning to fly was a great experience, but if I had to do it again I would probably do some things differently. Some because I have more experience now, others because aviation changed since I got my license. So if you’re about to start your flight training, here are a couple of tips for you.

I learned to fly in Geneva, Switzerland, and airport with a 4 kilometers long runway. The VFR pattern was typically 7 minutes long in a basic trainer. On one hand, this gave some time to my Instructor to de-brief the previous touch-and-go while flying on downwind. On the other hand, compared to a 4 minutes circuit, this makes a significant difference. I soloed after 140 landings, mostly done flying in the pattern. A three minutes difference means 7 hours more with a 7 minutes circuit than with a 4 minutes one… Because I learned to fly at a controlled airport, working with ATC is not a problem for me, unlike for some pilots who are always a bit afraid to talk with a tower controller and say wrong things.

When I started to learn to fly, Light Sport Aircrafts (LSA), or Ultra Light Aircraft as we call them in Europe were not even existing. The first aircraft type I flew in was the AS-202 Bravo, and other typical basic trainers were Cessnas 152 or 172 and Piper Warriors. Now, the Aero-Club in Geneva uses Tecnam P2002 JF for basic training. They are registered as standard aircraft but could also enter the LSA category. They sip much less fuel, reducing the flight training costs. Building some flight experience on an LSA or on a classical aircraft makes not a lot of difference in terms of airmanship, flight preparation, and basic handling.

If you’re about to start with your flight training, you probably have to make a decision between classical instrumentation or computerized, glass-cockpits. I’m personally an aficionado of glass-cockpits, but this is certainly not new to usual readers of this blog. There was a great discussion on the “Glass cockpit or traditional gauges for primary training” post on www.askacfi.com.

All European pilots are also faced-up with a classical question: learn to fly in Europe or in the USA. Taking a six weeks leave and get a pilot certificate in Florida or Arizona is possible, and can be less expensive than doing it in Europe. Even with price of a transatlantic flight and accommodation, it could be less expensive. When I started to take flight lessons, my personal context was not compatible with such a trip, and the US Dollar was 20% more expensive.

What would you change if you had to go through primary flight training ? Do yo also have tips for newcomers ?

This is a guest post from my good friend Jason Schappert, who just published his new “Learn to Fly – Pass Your Private Pilot Checkride” book…

Make Your Private Pilot Checkride A Breeze

With the release of his newest book Learn to Fly – Pass Your Private Pilot Checkride Jason Schappert has been creating quite the buzz and shares with us some tips from the book on how to make your private pilot checkride a breeze.

The checkride is one of the most anticipated and, at the same time, the most dreaded moments in any student pilot’s career. Your checkride represents the pinnacle of all that you have been working for; it is the culmination of your entire private pilot training where an examiner finally grades and judges whether or not you are fully capable of flying that aircraft.

For most pilots, this is the point of no return and would understandly cause a lot of anxieties on their part. However, it is also important that you learn to overcome these anxieties so that you can truly ensure that you pass your checkride. Nerves will get you nowhere and instead make you jittery come test day.

Fortunately, there are ways that one can make his private pilot checkride a breeze.

Get Everything Ready Beforehand

Preparing to fly is just like every task that we do in this world. You would need to prepare a few things. These things would include the necessary tools such as books and charts. When you’ve prepared enough, you’d be pretty certain that you would go through the checkride quickly and it would all be over before you know it. If you’re not prepared, on the other hand, you’re simply setting yourself up for failure. Be prepared! Set everything up the night before.

Use your Checklist

There are some student pilots who, after accumulating enough experience in flying, would conveniently neglect to refer to the checklist. While this is testimony to their skill, it would also be prudent for you to look at the checklist and ascertain that what you are doing is right. You can consider the checklist as your notes in an open-note exam. Contrary to what most pilots might think, instructors would actually prefer you double check the checklist as compared to those who seemingly “know it all.”

Enjoy the Ride

Last but not the least, enjoy the ride! Don’t over think things! You’ve trained and studied for hours! Your instructor wouldn’t have signed you off if he or she hadn’t thought you were ready.

Need help studying for your Private Pilot Checkride? Jason’s book is a great place to look. Written in question and answer format it allows you to ask yourself questions and read the right answers. All questions are REAL examiner questions that Jason has collected over the years. The book features full color diagrams and is available in Ebook, audiobook, and paperback formats!

Click here to visit Schapp Aviation – MzeroA.com, grab yourself a copy and Pass Your Private Pilot Checkride!

Rush…

Rushing through flight preparation is a great way to ruin a good flight. I saw once a student pilot leaving to a remote, exciting airport, and he felt great about it. When I saw him back couple of hours later I asked how it was, and the answer was quite sad: closed! Too bad this guy missed the NOTAM.

Flight preparation represents a significant part of the time spent around aircraft. Not having good weather and NOTAM information, or not having a clear navigation plan is a great way to waste a flight. Even on short flights, a plan B is a must.

Rushing through the pre-flight checks is also a good for getting in trouble. An open fuel cap, or a covered pitot tube are not that hard to spot but can lead to lot of problems. There is at least one registered case of a pilot forgetting to remove chokes, and then asking his passenger and fellow pilot to remove them with the prop running. A fatal error, literally speaking.

Don’t pay attention…

Enjoying a flight and chatting with your passengers in flight is great, and sharing the passion is cool. Not paying attention to engine instruments is also a great way not to detect possible engine problems soon enough. FADECs constantly monitoring all parameters are great. Engine problems are not always sudden, but not monitoring the instruments does not help to identify them. Fuel management is also a good thing to ignore if you want to get your share of shame. Fuel does not massively vanish from the tanks (except if you first forgot to close a fuel cap, see above…) and there is no reason to experience fuel starvation in a perfectly working aircraft.

Weather also evolves quickly and not maintaining a constant watch is good for getting trapped in bad situations. Restricted airspace evolves much less dynamically than weather, but aircraft move rapidly. Not paying attention to the navigation, missing a turning point or drifting away of the planned course and then violate some airspace is also a good way to get your local aviation authority looking at you very closely. And they will pay a lot of attention to you.

Continue…

Turning around can be frustrating, but continuing can be much worse. Continue a VFR flight in marginal conditions, and its cousin continue a VFR flight in IMC. For IFR pilots in light aircraft, continue in icing conditions. Continue to fly straight ahead even if you’re no longer sure of your position. Continue to descend because clouds get lower, even over rough terrain. Continue to descend along the ILS, because the lights are almost in sight. Continue on this low fuel conditions, because the winds can’t be that bad for the remaining time. Continue on this rough engine, because your homebase is the airport coming after the next one.

A good pilot must be patient, remain attentive, and know when to say stop and divert.

This is a guest post from Jason Schappert, the Certified Flight Instructor behind www.m0a.com, sharing about his high-altitude training. I learned from this and I hope you will as well. Vincent.

I’ll never forget my high altitude training. Watching through a window as the first batch of students went into the hyperbaric chamber I was honestly a bit nervous. Yet my nervousness quickly turned to laughter as they brought the students up through the flight levels.

Upon reaching 18,000 feet they asked the students to remove their oxygen masks, as they passed out simple toys and things for the students to do.
The gentleman nearest to the window I was looking through was given a cube with shape cut outs in it. A toy that we’re all familiar with and understand that you put the proper shape into the proper hole and it falls into the cube.

The gentleman picked up the cube along with the square shape and preceded to jam it into the circle hole over and over wondering why it wouldn’t work.

Across from him a lady was asked to write her name on a piece of paper. After much scribbling and writing mindless jargon. She passed out and the attendants quickly put her oxygen mask on her.

Watching this made me think. What if this really happened in an airplane? These pilots couldn’t even align shapes or write their names let alone fly an airplane!

If you have the chance I highly recommend taking a visit to a hyperbaric chamber. A little know fact, hypoxia occurs the same way to the same person every time. In other words if you get dizzy, then get a headache, then you notice your fingertips turn blue (cyanosis) this onset of hypoxia will occur the same way every time. Going into a chamber will help you realize your symptoms as hypoxia begins to set in.

Think about adding your high altitude endorsement to your flight training agenda. A good pilot is always learning!

Read more from Jason on www.m0a.com and read about my own experience with hypoxia.