Logbook Lore

Ahhhh... Logbook time.

Once again, I've got a guy coming up for a checkride, so it's time to do a logbook audit and total up the hours. Applying for a Private Pilot Certificate is usually your first exposure to the complexities of accounting for your aviation experience.  Right away, it turns out that there's a big difference between how you're supposed to log your hours according to the regulations and they way they want you to report your hours on form 8710-1, the "Application for Airman Certificate or Rating."

They don't match.  At all.  This is a form of hazing.

If you have an old logbook, it won't have enough columns (or the right kind) to account for what you'll eventually have to add up, because the rules (and the application) have changed over time.  And if you're counting time that you flew in another country according to other rules, that time does count towards an FAA certificate, but you need to re-interpret how all those hours are organized.

These things can be dealt with.  It's a hassle, but it's not impossible.  I've gotten into the habit of putting people's time into an excel spreadsheet that counts up hours "8710-style." There's also a great piece of software, Logbook Pro, by nc-software, which totals up your hours six ways 'til sunday, and it's all but required for the professional pilots who wants to keep a resume up to date (in this job market, that pretty much means "everybody").  And Gleim publishes a logbook that keeps running totals of the data that the 8710 wants.  It's the only logbook I've seen that does this.  Go Gleim!

However... I have never seen a logbook (including my own) that didn't have something messed up in it.

• One of my old students had his logbook packed in a suitcase with a bottle of vodka, which broke.  As it turns out, alcohol is a great way to dissolve ink.  Fortunately, the vodka company had an 800 number, and the hotline operator found a procedure involving wax paper, patience, and an oven set at 200 degrees.  The result was a very wrinkly and funny-smelling, but still barely legible mess.
  
• Another student was going through a spiteful divorce, and his estranged wife put his logbook through the shredder.  According to the local FSDO, a signed and notarized affidavit with an honest estimation of his hours up to that point was okay, given the circumstances. Otherwise, he would have had to start over.
• I have a pet parrot.  She likes to chew paper- especially yummy-looking, colorful green paper.  She didn't do much damage to the data, but if I ever want to flip DIRECTLY to November 2009 through April 2010, it'll be easy.

But the very worst damage that pilots do to their logbooks is the stuff they do themselves.  That's mostly because the rules about how to log your flights are passed along by oral history.  The language in the regulations (14CFR 61.51) is very complex. Pilots usually don't ever even try to read it- they prefer to have it explained by someone with experience, and hilarity ensues:

• Every so often, somebody trying to fill space in a magazine will crack the books open and quote from the regs, but will try to wrap it up in a friendly "FAQ" or "Q&A" format.  Novice pilots are supposed to nod and say "ah, sooo" like apprentices to a zen master, despite the fact that these articles are not at all helpful.
• A wiseass who haunts message boards (or writes a blog) will cut-and-paste long passages of the neigh-incomprehensible gobbledeegook from the regs when people express confusion about the magazine articles.
• Your first flight instructor will "show you how to" fill out your logbook, and your second flight instructor will angrily cross out most of what the first guy did, claiming it's wrong.  By the time you're on your fourth instructor, you no longer let your instructors fill out your logbook for you.
• Your buddy swears that you're allowed to fill out something a certain way because he claims "it counts" or "there's a loophole" that lets you do it.  You believe him, and then find out he's wrong 378 flight-hours later, when you try to get a job.
• The ledger-green pages of your logbook are covered with white-out.
• You embark on a long, fruitless quest for "green-out."
• You find yourself in a heated discussion about using the "single line-through" correction method, which someone has found in an old advisory circular on a different topic.

Sometimes, it seems that the logic and lore of logbooks comes from a long game of "Telephone," where someone starts by whispering a phrase ("I like roast beef with mashed potatos") into someone's ear, then they whisper it to the next person, and so on, until by the twentieth person, the phrase has become something else entirely ("Why lick robot feet? Wish for more pot holes"). Here's a little story, and every word is true:

The very worst logbook I ever audited came from a guy who was just really, really, really bad.  He had no clear idea how to fill it out, and he wasn't even consistent about how he got it wrong.  He couldn't even do math.  Every single page was added up wrong, and he didn't carry the totals correctly from one page to the next.  It was soooooo awful, that I prepared myself to tell the poor guy that he needed to get another logbook and copy the entries into it so that it would at least make sense and add up right. He could keep this one so that he'd have his old instructors' signatures in it.

When I saw him again, I was just about to break the news to him, when he pulled out another, older logbook, and asked if I had any questions about his "new copy"- the one that I'd been auditing.

Yeah.  His original logbook was so awful and scrambled up that he'd already done what I was about to suggest, and the "corrected" result was still that bad.  He'd taken it to one of his old instructors and had the guy sign every line... again... and that instructor was no help in putting this new one together, either.  I doubt the guy knew how.  The numbers I finally totaled up were a best-guess, more of a historical reconstruction than an accurate accounting.

But most people don't have it that bad.  There are only a couple of pitfalls that pilots usually fall into, and those aren't explained well in the regs. It's almost always trouble over "Pilot-In-Command" time, and that's something I'll cover in my next post!  Fly safe!

Fumes

So, here's what my cube looks like after a lesson on the U.S. Airspace system...

Some of those markers are pleasantly-scented, and it left my cube smelling like a bowl of fruity pebbles with vodka poured over it instead of milk.  I need to go breathe clean air now.

What's an LSA? part 3 of 3: Six pounds of sugar

A few weeks ago, we got a visitor at my school who wanted to look at our LSA.  He was typical of such guys (see part 2 of 3), and when I walked him out to the ramp, he saw it from 50 feet away, beamed like a kid at Christmas, and said:

"Just like an old Cessna 150!"

Then, once he stuck his head in the door, he said:

"Oh.  Uhm. Whaa..?"

Technically, he's right on both counts.  It is like an old 150 in that it's a high-wing, tricycle-gear airplane with two side-by-side seats, and a single fuel tank in the fuselage.  And the resemblance ends there.


There's a family of single-engine trainers like that- Cessna's 150 and 152, the Piper Tomahawk, the Beech Skipper, the Diamond DA-20, the Grumman Yankee, and probably a few others (just don't get me started on the Tomahawk).   These things were mechanically simple, easy to fly, inexpensive, and strong enough to withstand plenty of students' "bounce-and-slam" landings.


None of those planes qualified as "Light-Sport" aircraft when the rule came into effect.  Not one.

It's not because these are large, powerful machines.  They're not.  They're way too small for lots of people.  But these planes all have a max takeoff weight between 1500 and 1764 pounds.  They were certified as Standard aircraft, so their takeoff weights are based upon how strong their airframes are. They have to withstand at least 3.8 G of stress without damage.


If that much load factor is too much for the design, then they have to either lower the weight limit, or build in more structure. These planes all weigh about the same because they were all built for the same job, and form followed function.


But, with the "Light Sport" airplanes designed since 2005, the Tail wags the Dog.  LSAs are limited by definition to 1320 pounds max takeoff weight, so that rule gets used as the limitation, instead of the real capability or strength of the machine.  That's the pickle that LSA pilots are finding themselves in:

They want a "real airplane" that's comfortable and easy to fly, and it should have a bunch of really cool features, an emergency ballistic parachute, a modern electronic cockpit, and it should be able to carry two people and enough fuel to get somewhere.

BUT:

Two American adults and 22 gallons of fuel weigh about 500 pounds, give or take. That leaves 820 pounds of airplane.  And that ain't a lot.

The Wright brother's first-ever airplane weighed 745 pounds, which was as light as they could get it, and they were only trying to lift one guy and a pint of fuel.  Sure, material engineering has come a long way in a hundred years, but it's not MAGIC.  As Scotty says, "Ya cannae defy the laws of physics!" A well-equipped, comfortable, capable two-place airplane should weigh about 1100 pounds, empty.  That puts its fully loaded weight... right around where the older generation of two-place trainers are.  Oops.


So the designers of new LSAs are left trying to stuff 1650 pounds of airplane into a 1320 pound bag. They're not having an easy time of it.  By the time the design is in the air, they've realized that something's got to give. Here are some options:

1. Skimp on extras, and go stripped-down, bare-bones.
2. Make it flimsy, to save weight.
3. Let the pilots do the math, so it's on them.
4. Cheat.
5. Give Up.
6. All of the above.

If you guessed #6, you're right.  No, seriously, all of these strategies have shown up in the recent wave of LSA designs.  And here's what's happened with each of them:


Option 1- "Skimp on Extras":  Some old designs which did qualify as LSAs are enjoying a rebirth.  Some of these things lack an interior, or any kind of electronics, or even padding on the seats. But those planes are very old-school, and they're not doing well in the marketplace against the candy-colored new designs. The American Pilot's appetite for shiny gadgetry always wins out over elegance, simplicity, and old wisdom.  The result is hundreds of nearly identical designs which all brag about the same features:

• "Advanced materials," especially carbon fiber and composite construction.
• Electronic Flight Instrument Systems and moving-map GPS displays.
• A ballistic parachute system, in case the thing falls apart in midair.

If you'll recall part 1 of 3 in this series, the "Observer Effect" of the LSA rule doesn't just describe an existing class of aircraft, it creates an entirely new niche that LSAs are being "designed into."  So, even though none of these features are in the FAA's "Light Sport" definition, they might as well be.  A Piper Cub doesn't occur to anybody as a "real LSA."  Option 1= FAIL.


Option 2- "Make it flimsy": These are not Standard aircraft, so they don't need to pull 3.8 G of force, and they don't have to go through testing for certification... so you can take a lightweight plastic box and call it an LSA.  New designs are underbuilt, and that's just a fact. Traditionally, getting an aircraft design approved is an expensive, punishing process, but none of these things have gone through that.  The FAA has taken a very hands-off approach to aircraft with E-LSA and S-LSA airworthiness certificates, which is why so many of them have come to market at once. So, if you're wondering how they can get away with selling $120,000 rattletraps made out of fiberglass and spittle, there ya go.  What, you don't believe me?  Try one and see... if you dare!


Other new LSAs are older designs certified at a higher weight in other countries, which have been stripped of structure.  That makes it possible to operate them in the LSA category, but it also makes them floppy. It's the same trick they tried in 1977 with the Piper Tomahawk, which (famously) didn't go well. They refused to do it with the DA-20, which will never be modified for use as an LSA, thank god.  Chopped airframes are another area where the FAA has abdicated its responsibility, so now that ballistic parachute option is looking pretty good.


Option 3- "Let the pilots do the math": Okay, let's say we've gotten the weight of the aircraft down to 900 pounds, and that's as low as we can go, until we can figure out how to make airplanes out of cobwebs and shadow.  That means we've got 420 pounds of useful load.  That's one guy, 24 gallons of fuel, and maybe another 110 pounds.  Unless your flight instructor is Callista Flockheart, you're going to have to take off with a half-empty gas tank, and just two hours of endurance. Urgh. This exact situation came up at a conference I attended two years ago. The LSA producer said "a typical training flight is only about 1.4 to 1.6 hours, anyway, so that's all you'd really need."   Again, I say, Urgh.


It used to be normal to leave some fuel back in the pump with traditional two-place trainers.  But, that was a very different situation.  First of all, we didn't need to leave that much fuel behind- I recall something like four gallons from full, at most.  Second, it wasn't a design issue, because Americans have gotten fatter!  If you were taller than 5'8" and weighed more than 180 pounds in 1960, you were a BIG guy.  And finally, the max takeoff weight of those aircraft was based upon the things' real capabilities and limitations, and you knew that you had to take the weight-and-balance limits seriously!


But with a new LSA design, people are paying lots of good money for a new airplane with a fairly roomy cabin with two seats.  If you're big, you're big.  And if you're going somewhere, you're going to fill up the tank.  And if you need to bring your golf clubs... well, you get the idea.  It's the pilots' responsibility to stay within weight and balance, but these guys know that 1320 pounds is an arbitrary limit. It will get as much respect as a 25mph speed limit on a divided, four-lane highway in a rural area.  At night.  In a convertible.  With the top down.


Option 4- "Cheat": The people who are making these new LSA designs know perfectly well that what I've just described will happen most of the time.  Flying overweight is illegal, but LSA pilots won't feel it's unsafe, and for them, it will be a normal operation.  Yes, the responsibility for keeping weight within limits is on the pilots, not the LSA's designers, but accidents are bad publicity!  So, if I was building an LSA, I'd put the real, operational weight limits WAY in excess of 1320 pounds.  Because I don't want my pilots to die, and cost me money, I'd make sure that my airplanes could handle 550-600 pounds of useful load, in excess of 4 G.  Of course, I'm not making LSAs, but the companies who do are willing to make 'em flimsy, so I don't know WHAT the real limits are.


But whatever they are, it's got to be a secret.  Admitting that the airplane could safely operate at more than 1320 pounds would kill its status as an LSA, which is the whole point of the design.  So the airplane owners are in the dark about the real weight-and-balance, and they're left to figure out for themselves how much they can "safely overload" the airframe.


All the Certified Flight Instructor parts of my brain are screaming "DON'T EVEN SAY THAT!!!"  Of course, you can't "safely overload" ANY kind of airplane- limits are limits!  But I'm sorry to say that for this new generation of LSAs, 1320 pounds is a lie, and everyone knows it.  Saying that max takeoff weight is based upon what the plane can physically handle simply isn't true- that argument is gone.  So, as a CFI, I'm left with  saying you've got to stay within the 1320 pound limit because "rules are rules." That's pretty thin. It's a 25mph speed limit... and no cops.


I wish I was making this up.  But at the 2010 Sun-n-Fun expo in Lakeland, Florida, I spent most of my time in the new LSA area, getting a feel for this part of the industry.  When I asked the vendors about the 1320 pound weight limit, I got this response:

• Shrug and wink,
• Assurance that "of course, the aircraft can easily handle more that that," and
• A promise that "the FAA has said they won't be enforcing that rule."

This happened FOUR TIMES.  If I'd been trying for a scientific study, I'm sure I could have gotten that same response from dozens of other vendors, but to tell the truth, I was so disgusted that I gave up.


Option 4- "Give Up": You may have noticed that I've avoided using any specific names of the new LSAs. That's because (a) I don't want to get sued, and (b) I don't want to badmouth anybody in particular when the whole industry is committing the same crime.  But I specifically commend and applaud Cirrus Design for a very responsible approach to their LSA- the "Cirrus SRS."  They suspended the project indefinitely in April, 2009.  Good Call!


The Cirrus SRS, like most of this generation of LSA, was supposed to be powered by a Rotax 912S engine, use composite construction, EFIS/GPS instrumentation, and their own proprietary CAPS ballistic parachute system.  It was also supposed to have a useful load of "at least" 500 pounds, and still fall exactly at the maximum limitations of the LSA rule.  To do the job, they acquired the rights to a German light airplane called the Fk-14 Polaris, and attempted to whittle down its speed and weight.  But when it came to Option 3, the fuel tank was a measly 18.6 gallons, eliminating an hour of endurance and at least 100 nautical miles of range in favor of more reasonable weight and balance.


I suspect that they pulled the plug for two reasons- First, they realized that they couldn't stuff six pounds of sugar into a five pound bag.  No "Cirrus" could ever be an LSA.  Cirrus has always been Over-The-Top when it came to airplane design- they're very fast, very heavy, very powerful, and packed to the gills with all the bells and whistles they can think of.  Twin turbochargers from Tornado Alley, the latest and greatest Garmin Synthetic Vision EFIS/GPS/FMS, integrated with a Forward-Looking Infrared camera, weeping-wing TKS de-icing system for the outside, air conditioning for the inside, and fold-away cupholders.  Cirrus putting its name on an LSA is like Hummer putting its name on a skateboard.

The second reason is because they realized they had nothing to gain with this product!  Cirrus has always been a premium aircraft company, and their target market has money to burn.  The guys who just have to have the "Best Of The Best" aren't interested in a "cheap" LSA.  Last week, I met a pilot who's just ordered his fifth Cirrus.  His name is Ken Griffey, Jr.  That's who's buying their planes.  These people want the jet!  So why get involved in the furball of the new LSA market?

Epilogue:  I did a flight review a few days ago with a guy who's been a pilot for more than forty years.  He's not small.  I'm not small.  We had 500 pounds of front-seat weight between us.  We went up in a 1979 PA-28 Piper Warrior.  It holds 48 gallons of fuel.  Our center of gravity was too far forward, so we loaded a 47-pound self-inflating life raft into the aft cargo area.  That made us weigh a bit too much, so we left each tank four gallons shy of full.  We flew for 1.7 hours and came back... and tied down in the wrong spot.  The tail rope had an orange rubber sleeve on it, which we use to protect the tail cone of the LSA we've got online, because that plane doesn't have a tail tiedown loop.  No, it's not broken, they just never put one on that plane. I pointed out that the rubber thing was on the rope because it was the LSA spot, and he said... "Ah, that LSA... now that seems like a nice plane..."

I suppose it didn't occur to him that we'd just enjoyed a useful load of 787 pounds in the Warrior, which would have been impossible in any LSA.  And, he hadn't seen firsthand what an airplane that only weighs 700 pounds looks and feels like.  He'd just felt nostalgic about the good ol' Piper Cadet he'd trained in (which isn't an LSA), and he'd read the press, drank the kool-aid, and momentarily stopped worrying about his medical.


Caveat Emptor.  True Light-Sport Airplanes have their place for enthusiasts.  The LSA rule, and the planes it's spawned, try to take it mainstream, but I doubt that their place has changed all that much.  And, I have to worry about the newer planes and older pilots who feel like the usual rules won't apply to them.

What's an LSA? Part 2 of 3: Drinking the kool-aid

Last week, I described some of the effects of the “Light-Sport Aircraft” rule: the FAA closed a regulatory loophole, and the aviation industry erupted with new activity. But the other part of the rule is the “Sport Pilot” Certificate, which carries fewer privileges but requires less of pilots who apply for it. That’s what we’ll be looking at this time.

The “Sport Pilot” certificate differs from the “Private Pilot” certificate in three ways:

1. It comes with some serious restrictions.
2. It requires fewer minimum hours.
3. It doesn’t require a medical certificate.

Everybody has pretty much ignored #1, and made a BIG DEAL about #2 and #3.  The FAA and the industry have said this makes flying "Easier" and "Cheaper," and that it “opens up aviation to a whole new group of pilots.”

That's what they're selling and that's what people are buying.  But I'm not drinking the kool-aid.  This doesn't make sense.

This particular kind of flying was unregulated before. You’d think that passing new rules would make it harder for would-be ultralight pilots, and that people would be less likely to take up flying tiny little machines.  Before the LSA definition and the Sport Pilot certificate, you didn't need any kind of training or medical certificate to fly an ultralight.

Of course, you'd be an idiot and you'd probably kill yourself if you tried, and everybody would think so.  That's why the buzz went the way it did.  With the FAA's ink on paper, "some fool in a dangerous contraption" suddenly becomes "Real Flying," even though nothing else may have changed.

Responsible people should know that's a crock.  Ink doesn't create safety.  Only Safety creates safety.  Safety doesn't care about ink.

So, if you think that the FAA's new rules suddenly make it okay to fly something like this, then you're an idiot.  If you built it, know how to fly it, and have been responsible about it the whole time, then you've got the right idea (and thanks to Donald Windsor for this picture).  The new rules should occur to you as troublesome paperwork that you've already complied with anyway.

So I'd like to take a closer look at the battle cry of the LSA crowd- that "Real Flying" has become "Easier" and "Cheaper" and is available to a "whole new group of pilots."

First, is it "Real Flying?" Was it "Real Flying" before the rule went into place?  The FAA 'approval' doesn't make it "Flying."  But the kind of flying that it is falls on the fringe.  These little birds are to other planes as jet-skis are to boats, or as scooters are to cars.  They're meant for recreation rather than transportation.  So it's not like the kind of flying that a Private Pilot with an Instrument Rating can do, and you shouldn't regard it as a reliable way to get around.

Second, has it become "Easier?"  Nope.  Ask around- Small aircraft are harder to fly than larger ones.  The idea that "small vehicles are easier than large ones" sounds good, but ten seconds of thought will change your mind.  They're much more vulnerable to weather, turbulence, and wind shear.  They lack pitch and yaw stability.  They're uncomfortable to sit in for more than about 90 minutes.  They lack the power to get you out of sticky situations, and they lack the mass to be comfortable with the power they've got.  And they are much harder to land, especially in crosswinds.

I've got a student named Paul, who's committed to LSA flying.  But once or twice, I've gotten him into a full-sized airplane, and upon landing, his reaction was "What, that's it?!?! That was easy!"  There is no doubt in my mind that his training would have gone faster if he wasn't trying to handle such a squirmy little plane.

It's true that the legally required training minimums are lower.  But that doesn't matter. If you're brilliant and work your ass off, it's also technically possible to finish high school in two years instead of four, and to have a college degree when you're seventeen instead of twenty-two.  But it's not reasonable to expect that. When it comes to education, it takes whatever it takes:

• Over the course of several hundred checkrides I've signed off since 2001, I've seen flight training come in at minimums exactly twice.  Both pilots were under the age of twenty, and still in school with well-developed study skills.  They did not have jobs, children, financial worries, or grownup responsibilities.  They'd taken on flying as a summer project, and came in to train five or six days a week.  You shouldn't assume that you can do the same, if you have a life.
• A Private Pilot certificate requires a minimum of 40 hours, and a lot of schools and instructors misleadingly quote the cost of a program at that number.  In reality, it takes about 65 hours, but I've seen several applicants come to me with more than 100 hours (spread out over the course of several years) in their logbooks.  Honestly, you should budget for 65-70 and hope to come in a little under that.
• A Sport Pilot certificate requires 20 hours, minimum, and excludes night flying, basic instrument training, and radio communications.  BUT, most airports where you'll do the training require the radio work anyway, most of the new LSAs have complex electronic instruments you'll have to master, and you're flying a tiny machine that requires more skill, not less.  I'll say you should budget at least 50-60 hours in the plane for that program.  You have to train to proficiency, not to minimums.

Third, has it become "Cheaper?" Probably, but only a little. The biggest factor is the number of hours you'll need, which may be slightly lower, but probably not by much.  The next factor is how much the plane costs to rent.  LSAs presently rent for about 85-90% of what you'd pay to rent a similar single-engine airplane.  However, I suspect the numbers have been juggled to produce that result:

LSAs have smaller engines, and burn less gas than other single-engine airplanes.  Since most planes rent on a "wet lease" (the cost of fuel is included), this means that the rental cost will be lower.

Another factor in the rental is the plane's "operating costs," which include maintenance, insurance, tires, oil, brakes, and other consumables. Most LSAs have smaller engines that run at higher RPM, generate more heat per square inch, and have more complex moving parts, so they require more oil changes and regular maintenance.  Their operating costs could be the same or higher than those of other airplanes.  These costs are going to be estimated too low, to get the rental price down.

Finally, the profit made on the rental should cover the cost of the aircraft over time.  Ideally, the plane should pay for itself and eventually become profitable.  Most LSAs are new designs that cost way, way too much for what you get, and they depreciate quickly.  They way they're built, they're also likely to wear out faster, and quickly become unattractive to renters.  That means it's not long before they start losing money, which puts upwards pressure on their rental price.

The result of all this is that a new LSA will cost $10-15 per hour less than an older, two-seat, single-engine standard airplane on the same flight line.  But, the LSA is struggling to recoup its sticker price, and its operating costs turn out to be higher than anyone thought, so it's likely to be losing money.  The older plane is cheaper and/or paid off, profitable, and likely to be available at a discount.  It's sitting there resenting the attention the newcomer has been getting.

And Finally, does it open up flying to a "whole new group of pilots?"  I really don't think so. Flying is something most people don't do.  Only 1 out of every 504 people in this country have any kind of pilot certificate (including student pilots). That number has been trending down since 1980, despite the fact that airplanes and avionics have gone through some pretty cool technological evolution since then.  I don't see why a large group of non-pilots, who had no previous interest in flying, would be tempted to start because regulation got tighter on more tiny little airplanes.

But there is one group of people that have made a lot of inquiries about the Sport Pilot certificate.  Almost all the interest I've seen in Light-Sport flying has come from older men who already are (or have been) pilots. From where I sit, this "whole new group of pilots" is not a "new" group at all, it's an "old" group that have mostly retired from flying, due to concerns about maintaining current medical certificates. There's a lot to be said about the medical not being required for Light-Sport, and most of it has already been said elsewhere.  I'd just like to point out two things:

1. The "whole new group of pilots" is code for "no medical."  There's language in the rule that prohibits pilots who've been denied a medical, or who have reason to believe that they would be denied, but the FAA and the flying community are very likely to treat this language with a wink and a nod.  Nobody expects enforcement.
2. This demographic sets up the LSA industry for a bust. There were more than 800,000 pilots in 1980, and I'm going to assume most of them were baby-boomers, and that many of them were part of a glut of military-trained pilots.  One reason the pilot population has shrunk is because these guys, now in their 60s, have been gradually aging out of the activity.  It's true that senior citizens are one of the fastest-growing populations in this country, and there may be as many as 150-200,000 pilots who might perk back up and fly LSAs for fun, but this number will continue to shrink as they continue to age and hang up their wings over the next 20 years.

It's silly to think that the regulatory environment will have more influence over the pilot population than all the other factors that shape our society.  The FAA pretty much turned its back on promoting aviation and became a regulatory agency.  The organization's culture is still locked into that mindset.  I don't think they understand that making a new certificate available doesn't make people want it.

What people DO seem to want are the spiffy new airplanes that have been created in the wake of this rule, and that's what I'll look at in part 3 of 4, next week.

What's an LSA? Part 1 of 3: The Observer Effect

I have an uncle that asked "What's an LSA?" in response to a lengthy facebook posting of mine.  Actually, that sort of thing is what this blog is for.

The easiest answer is that "LSA" means "Light-Sport Aircraft." But the real answer is a lot more complicated than that. That's why this is post #1 of 3, and that's also why it's been a week since I've posted here.  The simple answer is:

"An aircraft meeting a technical definition laid out five years ago by the FAA"

However, the more complicated answer is:

"An entirely new kind of flying, which has exploded as a new community of manufacturers and pilots, who understand that they will be operating under a different set of rules."

There's been a lot of hootin' and hollerin' about the Light-Sport Rule.  Most people have been shouting from the rooftops that it's a revolutionary renaissance and revitalization in General Aviation, Hooray!  Has it been?  Ennh... maybe not so much. Click here for a great article about the recent booms and busts of the Light-Sport industry.  But I'm not as concerned with the success of these new planes and pilots as I am with the way this part of the industry sees itself, and what it will mean when the usual rules don't apply.

A little history:

1. Pilots have had to be certificated to fly most things recognizable as "airplanes" since the end of WWI, but for a very long time, the FAA has left a certain class of aircraft pretty much alone- the so-called "ultralights."  Essentially, if you wanted to rig a leaf-blower to a hang glider and fly around without killing yourself, the Feds didn't want to have anything to do with it, and left you alone.
2. Industry and users' groups sprang up around these peculiar little machines, such as the Experimental Aircraft Association, the US Ultralight Association, and the US Powered Paragliding Association. In the absence of formal regulation by the FAA, they began regulating themselves.  This was, and remains, a very good idea- they're on a mission to promote awareness and safety of what they do.
3. In an attempt to close the loophole, the FAA created a new way of certifying pilots called a "Recreational" certificate that utterly failed, and was pretty much ignored.
4. So the FAA started over with the "Light-Sport" rule.  Instead of watering down a "Private" Pilot Certificate (which is what they did with the "Recreational" one), they went to the industry and community, found out what they were doing with both aircraft and pilots, and basically made it official.

A little more history:  In 1926, Werner Heisenburg (one of the architects of quantum mechanics) made the case that the act of observing subatomic particles creates a condition which necessarily affects their activity.  The Heisenburg "Uncertainty Principle," which is mathematical relationship buried deeply inside the nature of how we understand reality itself, is often given as an example of the "Observer Effect," in which the act of observation changes the activity or behavior being observed.

Subatomic particles aside, I can tell you that the "Observer Effect" is present in human psychology to an extreme degree.  Having sent hundreds of students on checkrides, I can tell you that people act weird when they know they're being watched and judged.  So do groups of people, and corporations, and entire industries.  So here's what's happened:

• A previously unregulated, undefined, (and pretty much unnoticed) segment of the aviation industry has been "observed" by the FAA.
• That "observation" distinguished this segment of aviation, and in so doing, fundamentally changed it.
• That change has erupted in a flurry of new activity utterly unlike what was happening before.

If you'd wanted to know what a "Light Sport" aircraft was before the LSA rule went into effect, it would probably have looked something like this.  What was previously known as an "ultralight" would have been a tiny machine, meant to carry only one or two people.  It would not have been built by an aircraft manufacturer which subjected it to the usual kinds of tests or design specifications usually required of "certified" aircraft with "standard" airworthiness certificates.  These scary-looking little contraptions, and the people who flew them, were not subjected to the rules the FAA usually required of other aircraft and pilots.  Ultralights were usually attractive only to a particular breed of enthusiast, and the rest of the aviation community, as well as the general public, usually wanted nothing to do with them.

I don't mean to disparage Ultralights or their pilots.  Personally, I think these things are really cool, and they look like lots of fun.  I also want to go on record as a huge fan of the "Experimental" (that is "amateur built") Aircraft or "Kitplane" industry.  I have flown several such aircraft, and I have been a member of and still support the EAA, and I visit their "Sun-N'-Fun Airventure" every April in Lakeland, Florida, as well as various other fly-ins and festivals.  But I can still understand how most people would be scared of these things.  The fact is that this has traditionally been only a tiny fraction of the aviation industry, and has remained that way for decades.  This is the "subatomic particle" before the "act of observation" by the FAA.


I won't go deeply into the definition of the LSA rule here- you can find it in lots of places, including here (just scroll down to where it says "Light-Sport Aircraft").  But basically, if it's an airplane, it only carries one or two people, goes no faster than 120 knots, and has a maximum certified takeoff weight of 1320 pounds.  Lots of existing aircraft fall under that definition.  It includes everything up to the size of a Piper Cub.  The Pietenpol plans-built airplane I'm standing next to in this picture is a good example.  The design was originally published in 1928, and was meant to be powered with an engine from a Model A Ford.

But, when the Definition of an LSA and the new type of "Light-Sport" pilot certificate became law, more than a hundred new makes and models of LSA came to market, from a whole slew of new companies all over the world. I would say that's unprecedented, but it's happened twice before: (1) when airplanes were first invented, and (2) during the Second World War.

So I have to wonder "What's with all the Hubbub... Bub?"  Has there been a sudden explosion of interest in antique designs?  Are slow, underpowered machines suddenly fashionable?  Why would anyone pay $125,000 for an itty-bitty airplane, when better machines can be bought for half as much?  And why would dozens of manufacturers be scrambling to produce hundreds of new models when so many old ones are available?

The simple answers to these questions is that the "Sport Pilot" certificate opens flying up to a whole new group of would-be pilots, and that new materials and technologies make better aircraft possible, but these ideas, also, are a lot more complicated than they seem.  I'll explore this issue, and respond to your comments, in part 2 of 3 of "What's an LSA?" next week.

It' s not actually illegal, but...

It's not actually illegal for citizens of foriegn countries to learn to fly in the U.S....

But it might as well be.

Since the attacks on September 11, 2001, various rules, requirements, regulations, and bureaucratic shennanigans have been put into place which make it difficult, and all but impossible, to travel to the United States to learn to fly a plane.  These rules existed in pure chaos for about four years, until they finally settlled more or less into the shape they're in now.  The result is that many flight schools simply do not take foriegn appliclants.

I should know.  I'm the guy to talk to here if that's what you want to do.

If this country had wanted to make it illegal outright, then they simply should have.  Instead, they did this:

• Non-US Citizens are required by 14CFR 1552 to register at a website run by the TSA (yes, that's the same TSA that makes you take off your shoes and belt at the airport) at http://www.flightschoolcandidates.gov/.  Prospective flight students will need to register a user name and password, and name the school where they want to go.
• That school gets an email (if they've registered with that same website as a flight training provider) from the TSA asking if the candidate's application is legitimate and should be accepted.
• The candidate then needs to register his or her fingerprints with a law enforcement agency, which electronically transmits them to the TSA, and must also provide a list of any aliases or alternate names they have used in the past (say, because they got married).
• The candidate then needs to pay a $130 fee for each "training request."  This is required for each new category and class of aircraft in which they seek certification, and for an instrument rating.  Typically, one training request is submitted at a time.
• A waiting period is established while the TSA runs a background check on the candidates' names and fingerprints.  If any information is missing, contradictory, or inconclusive, the application can be bounced back to the candidate, who may have to supply additional information.  Sometimes the process is pretty quick.  Sometimes it's not.  Candidates are advised to start this process 60 days before their planned starting date.
• Eventually, the school recieves either a notice of approval which allows training to begin, or a notice of denial.
• When their training starts, the school needs to (a) notify the TSA, (b) take a picture of the candidate and electronically transmit it to the TSA, and (c) notify the TSA of any changes to the candidates' status as a student.
• If a student wants to change schools (say, because they like the one across the street better), then they need to put in a new training request and pay a new $130 fee and submit to a new background check.
• ALSO, the TSA may, at any time, send a notification that all training is to stop.

To hard-liners out there, this may sound reasonable- after all, terrorists want to fly planes into buildings, right?  Maybe.  But these rules apply to ALL non-US Citizens, including people who have been living legally in the US as "Resident Aliens" for many years.  My school had a student who began the TSA's process, but got sworn in as a U.S. Citizen before they could manage to approve him.  It was a little puzzling about what to do with his file, since it was active, but the rules no longer applied to his case.  He said that becoming a citizen was easier.

But if you want to travel to the USA for the purpose of flight training, there's a whole other process: SEVIS- the "Student & Exchange Visitor Information Sytem," which is part of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).  Because it's an entirely different department of the government, they, of course, have their own process, their own rules, and their own website, which requires new usernames and passwords.

• The school must be "SEVIS-approved" by the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) and receive a SEVIS code.  That school must name a Primary Designated School Official (PDSO) and may also name other Designated School Officials (DSOs) who must go through a training program and create unique usernames and passwords which must be changed every 90 days.
• This allows them access to a website which can be used to create an I-20, which is a document that sponsors an M-1 (educational) Visa for a candidate's passport.  ICE does not create or control the Visa (the US Department of State does that), but must accompany the Visa and Passport in order to prove that the Visa is valid.
• To create an I-20, the school must collect information about the candidates' name or names, address, employers, family, etc., and provide information about the courses they plan to take, the costs of those courses, and how the candidates plan to pay for the entire thing.
• The candiates need to make an appointment with the State Department at a US Embassy and take their I-20, as well as documentation about everything on it, to this appointment, where the Visa will hopefully be granted.
• Upon entering the country, the I-20 must be activated, validated, and maintained by the PDSO or a DSO of the school, and a new I-20 must be issued, which is exactly like the old one, but it won't be stamped.
• If the student wants to change schools, his or her I-20 has to be cancelled by the school that sponsored it, and a new I-20 must be issued by the new school.  If it turns out they can't do this, the student has to leave the country.
• A students' I-20 can be cancelled, or it can expire, or it can be renedered invalid by the TSA.  It's not impossible for that to happen without anyone noticing until they try to cross a border.

SEVIS, by the way, is the same process that college students need to go through if they want to come to the US to learn nuclear physics. They don't need to go through TSA to do that, though.

If you've got a headache from all this, I do too.  Just take this home and put it under your pillow:

There are 36 countries in the world which are part of the "Visa Waver" program- that is, you don't need a Visa at all  to enter the United States if you're a Citizen of one of these countries.  There are 195 countries in the world, so that works out to about one-in-six.  You can stay in the U.S. for up to 90 days, doing pretty much whatever you want, except having a job you get paid for.

To put this in further perspective, one of the tourist attractions the U.S. has to offer is thanks to our unique perspective on gun laws- Non- U.S. Citizens coming to Wyoming, Colorado, Hawaii, and other states are able to enjoy handling, loading, and firing fully automatic machine guns at ranges catering specifically to them.  Do they need a Visa and a background check?  Nope.

Want to take flying lessons, if you're from Toronto? Red tape out the wazoo.

The Not-So-Noble Lie

On Friday, I was flying with Chris, who’s been working on his private pilot's certificate on-and-off for years, in four or five different kinds of airplanes, with I don’t know how many instructors. I’ve finished up his program, and we’re getting his checkride done this week. Chris is a thoughtful guy, and I always enjoy talking with him. He’s one of the most inquisitive and introspective students I’ve ever had. And something came up that turned into one of those “Aha!” moments for my students that I absolutely live for.

Every so often, I’m able to make professional use of my degree in Philosophy. It’s very very rare, but it happens. Yesterday, while I was a thousand feet in the air, doing something that would have been unthinkable 2400 years ago, Plato once again makes himself relevant to me.

In the Republic, Plato has Socrates describe a “Noble Lie,” which he presents as a myth necessary for (or at least greatly beneficial to) society. Its falsehood is supposed to be outweighed by the harmony and social justice that would result if it were to be taken as the truth. It wasn’t an allegory, or a parable, but was meant to be used as an article of faith.

When I was in college, that occurred to me as a total cop-out. At best, it’s just cheap trick, but at worst, it’s an unforgivable compromise of Plato’s reverence for Truth. I mean, we’d just gotten done with that whole “shadows on the wall of the cave” analogy, so tossing "Truth" out the window in favor of “Justice” seemed…icky. I know that’s a juvenile reaction, and I understand that a mature and scholarly reflection of the entire work casts Plato’s myth-of-the-metals in a different light, but that’s not the point here.

The point is that I didn’t like it, and I still don’t.

And, while Plato’s own Noble Lie isn’t relevant to flying airplanes, the concept of a “Noble Lie” applies to a lot of stuff in flight training. Teaching people things that aren’t strictly true, but which are intended to produce good results if they’re understood as true, is everywhere in my field of work. And I like that even less.

Now, I have philosophical reasons for disliking it, but I can suck that up. I mostly have to deal with the problems that arise when flight training’s “Noble Lies” fail to produce their intended good results…which happens a lot. Then, you have a real lack of understanding, and a practical inability to accomplish or explain a task, and usually, a lot of confusion surrounding it.

This happened with Chris, downwind in the pattern at Orlando Executive airport. We’re a little too high and a little too fast coming abeam the aiming point.  I pointed this out to him.  Faced with the need to descend and slow down, Chris wiggled the stick a bit, then asked me: “Okay… so is it ‘pitch-for-airspeed’ now?”

The next 1500 words you’re about to read occurred all at once in my head, prefaced by a big “Oh, Dear.” Chris was struggling with a Noble Lie he’d been taught, and it was getting in the way of flying the plane. Of course, I couldn’t just spit it all out right then- timing was critical at that moment, so I said:

“Just fly it.  The plane isn’t behaving any differently just because we’re in the pattern. We’ll talk more when we’re done with this approach. Just fly the way you usually do.” And then he did.

The Noble Lie he’d been taught goes something like this: 

Normally, when you fly an airplane, use the power as your primary control for airspeed (more power = go faster, less power = go slower) and you use pitch as your primary control for altitude (pull up = climb, push down = descend).

However, when operating at speeds below minimum drag, the airplane is operating on the “back side of the power curve” and controls enter the “region of reverse command” in which that relationship is reversed.

This is the case during “slow flight” and during an approach to land. Pitch attitude becomes the primary control for airspeed (pull up = go slower, push down = go faster) and power is the primary control for altitude (more power = climb, less power = descend).

This confusing wad of jargon has befuddled more student pilots (including me) than I can even count. If you haven't learned to fly, you're probably blinking and saying "huh?"  If you have learned to fly, you're probably groaning and thinking "Oh God. That... stuff."  And if you're Johnny Expert and have come to peace with it, you're probably pretty darn proud of yourself for thinking "oh yes, that's not so hard."  But it is hard. This generates thousands upon thousands of student pilot questions, and many hours of double-talk by CFIs and mentor pilots who may not be too sure about it themselves.

Now, to be fair, there is merit to this Noble Lie. It does work, when understood correctly, and when someone is flying well, this is pretty much what you'd see them do. The way I've carefully stated it here is the way it's been passed down from generation to generation, like folklore.  Most CFIs will still parrot it out just the way they learned it, and they'll tell you you're wrong if you disagree.  It has legitimate origins in a superceded FAA manual called the Flight Training Handbook. Interestingly, it's still mentioned in the current edition of the Airplane Flying Handbook as somethng to avoid (p. 8-19), but it's no longer given as the proper technique for "Slow Flight." Instead, they warn you about the same effect, but they call it "speed instability" and tell you how to get out of it (p. 4-2).

That's a good thing.  As a student, this confused the crap out of me. Jerry, my regular CFI, spat the Noble Lie out at me chapter-and-verse, and stood by it. I tried to nail him down to a specific speed at which “reverse command” takes effect, and, after some reflection, he said “best glide speed.” Since that was within three or four knots of my final approach speed, it looked to me like we’d be in-and-out of it as my speed wobbled around on final the way it usually did.  As a result, I was perpetually torn between trying to micro-manage airspeed with pitch, and trying to hold the aiming point steady in the windscreen.


I finally asked Jeff, the chief pilot, and he just sighed and lowered his head. Now I know why. That was his big "Oh, Dear." He told me not to worry about reverse command until I was deeply into the flair. That worked! It worked even better because I still wasn't worried about it deeply into the flair, since I was completely distracted by the process of landing. So, I ended up ignoring it completely. Wise man, that Jeff.

But, back to my student, Chris. He’d learned this stuff from somewhere, attempted to transition between "normal" and "reversed" commands, and got lost trying to connect the dots. His problem wasn’t just that he was too fast for it. He was flying perfectly well, then he started thinking about this, and got disoriented about what to do. Here’s how his gears were grinding-

• I need to both descend and slow down. According to this “reverse command” thing, I don’t see how I can do both at the same time. Which should I do first?
• I’m about to maneuver to land. Am I in ‘the region of reverse command’ or not?

• If not, I need to push forward on the stick to descend, but if so, I need to pull back on the throttle to descend instead, and,
• If not, I need to pull back on the throttle to slow down, but if so, I need to pull back on the stick to slow down instead…

• …and that’s if I’m getting it right. Do I have it right?

It’s fairly easy to bemoan someone’s lack of basic flying skills, or complain that people aren’t teaching the “four fundamentals,” or that the guy wasn’t using trim properly. But that's not the problem. Chris’s “four fundamentals” were solid, because his flying was okay both (a) before this confusion occurred to him, and (b) after I’d told him to ignore this concern. The problem was that thinking about the Noble Lie of “reverse command” derailed his essentially solid flying skills by making him believe that he’d have to start doing everything "backwards."

So, after the touch-and-go, I took the controls on the downwind departure, and showed him this (which also works at 100 knots, and 80, and 60, and any speed at which the stall horn isn't screaming bloody murder into both of your ears): 

• Trimmed out at 90 knots, level, I push the throttle forward, with no change to elevator pressure. What happens? We gain RPM and speed up. What else happens? The extra speed makes us pitch up and climb. Then what? The nose going up makes us lose RPM and slow down. The overall effect? Adding power creates a dynamically stable oscillation into a climb, close to our trimmed-out airspeed.

• Again, trimmed out at 90 knots, I pull the throttle back, with no change to elevator pressure. What happens? We lose RPM and slow down. What else happens? Our nose drops and we descend. Then what? The nose dropping builds RPM and speeds us up. The overall effect? Decreasing power creates a dynamically stable oscillation into a descent, close to our trimmed-out airspeed.

•  Again, trimmed out at 90 knots, I pull back on the stick, with no change in throttle setting. What happens? The nose goes up. What else happens? We slow down and lose RPM. Then what? Slowing down drops our nose a bit. The overall effect? Pulling back on the stick creates a dynamically stable oscillation into a climb, below our trimmed-out airspeed.

• Again, trimmed out at 90 knots, I push forward on the stick, with no change in throttle setting. What happens? The nose drops. What else happens? We speed up and gain RPM. Then what? The gain in speed and RPM pitches our nose back up. The overall effect? Pushing forward on the stick creates a dynamically stable oscillation into a descent, above our trimmed-out airspeed.

The moral of the story: Any change you make in the throttle shows up in RPM, speed, and pitch attitude. Any change you make in elevator pressure also shows up in pitch attitude, speed, and RPM. Those two controls are tied together through the performance and stability of the airplane.  Therefore, if you want to climb, descend, speed up, or slow down, you have to work both controls together. It doesn’t make sense to try to isolate their functions while learning to do this.

Putting it all together-

• Climb = add power and pull up the nose.
• Descend = reduce power and let the nose down.
• Speed up = add power and hold the nose down.
• Slow down = reduce power and hold the nose up

"Reverse command” doesn’t change that when you're at or below best glide speed, or on an approach. Flying the plane is always about finding the balance of attitude and power which produces the behavior you want, and trimming away control pressure when stabilized.

Put more simply- Just Fly It.  Screw the Noble Lie.

That was Chris’s “Aha!” moment. “Oh,” he said on his next approach, “I can just fly it.” And that time, he did a nice job.

Onions make you cry

 Bausch & Lomb introduces "Aviator" contact lenses

Thanks to the Onion.  God, I love these guys.  I only wish this wasn't a joke.  I'd walk around like this all day.

Aviation "Porn"

Thanks to Bill Spring for sharing this video with me, and for giving me the saucy title.

Those who dare follow this link will witness the assembly of Florida One, Southwest Airlines' new 737, from bare-aluminum components (thank you, Spirit Aerosystems) through interior assembly and zinc chromate (Oooo baby, lay on the green, you know what I mean) to the SUPER COOL 16-color custom paint job of the Florida State flag (which took 32 people 8 days and 46 gallons of paint), and finally, the debut flight.

Just a few days ago, this plane made a goodwill tour of the six cities Southwest serves in Florida (Tampa, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, Fort Meyers, West Palm Beach, and Jacksonville), Southwest will also begin flights in and out of Panama City starting May 23.  According to Southwest's website, they currently carry 46% of all intra-Florida airline traffic.

Pretty plane.  Good job, guys.  And thanks!

An inauspicious beginning

Okay, so for my first-ever blog post, I've got to own up to an unfortunate but very real part of working around airplanes:

They have sharp bits poking out of them all over the place.

Ow.

Here's the pitot tube that sticks out about eleven inches from the leading edge of the left wing of the Remos G3 Light-Sport on our ramp. I started my morning yesterday by poking myself in the nose with it during preflight. Good thing it wasn't a Cessna- those things' pitot tubes are eyeball-level on me.

Speaking of Cessnas, here's the trailing edge of an aileron on a 172. I can promise you that every Cessna pilot who is more than 5'6" tall has, at one time, used these to stamp a pattern of lines and diamonds deep into his or her forehead.

This is the plain flap of a Piper PA-28R. Not only does it like to hold onto the strap of the airplane's cover, so you have to walk all the way around the tail to unsnag it, but its corner will scratch the back of your hand deep enough to bleed. Thank god for neosporin.

There are other nasty airplane parts, as well. For example, running your finger along the edge of a seaplane's prop is a bad idea, especially if it's made with carbon fiber or fiberglass. Water spray gets a prop beaten up like a Jets fan at a Giants game, and that stuff leaves splinters. Oh, leaving pitot heat on during preflight, touching exhaust pipes, and unscrewing hot oil dipsticks are all very good ways to burn yourself, if that's what you're into.

To be fair, I haven't hurt myself badly preflighting a Cirrus or Diamond, but hey, it's still early in the week.