Tag Archives: airplanes

Making Cockpit Management Tasks Easier

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Some tips for helicopter pilots (and others).

One of the disadvantages of being on the controls of a helicopter is that you pretty much always have to have at least one hand on the controls. Most helicopters do not have autopilots and, in my experience, I’ve found that releasing the cyclic while in flight is a good way to begin undesired aerobatic maneuvers that are likely prohibited by the Pilot Operating Handbook (POH).

The more you fly a helicopter, the more accustomed you are to dealing with one-handed chores like dialing in radio frequencies, adjusting the altimeter, fiddling with the GPS, and even folding maps. But for new pilots and pilots flying to, from, or through busy airspace, navigating and dealing with other cockpit management chores can be a real challenge.

The key to dealing with this gracefully is preparation. Here are some of the things I’ve come up with.

Organize in Advance

I don’t think there’s any simpler or more important tip to share. By organizing your cockpit in advance, you’ll know exactly where everything is and be able to reach it when you need it. I’m talking mostly about things like checklists, charts, pens, flight plans, and notes. But this could also include navigational aids like a handheld GPS, performance charts, and water or snacks.

Organized!

My seat pocket includes charts and checklists; my passenger’s seat pocket includes marketing material and souvenir postcards.

There’s nothing that bugs me more than when an aircraft mechanic or cleaner or some other pilot moves the things I keep in the pocket under my legs in my aircraft. That’s where I should find all the charts I use regularly, my preflight briefing card (for passenger briefings), my emergency checklist, and my startup/shutdown checklists with performance charts. These are things I sometimes need to reach for in flight — I want them exactly where I expect them to be — not under the seat or in the back or in the seat pocket of the front passenger seat.

By always having things like this in the same place, I can always find them where I expect them to be. This reduces workload in flight — I don’t have to hunt around to find them when I might also need to do something else.

Use an Airport Frequency Cheat Sheet

Airport Frequency Cheat SheetI’ve had one of these on board since I bought my first helicopter, an R22 Beta II, back in 2000. It’s a standard letter size sheet of paper with a four-column grid on it. The columns list Airport Names, Elevations, Tower/CTAF Frequencies, and ATIS/AWOS/ASOS Frequencies. Each row is for a different airport in the areas of Arizona where I fly. The type is purposely large, so I can read it from a distance. The entire sheet is laminated so it doesn’t get beat up.

In Robinson helicopters, the floor at the pilot’s seat is carpeted but covered with a sheet of clear plastic. I slip my cheat sheet under the plastic so it’s at my feet. When I fly, I can shift one or both feet aside to get a look at the sheet to find a frequency I need. This is a lot quicker and easier than consulting a chart or fiddling with a GPS to get the same information.

Of course, if you don’t want to go all out and create one of these for everyday use, you should consider creating one for the flight you’re going to take. It can be much smaller — perhaps index card size — so you can slip it in a pocket when not in use. My husband uses sticky notes that he affixes to the yoke of his airplane. Same idea. He doesn’t fly as often as I do or to as many places, so that meets his needs.

Configure Your Charts in Advance

TripTik and Cheat Sheet

My cheat sheet under the plastic carpet protector and my TripTik on the Robinson-designed GPS tray I use to mount cameras and display charts.

By “configure,” I mean fold open to the area of the chart you’ll need to consult enroute. For most helicopter cross-country flights, you’ll likely use only a few panels of a single chart. But if you’re going on a long cross-country flight, you’ll likely need to fold open more than one chart — or fold the chart you need in a way that it’s easy to get to all panels you’re likely to need. Large paperclips or binder clips can come in handy to keep the chart open the way you need it.

A very smart pilot navigating through a new area will likely use a highlighter — pink and orange work best — to highlight his intended route. This makes it very easy to find the line you’re supposed to be on and keep track of landmarks you fly over as you go.

I’ve actually gone a step farther with this idea. I’ve created a “TripTik” (think AAA) by cutting old charts into pieces that I laminated and put on binder rings. I can clip this loose binder full of map segments to a platform I recently had mounted in my helicopter. As I fly, I can flip through the pages to see the segment I need. It was time consuming and tedious to create and it isn’t quite perfect yet, but it sure does make it easier to manage my charts. (You can see a video about it below.) And yes, I still do have all the up-to-date charts I need on board for every flight.

What’s that you say? You have a whiz-bang moving map GPS so you don’t need charts? Try telling that to an FAA inspector. And then think about what might happen if you didn’t have charts handy, weren’t paying much attention to where you might be, and that GPS dropped dead. That was the topic of an AOPA video I saw a long time ago and it’s stuck with me ever since. Situational awareness is vital to flight. Don’t depend on a GPS to tell you where you are. When flying in an unfamiliar area, always keep track of where you are on a chart.

One more thing about charts: make sure the one you’re carrying is the current one. Airport information and frequencies change. Having the wrong information about an airport you’re landing at or flying near can get you in trouble, as this story relates.

Punch in a Flight Plan

If you do have a GPS, make the most of it by punching in a flight plan before lifting off. This is extremely useful when doing a cross-country flight through relatively busy airspace.

For example, when I fly from Phoenix, AZ to Torrance, CA in the Los Angeles area, I fly through about two hours of wide open, empty desert, stop for fuel, and then spend another two hours threading my way though the busy airspace of Riverside and Orange Counties. This can get really intense, especially when LA’s famous smog has settled in the valleys and visibility is right around minimums. Although I mostly follow roads, I use waypoints along the way to make sure I don’t take the wrong exit (so to speak). Punching these waypoints — airports and GPS waypoints on the LA terminal area chart — into my GPS not only helps keep me on course, but it displays the upcoming waypoint and my distance from it so I can make intelligent radio calls when passing through.

While lots of pilots learn how to use the Go To feature of their GPS and stop there, learning how to enter a full flight plan is far more beneficial on a long flight. Suppose I decided to use Go To to move from one waypoint to the next. That means that as I’m passing through Fullerton’s airspace, I might be trying to punch in Long Beach’s waypoint. While keeping an eye out for other helicopter traffic in the busy 91/5 intersection area. And keeping to a restricted altitude. And dialing Long Beach’s frequency into standby. I don’t know about you, but that’s more of a workload than I want when visibility is 3-1/2 miles in smog. Using the flight plan feature to have all waypoints entered in advance significantly reduces the workload in flight.

Get a Capable Companion Involved

If you’re not flying solo, you may be able to shift some of the work to the person sitting beside you — but only if that person is willing and able to perform the tasks you need done promptly, with the minimal amount of instruction.

I’m lucky. My husband is a pilot, too. He knows how to tune in radio frequencies and use the Go To feature on my helicopter’s GPS. He can read a chart and pull off radio frequencies. He knows how to look for traffic. When we fly together, we share the workload. Since he’s got his helicopter rating, too, I usually put the duals in and he does most of the flying while I handle the cockpit chores.

Not everyone is as lucky. Some companions just can’t figure things out — even the simple things, like tuning in a radio. Entering busy airspace is not the time to teach them. Do it yourself — it’ll be quicker and safer. If you’ll be flying often with a person, give him some training when you’re just out cruising around so he’ll be ready to help you when you’re in busy airspace and can really use a hand.

And even if your companion is capable of doing things, he might not want to. As I mentioned, my husband is a pilot and can read a chart. But is he willing to monitor our progress on a chart in flight? No. He’s not a map person and simply doesn’t like using any kind of map unless he needs to.

I’m exactly the opposite. If I’m not flying, I’ve got that chart open on my knees and can tell you exactly where we are — well, to the nearest finger-width, anyway. I recently had an excursion passenger who was the same way. At the start of each leg of our trip, I’d configure a map for her and show her roughly where we were going. Although she had some trouble tracking our progress on the unfamiliar aeronautical chart format, she put in a good effort and did pretty darn well.

Plan Thoroughly

Of course, to punch in a flight plan and configure your charts, you must have a clear idea of where you’re going. That’s what flight planning is all about. Don’t just wing it (no pun intended) — plan it out completely so you know where you’re going and how you’ll get there.

I can’t stress how important this is for a long cross-country flight. You’ll need to examine the entire route on a current chart to make sure it doesn’t pass through hot MOAs or restricted areas. You’ll need to know where you can find fuel or lunch or maybe even a hotel along the way. You’ll need to learn about weather and NOTAMs and TFRs on your flight path. And you’ll need to get familiar with the layouts of the airports you’ll be landing at.

This is really part of flight planning the stuff you’re supposed to do before you crank up the engine — not cockpit management. But without a solid flight plan, you won’t be able to properly prepare as outlined above to make your cockpit management tasks easier.

Got Your Own Tips to Share?

If you’re an experienced pilot — helicopter or airplane — and have some other tips to share, please do. Use the Comments link for this post to get a discussion going.

Note to Self: Not Everyone Flies

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I have to keep reminding myself because I do forget.

Yesterday afternoon, I sat down with the September 2009 issue of Flight Training magazine (because “a good pilot is always learning”), prepared to page through the mostly airplane-specific content for a few good tidbits that also applied to flying helicopters. I started with the “President’s Perspective” by new AOPA president Craig Fuller.

The fourth paragraph nearly knocked me off my seat:

Over the Independence Day holiday, I urged everyone to celebrate their freedom to fly by getting out and into the air, whether for a family vacation or a quick sightseeing expedition. I also urged certificated pilots to take a nonpilot for a ride to let them experience a new perspective on general aviation. There’s no better way to make sure that GA remains relevant and vibrant than to get out in the sky and do it! Taking nonfliers along for the ride can introduce them to a new world, and might even be the key to bringing the next generation of pilots into the cockpit.

I added the emphasis here; these are the phrases that woke me up from my afternoon burn out.

These phrases reminded me that as a pilot, I’m a member of a tiny community of folks who can just get out and fly. Very few people are as fortunate as we pilots are in this respect.

It’s a Natural Part of My Life

Oddly, flying has become such a part of my life that I don’t think twice about doing it. Here’s a good example from this week.

I need to reposition my “redneck truck” to Grand Canyon Airport (GCN) before next Thursday. The truck is one of the few vehicles I own that can seat three people comfortably. Ground transportation from GCN into the park sucks — the shuttle service is inconsistent and a huge time suck and there are no rental cars (what’s that about?) — and I’ll be there by helicopter at least three times within the next three months with at least two passengers each time. I need to get my people into the park quickly and comfortably — they’re not paying all that money to sit around waiting for a shuttle van. Since I can’t rent a car and I happen to have a spare truck, I figured I’d just put my own transportation there for the season.

I have to drive the truck up there. No getting around that. It’s a 2-1/2 to 3 hour drive. But I didn’t even think about getting someone to drive me back. Instead, I figured I’d ask a friend to fly up and fetch me in return for a fuel top-off. I sent out an e-mail to a friend with a Mooney who is always looking for an excuse to fly, we picked a date and time, and we’re good to go. If he didn’t want to do it, I could think of at least four other people — including my husband, who is half-owner in a Grumman Tiger — who might do it. The idea of driving back never even entered my mind.

Until I read Fuller’s comments and realized that just about everyone else in the world would plan to drive back. The idea of flying back would never even enter their minds.

What It Means to Me

It’s hard to explain to a nonflier what flying means to me. Part of that is because I can no longer imagine things from their perspectives — not being able to just get out and fly. But the other part is their sheer lack of understanding of what it’s like to be airborne. Yes, I know what my town, a good portion of Arizona, and lots of the western states look like from 500 or 1000 feet above the ground. I know how the air will behave as I cross over a dark green alfalfa field on a sunny day or slip into the shade of a cumulous cloud just starting to get heavy with precipitation. I know what it’s like to fly over or past or under a large bird, to cross over the top of an airport with a plane just touching down on the runway beneath me, to slip 1,500 feet below a 747 landing at Sky Harbor Airport (PHX). I know what it’s like to fly up a twisting canyon, level with the tops of the canyon walls, and how it feels to zip low over the surface of a lake or desert plain. I know the feel of the aircraft around me, responding to inputs that my hands and feet automatically feed into it at the whim of my brain — to be one with a vehicle that can move freely in three dimensions, against the pull of gravity.

North to the Future

When I started up my laptop to write this, this is the photo that popped up as my random desktop picture. The world is wide open to a pilot.

I’m not the only one around here who can say all of these things. Once I learned to fly and began spending more and more time at airports, it was only natural to meet and become friends with other pilots. Whether they’re helicopter pilots like me, owners of well kept classic airplanes like my friend’s Mooney, or tinkerers who built their aircraft with their own two hands, they’ve all tasted and perhaps feasted on the freedom of flight. From the guys who put fat tires on their taildraggers so they can land in dry riverbeds to the folks flying big twins and small jets to places like Washington, Idaho, or Colorado, they’re all the same. They’re pilots.

Get on Out There and Fly!

It’s strange that I can no longer see the other person’s point of view — strange because of the number of nonfliers I take flying routinely for my flying business. Perhaps that’s because I fly helicopters. I take it for granted that most people don’t fly in helicopters. But the reality is that most people don’t fly in small aircraft at all.

So here’s my request to all the readers of this post:

If you’re a pilot, take someone who’s never been in a small aircraft flying with you sometime between now and the end of the year. Let them experience the wonder of flight; give them the “new perspective” Craig Fuller wrote about.
If you’re not a pilot, grab a friend and go flying. Take a flight at your local airport or the next time you have a chance to take a tour where aerial tours are offered. Do it before the end of the year.

And then think about it — from all perspectives — and feel fortunate that such an activity is within your grasp.

Photos from the Museum of Flight

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Snapshots from our road trip.

As some of you may know, I just finished up a lengthy trip to the Pacific Northwest, ending it with a 2-1/2 week road trip back to Arizona by way of four national parks with my husband, dog, and parrot. I took over 1600 photos over the past three months, with about 800 of them snapped over the past three weeks.

That’s a lot of photos.

I shared some of them earlier in the summer, but soon got behind in reviewing and processing the shots from my Nikon. I also shared a bunch of cell phone photos taken with my BlackBerry, on Twitter via TwitPic and ÜberTwitter. I hope to share a few more of the interesting ones over the next few months here.

That said, here are some from the start of our road trip. My husband and dog arrived on an Alaska Air flight in Seattle on August 13. I drove from Wenatchee, where I was staying, to Seattle to pick them up. Since we had some time to kill, we visited the Museum of Flight at Boeing Field.

If you’re at all interested in aviation and have a chance to visit Seattle, don’t miss the Museum of Flight. I can’t imagine any museum with Aviation exhibits to be more exhaustive than this one — except possibly the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington.

And now, the photos. Sorry about the obnoxious copyright notice, but I don’t want my work circulated all over the ‘Net without permission or credit. If you want to share any of these shots to friends, link to this page.

The Main Gallery

I made this photo with my fisheye lens from the balcony of the main gallery. Those are real, full-sized airplanes on display — some hanging from the ceiling! It’s a great sight to behold.

At the Museum of Flight

Photo Info:
Camera: Nikon D80
Aperture: f/4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/80
Focal Length: 10.5mm

SR-71 Blackbird

This is the second time I’ve been able to get up close and personal with an SR-71 Blackbird. (The first was at the Pima Air Museum in Tucson, where one is parked outdoors under a shade.) If you want to learn more about this incredible plane, read its Wikipedia entry.

This particular plane has an unusual feature that it shared with only one other SR-71. Can you spot it?

SR-71 Blackbird

Photo Info:
Camera: Nikon D80
Aperture: f/4.2
Shutter Speed: 1/50
Focal Length: 26mm

Jet Engine Detail

This is a closeup shot of some of the tubing on one side of the SR-71 engine on display. You can see the display in the above photo, on the right side of the plane, just inside the white barricades.

I don’t know much about this, but I like the way the tubes look.

Jet Engine Detail

Photo Info:
Camera: Nikon D80
Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/30
Focal Length: 85mm

Concorde Cockpit

One of the highlights of the museum was the outdoor displays, which included a British Airways Concorde jet. Our walk through was the closest either one of us will get to supersonic fight — and the plane was permanently parked.

A plexiglas panel separated the tourists from the cockpit instuments. But if you put the lens right up against the Plexiglass and hold the camera very still, you might get a shot like this one:

Concorde Cockpit

Photo Info:
Camera: Nikon D80
Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/30
Focal Length: 85mm

Air Force One Cockpit

The plane that served as Air Force One from the Eisenhower through Nixon administrations was also on display outdoors. Again, the cockpit was on display, protected by a piece of Plexiglas.

There’s nothing like a fisheye lens to get the details in tight spaces.

Air Force One Cockpit

Photo Info:
Camera: Nikon D80
Aperture: f/3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/50
Focal Length: 10.5mm

That’s all for this part of the trip. I hope to have some more interesting shots online soon.

Airplanes and Helicopters Don’t Mix

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Accidents happen.

As the New York Times reports in  “Tourist Helicopter and Small Plane Collide Over Hudson River“:

A small private plane carrying three people and a New York tourist helicopter carrying six collided in midair and plunged into the Hudson River off the West Side of Manhattan just after noon on Saturday. At least two people were confirmed dead, the authorities said, and a search was on for the others.

One of the reasons helicopters tend to fly lower than airplanes is to do something that’s drummed into our heads: avoid the flow of fixed wing traffic. This accident is tragic on so many levels, but it would not have occurred if the plane was flying at the altitude it should have been at.

Indeed, this isn’t the first time an airplane and helicopter have collided. On June 18, 1986, a DeHaviland DHC-6 collided with a Bell 206B helicopter over the Grand Canyon, killing 25 people. Both aircraft were conducting tours over the canyon. As a result of this accident, tour routes were established with separate altitudes for airplanes (8,000 feet MSL) and helicopters (7,500 feet MSL) over the Grand Canyon.

There’s some talk that the airplane in the New York City accident today might have been in some distress and perhaps it was losing altitude. Hopefully, investigators will gather information about how it happened. I can understand how the helicopter pilot may not have seen the airplane at his altitude, especially if he had just taken off and was still at low level, just climbing out. A helicopter pilot doesn’t expect to see airplanes at low level. But that’s no excuse to see and avoid other traffic.

Parked at the Flying Service

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Neighborly flying service folks let me park my helicopter on one of their tie-down spots.

Last year, when I was in Quincy for cherry drying season, I was fortunate enough to get a hangar for two months. Having a hangar can be a pain in the butt when you have a helicopter, but I was prepared and had my tow bar handy. Weather was [too] good and I didn’t fly much. It was nice to keep the helicopter out of the sun.

This year, I didn’t bother trying to find out if the hangar was still available. I doubt it is — someone else was moving in the day I moved out. And since I don’t have my tow bar with me, moving the helicopter in and out would be nearly impossible by myself anyway.

Quincy airport is about 4-1/2 miles from my living space at the Quincy Golf Course. That isn’t very far. But there were other, closer options for parking the helicopter. One was the Ferguson Flying Service right across the street from the golf course. I stopped by there on Monday, before bringing the helicopter in from Seattle, to see if I could park there. They very graciously said that I could.

Helicopter at Ferguson's

My parking space at Ferguson’s Flying Service in Quincy, WA.

So I’m parked on one of the concrete tie-down pads they used to use for their crop dusters.

For those readers who are not familiar with agricultural aviation, i should probably explain what a flying service is. A flying service is a company that provides crop dusters and related agricultural aviation services for farmers and growers. Quincy is farm country, full of wheat, corn, alfalfa, potato, and other crop fields, as well as fruit trees and even some grape vines. There are at least two flying services in the area. Each has its own scrawny paved runway and a small handful of crop dusters.

Helicopter at Ferguson's

Another view of my parking spot and the plane beside me.

Now, if you look closely at the biplane in these photos, you’ll probably notice that it doesn’t look “airworthy.” It’s not. For one thing, it’s missing it’s tail — or “tail feathers” as one of the local pilots referred to it. Its big radial engine also needs some work. It’s apparently bled out, too — the engine needs some serious TLC.

But Ferguson’s has other airplanes it flies. This one is parked until it’s repaired and ready to fly.

I want to thank the folks at Ferguson’s Flying Service for allowing me to park at their facility. It’s great to have the helicopter so close and it’s great to chat with the guys when I go over to check on it or prepare for a flight.