Tag Archives: safety

Unanticipated Yaw

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Some comments about one of Robinson Helicopter’s latest Safety Notices.

In May 2013, Robinson Helicopter issued Safety Notice SN-42, Unanticipated Yaw. It said, in part:

A pilot’s failure to apply proper pedal inputs in response to strong or gusty winds during hover or low-speed flight may result in an unanticipated yaw. Some pilots mistakenly attribute this yaw to loss of tail rotor effectiveness (LTE), implying that the tail rotor stalled or was unable to provide adequate thrust. Tail rotors on Robinson helicopters are designed to have more authority than many other helicopters and are unlikely to experience LTE.

I discuss LTE a bit in my 2009 blog post, “How Much Wind is Too Much Wind?” You can also learn about it on Wikipedia and in the FAA-published Helicopter Flying Handbook.

Bell 206 Tail Rotor
Bell 206 helicopters have dinky tail rotor blades. (Photo Credit: Dakota Air Parts.)

Robinson points out that its helicopters are designed to have more authority than many other helicopters. This is partly because Frank Robinson worked for Bell, which has notoriously poor tail rotor authority, where he became known as a “tail rotor expert.”

I experienced the difference between tail rotor authority in a Robinson vs. another helicopter firsthand in 2004, when I flew Bell 206 Long Rangers at the Grand Canyon. After years and at least 1200 hours experience flying Robinsons, I was in a quartering tailwind at the Papillon helipads one day and got into LTE. I pressed the pedal enough to stop the rotation in a Robinson, but the yaw didn’t stop — I wasn’t flying a Robinson. Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to press harder on the pedal and get the situation under control before the rotation had reached a full 90°. It taught me a very valuable lesson about unanticipated yaw.

Robinson’s Safety Notices are normally issued in response to specific accidents. I went fishing on the NTSB website and discovered this April 2012 accident. Probable cause was issued on May 23, 2013 and that would be the right timing for a Safety Notice to appear. (Of course, I can’t be certain whether this is the accident that sparked the new Safety Notice. It’s just a guess on my part.)

From the report summary:

The helicopter slowed as it approached the landing zone on a modified right-base turn to the north. Gusting wind from the south had prevailed for most of the day and was present at the time of the accident. As the pilot turned to “enter the landing area,” he felt a “bump” in the tail rotor control pedals. The pilot added that he applied left pedal to compensate for a right yaw, and the helicopter immediately “started to rotate” at an increasing yaw rate with full left pedal applied. The pilot stated that the rotation stopped when he pushed the collective control “full down” and applied aft cyclic. The helicopter then descended through the trees and collided with terrain. Examination of the wreckage revealed no evidence of pre-impact mechanical anomaly.

The accident report goes on to provide general information about LTE. The Full Narrative refers to FAA Advisory Circular (AC) 90-95 “Unanticipated Right Yaw in Helicopters.” It also refers to Robinson Safety Notice SN-34, Photo Flights – Very High Risk as it pertains to settling with power, reduced RPM, and the loss of tail rotor thrust in low RPM situations. All of this is good reading to learn more about LTE and tail rotor operation.

It’s in low-speed situations that tail rotor effectiveness can be lost. At higher speeds, the helicopter points into the wind via normal “weathervaning.” The vertical stabilizer on the end of the tail helps make this happen. But at lower speeds, especially when turning into a tailwind, the force of the wind can easily cause the helicopter to yaw. The pilot must react quickly and firmly to stop and correct the yaw.

Experience teaches us. Years ago, I was doing a long cross-country flight with a 300-hour pilot who had just gotten his CFI. He was landing at San Luis Obispo (SBP), sitting in the left seat while I sat in the right. There was some yaw and I think he tried to correct it with the pedals. But then he panicked and said that something was wrong, that the pedals weren’t working.

I don’t recall the yaw being very bad. We were still moving along at a good clip, barely over the runway and likely doing at least 50-60 knots. I told him to push the pedal and he claimed he was and that it wasn’t working. He was visibly upset. I offered to take the controls and he agreed. I pushed the appropriate pedal and the helicopter immediately straightened. I landed without incident.

When I read this Safety Notice, I immediately thought of that low time pilot’s approach to landing and my own experience, years before, at the Grand Canyon. In both cases, we’d initially failed to use enough pedal to correct the yaw. The difference is, while I’d added more pedal when necessary, the low-time pilot had assumed there was a problem with the aircraft without trying harder to correct the yaw.

I have to wonder whether the accident pilot was in the same situation. After all, probable cause put the blame firmly on him:

The pilot’s inadequate compensation for wind during a high-power, low-speed downwind turn, which resulted in a loss of control due to loss of tail rotor effectiveness and settling with power. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s decision to land downwind.

I guess the takeaway from all this can be summed up as follows: We always need to be aware of potential control issues, especially when operating at low speeds in crosswind or downwind situations. Yaw should never be “unanticipated.” It’s the pilot’s responsibility to keep control of the aircraft at all times by avoiding situations that could result in control issues and to use aircraft controls properly.

Airport Tower Closures: Reality Check

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March 24, 2013, 11:30 AM Edit: Got the airplane terminology wrong. Thanks to two airplane pilots for correcting me. I’ve edited the text to show the change. Sorry about the confusion. – ML
March 25, 2013, 2:15 AM Edit: Left out the word towers in a sentence.

Come on folks — it’s not as bad as you think.

Falcon Tower
The control tower at Falcon Field Airport in Mesa, AZ is a typical Class Delta airport tower. (This is not one of the towers scheduled for closure.)

I’ve been reading a lot lately about the FAA’s upcoming airport tower closures. A list is out and there are 149 airports on it. The reduction of funding due to the sequester is making it necessary to close these contracted airport towers all over the country.

Most news articles, tweets, and Facebook updates that I’ve read about the closures are full of doom and gloom. Apparently, a lot of people believe that airport towers are required for safety. But as most general aviation pilots can attest, low traffic airports do not need towers.

What an ATC Tower Does

Air Traffic Control (ATC) towers are responsible for ensuring safe and orderly arrivals and departures of aircraft at an airport. Here’s how it works at a typical Class Delta airport — the kind of airports affected by the tower closures.

Most towered airports have a recording called an Automated Terminal Information System (ATIS) that broadcasts airport information such as weather conditions, runway in use, and any special notices (referred to as Notices to Airmen or NOTAMs). Pilots listen to this recording on a special airport frequency as they approach the airport so they’re already briefed on the most important information they’ll need for landing. The ATIS recording is usually updated hourly, about 5 to 10 minutes before the hour. Each new recording is identified with a letter from the ICAO Spelling Alphabet, or the Pilot’s Alphabet, as I refer to it in this blog post.

Before a pilot reaches the airport’s controlled airspace — usually within 4 to 6 miles of the airport — she calls the tower on the tower frequency. She provides the airport controller with several pieces of information: Aircraft identifier, aircraft location, aircraft intentions, acknowledgement that pilot has heard ATIS recording. A typical radio call from me to the tower at Falcon Field, where I flew just the other day, might sound something like this:

Falcon Tower, Helicopter Six-Three-Zero-Mike-Lima is eight miles north, request landing helipads with Kilo.

An airplane calling in might say something like:

Falcon Tower, Cessna One-Two-Three-Alpha-Bravo is ten miles east, request touch-and-go with Kilo.

Kilo, in both cases, is the identifier of the current ATIS recording.

The tower controller would respond to my call with something like:

Helicopter Six-Three-Zero-Mike-Lima, Falcon Tower, proceed inbound. Report 1 mile north for midfield crossing at nineteen hundred feet.

To the airplane, he might say something like:

Cessna One-Two-Three-Alpha-Bravo, Falcon Tower, enter right downwind for runway four right.

(If you want to see what these instructions mean by looking at a detailed airport diagram, here’s one for you.)

Of course, if the tower controllers were really busy or there was some sort of problem at the airport, the controller could say something like:

Aircraft calling Falcon Tower, remain clear of the class delta airspace.

That means the pilot can’t come into the airspace — which is marked on charts and many GPS models — until the tower clears her in. That happens very seldom.

This is the beginning of the conversation between the air traffic controller in the airport’s tower and the pilot. What follows is a dialog with the tower providing instructions and the pilot acknowledging those instructions and then following them. The controller’s job is to sequence airplane traffic on the airport’s runway(s), making sure there’s enough spacing between them for the various types of landings: touch-and-go, full stop, low approach, etc. In the case of helicopters — which is admittedly what I know best — the tower can either put us into the traffic pattern with the airplanes (which really isn’t a good idea) or keep us out of the airplane flow. The tower clears airplanes to land on the runway and gives permission to helicopters to land in “non-movement” areas.

At the same time all this is going on, the tower’s ground controller is providing instructions to airplanes that are taxiing around the airport, either to or from the runways. Aircraft are given taxi instructions that are sort of like driving directions. Because helicopters seldom talk to towers, I can’t give a perfect example, but instructions from the transient parking area to runway 4R might sound something like this:

Cessna One-Two-Three-Alpha-Romeo, Falcon Ground, taxi to runway four right via Delta. Position and hold Line up and wait at Delta One.

These instructions can get quite complex at some large airports with multiple runways and taxiways.

Position and hold Line up and wait — formerly hold short position and hold — means to move to the indicated position and do not cross the hold line painted on the tarmac. This keeps the airplane off the runway until cleared to take off.

A pilot who is holding short waiting switches to the tower frequency and, when he’s the first plane at the hold line, calls the tower to identify himself. The tower then clears him to get on the runway and depart in the direction he’s already told the ground controller that he wants to go.

Air traffic control for an airport also clears pilots that simply want to fly through the airspace. For example, if I want to fly from Wickenburg to Scottsdale, the most direct route takes me through Deer Valley’s airspace. I’d have to get clearance from the Deer Valley Tower to do so; I’d then be required to follow the tower’s instructions until the controller cut me loose, usually with the phrase “Frequency change approved.” I could then contact Scottsdale’s tower so I could enter that airspace and get permission to land.

A few things to note here:

  • Not all towers have access to radar services. That means they must make visual contact with all aircraft under their control. Even when radar is available, tower controllers make visual contact when aircraft are within their airspace.
  • If radar services are available, tower controllers can ask pilots to Ident. This means pushing a button on the aircraft’s transponder that makes the aircraft’s signal brighter on the radar screen, thus making it easier for the controller to distinguish from other aircraft in crowded airspace. The tower can also ask the pilot to squawk a certain number — this is a 4-digit code temporarily assigned to that aircraft on the radar screen.
  • Some towers have two tower controller frequencies, thus separating the airspace into two separately controlled areas. For example, Deer Valley Airport (DVT) has a north and south tower controller, each contacted on a different frequency. When I fly from the north over the top of the runways to land at the helipads on the south side, I’m told to change frequency from the north controller to the south controller.
  • The tower and ground controllers coordinate with each other, handing off aircraft as necessary.
  • The tower controllers also coordinate with controllers at other nearby airports and with “center” airports. For example, when I fly from Phoenix Gateway (IWA) to Chandler (CHD), the Chandler controller knows I’m coming because the Gateway controller has told him. Similarly, if a corporate jet departs Scottsdale (SDL) on an Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) flight plan, the Scottsdale controller obtains a clearance for that jet from Phoenix Departure or Albuquerque Center.

I should also point out two things from the point of view of a pilot:

  • Dealing with air traffic control does add a tiny bit to the pilot’s workload. The pilot must communicate with the tower before entering the airspace, the pilot must follow the tower’s instructions (unless following those instructions is not safe, of course). I know plenty of pilots who would rather fly around a towered airport’s airspace than fly through it — just because they don’t want to talk to a controller. I’ll admit that I’ve done this quite a few times — I even have a winding route through the Phoenix area between Wickenburg and Chandler that avoids all towered airspace along the way.
  • Air traffic control gives many pilots the impression that they are no longer responsible for seeing and avoiding other aircraft. After all, the tower sees all and guides aircraft to avoid each other. But there have been instances where air traffic control has dropped the ball — I experienced one myself years ago — and sometimes this can have tragic consequences.

Low Traffic Airports Don’t Need Towers

As you can probably imagine, the more air traffic coming and going in an airport’s airspace, the busier air traffic controllers are.

A very busy airport like Deer Valley, which has at least two flight schools, several helicopter bases (police and medevac), at least one charter operator, and a bit of traffic from corporate jets, can keep controllers pretty busy. In fact, one of the challenges of flying in and out of Deer Valley is being able to get a call in on the radio — it’s often a steady stream of pilot/controller communication. Indeed, Deer Valley airport was the 25th busiest airport in the country based on aircraft movements in 2010.

Likewise, at an airport that gets very little traffic, the tower staff doesn’t have much to do. And when you consider that there has to be at least two controllers on duty at all times — so one can relieve the other — that’s at least two people getting paid without a lot of work to do.

Although I don’t know every towered airport on the list, the ones I do know don’t get very much traffic at all.

For example, they’re closing four in Arizona:

  • Laughlin/Bullhead City International (IFP) gets very little traffic. It sits across the river from Laughlin, NV in one of the windiest locations I’ve ever flown into. Every time I fly into Laughlin, there’s only one or two pilots in the area — including me.
  • Glendale Municipal (GEU) should get a lot of traffic, but it doesn’t.
  • Phoenix Goodyear (GYR) is home of the Lufthansa training organization and a bunch of mothballed airliners, but it doesn’t get much traffic. Lufthansa pilots in training use other area airports, including Wickenburg, Buckeye, Gila Bend, Lake Havasu City, and Needles — ironically, none of those have a tower.
  • Ryan Field (in Tucson; RYN) is the only one of the three I haven’t flown into, so I can’t comment its traffic. But given the other airports on this list, I have to assume the traffic volume is low.

They’re also closing Southern California Logistics (VCV) in Victorville, CA. I’ve flown over that airport many times and have landed there once. Not much going on. It’s a last stop for many decommissioned airliners; there’s a 747 “chop shop” on the field.

They’re closing Northeast Florida Regional (SGJ) in St. Augustine, FL. That’s the little airport closest to where my mom lives. When she first moved there about 15 years ago, it didn’t even have a tower.

These are just the airports I know. Not very busy. I know plenty of non-towered airports that get more traffic than these.

How Airports without Towers Work

If an airport doesn’t have a tower — and at least 80% of the public airports in the United States don’t have towers — things work a little differently. Without a controller to direct them, pilots are responsible for using the airport in accordance with standard traffic patterns and right-of-way rules they are taught in training.

Some airports have Automated Weather Observation Systems (AWOS) or Automated Surface Observation Systems (ASOS) that broadcast current weather information on a certain frequency. Pilots can tune in to see what the wind, altimeter setting, and NOTAMs are for the airport.

When a pilot gets close to a non-towered airport, she should (but is not required to) make a position report that includes her location and intentions. For example, I might say:

Wickenburg Traffic, helicopter Six-Three-Zero-Mike-Lima is ten miles north, landing Wickenburg.

An airplane pilot might say:

Wickenburg Traffic, Cessna One-Two-Three-Alpha-Bravo is eight miles southeast. We’ll be crossing midfield at five thousand to enter right traffic for Runway Two-Three.

Other pilots in the area would hear that call and respond by making a similar position call. The calls continue as needed at the pilot’s discretion — the more aircraft in the area, the more calls I make just to make sure everyone else knows I’m out there and where I am. Pilots then see and avoid other traffic to land or depart the airport.

It sounds crazy, but it works — remarkably well. In Wickenburg, for example — an airport that gets a lot of pilots in training practicing takeoffs and landings — there might be two or three or even more airplanes in the traffic pattern around the airport, safely landing and departing in an organized manner. No controller.

And this is going on at small general aviation airports all over the country every single day.

What’s even more surprising to many people is that some regional airlines also land at non-towered airports. For example, Horizon operates flights between Seattle and Wenatchee, WA; Wenatchee is non-towered. Great Lakes operates between Phoenix or Denver and Page, AZ; Page is non-towered.

The Reality

My point is this: people unfamiliar with aviation think that a control tower is vital to safe airport operations. In reality, it’s not. Many, many aircraft operate safely at non-towered airports every day.

While the guidance of a tower controller can increase safety by providing instructions that manage air traffic flow, that guidance isn’t needed at all airports. It’s the busy airports — the ones with hundreds of operations every single day — that can truly benefit from air traffic control.

The 149 airport towers on the chopping block this year were apparently judged to be not busy enough.

I guess time will tell. And I’m certain of one thing: if there is any accident at one of these 149 airports after the tower is shut down, we’ll hear about it all over the news.

In the meantime, I’d love to get some feedback from pilots about this. Share your thoughts in the comments from this post.

The Serious Business of Flying

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When you’re operating in three dimensions, carelessness can be deadly.

There was a helicopter crash on Tuesday afternoon not far from my summer base. It was another cherry drying pilot, flying another helicopter a lot like mine. He had someone on board with him — I don’t know why — and when the helicopter’s main rotor blades hit a power line and the helicopter crashed in the orchard, this companion was killed. The pilot himself had serious injuries and was rushed to the hospital in Seattle for surgery. I don’t know what his status is.

This was the fourth cherry drying accident in this area in less than 12 months. The other three were in July of last year:

  • July 12, 2011, Wenatchee, WA – Hughes 269C with two people on board “experienced a loss of power” and crashed into an orchard. The two occupants suffered minor injuries; the helicopter was substantially damaged.
  • July 25, 2011, Brewster, WA – Sikorsky S-55B with two people on board descended into an orchard when, per the NTSB’s determination of probable cause, the private pilot flying for hire failed to maintain rotor RPM. Neither occupant was injured, but the helicopter was substantially damaged.
  • July 25, 2011, Chelan, WA – Sikorsky S-55B collided with power lines, impacted terrain, and caught fire, killing the pilot, who was the sole occupant on board.

Questions and Disturbing Trends

I can’t make judgements on any of these accidents. In all cases except one, the NTSB has not released a final determination of probable cause. Only limited information is available. But if I could have any questions answered honestly, these are the ones I’d ask:

  • Why were there two people on board for three of these flights? What was the role of the second person? Were the dual controls in? Who was manipulating the controls throughout the flight? Were flight duties shared? (This article, which covers the two July 25, 2011 crashes, sheds some light on the matter.)
  • In the Hughes 269C, what was the gross weight of the aircraft at the time of the accident? What are the operating limitations at the accident weight, temperature, and altitude? What was the exact flight profile in the minutes leading up to the accident? Did the aircraft really suffer a “loss of power” or did the pilot demand more performance than what was available by performing an aggressive maneuver — such as a quick stop with a tailwind — in a heavy aircraft?
  • How many hours of pilot in command time did the pilots have? How much time in that aircraft type? How much of their time in that aircraft type was within the previous 3 months?
  • Were these pilots wearing protective gear? Helmets? Nomex Flight suits? Would wearing such protective gear have minimized injuries or prevented fatalities?

I’ve noticed a disturbing trend among cherry drying operators to employ low-time, limited experience pilots to do this kind of work. These pilots are cheap — they’ll work for next to nothing just to get experience. Indeed, I’ve had more than one pilot offer to fly for me without pay — I can only assume that other operators are getting the same offers.

I’ve heard about several operators conducting training during actual cherry drying flights. The orchard owner or manager will pay to have his cherry orchard dried while a student pilot pays to fly with a flight instructor to get the job done. So not only is some or all of a flight being conducted by a low-time pilot, there’s a possibility that the person actually doing the flying might not be a certificated pilot at all.

I’ve noticed that a remarkable percentage of pilots doing this kind of work don’t wear any protective gear. On the morning of the Wenatchee crash, I met the pilot of the Hughes 269C at the airport. He wasn’t wearing a flight suit — I don’t know if he put one on before flying. The photos in the newspaper for this week’s crash clearly showed the pilot being taken away on a stretcher wearing shorts and a t-shirt. And one of the pilots I worked with last year was wearing shorts and sandals for at least one flight.

What are these people thinking?

It’s Mostly about Time

I debate regularly with my friend Jim about flight time as a measure of experience. While we both agree that not all 500-hour pilots have the same skill level, Jim is usually less convinced than I am that a cherry drying pilot needs to have at least 500-1000 hours of flight time to be safe.

Part of the reason for that is that Jim was a low-time pilot many years ago when he began doing this kind of work. He projects his own experience onto others. He figures that if he could do it safely as a relatively inexperienced pilot, others could too.

I agree — to a certain extent. But what Jim wasn’t considering was the type of experience most low-time helicopter pilots have. Most pilots build their time as flight instructors. That means they’re spending a lot of that “pilot in command” time sitting beside someone else who is manipulating the controls. They’re not actually flying the helicopter.

Jim and I, on the other hand, are helicopter owners who built our time flying — instead of teaching others to fly and keeping them company while they got proficient. We had our hands on the controls for every single hour logged while we owned each of our helicopters. How can someone compare that kind of experience to a flight instructor sitting beside other pilots day after day for hundreds of hours of logged time? Jim shouldn’t assume a 500-hour CFI has the same level of hands-on experience as someone in our shoes. There’s no way he could have that experience.

R22
My first helicopter was an R22. I put over 1,000 hours of time on that ship in about four and a half years.

And then there’s the helicopter type to consider. The helicopter that crashed the other day was a Robinson R44. Few people learn to fly in an R44 because it’s so damn expensive compared to its little brother, the R22. Most people learn in an R22 and step up to an R44. Flight schools don’t offer their instructors much opportunity to fly R44s because there aren’t many people training in them. As a result, most low-time pilots who fly R44s have far fewer hours in an R44 than an R22 — or some other helicopter they learned to fly in.

Sikorsky S-55CHere’s an example of a Sikorsky S-55C. Photo from Wikipedia.

The two Sikorsky crashes are another example. No one learns to fly in a Sikorsky S-55. It’s far too expensive to fly for flight training. How many hours of flight time could a young, low-time pilot possibly have in a ship like this?

You might argue that stick time is stick time. What’s the real difference, for example, between an R22 and an R44?

Well, one difference is the length of the rotor blades. An R22’s blades are 12-1/2 feet long. An R44’s blades are 16-1/2 feet long. That means you can — for example — get about 4 feet closer to power lines in an R22 than in an R44. (Just saying.)

Other differences include hydraulics, smoothness of controls, sensitivity of controls, operational power. Last year, I spent an hour in an R22 that was painfully difficult — at least at first. Even though I have over 1,000 hours in R22s, I certainly would not step into one to dry cherries — not without at least 10 to 20 hours of practice time right before the contract.

In talking to Jim about all this the other day, I tried to express how I feel when I’m flying my helicopter. I get in, buckle up, and fly. The helicopter becomes part of me — I’m in tune with it and know exactly how it will react in most situations. I should, shouldn’t I? After all, I’ve put more than 1,450 hours on it in the past 7-1/2 years.

When I’m drying cherries, I’m “in the zone.” I fly up and down the rows with both hands and feet on the controls, making minute adjustments that raise and lower the helicopter or adjust the yaw, sometimes by inches. I know where the tail rotor is; I know when I have to fly sideways to maintain low-level flight over the treetops as I fly downhill. It doesn’t require much thought — it just happens. My brain instructs my hands and feet without even thinking about what needs to be done to move the way I need to move.

Can a pilot with less than a few hundred hours in a certain type of aircraft be so in tune with it? Can a pilot who splits his limited flight time among different aircraft types ever really know any one of them?

I don’t think so.

Flying is Serious Business

But it all comes down to taking the job seriously. And based on what I’ve seen and heard in the five years I’ve been doing this kind of work, I’m starting to doubt whether the pilots — or the operators, for that matter — are taking the work as seriously as they probably should.

Height-Velocity Diagram for R44 HelicopterCherry drying is very unforgiving work. In most cases, you’re hovering less than 40 feet off the ground over treetops at less than 10 miles per hour. That’s right, smack dab in the deadman’s curve.

If you have an engine problem or you hit an obstruction and lose control, there’s only one place you’re going to go: down into the trees. Helicopter parts (and branches and leaves and cherries) are going to be flying everywhere — maybe even into the cockpit. A helmet could protect your head; a face shield on a helmet could protect your eyes. If the fuel tank ruptures, there could be a fire. A Nomex flight suit can protect your body from burns.

I’ve never seen a utility pilot anywhere doing a flight without a helmet and flight suit. Ditto for EMS and police pilots. And military, of course. Do you think they wear this stuff because they want to look cool? No. They wear it because they want to be safe. They want the protection these garments offer.

Yet why do so many cherry drying pilots continue to work without this gear? And why do the operators that hire them allow them to do so?

And what of the operators? Why are they allowing flights with two people on board? The “spotter” argument doesn’t have any traction with me. The pilot should be his own spotter. Hell, he’s only flying at 5 to 10 miles per hour. It isn’t as if wires and wind machines are going to come up on him suddenly. And wouldn’t you want full visibility in the cockpit? Hard to get that if there’s another guy in the seat next to yours and you have to look around him.

And why are the operators hiring insufficiently experienced pilots? I heard a story the other day about an operator that sent a JetRanger to a contract, then sent a pilot who had never flown a JetRanger along with a non-pilot who knew how to start one. They were supposed to work as a team to get the thing started and fly the contract. Pardon me, but what the fuck? Obviously, this is an extreme example, but it illustrates an important point: that operators are more interested in putting cheap, warm bodies and helicopters on site for contracts than providing experienced pilots who can get the job done efficiently and safely.

They’re not taking it seriously.

And people are getting hurt and killed.

It’s only a matter of time before the FAA takes notice — if they haven’t already. Then the regulation process will begin. Special equipment, special certification. Added expense for everyone involved. Costs will rise enough to push the small players — like me and Jim — out of the market. Prices will rise enough to make growers wonder if the service is really worth the cost. Everything will change.

I just hope I’ve moved on to the next thing before that happens. I like the work, I like my clients, I like the good feeling I get when I literally save their crop. It’s serious business for me and the people who hire me.

And I take it seriously.

Dealing with In-Flight Passenger Requests

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Remember the primary job of every pilot-in-command: fly the aircraft.

Phoenix MapYesterday, I had a rather unusual charter for Flying M Air. I needed to take two men on an aerial survey of commercial properties throughout the Phoenix area.

A Full Workload

For two hours, we flew low (about 300 feet AGL) and slow (about 50 knots) over building rooftops. While this may have been too low to need to worry much about traffic, I did have to keep an eye out for obstacles, such as towers. And because some of these properties were within Class D and Class B airspace, I had a lot of radio work to do.

As you might imagine, I had a pretty serious workload.

Yet ten minutes into the flight, it appeared that my under-prepared clients expected me to know the street addresses of individual buildings that we flew over.

For those readers who are not pilots, I may need to point out that finding the street address of a building you’re flying over is not easy. The address is not painted on the roof. The street out front isn’t labeled on the pavement.

Yesterday, we covered an area 26 x 33 miles in size. That’s over 800 square miles. It would not be possible to know the names of every single street — and recognize them from the air! — in an area that size.

Foreflight Street MapYet, believe it or not, I tried to accommodate them. I had my iPad with me and Foreflight software running. I had the Street Map displayed and was zoomed in far enough to read street names. When they asked, I attempted to read off the street name beneath us. I left it for them to try to get a number of the building. I did this for about 10 minutes.

And then I realized that what they wanted me to do was far beyond my duties as a pilot.

A Pilot’s Duty

Aviate, navigate, communicate. Those are my responsibilities, in the order of importance.

Aviate = Fly the aircraft. That means not only keep it in the air safely, but avoid hazards like other traffic and obstacles.

Phoenix Terminal ChartNavigate = Go where you need to go. That means knowing where you are, where you need to go, and how to get there. It means following the instructions of air traffic control. In my situation, it also meant keeping track of the airspaces I needed to fly in: Deer Valley Class D, Scottsdale Class D, Phoenix Class B, Chandler Class D, Phoenix Class B (again), and Deer Valley Class D (again). Certain rules apply in these airspaces and I needed to abide by these rules so I needed to know when I was nearing or in these spaces.

Communicate = Talk to air traffic control or other aircraft. Communication is required in controlled airspaces. Not only did I have to talk to towers to legally enter their airspace, but I needed to tell them what I wanted to do while I was in there. I had to acknowledge and respond to their instructions and traffic advisories.

If any one or two of these duties had been light — for example, if we were cruising point to point at 100 knots 500 feet AGL instead of flying low and slow in an area with potential obstructions or if we were flying in the middle of nowhere where navigation and communication weren’t a factor — I may have been able to provide them with more of the information they wanted. But with the heavy workload I had to deal with, adding another complex task — one that clearly required me to remove a hand from the controls and eyes from outside the cockpit — was far more than I could handle safely.

Indeed, if I had continued to try to provide this additional information for them, I would have put our flight in danger.

I was smart enough to realize this and I simply stopped providing address information. Instead, I mentioned street names that I knew as we flew over them. I let them deal with figuring out where we were.

Pressure on the Pilot

You might wonder why I even tried to meet this client request. After all, it seems like a no brainer. I was pretty busy doing what had to be done. Why add more to my workload?

The answer is easy: pressure to please the client.

All pilots feel this pressure. The client is paying for a service. We feel a need to please that client by providing every bit of service he requests.

But this is wrong. So often, client requests are unreasonable or unsafe. The pilot-in-command is responsible for the safe operation of the flight. The pilot in command has the authority to say no to any request he or she thinks would jeopardize the safety of the flight — or, for that matter, get him or her in hot water with the FAA.

As the owner/operator of a charter business, I may feel more pressure than a pilot who has no real stake in the profitability of the business or the ability to get repeat customers. In other words, I may feel more pressure to make clients happy. But should I? Of course not! I need to be a pilot when I’m in the air. I can be a business owner when I’m on the ground.

Client Shortcomings

In all honesty, I was a bit peeved with the clients. These guys were almost completely unprepared. The only legible map they had of the survey areas was an image on an iPhone with limited scalability. They didn’t have a GPS. They didn’t even have a camera. Either tool would have helped them get the location information they needed on their own. I’ve taken plenty of survey clients out on flights in the past and they’ve always been very prepared to track their location and take notes along the way.

How could I have made the situation better? I could have told them point-blank that I would not be able to provide exact street addresses during the flight. I could have recommended that they get a street map that they could mark up while we flew. I could even have refused to depart unless they had the tools they needed to get locations on their own. But I didn’t do any of these things. I was on the ground, wearing my business owner hat after prepping the aircraft for a 2-hour charter that had already been paid for in full. I wanted to complete the flight.

To the clients’ credit, after I stopped providing street names, they didn’t press me for them. I think they realized that my hands were already full. They took some notes and spent a lot of time just looking. At the conclusion of the 2-hour flight, they seemed happy enough with the results.

But I know they could have gotten a lot more valuable information — and made the cost of the flight more worthwhile — if they’d been better prepared.

Two Points

There is a moral to this story. Two of them, in fact.

  • A pilot needs to prioritize his workload in flight. The first three items must be aviate, navigate, and communicate. If doing all that doesn’t take up all of the pilot’s attention, additional tasks to meet passenger requests may be added.
  • A client needs to be fully prepared for an aerial survey mission. That means coming with maps, GPSes, cameras, or any other equipment that will help him get his part of the mission done. In addition, he needs to communicate, in advance, with the pilot to learn about the limitations of the flight.

Sometimes, when I read accident reports, I wonder whether the accident was caused by a pilot doing something other than his primary duty of flying the aircraft. While it’s great to be able to meet all the needs of a paying passenger, conducting a safe flight and getting back to base in one piece is far more important.

I’d love to hear other stories about handling client requests beyond the call of duty. Use the comments link or form for this post.

Why Are We Still Powering Down All Electronic Devices on Airliners?

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8

There’s no real reason for it.

A Twitter/Google+ friend of mine, Chris, linked to an article on the New York Times website today, “Fliers Still Must Turn Off Devices, but It’s Not Clear Why.” His comment on Google+ pretty much echoed my sentiments:

I do all my book reading on an iPad, and it’s annoying that I can’t read during the beginning and end of a flight, likely for no legitimate reason.

This blog post takes a logical look at the practice and the regulations behind it.

What the FAA Says

In most instances, when an airline flight crew tells you to turn off portable electronic devices — usually on takeoff and landing — they make a reference to FAA regulations. But exactly what are the regulations?

Fortunately, we can read them for ourselves. Indeed, the Times article links to the actual Federal Aviation Regulations (FAR) governing portable electronic devices on aircraft, 121.306. Here it is in its entirety:

121.306 Portable electronic devices.

(a) Except as provided in paragraph (b) of this section, no person may operate, nor may any operator or pilot in command of an aircraft allow the operation of, any portable electronic device on any U.S.-registered civil aircraft operating under this part.

(b) Paragraph (a) of this section does not apply to—

(1) Portable voice recorders;

(2) Hearing aids;

(3) Heart pacemakers;

(4) Electric shavers; or

(5) Any other portable electronic device that the part 119 certificate holder has determined will not cause interference with the navigation or communication system of the aircraft on which it is to be used.

(c) The determination required by paragraph (b)(5) of this section shall be made by that part 119 certificate holder operating the particular device to be used.

So what this is saying is that you can’t operate any portable electronic device that the aircraft operator — the airline, in this case — says you can’t. (Read carefully; a is the rule and b is the loophole.) You can, however, always operate portable voice recorders, hearing aids, heart pacemakers (good thing!), and electric shavers (?).

So is the FAA saying you can’t operate an iPad (or any other electronic device) on a flight? No. It’s the airline that says you can’t.

Interference with Navigation or Communication Systems

In reading this carefully, you might assume that the airline has determined that devices such as an iPad may cause interference with navigation or communication systems. After all, that’s the only reason the FAA offers them the authority to require these devices to be powered down.

But as the Times piece points out, a 2006 study by the Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics found no evidence that these devices can or can’t interfere. Sounds to me like someone was avoiding responsibility for making a decision.

In the meantime, many portable electronic devices, including iPads, Kindles, and smart phones have “airplane mode” settings that prevent them from sending or receiving radio signals. If this is truly the case, it should be impossible for these devices to interfere with navigation or communication systems when in airplane mode. And if all you want to do with your device is read a downloaded book or play with an app that doesn’t require Internet access, there should be no reason why you couldn’t do so.

And can someone really make the argument that an electronic device in airplane mode emits more radio interference than a pacemaker or electric shaver?

And what about the airlines that now offer wi-fi connectivity during the flight? You can’t have your device in airplane mode to take advantage of that service. Surely that says something about the possibility of radio interference: there is none. Evidently, if you’re paying the airline to use their wi-fi, it’s okay.

What’s So Special about Takeoff and Landing?

Of course, since you are allowed to use these devices during the cruise portion of the flight, that begs the question: What’s so special about takeoff and landing?

As a pilot, I can assure you that the pilot’s workload is heavier during the takeoff and landing portions of the flight. There’s more precise flying involved as well as more communication with air traffic control (ATC) and a greater need to watch out for and avoid other aircraft.

But in an airliner, the pilots are locked in the cockpit up front, with very little possibility of distractions from the plane full of seat-belted passengers behind them — even if some of them are busy reading the latest suspense thriller or playing an intense game of Angry Birds.

Are the aircraft’s electronics working harder? I don’t think so.

Are they more susceptible to interference? I can’t see how they could be.

So unless I’m wrong on any of these points, I can’t see why the airlines claim that, for safety reasons, these devices need to be powered off during takeoff and landing.

It’s a Control Issue

I have my own theory on why airlines force you to power down your devices during takeoff and landing: They don’t want their flight attendants competing with electronic devices for your attention.

By telling you to stow all this stuff, there’s less of a chance of you missing an important announcement or instruction. Theoretically, if the aircraft encountered a problem and they needed to instruct passengers on what they should do, they might find it easier to get and keep your attention if you weren’t reading an ebook or listening to your iPod or playing Angry Birds. Theoretically. But there are two arguments against this, too:

  • You can get just as absorbed in a printed book (or maybe even that damn SkyMall catalog) as you could in an ebook.
  • If something were amiss, the actual flight/landing conditions and/or other screaming/praying/seatback-jumping passengers would likely get your attention.

But let’s face it: airlines want to boss you around. They want to make sure you follow their rules. So they play the “safety” card. They tell you their policies are for your safety. And they they throw around phrases like “FAA Regulations” to make it all seem like they’re just following someone else’s rules. But as we’ve seen, they have the authority to make the rule, so it all comes back to them.

And that’s the way they like it.

How Cell Phones Fit Into This Discussion

Cell phone use is a completely different issue. In the U.S., it isn’t the FAA that prohibits cell phone use on airborne aircraft — it’s the FCC. You can find the complete rule on that in FCC regulation 22.925, which states (in part):

22.925   Prohibition on airborne operation of cellular telephones.

Cellular telephones installed in or carried aboard airplanes, balloons or any other type of aircraft must not be operated while such aircraft are airborne (not touching the ground). When any aircraft leaves the ground, all cellular telephones on board that aircraft must be turned off.

There are reasons for this, but an analysis of whether or not they’re valid is beyond the scope of this discussion.

I just want to be able to read books on my iPad from the moment I settle into my airliner seat to the moment I leave it.