Avionics

First we got an e-mail from a reader concerned that Garmin was removing airports with runways under 4000 feet from their worldwide database. Next, a reader related a situation where hed been cleared direct to a fix that wasnt in his Garmin GNS 430, but it showed up when he loaded an RNAV arrival. These produced some internal discussions and one of our staff related a story from a friend of his whod busted a stepdown fix altitude because the stepdown fix wasnt depicted on the approach in his Bendix-King KLN-94.

The Airbus Perlan Mission II team, which aims to fly a pressurized glider to a record altitude of 90,000 feet, has been continuing its flight-test program in Minden, Nevada, and plans to relocate to Argentina this summer. General aviation aircraft shipments declined 3.7 percent in the first quarter of this year, compared to the same period last year, according to the General Aviation Manufacturers Association. The U.S. Helicopter Safety Team, an industry-government partnership that launched in 2013, has set a goal of a 20-percent reduction of fatal civil helicopter accidents by 2019. The general-aviation industry has been lobbying for years for an overhaul of Part 23, to make it easier and faster to certify new airplanes and technology upgrades. Aero Electric Aircraft Corp. rolled out its solar-electric Sun Flyer airplane, a two-seat low-wing trainer, at Colorados Centennial Airport, in May.

Reading your explanation of the TERPZ FIVE DEPARTURE at BWI, which was in response to a question regarding altitude restrictions and expectations, I am not convinced that the procedure as published is clear.

After nearly 10 years of lobbying by general aviation advocacy groups, the FAA in March released a draft proposal aiming to overhaul light aircraft certification. Aviation authorities in Europe released their final report in March on last years fatal Germanwings flight, concluding that airline officials couldnt have done anything to prevent the crash, since nobody told anyone at the airline that first officer Andreas Lubitz was suffering from mental-health problems. Women in Aviation International held their annual conference in March, in Nash-ville, Tennessee, with more than 5000 people attending. Responding to a shortage of pilot applicants for entry-level airline jobs, JetBlue has launched an ab-initio flight training program, the first of its kind in the U.S.

Reader feedback and questions from past issues of IFR. We read em all and try to answer most e-mail, but it can take a month or more. Please be sure to include your full name and location. Contact us at [email protected].

Visions of the future are the domain of science fiction-imagine a world where some fantastic thing is possible. The FAA presents its own vision in the Performance Based Navigation Roadmap, which is produced about every five years. The third edition is expected around the time you get this. In it the current status of performance-based navigation, PBN, a generalized term for RNAV and RNP (required navigation performance), is analyzed and goals are set for the near, intermediate and long term-each roughly five years apart.

They almost made it. The aircraft was on a very short final when the nose started down. The flight crew pushed the thrust levers for both wing engines up to stop the sink but the left engine spooled up faster than the right engine and the aircraft started a turn to the right, from which there was no time to recover.

Entrepreneur Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, said in February he was close to starting work on a vertical-takeoff-and-landing electric jet as a practical alternative to conventional aircraft. In January, the U.S. Sport Aviation Expo hosted its 12th annual event in Sebring, Florida, and ran into some weather problems. Mooney unveiled the M20V Acclaim Ultra, a significant redesign of the companys best-selling Acclaim, at its Texas headquarters in February. General aviation sales declined 4.6 percent worldwide in 2015 compared to the year before, the General Aviation Manufacturers Association reported in February. The Singapore Airshow, held in February, featured the debut of the 400S Seaplane, by Viking, a Canadian company that has been building Twin Otters for several years.

As a pilot you most certainly know that just about everything in aviation has a checklist. We controllers have our own checklists for a multitude of hazardous situations, unauthorized laser illumination included. I pulled up the appropriate checklist while the helo maneuvered.

The FAA often lags high-tech innovations. When the Advanced Avionics Handbook first came out, many of us were already flying glass. Yet, Technically Advanced Aircraft (TAA)-essentially, aircraft with a navigator and moving map-raise critical questions, from how we update and maintain the stuff to how we train and use it.

Cirrus Aircraft officials had been hoping to deliver the first SF50 Vision jet by the end of last year, but the company said in January that schedule has stretched to sometime in the first half of this year. Mooney International Corp.s M10T proof-of-concept model completed its first flight, in December, from Chino Airport in California. The M10T, unveiled in 2014 at the Zhuhai Airshow in China, is aimed at Chinas flight training market, and will be manufactured there. The FAA launched its drone registry in late December, and within the first three weeks, about 180,000 drone users had registered. In the NTSBs annual list of most-wanted safety improvements for aviation, loss-of-control accidents repeated from last years choice for general aviation. Anticipating that Congress will consider changing how the FAA is funded in this years spring session, 15 general-aviation advocacy groups signed a letter in December asking the U.S. House to hear their real and long-standing concerns about the expected proposals.

Basic altimetry is well covered in various texts, but some aspects can be confusing. Theres not enough material for a full article, but here are a few basics. To my knowledge, the only reason that a speed restriction would be used on an ODP is to reduce the turn radius. Since this procedure has a defined route, thats probably whats happening here. Regardless of their ability to actually see the airport, they were flying under IFR in weather below VMC.