Bail out seminar

Late last year I was randomly contacted by Allen Silver of Silver parachutes where he told me he was coming to Australia and offered to conduct a bail-out seminar for the Australian aerobatic community. I had never met Allen before, it turns out he happened to get my name via the editor of the IAC’s Sports Aerobatics magazine. After talking with him on the phone we arranged for him to conduct a seminar in Sydney and one in Brisbane.

Allen joined at US Air Force during the Vietnam war and ended up as a para-rescue and emergency equipment specialist. His passion for parachutes, survival and flying all came together later in life when he opened a business specialising in emergency parachutes for pilots. As of 2011 he is the largest Softie parachute dealer in the world and conducts seminars all over including Oshkosh and Sun n Fun in the USA. He makes parachutes to order and sells his own design survival packs that attach to a parachute harness.

The Sydney seminar was hosted by Red Baron Aviation at Bankstown and was held in their hi-tech briefing room equipped with video projector and all the bells and whistles. Allen said he had audiences up to 500 people in the USA but he did enjoy the intimacy of 12 or so Aussies in the lecture room. He told me that he once had a seminar with 4 people and 2 of them made bail outs within a few months after the seminar, not a bad strike rate.

Allen started the seminar talking about qualifications to look for in a rigger and to ensure that they are licensed to re-pack your chute. It appears that there are no time limits on re-packing pilot emergency chutes in Australia but in the USA it’s 180 days and after listening to Allen it seems it would be crazy not follow suite. He also mentioned that not all sport skydiving clubs are the best place to go because they don’t pack them with a view to sitting or leaning on them for long periods and they can end up lumpy and out of shape.

Next was an interesting discussion on the importance of storage and pre-flighting the chute each day. Then he discussed considerations, egress, flying the chute, landing and getting out of it and a few different scenarios such as tree and water landings. (Seminar and other Allen Silver Survival notes are available on his website silverparachutes.com).

He gave a practical demonstration on how to don and remove the parachute and some of the important points like getting into the habit of removing the chest strap first, putting on the parachute before getting into the aircraft and how tight the harness should be, you can read all about these things in his website articles.

[Now is a good time to ask you to PLEASE read the information that Allen distributes via his website (silverparachutes.com), his notes and articles are excellent and should be compulsory reading for all.]

Something that was discussed at great length was his “SMAK pak”. It is a small nylon pouch about the size of an iPhone that contains a small hook knife, signal mirror, fire starter and whistle. The hook knife is to cut yourself out of your tangled harness and the others are signalling devices. The hook knife will cut the harness or your seatbelt like a hot knife through butter and is on the outside of the pack so is easy to get to. Allen sells them via his website but if you would like one let me know and I’ll get a stack of them and save you on the postage. He has a larger “Delux” version that has room for a PLB and a “Super Delux” version which also has a space blanket, a strobe light for night rescues, and a "pocket survival pak" which includes a signal mirror, whistle, fire starters, compass, fishing kit, scalpel blade, duct tape, aluminum foil, wire, safety pins, pencil and notepad.

They are cheap at $47.50 for the SMAK pack, $75 for the Deluxe and $115 for the Super Deluxe.

What I took from the seminar was the most important part of these packs is the knife. If you bail out in the aerobatic box chances are you won’t need the signaling devices but as you’re being dragged across the runway in Parkes towards the barb-wire fence, you’ll wish you had that knife.

A few other interesting points in no particular order;

• The IAC was widely critisized for making parachutes compulsory in competition until someone bailed out in the aerobatic box during a competition.
• 10 of the 11 people who have bailed out under one of Allen chutes didn’t have any parachute training and none were significantly hurt.
• Practice an emergency egress each day you fly and it will reduce your egress time in an emergency by 50%
• Allen charges $80 for an inspection and re-pack of your chute, I’m guessing it is about the same here. No excuse not to have it done, if not every 6 months then as part of your annual.
• The majority of bail-outs were as a result of control cables failing.

At the end of the seminar Allen took questions and showed us a few short videos of his wing walking days (that could be a whole other article).

If you get the impression I’m an advocate for parachutes you would be right. I didn’t give it too much thought before I met Allen and attended his seminar but now I am a convert, sort of like a reformed smoker, worse than someone who never smoked in the first place.

I think I converted when Allen told me of two of his friends who went for a local flight in an RV and because they were staying local and not doing aeros, didn’t bother with chutes. Not long into the flight the carburettor failed and caused a fire, without chutes they were committed to land which gave the fire enough time to severely injure one of the occupants and kill the other. If that isn’t convincing enough talk to airshow pilot Sean D. Tucker, he’s bailed out 3 times, 2 more and he’s an ace! Allen recons Sean’s getting really good at shooting himself down.

If you buy a chute through Allen he gives a pretty good discount to aerobatic club members and I found his price better than direct from the Softie manufacturer. Allen also does a few nice things like put a florescent tag on the rip-cord for easy identification and throws in a carry bag. He can add sheep skin liners and other niceties to the rig for minimal additional cost and you can choose whatever colour pack and trim you want and have it monogrammed with your initials, registration or postcode if you’re a Bra Boy.

I gave Allen a lift back to his hotel after the seminar and on the way gave him my credit card details and ordered a Softie Seat Pack to sit on in my Pitts. Hopefully it will see out its days as a fancy cushion.

The author has no affiliation with Silver Prachutes or Allen Silver other than thinking he is a top bloke. The author is not sponsored by Silver Parachutes and does receive financial or other reward from Silver Parachutes other than the round of beers Allen bought him at the Commodore Hotel.

Mention Anthony Crichton-Browne’s name and Silver Parachutes will add 10% to the price of any parachute or accessory.

The Highs and Lows of buying an aeroplane

Early this year I decided that I just had to own my own aircraft. Most owners will testify this is never the sensible decision when it comes to recreationally flying aeroplanes, what that old saying about renting rather than buying?

Clichés aside the truth is that no one really expects their private aircraft to be anything other than an utter indulgence, but what an indulgence.

I’m not sure if my journey to aircraft ownership is a typical one but it started almost 2 years ago. After being bitten by the aerobatic bug I wanted an aeroplane I could call my own, one that I could set up just the way I like it and not have to worry about pleasing anyone else when it came to the way I operated it.

I had been looking around for a while and thought that I needed a monoplane to future proof my misguided aspirations but the more I examined my goals the more I came back to reality. I looked closely at buying a share in a Giles and a Laser but as much as the potential partners were great people I would have always felt I was using someone else’s machine. To go it alone I would have to re-examine my budget.

A Pitts S-1S seemed to be the obvious choice. Relatively cheap to buy, powered by an IO-360 and not the fuel greedy IO-540, very capable, heaps of performance and there are lots around so intellectual and mechanical support would be more accessible than many other aerobatic machines in Australia. I flew at the 2009 Nationals in the Action Aerobatics Pitts S-2A and then again at the NSW comp in the same machine. At first the Pitts and I didn’t get on but the more time we spent together the more we learned to live with each other’s nuances.

The place to start when looking for aerobatic aeroplanes is barnstormers.com. It’s a US based website that is the place for buying and selling aerobatic aeroplanes. I also sent out a message on the “aerobatic exploder” email list that’s read by just about every competition aerobatic person in the US and most in the rest of the world.

My first lead was on a Pitts S-1T in the west coast of the USA. I emailed and spoke to the owner, it was a deceased estate and was being sold by a family member. After talking with the aircraft’s mechanic, previous owner and looking at pictures I made an offer that was not too far off the asking price. The owner never bothered to respond. I called and my calls went unanswered. Oh well, it must have been sold to someone else.

Shortly after that I received a response from the message I sent on the exploder, there was a great S-1S in Florida that was for sale. Built up IO-360, lots of power, recently recovered, beautify maintained with all the bells and whistles. As it turned out Paul Bennet had a friend who is a well respected A&P IA mechanic by the name of Chris Rudd who used to own a Pitts and lives close to where this particular S1 was. He flew over, looked at it up close and gave me the tick of approval. That was good enough for me. I contact the owner and made an offer. It wasn’t enough so I upped the offer, and kept upping it until I ended up agreeing to pay his notional asking price. Then he went underground, he failed to return my e-mails or phone calls. Chris tried to contact him as well and tell him the offer is genuine and the money would be there as soon as he accepted, but to no avail.

This was all very disappointing to my wife and me as she was suffering through each excruciating detail in sympathy. Having fallen in love with an aeroplane it became very frustrating missing out so I put buying on the back burner for a while.

I found a few others I was interested in but was slowly learning that people on the other side of the world were not taking me seriously and to close a deal I was going to have to travel to the USA and look at one up close.

The first S-1T I was looking at came back on the market, and at a significantly reduced price. That was a sign, I called the owner again and told him I was going to come and look at it. I called in every favour I had and got the time off work, booked a ticket and packed a bag. Paul Bennet was in the USA at the same time so we were going to look at it together and Paul would test fly it. My plan was that as long it was as it was advertised I would pay the asking price. In the morning of my flight to the USA I called the seller to confirm our appointment and he didn’t answer. Oh well, we are still on. I was just about to leave for the airport when I called once more, he informed me that he sold it to someone else yesterday. I was livid. Was it not meant to be? Was the universe trying to tell me something?

Should I give up?

As it turned out, no I shouldn’t. Paul had introduced me to a guy called Hubie Tolson, he owns two Sukios and is on the USA’s Unlimited Aerobatic team. I emailed Hubie and Hubie sent out another message on the exploder asking if anyone wants to sell a Pitts to export to Australia. This got lots of responses, apparently Hubie carries some weight in the American Aerobatic community and potential sellers took him seriously. One responder was a fellow by the name of Scott Campbell. Scott is an aircraft mechanic and mechanical engineer. He built a Pitts S-1S from a kit fuselage and wings. He did all sorts of nice things to it, I won’t list them all here but the highlights are;

Incorporated all the ADs

Modified elevator and torque tubes as per the S-1T specs

Longer span 30% hinged ailerons

Ply leading edges on the wings

Beefed up and boxed I strut attachment points

Installed pumped up angle valve IO-360-A1A

Installed MT constant speed propeller

…and yes, this is one I ended buying. Scott was very good to deal with and I was lucky enough to be able to share a container with an S-2S that is also coming to an aerobatic contest near you.

When it arrives on our shores the first order of business will be to get over the disbelief that I actually own an aeroplane, then I’ll have to figure out how to fly it.

Lesson learned in buying and importing an aircraft from the USA?

Well there are lots. I think the most important one is to talk to as many people as possible who have done it before and the learn from their mistakes and experiences.

I spoke extensively with Paul Bennet and Dave Pilkington, both had recently imported aircraft from the USA. Their advice saved me thousands of dollars.

Dave gave me advice on the regulatory requirements, or more correctly the myths about the requirements. For instance, an export C of A is not required and for experimental aircraft it is not technically possible even though most people believe it is and will pay around $2000.00 US for one.

Paul found me a partner to share a container with and organised the shipping and packing. He’s also going to assist me with all the goings on at this end including test flying and the certification process.

So as it stands right now my machine is on a ship somewhere between Los Angeles and Sydney and with a bit of luck should be up and flying by the middle of November and ready for the 2011 competition season.

More on that later.

Only the good die young

World Champion Renaud Ecalle

Last night I was tossing and turning unable to sleep. I rolled over and grabbed my iPhone to check e-mails and was rather upset with what confronted me. Renaud Ecalle died in a light aircraft accident along with his wife and children.

Renaud wouldn't have had a clue who I was but I, along with everyone in the aerobatic community, knew who he was. He was the World Aerobatic Champion, but that is just half of it, he was also a Fighter Pilot for the French Airforce flying the Mirage F-1... and he died in a light plane crash in bad weather.

Now no one knows what caused the crash, mechanical failure, controlled flight into terrain, fuel starvation or something entirely different. Whatever it was it overcame one of the world finest pilots.

After hearing of his death I reflected on some other high profile, highly skilled pilots who have lost their lives to aviation recently.

Vicki Cruise died at the very competition last year where Renaud won his world championship title. She was performing a snap roll and her rudder pedals became jammed. The roll was unrecoverable and the Edge 540 she was flying snap rolled continuously until it hit the ground in front of spectators and judges. Vicki was also a highly skilled and respected pilot, President of the USA Aerobatic club and unlimited competitor.

Were these pilots putting themselves into uncomfortable situations and pushing through anyway? I don't know and perhaps never will but I am not afraid to admit that I regularly strap into an aeroplane with the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. The reality is that if I refused to fly every time I felt slightly uneasy I would very quickly be unemployed. So what to do?

With experience I have come to learn the art or risk assessment and management. I ask myself, why am I uneasy? Then I ask, what is the worst outcome of the probable risk? When I answer that I try to figure out ways to mitigate the risk and if I can't, I may not go flying under those particular circumstances. Lets be clear that I am talking about probable risk, not possible risk as they are 2 very different beasts. Probable meaning it has a reasonable chance of occurring not any tiny possibility.

Being Mr Average I have gotten it wrong, and sometimes in a big way. As it turns out lady luck has been kind to me and despite doing some pretty stupid things in aeroplanes I have lived to tell the tail. Each experience has sharpened my risk assessment and mitigation skills but there is something else that is almost as valuable. The age old practice of hanger flying and sharing from the collective experience of you and your flying buddies. Learning from other's mistakes and experiences is as important as learning from your own, perhaps even more because you didn't have to risk your own butt.

Something else that is as important in aviation is mentoring. We all need someone to turn to and who's experience we can lean on when we have doubts or questions. A mentor should feel comfortable to speak up when they see you do something questionable without fear of being met with hostility. The concept of mentoring is very widely subscribed to in my airline, even though it is unofficial. My mentors are mates who I respect as excellent pilots and I feel comfortable asking even the most foolish questions.

Sometimes we have mentors by design, take your instructor for example. As much as they are a teacher, they should also be your respected mentor. This is not always the case.

My brother was building hours for his CPL and had not flown much around New South Wales. He looked at the area forecast for a flight one morning and read about severe turbulence over the route he had planned. Being sensible he asked for my opinion and as I had not flown light aircraft around the Sydney area either I was no help, but I suggested he called the Chief Flying Instructor at the school where he was training for his CPL. He called and explained that he was concerned about the turbulence on the forecast and asked for some guidance, the CFI said that he couldn't really comment as it was up to each individual to make their own decision.

Perhaps that CFI was worried about his liability, or perhaps he was just too darn lazy to take the time to talk through the forecast and offer some considered advice to a low time student. Whatever the reason, someone with that attitude is not fit to be a CFI or a mentor. With my support he changed to a different and far superior flying school where the instructors love their job and take pride in developing student pilots. Now my brother is an instructor himself.

How mentoring and risk assessment applies to your flying will be up to you. They are resources that cost nothing and return everything. Sometimes you have to work on your risk assessment skills and that is where a good mentor comes in handy. Your mentor can be anyone who you respect as a safe and considered pilot, usually someone with a fair whack of experience and is willing to pass on their wisdom in a positive way.

The best part is, they don't have to know they are your mentor, none of mine do.

Big and small we love them all

Boeing 767

I'm blessed in my career that I am able fly two of the best aircraft every built. The Pitts Special has a maximum take-off weight around the same as the fuel the 767 burns taxiing to the runway. Both the 767 and Pitts are very challenging and rewarding in thier own right.

Any heavy jet pilot who has flown the 767 will testify it is one of the most unforgiving aeroplanes when mishandled, especially in the flare and landing. No one, and I have asked the Boeing certification pilots, can tell me why the 767 punishes pilots with firm landings when they lest expect it. The most popular theory is that it's due to the main wheel bogey hanging forward and the rate and order the spoilers deploy on landing. Personally I think it's also because the front window is too darn big and there is no coaming to frame the runway against in the flare. Most pilots who have trouble in the 767 either have it in maintaining an aim point in that massive window or judging closure rate and height above the runway in the flare.

The Pitts has the opposite problem, there is too much coaming and most of the runway is blocked in the flare. What you end up with in the landing attitude is a view of the runway directly next to you and about 30 feet in-front. This makes it difficult to judge height and centreline tracking. Most pilots have trouble with runway alignment and judging closure rate and height above the runway in the flare.

Where the 767 comes into its own is the awesome power to weight ratio. Without boring you with numbers, the 767 has to be able to fly away from the ground on 1 engine at max take-off weight at about 400 feet per minute. So image how well it goes on two engines when it is at a normal domestic weight which is around 50,000kg less than maximum. It is not uncommon to reduce the take-off thrust to the minimum allowed and still be holding the nose at 20 degrees up so as to not overspeed the flaps on initial climb.

The Pitts S-2B has 260HP on a 2 seat fabric and tube airframe, most take-offs occur in the blink of an eye and if your not quick you'll be airborne before you get the throttle all the way forward. I flew a sportsman aerobatic routine in an S-2C once and ended up higher than when I started.

I love flying them both because they can be unpredictable, bite you when you least expect it and do not tolerate ham fisted pilots. Sure they will survive your botched landing but you may be red faced as you taxi to the ramp. For all those reasons it feels oh so good when you get it right and they reward a skilled pilot in spades.

The 767 if a joy to fly, goes where it is put and can be yanked and banked with the best of them as long as you fly it and don't let it fly you.

Nothing does aerobatics like a Pitts, sure it is not as capable as an Extra 300 or Edge 540, but how many guys do you see writing articles about their love affair with those supermodel monoplanes.

Both the Boeing 767 and the Pitts Special are built far stronger than the worst conditions the average aircraft will ever see. I've seen 767s that have flown through thunderstorms, been pounded by hail and struck by lightening to safely land with no handling problems. When you strap into a 767 you feel like you're driving a Valiant, it feels like it could fly through a brick wall without scratching the paint. One of the Boeing test pilots relayed me an anecdote to highlight the strength of the wings.

During the certification process, Boeing had to bend the wings on a 767 until they broke to measure their strength and validate all the engineering calculations. They anchored the aircraft to the ground with metal straps through the doors then used hydraulic rams to bend the wings. On one of the initial wing bending tests the straps broke through the door frames before the wings fractured.

To see just how strong the Pitts is you need to look no further than competition aerobatics. Tumbling, snapping and exposing the little bi-planes to all kinds of G force that would send most other fabric tube aircraft running for cover is all in a day's work for a Pitts. They are certified to +6 -3 G's and are often taken over those limits in competitions, unintentionally or otherwise. When you look at the aircraft you would be forgiven for wondering where all the strength comes from, but there is some ingenious design work that has made them the most famous aerobatic aircraft in the world.

The top wing is designed to stall before the bottom wing giving the pilot predictable stall and spin characteristics and as many pilots will testify, it acts as a great roll cage incase the aeroplane ends up on its roof after a botched take-off or landing.

When I first flew the 767 I thought I had finally flown my dream machine. Flying a big jet professionally was what I always dreamed of and if I never flew another aircraft again I wouldn't mind a bit... then I found the Pitts.

The Pitts offeres a freedom of flight that a Boeing 767 could and should never allow. Don't get me wrong, the 767 is a pilot's aeroplane. Nothing irritates an airline pilot more than being told that all they do is push buttons all day, anyone who says that has never been in the pointy end of a 767. But for me, if offered the same career path and remuneration to fly a Pitts I would be hard pressed to know what to choose.

As no one is making me that offer anytime soon I'm left with no other choice than to buy a Pitts of my very own. More on that later.

Know your A, B, Cs... oh and your Ts and Ss

The Pitts Special has a disproportionately fanatical following among the aviation community. Why? Probably for the same reason car lovers are fanatical about Shelby Mustang Cobras... because they are cool.

The Pitts is not the most capable aerobatic aeroplane rolling of the production line and hasn't been since the early 80's, but they're still in production as well as being built by amateur builders the world over.

My first encounter with the Pitts was when I rolled into a local flying school to hire a Citabria for some aerobatics and was talked into getting checked out in their Pitts S-2B. The S-2B is an S-2A with a bigger IO-540 as opposed to the A's IO-360.... Perhaps I should back up a bit.

The Pitts Special is a fabric covered tube bi-plane designed by an American in the mid 1940s by the name of Curtis Pitts. The original was a single seat bi-plane that proved so popular he put it into production. Being a single seater it was a great aerobatic machine but a little anti-social, so Curtis made a two seat version as well.

The original 2 seater came with a fixed pitch prop but the production one we all know and love has a constant speed prop attached to a 200 horsepower Lycoming IO-360. It was named the S-2A. S for special, as in Pitts Special, 2 for two seats and A because, well it was the first production 2 seater.

The S-2A is a great aeroplane and the first time you fly one you will realise just how much you have to learn about co-ordinating both hand and both feet all at the same time. The thing about the Pitts Special is that it does exactly what you ask of it as soon as you ask, and gives you no help. It has powerful and beautifully balanced ailerons, a powerful rudder and a wonderfully direct elevator. The symmetrical aerofoil means it doesn't know its up from down and with 200 horses pulling on the light fabric and tube airframe it is easy to find yourself gaining height while flying your Sunday afternoon aerobatic sequence.

It would be disingenuous for me not to come clean and tell you that the first time I flew the Pitts I didn't enjoy it one bit. You see, I was used to aeroplanes that I have since realised pretty much land themselves and as long as I got it within striking distance of the ground and vaguely straight, the rest took care of itself. The Pitts however, has to be positively flown all the way to the hanger. It didn't help that on final approach the Pitts had to be side-slipped otherwise I couldn't see the runway over the nose, and with 2 wings creating plenty of drag the approach path was more familiar to a Stuka Dive Bomber than a modern GA aeroplane. So there I was, first time flying a Pitts, side slipping, straining to see around the nose coming down final approach like a gliding manhole cover in the most sensitive aeroplane I had ever flown all while trying to have a good time... yay

Then came the flare, round out, straighten up and hang there trying to track straight without most of the visual cues I have come to know and love. A word on flying the Pitts, a control input results in the aeroplane reacting exactly as you asked of it and continuing to do what you have asked of it until you ask it to do something different, not a feature most pilots are used to. Suffice to say I spent a fair bit of time chasing my own tail flying the aeroplane, over-controlling and learning the importance of attention to fine detail.

But here is the thing about flying the Pitts, you will get the hang of it sooner than you expect and when you do, you will be wishing you discovered the Pitts Special years ago.

Getting back to a little history of the Pitts, the S-2A was a highly popular 2 seat trainer and at the time was the last word on aerobatic 2 seaters, but like all good fossil fuel burining machines we wanted more power. Pitts came to the party and gave us the S-2B.

The B is essentially an A with an extra 60 horsepower via the 6 cylinder IO-540. I don't pretend to know a lot about engines but I am led to believe the 540 is as much about extra torque as it is about the extra ponies... and the extra ponies are something to behold. There is nothing like starting a 6 cylinder 540 cubic inch engine attached to light weight fabric and tube airframe, the only thing better is pushing the throttle to the firewall for the first time. To give you an idea of the performance, the flight manual quotes the take-off roll at max gross weight of 130m and 215m to clear a 50 ft obstacle.

My first take-off in a B went something like this;

Stick back, full throttle... what a kick in the pants... stick forward to lift the tail, too late we are off the ground... better get the nose up to a climbing attitude... 100kts already... power back to 25/2500.. hang on, that's circuit altitude already... power back to 20 inches... whoa 130knots...

You get the idea.

Now, some fanatics got picky about their aeroplanes and started complaining about the S-2B, something about the heavier engine making it hard to snap, a little truck like on the ailerons, 240 degrees per second roll rate was not enough apparently... boo hoo I say but Pitts was not to be defeated. By this stage, around the late 90s, Aviat owned the rights to make the Pitts and they began work on the S-2C.

The C was a redesign as far as it could be and still call itself a Pitts S-2. The ailerons are bigger and more powerful, the tail surfaces are more powerful and while they were at it Aviat put on a dirty great big light weight composite 3 blade propellor called the claw. I guess it's called the claw because it claws its way through the air. I can barely fly the S-2A so I won't pretend to be an expert on the nuances of the different models but I am told the C rolls faster, snaps better and needs a lot less push in negative manoeuvres than both the A and B. Not to mention the Hartzell made Claw propellor gives the C a bigger kick in the pants than the B even though they have the same engine.

If you are like most pilots and are more interested in your own fun than anyone elses, Pitts made just the machine for you. The S-1S.

The 1 part indicates it has only one seat and I believe the second S is for the symmetrical aerofoil. The S-1S has a 180 horsepower IO-360 with a fixed pitch propellor. The S-1S is enormously popular and has flown in aerobatic competition successfully from inception until today. The S-1S has all the charm and handling beauty of the S-2 series without the price tag or need to drag around the weight of an extra seat. The S-1S was so popular that it was followed by the model T, or more correctly S-1T. The T came equipped with a more powerful 200 horsepower engine and constant speed prop. The T didn't seem to be as popular, I guess people didn't want to stump up the extra cash for the bigger heaver engine and constant speed prop.

Like all machines that enthusiast love, there is fierce debate over which is better, which mods are better and whether my Pitts is better than yours. Some people strip their S1 to the bare bones, no starter motor, no alternator, no battery and just a hand held radio all in the name of lightness. Some have all the fruit including heavier more powerful engines and claim that is the way to go.

The Pitts Special must be the most modified aerobatic aeroplane in the world, if it has been thought of it has probably been done to a Pitts. The mods range from backyard slap together jobs to highly professional production mods and add ons offered by people like Steve Wolf or Raven Aircraft. Both Wolf and Raven have their own unique and highly successful wings which take the original 1940s design and put it on a pedestal with the hotrod monoplanes of today.

Even though you won't be seeing the Pitts winning at the World Championships anytime soon, I guarantee that they'll continue to be built, flown and loved by generations of pilots to come including this one.

When the going gets tough, the tough get automatic

Landing through the fog.

One of the most common questions airline pilots are asked is, "do you do the landing or does the aeroplane land itself?" The simple answer is yes, well no, well actually it depends.

Lets look at the Boeing 767, it's the aeroplane I fly and can talk about with some sense of expertise, although that might be stretching it a bit.

On a nice day the preference is for the pilot to manually land the aeroplane. This means he or she will be steering, pushing, pulling and working the throttles to fly down the correct approach angle and reduce the closure rate with the runway at the last minute so just as the wheel touch it is a gentle kiss onto the ground. We call the smooth landings "greasers". The autopilot can land the aeroplane too, but with limitations.

For a pilot to land we need to see what we are doing. We can fly on instruments to a point but when close to the ground, say the last 200 feet, we need to judge runway lineup, rate of closure, aim point etc... To do this one needs reasonable direct and peripheral vision. There are instruments that give us information but the displays are not sensitive enough and the data can't be interpreted fast enough for it to be relied upon. So, when the visibility drops below certain minimums that could be caused by fog, rain, snow, low cloud etc... we have to go to plan B.

Plan B is to auto-land. The autopilot reads measurements and information it picks up from ground based transmitters to tell it where the aeroplane is, it also looks at onboard measurements such as speed and altitude to determine what control inputs to make for the correct approach path line-up, angle and speed. When it is close to the ground it can determine the fine manoeuvres by referencing only these electronic signals. The catch is that it is a little more clumsy that a skilled pilot so it won't handle big changes in wind as well and will not usually touch down as smoothly.

To give you an idea of the autopilots limitations, in the 767 the maximum crosswind that we can land in when manually flying is 35 knots. With the autopilot doing it in low visibility it is 10 knots. This is good on a foggy day where there is little wind but not if it is windy or the wind is rapidly changing.

Another catch is that the transmitters and other equipment needed on the ground are very expensive and not all runways have it. In Australia there is only one runway that is equipped for these low visibility landings.... any guesses where it is?

So the good news for pilots everywhere is that we haven't quiet been replaced yet. The preference of most pilots is to manually land the aeroplane whenever possible, it keeps us current, it gives the passengers a nicer landing and most importantly, it's lots of fun.

When the visibility is reduced an auto-land is the way to go but in windy gusty conditions, give me a hands on landing anytime.

Oh yeah, the only runway in Australia that is low visibility equipped is foggy Melbourne of course!

Volcanic ash clouds, a pilot's perspective

F/O Greaves, Captain Moody, SEO Townley-Freeman

So one little Volcano on the other side of the world erupts and half the developed world is brought to its knees? Why can't jets just fly through ash clouds?

One of the biggest problems is that jet aircraft operators and manufactures have never been forced to test aircraft in volcanic ash. Generally the eruptions are so sporadic and widely spaced throughout the world that pilots just fly around them. Having said that, whenever a jet is accidentally flown into the ash cloud of a volcano it gets ugly, and it gets ugly fast.

The most famous case is a British Airways 747 flying from Kuala Lumpur to Perth which flew into a thick ash cloud over Indonesia. Unlike a water vapour filled cloud, ash clouds don't show up on the aircraft's radar so unless you can see it, you can't go around it. When the hapless crew unwittingly penetrated the ash, a few interesting phenomenon occurred which left the crew initially scratching their heads and the First Officer calling the Captain back from the toilet.

Electrical arcing known as St Elmo's fire erupted on the windshield and inside the engine intakes. The cockpit and cabin began filling up with smoke as the ash was being pumped into the aircraft via the air-conditioning system. Electrical arcing was also seen in the engines which appeared to be on fire, they weren't but the static electricity discharge was so intense it look as if they were. One at a time the engines started to fail as ash clogged up engine parts. Electrical power failed and lights went out in the cabin. The 747 had just become the worlds biggest glider. In a tone that only a British Airways Captain could get away with, Captain Moody made this announcement;

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them under control. I trust you are not in too much distress."

Once they descended below the ash cloud, the crew managed to re-start the engines and land at Jakarta's international airport. The pilots later reported that they had no idea they flew into ash until the next day when they inspected the aircraft in the daylight.

This is typical of the experience of jets that have found themselves in ash clouds so the lesson taught to airlines and pilots is, stay away from them. There is no need to fly through them and if you do, good luck.

There are checklists and procedures if one was to find themselves in an ash cloud. The checklist tells us to put on our oxygen masks, turn 180 degrees and reduce thrust to idle. At normal operating power the core of the engine is so hot the ash turns to liquid and clogs up the engine components, the priority is to cool the engine. Also descending might get us under the ash cloud and out of harms way.

This is all well and good until we find ourselves paralysed by a volcano with no scheduled end date and no airlines willing to take up 400 passengers and test out the commonly accepted philosophy of avoiding ash clouds.

There is no data telling us what is an acceptable level of ash to fly through. Even if there was such data available, there is no way we could asses the intensity level of ash clouds from the cockpit. The scientific boffins themselves are only able to measure ash at altitude by flying through it, and that's in a small piston engine aeroplane which is not as severely affect by the ash as jets.

So until someone comes up with an aircraft jet engine that is not affected by ash, aircraft that can produce it's own oxygen and a pilot willing to fly it, we all wait.