May 2009
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Aircraft
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2009 Cessna 172S: Skyhawk In Year 53
Forever young
 Is it just me, or does the Cessna Skyhawk seem younger than 53? After all, take away the panel, paint and interior, and you might mistake a 2009 for a 1964 model if both airplanes were parked side by side on the ramp in bare aluminum livery. But while the current model’s configuration is physically very similar to that of the older models, the 2009 172S is a very different machine from that early version.
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2009 CESSNA SKYHAWK 172S
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2009 Sport Cub S2
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Cubbing Around
A light-sport blend of old-school nostalgia and modern technology
 In a sky filled with high-performance pistons, turboprops and jets that speed to their destination, there’s still something undeniably irresistible about a little yellow Cub. Puttering around low and slow, the humble two-seater makes lazy circles over emerald fields as its pilot smiles down on Earth, senses ignited by a soft breeze and the scent of grass airstrips that waft through the open window.
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Ownership Made Easy
New versus old: What you get and what you don’t get
by Barron Thomas
 This week, within the course of about two hours, I received calls from two friends who wanted to buy similar, but different, airplanes. The common thread was that each wanted something fun and simple to own.
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Proficiency
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The Last 50 ft.
Making it all come together
by Budd Davisson
 When you’re on short final and descending through 50 feet, it really doesn’t make much difference how good you are at centering airways, whether you can spout FARs or if you scored 100% on the written: The only thing that counts is how well you actually fly. Everything else is superfluous because every single thing you know about actually flying the airplane is compressed into a 10-second time span and an ever-decreasing sliver of altitude. This is literally where the rubber meets the road and where every one of your moves has measurable consequences.
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The Right Way To The Left Seat
How to realize your dream of becoming a professional pilot
 Flying is in the blood of certain individuals. Some of us plan a career in the cockpit from an early age, and we pursue it to the exclusion of everything else. Others keep their aviation goals quietly smoldering, always on a back burner ready to emerge at the right time. For various reasons, they may alight in a different direction, attain career goals outside of aviation and pursue vocational paths that seem far detached from flying. But many of them come back.
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TransPac Aviation Academy
Drawing from its Pan Am training heritage, TransPac positions itself for the future
by Marc C. Lee
 Tradition goes a long way in aviation. A rich history aloft is respected and admired, whether it applies to pilots, aircraft or—in the world of ab initio training—flight academies. With its legacy steeped in the fabled lore of one of the greatest airlines in history, Pan Am International Flight Academy is long on tradition and legacy.
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Weather In The Cockpit
XM Weather provides real-time information in the cockpit for pilots who are serious about their weather decisions
by Bill Cox
 Ask most pilots what subject in aviation they wish they knew more about, and a majority will answer, “weather.” Indeed, while forecasters do occasionally still get it wrong, and even the best meteorologists acknowledge that we still have much to learn, the science of weather prognostication improves each year.
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Products
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May 2009 Readback
Embraer Phenom 100 Certified Delivered
by The Editors
 Unrestricted U.S. FAA certification of Embraer’s smallest jet, the Phenom 100, was awarded in December 2008, and the first delivery was made to James and Elizabeth Frost on December 24 in São José dos Campos, Brazil. “Surprises” in the final certified operating specs were an improved range (1,178 nm with four aboard), shortened max performance field requirements (now 3,125 feet at MTOW under standard conditions) and a 301-foot improvement in landing distance, among others. EASA certification is expected in Q2 2009, with European deliveries to begin shortly after. Visit www.embraer.com.
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The New Peltor 9500 Digital Headset
Peltor’s new headset aims for the cockpit
by Marc C. Lee
Headsets are funny things. Even though there are scores of them on the market and their job is essentially the same, each headset has its own “personality” and unique feel. Among professional headsets, I’ve found that the “right” one is different for each individual wearer and is a matter of personal preference. It was with that fact in mind that I opened the package containing the brand-new Peltor ANR 9500 digital headset.
Pilot Talk
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Early-Morning Cockpits
Right at this moment, aviation lives are being lived that we can’t imagine
by Budd Davisson
 As I was out walking this morning, my brain, as is usually the case, decided to go somewhere else so it didn’t have to deal with the tedium of exercising. This time, it began visiting cockpits around the world. In a matter of seconds, film clips of pilots, who at that exact moment were readying their birds for flight, started playing in the theater of my mind.
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From The Editor: Low & Slow
by Jessica Ambats
 You’d normally find her looping and rolling at 250 mph in front of thousands of spectators at the industry’s biggest air shows, but this month, aerobatic champ Patty Wagstaff takes us on a different kind of adventure, low and slow above elephants, rhinos and cheetahs in the remote wilderness of Kenya. |
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Light Sport Chronicles: CSI Insurance: Excogitations On LSA Crashes, Part 1
What do three years of a top LSA insurer’s data tell us about sport flight accidents?
by James Lawrence
 Tooling around the Sebring U.S. Sport Aviation Expo (check out my blog, Light-Sport Hangar Flyin’), I ran into Mike Adams, vice president of underwriting for Avemco Insurance Company (www.avemco.com). Adams was on scene to present what Avemco has learned, based on three years of data, from S-LSA accidents.
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Logging Time In The World’s Largest Airliner
Left seat in an Airbus 380
I’m sitting in the pilot’s seat of an Airbus A380 surrounded by 10 flat-panel displays and more switches than I can describe. It’s the world’s largest airliner, and its size is staggering.
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More Than Monitoring
Glass cockpits ease workload, but pilots shouldn’t forget to maintain their flying proficiency
by Peter Katz
 While I was at an FBO at the Westchester County Airport north of New York City a couple of days ago, a guy I hadn’t seen in a long time walked in. We immediately started catching up on a host of things, not the least of which were the predictable topics of what we’re flying and how much (or little) we’re getting in the air these days.
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Plane & Pilot In A Pilot's Story
Filmed in hangars and homes, at restaurants and on ramps, A Pilot's Story is an upcoming documentary from Wilco Films that tells the story of flight in the words of pilots themselves.
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Protecting Kenya’s National Parks
Training the Kenya Wildlife Service Airwing
I often wear a little leather choker with two bronze elephant tusks. I picked it up a few years ago in a Nairobi gallery called Matt Bronze, and it reminds me of the wild things that still live in Kenya.
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Why Retract?
To retract or not to retract? That is the question.
by Bill Cox
My first airplane was a retractable, but it was sometimes hard to tell. It was a purely stock 1946 Globe Swift GC1B, and while the main wheels would retract—eventually—there often seemed to be little effect on performance. Though the airplane was a cute little devil and a fairly primo example of its kind, its performance was a country mile behind the “book.”
News
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May 2009 NOTAMS
Plane & Pilot’s Guide To Aviation's most current Promotional Deals
by Staff
From free training to discounts and rebates, this is the place to find great promotional deals from the aviation industry’s leading companies.
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