1. Electric Planes
Read our feature story on the Pipistrel Velis Electro, which is the first EASA-certificated electric plane. The story is as much about how electrics change flying for us as it is about that new plane. And electric propulsion changes everything, in ways that very few people think about. It’s clearly time to start thinking about it.
2. Follies Of Youth
I came across the story of a kid who’s hoping to be the youngest ever to circumnavigate the globe. And that’s as much information as you’ll get from me on the subject. The purpose of learning to fly is, in large part, learning how not to get killed while flying. Publicizing record attempts for youngest anything that puts young people at risk is wrong, and I have repeatedly for years called on my colleagues in the aviation press to ignore them as well. There’s just too much risk for the young person for us to encourage it.
3. Farewell, Emily
When I heard the news that Emily Howell Warner had passed away at 80, I knew there would be little of note in the mainstream media. In fact, there was exceedingly sparse coverage. She was, and very few pilots I know have even heard of her, the first female airline pilot hired by a major airline in the United States. That’s a big deal, but people I know who knew and loved Emily said that she thought of herself as anything but a big deal. She was humble, serious, kind and accomplished, they say, and she made a lasting, positive impact upon the lives she touched. That’s not only a big deal; it’s the real deal.
4. Fun With Airplanes
Have you ever noticed that the people who have the most fun with airplanes are the ones who fly them the most? Which direction that works in, I’m not quite sure. Do they fly more because they’re having so much fun, or are they having so much fun because they fly so much? As someone who has flown a lot at certain junctures of my life, I can say with some degree of confidence that it’s both. I love flying, so I fly when I can. And the more I fly, the more I want to fly. The irony is that I’m so busy writing about flying and managing a flying brand that I don’t get to fly as much as I’d like, which would be every day. On second thought, that sounds a bit excessive. Maybe I’ll take a day off for a change of pace. Hmmm!I’ve never been hang-gliding!
5. Husky With Autoland
I posted a video by Facebook friends and ATPs Kristin Acadia Rokos and Kent Wien recently in which they were showing off the “autoland” feature of the 2015 they co-own. The video starts out showing Kent up front, hands and feet off of the controls while the autoland feature flies a perfect approach to Runway 6 at Poughkeepsie, New York, and then lands it beautifully, all despite bumpy conditions. The clincher comes when, after the plane is down and stable, the camera pans to the back seat and shows that Kristin was the “autoland” feature all along. I’d thought the gag would have been obvious upfront, but it fooled a lot of people who didn’t read until the end of the article, when the spoiler was shared, or didn’t watch until the end of the video, when we could see it was Kristin all along. Garmin’s autoland is revolutionary, but it requires a few things you’re unlikely to see in a Husky anytime soon, like autothrottles, brake by wire and control-by-wire. I’m not saying it couldn’t happen at some point someday, but, yeah, probably not.
6. Electric Magazines
For the past couple of issues, Plane & Pilot has gone all-electric—well, all-electronic, anyway. We’ll be back to printing Plane & Pilot, Paper Edition, soon, but in the meantime, I’ve not only gotten used to reading the electronic version; I’ve also come to prefer it. And I’m an old-school type who still takes notes in pencil. But the ability to click on links to read a story that leads you right down the rabbit hole you’ve chosen to dive into is addicting. And I adore the animated page turning.
7. Counting Steps A Year Ago
Like just about everyone else on the planet, I have a phone (and a watch, for that matter) that counts my steps whether I ask it to or not. I don’t get many steps in while writing or flying, but one place I do get plenty of exercise is Oshkosh, where I won’t be going this year, and yes, that literally makes me very sad. I knew I’d walked a lot at last year’s show, hoofing it from place to place to see cool planes arrive, new announcements made at the exhibitors’ spaces or just to visit with friends or grab lunch. Still, I was surprised to see just how much I walked, which was a lot. On average over the course of seven days at OSH, I walked 8.4 miles daily, and around 15,000 steps, nearly every step along the way serenaded by airplane noise and energized by the chance to say hi and spend a few moments with old friends, who are also great friends. Those things don’t show up on the exercise tracker on my watch, but they really should.
8. After The Accident
In the absence of our valued columnist Peter Katz over the course of a couple of months, I had the opportunity to fill in and write our After The Accident column, which, as you know, is an analysis of an NTSB report on an aircraft accident of note. I’d always wanted to do that, but in my previous job at a rival aviation magazine, we had a longtime columnist who was masterful at the writing of those columns, and here at Plane & Pilot, well, same thing. The two accident reports I chose to cover were the loss of control of a Piper Arrow in Florida that resembled in many ways the crash that claimed the life of John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife and her sister near Martha’s Vineyard. The other was the crash of a Bonanza that my father and I had flown around the desert southwest for a couple of years. That Bonanza was missing for more than eight months after it disappeared. When it was found, we had some answers but many fresh mysteries. And writing that story gave me a new level of appreciation for the work of those who search for lost planes and those who investigate the accidents.
9. Speaking Of Mysteries
Speaking of mysteries, look for a special feature on an aviation mystery that even after decades is unsolved and to which there are very few leads. This one makes the disappearance of Malaysia 370 look data rich.
10. Big Societal Changes And Aviation
As America reexamines its values in a time of unprecedented social upheaval, now is the perfect time to hold up a mirror to our own image. Now is the perfect time for leadership at aviation companies of all kinds to promote talented people of color and women to leadership positions, time for us all to send the message that all are welcome in aviation, except for those dinosaurs who would slam the doors of opportunity in people’s faces. Let’s open doors and make aviation as great as it could possibly be, which, I have faith, is greater than any of us has even dreamed.
