MY OPINION

ARTHUR ROSEN

THE FAA

I have been fortunate to know several people with the FAA up to the previous administrator. In this column I want to point out several positive and one negative aspects of the FAA with respect to my recent discussions with them.

UNIVERSITY OF APP

A close friend, Roger Whittier, helped set up a program with the FAST people from the FAA. They travel throughout the state of Arizona teaching about the use of the IPad in the airplane along with aviation APPS for the IPad. After some studying Roger decided to teach on 3 APPS: WingXPro7, Foreflight and Garmin, and on his team was a person who was an expert in working with each APP. 

The attendees ranged from someone who just received an IPad and downloaded their APP to someone who has been flying with the IPad for a long period of time. Each attendee had to bring their own IPad with them with one of the 3 APP’s downloaded.

I found it interesting that at the last meeting held that out of 80 people attending, 76 had Foreflight, 3 had WingX and 1 had Garmin APPS on their IPad. This percentage ran true in all their meetings. The groups were separated and each instructor began going through the process of training on each APP.

It still amazes me to this day that I meet so many pilots that use a Garmin 396/496 or 430 and just fly direct to a waypoint and then load direct to another waypoint and so on in route. Things were no different with the IPad. People just didn’t know how to use the features of the APP. WingX helped me find ways of using their program I would not have known about if I didn’t look at their you tube channel training videos. 

I hope that other States will take on this teaching method as I see it as a great safety and instructional tool.

ACCIDENT AND INCIDENT REPORT

I use the accident and incident report on the FAA home page for 2 purposes. I like to study accidents hoping that I’ll learn from them and not make the same mistakes, and I am also informed if someone I know was recently in an accident. Just 2 weeks ago a friend flying a V Tail similar to mine lost an engine and had to make an off field landing. He was okay but his plane was totaled. I was able to find out about this the day after his accident.

When I logged onto the site in late December there was a disclaimer that this service would be discontinued January 1, 2013. I emailed my friend at AOPA, Bill Dunn-Executive Vice President, and explained my concerns. Tony Fazio is the Director of Accident Investigation and Prevention for the FAA. I asked Bill to give Tony a call expressing my concern for the loss of this information, and I then placed a follow up call to Tony. Due to our efforts the site is still up and running.

To get on the site go to the FAA home page, then Data enter, Accidents and Incidents enter and Preliminary Data enter.

ADS-B OUT

I wrote in a previous column briefly about ADS-B Out and traffic availability. When NextGen was conceived there were no IPad’s. No one ever dreamed that pilots would have the availability of ADS-B IN in such large numbers for such an inexpensive cost. For $1,110 one can have an IPad and ADS-B In plus an APP and receive free weather and traffic. There’s a caveat to the traffic part. ADS-B Out which controls FIS-B Out and TIS-B Out is only turned on when an ADS-B Out equipped aircraft is within 15 miles of your location. Embry Riddle University (ERU) planes 90 miles NW of Phoenix are all equipped with ADS-B Out. When I’m flying in a 15 mile range of an ERU airplane I can see traffic on my IPad. Please note that I have Sky Radar and Stratus does notshow traffic on Foreflight as of today.

I had read that Phoenix was a test market for ADS-B out, and therefore I would see traffic. I was able to see traffic at Sky Harbor (PHX) flying east until the class B ended, however I could not see traffic at Deer Valley (DVT) or flying west bound. The last several weeks I have been able to see traffic at DVT but loose it upon approach at 3000 feet AGL because of mountains in the vicinity. I would like to have the availability to see traffic until I get to pattern altitude.

At an Airspace user group meeting I talked to Rich Storaci from the FAA about this. Rich wasn’t sure that ADS-B was turned on in Phoenix and connected me with Jimmy Wright in Alaska, from the FAA and ITT, to have some great and interesting discussions about ADS-B. I came to find out that a lot of planes from airliners to the flight schools are broadcasting ADS-B out, and this is why I’m able to see traffic in the Valley. Once I leave Class B I loose the traffic unless there is a plane enroute broadcasting ADS-B Out , and I have a 15 mile range when this happens. Unfortunately Jimmy stated that the FAA will not turn ADS-B OUT on 24/7 because the FAA wants pilots to buy the ADS-B Out equipment now and not wait until 2020. Again this would be a great safety factor but the FAA refuses to budge.

FAA-THE BAD NEWS

The FAA is on a witch hunt against GA pilots. Anything a GA pilot does out of the norm and you will be written up. You won’t know about it at the time as you will not be told to call a tower when landing, you will receive a letter in the mail. If you miss a frequency change, bust an altitude or anything else that is deemed unacceptable you can be susceptible to a license suspension, revocation or told to take recurrent training. This can not happen to airline pilots as they have a program in place to let them know of an error and that’s the end of it. Airline pilots miss frequency changes on multiple occasions when I’m flying cross country. FAA controllers who used to be suspended or fired for errors are only give a verbal discussion of what was wrong and that’s it. They can’t be suspended or fired unless something egregious occurs. I have to believe that an edict of this nature had to come from the Administrators office. Here’s hoping that the NBAA and AOPA can get this asinine policy overturned.

HEROES

A good friend of mine, Ken Casey director of sales and marketing for Pinnacle Aviation in Scottsdale, is a true humanitarian. After Hurricane Sandy destroyed the NE coast Ken got together with TV, Radio and Newspapers in the Phoenix area asking for donations of supplies to aid Sandy victims. Ken was able to round up a Citation X, fuel and pilots to ferry supplies to NY. He did such a good job that he filled the Citation X and a 26 foot truck that drove to NY. This to me is what Aviation is all about. Thanks Ken for such a great effort!

A friend of mine who is an Aviation Director at a major airport has a very sick brother. He is donating one of his kidneys to give the gift of life to his brother.

These two people are real heroes in my esteem.

WINGXPRO 7

WingX has a lot of features. One of the best is terrain avoidance. A circle with a “T” shows up and turns to red if you are going to hit something ahead of your route. Also there is an option for terrain avoidance on the moving map which will change to red if you are going not going to clear terrain ahead. This week a Piper crashed into the mountains east of Phoenix and the pilot was killed. If the pilot had some kind of terrain avoidance on his plane this accident would have never happened.

MY OPINION

ARTHUR ROSEN

IS THIS THE FUTURE OF GENERAL AVIATION

OR

THE END OF GENERAL AVIATION AS WE KNOW IT

Recently I attended a static show of some spectacular airplanes at Scottsdale Airport (SDL). In attendance were Piper Mirage (but no Piper rep was to be found anywhere), Beech Bonanza, C90 King Air, Eclipse 500, Cessna Corvallis, Caravan, Mustang, Cirrus, Phenom 300, Carbon Cub and Aviat Husky.

I had some interesting discussions with the representatives of the companies displayed. Beech was supposed to change the engines in the Bonanza and Baron to turbo charged however due to financial problems these changes were never made. You can buy a new Bonanza for $760,000 and a baron for $1.4 million.

Cirrus had their latest edition 5 seater twin turbo. Beautiful airplane with the latest G1000 avionics. The price was $770,000. 

The Cessna Corvallis twin turbo had a sexy paint job and was loaded like the Cirrus at$770,000.

The Piper Mirage with pressurization and twin turbo engine is priced at $1.1 million. It has a larger cabin than those listed previously and it is easier to enter for passengers along with air conditioning standard.

After this class of planes came the jets. One common factor was 1000 miles range. The Piper Meridian was not shown and is $2.2 million. The Meridian is single engine as well as the Cessna Caravan although the 2 planes have different mission statements. The Piper is a sleek fast pressurized plane flying at over 200mph. The Caravan is a non pressurized model that is know as a 160 knot hauler. It is used by FedEX and UPS for intrastate package movement and also as an executive and family aircraft. There are so many variations of the Caravan you would have to design what you want and then price it out. The Caravan has great short field capabilities. Other uses of the Caravan are short charters and touring.

The fan jets represented start with the Eclipse. The new 550 is only different from the updated 500 by avionics offered. I had a long discussion with the demo pilot. He feels safe flying into a 3000 foot strip but feels most would be more comfortable with 3500 feet. Anti lock breaking will be an option in the 550 and can be retrofitted to the 500. The Eclipse is a tight fit inside. The  cost is $2.7 million.

Cessna Mustang with a little more room than the Eclipse is $3.4 million and the Phenom 300 with a lot of room is $7.5 million.

I salivated going through each airplane. They were all beautiful, most fast and all had the latest avionics glass panels. For those who can afford these aircraft it must be a thrill to be able to fly them for pleasure and business.

For those who cannot afford these planes what does the future bring? Our fleet is getting old. I fly a 59 year old Bonanza, and many of my friends are in the same position. In 2020 an IFR GPS along with Transponder and ADS-B will be required. If estimates hold and the FAA gives their blessings It looks like the hardware will come in around $3000 plus installation and proper antennas. You will have to have these to fly in B and C airspace.

As the fleet get older and more planes are retired there does not look to be replacement aircraft at an affordable price. Cuba is still running carburetor cars from the 50’s and older. It will take tender loving care and a lot of money to maintain these older aircraft.

Speaking of older our pilot population is dying off, failing 3rd class physicals or just giving up because of the current related expenses tied to owning and flying a plane. Fuel being one of the major concerns for todays pilot. No one knows how much the alternative non leaded fuels will be a gallon.

LSA’s, Light Sport Aircraft, are not very functional in that the loads are low, range is short, no night flying and no IFR if you do not have a medical. The costs of LSA’s are in the $130,000 to $160,000 price range.

I believe that in ten years or less many of our pilots and airports will go away. GA flying will then be mostly for the wealthy. This does not print a pretty picture for the future of GA.

FAA

Phoenix Deer Valley (DVT), the worlds busiest GA airport, is a training airport for controllers.  Our last 2 tower managers, Toby Jones and Jim McMahon, did an outstanding job in the training of the controllers under them. Before this DVT had numerous problems with controllers. Both of these men were rewarded for an outstanding job, Toby is now the assistant tower manager and Jim is the tower manger at Phoenix Sky Harbor (PHX). Thanks to Toby and Jim for a job well done!

MY OPINION

ARTHUR ROSEN

LAWSUIT?

I have said that besides GPS I believe that the IPad is the second greatest invention for the cockpit. For approximately $1550 one can have an IPad, app with moving map and ADS-B In which helps display weather and traffic. Not bad considering built in glass costs around $15,000 or more.

When everything works all is well, when it doesn’t all hell can break loose. I have flown with Foreflight and WingXPro7 for a year each. Foreflight was always reliable and WingX unreliable. Thats why I still use my Garmin 396 in the cockpit.

That brings us to the premise of this month’s column. I had an update for WingX a couple of days ago. After completing the update I was asked to accept a disclaimer. You cannot operate WingX without agreeing to the disclaimer. In my opinion if someone took WingX to court they would win as you have already paid WingX for the use of the program, therefore the disclaimer is not worth the paper it’s written on.

The question is why did WingX add a disclaimer to it’s program. The disclaimer says WingX might work and it might not, but WingX is not responsible for something they produce and sell for the purpose of aviation navigation. No pun intended but this will not fly in court. If WingX is selling a product for a purpose and it does not work, WingX is responsible.

I do not have any information, but I believe that someone or some group have brought suit against WingX. If they have not then they should. I have always believed that WingX has the best features of any aviation app, but WingX has the worst reliability. I am stuck with WingX as I purchased a Sky Radar ADSB-In unit that only works with WingX. Therefore I carry paper approach plates, old paper charts and my Garmin 396 with me. I have been in important situations where WingX did not work.

If a lawsuit has been filed, it will be common knowledge soon. It is too bad that a leading company in aviation apps has very little quality control.

MY OPINION

ARTHUR ROSEN

EMBRY RIDDLE-PRESCOTT CAMPUS

I had the pleasure of being invited to tour the Embry Riddle (ER) Campus in Prescott, AZ. Prescott (PRC) is 90 miles northwest of Scottsdale (SDL) and an easy 25 minute flight. I was asked to call ER operations on their frequency before landing to notify them of my pending arrival. 

Taxiing to the ER ramp there were two attendants that were students to direct me to parking. I checked in with their operations, and a student drove me to the main campus. I had a brief interview with each student to find not only were they from all over the United States but from all over the World. My ramp attendant was from Seattle and my driver from Chicago. I will discuss more about this later in my column.

Upon arrival at the campus I checked in and my tour began. There are 1800 undergraduate and graduate students at ER. The normal class size is 25. All classes are taught by professors and no graduate assistants. When I think of ER I think pilots, but there are several other majors besides leaning to be a pilot. Engineering is a big part of ER’s curriculum. Several students are offered paid internships from companies such as Boeing, and they take a year off from school to do this. They then return to ER to graduate. Many students are then offered full time jobs with the firms they interned with after graduation. Other majors are aerospace engineering, meteorology and aviation accident reconstruction where students apply to the NTSB after graduation.

The costs to attend ER are $40,000 tuition and $15,000 flight training per year. ER will be starting an agreement with American International Graduate School (Thunderbird) in Phoenix. A lot of students are majoring in Business Aviation and this will tie in with Thunderbird by advancing with an International Degree in Aviation Business Management. Thunderbird is rated as one of the top schools in International Management in the world.

On my tour I was taken to several labs that had wind tunnels for design testing and one was supersonic. Walking through the lobbies were a Wright Flyer replica donated by the EAA and a drone made for NASA by McDonnell Douglas. This drone was designed to take off like a helicopter and then fly level. MD could never get this design to work. Another area of interest is robotic engineering. ER students have designed a robot to work on the moon for NASA.

Next on my agenda was lunch in one of the most beautiful settings I have ever been. It’s not the lunch that was important but the students I sat with. Across from me was a student from Lebanon and a young lady from Saudi Arabia. The gentleman next to me was retired Air Force and obtaining his education on the GI Bill. The 2 hours of discussion with these young people was the highlight of my day. 

After lunch I was taken to ER’s accident simulation campus. They have recreations of a wrecked 727 that was donated to ER and many other planes that are laid out in a field as per the original crash sites, and the students had to determine why a plane crashed.

Leaving the campus and returning to PRC ER ramp I was given a tour of their flight operations. ER students train in 172 with Glass cockpits, DA 42 diesel twins along with helicopters.

All things considered this was a wonderful and educational day for me, much more than I expected.

DEPENDABILITY COUNTS!

MY OPINION

ARTHUR ROSEN

NAVIGATION APPS FOR IPAD

I personally feel that the best invention for aviation was the advent of GPS in the cockpit. The second best invention is the IPad in coordination with navigational APPS such as ForeFight and WingXPro7.

As you know from my previous columns I have been a proponent of WingX over ForeFlight, that is until now. When I bought my IPad 1, I had to make a decision ForeFlight or WingX. ForeFlight (FF) had much more to offer, and it was no contest. I signed up with FF for a year and was extremely happy. I never had a glitch and new features were being added during my subscription. WingX was way behind in features and not worth purchasing. Then something happened. WingX made dramatic improvements in it’s product and blew by FF. 

At the expiration of my FF subscription I decided to buy WingX. WingX now had both VFR and IFR enroute charts and also added a split screen. This allowed me to have both the enroute chart up along with Seattle Avionics Approach plate. I could see my plane on the chart and where ATC was vectoring me, as I rarely get the full approach from ATC on my travels. With FF I had to switch the page between the chart and the approach. This is not efficient.

Through this year WingX has added many features including altitude above the ground, timer, distance from a waypoint and most importantly track up. To this day the features of WingX outperform FF. 

FF has continued to stress quality over quantity making sure that everything works properly before updating their product. This is why the FAA is allowing FF to be used in airliners and charters as an approved Electronic Flight Bag (EFB). FF quality reigns supreme. WingX has taken a different tact introducing new features and not making corrections of it’s existing defects until being contacted on numerous occasions. WingX is not an FAA approved APP for an EFB. You would think that WingX would monitor it’s product and have a way of knowing if there are any defects.

I have now encountered 3 problems with WingX in the last several months that have affected safety of flight. 

1: When the IPad 3 was introduced WingX did not work properly for approximately a month. It worked fine on the IPad 1 and 2. The charts were way off showing airports and other waypoints in 2 different areas on the charts and the charts were not seamless. WingX offered  a free second year subscription for anyone who owned an IPad 3.

2: I like to start planing my flights a week before leaving. On preparing for a trip to Santa Monica (SMO) I found that the weather would not update, and that I could not do any flight planning. I emailed WingX and notified them of the problem, and they had it corrected in 2 days. If I was making the trip the next day I was totally out of luck and would have to rely on my Garmin 396. I still use my 396 for things that neither FF or WingX will do.

3: This week I am planning a trip to San Diego (MYF), and I also review my return to Scottsdale (SDL). To my amazement  the approach plates for SDL would not load, and the screen on WingX started shaking to where I had to reboot it. I contacted WingX and they stated they had found a bug in the program. They also stated they would supply a fix on the next update later in August. I find this totally unacceptable. If they have a fix send it out NOW!

The IPad along with my 396 are my lifelines when I’m flying. If I can’t have faith in what I’m using then it is not what I want to be flying with. I’m also in a quandary because I bought Sky Radar ADS-B IN which only works with WingX or Sky Radar which is not a very good APP.

In a recent article by Sporty’s, Sporty’s compared FF, WingX and Garmin APPS for the IPad. FF came out number 1, Garmin 2, and WingX last. This comparison can be deceiving as Sporty’s is tied into FF and Stratus ADS-B. Therefore I don’t give the survey much credit.

Garmin has been improving their APP and with their resources can pass WingX quickly.

I don’t understand why I might be the only one who contacted WingX with their defects. I would hope others that own the APP would be contacting WingX also. Without maintaining their quality WingX will be losing a lot of customers. It’s too bad, as I still consider this the best Navigational APP on the IPad when it works.

This is a reply  to my ADS-B/XM column

Interesting article.  I recently got to test both on a flight back from San Diego.  My ride to Montgomery could only get me there in the late afternoon.  Only isolated thunderstorms were predicted fo Phoenix, but Flight Service was wrong.  As I was the approaching Phoenix area, Sky Harbor started holding departures.  Deer Valley was clear but the weather was between me and Deer Valley.

 Both XM and ADS-B showed gaps in the weather.  The line of thunderstorms was moving NW at 15 knots.  Every time I got around a thunderstorm where a gap was supposed to be, it wasn't there.

Buckeye was now in the gust front, and I wasn't feeling very confident about either xm or ads-b readouts, so I asked ATC how Wickenburg looked.  My plan was to head NW and either get around the thunderstorms or land at Wickenburg and let them pass.  When I got within sight of the Wickenburg area it looked terrible.  ATC still said it looked good on their radar.  I guess theirs doesn't loop, or they would have seen that the storm was going to get there before I did.

 We ended up accepting defeat and went all the way back to Blythe to spend the night.  I was glad that I had plenty of fuel onboard.

 Anyway, I found out that my I-pad ads-b only updates weather every 10 minutes.  I don't know how old it is at that point.  XM weather updates more often, but again I don't know how old it is at that point either.  Neither one is very accurate if the weather is moving or developing very fast.  I believe some ATC facilities are able to get the NEXRAD feed, and if they are using that they are not getting current weather either.

 Sorry for the long message, I just started to say that I liked your article. 

Take Care,