imc mothly september 2010
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IMC Monthly MagazineTRANSCRIPT
IMC Monthly Inaugural Issue Peter Conant, Editor
As a pilot who is interested in every aspect of flying, I am very pleased to welcome
you to this first issue of The IMC Monthly. We at the IMC Clubs hope to bring you
interesting articles which are aimed at helping all pilots better understand the world
of IFR, the airplanes we fly, the available technologies we use and the regulatory envi-
ronment we inhabit.
When I started flying over thirty years ago, I read everything about flying I could get
my hands on and now have quite a library of books on everything from Aerobatics to
Zulu time. And I’ve always envied the editors of Flying magazine and AOPA Pilot,
who have the best jobs in the world, in my opinion. But now with Internet access to
literally thousands of Web sites it is a treat for me to be able to browse the world of
aviation literature and select articles, podcasts and videos which hopefully benefit
both novice pilots and old–timers like me. For retrieval and dissemination of up to
date information, the good old days weren’t all that good.
continued on page 2
this issue
From the Editor P.1 DUATS’s 20th P.2
Modern Airplanes, Basic Skills P.2
DUAT’S 20th
By Thomas Horne Reprinted and condensed from AOPA Pilot, September
2009
In what may one of the best ex-
amples of the federal govern-
ment’s making wise use of tax-
payer dollars, DUATS has
evolved over the years into one
of the best free services available (Continued on page 2)
IMC Monthly Monthly Magazine of IMC Club International. Inc.
ISSUE 01 September 2010
I was just thinking…
By Peter Conant
MODERN AIRPLANES, BASIC SKILLS
Every time I visit Norwood Me-
morial Airport I spend some
time walking around the tran-
sient ramp, looking to see what
sorts of airplanes have turned
up since my last visit. These
(Continued on page 3)
IMC Monthly Inaugural Issue Peter Conant, Editor continued from page. 1
Your input/comment/criticism will be a
valuable resource for us. How are we
doing? What could we be doing better?
What types of articles would you like to
see? What type do you not want to see?
What aviation sources or Web sites do
you recommend? The aviation literature
is vast, the opinions about flying are
many, and the experiences one has at
the controls always make for good sto-
ries. So if you have a story which might
belong in Flying’s “I Learned About Fly-
ing From That” or AOPA Pilot’s “Never
Again”, we would encourage you to
share it with us.
Someone once said to me that “there is
no aviation accident worth having
unless you learn something from it.” We
at IMC Clubs are definitely on the side
of accident prevention, and specifically
would like to hear and learn from pilots
who catch themselves before making a
mistake. Awareness and management of
risk, the joy of being in control, the mas-
tery of complex equipment, the freedom
to slip the bonds of earth; aren’t these
the reasons we all strap ourselves into a
flying machine? I hope we at IMC Clubs
can add to your enjoyment of this amaz-
ing activity we all share.
So contact me, Peter Conant, at pe-
[email protected]. We’ll have a “Letters
to the Editor” section where you can
comment, complain, elaborate, clarify
and share your thoughts. At this point
in our fledgling publication, all news is
good news and all information is good
information.
I look forward to hearing and corre-
sponding with each of you.
END
“At this point in our fledgling publication, all news is good news and all
information is good information.”
to pilots. From today’s perspec-
tive, DUATS’ roots were humble.
In September 1989, personal com-
puters were few and far between.
Back then, the Internet had yet to
appear in any meaningful way.
And connections? Dial-up was the
rage- and we liked it! Ever so
slowly (compared to modern DSL
and T1 speeds), your computer
shook hands with data providers’
servers that understood MS-DOS
only. The result was a dot-matrix
printout that came from a noisy
printer spooling out a continuous
stream of paper. And the weather
graphics we’ve all come to take for
granted? They existed at FSSs
only, when the vast majority of
pilots dialed 1-800-WX-BRIEF for
information, and oral briefings-
and mental pictures- had to suffice
for preflight planning.
“Oh yes, the access was pretty
clunky back when we started up,”
said Bill Young, program manager
for Data Transformation Corpora-
tion (DTC), one of today’s two
DUATS providers. “But the FAA
was smart. They paid us by market
share, so there was an incentive to
always improve our products. In
the beginning, thee were three
(Continued from page 1)
(Continued on page 3)
DUAT’S 20th
Modern Airplanes, Basic Skills
days, with fewer general aviation
operations at OWD, most of the
visiting planes are corporate jets or
chartered turboprops. The other day
I was treated to two Piaggio Avantis
outside the FBO looking very sleek
and futuristic with their canards
and five-blade pusher props. An
Embraer Phenom 100 graced the
ramp last month, straight from the
factory in Brazil I was told. And a
Partenavia high-wing piston twin
was up from Florida a little while
back, an Italian design which re-
minds me of a small Twin Otter. I’ve
only seen one at Sun N Fun a few
years ago and still wonder why such
a sensible airplane design isn’t used
more in this part of the world for
island-hopping and sightseeing.
Those Italian designers always have
a certain flair and drama with their
creations.
A few weeks ago I got my first ride
in a Siai Marchetti SF260, a nifty
two-seat aerobatic job designed by
the Italian legend Stelio Frati who
once said “it does not cost any more
to make things beautiful”. The
Marchetti is a Ferrari in looks and
performance and resembles a minia-
ture P51 Mustang. Now, I’d flown in
a Pitts Special twenty years ago to
gain some aerobatic experience and
(Continued from page 1) thought I knew about control
response, but the Marchetti was
nothing short of unbelievable.
The slightest pressure on the
stick resulted in the plane bounc-
ing and twitching, as if to say
“you want us to do a roll? No? So
why am I in a seventy-five degree
bank?” The instructor/owner
calmly pulled us around a three-G
level turn with the wings almost
vertical (or so it seemed to me).
Imagine using the elevator as the
primary heading control! This
airplane lets you know immedi-
ately that flying is a three-
dimensional activity. A cute little
Italian Air Force two-seat trainer,
it was built in 1969 and is still
going strong, with a Lycoming
540 fuel-injected engine. And it’s
equipped with a Garmin 430 and
an autopilot.
All this got me to thinking about
the differences between a forty
year old airplane with updated
systems and avionics, and the
newer models by Cessna and Cir-
rus equipped with glass cockpit,
TCAS, NexRad XM weather, TKS
weeping wing anti-ice, carbon
fiber structure, and all sporting a
price tag probably four times the
cost of that little Marchetti. The
planes I see refurbished on the
ramp at Norwood run the gamut for
updates, from recent Malibu and
Bonanza turboprop conversions
and updated panels to the ancient
Cessna 152’s and Piper Warriors
with vacuum instruments but fitted
with engine analyzers, IFR certified
GPS moving maps. portable paper-
less approach plate devices, and
redundant electrically power atti-
tude indicators. It seems like there
is nothing you can’t add to an old
(Continued on page 4)
DUATS contractors: DTC, Con-
tel- which later got bought by
DynCorp, then CSC (Computer
Sciences Corporation)- and
Lockheed Martin. Lockheed
Martin dropped out after a short
time,” Young added. Lockheed
Martin returned to the govern-
ment-subsidized briefing market
big time when it was awarded
the contract to privatize and
centralize the FAA’s flight ser-
vice stations in 2006.
Now, DTC and CSC share the
DUATS market. Estimates are
that CSC has a 55-percent share,
and that DTC has 45 percent.
“We probably handle 8,000 to
10,000 flight plans per day, on
average,” said Leon Thomas,
CSC’s program manager or
DUATS. “And over the years, I
think the biggest change for
DUATS was the switch from
strictly dial-up access to an
Internet-based front-end system
with forms that store your per-
(Continued from page 2)
(Continued on page 4)
DUAT’S 20th
Modern Airplanes…. From page 3.
airframe to provide you with better navigation and engine data.
But as much as I’ve seen some amazing cockpit developments
and avionics upgrades in my thirty-plus years of flying, in a sense
nothing has changed. Situational awareness is still practiced by
pilots who have had equipment failures and who know better
than to blindly follow a GPS course line. The behavior and feel of
the airplane in slow flight, steep turns, accelerated stalls and the
landing flare is still taught by careful flight instructors who let
their students experience the ragged edge of diminishing control
authority. I realize now that the Marchetti experience was a
wakeup call, emphasizing for me the importance of basic aerody-
namics and taking control of all flight attitudes. Compared to
slogging along in a Beechcraft or Cessna, it felt like I’d graduated
from a pony ride to a high-strung thoroughbred race horse. I’m
now inspired to go back and re-read William Langewiesche’s
classic, Stick and Rudder.
New avionics, cockpit weather and traffic awareness displays
have greatly increased the safety of flight and made us all better
navigators. But it is good old-fashioned piloting skills and judg-
ments that contribute most to the safe outcome of a flight. As the
economic picture improves and more GA operations are heard in
the land (aircraft engines efficiently converting fuel into noise)
we can all work to improve our basic airmanship, in whatever
steed we’re riding. My suggestion is to get into an aerobatic plane
with an experienced instructor and see what you’ve been missing.
You may find yourself appreciating just how wonderfully a fine
aerobatic design responds to your coordinated control inputs,
and how quickly it yells at you when you are the least bit sloppy.
END
IMC Club International
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www.imcclubs.com
sonal profiles. That eliminated the need to an-
swer question after question and follow prompts
each time you logged on for a briefing or flight-
plan filing.” CSC’s Web site first went live in
1994, although the company still offers old-
fashioned dial-up access.
Today’s DUATS providers offer features that
have made them primary go-to sources for vari-
ous flight planning tools. Why phone an 800
number when you can go online and see a wide
range of weather charts and other graphics in
living color? The visit still counts as an official
FAA weather briefing, and DUATS flight plan-
ners can b e used to optimize your route. Be-
sides, the 800-number telephone briefings are
still offered by Lockheed Martin, and dial-up
DUATS access- still required per the FAA con-
tract- remains available to those without Internet
access. Apart from going directly to DUATS Web
sites, their services also are provided via third-
party vendors. DTC and CSC have agreements
with other portals offering flight planning ser-
vices, and customers are routed from them to
DUATS. DTC serves weather and flight planning
Web sites such as those belonging to Seattle Avi-
onics, RMS Technologies, Jeppesen, and AOPA’s
Internet Flight Planner. CSC’s Thomas says his
company serves “all third parties. I don’t know
how many…and we give many of them the tech-
nology to set up links, free of charge.”
DTC recently began its DUAT mobile service,
which lets pilots use PDA’s and smart phones for
access to briefing information and flight plan-
ning services. Similarly, CSC is also accessible
through iPhones, BlackBerrys, and other such
portable devices. “The trend is definitely toward
cell phones and other portable Web browsers,”
said Thomas. CSC also supports Stenbock and
Everson’s new Golden Eagle FlightPrep software,
which provides automatic routing, weather over-
lays, VFR and IFR charts, rubber-banding of
routes, and much more- including flight plan
filing. DTC provides charts, including airport
diagrams, instrument approach plates, and sec-
tional charts. END
(Continued from page 3)
DUAT’S 20th