Decision Attitude

Decision Altitude in instrument flying is the lowest altitude possible on a precision approach (ILS, LPV, LNAV/VNAV). At the specified altitude you either see the runway and land or fail to see the runway and immediately start the missed approach procedure. It used to be called decision height, but height is something we never really know. Altitude is what barometers measure.

But right now I have reached the decision attitude, at least in regard to instrument charts.

In the United States we have two major sources of charts, a government agency called NACO, which is an acronym for National Aeronautical Charting Office and Jeppesen, a commercial vendor. The charts show the same information with slightly different formats, and one pilot I know dismissed a rather loud airport lounge debate about which was better with "Some like chocolate. Some like vanilla." End of discussion.

Other countries have similar situations: charts come from Jeppesen or a government or at least quasi-governmental agency.

I started instrument training in 1985, and some may say that I still don't get it. No matter: since 1985 I have used Jeppesen charts for my instrument flying. A few years ago at the Oshkosh fly-in I bought a pair of beautiful green leather Jeppesen binders with Arabic calligraphy and the English legend "Royal Air Maroc B-737 Operations Manual." I kept the contents for reference; I use the binders for my charts.

[I promise to take a picture and post it over the weekend.]

But lately I have been less satisfied with the Jeppesen charts. First, they moved a lot of their NOTAMs online, which isn't much help in the cockpit. I wrote them a letter, and got a perfunctory response. And this was a big change: it used to be that Jeppesen's customer service was the best there was.

They missed a change of a Minimum Enroute Altitude (MEA), which I suppose can happen to any chart service. I found out the semi-hard way when ATC told me that I couldn't be cleared via the airway at the altitude I'd used for many years. "But my [brand new] chart doesn't show an MEA change," I complained. ATC was right.

That was the semi-hard way to discover an MEA change. The hard way would be to hit some rocks.

My flying changed, too. I'm not flying the King Airs anymore, so don't need faraway charts at short notice. The company bought Jeppesen charts for the airplanes, but I never knew who had done the revisions, and some of the pilots were better than others at refiling charts after flights. I didn't want to find myself someplace strange in the middle of the night with the approach chart misfiled. So I carried my own charts, at my own expense.

And expense has become a big issue. I got my Jeppesen renewal notice today; they want $281 for the year. But NACO charts are public domain and are available free online, from sites like FltPlan.com, airnav, or FlightAware. A subscription to NACO charts for 99% of my flying will cost about $105, which I can pay as the charts are issued, rather than all at once. In the past few months, $176 has become a lot of money.

So the decision is made; while I'll miss Jeppesen's approach, tomorrow I plan to stop at a pilot shop and buy a couple of NACO books and an enroute chart or two.

I'll sure miss using those green binders, though. Ebay, anyone?

Gusty crosswind

There was no school Friday, so my kids and I lazed around the house a little, watching the news. They were fascinated by the fluctuations in the stock markets, even if they did not fully understand. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was way down, crept up into the positive range, and then fell. My son, hearing the cheer when the Dow went positive, asked if I was watching a ball game.

I had extra time because one of my students had cancelled. He was heading out, by car, for a long-anticipated hunting trip, and he wanted to get on the road early because of the weather coming in. In retrospect, he did the right thing; the intermountain west got a lot of snow this morning, right when he would have been leaving. "By the way," he added, "I've lost enough in the stock market to buy my own 172." At least he was smiling.

But I had a second student, and eventually headed out to the airport to fly with him. He is close to solo, but I have found that people at his stage do a little better in the pattern if they go out and do some other flying first. This might be something simple like going to a nearby airport, or something more involved like a review of stalls and slow flight. Both give me opportunities to simulate an engine failure...

But Friday's ceiling was too low for any of the high maneuvers, and there did not seem to be enough wind for the low maneuvers, so I suggested that we stay in the pattern. I have a method for this, as well: student does two landings, I do one. This gives the student a chance to mull over any difficulties and shake them off, and gives me a chance to emphasize some aspect of the process. And I get to actually fly a little, too...

What little wind we had was gusty, and the wind sock was swinging back and forth like the stock market. We had crosswinds from the right, then from the left, then none. During one of my patterns he asked which way I was correcting, and I honestly replied that I did not know. I wonder if Ben Bernanke understands how I felt?

The pattern was quiet. One airplane arrived from the west, and I praised Dan for understanding the radio calls and watching for traffic, even while flying the pattern. This is a good sign.

We had a good session, and landed to leave the airplane for the next student. The wind calmed as we walked across the ramp. Inside, there was little of the buzz that one might expect on a nice day. Why was it so quiet? Was this the calm before the storm, and if so, which storm?

One of the keys to aviation is risk management. We control the variables within our control, but we train to handle those that are outside of our control. Adding flaps in a 172 requires nose-down trim. In King Airs and Mooneys, running the electric trim while the flaps are in motion just does the trick. Nice! We check the forecasts, and anticipate times when the weather may be more than we can handle. But there are the things we can't control, weather being one, but the economy being another.

I imagine that if the economy deteriorates too far, then people will fly less. This is natural: it takes money to fly, and if there is none then there will be no flying. But I hope that somehow people can still touch the joy of flying, even if they have to rent a smaller airplane, or share their flights with a friend. At a minimum, stay night and instrument current, because you want to be ready when opportunity arrives. Seek out the gusty crosswind, and stay sharp.

Seek out the gusty crosswind; I've done that before (see one of my first posts). That's what I want in the air; it is not what I want from the economy.