Editorial

In the December 2012 issue, I commented on what renters had a right to expect at an FBO when they make the decision to exchange their money for flying time. The feedback I received ranged from recitations of unpleasant experiences at unscrupulous or indifferent FBOs to pilots trying to find the right place to rent. What struck me was that number of the pilots looking for a place to rent weren’t so much trying to find an FBO that had well-maintained airplanes with reasonably clean interiors as they wanted a place where they could not only fly, but spend time with others who shared their passion for the sky. They were in aviation for the fun of it, had a budget to pay for it and socializing with other pilots meant they flew more.

The unpleasant concept of a thinking computer taking over when we’re the pilot in command has been wrestled in literature until it’s a cliché, but technology has reached the point where we may have to face it.

Rick Durden’s advice to use a pulse oximeter at altitude (November 2012 Aviation Consumer) and to start oxygen early is excellent, but oxygen saturation is only part of the picture. What really counts is your body’s ability to carry oxygen and release it when needed. The carrying capacity is a product of how many red cells you have, and release is increased when you acclimatize to altitude.

I just received an e-mail from an acquaintance outlining the stunningly bad experiences he had with airplane rental at an FBO near his new home. He loves to fly but according to more than one pilot, the only FBO near him is utterly indifferent to its rental fleet and customers. He’s about to take his considerable discretionary recreation money and spend it on something else.

I continue to be impressed with the ability of LSA designers to meet the strange and arbitrary weight limit for the category and still carry a reasonable amount of fuel. At the same time, I am hearing more and more questions about the crashworthiness of the airplanes and whether the manufacturer of such a flyweight machine can incorporate some degree of protection against a quick, unplanned stop for those who fly in them.

During my brief time as a freight pilot in the mid-1970s, there were almost no turboprops to be seen. In my corner of the world, it was either piston equipment where, loaded, you sagged into the air and clawed your way to about 8000 feet. That put you in midst of whatever weather was along your route. The only turbine option in those days was 20-series Learjets with their addictive rates of acceleration and climb and the pleasure of looking down at most of the weather. About the time I was moving on to other endeavors, the first turboprop conversions of the Beech 18 were showing up on the ramp. The big power in a small package of those turbines fascinated me, but how the shoestring operators I knew could afford them was beyond me.

Following our July article on folding bikes, Woody Saland sent us the letter at right about his experience with electric bicycles for transportation at airport destinations. I asked him to send me a couple of photos and here they are. I wanted to show how he’s using this bike as an interesting juxtaposition to this month’s article on lithium-ion batteries. As he explains in his letter, this bike is a folder that’s also propelled by a small electric motor powered by a rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack.

A couple of years ago when I was having fun chasing down all the doublespeak larding up the avgas replacement effort, NATA President Jim Coyne made a comment to me as we were leaving yet another information-free meeting masquerading as a press conference. “You know,” he said, “you were born for this.” Jim is an old-school airplane guy from back in the days when the industry was a friendlier place than it is now and he’s a long-time aircraft owner and reader of Aviation Consumer. He knows me we’ll enough to sense my unrestrained glee in pursuing stories that certain interests in the industry would rather see kept in the shadows. This natural predilection springs from my experience as an unreconstructed hooligan in Catholic school and was further reinforced early in my career in the newspaper business, where wide-eyed awe is checked at the newsroom door.

Some of the most popular new LSAs are distinctly old-school in their roots. There are three popular modern takes on the Piper Cub. American Champion reintroduced the venerable Champ that begat the Citabrias and Decathlons. There are even a few modern Luscombes out there from an effort to revive that line.

When you put a sharp pencil to the concept, diesel engines should be a slam dunk against gasoline engines. Their fuel specifics are terrific, they have lots of torque and, potentially, they have long overhaul cycles. Modern ECU-based diesels have headroom on both performance and economy, so it’s realistic to expect improvements in both. Yet, the market sort of stumbles along, even with avgas at $6-plus and looking increasingly threatened with extinction in Europe, if not in the U.S. If you add up recent production figures, gasoline aircraft engines continue to outsell diesel options by a wide margin. While it’s true that the diesels from Diamond are making inroads, it’s also true that Diamond is the only major OEM with a serious diesel program.

When the Rotax division of Bombardier Recreational Products (BRP) rolled out its new 912iS engine at its Gunskirchen, Austria, headquarters in early March, I wasn’t too surprised. From talking to a couple of vendors, I had a pretty good idea of what was coming and the engine more or less lived up to those expectations. Well, okay, there were two surprises. One was how far along the engine really is. It’s basically there. You could hardly open the door of a FIAT 500 (nice handling, no motor) without bumping into an actual engine, a component or some BRPer rolling around in 912iS logo wear. Rotax has obviously been at this awhile and has put in place all the bits and pieces of support you normally don’t expect until an engine is shipping to dealers.

Although I didn’t plan it that way, this issue deals with a couple of critical aircraft maintenance considerations: corrosion prevention efforts and engine maintenance. The ugly reality here is that owners, because they are flying less, are also doing less preventive maintenance, if they’re doing any at all. It has now become normal to see an airplane in annual with 20 or fewer hours on the clock during the previous year. You can blame this on high fuel prices if you want, but I think there’s more to it than that.