Safety

Unless you own a seaplane, the buzzkill after earning the seaplane rating comes when you try to rent one, or at least it was for me. With the ink still wet on the certificate and my chest puffed with confidence, I was ready to ditch the shirt and go splashing in the central Florida lakes, but couldnt go solo because Browns Seaplane Base in Winterhaven, Florida, doesnt rent its training fleet. I totally get it; Browns fleet of J3 floatplanes are too valuable to day-to-day cash flow to risk getting crunched and grounded, plus the insurance is off-the-charts expensive. If Michigan is a destination, Northwoods Aviation in Cadillac might let you rent its SuperCub on floats (skis, in the winter) after 10 hours of type experience and a signoff. Bring your own seaplane insurance-it isn’t included.

The widespread availability, and use, of inexpensive pulse oximeters opened the eyes of many in the aviation community to what the aeromedical folks have been telling us for years: The FARs on oxygen give a false sense of security to pilots. Pilots who are in full compliance with the regs are often oxygen-deprived to a level that adversely affects their ability to operate the airplane. The good news is that there are a number of reasonably priced, high-quality portable oxygen systems to help protect yourself against hypoxia and make your flights safer and more comfortable.

Your article on ADS-B transponders suggests you can save $500 by wiring in your existing Stratus portable ADS-B receiver to the new Stratus ESG transponder, instead of buying the new 2i receiver. This is true only if you don’t wire it in, but continue to use it standalone. I just had NexAir Avionics in Massachusetts install the Stratus ESGi transponder system in my Ercoupe and I chose the package with the 2i because the savings without it is only $350. That is because the interface cable set costs $150, but its included with the ESGi bundle.

Well say it up front-in the great scheme of things, your risk of getting hurt or killed in an aircraft accident due to carbon monoxide poisoning is on the low end of the spectrum. From what we can tell, its a little below that of having a midair collision. Nevertheless, its not zero, our airplanes are aging and maintenance isn’t perfect, so if you fly in an area where you use your heater during at least half the year, we think its wise to have a detector in the airplane that will alert you to even very low levels of CO.

Officially called the Third Class Medical Reform and General Aviation Pilot Protections, the bill finally oozed through Congress as part of a continuing resolution to fund the FAA. That improved its chances of passage, but it also required dropping some provisions that would have essentially all but eliminated any kind of medical certification for pilots who now require a Third Class medical. President Obama signed the measure into law on July 15, which sets the clock ticking on a 10-year look back on medical eligibility.

Its hard not to pass judgment on the health of the industry by what companies unveil at AirVenture. Still, as weve witnessed before, major manufacturers may show up with more new product announcements than we can cover in a week, but that doesnt mean the industry is rolling along fat, dumb and happy. This year, vendors did seem happy, and while many werent fat with record sales, everyone seemed to agree that the show simply had a positive vibe, perhaps signaling the stability weve been looking for in previous years.

If youre a member of Sportys new Breakdown Assistance Program (BAP), no matter what time of the day or night it is, you pull your membership card out of the glove box, call the phone number on it and provide your membership information. Within 15 minutes-current average wait time is five minutes-you’ll get a call from a person who is an A&P and IA, is looking at the file on your airplane and will start the process of troubleshooting the problem and getting you on your way. From our perspective, its a 24/7 AAA service for general aviation.

Aircraft manufacturers provide checklists in their POH/AFMs and weve dutifully copied those into separate-usually laminated-checklists for use in the airplane. Various third parties, including sureCheck and CheckMate, have attempted to improve on that physical format by taking much of the same information and condensing it to a few dense pages. Now weve got various tablet and EFB checklist apps, plus utilities in our panel-mount devices. Instead of laminated paper, the same static information is available on a high-quality screen, but the operating paradigm is unchanged: Read the challenge; read the response; repeat. (Although, some apps allow a checklist item to be actually checked off, making it easier to keep your place.)

We surveyed six of the more popular internet prep courses to see what was available, how they approached getting a student ready for the instrument written, what they cost and their convenience of use-notably whether they could be used on any internet-connected device or didnt require connectivity while using. We came away feeling all were good-its a competitive market and the high quality of the products reflects it.

One of our readers-an airplane owner and active CFI-recently called to ask why the magazine doesnt bring more attention to rule-bending, which he thinks is a growing trend. Although he had no hard statistics to back up his assertion, he offered the stereotype that older and financially capable pilots with medical issues are getting their hands on technically advanced and highly automated aircraft (yes, he mentions Cirrus). He went on that the combination of an aging pilot population and the anticipation of third class medical reform is making for a lot of scofflaws, while the advocacy of AOPA and other alphabets is fostering an arrogant sense of entitlement among the older and financially flush GA pilot community.

The magnetos weve been relying on to fire our aircrafts spark plugs may be the trailing edge of technology, yet if cared for appropriately, they are remarkably reliable. Its the cared for part of the equation that matters-because they do require regular maintenance, otherwise some failure modes can mean engine stoppage or even catastrophic engine damage in a matter of seconds. The good news is that keeping your mags healthy usually costs less than two dollars per hour of engine operation per mag.

The market for aviation insurance continues to be soft-perhaps very soft. There are simply too many aviation insurance companies offering to sell policies, relative to the number of aircraft owners looking to buy them. And each of these too-many companies is trying to keep the customers it has, and to grow by taking customers away from one of the other companies.