IF PILOTS WROTE THE REGS…

91.3     The pilot is in charge, but if anything goes wrong, the pilot will be blamed.

91.7     If your aircraft is broken, don’t fly.    If your airplane breaks during flight, land, and apply 91.3.

91.11   Don’t mess with the pilot.

91.13   If someone on the ground sees you doing something that looks careless, reckless, crazy or stupid, apply 91.3.

91.15   You can drop anything you want out of an airplane, unless it appears to look careless, reckless, crazy or stupid.

91.17   Don’t fly drunk or high on drugs.  You can kick your drunk buddies off the plane.

91.19   If you use your plane to carry drugs, and you get caught, apply 91.3.

91.21 If you are flying in the clouds, do not attempt to make a call on your cell, play Nintendo, or catch up on Facebook on your IPad.  However you can shave, make a demo recording for the country western charts and use your hearing aid while flying.

91.103 You have to know everything about aviation because if you don’t the FAA can always find a reason to apply 91.3.

91.105 Sit in your seat and wear your seatbelt.

91.107 Tell everybody else to wear their seatbelt, especially when on or close to the ground.

91.111 If you run into someone in the air it will be bad.  Don’t fly formation unless everyone knows what in the heck you are doing.

91.113 Get out of the way of the guy in trouble and the balloons.  Turn right and apply 91.111.

91.117 If you are lucky enough to fly a plane that goes faster than 200 knots, memorize the speed limits, because unlike the interstate highway, the speed limit is NOT POSTED.

91.119 If your engine quits at any time, you better be able to grease the landing and apply 91.3.

91.123 If ATC tells you to do something, you darn well better comply or think up a really good excuse.

91.125 Green usually means go, and red usually means stop, except when they both mean exercise extreme caution.

91.126 Why do we have class G airspace?

91.133 There are some places you are positively not allowed to fly.

91.141 If the President is flying, drive to the beach and work on your tan.

91.146 If you want to fly for a charitable event you will need a lawyer to represent you.

91.151 Don’t run out of gas and apply 91.3.

91.155 There are about 37 rules about how close you can fly to a cloud, unless ATC gives you permission to fly through it.

91.159 People flying east and people flying west should not run into each other.

91.167 It takes more fuel to fly through clouds.

91.175 If you want to land when it is cloudy you must be able to see something on or near the runway.

91.185 If your radios and navs fail in the clouds, you are basically toast.

91.205 Most of the stuff in your airplane has to be in working condition.

91.213 If something in your airplane breaks, you better take it out or put a big sign on it that says INOP, and remember, always apply 91.3.

The private pilot certificate

The private pilot certificate allows a pilot the privilege of flying an airplane just like a driver’s license allows you the privilege of driving your car. As a private pilot you have very few limitations. You can carry passengers, but you cannot charge them any money. However, you can split the cost of renting an aircraft equally with your passengers. A private pilot cannot work for anyone else, in other words, you cannot be paid to fly.

First you will have a student pilot certificate which is like your learner’s permit. The FAA requires a minimum of 40 flight hour logged as a student pilot before a person can go to the examiner and request their private pilot certificate. Like your driver’s license, in order to get your private pilot certificate, you must take both a written and a practical (flying) exam. However, it is much more challenging to get a pilot’s license than to get a driver’s license. The great thing is, your pilot certificate never expires. However, you must keep it current by passing a regular physical exam and passing a flight review with a flight instructor every two years.

You should plan on flying at least three times per week with a Certified Flight Instructor (CFI). These flights will start out short, about one hour in duration, but eventually get longer as you move into the cross country phase of flight training. Flights will occasionally be canceled for bad weather, maintenance on the aircraft, or illness of you or your instructor. You never want to fly when you are sick; it is a waste of money.

Now let’s do the math. If you fly three times per week for one hour each flight, it would take you 13.3 weeks to get to 40 hours of flight time. But, consider that 40 hours is the minimum time it takes to earn a pilot certificate. Most people take closer to 50 hours to finish. If you have some challenges learning or interrupt your training it may take even longer. The more often you fly the easier it will be to get finished.

You will also need to study hard on your own. You will meet with your instructor for ground instruction to learn the many, many, many rules for flying an aircraft and also the normal, abnormal and mechanical features of your aircraft. Flying the aircraft is the easiest part of earning your wings, landing is the second easiest, learning all you need to know to be a safe pilot is by far the hardest part. However, the secret to saving money and progressing through your training quickly is very easy: STUDY, STUDY, STUDY. Remember, you must pay for flight time, and ground instruction time, but study time is absolutely free.

Becoming a pilot will be a journey that will change your life forever.

For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return. –Leonardo di Vinci

My favorite things

kids and planes

Knots are not nautical

“Why do we use nautical miles?” The student pilot and I were discussing cross country flight planning. I gave him the only answer I could. “I don’t know, but I will try to find out.”

It seems like we have quite a few words in aviation that refer to boats, so I decided to make a list of aeronautical terms. Stop right there: where did that word aeronautical come from? According to the Miriam Webster dictionary, the term aeronautical was first used about 1824 and is a combination of aero + nautical. Nautical: of, relating to, or associated with seamen, navigation, or ships was first used around 1552 and comes from Greek nautikos meaning sailor. Aero, comes from Latin avis, and has to do with birds (think aviary). Just like simple math, if we put them together it equals: of, relating to, or associated with airmen, air navigation, or airships.

When you have a new thing, sometimes you have to invent a new word. Two year olds are great at this. A two year old I knew invented the word flysmacker. Shakespeare kept on going after he was two and invented over 3000 words. . . including aerial, but that is another story altogether. Back in the 1800s when folks were getting serious about trying to leave the terra firma below, they had to invent some new terms. Since navigation by sea was doing quite well at the time, it made logical sense to go from the blue below to the blue above.

Here are just a few of the terms we use in aviation that were adapted from navigation:

Term	Nautical	Aeronautical
Abeam	On the beam, a bearing at right angles to the centerline of the ship's keel	Ninety degrees to the right or left of the aircraft track
Aft	Toward the stern or back of the ship	Toward the tail of the aircraft
Aloft	In the rigging of a sailing ship; above the ship's uppermost deck, high overhead	Above the ground; for example, winds aloft are forecast at altitudes from 3000 MSL to 39000 MSL
Beacon	A lighted or unlighted aid to navigation attached directly to the earth’s surface; a lighthouse is one example of a beacon	A navigation aid that emits flashes of white and colored light to indicate the location of an airport or landing area
Cabin	An enclosed room on the deck	The part of the aircraft that is enclosed for passengers, crew, or cargo
Chart	A map used in the navigation of the ocean and shorelines including hazards, currents and depths of the ocean floor	A map used in air navigation containing all or part of the topography, hazards, navigation aids, routes and airports
Pilot	A navigator; a knowledgeable person qualified to navigate a vessel through difficult waters, for example, a harbor pilot; the person who is responsible for the safety of the vessel	A knowledgeable person qualified to navigate an aircraft through the skies; Pilot in Command: the person who has final authority and responsibility for the operation and safety of the flight
Pitch	A ship's motion causing the fore and aft ends to rise and fall repetitively.	The movement of the aircraft around its lateral axis: the nose will pitch up and down along the flight path.
Port	1. A place where ships may ride secure from storms; usually sheltered from open water 2. The left-hand side of the ship facing forward: marked with a red light at night	1. Airport: A place where an aircraft lands and takes off; a place where an aircraft can be safely tied down or hangered 2. The aircraft has a red navigation light on the left wing tip
Rudder	A large blade or vertical surface at the rear of a ship which is connected to the helm and used to steer	A moveable vertical surface on the tail of an airplane used to control direction and yaw
Starboard	The right-hand side of the ship facing forward: marked with a green light	The aircraft has a green navigation light on the right wing tip
Trim	An advantageous set of the ship in the water or set of the sails in the wind	An advantageous balance of control forces in flight most commonly for pitch
Wake	Turbulence behind and below a ship in the water	Turbulence behind and below an aircraft whenever the wing is producing lift
Wash	The waves created by a ship.	The movement of air behind any airfoil, for example, upwash, downwash, prop wash
Yaw	A ship's rotational motion about the vertical axis, causing the fore and aft ends to swing from side to side through the water.	An aircraft’s rotational motion around the vertical axis, causing the nose and tail to swing from side to side in the air.

You may have noticed that the above list does not explain why we use nautical miles; which was the student’s original question. This subject took a little more research and includes two of our most well used terms in aviation. The nautical mile is approximately the distance across one minute of longitude when measured at the equator. It is a distance used by sailors who were going strong exploring the world in the 15^th and 16^th centuries. However the distance of 6076.12 feet or 1852 meters wasn’t standardized until the 20^th century.

Along come airplanes at the start of the 20^th century. First we flew over land. No problem, we can use a road map and statue miles or kilometers. But when we started flying over water, what to do? We had to use nautical charts and decide how long it would take us to get somewhere (without running out of fuel of course) using nautical miles.

Here is the very strange part. How do aviators measure the speed at which they fly those nautical miles? We measure in knots, which sounds like nautical, but is not. However knots and one of a pilot’s most useful records comes from the same device. Back to the 1500s. It might be useful to know how fast your ship is traveling through the big blue ocean. So you drop a piece of wood attached to a rope, or a “log” off the front of the ship and record in seconds or minutes or hours how long it takes for the ship, which is moving, to pass the log, which is just sitting there. Then a clever sailor thought: Why don’t we simply tie knots in our rope at evenly spaced lengths, throw the log off the back of the ship and see how often the knots go out to sea. The knots were 7 fathoms or 42 feet apart and time could be measured with a 30 second sand hourglass. The rest is history. Now sailors and pilots alike measure the speed of our craft in knots. Then the captain or first mate or Number 1 made the sailor keep a record of the log dragging the knotty rope out behind our ship. Our sailor needed a book to write down a record of the speed at which the log was being left behind, and presto, the logbook was born.

Finally, one more aviation term that does not come from the sea but from geometry. When inventors were hard at work trying to be the first to make powered flight, the term flying machine was quite popular. Hence the title of one of my favorite old movies, Those magnificent men and their flying machines. The airplane, in contrast to the popular balloon, referred to a thing that travels through the air at one level altitude or plane (think flat surface):

In Paris, M. Adar is said to have constructed a flying machine by which he has raised himself 60 feet in the air and flown about 900 feet in a straight line, his flying machine is a monstrous thing, approximately like a bat. . .M. Mouillard of Algiers claims to have flown short distances with his adjustable “aeroplane” a flat surface like the underparts of a bird when soaring with rigid wings. New York Times January 3, 1892.

Now, the cross country flight log is complete. The nautical miles are measured. The navigation lights are on. As you point the nose of your airplane up into the deep blue sky, remember what you owe to the sailors of the deep blue sea.