Pilot Mike’s Weblog

The July 11 edition of AOPA ePilot had an article indicating that AOPA was able to obtain the radar data and voice communications of a March 21st incident involving an F-16 pilot flying in close formation with the pilots of a Pilatus PC-12 and a Beechcraft Premier jet.

The GA aircraft were flying through an active military operations area (MOA); however, center controllers had no method to communicate with military controllers in real time.

Besides the fact that this F-16 pilot did something completely dangerous, there is a major opportunity for improvement in ATC communications here. Is anyone else surprised that the ARTCC was not able to talk directly to controllers for these military aircraft?!? I fully support AOPA’s recommendation for the FAA to develop a method for center controllers to communicate with military controllers in real time.

Take a look at the video as the radar echos show on up on top of each other. The radio traffic playing while the radar echos paint will send chills down your back!

Be safe out there folks!

This weekend I was taking a look at the latest Logbook Pro Newsletter from NC Software, Inc. and it looks like the gang has a major overhaul in the works for its popular electronic logbook software — just not for another year. The newsletter states that the public beta is not targeted for release until late 2008.

Read all the details after the jump… Read the rest of this entry »

According to a post on AOPA’s Pilot Blog, Olathe, KS based Garmin has finally won over the last big hold out in the certified aircraft market — Cirrus Design.

According to the post by Tom Haines, the G1000 (Perspective Option) does have some unique to Cirrus (for now) features including: Impressively large dual 12-inch displays, Garmin’s recently announced synthetic vision technology (SVT) and several crew alerting messages.

Another cool little feature Tom mentioned is: “…a blue “LVL” button on the GFC 700 autopilot mode controller. The LVL button is a pilot’s get-out-of-jail-free card when things are starting to go bad. Simply push the LVL button and no matter what mode the autopilot is in or even if it is off, the autopilot will roll the wings level and hold altitude.”

I am a little bit late to post on this, but according to the April 8th AOPA ePilot, Garmin has announced Synthetic Vision Technology (SVT) for their G1000 platform. SVT will allow for a 3D view of of terrain as you would see it on a VFR day. The best part? It is just a software upgrade, no additional hardware is required — a rare find in the world of avionics.

AOPA has posted a First Look video clip here. Of local Kansas City Interest, note the sample approach in the video is an approach into Lawrence, Kansas (KLWC).

Enjoy the show…try to keep the drool off the keyboard.

This morning, Air Associates, hosted an open house at the KOJC airport. One of the planes on display was a re-branded Columbia 350. Cessna is calling this plane the Cessna 350. As you might know, Cessna purchased Columbia in late 2007 after Columbia declared bankruptcy. I must say this was a smart move for Cessna, because until now, they did not have anything to compete the composite market.

What were my impressions? I must say, the plane stood much taller than I had imagined — much taller than a Diamond DA40XL. However, the primary competitor is not a DA40XL, but more the Cirrus SR22.

The Cessna 350 had an amazing ramp presence but the visibility from the cockpit was not quite as good as the DA40XL. I have not sat in a SR22, but Cessna reps were claiming that it has more overall glass than the SR22. Another thing I noted was there was more to the cockpit in terms of controls scattered than what I am used to in the DA40XL. The plane does have some advanced features like speedbreaks. I’m not sure we’ll be seeing this plane on the rental line anytime soon, but time will tell.