Questions to ask BEFORE you get on a light twin-engine aircraft.

When I lived in Hawaii, occasionally I’d lease and fly a Grumman Cougar (above), a light twin-engined propeller aircraft. The cold, hard fact with that aircraft was that if we took off with two passengers and their bags and lost an engine we were going down, period.

This I knew as a pilot–so I never flew the Cougar with any baggage, ever. But I think that many passengers might assume all is well either way–but it certainly is not.

This haunting memory always recurs every time I read of a light twin engine aircraft crashing on take-off, and sadly, that’s an all-too-common occurrence.

Cessna 401 crash after an engine failed on take-off, killing pop singer Aaliyah.

Some simple but vital questions could save your life if you’re thinking of chartering or accepting a ride on a light twin engine aircraft. But first, why do you have to ask?

The answer is simple: when you step onto my 175,000 pound twin engine jet–I have these answers specifically worked out for every flight, because the answers are crucial to all of us. You may assume that whoever is flying your light twin aircraft has answered them with specific numbers, but if you don’t ask, you’re casting your own safety to the wind. If your pilot has the answers–and provides them specifically (I’ll get to that later), step on board and have a good flight.

If your pilot says “Huh?” or even “It’ll be okay” or anything other than “here are the specific answers,” walk away immediately. Here are the Big Five:

1. What is the single engine climb gradient on this take-off, based on our projected weight and the current weather (temperature, pressure altitude and winds) conditions? Yes, I can answer that for every take-off with an exact number in two vital parameters: single engine (meaning assuming one engine quits on take-off) climb feet per nautical mile available and required.

“Required” means based on the terrain ahead, what is the minimum single engine climb gradient required for our aircraft to clear all obstacles by a minimum of 35 feet? “Available” means given our weight in fuel, passengers and bags, what is our aircraft capable of achieving on only one engine? Yes, there is a specific number to be derived from performance charts–and your pilot better have computed both. So your pilot should have a ready answer, don’t you think?

Four people were killed this week and one remains hospitalized after this Cessna twin crashed in a field in Kansas after leaving Tulsa. The cause is under investigation.

2. How much flight time does your pilot have in twin engine aircraft? Seriously, “total flight time” is not the important point here for a couple of crucial reasons. First, twin engine aircraft behave completely different from single engine planes because of the asymmetric yaw an engine failure produces. If one engine fails, the other continues to produces power and in many cases, must be pushed to an even higher power setting. Immediate rudder correction for adverse yaw–which doesn’t exist on single-engine aircraft–is a delicate operation: too much and the drag induced by the rudder kills lift; too little and the aircraft can depart controlled flight. Put in the wrong rudder, and you’ll be inverted in seconds.

If you’re paying someone to fly you somewhere, he’d better have at least 500 hours in that specific twin-engine plane–or you’d better walk away. In the above crash, the father of one of the survivors said the pilot had “flown the aircraft several times” and was “well-versed in it.” I stand by my 500 hour rule, at least when my life’s at stake. And “flight time” alone ain’t enough: proficiency, meaning hours flown within the past six months, is just as important. A few here and there? Not much recently? bad news.

Cessna -400 series interior.

3. What is our planned climb performance today? Meaning, given our gross weight in fuel, passengers and bags, at the current temperature and pressure altitude, what climb rate can we expect on a single engine? Again, this is a specific number derived from performance charts after all of the above variables are computed–and if your pilot doesn’t have the specific answer–walk away.

4. What is the engine history on this aircraft? Seriously? Yes, dead seriously: before I accept any aircraft for the day, I scan the engine history of repairs, malfunctions, oil consumption, vibration and temperature limits going back at least six months. Ditto your light twin: the pilot should be able to answer that question in detail–if the pilot checked.

5. How many pilot hours does your pilot have in this model and type of multi-engine aircraft? And when was the pilot’s last proficiency check? For example, I consider myself to be a low-time 737 pilot, having just over 1,500 hours in the aircraft–even though I have over 17,000 hours in multi-engine jets. In those 1,500 Boeing-737 pilot hours, I’ve had two complete refresher courses with FAA evaluations, plus three inflight evaluations–and I welcome that: I want to know my procedures and skills are at their peak. And I fly at least 80 hours a month, maintaining proficiency. When was your pilot’s last flight? Again, how many flight hours in the past six months?

Recurrent training and evaluation every nine months.

Not withstanding “well-versed” and having “flown it several times” as quoted above, your pilot needs to have hundreds of hours in the model and type to be flown, and preferably hundreds of hours in multi-engine aircraft. Remember the engine-out scenario on take-off I sketched out above, where the wrong rudder input can flip you inverted on take-off if an engine failure? Ditto on landing, with another set of problems, in the event of a single-engine go-around with a lighter aircraft.

Know the answers to these questions, and have your radar tuned for the following circumstances: how far are you going (short hop versus a longer point to point), and how many are on board, plus what cargo (baggage or equipment). Why? These are your cues that gross weight is going to be a critical factor in aircraft performance, making the five questions I just raised even more critical for you to ask.

Look, there are plenty of safe aircraft and pilots available to fly you around if that’s what you had in mind. Those pilots are the ones who have good answers to the above questions ready for you as soon as you ask. Be sure that you do ask, and when the answers are satisfactory–and only when they are: bon voyage.

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JetHead Live: Airline Pilot & USAF General Carol Timmons

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Airline 101: Anatomy of a “Go-Around.”

The engines were still growling down when the agent popped open the forward cabin door and reached for the P.A. handset to welcome the passengers to John Wayne Orange County Airport just south of Los Angeles. I shot the gap between her and the door and escaped up the jetbridge so as not to encounter what I knew a large percentage of the deplaning passengers were going to say or do on their way  out.

Why?

I’ll rewind a bit. On approach at about 3 miles from touchdown and at a thousand feet, I told the First Officer, who was flying the approach, “Go around.” He looked at me once to be sure he’d heard me correctly, then he executed the maneuver; he knew if he didn’t, I’d take control of the aircraft and do it myself. That works both ways: if I’m flying and the F/O says “go-around,” I’ll initiate the procedure immediately and ask any questions after landing.

We followed the litany and procedures to transition from a descent to a climb, then around the traffic pattern for another approach and landing. That’s what “go-around” means: “go around the traffic pattern one more time for landing.”

No big deal. Right?

If you don’t agree, don’t bother reading any further. You’re the type who needs to have an embellished horror story to tell your friends; you’re the one I avoid by heading up the jetbridge before you deplane–and I dodge you at social gatherings for the same reason: a go-around really is no big deal, and I hate having to play along with the growing mythology of your near death experience.

But if you’re not the hysterical type, and if you’d like to know what goes on beyond the cockpit door so you can better understand go-arounds and take the maneuver in stride like a seasoned traveler rather than as one who doesn’t fly much–read on.

At a thousand feet, we must be in landing configuration, stable at approach speed with a normal descent rate–or a go-around is required. Besides common sense, that’s our standard procedure–and it’s set in stone.

There are different kinds of go-arounds, and I’ll explain those too. But first, the reasons. Usually, it’s a spacing issue. That is, there’s not enough time for you to land given that another aircraft is still on the runway either for take-off or landing. That can be caused by a number of factors, but the simplest is just spacing: the aircraft on the runway took longer to start its take-off roll, or the landing aircraft took longer than planned to exit the runway. That too can have several “no big deal” causes: the aircraft on take-off roll may have discovered a problem that needed momentary attention; the landing aircraft might not have achieved deceleration as planned for an upfield exit.

Or, in instrument conditions, we might not have satisfied the approach requirements for seeing the runway for landing at the lowest allowable descent altitude, in which case we immediately execute the missed approach procedure.

Finally, as in our case, we were not “in the slot” with the specs I mentioned above–so we go-around. Why weren’t we “in the slot?” Lots of factors can cause that, like a tailwind or a speed or altitude restriction or tight vector by air traffic control; the point is, like at any busy intersection on the ground, spacing requires analysis and conservative thinking–you just don’t plunge ahead regardless.

Now, we didn’t “abort the landing” as the uninformed, yarn-spinning passenger might say. “Aborted landing” is actually the term for when you’ve touched down on the runway, then decide for another set of good reasons, that you must take off again. In twenty-six years of airline piloting, I’ve never encountered this–quite possibly due to the conservative “go-around” parameters I already mentioned.

Now, for the three types of go-arounds.

When we were at 1,000 feet, the maneuver can be done less aggressively than if it occurs at our lowest descent altitude, which for a pilot with my qualifications is 50 feet. You can see why, right? I mean a thousand feet is plenty of margin for safety between us and the ground. If however, I don’t see the runway by fifty feet (the first officer’s eyeballs are locked on the navigation displays inside), we will without hesitation go to the full go-around procedure to maximize ground separation as quickly as possible.

That’s two types, and the third is when we’re somewhere in between those two extremes. For that, we just need a deliberate go-around.

Now, the dynamics of the go-around and why that seems more extreme from the cabin than it is.

First, on approach you are at a relatively slow speed–as a wag, say 160 knots, in my jet–and at a shallow rate of descent, usually about 700 feet per minute. On a go-around, the power is going to come in fast and with force, which means in order to maintain the given approach speed, we’ll need the nose pitched up from 2-3 degrees all the way to 15-20 degrees, depending on aircraft weight. That will give you 3,000 feet per minute or more of climb–quite a radical change from 750 feet per minute of descent, all within a matter of seconds.

That’s by design: holding the minimum airspeed for configuration guarantees the fastest separation between jet and runway. But, at the designated missed approach altitude–3,000 feet at Orange County–we must level off. If I were to add full power, pitch the nose up to 20 degrees from 1,000 feet where we were, we’d need to shove the nose forward and pull the power way back about 15 seconds later–and you definitely wouldn’t like the way that feels in back.

So for that, we could ease the power forward, stop the descent, then climb smoothly and safely to the go-around altitude. But if we were only a hundred feet above touchdown when a go-around was required, we’d use the full power setting which would pitch the nose way up for 30 to 40 seconds before reaching the go-around altitude.

For that, Boeing has wisely given me two throttle options: one press of the go-around toggle on the throttles sets a medium power, two sets the full power–52,000 pounds of thrust in a matter of seconds, so hold on. But in our case at 1,000 feet, a smooth application of just enough power to arrest the descent and then climb was done manually.

All three come with a catch, particularly the first two: you must retract the aircraft flaps before you exceed the structural design limit speed of the flaps. The limit for the typical landing setting (30 degrees) is 175 knots. Getting the picture here? Understand why the pitch-up is so pronounced? If we were to add the go-around power without pitching up, we’d accelerate from our approach speed, say 155, through 240 knots in about twenty seconds–overspeeding the flaps along the way. And we want separation from the ground as aggressively as possible, another reason to hold the airspeed constant.

Regardless, the go-around procedure from any altitude requires full pilot attention: immediately stop the descent, then retract the gear–and when you do, there goes the drag so you’d better keep the nose tracking upward to control the speed–then immediately get the flaps to 15 degrees, because anything more than that is not only too much drag, it also has too low a max speed. Fifteen degrees allows for 200 knots, giving you at least a few seconds to attend to other things.

Those things are, setting the missed approach altitude and, to outthink the Flight Director engineering and regain control of pitch and speed commands, turn both Flight Directors off then back on again, then reinstate the Autothrottle system with a new speed command–say 210 knots. Then get the flaps retracted on schedule and level off on speed, on altitude.

It’s definitely a busy operation.

Add to that the typical southern California high density air traffic, much of it small, hard to spot light aircraft, plus the radio frequency changes from tower to approach and then the traffic sequencing (“See the 737 turning base at 3 o’clock? He’s you’re sequence, plan you base turn above the Cessna at your twelve o’clock.”) and you’d better have both sets of eyeballs concentrating outside and both heads in the game, period. Nothing else is as important.

Plus, we still accomplish the normal landing checklist, make multiple configuration and speed changes within certain limits, secure landing clearance and fly yet another final approach glide path. Are you really going to ask me why I didn’t make a P.A announcement about the go-around? My priorities are the safe accomplishment of a few dozen critical tasks in the air, not yacking on the P.A. about the obvious.

And now it is obvious for you, having read and digested all this: the whole go-around thing is clearly just a normal, if busy, day on the airways, right? Explain all that that to the guy next to you if he starts pinging or griping–I’ll have already disappeared by then, and now you know why.

.

A good reason to get off the plane quickly in Orange County:

Doug’s Dogs, Santa Ana Airport.

JetHead Live talks with Meteorologist and Pilot James Aydelott

Aviation weather, flying and more, with

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We talk live with

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Wolfpack Flight Revisited

Thirty plus years together flying in the Air Force and the airlines,

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A Wing and a Prayer, and the Everlasting Moon.

Only poets and saints have ever flown like this, riding a wing and a prayer. Darkness like sadness, spread to the end of the world, save the glow of cathode ray tubes painting the hearbeat of the seventy ton schooner, riding the howling eastbound jet stream.

That’s always a rush, surfing that gale, especially this time of year. But that’s what it takes, that’s what the 160 folks in back expect; never mind the details of turbulence and winds and fuel flow–those are yours to deal with alone. Just the way you like it.

You catch a glimpse back there now and again, but the view’s better ahead; quieter, a vortex of unseen electrical, pneumatic and hydraulic function, the lifeblood of the jet, blooming through the animated tapestry sprawled from bulkhead to bulkhead and overhead and nowadays you don’t know where the jet ends and you begin. Not that it matters: you’re comfortable in your second skin, aluminum and titanium, blood and bone–it’s one and the same for now.

And in the reassuring light of the cabin, what they don’t know won’t hurt them: through the night, an alabaster glow fires up the undercast ahead, swelling and spreading like a false dawn. The spectral blister swells to bursting and time reels backward for you–the western Pacific; the South China Sea, a world of time and distance ago.

Dark as deep space, a cloud deck below, the endless nothing above. Jets everywhere, formations in and out, stacked and you busy with courses and altitudes, your jet’s performance–then that ghostly glow below; angry rising–before you think you say it, as soon as you do you’d beg the words back on your life: “What the hell is that?”

Ivory-bone light melts up through a swirling veil of striated cirrus laid like a blanket on the Korean countryside frozen cold in the dead of winter.

“The moon,” comes the deadpan reply from another aviator. And you just let that smolder and die in the darkness; betrayed by the indifferent moon climbing it’s sky arc just like you did yours. What the hell–we’re pals–we’re going to be, through thousands of air miles over years and skies around the globe.

And it’s the aviation childhood still: less than a thousand hours of flight time; everything’s a wonder, an answered prayer or a silent wish playing out across a thousand miles at Mach speed. Like today: major league tailwind drives the groundspeed up to nearly 700mph.

Unseen from above, the miles past so fast sometimes. And that glow below, now a thousand years later and as many miles hence, you just know. Time to start down–just as your old friend climbs up. We’ll trade spots in the sky, share one more curtain call.

And surely we’ll cross paths again, however many more times we can. No surprise now–but just as stunningly bright as ever. It’s all too familiar, but in a good way: a wing and a prayer and the everlasting moon; the the essence of flight that never loses its brightness.

From flying fighter jets in the Netherlands to the captain’s seat on a KLM jetliner, Captain Martin Leeuwis has done a lifetime of amazing flying.

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Airline Flying 101: Anatomy of a Take-off.

Take-off? That’s easy, right? You fasten your safety belt, move your seat fully upright and stow your tray table. Ready. Right?

Not even.

But if that’s the full extent you prefer to be aware of, fine. Otherwise, read on as we take apart this very complex, important maneuver.

The planning starts long before you strap yourself into your seat in the back of the plane, and here’s why.

Take-offs come in all sizes and shapes because of several variables–so there’s no “one size fits all” logic or protocol. What are the variables? Well, aircraft weight, runway length, winds, runway surface condition and temperature are the basics, and each has an effect on performance.

You might think runway length is the great reliever, right? Miles of runway, like at DFW or Denver mean simple, low-risk performance, right?

And you might think a short runway or nasty weather are the “problem children” of take-off performance. But let me give you the pilot answers: no, no, and furthermore, no.

Throw out what you’ve been thinking about take-offs as a passenger, and strap in tight (is that tray table up? is Alec Baldwin playing “Words” in the lav while we all wait for His Highness to finish?) because you’re about to test drive some “pilot think:”

I don’t worry about taking off–I worry about stopping.

Why? This sounds so simple that when you think about it, you’ll have to agree: aircraft are made to fly–not drag race.

Huh?

Look, accelerating 85 tons to nearly 200 miles per hour builds tremendous kinetic energy. Not a problem for the landing gear if you take off because it’s simply rolling. But if you must stop, the brakes and wing-located speed brakes have to dissipate that energy within the length of the asphalt ahead.  The runway length is finite, the aircraft weight is unchangeable once you’re rolling. So where is the point of no return, the point after which there’s not enough runway to stop?

Brakes are key--and checked visually before EVERY take-off.

As a pilot–particularly as the captain who makes every go-no go decision no matter which pilot is actually flying–you must know when that instant occurs. That magic point is not a distance down the runway but rather, a maximum speed: “Refusal Speed.” In other words, the maximum speed to which we can accelerate and still stop within the confines of the runway if we choose to abort the take-off.

But there’s a catch, of course.

Refusal Speed is only half of the go-no go decision. Part Two is just as critical: what is the minimum speed I must have in order to take-off if one engine fails, continuing on the other. I can hear this already: why the hell would you want to continue the take-off on one engine?

To which I’d answer back, what if the failure happens above Refusal Speed? In other words, there’s not enough runway ahead to stop your high-speed tricycle.

Okay, that minimum speed–the speed you must have in order to continue the take-off in the remaining runway on one engine–is called “Critical Engine Failure Speed.”

All of the performance numbers for each unique take-off are computed, with corrections for the many variables to be made by the pilots.

Now you have the two controllers of the go-no go decision; one a minimum speed (you must have Critical Engine failure Speed achieved to continue safely into the air) and one a maximum (if you attempt to abort in excess of Refusal Speed–you ain’t stopping on the runway).

So which is the deciding factor? Well, in modern day jets under average circumstances, the “max” speed is normally way in excess of the “min” speed. In other words, you normally achieve the min required for single-engine continued take-off before you reach the max allowed for stopping. So, in ordinary circumstances, Decision Speed–which we call V1–is Refusal Speed.

In other words, we know we’ll secure adequate flying speed for a single-engine take-off before we hit the max abort speed. So we use the max abort speed–Refusal Speed–for V1.

Pilot-think lesson one: it’s easier to deal with a single-engine aircraft in the air than it is to stop a freight train on the runway. Which goes back to my earlier point: airliners fly great but make only adequate drag racers, stopping on the drag strip remaining being the challenge.

Add to that the wild card: the captain must decide in a split second as you’re rolling toward V1 if any malfunction that occurs will affect the ability to stop the jet: did an electrical system failure kill the anti-skid system required for max braking? Did a hydraulic failure eliminate the wing spoilers figured into the stopping distance?

Some jets require very little system support to fly–but a lot of factors to stop: the MD80 will fly all day without hydraulics, electrics or pneumatics–but it ain’t stopping on a “balanced field” without electrics and hydraulics.

Get my pilot-prespective regarding my preference to take a wounded jet into the air rather than wrestle it to a stop on a runway?

And remember, those speeds are “perfect world” scenarios. But on your flight–like every flight–despite the engineering numbers from which the stopping distance is computed, there are the real life factors which screw them up: wet or icy runway, tailwind, old tires, old brakes, rubber on the runway because of aircraft touchdown on landings.

Not a problem on an average day, but corrections to the numbers and your pilot-think must be made if any of those variables are present.

Now, have you deduced the worst-case scenario with the two controlling speeds, Critical Engine failure Speed and Refusal Speed? That is, you will exceed the max speed for stopping before you attain the minimum speed for single-engine flight?

That’s simple: you can’t take-off. In practice, we adjust the flap setting or even reduce the gross weight: back to the gate–some cargo and/or passengers must come off. Hardly ever happens that we return to the gate because we plan ahead–and that’s why you hear of a flight being “weight restricted,” meaning some seats will be empty by requirement before you even board. Now you know why.

But really, that’s not even the worst case scenario from a pilot’s perspective (sorry about your trip, if you’re one of the passengers left behind on a weight restricted flight–but you probably got some compensation for it). Rather, it’s when the two numbers are the same.

That is, the minimum speed required for flight is equal to the max speed for stopping.

That’s called a “Balanced Field:” the runway distance required to accelerate to minimum single-engine take-off speed is also the maximum velocity from which you can safely abort and stop on the runway.

That’s a “short runway” problem, like in LaGuardia, Burbank, Washington National or Orange County, right?

Wrong–it’s everywhere, like Denver’s 14,000 feet of runway (compared to LaGuardia’s 7,000) on a hot summer day; ditto DFW; also Mexico City even on a cool day because it’s at 7,500 feet elevation. And it can occur anywhere due to rain, ice or snow.

So here’s your plan, and as pilot-in-command, you’d better have this tattooed into your brain on every take-off: once you enter the high-speed abort regime (by definition, above 90 knots), know what you will abort for–or continue the take-off. Be ready for both–without hesitation.

LaGuardia: 7,000' between you and Flushing Bay.

It’s easier to decide what you will abort for than won’t–because the “must stops” outnumber the “can stops” and remember your pilot think: it’s often safer to continue than stop. And here are my Big Four Must Stops: engine fire, engine failure, windshear or structural failure.

So rolling past 90, I’m thinking over and over, “engines, engines, engines,” zeroing in on any malfunction in order to assess if it’s an engine problem–if not, it’s likely not a “must stop” situation; I’m aware of windshear but don’t even start the take-off roll with any of the conditions present; structural damage we’ll deal with as necessary. Otherwise, we’re flying, folks.

Got all that? Good deal: now you understand the important interrelationship between Critical Engine Failure Speed, Refusal Speed and the all important concept of V1.

And now that you understand the complex, split-second conditions surrounding the go-no go decision on your next take-off, you can relax and just put all of those crucial factors out of your mind.

Because rest assured, they’re at the forefront of mine, or that of whatever crew into whose hands you’ve entrusted your life.

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Why you should NEVER fly into Washington National Airport

There are many, many good reasons why you should NEVER fly into Reagan National Airport in Washington DC. And I’ll tell you why you shouldn’t, and I mean fly–not sit on your butt in the back of the plane. Of course, it goes without saying that if pilots shouldn’t fly there, neither should passengers. And here’s why.

1. The Postage Stamp Effect: like LaGuardia in NYC, the airport was built in the early days of commercial aviation, when the defining factors in aircraft design were slow air speeds, light weights, agile propeller aircraft. Fine.

Maneuvering this thick-winged, lumbering prop job on final was routine at a relative crawl compared to today’s heavier swept wing jets, which need lots of room in the air and on the ground to operate safely. But Washington National is a postage-stamp sized airport from a bygone era, and the serpentine “approach” hasn’t changed:

Look closely at the approach and notice the approach course–145 degrees, right? The runway heading is 194, so do the math: there’s an almost 50 degree heading change on final–and look at where that occurs. It’s at 424 feet above the ground. Which brings up my next point:

2. Extraordinary low-altitude maneuvering: The wingspan of the 737-800 is over 130 feet long, and the jet is normally sinking at a rate of 700 feet per minute on short final. Thirty degrees of bank at 400 feet with seconds to touchdown, with each wingtip dipping up to 50′ in a turn less than 200′ above the ground? And while a 20 degree offset is considered a challenge, the final alignment on such a typical offset approach happens early–but this turn is after the minimum descent altitude, and you get to finalize the crosswind correction at the last second landing on a marginally adequate runway length:

Look at the runway length of the “long” runway: that’s right, 6,800 feet–200′ shorter than LaGuardia’s aircraft carrier deck, and often on final approach, the tower will ask you to sidestep to the 5,200 foot runway instead. So before you even start the approach, you’d better figure and memorize your gross weight and stopping distance corrected for wind and in most cases, you’ll note that the total is within a couple hundred feet of the shorter runway’s length.

Then figure in the winds and the runway condition (wet? look at the numbers: fuggeddabout it) So the answer is usually “unable”–but at least half of the time I hear even full-sized (not just commuter sized) jets accepting the clearance. I accepted the clearance (had a small stopping distance margin and the long runway was closed for repairs) to transition visually to the short runway one night and at 500 feet, that seat-of-the-pants feel that says get the hell out of town took over and I diverted to Dulles instead.

“Do you fell lucky today, punk?”

If that wasn’t hairy enough (get the pun? “hairy,” “Harry?”) from the north, approaching from the south, you’ll also get the hairpin turns induced because they need more spacing to allow a take-off. Either way you get last second close-in maneuvering that would at any other airport induce you to abandon the approach–but that’s just standard at Washington Reagan. And once you’re on the ground, stopping is key because there’s no overrun: you’re in the drink on both ends. Is the runway ever wet when they say it’s dry? Icy when they say “braking action good?”

And with the inherent challenges at the capitol’s flagship airport, you’d expect topnotch navaids, wouldn’t you? Well not only do they not have runway centerline lights or visual approach slope indicators (VASI) from the south, plenty of the equipment that is installed doesn’t work on any given day. Here’s the airport’s automated arrival information for Thursday night:

Just a couple things to add to the experience, right?

So let’s review. If you’re flying into Reagan–and I’ve been doing it all month–to stay out of the headlines and the lagoon, calculate those landing distances conservatively. The airport tries to sell the added advantage of a “porous friction overlay” on the short runway that multiplies the normal coefficient of friction, but accept zero tailwind (and “light and variable” is a tailwind) and if there’s not at least 700 feet to spare–I’m going to Dulles (several deplaning passengers actually cursed at me for diverting) without even considering reentering the Potomac Approach traffic mix for a second try at National.

Think through the last minute alignment maneuver and never mind what the tower says the winds are, go to school on the drift that’s skewing your track over the river and compensate early: better to roll out on final inside the intercept angle (right of course) because from outside (left of course) there’s no safe way to realign because of the excessive offset and low altitude. A rudder kick will drag the nose back to the left inside the offset, but from too far left, you’re screwed.

Once you’ve landed, now you face reason number 3:

3: The northbound departure procedure. Noise abatement in places like Orange County-John Wayne are insanity off of a short runway with steep climb angles and drastic power cuts for noise sensitive areas. But DCA has an even better driving forces: the runway is aimed at the national mall which is strictly prohibited airspace.

Again, no problem in a lumbering prop job–but serious maneuvering is required in a 160,000 pound jet crossing the departure end at nearly 200 mph: the prohibited airspace starts 1.9 miles from the end of the runway. We’re usually configured at a high degree of flaps (5-15 versus the normal 1) so you’re climbing steeply as it is–in order to prevent violating the prohibited airspace, you must maintain the minimum maneuvering speed which means the nose is pitched abnormally high–then you must use maximum bank to turn left 45 degrees at only 400 feet above the ground.

What do you think will happen with the nose high and the left wing low if you take a bird or two in that engine? Are there any waterfowl in the bird sanctuary surrounding the airport? Would the situation be any different with a normal climb angle with wings straight and level?

So what’s the payoff for this complicated, difficult operation?

It’s a nice terminal. Congressmen like their free parking at National. And they’re way too busy to ride the Metro to Dulles, despite the bazillion dollars appropriated to extend the metro line from the Capitol to Dulles, adding another twenty minutes to the airport travel time is too much for our very sensitive congressmen to endure.

I think that’s about it as far as pluses and minuses. Fair trade, considering all the factors?

That’s for you to decide for yourself, but hang on–we’re going anyway. Just don’t chew my ass when I land the jet at Dulles instead of Washington Reagan National. Because for all of the above reasons, you probably shouldn’t have been going there anyway.

More insider info? Step into the cockpit:

These 25 short essays in the best tradition of JetHead put YOU in the cockpit and at the controls of the jet.

Some you’ve read here, many have yet to appear and the last essay, unpublished and several years in the writing,  I consider to be my best writing effort yet.

Own a piece of JetHead, from Amazon Books and also on Kindle.

Pilot Report: Boeing 737 vs. McDonnell-Douglas MD-80

Now that I have nearly a thousand hours in the left seat of the Boeing 737-800, and having as well over 15,000 in the MD-80, I feel qualified to make some judgments about how the two stack up against each other.

For me, there’s one hands-down winner. I’ll get to that.

But first, looking at it from a hands-on pilot perspective, let me say what I think are the crucial factors in both jets, then compare them. And I’ll do it in order of importance from my line-swine pilot view:

1. Power: never mind the technology difference between the General Electric JT8D turbo fans on the Maddog and the CFM-56 high-bypass fans on the 737. It’s the thrust difference I want in my right hand when I’m trying to lift 170,000 pounds off a runway. And technology aside (I’ll get to that), the three full power options (22,000, 24,000, and 26,000 pounds of thrust) plus the bonus kick up to 27,000 pounds per engine on the 737 for special use beats the snot out of the 19,000 flat rated and standard de-rated engines on the MD-80. Yes, the -80 weighs less than the 737 (max of 150,000 vs. 174,000 pounds), and no, I don’t have each plane makers’ specs, but the thrust-to-weight performance from the left seat feels substantially more secure and significant from the 737.

You notice that right away when you do a static takeoff with the 737 at all weights: you’ve got buttloads of giddyup (I think engineers call it “acceleration,” but then they don’t actually feel it on paper versus in the cockpit blasting forward–that’s “a buttload of giddyup”) shortening  those critical moments of vulnerability between brake release and V1.

I have no idea what engineers think of when they look at thrust and take-off advantages, but any pilot with experience knows that those seconds before reaching flying speed are the most vulnerable, particularly close to max abort speed, because I’d rather take any problems into the air than have to wrestle them to a stop on a runway. The MD-80 has good smash at mid to light weights, but in crucial situations (Mexico City, for example, or on a short runway on a hot day) the 737’s CFM56’s rule. I need the shortest possible period of on-runway vulnerability; I know engine hot-section limits and longterm life are important too, but the CFM56 achieves better on-wing engine endurance in operation than the JT8Ds, year over year.

Ditto for a go-around or windshear options: the MD-80 is famous for it’s slow acceleration–I’ve been there MANY times–and when you’re escaping from windshear or terrain, I can promise you the pucker factor of the “one, Mississippi, two Mississippi” on up to six to eight seconds will have your butt chewing up the seat cushion like horse’s lips. Not sure if that’s due to the neanderthal 1970’s vintage hydro-mechanical fuel control (reliably simple–but painstakingly slow to spool) or the natural limitation of so many rotor stages. But the 737’s solid state EICAS computers reading seventy-teen parameters and trimming the CFMs accordingly seem to give the performance a clear edge. And a fistful of 737-800 throttles beats the same deal on the Maddog, period. Advantage, Boeing.

2. Wing: let me go back in time. I also flew the F-100 for a couple years as captain. That was a great jet, with a simple wing: no leading edge devices. Coming from jets with slats the feel was clearly different on take-off, where there was a distinct (if you’re a seat-of-the-pants guy, and that’s all I’ve ever been) translational period between rotate and lift-off due to the hard wing. Ditto in the flare and in some reversals in flight like on a go-around. Not a bad thing, just something you had to anticipate, but not a warm-fuzzy in the seat of your aerodynamic pants.

Stretched jet, stretched wing.

That’s a good analogy between the Boeing versus the Douglas wing: you feel the generous lift margin in the 737. That’s because when Boeing stretched the jet to the -800 length, they expanded the wing as well. That wing was already loaded much lighter than the DC-9 wing which Douglas didn’t enlarge when they added to two fuselage plugs plus about 15,000 pounds to the MD-80. Longer and with better cambered  (look at the DC-10, and no dihedral) airfoil is the Boeing design and I’m grateful for their foresight and superior engineering–especially at the top end of the performance envelope: you need anti-ice? No problem–turn it on. The Maddog? Better be 2,000 feet below optimum, or prepare for stall recovery–and anyone on the -80 fleet knows I’m not exagerating. Wing performance? No contest: Boeing.

3. Handling: again let me go back in time. Flew the T-37 like every new Air Force pilot up until recently–then moved on to the T-38. Using standard Tweet inputs on The Rocket would bang your helmet off the canopy because of the boosted flight controls, giving you 720 degrees of roll in a second at full deflection.

That’s the 737 compared to the MD-80: no aileron boost on the -80, and little help from the powered rudder–because of the long fuselage length and relatively short moment arm between the vertical fin and the MAC (Mean Aerodynamic Chord), the rudder seems to only impart a twisting moment that’s pretty useless. So it’s a wrestling match for roll control, in and out of turns with the -80.

I still tend to over control the 737 in acute roll situations (e.g., the 30 degree offset final at 300′ AGL required in and out of DCA) due to previous brain damage caused by years of arm wrestling the MD-80 around tight corners. But with the 737, the seat-of-the-pants security of that generous wing is apparent at all speed and altitudes and the hydraulic aileron boost gives you the muscle to command a smooth and prompt response. Handling? It’s all 737 for me, including on the ground: new MD-80 captains will need Ibuprofen to counter the wrist strain of the nosewheel steering, two-handed in tight spots. I don’t miss that at all.

4. Cockpit layout: okay, give the -80 its due–that was one comfortable nest once you got settled. But that’s as far as it goes for me. Yes, I know the 737 kitbag position is inaccessible. But American Airlines is the first airline certified by the FAA for iPad use from the ground to altitude. Kitbag, what’s a kitbag?

MD-80 left seat–HSI? Where is it?

Trade-off? The MD-80 HSI is obscured by the control yoke. Are you kidding me? Like you might need lateral situational awareness for trivia like, navigating? Flying an approach? I spent 20+ years working around that human factors engineering failure–I’m grateful for the Boeing engineers who gave me seven 9″ CRT flat plate displays with every parameter I could want displayed digitally and God bless them all–a Heads Up Display! Lord have mercy, even a simpleton has a crosscheck in that jet thanks to the God of HUD.

The 737 doesn’t have the elbow room you might like and everyone who I fly with who has come off the big Boeings (757, 767, 777) gripes about that. Fine. I’m all about performance and the flight displays, computers, communications and advanced Flight Management Systems in the 737 avionics suite beat the pants off of the 75 and 76–and the HUD tops the 777 as well. Nuff said: gimme the Guppy cockpit over the Maddog. Boeing put everything I need at my fingertips, and it’s all state-of-the-art, whereas Douglas engineers threw everything they could everywhere in the cockpit and slammed the door.

My 737 home.

So there you have it: power, wing, handling and even by a narrow margin, the cockpit too. I’m a Boeing guy, back from wayward days flying Douglas metal from the DC-10 to the MD-80. In my experience as a pilot, in my hours in both Boeing and Douglas jets, I’m grateful to be flying the best jets in the sky. Now you know which are which.