Lucky '13

I've been trying to figure out why I feel a little anxious today.  It's almost like that feeling you get when you think you've forgotten a deadline.  Then I realized what it was.  Today is the last work day of 2013.  Sure, it's a bit of an arbitrary deadline.  I mean, we'll have one day off then back to work on Thursday, but still, I feel like I should be doing something.  Instead, I'm going to reflect on this past year and then leave early to watch UCLA football play in their bowl game.

Twenty years ago I passed my check ride and got my private pilots license.  Two years ago I got my commercial ticket.  And yesterday I passed my biennial flight review by flying a near perfect ILS approach into Lawrence and greased my landing.  It doesn't get much better than that!  Unless, of course, you get to fly a PT-17 Stearman.  Been there, done that!

I still can't believe that I've been a pilot for over 20 years.  I started flying before GPS was common.  I still have my first wall poster of the panel of a 172.  When I look at those old steam gauges I wonder how the heck did I ever fly IMC with that panel?!  But I did, and I lived to tell about it!  And each time I tell one of those stories they get better and better.

After all these years, my passion for aviation still burns deep.  Duke Ellington used to say that music was his mistress and she plays second fiddle to no one.  I know exactly what he means because aviation is mine and forever will be.  That's why I feel so blessed to be able to do the things that I get to do.

Never say never.  Growing up in LA, I never thought that I'd be living in Kansas.  But here I am and loving every minute!  Kansas has such a great history of aviation pioneers and continues to remain on the leading edge of the industry.  Just look at your GPS device.  If it's a Garmin, it was made in Kansas!

2013 was great!  Not only did I become the director of the state aviation office in the state that is the birthplace of general aviation, home to the air capital of the world; but I also was a part of something special when a group of us launched the first-ever Kansas Aviation Expo.  What a great event and we're going to do it again!  #KSAvExpo2014, where dreams come true!

So, what am I anxious for?  I can't wait until Thursday!  I want to start this new year and get the ball rolling.  For now I just need to relax for a minute, cheer on my Bruins, take a day off and then it's back to work.

I'd be remiss if I didn't take this opportunity to thank each and everyone one of you in the aviation community for helping make 2013 spectacular.  A special thank you to those that risk their lives helping save others.  If you haven't spent time with an air ambulance operator, I'd suggest you take some time to learn what they do.  Our meeting with Lifeteam was an eye opener.  Working in aviation isn't just about being a corporate fat cat.  We're much more than that.  Aviation saves lives.

Here's to blue skies and smooth landings in 2014. Cheers!

The Dreamcatcher

We've all had nightmares.  Some involve public speaking with your pants down, while others have that final exam that you didn't study for.  Whatever it is, it's always embarrassing and stressful when you know everyone is watching you.  I imagine this is how the pilots of that modified Boeing 747 Dreamlifter felt as they sat on the runway of Wichita's Jabara airport instead of McConnell Air Force Base, their intended destination.  Oops.

photo by V.White

I first heard the story on NPR as I was driving in to work.  I honestly didn't think it was that big of a deal, and had no idea just how much buzz it would create across the world.  Indeed, we are living in a globalized world and once the media picked up the story here it didn't take long for media around the world to follow suit.  When I got to the office this story was just blowing up all over social media, too.  I had aviation friends from California, Chicago and Florida all calling to talk about this guy's mishap and we all wondered how the heck were they going to get that plane out of there.


Following the story was a cross between watching a beached whale and waiting for a shuttle launch.  There was nervous anticipation in my office.  This great big airplane just sat on the runway of this itty bitty airport as the world waited to see if it would depart successfully.  A side note is deserved here.  Jabara has a six thousand foot runway that's one hundred feet wide.  When put up against most other Kansas airports, it's not that small.  But, it makes for a more exciting story to describe it as such.

I have two monitors on my desktop, each was streaming a different live shot of the scene at Jabara.  When the plane fired up the engines, my two staff members came into the office with a visitor from accounting that had stopped by to actually work.  Little did she know she'd get a show, too!  As the plane rolled down the runway, the three pilots in the office started to cheer and shout out words of encouragement like, "come on baby, pick up airspeed!"  I think we all shouted "rotate" at the same time as there was lift off.  One of the first response posts on Facebook was someone that said, "Well, that was uneventful."  Exactly!  Uneventful is what we wanted. Uneventful was success.  Uneventful meant everyone was safe, including the crew.

To get back to a point I made earlier, it wasn't that big of a deal.  It's not uncommon for a plane to land at the wrong airport, especially in general aviation.  For those non-aviation folks that may be reading this blog, let me assure you that this doesn't mean we pilots aren't safe.  It just happens.  And that it happened in Wichita isn't that surprising, either.  There are around 80 landing locations in the greater Wichita area.  For any pilot that isn't familiar, that can be a rather intimidating statistic and visual perspective.

Now think about this.  What if you were flying at night, in the clouds, and this was your first time to the area?  You're on an instrument approach to your intended destination; you break out of the clouds while on your final approach and you see an airport.  This airport you see is nearly as wide as the airport you're aiming for and you proceed to turn off the autopilot and manually fly the plane down on a visual approach.  You land successfully.  You land a ginormous plane, one of the world's largest cargo planes, successfully on a smaller general aviation airport.  Great job!  But wait, there's more.  It's the wrong airport.  Doh!

If it was a different airplane, this story never makes the news.  The plane would just turn around and take off again.  But it became a big story because it's a big plane.  There was no hiding this mistake.  Just like walking into that classroom in that nightmare, you just got caught with your pants down.  I really feel bad for the pilot.  With only four of these airplanes flying in the world, there aren't many crews or pilots qualified to fly these things.  And by all accounts, except for navigation, this pilot was skilled.

The irony in the story is that he went manual and didn't over rely on technology.  Right now pilots are getting called out for not having enough stick and rudder skill to fly because of an over reliance on auto pilot, GPS and the like.  Then here comes a guy who disengages the GPS and successfully lands that behemoth on a relatively short runway.  Instead of getting kudos he got 15 minutes of fame (or shame) and got to sit and watch another crew depart out of Jabara.  Hi wound, meet some salt.  I for one would love to meet this pilot and buy him a beer.  I'd pat him on the back and tell him he did a heck of a job landing that plane...and then I'd proceed to make fun of him.  Cheers!

UAS is GA

I recently attended a conference that focused on issues surrounding the integration of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) into the national airspace system (NAS).  Several of the discussions surrounded the issues of overcoming a negative image in the media, overcoming restrictive regulations that stifle innovation and gaining support in the political arena.

For those of us in aviation, these arguments have to sound familiar.  They're the same battles we've been fighting since man took to the skies.  Once I realized the similarity in our fight, I had moment of clarity.  UAS is general aviation (GA)!  It embodies the same entrepreneurial spirit of homebuilders and can be an efficient business tool, just like a corporate jet.

When folks outside our industry are asked about aviation, it's easy for them to correlate it to either military aircraft or commercial airlines.  But what about general aviation?  It's everything else.  But what does that mean?  GA is such a broad category that it becomes overwhelming to absorb and its a human tendency to fear what we don't understand.

UAS is in the same boat.  UAS is such a broad term that it strikes fear, even in those of us in the aviation industry.  Both, UAS and GA, have the same public relations problem.  We need to start having a mutual dialogue, mutual respect and mutual education if we are to survive and thrive into the future -- together.

So where do we go from here?  First, general aviation needs to accept UAS as a part of our community and not treat it like a red-headed step child.  If homebuilts and skydiving can be categorized as GA, then we have room at the dinner table for unmanned aerial systems, too.  UAS is not here to replace us, so let go of that fear.  The pilot population is on the decline but there will always be missions that require a human at the controls.

I'll be honest, I used to hear the term UAS and I would worry about "see and avoid" issues as we shared the same airspace.  And we should continue to take it slow in integrating certain operations of UAS that require them to share our airspace when it comes to larger unmanned aircraft that fly longer missions.  However, the more I learn about UAS and its many applications, the more at ease I have become with things like precision agriculture.  There is no reason why precision agriculture applications can't be fully integrated and allowed in the NAS now.

In Kansas, aviation is the second largest economic driver behind agriculture.  Kansas farmers can attribute $1.2 billion in crop value to the efforts of aerial applicators, according to a KDOT study released in 2010.  Precision agriculture UAS is a natural progression for our state's top two economic performers.

What is Precision Ag UAS?  Typically they are small unmanned aircraft that fly only a couple of hundred feet off the ground, remain in constant line of sight of the operator and safety person, and fly GPS established routes over farmland (not near airports).  Again, there is no reason why we should not fully integrate this operation into our airspace and allow the associated economic opportunities to flourish.  The benefits to our farmers and agriculture industry is tremendous.

However, just as we, the GA industry, needs to educate ourselves on UAS, so do UAS proponents need to educate themselves on general aviation.  If you want to be a part of our airspace then you need to learn our rules and why we have them.  Only then will UAS find its path to integration.

Up to this point, my perception has been that there are several folks in the UAS industry that are trying to work within the current Certificate of Authorization environment and are waiting for the FAA to create rules and regulations that'll help guide their future integration.  They must remember that regulations are a lag indicator.  It's not government's role to drive innovation in the market.  It's time for the UAS industry to get organized and have an aviation champion that'll help drive their integration in a direction that's beneficial for them and in a way that'll compliment general aviation.  It may be difficult but it's not impossible.