![]() ![]() I was finally airborne about 1330, and arrived at 47N after an uneventful flight at about 1500. So, since this is the only 182T at the field, the mechanics could not cannibalize another plane and could not get me a replacement bulb.Īt that point the staff started calling around to the flight instructors, and eventually, managed to make contact with one who knew the manual well enough to confirm that the primary anticollision lights were the strobes, and if they worked, the plane was legal for all operations. I soon discovered that the tail beacon was a new type for just the 182Ts, and the one that had just been installed two days before was the last one east of the Mississippi. However, if my return flight was to be in instrument conditions, I wondered if the strobes would reflect annoyingly off the clouds and be a nuisance for me or other pilots my instructors always made me keep them off till I was ready to take off, and turn them off immediately after landing. ![]() The 182 has both strobes and the beacon, and I had no problem convincing myself that these were both “anticollision light systems” and in sunny conditions of daylight, I was willing to just use the strobes the whole time the engine was running. For night and IFR, this same requirement goes back to 1971. FAR 91.205 requires, for aircraft certified after 1996 under FAR Part 23 (which includes “my” Cessna 182T), “an approved aviation red or aviation white anticollision light system,” even for VFR flight in daylight. Fryeburg is farther, about 15 miles past Snowville from the point of view of an aircraft flying up from Maryland.Īrriving as planned, slightly before noon, at Easton, I preflighted the airplane and immediately encountered a problem: the rotating beacon on top of the tail was not working. I also had to pick up my father at Central Jersey Regional (47N), a little less than halfway from Easton, my home airport, to Laconia. Therefore, I planned to go to Laconia if the weather was at all questionable, and Fryeburg if it was sunny with unrestricted visibility. Washington, highest point in the state of NH), so the approaches can only be practically used from the east.Īn aircraft flying north from the Mid-Atlantic states would inevitably be approaching from the southwest and have to do some rather fancy footwork to shoot an approach, and with the high minimums, the weather would have to be pretty good to safely complete the approach. This airport has high terrain to the west (including Mt. There is also a much smaller airport, Eastern Slopes Regional (IZG) at Fryeburg, Maine, nearer to Snowville, with a 4200-foot runway and GPS and NDB approaches, both of which have minimum descent altitudes (MDAs) on the order of 1000 feet above the runway. There is a fairly large airport at Laconia, NH (LCI), with a runway over 5000 feet long and an ILS. My destination was Snowville, New Hampshire, a tiny hamlet near the Maine border. IZG or LCI? Each airport has its tradeoffs. I’ll begin with a chronological account of my trip. The short version of this article is that the G1000 offers capabilities that make it seem (and may actually be) safe to violate some of those personal minimums or common sense operating limits, without actually violating the FARs. But, in addition, flight instructors tell their students to set “personal minimums” that are more stringent than those in the FARs, or that apply to situations where the FARs do not restrict operations but common sense tells us we should stay on the ground. We have the FARs (Federal Aviation Regulations) that tell us not to do unsafe things. What I’m leading up to is this: all pilots are trained to recognize conditions that are hazardous for flight. Flight instructors, likewise, while they taught me how to use it, never really elaborated on some new and awkward elements in flight management that are triggered by the G1000’s additional capabilities. During a vacation flight in the early 2000s, I realized that the glass cockpit in the airplane I was flying carries implications I hadn’t thought out in advance. ![]()
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