iPad as Electronic Flight Bag (revisited)

Last year, Apple announced something that over the past year has taken mobile computing by storm, the iPad.

Shortly after I posted a blog post "The Apple iPad: Electronic Flight Bag?", which I considered the potential the device has for aviation. Namely, getting rid of the ridiculously overpriced and underpowered specialty "electronic flight bag" (or EFB) computers.

Now when I made that prediction, I had no clue how quickly the aviation industry would step up and embrace this device. Let's face it, sometimes with certain technology, aviation isn't always up to current times (I'm looking at you DUATs & NOTAMs).

So what's the secret to the iPad's success? Long battery life, great fit and finish, it's portable, beautiful screen, lots of power and memory, those are important, but what the iPad has that other EFBs don't is a diverse platform for developers to write excellent aviation apps. Apps such as Foreflight, Jeppesen Mobile TC, Skycharts Pro, and even the simple PDF reader app GoodReader.



Private pilots aren't the only ones noticing that the iPad is a great platform for managing a flight. The FAA has approved an EFB app from Jeppesen to be used for Executive Jet. Wonder what kind of tests the FAA has done on the device to certify it for cockpit use?

FAA authorisation came after an intensive three-month in-flight evaluation, which included a successful rapid decompression test on the iPad to 51,000ft (15,555m) and non-interference testing.

With the iPad2 coming out in a few short days, the future is looking pretty good for pilots who want a low-cost solution to having an EFB and getting rid of the paper charts. The new iPad will be lighter, thinner, and will include a built-in gyroscope. Coupled with the Bad ELF GPS, the iPad and the apps will just keep getting better.

Finally, as an aside, I really want Android to step into this space as well. Hopefully with the Motorola Xoom we'll start seeing some comparable aviation apps for Android as well.

By the Numbers

Now that CircleToLand.com has been around for over a year, I felt now would be a great time to do a deep dive on the stats and determine how pilots are using CTL.

Currently we have 159 questions, 257 answers, and over 81 users. Fifteen of those users have collected over 100 reputation points, with two users having over 1000 points.

Over the past year, CTL has had 34,160 page views and 6,800 visits. The ten top visited questions on Circle To Land are:

Figuring out the best glide-speed/glide-ratio
Helpful aviation memory mnemonics
Logging flight time, PIC vs Solo
Trouble with Steep Turns
Difference between Vx & Vy

The top five questions with the most votes are:

Diabetic pilots
Difference between Vx/Vy
How long until YOU solo'd
Night logging question
Definition of Cl/Cd max speed

As you can see, we've come a long way in a year. When I started CTL I wasn't sure how many pilots would be interested in a community Q&A or if I could get the kind of answers/questions that would be engaging to an audience of pilots. It's been amazing the amount of great questions and great answers the site has generated. With practically nothing but word of mouth advertising and general outreach.

To all the pilots who have logged in CircleToLand and posted a question or answer, thank you, you're the ones who make this site a success. I can't wait to see what happens in 2011.

European Aviation Safety Agency Bill, or "Why I'm grateful I fly in the US"

The European Parlament is expected today to sign a bill today that will cancel priveleges of pilots holding FAA certificates in European Union countries.

Once the bill is signed into law, FAA ticket holders must undergo the conversion process to a JAA/EASA equivalent. A process that could involve several medical exams and additional knowledge exams.

The situation is even grimmer for those who wish to fly IFR. Unlike the US, IFR requirements are stricter under JAA/EASA, which is closer to obtaining an ATP license in the US. The estimated amount of time to obtain an IFR rating in Europe for an average pilot with a family would be a year of groundschool and nearly cost nearly $30,000.

Don't think this won't impact the United States either. While there aren't hard numbers out there, it's been estimated that the FAA issues certificates to several hundred international students every year. After the bill is signed into effect, it would be pointless for international students to come to the US to train. This could have a severe financial impact on an already struggling flight training market.

For more information, check out the IAOPA October newsletter, and listen to this special podcast from AvWeb and Emmanuel Davidson, vice president of AOPA in France.

In my opinion, this bill has nothing to do with safety, and everything to do with political protectionism. The EU is trying to address why so few pilots have a JAA/EASA license and spend money training in Europe by brute force. What they'll find is that this measure (like user fees) will only shrink aviation in Europe more until it is only available to the very rich or to airlines.

I just hope some "brilliant" politician or lobby group doesn't get the same idea here.

Leave it to Weaver

In between marathons of Airplane!, Top Gun, One-Six Right, and Hot Shots, you might want to check out another high-octane feature (shot and directed by a pilot).



This was a week long video project my girlfriend (Haley Weaver) put together for a video contest. The prize is a free trip to New Orleans for the National REALTORS Conference and Expo.

If you like it, please vote for Haley Weaver - Columbus, OH here.

5 Tips on getting fantastic aviation answers

So you ask a great aviation question on a flying forum (AOPA, EAA, etc) but you haven't gotten any responses? Your question might not be as great as you think. Here are five tips that I put together for the users of CircleToLand.com on how to ask great aviation questions and get excellent answers from pilots.

FIFI the B29, flies again

The Commemorative Air Force (CAF)'s B-29, with help from a number of sponsers and volunteers, took to the sky today for the first time since 2004. Its regained its status as the world's only flyable B-29 Superfortress.

The work that the CAF does is so important to aviation, its a link to aviation's past and the aircraft the organization restores and flies inspires future aviators of all ages around the country. Please go to their site and find a way to help volunteer, donate, or just spread the word about the great things this organization does.

CircleToLand : 0 SFREM

CircleToLand.com, my website for pilot questions and answers, has just completed its major face-lift and software overhaul. For the software geeks, I'm now using a Q&A package called OSQA. Its still in a beta stage and there are some rough spots, but there are some advantages to using the new software package:

1. Its open source, meaning I can change and modify the code to meet the specific needs of CircleToLand.com

2. I can host it on my own servers, meaning that as CircleToLand.com grows I have control over expanding the server capacity without having to pay an exorbitant monthly fee.

3. Since StackExchange changed their model from an entrepreneur-based service to a community owned forum, switching to OSQA means that maintain a greater control over how I want the site to grow and expand.

4. User will see the benefits of aviation-specific tools and controls in CircleToLand.com, I'm planning on making it easier to include chart images in questions.

There are a few downsides to OSQA over StackExchange:

1. Its written in Python and Django, so while its open source, I'm not too familiar with the language and framework, so there's a learning curve as I poke around and try to fix issues.

2. Hosting the software myself means I have to make sure the software gets updated and maintained regularly, before StackExchange was covering the software upgrades and installs.

3. Bugs bugs bugs, there's a weird issue with Yahoo Open ID (I'm recommending all of my users to create a password backup if they use OpenID, so they can still login), also the Markdown control has some issues with images, and I'm sure more bugs will keep rolling in.

Overall I'm pretty happy with the new site and how simple it was to migrate the site over. The guys at OSQA have made a great product and their main contributor, Hernâni Cerqueira, is an excellent source for help and support. I think my users will be happy with the new changes and I can finally put my efforts to growing CircleToLand.com!

CircleToLand.com, changing homebases

There will be some big changes in June for CircleToLand.com, my little site that allows pilots to ask and answer questions. I'll be switching the site to a new software package as my old provider is making some changes that just won't work for me or for my users.

The switch should come by mid-June and it should be a seemless transition, the goal is to make a 100% move to the new software package and preserve all of data from the old site.

Also, I'm looking at making a big change in my life in terms of getting my little software startup, Anecka off the ground. While I plan in the long run for Anecka to develop subscription based web and moible applications for pilots, I plan on earning money initially doing software consulting and contracting. If you or someone you know has a website or software project that you need fixed, shoot me an email at: ppohler@anecka.com

Make some goals

This is a little off-topic for aviation, but on-topic if you're a person who regularly takes a step back and looks at your life. I follow a blog by local marketer / business person / teacher Artie Issac and he had this following post on what he asks his OSU creativity students every year. (I recommend reading the whole thing, and subscribing to his blog.)

What Am I Asking For?
I'm asking for goals in four areas: business, community, family and personal.

How big a goal? Big enough that it's not easy to reach. Big enough that you might not reach it.

Big enough that it answers Ohio State's call to action: Do Something Great.

So What Goals Am I Receiving?
Without betraying any confidences, here is a complete rephrasing of some of the goals I'm receiving:

* Business: generates enough profit that I can afford the life I want.
* Community: respects and seeks me as a leader.
* Family: loves me and each other.
* Personal: ...I want to be happy and play golf.

Happy, shmappy.
Being rich, fertile, loved, and happy is important. I don't want my students to give up on these ideals.

But these aren't the goals I want them to list.

I'm looking for goals that are worthy of a headline. In The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times? Fine. The Columbus Dispatch? Fine. Field & Stream? Fine. Local suburban newspaper? Fine.

Just imagine the headline. That's a good test for your goal. In fact, write your goals as if they are news headlines. (Think: obituary.)

It sounds like a good exercise, so here are my goals as newspaper headlines:

Business: Software firm, Anecka, gets its 1000th insanely passionate client, becomes model for software development in the Mid-West

Community: Mid-West non-profit that teaches over 500 kids a year how to fly airplanes celebrates its fifth year anniversary.

Family: Pohler elected to US Congress as Independent in 2038.

Personal: Adventurer retraces Beryl Markham's 1936 solo flight from Abington, England to Nova Scotia.

CircleToLand.com coming on like gangbusters!

What a difference a few days makes! CircleToLand.com gets mentioned on a popular forum of programming geeks and suddenly I have three to four hardcore tech-savy pilots ripping through CircleToLand.com answering piloting questions left and right.

And these are great piloting questions and answers too! With freaking aerodynamic equations! Fine detailed understand of esoteric FAR rules and regulation interpretations, kick-ass piloting techniques, and whiz-bang technology!

Seriously, this is the most fun I've had in a while. Thanks guys!

Poland Crash Update - Pilots probably not pressured

AvWeb's just reported that after listen to the cockpit voice recorder from the Polish government aircraft that crashed in Russian and killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski and 94 others, the investigating committee has determined:

“The flight recorder, whose tapes are being deciphered, did not register any pressure on crew members”

Sadly, it's starting to appear that the primary cause of the tragic accident was human error (lack of good judgment) on behalf of the pilot(s) of the aircraft.

Anatoly Muravyov, an air traffic controller on duty at the time, told the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda that the aircraft had not been cleared to land and all he and his colleagues could do was watch and wait. He said the "pilot's desire to land at any costs" was, in his opinion, a factor in the crash.

Ever since the story broke I've read a lot of news stories and heard a lot of theories floating around by the press and online comments on blogs around regarding the crash, that the fault was the age of the Russian Tupolev-154, or pressure from the VIP passengers.

As a pilot, I know whenever I hear of a crash of an aircraft, my defenses suddenly come up and I have an urge to "defend" the pilot in charge from wild, misinformed facts. However that urge to defend has to be kept in check as well, least it comes out that the pilot in question was responsible and I defended the actions of an irresponsible, reckless person.

The crash is still under-investigation, my opinion is that as a community of flyers, the best way to represent our art and profession is to hold off on supporting unproven theories or "what if" scenarios until all the facts of the case come out.

My hope is that there were other factors in the case that lead to the accident, however my experience in aviation and from what I've read in a vast amount of other accident reports is that pilot/human error is still a huge factor in a crash. To ignore that and rush to come up with other excuses does all pilots in the long-run a disservice.

UPDATE: The Moscow Times has more information regarding the investigation.

Flying and the power of Desire

You have a superpower, an ability to conquer any challenge, an ability to shape the world around you to fit your wants and needs.



Don't believe me?

Think back on your life, back to the last time your really desired something. I'm talking about real DESIRE here, a single minded obsession about obtaining something that you wanted more than anything else in the world.

Your friends, your family, everyone in your life told you it was impossible, you'll never get it, it wasn't practical, you should just give up . . .

But you didn't, you kept at it and couldn't let it go

Did you get it?

If there's a little plastic (or paper) card in your wallet from the Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration then you know exactly what I'm talking about. There is no way you could have become a private pilot without that overriding DESIRE to fly.

That's the superpower we all have (no not the ability to fly), the ability to DESIRE something so much that we WILL IT into reality.

Still think I'm full of it? Talk to Jessica Cox (http://rightfooted.com/), she's a diver, Tae Kwon-Do black belt, and flies a stock, unmodified Ercoupe.

Oh and she doesn't have any arms.



That's right . . . no arms. Big deal, flying an airplane with your feet? Just another sunny day in the pattern for her (she also drives, types, and puts in her contacts).

Anyway this post isn't about her, its about YOU. If you've conquered the challenge of flight, what else can the raw power of DESIRE do for you? What else lies deep in your heart that you've always wanted to accomplish?

If you haven't starting flying (and want to), then why haven't you started? If you've started and given up, why haven't you gotten back in the saddle?

You've got a superpower, time to start using it.

Supplemental Reading Material:
Think and Grow Rich, Napolean Hill

Flying, perfection, and beating "the little hater"

Recently I stumbled across a video by a guy named Jay Smooth who runs a successful hip-hop blog and the longest running hip-hop radio show in NYC. In the video he talked about his struggle with what he calls "the little hater." The little hater is that voice inside your head that tells you you're not good enough at something, especially when it's something creative. Watch the video before reading on, it's humorous and spot on, don't worry, I can wait:



What really clicked for me in this video is when Jay said that the little hater sets his first trap of "perfectionism." I tend to demand a lot from myself when I fly, if I screw up one radio call or land a little rougher than I want (which is all the time) that bastard start talking in my ear how much of a "wannabe pilot" I am.

It gets worse when I haven't flown in a few months, the little hater starts asking me questions. "If you flew today, how safe would you be?" "Could you handle a sudden gust of wind 20 ft off the ground?" "Do you even remember how to start the airplane?" Pretty soon my head is filled with ridiculous questions regarding my own skills and worth and ever time I look up at the sky to watch a small plane I almost get sick with guilt. I double down and start building a lot of expectations on myself that the NEXT TIME I fly I'm going to be strive to be PERFECT. Of course, I know that's a lie, so I stall and stall and stall and never make a reservation. Which makes me feel even more racked with guilt.

Now of course the logical thing to do is to just schedule a damn flight, and if you're really worried, book an instructor. Here's the thing, I get even more anxious with an instructor because then I'll have someone WATCHING ME. Even if the instructor is silent that little hater is going to start talking for him/her in my head "Dude, this guy sucks...how long has he been flying anyway?"

To beat the little hater, the only thing I think you can do is recognize when he's there, then actively and ruthlessly ignore him. Recall your experience, read a checklist, go over radio calls in your head, go over common tasks in an aircraft in your head and mime them out (when no one is looking of course) and just FLY DAMNIT!

I've asked a question on CircleToLand.com about beating the nerves after going a long time without flying.

If you have any suggestions to help me or anyone else beat the hater, post an answer at the link above! We can fight him together!

What I've learned from other pilots

Its funny, the one thing I didn't expect when I started a website for pilots to ask and answer questions was that I'd be learning so much as well!

The steadily growing number of pilots providing excellent, well thought out answers to such various questions as: Resources for young pilots, Proper landing techniques in snow, Calculating the best glide speed in a new aircraft, Equipment on shooting in-flight video, Nailing the perfect steep turn, has really impressed and inspired me to keep CircleToLand.com going.

The reason why I started CTL was because I knew there was an untapped goldmine of sharp, friendly, helpful pilots online who would be more than happy to share their insights and experience with each other and with those just learning how to fly.

It feels good to be right ;)

Pilots are lovers

If you haven't been reading Paul Bertorelli's blog on AvWeb, you have no idea what kind of steamy hot prose you're missing:

I have fallen in love with airplanes. Again. Specifically, a J-3C Cub, a quarter of which I bought a couple of weeks ago. I flew my first Cub in 1972 and over the weekend, when partner Greg Woods was checking me out, it all came flooding back—that skip of excitement when the engine catches on the first blade, the whiff of exhaust you get in a right taxi turn, the kinda-sorta throttle response, the spoon-in-oatmeal trim system, if you can call rope and a crank a system. After we got down and nudged the thing back into the hangar, I sat on a step stool looking at this stupid thing trying to figure out why such antiques are so intoxicating.

. . .

Slow, underpowered, cold, uncomfortable and all the utility of a broken claw hammer, yet still I love it. Maybe it's just…the romance.

Please, someone just shoot me.

I swear to god when I read that I could have sworn I heard Marvin Gaye's "Let's get it on" in the background.

Let's face it, every single one of us who flies these stupid machines didn't get into it because they thought it was going to be a great career, or it would save them some time on business trips, or some other perfectly rational reason. Those are the reasons we say to our family and friends, but let's not bullshit ourselves or each other here. We do it because we're in deeply in love, and anyone who is that far in love is an irrational moron.

I fell in love at the age of four, when I traded my most prized possession in the world, my blanket, for a big awesome Tycho airplane. I fell back in love again in 2003 gazing at stunning photo of a Waco YMF's cockpit. That one photo cost me six grand in two years, for a plastic card that gives me the privilege to one day climb into that cockpit and take the controls in my hands (as soon as I can find a Waco I can get checked out in).

As pilots, we're so deep in love that we don't realize that other people who aren't in love with aviation just don't see things the way we do. Our love is so deep we think other people regard aviation just like we do and we don't communicate with them effectively. We give the rational reasons for flying instead of speaking from the heart.

As pilots we need to follow Paul's lead and broadcast our love more openly to other people. Yeah, we'll sound like idiots, dreamers, and boobs. But there will be some young kid out there who will listen, probably between the ages of 4-94, who just might fall in love as well.

Help Fatboy Run (to fight cancer)

Matt Friesner, my friend and instrument instructor (now an airline captain) is running in the Capital City Half Marathon (Columbus, OH) on May 1st to raise money and awareness about leukemia & lymphoma. He's in his second month of training (word on the street is he's training by running up and down the stairs of Columbus's courthouse and punching meat).

Help Matt set his goal of raising $1,500 by going to his fundraising page here.

Good luck Freeze!

The Bonanza is dead! Long live The Bonanza!

I've noticed a trend in used aircraft pricing (to be sure, an anecdotal trend based on browsing Barnstormers and ASO when I should be working). In the past few months I've noticed that the prices of used large, high performance complex singles are becoming significantly less than lighter, slower singles.

This seems to suggest that owners of older high performance singles are having trouble selling their aircraft. It's not like these are bad airplanes either, I'm talking about seeing Mooney's, Turbo Lances, and Bonanza's with medium engine times (500-1000 hrs SMOH), NDH, complete logs selling for 60-80K.

Now it would be ridiculous of me to predict the future on one data point (not even a data point really, just me making an amateur observation). But it does feel like the GA landscape at large could be shifting towards lighter, slower singles. There are a few factors I believe that are affecting the GA market:

• Rising fuel costs and rising pressure to do away with leaded avgas
• Increased technology, easier to put into new airframes than retro-fit old aircraft
• Increasing age of used aircraft, higher maintenance and upgrade costs
• Despite problems with airlines, still cheaper / safer, and businesses would rather buy a plane ticket than reimburse a GA pilot to fly himself
• Vast difference in price between NEW high performance singles vs. NEW or like new light sport

I don't think high performance singles (or even twins) will go away anytime soon (nor would I want it too...the day there isn't a Bonanza flying in the sky will be a very sad day), what I do think is that there will be a great divide in the GA fleet in the future. On one end you'll have a plethora of light-sport or light singles and on the other you'll see luxury turbine powered aircraft.

That's if I felt like making a ridiculous prediction of the future anyway. But if Kirk Hawkins is betting a company and billions of dollars on it . . . well maybe its not so ridiculous after all.

Mental spring cleaning (non-aviation)

Its been a rough February. It's an odd feeling losing the last of your parents, it still doesn't seem real.

My mom and I were close, she was my friend. Its strange how that happens, at some point in your twenties your relationship with your parents changes. I think primarily because you change, from a child, an insecure adolescent, to an adult.

This feels like a watershed moment in my life, I'll be turning thirty in a month and a half and I've been giving serious thought to how I want to spend my next thirty years.

My mom was a chemical dependency counselor and psychiatric nurse, I had the pleasure during the visitation at the funeral home to meet her coworkers and more importantly the people who she helped treat and would call her "Miss Becky." I pray that I can have the same impact on others as my mom had.

My life has changed, a door has closed and it feels like a new one has opened. I've had an idea for a while to help a large number of people and aviation as a whole. Now it feels like a calling.

I apologize to anyone whose read this for the free-form rambling of this post. I haven't blogged in a while and I feel like I need to write something, anything to get rid of the cobwebs in my mind.

Thanks, and clear skies.

See you out west, mom

Becky Pieper April 16, 1954 - Feb 14, 2010

Pimp your Piper Cub

If you think still think LSA aircraft are nothing more than slick-looking toys that a REAL pilot would never fly for serious missions, then you need to check out CubCrafters Carbon Cub SS.

To call this airplane a Cub is a vast understatement. Unlike the Legend Cub, the goal of the Carbon Cub is not to replicate a classic, but to push the envelope and take the airframe to the next level. CubCrafters has created an aircraft that has 50% less parts than a Super Cub and is 250 lbs lighter.

If that wasn't enough, CubCrafters created their own custom engine that weights less than 250 lbs and is rated at 180 hp for takeoffs and climbs, and 88 hp for cruise.

This creates an Cub with amazing performance, climbs of 2100 fpm at sea level, and 1100 fpm at 10,000 ft and a 420lb useful load. Cruise can be done at the max LSA limit of 120 knots.

Don't take my word for it though: