As large as the aviation industry looks to those on the outside, once you’re on the other side of the fence, it doesn’t take long to realize that it’s a very small world. One of the big challenges facing that world has been from product liability issues.

In fact, for about a decade, the general aviation industry stopped producing new airplanes. From the mid-80s to the mid-90s, product liability was such that every major OEM exited the business. The insurance costs rose, the manufacturers had no choice but to pass that on to the consumer, who was summarily priced out of the market. Sales fell, per-unit liability costs rose further, and the cycle spiraled downward until even those companies which still had an operating production line were only turning out a handful of airplanes per year.

It wasn’t until the General Aviation Revitalization Act was signed into law by President Clinton in 1994 that things started to change. Aircraft manufacturers started producing planes again. The Cirrus, DiamondStar, Columbia, and other such advanced aircraft were brought to market. New avionics systems were developed. The whole VLJ (very light jet) market came into being.

But the liability problem never totally went away. Frivolous lawsuits still abound. Manufacturers have been sued for things as idiotic as not telling a pilot that the engine wouldn’t operate without fuel. I don’t have to tell you how this lunacy looks to people from other countries, do I?

Most recently, the largest manufacturer of aircraft carburetors, Precision Airmotive, abruptly decided to stop making, selling, and supporting them. In a letter to customers on their web site, they wrote:

Precision Airmotive LLC has discontinued sales of all float carburetors and component parts as of November 1, 2007. This unfortunate situation is a result of our inability to obtain product liability insurance for the product line. Precision Airmotive LLC and its 43 employees currently manufacture and support the float carburetors used in nearly all carbureted general aviation aircraft flying today. Precision has been the manufacturers of these carburetors since 1990. These FAA-approved carburetors were designed as early as the 1930s and continue to fly over a million flight hours a year. After decades of service, the reliability of these carburetors speaks for itself.

Nonetheless, Precision has seen its liability insurance premiums rise dramatically, to the point that the premium now exceeds the total sales dollars for this entire product line. In the past, we have absorbed that cost, with the hope that the aviation industry as a whole would be able to help address this issue faced by Precision Airmotive, as well as many other small aviation companies. Our efforts have been unsuccessful.

This year, despite the decades of reliable service and despite the design approval by the Federal Aviation Administration, Precision Airmotive has been unable to obtain product liability insurance for the carburetor product line. While we firmly believe that the product is safe, as does the FAA, and well-supported by dedicated people both at Precision and at our independent product support centers, unfortunately the litigation costs for defending the carburetor in court are unsustainable for a small business such as Precision.

Therefore, as of November 1, 2007, Precision Airmotive LLC has been left with no choice but to cease production and support of its float carburetor line.

We are working with the engine manufacturers and others in the industry in an attempt to minimize the impact on general aviation and to provide future support for this product line. There is a substantial quantity of parts and carburetors stocked at our distributors, which should be sufficient to support the industry for a short time.

I’ve seen this news devolve into an argument over the merits of fuel injection vs. carburetion in aircraft powerplants — something which drives me batty. Doesn’t anyone seen the larger picture here? Because crushing liability costs aren’t limited to carbs. And many parts of our airplanes are manufactured by a very small number of companies. Prop governors come to mind. Vacuum pumps. Brakes. Fasteners. If one firm is having trouble staying in business, odds are the others might be as well. It doesn’t portend a rosy future for the industry, especially when you consider that many of the advances we now enjoy came from small companies just like Precision Airmotive.

Sure, with experimentals you have more freedom to put what you want on your aircraft. But many of the components on experimental aircraft are certified anyway. Most of them essentially have certified engines, props, skins, wiring, brakes, tires, fasteners, etc. This liability issue affects everyone regardless of what it says on the plane’s airworthiness certificate.

The only solution to this problem is further liability reform legislation. This could be as simple as changing the law to allow NTSB reports into evidence. Currently, plaintiff’s attorneys know that NTSB accident report findings are not admissible in court. Ostensibly this is to protect the NTSB from outside influence, but an unintended consequence has been to remove the most skilled and impartial source of information on the cause of aircraft accidents from the courtroom. And that vacuum gets filled by paid “expert” witnesses who tell the aviation neophte jury exactly what the plaintiff wants them to hear.

This sort of thing isn’t limited to aviation. But GA is particularly vulnerable to abuse because of the implication that anyone involved in it must have deep pockets. The end result is a case like this one, where a jury awarded $480 million verdict against an aircraft manufacturer even though the NTSB indicated pilot error was the cause.

Personally, I think it’s high time our society acknowledged the fact that safety does not equate an absence of risk. Failure to do so is putting us, our industry, our economy, and even our way of life at risk. Wake up, people. Today it’s Precision Airmotive. Tomorrow it will be your company or industry that goes down for the count.

Think about it.

I keep meaning to post the Red Bull Air Race broadcast schedule. Better yet, let Red Bull do it. The races are broadcast exclusively on Fox SportsNet in my neighborhood. I believe they’re available on other channels elsewhere. I understand they also transmit the races in real time in other parts of the world.

If you haven’t seen one of these broadcasts, you’re missing out on some exciting stuff. I have to hand it to RB, they really know how to put on a slick show. They’ve outfitted all the aircraft with multiple cameras on the wings, tail, belly, and of course in the cockpit. The aircraft are instrumented to provide real-time telemetry so viewers can see acceleration, airspeed, altitude, and more. They stage helicopters around the course to capture the action from the best possible angles. And the whole production is edited down to show only the best moments.

Best of all, they’ve refined the RBAR format. In past years they simply raced each plane and the fastest time won. Now it runs like an NCAA basketball tournament, with various seeds flying against one another and the winner moving into the next round. The results must make Red Bull pretty happy — they’ve had as many as a million people show up to watch a single race.

Some people think the Red Bull Air Race is too reckless. I’m not sure I agree. The pilots push pretty hard, but they are also well trained for these events. To get into the Red Bull Air Race, you must have recent Unlimited international or world championship aerobatic success on your resume. A surface level airshow waiver is also required. That’s a pretty tall order. It’s not enough to be a great aerobatic competitor OR a big name airshow pilot. You have to be both. And all that does is qualify you to participate in their training camp. It’s not even a guarantee that you’ll be invited to join the Air Race circuit.

While I’m on the topic, the Red Bull Air Race web site is rather addictive. They’re good about updating the site with the latest news and video highlights from the race series.

And be sure to check out the Red Bull Copilot site. It puts you in the cockpit during an actual run around the pylons.

Every time I start to think “hey maybe I’m not such a bad pilot after all”, I come across something like this which puts me back in my lowly and humble place.

These guys will trim your weeds and put out your fire all at the same time. And they’ll do it with the world’s largest operational flying boat:

Impressive doesn’t even begin to describe it. I remember thinking that Lake Elsinore seemed a bit small for a flying boat with a wingspan greater than that of a 747, especially when they need to be flying it on the step across the water for nearly a minute to scoop a full load of water.

The Martin Mars is not quite as big as the Hughes H-4 Hercules (better known as the Spruce Goose), but then again that airplane only flew once for a few seconds, whereas the Mars has been in active service for well over half a century (ladies, remember that lesson: size isn’t everything).

The Mars, built during World War II, was originally designed by the Glenn L. Martin Aircraft Co. as a long-range bomber. It never saw use in that capacity, however, and served during the war as a troop transport moving people and supplies between Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Pearl Harbor (see a full history). Since the war it’s primary use has been to fight fires.

Seven Mars aircraft were built by Martin. One was lost to an engine fire in 1950, another to a typhoon, and a prototype fire bomber Mars crashed in 1961 during testing. Two of these giants remain: Hawaiian Mars and Phillipine Mars. They’re based on Sproat Lake up in Canada.

What impresses me most about these airplanes is that they’ve been sitting in water for about sixty years, yet they continue to soldier on in one of the most demanding applications in the aviation world. The corrosion issues, even if freshwater, must be daunting. The planes are hauled out of the water for the winter, though. You can see how they launch the Mars back onto the lake in this photo essay.

A few years ago it looked like the Mars fleet would be grounded permanently. The owner and operator of the two remaining birds put them up for sale to any museum able to pay the asking price. I think it was just assumed that no one would be able to continue operating the Mars as a profitable business.

As it turns out, Coulson Flying Tankers purchased the entire firefighting operation — aircraft, FBO, spares, etc. — and has, according to their web site, essentially rebuilt the airplanes from the ground up.

My hat is off to Coulson; I can’t even imagine how much it must cost to keep those suckers airworthy. Each of them has four 2500 horsepower Wright-Cyclone R3350 radial engines. They stopped making those engines fifty years ago. The fuel burn is nearly 800 gallons per hour. At $4.00 per gallon, that’s $3,200 per hour for fuel alone. I don’t even know where you could get a supply of 100LL fuel large enough to keep those airplanes fueled. Most fuel farms of sufficient capacity stock Jet-A, not avgas. Plus, those farms are nowhere near lakes. I assume they fuel the aircraft from trucks. Another logistical hurdle.

Overhaul and maintenance reserves are probably at least as costly as fuel. Add in the support personnel and equipment, insurance, and ancillary expenses and figure a grand total of about $15,000 per hour to operate the Mars.

Of course, for that price, you get the ability to drop 7,200 gallons of water on a fire every nine minutes for six straight hours. That’s 265,000 gallons between refuelings. With both airplanes alternating shifts, you could theoretically drop 1.06 million gallons of water on a fire per day. Keep them both in the air and the total is 2.12 million gallons per day. In practice it wouldn’t quite reach that level because one of the Mars aircraft has a lower fuel capacity than the other. But you get the idea. Any way you slice it, it’s a lot of water.

Nothing else even comes close. There is a DC-10 airliner which has been converted to firefighting duty. It carries a bit more water, but it must return to the airport in order to reload. The Mars can skim a lake or ocean for a minute and be back on station far faster than any DC-10, and it has the capacity to mix fire retardant foam with the water while enroute.

The DC-10 has some other disadvantages. For one thing, it’s a swept-wing jet. It was designed to fly around 0.8 mach, not loaf around at slow speeds close to the ground. It just can’t fly as slowly as the Mars. In fact, the DC-10 was recently damaged when it ran into some trees while making a drop. This might not have anything to do with the speed at which it flies, but all things considered, the Mars seems better suited to the task. If only there were more of them…

Perhaps the day of the flying boats is not yet finished. In fact, the only dedicated firefighting aircraft I’m aware of that’s currently in production is a flying boat: the turbine powered Bombardier CL-415.

With the Southern California fires still fresh in our memory (actually, the Santiago fire is still burning), it’s worthwhile to consider how much worse the damage could have been were it not for these friendly giants. God bless the Martin Mars. Long may she fly!

One of my guilty pleasures lately has been reading a few of the many so-called “housing bubble blogs”. These are web sites dedicated to tracking the carnage — excuse me, I mean “adjustment” — in the real estate market.

Until recently there were only a few of these sites on the Web. Now there are so many that a person can barely keep track of them all. Some are city-specific, like the Irvine Housing Blog. Others are regional or even national. I’m partial to the Irvine site because that’s where I live. The site has even featured a property right next to mine.

One of my favorites is the concisely named Housing Bubble Blog. Unlike the Irvine-based site, which analyzes specific properties within the city, this one consists primarily of quotes taken directly from traditional media throughout the country: financial reports, newspaper articles, periodicals, etc.

So why do I call this a “guilty” pleasure? Because the worse real estate gets, the more I enjoy it. OK, I could do without all the snarky comments left by grumpy renters and those who can’t afford to buy. But overall, I’m enjoying the return of sanity and balance to at least one part of the world.

I’ll admit it’s a bit callous to get a sense of satisfaction out of other people’s misfortune, but why shouldn’t I? I’m no genius, yet I saw the handwriting on the wall before it even started. Here’s something I wrote four years ago. And I’d been harping on it for at least a couple of years prior to that.

The math is simple and hasn’t changed one iota: income growth is 3-4%, so real estate cannot sustain annual gains much beyond that.

Not that anyone asked, but if you want my prognosis for the next few years, I’ll take exception to those expecting a quick recovery and cast my lot with Mr. T.

My prediction: pain.

I think Harry Callahan said it best: a man’s got to know his limitations. Loathe as we may be to admit it, we all have limitations. Our bodies can only go so long without food, water, and sleep. The mind can only process so quickly, the memory retain so much, the senses absorb so much input before they cease to function properly.

Likewise, the equipment we fly has limits, too. Airspeed, temperature, pressure, altitude, RPM, weight, center of gravity, and other limitations must be understood and respected if we want our aircraft to respond in a predictable manner. This is something every pilot learns from the very first day of training, and those limitations look him or her square in the face on every flight. From color coded markings on the gauges to those annoying placards liberally distributed throughout the cockpit, you don’t have to look far to find an advisory or warning in the aviation world.

But let’s be honest: some of these limitations might get exceeded on occasion without major catastrophe. Perhaps it’s a slight overspeed on a fixed pitch prop during aerobatics. Flying a bit over gross weight. Exceeding a duty day limit. Extending the flaps a few knots above Vfe. Flying under VFR when the visibility hasn’t quite reached the requisite level.

Normally, these minor variances don’t result in scratched paint. The problem is, once you’ve exceeded the limitations, you’re essentially a test pilot and the margin of safety built into the aircraft by the designer is now gone. How far can you push it before something bad happens? Nobody knows until it actually happens. I hope you’re as uncomfortable thinking about that as I am writing it.

Now if you actually are a test pilot — say, one flying an experimental aircraft during phase one — that’s one thing. You know what you’re getting into, and you have prepared for it with engineering data, specific training, contingency plans, and so on.

But if you’re flying a Hawker 800XP jet with six paying passengers on board, your whole raison d’etre is to ensure the airplane remains well within the documented limitations. And recently, those of us at SNA got a good look at what happens when you ignore them. I was in the lobby at Sunrise last week when I heard a loud “boom” eminate from the general direction of the runway and soon saw thick black smoke wafting up into the air. Once the smoke had cleared, I got a look at what happens when a jet’s brake system limitations are exceeded:

From the NTSB preliminary report:

On October 29, 2007, about 1400 Pacific daylight time, a Raytheon Corporate Jets Hawker 800XP, N800CC, was substantially damaged by a fire originating from the left main landing gear after the takeoff was aborted at the John Wayne-Orange County Airport, Santa Ana, California. The aircraft is owned and operated by CIT Leasing Corp. and was originating at the time for the 14 CFR Part 91 business flight. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time and an instrument flight rules flight plan was filed. The two airline transport pilots and six passengers were not injured. The flight was destined for Denver, Colorado.

The pilot reported to the responding Federal Aviation Administration Inspector from the Long Beach, California, Flight Standards District Office that the takeoff was aborted twice before the third attempt due to an engine warning light. All three takeoff attempts were made within about a 20 minute period.

Inspection of the landing gear found that the left main landing gear tires overheated and blew during the third takeoff attempt. The hydraulic line on the left main landing gear was severed and hydraulic fluid leaked out onto the hot surface and ignited.

Jet aircraft, with their 200+ mph takeoff speeds and higher weights, can place tremendous strain on the brakes in the event of an aborted takeoff. That’s why most aircraft in that class have a time limitation after an abort. The brakes must be allowed to cool for a specified period (or, if the aircraft has brake temperature sensors, until a specific temperature is reached) so that if the second takeoff attempt also ends with an abort, the brakes don’t overheat and fail.

I don’t know what the limitation is for the Hawker, but I would be surprised if three attempts were allowed within 20 minutes. The scary part is that the Hawker has a fuselage fuel tank aft of the trailing edge of the wing, right where the skin has been burned through.

I feel for the flight crew. If brake limitations exists and the flight crew intentionally exceeded them, FAA sanctions will be difficult if not impossible to avoid. Aviation is like that. You can fly safely for 20 years and with one moment of carelessness ruin a whole career. Tough business, eh?

On the other hand, limitations don’t necessarily mean an aircraft can’t take a tremendous amount of abuse! To wit, you might be interested in this video of a brake certification test on the Boeing 777. Known as a “maximum rejected takeoff” test, the purpose is to ensure the aircraft can be stopped if a takeoff must be aborted at the worst possible moment under the worse possible conditions.

To simulate that situation, regulations state that the aircraft must, at max gross weight (660,000 lbs!), be able to accelerate to decision speed (around 210 mph) and then stop using nothing but extremely hard braking. No flaps, no spoilers, no thrust reversers.

Oh, did I mention that the brake pads must be worn down to minimum before the test starts? They must then absorb nearly ten million foot-pounds of energy in about 20 seconds without catching fire.

I’ve seen this video clip a hundred times, but it still amazes me every time I watch it. Enjoy.

Reason #438 to avoid the iPhone: that smug Applesque feeling of superiority you get from owning one could backfire.

We push back from the gate and get advised of a ground stop in MEM due to storms in the area. My Captain informs the passengers over the PA. Not one minute later, we get chimed from the flight attendant. “Some guy with an IPhone says the weather is good, and wants to know what the REAL reason is for the delay. Is something wrong with the plane?”

Read the rest. Apparently Mr. iPhone doesn’t realize that he flies on that aircraft at the behest of the very person whose judgment and/or integrity he’s questioning.

I wish I knew which company employed that pilot! I’d like to give them some business next time I’m forced to subject myself to the depraved masquerade of modern airline travel.