358 How Shallow Turns Reduce Safety in the Traffic Pattern with Dr. Catherine Cavagnaro + GA News
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At some time in your flight training, someone may have told you to keep your turns in the traffic pattern relatively shallow since stall speed increases with bank angle, and of course you'd never want to stall an aircraft in the traffic pattern. But as Dr. Katherine Kavagnaro explains to us today, by doing that, you may actually be increasing your risk of stalling in the traffic pattern, and she'll explain why.

Also in this episode, we have a great new video of the week, and we'll talk about how Apple's iPhone crash detection works to notify authorities if you crash a plane, and we'll talk about another plane crash in which that occurred. Also, DPE Jim Pittman talks about what you need to know about foot position, and I'll tell you about my VisionJet trip that I took earlier today, and about something that happened to me on the guard frequency, which has never happened before.

And if you'd like to get a new headset sometime in the coming months, you may want to jump on a discount that Lightspeed is offering during the holiday season that will save you money. You can get $100 off a brand new Lightspeed Zulu 3 headset, which brings the price down to $799. Now that's a great price for a full-featured noise-canceling headset, the same headset that I use. And that deal expires January 13th. So take advantage of it now before you get busy and forget to do it.

To get that deal, go to aviationnewstalk.com slash lightspeed. Let's get started. Hello again and welcome to Aviation News Talk, where we talk general aviation. My name is Max Trescott. I've been flying for, wow, 51 years now. I'm the author of several books and the 2008 National Flight Instructor of the Year. And my mission is to help you become the safest possible pilot.

Last week in episode 357, we talked about an air tour helicopter in Houston that collided with a radio tower at night. So if you didn't hear that episode, you may want to check it out at aviationnewstalk.com slash 357.

And if you're new to the show, welcome. So glad that you found us. And so that you get next week's episode, go ahead and touch either the subscribe key or if you're using the Spotify or Apple podcast app, the follow key. So that next week's episode is downloaded for free. And of course, let me remind you, this is a listener supported show and that we have several ways you can show your love and support for the show. Just go out to our support page at aviationnewstalk.com slash support and

where you'll find links to support the show via PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, and Patreon. And when you sign up to make a donation, I'll read your name on the show. Coming up in the news for the week of December 2nd, 2024, landing on a highway leads to a motorist death, we have two Thanksgiving turkey drop stories, and a man is arrested for smuggling airplanes. All this and more, and the news starts now.

From avweb.com, nighttime highway landing leads to fatal traffic crash. A nighttime emergency highway landing in Utah left an instructor and student pilot uninjured, but the subsequent traffic pileup injured several drivers. One of the motorists subsequently died from injuries sustained in the collision. At about 8.15 p.m. local time on Monday over Payson, Utah, a Cessna 172 experienced what was described as a mechanical failure leading to a loss of engine power.

The aircraft made an emergency landing on Interstate 15. Though several cars were able to stop and initially avoid the Cessna, a pickup truck slimed into four vehicles, some of which were then pushed into the aircraft. One of two people in the cars reported to have serious injuries died. Two more suffered minor to moderate injuries. The incident shut down the traffic on a segment of I-15 near mile marker 250 for about three hours as crews worked to clear the damage and remove the aircraft.

And this highlights a point that I made on a flight yesterday. A client who's working on his commercial asked whether it was a good idea to land on a road. And I mentioned that you often have to deal with wires and traffic, and so roads aren't always the best place to land in an emergency. Though, they may be sometimes.

And we have two Thanksgiving turkey drop stories. And I should mention that these were frozen turkeys that were dropped, not live turkeys. From avweb.com, Alaska pilot spreads holiday cheer with turkey drops. An Alaskan pilot has been making headlines for her unique Thanksgiving tradition, airdropping turkeys to her neighbors who live off the grid.

Esther Sanderlin said she's been dropping turkey bombs for the last three years. She told local news station KTUU that the idea came to her after hearing one of her new neighbors say they plan to serve squirrel meat as their protein for Thanksgiving dinner. "I just had a thought, and at that moment, you know what? I'm going to drop them a turkey for Thanksgiving because I recently rebuilt my first airplane with my dad, and so I can do that readily easily," she said.

Growing up in a remote part of Alaska, Sanderlin had a family friend who would deliver turkeys to her family, which also sparked her interest to pay it forward. With only 20% of the state accessible by road, Alaskans heavily rely on aircraft for necessities, especially during the winter. Sanderlin said that she had planned to drop about 30 to 40 frozen turkeys last week for Thanksgiving. Ultimately, she says her goal is to turn her annual tradition into a non-profit to reach more rural communities throughout Alaska.

And our second story comes from the DurantDemocrat.com, which I think is an Oklahoma newspaper, turkey dropped from helicopter. KLBC Radio, and no, not WKRP, had its turkey drop last Saturday at the Durant High School to collect donations for the school district's backpack program to provide food to students to take home. The turkey was dropped onto square markings with a number on the parking lot from a helicopter piloted by Dr. Kenyon Whittington.

Alaska Jet, which apparently is his name, KLBC's sports broadcasting cameraman, dropped the turkey from the chopper. Scott Corbin, operations manager for KLBC, when asked about the purpose of the event said, quote, "...well, in part, because Doc Whittington likes to have fun with his helicopter, and also we knew of the need. The Durant schools have a backpack program for kids that might not have enough to eat at home. They may go home from school on Friday and not have anything to eat besides what they get in that backpack until Monday."

Corbin said approximately 300 canned food items were donated. The square markings were randomly assigned to donors, and for instance, if someone donated 20 items, they would get four squares. Ellia Reyes was one of the bigger donors, and the turkey landed on one of her numbers, making her the winner. She received a $250 gift certificate. Corbin thanked Durant Schools for the use of the parking lot, and also the City of Durant Parks Department for drawing the squares.

From avweb.com, Embry-Riddle research shows drones can reduce wildlife strikes at airports. A group of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University students won first place in a national competition with research demonstrating how drones can help reduce wildlife strikes at airports. One of the authors of the research explained how drones improve wildlife monitoring.

She said, quote, drones not only make the process more cost effective, but also significantly enhance the ability to identify different wildlife species. This is especially important because it helps us better understand how these animals interact with their habitats, which can be crucial for ensuring airport safety. The team tested their approach near Daytona Beach International following FAA wildlife hazard assessment protocols. They successfully identified local wildlife species and tracked their daily and seasonal patterns.

The students found that integrating drone technology into wildlife management could enhance safety, lower costs, and provide airports with better insight into how wildlife interacts with their surroundings. From Gamma.Aero, the General Aviation Manufacturers Association releases third quarter 2024 aircraft shipment and billing report.

Aircraft shipments through the third quarter of 2024, when compared to the same period in 2023, saw piston airplanes increase 7.5% with 1,221 units. Turboprops with 435 units were flat versus last year, and business jets increased 10.1% with 501 units.

The value of airplane deliveries through the third quarter was $17.3 billion, an increase of 20.5%. Helicopter shipments through the third quarter of 2024, when compared to the same period last year, saw piston helicopters in line with last year at 156 units, and turbine helicopters increased about 2% with 478 units. Total value of helicopter deliveries was $2.7 billion.

From AOPA.org, AOPA's Air Safety Institute report shows rise in accidents but decline in fatalities. The 34th Richard G. McSpadden Report, formerly the Null Report, was released. The current iteration of the report offers users a near real-time analysis of GA accidents.

The data are updated on a rolling 30-day cycle, with access to analysis going back as far as 2008 and data trends projected well into 2024. The executive summaries noted decrease in overall accident rates. An increase in total and fatal accidents was mitigated by an increase in flight activity following 2021. Accident rates in non-commercial fixed-wing and non-commercial helicopters decreased, while commercial fixed-wing and commercial helicopter rates increased.

Loss of control events continue to be the leading causal factor, and weather-related accidents remain highly lethal. From avweb.com, Pilot in Paws volunteer dies in rescue flight crash. A volunteer pilot, Suk Kim, for the animal rescue organization Pilot in Paws, was killed last week when his Mooney 201 went down in a remote mountainous area in upstate New York at about 6 p.m. A puppy and another dog survived the crash, but another dog also died.

Kim, age 49, got his private four years ago and was a dedicated Pilot and Paws volunteer.

The ashes of the puppy named Lisa that died in the crash were being delivered this weekend to the family of the annual rescue pilot. Leah Kim, the 16-year-old daughter of the pilot, said the family came up with the idea for the memorial flight as a way to complete her father's mission with a rescue group pilot in pause and to ensure that the puppy Lisa finally had a home. She said, quote, we all sat down and talked about what we'd like to do with his remains and

And then we were given the options to have Lisa's remains brought to us. We decided that we would all feel much better if she was with us, she said. Kim had taken off on November 24th from Maryland on a mission for the rescue organization Pilot and Paws en route to Albany, New York.

He had Lisa and two other small dogs aboard his 1986 Mooney M20J when the single-engine pilot crashed under unknown circumstances in snowy mountainous terrain in southeastern New York. And according to cnycentral.com, the ashes of both the dog and the pilot will be buried together this week. From flyingmag.com, Rotor, that's the name of the company, flies world's largest crop spring drone in Texas.

Last week, Rotor Technologies flew its R-550 Sprayhawk, which it calls the largest spray drone in the world, at Perot Field Fort Worth Alliance Airport, that's K-A-F-W, during the National Agricultural Aviation Association's Ag Aviation Expo in Fort Worth, Texas. The Sprayhawk is an automated gas-powered helicopter based on an overhauled Robinson R-44 airframe with 110 gallons of capacity.

With a range of about 5 statute miles and flight endurance of 50 minutes, it can spray 240 acres of crops in an hour at a lower cost of operation than comparable aircraft.

The drone has about double the R-44's usable capacity and cuts costs by more than $1.20 per acre sprayed. The sprayhawk can be assembled and deployed in less than 15 minutes and requires just two crew to operate, a remote pilot and a visual observer. It's equipped with five cameras, radar, and LIDAR to sense and dodge obstacles.

The 2025 model sprayhawk is open for pre-orders in the U.S. and Brazil for delivery during the second half of next year. The massive drone has a massive price tag of $1.5 million, but introductory pricing starting at $990,000 is available through December 15th. And finally, from FlyingMac.com, attempt to smuggle Cessnas from U.S. into Russia ends in arrest.

A Russian-American dual citizen was arrested Monday and charged with illegally attempting to export two small aircraft from the U.S. to Russia. According to the Department of Justice, Sergei Nekaev was indicted for attempting to evade U.S. export control laws in March 2023 by trying to sneak two Cessna aircraft from the U.S. to Russia by transshipping them through Armenia. The U.S. government seized the aircraft in conjunction with his arrest in the southern district of Georgia.

The release said the 1968 Cessna 172K and 1973 Cessna were valued together at approximately $170,000 and were being exported to a Russian flight school without a required license or authorization from the Department of Commerce. Quote, to conceal the true end-user and destination of the aircraft, Nekev falsely represented that the end-user and destination were in Armenia, the DOJ release stated.

Nekiev was charged with attempting to export controlled goods without a license in violation of the Export Control Reform Act, smuggling goods contrary to U.S. law, causing the submission of false and misleading information in export paperwork submitted through the automated export system. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted for illegally attempting to export the goods. And to me, the most amazing part of the story is that a pair of 50-year-old 172s are worth $170,000.

Coming up next, a few of my updates. And later, we'll talk with Dr. Catherine Cavagnaro about how shallow bank turns actually reduce your safety in the traffic pattern. All right here on the Aviation News Talk podcast. ♪

And now let's get to the good news. First, congratulations to Kyle Ulrich. He writes, thanks, Max. Just passed my PPL checkride a few weeks ago and love the show. You're keeping us all a little safer. Well, thank you so much, Kyle. And congratulations to you. Kyle's at the Chandler Airport in Arizona. And congratulations to Nicholas Balinski. He says he's passed his CFII checkride and also made a PayPal donation.

And here's a recording from one of our Patreon mega supporters. Hey, Max, it's John. I recently passed my commercial check ride, something I've been working on slowly for the last couple of years in my series. As someone who is not a career pilot, nor an aspiring one, my decision to pursue the commercial certificate was in many ways born from something you have highlighted on many of your episodes. The notion that working toward a new rating or certificate is a terrific way to grow one's flying skills and knowledge and to position training as a lifelong element of flying.

I spoke to my CSIP about something to work toward that would complement my usual Cirrus semi-annual recurrence schedule for both VFR and IFR, and he suggested, what about the commercial certificate?

My personal flying is mostly cross-country traveling with family and friends, and I've accrued a solid amount of hours over the years doing just that. And I do have to tell you that in moments during my training where life got busy, I'd often ask myself, is it really worth spending the time on this extra training and studying, even if the privileges I'll be granted upon completion may not really apply to me as a non-career pilot at this point in my life?

Well, what is very clear to me after completing this new certificate is that I'm indeed a better pilot in so many different ways. And as so many other listeners have told you, episode 149 with Jason Blair was decidedly helpful preparation for the check ride, as is so much of the other content you create for us each week. Thank you for the wonderful podcast and mostly for your enduring commitment to influencing pilots like me and others at all levels of experience.

Thank you. John, thanks so much for your kind words and congratulations on your commercial. And I totally agree with you. I was supposed to take my commercial helicopter checkride about three weeks ago, but unfortunately I got sick and couldn't do it. And I've already learned a lot to help make me be a safer helicopter pilot than I was after I got my private. So yes, I encourage everyone to continue to work on new ratings.

And if you're a listener to the show and have good news to share, just go to aviationnewstalk.com and click on contacts at the top of the page and share your good news with us. And now let me tell you about our video of the week. This resulted in a complaint and the FAA is currently investigating whether or not this pilot was flying too low and violated federal regulations.

It is a shot of a Robinson R-22, which is flying very low over a lake in very close proximity to other boaters. So if you want to see that video, go on out to aviationnewstalk.com slash video. And while you're out there on that same page, you'll find links where you can support the show. So I'd encourage you to do that. And I've read some new information about the Civil Air Patrol crash in Colorado that we talked about last week.

This comes from Estes Park Trail Gazette at eptrail.com.

They say that an alert from an Apple Watch started a connection between the Loveland Emergency Communications Center at the Loveland Police Department to the sole survivor of the plane crash. And by the way, this is the second crash I've heard of that was reported this way. The first was the Baron crash on Catalina Island that we talked about just a couple of weeks ago in episode 356. Continuing on with the story, they say the communications center learned of the crash when they got an emergency activation signal

from the survivor's Apple Watch, saying he was not responding. With emergency activations like this, the team was able to hear through an open line and could hear what sounded like someone who'd been hurt.

but the team ultimately lost the signal and one of the dispatchers who requested not to be publicly identified was determined to get in touch with whomever it was and a spokesperson said she had this gut feeling that something really bad had happened eventually the dispatcher was able to reach the survivor through his watch and began to talk him through the situation and that's when the team learned that it was a plane crash and by using latitude and longitude information from the emergency signal as well as flight descriptions from the survivor

The dispatch team got to work coordinating response from local agencies to get help to his location. So this is a pretty important new capability that's starting to pay off. And I went out and found an article on Mashable.com, I'll include a link to it in the show notes, called Apple iPhone Crash Detection How It Works, because I was kind of curious to find out how exactly does it work. And let me just read small portions of the article here. The vice president of worldwide iPhone marketing said it's mostly the G-Force detection that

It's able to detect G-force up to 256 Gs. That was one of the key differences for the new accelerometers that the new watches and phones have. For context, the highest G-force survived by a human was the 214 Gs in the car driver Kenny Brack that he experienced when he crashed his race car, which was doing 220 miles per hour at the Texas Motor Speedway. And it says that serious car accidents are around 100 Gs or higher.

Now, crash detection also takes multiple factors into account. That includes GPS to infer high speeds, microphone activity to listen for the sounds of what sound like a crash, a barometer to detect pressure if the airbags are deployed, and even Bluetooth and CarPlay to inform your device that you're in a car. Now, if this happens, if it's triggered, your iPhone or iWatch will first try and call 911 through your regular carrier network.

Barring that, it will then try and route to any other carrier. And if there's no service around, the iPhone will make an emergency SOS call via satellite connectivity. So if you want to learn more, look for that article in our show notes at aviationnewstalk.com slash 358. And here's yet another Thanksgiving story. I thought I'd share part of this with you. This comes from hatchingcatnyc.com.

It says, 1932, the cat that took down a plane at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

And it says in part, in the early years of the parade, the balloons would be released, which caused some problems, so they no longer do that. In 1932, Macy's told the New York press to warn all pilots to stay away from the balloons. But at 4 p.m. on November 24th, a half hour after the balloons were released, 22-year-old student pilot Annette Gibson, and by the way, I looked her up, it turns out that she became a competitive air racer in the 1930s and set a speed record at the time she was a student pilot.

She and her instructor, Hugh Copeland of Woodside Queens, came upon the 60-foot yellow-striped Tomcat balloon. It says that Miss Gibson decided to go for the cat's jugular and steered the plane right into it. The balloon's fabric wrapped around the left wing, causing the plane to go into a deep tailspin. She shut off the ignition, thinking this would prevent fire when the plane crashed.

As thousands of people in Queens watched, the plane continued to fall. Annette and Hugh switched seats so the instructor could take control of the plane. At one point, the cabin door flew open and Annette almost fell out of the plane. Luckily, her foot got caught in her safety strap and she was able to pull herself back in.

I've got to wonder if there's just a little bit of an exaggeration there. But anyway, continuing on, the plane was only about 250 feet above the rooftops near Rosedale when Hugh turned on the ignition. By this time, the tattered remains of Tom had flown away, so Hugh was able to resume flying and land the plane safely at Floyd Bennett Field.

Following an investigation by Inspector Sanford Willits of the Department of Commerce Aeronautics Branch, the two pilots were grounded for violations of federal regulations forbidding stunting over congested areas. So you can see, pilots have been doing crazy stuff for a long time. And here's an email from patron supporter and DPE pilot examiner and airline pilot Jim Pittman.

He wrote a short thing on his website called Three Foot Positions. And he says, note, this is critical for Cirrus SR20 and 22s and many other planes with a similar rudder pedal design.

He says, the problem, pilots who perform takeoffs and landings with their heels on the floor inadvertently apply the brakes when giving rudder inputs during takeoff and landings. This is particularly common during crosswind procedures and for pilots with a shoe size larger than a men's size eight. By the way, I often tell pilots,

that if you have your feet on the pedals kind of in the same way that you have on the pedals in the car, your feet are up too high and you're probably going to be dragging on the brakes a little bit. That's what he's describing right now. The solution, recognize that it's not sufficient to teach pilots to put their heels on the floor. Instead, instructors should be teaching three different feet positions. Position one feet on the brakes. This is the full brake position. Example, engine start, run up, and the far end of the landing roll.

Position two, heels on the floor. This is the flight position, e.g. for air work and maneuvers. Position three, heels back, and I would add to that toes low. Pilots with larger feet, about men's size eight and larger, must be taught to bend their knees, pull their heels back, and ensure the balls of their feet are on the bottom of the rudder pedals, e.g. for takeoffs and landings.

For touch and go landings, the feet must remain in this position throughout the entire ground roll. For full stop landings, the feet are carefully moved up to position one when it's time to apply the brakes.

And I agree with everything he said. Thanks so much, Jim, for sharing that. And I notice this all the time. In fact, I mentioned to somebody recently that on my commercial check ride many, many years ago when I first started taxing out, one of the first things the examiner said was, Max, you're riding the brakes. So I had my feet up too high in that Cessna we were flying at the time.

And just a quick update on some things I'm doing. I'm flying out on this Thursday to Dallas, Texas, where I'll spend about four days flying with the owner of a new-to-him VisionJet. He recently completed his typewriting training, and he has a few of the 25 hours he needs flying around in the jet before he can fly it solo. And I'll fly with him so that he gets the remainder of those hours. We'll be running up to Wisconsin, and then we'll be flying to Dallas, Texas.

then out to the LA area and back, and we'll probably stop at at least one mountain airport in Colorado. And I just got back this evening from a fairly quick round-trip flight in a VisionJet from Oakland to Klamath Falls, Oregon. A couple of interesting things from that flight. Just before departing, I wanted to look at the departure procedure that we'd be flying, so I opened ForeFlight on my iPhone, but I couldn't find any charts. And then when I went to look in the downloads area, I discovered that I didn't have any charts downloaded, which was a shock.

Fortunately, it didn't matter as the pilot had charts and the airplane had charts, so my charts would have been a redundant third set, but I like having them.

And I figured out what happened. I've been using an iPhone 11 for the past five years, and last week I upgraded to a new iPhone 16 and transferred all the apps and data, which turned out to be easier than I thought it would be. I found that I needed to enter a few passwords for a couple of apps to get them working, but other than that, it was pretty quick and easy to do. ForeFlight, of course, was installed on my new iPhone, but I didn't realize that for whatever reason, none of my charts got copied over. So, I had to do a little bit of

So when we were on the ground briefly in Klamath Falls, I had a very strong signal and I downloaded all of the charts for Oregon and California in just a minute or two. And when I got home this evening, I downloaded charts for all of the U.S. So now I'm set for the trip tomorrow. So just something to think about when you upgrade a phone, make sure that all of your charts got transferred to the new phone. And if they didn't, download them before you fly. Now, coming back into the Bay Area, we had something interesting happen that I've never experienced personally.

We got a call on 121.5 of the guard frequency that all of us as pilots are required to monitor when we're in flight. Occasionally, I forget to do that, so I was happy that we were monitoring it when we were called. And no, we were not flying through a restricted area.

We'd been descending via on the Windsor 2 arrival, and as we approached the San Francisco-class Bravo, I realized that we were only hearing half of the conversation on the radio. We could hear other pilots talking with ATC, but ATC was so weak that they were unintelligible.

Initially, I was planning to call ATC for a new frequency, but realized that even if they heard me, we wouldn't be able to understand what they were saying. And just as I was starting to think that maybe I should call them on guard, they called us on guard.

Now, it's possible that we missed a handoff, though the frequency was crazy busy and I'm thinking they didn't call us until we were down too low and out of range. Regardless, the system worked. And I want to remind you that not that many years ago, I mentioned that I read about a pilot who received a violation from the FAA because he was not monitoring the guard frequency as required. Apparently, he was out of radio communication for around 15 to 20 minutes.

During this time, ATC tried to reach him on guard, but since they didn't reach him, they concluded that he wasn't monitoring guard, and so he received a violation. So, word to the wise, monitor the guard frequency when you're flying.

And one other thing I discovered in the past few days is that the camera in the newer iPhone works significantly better in some regards than the camera in my five-year-old phone. I took some sunset photos from the air a few days ago and got a much better defined round sun on the horizon versus the fuzzy suns I've seen in the past.

And today I was able to take some amazing photos of the Farallon Islands from 60 miles away. I knew what airport we were flying over and I measured the distance when I got home. Now the Farallons are located about 30 miles southwest of the Golden Gate Bridge and we rarely see them because they're often shrouded by haze or low clouds. But today they were surrounded by low clouds and just the peaks of them stuck up through the clouds.

And whereas in the past, I haven't been able to get a good focus on small objects at a distance, I was able to zoom in and get a number of mostly focused photos of the islands. So now the Holy Grail for me will be trying to get a photo of the contrail of a jet as it passes just over us on a vision jet trip. I've tried to do that a number of times and the old phone would just never focus on contrails. So I've got my fingers crossed and hoping that it will work better for that now.

And if you've been listening to the show for a while and find that you're getting value from it, well, I'd like to invite you to sign up and become part of our community and support the show. And if you've been thinking about doing this for a while, boy, this would be a really great time to do it because we've just passed the first of the month.

And every month we lose a number of our Patreon supporters because people's credit cards expire. And sadly, most of those people never get around to updating their credit cards. So we're constantly looking for new supporters to kind of backfill the old ones that we have lost.

And by the way, you don't get any notification from Patreon that your card has expired. So you may be thinking, yeah, I'm still supporting the show. But if your card's expired, guess what? You're not. So you may want to sign into Patreon and just check and see if your credit card is updated. But if you haven't supported the show in the past, it's so easy to do. Just go out to aviationnewstalk.com slash support, where you'll find four different options for

supporting the show via either PayPal, Venmo, and Zelle, where you can make one-time donations, or via Patreon, where you can make a monthly donation. And on Patreon, you can sign up at a variety of different levels.

For example, the $35 a month supporters get access to my online courses and the $50 a month mega supporters get a signed copy of one of my books after two months. And of course, there are lots of other levels as well. So again, to get to that page, just head on out to aviationnewstalk.com. Or if you're watching our video of the week, you'll find the links there too at aviationnewstalk.com slash video. And of course, aviation is a small community. See if you know either of these two people who've signed up to support the show over the past week.

First, thanks to Travis Clarson, who made a one-time donation via PayPal. And thanks to Kyle Ulrich, who made a one-time donation via Venmo. Thanks so very much for your support. Coming up next, we have our conversation with Dr. Catherine Kavagnaro about why shallow bank turns can reduce your safety in the traffic pattern. All right here on the Aviation News Talk podcast.

Now let me tell you a little about Katherine Kavagnaro. She's an expert on spins, aerobatics, and upset recovery, and owns a flight school called Ace Aerobatic School, located at the Suwannee-Franklin County Airport on the campus of the University of the South.

In addition to holding ATP and CFI certificates, she is a professor of mathematics at the University of the South and has chaired the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science. Catherine is the 2020 National CFI of the Year, and she also serves as a designated pilot examiner. And now here's our conversation with Catherine Cavagnaro.

Catherine, welcome to the show. So good to see you again. Max, it's great to be back. Thanks for having me. Always a pleasure. Hey, you wrote an article for the November issue of AOPA Pilot in which you talked about timid turns. You also called them lazy turns. What inspired you to write that? Actually, a lot of practical exams, but I'll tell you about a recent practical exam that I gave to a candidate named Steve. And he said,

And we're coming back in to land and he was keeping his speed up in an effort to be responsible, right? We want to make sure that we avoid any chance of stalling in the pattern until we're right over the runway. So he kept his speed up and he did the typical half mile downwind, half mile distance between the downwind leg and the runway. And he ended up overshooting final speed.

So, you know, he had a choice. He could either try to get back onto final or go around. And he chose to go ahead and see if he could get final back. So he did not bank very steeply, right? You imagine you've overshot final and you're trying to get back on final and you certainly don't want to bank steeply because your instructor told you never to do that, you know, in an interest of safety.

But then what I noticed is he had an awfully heavy inside foot.

So what that set up was exactly what he, the situation that he was trying to avoid. In other words, he made a skidding turn back onto final and that is far more dangerous than banking steeply. But really what his initial problem was is he was just too fast. He was too fast in the pattern. For example,

He was flying downwind at 90 knots, which is, that's a fairly typical airspeed. But this initial, his initial turn onto base was just 20 degrees. And then he slowed up to 80 on base.

And then he took a very careful 15 degrees onto final and just way overshot final. And it's not shocking. If you look at the math behind it, it's not shocking that he would do it. And it was exacerbated by a wind that on final was actually coming from the left. So it was a standard left-hand pattern. He had a left hand.

Cross went on final. And so it was clear, even in a no-win situation, he would have overshot final. But especially with that wind, he way overshot final and just set himself up

for the classic stall spin accident on final. So what was the outcome? Did he succeed in getting it onto the final or did he go around or what was the outcome? He ultimately got it back, but it was just, he was still really fast and ultimately he ended up going around. But we had quite a debrief session after the practical exam was over. And that's just not appropriate. He is setting himself and his passengers up

for an unsafe flight. Yeah, you call these timid turns. I often tell pilots to not make wimpy turns, which is kind of the same thing. I see a lot of 20-degree bank turns, and I encourage people to do 30-degree bank just because it's going to get them much smaller turn radius. In fact, I went and verified it, but

The turn radius for a 20-degree bank turn is 59% larger than for a 30-degree bank turn, and yet the stall speed barely increases. Why don't you go ahead and tell us about the relationship with stall speed and bank angle? Sure. Yeah, there's a formula for it. If you're interested, the turn radius is equal to the square of the velocity of

acceleration divided by, and in the denominator, you have the acceleration due to gravity, and you have the tangent of the bank angle. So if you didn't, if you're not up on your trigonometry and such, you can just think of it as bank angle, because for smaller angles, the tangent of the bank angle and the bank angle are the basically the same. So

The things you want to remember are that the numerator has a square. It's velocity squared. So if you double your velocity, you are quadrupling your turn radius. And if you cut your velocity in half, you cut your turn radius in a quarter. So it just shows you that between the two of those, speed and bank angle,

speed has a far greater effect on turn radius than bank angle does. But if you want a nice tight turn, you'll do it at a slow airspeed and a big bank angle. And of course, there's a point at which that's not good anymore. But I'm totally in agreement with you on these really timid bank angles as well in the pattern. There's nothing wrong with a healthy

30 degree bank turn. If that's a level turn, then you are increasing your stall speed by about 7%. And you're typically flying way beyond that margin above your stall speed. And it's a descending turn typically. So it's not clear exactly what the percentage would be, but it would be at most say

A 7% increase of your stall speed. So again, we're typically flying way beyond that. So there's nothing unsafe about a 30 degree bank in the pattern. Yeah. I think your point is that if you're descending as most of us are in the pattern, then that increase in stall speed at 30 degrees of bank is even less than 7%, right?

Probably, yeah. It's really a function of the load factor that you're incurring. And I will say that it's probably less than that. It could be about the same, but it's not going to be any worse than that. Mm-hmm.

So why do you think CFIs are teaching people to make these really shallow turns in the pattern? Truthfully, because I think a lot of CFIs are afraid of stalls as well. And the thing is what they're teaching them to be by maintaining these, what seems like a safe airspeed, you know, maintain this airspeed and you won't have any problems. Well, that's just not true. First of all, of course, you can stall at any airspeed and

We all know that. But by having people keep their speed up, you're just you're setting yourself up for the classic overshoot.

And if you're going to have a problem there, you know, what are you typically three, four, 500 feet above the ground when you're turning final in a, in a standard pattern on an overshoot skidding, trying to get back onto final. That's just no good. Yeah. I also wonder if part of it is that there's been such a demand for airline pilots that CFIs are just not staying in their jobs very long. And that, that may have an effect upon the quality of the teaching. I was talking with Jason Blair earlier,

Over the summertime, and he said that we are unfortunately on our fourth cycle of 16-month CFIs. So they're just not in the job very long. And I'm guessing that if one of them says, don't bank too much, then for generations, all of those people's students are going to do these very shallow turns.

Yeah, I see it all the time on practical exams. And, you know, if you just scale back on your airspeed, can I give you some, just some figures just to give you a sense for how much the airspeed matters? Like I said earlier in that 90 on downwind and 80 on base,

If you use a 20 degree bank turn onto final, excuse me, onto base, and then a 15 degree bank turn onto final, which is exactly what Steve from the article did, you're going to overshoot a standard half mile pattern.

If you were to only up the bank angle to respectively 30 degrees onto base and 20 degrees onto final, which are still appropriate bank angles, then you actually won't overshoot in a no-win situation. So just...

with the bank angles can help there. But if you just slow to 80 knots during that first turn and then 70 knots during the second turn, and for a lot of the kinds of treads

training airplanes, those are more than appropriate air speeds. Not only will you not overshoot, but you'll get a full seven seconds on the base leg. And I think that's something we don't talk about enough is time spent on the base leg.

That's time I think we should level the wings so that we can check the position with the runway and also check to make sure that there's no straight in traffic coming. If you're in a high wing airplane, then you're going to have trouble seeing the runway in, say, a

bank. And if you are in a low-wing airplane, then if you're still in a bank, you're going to have trouble seeing the traffic that could be potentially coming straight in. So to me, that time that you are leveling out on base, that is precious time so that you can make sure that you are avoiding any traffic that's coming straight in.

And you're also are able to plan appropriately the turn on to final so that you're not going to overshoot.

So it's amazing how just tinkering with those numbers a tiny bit turns an irresponsible pattern into a perfectly acceptable pattern. Yeah, indeed. I think so many people get scared of 30 degrees that they're making these monster patterns as a result, and they really have no reason to be scared at all. Let's just talk about the increase in stall speed just for a second. We mentioned, or you said that 30-degree banked turn happens.

increases stall speed by 7%. 45-degree bank turn, which I would never want to see in the traffic pattern, increases it by 19%. So there is a huge difference between 7% and 19%. So I love 30-degree bank turns. I don't like 20, and I don't like 45. No, I completely agree with you. But I think the irony about it is, and I'm not advocating a 45-degree bank

in the pattern at all. Right. But that is actually safer than what people do to avoid that. The overshoot situation is not a safe one. And again, not advocating the 45-degree bank, but that would actually be safer than what people do to try to avoid that situation. Yes, I agree. Don't do 45-degree banks in the traffic pattern. And don't overshoot. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Well, and so go around is often a good response as well. So you talked about time on base. Talk a little bit about tailwinds on base, how you can know whether you've got one and how that affects the outcome. Oh, yeah. That's the beauty of the downwind leg. So as you're flying the downwind leg, absent any other factors like, say, some smokestacks in the area or

getting the wind when you call up for the AWOS or the ASOS weather. The thing is, we should always be thinking, where's the wind coming from? What is it going to be doing to me in my next phase of flight? So when I'm approaching an airport, not even near there, I try to get a mental picture of what that wind is going to be doing to me.

But in the absence of any of that, you know, my airport doesn't report weather and who knows, maybe there's no smokestacks or water on a lake to give me that information. If you are flying downwind and you are parallel, your fuselage is parallel to the runway and you're getting closer to the runway, then you know you have, you're going to have a tailwind on base.

And you're going to, in the standard left pattern, you're going to be correcting to the left or slipping to the left on final. If you are being pushed away from the airport or the runway, then you know that you're going to have a headwind on base and you'll be correcting to the right with a right slip.

on final. So I spend a lot of my time, even when I'm flying up at altitude, I'm looking at water on a lake. I'm listening to local weather. I'm looking at smokestacks, even a farmer plowing a field. You can see the direction that

the dust is moving. I am always, it's always on my mind, where's the wind coming from? And if I have a situation, you know, how am I going to be compensating for that? Say if I were to have an engine out, but you know, back to the pattern, I am, I always know where the wind is going to, is coming from.

Sure. And a simple one would be if you happen to have GPS in the airplane, when you're on base, you can look at what your ground speed is as compared to your airspeed. And that could certainly give you a clue. And then, for example, something as little as a 10-knot

Tailwind on base. Wow. That's going to have a huge effect on turn radius. Oh, that's going to have an enormous effect on turn radius. Yeah. So in, you can just replace that. I mean, this is ballpark true. Good enough for government work, so to speak. That V squared in the numerator, you could make that your ground speed.

and you can see the effect of a wind. You know, wind is only coming from one direction, so it's not quite right, correct? But you can at least get a sense for how it might ballpark affect your turn radius. You mentioned looking at water on a lake to determine wind direction. I'm a seaplane pilot, so I know exactly what that's all about.

Tell us what you're looking for for people who are not familiar with how to read the lake to figure out where the wind's coming from. Right, yeah. So I got my seaplane rating a long time ago too, and that was just a lot of fun. But yeah, if you see a lake and you see that the water is rippling against one of the shores...

then you know that the wind is pushing the water toward that shore. So you know basically the wind, the surface winds at that point. Yep. And if you look at the opposite end, usually it's going to be relatively flat water there because for that first few feet of water, it's being shadowed by the grass or the trees or whatever. So the wind's not affecting that. So the flat area is going to be the upwind side.

And then you can also get streaks on the water as well. They'll at least show you the direction that the wind is going in. Those kick in around 8 knots, as I recall. And then if it's really windy, whitecaps kick in around 12 knots or so. Yep. Good info. Good. Well, hopefully we've inspired a few people to go out and get their seaplane reading. Yeah.

And it's just plain fun. Oh, yeah, totally, totally. Well, you talked about on base being a good time to look for straight-in traffic. Have you encountered situations where you discovered somebody coming straight in and they weren't on the radio? Oh, yes. Or maybe not making the calls that would have been really helpful, but

There's a lot of training that happens in my area. So in a lot of these airports that might seem kind of sleepy, those are the ones that are the prime airports to go to when you're going to be practicing for your instrument rating. We have one that's local to us that actually has, believe it or not, a functioning VOR. So, you know, that's pretty rare these days. So everybody wants to go there. They're doing instrument approaches to both runways and

While there's just regular traffic in the pattern, so there have been a lot of times where I see traffic coming from all directions and you really need to have your head on a swivel, but it's common to have

traffic in the typical pattern and also traffic coming straight in. Yeah, I remember flying into San Martin Airport E16 and I was on downwind. There was somebody ahead of me on base and sure enough, somebody was flying straight in, not on the radio. And so the aircraft ahead of me had to turn back onto the downwind to follow. When we got on the ground, I was taxied by that airplane and there were two people in there and the person in the right seat was chatting away as if perhaps it was a CFI.

And I suspect they were on the wrong frequency. My bet is that they had no idea. And then just recently, just a couple of years ago, I was at the Tracy Airport and I commented to the person I was flying with, wow, that guy's not on the radio. I can't believe it. And then I went and checked our frequency. And would you know, we were off by one click of the knob. I was like, oh, we're the idiots who are on the radio.

on the wrong frequency and who aren't making announcements on the correct frequency. So it's really easy to get into that situation. We've all been there. I've had my share too.

Yep. Now, you talked about a typical downwind being about a half mile away from the airport. So, for faster aircraft, you're going to want to be further away, right? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So, the FAA in the Airplane Flying Handbook refers to, I think, a typical pattern being a half a mile to a mile wide. So, if you are on the faster end of that, then sure, yeah, you should be a bit wider.

Sure. So for example, most of the work I'm doing is in Cirrus aircraft. They're supposed to be 100 knots on downwind. They're supposed to be 90 knots on base. And of course, I see people that

are either fast or slow. So for those aircraft, I'm always looking to be a minimum of 0.7 offset from the runway when I'm on the downwind. And if I've got a few extra tents, if I'm out at 1.0 miles, yeah, that's probably even better. But indeed, I don't want to be less than 0.7. So how do you tell somebody to tell how far away they are from the runway? How do they know if they're at least a half mile offset on the downwind from the runway?

Yeah, so what I like to do is just look at the runway itself.

and our runway is 3,700 feet. So that's going to be some proportion of a mile. So if you take, in your head, if you take our runway and turn it perpendicular to itself, then at my airport, you'd be about two-thirds of a mile away from the runway. So you can use tricks like that to estimate. Another local airport's 5,000 feet. That's a statute mile. So

just turn it on its side and be about half of that and you're about a half a mile away. And then once you have that, if there's a plane that you fly a lot,

then say in my own airplanes, I don't necessarily need to use that trick because I know when I fly my Bonanza and I'm in a proper pattern, there's a certain rivet line that is about where say a half a mile is. And in my Cessna, it's going to be partway up the strut. So if I'm at the same altitude, say if it's a thousand foot pattern, then I can always use that to estimate my distance. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, a couple other techniques that I use would be, for example, if I have GPS, I'll have the nearest function up. And when I'm a beam, the runway at midfield, that's going to give me an accurate distance to the center of the airport, which means if there's just one runway, that's an accurate distance. If there are multiple runways, it's not going to be quite as accurate because the center of the airport won't be the center of the runway.

And then for glass cockpits, which have a range ring in them, which is either a circle or in some of the newer ones, an arc, there's a distance associated with that. And so with the range ring, I just zoom in until the edge of that range ring is close to the airport. And then I look and see what the number is on the range ring. Is it half a mile? Is it three quarters of a mile? Is it one mile? Which are the kind of the typical increments. And that gives me a really accurate indication of how far away I am.

Yeah, that's actually a really good technique too, because mine that referred to referencing part of a wing or part of a strut works if your altitude is the same, right? So, but if you say are doing a circling approach and you want to try to estimate your distance from the runway complex, you

You're going to have to choose a different point on your aircraft if you're using the method that I cited. But what you are giving max would work no matter what altitude. And I was just about to bring up circling. So thanks for bringing it up. You've highlighted one of the issues that I see all the time. And so let's just kind of give an example. If, for example, you're normally flying a thousand foot traffic pattern and

you happen to be circling at 500 feet just to make things easy. And we use the method that you described of looking at some rivet on the wing and matching it up on the runway. What's that effect going to be on how far you are from the runway? You're going to be twice as close to the downwind. So if you're used to a half a mile pattern and you use that same reference point on the aircraft, now you're going to be doing a quarter mile downwind, which is

Sort of terrifying, right? And it's because of that overshoot that we were talking about earlier. In fact, I know, Max, you do a lot of training for transition, and I know you're doing a lot of instrument training when you do that.

And I'm sure you see what I see, that one of the biggest problems on the instrument approach is actually the circling approach. Because people will use the same place on the aircraft, they always say that they'll fly a standard VFR pattern. Because I actually even bring this up before we go fly.

I've had so many people fail check rides because of this circling approach issue that I even tell them beforehand. I say that not being able to land responsibly after the circling approach is actually grounds for a notice of disapproval. And so that's when they say, oh, you know, I'll just fly a standard VFR pattern. Okay, great.

And then we get to it and they're using the same reference on their airplane. Now they're flying twice as close to the runway as they normally do. And an overshoot is basically guaranteed. And if it's going to take some Herculean effort to get back onto final, that's going to be a notice of disapproval, unfortunately. Yes. And I would say that when I

see this particular problem with people flying too close to the runway when they're circling. It's almost 100% of the time when I fly with people and I see this, almost nobody gets this right. And yet it's a simple math principle. It's really simple. If you're at half the height, then to make the view look correct, you're going to have to be half again as close to the runway. I don't know why people don't get that.

but probably because they're so used to always flying in traffic patterns at about the same altitude and because they do so little circling. And so, yeah, this is endemic in the industry. In fact, so much so that some of the notable crashes that come to mind almost immediately had exactly this problem. So, for example, there was a Learjet crash at one of the San Diego airports a couple years ago.

in the wintertime and their downwind was at, I think 0.9 miles per hour.

from the runway, and yet they were doing something like 140 knots guaranteed overshoot, which they did and then flew into the side of a mountain. Same with the Challenger crash at the Truckee Airport, also about two years ago, circling approach, overshot. And again, tried to correct for that and did so incorrectly. So even professional pilots flying heavy equipment are making the same mistake. Yeah. And, you know, the crazy thing about it too is

99 times out of 100, when I give an instrument practical exam, it's in caboo weather, right? It's gorgeous weather. But you have to demonstrate the ability to circle. Generally, people don't circle for real when the weather is great. They're circling when the clouds are low and the weather is just really scuzzy. And

The Learjet, if you didn't bring up that, I was going to bring that up too, because it was crappy weather. It was night. It was fast. And there were some other issues. Actually, you did a great episode on that a couple of years back when it first happened. But those are the conditions that people are circling in. And even in the great conditions I see them circling, they're overshooting. So it's a real head scratcher.

Yeah. And what I will say in both of those accidents, they had to circle because, for example, in the case of San Diego, the instrument approach that they flew did not allow straight in landings at night because it has a very steep gradient for the final segment. So they were required to circle, which they would have wanted to do anyway to get to the

longer runway is similar circumstance at Truckee. The lowest minimums are on the approach to the shortest runway. So now you're set up for having to circle to get to the longer runway and you're right. Weather was poor in both conditions. So circling is just fraught with the issues. What I always tell folks is I would much prefer to land with a 10 knot tailwind provided I've got long enough runway than to a circle. And certainly my personal minimums, I will never ever circle at night because

the danger level just goes up exponentially. Yeah, it's interesting you bring that up because in the ground portion of instrument practical exams, we talk about circling as well. And usually I have them plan a cross-country flight into some whatever destination airport. And we talk about the various ways that we could get into that airport. And it's interesting just to

sitting on the ground at zero knots to talk about circling versus, you know, would you circle to this runway or would you just take the straight in with a little bit of a tailwind? And, you know, tailwinds can really hurt in terms of your landing distance. But if you've got a really long runway, it's worth getting the performance charts out and

and weighing those two. And often you're absolutely right. Landing with a little bit of a tailwind is way preferable to circling in low instrument conditions. Yeah. I remember an accident with a jet and I think it was a freighter, a seven, either 27 or 37 going into a,

Tallahassee over 20 years ago. And the transcript from the cockpit recorder, I think the first officer was saying, and you're not allowed to land with a tailwind, right? And

You just, you think, how do people get that far in their career and have just heard over and over, oh, you always land into the wind. Well, yeah, that's the ideal case, but there are times when you want to choose to land with a tailwind. So for example, in the typical 172, I know that the POH says that up to 10 knots for every two knots, you're going to get a 10% increase in the landing distance. So 10 knots, 50% more. If you've got enough runway, heck,

No reason not to land in with a tailwind if that saves you having to circle around. And I've actually done that with a client in a vision jet at Watsonville. It's only 4,500 feet of runway. It wasn't a huge tailwind, but it was a heck of a lot safer than having to circle in the low clouds that we often get down at that airport since it's located next to the ocean.

Yeah. And for all of this conversation, in particular, landing with a tailwind. And by the way, I landed with a tailwind all the time at my home airport because Runway 7 has an uphill that can counteract landing with a tailwind. So runway slope is another one. But tailwinds.

I think it's important to mention nailing your airspeed. So if you're going to accept a bit of a tailwind on landing, make sure you are coming in at exactly the right speed and not add any to it. Because I know some people when they get nervous, and I think that's

one of the things that comes up on practical exams or at the end of an instrument approach. You know, it's crappy weather and you're circling and you add a little bit to your airspeed to feel safe, and that's not correct. For any of these scenarios, you need to nail exactly the airspeed that's appropriate for that situation. And what's the tolerance on the private checkride or commercial checkride for airspeed on file?

So for the private pilot, you need to come up with an appropriate airspeed for approach. So that would be 1.3 VSO with the gust factor applied. And you need to maintain that speed within plus 10 or minus 5 at the private level. And at the commercial level, you get plus or minus 5 knots. Yes. So pilots definitely need to nail those airspeeds on their checkride. And hopefully they're going to do it all the time, not just for the

checkride. You know, a related issue is that planes sometimes come screaming into the traffic pattern. And that's a common complaint, for example, at our airport. When I visited the tower and asked them what their number one complaint was about GA pilots, they didn't take long to say, you know, it's the Cirrus pilots who just

blow into the traffic pattern at high speed. What are your thoughts on that? Oh, yeah. I think I've seen that happen a lot. Giving practical exams, I hear from those who are coming in. We might be at an airport operating and we hear a faster airplane coming in. And it's clear that they either don't think they can slow down or they don't want to slow down. But we've seen lots of accidents where

a plane just comes screaming into the pattern. And of course, the topic that we're discussing today is turn radius, and they are going to pay a big price with some pretty big turns. And we've seen cases where that has not ended well. Sure. For example, I was just thinking of a case in Centennial Airport in Colorado where

where Cirrus was making right traffic for the right and went all the way through both finals and crashed into a metro liner that was lined up for the left runway. Fortunately, everybody survived. And I believe they were using the autopilot, which is just absurd. I would never use an autopilot for making turns in the traffic pattern. Autopilots turn at best at standard rate, and that's just not steep enough.

Right. I think something happened similar a couple of years ago with a Malibu pilot who came blasting into a pattern. And for whatever reason, I think they were cleared for one of the runways, but ended up going to the parallel one. I don't know if that was a misplacement.

interpretation of their clearance or whether they were just so fast that they had a big turn radius. But regardless, they overshot their own runway that they were cleared for and went into a parallel one. And that one did not end without fatalities, which is sad. Yes. And certainly anytime I'm at an airport with parallel runways, I'm highly vigilant because you do not want to

go into that transgression zone between the two runways. In fact, I think it makes more sense to come in at a little bit of an angle to a parallel runway just to guarantee that you're not going to overshoot.

Right. I know I've landed at Nashville in the past where they asked me to go straight for the numbers. I think, you know, they've got three parallel runways there and I think they want to make sure that, you know, their traffic is going to the right, the correct runway. Yeah, makes total sense.

Yeah. In terms of these fast aircraft and the traffic pattern, for airplanes, newer ones that have traffic screens, often on those screens, you can tag the aircraft and find out exactly what the ground speed is. And I'll use that all the time. So, for example, we were just a few days ago flying a DA-42 into Stockton and told that we would be turning a base inside of an aircraft that was

out on a six-mile final, I think. And I tagged that aircraft on the traffic screen on the G1000, and they were just blazing in. So I knew that that was not going to work, and the tower eventually figured that out and resequenced us behind that. So, yeah, I find that these traffic screens, if you've got a modern aircraft...

see if your aircraft has the capability to give you a ground speed readout for other airplanes, because that's going to really help you when you're trying to fit yourself in the traffic pattern. Wow. Yeah, that's a great tool. Well, Catherine, thanks so much for joining us here today. Where do people go to find out more about you and your work?

Yeah, thanks for having me. So I have a number of jobs. I write for AOPA Pilot Magazine. I write the Flying Smart column every month. I'm a professor of mathematics at the University of the South. I am an examiner for the National FISDO, and I teach aerobatics and spins at Ace Aerobatic School in Suwannee, Tennessee. You're a busy lady. Thanks so much for joining us here today. Max, it's always so much fun. Thank you. All right.

And my thanks to Dr. Catherine Carignaro for joining us again here today. You can find out more about her and her aerobatic school at aceaerobaticschool.com, and you can find more of her work in the pages of AOPA Pilot Magazine.

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