Throw in a little turbulence, weather and the slight hypoxia that accompanies flying at even 7,500 feet, and an autopilot can definitely earn its keep. That assumes I’m more precise than a typical autopilot, not necessarily a logical assumption.įew sane pilots fly 10- to 15-hour legs. My protagonist seemed somewhat placated when I told him I had never used an automatic flight system for an actual coupled approach in hard IFR, only for en route control. Unlike ELTs, transponders and encoders, autopilots will never be mandated (I hope). We didn’t have time for a long debate, but the point may be moot to many pilots anyway. The logical question is, what happens when the system fails and the pilot has to fall back on his own rusty skills? I agreed there are few inexpensive flight control systems, and that some pilots with the resources may get to know their electronic copilots almost too well, far better than the rest of the airplane. He argued that autopilots are very expensive anyway, they’re not installed in every aircraft (even some airliners), and they’re too often used as crutches by pilots with more money than brains. My questioner was of the old “Autopilots-Are-For-Wusses” school, and believed that employing the services of the servos somehow abrogated his rights as an aviator. I know of many other delivery pilots who wouldn’t consider launching on a 10,000 nm delivery flight without an autopilot.) (I had insisted the system be fixed before I’d continue the trip, and the owner had it repaired rather than look for a more adventurous pilot.
He was surprised that I had been willing to walk away from a trip to South Africa in another Caravan when the autopilot failed going into St. I had just finished extolling the virtues of a good autopilot as a mandatory item for transoceanic delivery flights, when I was taken to task by an audience member.
Recently, I was giving a presentation on ferry flying to an audience in Florida. After that, the legs were shorter and less demanding. Yet, the big Caravan, with its large, sumptuous seats, an excellent environmental control system and most importantly a great autopilot, made the time seem shorter. On the Korea trip, the Santa Barbara-to-Honolulu leg was the toughest one, 15.1 hours. Fortunately, I had plenty of fuel and a good autopilot, and was able to reverse course and return to the coast without problems. I overflew the LA Basin and woke up out over the Pacific, about 50 miles southwest of Catalina Island. I fell asleep on the 600-mile flight home, somewhere over the Colorado River. It was about 13 hours of flying and another six hours of photography and interviews. I had flown from Long Beach to Ruidoso, N.M., to research and shoot pictures for a story on the Chiricahua Apaches’ use of a Cheyenne III (somehow appropriate), then up to Farmington, N.M., for an article on a Navajo operator, and finally back home to Long Beach, all in one day. In truth, I have fallen asleep in flight, not on a ferry trip but during a long editorial round-robin through the Southwest in my Mooney 231. One of the most common questions I get about flying the oceans is, “How do you stay awake on a 10- to 15-hour leg?” My standard answer is, “Consider the alternative.” On the 15.1-hour leg from Santa Barbara, Calif., to Honolulu, Hawaii, he was very grateful for the autopilot. Bill Cox has flown 210 international ferry flights, including one to Korea in a Grand Caravan.
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