Tag: turbine

There are business jets as well as smaller general aviation airplanes here and quite a bit of flight school activity. It sits at the edge of the New York Class B airspace, which means it can be easy to operate into or out of the airport VFR with a minimum of communication with the overlying congested airspace, but to do so is to take certain risks. Having the helping hand of ATC is a smart move. However, if they’re too busy or you need to get in and out quickly and the weather conditions are suitable, VFR is an option.Glidepath control is critical, because the chart does not depict the roads that run just north of the field, which create thermal-like conditions.

CDW is only six miles to the north of Morristown Airport (MMU), which is another busy tower-controlled field. Just four miles to the north-northwest sits Lincoln Park (N07), which is just outside of the CDW Class D airspace. Overhead is airline traffic going to Newark, and bizjet traffic going to Teterboro. Runways 22 and 28 at CDW are right traffic. There’s a lot going on here and being part of the chaos means being on your toes.

Leonard Greene understood that nearly 70 years ago when he created the first commercial autothrottle system. Greene founded the New York-based Safe Flight Instrument Company, also known for its angle-of-attack and stall warning systems.

A few definitions first. Boeing calls its installed system an autothrottle, while a similar system on an Airbus is known as autothrust. Autothrottles typically synchronize with the autopilot and operate in either speed or thrust mode and create many practical hands-free benefits, like flight envelope over- and under-speed protection. Typically connected to the aircraft through the flight management system (FMS) computer and an outside air temperature sensor, the autothrottle calculates engine power more accurately than any human. During an instrument approach or on a standard terminal arrival route (STAR), for example, the autothrottles relieve the pilot of the throttle-jockeying work during required speed changes. If the autothrottles are switched off or become inoperative, the flying pilot can easily revert to flying the aircraft by adjusting the throttles manually.

I’m in the left seat of Garmin’s Cessna Citation CJ2 level at 14,500 feet and cruising along over the pancake-flat Kansas prairie when company pilot Jessica Koss directs me to pull both throttles to idle and leave them there.

I comply and the autopilot dutifully holds the moderately loaded airplane’s altitude rock steady while airspeed diminishes, pitch attitude increases, and the elevator trim wheel spins. The pitch attitude is 10 degrees nose-up and airspeed has bled off to just 110 KIAS as the low-speed/high angle-of-attack warnings on the G600 retrofit panel flash and make aural “airspeed” and “landing gear” callouts.

More power is always a good thing – or so say most pilots, comic book villains, and one of the turbine market’s leaders in power upgrades, Blackhawk Aerospace.