Flight Training - August 2014 - 8

LETTERS

Talk back
WE APPRECIATE YOUR
COMMENTS. Please email letters
to ﬂighttraining@aopa.org. Letters
will be edited for style and space.

PARK IT!
ALL KNOTTED UP

I

have two comments on the article "Park It!" in the June issue of
Flight Training magazine.
1. Some mention should be made about hand signals. These are
not emphasized enough and many pilots cannot follow them.

2. The tie-down "knot" described is a
"nonknot." I believe I have seen it in
some ofﬁcial aviation publication. No
rigger, sailor, mountaineer, or seaplane
pilot would ever consider the illustrated
example. It relies on tension in the standing part and will loosen and fall apart
under vibration or slackening of the line.
There are many suitable hitches for securing an airplane, but the one illustrated is
not among them.
David Cowan
Kenmore, Washington
My quibble is about the length of the rope
itself. The example is apparently a single
line between the aircraft and the anchor.
One end is secured on the anchor, then
the rope is looped up and through the
aircraft tie-down ring and then tied to the
line leading to the anchor.
A better practice is a rope with a length
at least three times the distance between
the aircraft and the anchor. One end has a
bowline. The other end is passed through
the anchor leaving the bowline out about
one third the distance between the anchor
and the aircraft, then up and through the
aircraft tie-down ring, then down and
through the bowline and ﬁnally back
up toward the aircraft. While holding
the rope snug, apply the two doublelocking hitch. You will then have two lines

between the anchor and the aircraft. Why
a rope three times the distance between
the anchor and the aircraft? This allows
for wear on the rope. It can be shortened as the wear near the ends becomes
unacceptable. Making a bowline loop is a
survival skill because the resulting loop
will not close. One should be able to make
a bowline underwater in the dark.
Michael L. Greedy
Carson City, Nevada
A SHORTAGE OF THE WILLING

Thanks for sending me Flight Training
magazine; it is always enjoyable to read.
Thanks for the insightful article on the
pilot shortage ("A Shortage of the Willing," July 2014 Flight Training)-most of
it was spot on. However, the callout that
reads "In order to pay brand-new ﬁrst
ofﬁcers at the regionals a starting wage
of $40,000 per year, imagine the cost of
tickets and the hit to the airlines' proﬁt
margins," I found disturbing.
Let's not imagine; let's use some
hypothetical numbers. Say Airline XYZ
is already paying the training costs,
insurance and $20,000 year in wage to
a ﬁrst ofﬁcer, so all we are looking at is a
$20,000 increase in wage. It is a regional,
so a two-hour ﬂight is about the maximum, so four to ﬁve a day is very doable.
So hypothetically let's say it can only

NOTICE OF ANNUAL MEETING OF MEMBERS
THE ANNUAL MEETING of the members of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association
will be held at 12 noon on Friday, September 5, 2014, at the headquarters of AOPA, 421
Aviation Way, Frederick, Maryland 21701, located on the Frederick Municipal Airport
(FDK), for the purpose of receiving reports and transacting such other business as may
properly come before the meeting, speciﬁcally including the election of trustees.

8/

1408f_letters.indd 8

FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG

6/11/14 11:39 AM
http://www.PiLOTSHOP.com http://FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG
Flight Training - August 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Flight Training - August 2014
