Flying with Humility: The Sikorsky Incident

A Good Pilot Is Always Learning

It is a bit jingoistic, but true. A good pilot is always learning. (With apologies to Jason Schappert for borrowing his catch phrase.) Training for new ratings, managing challenging weather conditions, piloting different airplanes, and flying to new and unique destinations all benefit pilots by expanding their capabilities and experience. Even achievement of an FAA pilot certificate is typically accompanied by the cliched (but nonetheless accurate) counsel that it is "a license to learn". Continuous learning must be an ongoing behavior because stagnation causes our skills to atrophy.

Keeping all of that firmly in mind, I know that I am not "super pilot". There are skills I do not have and things I do not know. When something goes poorly while flying, I first take a good look at myself as a potential root cause. A humble disposition leaves pilots open to learning from mistakes. It is my opinion that, for a good pilot to always be learning, that pilot must also stay humble.

Unpleasant Surprises

Date	Aircraft	Route of Flight	Time (hrs)	Total (hrs)
18 Jun 2023	N21481	SDC (Sodus, NY) - ITH (Ithaca, NY) - BDR (Bridgeport, CT) - SDC	1.9	2660.5

Bridgeport / Sikorsky Memorial Airport (KBDR).

Aviation rules and procedures are standardized to avoid unnecessary surprises. Nobody wants unnecessary surprises while at the controls of an airplane. After 20+ years of flying to 260+ airports in 30 states and provinces, it is rare for me to be surprised by ordinary interactions with air traffic control (ATC). But on 18 June 2023, Gilead and I flew to the Bridgeport / Sikorsky Memorial Airport (KBDR) to visit the Connecticut Air & Space Center. There, we encountered a procedural surprise concerning the most prosaic of operations: the airport traffic pattern.

Before describing what happened, a quick explanation of airport traffic patterns is worthwhile.

Standard traffic pattern from the FAA Airplane Flying Handbook (FAA-H-8083-3C).

Flying the traffic pattern is one of the first skills that student pilots learn. The traffic pattern standardizes the way airplanes approach and land on a runway. Patterns provide a structure for uniform and predictable flight paths in the vicinity of the airport. It is far easier to spot an airborne aircraft if it is flying where it is supposed to than if its pilot is inventing their own traffic pattern. This is especially important at non-towered airports where pilots are responsible for sequencing themselves for landing without assistance from ATC.

As shown in the figure above from the FAA's Airplane Flying Handbook, the traffic pattern forms a rectangle in which one of the long legs includes the runway. Key segments of the pattern include downwind (the long leg of the rectangle flown parallel to the runway, but opposite the direction of landing), base (a short leg flown perpendicular to the final approach course), and final (where the aircraft lines up with and descends to the runway). Standard patterns are flown 1,000 feet above the ground and require that all turns be made to the left unless official FAA documentation dictates otherwise for particular airports and runways.

One of the key decision points in flying the pattern is when to turn from downwind to base. This is usually done when the aircraft is at a 45° angle from the runway threshold, but can be adjusted based on traffic.

At towered airports, the same general rules and nomenclature apply, but the tower controller has discretion to make adjustments as needed to sequence traffic for landing. A controller may tell an aircraft on downwind to "make a short approach" or "turn direct to the numbers" if he is trying to land that aircraft ahead of another on a long final approach. Alternatively, the controller may want an aircraft to extend the downwind leg ("I'll call your base") to give additional spacing for another aircraft on final.

Going all the way back to my primary training, the basic rule that I follow at towered airports is to fly a normal pattern unless the tower controller instructs otherwise. 

Pretty simple, right?

The Rebuke

On approach to Sikorsky Memorial, Tower instructed Gilead and I to enter a left downwind for runway 29. ("Left" simply means that all turns must be made to the left as shown in the above figure.) We did so. While we were flying on downwind, Tower was not working any other airborne traffic, but instructed an aircraft waiting for departure to hold because "I have a Cherokee on downwind abeam the numbers for 29." That was us. His statement clearly indicated that he knew exactly where we were.

Continuing on downwind, we crossed the shoreline and flew out over the ocean. On reaching a 45° angle from the runway threshold and absent further communication from Tower, I turned base. Halfway along the base leg, Tower called.

"Cherokee Four Eight One, you are not supposed to turn base without a landing clearance." After a brief pause, Tower continued, "Cherokee Four Eight One cleared to land 29."

The notion that I had just broken a rule caught me completely by surprise. "Is that an actual rule?" I asked Gilead in the moment.

"Not that I've ever heard," my instrument-rated right seater responded.

It was a distraction that came while managing a strong, gusty crosswind and I put it out of my mind to focus on landing. No further mention of it came from Tower, but as I shut the plane down on the Connecticut Air & Space Center ramp, my thoughts were spinning.

I experienced a cold feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach with the realization that I may have just done something wrong. Even worse, I feared that my basic understanding of towered airport pattern operations may have been flawed (for years!) and that I may have obliviously committed other infractions over the past two decades without even realizing it.

Research

As a humble pilot, I assumed that this error represented a combined failing of my primary training and my own lack of attention to detail over 20+ years of flying patterns at various towered airports. However, after perusing multiple FAA publications, I failed to find any evidence of a rule resembling what the controller cited.

Foolishly, I consulted some online pilot forums. Rule number one of pilot forums is that no one ever agrees on anything. In one post, a pilot queried the collective about when it was appropriate to turn base at a towered field. About a third of the responses were what I would have said prior to the Sikorsky Incident: turn base at the normal spot unless tower says otherwise. The bulk of the responses were all over the place and included some other claims of rules and procedures that were decidedly bogus. 

Not much help there.

WFC members visiting ROC ATC on June 10. I'm not in the photo because I took it.

Coincidentally, I coordinated a visit to the Rochester ATC facility for the Williamson Flying Club a week earlier. (As an aside, every pilot should tour their local TRACON. I learn something useful every time and ATC at Rochester has been consistently eager to connect with local pilots.) Leveraging my newfound point of contact with local ATC, I reached out to Dave W (Rochester's Air Traffic Manager) and shared my story.

"Is this an actual rule? Have I somehow been oblivious for 20+ years? Do you have any thoughts for me based on your experience as a controller?" I asked him.

In short, Dave responded that I was not missing anything. There is no rule about delaying the base turn until receipt of a landing clearance. Landing clearances are just that, clearances to land. He emphasized that tower controllers usually expect pilots to turn base at the 45° point, but may turn them early or extend their downwind as needed to manage traffic flow. With experience at seven different ATC towers, Dave comfortably concluded, "I believe this controller was 100% incorrect." Thus, I was able to confirm my pre-existing understanding of how to operate in the pattern at a towered airport.

Lessons Learned

The Sikorsky Incident caused me to reexamine my fundamental understanding of towered airport pattern operations. I still think that defaulting to self reflection (Is this my fault?) is a good practice. I could have thought, I've never heard of that, it must be BS. But because I recognize that I do not know everything, this line of thinking would have made me incapable of learning anything new had there been any truth to what the Sikorsky controller told me. It's important for all pilots to realize that they don't know everything. Flying with humility allows us to benefit from those inevitable learning opportunities.

This all led me to wonder how the Sikorsky controller came to internalize and attempt to enforce a non-existent rule. When I was searching the forums, I encountered numerous remarks about towers often clearing aircraft to land once they reach midfield on the downwind leg. Not as a rule, per se, but as a practice. Perhaps this is routine at Sikorsky and the "no base turn without a landing clearance" was the controller's personal extrapolation from that practice.

Finally, the point of this article is not to complain about or ridicule the Sikorsky controller for his incorrect statement. I respect and appreciate all of the wonderful and helpful things ATC has done for me over the years. As an active instrument pilot, I genuinely value ATC as a partner in aviation. 

Keep learning. A good pilot is always humble.

Who's on First? The Whitehead Debate

Plan B

Between the effects of weather and smoke from Canadian wildfires, attempts to organize flying events for the Williamson Flying Club in 2023 have been challenged. After cancelling another club sightseeing trip along the New York City Skyline on June 18, I set my personal sights on more modest targets. With Gilead in the right seat, we flew first to Ithaca, NY for the East Hill Flying Club's annual Father's Day pancake breakfast, then continued on to Bridgeport, CT for a first time visit to the Connecticut Air & Space Center.

Historic Field

Date	Aircraft	Route of Flight	Time (hrs)	Total (hrs)
18 Jun 2023	N21481	SDC (Sodus, NY) - ITH (Ithaca, NY) - BDR (Bridgeport, CT) - SDC	5.5	2660.5

Launching from Ithaca after breakfast, cloud coverage was more extensive than expected. A pristine forecast lulled us both into a false sense of security and I did not file IFR. As a result, we skimmed relatively low over the Finger Lakes before finding a sufficient break in the clouds to enable a safe climb.

Overflying the Hudson River near the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge.

Acquiring flight following from Elmira Approach, we proceeded toward Long Island Sound above a thick cloud layer that unraveled as we continued southeast. Weather reports at our destination indicated a scattered ceiling amenable to a VFR approach and landing.

Gilead and me flying Warrior 481 to Connecticut.

An aura of rich aviation history pervades the Bridgeport / Sikorsky Memorial Airport (BDR, #258) and its immediate surroundings. Following the airport's dedication in 1929, Glenn Curtiss opened a flying school on the field and a 94 year old hangar remaining there still bears his name. Later, the airport became home to Russian immigrant Igor Sikorsky who built seaplanes before transitioning his focus to rotary wing flight. Now named in honor of Sikorsky (an IFR waypoint coinciding with Bridgeport's VOR is appropriately called "EEGOR"), the airport was where Sikorsky flew his first commercially-viable helicopter in 1939, the VS-300. During World War II, Chance Vought factories adjacent to the airport churned out more than 7,000 mighty F4U Corsairs in support of the war effort. Sikorsky Memorial obviously stands on fertile soil for an aviation history museum to take root.

ATC Entanglements

I picked up the ATIS (automated terminal information system) recording several miles out from Sikorsky. As we listened to it, Gilead and I looked at each other in shock. Whoever made the recording of weather conditions at the field slurred their words to the point of near incomprensibility. Was he drunk or experiencing a stroke during the recording of that message? We listened to the recording more than once in an effort to understand all of it. Several minutes later and closer to the airport, we tuned the ATIS frequency again and found that the same update had been rerecorded far more intelligibly by someone else. 

FAA sectional chart depiction of Bridgeport / Sikorsky Airport.

Approach services to the towered airport are provided by New York Approach. Normally, pilots communicating with approach expect a coordinated hand-off to the tower. To my surprise, upon reaching the class delta airspace boundary around Sikorsky Memorial (that requires two way communication with an approach facility or tower to enter), New York Approach abruptly dropped us from the system entirely rather than handing us off. "Cherokee Four Eight One, radar services terminated, squawk VFR." Suddenly, we did not have two way communication with either approach or tower.

I already had Bridgeport Tower's frequency waiting in standby, so it was a simple matter of toggling over and cold calling the tower with our position and intentions as we were already entering their airspace. Lack of coordination made this a clumsy transition. I wondered if this was local practice because I recalled that something similar happening to Ed C when we into Bridgeport several years ago.

Bridgeport / Sikorsky Airport (KBDR).

When we arrived, runway 29 was in use and the tower frequency was quiet. Approaching from the northwest, I expected the tower to instruct us to enter a right downwind for the runway. The sectional chart even notes that right traffic for 29 is required when the tower is closed, most likely as noise abatement. "Cherokee 481, enter left downwind, runway 29."

Really? Hmmm. OK. This meant that we needed to cross the airport's departure corridor to join the pattern, an awkward way to arrive at an airport.

From the downwind leg of the pattern, I surveyed the airport and visually located the museum ramp. A helpful map on the Connecticut Air & Space Center's website shows that transient pilots can park directly on the museum ramp.

Proceeding with a normal traffic pattern, I was rebuked by the tower controller for failing to comply with a rule I had never heard of. This incident will be the subject of a future article.

Taken in total, the slurred ATIS message, the lack of coordination between New York Approach and Bridgeport Tower, the instruction to enter the pattern in an ungainly manner, and criticism from the tower controller all left me less than satisfied with the normally excellent service I receive from air traffic control.

Instant Celebrities

Gilead and I parked on the museum ramp next to a long-abandoned Beechcraft (a Sundowner, perhaps?) with fading paint and flat tires. At our tail and across the street stood the massive facility where Vought F4U Corsairs were born during World War II.

A portion of the museum collection was displayed outside and we attracted attention from several visitors and a pair of volunteers supervising them. Some museum visitors were obviously curious about the two guys who had just parked an airplane nearby and managed to stare without looking like they were staring. 

"Hey! Thanks for flying in!" one of the volunteers waved as we approached the museum. 

Fittingly, the centerpiece of the museum is a restored Corsair. To my surprise, it is not an F4U Corsair built by Vought in Bridgeport. This variant of the bent-wing bird is an FG-1D built under license by Goodyear in Akron, OH (just like the Air Zoo's Corsair). Still a cool airplane. Still a local design. Still fitting. But couldn't the museum have procured one of the 7000+ examples actually built there?

I had an uncomfortable conversation with a docent who shared a lot of information about the Corsair that did not quite sound right to my ear. I smiled and nodded a lot without saying much.

A massive enlarged photo of the Vought production line during World War II covers a wall of the museum. It is a very cool image and gives an immediate sense of the manufacturing prowess of the United States in the middle of the twentieth century.

Unlike the Air Zoo's Corsair that was routinely flown throughout the 1980s and 1990s, this Corsair has a panel completely outfitted with WWII vintage instrumentation. I overheard another docent explaining that they scoured the world looking for instruments of the proper make and vintage. This Corsair had been a pole-mounted gate guardian for many years in Bridgeport's salt air and much of the original equipment was hopelessly corroded. Given that, the museum obviously did a great job with their restoration.

Skycrane Progenitor

Sikorsky S-60 "Flying Crane" prototype in flight. Photo from the CT Air & Space Center website.

Igor Sikorsky's final vision was a heavy lift helicopter concept that would one day evolve into the legendary S-64 Skycrane. Design work began in 1958 and the prototype twin engine S-60 Flying Crane helicopter first flew in 1959. Though it successfully demonstrated the intended concept, it suffered a crash in 1961 during a pilot checkout.

The Flying Crane's carcass initially went to the New England Air Museum in Windsor Locks, CT before arriving at the Connecticut Air & Space Center in 2010 for restoration. To date, the cockpit pod of this one of a kind aircraft has been restored with more of the unique aircraft to follow.

Cockpit of the S-60 Flying Crane.

Cockpit of the S-60 Flying Crane with lots of cool overhead switches!

Forward thrust for the S-60 was provided by twin, pod-mounted turbine engines. Stored outside, the pods show significant corrosion from sea air. Museum restorers have a big job on their hands, but they seem up to the challenge.

The Loach

The Hughes OH-6 "Cayuse" was built under the Army's Light Observation Helicopter (LOH) program and nicknamed the "Loach". First flown in 1963, these helicopters are still on active duty. This is the military version of the helicopter flown by TC on Magnum, P.I. in the 1980s.

Hughes OH-6 cockpit.

Hughes OH-6 cockpit.

Mini Mimi

As soon as I saw this Sikorsky S-55 helicopter, my first thought was: it's a Screaming Mimi! As a child of the 1980s, I remembered a Sikorsky helicopter from TV called the Screaming Mimi, but needed Google to remind me that it was from the show Riptide. I remember nothing about Riptide beyond the Screaming Mimi, which probably does not speak well of the TV show itself. Between the Screaming Mimi, TC's helicopter on Magnum, P.I., and Airwolf, the 1980s were clearly a golden era for helicopters on broadcast television!

The helicopter on display at the Connecticut Air & Space Center is actually a 1954 Sikorsky S-55 Chickasaw, a progenitor of the larger S-58 that portrayed the Screaming Mimi. It is a "Mini Mimi", of sorts.

Both models (the S-55 and the S-58) featured the bulbous nose and high mounted cockpit design unique to Sikorsky. 

I have always been fascinated by this design because the big nose accommodates a radial engine canted at a significant angle to provide power to the rotors. The radial's need for air cooling is satisfied by substantial ductwork and a fan to draw cooling air over the powerplant. I was pleased when a docent, Roger, opened up the nose for us to get a better look.

Small. Experimental. Sketchy.

The museum has a 1972 BD-5 kit aircraft built locally by Reinhard May. A jet version of the BD-5 is best remembered as James Bond's steed in the 1983 film Octopussy. (Full confession, when I was a kid, I was never comfortable saying the name of this movie out loud. 40 years later, I'm still not, but that is mostly because it's just so ridiculous.)

The builder's story is probably more interesting than the airplane itself. Born in Halle, Germany (The Bear and I have been there!) he survived World War II and escaped Communist East Germany in a "borrowed" air guard airplane. When Reinhard passed away in 2021, his widow offered the diminutive homebuilt to the museum.

Peeking into the tiny cockpit, my visceral response was one of "no way in Hell". Gilead and I were both a bit skeptical about the flight control system; the movement of the sidestick in various axes was less than smooth. Interesting to look at, but flying something like this would be a hard pass from me.

The BD-5 faces the former Vought factory complex across the street.

Welcome to 1929

Roger escorted us through the glorious ruin that is the skeletal Curtiss hangar. Built in 1929 by Curtiss as a flight training center, the hangar changed hands many times over the decades. According to Roger, many layers of paint representing different owners covered the original Curtiss logo, but those layers eventually peeled away to reveal the hangar's original branding. The museum plans to fully restore the historic Curtiss hangar with a goal of it becoming the museum's future aircraft display space. The existing museum building will become a restoration shop.

Sikorsky Airport's tower is visible through the ancient hangar doors.

Another treasure in the Curtiss hangar: the original airport beacon.

First in Flight?

Public domain photo of Whitehead (w/ daughter Rose) and his Number 21 aircraft.

Local legend holds that Gustave Whitehead flew a powered aircraft for the first time on 14 August 1901 in nearby Fairfield, CT. If true, his flight predated the Wright Brothers by over two years. Although newspaper accounts, photos of the aircraft on the ground, and signed affidavits from multiple witnesses all support that the flight actually happened, there are no photographs of the aircraft flying under its own power. A Connecticut Air & Space Center volunteer, Andy Kosch, successfully built and flew a replica of the Number 21 aircraft and demonstrated that it could fly. The ship was steered by weight-shifting (like a hang glider) and thus lacked even a rudimentary lateral control system. Surely, the Number 21 aircraft would not have been particularly maneuverable in a modern sense. By comparison, the Wright Brothers developed wing warping for positive roll control of the 1903 Flyer, a bona fide advance in controllable flight regardless of how notoriously finicky their implementation was. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Connecticut Air & Space Center has a large pro-Whitehead display about the local aviation hero's alleged aeronautical feats.

Having built a rapport with Roger during our tour and respecting his knowledge and insight, I asked him for his opinion about the first flight controversy and whether he thought Whitehead actually beat the Wrights. Roger admitted that he was originally skeptical of the Whitehead story, but sagely surmised that it was plausible based on the aforementioned evidence. (Spoken like a true scientist.) 

I suspect that part of the disagreement comes from a lack of understanding about what the Wright Brothers actually accomplished. While they are often credited with the first powered heavier than air flight, I think it is important to realize that their accomplishment was actually powered, controllable, heavier than air flight. Could Whitehead have flown a powered aircraft before the Wrights? Maybe. Was it controllable in the sense of being a forerunner to modern airplanes? Not so much.

"And we all know that it was Glenn Curtiss who built the first practical airplane by inventing the aileron." Roger added. 

I could not agree more! Curtiss may not have been first, but he created an engineering solution for the construction of practical airplanes that is still in use today. In a roundabout way, we can thank the Wright Brothers for Curtiss' invention as it was their litigiousness that Curtiss was attempting to circumvent. Frankly, neither weight shift with its minimal control authority nor wing warping that requires complex engineering are practical methods for aircraft control.

Happy Landing Inn

Adjacent to the Connecticut Air & Space Center is the unassuming Windsock Bar & Grill. When Gilead and I entered in search of lunch, we were immediately greeted by the bartender and by the same pair of museum volunteers that welcomed us when we first arrived. One of them told me that he did a lot of work on the Center's webpage and had been criticized for "wasting time" with a page for fly-in visitors. I made his day when I told him that I used that page to understand where to park my airplane.

Undated photograph of the Curtiss hangar and the current Windsock Bar & Grill (white building) from the Connecticut Air & Space Center website.

Interestingly, the Windsock building has a long history at the airport. Originally a farmhouse, it became one of the original structures on the Bridgeport Airport in 1929 and evolved into a pilot lounge called the Happy Landing Inn before eventually becoming the Windsock Bar & Grill.

It is a homey kind of place that obviously caters to regulars and new faces alike. Gilead and I quickly established first name rapport with the bartender, Gary. Simple, unpretentious homemade cheeseburgers hit the spot for lunch. When we accidently left Gilead's credit card on the bar, Gary came to the rescue by chasing us partway across the parking lot with it.

7,000 Is a Lot of Candles

Well fed and with an instrument flight plan filed to better manage the cloud cover, Gilead and I returned to Warrior 481 for departure. As I prepared for flight, I noticed that the Warrior had just turned over 7,000 airframe hours. All I can say is that I am glad airplanes do not get birthday cakes.

We waited a long time for our clearance, but Bridgeport Ground eventually came through with a full route just as I was about to give up and ask to depart VFR. However, the clearance was ridiculous: Bridgehaven One departure, then SAX (Sparta VOR north of the Morristown, NJ airport) - T218 - LAAYK - ULW (the Elmira VOR) - BUF (the Buffalo VOR) then direct to Sodus. 

For those attempting to mentally map this out, it meant a departure to the west followed by flying all the way to Buffalo before significantly backtracking eastward past Rochester to Sodus. We received the same silly routing years ago departing Poughkeepsie. It was not a route mindfully designed for efficiency or fuel burn of the cleared aircraft. Rather than dispute it with the Bridgeport ground controller (who was really just the messenger), I accepted the clearance and planned to request a shortcut home once aloft.

We made an intersection departure on runway 6 at bravo and climbed to the cloud bases in short order. Despite the wait, getting an IFR clearance was worth the effort. I hand flew the radar vectors out of Sikorsky Memorial and switched over to autopilot after climbing into the clouds.

Crossing the Hudson River, westbound.

Once beyond New York Approach's airspace and on with Wilkes-Barre, I requested a direct route to Sodus. This was immediately granted and we cut out a worthless hour of circuitous routing from our flight plan.

With HAL at the helm and a more favorable routing secured, the rest of the flight home was a relaxing opportunity to debrief our day.

Clouds over Owasco Lake.

Final Thoughts

At the end of the day, I was still flummoxed by the irregularities with air traffic control at Sikorsky and will explore that further in the next article.

As for the Connecticut Air & Space Center, it is a small facility with a modest, slightly oddball collection. However, that collection includes a rare gem in the prototype Sikorsky S-60 Flying Crane. We felt that our interactions with Roger really made the trip worthwhile and greatly appreciated his knowledge and insight. I also gained some additional appreciation for the Gustave Whitehead story and no longer dismiss it as frivolous historical quackery (though some objective evidence of the claims would be nice). Considering the ongoing restoration efforts on aircraft as well as the Curtiss hangar intended as the museum's future display space, I think it will be very interesting to revisit this place in another five to ten years.