Nirvana bandmates Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic recently reunited to perform “Molly’s Lips” at Safeco Field in Seattle, and the pair had some fun in Novoselic’s plane before the show. One of Foo Fighters’ biggest hits is “Learn to Fly,” and it looks like Grohl was doing that with Novoselic! View the photo below. Novoselic has been a pilot for several years, and even wrote about flying on his blog in 2012.
“I have been a pilot for ten years now. I learned to fly on the old fashioned “steam gauges”. Those were the analog days, but unlike the debate in music between the merits of analog v. digital, the issue is settled with the benefits of digital and avionics. I love my Garmin G1000 in my Cessna 182T. The craft practically will fly itself and all the pilot has to do most of the time is manage the information system. I recently splurged and upgraded the avionics to include the SVT system. (Here’s a video of me flying with the upgrade.)
Perhaps it was a good experience to learn to fly Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) with the old gauges. This made me develop a good sense of situational awareness without a GPS practically holding your hand. The SVT uses GPS information to look like a video game that gives you precise information about terrain in Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC). In other words, when you’re flying in a cloud, you know what the ground looks like. However, I can’t image flying with the SVT alone. Why would you deviate from controller vectors or the published airways and altitude minimums on a chart? These old fashioned paper tools were created to make your IFR trip safe. Furthermore, determining which safe altitude to fly is central to pre-flight planing – you decide how high to fly over the mountains well before the plane wheels leave the ground.
One of my checklist items on final approach, when I have the field in actual sight, is to turn off the SVT. It shows the runway on short final, and it tends to pop up on the panel. Watching airspeed just before the flare / landing is crucial and it helps not to have a busy panel image flashing in your face.
I think the SVT would be priceless in a forced landing situation at night or in IMC. It could steer you away from hills and other obstacles.
At times the IFR environment can get busy, and anything that lightens the load can help safe flying. That said, nothing beats flying by the rules, along published procedures, or if the weather is so bad – don’t fly at all.”
