If you know me, you know that I’ve become intrigued with rifles in the last few years. Adam and Brenda Weatherby are third-generation owners of Weatherby Firearms, and Adam is also a pilot. I helped him upgrade his airplane, and he helped me upgrade to a new .300 Weatherby Mag, and I entered the fascinating world of long-distance rifle shooting. I now have many Weatherby rifles in various calibers and shoot frequently at local long-distance competitions, mostly to prepare for elk hunting in Idaho. It’s been a blast, pun intended.
One of the things you’ll learn about in long-range rifle shooting is DOPE, which stands for Data On Previous Engagements (DOPE). To shoot accurately, you’ll need to know how the rifle and ammo performed in the past. You can put all the ballistic data into a ballistics calculator and get an approximate answer, but the best data is actual data from previous shots fired with a specific rifle. Not every rifle is the same and not every King Air is the same. Most King Air pilots operate a specific airframe, not a fleet of identical airplanes. Those specific airplanes have nuanced differences that affect performance.
With your specific rifle, you’ll enter the variables into the ballistics calculator application on your handheld phone. The data includes cartridge type, projectile weight, muzzle velocity, distance to target, projectile ballistic coefficient, humidity, temperature, altitude, barrel length, barrel twist, scope height above barrel and a whole bunch of other information. All this information will tell you how high above the target to aim, or to set your scope. Bullets drop and slow with distance, which affects the impact point. But the data that will be presented to you will be generic, and you will be shooting a specific rifle, a rifle with nuances.
Want to hit your rifle target at 100 yards? Easy! There’s little to affect such a short shot. Want to hit the rifle target at 800 yards? You must know your numbers and have precise skills. Want to land your King Air on an 11,000-foot-long, 150-foot-wide runway in VFR conditions? Easy! Want to land your King Air on a 3,500-foot-long runway that is 75 feet wide in IFR conditions? You must know your numbers and have precise skills.
Land at Mackinac?
We’re planning a flight in our King Air 350 and our King Air B100 to Mackinac Island, Michigan (KMCD), next summer. We’d love to land on the island and have a series of horse-drawn carriages move the 18 people on the two King Airs from the airport to the hotel. But can both airplanes land and take off safely on the 3,500-foot strip? Is there enough margin, or should we land on the mainland at Pellston Regional (KPLN) and accept the more difficult logistics (a long car ride and a ferry ride), with multiple movements and a lot of luggage?
Photo credit: Mackinac Island Tourism Bureau
One advantage of a King Air compared to a jet is that we can use smaller, more accessible runways. Would you land at KMCD or KPLN if you were bringing nine people to that wonderful island experience in your King Air? Are you comfortable with the landing and the takeoff performance at KMCD? I think it is doable, but in both airplanes we will have to fly exact numbers and really know the performance of the airplane.
Same with a rifle. Everything will have to be set perfectly to hit a rifle target at long distances. Everything matters at long distances. And the best way to prove what your rifle will actually do is to shoot the rifle. A good shooter will record every piece of data on every shot. They will then create a DOPE card that tells the shooter what to expect at a given distance in a certain situation. What happened in the past is a great predictor of what will happen in the future.
It takes a lot of work, time and money to get the chance to harvest a mature bull elk. When that day comes, I won’t want to guess where that bullet will go. I don’t want to miss. I’ll tape the DOPE on the side of my gun so I can range the target, set the scope elevation, read the wind and steady my aim for that one important shot. Accurate DOPE is everything to a rifle shooter – it tells the shooter what to expect on subsequent shots.
Ballistics calculator = POH data
DOPE is important for a King Air pilot too. A pilot needs to know what to expect when flying in certain phases of flight. The POH presents much of this data. Takeoff distance, rate of climb, fuel burn, weight and balance considerations and environmental considerations – just like shooting a rifle accurately – are critical to knowing how the airplane will perform. But you can’t practically input data into your ballistics calculator when the elk steps out and you can’t pull out your POH when you’re outside the outer marker on an ILS. Having a quick reference for the data is critical when shooting and when flying an approach in your King Air. Having the DOPE readily accessible (or memorized) is important.
A good example is the torque required to hold the glide slope on a precision approach. If the approach angle is 3 degrees, the flaps are set to approach, and the gear is down and locked, do you know what torque to select? What changes would you make if the temperature was particularly high or particularly cold? What if you were substantially heavy or substantially light on that approach? Most importantly, just like in rifle shooting, how does the wind affect the torque required on an approach?
Dang, that wind!
The hardest part of shooting a rifle accurately is reading wind. Wind affects a bullet’s trajectory and a good rifle shooter will have all the DOPE figured out, then read the wind to make the best shot. With a strong wind from the right, the shooter will need to adjust to the right. Want to shoot a target 1,000 yards across a valley? There may be multiple wind regions across that distance. The key to success is knowing your DOPE, reading the wind, building a strongly supported shooting position, and engaging the target.
Same with a King Air. You must know the wind! Many of the latest cockpit displays can display actual wind conditions in flight. It is amazing to see how much the wind can change when on an approach. I’ve seen the wind direction change by more than 150 degrees, effectively changing the power required to hold an airspeed on approach. And, when approaching the runway, I always look for wind direction and velocity. A windsock is best, but a professional pilot can look at the color change of leaves on trees, ripples on water surfaces and even the movement of grass to determine wind. In my opinion, reading wind is the greatest single safety factor when operating near the ground while flying.
On a precision instrument approach, the autopilot will be in GS Mode (glidescope) and therefore the power levers will control airspeed on the approach. What airspeed are you planning to fly? To hold your planned airspeed, what power setting do you think you’ll need with full flaps? You learn all of this by knowing your DOPE, or, in an airplane, data from previous flights. You should build a body of information you can use as a reference. In the aviation world, we say know your numbers. The best pilots will know their airplane so well that they can set power settings and adjust pitch attitudes for precise flying. A true pro will know their DOPE.
Single-engine DOPE?
Whether flying an instrument approach, rotating for takeoff or setting the power in cruise, a good pilot will know the numbers. But a great King Air pilot will also know the numbers for when things go wrong. Do you know your power settings for a single-engine approach? Do you know what pitch attitude to use if an engine fails at 300 feet AGL on a go-around? What if those same emergency situations occurred on a cold night in January when you are shooting an approach into a mountain airport with an elevation above 7,000 feet MSL?
When that trophy elk steps out of the thicket at 500 yards after you’ve hiked 18 miles into the snowy wilderness, when the wind is blowing into your face at 10 knots and time is not your friend, you’ll want to have the critical numbers on the stock of your rifle so that you can place that bullet in the kill zone.
When you have that dreaded engine failure, it’ll more than likely happen when you least expect it, when you are in a less-than-ideal situation. And you’ll want to know your numbers. When the flap circuit breaker pops and you cannot move the flaps any longer, you’d better be able to produce a new torque setting that will give you the best chance of success on that approach to minimums when the visibility is low.
A blur in the cockpit
Interestingly, the best pilots I train seem like they are doing little in the cockpit. If I were to record them in time lapse while flying, there’d be little movement in the video. They move efficiently in the cockpit, putting their hands on the right control at the right time and in the right way.
The worst pilot I train would be a blur in the cockpit during a similar time-lapse video session. The flight controls would be overcontrolled; the pilot moving the power levers would look like a lumberjack sawing lumber, and the hands would incessantly move knobs, switches and levers. Bottom line? The worst pilots don’t know their numbers and have to hunt for the data on the fly. They set the torque many times over on an instrument approach, waver down a glide slope and wander on the localizer. Every movement of one flight control requires a compensatory movement of another control in the cockpit.
The key? Know your DOPE. If you’ve not made a cheat sheet for reference on approaches, I’m going to challenge you to make one. Have some data on previous approaches and really get to know your King Air. And then, write down your DOPE on single-engine scenarios.
Whether you are a rifleman or a pilot, knowing your DOPE is the key to hitting the target or landing with precision on the runway. It’s the difference between harvesting that trophy bull elk or having an empty freezer. It’s the difference between living or dying when the chips are down on your next emergency. DOPE is important.