MENTOR - Aerobatics: Hammerhead Turns

I think the Hammerhead turn is the best aerobatic maneuver. It has it all; diving zooming, acceleration, deceleration, near weightlessness, slow flight, turns, sky and good views of the ground!

Start at altitude, of course! Push over briskly for a smooth quick dive. Maybe take your G load down to +.5g on the pushover and stabilize into your descent. Don’t forget left rudder, enough for the Look out to maintain positioning and ground-track, you have a moment before needing to look at the airspeed indicator again, since it takes a moment to build to 145 or so, your hammerhead turn entry speed. At your entry speed, start a smooth quick steady pullback. Maybe about +1.5 to +2.0g. Remember your rudders; just as a steep dive or pitch down requires left rudder, you’ll need right rudder when pitching up! As you pitch above the horizon and keep going up, switch your primary view 90 degrees left or right.

You are watching for the wing to get to 90 degrees perpendicular to the horizon. Perpendicular wings to the horizon mean you are going straight up, which is the goal. This is where it gets a little tricky and needs a little practice. You want to get to straight up before you run out of airspeed, and I don’t mean airspeed dropping so low you might stall, I mean airspeed dropping so low you don’t have enough ruder authority to make a crisp pivot turn at the top. The dangers here are mushing out the bottom of the turn and falling into a sloppy spiral, or a spin entry, or a tailside, which while fun and exhilarating can be damaging to your otherwise sturdy aerobatic steed when the tail slide slams the elevators back against their hinges. But we are not here to talk about the dangers, we are here to talk about how fun it is when you do it right!

As you near the top, it gets quiet. The whoosh of air slows and the controls get softer, just like they do when you slow down when landing. You are almost ready for the turn! JUST before too little airspeed remains, kick full rudder, either direction. The remaining momentum will putt-putt you over the top, and ideally you’ll reach the apex of the turn with one wing straight down and the other straight up just as you peak at your highest altitude for the maneuver. You can’t forget aileron! The plane will generate more lift on the up-wing, and so will need more countering aileron. If you pivot the turn to the right, you’ll need right aileron, making the top left aileron go ‘down’ holding the wing straight in the turn. If you forget aileron going over the top you’ll definitely come out on an un-intended heading, and possibly end up flipping over on your back which quickly turns into a dive recovery.

As soon as that top wing passes straight up and the nose starts dropping below the horizon things are going to speed up quickly! Controls will start getting that solid feel back, and you’ll need to back off the aileron towards neutral and start coming in with left rudder for your dive. If all went nicely, you’ll be on the reciprocal heading you had when you entered the maneuver, and you’ll be in a nice clean dive. You only have one thing to decide; throttle back and ease back into level flight, or leave it at full throttle and do it all over again! It’s nice to have such choices.

onward & upward! ~ rfb

LogBlog - Learning to Fly IFR in Fire and Ice

LOGBLOG
An IFR business trip goes way past merely interesting when encountering an embedded thunderstorm, complete with hail, visible cloud-to-cloud lightning, and moderate to extreme turbulence, and to cap off the experience, St. Elmo's fire.

8/11/1982 - San Diego to Farmington New Mexico and return; one day business trip.

PA-28RT-201. N2057M. SDM - FDM - SDM. 7.9 total hours. (Night3.9, IFR 4.6) 2 VOR approaches.

I think it was the philosopher Nietzsche who said 'That which does not kill me makes me stronger." Words that fit for this flight! I knew we would have IFR on a business trip going to Farmington New Mexico. I worked as a computer salesperson for a small computer firm, and was taking our lead programmer over to our latest client, to complete an installation session.

We departed Brown Field near San Diego filing IFR from the start, and sure enough, we were in and out of clouds within the first 30 minutes, but it was early in the day, and they had not grown into anything menacing, yet. My plan was to wait until later in the evening for our return, knowing the forecast was for activity to die down after sunset. We were flying a Turbo Arrow III, a beautiful cross country aircraft. I noted on the way over that the AI made louder whining noises on start-up but quickly behaved normally after take off.

We stayed later than anticipated, with a programming problem, and left after 8pm for our return flight. It was dark and nearly solid cloud cover was expected for our return flight. I was concerned about remnant thunderstorms, so my plan was to monitor the other traffic, noticing who else was flying in our size range, and judge from that if I should continue or divert. Soon after contacting approach I heard several other small aircraft on frequency, one ahead of us, and the air was acceptable to them so I pressed on. We wre flying in the St. Johns area.

About 30 minutes after departure, level at cruise and in solid cloud, the controller asked if we would take a vector around a section in front of us he reported as showing 'heavy activity.' Gratefully I accepted and made the heading change. Within three minutes we hit our first 'whump' of turbulence, and it just kept getting worse. I recalled an older pilot telling me it's often better to push straight ahead under control than to lose control in a turn trying to avoid rough air,' so I pressed ahead.

The turbulence increased, then came the hail. Not just little bitty hail; hail so hard and loud I was terrified and in awe that the windscreen did not crack. Not that I had much time to look out, as I was very busy with my hands and eyes. I was making nearly full control deflections in all directions and up to 75% throttle adjustments, and just managing to keep airspeed in the green and altitude within 500 feet of of assigned. This was truly 'attitude flying' I remember thinking.

The hail grew louder. I was completely focused and time seemed to alternate between very fast and slower than normal. If the controller had tried to talk to me I don't think at that moment I would have acknowledged. Then everything got worse a notch, and I saw lightning flash to port of the aircraft and slightly behind. That was when I felt a cold sweat for the first time in the episode. Immediately after the lightning, the avionics began generating a strange clicking and humming, and the needles started to jump erratically and time seemed to slow down. In front of me, unbelievably, the tips of the propeller began to glow, describing a green arc, which intensified, and began moving down the propeller arc and started to flicker across the top of the cowling.

At that moment, for the first time, I was not sure of what I was seeing. Later I learned it was classic St. Elmo's fire, and the next incident was a stroke of true luck; we popped out of a wall of clouds into the most beautiful clear and calm night sky you could imagine, with a million stars twinkling over the desert sands down below. A moment later the controller came on the quiet frequency " Five Seven Mike, how is your flight?" "We're okay." I reported back, but it was pretty intense back there. "Glad I could steer you around the heavy stuff." he replied.

Twenty more minutes into the flight, the AI rolled over and died. I covered it with a piece of paper, told the controller, and we continued homeward, under mostly VFR conditions. The IFR approach through the thin marine layer at Brown field was anti-climactic even with the failed AI, after what we had been through.

The next day, examining the aircraft, all was fine except for the broken AI, and the paint on the leading edges of the wing in about a 1 inch wide stripe, was stripped to shiny aluminum. The rest of the plane was astonishingly clean, however.

Looking back, I can't believe I flew that IFR trip without onboard radar! In retrospect, on the plus side, I learned my training was good; it all worked for me that night. My judgement? In hindsight I would have picked up a motel room and left the next morning at sunrise under dewy clean sunlit morning skies.

The best advice I can offer: don't fly into embedded T-cells, period, even if you think they won't be a factor. The second best advice? If you do, just fly the attitude. Focus on keeping the wings level and the airspeed within reason and if you take care of these two issues, you'll stand a chance.

I know this sounds like a tall story, but somewhere out there, perhaps reading this and remembering, are a programmer who will never forget how nature displayed her use of charged electric particles, and a controller who probably still feels good about being able to help out a pilot just trying to fly home.

Onward & Upward! ~ rfb

REVIEW - Catalina Island, Excitement off the Southern California Coast

REVIEW
'Catalina Island is the place to be', as the old song says. Fun for pilots, fun for passengers, for a day, a hike, a swim, or an overnight adventure in Avalon.

Living in Southern California, Catalina was one of my favorite destinations. Once owned by Mr. Wrigley, of chewing gum fame, the airport was a private strip created by flattening the top of a mountain. Now it is a paved strip with an attendant, unicom, a restaurant and transportation into the town of Avalon down by the sea, and open to all.

Pilot challenges abound. First, you have to decide what altitude to use, which is dependant on whether you angle out to sea from the south coast or from the north prior to reaching the Los Angeles area, or choose instead to fly lower with less water to cross but having to communicate with LAX controlled airspace and watching out for large volumes of traffic coming from every direction.

It's a right-hand pattern when the typical runway 22 is used as the winds are blowing from the west, but here's where the real fun begins. The airport is at the top of a mountain, and on all sides terrain rapidly falls away towards the sea. Your turn to base and final are out over the ocean, over a thousand feet higher from a ground reference than you are used to at that point. It feels like making a turn in space, but remember, you are working not off sea level below you but the top of the mountain, which you are turning back to meet. This makes judging pattern and altitude tricky, yet it can be accomplished best by keeping a close watch on your altimeter and the VASI on final. The fun is not over yet, though. The wind blowing over the top of the mountain often creates strong laminar flow with a downturn - you guessed it - right before the landing touchdown zone, which means you have to be ready for a healthy addition of power on final to hold your glide path.

But wait, there is more! The runway has a slight rise, with a subtle peak in the middle. This means just as you touch down, you look down the runway and see the apparent length diminishing very rapidly. There are a LOT of brake skid marks from prior pilots who thought they were going over the edge on the far side, but just like you, they successfully crest the middle of the runway to realize they still have a half runway left. Turn off to the left, and find a parking space and register your plane inside the building.

Now the ground fun starts! For lunch, have a buffalo burger, at the restaurant with a spectacular view out to sea. The buffalo are from the island. They are rumored left over from a movie shoot early last century and are regularly harvested and served. I found it better than any hamburger I've had before.

You can sign up for a ride down the bumpy hill to the town of Avalon, which in all ways is a sleepy beach town with a great history. Visit the beautiful casino building at the end of the promenade. Tour the Wrigley mansion. Skin dive or S.C.U.B.A. dive and swim with orange Garibaldi, the California state fish; among one of many species you will see. Get a room for the night or a weekend. Rent a boat. Swim, or hike to the other side of the island on a week-long backpacking trip.

When you are ready to leave, there is one last treat the island airport offers. As you take off, when you would be typically 200 feet above the ground, the end of the runway drops away over a cliff and the zoom effect is stunning, you feel for all the world like you are in a rocket climbing to space.

I've flown many aircraft to Catalina; a Kachina Varga, Aeronca 11AC, Stinson Voyager, many Cessna's and Pipers, and a Cessna 320. The fun never ended and each aircraft allowed me an opportunity to explore the challenges - and rewards - one more time. Someone once flew a glider from the mainland, with photos on the walls to prove it, however they did need a tow back to the mainland.

Here are a few useful links:

http://www.catalina.com/airport.html - About getting to Catalina Island and contact information.
http://airports.pilotage.com/avx/ - Specific airport info with a good aerial photo of the airport.
http://www.micheloud.com/FXM/Flying/Catalina.htm - An interesting site with many images and tips.
http://www.catalinachamber.com/ - Chamber of Commerce, official Catalina Island website.

This is one destination worth traveling to as you head up or down the coast, or as an end destination unto itself. Enjoy your flight!

Onward & Upward! ~ rfb


(the image shown is a computer generated image in Microsoft Flight Simulator accurately reflecting the approach to Runway 22 at Catalina. I applied digital filters to the image to make it more artistic and interesting).

FLYOSOPHY - Discussion Forum: 'Significant Others' & More Fun Flying

FLYOSOPHY - Flying, as in most other activities, can be more fun when shared with someone you care about. Does your significant other share your feelings for flight? If not, is there anything you can do to increase their participation?

This is meant to be an open forum topic. Please add thoughts, ideas, questions, solutions, anything you want on this subject and let's see where this goes. Frankly the subject is vexing and challenging to me as well! A reader recently suggested writing about Significant Others and getting them to fly. The reader also recommended it in a forum format, and I agree; that might be the best way to get to the bottom of this subject.

Why don't wives and girlfriends like to fly as much as the men? It is undisputably true, most flights in GA aircraft are made by guys, either on their own or with a few friends. When I was a Chief Instructor and hundred's of students showed up to learn to fly, guess what? Mostly guys. Why is that? Do they not have as much fun flying? Is it because they are brought up differently? I have a son and a daughter and I must admit, despite all attempts at equality in exposure, education, and the types of toys we allowed, my daughter increasingly gravitates towards experiental drawing, role play games and reading, my son increasingly gravitates to understanding how things physically work. He would far rather play with a toy he can take apart and reassemble, or help me with tools in the garage, or sword play with plastic light sabers.

In a nutshell, my son clearly prefers to play and experiment with how physical objects are made and how they move about in the world, While my daughter displays a desire to explore the social interactions of objects, real or imagined, in her play. Are these universal truths? Are we simply hard-wired this way?

When my daughter was two, I began giving her toy airplanes. My own social experiment. She enjoyed playing with them, but at age 4 asked me why I liked them so much and shortly thereafter dropped airplanes for cats. No explanation. It was a hard-wired and to me, inexplicable, preference.

In college, flying girls to lunch or a trip to an exotic island or mountain location was always a good show-stopper, but they always preferred looking out the window to actually touching the controls. My wife, who once worked for the NAA and on her first day on the job was in the back of a chase plane with a clipboard and stopwatch timing a time-to-climb record attempt is a rare exception to this trend and I was lucky to find her. But even she, when it comes to touching the controls, would prefer 'getting there' over 'doing it.' I must admit this is a surprise to me, as she enjoys driving a stickshift car and is an excellent driver who likes to drive. Why not fly?

- Is it a difference in our brains? Do we have different hardwired predispositions about flight?
- Is it cultural? Does our society set us up in ways that it's difficult to change?
- Is it how the money is spent?
- Is it a fear that we don't get; a fear of not being able to do it?

I'm not creating or supporting a sterotype; far from it. I am completely aware there are many women pilots, fighter pilots, aerobatic pilots and commercial airline pilots and flight instructors. What I want to know however, is why don't they match the population demographic? Why isn't the ratio of male:female pilots the same or even close to the same as the distribution of male:female individuals?

Let's hear some thoughts and experiences, ideas, solutions and frustrations on this topic. Please add your comments to this post.

Onward & Upward! ~ rfb

Mentor - Flight & Photography: 4 of 4, Photo art at Airports

Mentor
Walking out to an airport can yield interesting aviation photography. Close shots, strong color contrasts and unusual patterns, especially when edited into digital art, can create striking works of art.

The airplane is a dramatic form itself. Knowing that, interesting patterns can be uncovered in everyday airport scenes and at community airshows.

The formation flying image captured my eye in the three strong colors in the gold, white and blue, and the strong horizon line in contrast to the curved flight of the aerobatic team.

The Travel Air is a beautiful aircraft under any condition. This one was meticulously restored and looked good at an angle capturing the whole craft and in a close up on the amazing structure of the rotary engine.

The Virgin Atlantic jet was on the ramp next to my jetliner at Dulles, waiting for a thunderstorm to clear the area. I was struck by the intensity and color in the dying thunderstorm behind the jet, as well as the strong angular line of the clouds jutting down to the airliner, reminiscent of an additional vertical fin.

Onward & Upward! ~ rfb

airport

Mentor - Flight & Photography: 3 of 4, Photos from a Jet Airliner window

Mentor
The Aerial photos from a jetliner are fun, and with digital photography and editing, can create amazing art and photos.

For starters, you don't have to worry about any FAA regulations. But you do need to secure a window seat and not over the wing. In front of the wing is best as you won't pick up distorted air imagery from thrust gasses exiting under-slung engine pods. Try to pick a clean window, for obvious reasons.

When shooting from an airliner window, glare is your enemy. Here are a few tips: Wear a dark shirt, as lighter colors reflect back onto the plexiglass and alter your photo. Nothing worse than a ghostly shirt button floating in the middle of your photo! Also, be aware of sunlight slanting into the plane through the window. Avoid it if you can, but if you cant, increase the angle between your camera lens and the angle of entry of the sunlight for best results. Go crazy on the shutter, and experiment with different angles.

Back on the ground, you'll be glad for all the images you shot as not all will be usable. For the ones that are, you want to minimize the effects of the airliner window. Sharpen the image as best you can, and increase brightness and contrast, playing with the balances. Reflections can sometimes be eliminated by selectively altering contrast and brightness for specific large areas of the image.

All of the photos shown here were taken from an airliner departing from or arriving into the Pacific Northwest. Whenever I could I took shots of Mt. Hood, and was rewarded by capturing the seasonal changes on the mountain over the course of a year. Looking at a glacier carved river valley from the Flight Levels gives new perspective to the awesome ancient power of flowing ice which can carve out valleys and leave a smooth sculpted curve pathway that lasts forever.

Don't be afraid to include the wing, sometimes it increases the effect, as with these unusual cloud rows of The Northwest Bitteroot Mountains.

Onward & Upward! ~ rfb

Mentor - Flight & Photography: 2 of 4, Urban and Scenic Aerial photos

Mentor
The two most common types of aerial photographs are urban and of structures or scenic. Start with scenic first, then move on to buildings and cityscapes

Aerial photography in a scenic environment is a good way to start . You will be using wide angles, so you'll pick up less vibration. There will be less traffic (but still have a friend help with another pair of eyes), less radio traffic to monitor, and most likely no need to make preflight arrangements with a controlling entity for airspace access or to contact and communicate with a controller during your photo shoot. Also, you will not need to make tight circles, and can spend more time composing and planning your imagery.

When I shoot structures or cityscapes I begin by telling the FSS about my flight plans as they may be aware of any restrictions since aerial photography is different from destination-oriented flights. I plan out my altitudes carefully and while flying I always note at least two places to put the plane anywhere in the vicinity of the photoshoot. If there is any controlled airspace, contact them before entering their area with your request.

A typical controlled airspace call might sound like this: "XYZ control, Cessna ABC, 10 miles south, would like to enter your airspace at 2,000 feet and conduct aerial photography in a three mile radius centered around the downtown core, for the next 15 minutes." A typical response would be "Roger Cessna ABC, request approved, squawk 1234, and advise when ready to leave the area." Then you monitor the control frequency while you set up and conduct the shoot.

Plan your shoot before the flight, and if you have access to it, I find it useful to pre-fly the flight in Microsoft simulator, which helps develop a sense for the area and what you may experience during the shoot.

Onward & Upward! ~ rfb

Mentor - Flight & Photography: 1 of 4, Technique & Art

Mentor
Any pilot can create aerial photographs. Aerial photography does not require expensive equipment or owning an aircraft, though either can be helpful. Here are a few tips and examples.

Mention 'aerial photography' and most people think of satellite type imagery, razor clear, shot at noon to minimize shadows and usually from directly overhead. Typically this is used by government agencies, land-use groups, engineers, contractors, and sometimes for art. It is accomplished with high performance aircraft, often twin engine, and expensive belly-mounted cameras. Yet a handheld digital camera and a rental Cessna can also accomplish amazing and rewarding results. Here are some specific considerations, in the order I think are most important:

1.
Plan the flight for safety first. How low can you legally go over the ground? If it is an urban area, you may need to use a strong telephoto lens, 180mm or more, to compensate for the extra altitude required above the ground. You may need to be in communication with any nearby controlled airspace. You will need someone to help keep an eye out for traffic or share flight and photographer responsibilities, and you need to discuss strategy before the fight; who does what, and when? How long for the shoot? Plan for safety first, all else comes later.

2.
Plan for camera angle and 'window shooting angle.' High wings seem best, but lowered wings can block angles and gear and struts can block views. Sometimes Low wing aircraft with small vent windows can work well - remember, the camera lens is small; you only a small opening for a clear air shot. Know your aircraft well enough to know where the best angle occurs, and practice putting objects in that view. Sometimes that requires a turn. I remember successful shoots from a Diamond Katana where the camera went out the plexi vent window, and the plane was banked about 20 degrees wing down, providing an arc around a medium distance ground target and offering an unobstructed view of the photo-target. If you don't like the angle, get closer or farther away, or higher or lower; always mindful of safety of course. Don't worry about looking through the viewfinder, I find it seldom matters. Practice locating the object you want to shoot in the best 'shoot window' for your aircraft and point your camera straight through that opening, and concentrate on flying while clicking away. You can edit and compose later.

3.
Plan for the light. Cloudy days are good if you want to eliminate shadows. Sunny days can be good if you want dramatic lighting effects which occur with low sun angles in morning and evening, and strong yellow orange light as the suns rays go through the longer section of atmosphere before striking the ground. Mid-day sun is good for strong colors and minimized shadows. Don't worry if you have to shoot through plexi glass, you can use digital editing available on most mid-level editing programs to edit out effects from Plexiglas. Shoot with the sun behind you or up to 90 degrees from behind you. Shooting towards the sun creates silhouettes and usually poor imagery.

4.
Plan for emotion. You see with your eye a special scene. It moves you. You shoot it with your camera, and later you realize it is a bad photograph, cluttered, or otherwise un-dramatic. Why? This is because your emotions are triggered by the image but the camera does not capture emotion. So you have to be willing to edit out power lines, etc, later, or plan for dramatic low level light , or practice placing the object in the viewfinder in a unique way. Cameras do not capture feeling, only light. Think about how to convey feeling and meaning.

5.
Plan for vibration. Shoot at shutter speeds of 1/1000 sec or higher. I've had success down to 1/125th of a second, but at that speed it is hard. Wide angle lenses pick up the least motion blue, telephotos the most. and touching any part of the camera to any part of the aircraft during the shoot guarantees engine vibration will alter your image. When my primary responsibility is photographer in the aircraft, I often make a crook of one arm, bracing that had on my shoulder, and resting my camera hand on this vibration absorbing brace, or if the shutter speed is high enough, I just make sure the lens and camera are as far from vibration sources as possible.

6.
Type of camera. I've used many different types. I've been happiest with two, a Canon Powershot for simple scenics and when I travel, and a larger professional Nikon with interchangeable lens ranging from 18mm to 300mm.

7.
Editing is key. Slide film is go,d I used Kodachrome 64 ASA for years, but despite it's brilliant color saturation and detail, digital is getting good enough to be the best thing going. With digital you want the largest screen size, finest resolution and as many megapixels as you can afford. The ones you see in this blog were mostly taken with 4 megapixels so judge accordingly. More sophisticated editing programs are available, but Microsoft Digital Editing Suite does a nice job for the cost. Experiment with contrast, saturation and many other digital editing techniques until you find the photo pleasing or until you decide to use filters to turn it into your own unique digital art. Remember to always save a file copy before beginning your edits, just in case!

Bottom line - get a friend, get a plane, get a camera and go give it a try!

Onward & Upward! ~ rfb

REVIEW - Sunriver Oregon: 2 of 2, Summer

REVIEW
Sunriver Oregon offers summer fun in golfing, tennis, swimming, paddling canoes, fishing, biking and more. And of course there is a good airport in the middle of it all. But mother nature often provides the best entertainment with astonishing cloud displays, especially when a thunderstorm occurs near sunset.

For several summers now I've spent time with family enjoying the natural beauty of the high desert around Sunriver and the activities available within the resort area. The entire family enjoys swimming and it's a perfect place for the kids to learn to ride a bike, with paved trails separate from streets with cars.

As a pilot, I love open space and good views of the sky and Sunriver has that and more. There is an observatory on site, staffed by volunteers, where you can spend time learning about the night time universe, but I find the most spectacular and awe inspiring moments in nature can occur as the sun is near setting and a thunderstorm is breaking up. In Sunriver, this seems to happen at least once a summer and the colors and shapes can be unforgettable.

THis URL gives you specific airport information including a live airport webcam: http://www.sunriver-resort.com/sunriver-airport.php

Onward & Upward! ~ rfb

MENTOR - Use your 'Visual Yardstick' to judge Distance-to-Clouds

Mentor
Learning to judge distances from clouds can be hard in the beginning of your flight career. Here are three techniques for developing your own 'Visual Yardstick.'

If you know your altitude above the ground, or the length of a nearby runway you see on the ground, or the height of a mountain ridge or tower that rises at least 1,000 feet above the surrounding terrain, you can use any of the three to develop your own 'visual yardstick.'

The key is using visualization, which gets better as you practice. Say you are 2,000 feet above the ground. Look at that distance. envision a red hot laser beam, straight down, or a huge yardstick. Next, mentally tip that yardstick up 90 degrees and swing it around. Would it reach that nearby cloud? Would it reach through or fall short? It may help to envision a square, with the distance down being one defining leg and the horizontal distance being another. You know the difference between a rectangle and a square. Do the two envisioned legs between you, the cloud and the ground form two sides of a rectangle or a square? This is a very useful way to judge cloud distance.

Another way is using the length of a runway you see on the ground. Let's say you can see a runway your chart says is approximately 4,000 feet long. Imagine the Jolly Green Giant coming along and picking up the runway. How many of those runways would fit between you and the cloud? 2 runways would be 8,000 feet. Half a runway would be 2,000 feet. See how it works?

Another way to develop a visual yardstick is with a tower or a ridge that is a known height above the surrounding terrain. On a close scale, you can use the size of your own aircraft. It is likely the wingspan of your aircraft is around 3o feet. Suppose it is 32 feet from tip to tip. Three of your aircraft flying wing to wing in tight formation would be 100 feet. If you are this close to a cloud in VFR conditions, you'd better be taking steps to get farther away!

The point to all of this is that you can use known object sizes in your visual field of view to estimate distances to other objects. Any visual skills you can develop will help improve your technique and this one is tried and true by many pilots over many years.

Onward & Upward! ~ rfb

FLYOSOPHY - Glider Pilot's Fervant Wish Taking Off on Tow

FLYOSOPHY - Most often all goes well, on tow. A smooth and serene ride to the release point. Still, it's a thin filament line between success and early release...

Lord may my rope not break
But if it must
May it not be too low
Or too slow
But make it high
And if high make it clean

Separating machines
With room to soar
And time for more
And look over the
Tow pilot too.

Onward & Upward! ~ rfb

LOGBLOG - Christmas Day flight

LOGBLOG
Christmas day flights are special. The alignment of the Holiday, good weather and an airworthy plane ready to go are too great a combination to ignore, especially when you have a friend ready to go too.

12/25/1980 - Christmas day flight with my brother.

Citabria 7ECA, N1014E, SZP to LCL. Christmas Day. Sightseeing around County.
.8 hours. 164 hours total time.

Southern California offres spectacular flying year round. Santa Paula is a unique airport worth visiting just for the history even if you are not home based there. We departed Santa Paula Runway 22 in our blue and white taildragger, headed down to the coast at Ventura, followed Highway 33 up to the Ojai Valley and then meandered down the hillside following Highway 150 along it's pathway bordering the Sespe Wilderness area, back to Santa Paula. The air was Crystal clear and calm, without a cloud in the sky. A few boaters moved about Lake Casitas, and the hills were showing the first winter green from the recent rain.

Onward & Upward & Merry Christmas! ~ rfb

REVIEW - Sunriver Oregon: 1 of 2, Winter

REVIEW
Sunriver Oregon is a community of homes, vacation rentals, restaurants and shops nestled in a bend of the Deschutes river, with a very nice paved and lit runway, with fuel service. It is a unique destination area with different attractions in winter and summer.

Winter in Sunriver brings temperatures in the 20's but it's a dry cold, so you won't mind much if you are dressed for the weather. Call ahead and schedule a sleigh ride in a one horse open sleigh (Yes you get to live inside the famous holiday song!). The photographic vistas are amazing, and if you can keep your camera from freezing or fogging over you can catch subtle shifts of purple pink and yellow at sunrise and sunset over vast fields of untouched white snow.

To hear sleigh bells jingling from a horse when you can't hear the muffled hoof-steps in the snow and to be aware of motion because you see it yet barely feel it as the runners glide through the snow is an unforgettable experience. Along the way you may see blue herons fishing in the Deschutes river, or coyotes hunting mice in the fields, sniffling through the snow in lonely one's and two's. You will forget you are within half a mile of a jet capabable airport and feel as if you've stepped into an old western vista.

The kids will enjoy the Christmas breakfast with Santa, and you will enjoy the accommodations and sledding or cross country skiing on the bike trails, and hills, conveniently covered with snow to suit your needs.

The airport has a 5,400 foot paved and lit runway and is served with 100LL and JetA. Airport information is at: http://www.airnav.com/airport/S21

Sunriver resort information is at: http://www.sunriver-resort.com/

Resort information on the airport with live webcam is at: http://www.sunriver-resort.com/sunriver-airport.php

Onward & Upward! ~ rfb

REVIEW - The Spruce Goose at McMinnville airport

REVIEW

Where did the biggest airplane in the world go? To McMinnville airport in McMinnville, Oregon. What happens when you take a small child to see the world's largest airplane.

It does not look like the world's biggest airplane

as you approach the specially built glass-walled

hanger in McMinnville, Oregon, but the airplane just

keeps getting larger as you near it, until once inside, it towers over everything including aircraft you thought of as huge, like full-fledged bombers.

The child in the photo, an aficionado of airplanes and things that fly from an early age, stood not much more two and a half feet tall when this photo was taken, capturing the look of surprise and joy as she looked up at the tail of the huge aircraft.

The Spruce Goose was moved to Oregon from California in the 1990's, and a special hangar was built, which is now a full-fledged aviation museum, with a wide spectrum of aircraft from cloth and wire antiques to supersonic jet aircraft. There is an aviation learning center and gift store with hobbyist and model materials as well, along with a good snack bar serving light lunches and drinks.

You can reach the museum by driving west on highway 99 from the Portland area towards McMinnville, but the fun way is to fly in to McMinnville airport, KMMV and walk across the street to the museum.

Information about the airport is at this site: http://www.airnav.com/airport/KMMV

Information about the Evergreen Air museum is at: http://www.sprucegoose.org/

If you visit the museum, please consider taking a moment and adding your thoughts to this post.

Onward & Upward! ~ rfb

MENTOR - 'Pulsing' a control technique when you fly

Mentor
Discovering your own best technique to handle the controls of an airplane can be accelerated by using this method.

How do you hold the control column and rest your feet on the pedals? Do you squeeze tightly? Let go often? Use both hands? One hand? Three fingers? It seems simple, but how you touch the controls determines how the plane will respond and fly. How you touch the controls also determines how you get feedback to your brain and directions from your brain out to your hands and feet.

The initial inclination is to squeeze the controls too tightly, after all, it's an AIRPLANE right? It MUST take a lot of strength and energy! (We've all seen the Bugs Bunny cartoons where the hapless hare is the pilot and is tugging on the controls with all his might). Actually, the exact opposite is true. The lighter the touch, the better for all.

I recommend a technique I call 'pulsing.' Put your hand on a pencil or some object right now. Let it sit still for a while. Notice how you start to lose sensitivity to the object? Now, do it again, this time, gently 'pulse' or move your fingers on the object. Don't lift them off the object, and never squeeze hard, just alter the pressure by pulsing on the surface.

Why is this useful in the airplane? Several reasons:

First, by pulsing on the controls, you remain sensitized to every nuance of movement in the controls caused by outside forces - usually wind - and you can react accordingly, with equal counter pressure. Notice I said 'pressure' and not 'force!'

Secondly, by pulsing, you become aware of what input is from you and what is from the plane or outside forces like wind, and you are more likely to react appropriately; and less likely to lean over to pick up a pencil and have the other hand, clutching the control column in a tight grip, guide the plane astray unknowingly.

Third, by pulsing on the controls, you are maintaining an active pathway from your brain to your toes and fingers, and also these muscles are remaining warmed up and ready for slight movement, all it usually takes to control the plane well. You will be more likely to avoid a sluggish response when a response is needed, and therefore less likely to over-control the aircraft when you do respond.

Try this technique on your next flight! Write and tell me what you think or if you have any questions.

Onward & Upward! ~ rfb

REVIEW - Columbia Airport, Columbia California

REVIEW
A picturesque historic gold mining town with an airport campground on a paved and a grass strip runway. What better place to land an antique aircraft for a stay?

Maybe the most fun you can have in an airplane is in a low and slow antique tailwheel aircraft, like an Aeronca Chief. The Chief is an excellent way to explore the countryside from the air.

In Northern California, in the Sierra Nevada foothills where Steinbeck once roamed, lies the small gold mining town of Columbia. The airport has a paved and lit runway and a dirt strip. Most interestingly, there is an aviation campground on the strip.

Once I landed my restored tan and blue Aeronca Chief and set up camp for the night. Just before sunset, a perfectly restored red Taylorcraft floated across the sky, and the pilot, looking down and seeing my yellow and blue antique Aeronca, decided to land, and taxied over next to me and shut down. I introduced myself. He was returning home to another state after winning the best of show in an antique aircraft contest in Watsonville.

We stayed up talking late, two modern pilots with restored antique aircraft sitting in a campground next to our tailwheel planes with a crackling wood fire and stars overhead in the black sky. It was a magical moment. The next morning he left early, but the Cessna 182 on the other side had a family, with two kids. I was impressed at how neat they were and how happy they were as they cleaned up their site, loaded up their airplane and took off while I was packing. This was a magical special place, I thought as I lifted off and headed south.

The town of Columbia itself is within walking distance of the airport. Head to the northern end of the paved runway and pick up the trail and walk through old gold mining country for perhaps a mile. On the way, steep canyons with deep crevices reveal what happened to the ground when the gold was extracted with water cannons long ago.

The town itself is a destination, with an old time store, restaurant, and other tourist attractions of the gold rush days and the California west. In the middle of town is a small white cottage, that in the 1980's had one resident, the last regular resident of Columbia. Her husband had known a California governor and was instrumental in getting Columbia preserved as a historic district, and creating an agreement for his wife to live there for the rest of her life.

The outside of the house will be familiar to you if you have ever seen the western movie 'High Noon' with Gary Cooper. It is the house he goes to seeking help, and Frank Morgan, who went on to star in M*A*S*H hides inside while his wife says he is not home. The movie people knew the lady who owned the home and spent some time there. Inside her house, were years of photographs showing the house and areas were often frequented by the Hollywood movie industry.

For sheer fun, romance, history, challenging flying, good services, food and choices between nearby hotels or camping, Columbia rates a solid 10 on my scale of good destinations for pilots.

The Columbia Chamber of Commerce site is a good place to start, at http://www.columbiacalifornia.com/
and the airport itself can be found, with photos and pilot data, at http://www.airnav.com/airport/O22

Onward & Upward! ~ rfb

FLYOSOPHY - What happens if children see what pilots see?

FLYOSOPHY
Flying alters your perspective on the world. Sometimes it alters your understanding of how others might see the world.

From the air, the grittiness of the world fades away. Garbage, graffiti, people with bad attitudes, traffic noise and congestion; all become part of that 'other world', the world you left behind and don't have to return to - yet.

Flying my Aeronca Chief through Southern California's Banning pass in the late 1980's I had a vivid reminder of the difference between the flying world and the everyday world form the ground. Since the Aeronca Chief cruises at around 70 miles per hour, things happen slowly, and can be more deeply appreciated.

Over the desert, the summer temperatures were sizzling and the sky was rich blue. I could see for miles in any direction and clearly see small details passing below on the ground. Passing into the Los Angeles basin, I found myself at 4,500 feet and just at the top of a haze and smog layer completely obscuring the ground. I needed to descend, and yet I found I did not want to descend. the sensation was of leaving something pure and clean and sinking into some unknown muck. Because of my slow descent, about 200 feet-per-minute, the transition occurred slowly. For a moment I was poised between two worlds, with the clear clean blue sky and the view of the endless mountains all around me and a frightening dirty surface I was about to enter.

Then I was in it, and was surprised by the sudden crisp, acrid, burning stench at that upper level of what I came to call the 'smogopause.' My eyes watered. and then the most amazing and terrible insight occurred. Once below the reflective surface of the smogopause layer, I could see through to the ground, through the 4 miles of visibility. Above the blue sky faded away, and my world became dingier and... normal. I turned the plane in a 360 degree circle and discovered I could no longer see the mountains behinds me, only about 8 miles away.

The sobering realization was that a child, entering the age of awareness of their surroundings and playing in their backyard, would have an entirely different impression of the world than I, and would not realize the air could be clear and blue, the view could be limitless and the smell of the air could be sweet and clean. I have no solutions to this, only the belief if these kids could see the world from above as I had that day, it would profoundly alter the way they thought about their world, and might alter their behaviors in it.

Onward & Upward! ~ rfb

LOGBLOG - First flight, a memorable experience!

LOGBLOG
You never forget your first flight, and looking back to that first entry, it all comes back in a rush of vivid memory and sensation.

9/27/1975 - First Flight

AA-1B, N9922L. OXR - Local, Demo Flight, AA-1B Local area, SPL VFR departing from local area, sight see, use of controls, Rtrn fr Lndg. Landings, 1; J.A. O'Brien, Instructor; .6 hours

My memory of this flight is vivid, in patches. The plane was bright red. The canopy reminded me of fighter planes. I was 15, a sophomore in high school, and hooked beyond my wildest dreams. I had touched the controls of an aircraft in flight and it responded to my commands. Left, right, up, down; constrained by my instructor without my awareness, I was in awe of flight. I did not realize until this moment, looking back at that logbook entry, that we departed the airport area under special VFR. I do recall some haze, however! The canopy had a lock-stop allowing a few inches to remain open in flight. We tried it, and the breeze was fantastic on a warm southern California day. I split my time between looking at the instruments which seemed very important, and out the window, at the Pacific ocean sparkling just to the west in the afternoon sunlight with the stark silhouette of the Channel Islands breaking the sunlight on the ocean, and lake Casitas, directly below.

Onwards & Upward! ~ rfb

MENTOR - Maximize the value of your training time

MENTOR
When you are learning to fly, time and money are both precious commodities. Here are some strategies to help you get the most of both

The fastest I ever saw anyone complete was 0 through instrument in three months, but that guy bought a motor home and lived at the airport. Seriously. Average time for someone who can fly twice a week and is serious about it is 6 months to a year for the Private, depending on life stuff and weather.

What works best is 2-3 flights per week with at least 1.0 - 1.5 hours in the air. To maximize that time so that minimal time is lost in the next lesson coming back up to speed from taking a day off, do this: Say you are flying Tuesdays and Fridays. Monday night, review ahead for what you will do the next day. Practice it on Microsoft Flight Simulator, if you can. The next day, do the lesson, then review it for at least 10 minutes afterwards with the flight instructor, then (very important part) be sure to ask them what part of the lesson you just did will carry into Friday and what new work will occur on Friday. Then repeat the cycle again Thursday night. And Repeat again.

In between times, fly the lesson over again on flightsim, asking yourself, what went well? What could I do better? This type of preparation will maximize the value of the time you pay for training and lessen the repeat lesson factor.

About the written: get it over with as soon as possible. Either very early in your training or before you train. It will help you immensely. You'll be better prepared and you won't lose time during flight training worrying about the written or practicing for it instead of flight maneuvers. The cheapest way to pass the written is buy all your own materials and hunker down and study as you would for any other college class. Takes a couple of months that way. The fastest practical way is to study with an interactive DVD like ASA, or the GLIEM series of training materials online, or take a week long course, just get it done, and with the highest score you can nail. If you score 100 or 90, you won't have an oral exam very long before the flight at all. If you score a 70 or so, expect a very long oral exam with the examiner prior to taking your flight test, and be prepared to explain how you now know the right answer for every one you got wrong.

(Disclaimer - I am biased towards the ASA Interactive DVD as I participated heavily in it's development, though I receive no money if you elect to use the ASA product).

Onward & Upward! - rfb

Why2Fly - Birth of a Blog on the Enjoyment and Practice of Flight

Birth of a Blog
Years of flight experience have not changed one simple fact. Flying is GREAT! It is fun, it keeps your mind disciplined and your senses sharp. It gives you a unique perspective on the world nearly incomprehensible to non pilots. Flying is one of the most profound experiences in my life and it is my hope that through these writings you may be inspired to deepen your own understanding of flight and perhaps, if you have not already done so, take on a new challenge and learn to fly

I've always loved flight. I have a memory, as a child of perhaps four, looking up at an aircraft passing overhead, silver fuselage and slanted wings, silvery grey in a white-blue sky with contrails streaming. The jet was passing left to right. We were in a playground, getting ready to leave. It was an early spring day as I remember the cold air on my face. My left hand in my Father's hand. "Airplane!" I shouted. I remember the transcendent feeling, and the joy at getting it all right, the use of the word, the knowledge of what the distant object was, the affirming nod and smile from my Dad.

That was decades ago, and I've not stopped enjoying flight. From kite building and plastic models in elementary school, flight lessons in high school, becoming a glider pilot, commercial pilot, flight instructor, chief flight instructor, aviation video and software developer, published aviation novelist, owner of an aerial photography business, owner of an antique aircraft, article writer for the Southern California Flight Standards District Office, charter pilot, glider pilot, tail-wheel pilot and antique aircraft owner and aficionado, my life has included aviation and flight since my earliest memories. My license and medical are current, though I am not flying as much as I'd like at the moment. I write about it, mentor a few pilots in the AOPA Mentor program, and watch for what opportunity may bring my way next.

The intent of this blog is four-fold; to share advice I give as a Mentor Pilot & Instructor, to chronologically share log entries from my logbook that may be of interest, to provide flying product and destination reviews based on my experiences and through 'flyosophy,' or flight philosophy, to examine ways in which aviation could be improved now or in the future for the betterment of individuals and the community at large. I be live aviation, if utilized to the fullest extent of our imagination, could make our world better in immeasurable ways.

My intent with this blog is to help pilots advance their skills, to provide knowledge about aircraft, products and destinations, to share lessons I've learned and documented in my logbook, and through 'flyosophy' to awaken the sense of curiosity and the drive towards excelling in and exploring our physical world that is uniquely understood only by those who actively fly.

The four approaches -

Mentor - proven techniques from years of CFI experience

Flyosophy - philosophy of flight in the present and for the future

LogBlog - lessons learned from flights in the log

Reviews - aircraft, flying products & destinations

It is my hope this blog will prove useful, enjoyable and thought provoking. I welcome comments and will respond as best I can.

Onward & Upward! - rfb