Still Diggin' Out

From the major snow dump we suffered last week, preparing for the next batch of bad weather (rain) and with work around the house I haven't been flying at all. I really need to get the snow out from around the hangar or the rain will turn in into ice, and the plane will be suck until spring.

Here are a couple of videos I found while trying to get some of my flight cravings satisfied:

The first is a short (2000m is short for an MD-83 I guess) snowy runway in Argentina.



This next is a nasty crosswind in Montreal.



Back to shoveling this afternoon, and hope we don't get too much flooding before the re-freeze on Monday.

Canadian SARTECHs

It is amazing what you can find once you know it exits. I have the full resolution version of the video below. Just for fun I thought I would see if it was on YouTube (isn't everything?). Sure enough it has been there for a while, enjoy.



While I was looking around I also found this one that shows other Canadian Forces air operations, so I threw it in as well.

Wing Suits and Gliders

While to some (myself included) the wing suit seems a bit crazy, and I would never try it myself I can recognize the skill of others and the joy they obviously get from it. Here are some particularly well done videos.

Women of CVN 76 USS Ronald Reagan

Considering this is the internet it might not be what you think. Kind of campy and over the top, but at least they're having fun.

Back to Blogging and Flying

It has been a while since I've posted, other than an couple of recent current events that were quick and easy to do, and I thought should be done. It has been a while since I've been flying as well. A minor accident resulted in some soft tissue damage that would have prevented me from exercising full control authority so flying was out. A recent trip to the saw bones for a chat about X-Rays, and joint mobility gave me a clean bill of health so I had the bird in the air again. Nothing serious, just a couple of trips around the patch.

As you can see from all the pretty colours on the graphic area forecast (GFA) fall weather has finally caught up with us. It is the unique time of year where one is as likely to encounter thunder storms, ice pellets or freezing rain. Sometimes all three. The freezing level hovers near or just above the ground turning any encounter with visible moisture into a chance for a one-on-one with airframe icing. It has been a fabulous fall so far, but now that winter is shouldering its way into the area I will be happier when the cold has finally settled over the great white north.

Even though I haven't had the time to write about it I have been doing some interesting things. I will just have to buckle down and see what I can put together.

Three Year Old Girl Rescued from Plane Crash in B.C.

Canada.com, The Globe and Mail and Canoe.ca all have substantial stories of three year old Kate rescued from a Cessna 172 that went down near Golden British Columbia. A fortunate combination of forethought and luck joined forces to bring some good news from a tragic accident. A passing plane, listening to the emergency frequency, picked up the ELT signal. An ongoing search in the area placed SAR resources near at hand. Young Kate was strapped into a child car seat. Sadly, the two other occupants did not survive.

Water Bomber in Malibu

Picked this up off the AVWeb page, stuck it here so I don't loose the link. That is some crazy low flying!



And here is some footage of scooping, I don't know if they are the same aircraft, or even working the same fire.

Contacting US Flight Information Services from Canada

Over on the COPA non-members page is some information from Kevin Psutka on contacting US FSS from Canada. May be useful, have a look if you haven't seen it already.

reCAPTCHA: Stop Spam, Read Books

It has been a while since I've blogged. Once one gets out of the habit it seems so much easier to just let interesting things go, but this is just too cool. CAPTCHAs have been around for quite a long time. To a greater, or lesser degree they allow web site designers to classify visitors as human or bot. This is all very useful, but the people at CMU have come up with a very interesting twist. It seems that each day some 60 million CAPTCHAs are solved world wide by internauts requesting webmail accounts or leaving blog comments, etc. reCAPTCHA is a program that harnesses all that cognitive power to assist in converting paper only books into digital storage, with all the benefits that implies. Read about it here:

reCAPTCHA: Stop Spam, Read Books

What is particularly cool is that you don't have to be a Web 2.0 maven to take advantage. With Mailhide, you give them an email address you want to have available on your web page or blog, they give you the HTML code to paste into your page. In my case it looks like this:

fla...@gmail.com


What you do with this code is limited only by you knowledge of HTML, but out of the box it works quite well. People (or bots) wanting your email address have to click on the ..., and solve the CAPTCHA.

Now Google's spam filters seem to be very good, and my ravings are not the center of the blogofractal, so spam isn't a problem. Even so, it only took me a few moments to hide my mail address, and I didn't have to change the look of my blog at all.

COPA Flight Log - Part 5

I received an email last night announcing the Skymark Technologies Support Forum. There is a forum for COPA Flight Log which already contains a post of the error I complained about in Part 4. Perhaps there will be an answer or fix forth coming.

Canadian Forces Day with an Old Warrior

I was able to get to the Smiths Falls Flying Club fly in breakfast today, which is also Canadian Forces Day. The high point of the day for me was the arrival of this Mk IV Hawker Hurricane courtesy of Michael Potter and Vintage Wings of Canada. This example is clad in the colours of RAF 6 Squadron. While it is nice to see these airplanes in static display, nothing compares with the sound of a Merlin powered airplane fly-by. The food, as usual was very good, unfortunately the day dawned with light rain so attendance wasn't as good as could have been. I'm sure those who took a chance that the the forecast would pan out had a good time.

Nav Canada - Ultimate Survey

From COPA, Nav Canada is setting out to review services in the Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Windsor corridor. They are looking for input, so if you fly around any of these areas here is your chance to have your say: Ultimate Survey

Sublime to Rediculous

Forbes is reporting Apple and Microsoft threatened with possible digital copyright lawsuit by Media Rights Technology and BlueBeat.com. Apparently creating your own digital rights protection code is in contravenes the DMCA, when your can pay someone else for the code. This is just my opinion, but I thing IT companies need to fire a bunch of lawyers, hire programmers instead.

20 7b 45 51 f2 db 2a 70 73 26 d6 74 47 de 2b 8f

It has been a crazy few weeks on the copyright/DMCA front with the AACS trying to suppress the release of a processing key for high definition media, also reported int the New York Times. I don't condone piracy, but neither do I support stupidity.

My favourite, if somewhat whimsical treatment is Cali Lewis's music video of Geoff Smith's song commemorating the digital dust up.

If 128 bit integers can be controlled, then shouldn't anyone be able to own one? Freedom to Tinker think so. Now you can own an integer too -- get yours here. 20 7B 45 51 F2 DB 2A 70 73 26 D6 74 47 DE 2B 8F is mine.

In a related development it seems the Great White North will have to do without previews of Warner Brothers (see if you can find Canada in the choose your country menu) movies. You know, where in exchange for a free ticket and a body cavity search you get to see some horrible movie before anyone else. It seems no amount of security can prevent us intrepid Canucks from spiriting away with a pirated copy. I guess that is why US Army contractors live in fear of our loose change. Or is this just another bad Hollywood plot? I wonder if we don't smarten up if they will stop releasing movies in Canada all together. And the DVD, followed by the director's cut with the collectible chachkas.

This would just be sad if the rampant paranoia, and greed (on both sides of the issue) weren't going to cost the innocent bystander so much. If you have bought a PC with Windows Vista, are thinking about such a purchase, or know some one who has or is; you really need to read Peter Gutmann's white paper digital rights management in Vista. Or at least listen to the series of Security Now pod casts on the subject, starting with episode 73.

Speaking of Low Passes

Of course my Cherokee can't compete with this low pass:



A-10 Almost Takes Out Cameraman - video powered by Metacafe

or this one (Warning, strong language).

Township of Rideau Lakes - Aerodrome

As the copy from the very complete and professional looking Westport website declares, the town is nestled in the heart of the Rideau Lakes. The airport however, operated by the Rideau Lakes Flying Club, is loacated in the Township of Rideau Lakes.

Civic government organization aside, the strip is a worthwhile visit for the more experienced pilot, though not for a quick $100 burger. The COPA page has a fairly good plan view showing the distance from the airport entrance to the town, which front on Upper Rideau Lake just north of the airport.

I was by there the other day with the video camera on board. The wind was strong and gusty, out of the west, so I did a quick low and over of runway 25. I didn't land because it is still early in the season, the grass could be soft and I hadn't called for a condition report. The video shows the approach over the lake and the trees off the end of 07. For those pilots who like to come in low over the threshold and drop it on the numbers, check out the hay bales! Whenever landing at a strip with limited maintenance it is always a good idea to call ahead, and make an inspection pass.



The flying club located at the airport hosts a Breakfast Flyin the last Saturday in May. I never seem to get there because of scheduling conflicts, this year will be no different, but it is on my list of things to fly to. If you have skis, they also host a chili flyin mid February.

So if you are looking for a somewhat different destination, think about Westport/Rideau Lakes. I understand it is equally pleasant if you arrive by car, or boat.

Bush Pilots - One of Canada's Seven Wonders?

On the way to the airport this morning I was listening to CBC Radio One, the program was Sounds Like Canada. For the past few weeks they have been pursuing nominations for the Seven Wonders of Canada. On the program today were TWO nominations for Bush Pilots! What a great idea.

Voting starts on May 14th, I hope Bush Pilots make the final list, that will be my vote.

Australian Cockpit Capers

For those who haven't seen this on AVWEB... some comedians have fun with a simulator.

The Good, the Bad, and The (Plane) Weird

Last Sunday was another beautiful day to be flying. Well it got a little windy towards evening, but even so it was good. This weekend the weather is bad so I'm going to write about flying instead.

Last weekend a friend and I were off on a flight for visiting and lunch. During outbound cruise listening to other pilots try to contact air radio, wondering if they were aware of the frequency changes that have been happening at RCOs for quite a while, or if the specialists were really that busy, my mind turned to how much has changed since I first soloed, and how much hasn't. At home that evening unable to shake the reminiscent mood, I thought about all the varied experiences I've had. It is difficult to categorize flights by superlatives but three flight still stand out over all others.

One of the best, too many years ago, was my chance to fly with a WWII Spitfire pilot. It was my first season as a familiarization pilot with the Air Cadet gliding program. For several decades now the Air Cadet League and the Canadian Forces have been maintaining and operating a fleet of gliders (mainly Schweitzer SGS 2-33As) to provide air experience and flight training. A new squadron had been created, the new cadets were our passengers for the day. I have always enjoyed introducing young people to the joy of flight. It didn't (and doesn't) matter to me if the passenger wanted to drift around quietly, try their hand flying the glider, or enjoy the ride while I wrung the machine out to our maneuvering limits.

Near the end of the day I was surprised to see a elderly gentleman helped aboard and strapped into the glider. While chatting during the wait for hookup and launch I learned he was the Commanding Officer of the new squadron. I then started my normal spiel of explanations and questions, what not to touch, what I might ask him to adjust, if he had ever flown in a light plane before. At this point the conversation took a bit of a turn when he said, "Yes, but not in a long time. I flew Spits in the war but haven't flown since." You can imagine for a young Air Cadet it was like finding God in the passenger seat. The rest of the flight we talked about the differences and similarities Spitfire vs 2-33, traded control back and forth for demonstrations, generally enjoying the freedom of the sky. All too soon, our altitude bleeding away, it was time to land. Over the years the memory of many flights have run together like water colours in the rain, but this one remains as clear as if it happened only yesterday.

One of the worst was on a flight into Kaslo British Columbia. At the time the runway was not paved, but the mountains and hills were there. A friend and I used to rent a Grumman Tiger, one of us would fly out, the other back. Some times we would go for lunch, other times practice air work, this time we were exploring. It was my leg, after some discussion we decided to have a look at the Kaslo airport.

At the time the CFS entry cautioned that the runway formed part of a logging road, advising pilots ensure it was not obstructed by vehicles. Today the road is beside the runway, but the same advisory exists. Good advice! We circled over the airport inspecting the runway for condition and obstructions. I also paid particular attention to the terrain surrounding the airport. I elected to approach from over the lake, this would have us landing towards the mountain, but seemed safer than turning at low level in the potentially squirrelly winds in the valley. It was obvious that a go-around from less than a few hundred feet above the runway would problematical at best, very dangerous at worst. With this in mind I decided that if the approach did not look perfect at 300 feet I would execute a climbing turn to the left back out over the lake and think about things.

With a plan in hand I settled into the down wind leg. One of the problems with landing at a runway where the final approach is over terrain lower than the runway, and/or terrain rises past the runway, is that the visual cues pilots can come to depend on are missing or distorted. It is easy to to get off the glide slope. On final, nearing my personal decision height of 300 feet with full flaps and idle power I was not completely happy with my position. So in keeping with the plan I announced the go around. This is when everything went pear shaped.

I was following my training: full power, pitch to arrest descent without loosing airspeed, accelerate to best angle of climb, climb while retracting flaps slowly. In a total failure of cockpit resource management (did we even have CRM back then?), my friend assumed I would use the technique he was taught: full power, retract flaps, accelerate to best angle of climb, pitch to climb away. Without telling me he selected flaps up, the electric flap drive happily wound them in to the full up position. Either technique would have worked, in fact this horrible mixture worked as well otherwise I might not be able to write about it these many years later. With full power, my experience in the plane told me we should stop descending, but the runway (and more importantly the trees) continued to get nearer! The retracting flaps were dumping lift faster than our increasing airspeed could replace it. I was sure we would not be able to climb over the trees at the end of the strip, let alone the hills ahead and on both sides.

I was just about to secure the engine, fuel and electrical systems in preparation for running off the end of the strip into the trees when my friend asked "Why are you pitching up when the flaps are retracting?"

To which I said "Why are the flaps retracting?"

"I started retracting them for the go around! Isn't that what you want?"

"No!"

It was the wrong time to start communicating about go around procedure, but knowing what the issue was I waited out the flap retraction, the airplane began to climb away at its normally astounding rate, easily clearing all obstacles. Maybe because I was 17, I tried again. I was rewarded with an uneventful landing.

The weirdest flight I've ever had was also in the Air Cadet gliding program in Grand Forks BC. (There is also a weather cams there, looking east and west.) It was the start of my second season so I needed a currency check after a winter hiatus. The check syllabus involved a simulated rope break and a tow to 3000 feet above the airport for spin, spiral and stall recovery demonstrations. It was early on a cool crisp spring morning without a cloud in the sky. The instructor and I briefed, boarded and launched, completed the rope break and recovery then launched again for the upper air work.

During the long tow the instructor was asking me about the landmarks around the airport. I thought it was part of the check ride, but it turned out he had never flown out of that airport before. The flight sequences went well, at least the instructor seemed happy (as much as I could tell with him in the back seat). We had managed to get everything done before we had lost much altitude so he started using the remaining flight for some advanced lessons. During the tow up some light wispy clouds had formed on the mountain slopes. This was quite common and didn't cause us concern but it was something we were watching. While we were watching a layer of cloud, thin at first but thickening quickly formed a few hundred feet below us. It was clear what had happened. At dawn the heat of the sun had evaporated the dew creating a layer of warm humid air near the ground. The warm air rose, and as it rose cooled. Aviatrix has a series of posts that explain this process. When it had risen far enough to cool to the correct temperature, the humidity condensed quickly forming a solid layer of cloud under us over the whole valley. Not good.

You can usually count on an instructor keeping cool. From the back seat, in calm tones came the words "So, penetrating an under cast. What do you think we should do?" The glider (like most) had very simple instruments: air speed indicator, altimeter, variometer, compass, and a yaw string. I could maintain correct pitch by reference to the air speed, keeping the yaw string centred would keep us in coordinated flight. I could set up a straight and level glide before we entered the cloud, the compass would tell me if a turn developed, but if any significant rate of turn developed it would become useless due to northerly turning error. We could estimate the location of the airport from the mountains sticking up through the clouds, enter the under cast there, do our best to maintain straight and level flight hoping there was enough room under the cloud to find a safe landing area. I explained all this to him, his reply was simple: "You will have to do it, I don't know where the airport is and I can't see the compass."

We had a plan, soon we were positioned and descending into the cloud deck. We were both quiet, the air was smooth so flying the plane was largely resiting the temptation to do something with the controls. Suddenly I heard the thunk of the door latch and a louder hiss from disturbed slip stream. He had opened the door. The glider started to slowly yaw then roll right. I gently corrected until I heard the door slam then centered the controls. Thank God for positive stability. Shortly I again heard the open and corrected again. I asked "What are you doing?"

"I'm looking down to see if the ground is visible straight down." he replied. Now I knew how Henry Ford's pilot felt in The Battle of the Bulge.

"Ok, but every time you do that the glider yaws and banks right."

"Sh*t! Sorry" the door slammed for the last time. A moment later the the ground came into view. No tanks or fuel depot but the runway was well within gliding distance. We landed and got out to wait for the sky to clear. "Good ride." he said and walked away.

Safe flight.

COPA Flight Log - Electronic Logbook. Part 4

In this series of articles I'm detailing my experience with COPA Flight Log. The last two times I've been flying I have made two flights. So I use the "Save & New" new button after the first entry, the "Save & Close" button after the second. Both times this resulted in the program crashing and loosing the entries. Making them one at a time and using the "Save & Close" button after each entry seems to work, but it is frustrating. I don't think I could trust it if I had more than two entries to make in a session.

I'm still using it, and still finding issues, but it does provide some value that I like. I'm still keeping a hard copy log book, but I've stopped updating my spreadsheet and database.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly - Picture

Last night I told you about an incident involving a Cessna 172. Today I have a picture of one propeller tip so you can see what happens when a spinning prop strikes pavement. This is one of the "best" curls I've seen in a prop, though I'll have to admit to not seeing all that many.

When running, in this position the blade would have been moving downward. The forward movement of the airplane tends to cause the tips to bend aft. Successive strikes change the initial bend into a curl, the rotation of the prop gives it a characteristic spiral. It is a very interesting, if expensive and disturbing, shape.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The weather is good. It looks like the daytime surface temperature will be above the magic 50 degrees Fahrenheit at which point we are obliged to remove the oil cooler cover plate. Most airplane engines have an oil cooler. Some are mounted directly to the engine, some like mine are mounted some distance away. In either case it is like a tiny radiator, engine oil circulates through and is cooled by air flowing through the engine compartment. In cold weather the cooler is too efficient so it is desirable to reduce the amount of airflow. On my Cherokee this is accomplished by removing the air duct that delivers cooling air, inserting a specially constructed aluminum plate and reconnecting the duct. There is no low temperature at which I must install the plate, but it must be removed above 50F.

This is also a good time to re-install the wheel pants. Wheel pants are fiberglass covers that reduce the drag caused by air flowing around the wheels. In the winter time, snow slush and ice can get jammed in the pants. This is as bad for the plane as it sounds because during a flight this can freeze the wheels solid making landings difficult or unsafe.

While getting this intimate with the airplane it is also a good time to look at every thing in and around the engine and landing gear to see how things are wearing, aging etc. Everything looked good. The test flight went well, everything stayed attached so I went for a long enjoyable tour around the local area.

So what could be bad, or ugly? It seems last night a Cessna 172 had a hard landing, collapsing the nose wheel. No one was injured. I don't know any of the details, and it would be unfair to speculate, but some things are know to all pilots. Tricycle gear equipped airplanes have relatively delicate nose wheels. They are designed essentially to keep the propeller out of the mud and steer on the ground. They are not designed to take the forces of landing so pilots are trained to land on the main gear first. When the nose gear breaks on landing, the propeller no longer has adequate clearance. With the engine turning the prop strikes the runway repeatedly getting curled back along its length. The engine is shock loaded to the point where an inspection or over hall is required. An accident like this can easily result in the insurance company writing off the airplane.

No pilot likes to see the result of an accident sitting alone and forlorn where is was dragged off the runway. To me the bent, twisted and crumpled aluminum that used to be an airplane is ugly.

Safety Audit or Safety Management?

The Edmonton Journal is reporting that "Transport Canada fears ending regular airline safety audits could be risky" in an article based on a March 2006 departmental risk assessment obtained through an Access to Information Act request. The Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon counters that the Safety Management System (SMS) actually increases oversight.

The only exposure I've had to the SMS was presented at Transport Canada safety seminar. Necessarily it could not be an in depth or exhaustive treatment of the subject, but none of it struck me as suitable to enforcing safety without cooperation from aviation companies. The safety audit system likely has problems as well, but I guess like the authors of the risk assessment I'm yet to be sold on SMS.

CAE adds three flight training organizations to CAE Global Academy

Somewhat echoing comments made over on Cockpit Conversation CAE (a world leader in simulation and modeling) has announced the addition of three flight training organizations to their Global Academy. One facility is located in the U.S. (SAA Flight Training, based in San Diego), the other two are located in Moncton and Brussels.

The stats quoted in the CNW Group article are amazing, but of greater interest to me is that a heavy metal simulator giant is gathering a network of ab-initio, and advanced training organizations around the world. Could this radically change how most commercial pilots are trained in the future? If so, what impact will that have on personal and recreational flight training? Coupled with the changes that we have seen with the evolution of NAV Canada, those proposed for the FAA, the fluid situation in Australia, security concerns and VLJs; we could see more significant changes is aviation in the next 20 years than in the last 40.

NavCan to brief pilots on Toronto area airspace changes

In an article from COPA comes news of upcoming changes to airspace around Greater Toronto Area airports. From July 5, 2007 a Mode C Transponder will be required above 6500MSL from 26nm to 65nm from the centre of the current TCA bullseye. A similar ring has existed around Ottawa for a number of years without a huge negative effect on GA. You should read the full COPA article though for there seems to be more in store for the GTA.

LITE-ON IT EZ-Dub USB DVD-RW

I purchased a Lite-On IT EZ-Dub external USB DVD re-writer when I started working on the UX300CN because I needed a DVD burner that I could hook up to save bundled software on. I wasn't at all interested in the EZ-Dub features, and since Microsoft Vista recognized the burner right away I had not even opened the set of CD that came with the drive until today. I needed to copy some files off an XP-Pro system that was old enough that it didn't have a DVD burner installed. No problem, I've got this external unit hanging around. I hooked it up, installed the drivers, which was a very simple process, and completely out of character, read the quick start guide.

If you've looked at the EZ-Dub link above, you know that they claim it is as simple as pushing the File button on the drive dragging/dropping files to write data to either CD, DVD or dual layer DVD. So I tried it, and guess what, it really is that simple! So if you are a Luddite, or know one you can do worse than looking at this unit. It is fairly large. It would have been nice if they used a laptop form factor drive to make the package more compact. There is also a block power supply, but at least it isn't a wall wart so it isn't necessary to re-wire the whole desk to find an outlet.

I haven't tried the Dub button yet but I expect it works equally well.

Flight Patterns

A very interesting way to render flight data.

Data from the U.S. Federal aviation administration is used to create animations of flight traffic patterns and density.

More images are available at Aaron Koblin's web site. He also has one of the most interesting home pages I've seen in some time.

New landing fees at Trudeau, Mirabel airports

New landing fees at Trudeau, Mirabel airports

Looks like high landing fees are back at Montreal's major airports again. According to a COPA article effective June 1, 2007 Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport: Fixed rate of $35 per landing or fixed yearly rate of $1,000 per aircraft. Montréal-Mirabel International Airport: Fixed rate of $15 per landing or fixed yearly rate of $400 per aircraft.

Power-off 180° Accuracy Approach and Landing

Between bad weather and a rather nasty case of the flu, today was the first day I've been able to go flying for a month and a half. I've decided to pursue my commercial rating, how quickly I am going to be able to move is still up in the air for a number of reasons, but looking at TPE 13462E Flight Test Guide - Commercial Pilot Licence - Aeroplane has given me a number of new skills, to develop and practice. Today I practiced some stalls, steep turns and something new to me the Power-off 180° Accuracy Approach and Landing.

This is a standard kind of approach for a Cessna 172, but my Cherokee 180 with the "Hershey" bar wing glides like, well like a brick. From 1000 feet above the runway, given that the speed on downwind is quite a bit higher than best gliding speed, it will fly for about 1.5 miles (2.5 km). Now I have done lots of practice forced approaches where a simulated engine failure requires the pilot to select a suitable field and conduct an approach that will result in a landing in that field. Usually once it is apparent that the field can be reached (or not of the pilot has done a bad job) the approach is abandoned and the plane climbs away. Some times small airports are quiet enough that one can continue the practice forced approach all the way to landing. Usually one starts a simulated engine failure from higher than 1000 feet, but not always. It is a somewhat different mind set to pick a point in the sky, close the throttle and glide without power to an accurate landing. It is good general pilot skills practice and I had a good time today doing it.

Four out of five of the accuracy approaches I was able to do were OK. The first one I was too far out and had to use power. The second, third and fifth I was a bit too close and had to forward slip to loose altitude. The forth was the best. I took the video camera to try to capture some of the action, but it was being cranky. If it isn't broken maybe I'll get some tomorrow.

Well attended meeting at Toronto City Centre Airport

Well attended meeting at Toronto City Centre Airport (CYTZ) highlights interest in the future of this gem and the need for a COPA Flight. Reason to be moderately optimistic. It seems we in GA have an ally in Porter FBO. I'm planning some visits to the GTA this summer so we will see what happens when the rubber meets the tarmac.

The Turkeys of Spring

We have been feeding birds in the back yard since we moved to our house in the country. A number of years ago wild turkeys were introduced into the area and have been doing very well. At this time of year when wild food supplies are getting scarce they (along with deer, raccoons etc) start to forage under our bird feeders for the cast off. Some enterprising individuals have actually tried to perch on the feeders. As you can see the males are starting their displays to attract the females. So far the females seem more interested in eating.

Further Adventures With the UX300

A comment from supper happy jen (who has lots to be happy about) that she is running XP, and Jan-Piet's blog for today (which directed me to something from the FAA so there is some aviation in here) that he won't upgrade if he can avoid it has prompted me to comment on my personal experience with Vista so far. First some background.

At work I use *nix based operating systems exclusively because I work in embeded development, application development, data trasportation and network security. At home I use Windows XP 99% of the time, mainly because, at home, I don't want to do development. Linux desktop applications are getting better, but in my opinion still lag behind XP in ease of use and integration, sad as that is to say. Having a penquin for a mascot doesn't seem to make much difference Jen.

I have hear/read some good and lots bad about Vista. The UX300 may not be the best platform to test drive Vista on, but it has a faster CPU, more memory and a larger disk drive than my laptop which runs XP Pro and Linux so I think it is. The first thing I notice is that Vista is slow, and the disk drive is awlays active. It is really cool to be able to walk around with a 1.33GHz computer in the palm of your hand, but chain Vista to its leg and it just gets frustrating. In each computer I've purchased in the last ten years it seems that all the increased computing performance goes to powering the user interface. Vista on the UX300 is this trend gone wild. I'm afraid that my next personal computer purchase is going to be a Mac.

There is also something different about the Vista NTFS file system from previous Windows implimentations. I don't know if this is causing my problems, but when I try to install openSUSE (which uses the same grub boot loader as Fedora, something happens to the Vista partition that prevents it from booting. However using a disk partition editor to set the Vista partition to active seems to solve the problem. I don't know why open source installations insist on playing with the partition table active flag when they don't use it, but this would certainly be a barrier to any non-technical user who was moving cautiously from the Microsoft Camp. Another reason to get a Mac?

Edit:
It seems that openSUSE is using the active partition flag. So to dual boot Vista and openSUSE one must configure grub to install on the Master Boot Record and set the Vista partition to active. This is what Fedora does.

Linux on the Sony VAIO UX300CN

A new toy, Sony Vaio UX300CN, came into my possession. It comes preloaded with Microsoft Windows Vista Buisiness Edition which is only to be expected but, out of the box, runs a bit slowish on this 1.33GHz Intel Core Solo CPU. It has 1GB of RAM, and 37GB hard disk space (about 7GB are dedicated to a recovery partition and 20GB are gobbled up by Vista). As you can see from my tag line, I'm not really a proprietary systems guy so my first question was 'can it run Linux?' The answer is yes and so far it is relatively straight forward.

Googling UX300 and Linux did not result in any help, but I did find Linux on the Sony VAIO UX180P which was encouraging. The first step is to make sure you create the recovery media. With a USB DVD R/RW drive this is also easily done by following the Vaio documentation.

The next step is to shrink the Vista partition to make room for linux. On other Windows pre-installed systems I would have used Power Quests Partition Magic, now available from Symantec as Norton Partition Magic. However this is not compatable with Vista, fortunately Vista disk management tools include the ability to resize partitions. I was able to pry a whopping 7.6GB loose, plenty for a Linux install.

I used Fedora Core 6 because that is what we use in the shop, but other distributions should work as well. To boot the installation media some minor changes to the BIOS configuration are needed. Shut down the Vaio. Slide the screen up to access the keyboard. Locate the Fn and F2 keys. Turn the unit on and when you see the Vaio logo press and hold the Fn key while pressing the F2 key. It should switch immediately into BIOS configuration.

Paging over to the BIOS Boot menu will show six items that should boot before the internal hard drive. So why can't we boot from a USB DVD by just plug-and-go? Look closely at the very tiny screen to see that all six items are marked with an asterisk. On the right side is a note which says: External drives are available when the External Drive Boot is set to Enabled. Page back to the Advanced menu to find External Drive Boot, set it to Enabled, save the settings and away we go. While there the Keyboard Backlight can be Disabled if desired.

Install linux to your taste. To be able to dual boot linux and Vista you will can install the grub boot loader on the hard drive boot sector and follow the instructions here: Dual boot Linux Vista. Actuall Fedora Core 6 does this quite well for you.

What works: Sound, wired networking, Bluetooth, USB, touch screen (some calibration issues), dual head display (at least on intitial install). Apparently wireless networking works, but I'm still looking for a site that has all the RPMs in sync to do it without compiling the driver.

What doesn't work (yet): Motion Eye, finger print scanner. zoom buttons.

I'm not finished yet so more later.

Good News from COPA and ADM

New development re: Landing Fee at Trudeau and Mirabel Airports

Update 28 February 2007

From the COPA non-membes page:
(click here for original story)

A meeting was held regarding the unreasonable high landing fees at Trudeau and Mirabel Airports with Aéroports de Montreal (ADM) President James Cherry and Vice-President Normand Boivin on Feb. 19. Representing our interests were COPA President Kevin Psutka, one of our Quebec Directors, Frank Hofmann, and Francois Vranna, a Director from the Aviateurs et pilotes de brousse du Québec.

In addition to the unreasonable rate of $46.68 plus taxes, we pointed out several problems to the ADM, including lack of any consultation with our sector and insufficient notice for virtually any pilot to be aware of the new landing fee.

In response to ADM’s claim that we have been getting a free ride, we brought to their attention that a fuel concession fee, which was established in lieu of landing fees for small aircraft by Transport Canada when they ran the airport, is still being collected and subsequent to the meeting it was confirmed that the proceeds of this fee are indeed going to ADM.

ADM has reconsidered their position and today announced that they are rescinding the landing fee while they review the amount, the methodology and the role of the fuel concession fee. As they develop a new plan they promise to consult with us.

A small team of tenants and users of the airport, including COPA representation, is meeting to develop options for discussion with the ADM. They will give proper notice (60 days) and have asked for our help to disseminate the revised fee information prior to introduction, which may occur by the middle of this year. For those who have already paid a fee, ADM is in the process of deciding what to do.

If you are planning to fly into Trudeau or Mirabel airports, you should check our Places to Fly listings for these airports www.copanational.org/PlacesToFly/index.php . Included there is the link to the ADM’s website where fees information can be verified.

Whither old Friends

The database of Canadian registered aircraft is available on line for historical and current searches. It is sometimes interesting to find out where the various airplanes one has flown over the years have gone. Sadly I've discovered the registration of the airplane I took my first lesson and first solo on the way to my PPL in, CF-BIS, was cancelled last September. The circumstances leading to cancellation are not revealed, but I do know that home base was Port Mcneill British Columbia from 1990. Registration cancellation doesn't mean the airplane will be out of service permanently, indeed the historical data has two previous C of R cancellations (presumably for transfer of ownership). This machine would be 40 years old, and 16 years in the Pacific coast air can be unkind to the materials. I hope it will find its way back into the sky because the alternative will make me feel entirely too old.

Next Step

I guess I've taken this flying thing about as far as I can without tucking into some more training. One of my goals for a long time has been to get my commercial ticket as a prelude to an instructor rating. Over the last year I have been mentally debating the relative merits of the various paths forward and finally decided to start on my commercial. Hopefully I'll be able to get it done over the spring and summer, but we'll see. If nothing else I'll have more flying to blog about.

COPA Flight Log - Electronic Logbook. Part 3

COPA Flight Log - Electronic Logbook. Part 2

I opened my copy of COPA Flight Log today to make some entries and it promptly informed me that there was a new version. According to the revision page this is version 1.02 and has been out since Feb 1. Here is the change log:

v1.02 (Feb. 1/07)

• Fixed problems with importing csf files
• Added navigation toolbar for logbook view

So I should be able to import all my flights. I've got other things on my plate right now but I will get to that soon and let you know how it works out.

UCAP Fodder: Love the Loran You're With

UCAP Fodder: Love the Loran You're With

This is really good news to me. My venerable old airplane came with a not so old, but still venerable IImorrow Apollo 800 Loran-C navigator. Believe it or not Garmin-AT still provides database updates for these units, though the price is quite high for more than occasional refreshing. Each time I get ready to lay down some coin for a new database, some one south of the boarder wonders aloud if we still need Loran-C. Apparently in the last round 93% said yes. I hope this will be the end, either they ignore the demand and close the system down, or announce on going support. That way I can either replace the unit, or update the database with confidence.

I like this unit. It isn't as accurate as even the most modest GPS, it can be a bit quirky, and speaks its own obscure navigator dialect, but it is hooked in to a dedicated Course Deviation Indicator (CDI) located just below the VOR/ILS CDI. This makes it a handy back up and support instrument to the VOR and my portable GPS.

One unfortunate property is the red and yellow lights that can flash at the most inopportune moments, such as just I'm about to taxi onto the runway. These lights are the unit's way of telling the pilot that it has some quirky messages waiting about the status and accuracy of navigation information, and are otherwise not related to safe operation of the plane. My passenger briefing now includes words to that effect. It is interesting how quickly a flashing red light on the panel will attract the attention of the most jaded passenger.

Toronto City Centre Airport (CYTZ) Meeting Rescheduled for March 20th.

COPA

Toronto City Centre Airport (CYTZ) Meeting Rescheduled for March 20th.

Open to anyone who would like to hear about the future of general aviation in the GTA. Landing fees are waived for the meeting, which will feature:

- Kevin Psutka, COPA President, who will provide his perspective on general aviation and airports in the Greater Toronto Area.

- Jim Morrison, VP Porter Airlines/Porter FBO, who will discuss Porter Airlines, what the FBO has to offer for our sector of aviation.

- Bill Yule, CYTZ Airport Manager, who will be available to provide information and answer questions about the airport.

- a discussion about the need for and future of COPA Flight 32 as a focal point for central Toronto pilots.

RSVP and send any questions to Bill Nalepka, Flight 32 Captain at nalepka@rogers.com or call 416-222-2124.

Cross Winds and Cross Words

Cross Winds

Another beautiful day with fresh ninety degree crosswinds and a bare/dry runway. A good day to brush up my crosswind technique.

Cross Words

My link to the COPA entry on the Belnan airport fracas attracted a number of visitors. I don't know what motives drove these visitors but from the key words used it seems some were against the airport development. I did some searching and was able to find an articles in the Chronicle Herald, this one and this one from the CBC about it. There are some interesting quotes in the Chronicle Herald from the antagonists. Mr. Johnson, the airport developer, is quoted as saying:

I’m not going to tell everyone my game plan. You don’t ask businesses to give away their business plans. But I can assure you, it’s nothing for the citizens to get concerned about.

Which is an understandable position, but not one that will instill a lot of confidence in the non-flying public. Mr. Ripley, a member of a citizens' group opposing the airport, said:

We have no issues with his operation or how he flies. We’re not even against aerodromes, just where this one is proposed.

Also according to the Chronicle Herald:

Nova Scotia Transportation Minister Angus MacIsaac asked Mr. Cannon in a recent letter to amend regulations so all new aerodromes require Transport Canada approval, regardless of location, size, type or proximity to population.

This is just plain scary. On the other hand maybe I can get some Federal minister to enact regulations to stop my neighbor from running his noisy, polluting and dangerous snowmobiles and ATVs, or hunting deer on his property.

Perhaps if these community groups and Mr. MacIsaac used their influence with Mr. Cannon to put in place assurances that General Aviation could get economical access to Halifax International airport there would be no fiscal basis, or need for Mr. Johnson's airpark. Just a thought.

xkcd - A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language - By Randall Munroe

I could not have said it better myself. (Agawa Bay on Lake Superior, Aug 2003, while the lights were out over most of the Great Lakes basin.)

GRC SecurAble: Determine Processor Security Features

GRC SecurAble: Determine Processor Security Features

For MS Windows users.

As reported on the Security Now podcast focusing on hardware data execution prevention (DEP), GRC has released a tool to determine if an Intel or AMD processor supports DEP, 64 bit instruction or visualization. The GRC site does a very good job explaining why these may be important to your machine. Suffice to say that if you are able to enable DEP on your machine it will protect your machine from the exploit that most malware uses to gain control over your computer.

In order to be in effect DEP must be enabled on the hardware and in the operating system. SecurAble will tell you if DEP is available on your machine. Then next steps are to make sure the BIOS does not disable it on boot, and the OS uses the capability. I will caution you that unless you really understand this material you should not just enable DEP. If any of your hardware drivers or critical software do not meet DEP constraints Windows may fail to boot. What is needed is a tool that will assist the average user to configure DEP in a way that will allow them to detect and work around any such issues. Happily, GRC is working on that tool now. More on this when it is released.

Find out what’s happening at Toronto City Centre Airport (CYTZ)

From the COPA news page:

Tuesday, February 13 at 7:30 pm Porter FBO at CYTZ

Open to anyone who would like to hear about the future of general aviation in the GTA. Landing fees are waived for the meeting, which will feature:

- Kevin Psutka, COPA President, who will provide his perspective on general aviation and airports in the Greater Toronto Area.

- Jim Morrison, VP Porter Airlines/Porter FBO, who will discuss Porter Airlines, what the FBO has to offer for our sector of aviation.

- Bill Yule, CYTZ Airport Manager, who will be available to provide information and answer questions about the airport.

- a discussion about the need for and future of COPA Flight 32 as a focal point for central Toronto pilots.

RSVP and send any questions to Bill Nalepka, Flight 32 Captain at nalepka@rogers.com or call 416-222-2124.

TSB Report: Difficulty to Control Cessna 150G

TSB Reports - Air 2000 - A00O0210

I came across this report a few months ago. It has all the hall marks of any aviation accident except in this case the PIC, a flight instructor, is able to regain control and bring about a safe recovery. There is an important lesson here for light piston owners and renters. This post is based on the Transportation Safety Board report, Environment Canada weather archives, and my opinions. Let's start with the summary.

Summary

The student pilot and the flight instructor took off from the Kingston, Ontario, airport to practice stalls in the Cessna 150 aircraft. The instructor first demonstrated the stall and recovery, then had the student attempt the same procedure. On his first stall recovery attempt, the student was slow to apply back pressure on the control column to bring the nose of the aircraft up. The instructor took control with the aircraft in a nose-low attitude. When the instructor applied back pressure, he found that the elevator control was restricted from full movement. Although he exerted considerable force on the control column, he could not get the elevator control back beyond neutral.

The aircraft reached a speed of approximately 190 miles per hour before the instructor was able to slowly pull out of the dive. The instructor was able to maintain altitude and fly back to Kingston Airport for an emergency landing by using a combination of back pressure on the elevators, full nose-up trim, and an engine power setting of 2500 revolutions per minute. During final approach to the runway, as the instructor applied flap to slow the aircraft, the elevator controls became free, and he was able to carry out a normal landing. The aircraft sustained substantial damage to the wings, flaps, and ailerons as a result of the overspeed situation.

The class 4 instructor had accumulated some 300 hours (60 hours instructional), the student 7.1 hours in nine calendar days. I can imagine them completing the ground briefing covering the lesson to be conducted, inspecting the airplane, starting and departing for the practice area. The report does not specify the weather but presumably any ceiling would have been high enough to allow the required altitude for recovery. Environment Canada archive data indicates that many of the preceding days were dominated by cloudy skies, fog and rain. The 13th is reported as mainly clear all day, certainly a good day for upper air work.

The instructor demonstrated the stall and recovery then had the student enter a stall and recovery. As the maneuver progressed the the recovery phase "the student pushed the control column forward aggressively, and the aircraft entered a dive". The instructor took over "when he judged that the student was not initiating an effective recovery." All is progressing as it should, unfortunately a very natural reaction by the student had reveled a hither to undetected flaw in the aircraft. As the instructor acted to recover from the stall he found "considerable resistance and was unable to pull the control column past the neutral position". The instructor was able to arrest the dive and maintain altitude with constant back pressure and high engine power. He set course for Kingston and declared an emergency. While maneuvering for landing he selected flaps in an attempt to reduce airspeed. In correcting for the pitch trim change caused by the flaps the instructor noticed he now had full elevator authority. A safe landing was made without further difficulty.

The aircraft was examined but no control anomalies were found. During the examination the cabin air knob was found pulled fully out. The aircraft had be retrofitted with an intercom using push to talk switches of the type that are held on the yoke with Velcro and connected to the intercom system by a self coiling cords. The cord on the right side was old and had lost much of its elasticity. The cord, now some four feet long was wrapped several times around the control yoke shaft in an attempt to keep it out of the way. It seems, however, that one of the wraps was loose enough to swing forward during the stall recovery, entangling with the cabin air knob. Once so engaged aft pressure would tighten the loop effectively jamming elevator control. In hind sight, if the instructor had released back pressure, as he did after deploying the flaps, he might have freed the controls sooner. In truth though, without identifying the fault first, he could not know if forward movements of the yoke might result in the elevator jamming in a more nose down position, resulting in a far worse situation than he was in.

In the end the only negative outcome was over speed damage to the airplane. Much less costly that it could have been. In return we get a very valuable lesson. Boxing the controls during preflight is not really enough. Are there any snares laying in wait in your airplane, or those you rent? I know I gave my airplane a close examination after reading this report.

Safe Flight.

COPA - GA Aerodrome Support

COPA is asking for the GA community to support the creation of an airport in Belnan (near Halifax) from actions contemplated by the local MP and the Minister. Given recent events, as detailed in the article, it seems to me that some grass roots support of an airfield near Halifax is in order.

If you scroll down at the link above you will also find that Trudeau (CYUL) and Mirabel (CYMX) now have shiny new landing fees of $46.68 pus tax.

More fodder for David's list of infamy.

COPA Flight Log - Electronic Logbook. Part 2

COPA Flight Log - Electronic Logbook. Part 1.5

The insurance for one of the airplanes I'm listed on is due, so I must provide new logbook times. Goop incentive to finish loading up the COPA Flight Log to see how it does. If you have read my previous posts on this you know that imports of export files, even those create by Aloft cause a crash. I sent an email to Skymark on January 27th, so far I have not received any reply.

There is another bug as well. When I enter a number of flights, as in bringing the program up to date with my log book, there is a Save and New button which completes the current entry but leaves the flight entry dialog up ready for the next flight. Unfortunately using this option also occasionally causes the program to crash, loosing all entries made during the session.

Once all my data was entered the program was able to give me all the totals, and past 12 month figures the insurance company wants. Overall it seems like a fairly good design for private pilots or students, but the bugs and level of support are discouraging. If you're looking for an electronic logbook, and don't do a lot of flying, or have a very full log book this program may be worth your time.

Too Nice to be Landbound

This morning dawned a beautiful clear blue sky, much too nice a Sunday to waste on the ground, even at minus 11C. So out to the airport to plug in the preheat and scrape the light skiff of snow that arrived yesterday way from the hangar. One of the things that is unique about my Cherokee is the turn coordinator. In the more common form of the instrument the pictorial representation of the airplane moves in response to bank and roll motion of the airplane. The turn coordinator in my airplane the airplane remains fixed the schematic horizon moves.

The first picture (on the left), taken on the ground, shows a close up view of the instrument. I've only seen one other like it in an avionics repair shop, although this configuration seems to be growing in popularity and new ones are available on the market.


The next picture is in flight, almost in a rate one turn to the right. The picture is a little blurry from vibration, but you can clearly see that the horizon line on the turn coordinator (bottom centre) closely matches the horizon line of the artificial horizon (top right). Personally I find this a more intuitive display with coordinated movement, though other pilots who've flown the plane are not as enthused. The other reason I prefer the this display is that while on the gauges there is only one place to focus attention for rate of turn information. With the common format the index marks are near the left side for left turns and the right side for right turns.


Whatever your preferences for instrument displays, it was a very good day to be in the air.

COPA Flight Log - Electronic Logbook. Part 1.5

COPA Flight Log - Electronic Logbook. Part 1

It has been quite a while since part 1 of this series so I thought I should get an update going. I haven't had too much success with the import feature. I created a query for my Access database to pull out the data this software wanted and put it in a comma separated list file. Unfortunately when I tried to import the data the Logbook crashed. I checked my file, made a few tweaks, but the Logbook still crashes. So I made some standard entries into the Logbook, exported them, cleared the log and tried to import the file just exported, and it still crashed.

So, I'm torn between submitting a support request and entering all my flight data by hand. I'll probably do the former and get a start on the latter this weekend so at least I can make some reasonable comments on the software.

Big Sky Theory

Quite often the immense volume of the sky keeps us safe. Every so often it fails and tragedy happens. Sometimes its just time to call it a day.

unGPS

For Christmas I received a Garmin Street Pilot C330. This is a GPS based automotive navigation system featuring a 3.5 inch colour LCD touch screen, a road and address database for all of North America (or Europe), a suction cup mount and the ubiquitous cigarette lighter adapter. It will provide turn by turn guidance with on screen cues and voice directions in a number of languages with a pleasant female voice. I like the British English voice. It sounds a bit like Claudia Black paying Aeryn Sun on Farscape. The ubergageteers out there will be thinking this is old hat, but I still have enough Luddite in me to want to know what the technology is doing before I rely on it and I want to be technology's master, not its servant or peer. I've use a Belkin Bluetooth GPS and navigation software with my iPaq. It is a more open solution in that the GPS can be used with other software on the iPaq, or a Bluetooth enabled laptop. The road navigation software had some fatal flaws, I may post something on it latter. For now back to the street pilot.

As a pilot, armature radio operator and general techno geek I was immediately struck by how unGPSish the unit is. It won't, for example, give you a position by latitude/longitude or any of the other standard coordinate systems, nor will it give you the number of satellites it can receive or any information about the visible constellation. You can poke your finger at the streets on the map and it will give you a street number for that location if one exists. It does have a cellphone like cluster of 5 vertical bars of increasing size that tell you in a very general way how likely it is to know where you are. Given the intended market I understand these design choices, I'm just wondering how I will be able to get along with it.

One problem with all navigation systems is that the guidance is only as good as the available data. In the aviation world the required data are maintained by government authority and distributed on a 56 day update cycle by commercial companies, like Jeppesen. I'm not sure where Garmin gets the road database from, but if it contains errors, the GPS will provide bad directions.

The unit can be configured to avoid some of the less salubrious driving experiences: U-turns, highways, unpaved roads, toll roads and carpool lanes. A look at the on-line manual tells me that it will only avoid these things if doing so won't take me too far out of my way. I stumbled upon a way to add what the unit calls 'via points'. It will guide me to the via point then to my final destination, thus forcing the unit to guide me further out of the way than it normally would to avoid roads I don't want to drive. But that requires a knowledge of the route that eliminates the need for a navigation system.

The user interface for entering in text for city and street names is ABCDE format not QWERTY format. The back light is adjustable but even set to 0% intensity it is still brighter than I would like for night driving and not off which one might think. 100% intensity isn't bright enough for driving into the sun wearing shades if the unit is mounted to the windscreen. It will switch automatically between day and night mode, and remember the last brightness setting. Unfortunately it switches at sunset and sunrise, so the last remembered brightness will likely be too bright or too dim.

Things I like about it so far:

• It has a huge database. With the Belkin/iPaq solution I had to plan where I was going to go that I may need navigation help, then try to make the required maps fit on the SD memory card, go buy a bigger SD memory card, etc. With this unit I could be abducted by aliens and use it to find my way home, as long as they're North American aliens.
• The voice directions are loud, and clear and have a convenient volume knob (no piling into the car in front of you while surfing the menus just trying to get the thing to shut up).
• It is very fast calculating routes, taking only a few seconds to find its way halfway across the country.
• It turns on when given power from the cigarette lighter, and will turn off 30 seconds after power is removed unless battery operation is selected.
• It has a safe mode which warns you about playing with it while the car is moving. This mode can be turned of so a passenger can update the route.
• If no destination is programmed in it will display the next cross street eliminating the annoying search for the hidden street sign.
  

I recently had an opportunity to use the unit on a trip to a distant large city. The hotel we were going to was not located exactly where the database thought it was so we missed the entrance the first time, but the unit guided us neatly around the missed approach for another try. Over three days the unit took us shopping and eating and back to the hotel much more easily than we could have done with hard copy maps. On one excursion the digital sign over the expressway warned of 30-35 minute delays ahead. With two button pushes I was given new directions before I passed the next exit. Since I was supposed to meet someone in less that 30 minutes that trick alone is probably worth the price of the unit.

Finally the biggest advantage is that navigation errors can be blamed on the Garmin. This goes a long way to reduce the chances of an argument with the SO when stuck in traffic or lost. That is definitely worth the price of the unit.

Winding up the Rubber Band

AVweb was kind enough to post this video to YouTube:



It's from 94 so it has been around the web for a while but it is nice that someone found it so we can all look at it again, or for the first time if that's the case. Wikipeadia has a good article on spins and spin recovery as well as another spin video link.

Both these videos have the airplane spinning to the left. A left hand or anticlockwise rotation is common because, even though fixed wing trainers are usually certified for spin recovery they often have design elements which make them resistant to spinning, gyroscopic precession of the rotating propeller, as the nose pitches down, will tend to yaw the plane to the left, assisting a spin in that direction. Stalling with high propeller RPM may be enough to cause a spin without any other encouraging input, and carrying high RPM through the incipient phase can cause the spin to flatten. I have done the occasional spin to the right, other than being slightly more difficult to enter than a left spin, I haven't noticed any significant difference in the spins themselves or the recovery, except for one time.

After a hiatus in my flying I thought it prudent to take some extended recurrent training. So I shopped around till I found a school with an instructor that impressed me with his plan to bring me up to speed. Using a Cherokee 140 over several days we worked our way through the standard PPL syllabus, smoothing out the rough spots as we went. Once done he asked me if I wanted to do some spins, they weren't required, but why not! So we climbed up and between us did 4 or 5 spins, all to the left. It was a real hoot and very good revision. I stabilized in a climb after the last one he looked at his watch and announced that we were getting near the end of our time block but we might have time for one more if I was up to it. Of course I was! He said I could try one to the right if I wanted, so standard entry technique, right rudder and smart as you please we were spinning to the right with a nice stable rotation. He called for recovery, and I applied full left rudder. To my surprise the rotation to the right accelerated. He must have been expecting it because simultaneously his arms left the standard instructor position (crossed on his chest) and flew to the yoke. I beat him though and got the nose down, the rotation stopped and recovery was completed without any additional excitement. When we got down my instructor walked up to the dispatcher (who was working on his commercial at the time) and said "You're right, spins to the right in that plane do...". Well it was a surprise to me, but good training and a confidence booster for all that.

So if you're a pilot, or student pilot, have you done spin training? What is your left right ratio, and have you encountered any quirky spin behaviour?

Radar Loss of Separation Alerts, ELTs and Smoke Alarms

How are these things related? Well the simple answer is that they could save your life. An other answer is that they are all complex technologies which aim to solve pernicious problems by alerting humans to danger. They also share a property with all complex technologies, bugs. Bugs in an alerting system lead to two types of false alarms:

• False negatives, where a real problem goes undetected, or unreported by the technology.
• False positives, where an alert is issued when there is no problem.

False negatives lead to law suits and so get prompt (in the broadest sense of the word) attention from regulators and manufacturers. False positives are often seen as an inconvenience that can be most effectively dealt with by the human when alerted. Unfortunately humans usually have a direct response when face with a high rate of false positive alerts.

The tech that cried wolf

When smoke detectors first became available they had a very high false alarm rate. Often residents would solve the problem by disabling the smoke detector with predictable and unfortunate loss of life. However legally mandated installation in residential buildings created a huge market. Competing suppliers drove improvements to the technology that has brought the false positive rate down to a very low level.

Aircraft ELTs (Emergency Locator Transmitter, which Search and Rescue can use to find missing aircraft) come in three flavours by TSO designator (the Technical Service Order or TSO is one of the ways equipment can get approval for use in an aircraft, and is required for ELTs); C-91, C-91A and C-126. Due to a whole bunch of history that I won't go into, the C-91 and C-91A units were (in my personal opinion) never properly engineered to do the job. This has lead to a staggering number of false positives, and an appalling though not widely reported number of false negatives. While the aviation community was wrestling with the limitations of C-91/C-91A units, the maritime community was adopting the Category I and II EPIRB which would later be imported into aviation as the C-126 or 406MHz ELT. Through some creative and dogged pursuit of their mandate the aviation SAR community has never given in to the temptation to ignore this particular boy crying wolf. But the system has. Citing the better performance of the 406MHz technology, and the high cost of maintaining the 121.5MHz COSPAS/SARSAT packages processing of the 121.5MHz signal will cease 1 February 2009. If you read enough material on the subject you will also encounter references to the high false alert problem.

So why not just buy a C-126 ELT? This is a very complex issue. If you are involved in general aviation this is something you should educate yourself on and decide for yourself what to do.

Lastly, in the aftermath of a mid-air collision over La Mesa California Feb 8, 2006 it appears that controllers have displayed the same human frailty as early smoke detector owners. I am glad to see that at least some attention was given to fixing the false alerts. If the response is only to require controllers to forward alerts to pilots as the technology issues them, it would only move the problem from controllers (who are all professionals, current and experienced in assessing the traffic threat, of whom we can expect more) to pilots (who may only fly recreationally, be inexperienced in dealing with high traffic volume and the technology quirks, and finally just as able to fall into the trap of ignoring the boy who cried wolf).

If we want safe homes and safe airspace we need to deal as proactively and diligently with false positive alerts as we would with accident investigation reports. Replace the cranky smoke detector and give it fresh batteries, check ELTs after landing or servicing the airplane, be vocal when safety technology promotes more annoyance than safety.

Live footage - ALG

I found this footage amazing when I first saw it back in 1999, eight years later landing technology has improved but I think this is still amazing. Warning there is some strong language at the end.

Live footage

COPA Flight Log - Electronic Logbook. Part 1

COPA in conjunction with Skymark Technologies is offering members a free copy of COPA Flight Log electronic logbook. As an aircraft owner I have to be frugal, and the price is right. I'm a self confessed geek so my system is littered with all kinds of software that I have tried so what's one more download. I'm also skeptical, I've been in IT long enough to know that some free software isn't worth what it cost, on the other hand some free software is better than any you could buy no matter the cost. So off I go testing the software.

Since I'm a geek you might think I could write my own electronic log book. Well I have, but I'm also a pilot so given the choice between using brain cells writing software and flying I would rather fly. So I do have a spread sheet, and an Access database in addition to my hard copy logs, but neither is anything special. But I do know what I want from an electronic log book.

The first step is to get the swag installed. The COPA page has some nice screen shots, the standard download link and a form to request a serial number, more on that later. The download is an executable Install Shield package weighing in at 2.66MB. IE (shudder) will probably offer to install it for you, follow your heart.Firefox drops it in the location of your choice where opening it starts a quick and painless Windows (if you agree to the fine print) install.

To get a serial number you have to give your name and an email address. The serial number is related to your name. You have to give both to the software to activate it. Very common now but I don't have to like it. You are also given the option of opting in to marketing info email. Since I have my own domain and email server, I can create and destroy addresses at will, so I hand over an address and I'll take the hype, for now at least. I was thanked for my interest and told my serial number would be mailed to me soon. That was at 1840 so let's see what soon means.

While I'm waiting what kind of things do I want to see. Well, I've been flying for quite a while so I would like to be able to start using it without having to enter in all my flights. But I would like to be able to go back and enter all my flights over time so that my entire flying history is eventually in electronic format. It would be fantastic if I could import the data from Access or the Excel but that would have required them to know my schema, or me to write a translation schema so I don't seriously expect this. It should track all Transport Canada recency and currency milestones but it would be very nice if it would allow me to create my own checks to cover recency specified by flying clubs or organizations like Hope Air or CASARA.

The email with my serial number arrived by 2242. I don't know if 4 hours is typical, but you may end up doing this install over a couple of evenings because of this. I had gone to bed before the mail arrived so play had to wait until I got home from work again. Armed with the serial number I finished the install and found out two things I like:

• It has a feature to find new versions. The pop up contains information on the changes and were to go to get the new version.
• There is a logbook import feature and a comma separated data file translator. Importing data from Excel or any other program that will produce a CSV file should be easy.

I will let you know how the update, and import goes once I've worked through those steps.