Wednesday, February 21, 2007
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.
Monday, February 19, 2007
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.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
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)
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
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.
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.
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.
Monday, February 12, 2007
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.)
Sunday, February 11, 2007
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.
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.
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
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.
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
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.
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.
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.
SummaryThe 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 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 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.
Monday, February 5, 2007
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.
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.
Friday, February 2, 2007
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.
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.
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