nec Temere nec Timide

Leadership Character

2011-12-21T02:07:00.001Z

A six-part series by West Point’s Col. Eric Kail

Parts 1 through 5 have been published. In my opinion a must read.

My Introduction to Steampunk

2011-12-18T23:18:00.002Z

I have been a long time fan of Tanya Huff. Her Keeper's Chronicles series is a favourite of mine, as are the Blood Books (I did watch and enjoy all the TV episodes as well). A tweet from Tanya turned me on to Cold Magic by Kate Elliott. That lead to the Crossroads Trilogy while waiting for Cold Fire. Finishing up Crossroads put me a bit behind in reading Cold Fire So I'm only about halfway through. I think what I enjoy most about Kate's writing in the Spiritwalker series is that the Steampunk world she has created serves as a backdrop for the main characters' interaction with the spirit realm and each other in much the same way that late twentieth century Southern Ontario serves as a back drop for Tanya's Keeper's Chronicles and Blood Books.

Back After a Long Hiatus

2011-12-18T03:06:00.002Z

I have been off working on other things, and neglecting my blog. But now I hope to be able to put some effort into this part of my on-line life. I'm glad to see many of my old friends on my blog roll are still active.

It was also time for a make over.

Happy Canada Day

2010-07-01T12:58:00.002+01:00

Software Kudos

2009-03-29T18:32:00.003+01:00

I haven't posted much lately. I the reason is simple, I had a large Blackberry project coming to IOC deployment and my new Blackberry (a Bold) decided that third party applications were toxic, and after loading some number of them it would turn into a brick. For a long time, the only information I could get was that it was the fault of the third party (ie me) application writers. Much angst and many sleepless nights later I find out there was a bug (well two bugs actually) with the Bold OS, one that causes random failures during reboot, made more frequent with more applications loaded not just mine; and one that prevents third party applications from launching Blackberry Maps. Being able to use the blackberry is a very important feature of my project. Launching Maps is cool, but useful. So first kudos given, albeit grudgingly, to RIM for finally getting around to fixing these bugs. I will recommend the latest release 4.6.0.418 / 4.6.0.247 (Multilanguage) because that is what I'm using.

Next, my shop is full of virtualization fans. So kudos to VMware for releasing ESXi for free use. If you are using data centre virtual servers ESXi is the tool to use.

USB is a big problem for virtualization. It was never designed for that, and it shows in the difficulty virtual servers have in trying to support it. VMware neatly solved this problem in ESXi by ignoring it. No USB support. But what do you do if you want to connect a USB device to your virtual client? There are many solutions out their but I decided to use USB over Network from FabulaTech. It worked flawlessly for everything I tried, which is more than I can say for USBAnywhere.

Then I had to upgrade my Blackberry OS (see above). The macine I use to do this is where I had the USB over Network server running. My Blackberry wasn't shared, so the Blackberry Desktop software was abel to connect and start the upgrade process. At a point in this process the Desktop software must reboot the the Blackberry, then connect to low level software to replace the operating system. Now, the USB over Network server has to grab each USB device as it is connected so that it knows what to do with it. Once that decision is made the server may release the device. Unfortunately this release tells the Blackberry to reboot. So the Desktop software can never replace the OS and the upgrade fails.

I was in a bit of a hurry so I justed un-installed the USB over Network server. This resulted in being sent to a web page to let FabulaTech know why I was removing their software. So I told them, did my upgrade and re-installed the server.

The next day I got an email from a product manager looking for more details. So kudos twice to FabulaTech for makeing good software, allowing a free trial, and standing behind what they make.

Last but certainly not least Zarafa. They claim all the advantages of Exchange at 50% the cost. From what I can see they are being far too modest. For one Zarafa runs on on Linxu using open source products like Postfix and MySQL. They provide a virtual appliance, so if you are using a VMware virtual server product installation is as simple as plugging in the appliance and making a few simple configuration changes. They even supply tools to support the Blackberry Enterprise Server. So if you, like me, have been wanting to set up and take advantage of a small Blackberry Enterprise Server, but don't know how, or don't want to deal with the issues of setting up and maintaining an Exchange server give Zarafa a look. They will aslo give you a free trial license to check it out. Their web mail client is well worth a test drive even if you don't need all the enterprise stuff.

Oh, and I got some good long cross country flights in the plane over the last few months.

Google Latitude Thinks I'm in Arkansas

2009-02-11T14:36:00.005Z

I installed Google Maps 3.0.0, then 3.0.1 on my Blackberry. Both have Latitude (press has not been universally positive). Big brother worries aside for now, for some reason when ever I get to work, it thinks I'm in Arkansas. Never been, though I'm sure it's lovely.

So, if people are worried about the implications of Google tracking and storing where one is, what about where one isn't?

Update

I couldn't leave this alone. One of the location based technologies Google uses to support Latitude is WiFi based. It turns out that by turning off WiFi on my Blackberry I am now back from my Arkansas vacation. So I guess my WiFi router is in Cozahome, not on my desk where I put it. Bad router! Time for a leash. ~~I don't seem to have this problem with my router at home.~~ I do have the same problem at home.

There's a Party in my Blackberry, No One Else is Invited

2009-02-06T02:49:00.003Z

I've had a Blackberry Bold for a while now. I haven't blogged about it because the OS it was launched with became famous for instability. I upgraded twice looking for a stable platform. I'm also a developer for Blackberries, and there is nothing that can take the confidence away as fast as bricking your own Blackberry with the latest version of your own software.

I managed to beat down all the bugs except a pernicious and difficult to isolate one. Occasionally I would install a new version of my precious project. A reboot would be required, fine, no surprise. But, partway through the boot process it would halt at the dreaded white screen with tiny writing "App Err 200" and a "RESET" button. Some times resetting would result in a clean boot, often and more frequently as time passed, not. Finally I'd have to give up and wipe the device and re-install the OS. A good learning experience but once was enough. I eventually tried a removing the IT Policy. That worked by not really better than a re-install.

The event log was clear that the Application Manager (the program that displays the home screen and lets you launch other applications) detected too many processes, and just stops. I understand that a small device has limited resources, but stopping is perhaps a little drastic. Sometimes removing my, or other applications would result in a clean boot, often not. Frustration writ large.

Finding information on Blackberry errors is always a challenge, but when I found this knowledge base article I was a bit embarrassed. It claims to have been around since May 2006, I should have found it sooner. So Blackberries can only run 48 concurrent processes. That should be plenty no? Well apparently not. There are a lot of processes that run all the time in the background to do useful things. Over the past few months lots of user applications have been released for the Blackberry; Facebook, Flicker, Twitter, MySpace and a whole drawer full from Google. I don't run all of those, but some. Many need, or can be configured to run at startup. Most of my own applications also have to run at startup. So a routine reboot can turn into a process storm.

If RIM wants to keep pushing the social networking applications to broaden the appeal of the Blackberry beyond the boardroom they will have to come up with a more robust way of dealing with this situation. In the mean time their advice for developers building multiple auto starting applications is to have one seek out and run the others. And it works.

Yippie! Stability, it's a good thing.

Farewell Soldier

2009-01-19T11:23:00.000Z

The funeral for Trooper Brian Richard Good was today. I did not know Trooper Good personally, but he is a soldier, a comrade in arms. I grieve the loss of all my comrades who die in service but Trooper Good is special to me. Not because his story is special, though if you read about him you will know that it is. All soldiers' stories are special if you take the time to learn them. Trooper Good is special to me by fiat of chance.

On a cold Saturday in January my wife and I found ourselves driving East on Highway 401 leaving Toronto. The Highway of Heroes, though the heroes travel West. My first trip on the road since it had been renamed. As we traveled past Oshawa around 2 PM we started to see people standing on overpasses, looking East, into a cruel wind. In ones and twos. In groups of ten, twenty, thirty and more. Some with firetrucks, others with police cars, or ambulances, or all three. Every group had Canadian Flags. Small ones on sticks in small hands. Larger ones held between two or three. A huge one stretched on a guard rail. Mile after mile, bridge after bridge, on each one more and more people arriving to take up vigil. By now we were nearing Trenton and it was nearly 3 PM. The people we had seen on the first bridges had been waiting an hour. Would be waiting at least another hour for Trooper Good to pass. The Highway of Heroes climbs a hill just West of Trenton. We descended that hill and turned the final corner to find dozens of cars stopped. Some on either side of the lanes, some on the road. Stopped out of respect. Just beyond was an overpass covered with emergency response equipment, and just entering the West bound lanes was Trooper Good's motorcade.

It was a very moving experience. Not just seeing the motorcade, but knowing so many Canadians care enough to brave a cold and windy January day to stand on an overpass and wait so long to bid farewell to a fallen hero.

To Sandra, Kayla and Jessica, my heartfelt condolences.

To Brian, farewell.

Resolutions for 2009

2008-12-29T03:06:00.004Z

I don't normally hold with the tradition of making resolutions at the turn of the calendar. I believe that if I find a deficiency in my life, or just want to change my direction, I don't need a celestial trigger to take action. That said, the last two months have been a watershed of introspection for me. I've made new friends, both on-line and in real time, I've been offered new opportunities in both my paid, and volunteer work. Finally I've taken two weeks off to be with family over Christmas. A very fertile environment for new plans and hopes for the future. Also a number of other pilots who blog are committing resolutions to the net. I'm not one to let a band wagon pass without at least testing the ride so here goes:

Loose 20lbs. This is a fairly standard resolution, but I have a slight twist which I hope will motivate me to make it happen. My airplane burns 1lb of fuel per minute at maximum cruise. If I loose 20lbs I can cary 20 minutes more fuel, which is a third of my personal reserve. It will also make my wife and doctor happy.
Spend more time with my family and friends. This unfortunately means cutting back on some of my volunteer activities. Sulako has set a target of 10%. I think that is reasonable and what I'll aim for too. The problem is, there are so many good causes out there, and so few people actually willing to commit time and energy to them.
Do more long cross country trips in the plane. I hope to combine this with #2. I learned, or perhaps relearned, on a trip earlier in the month that the distance spanning abilities of GA can bring us together with people we care about that is not possible with other modes of transport.
Finish two renovation projects. I have four or five on the go, some for an embarrassing long time. I really should finish them off, and I can combine this with #2 as well.
Because 5 is a Dihedral Prime, there is a certain asymmetric symmetry that I like, so my fifth and final resolution is to spend more time kayaking. Since this will also help me with #1 and #2 it will be an efficient use of my time. Besides, there is nothing half so much worth doing than messing about in boats.

Have a safe and prosperous new year.

Dell Insperon Mini 9 - Ubuntu Remix

2008-11-05T19:14:00.003Z

I've been playing with a Dell Insperon Mini 9 for a while. Dell has released an ISO image for the Ubuntu installation on the Mini 9. So far it has been a painful download, and I still have 2 hours to go. Apparently this is a re-install image so it will wipe the hard drive, so I will have to put some thought into how best to create an image of the current Windows XP installation. Right now I'm thinking of shrinking the partition, then using a live CD to copy the image to some place safe.

I'll have to see, download first.

Move to Canada Eh?

2008-10-27T16:01:00.001Z

I'm thankful it isn't that easy.

Morning Routine, XKCD Style

2008-10-17T18:33:00.002+01:00

Which is why I use a Blackberry.

Dell Insperion Mini 9 - Initial Thoughts

2008-10-02T01:39:00.002+01:00

The Dell Inspiront Mini 9 Netbook is reviewed at PC Magazine. I've gotten my hands on a unit with 1 GByte system memory, 16 GByte solid state disk drive with Windows XP Home installed. The unit has been with me for about eight hours and I'm writing this post with it. The actual specifications are available from Dell, or from the PC Mag review, so here I will limit my comments to my impression of how it is to use.

The first impression is the size, as the PC Mag review says it has the same footprint as the ASUS EE PC but a much better screen. The keyboard is also small and has some odd shaped keys around the edges. A machine of this type is always going to be a compromise between ease of use and power vs size and weight. If you are looking for a light duty maching to surf, email blog or office tasks while on the road and you don'd have a lot of space or weight for a lap top the Mini 9 could be for you. Initially I thought I would never be able to touch type on the keyboard, I'm still making some mistakes but it isn't too bad, and I think after a few days I will be back up to my normal speed.

It is really a great package, I'm sitting on the couch, watching PVR with the Mini 9 on my lap and it isn't cooking my thighs. The screen is bright and very readable, there is no fan or disk noise and it isn't much heavier than some of the remote controlls I have for my entertainment system. When the lid is closed, or I just ignore it for too long, it takes some time to get prepared for standby. When I'm ready to go again it takes almost no time to come back up. This is one of the great things about having a solid state disk drive.

Battery life is quite good, the wall wart power charger is tiny compared to other laptops. It would have been very nice if Dell could have arranged to fold the power prongs into the unit like Sony has been doing for a long time. Recharging is very quick, so if you are travelling it may be worth while to pop in the charger for a five or ten minutes during a layover.

I ordered the unit with XP pre-loaded for two reasons: the shipping date was earlier, and I like to have my portable computers dual boot to Linux and Windows (preferably XP) for ultimate flexability. With the XP preload and Open Office installed I still have 10GBytes of disk space left for a Linux partition. I expect the low end versions with 512MBytes of system memory and 4GBytes of disk and Ubuntu pre-installed will be very good, and inexpensive tools for road warriers.

So far I really like it, and it is my favourite mobile computer at the moment.

Blackberry OS 4.5 - The First 12 Hours

2008-08-08T14:03:00.002+01:00

So after about 12 hours of use here are my impressions.

User Interface:
The included applications (Mail, Calendar, Address Book, etc) all have a dressed up user interface. This doesn't add anything but eye candy, but its nice.

Browser:
The WiFi Browser is now called Hot Spot Browser. It now has a start page separate from the bookmark list that has a URL field; a search field that searches Google, Wikipedia or Dictionary.Com; Bookmark and History mini lists that link to full lists; and it does favicons. There also seems to be better JavaScript support. The best thing though is the cursor in column view. This is a cross between what were mobile and desktop views. Instead of scrolling through text and randomly (or so it seems) jumping between links, you can now have a cursor that you can drive exactly where you want. Wonderful.

Calendar:
Appointments can now be "Sent using" one of your configured mail sources. What, exactly that means in every case will need some investigation. Each "calendar" can be configured for wireless sync (if you have a Unite or BES server), and each gets its own colour.

So far I'm pleased, but don't use the Rogers version. Search the web to find the latest release.

Blackberry 8820 OS 4.5 Rogers Upgrade

2008-08-07T13:04:00.004+01:00

I found the official Rogers version of Blackberry OS 4.5 (4.5.0.37 Release 52, the "latest" release for this device is 4.5.0.75) so I've decided to install it today. Normally when upgrading the OS on a Blackberry you want the desktop software version to match that of the OS upgrade. Rogers doesn't have the Desktop Manager 4.5 so I installed the RIM generic version. This simply means that I had to track down and delete (actually I rename) the vendor.xml file. Vendor.xml determines which versions of what software the Desktop Manager will install on the device. If someone else is managing your Blackberry, you probably don't want to do this without their permission, but I manage my own.

Once vendor.xml was taken care of the Desktop Manager offered to upgrade my unit. You will probably, like me, want to go into the advanced options and change the load out somewhat; enable Blackberry Maps, disable languages you don't need, etc. Make sure a complete backup of your data is enabled and click next.

The process of the upgrade proceeded very smoothly but it does take time, and you don't want any interruptions, so make sure you have good reliable power supplied to your PC. The longest part of the installation is after the new software has been installed and the Blackberry reboots. I can take a very long time to come back. This is normal but can be worrying the first time you go through it. My device took nearly a half hour of flipping the hourglass to get everything sorted out. Once it came back the desktop automatically restored the data.

Most things came back just fine. I had to reload Facebook, the starter icon was on the ribbon, but the application was removed. You still can't past the password from the password keeper which is stupid.

So far I haven't noticed any real significant changes. The GPS has a location enable/disable option and location assist. It will take time to see if location assist does anything useful. There is a new theme, but I don't like it any better than the one I'm using now. There are some changes to the WiFi configuration screens that I will have to explore. BIS activation came back automatically, but I had to re-activate on Unite.

Update:

Should have gone with the latest release. 4.5.0.37 has a really stupid bug to find its way into a production release. Sigh!

Cessna 206 - Tiweano Equador

2008-07-21T12:39:00.002+01:00

I came across this video of a jungle landing and just had to share it. Unfortunately the quality isn't really good. Is that a dog on the runway or a trick of the light?

So What's up with the COPA Website - its Back

2008-07-02T14:55:00.004+01:00

~~It looks like the Canadian Owners' and Pilots' Association domain registration has expired.~~

Copa is back. If you go to their web site www.copanational.org you will see ~~a Network Solutions page offering a back order or renewal of the domain. I hope they get this sorted soon.~~ their normal informative pages.

Fabric Covered Car

2008-06-11T20:38:00.001+01:00

We've had fabric covered airplanes for a long time. Shrinking the fabric as part of the finish process allows for quite complex forms without complex production methods. Now BMW is using this in a concept car called GINA. Fabulous! You have to watch.

Climate Change, Food Crisis

2008-04-16T16:18:00.003+01:00

The only thing I have to say about predictions of climate change is: learn some math, look at the data, make your own decision. Perhaps have a look at: Earth's Temperature History: How Well is it Known? for motivation.

If you want to know what happens when a large portion of the world population goes off half cocked in a panic without considering the full impact of a decision have a look at this Google search for the words "climate change ethanol food".

Fast Cars and Faster Planes

2008-03-17T15:08:00.002Z

Time for a little mind candy. A Bugatti Veyron vs Eurofighter.

Lindsay Airport Economic Study

2008-03-04T18:22:00.003Z

Aviation.ca is reporting the results of an economic impact study for CNF4. Seems to be more good news. Now we just have to wait for the task force report in June.

Bumpy Landing

2008-03-04T17:21:00.002Z

Sulako posted a video of an Airbus having difficulty with the wind on March first that got a lot of discussion in the comments at Cockpit Conversation. Here is one of a landing at London City airport January 17th.

More on Spot

2008-02-28T19:23:00.002Z

I've blogged on the Spot before, as have others. Since my last post there has been more from Kevin Psutka at COPA. Basically every thing that looked so reasonable about the proposed ELT regulation has been washed away. US pilots take note, the proposed regulation will require you to install a 406 ELT before venturing into Canadian airspace. What impact this will have on our tourist economy I do not know, but on top of high gas prices and the dollar, it can't be good.

However, this is only a proposed regulation. As Kevin advises, if you have issues with the proposal, let Transport Canada know. Kevin tells you how.

Lastly, there is also an article about Spot at InterGovWorld.Com.

Good News for one Small Airport

2008-02-28T13:23:00.002Z

I've had posts about airports coming under threat from municipal government and local groups before. Happily I found this article about a small town airport that seems to be getting some recognition at least for the fiscal contribution it makes to the area. A bit more digging turned up the actual study posted on-line.

COPA: Aviation Language Proficiency & You

2008-02-28T12:54:00.004Z

I recall Aviatrix wrote something on her blog about this~~, but I can't find the actual article~~. In any case COPA has a short write up on the rather complex issue of Canadian pilots' licence and the ICAO language proficiency certification requirements. There seems to be lots of promises not to violate each other's pilots wafting across the Canada-US border, but I wouldn't want a trip to depend on everyone having gotten the message.

A Successful Crash

2008-02-25T19:41:00.002Z

The latest post over at Cockpit Conversation resonates with some recent events in my flying, and around Eastern Ontario.

During a recent stop over I was showing off the airplane to a youngster. His mother asked me if we wore parachutes. She was a bit nonplussed that my answer was no, it would be too difficult to get everyone out, and that most people wouldn't have the training to use a parachute safely; instead pilots are trained how to land safely in fields in case of emergencies.

Of course we must understand the lay persons attitudes when I pilot puts this training to use, executing what would seem to be a very successful emergency landing that ends up being described as a "soft crash". There was also a great deal of coverage on a First Air 737 completing an emergency landing after having difficulty with flaps.

Perhaps all this coming so soon after a runway overrun at Ottawa has sensitized the press. It would have been nice to see some reporting that indicated that at least two of these occurrences were normal and perhaps the best possible outcomes from mechanical difficulties. I guess I'm just wondering why the press are so quick to point out human error when it is the cause of an aviation mishap, but seem so reluctant to point out when humans, following correct procedures and training, snatch safety from the jaws of danger.

West Jet 737 Skids off Runway in Ottawa

2008-02-18T13:22:00.002Z

Last night after 4mm of freezing rain fell in the Ottawa a West Jet 737 slid off the end of the runway. No injuries were reported among the passengers or crew. Transport Canada and the TSBC are, of course, investigating.

BloggingPilots.Com is Back

2008-01-25T12:32:00.000Z

With a quick restore of an off-site backup www.bloggingpilots.com has returned. Welcome Back.

BloggingPilots.Com Defaced

2008-01-25T02:33:00.000Z

If you are like me and frequent www.bloggingpilots.com you already know the site has been defaced. If you haven't been there yet, I don't advise it. The page placed by the defacers claims to be a warning to the site administrator, but who knows.

With the help of other blogging pilots I have attempted to inform the site administrator, in case he hasn't already noticed. I've removed the link to bloggingpilots from my list but will put it back when the site has been restored.

Some Good News for Lindsay Airport

2008-01-16T13:40:00.001Z

The Lindsay Post reporting on the January 14th public meeting of the Lindsay Airport Task Force indicates that majority of attendees were supportive of continued operation of the airport. This is good news, let's hope it continues.

Lindsay Airport At Risk?

2008-01-14T03:29:00.000Z

I was stunned to read of this over at Information Echo considering the amount of traffic and number of people I see at Lindsay whenever I'm there. I certainly support the airport, and second hopes that the town council will see the benefits of keeping the airport.

WiFi Blackberry

2008-01-09T16:17:00.000Z

A while ago I came into possession of a WiFi enabled Blackberry 8820. I can't and won't be commenting on how this affects voice calling. Blackberries with WiFi only support UMA (Unlicensed Mobile Access), as far as I know none of the mobile phone providers in Canada currently support UMA. I know for sure that mine doesn't. From what I've learned about UMA I'm not holding my breath. UMA allows your mobile provider provide voice service using Voice Over IP (VoIP) and unlicensed wireless (specifically Bluetooth and WiFi) technologies. Initially there are a number of conclusions that are easily leapt to:

There is WiFi access at home, the cottage, work or my favorite coffee shop;
If my call is going via WiFi and the Internet, I'm not using cell tower airtime;
So UMA calls made from home, work or an open access point should be free!

Alas no. If you look at the system diagram at the link above you will see that the Unlicensed network (WiFi) only replaces the cell tower part of your provider's infrastructure. Your call is still handled by the core mobile network.

So what good is UMA. Well it allows mobile providers to provide service by setting up a WiFi or Bluetooth access point instead of a full on cell tower. Obviously this would be a lot cheaper. It could allow them to handle more traffic in busy areas, or places where traditional signals don't penetrate easily. They could, but aren't required to, allow me to connect using my WiFi router at home or the cottage where licensed coverage is poor or non-existent. So UMA is good for providers. That isn't necessarily bad for us consumers, but don't expect free unlimited voice calls using UMA over your own WiFi router.

Ok, so is getting a Blackberry with WiFi worth the cost, wait, effort? I think very definitely it is. If you are using a Blackberry and are worried about voice calls you are probably on the wrong platform. The Blackberry is first and foremost a data communications device. Blackberries do voice fairly well, and it is convenient not to have to carry around a phone as well as a PDA, unless you do a lot of voice calling. Data communications with WiFi is everything that voice communications with UMA is not. Even though my provider does not support UMA, I can connect to the internet using WiFi where ever I can get access. I can store my favorite networks and automatically to connect whenever I'm in range. EMail, PINs, web browsing all prefer WiFi over GSM/EDGE when available. One of the nicest features is an additional browser configuration for WiFi. I have my internet (GSM/EDGE) and WAP browsers configured to not download images, the WiFi browser is configured to download all images. I can even set bookmarks to use the WiFi browser to only fetch bookmarks if I have WiFi service, Internet or WAP browsers if I'm willing to use GSM/EDGE bandwidth to fetch them.

The actual implementation of this data magic is not a lot different from the way UMA handles voice. When accessing the internet over GSM/EDGE the Blackberry uses the mobile data provider's network to connect with the Research in Motion operations center. From there the connection may be relayed to the appropriate Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES), or to the Blackberry Internet Server (BIS) which satisfy the request, push email, etc. When the unit switches over to WiFi, it opens up a connection that looks like Secure Hypter-Text Transport Protocol (HTTPS) to RIM which (presumably) does the data transport work in lieu of the mobile network. In theory this means that RIM could keep track of the bandwidth consumed and relay that information to the mobile service provider for billing. I'm hoping they don't because this really makes the Blackberry much more useful. I can carefully sip at essential data, and keep in touch when I'm on the move. I can participate in the full multi-media internet experience (to the extent a Blackberry is able), chat up a storm, or play on Facebook when I'm near a hot spot without dragging out the laptop, sitting at the desktop or worrying about huge data charges. Or so I hope, I'll let you know when the bill comes in.

406 ELT Eh?

2008-01-05T02:16:00.000Z

If you are a member of the Canadian Owners and Pilots Association (COPA) you have probably already read Kevin Psutka's large and detailed article on ELT options for Canada. If you aren't you can, and should, read it on the web site in English or French. The article is full of links to other sources of information, including SPOT a potential alternative to a costly TSO C126 installation, that I first read about at Information Echo in this article. If nothing else you should have a look at the presentation of results.

I would like to thank Kevin and the COPA staff for this work on our behalf. If you are a Canadian Owner or Pilot and aren't a member of COPA, think very seriously about joining.

Still Diggin' Out

2007-12-21T15:10:00.000Z

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

2007-11-13T18:24:00.000Z

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

2007-11-12T22:42:00.000Z

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

2007-11-07T19:01:00.000Z

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

2007-11-07T02:09:00.001Z

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.

2007-10-30T12:01:00.000Z

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

2007-10-29T16:31:00.000Z

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

2007-07-31T17:12:00.000+01:00

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

2007-07-31T16:36:00.000+01:00

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

2007-06-05T13:23:00.000+01:00

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

2007-06-03T18:53:00.000+01:00

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

2007-05-30T16:52:00.000+01:00

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

2007-05-14T12:32:00.000+01:00

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

2007-05-11T22:22:00.000+01:00

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

2007-05-10T12:38:00.000+01:00

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

2007-05-09T12:44:00.000+01:00

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?

2007-05-07T19:37:00.000+01:00

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

2007-04-30T22:35:00.000+01:00

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

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

2007-04-29T02:53:00.000+01:00

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

2007-04-21T18:20:00.000+01:00

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

2007-04-21T16:42:00.000+01:00

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

2007-04-20T20:00:00.000+01:00

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?

2007-04-14T05:15:00.000+01:00

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

2007-04-12T13:49:00.000+01:00

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

2007-04-10T19:40:00.000+01:00

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

2007-04-06T01:29:00.000+01:00

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

2007-04-04T14:11:00.000+01:00

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

2007-04-04T00:37:00.000+01:00

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

2007-03-31T20:57:00.000+01:00

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

2007-03-22T14:55:00.000Z

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

2007-03-16T22:51:00.000Z

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

2007-03-07T18:42:00.000Z

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

2007-03-03T13:04:00.000Z

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

2007-03-01T14:27:00.000Z

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

2007-02-21T18:56:00.000Z

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

2007-02-19T13:02:00.000Z

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

2007-02-14T22:55:00.000Z

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

2007-02-14T16:43:00.000Z

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.

2007-02-14T15:58:00.000Z

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

2007-02-12T19:40:00.000Z

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

2007-02-12T00:53:00.000Z

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

2007-02-11T21:05:00.000Z

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)

2007-02-07T16:54:00.000Z

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

2007-02-06T03:45:00.000Z

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

2007-02-05T18:22:00.000Z

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

2007-02-02T22:33:00.000Z

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

2007-01-28T20:23:00.000Z

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

2007-01-26T17:05:00.000Z

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

2007-01-21T23:05:00.000Z

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

2007-01-21T10:50:00.000Z

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

2007-01-16T17:47:00.000Z

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

2007-01-15T14:33:00.000Z

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

2007-01-14T23:52:00.000Z

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

2007-01-11T23:30:00.000Z

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.

Update on ethanol in auto fuel

2007-01-11T16:33:00.000Z

From the COPA non-members page there is an update on ethanol in mogas for Ontario:

Since the 1st of January 2007, new rules requiring ethanol in auto fuel have commenced in Ontario. Does this mean that aviation use of auto fuel is at an end? Not at all.

The new Ontario regulations require that fuel suppliers must sell their gasoline with an average of 5% ethanol in it. That leaves the door open for some companies to sell some gasoline with 10% ethanol and other products with none.

This is exactly what Shell Canada has decided to do. Information from the company indicates that they will be selling their lower grades of automotive gasoline with ethanol included but that their premium grade gasoline “Shell V-Power” will remain ethanol free.

Other gasoline companies may also provide ethanol-free gasoline around the province at certain times and locations.

With the availability of ethanol-free Shell premium all STC holders will continue to have a source of auto fuel in Ontario.

However, we urge everyone who uses mogas for aviation to carefully check their fuel source to ensure that it does not contain ethanol.

The reason being, under the Ontario province’s new regulation, there is no requirement for fuel companies to post that their fuel contains ethanol if the percentage is 5% or less, so members should be testing every batch they use.

For more information about the Ethanol in Gasoline regulation visit the Ministry of the Environment’s website, http://www.ene.gov.on.ca/envision/ethanol/index.htm.

FAA InFO: Noise Attenuation Properties of Noise-Canceling Headsets

2007-01-09T22:38:00.000Z

An article at AVweb says it all. The FAA InFO is available as a PDF.

NAV CANADA Internet Flight Planning System-Survey

2007-01-09T14:25:00.000Z

Update: According to the COPA non-members page anyone can fill out the survey, there is a link from COPA to the survey so no need to wait.

I received an email from Nav Canada requesting subscribers of the Internet Flight Planning System (IFS) to complete a survey. For those who may not know this system allows subscribers (pilots or dispatchers) to edit, store and file flight plans using a Web Browser. I don't think my Cherokee and I were the primary audience for this system but it does support us and I have found it quite useful on occasion. The survey had lots of the standard Strongly Agree, Agree, ... stuff but also had two free form text areas where the responder could enter opinions, suggestions or product requests. It was not limited to IFS but also had questions targeting the AWWS products as well. If you aren't registered for IFS you won't be receiving the same invitation. Since AWWS is potentially of interest to all pilots I asked a manager at Nav Canada Customer Service Systems & Performance by email if they had plans to survey those who aren't registered for IFS. Within 10 minutes I had received an answer, and they do. So if there is something you like, hate or want on the AWWS page start keeping notes.

Leveraging Blackberries with Open Source

2007-01-09T12:44:00.000Z

Warning: May be Habbit Forming.

If you work in an open source software shop, have people who carry Blackberries activated on your company Blackberry Enterprise Server you want to push data to you should have a look at Jan-Piet Mens' Real-World Blackberry MDS Push Applications: an Extensible Framework. This is one of the best organized and presented piece of open development I've seen for some time. His entire blog, or at least as much as I've read, is all like that. Standing on Jan-Piet's shoulders I was able to go from a standing start to pushing Browser-Message data in the morning, and had extended the frame work to include Browser-Channel data in the afternoon.

If you don't currently have a Blackberry Enterprise Server but would like to use MDS Push applications there are ways without going totally over to the dark side. But I'll save those for latter.

Finding a SAR Plane

2007-01-08T16:13:00.000Z

While reading Cockpit Conversation this weekend I learned about the selection of the new Canadian fixed wing search and rescue airplane (FWSAR). I'm glad Aviatrix has her finger on the pulse of the nation because I don't seem to have the time to read everything I need to, let alone want to. Leaving aside the political fur ball over the contract I think they picked the right aircraft for the following reasons:

The C-27J sports military style glazing in the cockpit, where as the C-295 has a more transport category windscreen. When the mission includes prowling around at 500ft AGL in less than ideal weather surrounded by hills or mountains, the more glass and less aluminium around the pilots the better.
The Spartan shares engines, propeller and avionics with the C-130J which can greatly simplify servicing, maintenance, training and operations.
SAR pallets can be moved between the C-130J and the C-27J without reconfiguration. While the plan seems to call for all current SAR Hercs to be replaced with the new FWSAR, the ability to move SAR crews and their equipment rapidly to the larger aircraft should the need arise is a big advantage.

And of course it has an in flight operable ramp which is essential for loading, unloading and deployment of SARTECHs and their equipment, and many other elements of SAR operational doctrine. The C-27J also has larger side doors than either the C-295 or the C-130J. While this is good for dropping troops it may be a slight disadvantage for a SAR aircraft. Current SAR configured CC130s replace the rear side doors with a plexiglass window attached to a pedestal mounted swivel/slide chair. For searching the spotter can position the chair very close to the window facing outboard. From this position the spotter can easily view from horizon to nadir. If you haven't seen a C-130 side door, imagine a 737 passenger boarding door replaced with a plexiglass wall. Now imagine your seat is positioned so that your knees are in contact with the plexiglass. There aren't very many better positions for a spotter engaged in search. At 700ft AGL and 130kts it provides a riveting view. It would be nice if the existing doors could be moved from the C-130s to the C-27Js but I don't imagine it would be difficult or expensive to have such a window manufactured for the Spartan.

The final judges will of course be the SARTECHs and their flight crews. They truly are heroes and deserve whatever they need to their job effectively and safely. I hope they like their new kit.

See also The Hunt for Affordable & Effective SAR by Peter Pigott and Replacing the Buffalo in Canadian Defence Review.

Missing Man

2007-01-07T16:33:00.000Z

It is always sad to learn of an airplane crash, even more so when it results in the death someone you know even if only well enough to share a beer or hangar flying with. So long Jason, we will miss you.

CNW3

2007-01-06T19:34:00.000Z

Back in July 2005, just after buying into a Piper Cherokee 180 I convinced my wife to fly in to the pancake breakfast put on by the Bancroft Flying Club at the Jack Brown airport. This airport features a number of challenges: the surface is good, but unpaved; at 2200ft it is near the shorter end of the spectrum; trees at both thresholds and rising terrain in all directions require good technique of a pilot flying any of the more modest performing examples of the general aviation fleet. The weather was forecast to be spectacular with the area dominated by high pressure giving clear blue skies and 30°C. Density altitude calculations from the flight manual gave a take off distance to clear a 50 foot obstacle as 2000ft at maximum take off weight. Since we would be at least 450 pounds under maximum for the return trip we would have a nice cushion for any less than perfect aviation on my part. I filed a flight plan and we were off.

The flight up was uneventful until we joined for landing. The active runway was 30 requiring a dog-leg final approach between areas of elevated terrain. There are segments of this approach where the landing airplane is not visible from an airplane on the ground, and radio contact is blocked by the hills. This is not really a problem, but something to be aware of because it makes it more likely to have conflicts between aircraft on approach and those departing. Just such a conflict happened to us. As we descended on base to final an airplane started backtracking the runway to take off. Once we cleared the terrain and the conflict was recognized he quickly offered to clear the runway allowing us to land. However since there is not a lot of room, and it was my first time in, I elected to go around and inspect the runway and the departure path from low altitude. My second approach culminated in a landing. We shutdown, closed the flight plan and enjoyed pancakes, sausage, bacon, juice and coffee.

After breakfast we toured the line looking at other airplanes and talking with other pilots and their passengers. It was interesting watching other airplanes take off. I quickly noticed that the Cessna 150s and 152s would climb to about 100ft and quickly turn north. It wasn't until my own departure that I would understand this strange departure procedure.

It was soon time to leave. I filed a flight plan, inspected the airplane, started up and completed pre -takeoff checks. Now I was faced with the task of getting to the threshold of runway 30 without creating a conflict. As it turned out we only had to wait for one arrival and the circuit was clear.

Short field technique got us off the ground and over the trees with room to spare. It was quickly apparent that a continued climb at best angle was called for to get over the hills immediately west of the airport. I quick glance to the right showed me the comparatively level ground to the north that had attracted the 150 and 152 drivers. But we were up and away and, once above terrain and circuit altitude, turned on route for home, a fine end to a great day.

We didn't get to Bancroft in 2006 but I hope to get back there in 2007. Good food, good company and a bit of an aviation challenge. Who could ask for more.