Passing It Along

I flew almost every day this week. It's spring break in Texas, and my kids have been home.  My oldest daughter, Thing 1,  is a senior and for a class project she chose "learning to fly".  For many people, that would have been ambitious, but her case, since her dad is an instructor and aircraft owner, it was the "choice of least resistance".  Her boyfriend by way of comparison (a Nation Honor Society Finalist and holder of multiple offers from colleges for "free-rides"), is learning to play the school song on every instrument in the band, and mashing the recording together so that he is playing the whole thing - solo.

I felt that my Bonanza was a bit much for a beginner, so I borrowed a friend's Sundowner for the occasion.  Normally, if I'm teaching a student to get ready for a sport pilot or private pilot license, I'll spend more time in the air doing basic maneuvering, stalls, ground reference and gliding before moving to the airport pattern, but in this case her goal is to be able to fly a complete pattern including the landing in a short time.  I think this is a good thing - when I fly with my family I would like for there to be someone else on board who could get the thing on the ground, in at least a survivable crash-landing.  Thing 1 might fit the bill.

So we started with climbs and descents, level turns, moderately steep turns and simple stall recovery.  Next we moved to an airport and started doing pattern work.  After nearly 1 week, she can now do the full power take off, crosswind climb (with a bit erratic speed control, but within private limits), come back to downwind power (2,000 rpm) and turn onto a 1,000 foot AGL downwind holding 80 kts,  set up for landing (GUMPS, electric fuel pump on, lower flaps, set approach power at 1,700 rpm), do the base leg and turn onto final approach adding more flaps and controlling the descent with pitch and power.  I still have to get on the controls at about 100 feet to help with the flare and touchdown.

My friend's Sundowner is hangared in an awkward spot, and since I want Thing 1 eventually to be able to land my Bonanza, I switched her to the Bonanza on Thursday, but as it does everything 10 to 20 knots faster, and has more to remember - she was overwhelmed.  We're going back to the Sundowner.  But now the weather is changing, the winds are no longer light and aligned with the runway.  They are strong and gusty with a significant cross-wind component.  We'll take it up again next week after school.

Goal Oriented Flying

I don't like mnemonics, and there are many in flying.  Here are a few:

TOMATO FLAMES lists all the equipment required by law for VFR day flight:

Tachometer
Oil pressure
Manifold pressure
Altimeter
Temperature sensor (liquid-cooled)
Oil temperature (air cooled)
Fuel gauge
Landing gear position
Airspeed indicator
Magnetic compass
ELT
Seat belts

At night you have to add FLAPS:

Fuses (spares) or circuit breakers
Landing light (if for hire)
Anticollision lights
Position lights
Source of electricity

If you are flying IFR you must GRABCARD:

Generator
Radios
Attitude indicator
Ball
Clock
Adjustable altimeter
Rate of turn indicator
Directional gyro

And one that all instrument students are taught - the 5 T's:

Twist the heading bug or OBS dial to the new course
Turn to the new course
Tune the new frequency, or navaid
Time - Start your clock at the fix
Talk - make any required radio calls

Mnemonics just don't work for me (quite apart from the stupid silent "m" at the beginning of the word).  My mind isn't wired that way.  Instead, what I found does work is to use what I call Goal Oriented Flying (hey, that's "GOF"!!).  For each stage of a flight, I think about what is it that I want to achieve?  Is it to go as fast as reasonably possible in cruise?  Make sure all sources of drag are removed and that the engine is set as I want (usually 23" of power, 2300 RPM, cowl flaps in, trimmed correctly).  Is it to descend?  Reduce engine power, and add drag if needed.

When flying an instrument approach, what am I trying to?  I need to turn to the inbound leg, at a particular altitude, and I'd been asked to report the outer marker.  Or I know I need to time this leg, so start my clock.   Trying to remember the 5T's just doesn't work for me, especially when most of them are irrelevant at any given point.  At each step, before I reach the start of "something changing" as a waypoint or on a frequency, I think about what comes next and what needs to be done for success.  It's kind of how I approach my everyday life, not just flying.

I think I'm going to try it on one of my basic flying students too, as well as my instrument students.  What are you trying to achieve in a crosswind landing?  To land on the runway, with the upwind wheel first, with the nose pointing parallel to the center line.  Beyond that, does it really matter how you get there?

I do use one mnemonic on every flight - GUMPS before landing.  That's because I'm paranoid about having the gear down and checked.  I check it 3 times on each approach, and on an instrument approach I equate gear down with final descent - I won't fly the glide-slope unless the gear is down and checked.  Gear down - going down.G-D g-d?  Another acronym?

Checklist happy

I made my own checklist in MS Word. It's 2 pages, each side formatted into 3 columns, and laminated back to back into a single, stiff 8 x 11 card that fits into the side pocket by my left leg. I started doing this when I still had my Sundowner, but that one was quite a bit shorter, and had room for things like crosswind control positions and ATC light signals.  My checklist for the Bonanza is quite a bit more dense.

I based it on the POH, but modified it from my initial experience and I had it pretty finalized after about the first 5 or 10 hours in my Bonanza. Once in a while I add or subtract something, but it's mostly stable now after 100 hours.

The front page is the external inspection, engine start (hot and cold), taxi and pre-take off checks - everything that happens with the wheels on the ground. If someone is flying who is unfamiliar with my a/c, I have them hold the check list in their free hand while doing the walk around, but I don't do it for myself, I know my plane and use a walk-around flow. I always use my written check list for engine starts and pre- T/O checks, although I know I know them by heart. It doesn't take any longer, and it takes emotion out of the equation and takes out any temptation to rush.

The reverse side is for in the air - it has the most common V-speeds, T/O and landing procedures for normal, short and soft fields, and in green type (so it doesn't wash out under red light at night), all the emergency procedures. I only really use that side as a memory aid for unusual actions, for normal landings I just use a verbal "GUMPS", but that most translates to "Am I on a tank I know has fuel and is feeding well", and "Are the wheels really down?" I don't usually go to full rich (the engine doesn't like it at low power) or high RPM (the neighbors don't like the noise). So I supposed it's really just G-U (and "do I want to do the M-P bit?") and check seatbelts.

Still I like to have it available, so the day when my gear motor stops, or the engine gets quiet, or I have to land on a soggy grass field, or I'm having a BFR and my CFI decides to wring me out (as I would do to him or her in turn), I'm prepared and ready.

The Night Before Christmas, with too many kids.......

'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the gloom,
Not a creature was stirring - there just wasn't room;
The stockings were hanging in numbers so great,

We feared that the walls would collapse from the weight!

The children like cattle were packed off to bed,
We took a quick count - there were three-hundred head;
Not to mention the grown-ups - those hundreds of dozens
Of uncles and in laws and twice-removed cousins!

When outside the house there arose such a din!
I wanted to look, but the mob held me in;
With pushing and shoving and cursing out loud,
In forty-five minutes, I squeezed through the crowd!

Outside on the lawn, I could see a fresh snow
Had covered the people asleep down below;
And up in the sky, what should strangely appear
But an overweight sleigh pulled by countless reindeer!

They pulled and they tugged and they wheezed as they came,
And the red-suited driver called each one by name:
"Now, Dasher! Now, Dancer! Now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! On, Cupid! On Donner and Blitzen!"

"Now, Melvin! Now, Marvin! Now, Albert and Jasper!
On, Sidney! On, Seymour! On Harvey and Casper!
Now, Clifford! Now, Max!" - but he stopped, far from through;
Our welcoming house-top was coming in view!

Direct to our house-top the reindeer then sped
With a sleigh full of toys and St. Nick at the head;
And then like an earthquake, I heard at the roof
The clomping and pounding of each noisy hoof!

Before I could holler a warning of doom,
The whole aggregation fell into the room;
And under a mountain of plaster and brick
Mingled in-laws and reindeer and me and St. Nick.

He panted and sighed, like a man who was weary;
His shoulders were stooped and his outlook was dreary.
"I'm way behind schedule," he said with a sigh,
"And I've been on the road since the first of July!"

'Twas then that I noticed the great, monstrous sack
Which he barely could hold on his poor, creaking back.
"Confound it!" he moaned - "Though my bag's full of toys,
I'm engulfed by the birthrate of new girls and boys!"

Then, filling the stockings, he shook his sad face:
"This job is a killer! I can't take the pace!
This cluttered old world is beyond my control;
There even are millions up at the North Pole!"

"Now I'm late!" he exclaimed, "and I really must hurry -
By now I should be over Joplin, Missouri!"
But he managed to sigh as he drove out of sight:
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"

(from Mad Magazine).

No Income, No Flying

The Bonanza is laid up in my hangar, on a battery minder, since I don't know when I will fly it next.  That's because in October I was informed that the company I worked for no longer needed my services after Halloween.  That's not actually quite true, they needed my services, and wanted my services, but had to cut somewhere and I was it.  Mandated by the board of directors.

At first it looked like I might find a new job pretty quickly - within a couple of weeks I had three interviews lined up.  But for various reasons, none of them panned out.  So now, with true unemployment ahead, it's budget cutting time in our household as well.  And 100LL Avgas is an obvious target.

Looks like I won't be flying unless acting as an instructor.

Healthcare, Education, and Socialism

So this is going to a moderately political entry, but it's just as much a personal story, appropriate given the ongoing discussion (or argument) about the role of government in American society.

I grew up in England in the 60s and 70s.  I suppose that makes me a Euro-socialist, except that in England I was clearly a conservative.  Not quite in the Maggie Thatcher "shut-down-the-evil-unions" camp, but certainly on the "unions should not be allowed to throttle free enterprise" team.  Although I studied Aeronautical Engineering at university, I also studied social sciences, mostly on the side and not for credit.  Adam Smith's "Wealth Of Nations" and his notions of the invisible hand of the free market influenced me, as did Keynes and Friedman with their concepts about government involvement in national economies to smooth the ride.  The free market is the economic engine, but monetary policy is the springs and suspension.

As such, I was for a generally smaller government than existed at the time in the UK, where about 50% of the employed population worked either directly for governments or indirectly in government owned enterprises such as Roll Royce, British Airways, or British Rail - where my Dad worked designing rolling stock.  The high inflation of the 70's (over 30% in the UK) caused the government to freeze wages in all publicly owned companies, which resulted in us becoming poorer and poorer, especially relative to our neighbors, many of whom worked for private companies which increased salaries to keep up with the high inflation rate (and fed it too).

So when my younger sister became ill in 1971, we had little money to spare.  Fortunately, the much maligned National Health Service (NHS)  provided free care to all comers (and still does, although diminished in modern Britain).  My sister had leukemia, and it eventually killed her after 3 years of hard fought battles, multiple chemotherapy sessions, relapses and emotional highs and lows.  If we have been living in the USA, it would have bankrupted my family within weeks, even with insurance.  Without insurance, I don't want to even think about what would have happened.  So I am a believer in a single payer national (or state) run health insurance that covers everyone.  It's effective, efficient, and means that no-one goes to the economic wall due to sickness.  In the USA that apparently makes me an ultra-liberal, but I think it just makes sense, instead of the miss-mash of semi-free market insurances and individual billers that we deal with everyday.

In 1976, I graduated from my high school after taking A-level exams in Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry, and started college in London.  My family was just squeaking buy economically, and within 6 months my Dad received an offer to work in the USA for 3 times what he was making at British Rail.  Once he arrived, he found out that his peers were making even more, and that the cost of living was even less.  So he prospered in the New World.

Back in the old one, I was studying hard.  Making it easier was the fact that all my tuition, all my books, all my room and board were paid for by the government.  I even got a small grant to live on, supplemented by my parents.  This year, Thing 1 is looking at colleges, and they cost between $47,000 and $18,000 per year, depending on residence status and weather they are private or state owned.  Since she is also a UK citizen through me, I looked at costs in the UK, but we would be classed as non-residents and the prices are about the same over there.  I was fortunate - it might not have been the best of times politically or economically, but my college education cost me nothing, and I think it is very unfair that we are saddling our college graduates with tens of thousands of dollars in debt from day 1, and that the cost of a 4 year degree is about the same as buying and paying for a new house.  I suspect that makes me once again a liberal, although even free market conservatives are sitting up and taking notice of this problem now that it's affecting their bank balances.

So I feel very frustrated when I hear people knocking government and saying that "Government is the problem" (Ronald Reagan), or "Government doesn't create jobs" (Mitt Romney).  I know 100% that they are wrong.  But Government shouldn't expand to own the means of products (socialism) and the power of unions must be restricted to just address issues of employment and not policy.  So what am I?  Pretty much a liberal-leaning centrist, I think.  Even though my Tea Party friends would call me a Euro-socialist.  It worked for me.

There And Back Again

Nothing to do with Hobbits, dragons, dwarfs, elves or men.  Just an example of how owning an airplane can allow you to do something otherwise either very costly, or not even possible.

Thing 1 is now a senior in high school, here in our suburb north of Dallas.  It's time to look at colleges.  Once we get over the shock.

She's (or rather, her Mom and I are) looking at a mixture of large state schools and small liberal arts colleges.  She doesn't want to go far, and with Texas being the size it is, that means we're restricting our search to schools within "easy driving distance".  But that means 5 hours drive, or about New York City to Maine or London to Edinburgh.

One school on our list in the University of Arkansas.  It's big (around 25,000 students), but it has a strong marching band, and marching in a band is one of the few things that Thing 1 is enthusiastic over.  Band kids are universally nice, smart and always friendly.  Going to a big school with a good band will help make the experience manageable and human.  The other choice is a small school with lots of small class sizes and strong interactions.

From here to Fayetteville AR is just over 5 hours in a car, about the same as going to San Antonio or Houston.  Or just over 1.5 hours in a Bonanza.  Last Monday was a school holiday (Columbus Day), so we decided to make use of the free time to visit U of A and see what we are dealing with.

If we'd driven, it would have either been a long, long day, or a 2 day trip involving a hotel room or two.  Our booked time for a tour was 12:30pm, so rather than leave at 6am by road (or leave the night prior), we took off from McKinney at 9:30am, into a clear blue sky with no winds after a cold front came through on Saturday.  A local dentist and pilot crashed his Turbine Bonanza on Saturday, killing himself, his brother and their 2 sons from Southlake TX.  Since they were on their way to the Texas A&M football game and were involved in Southlake high school football, it's very likely they were at the opening day football game for our local high school, which was against Southlake in our new stadium.  Weather was probably the main factor, and possibly fuel exhaustion.

But not for us.  We climbed to 5,500 feet in clear skies and requested VFR flight following to KFYV (Fayetteville-Drake Airport).  The only real challenge was that with 30 or 40 miles to go we started to overfly some low clouds near a mountain lake surrounded by forest.  After a quick check with Kansas City Center who confirmed that Fayetteville was still reporting clear skies, I decided to stay VFR rather than switch to IFR in readiness for a descent through weather.  Fortunately the clouds cleared 5 to 10 miles before we reached our destination.

We were able to take a taxi to the university and get our tour, meet some of the band kids and watch a practice.  We were all quite impressed with the school, despite it's size. Around 4:30 we got a taxi back to the airport and were wheels up on the return flight about 5:15pm, landing just before 7pm.  Not only was it quicker, but by removing the need to drive up the night before and stay in a hotel and eat meals out, most likely cheaper too.  I won't claim that flying normally saves money compared to driving (or taking the airlines), but in this case it did.

Woooooooooo, Pig ! Sooie!