Wiiiiiiiiiiiiii!

Over the weekend, I became a gamer, sort of. No, not the kind of gamer who sits for days playing Dungeons and Dragons, or the kind that gets off blasting cops and hookers in a simulated 'hood. And certainly not the kind of gamer that gets points for generating MASSIVE amounts of blood, dude:

In fact, to be crystal clear, I have always been opposed to violent video games. While not a scientist or psychologist, I believe there is a direct correlation between the amount of violence we seen in today's society and the creation of so many shoot-em-up video games. Anyone who lets impressionable children have simulated FUN killing anything is just training those tots to resort to that kind of thing later in life when some clown cuts them off in the mall parking lot and they go ballistic. In my generation, we just never saw anyone go postal on anyone else after playing a heated game of Pac Man. Take a look at the front page of tomorrow's newspaper, the one thing this world does not need is MORE violence.

No, I am not a member of that gaming community, but I am now a Wii owner. My wife surprised me with Nintendo's unbelievable console, and we also somehow picked up a rare copy of Wii Fit. If you have ever used a Wii, you'll already know this drill:

If you were like me, you thought there was really no way this Wii gizmo could actually work very well. Flailing around your living room with a little remote in your hand simulating the movement you make when you hit a tennis ball or launch a bowling ball? Give me a break, this is technology gone wild. If it works anything like the $100 wireless headphones I recently returned because they were worthless Chinese junk, the Wii will be jumpy and become unreliable the minute my neighbor turns on his electric toothbrush. Oh how wrong I was!

This Wii is amazing in so many ways. It is scary accurate, and will mimic your EXACT hand movements of great games such as golf, bowling, winter sports, tennis etc. The exercise "games" in the Wii Fit program makes exercising fun, and should get quite a few potatoes off the couch, including moi.

So as I became enthralled by Wii, I immediately went to the place I always go...aviation. Since this little Wii remote is so incredibly accurate, wouldn't it make a KILLER joystick for a Wii P-51 Mustang? Sure, there are a few flying games out there, but from the reviews I have read, none of them makes you sweat like X-Plane or MS Flight Simulator:

See, not all aviators want to shoot up Messerschmitt's over Berlin. Some of us more peace-loving flyers want nothing more then to blast through a simulated sky in a virtual taildragger, or try to land a -47 at a virtual JFK. If the Wii technology was to get married to the extreme realism of X-plane, it would be one of the best things to happen to the flight sim community in years. I can see Wii/X-Plane flyers actually needing to post sicksacs around the living room for their virtual passengers.

The art at the top of this post was found on vgboxart.com, an "enthusiast site for box art/covers" that allows video game box designers to post their work. I stumbled upon the fake Microsoft Flight Simulator for Wii box cover by robbier, and went crazy thinking I had found the Holy Grail. But after burning rubber down the onramp getting onto the information superhighway, to my dismay, I soon found that this game does not exist...or does it?

If anyone knows of any Wii flight sims out there that achieve the kind of realism found in X-Plane or MSFS, please hit the "Send me feedback" button at the top right of this page and send me a link.

Aero-TV Dot Net
Sits Down With
The President

No, not THAT President, who cares what "Mr. 23 percent approval rating" thinks. As a duck, he could not possibly be more lame. For us aviators, our real president is AOPA President Phil Boyer, and each time he has spoken since taking that helm, we've listened.

Recently, Aero-TV.net caught up with Boyer, a pilot who is more like the guy in the hanger next to you then a major-league executive that lobbies Washington on our behalf. Each time I have met him, I came away feeling like he was completely honest and approachable, and that what I said mattered to him. Unlike some Federal bureaucracies under BushCo that elevates cronies with zero experience to top positions, Boyer brings plenty of aviation experience to AOPA. From ANN:

"Phil Boyer became President of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association on January 1, 1991, adding onto a career as a senior-level broadcasting executive and general aviation (GA) advocate. A 7,000+ hour instrument and ME-rated pilot, Phil has been flying for more than 30 years, and 15 of them as an aircraft owner. In addition, Boyer is President of the International Council of Aircraft Owner and Pilot Associations (IAOPA), representing pilots and aircraft operators in 66 countries."

To set up a very good Aero-TV interview piece, the site says this:

"If AOPA – as the world's largest pilot's association – is the 600 pound gorilla of aero organizations; then there should be little question that AOPA President, Phil Boyer, ranks as 'King Kong.' Humorous as that title might be, the description is pretty much on target when you measure the man against the job he has done for the 415,000++ members of the AOPA -- and aviators, in general. Throughout the industry, few will doubt that Phil Boyer is one of the hardest working guys in GA... if not in all of aviation. Phil has been a tireless advocate for the value of GA, and an aggressive soldier in the fight against all those who would deprive us of the freedoms and privileges we have as flyers. Still, it was the battle over User Fees where Phil Boyer identified himself as a "scrapper" and a guy who would not quit... and aviation benefited greatly from having a watchdog at the ready."

So pour yourself a cold glass of whatever suits your taste and click here to view part one of the interview with Boyer, and be sure to click parts two and three on the right side of the page. If you like what you see on Aero-TV, I suggest bookmarking the site now, because their coverage of EAA's 2008 Airventure in Oshkosh will be spectacular. It is the best way to keep up with the daily happenings at Airventure without actually being there.

Now if they could just figure out a way to let us download Brats and Beer from their site...

Hard NOT to Get
Excited About the A5

It's funny how some companies "get it" and some haven't a clue, when it comes to marketing. I've dealt with both ends of that spectrum in my advertising career, and it still blows my mind how little some companies know about how to get people to buy their stuff.

But when a company does things right, like Icon Aircraft is doing with the unveiling of their A5 Light Sport Aircraft, then you can be assured they will sell all they can produce.

From the moment you visit their web site, it becomes immediately clear that someone behind the scenes of this company has been in the excitement business before. And when you read their staff bios, it is quite clear who that someone might be:

"As one of the first 20 employees in the United States for Red Bull, Icon Aircraft's V.P. of Marketing, Paul Crandell, started the event marketing department of a company with $5 million in revenue. In his last 2 years at Red Bull, Paul led a team of 24 managing 300 media events, 120 athletes and several Red Bull Motorsports properties and events including NASCAR, CHAMP Car, Motocross, and Red Bull Air Races."

Now who among us doesn't know about the success story that is Red Bull? It is one of marketing's great feats of all time that somehow convinced millions of people to spend two bucks for a tiny can of energy. Once the consumer got past the initially funny taste, those tiny little cans soon spawned an entire energy drink sector that today is as hot as anything in the beverage industry.

Fast forward and we see Crandell and Team Icon making the same waves that could very well lead to the same kind of market excitement that Red Bull enjoyed in the beginnings of the energy drink revolution. Others on this team include Kirk Hawkins, Steen Strand, David Crook, and Craig Bowers, who all bring enormous resumes to the table.

Front and center is their web presence, which is as polished as can be. Let's look at a few obvious things you can't possibly miss when you visit iconaircraft.com:

The design of the site is very hip, aimed squarely at a younger, cooler visitor. Think late thirtysomething with a fat, disposable executive income, or a younger baby boomer sitting on a mountain of inherited old money that he and his trophy wife couldn't possibly spend on necessities. With the grown kids finally out of their hair, the convertible already in the driveway and the ski boat docked at the lake, these people (last century, we called them "yuppies") will flock to the A5 in droves. The company's site also makes a great case for obtaining your Sport Pilot ticket, with loads of great and easy to find information on how to do that and what's involved. Bringing this information front and center is brilliant, as it immediately tells non-flyers about Sport Pilot – something they might not have known existed at all – and gets them into a flight school, into an A5 and into the air quicker.

Then there is the A5 itself:

While we pilots think that all flying machines are beautiful in some way, the ICON A5 raises the bar on this concept. In it's design, the engineers threw out the playbook on aircraft construction, coming up with something that is like nothing else on the market. One look at the instrument panel tells you that the people who designed this aircraft want very much to change the LSA game. The A5 is a Amphibian Light Sport Aircraft priced at a surprising $139,000 USD. It delivers a maximum speed of 120 mph with a range of 300 nm, and offers major design features including folding wings (manual or automatic), retractable landing gear, a custom, optional aircraft towing trailer, GPS moving map, iPod in-flight music port, a complete airplane parachute and angle-of-attack indicator.

There has been a ton of press on this new creation, and if you want to see and maybe BUY yourself an A5, here's the drill on that from their site:

"The countdown to EAA AirVenture 2008 has started. ICON's A5 will shed its cloak at Aeroshell Square on Monday, July 28 at 10:00 am local time the first day of AirVenture 2008 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. This represents the first time for the public to will see the ICON A5 amphibian model in person. ICON's exhibit will be located at the main entrance to the AirVenture grounds. Attendees will have the opportunity to view the aircraft all week and place orders in person, order online with a credit card ($5,000 refundable and transferable deposit is required), or call ICON directly at (424) 201-3500 to place your order. Delivery positions are assigned on a first-come, first-served basis. First customer deliveries are expected in late 2010."

I'm not going to tell you that many LSAs get me all that excited. They surely have their place in the sky, just not in my hangar. But the A5 is an exception to that rule, and I join many other aviation analysts and journalists when I say this is a product that will turn heads and forcibly hank the checkbook out of people's back pockets.

If you are in the market for an LSA and don't at least LOOK at the A5, you are making a HUGE mistake.

Ice on Mars?
Big Whoop.

Every kid alive at some point has listed "astronaut" as a future career choice...myself included. The race for space has always been one wrapped in equal parts mystery, adventure and allure, and from the very first monkey that was blasted into orbit in 1948, we have spent 60 years searching for life on other planets.

What have we gained from those 60 years? Yes, we landed humans on the moon from 1969 to 1972, a feat we all know to be "one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." And in the 36 years since astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt walked on the surface of our moon for the last time, not much has happened with the Apollo project. There's been no moon real estate, no resort on the moon, no significant use for moon rocks.

And without any doubt, the space program, while noble, has been really hard on our planet's monkey population, according to Wikipedia:

"Albert, the first rhesus sent into space, died of suffocation during the June 11, 1948 flight, and his successor, Albert II survived the space flight but died on impact. Albert III died at 35,000 feet in an explosion of his V2 rocket, and Albert IV again died on impact. On April 18, 1951, Albert V died due to parachute failure, and Albert VI became the first animal to survive rocket flight in 1951 although he died two hours after landing. It wasn't until Patricia and Mike – two cynomolgus monkeys that did survive their flight on May 21, 1952 – that we finally figured out how to blast monkeys into space without somehow causing their demise."

While those glory days at NASA were focused on the moon, today we seem to be fixated on Mars, for reasons I have yet to understand. With the announcement of this week's find of actual water ice on Mars by the $420 million Phoenix Mars Lander Project, we now have scientists the world over having space discovery orgasms every day now. Apparently, the discovery of ice means something about life being there many quadzillions of years ago, or not. The possibility of ice on Mars has a different meaning to each different scientist, and while it is certainly new information, is it all that important to our civilization as we know it?

See, here's the deal: I'm one of those who believe there is no chance at all that this rock we live upon is the ONLY one in the entirety of space to have some sort of beings inhabiting it. If space is indeed infinite, that means that along with our own galaxy, there would be an infinite number of galaxies out there. If each one of them had one Earth, then any way you slice it, there would be a very, VERY high number of other planets with Little Green Men, Big Chartreuse Women, or some mongoloid off-color mixture of the two.

So if ice on Mars means that at one point in that rock's existence, it was covered in "life", it sure the hell isn't any more. It is just a big, hot, dry, deserted nothing. Maybe at one time, Mars had giant cities with mega-highways full of oil-burning vehicles of all shapes spewing toxic exhaust into it's atmosphere, governed by baboons who failed to recognize that very slowly, the Martian planet was burning itself out. When all the arrogant Martians refused to give up their Martian SUVs, and with all the Martian factories turning the Martian skies into a waste dump, it was only a matter of time before the planet became an uninhabited chunk of worthless space real estate.

And if you read this article from AP out today, it is not that hard to envision our rock someday becoming another wasteland just like Mars. Only we have the knowledge and power to turn our global warming around, just as soon as we send OUR government baboons into space on a one-way rocket ride to the dark side of the sun. Now there's a NASA mission I could support!

Bottom line: If it turns out that the data retrieved from Mars by the Phoenix Lander turns up something we can use to help our planet from becoming the next Mars, then every dime spent will have been worth it. But if all we dig up is...ice, then will we be getting a good ROI for the millions it cost us?

An Impossible
Itinerary

I have just returned from a trip that exemplifies to perfection what it is like to fly your own GA aircraft for business. We beat that drum loudly all the time at my ad agency, trying to get businesses who still torture themselves with commercial air travel to see the many benefits of operating a company plane.

The itinerary for this trip was one that could not have been completed for ANY price on the scheduled carriers, which is why I choose the headline shown above. The route took us into far-flung places that would have required magic, luck and several extra days to complete had we chosen the Friendly Skies.

Here is a look at what we accomplished on a perfect business trip flown via Dano Airlines in the KatyLiner:

Day One: Scheduled for a 7:00A departure, we awoke to – guess what – low overcast in the Southern Willamette Valley. The crud was only 1,500' thick, so had I obtained my instrument rating bu now, it would have been a no-brainer to punch through it and be gone. So we finally departed for Pine Mountain Lake Airport (E45) in Groveland, CA (near Yosemite Nat'l Park) at 1:30P. We arrived a little past 5:00P, and after a 15-minute drive, we were at the photo shoot location and was able to get in four hours of shooting. Had we flown commercial, we'd have arrived in Modesto at noon, picked up a rental car (+30 mins.) and drove the 1.5 hours up to the shoot, putting our boots on the ground at about 2P. We would have saved three hours...BUT...had we departed on time from EUG and arrived at E45 at 10:30A, we'd have been at the shoot by 11A, a full THREE HOURS earlier then the best delivery time with the airlines.

Day Two: I was up before the sun, and shot the location until we departed E45 at 11:30A. After an easy one-hour flight, we arrived at the Reedley Airport (O32) east of Fresno at 12:15P and was seated at a business lunch in town at 1P. After grub, we moved to that client's location for a shoot that ended at 5P. Had we tried this leg on the airlines, we'd lose an hour of shooting time to make the a 1.5 drive back to MOD where we'd catch a flight into FAT arriving at 3:40P. After the standard 30-minute rental car sign-out hassle, we'd arrive at the shoot just in time to watch the staff close the doors at 5P.

Day Three: Our mission today was to deliver one of our passengers to the San Francisco Bay area for a seminar. With Katy parked at dinky little Reedley Airport overnight, our choices were (a) fly to FAT, and buy him an expensive airline ticket to SFO, or (b) make a quick 1.2 hour blitz up to Buchanan Field (CCR) in Concord to drop him off and also lunch with my sister. This was the only part of this multi-city trip where the airlines might – MIGHT – have provided an affordable service on our schedule. So we dropped him at CCR, enjpyed some quality face time with family and was back in the office in Eugene at 5P.

Bottom line: Yes, we could have bought airline tickets weeks in advance to save a few bucks, and yes, our clients, models and anyone else involved in the photo shoots would have had to re-arrange their schedules to match that of the airlines. This quick three day trip would have been stretched to five days, and losing two solid days of billable production time would have erased any savings we might have reaped by flying commercial. Not to mention additional costs for rental cars, gas, and per diem costs for two more days of meals and hotels.

So if I really need to get to Australia, Orlando or London from Southwestern Oregon, it's best to take the big pressurized cattle hauler. You'll get there when THEY want you to (if you are lucky), and do business when THEY want you to. But if I want to get around the Western United States and see numerous clients in different towns not served by the Bigs, I will beat them every time in the Katyliner. And did I mention that I do not have to charge myself $15 per suitcase? Or that Dano Airlines serves the finest in Clif Bars and energy water? Or that the pilot always greets me with a smile? Or that I don't have to take my shoes off if I don't want to?

Fly GA, it just makes sense.

WoF Will be Off the Air for a Few Days

The blog posts that strive to keep my readers happy will not be coming at you for about a week as the entire staff of this blog is heading to the land of fruits and nuts for a series of agency photo shoots. And as is the case when we are gone, the housesitter who stays here and protects our stuff doesn't blog very well, and neither does the dog.

So everyone stand down, go check out this blog for some good reading, and I'll be back on the job in about a week.

Frequency change approved.

The Other 'Woman'

Pilots often speak of their airplanes in affectionate ways, calling them their "mistress" as a half-hearted joke. Sometimes it's their wives who call that damned plane "the other woman" since their husbands spend so much time caressing their flying machine when they should be, well, you know.

As a first-time airplane owner, I am quickly coming to terms with something that as I have always expected, it is that airplanes have souls...they are alive. They start out as aluminum, plastic and rivets, a lifeless pile of materials. But once completed, they become a machine that FLIES, which is why your toaster has no soul. You never get to know this as an airplane renter, only the actual owner of the airplane gets to experience the warm and fuzzy part...the emotion of owning your airplane and realizing it as so much more then a mechanical object.

We pilots all strive for becoming the sole owner of our very own airplane. For me, it took about 12 years to get into the proper financial place to buy the right to not have to share my bird with anyone, except my family. But they know Katy as passengers, only I get to know her right now as her pilot:

With 56.3 hours logged as her PIC, I am just now getting to know Katy. For 44 years, she has had a number of pilots sit in her left seat and manipulate her controls, and she has never let them down. But none of those other pilots matter to her now, only Dano matters, because I'm the one keeping her polished and making sure her oil is at the right level. And, it is me that keeps my promise to her to always return her to the surface of this planet in a gentle way that won't jar her vintage bones.

As I go about owning this airplane, there have been moments of accomplishment and joy. One of those times was when I departed Whiteman Airport in Los Angeles with Katy, flying her for the very first time. Another was when I stepped down off her wing in front of my new hangar back at Eugene at the conclusion of that glorious northbound delivery trip. But I never felt quite as proud of her as this past Friday:

After going out to the field late one night this week to get current for night flight, I discovered her landing light was in-op. The bulb looked fine, as did the fuse. So I had the swank FBO at EUG pick her up so their A & P could diagnose the situation. On Friday evening, I returned to Flightcraft to pick Katy up, and was told she was in the main hangar and they requested I go out and help the line man walk her out. I stepped into the massive and well-lit hangar to see Katy front and center, between a major-league bizjet and some sort of very expensive Beechcraft single, probably an A36. It must have been the new layer of Supercoat that I recently applied to her wings and fuselage that allowed her to shine brightly as the overhead halogens bathed her in sexy white light. Set atop the spotless white epoxy hangar floor, Katy could not have looked better. It was at this precise moment that I knew I was in love with a machine.

I have read many stories over the years of pilots who have developed a "relationship" with their plane, including many tales of C-47s that seemed to do the impossible to save their pilot and crew. And if you've read the amazing story of Three-Eight Charlie – and talked to Jerrie Mock as I have – you'll believe that "Charlie" looked after Jerrie as she flew eastbound around the world. To me, that has to be the finest example of an airplane having a personality AND a soul.

Now don't get me wrong, Katy may be my new girlfriend, but she will never substitute for my loving wife, who is more then any one guy could ever ask for in so many ways. I have won the wife lottery, and my best day would be one spent with both Julie AND Katy.

Anyone who has ever known me will tell you straight up that I'm the last guy you'll ever see chasing skirts. So having an affair with my airplane is a safe thing, a little fling on the side with a classy lady – O.K., an airplane – that asks nothing of me more then a little TLC and some respect.

Because everyone – including me – knows that in reality you can never substitute a woman with an airplane.

Or vice versa.

Scratch "We Didn't Know"
off Their List as an Excuse

This week, National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) President Patrick Forrey went before the House Aviation Subcommittee to testify on air traffic control facility staffing issues. While we find in unconscionable that our elected representatives would somehow not have heard this all before, Forrey went at the FAA with both guns blazing, and spelled this issue out for Chairman Oberstar's subcommittee in such a clear manner, even Bushie himself could understand the severity of this country's ATC staffing nightmare.

Here are some highlights (lowlights?) of Forrey's testimony (excerpted verbatim). First, Forrey sets the stage:




"Let me be clear: This country is facing an air traffic controller staffing crisis. The crisis is real. The crisis is serious. And the crisis is now. Those losses are leading to insufficient staffing levels across the country, requiring more use of overtime, and leading to increased fatigue. All of this adds up to a burned out workforce, and an unacceptable compromise to safety. With the current authorization set to expire June 30th, and with unmatched controller attrition rates exceeding 4 per day, it has never been more imperative to address this issue than it is today. The National Airspace System is currently experiencing an unprecedented, and unsustainable loss of air traffic controllers."

He then goes at the FAA for their claims that they are " hiring enough trainees to make up for the retiring veterans". Yes, they are hiring them Forrey points out, but their training procedures leaves much to be desired:

"Between FY2005 and the end of FY2007, of the 3450 trainees still employed by the FAA, only 538 have achieved full certification. That’s fewer than 16%! Of the 525 hired and still employed in the first six months of FY2008, only 4 have fully certified."

If that 411 didn't wake them up, the following should have:

"Before the imposition of the imposed work rules, which the FAA continues to mislabel as a contract, the Agency told Congress and this Subcommittee, that there would not be a mass exodus of air traffic controllers. Unfortunately, the FAA was wrong. In June of 2006, the FAA predicted that 950 controllers would leave the workforce in FY2007. 

The actual attrition number for controllers in FY2007 was 1,622 – 70 percent higher than the Agency’s prediction. 

They exacerbated that wave by prematurely cutting off contract negotiations in 2006, and caused an attrition tsunami that has seen nearly 2,700 controllers and trainees leave the system since.

It is not a coincidence that delays, near misses, and runway incursions have all increased as the number of controllers has diminished."

In his closing, Forrey slams the ball completely out the park grand slam style – with this:

"The Agency also continues to sell NextGen as the cure-all for all aviation woes, from congestion, to safety, to efficient fuel use, and even controller staffing levels. 

But I remind Members of the Subcommittee, that NextGen is at least two decades away. Before we hang our hat on this still-conceptual program to take aviation to the next generation, let us fix the problems of the NowGen air traffic control system.

"

There is plenty of verbatim testimony (all PDFs) available here, here, here and here to keep you busy reading until next fall. But the bottom line on this is that once again, dire information has been delivered to a House Subcommittee, with clear details on how to fix the problem. But if Oberstar's Aviation Subcommittee ignores this just like the House Judiciary Committee's Task Force on Competition Policy and Antitrust Laws apparently has done after Big Oil's top brass testified about high oil prices on May 22, 2008, then we can expect nothing to happen on ATC staffing.

I am not quite sure why anyone bothers to testify to this Congress today. If they actually DO anything that results in legislation, W will just veto it anyway, using political ramifications and party loyalty as the only two benchmarks that matter.

Yes, I'd love to see some sort of bill hit his desk that forces the issue and makes FAA enter into a fair employment deal with NATCA...just so Bushie could veto it. That way, since the buck stops in the Oval Office, at least we'd know who to blame when two airliners cream one another over Omaha because some under-trained, fatigued controller created a "deal" that caused loss of life.

The Pentagon Wants
to Kill Your Plane

One of my many stops each day is Wired Magazine's web site, which has tons of very well-reported and exciting stories covering everything from technology to politics to automobiles...including a substantial amount of articles on aviation. If you think this is just some "out there" blog, it is not, Wired.com is a very respectable source.

So when I read the following on their site recently, I almost fell out of my office chair:

Pentagon Wants Kill Switch for Planes

Say what?

Yes, you read that correctly. According to this Wired.com article by Noah Shachtman (confirmed on an official FedBizOpps website here), this crazed administration who has their knee so firmly planted on our backs as we lay spread eagle on the tarmac wants to have the last word on where you can fly. From wired.com:

"The Pentagon's non-lethal weapons division is looking for technologies that could "disable" aircraft, before they can take off from a runway -- or block the planes from flying over a given city or stretch of land. In a request for proposals, issued earlier this week, the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate announced that it would like arms-makers to come up with a way to "safely divert an aircraft in the air or stop and/or disable an aircraft on the ground." And no, shooting the thing with a missile doesn't count. The Directorate wants "reversible effects which allow the targeted aircraft to be quickly returned to an operational condition with minimal time to repair."

Right about now, I'm sure you're thinking that even though we hear insane, nutzo stuff out of Washington each day, installing kill switches on U.S. aircraft is just not going to happen. Oh yeah? Tell that to the Feds...

Solicitation Number:
M6785408R7044
JNLWP FY09
NON-LETHAL WEAPONS FY09 APPLIED RESEARCH EFFORTS

[excerpted verbatim from this site]...C. Safely divert an aircraft in the air or stop and/or disable an aircraft on the ground. The JNLWD requires a systems engineering based study to address the full scope of potential technologies and/or approaches to resolve these non-lethal counter-material capability gaps. The primary focus of the divert an aircraft task is to control the airspace and enforce no-fly or restricted flight zones. Effects should be focused on the aircraft, not the pilot or other personnel on board. The capability should enable the enforcement of flight restriction zones (e.g., metropolitan Washington, D.C.), protection of critical infrastructure and other high value assets from a possible aerial threat.

So are they talking about just turbine aircraft? Jetliners? Commercial carriers only? Or, are they talking about ALL aircraft? Does this mean that someday, JoeBob might have to install some expensive kill switch device in his J3 Cub just to go sauntering off over the countryside in search of $200 hamburgers?

Man, this stuff just makes me sick. I – like the vast majority of Americans right now – am SO ready to see a landslide on November 4th, 2008, so we can disinfect Washington and begin to heal this great country. It just goes to show what happens when the same people who brought you Katrina, the endless Iraq war and five-dollar-a-gallon gas try to find a way to prevent another 9/11. Here it is 2008 – six and one-half YEARS later – and they are still trying to figure this whole Homeland Security thing out.

It makes me wonder if Brownie wasn't really canned from FEMA after all. Maybe he is secretly working at the Pentagon as Director of some bloated new department tasked with thinking up new, more bizarro ways to screw us pilots.

A Review of
Ultravisor Tinted
Aircraft Sunvisors

When you learn to fly, one of the first things the Certified Flight Instructor teaches you is to keep your eyes moving at all time for other airplanes. While mid-air collisions are extremely rare, it is equally rare for pilots and their passengers to walk away from these kinds of violent crashes. It is this constant "scan" of the sky in front of and all around you that is a skill developed by all pilots, and after just a few hours of training, it becomes second nature.

While most of today's aviation fleet carries transponders to let ATC identify their location relative to other aircraft nearby, not all planes are in radio communication with an ATC facility, especially outside of busy terminal areas. Since flying into busy airspace around major metropolitan areas require both an altitude encoding transponder AND communication with ATC, this means that all pilots are "talking" to ATC, and are being ID'ed as a blip on his/her screen showing altitude, direction and airspeed. It is this data that ATC uses to keep all aircraft separated, but...

Outside of these busy areas, when operating around "uncontrolled" airports, having a "mode C" transponder and being in communications with ATC is not required, and pilots are responsible for their own separation for other traffic. To accomplish this, pilots have a procedure called simply enough, "see and avoid". But many aircraft in today's general aviation fleet have limited view when flying into the sun, and have sunvisors that resemble those in your car. These solid visors literally block the sun, but they also can block a pilot's view to see the oncoming traffic. This dangerous situation makes "seeing" other traffic harder in certain conditions, which makes that traffic harder to avoid.

To remedy this situation, certain manufacturers like Kingman, Arizona's Ultravisor offer high-grade, optically-pure tinted lexan sunvisors for nearly all models of Cessna, Piper and Beechcraft aircraft. The concept is simple: When flying into the sun, a tinted but clear visor blocks the sun's damaging rays but continues to allow forward and upward vision to see – and avoid – traffic.

Recently, I installed a set of Ultravisor tinted sunvisors into my 1964 Piper Cherokee 235, and went flying into the sun to see how they worked. Here is an honest review of both the installation procedure and the performance:

Installation: Up front, I will admit to not being a mechanic at all, so I knew that the installation of ANY aircraft parts would have to be bonehead simple for me to accomplish without damaging the plane. I was not about to start drilling holes in the interior, nor was I hoping to have to modify anything to use these visors. I am happy to report that the installation could not have been easier, and the attractive black visor mounting bracket bolted perfectly into the existing hole in the windshield center post. After the mount was secure, both right and left visor were bolted into place easily, and fit exactly fine in both windows. I liked the fact that the underside mounting hardware that holds the visor to the mount has the clean, white Ultravisor logo on it, adding an air of sophistication to the installation. Total time to install: 30 minutes.

Performance: I have flown many older rental aircraft over the years, including many that had shabby, loose solid visors. These worn out visors were notorious for slipping down in flight due to vibration, partially blocking forward view. So I was hoping that the new Ultravisors would stay put out of my field of vision until needed. To test the visors, I flew out of Eugene, Oregon in the late afternoon to the east for 30 miles. I purposely waited until I had a clear day, knowing that the bright sun setting to the west of the field would making seeing the airport and traffic hard when arriving from the east. After turning back inbound towards the airport, I immediately saw the need for using the visors. The setting sun made it impossible to pick out EUG in the haze, and seeing other traffic would have been difficult. So I quickly pulled down both Ultravisors and was instantly pleased with what I saw. Because of the large size of these visors, my entire forward field of vision was covered in a medium-dark gray tint that greatly reduced glare and made it very easy to pick out the airport.

Since I wear prescription glasses, flying with sunglasses can be a hassle, but when the Ultravisors were down, it was like looking through an expensive pair of aviator's sunglasses. Upon turning onto my base leg, the added vision that came from reduce glare allowed me to easily see a regional jet inbound to the parallel runway. Without the visors, finding the airport would have been harder, and seeing the inbound traffic might have been impossible until it was too late.

Conclusion: There are other manufacturers of clear, tinted aircraft sunvisors out there, but at under $150 for a set, these Ultravisors offer all the improved vision performance I could ask for, and allows me to now "see and avoid" far better then without them. And unlike the worn old solid visors in many GA planes, these Ultravisors stay firmly in the up position out of the way until needed. An added bonus is that while in the up position, the tinted visors really shade the cockpit from the sun, making it easy to fly without sunglasses.

I highly recommend these visors as an STC replacement for any Piper, Cessna or Beechcraft owner.

As Hard as it Looks

Today I completed the second of two days of training for my instrument rating, taking advantage of a hole in my busy schedule that somehow matched the same schedule hole in my instructor's calendar. So I thought I'd write a bit about what this level of training is like, something for the VFR and student pilots out there in my readership. If you are instrument rated or better, this will all be old news.

Let's examine some of the "glass is half full" parts of my training:

Cockpit Resource Management: I've always struggled with this as a VFR pilot, and have never came up with a system for keeping track of everything I needed to fly in that system. And now, in the IFR environment, I have so much more to confuse thy brain and hands. My CFI-I, Jim Hunt, has been a big help in this area, and this weekend, I finally came up with a system to balance approach plates, en route charts, checklist and notepad all within easy reach.

Checklists: Jim urged me to develop my own checklist, comprised of the usual VFR items, but also a whole new list of IFR items such as "ID VORs". Sure, a VFR pilot is supposed to do that religiously, but come on, do you actually know one that does it in the GPS world we fly in? This new VFR/IFR checklist really saved my bacon today when I scanned down and saw "brief approach plate". I quickly learned I had the ILS 16L into EUG pulled instead of the ILS 16R we were flying. Time to dig through the charts for the right one!

'Stick and Rudder' flying: There is no better way to humiliate a VFR pilot who thinks he can fly then to cram him under a set of Foggles and watch him sweat. At about 25 hours into my training, I am just now coming to grips with the concept that my eyes – looking at the instruments – know more then the seat of my pants. If I go with my gut, I seem to always want to turn right...so I have to work overtime to keep the attitude indicator wings-level.

Pitch, Power and Trim: If you think you can fly fairly well in the VFR world, and can get it on the runway each time out, you'll find out how much you don't know when you are under the hood. I am getting pretty comfortable at slowing the plane down and setting it up for an approach with plenty of time to keep things in profile. That is, when I remember. Teaching this old dog new tricks can be like watching a scene from "The Miracle Worker".

Thinking Ahead: You get really good at situational awareness really fast in the IFR training world, and a good IFR stick knows what's coming next. For instance, today I learned that all ILS intercepts given to you by ATC are 30 degrees, so if you are flying a 090 and the final approach course is 160, the controller will give you a 130 intercept. Of course, the student pilot – me – looked pretty stupid when I read back "one-six-zero until established on the localizer..." Lesson learned.

Those old guys at the airport coffee shop who tell you that earning your instrument rating makes you a better pilot are NOT kidding...it has to happen that way since there is so much more to learn and do in this world. But if you prefer a more specific way of flying, where each segment is planned to the degree, flying "in the system" is great.

I am fast approaching the day when Jim and I depart on my long XC, which will take me and Katy into Boeing Field in Seattle. BOEING FIELD! A year ago, I wouldn't have had the confidence to jitterbug with inbound 747's, or dodge outbound sleek, shiny brand spanking new 777s literally flying out the factory door at BFI. As a VFR arrival, I'd be a second class citizen, but as an IFR arrival, my blip is just as important to ATC as the blip of the -47 on short final. We are just two identical slips of paper on the Controller's console. But if the "heavy" wants to go first, bet the farm I'm going to let him!

Yeah, let's get after that...Boeing Field. Yee-haw, sign me freakin' up...maybe they'll let me pet one of the Dreamliners while I'm there...you think?

AOPA Pilots
Prove They Are
All Top Guns

Just a few days ago – in preparation for their annual Fly-In and Open House at Frederick (Maryland) Municipal Airport – AOPA, released (pdf) a very serious warning about the FAA's expansion of the P-40 prohibited area over Camp David just northwest of FDK. The expanded area created a sliver of clean airspace that Fly-in pilots would have to navigate like a funnel approaching the airport. It sounded like a recipe for disaster:

"When it expands, the prohibited area at Camp David, Md., grows from a 3-nautical-mile radius to a 5-nm radius. In addition, pilots flying in the ring from 5 nm to 10 nm must be on an active IFR or VFR flight plan, be in positive radio contact with air traffic control, and use an ATC-assigned discrete transponder code. Pilots who violate the airspace can expect to be intercepted by the Air Force and questioned by the Secret Service, and can expect enforcement action by the FAA."

But AOPA's president, Phil Boyer, has great confidence in his talented staff. He turned them loose with all guns blazing, in hopes of creating a "zero tolerance" world where ALL of the inbound fly-in planes staff our of the nasty airspace both north AND south of the approaches to FDK.

Under such tight airspace restrictions, you would guess that a couple of old guys in a beater 172 would surely wander into the prohibited areas and become cannon fodder for the Air Force and suspects for the Secret Service. With hundreds of inbounds, you would think some student pilot out for a joyride would stumble into trouble, but you would have been all wrong. If you thought there was no way AOPA could keep trouble at bay, you just don't know Boyer's AOPA:

"Pilots flying to and from the AOPA Fly-In and Open House on June 7 got the message about the expanded P-40 prohibited area over Camp David, Md., receiving no violations as the show was winding down Saturday evening. “We asked our members for zero violations, and we got it,” said Boyer. “With great flying weather, more than 500 airplanes attended the show. Despite being squeezed into a smaller airspace between the expanded P-40 and the Washington, D.C., Air Defense Identification Zone, the pilots of these aircraft heeded our warnings and steered clear.”

This just goes to show you two things: (1) The GA pilots back in the Washington, D.C. area really know their stuff, and (2) when AOPA sets out to do something, the always find a way to get it done. I just hope their expert PR team can get the mainstream media to understand how significant this story is, and how hard it is to make 500 GA planes thread the needle between the two most dangerous chunks of our airspace.

To AOPA, and the pilots who pulled this magnificent feat off...major kudos! This is one for the books, and as always, it makes me proud to be AOPA. Are you a member? No? what, are you NUTZ? Join today here. You have no excuse, none.

Domestic Airlines
Now Officially in
Survival Mode

It seems the $15 charge that American is charging for that first checked bag really got the attention of the traveling public, and was just one tiny example of how bad Big Oil has made life for the airlines. Of course, everyone knows that fifteen bucks here and there can't make up for $127 a barrel crude, and as everyone suspected, the balance sheets for the airlines are bleeding red ink by the boat load.

Today, two of the majors announced that cutting back on stale pretzels and generating revenue from your Samsonite won't change the fact that they are literally tanking right before our eyes. After both United and Continental slashed jobs and jets as reported by AP here and here, it really makes you wonder if the carriers will survive this fiscal brutalization:

"United Airlines said Wednesday that it's cutting up to 1,100 more jobs, removing an additional 70 fuel-guzzling airplanes from its fleet and slashing domestic capacity as it tries to cope with spiraling fuel prices. The combined reductions mean the airline is cutting nearly 3 percent of its 55,000 workers worldwide."

Sure, this is just three percent of a very large workforce. That is not the story here, because obviously with 55,000 bodies, maybe they won't miss a few gate agents and ramp workers. But what ought to scare all of us is this:

"United said it plans to ground its entire fleet of 94 Boeing B737s as well as six of the company's 747s — its oldest and least fuel-efficient planes. It is also scrapping its coach-only "Ted" service and reconfiguring those planes to include first-class seats. The Chicago-based carrier will cut mainline domestic capacity by 17 to 18 percent in 2009, while also scaling back international capacity by 4 to 5 percent."

The bigger picture guy at United – Glenn Tilton, their chairman, president and CEO – basically said in a company press release that United is not going down without a fight, and he's preparing to squeeze passengers for all they can take:

“Today we are taking additional, aggressive steps that demonstrate our commitment to size our business appropriately to reflect the current market reality, leverage capacity discipline to pass commodity costs on to customers, develop new revenue streams and continue to reduce non-fuel costs and capital expenditures.”

The sad story is about the same over at Continental, where fuel costs have doubled resulting in a $2.3 billion larger Jet A bill. As a result of this victor airway robbery by Big Oil, Continental is slashing anything they can find:

"Continental on Thursday became the latest airline to announce cutbacks, saying it will shed 3,000 jobs — more than 6 percent of its work force — and reduce capacity by 11 percent this fall."

While that sounds like the same cuts as United, there is one twist to the Continental story that I have to say is quite admirable, and oh so rare:

"Continental Chief Executive Lawrence Kellner and President Jeffrey Smisek said they will not take salaries or incentive pay the rest of the year. In a regulatory filing, the company said Kellner, who was paid a salary of $712,500 last year, would get $296,875 this year, and Smisek's salary would be cut to $240,000 from $363,300."

You have to hand it to these two guys, having the guts to cut their salaries while they send soccer moms and working-poor dads to the unemployment lines. Even if it is symbolic, and even though anyone should be able to live on three hundred large a year, it still says volumes about their management style. How many times lately have we seen major corporations cut jobs only to have their CEOs spend huge seven-figure salaries on lavish lifestyles and expensive perks?

Each day that the airlines fly, they dig theirselves a deeper hole. As fares rise and our economy sours, less and less people will be able to take the big pressurized tube to Grandma's house, and that only compounds a possibly fatal financial situation for the Big Airlines.

And one last question is this: If Southwest had the brilliance and forethought to lock their fuel prices in months ago at a decent price by buying fuel contracts, why didn't United, Continental and all the others? What AM I missing here? If Southwest can game the fuel price system, maybe the other Bigs ought to be in that market as well.

It's that, or they may all go away. Then what do we have? A third world country, that's what.

Gee, maybe that's what the Middle East really wants. Not that they'd have ANY reason to be pissed at America, oh no. Not when our leader made up a bunch of lies to invade one of their countries and try to steal their oil. Oh, and BTW Bushie, howz that whole war for oil thing going anyway?

(Editorial note: After this week's primaries FINALLY ended this Obama-Clinton prize fight, there can be no disputing the fact that Barack Obama is the Democratic Party's nominee for President. I now digress from my normal aviation posts to slide into a long-overdue piece on the most important election this country has held in decades. To my flying friends, hang with me through this one and I promise to be back to aviation tomorrow. And if you are a right-wing Bush lover, you might just want to click out of this page now and go back to rushlimbaugh.com to avoid popping a clogged artery - dan)

Game On!

Is it November yet? That is a question so many of us have been asking lately. And now that we know the players for the upcoming Presidential contest – Obama vs. McCain – we can now start the process of repairing our economy, our world reputation, our FAA, our environment, our street cred, our moral compass, and everything else that has been tarnished during Bush's two terms. And as if anyone needs a reminder of the daily scandals that have plagued this great country while the GOP was ruining their brand, here is the latest, from abcnews.com:

"Indicted Saudi Gets $80 Million US Contract - The US military has awarded an $80 million contract to a prominent Saudi financier who has been indicted by the US Justice Department. The contract to supply jet fuel to American bases in Afghanistan was awarded to the Attock Refinery Ltd, a Pakistani-based refinery owned by Gaith Pharaon. Pharaon is wanted in connection with his alleged role at the failed Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), and the CenTrust savings and loan scandal, which cost US tax payers $1.7 billion."

How many times in Bush's two terms have we seen these same kinds of headlines? Had I not awoke to more of the same questionable crap from this administration, I would not have chosen to write this post. But they just keep playing their Good Ol' Boy games, and We, the People, are pissed. I join the majority of Americans when I say it's time to play hardball with these guys.

As we Democrats begin to rally around the young Senator from Illinois, we could not be happier about his GOP opponent. The honorable Senator from Arizona looks more and more like a respectable and decent guy with a genuine record of courageous service to our country who ought to be thinking about life at Retirement Ranch instead of running for President.

Over at one of my daily stops, Firedoglake, Christy Hardin Smith describes Senator McCain's speech yesterday in Louisiana, and nails just about everything there is to say about the candidate:

"Sen. McCain's makeup was dreadful -- it was the sort of caked on look you expect at Aunt Gertrude's wake, not on camera for a major address. He looked pasty at the sides, flushed at the front, and as though they had spackled White-Out under his eyes to cover the bags and dark circles to try and make him look less exhausted and worn. And he was sweating on his forehead and cheeks, which means someone didn't pay attention to the temperature inside well before he came out to speak. It was not HDTV friendly, let me tell you."

And while Senator Obama has been drawing up to 75,000 people to rallies, Senator McCain – now the chosen front man for the conservative movement in this country – isn't exactly packing them in. Again, Hardin Smith nails it:

"Moreover, it looked like they were having a rally in someone's basement, and they couldn't muster up more than a hundred or so dudes from the local monster truck rally or honky tonk. The lighting was abysmal -- it's top down, which makes McCain's neck look even more craggy than it already did in contrast to the smoothed and polished skin on his shiny forehead. My favorite part was when McCain talked about being disappointed in the Bush Administration's implementation of their Iraq strategy being a failure and maybe two people clap. Hilarious."

So it begins, the thrashing of George W. Bush's vision of Republicanism that he and his one-percent buddies have forcibly shoved down our throats. If Senator McCain is the best the GOP can do to put forth a serious candidate for the office of President, they really need to consider purging their party leadership. Surely there is a young, sharp Harvard graduate with spunk, money, ethics and perfect hair that they could trot out as the guy who can hold on to the White House for them in November. But noooo, all they could find in the Bush Fan Club from throughout these 50 states is 72-year-old McCain, a man so loathed by the right that their base actually gets nauseated at the notion of voting for him. Such a pathetic ending to Bush's reign.

Thanks for letting me gloat for a bit. Now back to our regularly scheduled aviation programming...

Enough of the 'Oregon
Sunshine' Already!

I have been a happy and proud VFR pilot since 1996, and have enjoyed about 300 hours of bliss in the air. There have been some business flights, but the vast majority of that air time has been for fun.

But as many of my readers know, I am about half way through my instrument rating training, working towards the rating that I sure wish I had earned before last week's "overcast from hell" descended on Western Oregon.

Now this isn't a post about the weather here per se, which of course is legendary in all it's wet glory. People who live on the "wet side" of Oregon's majestic Cascade Range live here because they like things green, lush and tasty. Stop by the Farmer's Market in downtown in Eugene on Saturday morning and you'll be introduced to the organic produce of your dreams.

The "wet side" of Oregon is diametrically opposed to the "dry side", which starts at the crest of the Cascades and goes east to the Rockies. The dry side's surface is moon-like, while the wet side's environment more resembles a rain forest (an example is shown in the pic accompanying this post. Yes, that IS my back yard, and no, trolls do not live down there).

And while the high amount of precip we receive is great for lettuce, the low gray clouds that produce the omnipresent moisture also makes VFR flying a tricky proposition for much of the year. Yes, there is SUPPOSED to be a period from May 1 to about October 1 when it is clear and a million, but this year, Mother Nature has shown all of us VFR pilots in the Willamette Valley that SHE'S GOT GAME:

On Thursday of last week, we had scheduled a business trip in the KatyLiner down to California for several agency photo shoots. As the week progressed, a daily ceiling of about 2,000 feet would not budge across the Valley. When Thursday was no different, we scrambled our schedule and planned a Friday departure. But Friday's ceilings were even lower, without a break all day. I thought it was April all over again. So the entire trip was scrubbed, and with an associate in town that was supposed to go on our southbound jaunt, we decided to just wait it out and fly over to the coast on Saturday for some hiking. When Saturday produced – guess what – more low clouds and drizzle, we threw up our hands and sent our passenger back to Portland...on the train.

I reckon the bottom line is this: California has earthquakes, and the Gulf Coast has it's hurricanes. The square states have their seemingly endless killer tornadoes, and the Northeast has ice storms and mountains of winter snow. Given all that, I'll take Oregon sunshine any day, because when the sun does come out, the color of our skies is, get this...blue. I lived in California for 48 years, and thought the sky was supposed to be brownish gray.

Here I am, stuck in the middle of the VFR and IFR worlds. I have crossed the halfway point of my IFR training, and have just enough knowledge and skill to be dangerous. Yes, I could get a clearance, complete a flight in solid IMC, and shoot an ILS or VOR-A approach without loss of life. But could I do that to practical test standards while not busting any regs?

Not a chance.

Chicago Stabs GA
in the Back...Again.

Average Joe and Jane on the street in Chicago probably doesn't spend much time thinking about aviation, and like most GA pilots, they detest flying on the commercial scheduled airlines just like the rest of America. But recently, we were reminded big time that the Editorial Board of the Chicago Tribune hates general aviation about as much as Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley.

Of course, any pilot with a soul surely remembers the infamous "Midnight Raid" on March 30-31, 2003, when Mayor Daley illegally and without notice, demolished Meigs Field, which has been called the "best-known single runway airport on the planet" by many.

AOPA reported the incident in their ePilot online newsletter of April 4, 2003:

"Mayor Richard M. Daley of Chicago launched his own shock and awe campaign in the wee hours Monday morning by using heavy equipment to tear up the runway of the city's historic lakefront airport, Merrill C. Meigs Field. City crews dug six huge Xs deep into the runway's surface, closing the airport and trapping 16 aircraft."

What has taken us all back to the Meigs disaster was a recent editorial in the Tribune that yet again seems to suggest that many in the mainstream media has zero respect for general aviation. Their suggestion to fix our airspace delays seems to have been spoon-fed to them by the ATA and the airlines:

"Long term, there are some answers to make air travel something better than a trip to the dentist: Spin off the air traffic control function of the Federal Aviation Administration into a free-standing government corporation that would get its revenue from user fees and have access to the capital markets...A privately funded system could more quickly raise the money through user fees. A privately funded agency could make those radical operational changes without the political pressures that hamstring the FAA, which is dependent on appropriations from Congress. Canada, Germany and other countries have moved to privatize air traffic control."

Only one MASSIVE problem with their logic: If you want to kill off GA for good, move to a privatized ATC system just like Germany's. Had the Tribune's Editorial writers Googled the subject, they could not possibly have missed this from AOPA's Thomas A. Horne. In a July, 2004 column, Horne reported exactly what user fees were generated on a trip in a 1964 Piper Twin Comanche from London's Biggin Hill Airport to a GA airport in Egelsbach, Germany. The flight involved multiple ILS landings and Eurocontrol ATC routings:

"Total cost of the day's flying in fees alone: at least $195.23. Add in the 19-percent value-added tax and the bill reached $232.32. But the final bill hasn't been received yet; the cost is likely to be much higher. And this doesn't even factor in the operating costs of the airplane itself."

In a recent Letter to the Editor published in the Tribune, AOPA President Phil Boyer summed it up when he said this:

"The Chicago Tribune’s proposed cure for what ails the nation’s air transportation system will instead probably kill one of the patients. In countries that have privatized air traffic control, general aviation—all flight activity except the airlines and the military—has been dramatically reduced and in some cases driven to the brink of extinction. In the U.S. that means severely damaging an industry responsible for $150 billion in annual economic activity and 1.3 million jobs."

Bottom line: Mainstream media outlets like the Tribune have no idea what impact GA has on the economy of this country. They think GA is just a few J3 Cubs out at some tiny field at the edge of town with a mission of hoisting old guys aloft to chase hamburgers. They do not see the layer upon layer of economic disaster that would come from an imposing user fee structure managed by a private corporation.

Yes, we all want to see NextGen come to fruition, but adding restrictive user fees to GA flights is not the answer. Fixing BushCo's version of the FAA, that is the answer.