Lessons in Safe Instrument Flying Are All AroundUs, All We Have to Do Is Look for Them

When you earn your FAA ticket that certifies you to legally fly through clouds, it is a huge deal...just ask any IFR pilot. The training is intense, the hours under the hood long, and the amount of new information to learn is notorious for its complexity.

But once you pass the check ride and get the ticket, that, my flying friends, is when the education really begins. Trust me, the first time you plow into some actual alone in the plane without your CFI-I at your side will be a dramatic moment of brief panic that will require extreme focus. And each time you launch, the learning keeps on coming:

When you move from VFR to IFR flying, you multiply your responsibility for obtaining a “big picture” briefing. There will be times when you question your weather prediction skills. With VFR, it's pretty simply, just avoid clouds. But in the IFR environment, where you might be up there IN the clouds, you had better know what is in those puffy whites, and at precisely what place on the altimeter dial the air becomes cold enough to freeze the liquid in those clouds. The fact that you earned your IFR ticket validates only that you know enough about the weather to launch into cruddy skies that can kill you.

I consider myself to be about as qualified a weather guesser as any IFR stick with 350 hours. I am quite skilled at navigating the web to find data, and can “big picture” things with anyone with my experience. But an episode this past week at my home field made me wonder if I was seriously missing something in my IFR prognostications:

After looking at the weather on the web, I determined the air over KEUG was too cold, moist and unstable for an aerial joy ride. From my hangar I saw large CU build-ups to the north and northeast, heavy dark clouds to the west and gusty winds 240 to 270/12G25. So I decided to just hang out and clean some bugs off the leading edges. As I always do, I had my scanner radio blaring, and heard ground issue an IFR clearance for a Cirrus northbound at 6,000 MSL for Paine Field in Everett, WA. Nothing strange about that, except that I had checked the weather within the hour and saw a freezing level of 4,500 MSL, hard ceilings along his filed route of about 3,900 MSL, and numerous bright orange to red cells along the route all the way to about Tacoma, just south of the his final destination.

As I watched this gorgeous aircraft taxi out, my thoughts were...”what the hell is this guy thinking? He'll be at 6,000 MSL where its -3C, flying through weather that is showing heavy precip and possible convection.” By using Foreflight Mobile on my iPhone, NEXRAD showed the red circular icon for mesocyclonic activity in two spots near KHIO, so by flying 1,500 MSL ABOVE the freezing level in seriously moist, unstable air, in my opinion, the threat of airframe ice became almost inevitable. And even though his Duluth Flyer might have been FIKI-certified, I don't think FIKI on a Cirrus allows horizontal XC flight through known icing...it only allows for a safe departure from an icing condition.

Based on what I saw and what the Foreflight weather was telling me, I never in a million years would have launched on this flight, even in a FIKI Cirrus. But obviously this pilot read it differently. He made it to KPAE according to Flightaware, so it got me wondering:

After watching in amazement as the Cirrus took off on what I deemed a dangerous flight, I began second-guessing my own interpretation of the weather. Was I missing something? Was I seeing the big picture correctly? Was I being overly cautious, and nagging deep in my aviator soul, one quite serious question...was I becoming a weather wuss?

I needed answers to these questions so I explained this entire situation to a CFI-I that I know, and also a long-time friend and experienced IFR pilot who just took delivery of a cherry Cessna T210 certified for FIKI. I was nervous as I waited for their replies because if I did read this all wrong, it meant there was a hole in my weather knowledge big enough to fly an Airbus A380 right through:

Both my CFI-I friend and my pal the Centurian driver told me that without a doubt I did not miss anything, I did not get this wrong. Based on the weather as I had described it, neither would have made the flight in a single-engine plane, even one with FIKI juice in its wings. But, as the cliché goes, sometimes it's better to be lucky than smart. I came away from the lesson convinced that my weather skills are fine.

So, here is the takeaway: Keep your eyes on the sky, your head in the game and stay forever on the lookout for that next real-world IFR lesson lurking where you least expect it. And if you plan on flying risky missions through nasty convective weather in anything smaller then a Dreamliner, it might be a good idea to make sure the life insurance premiums are paid in full.

Would Someone Please Use an Air Tractor toPush the Cold Air Out of My World!

Let's get something straight right off the bat in this post...I am not an environmental scientist. As an instrument rated stick, I probably have a much clearer picture of weather than many VFR pilots, and compared to Average Joe on the street, I exist at a significantly higher intelligence level when it comes to the weather.

That said, I am noticing a trend in the weather both here and across the country, and for GA pilots – most without FIKI – that trend is not good. Let me set the stage:

I was raised in California's Central Valley where the weather is as predictable as any I have seen. This bowl of geography between the Sierra Nevadas and California's coast range makes a great place to grow raisins, but a lousy place to try and breathe. I cannot tell you the number of times my car – usually with both windows down because it was 196 degrees in the shade – would be sprayed by a tractor pulling a spray rig rounding an end-row as it belched out God only knows what kind of pesticide. It is also a mecca for aerial applications, with the cotton fields on the west side of the valley thick with AgCats and Air Tractors coating anything in their path with an endless list of the nasty chemicals required to grow the makings of your underwear. Multiply this by 10,000 and add in the lack of air movement due to the aforementioned bowl, and you have mostly gray, often smelly air that is not conducive to the ingestion of oxygen. It is in this environment that I earned my private ticket.

Back in the mid-90s when I earned my ticket, and all through my childhood, even a moron could predict the weather in the Fresno area, which lies due east of the Pacific Coast about 1.0 hours by Skyhawk. It seemed that 99.9999% of storms came from the west, so you had to just look and see what KMRY in Monterey or KSFO in the bay area was doing, and estimate when their weather would be your weather. At the rate that most storms traveled, you could see it raining on the coast and have a good four-hour window to get in a nice VFR flight before things got ugly.

But of course, as many of my readers know, I was doing 40-to-life in Fresno and escaped to Oregon. Shhh, they don't know I'm gone. And as a GA pilot in the Pacific Northwest, I have noticed a deterioration in the flying weather here:

When I was a VFR pilot flying mostly for hamburgers around Oregon, it was easy to predict the weather. Again, I live in yet another bowl, this time with the Cascades to the east of the Willamette Valley and the Oregon coast range between KEUG and the Pacific ocean. Generally, it had to be pretty much clear and a million if I was going over to the dry side to Sunriver or over to the coast for beach kite flying. That's because the weather was either really crappy or really nice. Just like you, I usually only flew when it was nice.

Fast forward from my arrival in the PNW to today, and I am a happy IFR stick licensed to plow through clouds. I got that rating in March, 2009, and have watched the PNW weather change before my very eyes:

It took me too long to get that rating, mostly due to weather washouts. But now that I am current, I watch things like the freezing levels, because to get out of the Willamette Valley in less-than-VFR weather requires a minimum enroute altitude (MEA) of at least 5,000 MSL. Make that 11,000 or higher if you want to go south or east. This past year, I have seen the freezing level locked onto the 4,000 MSL mark, making flight through clouds out of my home field dicey. With a few exceptions, since about last November, I look at the PDX or OTH winds aloft and see -4C at 6,000. You do the math. Two degrees per 1,000' of altitude for the lapse rate equals 4,000 MSL. Day, after day, after day. Drives me insane.

As I sit here pondering this, I think about how I perceive weather overall in the lower 48 to be changing for the worse. Hurricanes seem more powerful, hail is bigger, tornadoes are a daily occurrence. Snow piles up on NYC streets at record amounts. I wonder why, and go to the web where I see this quote in the very first story I find, a foreshadow from 2007, via MSNBC:

"As the world warms, the United States will face more severe thunderstorms with deadly lightning, damaging hail and the potential for tornadoes, a trailblazing study by NASA scientists suggests. While other research has warned of broad weather changes on a large scale, like more extreme hurricanes and droughts, the new study predicts even smaller events like thunderstorms will be more dangerous because of global warming. The basic ingredients for whopper U.S. inland storms are likely to be more plentiful in a warmer, moister world, said lead author Tony Del Genio, a NASA research scientist."

There is no end to the number of scientists who say our weather is changing for the worse because of global warming. As we often do, humans want proof that abstract theories like this are in fact true. When those humans are also GA pilots, they just have to stop and look at the weather they have been flying in or around for the past few years. If you are like me, that reflection will reveal more weather delays, more deviations, stronger winds aloft, more excruciating crosswind landings, and more canceled flights due to...weather.

The people who say global warming is crap can believe that notion, it is their right. But I will not be joining their charade, for I care about this planet and know without any doubt that we humans have screwed up the environment of this rock we live on forever. The moves we as a planet make towards a greener world will someday make an impact, but for now, as aviators, I'm afraid this garbage weather is the new status quo.

Sucks, it really does.

Extreme Multitasking: Go Inside the Cab of a Class Delta Tower and Gain New Respect for the People Living in Your Head(set)

I am sitting almost dead-center in the penthouse of the FAA tower at Eugene, Oregon's Mahlon Sweet Field (KEUG). From my perch between the Tower Controller and Ground Control positions, I have a million dollar view of both runways, the GA ramp, and terminal area. Even though this is a sleepy Sunday morning, I am eager to watch my tour host, controller Ethan Abelov, work the traffic, to better understand what it takes to keep air traffic separated.

This is not my first FAA Tower tour, but by far, it was my most substantial. Other visits were fine, but Abelov invited me to sit next to him and see everything that goes into keeping my Cherokee 235 from trading paint with an inbound Skywest regional jet. And oh, what an education it was:

Abelov was working both Tower and Ground when I sat down to observe, and initially, since I know the field well, I expected this to be a cakewalk. Sunday morning is dead at KEUG, but this being spring in Western Oregon, a nice weather day brings out the GA traffic. Even though this seasoned controller thought this was a "slow" shift, I have to say I seriously tried to keep tabs on every arrival, departure and ground movement, and failed miserably. Abelov handled it all with a calm that was one part cool and three parts professionalism, but had I been on position, someone would have ultimately had an unfortunate end to a splendid flight.

Come along with me now as we begin my tour in the cab:

First, I asked the required reporter question one always asks an Air Traffic Controller...is the job as pressure-packed as the ATC lore describes? And is sleepy old Eugene a boring post compared to, say, working the Tower at KORD? "At O'Hare, every flight you work is flown by a professional pilot, and they know what they are doing, so things go very smoothly. Here, you can have a 12-hour student pilot land without a radio call thinking they are in Salem," Abelov explained without missing a beat while sorting out a potential head-to-head situation where a R22 helicopter practicing the ILS 16R approach might have to be moved to make room for an MD-80 who had asked for and received permission to land on 34L against the grain.

Once the Robinson was told to break off his approach and head west of the field, Abelov cleared the Skywest to land. But by saying those words, his job of landing the arrival isn't concluded. He begins scanning the runway for anything that could obstruct the landing, cars, people, birds, even a wayward "seasoned citizen" who mistakenly drives through the airport gate to cruise down the runway. That actually happened in Florida, but the make/model of the car remains unconfirmed. However, consensus is that it was a Cadillac Coupe Deville traveling very slow with its blinker on.

As the shift progresses, Abelov is never in one place for more than a second. Since he is working both Tower and Ground, there is something to do constantly. Maybe this is why:

As Abelov handles a steady stream of GA and scheduled traffic, I take a moment to scan the dozen or so electronic panels just in the Tower Controller position. To keep his world in order requires pushing, pressing, turning or throwing about 270 buttons, switches and knobs. The enormity of it all is overwhelming to the untrained eye, but to Abelov, he seems to know exactly where to place his fingers at precise moments in the dance. But while technology rules the Cab, and computers are at the heart of the ATC system, a small block of wood with TIPH painted on it is still an extremely important safety device. This small, low-tech memory aid must be held in the hand of any controller who instructs a pilot to Taxi Into Position and Hold.

What goes into controlling air traffic boggles my mind. To say a controller has to be a multitasking master is an understatement of monumental proportions. Here is a quick snapshot of the busiest few minutes for Abelov during my tour:

With SFO under flow control, Abelov has to monitor Skywest 6404's EDCT departure time, which changes a couple of times. He has GA traffic inbound from the south, north and west, two airliners simultaneously asking for push back and City Fire trucks doing simulated fire suppression exercises on the field. And that bizarro Russian twin-rotor helicopter with Canadian registration on the Flightcraft ramp? He filed IFR for departure but called the previous controller to change that to VFR before ultimately deciding his crazy Transformer-ish ship is broken and may or may not be departing. The Skylane that just departed north to Salem needs to be turned to the east to keep separation with a Dash 8 inbound from Portland. On his radar screen are 15 targets clogging up the sky over the Willamette Valley, but ATC is only talking to three. THREE! The rest, who the hell knows what they are doing next. Oh, and during all this, he has to find the time to record the new ATIS at the top of the hour.

To manage all this requires – as Abelov says – an "obsessive–compulsive" attention to details. It has to, or things could get ugly fast. "Say I miss a guy's readback when he says he's cleared to ten thousand when we gave him nine," Abelov explains, "and he blasts off and starts climbing. My world (airspace) ends at niner thousand, so the guy justs plows right up into Seattle Center's airspace. That could cause an immediate deal, and it would have been caused simply by the controller missing an incorrect readback."

At the end of Abelov's shift, he is replaced by two colleagues. With each handoff, a checklist is brought up on both position's main displays, and Abelov works down the list to make sure the new controller coming on position knows the who, what, when, where, why and weather of the current airspace situation. The handoff is smooth, and in a moment, we are out of the cab, down the elevator and the tour is complete.

The major takeaway is that I grossly underestimated the many facets of controlling air traffic. Abelov is a natural at this multitasking exercise, as are his fellow NATCA controllers at KEUG ATCT. I knew the job was tough, but I had no idea it takes so much to simply spit me out a squawk code for VFR flight following. I watched the dance on a slow Sunday morning, and cannot even imagine what this job is like when things are crazy busy and tin is coming at these men and women from all directions and altitudes.

Know this: Never, ever think that these controllers do not care about us pilots. More than anything, they want to give us what we want, when we want it, and try to do so in a polite, professional way. That is, until they need us to do what THEY need us to do, right freakin' now.

Because when ATC gives an aviator an order, you can be sure there is no time in that controller's world to debate the point.

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(Note: This is the first in a continuing series on how we as pilots interact with ATC. In part two, I go inside the darkness of Cascade Approach to see what life in a TRACON is like, and last, I take ATC up in Katy to fly some approaches so he can see what happens in the cockpit from a pilot's POV.)

If You Own an Aviation Business, This is the One Post on World of Flying You Need to Read, Bookmark and Forward

I do not mention personal accolades much on this blog, and try not to mention my day job, that being the President and co-founder of an aviation advertising and creative agency. But we are launching a large campaign for the agency this week, and I thought it was finally time to "speak" directly to those readers who work for or own aviation businesses.

If you are a random reader who just stumbled upon World of Flying, or a person who is not in the position to make important marketing and/or advertising decisions at a company that sells aviation products or provides aviation services, you may be well served to change the channel and come back in a few days.

But if you ARE one of those decision makers at an aviation company, this one's for you:

To maximize budget and drive sales in the right direction, aviation companies will benefit from a new collaborative partnership with Celeste/Daniels Advertising and Design, a national advertising agency specializing in promoting aviation business since 1999. Because the President of Celeste/Daniels is a pilot, we share the same passion for flying that you and your customers enjoy. When you work with a specialized aviation ad agency, you receive the many benefits of our established aviation industry network. We bring our years of experience and knowledge to the creative process so you no longer lose valuable time explaining your products or services to a non-aviation ad agency.

In the 11 years we have been promoting aviation businesses, we have seen the exact same routine with nearly all of them. They become increasingly frustrated trying to create and implement a strategic marketing plan and ad campaign, often by trying to use office staff, which can be disastrous while also pulling critical people away from the more important task of generating revenue.

Or, these aviation businesses try to use an ad agency that doesn't understand aviation. And throughout the creative process, time is lost as company managers need to explain at which end of the aircraft the spinny thing can be found. We have seen this time and again, non-aviation agencies putting together boilerplate materials to create collateral for an air charter operation one day, and a Hardware Store the next, using the same boilerplate. They use a twin Cessna 421 to illustrate a service that provides charter flights in Pilatus PC-12s, thinking that any image of an airplane is fine as long as it has busy executives stepping off the airstair looking at their watch and talking on their cell phone.

Here are a few examples of how my agency has helped aviation businesses focus their sales message because we knew aviation and the aviation industry:

Years ago, we did a large, backlit mural for the inside of an air terminal. It was for the airport's Cessna dealer, and the owner wanted to convince ticked off passengers to learn to fly and then buy brand new T182Ts. The photo he wanted to use showed the plane parked on the ramp with a briefcase in the foreground. But we found an image of the same model Cessna with a briefcase, golf clubs, a set of blueprints and a hard hat. Our reasoning was to show that we knew a Turbo Skylane was not only a businessman's bird, but also one that construction companies could use to shuttle between jobs and maybe get in a quick 18 between flights.

Then there was the airpark high in the Rockies. The owner wanted to target only turbine and turboprop owners who had aircraft capable of operating in and out of the 7,023' runway at Afton, WY. We went to work cross-referencing our database for his direct mail campaign, and because I knew a Citation from a Citabria, I was able to pull out only addresses for larger birds that burned Jet A.

And last, we were contracted by CFI Field Morey to market his IFR Adventure flights to Alaska, the Rockies and the Idaho backcountry. At the time, these flights were only open to certificated IFR pilots, so for the postcard campaign, we chose a dramatic photo of an approach into Eugene, Oregon's Mahlon Sweet Field in cruddy IMC to minimums. We choose that image because we knew that the scuddy weather would instantly be noticed by IFR sticks, and as a result, Field sold out his entire schedule that flying season.

So please bookmark this post and remember our aviation ad agency the next time your aviation business is in a bind and is ticked off – again – at the people attempting to handle the creative development of your marketing plan and your ad campaign. We are very friendly, scary dependable, completely ethical, and we eat, sleep, breathe and love aviation as much as you and your customers do. You already know that pilots take care of fellow pilots, so it just makes logical sense that we'll watch your back and stretch your ad budget without selling you something you really don't need.

Please pass this post to the person in your company that oversees the ad budget, and ask that they go here and read about our special introductory offer for new clients.

Thanks for the time, and now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

It is Rare Moments Like These in a Pilot's LifeThat Need to be Cherished Forever

There are a few important things that happen in every pilot's flying career that you never, ever forget. These are the times when your flying memories are made, when you are able to achieve something important or make an impression on a friend or family member.

Of course, you have your first solo flight etched into your brain forever, it was a glorious day full of challenges, suspense, exhilaration and ultimately, reward. And the day you were awarded your private ticket was marked with elation, laughter and gratitude. Some of us remember clearly that very first airplane ride in a small GA plane. But possibly one of these unforgettable aviation moments we as pilots get to enjoy is when you take someone special flying for the very first time:

This weekend, my only granddaughter turned 19 months old. Without much prompting, she has taken to anything involving airplanes, mostly toy ones to chew on as an infant, or big plastic ones to ride on as a toddler. Of course, we all knew that at some point she would be introduced to Katy, the family Piper Cherokee 235, a.k.a "DooDah's plane", a reference to my official grandparent name. With all family members in town for Mother's Day, and clear + 1,000,000 weather, we all knew this would be the time my granddaughter and Katy became friends.

Prior to the arrival of my family arriving, we had ordered a set of the cutest little pink ear protectors, perfect to protect 19-month-old ears from the ambient noise found inside a 1964 Cherokee. We attempted to put them on the young lass at the house, and she wanted nothing to do with the mini-headset. Nevertheless, we planned the introduction flight for Saturday and hoped that after she saw everyone else in the plane wearing headsets, she too would wear hers. Yeah, sure, try to figure out how a baby thinks:

At the airport – which was quite busy due to the nice weather – my granddaughter was having a hard time not smiling at everything. She could spot a 172 on final from 10 miles out, so it seemed. She grinned wide when we slid open the hangar doors and she saw Katy, as if she knew this was a special day. After securing the car seat in the plane, we loaded the precious cargo in. My grandaughter still would not wear the headset, so we fired up anyway, and she seemed to LIKE the sound of the engine. Not sure about this, but as soon as the engine fired, I swear I heard her try to say something like "Oh, a Lycoming 0-540, good compression, sounds good...smooth! Two hundred thirty five horses...is that a normally-aspirated B2B5?" The fact that she seemed to like airplane noise was, in my world, a huge deal.

The plan had been set the night before. We would get permission from ground to taxi around some vacant ramp space at KEUG, and see how my granddaughter reacted to the sounds, the movement, the new surroundings. If that went well, we'd run up, and see if the bucking and snorting of my engine fighting with the locked brakes would rattle the young girl. If she still was cool, we'd go for it, once around the pattern. As things progressed, it all went well, and after run-up, she was smiling, headset off, enjoying the day. So I picked up grabbed ATIS, headed to the runway and taxied off to light one aviation fire in one small human's life:

Lined up on the numbers ready to depart Eugene's 16L, I glanced to the right seat and asked my granddaughter's dad "are we go?" He had his daughter in his field of vision, and was convinced their daughter was fine with it all. Maybe it was because I was only partially turned around to the back seat, but I SWEAR I saw a tiny thumbs up appear from the area of the baby's car seat. I firewalled the throttle and we blasted off to get this party started. It was as if my granddaughter had done this before, and even with the occasional fairly significant bump, she was content in this new world, soaring over downtown Eugene, staring intently out this new window on the world. Sure, she has flown commercial before, but we all know the sensation of flying GA is far more surreal and rewarding. It was clear my granddaughter was enjoying every second of the flight.

Back on the ground, we all celebrated the day, one I will never forget. As I have said before, I never plan on shoving flying down anyone's throat. Whether my granddaughter ends up being attracted to the sky and eventually to a pilot's license remains to be seen, and certainly we can all agree that she probably won't remember this flight. But we have successfully opened the door now so there is going to be a next flight, and one after that, and one after that. On one of those flights, she will be old enough to remember every detail of that journey to go up to dance with clouds.

If a fire is going to be lit in this future woman's soul to become an aviator, it might happen on one of these fun flights with her DooDah...that would be me. And if – like her DooDah – she determines that the desire to fly has somehow been woven into her DNA and she does end up enjoying a long, luscious career coaxing flying machines to carry her aloft, I want to get partial credit for this one, for this girl, with wings.

And, years from now, when I can no longer pass a medical, I'm going to consider that if she ends up as a pilot, she will be my official replacement, so the GA community sees a net loss of zero. This is, after all, our legacy, to plant seeds, light fires and take kids flying whenever we can...because we have to if GA is to survive for generations to come.

When Things Go "Sideways" is When YouShould Thank Your CFI

We all go through primary training, and the curriculum is the same. The test is the same, the check ride the same. But what is vastly different is the instructor.

When I got my ASEL ticket back in 1996, my instructor was great. He never yelled, he never badgered me, and he constantly passed along tiny morsels of aviator knowledge that he said I would use one day. He said that when I remembered something and got myself out of a jam, I could thank him later.

There were those checklists burned into my head. I still use REMMM to shut down Katy, radios, electrical, mixture, mags, master. But along with the turns around a point and Dutch rolls were a few things that at the time seemed small and unnecessary. But this weekend, I discovered that one of these things had been etched into my brain and it was a very good thing:

After canceling a big trip to Cali this past week due to stubborn low freezing levels over the Siskiyou Pass adjacent to Mt. Shasta, I was itching to fly. So on Sunday evening, I went out to KEUG to practice a little crosswind landing technique. Wind was 240/11 steady so a landing on 16R or L would give me a crab to deal with the wind. But as I taxied out to 16L, I was rolling north and noticed a distinct veer to the right. Steve, my primary CFI, had taught me that at some point in your taxi out, let go of the yoke and pedals and see where the plane goes. Hint, if you are going to eventually land this thing, you want it rolling straight forward so as not to experience a seriously squirrelly roll-out. I do this instinctively before each flight, and I don't even know it, because it is now part of my aviator skill set.

O.K., rolling north, left quartering tailwind, and Katy's nose is definitely veering fairly hard right. A little left pedal fixes it, but as my taxi continued, if I let off the left rudder, her nose pointed at the taxiway lights. "Wind" I thought? I remember saying to myself that if this is a crosswind trying to push me to the grass, damn, it might be way WAY more than the 11 knots ATIS was reporting. So, I did a little diagnosis:

At the holding bay, I asked for and received permission from ATC to taxi back the other way on Bravo. This would be due south, so that strong left quartering crosswind would now be from my right. In theory, the plane should now be blown to the left, but as I rolled along hands-off, Katy still veered right, into the wind. As I sped up, the veer increased in intensity, so I aimed for the hangar and called it a day. As I rolled across the completely empty north ramp at KEUG, I turned all sorts of directions, and no matter where the wind was hitting the plane, her nose wanted to veer right. Something was amiss.

In the hangar, I reached down and touched a seriously hot right brake disc. Sure, brakes are supposed to be warm, but I had hardly used the brakes. I compared it to the temperature of the left brake, and the right was hotter, confirming my suspicions of a dragging right brake. My mechanic has yet to find time to investigate and repair, and I do not suspect a serious issue.

But the episode made me realize that had I not done my CFI's trick of going hands-off to look for any crazy veering issues when taxiing, I could have taken of and then got a really nasty surprise when my gear came back to Earth at 80 mph. A romp through the weeds might have been the outcome.

So, when your CFI tells you about these little nit-picky things they swear you as a rookie flyer needs to burn into your skull, believe them. It just might save your life and your airplane someday.

Oh, and thank you Steve, where ever you are.

A New Vision Brings New Energyand a Really Fun New Direction

This weekend, I finished the launch of a new website for my aviation ad agency. And while this post will be more about advertising than aviation, please stay with me for a while and see where it goes.

We hadn't done much with our old agency website in years, except my constant tweaks to maintain the high SEO results the site has always had. As with any website, a complete makeover can be a time-consuming process, and usually takes months. During our process, we looked inward and discovered some very interesting things about being in the aviation ad game:

When we opened our ad agency in 1999, we did not have any aviation clients. But as the years flew by, we picked up several businesses in this sector, and found that the intricacies of the trade demanded creatives who knew aviation well. Along the way though, we found that aviators as business owners didn't really want to spend a great deal of time on their marketing strategies. The process of developing an ad campaign to support their sales department usually was attempted in-house or farmed out to an agency who didn't know that the spinny thing on the airplane always goes in the front (unless it is a Cessna 337 Skymaster, in which case they have a spinny thing in the front AND back) or that hangar is not spelled "hanger".

With this in mind, we designed our new site after long periods of retrospect. We researched many other agency sites and after asking our clients a few questions, the one constant we heard was that they didn't have the time to sift through a big, content-rich site to drill down to the information they needed about the services an agency provided. We found that more and more people are using their phones and iPads to surf the web on the fly, but many agency sites built from exotic code and flash did not display properly on mobile devices, if they displayed at all. We started connecting dots, and the new celestedaniels.com was born:

When you go to our new site, it is not going to be a whiz-bang joyride through bells and whistles land. You won't find buggy drop-down menus or rotating banners flashing on all sides of the main window. No flashing lights, dancing ponies or glitchy news feeds. We stripped down the site to the bare bones so that the message would be the star and not the artwork. Early reviews are that we hit the mark, with people saying it is a refreshing change to view a site that loads lighting fast even on their mobiles, gets right to the point instantly, and most importantly, respects the visitors time.

Yes, some might say our new site is stark, and lacks the edgy illusions that twenty and thirty somethings expect. But what everyone needs to realize is what you see is not always what you will get:

If you have ever been involved in the development of a professional website, you know the endless decisions that must be made. There are literally an infinite number of style choices and operational options, and as HTML evolves, each new trick du jour can be added to add crazy visuals to the site. We run a lean, virtual agency, and have developers that can code anything a client needs, if they have the budget to afford the cutting edge functionality that is the latest fad. We design each site – and every piece of printed collateral material – to serve the client's needs precisely. So when you see a simple, clean site like ours that makes our story front and center instead of clutter and eye candy, know that we wanted it this way. Nobody will come away from a few minutes inside our new site with any doubts about what we can do for them, and how we have done it successfully for others.

It's that story of our agency that we are most excited about. This quote on our new home page sums up the entire site, it is the major takeaway:

"Celeste/Daniels brings creative energy to your company and blends your vision with our passion to become an integral part of your success."

If this site delivers nothing else to the eyes of smart aviation business owners than that quote, it will have done its job. Because when you look under the hood of most businesses, they all could use some new creative energy. The owners all have a vision of what success looks like, and we have the passion for making that vision come to life. Yes, this is a new direction for my agency, a simplified attitude, a vibrant outlook and a focused commitment to convince aviation business that we are not like the other agencies they have tried before.

That's because at the helm of this ship is a pilot, and everyone reading this knows how pilots stick together and helps each other out, no matter what.

It's just what we do.