Big Things
Happening
at Cirrus!

If anyone had any doubt about the solvency and/or future of Cirrus Design Corp., the following story that broke over the weekend across the country ought to put those thoughts to rest immediately:

Duluth's Economic Development Authority (EDA) this week passed a resolution of intent to lease a 189,000-square-foot facility to Cirrus Design for 25 years. The facility was built so Northwest Airlines Corp. could service Airbus jets, but it was abandoned during Northwest's bankruptcy.

The Duluth News Tribune outlines the details of how Team Klapmeier came to acquire such a mammoth facility right in their backyard:

Leasing it to Cirrus will allow the EDA to avoid $300,000 to $400,000 per year in upkeep costs, said DEDA Executive Director Tom Cotruvo. The body is expected to cast a final vote on the lease on Jan. 3. However, Cirrus has been given the green light to begin moving equipment into the facility. Cirrus will pay $25,000 per month for the facility during 2008, or $300,000 for the year. By year seven of the lease, Cirrus will pay full market rate for the facility -- $96,833 per month or $1.16 million annually.

This is very timely good news to come out of Cirrus, and the acquisition of this Airbus-sized facility can be summed up in two words:

The. Jet.

According to the Duluth paper and also reported on Avweb, Cirrus' Jet Design Team is being pushed out of their current space, and will take over the Northwest Maintenance hangar to design and built the company's new single engine personal jet. And as I see it, nothing else could validate Cirrus' determination to achieve early domination of the PJ market then by closing the deal on nearly two hundred thousand square feet of available manufacturing space.

I come away from this story with one thing crystal clear in my mind: No matter what happens with the possible sale of Arcapita's portion of the corporation, Cirrus is laying down deeper roots right at DLH where they belong. Unlike the "where will they build it" soap opera that has surrounded Piper's PJ entry, Alan Klapmeier has etched in stone his choice for a place to build his company's PJ. And that, my flying friends, is money in the bank.

Cirrus has always been a solid mover and a venerable shaker in our GA community, and this latest move/shake only makes them stronger and more important. Kudos to everyone there for making the future brighter for all of us.

The Amazing
Young Mind

For the last few days, I have been in awe of two new X-plane "pilots", my step-sons Mike and Scott. That is because in a very short time – and with just a few tips and tricks for operating the sim – they have shown me just how valuable today's flight simulator software can be.

Let's take a quick look at the very recent simulator experiences of both new "pilots"...

Scott: After visiting with him over Christmas up in Portland, Los Angeles-based Scott traveled with the family down to my house in Eugene to spend the weekend. In recent memory, I am pretty sure he has never flown X-Plane except maybe in passing...for fun. So when he sat down to "fly" my sim in my flight training room, I can easily say he was a newbie at the program.

That apparently made little difference. He is a video editor and computer tech/designer/expert, so anything done on a Windows or Mac machine is quite easy for him to pick up quickly. But on his first attempt at a landing at Whiteman Airport in Pacoima, he made the hardest of nosewheel landings, bouncing up, only to again slam the poor, innocent nosewheel to the runway. Eventually he ground the simulated Cessna to a halt, causing what I believe to be about $12,000 in simulated airframe damage.

But on the second attempt, he made the runway without breaking anything. I stepped away for a moment, and when I returned, I watch this virtual flight sim beginner make a "no chirp" greaser that was so smooth, it verified my belief that twentysomething minds can learn great things with relative ease.

O.K., that was Scott, who was just playing, more or less. Now let's take a look at his older brother, who is quite serious about earning his private pilot ticket someday:

Michael: A few weeks back over the mouth of the mighty Columbia River near Astoria, Oregon, I let Mike take over the controls of 27W for a few minutes. Without even trying, he held altitude and heading to private pilot practical test standards, or damn close to them. So for Christmas, the family all chipped in and bought him X-Plane 8.6, a CH Products 10-button flight sim yoke, and a set of USB rudder pedals. After an easy installation, he dove right in on Christmas Day, and with a little shade tree CFI'ing from me, I had him landing with ease in the program's Cessna 172.

Over this weekend, he came to my house and flew my sim, nailing landings like a pro. In just a few days, he has already progressed past simple airspeed exercises, and was itching to learn navigation. Again, after watching a few fine landings, I left the room to play cards, and when I returned, he had the plane set up off shore near Catalina Island, and was eager to learn the 411 on how to navigate to and land at Long Beach. Pretty aggressive stuff for a rookie X-Plane guy.

So I blasted through the basics of VOR navigation, and in doing so, 'splained the basics of shooting an ILS. Before I new it – and on his very first try – he centered VOR #2's needle direct Seal Beach, and when the needle on Nav #1 came alive while tuned to the ILS 30 approach to LGB, he turned to the inbound heading of 300, slid down the glideslope and dropped in like he was a Skywest Captain just out doing a day run around SoCal.

Watching these two twentysomethings fly the sim showed me there is hope for GA in the generations to come. Because throughout all the years since the Wright's did their thing at Kill Devil Hills, two things have always been constant: (1) Parents who fly will always try and get their kids interested in flying, and (2) those kids will grow up at the airport and have kids that they can inspire to become aviators. When that happens, the circle becomes complete, keeping the GA community growing strong into the future.

ANN Publishes Exclusive Clarification
of 'Cirrus For Sale' Story

If the post below this one interests you, then you absolutely have to go to Aero News Network and read this exclusive article quoting Alan Klapmeier on the subject.

A Headline to Get
Anyone's Attention!

If you glimpsed the following headline without reading the Wichita Eagle story below it, there might be initial cause for alarm:

Planemaker Cirrus seeking buyer

Say what? Cirrus..for sale? My first gut reaction was that it would be literally impossible for such a great company to be in some kind of financial situation and need to bail out. And as usual, the Eagle's Molly McMillin – their always spot-on aviation writer – illuminates the details:

Cirrus Design Corp. is seeking a buyer to acquire or merge with the aircraft manufacturer, company officials said Thursday. Its major stakeholder, Arcapita, which owns roughly 58 percent of Cirrus, wants to make its money back on its investment.

McMillin's story quotes Cirrus spokeswoman Kate Dougherty as saying "That's been no secret, Cirrus has known that its business partners would be looking for an exit strategy. Arcapita buys and sells companies, they're not in the airplane manufacturing business."

The Eagle piece also lists a couple of interesting items about who might be interested in acquiring Cirrus:

Some time ago, Cirrus retained Credit Suisse and JPMorgan along with law firms King & Spalding and Dorsey & Whitney as business consultants to help it explore options, Dougherty said. One analyst said Cessna Aircraft would be a natural buyer. Cirrus could enhance Cessna's capabilities in the lower end of the general aviation market. "If they (Cessna) could get it for a good price, it would give them designs to sell, eliminate a competitor and give them composite technology," said Teal Group analyst Richard Aboulafia.

Well, with the ink not yet dry on Cessna's purchase of Columbia, it's a sure bet they won't also want to buy up Cirrus too now that they have the capability to build low-wing composite planes in Oregon, Kansas, or, God forbid...China. But the other name mentioned in McMillin's story was worth noting:

JSA Research analyst Paul Nisbet thought Cirrus could be a good fit for Hawker Beechcraft because the Wichita planemaker eventually would like to become publicly traded. Acquiring Cirrus would expand Hawker Beechcraft and "make it much more saleable on a public basis," Nisbet said.

Hmmm, now THAT makes the mind race. Just what would Hawker Beechcraft want with whatever Cirrus has in their skunk works...maybe a very cool little single engine jet? A re-branded "The Jet" would certainly turn some heads and generate quick revenue in the hotly-contested PJ market. And after all, someone needs to compete with Piper's entry in that race...and a Cirrus-built PJ with Beechcraft painted on the fuselage could easily go head-to-head with the Piper PJ.

Time will tell on how this one shakes out. Acquiring Cirrus will be a coup for any company as it has always been etched in stone that Team Klapmeier builds some of the finest, highest-quality single-engine planes in the sky. But what would REALLY turn this writer's head would be a Cirrus piston twin, maybe with Thielert diesel power?

Oh baby, sign me up for one of those.

But Can They Fix
a Crappy Landing?

AOPA's ePublishing staff is running an interesting article right now on aopa.org that casts a tiny bit of light on what kind of flying machines our grandchildren might be flying when they are old enough to solo:

Scientists have developed technology where airplanes can heal their own skins and engine parts can protect themselves from hazardous materials. Enter the low-maintenance airplane. University of Illinois researchers are working on a process where the damage itself triggers the repair mechanism in epoxy-based materials. Imagine a composite fuselage that always looks pristine. When a crack forms in the epoxy material using this approach, microcapsules containing chlorobenzene shear. The solvent disperses into the matrix, where it finds pockets of unreacted epoxy monomers. The solvent then carries the latent epoxy monomers into the crack, where polymerization takes place. This restores structural integrity.

Very interesting indeed. Since I believe one day all new GA planes will be composites, this emerging technology may be worth its weight in gold. Even if you think it's all hocus-pocus, you can't argue with this:

In fracture tests, self-healing composites recovered their original strength by 82 percent. The researches had experimented with a previous process that utilized a catalyst embedded in the epoxy matrix, but it proved too expensive for commercial applications. "Our new self-healing system is simple, very economical, and potentially robust," said professor Jeffrey Moore. "From an economics and simplicity standpoint, self-healing materials could become part of everyday life."

And deep inside your future Jet A-powered engine, there may be parts using another emerging technology being developed by the very same school that produced among many great things the people who are developing the Terrafugia Transition:

Engineers at MIT, meanwhile, have developed a simple process for manufacturing materials that strongly repel oils. This is important for protecting parts that get soaked in fuel such as rubber gaskets and O-rings. Oils and other hydrocarbons spread out over surfaces due to their low surface tension. Water, on the other hand, has high surface tension and forms droplets. Surface tension is a measure of the attraction between molecules of the same substance. The difference in surface tension explains why water rolls off a duck's feathers, but oil-coated feathers have to be washed in soap.

All right, this is all well and good. But in Dano's world, I believe a truly self-healing aircraft would also have this kind of functionality:

Self-filling gas tanks: For those far-too-frequent times when Bozo the Clown flies off in his twin without even giving one second of thought to the fuel quantities on board...this craft would refine fresh fuel from thin air and replenish the tanks en route.

Self-tuning radios: For those idiots who still refuse to make radio calls at uncontrolled fields, this future plane's NAV/COMMs would constantly search for airports and NAVAIDS closest to your programmed route of flight, and automatically tune to the appropriate frequency. Then, as some rude bastard attempts to enter the pattern at XYZ Airport without a call, his plane makes a digitized call for him, telling all other flyers to beat this clown silly the minute he shuts down.

Automatic Temperature Control: This ought to be a no brainer for planes, even today. If the car guys can build a HVAC system that is thermostat-controlled, why can't today's GA plane makers? Set it to 72 and forget it, letting the system choose from heating and A/C when needed.

Weight and Balance Issues: Tomorrow's airplane would have automatic seats that when filled would calculate the weight of each passenger as well as their luggage, determine the fuel on board, and then slides all seats fore or aft to re-center the CG.

You get the idea. There is quite a bit of room for improvement in the airplane of the future, as I truly believe there has never been a more exciting time to be an Aeronautical Engineer. As airline service continues to deteriorate over the years to come, we will see GA continue to appeal to more and more of the public, and if we can truly manufacture a "SmartPlane", more people will choose to buy one. The physics of flight will never change – pull the yoke back and the houses get smaller – but the passenger environment to achieve that flight can certainly change for the better...big time.

Delta Clarifies
the Flying Experience

Let's say you are from another planet – like maybe Mars – and your Leader sends you on a journey "far, far away" to investigate how humanoids travel around this chuck of rock called Earth. After a few light years cooped up in a tiny capsule, you touchdown just outside the terminal at Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport.

You begin your research by strolling past a young couple laughing hysterically as they watch videos on a strange electronic gizmo that spans their lap. Intrigued, you draw on your new English speaking skills to start up a conversation and ask what is so funny. The couple stops ROFL long enough to tell you this:

They're watching Delta Airline's new series of "Passenger Etiquette Training Videos" called Planeguage. The videos are meant to train Earthlings on how to fly in an airliner, and explain what can be expected if you've never flown on Delta Airlines before.

The Martian sits down next to the couple and begins watching with them...and here is what they see:

Lavdance (view here) – A line of pax are waiting in the aisle, ready to piss their pants – even though the airlines discourages hovering vertically near the lav door in this post-9/11 world. A rude woman emerges from the Loo and pushes/shoves her way through the pissy customers back to her seat.

Kidtastrophe (view here) – A businessman rides in coach, and spills his coffee on a fresh white shirt because some puke eight-year-old behind him thinks the guy's seatback is a soccer ball. Two more cherubs stand on their seats in the next row forwards, staring at him for hours. And just for effect, a toddler lounges on a mother's lap in the seat next to his, screaming bloody murder for his/her $#@%!& binky.

Shady Lady (view here) – A pressurized tube full of pax are engulfed in some low rent "B" movie in a darkened cabin. Just as the flick hits its climax, a dumbass woman in the window seat starts yanking her window shade up and down several times, letting annoying daylight in to blind the flyers around her. And just when an aisle seat kid wants to look out the window, dumbass window seat lady yanks the shade closed.

Middleman (view here) – Two nice young children ride in the aisle and window seat of what appears to be a 737, with three abreast seating on each side of the aisle. A rude and crude man sits down in between them and the three proceed to jostle for the armrests. After a little give and take, the mean adult wins by forcefully shoving the kid's innocent little arms off the rests so he can use a "wide stance" to read his paper.

Miracle in the 34th Row (view here) – This cute little holiday piece opens with Christmas travelers packing away their carry-ons and packages in the overheads. A happy couple sits in three across seating, holding hands across the empty middle seat. A late-to-the-gate moron squeezes into the pressurized tube just as the door is closing, and heads towards the happy couple's row, which happens to be row 34. But the moron finds his seat in row 35, and the happy couple does not have to stop holding hands. Awwwwwwww...

The Little Green Man stares at the laptop gizmo with disbelief before calmly asking "who the HELL would want to travel like that...are you Earthlings insane?" He then gets back in his tiny capsule and launches for home, radioing his Leader to tell him they can scratch this rock called "Earth" off their list of planets with intelligent life.

From my vantage point as an advertising professional, these Planeguage videos are an interesting exercise in how the delicate psychology of public relations can sometimes backfire. Viewed one after the other, they show an absolutely horrible travel environment, so the Martian has a point in asking why we, the people, would actually PAY to get around like that.

But Delta is not satisfied with these few Planeguage videos, so they are soliciting our ideas for more:

We love hearing from you and welcome your ideas for the next series of Planeguage videos. Please go ahead and post yours here in our blog. We plan on refreshing our programming on a regular basis and we already have some amazing ideas from you that are being incorporated into future Planeguage shorts, so thanks for posting!

So in the interest of helping Delta explain the whole flying experience these days, here are a few ideas of my own for more Planeguage videos:

Stranded – A planeload of passengers are stuffed inside a hot, stinky tube that has been parked for hours on the tarmac. The lav is overflowing down the center aisle, diabetic passengers are screaming for their insulin, and babies without fresh diapers reak. The Captain comes into the cabin to calm the unruly pax and is mobbed and beaten to within inches of his life.

Oversold – A gate waiting area is packed with travelers awaiting their cattle call to board. The perky gate agent comes on the horn and tells them in the cheeriest of voices that the Old Wise Men in their airline's Board Room has allowed the Reservation Center to oversell the flight by 10 seats. The waiting passengers, all having paid actual MONEY for their seat, begin a run for the jetway. In a moment, it is chaos as they all try to squeeze out the gate door. Poor old ladies are trampled, and defenseless young children fall to the carpet as a wave of humanity crushes them in a race to fight for a seat.

"Food" or something like it – A businessman has bought a very expensive last-minute coach seat. The Flight Attendant comes along and hands him a tiny cup of luke warm soda pop, and a bag of stale pretzels. The guy flips out, demanding something more then snack food...shouting he deserves at least FRESH pretzels for his $1,440 fare. Soon the plane erupts with mayhem, people start throwing their stale pretzels in rebellion, and the pretzels – now hard, sharp flying objects – actually cause injury to the poor FA who was just doing her dime-an-hour job.

You get the idea..I could go on and on and on. See, in my career, the last thing you want to do is produce videos for the public showing just how awful your product really is. I totally get their intention here - try to teach the cattle back in coach to behave like the one-percenters up in first-class. But from the last few airline trips I took, it was crystal clear that a handful of cute animated videos would have had zero effect on the declining experience that flying via Big Airline legacy carrier have become.

It is NOT rocket science to create an airline where passengers are happy and served well. If you need an example, look no further then here.

Why Not Support
NATCA's Troops
for a Change?

As our nation's air traffic control situation continues to spiral out of control, at least the controller's union is trying to do something about the mess that FAA has made of our skies. In a wave of new press releases from NATCA each more horrendous then the preceding one, it is easy to see this problem has reached a tipping point when you read headlines like this:

CHICAGO CONTROLLERS DECLARE SAFETY PROBLEM AFTER SIXTH SERIOUS CLOSE CALL PUTS FACILITY OVER FAA-MANDATED LIMIT FOR INCIDENTS

In just 11 short weeks, already Chicago Center has had six serious incidents – two more then the FAA-mandated limit of four incidents – for the entire 2008 fiscal year! The latest incident happened 15 miles north of Springfield, Ill:

At 9:34 a.m. CDT on Wednesday morning, Southwest Airlines Flight 3757 was inbound to Midway Airport from St. Louis when it encountered a King Air 200 at the same altitude and headed toward the same horizontal point. The TCAS aboard the Southwest jet sounded a warning to the pilots to descend, moments after the pilots received an expedited emergency descent instruction from a veteran controller who had to intercede to take command of the radio frequency from his trainee. The aircraft came as close as 3.11 miles horizontally.

Now you might think that having a trainee at a position would not be dangerous, as you'd assume that FAA regs must call for very thorough training procedures. So why then did the veteran controller have to step in and keep the King Air and SWA3757 from trading paint? NATCA's release has a clue that is scary as hell:

Chicago Center has recently changed the way trainees are trained. The facility has been issued waivers so that managers there can compress training that would have previously taken 36 months into a six-month period. Trainees here are being rushed into positions they are not ready to handle because FAA management has no other way to staff this facility. These trainees are also not getting the overall level of experience needed to become a qualified controller because the FAA doesn’t have time to wait for them to get the seasoning they need before the system completely collapses. Compounding the problem is the agency’s rush to certify trainees as controllers whether the individual is ready or not for the daunting task of controlling airplanes alone in an extremely stressful environment like Chicago Center.

I am sure that this is but one topic that NATCA President Patrick Forrey brought up when he met this week with Acting FAA Administrator Bobby Sturgell. At this face-2-face, Forrey requested something substantive that may actually help the crisis:

To try to come up with some near-term solutions, NATCA requested that the FAA convene an air traffic control safety conference to bring the nation’s pilots, airlines, and controllers together. In the meantime, Forrey and Sturgell agreed to meet January 3, 2008 to develop a process to identify and address safety related issues that NATCA and the FAA could address jointly.

I applaud NATCA and Forrey for pushing FAA on this so hard. It is clear that our air traffic controllers are being "handled "by FAA about as well as FEMA "handled" their response to Hurricane Katrina. In front of the cameras, it's all "Heckuva Job, Brownie" from FAA, while behind the scenes, rookie controllers with one-sixth the training are pushing tin towards one another with increasing regularity. It is so sad that these controllers must suffer through the most arrogant administration in our country's history, because all NATCA's troops want is a little support too.

Gee, I wonder how many controllers we could buy and train with the money spent on ONE DAY of Bushco's war, which by the way is $275 MILLION according to nationalpriorities.org. That kind of cash would go a long way towards filling those chairs at Chicago Center with trained bodies. So I propose we stop the war - just for one day, say maybe Christmas Day, which when you think about it IS what Jesus would do - and give all that money to NATCA to hire and train more controllers.

Serious Oops

If anyone you know says they are incapable of making a mistake now and then, they would be lying to you. We all make the occasional blunder, some of them trivial and some monumental. But not many of us make the kind of mistake that can kill whole loads of souls, this whopper being reported by Aero News Network here:

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau confirmed Saturday it's investigating how, and why, engineers at Qantas accidentally filled emergency oxygen tanks on a Boeing 747 with nitrogen instead. The incident occurred at Melbourne Airport, reports The Sydney Morning Herald, and triggered an immediate check of over 50 planes serviced by the apparently mis-labelled nitrogen gas cart.

O.K., you might think they have checks and balances in place to prevent such an awful and potentially deadly mistake. But in this case, you'd be wrong...again from ANN:

Qantas reportedly took delivery of the nitrogen cart 10 months ago, and "it looked exactly like the old oxygen cart. When the attachments did not fit they went and took them off the old oxygen cart and started using it.

Jeez, Louise...hasn't anyone over in Australia ever heard of a PLACARD?

Since not all my readers are chemistry majors, I cannot assume they all get the implications of this post. So today I went sniffing around the Internets to find out exactly what happens when the cockpit loses pressurization and both pilots strap on the nitrogen masks...and it ain't pretty:

A typical human breathes between 12 and 20 times per minute. Normal air is about 78 percent nitrogen, 21 percent oxygen, and 1 percent argon, carbon dioxide, and other gases. After just two or three breaths of nitrogen, the oxygen concentration in the lungs would be low enough for some oxygen already in the bloodstream to exchange back to the lungs and be eliminated by exhalation. Unconsciousness in cases of accidental nitrogen asphyxia can occur within 1 minute. Loss of consciousness may be accompanied by convulsions and is followed by cyanosis and cardiac arrest. About 7 minutes of oxygen deprivation causes death of the cerebral cortex and presumably the medulla oblongata, which controls breathing and heart action.

WOW. Now with something that deadly hanging around the shop, you might wonder if they should have giant green and red nozzles that are two different shapes to fit on two different nipples, one for oxygen and one for nitrogen. Maybe paint the oxygen cart orange, and the nitrogen cart purple...anything to allow even Bozo the freakin' Clown to tell them apart. You'd think the airline industry by now would have figured out a bulletproof solution to absolutely and completely eliminate the risk of this kind of mistake being made...ever.

Oh yeah, you'd think.

So You Think You
Can Handle IMC?

We've all met instrument-rated pilots who talk the talk about being aces at completing approaches to minimums in icing conditions on mountaintop grass strips the size of a parking stall. But when it comes time to walk that walk, they run for the coffee shop because their boasting about being a stud up in the clouds was all hat and no cattle.

There are those pilots, and then there are the ones who CAN walk that walk. You can tell who they are because of this: When the ceilings are low and the ice is starting to form on your struts, there is a good chance they'll fly their way out of trouble because they've flown on an IFR Adventure with Field Morey.

Field – who was named that because his aviator parents couldn't name him airport – runs Morey's West Coast Adventures, and in the interest of full disclosure, he is a client of ours. But now that I am an instrument student myself, I am starting to really appreciate the kind of training he gives his "students" on what he calls IFR Adventures:

Field believes that there is only one way for an instrument-rated pilot to stay safe, and that is to receive training in actual IMC conditions. To accomplish this, he loads a pair of IFR pilots into his 2007 G1000 Cessna T182T and aims the nose at places like Alaska, the Rocky Mountains, or the back country strips of Idaho. He then wrings every last drop of talent out of these two students, pushing them to their limits through the qaug and the mire into the kind of serious IMC that would make most other pilots turn a 180.

Just a few days ago, Field returned from his December "adventure" and here are some of his comments regarding ice:

The purpose of my December Rocky Mountain Adventure is to give Instrument Rated Pilots more experience with regard to cross-country mountain IMC operations. Naturally a December trip entails icing and NO the Cessna T182 is not certified for flight into KNOWN icing. But it is certified for flight OUT OF known ice! My job as a flight instructor is to replace fear and lack of confidence with knowledge and experience. And, no, I don't have a death wish but I do have years and years of flying in winter conditions following my cardinal rule when it comes to ice. That is always, always, always have a way out of trouble!

So just who are these IFR Adventure guys anyway? You might think they are rock climbing, Bungee-jumping X-gamers who live life on the edge...but you would be wrong. They are just pilots like you and me, guys and gals who want to get up in it and see what flying IFR is all about:

George was a 2,000 hour owner of a TR182 who regularly flies for business and pleasure based in Missoula, MT. This was his seventh IFR adventure with me. The second student, Greg, came all the way from Staten Island, NY. He had about 600 hours total time and was commercial, multi and glider rated. The first day out, a major storm was slamming into the Northwest bringing with it sigmets for turbulence and all three airmets for ice, turbulence and mountain obscuration. I would never think of making this trip without a turbo.

This IFR adventure spanned five days and covered 27 legs. Day one took the Turbo 182 to Missoula after working east from Field's Medford, Oregon base. Day two had no less then SEVEN LEGS into fields in Montana and Wyoming, ending at Cheyenne Regional. Day three must have been a classic sweat inducer, with winter stops in places like white-knuckle strips in Aspen and Telluride before a planned layover in Sedona.

Even after what had to be a stressful day of IMC, day four must have been another sweat producer, heading down into the craziness of the L.A basin to Palm Springs and Santa Monica before a RON at Santa Maria. And that all was leading up to the grand finale, day five, when the trip worked north up the California coast, talking with Bay Approach into Monterey and Sonoma County before arriving back in Medford...in one piece.

This is not a sales pitch, as Field's adventures last year all sold out...and I'm sure his 2008 adventures will also. So if you want the ultimate test to see if you can handle all that Mother Nature can throw at you, go ahead and click through to ifrwest.com. And if you end up booking an adventure, I suggest you review just about everything you've every learned about flight into IMC, because you're going to need it all.

GA Needs More
of This Kind of PR

Sometimes it is quite sad to see how the mainstream media treats us in the general aviation world. Sure, they'll run a story when a Cessna plants itself – with the help of the pilot – in someone's back yard. And yes, they'll broadcast sound bites of people who build homes at the departure end of an existing GA airport bitching a blue streak about noise. But it is very seldom we see this kind of story. Here it is verbatim from aopa.org:

More than 140 airplanes flown by pilots operating on their own nickels descended on Michigan’s Oakland County International on Dec. 8 to participate in Operation Good Cheer and transport more than 16,000 wrapped Christmas presents to needy children in foster care across the state.

The massive annual toy lift was the culmination of nearly a year of work by volunteers who help Child and Family Services of Michigan, a nonprofit organization dedicated to strengthening children and families. During the year, children in foster care who might not otherwise get gifts at Christmas were identified, and individuals and organizations bought and wrapped presents for each child and arranged to get them to the Pontiac airport.

The airplanes began arriving before dawn. Upon checking in, pilots were shepherded by a team led by air traffic controllers from the Detroit and Pontiac areas and given their mission destinations. Standing in 22 degrees F and 15-knot winds, volunteers helped each pilot load his or her airplane with as many toys as could be stuffed aboard. Airplanes ranged from two-place trainers through high-end bizjets. There was also a rare Convair 5800, donated by local cargo airline IFL Group.

By noon, the airplanes were being greeted by more excited volunteers who helped unload the presents. They will deliver them to the foster families in time for Christmas. Despite the icy nip in the air, participants reported seeing more Santa hats and smiling people in one place than they could conveniently recall.

Now friends, that is what I call a great thing. We need to jump on any opportunity like this we can so that Average Joe and Jane can start seeing us not as noisy little airplanes that crash spectacularly, but angels with wings helping whenever and however we can.

Relief Coming
for Email Addicts

We've all seen them at most any large airport in the country...email addicts who can't function without a continual dose of inbox heroin. They plunder their way through the crowd hypnotized, face buried in their gizmo, thumbs typing away feverishly on their QWERTY keyboard. As we sip our latte and watch them, we often ask ourselves what emails could possibly be so important that these people can't just chill out once in a while.

Then, as we board the airliner, we see them increase their thumb-pecking, racing against the Flight Attendant to get those last little bytes uploaded before she closes the cabin door, which nowadays is the official time to shut off all devices that can transmit outbound.

The airlines have always told us to stop transmitting because somehow the gadgets we hold would interfere with the safe completion of the flight. But that is changing these days, and soon, the email addicts who fly Jetblue will be able to keep feeding that addiction en route. so says this yahoo news story:

JetBlue Airways Corp. will start offering limited e-mail and instant messaging services for free on one of its planes next week as airlines renew efforts to offer in-flight Internet access. General Web surfing and e-mail attachments won't be permitted because of bandwidth constraints, and services on laptops and handhelds with Wi-Fi wireless access will be limited to e-mail and messaging from Yahoo Inc. Passengers can check other personal and work e-mail — but only on two BlackBerry models that have Wi-Fi wireless capabilities, under a deal with BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd.

Now on the surface, it is easy to poke fun at those lost souls who can't live without their email for a couple of hours. And with the limitation of email and messaging only from yahoo.com aboard "Betablue" – a.k.a. JetBlue flight 641 from New York to San Francisco – it seems like this service would only appeal to a handful of passsengers. What the major U.S. carriers need to do is follow my lead by providing a service similar to what is available aboard the mythical Air Dano jumbo jets:

On Air Dano, every seat is a first class seat. You can leave that tiny email gizmo in the overhead too, because each seat is equipped with a work station featuring a Macbook Pro, a fax machine, Bose noise-cancelling headphones, and free, unlimited high-speed access to each and every one of the Internets. Unlike the pathetic old school phone that is still implanted into the back of some American and United seatbacks, Air Dano passengers stare at a 21" LCD high definition display that serves up either the signal from the Mac or a lengthy list of free satellite tv stations and first-run movies. Cell phones would still be taboo, however. And for those few remaining misguided individuals who must torment themselves while trying to run Vista, one seat in coach will have a Windows machine attempting to log on the system without crashing.

The yahoo.com news story explains that JetBlue will be using a wireless spectrum that was purchased from the Federal Communications Commission last year for $7 million. The JetBlue Internet access will use Wi-Fi and not cellular signals, so apparently it does not violate federal regulations.

This, my flying friends, is just the tip of the iceberg. It is the first baby steps towards the day we all know is coming, when Wi-Fi and Wi-Max Internet access will not only be available for free aboard airliners, but also in just about every square inch of this country.

In my mind, this whole Internet thing won't be complete until you can get online anytime from anywhere from anything you hold in your hands. Call it blue sky dreaming, but I KNOW this day is coming, when hunting down a "hot spot" in Midtown will be one of those "back in the day" stories you tell your grandkids.

Pilotz in da 'Hood

No, that is not the name of a rap band that sings songs about flying. It is the fraternity I now belong to, a brother (and sista') hood of IFR aviators who for some damned reason want to pilot their craft solely by instruments in weather that would make a seagull run for cover.

Yesterday was my first serious "hood" flight in 27W. I say hood, but in reality, it was more of a "visor" flight because my CFI-I had me buy a Viban view limiting device. This fine little gadget is a small plastic visor with ear pieces that rests atop your nose (or in my case, glasses) and blocks out forward vision...sort of. With the Viban, you are technically "under the hood" but with a tiny movement of your head up, you can easily see out front. My CFI-I swears it is legal for training, currency and the checkride, but a pilot has to be on the honor system and have the mental fortitude to keep the head down and not cheat by grabbing a quick glimpse on the trek down the glideslope.

After getting shot down by weather on two occasions, and flying a couple of PCATD sessions, my CFI-I had me file a nice little IFR flight plan that would take us to a fix for holding practice before returning to shoot the ILS. But from the moment I hit the starter, I found out how easily an IFR pilot can be distracted:

27W – aka "Katy" – had sat for just over two weeks due to seriously crummy weather here in the Willamette Valley. It took a couple of tries to coax the Lycoming to life, only to see that the windows were completely steamed up from me breathing heavily in anticipation of flight. I taxied sort of by braille to the run-up box, and when I tried to get my first IFR clearance ever, Comm #1 was loaded with static and breaking up. But I managed to get cleared, took off, but continued to have crappy reception. Being focused on the radio squawk led to my first sloppy mistake, briefly turning to a 330 heading instead of the assigned 030.

I managed to find the initial fix for the hold on instruments alone, struggling with altitude while diagnosing what was up with the radio. Lucky for me, I had practiced this exact hold entry on my X-Plane simulator a few times, so I had the inbound heading, teardrop entry and outbound heading etched in my brain. Only one itsy-bitsy thing I forgot up there at the controls...wind:

Not that I hadn't tried to calculate how best to compensate for the 10 knot rear quartering tailwind. In my mind, I had the entire hold racetrack burned in, but when I found myself directly over SHEDD, all hell broke loose in my head. That oh-so convenient connection between brain and hands that we use to control a flying machine was gone. I plundered my way around the hold, not sure at any point if I was compensating for the wind, or if I was getting blown straight to hell.

My easy going CFI-I calmly helped me around the hold a few times, and then called Cascade Approach for the ILS into 16R at EUG. I was thrilled to hear this assignment – I had flown that ILS a million times in X-plane – so why would this be any different? I acknowledged my vectors to final, set 27W into a wonderful stable approach, and waited for the CDI and glide slope needles to come alive. So far, so good.

Established on the localizer, I held the needles centered like a good IFR pilot...for a while. Now what was that about sensitivity...oh yes...it increases as we approach the airport. At about the 600-foot mark AGL when the needles took off for the outer reaches of the CDI, I found myself instantly screwed. At roughly the 400-foot AGL mark, Jim had me remove the Viban to the realization I was seriously high and right of centerline...at about 100 MPH! Lucky for me, a Cherokee 235 can stop on a dime in mid-air and give you change. I slid onto 16R and had to taxi to the second turnoff...not bad for my first official ILS approach. Not textbook, but not bad.

After hangaring 27W, I drove home thinking I might have flown the worst trip of my career. Sloppy was the word that kept coming to mind. So I wrote my CFI-I an email asking for an assessment of what I thought was a horrible outing, and this was his reply:

You flew fine today. Typically, initial instrument students don't fly with nearly the precision that you demonstrate. It isn't unusual for me to see 30 degree heading deviations and 400 foot altitude excursions. You're very good about your heading and altitude discipline. You'll also find that it gets substantially easier with every flight.

Welcome words. I am coming to the realization that while this is hard work, is is also extremely rewarding, attacking the sky with only those steam gauges before me. I am looking forward to it getting easier, because after this first lesson, it sure can't get much harder.

Support From
Around the Country

Not a day goes by anymore when I don't get an email from a NATCA air traffic controller in support of the weekly posts I have been publishing on their degrading work situation.

Yes, their plight is starting to gain a little traction in the MSM, but there aren't many other voices out there on the Internets spreading the word about what our controllers are going through. I am very happy to be one of the few who are riding their bandwagon. Generally, the letters I get from the men and women at ATC all follow about the same theme as these:

Av8rdan:
I am a controller at Jacksonville Center, Jax Florida as well as a pilot. I just wanted to take a few minutes to thank you for your kind words towards the controller workforce and our profession. It is an extraordinary job to say the least and we always enjoy it when others from the "outside" take the time to appreciate the work we do. If you're ever in the Jacksonville area, please feel free to contact me for a tour of Jax Center. We'd love to have you.

Dear Aviator Dan,
Thank you very much for your blog entry about ATC and future probable accidents. I am an air traffic controller and my husband is a pilot for a major airline. I am increasingly worried about his safety as he traverses the most complicated and heavily populated airspace of our country. I am so grateful that someone like you with an audience grasps the information that NATCA has been trying so hard to get out there! Keep up the good work and we'll try to keep our eyes on you!

Dan:
On behalf of the controllers that I represent in New York, I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for spreading the message! While we certainly haven’t given up hope (outside of electing a worker-friendly POTUS in 2008), the past year has been the most dismal in my nearly 19 as a controller.

Dear World of Flying:
The idea of using cell towers as part of the ATC system scares me. Before becoming a controller, I attended Embry-Riddle in Daytona Beach. When Hurricanes and Tropical Storms approached us, what was the first thing to start to crumble? The cell networks. If cell towers are used for air traffic control and a national emergency or natural disaster occurs, an important part of the infrastructure may become too taxed to handle the load at the very time that you need it most. That scares me beyond belief.

It is truly a very sad situation these controllers are living through, a raw deal from an arrogant administration that is asleep at the wheel. It is so bad and so dire that today, NATCA President Patrick Forrey showed he and NATCA have seen enough, and challenged FAA Acting Administrator Robert Sturgell to this...from a NATCA release:

Last week’s GAO report on runway incursions highlighted the risk of a potential catastrophic collision due, in part, to lack of adequate technology, FAA’s failure to exhibit national leadership on high-priority, runway-related safety actions, and unprecedented numbers of overworked controllers at facilities around the country. These conditions are placing both pilots and air traffic controllers at great risk of mishap. NATCA is extremely worried that the safety margins—which have kept the nation’s skies the safest in the world—have all but eroded. We have initiated our own technology review to identify capacity and safety enhancements that we can propose to the agency and its stakeholders. In the interim, however, we are requesting an emergency meeting between the FAA’s top ATC executives and NATCA to see what we can do together to restore system safety before tragedy occurs. My team and I stand ready to meet at your earliest possible convenience.

There it is...gauntlet thrown down. To use the most cliché of clichés, the ball is now squarely in FAA's court. If Sturgell and FAA ignore NATCA and do not come to the table to hammer out a deal that protects the flying public, we will know who to blame when – not if – tragedy strikes.

New PR Voice at AOPA

When AOPA talks about weather related issues in the coming months and years, it will not be by accident, and will be with far greater authority then ever before because they've made a valuable addition to their media team:

Seasoned pilot and public relations professional Greg Romano has joined AOPA as its vice president of public relations. He brings more than 20 years of public relations experience, most recently at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Romano is an instrument-rated private pilot with a true understanding of general aviation. Prior to joining AOPA, Romano was director of public affairs at NOAA’s National Weather Service, where his responsibilities included working with aviation organizations on weather-related issues, serving as the National Weather Service’s spokesman to national and local media, and managing crisis communications, news conferences, and other media events.

Romano adds even more experience to an already stellar team that has on their plates one major role:

He [Romano] will oversee AOPA’s media and public relations department, with responsibility for promoting a positive image of AOPA and general aviation to the public, presenting AOPA’s position on issues through media interviews and outreach, and managing AOPA Project Pilot and AOPA’s presence at aviation events and airshows.

While having never met Romano, I am confident he and I have lots in common, both of us being "media guys". I'm sure he knows more about fonts then Average Joe, and can hold his own while photo editing. But one thing clearly jumped out at me when I read his announcement story today at aopa.org, and that was the way we would both view a job at AOPA HQ:

"He looks forward to putting his public relations skills to work in the aviation industry, and considers his new position at AOPA a 'dream job,'" said Karen Gebhart, AOPA executive vice president of communications.

Since discovering AOPA and attending my first Expo in Palm Springs in the late 90s, I have always been seriously impressed with everything anyone in that organization does. In those days before I opened our aviation ad agency, my "dream job" was to earn a spot on AOPA's team to help Phil Boyer and his hand-picked crew spread the word about GA.

Because of the way I feel about the organization, I am sure I could have contributed a great deal to their effort. I believe that enthusiasm for promoting GA is contagious, and nowhere else in the land – with the only two exceptions being EAA and NBAA HQ – could a creative like myself get the chance to shout about aviation from the largest GA soap box there is.

So congratulations, Greg, on achieving a dream.

An Accident Waiting
to Happen

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association has been screaming for months about deplorable working conditions at FAA's air traffic facilities across the country. In a nutshell, FAA requires too much for too little from today's controllers, making them work without a contract to the point of fatigue on extra shifts inside decaying, understaffed facilities. Now, as CNN and Associated Press are reporting widely, the "heckuva job" that Bush's cronies are doing at FAA might lead to dead bodies if something isn't done:

There is "a high risk of a catastrophic runway collision occurring in the United States," congressional investigators concluded Wednesday. They cited faltering federal leadership, malfunctioning technology and overworked traffic controllers as reasons for the danger.

The Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm, said "no single office is taking charge of assessing the causes of runway safety problems and taking the steps needed to address those problems," in a report that was requested by Rep. Jerry F. Costello, D-Illinois, and Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg, D-New Jersey.

Considering how embarrassed the White House should be today for getting caught red-handed lying about Iran's developing (or not) nukyoulear programs, I'd love to see the White House Press spokesperson du jour trying to spin their way out of this...from the CNN/AP story:

This year has seen dramatic near-collisions. On August 16, two commercial jets carrying 296 people came within 37 feet of colliding at Los Angeles International. A Delta Boeing 757 touched down in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on July 11 and had to take off again immediately to avoid hitting a United Airbus A320 mistakenly on its runway. A Delta Boeing 737 landing at New York's LaGuardia airport on July 5 narrowly missed a commuter jet that was mistakenly cleared to cross its runway.

I want to stand up and cheer for CNN and AP finally landing on NATCA's bandwagon on this. Like everything else in The Decider's administration, his agency that oversees those pressurized tubes full of taxpayers is a real mess, so says the people who keep those tubes separated:

Citing the safety board and GAO concerns about fatigue, NATCA president Patrick Forrey asked, "How much more do we have to hear before the FAA is held accountable for the blatant disregard for safety it is showing by understaffing its facilities, working controllers past their breaking points and refusing to work with us to settle an ongoing contract negotiating impasse that has created the largest mass exodus of both veteran controllers and trainees we have seen since 1981?"

Good question, Patrick. And in a NATCA release recently, the problem is spelled out even more clearerly...in language The Decider can certainly understand:

“The facts are crystal clear: Both the NTSB and the GAO are now on record saying controller fatigue affects runway safety. And now the GAO has said fatigue is created by working overtime, which in turn is necessitated by staffing shortages. Furthermore, the Department of Transportation Inspector General last February cited the breakdown in contract talks as the reason so many controllers left the FAA last year. This is game, set and match. There is nowhere else the FAA can run and hide from this staffing crisis and deny its existence."

We all know where this is headed if it's not fixed NOW. But as per usual with the public versus The Decider, there is nothing anyone can do about it until January 2009 when this nightmare will officially be over. Until then, all you can really do is pray that when the inevitable happens, you won't be in seat 13D holding a cup of luke warm soda pop and a bag of stale pretzels.

What do Cell Towers
Have to do With ATC?

A recently Popular Mechanics story by Barbara Peterson is worth a read, as it spells out some of the things that FAA is planning:

The Federal Aviation Administration recently awarded a $1.8 billion contract to ITT Corporation to lay the groundwork for NextGen, an overhaul of the country’s overloaded air traffic control system from aging radar towers to GPS that would use real time to pack in the sky without sacrificing safety. One of the reasons for ITT’s surprise win—it beat out aviation heavyweights Lockheed Martin and Raytheon—was its partnership with AT&T, which will lend hundreds of cell towers to anchor the new surveillance technology for tracking planes in the air.

The extensive story says that "the new team behind America’s air traffic control overhaul hopes to have AT&T cell towers come to the rescue". All fine and good, at least at first glance. But as usual, reality always bites back:

Skeptics note that the FAA’s new air traffic control system fails to address both the tendency of airlines to overschedule flights during peak hours and the looming shortage of air traffic controllers—many who replaced striking workers in 1981 are facing mandatory retirement. Doug Church, an official with the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, says that while his organization welcomes technological advances, he’s concerned that NextGen not be viewed as a panacea. “An airport can still only handle so many flights,” he says. “What we need is more concrete on the ground” in the form of new runways and airfields, he says.

Duh. This Nextgen planning is just more of the same kind of Washington wisdom that brought is Iraq, the post-Katrina embarrassment and the current sub-prime mortgage meltdown. And one commenter on the PM site really nails it IMHO:

If you are landing aircraft at the maximum airport acceptance rate, which we are all over the country, how does having more aircraft arrive during that hour help? All it does is make them get to their holding pattern quicker. "NexGen" is just a scam so that corporations can get billions of dollar contracts and then the people who gave them those contracts get nice cushy jobs from said corporations.

Ouch...but one name I can quickly think of indicates that poster might be right on: Marion Blakey.

As usual with anything Popular Mechanics reports, there is far more depth then what the main story offers available here...all of it excellent writing that deserves your attention.

Listen to That
Voice in Your Head(set)

As with anything in aviation, if you poll enough pilots, you will certainly find one who has absolutely nothing good to say about our nation's Air Traffic Controllers. These are also the clowns who like to strafe their home patch in their B55 Baron full out at 200 AGL without making a radio call.

And as you might expect if you read this blog regularly, I am NOT one of this group. I am a big fan of the men and women inside my headset, and this week one of them took me on a tour of the Eugene, Oregon tower. I had been up in the FAT tower once before, and it is always good times when you get inside the inner sanctum of ATC:

My wife Julie and I are standing in Cascade Approach, one screen covering roughly 35 miles around EUG up to FL110, and a second screen handling the 35 miles around Medford to the south. The first thing you see when you enter the radar room is...darkness. The only illumination comes from the faint green glow of the radar screens, and if you listen intently, you can almost hear the controllers talking over the constant hum of a million electrodes assaulting your body from every angle. At the screens, a couple of controllers sit casually in their chairs, pushing a button here, sliding a slip of paper down the console there, occasionally giving guidance to some invisible pilot out there in the netherworld who is known only to them as a tiny green blip on a screen.

As our escort Controller explains what is before us, I try and listen for transmissions from the controller seated just three feet away working the Eugene sector. His voice is almost inaudible as he calmly tells a Skywest regional jet to turn fifteen degrees for traffic. Our escort seems overjoyed to be showing us the place, as if he is relieved to have something else to do then to stare at an nearly empty radar screen.

On this night, it is stone cold outside, with the temperature and dewpoint dancing dangerously with one another. You can count the blips on either screen on one hand, and still have fingers left to snap. Unlike the images we all have of Centers exploding with commotion as airliners converge on major hubs, tonight, Cascade Approach is a ghost town, a very boring post to have to work.

After hearing about the specific migratory routes of the giant flocks of birds that frequent EUG's airspace – it takes about 200 geese to show up on their radar screen, in case you were wondering – we head up the elevator to the "cab" as I believe it is called. The controllers working up there call it the best view in all of Eugene:

Maybe on a clear summer day when there were lots of arrivals and departures, the Eugene tower may be a hopping place to be. But tonight, one controller looks bored out of her mind, and is thrilled I'm sure to have to work an inbound Skywest RJ. We are shown the many levels of runway light brightness available to the arriving flyer, just at the time when the inbound Skywest was on short final. About the time that RJ pilot was dropping the gear, runway 16R lights up like Fifth Avenue during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, only without the Snoopy balloons. Welcome to EUG!

For the next 15 minutes, we stood in the cab and chatted up airplanes with the two controllers. After the RJ made the gate, an eerie stillness enveloped the field, nothing moving in or out. The controller working "tower" seems happy to record the next hour's ATIS message, rattling off the info like she had done this a million times before...because she HAS.

As we drove home from the tour, I reflected on the kind of training these controllers must have to be able to stay so cool under any circumstances. Eugene Tower is far removed from the hectic pace of say Los Angeles Center, but I am left with the feeling that if a couple of hundred inbounds suddenly were handed off to them, they could work each pressurized tube with as much grace and skill as was needed to get everyone on the ground safely without generating any of that pesky FAA paperwork.

As pilots, we should be indebted to ATC for watching our backs, for guiding us through the quag, and for keeping things under control when things get out of control in the cockpit. These people deserve to be respected not only from all who fly, but also the FAA, who seems to have little interest in giving them a fair employment contract. When you see ATC in action, the current treatment of them by FAA seems a disgrace.

Wisconsin's Midwest
Airlines Again Tops
"the" Zagat List

The Zagat/TODAY Show Airline Survey annually offers to crown the best carrier in domestic airlines, and as the results explain, apparently experienced travelers in this country prefer chocolate chip cookies over stale pretzels:

Zagat surveyed almost 7,500 frequent fliers, who flew an average of 19.7 flights per year. The secret to happy airline passengers: Cookies. Midwest Airlines may lay claim to offering the highest overall quality to travelers among US airlines, according to a Zagat Survey. Midwest -- best known for offering fresh-baked chocolate-chip cookies on its mainline flights -- took top honors among economy-class airlines. Those surveyed praised the carrier's "extraordinarily helpful" staff and "excellent value." The Oak Creek, WI-based low-cost carrier also took top honors in other years, most recently in 2005. "Midwest has been running essentially a business-class airline while charging economy class rates," said Tim Zagat, CEO of the survey firm.

And the survey [ download full results as pdf here ] also showed that you can jump into the U.S. market and quickly gain instant validation with your customer base:

The other carrier that received high marks was Virgin America – which has only been flying three months – offers the best overall experience. Curiously, the airline also tied for second-place in the economy category; Virgin America bills itself as a low-cost airline, while offering leather seats and in-flight entertainment systems.

But what I found hilarious was a few of the quotes pulled from the survey results. If you are a Big Airline CEO, the following ought to be a wake-up call (these do not represent any comments aimed at any particular carrier, just random pulls from the story):

"The only thing you can hope for is a short flight"

"If they could have pay toilets, they would"

"Makes standing in line at the DMV seem like fun"

"They fired the last employee found smiling"

"Only thing worse than flying them is the delay to fly them"

"Flight schedules are for customers' amusement"

"Livestock travels under better conditions"

"Don't enter the toilet without a hazmat suit"

"Website is slower than my 100 year-old grandmother"

"The legroom is great if you're a yard gnome"

Ouch...a yard gnome? Now that one hurts.

Spark a Fire Today

I have written at length about my strong feelings that aviation should never be gender specific, and that the sky should be open to both men AND women. Any pilot who thinks the flight deck is no place for a woman is a neanderthal these days, and if any codger wants to pick a fight with me, all they have to do is blurt out that the damned women out to stay back in the cabin service coffee. That was not true in the days of the DC-3, and it is not true today.

By nature, lady pilots seem to have a more sensitive touch on the controls. Any time I fly commercially and hear a friendly female voice as Captain of our ship, I always tell anyone within earshot to make note of our landing, it will be a gentle greaser...and it almost always is.

The female population of this country is GA's secret weapon for success, because it is an untapped pool of future business. Girls these days are just not steered towards flying, and they should be. So today, as we head into the Christmas buying season, I have a suggestion for a gift you should consider if you have a young female on your list that has any sort of longing for the sky:

The International Women’s Air & Space Museum (IWASM) has introduced a collectible deck of playing cards highlighting women in aviation and space. Each card features a different woman, organization, or event in aviation and space. Many of the photos used to create the deck are from the IWASM archives, and feature women including Jerrie Mock, Amelia Earhart, Bessie Coleman, and Eileen Collins. Each card face features a photo and historical fact about the subject. Card faces were sponsored by individuals and organizations interested in supporting the project as well as family members of some of the earliest women aviation pioneers.

I was happy to note that they included Jerrie Mock in this collection, because so often in the past, she was overlooked when people talked about famous female aviators. If you want to help out IWASM and also spark that fire in a little girl you know, here is the 411:

One thousand decks are being produced and the museum is taking orders for $10 per deck plus shipping at the museum gift shop or online store. Card decks will be shipped to purchasers in early December. You can also download a PDF order form here and mail it to the museum at: Burke Lakefront Airport, Room 165, 1501 North Marginal Road, Cleveland, OH 44114. Museum admission is free and exhibits are open 8:00 am – 8:00 pm daily. The Fay Gillis Wells Research Center and Gift Shop are open 10:00 am – 4:00 pm Monday through Friday and by appointment. Call (216) 623-1111 for more information or visit us on the web here.

I have been trying to think of some young impressionable female mind I can influence with a deck of these cards. But I might just order a set anyway, because you just never know if they might one day be a collector's item.

Maybe Kucinich
Isn't Such A
NutJob After All!

The mainstream media has been having a blast kicking U.S. presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich all over the turf for a comment he made about seeing a unidentified flying object (UFO) on at least one occasion. He seems to always be the media punching bag with the MILF wife, a tofu-eating whack job who sees little green men.

Well, a recent Reuters report that was widely distributed around the world seems to suggest that the media might want to start listening to Kucinich, because he is not so far out there after all:

An international panel of two dozen former pilots and government officials from seven countries called on the U.S. government last week to reopen its generation-old UFO investigation as a matter of safety and security given continuing reports about flying discs, glowing spheres and other strange sightings. The panelists, including former senior military officers, said they had each seen a UFO or conducted an official investigation into UFO phenomena.

Reuters tells us that Kucinich might have just been channeling a couple of former U.S. presidents too:

The subject of UFOs grabbed the spotlight in the U.S. presidential race last month when Kucinich, a member of Congress from Ohio, said during a televised debate with other Democratic candidates that he had seen one. Former presidents Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter are both reported to have claimed UFO sightings.

The panel, organized by a group dedicated to winning credibility for the study of UFOs, urged Washington to resume UFO investigations through the U.S. Air Force or NASA. And their logic does make some sense:

"Especially after the attacks of 9/11, it is no longer satisfactory to ignore radar returns ... which cannot be associated with performances of existing aircraft and helicopters," they said in a statement released at a news conference. While most turn out to be misidentified aircraft, satellites or meteors. A panelist who once worked for Britain's Ministry of Defense said 5 percent of incidents cannot be explained.

The story says that from 1947 to 1969, the U.S. Air Force investigated 12,618 UFO reports in what was known as Project Blue Book. Investigators concluded that the incidents posed no threat and there was no evidence of space aliens in operation. But there are others, reports Reuters, that is not buying the theory that this planet is the only one in this universe or any other that is inhabited with little men of any color:

"It's a question of who you going to believe: your lying eyes or the government?" remarked John Callahan, a former Federal Aviation Administration investigator, who said the CIA in 1987 tried to hush up the sighting of a huge lighted ball four times the size of a jumbo jet in Alaska. Callahan joins former Arizona Gov. Fife Symington, who said he was among hundreds who saw a delta-shaped craft with enormous lights silently traverse the sky near Phoenix in 1997.

In my travels – which included many long nights in my former life behind the wheel pounding down the interstate in an 18-wheeler – I have seen too many unexplainable lights in the sky to not be a believer. Of course there are space craft from other planets, there just HAS to be. Think about it: Earth is but one speck of a rock in our universe, which is one speck of a universe that joins an infinite number of other specks in what we commonly call "space".

I have often pondered that if "space" is not infinite, then what lies on the other side at the point where our 'space" ends? But if it IS infinite, the universe as we know it would be duplicated an infinite number of times, creating lots of tiny specks of rock out there for some sort of beings like us to throw together a craft capable of coming here and toying with our atmosphere. To say Earth is the only planet to possibly have intelligent life is simply ridiculous.

Now if we could just get all those little green men registered as Democrats, Kucinich might stand a chance against the Top Tier candidates that the mainstream media is shoving down our throats as they try to decide the next presidential election for us.

Flight Delays, From a
Worldwide Perspective

'Tis the season for pressurized tubes full of humans trying to get to Grandma's house to be delayed, so says the mainstream media. As many across all the Internets reported last week, The Decider has this all figured out, assigning "unused" military routes up and down the Eastern Seaboard to commercial airlines. Sounds good in a sound bite, but the Air Traffic Controllers Union has already said in so many words that the Bush/FAA strategery is all hat and no cattle.

But around this planet, different countries handle their flight delays in vastly different ways. In India, the authorities have a strange way of provide stellar customer service:

Hundreds of passengers including diabetics spent up to 18 hours without food or sleep at India's Delhi Airport as Air India officials “hid” from them after announcing massive delays. Only a few junior officials were present, and they have no information or authority, and the Air India assistance booth at the departure lounge was deserted. Also, the crew of the Qatar-bound flight “went into hiding” after announcing a delay to passengers who were already seated in the aircraft. Passengers deplaned on their own and walked around the high-security apron area and had to be contained for their own safety.

Man, I hope the CEOs of the Big U.S. legacy carriers don't hear about that tactic. And while they run and hide in India, carriers in the European Union have a much stricter set of rules to fly under. From the BBC:

Air passengers who are unable to board their flights because of overbooking, cancellations or flight delays can now demand greater compensation. The passengers won new EU rights in February, 2007 and the new rules will apply to all scheduled and charter flights, including budget airlines. The EU decided to increase passenger compensation in a bid to deter airlines from deliberately overbooking flights. Overbooking can often lead to "bumping" - when a passenger is moved to a later flight. When this happens against a passenger's will, airlines will now have to offer compensation. If a flight is cancelled or delayed for more than two hours through the fault of the airline, all passengers must be compensated. Payments range from 200 euro (293USD) for a flight up to two hours and up to 1,500 km, to 600 euro (880USD) for a flight longer than 4 hours that was routed longer than 3,500 km.

Now THAT has teeth...the kind of teeth the airlines over here should fear. But the EU Regulation doesn't just end there:

Delays of two to four hours will require airlines to serve snacks or full meals, while delays over five hours entitle passengers to a refund and a hotel room if necessary. Refunds for round-trip flights must be offered if the journey is no longer necessary, for example if a business meeting is missed.

So let's review, shall we? In the EU, if XYZ Airlines drops the ball, delays your flight and you miss a critical business meeting, they will refund you the full round-trip fare. If you have to languish in the terminal for hours, they feed you, maybe get you a hotel room, and if in Amsterdam...oh, never mind.

But over here, if a carrier's system comes crashing down and their overbooked tubes full of people get parked on the tarmac for hours until the lavatories overflow, they offer an extra bag of stale pretzels and tell you to come back again some other time and try your luck.

Along with just about everyone else in the aviation industry, I will be watching in the coming weeks to see if either the airlines, The Decider or the FAA can do anything at all to minimize flight delays at this critical time in the travel calendar. But if the Big Airlines over-schedule, over-book and over-promise you an on-time departure, maybe the next administration in Washington might want to think about taking a cue from the Europeans on a pax bill of rights.

And if you really want the truth on what is coming at you this holiday flying season, check out NATCA's avoiddelays.com, a site I am sure the airlines would love to see go away because it offers data on how many planes are actually being delayed. For instance, the NATCA site says that on November 14, 2007, 2,011 flights were delayed according to FAA.

An unbelievable 2,011 flights delayed...in one day! Is that any way to run an airline [system]? Didn't think so.

What Took So Long
for This to Happen?

From the very first ride I took inside a CRJ, I was hooked. In those days, I flew out of Frespatch from FAT, where EMB 120 Brasilias were considered to be adaquate air transportation. So when I got a chance to travel via Regional Jet, it was definately a step WAY up from those tired old Skyworst Vibroliners.

The CRJ line has matured over the years since that first prototype flew on 10 May, 1991, and as you would expect, some of the -200 models are being "retired" from daily driving in and out of regional hubs. So it was only a matter of time before someone found a very good use for these "previously owned" birds. News out of the Dubai Air Show this week:

Project Phoenix Ltd. announced today at the Dubai Air Show, the launch of an innovative program to convert multiple Bombardier CRJ-200 regional jet aircraft from 50-seat airliner configuration to luxury VIP jets seating 12 to 19 passengers. The program has been conceived, with the assistance and support of several former senior Bombardier executives who make up Project Phoenix, to offer buyers of large executive aircraft a viable and cost-effective alternative to new business aircraft models in the 2,200 - 3,000 n.m range - for which new customers are having to wait for up to five years for a delivery slot.

The CRJ-Phoenix project just has a very good feel to it:

Project Phoenix pledges to retrofit a CRJ-200, fitting long range fuel tanks if so required, within eight months at a cost per unit $17.9 million ballpark. The program will take CRJ-200's from the secondary market and put them through a comprehensive maintenance upgrade, including an engine shop visit if required, before installing a new luxury interior and state-of-the-art in-flight entertainment system (IFE). Avionics will be added as well as an additional fuel tank to allow the CRJ-Phoenix to conduct long-range flights. The initial focus is the Middle East, Asia and European markets, with the USA to follow later.

Someone who knows this airframe well is Former President of Bombardier Business Aircraft Sales, John Lawson, who is assisting in the start-up of Project Phoenix. He recently said this: "In the mid 90s, there was a 'Special Edition' program, based on the original Canadair RJ airframe, which resulted in a very desirable business aircraft. Regrettably, it had to be shelved when demand from the airline industry soaked up all available airframes. This program brings them back to the marketplace at an exceptionally attractive price point."

You can read how to buy your own personal CRJ here, and then check out the very aggressive specifications of the CRJ-200 here.