My flying club has just voted (7-5) to sell our Cessna 177 and buy a 182 (we also have a 172, and had a 150)
The 177 has a high time engine and some flakey avionics (the DME doesn’t work for example). The 182 is VERY nice, but even after selling the 177 and draing most of reserves we still need a non trivial loan.
I was mostly OK either way (the 172 is fine for the flying I do), I’m just upset that it has caused a rift. (I don’t recall a non unanimous vote in 20 years)
Brian
Shit. Two unplanned nights in the bush is hard on an uninjured 20 yo. An injured older guy is likely a goner. I see overnight temps in Brisbane proper haven’t been too chilly, but the last two nights have been the coldest of the recent weeks.
I’m sorry Richard; losing somebody to a hobby mishap is always difficult.
The guy I did my last aircraft type transition with was killed in an off-duty aircraft accident about a year ago now. We’d never met before but at school we all but lived together night and day for 3 weeks. In his case it was quick and unequivocal; no need for search or rescue. Still, a real bad feeling all around.
Shit happens. So it goes.
Apparently, the first known fatal sailplane accident of the year just happened a few days ago. Statistic allegedly is, we have about 5 a year (in the United States, I think that is). From our club mailing list:
> If the canopy opens, first fly the plane! Deal with it later.
> This sad accident could happen anywhere to anyone.
> http://www.ketv.com/article/fatal-plane-crash-victim-a-passionate-pilot-loving-family-member/9657546
> As far as I know this is the first fatality in the US this year. We usually get 5 per
> year on average. Most are completely avoidable.
This led to a lengthy discussion of how to deal with, or prevent, canopies from accidentally popping open. We’ve had a few such incidents in our club, including one just last weekend. If you just refrain from panicking and just keep flying the plane instead, it tends to work out okay. As in this scary anecdote:
> I was flying the NSA 1-26 at Air Sailing once and had the canopy come open
> on take-off when I was about 40 or 50 feet AGL and still on tow, obviously.
>
> I instinctively reached up and grabbed the canopy and tried to close it, only
> to have the wind catch it and pull it out of my hand and snap it fully open again. Still
> above the long runway 17, I then (again sort of instinctively) pulled the release with
> the intent of landing straight ahead. Then I tried again to close the canopy, but it
> wouldn’t close (turns out the frame had bent when it popped open). I kept trying
> until something caught my eye and I looked up to realize that I was in a steep
> right-bank and heavily nose-down attitude, sort of heading straight at the ground
> and by then only about 30 feet up. I immediately let go of the canopy and actually
> shouted out loud, “Fly the plane, asshole!” I managed to get control and put
> it down rather nicely, considering.
(Bold added.)
Thanks. They’ve found him and he hadn’t survived the impact. We expected that news, but still, it has hit home now.
I was going to ask if that means you have to change your SDMB username, then I realized it is not an aircraft registration.
Shortly after I posted that I spent nine days riding a mountain bike 900 km through the Australian outback with a couple of other guys and the post slipped my mind so I haven’t come back with a part 2. I have since flown the Tiger again though, this time by myself, so I have a bit more material for P2 once I get a bit of motivation.
It does, and it is difficult to live a fulfilling life without exposing yourself to additional risk, whether it be physical, financial, or emotional.
Yes, it is important to prioritize correctly. The thing that seems to require immediate attention probably doesn’t.
Ref poor Ian I was surprised to see the news articles referring to an ultralight and showing pix of a homebuilt. At least in the US, the term ultralight means these kinds of things: Ultralight aviation - Wikipedia.
Ref prioritization, I watched an aircraft mechanic stall / spin in from about 400 AGL after takeoff from a GA airport with multiple intersecting long runways. He’d been working on the engine of a customer’s plane and had taken it up for a test hop. The engine began cutting in and out, then quit altogether. We all looked up to see him staying nose high and airspeed decaying. Doubtless he was fiddling with fuel valves, mixture, etc. as the airspeed decayed. IOW, doing everything except flying the airplane.
A few seconds later Physics won yet again. 3/4 turn spin to the right and nose first into the desert hardpan at way unsurvivable speed.
Always, always, always fly the airplane from the moment you strap in until you unstrap or the wreckage quits moving.
Ref mountain biking: that sounds like a really neat adventure.
I think ultralight is synonymous with light sport aircraft in Australia. A weight shift machine is called a microlight.
Here’s a post of mine in another thread about an extra-exciting afternoon in a bizjet: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=20223100#post20223100
The wake turbulence encounter is interesting. I’m not aware of the nature of the debate when RVSM was introduced but I wonder if they anticipated an incident like this? As you say, lateral offset would fix things. Australia is a country where this is not permitted, I don’t know why.
On to more general aviation!
Yesterday was a nice autumn day. Forecast to be bucketing down with rain but the front must’ve gone through a bit early leaving us with clear skies, light winds, and about 20ºC (68ºF). I was busy carting 5 tonne (5 ton ;)) of soil from the front yard to the back while my partner, Amelia Earhart*, spread the new soil around the garden and my elder two children, Kate and Rachael, did what all kids do on a nice day – buried their faces in electronic devices.
I remarked to Amelia that I should’ve arranged for a flight in the Tiger Moth for my daughters but I didn’t think the weather would be any good. She thought I should drop the dirt and take them now. It was a difficult decision, shovel dirt, or go flying. Flying won.
A couple of hours later my daughters and I arrived at the scruffy airstrip. Kangaroos lounged in the shade of the trees and various radio controlled planes from the adjacent model airfield zoomed overhead.
The kids got out of the car. Rachael was slow and sullen, she’s almost a teenager and didn’t really want to be there. For some reason she’s nervous about flying in small planes and has decided not to go up. 9 year old Kate, on the other hand, is upbeat and bouncy. She’s never flown with her Dad before and she’s looking forward to it. If Rachael’s attitude is “no way”, Kate’s is “hell yeah!”.
Andy, the Tiger’s owner, is there to help get the machine out of the hangar and swing the prop when the time comes. I’ve bought some towels to fold up and boost the front seat with. I thought cushions would be too soft. Phone books are ideal for the purpose but the days of a new phone book showing up on the door step each year are long gone, so the towels will have to do.
We get Kate strapped in, brief her on the gossport tube, and get her leather hat and ski goggles on. She hadn’t expected to be going in an open cockpit biplane this weekend so the only jacket we could find was one of my partner’s with the sleeves rolled up.
I jump in and Andy “tickles” the carb until fuel drips from the cylinders. With switches off and throttle closed he pulls the prop through four compressions. Now switches on the right mag only, throttle set, call “contact!” and Andy pulls the prop through another compression. The engine roars into life and I switch the left mag on. I try to set 800 rpm but the engine threatened to die. I could hear Andy yelling “keep it going! Keep it going!” I gave it a handful of throttle and it coughed and roared again. Andy has a quick word to me, it’ll only idle at 800 once warmed up apparently. A quick thumbs up all around and I taxi out. I turn to look at Andy and wave. I hope he’s getting a kick out of seeing his old biplane flying. I’m certainly getting a kick out of flying it.
Kate is quiet. I can’t see her apart from the top of her head. Her left side door is open to give her a better view. We test the gossport tube and she sounds nervously happy. That wonderful piece of glorified garden hose sounds better than many electronic intercoms. This continually surprises me.
Lined up, I check the mags and have a look around for the model planes. They seem to be out of the way but I’ll stay low after take-off just to stay under their typical flight path (I know, ridiculous arrangement.) I check with Kate, she’s ok, so throttle wide open and off we go.
We are soaring sedately into the sky before you can say “your steering eighty knots vee one rotate”. I’ve promised not to do anything silly such as loops or rolls and keep my word. I don’t want to put her off and aerobatics can come later when she’s ready. We gently turn over the beach and I point out the people, cars, and boats down below. Kate yells out “yes I can see them Daddy!” and later, “I’m looking for dolphins!”
It truly is a lovely day and the Tiger Moth cockpit is home to a strange concoction of noise and serenity. We head inland for a bit and turn easy circles over the quarries cut into the land. Maples standout as spots of red surrounded by the faded green leaves of the big gum trees, and the rest of the landscape is a patchwork of vineyards and farm paddocks. The river that borders our little airfield winds its way through the countryside and a strip of suburbia lies between the greenery and the beach.
I don’t intend this to be a long flight, just a taster, and it’s been 15 minutes so we turn back toward the airstrip. The sun was getting low and the wind was nearly calm so I land to the south with the sun over my right shoulder. I fly an oblique base/final leg along the river, avoiding flying over some high gum trees on short final. Over the fence right on speed at 50 knots, throttle closed, the Tiger gently settles on all three wheels at once and slows to taxi speed…
Nah, that’s buillshit actually. I’ll write it again. I fly an oblique base/final leg, avoiding flying over the high gum trees that give me the willies. Over the fence a bit fast at 55 knots, I carry a touch of power intending to wheel it on, but I’m in two minds, maybe I will do a three pointer. The main wheels touch, I check the stick forward and cut any remaining power. It’s bouncing around a bit and slowing down. Probably my worst landing in it yet, but safe enough, so far. Then rather than letting the tail drop as I normally would, I help it down with the stick. Then I notice that things don’t quite feel right. I can’t feel the ground bouncing along underneath us anymore. Fuck, I think we’re flying again. Go-around? No, we’re very low and I think it’ll be ok if I just keep the three point attitude. It plonks back on the ground in the ungainly manner of someone who steps down a small drop not knowing it’s there. You don’t fall over but you have a quick look around and hope no one says “enjoy the trip?”
Anyway, I managed to get a wheeler and a three pointer out of the one landing, neither of them very good. Next time I will do better.
Kate is happy and Rachael seemed to think it was pretty cool. She says next time she will take her jacket, just in case she decides to have a go.
I “repay” Andy for coming out for us by acting as safety pilot while he takes a trip around the circuit, entertains me with a roll and spin, and shows me how to land it properly.
All in all, a very nice day. Much better than shoveling dirt!
That was probably Tiger Moth story part 4. In part 2 I balls up a landing and fly a go-around. In part 3 we fly to another aerodrome to do some circuits and let me loose on my own.
*Not her real name. Obviously. That would be an astounding coincidence wouldn’t it?
Most entertaining post. Thanks for writing it.
I just discovered a hobbyist group called the West Coast Ravens. They fly home-built RV airplanes, cute little sporty build-yourself kits sold by Van’s Aircraft. (Be sure to click through all those pics on the home page there! They appear to be displayed in random order, so if you start seeing duplicates, keep going. There’s more!)
They (all 35-or-so of them) fly these planes in precision formation at various air shows. Their under-developed web site has photos and more photos of that and some other info about them.
Here’s a blog entry (one of several) I found about one of their events, written apparently by the wife of one of them (and who may be one herself). LOTS of hot pics!
A subset of these pilots have been hanging out lately at the little country GA airport where I’ve been taking soaring lessons. I got to talk to some of the pilots this past weekend. (This happens because they line up at the avgas pump, which happens to be next to our clubhouse.)
Note the hot red-and-white plane in the foreground in the second photo of that blog entry, captioned “Mercedes “Cougar” Eulitt in her brand new last year home built RV-7.” – That’s one of the planes that was there (more pics of that plane: N174SM – click on the little pics to enlarge, click on it again to enlarge even more) and one of the pilots I talked to. This isn’t exactly your typical stereotype sport pilot – see here. (See if that link works for you – it does on one of my computers but on the other it demands I sign up for an account.)
We’re going river/gorge flying in a state park at a small festival this weekend. One of the guys is an avid fisherman & I was joking that he should take his fishing rod into the balloon; he’d possibly be the first to fish an otherwise unaccessable section of the river & I’d take pictures of the cool new sport of “balloon fishing”.
It seems my silly idea was one upped, for realz…by the Texas legislature.
If you’re going to take a fishing pole in a balloon, you just have to use it to go “fishing” for passing birds.
That’s such a cliché of old comedy movies there’s no way you can pass up the opportunity.
Great story well told. There’s something magic about old airplanes and kids. And pretty autumn days.
Thanks for sharing.
I just got home (about 8:00 p.m.) from a three-day (four-day including getting things set up) Memorial Day Weekend sailplane regatta at Panoche Valley, Ca. – my first evah.
We had 5 club gliders from two local clubs, plus four private gliders, for a total of nine.
I’m still a student pilot, so I couldn’t fly myself – but a more experienced pilot took me with him, both Saturday and Sunday, in a two-place glider. It’s a tradition we’ve had for some years, apparently, which we call “mentoring”. These were cross-country thermaling flights in mountainous terrain in the San Benito Mountains, California. (See this blog for description of last year’s event in the same area, with lots of pictures. Click on any pic to enlarge. The final picture shows Dan, the same pilot I flew with this weekend, in the same glider. As in that pic, I was in the front seat.)
These were fairly challenging and aggressive thermaling flights, of about two hours each. (My longest previous flights were about 1 hour each.) On Saturday we released at about 4000 feet (about 2600 AGL) and eventually climbed to 8400 feet. On Sunday we released at about 5000 feet and eventually climbed to 8600 feet. These were definitely NOT your usual beginner’s glider rides. I did some of the flying, including trying my hand at working a few thermals, but Dan did most of it, especially working most of the thermals.
This was a total gas! (Odd, since gliders don’t even have any gas!)
Senegoid - welcome to the world of soaring. Once you get the hang of thermalling the fun factor goes up exponentially. My first flight of the season ended in a freshly planted alfalfa field after 3 1/2 hours bombing along cloudstreets at 7000’. No daughter, just the farmer.
Yeah, good to see you are enjoying the gliding Senegoid. What’s the time frame for getting licensed, or is it just a take it as it comes type thing? I had enquired about getting my girlfriend a trial flight in a glider a while back but the cost was $222 AUD for about 15-20 minutes flight time. I get that that includes the tow and to really see the cost benefits you need to maximise your post-tow soaring, but it still seemed a bit expensive and so I didn’t get it for her. I’d got her a helicopter trial flight previously and she’d loved that.
Those RVs are sweet looking machines. We see a few around Australia, though nothing as organised as what the guys you linked to are doing. I did once see three in formation but the circumstances weren’t great as they were head on with me, in a mandatory broadcast zone, and weren’t broadcasting. Gave me a fright.
Does your wife know about this? 
Always remember some good advice: only date women with the same first name as your wife; it avoids a lot of embarrassing slip-ups.
Just use the same pet names, honey, babe, etc ;).
Actually, wife became ex-wife many years ago. Girlfriend is current long term partner with whom I have one child and another on the way, and who works with me. I don’t like the term “girlfriend” because it sounds temporary and isn’t really fitting for someone you have a family with. On the other hand “partner” could be a business partner. “Life partner” and “significant other” sound a little pretentious top my ears. I end up chopping and changing between terms that are all less than ideal. I should just marry her.
[Raising glass] To wives and girlfriends. May they never meet!
