Sign me up! This looks like more fun than a barrel of monkeys.

[Updated 8/19/2010 to insert a missing title.]

Since I have a Piper Arrow for flights where I want to “get there,” I am just looking for a fun, economical ride-in-the-sky. My obvious next choice was a much more bare-bones trike, perhaps even a single seater. (Click any photo for a larger version.)

A single seat weight shift trike approaches a landing at AirVenture 2010

These look like every bit as much fun as the two seat trike that I had been up in but, ultimately, I gave up on these for a couple of reasons. First, and this is the biggest, I know that I want to share these flights with people who are not pilots (like my wife and the kids next door). Second, though it is possible to fold the wing of a trike, it is a time consuming process. Since I want to stow this craft in the T-hangar with my Arrow, it needs to fold up pretty small while still being quick to assemble for flight and disassemble for storage.

Before I gave up on the idea of single seat planes, I seriously considered several single seat ultralight airplanes with traditional wings. Some of these can be folded for storage (some more easily than others) and many of them are so diminutive they are downright cute. Check out this CGS Hawk; it looks like a giant kite that escaped its string. Though this one has a fully enclosed cabin, the doors can be unzipped and removed for that open air feeling.

CGS Hawk ultralight lines up for landing at AirVenture 2010

There are bunches of planes of this ilk, one or two seats, fabric covered, designed for some friendly buzzing about the sky. Many can be folded for storage in trailers or shared hangars. I was hooked and ready to take one home until I stumbled across Skyview Powered Parachutes’ display. Morris Yoder spent endless hours explaining all the joys of PPC flight to me, answering way more questions than any sane man should be expected to tolerate, and eventually flying me around for about 40 minutes on a picture perfect evening.

Commander powered parachute in flight at AirVenture 2010

Unfortunately, I did not take my camera on this flight but I did take several pictures while on the ground. Click any of the photos in this article to get to my AirVenture 2010 album.

This was exactly the kind of flying that I had been looking for. We puttered along at 30 mph about 300 feet in the air. Once in level flight (adjusted with the throttle) all steering was done with the feet so hands were free for photos or whatever. I waved at people below and enjoyed the sight of other PPC’s near us and the Goodyear blimp in the distance.

There is just one problem: keeping your speed up on final

"Keep your speed up on final"

For those of you who are not familiar with the runway configuration at Oshkosh; fear not! Those airplanes are not really about to mow down the PPC. The ultralight runway is near, and diagonal to, the approach end of runway 36. It was a tremendous kick, though, to fly a base leg in a PPC that was parallel to the final approach for “real” airplanes landing on runway 36 just a hundred yards or so away.

I reluctantly wandered north from the ultralight field after my flight and after everyone was done flying and after it was obvious that Morris and his friends were more than ready to stow their planes and head for dinner. We have more than enough sultry, still evenings in St. Louis to provide plenty of good opportunities to fly a PPC, if only I can figure out a way to get one into my hangar. Even more tantalizing, a PPC could easily tuck into the corner of my hangar and be out and ready to fly in about 15 minutes.

Sunset over the ultralight field at AirVenture 2010

Route from St. Charles County, Missouri, to Oshkosh, Wisconsin

I packed Saturday afternoon, got a good night’s rest, and was ready to go on Sunday morning. There was just one teeny tiny problem: after receiving ten inches of rain in July, the grass at Oshkosh was too wet to accommodate campers with airplanes, or cars, for that matter. Frustrating though it was, I delayed our departure for 24 hours; there was no sense flying north when there was nowhere to land. Better to sleep at home in my own bed for another night.

Monday brought more sour news, still no general aviation camping but the blog said, “The North 40 is still being evaluated, with the goal of opening it sometime today.” Since Chris was at his house, not mine, I realized that we would need at least two hours from the time the airfield opened to be airborne. Chris would need to marshal his mother for the ride to my house, drive over here, we would then need to drive to Smartt field, load the plane, and take off. Add in the flight time and it would be almost five hours after the field opened until we were at our campsite. I figured that we could trim that time almost in half by heading for SET, loading the plane, and waiting at St. Charles Flying Service for the word that OSH was open.

Again, my plans were foiled by mud. Lunch time came and the North 40 at OSH was still to0 wet to allow arrivals. Chris and I borrowed the crew car from SCFS and got a bite from lunch. Surely, the field would open if given another hour of sunshine. But no, it did not.

Desperation was beginning to set in. If you think being all dressed up with nowhere to go on a Saturday night is bad, imagine being all packed for a vacation with nowhere to go. It turned out that Dodge County Airport in Juneau, WI, about 40 miles south of Oshkosh, was welcoming planes en route to AirVenture and would allow us to camp there overnight, if need be. Chris and I decided to fly as far as UNU and see if OSH opened up. If Oshkosh did open, we would only be about 20 minutes away. As we approached UNU, the airshow at Oshkosh was in process so OSH was closed. We landed for gas at UNU and to wait out the airshow.

While at Juneau, I spent quite a bit of time talking to folks from Evolution Trikes who where flying three of their Revo weight-shift trikes from Florida to Oshkosh. They were good enough to give me a ride in one at OSH, a couple of days later, and I immediately fell in love with it. Imagine riding a motorcycle at 60 MPH about 300 feet in the air on a beautiful summer afternoon. What’s not to love?

A Revo weight shift trike takes off at AirVenture 2010

Speaking of Juneau, I cannot praise the good folks at Wisconsin Aviation highly enough. So many of us had diverted to UNU that it looked like AirVenture had moved south. Despite this amazing influx of airplanes and people, everything ran like clockwork at Wisconsin Aviation with the staff uniformly calm, collected, cheerful and efficient. When I initially self-announced on the CTAF frequency, a friendly voice responded with confirmation of the weather and a suggestion for the current in-use runway. By the time we taxied to the ramp, a lineman was outside, directing us to the fuel pump. The plane was promptly fueled and moved to a secure location (on pavement, yet!). A frequently running shuttle van took Chris to town while I availed myself of a comfortable couch and some handy cold cuts for snacking. Wisconsin Aviation won AvWeb’s FBO of the Week on August 2. Congratulations!

With the airshow scheduled to end at 6:30pm, a whole slew of planes departed for RIPON, the entry point for arrivals to AirVenture, a few minutes after 6:00pm. The plan was to be in position, just outside RIPON, when (if) the field opened and then to dash in to a landing before someone changed their mind and closed the field again.

Route from Juneau airport (UNU) to Oshkosh airport (OSH)

Not surprisingly, we were not the only geniuses with this idea. Flying just south of RIPON at 6:20pm on Monday, July 26, was more exciting than I like my flying to be. There were to many planes in the air that Chris and I actually stopped calling the traffic out to each other; it was impossible to verbally spot each one. The AirVenture powers-that-be did open the field and we were able to fly our approach and land on runway 18R.

Oshkosh runway 18R arrival via Fisk Avenue

Once on the ground, I expected to be directed to the North 40 for parking and camping. Since very few planes had gotten in thus far, I figured that we would be on the south side of runway 9-27, between the red shower house and the entry gate, all together a prime location. Bizarrely, we were directed to the far northeast corner of the field and parked in an area clearly signed, “No Camping.” Once out of the plane we learned three things: 1) We could not camp where we parked because there were no toilets, no water, no showers, and no regular bus service. 2) We should load out stuff onto school buses and we would be driven to the North 40 where we could camp (but not taxi or park our planes). 3) The field was closed again; they had so many planes on the ground that they figured it would take until dark to get us all settled in. Chris and I were lucky, we had squeaked into the field during the slim hour that new arrivals were allowed!

Chris hopped onto the first bus and headed off to find the friend he planned to camp with. I got onto a somewhat later bus which took me to a great spot, just two rows from the shower house. After setting up my tent, I headed off to a much needed steak dinner and a few beers with my new camping neighbor, Doug Kropelnicki.

!STL 06/424 3SQ AD CLSD WEF 1006300501

In English, this NOTAM (federal NOTice to AirMen) says that the St. Charles Municipal Airport will close at 12:01am CDT, Wednesday, June 30, 2010. After 67 years of service, the owner will shut it down forever.

I returned to flying, after a 13 year hiatus, at this airport. Countless pilots have learned to fly at St. Charles Muni. Innumerable stories have been told. Lessons learned. Camaraderie savored. Airplanes loved.

You can read more about it in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

When I am in instrument meteorological conditions (IMC), which is a government approved way of saying “in the clouds,” and need to land my plane, I use a detailed map called an approach plate. The approach plate tells me exactly where to fly the plane both horizontally and vertically so that I get safely to the runway. It’s a lot like playing a complex video game, which I find both exhilarating and highly satisfying.

Paper worked well for years because it was pretty much the only game in town. I was very happy to switch to the Sony PRS-505 ebook reader, though, because it meant that I could stop recycling a 3″ stack of paper every 28 days. Yes, Virginia, you read that right; the government updates the instrument approach plates every 28 days, 13 times per year. Switching to an electronic format saved me quite a few dollars and was kinder to the environment.

The biggest disadvantage of the Sony PRS-505 is its small screen. As you can see in this photo, it is significantly smaller than the paper. I can get an overall view of the approach but have to press a key to zoom in and make the text large enough to read. The iPad fixes  this problem with a sufficiently large screen to display the approach plate 100% the size of the original.

ILS Approach Plate on Sony PRS-505, paper, and iPad (click to enlarge)

The transition from paper to Sony PRS-505 to Apple iPad in just 18 months is remarkable. The new screen is plenty bright enough to read in direct sunlight and, surprisingly, even higher contrast than the newsprint. There are no moving parts to fail.

I had one concern about switch to the iPad from the PRS-505: would the touch sensitive screen allow me to accidentally “lose” my approach plate at a critical moment of the flight? I don’t think so. When displaying an approach plate, the only part of the screen which can make the plate vanish or change is the “close” button at the top, left corner.

I will have more on ForeFlight and more on the iPad soon. Before posting more about ForeFlight, I want to actually fly with it. Before posting more about the iPad, I have to stop playing with it and write about it.

Famous Young Eagle Flight Grin

One way to get a free airplane ride is to show up at a Young Eagles event at your local airport. Yesterday, over 60 kids got rides at St. Charles Smartt Airport, courtesy of EAA Chapter 32 and several volunteer pilots (your’s truly included). Price of admission: zero. Requirements: be between the ages of 8 and 17. Guaranteed result: huge grins all around.

Do you want to arrange a Young Eagles flight? Call your local Young Eagles coordinator. Since the program started in 1992, over 1.5 million kids have gotten airborne. These days, in addition to the flight, each kid gets his own logbook in which to record the flight (and future ones), a certificate for free internet ground school training, and access to www.YoungEagles.com which is full of tons of cool stuff.

You can also simply drive out to your local airport, wander around, and talk to people. Here in St. Charles, MO (where I live), we have three visitor-friendly airports: St. Charles Municipal Airport, St. Charles Smartt Airport, and Creve Coeur Airport. Wander by any on a nice day and you are guaranteed to find pilots who are more than willing to talk and answer questions. You can probably even cadge a ride, just by asking.

I use a Garmin GPSmap 396 coupled with a hockey puck sized XM Radio receiver in my airplane. The combination gives me NEXRAD weather radar in near real-time, with my current position and course superimposed. It has proven invaluable in keeping me safe and well clear of thunderstorms. Recently, the weather got “flakey,” sometimes I would receive it and sometimes not. On an August flight back from Wisconsin, when I was flying along the front edge of a line of rain and thunderstorms, the NEXRAD radar vanished and I could not get it back. After experimenting on several follow-up flights, I determined that the problem was heat related: when the XM receiver had been on for 30-40 minutes and got hot, it stopped working.

I called Garmin and asked whether they wanted the XM receiver back with or without the GPS unit and how much it would cost to repair/replace it. The Garmin rep, for whom American English was clearly his primary language, asked what model antenna I had and I told him that it was the old, original GXM 30 and that it was almost four years old. He immediately offered to replace it with a new GXM 40 for free under warranty. (I looked it up later; the GXM 40 retails for $268.) I shipped my broken receiver to Garmin on Wednesday and had the replacement on my doorstep on Friday. That’s amazingly awesome service, Garmin. Thank you!

I just phoned XM Radio to have the old receiver removed from my account and replaced with the new receiver. I got a woman who spoke English with such a thick accent that I had trouble understanding her. She then informed me that this “service” would cost me $15. Excuse me? Garmin just replaced a very expensive piece of broken equipment at their expense and XM wants to charge me $15 to type an eight letter radio ID into their computer?!?! Talk about petty. Worse, she then tried to “up-sell” me to a lifetime music subscription for “only” $399.99. I was flabergasted but did manage to recover my voice and tell her how angry I am that, after paying them $75 per month for weather, XM has the gall to charge me  an additional $6 for music. Truly apalling.

Garmin: I have had several of your products over the years. All have performed wonderfully. This is the first time that I have had to work with your customer service and I am thoroughly impressed. You’ve got a very, very happy customer who will certainly return to purchase more of your products.

XM Radio: The aviation weather “service” that I receive from you is overpriced and the additonal charge for music is insulting. I have had to make several calls to your customer service over the last four years and every one has been, without exception, infuriating. Were there any alternative source of cockpit weather data, I would drop you in an instant.

I am excited about the RV-7A. It will be almost 50 MPH faster than the Arrow, simpler (fixed gear and fixed pitch prop), and equipped with the latest whiz-bang electronic flight instruments. More on that in another post (soon).

Buy my Arrow. You’ll love it and I’ll get to start building my RV! Thanks.

Immediately (as in, within a couple of hours) after the accident, the calls-to-action to improve safety in the “VFR corridor,” the name of the airspace where the collision occurred, began. These calls took many forms, from the sensational TV news reporters and politicians who demanded that the VFR corridor be closed and the helicopter tourist business be shuttered to the FAA which convened a New York Airspace Working Group panel to review everything from airspace structure to pilot training to air traffic controller practices. The focus has been on safety much more than on blame, and that’s a good thing.

Compare this to the common reaction to a driving accident: If the accident is big enough to make the news, the key reporting points are a) what happened, and b) who caused it or blame. Rarely do we react to an automotive accident with an urgent need to prevent future accidents in the same place and of the same type. We may well get to this point, of course, but only after several accidents have happened. A city might install a traffic light at an intersection, for instance, but only after several accidents have occurred at the intersection.

According to the Air Safety Foundation, the August 8 collision was the first accident of this type (airplane and helicopter) over the Hudson River in ten years. It may well have been the only accident ever. What is the cultural difference between flying and driving that we demand safer flying, even after a single accident, yet we accept car accidents as the daily norm?

Pilots place safety first. The Federal Aviation Regulations stipulate biennial “flight reviews,” essentially flying tests, by FAA certificated flight instructors. Fail the review and you don’t fly until you get some training and are “passed” by the flight instructor. Beyond that, the flying culture strongly encourage all pilots to participate in on-going training such as the FAA’s WINGS Pilot Proficiency Program. This, in turn, builds on the assumptions that none of us are perfect and that all of us can learn from others’ mistakes and can become better, safer pilots. We actively seek out and study stories of bad situations, not to assess blame but to learn and improve our skills. Even more to the point, most of us regularly fly with a safety pilot, asking the safety pilot to critique our performance. I try to get up once a month, though it is sometimes as infrequently as every three or four months, with either Jack or Linda. On these flights, I expect them to be vocal with me about anything I do that is less than perfect. Some of the training is during the flight; some during a debriefing afterwards. I always come away from these flights having learned valuable lessons.

We act differently with our cars, though. Most of us are deeply offended if anyone suggests that we might need to take either a written test or a driving test when renewing our driver’s license. We never volunteer for recurrent training on driving. One of the best ways to make a friend angry is to suggest that he or she do something differently while driving. Why? I think because driving is more important to us, on a personal level, than safety. We judge that we are “safe enough” that we don’t need to stress about driving safely any more. What is most important is that we preserve our “right” to drive, pretty much at any cost.

I think our priorities are a little mixed up and I have a suggestion. First, bear with my while I share a few figures with you.

• In 2005, 43,510 people died in the US in fatal car crashes.
• That same year, another 2,699,000 people were injured in the US in car crashes.
• In 2005, the latest year for which the NTSB reports aviation statistics, 563 people died in the US in fatal aviation accidents.
• That same year, another 723 people were injured in US aviation accidents.

Consider again our reactions as a society to aircraft accidents and to traffic accidents. Now take it to a personal level: How do you react to aviation accidents versus fatal car crashes? Are your reactions congruent with the numbers of people killed and injured in each type of accident?

Here is my suggestion to improve traffic safety, to reduce the number of deaths and injuries.

1. I’m not a perfect driver. Join me in admitting that you aren’t perfect, either.
2. Get a friend to act as your safety driver for an hour. Go drive around. As you drive, talk to your safety driver about what you are seeing, what you are thinking, and how you are making your decisions. Invite your safety driver to give you constructive criticism on how you might improve your driving.

It’s that simple. Imagine how many fewer people would die if we took driving safety as seriously as we  take flying safety.