---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cascade Flyer February 20, 2003 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTICE This e-mail is a text only version of the CO-OPA newsletter. If you would like to view the Cascade Flyer with graphics, using your Adobe Acrobat Reader, use this link to download the newsletter: http://co-opa.rellim.com/newsletters/febCOOPA2003.pdf If you do not have Adobe Acrobat Reader you can get it here: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= IN THIS ISSUE February Meeting Guest Speaker February Fly-Out January Non Fly-Out >From the Ramp Hangar Flying Wasting Space Check This Out =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= FEBRUARY MEETING This months meeting will be on Thursday, February 20th, 6:00pm at the Bend Airport (S07) in the Flight Services building (The Flight Shop). GUEST SPEAKER by Clay Trenz A representative from ViewPorts.Com will be with us to discuss their terrific web site for pilots. The http://www.viewports.com web site provides weather and visual imaging as a pilot convenience only. The images and data provided are not meant to replace official weather information and are provided only as an additional source of information. While they do their best to provide accurate real time data from each site, actual conditions may differ due to optical distortions experienced at individual sites or on-site weather station inaccuracies. This is not an FAA certified service. It is their mission to provide visual and informational tools to enhance pilot flight enjoyment and safety. Their site is free of charge to all users. For additional information call 541-388-2115, or email info@viewports.com. FEBRUARY FLY-OUT !! by Don Wilfong MAYBE THE THIRD TIME IS THE CHARM!! Due to the weather both the Dec & Jan fly-outs to Nampa, Idaho were called off. Letâ^À^Ùs try it again.........Nampa Mun (S67) has the Warhawk Air Museum on the field with parking right at the museum and food is close at hand so it should be an interesting and easy fly-out. Plan to meet Sat. Feb 22 at the Flight Shop at 09:00 for a 09:30 departure. I hope to see you there. If we canâ^À^Ùt go East maybe we can go another direction. Please check our CO-OPA website and look at the membership list to be sure all of your information is current. Send any corrections to me. JANUARY â^À^ÜNON-FLYOUTâ^À^Ý by Don Wilfong FOILED AGAIN !! In January the planned fly-out to Nampa was cancelled for the second month in a row. In hopes of maybe being able to go to Chiloquin, Norma and I flew out to Bend from Pilot Butte Airport to meet everybody. It looked possible that the fog would move in and cause us problems on the return trip so we all decided to cancel. It turned out that we would have been able to go and return without a problem.....but.....one never knows and as always safety is the primary concern. After flying back to Pilot Butte Airport, Norma went to the Brides Show at the Fairgrounds in Redmond with our future daughter in law and her mother and I met Mike and Ann Bond, Ken Sandine and Ed Endsley at Palmerâ^À^Ùs Café (on Greenwood between 6th and 7th Streets). We had a pleasant meal, solved most of the worlds problems, admired Kenâ^À^Ùs old car and went our separate ways. We always seem to have a fun get together even when we canâ^À^Ùt go flying. FROM THE RAMP by Randy Potter test pilot I need a new patch to put on my jacket, or perhaps my hat. It will read â^À^ÜTest Pilotâ^À^Ý. Some of you have been flying a lot longer than me, and most of you probably have more hours than I do â^À^Ó but I suspect you still remember you first flight, your first lesson, your first solo, flying to your check ride, the flight home, your first flight in your plane if you own one, maybe your first flight in IMC (hopefully that was after you got your rating), and other notable events. When I was a little kid I wanted to learn to fly. It might have had something to do with watching the WWII glory movies like Erol Flynn in Dawn Patrol and Gregory Peck in Twelve Oâ^À^ÙClock High, or maybe it was the fact that we lived in the left downwind pattern for runway 11 at PDX, which I knew at the time as the Portland Airport. I used to lay in my back yard watching the planes line up on downwind. I also remember Mrs. Bickle, my second grade teacher, scolding me for sitting and looking out the window at the planes coming in for runway 11. She thought I was daydreaming, and I was â^À^Ó of the day I would fly a plane. I used to do a lot of drawing in those days, and it was all of airplanes. I got my first airplane flight when I was in Boy Scouts. A friend of our troop took several of us up in his Cessna Stationaire one day, kind of like the Young Eagles Flights we do today, and I was hooked. About that time my folks bought me my first airplane one Christmas, and green T-6 plastic model on which I had to do some assembly. It had an engine and control wires (we were too poor for the RC models), and after starting it with a small battery, or hand pulling a starter if the battery was dead, I would fly it until it ran out of gas â^À^Ó then fill it and fly it some more. A couple friends got some too, and for several years we would fly formations, and sometimes do dog fights (which is what eventually led to its demise). When I was in high school I used to drive out to the airport and park and watch the planes take off and land. (Most of the other people there were watching other things in their cars, but I used to watch the planes.) We were poor and I knew I could never afford to learn to fly unless I could get my Uncle, Sam, to pay for it, so when Viet Nam came along, at just the right time, I planned my entry into the Air Force. But when I got my two years of college in they suddenly did not need pilots, so I stayed in college and went to work for Boeing Aerospace in Seattle. Most of the guys I worked with were pilots. My supervisor, Marv, flew B-17s in the war, something I did not fancy to at the time. But Pete, whoâ^À^Ùs desk was next to mine, flew Mustangs, and his stories were glorious â^À^Ó except for the one where he took off test flying it after receiving 117 holes the day before, and crashed into the trees at the end of the runway when the oil line, which had been nicked by a bullet but not found by the crew, blew on take-off. Oops. I never wanted to be a test pilot! I remember my first solo, at 10.8 hours It was in my instructorâ^À^Ùs Cherokee 140, and after some air work I did a couple nice landings that day and he suggested dropping him at the FBO, making three rounds alone, then coming in to retrieve my log book. I was so nervous knowing he was watching me that I forgot to use any flaps on the first landing, only realizing it when I reached for the flap handle after touchdown to put them back. I flew two more circuits, landed, tied the plane down and went to meet Ken in the restaurant. He must not have seen the flaps because he did not mention it, but I have never forgotten the flaps again. Two weeks later I attempted my first cross country solo, at 17.5 hours, a memorable event because I had to abort it! Leaving HIO for Seaside I was over the Coast Range when all of the sudden it got so hot in the cockpit I thought I had an engine fire. I had to open both windows on the Cessna 150 to be able to breath, but there was no smoke. I grabbed the fire extinguisher, lowered altitude to be ready for an emergency landing, radioed Hillsboro Tower with my situation, safely landed and taxied to the repair shop. Turns out the cabin heat feeder malfunctioned in the full open position. Two days later I accomplished the task, this time in a different plane, and not over the mountains. I remember passing my check ride with Carl Dietz in Mulino. With my new temporary in my hand I taxied out, looked for traffic, called my take-off on Unicom, started down the runway and just as I got to the intersection was greeted with a bi-wing just touching down at the runway intersection. I still think it should be illegal for planes to fly without radios! Then there was the long cross country, in which I flew to Yakima (and could not find the airport until they turned the field lights on), then to Bremerton through Seattleâ^À^Ùs TRSA at 10K in a 150 watching the heavies below, and back to HIO. There were first flights and solos in other planes, first solos over the Cascades, to Burns, up to the Dalles, first times at new airports, and so on. Sometimes they seemed more like test flights than benign flights. Fast forward 25 years and I find myself buying my first airplane (not counting the T-6 Trainer toy), a 1968 Piper Cherokee 140. I had David Meyers at The Flight Shop do the pre-purchase inspection, quickly realized it was a keeper and had him do an annual, replace the AI and EGT, and service all the due and upcoming ADâ^À^Ùs and SBâ^À^Ùs - then took it for a flight. Upon returning I asked him â^À^ÜBy the way, I never see you, or any of the other mechanics, flying â^À^Ó so who test flies these planes when you are finished servicing them?â^À^Ý He got a twinkle in his eye and a smile on his face and said â^À^ÜYou just did.â^À^Ý I am currently studying for my IFR Written. And I have scheduled to go away to school for my practical training. I think I will once again feel like a Test Pilot when fly in IMC, alone, for the first time. So, one of these days I will find a Test Pilot patch to put on my jacket or hat! HANGAR FLYING by Joel Premselaar The loss of the shuttle â^À^ÜColumbiaâ^À^Ý brings to the fore the matter of flight safety. General Aviationâ^À^Ùs (GA) flight safety record, while improving over the years, is dismal. In my judgment, much of the fault lies with the pilotâ^À^Ùs cavalier attitude about preflight inspections, flight planning, knowledge of aircraft systems, etc. Of course, other factors come into play, but ultimately the planeâ^À^Ùs airworthiness is the pilotâ^À^Ùs responsibility. I have subscribed to a publication â^À^ÜFlight Safetyâ^À^Ý for years and am amazed at how many flights land, one way or another, short of the planned destination due to fuel exhaustion. According to AOPAâ^À^Ùs December 2000 statistics, there are 214,388 GA aircraft and 19,145 Part 121 (commercial airline) aircraft. GA aircraft flew 30.8 million hours; of course, that doesnâ^À^Ùt include traffic not filed with the FAA or in and out of fields without towers. During the same period, the airlines flew 21 million hours. We can go into other factors such as the number of takeoffs and landings or IFR vs VFR but, proportionally, GAâ^À^Ùs record is extremely poor. â^À^ÜAviation Safetyâ^À^Ý publishes a box score of GA/Part 121 accidents and incidents MONTHLY that is very sobering. Note how it reflects the season. Dec. 2001, total = 97; GA = 92 and Part 121 = 5 Jan. 2002, total = 105; GA=99 and Part 121=6 June 2002, total = 222; GA = 214 and Part 121 = 8 July 2002, total = 224; GA = 219 and Part 121 = 5 I can cite many causal elements of an accident. Often, rather than a single fault, it is a series of discrepancies/misdeeds that results in an accident. Despite what I mentioned above, there are times when the pilot is blameless. Occasionally, the incident can be amusing and end happily. Iâ^À^Ùll pass several of such stories in due time. Most of my â^À^ÜHangar Flyingâ^À^Ý pieces carry the underlying theme of flight safety. My position is, â^À^Üknowledge is life insurance.â^À^Ý Most GA pilots fly because we enjoy it enough to shell out $$$$$$ and $$$$$$ just to do it. Iâ^À^Ùll stow my funereal posture and start relating fun stories for a while. At a gunnery practice briefing, I overheard one of my squadron mates describing the upcoming firing passes to his new gunner who was fresh out of ground training. The program called for three firing passes flying parallel to the sleeve (a towed target that looked like a large white wind sock). After the third pass, a turn was to be executed over the towline 900ft. aft of the tow plane marked by a rag shoved through the strands of the 9 thread manila tow line. At this point the gunner would be presented a full deflection 3 â^À^Ügâ^À^Ý shot at the target. He was emphatic in cautioning his young gunner not to throw his spent brass cartridges over the side because they would damage the tail surfaces of the aircraft. Since this was to be the gunnerâ^À^Ùs first flight ever, my pilot buddy went into detail as to how to exit the aircraft in the event of an in-flight emergency. He told his now overwhelmed gunner that in the event of an emergency, he was going to announce the order to bailout just once and in no uncertain terms and that in the next second he, the pilot, was going over the side. In flight over the firing range, a deliberately placed dummy round stopped the gun after the third pass. Believing it was time to change the fifty round ammo can, the gunner did so and in the same period, forgetting his instructions, he dumped the bag of spent cartridges over the side. Soon after he entered the 3 â^À^Ügâ^À^Ý turn over the towline, my squadron mate felt the clattering impact of the cartridges on the empennage and shouted into the gosport (intercom) â^À^ÜSAVE YOUR BRASS!â^À^Ý The next thing he knew the rear seat was empty and there below him was the mushroom shape of his gunnerâ^À^Ùs parachute drifting down toward Pyramid Cove on San Clemente Island. BEND FLIGHT SERVICES BUILDING WASTING SPACE by Dale Evans The Bend City Council, on January 15, voted to forgive the Senior Centerâ^À^Ùs $150,000 loan. The Bulletinâ^À^Ùs report on this action suggested the Council deemed putting the money into construction of an activity room at the Center was a more beneficial use of the funds than loan repayment, in part because the new activity room might generate some income for payment of expenses at the Senior Center. On the other hand, the City has deferred completion of the second floor of its Flight Services Building at the Municipal Airport for more than three years. Thatâ^À^Ùs 3,500 square feet of space, unavailable for rent or other use, simply because the City has been unwilling to make the modest investment needed to meet fire code secondary egress requirements and complete the finish work to make the space suitable for occupancy. â^À^ØBenefit/cost ratioâ^À^Ù is a term one rarely hears in Council budget discussions, perhaps because data necessary to make the calculation are seldom gathered. However, the Municipal Airport is a public service entity that can readily provide data that describe the economic benefits the facility provides to the community. A state aviation report on â^À^ÜThe Economic Impact of Airports in Oregon,â^À^Ý using mostly 1995 data, estimated the Bend Municipal Airport contributed more than $11 million in combined primary (direct) and secondary economic benefits to the community. Since that time, the city wisely invested in infrastructure improvements at the airport, stimulating an approximately 50 per cent increase in the total square footage of airport buildings under ground lease or rental from the city. This, in turn, supported rapid growth in the number of aircraft based at the airport and a surge in aviation related businesses located at the airport. In 1995, only 34 persons were recorded as employed by airport tenants. Now, if the airport were treated as a single entity, it would be ranked among all the Walmarts, the Safeways, and the Albertson grocery stores as one of the top twenty employers in all of Central Oregon. Total economic benefits to the community generated by the Municipal Airport now likely exceed $50 million annually. The decision by the city to defer completion of the upstairs space in its Flight Services Building has been shortsighted, and demeans the important social and economic contributions being made to the community by the Municipal Airport. The need to provide office space for the cityâ^À^Ùs soon to be hired, first ever, professional Airport Manager is sufficient reason to begin this work now. CHECK THIS OUT by Jack Kohler Not only do the members of the Central Oregon Chapter of the Oregon Pilots Association fly so has the time. The last couple months have been full of to doâ^À^Ùs and I donâ^À^Ùt see that changing anytime soon. I have been trying to stay connected as a pilot and right now Iâ^À^Ùm attending a weekly evening IFR class. Unfortunately the class is on Thursdays evenings so Iâ^À^Ùll be missing a couple meetings. So the next time you see me, hopefully, Iâ^À^Ùll be able to explain the symbols and interpret IFR approach charts. Also I realize I need to improve my handwriting so I can read back clearances. CHAPTER OFFICERS 2003 President: Nancy Lecklider 3054 NW Clubhouse Dr Bend OR 97701 541 330-1853 nancybob@teleport.com Vice President: Dean Cameron 20015 Chaney Rd. Bend OR 97701 541 389-8285 dcameron@empnet.com Secretary/Treasurer: Gary E. Miller 109 NW Wilmington Ave. Bend OR 97701 541 382-8588 gem@rellim.com Flyout Chair: Don Wilfong 210 SE Cessna Dr Bend OR 97702 541 389-1456 dwnw@bendnet.com Program Chair: Clay Trenz 2314 Monterey Pines Bend OR 97701 541 317-2899 claytrenz@aol.com Editor: Jack Kohler 63070 Deschutes Mkt. Rd Bend OR 97701 541 389-1493 jkohler@mactechsys.com Visit our web site at: http://co-opa.rellim.com for more info and link to the state OPA website. For members only lists: User name: S07 Password: 123.0 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= For information or questions regarding this news letter contact: Jack Kohler via e-mail: jkohler@mactechsys.com Newsletter submission: co-opanews@mactechsys.com _______________________________________________ Co-opa mailing list Co-opa@rellim.com http://catbert.rellim.com/mailman/listinfo/co-opa