CASCADE FLYER January 2007, Vol. 07, Issue 1 Website: http://co-opa.com/ President's Message: This month our speaker will be Darryl Taylor. Darryl is a Production Test Pilot for Columbia Aircraft; they are making airplanes at a good clip over at Columbia so Darryl must get to do a lot of test flying these days. I expect he has some great stories to tell. Let's be sure we have a good turnout to hear what he has to share with us. Per our usual schedule, the meeting will start with a bit of hanger flying at 6:00pm, followed at 6:30pm by our potluck and our meeting at 7:00pm. We also have a bit of business to take care of. It is time again to select our chapter officers. The more people volunteer the more we can do as a group so if you have see something worth doing please pitch in. The CO-OPA celebrated the holidays our own special way last month. After the festive potluck there was the traditional Yankee Swap. Pretty much everyone went home with a treasure and once again the tail wheel spring found a happy home for the New Year. Heads up on the February meeting. Mike Benedict, from the Portland FSDO, will be our speaker. Mike will give an accident prevention seminar from 6pm to 9pm. To allow time for the extended program we will meet for the February meeting at 5pm and have the potluck at 5:30pm. Calendar: 18 January - Monthly Meeting 20 January - Monthly Flyout 15 February - Monthly Meeting SPECIAL TIME: 5pm! 17 February - Monthly Flyout 15 March - Monthly Meeting 17 March - Monthly Flyout 19 April - Monthly Meeting 21 April - Monthly Flyout 17 May - Monthly Meeting 19 May - Monthly Flyout Web doings: As always, the CO-OPA website contains recent newsletters and other goodies. http://co-opa.rellim.com To access the members only areas the username is "BDN" and the password is "123.0". My Inbox: OSU is conducting a radio telemetry project to track the movement of Redband trout. The study area is the Blitzen River from Malheur Lake to the Steens Mountain. They are looking for a commercial pilot, preferably with telemetry experience, that they can contract with for some aerial tracking. If you are interested then drop Mathew at andermat@onid.orst.edu an email. In sadder news, our friend Curtis Turner passed away last month. Curt will be missed. His wife Jackie has requested that any donations can be made in his memory to Hospice of Bend-LaPine. You can make the checks out to Hospice Center and mail them to David Sailors, PO Box 203, Bend 97709. David will see that they get delivered in Curt's name. Random Thoughts: Now that the holiday decorations are put away and the kids are back in school there is bit of time for flying. Or, given the weather, at least reading of flying. With my bit of spare time I noticed the AOPA is pushing that pilots read their 2006 Nall Report. This report covers the General Aviation accident statistics for 2005. You can find a copy at: http://www.aopa.org/asf/publications/nall.html If you like reading pages of statistics then this will be great reading for you. If not then just let me point up a few familiar statistics that pop up year after year. Most passengers are worried about take-offs and landings, but those phases of flight account for only 13% and 3% of all fatal accidents. As a pilot you may embarrass yourself badly on a landing but the odds of that causing a fatality are very low. Getting caught by the weather is my big fear and yet that only accounts for 13% of fatalities. The big problem, as all pilots should know, is maneuvering flight, which accounted for 33% of all fatal accidents. If pilots could just refrain from buzzing then a lot of airplanes and lives could be saved. Keep that in mind the next time you want to fly past your friend's window. There was a surprise for me in the data. Ag flying has always seemed particularly dangerous to me. The statistics show that while Ag accounts for 5% of the GA flying hours it only accounts for 3.4% of the accidents. Also, safer than I would have expected, is business flying. In spite of the obvious time pressures to fly in all sorts of weather the fatal accident rate is quite low. This type of flying accounts for 15% of GA flight hours and only accounts for 2.4% of its fatal accidents. The category of GA flying with the most hours flown is also the most dangerous type of flying. That category is recreational flying with 49% of the total hours and 81% of the fatals. To me the message of the Nall report is very clear. If you fly in a professional manner then flying can be much safer than when you fly in a casual or cavalier manner. So let's make this our collective New Years resolution: I resolve to fly in a professional manner and do what I can to minimize unnecessary risks. Gary Miller Up, up and away! So there I was, three feet off the ground, spinning out of control, and sweating profusely. I was feeling so nervous that I was uncertain about my continued continence capabilities. It had been a long time since I'd been in this kind of situation and as usual, in any kind of pilot induced activity, it was my fault. I got out of the seat, opened the door and stepped out to get a breath of fresh air. That really helped clear my mind and get my thoughts back to piloting. I took off my coat and went back inside to the desk to complete the pre-rental written test. Nobody had told me there would be a written exam. I was all raring to go fly. It was hard to settle down and pay attention. What is a Vx? Is that when you go slow to get high or faster to get it done quicker? I just fly the speed that's necessary to do those various tasks, why do they have to use code words? Oh well, I banged out the answers complete with annotations and footnotes to qualify my answers in context. Then came the verbal test. I bantered about some details concerning my long experience only to find out my instructor-examiner had about 14,000 hours. Boy, this was going to be fun if I could just find out where my ego had gone bouncing off to and keep a lid on it. Remember that fine old advice? Just answer the question; don't supply extraneous information. This person didn't know me from Adam, certainly hadn't seen me fly, and was, after all contemplating getting into the aircraft with me as Pilot In Command. Now there's a scary thought. For those of you who may have forgotten, envision this . I'm a guy that stopped shaving about forty years ago and with a tie dyed T-shirt I resemble Jerry Garcia and little kids think I'm Santa. I mean, either way, Garcia knew how to get high and Santa knows how to fly but it was the first time this guy had met me and it was his plane and his life so I guess this was a prudent pilot proficiency proof process. This whole episode came about because I had grounded myself due to the cost of aircraft rental. I had taken my last BFR over a year ago and hadn't flown as the chief cook and bottle washer since. Of course I've flown with some of my friends in CO-OPA in their personal aircraft but I understand there's a limit to what you might allow an unknown quantity to do to your best buddies controls, not to mention fuselage flagellation. The date for my next medical was fast approaching so before all hope flew I decided to fly. I found a cheaper, make that older, plane from a reputable company and thus the rental checkout and currency requirements. John Seigman, Chief Pilot for Redmond Air was a real gentleman. He seems quite unflappable and I was pretty good to him so his blood pressure should be fine, in a few days. I'm sure you're familiar with the routine. The check pilot tells you that you're the PIC and so this pinnacle of aviation sitting beside you is supposed to be invisible? So I haven't flown in a year, I've never flown this particular aircraft, oh yeah, and this is a test. Sure, lets be nonchalant and go be a pilot. Act like a pilot, behave like a pilot, dare I say I was smelling like a nervous pilot, I must be a pilot. Run up checklist done, I guessed it was time to tell the tower I wanted to fly. Take off was nice, seeing the ground fall away. Full power and it just flew off with over five thousand feet left in front of me, positive rate, gear up, oh wait, this is fixed gear, I'm the one that needs to suck it up, and fly away. This is easy. This was fun. We went out and did the usual maneuvers and never once did John raise his voice or grab the controls. The man is made of steel. Then it was time to go back for touch and go demonstrations. RDM cleared me for right base to one zero and advised I was number two to a helicopter on final. It's very hard to see a small black aircraft, with no apparent means of support, against the ground clutter and how slow can those whirlygigs go anyway? I've always found it difficult to judge glide slope from an unusual pattern entry and I found myself slowing and slowing for the traffic. I was about to suggest a go around when the tower called the helio position and cleared me to "touch and go." Wow, it was good. On centerline, on speed, and on the numbers. Squeak, squeak, just kissing that sweet spot. Man, I was hot. So far. I did several of those, I'm sure you do them all the time too; you know, flare and hold it at about 3/8ths of an inch above the tarmac and just keep pulling until you feel the stall gently lower you right on your chosen spot. They were all like that even the one where John retarded the throttle and said he thought the engine was quitting. Go to best glide, turn to the spot, and scan the systems. I told him what was wrong but he wouldn't let me operate the throttle, something about, this was going to be a catastrophic failure if I touched that throttle again. This was a dead stick all the way to touchdown unless another urgent emergency occurred, like I screwed up my approach and a little throttle would help us make it back in time for lunch. I was a little long on purpose. I think it's better to be long and slow than short and fast in this kind of situation. A friend told a story about an actual engine failure over a military base where the PIC selected full flaps and landed short in the rough with ten thousand feet of runway in front of him. His explanation was that he always landed with full flaps. We talked flying, we flew, and we rehashed flying. John signed my logbook and invited me back. I felt like royalty or I felt relieved anyway. The way I strutted out of there you would have thought I had just soloed. I guess in a way I had, I'm a real pilot again and I like it. Ed Endsley "A plane landing is a controlled mid-air collision with a planet." .. Author unknown Gear up! At about 10 p.m. local time on May 8, 2006, a 7th Bomb Wing B-1B Lancer based at Dyess AFB, Texas, made a wheels-up belly landing on runway 31 at Diego Garcia, skidding 7,500 feet down the runway. For those of you who've never seen a $285,000,000.00 bomber on the deck, here she is: The aircraft was landing at the end of an 11-hour ferry mission that started at Andersen AFB, Guam. During the landing, the B-1B caught fire and emergency crews extinguished the flames. The four-person aircrew escaped from the plane through the overhead escape hatch. Above are the preparations to get back on its feet. The aircraft was finally removed from the runway 4 days later. The Air Force Accident Investigation concluded the pilots forgot to lower the landing gear. The USAF estimated the damage to the B-1B at $7.9 million, and the damage to the runway at $14,025. RBRM and those old SEABEES made one tough runway, that's for sure! Alberto A new kind of aircraft --- a personal, semi-rigid thermal airship --- flew for the first time on October 27 in Amherst, Massachusetts. Called the Alberto, it's being developed by a company called Skyacht Aircraft, Inc. Alberto, whose name pays homage to Brazilian aviation pioneer, Alberto Santos-Dumont, is 102 feet long with a 70-foot diameter and uses hot air rather than helium for lift. Its innovative foldable frame (much like an giant umbrella) creates structural support of its hot-air envelope, and it has a fly-by-wire vectored thrust steering system. Alberto is a hybrid; a hot-air balloon with aluminum ribs that looks more like a blimp, but with a tail propeller that gives it directional control. The idea for the tail-mounted propeller came from the helium-filled Zeppelin NT. Skyacht, with help from EAA, requested a grant of exemption from Federal Aviation Regulations to allow a person with a private pilot certificate, SEL, to act as pilot in command with a passenger so long as the PIC has a balloon rating where both the flight experience requirement and the flight test requirement were fulfilled using a balloon with an airborne heater; and has logged five hours in Alberto. WINGS SAFETY SEMINAR Lloyd Swenson (EAA Chapter 1345) has arranged a WINGS safety seminar for Thursday, 15 February from 6-9pm. The seminar topics include accident statistics for the Northwest region and springtime weather. The seminar will follow our regular CO-OPA meeting and will be held in the classroom above the ProAir maintenance hangar. The speaker will be Mike Benedict, the new FAA Safety team (FAAST) program manager, who'll be coming over from Hillsboro especially for this seminar. All CO-OPA and EAA 1345 members are invited to attend. Because of the limited room size, Lloyd needs a head count; if you plan to attend, please email Lloyd at les@cmc.net. Member profile 1 Talking of Ed's days before losing his razor, here is someone who found his .. Recognize him? Member profile 2 Ed had sent me these notes about his model airplane photo from last month, so he gets two items this month. Or is it three, with the Xmas 'tail wheel spring' photo? "I'm sure you recognize me... My friend in the middle and I built and flew hang gliders in the sixties and I've known my friend on the right since fifth grade! He was visiting from Hawaii. When he visits, we all try to get together and relive our childhood. I lined us up to take a group photo before we flew so all the planes would be intact. This took place a week ago in a Parks & Rec field near my home... I hadn't flown as solo PIC since my BFR in October,,, 2005. This is how I've been scratching my nostalgia. I went out yesterday, set up a lawn chair and flew until I crashed one to many times... I've got the glue drying..." Mike Bond _________________________________________________________ CO-OPA officer contact info: President Gary E. Miller 20340 Empire Blvd., E-3 Bend, OR 97701 541-382-8588 gem@rellim.com Vice President Nancy Lecklider 3054 NW Clubhouse Dr Bend, OR 97701 541 330-1853 leckone@bendcable.com Secretary/Treasurer Don Wilfong 210 SE Cessna Dr Bend, OR 97702 541 389-1456 dwnw@bendbroadband.com Temp Flyout Chair Don Wilfong 210 SE Cessna Dr Bend, OR 97702 541 389-1456 dwnw@bendbroadband.com Program Chair Ed Endsley 63505 Bridle Ln Bend, OR 97701 541 382-6414 ed@edendsley.com And finally, send Newsletter inputs to Mike Bond 22052 Banff Drive Bend, OR 97702 541 317-8443 mvbond@myexcel.com