CASCADE FLYER February 2005, Vol. 05, Issue 2 Website: http://co-opa.rellim.com/ PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE: I would like to thank Joel Premselaar for sharing his videos at the last meeting. There was enough fascinating material for at least two programs. My apologies to Joel and the group for the projector problems. Never seen anything like that before. Joel gave me a copy of his program on CD. If anyone wants a copy then drop me an email and I'll burn some copies. Many thanks to Norma Wilfong for managing the CO-OPA Xmas fund again this year. It sounds like the group really made a difference for one family last Christmas. Bend airport manager Greg Phillips also gave us a solid briefing on the many things happening at the airport. Utilities and a gravel access road have been constructed on the east side in record time. Things will be ready for the new Epic Aircraft building in short order. The Nelson Road realignment and future AWOS are also moving along. Greg really deserves a hand for getting things moving on so many fronts. This month's speaker will be David Dressler. David is one of our newer members. He is a dealer for the SparrowHawk gyroplane and is finishing up his own SparrowHawk kit. This aircraft will take off in 100 ft, cruise at 70 kts, and carry 2 people while doing it. There is more info available online at: http://gbagyro-sea.com/ If you have any ideas for speakers, or presentation topics, please forward them to me. Bend seems to be just full of aviation stories waiting to be told. 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 "S07" and the password is "123.0". NOTE: FOR PRIVACY PURPOSES, THE MEMBERS ONLY ACCESS INFO IS INCLUDED IN THIS EMAIL NEWSLETTER AND NOT IN THE POSTED WEBSITE VERSION. Calendar: 17 February - Monthly Meeting 19 February - Monthly Flyout 26 February - IAA work party at Big Bar 17 March - Monthly Meeting 19 March - Monthly Flyout 11 June - Flying Festival at Bend Airport My Inbox: Some things just drop themselves in my inbox and are beggin' me to share with the group. So here they are. I know a lot of our members have been to Sulphur Creek Ranch, so this note should be of interest to any of you with $1.6M burning a hole in your pocket. The Sulphur Creek Ranch, an 84 acre in-holding , located in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, is for sale. This ranch has a 4400 sq. ft. main ranch house with 10 cabins, all of which are furnished. The airstrip is a 3300 ft gravel runway that sits in the middle of some of the best hunting and fishing in the west. The sale includes the availability to acquire an Outfitters and Guides license, giving the holder exclusive right to guide in a 150 sq. miles of wilderness. $1,631,000. Call Dave Halgerson at 208-869-8807 Let's hope someone steps up to the plate and preserves this wonderful place. While we are on the topic of Idaho, I received a call to action from the McCall Chapter of the Idaho Aviation Association (IAA). Bill Nikkel, their president, has notified us of a work party at Big Bar: "I often fly into all of the airstrips around Hell's Canyon and I've noticed that some are maintained and some aren't. The IAA often sponsors work parties on strips in Idaho and we are planning one at Big Bar for February 26, 2005. We were hoping to work there in the morning and if we finish by noon, fly over to Sluice Creek or Salmon Bar and do some cactus cleanup and obstacle marking there as well." Anyone wanting in further details can contact Bill at 208-634-1504 or nikkel@frontiernet.net. There may be more work parties like this later in the year. Random Thoughts: The postman saved me from thinking to hard about a subject for this month's newsletter. He delivered my monthly copy of the ASRS CALLBACK. The monthly CALLBACK summarizes recent pilot stories of recent misadventures. Most of you by now will have heard of the NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System. The ASRS has a downloadable form to report aviation safety incidents. If you see, or participate, in any unsafe aviation event you are encouraged to fill out the form and mail it off the NASA. Many refer to this form as the pilots "get out of jail free" card. In most cases the information you put in the form can not be used against you by the FAA. It gets better. If you sent in the form within 10 days of the incident, and the FAA later investigates the incident, then the FAA will in many cases not apply any sanctions against you for the incident. Those submitted forms are also "de-identified" and posted on their web site. Some are summarized and included in the monthly CALLBACK. Their web site is http://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/. There you can download the reporting forms, see recent incident reports, and sign up to get a snail mail copy of the CALLBACK monthly. All for free. In 12 step programs, like AA, members are taught to admit their mistakes, both to themselves and to others. Then to learn from the mistakes and move on. This also describes the average pilot's attitude towards his own mistakes. This is a good thing. It is OK to tell a little white lie to the passengers in the back, but as pilots we must be brutally honest to ourselves. Safe flying demands no less. Regards, Gary DID YOU KNOW ...... Any flight over water or over the mountains at night in a single engine airplane will absolutely guarantee abnormal engine noises and vibrations. The aircraft G-limits are only there in case there is to be another flight by that particular airplane. If subsequent flights do not appear likely, there are no G-limits. SAFETY CORNER by Joel Premselaar Sometimes I suspect that I'm characterized as a pontificator so I may as well go ahead and pontificate. This time around I'll address the subject of control. Sometimes we are controlled. Sometimes we are in control (we like that one, don't we). Sometimes we lack control. What has all this got to do with flying? Well, get into a comfortable chair while I do some pontificating. First off, except for the terrible twos, our parents control us. When we go to school our teachers control us even to the extent to having to raise one and, as the case may be, sometimes two fingers just to obtain permission to respond to nature's call. After school we are subject other kinds of tyrants. Tired of all this, we seek the absolute freedom that flight promises only to have some instructor beat us about the head and shoulders with a rolled up sectional. Then we are, to put it in that famous anecdote, "free, free, free at last" or are we? Now we have to contend with the "guvmint" 'specially since 9/11. Well then, when do we get a chance to be in control? When we are in uncontrolled airspace we are as free as we'll ever be. Really? What's the situation when, as we're making like a bird, the airplane we're controlling challenges us and tells us in no uncertain terms, "I've had enough of your neglect or whatever, so now I refuse to function." Now we enter the realm of "lack of control." Are we going to let a piece of machinery control us? By no means! The monthly publication "Aviation Safety" has a section titled "Learning Experiences." Experience is something personally lived through that's useful only if you survive it. Why tempt fate? To ensure longevity, anticipate, simulate, and practice potential emergencies vice experiencing the real thing. Hey! I know where your mind is. I'm just testing you. Look up vice in the dictionary. It's a proper word in this application. Instead of just boring holes in the sky, why not prepare ourselves for the moment we hope will never happen? Hmmm. Why fool ourselves? If we fly enough, we enter the realm of "there are two kinds of pilots, those that have and those that will (here choose any emergency except for none). How do we regain control from a capricious aerial steed? One answer is to dream up an anomaly and plan the countermeasure(s) before flight! In the air, simulate the fault, and practice the remedial action(s). In a recent edition of Aviation Safety, I read descriptions of autopilots that automatically adjust trim in response to c.g. and flight conditions, and when they fail or if the pilot shuts it off, he's got a huge out of trim situation. I experienced an electric elevator trim failure in an F2H-3 Banshee. The failure mode ran the trim to full nose up (this was rectified by a retrofit). The stick force exceeded even my Schwartzenegger size biceps (that lump you see on my cheek is my tongue). It was only a matter of time before I'd stall because "Gs" were rapidly robbing me of airspeed. Instinct, or whatever, directed me to simply put in aileron and make turns until I could slow enough to physically overcome the stick force. In your healthy aircraft, introduce a lot of nose up trim but instead of allowing the aircraft to climb, roll into a turn. Try it. You'll like it! Unwanted nose down trim is a whole 'nother story. Convert the dynamics into a side slip. Remember the engine out practices your instructor imposed upon you? Did he literally shut down the engine? If he did, it was a dumb, dumb, very dumb thing to do for many reasons. A wind-milling engine's prop drives the engine and if you're fortunate enough to get your shock cooled, cold, and fuel/oil loaded up (fouled plugs) engine started again, you'll be rewarded with a detrimental clank resulting from backlash being taken up. On carbureted engines, you may get icing and not have enough heat to deice. On larger engines, especially the round ones, you may wonder what the clattering sound is on startup. Reason: to save weight, the pistons of the larger aircraft engines have short skirts and larger clearances at the top when cold. The noise is the consequence of rocking pistons, commonly known as piston slap.. The pistons will expand to proper clearances when hot. Piston slap on a cold engine will produce a sound like coal going down a metal chute. A wind-milling engine will load up; fouling the plugs inhibits a restart. Be honest now, you're among friends; have you ever lost power on a fuel injected engine because you forgot to change tanks? Did your pucker factor run off the scale before you got it started again and heard that comforting purr of a smooth running engine? How then should we safely simulate an engine out forced landing? Use about 900 - 1000 RPM (mixture adjusted for take off power and density altitude and carb heat as appropriate). To simulate the drag of a wind-milling prop, get to, and hold 1.3 Vso with the controls slightly crossed for drag (1.3 Vs for a wheels up but flaps down landing). Of course, I know you won't forget to straighten out on the abort or if you intend to land. In an actual engine failure, with altitude permitting, you may slow the aircraft enough to stop the prop (dead stick). This will extend glide distance significantly. To simulate a dead stick landing, do the above in symmetrical flight conditions. Do the following for a twin (just once) at a safe altitude and at Vyse and Vy (it's best to climb out at Vy on take off and stay well above Vmc). Shut down and feather the critical engine, place a wing down into the good engine until the telltale string (a string installed on the centerline of the nose section of jets and twins {no, not the push-pull type}) is straight, then trim off the control load. Do not change the wing down trimmed condition. Start the dead engine and adjust the power until the controls unload. Record the trim and power settings. Repeat the process for the other engine, unless you do not have a critical engine, i.e., counter rotating props. Use these settings to simulate the feathered engine. Remember, Vse speeds change significantly with weight. Once again I exceeded the intended length of the article. I do have more but I'll hold off on flight and landing with loss of flight controls and other anomalies until next month. FAA SAFETY PROGRAM "All About Aeronautical Charts" On February 23, 2005 at 7:00 PM Location: Bend, OR 97701 Central Oregon Community College 2600 College Way Hitchcock Auditorium-Pioneer Hall A 'Wings' Program. Mr. Richard Neher from the FAA Charting Office In Wash. D.C. will present a detailed program on Aeronautical Charts. 7-9 PM. All you ever wanted to know about aeronautical charts including little known facts on sectionals and IFR charts. Online registration is prefered but not required. To view further details and to register for this event, click here http://www.faasafety.gov/SPANS/event_details.aspx?eid=4455. Completing a flight or maintenance action safely is a complex process. Use the materials at http://faasafety.gov/ to sharpen and maintain your skills. For comments or questions, email the webmaster: mailto:webmaster@faasafety.gov CHRISTMAS PARTY December was an exciting month. We had our annual Xmas party/potluck/meeting at the Flight Shop on Dec.16 and a lot of good food and fun was had by all....Gary Miller sent an e-mail to everyone outlining some of the things that happened and I took quite a few photos of the merry time we were having ... DECEMBER FLYOUT We had our last fly-out of 2004 on Sat. Dec. 18. to Chiloquin I thought everyone would be so busy that we would have hardly anyone able to go...but....we had one of our biggest fly-out groups we have had... I believe we had 8 planes and 17 people (the most I recall us having before was 8 planes and 18 people on a fly-out to Lakeview). The ramp at Chiloquin was overflowing ... Our Fly-out to Chiloquin was fun and the walk across the highway to Melita's Café was the most dangerous part of the trip ... as usual, the food and service were both good and we had a great time visiting before we all headed back Home ... Norma and I headed to Maui the next day so I had asked for a volunteer to write an article to give to Mike Bond to put into the newsletter ..... I don't remember who agreed to write the article and they didn't remember to write it. Everyone else forgot to submit something too, that is the reason our newsletter for January consisted of only the article written by Joel Premselaar ... Thanks Joel. If you have had a trip or an experience that others would like to read about ... why don't you sit down and write up a short story about it and give it to Mike Bond?? If you have a photo or two to go along with the article that is even better (but not necessary) ... remember the great article and photos Steve Wright submitted about the trip he and his wife took over to the Alvord Desert. Let's all try to help Mike out by providing some material to put the newsletter together with ... It is not easy trying to come up with enough material ... so ... let's all dig deep and help out ... THANK YOU MIKE for all you do ... Don & Norma Wilfong JANUARY FLY-OUT Sat. morning was beautiful in Central Oregon and the CO-OPA fly-out enthusiasts were ready and eager for the first fly-out of 2005. (1/22/05) Plans had been firmed up to fly to Pendleton, get picked up by the folks who do the Underground City Tour and be driven down town so we could enjoy breakfast and then go on a 90 minute tour at noon...afterwards we could have called the casino and they would have taken us to a tour of the Indian Cultural Center or to where we could donate some $$$$$. Well... the plans changed since Pendleton was fogged in. A call to Klamath Falls determined that the Café at the airport (long known as the Satellite Café) was open...it is now called "Bailey's Café" and it is open.....so....we changed our plans and after waiting to see who was going to show up we boarded our trusty steeds and headed out. Gary Miller in his Turbo Centurian took Ed Endsley along as a passenger, David and Denise Dressler in their Cardinal RG had their standard size poodle on board (this was their first fly-out with our group and they were certainly a welcome addition), Mike and Ann Bond were in their Cardinal RG and Don & Norma Wilfong in their Skylane had Bob and Nancy Lecklider as their passengers. The Skylane was the only plane with 4 people on board. There was the usual friendly banter between the planes on the way down with a few pointed comments about having landing gear hanging down in the wind (the Skylane was the only one) and comments about not having to remember to put the gear down....I think the battle came out kinda even. The Skylane was the first to depart....and....it was also the first to land....so....on a one hour flight the hanging gear did not prove to be too much of a speed problem... We all arrived, unloaded, and proceeded to the café. The service and food were both good and the hangar flying and other conversation was excellent... We walked out to the planes and stood around and visited for a while, the weather was like spring and it was nice to gather outside and enjoy the nice weather. We took off first in the Skylane, stayed fairly low and pretty much followed the highway and railroad back to Bend.... Gary & Ed flew over Crater Lake, the Bonds kinda followed our lead. The Dresslers were delayed a while as their battery was low and had to be charged .... they did get airborne in time to talk to the Bonds so they were not delayed too long. All in all it was a great time and we are still looking forward to going to Pendleton in the future... Another spot on the radar screen is just out of Alturas, Calif., the California Pines airport (A24). They have a 4250' X 60' gravel runway at an elevation of 4398'. The California Pines Resort is a short walk from the airport and they have breakfast off the menu on Saturdays and a breakfast buffet on Sundays. (They will even provide transportation for those who do not wish to walk) This spot was recommended by the good folks at the Lakeview airport. Wishing you all Blue skies and tail winds.... Don Wilfong dwnw@bendbroadband.com