Massey Ranch Airpark

Well another day of flight team practice.  Although no longer on the team I still enjoy going to practice and helping out.  This weekend marks the 3rd weekend of practice since the team received the brand new Cessna 162 Skycatcher.  What a plane it has been so far.  No complaints from anyone really.  Over the last three weeks I have watched as our pilots have slowly taken to the aircraft and improved their landings.  The first week hardly anyone even landed in the 300 foot box.  Already by week 3 not only were most  in the box, but they were doing so despite very gusty conditions.  Massey has a burble not unlike that which carrier pilots experience from the bridge.  At either end of runway 18-36 there are trees, and the second you pass over those trees on short final all the flight characteristics of your approach change in an instant.

Phil and I were able to arrive early to practice because we drove separately this gave us a chance to take some shots in the early morning light with frost and dew still covering the aircraft.  The Commander above is probably the best shot of the morning.

The big thrill of the day was the first time that any of us have witnessed a jet at Massey Ranch.  A Cessna 500 Citation I departed around 0900.  You can see it being fueled and towed by a Ford diesel.

Next weekend is the Daytona 500 so be on the look out for shots of the Thunderbirds and the NASCAR air force.

Back to the Grind

This week marked the beginning of the end.  The end of my college career that is.  In just 5 short months I will be done with school and on to bigger and better things with the United States Navy, after a short time as an unemployed, bachelor of science in Aerospace Engineering holding, Ensign in the United States Navy waiting to go to flight school.

Until then I will muddle through school preparing for what I hope to be my first ever marathon.

This weekend I was able to attend flight team practice where the team for the first time flew their brand new Cessna 162 Skycatcher.  My first impressions of it are that although it isn't much of a looker it does seem to have good flying qualities.  It is considerably quieter than the Cessna 150s that we usually fly.  Although the Skycatcher was designed some 50 years after the 150 it doesn't seem to have as an advanced a wing from what is visually perceptible.  The 150 has a tapered wing, and the Skycatcher has a hershey bar wing with no taper.  In the coming weeks I hope to see much more of it as our pilots become better and better at flying it, and the team's second Skycatcher arrives in February.

This weekend has also brought renewed interest in photography and filming.  Yesterday the afternoon was spent at Spruce Creek building a gimble for a DIY steadicam.  The work continued today, and it should be operational tomorrow, so look for updates with that.  As we were working on it today we started thinking about camera cranes/booms and tomorrow the plan is to hash out a better idea of how to build one of those as well.  The goal is to have everything operational by next weekend.  Along the way we also ran across DIY plans for a dolly, so that may be included as well.

For my parting words I will share something I have come to realize based on two old phrases:

The first phrase is, "You can achieve anything you put your mind to".  No as a matter of fact you cannot.  It seems to be a motto that American's live by and the rest of the world already knows is not actually true.

The second phrase, "There is no such thing as a stupid/dumb question".  Oh yes there is, and far too often I have heard them.  My favorites are the ones that are asked mere seconds after someone has just finished explaining that very thing.  Why don't people just learn to listen?

And with that it is time to end, thank you, and goodnight.

Back From a Long Hiatus

I'm finally back from quite a long hiatus, nearly a year. Well these things happen when you transfer schools and begin doing many more things. Anyway enough with the excuses, I have a years worth of aviation news to catch up on.

Once again we are waiting on the 787 to roll out for real this time, the roll out last year on 7-8-07 was a bit lame now that it has been more than a year and it has not taken to the sky. The other problem is the Air Force's new tanker contract, which I personally think may never be resolved, not really. It has taken far too long for the government to come to a decision about this matter. I read a quote six months ago when the initial final decision was made that expressed something to the effect that if the deadline was 25 January, he should have asked to make sure it was 2008, not 2009. The bureaucracy that goes into these types of matters is absolutely ridiculous.

Enough about that. The last year has seen me transfer from Western Michigan University to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida. I'm still pursuing the same degree, with a slightly different title, Aerospace Engineering with a focus in Aeronautics. The move was a good one for me although I have really missed all my flight team buddies from WMU. The move was prompted after finally getting my chance at the military career I've wanted for as long as I can remember. I was able to pick up a full ride Navy ROTC scholarship which has been absolutely great. The NROTC at Embry-Riddle is one of the largest in the country despite it being just 5 years old and it is already producing the largest number of pilots for the Navy second only to the Naval Academy.

A little bit on the flight team business. I started on the flight team at WMU, the Sky Broncos, we took first place in our region, region III, and fourth in the nation. My event is aircraft recognition, you are given normally 60 slides in of aircraft and have to identify the manufacturer, model number, and common name associated with the aircraft. The catch is that you are only given three seconds to view each slide, which makes things a bit more difficult, when you are experience like most of the top reccers, as they are called, this is more than enough time. The first 50 slides are multiple choice and you are given 15 seconds after each slide to make a decision about the aircraft that was seen, the last ten are fill in the blank and you are given 30 seconds to come to your decision about the aircraft. In the regional back in 2006 I took first place followed by three of my teammates, then in the national I took 6 place. This year I only participated in the national competition with my new team at ERAU, the Eagles, I was able to take second, missing first by only one point. If you'd like to view more on this visit www.nifa.us for more information.

Partially as a result of this I have had little to no time to do leisure flying on my own, so I have had very little flight time in the last year, I'm hoping to remedy that over the next month in preparation for the Eagles Flight Team back in Daytona in the fall. This year I flew for the first time a G1000 equipped Cessna 172, very nice, but I miss the round dials. I have only two gripes with the system, I'm to tall and the extended dash makes it impossible for me to see the comm frequencies on the pilots side display, and the fuel gauges are horizontal. To me the fuel gauges should be vertical since the fuel doesn't drain out of them in a horizontal manner, I'm sure it was a space saving design on the screen, but it just doesn't register with my brain.

This summer I was on active duty for a brief stint enjoying all of what the Navy has to offer in a program called Career Orientation Training for Midshipman or CORTRAMID. It was extremely fun seeing everything the Navy does on a regular day to day basis, as well as getting to meet Midshipman from all around the country that I'll soon be serving alongside. Of course for me the best parts were the flying that we were able to do. Every Midshipman that physically qualified had the chance to fly the T-34C Turbo Mentor. Let me tell you it was a blast! You felt cool from the instant you were geared up and walking out to the aircraft, kitted out in flight suit, harness, gloves, and flight helmet, you felt like you were really a Naval Aviator. Each of us got a 20 to 30 minute flight in the Mentor. My pilot was a Marine Corps C-130 pilot by trade who was doing a tour as a primary flight instructor. We took off from NAS Oceana taxiing out through rows and rows of F/A-18 C-Fs watching them takeoff and land through the expansive greenhouse canopy was amazing. Once we got airborne he held it in ground effect until the end then pitched up 60 degrees in a climbing left turn until we had reached 500 feet and our on course heading. We flew out until we were in Northern North Carolina over the Blackwater compound that is there then climbed to 6,500 ft and did a wide clearing turn. Then he executed an Immelman after which we ended up at about 8,000 ft and 90 knots of airspeed. The stick shaker was going off as we rolled level indicating we were close to stall speed. We then dove for a little airspeed executed a loop followed immediately by a barrel roll, then an aileron roll, and finally a split S. After the split S we made a turn and were now down around 4,500 feet, then he gave me control and we did an aileron roll, that was cool! I then had control from there until 5 miles out from Oceana. Most of the way we were doing 200 knots at only 500 feet. We had to stay below the pattern altitude of the F/A-18s, that is the reason we were so low.

Throughout the rest of CORTRAMID we toured squadrons and flew simulators as well as received two more rides, this time in helicopters. We flew the MH-60S all around the greater Norfolk area with the doors open for about an hour, that was pretty neat! We also flew the CH-53E during Marine week on a short ride, not as interesting as the 60 but still fun for me at least, it seemed to put others to sleep though. It is nicknamed the $h!tter because all sorts of fluids are leaking on to you , in the picture below you can see some of those fluids on one of the guys helmet. They told us there was nothing to worry about, but that if we noticed it stop leaking we should tell them!

Here is a link to a youtube video I created highlighting some of what went on, a lot is missing since we weren't allowed to have cameras at many sights for national security purposes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDzVLHKXh0I

The Beginning

Okay I'm pretty new to this whole blogging thing both as a reader and as a writer but here it goes anyway. For the most part my blogs will be in regards to something aviation or space related.

To start things off I've had the privilege of being at the controls of four different types of aircraft, two of which are reflected in my log book. The others I was flying from the right seat and thus could not actually log.

The first of these aircraft being the Cessna 172 Skyhawk. The first time I flew a Skyhawk was when I was 16 at a summer camp at Western Michigan University. The actually aircraft's tail number was N993WW which is now owned by the International Airline Training Academy in Tuscon, Arizona. The first Skyhawk I ever soloed had the tail number N981BT and this is the aircraft the majority of my logbook times is reflected in. I've also flown N721AA and N996WW. To me the Cessna 172 Skyhawk is a perfect Private Pilot training aircraft. With relatively moderate performance, good visibility, and ease to fly it has been a pure joy to do my training in. It does however have a number of draw backs, mainly being its lack of power, and inability to carry any sort of useful load with the fuel to actual make a long cross country. Cessna has remedied this somewhat with the newer models giving them an extra 20 HP so that they now have 180 horses. When I have flown four people in the Skyhawk I've had to carry roughly half tanks, although the performance does not really seem to be affected to much, in cruise it will still do 110 knots.

The other type of aircraft that I have in my logbook is the Cessna 150. This is the Skyhawks smaller cousin. It is only a two seat aircraft and is probably about a foot abreast smaller than the Skyhawk. The other major difference is the seating position for the pilot. In the Skyhawk your seating up just over a foot off the floor in the seat with you legs extended down to the pedals. The 150 is another story, you're sitting on the floor kind of paddle boat style with your legs straight out in front of you. My experience with the 150 has lead me to believe that the aircraft has a mind of its own, possibly solely a result of it being so light weight. We pulled the power out and we continued to climb, then we'd put power in to climb and we'd descend it must have just been riding thermals. It is an extremely fun aircraft to fly although even more under powered than the Skyhawk it turns like nothing else out there. It has relatively big control surfaces for how big it is so it rolls into and out of turns very nicely. It also has 40 degrees of flaps which is somewhat uncommon for aircraft this small which means it will fly really slow. With power in and full flaps you can fly it well beyond its published stall speed to less than 10 knots. For this very reason many people have had the privilege of flying backwards in this aircraft with stiff headwinds.

I've also flown right seat in a homebuilt experimental category Vans RV-6A. If you have ever looked at homebuilt aircraft you'll know how successful Vans is with over 5,000 of there aircraft in the air. Before I flew in it I had figured it would be a bit of a step up from what I had previously flown in but I really had no idea. The RV-6A I flew in had a 180HP normally aspirated Lycoming engine driving a fixed pitch prop. I should have knew what I was in for by doing a little math before hand. The aircraft weighs less than 1,500, so about the same as a Cessna 150, and has 80 more HP plus a more streamlined design. When we rotated at takeoff we were doing a 100 knots in the climb and maintaining nearly 2,000 fpm climb rate. In cruise we were at around 180 knots true air speed. The other major difference to this aircraft than the others I had flown was that it had a low wing instead of a high wing. It also had no doors, instead it had a sliding canopy which I thought was neat, until we closed it and I had absolutely no head room. Another cool feature was that it had a fighter pilot like stick instead of a yoke that was pretty neat to turn with. Although I'm supposed to have a second flight with the guy that owns it I've yet to do that, he said I could ring it out a bit and head show me what it could really do. I think he meant rolling it and thinks which I'd love to be along for the ride and do.

Finally the coolest aircraft I've ever flown, the Cirrus SR-20. From first looking at it you can sense how cool it is. It has some of the best lines on any light single engine aircraft out there. For those none aviation enthusiasts I'll compare it to a car, and the only car in its class the Lamborghini. To start the Cirrus has Lamborghini doors so you know it is cool when you can taxi in after a flight with both doors popped open like that. It also features a full glass cockpit, meaning all the typical steam gauges have been replaced by LCD monitors, with the exception of the attitude indicator, airspeed indicator, and altimeter which are all still in place as back ups to their digital counterparts. The Cirrus is easily 30 knots faster than every other aircraft in its class and it will also carry a bit more than the others. Some of the coolest features of the Cirrus are found on the wings. The Cirrus features a dog tooth leading edge, which I'll get into at some point when I talk about modern fighters. It also features stall strips, which on the Cirrus are quite small, but I'm told that on the new Cirrus SR-22 G3 they are significantly larger. The basic principle behind a stall strip is to guarantee that the wing root area stalls before the wing tip, this makes the aircraft safer. This makes an aircraft safer because whenever a wing stalls, if a tip stalls before the other portion of the wing it will drop and you have the potential to enter a spin, which in the Cirrus has no recovery technique but to pull the chute. The biggest advantage to the Cirrus probably is its safety. The aircraft is virtually impossible to get your self into a mess that you can't get yourself out of as long as it had nothing to do with your decision making skills regarding weather, your ability, etc. One of its most known feature is mostly its CAPS (Cirrus Airframe Parachute System) which deploys a large canopy via a solid rocket that will bring the whole aircraft down in one piece. It also has many other safety features but I'm not going to get into them. The only draw backs I see with the Cirrus are that it has somewhat poor visibility outside, which is why I personally feel that it is probably not the right choice for a primary training platform. I do however feel that it is probably one of the best secondary training platforms on the market if not the best, it is a great Instrument aircraft as I had the privilege of experiencing 3 days ago as a back seat passenger. We took off into a cloud deck that was reported to be at 900 feet AGL, but was at more like 400 AGL, climbed through a 3,000 foot cloud deck, flew 100 nautical miles, descended through that same cloud, and made an uneventful precision approach. If you are someone that has $300,000 burning a hole in your pocket this is definitely the right plane for you, I cannot speak more highly of this aircraft.

Anyway I guess that it is a somewhat lengthy first blog, hopefully I'll be back tomorrow with my favorite aircraft.