IFR for under $10,000? You betcha!

I must be missing something, but it seems that I could get Papa set up for non-precision GPS IFR with a 2-axis autopilot for under $10,000. Interesting, yes, but it still ignores the issue of where the $10,000 is going to come from. Let's just wish that little problem away for the sake of argument, though.

So here's what I'm thinking:

A Dynon D-6 for attitude.
A Dynon D-10A for navigation display and autopilot control
A Garmin GNC 300XL TSO for IFR GPS and Comm.

The prices break down thusly:

- D-6: $1,600
- D-10A: $2,200
- GNC 300 XL: $3,150
- Heated Pitot: $450
- OAT Probe: $ 65
- Backup batteries for D-6, D-10A: $260
- Roll servo and mounting kit: $825
- Pitch servo and mounting kit: $825

Total: $9,375

You'd have to add some dollars for wiring, etc. but that shouldn't exceed $500. And because it pains me to do it, I'm not including sales tax. That would probably put me over the magical, mythical $10,000, but literary license allows me to ignore that for now.

Here's kinda-sorta what it would look like:



And what would I get for that? Well, the IFR minimums for a GPS non-precision approach into Bolton are right around 500(AGL) and 1/2 mile visibility. An ILS set-up would add thousands of dollars and only get me 300 feet lower, so I deem that to be "not worth it."

IFR aside, just the 2-axis autopilot would make it worth the money. It's hard to quantify safety-of-flight value, but the value of an autopilot is pretty easy to understand.

So, here I am back to Dynon. How long have I been stuck here? Since four days after I took delivery of Papa, as it turns out:



If I were to do it now, though, I'd move the Dynon units one row to the right on the panel. They'd be closer to the GPS/Comm that way.

Mondays that feel like Sundays

My generous employer gave us both Friday and Monday off for the Fourth O' July weekend, so yesterday morning found me following an extra-relaxed weekend regimen. As my internal alarm clock stridently announces that it's 0530 and TIME TO GET UP without any respect to weekends or holidays, I quite often find myself sitting out on the front porch enjoying a cuppa java, a book, and the companionship of Brave (yet groggy) Sir Hogarth. Hogarth's a bit odd when it comes to these early morning sabbaticals on the porch.

On one hand, he's mortally offended if I don't invite him out with me; he will sit at the storm door and pout. But if I do bring him out, he goes to pains to demonstrate that he thinks we're getting an entirely too early start on the day. This can take the form of ostentatious stretching, sprawled out power-napping, or a wide, wide yawn:



Once the rest of the house begins to stir, we head inside and begin the next phase of the day. That phase mostly entails the finding of a means of escape. That often takes the form of flying somewhere, but yesterday it worked out such that I was able to get out of the house for some nature communing by inviting Brandon to fly down from Lima and do a little kayaking. The weather was great for both as it turns out. Brandon wouldn't arrive until a little after 11:30, but that was fine with me. Not only was the porch still comfortable and appealing, but there was also the rumor going around that a B-17 would be landing sometime around 11am. Bolton was using runway 4, so if the B-17 actually showed up it would be flying right past the front of my house on final approach to the runway. And that's exactly what happened:



I got some close-ups after Brandon arrived:





After a few minutes of poking around the Flying Fortress, we loaded up the boats and headed for the lake. Brandon had never been in a kayak and I've found that it's much easier to learn how to do it on a calm lake than it is to learn the way I did. My first time was going down a river and there are memories of struggling to avoid hitting trees, rocks, and other immovable objects that convince me that it's not friendly to either the boat or the person to try that again.



The lake was nice and quiet, probably because just about everybody else was back at work. I briefly explained to Brandon that the kayak would feel a lot "tippier" than a canoe, but to not worry too much about it as it takes a deliberate effort to get one to flip over.

As explained to me at the kayak clinic I attended, there's a thing called "secondary stability." As the boat tips to one side, more of the hull comes into contact with the surface of the water and stabilizes the boat. I remember the clinic instructor describing it as if it was a universally applicable fact. I now believe otherwise. Brandon climbed into the boat, I gave him a push away from the ramp, and I turned around to get into my boat. That's when I heard:

"Hey, you're right. These are pretty stab....." Kersplash!

I turned around to see what had happened and saw no sign of Brandon, although there was an upside-down kayak where I had last seen him. I was just getting ready to run into the lake to see if he was stuck under the boat when he popped to the surface. It's a good thing I had told him to wear shoes that he didn't mind getting wet, but I suppose one could argue that perhaps that advice could have been expanded to include outerwear as well, should one choose to that uncharitable to your host.

Still, once you're wet there's not mush else to lose so we loaded up for another try. The second attempt went swimmingly, so to speak. We paddled up to the top of the lake and back. The wildlife was out in abundance, and I even ran across some Blue Herons that weren't nearly as skittish as those I see on the Big Darby. I was able to paddle up to within just a couple of feet without them flying away. Figures. I didn't have my camera with me. I know, right? I can't believe I did that again!

After boating, it was back to Bolton for a lunch at JP's BBQ. Having the luxury of not having to fly home, I was able to treat myself to two items I would never consider consuming before flying. I had the King Bull sandwich, which is deep fried polish sausage, chili, and onions on a bun. And a beer. Yummy!

I go through this now and then

Every now and then, I sit back and ask myself what's next for me with regards to flying. Would I, for example, like to move up to a more capable airplane, perhaps one offering more power or additional seats? 'Tis certain that if that were the case, I'd also want an upgrade in avionics to allow for more predictable travel on longer trips. Which is to say, I'd want IFR capability. And a two-axis autopilot. And I'd want to stay at least in the neighborhood of the 150 knots I get from Papa. It gets thorny quickly when thinking along these lines because it doesn't take very long at all to populate a minimum requirement list that equates to a six-figure cost.

Or would I prefer to move down into a simpler plane, perhaps one of the spiffy new LSA types popping up on the market from such trusted sources as Cessna and Cirrus? Well, those are brand new airplanes and as such also quickly exceed the six-figure plateau. And the result should I take this path? A small two-seat airplane that can't fly at night or in IMC conditions and can only (by law!) cruise at speeds less than 120.1 knots. There are also benefits, of course, but they are of the nature that they won't be beneficial to me until I begin to get concerned about passing the FAA Class 3 physical.

There's nothing magical about a six-figure price tag; with the proper financing I could swing it. But there's the rub: debt sucks. Debt on things like, oh, houses makes sense. Debt on heavily depreciating things like cars? Not so much. Debt on a pure luxury item like an airplane? Really, out of the question. There's also the issue of ongoing costs. Insurance would surely be higher as the hull value climbed. In the case of a store-bought plane, maintenance costs would also become more burdensome. These are hard increases to live with in the absence of some serious increase in needed capability.

So, what is it I need? As I look out the window this morning, I see moderately low clouds and the promise of afternoon haze. Let's say that I wanted to fly somewhere today, or in a more typical scenario, let's say that I flew somewhere yesterday and spent the night. I'm looking at maybe 1,000' ceiling and three miles visibility today and I'm not going to be able to fly home. This is light IFR and is exactly the kind of weather I'd like to be able to deal with when it arises. I don't need the capability to make an ILS approach to 1 mile and 200' minimums; I'd be satisfied with being able to make approaches to the typical GPS or non-precision minimums of 800 and 1.

With that in mind, I always circle back to the question of whether I need a new airplane to do that. The answer is no. With the right avionics, Papa could do that. Note that this is by no means a revelation - I've noodled my way down this path many times. The problem, as you can imagine, comes down to cost and effort. I haven't quite figured out what it would cost, but I know it would be a lot of effort. I figure I'd need at least:

- a glass panel six-pack replacement such as the Blue Mountain Sport EFIS ($6,995!!) or something from Dynon
- an ICOM A-210 ($1,500) to replace the quirky A-200 I have now
- a two-axis autopilot ($2,500 - $3,000)
- a better pitot tube (I could buy this today)

This is the Blue Mountain EFIS:



It's amazing technology and at $7,000 is a relative bargain. The problem there, though, is the "relative" qualifier. Relative to, say, a Garmin 600 or a full-blown Chelton/Dynon/Grand Rapids set up, it's dirt cheap. Relative to home enhancements, food, clothing, a vacation, or any number of non-aviation related items, it's pretty expensive. It would provide an increase in the market value of the plane should I ever decide to sell it, but those boosts are never anywhere near the cost of the enhancements. You just can't bank on intangibles like that. There might be something to be said for increased safety-of-flight, but I have something similar to that already: I don't fly in marginal weather. Can't get a whole lot safer than that!

I'm guessing at a $10,000 - $13,000 price tag just for the hardware. The installation would take either months for me to do, or a couple of thousand dollars more to pay someone to do it for me. And get ready for the recurring costs! Database updates, XM NEXRAD subscription, and the IFR pitot-static/transponder check every two years. Well, I already have to do the transponder check, so I guess I'm already paying for at least that part of the recurring stuff. Still, do I need another $100/month in recurring costs?

I used to think that it would be more cost effective to sell Papa and just buy a plane that already has all that stuff, but now I'm not so sure. First, I'm no longer confident that the depressed market would value Papa as highly as I do, although the replacement plane might be had at a bargain rate as well. The second (and larger) problem is that I don't think it would be easy to find a plane that has the ramp presence of Papa. And, well, we've developed a bit of a sentimental bonding too.

For anyone that's read this far, I'm sorry to say that there's no conclusion to be had here. This has been an on-going debate for a couple of years now, and it will continue as such. But here's the cool thing: Oshkosh is less than a month away, and there is no better data-gathering/daydreaming-emporium on the face of this planet than Oshkosh.

A routine flight? There's no such thing.

The Weather-out-the-Window™ this morning looked fantastic. That was a bit of a relief - I had been out at a party last night and unable to check the forecast. Just to make sure I didn't leave it too late to make arrangements for flying, I texted Co-pilot Rick to see if he could check the forecast. He responded with a five page text containing the forecast, but it was raw data rather than the human readable form that I can get from the internet.

Since the internet briefing sites are more than happy to decode the FAA gibberish for me, I have gotten out of the habit of reading the original format. I was too embarrassed to ask for a plain text report, besides which it would have entailed receiving a ten page text. Given that each page rings the phone as it arrives, I thought it might be rude to be the guy whose phone won't stop ringing. I was able to read enough of the salient points to see that at least the morning was predicted to be nice. If I was reading it correctly, that is, which is why it was a relief to see a sunny sky and calm air out the window at 0630 this morning.

Just so you can more easily understand the challenge, here is the raw format:

TAF KCMH 041132Z 0412/0512 27005KT P6SM SCT250
FM041800 24007KT P6SM BKN120
FM050000 14005KT P6SM VCSH BKN050
FM050800 VRB03KT P6SM VCSH SCT035 OVC050

This is the decoded format that I apparently have become overly dependent on:

Columbus OH (Port Columbus Intl) [KCMH] terminal forecast
issued on the 4th at 7:32am EDT (1132Z), valid from the 4th at 8am EDT (12Z) through the 5th at 8am EDT (12Z)

8am EDT (12Z) wind 270° at 5 knots, visibility greater than 6 miles, 25,000 feet scattered

2:00pm EDT (1800Z) wind 240° at 7 knots, visibility greater than 6 miles, 12,000 feet broken

8:00pm EDT (0000Z) wind 140° at 5 knots, visibility greater than 6 miles, showers in the vicinity, 5,000 feet broken

4:00am EDT (0800Z) wind variable at 3 knots, visibility greater than 6 miles, showers in the vicinity, 3,500 feet scattered, 5,000 feet overcast.

Quite a difference, don't you think? Actually, I can usually still read the encoded version fairly well, but the tiny screen of my phone made it difficult. And I'm not completely absolving Samuel Adams and his diabolically smooth and light Summer Ale of a share of the blame either. Ok, I admit it: it was the Sam Adams.

As we all know, though, the Weather-out-the-Window™ forecast only provides an initial measure of the flyability of the day and further research is required. It didn't take long to learn that the expectations for the afternoon weren't nearly as rosy. In fact, those municipalities that stood on tradition and decided to have their fireworks displays on the 4th are likely to be disappointed. When faced with a nice morning but a questionable afternoon, the default decision is a routine breakfast flight to Urbana.

Not flying at all wasn't a viable option since Papa needs fuel and the local airports charging less that $4 per gallon are becoming increasingly scarce. Urbana was, in fact, one of the few remaining with the lower priced fuel, and that is more than likely not going to be the case for much longer. Next time they buy fuel, they too will probably be north of $4.00. I figured I'd better get the cheap stuff while the getting was good. Since a routine food and fuel flight isn't all that exciting anymore, Rick and I thought that we'd get it done early and then take the kayaks out for a little spin when we got back.

On the way out the door, I briefly considered grabbing my camera as required by the "Never Fly Without a Camera" rule. (Stop me if you've heard this one - you can probably already predict where I'm going with this.) I didn't. After all, I've hauled that camera back and forth to Urbana a gazillion times without ever using it. Why lug it along just for breakfast and fuel??

As I was opening the hangar door, I was surprised to see that I have a new hangar frog! I guess he never heard the tragic news about what happened to the last hangar frog that tried to live in hangar H5. Too bad I didn't have my camera to commemorate his arrival. Well, actually, I guess it would be more accurate to say that I needed a picture of him before I accidentally run over him like I did his predecessor.

I did the preflight and we were off the ground at about 0845 and enjoying a smooth ride over to Urbana, unopposed by any kind of wind. I throttled back a little bit to make a good 140 knots, there being no real reason to spend the fuel to get there any quicker than that. When we were 15 or so miles out, we heard a pilot call arrival at Urbana:

"North American, overhead pattern to left traffic runway 2."

That was helpful - when the winds are calm and either direction on the runway is equally valid, it's nice to have someone already there to establish the runway to use. We were curious about what type of 'North American' airplane it was, though. The options run from a Navion to T-6 Texan to P-51 Mustang and all the way up to a B-25 Mitchell or an F-86 Sabre. The specific type doesn't really matter in one aspect, though: having any one of those types at the airport would be just the reason that I made the "Never Fly Without a Camera" rule in the first place. Still, I've seen all of them before. While I was a little frustrated to be sans camera, it wasn't all that horrible. Well, truth be told I'd be furious if it was an F-86, but that odds of that were very, very small.

Traffic was light at Urbana and we didn't hear another arrival until a Skyhawk checked in:

"Skyhawk [insert random numbers here - I don't remember them] is five miles south for a straight-in to runway 2."

As we were a little more than six miles south east ourselves at that moment, I thought I ought to go ahead and let him know that we were about the same distance away as he was and that we would be crossing over the runway to make left traffic to the same runway. He replied that he would forego the straight-in approach and also cross over to a left downwind. In theory that made the whole thing easier, but it didn't turn out that way.

The first thing I do when I find myself to be equidistant to the airport with a plane like a Skyhawk is speed up. It does neither of us any good to arrive at the same time, so I just throw a little more coal on the fire and get there before him. I figured there was no way he was going to keep up with 150 knots, and actually told Rick that I'd eat my hat if we didn't easily get there first, but with one caveat: he didn't sound all that confident on the radio and I figured there was some chance that he didn't really know how far he was from the airport. Most people have GPS now and are therefore very aware of their position relative to the airport, but there are still some guys out there that either don't have a GPS or never learned how to use the one in the plane they fly.

We crossed over the runway and made the left turn to downwind and reported such on the radio:

"Four Six Six Papa Golf is midfield left downwind runway 2."

The next transmission from the Skyhawk was a stunner:

"But I'm midfield downwind too!"

As you can imagine, this revelation caused no small degree of consternation in the Papa Golf command center!

"Do you see him?"

"How could he have gotten here before us?"

"I don't see him and he doesn't see us - we'd better get out of here."

I started a turn to the north and transmitted that we'd be making a big 360 for spacing and would re-enter the downwind after the Skyhawk had gotten to base leg. This wasn't the most comfortable thing to do because the Skyhawk pilots often fly very, very wide patterns and if this guy was way, way out on a downwind, we'd be turning right into him. He had said he was at pattern altitude, though, so I climbed us up a few hundred feet so we'd hopefully go over him if he was as far out as we were. By the time we were through the circle, we still couldn't see him and he had not yet called a base turn. He did have one important thing to report, though:

"Skyhawk [whatever] is midfield crosswind to the left downwind, runway 2."

Ah, so he wasn't on the downwind at all! And sure enough, now that we knew where to look, there he was still a mile or so south of us.

Sigh. Both of us had heard him report that was was midfield downwind. He can only have meant that he was midfield downwind on the other side of the airport (if you were going to land in the opposite direction), but that doesn't make any sense. Either way, I would have been better off continuing on my downwind but there had been no way to know that. Although, when you consider how often high wing versus low wing mid-air incidents occur, I'd probably make the same decision again.

Dealing with that distraction led to me turning base to final with more altitude and air speed to get rid of than usual. There was no headwind to help reduce our ground speed as we were coming down final, either. The whole mess ended up with a big embarrassing bounce on landing. The recovery from that bounce was, if I do say so myself, pretty good, but that absolves nothing. To make it worse, there was no shot at all of making the face-saving first turn-off.

We taxied in the long way and parked in my favorite spot right in front of the diner.

It was closed.

Drat. Should have seen that coming. July 4th and all that.

On the plus side, we were able to see the what kind of North American we had heard on the radio was. It was a T-6.

Having failed to get food, there was nothing left to do but taxi over to the pumps and get the fuel Papa needed. As I was getting ready to pump the gas, a couple of guys came flying over in a golf cart.

"Oh great, they aren't selling gas today either," I thought to myself.

Rick was over at the plane removing the fuel caps so appeared to the head golf cart dude to be the PIC:

"Hey, is this your plane?"

Rick pointed him in my direction.

"Now what? He wants to rag on me about that debacle of a landing?"

Nope, that's not what he wanted. Phew!

It turns out that he knows Papa's builder and has quite a few hours in the plane himself. He just wanted to see the plane again. Cool! He also mentioned that food was available at a car show that just happened to be going on adjacent to the airport, and he'd be happy to give us a ride over there. I moved Papa back down the ramp to an appropriate parking spot, and as I was buttoning up the canopy and dropping a chock down by the wheel, I heard him on his cell phone:

"Hey, guess where I am. I'm sitting in front of your old airplane!"

He had called the builder to tell him that Papa was at Urbana. Then he handed me the phone. It turns out that the builder is at Urbana quite often doing volunteer work on a B-17 that's being restored there. He seemed interested in seeing Papa again, so I promised I'd give him a call next time I'm going to be there. And not just because he told me that he found the original plans for the airplane and has been saving them for me, either. Nope, it's just that I'm a nice guy. That's my story, anyway.

Rick and I made our way over to the car show by way of the B-17 hangar. They're working on the fuselage right now and I think I saw a huge completed rudder sitting off in a corner. Things were pretty cramped and it left me wondering where they're going to find the room to rebuild those huge wings.

The car show looked like it was going to be very well attended. Even as early as we were there, cars were pouring in. Many of them were spectacular. I swear, if I wasn't a plane guy I'd be a car guy. I was particularly impressed with the very, very old 1900's models. It amazes me that they can keep them running at all, and it's even more impressive that they look just like they had come from the show room yesterday.

Gee, wouldn't some pictures be nice right around now?

So, we're standing at the food trailer when I see a car pull in with a dog in the back seat. That in itself wouldn't be blog-worthy, of course. What's amazing is that the dog in question was very nearly an identical twin to Brave Sir Hogarth! This I had to see! I'm not normally the walk-up-to-a-stranger kind of guy, but in this case I willingly made an exception. The closer I got to the dog, the more astonished I was by his similarity to Hogarth. After chatting with the owner for awhile and ascertaining that her dog (Sully) had gobs of similar traits to Hogarth, I asked how old he was. Four years old. Hogarth is nine. No direct relationship then, but you wouldn't think it to look at them. No one at home would believe me. And I had no camera to prove it. Argh!

But... did I mention that Rick had brought his camera? Well, he did, and I rushed back to find him because I simply had to have photographic evidence to take home. Here are a couple of pictures of Sully:







Compare to Brave Sir:









Very handsome lads, the both of them. In my opinion, anyway.

And yeah, I've been holding out on you with the whole Rick brought his camera thing. Why? Well, because it was funnier this way. I reserve that right.

Here's a picture of the hangar frog:



And here's the T-6:



And even a picture of the car show:

Flying across generations

I caught the flying bug early in life, but I'm not sure where exactly it came from. To the best of my knowledge, there wasn't anyone in my family tree that was an aviator. My dad was horse guy and I have memories of him departing for a weekend now and then with my grandfather to attend events with intriguing names like The Little Brown Jug.

Others inherited their interest in airplanes from their parents or other members of their family. This is something that I hope happens with Co-pilot Egg, but it's not something that can be forced. It's also often something that won't be known until much later in her life. Their lives are so very full of new and different things and at least in the case of Egg, flying is mundane. She's never known a time in her life when I wasn't a pilot.

She is by no means unique in this. A Twitter buddy posted a link to a very moving story about a father/son flying relationship. You really should read the whole thing (here), but here's a sample to get you started:

My earliest memories are of pointing to the sky, having detected the far-off drone of a piston engine. Dad had been a pilot since before I was born. He flew a pea-green Cessna 172 from Rialto Municipal in Southern California. I can remember with crystal clarity those lazy Saturday afternoons at the airport, helping him push back the big hangar doors and leaning my small weight against the airplane’s struts as he pulled it into the sun.

I read him checklists, learning words like “aileron,” “magnetos,” and “pitot” that no one else in my first-grade class knew.

Egg could also describe the function of the flaps, rudder, and elevator should it ever come up in casual conversation. She knows nothing of these "struts," though. Those are for sissies.

Having it both ways

There are three ways of looking at Fathers Day. First, you can view it as Mothers Day, but without the flowers. A day of breakfast in bed, relaxation instead of the normal day-to-day chores, and a nice brunch or dinner out. Or, you can view it as a day to spend with your children doing things together. Finally, you can take the opposite approach and spend some time doing something with your own dad. I figured if I played it just right, I could have at least two out of three of those.

The weather for today was forecast to be flyable, albeit fairly hot and humid at a presumptive 86 degrees and 50+% humidity in the afternoon. Rather than that being a problem, that actually played into my plan. Co-pilot Egg would not want to get up early and make breakfast for me (and for good reason: she had her wisdom teeth out yesterday) or pursue any type of activity, but might be up for a late afternoon movie. My dad, on the other hand, is an early riser like I am. With the pieces lined up like that, the germ of a plan started to develop in my head. I could fly out to the farm in the early-ish morning while it was still cool and calm to pick him up and fly out somewhere for brunch, then return home for the afternoon with Egg.

The challenge then was to find someplace to fly to. Given that I'm physically incapable of planning or deliberately flying a route that involves a lot of backtracking and that the farm is located on the western edge of Ohio, none of the Ohio restaurant airports that I know of really fit the bill. By being limited to flying only southwest, west, or northwest, it looked like I'd have to find someplace in Indiana. After spending quite a bit of time hunting around the internet for just the right place, I relaxed my search constraints and decided to allow southerly and northerly destinations as well.

Oxford, OH (KOXD) fit the bill. While there is no restaurant on the airport, I had been there once before and knew that the FBO guy will provide a ride into town and a later pick-up for the ride back to the airport. Oxford is only 40nm from Darke Co. airport (KVES) where I would be picking up my passenger, so if the return flight was uncomfortably hot & bumpy it would at least have the benefit of being brief. And without Co-pilot Rick along, I'd have to fly the hot & bumpy leg myself. Best to minimize it then, right?

The only outstanding issue was where to eat in Oxford. The last time I was there, I ate at a nice Mexican place. I didn't figure that would be a good choice for today, though. Google told me that there is a Bob Evans in Oxford, so I decided that I'd use that as a fall back plan if we couldn't find something more interesting. There was a severe down side to Bob Evans, though, and that was its location. It was out on the fringes of town. If the FBO guy dropped us there, it would be a very long walk into the town. I wanted to walk around the campus too - it's very scenic. Since Bob's was only the secondary target, though, I thought it was OK to take the chance.

As I was flying out to the farm, I listened to the Unicom on 122.8 and counted the number of occurrences of the poor radio practices I wrote about here. I had to give up when I ran out of fingers and thumbs to count on. The radio was really hopping with traffic from all of the normal 122.8 players but there was one in particular that I've never heard before that seemed to be attracting quite a bit of traffic: Connersville. I've found that an unusually large number of arrivals at a place I don't normally hear used at all means there's some kind of fly-in or event going on. As it turns out, Connersville Mettel Field (KCEV) has an annual Fathers Day fly-in. Mystery solved.

It takes about half an hour to get from Bolton to KVES, ample time for me to revel in the smooth flying conditions. I rarely fly alone anymore, but it's a nice change of pace now and then. When I fly alone, the plane is lighter and feels more energetic. There's also a little more room to spread out and adopt a La-Z-Boy kind of relaxed posture. Once I got all settled in and trimmed Papa to fly with a light fingertip touch, I kicked back and let the miles, well, fly by.

The pattern at KVES was empty when I arrived, so the decision as to what runway to use was left entirely up to me. There was no wind to speak of; as I flew over the field I could see that the flaccid windsock wasn't going to provide much of a hint either. It appeared that I would be able to have my druthers, so based on the fact that a landing towards the east would require squinting into the morning sun, I decided I'd druther land to the west. It was an OK landing, but not the squeaker I'd druther have when the wind is calm. I misjudged my flare, forgetting that it's a narrower runway and that my sight picture would be off a bit. I plopped Papa down from about a foot high. Not enough to rattle my teeth or nerves, but enough to feel that I had left a good landing on the table. A wasted opportunity, in other words. Thankfully, there were no witnesses.

I got my dad loaded up (maybe I should give him a name - how about Pat Treeark? Patriarch. Get it?) and we took off for the short ride down to Oxford. Because there is no dead horse in existence that I won't flog, I made sure to point out instances of poor radio work on the Unicom on the way down. It was a target rich environment. There was also great sightseeing to be done since this was a strip of geography that he has heavily traveled in the past. "There's Eaton over there, and that big lake must be Acton Lake and Hueston Woods."

The wind was still light and variable when we reached the decision-making point at Oxford. Since we were approaching from the north, a left downwind to runway 5 would work best. I announced our position and intentions when we were six miles out. Soon thereafter, a Cherokee announced "ten miles out, landing runway 5." There! That's the way you do it. He had been monitoring the frequency and was going to follow my lead. Knowing he was out there and going to be following us, I spurred Papa up a few knots to get us out of the way a little quicker. The ensuing landing was about average. As we were taxiing in, I saw an RV-8 already parked there. You can't go anywhere....

It's a neat airport. I like the old-school (heh!) FBO building:




The artist alongside his work.

As we parked next to the RV-8, the FBO guy came out to see if we needed fuel or anything. I responded that we have plenty of gas, but a ride to town would be appreciated. "Unnecessary," he replied. "Just take the courtesy car."

Score!

By that time the Cherokee was taxiing in so I waited until he was parked and out of the plane before heading in to get the car. I thought there was some possibility that he'd be wanting to go into town too and I thought it would be courteous to share the courtesy car if he was. Nope, he wasn't. Emergency rest room break. "Ha," I thought. "What a rookie. He doesn't know about Espresso!"

He sure missed out! In the unofficial Best Courtesy Car in the Country competition, KOXD is a clear front runner, at least in the Regional competition:



Brand new! I think it had about 23,000 miles on it. Miami University owns the airport, and by extension it was the university that provided the courtesy car. It's enough to make the father of a soon-to-be-college-age daughter wonder how he's going to afford tuition. It's a beautiful campus and town, though. If she wants to go there, Daddy will have to find a way. It's a college town through and through and would provide for a tremendous collegiate experience. Plus, and this is only a minor consideration [cough cough], I could fly out there to visit!

We found the town easily enough. I think I only made three wrong turns in as many miles. I don't know why I don't grab the Garmin Nuvi out of the Subaru on my way out of the house. Just can't seem to remember to do it. After a little walk through town, we found a place to eat and absorb some air conditioning. I had a generous portion of Gyro meat (both beef and chicken), most of which I had them box up for transport back to Columbus. I try to eat light when I have the prospect of a hot flight home ahead of me, and all indications were that it would indeed by a scorcher. It'll make a good lunch tomorrow.








The Miami University campus is huge, so we were only able to see a small portion of it. It was surely a representative sample, though. The architecture is remarkably consistent considering that the place is 200 years old and has expanded by at least an order of magnitude in that time. Miami has a bit of a "preppy" reputation in Ohio, and the equestrian center must sure exacerbate that:



Snazzy, eh? They had enough stables to provide lodging for dozens of horses. Very impressive. Yet... I don't think I'll tell Egg. Tuition is one thing, food and lodging for a horse? I don't think so!



The trip back to KVES was warm but the air hadn't yet gotten too bumpy. There was a light chop and only one big pocket that we dropped into. It was nothing like those hot August afternoons when Co-pilot Rick gets stuck with the flying duties. After I had dropped Pat off and was heading back to Bolton, I debated climbing higher thanthe 3,500' cruising altitude that I'd been using all day to try to find some cooler, smoother air, but it's only a 65 mile trip. It's usually more efficient just to stay down in the rough stuff for the 25 minute flight.

As I was monitoring Bolton tower, I couldn't help noticing that there wasn't much flying going on. Too hot? Probably not. I think it probably had more to do with it being Fathers Day. In any event, I decided to break one of my Comm Rules. When the tower is really, really slow, I've found that I often have to repeat my initial call because I caught them by surprise and they just weren't ready for a call.

"Annnnnd, Bolton Tower....."

It worked. Got it on the first try. He responded with "Winds calm, report left base runway 4." That set me up for a nice over-the-neighborhood approach and a landing halfway down the runway to reduce taxi time. As I exited an taxiway Alpha 3 and crossed in front of the tower, he said, "Hey, I really like that Yosemite Sam!"

Pat would be proud.

I got home in time for my Fathers Day with Co-pilot Egg, but it didn't work out. Her teeth were still quite painful and she had a low fever. She gave me a rain check, though, and I think I'm going to use it by flying out to Oxford with her so she can see it.

When Worlds Collide

With aviation being as diverse as it is, there are many “worlds” that divide the flying community and these worlds don’t always share a common viewpoint or, for that matter, a common language. As pilots, we typically find it easy to form a bond with others that may live in a different world than we do and it is often the case that any given pilot may exist in more than one world, but there are times when, to borrow a Seinfeldism, our worlds may collide.

There was an interesting collision between my world, where I predominantly fly into rural uncontrolled airports, and Lynda’s world of structured IFR flight into and out of major metropolitan airports. Our worlds (but hopefully not our respective aircraft) collided when we had a Twitter conversation on the topic of radio communication. As a breed, pilots tend to be evangelical on any number of topics and one of the most contentious can be the proper way to communicate amongst ourselves or with Air Traffic Control. Controllers also have a stake in this game as they spend nearly 100% of their working day talking to pilots. Any time you have that much of a specific activity in your work life, there are bound to be sore points. Lynda had a few blog posts on the subject that you should read if you want to keep up with the discussion, but I will try to excerpt as necessary to help the more time-constrained amongst you keep up.

http://thegirlswithwingsblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/midairs.html

http://thegirlswithwingsblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/jargon-chatter-and-mayonnaise-er-i-mean.html

http://thegirlswithwingsblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/now-to-mayonnaise.html

Because Lynda inhabits a vastly different flying world than I do, the applicability of some of the communications sore points she mentions to my world are somewhat rare. For example, the always controversial “with you” as used in the context “Big City Center, four six six papa golf with you at eight thousand” isn’t that big of a deal to me since I rarely work with Big City Center. That said, I can see the point of those that object to it: frequencies can be crowded and even two unnecessary words uttered by a lot of airplanes can propagate into an untenable over-usage of a fixed capacity spectrum.

In my world, frequency congestion is also a problem. The uncontrolled airports I fly into often share a radio frequency with many other surrounding airports. This is known as a UNICOM frequency. It is also commonly referred to as a CTAF frequency. They’re not precisely synonyms, but the semantic differences aren’t critical to this discussion. This definition will suit our purposes:

UNICOM is employed at airports with a low volume of general aviation traffic and where no control tower is presently active. UNICOM stations typically use a single communications frequency. Some fields always offer UNICOM service while others revert to UNICOM procedures only during hours when the control tower is closed.
In this system or protocol, aircraft may call a non-government ground station to make announcements of their intentions. In some cases, the ground station is not staffed. If no one is staffing the ground station, pilots broadcast their location and intentions over the UNICOM channel. When the ground station is closed this is done without an acknowledgement.

This UNICOM frequency is used by pilots to coordinate their activity within the vicinity of an uncontrolled airport with other pilots. As an example, consider an arrival at MadCo (KUYF) where I typically buy gas for Papa. The runway is oriented east to west. I usually approach from the east. If the winds are westerly, I will want to land on runway 27 which points into the wind. Coming from the east, you might think that I could just fly straight in to runway 27, but that is frowned upon. In fact, it’s another of those evangelical issues pilots love to argue about. Rather than fly a straight in approach, I navigate to a position six or seven miles due south of the airport, turn north to approach the airport, and enter the traffic pattern at midfield for a left downwind.

Before I get to that position, though, I have been monitoring the UNICOM frequency assigned to MadCo. As soon as I'm far enough away from Bolton Tower, I change the radio to the MadCo UNICOM frequency and start listening. In the case of MadCo, that frequency is 123.00. Amongst others, this is also the frequency at Blue Ash (KISZ), down south in Cincinnati. Even as far away as that is, I can hear pilots there and they can hear me. Therefore, I identify the airport that I am going to in order to avoid confusion. My initial radio transmission will go something like this:

“Madison County traffic, experimental four six six papa golf, six miles south, inbound left traffic two seven, Madison County”

Because I have been monitoring the frequency, I have a fairly good idea as to what’s going on in the pattern. There may be a student doing touch & goes, or there may be other airplanes arriving or departing. Because we all announce our intentions (with some notable exceptions, such as airplanes that do not have a radio), I can develop a relatively good picture of who’s there, where they are, and where they will be when I get there. I say it’s a “relatively” good picture because it can never be completely accurate. At a minimum, though, it should give me a pretty good idea as to the amount of traffic there and which runway is in use.

It may seem obvious which runway is in use, but that is not always the case. If the winds are light and variable, or if they are almost exactly 90 degrees to the runway orientation, it’s up to the pilot’s discretion which runway to use. Those are tricky situations in which the only prudent course of action is to listen, look, listen, look, listen, and look, look, look. Since those are the two things most important to do anyway, that really shouldn’t be a problem. It is a fact of life, though, that there are many pilots that rely entirely on the existence of radio traffic to determine what’s going on at the airport. Not surprising, that was recently the topic of another Twitter conversation.

Where the issue of frequency congestion arrives is when the UNICOM frequencies are used for chit chat. It is far too typical to find that you can’t get a word in edgewise because a couple of buddies are yapping about this, that, and the other thing. There are also a number of other poor (in my opinion) techniques that can cause unneeded congestion or unsafe situations:

- Every now and then, you will hear “Podunk Unicom, what’s your active?” Translated, that means what runway would you recommend that I use. Keep in mind, by definition there is no controlling authority at an uncontrolled airport, so any response to this can at best be only advisory in nature. There are three ways to determine this for yourself rather than tying up the frequency by asking: 1) know the wind direction. This is often available via an automatic reporting system. There may not be one at the specific airport you are using, but check your charts. There are often airports nearby that have one. Well, at least in Ohio where there are many, many airports. 2) look at the wind sock. This requires you to fly overhead at an altitude above pattern altitude, though, so many are reluctant to do it. 3) monitor the frequency. What are other pilots in the area doing? I’m not ruling out the use of “What’s your active” or its kissing cousin “Requesting airport advisory,” but it is used far more commonly than is necessary.

- Not listening for other pilots talking to you. Simply broadcasting your position and intentions is all well and good, but for true coordination to occur you have to respond to any other pilots that may be trying to talk to you. They may want to know your intentions (full stop, touch & go) or they may be trying to alert you to a potential conflict. Either way, communication is (or should be) a two-way street.

- Not clearly stating what airport you are at. You may have noticed in my example above that I said “Madison County” twice. This is another contentious subject, but I do it for two reasons. First is that the first word may be cut off by the radio if it is said too quickly after keying the mike. This is also the reason many pilots start a transmission with “Uh” or “And” and it should be no surprise to you by now to learn that this too is a pet peeve of many a pilot. The second reason that I do it is because of how many times I will be flying along and not quite hear the first airport identification but clearly hear “left downwind two seven.” Darn, did he say “Morain” or “Madison?” I then listen for the closing identification, but not everyone does it.

- I mentioned this above, but far too often we hear “Hey, did you see the game last night?” “Man, I’m glad I’m flying this morning, I have to mow the lawn later.” Hint, people: no one else cares, and we may be trying to, you know, land this airplane at a crowded field. Write a letter for crying out loud.

Those are pretty common beefs, but there are some that are more situationally dependent. This brings us to the intersection of Lynda’s world with mine. During our Twitter conversation, I stated that there are a couple more communications that I find to be either unnecessary, overused and wasteful of the limited space available on a shared frequency, or even somewhat dangerous.

The first was:

“Podunk County, Cessna one two three echo echo five miles east, inbound, any traffic in the area please advise.”

In the most common case, this is a completely useless transmission and has the additional effect of incurring even more congestion when every airplane in the vicinity of Podunk chimes in with their location. I always wonder what the guy flying that plane has been doing for the last 20 miles that prevented him from monitoring the frequency. In fact, Co-pilot Rick and I just had this discussion last Sunday as we were approaching Urbana. We decided that there are exceptions that need to be made to any hard and fast rejection of the “please advise” call, but they are relatively rare.

One that I fully understand after having experienced it myself is in the case of the airplane that is arriving after a hand off from air traffic control. In my case, the Tampico had only a single radio so I could not monitor the UNICOM frequency while still being in the positive control of ATC. It is often the case that ATC does not allow the frequency change to the UNICOM frequency until the arriving plane is already in the close vicinity of the airport and at that point, the most prudent thing to do is ask.

That is the first of two quandaries faced by the folks that live in Lynda’s world. The second is closely associated with it. It is case where an IFR pilot (or student) will announce their position on UNICOM using a language that is completely foreign to most VFR pilots. For example, you might hear this:

“Podunk County traffic, Beechcraft one two three is procedure turn inbound to runway two seven.”

Upon hearing that, the low-time VFR pilot or student doing tough & goes is usually thinking “Huh?? Where the heck is Procedure Turn? I wonder if they have a restaurant there...”

This disparity in language puts a burden on the pilot flying a high performance airplane making an IFR approach on a VFR day. ATC will often require that the pilot “call procedure turn inbound” before releasing him from the frequency. The IFR pilot has to make a quick transition from an IFR mentality to a VFR mentality, and there isn’t always a lot of time to do it in. In a perfect world, that pilot would have ample time to report “procedure turn inbound” to his IFR controller and get his release from the frequency before de-IFRing himself and announcing his position to Podunk traffic as “eight miles west, inbound.” I’ve been there, and even in an airplane as slow as the Tampico it was a difficult adjustment to make. It has to be far more difficult for a pilot in a high performance airplane, especially if that pilot didn’t spend a lot of time in the VFR world before moving up to the IFR world.

Even within my world, I find times when I wonder what’s going on in the head of another pilot. It is often too easy for me to forget that I didn’t always have 700+ hours under my belt. Lynda made an extremely good point on this topic: “A pilot may believe someone is being an idiot, but be professional. And no one gets hurt!” That’s exactly right.

It is important for a pilot to retain a couple of abilities, no matter how experienced he or she may be. First, a pilot must be able to empathize with those pilots from other worlds. In my world, we were all students once, many of us were low-time weekend renters, but few of us have flown at the speeds and in the complex environment that Lynda does. In the first two cases, we need to remember our past. In the latter case, we must try to be as cognizant of the challenges others may be facing as possible. We share the sky, so we need to be able to see the other guy’s point-of-view. Second, and I believe this to be critically important, we need to retain a desire and ability to learn from others. As a corollary to that, I also believe that it is important for us to be able to engage in critical introspection in order to learn from our own mistakes.

Failing that, the chances that your world will collide with someone else’s in a literal, rather than Seinfeldian, sense will be needlessly increased.