March 2011 - EAA Chapter 1189
Transcription
March 2011 - EAA Chapter 1189
President: Sam Suttle Vice President: Joel Graber Treasurer: Jason Cantrell Newsletter Editor: Gerald McKibben / Secretary 662-312-7876 http://www.eaa1189.com/ This issue of the Fun Flyer was fun to put together because two of our members sent in interesting articles. It made my work easy. Enjoy. Below: New Chapter member Claude Hendrickson re-fueling his SNJ-4 at West Point recently. Actually he’s watching Casey Roszell do the pumping as Mike Smith, Sr. and Mike Smith, Jr. watch. Jim Thigpen and I also watched. (You can’t have too much help). Claude has several warbirds, including a P-51 and a Mitchell B-25, all based at GTR. We’ll be hearing more about that B-25. And he’s promised to bring the P-51 to some of our fly-ins. 1 Plans for the March fly-in at Warren Arter’s place are on hold at the present time. Some want to attend the Open House air show at the Meridian Naval Air Station on the 26, so the March fly-in will be changed to accommodate that. Be watching for updates vie email and the Chapter web site. We’re fortunate to have articles from two of our members in this issue. Randy Gray tells of a trip out West last summer, beginning on page 3, and Larry Wallace of Tuscaloosa does a good job telling how he was able to realize his desire to fly. His piece begins on page seven. From the President: Greetings from Louisville. This is my first attempt to communicate to the club by the way of our newsletter. I want to let you know how much I appreciate each one of our members and the opportunity you have given me to be your president. We have a great organization and I hope you will feel free to let me know any time you have a question, comment, or concern. We have a great opportunity in may to meet the president of EAA and I hope you will invite as many pilots or people interested in becoming pilots and your family to the meeting. More will be forthcoming as to the arrangements and if you are interested in helping please give me or Carey Hardin a call. We are planning to meet at Warren Arter's strip in March (temporarily on hold; see above). If the strip is too wet we plan to meet at Macon and have doughnuts and coffee and move to Warren's to June. Please check out the web pages below about the Grassroots fly-in with EAA President Rod Hightower on may 21st. Again let me know how I can help to improve our club. http://secure.eaa.org/apps/grassroots/ http://www.sportaviationonline.org/sportaviation/201102/#pg3 DR. SAM SUTTLE [email protected] 2 A Trip to Remember – Out West Randy Gray Our last stop for the first day was Las Vegas, at the Henderson Executive Airport (HND). Since we arrived after the last free airport shuttle, we had to wait over an hour to get the rental car. According to the HND airport on Airnav.com, they “are tailored to the discriminating general aviation pilot and corporate client”. “This has to be the best deal in Vegas”, said Billy, referring to the overnight tie-down charge of $7. The best choice there, Billy also said, was to take a taxi instead of renting a car. Last August my brother Billy, Paige Watson, and I took an eight day flight in Billy’s new Cessna 182 (N1982K) to several interesting places out West. Billy had long wanted to visit the Narrows in Utah, and to go fly fishing in the Rocky Mountains. Another purpose was to allow him to become more familiar with his airplane, the Garmin G-100 glass cockpit, and to get some IFR training from me. We left West Point, MS (M83) on the morning of July 23rd, 2010 and made a fuel stop in Hinton, OK (208). That was a four hour flight and a great stop if you are ever out that way. The people there are very friendly and the FBO is very new and clean. The winds in Oklahoma were very strong and gusty, but the hospitality well made up for the windy weather. Their fuel was only $3.43/gal, and they had fresh fruit and snacks prepared for the visitors. Overall, the flight the first day from West Point to Las Vegas took 11.5 hours and we had run into some weather near the Painted Desert and had to circumnavigate the storm cells. The Garmin G-1000 with XM Weather helped show the cells, but Billy warns that since the weather depiction has a six minute delay, it’s best to fly on the outside of the cells or wait out the weather on the ground. That first flight we flew for 2.6 hours in actual IFR conditions. The next stop was Grants, NM (GNT). Fuel price here was good also, but it was a small and old airport that was not especially hospitable. They did not have a ladder for refueling, and the hills to the west rise very rapidly. If you go there, especially if it’s at night, be mindful of the rapidly rising terrain. Upon the next morning’s preflight, Billy discovered he needed a quart of oil, and the only place that stocked it was the North Las Vegas airport, (14 miles north). We were vectored around Las Vegas Class B airspace, so what should have been a short flight took 42 minutes. The North Las Ve3 gas airport (VGT) was large, old, and had a lot of active touring operations for flights to the Grand Canyon. We met a friendly flight instructor there who told us about flights into Death Valley, our next stop, and around the Grand Canyon. landing fee, so we bypassed that airport and took as many pictures as possible of the scenic terrain. “The Grand Canyon is a very big and busy place, and if you plan to fly it, get yourself the non-expiring sectional chart for the area”, advises Randy. He also recommends you stop by a local airport and get some tips from a flight instructor, or at least read up or study on flying the Grand Canyon first. After leaving Las Vegas, we flew to the lowest airport in the continent, the Death Valley airport (Furnace Creek, L06, at -210 ft.) where it was already 114 degrees around 10 am. Due to the heat we only stayed a few minutes. Whew! After leaving that desolate place we flew back by Las Vegas, passing Hoover Dam, and circled the Grand Canyon a few times. (The local flight instructor warned not to do this because of traffic, but there was no traffic at that time, and, “it’s hard to just to make just one pass over the Grand Canyon”, said Randy). The instructor also advised us not to land at 1G4, the airport at the North Rim, because the Hualapai Indian Tribe, (who owned it), would charge you a $100 From the Grand Canyon, we headed direct to the friendly city of St. George, Utah. We used the old airport, since the new one was still under construction. The airport we landed at (SGU) was on top of a plateau that overlooks the city, and it provided an awesome view. After renting a car, we found a vacancy at the Dixie Palms Hotel, where a large suite with three rooms and a kitchenette went for $65/ night. On Sunday morning, we packed into the rental car and drove to Zion National Park and were concerned about 4 what to expect on this “hike of the Narrows”. The park ranger we spoke with said, “I’m from Kentucky and anyone from Kentucky won’t have any problems”. When we told him we were from Mississippi, he assured them that we would not have trouble navigating the fast, cold waters of the Narrows either. He was correct, and we enjoyed it so much that we altered our plans to swap a day of fly fishing for another day at Zion Park, where on the second day we climbed up Angels Landing. volumes about how beautiful the American Southwest is, and especially Utah and Zion National Park. Suffice it to say that it is such a great place to visit that we are planning another flying trip back there this summer. Our next portion of the trip was to fly over the Rocky Mountains. When making a long cross country flight, especially into the mountains, I recommend that you plan on at least two to three times the usual flight planning time. Our standard briefing for the next flight took about half an hour on the “Of all the airports we visited, St. George (SGU) was one of the nicest, but it also had the highest priced fuel”, according to Billy. While there, we enjoyed the history of this city and the great restaurants and culture. Randy remarked how patriotic the locals were, with “American flags flying outside almost every other home and business”. Paige was amazed at how the temperature was in the high 90’s and you did not sweat, and it actually felt comfortable. We could all speak phone. On Tuesday morning, we left SGU for Colorado to spend a few nights at my daughter’s home in Denver. Billy had always wanted to fly into Telluride Colorado (TEX), so that was our next destination. This flight across Southern Utah and Colorado was breath taking as we used our binoculars to look at Lake Powell and some of the land Billy has hunted in Southwestern 5 Colorado. The flight from Denver to West Point took 7.1 hours and was in VFR conditions. At almost half-way and in-line was the city of Wellington KS (EGT). The self-serve fuel at EGT was very reasonable, and the courtesy car is available 24/7. There is also an honest box for snacks and drinks at this interesting and historical airport. The turbo charged C-182 equipped with a G-1000 glass cockpit helped make flying in the Rockies easier and safer. The airport at Telluride is undergoing expansion and the scenery is absolutely magnificent. After a brief pit stop it was off next to the highest airport in the country, Leadville CO (LVX). While this airport was not nearly as scenic as Telluride, it was interesting to land at an airport at 9927 ft. MSL. (The elevation at Telluride is a mere 9,070 ft, making it the highest Overall, we pronounced the trip a definite adventure and we encourage those who have their own plane to take advantage of it like we did. If you do plan on a long trip, be sure to include extra time for weather and other great things you did not plan on doing or seeing. Be sure to be current and also knowledgeable of your avionics and the area you are flying to. Proper and complete planning is key to a safe and successful long flight, and don’t forget to take your camera and lots of batteries. commercial airport in America.) From there on, it was downhill flying over I-70, passing over downtown Denver and landing at the Centennial Airport in Littleton (APA) close to where my daughter Brandy lives. We went fly fishing in Cheesman Canyon, Breckenridge, and had a reunion with some cousins we had not seen in years. After three days in Denver, we left for home. 6 hangaring of it, the annual inspections, the costly overhauls, not to mention the cost of fuel, insurance, and a myriad of other miscellaneous things. Big recurring costs follow big purchase costs! When I was old enough to understand the financial side of flying, the necessities of everyday living pushed my goal of soaring through the clouds into an occasional recurring dream. You know, the one where you run down a grassy slope and leap into the air and sail effortlessly over the trees and houses….Not your dream? Well, it was mine! Wings for the Poor Man Larry Wallace I have always wanted to fly. Superman was my hero. As a child I would tie a towel or an old shirt around my neck and run around with my arms outstretched, bringing hours of imaginary flight and usually a few scolds from my mother. “Larry, take that thing off before it gets caught and breaks your neck!” Still I yearned to soar in the heavens. In my adolescent years I collected anything and everything remotely associated with aviation. My bedroom was littered from wall to ceiling to wall with models from the Wright Flyer to the X-15 rocket plane. Then in 2005, five years into my retirement, I was surfing the internet and came across a strange flying craft that piqued my curiosity. Something called a “Trike” or “Powered Hangglider” or, in FAA terminology, a “Weight-Shift Control Aircraft”. I remembered seeing this craft once before on a movie about orphaned geese led on migration by a little girl in an ultralight, “Fly Away Home”. Of course, everyone knows that ultralight flying is one of those high risk activities that you group with cave diving, sky diving, and motorcycle bus jumping! I guess I inherited the desire for flight from my Dad. He was a member of the Civil Air Patrol and even soloed as a private pilot. The problem for him (and for me) was the costly nature of private airplane ownership. For the average wage earner, an airplane is prohibitively expensive. There is the purchase of the plane, the parking or But I remember that the Jeff Daniels character taught his daughter how to fly one of those things. He said it was simple and safe. Was it possible that UL flying had a bad rap? Wasn’t John 7 Denver killed in one of those “flying lawnmowers”? I set out to research the accident rate for ULs. To my surprise, I found that the accident rate was actually half the rate of general aviation (all those bigger private planes) and the death rate in UL crashes was half the rate of general aviation! The reasons for the great difference amounts to 2 major factors: ULs most likely fly in very good weather in optimal wind conditions AND ULs fly much slower. Trikes even add another factor of safety… they are mechanically simple flying crafts, i.e. less stuff to fail. into the air, as did my heart, and climbed at a breath-taking rate right over the trees and the houses. All of this heart pounding excitement was at a speed of less than 50 MPH! As a matter of fact, takeoff speed is about 30 MPH and stall (speed at which the wing doesn’t fly) is about 23!! The aerial view from a trike is virtually unrestricted. Imagine a flying motorcycle at 2000 feet. You can see every direction and because it is so open, taking pictures or video is as simple as point and click. After my first flight, I was hooked or maybe the better term is “triked”! I was determined to fly one of these birds. Could I afford it? I had to find out. Suddenly the old desire of winged flight moved from the back burner of la-la land to the front burner of reality. Thanks to the marvel of internet, I found that there is a whole world of trikers, instructors, clubs, and activities available to a willing searcher. I located an instructor in Jasper, Tennessee and set out to take my first ride in an ultralight trike. My first flight with Mike Theeke (pronounced “tiki”) was almost as good as my recurring dream! What a rush! After going over all the safety information, preflight procedures, and getting belted into his Antares trike, we taxied to the end of the grass runway at Lookout Mountain Flightpark. Mike pushed the throttle and the trike rolled briskly down the grass for no more than 150 feet. At that point the little plane leapt The good news for the average wage earner (or fixed income retiree, in my case) is that the cost for ultralight and light sport aviation is relatively inexpensive. By “relatively”, I mean that it costs no more than other motorsports. Bassboats, motorcycles, ATVs, and other fun hobbies can range from reasonable to ridiculous….just like sport aviation. A reasonably normal person can get certified ultralight training (10 hours of flight) for $1000 or less. A good used ultralight trike can cost as little as $5000 and a new one can be bought for $10,000 or less. To share your flying joy with a pas8 senger will take a little more training (5 more hours) to acquire a sport pilot license and will cost a little more for a Light Sport Aircraft (that is a 2-place trike with FAA certification). Even at that additional time and expense, the cost is still less than a nice bass boat or motorcycle. Here is another plus for trikes….you can keep them in your garage or carport. You see, trikes can fold their wings and the chariot (funny name for the trike fuselage) is only slightly larger than a 4-wheeler! Oh, and fuel is the same as your car or boat. Annual inspections are required for Light Sport aircraft but with a 16 hour training course, you can do your own inspections! Ultralights, on the other hand, are not under FAA inspection requirements. FLYING! After circling the area for an hour, I lined up my approach to the runway, dropped the rpm to an idle, drifted down , and settled gently on the asphalt…not a good landing but a great landing. [Definition: Good landing is any one you can walk away from…a great landing is one where you can fly the plane again] I rolled up to the hangar and received congratulations from my instructor as he handed my signed-off certification. A pilot at last! Six months later I successfully completed my sport pilot training and have since received FAA certification for my Tukan as a Light Sport Aircraft. I could tell you what my wife thought of all this fun, but I’ll save that for a later article, entitled, “The Reluctant Pilot’s Wife”. After completing my certification as an ultralight pilot, Mike cleared me for my solo. I was now, “Pilot-inCommand”. I nervously taxied my recently purchased and thoroughly inspected Tukan trike to the end of Marion county airport. I leveled the wing, opened the throttle to full, moved down the asphalt runway, and in 3 seconds (yes, 3 seconds!) I leapt into the air climbing like a rocket over the trees and the houses (déjà vu). Larry Wallace is a resident of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Anyone interested in learning more can contact him through the Yahoo website, http:// groups.yahoo.com/group/ westalaflyers/ It was a thrill that I will never forget. Alone, drifting effortlessly through the calm cool air, leaving the Terra Firma behind to the “ground rats”, I WAS 9 EAA Chapter 1189 1982 Hickory Drive Starkville, MS 39759 [email protected] Overheard at our Macon fly-in: “I caught one the other day and it was this long” 10
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