GPS- The Magical Magenta Line

Have you ever been in the car with someone who is using a GPS? Its pretty easy, right? You just plug in the address, or maybe search out some tasty food or a nearby coffee shop. And once you've selected your destination, the GPS just draws a path directly from you to where you want to go and then gives you turn by turn directions.

Well, guess what! Airplanes have something similar. Well, I say its similar; it really isn't. Okay, its both. Just as there are dozens of models of GPS devices for your car out there, there are lots of models and types for your aircraft. For simplicity's sake, I'll just talk briefly about the one I used the other day to shoot some approaches and to navigate the skies!

Well, the basic principles are the same. When I was on the ground, I booted up the GPS and ran it through some tests to make sure it was working well. This includes making sure there are enough satellites within range to provide accurate navigation. Also, I make sure that the database is up to date and not expired. Updating the database of waypoints and other current informaiton is even more important in a plane than in a car. Another item I test is that the GPS unit is correctly connected to the instrument in the aircraft that indicates to me which way to fly.

After the tests are complete, I load up my own flight plan! This is pretty simple- Just choose a destination and whatever waypoints I want to use to get there. I can even ask it to take me directly there in a straight line, though this function is rarely used. There are actually "highways in the sky" that pilots use, which helps keep everything under control. After I've selected where I want to go, I can select lots of other things like which approach I want to use when I get there and which departure procedure I want to use when I leave!

Now, here is the best part of it all- once I tell this thing to activate my flightplan, it draws a magenta line on the screen and all I have to do is follow it!

Okay, well, its actually a lot more complicated than that, but it IS quite a reduction in workload to use a GPS versus traditional methods of navigation. For example, using a GPS, I no longer have to change my navigational radios to different frequencies enroute and I also don't have to check each signal to make sure its correct. I don't have to compute my groundspeed or head/tailwind components by hand, either. I don't have to get out maps and look up airports I could use as alternates. The GPS does all of this and alot more.

Now, imagine you are driving to a big city in your car with your brand new GPS. You've never been to this city before, either. Once you get downtown and find the restaurant you wanted, you go in and eat. But when you come back out, someone has broken into your car and stolen your GPS. How are you going to get home if you can't see any street signs and you weren't really paing attention to where the GPS was taking you?

The same thing can happen in an airplane. If the GPS fails, the pilot has to transition seamlessly back to traditional methods of navigation. With GPS, maintaining situational awareness is harder to do because it does SO many things for you. If you had to do things 'the old way' and look up maps and charts and frequencies and airports, you would have a much better idea of where you and and where you're going.

So, in the end, GPS technology has revolutionized the way pilots navigate, although it is really just doing the same things we were doing all along- but with the aid of computers and satellites. I love the ease that comes with GPS while flying, but I treat it as a perishable privilege and I always keep my radio navigation equipment tuned to the proper frequencies and ready to go just in case.

As so many pilots more experienced than me have told me, "The question is never IF an instrument is going to fail, but WHEN it is going to fail." Keeping that in mind, I continue ahead in my pursuit of an instrument ticket... just a few more flights, a written exam and an FAA checkride. Then its on to multi engine! And then a commercial license! And then and ATP! And then FLYING 787's AROUND THE WORLD!

Hey, gotta dream big, right,?

Anatomy of My First Checkride

*warning* This actually turned into a mildly nostalgic entry and its a little long... sorry. Don't worry about reading the whole thing.

It's been awhile since I've posted... it's also been awhile since I've flown. I had some ear surgery because of a busted eardrum and I've been grounded. It's really a horrible feeling to be stuck here on the ground after knowing the possibilities waiting in the skies. But I fly again next Friday, after this weekend. School is picking up the pace so I've decided to cut back to flying once a week so I have more time to study.

So I decided to write about my first checkride since it happened long before I started this blog. A checkride is conducted by the FAA through an FAA examiner. (FAA = Federal Aviation Administration. Cheah, this is a federal thing, not state or local like drivers license or hunting license...) Its basically an extremely important exam and as a pilot, I'll be taking quite a few of them over the years. There are different types, but I'll just write about my private pilot checkride.

My checkride began at noon and was over at 6pm. There were two halves- an oral exam and a flight exam. They each lasted two hours. The oral exam was first. The examiner wrote six broad categores on a whiteboard in a back room of the flightschool, then he sat down and said, "Tell me what you know about all of that. You can go in any order, you can jump around, but just let me know where you are."

I lectured for 75 minutes.

I still have my list of everything I talked about, but I'll spare you the boring details (actually, its all quite enthralling to me) and just list a few items: required equipment for day flight, airspace requirements for classes A, B, C, D, E and G, air traffic control services, cross country planning, prelight and postflight procedures, aircraft systems (like the vacuum pump, hydraulics, and pitot-static systems), weather patterns and weather services, and a million other things...

After I finished relating my knowledge as in depth as I could, the examiner asked me to explain a few things I'd said and then asked me lots of other specific questions for about 45 minutes. I should mention that none of this was open notes or open book. I had to either know it verbatim according to the FAA's rules and regs or it didn't count. I forgot how he graded this oral test... I didn't really care since my goal was to get 100% of everything correct. I wish I had that same motivation for college classes... meh...

At any rate, the second half of the exam that day was actually flying the airplane with the examiner in the right seat. I had to plan out a cross country (>50 miles away) trip beforehand for the examiner, so I walked him through every step I had taken in the planning stages. Actually, I told him that the flight was a no-go because there were some significant weather patterns developing at our destination (KAEX- Alexandria, Louisiana) that were going to make the trip impossible under VFR (visual flight rules- basically, stay out of the clouds). This was no problem because he said we were going to divert to an alternate airport anyway.

So, we walked out to the airplane where he explained everything to me. If I failed any one procedure during the flight, I failed the entire checkride and would have to retake the whole thing. There were no second chances to retry any maneuver and nothing less than performing withing the FAA's test standards would be accepted. Now, even though that sounds intense, I was actually not too worried. I have an awesome flight instructor who trained me to fly to much, much higher standards than needed for the test.

For example, the FAA required me to hold my altitude during a 360 degree turn within plus or minus 200 feet. That means that if I started a right turn at 3500 feet, I would be fine if I stayed anywhere between 3300 and 3700 feet. That is a HUGE margin of error in my opinion. My instructor trained me to hold plus or minus 50 feet. Even in turbulance, my instructor still expects me to hold plus or minus 75 feet in instrument conditions. This makes my life really hard, but its worth it to be as precise as possible in my early days of flying so it will just be habit later down the road.

So, back to the actual flight test. I had to do lots of fun manuevers like stalls, banks, different types of landings, ground reference maneuvers and navigation. This all lasted about two hours. It was actually fairly enjoyable because I was already used to flying well within test standards that I didn't really feel much 'test anxiety' and it felt great to nail each part of the test.

After we landed, the examiner walked inside while I stored the aircraft. I walked inside and found him filling out paperwork silently and I sat down across the table and waited. It was after hours now, so no one else was in the flightschool. It felt like an eternity waiting for this guy to say something, but it was probably no longer than 10 or 15 minutes. Then, he handed me a piece of paper and told me to sign my name on it. I did so, then handed it back. He looked at me and slid the piece of paper back across the table and asked for my logbook. I gave him my logbook and took another look at the piece of paper...

IT WAS A TEMPORARY PRIVATE PILOT LICENSE!!!!

The actual card would come later in the mail and the examiner made an entry in my logbook showing I had passed everything. We made some small talk after that informal condoning of my license and then he left. It was all very unceremonious. To me, it was a MUCH higher sense of accomplishment than anything I've ever done. Period. More than graduating from highschool, more than getting into college, more than acing any other exam, more than getting my first car, more than getting my drivers license, and probably more than all of that combined.

I locked up the flightschool and walked out to my car and called my dad. He's been a pilot his whole life, having started in the Air Force and flown all around the world and then getting on with American Airlines to keep flying all around the world. We talked awhile and it was great. I called my mom afterwards and then I drove home (2.5 hours) and met my dad for a late dinner at Red Lobster... mmm....

It was one of about 5 days in my life that I could talk forever about.

Study, study, study!

'ello!

Well, I only have a handful of flights left before I get that spiffy instrument rating. I can hardly wait to jump in the twin engine Duchess that sits out there so lonely on the concrete... I guess that's just life, sometimes- looking forward to intensely that I lose myself and forget to look around or even behind.

WARNING: PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY JUNK ENSUES! I try to keep a good mix of looking ahead, around and behind. Its all good stuff. I'm excited to be entering the throes of a career as a pilot, but I'm also thrilled with the experience of learning so many things about it right now. And then, of course, I love remembering what my first few flights were like... all good things. Sure, there were some scary moments, some stupid decisions, some failures, some successes, some proud moments as well as humbling moments, sometimes to the point of being a downright slashfest to my pride. There will be those things in the future as well. I'll be right sometimes and I'll be wrong sometimes. But those things are all good as well, in Light of the bigger picture... hm...

Well... Friday's flight was intense... so much turbulence... but I guess flying on instruments just sort of attracts that type of thing. I've never been carsick or airsick and I usually don't have to deal with nausea even in small amounts. But Friday was impressive. It was a warm day and the direct sunlight didn't help. Add to that some crazy winds from all directions, including from above and from below. Why, at several points, I was positively flying through the air towards the ground, but the air around me was rising so quickly that I was actually gaining altitude. That. Is. Frustrating. Gr. Rawr, even. Hmph. But I just told the rising queasiness to uh... ahem, kindly banish itself from my attention. It worked, and I rerouted precious energy and attention that was being wasted on feeling sick to being put to work watching instruments and listening to my instructor. It was a good day, overall... I'm still walking, the plane's still flying, and I don't owe and money on maintenance!

Tomorrow, I'm not sure where we are flying... I think we are going to actually file an IFR flight plan. Maybe this is a good time to go through that process with you, the trusty reader, just so you'll know. Cool.

Okay: flight plans. So, guess what! Planes don't always just kind of take off and go to wherever they want to go. The pilot usually "files a flight plan." This is a sort of list of important information about how and where the pilot intends the flight to go. This includes things like the type of airplane being flown, the route that the pilot plans to take, how fast he/she plans to fly, how long it will take, what altitudes will be flown, etc. There can be quite a bit of very important information related to the flight in a flight plan. When a pilot knows he/she will be navigating using Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) rather than Visual Flight Rules (VFR), they will note this on the flight plan as well.

This flight plan is kept on record and is used for many purposes. This lets the folks at Air Traffic Control (ATC) know where you intend to be at certain times. From there, they can do their best to space airplanes out and help keep things flying and not falling. IFR flight plans are very serious and are followed very precisely. VFR flight plans are, too, but the navigation is much, much less precise. IFR plans involve very specific clearances from ATc that the pilot must read back over the radios and follow precisely. Basically, a flight plan is the pilot letting ATC (and, potentially, rescue efforts) know where the plane is going to be.

So, back to tomorrow's flight. We may actually file a flight plan to somewhere other than College Station because a certain part of the Instrument Landing System (ILS) is out of service here. Maybe we'll just shoot some GPS approaches... hm... I'll try to explain approaches in another entry. Maybe I'll do a series on them, or something... its a lot to cover...

At any rate, we've talked about some personal ideas of mine, flight plans, and some other random things... I think that is good for today. Also, I'm tired and sleep is a good thing...

...correction, sleep is a great and amazing thing that I hold very near and dear to my heart. Yes. Mmmm sleep. I'm smiling just thinking about sleeping. So here is a short snippet that I've never come across before and I thought it was kinda funny!

A young and stupid pilot wanted to sound cool on the aviation frequencies.
So, this one time he was approaching a field during the night time.
Instead of making any official requests to the tower, he said: "Guess who?"
The controller switched the field lights off and replied: "Guess where!"

Have a good one...

i Mas Preguntas !

Another Monday comes and goes... good times. I've only got one class on Mondays (the English class that is the reason behind this blog) so Mondays aren't so bad for me. Unlike Tuesday/Thursday 8am-530pm back to back 75 minute classes plus whatever meetings from there. Anyway, I hope your Monday has gone spectacularly.

I've got some more questions to answer today for the benefit of all so here we go!

FIRST QUESTION: How much fuel does the plane you fly use? And how much does an average commercial airliner use? Well... as with most things aviation, there's not one simple answer. <HERE> is a link to a page out of my Pilot's Operating Handbook, or POH, for the Cessna 172M that I fly. Things like altitude, RPM of the engine, temperature and airspeed all effect fuel consumption. Also there is something called mixture. If you've ever driven a waverunner or an old Jeep that had a choke, its similar to that. There is a knob that the pilot uses to control how much fuel the engine is getting. You can pull it all the way out to shut down the engine by cutting off the fuel, or you can push it all the way in to give it lots of fuel. Using lots of fuel is called making the mixture 'richer' and using less is called making the mixture 'leaner.'

Now, my plane has 38 gallons of usable fuel. I generally plan on using 9 gallons per hour which is a big overestimation, but I'd rather not run out of fuel because of poor planning. As you can see on that chart, the gallons per hour can vary greatly depending on different things. That's basically the long and short of fuel burn for me in my little plane... incidentally, pilots call it 'fuel,' not 'gas.' I'm not sure why, really... but we do.

For commercial airliners, its a whole different story. They talk about fuel in terms of pounds, not gallons. Thus, they talk about fuel burn in terms of pounds per hour, not gallons per hour. I talked to my dad about it. He flies the Boeing 777... <THIS>. That thing uses... get ready... between 3000 and 4000lbs of fuel EVERY HOUR, PER ENGINE! To fly from Dallas, Texas to Narita, Japan (close to Tokyo) it takes about 185,000lbs of fuel. Cheah. And THAT'S just at cruise! Takeoff and climb consume an even higher rater of fuel.

If you think YOU have it rough filling up your car because of gas prices... try filling up that plane, every single day. Phew!

NEXT QUESTION: This question deals with turbulence...what factors enable the plane to keep flying/stabilized when there is a lot of turbulence instead of the lift under the wings being disturbed that might cause the plane to crash? So if you've ever flown on a plane somewhere, you may have experienced some, ahem, "slight turbulence." You can probably hear that little bell ding overhead and see that little seatbelt light up. Then either a flight attendant or the pilot comes on to make an announcement to reassure you that everything is okay... even though it may feel like your seat just got yanked out from underneath you.

Well.. that's pretty normal, especially taking off or landing... there are a lot of factors that go into what actually causes turbulence. But since this question isn't about what causes turbulence, suffice it to say that bumps are sometimes unavoidable. It sucks. Pilots don't like it either.

So... why doesn't the plane fall apart? To put it simply- its because they were made to not fall apart. I know that's a cop-out answer so I'll try to explain. Planes are heavy, or at least much heavier than air. Air is mooshy. Now, of course, if you've ever stuck your hand out of the window of your car at high speeds, you know that air can get pretty not-mooshy. But if you've ever hit your hand on a stop sign as you pass it in your car, you know that solid things get not-mooshy too! The point is that the weight of the wing of an airplane is designed to push back on the air in front of it without collapsing! Yay! <HERE> is a neat video that should give you some confidence about how these things are designed...

NEXT QUESTION: What types of things determine how high/how low the cruising altitude for a plane is? This is a pretty straight-forward answer. Basically only three things determing your cruising altitude: terrain clearance (yikes!), navigation aid signal receptional/communications coverage, and other traffic; in that order. Number one- you don't want to hit things on the ground like buildings or mountains or cranes or towers or people. Two- you need to be able to stay in range of the stations on the ground that you use to navigate. Some of them require you to be in line of sight, so that is part of your altitude. Also communications with air traffic control need to be guaranteed as much as possible. Finally, you don't want to hit other airplanes and you may choose a certain altitude because it doesn't have any other traffic on it.

NEXT QUESTION: What happens if a plane gets a flat tire going down the runway? This is pretty simple, too. You just apply the proper amount of brakes and stay on the ground... usually. For small planes, definitely so. Some bigger planes HAVE to go ahead and take off if they know they cannot stop by the end of the runway. During takeoff, the copilot will call out verbally different speeds as they pass through them. They each mean different things, but one of them is a point of no return kind of deal. It means that they have used up too much runway to stop safely and any emergency will be dealt with after taking off. That includes losing an engine and tires going flat. Again, that's just in big airliners... in my little Cessna, I'll just come to a rough and bumpy, but safe, stop.

FINAL QUESTION: This was a philosophical question about the nature of airports and airplanes. Think about what happens on every flight- you have a bunch of people all coming from different places and walks of life all getting into one very small space and getting launched into the air together. Then after they land, they all go their own ways. And airports are filled with people coming and going, all transient to that location... Hm...

I dunno. I've grown up at Dallas/Forth Worth International Airport and at Tyler Pounds Regional... I've been up in the towers and back behind the scenes as well as on the planes and in the waiting areas... my dad has done that his whole life. I didn't think to ask his opinion on the matter, though... I've always liked airports. There is always a sense of purpose... people are going somewhere... there are dozens of different jobs that make an airport work. Being a pilot is just one of hundreds of jobs that go into making a flight happen... so I've always liked the complicated, busy nature of airports.

The transient aspect of airports... I like that, too. When I thought about it, I kind of generalized it to... well, life in general. We live different places with different people over the course of our life... we have some friends for awhile that we lose and we sometimes have others that we never lose. We go places and do things or sometimes we never leave our hometown. I couldn't stand staying in one place forever, personally. Or, if I did, I'd have to travel alot (yay for being a pilot and getting paid to do it, too!). Meh... life's kinda like an airport, I guess... that's not really that deep of a thought, though.

I just like watching people when I'm at airports. Its neat. And its interesting... hm...

Well, time to close with... something. Here's something. Every plane has a maintenance log. If something breaks, pilots sometimes have to write in what happened and then a mechanic is legally required to sign off that it has been fixed. For example, on some planes, if the fuel cap breaks off, you have to have a licensed mechanic replace it and sign off. Well, the following is a list of problems that pilots wrote down along with the solutions that the mechanics wrote in afterwards... its pretty funny.

P = The problem logged by the pilot.
S = The solution logged by the mechanic.

P: Left inside main tire almost needs replacement.
S: Almost replaced left inside main tire.

P: Test flight OK, except auto-land very rough.
S: Auto-land not installed on this aircraft.

P: No. 2 propeller seeping prop fluid.
S: No. 2 propeller seepage normal. Nos. 1, 3 and 4 propellers lack normal seepage.

P: Something loose in cockpit.
S: Something tightened in cockpit.

P: Dead bugs on windshield.
S: Live bugs on backorder.

P: Autopilot in "altitude-hold" mode produces a 200-fpm descent.
S: Cannot reproduce problem on ground.

P: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.
S: Evidence removed.

P: DME volume unbelievably loud.
S: DME volume set to more believable level.

P: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick.
S: That's what they're there for!

P: Transponder inoperative.
S: Transponder always inoperative in OFF mode.

P: The T/C ball seemed stuck in the middle during my last turn.
S: Congratulations! You've just made your first coordinated turn.

P: Suspected crack in windscreen.
S: Suspect you're right.

P: Number 3 engine missing.
S: Engine found on right wing after brief search.

P: Aircraft handles funny.
S: Aircraft warned to straighten up, fly right, and be serious.

P: Radar hums.
S: Reprogrammed radar with words.

P: Mouse in cockpit.
S: Cat installed.

P: Radio switches stick
S: Peanut butter no longer served to flight crew

P: Screaming sound in cabin at start-up
S: Company accountant deplaned

P: Funny smell in cockpit
S: Pilot told to change cologne

P: Aircraft 2,400 lbs over max weight
S: Aircraft put on diet of 92 octane

P: #3 engine knocks at idle
S: #3 engine let in for a few beers

P: #3 engine runs like it's sick
S: #3 engine diagnosed with hangover

P: Brakes howl on application
S: Don't step on 'em so hard!

P: Radio sounds like a squealing pig
S: Removed pig from radio. BBQ behind hangar tomorrow

P: Whole aircraft smells like BBQ
S: Ground Checks OK

P: First class cabin floor has a squeak
S: Co-pilot told not to play with toddler toys in cabin anymore

P: Electrical governor is broke
S: Paid off governor's debt to Jimmy "The Fish" Galvano

Questions!

G'day!

So a couple people I know have tossed some questions my way and I plan to do my best to answer them... starting now.

FIRST QUESTION: If you shoot hole in a plane, will the change in air pressure destroy it and kill everyone? Short answer- no. More accurate answer- eh, it depends, but still no. Long answer- There are a bunch of factors that go into this answer. The first is that not all planes are actually pressurized. <Here>'s a link to the legal jargon about pressurized cabins. Don't worry about de-legal-ifying all of that, though. Airplanes that you're worried about (ie, almost all commercial flights you or your family use to travel) have tons of systems and backup systems and backup backup systems (that really isn't an exaggeration) that prevent 'explosive decompression'.

So, we all have this picture of someone shooting a gun off in an airplane then everyone gets sucked out of the hole or through a window. In all reality, that won't happen. It WILL, however, be VERY very loud and VERY very uncomfortable. The air INside the plane is trying to get OUTside all the time, anyway. That's what it means to pressurize a cabin- they pump air INto the plane, like you do with tires. If they didn't do that, you wouldn't be able to breathe way up above the clouds. But the Federal Aviation Administration doesn't let a pressurized plane leave the ground unless all these systems are built into it that slowwwwwly equalize pressure if the fuselage is punctured! For all of that scary stuff to happen, an entire chunk of the plane would have to be blown away... bigger than the doors, even. And once everything equalizes, its just like having your car window open... at 200+mph... not fun, but not inherently deadly unless you aren't minding the pilot's seatbelt sign!

NEXT QUESTION: How many geese does it take to make the engine stop working? Heh... let me begin this answer with a video. <HERE> Now, uh... I don't want to scare anyone, but in the worst case scenario, it takes only one bird to knock out an engine. And that was in a huge 757. The next question might be, How does a pilot respond? or Do they train you for that kind of stuff? Let me see if I can explain how I've been trained in regards to birds and birdstrikes... I literally flinch when I'm in my car or even walking across campus when I catch a bird in the corner of my eye. And if I see one when I'm flying, I can guarantee that I'm going to treat it with the same caution as I would another airplane.

Now, I've come close to hitting birds a few times while flying... its a horrible feeling. They usually have a tendency to freeze up when they see a plane. Sometimes, they actually fold their wings and dive straight down. This can be awful if you are approaching them from below as they will dive straight down into you. Birds have enough mass to come right through the windscreen (pilot term for winshield). They can put huge dents in wings and ruin control surfaces like your ailerons, rudder and elevator. So. Birds=bad and pilots are trained to avoid them at all costs as if they were actually airplanes. If birds are flying around an airport, the tower tells you where they are. You'll also hear about birds when you check in for weather before you even taxi. Its that big of a deal.

NEXT QUESTION: What happens when you get a phone call in a plane? Does it crash? Hahaha, most of us can hear that announcement in our heads right now, "Please turn off all portable electronic devices, two way cell phones, pagers... something something blah blah..." There IS actually a reason for this. They're not just trying to be jerks. But the reason is kind of just an extra precautionary... No, the plane won't crash if someone makes a cell phone call. But the pilots might notice because their navigation instruments might flicker around. Cell phones (and other stuff like pagers or radios or laptops, etc.) emit on a certain frequency band. This won't really affect GPS signals which is what almost all mainstream commercial flights use for primary navigation these days. But the older analog signals like VOR and ADF can get screwy. Basically, the pilot is looking at some dials up front that have needles that point left or right. Electronic interference from passengers' electronics can cause them to flick off course for a little bit and its kind of annoying. Also, its not safe for navigation because if we are up there trying to navigate while a bunch of electronics in the back are causing interference, no one will end up where they want to be. So that's that.

NEXT QUESTION- Why are you supposed to put the oxygen mask on yourself while babies are suffocating? Let's think about two possible sequences of events, both starting with the cabin losing pressure and the masks dropping down. 1) You fool around trying to get your kid calmed down enough to get the mask on their face. Then, maybe you have to deal with your other kid. And maybe an elderly person who seems to be having trouble. After that, maybe you help someone who can't quite reach their mask. Maybe you only help one person. But while you do that, you're slowly suffocating yourself. If everyone on the plane helped the kids first- guess who blacks out first-the adults. Now, if a safe landing is made, we have a plane full of kids and passed out adults, AKA chaos. This is an extreme example, but think of the flip side. 2) You fidget with your mask and you don't black out. Maybe less able people around you black out while you mess with your mask. But once yours is on, you know how to do it. You can help people around you with ease. If they have blacked out, once you get their mask on, they'll come back around pret-ty quickly while sucking on tasty oxygen. If not, at least their brain is actually getting oxygen and they'll be okay overall. Even if your kids or babies black out, at least you can get them oxygen whereas if you blacked out before... bad news. So, that's the logic. There may be legal restrictions or reasons... but those are reasons too. It seems debateable... but... I dunno. I couldn't find anything in the Federal Aviation Regulations about it, even in the section about supplemental oxygen.

NEXT QUESTION: What are the odds of surviving a crash? Well... lets talk about two differnt types of crashes. There is the anticipated crash... and the not so anticipated crash. If the plane loses and engine or the gear gets stuck or something similar, the pilots are probably going to know about it. If they know about the emergency, then they can use their training and protocol to deal with it and chances are you survive. A significant portion of our training is emergency training. We learn in an environment of failed engines, broken instruments and fires on board so that we are ready to deal with it later if it actually happens.

But... on the flipside... there are the not so anticipated crashes. This could be a situation in which the pilots got disoriented and fly into a mountain. Recently, a plane tried to take off from the wrong runway and it was about a half-mile too short for that plane... only one survived. Those kinds of crashes are very difficult to survive...

Part of the danger, too, comes from surviving AFTER the crash. With limited medical supplies, survival rates drop significantly after the first 24 hours if the crash site isn't located by emergency teams. Food and water become an issue as do risks of infection, disorientation, shock or exposure to elements. I don't want to scare anyone... but them's the facts. Statistically, driving your car to the airport is WAY more likely to result in an accident than the plane crashing... but I'd have to say that if the crash was not anticipated, I'd rather be in the car.

Its not that I turn a blind eye to all these thoughts about crashes when I turn the keys in an airplane... its just part of my motivation to be a... dang good pilot and to never think to myself, "I've finally become the best I can be," because its not about 'being the best' so much as 'always becoming better.' Just... for what its worth, that's my view.

LAST QUESTION FOR THE DAY: What is it like to go through the process of learning to fly? And is it hard to figure out all of the gadjets and gizmos up there? Well, I don't really know how to answer that... its a freakin' dream come true for me, personally. I love it. I walk up to every flight excited and ready to go. I walk away from every flight still excited and ready to go do it again. Actually, I'm usually exausted after I fly because I use every bit of energy I have trying to do it right and trying to get better. The whole process takes a lot of time. Doing it along with school is a huge drain, but at the same time, I wouldn't trade it for anything. My GPA is crap... but I'm not on probation.

Time is really the defining thing. You can't just go up and fly for three hours and expect to learn three hours' worth of lessons OR retain it. Most of my flights are somewhere between an hour to an hour and a half. On cross-country training flights, those are closer to three hours. Actually, I just flipped through my log book... longest flight was on 9/28/08 and I went from College Station to Lufkin to Palestine to Waco to College Station. It was 3.4 hours long. I have 78 total logged hours, right now. I need 190 total hours to get the rating I'm working on right now. When you are only logging between 1 and 2.5ish hours per flight, and only flying three or four times a week... it can take a long time to build up time. Its kind of depressing. Most airliners want a few thousand hours before they'll hire you. Some of them even want a few thousand hours of JET TIME ALONE... So, like most other jobs, its a long ardous process if you want to move up.

As far as all those gadjets and gizmos go... they're not hard to learn if you're willing to leave behind your brain and instincts and really, truly trust them. And if you really enjoy flying, that goes a long way in making the instruments easier to learn. If you are just kind of wanting to fly around or just be able to say you're a pilot, then the instruments would probably be boring and harder to learn. Then again, I'm not really sure. I grew up knowing all the instruments because my dad is a pilot and I always asked him about it. (If you're a pilot and reading this, I knew how to tune and track a VOR before I knew how to make a turn about a point. And I understood an ILS approach before I understood crosswind correction.)

After you get the basic private pilot license and an instrument rating... most everything else seems to be elaboration and refinement of those basic skills. If you go military, you're going to get the structured aspect and some new ways of flying. And of course you're going to be flying much faster jets so everything you already learned just happens much much faster back to back. And you have to be absolutely precise and accurate every time. And you'll be in really good shape along with other aspects of military life. If you go commercial, you're going to learn a lot of rules and regulations. The whole idea of flying freely around in the sky pretty much disappears and now you're flying highly regulated routes that are drawn out on fun maps like <THIS> or like <THIS>.

But the lingo is fun... the jargon and code-words that pilots get to use around eachother is a really fun thing to be a part of. Hearing stories about other pilots and about how so-and-so would have done such-and-such better... those are fun. Chilling at the flight school and watching planes come and go is fun. Talking about which planes you wish you could fly is fun. Comparing stats between planes gets just as crazy as talking sports with people. Its a life I'm really only at the very tip of beginning and its pretty sweet.

Tune in next time when I answer some more questions- such as:
How much fuel does my plane use?
How much fuel do big commercial planes use?
How do planes stay in the air during turbulence? Why don't they fall out of the sky? (Even though it feels like you're about to!)
What kinds of things determine the cruising altitude for airplanes?
What happens if plane gets a flat tire on the runway on takeoff or landing?
What are your philosophical musings about passenger planes- with people all coming from different places and walks of life to board one plane for a short time and then all going their own ways... this seemingly impossible crossing of paths, and yet it happens daily... hmm...

Runways!

Howwdy!

Today I think I'll write a little bit about runways. Runways... are neat. I find that their usefulness is directly proportional to my number of successful takeoffs and successful landings. Barring emergencies, runways are the first and last thing you see in an airplane as you go about the business of repelling the Earth. Have you ever looked out the window of a plane as you pulled onto a runway and seen strange markings or lighting?

...okay, so, maybe you haven't. If you haven't, then right now is your chance to check one out! Actually, let's look at the three (or, more accurately, six) runways I'm using here in C-Stat. <HERE> is a link to a .PDF file of an airport diagram for College Station's Easterwood Field. It may not actually be that interesting... it is, after all, just a map. But I love this stuff so I'll try to translate it and make it neat. So you see the big bold lines? Those are the runways. At the ends of those lines are the runway names. You can see that each runway has two names which are either one or two digits long. We have 34, 16, 10, 28, 4 and 22. Each one of the three "runways" is actually two usable runways. So to specify which way you're facing, you just use the corresponding number. For example- look towards the top of the .PDF for a box that says 'FIELD ELEV 321". The arrow points down to the start of runway 16, and if you were on 16, you would be facing almost directly south, or going from top to bottom on this .PDF. Simple! So now you can tell which runways are which here.

Just for comparison, <HERE> is the same type of diagram for Dallas/Forth Worth International... As you can see... things are more complicated there.

As for real-life pictures, <HERE> is my trusty Easterwood Field and <HERE> is DFW as viewed from Google maps. Craziness.

Oh, by the way, wanna know how to name a runway? Why aren't they named things like, "Archibald," or "Paper Cow?" Well, there is a reason. They do it by standing on a runway with a compass. They take all sorts of measurements to determing which way the runway is lined up magnetically. So maybe it points at exactly 267 degrees. Then they round that to the nearest tenth degree. So that makes 260 in this quick example. Then they drop it to two digits! Runway 26! If the runway pointed at, say, 47 degrees, that rounds to 50, which would just be called Runway 5. And if you realllllly remember your highschool geometry, you might be asking me what happens if a runway points close to north. This means we could call it 0 degrees OR 360 degrees. You would be really smart and really interested in this stuff, and to answer your thoughtful question, I'd tell you that they just call it Runway 36. There's no Runway 0, at least none that I know of...

Well, enough on runways. Care to know how I named this blog? Maybe not, but here ya go. When I was a kid, one of the first sentences (maybe even my first actual sentence) was "That which goes up, must come down." My dad has been a pilot his whole life and taught me to say that phrase with absolutely perfect articulation. I'll have to ask my parents how old I was when this started... I know my dad taught it to my niece when she was just barely starting to speak. I guess there are probably a lot of philosophically significant ideas you could draw from that statement... I dunno. Takeoff is optional; landing is inescapable. I might be willing to grant to you philosophical minds that landings are optional given their inherent dependency (definitionally, relationally and maybe logically) on takeoffs... whatever. There will always be a ratio of exactly 1:1 between takeoffs and landings.

Anyway, that's just a back-story as to how I named the blog. Fun quote time and then I'm done!

"If you push the stick forward, the houses get bigger. If you pull the stick back, they get smaller. That is, unless you keep pulling the stick all the way back, then they get bigger again."

This... is true. Later...

Picture-laden Post!

Hi.
How's life today? Doin' okay, here.

I thought I'd toss up some photos today just for fun. They'll all relate to aviation somehow... but first... check <THIS> out.

::inhale:: D'awwwww!!! Cute dog pictures are always good once in awhile.

Anyway, back to life. <HERE> is a neat picture I took of a crop duster! This is an aspect of aviation I've never explored and probably won't for awhile. There are several interesting factors as a pilot about doing something like crop dusting:

1- you fly low to the ground for the majority of the work. Even small gusts of wind could spell disaster...
2- the weight of the aircraft starts off at just about maximum capability. Heavy planes handle differently than lgihter planes. Even just a TINY bit of weight shift can be felt in the controls. You've either driven or ridden in a car that was packed to the brim, right? Maybe moving into college? Cars handle differently and so do planes. BUT in crop dusting- your weight is constantly changing as you spray the fields! Craziness.
3- two words: POWER LINES! What if there are power lines along your field?Buh... it makes me feel all... bleh... just thinking about flying that close to power lines... and with the wind/gust factor, too?! Man, that's some intense flying.

I tried searching for some blogs about crop dusting... but I couldn't find any. I don't really know how to search for blogs so that may be a factor. BUT I did find <THIS>! Hahaha, who knew!?

<HERE> is a picture I took while flying between Mexia and Waco, Texas. I don't know what road that is in the bottom-left corner... but its a neat picture. Ponds and lakes are really fun to see from the air, I think. And this one had some neat lines in the ground around it. It lookes like maybe someone did some four-wheeling around the area? Someone certainly drove around in some sort of vehicle. For scale, you can see some cars on the road in the corner. I really like looking down and seeing the landscape from about. Of course, as any safe pilot will tell you, ground-gazing is just fleeting moments here and there... flying the plane is always the number one priority.

OH! I just realized I should probably link a pic to the actual type of plane I'm flying! Well, its called a Cessna 172. <HERE> is a pic from my flightschool's website. Its good 'ole 26V (pronounced, 'two-six-victor'). Actually, that was the first plane I ever flew solo in! Remember what a big deal it was the first time your parents let you drive somewhere alone? Or maybe when you got your first car? Flying your first solo flight is a huge deal in aviation. I can just about guarantee you that every pilot can tell you in detail all about their first solo. I'll include mine in a later post, I think. It was sweet.

Well, I'll leave you all with a <FINAL PIC>. Its a sunset pic, so it makes sense that it should be the last one, right? Cool. I took it on my phone right after a flight. I'm standing behind two planes and overlooking the airfield.

That's all for today! I fly again tomorrow morning as well as Wednesday and Friday mornings. I have a million and one things to talk about... but I'm going to try to not ramble on in my entries... we'll see! Until then...