A little more tailwheel practice yesterday

The weather was perfect yesterday and I was able to get out and do a little more tailwheel practice. I did some steep turns, various stalls and slow flight and then a few landings at 2W5. I also took a few more pictures and put them on my flickr gallery.

UAVs and autonomous aircraft and USAF acquisition of the same

I'm listening to a 10-May-2009 60-Minutes podcast on the subject of UAVs (the remotely piloted Predator in this case). They said that next year, for the first time, the USAF will buy more unmanned than manned aircraft. This subject continually fascinates me in that the human is the real weakness in an aircraft (weight, physiological limits, endurance and so on). It's kind of funny in that UAVs are somewhat similar to outsourcing a job. In this case, the pilot's job in the aircraft is being outsourced to a pilot on the ground. Autonomous aircraft for surveillance (Global Hawk) are performing well. The potential for armed autonomous aircraft (UCAV for example) will be realized someday. I think that the end of the "fighter pilot" (sitting in the fighter anyway) is in sight. While that's the one job I would like to have had most in life I can see the likely future for it.

graduate school and a little less flying

I started graduate school (at UVA in Charlottesville Va) and will be heading down there for a number of all day classes at intervals for the next year (while I'm still working). I'm going to have to cut back on flying a little because of the time and study requirements but still plan to do at least one tailwheel flight a month for a while. I'm hoping to fly myself down there at least once in the next year to actually go somewhere with a purpose for a change.

I also had the chance to listen to a no-gyro approach recording at liveatc.net. A no-gyro approach is where an aircraft has lost it's gyroscopic instruments and therefore may have some difficulty making safe turns and controlling pitch. In this situation the pilot can ask ATC for a no-gyro approach and ATC will then direct the pilot when to start and stop turns. It's very interesting to listen to.

a little more tailwheel flying today

I got in a little tailwheel flying today. The weather was excellent and it went well. The Citabria is just totally fun (but I wish I had a little more leg room).