I have permanently moved my blog to http://blog.dougtoppin.name/
Hopefully you will always find me there from now on.

I've been experimenting with a new blog via Github pages.   You can find it at http://dougtoppin.github.io/   I'm 50/50 on a permanent move to it at this point though so you may see it move again.

moving to a new single blog

I decided to keep a single blog that includes my aviation, technology and other topics at:  http://dougtoppin.com/blog/
Please drop in there and see what you think about it.

Instrument training and longest XC yet

After finishing graduate school in Jun I resumed my instrument training (finally).  I did a few flights in a RedBird sim and then did an XC with my instructor recently.  We flew KJYO -> KECG (precision approach) -> KEDE (non-precision approach) -> KJYO (GPS approach).  I was under the hood most of the time and was much more tired than I expected when I got home.
I have a bad habit of not eating or drinking much before flying and I am pretty sure that 5-hours of flying dehydrated me.
On the return to KJYO we were hoping to get the COATT4 STAR which would have been a first for me. Unfortunately, KIAD got busy and had a commercial flight do a missed approach so we got vectored to the west and almost up to MRB before we were sent in.
In general the flight went well but from now on I am not under drinking/eating beforehand.  As usual, every flight is a learning experience one way or another.
I bought an iPad a few months ago and decided to try using it as an EFB for the XC.  I bought ForeFlight and have been very impressed with it.  It gathers and aggregates everything that you need to know for planning, filing and actually flying.   I recommend giving it a try if you have not seen it.  The only issue that I had with the iPad was that I did not have any way to attach it to my kneeboard so I fumbled with it whenever I wanted to use it.  I think I need a yoke holder for it or else some way to secure it to the panel next time.

Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) and commercial aviation?

I wonder if recent developments in Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) will eventually lead to single pilot cockpits in commercial flights.  I remember the controversy when the flight crews were reduced from 3 to 2. 

FAA Safety seminar KJYO 10-Jun-2010 7pm "Deliberately Accepted Risk...Single Pilot's Guide to Resource Management"

FAA Safety seminar KJYO 10-Jun-2010 7pm "Deliberately Accepted Risk...Single Pilot's Guide to Resource Management"

Info at:

http://www.faasafety.gov/SPANS/event_details.aspx?eid=32031&caller=/default.aspx

start flying again and am pretty rusty

I flew yesterday for the first time in months.  I missed a BFR in Jan and need to bone up to do it.  I flew with a new instructor and worked on basic procedures, slow flight, stalls, a little bit of an instrument approach along with a couple of other things.   I am more rusty than I realized so I need to hit the books and the sim again.  The weather was perfect though and it went ok in general.

graduate school done! time to start flying again

I finished my MS degree a little over a week ago and it is time to resume my instrument training.  I am going to start reviewing material with another pilot in the same boat probably this weekend.  We need to review the basics of navigation, comms procedures (essential for the DC SFRA), 172 check lists and so on.   Definitely looking forward it.  More to come later.

Preflighting that includes looking for loose objects

I just read a recent news story about a general aviation accident some time ago that includes a detail that I realized I was not doing during preflight. The story is here. It refers to an apparent loss of control accident where a flashlight was found in the tail cone of the wreckage. The flashlight may have become lodged in a stabilator push-pull tube linkage which means that the pilot might have been able to control pitch. This made me realize that my preflights are probably not as thorough as they could be in terms of looking for lose "stuff" that might move around in flight and get stuck somewhere. The underseat and baggage areas are certainly examples of this. From now on, I intend to pay more attention to this, particularly before night flights and after the plane has flown at night (where it might have been difficult to see everything that needed to be retrieved).

finally a little more flying

Graduate school (and work) have kept me from flying much lately but I was able to get a little in today. I flew KJYO (Leesburg, Va) to KCJR (Culpeper, Va). I got in one ILS approach, three landings, a soft field takeoff (it has been ages since I did one) and couple of other things. The weather was perfect today. While at KCJR I was able to see a T-28, T-6, and then saw a Corsair and what I think was a Hellcat do a low fast pass down the runway. That airport has some neat airplanes in and around it. All in all a good day.

aviation technology and the human role in it

This report on a near accident on China Airlines Flight 006 in 1985 is a fascinating read in terms of the aviation details combined with aspects of human factors engineering. As pilots (and people in general) become relegated to monitoring roles when technology takes over many activities, the results can be unpredictable when the unexpected happens. The section labeled "2.2 Flightcrew" contains some very interesting observations along that line.
My recent flight to KCHO had an event that made me think of this. I had the autopilot fly the GPS Y RWY 21 approach (to start learning how to do it), as we reached the minimum (1,400 ft), I set it to fly the missed approach and it began the climb to 4,000 ft at 500 fpm. It seemed to pitch unusually high and airspeed started dropping way off. Everything worked fine but afterwards it made me wonder how long it would have taken me to decide to take over if we had been in danger of a stall.

instrument training flight (first GPS approach)

It's been a little over a month since my last flight (in a Citabria) and I had a little time yesterday so I decided to do another instrument training flight and get some XC time (cross country). We took a 172 with a KLN-94 GPS and KMD 550 MFD. We flew from KJYO (Leesburg, Va) and took the GPS Y 21 approach into KCHO (Charlottesville, Va). This was my first GPS approach and we had the autopilot fly it which was pretty neat. I'm used to flying VFR straight in to runway 21 but the GPS approach had us hold at the WITTO intersection and then angle in via the ECEUS and MUSOJ intersections so you actually come in at an angle to miss the little hill on the left before the runway. One thing that I'm beginning to realize is that if you are in actual instrument conditions (meaning you can't see very far), if you see the runway environment when you reach the minimum altitude you are going to be very close to the airport and you will probably have to drop your flaps right away, slow down and descend quickly to land. I can understand how stressful instrument flying can be.
From there we went up the CLADD intersection and took the ILS 32 approach into KOKV (Winchester).
After KOKV we headed back to KJYO and were done for the day.
I did notice one thing about flying using the autopilot. It's easy to stop paying attention and just mess with the GPS or just look around and forget simple things like throttle back when you reach your cruise altitude because the autopilot is doing most of that for you (I was trying the autopilot fixed rate of climb coupled with the altitude arm mode meaning it would climb at a particular rate and then level off automatically at a set altitude).
All in all it was another fun and learning filled day.
My totals so far are:

land	sel	xc	night
250	126.6	28.6	11.4

an affordable EFB

As usual, Aviation Mentor has an excellent posting on how to come up with an affordable EFB (Electronic Flight Bag).
You can see that posting at:
http://aviationmentor.blogspot.com/2009/06/poor-mans-efb.html

Paper management can be challenging in the cockpit so I'd like to give this a try to see if would help.

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).

A tailwheel endorsement!

Doug has "received the required training of FAR 61.31 (i) in a 7KCAB and is proficient in the operation of a tailwheel airplane". Admittedly, I still have a few more lessons to really consider myself even close to that but it's a start and having the endorsement is neat.

my little logbook

I've been entering my logbook into a MySQL database and writing a little php to query and update it. That's working reasonably well now so here are my current totals:

land	sel	xc	night
233	120.2	26.4	11.4

The columns are: landings, single engine (land) hours, cross country (hours) night (hours).

For my tailwheel work, here are my totals:

index	date	from	to	ident	hr_sel
1	2009-02-28	KVKX	K2W5	N53758	1.6
2	2009-03-08	KVKX	K2W5	N53758	1.4
3	2009-03-14	KVKX	KVKX	N53758	0.4
4	2009-03-21	KVKX	KXSA	N53758	1.8
5	2009-04-18	KVKX	MD14	N53758	1.7
					6.9

Another Citabria lesson

I just finished another lesson in a Citabria for my tailwheel endorsement. This time it was 6 landings on two small grass strips in the area. The shortest one was 1,600 feet and there were trees just short of the runway that you had to clear and then put it down pretty quickly. I had one go-around (which was good for practice) because I was a bit too fast. I also got a couple of slips in to lose altitude on final. My first landing was ok but the second was much better. I think that the reason for the improvement is I started aiming for a road just before the strip rather than looking at the strip. The weather could not have been better today. All in all it was too much fun to describe adequately.