AVmail

During the past three weeks, our region has been hit by two tropical storms. Mozambique is reeling under the effects of this flooding; which must be the worst flooding to hit the country in many decades. On Sunday evening (27 Feb 2000), the local TV news carried an interesting report on the problems in Mozambique, which has been hit by two tropical storms in three weeks, and also is the conduit for most of the run-off from Northern SA, Zimbabwe and Zambia and further afield as well. Most of the country is low-lying and very flat, so it does not take much water to cause a flood. The TV news reporter stated that "...the rescue effort is being seriously hampered by the TOTAL LACK of airports in the country. It is doubted whether many of the stranded people have much chance of being rescued, or whether much of the humanitarian aid has much chance of getting through to them..."

Mozambique is a country as large as Texas and Louisiana combined, and my copy of British Airways/Aerad Africa supplement shows only 18 registered airfields in the whole country -- four are for emergency use only, nine have nil services, and only five have any form of aviation services provided (typically fuel or a tower).

Now, do you suppose that this will stop our government and municipal authorities from closing down the unprofitable rural airports? Nah, sorry I asked!

The importance of general aviation is, to my mind, underestimated. In most parts of the world it is simply neglected, and Southern Africa is no exception. This is a situation that clearly indicates the resulting aftermath of not being able to get to the victims quickly and move them out of the affected areas in large numbers.

If we are able to use the tragedy that is developing in Mozambique to promote general aviation in some positive way, then this event will have served some good.

When we landed and tried to check in with the CAP as we were previously instructed, they said the mission was closed, and they were no longer making sure that everyone made it back safely. All in all, it was a pretty dismal demonstration of how to operate a search. Rather than criticize the organization and its members, since it was a volunteer group, I decided to join and see if I could make a difference.

That was nearly 30 years ago. As a CFI and A&P, I think I have been a factor in making my state CAP unit an effective search and rescue organization. A few years ago, I even flew a plane that found a missing aircraft and helped save the life of the injured passenger. I have also met some very fine people including retired combat pilots from WWII and Vietnam who have fascinating stories to tell.

So my message to Mark is don't criticize. Obviously your local CAP needs your help. If you can't find enough of the "right" people in the CAP, get some of your pilot friends to join and help you turn the unit into something you can be proud of.

Here's my two cents worth. I'm not in the CAP. I'm a member of the US Air Force Reserve, assigned to the organization designated to provide Air Force oversight, advice, and assistance to the CAP. I've worked closely with CAP personnel at the Squadron, Wing (i.e. State), Regional, and National level for the last four years. Though I have, on occasion, run into people whose priorities are as described by your letter-writers, let me assure you the vast majority of CAP members are hard-working, dedicated professionals who take their three missions of Emergency Services (read Search and Rescue and Disaster Response), Aerospace Education, and Cadet programs very seriously. These volunteers donate their time and money so that you, the flying public, have the reasonable assurance that if you are unfortunate enough to be involved in an aircraft mishap, someone is going to be out there looking for you as soon as possible. Last year CAP members flew over 4,000 sorties totaling almost 9,000 hours conducting search and rescue missions that saved 84 lives and that doesn't count the thousands of hours flown in support of disaster relief and counterdrug missions.

It was getting to the point where I was spending more time documenting my flights than I was actually flying. Who is requiring this - CAP bureaucrats? I don't think so. The Air Force is probably spending more money watching CAP than they are their major weapons systems programs, and for what? It hasn't improved the safety record or the missing aircraft find rate, which continue to remain high. I say this as a Government bureaucrat myself - USAF oversight of CAP is approaching the point of diminishing returns.

It's not that the CAP is blameless. We all know that in volunteer organizations some egos run wild on authoritarian power trips. My recommendation is to de-militarize the CAP for adults and let the Cadets continue the military heritage role. There's enough work to do without all the inflated rank-wearers creating more paperwork for the people in the trenches. The CAP mission continues to expand in vital areas serving all of our communities, and is a focal point for young men and women seeking entry to aviation careers in and out of Government.

which states that:

Your readers may be interested to know that that information is contained in Change 19 to the General Aviation Safety Inspector's handbook (FAA Order 8700.1), Vol. II, Chapter 44, Section 5.

That change, dated 2/11/2000, is now available in full text on the FAA Web site at http://www.faa.gov/avr/afs/faa/8700/8700.html. Change 19 may be downloaded as a separate file, is in Adobe Acrobat format, and looks exactly like the version that can be purchased from the GPO.

Another big part of Change 19 is Vol. II, Chapter 180 (48 pages) which pertains to Compliance and Enforcement in general and Chapter 182 which pertains to Compliance and Enforcement investigations.

I have no doubt how he got through security. As a traveler who puts over 100,000 miles per year on the system, I can tell you that security is at best lax -- and not just at LAX, either. Airport security personnel seem to be interested in either minutia, or the "probleme de jour." In general, they hassle the frequent travelers, never seeing them as their customers or reason-for-being. They will hassle one person for an oversize carry-on, while another takes through a steamer trunk without being questioned. What either has to do with safety is beyond me.

Maybe someone could explain why a laptop that turns on is not dangerous, while one that does not is... Of course, they don't test the CD bay for...

I did get stopped for taking a cordless drill from LAX to Houston -- BUT on the opposite-direction flight, it was fine. I even showed it to security, asking if it was okay. The rules are unclear, not uniformly enforced, or even made public to frequent fliers.

This past summer I gave DUATS a real workout while planning a trip from Massachusetts to Oklahoma and back. One of the things I noticed was that decoded forecasts would sometimes include phrases like "coastal volcanic ash."

That obviously wasn't right. A comparison of the coded and decoded text revealed the cause. The DUATS decoder was reading the state abbreviation VA (Virginia) as the ICAO designator for volcanic ash. There were a couple other similar glitches.

I reported these to the DUATS help desk and to their credit they dealt with the problem in fairly short order. Now when you get a decoded text you'll see something like "coastal (Virginia/volcanic ash)" so you can pick the decode that best fits the context. The point of all this is that the decoded text can sometimes be more confusing than the short version.

Available bandwidth and response time are still issues. Dialing in to DUATS can be difficult in the early morning and response time via the Web during the same period can be dismally slow. It gets worse during prolonged periods of bad weather over large areas. Providing sufficient resources to handle even the highest peak loads with minimal latency means that a lot of processing power and network capacity go unused a most of the time. Another writer pointed out that decoded printouts equals lots of paper, certainly more than I like to carry along.

Wow! I'll probably drop a $100 this month playing with it.

Anyway thanks for your efforts to put this out.

AOPA has indicated in Congressional testimony that as many as 120,000 general aviation aircraft are equipped with Loran. There are actually millions of Loran users in aviation, marine, surface transportation and the technology is used widely for timing purposes. AOPA, HAI, NBAA, NASAO, NATA and many in GA have helped enormously and been very strong and effective advocates for Loran in recent years.

There has also been strong bipartisan support in Congress among key members from the Appropriations and Authorizing Committees in the House and Senate. Senators Kohl (D-WI), Kerry (D-MA) and Snowe (R-ME) in particular have been strong, determined proponents.

or in combination with the AC00-6A Aviation Weather:

Keep up the great work!

First of all "the demon code" isn't the FAA's fault. It comes from an agreed-upon convention under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organization -- so blame the NWS for finally agreeing to use it and catching up with the rest of the world. METARs and TAFs are international products, and using abbreviations is the only way to make them as understandable in Narita as they are in Peoria.

Pillory me if wish, but the GA community needs to put this in context. The U.S. GA population is only a very minor segment of the world aviation community (I am a financially challenged private pilot so I have some right to speak) and really needs to get over this.

As an aircraft dispatcher for a major airline, I flight plan and flight follow around 60-70 flights in an 8 hour shift. My colleagues at the regionals with their higher frequency schedules may work upwards of 120 flights in a shift! So on an average day, just checking departure, destination, and alternate weather means that I'm going through hundreds of TAFs and several hundred more METARs. There is no way we could wade through that much information in plain text. Now get out of your once weekly single flight mode for a moment and contemplate how much bandwidth and paper all that plain text for all these flights would occupy. For a visual, the next time you are at a major airport, find a captain just leaving ops with that wad of paper that comprises his dispatch release, flight plan, and weather package, and ask him to show you how many feet long it already is with the abbreviations.

Like I said earlier, these are international products. If you want to see a real mess with each country free to use plain text in its own language, take a look at international notams. They are in Portugese, Spanish, French, and many other less identifiable tongues. Go pull up some notams for Guyaquil or San Jose Costa Rica and tell me what they say. Talk about cryptic! At the bottom of each international notam (hopefully) is a 5 letter "q code" that is supposed to boil down all the verbiage and bring order to this modern version of Babel. So ILS 24 OTS in San Jose is QIACA or some such. At least with the weather, terms like sct, bkn, SPECI, RAB05E25, mean the same things in Peoria as they do in Narita and you can very quickly comprehend the information being conveyed. (Once you've learned what the abbreviations mean its easy ... honest.)

Tonight I went to the city and had dinner with my daughter and some people from her work (she's a magazine editor) and then we all went off to see "Charlie Victor Romeo."

Wow, wow, wow! What a stunning production. Absolutely riveting. My daughter and her friends are non-pilots, and they were blown away!

And I heard about it on AVweb first!

I met the producer outside after the performance (he is sort of a kid, standing around with a baseball cap on) and he said that people from Lockheed, or Martin Marrieta or somesuch, involved with Cockpit Resource Management, came up to see it. They said that this guy should make a videotape of the performance -- that if crews could see it, and the lack of CRM taking place in some instances, it would save lives.

It really is stunning. There's just no other word for it.

It was important to Rick for us to be there. After all, he was getting married. Rick really was hopeful that he would find his life's partner. We felt that we had to support our good friend. We were not judgmental about the method he was using to pick his spouse. Through the millennia people have used all sorts of methods, including arranged marriages (done by royal families and the wealthy as a matter of course) and mail-order brides. Who was to say that this couldn't work?

Martha and I will celebrate 35 years of marriage this June. Our marriage is the most important thing in our lives, but we are not judgmental about other people's attempts to find happiness. However, one of our core values is to support good friends.

Rick was sincere in his search for a life's partner and we felt that we should be there for him. Our role now is to support Rick in going through one of the most difficult periods of his life.

In "Close Encounters of the Worst Kind" [AVmail, 23 Feb 2000], Roger Long describes a near midair collision which occurred "right outside" Class C airspace, in which the other airplane didn't show a transponder return, and hadn't been seen by the radar controller. Those who have commented on this, including Mike Busch and the 3 others so far all assume that the other pilot wasn't required by FAR's to turn his transponder on. If an aircraft is equipped with a usable transponder, it MUST be operated while flying in controlled airspace. Almost all airspace is controlled above 1200' AGL (Class E); adjacent to Class C it is probably controlled above 700' AGL. Mike listed requirements for transponder use from 91.215 (b), but omitted the requirement from the next subparagraph. Here it is:

I'd like to see AVweb take the lead in communicating to the pilot community that the use of the transponder and encoder (if you have them) is not only very good operating practice, it is required by law.

My thoughts on a comment Mike Busch made in response to a letter from the latest AVmail.

Yes, but did you also see upon closer examination the provision contained in FAR 91.215(c)? You included the statement that "As currently written, the regs require a transponder to be turned on above 10,000 feet MSL, and in airspace where radar service is mandatory (Class B and C), and within 30 NM of a primary Class B Airspace airport". This is confirmed in 91.215(c) as requiring transponder use in the airspace mentioned in 91.215(b). However notice the next few words of 91.215(c), which also require transponder use "in all controlled airspace". Since the majority of airspace in the United States today is classified as controlled in some fashion, it is almost as if we do have a regulation which requires the use of an operable transponder at all times in an aircraft which are so equipped.

The gentleman who wrote the letter indicated that his close encounter "took place just after pulling up into a steep climb during airwork right outside our Class C." In my experience, it's most likely that due to the proximity to the Class C airspace, Class E airspace (another controlled airspace) also existed above at least 1,200 feet AGL in his current location. Which leads me to believe that the aircraft he encountered without the operating transponder could have been in violation of 91.215(c) for not operating the transponder "in all controlled airspace".

FAR 91.215(c) only requires the use of the transponder in these airspace areas when the aircraft is equipped with an operable transponder, which has been properly maintained. Due to various maintenance or certification issues, there are number of exemptions why one may visually detect an "aircraft" which is operating without the transponder and yet is operating legally.

There have been any number of comments from the GA community suggesting that privatization of the ATC system will inevitably lead to a disaster of Canadian proportions. Why must this be so?

Obviously the people working the system get paid in the current and a privatized system. So what is the motive of the working stiff to do a better job in one system or the other? The principle difference is that the investors would seek a financial return in a private system while the profit motive is not present in the public system. Obviously these investors will seek to maximize total return on their investment which means doing what brings the cash in as efficiently as possible. The control mechanism is to regulate what brings the cash in.

There have been many valid points made that direct charges for services such as weather briefings, flight plans, etc. will compromise safety by causing pilots to opt out of the system. That doesn't mean that we don't pay for them, we just do it indirectly with the fuel taxes. There is no reason that a private system cannot be reimbursed for each service provided without requiring direct user fees.

I suggest that a system which ties profitability to the number of safe aircraft operations with penalties for unsafe operations will motivate the investors to make the improvements which are so often suggested in this column. Indeed, if such a system were installed, we might have an ATC system which actually encourages private aircraft to fly rather than viewing them as a nuisance to be dealt with.

Part of the reason more pilots don't do weight and balance calculations is that the chart and calculator approach isn't easy to do using the horizontal stabilizer as a desk.

There is any easier way. There are several software packages available for the 3Com PalmPilot that allow the pilot to input all the necessary data just once and then modify only the items that change for each flight. One very good example is AV8R which is an electronic E6B as well as a weight and balance calculator. It's available for only ten dollars, a portion of which the author donates to the EAA Young Eagles program. You can see this program and download a fully functioning, time limited demo at http://www.wavefront.com/~dd/av8r/.

I've been a private pilot for nearly 15 years, though calling myself a "pilot" still gives me the willies, given that I was/am fortunate to have airline pilots as mentors/instructors/friends.

I co-owned my first aircraft, a beautiful 172H ('67) with the local (Indianapolis) CAP "Safety Officer." I was green then, still with a student certificate, and didn't pay much attention to the CAP, though when the saddled up one weekend a month for simulated rescue missions it was difficult not to notice an air of supremacy regarding their importance. "self-importance?" I mean after all, Indianapolis isn't Alaska for goodness' sake.

More disturbing was that I soon found out that my partner had been disqualified years before from obtaining a 3rd class medical certificate due to high blood pressure. Again being green I didn't fully understand the ramifications of his grounding. He'd been flying for some time without it. What "spilled the beans" regarding his condition was a massive stroke at home which left him nearly incapacitated, wheelchair-and-homebound. THE SAFETY OFFICER!

Two years ago, with considerable more humble experience in my logbook I relocated to a smaller town . . Bobby Knight's town . . in Southern Indiana. Again I was fortunate to fall in with a group of experienced pilots, one who just retired off an MD-11 and #2 seniority at AA. He allowed the local CAP to use his magnificent hangar for meetings. Again I was distressed by the grim, paramilitary demeanor of the recruits and their "leaders," one of whom was a cop groupie who was never seen without a scanner in his back pocket and who'd self-appointed himself as "airport security."

Perhaps my experiences were dissimilar to others'. But I can't help to feel that, at least in this area of the country, that CAP members are more impressed with their uniforms and ranks than they are with the purpose of the CAP.

Perhaps I'm mistaken and the "mission" is more serious than I imagine/know.

In January 1997 the FCC set the deadline for all aviation radios to conform to the tighter frequency tolerances, which many older radios will not meet.

Now I here people saying Ref. 1996 PRIVATE PILOT "Wait! Don't Junk Those Radios Yet!" article which states those radio that meet the 30 parts per million tolerance weather they are the older radio or not are legal to use as long as they fall within the 30 parts per million requirement of FCC regulation 87.133

My local FAA avionics inspector says its not an FAA issue its a FCC issue .

The recent cluster of midairs makes this a timely bit of airborne dialogue. It took place just after pulling up into a steep climb during airwork right outside our Class C.

"Uh, approach, this is 827, do you have another Cessna in our area?"

"I have a faint target but I don't know whether he's real or not."

"Oh, he's real all right. He just went about 300 feet over our heads."

"Well, he's not talking to me and his transponder's off."

The Captain on American Flight 1420 was a Chief Pilot -- a management pilot whose primary job is to line check other pilots. Management pilots normally fly as a line Captain only one month out of the year!

Boeing recently announced that they will NOT stretch the 747-400.

The only airplane in Product Development is 777X -- big deal hang larger engines on a 777-200 and add body/tail fuel.

The only NEW airplane developments on the horizon are bigger than 747-400 which Boeing has said they do not plan on pursuing, and SST which the "watermelons" (environmentalist -- green on the outside and red on the inside) will not allow to happen.

Stonecipher wants to do at Commercial Airplanes what he did at Douglas: get rid of a bunch of engineers and replace many of the remaining with contract labor. In order to replace direct engineers with contract labor, he needs a large number of voluntary terminations -- thus a much more stingy engineer/tech contract than IAM got and a strike.

The joy of having the GNS430s versus the King KLN90B has been well covered. But the hidden prize, which I did not understand until I fired up the Bonanza for the first time after installation was the beautiful new interface between the GNS430 and the Ryan 9900B.

The GNS430 NAV page three in this installation is a 360 degree view of everything the Ryan 9900 can see. There is a screen shot available at the Ryan web site of this Garmin page http://www.ryan-tcad.com/ . Having a full 360 degree view of the traffic really changes your perception about how much traffic is around - much more than I ever thought! I just leave my number 2 Garmin on this page anytime I am low level. Sitting on the ground at Ramona the first day I power up it immediately showed all four aircraft in the pattern with altitude and exactly the right distance. I could go on and on about this combination of the 430 and the 9900, but if the display was not enough, the installation is $3,000 cheaper because you don't need to buy the Ryan TCAD display head, everything is viewed and selected through the Garmin Nav page 3.

The truth of the matter is that Loran-C has received Congressional support for the past three years with funding for upgrading the loran system. This year for the first time the President's Budget included an additional $20 million to continue with the upgrade program and $27 million for the Coast Guard. The old tube transmitters are to be replaced and time synchronization is to be improved so that "all-in-view" transmitters can be used. In addition the automatic blink system (ABS) that has been delayed for so many years was completed earlier this month and is currently waiting acceptance by the FAA. This will enable certification of Loran-C for NPA's which was thrown off course a decade ago by short term transmitter outages that could not be detected without the automatic 10 second blink (ABS) now in operation.

Industry in the United States and Europe is developing GPS/Loran equipment designed to avoid becoming totally dependent upon one system. Loran is important not only for aviation but for marine and precision timing for communications.

The language in the Federal Radionavigation Plan relating to loran being continued in the short-term was a result of a negotiation between the Department of Transportation and the Office of Management and Budget. It is understandably confusing in the face of the loran system being upgraded for the long-term but stems from this Adminstration's goal of decommissioning all terrestrial radionavigation systems - an unsafe and unacceptable policy.

I do not know if any one from New Zealand has added his or her opinion on the latest from the Principal Medical Officer (PMO) of the New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority.

The PMO is a young woman who holds a private Pilots License, and is of average ability, except that it took her four hours to convert to a Piper Tomahawk ... a complicated difficult aircraft to fly?

She has introduced standards of medical assessment that takes the decisions that were made by in field Aeronautical Medical Assessors (AMA) away from the assessor if the pilot applicant is over 50 years of age.

She has presented a graph that is biased against all males over 50 years, but a female can still pass a medical at 70 years without special assessments.

The special assessments include, in addition to the standard ICAO requirements:

Bruce Protocol Stress Tests,(Stress ECG) Invasive blood tests, Chest X-rays, Ophthalmology special eye report, and an Audiogram.

It is so geared that I (D.O.B January 1935) who flew for the national carrier for 20 years and was a captain on DC8 DC10, and 747-200, would have failed my medical prior to age 40.

Now that I am 65, I need to have a below-average cholesterol level, weigh less than 190 pounds (I am 6' 2" tall) and have a blood pressure of less than 120/75.

In fact when her chart is scrutinized, someone with low BP, low weight, low cholesterol, one still has difficulty passing unscathed at 40 years of age.

But if you are female, you would be fine at 50, not so good at 60 but could still just slip in at 70.

The PMO,s protocol is that if we fall outside her predetermined risk factor, which is a 1% chance of a incapacitating heart problem, one must not set foot in an aircraft.

The risk factor has been calculated by several in field pilots of mature age and experience, and the chance of a pilot who flies about 50 hours a year, has more chance of winning the first prize in the national lotto than suffering an MI in flight whilst being Pilot In Command!

Your FAA looked at this protocol some years ago and threw it out as being "a complete waste of time and money."

The cap to the NZ PMO's invasive medical assessments is this: she requires the candidate to pay her NZ$266.00 (2 hours of CAA charges) to assess your medical(2 to 4 minutes work) and then the special medical assessing fees start. To date those that have continued down this track have spent in excess of NZ$2,000.00, and this is a recurring fee to be fronted up each 6 months if one holds a Class One medical.

There are a good number of pilots over 75 years of age and they have about the same chance as a snowball in Hell of ever passing a medical.

We are fighting this issue but NZ laws have a special Draconian section that allows Government departments to do as they like without recourse.

In CAA case, this new standard was introduce without consultation with the industry, and even the NZ equivalent of the British Medical Association.

NZ is going to be encumbered with a large amount of unlicensed pilots in the near future.

We already have to pay for landing fees, flight plans, SAR watch, met reports, airways communications when landing at a controlled airport, annual registration fees for all aircraft,annual fees for the radio equipment,annual levy to cover CAA's added expenses, local government fuel tax.

How can I obtain a green card and come and reside in USA?.

On January 6, 1977, Dolly Sinatra departed Palm Springs in a Learjet charter to Las Vegas for a show by her only child, Frank. She, a friend, and two pilots took off a little before 5:00 p.m. -- dark, IMC, rain on ground, snow higher. They departed from RWY 30, cleared via Palm Springs, direct Twenty-Nine Palms, climb and maintain 17 thousand. There was no radar service at low altitudes in the departure area.

The pilots climbed out on runway heading and never made any significant turns. Air Traffic Control was tracking them based on reported positions by radio. There was confusion between the pilots and ATC. The pilots seemed to be waiting for ATC to clear them to turn towards Twenty-Nine Palms. ATC thought they were established on a radial to Twenty-Nine Palms VOR to the NE based on radio reports from the pilots who were still established on a NW radial from Palm Springs VOR -- direct to high mountains. How the pilots who knew the area well could have thought it was OK to continue flying up towards an area where the minimum applicable altitude is 13,000 was a sad case of lack of spatial awareness.

Or, as the NTSB determined, "The flight crew may not have been aware that they were operating in a non-radar environment and believed that they were under radar control. The company chief pilot stated that the only other facility similar to Palm Springs that they serviced regularly was Sun Valley, Idaho, and that was 'strictly a VFR operation.'"

At 1657:45 a Los Angeles Center controller was informed of the Lear's departure and waiting for it to appear NE of Palm Springs. The controller saw a primary (paint) radar return without a data block pop up NW of Palm Springs. At 1658:36 the data block popped up. The controller noticed it but didn't have access to its radio frequency. At 1659:40 the interphone controller called Palm Springs to find out what that plane was doing flying to the NW since it was starting to intrude on traffic in a Los Angeles Center sector. At the same time, Palm Springs was vectoring another plane for an IFR approach into Twenty-Nine Palms. At about 1700:00, radio and radar contact was lost with the Sinatra Lear.

The California Civil Air Patrol and the County Sheriff started a search. The weather was foul the entire search. Frank Sinatra searched in a helicopter provided by the Lear's owner. The Civil Air Patrol and the FAA processed the raw radar data -- it was a time when a group of 12 CAP members from San Carlos Airport, CA and their local FAA Center were processing by data transfer from all around the country all radar data for all military and civilian searches to prove the value of radar tracking for searches.

The initial search area was in an extremely rugged area with snow up to searchers' armpits. By the third day, searchers finally had the full radar dataset. It showed the track being automatically extended through the 11,502' Mt. San Gorgonio since the FAA then and now will automatically extend a radar track for a few more seconds when a target drops off temporarily. When searchers looked at the "proper" side of the mountain, the wreckage scattered over a half mile with no survivors was found near the tree the plane first hit at almost 300 knots about 9,700'.

Frank Sinatra lobbied hard for Palm Springs to get radar service -- which it got fairly fast despite the fact the airport did not have enough traffic to have otherwise qualified for area radar service.

Within thirty days of the search, the FAA Administrator issued an FAA policy letter to all Centers that FAA Centers' priorities were: first, IFR separations; second, radar data processing for missing aircraft searches; and third, everything else. It can be said that the Sinatra search finally proved to the FAA the value of radar data processing for missing aircraft searches. With today's computers, processing radar data for searches is usually much faster than it was in 1977 when it was all done with computer fan paper and hand calculators, and the FAA's MSAW system now allows many controllers to notice quicker when a plane is too close to the ground.

I don't get in an aircraft to give dual for under $50/hour, and I have the waiting list you mentioned that some CFI's are getting. It is about time, right?

The little picture they provided of a 727 sitting out in the water just off of a beach is obviously a computer concoction and a very bad one at that. This is obviously not a real photograph. Look at the column under the airplane. I clicked through the photographs they provided of the actual airplane undergoing modification, and I was only further skeptical to find that not one photograph showed one of their finished products. Not one photo showed furniture inside of a 727. They showed a lot of photographs which they could have gotten from anywhere of real 727's being stripped or converted into freight planes. Another thing that didn't hold water was their assertion that they remove the horizontal stabilizer so that the airplane won't fly anymore. This doesn't make any sense. They claim that they bolt this plane to a column capable of withstanding several million pounds of force, so how could this plane flying off the pedestal possibly be an issue. I was further intrigued by the fact that this company did not show one picture of an airplane on an actual purchaser's property.

Mike, I have not seen any official opinion from FAA medical on corneal rings. Without a blanket guidance statement from them a pilot might be on a little shakier ground resuming flying after the procedure without a clearance. INTACS may need to be approved on an individual basis until they issue a policy. I would be interested to know if any of our readers have any direct experience with this. I don't know of any specific airline policies addressing INTACS.

I had a VFR BE35, N1856Z, out of Lee Summit, Missouri, to Ardmore Downtown, who said he'd go on over for a look. He went maybe 50 miles out of his way, cruised up and down the highway in both directions before pressing on to Downtown. He didn't find anything and there was no ELT either, a good sign that maybe there hadn't been a crash after all.

Controllers never derive any pleasure out of working with crashes. There is some satisfaction in finding a crash site so that the survivors can be rescued, if there are any to be rescued - and you always hope there are.

One of the hardest things I've ever had to do out there was get information from an air taxi pilot about another pilot from the same company. On a mid-shift some years ago I was working a Bankcheck out of Kansas City to Dallas Love when Kansas City Center called to say that a company flight had crashed north of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and could I get some information from the pilot I was working, the victim's name, the chief pilot's name, phone number and all that.

It was difficult asking the questions. The fellow knew something was wrong when the questions started and it didn't take him long to figure it out.

One time Ardmore Tower called to ask if I'd run an aircraft over the Red River to find a VFR aircraft that had supposedly crashed there. I did and the pilot found the aircraft which led to a rescue of the plane's occupants. That was a great ending to what could have been a tragedy.

It has always amazed me that some people go through their entire ATC careers never working even an emergency, much less something worse. I've been the D-side on two serious crashes, one fatal and one where the Navy pilot ejected safely. If I never work another one, that'll be soon enough for me.

From AVflash 6.07b:

The statements published regarding the inspection are not necessarily contradictory. For a measurement, such as the stabilizer end play, there is a tolerance. The initial statement that the assembly had "maximum allowable end play" means that the measurement was at the limit of the tolerance, or barely "good". For example an end-play measurement for the assembly may be 0.040 inch. If you measure 0.040 inch, the test passes ... if you measure 0.041 inch, it fails.

Whether you should replace a part at maximum tolerance depends on a lot of other issues. When the manufacturer specified the tolerance they knew what the inspection interval was and believed they knew the expected lifetime of the part. From that knowledge they set the maximum value that the aircraft could be returned to service: the tolerance.

It appears someone recommended replacement even though the measurement passed the test, although with little margin. Subsequent inspections resulted in confirming -- five times I recall -- that the measurement was within tolerance, the part was "good."

I hope you can see fit to present the whole story. I work for Horizon Air, Alaska's Sister company and they have taken a beating from the aviation ignorant media. Time Magazine even made reference to them as "Value Jet II", they deserve better that that, especially from you.

Your news story talks about "...acquisition of AlliedSignal by Honeywell..." when the exact opposite is more nearly true.

Twenty three years later I found myself in Tucson with some extra money and clear blue skies, so I got current again. After I got my instrument rating and commercial license, I decided to go for the CFI. My undergraduate degree is in Education, and though I have never taught full time, after I got my Masters I began teaching aviation management courses at local colleges. The thought of teaching in an airplane appealed to me, so I did it. Now I have my CFII and fly every weekend, and as many days during the week as I dare, without getting my business partner too upset. My plan is to go through the MEI as well, using my 'earnings' from teaching to fund it.

I am 46 and reasonably successful and I am pretty amazed at the pay that CFI's get. It is disgraceful how some FBO's treat their CFI's. I see a lot of young guys go through the place where I work and they use the CFI job as a way to gain hours, not to teach. If the pay was such that you could actually support yourself as a CFI then I think the quality would be improved measurably. I don't think people object to paying for quality, but they do object when they pay for substandard service.

For me, the fun part is when one of my students 'gets it'; to see the light go on and watch them learn something new. Flight Instructing has also taught me a lot about flying and made me a better pilot. When you teach something to someone else you learn it all over again yourself, and watching a student commit a common error helps reinforce the right way to do it whenever I fly myself. It also gratifying when one of my rated students gives me a call to ride along on a trip when the weather is forecasted to be a bit low, or the when they fly in to a high-elevation airport for the first time.

The gland nut that the jackscrew runs through stripped out. The crew was able to deploy the spoilers in order to correct the nose down pitch in accordance with emergency procedures. The established the approach and things were looking under control until....

This crash had no voice recorded, and a very limited 4-channel FDR. All data was collected through intense investigation. On approach over Cameron Bay, the crew added power either to go around or correct glide slope. The C-141-A has a 54 degree switch in the throttle assembly. The purpose in to retract the spoilers in the event of an emergency go around. When the pilots advanced the throttles beyond this limit, the switch did it's job, it retracted the spoilers. In turn, the aircraft pitched over, and the crew was unable to react in time, the aircraft crashed into the water. There was only one survivor.

Investigation showed maintenance had failed to properly inspect and lubricate the jackscrew. Corrective action included a modification to the aircraft that installed flight limit bypass switch. Crews have been practicing this emergency procedure in the simulator ever since.

The accident report may not be released, I don't know. The accident was over 20 years ago.

What a shame all those people died. Our safety program should have prevented the failure. I'm certain the crew never had a chance.

However, we may find the cause is something entirely different. It will take at least a year. Evidence indicates we have repeated a fatal crash for a redundant reason. Jackscrew failure. In turn, possible structural failure. We will wait and see.

Anyone who flies would be upset at that.

Everyone keeps asking why I want to become a CFI. It's obviously not the money. I own an airplane (Mooney M20C) so flying time isn't really the reason. I explain to my friends that a CFI must become a subject matter expert in order to be effective, and that I love aviation so much it just seems logical to become a CFI.

Sure, if one day I've got the hours and experience to switch careers, I won't hesitate. But, I'm not counting on it. Your article really reminds me why I want to instruct. It's because I remember the thrill of that first solo flight, and I know my instructor had to be just as excited.

I have always had a dream to learn to fly. I was always told that because of my vision I would not be able to obtain a class 3 medical certification. Recently in some articles such as Brent Blue's and Kim Broadwell's and others I have read, there seems to be a hint that what I have always been told is not necessarily true.

I have 20/20 corrected vision, both near and far, in my right eye and because of amblyopia my left eye is only 20/200 with correction. I wear progressive lenses made of polycarbonate and because of the left eye condition I see my opthamologist every year.

After reading Mike Busch's review, I was expecting an incremental improvement in comfort and noise reduction. But I was really surprised by just how good they were. I think many pilots are missing a great product because it is so hard to describe the benefits until you wear one.

Like Mike, I would still have a hard time paying $1,000 for a headset when the DCs did a good job and provided a safe noise level. But at around $400, the added value of the LightSPEED units is truly revolutionary.

My only problem is that once my wife tries my new headset, it will be lost and I will have to go get another.

Thanks for the great reviews and magazine.

All press reports I have read, including AVweb's, are listing the horizontal stabilizer of the MD-80 as a moving part.

From the AVweb NewsWire: "The jackscrew mechanism drives the airplane's horizontal stab up and down and limits its range of travel."

From the AP; "The long jackscrew moves the stabilizer..."

If the horizontal stabilizer were to move, would it not then be called a stabilator? Or, am I thinking GA? Perhaps there is a jackscrew for each, the elevator and the elevator trim tab.

What you have reported isnt exactly accurate. All is not as rosy in the factories as Boeing would lead to public and media to believe. Amongst the many problems:

While it is true that the machinists belong to a different union and hence are still "building the planes", you have overlooked the fact that while building is going on there are literally dozens to hundreds of construction snafus on EACH plane that must be "fixed" by Boeing's staff of Liason Engineers. Quality Assurance reports an error, a rejection tag is written up, then the liason engineers must find a "fix" for the error. Without the engineers present to develop and sign off a fix, the plane doesnt get moved along the production line. This is precisely what is occuring in the Boeing factories. The production line is (from what we have heard from employees inside) stalled and planes are backing up. As the machinists know, they build the planes beautifully, but they need the engineers to fix them. The Boeing family is just that : a family. It needs team work and cooperation to create the safe and quality products for which Boeing has been known.

My husband is one of the Boeing engineers on strike right now. Just like the rest of the engineers, he wants nothing more to return to the job that he loves. However, the management at Boeing has been progressively sacrificing more and more employee needs and product quality to create better stock returns for the next quarter. Enough is enough.

While I wouldn't argue with you thoughts on the subject, name calling is unprofessional under any circumstances and most unbecoming of pilots professional or otherwise.

Saturday I was flying safety pilot on an IFR training exercise with my son -- weather CAVU, destination Indianapolis -- when we encountered the C182 jump plane out of Richmond, Ind., 500 feet below us at near head-on orientation, and NOT REPORTED by Dayton Approach Control. Apparently, the 182 did not have its transponder on (nor was it required in that particular airspace).

My Dad just had the LASIK operation yesterday. I had one day's notice and sent him Kim Broadwell's article -- I still don't know if he read it.

He's worn glasses since he was five. Today he's ecstatic. This morning he drove without lenses for the first time ever. The doc says he's 20/20, but even though Dad's giddy, he's not totally convinced yet. One eye was corrected for glasses-free reading, the other primarily for distance.

Dad's euphoric: "It's a friggin' miracle." He says distance is super clear, and he's getting used to the one-eye dominant reading.

Though a licensed pilot with seaplane rating, Dad has not held a current medical for decades. He is however a very active hang-glider pilot.

I asked him if he was going to "frame" his glasses and put them over the fireplace ... or just toss them in the trash. He laughed and said he'd give them to charity -- although we both doubted they'd find a match for his screwy vision.

Enjoyed reading Kim Broadwell's LASIK article on AVweb. I was under the impression, however, that the Navy and Air Force were allowing their aviators to undergo LASIK (but not PRK or RK). I even thought I heard at one of my meetings that the Navy installed a VISX laser on the west coast and that aviators were undergoing the procedure. I would appreciate an update if my information is incorrect.

I checked with a pilot for United Airlines and the only thing I could find out is that their pilots could not have RK or wear monovision contact lenses. He was aware of several pilots who had undergone LASIK and were still on flight status. Here, too, an update would be appreciated.

Even though I am an avid flight simulator enthusiast, and the author of an AVweb article about using the simulator during training, I have gone back and forth about the value of PC simulators. My feeling has been that they are good for practicing navigation, situation awareness, and procedures but of very limited value for sharpening plane handling and landing skills.

My first experience with MVFR was on the day JFK Jr. had his last. It was daylight and legal but still a real adventure for a 120 hour pilot. Vacation and work then kept me out of the air and away from the computer for over a month. My next flight, early in September, really showed the effects of the time off. I went back the next day to do some pattern work and get back in the groove but the plane had a problem which has kept me grounded until yesterday.

In the meantime, I have spent many hours developing a computer model of the 172 for used with Microsoft's Flight Simulator 2000. My objective has been to make it as accurate possible in performance and handling. The performance of the cyber aircraft now differs from the real one by about the same amount as the variation in individual 172s. This project has involved computer flying on precise flight profiles and a lot of cyber pattern work to tweak the model so that the real world power and flap settings will put it at the same points in the pattern as the real plane.

My simulator set up is a bit more sophisticated than most. I have a yoke with trim wheel, push pull throttle, and rudder pedals with toe brakes. Control forces are representative although there is no force feedback. The hardware investment (beyond the computer and software) only represents a couple hours of real flying time.

I remembered how poorly I flew in September and decided it would be a good idea to take an instructor along for my first flight in nearly half a year. It was a quick lunch time currency hop. I did a steep turn, a bit ragged but, it would have gotten me through a checkride. I was pushing right along on base leg as we have a new engine and are trying to keep power settings high. The tower called for short approach. Great set up for my first landing in five months, fast 45 degree short approach with 40 degree flaps and a jet nibbling at the trim tab. I could have made that landing on a large egg. The next two were also good and, unlike in September when I was all over the pattern, I was keeping it right on the line.

Now, we all have our good days and bad days but, my flying was better than it was on Labor Day. It was as good as many days when I was flying nearly every week. I don't think that I could have had a day this good after five months off without the simulator. Just buzzing around looking at cyber scenery would not have done it, however. My plane development has caused me to do my cyber flying in a very rigorous way with close attention to attitude and performance. That is the key to simulator use.

Perhaps in a society where the populace now has a myopia rate of 40% (kinda makes the notion of "normal vision" a little tenuous, doesn't it?), the medical practitioners could start seriously looking for real causes of this "condition" and thinking in terms of early therapy/prevention instead of relying on a somewhat risky (but very lucrative) surgical procedure?

I'm a 44-year-old aerospace engineer with 20 bazillion (+8.25 diopter) correction, starting out at (shock) 8 years old. (Always about the same age, right?) Lots of reading, close-up TV in the early '60s, early glasses. Watched in wonder as the low achievers in my classes went off to flight school where they had them memorize mythology. (What the hell, they were in their 20s by then, vision was stable, have them read something for once, right? Even if it was wrong.) As I look around my engineering group at work, all overachievers, all I see is ... bad eyes. Even the ones who supposedly have good eyes ... turn out to be wearing contacts. Gee, maybe a connection?

I personally view LASIK as a bridge to a future where refractive conditions are a small artifact in even advanced populations. I'm glad that guys like Leo Bores, Herb Kaufman, Barraquer had the guts to pursue the path of corrective surgery when the establishment types were saying it could never work. (Remember the '70s?) But I would like to know from the opthalmological world, when do you look at causes?

The President's budget proposal has some very disconcerting aspects to it that anyone involved in aviation should be concerned about. This is the second year that the President has proposed that the national system of aviation be funded totally by the Airport and Aviation Trust Fund.

Traditionally, approximately 75% of the FAA's budget was provided by the Aviation Trust Fund while the remaining 25% was provided by the U.S. Treasury General Fund. In FY 1999, the General Fund input dropped to only 15% ($1.455 Million). What this funding mix provides is a national input, a public input, into the aviation system that supports the nation as a whole. If the proposed budget is approved, then the implication is that the national aviation system is of no value to anyone other than the actual user, in other words, only those people who buy plane tickets, aviation fuel, or use air freight will pay for the NATIONAL aviation system. While only the users of aviation will pay the bill, no one can be excluded from its benefits or using its assets often times without paying for these assets.

The development of the national aviation system has provided opportunities to all facets of the economy. Virtually no one in the country is denied access to this system. While there are areas that don't have regular air service, there is probably nowhere that does not have overnight air service of mail and packages. For those who do not think that this is an advantage, think of the midwestern farmer whose equipment breaks down at a critical point in the harvest and the local parts supplier doesn't have the required part. The supplier can reorder the part and have it shipped overnight, getting the farmer back up and running the next day. The tax on the freight waybill will provide the farmer's payment to the aviation trust fund, the value that the farmer would place on being back in business is much greater.

I was caught squinting in the second grade, and my glasses got progressively thicker through my teen years until they were actually 1/2-inch thick. I went to contacts in my late 20s and watched with anticipation the developments in refractive surgery.

RK seemed to be the trick, and I went through two screenings and was ready to pay my money, which one of the surgeons was ready to take. The other suggested waiting as RK would most likely leave me 1-2 diopters short. I couldn't picture what that would be like, so my eye doc's assistant gave me a pair of trial contacts that under-corrected my vision by 2 diopters. I waited.

LASIK has been a godsend to me. I now am what I call a "squint 20/20" -- I get enough of the letters right to pass the FAAs 1st class eye check. Good solid 20/25. The hardest problem I had was for so many years I could see from my nose out to about 5 inches before the blur set in. Suddenly, it was reversed with very mild farsightedness. I may end up needing dime store reading glasses like almost everyone.

But the important thing to consider is that I went from a person who could not function without glasses to darn close to perfect. Even if I had been able to just get rid of the glasses except to drive at night, for example, it would still have been a wonderful improvement.

While I'm sure there have been some bad experiences with refractive surgeries, it is my opinion that LASIK is outstanding. Sure, there was some star effect at first, but there was with glasses and contacts, too.

An interesting side note -- my night vision is MUCH improved. Before I could see the nav lights on a plane but could hardly ever make out the colors. Now the colors are crisp and sharp.

There is certainly no shortage of ads hyping corrective surgery, and now more less-experienced surgeons are performing the procedures. But everything I read said the procedure would reduce or eliminate my dependence on glasses. That it did. Perhaps some people are expecting too much.

By the way I was originally licensed in Feb 1939 as a private pilot. Keep up the good work you are doing for aviation. Regards,

I even sent a suggestion to Globalstar (Iridium's primary competitor, which is now coming on-line) that they should not ignore the market. Globalstar's costs are similar or slightly lower, so hopefully there will be a "SatTalk" adapter for their phones.

However, I have one small correction to Carl Marbach's article. Iridium's atomic number is 77, not 66. Motorola originally chose the name because the planned satellite constellation had 77 satellites. They scaled it back to 66 before deployment to reduce costs.

The last time I tried for the Air Force came unexpectedly. I had finally given up on my dream and mostly come to terms with the fact that I would never get to fly (as NASA requires) "high performance jet aircraft." I was working at FlightSafety where we trained some ANG pilots in the C-26(basically a Metroliner), but most of these pilots flew F-16s also. Almost all of them had glasses. In fact, one told me the USAF preferred or required(unsure which) contacts with the helmet because glasses would get in the way. He encouraged me to get a waiver.

As the process evolved and I changed my venue from the Air National Guard to active duty Air Force, I once again renewed my effort with my eye doctor to get my vision down with more Ortho-K. I had had it done in college successfully form 20/800 down to 20/80 but hadn't continued it. Being poor after graduation, I had kept the same lenses ("retainer lenses") too long and they had actually deformed my eyes. At the same time that the Air Force was doubling their classes (at least in Del Rio), I was being told about a new surgery that my doctor was being trained for in Canada. Here's the kicker. He assured me that the surgery (actually PRK at the time) corrected more of the cornea than the military even looked at and "there is no way they'll find it." I was hooked even though I had reservations. I even asked my father if he would loan me the money (2K per eye). The problem I have, as I look back, is that I could have easily been sucked in to my momentary lapse of reason and denial of my instincts had my father not denied my request. Ultimately I also found out that the Air Force DOES ask the question about eye surgery, and I did not want to lie on THAT form.

The ironic part is that as I became educated about the surgery over the years I have advocated it to people because I think the procedure is much less risky than having a doctor cut in to your cornea 80+% with a scalpel and weaken it. However, I have preached that, for a pilot, it doesn't matter how good it is if the military won't touch you or the airlines find a way to turn you down.

I would hope that every young person could get the information about the reality of their chances with the military or the airlines before they make a mistake like having surgery that will disqualify them more easily than glasses and possibly cause greater problems.

On another topic, I have heard of an unofficial waiver limit in the Air Force of 20/70 (that I missed at 20/80) that kept a 2000 hour flight instructor with a degree in Aero Science out of the military at a time when they were screaming for more pilots. Maybe if NASA won't change, the Air Force will. Since they already admit contacts are not a problem, shouldn't they just raise all the other requirements to weed candidates out? Sounds like you would be the guy to get it changed if anyone can.

Why did we not hear more details about the Payne Stewart tragedy? Were the pilots strapped in their seats? Was the oxygen container empty ... full ... functioning? Was the system in the on position or off?

In the NTSB pictures of the stab-trim jack-screw, notice the cable/wire wound around the shaft. It's obviously a pre-impact condition, as part of the cable is 'crushed' from being caught in the jack-screw mechanism for some period of time.

Notice that as obvious as this is, the NTSB is glossing over the issue. It's too obvious to ignore.

Possibly, one of the control cables from a broken/slipped pulley got caught in the stab-trim jack-screw and the trim actuation was inadvertently killing them. It's obvious that the rotating jack-screw shaft was 'gathering' the cable/wire as it was operated.

The primary question is, "Where did the cable/wire come from?"

It appears to be pretty small diameter cable/wire, but that's not to say it's not primary control cable to the control tab actuator pulley, which induces the motion of the elevator.

It's possible, that the cable 'gathering' broke the stabilizer, either through direct contact or by inducing excessive slipstream air loads on the affected stabilizer(s).

If these assumptions are correct, the disparity in angle between the stabilizer and elevator would trip off the autopilot. Hence, there may be a mysterious autopilot history 'they' will admit to.

If this was a chronic problem, the after-takeoff stab trim would have been immediately adjusted (manually -- by the flying pilot) to compensate for essentially an induced error in the stab trim, as a result of the ongoing mechanical failure.

Assuming a chronic (progressively worsening) problem, there might also be a recent history of hard landings due to the lack of aft elevator (nose-up) authority. If so, it would have had a gossip history as a minimum, particularly among the flight attendants & possibly passenger memories.

The haunting question, "Why did the pilots continue past LAX?" The answer is in the fact that a corporate culture very often dictates behaviors beyond normal safe/legal bounds in many safety/regulatory matters, especially if it is known that the FAA is indifferent.

The company has an outstanding CRM course; nullified by an entirely different cockpit culture. Those aboard AS261 didn't have to die.

Lack of CRM was also a primary cause of the AA-1420 crash. The preliminary NTSB presentation of AA-1420 (NTSB.gov) shows an exhausted captain off course, off glide path, off speed and the copilot never asserted any corrections -- no CRM.

As with the crew fatigue issue, the FAA doesn't care.

Please keep this anonymous.

I am a retired airline pilot with some engineering and test experience. Although I did not fly the DC-9 or MD-80s, I have some knowledge of the workings of the horizontal stabilizer.

The recent crash of Alaskan Airlines MD-80 in the Pacific Ocean off Los Angeles was predicted many years ago. Northwest Airlines lost a B-707 in the Florida everglades in the 1960s. The stabilizer jackscrew ballnut assembly was found at the extreme airplane nose down position -- a position the pilots could not have placed in. The only way it could have moved to this position was from aerodynamic loads in conjunction with a brake failure. Although the probable cause was said to be "High altitude turbulent upset", both Northwest and Boeing were assessed punitive damages. Other airplanes have been lost, I suspect, caused by failure of the stabilizer jackscrew brake. A B-727 crashed into a mountain outside Tokyo -- the ballnut assembly was found in the same position.

In order to understand the problem, it is first necessary to realize that the horizontal stabilizer in all airliners always carries a negative lift -- it holds the tail down. The twisting force around the pivot point is always trying to drive the stabilizer nose down -- that’s airplane nose down. The degree of negative lift is controlled by the pilots. This is the design method used to satisfy certification requirements of the static stability test. The ballnut assembly attached to the nose of the stabilizer slides up and down the jackscrew. It is so well designed, a brake must be used to prevent unwanted movement under normal aerodynamic loads. The DC-8, with a hydraulic drive, was the only airplane I was exposed to that did not require a brake.

I made in-flight tests on every B-727 owned by Eastern Airlines, and found three in which the brake was not operating properly. Maintenance was unable to correct the problem since it could not be duplicated on the ground.

On the MD-80 and many other airplanes, in normal operation, the failure of this brake will produce slow movement of the stabilizer to the airplane nose down direction. Pulling back on the yoke will deflect the elevators in the direction that will only increase the loads that are driving the stabilizer. The stabilizer electric motor is not strong enough to overcome the induced aerodynamic loads and the dive will be accelerated. To use the trim motor it is necessary to release all back pressure -- which might be very difficult, if you are headed for the ground. This might account for the Egypt Air 757 in which, during the dive, one pilot was pushing forward and the other was pulling back. Also, if it was the co-pilot that was pulling back, he wasn’t trying to commit suicide.

My attempts to have pilots trained to handle a stabilizer jackscrew brake failure were in vain.

I have been reading Mike Busch's reviews on AVweb with interest and have observed that what turns out to be a good idea ends up being installed on your airplane: e.g., Gamijectors, Sandel EHSI, vortex generators.

I'm 27, in generally good health except for a bout with kidney stones a year ago with no recurrences (and the usual advice from the urologist to drink lots of water) I had never had them before either.

In your article "AMERICA WEST WARNED TO SHAPE UP" AVweb 6.06a, you couldn't be more in error. When you wrote...

...you missed the point entirely. Their "AWA" local POI [FAA Principal Operations Inspector --ed] has been trying for years to get AWA management to do what they and all airlines are always required and supposed to do, maintain their aircraft.

Management at AWA has done anything but, that's how the FAA was finally able to level a $5,000,000 million dollar fine against them. Remember that! Unfortunately the profits are so high now at AWA that management thinks they are doing an excellent job, combine that with the fact that Washington dropped the other half of their $2.5 million fine and you have a situation where an airlines management believes it is above the authority of the FAA itself.

The present management at AWA has little if no regard for aircraft maintenance, in fact their local POI has actually had to "required" them to increase the maintenance staffing level. This is a very uncommon occurrence to say the least. I could go on, but I hope you see my point.

You should have seen the eyes bulge and jaws drop when they announced it was time to start the contest. At once, about 18 couples stood up and dropped their winter coats for all the world to see. (Flesh is a rare sight in New York in February.) No one worried about their winter rags being stolen either, as it seemed every security guard, ticket agent and skycap in the terminal felt it their personal responsibility to make sure everything was safe and secure in the contest area.

Our friends thought we were crazy. Well, thanks to AVweb, we'll be getting plenty of therapy at 85 degrees Fahrenheit and 21:27:00N 71:09:00W.

Thank you AVweb!!! And when we were asked how we heard about the contest, we told 'em it was you!

I certainly hope that this is not the case. I, like many Southwestern U.S. pilots, have enjoyed flying into Mexico over the years as a tourist. I also flew in Mexico officially as the U.S. Naval Attaché piloting a military King Air 200 stationed with the U.S. Embassy in Mexico. I know that in those days, our State Department had a policy of reciprocation, and if Mexico is charging GA aircraft exorbitant landing, parking, and filing fees, our government should do the same to the Mexican aviators.

I also solicit any feedback from other GA pilots out there who have recent experience flying into Mexico to confirm or deny the imposition of heavy fees by the Mexican government.

We build the EGC turn coordinators for Cessna and are very proud of our product and its quality. The Cessna model has several major improvements including a true rotor speed sensor for the warning flag. This is a feature normally found on instruments costing four to five times as much. I would like to hear from anyone who is unsatisfied with our product. We take quality and satisfaction seriously. Please let me know what your experience has been. Is this a valid issue or just a clever lead to talk about their cup holders?

I've been an AVweb reader for some time now, and have mostly "blown off" the many mentions of "Scary Mary" Schiavo and her antics. I noted with mild interest some of the back-and-forth in the AVweb letters to the editor section regarding AVweb's attitude toward Ms. Schiavo.

It was all mildly amusing to me until I got into a conversation with some co-workers regarding the Alaska Airlines crash. The group involved included several engineers, but no other pilots. I was asked by a co-worker to explain what "runaway trim" meant and what I thought the problem might be. As best I could, I explained what trimming an airplane involved, and went on to say that it was far too soon for anyone to have any idea of what might have caused the accident.

At this point, a co-worker who I have always regarded as intelligent waded in with this statement: "They know what the problem is. They were using unapproved, counterfeit parts on the airplane! They had a woman on TV, and she knew all about it!"

I was absolutely stunned. A little bit of questioning elicited the answer that yes, it was "Scary Mary" that my co-worker had seen on TV. And there was an underlying assumption that because the TV "talking heads" put her before the cameras and no one directly contradicted her words, what she was saying must have some core of truthfulness to it.

So now I will wade into the "Scary Mary" fray. Maybe we AVweb readers are just a little bit too well informed and take it for granted that reasonable, intelligent people will not assume Ms. Schiavo has a level of expertise that she does not possess. Well, for the whole rest of the non-aviation world, the mere fact that she gets airtime gives her credibility. "Why are they putting her on the air if she isn't an expert?" was the question I was asked.

This, in a nutshell, is the problem. The news media need "sound bites." That the sound bites they get aren't valid and aren't delivered by someone with a credible level of expertise doesn't matter. While knowledgeable, ethical aviation experts refuse to speculate on causes of an accident that happened just 48 hours earlier, Mary Schiavo is ready to jump in and deliver the requisite goods. And the non-aviation public, which has no way of evaluating her credentials, assumes that she wouldn't be on TV unless what she was saying was valid.

My name is Joe Marszal and I am a insulin-dependant diabetic in excellent control. I have been using a Infusion Pump from Mini-Med for the past 5 years. I have had my Pvt/nstrument for about five years, but actually started my flying in May 1970. I am now 46.

Now why I am writing this and it is the condensed version..

1. Lost my medical at FAA class three med 15 years ago due to discovering my diabetic condition.

2. Did not fly for 11 years due to no medical. I did get it back for a brief time, but I decided t give it back because I was not in "control" with my condition.

3. I stayed a member of AOPA all that time, but did not fly.

4. I followed the trials the FAA did with controllers that where diabetic and kept in touch with the medical arm of AOPA for additional information.

5. Read about five years ago the FAA relaxed the requirements for diabetics that are insulin-dependent and it didn't matter if you were on the pump.

6. I spent one and half years pulling the information together the FAA wanted to evaluate my condition and requested the special issuance. (I did came to be on a fist name basis with people in Washington and Oklahoma trying to figure out EXACTLY what the FAA wanted.)

7. I collate the information for my first waiver and it takes 26 weeks before I hear that I have been granted the waiver. Yes I was in tears over that one.

8. Keep in mind the FAA doesn't start the waiver at the time you get it...no way! It starts from the time you went to the AME.

9. I get my Instrument rating and become a "Flying Fool". Any chance to fly and any reason is good to go.

10. I am current and just received my fifth waiver from the FAA!

I want to tell people that have disqualifying conditions that there is hope and here is what I have done and it seems to work just fine. Over the last five years, my time to receive the medicals has been shortened each time ... from an all-time high of 28 weeks to less than two weeks ... now read that carefully, I said less than two weeks! What you need to do is the following:

1. Keep complete, clear and up-to-date records of your condition.

2. Make sure you are following the guidelines the FAA set out for your particular condition.

3. Do not and I repeat, do not miss your appointments with the doctors. And be consistent with the times of year you see them

4. Put all your records in a logical, by date order and if the FAA sends you a letter outlining what information they want, give it all to them and put it in the order the letter asks for it.

5. Do not send originals, send copies and make a set of three.

6. The set of three, build into a book at a standard letter size (8.5" x 11").

7. Build a cover with your name and the PI number you will receive from the FAA, under that put a letter asking for the waiver and all pertinent regulation titles numbers from the regulations book.

8. Follow that by the letter from the FAA and all the documentation they have requested.

9. Go to your local Office Depot and GBC bind the pages, this is the plastic spiral binding system. It is cheap and it works.

I can remember a time ten or so years ago when I would fly down on a Friday night with family or business associates to Bader and the pattern would be full of landing aircraft. A time when there were so much traffic at Bader that the local cab companies monitored the Unicom frequency and by the time you landed and tied down there was a cab waiting to take you to the Casinos. I and other pilots from the area would fly down two to three times a month. It was a great place to bring clients.

Have you seen Bader lately? The conditions are terrible! Aside from the AOPA Convention last year I have not been down there since.

Maybe it's time to bring this to the streets so to speak. When the FAA was putting forth the Twin Cessna exhaust ad, AOPA mailed a notice to every registered twin Cessna owner. How about a mailing to every NJ pilot or for that matter the surrounding area pilots. How about organizing a fly in to Bader or ACY with an invitation to Mr. Trump and the other casino owners to enlighten them as to how much money they are losing. How about an invitation to the press to show them about the abuses of the local government. And why not invite Ms. Garvey to let her hear it directly from the membership?

This need not be a fight of one. There is strength in numbers.

As far as I'm concerned, it paid for itself yesterday. I went out flying yesterday with a student in Squadron 2's mellow old C-170B. The student hadn't flown the airplane in a number of months so we began by going down southwest of South County for some airwork. We did a number of steep turns, some slow flight, and just one or two stalls when the student said he was starting to feel slightly nauseous would like to do something a little more sedate. I suggested that we just head on over to South County for some pattern work and he agreed, wiping a little sweat from his brow. Nausea, hmmmm... I looked down at the CO gadget for the first time in quite a while. I'd been very actively scanning for traffic during our steep turns and such. Yikes! 80 PPM! Not enough to be immediately lethal, but not good either.

I would have turned off the heater at that point but we had already discovered that the heater was on full-blast and could not be turned off with the panel control. To compensate, we already had the overhead air vents open almost all the way. We opened the windows and I told my student to do a full stop so I could put my jacket on. (OAT was around 50F.) With the windows open, the CO concentration went back to 0 within a few minutes. We flew around the patch six or eight times with the windows open before heading back to SJC. On the way back, as an experiment, we closed the windows and air vents and watched the CO meter. It only took two or three minutes before it started to show increasing readings. When it got up to 100 PPM, the vents and windows got re-opened and stayed open until the airplane was secured after our flight.

I repeat that I urge all of you to read Mike Busch's article at the above URL at the very least.

Wishing you all blue skies, tailwinds, and CO-free cockpits!

First, let me answer Mr. Vila's question: "Does AOPA only go after those airport closures that it things it can win?" The answer is no! Four years ago, we worked with pilots at a small airport in Fall River, Mass., to preserve that facility. It's closed and now serves as a landfill. We attempted to keep Robert Mueller Airport in Austin, Tex., open for general aviation. It's closed and GA facilities at the new Bergstrom Airport are non-existent. Then there was Austin Executive, with 200 based aircraft. It's now an office building for Dell Computer Company! That's just three, but there are more. We always attempt to "do the right thing" for our members -- keep the airport open. Many we win, but there are some we don't win.

Now let's turn to Bader Field. AOPA has worked diligently to keep this airport open. When Mayor Whelan was tearing up tie downs four years ago, Phil Boyer called the FAA Administrator and requested the agency's intervention. The demolition stopped. When Whelan built his minor league stadium, we again went to FAA. The effect was a memorandum of understanding between FAA, the state of New Jersey, and City of Atlantic City to keep the airport open through the expiration of FAA Grant Assurances in 2006. AOPA has pressed both FAA and New Jersey to enforce terms of this agreement. During last October's AOPA EXPO, AOPA and the city exchanged harsh words on the condition of Bader -- front page news in the local newspaper. Phil lobbied FAA Administrator Garvey during her visit to EXPO on keeping Bader open. Following the press conference several weeks ago between Lautenberg and Whelan, we told FAA we were opposed to any action to allow the city to close Bader. We've worked with the Atlantic City Casino Commission as well in an attempt to bring political pressure to bear through economic development and tourism arguments.

Two years ago, Lautenberg attempted to include special legislation during FAA reauthorization that would have allowed Bader's closure. We defeated his initiative in conference committee thanks to the assistance of Congressman Wolf.

I wouldn't call this level of activity "rolling over." The city has not taken so much as one dollar of airport improvement money in the last 15 years. It's true the state put in roughly $600,000 about five years ago, but they did so without Atlantic City requests or agreement -- rather the state wanted to spruce the airport up before AOPA Expo in 95.

One thing Mr. Vila has absolutely correct is that New Jersey pilots need to let both Senator Lautenberg and Mayor Whelan know how they feel and that they oppose the actions of these two politicians! The lack of advocacy for airports by the state of New Jersey is coming right from the top -- the Governor. If you are a resident of New Jersey, I hope you will call, and encourage all your fellow pilots to call the Governor's office and express your point of view.

If you wish to discuss this or any other issue concerning general aviation airports, please do not hesitate to call my office at 301-695-2205.

Has anyone collected data on whether forced landings are possible at night after a total engine failure? What are the chances of surviving an off-airport, night landing where you can not see the ground clearly until the last 10-15 seconds or so (from the landing light)?

Any safety tips from pilots at AVweb who routinely fly at night in singles?

While most of us that receive these kind of "offers" will eventually understand the scam, there are many thousands that will not, and pursue this impossible "get-rich-fast" offer. In the past years, several people died and suffered major financial losses due to this scam, which presents itself under different shapes and forms, but using the same procedure, indeed.

The scam is called the "4-1-9 scam" (from the relevant section of Nigerian penal code). The only way to stop the scam is information. Please provide on your site, or news, the link to the United States Secret Service page which contains precious information about the scam, and also phone and fax numbers that can be used to contact a USSS agent and report any letter, or worse, losses.

In addition to the fatigue from long hours of flying and adverse weather, I recall that their fuel status was becoming critical and that sufficient fuel and reserves to reach their alternate airport was questionable.

I think the NTSB's recent television "event" with descriptions of witness statements, tape reads, center/rapcon verbals was totally out of bounds.

All of that information should have been held for release AFTER the investigation was complete.

Let's see if the next one (incident?) is covered by the NTSB as well... Why not the Cirrus? Why not the Robinsons? Why the heck not the military?

Sorry,

I am a licensed private pilot, a frequent passenger on commercial carriers, a physicist and engineer who has spent years in close working relationships with military pilots and aircraft, and certain parts of the FAA structure. It is axiomatic that commercial flying should be a mandatory zero-defect activity on the part of all who are involved, starting with quality control by the manufacturer. Clearly it has not been, and continues to fall far short. Few, if any of the major commercial catastrophes in the past several years can be fairly characterized as "acts of God," i.e. they all could have been prevented. Is it asking too much to strive for this goal? Hardly.

Given that the population of the U.S. was pretty big when Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic and most of their predecendents came from Europe and going round the long way via Asia and the Pacific was not a popular option, I suggest the figure may be closer to several million rather than 66.

Thanks to AVweb for your enlightening coverage of the collision between an F-15 Eagle and a Chevy.  Your story indicates the use of a cellular telephone played a role in this accident.

Actually windows 3.1 would be way too new for what we are using today. Our ARTCC software probably predates DOS version 1.0. <g> The stuff that we are using today was coded in JOVIAL and BAL. Rather old stuff...

We were supposed to have two more phases in the HOCSR (HOST Oceanic Computer System Replacement). Phase one is done with all the new computers. Phase two was going to go in and replace the existing software that makes the new computers emulate the old computers so that it will run the software. Then phase three was going to replace all the peripherals like printers, hard drives, tape drives etc... The actual replacement of the existing NAS software was something else further down the road since that was going to be REALLY expensive...

Without doing this though, we can't make any of the advancements that are required to help the controllers be more efficient in what they do...

I am suggesting that pattern altitudes be published on approach plates, for the convenience and safety of IFR and VFR pilots. It seems that most often even IFR flights actually terminate visually and often the flight is asked to fly part of the pattern. Since the only place you can find pattern altitudes (and pattern direction -- if there is no tower in operation) is in a book, wouldn't it be useful and convenient to have that info on the approach plate?

The other part of the suggestion is to consider influencing VFR training to include use of approach plates for VFR flights. This can, and I believe should, be done independently of whether pattern altitudes are ever included on approach plates.

The way this relates to runway incursions is that having a chart of the airport itself at hand seems to be part of the solution to that problem. Having a chart is a good way to start knowing where you are and knowing where you are is a good way to help get to where you need to be (and, follow the proper path to that destination). And, having the pattern altitudes on the plates (though, seems to me, valuable for IFR also) is a way of saying to VFR pilots, that these plates are for VFR as well.

I am not instrument-rated, but I buy, carry, and use instrument approach plates. I would not require VFR pilots to carry the plates by regulation. AOPA is making available on the Web airport diagrams to help with this issue. My approach is a little different. What do you think?

Low-level training routes are absolutely critical to the combat training requirements of the Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Allied Air Forces which use them. These routes provide the experience required to survive in combat and achieve target objectives, in other words they represent life and death for modern combat aircrews. The military in recent years has attempted to address the various issues raised by differing interest groups regarding Special-Use Airspace while maintaining its ability to meet combat training requirements. My experience is that not everyone is satisfied with the final compromise which results in the regulations and usage of SUA.

I take offense to your statement about running Windows 3.1 on a Pentium III/800. 'cause I do. Old software is not bloated sopware, but better-coded since there was not the space nor the speed to run extraneous instructions. W3.1 runs like scared rabbit, as do several "old" software programs because they are lean and don't have every useless feature known to mankind.

I did most of my flight training in the high desert of California at an airport virtually surrounded by Restricted Areas and with Olive Branch (a.k.a. "oil burner") routes criss-crossing everywhere and never had a problem. I lived in the area for almost 20 years and never found the military training flights objectionable.

The biggest problem with these routes from the pilot's point of view is that current information is too hard to come by. There needs to be better depiction on VFR charts and the status of the areas and routes should be broadcast more. At the present time you don't find out what's hot and what's not unless you specifically ask which is what makes it riskier for transient pilots. The locals know what to ask for.

I just wanted to give AVweb a pat on the back for the paragraph titled "The Media Pounces Again" in the February 3, 2000 edition. You hit the nail on the head and I agree 100%!

It is too bad that Dateline can't tell their viewers how safe airline travel really is. I guess "Terror in the Skies" draws more viewers than "Airline Safety."

It's funny, because I work for Alaska's sister company, Horizon Air, and I have never seen a 747 with Alaska colors!

I recently purchased a ReliefBand from AeroMedix and as I was re-reading the article on its use on AVweb, I had a couple of questions.

In the article, reference is made to the fact that (at least to some extent) military and aerobatic student pilots see to acclimate to the sensory confusion thought to lead to motion sickness. Does anyone have any experience (or even educated guesses) as to whether wearing the ReliefBand during ones initial exposure to these activities prevents this acclimation? And does one's acclimation "wear off" with extended non-exposure to the offending activities?

The January 27 issue of AVweb News contained a short item on how Atlantic City is once again attempting to close Bader Field. To date I have not seen a single comment in the AVmail section regarding this issue.

I am appalled!!!!! Is it only when an issue affects our pocket books that we get involved. When the FAA recently tried to put forth the exhaust AD for twin Cessnas (of which I am an owner), everyone jumped up and down and made a stink. Not only is nothing being done about Bader Field, but AOPA -- who supposedly has a department to address such issues -- seems to be just rolling over and letting it go by. Does AOPA only go after those airports closures that it thinks it can win?

Has anybody heard of misappropriation of funds? What happened to the $6.4 million that we the taxpayers gave Atlantic City for airport improvements at Bader for the past few years? And now Atlantic City has offered to make improvements to Woodbine Municipal Airport in Cape May County in exchange for permission to close Bader. Since when did the closing of airports become a trading game for local governments? Am I the only one that thinks that Mayor James Whelan and Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) are the biggest liars and con artists?