Coastal Fliers: June 2002 Newsletter

This month's general meeting will be the annual meeting and we need everyone that can attend to be there. If you cannot attend the meeting, please send your signed proxy to our Treasurer, Terry Paik, or with someone who you would like to cast your ballet for you. If you end up coming to the meeting you can take back your proxy, and vote in person. We need a quorum of the members to make the vote legal under our bylaws. We currently have seven people running for the board. However, as always, we will open the floor for additional nominations before the vote. I hope to see you Thursday the 13th.

We will also be having our quarterly washday this month. Please come on out to help wash the planes on Saturday the 15th. As always, we will have a few people there early to start washing the planes, and then additional volunteers to help vacuum, wax and detail the aircraft. See you there!

We still have a few of the Dakota Pilot Operating Handbooks. For the meager price of $12.00 you can own one yourself. If you fly the Dakota or think you ever will, you won't ever be able to beat this price. They normally go for more than twice as much and when they're gone, they're gone.

I would like to thank Terry for doing all the work with the bank to refinance the Dakota. We reduced the interest rate from 10.25% to less than 7% cutting out monthly payments in half. THANKS TERRY!

The trip to Calexico was weathered out this time. Hopefully, we will reschedule it for a later date. However, we did go out to breakfast together, and discussed some ideas for future trips. We're always receptive to new trip ideas. Watch this space for news of future CFI trips.

June Meeting

Annual Meeting
Election of Board Members
Thursday, June 13th

At Gillespie Field
Administration Building
Time: 7:30 p.m.

Quarterly Wash Day
Saturday, June 15th

At Gillespie Field
Royal Jet Ramp
Time: 7:00 - 11:30 a.m.

See you there!

In mid-march, I decided I would fly to Houston and visit my son at the end of April. I knew from watching the weather channel that a cold front frequently extends across the central United States and that thunderstorms and turbulence were common along the route I had chosen. In watching the weather channel, I could see every three or four days a period of relative quiescence as a cold front blew eastward out of Texas. This brief hiatus would allow a San Diego to Houston flight.

I ordered my instrument plates and VFR charts from Jeppeson and then started checking the two week and five day weather forecast on CNN. Wednesday the 24th appeared to be a good day to depart. On the 23rd, CNN reported a cold front moving out of Eastern Texas with another front approaching from the north which would pass across Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle at the approximate time of my departure.

On the evening of Tuesday the 23rd, flight service said that the cold front from the north might be generating weather in Texas by mid-afternoon on Wednesday the 24th, the day I intended to travel. For this reason, I decided to leave before 5 o'clock in the morning. I loaded 2904K with most of my baggage, my oxygen bottle , and charts on the night of the 23rd. I had already pre-programmed the GPS for the trip. The last thing I did before departing at 5 o'clock the next morning was to wash my hands with a bottle of water I had in the car in order to eat a sandwich for breakfast in the airplane.

Shortly after I took off and opened my flight plan with 122.4, I could see the sun starting to rise in the east. I slowly climbed to 15,500 feet over the next 80 miles, turned on my bottle of oxygen which I had never used before, and called 122.0 for the weather report in El Paso. I had no idea how quickly that second cold front in northern Texas could move south but wanted to know if I would at least be able to complete half of my trip to Houston in the next four hours. At 15,500 feet, 2904K initially flew at around 134 knots, but as tail winds picked up, speed gradually increased to over 155. Because at that altitude, the plane can only produce 55% of peak power, I was able to lean to peak EGT.

On landing in El Paso, (my first and only stop) I was surprised to find that the fuel burn had been only 10.5 gallons per hour as contrasted with the usual 13-13.5 expected from 2904K. This is almost exactly what the POH says it should be at 55% power and 15,000 feet. My new weather briefing on the ground at West Texas airport just outside of El Paso indicated VFR conditions for the entire flight with scattered to broken clouds over Houston. There was a threat of late evening thunderstorms after 2400Z or 1900 Houston time. Around 1630, I arrived in Houston airspace and encountered the first adverse weather problem. The scattered to broken cloud layer between 3000 and 4000 feet was mostly broken with visibility beneath the clouds 5 - 7 miles. As I descended to the shelf of clouds, I had some difficulty finding the FBO I had called in advance. After taxing to their tiedown area, I was pleasantly surprised to find they had a hanger which could be used in the case of hailstones. They charged only $10 a night and waived the first night for a tank of fuel. The secretary at the FBO had already obtained my Enterprise rental car. It was very easy to simply unload 2904K, lock the doors, and apply the canopy cover.

A portion of the cold front which was now petering out arrived the next morning and produced some light showers. The front had moved slower than predicted. I had had enough time to scoot across south Texas even if the front had arrived on time. If the front had come earlier than predicted (as cold fronts can), I might have been staying in a motel in El Paso.

I belong to the Plus One Flyers and San Diego Flying Club in addition to our wonderful club. San Diego Flying Club (SDFC) is similar to our excellent organization in which members purchase "shares" and are considered part owners in the assets/airplanes.

SDFC has 38 members and two CFI's. SDFC has an A36, C-210, C-182, and they just bought a new Cirrus SR20. Dan, is the other CFI besides me and he is a pilot for Skywest just like our own Carey Peterson. Dan's schedule would not allow him to go through the 3 day factory training required by Cirrus, so I was elected to travel to Duluth, MN and undergo training and a checkout in the 2002 SR20, then fly our new hotrod back to MYF. Tough break, huh?

It was a great adventure! I flew commercial to Minnesota on 05-01-02. Day One consisted of the expected paperwork and the "acceptance flight", where I confirmed that all systems worked as they should, and all squawks were corrected. Everything worked well, except the HSI had trouble slaving to the remote compass, and the baggage compartment door needed adjustment. Cirrus replaced the HSI and they addressed a few other squawks. Then the weather turned foul when blowing snow began to fall. We went over ground school and lesson plans for the remainder of the first day. Day Two was fun and hard work. Dan arrived and sat in back while I flew left seat and was put through the paces by the Cirrus CFI. He told me he was going to hold me to PTS standards of my highest certificate/rating. Great! The flight training went well and I caught on quickly to the SR20's needs. The SR20 has a clean and fast airfoil. Laminar flow, composite skin & flush rivets make it a slick airplane.

Our Cirrus, N258CD, has 2 sidesticks, dual Garmin 430 GPSs, an S-Tec 55 autopilot and an ARNAV ICDS 2000 MFD (Multi-Function Display). It's a fantastic avionics package! There's also comfortable seats and plenty of room for passengers in back. Usable fuel is 56 gallons with cruise burn at about 10-12 GPH. The aircraft grosses out at 3000 lbs. with a payload of 897 lbs. To rotate for takeoff and land the pilot just squeezes the joystick back slightly, and the sight picture is quite different on approach to landing. The pilot will think a three point landing is imminent because you don't flare this aircraft - just round out and let the runway come up to you. A flare will get you into trouble fast.

The flight back was wonderful! 11.9 hours with three fuel stops and one overnight stay. We departed Duluth enroute to California with the first stop for gas at Pierre, South Dakota, then on to Saratoga (Shively Field), Wyoming. We decided to park there for the night because the sun was setting, headwinds were increasing, we had a new engine with less than 20 hrs. on it, and the Rocky Mountains were ahead. So, we hitched a ride into town from our FBO. We stayed at a dive, however there wasn't much to say for available accommodations.

A good Western-style rib dinner with a few sodas and we were happy. Next morning we were on to Bryce Canyon, Utah. We fueled up there and were then homeward bound. The many new play toys in avionics kept us busy and we're still on a learning curve. We landed at MYF with most of SDFC members present to welcome the SR20 home.

The SR20 proved to be a sweet aircraft. Let me know when you want to go for a ride!

All right, as many of you already know, our group didn't make it to Calexico last month. Despite our plans, the morning weather didn't cooperate and we had low ceilings on the day of the flight. Several of the planes could have pushed on IFR, but the point of the flight was to go as a group. So we formulated a fast Plan Bravo and did a high-speed taxi over to Perry's in El Cajon for a great breakfast!

There are always lessons to take home, though. In this case, I think many of us realized that the May, June, July time frame would frequently have morning stratus to contend with. In addition, it's difficult to schedule all the aircraft for a block of time so we can fly somewhere as a group because the warmer months are very popular for CFI members to schedule the aircraft on weekends - often for multiday trips. So the winter (if you can call it that here) months might be better for planning group flights.

One aspect of the flight that gave me a lot of personal satisfaction was that although I organized the group, I thought it would be a good training experience if one of our more junior pilots actually briefed and led the flight. So I called Sean Cooksy and asked if he would be interested in the job. I told him what was involved and suggested he sleep on it before he gave me an answer.

Now, some pilots may joke that the least experienced pilot flies lead, but those who have flown in a squadron know that isn't true. Flight Lead means much more than flying straight and level. Fox Lima's in charge from preflight to tiedown and everything in between.

Knowing that Sean is an Eagle Scout, I pretty much knew what his answer would be before he even called me back the next day. As I expected, he was eager to accept the challenge and we met at Royal Jet the day before the flight so I could give him a few pointers about the responsibilities he would face. Sean's Dad David came, too. (Probably to make sure I wasn't going to encourage his son to try a snap roll in 46404.) We went through an outline I had prepared and discussed as many of the aspects of flying to Calexico in a group as I could think of.

Early the next morning, all the Calexico flight participants met under gloomy skies. The prospect of getting over the mountains in VFR conditions didn't at all look likely, but at 0830, Flight Lead Sean Cooksy started his briefing with all the members of the flight listening carefully.

Sean meticulously went over existing and forecast weather conditions, preflight and startup procedures. He explained our departure and communications plans. Finally, he assigned formation positions and outlined our flight plan route. When he was done with all that, he concluded that with the current weather, we just wouldn't be able to proceed VFR. Sean's briefing was so thorough that no one had any questions at the end. As a group, we decided it would be more fun to grab some breakfast locally than have one or two of us depart IFR to our destination.

Sean's careful briefing should remind us all that no matter what the weather conditions are, proper flight planning is an extrordinarily important part of the trip. Too often, many of us become complacent in our preflight preparations and despite our familiarity with the aircraft we're flying and the local area, we can easily be caught by surprise when unforeseen conditions arise.

Staying ahead of your airplane requires careful planning each and every time we fly. Sean did a great job of showing the rest of us how it's done even if we didn't get to have breakfast in Calexico. As long as we do everything we can to maximize our flight planning and flight safety, we'll ensure many, many more of those destination breakfasts.

Last year CFI very quickly organized a Fourth of July get together on the Royal Jet ramp that turned out to be a great time. Everyone that was able to attend brought lots of food, we had a barbecue to cook a wide variety of fixins' on and a mess of folding chairs that gave us some of the best seats in the house for watching the fireworks over the racetrack after the sun set. If there's sufficient interest, we could do the same this year! Richard Bartlett-May contributed the idea of an informal spot-landing competition abeam the CFI flightline. We could even go a bit more nuts on the food. And of course, we'd all be able to contribute our best "...there I was flying through the eye of the hurricane" stories. Let's discuss prospects at the June Annual Meeting.

The base at Atsugi had been a Japanese Military field so it had a very good cement runway and ramps. The hangers were still the old Japanese ones, and if the field had been bombed, it had been repaired so it wasn't obvious. But Japan is earthquake country!

One day I was leaning back in a chair reading a letter from my wife. I began to feel some slight rocking motion but I was so concentrated on my letter that at first I didn't pay it much attention. Then the rocking got more severe and I realized we were having an earthquake. I dashed out into the hanger where an R4D was sitting on jacks. The cement under the jacks was undulating and the wings of the plane were going up and down. I headed outside the hanger and couldn't believe what I was seeing. The entire ramp was undulating. The ramp had been laid out with concrete sections about 40 feet square and they were rolling like waves! Strangely enough, the sections didn't separate. They stayed hooked together and the entire ramp moved like huge ocean waves. It lasted about two minutes and then subsided. I went through the 1933 Los Angeles earthquake, and I thought that was big, but this was at least its equal. Strangely, there was no damage to anything! The plane stayed on its jacks, nothing broke, and we were back to normal in a few minutes. I had envisioned the hanger having extensive damage, but there was none.

The one thing I realized was that the Japanese had been living with these earthquakes for centuries. Though all their geology was volcanic, since the entire nation of Japan is on volcanic formed land, they had learned how to build to accommodate the quakes. I was impressed!

On the same base, there was a small arroyo behind the flight line where a golf course was under construction. In the area, there were a bunch of caves that the Japanese had used as bomb shelters. One day while I was on a trip to Korea, the graders struck something. When they finally got it loosed up and could see it, it turned out to a 500-pounder, UNEXPLODED! They got the bomb squad in and defused it, but things were pretty exciting on the base for a while.

As a CFII, my opinion on instrument currency versus instrument competency is that I believe there is limited value in just going out in the local area and practicing six simulated instrument approaches in six months under VFR conditions. Also, in Southern California we rarely get to practice in actual IMC. For these reasons, I consider the PCATD invaluable in maintaining IFR proficiency. It is also about the only reasonable way to keep up-to-date on some of the more technical aspects of flying DME Arcs, GPS approaches, etc. Instrument flying is almost totally mechanical instrument crosscheck, interpretation, and aircraft control. The "feel" of the plane and our own flight sensations must be ignored during actual instrument flight. We must rely totally on the instruments. The PCATD is a good promoter of this concept. It allows a pilot to experience more than most flying does under normal training conditions. It's also cheaper, and in many ways more convenient, than actual flying. While I do not wish to imply that actual flying practice should be reduced, the PCATD simulator can allow any pilot to practice far more than he would in any normal flying situation. I feel recent quality IFR experience is what makes a safe pilot, not "currency". Flying a PCATD dramatically adds to any pilot's ability to handle the real thing safely. It's not a substitute for the actual flight training experience, but for most of us, it is a valuable training aid.

With this in mind, I purchased an ELITE PCATD for my instrument students and those who wish to sharpen their instrument skills. The complete functionality of numerous types of aircraft and their systems has been meticulously replicated. ELITE gives the user complete control over the weather, extensive failure options and real-time FAA navigation data to make the training unbelievably real. PCATDs give pilots a mental edge by providing a safe training environment that is conducive to learning, practicing, and understanding instrument procedures. The PCATD platform is a powerful training tool that helps students practice their instrument thinking skills, i.e. visualizing procedures, situational awareness; scan technique, etc., before getting in the aircraft. Equipped with the training experience from the PCATD, students take to the air better prepared to fly what they have learned. Software includes the C172P, C172R, C182S, Archer III, Arrow IV, Mooney M20J, Bonanza A36, Baron 58 and Seneca III. Some of these Aircraft are equipped with HSI, RMI, and the Apollo GX Series GPS.

This system includes the Elite Yoke, Flight Link Hydraulic Rudder Pedals, ELITE AP-2000 Avionics Panel, ELITE MEL Throttle Quadrant and the ELITE Pro Panel SE Flight Console. It features a full-sized landing gear and flap switches all in one heavy duty flight console.

The ELITE PCATD software meets the requirements of AC61-126 and has been approved by the FAA. 10 hours of flight training is logable towards your instrument rating.

Please contact me for more information and to schedule training on the ELITE PCATD system.

46404: The turn coordinator was serviced and although no problem was found the noise that was apparently being generated has stopped and the unit is working well.

3015U: The wheel pants have been removed from 15U and will remain off until we receive a new spacer for the right side. This part should be in within the next several days.

Please continue to remember to double check the planes after flying and lock the doors before leaving.

The May 2 Board meeting included a discussion of club finances, operations and maintenance. The Board also discussed several other noteworthy issues, including:

04K Loan: Terry Paik has conducted further research contacting Union Bank. They have offered a refinance package of 9.50%; a Home Secured Loan at 8.50%; and a Line Of Credit at 7.05%.

A loan from MBNA is 8.99% for a secured loan for 20 years, 6.99% at 4 points. Terry Paik has offered to co-sign the loan. Each month Coastal Fliers Inc., will pay Terry who will in turn pay MBNA the monthly installment.

Operations: Bob Finnin reported all aircraft are flying well and fully operable. 88E has a cracked wing tip which is being painted and repaired, and a cracked wheel pant that is being repaired also.

The cost to reupholster for 88E is being researched. It's projected to be done when it's painted, in either November or December. We're also looking into doing the seats and carpet side panels depending upon cost.

Calendar: June's General Membership meeting is also the Annual Meeting. Additional candidates for the ballot include Steve Dari, and Richard Bartlett-May. The ballots will reflect name of club members interested in a seat on the Board of Directors, not the position they are to hold. The ballot should instruct members to "circle" the candidate's name they want for President.

As of May 1, we had $18,476 in the bank. A/R balance is $9,446, and we flew 132 hours.

The club continues to move on to more solid financial ground. When Terry returns he will have a more complete financial picture including monthly aircraft usage details to present to the membership.