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Flying with Faber: Queenstown, New Zealand
One of the Most Beautiful Places in the World
By Stuart J. Faber
Part One
Downtown Queenstown. (Stuart J. Faber)For the past 40-plus years, my life as a travel and culinary journalist has taken me to more than 100 countries and every state in the Union. One might assume that I have grown weary and jaded with travel – quite the contrary. Each time I board a plane, be it my own or one operated by a commercial carrier, a wave of excitement overcomes me. As I step off the plane for the first touch of the foreign soil, the excitement intensifies – just as if it were my first time away from home.
It has been more than 30 years since my last visit to New Zealand. Although I have a love affair with many foreign and domestic destinations, I have always cradled a special yearning to return to these South Pacific islands. As soon as I stepped on the tarmac of Queenstown (the airport has no jet ways), I knew why. It seemed as if nothing had changed.
A Brief Analysis of Takeoff Safety Concerning the Proper Decision Making of GO/NO GO
By Ehsan Mirzaee
Introduction: Do more planes crash on takeoffs or landings? This is a challenging question for some people and an easy, clear one for others. According to official statistics, landing phase of a flight is the most dangerous phase, noticing the number of incidents and accidents occurred during this phase. In this final phase of flight, pilots are required to take into consideration more variables in a shorter period of time. They should deal with speed, altitude, pitch corrections, comply with ATC instructions, and at the same, time monitor all other systems and instruments to know if they are working properly.
On the other hand, takeoff is the second most dangerous phase of flight. During the takeoff roll, as the speed of the aircraft is increasing, the pilot is supposed to decide more quickly and react more precisely in case of an emergency.
In this essay, I want to talk about the importance of decision making by pilots during takeoff run in case of an abnormal situation; whether to continue takeoff or to reject it and to discuss the standards according to which pilots must decide GO/NO GO.
An Interview with Bob Leuten
By Michael J. Scully
If there is one word to describe Bob Leuten, it is achiever. Bob Leuten is not a man who has ever been satisfied just waiting for good things to come his way. Bob Leuten gets it done.
A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Bob was a scholarship swimmer at Bowling Green State University where he made the record books more than once. After earning a business degree and completing the ROTC program, Bob was commissioned as an Army 2nd Lieutenant in 1965. Already having reached the highest status in HAM radio, the army applied Bob’s talents in the Signal Corps, both domestically and in Vietnam. Three years later, Bob left the army as a Captain but not before earning an Army Commendation Medal and a Bronze Star for meritorious service.
Editorial: Safety Last: Lies and Cover-Ups Mask Roots of Small Plane Carnage
By Ed Downs
Does that title grab your attention? It should, as it is emblazoned across the USA Today web link to an article written by Thomas Frank (with 11 additional “contributors” listed at the end of the article), an investigative reporter for the print publication, USA Today. The print article was entitled, “Unfit for Flight,” but the web version seeks to grab readers’ attention with a title smacking of yellow journalism, (a type of journalism that presents little or no legitimate well-researched news and instead uses eye-catching headlines and photos to sell more newspapers) complete with a full-color photo of a crashed helicopter engulfed in flames. To be sure, the title, photo and article are designed to incite fear and mistrust of General Aviation by the reading and web-viewing public. Written in six short “installments,” accusations are made that General Aviation is an industry full of large companies that do not care about safety, an FAA that is obscuring the facts, longstanding deficiencies in design that go unchallenged and multiple lawsuits that prove just how dangerous General Aviation is. Now do we have your attention?
Contrails: Oh, The Places You’ll Go
By Steve Weaver
When most pilots consider the hours they have logged in the air, the time usually remains just hours to them. The recorded flights are remembered as a cross-country, as an instrument flight, or as the hour spent learning recovery from unusual attitudes. But as time aloft accumulates, it can also be viewed using other measurements. By the time a student pilot has qualified for his or her private license, he or she has gained a bit of experience and is ready to begin learning to fly the airplane on instruments. He or she has probably spent about a week apart from the surface of the earth. That would be a total of seven 24-hour days spent hanging suspended above the earth or 168 hours total. Later, at the 500-hour milestone, our pilot has been missing from the earth for over two and a half weeks, and on the day he or she logs his or her one thousandth hour, he will have spent a total of more than 41 24-hour days some place other than on the planet where he was born.
Those of us who have flown most of our lives as a profession, rack up a prodigious amount of hours in the air, and the high timers among us have lived aloft literally for years.
Interview: Andy Weir Spins a Riveting Tale of Survival and Space Travel in The Martian
By S. Mark Rhodes
The Martian (Crown) by Andy Weir is the story of a regular guy who happens to be an amazingly resourceful astronaut who is stranded on Mars with limited resources and mainly limited time as his resources are finite, and he finds himself facing certain death if he doesn’t figure out a way to survive and get help from NASA back on earth. The novel, a New York Times Bestseller, told mainly through log entries is one of the most riveting science fiction tales in many years and has created some motion picture buzz. Mr. Weir, a former software engineer, has a talent for technological detail and innovative storytelling, and has built a very appealing character in his stranded astronaut Mark Watney. Mr. Weir was nice enough to correspond via email about his work, the technology of the book, and how he created his tale.
IF USA: What was the origin of the plot behind The Martian?
AW: “I was daydreaming about how a manned mission to Mars would work. I wanted to be as realistic as possible in the mission design. I knew the mission would have to account for problems that could happen, so I started thinking up things that could go wrong. I realized that those problem scenarios would make a cool story, so I made a hapless main character and subjected him to all of them.”
Summer Jam July Promotion
Billy Goat at 12 O’Clock High
By Charlie Briggs
Aviation buffs read a lot of flying stories from pros who write articles on a regular basis. While often entertaining and informative, hearing from professional pilots sometimes lacks the real world experiences of the hundreds of thousands of aircraft owners and flyers who were never professional pilots, but simply lived with an airplane as a permanent family member. Such is the case with Charlie Briggs, a pilot for more than 65 years, having a career that included ranching, agricultural services and consulting, computer technologies and business concept development. In Flight USA invites readers to join Charlie as he reminisces about flying and life. You will experience a side of aviation that is informative, entertaining and personal. Enjoy.
Once upon a time, there came to this earth, a Billy Goat. This was no ordinary goat.
This one was destined to achieve what no other goat on earth had or likely will do. In fact, it couldn’t because the adventure of “Elmer” was the first. Now when you are the first of anything, that’s it. It’s the first. Elmer’s home was a nice roomy pasture lying in the winding river bottom carved out of the flat western Kansas prairie being the “Smoky Hill River.”
In the regular world, Billy Goats are not known as aviators. Well, neither was our pet goat “Elmer.” His “jump” into history was definitely not of his choosing. Just fate. Here is how it happened.
My wife and I were married in December of 1949. In the summer of 1951, we were “selected” to move to Logan County, Kansas to assume the operations of the families’ 25-section ranch and farming project. We left college and really went to “school,” leaving the security of our homestead country and friends to be 25 miles from the nearest town, living in a mobile home, with no phone, portable electric power, and having to haul all our drinking and household water from municipal sources many miles away. Now married for 63 amazing years, I had developed a plan of compromise. It has worked. If my wife wanted something, if I could get it for her, I just did. Well, here the early plot thickens.
Embry-Riddle Worldwide to offer UAS workshop in Seattle, Syracuse in June
Pacific Coast Dream Machines
Returning to the Half Moon Bay Airport for the 24th consecutive year, the Pacific Coast Dream Machines event saw record attendance this year.
By Michael Mainiero
(Michael Mainiero)For those not familiar, the event is a unique grouping of 2,000-plus machines from the 20th and 21st centuries that can fly, drive, putt around or just look cool! Dream Machines is an uncommon event due to the sheer size of the display. The combination of cars, vintage tractors, old military equipment, motorcycles and aircraft provides something for everyone, and there were plenty of attractions for the kids as well! From turbine-powered cars to vintage fighter aircraft, the world’s coolest cars and planes from every era and style drew people from hundreds of miles away. Model-T fire engines, vintage buses, custom motorcycles, tricked out trucks, super sleek streamliners, one-of-a-kind antique engines and tractors were displayed prominently around the airport
Marin Greek Festival
Let's Do Lunch -- Greek Style -- Friday, May 23rd
Food of the Gods - Fruit of the Vine on Friday night, May 23rd
Statement from the Pacific Coast Dream Machines Show
Contrails: The Winter of Our Contentment
By Steve Weaver
Morro Bay, California. (Steve Weaver)’m having the same problem with time that you often hear older people complaining about. It seems to pass faster each year than it did the year before, and about a dozen times faster than it did when I was in school. Then, a school year stretched ahead like a life sentence and once winter arrived it seemed that it probably wouldn’t leave until I had passed away from old age, still seated obediently at my desk.
Now I’m looking at the end of my six-month sojourn in California and in terms of elapsed time, it seems as if I arrived from West Virginia only a month or so ago, and that I should still be settling in for a pleasant winter on the Central Coast.
My Scary Event in Cow Country
By Charlie Briggs
It all started out very routine. The plane was a new model 150 hp, Mooney Mark 20 with less than 100 hours TT. The trip was for buying cattle. The weather was clear and calm. The route was direct from Amarillo, Texas’ Tradewind Airport to a ranch just south of Springer, N.M. on the east slope of the Rockies. Springer is on Highway 56 and approximately 90 miles west of Clayton, N.M. This route was to play a role in this event.
Landing on a smooth, grassy pasture near the ranch headquarters, I was met by the rancher. We spent the day looking at various sets of cattle. As evening drew near, nothing would do but “stay for a steak.” After an evening of exchanging “cow country tales” it was time to get home.
The Smithsonian Book of Air & Space Trivia is a Godsend for the Aviation and Space Travel Buff
By Mark Rhodes
What was the world’s first military airplane? (Smithsonian Air and Space Museum)Serious space history and aviation geeks are not an easy group to stump. However, with The Smithsonian Book of Air & Space Trivia (www.smithsonianbooks.com) there will be ample opportunity for even the most sophisticated and well-read space and aviation buffs to be challenged. This concise but thoroughly researched volume covers a wide range with categories such as pioneers of aviation, commercial flight, aviation and space travel in popular culture, female aviation, military aviation and controversies in aviation history and lore.
What’s Next for Me and My Pilot Certificate? Take it to the Next Level!
By Jerod Flohr
The Great Lakes with the San Francisco skyline in the background. (Max G Aviation)Do you ever find yourself bored with your pilot certificate? Take it to the “next level,” that’s what I always say. But what do I mean?
It has been a couple of years since I’ve written an article for In Flight USA but some of you may remember my articles about chasing and achieving my dreams of being an airshow pilot. If you do not remember the articles, the journey was long and difficult, but with the help of many mentors and friends, paired with a relentless pursuit, I was able to obtain my 500-foot waiver from Wayne Handley and fly airshows – even my hometown show!
I am now one of the founders of Max G Aviation, a new and exciting flight club that focuses only on what I call, “the fun stuff.” I say this because the fun stuff can be a solution to finding the “next level.” This is obviously a generic saying but I find myself saying it most to private pilots who have had a few too many “$100 hamburgers” and are wondering what’s next. The most common response someone gives to these people has to do with pursuing another rating, mainly an instrument rating. I am never one to suggest against someone getting an instrument rating – I highly recommend it even for the pilot who claims they never intend to fly in IMC (for obvious reasons that could be covered in its own article). But the fact of the matter is, people want to know what they can do with the certificate they already hold – and there are all kinds of options! Let’s discuss.
122nd Fighter Wing
The Indiana National Guard 122nd Fighter Wing will replace their current A-10 “Thunderbolts II for the F-16 Fighting Falcon. The Indiana unit will receive 18 F-16s. (Mike Heilman)The Air Force has announced that the 122nd Fighter Wing, Fort Wayne Air National Guard Base was selected to receive 18, F-16, Block 40 Fighting Falcons to replace the A-10C Thunderbolt II aircraft they currently fly and maintain. The Pentagon’s proposed March 4 budget for 2015 includes cutting the A-10, leaving the F-16 as its replacement. The 122nd Fighter Wing previously flew the F-16 at Fort Wayne from 1991 until 2010 when replaced by the A-10C.
Returning to the F-16 allows the 122nd to remain in fighters until the unit can vie for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Col. David Augustine, 122nd Fighter Wing Commander, said, “Our strategic goal remains to bring the JSF to Fort Wayne. Although we’ll hate to see our A-10s depart, this is the right mission at the right time to bridge us to the Joint Strike Fighter! Our rich history in the F-16 will once again return.”
Skies to Stars: Moon Walk
By Ed Downs
To be Sure, this writer is a geek, and nothing churns my mind as much as does the thought to taking a walk on the moon. Well, NASA is now making that possible, or at least nearly so. Many readers may not know that the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has been circling the moon, taking pictures at a rate that even Google would envy. And, as a taxpayer entity, NASA is making these photos available to the general public, at a resolution that can place one nearly on the surface. The following NASA News Release contains the detail of this interactive adventure and we at In Flight USA invite you to take the cross country of a life time and visit our nearest celestial neighbor at http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/gigapan. Enjoy the trip!
NASA Releases First Interactive Mosaic of Lunar North Pole
Spectacular LROC Northern Polar Mosaic (LNPM) allows exploration from 60ªN up to the pole at the astounding pixel scale of two meters. (NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University)Scientists, using cameras aboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), have created the largest high-resolution mosaic of our moon’s north polar region. The six-and-a-half feet (two-meters)-per-pixel images cover an area equal to more than one-quarter of the United States.
Web viewers can zoom in and out, and pan around an area. Constructed from 10,581 pictures, the mosaic provides enough detail to see textures and subtle shading of the lunar terrain. Consistent lighting throughout the images makes it easy to compare different regions.