Why I Fly (Chapter 14)

I was sitting there on my way back from St Mary's, Georgia to Kissimmee, Florida, going 116 miles per hour. I was thinking, "Can't this thing go any faster?" and I was reminded of "Everything's Amazing and Nobody's Happy." I had just checked off two items from my States-I-have-Landed-an-Airplane-in list yet the plane feels agonizingly slow. Just how slow? Only 101 knots. Yawn.

No way.

The weekend before, I celebrated my birthday with my family. Each of my kids had provided very thoughtful gifts. Items better than the usual shirt, or tie, or Star Wars boxer-shorts. At the end of the gifts Sandra handed me a box. A shirt box.

"Here's the shirt," I thought.

But it didn't quite feel right. I pulled off the bow and took the lid off the box which revealed the contents carefully covered in tissue paper. I uncovered a gift certificate from Stallion 51 for an hour of flight time in a P-51 Mustang! And not just a certificate - but below that were airline tickets from Seattle to Orlando. And below that a rental car reservation. And below that a hotel. My head was trying to make sense of it all. She didn't really do this did she? What date is on the airline tickets? What date is on the gift certificate? April 2. Is that a weekend? Wait, that is really soon. WAIT, THAT'S THIS WEEK! The airline tickets are for Wednesday! Don't I have to work on Thursday?

"I called your office and I got you the time off," I heard her voice from outside my thoughts.

"No way." It was all I could come up with. "No way!" I said out loud. To appreciate the significance of the P-51, take some time and read about the development and contribution to the Allied victory in WWII. These things are legendary and widely credited for turning the momentum of the war as the top of the food chain fighter plane. Most of the remaining P-51s sit in museums now. There are about 160 of them still flying 65 years later. And I was going to fly one of them. "NO WAY!"

Florida

I took the red-eye Wednesday night and arrived in Orlando on Thursday morning. I spent the day orienting myself to the area, finding the route from my hotel to the Kissimmee airport, locating Stallion 51, and touching the airplanes. The Mustang is a visceral airplane. It just looks fast. The way it sits on its high front landing struts, the smooth flowing lines, the long nose, the bottom scoop - it all blends together creating a visual image that is sensual. The pilots of this plane have an emotional connection to these aircraft.

And Stallion 51 is immaculate. The floor is polished gray epoxy paint and free of any oil or fluids. There are no drip pans and there is not a spot or a piece of debris anywhere on the hangar floor. The same is true for the planes. No chips in the paint. No scratches in the shined aluminum panels. Not even finger prints. No signs of oil or grease anywhere on the airframes.

My first view of the hotel left me a bit concerned. It was located behind two vacant restaurants on what, at first glance, appeared to be a dirt road. Uh oh. Sandra probably didn't realize what she was getting. But I decided to give it a shot. It turned out to be a clean and comfortable place. As an added bonus, it was just below the departure end of the runway.

Also located at the airport is the Warbird Museum, which flies the advanced trainer aircraft of WWII. So on Friday morning, I awoke with a flight of AT-6 Texans going over my hotel room. Their big radial engines acting as my alarm clock. I wonder if I can get that sound on my alarm clock at home.

My turn in the Mustang is not until 1 PM. But by 10:30, I can't wait any longer. I decide to take my cup of Starbucks and drink it in the lobby of Stallion 51. Julia, an elegant lady with a charming British accent, courteously welcomes me. I wander through the merchandise and talk to the others that are arriving. Rob is there with his wife and kids. He's a veterinarian from further south in Florida. His wife got him his ride as a birthday present, too. Steve is one of Stallion 51's pilots. Prior to becoming a P-51 instructor, his call sign was "Mad Dog," but now he is called "Lucky Dog." He’ll be flying with Rob the Vet (Get it? - the vet and a guy named Dog?).

Charlie Johnson came in to meet with Lee Lauderback. Lee is the owner of Stallion-51 and has more flight time in P-51 than anyone else in the world. They will be flying together. Charlie was the head of Cessna Aircraft. I talk to Greg the Crew Chief who watches over the planes. He laughs when I ask how often they polish the floor. It is a common question.

I walk to the next hangar over and discover a couple of AT-6 Texans, and an L-39 Albatross. Rob is there with his family looking, too. By now the three Mustangs have been pulled out into the sun and our equipment and check lists are being loaded. My fence clutching has been elevated to a new level.

Now it is 12:30, still 30 minutes until I am scheduled to be there, Rob and I are back in the sun standing between the three very shiny P-51's. A man comes out and calls for Rob and me. He introduces himself as John and informs us that because we missed our briefing, we cannot fly today.

I told him the paper work says to be there at 1:00 PM and that Rob and I have both been there since 10:30 AM. And where has he been anyway?

The briefing

John smiled and took me upstairs for my briefing - he is my instructor for the flight. John Posson is small, articulate, and confident. He asks me about my ratings hours, tail-wheel time and if I have any aerobatics experience. John is an air show pilot. He flies left wing of a four-jet L-39 demonstration team.

We discuss the things that make the Mustang special with special focus on the "laminar flow wing." This is wing is different that a "normal" wing which is relatively flat across the bottom, arched across the top and the thickest part being about one fifth to one fourth of the way back from the leading edge. A laminar flow wing, on the other hand, is nearly symmetrical on the top and bottom and the thickest part is nearer the center. This creates a more slippery wing and allows the plane to go faster. But what you gain in high speed you surrender in low speed. When the airplane gets slow and the angle of attack gets too high, the once laminar flow separates quickly and the wing stops flying abruptly. And usually one wing drops aggressively. Translation, one moment you are flying straight and level and the next you are flying with one wing pointed at the ground and the other pointed at the sky – without much warning.

We discuss how the Roll-Royce Merlin engine’s one thousand four hundred and ninety horsepower will want to twist the airplane around. To compensate for that, the vertical stabilizer, or rudder, is mounted about a degree and a half out of line with the airframe. So, at high speed, the rudder will pull it one way and at low speed the engine will pull it the other. The airplane has trim on all three axis to compensate. John discusses the importance of using the trim to manage this plane.

He tells me about how noisy the cockpits are and how we will be wearing ear plugs under the helmets with earphones in them. He gives me instructions on operating the intercom and the radio.

He talks about control input. How little or hard one must work the controls to get a response. He cautions me against full control inputs, observing that the only time we will use them is when we are doing aileron rolls. He points out the airplane was built as a weapon and rather than "flying" it you "aim" it.

We discuss the flight profile. He'll taxi out, take off, do the formation flying, break us off, then I will take the plane into the practice area and do the bulk of the flying from there. I'll fly back to the rendezvous point and he will pull us into formation with the lead plane.

We talk about how there were no two-seat Mustangs made. The planes we will fly have been modified by removing the rear fuel tank and putting in the second set of controls where the fuselage is a bit narrower than the original cockpit. So he'll have a bit more room than me, and I'll be wedged in.

He sends me to the restroom for one last break before strapping in.

We meet back at the planes. Charlie and Lee with be flying lead in "The Little Witch,' John and I will be right wing in "Crazy Horse 2" and Rob and Lucky-Dog will be left wing in "Crazy Horse."

I climb into my seat while John holds up the straps to the parachute. Ha – parachute. This is the third time I’ve flown aerobatics and every time I get a nearly identical conversation. It is short, curt, and has become to me, comical. Usually somewhere in the process of strapping into the parachute harness, the instructor will ask, "Have you jumped out of a plane before?"

I give a one word answer, "Yes."

A slight head nod, "Good." End of conversation.

John talks about how, if the engine fails, we are going to fly the airplane all the way to ground. If we are over a runway, we will extend the gear and land. If we are over a field, we will leave the gear up and slide the airplane to a stop.

John discusses the protocol of emergency egress and releasing the canopy. He points out the $75,000 handle: Pull it and the canopy comes off. We will only pull it if there is no way to fly the plane. Either the plane will be on fire or we are involved in a mid-air. And I will only pull it if he is unable to pull it. Once the canopy is released, I am to release my seatbelt and dive over the right side of the plane. The discussion is all for naught, as we return safely.

Finally, I am buckled into the five-point harness that holds me to the seat. John straps in. He is meticulous with the check list. He verbally covers every item in staccato rapid fire sequence. I try to keep up.

The start

We wait for the crew chief to give the signal to start the planes.

It is finally time to hit the starter. The propeller on the Mustang is geared, so it turns at about half the speed of the engine. As the plane starts, the blades move very slowly. And then a puff of blue smoke appears from one of the six exhaust stacks on the left side, followed quickly by a second puff from the other side, and then the engine catches, the blue smoke is pushed away, the propeller blades vanish in a blur, and the big Merlin lets out that beautiful growl. It’s alive!

The whole airplane rumbles. You can feel it vibrate. Earlier in the briefing, I was told, "It is a big, nasty tail-dragger and I want to feel it talking to me." The growling engine is singing a love song. Olivia Newton John just fell to a distant rung on the ladder.

We are second of three Mustangs taxing out and, as we approach the runway, a B-25 Mitchell is landing. We have been transported back in time 65 years but I doubt any of these planes, including the Mitchell, were this well polished during WWII.

At the edge of the runway, John continues down the check list, setting the brakes and bringing up the throttle. The plane struggles against the brakes. This is going to be fun.

Lift-off

The tower clears us as "Mustang Flight" for take-off. Charlie and Lee roll out to the centerline; we roll to the far side of the runway on the left side; and Rob and Lucky Dog pull next to us on the right side. The first Mustang starts its take-off roll. We count five seconds and start our roll behind them. Our tail lifts off the ground as we accelerate. The plane ahead lifts off and the wheels tuck up into its wings. We lift off and tuck our wheels away too.

The P-51 accelerates quickly. Soon we are at 180 knots and accelerating in a climb. John rolls the plane to the right side of Charlie and Lee in the lead plane and they bank right towards our path. John tucks Crazy Horse 2 just behind the right wing of Little Witch. I’ve never been this close to another plane in flight.

Charlie banks Little Witch to the left and we stay just behind the wing, as Crazy Horse lines up on the left side. I’m looking down our wing, straight across at the third plane at the end our wing tip. We hold together in level flight.

John moves the plane back and tucked us up under and behind Little Witch. I can see through our propeller to the propeller of the plane ahead, the blades mix together creating synchronization moiré patterns. Rob and Lucky Dog pull up behind us. We are so close to Charlie and Lee, it seems our propeller could take the tail off Little Witch.

My Airplane

John lets our plane drift out to the right about three or four wing-span distances or so away from Charlie and turns the controls over to me. I try to keep the plane lined up. John is coaching, I’m trying to react and follow his instructions - more power, less power, move right, climb, more power. Too high, push over; move right… but I just can't do it. Formation flight is HARD – harder than I would have ever imagined. But it doesn't matter. I’m in the cockpit of a Mustang, stick in my right hand, throttle in my left hand, and my feet firmly on the rudders. I'm in command of a P-51 Mustang!

Yankin' and Bankin'!

Lee assigns each of us airspace and we all break off. I bank right to head west. The airplane is stable and solid. John's words "you aim it" come back to me. We do a couple of "S" turns as I get more comfortable with the plane. As the plane pulls around, we are greeted with some pleasing g-forces.

Stalls

In the practice area, John has me slow the plane down and extend the flaps. At about 90 knots, John talks me through a couple of stalls so I can experience the buffet that precedes the stall. We stall slow, buffet – wham! Left wing drops. I push the nose back to the horizon and regain control. We accelerate and yank the stick back hard, buffet – wham! Right wing drops and I am fighting to keep the wings level while I push the nose back to the horizon. We bank to the left and pull back hard again, buffet – wham! Right wing drops and I’m turning right on a knife edge, fighting the wing back up. OK, I get it. When you feel the buffet, let off the stick or you end up going a different direction.

Wing-over

We accelerate and pull up vertical. When the plane is climbing up, I ease in a bit of rudder and roll the plane to near zero gravity vertical turn kicking the nose over to the right until it is pointed straight back down and pull it back out.

John coaches me a bit and demonstrates another wing-over. I do it again and we float much longer during the zero-g phase. Cool.

Aileron Rolls

I level the wings, point the nose down and accelerate. At 220 knots, I pull the nose up about 15 degrees and push the stick all the way against my left leg. The plane rolls smoothly onto its side - left wing pointing at the ground, right wing pointing at the sky. I step on the right rudder a bit to kick the nose up as we continue to roll inverted. I let off the rudder and push the stick forward and I can feel myself come out of my seat and hang against the shoulder harness as my left wing starts its arc back into the sky, and the right wing points to the ground. I step on the left rudder pedal while the plane returns to wings level. WOW!

Other airplanes I have rolled have very aggressive nose drop when they are on the knife edge. Not the Mustang. There is enough power pushing down that big flat side of the plane and enough rudder to kick the tail down that the plane just keep flying. I do it again.

Four Point Rolls

John does a four point roll. I've never done one, I try a four point roll, stopping the rotation every 90 degrees. Knife edge. Inverted. Knife edge. Wings level. This plane makes it easy.

Playing

I love the stability of the P-51 when it is on edge; I've flown nothing like it before. I want to do more four point rolls. We scream across the sky at 7000 ft in 90 degree increments. John compliments me and says, "That was pretty good. Let's see if you can do it 50 feet off the deck."

The FAA requires aerobatics be completed above 1,500 feet, unless you have a special aerobatic waiver, known as a "low level waiver." These come in increments from 1,500 feet, down to the surface. I'm confident John has one for his air show flying. And I know they are hard to get. I know John is kidding around with me.

I rolled the Mustang to 135 degrees – about 45 degrees away from completely inverted, and start to pull into a diving-arching-inverted turn headed for the ground. John says, "I was joking."

"I know," I reply. "Me too."

Loops

John suggests a loop. I line up on a road below us to use as a reference. We dive for 260 knots, and pull back hard. Four and a half times the force of gravity presses me down into my seat. I tighten my torso muscles and leg muscles and grunt in hope of not blacking out. I look left and right as we approach vertical to keep the wings about the same distance above the horizon. Tipping my head back I look out the top to the ground behind me locating the road below. Fully inverted in the loop I look left and right again to adjust the wings. At the top of the loop, the g’s are coming off. I like this point in the loop because you know you are upside-down and you should be hanging from the seat harness but the g’s are still pressing you into the seat. I stay lined up on the road as we start the inverted dive back down and I continue to hold the stick back, while waiting to feel the buffet. As our speed builds, so does the pressure on the stick. As we continue down to the vertical, I am still looking out the top of the canopy searching the ground below for the horizon. Our speed builds and the g-forces accumulate to force me back into my seat. More squeezing and grunting as the horizon and the nose of the plane converge back together. WOO HOO!!!

Barrel Rolls

From there John demonstrates a barrel roll. This is a surprisingly gentle maneuver where we accelerate up to 220 and start a gentle climb while lifting one wing and holding an arching rolling trajectory, maintaining one positive g. Then I do the same. Cool.

Cuban Eight, or um, where are we?

John says we should do it again. I ask for a Cuban-Eight instead. As we approach the top of the loop, I lose track of the road, and one of wings dropped below the other. We veered around in the sky as I came down on the 45 degree down line, but I have no idea which way I am headed and I cannot find the road. I push the stick forward to stop the loop in an inverted 45 degree dive and, with an odd twisting aileron roll, the Mustang returns to upright pointed about 90 degrees off our original heading. "What was that?" John asks with a chuckle.

No idea. "That was on purpose." I reply. Yeah, right. I line up for a second pass which is more successful.

Hanging in the straps

I ask about how long the plane can stay inverted. The problem with inverted flight is the engine. Under normal conditions, the oil is pumped from the bottom of the oil reservoir into the engine to lubricate all the moving parts. But inverted, there is no oil in the bottom of the reservoir because it all falls to the top (which is now on the bottom). The Mustang is not to be flown for more that 10 seconds inverted before returning to normal flight. I ask and get approval for four or five seconds. Over we go, and I hang in the harness. And smile. A lot. I’m still smiling.

Inverted Cuban Eights

We then move on to inverted Cuban eights. Climb at 45 degrees until the plane slows to 90 knots, half of an aileron roll to inverted, pull out the bottom of the loop, climb back up at 45 degrees to 90 knots and pull again. BIG GRIN.

Credit where credit is due

John asks if I want to say anything to my wife on the video. Sandra gets a big thumbs-up and a huge thank you.

Time to head back

I knew the time was coming but it always comes too soon. It’s time to head back. Lee's voice comes over the radio and call for a rejoin. He'll be northbound over the freeway at 6,000 just north of the southern most brush fire. We head between the columns of smoke at 7,000 searching below us. I'm struck again at how big the sky is. There is a plane out there, I know where to look and neither John nor I can spot it. How did the WWII pilots ever find each other to shoot the enemy down? Then off my left side there is a flash of light headed away and behind us. John calls "Tally-Ho" and turns the plane hard right into a diving turn. As we level out, we are closing fast on Little Witch’s right side. Charlie and Lee bank towards us and John tucks the Mustang back into formation.

It just keeps getting better

John asks how I am feeling. What? How am I feeling? You gotta be kidding me! I feel AWESOME! Apparently some folk get a bit queasy after all the yanking and banking John is making sure I can take some more.

After a brief exchange over the radio, we pull up into a climb in formation and continue to pull until we are inverted into a loop. Awesome! I am in a Mustang, inverted, in a loop, in formation. This is amazing!

At the bottom of the loop, we start a gentle roll to the left and do a formation barrel roll. This just keeps getting better!

He does this to humble me

Rob and Lucky Dog report in. Altitude assignments are exchanged and soon they are tucking Crazy Horse back into the left wing side of the formation. While cruising towards the airport we drift out wide of the formation and John turns the controls over to me again. "Stay right here," he says, "and use your rudder to move away from him." I drift back. "More power. More than that. More. He’s getting away. Nose Down. You are too high. Less power, you are getting ahead of him. My airplane."

Dang, this is hard. And John makes it seem so easy as he pulls back in.

Overhead 360 to landing

Little Witch pulls out of formation and Rob and Lucky Dog take the lead. Little Witch drops back to third position in echelon formation. We are cleared for a left overhead 360 landing. We stay in formation northbound around 200 knots. Passing to the east of the airport, we make an arching left turn back to line up with the southbound runway. As we cross the end of the runway, Rob and Lucky Dog make a left turn breaking out of formation. We start our count. One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three, one thousand four, one thousand five. I break left. The hard banking turn eats our airspeed and, as I cross through 150 knots, John extends the gear and starts the flaps down. I pull off power as I track Crazy Horse passing my wingtip on final. I roll left in behind them and John puts out some more flaps. There is a bit of a crosswind pushing us to the right. I try to get the wing down and step on the rudder. I trim the plane. I work to keep the left wing down. I drift a little further to the right. The main landing gear touch down and then we float back up. I put the mains back on the runway again. And again. As the tail starts to settle, John takes the airplane back, and puts the tail wheel firmly on the ground. I can feel him dancing on the pedals to keep the airplane aligned with the runway.

We exit the runway and slide the canopy open. I am sweaty and sticky. It was a great flight.

Back in reality.

The next day I took a 172 to Georgia. I checked off another state from my list. And 116 mph just seems slow. I’m still grinning. But it just feels slow.

Update.

In the comments there is a reference to a video from John Posson, shot by a high def camera. I decided to add it as a embedded here.

50 by 50

Pondering goals... Flying (take off and land) in all 50 states by the time I am 50. I could bump off a bunch in one day in the north east.

Why I Fly (Chapter 13)

I just finished a week of vacation with my family. We had a camping trip cut short by bees, followed by a leaky kitchen faucet that I had to replace, and then a bicycle ride on the burke-gillman trail that involved more sibling bickering than riding. So for my last day of vacation, I wanted to take myself out for an airplane ride.

When I awoke this morning the view from my window was of fog. Dang. That’s not what the weather man forecast. Having grown up in the Pacific Northwest, I know that late summer and early fall is a common time to be greeted my morning fog, and that is usually is short lived. So I grabbed my flying gear and headed for the airport, via Starbucks.

At the airport I found blue sky and a couple of flight instructors participating in a well honed skill of sitting on the couch. Their earlier students canceled due to the fog. It seems every FBO has a well worn couch. And having spent over a decade hanging out at the airport, I understand why. Pilots always seem to be waiting for someone or something: A passenger, a student, a cargo, or maybe just a break in the weather. These were waiting for students.

I was waiting for my coffee to be gone. I downed the rest of my coffee and walked out to the plane. After a preflight, getting taxi clearance, and take-off clearance, I pushed the throttle forward and accelerated north towards lift off speed.

I think I have mentioned before that Paine Field is the highest point on the west side of the Puget Sound. At 600 and some odd feet, today it was above the fog that blanketed the water to the west and north. Lifting off the runway brought into view the tops of the fog bank that covered the water and reached up onto the shore. I climbed over the fog that was spread across Port Gardner Bay as I set my course north to the shoreline where the bay arced back out. About 8 miles from the airport I dropped back down and flew 500 feet above the fluffy white fog. To my left was a field of cotton white, and to my right the terrain pushed its way through, exposing coat of evergreen trees that covered the hills.

I continued north and veered inland to avoid the airspace controlled by Naval Air Station Whidbey, and found the Skagit River valley to follow further inland. The valley took me east to the town of Concrete. The airport at Concrete is aligned east-west with the valley, and is a nice place to introduce mountain flying. The valley floor is about 200 feet above sea-level and two miles to the south the hills begin their climb to 5000 feet. To the north a dam holds back Lake Shannon, which is bounded by more steep hills. To the east a mountain rises 5500 feet. It looks intimidating, but there is plenty of space to maneuver.

I over-flew the airport to determine the flow of the winds, spotted a small red biplane landing to the west, so I circled in behind it and landed. I hopped out of the plane and walked to the hangar where the biplane was now parking.

The biplane was decorated to resemble a World War I era fighter, including a mock machine gun mounted to the top wing. The owner was a kind elderly gentleman named Ward, who seemed to own 3 other older planes. Ward and I discussed his planes and he asked about mine. As we walked over to my plane he lit up. In his youth, he had flown a plane like mine out to Michigan and on to Ohio. Ward regaled me with his adventure as he and his flight instructor traveled to Ohio. At the end of the tale, I offered him a ride up the valley and he eagerly accepted.

We departed west into the wind, and soon turned back east and followed the Skagit River as it wrapped south around the mountain and then back east. I gave the controls to Ward, and at the junction of the Skagit and Sauk River we turned south again and followed the Suak towards Darrington, and split again as we encountered the Suattle River. There Ward turned the plane back towards the west and let me have the controls back.

The valley floor below had several open fields, yet the walls of the valley rise so abruptly that it seems you are able to both fly over smooth ground, while flying with one wingtip just feet away from the trees of the cliff face next to you as you guide the plane down the valley.

Back at the airport Ward and I parted, and I made a wonderful discovery. There at the Concrete Airport are three hangars chock-full of carefully restored aircraft on display. I wandered through the planes for about 30 minutes in awe that they were all sitting there to be admired.

I departed the airport for a second time that day, and headed back up the same canyon that Ward and I had just flown. This time with an eye for higher altitudes and maybe a glimpse as Lake Chelan and the Stehekin airstrip. I climbed through the valley and over ridges discovering the alpine lakes along the way. Alpine lakes are amazing. Nearly all are a vivid teal blue ringed by steep mountains and trees. The terrain is rugged, and intimidating. At regular intervals I planned my glide path back into the valleys if the engine fails. But it does not. Instead, it pulls me further into the mountains, over ridges, towards glaciers, and exposing new valleys below.

I love this part of the State. Rugged, harsh, unforgiving, and beautiful.

As I approached Dome Peak, the aroma of a forest fire was becoming more intense – even at 7,000 feet. There were no forest fire restrictions when I left, but I’d not want to wander into one that has come up since I last checked. So I set the GPS to guide me home, and head back toward Paine in a shallow descent. In less than 25 minutes, I’m back on the ground.

Big Changes

Isaac was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes on Sunday, or what is called type one.  For several days, he had been using the bathroom frequently was always thirsty, had lost about seven or eight pounds, and was having occasional headaches.  Other than that, he didn't show any visible signs of slowing down or being "ill."

We called the Dr, Sunday morning, and after a short conversation she sent us to the ER.  There they ran some tests and diagnosed him, and then said we were going to be transferred to Children’s Hospital in Seattle.  They would not allow us to drive him down there and instead, called in an ambulance to move him.  Once at Children’s we were told we would be spending the next three days there getting Isaac stabilized and us trained to help him.

The next three days were a blurr, both in the amount of information we had to absorb, and the range of shock and emotions we had to face.  We had classes two or three times a day.  On Wednesday afternoon they let us out. Isaac is doing well and adapting quickly to his new life long routine.

So here is the high level view of what we learned:

• Our bodies run on sugar, or glucose. It is the fuel cells use to keep up their energy. These sugars are produced from carbohydrates we eat, which the digestive system breaks down into sugars.
• The sugar gets into the cells with the help of insulin. Without the insulin, the sugar cannot get in to the cells, and the cells cannot function.
• Insulin is produced in the pancreas.
• With type one diabetes, the immune system decides the pancreas is bad, and starts treating it like a foreign object, and renders it permanently unable to make insulin.  The pancreas will never heal.  
• The auto-immune disorder is a gentic error of some sort, and they do not know for certain what event triggers it, nor do they have a way to prevent it.  It just happens.
• As a side note, in type two diabetes, the pancreas still does its job and is producing insulin, but the body becomes resistant to it.
• Through the ability to do nearly instant blood glucose testing (we got a cool little electronic gizmo) we are able to mimic the pancreas’ normal functions, and then inject the correct amount of insulin based on the current blood glucose, the amount of carbohydrates he is about to eat, and the amount of exercise he is getting. (Yes, there is a fair amount of math involved.)

So the cool thing is this:  Isaac can continue to live and eat just like he always has, he just has to medicate for it.  In the past when kids got diabetes they were medicated, and then had to adjust their lives to match the medicine. Now we are able to go about life, and adjust the medicine to match their lives.

Clearly this will bring about more work in our lives, but Isaac is pretty positive right now, and happy to be back home. He is already settling back in to running and playing with his siblings, and has spent some time in the gym.

Why I Fly (Chapter 12)

The man who taught me to fly, Lewis, has remained a good friend of mine since we met in 1995. On Saturday he got married. Sandra and I have grown fond of him and are very happy for him. At the wedding his brother, Walt, described him as "having the capacity to be really excited about anything." As a result, hanging out with Lewis is always a hoot. But it also made for Lewis often chasing in a new direction, or after a new dream. Sandra and I often wondered if he was capable of settling down. But he seems to have been fully smitten.

Lew and his future bride set out to have a destination wedding. They jetted around the globe looking for "the place." They finally settled on Sun Mountain Lodge in Winthrop, a small town about 100 miles north east of Seattle – 100 miles in a straight line. By road, it takes nearly 5 hours and goes though some of the most ruggedly beautiful mountains and valleys in Washington State.

We took the plane OVER those mountains and valleys. As I was planning the flight, I thought over a couple issues. First, this is some of the most hostile territory in the state. There are no cities, no roads, no airports, not even any flat spots, just tall mountains, deep valleys, and steep ravines. Second, there were some tall mountains. And the highest one at 10,500 feet was nearly directly in out path. Third, we would be coming back at night. Fourth, there are flight paths that stay closer to civilization, and thus options in the event of something going awry, but that route takes you south to Seattle then east, and back north again. I’ve used that path in previous night flight.

I decided to take the twin engine Piper Seneca to speed the flight, allow for quicker climbs, and some redundancy in engines as we crossed the mountains.

Now, how do we get from the airport to the lodge? It is about 13 miles, too far to walk or bike in a suit or dress shoes. We called around and found Mountain Transporter offered a van service, but charged by the hour. And we would be at the wedding for several hours with the meter running. The lodge’s concierge was willing to pick us up and take us back, and get this, FOR FREE! The only catch was that the concierge got off work at 8:00 P.M. so we couldn’t stay much later than that.

The day of the wedding turned out to be a beautiful day for both the wedding and for flying. Sandra dropped the kids off at Grandma’s and while I picked up some SeaBands for her on my way to the airport to preflight the plane.

We prepared for take off: review engine out procedures, taxi on to the runway, hold the brakes, 2,000 RPMs, check the engines, release the brakes, ease in the rest of the power, verify runway alignment, airspeed indicator alive, 60 mph, verify runway alignment, 70 mph, verify runway alignment, a little back pressure to lift the nose, 80 mph, nose wheel off the ground, mains off the ground, accelerate to 105 mph, no usable runway ahead of me, retract the gear, accelerate to 120mph, trim for 120. 1,100 feet on the altimeter, we are 500 feet off the ground, so I banked the plane to the east, rolling the wings level, I pulled the engine back to 25 inches of manifold pressure and reduced the RPM to 2,500 for the climb. Whoa. That is a busy time.

As I cleared Paine’s airspace, I called up Seattle Radio to open my flight plan, and then switched over to Seattle Center for VFR flight following. We continued to climb. At 9,500 feet, Sandra asks "How tall is that mountain ahead of us?"

"10,500 feet. We are a thousand feet below the peak." I reply. "Our flight path will take us north of it, and we should be above it by the time we reach it."

About that time the air traffic controllers called us up "Do you have Glacier Peak in sight?"

"Affirmative. It is beautiful up here." We continued to climb, leveling out at 11,500 feet. I set the RPM back to 2,300, nursed as much manifold pressure out of the engines as the thin atmosphere could provide, and synchronized the propellers. The airplane settled down and continued to accelerate.

We were level for just a brief period when the controller asked when we planned to start our descent to Methow. Ahead I could see the ridge on the east side of Lake Chelan, and I had to clear that before I could start too much descending. Soon the lake was passing beneath us and I could see Steheiken out my window.

Rolling the trim wheel forward I started down over the ridge, picking the small town of Winthrop out of the golden brown valley in front of me. Sandra said "are we landing already?"

"Yep, but we are still too high. I have to lose some altitude quickly." As we descended over the ridges and hills, we started bouncing on the thermals. I pulled the throttles back to 16 inches of manifold pressure and continued to descend. As we got to within 4 miles of the airport, we were still too high. I made a arcing left turn to the north, went over the lodge, and then turned south back towards Twisp in shallow right turn. We were finally coming in low enough that I could make final u-turn to the left to end up entering left down-wind over the hills on the east side of the airport. I extended the gear, and ran the pre-landing check-list. Flaps out, we touched down and rolled out. I turned around on the runway and taxied back to transient parking.

Exactly one hour after starting the engines, they were shut back down.

The wedding was beautiful. It was held on the bluff overlooking the valley to the north. Since we have been friends with Lew for so long, we have developed quite a few mutual friends. It was fun to see so many of them gathered together, celebrating in honor of Lew and his new wife Stacy. And the conversations were a kick too. Lew had a long and varied career is several odd aviation jobs, and the crowd reflected his past. Sean did a tour as my flight instructor, and is now a pilot for Alaska. Lew’s friends from his east coast tuna spotting days were there (that was a colorful group). They were the perfect match for a delicious dinner.

Eight o’clock came much too soon, and after a bit of coordination the Concierge drove us back down the hill to the valley below and to the airport. We stopped along the way to drop off some of the house-keeping staff that was carpooling with us. It was a little after 9:00 P.M. as I began the preflight for the trip home.

Funny how earlier in the day, I did not notice the moon was out. But now that the sun was set, so was the moon. And in a small valley with rapidly climbing terrain on either side, I was missing that moon. It was DARK. Before starting the plane I stood on the ramp and looked north and south. From the ground I could see the silhouette of the hills against the night stars. I could see the faint lights of the next city down the valley. I examined the charts and found the highest points near the airport. I planned my assault of the inky blackness.

We taxied out to the runway, and I found the ridge lines and horizon against the stars. I planned my take-off. I recited the engine failure on take off mantra. I mapped in my mind my route ahead: Take off south, slight turn to the right to follow the valley floor. Climb. The throttles advanced. The take-off roll started. Full power.

We arced right, and headed towards Twisp. The plane climbed. But something else odd occurred. When we were below the ridges, their outline was visible against the star-lit sky. But from above, all the ridges disappeared into the dark back void below us. I could not see the rising terrain below me.

I knew that there are no mountains over the road. I stayed on course over the road as we climbed. We covered the ground between the airport and Twisp quickly – too quickly. We were over Twisp and the country highway’s lights south of the city were spaced too few and far between to assure we remained over the road. Worse, I was not high enough to leave the valley. I eased the plane to west side of the road below, and made a tight turn to the east, now headed back toward Winthrop as I continued my climb over the highway. When we got back to Winthrop we were high enough to clear the immediate hills. I had more maneuvering room. One more turn back towards Twisp and I was at 9,000 and climbing. Ready for to assault the North Cascades again.

"Black as ink" is not black enough to describe the mountainous terrain below. Once again, I was able to see the silhouette of Bonanza Peak and Glacier Peak. We continued to climb. I contacted Seattle Center for flight following. They wanted to know if I had the mountains in sight, and I did.

I had expected some turbulence on the ride home, but it was as smooth as glass. As we configured for cruise at 12,500 feet, I knew I had 2,000 feet between me and the highest point around me. We were above the mountains, but again the terrain vanished in blackness below. I had to calculate when we were past the mountains in order to descend.

My head was processing. I started with take off time, and distance combined with airspeed, and then an estimate of maneuvering time over the two small cities… 120 miles an hour, two miles a minute. Add in a bit for the forecast 20-knot headwind but if I had the forecast head wind I would expect a bit more turbulence. What are the actual winds? Just what is my actual ground speed? And a flash of numbers on the panel caught my eye. The DME displayed my closing speed on the Paine VOR.

Wait. The DME had just locked on to the Paine VOR. I tuned and identified the VOR to assure I was on the right one. I was 50 some odd miles away from Paine Field. That will work. I measured the distance from the Paine VOR to Glacier Peak – about 45 miles. In seven or so minutes we would be at 40 DME from Paine, at least 5 miles past the peak, and I could safely start down.

The lights of the cities surrounding the Puget Sound started coming in to view. Seattle, Everett, Bellevue. Dark spaces revealed bodies of water, ribbons of lights drew bridges. Ahead was the Hewitt Avenue Trestle and to the right of that, Lake Stevens. Past it is Port Gardner. We made it.

Seattle Center requested I notify them when I had Paine Field in sight, at which time they canceled my flight following. As we descended nearer to home, I slowed the plane from the high-speed descent, down to below 150 MPH where I could extend the gear.

Rolling the plane to the right to line up with the runway, I simultaneously extended the flaps. Soon we touched down just short of the fixed distance markers.

Back at Regal, there was a T-6 Texan parked in the Seneca’s space so we made another lap around the ramp looking for a space to tie down.

Engines shut down at 2.3 hours total time. Point three. An extra 18 minutes to climb over the valley, fly into the headwind, and taxi around? All in a good day of flying.

And Speaking of voting...

I am proud to say have contributed to the a new national voting project, Vote 18. I created the inital website, and then worked with to get the new .php one up and running. Stop by and check it out.

Vote 18 has recently kicked off it's national tour and they are already getting some great media coverage. Kudos to Walt, Marco, and their team!

My vote so far in America's Got Talent

Why I Fly (Chapter 11)

As my one regular reader knows, I got my Multi-Engine license a couple of years back. However, I am yet to fly the twin-engine plane alone. I recently logged enough time to satisfy the insurance company, but then realized that I did not have a recent Instrument Proficiency Check (IPC) nor had I flown on instruments in a while, which the insurance company also requires to get signed off in the twin. Since I have a perfectly fine airplane of my own, I arranged to use it for my IPC flight a couple weeks later.

My real goal is to be able to take my wife out in the twin. I had hoped for a trip to the San Juans for dinner on my birthday, but alas it was snowing. We've had a run of rough and bumpy weather – including a later round of snow on April 20th, and when we finally got a break one Sunday afternoon, I started making arrangements for the trip to the aerodrome. I called over to Regal to reserve the plane, only to discover that it had been more than 60 days (67 days in fact) since I had flown the plane. Another rule shoots me down. Arg!!! How hard does this have to be?

Sandra's birthday is coming up this Saturday, and the weather is forecast to be CAVU, so I reserved the plane and a random instructor for last night to go jump through the next hoop.

As we were preparing for take off, the ATIS alerted us to "Fog to the north." Paine Field sits on a plateau 600 feet above the Puget Sound. So from where we were doing our pre-flight the fog a couple miles away and below us over the water was not visible. We were cleared for take off to the south, and as we climbed up, the fog over the Puget Sound came into view. Our rectangular path took us to the south a mile or two and then we banked right towards the west and then around to the north where we paralleled the runway we had just departed. Sure enough there just north of the field was a fog bank working its way from Port Gardner Bay up Japanese Gulch to the runway threshold.

Ahead and to our right there was a 747 coming in for landing. The 747's decent path kept it skipping the top of the fogbank as it slowed and the wings held the heavy plane aloft. Like the churning water left behind a large ship, the wake of the 747 swirled down and away from the airplane's path, cutting a valley into the fog.

The resulting valley in the fog was an excellent depiction of wake turbulence. As I turned onto final, I flew over the valley and above the flight path of the 747 landing further down the runway than it did, leaving the first 1,500 of runway behind me. Once on the ground we quickly reconfigured the plane for take-off.

As we lifted off, the tower controllers reported the wind had shifted and was no longer out of the south, and it was now coming in from the north. The wind that was pushing the fog away had turned, and was now pushing the fog on to the north end of the runway. We requested and received clearance for a right 90, left 270 turn back to the airport. Our flight path traced the letter "P" over the ground, and we were lined back up on the runway.

Again we touched down and reconfigured the plane for take-off. We lifted off over the fog, the tower controllers reported incoming helicopter traffic head-on, and requested we return to landing to the south. We flew the same "P" shaped approach, landed and taxied towards our parking space. Heading in we watched the Blackhawk fly the length of the runway, and disappear into the evening sky.

Epilogue. .5 hours of running engines and once again I'm a safe pilot according to the insurance company.

Ego Surfing

I got a notice in the mail today that a patent I submitted in 2002 was accepted. Here is the list of things I consider cool achivement.

• Inventor, U.S. Patent Application No. 10/179,858 : System and method for smart drag-and-drop functionality.
• Joint Inventor, U.S. Patent Application No. 11/012,767 : Systems and Methods for Dynamic Application Patching.
• Contributor to ECMA-357 ECMAScript for XML (E4X) Specification.

Improving the news, and entrapment.

As of today, there is a new law in Washington State, described as the Driving While Texting (DWT) law. Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for this law. Not long ago I was held up in a 90 minute traffic jam as a result of an accident on the express way caused by a guy composing an email on his blackberry.

The news reports all describe it as the Driving While Texting law. In fact nearly all the major local news outlets used the SAME TEXT from AP when reporting the story. And none included a link to the ACTUAL LAW.

Why has news reporting become so canned? Do reporters really put that little effort into their jobs? And why not link to the real law? HTML makes this so easy, even I can do it.

And the new law is MUCH different than the news report. According to the law, a driver can be cited for:

operating a motor vehicle while reading, writing, or sending electronic messages ... operating a moving motor vehicle who, by means of an electronic wireless communications device, other than a voice-activated global positioning or navigation system that is permanently affixed to the vehicle, sends, reads, or writes a text message, is guilty of a traffic infraction.

What is a text message? Is a series of letters a message? Most certainly -- reading a text message would be a violation. Is a picture a message? It could be, if it were a picture of a series of letters. What if the series of letters were the name of a road or city, like on a Garmin GPS? Use of this device in a moving vehicle is now clearly banned by RCW.

But more troubling, how about the Washington State Department of Transportation web pages that are INTENDED to be used by wireless devices? If I use this web page on my cell phone while driving, it looks to me like I am breaking the law. Is the state providing the technology to enable the violation of the law?

Looks like entrapment to me.

Good Political Ad

My friend Dave has been posting plenty of positive press on on his favorite candidate. So following his lead I'm making some political comentary of my own. I am not endosing the candidate here, but I am endorsing having fun with a process that has become painful.

This ad is just good clean fun.

Kids play at piano recital

Yesterday was piano recital day. I forgot the real video camera, so I used my digital camera to record video, it is a Canon SD500 I got a couple years ago, it is not real clear, but still you get the idea. Click the play ">" buttons on the lower left of the image to see and hear them play.


Isaac, 11, first set


Isaac, 11, second set


Brittany, 14, first set


Brittany, 14, second set

Thank you Sir! May I have another?

Imagine your doctor writes you a prescription, you bring it to the pharmacist and he has the medicine. But your insurance company wants your doctor to get the medication pre-approved before they will cover it, and that pre-approval is being held up in paperwork somewhere. You’ve used the medication in the past, so you know it will help. In fact you know that without this medication, you will have problems. So you decide to pay for the medication yourself. Your doctor prescribed it, your pharmacist has it, you need it, and you are able and willing to pay for it. Done deal, right?

Not if the State is your insurance company.

Our children are adopted. They came to us from the foster care system. You can listen to our NPR interview on real audio about the program we worked with. In the end, we have four wonderful children to brag about.

As a result of them coming out of the foster care system, each of the children came with “Adoption Support.” In our case, our children receive Title 19 medical assitance, what is more commonly known as Medicaid. This is not the same program as the hotly debated SCHIP program.

Long ago, we decided to put our children on our family insurance plan offered by my employer. We do this for emotional reasons. We don’t want our kids ever believing we wouldn’t pay for their health care, and translating that into some message of rejection.

So Medicaid functions as a secondary insurance policy. Whatever is not paid by our employer provided insurance is then covered by Medicaid. So that $15 dollar doctor visit co-pay is covered, the seven dollar medication co-pay is covered. The glasses that get broken before the two year cycle is up are covered. It’s nice, but it really doesn’t add up to any large sum benefits.

To maintain our eligibility we have to submit annual tax statements and jump through some hoops. Last year they required a second opinion before a medication could be covered, which resulted in a trip to a doctor they selected at Children's Hospital. This year just before school started, the State sent us a letter informing us they wanted all four children to go in for a check-up within 30 days. The doctor’s schedule is pretty tight with all the new kids getting ready for school and athletics, so getting four kids non-emergency medical attention is impossible. We got them in within 45 days, but we had to pull them all from a day of school.

Today I encountered the exact situation described in the opening paragraph, where the doctor prescribed, the pharmacist was able to provide, our primary insurance would pay for most of a medication, but the State wanted pre-approval to cover only the CO-PAY. I tried to pay, and the pharmacist said he was unable to let me do that. If he were discovered accepting money from someone on Title-19 insurance, he could face penalties.

Gee thanks. I’m glad my government knows so much better how to take care of my family’s health than my doctor and I do. I can’t wait to have more government run health care.

Verizon Swing and a Miss

FIOS has hit my 'hood. 49.95 for lightining fast, 39.95 for merely blazing. But wait, there is more. I can get it as a "package" with home phone, internet, and cell service. But the pricing confuses me, and I contact customer support. Below is my conversation, with spelling corrections.

Your chat ID number is 10150791940.
Welcome to Verizon Live Chat. You have selected to chat about:
TN:	425pppnnnn
Subject:	Product Information / General Bill Inquiry
15:29:24	A Verizon eCenter Representative will be with you shortly. Thank you.
15:42:58	Estimated wait time is approximately 5m:39s's, we apologize for the delay. You are next in the line. A representative will be with you shortly.
15:43:09	Agent John has joined.
15:43:09	John: Chat ID for this session is 10150791940.
Roger:	Hello, I am trying to figure out how to compare the cost of a bundle to my existing bill. According to the website, if I get fios (fast is good) I can get it for 39.95 vs 22.77 I am paying now. (17 buck for the extra speed). and phone in a bundle for 44.99, but my current cost is 34.34 (all taxes included) -- 10.65 extra. this bundle costs me more. how is that better?
John:	You get Unlimited Long Distance, calling features, and state of the art Internet services.
Roger:	but I use my cell phone for long distance already...
Roger:	and the fios is 39.95 even with out the phone package.
John:	Yes, perhaps the bundle is not the ideal package in your situation.
Roger:	so is it just the extra calling features I get for the extra 10.65?
Roger:	Seems odd that a bundle would cost me a bundle more.
Roger:	that's too bad.
John:	Long distance is the main advantage, and the features are included in the price.
Roger:	I suppose the other advantage would be unlimited calling between my cell and my home.
John:	If you have the Verizon Wireless, yes.
Roger:	ok, so I’m not misinterpreting the offer.
John:	I do not think so. Its a general offer, it may not fit everyone’s calling needs.
Roger:	I had hoped the package would offer me more benefit.
Roger:	Thanks for your time.
John:	Thank you for your interest in the services.
Roger:	:(
John:	Do you have any other questions I can help you with today?
Roger:	can you make the package help me?
John:	The bundle is as listed online. There really are no options to rearrange this bundle. I apologize.
Roger:	kinda figgered, but you asked. :D
John:	I understand.
Your session is now closed.
Thank you. Have a nice day.

The six Fs (don't get your hopes up)

My friend Adam observed there are six words that begin with F that motivate people in their jobs. I'll list them in alphabetical order

1. Family / Friends - a job that provides an opportunity for you to spend time with your family. Imagine limited work hours, extra vacation, or even telecommuting.
2. Fame - success at your tasks will make you famous. Think of Mark Andreeson, Jim Barksdale, Adam Bosworth, Bill Joy.
3. Force - releasing a product that changes the world. Microsoft Office, Internet browsers, relational database.
4. Fortune - If you succeed, you become wealthy. For some, this is to break $100,000 a year. For others it is to break $1,000,000.
5. Freedom - to work on what you wanted. An example of this would be Google's 20 percent time.
6. Fun - This job is just a fun place to be. Nerf rockets, positive feedback, video games, group lunch.

What motivates you?

The problem with learning from experience is the test comes before the lesson.

Insurance companies rule the aviation industry. As an example, in the 12 years I've had a pilot’s license, I've not had an accident resulting in any damage -- knock on wood. Admittedly I've had one declared emergency, and one near miss (and why is it a near miss? I was nearly hit!). I have accumulated an instrument rating, a complex endorsement, a high performance endorsement, spin training, advanced maneuvering and upset recovery training, a commercial license, and a multi-engine license, and am most of the way through my instructor license. I have also accumulated over 600 hours of flight time.

My commercial license allows me to charge people for rides in the plane. To get this license, I must have completed 250 hours of flight time. But the insurance company requires that I have 500, or double that amount of time, to be insurable. To get a multi-engine license (ME), I must have been trained by a federally certified instructor, and get his or her approval to sit for the test. Then I must be orally reviewed by a federally designated examiner. Once that is complete, I must also fly with the examiner so he can review my ability to operate the aircraft systems, under duress. With his or her approval I can have my multi-engine license. But then the insurance requires I fly the plane for an additional 8 hours with an instructor before I can fly it alone. To act as a co-pilot of a multi-engine charter flight, the insurance company requires 1,200 hours of time!

This is where today’s story starts. I have had my ME for a bit less than a year, and I simply have not made the time to acquire the time required to satisfy the insurance company, so Sunday morning I made plans to go bore some holes in the sky. I met my instructor with his favorite white chocolate mocha at the airport.

I prepped the flight school's Piper Seneca and we climbed aboard. We marked things off the check list in preparation for take off, and ran the plane down the runway to the south. After lift-off we climbed clear of the runway, retracted the gear, set the plane to climb at 120 mph, and performed the climb-out checklist. I turned right continued my climb on the crosswind leg, and exited the pattern toward the opposite side of the Puget Sound. Upon reaching 3,000 feet, I pulled the power back to 23 inches of manifold pressure and slowed the propellers down to 2,300 rpm. This is a good setting for cruise. The nose lowered towards the horizon and the plane accelerated up to about 150 mph, and I pointed the plane towards Port Townsend.

The nacelles that enclose the Seneca's engines open from either side and hinge in the middle. This allows for excellent access to the engines during preflight. However, the latches that hold the panels closed are notoriously finicky. As a final step after securing these latches, most pilots give the panels a good firm pat to make sure the are really latched. As the plane settled into cruise I had completed the cruise check list, closing the cowl flaps and turning off the fuel boost pumps. As an additional step, I scanned outside the airplane, with particular attention on the nacelle panels.

To no great surprise, the outer panel on the left engine appeared to have come open. But it was oddly opened. The front corner along the center hinge, nearest the propeller was open about two inches. As I looked at it, aside from being open, it seemed open wrong. And for a fleeting moment I wondered how, at 150 mph 3,000 feet above the waters of the Puget Sound, could it possibly be opened right? Being a master of the obvious, I pointed to the engine and said to my instructor, "That doesn't look good."

We quickly agreed that going back to the airport was the right thing to do. I banked the plane into a 180 degree turn, and contacted the tower. "Paine Tower, Seneca one six two niner two, we are returning to the airport for a full-stop landing," I said in my best pilot-in-command-radio-voice.

The controller in the tower responded "Seneca one six two niner two, make right base for runway one six right, report the ferry dock. Do you require assistance?"

Wow, "assistance." I didn't think I sounded stressed, how did he know? My instructor was urging me to slow the airplane down to 105 mph to reduce the aerodynamic forces on the panel that were clawing to peel the gap wider. I keyed the microphone and said "We’re doing OK." I was impressed with the controller. He had several other planes he was working, and we had just departed his airspace. But at hearing we were coming back, he rightly guessed that something unusual was occurring, and offered extra assistance. I briefly considered asking for runway one-one, which was straight ahead, but decided no, since the controller had several planes in motion, and my clearance was already in place. I didn't want to throw any curves in to the process as long as things were flowing. Plus runway one-six-right is twice as long.

The next plane to report in was north of me, or to my left, and requested to land on runway one-one, straight in front of me. Since I was headed to the left to join the right base leg, to allow new plane to land on one-one meant he would have to pass in front of me from left to right while I turned to the left behind him. The controller, still sensing something was amiss, refused the new request and assigned the new airplane to land on runway one-six-right with land and hold short instructions, thus preventing the other plane from passing in-front of my path. The controller then turned his attention back to me, gave me the current wind conditions as three-zero-zero at eight, and offered me a straight in approach to runway one-one, a much simpler path for me to fly.

With the winds coming 300 degrees, and me landing on a runway heading of 110 degrees, that meant they winds were blowing from nearly directly behind me, just off my left side. At 8 knots they were below my personal 10 knot tailwind landing limit. So I accepted the clearance.

We landed and turned off the runway into Regal’s parking area where we secured the plane’s engines and examined the open panel. Much to our surprise the finicky latches were still secure. But the forward hinge on the panel had failed and all left holding the front corner of the access panel down was a grounding strap. At this discovery my instructor and I agreed we were done flying for the day.

Even though I only got to log .5 hours of flying, I was once again struck by the lessons of the day. First was the ingenuity of the Piper engineers. The grounding strap could have been installed anywhere along the center-line of the cowl, but by placing it on the front of the panel, when the hinge failed, the grounding strap acted as a backup to hold against the 150mph wind. If the rear hinge had failed, no strap would have been necessary as the wind would have been pressing the trailing edge of the panel down. Second I was impressed again by the situational awareness demonstrated by the Paine Tower controllers. He knew something was up, and cleared a straight path for me without me even asking, all the while presenting me with current information that would aid me in making a decision. Third, I was impressed by the importance of knowing the equipment. There are a lot of things going on in the airplane, and the checklist is there to help us. It is important to run the checklist to keep track of all those things, but it is also important to know your equipment. Knowing to the latches are finicky, led me to visually verify them in cruise, and that resulted in me seeing the related failure.


Never let the plane take you anywhere your head has not already been.

Just the facts, ma'am

I am a local general aviation pilot, who occasionally generates airplane noise around Harvey Field. I have yet to grasp the difficult reasons for modifying the current runway alignment, but the latest set of misrepresentations, half-truths, and deception that passes for facts in has inspired me to write.

It is true the population of the area has swelled; however the FAA no longer considers it “other than congested” and it is a “congested area.” According to Federal Aviation Regulation (FAR) 91.119, this increases the minimum altitude from the misstated 500 feet to 1,000 feet above the highest obstacle, unless landing or taking off.

Further, the airspace over Harvey Field is not considered “free.” Starting at the ground up to 700 feet is “uncontrolled” but at 700 feet (300 feet below the minimum altitude) it becomes controlled “Class-E” airspace with very specific visibility, ceiling, and separation requirements as defined in FAR 91.127. At 6,000 feet, the airspace becomes even more stringently controlled “Class-B” as defined in FAR 91.131, requiring radio communication and approval from the SEATAC controllers.

The writer asserts a half-truth that Kirkland and Seattle are controlled all the way to the ground. They are not. Kirkland has the same controlled airspace as Snohomish starting at 700 feet and then it becomes the more restrictive space at 3,000 to 5,000 feet. Much of Seattle north of downtown is similarly classified.

It is true that part of Seattle does have some controlled airspace starting at the ground. But so does Marysville, Everett, Renton, Bellingham, Mukilteo, Olympia, Lynnwood, Spokane, Oak Harbor, Port Angeles, and Moses Lake! The reason? They all have large airports to which the writer objects! If you want controlled airspace, it comes with “super-sized” airports.

Flight plans are not required for any domestic visual flight, and are primarily designed for search and rescue to locate missing aircraft. Visual flight plans have no bearing on the aircraft being directed by air traffic controllers. The writer’s use of this point is purely a distraction.

Finally, it is a misrepresentation to claim the airport will be super-sized. There is no intention of attracting larger or noisier aircraft. The proposed runway changes REDUCE the useful length of the runway, and increase its distance from hazards.

If the community is expected to make good decisions about a difficult issue, we need to stick with facts.

Getting Parameters to .ascx files

In .net, the preferred way of performing server side includes is to use the web control, or .ascx file. As I noted earlier .aspx files must have the html and body tags in them. but .ascx files do not. These are simply easy to use html blocks that can be plugged in to an .aspx file.

They also allow you to write code behind the html blocks, like the .aspx file does. However, passing parameters to the control is not apparent, so again hacking comes to the rescue.

Let's imagine an aspx file that selects an XmlNodeList from a document. Then each item in the node list should be passed to the control for formatting and inclusion in the webpage.

To pass that node, add the node to the Session, and then in the .ascx, always start by retrieving the value from the Session.

This creates a loose coupling between the .aspx and the .ascx which must be documented. I also like to create public string constants that are used for keys to the session context.

If there is any interest, I will post code samples.

Servlets in .net?

Today I am writing a website using .net 2.0, and one of the pages needs to return a .pdf rather than HTML. So the return back needs to not output the normal html headers and content. But in ASPX, every webpage must contain at least this:

<html><body/></html>

But once that is emitted into the stream, I am not outputting a .pdf any more. So I needed to subvert the streaming of that content.

Here's what I did:

<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" 
    CodeFile="Default2.aspx.cs" Inherits="Default2" %>
<% if (true)
   {
     Emit_Content();
   }
   else
   { %>
    <html><body/></html>
<% } %> 

Once the html tags were subverted, I was able to write the Emit_Content() function in Default2.aspx.cs. Note that byte array _buff and Int32 _got are member variables.

    /*
     * Write out the contents of the 
     * pdf to the http response socket
     */
    protected void Emit_Content()
    {
        try
        {
            Response.ContentType = "application/pdf";
            Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", 
                "inline;filename=new.pdf");

            Response.BinaryWrite(_buff, _got));
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            Response.Write("<html><body>" + 
                ex.Message + "</body></html>");
        }
    }

More Funny Dell Stories.

One of the 20 or so Dell computers I support was complaining during startup that some of its memory was not working. If you tried a couple times, the computer would boot and run, but then eventually error out later on a memory read failure. The computer is still under warrantee, so I called Dell.

The support techs put me through the normal memory failure drill.

• Boot the computer, hitting F12 (boot options) and select diagnostic utilities. Run the memory test. Failure.
  
• Unplug the computer, remove the memory, clean the contacts with and eraser, and install the memory. Failure.
  
• Remove both memory sticks and swap slots. Failure.
  
• Remove just the stick from slot one. Computer Boots and runs fine.
  
• Reinstall the memory to slot one and remove the memory from slot two. Failure.

By now we know the memory is bad, and that it is the memory in slot one. The support tech says he will be sending out technician with replacement memory for us. I counter that he can just send the memory, and I’ll install it at a time the system can be taken off line without disrupting the business.

So the support tech says “Are you comfortable installing the memory yourself?”

I laughed out loud and retorted “Um, I just took it out, cleaned, put it back in, swapped it, and removed and reinstalled them one at a time to help you diagnose the problem. You tell me if you think I can install the new ones.”

We both had a good laugh, which concluded with him admitting that he is required to ask.

The next day, I had new memory waiting for me. Dell delivers the fix, and good humor at the same time.