Fly Me Friendly

A number of my t-shirts have flying related themes. Funny that.

This one is my favourite and was a gift from Kitt that she picked up from the Chicken Wings collection. If you’re into flying and you’re not following this comic, you should be, it’s hilarious! :)

A Japanese friend has confirmed the translation says “We Love Chicken Wings” – nice touch :)

I’ll post more photos of my other flying shirts over the course of time. Watch this space :)

I really enjoy reading aviation books (funny that) and especially (auto)biographies that give me an insight into the experiences of the times, from growing up to learning to fly and then on to surviving various aviation adventures. With that in mind, it was a pretty even bet that I’d probably enjoy reading The San Joaquin Siren, An American Ace in WWII’s CBI by William M Behrns & Kenneth Moore.

Not only did I enjoy the book, I loved it. It starts with a fascinating look into Bill’s life and his experiences learning to fly in the US Army Air Corps with speaking tubes & “follow my lead on the controls” methods. From there Bill progresses to more advanced training in faster, more complex machines before eventually attaining his goal of flying the P38 Lightning. Along the way he describes a number of adventures in the air and ground at various military institutions.

After some time flying patrols in the Pacific North, Bill is transferred out to the China/Burma/India theatre with a group of other pilots from around the USA who stand up a new squadron. The descriptions of the journey to the front line, conditions in India and the environment they find themselves in give a fantastic view of attempting to conduct a war in very challenging conditions.

The rest of the book covers Bill’s combat missions in the theatre, his rec-leave in India and his final return to the USA. We’re again treated to some amazing experiences and lessons that can be learned even by pilots in peace time personal flying.

A well written book that engages the reader & keeps things moving at just the right pace. A couple of minor typos were found in the eBook version I read but not enough to distract me from enjoying the story. The inclusion of a few photos helped round out the descriptions of aircraft, people & circumstances.

I definitely recommend reading this book.

I’m over here at Oshkosh, Wisconsin for the EAA Airventure 2011 event (aka Oshkosh aka “Aviation Mecca” :) and am trying to soak it all in, which I acknowledge is an impossible thing. Given the amount of experiences I’d already had within less than 24 hours of arriving, I figured I’d start this list to cover what I want to experience & what I already have experienced. This is just a fast core-dump in the morning and certainly doesn’t represent all I want to do yet so feel free to add comments with recommendations of items you think should be on the list :)

Experience Oshkosh Checklist:

• ✔ Trying to arrange your schedule (before I arrived :))
• ✔ Meeting amazing new people with a common love of flying (At Rockford before I arrived :))
• ✔ Flying into Oshkosh (0 hours)
• ✔ Mass arrival to Oshkosh (0 hours)
• ✔ Heat beyond belief (<4 hours)
• ✔ Life sucking humidity (<4 hours)
• ✔ Salivating over an aircraft (<4 hours)
• ✔ Seeing an aircraft you’d dreamed of seeing (<4 hours)
• ✔ Doing a shopping run to Target ‘cos you forgot yet another thing (6 hours)
• ✔ Eaten alive by insects despite insect repellent (8 hours)
• ✔ Camping on the North 40 (8 hours)
• ✔ Late night thunderstorm with heavy rain & lashing winds (14 hours)
• ✔ Early morning warbird wake up call (18 hours)
• ✔ The hunt for good wifi (19 hours)
• ✔ Angsting over two important events that happen at the same time (21 hours)
• ✔ Chatting with complete strangers yet having a blast & feeling connected (22 hours)
• Wishing you had a TARDIS (or a cloning machine)
• Meeting in person all your online podcasting & social media friends (thanks to Rob Cigliano :)
• Camping in Camp Scholler
• 3G coverage dropouts
• Realising you just can’t do it all! :(
• Making new firm friends from people you never knew existed before Oshkosh
• Seeing more aircraft than you knew existed
• Touching an aircraft you’d only dreamed of seeing
• Seeing an aircraft you’d never known existed
• Overloading on aircraft such that you only react to really unique ones
• Flying out of Oshkosh
• Flying the FISK arrival

Those of you who know me in the real, meat-space world (as opposed to just online) will be aware of the funky t-shirts I like to collect. You may have seen me wearing a number of aviation related ones, the best of which usually have something to do with chickens????

These shirts, a number of books and a lot of my laughs all come from Michael & Stefan Strasser who produce the Chicken Wings comic online. In addition to producing some amazing content, they’ve also come up with a great way to help boost their ratings in the search engines by getting lots of people to link back to them in a cool & non-spam-scam kind of way. Everyone who links back to them goes in the draw for some cool merch or a nifty collectable silver coin thanks to their Link Contest.

Honestly, I’ve been meaning to write a post about these guys for ages but now seems like a pretty good time to do it, no? :)

Definitely worth reading, especially if you’re into aviation.

This was my first flight with Pete Wright (my other instructor) and included a climb to 4,000′ AGL where we found ourselves above a thin layer of stratus, seeing our shadow on the cloud with a rainbow halo around the basket.

I was at Mildura as part of the Australian Ballooning Federation’s “The Lake 2010″ event

Here’s my notes from the flight:

• Intensity has stepped up as Pete’s working me towards a commercial level
• “Fun” intro is over – it’s time to get serious
• Pete has a different style to Paul so I’m changing to “step up”
• Pibal on launch & use of compass to compare goals to wind direction
• Pete’s “Top to Bottom” flow checklist / walkthrough
• Building a 3D view of environment & awareness of other balloons
• Setup & rigging of balloon & way to stand & hold ropes (plus getting them out of the way of pax)
• Also consideration of instrument positioning WRT pax
• My first inflation with Pete observing & guiding
  • Short burns
  • Position of flame
  • Wait & see how it reacts – let fan help
  • Watch for fabric stretching out
• Climb up to get winds
• “The voice” is still an issue but am pushing it back & focusing on the flight
• Getting used to working the valve & burners
• Descent & intermediate landing in a clearing
• Discussion on the ground about landing & considerations for take off
• Take off & ascent to about 4,000′ AGL to see what winds were doing above a thin layer of stratus cloud
• Got to see shadow of balloon on cloud below with a halo around the basket – wow
• Didn’t find the direction we wanted so came back down, skimmed trees & worked with what we had to get into a dirt patch between what seemed to be sown crops
• Terminal descent again – 1,000fpm at one point – even more wow!
• Getting the hang of descending towards that big, hard ground below is going to be “interesting” (& essential :)

Click here to view my log book entry at JetRecord.com

This was an afternoon flight where the light winds shifted dramatically part way through, making us reassess our route & target landing spot.

I was at Mildura as part of the Australian Ballooning Federation’s “The Lake 2010″ event

Here’s my notes from the flight:

• Set up @ Werrimal School oval – worked through rigging & prep with Paul
• Used hands on / hands off method to heat balloon & launch
• Up & over Werrimal but couldn’t keep constant height:
  • Would put heat in but the balloon would start to descend
  • Was it thermals?
  • Was it low pressure from a depleted tank?
  • Must learn to check burner pressures while flying
• Flew out over trees north of Werrimal & scraped through the top of one
• Pete Dutneal’s balloon had a valve “buldge” – went up to check him from above after he’d landed
• Stayed high & started drifting left (west) of where we thought we’d go
• Watched Andrew “Harry” Fewtrell land on a field – his layout indicated wind shift was at ground level too
• Also saw dust cloud from tractor working in a field to the north had shifted direction compared to when we had driven past on the way to the launch field
• Changed plans, targeted clear area near dirt-track road
• Winds moving us towards tree – called crew into crop field for a handling line
• Got to experience impact of handling lines – need to burn once crew grab line due to down force exerted as they stop/slow forward momentum
• Worked to keep us light but not too buoyant
• Touched down on side of dirt-track and deflated
• Dug up a massive mallee root for use on camp fire – very dense wood so it’s good for long burning
• Flights today have been fun & educational, great introductions to what is coming up & amazing to see the difference between perspectives of crew, pax & pilot roles
• Loving it! :)

Click here to view my log book entry at JetRecord.com

This was my first instructional flight in a hot air balloon.

I was at Mildura as part of the Australian Ballooning Federation’s “The Lake 2010″ event

Here’s my notes from the flight:

• Paul’s FICOM check process
• Cold, crisp conditions with steady light winds
• Inflated under Paul’s guidance & did a “3 Bounce” take off:
  • Stay on the ground line
  • Inflate & get lift
  • Let it return to the ground
  • Repeat 3 times
  • Launch on peak of next lift
  • Lets you identify false lift
• Went to about 2,000′ to check direction of winds aloft
• Wasn’t totally comfortable at altitude (“the voice”)
• Back down to low level again – skimming the ground was great fun
• Stand up landing in a field
• Got out and rode with the chase crew so Cynthia could get in & fly the second hop
• Elation to be flying at last
• So much to learn
• Paul’s “count the balloons” method for keeping track of others

Click here to view my log book entry at JetRecord.com

As part of my balloon flight training, my instructors have asked me to write up notes about each flight, highlighting what was good, what I learned, questions & what wasn’t so good. The idea is that this will help solidify the learnings from each flight as well as being a good source to review when “couch flying” on those days when I can’t actually get into the aircraft.

I’ve found this to be of fantastic assistance to my learning and just wish I’d done it when I was previously learning to fly fixed wing aircraft. I’d have probably picked up a lot more & progressed faster if I’d done this.

My instructors (Pete & Paul, both commercial pilots) have also recommended that I write notes about my flights even after I have my license, especially as I’ll be working to build hours towards my commercial license. Having a source of notes to review can do more for helping me learn from my flights than the small amount of space available in a daily log entry :)

While I was out in Mildura doing my first week of balloon flying, I was sleeping in a tent plus studying hard for my theoretical exams. As such, keying my notes into a computer from the start just wasn’t going to work, so I wrote them out in a notepad. Now I get to transcribe them into an electronic copy for Pete’s records, so I figure I’ll write them up on the blog so others can have a read too (what the heck :)

Track these entries via the “Flight Notes” categories, adding the “Balloons” category if you just want the entries about flying hot air balloons (I may start writing up flight notes for future fixed-wing flights as well :)

While reading Macarthur Job’s book “Into Oblivion: the Southern Cloud enigma” (as mentioned in my previous blog entry) I encountered over some sagely aviation advice that was written in 1930 that still rings true today.

The book has a set of appendices that contain documents & articles written around 1930 including an article on “Blind Flying” written by Travis W. Shortridge, the captain of the Southern Cloud at the time it disappeared. At the end of his article, Shortridge made the following observation:

The success or otherwise of ‘the airway’ is in the hands of the people who do the work – the pilots. In their hands rests everything. No man can be born a fully-trained pilot; no pilot can ever be fully trained. All pilots should ever be learning, ever striving to increase their own efficiency. Efficiency begets confidence, and thus safety. So aim at being safe.

He then also discussed airmanship and how there is much more to flying than just the actual stick & rudder work:

Somehow ‘airmanship’, which is not just flying, but is everything flying means, is a very neglected subject … If only young pilots would forget that a ‘joy stick’ is in many ways only a secondary consideration, that ‘circuits and landings’ do not make a pilot, that they never will learn all that the air can teach them, and that advice from old hands should never be disregarded – well, lots of young pilots would still be pilots!

No matter what you are flying, Shortridge’s words apply to anyone who leaves the surface of our planet to experience the freedom of the air and beyond. It’s amazing to consider that after over 80 years, these comments still ring true in today’s aviation environment. Despite all our technological advancements and improvements in the way we train pilots, we continue to return to problems that have their root cause in the human aspects of attitude, ego and awareness.

There are indications that insurance companies, training organisations and government aviation regulators are starting to realise that beyond practical test standards and raw figures of accumulated hours there lies the core attitudes and mental processes of the pilots themselves. We are hearing the phrase “you can’t legislate professionalism” and encountering questionnaires & surveys to assess a pilot’s personality & approach to problem solving. Certainly these may be steps towards finally addressing the common issues that no amount of technology can resolve but I still cannot help but wonder whether we’ll be making comments like Shortridge’s in another 80 years?

I recently finished reading Macarthur (“Mac”) Job’s book Into Oblivion: The Southern Cloud enigma, yet another of his amazing air crash investigation books. An avid pilot, Macarthur was also responsible for the Department of Civil Aviation’s Aviation Safety Digest for some 14 years. Like the Safety Digest, his books combine an attention to detail and presentation of the facts with a well written narrative and engaging delivery.

“Into Oblivion” details the disappearance of Australian National Airways’ Avro 10 tri-motor “Southern Cloud” in 1931 and the subsequent discovery of its wreckage in 1958. Macarthur gives great background into the airline’s history, from when it was set up by Sir Charles Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm to when it shut down not long after the Southern Cloud disappeared. He lays out the events that lead up to the Southern Cloud’s disappearance and then describes how the wreckage was discovered, the limited investigation that was performed and the questions left unanswered. He also provides some possible scenarios that could explain how the accident occurred and whether it was survivable.

There is also coverage of various anniversary events that have occurred in more recent times while the appendices contain four documents written in the 1930s, including:

• A review of flying the Avro Ten
• An journalist’s report documenting the experience of flying from Melbourne to Sydney with ANA
• An article on “blind flying” written by the pilot shortly before his death
• A journalist’s report on his experience flying with Kingsford Smith in the search for the Southern Cloud.

The only niggling item I encountered was an occasional repetition of some facts or comments that wasn’t really necessary as they’d only recently been raised. It was clear that the sections had been written separately and then linked together without “blending” them and removing duplications. Fortunately there were only a couple of these instances and they weren’t a major annoyance.

All up, I really enjoyed this book and have no hesitation recommending it for anyone interested in learning more about Australia’s first major airline disaster. Not simply a dry repetition of the facts, “Into Oblivion” engages the reader and is a pleasure to read.