vents EAA602 From the President s Desk Adirondack Chapter Newsletter July 2012

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1 ogbook EAA602 July 2012 Adirondack Chapter Newsletter From the President s Desk by Tim Devine of different chapter members we now have ethanol free gasoline available in the area. Mark Murphy has dedicated a tank at his Mayfield Store location to E- Free and we should all make an effort to patronize his establishment. Thanks to Mark who finally made the commitment to bring real fuel back to the area, but also to all the other members who investigated and pushed this opportunity forward. I guess after having my Ethanol is a scam bumper sticker on my truck for four years enough people noticed and spoke up. That s about for me. You will get a better sense of what I have been up to in my attached article. I just finished my annual last night and except for a out of date ELT battery, I m good to go for another year. July 3 Fly-In Movie and Overnight Camping Red Tails on the Big Hangar Sponsored by Mass MOCA North Adams Airport KAQW 6:00 PM Fly-In pilots and passengers get free admittance! July All Day Geneseo Air Show D52 Fly Out and Camp Over $20 Admission $25 Camping Fee July All Day Island Bob s BBQ and Camp Out Free camping I don t know where to start, between travel for work and flying about the state its been a busy May and June with lots more activities to come. Everyone who can needs to make this month s meeting as we will be awarding the Chapter Scholarship to this years recipient. Also at this month s meeting we will be reviewing and updating the calendar for the rest of the summer. Lot s of good stuff going on so don t miss out. In my humble opinion, the biggest news is that through the efforts of a number 2012 Chapter Officers President Tim Devine Vice President Larry Saupe Secretary Pat Morris Treasurer Darryl White Newsletter Editor Phylise Banner Young Eagles Doug & Judy Sterling Board Members Kevin Bartholoma Fred Blowers Don Fleischut John Pashley Doug Sterling July All Day Gullivers Fly In Free camping July 21 7:30 AM Cooperstown Breakfast K23 July 31 7:00 PM Monthy Meeting Fulton County Airport NY0 Visit the Website for more details on all of our events! vents

2 Contact Departure, Have a Nice Flight? by John Peck I called Niagara Ground Control before start-up and told them Experimental N37JP on the FBO ramp, VFR westbound for St. Clare County Michigan at 2500, we have ROMEO. They gave me the usual VFR clearance information, squawk code, etc. It was slightly odd that they did not give me a Departure Control frequency, but I let it slide. I started up, got taxi clearance to runway 6, and moved out. I noticed the windsock at the end of runway 6 showed a severe crosswind, slightly downwind. I m thinking, it s a long runway, a VERY long taxi if I was to request a change to 24, and for sure the mighty Rotax and my superior piloting skills can handle this, so I let it slide. When I called Tower for take-off clearance I asked for the departure control frequency, and he said something like, going westbound that would be St. Catherine s on I thought that was a strange way to put it, but I set the frequency in the standby side of the radio and let it slide. We danced down the runway in the gusty wind and got airborne in one of my uglier takeoffs. Climbing out I waited for the usual Contact Departure, have a nice flight. Instead I got Turn left on course, remain north of the Falls restricted area, squawk 1200, you can try contacting St. Catherine s for flight following. WHOA, I was NOT expecting THAT! I had been expecting a nice helpful departure controller to give me radar contact and lead me step-byvector around the restricted area and the St. Catherine s control zone. Now I was headed directly for the restricted area and on my own navigation. I was having trouble reading the Garmin 496 screen in the bright sunlight, and even though I had an ipad with ForeFlight (and its amazing moving map display) on board, I had not turned it on before takeoff. Yup, I had let that step slide too. I took a course that by eyeball would keep me well north of the falls while I tried to contact St. Catherine s Radio. No joy. Went back to Niagara Tower and they gave me a frequency for Toronto Center. They talked to me at least, but decided to send me back over to St. Catherine s Radio. During all this time I was playing bumper cars with the restricted area and the control zone, partly by eyeball, and partly by the Garmin screen, which I was having a terrible time seeing in the sunlight. (Later, I discovered I had lowered the screen brightness on a night flight, and neglected to turn it back up.) Once we got clear of the CZ over the Ontario flatlands, we were back on flight following with Toronto Center, and I was able to get my adrenalin level down to reasonable levels. I started analyzing my mistakes that got me into this mess in the first place. Basically it boils down to complacency. I am so used to being handed off to a departure controller, and putting my fate in his or her hands, that I did not completely prepare myself for the initial leg of the flight. The Niagara controller s verbiage should have tipped me off that he was not planning a handoff to a departure controller. I was not completely familiar with the airspace directly and immediately on my course. I was not using all my cockpit resources. I had let too many things slide. Hopefully this story will motivate you and me to completely prepare for each and every flight (from start to finish), no matter how routine it may seem! EAA602 LOGBOOK. JuLY 2012 Page 2

3 this month in aviation history Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin is born in Baden, Germany. The first large-scale builder and pioneer of rigid dirigible balloons, Zeppelin made his first balloon ascent while serving as a volunteer and observer for the Union Army in America s Civil War The first trial of the first Zeppelin airship, the LZ-1, takes place over Lake Constance, Germany. The first of the rigid, monster airships, it is 420 feet long and contains 16 separate gas bags with a total capacity of 338,410 cubic feet. It is tentatively successful, and attains a speed of 8½ mph. It is housed in a floating hangar, the first in history The Zeppelin LZ-4 makes a 12-hour flight crossing the Alps. It covers the 235 miles from Friedrichshafen to Zürich and reaches speeds of 32 mph The first international Zeppelin (airship) show is held in Frankfurt, Germany The first crossing of the Atlantic by airship, as well as the first double-crossing (return flight), is made by the British rigid airship, R-34. This giant dirigible, which flies non-stop from Scotland to Long Island, New York, has a 30-man crew and is piloted by Major G.H. Scott. The Zeppelin makes a grand debut! The first Zeppelin, LZ-1 was built in a floating wooden hangar in Friedrichshagen, Germany, in The ship was completed in the winter of 1899, but designer Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin decided to wait until the summer of 1900 before attempting to fly his invention. The ship was inflated with hydrogen gas in June and made its maiden flight on July 2, The first flight lasted about 18 minutes and covered about 3-1/2 miles over the lake. LZ-1 (Luftschiff Zeppelin 1) was 420 feet long, 38-1/2 feet in diameter, and contained approximately 399,000 cubic feet of hydrogen in 17 gas cells made of rubberized cotton fabric. Two metal gondolas were suspended below the ship (one forward and one aft) and each gondola housed a 4-cylinder water-cooled Daimler gasoline engine producing about 14 horsepower. Each engine was connected by long shafts to two outrigger propellers mounted on either side of the hull. Pitch was controlled by a sliding weight suspended under the hull which could be shifted fore and aft. Chapter 602 Aviation Scholarship The winner of this years scholarship award is Nick Petricca! Nick is a senior at Mayfield Central School District and will be attending Northwest Preparatory School in Crestline, California to peruse his dream of getting accepted at USAF Academy. Nick is ranked number 10 in his class and has achieved a GPA of

4 Keeping Busy (And In for the Long Haul!) by Tim Devine It has been a desire for some of us tweeners (not student pilots anymore, but far from high timers) to stretch our wings a little and take some longer trips. Up until a few weeks ago it was all just talk and planning. Weather and mechanical problems squashed the Gettysburg trip, so the season wasn t off to a good start. Things took a turn for the better on June 8, when I posted a notice about a PCB in Weedsport, NY for Sunday, June 10. The weather looked good, the distance was manageable and we had lots of daylight. Tim Cowper responded to the notice, and was ready to give it a go, so we decided to take off at 07:30 for what we anticipated to be a 1.5 hour flight. Despite launching on time into good weather it took us all of 2 hours to get there, as we had a light but steady headwind all the way. It is a nice little airport with paved and grass strips. Fuel is advertised, but doesn t exist on the field any more. Breakfast was pretty typical -- $6.00 and you don t walk away hungry. The head wind was a tail wind going home, so we made better time, but because we needed to make a fuel stop in Hamilton travel time was about the same. The Weedsport trip proved to be a warm up for the following weekend flight to Hammondsport, New York to visit the Glenn Curtiss Museum. Two summers ago Tim Cowper, while on business in the western part of the state, spotted this beautiful little grass strip situated about a mile down Route 54 from the museum. A chat with the owner of the field got us an invite to fly in some time and check out the field and camp out if we so desired. Last Summer and Fall two separate attempts never materialized, so in 2012 we were bound and determined to try again. The weekend of June 16 & 17 the weather gods looked down on us kindly and by Thursday night we decided the trip was on. Now mind you, Tim Cowper, as of noon on Friday, still needed to purchase a sleeping bag, tent, pad, etc. But, other than that, he was ready. I can t describe to you what a great feeling it was when we turned west to new skies versus the usual trip back home. Our plan was to fly to Cooperstown (K23) to have breakfast, and head west. Because of the nice weather we were going to fly down to K23 with Pat Morris, Chris B. and John Pashley. John was going to come along and make a day trip out of it. By the time we landed, the line for breakfast stretched around the side of the main hanger and was creeping at a snail s pace. After a few minutes in line we decided that we were going to lose too much time at K23 so we decided to press on to Hammondsport. I can t describe to you what a great feeling it was when we turned west to new skies versus the usual trip back home. A short fuel stop at Norwich and then about one hour and 15 minutes of riding thermals over Cayuga and Seneca lakes and the beautiful hills and valleys of Finger Lakes region put us at Hammondsport. We approached Hammondsport from the North over Keuka Lake to get a feel for the wind and then landed on a smooth wide grass strip and taxied to parking. The owner s son came out and greeted us immediately, told us we could set up our tents anywhere and then provided us with a ride to the museum. Once at the museum we were greeted by the museum director who took us on a Continued on page 5 EAA602 LOGBOOK. July 2012 Page 4

5 Keeping Busy, continued from page 4 private tour of the restoration area and then took us into a special area where they have an ongoing major restoration of a P-40 that was recovered from a Florida tidal marsh, so you can imagine the deterioration. We then spent the next three hours touring the different displays. The thing that I liked the most about the museum was that it wasn t all airplanes. I have read a couple of different books on Glen Curtiss s life, but until you see the bicycles, motorcycles, farm equipment, tools, boats, etc that were all part of his interest and experiments you don t realize all that this gentleman accomplished with no formal education. After we departed the museum, we returned to the airfield and started to work on the brake cable which had broken while I was taxiing. A couple of gentlemen who were working on a Stearman loaned us tools and we set to work. We discovered that we needed some parts, so the same gentleman ordered hardware from a local store, and then gave us his truck to make the pickup run. The store had already closed for the day, but our new friend had made arrangements with the manager to hang the parts on a hook outside the back door so we could retrieve them. He also suggested some places for dinner, so while we were out we also had an excellent meal at a local restaurant. All of this only reinforces the fact that some of the greatest people in the world are in aviation. After we returned from our dinner/parts run, we put on our best MacGyver faces and did an emergency repair to my right brake cable. Don t laugh! It worked! After that we mellowed out and sat around talking airplanes, kids, life and watched the sun go down over a beautiful setting. Darkness brought out the bugs so we turned in with the intention of getting an early start. The birds started their songs about 04:30 so we were up, broken down and loaded by 06:00 to take off into dead calm 55 degree air which the airplanes just love. Flying due east into the rising sun proved to be a challenge and I was glad to have the terrain avoidance feature on the Anywhere Maps as a backup. We stopped for fuel in Cortland which was a ghost town except for a departing WACO headed for Ithaca. The rest of the way home was uneventful, with us both shooting some video, playing a little, capturing Tim Cowper doing a wing over on film and the standard buzzing of Arties strip. We were both home before noon, with some great flying under our belts -- having met some really nice folks and having a feeling of mission accomplished. As I was unpacking and getting things squared away at home, more than once I asked myself where to next? Fly safe, fly smart! EAA602 LOGBOOK. June 2012 Page 5

6 ember An Interview with EAA602 Ghost Member, Roger That Q: Why did you get a pilot certificate? A: I hung around the airport but no one would give me a ride. I got my private so I could fly myself around. Now I m offered rides all the time. Q: Do you remember your first solo flight? A: Yes. I went around the pattern and landed three times. By the third time I was as stiff as a statue. Q: Were you scared? A: Tense but not scared. I was really scared on my second solo flight. I figured that I cheated death on my first solo and would not be able to do it again. Q: Does anything about flying scare you now? A: That 100 LL will be $7.00 this summer. Q: I meant when you are up in the air flying. A: Well, around here they tell you that if the engine quits try to go between two trees, so I worry about making it to the trees. Q: I m a student pilot and my instructor s basic advice is to always fly the airplane first. Did your instructor give you the same advice? A: No, save yourself not the plane was his advice. Q: Did you have any embarrassing moments while learning to fly? A: Yes, mostly at towered airports. One response from the tower I remember when I was on a long cross country and arrived on the downwind leg at my unfamiliar destination was, Yes we have a runway 34; it s at the other end of runway 16. I won t give you the details about this one but maybe you can surmise what was going on when the tower said, OK, just pick any runway and land. Q: Say anything to ATC that maybe you regret? A: Well, at Schenectady, Are you asleep in the tower? Q: How is your flying now? A: I m very good at takeoffs, cruise flight, such as holding altitude, and landings; just not all in the same day. Q: What do you like best about flying? A: There are no speed traps. Q: Do you find anything confusing about flying? A: Yes. After learning how a wing creates lift, how do planes fly upside down? Q: Do you have anything else you d like to say? A: Every time someone says, fly in breakfast, I lose my appetite. humor Editorial Corner I find that I m always looking for a good read, and as Summer vacations approach (for some of you!), I thought it would be good to share a few books that are on my must read list! Flight of Passage Rinker Buck Writer Rinker Buck looks back to a summer when he and his brother, at ages 15 and 17 respectively, became the youngest duo to fly across America. Zero 3 Bravo: Solo Across America in a Small Plane Mariana Gosnell The story of Mariana s three-month solo journey across the U.S., with colorful tales about the folks she met along the way. The Cannibal Queen Stephen Coonts Another telling of a three-month journey across the US, with a stopover in every state, from the cockpit of a 1942 Stearman vintage biplane. Flying Carpet: The Soul of an Airplane Gregory N. Brown A journey of life and flying, from one of AOPA s regular comlumnists. Wind, Sand and Stars Antoine de Saint-Exupery An autobiographical work from one of my favorite authors, with a full account of his crash in the desert in So, when you re not too busy flying, or the weather is keeping you inside, enjoy one of these reads! And, as always, keep the blue side up! Phylise EAA Chapter 602 Non-Profit Declaration and Legal Disclaimer. July 2012 EAA Chapter 602 exists as a non-profit organization whose sole purpose is to promote the interests of its members. EAA 602 Chapter Officers, Directors & Leaders serve without compensation & have sworn to carry out the will of the membership by means of Democratic processes and rules of order set forth in the chapter s by-laws. No claim is made and no liability is assumed, expressed or implied as to the accuracy or safety of material presented in this publication. Viewpoints of those who contribute to this newsletter are not necessarily those of EAA Chapter 602, the EAA, or their board or members. You must be of good character, adhere to the chapter s by-laws, and respect the chapter s Mission & Value Statement to become a member of the chapter. Dues are $20.00 per year payable to Chapter Treasurer. Chapter dues are payable in June. Member correspondence & newsletter contributions are encouraged which can be submitted by to the newsletter editor.