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PUFA NEWSLETTER
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October 21, 1998
Beverley Lawrence, President
Tobias Kreisz, Vice-President
Mario LeBel, Treasurer
Debbie Major, Secretary
Mail to: Pacific Ultralight Flying Association
102-16071 82 Avenue
Surrey, B.C. V3S 2L6
PUFA Newsletter published by Glenn Ursel
From The President
by Beverley Lawrence
Today (Sunday, October 18th) we found the long lost Ex President/Treasurer, Ken Buck, and his wife Penny relaxing pioneer style in the woods on the eastern shore of Harrison Lake and they make a mean cup of coffee. We were able to land on the Lake and, led by our pilot Ken in his little yellow canoe, taxied up the Silver Creek right to their door. After a pleasant visit during which we took a tour of their property, visited their neighbours and warmed ourselves by the log stove, we took off on the river and headed south to the town of Harrison. Pilots, Fred and Beverly in the Searey and James and Arianna in the Zenair on floats. There is an airstrip less than a mile away.
How quickly times goes by. Nearly a year since I was elected President of PUFA. I was honoured to be elected, but am finding that I do not have the time that I would like to really do the job I would like to in the position. As the November meeting will be the AGM, I would like the members to start thinking of who they would like to propose for the next President as I regretfully wish to withdraw my name from further nomination.
At a meeting recently with representatives of Transport Canada from all the regions across Canada, I was able to present PUFA as a voice for Western Canada. Transport Canada will send infomation to our web page, which can be reproduced in the news letter for members without access to the web. Transport Canada is following through on their mandate to interact in a positive way with the ultralight community. I hope to see you at the next meeting this month.
Editorial Note
by Glenn Ursel
I took some editorial liberties in publishing Beverly’s email to me regarding her’s and Fred’s flight last Sunday to Harrison Lake in their Searey. I happened to be at the King George Airfield with my Beaver RX550 when they and James Sheremeta took off enroute to Chehalis Lake and then Harrison Lake. Just before they left, our former President Jeff Rochon flew by overhead in his bright red Continental powered Murphy Renegade, did a couple of aerobatic manoeuvers and continued west (likely to Delta Airpark).
As they left, I took off myself on Runway 25 in my continued peregrinations of the local airfields and climbed out southwest to Crescent Beach for a flight around past White Rock to the Intergalactic Aerodrome of the Red Baron.
It was a wonderful day for flying - sunny day with lots of lift and little turbulence. Even with my puddle jumper floats hanging off my Beaver ultralight, I had little trouble climbing to 1500 feet. As I landed at the Baron’s field, I noticed Volker Budziak up in an apple tree trimming branches galore. I went over to greet him and his wife, Bev, and we chatted a while. During our conversation, I learned that the snowbirds had already left for their annual pilgrimages to warmer climes, Fred and Precy to “Cabo” and Larry and Marie to Florida.
Shortly, I took off again to fly eastwards to 264th Street and then north to my home field of Glen Valley. Anyway, I have included a couple of interesting emails from the COPA website and a story of a Flight to Nowhere I found at an ultralight website called Buzzards Row in this month’s PUFA Newsletter. The author was anonymous.
November, 1998 Flying Events*
Sunday, November 1, 1998, 9:00 am to 11:15 am
Delta Airpark, RAA Chapter 85 monthly pancake breakfast
$3, 9:00 am to 11:15 am
Listen to the pre-recorded arrival procedures for Delta Heritage Airpark
phone 878-9050
*Information supplied by Gordon Denham
RE: LASER SURGERY FOR PILOTS**
Last year you featured an interesting article written by a doctor who does pilot medicals. He briefly mentioned that, in his opinion, the laser eye surgery for correcting vision is ‘not’for pilots. I have studied into this as much as I could, because, for myself, the benefits of having my vision corrected would be tremendous, especially in the arctic environment, where, at times, it is impossible to wear glasses and the rest of the time a real problem. So, for myself, the benefits in other areas would far outweigh any downside as a pilot. The time a pilot is grounded has been reduced from a year to six months and this would still be the major hurdle to deal with.
One of the recent advancements is in the eximer procedure where the edges of the corrected area are feathered to reduce the halo effect of lights at night. I would like for anyone having pro’s or con’s, to e-mail me. Have any pilots done this? Anyone contemplating this procedure needs all the knowledge that’s out there.
RODGER RINKER
Rocky Mt. House, AB
rinker@telusplanet.net
RE: SATNAV: SOLE MEANS**
All of the fuss and delay over sole-means IFR GPS navigation is a highly annoying example of how the aviation bureaucracy wastes our money. I have been using handheld GPS for several years and have flown all over eastern Canada and the U.S., probably a couple of hundred hours. I have experienced only two or three GPS outages and these were of only a minute or two duration. In contrast, there have been quite a number of cases of VORs and NDBs off the air. In August, 1997, I bought an airplane that has both a KLN90B GPS and a KLN89 Loran in the panel. Since then I have never had a GPS outage but the Loran signal drops out on nearly every flight, typically more than once, for five to 20 minutes at a time. Given the clamor in the U.S. to retain Loran C as the official backup system for the GPS, this is scary.
Ironically, the Loran is IFR certified. Our GPS is IFR certifiable but not yet certified because each and every IFR GPS installation requires reams of paperwork, engineering studies and so on at a cost of thousands of dollars. Transport Canada cutbacks mean this has to be done by a Designated Airworthiness representative and believe me, they are not cheap.
I’m not an expert on radio propagation, however, given that the GPS signals are digital, I suspect natural forms of interference are highly unlikely to cause undetected navigational errors. On rare occasions, the signal may simply be lost for a time — a phenomenon which GPS receivers are designed to handle. There is no problem with GPS as a sole-means system from the individual pilot’sviewpoint. The problem arises if and when our entire navigation system is solely dependent on SatNav. Any one of several countries could destroy enough satellites to render it unusable within a short time, jamming devices are relatively easy to build, and ‘hacker terrorists’ could very conceivably break in and interfere with the satellite control network. The bureaucracy is dithering about whether or not to let pilots use GPS for sole-means navigation but isn’t at all worried about sole dependence on GPS. After all, the satellites are courtesy of the U.S. Department of Defence and users buy the receivers, so NavCan gets a free ride!
What about WAAS and LAAS? The concepts are simple and many successful tests and demonstrations have been going on for several years. However, the Nav Canada Flightpath column in the May issue of Canadian Flight is revealing. "The designs, which feature a good deal of redundancy, are being subjected to detailed safety analyses that cover all possible failures. The systems will not be certified unless they satisfy the safety analyses."
All possible failures? Now there’s a challenge! I can see the parade of consultants back and forth to the bank. Immunity from all possible failures is a ludicrous and impossible goal and the benefit to society would not justify the cost. This is especially true in aviation, particularly in regards to deployment of WAAS and LAAS systems. The systems being tested are pretty good already and they don’t have to be perfect on day one – even the venerable ILS occasionally fails. It’s time to publish a specification for and deploy WAAS and LAAS.
Unfortunately, bureaucracies operate with a mentality that as long as something is ‘new’ and not proven to be perfect (usually through years and millions of dollars of studies, committee meetings, etc., ad nauseum), no one will put their signature on an approval. Given the experience we now have with GPS, it would be interesting to analyze accidents – if any – in which GPS played a role. I can certainly see its misuse as a factor, especially in roll-your-own approaches which do not take proper account of obstacle clearance. This is dangerous, although perhaps slightly less so than a home-made VOR, NDB or RNAV approach because it provides much more accurate course guidance. Any approach flown incorrectly is dangerous. I challenge anyone to find an accident — even one — which resulted from a failure of the GPS system itself, whether satellite or airborne equipment, certified or non-certified, handheld or panel mounted.
I’m betting that a survey of pilots would establish that GPS — any form of GPS, installed in any manner which your average AME would be willing to sign off — is far more reliable and trustworthy, not to mention far more precise, than other navigation means available to general aviation pilots today. It’s time for the bureaucrats at Transport Canada (and at Nav Canada, remembering that most of them are former TC officials) to wake up and smell the coffee.
Specifically:
- allow AME’s to sign off GPS installations for IFR purposes, like
any other installation of TSO’d equipment;
- accept that GPS is a better sole-means option than any other navigation
system available today, despite any theoretical issues that
still have to be resolved, and approve it as such. It doesn’t have
to be perfect;
- curtail the studies and get on with deploying WAAS and LAAS;
- drastically improve the Loran system, or better yet, accept that
some of the VOR/NDB infrastructure will have to be retained for a long
time so we will never be completely reliant on any one system.
NORM HENDERSON
Ottawa, ON
**Originally published in Letters from COPA Members on the COPA website at http://www.copanational.org
Humour received by email from Beverly Lawrence
These are actual (or reported) humorous statements by airline flight crew members. And if they didn't say these, I'm sure they thought them really loudly.
"As we prepare for takeoff, please make sure your tray tables and seat backs are fully upright in their most uncomfortable position."
"Your seat cushions can be used for floatation, and in the event of an emergency water landing, please take them with our compliments."
"We do feature a smoking section on this flight; if you must smoke, contact a member of the flight crew and we will escort you to the wing of the airplane."
"Smoking in the lavatories is prohibited. Any person caught smoking in the lavatories will be asked to leave the plane immediately."
"Good morning. As we leave Dallas, it's warm, the sun is shining, and the birds are singing. We are going to Charlotte, where it's dark, windy and raining. Why in the world y'all wanna go there I really don't know."
Pilot -- "Folks, we have reached our cruising altitude now, so I am going to switch the seat belt sign off. Feel free to move about as you wish, but please stay inside the plane till we land... it's a bit cold outside, and if you walk on the wings it affects the flight pattern." And, after landing: "Thank you for flying Delta Business Express. We hope you enjoyed giving us the business as much as we enjoyed taking you for a ride."
As we waited just off the runway for another airliner to cross in front of us, some of the passengers were beginning to retrieve luggage from the overhead bins. The head steward announced on the intercom, "This aircraft is equipped with a video surveillance system that monitors the cabin during taxiing. Any passengers not remaining in their seats until the aircraft comes to a full and complete stop at the gate will be strip-searched as they leave the aircraft."
Here are a few heard from Northwest: "Should the cabin lose pressure, oxygen masks will drop from the overhead area. Please place the bag over your own mouth and nose before assisting children or adults acting like children."
"As you exit the plane, please make sure to gather all of your belongings. Anything left behind will be distributed evenly among the flight attendants. Please do not leave children or spouses."
And from the pilot during his welcome message: "We are pleased to have some of the best flight attendants in the industry... unfortunately none of them are on this flight."
Upon landing hard, one pilot got on the PA system and said, "Sorry for the hard landing, folks. It wasn't the pilot's fault, and it wasn't the plane's fault. It was the asphalt."
A Flight to Nowhere
It was four o'clock on a dark winter Monday morning and I was already awake. A lousy nights sleep had me stumbling around getting my things together for an early morning flight I had planned the day before. A look out of the front window revealed a dark skyline. I wondered if the clouds would lift in time to get some nice pictures of the sunrise over the ocean. My plan was to leave the air field in the dark and head south east, winding up at the Old Barney lighthouse just as the sun came up. Unfortunately, I couldn't convince any of my flying buddies skip work and accompany me. I hate flying by myself but just the same I wanted those pictures. As I walked out the door I noticed my wife asleep on the couch. What a mess I had made of things I thought. We used to be so close but now we just share the same house. I quietly shut the door and was on my way.
I arrived at the field at a quarter to five and made my way to the hanger. The frost on the ground crunched beneath my feet and the chill in the early morning air stung with every breath. My thermals had their work cut out for them, a passing glance at the thermometer on the club house wall indicated just 26 degrees and I hadn't yet installed the heater on the airplane. Nice time to think about that now. The canvas door on the front of my hanger felt like a sheet of plastic. The cold air stiffens the canvas to the point that you almost can't get the latches open. Once the doors were open I grabbed the cart and made my way to the gas pump to fill up the two gas cans I use to fill the plane. Even the pump handle was stiff and is hard to move in this air. I spill some gas on my hand and just then realized I left my gloves at home. On the way back to my hanger with the gas I had to stop to rub my hands together as they were now stinging and numb from the gas I spilled on them and the cold. I had to get gloves somewhere and I mean now. I made my way over to Hanks hanger and began riffling through his aircraft, I know he has some gloves here somewhere. I find a left hand glove that was so dirty that I was afraid to pick it up but it was cold and I was desperate. I shook it off and with a wince I put it on. It was almost like wearing someone else's dentures. I got so involved with finding gloves that I failed to notice that it was almost five thirty and I hadn't even done my preflight yet. I filled both tanks on the plane just in case I found something interesting going on at the shore I could hang out for a while. A quick preflight and I pulled the plane out of the hanger.
Sunrise is about six thirty so that means I have about forty five minutes to make it to the light house. Crawling into the plane I remember I left the camera in my car so it wouldn't freeze. Out of the plane I go. I retrieve the camera and hop back into the plane. I turn on the power and notice that the idiot lights I installed in the dash are blinding me so I search the pockets on the side of the cockpit for the roll of electrical tape I keep there for emergencies. The tape is cold and doesn't stick well but all it has to do is stick for an hour or so and then I won't need it any longer. Carbs primed, electric pump on, ignition on and fire in the hole. The motor balks at the cold and stalls a couple of times but at last it comes to life and I check both mags for operation. The cylinder head temperature rises to two hundred degrees and I am ready to taxi out to the runway. I fumble around the cockpit for the mini flashlight that I will use to see the instruments for the first hour of flight as it is still very dark, unusually dark. Five clicks on 122.9 and I get the runway lights on. We use the runway lights to see if there are any deer or other animals on the runway. After a few near misses it was thought of as being a very good idea. Using the flashlight I check my watch, five forty seven, I have to get booking.
I firewall the throttle add a little left rudder and I'm off the ground. During the climb out I always pull the gear up as a safety measure and this time was no different. Gear up and locked, I ascend to two thousand feet before pulling the power back to fifty eight hundred and trimming out for level flight. Looking to my right I notice that I can't see the air force base that usually stands out like a sore thumb. I didn't think it was that cloudy. Well, maybe it's an early morning mist or something. The whine of the two cycle motor is over bearing this time of the morning. I switch on my noise canceling head set and the settle back and enjoy the flight. After a few minutes the windshield becomes fogged up and I can't see out of it anymore. That has happened before and it usually goes away in a few minutes so I use my side windows to navigate. I am tired, I rub my eyes to try to get some relief but it doesn't help. Then I start talking to myself, that's it I say, I've made the decision that as soon as I get the pictures I'm going home and hit the sack. That should pep me up some. I feel like an idiot realizing that if anyone was around watching me carry on this one sided conversation they would think I was crazy. It must be the hum of the engine that puts me in this state, or maybe it is the fact that in the last week I have only slept eight or nine hours. My life at home is really putting a strain on my health. Thank God I have this aircraft to keep me sane. Then I think, how sane is it to be flying in the dark with nothing more than a little strobe to keep others from running into me.
Suddenly I snap out of my day dream state and realize, damn the strobe, I forgot to turn it on. I flip the switch and see the flashing strobe as if it was in front of me rather than on the tail. Then I notice that the windshield is filled with snow flurries and the strobe was reflecting off the falling snow. While I was daydreaming I must have turned east or north east because I didn't' t recognize anything on my GPS moving map. My watch says six forty nine and it is still dark. I'm no hero, I swing around to the west punch home into the GPS and head back to the field. The weather Channel didn't say anything about snow for today or even tomorrow, it was supposed to be clear and cold in the mid thirties. They can only predict what happened yesterday. After a few minutes I notice the GPS isn't showing a distance to the field or even a bearing number. I switch to the moving map to follow my track line back and that is also gone. I must have deleted my track line while I was trying to figure out my location but it doesn't matter much now cause the sun is starting to come out and I will dead reckon back to the field and go for the pictures another day. The snow is getting heavier and is obscuring the ground most of the time now. I drop to one thousand feet to get into better air as it was getting very bumpy at two but the air is the same here. I can see patches of land beneath me but it doesn't look familiar to me yet. I check my watch and it reads seven twenty one. I should be real close to the field or something I would recognize soon. Eight o'clock and the snow has tapered to a very light mist and I can see the ground much better now but everything looks out of place to me. Getting low in my lower tank, I drain the top tank into the bottom one which will give me enough gas for about a half an hour more flying time and it looks like I'm going to need it. The GPS quit working, probably due to the snow on the antenna. The compass says west by south west and I'm heading toward what appears to be the ocean. By now I'm freezing and starting to become concerned about my gas situation. I must have had a good tail wind to push me this far south. I guess I'm somewhere by Ocean City, but why is the ocean in the west?
And where are all the houses and roads? Man, I have to find a place to set this thing down until I get this figured out. I look around and all I see is snow covered ground and the ocean. I pull a one eighty and head back toward inland, the compass reads east. I flip on the CB and switch to channel nineteen to try and raise a trucker or someone for help, all I get is static. I tune across the forty channels and there is no one on the radio. This is crazy, someone has to be on their way to work or something this time of day. No one heard, I turn on the VHF and tune to 122.7 which is Ocean City uni-com. I call Ocean City and wait for a response but all I hear is static, in fact I don't hear anything but static on any of the frequencies on my VHF.
The snow must have shorted out my antennas. Just then my worse nightmare came true, the engine quit. I hit the electric fuel pump and tried to get it started again but all it does is cough and sputter. With no more time left, I set up for a landing on the snow below. I have a few minutes to pick out a reasonable landing spot but the whole area below looks the same, nothing but snow. I decide to leave my gear in the retracted position just incase I land in a rough area. Picking out a spot just a little to the north of east I set up for the landing. The land looks too flat to me as I descend through five hundred feet. Coming up on one hundred feet I put in some flaps to slow the plane down a little. As I get closer to the ground I notice it isn't ground at all, it's more like a cloud or something. At about twenty feet I start the flare a little nose down for the landing and wait for the scrubbing of the ground on my hull. I touch what I thought to be the snow but the plane seems to sink right through it until I'm in a cloud. Completely in the cloud, I turn on my gyro and frantically search outside the plane for land or something. Just as my altimeter reads minus two hundred feet I break out of the cloud and I'm what appears to be about five hundred or so feet over a field with a stream running through it. I opt to land in the stream as it is pretty wide and I'm too panicky to find another spot right about now. I touch the water and the plane slows almost to a stop then the left sponson hits the bank and spins the plane sideways hitting the embankment.
I slide open the door and the first thing I notice is that the sun is shining and the sky is pure blue with no clouds in sight. The second thing I notice is that I'm sweating, it's warm outside. What is going on here? I flip on the CB but nothing happens. I also notice that the idiot lights on the panel aren't lit. Looking over my shoulder I see the battery broken almost in two. It must have happened when I hit the embankment. This is great, no gas no radio and not a clue as to where the hell I'm at. I crawl out of the plane and try to pull it up on the land but it is too heavy so I decide to put a tie down stake into the ground and tie it up there until I get help. It was so warm I had to remove my thermal jump suit. I stowed it in the plane and then I headed out toward what looked like a valley about a mile or two away. I walked for what felt like an hour. Trying to make some sense out of all of this. Every thing was wrong, too warm, no clouds, no radio communications, nothing is right. I'm not sure I want to know what's going on here, Maybe I crashed and died during the snow storm. Yea that's it. This must be the here after, well at least it's not a fire pit. I reach the valley and there isn't a house in sight, nothing but grass in sight, for miles. Wait, I thought to my self, there are no trees, only grass. I walked toward the edge of a hill and all I saw for miles was grass and hills. Another strange thing I noticed is that I don't hear birds or bugs or anything. It is much too quiet here.
I decide to go back to my plane and grab the gas jug I borrowed from Hank a while back and forgot to return and take it with me just in case I found someone with gas. I get back to where I thought I had left my plane and the plane is gone. Not a trace of it. Maybe I misjudged where I left it, no I couldn't be mistaken because the trail of marks I left in the grass lead me right back to this spot next to the stream and there, the marks left in the bank of the stream where the sponson hit. I know I'm right, my plane was right here and now it's not. This is crazy, I frantically search the grass for clues as to where the plane was dragged to but the only marks I found were the marks where the tie down was and marks that appear to be made by dragging my plane that stopped ten feet from the edge of the stream. Now I'm terrified, What the hell is going on here. I yell for help at the top of my lungs hoping someone would hear me and render some assistance but my calls go unanswered. The lack of sleep is starting to get the best of me now. I have to lay down even if just for a short while so I can clear my head. This is crazy, I haven't a clue as to what to do. Who took my plane and where did they take it. What the hell is going on around here. I walked in the direction of the drag marks figuring they put the plane on something and were covering their tracks so that I wouldn't find them. I walked for miles and found nothing. I came to a small hill and had to lay down as I just couldn't go any farther. I laid down and was asleep in minutes.
I was awakened by what sounded like a large iron door slamming. Opening my eyes I found that I was no longer on the grass hill I fell asleep on but rather on a cot in a dimly lit dining room or den. I looked around the room trying not to move to much. I didn't want to know where I was anymore, I just wanted to go home and I didn't want... "Ahh mister Schot, I see you've awakened" came a voice from behind me. I spun around on the cot and there was a rather large man in a bright orange uniform smiling at me. "Come, let's get you a hot bath and some clean clothes. You've been out for three days you must be very hungry" the man said. I tried to focus on the man's face but the room was too dark and I couldn't see him too well. I asked the man where I was and he replied "home mister Schot, home". What do you mean , home, where the hell am I, where is my ultralight? I snapped. "In time mister Schot, now please follow me".
I got up from the cot and followed the man through a hallway that lead to a large room with large sky lights in the ceiling. It must have been night because there was no light coming through them. What I found puzzling is that there were no lighting fixtures but yet there was an ambient light in the room, the same as in the hallway and the room I awoke in. In the center of the room was something like an amusement park ride car with two bench seats facing each other and a console in the middle with a track ball looking device. The man lead me to the car and told me to have a seat and then he left the room. Minutes later another figure entered the room but this time it wasn't a man nor a woman it was some sort of what I guess you would call a robot. It maneuvered itself onto the car and as soon as it touched the device in the center of the car some sort of a canopy came up from the sides of the car and completely sealed us in. Then it started moving. We headed toward a wall then as we approached it the wall opened up into a tunnel and we picked up speed. The car made very little noise but it looked as if we were traveling over a hundred miles an hour. There was no sense of speed other than the outside view of the walls of the tunnel. We traveled for three or four minutes then came to another wall which also opened up.
This time the room was very well lighted and there were people in orange uniforms waiting at the gate for us. The canopy opened and one of the people extended his hands in some sort of a gesture and welcomed me to his home. I asked where I was but there was no reply from him or her or what ever they are as they all have the same facial features. In fact everybody at the gate looked the same. "This way mister Schot" said the figure. Wait, I snapped, how does everybody know my name? I knew they didn't get it from my wallet because I never bring it with me when I go flying. I didn't get a response. I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what is going on here. At that point the figure said "mister Schot, you are in no position to be making demands of us, now please follow me" I felt like pissing my pants, this only happens on the sci-fi channel or the twilight zone.
At this point I felt threatened and decided to go along at least until I find a way out of here. I followed the figures to a room with a large hot tub in the center of it. The figure pointed me in the direction of another room on the inside of the room with the hot tub and told me to go in and make myself at home. I walked toward the room and the door opened and inside was a table with towels and a robe on it and two beautiful women smiling at me. At least I think they are woman, I can't be too sure anymore. They didn't seem to want to talk or they couldn't. They just made gestures. I quickly figured out they wanted me to disrobe and get into the hot tub with them. I was ashamed to do this at first but they were persistent and I finally got into my birthday suit and walked over to the edge of the hot tub and awaited their next move. Man, they are women. Real women with all the good parts. The two walked over to me and started rubbing me with bath oil or something, it felt great. Maybe I don't care if I ever find out where I am, why spoil a good thing. The one woman dove into the tub and motioned me over to the edge. I walked to the edge and the other woman who by now was sitting on the edge of the tub started kissing my legs and rubbing my back. I was so excited I slipped and felt myself falling backwards into the tub....
"Mitch, Mitch are you all right? Mitch, wake up... Mitch wake up... Mitch, you must have slipped on the ice and hit your head. I called the first aid squad and they will be here soon, don't move. Where the hell were you going at four o'clock in the morning anyway you moron" my wife said from the stoop outside my front door.
Originally published on Buzzard’s Row Ultralight Club at http://www.buzzardsrow.com