First we would like to thank all our members for their help. It really helped us over the past few weeks that planes were being parked in the right spots, and we have noticed squawks being written more clearly, although that problem is not entirely gone. We received e-mails from a few members asking for our help in making the squawks more readable. I would like to thank them for their input and I hope they have noticed that, as asked, we are trying to keep plenty of blank squawk pages in the aircraft blue books. There is one thing about the squawks that we do need help with that I did not mention before. If you encounter a serious problem with the plane, such as large cracks or scratches, or any damage that you think may be expensive to fix, or leave a question as to whether that plane is airworthy; please tell us about it at the front desk when you turn in the book. Also, if you could specify the size of the crack, scratch, or other damage, it would help us understand how serious it is. Your safety is our first priority, and we do not always notice squawks immediately unless they are brought to our attention. I think our maintenance crew and the owners would appreciate your help in this as well.

A new problem we are having is getting the entire Hobbs and Tachometer time from the planes after each flight. This is necessary because the new CASSI scheduling system has us enter these after each flight. Soon we will be basing the billing of flights on this information, so it will be of the utmost importance that we get all the digits showing on each meter. This will also be a big help for our maintenance coordinator, Chris, in predicting maintenance farther into the future. Giving you earlier notice on maintenance, so you are better able to plan around it, is our goal. Fewer flight cancellations will make us all happier and none of us at West Valley enjoy being the bearers of bad news.

The Front Desk has been trying hard to contact members as soon as possible about maintenance cancellations. It is very important that the phone numbers and e-mail we rely on are accurate. If your contact information has changed, please give us a call or use the link on the website to update us.

We have noticed a smaller number of people using the wait-list feature of Cassi over the last 6 months, so we would like to remind all members that it is an available tool to help with their scheduling needs. We welcome calls to the front desk if you need a tutorial in using this feature.

To help us work most effectively in the rare instance when we need to track an overdue flight, we ask that you use the notes box when scheduling flights to record information about your destinations.

Another thing that could help us at the front desk is, if you would like to reschedule your flight, please decide before you pick up the book, and tell us at the front desk before we dispatch you out. Consider before you pick up the book: Do I want to have the plane for longer than I am scheduled? Is the weather clear enough for me to fly now? Then reschedule yourself as needed as you pick up the book from us.

Finally, there are many features available in the new Cassi to help with better management of our fleet. Please let us know if you are having any problems with the new system, and we will do our best to fix or help you through them as soon as we are able. We hope you all have a happy and relaxing holiday season, and we'll see you at the airport!

As far as incidents for the month we had the following:
* The Co-pilot side seatbelt was left outside the door on an Archer post take-off. The pilot declared an emergency, was given priority, and landed safely on the runway. There are minor scratches resulting on the side of the aircraft from the seatbelt banging against the side of the plane. An article follows later in the newsletter. Please be sure to verify that all seatbelts are secure when you reach that part of the checklist, even if the seat is not occupied; it will help you as pilot to prevent this type of incident.

* During taxi operations, a pilot taxied to close to a hanger and cracked the wingtip of a Warrior. Damage to aircraft was minor and all repairs have been made. This is another case of taxiing an aircraft when the pilot should have shut down and moved the plane by hand. I again remind everyone to review the membership regulations, and taxi aircraft conservatively. Any failure to comply with the rules will result in loss of flight privileges and a visit with the Chief's office. Trust me, my henchmen don't have my rosy disposition.

I would also like to take a moment to discuss the practice of landing errors. Those who have participated in phase checks and aircraft checkouts know from experience that there is a performance standard for landing errors. It's come to my attention that some believe the only way to satisfy this requirement is to actually stick the landing after the instructor induces the error. This is not correct. Performing a go around can successfully complete this maneuver. In fact, the motto of the Chief's office is, when in doubt -- get the hell out of Dodge. (Actually it's WIDCO, When In Doubt Chicken Out; I changed it for political reasons.) This is particularly important for two reasons:

1) Some planes just are not designed to recover from landing errors. Planes with laminar flow wings, like Mooneys, have little tolerance for speed changes. They're either floating or falling. If you are not stabilized, on the centerline, first third of the runway, 2-5 inches off the ground, Get the hell out of Dodge.

2) Some landing errors are just not recoverable to a good stabilized flare, and the only successful option is to go around. Period. End of story. Call the presses, no further discussion.

There should be no loss of pride in going around. Make the decision sooner rather than later. When performing a go-around, make sure to stabilize the aircraft. Lately, I have seen too many pilots who want to increase the angle of attack as they add power. This increase in angle of attack can further exacerbate a loss of stability. Remember that in ground effect you have more lift and less induced drag. If able, keep the plane in ground effect as you add power; add rudder to compensate for the increase in power, and let the plane tell you when it is ready to fly again. Remember, this is as important a skill as learning how to land. Don't look at a go-around as a defeat, but as a chance to learn to come back and really grease the plane in.

Clarification on a membership regulation:
It is important that we always thoroughly examine an aircraft before each flight. In your pre-flight examination, if any damage is found on the aircraft, you need to add that data to the squawk sheet and have it initialed by a WVFC representative, prior to the flight. This includes the General Manager, Chief Pilot, Mechanics, Front Desk Staff, etc. Without this signature, you could be held liable for the damage, as it becomes difficult to determine when the damage actually occurred.

I look forward to seeing everyone at the Holiday Fair and 30th Birthday Party for WVFC. It is looking to be a fun event -- acro rides, good food, planes on display, and a chance to get back at the GM and the Chief.

Stay current, stay safe.

Dave Barry once observed that, if you do anything really humiliating, your brain never lets you forget it -- the same brain that so often forgets things that you SHOULD remember. Here's an example.

The Central Valley was covered by haze, with visibilities varying between one and two miles. A good day for GPS and ILS approaches, with a setting sun and a clear Bay to the west, and lots of alternates.

I did a thorough preflight, including adding a quart of oil -- don't fool around with procedure, especially in IMC. A quick refuel of the Archer, and the plane was ready.

I was even paranoid enough to climb back out again and recheck that I had tightened the oil cap. I knocked my flight bag with my elbow as I got in, and it slid halfway off the passenger seat and out onto the wing. I hauled it back in, locked the door, and I was off.

Checklists completed, cleared for takeoff on 31, I climbed and started my right turn to 060°. As I rolled into the turn, a loud banging commenced, the sound whacking right through my headset. Engine detonation, I thought? I lifted my earpiece and heard metal on metal structural banging. Was the right flap or the wing going to come off? I looked behind me -- the baggage door was tight and I couldn't see anything unusual.

Over the banging noise, PAO tried to hand me off to Bay (oops, Sierra). I declined the handoff, declared an emergency, and was cleared for an immediate landing. The controllers were great, clearing everyone in the crowded afternoon pattern out of the way to prepare for my long landing on the runway. The banging persisted until the flare, and then stopped, though the brain echoes have persisted.

After the flight, the plane was a pretty depressing sight. The paint job behind the door looked as if someone had been whacking it over and over again with - well, with a metal seatbelt buckle. Indeed, the buckle had slid out the door, along with two or three feet of harness at full extension.

So I learned a few lessons, and the banging noise still ringing in my brain will help me remember them. Making sure that the interior of the aircraft is secure means looking at EVERYTHING, even seatbelts in unoccupied seats. A latched and locked door deserves a quick glance all the way around the seal to make sure nothing is dragging -- and a flight bag blocking your view of the bottom of the door is no excuse. Finally, the tower folks are real, real, helpful even on the busiest days when someone is in trouble. Thank goodness.

My apologies again for a diversion from the Safety Attitude articles, but another relevant and hot topic has arisen. Fortunately, this time it's not a crash, but the potential for disaster is there, so we'll get back to the series next month.

A flying organization to which I belong has recently changed the requirements for checkout as an approved pilot. The new requirements focus on determining that the pilot has the requisite knowledge of flying, a proper attitude, and organization-unique training and understanding. Clearly, these are important factors in determining whether the pilot is ready to represent the organization. However, the new criteria are that this all must be determined WITHOUT FLYING WITH THE APPLICANT. And, by the way, if a flight is necessary for this determination, it's clear evidence that the pilot must not be approved!! In my opinion, this is more than short sighted.

As an orientation pilot for this organization for a while (and as a phase check pilot just about forever) I've seen loads of applicants who know the material; not all fly to the same level. Anyone who's been in the hiring business has seen the same thing -- many people talk a great story, but actual on-the-job performance is the only thing that counts.

The performance we're looking for in the cockpit is what our instructors have been working with students (and ourselves) on for our entire flying careers. I'm not really talking about stall recoveries, or any particular maneuver; I'm talking about things more basic. I'm talking about situational awareness, staying ahead of the plane, skills fundamental to flying safely, and being in control. Oddly enough (or perhaps not so odd, after all) these are the performance factors on which I've based my refusal to endorse about one out of five applicants to that flying organization.

The foundation of situational awareness is knowing where you are. Pretty clearly, if you are well in control of the plane (first priority in any case), you have the time to monitor progress toward your destination. A moving map display, or DME makes the job even easier, but checkpoints and regular progress checks on a cross country flight serve the same purpose. Remember, though, "where you are" includes more than a single dimension. It includes along track, cross track, and vertical components, and bank, pitch and yaw. It also includes time, especially time remaining in your fuel tanks and time remaining until you need to switch tanks. As an aside, several times in flying long cross-country flights (1000 NM or more between airports), I've experienced winds that weren't exactly as forecast. Being aware of the time or range left in the tanks, I've occasionally needed to select an alternate airport to refuel. Having made the decision to divert, and therefore having a larger reserve of fuel upon landing, it's really easy to feel the difference in cockpit tension -- in itself a factor in flight safety.

Situational awareness is founded on the knowledge of where you are, but there's more to it than that. Your intentions or objectives have to be included. Knowing that you're at TRACY intersection may be important, but combining that knowledge with the objective of landing at Stockton makes it pretty easy to put together a plan to get there (fly toward the Manteca VOR, call Stockton Approach, select a descent point, review the appropriate altitudes, frequencies, airport orientation....) If you don't know your immediate objective, it's a pretty fair bet you won't accomplish it.

Yet another part of situational awareness is having a Plan B. If things turn to crud at TRACY intersection, and you need to land NOW, knowing that Tracy airport is just a right turn and a couple miles away is of great value. It's worth a lot more than having a chart that tells you where the nearest airport is IF you have the time to look it up. Knowing exactly where your emergency landing field is while practicing ground reference maneuvers is far more valuable than wasting time looking for one when you're surprised by an engine failure.

A truism of flying is that you never want the plane to go anywhere you haven't been mentally several seconds earlier. Part of this has to do with being in control, but a greater part has to do with planning and visualizing ahead. In chess, one certain way to lose is to plan fewer moves ahead than your opponent does. There are others, as I know from personal experience, but even if you make no "bad" moves, not planning far enough ahead will result in your king lying on its side. The flying equivalent of this is being so far behind the airplane you wouldn't even be injured in a crash. A beginner may see only the direct consequences of a single move or action. A master may see eight or more moves ahead. In an airplane, there are two types of moves: positional (the next check point, the next altitude, the next airspeed...) and procedural (control inputs, frequency changes, radio calls....) The procedural moves are the ones that allow us to maintain the current situation (altitude, airspeed, heading, ground track, VOR radial...), and to make the transition to the next one. In other words, procedural moves (actions) are used to execute or implement the desired positional moves (objectives).

These are the areas in which some of the applicants have been weak, and clearly these are things that can only be determined by an evaluation flight. More importantly, from the point of view of West Valley, this points out the difference between knowledge and proficiency. We're all smart people, but we're occasionally too busy, and even when we do schedule planes we rarely practice the things that are most important. The weekend flight for the $100 hamburger doesn't hone the skills required to handle emergencies. And if we do things right on the flight, we don't put ourselves into the stressful conditions that only devious flight instructors seem able to concoct.

Why is a flight necessary? Lack of situational awareness and being too far behind the plane is often a symptom of lack of airplane and procedure mastery. If all your mental effort is going into simply controlling the plane, none is left for situational awareness and planning ahead. The keys to mastery are currency and a skill development plan. This, of course, is why West Valley insists upon recurrency flights and phase checks. As I know from person experience, just flying with a student (who actually does most of the flying) doesn't keep my skills current. That's why every month I fly with another instructor to focus on a specific set of skills, or by myself to work on a particular maneuver.

A particularly good way to close the gap between knowledge and proficiency is to participate in the Pilot Proficiency Award Program as part of a comprehensive skill-development program. This is the method I use myself. It is a program established by the FAA to encourage pilots to set up a regular training plan for themselves with the objective of increasing proficiency. There are four requirements for each "Wings" award:

• Attend an FAA sponsored Safety Seminar (we offer them twice a month at West Valley: once at SQL and once at PAO)
• Receive one hour of flight training in basic aircraft maneuvers, including stall recoveries, slow flight, and other maneuvers aimed at mastery of the airplane
• Receive one hour of flight training in takeoffs and landings including short field, soft field and crosswind techniques
• Receive one hour of flight training in instrument flight

Mountain Flying Bible and Flight Operations Handbook (expanded)
Sparky Imeson / ISBN 1-880568-89-6

This is one of those books that you are "supposed to read" as an experienced pilot. It contains outstanding information for new pilots, but it can be a bit inaccessible until you have some hours under your belt. This is the second basic release of the text, following on the success of the first. I have to say I loved the information it contained, but was disappointed by the presentation quality. An editor could turn this collection of notes into a first-rate publication with only about 12 hours of work. That may very well not be the intent of the author, but it would make for a more broadly read book.

Organization
The book is in 5 parts: Preflight, Takeoff, En Route, Arrival, Landings -- with chapters that elaborate on the subtopics (e.g. "Chapter 5 - Spot Method Landing Technique). The use of a part:chapter organization can be a bit distracting since it's an inversion of the norm. As for literary convention, the author employs a useful set of icons to indicate the urgency of specific bits of information ("Advanced," "Note," "Remember," "Rule of Thumb" and "Warning"). Each is applied where necessary to distill the critical element of the discussion.

This book originated as a set of "pilot's notes," probably not that different from Jeppesen's original instrument notebook. That is usually the best source of horse sense for a subject, and the author clearly has deep experience in his subject matter. What holds this book back from higher acclaim is the layering of anecdotes and repeating of information. It is apparent that during the "expanded" revision the author added numerous additional clarifications and discussions without reviewing the entire manuscript to smooth out the 'layering' effect. In a number of spots the author repeats the same phrase 2-3 times, and it's not for emphasis. While at first this put me off, there is some element of "tribal wisdom" that emerges - imagine the grandfather around the campfire explaining how to hunt deer to the adolescent boys of the tribe. No doubt that discussion would include repetition and backtracking. This book feels similar, although I believe it transpires because of a missed edit cycle, and not by intent.

Why you should read this book
The author offers frank advice that may save your life. He assembles facts that you already know (icing, increased stall speeds with bank, density altitude issues) and presents them in a context that matters -- mountain terrain flying. He quickly makes the important distinction between flying over the mountains and flying through them. It's simple enough to strap on oxygen and get up to 13,500 for the trip to Tahoe. But it's another thing entirely to thread through the mountain passes at 2000 AGL.

Further, the author is very honest in his assessment of the likely conditions of mountain flight. Your engine will be at 1200 hours since overhaul, you'll have a bit too much crap in the cargo box, and the weather won't be quite as nice as DUATs claims. There won't be a heated hanger to melt ice, and the coffee will be bad. He accepts this as the norm, and then tells you how to still fly safely. Many pilots are taught to fear anything that is not optimal. I used to feel good when I canceled a training flight that was not in perfect weather conditions since that 'felt' like the right thing, until I realized that I had incorporated my instructor's weather fears into my own pilot's psyche.

Now, the author doesn't willy-nilly encourage you to violate FARs and Newton's laws, but he is pragmatic in that conditions in the mountains are rarely perfect, and usually will change for the worse if they start out good. With proper training and equipment, it is safe to fly in the mountains, to fly in weather, to fly with less than perfect conditions. The author has collected sage advice on how to make safe flying decisions that face mountain pilots on a regular basis.

What I'd improve in the book
There are a number of errors in the book that need to be fixed. In many cases they are simple edits to reconcile the earlier version with this version (incorrect page number references). In other cases there are some errors in formulas and calculations that are not acceptable and could lead to misunderstanding.

Richard's Library Ranking (1=recycle, 10=carry in flight bag): 6. (With edits this becomes an 8-9.)

* Wednesday, December 11, 7-8:30 PM, PAO
Transition to high performance aircraft. An introduction to high performance aircraft systems and checkout processes. Darryl Kalthof.

Wednesday, December 18, 7-8:30 PM, SQL
Airport Symbology. Let's talk about airport signs and their meanings. TBD

And don't forget that we've set up regular visits to the PAO and SQL towers to correspond with the Safety Seminar schedule: December 11 at PAO, and December 18 at SQL, both from 6:00 - 7:00 PM.

If you've already visited the tower and want to go again anyway, that's fine. It's fun to watch them when they get busy, or to keep them company when it's slow and get them to tell you their favorite horror stories. And if someone brings a box of donuts or a pizza to share once in a while, it really makes their day.