Cool winter winds have besieged the Bay Area, and with them have come the rain. Combining this with fewer available daylight hours, and we have the official slow-down of the Winter Season. The past has shown that there is generally a 20% decrease in flying hours month to month from October to January before the hours start climbing back up. The month of November was no exception. We dropped from 2411 hours in October to 1766 in November, almost a 30% drop. We will be doing everything we can to keep the budgets tight and debt to a minimum so that we can roll into next Spring financially healthy. I encourage everyone to continue to fly when the weather you are looking for is available. When the day is clear, there is no better aircraft performance or visibility than a cold winter day. For those days that are not so clear, what a perfect time to pick up those books again and work towards your IFR ticket, or regain your IFR currency. I do not think you will find a finer fleet of aircraft to train in, or a better group of instructors to work with.

We added a couple of new airplanes to the fleet last month. 723CL is a 1999 Super Decathlon which, for $130 an hour, is going to be a great way to fly greasy side up. In addition, we are adding another IFR 172 to the San Carlos flight line.

I would like to encourage everyone to come to the Holiday party on December 13. We are looking to have a nice affair. Please RSVP to whatsup@wvfc.org. The many efforts of CFIs, employees and club members throughout the year will be recognized.

We thought that our legal battle was over, but unfortunately the remaining litigants - Marvin Raab, Clarence Olesko and Keiko Inukai* - through their attorney, Eric Woodman, have filed another motion to be heard in court on December 12. In brief, they are trying to re-open the audit issue that was closed by the court in October. According to the club's lawyer, this normally does not happen. However, since they have filed the motion, the club is compelled to submit a response and attend the hearing. I say these things not to take away from everyone's positive holiday cheer, but to keep all members up to date on this process. I have every confidence that we are going to be able to put an end to this. The hearing is set for this Friday, December 12, at 9 am, in the San Mateo County Courthouse, 800 North Humboldt Street in San Mateo. If you have any questions about this, please feel free to give me a call.

Finally, this is the time that we are not only tightening up to make it through the Winter slowdown, but working on next year's plans as well. A lot of brainstorming, budgeting and theorizing are taking place between me and the Board to put things into motion for next fiscal year. If you have any thoughts on things you would like to see around here, please feel free to communicate with me or with all board-members at .

Thanks for your support.

(*It is unclear whether Keiko Inukai is still a party to this action.)

It's hard to believe it is December already; the Fall flying season just zipped on by. With the Holiday season upon us, please remember that West Valley does sell gift certificates at both facilities; these can be purchased for any amount. Thanks to CFI Laine Tammer for the creative new design work on these!

We have discounted our official West Valley flight bags to $75.00 for the month of December and are also extending a 10% discount on all our pilot supplies. Please check the website for an outline of winter specials on aircraft and club merchandise.

The planning team for the Holiday party is hard at work and we are looking forward to providing all the members a nice get-together.

The desk staff will be contacting all active members this winter to update contact information, etc. If your phone numbers have changed please call the desk (ext. 100) or send us an e-mail frontdesk@wvfc.org with the new information.

We hope to see you at the West Valley party, and wish you a happy and safe holiday season.

Atta Person: 5 solos; 2 new private pilots; 3 new instrument ratings; 1 new commercial multi-engine pilot and 1 new multi-engine instructor. See the Accomplishments section for names and instructors.

Member Observations: The tire problem is out of hand. We have incurred more than $3,000 in tire repair or replacement. The member regulations are specific on this subject. I quote: "Members will be charged for any damage or abuse not previously squawked. Any aircraft damage found by a member during preflight inspection must be entered in the squawk sheet and initialed by club personnel before operating the aircraft. Failure to identify and report previously un-squawked significant damage (such as bald spots on tires) may result in the member being charged for the damage." I will enforce this rule, as neither the owner nor the club should be financially responsible for someone's balding of a tire.

Don Styles and I will be going to Duluth on the 11th of January for Cirrus training. We will be gone for four days. If anyone has any questions that they would like us to ask Cirrus, please let one of us know..

The West Valley Holiday Party is 7 pm December 13th. The December CFI meeting has been canceled and most of the CFIs will instead be at the party. The instructor of the year will be named and a presentation will be made. This year drinks and food will be provided by the club, and there will be music for dancing. My wife and I hope to see you there!

Just in case you hadn't noticed, the weather has turned scuzzy (that's a technical term). This concerns some of your fellow club members less than others. These are the wise folks who have earned the Instrument Rating and have kept themselves current. Even if you are firmly of the belief that you'd never knowingly fly into instrument conditions, things happen, spaghetti hits the fan, beautiful visibility becomes horrid in a hurry.

There are even better reasons to learn to fly instruments and get an instrument rating. You will learn to fly with precision. You will learn to work more effectively with the Air Traffic Control system, and let it support your flight more effectively. You will learn that most excellent of skills for flight safety - Situational Awareness. You will learn weather better - because you'll experience a wider variety of it. You will learn to fly WELL ahead of the airplane.

Still, a couple of cautions are in order. First, there is still a lot of weather that an instrument pilot, no matter how competent, shouldn't venture into in our club planes. No amount of technique is sufficient to handle icing in most of our planes, or to handle severe turbulence in any of them. Second, instrument skills are the most fragile of all the flight skills you'll ever learn. They're not based upon muscle-memory; they're not based upon logic or knowledge. They are based upon a mental discipline that underlies all flight situations, and techniques that are adapted to the situation at hand.

There are a few very wise pilots who routinely (about once a month) schedule an airplane and an instructor and work on fine-tuning their instrument technique. I have one student who has had his instrument rating for about two years and a total of about 500 hours, and he could pass the flight portion of the ATP checkride on the first shot. Alternatively, there are loads of folks who have the instrument rating, but couldn't pass the instrument ride without polishing their skills.

Back to the rating itself. The FARs require a minimum of 40 hours of instrument time, and unlike the Private Pilot 40 hours, it's actually fairly accurate. Better than that, the rating is now easier than it was several years ago, because our club planes are better equipped. It's much easier to maintain situational awareness with HSIs and GPSs than it is with "Steam Gauges" and "Coffee Grinder" radios. In addition, we have a couple of really nice simulators that can be used extensively during the training process, allowing the student to make more efficient use of time and money.

So, 'tis the season to fly safely (actually, that applies to all seasons). Give yourself and your passengers a present - work on an instrument rating; become a better pilot.

For months I've been looking for an instrument checkride story for the newsletter. In November I finally took the test myself. It was my first flight test in three years. It was also a first for my examiner, John Pyle. If you follow the Good News section of the newsletter, you know that John was recently designated an instrument examiner. Turns out I was his first instrument examinee. What was he like as an instrument examiner? No-one knew. What approaches would he have me do? Would he give me a second chance if I screwed up my steep turns?

Some of my questions were answered at John's Safety Seminar on passing the checkride, which he presented at SQL a week before my test. Of course I was most curious about which approaches he would have me do. The "evil triangle" was just out of range for my 152, and the Livermore glideslope was out of service. About a week before the test, John advised that we would conduct the flight portion in the Oakland, Hayward and possibly Concord areas, and gave me my flight plan destination. The day before the test he sent me another email with the approaches we would be flying. That gave me time to study them, think about how I would set up and transition, etc.

When he arrived the next morning I was buried behind a wall of over-organized defensive equipment - FARs and logbooks tabbed, weather charts printed, every AC publication I own within reach. When he sat down on the other side I felt ready for any question he could shoot at me. As it turns out, John's style of questioning was so conversational that, although we covered quite a bit of territory, I never really felt like I was under fire at all.

At his seminar, John had recommended showing up with weight and balances for both departure fuel and zero fuel, and with a thorough weather briefing ready to apply to the day's flight. I made sure I had those things. We also spent some time on the internet. He wanted to see what kind of weather services I use, and he had me find a prog chart and answer some questions about it. Since the weather was such that we had to file, we paid special attention to the freezing level.

Once we were done with weather, John put my flight plan down and hesitated. I braced myself for an onslaught of questions but he didn't say anything. "You don't want me to file this now, do you?" I asked, giving the flight plan form a push. "Why not?" he replied. That's when I realized we were done with the oral. It felt like only 20 minutes had gone by since we first sat down. In reality it had been almost two hours.

In the airplane, we reviewed what we were going to do: Oakland ILS 27R, Hayward LOC-DME partial panel, then Hayward VOR-A with a circle-to-land; hold at SUNOL, steep turns and unusual attitudes, a DME arc off of Oakland VOR, then back home to PAO. I took some Tylenol for the headache all this might give me, we reviewed how we would handle traffic calls and handover of controls, and we were off.

The ILS into Oakland went well, but the controller tried to spit us out of the system when we went missed, and it took a little back and forth with Approach before they put us back on our IFR flight plan. Then - drat! - a total vacuum system failure. Compass turns haven't been my strong point lately, so I was grateful for the excellent vectoring I received to the LOC-DME approach. It was coming back for the VOR-A when things started getting rough.

I'd made it through my first two approaches and my compass turns. My vacuum system was functioning again, and I was starting to think I might actually pass the test on the first try. Vectoring for the third approach was textbook. I knew exactly where I was, and was just starting to get anxious for my last vector to the final approach course when the controller came on and cleared me for... for the LOC-DME approach! I had just done that one. I knew I'd asked for the VOR-A with a circle to land on 28, and I very respectfully reminded him of that. No response. The radio was jam packed with calls, and meanwhile my needle was starting to come alive. I was on a decent vector to intercept the final approach course, but I'd been cleared for the wrong approach. This had never happened before. Didn't Approach know this was a checkride? The needle was at three dots and I still hadn't heard back from the controller. The radio was so busy I couldn't get a word in but I made sure to say out loud, for the examiner, that I needed to call for clarification. I know I couldn't turn until the controller cleared me for the approach I had in front of me, but I needed to make sure that John knew I knew it. Two dots... one dot... centered... darn! Then finally a break and I was about to jump in when the controller came back to me. After a couple of syllables he was interrupted by another controller who finally had the magic words I was so sweating to hear by then - Cessna 65610 turn left heading 260 cleared for the VOR-A blah blah blah. Hoo-ray! We'd passed it by one dot, but by the time I finished reading back the clearance we were back on course.

You'd think I'd remember the advice about letting things go... but I didn't. All the way down the approach I kept thinking about it. Did I screw up? John hadn't failed me. Did the controller screw up? Of course it didn't really matter who screwed up. Now that I was on the VOR-A approach that's all I should be thinking about - nothing but time to identify the MAP, all the more important to get that speed nailed, visualize the circle to land, keep the needle centered, stay focused. But I didn't. Even though I knew I was circling to land on 28L, and I'd asked to circle to land on 28L, something made me want to circle to land on 10R. I knew it didn't feel right as soon as I touched the controls, though, and corrected right away. Circle to the south, Patti, to the south.

On the ground at Hayward... time for a deep breath or two and then on to the rest. I hadn't failed it yet. My CFI, Ali Ashayer, had given me an easy, works-every-time way to get hold entries right so I wasn't worried about that. I could have practiced my steep turns one more time, but all I had to do was make the airplane hold its altitude, right? OK, I can do that. Unusual attitude recovery... by that point I was so beat I don't even remember which way the nose was pointing, but I must have recovered properly since he didn't fail me there either. All I had left was a bit of a DME arc and I'd be an instrument rated pilot. The anticipation was killing me!

The arc went fine, and I thought it was a good sign when John dialed in the ATIS for Palo Alto. On my private checkride, my examiner dialed in the ATIS, made all the remaining radio calls and flew the plane back as well... he made such a perfect soft field landing that the guys watching from the tower knew it couldn't have been me flying and thought I must have failed in a big way. Actually, I think he just wanted some stick time. So when John tuned in the ATIS I knew that - as long as I didn't blow my landing - I was done. We were number two to land after a King Air which for some reason climbed in the pattern instead of descending. I gave him plenty of space to do whatever he was doing, and made sure not to let him distract me. It wasn't my best landing, but it was good enough and, to make a long story short, I had something to be thankful for the next day over my turkey dinner.

The club currently has three ground schools in process or starting soon:

A special session of Private Pilot Ground School meets Thursdays, December 11 and 18 from 6:30 pm at PAO with instructor Kyp Kypta. These special holiday sessions are free! Contact Kyp by email at llkypta@earthlink.net. Kyp's regular PAO ground school class will resume with a new session in January.

Private Pilot Ground School meets Tuesdays from 6:30 to 9:00 pm at SQL with instructors Molly Davis and Lindsay Hanson. The cost is $200. Next session runs January 20 through March 23, 2004. For information, email molly_s_davis@hotmail.com; or Lindsay Hanson at linsgrins@hotmail.com.

Instrument Ground School meets Tuesday evenings from 6:30 to 9:00 pm at PAO with instructor Linda Monahan. The cost is $200. Next session starts January 6, 2004. Contact Linda at lindajmonahan@hotmail.com.

'Tis the season indeed… CFII LISA DYBALL got married in November! Look for the happy couple at the Holiday Party to congratulate them and wish them well.

Member GABOR NAGY has developed a new 3-D modeling system used to overlay multiple airspace configurations over satellite images of local terrain. The resulting maps make it easy to visualize even complex airspace. His "San Francisco Class-B and surrounding airspaces" can be found at the pilot shop at SQL and online at http://www.equinox3d.com/flying.html.

In response to last month's announcement that the Palo Alto Airport Association needed a new webmaster, West Valley member JULIE DELANY volunteered to take on that role. Julie attended PAAA's December board meeting and plans to get started on the site in January. Thank you, Julie!

A Visit From Palo Alto Tower
Presented by Brian Fisher, PAO Tower Supervisor
Wednesday, December 10th, 7:00pm, Palo Alto
Learn the secrets of communicating with Palo Alto tower and our local airspace controllers. The main presenter, Brian Fisher, is the Tower Supervisor, and has worked at numerous ATC facilities in the Bay Area. He'll be presenting an overview of communication into and out of Palo Alto airport. He'll also discuss common communication errors, tips on how to impress the controller, and common airspace incursions (and how to avoid them). After the presentation, there'll be plenty of time for questions. Mr. Fisher will be joined by Bob Guerra, one of the current PAO tower controllers.

By Land, Air, or Sea
Presented by Dave Heinz, CFI, Bigfoot Air
Wednesday, December 17th, 7:00pm, San Carlos
You've conquered the land and the air, now it's time to take on the sea. Dave Heinz will be discussing the differences between flying land and sea planes. He'll discuss the performance differences and the new maneuvers required. He'll also show photos of various types of sea planes and discuss the process of obtaining a sea plane rating.