The good news for February is that there are no incidents or accidents to report. A few people have taxied through tie-downs, left garbage in the planes, a couple of master switches left on, but mostly a pretty quite month. On the downside the activity has been quite a bit less in these winter months. There have been some spectacular winter mornings, with the unlimited visibility of winter, crisp air, and beautiful early sunsets.

As far as reminders I would like to let all of the C152 private pilots out there, who are current, know that all you have to do to get checked out in the C150 is fill out a ground review form. Please get it reviewed and you will be put into the C150. This is a great little bird with a Garmin 430, and a full IFR panel. For student pilots, please talk to your CFI to see if they can add that endorsement on to your Student Pilot Certificate.

As far as suggestions on training, a part of the CFI intake process is 2 flight tests. What is new about this process is that one of the flights is an accelerated spin recovery demonstration, and acrobatic maneuver performance. Watching the CFI candidates’ nervous faces was pleasurable, however watching their smiles and hearing their hoots and hollers after the flight was truly rewarding. The point of this story is that we are hardly exposed to aerobatic maneuvers prior to getting our pilot certificate. Back in the day, this was a normal part of training a pilot. Once exposed most will see that in fact most of the maneuvers, i.e. rolls, loops, and spins, are fairly innocuous, and don't get you all that sick. Doing some of the basics is a great way to build confidence in your everyday flying, and will leave you with a smile ear to ear. Since we do have a great Acro trainer on line, I suggest people go up and take a spin.

On a final note, despite the lower hours, it is still very rewarding to have an incident free month. I believe WVFC members take a special pride in ownership of this club, and I think it is reflected in the safe flying this club displays, and the concern members show for its success. Let's keep working to be the safest we can be.

Thanks for your support. Stay current, stay safe.

March is here, spring is just around the corner, and our flying days should be getting better and better. The front desk will stick with our current hours until spring.

Several members have called about renting or borrowing headsets. We have headsets available at both locations on a first come first serve basis; these are not available to reserve or rent via Cassi.

We have had some confusion with members booking aircraft on incorrect days, and even incorrect months. Please confirm the dates you have entered in Cassi when you schedule the event and print off your confirmation sheet when the event is completed. The confirmation sheet is your primary document to help trace problems, so please keep it.

You may have noticed this already but there are several billing programs available to our members when you rent an aircraft. For example, if you are getting checked out in an aircraft that offers a special rate for check-out please select the member C/O program when you schedule the event. Along the same lines if you are an owner please select the Owner billing program, etc. If you need some help with this or a short tutorial please call the front desk or come in a little early and we can help you before the flight.

We still have some headsets left in our pilot supply inventory. Don't forget to take a look at our stock and see if any interest you.

West Valley’s small Pilot shop does stock local charts, AFDs, logbooks and several standard textbooks. We would like your feedback on what inventory you would like to see available. Please send any requests to frontdesk@wvfc.org.

Let’s hope for some good flying weather for the month of March. See you at the airport!

Progress never stops in aviation in general. Nor does it at our Flight Accounting Department at West Valley.

For those of you who have not yet tried to check your WVFC account balance on-line, remember it’s just these few steps away on your computer screen:

1. Log in to CASSi
2. Click the "User Profile" link on the Menu bar
3. Scroll down; click "View my Account Detail"

This article continues one of the topics from the examiner’s seminar – Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT), which none of us would ever do. Unfortunately, if you had asked the Bonanza pilot who crashed into Sunol Pass, the Cessna pilot who flew into the KNBR antenna wires, or the Cirrus pilot who crashed near Reed Hillview, they would have said the same thing. At the very least they would have said they’d only do it in areas in which they were really familiar.

Scud running is the art (?) – OK, the practice – of flying between low clouds and the terrain in order to get somewhere without actually filing and getting an IFR clearance. Scud running is an ancient practice (as viewed from the flying time-line), and if Wilbur wasn’t the first to do it, Orville was. There are actually more hazards now, and it’s even more dangerous now than it was during the Wright brother’s time.

There are some interesting hazards associated with scud running. Those of us who have flown early morning flights at either SQL or PAO know them well. It’s amazing how visibility can drop from 10+ miles to “Where’d the runway go?” while you’re on downwind. It’s amazing how quickly the ceiling can drop from “clear below 12 thousand” to low enough to require Special VFR, or even to force us back to the runway to wait it out.

These rapid changes can and do occur in the relatively homogeneous airport environment. Imagine, now, what happens at the boundary between the various Bay Area microclimates. Weather, especially visibility and cloud height, changes more rapidly at the boundary than anywhere else. Think of the boundary as a miniature weather front. Where do the boundaries occur? They usually occur at the ranges that border our valleys – those that separate the Bay from the Pacific, the Bay from Livermore, and Livermore from the Central Valley. And there isn’t a year that goes by without a crash at Altamont or Sunol. Each one directly attributed to scud running.

Let’s look at the geography for a second. People rarely try to scud run over the tops of a range; they try to sneak through the passes. So, they are trying to get through a small area bounded above by stratus clouds, and on the left, right and below by rocks in either the visible form or hidden as strato-granite or cumulo-granite clouds. As the local winds push through the pass, they create turbulence, making aircraft control more difficult, and making cloud formation more erratic and random.

So, in this small area we have a limited ability to maneuver, turbulence, changing weather conditions, power lines strung between hills, traffic going the same way we’re going, and some coming the opposite direction. And the thing that amazes me is that folks will fly into this scenario LOWER than they would think of crossing the same terrain when the weather is clear and a million!! If it isn’t safe with gorgeous weather, why is it OK when the weather is horrid?

There is, of course, the claim that “I KNOW this area, and know where I am. I can get through safely by scud running.” Really? Take a small chunk of Sunol pass as an example. When the visibility is down, and you’re only a couple hundred feet above the ground, it’s very difficult to tell exactly where you are, what’s coming next, and what your orientation is. Are you really heading the right direction? Where the crud is the horizon? This close to the rocks, it’s difficult to bring your eyes back inside to check the instruments, so with limited visibility and sloping terrain, you may not be doing what you think you are. Some of the areas under this scenario start looking remarkably like some others. Then you start second-guessing yourself, and too much of your mental energy gets diverted from flying the plane. No wonder people crash while scud running.

Yes, some folks get away with scud running. Some get away with scud running until they crash. But in both cases they are “getting away with it," not flying safely. A third group of people are those who don’t scud run. They don’t need to get away with anything, because they don’t expose themselves to that type of risk.

You wouldn’t fly that low under perfect conditions; don’t even consider it when the weather restricts your options.

While most of flying comes at a not insignificant expense, there are plenty of resources available at $0.00. In my last column I provided some pointers to the Pilot’s Guides for a variety of aviation hardware, and this month I extend our Internet trek into the domain of weather.

I personally still use an encoded DUATS briefing for my weather. It has two advantages. First, it’s free. Second, it forces me to keep current with abbreviations and formats of the various weather products. Plus I only have dial-up at home, so there are some practical considerations.

But when bandwidth is not an issue, there are a number of sites that I’m pleased to include in my preflight analyses.

NOAA Aviation Weather
http://aviationweather.gov/
http://aviationweather.gov/awc/aviation_weather_center.html
     This is the starting point for a wide variety of online weather products. The second URL above is the nexus for a standard pilot’s IFR briefing, with access to everything from TAFs to RADAR graphics.

TWEB Route Briefings
http://aviationweather.gov/awc/pc-tweb.html
     While this is part of the NOAA site, I find it remarkably useful. The TWEBs are not based on random routing, they are well defined. The TWEB briefings you get over selected VORs are also available online at this URL. I’ve found that the TWEB often narrows down an Area Forecast to a useful and relevant chunk (e.g. Bay Area to SBA).

Aviation Digital Data Service
http://adds.aviationweather.gov/projects/adds/
     Also part of NOAA, this particular page uses advanced Java technology to make weather come alive. It’s worth some time to explore, as you’ll be able to get graphical representations of just about all forms of weather.

National Weather Service
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/
     Weather is one of the very few areas where the government actually performs a useful service for the majority of the populace. Aviators are not the only citizens subject to whims of nature – mariners, farmers, and kite-flying kids are also interested in what it will “be like tomorrow”. The National Weather Service is the primary agency responsible for reporting all forms of weather.

NOTAMS
http://www2.faa.gov/NTAP/
     Ever wondered where the NOTAMS are enumerated? We are told it’s our responsibility to know about all of them, and ask briefers to provide us with details. A regular check of this page will keep you in tune with the changes to the NAS.

Storm Prediction Center
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/outlook/day1otlk.html
     For those interested in convective/stormy weather, this is your site. We are fortunate to avoid thunderstorms most of the time in California, but this may not be the case if you plan on taking a long cross country.

Stability Analyses
http://www-frd.fsl.noaa.gov/mab/soundings/java/
     This is a site for geeks and glider jocks. You recall the K-index / Lifted-index from your primary training (KI/LI), right? It is one of the least understood of the weather products – especially since it rarely impacts us in the Bay Area. But for glider pilots, it’s a specific indication of lift potential and the quality of soaring they may expect. This website is one of the most amazing uses of technology for aviation. It is worth a detailed look-through to investigate not only the atmospheric stability, but the wind direction/speed pairs at various altitudes. RTFM.

Advisory Plotting Chart
http://aviationweather.noaa.gov/awc/advsry/advsrypltn.html
Have you ever read an AIRMET that described in great detail the extent of mountain obscuration, but referenced it to VORs and stations that you’ve never heard of? This is not random – the list of stations is from a specific chart, shown at this URL. A hardcopy of this is very useful for cross country flying (also available in AC 00-45E).

Back to the Basics
http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/
http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/wrong2.html
     These are going to be controversial, so let me give a caveat up front. NASA and the FAA have not discussed the actual origins of lift in quite some time. So, when taking your practical examination, use the FAA answer. When you want to *really* understand how lift it generated, dig into these URLs. Note that I’ve given you only one of may “wrong” theories of lift…

Bonus!
http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/RealTime/JTrack/Spacecraft.html
http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/RealTime/JTrack/3D/JTrack3D.html
     It’s a stretch to say that satellites are directly related to this article, but this is one of the top 5 websites ever assembled (humble opinion expressed here). It gives you a realtime tracking of all known satellites, and allows you to explore the constellation of manmade objects orbiting earth. Read the instructions; this really is remarkable work, and another example of what science can do when government is involved but not engaged.

--- end of political commentary. end of column ---

Wednesday, March 12
FAA Safety Seminar Wednesday, March 12, at West Valley Flying Club,
Palo Alto Airport from 7 to 8 pm presented by CFI Nick Ulman.
Nick will talk about different types of tailwheel airplanes, explain why tailwheel flying is fun and educational, present an introduction to tailwheel basics, discuss transition training requirements, and answer your questions. Over the years the West Valley Flying Club fleet has included a Piper Cub, Aviat Husky and Boeing Stearman. Currently three Citabrias and one Decathlon are on line and new additions are always welcome. There are thirteen West Valley tailwheel flight instructors ready and eager to introduce you to the fun of tailwheel flying.

Wednesday, March 19
On March 19, 7:00 pm at San Carlos, Dave Fry and John Pyle will team up to present a seminar on passing the FAA checkride. Dave has recently been approved by the FAA as an Aviation Safety Counselor, and John Pyle is a Designated Examiner - airplanes and helicopters. If you have a checkride of any kind coming up, you will not want to miss this seminar.