AOPA members have been asking how they can use their skills as pilots to aid in the rescue and relief effort. "We all want to jump in and help in any way possible. But our piloting skills are not what relief workers need--not yet," said AOPA President Phil Boyer. "However, AOPA is working with the Department of Homeland Security to determine the best way GA can help. They are aware of our members' desire to help and will get back to us as soon as they have a clear idea of how to use those remarkable assets." There will be many ways members can help. One key resource to consider is Air Care Alliance ( http://www.aircareall.org ). It promotes and supports the work of dozens of organizations like the Angel Flight groups across the country and has established a volunteer protocol on its Web site. Links to its volunteer pilot organizations around the country also are available. Air Care Alliance is working with AOPA Airport Support Network volunteer Thomas Marino in Baton Rouge to set up a liaison with the Louisiana governor's office. Another resource is Emergency Volunteer Air Corps (EVAC), which also has a Hurricane Katrina link on its Web site ( http://www.evac.org ). For nearly 64 years, the Civil Air Patrol ( http://www.cap.gov ) has been providing important search and rescue support for a wide variety of needs. If you are not already a member, you might not be able to fly missions with them, but you could certainly provide critical ground and logistics support. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has compiled a list of nearly 20 relief organizations ( http://www.fema.gov/press/2005/katrinadonations.shtm ) to which you can donate money or sign up to volunteer.

Well one thing that we are all dealing with in our personal and professional lives is the price of oil. This for certain has a direct effect on aircraft rental rates as the planes just are not as fun sitting on the ground making vroom vroom noises and using the PTT as a machine gun button. My imagination is vivid; however, not nearly vivid enough to beat the rotating prop and the real thrill of take-off and landing.

What the club does to confront price instability is to add a fuel surcharge on to aircraft rental rates. How this works is that for every ten cents the price of fuel goes above a base line, say $3.00 per gallon, the club will add $1.00 per hour to the rental rate of the aircraft. Currently, we are adding $8.00 an hour. This creates quite a spread between rental rates and rates charged. Unfortunately, the price of aviation gas has gone so far beyond the $3.00 per gallon range that we are going to need to set a new base line for the fuel surcharge. As of September 1, the new base line will be $3.50 a gallon. Essentially this means 3 things:

1. We believe that the price of fuel will not go below $3.50 a gallon.
2. For every ten cent increase in fuel prices over $3.50 we will add a $1.00 to the rental rate of the aircraft.
3. Owners will need to increase the rental rates of their aircraft to compensate for ongoing higher fuel costs.

Flying at the end of the day when the sun is setting can be a great experience. The air is usually calmer, and the sunset views can be spectacular. Unfortunately, this time of day can also be a cause of accidents related to poor visibility.

Visibility can be reduced as the sun begins to set; a combination of smog and haze makes flying towards the sun especially challenging. This may not present a significant problem when flying en route, as you can adjust your course a little to avoid flying directly into the sun and request flight following to help improve your traffic avoidance.

This problem becomes most dangerous when your approach to landing is directly into the setting sun. Very little, if anything, has been written about landing on a runway aligned or oriented towards a setting sun. However, imagine - if you have not experienced it yet - coming into an airport and having to squint to avoid the blinding light. The inside of the cockpit turns black and you have a hard time seeing the gauges or the flat panel. You start fixating on the instruments to get the information you need, and despite trying not to, you start fixating on that blinding light. At this point, not only do you have a blind spot in your eyes that is the imprint of the sun, but the scratches on the windshield also become more visible. This in turn draws your attention away from the approaching runway. As you come closer to the ground, shadows increase, and if you land at an airport surrounded by hills, or worse by mountains, the ground is far darker than the rest of the environment. Your depth perception can be impaired and you may start flaring higher than you should. Obviously, you know your best bet is to go around, but all the changes in visual perception that you have just gone through have heightened your sense of discomfort, awareness and even fear. You may wonder how you will cope with going around with the sun still in your eyes and little or no outside cues. Fear can impede our decision-making process and slow our reaction times. The best way to avoid such a situation is to be prepared and have an alternative plan. If at any time during an approach you feel that you cannot complete the landing safely, take the time and go around. Fly the airplane first, establish a stabilized approach and complete another successful landing.

To help us all continue improving our flying, I am pleased to announce that we have added two new instructors, Torea Rodriguez and Melissa Klippel, who will be based out of Hayward. Torea is starting her second year on the Board of Directors and has been very involved in the life of the club. Melissa is a fairly new addition to the club and we are happy to already count her in our group of instructors.

Also, we would like to remind everyone that it is important to squawk or write in the observation sheet any damage that you find to an airplane during preflight. Have the entry initialed by any Club personnel before you operate the airplane. If you omit to do so, according to the regulations, you - the last pilot to have flown the aircraft - can be charged for the damage.

Happy flying!

Did you know that poorly-written squawks cost the club up to $2,500 every month in unbillable MX and other staff hours? In addition, bad squawks cause owners to lose rental revenue and members to cancel flights unnecessarily. Sometimes this is because of squawks that should have been written and weren't, sometimes it's because of squawks that should not have been written but were, and sometimes it's due to squawks that were written in the wrong place and consequently lost.

Of course, it tells us nothing for the GM to report that we lose $2,500 every month due to bad squawks. The assumption is that everyone is already doing their best to write good squawks. Who would intentionally do otherwise? What needs to change?

The purpose of the squawk sheet in each airplane is for pilots to relay information to maintenance about something that may need attention. The purpose of the condition report is to relay information to the owner and/or the club about conditions that don't affect the ability of the airplane to fly - safely and legally - but that the owner and/or the club should know about nonetheless. Squawks are sent to MX immediately by front desk staff when the airplane is dispatched in. Items in the condition report are looked at the next time a mechanic happens to be doing an inspection or working on a squawk. If something is written in the wrong place, or isn't written up at all, it won't get the attention it needs from the right people at the right time. By the same token, unnecessary or uninformed squawks can have the undesired result of grounding an airplane that does not need to be grounded, causing members to lose flights and owners to lose revenue.

In an effort to improve the effectiveness of our squawks, the club formed a squawks committee that came up with several recommendations. One of these was to include concrete examples of good and bad squawks in each edition of the monthly newsletter. These will be real squawks written by members, and will include a discussion of what was bad about the bad ones, including the cost cosequences of the bad squawk. On the belief that people learn best by seeing examples of what they should strive for rather than what they are not supposed to do (imagine learning how to do a slip if all your instructor ever did was show you how NOT to do one), we will also include examples of well-written squawks and what was good about them.

This month's bad squawk: "Flat spot on front main tire." First, the comment itself is unclear. The airplane in question is a Cessna 172 and the tire with the flat spot was the nosewheel. Easy enough for the mechanic to figure out in this case, but it's better if pilots write more carefully. (In another case, the difference between what was written - "pitot tube missing" - and what should have been written - "pitot tube cover missing" - cost two canceled flights before the front desk staff member on duty was able to walk out to the plane to verify that the pitot tube was in fact attached to the airplane.)

More importantly, the comment about the flat spotted nosewheel should have been a squawk but was written in the condition report instead. While a very small flat spot can be written in the condition report, this one was significant enough to induce uneven wear and vibration. The plane flew like this for about 10 days before the vibration got so bad that it was squawked by another pilot as a nosewheel shimmy. Upon inspection, the mechanic found that the strut seal had been damaged from the vibrations and the tire itself was bulging on one side due to the uneven wear.

What is a "very small" flat spot? It's one you can barely detect - maybe you need to position the wheel just so in the light to even be sure it exists… the area covered is less than an inch and the tread depth is barely affected. Anything bigger than that should go in the squawk sheet. If the tread depth is zero or you see fibers poking out of the affected area, don't fly!

If you see that a previous pilot has noted a flat spot, be sure to find it during your preflight to make your own decision about whether or not it should affect your flight. If you're unsure, find a club mechanic or CFI and ask for his or her opinion. Also, any amount of nosewheel shimmy should result in terminating the flight and grounding the airplane to minimize damage due to vibration.

Costs resulting from this squawk included the increased cost of repairing the strut in addition to replacing the nosewheel, and the additional downtime while this lengthier repair was made. These costs were absorbed by the owner. Fortunately, the potential costs to a pilot should the nosewheel have failed during operation of the airplane are left to our imagination.

This month's good squawk: "Vacuum failure at runup." This failure was detected during runup, exactly where it should have been, and the comment was clearly and accurately written in the squawk sheet. The mechanic responding verified that the suction gauge read zero and replaced the sheared pump. With proper pilot actions (91.213) the airplane was still airworthy for VFR flight while it waited for repairs.

Aviation is a unique industry in which a lot of people get to where they are through high achievement. Many people pass written exams, practical exams, BFRs, etc. to get to where they are. Each and every step is celebrated along the way and with good reason. This is not your normal job or hobby. It's a truly unique world of continuous challenge and room for improvement. But we don't talk enough about the times when there is failure. Yes, we analyze incidents and accidents, but we sort of hush-hush the pink-slipped checkride. Some say it is for the sake of not embarrassing the student/pilot who didn't pass the checkride. But I think there is something to actually be celebrated about the "Notice of Disapproval."

Sure, there are the feelings of disappointment, embarrassment, anger, sadness etc. But there should also be an objective view to the situation. People who know me know that I am one of those type-A individuals who rarely has setbacks because I ensure I have prepared every detail to not let that happen. So how could I possibly not pass a checkride on the first try? Well, this is life we are talking about, and as all pilots know, you rarely really complete Plan A (it's more like Plan Q or Plan R). Well, yours truly experienced Plan Z for the first time on a checkride. And yep, I have a nice piece of paper that says "Notice of Disapproval" to show for it. (Although I'm a little bit disappointed that mine is white and not pink... I thought they were all pink!)

Back to the objective view... First of all, we have to remember (however hard it may be to do at that moment) what we have accomplished to get to the day of the checkride. This is no easy feat for any checkride or exam. Second, there are a lot of items on the PTS that you have likely accomplished just fine while meeting or exceeding standards. Now, I'm not sure what the statistics are, but I would assert that most pink-slips list only one or a few areas of operation found unsatisfactory. Keeping your head up and congratulating yourself for what you did accomplish in the PTS is crucial to getting through the rest of the process. This is not the time to "beat yourself up" or be self critical to the point of depression. (I will admit it's one of my bad habits, and is a hard habit to battle in this situation).

If you realize, or are informed, of a non-passing item during the checkride, take a deep breath. You may still have some more to get through. This is usually a test of being Pilot In Command. The more you can allow that information to "go sit in a corner" the better. Remember to fly the airplane first, then deal with the information on the ground. In my case, I still had to demonstrate proficiency in a second aircraft, so I had to make sure that I did that, and not let the "dreaded pink-slip" get in the way. This PIC attitude paved the way to the remainder of my day being successful. Remember, the examiner is looking to make sure that when spaghetti hits the fan, you can still fly and fly safely. Aviate, Navigate, Communicate!!

Consider the areas of deficiency on the pink-slip and focus on them. Don't distract yourself with a passing item that you "could have done better." This is your opportunity to have some time to practice, study and learn those deficient areas better than you ever have. For me, it's a flying skill, so heck, my "punishment" is that I have to fly a lot! What is so terrible about that? There may be areas of study that you may need to brush up on. So you get to read about your favorite topic - aviation. That is cool, too (well, unless it's the FARs 'cuz we all know that is an insomnia cure!)

If I take a moment and consider the comments of my examiner and the areas listed on my pink-slip (being really honest with myself), I can't say that I am surprised. My areas of improvement were areas that I knew were weak going into the exam. The flight skill in which I was deficient is one that, frankly, I don't practice a lot. Sure, I can rationalize this to my heart's content, but it doesn't change the fact that the PTS sets the standards and the criteria for success. The fact is that what I demonstrated didn't meet the standards. This doesn't mean that I don't meet the standards every day, just not on the day of my checkride.

Bottom line, a pink-slip is not something to be ashamed of. (Word of caution: just don't let "pink-slipping" become a habit.) It's an opportunity to really learn your stuff, be solid and be safe! Celebrate the day by focusing on what you did accomplish - remind yourself of that greased on landing you did, or the perfect maneuver you performed during the checkride. Bask in any compliments you got from your examiner. Or heck, congratulate yourself if you didn't let the news of not passing ruin the rest of your checkride! All of this is reason to celebrate.

And, as one of my instructors always reminds me, now you get to "put on a clinic" and be the expert this time around during the re-take. So study up, fly often and congratulations! PS: don't forget your extra endorsement!

Positional awareness, or "where am I located?" contributes to situational awareness (SA). I have heard pilots incorrectly equate positional awareness with SA. SA is an awareness on the part of the pilot of the whole and ever changing internal and external environments of the aircraft. SA provides the necessary ingredients for good decision making. You can't make good decisions if you don't know the state of your environment. All kinds of things are in a constant state of change in an operating aircraft, some expected (position, an ever decreasing supply of fuel, etc.), some unexpected (electrical failure, out of fuel, etc.) A situationally aware pilot is one who assesses and responds to changes of the expected and unexpected to produce favorable outcomes. Similarly, good navigators collect all available data in order to enhance their awareness of the external environment. This awareness informs the pilot of the aircraft's progress over ground (speed and direction made good), provides an awareness of escape options if the unexpected occurs, and provides information needed to keep the aircraft away from hazards. Let's explore the basic elements of position determination. First let's start with the idea of the vastly under-used anti-position.

The anti-position is best described in a Wayne's world context: I am here - NOT! A line of position (LOP) is a line a navigator draws on the earth's surface and then says with a straight face: I am on this line. (I am not making this up.) In theory, the length of this line is equal to the earth's circumference. At first glance, an LOP sounds as useless as a screen door on a submarine. In practice, LOPs are useful because an LOP is a great way to determine where you are not located: An LOP provides an infinite number of anti-positions. Huh? An LOP is a segment of the earth's circumference. In aeronautical navigation, the LOP consists of a start point from whence it radiates and a huge segment (about 360*60 nautical miles) we can throw away. So if I am on the 305 degree radial of the Haywire VOR I know two things: (1) I am northwest of this VOR, which is a charted object, and by the powers vested in the FAA (AIM 1-1-8) and assuming normal VFR altitudes, I am approximately within 25-40 nm of the Haywire VOR; and (2) I know where I am not. I am not, for example, in Peru. I know this because Haywire is in the USA, near Lake Wobeggon. More useful, however; where I am not might be inside a nearby mountain whose height is greater than my altimeter reading, a restricted area, class B airspace, etc. For example, if I am on the 229 degree radial (or higher) of the Manteca VOR, I am not in the 2531 restricted area east of Livermore. An LOP allows me to state with resolve where I am not. Mariners use a related concept called danger bearings to keep a ship clear of submerged near-shore rocks. Airplane pilots would be wise to do the same with mountains submerged in the dark of night or to avoid restricted airspace, etc.

A variant of the LOP is the Circle Of Position (COP). If you are 8 nm from the Haywire VOR, then you are on a circumference of a circle whose center is the Haywire VOR and whose radius is 8 nm. The classic aviation device for obtaining a COP is the DME interrogator found in many aircraft. Using DME is a great way to know where you are - NOT - relative to SFO class B airspace. If my aircraft is 21 nm from SFO and less than 6000' MSL, I am not in class B airspace. And when it comes to class B airspace, most of the time the VFR pilot wants to know where the aircraft is not!

In the next newsletter, I will cover the idea that LOPs can be derived from uncharted tethered dogs, charted mountains and other points on the surface using a magnetic compass and an 8x11 sheet of paper or a GPS receiver, and conclude with the question: what do you get when you cross an LOP with a COP? (Answer: a fix.)

This article will probably tick some folks off, and to some extent, I wish I could be like the third umpire in the following story, but I'm much more like the first ump.

Three umpires were getting together after a game, commiserating about how people felt about their officiating. The first umpire complained, "I don't understand why the fans get upset; I call the plays as I see them."

The second umpire said, "That's' the problem; I call plays the way they ARE."

The third umpire replied, "You're both wrong; it's NOTHING until I call it."

So, I'm going to call this as I see it. But first, let me say that I have personally experienced each of these attitudes myself, sometimes with regrettable consequences.

The FAA describes five hazardous attitudes, and we've all seen them in club members (sometimes in ourselves), but I'm only going to hit the top two in this column.

The first that I see at West Valley is described as "Anti-authority." The local variant seems to be "This rule makes no sense, and I'm smarter than the fool who wrote it anyway." This is especially common among some of the wildly successful people we have in our club. Many of our members are really smart, and have succeeded at everything they've done. Some of these folks believe that certain rules don't apply to them (picking a few of the most frequently argued, one would choose currency rules, taxiing through parking places, or stopping on and parallel to taxiways, etc.) It's hard for some folks to believe that expertise in micro-electronics or venture capital (as relevant as it may be to your profession) may not be a substitute for the thousands of hours of aeronautical experience that the people who made the rules have. Frequently, during the year and a half that I was WVFC GM, people would argue, "I'm only a day out of currency, why can't you waive the flight with an instructor?" The hard part for me to understand is how anyone could go 60 or 90 days without flying a particular type of airplane (and in many cases not flying anything) and even PRETEND to be current!

So the attitude recovery here is to recognize that there really are reasons behind the rules, that they are usually created by people who have LOTS of relevant experience, and that following them will be safer than ignoring them. It probably will result in fewer phone calls from the Chief Pilot's office as well.

"Invulnerability" is the third of the FAA's list, and the second most common one we see here. This is actually most common among experienced pilots. If you think you've experienced a particular condition before, and it wasn't a problem, you're likely to try again, often with less favorable results, like the pilot who decides to do some serious crosswind practice because he's pretty good at it, only to find that the crosswind doesn't think he's as good as he thought he was and kicks his empennage all over the runway. Other variations on this are flight into forecast ugly conditions because "things are never as bad as forecast," or "I've been in moderate turbulence loads of times and it's never been all that bad." I've had to visit the dentist to have fillings checked as a result of making this mistake myself. I remember a flight from LVK to PAO in an Archer that took 45 minutes (ground speed was 30 knots part of the time), and I was barely able to hold altitude within a 2000 foot block.

The recovery is to recognize that it CAN happen to me (and it has), but that it can't if I don't place myself in a bad situation.

As I said at the beginning, I'm calling this as I see it. And certainly I haven't seen it all, nor have I had the pleasure of flying with all the members of our club. So there is a high likelihood that I'm talking about someone other than you. But for most of us, if we don't recognize at least the temptation or tendency toward either of these attitudes, we MAY not be looking as objectively at ourselves as we could.

In past newsletters, I've discussed a landmark in the pattern (Cooley Landing) and the primary reporting point for PAO from the northeast (Leslie Salt). This month I'm going to discuss the most common reporting point from the west - the Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC).

Mankind has always been fascinated with the structure of things around us. Only in the past several centuries have we discovered what an incredibly rich and microscopic structure ordinary objects have. In order to explore the world at this small a scale, we need special tools. The particle accelerator, which produces narrow, focused beams of particles that collide violently with materials, is the primary tool in use today. The energy of a particle is measured in "electron volts," abbreviated eV. The higher the energy of the beam, the better the resulting picture. Yes, bigger really is better.

Many different methods have been used to accelerate particles to high energies. Stanford pioneered the use of the electron linear accelerator, which moves a stream of electrons through a long cavity, continually increasing its energy as it goes, until it exits at the far side with a tremendous amount of energy. Several Stanford professors began plotting a two-mile long linear accelerator in 1956. A proposal was submitted to the Atomic Energy Commission on April 18, 1957, and in May 1959, President Eisenhower gave a speech in New York that included an endorsement of the accelerator and a recommendation that Congress fund the proposal, which it eventually did. Finally, after much negotiation and design work, the Stanford Linear Accelerator started construction in July 1962.

The accelerator consists of two main structures. The accelerator itself is a copper cylinder approximately four inches in diameter that is 10,000 feet long. That's almost as long as the runway at Castle. It is housed in a 10'x11' concrete tunnel buried 25 feet underground to provide a natural radiation shield. Electrons are injected in the west end of the cylinder and exit from the east end having been accelerated to as much as 20GeV. Directly above this tunnel is another 10,000 foot long structure, a 17'x30' steel shed, which is the structure we can see from the air. It houses all of the devices required to perform the acceleration. Connections through the earth between the two structures occur approximately every 20 feet. At the east end of the accelerator are two large buildings that house experiments. A 1,000 foot long "beam switchyard" uses powerful electromagnets to bend the beam for delivery to the experimental targets in these buildings. The largest building occupies 25,000 square feet and has walls 70 feet tall.

The accelerator buildings were built to incredibly tight tolerances. No part of the underground tunnel is allowed to move more than ¼ inch during the year as the seasons change. This probably makes SLAC the most accurate reporting point you will ever use. While it had been planned, I-280 had not yet been built when SLAC was finished. Stanford convinced Caltrans to build the SLAC overpass several years ahead of schedule so that the road construction would not upset the delicate alignment of the accelerator.

SLAC's official dedication occurred on September 9, 1967. It took $114,000,000 to design and build. In today's dollars, that's $704,000,000. That may seem like a lot of money (well, OK, it IS a lot of money), but for comparison, it's less than one day's worth of interest on the current national debt.

Researchers at SLAC have taken three Nobel prizes. For you physics buffs, the most famous accomplishments were the discovery of the J/psi particle in 1974, the charm quark and tau lepton in 1976, and the Z particle in 1989.

But SLAC's contributions are far from only theoretical. One major component, added in the 1970s, causes electrons taken from the linear accelerator to rotate around a giant ring and collide with positrons, producing new particles. As a side effect of causing the electron beam to follow a curved path, intense ultraviolet and X-ray radiation is emitted. Originally considered a nuisance, it was eventually realized that this, the most intense source of X-ray radiation in the world, had many practical applications in medicine and biology. Among many other discoveries, this radiation was used to discover the exact structure of RNA polymerase, the enzyme responsible for reading the genetic code and telling cells what proteins to synthesize.

SLAC had another contribution that is not widely recognized: it was the home of the first web site in the United States. Physicist Paul Kunz brought the World Wide Web to SLAC after a visit to the European accelerator CERN, where the Web was founded, and with help from two other SLAC workers, placed the first US web server on-line on December 12, 1991.

Today, SLAC employs 1,500 people and houses 2,000 visiting scientists from all over the world. The biggest project is the BaBar detector, which is trying to figure out why there is so much more matter than antimatter in the universe. SLAC has also become involved with astrophysics and is a key contributor to GLAST, a space telescope being launched in 2006 to explore cosmic background radiation and supermassive black holes.

SLAC is open to the public for guided tours by reservation. See http://www.slac.stanford.edu for details.

PALO ALTO AIRPORT DAY
Sunday, September 11, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Mark your calendar for this year's Airport Day. Airplanes to see, vendors to browse, tower tours, Young Eagles rides and more... WVFC members are invited to stop by the courtyard behind the back classroom at lunchtime for a free member BBQ. We still need volunteers to help out so please contact Tammy Tran right away if you're interested - ttran@wvfc.org.

NEW MEMBER ORIENTATION
Saturday, September 17, 10:00 a.m., PAO Classroom
If you've joined the club recently, plan to attend this get-together put on by board member Torea Rodriguez. CFIs and other club representatives will be on hand to present information and answer questions. Contact Torea at globug@mac.com.

END OF SUMMER BBQ @ HWD
Friday, September 23, 4:00 -7:00 p.m.
Join us for an end-of-the-summer BBQ at the club's Hayward location. If you haven't been out to the Hayward facility yet, this is a good opportunity to meet Hayward-based staff, CFIs and other pilots.

REQUIREMENTS: PRIVILEGES & LIMITATIONS OF IFR FLYING
Wednesday, September 14, 7:00 p.m., PAO
Presented by: Darryl Kalthof
If you are considering obtaining your instrument rating or getting back into IFR flying come and see what is involved. This seminar will cover the privileges and limitations of IFR flying, an overview of the type of training required, and what it takes to stay current. Darryl Kalthof is a Gold Seal CFI, ATP, A&P and FE with over 7000 hours total time. He has operated under FAR part 135 and 121. He has trained 22 instrument pilots and 25 airline transport pilots.

HOW TO PASS YOUR CHECK RIDE & MAKE SENSE OF FAR PART 61
Wednesday, September 21, 7:00 p.m., SQL
Presented by: Mike Shiflett
Mike Shiflett will discuss the check ride process from his perspective as a Designated Pilot Examiner, and the ins and outs of FAR Part 61.

PRECISION LANDINGS
Wednesday, September 28, 7:00 pm, HWD
Presented by: Cassandra Weidemann and Melissa Klippel
Come for a refresher course and learn skills that will be useful on short runways or emergencies, or just to impress your passengers. Cassandra Weidemann and Melissa Klippel are both flight instructors for West Valley Flying Club.

SQL Private Pilot Ground School meets Tuesdays 6:30-9:00 pm with instructors Peter Long and Dan Dyer. The cost is a $200 one-time fee, after which you may re-attend as often as you like. The current session began on August 23, but students may start at any time. For information, contact Dan Dyer at dan@dkdyer.com.

PAO Private Pilot Ground School meets Thursdays from 6:30 pm with instructor Kyp Kypta. The cost for the course is a once-only charge of $100, after which you may attend any and all sessions as often as you like. Next session begins Thursday, September 1. Contact Kyp at lkypta@earthlink.net.

HWD Private Pilot Ground School meets Tuesday nights from 6:30-9:30 pm. The cost is $200 per student. Contact instructors Sandy Wiedemann at syzygy2002@mac.com, or Eric Jewell at eric@flywitheric.com.