Hello from the rainy beginning of the month. Not only rainy but also cold. Well, it was a beautiful end to February, so I am sure we can use the rain, and I have to admit the light dusting that we receive on the hills makes them look even prettier. Let's hope we can fly over them before it goes away to get a bird's eye view.

A couple of exciting changes over the next couple of weeks.

1. In our constant chase of finding the ultimate squawking process, we are making the following changes.

A. We are now going to publish open squawks on CASSi. What this means is that when scheduling an aircraft you will know if that aircraft has an open squawk on it or not. If the aircraft has a small exclamation point by it on the CASSi schedule, that means the aircraft has an open squawk. You can view the squawk either by mousing over the exclamation point or clicking on it, depending on the browser you are using. Obviously, aircraft that have airworthiness issues will also be grounded; however, more importantly, if the aircraft has something wrong that does not ground it (e.g., ADF inop) you as the renter can be informed of this at home, prior to making your decision to fly. Look for this change coming by March 13.

B. As we all know, we are often limited in the amount of space we have to write a squawk. In order to collect additional data, we now have the squawk Voice Mail box. This VM box will be checked by MX personnel at least twice daily. This will be a great resource for all of our pilots to provide the MX department with additional information or potentially just evacuate some frustration that they may be having with a particular aircraft. To reach the Squawk box, just dial 650-856-2030 ext 211.

C. Finally, as you may have noticed, we are slowly updating our key books with two new squawk pages.

1. Is the squawk instructions sheet. This will hopefully guide the members in figuring out what and how to put in the squawks sheets.
2. The squawk sheet has been updated to provide more useful information.

In the last few months, the club as a whole has been working really hard to address the issues relating to the squawking of airplanes. You might remember that there was an article about good and bad squawks in the September newsletter. We promised you one article per month, and I can safely say that they will be coming to you. Starting in April, one of our instructors will work closely with the maintenance department to write an article titled "As the Wrench Turns" about either an operational or a squawk-related maintenance issue. With education in mind, we hope to reduce the amount of invalid squawks and lengthen the list of those that will help maintenance ensure that the fleet is in good shape.

Well, I have an example for you today. The Skylane was squawked for the gear not retracting properly, but the airplane was not grounded and the following flight was uneventful. The third pilot to fly the airplane made a comment on the squawk sheet that the gear worked properly, thus adding to the confusion. The maintenance department decided to still bring in the airplane for a check and performed a gear swing. The gear retracted with a thud and the up-gear light failed to illuminate. The quarter cowls were removed, and the shimmy damper was observed sticking through the engine compartment directly below the oil pan. Something was wrong. The front landing gear assembly, connecting the shimmy damper to the strut, had sheared an alignment dowel, thus allowing the shimmy damper to slip and be in a more angular position than usual. That new position prevented the nose-wheel from turning freely during taxi and prevented the gear-up switch from activating during retraction. The lesson here is two fold: first, if there is a bad shimmy problem, it is best to ground the airplane and have a mechanic look at it to ensure that the system is not corrupted. Second, in the case of a complex airplane, the shimmy damper can produce even more damage. In this case, as the nose gear would not retract fully and the switch would not connect to close the gear electrical system, the gear pump kept working longer and, with time, the worst case scenario could create a fire. Now, do you think you can see, while looking at a tire, whether the nose-wheel has shimmy problems? You bet you can: there are very small wrinkles or waves on the tire between the furrows. If you are interested to see those, you are welcome to come by the Chief Pilot office and we will show you.

On a lighter note, I have compiled for you a short list of pet peeves from some of our instructors, you know these little things that we all do that make our CFIs insane. I have done them myself, and I have also gone sometimes (almost) insane seeing my students do them. However, that is what makes our lives as instructors so interesting! I will be happy to hear from you at dominm@wvfc.org if you have comments about those or if you have pet peeves yourself to share with us:

1. Making inaccurate position reports like "at Leslie Salts" when you're actually only approaching it. This is confusing for other pilots and ATC!
2. Calling for fuel after completing the preflight inspection: it's a waste of time. Also make sure to check for contamination after the truck has refueled the aircraft.
3. Operating high-performance airplanes at low performance: why would you pay more to go fast and then go slow?
4. Staring at the instruments while doing stalls: the airplane will stall no matter at what airspeed. It would be better to look either to the side or to the cowling and make sure that the nose is not yawing.
5. Not looking around for traffic and particular for the [slower] airplane right ahead in the pattern, getting closer to it, and being close to chopping its rudder.

As mentioned last month, an applicant performs satisfactorily on a Practical Test when he/she:

1. performs the TASKS within the approved standards;
2. demonstrates mastery of the aircraft with the successful outcome of each TASK performed never seriously in doubt;
3. demonstrates satisfactory proficiency and competency within the approved standards;
4. demonstrates sound judgment; and
5. demonstrates single-pilot competence if the aircraft is type certificated for single-pilot operations.

Everyone knows you have to be a bit crazy to be a CFI - some more so than others, of course.

My most recent episode of questionable sanity occurred in mid-February. I was going to be in Texas (no, that isn't necessarily the insane part) for a week of training for some of the work I do at church. As always, when I'm going somewhere, I check things out to see what I can fly while I'm there. Turns out at David Wayne Hooks airport, just Northwest of Houston, there is a place with seaplanes. Since I've flown off water exactly twice in the past 10 years, I thought it might be fun to get back into the splash-and-dash scene. Further investigation showed that I could upgrade my Commercial Single Engine Sea rating to ATP SES, and I could do an ATP SEL while I was there.

Way cool! So I called and arranged (mostly) for this to happen. The Examiner is a Captain for Continental, so he has to bid for the time and flights he wants, and things don't always happen as he plans. It is aviation, after all. After I had my schedule, reservations, and tickets all in place, we found that there was exactly one day of overlap in which we could do the check rides. Fortunately, there were people I could fly with to get up to speed.

The checkride preparation actually began a couple of weeks prior to going to Texas. I started spending time in the simulators. The plane we were going to use was a Cessna 172 on floats. The plane had older radios (no flip-flops, no GPS, no HSI, no heading bug), so I practiced with the sim in a configuration like the real plane. As always, on the first attempt, there was no real evidence that I knew anything about instrument flight, to say nothing of being able to meet ATP standards (maximum 1/4 scale deflection on the VOR/LOC/Glide Slope).

So I practiced, and after I got to Houston, I flew with a couple of the locals on the approaches most likely to be used on the checkride. Note: Texas air is lumpy. Both of the practice days had continuous light to moderate turbulence, but by the end of the two days, I was flying with some reliability at ATP standards. Do you have any idea what it's like trying to fly a steep turn under the hood in moderate turbulence with a couple hundred pounds of floats hanging under the plane while holding altitude and airspeed? The left hand gets a real workout on the yoke, and the right is rowing the throttle. No need to go to the gym afterwards. After a day of pumping aileron, elevator, and throttle, there's no need to pump iron.

Checkride day dawned like all the previous ones that week - light to moderate turbulence, and the weather brief also let me know that the ILS I'd planned on using was out of service for the day ($#!+), and the runway it was aimed at was closed. Further checking with ATC confirmed that the ILS was actually in service, but with the runway closed, there was no approach to landing, so the examiner said we'd do the approach to minimums and go around. The other approaches were all set.

As always on checkrides, I learned a bunch of good stuff, and the next two months' articles will include some of that.

The first checkride was the first perfect practical test flight I've ever flown, and at that point it was number 15. When an examiner says, "I'm glad you're flying this checkride, not me," it's not the best sign in the world. Despite the turbulence, I held steep turns within about 10 feet, and the slow flight and ILS looked like the altimeter and ILS needles (respectively) were painted onto the dials. Which was pretty amazing considering that the turbulence was occasionally kicking me into 20-30 degree bank changes and pounding the airspeed indicator enough that I was changing power from around 1200 RPM to nearly full throttle on the descent. This proves conclusively that luck is at least as useful as skill. At the end of the first practical test, I was sweating like a pig in a steam bath.

Then things got exciting. Exciting is not a thing most of us want on checkrides, but sometimes it happens anyway.

The examiner could probably have flunked me on judgment just for attempting a second checkride on the same day, but I guess he recognized "crazy instructor" as a redundant concept.

So, the seaplane checkride is similar to the single engine land practical but with a few notable differences. First, as you start the engine and do the run-up, … holding the brakes doesn't do anything, you're going to GO somewhere. In this case, somewhere was upwind on the water runway, which was about 200 feet wide, meaning that turning around to taxi downwind is really tricky. The stronger the wind is blowing, the more the plane tries to weathervane into the wind, and the harder it is to turn downwind. By keeping the plane slow and using bursts of power we were able to turn downwind to use the entire runway. Takeoff was uneventful - well, as uneventful as you can get in a seaplane. Shortly after that, things became more challenging.

No instrument approach is a straight-in when you're flying a seaplane. Instrument approaches are lined up with hard runways, not water runways. This in itself isn't too bad, but the power settings, handling characteristics, sink rates, and so on of a 172 floatplane have little similarity to those of the 172s that I have a couple of thousand hours' experience in - none of which is now relevant. Combine that with the turbulence, which hasn't gone down a bit since the morning flight, and I'm a boiling pig before the approach begins. So I'm fighting just as hard as the previous flight but without the results. The altitude, heading, and airspeed excursions are running 75% and more of the ATP tolerance for each maneuver on a pretty routine basis. I actually exceeded tolerances twice but was recovering when it happened, which is actually acceptable according to the PTS (more about that at the end of the article).

At this point, I've completed the slow flight, landings (at the water runway and at a local lake), and steep turns, and it's time for the approaches. We probably could have counted most of the last 20 minutes as a continuous unusual attitude recovery. As we set up for the first instrument approach, the examiner asked me to enter holding. As I crossed the holding fix and started my teardrop entry, I logged the sweep second hand on the dashboard clock (pointing at the 10). As we're continuing outbound, I complete the Turn, Time, Twist, Throttle, Talk procedures, and note the time to see how long before my turn inbound. The hand is still on the 10!! The sucker hasn't moved! Brain goes into hyper-drive. The holding fix was 6.0 DME, and I'm going away from the station. The ground speed says 103 knots. One minute at 90 knots is 1.5 miles, at 120 it's 2.0 miles, so if I turn in at 7.7 miles, I'm pretty close, and I'll use my watch on the inbound to get the timing (distance) for the next lap. I explain all this to the examiner in real time, and he's happy with the process and the results.

Finally, the practical test nears an end, and we've landed back at Hooks. The wind has increased and is now so strong we can't turn the plane around to taxi back to the ramp to get the plane out of the water. I try five or six times and keep running out of width before completing the turn. So, now what? Here comes the most fun I had all week. Something you can only do in a seaplane. Bring the throttle to idle, pull the carb heat on to lower the RPM, turn the ignition switch to only one mag to get more RPM reduction, then open the doors and let the wind push us backward down the water runway. Steering with a combination of power, ailerons, and differential doors we backed nearly the entire length of the water runway, lined up with the ramp, and brought the plane back out of the water.

Why would even a crazy person do something like this? Every once in a while, I need to remind myself what my students are going through - to try peaking my skills, to sweat like a pig trying to meet the standards, and to have to overcome the little things that frequently go wrong that you just can't completely prepare for. Also, the more I know about any part of flying, the better I am as a pilot. And with the variety of planes available at West Valley, the ability to learn more about flying is available to all of our members.

Also, to remind myself that perfection isn't the standard in the PTS, that you can bust the tolerance for a maneuver if you're correcting, if you don't exceed the standards consistently, and successful outcome of the maneuver isn't in doubt. Sure, you can bust a ride on a single event (flying into a restricted area, for example, or attempting to land on the wrong runway). But if the examiner hasn't told you that you've failed the ride, no matter how much you wish you had that last maneuver back, you're still in the game.

So, I've once again convinced myself that by learning more about flying, I'm a better pilot and a better instructor.

Crazy? Maybe. There are multiple points of view on this. Ask my wife.

Anyone who has flown to Oakland, or from Coyote Hills to San Carlos, has encountered the "sunken ship." It's a convenient reporting point for all neighboring airports and is outside of everyone's airspace (assuming you don't go too high). Today, the old ship in the middle of the Bay is hardly visible, but this was not always the case.

The USS Thompson (DD-305) was one of 156 Clemson-class destroyers created after World War I. The destroyers had a speed of 36 knots, a complement of 122 sailors, and five large guns with 12 torpedo tubes. They were 314 feet long and displaced 1,308 tons. The Thompson was named for Richard W. Thompson. Thompson, who was born on June 8, 1809, in Virginia, was a member of the Indiana legislature and eventually the U.S. House of Representatives. He then became a Circuit Court judge in Indiana and was appointed by President Rutherford B. Hayes as Secretary of the Navy in 1877. He died in 1900.

The keel of the Thompson was laid down on September 25, 1918, in San Francisco by the Bethlehem Steel Corporation. She was launched on January 15, 1919, and commissioned at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo on August 16, 1920. The Thompson participated in many naval exercises, traveling off the coasts of Washington, California, Mexico, Panama, Chile, and El Salvador through 1926.

On September 8, 1923, the Thompson was part of the worst navigational disaster in U.S. Navy history. Seven almost brand new Navy destroyers ran aground on Honda Point, a few miles North of the northern entrance to the Santa Barbara Channel. It was a dark and foggy night, and the navigators were relying on dead reckoning for navigation. Radio Direction Finding told the navigators that they were in a different location than they were expecting, but the technology was new and untrusted. Twenty-three lives were lost. However, the Thompson, along with six other destroyers, managed to turn away in time.

Continuing its tour of duty, the Thompson left San Francisco for Pearl Harbor on April 15, 1926, and continued onward for a goodwill tour to Australia and New Zealand, returning to San Diego on September 26. After a brief trip to the East coast, the Thompson was decommissioned on April 4, 1930, as part of the arms limitations of the 1930 London Naval Treaty. She was sold for scrap on June 10.

During the depression of the 1930s, the Thompson was used as a floating restaurant in the lower San Francisco Bay. She was repurchased by the Navy in February 1944 and sunk in the mud flats South of the San Mateo bridge to be used as target practice for Army and Navy bombing runs.

The USS Thompson is still in the same location today, although the actual ship is hardly visible. The square box visible from the air is a sunken barge attached to the ship that was used to access the hull for work parties. Throughout the past few decades, there have been many accounts of recreational boaters investigating the ship or using it as a base for duck hunting. A few years ago, I was a passenger in a small helicopter when the pilot decided to explore the sunken ship a little more thoroughly. We actually touched a skid to the barge (without putting any weight on it) to get a good up-close view. There wasn't much of the ship left visible above the water at that point, and it has sunk even further down in the mud since then. It wouldn't surprise me if the ship disappears entirely from view within a few years, thus ending the nearly 90-year career of a distinguished Naval vessel.

Requirements for rest have been a part of airline flying for years. Part 121 companies have explicit rest and duty time regulations built into their day-to-day operations. Besides several high-profile accidents, there is plenty of evidence available to show that aviation safety can be enhanced through proper rest habits. However, in our Part 91 flying, no regulations govern the amount of time pilots must rest or the number of hours that they can fly in any 24-hour period. It is up to us as pilots to set our own limits for fatigue and to recognize the safety challenges it can pose.

Understanding modern sleep science can provide us with answers for what makes us tired and helps us to minimize the risk fatigue can play in our flying. Healthy sleep, barring a clinical sleep disorder (of which there are plenty), boils down to two key concepts: (1) sleep debt is a scientific reality, and (2) alertness varies with time of day due to two opposing biological forces.

First, sleep debt has been well studied for years. The essential principle is that our bodies require, on average, eight hours of restful sleep per 24-hour period. If a person achieves eight hours of sleep every night, he or she will never go into debt. If that person has five hours of sleep one night, he or she will be in "debt" by three hours. Sleeping eight hours for the next several nights will do nothing to wipe out that debt. The only way to get back to the highest potential level of alertness is to sleep three extra hours over the next few nights. Studies have shown that there is a linear relationship between increasing sleep debt and our proclivity to fall asleep and hence a decrease in our overall alertness.

Second, even in a person with no sleep debt, alertness increases and decreases during each 24-hour day. There are two biological forces that help us maintain our Circadian rhythms. The first is sleep homeostasis, which drives our bodies towards sleep. The larger our sleep debt, the stronger sleep homeostasis becomes. The second is clock-dependent alerting, an independent process that drives us towards alertness. While sleep homeostasis exerts a fairly consistent force on our bodies to need to sleep, clock-dependent alerting switches on and off during each 24-hour period. However, clock-dependent alerting in normal adults is most active at roughly 10:00 AM and at 8:00 PM. It is at its lowest, meaning we are at our lowest points of alertness, in the early afternoon and late at night. The theory that a big lunch causes us to be tired in the afternoon actually turns out to be completely false. It is our lack of clock-dependent alerting that makes a siesta seem as attractive as it sometimes does.

What can we do about increasing the safety of our flying from a better understanding of sleep fundamentals? First, obviously, don't fly when sleep deprived. Studies have shown that a moderate amount of sleep debt can decrease the performance of some individuals to the point at which they do no better than if they were legally intoxicated. If you would not fly an airplane after having three glasses of wine, why would you fly an airplane if you've only had three hours of sleep? Second, take advantage of clock-dependent alerting. If you've found that your alertness takes a serious dip in the early afternoon, avoid scheduling flights during that time.

There are plenty of artificial ways to alter alertness, caffeine being the most popular. While a cup of coffee will increase your feeling of being awake, it cannot substitute for healthy sleep. Caffeine is a temporary patch. It should not be used over long periods of time, and it will eventually be overcome by your biological drive to sleep. If we sense our alertness is low before a flight, often the best thing to do is to take a nap. Napping, although it cannot fully substitute for nighttime sleep, is certainly a healthy "band-aid" approach to feeling tired. The restorative benefits of a ten to thirty minute nap should not be underestimated.

We have a duty as pilots to manage the risks of any flight we take. Figuring our residual sleep debt and our overall alertness into our decision-making processes should be a no-brainer. In our non-commercial operations as club members, there is very little excuse to fly tired. And if we ever do catch ourselves driving to the airport and yawning, I'd be willing to bet that there is a CFI probably not too far away who would be more than happy to come along and be that second set of eyes.

Note: This article was written as a component of a class taught at Stanford University by one of the pioneers of sleep science, Dr. William Dement. Dr. Dement's "Sleep and Dreams" class has been taught for 34 years and is one of the most popular classes offered, with over 650 students currently enrolled. Further questions regarding sleep and aviation can be directed to the author at cpercy@stanford.edu or to the Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic at 650-723-6601.

SAFETY SEMINAR: THE WHAT IFS AGAIN
Wednesday, March 8, 7:00 pm, PAO
Presented by Lennert von Clemm
Upside down, and never done a roll? How about pitched up and stalled out? Never done a spin? Chances are you will never get into one of these "There I was at 8000 feet" pilot story scenarios, but then again, what if? Let's talk about some common apprehensions and what if you knew a little more about how these things happen.

SAFETY SEMINAR: BAY AREA WEATHER PHENOMENA
Wednesday, March 15, 7:00 pm, SQL
Presented by Derick Day
This seminar will discuss common bay area wx phenomena, what causes them, when they usually occur, and how to see them in the forecast. The bay area region in this seminar will include the central valley and the Sierras. The emphasis of this seminar is to aid in good decision making to reduce VFR into IMC incidents and accidents. We will talk about wx basics and apply some of these fundamentals to everyday sound go/no go decision making.

MEMBER STEERING COMMITTEE MEETING
Tuesday, March 21, 6:00 pm, PAO
The Member Steering Committee meets every other month to provide all members an additional / alternative venue to voice comments, concerns, commendations, or criticisms. Have a great idea for the club? Bring it with you! For information, contact Patti Andrews at pandrews@wvfc.org.

SAFETY SEMINAR: LEARNING TO FLY G1000 GLASS COCKPIT AIRCRAFT
Wednesday, March 22, 7:00 pm, HWD
Presented by Max Trescott
The new glass cockpit aircraft are now available for rent in many locations, and they offer significant advantages. These include enhanced situational awareness and potentially great safety when the traffic and terrain monitoring tools are used. Transitioning to these airplanes may be easier than you think, and they are a lot of fun to fly!

SQL Private Pilot Ground School meets Tuesdays 6:30-9:00 pm. The cost is a $250 one-time fee, after which you may re-attend as often as you like. For information contact the instructor, Dan Dyer, at dan@dkdyer.com or check out www.dkdyer.com/ground.html.

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. The current session began on March 2. You may begin the course at any time. 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.

PAO Instrument Ground School meets Tuesday evenings from 6:30 - 9:00 with instructors Ali Ashayer and Lindsay Dillon. The cost is $200. Contact Ali Ashayer at aashayer@aol.com or Lindsay Dillon at linsgrins@hotmail.com for more information.