This month’s newsletter unfortunately starts off on a somber note. For those of you who may not know, the MX department lost a very important team member in Richard Kitagawa. Richard, who was just 21, was killed while commuting on his motorcycle while on bereavement leave for the death of his grandmother on August 17th.

Richard worked at WVFC as a mechanic with his twin brother Raymond. Both are second generation aircraft mechanics. They worked as a team often and were affectionately known in the department as “the kids.”

Because of this loss, the MX department has been behind schedule. Some down times have been extended; some inspections are taking a little longer. We will make every attempt to return to normal service levels as soon as practical. Kevin, the club’s Director of MX, has been jumping into the shop as a full-time mechanic trying to back up the service needs, and we are making it a high priority to return to normal staffing. We appreciate your patience in dealing with this, as it has hit the MX department pretty hard. They are all very close. I am very proud of how they have come together to work through this difficult time. The service was Wednesday, August 19th, and the MX department was there to show their support for Richard’s brother Raymond and their family.

Times like this always demonstrate how close this organization is. It is in the end very much a family, albeit dysfunctional at times. Again, we really do appreciate your patience.

Switching gears, I would like to welcome a new member to the WVFC family. Christine Kelly is taking over for Shannon Doyle as Operations Manager and Activities Coordinator. Christine has been with the club as a front desk employee at both SQL and HWD, and will be moving up into the position that Shannon is vacating. Christine will be responsible for managing facility issues and front desk staff and coordinating events and activities. Her email is Christine@wvfc.org, and her extension is 304. We thank Shannon for her time with WVFC, and wish her luck with her new business she is starting.

I would like to thank Steve Blonstein, Greg Savidge, Lennert VonClem, Lucy, and Richard Terrill for their help in developing the LSA program. It looks like we begin to launch the Evektor sport post the airport open house September 9th. If you would like to get more information regarding checking out in the LSA program, please contact Greg Savidge. Finally, I would like to draw attention to Sundays on 1220 AM from 1-3 pm. WVFC’s very own flight instructor Steve Finnie has developed a General Aviation radio talk show. WVFC is one of the proud sponsors of this event and we thank Steve for allowing us to share in the opportunity. Anything we can do to build interest in GA helps us all. Thanks for your time, and safe flying.

Do you roll the airplane forward to check the condition of your tires before and after your flight? Doing so is good judgment and it may be the only way you can be sure that your tires are safe for flight, i.e. serviceable.

Serviceable indications:
1.The tire has tread and the tread condition looks good, possibly a few minor surface flat spots, but the overall tread is intact.
2.Non-serviceable indications:
3.The entire surface is bald.
4.An excessively deep flat spot.
5.Exposed cord.
6.Exposed inner tube.
If you are unsure as to the serviceable condition of a tire ask Maintenance or a CFI. A flat spotted or excessively worn tire could result in directional control problems, tire blow-out, and wheel rim and/or rotor damage, which can lead to a propeller strike and engine teardown in an extreme case. We use only new tires at WVFC, not retreaded. This ensures that our aircraft tires are the best we can buy. Tires can be retreaded up to 12 times, depending on the type of tire. The chances of damage, including loss of tire tread and blow outs, increases with each retread. Using new tires is the safest, but also more costly at three to four times the cost of a retreaded tire. Like your automobile, a good tire costs in the range of $150; however, the difference is that you will not get 25,000 to 50,000 miles on an aircraft tire.

How a pilot uses equipment may foretell the longevity, or early demise, of the equipment.
What operation inflicts the most abuse on tires? You guessed it - the transition from flight to taxi. What are some ways to prolong the life of tires? Here are a few tips:
(The following tips are only guidelines to be used for normal landings under normal conditions. As always, use your best judgment for each situation.)

1. On approach to landing, be sure to fly your published approach speed! Flying at too high of an airspeed will increase the likelihood of a touch down at too high of an airspeed; this will add significantly to your landing distance and will add wear and tear on the tires.
2. Prior to landing be sure your feet are off of the brake pedals and your heels are firmly on the floor. After touch down, keep your feet off of the brake pedals and allow the friction between the runway surface and the tires to slow the airplane. As the airplane begins to decelerate, slowly and consistently begin to apply elevator back pressure until the control wheel is full back and continue to hold it back. Full back elevator pressure induces aerodynamic braking. After the airplane has begun to decelerate and the control wheel is full back now is the time that you may gently apply brake pressure evenly on both pedals.
3. Only when the airplane has decelerated considerably, for example to the speed of a brisk walk or slower, should you exit the runway. One way to administer a fresh flat spot onto a tire is to exit the runway at too high of a speed. A high speed turn off requires a lot of differential braking. At KPAO we often use runway 31 which translates into many left turns off of the runway. Can you guess which tires on our airplanes at KPAO generally sport flat spots? The left main gear!Be aware that the mission of the tower Controllers is to control and sequence airplanes on the runway surface – that is their turf. They own it. When they clear you to land they are leasing you very expensive real estate. Take full advantage of your temporary property lease; don’t be in a hurry to give it up before you should. Let the airplane roll out straight down the runway. When good judgment dictates, proudly roll to the very end. If the tower requests that you expedite your exit, comply as soon as practical. As soon as practical means that you continue to exercise your PIC authority and complete all tasks in a safe, responsible and practical manner. You do not allow outside forces to rush you and diminish your good judgment and superior pilot technique. Superior pilot technique includes being a steward of your airplane tires on the runway surface.
4. Always touch down on the first third of the runway; you then have the rest of the runway to decelerate.

Hi Everybody! To begin, I am Christine, the new Operations Manager for West Valley. A lot of you already know me but for those who don’t, I have been working at the front desk here for about nine months and I am a student pilot, trying to learn as much as possible. I will be mainly in Palo Alto Monday through Friday, and if you need to get hold of me you can email me at Christine Kelly or feel free to call the Palo Alto office at extension 304. There is a lot going on right now with the month of September beginning; big changes are happening. Shannon Doyle, our previous Operations Manager, has completed training me and her last day has come and gone, as well as our amazing front desk superhero in Palo Alto, whom I believe many of you know, Joel is leaving West Valley as well. We have hired some new people to learn how to do the job as well as Joel did. Elbert Thompson, you may already know is the newest addition to the staff. The events you should really come join us on throughout this month are; the Barbecues on the 2nd and 4th Sunday of the month here in Palo Alto (This month, the barbecue on 9/9 actually falls on airport day), if you can’t catch those, head over to San Carlos on the 1st or 3rd Saturday of the month for an equally food filled barbecue. On the subject of barbecues in Palo Alto, we are in need of either one long term volunteer to barbecue, or a few people to volunteer for a month each, in addition to being wonderful and very much appreciated, said volunteer will receive FREE MEMBER DUES!! Anyone who commits to volunteering for a month, which is only 6 hours collectively, gets free food and free dues, What a great deal, right?

In other news, there are two safety seminars in the month of September, and everyone is welcome. We are trying to plan a few more to keep us all interested and safe; if there is anyone dying to host a seminar or if you have a topic idea, please feel free to let me know and I will see what I can do to make it happen. Keep your eyes peeled on the West Valley calendar for upcoming events, as there should be quite a few in the works. If anyone has suggestions, let me know and we can do something fun with this heat wave before it is over. Anyhow, I am glad to be here as the new Operations Manager, and look forward to working with you all. Feel free to contact me anytime.

As pilots, we tend (I hope) not to push past the edges of the aircraft performance envelope. In fact, most of the time, we’re not all that close to the edge. Except, of course, for the odd acro pilot. Take that any way you want.To some extent this is captured in the old saying that a pilot should fly in the middle of the air, as you only get in trouble when you hit the edges of the air.
In our planning, we’re careful to observe performance limitations, runway lengths, and weight and balance. And in flight, we’re careful of yellow arcs and red lines.Yet, there is one factor to which we often give less attention than we should – our personal envelope. In one sense, it’s understandable, because it’s pretty hard to quantify most of our limitations, but that doesn’t make them any less real.
We’re introduced to the concept of personal limits during our initial flight training, and it’s often formalized in our solo endorsements. Our instructors place these limitations in our logbooks, essentially telling us what our limitations are. These limits usually include visibility, ceiling, winds, and crosswind component values. At some point in the future (after that endorsement) you get your Private Pilot License, and your instructor’s endorsement no longer binds you. What do you do now?

You could take an airplane to an airport with some REALLY strong crosswinds, and if they are within the Max Demonstrated Crosswind Component of the plane, feel comfortable attempting a landing. Or an even greater crosswind, after all, the Max Demonstrated really isn’t a limitation. And after you’ve scared yourself severely and either just avoided a ground loop, or perhaps just not avoided one, you may re-think things.

What you’re authorized to do and what you may actually want to do (in hindsight) could differ more than a bit. You could even fly single pilot at night in limited visibility over mountains and be legal, but most of us would equate that to Russian roulette with an automatic. Worse, the conditions you may be willing to accept and actually are capable of flying in are a function of a variety of factors.
Among them:

1. How recently you’ve experienced the same conditions, or flown the same maneuvers;
2. Whether it’s first thing in the day, or after a long day of work or flying;
3. Whether you’ve just eaten, or are starving;
4. Whether you’ve had a pleasant day at work or whether you’re contemplating what would clearly be justifiable homicide.

In any case, the Pilot and what is happening to us is a significant factor in deciding how big our envelope is. The FAA has actually captured the concept in its PAVE model, in which the P stands for Pilot. The object is to identify the risks associated with any flight, then to assess the risks, and finally to address the risks. A very important part of this process is that much of it can be done before the flight, but that it’s still an on-going process that needs to be continued during the flight.

Establishing our personal limits is but one way to help mitigate the risks. More about the process soon.

Why in heaven’s name would anyone want to fly those funny looking little cloth- covered airplanes? Heck, they have almost empty panels. How do you fly without gyros anyway? And they have a terrible reputation for biting people on take-offs and landings, don’t they?

As it turns out, tailwheel aircraft are just plain (plane?) fun to fly! WVFC has Citabrias, so we’ll talk about them. First of all, you don’t have to pull a Citabria up off the ground on take-off. If it is properly trimmed, it will lift off itself. With a tiny bit of backpressure on the stick, a very smooth lift off is a piece of cake. Okay, so what about directional control? Ah, that’s where life gets interesting. You start the take-off roll with the tailwheel on the ground. Initially you are using the rudder pedals to steer with the tailwheel. A tailwheel is not like a nosewheel in that it is connected to the rudder with springs. The result is not the direct steering you get with a nosewheel. You have to think ahead since by the time you have applied rudder, it is time to push the other rudder. It’s a dance – a quick, light dance! Of course you are hit with the result of engine torque in a taildragger, just as you are in a trike. The aircraft wants to turn to the left.

Then comes the fun, you apply stick forward pressure to put the nose down and pick up the tailwheel to prepare for lift-off. When the tailwheel leaves the ground you add “p” factor and slipstream factors to engine torque. All the forces are trying very hard to take you to the left. Your rudder pedals are now controlling the rudder with no wheel at the back to resist the effects of torque, etc. The rudder is a lot more effective than the tailwheel and thus the transition from tailwheel to rudder is a bit of a challenge at first. The important thing to remember here is that rudder work on take-off (or landing) is a dance. If the nose turns left and you give it a lot of right rudder without an immediate application of left rudder, you head off to mow grass on the right side of the runway. Ya gotta dance!

So back to the initial question: Why do people love to fly tailwheel aircraft? What good are they anyway? As you can see from the above discussion, tailwheels are more demanding. They get - and keep - your basic flying skills sharp. After you have transitioned to tailwheels, you will make beautiful nosewheel landings. This is not as sure as death and taxes, but it’s a close second. By the way, did I mention that flying tailwheels is fun?

Citabrias have great visibility. Everyone I have transitioned into Citabrias mentions how much they love the view. After all, without all those instruments in the panel, you can look around more. Also, most folks find a control stick more intuitive than the control wheel or yoke. As with most tailwheels, Citabrias require more attention to rudder application in flight also. That little black ball avoids the center of the race quite a bit more on first tailwheel flights. We do a lot of Dutch Rolls to help folks get their feet dancing. Fun!

A Citabria is a lightly wing-loaded aircraft. You have more of a sense of flying, of ‘feeling the airflow’ you are a part of. So, to review: Tailwheel flying = sharper flying skills, a greater sense of ‘flying’, slow enough that you can enjoy the view, and oh, did I mention that they are loads of fun to fly? ”

It’s come to my attention that a rash of departure incidents have been occurring. One really hits close to home. As a result, I’ve been researching data derived from various sources. On April 23 of this year, a Cherokee with one occupant crashed approximately 240 yards of the departure end of runway 31 at PAO. Then on May 12, a Cessna 182 carrying a pilot, two tandem skydive instructors and their two students, crashed in Marion, Montana, (Skydive Lost Prairie), killing all 5 people on board. I just returned from the annual event, (a skydiving boogie at Lost Prairie), where a memorial service was held for those lost in that accident. Tragedy struck again on June 16, when two people were killed departing Livermore in an experimental aircraft.

These are just three recent departure incidents that I’m aware of, either by proximity or personal affiliation. I’m sure there’ve been others this year, nationwide, that would increase the numbers. Of the three, take note, only one was survivable. However, all of them could most likely have ended without loss of life if a different course of action had been taken. The two that had catastrophic outcomes were the result of stall/spins.

Having flown for 16 years in the Bay Area, I’m very familiar with the PAO and LVK airports. Their topography, terrain features and obstructions, while flying in the traffic patterns, are scorched into memory. Every time I’m with a student on extended downwind to base, a mental note is cast: “OK, if we lose the engine now, we’re landing there,” knowing that the runway is now out of reach. And while recently in Montana, I evaluated the scenario that occurred there too.

Just as important, and actually much more critical than the landing sequence, is what you intend to do if there is trouble on the departure roll and initial climb out—the most precarious moment of any flight. Many variables play if a teardrop re-entry to the reciprocal runway is even considered, i.e. wind direction and velocity, runway length, aircraft loading, obstructions, altitude, pilot skill level, and other departing/arriving traffic. I’ll break this down.

Weight affects stall speed, (stall speed increases as weight increases). Banking an aircraft increases wing loading, (weight), dramatically. If you’re close to MGTW on departure, as in the case of Lost Prairie, there is little wiggle room; they also had density altitude to contend with. A teardrop re-entry at low altitude, (especially with no power), is a very aggressive maneuver, and requires a steep bank angle. Again, bank angle increases wing loading, wing loading increases stall speed=bad. There is also an intense amount of right rudder pressure being applied in a single engine aircraft to help counter left turning tendencies. These two elements combined equal a recipe for spins=bad.

Other things to contemplate along with an increasing stall speed and the likelihood of a spin. In the turn, airspeed decreases, (until you get the nose over), drag increases, and altitude is rapidly lost due to the lack of power. Ground speed will most likely increase since we typically take off into the wind—with a rare exception, as in the case of South Lake Tahoe, where landings are typically made on runway 18, and departures from 36 due to terrain features. So, even if the turn is successfully executed, (meaning you had enough altitude), it’s likely that you will overshoot the runway, (certainly if it’s short), only to crash at the far end with a high groundspeed. At busy airports, such as Palo Alto, it’s very possible someone has taken position on the runway behind you, and this would create a head-on situation=bad.

The gentleman who had the accident at PAO opted to land straight ahead, into a less than favorable environment—the marsh. But because it was straight ahead, in coordinated flight, with a slow groundspeed; he survived it. Livermore has a plethora of options off the departure ends of runway 25 L/R, as does Lost Prairie.

Have you ever flown in the Sierras and wondered which road you should follow in case you have an engine out, and where it is? Well, if you have a portable Garmin 296, 396, or 496 GPS, and you haven’t purchased the Auto Kit option, I suggest you buy it. Not only is it good for finding locations in your rental car at your destination, but you can easily use it while flying to find and keep you near the roads, especially when you are flying high in the Sierras. You can use the same flight plan (“route” as it is called in the Garmin) in both aviation and automotive mode. In automotive mode the road you should be following will be highlighted in magenta. The trick is to turn off “auto recalculation” in the Setup menu. Otherwise, the poor GPS will constantly be spending all of its time trying to recalculate when you are not directly on top of the road.

This is how to turn off “auto-recalculation.” The option is in the Setup menu (push the menu button twice to get to the main menu, and move the cursor to the "Setup" menu item on the left). Then move the cursor to the right until you reach the "Guidance" tab on the top row. Then move the cursor down to "Off-route Recalculation" and hit enter and choose "Off" and hit enter.

Now go fly. When approaching the point where you want to know where the road is, switch the GPS to automotive mode by pressing and holding down the “Page” button until the choices appear, and choose the “Automotive” option with the cursor and hit enter. Then reselect your current aviation route (flight plan) again in the Routes menu, and activate it, and when it asks you to “Follow Roads”, select “Yes” and hit enter. Look at the map page, and zoom it out enough to see the big picture, and you will see your route highlighted on top of the nearest roads you can follow.

Lots of other information is displayed to help you locate yourself.
Don’t forget to turn the “Off-route Recalculation” back on in your rental car; otherwise it won’t calculate a route to wherever you are going in your car.
I have actually tried this and it works great while flying – just don’t forget to turn off “Auto-recalculation.”

Please update yourself on the latest club activities by going to the membership calendar located at http://www.wvfc.org/b/calendar.php