Author Archives: Maria Langer

Some Things are Better Seen from the Air

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The Goosenecks of the San Juan.

Mike Reyfman took this photo during one of our photo flights this past October. It’s an aerial view of the Goosenecks of the San Juan River.

Goosenecks of San Juan River

To give you a sense of scale, the line with the little box at the end of it in the lower-left corner of the photo is a road with a parking area. There are cars parked in the parking area. You can’t see them in this photo at this size.

The landscape of the San Juan River area near Mexican Hat Utah is simply magnificent. I did a lot of flying in this area with Mike’s group, then had the pleasure of heading upriver as far as Shiprock and Farmington, NM. The few photos I took while flying simply cannot compare to the images Mike captured.

If any photographers are out there reading this, let me take you some cool places like this! Visit Flying M Air’s Web site for information about aerial photography from my helicopter.

Praying at the Wall

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More humor from a friend.

Here’s another amusing tidbit I got from a friend of mine. If you know the author of this piece, please let me know so I can give credit where credit is due.

A female CNN journalist heard about a very old Jewish man who had been going to the Western Wall to pray, twice a day, every day, for a long, long time.

So she went to check it out. She went to the Western Wall and there he was, walking slowly up to the holy site. She watched him pray and after about 45 minutes, when he turned to leave, using a cane and moving very slowly, she approached him for an interview.

“Pardon me, sir, I’m Rebecca Smith from CNN. What’s your name?”

“Morris Feinberg,” he replied.

“Sir, how long have you been coming to the Western Wall and praying?”

“For about 60 years.”

“60 years! That’s amazing! What do you pray for?”

“I pray for peace between the Christians, Jews and the Muslims. I pray for all the wars and all the hatred to stop. I pray for all our children to grow up safely as responsible adults, and to love their fellow man.”

“How do you feel after doing this for 60 years?”

“Like I’m talking to a f*ckin’ wall.”

More eBay Headaches

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Is it worth it?

Two weeks ago, I put my old dual G5 computer, 20″ Sony monitor, and a bunch of other odds and ends on eBay. The idea was to get rid of them and make a few bucks in the process. As I whined in my post, “The High Cost of Writing Tech Books,” it’s costly for me to buy the up-to-date computer hardware and software I need to work. I was hoping to get some of that hard-earned money returned by selling some equipment that was still in good shape.

The headaches started almost as soon as the auctions ended:

  • The Sony monitor was listed with free pickup in Wickenburg (where I live) or Tempe (where my husband works) or $62.50 UPS Ground Shipping. Well, the moron who bought it, who lives in Indiana, didn’t read about the UPS ground shipping. He read “free shipping” and thought I was going to send a 50-pound monitor to Indiana for free. What a deal for only $20.50, which is what he paid. He won’t pay shipping and now he won’t answer my e-mails. So I’m stuck in the middle of a transaction with no end in immediate sight.
  • The dual G5 sold for a surprising $700. Retail on this used machine is around $1,000, but I would have taken half of that, so I’m very pleased. The problem here is that the buyer didn’t pay for it. He had someone else pay for it on PayPal with a check. Then he demanded immediate shipment. PayPal clearly instructed me not to ship anything until the check cleared. It’s been 5 days and the check has not cleared. I’m wondering how this transaction will go sour. I figure that either the check won’t clear at all or the buyer will get POed when I ship to the person who paid, which is the only way I can be protected by PayPal.
  • I sold a used 7-port Iogear hub. It has 4 USB 2.0 ports and 3 Firewire ports. I sold it because I wanted it to use with my iSight camera and the damn thing never worked right. I figured it was the camera, but since I never tried it with any other Firewire device, I didn’t know for sure. The USB hubs seemed to work fine. I summarized all this in the listing. I sold it for pretty darn close to the cost of a brand new identical hub. (See my post, “Is eBay for Suckers?“) The buyer paid, I shipped it out. Yesterday, I get an e-mail message from the buyer saying that the USB ports won’t run at 2.0 speeds and that the Firewire ports won’t work at all. Hello? Didn’t I say I was having problems with the Firewire ports? And how the hell am I supposed to know what speeds the USB ports actually run at? If the buyer wanted a brand new device with a warranty, he should have bought it from a computer dealer, not someone unloading junk on eBay. And here’s a word of advice to anyone reading this: Don’t buy anything made by Iogear. It’s crap.

So now I have a bunch of other items here I’d like to unload. But I’m starting to think that eBay is bigger hassle than the few dollars I get back for my efforts. (The computer being the exception; if that transaction doesn’t go bad, it will be worth the trouble.) The only ones making real money on this are eBay and PayPal. So I’m wondering if I should just throw out this stuff and be done with it.

Any experiences with ebay that you’d like to share? Use the comments link or form for this post to speak your mind.

FARs Explained

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The FARs in a way an intelligent person can understand them. Maybe.

I was down at Williams-Gateway Airport (IWA) in Chandler the other day. They’ve got a great pilot shop there with lots of books, charts, and real-life pilot supplies. I’d venture to say that it’s one of the best pilot shops in the Phoenix area.

(Side note here. If you’re a Phoenix area pilot looking for a destination for a quick flight, try Willie. The controllers are friendly, there’s plenty of parking, and there’s both a restaurant with excellent breakfast and a pilot shop to give you an excuse for the flight.)

Jeppesen FAR Books

Among the books on the shelves was a series by Jeppesen titled Federal Aviation Regulations Explained. Ah, I thought to myself. Could this actually be a successful attempt to explain the legalese text of the FARs?

Now I don’t really like Jeppesen as a company because of the restrictions it places on suppliers. For example, when I ran an FBO some years ago, none of my pilot supply providers were able to become Jeppesen dealers, so I could not carry Jeppesen products. (Fortunately, ASA products are just as good and I had no trouble getting them.) But I do admit that Jeppesen has products that no one else carries and that their products, in general, are good. It certainly wasn’t worth turning my nose up at Jeppesen and missing out on a good book.

There were three versions of the book, each tackling a different group of FAR parts. One fat book, mostly for private pilots, covered Part 1, 61, 91, 141 and NTSB 830. A slightly slimmer book, mostly for commercial pilots, covered Part 1, 119 and 135. Another book, mostly for mechanics (I think), covered Part 1, 21, 43, 65, 145 and 147.

imageAlthough I would have purchased the first two books mentioned here, the price tag on the first book ($35.95, I think) was a little rich for my blood — especially since I hadn’t actually read any book in the series. I decided to try the series with the volume that I needed most: the one that included coverage of Parts 119 and 135. (My helicopter charter business operates under Part 135.) The cover of the book I bought is different from the one shown here; I think (hope) I bought the latest edition, dated 2005.

Now I don’t want you to think I don’t understand the FARs I’m supposed be be operating under. I do. Mostly. Every once in a while, I stumble upon a rule that I’m not quite sure of. I usually call other pilot friends or sometimes the FAA to get an interpretation. I know enough about the FARs to operate safely and legally and stay out of trouble, although I fully admit that I make no effort to understand the rules that don’t apply to my operation (i.e., rules covering cockpit recording devices, beverage carts, autopilots, and multi-pilot operations). After all, there’s only so much information that can fit into my brain. I’d rather fill it with the information that matters.

Aviation Law 101

I jumped into the book during breakfast at Willie’s Flight Line Cafe restaurant. I basically opened to a random page, paged around until I found a topic that interested me, and started reading. I was immediately reminded of my Business Law 101/102 text book back in college — a big, black volume that stated laws, interpretations, and cases.

So, for example, Page 42 begins a discussion of FAR Part 135.79, which covers Flight Locating Requirements. This applies to my operation, since I’m required to have procedures to help rescuers find me if I make an unscheduled landing and get stuck somewhere — or crash, which I prefer not to think too much about.

First, the book provides the complete text of the paragraph and all of its sub paragraphs. This is the same information you can get in any FAR book or on the FAA’s Web site.

Next, it provides a plain English Explanation of the rule with a few examples of how it might apply.

Then it lists some Cross References to other FARs, the Aeronautical Information Manual (AIM), and Advisory Circulars.

Finally, it lists some Chief Counsel Opinions related to the rule. This is how the rule has been interpreted when challenged in court or other proceedings.

This particular example is pretty straightforward. Other parts are more complex. For those, the book also includes Preamble information and case excerpts associated with the rule. This, when combined with lengthy Chief Counsel Option excerpts, can go on for pages.

I find the case studies and opinion excerpts the most enlightening when dealing with a complex rule. They clearly explain how a pilot did (or did not) get into trouble for doing something (or not doing something) related to the rule and why the situation was (or was not) an issue. At breakfast the other day, I was completely absorbed in the Part 135 applicability regulations, which illustrated how pilots got in trouble for operating Part 135 flights when they weren’t certified for Part 135 operations. It made me very glad I had my Part 135 certificate.

A Good Addition to Any Serious Pilot’s Bookshelf

In all, I highly recommend these books to anyone who is serious about a career in aviation. Written by aviation lawyers, they are equivalent to the business law books I had to read to get my BBA years ago. They tell it like it is and help you understand the rules in a way that a simple reading of the FARs cannot. The next time I’m at Willie, I’ll pick up the first book in the series for my reference library.

You can learn more about the books on Jeppesen’s Web site.

Getting Wide

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I play around with my new fisheye lens.

With my helicopter in the shop for some routine maintenance — can you believe I flew 100 hours in the past three months? — Mike and I decided to spend the weekend at our vacation place at Howard Mesa. The shed needed to be winterized and Mike wanted to replace the PVC plumbing (which cracked twice last winter) with real copper pipes.

When I wasn’t holding pipes so Mike could solder them (or driving down to Williams to pick up the fitting he’d forgotten to buy), I played. I’d brought along my Nikon D80 and the two new wide angle lenses I bought for it, including the 10.5mm fisheye (equivalent to a 16mm lens on a 35mm camera). I’d gotten the fisheye lens last week and didn’t have time to try it out.

A fisheye lens offers a 180° view of whatever you point it at. This introduces all kinds of distortions into the image. It also poses special challenges to the photographer, not the least of which is to keep herself out of the photos.

I played with it a tiny bit at home, where I got confirmation of what the lens’s instruction booklet said: the built-in flash would cause vignetting.

Mike Fixes the FurnaceSo when I tried it in the shed last night, I turned the flash off. I held the camera steady for the 1/4 second shutter speed that captured this image, which shows my husband, Mike, taking a quick drink before trying to fix the furnace. In the lower part of the photo, you can see my knees (clad in my wild chili pepper pants) and the sofa I sat on. Jack the Dog was sitting between my legs, watching Mike. The shot shows 90% of the shed’s main room.

(Mike was not successful fixing the furnace last night. It got down to 55°F in the shed. In the morning, he took the darn thing apart and pulled a mouse nest out of its innards. It now works fine.)

In the morning, I went out to photograph the horses. We’d brought them with us, primarily because it’s easier to bring them along than to find someone to feed them while we’re away. It got down into the low 40s last night, but they have thick winter coats. (In fact, they feel quite cuddly and very huggable.) At about 9 AM, they were standing together in the sun, in a spot out of the mesa’s incessant wind. Jake, who is about 25, had led Cherokee to the spot. Cherokee probably didn’t know why they were standing there, but he always follows Jake’s lead. Occasionally, he’d nibble on some of the dried grass that grew in clumps all around him.

Jake and Cherokee getting wideI brought out two apple pieces, which was a bad idea. As soon as they realized I had food, they wouldn’t leave me alone. They kept nosing my camera bag and shirt and it was all I could do to keep the camera out of their reach. But finally they realized that I wasn’t an apple tree and left me alone. Then it got tough to photograph them. They wouldn’t stand still. I managed to capture this shot of Jake with Cherokee in the background.

This was a good experiment. First, the challenge was to keep my shadow out of the photo. I couldn’t shoot with the sun at my back, like I normally would. My long shadow would have made it into the photo. I had to shoot at about a 90° angle to the sun. You can see the horses’ long shadows. I think the shadow in the lower left corner might be part of mine.

Also, from this shot you’d think I was standing quite a distance from Jake. I wasn’t. He was about a foot away. And Cherokee couldn’t have been more than 2 feet from him. The lens really exaggerates distances.

And check out the horizon. It should be flat. But the closer a straight line is to the edge of the image, the more curved it is. So a relatively flat horizon becomes an exaggerated curve. Kind of cool, no?

The next thing I tried was a duplicate of one of the shots you might see among the images that appear in the Header of this site: a dead tree with my windsock in the background.

Tree experiment, fisheye lensThis first shot was taken from about 2 feet from one end of the log. There’s not much curvature at all. And yes, that’s the sun. With the fisheye lens, it’s hard to keep the sun out of photos.

Tree experiment, fisheye lensThis second shot was taken about a foot and a half from the middle of the log. It’s a bad exposure; I’m not quite sure what I did wrong here. Still not much curvature.

Tree experiment, fisheye lensThis third shot was taken 6 to 12 inches from the end of the log. I focused on the log, but because there was so much light, there’s a decent amount of depth of field. You can really see the curvature of the horizon, but can still clearly identify the horses and windsock.

Okay, so it’s not art. But it is interesting. And it’s helping me to learn how this lens “sees” my subjects.

This evening I’ll do some panoramas of the western sky right after sunset. It was outrageously beautiful last night when we arrived up here. I’m also hoping to do a long exposure of the night sky, which should be star-filled. (No clouds in sight again today.) Tomorrow, I might go down to the local “four corners” intersection and do some 360° panoramas of the view from there.

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