Author Archives: Maria Langer

Reading Feeds

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I just don’t have time.

A while back, I started using endo, a feed reader application, to keep up with new content on a few sites. At first, I was able to check in once or twice a day and the number of unread articles never exceeded 20. But then I got busy with other things and couldn’t check in regularly. Now the unread article count is over 500 and I dread wading through what’s there.

What’s In It For Me

I find that about 50% of the material on the feeds I follow is simply not the least bit interesting to me. Unfortunately, those articles are spread out among all the feeds I follow — about two dozen of them. (If I find more than 75% of the content from a single feed uninteresting, I simply unsubscribe.) Those are the easy articles to go through. It takes only a few seconds to read the title and scan through the first paragraph or summary before I hit the up arrow key and move on to the next unread entry.

Of the remaining 50% of the content, about 80% (or roughly 40% of the whole) is mildly interesting and worth a good read. I sometimes link to these articles using del.icio.us bookmarks to generate the This Just In category links entries you might see online here. In fact,that’s how you can find out whether I’ve been reading Web-based content; if there’s a Links post in the morning, I was reading Web content the day before. The more links in the post, the more I read and enjoyed. This takes time, of course, because I have to read through these articles to really appreciate them.

The remaining content (if you’re following the math, that’s 10% of the total content for the feeds I follow) are what I call “keepers.” A keeper is an article that is worth reading not just once, but at least twice. It’s worth keeping a link to — perhaps even bookmarking for future reference. (I’m very stingy with my internal bookmarking.) These articles trigger ideas for writing in my own blog, for expanding on the thoughts of the source blogger to add fresh content to the blogosphere. They also give me ideas for other projects or things I can do to change my way of working to be more productive. This is the real time sucker and the reason I can’t keep up with the feeds I subscribe to. I don’t want to miss these articles. I want to find them and give them the time they deserve. Unfortunately, I just don’t have enough time to give. So I don’t give any; I wait until — well, what?

Why I Don’t Have Time

Currently, I’m under contract to write two books. One is about halfway finished; the other hasn’t been started yet. I’m using up all my big blocks of time at my desk these days, writing about Excel 2007 for Windows. I’m also writing articles for FileMaker Advisor and Informit. And I’m writing blog entries — or trying to — at least once a day.

I’m also preparing for a big “trade show” in Scottsdale — Big Boys and Their Toys Luxury Men’s Expo. I’ll be parking my helicopter on the show floor for two days, handing out brochures and signing people up for my multi-day excursions. So I’m preparing for that by ordering new brochures and logo hats, arranging for booth furniture and electricity, and trying to find two energetic and dependable people to help out with the booth. (If you live in the Phoenix/Scottsdale area, have a neat and presentable appearance and an interest in helicopters, and want a job for the weekend of March 17-18, contact me.) And in the evening, I’m sitting in front of my computer, turning hundreds of photographs and hours of video into a DVD of destinations to show at our booth.

Between all that, I’m flying helicopter charters. I did two on Sunday, I have one today, I have one on Thursday, and I have another one on Saturday. This is revenue my little company sorely needs to cover the cost of things like this trade show, so turning down flights like this would not be a good idea.

Does that give you an idea of how I’m spending my time? Can you see why I don’t have time to wade through the hundreds of accumulated posts that have accumulated in endo?

Well, enough whining for today. Time to get back to work.

And if you’re wondering how much time I used up writing this, it was less than 30 minutes. My morning coffee time. Thank heaven for multitasking.

Blogging the FARs: Fuel Requirements

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A look at FAR Part 91.151 and real life.

FAR Part 91.151: Fuel requirements for flight in VFR conditions, sets up minimum fuel requirements for flight in VFR conditions. In other words, it’s telling you, the pilot in command, how much fuel must be on board to fly legally.

Here’s the language:

(a) No person may begin a flight in an airplane under VFR conditions unless (considering wind and forecast weather conditions) there is enough fuel to fly to the first point of intended landing and, assuming normal cruising speed:€”

(1) During the day, to fly after that for at least 30 minutes; or

(2) At night, to fly after that for at least 45 minutes.

(b) No person may begin a flight in a rotorcraft under VFR conditions unless (considering wind and forecast weather conditions) there is enough fuel to fly to the first point of intended landing and, assuming normal cruising speed, to fly after that for at least 20 minutes.

What does this mean?

It’s actually pretty straightforward. It’s saying two things:

  • First, it assumes that when you do your flight plan for a flight, you should know how much fuel is required for that flight. For example, if you expect the flight to your first intended landing point (your destination) to take 30 minutes and you burn 12 gallons per hour, that means you’ll need 6 gallons to get to that destination (12÷60×30).
  • Second, it’s requiring that you load additional fuel as follows: If you’re flying an airplane during the day time, you’ll need an extra 30 minutes worth of fuel to be legal; in this example, another 6 gallons for a total of 12 gallons. An airplane at night would need 45 minutes worth of extra fuel; 9 gallons (12÷60×45) in this example for a total of 15 gallons. And a helicopter, which often has its own special rules, only needs an extra 20 minutes of fuel day or night; 4 gallons (12÷60×20) in this example for a total of 10 gallons.

The assumptions here are very important. You need to do a flight plan to know how much fuel it will take to get to your destination. A flight plan should take into consideration wind speed and other weather conditions — for example, conditions that may require rerouting around storms or low-visibility areas. This is related to FAR Part 91.103: Preflight Action, which states, in part:

Each pilot in command shall, before beginning a flight, become familiar with all available information concerning that flight. This information must include—

(a) For a flight under IFR or a flight not in the vicinity of an airport, weather reports and forecasts, fuel requirements, alternatives available if the planned flight cannot be completed, and any known traffic delays of which the pilot in command has been advised by ATC;

By flight plan, I mean a real flight plan. Normally, that involves calculations using a whiz-wheel or handheld aviation calculator or the ever-popular Duats online service (my personal favorite). Looking at a chart and guessing doesn’t count.

What Would a Prudent Pilot Do?

Although I don’t like the phrase “a prudent pilot” — primarily because it was used on me by an FAA person who seemed to suggest that I might not be prudent — it is something to consider here. Using the example above, if you had to complete the flight as planned, would you just take the fuel required by the FARs? In other words, 12 gallons for an airplane during the day, 15 gallons for an airplane at night, or 10 gallons for a helicopter during the day?

A prudent pilot wouldn’t if he/she could safely take more. The limitations would depend on max gross weight; performance at high elevations, high temperatures, or high weight; and weight and balance. Performing weight and balance calculations and checking performance charts is part of the responsibilities of every pilot in command before a flight — that’s part of FAR Part 91.103, too. Remember, you need to “become familiar with all available information concerning that flight.” [Emphasis added.]

Why would more fuel be better?

Do I really need to ask?

More fuel means more time in flight. For me, that could mean the difference between taking an in-flight detour to follow a stream or river that’s rarely flowing or flying the boring straight route from point A to point B. Or the difference between successfully navigating around a fast-moving thunderstorm or having to land in the middle of nowhere to wait it out. Or having to pay $4.90/gallon for fuel at my destination rather than $3.47/gallon at my home base.

According to the 2006 Nall Report, 10.5% of aviation accidents in 2005 were due to poor fuel management — pilots running out of fuel or forgetting to switch fuel tanks. This is sheer stupidity by the pilots — something I call “stupid pilot tricks.” By taking on more fuel than you need, you’ll be reducing the chance of becoming one of these stupid pilots. (You can still be another kind of stupid pilot, though.)

You’ll also have one less thing to worry about in flight.

And if that ain’t prudent, I don’t know what is.

How do you make a million dollars in aviation?

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Start with two million dollars.

That isn’t my joke — it’s standard aviation humor. And if you think it isn’t true, start an aviation-based business.

Yesterday, against all odds, UPS actually delivered the auxiliary fuel pump I needed to get Zero-Mike-Lima up and running again. Yes, on Saturday. In Wickenburg.

The UPS guy was at our neighbor’s house, looking for ours when we spotted him. Mike gave a New York hail-a-cab style whistle and the driver saw us waving at him from our hillside. Moments later, he was on our driveway in front of the house.

“How many deliveries did you have to Wickenburg today?” I asked.

“Two,” he replied. “And you’re lucky it was me driving. I was out for four weeks. If the other Saturday driver can’t find a house, he just doesn’t deliver.”

Yes, I was lucky. I needed the part to replace the fuel pump that had gasped its final gasp on Friday, right at the end of a flight. Although the pump is redundant in flight (so there was no danger during the flight), I do need it to prime the engine at startup. I couldn’t fly without it. And I had three relatively lucrative gigs lined up between Sunday and Thursday.

The fuel pump cost $1,500. Add another $40 or $50 for overnight Saturday delivery by UPS. Then add the cost of the mechanic who graciously agreed to come in on Saturday — one of his usual days off — to install it. I told him to charge me extra. He said he would. Hell, it’s only fair. He could have said it would have to wait until Monday. Then I’d miss out on one (which turned into two) of my gigs.

Doing the Math

Unexpected repairs like this are only part of what makes operating an aviation business a lot more expensive than people think. How many times have I been at a rides gig where people asked how much fuel the helicopter burned? Every single one. I tell them it’s 16 to 18 gallons an hour and sometimes they ask how much fuel costs. I tell them $4 a gallon. They do some math in their head to come up with $64 per hour. Then they see us loading people on board for $30 a head, sometimes three at a time, and figure I can get 6 10-minute flights in per hour. That number comes out to $540/hour. Jeez! I must be making a fortune!

The truth of the matter is, fuel is among the least of my expenses.

What people always fail to consider is insurance (at about $11,500 per year); regular maintenance like oil changes ($120 each), 100-hour inspections ($2,000 each), annual inspections ($2,000 each); and the cost of the oh-so-important overhaul due at 2,200 hours that costs (currently) a whopping $182,000. (Do the math on that: $182,000 ÷ 2200 = $83/hour.)

And then there are things like this fuel pump. The original pump lasted only 416 hours. If the final cost of replacement is $1,700 (with all labor and expenses), that works out to another $4/hour. Add that to the cost of replacing my primary radio, which is currently in the shop and may be declared dead: $2,100 for a used one plus several hundred for troubleshooting the old one and swapping them out. And the cost of that clutch down-limit switch that had to be replaced 200 hours ago: the $8 part with $800 labor. And, oh yeah, let’s not forget $120 just to make sure my transponder is working right — that’s something I’ll be paying for every two calendar years.

How about the support stuff that doesn’t go on my helicopter? Like the $1,200 tow bar and the $600 golf cart (used, thank heaven) to pull it? And monthly rent for the hangar to keep it safe and dry and out of the sun? And the charts and other FAA publications I’m required to keep up to date, including sectionals (twice a year per chart), terminal area charts (twice a year per chart), airport/facilities directories (every 56 days), and the FAR/AIM (once a year)? Or how about my annual medical exam, which is required just to keep my license? Or credit card fees just so I can accept credit cards for payment?

And how about marketing? The $1,600 I just spent on 4-color, tri-fold brochures and the $459/month I spend during the high season to get them in brochure racks throughout the Phoenix area? And the cost of the trade show I’ll be attending later this month to sell my multi-day excursions to folks looking for a different kind of vacation?

And how about the cost of my ground crew on those outdoor ride gigs and the cost of permits and commissions just so I can do them? And the cost for operating the helicopter just to get to and from the gig — sometimes more than an hour each way? And the cost of the table and chairs and shade structure and signs that we use on those gigs? And those orange cones and all that yellow Caution tape? And overnight lodging and meals for me and the ground crew on distant, multi-day gigs?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining. I knew I was in for it when I launched this business.

But it does explain why I have to charge $450/hour for flight time. I’m not pocketing nearly $400 in profits as most people may think. I’m barely covering my costs.

Paying for It

Today is Sunday and Zero-Mike-Lima is sitting snug in its hangar, all ready to fly. I picked up a second tour today, one of my Ghost Towns & Mines air tours. Right after that, I’m doing my first ever Swansea Town site day trip. On Tuesday, I’m taking a winter visitor to Scottsdale for some upscale shopping. And on Thursday, I’m taking some folks to Sky Harbor so they can catch a flight to Canada. The total revenue for these four flights is estimated at $1,895. That’s revenue, not net income.

Just enough to cover the cash outlay for that fuel pump and labor.

Would I give it all up? Hell, no! But I do hope the new fuel pump lasts longer than 416 hours.

Death of a Manuscript

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Dealing with the loss of my own unpublished words.

Last week, I discovered that a file containing the manuscript for a novel I was working on was gone.

The file lived in my laptop, which is what I was using to write it. It was backed up on my main computer’s hard disk. I had decided two or three months ago to keep working copies of all my fiction on my iDisk space. (iDisk is part of the .Mac services available for Macintosh users. It gives you 1 GB of storage space on an Apple server that can be shared among all of your computers.) The idea was that by keeping the files there, I could work on them from any computer and always have the most recent version.

Somewhere along the line, while copying the folder containing this file to my iDisk space, the file was lost. I’m not sure how it happened, but I do recall getting an error message when I made the copy. I should have investigated more closely, but I didn’t. The file was gone and because I didn’t work on it for months, I didn’t realize it was gone.

The backup copy, of course, was lost in my February hard disk crash.

I spent most of a day playing with file recovery software to get the file back. I managed to retrieve about 2 of the 97 pages I’d written.

Obviously, I’m not very happy about this. I’d been working on this project on and off for about four years. There was a lot of me in it. I’d written a lot of good dialog and some pretty strong scenes. It wasn’t perfect — the characterization on a few of the characters was just not good enough — but what was good was very good. A lot of “keeper” stuff in there.

And now its gone.

I find the task of recreating this work daunting. Lately, I just don’t feel that I have the writing skills I need to write fiction. I have my outline, my index cards for scenes, my character notes. I can clearly remember lots of the scenes and even some of the dialog. But I don’t feel confident that I can rewrite what I lost. I know that when it comes time to sit down and type it all back into my word processor, there will be something lacking. It just won’t be as good or as complete.

Fortunately, this was the only manuscript I lost (other than the partially completed Chapter 6 of my Excel for Windows book, which was easy, if not tedious, to recreate). My other fiction manuscripts remain safe, now backed up to three places. But although I’ve been toying with them for far longer — one of them originates back in my teenage years when I wrote longhand in spiral bound, college ruled notebooks — the loss of this one seems to hurt more. It was a more mature work, a more marketable work. It, unlike my other fiction scribbling, had a future, possibly in print.

Time is now my main obstacle to picking up this work and recreating it. I’m juggling two jobs: as a technical writer and a helicopter pilot. I’m having a hard enough time getting both of those jobs done. At the end of a working day, I’m mentally exhausted and not prepared to tackle a recreational writing assignment. (That’s one of the reasons I do 90% of my blogging first thing in the morning.) So who knows when this work might be resurrected?

Perhaps it’s something to look forward to in my retirement years.

In-Flight “Emergency”…

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…on a check ride.

There’s no better way to test a pilot on his or her knowledge of emergency procedures than to simulate an in-flight unusual situation. I hesitate to use the word emergency here, because what most check pilots simulate is not really a full emergency. It’s more of a situation that requires the pilot’s attention, knowledge of procedures, judgement, and action.

Real Throttle Chops are a Thing of the Past

Gone (or almost gone) are the days when helicopter flight instructors or examiners did “throttle chops.” A throttle chop is a simulated engine failure in which the instructor or examiner twists the throttle to idle suddenly during flight. The engine and rotor RPM needles split and the rotor RPM needle immediately starts to drop. The student or pilot in command is required to immediately enter an autorotation. The experts estimate that the pilot has about two seconds to react properly. Failure to react could lead to unrecoverable low rotor RPM, which is a very bad thing.

Flight instructors and examiners pretty much stopped doing real throttle chops — the kind with absolutely no warning to the student — when helicopters started crashing. It seemed that in some cases, the student pilot or pilot in command wouldn’t react fast enough and the instructor or examiner didn’t either. Or, in some rare cases, the sudden reduction in power caused the engine to hiccup and really fail. Now most instructors usually warn the student in advance. Some slowly reduce the throttle, which leads to an audible change in engine sound that warns the student — not to mention that he or she can usually feel the adjustment in his or her collective hand. Others do a throttle chop and enter the autorotation at the same time, not even giving the student a chance to react.

Robinson Helicopter issued several safety notices recommending against throttle chops (see SN-27 and SN-38). The company even amended its Pilot Operating Handbook so practice autorotations would be done with just a tiny needle split rather than a full throttle-to-idle setting. (Not a very good simulation of an engine failure, if you ask me.)

So What’s an Instructor/Examiner to Do?

One of the instructor/examiners I’ve worked with in the past was extremely fond of failing instruments or illuminating warning lights. This particular instructor, who works for Robinson Helicopter, has a whole collection of circuit breaker tricks that he uses on unsuspecting students. He’ll pull an engine tach circuit breaker so the engine tachometer drops to 0 during flight. No lights, just that dead gauge. He does it to see how long before the pilot notices and whether the pilot knows what do do about it. He’ll do the same for other gauges that are important but not vital to safe flight.

I took my commercial check ride with this particular instructor/examiner and he made me do a run-on landing with “failed” engine tachometer, rotor tachometer, and governor (switch the governor off to simulate). The trick was to make very small collective inputs and hope the mechanical correlator would keep the RPM within range; listening to the sound of the engine helped a tiny bit. But I still managed to make that low rotor RPM horn go off as we approached the runway surface. Evidently, I exercised enough finesse, because although he was disappointed that the horn had come on, he didn’t fail me for it. Personally, I like to see him do it perfectly.

(A side note here. What real-life situation would require you to land with all that stuff inoperable? The only thing I can think of is a complete electrical failure. But even then, I think there’s some trick in the Robinson wiring scheme that keeps the tachs alive. Just can’t remember what it might be right now. Guess I need to look it up.)

My Recent Mechanical Failure

I’ve taken 6 check rides since I started flying about 8 years ago: 1 private, 1 commercial, and 4 Part 135s. There’s usually some kind of simulated failure during a flight. So when the Aux Fuel light came on during my most recent check ride on Thursday, my first inclination was to ask the examiner, “Did you do that?”

“What?”

We were doing an instrument approach at Williams Gateway Airport and I think he was paying more attention to my altimeter (I was supposed to be at 1880 feet) than anything else.

“That light,” I replied.

He saw the light. “No,” he said.

I didn’t believe him and asked him again. He repeated that he wasn’t responsible.

“Is the circuit breaker out?” I asked.

He looked down at the bank of circuit breakers at the base of his seat. “Yes.”

“Okay, it’s not a big deal,” I said. “It’s the auxiliary fuel pump. It’s a redundant system and we don’t need it for flight. The book says land as soon as practical. Do you want to push the circuit breaker back in?”

“No.”

(For the record, I would have.)

“Well, how about if we land here and have Kelly look at it?” I suggested. Kelly is my helicopter mechanic. By some unbelievable stroke of luck, we were landing at the airport where he was based and it wasn’t 5 PM yet.

He agreed that would be a good idea and talked to the tower for me. He then directed me to parking. I set it down in one of the helicopter parking spaces that Silver State uses. He pushed the circuit breaker back in. It popped back out. He got out to track down Kelly while I cooled down the engine and shut down.

Long story short: Kelly pulled off the side panel and found that one of the bolts on top of the fuel pump was loose. He removed the pump, bench tested it, tightened up the bolts, wrote up a logbook entry on a sticker for me, and sent us on our way. The whole process took a little more than an hour. The pump sounded much better when I primed the engine for startup and the light didn’t come on again as we did some more maneuvers at Williams Gateway and flew back to Scottsdale.

I passed the check ride. I like to think that the failed fuel pump helped me. It showed that I knew enough about the procedure to stay calm and make the right decision about it. In a way, it was a real-life “emergency” during the flight. Again, I don’t like to use the word emergency because there was never really any danger — unless, of course, the engine-driven fuel pump went bad, too. Then we’d have a problem.

Postscript

I flew back from Scottsdale with no further fuel pump problems.

The next day, I did a 50-minute scenic flight with two passengers on board. We were about 45 minutes into the flight — less than 5 miles from the airport — when the darn light came back on. I finished the tour — which was basically on the way to the airport anyway — and landed. When I pushed in the circuit breaker, it popped right out again.

When my passengers were on their way, I visited Ed, my local mechanic. I asked him to take a look at the pump when he had a chance, then put the helicopter away in my hangar, which is just down the row from his. He called with the bad news a while later. The pump was seized. I’d have to get a new one. I called the factory at 2:30 PM (their time) and managed to get it on a UPS truck for overnight (Saturday) delivery to Wickenburg. With luck, it’ll arrive as planned (Saturday deliver is a very iffy thing in Wickenburg) and Ed will put it in. I’ll be flying again on Sunday.

Unfortunately, it’ll take the flights I have scheduled on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday just to pay for the new pump.