Author Archives: Maria Langer

Blogging the FARs: An Introduction

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The FARs for mere mortals.

As a Single Pilot Part 135 operator — in other words, a commercial pilot allowed to do on demand air taxi and charter flights; more later — I’m required to take an annual check ride with an FAA examiner. The check ride isn’t just a flight to prove I can perform the required maneuvers. It’s also an oral exam that lasts 1 to 2 hours and is designed to confirm that I know my aircraft, my operating rules, and the FARs.

About the FARs

FAR stands for Federal Aviation Regulations. Technically, the regulations are really Titles 14 and 49 of the Code of Federal Regulations, so some very few people might refer to them as 14 CFR or CFR Title 14 or some other combination of that information. Most people don’t. Most people just call them the FARs.

If you’re reading this in another country, you likely have rules and regulations like this. I don’t know what they’re called or what they contain. And if you are reading this as a pilot flying in another country, don’t depend on what you read here to correspond to your country’s rules. It might be interesting, however, to get comments that explain how something differs in your country, so don’t be shy about sharing what you know.

Blogging the FARs

Like most pilots’ I don’t know the FARs by heart. I don’t even know the ones I’m supposed to know by heart. I simply know that regulations exist and where I can look them up in the big, fat book that’s revised annually. And, of course, I do know the gist and meaning of the regulations that affect my operations on a regular basis.

In an effort to

  1. refresh my memory about the regulations I’m supposed to know,
  2. translate those regulations, which are written in FAA-dialect legalese, into a language I’m more familiar with, like plain English,
  3. provide myself with reference material for future study,
  4. provide site visitors interested in aviation with some information they might find useful, and
  5. generate a comments-based discussion about some of the FARs and why they’re important, stupid, good, bad, or whatever,

I’ve decided to write a series of blog entries that explore the various FARs.

If you’re not a pilot, you may not find this too interesting. I understand. Many pilots don’t find this too interesting, either. But they are the rules and we do need to be familiar with them. If you have any interest in aviation and how the system works to remain safe, you might find some of these posts very interesting. If so, enjoy. And ask questions in the Comments if you need clarification.

If you are a pilot, please remember that I’m not an expert. I read FAA-dialect legalese no better than the next guy and there is a chance that I might misinterpret something. If you think I got it wrong, speak up in the Comments area for the article in which the error appears. But please do back it up with some other reference so I can confirm the correction. If you have more to add about a topic — especially stories about how that topic affected you — please share your experience. We can all learn together. Personally, I learn better from stories than from boring 1000-page books written in legalese.

All of these articles will appear in the Flying category of this site. If you just care about flying and not about the other things I write about, I recommend that you subscribe to the category with an RSS reader, the live bookmarks feature of Firefox, or some other subscription method. (You can also subscribe to get new content automatically by e-mail.) That’ll filtering out my geeky computer stuff and my occasional political rants.

The FARs I’ll Cover

I’m not going to cover all of the FARs here. I’m only going to cover the ones that directly affect my operations, the ones I’m likely to be asked on my check ride. These are the same one you might be asked on a private, commercial, or Part 135 check ride. And of course, being a helicopter pilot, I won’t be dealing with any airplane-only regulations. In fact, if you’re a pilot and you read these, you’re likely to get a good picture of how airplane and helicopter operations differ. Don’t worry; I’ll make a special note if anything I write about is helicopter-specific.

Generally speaking, I’ll be covering material from FAR Parts:

  • 1 – Definitions and Abbreviations
  • 61 – Certification: Pilots, Flight Instructors, and Ground Instructors (I’ll concentrate on Pilots)
  • 67 – Medical Standards and Certification
  • 71 – Designation of Class Airspace Areas; Service Routes; and Reporting Points
  • 73 – Special Use Airspace
  • 91 – General Operating and Flight Rules
  • 119 – Certification: Air Carriers and Commercial Operators
  • 135 – Operating Requirements: Commuter and On Demand Operators
  • SFAR 73 – a Special regulation for Robinson helicopter operators

I won’t be covering them in this order. I’ll be covering them in the order I study them in. And the articles I write are likely to appear here weekly over an extended period of time, so don’t expect to read it all next week.

Some Additional References

If you’re interested in FARs, you’ll likely find some of the following reference material quite useful:

  • FARs online. You can read the current version of the FARs on the Web on the FAA’s Web site. This should be the most up-to-date version of the FARs available for free.
  • FAR/AIM 2007: Federal Aviation Regulations/Aeronautical Information Manual (FAR/AIM series)AIM or Aeronautical Information Manual. This is the plain English text that actually explains the rules and provides additional how-to information for pilots. Every U.S. certificated pilot should have and read this book. Normally, when you buy a book containing the FARs, the AIM is appended to it. So what you’re really buying is a FAR/AIM. My understanding of this document is that the text is prepared by the government and is in the public domain. A variety of publishers print books of the information and some add illustrations and supplemental text to the AIM part of the book. So you’ll find several versions of the book. I buy the ASA version shown here for financial reasons; I’m required to buy it every year and usually get an offer to get it sent to me for under $15 as soon as it’s printed (normally late in the previous year). But there are other versions out there and you can even buy the AIM as a separate book, without the FARs.
  • FARs in Plain English by Phil Croucher. This book attempts to do what I’m doing here, but for most of the FARs. I have this book and don’t really care for it, primarily because some of the rules I need are omitted and the book isn’t updated regularly. (The FARs are updated every year.) The book is also quite expensive for us poor pilots, retailing for $44.95.

Comments?

Please do share your comments about this little project. The Comment link is below. I’d also be interested in learning about other online resources, as well as opinions of the ones listed here.

Being a Responsible Blogger

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With regular readers comes responsibility.

This morning, I noted that the feed for this blog has exceeded 100 subscribers. The 100 mark is a milestone for any blogger, and it’s no different for me — even though I’ve been at it for some time now.

I’ve been blogging for over three years and my blog doesn’t exactly follow all of the “rules” of blogging. I’m talking about the “stick to one topic” rule and “blog multiple times a day” rule. People say rules are meant to be broken, but that’s not why I break these rules. I just blog the way I want to blog and don’t really pay attention to the rules.

My Original Blog as a Separate Entity

My blog started out as a separate entity from my personal Web site, a way to share whatever I was thinking about or doing with people who might be interested. It was a personal journal, slightly filtered for the public. It was a way for me to record my life so I’d have something to look back on in the distant future. I didn’t care if anyone read it and was often surprised when someone I knew commented about something I’d written in my blog.

Back in those days, my blog wasn’t something I worked hard at; the entries just came out of me, like one-sided conversations with friends. Perhaps it has something to do with my solitary work habits — many people gather around the “water cooler” at work to trade stories about their weekends or opinions about world affairs. There’s no water cooler in my office and no co-workers to chat with. My blog may have been my outlet for all these pent-up stories.

Blog + Site = ?

A little over a year ago, I combined my blog with my personal Web site. I did it to make my life a little easier. I’d already decided to use WordPress as my Web site building tool. Why not just make my personal blog part of the site?

My Web site has been around in one form or another since 1994. I built it to experiment with Web publishing and soon expanded it to provide a sort of online résumé and support for my books. Support for my books often meant additional tips and longer articles about some of the software I’ve written about. This is fresh content of interest to people who use that software, even if they don’t buy or read my corresponding books. Since writing this content is relatively easy for me, I have no problem offering it free to anyone who wants it (as long as they don’t steal it and pass it off as their own; see my © page).

One of the great things about blogging software is that it automatically displays the newest content on the Home page and archives older content by category and date. In the old days, I’d have to manually create new pages for every article I wanted to put on my Web site and then add links to them. It was time consuming, to say the least. Sometimes too time consuming to share even the quickest little tip with visitors. So I didn’t publish very many articles. But the time-consuming, hand-coding aspect of my site is gone, and it takes just minutes to put any content online, whether it’s a link to an interesting podcast I just listened to about iPod microphones or a multi-part series of articles explaining how to use WordPress as a content management system.

What’s odd about the merging of the two sites is that my personal blog entries now commingle on the Home page with my book support entries. So these 100+ subscribers are seeing (and possibly reading) all kinds of stuff coming out of my head. (Now that’s a scary thought!)

My Responsibility

As my blog/site audience grows, my responsibility to provide good content for readers also grows.

The way I see it, when only a half-dozen people read my blog regularly, it was okay to bore them with stories about my horse eating corn cob stuff out of the bottom of my bird’s cage or rants about the quality of “news” coverage. Now, with over 100 regular readers, I need to think more about what would interest my audience and concentrate on producing the articles they want to read. (You can help me by voting on this poll.)

And that’s when blogging becomes work. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it does take more effort on my part.

And it may push me far from the original purpose of my blog: a journal of my life. That’s something to think about, too.

The Other Blogs

I just want to take a moment here to comment on some of the other blogs I’ve seen out there. The vast majority of them are a complete waste of bandwidth. Some exist to echo the sentiments of others and show very little original thought. Others are complete blather, written in a style that makes me mourn for the failure of our educational system. Like chat room comments. Ugh. I don’t see why people waste their time writing this crap and really can’t see why people waste their time reading it.

But there is a small percentage of blogs that provide good, informative, or at least interesting content, written in a way that’s easy to read and understand. Those are the blogs that serious bloggers should be reading and learning from. Those are the blogs we should try to emulate, not by simply copying or linking to content, but by adding our own original material to the blogoshere.

That’s my goal and my responsibility as a blogger. If you’re a blogger, is it yours, too?

Web Site vs. Blog

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What’s the Difference?

Today I got a phone call from our local newspaper’s “business advocate” — the guy who writes stories about business. He was researching an article about blogging and figured that I was the most active blogger — if not the only blogger — in town, so I might be able to to provide some information about it. He wasn’t aware that I’d co-authored a book about WordPress blogging software (WordPress 2: Visual QuickStart Guide) in 2006 and he probably wasn’t aware that I wrote Putting Your Small Business on the Web back in 2000. He probably also doesn’t know that I’ve written four books about Web authoring software (various versions of PageMill, now defunct) and that I’ve been building and managing Web sites since 1994 (although I’m not crazy enough to do it for a living).

We stumbled a bit in our conversation. He referred to my Web site, wickenburg-az.com, as a blog. (The site has been around since 1999, predating the blogging phenomena by at least 3 to 4 years.) I responded that it wasn’t a blog, that it was a Web site built with blogging software. And then he asked me what the difference was.

I had to think about it. What is the difference between a Web site and a blog?

They’re very much alike.

Let’s take a look at the similarities.

  • Web sites and blogs are both published on the Web and can be read with any Web browser. This gives them the same basic look and feel and similar user experiences. Web sites built with blogging software can look and feel just like a blog, even if that’s not what they are intended to be.
  • They depend on good, useful content. Web site visitors and blog readers come to read content. If the content is good and meets their needs, they’ll be back for more. If the content sucks, they won’t.

But they are different.

Of course, I needed to explain how they were different — not how they were the same. The response I came up with centered around the purpose of visitors coming to to the site, but there are more differences.

  • Web site visitors come to a site to look for specific information. That information does not need to be new. It just needs to be what the visitor is looking for. For example, I visit the HP Web site when I need a new driver for one of my printers. I know it’ll be there and I don’t care if it’s been there for five years. People visit wickenburg-az.com to get basic information about Wickenburg: what it’s like, what to do there, etc. But blog readers visit or subscribe to blogs to get fresh information or insight on topics that are important to them. I read ProBlogger, for example, because it has timely articles that can help me understand how to be a better blogger. People visit aneclecticmind.com to read articles like this one about blogging, or other articles about flying, or even other articles about what it’s like to live in a place like Wickenburg — all from my point of view.
  • Blogs tend to be more opinion-based than Web sites. Sure, HP is going to tell you on their Web site that their printers are the best, but what would you expect? On my blog, I’ll tell you what I think about my HP printer and compare it to other printers I might own or have experience with. I’ll also tell you what I think of Apple Geniuses or local restaurants or life revolving around the Internet. (Although some locals might find this hard to believe, I keep most of my negative opinions of Wickenburg out of wickenburg-az.com. Most.) The opinion aspect makes blogs more personal than a Web site.
  • Blogs rely on fresh content. It’s commonly accepted that a blogger should post at least 3 to 5 new entries a week. Web sites, on the other hand, are more static and don’t require as much updating. Their visitors don’t expect it, either.

Does it matter?

Who knows? But it’s made me think about blogging a bit more than usual lately. And I’m sure it will lead to a few more articles here about what makes a blog a blog in the near future.

iPod Microphones: A Review

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On the Future Tense Podcast.

One of the other podcasts I really enjoy is American Public Media’s Future Tense. This public radio show has 3 to 5 minute segments on topics related to computing and technology. I highly recommend it for a quick dose of what’s new presented in plain English.

XtremeMac IPV-MIC-00 MicroMemo Digital Voice Recorder for iPod Video (Black)For those of you interested in recording with your iPod, the February 12 episode, iPod Microphones: a Review, should make good listening. It certainly pleased me. It confirmed that the iPod microphone I recently purchased — the XtremeMac MicroMemo — was the best of the three reviewed. The podcast also includes sample recordings with various mics under various conditions to give you an idea of what to expect if you invest in one of these gadgets for your iPod.

Penn Radio Podcast

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No bullsh*t.

Penn Gillette, the bigger and louder half or the Penn & Teller magic team, is the kind of guy that you either love or hate. He’s loud and he can definitely be obnoxious. But, like me, he has a zero-tolerance stand on bull.

I subscribe to the Penn Radio Podcast. I listen to about half the episodes. It’s usually just a talk show with Penn and his sidekick, Michael Goudeau, talking about a topic in the news and people calling in. Some of the callers are good, others are clearly wacko. Talk radio at its best.

I agree with a lot — but not all — of what Penn has to say, especially about religion and politics. You might think that’s scary. I know my mother would. (Let’s not tell her, okay?)

Once in a while, they have a guest. Penn and the guest, with a little input from Michael, chat about things. Informative, entertaining, enlightening. Usually something to think about.

Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other DelusionsEvery once in a while, Penn has a better than average guest. (Phyllis Diller was one of them months ago.) I just finished listening to his February 9 show, which featured James Randi, a skeptic who has devoted much of his life to exposing fraudulent psychics, claims of ESP, and other “new age phenomena.” In other words, bullsh*t. He even wrote a book about it: Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions. The radio show was an interesting look at the tricks today’s top psychics use to give “readings” as well as insight into people who really believe they have these powers.

Anyway, if the topic interests you, you might want to download the podcast episode and give it a listen. Use the Comments link to let me know what you think about it.

And please try to keep Randi-bashing comments to yourself. I just read enough of them on Amazon.com.