How Rude!

Following a couple days of rainy weather here in the desert, we had a bright sunny day. 70F and little or no wind.

I told the boy to get his shoes on. The SCQueen asked where we were going. "To wash the airplane" I announced. She agreed the boy needed to go along and help. With a warm sun but cool air temps, it was a very nice day to give it a bath.

Following the wash it's customary to take it for a flight, also known as "the dry cycle". I decided to head down to a nearby airport with the $2.95/gallon AvGas. However nearing the airport we were advised the runway was closed due to a gear up landing.

How Rude!

We flew by on downwind and sure enough the runway was fouled with emergency vehicles and a stuck airplane. Someone had forgotten one of the critical factors in aviation.

There a several schools of thought on how to ensure the critical tasks are completed prior to touchdown:

The GUMPS check is a common one (Gas on fullest, Undercarriage down, Mixture rich, Prop forward). Some add the S but I don't know what it's supposed to stand for. Perhaps Speed. Conjured acronyms don't work for me. Also, when I was taught GUMP, it always seemed the tasks needed to be done at different times.

A USAF trained pilot related they were taught to check aircraft configuration at every turn in the pattern and again on short final. IOW, Entering the pattern: Gear down three green, Flaps 10. Turning base, Gear down three green, flaps 20. Turning final, Gear down three green flaps 30. Short final confirm gear down full flaps. Great, but what happens on a straight in approach?

I was taught by an airline pilot to fly a speed schedule. The arrival process starts back at the top of descent from cruise with a power reduction schedule which is designed to get the plane to flap speed and pattern altitude 6 miles from the airport. There we drop in 15deg flaps which slows the plane to gear speed. As the plane slows to gear speed now about 4 miles from the field the gear comes out. I don't let go of the gear handle until we have 3 green. As we enter the pattern we drop to 20deg flaps. Turning final, recheck three green and drop full flaps.

Find a method that works for you and your plane. (If you have another method, feel free to chime in via the comments)

Some say, there are those that have and those that will. They say the same thing about taildraggers and groundloops. I don't subscribe to such fatalism. My goal is to prove the adage wrong and go to my grave having done neither.

Still it was a beautiful day for a nice flight with the boy. On the way back he asked if we could fly over the SandCastle. Since the airport owning the airspace over the SandCastle wasn't busy they were happy to oblige. He found his school and the house. Completing the first turn we noticed the SCQueen waving out front. We waved back with the wings. Finishing the second turn we headed back to home field.

There may be better moments in life, but this one will be tough to top.

Update: Here's the boy's drawing of the event. Obviously this is a bird's eye view as we flew over the airport at about 1000 ft AGL (Above Ground Level).
So we have a twin engine aircraft disabled on the runway. The large vehicle in the upper left is a fire truck with a firehose at the ready. The smaller vehicle is a police cruiser.

(Interesting... when editing an existing post, it apparently pulls down the original until reposted. I did not expect that. Stay tuned for update 2 tomorrow when the preliminary report is posted. The plan was to do one update covering both, but apparently blogger doesn't work that way).

Update 2: FAA Preliminary Accident Report:

********************************************************************************
**   Report created 12/1/2008   Record 1                                      **
********************************************************************************

IDENTIFICATION
 Regis#: 12VB        Make/Model: BE95      Description: 95 Travel Air
 Date: 11/29/2008     Time: 2035

 Event Type: Incident   Highest Injury: None     Mid Air: N    Missing: N
 Damage: Minor

LOCATION
 City: CASA GRANDE   State: AZ   Country: US

DESCRIPTION
 AIRCRAFT LANDED GEAR UP, CASA GRANDE, AZ

INJURY DATA      Total Fatal:   0
                # Crew:   1     Fat:   0     Ser:   0     Min:   0     Unk:   
                # Pass:   1     Fat:   0     Ser:   0     Min:   0     Unk:   
                # Grnd:         Fat:   0     Ser:   0     Min:   0     Unk:   

Day off range day

The home range closes only four days a year (New Years, Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas). Since the range will be closed tomorrow and Weekends are SRO as will be Friday after Thanksgiving, I hit the range today.

Today's missions were to a) check SKS sighting and b) check the Sig mags. I still need to prep for the Fall/Winter GBRM and the SCQ had complained that one mag wasn't feeding. Half way there, I realized I'd forgotten the big SR1 target and the spotting scope. Oh well, I can buy/rent both at the range for less than the gas to turn around and go back home. (Yes these are the calculation running through my head).
I pulled up to see a lot of shooters standing around. Figured "Rats we're in a cease fire and I won't have time to post a target". That means sitting around for the next shooting period until I can put a target out. But some days you just live right. The red flag was still out so I grabbed the big bag, signed in and found a bench. Just in time to hear "One minute warning..." Cool perfect timing.

Head to the target hut where I find a frame with an unused target, exactly the target I intended to shoot! The cold winds are howling and it's drizzling a bit. Guess it exceeded someone's threshold of pain. I took the target and posted it at 100 yards. The sights were set where I thought appropriate for 100 yards and proceeded to put 40 rounds down range. (then warmed my digits on the barrel)

Set up another target frame for minimum range to check out the Sig mags.

Cease fire called. Set new target at 11yards and collected the 100 yd target. All SKS rounds hit high. Looking close at the sight, it can go down a bit more. Good info, just what I wanted to know.

Loaded up all Sig mags and ran them through without issue. The SCQ and I need to have a talk about limp wristing and grip 20% harder. Poked a bunch more holes with the .22. Can't wait for the ePostal matches to start up again.

Bogus headline

"Man Found Dead at Usery Mountain Shooting Range"

Story here

Which immediately makes one think someone was accidentally shot.

Actual story

"The victim ... was found on a roadway around 7 a.m. Monday near the Rio Salado Sportsman’s Club..."

The death has nothing to do with the club but of course that's not the impression left by the headline.

Update: This morning's print edition has a more accurate headline:

"Man found dead on road near shooting range"

New shooter range report

Note to self: When making a range trip, don't forget the bullets!

I'll have to check, but I'm pretty sure that's really high on the priority list.

Hmmm...

1. Eyes & ears.
2. LEDs* to shoot
3. Ammunition as appropriate to the LEDs.
4. Clips/Magazines as appropriate to the LEDs.
5. Targets
6. spotting scope (if rifle distances are involved).
7. etc

Yea, #3 on the list. I can get targets at the range and most can be used single shot mode without the clips or magazines. Heck I can even rent a spotting scope for a buck. But bullets are not available at the range.

The whole Raison d^etre was to give the Sister In Law (SIL) some experience with the 9mm. As a secondary goal, I grabbed the SKS to check sight alignment in preparation for the Fall/Winter GBRM, and a couple .22s just because they are cheap and fun to shoot.

The range was crowded and we had to wait for a bench. While standing there waiting, it occurred to me I forgot the 9mm ammo. Checked the range bag. Sure enough, a big box of .22 and a couple 7.62s but no 9mm. The SCQueen headed to the nearest Wally world to get more while we waited for our bench.

A cease fire was called and we were notified of an available bench. We posted a target at the 100yd line to check the SKS while waiting for the 9mm. I put about 10 on target, the let the SIL try. She later commented favorably on the "low recoil". The M1 Garand she shot during the last range trip apparently left quite an impression on her.

The SCQ returned with a box of shells for the 9mm. I was surprised she only bought one box of 50. She pled sticker shock, $19 for a box 50 WWB, and only bought one. As soon as I started to load a magazine, the reason for the price was obvious. These were hollowpoints. Checking the box, they were 147gr FMJ-HPs. Now this isn't the SCQs first ammo trip to Wally world. She said the guy behind the counter was clueless and she didn't catch the error. It's also possible they were out of the cheaper 115gr round nose WWB and this was all they had left. It's also not like I haven't made a similar error recently so this should not be taken in a disparaging tone. It's not meant that way.

I pulled the target in to 11yds (range minimum) and put up a pair of 8inch Shoot*N*Cs. many of her shots missed entirely. I tried and put one in the 8 ring at 11 O'Clock. I think we need to talk some about sight picture.

We shot some of the 147gr FMJ-HPs. Rummaging around the range bag, I found some magazines were preloaded with 9mm. Between those, the SKS and the .22s, we made a decent range trip for the family and SIL who took home a very nicely perforated target. But it severely crippled the reason excuse for the trip. Oh well, we'll just have to make another trip! And the SIL is good with that.

* LED = Lead Emitting Devices

Beautiful day for a layoff

Our CEO at the dayjob(tm) has decided that business conditions dictate shutting down the manufacturing side for a week to prevent over building inventory. This of course represents a paycut to those in manufacturing. And to prevent hard feelings within the company, he had dictated that the rest of the company will also take the same paycut. However while the manufacturing side has a specific week to be layed off, the rest of us get to choose when to take our unpaid week, so long as it's within this quarter.

Ok, this is a paycut. But it's a paycut of the best kind. The money comes back when the work comes back and in the meantime I reclaim something of value (a day off). It also avoid the unpleasant alternative: An actual layoff.

When the news came out, I checked my calendar and realized there were only 7 remaining fridays in the quarter. So I told the boss I'm taking five of em off.

Days one and two were spent wrenching on airplanes as annual inspections were due.
Today was layoff day #3 and could end up as a perfect day:

1. Slept in but woke up in time for Rush (10 am local). Temps in the high 70's, pushing low 80';s.
2. Headed out to the range to test out some new powder in the .223 loads. Scored about 20 really nice Springfield 30.06 brass! Woo Hoo
3. Washed the car (Couldn't see through the rear vinyl rear window)
4. Post annual test flight. The first flight out of annual is always a bit of a test flight. Not quite testing out a new theory, but rather a test of the plane to see what was left unattached. Much as I would have liked to take the SandCastle Son with me, these flights are strictly solo. Today was a loose screw and a quarter turn fastener. Nothing fatal. It also offered the opportunity to fill up on some 100LL at $2.95. Yea, Avgas just under three bucks a gallon. Over the summer we saw prices pushing $6 and even now the best price at the homefield is $4.30 so this is really quite a bargain. Saved about $75.

Add it up: Day off, warm temps, shooting, flying, etc. Does life get any better?
(There are other elements to a "perfect day", but to since this is a family friendly blog, I'll leave those unwritten)

Buffalo

Blogger published a post long before it was ready. I can't figure out how to delete it but I can edit it. That means you get VACATION PICTURES!

So here's the story. We (SCQ and myself) were sitting on a log at Old Faithful eating lunch. SC boy was standing facing us munching on his sandwich. Suddenly his eyes turned to saucers. We turned around to see this guy moseying about 30 feet behind us. Even though he was trailing a pack of paparazzi(some of which may be seen in the upper right of the frame). I set lunch down, grabbed the camera and came up with this shot.

Most Annoying Feature Ever Imposed on Users..

Sometime back a year or so ago, the Dayjob(tm) switched over from Notes to Outlook. In someways Outlook was quite an improvement as Notes was a veritable Jabba the Hutt definition of bloated software, while the current incantation of Outlook was much lighter and faster.

But somewhere along the line it came with the Most Annoying Feature Ever: "Reading View".

Opening a .DOC file attached to a message, instead of just opening up in Word's normal WYSISYG mode, it opens in "Reading View". On my system it comes up in a two page book format, but the text in each "page" is blown up to the point that it might get three or four words per line without discernable formatting at all.

Q: How does this help?
A: It does not. It's really quite annoying.

Why does this feel like a feature dreamed up by some PHd candidate on how to make computers easier for older users? The idea seems to be to blow up the text so it can be read without putting on ones reading glasses. But of course when the text is blown up like that, the formatting gets trashed... so they just don't format it at all! Gee Thanks. The formatting was there for a reason. It clarifies the meaning of the text and makes it easier to read. Oh, and BTW, if I'm working on the computer, I already have my readers on! Thanks for nothing.

I had asked around to see if anyone knew the proper MSIncantation to disable this "feature". No one did, but heads shook in agreement at the annoyance of it all. Today the annoyance reached critical mass which caused me enough to pop up the paperclip and type in "I never want to see the reading view ever again". And Low and behold, it told me where I could turn it off!

Halleluja! Tip of the day: Tools|Options|General tab, uncheck Open in reading view.
The checkbox is a little hard to find as it's not in the left hand column. Instead it's all alone at the top of the right column.