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STEVEN SIMPSON wrote:
No, But there is around D.C. between me and jersy. Jersy? Would that be New Jersey? Why are you going from central Virginia to eastern Tennessee by way of New Jersey? "Dave Butler" wrote in message news:1118757384.848887@sj-nntpcache-3... STEVEN SIMPSON wrote: Yes actualy I did figure my reserve,I just did not realize that to avoid the ADIZ I would endup vectored all over the place .I made a mistake yes,I let There's an ADIZ at Tri-Cities airport? http://www.airnav.com/airport/KTRI snip "STEVEN SIMPSON" wrote in message news:8Wpre.10699$lb5.6085@trnddc04... I flew up to Tri city airport from central virginia snip |
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![]() "STEVEN SIMPSON" wrote I wrote this to show that the most experianced and well trained pilot may become complacent.Even you sir.I hope all can learn from my mistake. Un-fricking-believeable. Put it off on everyone/someone else. A *smart* pilot would have found the first place to set down and get some more fuel, when the air time said the reserve was going to be cut into. The reserve is to be still be in the tanks when you land, not to be used to get where you wanted to go, because of headwinds, or vectors, or .... It is amazing what opportunities open up to you, when you declare a (fuel) emergency. Airports that you could not ordinarily get in to, will put you first, straight in, if necessary. Good on you, for getting some refresher on planning. Bad on you, for ever letting your margins get that close. -- Jim in NC |
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You became faultless when.Me in the kill files.That frame of mind ;I bet you
first. "Morgans" wrote in message ... "STEVEN SIMPSON" wrote I wrote this to show that the most experianced and well trained pilot may become complacent.Even you sir.I hope all can learn from my mistake. Un-fricking-believeable. Put it off on everyone/someone else. A *smart* pilot would have found the first place to set down and get some more fuel, when the air time said the reserve was going to be cut into. The reserve is to be still be in the tanks when you land, not to be used to get where you wanted to go, because of headwinds, or vectors, or .... It is amazing what opportunities open up to you, when you declare a (fuel) emergency. Airports that you could not ordinarily get in to, will put you first, straight in, if necessary. Good on you, for getting some refresher on planning. Bad on you, for ever letting your margins get that close. -- Jim in NC |
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Bob,
Don't you think that's a bit harsh? I mean, that's the thing about aviation: 1) even smart (non-brain-dead) people sometimes do stupid things. 2) a stupid thing can kill you. Personally, I think this is what I worry about as a pilot more than anything, that I will experience a moment of brain fade, or even, exercise bad judgement, not habitually, but just once at the wrong time, and then boom! crash/burn. Would you say that you have *never* done something in an airplane that you regretted doing because in hindsight it wasn't wise, and yet, got away with it? Because, if so, the difference between you and the guy who did not get away with it has at least something to do with luck. (By the way, I'm not impugning your piloting judgement. You're Bob Gardner! ![]() aspect of being PIC.) As an aside, as far as I understand, 91.151 is about beginning a flight, ie, planning. If winds and/or other circumstances unfold differently, you can legally end up landing with less than 30 minutes in the tanks. Of course, it's still stupid. My $0.02, -- dave j |
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Thanks,I have to admit.I have made harsh coments about other peoples
judgement in the past.Untill it is you its hard to see the other guy view. wrote in message oups.com... Bob, Don't you think that's a bit harsh? I mean, that's the thing about aviation: 1) even smart (non-brain-dead) people sometimes do stupid things. 2) a stupid thing can kill you. Personally, I think this is what I worry about as a pilot more than anything, that I will experience a moment of brain fade, or even, exercise bad judgement, not habitually, but just once at the wrong time, and then boom! crash/burn. Would you say that you have *never* done something in an airplane that you regretted doing because in hindsight it wasn't wise, and yet, got away with it? Because, if so, the difference between you and the guy who did not get away with it has at least something to do with luck. (By the way, I'm not impugning your piloting judgement. You're Bob Gardner! ![]() aspect of being PIC.) As an aside, as far as I understand, 91.151 is about beginning a flight, ie, planning. If winds and/or other circumstances unfold differently, you can legally end up landing with less than 30 minutes in the tanks. Of course, it's still stupid. My $0.02, -- dave j |
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30 minutes is not a suggested SOP - it's a minimum!
It's designed to help you put it down somewhere - anywhere! I appreciate the honesty in your post - but I cannot support the concept that it is OK to regularly plan landings with a 30 minute minimum - particularly given the frequency with which airspace is closed or modified on some politicians whim. A $350.00 per plate dinner can close the airspace within 50 miles - now where is your 30 minute minimum? You guys have to live it - I just watch it and shake my head. Tony C-GICE In article , "Bob Gardner" wrote: Just enough fuel for the trip? Did that include the 30 minute reserve required by 91.151? That's not a close call...that's admitting that you are brain-dead and a hazard to your passengers. Bob Gardner "STEVEN SIMPSON" wrote in message news:8Wpre.10699$lb5.6085@trnddc04... I flew up to Tri city airport from central virginia in a 172 rg whith a full load and just enogh fuel for the trip.Guess what happend on short final?Good thing I am up to speed on dead stick.Anyone else have a close call they learned a valuable lesson from.You know; the one you don't tell you flying buddies about. -- Tony Roberts PP-ASEL VFR OTT Night Cessna 172H C-GICE |
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30 minutes is not a suggested SOP - it's a minimum!
It's designed to help you put it down somewhere - anywhere! I appreciate the honesty in your post - but I cannot support the concept that it is OK to regularly plan landings with a 30 minute minimum I wonder what you would think of an operation I used to fly for... 91.151 Fuel requirements for flight in VFR conditions. (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; Notice it says begin - once the flight is started, there are no rules. When I had something less than 400 hours, I started towing gliders. It was a weird deal - the towing operation was commercial, but contracted almost exclusively to a club. Two guys owned and ran it, and used qualified club members for tow pilots. At one time this was done under an SSA exemption, but afterwards the FAA made the exemption unnecessary by adding glider towing to the list of exceptions to private pilots flying for compensation or hire (61.113(g)). The operation used two worn out converted cropdusters - one powered by a Lycoming O-360, the other by a Lycoming O-470. The strip was not terribly short (3000 ft or so) but it was very rough and obstructed, and we often towed in 100 degree weather. To maximize takeoff and climb performance, we would put no more than 15 (or was it 20?) gallons in the tank (singular), and we would fuel up once we were down to 5. We climbed at full throttle and full rich mixture (tows were rarely above 3300 MSL, and the engines always ran hot) at about 70-80 kts, and with a climb prop that meant an O-360 would average about 15-17 gph. The O-470 had a seaplane prop (meaning as fine a pitch as the certification rules allowed) and would make nearly full power in the climb, averaging maybe 22-24 gph. It was argued that this was technically legal, since the first point of intended landing was the point of takeoff (requiring zero fuel to reach) and thus the flight always began with with more than the 30 minute required VFR reserves, even assuming full power cruise. Once the flight began, well, there aren't really any rules, and who is to say the flight ended until we shut down? I will be the first to admit that this is a grey area, and I would sure hate to make this argument in front of an FAA inspector if I ran out of gas. I will also be the first to admit that this sort of operation cuts the margins to the bone, and that running out of gas in this sort of operation is a matter of when, not if. By the time I did it, I was not the first. Or the second. Or the fifth... On the bigger-engined plane, 5 gallons still allowed for a reserve of over 10 minutes at climb power. Jet fighters routinely land with less reserve than that, though I doubt they ever take off that way. Considering that the field was huge (it could not be shut down by one accident, or even two), considering that we only flew day-VFR, and considering that the plane could very effectively cruise or loiter at 45% power or less, where the 5 gallons would actually allow for over 30 minutes of loitering or slow cruise, one could argue that it wasn't really that bad. As long as the pilots paid attention and the fuel gauges worked, nothing should have gone wrong. The real problem was that our fuel burn was nothing like constant. You never knew how much fuel a tow would take. Sometimes you made release altitude in under 2 minutes, sometimes it took closer to 10. The descent depended an awful lot on how hard you were willing to bank (descents were made with a little bit of power to keep the engine warm and in a steep banked turn - 60 degrees and up) and how low you were willing to spiral (some would spiral into the base-to-final turn as low as 200 ft, although our operating procedure - yes, we had one, in writing - called for 500-1000). Then there was taxi (and again, that time depended on whether or not you landed downwind to cut the turnaround, as the book called for when the winds were below 10 kts) to the hookup point and waiting for hookup at idle. With all there was to do, timimng wasn't a realistic option - you often flew tired and dehydrated, and you would inevitably forget to time something. We depended on those fuel gauges. The fuel gauges on the planes were excellent. They were mechanical ball-and-float arrangements linked to an indicating needle. They were VERY repeatable. We never had one break, which is how one might assume things would go wrong. That's a funny thing I've learned about flying - if you have an operation where the safety margins are slim, and where the failure of some component can cause a real problem - you will usually see that problem, but it won't be due to the failure of the component but because the pilots are just cutting the margins too close or screwing up. My own screwup came from assuming that just because the small-engine plane's tank really held 5 gallons when the needle said 5, the same would be true of the big one. It really held 3 gallons - worth about 8 minutes in the climb. It was just a hair over that (or maybe right there) when I taxied up and saw there was only one sailplane waiting to launch. It's a rare tow that takes 8 minutes, but when I saw the heavy glass ship, I knew it was trouble. Two pilots fly it - father and son. The son is a good stick, flies coordinated, and would be no problem. The father doesn't fly it coordinated, and heavy as it is, the climb is often 300 fpm or less and takeoff is always marginal. I saw the father getting in. Damn. I figured I had more than 10 minutes of fuel - more than enough to get the job done. Also at the back of my mind was the thought that I didn't really want to be carrying any more than I had to - it was hot, and there was almost no wind. We hooked up and went. There wasn't much lift, and he wanted to go to 4000. Damn. We got there, but by that time the needle wasn't even moving. I knew I was on fumes. I spiraled down to 1500 ft or so, entered the pattern at idle power, hit my key point a bit high, rolled into a slipping turn to base to scrub off the altitude - and as soon as I went out of coordination, the engine coughed and quit. I wasn't even surprised. I kept only a mild slip going on base and in the turn to final, and came up high on final. No worries - I had lots of field (about 3 times what I needed for comfort) and the plane had a powerful rudder and big fuselage. It slipped just fine, if you ignored the pitch oscillations that made the ones that caused Cessna to placard the C-172 seem like a joke. I racked it over, slipped off the extra altitude, lined up, and started my flare about 500 ft past the threshold. As I regained coordinated flight and raised the nose, the last dregs of fuel got to the aft-mounted intake and the engine caught. Of course it was at idle, so no harm done. I had just enough to taxi over to the pumps and shut down. One of the owners was standing by the fuel pump. He took one look at me and at the fuel gauge, and said "Don't ever run her that low, Mike. She'll quit on you." No kidding. There was no chewing out. He knew the lesson had been learned. Cheaply. There were two partners in the tow plane operation, and he was the one who supplied the wisdom. He knew what had to be done, and whom to trust. Some pilots he put on the towing schedule as soon as they could meet the insurance requirements (and maybe a might sooner), others checked out but stayed on crew for years, dragging gliders around on the ground, flying a little bit here and there to fill in when there were a lot of planes waiting. He also made sure the planes were kept up - maybe not good enough that some fed who never had to have a real job wouldn't ground them, but good enough that the experienced pilots felt good about flying them. He loved those towplanes. His happiest moments were spent in them. I don't know that he ever really cared about the gliders, though he flew them at times. He lost his battle with cancer that year. A friend of mine and I went to see him a few days before he died. The doctors had given him six months when he was first diagnosed. He had fought on for half a decade, flying most of that time, but the fight was done and he knew it. We showed him videos of our new gliders being towed to altitude, and he came alive. It was hard to believe it was the end, but it was. The club cancelled flying the next weekend so everyone could go to the funeral. My friend and I didn't go. Instead, we went to the gliderport. There were a few others of like mind there. And so I strapped into one of the planes that he loved so much, and they pulled out their gliders, and I said my goodbyes from the towplane. Somehow it seemed more fitting. Things went downhill after that. The maintenance began to be deferred or just not done right. The remaining partner had pretty good hands, both as a mechanic and as a pilot, but he lacked the wisdom of his partner. The new partner in the business was a novice. The planes got scarier, the flying got scarier. At least half a dozen pilots had run out of fuel before me, but always in the same way I had - at altitude or on the way down, aware they were at the edge, and with no damage or even any significant inconvenience - every one easily deadsticked into the field, not only with no damage but with the successful outcome never seriously in doubt. Now the more experienced pilots were drifting away, because the planes were scaring them. The pilots that had been kept off the regular rotation now got their chance. One pilot ran out of gas on the climbout, at 800 ft. Fortunately he made it back to the field. One of the engines wasn't making power, but the owner wouldn't listen. Static RPM meant nothing to him. Eventually it was opened up - and by then the cam lobe that had come off (sic!) had rattled around enough that the engine wasn't even repairable. It was replaced, but then the prop was lost in flight. The operation was down to one plane. I was long gone by then. The last straw was a fuel exhaustion accident. The tow pilot had been there long before me, but somehow couldn't get on the regular rotation. There was no real mystery to it - it was known that he really didn't have enough on the ball to consistently perform in a marginal operation like this. But the partner that knew this died, and the roster of tow pilots shrank, and he got his chance. Like the many before him, he ran out of gas. He was coming in dead stick, and he decided he was too high. He was high (maybe 200-300 ft over the threshold) and probably fast too. He could have slipped, made S-turns - but instead he tried to make a 360. He must have realized he wasn't quite as high as he though partway through the turn, because he slowed down. It wasn't enough. The plane was crashed half a mile from the approach end of the runway, and is a total loss. He walked away. The FAA came out to investigate. The feds were there about an hour. The pilot may yet get cited for something. The operation continues unchanged. Michael |
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Hi Michael
That was a great post - and a keeper. Thanks for posting it - there are lots of lessons in there for anyone that read it. He took one look at me and at the fuel gauge, and said "Don't ever run her that low, Mike. She'll quit on you." No kidding. LOL - I have seen a few like that! Tony C-GICE In article .com, "Michael" wrote: 30 minutes is not a suggested SOP - it's a minimum! It's designed to help you put it down somewhere - anywhere! I appreciate the honesty in your post - but I cannot support the concept that it is OK to regularly plan landings with a 30 minute minimum I wonder what you would think of an operation I used to fly for... 91.151 Fuel requirements for flight in VFR conditions. (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; Notice it says begin - once the flight is started, there are no rules. When I had something less than 400 hours, I started towing gliders. It was a weird deal - the towing operation was commercial, but contracted almost exclusively to a club. Two guys owned and ran it, and used qualified club members for tow pilots. At one time this was done under an SSA exemption, but afterwards the FAA made the exemption unnecessary by adding glider towing to the list of exceptions to private pilots flying for compensation or hire (61.113(g)). The operation used two worn out converted cropdusters - one powered by a Lycoming O-360, the other by a Lycoming O-470. The strip was not terribly short (3000 ft or so) but it was very rough and obstructed, and we often towed in 100 degree weather. To maximize takeoff and climb performance, we would put no more than 15 (or was it 20?) gallons in the tank (singular), and we would fuel up once we were down to 5. We climbed at full throttle and full rich mixture (tows were rarely above 3300 MSL, and the engines always ran hot) at about 70-80 kts, and with a climb prop that meant an O-360 would average about 15-17 gph. The O-470 had a seaplane prop (meaning as fine a pitch as the certification rules allowed) and would make nearly full power in the climb, averaging maybe 22-24 gph. It was argued that this was technically legal, since the first point of intended landing was the point of takeoff (requiring zero fuel to reach) and thus the flight always began with with more than the 30 minute required VFR reserves, even assuming full power cruise. Once the flight began, well, there aren't really any rules, and who is to say the flight ended until we shut down? I will be the first to admit that this is a grey area, and I would sure hate to make this argument in front of an FAA inspector if I ran out of gas. I will also be the first to admit that this sort of operation cuts the margins to the bone, and that running out of gas in this sort of operation is a matter of when, not if. By the time I did it, I was not the first. Or the second. Or the fifth... On the bigger-engined plane, 5 gallons still allowed for a reserve of over 10 minutes at climb power. Jet fighters routinely land with less reserve than that, though I doubt they ever take off that way. Considering that the field was huge (it could not be shut down by one accident, or even two), considering that we only flew day-VFR, and considering that the plane could very effectively cruise or loiter at 45% power or less, where the 5 gallons would actually allow for over 30 minutes of loitering or slow cruise, one could argue that it wasn't really that bad. As long as the pilots paid attention and the fuel gauges worked, nothing should have gone wrong. The real problem was that our fuel burn was nothing like constant. You never knew how much fuel a tow would take. Sometimes you made release altitude in under 2 minutes, sometimes it took closer to 10. The descent depended an awful lot on how hard you were willing to bank (descents were made with a little bit of power to keep the engine warm and in a steep banked turn - 60 degrees and up) and how low you were willing to spiral (some would spiral into the base-to-final turn as low as 200 ft, although our operating procedure - yes, we had one, in writing - called for 500-1000). Then there was taxi (and again, that time depended on whether or not you landed downwind to cut the turnaround, as the book called for when the winds were below 10 kts) to the hookup point and waiting for hookup at idle. With all there was to do, timimng wasn't a realistic option - you often flew tired and dehydrated, and you would inevitably forget to time something. We depended on those fuel gauges. The fuel gauges on the planes were excellent. They were mechanical ball-and-float arrangements linked to an indicating needle. They were VERY repeatable. We never had one break, which is how one might assume things would go wrong. That's a funny thing I've learned about flying - if you have an operation where the safety margins are slim, and where the failure of some component can cause a real problem - you will usually see that problem, but it won't be due to the failure of the component but because the pilots are just cutting the margins too close or screwing up. My own screwup came from assuming that just because the small-engine plane's tank really held 5 gallons when the needle said 5, the same would be true of the big one. It really held 3 gallons - worth about 8 minutes in the climb. It was just a hair over that (or maybe right there) when I taxied up and saw there was only one sailplane waiting to launch. It's a rare tow that takes 8 minutes, but when I saw the heavy glass ship, I knew it was trouble. Two pilots fly it - father and son. The son is a good stick, flies coordinated, and would be no problem. The father doesn't fly it coordinated, and heavy as it is, the climb is often 300 fpm or less and takeoff is always marginal. I saw the father getting in. Damn. I figured I had more than 10 minutes of fuel - more than enough to get the job done. Also at the back of my mind was the thought that I didn't really want to be carrying any more than I had to - it was hot, and there was almost no wind. We hooked up and went. There wasn't much lift, and he wanted to go to 4000. Damn. We got there, but by that time the needle wasn't even moving. I knew I was on fumes. I spiraled down to 1500 ft or so, entered the pattern at idle power, hit my key point a bit high, rolled into a slipping turn to base to scrub off the altitude - and as soon as I went out of coordination, the engine coughed and quit. I wasn't even surprised. I kept only a mild slip going on base and in the turn to final, and came up high on final. No worries - I had lots of field (about 3 times what I needed for comfort) and the plane had a powerful rudder and big fuselage. It slipped just fine, if you ignored the pitch oscillations that made the ones that caused Cessna to placard the C-172 seem like a joke. I racked it over, slipped off the extra altitude, lined up, and started my flare about 500 ft past the threshold. As I regained coordinated flight and raised the nose, the last dregs of fuel got to the aft-mounted intake and the engine caught. Of course it was at idle, so no harm done. I had just enough to taxi over to the pumps and shut down. One of the owners was standing by the fuel pump. He took one look at me and at the fuel gauge, and said "Don't ever run her that low, Mike. She'll quit on you." No kidding. There was no chewing out. He knew the lesson had been learned. Cheaply. There were two partners in the tow plane operation, and he was the one who supplied the wisdom. He knew what had to be done, and whom to trust. Some pilots he put on the towing schedule as soon as they could meet the insurance requirements (and maybe a might sooner), others checked out but stayed on crew for years, dragging gliders around on the ground, flying a little bit here and there to fill in when there were a lot of planes waiting. He also made sure the planes were kept up - maybe not good enough that some fed who never had to have a real job wouldn't ground them, but good enough that the experienced pilots felt good about flying them. He loved those towplanes. His happiest moments were spent in them. I don't know that he ever really cared about the gliders, though he flew them at times. He lost his battle with cancer that year. A friend of mine and I went to see him a few days before he died. The doctors had given him six months when he was first diagnosed. He had fought on for half a decade, flying most of that time, but the fight was done and he knew it. We showed him videos of our new gliders being towed to altitude, and he came alive. It was hard to believe it was the end, but it was. The club cancelled flying the next weekend so everyone could go to the funeral. My friend and I didn't go. Instead, we went to the gliderport. There were a few others of like mind there. And so I strapped into one of the planes that he loved so much, and they pulled out their gliders, and I said my goodbyes from the towplane. Somehow it seemed more fitting. Things went downhill after that. The maintenance began to be deferred or just not done right. The remaining partner had pretty good hands, both as a mechanic and as a pilot, but he lacked the wisdom of his partner. The new partner in the business was a novice. The planes got scarier, the flying got scarier. At least half a dozen pilots had run out of fuel before me, but always in the same way I had - at altitude or on the way down, aware they were at the edge, and with no damage or even any significant inconvenience - every one easily deadsticked into the field, not only with no damage but with the successful outcome never seriously in doubt. Now the more experienced pilots were drifting away, because the planes were scaring them. The pilots that had been kept off the regular rotation now got their chance. One pilot ran out of gas on the climbout, at 800 ft. Fortunately he made it back to the field. One of the engines wasn't making power, but the owner wouldn't listen. Static RPM meant nothing to him. Eventually it was opened up - and by then the cam lobe that had come off (sic!) had rattled around enough that the engine wasn't even repairable. It was replaced, but then the prop was lost in flight. The operation was down to one plane. I was long gone by then. The last straw was a fuel exhaustion accident. The tow pilot had been there long before me, but somehow couldn't get on the regular rotation. There was no real mystery to it - it was known that he really didn't have enough on the ball to consistently perform in a marginal operation like this. But the partner that knew this died, and the roster of tow pilots shrank, and he got his chance. Like the many before him, he ran out of gas. He was coming in dead stick, and he decided he was too high. He was high (maybe 200-300 ft over the threshold) and probably fast too. He could have slipped, made S-turns - but instead he tried to make a 360. He must have realized he wasn't quite as high as he though partway through the turn, because he slowed down. It wasn't enough. The plane was crashed half a mile from the approach end of the runway, and is a total loss. He walked away. The FAA came out to investigate. The feds were there about an hour. The pilot may yet get cited for something. The operation continues unchanged. Michael -- Tony Roberts PP-ASEL VFR OTT Night Cessna 172H C-GICE |
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![]() tony roberts wrote: Hi Michael That was a great post - and a keeper. That is a wonderful retort. Thanks for posting it - there are lots of lessons in there for anyone that read it. He took one look at me and at the fuel gauge, and said "Don't ever run her that low, Mike. She'll quit on you." No kidding. LOL - I have seen a few like that! those were good retorts too ihave been thinking a lot about shopping lately I don't even get why people need new stuff. I mean they seem to be functioning just fine with the furniture they have. Person A Reaction (1) Ok. So, I have a desk that is ten years old. GET IT AWAY FROM ME GET IT AWAY FROM ME IT IS OLD AND STINKY SOMEONE USED IT BEFORE GET IT AWAY FROM ME GET ME SOMETHING STRAIGHT OUT OF A CATALOGUE Person B Reaction (2) OOOOHHHHH look this desk is 50 years old. It's a lovely antique. It has had at least 40 prior loving owners. Those cracks and splinters gives it character. This goes over my head. Why is desk 2 not old and stinky??? I am perfectly happy to sit on the floor as always (unless i am in a plane) at work they just filled orders for furniture because have funds in the budget that they must expend before the end of the fiscal year. Except the stuff you orderd is always out of service. SOOOO...I have to pick out all new stuff. Pelikan and Pomegranate. My trying to understand the little 3d drawings of the furniture -- no one would sympathize. My ability to see in 3d is nonexistent. They all looked like pictures of ducks and chickens rather than credenzas and desks. The chairs were sort of like tulips. Nothing looked right And after two days of trying to see that and the tiny print on the websites to do the ordering, I had bad white outs in both eyes mk5000 "Time to put a cordon around Canberra to contain the terrorist menace which is taking over the centralist Federal government, and rely on the grass roots State and local governments, who are closer to the people."--fasgnadh |
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Yeah, great post!
I have this theory about how safe flight operations, FBOs, and small airports all have one thing in common, that 'Ol Chained Dog. Often, it's the operation's owner, sometimes a CFI, occassionally just a hanger-on that everyone obeys. They are often the key to making the whole thing work but most important, they are the person that effectively determines who does what, how and when.... or not. That OCD saves a lot of people and a lot of equipment. They aren't always loved, sometimes hated, but usually respected. And sorely missed when they depart. Michael wrote: There were two partners in the tow plane operation, and he was the one who supplied the wisdom. He knew what had to be done, and whom to trust. Some pilots he put on the towing schedule as soon as they could meet the insurance requirements (and maybe a might sooner), others checked out but stayed on crew for years, dragging gliders around on the ground, flying a little bit here and there to fill in when there were a lot of planes waiting. He also made sure the planes were kept up - maybe not good enough that some fed who never had to have a real job wouldn't ground them, but good enough that the experienced pilots felt good about flying them. He loved those towplanes. His happiest moments were spent in them. I don't know that he ever really cared about the gliders, though he flew them at times. |
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