E. B. White / Courtesy White Literary LLC

I had to come into my office to restart the computer when our network went down. As I was waiting for it to come back online, I looked down to my right and saw my copy of The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. and E. B. White.

As is my habit while waiting for something to happen, I will start either reading or writing. Since the computer was engaged and my other writing instrument, my cell phone, was in the living room, I picked up The Elements of Style.

I have to admit, I have a bad habit on occasion—of skipping over the introductions in textbooks or manuals. It is a practice I need to fix. Sometimes, authors or publishers tend to include some very interesting information in those introductions.

You can also find fascinating material in the introductory text of many books that may spur you into further research of another intriguing aspect of your original topic. Such was the case in reading the introduction to The Elements of Style just a moment ago.

When I was at the University of Florida in the mid-1970s, Strunk and White’s book was required reading for all journalism students. It was a “little” book. Indeed, in reading the introduction some 40 years later, I find the original author of the book, Will Strunk, as E. B. White referred to his mentor, talked of his book and proudly called it a “little” book.

If you are a writer, or an aspiring writer, there is nothing “little” about his book. If you want to write, and write well, you must read this book.

The introduction by White begins, “At the close of the first World War, when I was a student at Cornell, I took a course called English 8. My professor was William Strunk, Jr. A textbook required for the course was a slim volume called The Elements of Style, whose author was the professor himself.” In these digital days of the Twenty-First Century, I found it interesting this very important book started life as a self-published pamphlet. It must have been a great challenge for Professor Strunk to produce enough copies for his students at the time.

White goes on to explain how he passed the course and began his life after Cornell. If you are a writer and you use your research skills to find out more about the writer, E. B. White, you will discover he went on to become a very successful essayist, contributing many articles to The New Yorker. He also wrote Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little, to satisfy the desires of his young nieces and nephews. Reading further into the introduction, you will read how White explains, in 1957, the Macmillan Company commissioned him to revise his old professor’s “little book.”

Interestingly, Macmillan released the second edition of The Elements of Style in 1959. The book would be republished in 1972, 1979, at the end of the century, and the last edition hit the streets in 2005.

And here is the really interesting thing: the latest edition of the book comes out—today!  Click here for your personal copy of 2012 edition of The Elements of Style.

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© 2012 J. Clark

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Ardis made a comment about her young grandson, something about when he reached the age of 30.  We both quickly did the math in our heads and suddenly, we seemed to be looking at the logging truck as it bore down on us.

The youngster will reach 30 years old in a little more than 25 years.  We looked at each other with the sudden and shocking realization of just how short two and a half decades really is in comparison to lifetimes.

“His mother was only two or three years old just yesterday,” Ardis said.  Then she added, “Well, maybe it was last week.”

The meaning of her statement did not escape me.  When you are young, the passage of time has very little meaning and for the most part, you are unaware of its passing.  When you’re young, you are too busy living your life to notice it slipping by.  You have your career, your family, and other important occasions happening all around.

Sometimes, something will happen in your life that will remind you our time here is temporary, and limited.  These are the events such as the passing of a grandparent, the loss of a friend to an accident, or some other similar occasion.  Still, many of us do not get the message until later in our lives.

As we continued driving down Pacetti Road, I thought about how quickly time passes and wondered about the coincidences in life.  For instance, take Pacetti Road.  The appropriate authorities named the road for the Pacetti family.  I am a descendant of those Pacettis.  I can trace my roots back to Cuba, Spain, and England.  One of my great grand aunts came to Saint Augustine and married a Triay and one of those descendants married a Pacetti.  From what I have researched, our family owned about 500 acres of land in the Saint Johns County area at one time.

In continued research of our families, Ardis and I discovered our respective families always seemed to live near one another over the last couple hundreds of years.  She and I lived in Tampa, as did our parents.  Our grandparents lived near one another in Cardenas, Cuba and both our families go back to the same small town in Northern Spain.  (This we discovered just last night through Ancestry.com.)

As we continue the research, I question how our two families can cross paths so many times—over the centuries.  And how is it that she and I connect in Florida.

After all this, I begin to wonder why there are those who we cross in our lifetimes with whom we share an instant “connection.”  Did we perhaps play as children in another lifetime?  Is it possible we worked together somewhere else?  Were we together in another land far away?

These are incredibly overwhelming thoughts.

Yes, when we are young, we have no perspective as to the length of the year or a decade, or a lifetime.  It is only by studying our family from previous eras that we can begin to realize the importance of time.  Only then, when you comprehend how short 100 years can be, can you put perspective on time and assign it importance.

As we turned onto Highway 16 and continued thinking about time, I wondered if we would be around when the boy turned 30.  It was odd thinking of his parents at our age, and Ardis and I reaching the age of her parents now.

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©2012 J. Clark

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The stories of Pearl Harbor and the Raider’s revenge are fascinating. Every American should know the basics of the history of these two events. American history includes much, all the way from Lexington to Gettysburg, to the Ardennes, Normandy, the Chosin Valley, the Ia Drang, Grenada, Beirut, the Twin Towers, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Our history includes a great deal of stories, both institutional and personal.

Some of those stories really stand out above the others. The sacrifice and stories of the 80 men who participated in the raid are only a part of the tapestry making up the time the world fought World War II. There are many other parts of the tapestry, of course, but the stories of the Raiders stands out a little more than the other stories because of the importance of their mission early in the war.

2009 Reunion

Japan came to Hawaii from the North to take out the American Pacific Fleet. It was, in the truest sense of the phrase, a sneak attack. The attack stunned and shocked the American people; but more importantly, it galvanized their resolve. As Admiral Yamamoto predicted, the attack served “to awaken the sleeping giant.”

In waking, the giant looked around and began formulating plans of retribution. At the end of 1941, America did not have the technological means to fly bombers to Japan. At the time, the bomber fleet lacked airplanes capable of the range and payload required to reach and effectively attack the island nation. If they carried the fuel to fly to Japan and return, that decreased their bomb load. If the bombers were loaded with the weight of weapons, the reduction of fuel capacity made the mission a one-way trip. Neither option was acceptable.

The elected leadership conferred with the flag officers of the Army and Navy as to how to strike back at Japan. During the early discussions, one name continually floated to the top of the suggestions as to who should engineer and design the strike, train the men, and lead the force: Doolittle.

James H. (Jimmy) Doolittle was one of the very first aeronautical engineers degreed in the new field of aviation. Additionally, he was an aviator’s pilot, holding many aviation speed and attitude records. Probably his most famous historical claim was that he was the first pilot to ever takeoff and land blind, strictly on instruments. Doolittle was the natural selection to lead the mission.

Doolittle, along with the other strike leaders, soon settled on the Army’s medium bomber, the B-25B Mitchell as the best aircraft for the mission. The craft was small enough to fit on the decks of the aircraft carriers and had enough of a payload capacity to take a 2000-pound bomb load to Tokyo with enough fuel for a safe egress.

With the preliminary details fleshed out and the choice of airplane decided, now it was time to get to work. Probably the most critical task was the selection of the aircrews for the mission. In fine military tradition, military leadership ordered no one onto the mission; Doolittle was up front with his men from the beginning.

He told the men it was a dangerous mission and that no one would fault any crewmember for not stepping forward. To a man, both the enlisted and the officers all volunteered. Then they began training for whatever secret mission to which they had signed on. They would not know the details of their targets until just days before the start of the mission. Many had very educated guesses derived from the nature of their new training, but the men were not officially told until a few days before they left the carrier.

The training took them all over the United States. They practiced bombing in places like Montana and South Carolina, special takeoff techniques with the Navy in the Florida panhandle, and perfected their navigation skills on cross-country training flights all over the nation. One of the last cross-country missions ended in San Francisco next to the pier at Naval Air Station Alameda. The Navy craned 16 of the B-25s aboard Hornet.

April Fool’s Day 1942 was indeed grim. It was the day the Hornet put to sea with the 16 B-25B Mitchell bombers lashed to her flight deck. The plan? Steam west to within 400 nm of the Japanese mainland, launch the bombers on the eve of April 18, and unleash havoc on the people of Japan.

That was the plan.

In reality, the strike force ran into a picket boat about 700 nm from Japan. The boat was quickly sunk and some of the Japanese crew taken as prisoners. There remained, however, the lingering question as to whether the crew radioed Tokyo of the American Task Force. Doolittle and Admiral Mitscher conferred and decided it was time to launch the Mitchell bombers—even if they were 10 hours too early and 170 nm further away from the intended launch point.

This meant they would strike the mainland in daylight rather than darkness. The psychological effect on the people of Japan would be less, while the likelihood of enemy fighters attacking the bombers increased.

Imagine, if you can and if you dare, being in their place, in the cockpits and gunner’s stations with these young men. They knew they were launching early; they knew gas was a serious consideration; they knew the chances of bailing out of their gliding bombers was high; and they knew there was a very high risk of serious injury or death in flying the mission.

And yet, they still launched.

Navy sailors passed out extra fuel in five-gallon cans as the bomber crews prepared for takeoff. Doolittle would be the first and with all of the other bombers lining the deck behind his bomber, he would have only 467 feet of flight deck to get off the carrier. Each bomber pilot behind Doolittle knew that if he made it, they would make it, too.

Each pilot in turn lifted his airplane into the sky from the Hornet’s flight deck below V_mc with full power and flaps full down. It was an extraordinary display of airmanship on the part of each pilot. Had one engine failed on any airplane before the crews had the chance of getting the airplane above V_mc and fast enough to make it controllable, they knew they were going to be dead.

Again, they still launched.

They had to have been the first of the gutsiest aviators of the war. Many more men with intense “guts” were soon to follow.

The bombers proceeded west, just above the waves and then hit their targets in Tokyo, Yokohama, Yokosuka, Nagoya, and Kobe. Most of the airplanes carried three 500-pound high explosive bombs and one 500-pound incendiary bomb. After finishing their bomb runs, they continued west where the original plan had them landing in China during daylight hours.

However, since taking off 10 hours ahead of schedule, they were out of phase with their plan and forced into flying in the dark. Of the 16 aircraft, 15 crashed and the last, because of engine problems and high fuel flows, landed in Russia.

The mission was only the start of their war. From each respective crash, every man had to deal with his own trials and tribulations—some, more so than others. Many suffered injuries to some degree, a few much worse than the others. Those wounded who remained free in China eventually made their way back home to the United States for recuperation. Some of the warriors stayed in China to continue the fight. A few received orders to posts elsewhere in the war.

Doolittle would eventually become the commanding general of the Eighth Air Force in England. President Roosevelt awarded him the Congressional Medal of Honor for the mission. All the men on the mission received the Distinguished Flying Cross, Purple Hearts, and many medals of thanks from the Chinese government.

While we can relate to the courage of the Americans who took part in the raid, the world also needs to know of the courage of the Chinese people who helped the American flyers. Many of the Chinese knew what these men had done as well as how much damage they inflicted on the Japanese. They knew the importance of the mission. They also knew the consequence of helping Japan’s enemies and still accepted the risk and helped the Americans avoid capture by the Japanese army. Authorities estimate the Imperial Army killed more than 250,000 Chinese men, women, and children for helping the Americans escape.

Yes, seventy years ago today, many displayed great courage in the face of overwhelming odds. To the Doolittle Raiders, “Toujours Au Danger!” (Ever into peril!)

To those humane Chinese who helped in the war effort by providing the Raiders aid, food, lodging, medical help, and evasion from the Japanese, there remains the everlasting appreciation of the American people.

For more about the Raiders, please see Jimmy Doolittle, The Doolittle Raiders, The Doolittle Goblets,  Books About the Men and the Mission, and The Seventieth Reunion.

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©2012 J. Clark

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Flipping through the channels, I came across something very interesting – The Last Play at Shea. I knew it had to be about baseball and the Mets, so I flipped over to the channel. What came on the screen was not baseball, but rather, Billy Joel playing a concert. Then I realized he was playing Shea Stadium.

I started thinking about baseball and Joel. What a great game, what a wonderful musician.

I love baseball; it is the greatest American game. Compared to football, it is a game of finesse.

And Billy Joel! He is the finest and the best composer of recent times.

Maybe of all time.

I have listened and enjoyed a lot of music in my lifetime. Everything from the classics to rock & roll to the blues to show music to country music to bluegrass. I have a very eclectic taste in music; about the only thing I don’t like is head-banging hard metal junk. It is not really music; there is no point to the lyrics, there is no choral construction, and there is no melody. Just rhythm and screaming—not my idea of music.

Billy Joel’s work, on the other hand, is incredible when it comes to the things of which he has written, the timeless melodies he developed, and the supporting background music for his main themes. Joel’s work really comes from places in his heart that he has shared with the American people. From his work, you can sense that he relates to, suffered with, and celebrated life with many different groups of people throughout the land.

Their stories have touched his soul and his soul could not be silent.

Much of his work goes beyond just “being a song.” Take We Didn’t Start The Fire, for example. Therein is contained a whole history lesson in the one song. As the documentary about Joel and Shea plays out on TV, I think the man is a genius when it comes to fitting words together and inserting them into a song.

Another song demonstrating Joel’s ability to see, hear, and write about life in America is his story of Allentown. Again, he captures the mood of the people, their plight as Allentown degrades because of a loss of work; he paints a picture with the music and words describing life in the northeast city.

As I listened to the stories of Mets baseball and the last play at Shea, Billy Joel’s music played both in the background and in the forefront of the story. As I watched, I began thinking about Joel’s work, Piano Man. As I thought about it, I realized I could not think of enough facts about the work. So, living in this wonderful age of the Internet in which you can find out anything about everything through Google, I turned on the computer and Googled “Billy Joel.”

I was shocked! Piano Man was Joel’s first major hit and released on November 1, 1973!

I thought, Naw, that can’t be right! To me, it sounded more contemporary than something that came out in 1973. I thought of many of his other songs, An Innocent Man, She’s Always A Woman, Baby Grand, A Matter of Trust, The Entertainer, She’s Right On Time, Goodnight Saigon, I Go To Extremes, It’s Still Rock And Roll To Me, Last Of The Big Time Spenders, The River Of Dreams, Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song),  All About Soul, and perhaps my favorite, The Downeaster ‘Alexa.’

I think about all these wonderful pieces of work and I am again surprised that Joel has been at it for so long. Then it occurs to me, his hits and my flying coincide. He has spent the last 40 years on stage making wonderful music and I have been airborne, sometimes catching a song along the way, sometimes not.

Again, thinking about it, Billy Joel’s music feels and sounds as though he wrote it—well, just yesterday. All of it. Then it comes to me when I think, yes, the music is timeless—in the truest sense of the word.

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©2011 J. Clark

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Today, many pilots use an electronic flight calculator. Few are the student pilots who rely on the old fashioned “whiz wheel.” To many, the whiz wheel represents something hard to use because it can be something difficult to learn. Once learned, however, the whiz wheel is one of the most simple devices to use—a very convenient and reliable tool in a pilot’s flight bag.

One of the great benefits of the whiz wheel is that it is, well, a wheel. As such, it is easy for anyone using or operating the wheel to see the relationships in the math. A pilot cannot do this with an electronic calculator.

If you look at the wheel, you can set the hour marker one the rate of speed. Then you can split the wheel in half by looking 180 degrees away from the hour marker. This point represents 30 minutes and it will tell you exactly hour far you will fly in half an hour. Similarly, you can quarter the wheel and determine the distance flown in 15 minutes.

It is different on the electronic calculators, though. More thinking is required to determine the calculations with the electronic E-6Bs. On the push button machines, pilots are unable to see those ratios plainly; they have to be able to do more math in their heads quickly. For instance, pilots have to know 120 knots divided by 2 is 60, divided by 4, it equals 30.  It seems simple enough and for the most part, it is.

When working with 120 knots, or 100 knots, it is easy.  This is simple math. Are pilots capable of the same mental math when the TAS is 174 knots? Or how about 266 knots?

The same holds true for fuel flow. On an airplane sucking down 16 gph, divided by 2 equals 8 and 16 divided by four (or 15 minutes) is four. Again, on the wheel, this is really simple—every 90 degrees around the wheel represents four gallons. It is very precise and simple to see—very quickly and easily.

Again, the same cannot be said of the electric machines.

When I was flying the A-7, other pilots asked why I carried an antiquated piece of equipment in an attack jet equipped with an onboard computer. The air data computer was capable performing many navigational tasks and the computer was capable of setting up and providing bombing solutions for many different types of weapons.

The important thing about carrying the old whiz wheel in an electric jet is that sometimes, the electricity might fail. Many pilots hate it when the electricity flops, some more so than others. When all of the electrical components quit working, the wise pilot can pull out and use those “antiquated methods” safely to handle the emergency and get the airplane on the ground in one piece.

In one of the “I Learned About Flying From That” columns in Flying Magazine from years ago, there was an account of a T-38 instructor pilot and his student flying through a front from Columbus AFB to Eglin AFB on an instrument training flight. In the nose cone of their airplane, a slight hole in the fiberglass began enlarging as they encountered rain. Soon, the avionics bay was awash in rainwater and the crew lost all communication and navigation radios. This happened in solid low IMC on the PAR approach. They were fortunate enough to maintain internal communications and the instructor simply told the student to climb and maintain 17,500 feet and set a course of 340 degrees.

Fuel was critical as it always is in tactical jets.

The IP pulled out his trusty plastic E-6B and with a few twists and turns, sweetened up the navigational problem. This put them back into VFR conditions right at Maxwell AFB where they flew a NORDO approach to a safe landing.

When teaching my students about the advantages of the old ways, I challenge them to a contest. Naturally, I can perform groundspeed problems lightning fast and some of the students can do other problems almost, if not faster than the old E-6B. I also admit to them that the electric devices are more precise with density altitude problems. But before I relent to the electric boxes being better than the old wheels, I challenge them to one last contest.

With a heave, I throw my wheel against the wall with great force. Then I reach down and pick it up.

“Look! It still works!”

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©2012 J. Clark

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There are two things all pilots should do before heading west; one is to attend Oshkosh in the summer, the other is to visit Lakeland during the springtime Sun ’N Fun. Everyone who flies should make it to both of these events as often as possible.

This Tuesday, March 27, 2012, is the opening of Sun ’N Fun.

If you have never attended one of the fly-ins, there is a great deal to take in at Sun ’N Fun. This is an educational, entertainment, aviation, historical, and fun event that every aviator should attend. Especially young aviators.

For aspiring pilots and student pilots, there is a lot to learn about the aviation industry through Sun ’N Fun. The fly-in, I am sure, has also served as a springboard to many in starting an aviation career. If you are a flight instructor, you should attend at least one day—and bring along as many of your students as possible.

If you are flying into the show, you have to be cautious and truly have your head on a swivel. Radio technique is not normal. Pilots line up in queue and listen in on the frequency and when they recognize the description of their aircraft, they comply with what the controllers are telling them to do. In fact, one controller was overheard saying, “N-number? We don’ need no stinkin’ N-numbers!”

If you need N-numbers, you can probably buy those and any other aviation items needed in the market place. In fact, in the convention area contains all manner of goods and services. Oh, and don’t forget the flea market where pilots and homebuilders bring in everything they don’t need hoping to trade for something they do, or get cash for the final transaction.

In the four main hangars, representative of just about every aviation business of import are demonstrating, answering questions, and selling their wares. If you are thinking about buying something for your airplane, this is the place to check it out.

Outside of the hangars, on the flight line, you have the opportunity to check out almost every model of homebuilt or kit airplane manufactured. For those considering building a certain type, this is the best chance to talk with the owners, builders, and pilots of the type airplane under contemplation.

Not only are there kitplanes and homebuilts, all manner of classic and antique airplanes are flown in by their owners. They come in different degrees of restoration, from those in need a great deal of work to those that are award-winners.

If you are going, bring plenty of water and prepare for the heat. The weather is warm here in Florida this year. If you are flying in, be heads-up and read all the NOTAMS.

See you there!

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©2012 J. Clark

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When I was learning to fly and during the years since, I came to love the time in the early spring and into the later spring when the flying was the very best. The only problem I discovered with this wonderful time is that you have to get up early to enjoy it. Most of the time, rising early has not been a problem for me. Later, the Navy helped reinforce early Reveille.

The most pleasant flying memories I have are of flying one of Charlie’s Cubs early on Saturday mornings.  With an OAT of about 65 degrees and with dampness in the air, the airplane flew well. There was immeasurable pleasure in flying the airplane with the door open, the window latched to the bottom of the wing, and the other window slid all the way down.

When looking down through the space and open air between the airplane and the ground without any Plexiglas to interfere with your vision, the air seemed to magnify the clarity of the view. Everything becomes crystalline clear, just as sharp as a Sam Lyon’s painting.

The wind blows into the cockpit cool and refreshing. The air is incredibly clear and visibility endless. Fog typically hung around the cypress dome or on the edge of the pasture where it mingled into the woods. Cows stood placidly while their calves romped nearby.

These were the delightful things I could see from the cockpit of the J-3 on any early spring morning. Things I have never been able to see from the enclosed cockpits of Pipers and Cessnas and Beeches, or the jets I flew in the Navy.

Don’t get me wrong, all those other airplanes, especially the jets, were really fun to fly, but I don’t believe anything can compare to the pleasures found flying an underpowered pig of an airplane like a J-3 on an early morning flight. The most pleasurable thing was that it could barely get out of its way in flight and a pilot, if they desired, could fly it with only his or her hands sticking out the open door to right or out the window to the left. All you had to do was trim the airplane to level flight and to turn right, you merely stuck your right hand out in the breeze. This created enough drag on that side of the airplane to make it turn right. To recover from the turn, the pilot simply had to stick the left hand out the left side until the airplane returned to straight and level. This was great fun and very enjoyable in the early morning coolness of any spring morning.

The next best thing to flying in the early morning, was sitting around the field watching Cubs taking off and landing. The propellers would spin to 2300 rpm on takeoff capturing the moisture in the air. Then the moisture, compressed by the dynamic pressure of the spinning prop and the weight of the airplane, would spin off visibly in a spiral, traveling around the airplane’s fuselage back around the empennage. The spiral is very tight at the beginning of the takeoff roll, and then became elongated with increasing speed. It was a sight I have seen many times, but never with a camera…yet. It is something you will never see at an airport with concrete or asphalt runways.

Another thing about this time of year is sitting in the early morning writing. For some reason, sitting outside listening to nature and waiting for the sun to make its appearance is one of the most productive times of the day. The Navy taught me that when you are up and at it by 0530, four hours of solid labor is half the day’s work. By 9:30 a.m., you can be done with most of your daily obligations. It is a good feeling to finish most of your work so early. Then you have a lot of time to do other things.

The flip side to finishing early is taking it easy in the early morning and postponing your work. This is when you can sit and enjoy watching the sun break over the horizon. You can watch the fog on the lake, listen to the early morning critters, and really enjoy the first cup of coffee. Sometimes while sitting very quietly sipping your coffee, a fox, an owl, possibly a deer or two, may visit.

Maybe your only visitor might be an escapee housecat from somewhere in the neighborhood.

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©2012 J. Clark

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I am speaking, naturally, of the transition to Daylight Savings Time.

Law enforcement agencies throughout the nation have to deal with an inordinate amount of vehicle crashes due to sleepy-eyed drivers on the Monday after the time change. This is easy to understand; drivers are nodding off at the wheel because they have lost a whole hour of REM, or they may actually be driving during a time in which they should be in REM.

Personally, I had a plan for dealing with the changeover to Daylight Savings Time. I was going to spend the next couple of weeks waking up 30 minutes earlier than normal. Then the last week of March, I was going to get up 45 minutes earlier. This would allow me to make a gradual transition to EDT without all the drama, cursing, and aggravation.

Unfortunately, the powers that be surprised me. While I was expecting DST to come at the end of March, late Saturday night my wife and our houseguests informed me DST was in the process of happening at 0200 in the morning. At 2 am, it would suddenly become 3 am!

I know the drill–I’ve gone through it too many times in my life. In the past, I have complained loudly about the pain of changing the clock one hour. Too many times, I have witnessed those hapless drivers who have fallen asleep while trying to drive to work an hour earlier in the morning. This past Monday was no different.

As I was passing a slower moving vehicle in the center lane of Interstate 95, highway patrol officer barreled up on my rear end. I was doing 70 mph; he must have had about a 30 mile per hour advantage on me.

I pulled over as quickly as I could and again, he accelerated out to about 100 mph. Like a fighter pilot bugging out of a dogfight, he disappeared beyond the horizon before I had time to think about it. About 12 minutes later, sure enough, I came across the accident scene.

On the side of the road, a small SUV sat upright with the roof caved in and the windshield shattered, with evidence of a rollover accident. Down the road, I saw a pickup truck with its bumper hanging half off.

The journalist who still resides in the crevices of my brain wanted to know the story of what happened. I hoped everyone involved was okay.

As I motored down the highway, I was aware I was also suffering from getting up too early. I was really tired and did not like driving in such a condition.

As I neared my destination, I wondered why we have to go through this silliness each spring. It reminded me of the story told by an old Native American. “Only the white man’s government will cut six inches off one side of a blanket, sew it to the other end of the blanket, and try to make you believe it is longer.”

Uhhmmm . . . I like that. It makes sense. I have no idea why we must change our clocks ahead one hour in the spring.

I will admit, however, I do enjoy gaining that hour back in the fall.

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©2012 J. Clark

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The start of a good pattern begins a couple of miles away from the airport, maybe further. One of the more difficult tasks for new pilots is determining the heading to get into the pattern. Here is where the use of math comes to play.

If the runway in use is Runway 4 with a left pattern, 040 degrees is your runway heading, 040 – 180 = 220 for the downwind heading, and 220 – 90 = 130 on base leg, and the crosswind leg is 040 – 90 = 310, which actually becomes 040 – 90 = -50 + 360 = 310 (this is due to the 360 degree limitation). Now all you have to figure out is the entry leg, which is the downwind leg heading, less 45 degrees, or, 220 – 45 = 175.

Notice how all the math uses minus signs rather than plus signs. This is important: left traffic is minus because turning left always subtracts numbers on the compass card, while right patterns always use addition.  So, right hand traffic on Runway 4 uses the math like this: runway heading, 040 + 180 = 220; crosswind heading, 040 + 90 = 130; entry heading, 220 + 45 = 265.

Now here is another secret about all of the math above. Really, the only thing you have to know is the entry heading. When you determine the entry heading, you can draw a line on your sectional out from the center of the airport along the reciprocal of the entry heading. Next, pick a landmark along that line 3 to 5 nautical miles away from the airport. Go to that spot, point the nose of the airplane at the middle of the airport, and you will be perfectly set up for the proper entry to the pattern. After a while, you will get to the point that you can gauge where you need to be for that proper 45-degree entry to the downwind leg.

Once in the pattern, the trick to making good 90-degree turns regardless of the math is to look out the wing, pick a point on the horizon, and turn toward it putting the nose on the point. Essentially, if you are in the pattern for Runway 4 on the downwind leg approaching the base leg turn, all you have to do is look out to the left and pick a point just beyond the left wing. After turning to put the nose on that point, you will have made a 90 degree turn onto the base leg—no math required.

During the time you are flying the pattern, you should have the airplane’s speed reduced to a safe speed and the altitude roughly 800 to 1000 feet AGL, or whatever is mandated by the airport rules. Control of the airplane in the pattern is necessary; a good pilot will maintain altitude very close to the pattern altitude along with the speed near 10 knots of the desired pattern speed appropriate for the aircraft.

While disciplined control of airspeed is important in all phases of flight, it is critical in flying the final approach. Pilots must be on speed to execute the flare and landing properly. If too slow, there is a real possibility of stalling the wing on short final and impacting the ground prior to reaching the runway. Flying too fast can also result in similar catastrophe, only on the far end of the runway.

Speed control is a function of two pilot inputs: throttle position (or power) and pitch attitude (nose position). If the pilot is slow and high, the remedy is lowering the nose; the worst combination a pilot can attain is being low and slow, for which the pilot must increase power while carefully maintaining attitude and altitude to execute the go-around. If high and fast, the pilot should execute the go around appropriately, in order to avoid running off the far end of the runway, as in the case of the pilot in the YouTube video below.

For the pilot who is flying final too fast, the first action required is a reduction of power. If low and fast, the pilot can use the excess speed to stabilize altitude until flying to the proper glideslope and can catch the correct airspeed with power or the proper pitch attitude.

If the pilot has flown the airplane to a point too high and fast on the final approach, the game is over for the most part. If the runway is excessively long, the landing might be salvageable. However, this could encourage a bad habit pattern. Correcting a high/fast on a long runway is an option, but on shorter landing strips, as shown in the video, inexperienced pilots who are in the habit of forcing the airplane down may be subject to running off the end the runway.

On every approach and landing, the PIC should choose a physical point on the runway at which the go-around commences if the aircraft is not on the runway and under control. If it is not, the pilot needs to abandon the landing and go-around immediately.

Ideally, pilots should be capable of arriving in the landing area at the precise speed. For normal landings, the transition from approach speed to touchdown requires a reduction in power (if not already at idle) and airspeed.  Contact with the runway should happen very close to stall with a nose up attitude.

After touchdown, one of the common mistakes made by lower time pilots is relaxing the elevator. Following touchdown and as the airplane slows, backpressure on the elevator should be maintained or increased as the airspeed decreases.

The pilot needs to maintain the backpressure throughout the landing rollout while turning the ailerons full in the direction from which the crosswind is blowing. At the end of every properly executed landing, the yoke or stick should be completely back and turned in the direction of the wind.

After completing the landing and with the airplane fully under control, the pilot then needs to position the flight controls appropriately for the wind conditions relating to taxiing. When the plane is back in the parking space, the pilot can finish “flying” the airplane when the mixture is pulled to idle cut-off.

For more on short field landings, see my blog on The Short Field Landing. For the soft field landing, see The Soft Field Landing.

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©2012 J. Clark

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According to GM, they place the blame for low sales on the media.  The company will lay off the workers from the Volt line with intentions of re-hiring them at the end of April when they start up again.

There is an old saying that people vote with their dollars and the best product offered will do well. Anything less than the best product will not do well. Evidently, people are doing their homework regarding the Volt.

From Chevrolet’s website and information on the Volt, the electric EPA MPG is 95 in the city and 93 on the highway. On the surface, this sounds wonderful. Looking a little further down their spec sheet, you will find the cruising range is only 36 miles for the car under battery power.

Unfortunately, 36 miles for most of America is not going to work.

Drivers who live in a metropolitan area, such as New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Phoenix, or Dallas—and who do not have to drive more than 30 miles a day—might make out with a Volt.

Those of us, the majority of the nation who live in areas that are more rural and require more out of their cars, will never embrace the Volt—because it just does not work.

Why does it not work?

First, there is the price of the vehicle. After paying for taxes, tags, and title, anyone purchasing a Volt is going to pay about $46,000 out the door. And, according to several sources, the government subsidy for each Volt sold is more than $200,000. In other words, the buyer pays $46k and the taxpayers paid another $200k plus, for that Volt purchase. Basically, this means each of these cars retails for a quarter million dollars.

After the sale, a new Volt owner can look forward to gas savings of . . . ? Well, not so fast. According to the Chevrolet website, the “estimated fuel economy highway” is only 40 mpg. In the city, 35 mpg. This is fuel economy comparable to several economy cars already on the market—cars, which motorists can buy for considerably less than the $46k price tag of the Volt.

Financing the car with $2500 down over seven years at three percent yields a monthly payment of $583. Working the math out over a 10-year period of ownership, cost per mile comes out to $0.53. A comparable gas-driven car purchased at $22000 with the same financing figures gives a monthly payment of $277 and mileage costs of $0.39 per mile.

Ummmhhh . . .

It is time we do something about our oil dependency. Electric cars are a noble start, but this car simply does not work. We need alternative forms of energy and more than anything else, we need to be using our own energy reserves rather than importing from the Middle East and other parts of the world.

If Detroit and car makers around the world want us to drive electric cars, they are going to have to develop practical e-cars. Until they figure out a way for electric cars to travel 70 mph and go more than 500 miles on a charge at that speed, the public is just not going to buy ’em.

Oh, yeah, they also have to price them reasonably.

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©2012 J. Clark

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