How a Side Chair Should Look on Tuesdays


This is a regular blog post. If you’re looking for show notes or show audio, please check out the other posts.

Here’s how a side chair should look on Tuesdays. Ready to go hit a squadron meeting that evening. And, yeah, I change into uniform a little earlier than I have to before leaving because it’s just that cool to be seen for a few minutes around the office in a zoom bag.

Mary and the kids are out of town for the week, so I’m going to hit the squadron meeting tonight and drop off whatever copies of the most recent Form 5 I need to give to the squadron. Besides, Capt Craig is gong to do another G1000 presentation and I really want to start flying the G1000-equipped C-182 soon.

If you’re a pilot or aspiring non-pilot flight crew and you’re not a member of Civil Air Patrol yet, (a) what the heck are you thinking? and (b) go find a few units near you (http://cap.findlocation.com/) and visit them!

CAP Instrument Form 5 Ride

This is a regular blog post. Show notes and links to show audio are in other posts.

I passed my CAP Form 5 instrument checkout for Category 1 aircraft (like the C-172R with steam gages that we flew). If you want to be a CAP pilot, you have to, in addition to possessing all of the required FAA qualifications, pass a CAP-administered checkout each year. It’s done on CAP Form 5 and many refer to it as the “Form 5 checkride” or just “getting Form Fived.”

Capt Alex Craig administered the checkride. Two of us got our rides successively, first me and then SM Scott Gilliand. Scott is a newer private pilot and was doing the VFR checkride. I did the VFR Form 5 in August and was adding on the instrument checkout.


I was first to fly. I planned and filed an IFR flight to Grand Rapids (KGRR) using airways. We diverted at HARWL, flew a hold there (one turn partial panel), and then shot three approaches in to Jackson – Two VORs (one partial panel) and one ILS. I think we were in actual for part of the way there. My hood covers the windshield reasonably well (and I sit low to allow full control travel over my kneeboard), but there’s always that little part of the window down and left that’s hard to block. I’d rather block it. It’s disorienting sometimes.

I passed, but it wasn’t spectacular. I blew a couple of things. Nothing awful or unsafe, but nevertheless not perfect. Alex gave me a deserved admonition to go get a safety pilot and get the rest of the rust off. And I’m planning to do just that.

Frankly, the IFR add-on was so that I could fly a little more capably when Norm Malek and I get out and start covering a lot more of Michigan this summer. We’ll both be CAP qualified instrument drivers and we’re getting pretty good at our CRM rhythm. That makes for a very capable aircrew and we’re going to fine tune it even more.


Alex quipped that Scott, as a lower-time pilot, was likely to fly very well because he had no bad habits to break and was likely still flying to private PTS or better. And, in fact, Scott flew very well. He nailed the airwork and did a lot of it to ATP quality with the needles just frozen in place. Not bad at all for his first time in this airplane! I was really impressed from the back seat.

We did Scott’s pattern work at Willow Run (KYIP). It was a really nice day with light winds and clear sky. Here you can see the steam from the Fermi II nuclear plant a long way off with Willow run in the foreground (we’re on a right downwind for 23R). That’s the kind of plume that tells you that there’s not much going on in terms of winds aloft.


I don’t get to ride in back much at all. In fact, this was my first time in the back of a C-172 since I was a kid. We paid very close attention to the weight and balance on the flight. We were 25 pounds short of max gross and in the back third of the CG envelope (but well within it). I took a lot of pictures and had a pretty good time. It was also great to be able to just sit there and watch someone else take a checkride. It gives you time to think about your own flying and identify procedures that you’re missing or that you might want to add to your own tool kit.

Ann Arbor (KARB) was swarming with airplanes. This was the first really nice day in a long time and it seemed like everyone was out for a few trips around the pattern. Even people hanging around the ramp who weren’t flying, just so be there and watch. We were number three in the conga line on the way back in to 24 and it was clear that the pattern was pretty full. Willow Run, just a few miles to the east, is a really well-kept secret. We had 23R to ourselves the whole time we were there. It’s still my favorite airport.

On to more cross-country go-places flying this summer!

How CAP Does MLK Day – CAPFLIGHT 2028 Style

This is a regular blog post. Please check the other entries if you’re looking for show notes or links to show audio.

I heeded the call to devote today to service by getting up and doing some currency flying with the Civil Air Patrol. Cross-country Ann Arbor (KARB) to Battle Creek (KBTL). 2.1 hours with ILS 23 at KBTL and VOR 24 KARB.


In the other seat was 1Lt Norm Malek. I flew with Norm late last year and had a good time and Norm had the excellent idea of taking this morning to get up again and knock some of the rust off. We launched into 2,000-ft ceilings with five miles and haze, but it cleared up shortly outside of Ann Arbor’s Class D and we headed up to 4,500. We got over the scattered to broken layer by 1,000 feet and it was CAVU by the time we got to Battle Creek.

I shot the ILS in to 23 and did a fair job of it. The runway had about an inch of packed snow on it, but it’s 10,000 feet long and I just let the aircraft roll out as long as it wanted to. The tower asked me about braking action and I confessed that I hadn’t touched the brakes. I’m willing to fly Citabrias upside down, but wasn’t about to touch the brakes on that runway until I was down to taxi speed.

Kind of interesting. The last time I was on 5/23 at Battle Creek was in the back of an F-16D.

It was slow in the tower and we made some chit-chat. I got a few shots of the Blue Angels going by the tower at the Battle Creek airshow in 2007 and sent a 20 x 30 blow-up of one of them to the tower crew. It turned out that the guy on duty had it in his office. Never, ever miss a chance to suck up to ATC.


My uncle, Dennis Reed, lives near Battle Creek. He flew air cav in Viet Nam and then flew the executive jets for Kellogg’s for decades. He’s retired now and I called him up last week to see if he might be interested in meeting up with us. We hooked up at Century Aviation, got a cup of coffee, and let him inspect the aircraft. When he was an instructor in the 1960s, he could fly the pattern in a Cherokee without touching the yoke. Throttle, trim, and rudder only. He’s thinking about going in on an experimental or light sport with a friend and I could see the gleam in his eye when he talked about it.

Uncle Denny is the only other aviator in the family. Our particular branches of the family don’t get together too much (not that we don’t like each other- it’s just a logistical nightmare), so most of my aviation has taken place in a vacuum as far as the family has been concerned. So it was really, really, nice to fly in and see Uncle Denny in an aviation context. He just pops a little more when he’s standing on the ramp. I think the sun hits him a little differently there as opposed to anywhere else. Let’s make no mistakes. I flew in, but I was standing on his ramp.

In fact, I stand on his ramp in a lot of places, and not just at Battle Creek and not just when he’s around. We all owe him and men like him our gratitude and respect. Showing up in a zoom bag as a pilot after flying across the state and greasing the landing brought a couple of things full circle today. Really cool.


The trip back was fine until just after Jackson (KJXN). We flew at 5,500 feet, about 1,000 feet over a scattered, then broken layer. The haze made the horizon hard to make out at times, although the ground was readily visible up until about 18 miles west of Ann Arbor. So we got a pop-up IFR clearance and shot the VOR 24 in to Ann Arbor.


I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again. If you’re a pilot and you’re not in the Civil Air Patrol, what the heck are you thinking? Cherry, well-maintained aircraft. Great people with whom to fly. And you get to serve your community and country while you’re at it.

Happy birthday, Dr. King. This CAP pilot is current and proficient. I stand ready to help CAP perform it missions for America.

And you can, too! Check out http://www.cap.gov/.

The Year-End Push and I Discover a Great Little Uncharted Airstrip

This is a regular blog post. If you’re looking for show notes and links to show audio, please see the other entries.

This is not my favorite time of year. As many of you know, when I’m not flying, writing about flying, or talking about flying, I’m a tech and aviation lawyer. I usually find myself struggling a little to make my hours at the end of the year for any number of reasons, not the least of which lately have been the struggling economy and the fact that I spent an awful lot of time out at airshows and flying this year. So I’m paying the piper these days.

At least I can mark my case of Red Bull in the fridge with my Red Bull Air Race media pass! Man, that was a fun event. I’m sure they’ll be back and Airspeed will be there with bells on covering it.

Anyway, other than a trip on Monday to Chicago and back to see a client (flying commercially), I’m chained to my desk in a mad dash through the end of the year and plan to do precious little flying until January. That case of red bull likely won’t make it to Tuesday.


So I’m driving back from the TLC training event in Mt. Pleasant, where I do the annual legal officer’s presentation for the Michigan Wing of the Civil Air Patrol. I stopped by Uncle John’s Cider Mill just north of St. Johns to get some cider and donuts and stretch my legs.


As I park, I notice markers on the power lines much like you’d see near an airstrip. So I walk to the edge of the parking lot and, lo and behold, it’s an airstrip! I asked inside and, although it’s uncharted and private, you can call ahead and get permission to fly in and land right there at the cider mill. The strip looks like it’s maybe 3,000 to 4,000 feet long. It’s none too level in any particular direction and there are power lines at the western end, but it’s plenty wide and looks like it drains pretty well.


Here’s a shot from the turnaround on the highway to show the power lines and the proximity of the main cider mill building. I’d really pay attention to those power lines because the road is about 20 feet above the level of the runway, so those lines are probably a genuine 50-foot obstacle and they’re hard to see. Best to really study your POH performance data and weight and balance but this looks like a really cool little strip. Got to keep this in mind next fall.

Anyway, back to the grind. Probably two more episodes left this year. One will likely be the holiday episode that I skipped last year due to work pressures. Should have time to write that and do one other substantive episode, but that’s it.

Raise a Red Bull for me! Won’t matter what time of day you do it, I’ll probably be at the office when you do it.

Uncle John’s Cider Mill
8614 N US Highway 27
St Johns, MI 48879
(989) 224-3686
http://www.ujcidermill.com‎/

Aerospace Education Appearance – CAP Goes to School

This is a regular blog post. If you’re looking for show notes or links to show audio, please check out the other posts.

While many of you know about CAP’s flight operations (we handle more than 95% of the USAF-supervised inland search and rescue operations in the United States), we also boast, in addition to the cadet program, the largest aerospace education operations in the country.

I got a unique opportunity last week to do an aerospace education (“AE”) appearance at Hickory Grove Elementary School where my son is a first-grader in Mr. Gayta’s class. I was a “secret reader,” which means that, at 11:30, I knock on the door, all of the kids assemble on the rug by the reading chair and close their eyes, and I go sit down in the chair for the big reveal.

I then read for five or ten minutes from John, the Airport Kid by John Perry Jopling and Hazel Joan Jopling, who we met at Podapalooza 2008 at Oshkosh.

To help increase the impact, I went decked out in my CAP flight suit and turned the occasion into a bit of an AE appearance. I got a lot of questions from the kids and there were minor skirmishes over who would get to wear my cover (flight cap). Cole was the proud wearer in this particular shot, although the cover got passed around pretty evenly.

I took advantage of the opportunity to tell the kids as much as I could about their local airports and the kinds of aircraft and pilots that one could find there. We also talked about CAP and its missions.

I also made sure to hit on the opportunities for women in aviation, which took some of the girls by surprise. The names of Patty Wagstaff, Marsha Ivins, Samantha Weeks, and others therefore crossed my lips more than once.

If you’re a pilot, put your time and energy where your mouth is and take the message to the kids whenever you can. Who knows what fires we can light!