Tom's Blog Four

[Tom Goodrick]

For any interested, I have developed a playlist of moderate jazz (I must admit KENYA by The Rippingtons gets a little wild) that you can listen to on Songza which can be heard in some manner through my Face Book page. (I am told that by Face Book friends.) It is also an easy way for people without a direct link to get to my Soundclick page. I am still working on that. Sometimes Songza influences what I put on Soundclick. (Hey dig that Watermelon Man by David Benoit.) The playlist started heavy with the cool sounds of Walter Beasley on soprano sax. (He plays like I would like to.) But now it has grown a little. There's even some Kenton!

It's good music to fly to.

Please let me know if you can connect to this. You don't want to miss David Benoit. He has several good pieces. If you missed it, he's the guy who did "Peanuts".

[Tom Goodrick]

I found out what you would have to do to hear the songs. First get Songza. (Free and you can select many playlists). Then go to my Facebook page "Tom Goodrick." Then you will see a note telling about my playlist and then a list of songs. Click on any song in the list to hear it.

[Tom Goodrick]

I had gotten a couple books on flying for my granddaughter's 12th birthday. Her dad says she looked at them and set them aside for "later." One was a novel for girls about how a she goes for a ride in a friend's airplane and becomes "hooked" on airplanes. The other book was the FAA's new book "Airplane Flying Handbook" which is part of their new Private Pilot's course. Amazon was buggin me to review the books but I never saw them. They were delivered direct to her house in Athens, Georgia. So I bought A copy of the handbook. I thought it would be good from its description on Amazon and it is very good. It has very appropriate modern treatments of the basic things you have to do to fly an airplane - excellent illustrations. Here is the Table of Contents:
FAA AIRPLANE FLYING HANDBOOK

CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION TO FLIGHT TRAINING
2. GROUND OPERATIONS
(ADJUST YOUR SEAT PROPERLY AND LOCK IT.)
3. BASIC FLIGHT MANUEVERS
4. SLOW FLIGHT, STALLS, AND SPINS
5. TAKEOFF AND DEPARTURE CLIMBS
6. GROUND REFERENCE MANEUVERS
7. AIRPORT TRAFFIC PATTERNS
8. APPROACHES AND LANDINGS
9. PERFORMANCE MANEUVERS
10. NIGHT OPERATIONS
11. TRANSITION TO COMPLEX
(GREAT DISCUSSION OF TURBOCHARGES)
12. TRANSITION TO MULTIENGINE AIRPLANES
13. TRANSITION TO TAILWHEELS
14. TRANSITION TO TURBOPROPELLER POWERED AIRPLANES
(GOOD DISCUSSION OF BETA MODE.)
15. TRANSITION TO JET POWERED AIRPLANES
16. EMERGENCY PROCEDURES
(DOOR POPS OPEN)


I was particularly surprised and pleased to see their mention of the need to lock your seat in place after adjusting it. When I was flying Cessna's there was a rash of accidents caused by seats slipping back during rotation at takeoff. The person who flew the plane before you was always either taller or shorter so you always had to make a big adjustment in the seat position. But if you were not careful, the seat could slip as you rotated the plane on takeoff. Imaging hanging onto the yoke and pulling the nose up into a stall at that vulnerable time. Cessna has since improved their seat locks. Another item that impressed me was including "Door Pops Open" under emergency procedures. That has probably happened to most the people who have soloed an airplane or taken their first passenger for a ride. It was 40 years ago but my wife still tells the story of how I tried to "dump her out" at 3,000 ft during a turn. It is no big problem if you just go on flying the airplane and then work on closing the door.

There is a good discussion with illustrations of how to handle an engine with a constant-speed prop, flying a turboprop with a good discussion of beta mode that made it clear how Microsoft in FS9 does NOT provide controls to operate properly in beta mode. (We beat that to death a few years ago.) Some aspects of jet flight are even covered.

I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to answer a few questions in their mind. There is a god and comprehensive glossary that mentions Calibrated Airspeed, Indicated Airspeed and True Airspeed. But I kept looking for an explanation of how the airspeed indicator works to give a speed that is safe to use at any altitude to fly the plane safely. It could be explained with a simple illustration and the simplest of equations: dt*Vt*Vt=ds*Vi*Vi
where the d's are density, t means true, V means airspeed and i means indicated. Their explanation in the glossary is poor and gives no sense of the difference in values. (ds is sea level density.)

The bad thing about 'calibrated airspeed' is that, while all critical low speeds like stall speeds are given in calibrated airspeed, a pilot never knows when he is at a particular calibrated airspeed. He sees the indicated airspeed and knows there is a non-linear relation to calibrated airspeed. But he can't hold the pilots'manual open while checking to see if the airplane might be stalling!

[Tom Goodrick]

Yesterday I finally completed an acceptable review of the FAA Handbook mentioned above. Amazon kept bugging me for it. I guess they know something about my background. My first draft had 6367 words. A "good review" is 20 to 300 words. I had covered every topic noting what I thought was good and what I thought was not so good. I filled in more info on those topics I thought they didn't treat very well. I also said a few positive things about learning to fly and how best to go about it. Finally I realized I could not say anything about using the Flight Simulator to back up the Handbook and I had to dump all the personal opinions. there was no room for them. So after working for many days on the long version, I killed it and went through a quick summary of my original.

A few things stood out. This FAA Handbook on Flying Airplanes tells people how to take off, climb, turn, descend and land. They show photos of the common instruments. They never explain what how the instruments work. They never explain what the instruments say about the status of the airplane when shown during a flight. Once you have taken off, climbed and leveled off, they don't tell you how to go to the place where you want to land ie- how to navigate. They do tell you how to fly circles around a fixed point on the ground in a wind, how to fly S turns along a road, how to do some mild maneuvers like chandelles, figure 8's along a road and Lazy 8's. But you'd better not try to go anywhere! They discuss a number of useless things that pilots will never do after getting a ticket. They seem to be inordinately concerned that a pilot be able to fly precisely over several spots on the ground. The only time I was concerned about a spot on the ground was when I was about to land on it.

[Tom Goodrick]

I trained the kid well. In a recent phone conversation, with Dr Scott L Goodrick, head of the Smoke and Flame Branch of the Southeast Research Branch of the US Forest Service, he mentioned he had been able to use some end-of-year funds to get a new tool to use in obtaining data from some "controlled [forest] burns" he does. Fortunately, he bought more than one. Here's an email he sent me this morning:

" Got to pick up my rc multi-rotor copters today !!!


Had a whole lot of fun training on how to operate (they even had a simulator program that used an rc control box for the input). We spent the day flying them around the parking lot at the hobby store that put them together for us. It is really fun flying them using the live video feed from copter (it is on a controllable gimbal that allows us to tilt the camera to look at different things). We also get data streamed back in real time that overlays the flight info on google earth. The best part is we can click a point (or a bunch of points) in google earth and tell it to go. The coordinates are sent to the copter and off it goes. When we want it back we just flip a "home" switch and the thing comes right back and lands where we launched it. Work just got a whole lot more fun."

Of course it remains to be seen what sort of problem heat and smoke present to the copters. I asked if he has a thermometer on board to warn him when it gets too hot.

During my last years at Natick Army Labs (Massachusetts) I used RC aircraft to carry small experimental parachutes to drop points and recorded dynamic descent data. That was 25 years ago. I had to use the services of an expert model flyer. Now any fool can do it.

Since his office is on the campus of the University of Georgia, this probably won't stay quiet long! Then he can learn about Politics.

[Tom Goodrick]

Update: Scott is still flying his R/C copters. He had to fight off, or "reach an understanding" with the FAA and with the aviation department within the Forest Service who were insisting R/C pilots had to have pilots' licenses. His copters are not armed. Some of them do have cameras. Mostly they take local atmospheric data.

I have had more heart trouble that has resulted in the destruction of half my heart muscle. This keeps me tired most the time. My heart acts up when I get frustrated and that happens every time I try to fly FS9. I generally deploy landing gear early in the approach. Then as I round out over the runway and settle in, I find a gremlin has pulled up the gear! I think there is an incorrect key-interaction. I spend brief periods working on this. But I might just go back to fixed-gear aircraft.

[Joe]

Sorry to hear about your heart troubles.

Cycle 'em twice . . . ?

[Ed Burke]

Me too, sorry to learn of your health issues Tom, take care there mate. I thought you had been a bit quiet of late.

[Allen Peterson]

Hang in there, Tom. I've been wondering how you were...

[Allan_Lowson]

Hi Tom,

Sorry to hear about the heart problems. Sticking to fixed gear aircraft sounds like a good plan. Switching off the news whenever a politician hoves into view could be another thought.

Take care,
Allan

[Andrew Godden]

Tom,

Many Happy Returns of the day. I hope things are improving on the health front.

Cheers
Andrew

[Ed Burke]

There's a birthday rumour afoot. Well then if it is you Thomas I want to join in wishing you a good one and many more. All the best 'ole buddy, Ed

[Tom Goodrick]

(Local Time 3:19) Moving on to new and amazing experiences, I am enjoying the Post Op Phase of Prostate Surgery. My "family Doctor" (no one else in my family will go to him) recommended a check with a urologist after having much trouble finding a suitable drug for my Type II Diabetes that does not adversly influence my urination. So the urologist found I have Prostate gland with an unusual shape. So I agreed to some exploration and wound up with a Laser-directed procedure. It has not been entirely successful at anything except causing pain and extreme embarassment.

I was kicked out of the hospital in the middle of the second day after surgery because the nurses were sick of cleaning up my messes. I sprayed urine and blood in very remarkable patterns. Alas, they don't have an artistic performance category. So, before I could manage my discharges to any reasonable extent, they discharged me. As I began dressing for the street, I made another mess in the bathroom in my room. This adversely affected my wife's attitude toward the hospital and to seriously question our marriage vows. "Can I kill him and then part with him right here?"

Fortunately I have made no major messes at home - fortified with double underwear and "grandpa diapers."

The pain can be considerable each time I go. Indeed I wonder if I my heart will pop and I will just continue to pass on! I have a narcotic pain reliever that gives me a taste of "La La Land" but really does not limit the pain much.

So I am set up so I can fly any place in the world - as long as I stay close to a bathroom. I guess that means I have to fly around in a Beech King Air. I'll get busy on that.

[billvons]

Hi Tom,

Good to see you back on here. Sorry about your problems.

It doesn't have to be "as real as it gets", you can press the "P" key and park the plane of your choice in mid air for your visit to the Lav.

I sometimes experience a problem with directing the flow and I use a 6 oz plastic cup as a spray guard.

We will continue to keep you in our prayers.

[Allen Peterson]

Hi Tom,
Sorry about your artistic frustration. Hope the pain eases soon.
Keep on flying.