We recently argued about this while hangar flying at the airport.

     Must a pilot be PIC to get current?  The Regs say you must be
     "THE SOLE MANIPULATOR OF THE CONTROLS" for three takeoffs and
     landings, but does NOT say you must be solo, or PIC.

     This was questioned by my friend’s CFI who said she couldn’t fly
     becuase she didn’t want to take the plane up solo, do three T&G’s
     then come back and get the (instrument) student.  The student
     it a rated pilot, and is current. Therefore, he is PIC, and
     she is sole manipulator of the controls.

     Right?  I can get current from the right seat of my friend’s
     airplane (with him the PIC).

     Hmmmmm?????

James

A friend of mine just handed this to me, I would say it comes *real*
close to beating the lawn chair pilot out for the Darwin Award.

The Arizona Highway patrol came upon a pile of smoldering metal
embedded into the side of a cliff rising above the road in the apex of
a curve. The wreckage resembled the site of an airplane crash, but it
was a car. The type of car was unidentifyable at the scene. The lab
finally figured out what it was and what had happened.

It seems the guy had somehow gotten ahold of a JATO unit (Jet Assist
Take Off) that is used to give heavy military transport planes an
extra push for taking off from short airfields. He had driven his
Chevy Impala out into the desert and found a long straight section of
road. Then he attatched the JATO unit to his car, jumped in, got some
speed, then fired off the JATO!

The facts as best as could be determined are that the operator of the
1967 Impala hit JATO ignition at a distance of approximately 3.0 miles
from the crash site. This was established by the prominent scortched
and melted asphalt at that location. The JATO, if operating properly,
would have reached maximum thrust within 5 seconds, causing the Chevy
to reach speeds well in excess of 350 mph and continuing at full power
for 20-25 seconds.

The driver (pilot?) most likely would have experienced G-forces
usually reserved for dogfighting F-14 jocks under full afterburners,
basically causing him to become insignificant for the remainder of the
event. However the automobile remained on the straight highway for
about 2.5 miles before the driver APPLIED THE BRAKES, then became
airborne for an additional 1.4 miles and impacting the cliff face at a
hight of 125 feet – leaving a blackened crater three feet in the rock.

My only thought was, " Well no wonder…EVERYONE knows the ’59 Bel
Aire was *far* more aerodynamic."

-

Michal Douglas   <airca…@cris.com>
http://www.concentric.net/~aircargo
The Home Page for the Proposed Usenet Newsgroup
misc.transport.air-industry.cargo

The other day I flew in a Cessna 150 from Toronto to Collingwood (about 56
nm) with a stiff headwind. It took almost an hour and when I went to take
off, I noticed that the left tank was reading empty and the right one was
full! I then filled the left tank and flew home uneventfully. Later, I
remembered that when I did the walk-around, the right tank was so full that
the gas overflowed when I took the cap off to check the level. Could this
have somehow prevented that tank from draining? When I got home, I "snagged"
the plane, of course.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to why this happened? Thanks, Chuck
—
There are three types of people in the world – those who can count and those
who can’t.

Hello, everyone. There is (IMHO)an excellent article on p. 44 of July’s
FLYING magazine by Jay Hopkins in the "Training" section titled, "Make
Yourself Vulnerable." It talks about hazardous attitudes and how they lead to
accidents.

I particularly like this article because it tells how most of us, if asked
say we would never do the things that led to fatal aviation accidents. But
these same people (you and I?), when certain pressures come to bear actually
do the very things they swore they would never do.

My question is: have you ever done something while flying that you knew was
wrong, but did anyways for some (which seemed at the time) some compelling
reason?

On my long solo x-country I took off on my last leg into a setting sun with
almost zero forward visability because I felt I just had to have the aircraft
home that day. Luckily, I made it but I was a bit scared not being able to
see forward. I could, however see out the sides ok.

Chuck Ander
—
Very funny Scotty–now beam my clothes down too!’

Hi!

I need some formulas for the most common aviation
calculation tasks such as density alt, TAS etc.

Any pointers to sites featuring such info are
greatly appreciated.

thanks

- Balthasar

My husband has his private pilots license, and he has the hours he needs to
get his commercial, he wants to be an ag-pilot (cropduster) he just needs
to study and take the test, does anyone know what computer software that
would be helpful to him instead of studying completely from a book.

lbies…@usa.pipeline.com

A couple questions about the 10 hours of retractable time that I need to
log before my commercial checkride:
1) Does time logged as multi-engine instruction count?
2) Does multi-engine right-seat time count?

Downwind landings are not evil and they do not result in death for all
aboard.  At the field where I did my glider training, downwind landings
were a part of the normal training because we had to land on runway 24,
always, regardless of the wind.  So I got to do some landings with fairly
strong tailwinds.

But I have always wondered about the naming of the legs in the pattern: is
the "downwind" leg still a downwind when it is actually an upwind?  –Bill

_________________________________________________________________________
Wm W. Plummer, 7 Country Club Dr., Chelmsford MA  01824
508-256-9570       PP-ASEL,G  SP-LB

called flight service today and monitored the local ATIS, temps were in ^C
conversion is (C*1.8)+32  110^F = about 43.33C

dwals…@ids2.idsonline.com wrote:

: Geoff Fox <g…@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

: >We had this discussion in early May and unfortunately, some predictions
: >have come true.  Most of the FAA obs from my area (CT) are being
: >transmitted without the remarks and hence temperatures to the nearest
: >degree celsius!  That means no 31F or 33F and less resolution when
: >trying to pin down winter precipitation.

: >The last time I started this thread someone from NWS came in to calm my
: >fears.  Are you still here?

: >Geoff Fox

: >–

: >and then there’s my home page…

: >http://www.netcom.com/~gfox

: We noticed that yesterday as the metar’s started rolling in.
: Unfortunately I can not speak for the FAA, but the NWS is carrying the
: temperatures to the nearest tenth of a degree C in the remarks section

: of the observation.  

: KHTS 021050Z 00000KT 5SM -SHRA BR SCT039 BKN090 OVC150 23/23 A2985

:      RMK SLP100 T02340234 RB45=

: In the example above, the remark that starts with "T" indicates this.
: On this observation, the temperature is 23.4C and the dewpoint is also
: 23.4C.

: Sorry that the FAA isn’t doing it, but the NWS is adding the "T" group
: so it can be converted to a more precise F temperature.

Hi,

What’s the current status of transponder usage in VFR flights in
switzerland? Last I heard was that somehting was going on to implement
the same procedure as in the states (xpdr always on, set to 1200)

Any news on that?

- balthasar
—
******************************************************
*      Balthasar T. Indermuehle, b…@inside.net       *
*              CEO / Geschaeftsfuehrer               *
*          INside Indermuehle, Switzerland           *
*              http://www.inside.net                 *
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