Well, being short of cash to fly with and reading about NW_PILOT’s trip
of a lifetime ferrying a 172 across the Atlantic has left me wondering:
Is a commerical pilot certificate required to ferry an airplane for
someone? I think the answer is yes, even if I’m not being paid to fly,
if they pick up the tab for the plane & fuel. Am I correct?

John Stevens
PP-ASEL (which stands for "Poor Pilot-Airplane Single Engine Land")

You just have to love the FAA.  My address recently changed from a rural
route address to a road address to comply with our new county 911
system.  I have an official letter saying that my new address is Cross
RD.  I entered that into the FAA online address change form and it
changed it to Cross ST and said that it had been changed to be compliant
with USPS standards.  It was the USPS that gave me Cross RD!!

Left hand please meet right hand.  Well, if they want to call my dirt
road a street, more power to them.  I just hope the mail carrier doesn’t
get confused as they do use street addresses in town, but roads in the
township…

Matt

I thought I was frustrated by Garmin not clearly indicating CTAF’s in
their database, but found out that the frustration was due to my not
knowing where to look. While maybe no one else will suffer from this
problem, I’ll take the risk of exposing my error in case someone else
may benefit.

On my Garmin 196, the CTAF is not listed on the Comm tab that goes with
the airport. This normally isn’t a problem since usually the CTAF can
be inferred from other frequencies listed on the Communication tab, but
for some airports (KTVL and O57 are the ones that bugged me), there was
confusion and I wished Garmin had marked the CTAF with a C or similar.
Some research made me realize that I was looking in a logical, but
wrong place. The CTAF is on the main page for the airport, not on the
Comm tab.

A related problem that also could be catastrophic in an emergency is
looking for the PCL frequency on the COMM tab. It’s on the RUNWAY tab
— and for some airports like O57 it is not the same as the CTAF. I
don’t know why the FAA allows different frequencies for CTAF and PCL,
but that is the case.

Hoping this is of some help.

He’s in Iceland, waiting out 30+ knot headwinds before he launches for
Scotland.  No new pix, yet, but see
http://www.alexisparkinn.com/nwpilot’s_tranatlantic_flight.htm

I’ll let y’all know when new pix arrive.
—
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Recently I purchased the VFR Air Chart Systems booklets. It comes in
two parts for the East and West regions. Although it seems to be a very
handy format, I was more than a little irked that it was not an exact
reproduction of the NACO charts. They had arbitrarily decided to crop
the charts around the U.S boundaries, leaving out large chunks of
airspace from the "Detroit", "Montreal" and "Lake Huron" sectionals. In
some areas, the chart is cropped in as little as 3 miles outside the
U.S. border, and  in some areas it doesn’t even extend to the U.S
border when the border fals over water. I don’t know if there are other
parts of the country that have been similarly cropped out. I would hate
to find out while flying. Other than that, it seems to be a nice
product that could be useful in the cockpit. However, until they
include all parts of the NACO charts without arbitrary cropping, I am
returning my product for a refund.

The man was no spring chicken, and he knew his business.  He was, after
all, an airport manager, and a fellow who lived with his plane out on
the farm.  His aircraft was a beauty, too — a fine, straight-tailed
Cessna 182, with a handsome new interior — and he flew it to work
every day.

In short, he was living the dream, and he had come to get reacquainted
with his wife.

They knew the weather might go south on them while they were with us,
but they were in no hurry — and our hot tub suites looked mighty fine.
 The Stearman Suite seemed to fit their tastes, with its 1930s decor
and that old biplane allure, but mostly it was the fact that the first
floor was better suited to their needs, as the wife suffered with mild
arthritis.  Fewer stairs were better.

The first night we recommended a couple of fine restaurants — one that
overlooked the rapids on the nearby Iowa River seemed best — and they
had a marvelous time.  We got the impression that they, like so many of
our guests, didn’t often get a chance to spend much quality time
together, and you could almost see them learning to talk and interact
again as a couple.  They were cute, and we enjoyed their company
immensely.

The second morning the clouds moved in, with low scud and 1/2 mile
visibilities.  It was far worse than predicted, but they were in no
hurry, so they simply extended a day, and settled in for a longer stay.
 No problems…until the phone rang.

It seemed that her mother was in the hospital.  No, it wasn’t
life-threatening, yet, but with the elderly any hospitalization can be
deadly.  And she was alone, with her only daughter far away in Iowa
City, Iowa.

The wife’s concern was palpable as she explained their new situation.
Directing them to our pilots lounge weather computer, you could see the
muscles knot in the husband’s neck as he furtively checked the TAFs and
prog charts.  The news wasn’t good. The low crud wasn’t predicted to
lift for at least 24 hours, and even then it wasn’t going to be pretty.
 Iowa City had sunk below even IFR minimums, but that was no matter —
the husband was VFR-only.

The waiting began.

The next day was more of the same.  I couldn’t even see the trees
across the runway from the inn, meaning that visibility was less than a
mile.  The ceiling was an indiscriminate gray smear against the sky.
Gazing upwards gave no sense of distance or depth.  We were inside a
cloud, and it wasn’t moving any time soon…

Her mother’s condition neither worsened nor improved.  They extended
another day.

Conditions the next morning were better, but still bad. Visibility
beneath the layer was up to four miles, but the ceiling hovered around
800 feet, with no indication of improvement as the morning wore on.
The weather just wasn’t in any hurry to cooperate, and there was
nothing more to be done — but wait.

At checkout time another couple — flying an absolutely drop-dead
gorgeous Commander 114 — needed a ride to their plane. To my surprise,
the other couple started loading their luggage in the van, too, stating
that they were going to go to the airport and "have a look" at the
weather.

Looking up at the sky, and back down at our guests, I didn’t know what
to say.  It was their choice, of course, but I still felt the need to
mention that things didn’t look very good for flying, to which they
grunted in the affirmative.  We made small talk during the short drive
to the airport.

After helping them load their 182 — and offering them a great deal on
a suite if they needed to spend another night — I had my Commander
pilots alone in the van.  Having spent several days with them, too, we
had become fast friends (this husband and wife team — both pilots —
had stayed in three different theme suites in three days, just for
fun), and I felt comfortable explaining the situation to them.

I knew the other couple was headed south, planning to cross Northern
Missouri — an area with almost no weather reporting stations.  I had
made many flights over that desolate area, and had spent hours sweating
out the unknown weather ahead.  With no reporting stations you simply
didn’t know what was coming, and the situation could go from bad to
worse very quickly.

Current METARs showed ceilings of 700 to 1100 feet on either side of
that Dead Zone — but no one knew what was in the "hole".  And they
were planning to scud-run right through it, VFR.

I asked the Commander folks if they might perhaps drop a word or two to
our other guests about the dicey weather situation.  They promised to
keep any eye on them for me, and I bid them a fond farewell.

Driving back to the hotel, I pondered what I would do in the same
situation.  When my Mom was dying, I made two-dozen flights to
Wisconsin, in all sorts of weather — some of it less than optimal VFR.
 When duty calls, you push the envelope a bit.  But that route had an
unbroken string of AWOS reporting stations, and it was always possible
to listen ahead to the developing weather situation.  These folks would
literally be flying blind into very marginal conditions, and I didn’t
know what else to do.

So I did nothing.

Depressed and worried, we listened to the Unicom radio throughout the
day.  We heard the Commander folks depart IFR to the west — next stop,
Rapid City, SD, and then on to Devil’s Tower.  In vain I waited for our
182 pilot to take off, but hour after hour went by with nothing to
hear.  It had begun to rain, and my spirits rose. Surely they wouldn’t
depart into *this*, and I’d be soon fetching them back to the hotel…

Around 4 PM, I heard him take Runway 25, and launch into a leaden gray
sky.  Conditions were 1000 OVC, visibility 5 miles, and mist.  He
departed the area to the south.

Mary and I quickly brought up ADDs Weather, which depicted all weather
reporting stations on a map of the US.  Running my mouse over the
little circles, I saw no improvement. 1000 OVC, 900 OVC, a couple of
1500 OVC, with visibility ranging from 3 to 7 miles.

And then there was that big hole in Northern Missouri.

I’m not a religious man, but I said more than one silent prayer for
that poor man, as he struggled to address the conflicting needs of an
ill mother-in-law while trying to keep her daughter alive.
For days after they departed, I watched the FAA’s accident website,
expecting the worst.  Thankfully, nothing ever appeared, and I suspect
they survived, literally on a wing and a prayer.

In my mind’s eye, I flew that flight with him, knowing what straining
to see out the wind screen is like, struggling to make out landmarks
below, all the while hoping that the horizon ahead continues to recede
apace.  It’s an awful situation, and not one that we normally face by
choice.

I guess he was just lucky that day.
—
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Postwar, the newly minted U.S. Air Force decided to name each of its
airfields after a dead hero from the state in which the field was
located. So when the Strategic Air Command got a base outside
Portsmouth NH in 1956, it was named for Harlan Pease (pronounced
‘peas’ with a long e, not ‘peace’), a B-17 pilot who was one of the
scores of American and British Commonwealth pilots murdered at Rabaul.
www.warbirdforum.com/prisoner.htm

With the end of the Cold War, SAC went out of business and Pease Air
Force Base was handed over to the local community with the identifier
PSM. Its offical name became Pease International Tradeport.

Yesterday, however, I was flying from Hampton into Maine, and as I
passed PSM I heard pilots calling ‘Pease Tower’, only to get a
response from a gruff voice that identified itself as ‘Portsmouth’.
Rest in peace, Harlan Pease! Your immorality has been repealed.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

Is it not time to move beyond trying to spar with the witless?  He can’t afford
to fly so he tries to convince us we can’t either.  Small aircraft are beneath
his contempt…. however he has no ability or experience in them.  Large
aircraft are more his forte apparently, uh…. but apparently he has no ability
or experience with them either.

He dislikes the sensations of flying: "they’re unhealthy".  So why is he here?

BECAUSE YOU CAN"T RESIST ANSWERING HIS DRIBBLINGS.

Control yourself.  Most of us are already aware of his lack of ability, desire,
or even the opportunity to get laid.  It is unfortunate but that’s life.
Somebody always leads the class.  Somebody always brings up the rear.  Oops…
didn’t mean to bring up his nationality.  Sorry.

–
Mortimer Schnerd, RN
mschnerdatcarolina.rr.com

I received this as part of Gary Wiblins’ garywib…@new.co.za (So.
Africa) Aviation Safety email:

It is truly chilling!

"Mohammad Atta was in my Cockpit Jump-seat  by Pat

This is the response from a retired Delta pilot in response to questions
about whether he was going to see UAL 93, the movie.  

I haven’t seen the movie, yet, but I intend to when I get the chance.
Retirement has made me busier than ever, and I haven’t had the chance to
see many movies lately.

As a Delta B-767 captain myself at the time of the attacks on 9/11, I
was in crew rest in Orlando that morning.  I had just turned on the TV
in my hotel room only to see the WTC tower on fire, then saw the second
airplane hit the other tower.  My immediate reaction was
"Terrorists…we’re at war", followed by the realization that we airline
crewmembers had all dodged a bullet; it could have been any one of us
flying those planes.  As soon as the news stations flashed the first
pictures of the terrorists, I knew just how close and personallet I
dodged was.  There, on the screen for all to see, was a man who had sat
in my jump-seat the previous July.

His name was Mohammad Atta, the leader of the terrorist hijackers.  Mr.
Atta had boarded my flight from Baltimore to Atlanta on July 26, 2001
wearing an American Airlines first officer uniform.  He had the
corresponding AA company ID identifying him as a pilot, not to mention
the required FAA pilot license and medical certificate that he was
required to show me as proof of his aircrew status for access to my
jump-seat.  An airline pilot riding a cockpit jump-seat is a long
established protocol among the airlines of the world, a courtesy
extended by the management and captains of one airline to pilots and
flight attendants of other airlines in recognition of their aircrew
status. My admission of Mohammad  Atta to my cockpit jump-seat that day
was merely a routine exercise of this protocol.

Something seemed a bit different about this jump-seat rider, though,
because in my usual course of conversation with him as we reached cruise
altitude he avoided all my questions about his personal life and focused
very intently upon the cockpit instruments and our operation of the
aircraft.  I asked him what he flew at American and he said, "These",
but he asked incessant questions about how we did this or why we did
that.  I said, "This is a 767.  They all operate the same way."  But he
said, "No, we operate them differently at American."  That seemed very
strange, because I knew better.  I asked him about his background, and
he admitted he was from Saudi Arabia.  I asked him when he came over to
this country and he said "A couple of years ago."    I asked, "Are you a
US citizen?"  He said no.  I also found that very strange because I know
that in order to have an Airline Transport Pilot rating, the rating
required to be an airline captain, one has to be a US citizen, and
knowing the US airlines and their hiring process as I do, I found it
hard to believe that American Airlines would hire a non-US citizen who
couldn’t upgrade to captain when the time came.  He said, "The rules
have changed.", which I also knew to be untrue.  Besides, he was just,
shall I say, "Creepy"?  My copilot and I were both glad to get rid of
this guy when we got to Atlanta.

There was nothing to indicate, though, that he was anything other than
who or what he said he was, because he had the documentation to prove
who he was. In retrospect, we now know his uniform was stolen and his
documents were forged.  Information later came to light as to how this
was done.

It seems that Mohammad Atta and his cronies had possibly stolen pilot
uniforms and credentials from hotel rooms during the previous year.  We
had many security alerts at the airline to watch out for our personal
items in hotel rooms because these were mysteriously disappearing, but
nobody knew why.  Atta and his men used these to make dry runs prior to
their actual hijackings on 9/11.  How do I know?  I called the FBI as
soon as I saw his face on the TV that day, and the a gent on the other
end of the line took my information and told me I’d hear back from them
when all the dust settled.  A few weeks later I got a letter from the
Bureau saying that my call was one of at least half a dozen calls that
day from other pilots who had had the same experience.  Flights were
being set random to make test runs for accessing the cockpit.  It seems
we had all dodged bullets.

Over the years my attitude towards the War Against Terrorism and the
wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been known to be on the red neck,
warmongering, rah-rah-shoot-em-up side of things.  I’ve been known to
lose my patience with those who say the war in Iraq or anywhere else in
the Muslim world is wrong, or who say we shouldn’t become involved in
that area of the world for political correctness reasons.  Maybe it’s
because I dodged the bullet so closely back in 2001 that I feel this
way.  I have very little patience for political rhetoric or debate
against this war because for a couple of hours back in July 2001, when I
was engaged in conversation with a major perpetrator in this war, I came
so close to being one of its victims that I can think in no other terms.

I don’t mind admitting that one of the reasons I retired early from
Delta last May, other than to protect my disappearing company
retirement, was because it became harder and harder for me to go to work
every day knowing that the war wasn’t being taken seriously by the
general public.  The worst offenders were the Liberal detractors to the
present administration, and right or wrong, this administration is at
least taking the bull by the horns and fighting our enemies, which is
something concrete that I can appreciate.  Nobody was taking this war
seriously, and it seems everyone found fault with the US government
rather than with those who attacked us. I found that incomprehensible.

I also found myself being scrutinized by TSA screeners more and more
every day when I went to work, and suffered the humiliating indignity of
being identified about haime for body searches in front of the general
flying public who looked at the entire process as being ludicrous.
 "They don’t even trust their own pilots!" accompanied by an unbelieving
snicker was the usual response.  Here I was, a retired USAF officer who
had been entrusted to fly nuclear weapons around the world, who had been
granted a Top Secret clearance and had been on missions over the course
of 21 years in the military that I still can’t talk about without fear
of prosecution by the DoD, who was being scanned by a flunkie TSA
screener looking for any sign of a pen knife or nail file on my person.

It wasn’t until six months after my retirement when my wife and I flew
to Key West, FL last November that I was finally able to rid myself of
the visage of Mohammad Atta sitting behind me on my jump-seat, watching
my every action in the cockpit and willing to slit my throat at the
slightest provocation.  I missed ! being a headline by a mere 47 days,
and could very well have been among the aircrew casualties on 9/11 had
one of my flights on my monthly schedule been a transcontinental flight
from Boston or New York to the west coast on the 11th of September. Very
few people know that, while only four airliners crashed that day, four
more were targeted, and two of them were Delta flights.  The only reason
these four weren’t involved is because they either had minor maintenance
problems which delayed them at the gate or they were scheduled to depart
after the FAA decided to ground all flights.  They are the pilots and
flight attendants who REALLY dodged the bullet that day, and my faith in
a higher power is restored as a result.

I will see United 93 when I get the chance, and I will probably enjoy
the movie for its realness and historical significance, but forgive me
if I do not embrace the Muslim world for the rest of my life.  The
Islamic world isn’t of the West, and although we may be able to get
along with their governments in the future, the stated goal of Islam is
world conquest through Jihad and it is the extremist Jihadists, backed
and funded by "friendly" Moslem governments, whom we have to fear the
most.  We must have a presence in the Middle East, and we must have
friends in the Middle East, even if we have to fight wars to get them.
Only someone who has dodged a bullet can fully appreciate that fact."

Last week, I received a telephone call purporting to be from FAA,
querying Commercial-rated pilots, seeking "your satisfaction with FAA
services." When I answered that I am not currently exercising the
Commercial privileges, she ended the "survey."

Foolishly, I failed to take notes regarding the name of the caller and
callback information.

I know that FAA lost a laptop in Miami, in July, which contained
identity information on all Florida pilots. I called orlando FDSO; the
inspector I talked to was unaware of any survey being conducted.

My question: Is this part of a scheme to create counterfeit pilot
certificates for nefarious purposes, or what?

I did call the FBI, who advised me to collect the name and contact
information of any future caller.

Am I being paranoid, or what?