Quinn Falk - Banner Flying Aviator - You Will Be Missed

Gail and Mike and their New Carbon Cub!

Gail and Mike stooped in for the night at Ogden-Hinkley after picking up their brand new LSA carbon cub  in Oregon that day with a glass panel and big bad tundra tires! On their way home to St Louis on Monday -- hey mike don't forget about the go around option ;)

Flight Following, F16s, MOAs, and surviving special VFR into Santa Monica Airport

It was a picture perfect morning when I arrived at the hanger to take "January" for a flight from Ogden-Hinkley airport to Santa Monica California. The AOPA flight planner estimated my time en route to be about 3 hours and 40 minutes. The sky was blue, the wind asleep in the valleys, and the only activity at the airport was Mike and Gail who had come back from a night at the Marriott to continue flying their new LSA Carbon Cub over the Rockies toward Cheyenne and then eventually on to St. Louis which was their home base. I quickly rode my bike over to say hello again after seeing them the night before and taking their picture. I had forgotten to get their names so I quickly got a picture taken in front of their plane and bid them Godspeed and safety.

"January" was topped off to the lip and ready to fly so I packed in my luggage, double checked my charts, and opened my flight plan. At 0900 hours we lifted off from runway 16 and began our journey to Southern California.

I learned to fly in Southern California, Camarillo KCMA being my home base, where the weather almost always smooth, although we had some pretty mean cross winds on days, and your flying days are jam-packed with talking to ground, the tower, flight following, and always keeping your head on a swivel. If flying in SoCal were a genre of movie it would definitely be an action movie--never a dull moment. Returning back to Class Delta, Class Charley and Class Bravo airspace was not intimidating to me at all because of the many hours I spent in training with my drill-sergeant-blonde-firecracker-instructor named Brooke that never let me relax and taught me how to truly multi-task. I was really looking forward to flying back "Home" and reconnecting with my "childhood" airspace.

If you remember anything about this posting, remember this one thing: having the good men and women who manage flight following keep track of your little airplane as you navigate in 3d space and can save your life--but only if you let them. They are there to help you--no question is too stupid to ask and no, you are not expected to know everything about every MOA and airspace issue along your route. Sure the FAA says you must be aware and educate yourself fully, it's simply impossible to know everything. Flight following personnel are like professional coaches, poised and ready to tweak your game and make you perform at a much higher level then you'd ever perform on your own.

Flight Following Rescue #1:
Not 30 minutes into the flight, I was told I needed to avoid an MOA around the Tooele area where some serious maneuvers were being worked on by our good brothers and sisters in the Air Force. I was politely asked my intended route and then told there were some serious operations going on along my path. I hesitated, thought about being proud and not asking for advice, then shook off the thought and asked if I'd be safer taking a more due south heading.  I was told that a nice 180 heading would keep me much safer. I complied and survived.

Flight Following Rescue #2:
45 Minutes into the journey flight following advised me of a VFR aircraft at my 10 o'clock less than 200 feet below my altitude. I looked, turned, looked more, no joy. I called no contact and was given another position report. Still, no aircraft was in sight. Obviously my fellow aviator who was headed directly at me was not in contact with flight following. Flight following instructed me to immediately climb at best angle and I responded with a quick pull of the stick into my stomach. Five seconds into the climb and I caught site of a twin Cessna at my 9 o'clock climbing right into my under belly. I called joy, continued my climb and watched the twin pass under me no more than hundred feet below. I complied and survived.

Flight Following Rescue #3:
Flying in Western Utah without a GPS with full MOA charting is a recipe for suddenly finding the "Ninja Strikeforce" flight of 4 suddenly at your 12, 3, 6 and 9 positions ready to dispose of you and give you a reason to need a restroom break. Fortunately, while listening to flight following giving position reports to "Ninja Strikeforce" I was able to stay clear of the very active MOA.  Secretly, as I'm sure any pilot would confess, I wanted desperately to see those fighter jets tearing up the skies and the ground from my vantage point of 10,500 feet. For a moment, a brief moment, I thought my dreams were about to come true as flight following called 4811E and informed me that "Ninja Strikeforce" was headed my way off my 3 o'clock and closing fast climbing through my altitude. I quickly flipped on the video camera mounted to the canopy and turned it toward my right wing. I returned the call, reported I was looking for the traffic. For several seconds I prayed those bad boys would come screaming by on their way to the heavens. But a moment later, flight following called me and reported that "Ninja Strikeforce" had me in sight and that I was "no factor." Which being interpreted is, they saw me and were now far beyond my range. Oh, well--at least I know they saw me and that I was "no factor." I'll have to think about what that means to my psychological self esteem. I should be happy that I was not "a factor."

Flight Following Rescue #4:
After three hours of flight I was thirty to forty minutes from Santa Monica and I had learned a lot about a lot of things. Is it bad to use the words "a lot" a lot of times in a blog or is there a limit to the "a lot" usage? A lot of you are saying "I really don't care!" So now that I had reached my childhood piloting playground I was confident that the remainder of the flight would go off without a hitch. Any time a pilot uses the word "confident" be very very afraid. I decided to call into the Santa Monica ATIS to check the weather and to my chagrin the marine layer was moving inland and they were reporting a special VFR condition with a 600 foot ceiling which was plenty of head room for landing at Santa Monica but most likely deteriorating rather than getting any better. I was worried. Because the marine layer will sometimes move in so quickly you suddenly find yourself trapped in the soup. I hadn't decided up to this point where I would divert if Santa Monica was not available for a landing. I knew Van Nuys would be safe from the marine layer so mentally I prepared for that option. As I reached the LA basin I could see the dispersed cloud layer below and knew things were going to be sketchy going in. Flight following had me descend and asked to make sure I was in VFR conditions. The closer I got to Santa Monica the worse the visibility got. I switched over to the tower and two miles out they reported that ceiling had dropped below 300 feet and things did not look good. The asked if I was instrument rated and I replied in the negative. I asked if they recommended I do a left 180 and return the way I came in. After a few seconds, now less than a mile and half from the runway, which I could not see, they answered in the affirmative. I did an immediate 180 and was now at less than 500 feet AGL. I climbed to just beneath the ceiling which was not much higher and was told to contact Los Angeles Approach immediately. I returned to LAC and called in, telling the kind woman my situation. For the next ten minutes, she became by best friend. She asked me about conditions, my fuel on board, was I comfortable flying vectors, my intended airport once I made it out of the soup which lurked above me. She asked if I could see any blue sky above and if I could get on top of the layer. Just over the Hollywood sign I saw a nice little patch of blue and let her know I was going to be shooting through. As I pulled January's nose upward, we soon found ourselves in very mixed conditions. One moment there was blue sky, the next there was soup. On again, off again--thank goodness the new EFIS we had installed in January a month ago was bright and true. When we finally broke through and was completely clear of clouds my new best friend asked how things were going and I reported we were clear and on top. Unknown to me, while I was flying January, she was finding a suitable airport for me to land at that point she told me she was going provide vectors to El Monte airport and asked if I was familiar with El Monte. I told her negative, although later I realized I had flown into El Monte to meet someone I was considering doing a partnership on. My best friend then gave me vectors toward the airport. I complied, entered El Monte as direct on my GPS and continued flying eastbound and down. There was cloud cover almost the entire way and even a quarter mile out I could not see the airport below. "I'm staying with you all the way in" my female friend told me. I kept looking, knowing I was close. "Look over your left wing, you should be able to see the airport" she told me. And sure enough, as soon as I looked, there she was--runway 19 painted all nice and pretty on the threshold. And that was it, she told me to contact the tower and that they were expecting me and already cleared for landing. I thanked her, but not as much as I'd like to have, I still had a plane to land and so I said "good day and thank you" and then she was gone. I switched to the tower frequency, made a long downwind for setup on the approach and to knock off airspeed and then greased the landing. 4.1 hours of flight that day. I complied and survived.

Thank you to all the good women and men who watch over the airspace of this great land we call America and thank you for keeping us safe. God Bless America!

How to Perform a Full Loop and a "Rats Ass"

There's nothing better than flying your own airplane late in the day when the air is smooth as silk and the sun is dropping low on the horizon. Taking off after the control tower has closed down for the night and with little to no traffic in the pattern makes it feel a lot more like it must have in the barnstorming days of the 30's and 40's--although having the choice of 3 separate runways sort of kills that fantasy. The other night I flew late in the day with the sun going down and although I wished the pattern was completely empty, there were three other fliers who were taking advantage of the beautiful evening. Fellow pilots, talking to each other over the radio while they flew in the pattern, doing their best to stay out of each others airspace and mixing it up with short approaches, high speed low passes, right and left patterns on the same runway, it made things interesting and kept everyone on their toes.

The biggest challenge to the Experimental RV fliers is dealing with our station wagon brothers called the Cessna 172's who can't help their situation and fly at a much slower, painfully slower pace, than the experimental club. There were at least two of us, me in the RV7 and another in an RV6 that were constantly crawling up the 172's six and having to do 360's to give spacing. On one turn to base I was following the RV6 who was on short final I decided to do a low pass at about 125 just to watch the birds on the ground disappear beneath me as I pulled a hard 45 up and dumped the stick to the left for a crosswind back. What I didn't realize was that the RV6 wasn't doing a full stop and was now on the roll for a straight out departure. So I immediately moved the stick to the right, keeping an eye on the RV6's flight path. When he suddenly pulled right I realized he would have no idea I was above him on his climb. So,  being nimble and smart, I moved the stick hard left and crossed overhead and crosswind for a left downwind while the RV6 headed for a right downwind. I called my position, told the RV6 I had him in sight and was passing overhead and everything was back in sync one again. 3D space, rockets with wings, boys in their toys--how could life get any better for man who thanked God he was not born a hundred years ago when the fastest powered machine available was found in a Model T whose top speed was about 23. Manned flight is barely over 100 years old. Thank you God for allowing me to be born at a time and in this free country where I'm allowed to fly 200 miles per hour amongst the clouds and mountains, over rivers and green valleys. Pinch me, I must be dreaming.

So, after touching down and parking near the hanger, I was introduced to the man who built the engine on my airplane--his name is Kim. I had a lot of questions and he answered every one of them and what I learned was that I had a top notch, reliable power plant that was going to serve me well for many years to come. We talked about flying inverted, acrobatic maneuvers, losing oil pressure, negative G's, and the two maneuvers I plan to learn next which is the full loop and what Kim calls the "Rat's Ass"
Up to this point I had done plenty of aileron rolls on both sides of the stick including a few maneuvers with my brother Blaine that we're still getting some feedback on from our F16 Fighter pilot friend, Don "Hollywood" Lossee. We think we performed a split S, but we're waiting for the drone surveillance tapes to come back from CentCom. Watch for a posting later on regarding that one.

So now that I've masted the aileron roll and somewhat of a snap roll, I was eager to get some advice on a full loop. Kim was kind enough, albeit it was 10:30 at night, to give the proper procedures for a full loop and one of his favorite maneuvers called, once again, the "Rat's Ass"-- sorry to the kids who may be reading this blog, I'm just giving credit to the maneuver where credit is due. I could hardly rename such a maneuver the "Rats Bottom" or the "Rats Hind End" or the "Rats Bum Bum". Okay, I'm digressing--so here's the procedure as described to me by Kim.

First and Foremost:
Kim told me that all aerobatic maneuvers done in an RV can be easily done in less than 4 Gs. Some pilots think they've got to be pulling 6 Gs to get things to work right. That's simply not true according to Kim--and because I don't want the wings coming off my airplane during an aerobatic maneuver I'm going to keep to Kim's recommended Max 4G scenario.

Second and Foremost:
First, make sure everything is secure in the cockpit. Passenger seat buckles are locked and secure and that your own harness is snug and secure. Don't invert and hang and bang your head on the canopy just because you forget to snug up.

Full Loop: nose down to achieve 170kts IAS. Pull back on stick smoothly into your stomach, hold and keep you head looking out over the nose until you see the horizon appear in your view, then pull power and at the same time push the stick forward to keep the plane flying inverted for 2 seconds then slowly pull back on the stick once again until it's in your stomach. Once the plane is level, release pressure on the stick and fly straight out in preparation for whatever you next maneuver might be. Push power to normal.

"Rat's Ass":
Nose down to achieve 160kts IAS. Pull back on stick until flying vertical, stay vertical by releasing back pressure on stick and dump stick to the left, or right, depending on your preference, to perform a standard aileron roll, This should take no more than 3 seconds to return to start of aileron roll. At this point, push the stick forward to level off the plane. At this point, you should be very close to stall speed where the plane wants to drop out from underneath you. This is the floating feeling Kim described which is very cool after coming out of an vertical aileron roll. Let the plane drop out from underneath you as you nose over and perform the standard procedure for recovering from a power on stall.

And there you have it. I'll be testing this out soon so watch for the video and posting later.

Zombie Pilots Logo

If Grandma Can, So Can You

Inverted and Converted

Here's Where The Story Begins

On Friday, May 21st, 2010, I drove to the Salt Lake Municipal Airport to celebrate my birthday by renting a Cessna 172 to go fly for an hour or so, do some touch and gos in the pattern, and see what activities might be happening at the airport.

I must admit, although it has long been a tradition for me to go flying on my birthday since I earned my pilots license in 2002, I needed to remain current with the FBO and my 90 day obligatory flight date was soon approaching. Ever since 9/11 most FBOs (fixed base operations) require a pilot to rent from their fleet of airplanes as least once every 90 days or suffer the penalty of having to go up with one of their instructors and do a bunch of power off stalls, steep turns, and other maneuvers in order to fulfill their requirements for insurance coverage. Pure BS if you ask me. But, I don't complain too much because some FBOs require you to fly every 60 days. Anyway, I'm not going to get pissy about FBOs because they're all just trying to stay in business and without them, General Aviation airports and flying would soon disappear. After all, if the US Government sees an opportunity to grow and tax it's citizens whenever a crisis happens, why shouldn't every business in America follow it's lead and increase their profit centers by claiming their increased fees are based on the tragic events of 9/11. Surely, you can't argue with someone when they blame their woes on 9/11. It would simply be Anti-American.

So, it was on this day that I planned on getting up in the air and hone my skills with a few varied touch and gos and simulated emergency landings. After several greased landings I was lifting off for quick cross wind when I called traffic and reported my intentions. No sooner did I release my ptt(push to talk) than I saw a little silver rocket go shooting past my one o'clock on it's way downwind. The pilot immediately responded to my call by declaring he was on the downwind. I reported him in sight, pulled back power to give him some separation and then turned downwind to follow. Follow--yeah, right. While I was looking off my nose cone for little silver rocket man he called his final approach and as I looked to my two o'clock I saw him touching down on the numbers. 'What the hell was that all about' I thought to myself. There was no way he could be touching down when I was barely abeam mid field. But, he was, and so I continued on my right downwind and prepared for another uneventful touch and go. Two more trips in the pattern later and I called a full stop and taxied in to the FBO.

After tying down the Cessna 172, I grabbed by flight bag and made my way back to the Salt Lake Air Center (FBO) to pay my $150 and call it a day. But as I neared the fuel island I saw the little silver rocket parked and being fueled by the owner. I immediately recognized the plane as the Van's RV7 model, an experimental, fully acrobatic plane, made from a kit designed and sold by Van's Aircraft out of Aurora, Oregon. I knew the tail section of the plane intimately because less than four years ago I had ordered the $1,500 kit and built it in my garage in Thousand Oaks, California. It was my dream to eventually build the entire airplane but work and life somehow gets in the way and priorities have to be met first. So there I was, being pulled like a magnet toward the owner of the RV7.  The owner was rancher up from Sodona, Arizona whose wife had tagged along and after we shared a mutual admiration for the plane he proceeded to tell me how he normally cruised about 180 mph and burned about 7.5 gallons an hour on his frequent trips to Salt Lake and back home to Arizona. She was slippery and smooth, efficient and reliable. What more could any pilot ask for. I walked away from that conversation mad as hell. Inside of course. After paying my bill at the FBO and getting in my truck to head home, I called my brother Blaine who is also a private pilot and told him to call me immediately.

Let me say now, I love flying the Cessna 172--nearly every pilot in the last fifty years most likely did some form of training in her. They are wonderful airplanes, consistent and true. But in nearly every pilots life, there comes a time when you wanna go faster, NOT fly straight and level, and hold a stick in your hands and not a yoke. The difference between flying a Cessna 172 and an airplane like the RV7 could be compared to driving an old ford station wagon and a new ZR1 Corvette. I get chills just thinking about it. Yes both a station wagon and a Cessna 172 can get you to where you're going but as the old saying goes, it's not about the destination as much as it is about how you get there. Give me the 'Vette or the RV7 any time and I promise you I'll arrive at the same destination with a big wide grin on my face instead of the 'damn--that was a long trip' look on my face.

We met for lunch and I told him that it was about time we got serious about flying and build the RV7 as soon as possible. I told him I wanted to be flying our own RV7 two years from that day. And so, we committed to do so and I then set out to either order the wing and fuselage kit directly from Van's or find someone willing to sell theirs. So when I got home less than an hour later, I jumped online and made three postings on the Vansairforce.net site to guys who were selling their wing and fuselage kits.
I then, out of habit, went to the local website ksl.com which has an awesome classified ad section and looked under the "Aircraft" listings. I was stunned when I saw within the first ten search results a listing for a 1/3 partnership on a Van's RV7 based out of Ogden-Hinkley KOGD for $3,500 plus a monthly payment amount. The plane was beautiful, white with red underside and accents, and I could tell by the photos this one was a beauty. I immediately called Jeramy, the partial owner and arranged for a meeting that next day. My brother and I drove up on Saturday morning to meet Jeramy, the RV7 and of course I brought cash in hand. I was stunned at how beautiful she was. Clean lines, impeccable workmanship, a beautiful hanger, and a retired Air Force flight crew chief as a possible partner. How on earth could things get any better? I offered him cash to hold my spot on the plane until I could meet, Sam, the second owner of the plane but was told my cash wasn't needed to hold the plane. Jeramy gave me his word that I was first in line and if Sam gave his okay, we had a deal. I was worried because five years previous I had lost out on a 172XP complete with hanger at the Camarillo, California Airport KCMA to a pilot who stole it out from underneath me. But Jeramy assured me his word was his bond and I felt I could trust him.

The following morning I returned to the airport to meet Sam and take N4811E for a test flight. Sam was super nice, down to earth and easy going and as passionate about flying as Jeramy was. He was nice enough to take me up in N4811E for our first flight together and we flew for an hour and half. More about that first flight in a separate posting. Needless to say, when we got back to the hanger, we went over a partnership arrangement with the three of us agreeing on terms and just like that, I handed them my portion of the agreed upon 1/3 of expenses to date and I was an RV7 owner.

Pinch me, kick me, wake me up in the middle of the night and tell me I'm the luckiest man on the planet. Thank you, Jeramy and Sam for bringing me on as a partner. Let the adventures begin!