Swift Mini-Fly-in at Minden, NV (Click for larger)

Yes, I’m still around and still flying. I did finally finish the Annual Inspection of the Swift at the beginning of this month and have flown in a couple of times since then. Once to renew my landing currency (it had been 95 days since my last flight) and the other to have lunch with a couple of friends in Minden, NV. It was sort of a mini-fly-in. there were 4 Swifts on the field – the two parked in the middle are painted in a new stealth camouflage paint.  Actually, they were in hangars, though one of the owners joined us for lunch.

It seemed to take forever to complete the annual inspection – I set a limit to only go out to the hangar and work when the temperature was supposed to hit 50 degrees (F). This year we had some really cold weather – though not a whole lot of snow to go with it. There is still a little around in the deep shadow areas, but not much. The mountains got a bunch early, but haven’t had much since early in the skiing season.  One more lesson on not having the annual due during a winter month if you have an unheated hangar.

On the way back from Minden I flew by Pyramid Lake and noticed that the water level is up quite a bit from last summer, which is really nice to see. I noticed an article in the local newspaper (online) that the Lohontan Cutthroat Trout population is starting to come back in the lake – several trout size records have been set at Pyramid.

The Swift in the front of the photo is based in Carson City, NV though it’s owner lives in Hawaii. The plane was at Minden to have an avionics fan installed behind the instrument panel. This plane was the Grand Champion trophy winner at the West Coast Swift Fly-in last September. Beautiful plane – and for those techies out there, it is fitted with a Glass Panel – if you look closely at the large photo you will see all the antennas on the top of the fuselage.

It was a nice flight – obviously overcast, but clear and smooth under the high clouds. Great to get back into the air and out of the traffic pattern.  I will be up again later this week with a friend from Stead. He wants to get some hands-on experience with his iPad Mini, ForeFlight and his dual GPS for the iPad.  I’ll fly and he’ll tap away on the various screens – much safer than trying to do both and accomplishing neither very well.

Today is cold and windy – currently there is a wind chill of 28F and winds 310/24G32Kts at Reno-Stead. Tomorrow is supposed to be more of the same but by the end of the week they say it will be in the mid-60s. Meanwhile, the mid-west is digging out of a huge snow storm – go figure.  Wonder if the groundhog got buried under a snow drift…

I have the same alerts for aviation articles that I have always had – used to find the articles that I have been passing along to you for a couple of years. Google’s latest algorithm changes must have caused  a major change in the way their alerts produce results. I haven’t found anything at all worth passing along in a couple of months. Most of the interesting articles that I come across are in either the AOPA or AvWeb email newsletters – which you are probably already receiving (or should have subscriptions). Maybe the article traffic will pick up as the flying season gets started. We’ll have to wait and see.

Take care and fly often and fly safe.

I hope you all had a good Christmas holiday – and that Santa brought you at least one item you can use in your flying activities.

Now your assignment is to have a safe and sane New Year’s celebration.  Maybe since the new year rings in on a Monday night the celebrations will be more subdued – but I doubt it.  Have a great time but be careful out there!

Not much new on the Swift front. I have all I need to complete the annual inspection – except reasonable temperatures. I have mentioned before that my hangar is not heated. The high temperatures each day for the rest of the year are supposed to be at the freezing mark. It doesn’t look good for winter flying this year.

Boeing 307 Stratoliner.
Photo Credit: D.Miller/Armchair Aviator | Flickr:CC

I’m not sure how many of you have heard of the Kickstarter Program. It is set up to allow individuals or organizations to pitch their ideas or projects to potential investors through the internet. This is usually done with a video and accompanying text explaining what they are trying to accomplish. Individuals who think that the idea/project has merit can click on one of several buttons to donate to the project to help the project move along. It is VERY IMPORTANT TO UNDERTAND THAT THE ACTIVE WORD IS DONATE.  There is no guarantee that the project will ever be completed or the product will ever be developed and offered for sale. Often the donate buttons offer items in return for the donations – usually associated with the product to be developed. No matter how much you would like to have one of the proposed items and you provide the maximum donation there is no guarantee that you will receive anything in return.

Having said that, I received an unsolicited email today pointing to a Kickstarter project to develop a documentary film around one of the only remaining Boeing 307 Stratoliners. There were only 10 of these planes built. One is still in flying condition – the one that the Boeing employees restored for a second time and donated to the Air & Space Museum a few years ago (after putting it into the water in Seattle on an early flight after it’s first restoration). The only other surviving fuselage is from a plane once owned by Howard Hughes. It was ultimately turned into a private yacht and is moored at a marina in Florida. Louis Trueba of TruebaMedia has established a Kickstarter Program for his effort to film a documentary on the history of the airliner-boat. You can find the kickstarter project here.  And an article from BornRich about the boat here.

I’m not saying that I endorse the project, I just thought you might be interested  in finding out that it exists.

Here are some fairly recent articles that you may have missed:

Learn to fly, beat the crowd
This is from Fosters Daily Democrat in Dover, NH. Conner Makem is a reporter for Fosters and, as he describes himself, a semi-frequent traveler. He found himself dreading the commercial flying experience. He was invited recently to take a flight lesson at a local airport – here he describes the experience and compares it to his average commercial flight…

Wright factory to be preserved
This is from AOP Online. Thanks to the auto industry the original Wright Aircraft factory buildings are still standing – the oldest original aircraft factory buildings in the world. The National Aviation Heritage Alliance in Dayton, OH has taken title to the buildings and plans to restore them as part of the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park…

The ultimate paper airplane.
This is from the RadioTimes in the U.K. James May has always been fascinated with airplanes. “That fascination with flight is wonderfully apparent as May supervises a project for his Christmas Toy Stories special – to build a model balsa-wood glider and fly it 22 miles over the English Channel to France.” At the end of the article he gives instructions for folding his Ultimate Paper Plane.

Trends
This is from General Aviation News. Here is your first (that I have seen) wrap up of the aviation trends we saw this year and what we may see in 2013. The article by one of GAN’s editors discusses the purchasing trends seen by Sporty’s Pilot Shop over the past year. I hope the comment about taildraggers proves true…

Top 10 Air Safety Institute products of 2012
This is from the AOPA website. The AOPA Air Safety Institute(ASI) provides videos, articles and courses to pilots and prospective pilots. This article is a list of the top ten ASI products of 2012 – the most often watched/read content that they produced. Some are videos, some are webcasts answering questions posed to ATC representatives and one is a set of training flash cards. You do not have to be an AOPA member to access the material.

There seems to be a real hit-and-miss thing going on with aviation writers lately. Only one link to pass along this week.

Also, no flying for me this week either. The Swift annual is still only partially completed and was due the end of last month. No estimate on the completion time – I’m not good at working in an unheated hangar in temperatures below 40 deg (F).  Yeah, I’m a wimp…

Perry Sisson, the individual who set up the “World Domination – the Day of the Swift” effort has published his tabulation of the day’s flying. It has also been covered in several aviation publications recently. The bottom line is that 102 Swifts went flying that day  from 4 countries (USA< Canada, Brazil & France) and, after correlating time zones he determined that 33 were in the air at the same time and a total of over 136 Swift hours were flown that day.  It was a great effort by all involved – there is already talk of trying to better the result with another event.

I was going to publish a separate post (a couple of months ago) on my time at the West Coast Swift Fly-in – I’ll add it to the bottom of this post to add a little more to this effort. Enjoy.

Pilot celebrates 100th birthday at controls of his airplane
This is from The Journal in Martinsburg, WV. Thomas Reynolds took his first airplane flight in a Ford Trimotor in 1929. It sounds like he has been involved in aviation one way or another ever since. He recently celebrated his 100th birthday by going flying in his Evektor SportStar. He always flies with a copilot now, but he is the pilot in command and does all of the flying himself. We should all be so lucky…

The 2012 West Coast Swift Fly-in

This year’s West Coast Swift Fly-in was, once again, held at the Jackson-Amador County Airport (KJAQ) in Northern California. It is a nice 1-hour flight for me from Reno up over Donner Pass, down I-80 to near Auburn, CA and then south along the Sierras to Jackson.

The fly-in has traditionally been held the week after the Reno Air Races, but this year was moved to the week before the Races in an effort to have better weather for those Swift owners on the east side of the mountains. It turns out that few of them took advantage of the change, electing instead to attend a fly-in located in South Carolina.

Twenty-four Swifts made it to Jackson this year. There was everything from an original 85-HP Swift to the latest restoration out of The Aeroplane Factory with an Aspen Avionics glass panel run by dual Garmin 430s.

The fly-in was a great time to catch up with old friends and make new friends. I was one of the ‘early bird’ arrivals, flying to Jackson on Thursday and arriving at about noon. Even so, I was the third Swift on the field.

By moving the event to “the week before the Reno Races” the organizers were helping all the east-coast Swifters, but it made things a bit more complicated for me. The Swift event was held September 6-9 and the ‘official ‘ dates of the Reno Air Races are September 12-16. However, if you have been involved with a major event like the Races, you know that things start happening well before the event dates. I’ve mentioned here before that the Stead Airport starts transforming into Race status a month before the event dates.

I left for the Swift Fly-in on the morning of the 6th, just prior to the Stead control tower went into operation (at noon on the 6th). All of the race planes and crews had to be at Stead this year by Saturday the 8th. Sunday, the day I returned from the Swift event, was a practice day – meaning that the race course was active, Race Control was controlling the airfield and a TFR was in effect around the airport. The Air Race Association each year publishes procedures which can allow a Stead tenant to fly into or out of the airport before official racing begins. I submitted my request and was given a slot time on Sunday to return to Stead and a PPR number to provide the controller upon contact. [Prior Permission Required].

I made my slot time and landed with no problems or delays. Then I was faced with the establishment of the ‘NO PROP’ line in effect. Our hangar is in the unlimited pit area, so I taxied in just like one of the racers, shut down where they normally do, exited the aircraft and chocked the wheels.  My wife met me with our golf cart which is fitted with an aircraft tow bar that grabs the tailwheel. We hooked everything up and towed the Swift backward through the pits and down the hangar row.  Fun times were had by all…

Here are some photos of the Swift event:

Swift Fly-in welcome sign at event registration.

Swift parking ramp – 2012 West Coast Swift Fly-in.

Action in the registration area.

Unusual – Swift with a custom-carved wood prop.

Original 85 HP Swift parked next to Julie Clark’s T-34.

Returning to Stead after the Fly-in. Reno Air Races in progress.

North American F-86F Sabre painted as flown by John Glenn in the Korean War.
Photo credit: D. Miller | Flickr:CC

Time goes by really fast in the holiday season. I’m surprised that the stores don’t already have Valentine’s decorations  on the walls…

I haven’t had much luck in the flying article area lately – it has been taking me a couple of weeks to gather any kind of meaningful list. I’ll keep trying.

I didn’t make much progress on the Swift annual the past couple of weeks. I’m probably half way through the inspection. It usually takes me longer than usual  because I tent to spend extra time doing little extra things that aren’t really part of the inspection – cleaning this and tweaking that. I’m down for parts right now. I have noticed a couple of instances in the past couple of months when the battery master switch was slow to release – turn the master switch off and nothing happens. Then in about 10 seconds or so you hear the solenoid click and the power goes off. The landing gear lights and fuel flow indicator are wired to come on when the master is switched placed on so it’s pretty obvious when you turn off the master switch and nothing happens.

If the relay stuck closed there would be no way to remove battery power from the aircraft – not a good thing in the event of an electrical short somewhere.

It’s one more reminder to always check to see that the switch or lever that you moved resulted in the action that you expected. That was pounded into us in our airline ground training.  Move the switch or push the selector button and then verify by some other means that the desired action occurred.

I took a look at the master switch relay and noted it’s part number and will order a new one from Aircraft Spruce. They have both a continuous and intermittent version of the relay for certified aircraft. The continuous relay is for use on things like the master switch relay. The intermittent is used on things like the starter and the landing gear that have no need to be engaged for more than 5 minutes.

Here are some articles that you may have missed this week:

End nears for Parr as unique pilots dwindle
This is from My SA in San Antonio, TX. Ralph Parr is a double Ace from the Korean War and one of the most decorated military pilots in history. Unfortunately, he is terminally ill from cancer. His long-time friend, Frederick “Boots” Blesse, another Korean double ace passed away last month. We are losing our military heroes at an alarming rate. Here is some of Parr’s story…

An aviator in love
This is from The World in Coos Bay, OR. Those of us active in aviation found ourselves taking up flying for all sorts of reasons. But I had never heard of someone who ended up as a pilot because they took a typing class…

The Other Riverside Airport
This is from The Press-Enterprise in Riverside, CA. Riverside’s first airport wasn’t even in Riverside. This article discusses the history of that airport, including a 1930 photo with three aircraft parked on the grass. Good history…

Tuskegee pilot shares stories of World War II with Great Lakes Academy students
This is from the Oakland Press in Pontiac, MI. Alexander Jefferson is now 91 years old. Recently he shared some of his WWII experiences with some students in Michigan – some of the experiences in his book “Red Tail Captured, Red Tail Free: Memoirs of a Tuskegee Airman and POW”.

Swift back in the hangar after our flight.

When the calendar switched over to November I found all sorts of warnings blaring at me – well,  notices in my calendar that I set up myself. I just never noticed that everything seemed to be coming due within a 60-day period.

First was my flight physical, but by the end of October. That required finding a new AME. The doctor that most of the area pilots used had passed away suddenly about a year ago.  I chose to go to the doctor who took over my previous AME’s practice. It was a good choice. So, I checked off that block with a fresh Class III medical and the first  non-Class I that I had applied for in twenty-some years. There is just no reason to go through the more stringent requirements of the higher class medicals for the type of flying that I do now.

The next notices I received were that I was now in the zone to re-register the Swift.  I have until the end of March next year to complete the process and until the end of January to re-register via th eInternet. As I understand, the registration is effective in the month you do the renewal, so I’ll make it one of my New Year’s projects after the holidays.

Next I found that the Swift annual inspection is due the last day of November. But before I could start on that I had to take care of the last of my notices – my Flight Review, due by the end of November.  I didn’t want to start taking the Swift apart for the inspection and potentially find something that would prevent me from flying the plane before the end of the month.  I’m sure that you recall that in order to act as pilot-in-command of an aircraft you must satisfactorily complete a Flight Review each 24 months.

There are several flight instructors on the airport who could administer the Review and I’m sure most would jump at a chance to fly the Swift.  I thought about it for a while and decided to try one of the instructors who I knew had a similar background to mine. He retired from the military, had been a KC-10 pilot, has considerable flight time, built his own RV-9A and is qualified to instruct in the RV for aircraft checkouts by fellow homebuilders.

My first step in completing the Review was to complete FAA Course ALC-25 on the FAA Safety website – Flight Review Prep Guide. It is a good review of flight operations for the Flight Review.

Once I completed the course and printed out the certificate we scheduled some time to get together.

We discussed the material in the FAA course and then reviewed the different types of airspace and the requirements to fly through them by using some practical examples on the West coast.

Next we went over all the paperwork on the airplane, noting the required inspections had been completed and that the aircraft was airworthy and that the weight and balance would allow the planned flight. Then we did a thorough preflight and I explained the unique preflight requirements of the Swift.

With the ground portion of the Review completed we pulled the plane out of the hangar, went through the passenger briefing and emergency equipment and headed for the runway. The flight consisted of a good cross section of Private and Commercial flight maneuvers and different types of landings when we returned to the traffic pattern. By then the winds were blowing about 18 knots a bit off the runway heading, so it was a good test of traffic pattern procedures. We were in the pattern by ourselves and I fly a very close pattern, so the landings were completed in short order.

Overall I believe it was a good review – it had been a long time since I had accomplished some of those training maneuvers as specific maneuvers rather than doing them as a natural extension of the normal flight maneuvers that we all do.

Now I can get to work on the aircraft annual inspection and not have to worry about how long it might take to complete it – except for the inability to fly next month if it isn’t finished.