Archives for May 2005

I didn’t write up lesson #4, but it went well. It’s nice to get back to more stable, summertime weather conditions. It makes it easier to practice turn coordination. Lessons 4 and 5 were all about that. Very precise turn coordination. Setting a bank for a turn, but making sure the nose stays fixed to a point on the horizon until the bank is complete. It’s harder than it sounds.

In the Cessna 152, you can forget you even have rudder pedals, except when you need to do a slip, which you never really need to do since you have flaps. Anyway, in the Citabria, unless you coordinate an aileron input with rudder, the nose will actually yaw (very substantially) in the opposite direction of your input; bank to the left, and the nose yaws a good 20 degrees to the right, opposite the direction you want to turn. The reason for this is that to bank an airplane, you’re decreasing lift on the wing that you’re lowering and increasing lift on the wing you’re raising. Decrease lift, decrease drag; increase lift, increase drag. The drag differential causes the airplane to yaw in the direction of the highest drag.

But it’s even more complicated than that. Due to the forces caused by the rotation of the propeller counter-clockwise, the plane has a built-in yaw tendency to the left. In fact, the vertical stabilizer is offset just a bit to counteract this. However, when you’re coordinating turns, it means that when you turn to the left, only a teeny bit of left rudder is needed, whereas, when you turn to the right, you’ve got to step into it pretty good. That is, if you want to execute perfectly coordinated turns, and who wouldn’t?

So, it was a never-ending series of turns this way and that–at shallow banks and steep banks. I’m happy to report that I performed 45 degree banked 360s in both directions and kept the altimeter pretty much pegged at 4,000 ft. Jim was pleased with that.

We also did some slow flying. It’s amazing how slow you can fly this thing, and with the nose pitched up perhaps 30 degrees above the horizon. You can actually fly around just kissing a stall, and each time it starts to break, just the slightest bit of forward stick brings you right back to the edge. These exercises are quite important because it’s important that you know what it feel like when you’re are about to stall.

Takeoff and landing are getting much better. I was given an article on "Taming the Taildragger Pilot," written by Bud Davisson, which was immensely helpful. For the time being, when I get off center line on the runway, my primary focus now is to just get the airplane going straight, and not worry about getting back on center line. If I can tackle the correction and make it go straight, I will eventually be able to prevent it getting much off center in the first place.

I’ve started doing the radio work, and I pretty much do all pre-launch and pre-landing checklist and procedure items without prompting. Today, on approach, Jim commented on how well I was doing on the glide slope (probably my chief talent, as I’m accustomed to gliding) and decided to relax and do some sightseeing. So, as an instructor, he’s getting more comfortable with the skills I’ve learned so far and my judgment.

I’m very pleased. A week ago I was a bit discouraged. Now, I’m at the next level and moving forward.

I’ve got a ton of projects going, including advanced planning for three (or is it four?) new business ventures. Plus, I’m taking lessons for my private pilot certificate, and that requires a certain amount of attention. Once I began thinking about the pilot thing, I began thinking about buying an airplane, and perhaps, even building an airplane. That’s something I’ve always had in mind to do–someday.

Perhaps something like this. 230 mph cruise speed is, well, remarkable for a small aircraft that hauls 4 people. Or, perhaps an older factory model, like this 6-seater Piper Lance. Not bad looking for 29 years old, is it?

Anyway, all dreams that require being made reality at this point, and that’s going to require focus and working smart.

I’m headed to New Orleans tomorrow morning for a conference. Back Friday. That and the busyness probably means light blogging for a while.

Thing is, both human-embryo destroying stem-cell engineering and human cloning are as inevitable as it was inevitable that all the world’s leaders (religious and political) would eventually embrace a heliocentric universe over the quaint geocentric notion that the heavens revolve around the Earth.

It’s as inevitable as the previously "evil" notion of transplanting one person’s bodily organs into another–or even animal parts, such as heart valves from pigs. The failure of religious mysticism to answer any important questions, coupled with the rise of scientific inquiry is responsible for such an advancing state of affairs. Talk about a culture of life vs. a culture of death… Ultimately, all religions foster and indoctrinate their devoted into a dead-end culture of death. There are only degrees of difference.

The knowledge of the structure of the universe had existed–suppressed under force and coercion–for hundreds of years. So, were the world’s leaders just stupid, or did they see that knowledge as a threat to their centralized power structures? I’d tend to guess the latter.

But neither possibility is very appealing in the present case. Is it that we have to determine whether the President of the United States is so feeble-minded as to actually believe the absurd religious nonsense that comes out of his mouth, or, that he’s willing to sacrifice the potential healthy well-being of others for the sake of fairy tales?

Now, before anyone jumps on my case, I realize that he’s only talking about federal funding of such research. Of course, the feds shouldn’t be funding anything, so perhaps Bush is just being clever: pander to the religious here while the research goes on privately and in other countries.

It’s just that it’s disturbing enough to have a president who’s a Luddite. It’s very nearly intolerable, in this day and age, when the basis of all that is religious superstition.

What do the cops do without sufficient number of criminals to justify their existence? They create and invent them, of course.

This is what happens when your "job" is disconnected from the rational role of producing tradeable values that others voluntarily pay you for. Would any rational person not be willing to pay for some measure of security? Of course not. We all already buy locks for our homes,  cars, bikes, motorcycles, gym lockers, etc. We buy alarms, guns, ammunition. Some people hire companies to patrol their homes and offices regularly. Private security and surveillance is a growing industry, in part, because the cops are just so generally incompetent at it–and of course, that’s because we have to pay them whether they are effective in meeting our real security needs or not (and they almost never are; they show up to clean up the mess).

I have almost zero respect for cops, anymore. It’s been a long, long time since I could think of any value they provide me that I’d be willing to pay for, or, at least, that I wouldn’t be far happier and more satisfied purchasing from some private company that has to win and keep my business.

Wait…I take it back. Some San Jose policemen are out every weekend at a huge Flea Market around here. It’s so huge that it bottles up traffic for miles around, and intervention to direct traffic is a necessity. ‘Course, it’s not enough that the company who runs the market pays hundreds of thousands in property taxes for that enormous space and parking lots in this choice R/E area. They have to pay the cops separately, who are moonlighting. Get it? To get cops to deliver real values that are meaningful to everyday people, you gotta pay them extra. Not to mention the fact that you have to have "official" police officers direct traffic, but that’s a stupidity to reserve for another post sometime.

David Westberg, business manager for the International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 609, that’s who

Barbu says he’s just trying to get by. Critics say he and a handful
of vendors who sell pizza and other snacks near schools from vans and
trucks are not only undermining school officials’ efforts to get kids
to eat better, but also threatening the jobs of cafeteria workers.

This, it turns out, is both a competition for job security and a skirmish in the war against teenage obesity.

Citing the growing girth of Seattle’s schoolchildren, City Council
members voted yesterday to bar all kinds of mobile vendors from within
1,000 feet of schools.

The vendors have been allowed to sell within 200 feet. Their most
vocal critic has been David Westberg, business manager for the
International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 609, which represents
Seattle Public Schools’ cafeteria workers.

Westberg said only three or four people have been selling pizzas
near Cleveland, Franklin and Garfield high schools. Still, he’s
concerned the vendors could jeopardize union workers’ positions and
benefits.

"If 16 kids go off campus, somebody’s mother loses health insurance," he said.

(link: Balko)

Whereas the last lesson was weather conditions unstable with winds out of the north, today is pre-frontal with at least 15 kts. out of the south. So, different takeoff direction. It’ll be 13 Right today. Amazing how forgiving those Citabrias really are, ’cause I was all over the runway on takeoff. Humbling, but that’s just what I needed.

Low ceiling today, so we went to a training area where we could do some air work close to the ground, about 800-1000 ft. AGL. With the high winds, it was a good time to practice maneuvers using ground reference points. Of course, you’re up in with the winds, so if you want to fly straight over a roadway, for example, you’ve got to compensate, especially if the winds are directly abreast. Flying a constant circle around a tree in the center of a field requires a swallow bank when turning into the wind and going upwind, and a steeper bank when turning downwind and flying downwind in order to carve a relatively uniform circle. All-in-all, the air work went well. I’m beginning to relax more and get the touch. Often, I try to fly with the stick just between my thumb and forefinger. Light touch, when possible.

Then it was back to the airport flying a right patter for landing at 13R. Awful. Flared too early and came down pretty hard on the tail wheel. That’s going to require a lot of practice.

Well, it didn’t work out with Lori as instructor because she lives about 1 ½ hrs. away and so mainly teaches on the weekends. I’m doing my instruction on the weekdays, so things work out better with Jim Grant as my instructor. He’s also the aerobatics instructor, so once I get licensed, I’ll be able to take that course in order to really bolster my overall skills.

I actually did find my logbook from 1984. I’d thought I had five hours or more, but I only have 3 logged. Oh, well. With my 100 hrs. in hang-gliders and a few hours stick time in sailplanes, I’m far better prepared for all of this.

So, lesson #1 being a cross between introduction and an actual lesson, #2 is getting down to business. Problem. The weather sucked in San Jose, yesterday. Very unstable conditions, towering cumulus, low ceiling, and winds at 15 kts. (but only about 10-15 degrees off runway centerline, though). In fact, it was a far better day for hang-gliding than for taking lesson #2, just trying to do some air work, getting the feel for the airplane, honing my precision at coordinating turns. Hang-glider pilots live for unstable conditions that don’t overdevelop, which is just what we had yesterday.

So, because of the low ceiling, Jim says it makes air work a little iffy, ‘cause we need to remain a minimum distance below cloud base, which doesn’t give us a lot of room to work. So, even though it’s their practice not to put students into the pattern with takeoffs and landings until the 10-hr. point, or so, he asks if I’m game; and I say “sure.”

Tail wheeled aircraft are difficult because once the rear wheel is off the ground, the airplane wants to pivot around the main gear. So, when you begin the takeoff roll, you actually have the stick forward. Not all the way; ‘bout right under the edge of the dashboard. It doesn’t take long and the tail comes off the ground. Then, you back off the stick a bit, but not all the way. Just exactly like in hang-gliding, you want to maintain negative pitch on the wing until you’ve got not only enough airspeed to fly, but enough to have authoritative control of the aircraft. So, in hang-gliders, as soon as the wing lifts off your shoulders and tugs on the hang-strap, you pull in on the control frame to keep it on the ground as you take a few more steps down the slope. By doing this, you can add a good 5 mph or more of airspeed.

However, once that tail wheel is off, you’re into a real rat’s nest, as it wants to weave this way and that, all over the place. As a student, you always over-correct with the rudder pedals, so it gets to be pretty embarrassing. However, after three take-offs, here’s what I figured out; and again, it’s directly from hang-gliding. In HG, there’s a phenomena that afflicts new pilots that we call ‘pilot-induced oscillation’, or PIO. This is when the wing banks and begins to turn one way, the pilot corrects to bring it back to straight & level, over does it, and the cycle continues, as well as does the amplitude between each cycle. Once it begins, there is only one way to stop it: let the control bar out to trim speed, i.e., slow down. And there’s the key to the cause. PIO only happens when HGs are moving fast, and that’s most typically on approach to landing, which makes PIO dangerous if a new pilot has not been properly briefed in what to do.

What causes this phenomena is the same thing that makes it difficult to handle the tail wheel: as the aircraft increases airspeed down the runway, the rudder becomes increasingly responsive and effective with respect to any given input. For instance, at 20 mph, a full deflection in the rudder might be needed, but once you’re at 50 mph, just a bit of an inch might be required.

So, what I have to do with this theory is test it. In HGs, the way to prevent PIO is to do what we call “bumping.” When movin’ along fast and you make a control input, it’s a quick bump and right back to center. If not enough, then you do it again. Or, if too much, it’s only going to be a bit, so a teensy bump the other way will get you back on track.

K, so I’m not anywhere near satisfied with all this, but I think I’ve got a few things figured out, so now it’s a matter of applying one sort of muscle memory to a different set of muscles moving on a different plane of motion.

I’m very pleased with how my skills in judging an approach and feel for glide slope have transferred over, which is to say: it’s about 100% applicable. With HGs and sailplanes, you only get one shot at a good approach, and this is sometimes landing in some field or clearing you’ve never seen before and have only gotten a few brief moments while in the air to scout out obstructions such as fences, tree lines, boulders, power lines, etc; and to judge the wind speed and direction by looking at trees, grass, water, etc. It’s a lot to do, and if you’re not sweating bullets, you’ve no business being there. In HGs and sailplanes, approaches and glide slope are practiced more than anything.

So, it’s just perfectly natural for me to keep the nose down, turn onto base, then to final, and see just about where I’m going to be rounding out. I don’t really need to look at the VASI, and the one time I sensed I needed to add power, I checked the VASI right as I bumped in a little power (and backed right off, of course), and sure enough, just barely red over red.

Right now, the instructor is fine with me coming in hot, which is what I’m accustomed to. In HGs, I bring it in hot right to ground effect, but my instructor wants me to round out a bit higher. We’ll I was surprised, because once in ground effect, it was the most natural thing in the world to keep my eyes up and out of the cockpit, straight forward. It’s just a matter of trying to maintain the same horizontal position. To do that, you have to gradually bring the stick back, so you’re trading staying on that horizontal plane for airspeed, which slowly bleeds off, and just then, you’ll sense the incipient stall, bring the stick all the way back, and settle fairly gently onto the runway.

All in all, the take-offs are going to be the toughest for me to learn. I’m probably far to confident on the landings, just yet, and I’m going to have to get that in check before tomorrow’s lesson; but for now, after 2 hrs., I’m feelin’ pretty good.

The most gratifying thing about my bits on Wal-Mart, here and here, are those numerous commenters who stepped up with reason and held up facts in full and honest context. Of course, everyone always has facts, just as Joseph claimed to have in his argument against Wal-Mart. But, as I pointed out in one of my own comments…

But Joseph, facts exist in a context. If you kill another person,
that’s a fact. But whether you’re a hero or an evil predator is a
matter of other facts that establish a context and real meaning.
Lawyers, politicians, powercrats, activists and media are all expert at
manipulating facts out of context–to make the innocent and heroic
appear guilty when the exact opposite is the case.

Some Wal-Mart employees don’t make it financially. That’s a fact. However, reality and nature dictates that no one
but one’s self is responsible for one’s well being. Those employees who
are not making it financially are defaulting on their own
responsibility to do whatever it takes to make things balance out.
Instead, they whine, and then people like you come along to spout out
"facts" for no other purpose that to shift responsibility from the
guilty to the innocent.

In a related story, Greg Swann, who didn’t comment within the posts on the posts, nevertheless made some sweeping points on his own blog. Among those points is a peripheral issue that bears spotlighting…

The second point is actually more important: It is common to see
libertarians of various stripes affecting to equate the right with the
left in American, to claim, however implausibly, that the ‘radical
right’ or the ‘christian right’ or whatever is somehow a potent threat
to liberty, as bad or even worse than the Communist left. This is
measurably, demonstrably, objectively, inarguably false. The
bible-thumpers are pikers, hapless amateurs at everything they do,
where the Communists are serious, dedicated, unwavering professionals.
They are always five moves ahead in every game they run, and
they are running every single game being peddled by the mainstream
media and the rest of the sneering class. It is not going to far to say
that everything discussed in public is on some level a Communist gambit. Certainly all of the terms of the debate are theirs. Islamism may
be as great a threat, making up for a dearth of finesse with a surfeit
of zeal. No other political movement comes even close to posing a peril
equal to that of the Communists. To say otherwise is a decisive victory
for Communism.

I’m probably guilty–from time-to-time–of over-slamming the right, and that’s probably more out of frustration that anything else. The Republicans are frauds; and stupids. But they’re not evil, at least not to the extent the communists (democrats) are. That’s not hyperbole. Virtually all democrats are communists, through and through (if words mean anything), whether they wish to admit it or not. Politically, they are pure, unadulterated evil–even though many of them are otherwise good and benevolent people who generally benefit themselves, others, and society.

At any rate, I am on record having laid some of this out before. Reading it now, it’s quite relevant to this whole Wal-Mart discussion.

Reading some of the comments to my recent Wal-Mart entry is a real eye-opener. From where does such twisted logic, hate of the good, and envious destruction of major values come from?

To me, it’s got to be about the most evil thing ever. Someone like a Hitler comes along every now and then, but most everyone clearly recognizes their evil. But great values and great value producers–the true benefactors of all of mankind–are continually attacked and maligned, and not only does the average guy not protest, he jumps right on board.

It’s amazing. Some mornings I get up and I just hate anyone and everyone who’s never signed a paycheck–has no idea what’s it’s like to do that week in and week out–yet has the gall to vomit all manner of rotten runny bullshit about how some great company or great employer is a "blight to humanity" in one way or another.

Fuck. Off. Fuck you all.

Of course, you all know why the left and their hoards of useful-idiot chumps (Democrat Party) are attacking Wal-Mart, don’t you? No, it’s not because Wal-Mart is so sub-urban. If that were the standard, they’d have been after Costco and Home Depot a long time ago. Do-it-yourself home repair and improvement? Mayonnaise and shampoo by the quart? Egad. How gauche.

In reality, it would be a lot tougher to get even dumb-ass democrats to sign on to this exercise in biting the hand that feeds, if the real reason was known and understood. So instead, they spout crap such as I outlined in the foregoing, as well as diversions such as "employee benefits," "discrimination," "unfair business practices." (Like, they actually demand suppliers to sell them X quantity of Y at unit price Z, or take a hike. It’s soooo unfair.)

No, there’s one reason and one reason only that Wal-Mart is under attack. You can find the answer right here. And it’s for this reason that the attack can’t fail. It’s for this reason that this seed, planted by the left and its dumb-as-shit democrats, will eventually be cultivated by the right and its aw-shucks-stupids, the republicans. The government will eventually take the lead. The biggest and best always get taken out, eventually.

Biggest company. Most employees (over 1.2 million). Most paychecks. Biggest payroll, in dollars. Most purchases, adding up to nearly $200 billion (to thousands and thousands of vendors and suppliers, who, in-turn, have employees they pay). In short, they took the principle of the economies-of-scale of a department store and took it to its natural conclusion–and the did it better and bigger than anyone else. They won (well, so far, which is how big business works).

Save for the fact that the evil left, the evil right, and the evil government will eventually "knock them down to size" and this left-right-government trifecta will stand in the way of their growth and expansion, they would spread worldwide, would dramatically raise the standard of living everywhere–even the poorest places on earth, would eventually employ over a billion, and would be the first company worth in excess of a trillion dollars.

Never happen, though. Even people so stupid as to actually enter voting booths might eventually, and with some coaxing, see what Wal-Mart can do with only a trillion dollars–contrasted to what the world’s combined governments do stealing trillions a year from those who actually produce the values.

Yep, I love ’em.