Principles of Learning as per Aviation

Principles of learning Remember to REE-hash the PRI-nciples
REE-PRI
Readiness, Effect, Exercise (Thorndyke)
Primacy, Recency, Intensity

Readiness: Any learning is based on some type of previous experience that provides the foundation (no, that's not it). "Individuals learn best when they are emotionally, mentally, and physically ready to learn, and they do not learn well when they see no reason for doing it. " Instructors can be in a position to provide motivation.

Exercise: Any skill, whether manual or cognitive, must be repeated and/or applied regularly or it will be lost. Better: "Those things most often repeated are best remembered. This is the basis of drill-and-practice." I need to repeat this a lot. This says a lot for the CAP-style practice of maneuvers in a consistent sequence.

Effect: (beats me. I couldn't remember this one in college, either). "Learning is strengthened when accompanied by a pleasant emotion." Oh, yeah. I can picture one of my professors who used the word a lot, but I can't remember her name. She was an exceptionally good school principle who eventually got swallowed up by the computers at Spalding U. That was in the years when all the very best people in all the schools got suckered into setting up and maintaining the obsolete IBM computers that the schools insisted on buying, and 10 or 15 years drained into a bottomless pit. A lot of unpleasant emotion floating around during those years. Negative EFFECT had quite an effect.

Primacy: The first learning of a skill or concept is the strongest, therefore it is essential that things be taught well the first time. "Things learned first create a strong impression in the mind that is difficult to erase." Well said. Somehow good lesson plans fall into this category. ??!

Recency: "Information acquired last is usually remembered best." The instructor can repeat, restate & reemphasize at the end of the lesson to take advantage of this.

Intensity: The highly emotional or otherwise multi-layer experience will be more strongly learned than a simple experience. "A sharp, vivid, exciting, emotional experience teaches more than a routine or boring experience." Ahh. Enter scenario-based flight training.

REE-PRI

When you're READY for EFFECT in the EXERCISE of flight,
PRIME the engine, and lock the knob in tight.
Not RECENT, but clear, is the crucial lesson learned--
INTENSITY unwanted for lack of metal turned.

gah.

Laura's NPR interview "Life in Berlin"

Laura Bean on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Downloads

Article about Laura's neighborhood in Berlin

Surfacing - A Berlin Hub’s Arty Spinoff - NYTimes.com

N41639 art deco

Eagle Flyer for Peter

Who wants the last stuffed pepper?

for newsletter, etc.

America's Heart & Soul: George Woodard, Charles Jimmie Sr., The Vasquez Brothers, Frank Pino, David Pino, John 'Yac' Yacobellis, Patty Wag

Amazon.com: America's Heart & Soul: George Woodard, Charles Jimmie Sr., The Vasquez Brothers, Frank Pino, David Pino, John 'Yac' Yacobellis, Patty Wagstaff, Paul Stone, Ed Holt, Weirton Steelworkers, Rev. Cecil Williams, Janice Miriktani, Louis Schwartzberg, Brian Funck, Brian E. Frankish, Grady Candler, Jake Eberts, Vincent Ueber: Movies & TV

We just watched the most engaging, engrossing film. Came in the middle of it, and didn't know what we were watching, but I was totally hooked. Then I went to the link above to buy it.

Levi

Chef Alex

Today's entertainment

99s, Shawnee Student Pilots, Alex & Cozy Mark IV

Chicken n dumplings

Today we wandered around the "World's Most Amazing Flea Market" for a few hours, and then came home to chicken in the pot.

A Brief Guide to all the Races

Interesting.

Touring Machine Company � Blog Archive � Garmin GNS 430W/530W—Basics

Touring Machine Company � Blog Archive � Garmin GNS 430W/530W—Basics

To Brett Guthrie (R)

I was sorry to receive your email that did not support the White House's call to pass health-care reform. I have good insurance, and I am constantly aware of the work that is done in our family's behalf to keep the employer/union benefit plan solvent. My oldest daughter was caught by a "glitch" in her insurance. The health-care provider and the insurance company, between them, left us with a $85,000 bill that we had to pay cash for, for necessary services that should have been covered. This is a difficult debt to be paying down. Our youngest daughter is 25, with no benefit plan from her employers, and is struggling to figure out what she will do in two months when she comes off our family insurance.

And we are the lucky ones.

I know you represent a "conservative" area, but why are the good "conservative" folks so easily stampeded? A few years ago they were whipped up by "issues" of gay marriage and faux-patriotism. They were told to elect GBush to end abortion, so they elected him. The ones who wanted to nuke the middle east to glass were happy to tag along, and Bullitt County rolled right with it. Now it's all going again.

What about you? I'm really tired of the rabble-rousing. Health care and life issues are taking us all down the tubes, and I expect you and your staff to be working to give the small business workers and the self-employed and unemployed and the currently-uninsurable the same types of opportunities as you and I have, including the opportunity to understand and participate in meaningful dialogue on end-of-life issues.

In advance, thank you for your civility, good sense, and hard work.

Bliss!!!!!

The monster plumbing project is well in hand.

Aircraft Ownership: Economical Cooperatives | by Sean Fulton

Welcome to Aviator's Guide - Plane Talk

Taylor's catching up to Leah

Maggie& N41639

Maggie flies!

JDT Mini-MAX -- Light Sport Aircraft and Ultralight Flight Aviation Kit Building and Flying

JDT Mini-MAX -- Light Sport Aircraft and Ultralight Flight Aviation Kit Building and Flying

Natalie's new babies

Michelle sings "Alleluia! Raise the Gospel"

Kaden & dad

Seaplane base

One corner of KidVenture

Sunrise

Frank talks to a 99 fom London at the Oshkosh booth

Maggie and Bob(standing in for Kaye) at 99s Oshkosh

Frank Elvis

Dream Plane

Campsite at Oshkosh

One-man-band at Oshkosh

Baby Birds

Juanita, Viviana and Joanna go out with Alex and Ben to check on the baby birds.
Happy Birthday, Amy

Lee Bottom

Outdoor and nature-y songs

Whipporwill
You and Me we're gonna be partners
Swinging along the Open Road
Oh, how lovely is the evening
The rattlin' bog
Tell me why the stars to shine
I see the moon and the moon sees me.
(So run along home...)
Green trees around us, blue skies above
Day is Done, Gone the Sun
Sailin' Away
Oh it ain't gonna rain no more no more (Mosquito he fly high)
You take a stick of bamboo
Peace I ask of thee, o river
Shenandoah
For so long as we receive the light of day, we may greet one another as kindred.
Skeeters am a hummin' on the honeysuckle vine (Kentucky Babe)
The Road goes on (Tolkien)
Happiness Runs
The Bear Went over the Mountain
Down on the banks of the Hanky Panky, where the bullfrogs jump from bank to bank-ee with an eep, ipe, ope, op, knee-slap-a -dilly and a schlllp-PLOP!
Green grow the rushes-o
There's a hole in the bottom of the sea
Where have all the flowers gone?
Catch the Wind
Land of the Silver Birch
My Paddle's Keen and Bright
One Elephant went out to play upon a spider's web one day.
Paradise
Edelweiss
Crawdad Hole
Bye'n'bye, bye'n'bye, stars shinin' , number number one, number two, number three O Lord, bye'n bye, bye'n bye, O Lord, bye'n'bye.
White Coral Bells
Wimuway
Spider's Web
On the Loose
Earth my Body, Water, my blood, Air my breath and fire my spirit.
Gat goon went the little green frog one day
How Great Thou Art

Blackberries!

Kickball before supper

Repair Project

MobileMe Gallery

Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity | Video on TED.com

Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity | Video on TED.com

Flew with Beth, Alex and Israel

Beth, Alex and Alex's cousin Israel (from Texas) came to the airport. We started out by giving everyone a booklet like the one I'm using for the Girl Scouts next weekend. They did the ID page. We talked to a paramedic watching the STATcare helicopter. We flew out past six-mile island. Some banks and turns, not too much more, and came back. Israel took video the whole time. Then we checked out the other airplanes on the site, including one with an owl on the tail. Alex jumped in and did all the pre-flight he knew, which was a lot.

Lose It iPhone app

I just started using this calorie-counting app, and it seems to be really helpful. Super easy to use. I'm surprised.

Here's hoping!

Car Games

How-to video

I wanted to keep a link to this video. It's not the content, but the presentation. Nice and easy, nice and slow, no hurry. Clear, comfortable.

What will a good pilot look like?

What will a good pilot look like? What am I, as CFI, hoping to instill?


A good pilot uses procedural & mental tools to process information well, especially
* numbers and arithmetic
* spatial awareness
* perception and evaluation
to be alert and responsive to challenging situations and to avoid danger.


A good pilot demonstrates patterns of competence in
* airplane control
* navigation
* maneuvers and
* aviation procedures
to be dependable and effective in flight.


A good pilot is gaining experience and knowledge of
* mechanical processes
* safety and emergency issues
* situational awareness
* weather & environment
to safely exercise the privileges of pilot-in-command.


A good pilot is able to assess, learn, perform, and evaluate with
* fellow aviators
* employers
* passengers
* ATC and
* FAA
in effective ways.


A good pilot will continue the aviation experience in pursuit of
* career
* avocation
* pleasure and
* fulfillment
when leaving my instruction.

Article: "When VFR is IFR"

An explanation of IFR to VFR on Top, Special VFR, and Contact approaches By Fletcher Anderson in SWAviator

Coriolis effect

I spent a lot of time searching flight instruction materials for the answer to the question, "Coriolis Effect affects the wind to the right, OK, but to whose right?" All the explanations I saw seemed to mean "East" instead of right.

This presentation answered it for me--"...as viewed from the direction of original movement."

Directions to the farm

N to JVY go north past 2nd quarry.
Veer left (before Memphis) and travel up that "valley" to Greenville. US60.
Hang a left before the lake.]

PS. I have just found out that winds "veer" to the right and "back" to the left. This leads me to think that my directions are inaccurate, as you would "back" to the left before Memphis.

BUT, that is actually wrong. When a wind veers, it is the direction the wind is coming from that changes to the right. So perhaps the wind, from its own point of view, is veering to the left.

Looking at an airplane in motion as similar to air in motion being a wind, shouldn't an airplane "veer" when it is changing direction to the left? I guess the directions to the farm stand uncorrected.

Airport Extreme Update. Whoo Hoo!!!!!

The other day I clicked thru on one of those automatic updates from Apple. One of them must have spoken to our Airport Extreme (wireless router).

This morning, I noticed that the pre-Leopard flat-panel iMac (which I just moved from the back room to the living room) had an active wireless icon on it. It was online with the wireless!!! I told Frank he could put his drill away, which he had out to drill holes in the hardwood floor to string ethernet to the living room.

THEN, I went and pulled out our Fujitsu tablet computer (running Windows 2000) and IT found the Wireless as well!!!!

So, now I have the imac flat panel in the living room. It can display family photos and play music through those wonderful speakers, AND we aren't deprived of the necessary internet port.

The tablet computer is again going be available for StumbleUpon, which makes it a wonderful interactive, portable magazine.

Comfort!!

Mima's oatmeal cookies

2 eggs, beaten
2 c light brown sugar (subst. 1/4 c gran sugar)
2 sticks butter, melted
1 c raisins
1 c black walnuts
2 c flour w. 1 t baking powder & a pinch of salt
4 c oats
1 t soda dissolved in 1 T warm water

375º for 10 minutes

Dear Oprah, Barack, Bill, and Rush

Let's encourage everyone to gift themselves, their families, the country and the world with a gift that keeps on giving. The Gift is 80%.

As we all cut back on unnecessary and un-productive consumption, we can cut the prices we charge and/or the hours we expect to work to 80% of our current (recent?) level.

Bingo. Prices are back where most people can afford them. All of us have more time to improve quality of life. No need to lay off people.

Life is good. There is plenty of work to be done. Of course we can do it.

(And let's get a move on health care reform.)

Video of Private Pilot Oral Exam

Go figure

PSYCHOLOGY: Don't Get Even, Stay Mad

Gilbert Chin
Declarations of unintentionality ("I didn't mean to hurt you") often suffice to defuse tense situations and to reduce or eliminate vengeful responses to a harmful act. But does the reining in of aggressive behavior reflect deliberate and effortful control of those impulses, or does the claim of a lack of purpose serve to dissolve one's anger?

Using a social evaluation setting, Krieglmeyer et al. obtain evidence linking the attribution of intention to a conscious overriding of impulsive aggression.

They presented students with positive or negative ratings (from an unseen partner) of their ideas for naming a new energy drink; half of the students who had received negative feedback were then told that their partner had mistaken the high-low direction of the rating scale and had in fact intended to assign them positive marks.

When assessed specifically for anger using an implicit measure and for behavior by means of the same rating scale, this set of students displayed a lower level of aggression as compared to the students whose negative assessments had been intentional (although they still exhibited a higher level of hostility than the students who had received positive ratings initially).

In contrast, learning that the negative ratings had been delivered in error and that the actual intent had been to send positive feedback had no effect on the levels of implicit anger. -- GJC

J. Exp. Soc. Psych. 44, 10.1016/j/jesp.2008.10.003 (2008).

Colin Powell and good sense. Watch the video!

Exactly! Right! Don't just read it, watch the video linked to this title.

constant-speed propeller

The short-and-sweet version, as per Jim:
Different settings for climb, cruise, etc. will be in the POH.

Remember, going uP, Prop first; going down, throttle first.

Once airborne, RPM becomes your prop reading and manifold pressure becomes your throttle reading.

To lean, you really have to use a Engine Gas Temperature gauge. Trying to do it by manifold pressure is just not good.

PS.
BJ passed his private pilot test. Ka-ching!

Fwd: Amy& Cayuse reunion

pax,

Maggie

http://randomlight.blogspot.com

"The difference between one and more than one is all the difference in the world.  Indeed, it is the world."  --LeGuin

Begin forwarded message:

From: Maggie Hettinger <mhettinger@mac.com>
Date: August 19, 2008 11:09:17 AM EDT
To: Beth Peña <bethpena9@hotmail.com>, Amy Hettinger <amyhettinger@gmail.com>, Laura Hettinger <laurahettinger@gmail.com>, Natalie Hettinger <natalie.hettinger@wku.edu>, Frank Hettinger <iueclou@bellsouth.net>, Marcella Herde <maherde@bellsouth.net>
Subject: Amy& Cayuse reunion

pax,
Maggie

http://randomlight.blogspot.com

"The difference between one and more than one is all the difference in the world.  Indeed, it is the world."  --LeGuin

Dad is heavy into research. Loves the Internet.

parachute usage

Do I need to wear a parachute when doing aerobatics in my homebuilt?


Parachute usage is covered in 14 CFR 91.307. Section (c) of this regulation applies to aircraft during aerobatic maneuvers. It states:

"(c) Unless each occupant of the aircraft is wearing an approved parachute, no pilot of a civil aircraft carrying any person (other than a crewmember) may execute any intentional maneuver that exceeds --

(1) A bank of 60 degrees relative to the horizon; or

(2) A nose-up or nose-down attitude of 30 degrees relative to the horizon."

Note that this regulation states that, during aerobatic flight, all persons in the aircraft must have a parachute whenever people OTHER THAN CREWMEMBER(S) are carried. Therefore, when the only person on board is the pilot, and no others are carried, a parachute is not required. However, when a passenger is carried in an aircraft during aerobatics, all persons on board INCLUDING crewmember(s) are required to be wearing parachutes

PSYCHOLOGY: Socialized Learning

Gilbert Chin
The ventral and dorsal neural streams that mediate the visual processing of objects have been described as specializing in what and where, respectively; that is, information about object identity flows through a different channel than that about object location. A related distinction applies to object perception for the purpose of action (where my car is parked) as contrasted with the purpose of recognition (my car is green). Yoon et al. demonstrate that pre-verbal infants (9 months old) form object representations that exhibit a similar dissociation between location and identity--and that the mode of information transmittal dictates the channel of reception. Introducing an explicitly social teaching context by having an actor point to an object while speaking to the infant biased the infant to remember the object's features such that a subsequent presentation of the same object at a second location did not evoke surprise (as assessed by looking time), whereas displaying a new object at the original location did. Conversely, reaching toward an object while verbalizing in an impersonal fashion primed the retention of where information rather than what. Adults, of course, have no difficulty in retaining and retrieving both types of representations, but the nascent neural processing capacities of infants appear to be influenced by social context as well as visual fundamentals. -- GJC

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 105, 13690 (2008).

Patrick's piano lesson

Parallels Fix

I spent all morning trying to fix a problem with Parallels (or the WinXP hard drive file) or whatever. In the process I learned a lot about Time Machine (but not enough to reinstall Parallels).

The actual fix (crossed fingers that it's complete) I came upon by accident. I had been reinstalling Parallels from CD, but something was still missing from drivers or something. Looking for tech support, I tried to figure out what version I had, and for no reason clicked on Upgrade (or was it update?).

The update (to version 3) downloaded, installed itself, installed ParallelsTools, and seems to be working fine. Whew!

I leave this note to remind myself to Reinstall from the web next time instead of going back to the old CD's.

I have to have Parallels to run XP to run Ground School and AOPA Flight Planner.

Michelle & Patrick's big shoes

IMG_0287.JPG

 

???????

IMG_0296.JPG

 

Kim (from girl scouts) and Caleb

Kim recognized me at the grocery.  Caleb is 13 months old.  They live in Shepherdsville. Kim and Sarah R and one of the other girls from our troop still hang out together.  We should get together.

Obama: What you didn't see at the Republican Convention.

(My response to video above. Click title to see video.)

Dear Senator Obama,
Thank you for your amazing effort.

We are heartened to hear your support of Unions, union goals (regarding healthcare & benefits), also (I'm assuming) your understanding that much of the work a union does is fight to maintain standards of safety and healthcare for the members. I also hope you understand that this particular fight anchors the safety and healthcare standards of all workers at the same time.

We would be very heartened if we heard these concerns and commitments expressed to other-than-union audiences. I have had my belly full of politicians who "tailor" their message to the audience to gain their approval, but don't hold that same message for the general public.

Give us a sign! ...ummmm, maybe more than one.

Sarah Palin: Reigniting the Culture War

Clearly the pick of an anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-science extremist wrapped in a folksy hockey-mom package has fired up the base in ways that even McCain's pledge to pack the Courts with right-wing judges has failed to do.

Lima beans for soup tonight

Acrobatic cat

Awake, now.

Dad's "helper" finally ran out of steam

Dad fixing the seat belt

Beth & "Pipa", Beth & Juan, Across the mountains

Barack Obama in Berlin

Laura is there, waiting to enter the building. She says,

"Wow! It's like thousands of people all walking in the same direction for this!"

I think that says it well.

"politically lunkheaded"

I'm going to remember this one:

"politically lunkheaded"

as in....

"Details of Obama's speech got buried in the wake of General Wesley Clark's politically lunkheaded comment about John McCain that, "I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president." But over the Fourth of July weekend, it might be appropriate and enlightening to take a few minutes to read or watch the whole thing."

Amazing what convoluted thinking passes for reality in the political world, and what truths are not able to be said. At least now I have a phrase to distinguish between things that are true but shouldn't be said, and those that are true but need to be said.

Maybe.

I'm going to go listen to Barack's speech.

Easily Deployable Weapons for use against rogue states that sponsor terrorism.

http://www.cartoonistgroup.com/search/cardimage.php?iid=24552

Spit

Carmel reminded me of this:

Life before 50 is kinda like spit. While you're there, while it's part of you, it's just fine, everything is as it should be.

But once you get away from it, it's like spit that's spat. No way are you going to take it in again.

Passed my instrument written.

FAA instrument exam flight adventure #2

lesson learned #1--copy all the figures, especially the DP and approach plates. There is NO way you can figure this out while flipping thru the book.

Whenever I try to create the formula for figuring the distance travelled in an arc, I get half what it should be.

circumference = 2(pi)r
distance for one degree of arc = (2(pi)r)/360
distance for so many degrees = degrees * (2(pi)r)/360

Substituting 1.5 for pi, I get degrees * 2*1.5*r/360 = degrees*3r/360 = degrees*r/120

It's supposed to be degrees * r / 60

FAA instrument exam flight adventure #1

Notes:

Copied: 2 of each Flight plan figures & trip log pages.

Flight#1 Grand Junction Walker Field to Durango-La Plata County and back

I see that this information is given in the questions, so I copy it to my planning notes.
FT 12,000 18,000
FNM 2408-05 2208 -21

Total usable fuel on board 68 gal.
Average fuel consumption 15 gph
wind & velocity at 16000 2308-16


Answer to number one:
Groundspeed. Those are winds aloft numbers. There will have to be an interpolation for the altitude. In real life I usually have to interpolate between different winds aloft forecasts, too. I wonder where FNM is in relation to my route. Checking AirNav.com, I can't find KFNM airport. OK, it makes sense to assume these are winds aloft in the area of the flight.

I go to the flight log to fill in groundspeed, distances, times and fuel.

The times that they have inserted in the flight plan are double what I'm figuring. 35 miles at 174mph ground speed is 12 minutes. Right? Right??! Why do they have ::24:0 in the box??? I'm penciling my times in the box for the time being.

When I do the times on the return flight log I get the 14 1/2 minutes for the first leg, which matches the time inserted in test version of the flight log. BUT this doesn't include taxi & climb-out. What are they thinking here? And how do you figure time for the descent? Missed approach? This looks like something I should know, but I don't. I'm noticing that the test flight log has put 18 1/2 minutes for descent to Durango and 12 minutes for descent and landing to

There's an answer only one minute off from my answer. OK. I'll take it. I'm not checking my answer with the test. I'd like to work through all seven and then check answers. It's pretty obvious I'll have to refigure it all when I do.

Question 2
Question 2 gives a scenario about not being able to land at the Durango destination, how much time can I hold before returning to the starting point (as the alternate airport). Well. That's going to depend on the time it took for the first one. Without checking any answers yet, I can see (from the information they give in the problem) that at least we're on the same track about one thing. The interpolation I used for wind speeds is the wind speed and direction that is given in this problem.

I'm taking my times from the flight logs I filled out. I assume that what has already been used is the amount I'd figured for enroute--15 gallons. Now I add the total figured for the return trip. Enroute, reserve, missed approach is 37 gallons, and subtract all that from my starting fuel of 68 gallons, which should give me 16 gallons to spend holding at Durango. At 15 mpg the whiz-wheel says I can hold for 65 minutes.

Looking at the possible answer for the test, the book has 1 hour 33 minutes, 1 hour 37 minutes and 1 hour 42 minutes. (Sigh). I look back over my numbers above, checking for simple addition & subtraction mistakes. Nope. It's got to be in HOW I figured all that time and fuel. I glance at the rest of the test questions and decide to slog on before getting help. I record the closest answer (since on the FAA test it's better to put anything than nothing), but I know if it's right it's only the luck of the draw.

Question 3 What fuel would be consumed on the flight between Grand Junction & Durango assuming the avg fuel consumption is 15 mpg? Well, I do have an answer for that, and it's only one gallon off from the least answer on the test. I mark it down.

Question 4 This is a map interpretation question about the highest MEA. There's a flag at Grand Junction for the crossing altitude, but that doesn't apply, and I don't see any other hard-to-notice notations, so I'm taking the number beside the airway. (not the starred one, which should be obstruction clearance). It is one of the possible answers.

Question 5
A scenario for lost communication wants to know what radio frequencies to attempt to contact Denver Center. I look on the En Route Low-Altitude Chart segment provided with the test and find two frequencies in the info box for DENVER ARTCC. One of these is one of the answers on the test. However, isn't that the frequency that had been in use and was lost? I see from the nearest VOR there is an underlined frequency, which I interpret to mean you can listen, but transmit. This would be a possible frequency to try next. So is the emergency frequency 122.1. I'm choosing the answer that says transmit on emergency and receive on the nearby VOR. Whatever aviation strong points I may have, radio navigation is NOT one of them, so I really want to see how this turns out. But not yet.

Question 6
This is easy. It just wants to know where the changeover point is. Whew!

Question 7
MOCA? Minimum obstruction clearance altitude. That's the starred altitude that I looked at before. Ka-ching!

All right. I've spent 2 hours on all of this, which is similar to how long it takes me to plan a VFR trip in a familiar area. I could have looked it over and learned the answers in a much shorter time. I feel really SURE about only three of the answers. I expect three of them to be wrong. But now I'm ready to check my answers and read the discussion. I have a lot of questions of my own to answer, and hopefully the discussion will be enlightening.

Putting on my peril-sensitive sunglasses, I go to check my answers and.....I have gotten questions 1 and 5 wrong, and the others correct.

Question one is the one about time enroute. It's not a difficult question to answer if you just take what's given already, figure the one part that is missing. They have given the first and last leg legs (which I questioned and decided to do myself). OK. I'm not going to find out the answer to HOW they figured the climb-out and descent. All I need to know for the test is that they did figure it. What I needed to do was take the wind direction and velocity, convert it to magnetic, figure ground speed and time enroute for that middle leg and add it to the time enroute they'd already figured. I'll do it now. " 230º at 8 kt becomes 216º magnetic. Airspeed is taken from the flight plan filed, course from the flight log, distance from the enroute chart. There it is. Simple answer. "Piece of cake," as Martha says.

Now I'm going to work question two again, before I look at the answer discussion. I got it right by luck, since my figures weren't even close. I work it again, even with what I've learned, and I still get close to the same answer. By my figures, I can hold for a little over an hour. By theirs, it's.....an hour and 33 minutes. Checking with Dr. Gleim, I've got flight logs filled out for both trips, and he has laid out the figures in his discussion. The difference is....

...I had added some time for a missed approach. Dr. Gleim and the FAA do not. I am surmising now, that this is not necessary for planning, but there is a box for it on the form. Missed approach must come out of the reserve. I'll see what they do with the other scenarios, I guess.

I check the other questions, even the ones I got correct, because I might have done it by luck, right?

The second question that I missed was the scenario about losing contact with ARTCC. The correct answer would have been the first one I considered and discarded--to contact DENVER CENTER on the Denver Center frequency. I'll be able to remember that one for the test, for sure.

Thinking through the scenario, though, it's interesting to see what other things I erroneously considered possible. The emergency channel sounded plausible, and even though I've never used it, if I was not able to contact the people I needed, I'd do that, I think. What Dr. Gleim explains, though, is my complete misconception about the underlined frequency on the VOR information. I was thinking that the underline would let me receive on the VOR channel and transmit on another. This is NOT the case. The underline means there is "no voice capability, i.e. there would be nothing to receive." This is a detour I'm happy to take here on the ground rather than in the air.

I'd love to work these kinds of questions with an instructor and other students, but that's not a situation I find myself in. I consider it time well spent. Now I'm going to review the approaches and departures, fire up X-Plane on the computer and see whether I can fly this baby.


Sim notes: I'm probably 10 nm short of MANCA, but I'm hitting Pause on the sim to regroup.
I transferred my flight plan to an IFR Flight Plan that one of my instructors gave me. I figured for current winds

I got a Piper Malibu PA-4630P that I thought would be fast, but actually it's not much different that a C-152 on speed. I've not flown it before. It's got good instrumentation for this work. HSI (which I've never flown before, but I like). VOR, DME, ADF.

I love X-Plane, but there's one feature I can't get a handle on, and that's the pitch trim. I spend 85% of my attention trying to get some semblance of trim for pitch, bounding around up and down most of the time. Other people don't seem to have this problem, but I can't figure what it is that I have set wrong. At least I know a real plane is MUCH easier to fly than this. I was constantly having to fight to gain altitude, which might have been authentic, as this is in Colorado, 15,000 ft.

I did check my groundspeed after crossing the 2nd fix, and updated my plans accordingly.

The flight plan doesn't have a clear space for your fix information, and I made a big mistake that I tried to correct while flying. I neglected to write in the VOR frequency that defines the other end of the V187 segment that I'm following. Little detail. Ordinarily it would be on the chart, but I'm flying from a testing copy ("not for navigation" ) and that bit of information must be off the edge.

So I'm parking the sim, finding out my information, and checking my flight path, and while I'm stopped I'll review that approach some more. Not ready for prime time, here. I don't know how to ident in X-Plane, and I'm going to see if I can't find that out before I resume.

FAA instrument exam

When I started cramming for my FAA Private Pilot written test, I followed some pretty good advice and after doing each Gleim Test Prep chapter once or twice, highlighted the answers to just read them to learn the correct answers. That was really good advice for about half of the test--but I was sorry to have done it for those things that I didn't understand and needed to work on for understanding. Once you mark the answer, you can't make yourself do the logic like you can with it unmarked.

So this time, for instrument, I'm not highlighting yet.


I've been slogging thru the chapters, going through once doing each question, looking checking answers every page, then going back the next day (or that evening) to do the whole chapter of questions again, several times until I know all the answers and understand that chapter. Score of below 95 means do it again.

I just got to the last chapter of the Gleim Instrument Pilot Test Prep book, and I am surprised by what I found. There are six instrument flights on the FAA test to plan out and answer questions about. Since there's so much I don't know, and learning it in flight or with an instructor is SOOOOOO expensive, I'm going to take the best advantage of this that I can. I'm copying off the figures for planning sheets (they are partially filled in), and I'm going to take the information and plan the trip. THEN I'll see what the Q&A on the test will be. I'll have Dr. Gleim's discussion to review. I'll do one trip at a time. THEN I'll fly the trip on X-Plane.

Amy graduation

Master of Arts in Community Arts Education

snippets from Harvard Comencement speakers

Tuesday

About endowments:
Accountability.
Endowments carry forth the wishes and evaluations of the past. They probably ought to conflict with the political present

Endowments have created a system of higher education that is the envy of the world.

"custodians of civilization"

Families of students with incomes of less than $60000 will not be expected to pay any of the cost of tuition at Harvard. (partial payment for incomes somewhat higher)

---------
JK Rowling

video here: rtsp://128.103.142.142:80/qtmedia/Media/0605-JKRowling.mov
(link from mugglenet.com)

nervous. Just pretend it's a great big Gryffindor reunion.
2 things: Benefits of failure and benefits of imagination

Failure:
Parents wanted her to do something practical, but she escaped into classics.

There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction. The moment you take the wheel you are taking your own responsibility.

Poverty is not an ennobling experience. It is ennobled only by fools.
Failure is a stripping away of the inessential .
Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt.
Life is difficult and complicated beyond anyone's power to control.

Imagination:
Worked at Amnesty International

The willfully unimaginative see more monsters and are more afraid than others.
Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

Last hope: friends
Seneca: As is a tale, so is life. It's not how long it is, but how good it is that matters.

pilot's logbook

Now, this is more like it! Two Sundays in a row.

5/24/08 Pa-28-121 EKX-Hoopin Holler--EKX First time the two of us have flown over home and taken pictures or anything like that. Air was like glass and it was Frank's first time in the Warrior.
5/1/08 LOU BAK LOU First PIC trip in a C-172. Everything worked, even radios. Straight&Level to BAK. Biscuits and gravy (next time just dessert!). Quick trip home. Few cumulus clouds. Spiraled up above the layer to travel at 5500 ft. Then up to 7500 to get over a little row of them. We must have been moving fast up there, because immediately we were in sight of JVY and Bowman. We spiraled down (next time it's a sideslip). No issues with anything. Nice trip. Reminded me of Mike B. days.

Online articles--Instrument rating

AOPA's instrument rating page has a bazillion resources.

Iron man? No, Rocket Man.

tips for instrument checkride

Brief approaches on the ground before takeoff.
Get weather from ATIS or ASOS before entering the approach.
If you "peg the needle" (fully deflect) on approach, you MUST abort.

-Jim G

Classroom activities in meteorology University of Illinois

song

What is is that we do when we're writing songs? Eight tones in a scale, comfortable chord patterns, moon-June-croon rhyming? Shouldn't all the combinations have been used up by now?

How is it? So many thousands (millions?) of songs have been written and shared, and yet each time a song is written it is an intensely personal, intensely public expression of a particular here-and-now. Each song dances the yin and yang of individual struggle for understanding, for notice, for meaning, for life.

Is it just happenstance that the majority of songs are love songs? No. Can't be. Biology, which humans rightly suppress for its violent tendencies, asserts its fundamental right to evaluation here. In a love song, "what is best" is crystalized through the lens of discernment of survival of the fittest. Isn't it this crystallization that forms the foundation of dreams & hopes--valued for its clarity, returned to in memory for guidance when vision becomes murky and tangled again?

Songs are always a link to the past. The distilled voices of humankind contribute to the form, shape, and content of a song. And, true to its most ancient function as a medium of storage and transmission of information, each song adds to the web of long-lasting communication in which all members of culture swim.

Future sense is present as well. By its public nature, by the innate understanding that it will be sung for an audience, even an audience of oneself, song invariably carries hope. There WILL be a future for which the message has meaning and importance. At least that. At the very least.

At most? How far can it go?

The ancient psalms celebrate civilization and the city interchangeably and indistinguishably from God. Twenty centuries of hymns document the transformation of a distant God who can be addressed only with hope and faithfulness to a proactive understanding that "we are God's hands" within the personal interactions that form and maintain community.

Strong as the symbol of the natural world remains, the promise of life's potential is hard-pressed to fit in nineteenth-century-style paintings of religious entities surrounded by clouds and rays of the sun. In century twenty-one, the elemental forces of energy that hold stars in their courses are being stolen from their work to snapshot bits of ourselves and all that we value and love. In an explosion of communication, older linear progressions of knowledge are being reformed by the breaking of finite bonds of material transmission--all to enable the ability to encapsulate these cherished bits of humanity-turned-digital.

Each photo and blog entry stores an evaluation by one person that THIS is important right now. Of all the directions I can point my camera, THIS one is the one that matters. Of all the issues I can comment on, THIS one is the one I choose. Of all the songs floating around the audio world, THESE are the ones that speak my message. From the state of my heart, this is my song.

Time is that human invention which enables memory and vision, but its power comes at the expense of trapping humanity in its linearity. To the practical mind, time is a fundamental limiting factor, but thank goodness humans are not always practical. To the poet, songwriter and scientist, time is not immutable. In fact, the, the linearity of time has been constantly challenged by exploration, by love, by religion and by hope. This challenge is sung as the promise of new life, of undying love, of resurrection and redemption. As the challenge grows, the promise grows.

And the medium for the promise has grown. Song, while retaining at its core the intimacy of the lullaby, has amplified its reach to the concert hall, to top-10 radio, to mass-produced CD's to vibrant internet musicfile-sharing.

As Flikr and MySpace evolve into a fluctuating primordial digital soup, can anyone predict the new life that will coalesce from the myriad time-linked, people-linked photos, observations, and reminiscences? Could there have been any advance prediction that the tiny sea-creatures of Earth's ancient seas would be carried forth (long after the seas had changed their composition and their inhabitants otherwise extinct) as the blood and lungs of a newborn infant letting loose his first cry?

Will the life-force of the future recognize the humanity of its roots? How can it not? Perhaps someday instead of elemental particles of neutron, proton and quark, the qualities of the world will be labeled "cherish," "melody," and "kinship."

It's a given. From a currently-unattainable but foreseeable position outside the infinity of time, Alpha and Omega share a point in space-time. Resurrection, just like love, just like community, just like hope, exists where it always has, in the singing of the song.

Boeing 777 being built

Ed Williams' BASIC programming for aviation

This link has aviation formulas and calculations in BASIC.

I found it when I was looking up information on pressure-pattern navigation.

KBRY, Bardstown, KY

I was on the phone with David Hall, who started reminiscing about the airfields in and around Bardstown, KY. Dave's dad ran KBRY in the 60s. He remembers his first flight, at age 3 or 4, and being in his daddy's lap.

Dr. Steely had a Navion. He had adventures: Taking off quickly, raising the landing gear immediately, not being in flight yet and skidding on down the runway. Came to the end of the runway, rolled up between some cars belly sidewards, left wingtip 6 inches from the ground. Also travelling at 200 mph across the tops of the buildings in town.

The area used to have a number of airports. The original Bardstown airport was about 500 ft off Dixie highway, on the Colesburg Rd.

There was a grass field on Boston Rd.

Short Combs had a strip on his farm.

After WWII, Donald (?) had 25 airplanes and a hundred students, doing flight instruction in PT13s and PT26s (offshoots of P51s).
In 1962 the current Bardstown airport, KBRY, was built, largely to the efforts of the Coca-Cola company. Green County parachuters were at a different grass strip near there (maybe). They used C180s and DeHaviland Beavers.

pilot's logbook

Holding Patterns:
1. Find intersection
2. Where am I? (put a dot on the map or chart)
3. Where will the pattern be?
4. Always turn the shortest distance to the outbound course.

The first turn to the intersection or nav-aid can be direct to the intersection (not necessarily follow the racetrack shape if it doesn't make sense to do so."


Listen to the radio calls, writing them is a distraction.

C (clearance)
R (route)
A (altitude)
F (frequency)
T (transponder)

Sunrise & Sunset times for any date

I just found this website that has sunrise and sunset times for any day. One hour before sunrise is "night," requiring that the pilot be have 3 takeoffs and landings to a full stop at night within the past 90 days in order to carry passengers that early in the morning. This could make a difference in planning departure times and/or needing to take night currency flights.

Four thousand American soldiers have died in Iraq. This is the true story of how one of them came home.

This article starts with my longtime business (funeral liturgy), looks like it is going to be about my new business (aviation), and then turns out to be a close, intimate portrayal of everyone's business if they/we are aware of who we are in this world and the far-reaching effects of our lifestyles.

Pilot's logbook

4/30 C-152 N69011 LOU LOU Out to Six-mile, low ceilings and haze, back to LOU, T&G. 6 lndgs, 1.0 hr. Frank

According to the weather forecast, it would have been a good day to go to Clark County and practice cross-wind landings, but I was afraid we wouldn't be able to get back, too much moisture in the air, so we headed back to Bowman for the touch & go's. Frank enjoyed going around and around. The procedures and the radio interactions were making sense to him, so that was fun. I enjoyed it.

Centigrade to Fahrenheit conversion. Simple. Really.

[note: I'm not satisfied with this, yet and will continue revising. There's something simpler that I'm missing, maybe just in the explanation. I'd LOVE!!!! to get feedback from somebody willing to sit down for 15 minutes and try this stuff out. You'll invest your time well, and maybe figure out what I'm missing.]

The almost-simple way to mentally convert Centigrade to Fahrenheit is to double the number, subtract 1/10, then add 32.
Ex. 5ºC = 5*2=10.
10 - 10/10 = 9.
9+32=41ºF.

Sometimes, though, if a conversion doesn't come quickly, the brain just stops and moves on to other pressing issues. This is the dreaded plotz. Rather than risk that, it's worth learning how to get a reasonable estimate quickly and then, if needed, an accurate conversion.

For quick and simple:
Double the number and add 30.

This gets us really close enough for most situations that aren't conducive to picking up a pencil. It only requires two steps.

To convert 5ºC to Fahrenheit:

5*2=10.
10+30 = 40ºF.

How accurate is it?

Anywhere between freezing (0ºC, 32ºF) and shirt-sleeves weather (28ºC, 68ºF) this rough result is within two degrees, being 2º low at freezing, 2º high at shirtsleeves, and absolutely correct in the middle (10ºC, 50ºF).

Getting away from 50ºF in either direction, the rough answer creeps more and more off. At 0ºF and at 100ºF, it's 5 degrees off.

So, if a closer figure is needed, two additional steps makes it accurate to the nearest whole degree.

Remember, 50ºF is the center.

If that rough result Fº is higher than 55ºF, it needs to be pulled back in one degree. If the rough result was more than as 65ºF then two degrees back. If it was more than 75, subtract three. If more than 85 subtract 4, etc.

To let the procedural part of the brain handle this (not the plotz-prone intellect), use fingers. Count the tens from 50 up to the rough estimate (but only count the last ten if the final digit is > 5). Pull the estimate back down by as many degrees as counted on your fingers.

23ºC= 23*2+30 gives a rough result of 73, which is more than 55, so it has to be pulled back down.

Starting at 50, count one. 60 is two fingers. 70 does not count, since 3 (in 73) is not more than 5 .
73ºF (rough estimate) -2(fingers) becomes 71ºF (accurate)

On the colder end of the scale, if the rough result is as less than 45, extra degrees have to be added to pull it back in toward the center. It's a finger count of the tens going down, starting with 40. Count the final ten ONLY if the final digit is < 5.

Example:

3ºC= 3*2+30 gives a result of 36, which is lower than 45.

Starting with 40, we finger-count one , but we do not count the 30, since the last digit of 36 is not <5.

36ºF (rought estimate) -2(fingers)= 34ºF (accurate)

(If there's trouble remembering whether the final digit needs to be greater or less than 5 to be counted, think if it as being closer or further away from the center (50ºF). For warm temperatures, count if it's >5, for cold, count if it's <5.)

With a little practice, this should be easy to do. Much easier than explaining it.

For about 5 minutes, practice getting a rough estimate. Take each number below, double it and add 30.
2ºC 1ºC 10ºC 4ºC 6ºC 13ºC 20ºC 5ºC 9ºC 11ºC 33ºC 3ºC 15ºC 25ºC 49ºC 35ºC 40ºC (start over if it's not been 5 minutes)

For 5 more minutes, practice converting a rough Fahrenheit estimate to an accurate conversion.
50ºF 66ºF 78ºF 96ºF 106ºF 92ºF 62ºF 104ºF 58ºF 70ºF 48ºF 52ºF 44ºF 30ºF 34ºF 38ºF 46ºF 78ºF 88ºF 66ºF 42ºF 102ºF

For 5 more minutes, do a rough estimate, then bring it in to accuracy.
2ºC 1ºC 10ºC 4ºC 6ºC 13ºC 20ºC 5ºC 9ºC 11ºC 33ºC 3ºC 15ºC 25ºC 49ºC 35ºC 40ºC 10ºC 11ºC 8ºC 20ºC 22ºC 11ºC 25ºC 30ºC 12ºC 5ºC 9ºC 2ºC 8ºC 1ºC 0ºC -2ºC

For optimum retention, do all this again later in the day.

After a little practice converting Cº to Fº will be easy, but to make sure it sticks in habit, practice twice a day for two more days, then at least once more later in the week. This can be practiced while driving by taking any numbers in sight.

Part of the strategy here is that in order to multitask as pilots are always expected to do, the intellect determines the need for some cognitive work, but can assign that work to other faculties,freeing the intellect until the result comes back for more evaluation. Cool, huh?

The spreadsheet version of this information is here.

Engine startup procedure for 16T, revisited

Ye gods. How can anybody remember this stuff? I’ll just…

remember my instructor,

full of it, full of it.

THROTTLE FULL, MIXTURE FULL

Adding fuel to the fire

FUEL PUMP ON

show’s he's master. What a git!

MASTER SWITCH ON

Once he gets a reaction,

WHEN FUEL GAUGE JUMPS

then he can turn it off,

TURN FUEL PUMP OFF

(but needling and prodding

are something he’s fond of.)

It’s just idle conversation.

MIXTURE IDLE

You could throttle him halfway,

THROTTLE 1/2"

but go ahead and turn on

TURN KEY

the ignition anyway.

As soon as the engine purrs,

WHEN ENGINE STARTS

then we’re rich, mixture rich.

MIXTURE FULL RICH

A thousand bucks would get us

ADJUST THROTTLE TO 1000 RPM

to the moon without a glitch.

But big money comes from oil,

CHECK OIL TEMPERATURE

from pressure on the green,

CHECK OIL PRESSURE

so the ending to this story

is yet to be seen.

The first section of this drivel is fondly reminiscent of the instructor who checked me out in 16T. He can be annoying. I think he considers it an art. The last section heads off into one of his favorite subjects--the fossil fuel issue.

Anyway, the ditty is more memorable than that list was, but for what it's worth, the procedure isn't daunting anymore.

I think what this procedure accomplishes is first to prime the engine, and then to start it from an engine-flooded configuration. When I asked whether this was cold-weather startup, he said it should be used all the time. Was he jerking my chain? Who knows?

He flies a mean plane.

Plotz Prevention for a fledgling pilot

plotz

v. An old Yiddish word, used here to describe what the brain does when part of it gets tangled up under stress and sits down on the job, refusing to function.

Every student pilot talks about being "overwhelmed" with the sensations and requirements of flying the plane. For me, the most persistent causes have to do with numbers, numbers, numbers, numbers. How much of flying airplanes has to do with numbers? An awful lot.

Two big stumbling blocks have been my inexperience with visualizing the 360 degrees of the compass as meaningful directions and the appalling difficulty I have doing mental arithmetic quickly and accurately enough under stress. Even though I recognized these inadequacies at the beginning of training, I didn't know any good-enough ways to get past them.

This week, while it's been too rainy and windy for flying, I worked out a set of paper-and-pencil exercises which seem to be making a difference, though it's too soon to know for sure. The idea is to take one of the exercises for fifteen minutes twice a day for three days, and then move on to another.

I'm posting my working list as Plotz Prevention and I'll keep working with it as long as it works for me.

(One other thing that HAS made a difference is lumosity.com which I can recommend whole-heartedly, even though it's not pilot-specific.)