Just added about 100 new photos to the gallery:

L.A. Gold Cup aerobatic contest - photos courtesy of Katherine DeBaun. It was a great learning experience. For example, I learned never EVER to book a hotel room facing the highway. I also learned never to trust Gray’s judgement when it comes to bars. Oy.

Northern California Aerobatic Challenge, better known as “the box inside the triangle”. Nothing like a return to sea level to make a guy feel good about his flying. (Again, photos by Ms. DeBaun).

A family wedding up in Seattle, my first time up there in quite a few years. I wondered why I hadn’t been up there in so long. And then I got on the airliner, sat in that tiny cramped seat next to the barfy kid, and suddenly I remembered: I hate to fly. Commercially.

The Fremont Festival - akin to a miniature San Francisco right in the heart of Seattle, Fremont is the artsy part of town. Tim and I spend the afternoon watching an entertaining yet bizzare parade, complete with lots of naked people, conspiracy theorists, communist party members, and other related, uh, ‘paraphenalia’.

Lesley and I enjoyed a great 4th of July yesterday. Our schedules rarely mesh these days — she works Monday through Friday and I’m on from Wednesday through Sunday — so it was a welcome treat to have a whole day together.

We started with a picnic at Irvine Regional Park. There were quite a few people around, but I wouldn’t say it was uncomfortably crowded. There were just enough folks around to make for some interesting people watching.

Speaking of which, we ended up being the only non-Hispanic picnickers in the park. I’m not sure why, but it might have something to do with the fact that Irvine Regional Park is not located in Irvine but rather sits in the hills between Tustin and Orange. Whatever the reason, it was odd being in such a homogenous group. I’m used to seeing a far wider racial mix than that.

It reminded me of a concert tour I did through the midwest in the early 90s. Exploring Indianapolis one afternoon, nearly everyone I encountered had blond hair and blue eyes. It was like the Germans had won the war or something. The Confederate war memorials scattered around the city center didn’t help.

Anyway, after lounging away a few hours under a big tree at the park, we did a bit of shopping at Petco and set up a small aquarium at Lesley’s place. We also scoped out barbecues at Home Depot, but couldn’t find anything that was reasonably sized. I’ve been wanting to get her one as a housewarming present but they’re all huge. Is it just me, or have the barbecues become larger and larger over the years? They all seem to have what can only be described as significant counter space on either side of the grill. You’d think they would at least make these parts foldable so that those who are tight on space could conserve room when the grill was not in use.

Lesley’s new place in Aliso Viejo is amazing. Not only does it have more square footage, an extra bedroom, extra bathrom, vaulted ceilings, better air conditioning, and a garage, but it also sits on top of the highest land in the area. So her patio has a view that stretches for miles. Accompanied by a gentle breeze, the patio faces east, so the sun is mellow in the afternoons.

We spent the twilight hours hanging out on the deck, snacking on grape leaves, cucumber salad, hummus, French bread and a very special Zivio dessert wine we picked up at the Milat Vinyard in Napa last year.

We hadn’t planned to watch any fireworks, but around 9 pm noticed that we could see a large display that had begun in Laguna Beach. Then a few minutes later one started up in Aliso Viejo. Then Mission Viejo. Then Laguna Hills. Within minutes we were literally enveloped in large-scale professional fireworks displays. It was outstanding! Even more so because not only was it an unexpected surprise, but we had amazing seats without having to fight any crowds.

All in all, it was one of the most enjoyable relaxing 4th of Julys in memory.

They say that those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it. All I could think of when listening to the news this morning was that whoever’s behind this has quite obviously never cracked open a textbook.

Think about it. The IRA had no success in forcing England’s hand even after two solid decades of this sort of thing. Hitler took over the whole of Europe and most of north Africa, yet the British went about their business, stepping around the rubble of London to do their daily shopping between bombing raids by the Luftwaffe.

It’s the ’stiff upper lip’, and the English have it in spades. It’s one of the most admirable qualities, and one I wish we had more of here in America.

Lesley’s mother grew up in London during the Battle of Britain, so I’ve heard the stories of those years when flour was black, the only meat was Spam, and they proudly ate beans on toast because that’s all there was. Even today the British still eat that stuff, each bite a small testimony to the strength they gained from That Which Did Not Kill Them.

If the terrorists had studied their history, they’d know that while England may have slowly relinquished her empire over the course of last couple of centuries, on the home front they never gave an inch.

Does anyone actually think the Brits will capitulate? Back off? Cower in fear?

Please.

Fifty bucks says they’ve got more troops headed to Iraq and Afghanistan within days. Even the terrorists have got to know that. Yet they strike out in anger like a child throwing a tantrum in a restaurant, pissed off at the world and wanting everyone to suffer. Well go ahead and cry, little baby. There’s a hard lesson coming your way, and Union Jack will be doing the teaching.

The British would never use the phrase “bring it on”, of course. It’s just not their style. But the sentiment is clearly there.

So I’ll be eating beans on toast tonight. And enjoying every bite.

I’m flying Sunrise’s J3 up to a Cub fly-in at Lompoc this morning.

The official purpose is to try and drum up some business for the aircraft. The unofficial purpose: fun! I’ve been flying the plane quite a bit over the past couple of months and have to say it’s one of the most enjoyable planes I’ve flown. The windows and doors are usually left wide open, so you get an unobstructed view and lots of fresh air. It’s like an open cockpit biplane, but without the wind blast and sun exposure.

There are very few FBOs I can think of that operate out of a busy Class C airfield yet still an airplane available for rent that you can hand prop. But we do. And our bird was fully restored over the past few years, adding a larger engine along with the clipped wing modification. The shorter wing results in sportier handling — I’ll often make steep approaches at 90 mph and still end up with a very short landing roll.

Between that and the fact that we’re well know for our expertise with tailwheel aircraft, it’s hoped that this will inspire people to come down to Sunrise and fly the airplane.

It should be a pretty slow trip, though. The Cub is lucky to get 85 mph, even with the horsepower upgrade. I refer to it as “permanent MCA” (MCA = ‘minimum controllable airspeed’, or ’slow flight’).

The plan is to stop at various airports along the way to put up flyers and show off the airplane. At Lompoc, there will probably be about 50 aircraft for the fly-in, which lasts through Sunday. There will be a spot landing contest, as well as a flour bomb drop competition.

This trip should be unique, because the J3 doesn’t have a charging system, just a battery. When it’s tied down at SNA, there’s a permanently mounted solar panel on the ground which supplies energy to recharge the battery. But we’re going to be gone for 60 hours and aren’t sure if the battery will hold enough juice to power the avionics for that long.

We sat down and computed the power draw from the avionics. The aircraft is equipped with Becker glider radios, which are both compact in size and miserly on the power consumption. The intercom draws about 0.1 amp. The transponder, which is the high draw item, only pulls 0.25 amps at 28 volts. We’re operating at 14 volts, so it’ll take 0.5 amps. Still, not bad!

Since we need the transponder and radio to get through the 30 nm mode C veil and Class C airspace, the plan is to turn everything off once we’re clear of Los Angeles and get back to basic, no frills pilotage. With any luck, this will preserve enough battery power to get us through the return trip across Los Angeles.

Flying. It’s an adventure!

See ya in a few days…

In the never ending battle against comment spam, I’ve implemented a change in the way comments are verified.

First, the comment form now requires users to answer a simple question when posting a comment: “This site is called the House of _____”. A human user will hopefully be smart enough to enter the name Rapp. A spambot, on the other hand, will choke.

I wish I could take credit for this elegantly simply fix, but the credit must go to this guy.

The other anti-spam measure is the Three Strikes plugin. If a comment is posted with a) more than 2 links, b) no referrer, and c) at least one match from my spam word list, the comment is automatically obliterated. It doesn’t go into moderation. It’s not marked as spam. It simply ceases to exist.

In view of these changes, I’m eliminting comment moderation. I’ve never liked having to hold every single comment, ping, or trackback in a queue until I could personally approve it. That sort of thing punishes the user rather than the spammer. But a few months ago there was simply no alternative — the site was receiving hundreds of spam comments per day, and I’d be damned if I was going to reward their efforts by letting that stuff get picked up by Google.

Talking heads in the financial sector seem quite fond of crowing about how well the economy is doing. One metric they never fail to point to is the Consumer Price Index, a primary indicator of inflation. It invariably shows that we’ve got the perfect amount: approximately 3% per year.

Does that make sense to you? Now keep in mind I’m not a doomsday guy. I think the long terms prospects for our country are bright. But the focus seems to be on the short term right now, and that might lead to some serious pain in between.

From where I sit, it seems the vast majority of an average American’s income goes toward housing. Home prices have been on an exponential rise for half a decade. The cost of higher learning has outpaced the mythical inflation figure for more than 20 years. How about health care? Have your costs been rising faster than 3% per year? Mine sure have. And the energy sector — been to the gas pump lately? I rest my case.

So the question is, why aren’t these hard cold facts reflected in the CPI? Answer: because the CPI doesn’t measure these things properly. In some cases, it doesn’t measure them at all. As Fortune puts it:

What’s more, real-life inflation may be much worse than the official statistics indicate. Take a look at the CPI’s methodology. Its statisticians make use of “hedonics,” a method of attaching a value to the increase in the quality of new goods. Here’s an example: If your new computer cost $500 more than your old one but had more than $500 worth of improvements (according to Treasury wonks), the CPI says it actually cost less. The sticker price for a car bought in the U.S. has risen 338% since 1979, according to the Leuthold Group, an economic consultancy. But because of hedonic adjustments, the CPI reflects only a 62% rise.

Another curious thing about the CPI is that it does not calculate changes in housing costs by the sales prices. Instead it uses a figure that estimates what homeowners would get if they rented out their homes. In 2004, national housing prices rose more than 11%, but the CPI calculates that they rose about 2%.

For a long time this was just a funny factoid. Now it’s a real problem. Incomes are not rising nearly as quickly as expenses, which means many of us are getting poorer without realizing it. Or perhaps we simply refuse to admit it. Either way, it’s clear that something is out of whack. It’s even stumping the Federal Reserve, whose governors are scratching their heads over a yield curve inversion that now has short term rates above long term ones. To me, the inversion’s cause is clear: the market is trying to return to equilibrium but it can’t because the low cost mortages are keeping long term rates artificially low.

Once the true scope of inflation becomes clear, long term rates will have to adjust upward as investors demand higher returns on their money to account for the dollar’s decreased buying power. Higher rates will crush the housing market and lead many with what I generously refer to as ‘questionable’ loan products to the sellers table. Even if they don’t want to sell, dramatically higher rates combined with high principal balance adjustable mortages will make it inevitable.

Lest you think “ah–buying opportunity!”, by this point underwriting standards will have tightened and buyers without large down payments (remember the days when 30% was customary?) won’t be able to get a loan, especially if the property in question is not a primary residence.

The government-backed mortgage holders like Fannie May will be stuck with a sagging multi-trillion dollar portfolio of underwater mortages and outright defaults. And it’s at this point that lawmakers will realize that perhaps allowing anyone and their grandmother to dump subpar loans on the government might have been detrimental to underwriting standards. Laws will change, but it won’t be enough to keep the economy afloat since the home equity cash cow will have long since shriveled up, taking consumer spending along with it.

The stock market tanks, job losses balloon, home prices fall, consumer sentiment sinks, and you have all the makings of what could be the next Great Depression. At best, we’re in for a recession which will make the 2001-2004 malaise look like a picnic.

Think I’m crazy? Go ahead, make your case.

Apparently it’s a slow news day at CNN, which is quoting a USA Today article about the “surge in crashes” which is “scarring” the air ambulance industry.

As usual, it’s clear the pieces were written by people with little if any aviation experience. They’re unbalanced and sensationalized.

It’s an undeniable fact that air ambulance service is responsible for saving thousands of lives each year. It’s also a fact that every time one of those helicopters goes out on a mission, they’re landing in an area which was not designed for helicopter operations.

These pilots have to avoid powerlines, buildings, trees, cars, and set that thing down in the tightest of spots, often in poor weather. They’re landing on this untested surface for the first time. Then they have to take off again at maximum gross weight with the rotor wash from their aircraft bouncing off the surrounding surfaces, fight the weather and then land — often at night — on a small concrete pad at the top of a building. For those of you who’ve never been on top of a building, it’s windy up there and you can’t see very well because there are few peripheral references with which to judge your altitude.

News flash: it’s risky.

CNN and USA Today show no recognition of that fact, choosing instead to take the whole industry to task because this activity doesn’t have the same safety record as an airliner.

Its study found that more than 10 percent of the U.S. air ambulance helicopter fleet crashed during that time, a proportion that would have translated to 90 jetliner crashes if applied to commercial airlines.

CNN didn’t read the USA Today article very well. If they had, they’d realized that if 10 percent of the commercial airliner fleet was 90 aircraft, the implication is that there are approximately 900 jet airliners in the United States. This is wrong. There are nearly 10,000 jetliners in active use according to the FAA registry. Note also that this FAA statistic does not include jetliners that are in storage, so the “fleet” that USA Today refers to is undoubtedly much larger.

When a news publication makes a mistake like this, it puts their entire argument at risk. To an aviator, this kind of thing is akin to reading that there are only 23 states. It raises a red flag and says “whoever is telling you this doesn’t know what they’re talking about.”

After reviewing hundreds of pages of documents and interviewing dozens of pilots, aviation experts, federal officials and executives with the companies that operate the flights, USA Today concluded that air ambulance companies and the Federal Aviation Administration have failed to impose safety requirements that might have saved lives.

What they’re not saying is that “imposing safety requirements” would also cost lives. The very lives that air ambulances exist to save, thereby defeating their whole raison d’être. USA Today seems to be in favor of having the go/no-go decision made by someone other than the pilot.

Patrick Veillette, a former emergency medical pilot who has written several studies of air ambulance accidents, says the lack of emphasis on safety regulations, equipment and training is “setting the pilots up.”

Veillette now flies a business jet. He says the contrast between that type of flying and the air ambulance world is stark. In a jet, air traffic controllers guide him away from hazardous conditions. His cockpit is equipped with the latest safety devices, including one that sounds an alarm if he strays too near to the ground. A company dispatcher won’t allow him to take off unless conditions are safe.

For the air ambulance industry, “these multiple safety layers don’t exist,” he says.

Additional training is one thing. You can never have enough training. Even a review of regulations might be worthwhile.

But with due respect to Mr. Veillette (by all accounts a well respected aviator), how are air traffic controllers supposed to provide information on hazardous conditions? ATC has no weather information that isn’t already available to the pilot. Low weather conditions keep ATC too busy to take on this sort of task anyway. They may provide it on a workload-permitting basis, but it’s not something you can count on. Even if you could, radar coverage frequently doesn’t extend to the low-level areas where rotorcraft fly.

A ground proximity warning system would only be an annoyance to a helicopter which typically flies just a few hundred feet off the deck. And the dispatcher idea doesn’t translate. It works well for a Part 135 charter, but air ambulances must operate on smaller margins. The smaller those margins get, the harder it would be for a dispatcher to make an effective go/no-go decision.

As the guy with his neck out there on the line, I can appreciate Mr. Veillette’s concern about the industry. Even so, I oppose any attempt to take authority or responsibility away from the pilot-in-command, which USA Today rightly credits for the majority of accidents. It’s the one area where we are in agreement.

The newspaper’s analysis of almost 30 years worth of accidents shows that 82% of fatal crashes were caused by human error — almost all by pilots.

What USA Today isn’t telling you is that this statistic is as applicable to general aviation as it is to air ambulance service. The Air Safety Foundation reports consistently show that the vast majority of accidents are attributable to pilot error rather than mechanical failure. It’s true for privately operated light aircraft, for airliners, and for charter operations. Why should air ambulances be any different?

This statistic only proves a) that aircraft are reliable, and b) that the best safety device in any aircraft is a well trained pilot.

So I’ve returned from that Big Adventure in the J3 Cub I’m constantly blabbering about these days. The trip was fantastic.

My original intent was to provide a fairly in depth look at why those who love these little yellow airplanes call this sort of trip “real flying”. Unfortuantely, I’m too busy doing the “fake” flying (read: work) to tell you about the non-fake variety, so the hangar flying verbosity will have to wait.

Alas, we did manage to take more than 130 photos on the trip. And I have to say, this was the sort of journey that digital cameras were invented for. I’ve whittled the collection down to 53 cropped, sized, color-corrected, and lightly narrated images which you can see here.

The topic of radio etiquette has come up quite frequently of late, and it got me poking through the Airman Information Manual. Officially, when a controller calls out another aircraft to you, he/she is expecting one of two and only two replies. Either “traffic in sight” or “negative contact”.

It may not be standard AIM phraseology, but I use the phrase “looking” quite often.

I use it because, to me at least, it conveys a specific meaning which is easily interpretable by ATC. It means “I don’t see the traffic, but I’m trying to find it” and it also conveys that ATC’s transmission was understood: I know there is traffic out there, and he’s generally at my 2 o’clock (or whatever) position.

I could just say “Roger” in response to the traffic call. But then, “looking” doesn’t take any longer or have any more syllables in it. It’s short, concise, and conveys a specific meaning.

“Negative contact” has an implication of “I can’t find him”. But I don’t want to say that initially, because I haven’t looked yet. If I start to use “negative contact” when I’m looking, then I guess I’d have to say “I can’t find him” or “Can you update me on the traffic?” when I need to let the controller know that I searched high and low to no avail for the conflicting aircraft. But those phrases are far more wordy.

So is “looking” an officialy sanctioned response? No. But of all the things I hear on the radio, that one doesn’t sound too egregious. The fish finder stuff and superfluous ahs, umms, full callsigns when unnecessary, etc should probably go away first.

My general arguement against Nazi-like adherence to AIM-specified radio protocol is that if we did that, you’d never hear things like “thanks” or “good day” or “happy 4th” or any of the little niceties that make flying pleasurable. To be sure, there’s a time and place for them based on frequency congestion. I’m definitely the king of concise radio communcation and force my students to be that way from day one. VNY may be the 800 lb gorilla of the GA airport world, but SNA is not far behind.

And perhaps that’s the greater lesson: be sensitive to the environment you’re flying in. If the frequency is jam-packed with traffic and the weather stinks, keep it short and sweet, speak clearly, and listen up. If it’s the middle of the night and you’re the only guy on the radio, then you can relax a bit.

For what it’s worth, my biggest pet peeve is pilots who disregard the standard phonetic alphabet in favor of ‘cute’ substitutes because they think it sounds cool. I have a small aneurism every time I hear that kind of thing. (Note to any FAA medical personnel reading this: I didn’t say that).

The July 25th edition of Fortune magazine features a pretty good analysis of the emerging challenges America faces from the likes of India and China. And, frankly, from our own affluence.

The article is particularly noteworthy because globalization is making it harder to seperate the wheat from the chaff when attempting to define causes and solutions. It’s not an “us vs. them” situation anymore.

Not that it ever was. But American companies now assemble American-designed products using parts manufactured offshore. Or vice versa. A foreign company will assemble their products here in the United States using parts that were manufactured by American. The Honda Accord is a good example. Is it a foreign product, or a domestic one? And while you’re pondering that one, perhaps you can tell me whether the chicken or the egg came first.

It’s tough to even define what it means to be “an American worker” anymore. Does it include only citizens? What about green card holders? And which camp do American citizens working offshore for foreign companies fall into?

I thought the Fortune article was a good read. Most analyses show either a strong bias toward protectionism or delve into some sort of connection to how the World Bank is exploiting the average worker and all governments are evil.

I’ve always felt that our main advantage over the likes of India and China comes from the fact that we have greater freedom and diversity than any emerging economy on the planet. While they didn’t come out and say it quite that way, Fortune touched on it peripherally:

If it all sounds terribly gloomy, it’s important to remember that gloominess has a very poor record in predicting the U.S. economy. Many traits that have helped us meet previous challenges are still with us: flexible labor markets, the world’s most highly developed capital markets, and a culture that moves on from failure and embraces new ideas.

No one out there thinks our diversity is going to go away. But our freedom…. that’s another story. Since 9/11, we’re less free. Ironically, economic success seems to be pushing communist China in the opposite direction. It’s this simple metric that portends the eventual top dog in the struggle for 21st century economic dominance.

I’m not even sure what to say about this, except it seems clear now why the Rams moved out of Los Angeles. It wasn’t the crumbling Colesium, the antics of owner Georgia Frontiere, or a lack of support from the community. It was the Ghost of Needlepoints Past:

I kid because I love. God bless Grier for being mature enough to not only stick with the name ‘Rosie’ but to also publish a book on needlepoint. He’s was a bigger guy than I am. And at 300 lbs, I do mean that literally.

Speaking of 300 lb. linebackers, that probably explains why few people gave him a hard time about this avocation. His other love was beating the pulp out of an offensive line. Makes me wonder how many people ended up attending the Rosie Grier School of Embroidery more out of a healthy sense of respect for his reputation on the gridiron than out of a, shall we say, ‘love of the game’.

Anyone who knows me is aware that I love just about anything aviation-related. If there’s a film, book, documentary, magazine, or web site that promotes or involves flying, I’m all for it. It takes a lot for me to turn my nose up at anything with an airplane in it.

Nevertheless, the trailers for the new Sony film Stealth look truly abysmal. It’s a shame, because I want to be excited about this movie. But I end up secretly hoping it bombs at the box office. Something tells me my dream will come true.

The best thing Stealth has going for it appears to be the special effects, and those seem about on par with something Fisher-Price might have packaged for sale to the public. The aircraft movement, cinematography, dialogue, and attitudes of the pilots are annoying as hell to watch.

I’ve seen the full length trailer and always come away thinking that I’d be more likely to part with $10 if they’d never created the trailer in the first place. It’s almost as if they were trying to make the worst movie possible.

Stealth. Yeah, right.

It’s that time of year again. The annual dive trip to Mexico!

Most of the guys are driving down to San Carlos this time. Personally, I think it’s crazy to spend 16 hours driving across the featureless desert when America West offers daily (though spotty) service to nearby Guaymas. And right out of John Wayne, too! No getting up at 3 am. No fighting the congestion at LAX. No overloaded flights.

I don’t even have to lug my dive gear around. The guys were kind enough to stop by on their way out of town and schlep it down there with them, just as a precaution. None of us has forgotten how America West lost all our dive gear a couple of years ago.

Despite the hassles of air travel, I’m glad to be going this way. It figures that the only two people to insist on flying just happen to be pilots. Arnie and I are going to meet up in Phoenix and plan our Mexican mayhem on the flight down to Guaymas. Hopefully he’ll keep the max depth to less than 200 feet this time. Note to self: next time, get the DAN membership.

Anyway, I’m outta here! See ya next week…