Runner's High

This story starts about five years ago when I first realized that combining my fondness for running, maps, and cool watches in one technological device was possible and affordable, even if it did barely fit on my wrist. I bought a Garmin Forerunner 305. It's essentially a stopwatch integrated with a GPS, heart rate monitor, and computer, so I can know where I am, how fast I'm going, and how hard my body is working to achieve it, all at once. And then I can upload the resulting data to my laptop and stare at it in tables and graphs and maps to come to conclusions like "I get really tired when I run up mountains" and "I should run faster." I used to come to such conclusions without the technology, but now I have data to back it up. It's ludicrous how much more fun it is to go running when you get statistics at the end. I don't remember how I ever went running without a box on my wrist telling me if I was doing it right or not.

I took my GPS watch in my flight bag everywhere I went, so that if I had time to go running at the end of the day, I'd have the motivation of knowing how far and fast I was going, and also so I could activate the "Return to Start" feature. Return to Start gives turn-by-turn directions to get me back to the hotel, regardless of how identical the suburban streets, wooded trails, or gravel road turn-offs appear to be. I don't know that I would be still wandering around a highway truck stop somewhere without it, but there's more oxygen deprivation in my brain after fifteen kilometres of pushing my pace than after five hours of sucking supplemental oxygen through my nose at 17,000'. It's nice not to have to worry which forks I took in the trail network of an unfamiliar town.

I have my data all in Garmin's Training Center software: years of runs from Alaska to Florida and many where I have to zoom out on the little map several times before I figure out which little town with limited map information is traced by the record of my exertions. I like to review this data and use the Training Center "Compare" feature to virtually race the years-ago Aviatrix. (I'm pretty sure I can still take her). But while I've become sleeker, faster and more resilient with the years, the watch hasn't fared as well. It became harder to charge, and reluctant to connect to the computer to give up its data. The beeping sounds stopped working, and then it started shutting off in mid-workout. It's well out of warrantee, and the model is discontinued, so I had to choose a replacement. I could probably export the data in a standard format. Garmin is so prevalent in the GPS field that any manufacturer that couldn't convert or use their formats might be a little silly. But my first choice was just to stick with Garmin.

Their website is a mess of poor feature explanations. It doesn't suggest an upgrade path from the 305 to another product. I didn't find an overview on what the focus of the Forerunner, vivo-, or fēnix lines is, nor could I see any coherent logic to the Forerunner model numbers and suffixes.

I thought I'd had an e-mail conversation about this back when the Forerunner was still available and one could send it in to a Garmin-approved dealer for a flat-rate "repair" (obviously a replacement with a reconditioned model, but it was worth the $75 for me back then). Mining my e-mail archive for "GPS watch" found me all my old blog posts that mention "GPS" and "watch". The insane detail I included allowed me to relive some interesting flights and revisit all manner of places. No wonder people who weren't on the flights to begin with enjoyed reading them. This has somewhat inspired me to find a way to keep blogging about them. Perhaps I'll talk to the owner about the blog.

I tore myself away from my former adventures to google up second hand explanations and information on features and backwards compatibility of Garmin products. There are SO many models. Finally I decided to artificially limit my choices by going to a store and making my selection from only what they had. I took my flaky old Forerunner with me, and on the bus ride there, noticed that the crack between the layers of the case was quite wide. With no prying or wiggling, I lifted the face of the watch right off the back, revealing its electronic innards. Well no wonder it wasn't staying on, charging and connecting. I was lucky it hadn't fallen apart during a run. I feared I had killed it by carrying it with me everywhere, including into the flight levels in an unpressurized airplane.

The higher you go in the atmosphere, the less air there is on top of you, thus the less pressure you feel, so that instead of being all squished together to sea level pressure, the molecules are all spread out. One breath takes in less oxygen, unless I supplement it from a tank, which I do, through the aforementioned nose tubes. Anything with air sealed into it that I bring up from ground level retains the same pressure inside that it had on the ground. As it ascends, the differential between the inside pressure and the outside pressure increases, producing a force acting to expand the sealed container. The tank full of breathing oxygen is cylindrical, and its strong walls and robust valves are inspected weekly to ensure that as the pressure outside the tank decreases, the tank will not rupture, bulge or leak from the added force. Potato chips are deliberately packaged with trapped air, to protect the chips, and their bags will bulge out drum-tight, and sometimes burst, as we ascend. The gases in our intestines and ear canals expand and escape through the usual routes. I was afraid that the air sealed into my GPS watch damaged it. But then I realized that the Forerunner 305 isn't waterproof, and my Timex wristwatch, which works perfectly, is. (I'd tell you what model Timex, but it's so old that all the words have worn away, and the chunks of decorative plastic stuff have fallen off, leaving a bare case with buttons on it). A little more research showed me that plenty of people had their Forerunners come apart, sometimes falling off bike mounts and/or being run over by cars.

I got to the store and interrogated the clerk about the selection. I was almost ready to buy a Garmin Forerunner 225. It has the heart rate monitor integrated in the watch itself, with no need for a chest strap. It has a built-in accelerometer to give pace and distance information on indoor treadmill runs. "What about winter?" I asked. "Can I use it with a chest strap in the winter, when I wear the watch on the outside of long-sleeved garments?" To answer this question, the clerk went not to the Garmin website, but straight to the blog of DC Rainmaker, an obsessive sports technology reviewer. I'd encountered one of his reviews while googling for compatibility information earlier, and not noticed that everything I could ever want to know about pretty much any sports watch is on this guy's blog. The Forerunner 225 will pair with a chest strap, for people who mount it on bicycle handlebars, as well as winter runners, but it was missing a couple other features that I wanted. Indeed none of the watches they carried had the Back to Start feature, so I went home without buying any of them, and went back to DC Rainmaker's site.

Ray Maker (get it?) conveys the excitement of taking a new electronic toy out of the shipping box, gazing at its packaging, and then breaking the shrinkwrap. He includes photographs detailing the plastic bags and twist ties containing all the sub-components of the products. He does more running, biking, and swimming to test one device for a review than some buyers will log in the lifetime of their device. Every review is ridiculously detailed. Some people would say too detailed. So a little like many of my blog entries, if I did way more research. It parallels the way I'd like to blog if I had the diligence to drill down to the technological and legal root of everything I said, rather than speculating and drawing on knowledge already in my head. It made me cheer a little when I found a typo now and again, on his site, because it just goes to show that typo-free is not a requirement for an insanely awesome blog. He also displays a lot of integrity: he borrows and returns all reviewed gear despite the fact that his reviews are clearly enough work to deserve a lot of freebies. If you run or bike and like gear, you almost certainly already know his site, but if you don't you're in for a treat. If you never do anything more energetic than opening the refrigerator, but just like tech, especially GPS, you'll probably still want to read his site. The comparison tool there allowed me to quickly determine that the correct watch for my needs is the Forerunner 310XT. It wasn't at the store nor prominent on Garmin's website because it is ALSO being discontinued. I decided to get one now, through a site DC Rainmaker partners with, to compensate him for the work he does. I had some trouble with that site, so posted a comment on his blog, and as I was already thinking of blogging about the experience, I signed the comment "Aviatrix."

It turns out that DC Rainmaker is a long-time reader of Cockpit Conversation. It made me feel like a member of an elite when he asked if I was that Aviatrix. As I told him, some days I’m convinced that there are far fewer people on the Internet than is generally thought. Maybe it’s just you, me, the awesome people who comment on our blogs, and a lot of Chinese spambots.

Meanwhile I ordered a Forerunner 310XT somewhere else, bound my Forerunner 305 together with rubber bands, found it worked perfectly, glued it together with silicone sealant (as recommended by several people on the Internet), and am currently in high level discussions with my printer on why it should print the return mailing label for the 310XT. When the 305 gasps out its final beep I'll do this again, probably with a whole new set of features. I might get one of the "lifestyle" watches that track your every move, including sleeping.

No Room at the (Good) Inns

The next day the clouds are still towering above the mountains. Their fluffy-seeming shapes are pregnant with supercooled water, yearning for something to freeze on, especially something thin and sharp like my propeller blades or the leading edges of my wings and stabilizers. I won't fly through them, but today their bases are higher, and I have mapped a few passes that will allow me to remain clear of terrain while still comfortably below the cloud bases. The bad weather is predominately on the other side of the mountains in the plains, and that I can deal with. I take a cab out to the airport and prepare for flight.

The airplane has waited patiently for me, and is ready to go. Fuel is on account, so all I have to do is verify that the tanks have been filled per my request and I have no paperwork to do with the FBO. I notify company of my intentions and various fallback plans and fire up the engines. Oil pressure rises, suction indicators clear, and the discharge light on the ammeter extinguishes. It showed a discharge as I drew current from the battery to start the engines, but now the needle flips past the zero to the positive side of the scale to show that the alternators are now charging the battery. No, I lie: in this airplane it's a digital ammeter, so it's just the flip of the sign, but my memory stores the information as if it were from as analogue instrument. At the end of the engine run-up I will ensure that the battery is charged, that the alternator output is sufficient, and that the load is balanced between the two alternators. A split could indicate a problem with one of them, or its accompanying voltage regulator. All is well and I depart, heading towards my chosen mountain pass.

I have entered GPS waypoints corresponding to the valley choices I have to make, but they are a back up to the very old fashioned visual flying I will do, identifying my valleys by the shapes of the rivers and the valleys. It's much easier to do by looking at the spacing and shapes of the peaks, but the clouds cover them. I can't use conventional navigation aids, because the rocks block their transmissions. This was before I got my tablet GPS toy, so I'm using paper charts. Once upon a time people did this without charts at all, and of course if I flew through this range all the time I would know it well enough not to need the map, but I can't know every mountain and don't expect myself to. The crucial piece of navigation on this route is to turn right into a valley that will not be immediately visible. This will be after I reach a very distinctive hook-shaped lake. When I do, it's unmistakable, and I make my turn, with the clouds darkening above. The valley widens and diverges into many valleys, but I don't have to choose one because the terrain is dropping away below, the mountains fading to mere foothills. Under the shadow of the clouds I notice how bright my strobes are. It's recommended to turn strobes off in cloud or dark night conditions, but it's broad daylight and I am not in cloud. And then I remember that this airplane doesn't have wingtip strobes. The bright flashes are lightning. The storm is far enough north that I am not concerned about it striking the airplane. I am not dodging clouds or in turbulence or heavy rain. I see photographs sometimes of lightning that show it looking like it looks in my eyes but I think you have to use a fancy camera with a long exposure. My pictures just look like dark clouds. I later drew a postcard to show what it looked like to me, but I must have forgotten to photograph that one before I sent it, because I don't see it with the others.

The thunderstorms are the signal that I have completed my trip through the mountains, and am on the plains. It isn't much further to my destination, and I land and taxi up to the FBO we use there. They are repaving their apron, but they know my by the airplane and value our business, so marshal me to a prime parking spot and greet me enthusiastically. It's nice to be known. I'm bringing this airplane here alone. The other crew member will meet me when the weather becomes suitable for our main job.

I call my usual hotels here, but it's the local rodeo week, and all the rooms are occupied. Every hotel I know is full. The FBO attendant steps up and keeps calling, working his way down the chain until we find an available room. It's in a motel. I watch a little anxiously out of the cab as we go down the highway to find it. The parking lot is right off the highway. The building isn't in terrible repair. I check in at the office, paying in advance, because that's what they require. They give me a metal key and direct me back outside. My room is on the ground floor, in the centre of the horseshoe facing the parking lot. It's not necessary to go through a lobby or past hotel security to reach it. The door is not very heavy and I think I could kick the deadbolt out of the wood myself. I close the door and the curtains, drop off my stuff and go for dinner.

At the end of the day I think about the fact that I feel safer alone in an airplane in a thunderstorm in the mountains than I do in a motel in Alberta oil country. Does this speak to the society I live in, or to the well-documented human failing when it comes to judging and acting on relative risks? I don't know.

Geo Referencing

You have at some point probably seen a movie or a television show, usually for children, that uses a gimmick where a story in a book comes to life, or morph into the action of the show. Usually the pages of a book are shown on screen, with text introducing the story, and then a picture. The picture becomes live action, or perhaps the pictures move around in the text. In a movie it's a sufficiently common device that you know if it starts that way, the movie will end back on the printed page with the ornate words The End. But imagine if you were reading a regular, real book. A familiar reference book whose fonts, diagrams, and footnote style have so long been part of your life that you know exactly what to expect of it. Now imagine that a picture or diagram in that book, the one you are holding in your hand, comes to life and starts explaining itself. That's how my introduction to approach plate Geo Referencing went.

An approach plate is a diagram showing an airport runway and the procedures, points and aids associated with navigating an airplane to a point in space from which a safe landing can be performed. If shows the plan view and the side view, with symbols showing where and how to turn, minimum altitudes for each sector and part of the approach, distances, magnetic variation, and type of lighting. It tells you the frequencies for ATC, how much to add to your minimum altitude if using a remote altimeter setting, and has an effective date. The Canada Air Pilot for each region, the physical book in which these things are published is reprinted with changes every 56 days. Most plates don't change from one revision cycle to the next, but the whole CAP is reprinted. When the new one comes you strip the coil bindings off the old one and toss the pages into the recycling. You can tell there's no change if the new plate has the same effective date, worth looking at in case you have inadvertently memorized some data that has changed.

With the Fore Flight electronic flight bag, these approach plates are replicated on the iPad. Instead of paging through the coil-bound CAP trying to guess whether a particular airport will be alphabetized under its own name, or considered a sub-plate of the larger nearby airport, you hold your finger on an airport displayed on the iPad chart until a box comes up, showing all the airports that your stubby finger could reasonably have been aiming at. Tap More next to the one you wanted, then Details then scroll down to Procedures and you can tap Approach and select the approach plate you want. I haven't done a timed test from pulling the iPad or CAP out of the map box, to looking at the desired plate, but I think the iPad is faster. The paper one is easier to read in bright light conditions, even with the iPad turned up full, but in dim light the self-illuminating iPad is great, until it is pitch black dark, at which point it becomes too bright, even if you follow the instructions and turn the brightness to minimum in settings before dimming within the app.

Either way I get the familiar approach plate, very carefully replicated. It's possible to zoom into the iPad ones to read little numbers, easier than pulling out a magnifying glass, but you have to be careful not to leave it zoomed in, when that moment comes on the approach where you glance back at the plate to confirm the minimum descent altitude, and the data isn't on the screen because you zoomed in to see if that waypoint was spelled with an F or a B. A hundred feet above MDA is not a good place to have to pinch or scroll a screen.

The first time I used the iPad for an approach, I had the conventional paper chart and the iPad both out, and it was VMC. I briefed the approach, flew direct the cleared fix and then eeep! the approach plate came to life. A symbolic airplane representing my position appeared on the screen in the position where I actually was. Even though I have used moving maps for years, the appearance of a moving you-are-here dot, Fore Flight calls it "ownship position" on the plate was freaky exciting magic. Ten years from now pilots will stare at old approach plates in puzzlement, unable to situate themselves mentally. This is a huge benefit for situational awareness. It even switches automatically to the taxi diagram and shows me where I am on the airport after landing.

I learned that this was called Geo Referencing a couple of days ago, from an error message. The app told me that Geo Referencing was not available because the plates were not current. What? These are valid until November 13th. (And the error message came up in October). I think American charts are on a 28-day cycle, so the app auto-expired Canadian stuff after that time period. I brought the iPad into the hotel to try and update them. It's just downloading the same set again, I'm sure, but this is hotel internet. It hasn't worked in all the time I've spent writing this blog entry. Why did it not update everything before I left when I selected "pack" for the flight out here? There are a number of things that Fore Flight doesn't get quite right for Canada, and I haven't found a bulletin board or user forum where these things are discussed, to determine for sure whether it is the product and not me who is missing something. I now know that the iPad has to be updated at the same time as I update the GPS database (which comes from the US, on a 28-day cycle).

Migratory Birds

I learned to use a GPS receiver for air navigation when I was working in the north. Many of the airplanes in the fleet had three line text GPS units. Some had none, but even that nascent technology was so useful, compared to the NDB airways and map-compass-watch navigation they supplemented, that captains spent their own money on handheld units, for the days we were assigned airplanes that lacked the magic box. Airports, radio navigation aids and other named fixes are few and far between in the far north. Given a full load of passengers and cargo and fuel to max gross weight, there wouldn't usually be more than four or five airports within range. It was pretty much guaranteed that when we selected the we selected the "nearest" function, the intended destination would be on the first page. That was the quickest way to select waypoints: no tedious dialing in three- to five-letter identifiers letter-by-letter. Back then we just hit NRST (or rather, I don't remember exactly how, selected it from an obscure user interface), and selected the one we wanted from the list.

Of course this technique doesn't work down south, where there may be hundreds of little municipal and farm airports within an hour's range. Now I'm resigned to dialing in my waypoints, one letter at a time, into the much newer, but still not state of the art GPS unit. But every once in a while the way I learned first re-emerges and I hit the NRST button, to be bewildered by a list of unfamiliar identifiers. Today 'm flying in northern Alberta, not much in the way of towns around here, just a big whack of restricted military airspace. I'm given a reroute via a five-letter fix, still called an "intersection" because once upon a time each was defined by the intersection of two airways. Some still can be located that way, but many are simply convenient lat-long points in space. I always wonder why there are so many of them in close vicinity of LETRM. I think it may have something to do with routing aircraft around the military airspace. Usually they aren't that dense outside the terminal airspace of a busy cluster of airports. Or maybe I just remember better not to do that nearest thing when I'm in an urban area.

Approaching destination I hear the controller talking to a pilot who says he's on a migratory bird tracking flight. I'd never heard of such a thing. The controller says it's great to watch the birds migrating on the radar. Wow, I did not know that either. Birds so thick that they paint primary surveillance radar are a force to be reckoned with. The controller offers to send the pilot a tape, and if I weren't busy getting set up for the approach, I might have asked "me too!"

Here's a composite radar picture of bird migration in the US (see the notes on YouTube for an explanation of what you are looking at). I couldn't find a recording of what it looks like on a local level. How many birds does it take to show up, and can you see the V shape of the skein?

I switched to tower frequency and landed in a challenging crosswind, fighting winds twenty to thirty degrees off the runway and twenty-two knots gusting up to thirty-five, all the way down to the runway. I touch down centred and straight and straight, with one little bounce, but I laugh and point out that they were both smooth landings.

Dead Reckoning

As usual I have flight-planned for one task and the onboard satellite communications link to base brings us instructions to do something else. We're to fly direct to a particular airport, and get a maintenance extension from an approved maintenance organization there. We can do that. I punch it in on the GPS, O Mighty Box that guides us safely from place to place.

The GPS in this particular airplane is not that mighty. It's a nice colour moving map, WAAS capable IFR installation, but it has a habit of losing GPS position for exactly two minutes at a time, about twice a day.  We don't fly GPS approaches in this airplane. The database isn't up-to-date and it has a great ADF and VOR.

It's almost nice to have the one or twice a day reminder to keep my navigation skills honed.  DEAD RECKONING says the screen, continuing to show the little airplane symbol, assuming that we're continuing on the same track and speed.  People say that it used to be deduced reckoning, reduced to ded. reckoning, and then converted to dead. I don't know if that's a reverse etymology or not, but some people get quite stuffy about spelling it DED. Garmin does not agree. And two minutes later, almost to the second, it knows where it is again. It isn't a satellite configuration issue. It hasn't lost power. I haven't banked excessively, blocking the GPS antenna. it just does it. We track the issue for a while, trying to troubleshoot but never find its periodic outages corresponding to time of day, time in operation, position, anything.

Eventually when the plane was down for maintenance long enough for this to happen, we pulled the entire unit and sent it in for repair. Like all electronic devices these days "repair" consisted of us receiving a reconditioned model of the same type. It hasn't lost GPS position since, and we bought a database subscription for it, so now I trust it with my life. Or at least with my acute embarrassment.

Getting My GPS Fix

As I searched my bookshelves for a book I needed to prepare for my PPC, I realized that I have been incredibly remiss in not devoting a blog entry to my favourite GPS book, Max Trescott's GPS and WAAS Instrument Flying Handbook. It is dog-eared and filled with notes on the multiple ideas for future blog entries it inspired. Max There are two reasons this entry never has never been written. One is that I had this crazy idea that I was going to be able to fully digest all the information in this book, and then write the mother of all blog entries on GPS, and the second reason is that when I pick it up it's usually because I have to learn something, and get carried away with that.

Today is one of the latter occasions, and I've given myself a time deadline to study this, so I'm just going to transcribe some of the marginal notes I made reading through the opening chapters. "Excellent and now obvious," "Max knows what he is talking about, doesn't just parrot, which explains why I am not understanding things I didn't before." "Explains from zero knowledge without insulting intelligence."

There's lots of information on GPS on the Internet, but my time is worth something in sifting the wheat from the chaff. The Internet seems to be at odds over whether the unit can be programmed to fly a hold. Given that none of the Internet people I saw say it could be done gave useful step-by-step directions on how to do it, I was believing the naysayers, but Max says, "The Garmin GNS 430W and 530W send commands that let an autopilot automatically fly a procedure turn or a course reversal in a holding pattern. On the moving map page, it adjusts the size and shape of holding patterns based on an aircraft's speed and the winds aloft. Once established in a hold, it can command the autopilot to fly the holding pattern as long as you'd like." And now I see that the unit will only do this for published holds. Max does give some tips, some credited to a colleague, Doug Stewart, on flying unpublished holds. I'll reproduce them here to enhance my understanding and remembering.

The typical hold clearance (a "hold" is the way an air traffic control asks a pilot in an aircraft that requires speed in order to stay aloft to "go wait over there for a bit") instructs the pilot to fly directly from her present position to a specified point (called a "fix"). The fix can be any defined point in space, like "thirteen miles from the ABC VOR on a bearing of 298 degrees" but usually it's a VOR or an NDB. The clearance then includes a vague direction (north, east, southwest) from the fix to hold and an exact track on which to be inbound to the fix each time she circles around. The goal is to fly a little racetrack pattern, with each inbound leg taking exactly one minute and being right on the specified track. The outbound leg isn't necessarily parallel or one minute, because winds mess us up. What also messes me up is trying to learn a procedure I use once a year when I renew my qualifications. But if I master this I can probably also use it to fly shuttle climbs and descents, which I do use in real life.

So here is what I should do: Once assigned the holding fix I set the course direct to it, with the autopilot in NAV mode to track to it. Once the autopilot has figured out the heading that will hold me on that course, I should bug that heading and fly in HDG mode on the autopilot, while I set up the hold. I hit direct to again on the autopilot and enter the inbound course as the desired track. That makes it show a pink line to the fix along that track. I should put it in OBS mode so it doesn't automatically go on to the next waypoint. Reaching the fix, I turn the heading bug to my calculated outbound heading. When I have flown outbound for the necessary time I should use the heading bug to turn inbound, but when I am within 45 degrees of the desired inbound track, I turn the autopilot back to NAV and it will intercept and track inbound. In a direct entry, I can use the ETE feature of the GPS to figure out my timing, by looking at the distance when it hits one minute, and I can look at the wind correction to figure out my outbound correction angle. Curiously he suggests triple the inbound correction, while I use double.

I see Max Trescott also sells a CD ROM course for $100. Given that that's the cost of about twenty minutes of dual instruction in a light twin, I suspect it would be worth one's while.

Diversions

The days start early in the summer. Our flight planning is done in the space between the completion of eight hours of sleep and the engine start time required to be in the right place at the right time. If we're lucky, hotel breakfast is also available during that period. The real reason my charts need replacing every 56 days has more to do with the effects of toast and orange juice than of airspace changes. Ironically the further the place we need to be is from the place sleep and flight planning occur, the less time in which I have to do flight planning. I look at the GFAs and scan as many NOTAMs as I can for runway closures and fuel unavailability. The weather is generally good, I don't see any problems that will stop us from reaching our destination, or slow us down enough to affect planning.

We have some work to do, but the main goal of the day's flight is to get the airplane back to base for a scheduled inspection, so when the work is done I push a couple of buttons on the magic GPS box--I love that box so much. I can't imagine how much time I would have had to spend flight planning every morning if I had to get from A to B for innumerable values of A and B not necessarily known in advance of take off, without GPS. We don't have enough fuel to get all the way to base, but I have a good picture in my head of the airports along the route, and I can check my intuition by adding my choice as a GPS waypoint to see how far it is and how straight a line it makes. Not requiring a detour is a good property for an en route fuel stop, but I also need to consider the quality of the apron so we won't contaminate or damage our equipment and the ease of fuelling. Better to go a few minutes out of the way for an airport with an easy drive-up fuel pump with a high flow rate than to land at one that is right on the way but requires waiting for a slow response to a callout.

The visibility is dropping straight ahead. It's not obvious at first, because there isn't anything I'm looking for many miles straight ahead, but the next sign is that the cloud layer above gets a little darker. The unmissable sign is when the clouds ahead are illuminated by lightning. I'm flying towards an active thunderstorm. I deviate towards a lighter area of the sky and try to turn back behind the storm that blocked me, but there's another one too close behind it. I call flight services and pick up SIGMET M1, reporting this line of previously unforecast thunderstorms and forecasting them to remain. I love that radar and other modern technologies allow weather forecasters to sit in another province and see the factors that lead to thunderstorms forming, but that these ones still managed to sneak in without being on the GFA. There are enough of them that I have to bypass two airports and proceed to my third choice airport for landing.

I land behind and park next to a small single-engine airplane and chat to the pilot about the weather. It's a smart-looking composite airplane but I don't ask him what it is, because I know it's something I should recognize, and am just blanking on the type. I go in and update the weather at the FBO computer, and then plot an alternate route to destination. The flight services specialist asks me as I line up for take off if I have the SIGMET. "Affimative, we have M2," I say. I sound so like I know what I'm doing. I must know somewhat, as I get home without incident and taxi to our ramp.

I shut down, and complete the post shutdown checklist items, which includes making a journey log entry. The ops manager keeps the journey log in the back of the airplane, but it's always behind the seat when I fly. I like to fill it out before I get out of the airplane. For me it's the best way to make sure it gets done. Meanwhile our maintenance personnel have opened the hangar door, hooked the airplane up to the tug and towed me inside before I even get my seatbelt off. They do this to me a lot. I'm never really fast at getting out of an airplane after a flight.

And I figured it out. It was a Diamond Katana. I'm slow at airplane identification as well as egress.

Direct, But Not From Here

I mentioned taking deserved flack on my PPC ride for not using the GPS (it had an expired database and thus was not approved for IFR operations) to improve my situational awareness. While approach procedures change, and airway radials get renumbered, it's very rare that an airport or navaid is actually moved and pilots are encouraged to use situational awareness tools that are available to them, whether $15,000 installations or reused pieces of cereal box. (You can make a hold entry cheat sheet that way, if you have the normal problems with holds and not the crazy, make up a new way to screw up a hold everytime ones that I devise. Hint: do not track inbound on your EFC). The GPS avaialble to me here is a Garmin 530W.

It is familiar. There's a large rectangular screen with buttons and knobs all around it. It's a navcom unit, meaning that you use it to talk on the radio as well as tell where you're going, but the radio transmission readibility is poor, so we only use it for monitoring frequencies. I suspect an antenna connection, just because that was the cause of a simiar problem in a C172 years ago, and the maintenance manager said they hadn't investigated that yet. On the left side are knobs to adjust com volume and squelch and nav radio volume, plus there are flip flops switches to exchange active and standby frequencies. That means you never adjust the frequency you are actually using, but select the new frequency on standby and then switch them. That way it doesn't sound like you're in scan mode on your car stereo.

The exact tuning procedure is easy, with one little trick. The bottom left knob tunes either comm or nav frequencies, and by default it's the commuications frequency. You push it to toggle between control of each and it will time out and go back to comm. It's a double knob, with MHz on the outside knob, and kHz, in 25 kHz steps on the inner one. I'm not someone who walks around with a perfect picture of the wavelengths and frequencies of all her devices in her head, so I'm grateful to a pilot who years ago must have forgotten the English word frequency, because while he was in the run up area he asked the ground controller to repeat it with "Vat is ze megahertz?" That simple call forever reminds me that com and VOR frequencies are in MHz and I can place the others in relation, thanks to having learned my metric prefixes in grade three.

The bottom row is buttons: CDI, OBS, MSG, FPL, VNAV and PROC, are also familiar from other modern Garmins like the GNS430, and the right side has a range rocker, the lovely Direct-to button (looks kind of like D> except that the line carries right through the letter and ends in a rightward-pointing arrow), and MENU, CLR and ENTER buttons. On the bottom left is a double knob that cycles between page groups on the outside and individual pages on the inside. Yes, this is pretty much like the GNS430. Not that that means I'm awesome with it. I have a resistance to being really good with GPS units because I fear the loss of the navigation skills I developed before they were so ubiquitous. But really I am already losing those skills, but using GPS badly. In fact, if I learn to use this so well that it needs only the least amount of my attention, and I know its limitations well, that leaves more attention over to do real navigation.

A quick example of something I've already learned and used is how to use the direct to funtion to select a track not direct from my present position, but along a particular track to a facility. It's so obvious, once you know how: select the fix you want, hit the direct-to key, and then on the screen that comes up verifying the fix you asked for, cursor through the fields to the one that shows the direct track and change it to the desired track. Hit enter twice and there is the radial/track displayed on the moving map. This can be used to intercept final approach, a VOR radial or a track to an NDB. It's great when doing the last in wind, because it provides great confirmation that I am really on track, and improves my ability to intercept a track that is a moving and very unsteady target in a turn. (Banking affects the direction an ADF needle points, so you can never be sure you're on track until you're wings level again, making it hard to know if you have to increase or decrease bank to have the turn work out).

Beware of Broken Glass

Loyal reader majroj forwarded me this link to an NTSB study on glass cockpits in general aviation. The term "glass cockpit" refers to integrated computerized information screens that augment and take the place of traditional instrumentation and paper documentation both. Instead of the pilot having to look at a paper chart then at separate instruments showing things like altitude, heading, airspeed time, and angular displacement from a selected line, they look at a high resolution screen that combines all that information and computes time en route and descent profile. Twelve years ago these were new shiny toys that some airlines had, and I remember a "hilarious" joke a friend and I had about installing such screens in a tiny two-place airplane. Now they are commonplace. After the initial learning curve, having that much information available seems to represent an enormous decrease in workload and increase in situational awareness. But the NTSB (the agency that investigates air crashes in the United States) didn't find the evidence supported that supposition.

The study compared aircraft of similar age and performance capability, but unfortunately did not control for the fact that people who invest in glass instrumentation use their aircraft differently. The aircraft with conventional instruments were involved in more accidents overall, but fewer fatal accidents, a predictable outcome when it is revealed that the conventional instruments are in airplanes used for flight training, which involves frequent, short, local flights used for flight training, while the glass cockpits were in aircraft flown less frequently but in long distance IFR flights in less ideal weather. Training accidents tend to be runway excursions and botched landings: embarrassing, expensive, but less likely to be fatal, while an accident on an IFR cross country is more likely to involve CFIT or loss of control in icing and thus kill someone.

The study report acknowledges the problem with the comparison, but doesn't appear to have made an attempt to control for it, which is unfortunate. I'd be interested to see a head-to-head comparison of similar flying with and without the modern tools. The integrated screens are fantastic, but the two big dangers I identify are catastrophic failure and tunnel vision, when the pilot gets so caught up in the avionics that they miss the big picture. Ask me if I haven't done that, in the last couple of weeks, and you'll just get an embarrassed mumble from me. People can literally fly into the side of a mountain or mumble mumble bust their assigned altitude while trying to make the little pink line point in the correct direction. When you learn to use conventional instruments, you learn how failures manifest and how to identify them by cross-checking with other instruments. You learn to disregard bogus information from failed instruments, perhaps using exactly the same technique as your flight instructor used to simulate failure in training: putting a post-it note over it. Once the misleading information is removed from your scan, it's gone and you can make decisions using only the believed trustworthy information remaining.

When the information from all the different sensors is processed and presented together, you don't have as smooth a way of removing the faulty information. The computer tries to make sense of conflicting data and while there are circuits and algorithms designed to remove unreliable data from the equation, the loss of control in Air France 447 is probably related to integrated displays reaching incorrect or ambiguous conclusions about the state of the aircraft.

My hypothesis is that if a study were done comparing the safety of similar flights by pilots of similar experience before and after glass cockpits in small GA aircraft they would find an initial increase in safety, followed by a return to pre-glass accident rates, or even worse accident rates. That is, initially they would increase safety, but then people would start taking greater risks. It appears that psychologically people have a certain level of risk tolerance, so if you make something safer, they'll find a way to make it more dangerous again.

The issue the NTSB identified is training. Just because a GPS display requires less interpretation than a VOR, doesn't mean that it needs less training and practice to be proficient and safe in its operation. Probably the opposite. It needs more initial training and more review to get and stay proficient with just one part of that formula, a complex GPS system. I started a while ago documenting my progress towards proficiency with the G530, but I never finished, and am especially guilty for not raving at more length and detail about Max Trescott's GPS and WAAS Instrument Flying Handbook, a book which I highly recommend to anyone using or teaching on the G430/530/1000. I'm never going to finish learning how to use this instrument, but I will post some more about it and the book.

I picked up my unrepairable camera and went to a store look for a replacement. I took out the broken camera and practiced holding and shooting with one hand, to remind myself how small it was and easy to use. I pressed the on button, and pointed it at things. See, easy to balance, and my thumb doesn't change settings while I'm holding it. And I can see my feet in the formerly broken screen.

"Can I help you?" asks the camera counter guy.

"I, uh, came to buy a replacement for this broken camera, but ..."

"Now it works?"

"Yeah."

He looks at it, takes a picture of my happy-my-camera-works smile and agrees that it works.

I guess while putting it back together after determining that they couldn't fix it, they accidentally fixed it. I know it probably won't last long, so I look at the cameras for sale, but none is as tiny. The company doesn't make that kind any more. Anyone have a Canon Power Shot SD10 they are not in love with? Or one that works really well, and which they would like extra batteries and a battery charger for?

True, Magnetic and Whatever

I'm up north, and I have a whack of GPS equipment on board that tells me which way is which, so the lowly whiskey compass at the top of the windshield doesn't get much regard. Not that I disregard it. A compass is a very cool device, incredibly low tech, but working all over the planet without power. I can imagine an advanced technological society that had lost the knowledge of compass navigation. They could have built so many structures, electronic devices and power transmission lines that compasses didn't work most places, and have so much signage and technological assistance that no one used them anyway.

The Earth's magnetic field lines, with which a compass aligns, encircle the planet emerging from and disappearing into the poles. My compass is a hemispheric shell suspended by a point in liquid (the "whiskey") and free to rotate and tilt to align with the local magnetic field. I can't use it to roll out on a heading because the turning errors are enormous at this latitude, and even in level unaccelerated flight the tilt of the bowl is such that it's not easy to read.

The HSI is a kind of stabilized compass, as it gets its information from a magnetic compass, but right now mine isn't working. It hasn't been removed from the aircraft, because we're planning to go south to Edmonton soon. There's an avionics shop with an excellent reputation there, and the AME wants them to examine the HSI in situ. That would allow them to spot if it's something simple and removes the risk and cost associated with removing and shipping it, especially as we're still orbiting the black hole of postal and shipping services. In the absence of an HSI, I'm setting the copilot side directional gyro; habit and original training makes me look at the compass to do this, even though I have far more information available from the GPS and INS.

I'm tracking 270 degrees true, and the compass reads 260 degrees, which is obviously a magnetic reading. The chart says the local magnetic variation is 23 degrees east of true. The compass correction card says for 270 degrees steer 272, and is reasonably consistent from south through west, and it's dated last month. The computer says I'm crabbing four degrees to the north. How do I put that together to make any sense?

270 true minus 23E suggests we're tracking 247 degrees magnetic, but we're crabbing four degrees north, which makes a heading of 251 magnetic, for which I should steer 253 magnetic. So there are seven degrees missing. I'm willing to believe it's the result of all the extra kit that wasn't running when the compass was swung, because we stow some of the valuable non-aviation equipment before giving the airplane over for extended maintenance. Either that or the universe is wrong.

Eastbound on the exact reciprocal track of 090 true, the compass reads about 035, but I didn't write all the associated numbers down, so I can't play with them.

Depending on Technology

Studying up on my procedures in AIM 3.16, I'm boggled by how much has happened in the last ten years. When I started flying, RNAV means either inertial nav or maybe the system where a direct route was calculated from the relative position of multiple VORs. Selective availability was still a factor, so the idea of doing precision instrument approaches using GNSS was ludicrous. It's a little difficult for me to take the level of sophistication of current RNAV instrument procedures seriously.

Technological change is part of the package of being a pilot, and I berate myself for goggling at the GNSS advances when pilots retiring today went from purely mechanical fuel control units and cables and pushrods to fly by wire electronic airplanes. And then I argue back that no matter how many computers are packed on board, maxing out the already upgraded electrical system, I'm still flying mid-20th century technology, and should I get off my butt and activate favours and hard work to get into an actual airliner someday, I will have to make the same jump in technology as did the Beaver pilots Air Canada hired in the 1970s.

It's getting easier, not harder to fly an airplane safely. I have genuine admiration for the pilots who flew in the far north by dead reckoning, the sun and stars, and the occasional assistance from their compasses, near useless at those latitudes. They probably groused when they had to learn how to tune the ADF and fly instrument approaches, and I can imagine complaining at the dizzying complexity of the VOR, even though a VOR approach is much more precise than an NDB approach.

On the topic of dizzying, how about Laval St. Germain, the director of flight operations for Canadian North (fantastic airline), who recently made the first Canadian ascent of Mount Everest without oxygen. That link is worth reading, a good interview not just who/where/when. I kind of suspect that St. Germain is the kind of guy who, when flying a non-pressurized aircraft without an oxygen mask doesn't hit a timer the moment he climbs through 10,000' to make sure he's back below it within the regulation thirty minutes. I think he might laugh at me when he saw me do that. I was once asked the time of useful consciousness at some altitude, in an airline interview. I didn't know the answer, but I'd love to see them ask Laval St. Germain that. It seems that such things are quite variable.

Wrong Tool for the Job

I'm driving in an unfamiliar city, on my way to the airport in a rental car. I have directions that are supposed to get me right onto the main airport road, but the road unexpectedly bifurcates and I'm pretty sure I was supposed to be on the other half of it. It's not a strict grid system and there are bridges and underpasses, so I can't just turn right and reconnect with the proper road. I pull over and pull out my flight bag GPS.

Of course it's an aviation GPS, so it knows where the airport is. It doesn't know where the roads are, but it's a big enough airport that I figure if I can get going in more or less the right direction for the airport, I'll find a sign with a picture of an airplane on it, and I can just follow those to the airport. The GPS will tell me if I'm getting closer or further from the airport, the bearing direct to it, and if there are any large bodies of water barring my way.

With this dubious logic, I pull back into traffic, casting a glance at the screen once I have forward motion and the GPS can orient itself. Yep, this is kind of the right way. I continue. At the next light it's still showing that I'm going pretty much the right way. Then as the road curves I glance at it again and laugh. The whole screen has gone red! If I travel at a speed greater than would be commensurate with taxiing, terrain within a certain distance turns red to warn me of obstacles. The GPS is terribly concerned that I'm flying too low for safety.

As I go under a highway underpass I spot a sign on the highway above giving directions to the airport. I take the next right and get on that highway. The car is returned and I find my airplane.

Crossing the Mountains Again

The good weather is forecast to last all day, so we meet at our normal start time of seven a.m. If the weather had been expected to move in before the end of the day we might have met before sunrise so as to use every bit of daylight. The airplane is ready to go, because the super-nice airport manager happily volunteered to stay late to fuel us yesterday. I asked him if he owned the fuel business and he laughed. It's city owned. He is a private pilot, too. His interest in having transient pilots happy is just his interest in having a good job and a healthy airport.

We pull the tents and wing covers off -- they weren't really needed, but you never know when the temperature is going to drop more than forecast, and it's probably better for the engines to start at ten degrees than five degrees. I leave the cords coiled by the plug in socket and close up the wing lockers. The engines start beautifully and the equipment that was finicky yesterday passes all its ground checks while I do the run up. I blow the wing boots and test cycle the hot props, even though there is no chance of needing them this flight. I had been only testing them when I expected to need them, but the PRM (person responsible for maintenance) tells me that it is good for them to be cycled every day, needed or not. He also tells me that I don't need to worry about the fact that I can't see the tail boots from the cockpit because the valves on this model are such that if the tail boots don't inflate, the wing boots won't either. I wonder if I knew that once and forgot. I hate that I used to know more about this airplane than I do right now. I hate that knowledge decays in my brain, like sectors on shelved magnetic media.

Once again the winds are okay to use the straight out runway. I don't remember if they were calm, favouring the easy runway or a light tailwind, just that I never backtracked that long skinny runway the whole time I was there. I think there might have been a second taxiway, but I didn't use it. We've been having a bit of a manifold pressure split at takeoff power, so I do a static start so as not to swerve, and so we can record exactly what the split is. It's two inches of manifold pressure at full throttle, and the right tach is just into the red as we takeoff. We've gotten in the habit of tweaking the prop slightly before rotation, just to keep it in the yellow. Engine gauges (the tachometer is for the propeller, not the engine) are green through the roll and I rotate, waiting for a positive rate of climb and landable terrain no longer visible in front of me before I select gear up. Whump whump and the nosewheel gives the last whump then the doors close and the red light goes out, reporting the rubber bits all hidden inside the airframe.

I climb straight up the valley ahead of me, which is actually straight for a bit then a slight turn to the right, as the valley isn't a hundred percent straight. The IFR minima are so high here and the hills give such evident reason that if I had to come in with low ceilings but good visibility beneath, I would give serious consideration to shooting an ILS at a larger airport not far away and flying down the valleys to get here.

We fly over valleys and ridges and cellphone towers. There's one peak that looks like a volcano erupted here, but it's actually the site of a forest fire. It takes three hours to finish the job, so we didn't really miss out by not getting two hours in last night. And I said this yesterday, but I'm going to say it again, this is amazingly beautiful country. It's obvious why people live here. We all resolve to lobby our respective bosses to find more work in British Columbia. And by that we mean the good southern part with the pretty lakes and town names that don't begin with "Fort."

When we land, there's a jet in "our" parking spot. I park at the pumps and ask the airport manager if he knows whose it is. He does. It belongs to the same guy who is now taxiing out in an amphib Cessna single. He should be gone by tonight, but meanwhile we can park behind him. He'll start up on just one engine and taxi out of the way without blasting us. If I read this correctly, that means someone has flown a jet in from somewhere else in order to take his float plane out for a day trip. And people are jealous of my lifestyle. My coworker parks the airplane as instructed while I pay for the fuel (or rather while I sign for the fuel on a corporate credit card). I run the electrical cords through the shrubbery and we snug everything up for the night.

It's usual that we have to wait until the next day to be sure the mission has been a success, but I gently ask if there is any chance we'll be able to get away today, while the weather is still good through the mountains. We don't have another specific job to go to next, but the chances are very high that it will be on the other side of the granite barrier, and we don't want to get trapped here by the approaching weather. I get a negative answer, as I expected. Weathered in here will be nicer than weathered in at Red Deer, anyway.

We all go out for lunch and I order a mushroom burger. It had a name like "mountain of mushrooms" but we're all used to that kind of hyperbole on menus, so I don't give it a second thought. And then it arrives.

The photograph doesn't show depth clearly, but to give you an idea of how thick a plate heaped full of fried mushrooms that is, realize that there is a full sized normal burger completely buried in mushrooms. I had to eat for a while before I even found the burger. No, I did not finish that meal. And I don't expect to see its likeness on Iron Chef America any time in the near future.

After lunch, or maybe before (I'm too sickened by remembering that lunch to check the timestamp on the photos) we drove around to look at the burned out home from yesterday. It was a mobile home, completely gutted, inside a temporary safety fence marked off with yellow caution tape. Parts of the shell were still standing, black, and the inside looked like nothing more than a campsite firepit. There weren't even recognizable appliances remaining. I hope no one has been inside it.

We also went to the mall to look at a display of radio-controlled model airplanes. They were huge and very detailed with interiors and lights and all kinds of details, even little model pilots inside. I would be intimidated to try and fly one, even though I have flown the real version of a few of the types on display. I picked my favourite, the red one below. I guess I like my model planes to be simple archetypes rather than faithful reproductions.

We go back to the room and my coworker calls to see if we should approach the client about leaving early. "Already did: no dice." But I others higher up saw the weather issue too, and the client was happy with the work, so we were released early to scram back to Red Deer, for lack of anywhere else to send us. It's kind of a rule that the more secure the airplane is and the nicer the place you are staying, the quicker you'll be out of there. We untent, unplug, and pack everything up for the quick trip over the mountains. This time my coworker takes the left seat and flies, playing with the new autopilot at first, then turning it off until we're clear of the valleys. See, I'm not the only Luddite who won't trust an autopilot with important work.

The visibility is terrible through the mountains, with mist and an overcast layer above eliminating the contrast between cloud and sky and snow-covered rock. The GNS430 is a very nice piece of kit for peace of mind in a situation like that. We just have one of those though, so I had charts out with geographical safe altitudes at hand. You always have to leave room for something to go wrong in aviation. Because something usually will.

The airplane didn't manage to come up with anything particular to go wrong, except that at altitude the split in the throttles was noticeable to keep the manifold pressures even. Perhaps the wastegate isn't closing properly. We're soon in Red Deer again, and we secure the airplane for the expected snow. Ah spring.

The snow arrives by the evening and I spend two and a half hours completing paperwork and laundry. There's a rumour where we might be going next: it's a Canadian airport and the last two letters of the airport identifier are the same as the first two letters of the name of the community it serves. (Not the initials of a two-word name, the first two letters of the name). If you can name three airports in Canada that match that description without getting the right one, I will (a) be surprised and (b) give you another hint.

Booted Indeed

I successfully fended off the cries of the Easter eggs last night, and am looking at NOTAMs after a healthy breakfast. I hate stuff like this:

100022 CYQR REGINA INTL
OBST STATIONARY VERTICAL GREEN LASER LGT BEAM PROJECTION 0.125 NM RADIUS 501214N 1044247W (APRX 14 NM S AD). LASER LGT BEAM MAY BE INJURIOUS TO EYES WITHIN 5200 FT VERTICALLY OF THE LGT SOURCE. FLASH BLINDNESS OR COCKPIT ILLUMINATION MAY OCCUR BEYOND THESE DIST. LASER BEAM WILL BE ACT PERIODICALLY IN NON PRECIPITATION CONDS ONLY
TIL APRX 1004291800

Not the block of all caps text. I'm not super fond of that, but it's normal for NOTAM. I hate the information about a hazard that I can't do a lot about. Am I just supposed to close my eyes and hope for the best as I go in and out of Regina? (And yes, I phrased like that for all you people who think Saskatchewan's capital city is the funniest thing since Dildo, NL). Also most pilots hate lasers being fired into our workplace, so that's double hate.

The job here is over and I was told at breakfast that I would be released (I'm not actually shackled: that's the word for when they are done with me and I can fly the airplane away) in about an hour. That was two and a half hours ago. So I'm packed, including stuff from the fridge, which I once again forgot to check for proper temperature before putting my snacks in it, so I have a bag of baby carrotsicles. I have instructions from company on where to go next, am flight planned, and ready to go. But I can't go and do a workout, because when the client says "we'll take you to the airport now," that means now, not after I have showered, changed and packed away my workout gear. As it is, all I have to put on my boots, put my computer in my bag, and check out of the hotel.

Just as I wrote that. the phone rang and one of the guys asked "How soon can you leave?" I simply read him the sentence I had just typed, and then met him in the hotel lobby. "Do you have the box of spare parts?" I asked.

"Yes."

Okay, excellent. He helps me with my stuff, and folding the wing covers and things. All very unnecessary, but appreciated. I offer him some carrotsicles, but he declines. I explain that people always turn the fridge up to coldest to chill their beer faster and I forget to turn it down before putting my vegetables in it. He points out that he hears a lot more people complaining about warm beer than frozen carrots, so the temperature is correct.

The fueller happens to be at the field. I guess someone else called him out on Sunday morning. There's a $50 callout fee though, and I think the fueller gets most if not all of that, so he's made some money off us this weekend. He asks me if I need anything, but I'm good on fuel. His daughter is with him so I ask her if the Easter Bunny came to her house. Turns out that that renowned rabbit brought her a bicycle. How awesome is that? The weather is perfect for a new bike, and I think she's the right age to learn.

With my bags all loaded and the preflight inspection complete I fly northwest along a highway. I think every paved road that goes somewhere in this province is designated a highway. The highway parallels a railway and little priarie towns are spaced along it at perfectly regular intervals. Someone told me recently that the spacing of the towns is equivalent to the distance a steam engine could travel before it needed its boiler topped up with water.

I'm ashamed of my reliance on GPS these days. I used to confidently fly all over the continent without one. I never had one during training. Sometimes I'd rent a plane with one in and I'd let the passenger play with it for entertainment. I remember doing time building at night with a student pilot passenger. She had just bought a really fancy tablet GPS; this was years ago, it must have cost a mint. I asked her to keep it hidden from me and periodically quiz me on where I was, how long it would take me to get to the next destination and so on. And I knew. I flew to the southern US in a rented C172 and locals came over to check me out. One guy looked in the airplane and said, "Where's your GPS?" When I told him I didn't have one, he looked at me in awe, "You came all the way from Canada without a GPS?" I remember looking confused, and telling him I had maps. Why would I need a GPS?

Now I'm looking at the GPS all the time, to plan cooling, to stay clear of airspace, to plan my descent. To verify that I have correctly identified the lake on the chart. I try not to look for a while, but I keep slipping up. I can't turn it off, because it's my comm radio now too.

I concentrate on the landmarks. Another highway will intercept the one I'm following and there will be a double set of powerlines five miles back from my destination. I must stay north of the highway to avoid military airspace. I call traffic, slow the airplane gradually as I cool the engine, and find the runway. I add approach flaps, then gear, and on final I double check my GPS groundspeed with the TAS--that's a really useful trick--to make sure I don't have a tailwind. I have four knots of headwind at 1000' agl, but I think none at all at ground level. The windsock is straight across the runway. Windsocks are kind of two-state devices in the prairies. Either the wind is light and variable, or the windsock is straight out. I guess that's because a windsock straight out indicates fifteen knots or more, and fourteen knots of wind is light in the prairies. I touchdown, pull power idle, brake brake brake on the short runway and do a 180 back to the centre taxiway.

I taxi off and look for a place to park. I'm getting an oil change at the FBO here, but they won't be here today because it's Sunday. I would park on the apron in front of their hangar, but a pressurized Skymaster with a November registration has already claimed that spot, and I don't want to park close beside it in case the wind changes and one of the airplanes blows around. All the tiedown spaces that I would fit into on the apron are taken, and I don't want to block anyone in or out of their spot. And I kind of would like to tie down. Maybe it's overkill as this is a pretty heavy airplane and I don't think the wind is too much over 15 kts, but better safe than sorry. There are two spray planes tied one behind the other, and a space with painted tires on either side in sequence behind them. In this context tires like that are usually filled with concrete for tying an airplane to. I know there's not a third spray plane due back any minute, because no one would spray in this wind: the product wouldn't go where you wanted it. I pull into that spot and shut down.

Years ago in another century, the first time there was a big overnight windstorm at the airport where I had my first job, I couldn't sleep after the wind woke me up. I got up and went out to the airport at about five in the morning to check on my airplane. It was fine, but some other airplanes were loose. I called an emergency number posted outside a flying school, because one of the airplanes was theirs and the person on call called a few other people so we became an airplane capturing team. I discovered that it's almost impossible to manhandle an airplane against the wind. They really have been designed to point into the wind. I also saw that the worst damage was from airplanes crashing into one another. And I saw the way the majority of airplanes had come loose from their tie downs. They hadn't broken their ropes. As long as the rope was long enough for a knot to pull tight before it pulled through it wasn't poor knot tying by the pilots that allowed the airplanes to escape. It was almost always the rope coming untied from the tiedown point on the ground. Since then I have disciplined myself when tying down an airplane to always look at what it is tied down to and I have found a surprising number of really solid tie-down points, such as doubled over rebar embedded in a buried concrete anchor, with a rope tied in a thumb knot with only five centimetres of loose end left over. That will pull through quite easily if you wiggle it back and forth.

Like this.

I retie the anchor knot into a bowline, which results in my boots becoming filthy with mud. It's some kind of especially sticky unwipeoffable prairie mud. I think it's made out of cow pee and manure or something. You can follow everything I did after that by the footprints, going to the nose locker to get the chocks, placing them, then back to the boarding door, then crawling in on my knees trying not very successfully not to get mud on the floor while I retrieve my bags, then checking the tie downs one more time, then running after my bag which blew over, then writing a note for the maintenance guys. I haul the bags into the lee of the hangar and call a cab. While I wait for the cab (yeah I thought of calling it while I finished up, but you can never predict how long that will take) hangar cats meow soundlessly at me through the window of the FBO.

At the hotel I turn on my computer and it makes all the right noises, but nothing comes on the screen and I realize there is no hard drive activity at all. I turn it on and off forlornly a few times, then flip it over and pull out the battery. There is a tiny bit of water on the bottom of the computer, but it's not inside the battery compartment. It doesn't work without the battery either. I remove and reseat the hard drive. No joy. Damn. It must have hit the ground harder than I thought when everything blew over. I thought the case would protect it. I open some more things that probably contain no user-serviceable parts, but nothing seems to be loose or wet. Still doesn't work. I guess I'll have to fax the paperwork.

And then I go to another compartment in the same bag that has the paperwork and it's sopping wet, as is a brand new book on GPS that someone gave me. A waterbottle with a not-quite-screwed-on lid has flooded the bag. I don't know which aperture the water entered my computer through, but it's not happy about it. I wrap the books in towels and upend some of the hotel furniture on them to keep them flat and squeeze out the water. I prop the opened laptop up on one side and leave it there to dry while I go and do a workout in the gym.

A few hours later I try the computer again. It works. Resurrection! It is Easter Sunday after all.

Always Watch Your Autopilot

Once I'm clear of Calgary's airspace, I climb to 7500' and then level off and trim every which way while the speed stabilizes. The GPS is set direct to destination, the trackbar to the track I am following to get there and the heading bug to the heading I'm flying to hold it in northwest winds. I turn on the autopilot, and press the Engage button. Unlike Star Trek the airplane doesn't flash and disappear into a rainbow rubber band of light. Instead it rolls into a thirty degree right bank and drops into a 300 fpm descent. I retake control, climb back to 7500', disable altitude control and switch it from nav mode to heading mode. When I reengage it, it follows the bug straight ahead, and left and right when I move it. I go back to nav mode and watch it for a bit. I'm a few hundred metres off the centre of the track and apparently when you're an autopilot this calls for drastic measures to regain track. I guess when you're an autopilot that's your whole job, so you take it pretty seriously. Or when you're an autopilot designed in the seventies, you only know one strategy for getting on track: you bank thirty degrees towards the track until you're within some logic of centred and then you roll level.

It's kind of interesting that the autopilot, which was designed in the 1970s works with a brand new GPS unit. There's no computer in the autopilot and no mechanical parts in the GPS. The truth is, they don't talk at all. They communicate entirely through an intermediary, the HSI ("horizontal situation indicator," the second stupidest aviation abbreviation after DME). The autopilot also talks to the flight director, which is part of the attitude indicator, but I don't believe the GPS participates in that conversation. The GPS tells the HSI how far off course we are and then the autopilot rolls the airplane into a bank to regain the course, with the flight director telling the autopilot when it has reached the bank limit. I have to set the heading bug and track bar manually.

After I get tired of correcting the autopilot, I turn off the altitude hold feature and keep altitude myself while the autopilot holds the course. This doesn't work that well because it doesn't take much force to disconnect and doesn't have a disconnect alarm, and every once in a while I turn the yoke inadvertently and disconnect it, so that it drifts off course. But I persevere. I'll have to get used to this.

Spring is coming to the prairie but there are still snow curls on the ground, highlighting all the ditches and gullies. As I approach the destination airport, I start looking at water features on the ground for confirmation that the runway I am anticipating is the correct one. I get caught by this every time: when the snow is off frozen ponds look just like open water from the air, and the ripples are frozen right in. So they're only useful to determine landing direction if I have a time machine to the day they froze. I take a guess and then compare the GPS ground speed to my airspeed to confirm that I don't have an untenable tailwind.

I land and taxi slowly in, then text the flight follower. He tells me whom to call for a pick up. Fuel is closed for the night, so I park in front of the terminal and plug into an outlet there. I don't know anything about what kind of power I can draw from it, so I only activate the cabin heater to keep the computers warm overnight. The engines will have to settle for tents and plugs. Shiny new engine plugs which keep the heat in in the winter and the birds out in the spring and summer.

I see the uv damage lines on the tire again as I chock. They're just on the surface, but they bug me because they aren't usually there. I unload my baggage, and a box of parts which must be everything they took out while doing the work. The client picks me up and laughs at the parts box. He offers to leave it in his truck so I don't have to keep it in my hotel room.

Supper is something generic at a local restaurant. I use a trick I learned from another pilot to avoid eating more than I need: I ask to have a takeout container brought with the meal. Then right away, before I eat any, I put half the food in the takeout container. That protects me from unconsciously eating it all even though its more than I need. My other strategy for this month is the iTunes tactic: whenever I'm tempted to buy a chocolate bar from the hotel vending machine, I'm going instead to buy a new song from from iTunes. It costs exactly the same and I'll have the at least as much fun picking it out. And they I'll put it on repeat and get up and dance to it.

It's the end of the day so I just check in and veg out. The TV comes on at the weather channel. A lot of hotels do that. If they don't have their own dedicated advertising channel shilling for the pay movies, they have the default channel be weather. It's useful to most people and completely inoffensive. It will never come on in the middle of a violent TV show or a sexy movie. Unless you're offended by pressure charts or footage of a woman walking down the street carrying her cat in a front slung baby carrier, you're going to be happy or bored watching this. And then they toss off a casual mention that a Chinese oil tanker has just taken a dump on the Great Barrier Reef. I literally scream. I don't know what caused the accident. Probably a stupid autopilot. I don't want to read more about it. I hate horrible things that I can't do anything about, and as a consumer of petroleum products I have to acknowledge some responsibility, too. Not too many years from now global climate change will result in easy passage through the once treacherous Northwest Passage and countries that didn't even know it existed before will be plying the arctic waters. It's a completely different ecosystem, but just as vulnerable as the coral reefs. I'm glad I'm not immortal. The future has amazing 3-D movies but dead barren seas.

Hold On

My mission, determined in the previous installment, is to learn how to program a hold into the GNS430 in no more than double the time it takes to calculate the hold and set it up manually. Or at least to figure out how to make the HSI behave like an HSI and allow me to fly the hold manually. I've tried wandering around the menus and scrolling down to the secret parts I can't see right away, but nowhere have I found a choice like "Select Hold" or "Hold at waypoint." I can visualize what the screen might look like, with an option to select my holding point, inbound track, turn direction (default right), desired time (default one minute) and an optional second point if it's a DME hold on an airway. But no such screen is in evidence.

Back to the pdf manual (damn being a pilot is so glamourous) to look for holds. There's nothing in the manual specifically about defining your own hold, but I found this advice online. There is also an iPod application on the GNS430; author Max Trescott generously offered me a promotional copy of the app, but sadly iTunes won't let Canadians do that. Thanks to everyone for your various suggestions. I need to go back to my friend the OBS key. They should have labelled that key HLD. It would make a lot more sense.

So I reposition the simulator to try out an enroute hold. And here's a problem I've never had in the real aircraft. I moved the simulator window slightly, and my HSI vanished. Just poof, gone. Blank spot in the simulated panel. The simulator, in other words, is not without bugs. I exit and restart.

This time, the hold was easy. Using the OBS key you can hold anywhere you have a waypoint.

• fly direct the waypoint
• before you reach it, hit the OBS button to disable waypoint sequencing
• bug the outbound heading of the assigned hold
• cross the fix, turn appropriately, and set the trackbar to the inbound course
• fly the hold just like you would if it were a VOR hold and you didn't have a GPS

It's cool because you can fly a hold at any fix at all, without messing about trying to identify the fix using multiple nav aids, but if it's not a published hold (based on a comment, I'm guessing the American for that is "charted hold") the GPS doesn't do the timing for you.

That technique may sound kind of lame, as it's just pushing a button then flying a hold manually, but by comparison flying published holds on the GPS is not all that whiz bang either. The flight plan names the fix then has the word "hold" on the next line. About five seconds (yeah, real heads up there, Garmin) before crossing the fix it tells you the entry type (only "TEARDROP ENTRY" not any instructions on the outbound heading), or even reminding you if it's left or right turns. The timer is kind of a neat gimmick because it starts the clock at the correct moment, passing abeam the fix outbound and turning towards it inbound, but it's not like you push a button and then sit back and watch the airplane fly the hold. There are cockpit systems that do that, even calculating compensation for wind.

Also, the little kids doing the announcements for the Paralympic Winter Games opening ceremonies did a great job. I didn't realize how small they were until they introduced the Governor-General and they all walked along holding hands.

Confusion is Only Simulated

I knew that Garmin made simulator modules for their products, but I had to search to find it. The FAQ "expert assistant" search returned the answer "yes" to the question of whether there was a simulator available, but didn't actually return a link. It's easy to install though and the 150% view makes it nicely usable on the laptop. I selected the C/V volume knob to turn it on, and it started up fine, running through the same integrity checks as the real unit. I verified that all the flags were as they should be and then noticed a MSG light, so pressed the key to find the message. "Main processor error." I've no idea where that came from. Who would simulate a hardware flaw? It only came up the once and never again, so as long as the real units don't do it, it should be good.

It's well-designed as a simulator. The screen consists of a photographic representation of the physical knobs of the unit with superimposed arrows so you know where to click in order to turn the ones that need to be turned. For the aircraft interface they depict only an HSI and generic simplified autopilot controls. Really simple: NAV HDG ALT, an altitude increase/decrease rocker switch that instantly puts the airplane at the altitude you select, plus a SPEED slider that instantly puts the airplane at any speed from 0 to 600 knots. This takes aircraft performance and configuration completely out of the equation, you just set the speed you would have for the phase of flight, and it acts as both a pause key and a fast forward. The only non-intuitive part is using the OBS and heading bug knobs on the HSI. You need to click on the appropriate knob then hold and drag straight horizontally, maybe all the way across the screen for a large change. It's easy to do once you figure it out, though.

My first surprise was that the menu screens don't wrap all the way around. That is, if you're exploring the suboptions of the NAV menu by turning the inside right knob, when you get to the seventh screen you can't go back to the first one by turning the knob one more click. You have to go all the way back through the way you came. Weird.

I set up a flight plan from Saskatoon to Prince Albert, because aside from having a NSFW name (don't google for images) PA has at least one of every sort of approach. I dial the speed up to around mach one so that by the time I've followed the instructions for selecting a full procedure ILS runway 08 approach and admired all the pretty menus, I'm almost there. I slow down to a more realistic speed for my aircraft, activate the approach and start the descent. It counts down to the beacon, and I set the heading bug to the outbound intercept, but nothing happened. It starts counting up how far away from the beacon it is. I activated the approach again and it started turning right toward the airport, not left on the outbound PT. I let it, to see what it would do, and it turned all the way around. Ack, the logic must have told it to fly to the beacon and then outbound and with the beacon behind and just a hair to the right, that made it do the right 270.

It tracks outbound and I fly the procedure turn then toggle the CDI to VLOC while inbound on the reversal. I notice that the glideslope is flagged off and recheck the frequency. Everything looks okay, but no glideslope indication appears and the distance counts down to the FAF, then counts up again as the map depicts reaching the runway and overflying it. Back to the manual.

This time I program in a sample flight plan from the manual, it's KFDK-KLYH. I finally figure out what I've been doing wrong: I have to make sure that the OBS key is not selected. The OBS option suppresses automated sequencing of waypoints. Silly me, I thought it enabled the OBS.

The example in the manual tells me to select VOR 03 but the simulator database only has VOR04: the manual is from 2009 but the simulator database only goes up to 2006 and the approach has changed. I choose the VOR 04 -- and the transition as told. It's loaded but not activated. How do I tell if it's activated by looking at the GPS display? What happens if I activate it twice by accident? I'm not sure. The waypoints sequence and I try the simulated ILS approach, but the glideslope doesn't work for this, either. I guess its just not simulated.

I set my location back to PA and try to do a VOR/DME arc. It's a 14 DME arc that runs from XEXEX to XETUL (the latter is in line with the approach). I'm starting at the YPA VOR, not the way you'd do a real one, but I want to see how this works. I can see how to go direct XEXEX, but I aim manually for the arc, west of XEXEX, trying to set the obs to a radial perpendicular to the arc where I will intercept it, as I would without the GPS, but it doesn't work that way. I have to set it along the arc and it does the conversion itself. Even when I set the CDI to VLOC I can't use it the familiar way. The main nav screen doesn't tell me my DME from the VOR. I'd prefer that this do a better job or enhancing rather than completely replacing old habits. It directs me to turn left onto the approach before reaching the fly-by waypoint at XETUL. I turned as directed and then had to correct back to the right in order to get on the radial by PUVER. That was no good. I don't trust it so I'm doing things myself and we're fighting and making a mess. Try again, this time from the south.

I go way out so there's lots of room and select vectors so I won't be asked to go to XIBEV. I fly direct BETIM. It's irritating that it doesn't tell me the ONE piece of information I want setting up for a DME arc: my DME! I'm 16 nm from BETIM, which is 3.5 nm from YPA and it's a 14 DME arc, so I have a few miles. If BETIM to YPA were a straigt line I'd be expecting to intercept at 10.5, from BETIM but they are not, so it should be before then. Yet, crap! I'm 9.1 from YPA and there's no arc intercept depicted and no turn instruction. I guess "vectors" was vectors to the final approach for the VOR/DME 08 and not for the arc. Try again.

What you have to do, is what I did before, set up for the DME arc, choosing one of the endpoints XEXEX as the initial fix, then go into the flight plan where you see the sequenced waypoints XEXEX, dme arc, XETUL, PUVER, BETIM all one below the other. Activate the cursor, scroll down to dme arc, and select direct to. This is going to work. I pull up the NRST screen that shows me the GPS distance from the VOR and it's showing 15.0 as I follow the directions through the arc. If I'm on the arc, the GPS distance should actually be less than the DME because DME includes slant range, and the depiction on the NAV map shows the same: I'm tracking outside the arc. It's good enough, I suppose but not really clear guidance for flying the arc.

And then it's straight down the approach to the missed. I always have to go missed in this simulator, because there's no way to see the runway. The missed instructions are straight ahead to 3100 then left to YPA VOR. I climb instantaneously with the little rocker switch, check to make sure the CDI is in GPS and not VLOC mode (I'm going to do that as part of every missed approach so that I don't forget on the occasions that it's an ILS approach) and then cancel the SUSP by hitting the OBS button. The simulator turns left as the missed approach instructions specify, but that was chance, because I've since seen it turn right, so remember it is not flying the missed, just going to the holding point. It is entirely up to the pilot to fly the missed as published.

When I did this on the sample approach from the manual, approaching the holding point it gave directions to fly the TEARDROP hold entry. I didn't actually fly the hold there, just repositioned and went back to Canada.

Canadian plates don't usually depict a published hold after the MAP, you just know that you can hold there, on the inbound track, and ATC can direct you to hold anywhere. Back in simulated Canada (don't you wish the real GPS had a transporter function?) I intend to enter and fly the hold manually, because after the missed I'm right on top of it, and too close to scramble into menus. Left turns, my outbound course just right of my current track to the VOR, makes it a parallel entry. I watch a messy station passage on the map view and I make the first right, using the CDI button to pop the unit into VLOC mode, verifying that the YPA frequency is the active one, but the flag doesn't flip. Map view shows I'm clearly past the VOR. Weird. I start the timer anyway and fly a minute outbound. Right turn inbound, flying an intercept heading on the VOR, but map view shows me cross the selected radial with no change to the CDI. Obviously VLOC mode doesn't do what I thought it did. I'll take a vacuuming break and read up on this later.

IFR Procedures with the G430

The GNS430 is installed and IFR certified, so it is approved to work with the autopilot. I program in what it's supposed to do, and then it will give the autopilot directions on how to proceed. My job then is to monitor that it is giving the right instructions and that the autopilot is carrying them out. It's like you could give your car's cruise control instructions from your dashboard GPS on where the speed limit changed and where your exit was, and it would automatically exit and slow down.

The IFR procedures are all stored on a data card, and yes the cards must be physically replaced every 28 days, which I just know is going to be a pain and a half someday soon when I need to escape IFR from somewhere where overnight delivery service takes three months. I hope it won't lock up and refuse to work at all just because the card has expired. [Update: Paul says the updates can be downloaded over the Internet.] Canadian procedures only change every 56 days, unless by NOTAM. Question: if a NOTAM has temporarily amended a procedure can I modify it in the device? I'm guessing no. I'd have to hand fly it.

To load a procedure into the flight plan, I must first have a flight plan (or it will settle for an active "direct-to" command to an airport). I press PROC and it pops up a menu of types of procedures. I use the large right knob to Select Approach (or Select Arrival?, Select Departure? as appropriate). Enter selects, and it presents a choice of procedures depending on the destination airport in the flight plan or direct-to. Assuming you're selecting an approach, it drills down to allow you to specify the initial approach fix (IAF) or that you will be receiving vectors to final. Once you have selected the procedure with the enter key you can choose to load or activate it. Typically you would load it but not activate it until cleared for it, but it looks like you can activate it any time without restrictions. To do that after loading, you press PROC and then choose Activate Approach.

About 30 nm from the runway the GPS switches to terminal mode, i.e. 1.0 nm CDI scaling each side. It's a gradual transition, so if you were sitting there one dot off centre on the 5 nm scaling it doesn't suddenly whip over to full scale deflection. If you want, you can press FPL and right knob scroll through the list of waypoints to review the approach procedures. Seeing as the autopilot is flying, you could do that the way you look at nav radios as you give the approach briefing.

Approaching the IAF it displays your next desired track (DTK) as the outbound from the nav aid. It's up to you to make sure the OBS is set correctly and to decide which procedure turn to fly. It doesn't direct you left or right but just depicts your position relative to the inbound track. About a minute after passing the final approach fix (FAF), the nav aid you'll fly toward on the way back in towards the runway, it directs Start procedure turn, but again it's up to you to choose and fly the reversal. This could be done presumably by hand flying or by directing the autopilot with the heading bug. Question: Is it always about a minute after the FAF? what about those facilities in tight valleys or over residential areas where you have to fly a longer outbound leg? Halfway through the reversal, the GPS sets your desired track to the inbound and leaves you to intercept it. I'm not entirely clear on how I should be using the heading bug here. The GPS-autopilot interface is quite mysterious, given that they are technologies invented close to fifty years apart in time.

The unit does not accept a barometric pressure setting, and does not display altitude on any of the screens I've looked at in the manual so far, so it would appear that the GPS provides directional guidance only, and that the pilot is responsible for instructing the autopilot in step down altitudes and rates of descent on a non-precision approach. (There is a mode to reach a target altitude at a specified location, but presumably that is GPS altitude and is intended for VFR use). The GPS directs the autopilot to hold a heading and the pilot directs the autopilot to descend to an altitude, while the pilot uses the throttles to instruct the engine regarding power input. It's like CRM between a human and two machines: you have to be very clear who is responsible for what.

On a precision approach, the GPS is not approved to maintain either lateral or vertical guidance: you must switch to the VHF navigation signal from the ground-based ILS. The CDI can be set to automatically switch from indicating deviation from the GPS track to the localizer track, so long as you are tracking within 1.2 nm of the localizer, starting 2.0 to 15 nm back from the FAF. If it isn't set to switch automatically, or if you have a less than 2 nm gate, you can activate it manually by pressing the CDI button. In either case, the correct ILS frequency must be set in the VLOC radio, for the switch to occur. The unit will put the ILS frequency up on standby for you, but you have to toggle it from standby to active yourself.

While you are on an approach, the missed approach point (MAP) is the current waypoint. As you reach the MAP, "SUSP" appears above the OBS key and the pilot is expected to either land or conduct the missed approach. To land I guess you just land: the autopilot is still on and presumably the last heading instruction the GPS issued to the autopilot is still valid, so the airplane continues to the runway and the pilot can disable the autopilot and land at whatever point they prefer. To initiate a missed approach, hit the OBS key (and switch the CDI back to GPS from VLOC if it was an ILS approach) then the unit should give directions into the hold. It is not entirely clear from the documentation whether it will take you step by step through an elaborate missed, but at any rate if the missed called for an immediate hundred degree turn away from the mountain, I would be doing that before messing with the GPS for guidance. It looks like the GPS is a fair weather helper that is not willing to help you with the highest workload portion of the flight. It will tell you the correct entry procedure for a hold, but I'm thinking that unless it is a published hold that the database knows about, it would be quicker to work out the entry myself than to input the hold instructions.

Question: does the approach I fly have to be the LAST WPT, such that I can't pre-include the alternate as part of the flight plan? It appears that that is the case.

It looks like the easiest things to forget are: taking care of the vertical profile; activating the approach; and ensuring the correct CDI source for the phase of flight. Anyone who has any IFR experience with autopilot-linked Garmins is very much encouraged to give me pointers here. I am, for example, stymied as to how I define a hold that is not depicted on the plate as part of an approach, if say there's someone ahead of me on the approach and I just need to hold at the NDB and wait for them, or if ATC suddenly assigns a hold while they sort themselves out.

Tomorrow's post (not skipping a day this time) will be me trying it all out in the Garmin-supplied simulator.