Flying

CFS

I buy one Canada Flight Supplement a year. I know, I’m a hypocrit. I always tell everyone that I’m all about safety when it comes to flying, but then I use a printed “database” that’s six months old. And I suspect that I’m not the only one who does this. Why?

The obvious answer is cost, but for me, that’s only part of it. But let’s look at that anyway. The CFS is printed every 56 days. That works out to 7 or 8 new editions each year. And since each CFS is sold for around the $30 mark, that works out to $210-240 each year. For the average pilot who flies in and around their home airport this is a hard cost to swallow.

For the worst part about a new CFS every 56 days is the waste. In flipping through the CFS I have, there are only minor changes here and there. A new phone number for an operator or updates to procedures at some remote airport. These are all important; if I was actually flying to the remote corners of the Yukon or northeren Quebec. All that paper rendered “obsolete” because of some phone number changes. And that’s just my CFS. There are thousands more floating around out there.

Instead, I’d rather buy a CFS once or twice a year and then simply be able to buy or better yet, download from the Internet and print, the changes. I’m sure that anyone who needs an updated CFS would much rather purchase a brand new one and I’m okay with that. But for the rest of us GA pilots, it would be nice to not have to contribute to the growing landfill problem. So, in the meantime, I’ll just keep buying my updated CFS each spring.

Of course, the worst answer as to why pilots use an old CFS is that they think it’s “cool.” It’s a way to brag about long they’ve been around. If that’s your reason, don’t bother telling me as I think those people are morons.
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Landing Fees

There is a letter in the Pilots to Pilots section of COPA’s January 2005 Flight newspaper which talks about the brutal landing fees charged to an owner by the Edmonton City Centre airport. The jist of the story is that two trips to the airport cost him $160.50 in his six seat aircraft. You can see the details of how the cost is determined in Appendix A of the Operations Policy document.

The response from COPA is that they have argued that the CFS should list the fees and I agree. The federal government and the airport authorities, however, do not agree, saying that “there is no reason to post the fees anywhere.” I’m not sure why they would think that. In today’s world where I have easy access to information everywhere, why should I have to pick up the phone, call long distance most likely and try and track down the landing fees? To me, that’s the equivalent of putting “Call for pricing!” in a printed advertisement. When I’m comparing prices on a product, I compare posted prices and that’s it. Ya, I might be missing out on a “super deal” but in most cases the posted pricing is as cheap if not cheaper.

When I flew to Athabasca last summer, it took me the better part of an hour to track down someone who worked for the municipality on the phone that knew how much the landing fee was; $10. Ten dollars? That amount is not even worth the time I spent tracking it down in the first place. Why wouldn’t Athabasca want that fee posted? There isn’t any other airports nearby so it’s not like I’m going to go anywhere else.

I suspect it’s the bigger airport authorities that are driving this policy. So perhaps the field should be added to the CFS but made optional. That way, if Edmonton City Centre wants to opt out, they can. Incidentally, if you ever up by Athabasca, I recommend a stop at the airport. The $10 fee is to pay for the brand new runway surface just put in and as such is the smoothest runway you’ll ever put your wheels on. And the people at Central Air are uber friendly. Oh and if you get fuel, they’ll let you park overnight for free. And if you are visiting friends in and around the Edmonton area, I recommend you skip City Centre airport and instead land at the Villeneuve (CZVL) airport and have your friends pick you up there.

If there’s enough interest (and people with fees knowledge), I’ll put together a small web app this weekend to help GA pilots keep track of fees. That way instead of wasting time trying to track down the fee information, they can just go to a single spot on the web. Thoughts?
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Looking Out for the Little Guy

There’s an article in the March issue of Flying Magazine written by Peter Garrison on the T-34s and how several of them have had their right wing separate from the fuselage (there’s a similar article available on Air & Space Magazine). And under almost the same (if not identical) conditions.

Aside from the scary factor, what makes the articles interesting is the fact that T-34 owners complained at the cost of the required modifications and that the FAA had overreacted. I’ve heard similar complaints about Transport Canada, and frankly I’m tired of hearing it. TC exists to regulate the industry and ensure safety for all involved. Unfortunately, I think all to often TC is played out as the “bad guy” and used as a scape goat. When training for my PPL, my flight school went into bankruptcy protection it was ”TC’s fault” somehow. And how many times have I heard a flight attendant tell me that they the safety briefing in French ”because TC says they have to,” like it’s a bad thing.

Granted, I don’t fly for a living and so my dealings with TC are minimal, but personally I glad that someone is looking out for my best interest, whether I’m renting an airplane or flying on an airline. And if TC looking after us means that we get bogged down a bit sometimes or have to do things that may not be one hundred percent necessary, then I’m okay with that.
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Instrument Rating

If you’ve ever wondered what’s involved in getting your instrument rating, Joe Campbell’s IFR Diary is worth a read.

Although I don’t currently have my IFR rating, it has been on my radar for quite some time now. I don’t ever see flying commercially now that I’ve settled into my career as a software developer so commercial licence and instructor are both out. Multi-engine would be great except that not a lot of places will rent you a multi-engine aircraft plus they’re twice as expensive (if not more) to rent or own. So that leaves an instrument rating.

I think a lot of PPL pilots get an instrument rating to offer more flexibility in their travels. It’s no longer a show stopper if you have inclement weather. And while that’s true, for me, it boils down once again to safety. A safer pilot is one with more options. If the weather suddenly changes for the worse a VFR pilot has to divert or turn back and hope that things aren’t as bad (or worse) elsewhere. And IFR-rated pilot on the other hand, has more options available.

And above all, and pilot with their instrument rating has more training under instrument (or simulated instument) conditions. I’m not sure what the statistics will back me up but I would venture a guess that there are far fewer IFR pilots that end up as CFIT stats than VFR pilots.

Totally unrelated, while jumping around some links on flying I found out that Stan Rogers (of “Barrett’s Privateers” fame), died on Air Canada Flight 797 in 1983. Strange the things you come across on the Internet sometimes.

Update: added traceback to a LAHS entry about basically the same thing.
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Patience When Possible

Michael Oxner wrote a blog entry about some radio communications gripes and that reminded me of a conversation I heard on return trip from Edmonton back to Calgary.

Most of my trips are from CYBW to CZVL in a Piper Warrior from the Calgary Flying Club. We have friends in St. Albert and Villeneuve is a convenient (and free) airport to land at. We always take one of two routes; direct between the two airports or via Highway 2 but regardless of our route, I always request an altitude of either 8500 or 9500, depending on whether we’re coming or going, which is the highest we can fly continuously without oxygen. I prefer to fly higher for a couple of reasons; safety, economy and fun. In that order.

Safety. In aviation, at least for me, all decisions I make revolve around safety. That said, the higher I fly the more time I have to react to a situation. In an engine failure, the higher I am the further I can glide to safety. The other factor on this trip is that at that altitude, most of the trip is in controlled airspace. That means that ATC isn’t going to let anyone else run into me. Yes, I realize that ultimately I am responsible for collision avoidance, but I know that ATC isn’t going to direct any IFR traffic into me and I know that other VFR aircraft can’t enter the controlled space without talking to ATC first.

Economy. When you fly in a Warrior, where the POH says that you can 112 KTAS but in reality it’s more like 105, the winds are a huge factor. And where I’m from, the winds are usually better the higher up you go. The plane also burns far less fuel at 10,000 feet than it does at 5,000.

Fun. This is the last reason in my list, and really it more of a side benefit than a reason. To me, interaction with “the system” is fun. It’s also a lot more work but it’s still fun. Of course, the system isn’t there just for me, which is why I always add ”if it’s not too busy for you” to my request for flight following and the higher altitude.

Which leads me into what I started talking about. A little patience on both sides of the radio should be the norm (so long as safety is not jeopardized) and I think it is, but I think that typically ATC is far more patient than should be needed. When a flight following request is granted, it is usually followed by ”remain VFR at all times and advise ATC with any altitude or route changes”. To me that instruction is simple. But perhaps not to all pilots? One beautiful afternoon last summer, I heard ATC politely asking another VFR aircraft if they had ”wandered off course or we doing some sightseeing over some lake?” I don’t recall the pilot’s reply but I do remember thinking how much better that controller handled the situation than the Edmonton City Centre controller who had talked to me half an hour earlier.

I had filed a flight plan that requested a route from CZVL east to CYXD and then south following Highway 2 towards Calgary. When I called the CYXD controller once outside of the CZVL control zone, I told the controller that I was level at 4500 on a VFR flight plan to Springbank. His reply was that I was cleared en route. Being the somewhat passive pilot that I am, I said thanks and carried on at 4500 feet, figuring that either the city controller or Edmonton Centre was too busy to let me hop up to 7500 feet. Two minutes later, the controller called me and rudely lectured me that he noticed my flight plan requested a route over the city and a climb to 7500 feet and that if want something different than the controller says I should ask. It was if it was my fault that he didn’t look up my flight plan when I checked in. In any case, I thanked him for the climb and told him that I figured he was too busy.

Two controllers, two different situations, but what a difference in how it was handled.
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The Web is a Crap Shoot Sometimes

Although I’ve always dreamed of owning a plane, I’ve recently moved from dreaming to doing some semi-serious window shopping. That means I no longer look at the ads in Flying Magazine but instead read the classifieds in the COPA monthly newsletter. It’s still a pretty far-fetched possibility, but at least it’s no longer a “pipe dream”.

In any case, since my interest in an aircraft purchase has re-kindled, I’ve been looking for more and more “real” information on the web. That is, interesting articles and such from real people; not some article written by a paid writer who happens to fly or someone who flys for a living but also writes. I don’t know if that makes sense. Maybe I should have just said that I don’t want information from places Flying Magazine or from AVweb. Although both sources (and others like them) are good sources of information, you rarely get the raw feeds. You know, the unedited information where read about what it’s really like to own your own aircraft, for example.

So where was I? Oh ya, the crap shoot. Part of the whole plane shopping thing is to look around and see what experiences other people had had with plane ownership and what they had done with their plane. Perhaps it only made sense to own if I would use the plane for business. Or for long cross countries. Whatever. Unfortunately, all I came up with was a cool site about a guy who flew his Cessna 170 across Canada. It’s not that there wasn’t anything out there necessarily, it’s just that there is so much web noise, it’s practically impossible to find anything worth while. A search for ”general aviation flying in canada” doesn’t turn up much that satisfies my search for “real” knowledge.

But today, I came across a gold mine of information. And of course, once you find the “entrance” to the mine, well everywhere you look you find gold. In this case, the mine I found has revealed Land and Hold Short, Aviation in Canada, Cockpit Conversation and Up in The Air, among others. Granted, only one of the authors seems to own a plane but it’s a start.
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great airplane videos

If you’re looking for some good airplane videos (and some not so good ones), then the place to go is FlightLevel350.com. I highly recommend checking out some of the crosswind landings available on the site.
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Are short flights even worth it?

I’m always so frustrated flying home from Kelowna on WestJet. It’s a 30 minute flight (45 minutes gate to gate) and yet it takes almost that long in Calgary to get your luggage. Seriously. One time (no, not at band camp) I actually waited longer for my luggage than the time the flight took. Seven minutes longer in fact. How can I get 400 kilometers in 30 minutes but it takes 37 minutes for my luggage to go from the belly of the aircraft a few hundred meters to the baggage carousal.

Anyway, that got me thinking. Is it really worth it to do short flights? Let’s look at Calgary to Kelowna as an example. To fly there on WJA, I go through the following: 30 minute drive to the airport, 60 minute wait to board, 30 minute flight, 15 minute wait for luggage, 30 drive to downtown Kelowna. So it’s almost 3 hours total time. Cost? Between $150 and $250 per person once you add in the taxes. Oh, and unless someone dropped you at the airport, you need to add in the cost of a taxi or the cost of parking at the airport. Add another $50. Bringing a dog in a kennel? No problem, but add a $40 surchange. Great.

The drive, on the other hand, is seven hours. Cost for fuel is about $40 and add another $60 on there for the cost of maintenance for the distance (I generally use 10 cents per kilometer). So, total cost is $100. So flying to Kelowna has saved you four hours but has cost $300 more for two people and a dog. That works out to a cost of $75 per hour saved. Not sure it’s worth it.
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last 200-series flight?

I flew this afternoon on WestJet. The flight was full, which is good for WJA since they just announced that they are replacing their 737-200s ahead of schedule.

But on a sad note, that may very well have been my last flight on a 200-series since it’s getting harder and harder to find North American airlines that fly them. It’s not that I like to fly on them per se. Of course I love flying in general regardless of the type. But the 200-series was the first plane I flew on. And it was the aircraft that I unloaded luggage from as a baggage handler for Canadian Airlines.

It’s a good thing, though, that WestJet is replacing the 200-series aircraft because the way the guys in the flight deck slammed that poor plane onto the runway, those old planes aren’t going to last much longer.
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