Owner: nec Temere nec Timide URL:http://putorius.blogspot.com Join Date: Wed, 07 Feb 2007 16:34:07 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: A skeptical geek, with an airplane, happy in an open source world, unsuccessfully trying to avoid working with proprietary systems. Site statistics:Click here
NAV CANADA Internet Flight Planning System-Survey 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Update: According to the COPA non-members page anyone can fill out the survey, there is a link from COPA to the survey so no need to wait.I received an email from Nav Canada requesting subscribers of the InternetFlight
Planning System
(IFS) to complete a survey. For those who may not know this system allows subscribers (pilots or dispatchers) to edit, store and file flight plans using a Web Browser. I don't think my Cherokee and I were the primary audience for this system but it does support us and I have found it quite useful on occasion. The survey had lots of the standard Strongly Agree, Agree, ... stuff but also had two free form text areas where the responder could enter opinions, suggestions or product requests. It was not limited to IFS but also had questions targeting the AWWS products as well. If you aren't registered for IFS you won't be receiving the same invitation. Since AWWS is potentially of interest to all pilots I asked a manager at Nav Canada Customer Service Syst
Update on ethanol in auto fuel 1970-01-01 00:59:59 From the COPA non-members page there is an update on ethanol
in mogas for Ontario:Since the 1st of January 2007, new rules requiring ethanol in auto fuel have commenced in Ontario. Does this mean that aviation use of auto fuel is at an end? Not at all.The new Ontario regulations require that fuel suppliers must sell their gasoline with an average of 5% ethanol in it. That leaves the door open for some companies to sell some gasoline with 10% ethanol and other products with none.This is exactly what Shell Canada has decided to do. Information from the company indicates that they will be selling their lower grades of automotive gasoline with ethanol included but that their premium grade gasoline "Shell V-Power" will remain ethanol free.Other gasoline companies may also provide ethanol-free gasoline around the province at certain times and locations.With the availability of ethanol-free Shell premium all STC holders will continue to have a source of auto fuel in Ontario.However, we ur Read more:Update
COPA Flight Log - Electronic Logbook. Part 1 1970-01-01 00:59:59 COPA in conjunction with Skymark Technologies is offering members a free copy of COPA Flight
Log electronic logbook. As an aircraft owner I have to be frugal, and the price is right. I'm a self confessed geek so my system is littered with all kinds of software that I have tried so what's one more download. I'm also skeptical, I've been in IT long enough to know that some free software isn't worth what it cost, on the other hand some free software is better than any you could buy no matter the cost. So off I go testing the software.Since I'm a geek you might think I could write my own electronic log book. Well I have, but I'm also a pilot so given the choice between using brain cells writing software and flying I would rather fly. So I do have a spread sheet, and an Access database in addition to my hard copy logs, but neither is anything special. But I do know what I want from an electronic log book.The first step is to get the swag installed. The COPA page has some nice screen Read more:Electronic
, Logbook
, Electronic Logbook
Leveraging Blackberries with Open Source 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Warning: May be Habbit Forming.If you work in an open source software shop, have people who carry Blackberries
activated on your company Blackberry Enterprise Server you want to push data to you should have a look at Jan-Piet Mens' Real-World Blackberry MDS Push Applications: an Extensible Framework. This is one of the best organized and presented piece of open development I've seen for some time. His entire blog, or at least as much as I've read, is all like that. Standing on Jan-Piet's shoulders I was able to go from a standing start to pushing Browser-Message data in the morning, and had extended the frame work to include Browser-Channel data in the afternoon.If you don't currently have a Blackberry Enterprise Server but would like to use MDS Push applications there are ways without going totally over to the dark side. But I'll save those for latter. Read more:Source
CNW3 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Back in July 2005, just after buying into a Piper Cherokee 180 I convinced my wife to fly in to the pancake breakfast put on by the Bancroft Flying Club at the Jack Brown airport. This airport features a number of challenges: the surface is good, but unpaved; at 2200ft it is near the shorter end of the spectrum; trees at both thresholds and rising terrain in all directions require good technique of a pilot flying any of the more modest performing examples of the general aviation fleet. The weather was forecast to be spectacular with the area dominated by high pressure giving clear blue skies and 30°C. Density altitude calculations from the flight manual gave a take off distance to clear a 50 foot obstacle as 2000ft at maximum take off weight. Since we would be at least 450 pounds under maximum for the return trip we would have a nice cushion for any less than perfect aviation on my part. I filed a flight plan and we were off.The flight up was uneventful until we joined for landing. Th
Missing Man 1970-01-01 00:59:59 It is always sad to learn of an airplane crash, even more so when it results in the death someone you know even if only well enough to share a beer or hangar flying with. So long Jason, we will miss you. Read more:Missing
Finding a SAR Plane 1970-01-01 00:59:59 While reading Cockpit Conversation this weekend I learned about the selection of the new Canadian fixed wing search and rescue airplane (FWSAR). I'm glad Aviatrix has her finger on the pulse of the nation because I don't seem to have the time to read everything I need to, let alone want to. Leaving aside the political fur ball over the contract I think they picked the right aircraft for the following reasons:The C-27J sports military style glazing in the cockpit, where as the C-295 has a more transport category windscreen. When the mission includes prowling around at 500ft AGL in less than ideal weather surrounded by hills or mountains, the more glass and less aluminium around the pilots the better.The Spartan shares engines, propeller and avionics with the C-130J which can greatly simplify servicing, maintenance, training and operations.SAR pallets can be moved between the C-130J and the C-27J without reconfiguration. While the plan seems to call for all current SAR Hercs to be rep Read more:Plane
Radar Loss of Separation Alerts, ELTs and Smoke Alarms 1970-01-01 00:59:59 How are these things related? Well the simple answer is that they could save your life. An other answer is that they are all complex technologies which aim to solve pernicious problems by alerting humans to danger. They also share a property with all complex technologies, bugs. Bugs in an alerting system lead to two types of false alarms:False negatives, where a real problem goes undetected, or unreported by the technology.False positives, where an alert is issued when there is no problem.False negatives lead to law suits and so get prompt (in the broadest sense of the word) attention from regulators and manufacturers. False positives are often seen as an inconvenience that can be most effectively dealt with by the human when alerted. Unfortunately humans usually have a direct response when face with a high rate of false positive alerts.The tech that cried wolfWhen smoke detectors first became available they had a very high false alarm rate. Often residents would solve the problem by d Read more:Radar
, Separation
, Smoke
, Alarms
Live footage - ALG 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I found this footage amazing when I first saw it back in 1999, eight years later landing technology has improved but I think this is still amazing. Warning there is some strong language at the end.Live footage
COPA Flight Log - Electronic Logbook. Part 2 1970-01-01 00:59:59 COPA Flight
Log - ElectronicLogbook
. Part 1.5The insurance for one of the airplanes I'm listed on is due, so I must provide new logbook times. Goop incentive to finish loading up the COPA Flight Log to see how it does. If you have read my previous posts on this you know that imports of export files, even those create by Aloft cause a crash. I sent an email to Skymark on January 27th, so far I have not received any reply.There is another bug as well. When I enter a number of flights, as in bringing the program up to date with my log book, there is a Save and New button which completes the current entry but leaves the flight entry dialog up ready for the next flight. Unfortunately using this option also occasionally causes the program to crash, loosing all entries made during the session.Once all my data was entered the program was able to give me all the totals, and past 12 month figures the insurance company wants. Overall it seems like a fairly good design for private pilots or stu Read more:Electronic Logbook
COPA - GA Aerodrome Support 1970-01-01 00:59:59 COPA is asking for the GA community to support the creation of an airport in Belnan (near Halifax) from actions contemplated by the local MP and the Minister. Given recent events, as detailed in the article, it seems to me that some grass roots support of an airfield near Halifax is in order.If you scroll down at the link above you will also find that Trudeau (CYUL) and Mirabel (CYMX) now have shiny new landing fees of $46.68 pus tax.More fodder for David's list of infamy. Read more:Support
TSB Report: Difficulty to Control Cessna 150G 1970-01-01 00:59:59 TSB Reports - Air 2000 - A00O0210I came across this report a few months ago. It has all the hall marks of any aviation accident except in this case the PIC, a flight instructor, is able to regain control and bring about a safe recovery. There is an important lesson here for light piston owners and renters. This post is based on the Transportation Safety Board report, Environment Canada weather archives, and my opinions. Let's start with the summary.SummaryThe student pilot and the flight instructor took off from the Kingston, Ontario, airport to practice stalls in the Cessna
150 aircraft. The instructor first demonstrated the stall and recovery, then had the student attempt the same procedure. On his first stall recovery attempt, the student was slow to apply back pressure on the control column to bring the nose of the aircraft up. The instructor took control with the aircraft in a nose-low attitude. When the instructor applied back pressure, he found that the elevator control was res Read more:Control
Too Nice to be Landbound 1970-01-01 00:59:59 This morning dawned a beautiful clear blue sky, much too nice a Sunday to waste on the ground, even at minus 11C. So out to the airport to plug in the preheat and scrape the light skiff of snow that arrived yesterday way from the hangar. One of the things that is unique about my Cherokee is the turn coordinator. In the more common form of the instrument the pictorial representation of the airplane moves in response to bank and roll motion of the airplane. The turn coordinator in my airplane the airplane remains fixed the schematic horizon moves.The first picture (on the left), taken on the ground, shows a close up view of the instrument. I've only seen one other like it in an avionics repair shop, although this configuration seems to be growing in popularity and new ones are available on the market.The next picture is in flight, almost in a rate one turn to the right. The picture is a little blurry from vibration, but you can clearly see that the horizon line on the turn coordinator
COPA Flight Log - Electronic Logbook. Part 1.5 1970-01-01 00:59:59 COPA Flight
Log - ElectronicLogbook
. Part 1It has been quite a while since part 1 of this series so I thought I should get an update going. I haven't had too much success with the import feature. I created a query for my Access database to pull out the data this software wanted and put it in a comma separated list file. Unfortunately when I tried to import the data the Logbook crashed. I checked my file, made a few tweaks, but the Logbook still crashes. So I made some standard entries into the Logbook, exported them, cleared the log and tried to import the file just exported, and it still crashed.So, I'm torn between submitting a support request and entering all my flight data by hand. I'll probably do the former and get a start on the latter this weekend so at least I can make some reasonable comments on the software. Read more:Electronic Logbook
unGPS 1970-01-01 00:59:59 For Christmas I received a Garmin Street Pilot C330. This is a GPS based automotive navigation system featuring a 3.5 inch colour LCD touch screen, a road and address database for all of North America (or Europe), a suction cup mount and the ubiquitous cigarette lighter adapter. It will provide turn by turn guidance with on screen cues and voice directions in a number of languages with a pleasant female voice. I like the British English voice. It sounds a bit like Claudia Black paying Aeryn Sun on Farscape. The ubergageteers out there will be thinking this is old hat, but I still have enough Luddite in me to want to know what the technology is doing before I rely on it and I want to be technology's master, not its servant or peer. I've use a Belkin Bluetooth GPS and navigation software with my iPaq. It is a more open solution in that the GPS can be used with other software on the iPaq, or a Bluetooth enabled laptop. The road navigation software had some fatal flaws, I may post someth
Winding up the Rubber Band 1970-01-01 00:59:59 AVweb was kind enough to post this video to YouTube:It's from 94 so it has been around the web for a while but it is nice that someone found it so we can all look at it again, or for the first time if that's the case. Wikipeadia has a good article on spins and spin recovery as well as another spin video link.Both these videos have the airplane spinning to the left. A left hand or anticlockwise rotation is common because, even though fixed wing trainers are usually certified for spin recovery they often have design elements which make them resistant to spinning, gyroscopic precession of the rotating propeller, as the nose pitches down, will tend to yaw the plane to the left, assisting a spin in that direction. Stalling with high propeller RPM may be enough to cause a spin without any other encouraging input, and carrying high RPM through the incipient phase can cause the spin to flatten. I have done the occasional spin to the right, other than being slightly more difficult to enter th Read more:Winding
, Rubber
Big Sky Theory 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Quite often the immense volume of the sky keeps us safe. Every so often it fails and tragedy happens. Sometimes its just time to call it a day. Read more:Theory
Find out what's happening at Toronto City Centre Airport (CYTZ) 1970-01-01 00:59:59 From the COPA news page: Tuesday, February 13 at 7:30 pm Porter FBO at CYTZ Open to anyone who would like to hear about the future of general aviation in the GTA. Landing fees are waived for the meeting, which will feature: - Kevin Psutka, COPA President, who will provide his perspective on general aviation and airports in the Greater Toronto
Area. - Jim Morrison, VP Porter Airlines/Porter FBO, who will discuss Porter Airlines, what the FBO has to offer for our sector of aviation. - Bill Yule, CYTZ Airport Manager, who will be available to provide information and answer questions about the airport. - a discussion about the need for and future of COPA Flight 32 as a focal point for central Toronto pilots. RSVP and send any questions to Bill Nalepka, Flight 32 Captain at nalepka@rogers.com or call 416-222-2124. Read more:Centre
GRC SecurAble: Determine Processor Security Features 1970-01-01 00:59:59 GRC SecurAble: Determine Processor Security Features For MS Windows users.As reported on the Security Now podcast focusing on hardware data execution prevention (DEP), GRC has released a tool to determine if an Intel or AMD processor supports DEP, 64 bit instruction or visualization. The GRC site does a very good job explaining why these may be important to your machine. Suffice to say that if you are able to enable DEP on your machine it will protect your machine from the exploit that most malware uses to gain control over your computer.In order to be in effect DEP must be enabled on the hardware and in the operating system. SecurAble will tell you if DEP is available on your machine. Then next steps are to make sure the BIOS does not disable it on boot, and the OS uses the capability. I will caution you that unless you really understand this material you should not just enable DEP. If any of your hardware drivers or critical software do not meet DEP constraints Windows may fail to b
Cross Winds and Cross Words 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Cross Winds
Another beautiful day with fresh ninety degree crosswinds and a bare/dry runway. A good day to brush up my crosswind technique.Cross Words
My link to the COPA entry on the Belnan airport fracas attracted a number of visitors. I don't know what motives drove these visitors but from the key words used it seems some were against the airport development. I did some searching and was able to find an articles in the Chronicle Herald, this one and this one from the CBC about it. There are some interesting quotes in the Chronicle Herald from the antagonists. Mr. Johnson, the airport developer, is quoted as saying:I'm not going to tell everyone my game plan. You don't ask businesses to give away their business plans. But I can assure you, it's nothing for the citizens to get concerned about.Which is an understandable position, but not one that will instill a lot of confidence in the non-flying public. Mr. Ripley, a member of a citizens' group opposing the airport, said:We have Read more:Cross
Toronto City Centre Airport (CYTZ) Meeting Rescheduled for March 20th. 1970-01-01 00:59:59 COPAToronto
City Centre
Airport (CYTZ) Meeting Rescheduled
for March
20th.Open to anyone who would like to hear about the future of general aviation in the GTA. Landing fees are waived for the meeting, which will feature: - Kevin Psutka, COPA President, who will provide his perspective on general aviation and airports in the Greater Toronto Area. - Jim Morrison, VP Porter Airlines/Porter FBO, who will discuss Porter Airlines, what the FBO has to offer for our sector of aviation.- Bill Yule, CYTZ Airport Manager, who will be available to provide information and answer questions about the airport.- a discussion about the need for and future of COPA Flight 32 as a focal point for central Toronto pilots.RSVP and send any questions to Bill Nalepka, Flight 32 Captain at nalepka@rogers.com or call 416-222-2124.
UCAP Fodder: Love the Loran You're With 1970-01-01 00:59:59 UCAP Fodder: Love the Loran You're WithThis is really good news to me. My venerable old airplane came with a not so old, but still venerable IImorrow Apollo 800 Loran-C navigator. Believe it or not Garmin-AT still provides database updates for these units, though the price is quite high for more than occasional refreshing. Each time I get ready to lay down some coin for a new database, some one south of the boarder wonders aloud if we still need Loran-C. Apparently in the last round 93% said yes. I hope this will be the end, either they ignore the demand and close the system down, or announce on going support. That way I can either replace the unit, or update the database with confidence.I like this unit. It isn't as accurate as even the most modest GPS, it can be a bit quirky, and speaks its own obscure navigator dialect, but it is hooked in to a dedicated Course Deviation Indicator (CDI) located just below the VOR/ILS CDI. This makes it a handy back up and support instrument to the
COPA Flight Log - Electronic Logbook. Part 3 1970-01-01 00:59:59 COPA Flight
Log - ElectronicLogbook
. Part 2I opened my copy of COPA Flight Log today to make some entries and it promptly informed me that there was a new version. According to the revision page this is version 1.02 and has been out since Feb 1. Here is the change log:v1.02 (Feb. 1/07) Fixed problems with importing csf filesAdded navigation toolbar for logbook viewSo I should be able to import all my flights. I've got other things on my plate right now but I will get to that soon and let you know how it works out. Read more:Electronic Logbook
Next Step 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I guess I've taken this flying thing about as far as I can without tucking into some more training. One of my goals for a long time has been to get my commercial ticket as a prelude to an instructor rating. Over the last year I have been mentally debating the relative merits of the various paths forward and finally decided to start on my commercial. Hopefully I'll be able to get it done over the spring and summer, but we'll see. If nothing else I'll have more flying to blog about. Read more:Next Step
Whither old Friends 1970-01-01 00:59:59 The database of Canadian registered aircraft is available on line for historical and current searches. It is sometimes interesting to find out where the various airplanes one has flown over the years have gone. Sadly I've discovered the registration of the airplane I took my first lesson and first solo on the way to my PPL in, CF-BIS, was cancelled last September. The circumstances leading to cancellation are not revealed, but I do know that home base was Port Mcneill British Columbia from 1990. Registration cancellation doesn't mean the airplane will be out of service permanently, indeed the historical data has two previous C of R cancellations (presumably for transfer of ownership). This machine would be 40 years old, and 16 years in the Pacific coast air can be unkind to the materials. I hope it will find its way back into the sky because the alternative will make me feel entirely too old. Read more:Friends
Good News from COPA and ADM 2007-03-01 15:27:00 New development re: Landing Fee at Trudeau and Mirabel Airports Update 28 February 2007 From the COPA non-membes page:(click here for original story) A meeting was held regarding the unreasonable high landing fees at Trudeau and Mirabel Airports with Aéroports de Montreal (ADM) President James Cherry and Vice-President Normand Boivin on Feb. 19. Representing our interests were COPA President Kevin Psutka, one of our Quebec Directors, Frank Hofmann, and Francois Vranna, a Director from the Aviateurs et pilotes de brousse du Québec. In addition to the unreasonable rate of $46.68 plus taxes, we pointed out several problems to the ADM, including lack of any consultation with our sector and insufficient notice for virtually any pilot to be aware of the new landing fee. In response to ADM’s claim that we have been getting a free ride, we brought to their attention that a fuel concession fee, which was established in lieu of landing fees for small aircraft by Transport Ca Read more:Good News
Linux on the Sony VAIO UX300CN 2007-03-03 14:04:00 A new toy, Sony
Vaio UX300CN, came into my possession. It comes preloaded with Microsoft Windows Vista Buisiness Edition which is only to be expected but, out of the box, runs a bit slowish on this 1.33GHz Intel Core Solo CPU. It has 1GB of RAM, and 37GB hard disk space (about 7GB are dedicated to a recovery partition and 20GB are gobbled up by Vista). As you can see from my tag line, I'm not really a proprietary systems guy so my first question was 'can it run Linux
?' The answer is yes and so far it is relatively straight forward.Googling UX300 and Linux did not result in any help, but I did find Linux on the Sony VAIO UX180P which was encouraging. The first step is to make sure you create the recovery media. With a USB DVD R/RW drive this is also easily done by following the Vaio documentation.The next step is to shrink the Vista partition to make room for linux. On other Windows pre-installed systems I would have used Power Quests Partition Magic, now available from Symantec as
Further Adventures With the UX300 2007-03-07 19:42:00 A comment from supper happy jen (who has lots to be happy about) that she is running XP, and Jan-Piet's blog for today (which directed me to something from the FAA so there is some aviation in here) that he won't upgrade if he can avoid it has prompted me to comment on my personal experience with Vista so far. First some background.At work I use *nix based operating systems exclusively because I work in embeded development, application development, data trasportation and network security. At home I use Windows XP 99% of the time, mainly because, at home, I don't want to do development. Linux desktop applications are getting better, but in my opinion still lag behind XP in ease of use and integration, sad as that is to say. Having a penquin for a mascot doesn't seem to make much difference Jen.I have hear/read some good and lots bad about Vista. The UX300 may not be the best platform to test drive Vista on, but it has a faster CPU, more memory and a larger disk drive than my laptop Read more:Further
, Adventures
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