Fires

Yesterday we started our first day of actual surveying. The day before that was spent setting up our base station (read that as my operator "W" setting up the base station and me mostly standing around assisting as needed and fanning bugs away from my face). I'm still fascinated by all this mysterious technology.

Later in the day we did our calibration flight which involved climbing to 10,000 ft and performing a series of maneuvers over a pre-selected area of land that is relatively free of mineral deposits. The problem was there was a lot of cloud in the area and we couldn't do our flying over our area at 10,000 ft and still remain clear of cloud, so we tried to improvise a bit and use the readings in the airplane to find another suitable area nearby to do our maneuvers. It was a bit of a crapshoot, but we tried it anyways since we we were already out flying, and the worse that could've happened was that the calibration wasn't up to standards and we had to go out and do it again. To our surprise our processor back in the office actually passed it and gave us the ok. Credit goes to my operator.

The survey flying has been equally hit-or-miss. Not because of weather however, but because of the raging forest fires in the area. Our morning flight yesterday was cut short after only a couple hours because smoke from fires burning nearby were both obscuring visibility and making it difficult to breath. I was doing ok for the most part, but my operator was starting to get headaches from the smoke. The afternoon flight we went to a different survey block which was a little more free of smoke, but once again cut it short as the fires burned closer and the air got thicker and thicker. We got some fantastic pictures of the fires and smoke. There was one spot where the flames were licking up WELL above the tops of the trees. I estimated they must have been at least 40 ft high at the tallest spots. You can look out over the landscape and just see hundreds and hundreds of square miles of burned out forest, as far as the eye can see. Apparently these fires have been burning all summer, and won't go out until wintertime. Fire crews are working here and there to contain what they can near the communities, the rest will just burn. This morning in our survey area most of the first seem to have died down for the most part, but there was still thick smoke in both our blocks, so we had to turn around and didn't get anything done.

I will say that the terrain we're surveying over is fantastic. Its very rocky and hilly, and lots of fun to survey, but also far more challenging then our last job, which was mostly flat swamp. There are big hills, canyons, and cliffs with differences in elevation of 100 ft or more in some places. Its beautiful. One of our survey blocks is in a bit of a valley, with big rocky hills on either ends, and a flat grassy wetland in the middle.

Another plus I like about this job is that Stony Rapids is served by an MF radio service (one step below a true Air Traffic Controller) out of Regina. So I get talk to someone when I'm coming into land and take-off, which is nice so my radio procedures don't get rusty.

Long Trip

All right, so big update. We've started our second job after a couple weeks with time off. After 5 days on the road and in the air we've finally made it to Stony Rapids, Saskatchewan, where our next job is. Its a very small job, only about 4 flights worth. The time its taken us just to get here has literally been double the the time its going to take to finish the job. But that's how it goes sometimes I guess. I don't mind, it was pretty cool to make the trip actually.

From the last job we left the airplane in Geraldton, which is a couple hours by car to the Northeast of Thunder Bay. There the airplane had its 100 hr checkup done. So we had to drive up from London again to get to the airplane. I left on Monday, spent my first night on the road in Toronto, then we spent two days driving to Geraldton. Our first flying leg took us 4.6 hrs Northwest to Thompson, Manitoba where we crashed for the night, and finally another 3 hours this morning onto Stony Rapids. That's 5 towns, 3 provinces, and 3 time zones in 5 days. A lot of miles. I was looking on a map of Canada today and we're actually closer to the Yukon now than we are to Toronto. Kind of funny. If anyone's counting thats 1300 km by ground, and 1600 km by air.

Tomorrow we stop being hotel hoppers and start getting actual work done.

Pushing the Limits

The end is in sight. We figure we have about 12 hrs of flying left, two 3.5 hr flights on separate blocks, and then a long 5 hour flight to finish off the block we're currently working on.

We did a 5.1 hr flight yesterday, our longest flight yet, and man was my butt sore! I think that may actually pass as the longest time I've ever spent sitting in one place, let alone flying, lol. We're trying to push the flights as long as possible, because we're in a bit of a race against time to finish because our 100 hr inspection is coming up due, and its gonna be REALLY close whether we run out of air time or not. So the long flights cut down on unproductive ferry flying to and from the blocks. The one block we're currently working on is almost a 20 minute flight out, so if we can fly longer flights and reduce the number of times we have to fly out there, we might be able to pull off finishing the whole project before inspection. It looks like we'll make it so long as nothing drastic happens. It'd be a bummer to have an hour or so of flying left to do but having to fly the airplane south and wait around for two days of maintenance.

From what I hear my boss is really happy with my work. So far we've only had to re-fly one line due to not flying accurately enough, which is apparently pretty good for even seasoned survey flyers, and as far as quantity goes we're going to finish 20 days ahead of the time originally alotted for the project. My operator and I broke the company record a couple weeks ago for number of line kilometers flown in a single day, which was due in combination to long grid lines which mean less time-wasting turns, and flying our butts off. I heard through the grape vine that my boss mentioned he'd never seen somebody catch on so fast. So thats something I'm proud of, it looks like I may have found my niche.

Speed-bumps

We're once again sitting on the ground waiting for the weather to clear up. This is not ideal, because the client has for a third time added more work onto the project. The good thing is we've been flying more kilometers than the office anticipated we would, so it still may be possible to get out on our planned exit date of the end of June. But not if we keep sitting around waiting on weather.

Another speed-bump is that they're going to be doing maintenance work on the runway on Saturday and Sunday, so we're going to be limited to the times we can go flying. Saturday the runway will be closed from 0700 to 1200, but we're going to bite the bullet and try to be airborne before 7 AM and do a 5 hour survey flight - our longest yet. The longest we've managed so far is 4.8 hrs, but I'm fairly certain I can hold my concentration together for a full five hours before I start to go off the deep end. And hopefully we can hold our bladders as well.

I've also got word where we'll be going next - Northern Saskatchewan, right on the border of NWT. That one's just a short job, probably no longer than a week and a half. It'll be cool to go that far north, and also cool to not have to stay there for very long. That probably won't be until mid-August however. We should be finished this job by early July, and then I'll have the rest of my time off until we head up there. I'm happy with that, it should work out pretty good, cause that'll give me some time off for fun summer things which I didn't get to do much of last summer.

So far though the goal is to be out of here and home by July 7th, cause I have a camping trip on the 9th with some friends which I'd very much like to be a part of. Come on sunshine and light winds!

New Block

We started surveying a new block today. Its more west from the airport than the other survey blocks are, and you can really notice a change in the terrain. We are right on the edge of where the Hudson Bay lowlands start to end. The other survey blocks are very flat and swampy like typical Hudson/James Bay lowlands, but this new block which is about 60 miles west of the other ones is much more hilly and rocky, with much clearer water and more defined lakes. Beautiful wilderness, very much like the Muskokas, except totally uninhabited.

It made it interesting as it was my first real time flying survey in a hilly area. The hills make it a little more challenging than flatlands because you have to concentrate much more on flying the "drape" (following the contour of the land as best as possible).

I also spotted a Moose and she had 3 small calves with her. It was quite the sight. Our survey lines took us over top of them and past them a number of times, so we got several good looks - it was fantastic! They were out in a clearing by a small lake, presumably to get a drink, and our first pass directly overhead scared the mother, so she started herding her little calves back into the protection of the forest, hurredly nudging them from behind. You could tell the calves weren't quite sure what was going on. Quite the sight. They didn't go too far though, as by the time we made our next pass on the next line over they were still there just at the edge of the forest.

I have a cool job.

Cat and Mouse with the Weather

The weather has been teasing us the last two days. Yesterday it was a little on the windy side, but we decided to go and try anyways. Survey flying can't be done in winds that cause the aircraft to fly with too much crab angle, or produce too much pitch or yaw motions from the turbulence because it disturbs the sensors, nor can we fly survey through rain, because the noise created from the impact of the rain drops on the sensor pods also interfere with proper data collection. On our flight yesterday we went out to the block, flew 4 lines (about 30 minutes), and decided we had to call it quits. The winds were just too strong and producing too much crab angle.

Today we were expecting a storm to blow through by early morning, but when we got up it still wasn't looking too bad, so we thought we'd give it another try and take advantage of the calm winds before the storm came. We took off and headed out to the block, hoping the the scattered showers in the area wouldn't be over the block we wanted to fly. They were. My operator suggested we head north to another of our survey blocks that has all the regular lines completed but still needs the tie-lines done. Tie lines run 90 degrees to the regular lines, and are spaced much further apart. Judging by the name you can deduce that they're needed to "tie" the whole grid image together - they allow the processors to properly compile the map image out of the linear data the airplane collects. Or something like that. What do I know, I'm just the driver. Tie lines are spaced much further apart so it only took us about an hour of flying to get those all done before we were out of work. We at least managed to get SOMETHING done to show for our day though. Still moving forward at least.

Hopefully we'll have a semi-good day of flying tomorrow, and then I head south for the airplane's inspection, which we're both waiting for. Due to all the weather days we had at the start we've gone longer than we expected, and we're running out of groceries. We try to buy as much as we can down south where the prices are normal and there's more selection, but the last couple days we've been forced to duck into the Northern Store and bite the bullet on some groceries that cost over double the price of what it costs down south. Nine dollars for a small block of cheese, $4 for eggs, $4 for a bag of potato chips, $1.75 for a can of pop. Craziness. We get a per diem from the company, but whatever we don't spend goes straight into our pocket, so we do like to be frugal.

10 Minutes in the Life of a Survey Pilot

I exit the survey grid. The music playing through the ear-buds tucked inside my headset is rock'in away. I'm in a groove. My operator hits a button on his nav-tracker unit to select the next line over to fly. Immediately I start a climbing turn 45 degrees to the left up to 400 ft agl - away from the next line. Wait for 1000 metres lateral displacement from the new line. This is my time for a quick breather to relax my concentration, check the engine gauges, maybe make a quick radio call to advise other traffic in the area of our presence, or switch fuel tanks if needed. I have maybe 10 seconds before I have to start my turn back in. Radio calls have to be done outside the survey block where it doesn't matter that our transmissions affect the sensor data collection.

I start into my banking right turn all the way back around, trying to keep the bank angle close to 35 degrees - any less and I won't complete the turn in time. I could give myself more space, and take more time turning, but the turns burn up enough valuable time as it is. I watch as the readout for my lateral displacement starts quickly winding down - 900 metres, 800 metres, 700 metres... I've now got another 90 degrees to go to intercept the new line. Six hundred metres, 500 metres. By now I know if I'm going to overshoot or undershoot the line and can adjust my turn rate as needed. I try not to pull too steeply of a turn however; steep turns at 400 ft agl are risky business, and the high G's don't contribute to keeping my operator happy and feeling well. Smooth flying does wonders to stave off fatigue on long 4 hr flights.

Three hundred... 200... 100 metres. I start rolling out level as I approach my intercept. Eighty metres, 60, 40, 20. I roll the airplane level and start a descent back down to 200 ft agl as I fine tune my intercept of the next grid line.

Now I'm pretty close to wings level, flying on-line, and pretty close to the 200 ft I need to be above the ground. Its just a matter now of watching the distance display count-down to entering the grid as I try to perfect my altitude and line intercept. We cross the grid boundary. Time elapsed since exiting the grid on our last line - 2 minutes.

Now its a matter of staying as close to the survey line as possible, +/- 15 metres at the greatest as I count down the distance to exiting the grid on the far side. If I wander more than 15 metres off the line, we have to re-fly it. Today is not too turbulent and I challenge myself to stay within +/- 4 metres. This particular line is 12 miles long so it'll take roughly 6 minutes to get to the other side and start another turn. Once again I'm counting down the distance to exiting the grid again on the far side. I exit the survey grid. Repeat process.

Weather Waiting

The last few days have been a lot of sitting around waiting for weather. A couple days ago we managed to get up in the morning to do our calibration flight at 10,000 ft, which involves flying a box pattern with a number of pitches, rolls, and then yaws on each cardinal heading. Don't ask me what this does. Something along the lines of allowing the computer system to compensate for the movement of the sensor along the 3 axis of flight. But anyways we got that done, and then we had to send that data back to our processor at the office before we got the okay to start the actual survey flying.

Well it turned out my flying wasn't quite good enough (not uncommon apparently for new survey pilots on their first try), because the result data wasn't quite as precise as it had to be, so we had to go up and do it again. Unfortunately some bad weather had moved in, so we spent two days sitting and waiting for it to clear up. In the meantime we got kicked out of our hotel rooms for a night. There's only 6 rooms in the motel, and for last night it had been booked before we got up here, so we ended up sleeping in the common kitchen area.

There's a group of Caribou surveyors who came up here last night. Today they've headed out into the bush for a week to check up on the Caribou they've tagged. One guy we ended up chatting to and he was explaining to us what they were studying and stuff - he showed us a map of Northern Ontario with all the Caribou movements on it - pretty fascinating.

Anyways today we get our rooms back - hopefully. Its not a very well managed motel. Anybody who has spent time up in the north will know what I mean. Some of the rooms were even triple booked but it worked out because some of the Caribou team didn't make it up last night cause the weather was so bad. Its beautiful today though. We managed to get our second try for the calibration flight done, and it went much better this time. We just got the call from the office as I write this that our calibration flight was acceptable. Finally things are looking up. Calibration flight was a pass, weather is blue skies, and we can finally start survey flying.

Final Destination

So Friday morning we got up early again and went out for breakfast. We got word from the office that our GPS tracking system, which continually uploads the aircraft's position so the office can track us wasn't working properly, so after breakfast the three of us headed out to the airport to do some troubleshooting. My operator fiddled around with it for a while and then the Chief and I took the airplane up for a quick test flight to check it.

After that we were pretty much good to go. I finished off the last bit of paperwork I needed done for my PCC (Pilot Competancy Check) and then we were good to go. I shook hands with the Chief before he headed out to go back to civilization. After that the two of us took off and flew north. It was an uneventful almost 2 hours. My operator is interested in getting his pilot's license (no suprise considering he spends so much time in an airplane) so I let him fly most of the trip up.

Once we landed we checked into our motel which is connected to the local northern store... and that's about all there is in this town other than some houses, a small school, and the native band office. On the plus side the motel is not luxurious obviously but its clean and well kept. There's only 6 rooms and we all have a communal kitchen to share. There's not a whole lot of other people using the kitchen here, just a lone police officer and occasionally a couple ground workers for an air service that flies out of here.

This morning we got up to go set up the survey base station, which is a radiomagnetic sensing unit that sits on the ground to provide a baseline for the readings we get from the airplane in the air. We can't start surveying yet. For one we're waiting for the the office to send us up new nav files because the client made some changes to the survey blocks. Also we need to perform a calibration flight first too, which requires that we climb to 10,000 ft and do a series of turns... but the weather isn't quite good enough up here to do that yet. So we're in a bit of a waiting game at the moment, which isn't all bad. We still have some equipment to get sorted out and things to get organized, so we're staying fairly busy at the moment.

Training and Vacation-On-The-Job

So We finally made it to what will be my home for the next 4 weeks or so. After leaving North Bay in the morning we spent another almost 8 hours driving to the small mining town where the airplane was. We got there by late afternoon, and checked into our motel, which was actually a quaint little lakeside cabin resort.

The plan was for the Chief and I to spend the required 3 hrs getting checked out in the airplane, and then another 5 learning how to do actually fly the surveying.

I also had a bunch of exams to fill out - again. Before I left London I was sent all the exams, and I had them all filled out and ready to be signed off, but it turned out they were the outdated versions, so I had to spend some time completing the proper exams.

All told we were there for 2 days, and it was actually a very relaxing time. The lakeside cabins were beautiful, and we had gorgeous warm sunny weather. The cabins all had fully equipped kitchens, so rather then going out for breakfast, lunch and dinner the three of us went to the grocery store to stock up on enough food to cook for ourselves for the next two days. The first night after dinner the Chief and I hung out by the little resort beech swapping aviation stories and watching the sun go down. I snapped a few pictures, and also eyed up a paddle boat that had been pulled up on the sand. I got the okay from the front desk and went down to push it into the water and hop in. Other than getting a wet butt when sitting down it was great to be out on the water with the fresh air and evergreen smell. I could get used to this.

The next morning the three of us were up early to go out for breakfast and then the Chief and I started my flight training. The first 3 hours consisted of the typical stuff - slow flight, steep turns, stalls, the different types of landings, and finishing off with our emergency procedures. It didn't start so well. We started our takeoff roll with about a 10 knot crosswind and 10 degrees of flap set. As we taxied out I asked what speed I should rotate with, but the Chief said he wanted me to feel the airplane off the runway. Fair enough, I recall the 206 I used to fly to have a tendancy to just rise off the runway on takeoff. This time it didn't quite happen as I remembered it. We began our takeoff roll well enough, but as we approached takeoff speed and the weight came off the wheels I pulled back ever so slightly. Nothing happened. I pulled with a little more pressure, but we were still rolling along, now at significantly higher speed. By this time the crosswind started to force the airplane to drift to the side of the runway, and it was clear I was starting to lose control of the airplane. The Chief reached up to take control at about the same moment I found the proper amount of brack pressure on the controls to bring us off the runway. Great first impression. I could just imagine what was going through the Chief's mind at that moment - this knob can't even get us off the ground without screwing something up! I did my best to shake it off and move on.

It didn't take long after that for me to get my flying legs back under me again, and I managed to shake the rust off of my skills quickly enough to avoid making a further fool of myself. We ended up doing the 3 hours of basic training all in one flight, and then took a break for lunch. We went back to the cabins where the operator was putting lunch on.

After lunch I got my first taste of actual survey flying. The guys at the office had put together a sample survey block for us so I could get a feel for what its like to do a real survey flight. We fly the block in a back and forth grid pattern, like plowing a field, with IFR style hockey-stick procedures turns to turn around and set up for flying the next line at each end of the block. Flying the lines with precision is critical, so the airplane is equipped with a special digital course deviation display on the top of the dash right at eye level which shows me how far off the line I am, down to less than a meter. Sitting next to that is the radar altimeter so I can follow the slope of the terrain as closely as possible. The lateral limits for flying the line are typically +/- 15 meters on either side of the line. Our drape altitude, which is the term for how high above the ground we follow the terrain, is 230 ft, meaning we have to try to follow the rolling hills of the earth as close as possible to 230 ft above ground. My first line I got a taste of how precise those requirements really are. We set up the tracking device, and I started into flying my first practice line. I intercepted the line, noting the display showing 900 meters off the line, then 800, 600, 400, 300, 200, 100, and then I blew right through it as the display showed 50, then 100, then 150 meters out the other side. I corrected slightly to re-intercept, and once again blew through it by 100 meters. And that is how my first line for the next 5 minutes went, as I'm thinking "holy moly, I have to stay within 15 meters?!!".

Luckily I quickly improved. In 15 minutes I had my track nailed down to within +/- 40 meters, with the odd excursion out to 60 or 70, and then soon it was within +/- 30 meters, until by the end of the first hour crossing back and forth over the wilderness at 230 ft agl I was finally starting to get my limits for the most part within 15 meters. But that was about as good as it got. As time went on I started to wander a little bit again. My hand was sweaty, my neck stiff and sore from staring so intently at the displays, and my brain fried. This isn't anything like normal flying, it takes it out of you really easily. The Chief likened it to flying an ILS for hours on end, and thats exactly what its like. It takes that much sustained focus. Every couple minutes during the 180 turnaround to start the next line I get a chance to climb up a few hundred feet and relax a bit before heading into the next line. Its a welcome mini-break. During our turns we climb up to 400-500 ft agl, which is normally considered extremely low for most other types of flying, but after you come up from skimming the tree-tops at 230 ft, 500 ft seems plenty high!

After just over an hour and a half I called uncle. I was toast, and any more practice wouldn't do much good, I needed a break. This is very challenging flying, also REALLY cool. Its far more challenging and far more demanding than flying freight back and forth up the coast. Everyone is patient and are stressing the fact that I don't have to worry about performing perfectly right away. The Chief said my boss isn't expecting a whole lot of production out of me right away, because there is a fairly steep learning curve to it. I lasted about an hour and a half flying the lines, before I started to lose my will to live, but eventually I'll be able to work my way up to about 4 hours flights without wandering outside the limits.

We landed and taxied in to secure the airplane for the night. The next day I assumed we'd go up again for more practice, we had initially planned for 5 hours of survey practice on top of the 3 hours of basic training, and I felt a little bit that I could still use more practice, because I was still wandering outside the 15 meter limit every now and then, but I guess the Chief is confident enough in me that we're not going to bother.

Today we finished up a little bit of paperwork still needed, and then the operator and I headed north to the work site, where I am now, checked into my motel room. More blogging to come later on our trip up.

And They're Off!

So I'm in North Bay for the night tonight. My day started with a 07:55 train departure out of London to Toronto, to meet up with the equipment operator who I'm driving up with. The train ride was pleasant and relaxing. From the train station I took a GO bus a little further north, where my coworker picked me up to start our drive. Its hot outside. The cargo van we're driving up with all our gear doesn't have A/C, which makes for a sweaty ride. Lots to talk about though, I don't know much about survey flying yet. As for right now however, I'm sitting in a nice cool hotel room, after a refreshing shower, out to dinner in a bit.

Tomorrow it'll be an even longer day driving to finish the trip up to where the airplane is sitting. The chief pilot will be meeting us up there, and I'll spend a couple days in training with him before I fly the airplane up myself to the site location to start the actual surveying work.

The operator I'm driving up with seems pretty chill. I think we'll get along pretty well, which is good, considering the amount of time we're going to be spending together.

Thats all for now, just thought I'd fire off a quick blog while I had the time.

A Good Problem to Have

So my second bit of news, on a much happier note than my accident is that I found a job again! It kind of happened right out of the blue actually. I had applied to a number of places back in the early spring, and had a job interview for an aerial fire patrol position, but I only made it to their second-pick list, meaning I didn't get the job but if someone didn't work out they'd give me a call. I wasn't about to hold my breath.

Other than that it appeared that I had struck out for flying work this year, and I resigned myself to finding a job in construction again, which I have several years experience in, and has always been my fallback, even though I don't really enjoy it.

All of a sudden about a week ago I get an email from an aerial survey company I've been sending resumes to every few months for the last year, and they're hiring now. Next thing I know two days later I'm on my way driving down to Toronto for a job interview. The job interview went terrific. I liked the sound of the job, I got a warm and fuzzy feeling about the owner and business, and I thought he was impressed enough with me as well. It turned out he was, because later that night I was offered the job! It seemed like it all happened about as fast as you just read it.

THEN all of a sudden the next day I get another phone call - the fire patrol company. Someone on the primary hiring list didn't work out apparently, and I'm next in line. So in the span of 3 days I go from no real prospective flying jobs this summer and working construction to deciding between 2 offers! A nice problem to have. Both companies seem like great companies to work for, with advantages to each, but I decided to stick with the survey position. It was a tough decision, and some people may think I'm crazy because I just gave up a multi-engine flying job for a single-engine flying job, but I'm pretty happy with my decision. For one, aviation is a small industry, and I didn't want to burn bridges by bailing on one company in favour of another, I already made a commitment and I'm going to stick with it. Secondly, the survey job pays better, and I think its going to be more interesting work overall, and more flexible with time off, which is appealing to me. The job is actually a low-level surveying position flying a Cessna 206, which means that most of the flying will be done at 200 ft agl - pretty intense. I'll be away for 4-6 weeks at a time, and then I get to come home for some time off before heading off to a new location.

Even though I won't be logging multi-time, I'm pretty comfortable with my decision, I think it just may be a job that I'll enjoy enough to stick around for a while, rather than just taking it to build time and move on. We'll see what happens however. As for now, I don't start for another week or so. I was supposed to start right away, but the airplane is down for maintenance, and waiting for parts, which is good cause it won't be such a scramble for me to get packed and gone. Nonetheless I'm itching to get going! Looking forward to more adventure!

Update

So its been a few months since I've written. I can truthfully say that both a whole lot has happened since and not a whole lot has happened, and both are the reasons for not really writing.

Up until last week its been a rough couple months as far as my flying career was concerned. A big reason being that I was in an airplane accident. Ya, you don't have to re-read that, you read it right the first time. Rather then give you all the details upfront I'll make you read the story.

My instructor and I were doing an IFR practice flight in the Twin Comanche to polish off some things for my upcoming flight test. We had done a number of approaches already, and were just flying over the city finishing up some DME holding patterns. During the course of our flight the sun had set and it was now dark. We were on our inbound leg heading towards the airport, and I was just getting ready to make my turn for the last hold outbound before calling it a day. Suddenly the right engine started surging, like it does when I run the auxiliary fuel tanks dry before switching to a full tank. I checked the fuel selector - it was on the main tank just like it had been the whole flight. For training I kept the rest of the tanks empty cause you can only use them for level flight, but I filled the mains which were good for over 3 hrs of flying. I checked my watch and did the easy math in my head, we had been up for an hour and a half, should have lots of fuel. The fuel gauge also showed just under a half a tank, not that airplane fuel gauges are accurate in the least, but it confirmed what our flight time and fuel load indicated. "It looks like we have a real live engine failure." I said as I double checked the gauges, the fuel selectors. I finished up my checks by pushing all the levers forward, and turning on the fuel pumps.

"Do you want me to declare an emergency?"

"Yep, you have the radios."

My instructor called the tower and told them he was declaring an emergency and would like to return to land immediately. ATC acknowledged.

At that point there was very little doubt in us that this would turn into anything but a single engine landing. We were lightly loaded, had the airport 5 miles away directly in front of us and were at 4500 ft. It'd be no problem to fly it in on one engine. Then all of a sudden the left engine sputtered out. In the business of the cockpit I almost didn't notice, there wasn't much change in engine sound since the props were still spinning like mad. Also the Manifold pressure gauges on both engines still indicated in the high 20's, just like they would indicate if we had the engines at full throttle. RPM was indicating around 2000, which was low for what the prop levers were set at. It was only the fuel flow gauges and the fact that we were descending that indicated both the engines had quit. Not what I had expected a real engine failure to be like.

As we glided the airplane in on our long final, you could hear ATC redirecting traffic to clear the way for us. It was a warm and fuzzy feeling in contrast to the frusteration of losing TWO engines. I tried to rack my brain to figure out the problem. I double checked and triple checked the fuel selectors and pumps, played with the magneto switches, and cycled all the levers again. Nothing changed anything. I couldn't imagine what would cause both engines to give up on me.

I mentioned we were 5 miles from the airport at 4500 ft, which is just about 3500 ft above airport elevation. For those that haven't already done the math that requires a glide ratio of just under 9:1 - that is for every 9 ft forward we get a 1 ft drop in altitude. Glide ratios aren't listed for light twins, but 9:1 is pretty close to what a slippery airplane like a Twin Comanche should be able to handle. It was gonna be close. Unfortunately we had almost a 20 knot headwind against us.

I tried to settle on what airspeed to fly it in on. Being a light twin, best glide speeds aren't published. I decided that since the best rate of climb speed typically is in the range of speeds that gives the best lift for the least drag, I'd glide the airplane in at that, which was 112 mph. As we got closer to the airport and lower in altitude, it became apparent that we were in more trouble than we first thought. It was completely dark out, but I could see the lights of cars driving along a country road that rounded the airport perimeter. Beyond that was the dark field before the runway with only the approach light strobes flashing their way into the runway. Roads mean power lines. We have to clear that road at all costs. I fought the almost irresistable instinct to pull up, which would have bled off our airspeed even further, and at best increased our drag and reduced our glide range - or at worst ended in a stall into the ground.

I also thought about how and when to lower the landing gear. The landing gear is electrically driven, and a typical extension takes about 4-6 seconds of transition time from retracted to down and locked. With neither of our engines that would mean we'd be counting on the battery alone to crank down the gear. I didn't want to burn up more altitude by extending the gear too early, but leaving it last minute would mean we'd have no time to troubleshoot problems resulting from the battery not being strong enough to lower the gear on its own. And as you recall we had recently been having some landing gear issues, which had been sorted out, but I was still paranoid and didn't want to take any chances. I decided to do a manual gear extension, which means disengaging the landing gear from the motor and allowing it to free-fall into place. It happens almost instantaneously, so there'd be less valuable time chewed up by waiting for the landing gear to crank itself down, and a manual gear extension is problem free. I briefed my instructor on my intentions with the landing gear, and we agreed he'd handle that task, so I could continue flying the airplane. He stand ready to drop it on my command. As per our cross country flight he'd already seen it done before which was good that he already knew what to do. He pulled up the floor panel and chucked it in the back seat to get ready.

Eventually it became clear we were going to come up short of the runway. It was an unfamiliar feeling to be so close to the ground at night. The runway was just a thin mash of lights on the horizon now we were so low. I steered left to avoid the approach lights and breathed a sigh of relief as the lights of the road beneath me disappeared from my peripheral vision.

"Gear down."

Instantly my instructor popped the lever to allow the gear to free fall into place, and I could hear and feel the clunk.

"Gear's confirmed down and locked." We were a well oiled machine, and I was so thankful to have another set of competant hands in the cockpit.

It was gonna be close, we just barely crossed the airport fence into the open snow covered field short of the runway. I started my flare and watched the airspeed bleed off from 112 to 110... 105...100...

BAMM!! I wasn't expecting such an impact. I felt it in my back and my butt. I thought we were still a few feet from touching down still. The next moment was a flash of flying again, and then sliding along in the snow on the airplanes belly. We came to rest. The lights in the cockpit were still on. Off to our right an approach light strobe flashed. A siren wailed through our headsets, the ELT (emergency locator transmitter, which activates on impact). I was oblivious to all of it though, I could believe or understand what just happened. I looked at my instructor. He looked at me,

"Are you all right?"

"Ya. Are you alright?"

That snapped me out of it. I called the tower. "We're on the ground short of the runway. No injuries... as of... yet." I trailed off and added the "as of yet" as an afterthought. I thought it sounded stupid when it came out, but I was aware that we were still sitting in the airplane, hadn't tried to move yet, and could be in shock. I shut the master switch off and undid my seat belt.

"We should probably let the tower know we're shutting down."

"Ok." I flipped the master back on and made the last transmition that I ever will in that airplane. "Tower we're shutting down."

I don't remember what their response was exactly, something like "Roger, trucks are on the way."

We got out of the airplane, and only then did the whole experience sink in. I looked at my airplane. It was sitting on its belly in the snow. The right wing outboard of the engine had a gash all the way back to the spar. It looked like it was a hair from being seperated from the aircraft completely. The left wing sat limply on the ground, its spar broken as well. Hoooooly crap. It was at that point that the adrenaline kicked in and my hands started shaking. The emergency vehicles pulled up and a fireman asked us if we were alright. The rest is history.

It turns out that the impact was from hitting the side of a small berm at the edge of airport property. We just grazed it actually. We walked back to look at where we hit, and there were 3 deep groves in the snow for where the landing gear struck. We marvelled at how close we came to missing the hill - or plowing straight into it. If we were a mere 5 ft higher we would have missed the hill completely and made a soft touchdown in the snowy field short of the runway. Five feet lower - and well, rather than just the landing gear being sheered off by the hill we would have plowed straight into the side of it, and probably not been around to continue blogging.

The airplane is gone, but we walked away, and insurance covered the loss of the airplane. So ultimately it is a happy ending. As for the cause of a dual engine failure... Transport Canada never did a full investigation since there were no fatalities. Our insurance company conducted only a very small one. A failure in the fuel selector caused the left fuel selector to become stuck in the crossfeed selection. Therefore even though we thought we had the engines selected to feed each from their respective main tanks (as the position of the selector handles indicated), what was actually happening was that the entire flight both engines were feeding from the right main tank, which was eventually exhausted with fuel, while the left main tank was left completely full. Thankfully neither myself nor my AME who maintained the aircraft was singled out as the cause of the accident, the insurance company covered the loss of the airplane, and all ended well.

It is nonetheless a sad way to part with my beloved airplane, but that is the inherent nature of aviation I guess. Stuff just happens sometimes. Overall it has been a valuable experience, and believe it or not, in some ways a confidence builder. How many people can say they've made an off-runway dead-stick landing, at night, and walked away from it?

So thats my first big piece of news, my next big piece of news is on a happier note which I'll cover in another post. This post has become long enough.

IFR X-Country

Yesterday was a beautiful clear day, so we took the opportunity to get my IFR cross country flight done. Its seems rather counter-intuitive, to wait for a clear day to go file IFR, but the Twin Comanche isn't certified for flight into known icing conditions, and in the winter essentially any flight through cloud will be into icing conditions, so even though we file IFR, we still have to make sure the weather is reasonably clear.

In the end it doesn't matter a whole lot however, IFR training is almost all about the procedures. So I got my first ever experience filing and flying under IFR flight rules, which was pretty cool, and not nearly as intimidating as I was expecting. I understand everything that's going on at this point during my training, the mistakes that I do make are usually things I know I have to do, but just forgetting to do them at the proper time.

The flight as far as the training side of things went relatively well, the mistakes I made I thought I could have avoided if I was more deliberate with my procedures, but it all comes with practice I guess. Unfortunately the airplane is once again back in the shop. Landing gear problems this time. Our flight was from London to Hamilton to Kitchener and back to London with missed approaches in Hamilton and Kitchener, and during our climbout on the missed approach in Hamilton we noticed the landing gear lights indicated the gear was stuck in transition. In the mirror it appeared to be retracted all the way up. We checked the circuit breaker, which was still engaged, and then tried to recycle the landing gear. No luck, the gear wouldn't move at all. In between the seats there is a floor panel that can be opened up to provide access to landing gear motor, screw jack, the actuator arm that moves the gear, and the handle for manually extending the gear, so we opened that up to see what we could find. The position of the actuator arm confirmed what I saw in the mirror, the gear was indeed retracted fully.

I figured there wasn't much we could do at this point, so I suggested we continue our flight to Kitchener, do our missed approach, and then continue on back to London as planned.

Coming into London we tried cycling the circuit breaker and then selecting the landing gear down one more time with no luck. So it came down to a manual landing gear extension. I briefed my instructor on the procedure so he could do it while I flew the VOR approach into London. I've done manual gear extensions on the ground before with the airplane up on jacks during maintenance, so I knew exactly what to expect. Its electrically driven gear, so after slowing the airplane down to blue line, you just have to disengage it from the motor, and then insert a lever to push forward and lock the gear down. No pumping necessary, which is generally the procedure for hydraulically operated gear. Gravity usually negates the need for step 2 however. For the post part as soon as you disengage it from the motor the gear just falls down into place due to both gravity and a bungie system. It pays to know your airplane! The procedure went off without issue, I made a smooth touchdown and breathed a sigh of relief with the sound of wheels rolling beneath me. With landing gear problems despite every indication showing the gear is down and locked there's always that little bit of fear (I can't decide if its a rational fear or not, lol) in the back of your mind that the gear could fold back up as soon as you touchdown. Thankfully that wasn't the case though, and we taxied in to end the flight.

Busting Bernoulli's Lift

Today I'm sick with a cold, and the weather's been crap for almost a week now, so no flight training at the moment. Tomorrow is looking up however.

In the meantime I've been lazing around the house, playing computer games and browsing some aviation blogs. I came across one blog by an American flight instructor, which in one post was explaining the theory behind lift - incorrectly. That same incorrect explanation has been a persistant myth among laypeople and pilots alike for a long time now, and every time I hear it repeated it just raises my pet peeveness of it one more notch. So today we'll set the record straight, and I'll do my best to provide proof for any persistent skeptics out there.

The myth is that lift is produced by the curvature, or camber, of the top surface of a wing. The air being divided by the wing at the leading edge must meet up again at the trailing edge, and because the air has further to go over the top (due to the camber), its velocity increases and pressure decreases. The decrease in pressure causes a pressure differential between the top and bottom of the wing, which sucks the wing upwards, thus creating lift. This decrease in pressure is in reference to Bernoulli's Principle, which states that as the velocity of a fluid increases, its pressure decreases.

I am not disputing the validity of Bernoulli's Principle, because that part is true. The error however comes in the assumption that the pressure differential can create enough lift to counteract the weight of the airplane. If this explanation were true, it immediately raises some questions if one thinks about it:

For one, how does an aerobatic airplane fly upside-down? The quick answer is that aerobatic aircraft are equipped with a symetrical wing, which is a wing with an equal camber (curvature) on both the top and bottom. But that explanation creates yet another problem. How does a symetrical wing fly at all?! According to Bernoulli's Principle, it can't, because due to the symetry of both the top and bottom the air wouldn't create a pressure differential. Similarily, in theory, a flat wing, like what you would find on a balsa wood model, or many fabric wings like on hang-gliders and ultralights, would not be able to produce any lift at all either, but we've all seen balsa models fly.

Another problem we come upon is that our current explanation completely ignores what we know about angle of attack. Every pilot knows that term. Angle of attack is the angle that the wing meets the oncoming air. The illustration above would be a wing at an angle of attack of zero degrees. The myth would seem to indicate that a wing could produce lift at an angle of attack of zero. The myth also seems to say that it would be possible to maintain that zero angle of attack through the entire speed range of an aircraft, since lift is created by the Bernoulli Principle, and not angle of attack. This is at odds with any pilot's observations of how an airplane reacts as it is decelerated. It only takes a single demonstration of slow flight to show that as an airplane slows down, the angle of attack increases, which can be observed by the fact that the nose raises higher and higher into the air to the point of an aerodynamic stall. It is this observation of angle of attack that leads us forward to the true explanation of how a wing creates lift.

The majority of lift is in actual fact produced as a result of the angle of attack, which creates both a deflection force underneath the wing (resulting in higher pressure), and a vacuum effect on top of the wing (lower pressure). The vacuum effect above is not however a result of a wing's camber, it is a result of angle of attack. With a wing at a positive angle of attack, the air flows over the top of the wing and is forced to turn a corner down towards the wing. It is at this corner the low pressure zone develops. Note the illustration below of a flat wing moving through the air at a certain positive angle of attack. You'll have to forgive the pathetic visual, I made it in paint, but it gets the point across. I chose to illustrate a flat wing because its easy to visualize the "corner" that the air has to turn as it passes over the top.


So if all a wing needs is angle of attack to fly, why the heck do they give it a camber?! Well the primary reason is for smooth airflow, at a range of attack angles. A flat wing will stall at a very low angle of attack because it creates a very sharp corner over the top of the wing for the air to have to travel. At some point the air won't be able to make that corner, and will seperate from the wing, producing a turbulent airflow. We know this as a stall. When the top surface of a wing is cambered, it allows the air to make that corner over the top of the wing at much higher angles of attack without seperating and causing a stall. The camber makes for a much smoother corner. This, in effect allows the wing to produce lift at slower speeds, which is generally a good thing. This also explains effectively why airplanes designed to fly slow and carry big loads have a wing with a high camber. Its not because the camber itself produces the lift, but because the camber allows the wing to fly at greater angles of attack without stalling, and the greater the angle of attack, the more lift a wing will produce.

This explanation also neatly answers all of the questions that came up with the popular mythical explanation. Aerobatic airplanes can fly either right-side up or upside-down, regardless of whether they have symetrical wings, because they just have to maintaint a positive angle of attack. Flat wings like balsa gliders and hang-gliders are also explainable. Finally it also fits better in with a piot's observations during slow flight, because as the aircraft decelerates, the angle of attack must increase, which is observable in the form of a raised nose.

While the mythical explanation of lift may not be ENTIRELY false (the Bernoulli Principle), it may contribute to the total lift of an airfoil a little bit, but the effect is negligable for practical purposes. One thing in that explanation that is completely false is the idea that air being split at the leading edge must meet back up at the trailing edge. There's no law anywhere that says air particles have a "memory" to them and must return to the particles they began with. They are carried to wherever the forces acting take them. Wind tunnel tests with time-pulsing coloured smoke actually show that the above air accelerates far past where the lower air ends up at the back, and also are forced downwards. The downward flow is known as downwash (which is also an unexplainable phenominon with our mythical understanding of lift).

So, now you know the rest of the story...

Training has Commenced

Airplane is finally fixed, and I had a training flight today, more booked for tomorrow. The crunch time is really on now because I have only six weeks until my INRAT exam expires.

Today we did a quick review of VOR holds, then did some localizer holds, and finished with an ILS approach. To be honest I'm having a pretty tough time. It feels like it takes me a long time to grasp even a little of what we're covering, while the rest of it goes right over my head. Its been a while since I've felt this dumb. I'm both amazed at and thankful for my instructor's patience. He'll calmly walk me through each step over and over again, and never gets upset or impatient that its taking me so long to catch on.

I do feel like I am making progress though, bit by bit, but I was hoping I would catch onto things much quicker than I am. The airplane is still causing frusteration however. The #1 VOR was replaced last year, and its a brand new unit, however it was doing funny things today. For some reason it refused to pick up the Morse code idents for the London VOR. It worked fine for every other VOR however. Finally once we were back on the ground we checked it again and it worked fine. Ghosts in the machine I guess. Those are the worst kinds of problems, where sometimes it works, other times it doesn't. We tried every possible combination of settings on the audio panel and the instrument, but we couldn't manage to figure out why we couldn't hear the Morse code audio. Its especially frusterating because not only does trying to troubleshoot those problems in the air take away from the training experience, its a brand new unit, so in theory it should work perfectly. The best we can do is cross our fingers and hope for the best tomorrow.

A part of me wants to go crawling back into the comfortable world of VFR flying and forget about advancing into the IFR realm. VFR doesn't take any effort for me anymore, its home for me, but I know that it'd be a mistake to limit myself like that. Not only because an IFR rating opens up better jobs with better pay, but because the longer I put off IFR training the more I become entrenched in VFR flying and the harder it would be to learn IFR later on.

That being said, there's been a couple job possibilities coming over the horizon for me this summer in the fire-patrol sector. I've always wanted to do that, either water-bombing or bird-dogging. Those are both VFR jobs, and I could see myself doing something like that for a while. I did some research today just out of curiosity to learn a little more about those jobs, and here's the short explanation of how I understand it for my readers who are also uneducated in the subject. Its all very cool.

Aerial fire-fighting is divided into 3 different "units" we'll call them. There's Fire Detection, Bird-dogs, and the Water Bombers themselves. The first, which is what I would start out doing if I end up getting a job in the fire-fighting field this year, is called Fire Detection. From what I gather its essentially what it sounds like. Small aircraft, like a Cessna 337, patrols a large area of wilderness with forest-fire potential looking for fires. If a forest fire is spotted, it calls in a Bird-dog aircraft. The Bird-dog aircraft essentially takes command of the entire operation. It will fly over the area and a fire-expert on board the aircraft will assess the forest fire and develop the attack plan for the water bombers, such as the best places to drop the water loads based on the winds and conditions for best control of the fire. Since water bombing is done at tree-top altitudes, the Bird-dog aircraft will then fly the low-altitude bombing route that the water bombers will fly, to note any obstacles that could prevent a hazard to the bombers. We're talking flying over fires and past smoke at 200 ft above the ground, cool stuff. After the bombing runs have been safely tested by the bird-dog, the bird-dog will then climb up higher and orbit the area to call in the water bombers. Since the airspace near a forest fire can naturally become very busy due to the boming activity, the bird-dog's next responsibility will be to act as Air Traffic Control for the water bombers conducting their runs, coordinating everything to make sure aircraft are kept safely apart during operations as well as monitoring the progress of the operation. At least thats my understanding of how things go, I'd love to hear the comments of any readers who have real experience doing this. I've always thought its sounded like a pretty fun job. All a very coordinated team excercise. As for me, we'll see how things pan out.

Quick Update

Just thought I'd write a quick update since its been a month since I've written last now. No IFR training yet, the Twin Comanche's MP gauge decided it would be a good time to kick the bucket, so I had my AME take a look at it, and while looking at the airplane he also found a landing gear downlock spring that was broken as well, so we've been waiting for parts for the last couple weeks. The Christmas season is apparently a bad time to order airplane parts, cause we've been waiting for 3 weeks already.

So that's about all I have to report, as soon as that gets fixed I'll be able to jump headfirst into IFR training and get it all finished up. In the meantime its been snowing rediculous amounts in London. Which means I'm gonna have a lot of fun extricating the airplane from the mounds of snow that I'm sure its buried under. I can't wait.