Cape Town Flying Club enews 28 January 2007
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Courses
Aircraft refurbishment
From Pieter's Desk
Achievements
Sean's African Adventures
Aircraft accidents and incidents
Out and About
In the news
- South African Stowaway
- Every PPL's dream
Humour
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Dates to diarise
6 February: Navigation course (see below)
7 February: Radio Course (see below)
16 February: Solo and Wings party at the club
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Courses

Please diarize the following courses.

Course Starting date Lecture days Starting times Number of lectures Lecturer
Navigation 06-02-07 Tues and Thurs 18.00 for18.30 8 Peter Erasmus

Radio 07-02-07 Wed and Fri 18.00 for18.30 6 or 8 Pieter Wesselman

Students are requested to phone Beverley to get there names on the list.

Students for the navigation course need to buy from the club the following items:
1. Navigation notes,
2. Protractor,
3. Computer,
4. Ruler,
5. Cape Town aeronautical charts 1:500 000 and 1;1 000 000.

Students for the radio course need to obtain Dietlind's radio book before the course starts and they will also need the same aeronautical charts as needed for the navigation course.

Qualified pilots can join the above courses as a refresher for half price.

The cost of the radio course will be (in the event of 8 lectures) R 804,00. Of course when the course is completed in only six lectures then the cost will decrease proportionately. The radio exam and skill's test are not included in the price.

The cost of the for the navigation course will be (without notes and tools) also about R 804,00.

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Aircraft refurbishment

While you are reading this, the finishing touches are busy being applied to KKC. The committee, following the advice of the instructors, is going to postpone the cosmetic work on the aircraft till winter, when flying hours are generally down.

In the meantime, look out for a spanking new KKC (hopefully some pictures will be available soon)
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From Pieter's Desk --> P Wesselman

Away flights.
All members are reminded of the fact that for away flights, which are flights with one or more overnight stay aways:
1. have to be approved by the club,
2. the intended route has to be approved by the club,
3. the destination airfields and alternate airfields have to be approved by the club,
4. the pilot will have to attend an away briefing given by the CFI or an instructor appointed by the CFI,
5. a deposit of 50% of the estimated flight time has to be paid before a booking can be entered onto the booking sheets.

The Tomahawks and the C152 are the clubs basic trainers and will only be approved for away flights when for the period concerned there is not training demand on the aircraft. This approval can be granted only by the full instructors panel.

The Piper Warrior is the club's main instrument training aircraft. She will only be allowed to go on an away flight when the aircraft is not needed for instrument training during the period under discussion. Again, this approval can only be granted by the full instructor panel.

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Achievements

As you can tell by the dates, I'm a bit behind. You can help by emailing me when you do something notable! Save a tree and email (I only get your name currently if the sheet of paper outside the office is updated....which it does not appear to be....)

Date Name Achievement Aircraft Instructor Examiner
? Russel Wolsen First Solo JDN J Van Zyl -
22/10/06 Matthew Rawlings PPL KKU W Watkins ?
9/11/06 Robert Upshon Night rating KBK P Wesselman PW
08/11/06 Russel Wolsen PPL JDN J Van Zyl B Barnes
17/11/06 Simon Mackenzie First Solo KFV J Van Zyl B Barnes
08/12/06 Bradley Gargan Com IF KSS B Barnes G Smith

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Sean's African Adventures --> Sean O'Connor

Flying Airborne Surveys in Gabon

The word is out that Central Africa may be situated on massive basins of oil and minerals so the usual gang of exploiting nations is here to “assist” Gabon and its neighbours in the realisation of their own wealth. Instead of raising my blood pressure with that subject and even though we’re ultimately working for some of those people, I’ll tell you what we’re doing here.

The company operates two C208B Cessna Caravans and one Squirrel helicopter in Gabon. We’re based in Lambarene, on the massive Ogooue River, about 150 km east of the coast. There’s a good airport / runway here, built for President Bongo to be able to easily access his holiday villa here.

The aircraft are equipped with magnetometer, spectrometer and photographic survey equipment. The magnetometer gathers data about the earth’s magnetic field and any disturbances in it. The spectrometer contains sodium iodide crystals, which are sensitive to radiation from uranium, thorium and potassium. The cameras take pictures of the surface which are overlaid onto digital terrain models.

Clients’ requirements vary, but they are generally looking for clues to the whereabouts of fossil fuels or mineral deposits and / or they could want a large portion of the earth’s surface digitally mapped and photographed.

ZS-RZJ, Squirrel B2, with a good view of the booms containing the magnetometers














ZS-OTV, C208B Caravan, with magnetometer pods on the wingtips











ZS-JAK, C208B Caravan with magnetometers in wingtip pods and the tail stinger











The sensitive sodium iodide crystals in airtight, lightless containers and the processor stack in the back of a “Van”.



We are required to fly extremely accurately along predetermined lines, following the contours of the terrain, maintaining a height of 120 metres above the ground. The guidance system is similar to that used in crop spraying, with extra precision achieved by paying a premium to the U.S. GPS authority to gain access to their military quality GPS positioning data. Accurate height above ground information is provided by radar and laser altimeters.

The area to be flown is represented on a custom GPS monitor, which is situated between the front seats of the aircraft. In front of the pilot (mounted on the glare shield) is a light bar, which provides lateral guidance to the pilot in the form of rows of red, green and orange lights. The system starts warning the pilot as soon as the aircraft is more than 50cm off track. Also mounted on the glare shield is a monitor that constantly confirms that all the survey systems are functioning and also digitally displays the height above ground for vertical guidance. All this electronic wizardry is driven by a stack of processors / power supplies / etc, situated behind the pilots.

Chopper just about to go “online”. All systems OK on the left monitor, height 108m. The lightbar on the right indicates a correction of 2m to the right is required.
















The precision GPS system, situated between the pilots’ seats in the “Van”.





















Hand flying with this kind of accuracy at 300kmph is very exhausting for the first month or so, but then your brain and muscles do begin to develop a “memory” for the tasks and you are able to start doing other things too, like remembering to keep the fuel tanks balanced (just kidding) and making the odd radio call; although there’s not much aircraft traffic in Gabon at 120m above the ground. There is lots of feathered traffic though and at dusk thousands of giant fruit bats take to the air. Our NASA developed paint design on the propeller has been very successful in preventing a bird strike.

On the ground, the aircraft are supported by a base station, which gathers data about the ambient magnetism and a very busy data processor called Scott – he’s a fitness fanatic from Durban. Scott downloads all the data from the aircraft the minute after they land, checks the quality and digitally polishes any pilot errors. The data then gets emailed to South Africa where it gets analysed by very smart people with multiple doctorates in geophysics and other mysterious disciplines. The end product is a series of charts, graphs and explanations that the client pays truckloads of money for in order to make an educated guess about where to sink a shaft or drill a well.

For more stories and photographs from Africa, visit my website / blog and feel free to comment and / or contact me, it’s always good to hear that there is still a world beyond the jungle. http://flybyguy.spaces.live.com/

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Aircraft accidents and incidents --> Danny Buitendag

Aircraft Incidents & Accidents 2/20: Famous people – Corey Lidle

On 11 October 2006, an aircraft cost the life of New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle. Lidle and his flight instructor were killed when their Cirrus SR-20 crashed into a 50-story building on the east side of Manhattan, New York.

The aircraft departed the airport at Teterboro and traveled south along the Hudson River west of Manhattan. It circled the Statue of Liberty and proceeded to travel around the southern tip of Manhattan and then north along the East River on the east side of Manhattan, climbing to about 800 feet.

Shortly after the aircraft flew past the United Nations building and the Queensboro Bridge, it was seen to veer toward Manhattan. It then made a sharp turn to the left, crashing into building at about the 30th floor level.

This accident is a mystery and the investigation is ongoing. It is unclear what role, if any, the aircraft's performance, weather conditions, or the pilot's actions played in this event.

There was a distress call from the pilot involving a problem with fuel, government sources close to the investigation told, however the NTSB at one stage denied this. Evidence shows that the propeller was turning at the time of the accident.

How the plane managed to penetrate airspace over one of the most densely packed sections of New York City was not clear to the NTSB either.


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Out and About

Comet McNaught in our skies --> M Joffe













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In the news

1 ) Jet stowaway was South African --> News24.com

Johannesburg - A 17-year-old stowaway found dead in the wheel well of a British Airways plane in Los Angeles is a South African citizen, the department of foreign affairs said on Tuesday.

"We have now confirmed that the stowaway who was found in possession of South African documentation was indeed a South African citizen," said spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa.

Associated Press reported that a pilot found the body of the 17-year-old in the front right wheel well of the 747-400 during a routine inspection on Sunday afternoon.

Mamoepa said the stowaway's identification on Tuesday followed consultations between South Africa's diplomatic mission and British authorities in London.

"We are currently in a process of locating his next of kin who have yet to be informed of his death," said Mamoepa.

The British Airways flight had arrived from London Heathrow Airport on Sunday.

Before that, it had made trips to Hong Kong, Singapore, Cape Town, and Vancouver, the report said.

The aircraft had been in Cape Town on January 22.

The stowaway was identified as a black male carrying South African identification.

There were no traumatic wounds on the body, indicating that the young man's death had not been caused by the impact of the plane's wheels retracting.

Stowaways often died as the wheel well was not pressurised or heated despite being enclosed.

(Ed: Astute readers may remember that in June last year SAA had it's own stowaway, whose body was discovered in New York (After falling onto a woman's roof when the Airbus was landing. That story: http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,9294,2-7-1442_1717745,00.html )

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2) Every non-airline pilot's dream

Private Pilot helps land 757 --> Airport Business ( http://www.airportbusiness.com/article/article.jsp?siteSection=3&id=9926 )

Albuquerque businessman Stephen W. Brown doesn't consider himself a hero.

But when a medical emergency struck down the captain of a nearly full Continental Airlines jet flying to Mexico, Brown climbed out of his passenger seat and into the cockpit.

The 47-year-old licensed private pilot, who usually flies a single-engine Cessna, helped land the Boeing 757-300 loaded with 209 other passengers at McAllen-Miller International Airport in McAllen, Texas, on Saturday.

The plane had taken off from Houston on a flight to Puerto Vallarta when the co-pilot called for help. Brown responded.

"Yes, it was a rush," Brown told the Journal in an e-mail Wednesday from Puerto Vallarta, where he was still on a business vacation. "A combination of sheer excitement and shock kept my heart racing from beginning to end.

"I suppose most private pilots daydream about this sort of scenario where assistance is needed on the flight deck," he said. "The sad part, of course, is how I ended up on the flight deck."

The captain later died. The nature of his illness has not been disclosed.

While a few flight attendants and passengers tended to the stricken pilot, the co-pilot took over as captain of the plane. He then asked over the intercom whether there were any pilots on board.

"There's nothing wrong with that," said Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Roland Herwig, who confirmed Brown's role in the emergency landing. "The (acting) captain can take any action for the sake of safety."

For some passengers on the flight, the broadcast request may have caused anxiety, Brown said, "but everybody remained calm."

A co-owner of Johnstone Supply, Brown was on the flight with his wife, Kristin Brown, and several business associates and customers.

Brown and one of his companions, also a licensed private pilot, stepped up to the front of the plane in response to the call for assistance.

Brown said that at that point, he wasn't nervous because he knew one pilot can land a 757. And as a licensed pilot himself, he also knew about a protocol called cockpit resource management.

"The captain knew full well he could land the aircraft without my or anyone else's help; however, protocol dictates he look for assistance," he said.

Brown, who has logged 150 hours of flight time since he got his pilot's license 1 1/2 years ago, got the nod over his companion.

"When I sat in the right seat, the captain looked at me and asked, 'When was the last time you flew?' '' he said. "I told him last week and he said, 'Good, you're current.' ''

The co-pilot-turned-captain told Brown that he had 28 years of experience.

"At that moment, I was undoubtedly the least nervous person on the plane," Brown said. "I knew, while technically it was deemed an 'emergency situation,' the captain would land the aircraft without incident."

Brown's role was to perform some standard radio work, coreview checklists and lower flaps and landing gear as instructed.

A 757 is nearly twice as long as a regulation basketball court, with a wingspan of 125 feet. Pilots use a computerized, fully integrated flight control system with electronic displays.

"What an incredible opportunity," Brown said about helping to land the plane.

He said the real credit goes to the flight crew members and passengers who tried to revive the captain.

Brown said credit also goes to the pilot who took over but who hasn't been identified by Continental Airlines.

"The pilot next to me was a true professional, dedicated to doing his job even in the most difficult of emotional situations," he said.

Continental Airlines confirmed basic information about the flight but would not release any detail, pending a federal review.

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Humour

Alexia Michaelides





















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