The GA aircraft were flying through an active military operations area (MOA); however, center controllers had no method to communicate with military controllers in real time.

Besides the fact that this F-16 pilot did something completely dangerous, there is a major opportunity for improvement in ATC communications here. Is anyone else surprised that the ARTCC was not able to talk directly to controllers for these military aircraft?!? I fully support AOPA’s recommendation for the FAA to develop a method for center controllers to communicate with military controllers in real time.

Take a look at the video as the radar echos show on up on top of each other. The radio traffic playing while the radar echos paint will send chills down your back!

Be safe out there folks!

Read all the details after the jump…

At first I was a little disappointed in the release date estimates, but in taking one look at the features being planned, you can see why it has been a while since a major update.

“Logbook Pro vNext [the official version number is not yet known] will support the single user from student through airline pilot as well as the new multi-user enterprise features including group and user management, role based security and other enterprise features.”

The next version of Logbook Pro will also offer a new user-interface as well as several Web 2.0 enhancements allowing for updates from a multitude of systems all with a similar interface. Personally, I’m hoping for a BlackBerry application, but I’d settle for a BlackBerry bookmark application to a mobile enhanced web interface. Need a mobile beta tester guys?

Some of you may remember I did knock the Logbook Pro application about a year and a half ago in this post, where I noted my installation problems under Vista. I do understand that they are a small development shop, however, if they manage to pull off everything they are claiming in this next release, we are going to have one heck of a logbook application on our hands! I can’t wait to see the finished product — just don’t take too long.

According to the post by Tom Haines, the G1000 (Perspective Option) does have some unique to Cirrus (for now) features including: Impressively large dual 12-inch displays, Garmin’s recently announced synthetic vision technology (SVT) and several crew alerting messages.

Another cool little feature Tom mentioned is: “…a blue “LVL” button on the GFC 700 autopilot mode controller. The LVL button is a pilot’s get-out-of-jail-free card when things are starting to go bad. Simply push the LVL button and no matter what mode the autopilot is in or even if it is off, the autopilot will roll the wings level and hold altitude.”

AOPA has posted a First Look video clip here. Of local Kansas City Interest, note the sample approach in the video is an approach into Lawrence, Kansas (KLWC).

Enjoy the show…try to keep the drool off the keyboard.

What were my impressions? I must say, the plane stood much taller than I had imagined — much taller than a Diamond DA40XL. However, the primary competitor is not a DA40XL, but more the Cirrus SR22.

The Cessna 350 had an amazing ramp presence but the visibility from the cockpit was not quite as good as the DA40XL. I have not sat in a SR22, but Cessna reps were claiming that it has more overall glass than the SR22. Another thing I noted was there was more to the cockpit in terms of controls scattered than what I am used to in the DA40XL. The plane does have some advanced features like speedbreaks. I’m not sure we’ll be seeing this plane on the rental line anytime soon, but time will tell.

While Mr. Hopkins was describing resources the AOPA Air Safety Foundation has made available to pilots, he mentioned an entry in the section called “Real Pilot Stories” about a pilot who discovered he had a snake in the cockpit. The idea made my skin crawl — I hate snakes almost more than the idea of FAA User Fees — so I had to take go take a look.

In this two minute video recap, pilot Monty Coles talks about what went though his head as a small head peared at him though a hole in his instrument panel during an routine instrument scan; yes he was airborne. Yikes!

Real Pilot Stories, Snake in the Airplane

Let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment, or sending me an email from the About Me tab at the top of the page.

Update 03-29-2008: I got a couple of emails and a comment posted that there was some interest. Without much work, I am now providing the feeder site for KOJC at LiveATC.net. The guys there are doing the final checkout on the stream before it gets listed, but if you want a preview, here is the link.

How is it that a US$200 million airplane does not respond when the throttles are pushed forward? This plane, and many others like it, — including some newer GA piston powered aircraft — utilize computer software to control all aspects of engine operation. This system is called Full Authority Digital Engine Control (FADEC). Read more about FADEC after the jump…

The primary advantages of a FADEC system are ease of operation, better fuel usage, engine protection from out of spec limitations and the list goes on and on. The Cirrus SR-22 utilizes a FADEC system which removes the mixture leaver from the cockpit. The FADEC system controls the fuel flow and spark plug timing. What an awesome deal — no more jacking around with the mixture control during various aspects of the flight. …Or is it?

There are also some downsides to FADEC. A common argument in the disadvantage column is that a software defect can be critical if not fatal. Even the best computer systems are still designed by humans and subject to bugs.

FADEC and aircraft manufactures argue that redundant system components can help mitigate this risk, but as years of managing network equipment for a living has taught me, failures on systems with redundant components never seem to fail clean. You can test and test in the lab by removing hardware and manually creating crash conditions, but in the real world, the active system usually gets stuck in a funky state and the backup system never seems to take over the whole system.

It will be interesting what the investigation teams find on this crash in London.

Additional Reading:

The Times of London has a great story about the accident at Heathrow Airport.

My wife and I don’t really watch too much TV anyway but if I was going to ditch my cable, it was going to not be without a few caveats.

Read all about our new TV setup after the jump…

Since “a la carte cable” is not going to happen anytime soon, I was going to have consider other options. However, if I was going to ditch the cable TV, there were a few requirements. My wife was amazingly patient as I threw our whole A/V setup into a tizzy and came up with the new design.

First of all my requirements:
HDTV — The new solution had to support HDTV. We had the HDTV add-on package with our Comcast cable, but this was pretty much the primary (XX.1) local HD “Over the Air” (OTA) channels and a few other HD cable networks. We pretty much always watched the 10 or so HD channels with the cable box since HD televisions make standard definition TV look really bad.

DVR — I was late to jump on this bandwagon, but as my friends and co-workers warned me, once you got it, you cannot live without it. If I was going to ditch the cable box, I had to have a solution that supported recording. I also want need to record one channel while watching another. Our DVR recording lineup pretty much consists of shows that air on the broadcast networks — making OTA a viable option.

Remote Control Support — I’m not joking. Whatever solution I chose, I did not want to have to “rig” something just to change the channel. The small “junky” remote controls do not count — I wanted a “real” remote control with a skip button, and more than four keys. (Yes, Apple, your junky remote controls do not meet this requirement)

Monthly Recurring Expense — My goal of the new solution was to totally eliminate, if possible, the monthly recurring charges we were seeing with the cable; or at least reduce them. I knew I was going to have to spend a little bit of money up front, but my payback goal was 4-6 months.

My options:

Microsoft Media Center — We got a new computer back in February 2007 with Microsoft Vista Home Premium. This version of Vista includes Windows Media Center. Up until now, I had never used it, but I had launched it a few times and the interface looked pretty well done. If I went this route, I would need a tuner card of some sort and a remote control. The DVR function is built in to Media Center.

Computer with a Media Extender — Since I liked the Media Center interface I considered an Extender. It would keep the TV area clean and neat, but there was one small problem. That is until the past couple of weeks, the only Media Extender that supported Vista Media Center was the Xbox 360. I don’t want a game console and it seems like a waste to spend that money only to obtain the extender functionality. My timing for this project was impeccable as the Linksys DMA 2100 and 2200 had been announced and were due out in late November, but there were some last minute delays that made this box at least a month out. The D-Link DSM-750 had already been released, but it too was $300 and I still needed a tuner for my PC if I went that route.

TiVo — The ‘TiVo Series3 HD’ and new ‘TiVo HD DVR’ (marketing departments never cease to amaze me in the technology industry) had pretty good reviews, however, my goal was to eliminate the recurring monthly cost; TiVo charges for monthly guide data and their online services.

My New Design:

Vista Media Center — This provided the HD Support, DVR and eliminated the monthly recurring cost. I did purchase the Media Center keyboard and remote control which worked great!  The Microsoft Media Center remote control and Keyboard is pretty nice and they worked natively (no need for drivers) with Vista. The video card (Radeon X1300) already had a DVI output so this was a good fit. The skip feature is about ten times more responsive vs. my Comcast DVR.

TV Tuner — Our DVR line-up pretty much includes shows from the broadcast networks, so an OTA ATSC tuner would be perfect. A quick check of AntennaWeb reviled that all but one independent network was broadcasting a digital signal here in Kansas City. I opted for an ATSC tuner since I really don’t care to watch the analog channels; they will be turned off in 2009 anyway. The first tuner I used to test the Vista Media Center TV functionality was an ATI TV Wonder 650 PCI (about $130). It worked well, but I quickly realized that not having two tuners was an issue. We’d be watching one show when the DVR needed to take control and would flip the channel. The additional cables going into the back of the PC also was cluttering up the living room. After checking many sites, I settled on a network attached dual ATSC tuner (SiliconDust HDHomeRun). It was a little bit more expensive than a single tuner (but less than two PCI tuners), but I loved the fact that I could tuck it away in another room with an antenna hooked up and it would stream the signal down to the Vista Media Center over the home network. Dual tuner functionality without adding wire clutter — perfect!

Antenna — I originally started with an old set of rabbit ears, however, the dual tuner introduced the need for a splitter for the second tuner which took the signal level too low for an unamplified antenna. After doing some research, I settled on a Terk TV5 Amplified TV Antenna and it worked great. I set it upstairs in the office on top of a bookshelf next to the HDHomeRun box.

Closing Comments:

After running with this setup for about 6 weeks now, I’ve made a few observations. First, having the computer next to the TV is not ideal, but the functionality does work pretty well. We did run into times where we wanted to just use the computer for a quick minute, but had to turn on the TV to see the screen — not cool. We quickly moved the LCD monitor down with the computer and setup “Hotkey” activated monitor profiles (Alt-1: LCD, Alt-2: TV, Alt-3 LCD+TV) using the ATI Catalyst Control Center application. Second, a Media Center Extender would probably be the cleanest setup if you only have one home PC; however, it can be done with just the PC just fine. Having a network attached tuner simplified the cabling into the PC and is a much cleaner looking install. Third, spend some time getting your LCD resolution setup correctly on your HDTV and play with your graphics card advanced controls to fine tune the picture. I had a horrible interlacing issue on the stations broadcasting in 1080i. This issue was resolved by activating, what ATI calls, the “Automatic Deinterlacing” feature — ah, much better. Third, the Media Center DVR functionality is great. Add a Media Center remote control/keyboard and you have a great DVR alternative to the, in my opinion, crappy, Comcast DVR service. Forth, there is a lot of legal online content (eg: iTunes), however, if you are a big sports fan, you will probably be disappointed with just OTA. Sports are probably the farthest behind getting themselves positioned into new waves of distribution. Vista Media Center has some pretty nice Internet TV shows which use your Broadband connection to stream content; however, much of it is still in SD.

Cost Breakdown:

SiliconDust HDHomeRun: $160
Media Center USB Remote Control and Keyboard: $90
Amplified TV Antenna: $50
Total: $300 (Payback at $90/Month with Comcast: ~3.5 Months)

Mission Accomplished…

Read all the details after the jump.

The climb out of KC went fine — the cooler air was nice and it showed me the DA40XL could really hit 140 KTAS once we leveled off. As we got about 50 miles northwest of the Kansas City Metro we could see the overcast layer building where the snow cover line started. We asked ATC for 6000 feet to keep us out of the overcast not knowing if the clouds had developed any ice or not. The METARs in the area were not getting any worse so we continued on, but I had my approach plates out for a OMA instrument procedure if needed.

As we approached Omaha, the Blair ASOS (recently added) was reporting 3200 overcast as we were handed off to Omaha Approach Control. I was initially concerned because approach said they could only give us 3000 for IFR separation with the large towers on the north side of Omaha. However, remember that ASOS reports are given AGL not MSL. That extra 1000 foot was what we needed. We descended to 3000 feet through the overcast with no ice and had a great landing at Blair. We enjoyed Turkey and all the fixings then packed up for home.

I was much less concerned about the flight back to Kansas City a few hours later, because we knew there was no ice and Kansas City weather was fine. We got PD down to 3000 about 75 miles out of Kansas City and I set the Auto Pilot for a slow 100 FPM decent until we got to the top of the overcast. The sunset was amazing on top of the overcast and the pictures I snapped with the cell phone camera do not do it justice — now this is why I learned to fly!

We were too early to fly over and see the Plaza Lights, but we met NewsChopper 9 on the way into OJC — Johnny Rowlands was headed out to provide aerial shots for the live coverage on KMBC.

Read all the details after the jump.

So why was I attracted to the BlackBerry Curve? It has a faster processor, has Wi-Fi/UMA (the ability to make calls over Wi-Fi), and a full QWERTY keyboard.

What’s New? (Stuff I care about)

1. The BlackBerry Curve has the new navigation ball that was introduced in the BlackBerry Perl and it replaces the “click wheel” on the side. I was hesitant at first, but after adjusting the ball sensitivity to my liking (90% sensitivity), I’ve gotten used to it and I like it much better than the “click wheel” I had on the 7100t.
2. Wi-Fi Support — the BlackBerrry Curve has integrated Wi-Fi, but don’t expect it to drastically improve your web browsing speed. It is maybe a little bit faster, but it is hard for me to tell the different between EDGE and Wi-Fi if in a good coverage area. No issues getting the Wi-Fi setup at home using WPA security, however, we’ve had lots of problems with our Enterprise Wi-Fi at work which uses much more robust type of security (802.1X - PEAP). We have been working this issue with both RIM and Cisco the past few days and the support cases on pending on both sides. RIM did acknowledge to us on a phone call that their are “known issues” with the Wi-Fi and Over The Air (OTA) software “pushes.” I’m guessing these will be resolved with a patch or the upcoming BlackBerry OS version 4.3. You should have no issues with the 8320 on on your home Wi-Fi network or down at the local coffee shop.
   Update 12-2007: In working with RIM, we have discovered the root cause of the 802.1X PEAP authentication problem I mention above. See my post over at BlackBerryForums for more information.
3. UMA Support — the T-Mobile version of the 8320 has UMA support which is the ability to make phone calls and receive “push email” via a Wi-Fi connection. Even if you don’t subscribe to the T-Mobile “Hotspot@Home” service, the device will route your calls over Wi-Fi if a connection is available. You can override the network preference if you don’t want your device to utilize the Wi-Fi for voice/data which is a nice option. I have not whipped out my packet sniffer yet to see if this data is encrypted going to T-Mobile/RIM, but given it uses UDP ports 500 and 4500, I suspect they are doing some sort of tunneling for security; if you happen to be using an unencrypted WLAN. Using UMA does allow your BlackBerry to get email and access other data services while on the phone — pretty cool!
4. Multi-Media support — the BlackBerry Curve has music, video, and picture support. The 8320 has a camera with flash, but don’t go replace your digital camera just yet. Personally, I really don’t care for a camera on a cell phone and would rather give-up the camera if I could get integrated GPS support like the BlackBerry 8820. Currently, only AT&T has released the 8820 so I’m happy with the trade off — plus I do not like the 8800 series keyboard.

Other Impressions:

• My 7100t only had GPRS data service and even though EDGE is no 3G or EVDO Rev A (Verizon/Sprint), it does boast a noticeable improvement in download time. Web sites that are optimized for mobile browsing work great and are speedy to download, however, hit a site that is not optimized and you’ll be waiting a while for it to render — even on Wi-Fi.
• Why does it seem there are not very many pilot or aviation applications for the BlackBerry OS? With all the corporate pilots out there you would like someone would be developing some killer aviation apps for BlackBerry. If you know of any cool ones, send them my way, but my searching has not turned up much of anything worth loading on my device.
• Update 10/11/2007: Reception: I have used this phone for a couple of weeks now and have been pretty happy with the reception and sound quality. The volume seems to be much louder than my 7100t, however, like the 7100t it does have a “sweet spot” to get max audio output. I had a co-worker that noticed a “pop” or “click” sound when making a calls on his 8320 on UMA. I have not had this issue, but I pretty much keep my Wi-Fi off unless I need to use it.

Why T-Mobile?

1. I have had nothing but great customer service from T-Mobile. Sure, I’ve had my share of issues, but they always seem to get things fixed and in almost 8 years of service, I’ve only had to call a customer care a handful of times.
2. GSM — the sound quality on GSM is much better than TDMA or CDMA. I can tell when someone calls me from a Verizon or Sprint cell phone, both of which use CDMA. I could go into a million reasons why I like GSM, but I’m sold.
3. T-Mobile RIM BlackBerry support is pretty good. If Customer Care does not know the answer, they are happy to hand you off to RIM’s support team who can usually help you out.

There you have it, my brief, and somewhat random review of my new BlackBerry Curve 8320.

Find out all the details after the jump.

Assumptions

1. 10% down payment
2. Pathfinder insurance
3. You have desire to administer (paperwork, etc) all aspects of owning your own aircraft
4. You are okay with flying your own (brand new) helicopter for your initial training
5. Acquisition January 1 of year 1 and sale of aircraft on December 31 of year 5
6. Flight time of at least 100 hours per year
7. Inculdes some cost for a CFI in year 1 and recurrent training (you may need more or less)

Robinson R22 Ownership Cost Calculation

Disclaimer: This information is strictly hypothetical and should not be relied upon as advice to help you with your specific situation. Each aircraft purchase situation is unique and must be analyzed by professionals including, but not limited to, an attorney and tax professional licensed to practice in your area.

If you are interested in the actual spreadsheet so you can customize your own figures, please contact me.

Let me know what you think!

First Leg — OJC to IKV:

IFR from OJC to IKV via Direct (this picture on the left is a radar plot of our return trip). The flight was about 179 nautical miles one-way and we filed for 140 KTAS at 5000 feet.

After a late aircraft checkout due to a last minute rental we got things fueled up and a quart of break in oil (still less than 100 hours on the engine) added. We packed up our cargo (mostly for my 2 year old), pre-flighted, and got our clearance.

The departure weather from OJC was: wind 350 at 7 knots, 10 SM visibility and scattered clouds at 10,000. We departed runway 36 and quickly got our vector 10 degrees right to avoid the Friday evening arrivals at MCI. Once we were over I-435 on the east side of KC we picked up “direct IKV” — right into a 20 Knot headwind. This added an additional 20 minutes to the flight; however, it would have been much worse in the Cessna 172 — and longer still by car! After a lot of continuous “chop” for 90 minutes straight, we had an airsick 2 year old but we arrived in Ankeny (IKV) at about 5:30 (90 minutes flight time) to much cooler weather behind the cold front that had just passed earlier in the day. IKV weather was wind 350 at 17 knots gusting to 20 knots & clear. Good thing runway 36 was available!

Second Leg — IKV to OJC:

IFR from IKV to OJC via Direct. It was a much smoother flight the next day on the return trip — no air sick 2 year old (yeah). We filed for 140 KTAS at 6000 feet. After a later departure than we wanted from our family’s house we got wheels off shortly after 4pm local. The weather was killing us this trip as the headwinds were 12 knots from the South-Southwest. Grrrrr. The good thing about this leg was I got to see the XM lightning data on the G1000 populate with a storm 200 miles west near the Lincoln/Omaha area. I also got some actual instrument time when we got closer to Kansas City. It was overcast at 6000 feet and light rain, but as we got closer to KC, ATC had us descend to 4000 feet which took us below the clouds. I’ll take any actual instrument time when I can get it and it was fun to fly the G1000 in the soup. What an awesome IFR platform!

Lessons Learned:

• The DA40XL did not cut through the chop like the Piper Arrow or Cessna 182 has on past flights. Spring/Fall weather in the midwest results in several “choppy” days. I could have climbed higher to get out of the chop on this trip, but winds were much worse at the higher altitudes. Tough call.
• I was a little aggressive on my 140 KTAS calculation. The G1000 reported around 134-136 KTAS on both legs.
• The Garmin G1000 Autopilot (GFC 700) is super easy to use! What a much better piece of engineering vs the Honeywell/Bendix/King KAP 140 that the Cessna models have! If you have the option, get the GFC 700. It’s soooooo much easier to operate — plus there is one less altimeter to set in the cockpit.
• Don’t forget to “reset the fuel” on the G1000 when you refuel. I failed to reset on leg 1 and I got much better fuel usage information resetting it on leg 2.
• Don’t forget to get your T/O flaps out after departure. The first minute after departure of leg 1, I failed to get my nose in the climb checklist and could not figure out why we were not getting the speed I expected on the climb.
• Something was wrong with the NEXRAD weather data. I was getting lightning, but no NEXRAD. I need to research this further to see if it has been activated in this plane.

I am still planning on doing a full write-up on my initial impressions on the DA40XL rental at KCAC. I want to put something really detailed good together. In the meantime, if you want to read a great write-up from an older DA40, take a look here. Philip Greenspun does a great job and has some amazing aviation photos too.

I hope KCAC has more of these planes on order because these composite airplane manufactures are on to something with their light weight, fuel efficient and technically advanced aircraft!

More to come…

After reading the KCAC press release I wondered if there was possibly of some Diamond aircraft in the future for the mostly Piper rental fleet at the KCAC Flight Academy. A quick login to the web scheduler and sure enough — a new 2007 DA40 XL now available for rental (okay that’s when I got excited). The rental rate you ask? $155/hour or $145/hour (club rate) which seems competitively priced compared to other rentals on the field. A G1000 C172SP at Air Associates (across the field at KOJC) is $125/hour or $120/hour (block); the G1000 C182T is $185/hour or $180/hour (block). As far as G1000 aircraft are concerned this is a good sweet spot I think for KCAC.

I have wanted to take a flight in a Diamond for a long time, however, the last Diamond rentals I knew about in KC were: (A) Two Diamond Katanas back in 2001 when Aerostadt (now out of business) was at New Century (KIXD) and (B) most recently, when ATD Flight Systems based out of Downtown (KMKC) had a DA40 which was sold last winter not long after it showed up in their fleet.

I called KCAC yesterday and the person at the desk said only the flight academy manager was authorized to checkout people in the DA40 currently — I promptly scheduled a lesson for Tuesday evening (9/4) to see if I could complete the checkout before our XC trip to Iowa in a few weeks. Since I have already done a G1000 checkout in the Cessna models across the field, I hope the transition is not too difficult.

I want to applaud a local FBO for finally bringing back a composite airplane to the rental fleet in the Kansas City area. I think this is a very smart move for KCAC and hopefully a good option for renters wanting to fly some of the newer aircraft technology. I hope they plan to add a DA42 for multi engine training sometime in the future!

More to come after Tuesday…

Update Tuesday 9/4: My flight instructor had to cancel our scheduled flight for this evening. We have moved our lesson to Friday afternoon. I hope to have an updated post sometime this weekend.