Spinal stenosis. After my surgery, they promise my leg will wake up enough to handle tailwheel on the ground. Not really, but I'm a talker kind of teacher anyway. Maybe I will use my Southwest airlines credit to visit you in fall or spring.

I am finally getting back into the seminar and clinic schedule. Saturday February 26 at 10:00 I will do a seminar at Moore County Airport (SOP) near Pinehurst, North Carolina. Everyone welcome. I will be flying and filming with Jeff Tensfeldt, STOL here I think, 25-28 Feb in his Highlander. The seminar follows a CAP breakfast and my friend Dan Hamilton is trying to get it to be a Wings event. I am unsure of the flying schedule as I am unfamiliar with filming requirements, but come by if you are nearby. Jeff will post the video here I hope.

The Moore County Airport SOP Safe Maneuvering Flight Techniques Seminar at 10:00 Saturday February 26 is now a Wings event. Come by if you are in the area.

The seminar went well. We had 20 pilots and wings credit. I flew with Jeff in his Highlander and covered/filmed the basic low ground effect takeoff, Dutch rolls, energy management turn, and the apparent brisk walk rate of closure approach. He will review/edit the tape and we will fly again tomorrow as needed to cover any film problems.

As does most every pilot, with Jeff the nose came off target the first couple of 45 degree banks and me yelling "lead rudder." And then he got it, and his steep turns will never be slipping turns again. In his energy management turns his nose will come around and onto target smartly.

I will be at the Apache Troop reunion at the Tempe Embassy Suits from Thursday September 29 through Sunday October 2. We were Air Cavalry so lots of pilots around. Come by and I will buy you a drink and meal. We are old and mostly sit around and talk, but I would be willing to fly if asked.

My grandson came from Virginia for five days of flying at the local FBO. We had a young new instructor today that I had never flown with, but he was very flexible and curious. I'm pretty sure the other instructors have prepped him a bit. My grandson Jacob and John did low ground effect takeoffs, energy management turns, steep banked Dutch rolls, and the apparent brisk walk rate of closure approach. We also flew out to Hanger Kafe for lunch. Jacob, 15 now, did well but I suggested they start work on the normal ACS required program tomorrow. Jacob has about six hours of my stuff last year with Bart and today and would be nearly ready for solo. John picked up quickly on my stuff today with little talking on my part. He is a wise young instructor that knows students learn by handling the controls almost continuously, so he pick up a lot from Jacob. Yes, safe maneuvering flight techniques are actually easier than normal flight school stuff. Jacob will learn the much more difficult round out and hold off tomorrow. He and John and me in the back will be passengers for the hold off down the runway. I will insist on 1.3 Vso -5 knots in a little bit of cheating deceleration on short final. Apparent rate of closure will speed up on short final and I will just have to clench my teeth.

The round out and hold off technique worked OK yesterday, and we got in on a little more than half of the 3,000' runway at 2H2. Jacob got to see the dangerous turn about a point and S turns across the road with about 8 knots of crosswind. He did some basic instrument and VOR tracking. Wind was from 330 at 20 gusting to 30 today and Aurora has a narrow N S runway so Jacob did not get to fly. I went ahead and flew with John to show him how the low ground effect takeoff makes the angle across the runway a snap and the apparent brisk walk rate of closure approach makes angle across landing a snap. For the first time in his aviation career, John believed the wind is our friend. Flying will never be the same for him.

The crosswind component, 330 at 20 on the narrow runway 36 at Aurora 2H2, was too much for John to train Jacob yesterday. I thought I had written of this, but am getting a little senile. Anyway I flew up front with John to get him up to speed on how the wind can be our friend using proper technique.

Using the apparent brisk walk rate of closure to angle across the runway in a strong crosswind with John taught me something about crab verses side slip to mitigate crosswind component. John uses crab and that was working fine with the apparent brisk walk rate of closure which was actually an apparent slow walk because of the strong headwind component. The problem with the crab came just before touchdown. As John was not familiar with such strong crosswind component, he did not put right rudder to the stop to align with the angular centerline track just before touchdown. As I believe in talking rather than riding the controls, I was late getting the right rudder to the stop and the left wing well down to change from crab to side slip just before touchdown. We got a little bounce but aligned quickly after to get down on the angled centerline before the left edge of the runway and slowly turn down the runway on the surface. Again, the wind is our friend. All this happened at probably 20 mph ground speed.

Lesson learned: use the side slip all the way down on short final to touchdown using the apparent brisk walk rate of closure deceleration technique to angle across in strong crosswind.

I flew with Damon in his flying club C-172M yesterday. He is from Springfield, MO, just 20 minutes away. He has been reading my stuff and I was amazed at how little tweaking he needed on anything except I fussed just a bit on his rudder work and his apparent brisk walk rate of closure approach was great, but he was touching with a bit heavy bump. When I asked if he was full flaps, he explained that they were limited to 30 degrees even though the indicator said 40. I didn't think too much until the last approach back at Aurora when I told him to just run the rudders and throttle and I would hold the yoke. This was to work on exact rudder alignment as he was wanting to be left as most even though he understood about between the legs.

So here I was with the yoke in my feeble hands and this M model that I had 10,000 hours in and it was being a beast or at least as heavy as a 182 on the yoke. Having never used 30 degrees for sixty years, it was really strange and awkward. Monett is closed for concrete work on the new over 6,000 feet runway so next time Damon comes we will work on hover taxi down there to get a handle on how to fly a 172 as slow as possible in low ground effect with 30 degree flaps.

Does anyone know of M models being limited to 30 degrees flaps? How can that be done?

I flew with the new young instructor, Jared, Wednesday. He too had read my stuff, worked with the other instructors, and needed only a brief check of everything except mountain work. We also had lunch at Hanger Kafe. There are five instructors here now. I do almost no demonstration unless necessary. I am getting a bit weaker and need help with right rudder in the steep energy management turn to the right so just go left except we flew a bit of Explorer Pipeline.

I will be at my Apache Troop Reunion at the Embassy Suits at Tempe, Arizona Sep 29 through Oct 1. Come by and talk if you get a chance. We are old air cav troopers and have no schedule. Just sit around and tell war stories.

Thank you for being "an old air cav trooper".

It was an honor. Pardon my senility but someone with a 172 at Mesa Falcon Field PMed me months ago about flying on the 29th when I get into Phoenix early. I cannot find the message and I have forgotten his callsign. The old cav trooper needs some help.

Hey Contact, you take care of yourself now, you hear?

You've kicked a plenty o' right rudder so now left turns are just fine. Like NASCAR.... go fast.... turn left... don't wreck!

I can't make Tempe this weekend... but don't be surprised if I drop in to 2H2 some day soon. I got a J3 ferry gig coming up... Pickin' up a cub in Louisiana and heading up your way. Maybe you can give me a ride around the patch for old time's sake and show me 1 mo 'gin how the apparent rate of closure approach works!

Bless you!

I look forward to getting back into the only seat I ever fit properly, the front seat of a J-3, Thanks.

I flew with a pilot I hooked up with on Pilot's Tip of the Week today. He and his wife were on a trip from E. Oregon in their RV14 to Boston and dropped by on the way back home. He had read and practiced the low ground effect takeoff, energy management turn, and apparent brisk walk rate of closure approach. His big engine made it a little hard for him to stay in lower than four feet ground effect, but did well from the start. He had trouble at first with Dutch rolls, but began leading rudder after a couple tries. He got rudder in well in 90 and 180 energy management turns, but wanted to start the pull up while still in a bank at first. He nailed apparent brisk walk rate of closure approaches in a 12 gusting to 20 quartering crosswind. He well understood that we have to get a bit of a sink to bring the throttle into full control of glide angle and rate of descent. He uses the crab, but kept butt to target almost perfectly with rudder only (wings level) and transitioned to side slip on real short final.

He wasn't sure about everything until flying with me, but we were both very pleased with his progress. We all have to carefully consider trying things we learn from reading, but many have proved it to be doable. As MTV says, it is wise to seek out help from a certified flight instructor. I agree, if the certified flight instructor understands flying as well as testing. I have worked with a lot of good young instructors. We are all in this together.

I flew with the two new young instructors at EAS in Aurora, Mo, what I remember as Aurora Aviation and under the same FBO for all these years. The guys did well with all aspects of contact flying, but I am finding some trends I didn't predict. Like with computers, things and terms change from software engineer to software engineer and there are constant updates. My son explained the fill the holes thing. I nodded but had no idea what he was talking about. Anyway, side slip with the bank for drift management and dynamic proactive rudder for runway alignment seems to have changed to forward slip in terminology. This along with coordination rolls instead of Dutch rolls is fine, but I think the real problem is lack of usage of side slip all the way down final. Yes, that is understandable with the very long finals of today, but the crab and last second rudder yaw to align and jabbing a wing down a bit for drift doesn't give the student (or the instructor) much time to contemplate what is happening in the side slip. With old guy help, it does allow them to realize that in a wings level crab to align our butt with the centerline, we still walk the rudders to nail that sight picture from butt to centerline. We still do not want to turn so we still need to stay off the steering wheel. I know this terminology thing is evolving because the last CFI renueal I did on the computer, I had to redo the section that had longitudinal and lateral axis questions. They had actually changed the two terms around in a lawyer way if not a physics way. In bureau speak, changing terms is sometimes substituted for actual technique change with new data.

Anyway, our instructors here have good hearts and teach well. They are making decent ground and flight wages. Justin, the FBO is actually making some money at the airport and has sold most of his rental houses. The boys are getting a girl through her CFI to have more diversity, and things are going well without old crop dusters mucking around.

test

I will be out at Kingsley's the next few days filming with Kingsleys and a F-16 pilot I did a seminar for years ago. Trying to video techniques again.

Good to hear, I hope you will consider making it publicly aviable. Reading only gets you so far, visualisation will put some flesh on the bones!