Float planes

Posted on April 16, 2005 by David Megginson

[Updated] The Canadian Press has an unusually detailed and accurate story about floatplane safety in Canada. Unfortunately, with the summer season arriving, we’re going to see another big spike in the fatal accident rate in Canada as the floatplanes take to the skies, simply because they normally fly without the safety net we have at certified airports: clear, monitored approach paths, known surfaces, etc. (of course, that’s the whole point of recreational floatplane flying, to taxi up to your buddy’s dock at some little lake in cottage country). Also, the consequences of a hard landing are worse: instead of an embarrasing bounce on a runway, you end up digging in a float and flipping, then trying to escape from a cabin upside-down and underwater with a door latch that won’t open.

The strangest part of the article is a claim from Transport Canada that — despite repeated pleas from the Transportation Safety Board, who investigates these fatal accidents — TC cannot issue an Airworthiness Directive (AD) to make floatplane doors easier to open for escaping, because most of the planes are not made in Canada, and thus, are outside their jurisdiction.

Perhaps they’ve forgotten about AD CF-90-03R2, by which Transport Canada mandates an annual inspection of the muffler shroud for possible carbon-monoxide leaks from my American-certified and built Lycoming engine through the heater into the cabin of my American-certified and built Piper Warrior II (for the record, since I fly a lot in the winter, I’d have this inspection done with or without an AD).

Floatplane flying matters more in Canada than the U.S., so if there’s going to be an AD, it will have to come from us: while taxiing up to your friend’s dock is nice, commercial floatplanes are also the lifeline to many small northern communities, bringing in food, medicine, doctors, teachers, etc. and flying out people suffering from medical emergencies. Even if the floatplane drowning fatalities don’t add up to a lot in the bigger scheme of things, they leave this small part of the population — the ones who have no choice but to use floatplanes — extremely vulnerable.

[Update: the difference between the TSB’s request and AD CF-90-03 is that the latter deals only with an inspection, while the TSB’s request deals with a modification — perhaps that’s the place where TC is stuck.]

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Non-annual inspections

Posted on April 15, 2005 by David Megginson

The annual inspection for my Warrior is approaching.

As I’ve mentioned before, as a Canadian private aircraft owner, I have the final responsibility for determining that the annual inspection has been completed. In the U.S., on the other hand, it’s not the private owner but an Inspection Authority (IA) who makes that determination and signs a logbook entry returning the plane to service after the inspection. In both countries, of course, the pilot is ultimately responsible for airworthiness before each flight, no matter who has written and signed what in the logs.

In Canada, the Aircraft Maintenance Engineer (AME) performing the annual inspection will typically follow CAR 625, appendix B: part 1 lists a set of standard inspection tasks for any small airplane, such as testing cylinder compression or the torquing and safety wiring of propeller attachment bolts. However, most aircraft manufacturers also publish a customized inspection list for each aircraft, that goes into more detail and includes additional tasks (unfortunately, the manufacturers’ inspection lists are rarely, if ever, available free online).

I’m skipping the 100 hour/annual inspection here, since it isn’t all that different than the generic one in the CARs (aside from a bit more detail). What is more interesting is that the checklist for the PA-28-161 Piper Warrior II includes tasks for 50 hours (i.e. at each oil change), 500 hours (~4-5 years), and 1,000+ hours (~8-10+ years), all inspections not specifically covered in the CARs and not necessarily familiar to owners. I don’t agree with all of these — for example, I’m not automatically going to recondition a fixed-pitch propeller at 1,000 hours if it’s still in excellent shape — but overall, these look like intelligent recommendations, and I’m going to try to make space for them in my maintenance planning. At best, I might avoid a forced landing or worse; at a minimum, I’ll be able to pass on a better-maintained plane to the next owner, and will be able to hold my head up during the prepurchase inspection.

The 50 hour inspection

This one looks huge, but most of the tasks are simple ones, and a good number qualify as elementary work (I’ll post on that in the future). Some of these are things any pilot would do before every flight, such as checking the tire pressure, oleo extension, and alternator belt, and others are part of a normal oil change, like draining the sump or cleaning the plugs. Because my Warrior is blessed with a fully-opening cowl (rather than just a tiny oil door), I can also perform a good visual inspection of the engine, hoses, sparkplug leads, and engine mount before every flight. Still, there’s a lot here that is not part of my normal 50-hour oil change. If I’m changing the oil anyway (say, in the late fall), and already have the plane up on jacks to remove the nosewheel fairing, I think it might make sense to pay for 2 hours or so of an AME’s time to perform the other tasks in this list. It looks like a relatively easy way to maintain a safe plane, and a lot less expensive than the questionable fairy-dust-style safety expenditures many owners make, like backup vacuum pumps (for fixed-gear planes) and traffic alerting systems.

  • Inspect [propeller] spinner and back plate for cracks.
  • Inspect [propeller] blades for nicks and cracks.
  • Remove and inspect engine cowling for damage.
  • Drain oil sump.
  • Clean suction oil strainer at oil change. Inspect strainer for foreign particles.
  • Clean pressure oil strainer or change full flow (cartidge type) oil filter element. Inspect strainer or element for foreign particles.
  • Inspect oil lines and fittings for leaks, security, chafing, dents, and cracks.
  • Fill engine with oil per information on cowl or service manual.
  • Inspect spark plug cable leads.
  • Inspect rocker box covers for evidence of oil leaks. If found, replace gasket, torque cover screws 50 inch-pounds.
  • Inspect condition of carburetor heat air door and box.
  • Inspect all air inlet ducts and alternate heat duct.
  • Remove, drain, and clean fuel filter bowl and screen. (Drain and clean at least every 90 days.)
  • Inspect condition of flexible fuel lines.
  • Inspect exhaust stacks, connections and gaskets. Replace gaskets as required.
  • Inspect engine mounts for cracks and loose mountings.
  • Inspect condition and tension of alternator drive belt.
  • Inspect security of alternator mounting.
  • Check condition and security of hydraulic line and fluid in brake reservoir; fill as required.
  • Reinstall engine cowl.
  • Check landing, navigation, cabin and instrument lights.
  • Inspect battery, box and cables (Inspect at least every 30 days). Flush box as required and fill battery per instructions on box.
  • Remove, drain, and clean fuel strainer bowl and screen. Drain and clean at least every 90 days.
  • Lubricate [fuselage and empennage] per lubrication chart.
  • Check emergency locator transmitter battery replacement date and transmitter for operation.
  • Lubricate [wing] per lubrication chart.
  • Inspect oleo struts for proper extension (N-3.25 in./M-4.50 in.). Check for proper fluid level as required.
  • Check tire pressure. (N-30 psi, M-24 psi.)
  • Lubricate [landing gear] per lubrication chart.
  • Inspect all hydraulic lines and attaching parts for security, routing, chafing, deterioration, wear, and correct installation.

The 500 hour inspection

The 500 hour inspection includes only three tasks not already in the 100 hour/annual inspection:

  • (400 hours) Remove rocker box cover and perform a valve inspection.
  • Remove and flush oil radiator.
  • Replace auxiliary vacuum pump.
  • If installed, replace central air filter.
  • Clean and lubricate stabilator trim drum screw.

I have my stab trim screw cleaned and lubed regularly because it becomes stiff in cold weather, but I can find no record of the oil cooler ever having been removed and flushed — any gunk caught in it can circulate back into the cylinders, wearing them down and forcing an early overhaul; this year, I plan to have this work done as cheap insurance for my engine. I don’t have an auxiliary vacuum pump in the plane, only the main engine-driven one.

The 1,000+ hour inspection

There are only a few 1,000+ hour tasks:

  • Recondition propeller.
  • Replace magneto.
  • Overhaul or replace engine driven and electric fuel pumps.
  • (2,000 hours) Complete overhaul of engine or replace with factory rebuilt.
  • Replace engine driven vacuum pump.
  • Clean and lubricate all exterior needle bearings.

OK, now it’s time to be realistic. I am not going to replace my engine at 2,000 hours if it’s still going strong. In fact, I think that doing so would actually be more dangerous — the only forced landing I’ve ever seen happened right after a new engine was installed, because the shop attached something incorrectly; two other local forced landings I’ve heard about had similar causes. As long as my compressions are good and there’s no metal in the oil filter, I’d rather stick with an engine that has all its bugs shaken out than a new, unproven one. The vacuum pump, on the other hand, is cheap to buy (a few hundred dollars) and easy to install (about 30 minutes of an AME’s time) — I’ve already had one fail on me, and preemptive replacement here might make sense. I’ll have to think about that one.

Just in case anyone has the mistaken idea that I — who, as a teenage boy, preferred reading books to fixing cars — actually know much about nuts-and-bolts (so to speak) of maintenance, I’ll finish with a simple question: What’s a needle bearing?

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Toronto/Pearson still in the top 30

Posted on April 7, 2005 by David Megginson

The Airport Council International (ACI) released its preliminary 2004 list of the top 30 airports yesterday (ranked by number of passenger movements). Toronto/Pearson saw a huge increase in traffic, but is still just barely clinging to the list in spot 29 (a bit busier than Philadelphia, but not quite so busy as Seattle).

Given its low ranking, it’s funny that Pearson (a) has so much trouble handling traffic volume, and (b) has such a — dare I say it — messiah complex about its importance. For example, when I flew into Philadelphia International in fall 2002, I just showed up unannounced (aside from my IFR flight plan), I paid no landing or ramp fees, U.S. customs drove around to the FBO to meet me, the parking fees were reasonable (USD 20.00/night, first night free), and I found the pace of ATC and general traffic relaxed and quiet both arriving and departing. In contrast, Toronto requires IFR slot reservations for certain times of day, the airport charges close to CAD 200.00 landing fee for a light single (depending on time of day), and Frank Eigler was billed over CAD 700.00 for leaving his plane at Pearson for 48 hours. I’d like to try Pearson once, just to say I’ve done it, but it’s hard to ignore the strong message that I’m not welcome.

Maybe they’re just too busy.

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Canadian Airport Diagrams Online

Posted on April 5, 2005 by David Megginson

Ottawa CAMS airport diagram.

U.S. airport diagrams for all airports with instrument approaches have been available online for a while, along with all U.S. instrument procedures (SIDs, STARs, approaches, etc.); recently, official PDF versions became available which do not go fuzzy when you blow them up and print them out, like the old scanned documents did.

Now, finally, Nav Canada has made the same thing available for Canadian pilots here (click on “CAMS”). Previously, to get free Canadian airport diagrams online, you had to go to the U.S. department of defense (seriously!) at their DAFIF site, and even then, only a relatively small number of Canadian airports were represented (note, however, that the DAFIF is still the only free source for actual Canadian approach plates).

So, how do score Nav Canada for this one?

  • +10: made the diagrams available for free, even though it meant paying a government department (U.S. government publications are in the public domain; Canadian government publications are cost-recovery, so you have to pay to play)
  • -1: invented a confusing new name, CAMS (Canadian Aerodrome Maneuvering Surfaces)
  • -5: whole thing in one massive PDF file (this link will expire soon), instead of a separate PDF for each airport

Final score: +4, or “good effort; keep working to improve”. That last point is particularly annoying, not because of the long download (a majority of Canadians have broadband), but because it’s impossible to link to or bookmark individual diagrams — if I’m posting about an airport, I’d like to be able to make a link, but I cannot. This principle — that everything has to have its own, persistent URL — is called REST, and it’s the basic design that makes the web work. But now, I’m letting high-tech stuff from my other weblog spill over into this one, so I had best stop before I lose the few readers I have.

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Power + Pitch = Stall (?)

Posted on April 4, 2005 by David Megginson

Kris Johnson has a posting on holy wars in aviation, including the two variants of the very dangerous teaching that you control airspeed with pitch and power. The idea is that students learn to look out the window (which is good) and, for any given RPM — assuming a fixed-pitch prop — memorize what pitch attitude will give them what airspeed. I believe that this teaching approach has two significant consequences:

  1. it gets student pilots to first solo faster; and
  2. it kills some of those pilots (and their friends and families) after they get their licenses.

While we all want to save money on flying lessons, I think this is a lousy tradeoff. The only way to make a given pitch/RPM combination produce a given airspeed is to make sure that gross weight, density altitude, CG, sideslip, and bank are always exactly the same. During training, while these conditions are not always exactly the same, they’re usually pretty close, so instructors can get away with this little cheat, students solo sooner, and everyone’s happy.

Departure Stall

Some day soon, though, the new private pilot is going to want to do more than fly around the same area under the same conditions with zero-to-one passengers on board, and unfortunately, he or she is going to be in for a big surprise. Consider this: after training through the fall, winter, and spring, the pilot (we’ll make it a male) finally has his PPL, just in time for summer vacation. He loads his wife and two children on board a Cessna 172 or Cherokee, secures the baggage in the back, and fills the tanks (making sure to stay withing W&B, of course). It’s a bit of a hot, humid day, but it’s a low elevation airport and a nice long runway, and the pilot must have taken off here 50 times during training, so it shouldn’t be a problem.

It takes the plane a lot longer to get up to rotation speed in the takeoff roll, but the pilot expected that — that’s why they have those takeoff-distance charts in the POH. It’s also much harder to unstick the plane from the runway; in fact, it seems to want to settle right back down again. Finally, though, the plane is climbing … well, sort of. The pilot is used to about 700 fpm with half tanks and an instructor on board, and 1,000 fpm or better when he’s solo; a quick glance at the VSI, though, shows only about 200 fpm. HUH? Well, the pitch is wrong — the nose is too low compared to every other climbout the pilot ever did — so he pulls the nose up a bit to get closer to the normal climb pitch. The VSI jumps up to 500 fpm, so this was obviously the right choice … except that three seconds later, it’s down to less than 100 fpm. The plane isn’t climbing at all, for any practical purpose. OK, pull the nose up a bit more (the tach shows full power, and the nose is still lower than usual), and sure enough, the VSI jumps up a bit more, before it settles down again, this time with no climb at all.

You can see where this is leading — one or two more pullups (still below the normal climb pitch angle from training) and the flight ends up as one of the many, many summer stall-spin accidents on takeoff. According to the Transportation Safety Board of Canada statistics, from 20-33% of accidents take place during takeoff, literally during the first few seconds of flight. In this case, a glance at the ASI should have told the pilot that the nose was too high, not too low, but the problem was that the nose looked too low, because the pitch was too low, and pitch + power = performance. Normally, the pilot could barely see the ground ahead at all in a Vx or even Vy climb, but this time, the ground seemed to fill a third of the windshield. Even if the pilot did look at the ASI, he might have had trouble believing it, since it was outvoted by the pitch (which showed the nose too low), the power (which showed the correct RPM), and the VSI (which showed the climb rate way too low), and all of that was combined with the stress of having the family on board for the first time, etc. etc.

Angle of attack, angle of attack, angle of attack …

Here’s the problem — it’s not pitch and power, but angle of attack that controls airspeed. The pilot studied angle of attack during groundschool, of course, but it never seemed all that practical, and the instructor’s “pitch + power = performance ” mantra seemed simpler and more logical. As long as the plane was flying under similar conditions (density altitude, gross weight, etc.) you could pretty-much map pitch angle to angle of attack during each phase of flight — there was a “climb attitude”, a “cruise attitude”, and an “approach attitude”. In the example above, however, there was a significant change to some of the conditions, so the mapping didn’t work any more.

My Warrior, for example, might climb as fast as at 1,200 fpm on a winter’s day near sea level with just me on board and half fuel; it can barely manage 400 fpm (at Vy) from the same airport with the whole family, dog, baggage, and full fuel on a hot summer day. Since Vy for my Warrior is 80 knots, assuming no wind I’ll fly forward about 8,100 feet every minute — if I’m climbing at 1,200 fpm, I’ll follow an angle of climb of nearly 9 degrees (!!); if I’m climbing at 400 fpm, I’ll follow an angle of climb of about 3 degrees. Now, my angle of attack, which controls my airspeed, goes on top of that. Let’s say that a 4-degree angle of attack gives me Vy (I’m just guessing):

  • when I’m flying light on a cold day, my pitch angle will be 4 degrees for angle of attack, minus (say) 2 degrees for the incidence angle of the wings (which are normally tilted up a bit), plus 9 degrees for the angle of climb, giving me a pitch angle of 11 degrees — I’ll see nothing but clouds and sky outside the windshield.
  • when I’m flying heavy on a hot day, my pitch angle will be 4 degrees for angle of attack, minus 2 degrees for the incidence angle of the wings, plus 3 degrees for the angle of climb, giving me a pitch angle of 5 degrees — the bottom third of the windshield will be filled with the ground.

In one case, a pitch of 13 degrees + full power = 80 knots; in the other case, a pitch of 5 degrees + full power = 80 knots. Different pitch, but same airspeed and same power. Clearly pitch + power != performance.

Why do some instructors do this?

Of course, there are many instructors who know the dangers of the pitch + power thing and teach it properly: you have to get to the right airspeed first, and then choose the pitch angle that gives you that airspeed at that power setting at that particular moment — it might be different every time. And you have to choose a new pitch angle not only for every flight, but for every power change in that flight (and even for the same power setting over a long trip, as you burn off fuel and get lighter). Taking the shortcut — memorizing preset pitch angles — might get you to first solo faster, but it might also kill you.

Part of the problem with the instructors who get it wrong might be the fact that a lot of them — especially the ones using flight instruction as a career step — have a surprisingly limited exposure to aviation. It’s even possible that some of the ones who are building time to get into the airlines might never have gone on a really long cross country (the one for the CPL is only a few hundred miles), never have flown a low-powered plane near gross weight on a hot day, never have taken off from a short, obstructed grass strip, never have flown an approach in actual low IMC, never have tried to maintain control inside a TCU with lightning flashing around them, never have done a continuous 180 descent from close downwind to landing to avoid holding up three jets on final at a busy airport, etc. etc. Their experience doesn’t really match much that their PPL students will be doing if they choose to remain private pilots, so instead, they pass on platitudes and old chestnuts that they learned from their instructors, and spend a lot of time on relatively pointless exercises designed to get the student past the flight test rather than helping him or her become a safe pilot.

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Admin: Comment and Pingback Limits

Posted on March 31, 2005 by David Megginson

I’ve been a bit overwhelmed dealing with comment and traceback/pingback spam on my two blogs, sometimes having to delete up to 50 a day (mostly in the moderation queue, fortunately). My first impulse was to ban comments completely, since most people who leave comments already have their own blogs, and can carry on discussions that way.

However, I do think that comments and pingbacks are valuable, so I’ve come up with a compromise: I will allow comments for all postings in the current and previous month, but close older postings to comments. I’ll still have to deal with a bit of spam, and you won’t be able to comment on very old postings, I think that this approach will work for everyone.

How do people on commercial services, like Blogger, deal with comment spam? Do you spend a measurable amount of time every day deleting it?

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IFR risks

Posted on March 31, 2005 by David Megginson

Congratulations to Hamish, who has just earned his instrument rating down in California. Hamish wisely reflects that he wants to ease into IFR flying — no low approaches, etc., until he has a lot of experience.

I’m going to be contrarian and suggest the opposite — get out there and experience as much as you can. Deliberately shoot approaches that are below minima. Fly in cumulous cloud and even in some (lowish) towering cumulus. To understand why, consider two scenarios.

Scenario 1

A year from now, you’re at the end of a three-hour flight, all in cumulus, with light-to-moderate turbulence the whole way. You’re frazzled and queasy yourself: one of your passengers has already thrown up twice and is begging you to land, and the whole plane stinks. The rental-car place at the airport closes in an hour. With the headwind, you’re not sure you actually have the full IFR reserve you planned on. You start the non-precision approach, expecting a much higher ceiling and an easy landing, but at MDA you’re just getting glimpses of the ground. You’re drifting around on the approach because you’re worrying about getting your pax on the ground. It looks like you’re right at the cloud base — just another 50 feet lower would have you clear, and you could switch to VFR (well, SVFR) almost immediately and finish the landing. Or, alternatively, you hit the MAP, and just as you’re starting to go missed, you can suddenly see the airport — almost right below you — through a break in the clouds.

Scenario 2

You’re at exactly the same airport, with exactly the same weather conditions. However, you’re alone in the plane (or with a flying buddy). You started out at an airport an hour away, where conditions are MVFR or VFR, assuring you of an easy return when you’re done practising here. You shoot the same non-precision approach, but this time, you have no intention of landing. You notice how you can see straight down at MDA, but you have no forward visibility. You drift slightly, but correct immediately because you’re not worried about whether you’ll be able to land. As you hit the MAP and start the missed approach (which was your plan all along), you notice the airport right below, and remind yourself to remember how it would not be possible to land safely at this point even though you saw the airport.

Are they both dangerous?

There’s no question that Scenario 1 reads like the beginning of an NTSB crash report (in fact, it has enough risk factors to make up several NTSB reports). But what’s the real risk here? Is it that the pilot is not skilled enough to handle the plane in IMC? The pilot and passengers in the first scenario are at an enormous risk of dying, not because of the pilot’s ability or inability to manipulate the controls and scan the instruments, but because of the pilot’s ability or inability to make difficult decisions. That’s the biggest problem with IFR training in both Canada and the US — 90% of IFR training focusses on how to handle the plane and follow finicky hold and approach procedures within tolerances, but 90% of real IFR flying is making complicated decisions like the one in scenario 1. You do not learn much useful about IFR flying by going round and round your local training area planning hold or approach entries, either under the hood or in actual IMC. Nobody does anything stupid IFR until they actually have to get somewhere.

I’d suggest that, even though the approach is below minima, Scenario 2 is not unacceptably dangerous (since there’s no temptation to try to land); in fact, scenario 2 is the kind of thing that IFR pilots should get out and do as often as possible. The more a pilot practises shooting low approaches that he or she has no intention of landing, the less likely a pilot is going to be fooled by the temptation to duck and dive under minima because of a glimpse of the ground or the airport — the pilot learns what conditions for a missed approach really look like (i.e. not necessarily white outside the windshield), and will be more confident about the choice to go missed in Scenario 1. I did a whole bunch of non-precision approaches like these one day last fall, and it was a great experience; I’m hoping to do the same thing again in a week or so, now that the freezing level is lifting.

Despite all the practice I’ve had, I’m not much better at the mechanical parts of IFR flying than I was in summer 2003 when I got my instrument rating (I’ll be repeating the IFR flight test this summer — in Canada, we have to retake it every two years). I hold altitude and heading a bit better that I did then, but it’s nothing like the improvement in airmanship that you get from two years of VFR flying. The big difference between then and now is what I’ve learned about (a) weather and (b) the ATC system. I did well on my written IFR test, but I cannot believe how little practical knowledge I had of weather then, not to mention of how ATC really worked. It takes only a few bad encounters with weather phenomena to teach you to pay a lot more attention to meteorology, and to realize that reading the TAFs, FDs, and (G)FAs is only a tiny first step to planning a flight: if you cannot explain why a TAF or (G)FA is forecasting the weather it is, you’re not ready to take off yet. And it takes only one long vector on a dark, rainy night to teach you how to learn about traffic flow near big airports and how to plan around it.

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No Glamour

Posted on March 23, 2005 by David Megginson

Kris Johnson, a student pilot, has a post about the lack of glamour in being a pilot. Instead of the soft leather jacket, silk scarf, and rougish smile, it’s a big, clumsy headset, googly sunglasses, and trying to find a dignified way to lower yourself bum-first into a Piper Warrior down off the wingwalk.

I’m not sure where Kris lives, but in colder latitudes, we also have the problem of dressing for survival in case of a forced landing during winter months — that means long underwear, thick socks, toque, big mittens, scarf, etc. Basically, you end up looking like one of the kids from South Park before you even get to the headset.

Posted in General | 3 Comments

Signing off on maintenance

Posted on March 20, 2005 by David Megginson

C-FBJO in the shop.

Mike Busch has written a column about annual inspections in the U.S., especially about understandings and misunderstandings among U.S. IA’s (inspection authoritiesI think) — many US IAs think that they are a kind of police force responsible for keeping unsafe planes on the ground, and many US owners think that IAs can hold their planes hostage by squawking them.

In the U.S., after an annual inspection, the IA signs off that the plane is airworthy (or gives a discrepancy list to the owner). In Canada, as far as I understand the regs (and as my AME has explained them to me), the AME does not even have to write that the plane passed or didn’t pass an annual inspection, at least not for small, private, piston-powered aircraft. Here’s the exact language from CARS Standard 625, Appendix B — Maintenance Schedule:

(6) Pursuant to CAR 605.86(2), the schedule is considered to be approved for use by owners of small non-commercial operation aircraft and all balloons. Owners need only to make an entry in the aircraft technical records that the aircraft is maintained pursuant to the maintenance schedule.

In other words, I could grab the maintenance schedule, research the ADs, make a list of tasks (inspections and repairs), and take the plane to three different shops, each of which does a third of the work. I would not have to tell any of those shops that the work was part of an annual inspection — each one would simply write what it did into the logbook. Once I was satisfied that everything required for the annual inspection was finished, I would simply return the aircraft to service, and my annual inspection is finished.

In practice, of course, I wouldn’t do things that way. I value my the experience and knowledge of my AME, and I want him to take an active role in keeping the plane safe. And, of course, with or without an IA’s signature, the final responsibility for airworthiness will always lie with the pilot in command.

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Moving to Full Text

Posted on March 18, 2005 by David Megginson

[Updated: Bloglines OK] At the request of a couple of users, I’m going to experiment with switching this weblog to a fulltext RSS feed. I had been reluctant to do that because some of the posts are fairly lengthy, but it won’t hurt to try. Please leave a comment to let me know about any problems you may have.

I just noticed that WordPress is putting the full content for the RSS 2.0 feed into an RSS 1.0 encoded element, while the RSS 2.0 description element still contains only a summary. That is not what I expected — Bloglines, for example, seems to still be showing summaries, though I haven’t tried updating an old, longer posting to see what happens. Liferea on my desktop is showing the full text now.

I guess I’ll have to mess around with some WordPress PHP templates to put the full text into description, where (I think) it belongs.

Update: Bloglines is showing full text for new postings, but not for older ones. That’s probably OK.

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