In the fall, I was determined to find a job other than lifeguarding and swim instructing for the summer (even though I love those jobs, it was time for a change) I applied for everything related to aviation or Chinese I could find, including countless airline/airport internships as well as government related jobs or study abroad scholarship opportunities. I somehow ended up coming across an aviation related job in Juneau Alaska and was fortunate enough to receive a job offer for the summer. This summer I will be working as a dispatch/weight and balance/manifiester for a helicopter tour company in Juneau. This company gives visitors the experience of flying in a helicopter and landing on a glacier to then receive a tour and walk on the glaciers. I will be responsible for making sure each helicopter is within the weight requirements and correctly balanced to maintain safety. As part of my job, I will get to go on one of these tours, which is like a once in a lifetime opportunity.
I leave tomorrow morning for Alaska and I am extremely excited. I have never been to Alaska before, so I am thrilled to experience a new environment and experience a new side of the aviation industry. This will be a valuable experience that will help me gain new skills and further my knowledge. I will definitely keep the blog updated on my summer job and hopefully have some cool pictures to post as well in the future.
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One of my final solo lessons for this semester was to complete a solo cross country. Unfortunately, the weather hasn’t been great for the last couple of weeks, so I have had to keep pushing it back. Finally, this week, I was able to complete the flight I had planned for multiple times.
For my longer dual cross country earlier this semester, my instructor had the suggestion of doing a route to South Bend, Indiana and then to Benton Harbor, Michigan. When I was planning the route, I noticed that the Benton Harbor airport was basically right on Lake Michigan. This immediately made me excited for the flight. I had been to the dunes before, but I had definitely never seen the lake from the air. On the day we had planned the dual cross country, the weather up North was looking questionable, so I had to replan a route to the South for the day. Since I didn’t get to do that route on the dual day, I kept it in the back of my mind to come back to when it was time for the solo cross country. The weather on Tuesday was near perfect for flying. It was sunny, the sky was almost completely clear of clouds, and the winds were near calm at all of the points of landing. I took full advantage of the good weather and took off around 8 AM. First, I flew to South Bend. This was pretty cool because I was able to spot Notre Dame from the sky. The next leg to Benton Harbor was pretty short, so I had to be very on top of procedures and comms. As I neared Benton Harbor I could start to see the expanse of water beyond me. This was definitely one of the coolest places I have flown to, and was a very different environment from all of the cornfields near West Lafayette. I was really grateful to my instructor for the suggestion and hope to be able to fly somewhere near there next semester. As I have talked about in some of my earlier blog posts, I have a simulator class this semester that goes along with the first half of my commercial flight training. It has been helping me practice cross country procedures, stay current and proficient with instrument procedures, and practice the various maneuvers I have been learning. One of the things I find most exciting about using the simulators is the ability to fly anywhere in the country. Throughout my lessons, I have definitely made use of this feature. While I am very used to flying over the cornfields of Indiana, this has allowed me to experience a vast change in scenery. For example, I recently did a cross country to two of the places I went over Spring Break: New Mexico and Texas. I also was able to do one from Salem, Oregon (the place I was born), to Tillamook, Oregon (the place with the best cheese). I also did some routes between islands in Hawaii, as well as one in Colorado that took me through some mountain valleys. I have definitely experienced some interesting places in the sim. For example, my instructor showed me an aircraft carrier that was near the place she was from. It was located right off the coast of San Diego. Since we had extra time after the lesson that day, I tried to land on it a couple of times. Trying to land an archer on an aircraft carrier is definitely a difficult task. One of the other places I was flying was in Sitka, Alaska. This is definitely a unique airport, as the runway environment is almost completely surrounded by water. Ketchikan, Alaska also has an airport of note, as it is on a separate island from the main town. This week I started my simulator class that goes along with earning my commercial lesson. This class consists of a review of VFR maneuvers, IFR procedures, cross country procedures, and procedures for various emergencies that could occur while flying. My first lesson was practicing stalls, slow flight, and steep turns in the simulator. It was helpful to be able to practice the general procedures for each maneuver, since I haven’t done them since the very beginning of commercial training. However, it was weird not being able to feel each maneuver as you would in the plane. Steep turns were especially weird, since I couldn’t feel myself being at a fifty five degree bank. This made it difficult to recognize when I was losing or gaining altitude without relying on my instruments.
The second lesson I did this week was a VFR cross country. I decided to practice a route that I was planning to do the next day in my commercial flight class. This flight would be to Terre Haute airport (KHUF) and back to Lafayette. We basically practiced all of the communications between each airport and using the G1000 avionics to navigate my chosen route. On the second leg of the route, I was able to practice using the autopilot features. This was really helpful to me because I don’t have a lot of experience using autopilot and it usually just confuses me. I feel like I now understand what each of the autopilot settings means and when to use them. Overall, I feel like utilizing the simulators for commercial practice is pretty helpful. I’m looking forward to next week, where I will be doing an IFR cross country and another VFR cross country. Since Purdue Aviation Day is fast approaching, I figured I would introduce the event a little bit. This event is the largest student run event that occurs on Purdue’s campus and helps introduce aviation to the general public and showcase Purdue’s flight program . It works to build interest in aviation among children and teenagers as well. The event this year will occur on April 13th, 2024 and is located at the Purdue University Airport. This is a great event for the public as no ticket is necessary. There are various events throughout the day, including many different speakers. Various panels have been brought together to discuss topics such as young professionals in aviation, diversity and inclusion in aviation. One thing I am excited to see at the event is the aerial demonstrations, as I don’t think I have ever seen an aerial flight performance before. I also find it interesting that this day offers fly-ins. Pilots are able to register their flight and be able to fly into the Lafayette airport and park at Purdue’s ramp. I’m expecting to see a variety of different aircraft that I have never seen before.
If you happen to be in the Lafayette area on Saturday April 13th, I would definitely recommend stopping by to see the event, even if just for a little bit! You definitely wouldn’t regret it, especially if you are kind of an aviation nerd. For the past few weeks, I have been trying to finish my basic attitude instrument lessons that are part of my commercial training. To accomplish this, I have been trying to make use of the night flight slots that my school offers. This past Friday, I was dispatched for a flight. It was expected that precipitation would start to move in at a later time than our flight would be. The temperatures were also expected to drop a little bit. We got dispatched in the hopes that the forecast was correct and precipitation would hold off until later in the night.
The flight began uneventfully. We did a couple of unusual attitudes and were working on timed turns and climbs and descents under the hood when it began to rain. My instructor and I made the decision to turn around once it started raining due to the dropping temperatures. This could have become an icing situation. We were able to recognize that we would possibly be flying in dangerous icing conditions if we continued the flight and were able to make the right decision to cut the flight short and land back at the airport. This was definitely an significant learning experience for me. It helped me recognize the importance of checking weather conditions throughout the flight rather than just before flying. It also improved my knowledge of what it means to have good aeronautical decision making. IT is always best to discontinue a flight if it appears safety will be compromised. In my aviation weather class, one of the main things we focused on this week was identifying different types of clouds and how they indicate different weather phenomenon. I’m finding it really interesting how you can tell so much about what type of weather is likely to occur just based on analysis of the clouds present. I figured I would introduce some of this information I have been learning.
First of all, clouds are classified by their heights as well as by their shape/appearance. Clouds at a middle altitude have the prefix alto, such as altocumulus or altostratus. High altitude clouds have the prefix cirrus, such as cirrocumulus or cirrostratus. Here is some information about the four main types of clouds: Cumulus: Cumulus clouds have a flat bottom with a fluffy top. They are formed by vertically upward currents and can be different heights. Stratus: Stratus clouds are usually fuzzy and layered. They are formed in stable air and are more wide than deep. If you see stratus clouds, this generally means poor visibility with possible icing conditions Cirrus: Cirrus clouds are thin and wispy ice crystals. They can indicate that poor weather or precipitation will be present in the future. Stratocumulus: These clouds appear as a mix of stratus and cumulus. They are wide and layered, like stratus clouds, but also have some vertical development that resembles cumulus clouds. These indicate that the sky will clear in the near future and no precipitation will be present. If you want to know what kind of weather is approaching, look to the clouds! An extremely important part of aviation is safety. One of the ways we can increase safety culture in aviation is by looking at mistakes made in the past and determine solutions to not make the same error in the future. Analyzing aviation accidents can be helpful in determining what changes need to be made to improve flight policy and pilot awareness and judgment. I have recently analyzed one significant accident and thought I would share my findings and what we can learn from it. This accident was the Air Florida Flight 90 Boeing 737 Ice River Plane Crash. It was a decently long time ago (1982) and had an impact on icing operations on aircraft.
The root cause of the accident was determined to be the failure of the flight crew to use engine anti ice during operation on the ground and on takeoff. They also decided to take off with snow/ice on the airfoil surfaces and did not abort the takeoff when they saw abnormal readings on the flight instruments. Another contribution was the delay between deicing and takeoff. The deicing system was the main contributor to the accident. First of all, the de icing fluid itself contained less than half of the glycol that it was supposed to. This is because a specially calibrated valve had been replaced with an unmodified valve, which caused less glycol to enter the fluid. There was fresh snow and ice on the aircraft just 10 minutes after it had been de iced. Secondly, icing on the thrust probe caused an incorrect thrust reading that led to an unsafe takeoff. A system design change that could have been used to mitigate the accident would be to make sure that specially calibrated valves are used in deicing equipment instead of unmodified valve. This was not checked during maintenance, leading to less glycol being in the de icing fluid. Another change could have been to conduct de icing more often. There could also be a de icing/anti ice system added to the thrust probes to ensure that they would have a correct reading. Other factors that contributed to the accident were human error as well as the thrust sensor system. When the pilot used reverse thrust, he added slush and snow to the wings and engine inlet. Thrust readings are produced by the inlet and outlet sensors by measuring the ratio between air pressure at the front and the back of the engine. Because the snow and slush froze the thrust sensors, readings of thrust were higher than the actual amount of thrust being produced. Since the thrust reading was higher, the pilots believed that it was safe to take off when they were below takeoff speed. One of the human errors was that one of the ground de icers though that it was warmer than it actually was, so he added less de icing fluid to the wing. The main human error was that the pilots did not turn on the anti ice system, and neither of them caught the mistake. Lastly, the pilot should have not used reverse thrust and they should have aborted the takeoff when they realized something was wrong. In the wake of the accident, there were no airworthiness directives issued. The FAA used advisory circulars to standardize the application of de icing. There weren’t really changes to the aircraft system, but there were many changes to training, regulations, and guidance. There were many regulatory/guidance/training changes that resulted from this accident. There were improvements made to many airplane flight manuals after there was a review of all Boeing models and other large transport airplanes. FAR section 121.629 was revised to include other critical parts of an aircraft that ice could form on. There were also additions to the FARs that provided details about dispatch, release, or takeoff of aircraft in winter conditions. There were advisory circulars that emphasized the importance of having a clean aircraft, provided recommendations for safe operation during icing conditions, and standardized application and training programs associated with ground de icing. In my aviation law class this semester, we have been looking at a lot of different court cases that have affected aviation in a significant way. I have decided to share about one of the court cases I found the most interesting. This case was California V. Ciraolo and was argued in 1986, so it’s a relatively old case that has impacted the relationship between aviation and legal proceedings. This case took place in Santa Clara, where the police received a tip that marijuana was growing in Dante Ciraolo’s backyard. However, they were unable to see if this tip was true due to extensive fencing surrounding the yard. In order to solve this problem, police officers secured a plane and pilot to do a flyover of the house. This was done without a warrant. A plant expert in the plane determined that there was in fact marijuana growing in the backyard. Using this flight as evidence, police received a warrant that was then used to arrest Ciraolo. Ciraolo pled guilty to charge of cultivation of marijuana. However, this case was reversed by the California Court of Appeal with the reasoning that the means of issuing a warrant violated the Fourth amendment because the garden was within the “curtilage” of his property. In the end, the court held that the fourth amendment was not violated by the aerial observation of Ciraolo’s backyard by the naked eye. The state successfully argued that Ciraolo had knowingly exposed his garden to observation from the air, despite the defense argument that this flyover was not routine patrol and was specifically focused on the single backyard. Overall, California V. Ciraolo was an impactful case because it decreased the amount of privacy a person could expect in their home and increased the role of aviation in policing. It is an interesting case of the recurring debate between government control and personal freedom. I thought it was especially interesting because it introduced me to a use of aviation I had not yet considered. One of the major developments here at Purdue is the readdition of commercial flights in the near future. This is part of an agreement between Purdue University, Surf Air Mobility, and Southern Airways. Southern Airways Express is an subsidiary airline of Surf Air Mobility. Beginning this year, commercial air service will be available between the Chicago O’Hare International Airport (KORD) and Lafayette Airport (KLAF). Flights will be conducted daily between the two airports and the pricing will begin at under one hundred dollars. This is significant because Purdue University Airport has not offered commercial air service since 2004 (the year I was born, it’s been a while). Some advantages of the new flight service is that it will support economic growth in the area as well as allow out of state students to be able to fly directly into Lafayette rather than have to shuttle from Chicago or Indianapolis. There will also be a student discount that will help make flights more affordable to students. In addition to new commercial flights, Purdue is also planning on making improvements to the existing terminal building and runways. The new terminal will be constructed starting this summer and will be named after Amelia Earheart. This will help recognize the contributions Amelia Earheart has made to Purdue’s flight program as well as aviation as a whole. Overall, I think it’s cool to see my “home” airport getting some improvements and expansions. I’m excited to see if they continue to expand flight options and experience the effects of commercial service on Purdue’s flight program. |
AuthorReagan Shaar Archives
May 2024
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