Meet FOD

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So Cole Force got himself a callsign this week at Oshkosh. It’s “FOD.” The acronym for foreign object debris or foreign object damage. The kind of small stuff that you don’t want to get sucked into your turbofan. Cole is the smallest of the aviation new media crew. And he tends to create a fair amount of FOD, whether in the form of gum wrappers, bits of balsa wood, etc.

Anyway, congratulations, FOD, on your new callsign!

I Take Flight: The Simulator Dudes

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I went to Cole’s school earlier today for Young Author’s Day. Each of the kids in Mr. Gayta’s class has produced a book containing an original illustrated story. Cole’s is entitled I Take Flight: The Simulator Dudes. It’s based on the US Navy jet simulator at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.

Note the descriptive “[i]t was a big enough space that you could move around in your seat and press the emergency button if you were going to puke.” Cool! I need to get to that sim. I was there with Rod Rakic in November, but we ran out of time and couldn’t get through the sim.

Cole’s teacher did a great job with the project and I’m really proud of the job that Cole did with the book.

Post-Holiday Phase - On with Planning for 2009!

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New blog header image, first officer gets a tricked-out helmet to go with his STS pressure suit, I finished up the year at the office with a little to spare, and I can finally pull my head out of my butt and start planning in earnest for the coming year of aviation.

As many of you know from following along for the last couple of months, I’ve been pretty grim about the mouth (thanks, Herman Melville!). That’s the way it usually works in my law practice. I slack a little in the first nine months of the year and then face a massive push at the end of the year to get all of my work done. The annual member’s meeting in Chicago and being sick a couple of days in November didn’t help much and I ended up facing (and completing) the biggest December of my career.

But the good news is that I got it all in and, with any luck, I’ll bonus sufficiently to be able to afford some really cool flight activities this year. So, yeah, it’s worth it.

Lots of stuff in the pipeline.

I think I’m going to go get my seaplane rating in April in a PA-12 with Tom Brady at Traverse Air. I had a great time getting my multi with Tom in April 2007 and I think the seaplane rating will be a gas.

I’ll probably start the transition training to fly CAP’s C-182 with the G1000 out of KPTK. That’ll probably begin very soon. Probably a session or two on the ground, then we get into the air.

I might well head down to Griffin to do my recurrent training for the DC-3. If I do, I’ll probably go get some time in the Sky Arrow 600 to the north of Atlanta while I’m down there.

I’ve been invited to C-47 ground school at the Yankee Air Museum in March or April and will likely go do that.

I’ll keep on training with Barry in the Citabria for Aerobatics and additional tailwheel competency. Sutton also has a Super Decathlon on the line that we’re going to go fly soon. It has a smoke system (!) and, although Barry says that doing smoke makes the airplane dirty, I’m going to offer to buy the smoke oil and wash the plane if we can go fly with smoke at some point.

I’m planning to fly my mom somewhere while I’m at Jekyll Island this March. Probably go for a $100 hamburger or something. Should be fun.

I’m planning on five airshows this year, including Sun-N-Fun (Ella’s airshow debut) and Oshkosh. I’m also very excited about adding the Indianapolis Airshow this year. Roger Bishop has some really great plans for Indy and for the time surrounding that show, and I’m going to get him on the sow to do the annual airshow prep episode.

There’s lots more as well. I’m really excited about the upcoming year. I hope you are, too. I’ll see you out at the airport!

Airspeed Aircrew Visit Washington DC

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Mary took the kids to DC this past weekend. She, Cole, and Ella are big Obama fans. I maintain neutrality for purposes of the show in order to keep it all about aviation. But it’s very cool to see Cole, especially, so excited about government and the leadership of the country. Whatever your persuasion, there’s a definite feeling of Camelot in the nation’s capital and there’s something to be said for giving kids an optimistic experience of this kind early in life.

Mary got this shot of Cole posing outside of our favorite aviation regulatory agency.



The spent some time over by the Lincoln Memorial and the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial in the course of the day. Cole recognized the Air Force seal on this monument and wanted a picture with it. No doubt where the boy’s loyalties lie, that’s for sure!


And we close with this picture. We could all go on and on with scripts of what’s going on in Cole’s head and whether he understands what he’s seeing. Do any of us who weren’t there understand it? Enough said.

My Favorite Portrait

Got the above portrait of myself from Cole the other day. Too cool!

Kids and the Sciences - Sometimes You Take Them to the Zoo

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Took the kids to the zoo today. Before you cock your head and say “hey, what does this have to do with aviation,” understand that it’s all about getting the kids fired up about science. Any kind of science. Hey, I prefer aerodynamics, but it remains that the scientific method and process applies universally. You need to expose the kids to as many different manifestations of it as you can.

So we headed to the Detroit Zoo. Cole and Ella, of course. And my sister and Scott and their son, Alex (born a year to the day after Cole).

The Detroit Zoo is a wonder. Maybe it was just the weather (60s and sunny), but the whole place seemed cool and clean and really fun to be around. I wish they had WiFi there. I could really see taking the laptop and a couple of cigars and finding a big 1930s-style stone park bench and camping out there all afternoon.

By far the coolest was the polar bear exhibit in the Arctic Circle of Life installation. I really love the underwater tunnel. Where else can you see polar bears suspended in the water directly above you?


Or let the kids seals and other fauna up close and personal?

It’s a really cool experience. Yeah, we’re going back to the airport soon enough. And to the Detroit Science Center and the Cranbrook Institute of Science. Get the kids out to meet the natural world! It’ll fire their imaginations and help to immunize them from a lot of the crap pseudo-science and outright lies to which the average American is so susceptible. Accept no substitute for up-close and personal experiences folks!

And besides. They have to fly to a lot of the places where these critters live, right?

Take Your Kids to the Science Center

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Here's where the rubber meets the road in the Big Dream, folks! No bitching and moaning about why Johnny can't split the atom if you don't take Johnny (and Jill!) to the science center every now and then.

I took Cole and Ella to the Detroit Science center today for a few hours after my haircut. We're members at the Cranbrook Institute of Science in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and we get reciprocal free admissions at the DSC and other science centers. In fact, we've used those reciprocal privileges at the Museum of Science and Industry, the Adler Planetarium, and the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, all within the last 60 days.

Yeah, we're nerds. Go ahead and point and snicker. You have the choice of having your kids work with - or for - my kids. Choose wisely. And we'll see you at the science center.

Above is an early experience with plasma science for Ella.

Cole getting acquainted with photoelectrics.

Ella taking a turn at the power transfer displays. Not sure she walked away with a lot of the math, but she sure seemed mesmerized. Which is, after all, the point early on.

Cole Meets Mr. Tesla's progeny at the plasma displays.

And what's a trip to Detroit's cultural center without a romp near (or in) the fountain? The Detroit Art Institute is right near the science center and we ate some White Castle and walked around a little before hitting the science center.

Hey, Hannah Montana and the monster truck races are great. Absolutely nothing wrong with those. But you gotta get the kids out to meet the universe in a more constructive way every chance you get. And the local science museum is a great start. Tomorrow, the airport! (Again!)

Oshkosh Fever Begins to Build

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93 days to Oshkosh! Am I obsessing early?

I picked up the new hardware for this year’s Firebase Airspeed a few weeks ago at Costco and the weather was nice enough this weekend that we set it up and slept in it last night. Partially to figure out how the tent goes together, but also to get Cole in the tent and make sure that he’s accustomed to sleeping there before we hit Camp Scholler in earnest.

We also cooked out. Velveeta Mac and Cheese – the official Airspeed meal of choice for Oshkosh.

We’ll podcast and post our GPS coordinates once we get settled in and will be delighted to see any visitors who decide to amble by.

We’re planning on Wednesday through Saturday again this year, but might expand it a little one way or the other. I’ve been in contact with EAA Radio and might be doing some volunteer work for them, both in pre-production and onsite during the event. It comes down to what Fareed and his crew need and what I can provide. Watch this space!

Multi-Engine Training - Off We Go!

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Headed to Traverse City last night as base of operations for the multi-engine rating. Packed everything from the instrument ride in case I needed it for the checkride (e.g. IACRA documents, etc.). that pretty much filled up the back of the family dinghy.

Cole’s going along. He’ll hang out with my folks in Traverse City while I head down to Cadillac (KCAD) to fly.

Serious bugs on the windshield! This is just north of West Branch on I-75 with two hours to go. We had to pull off in Grayling to wash ‘em off. They were actually beginning to constitute a hazard to navigation.

Study, study, study! Got up this morning, got a weather briefing, and tried to study the materials again. The fact is that no amount of reading is actually going to keep be from being surprised in a lot of ways, but I’ll have the book learning part as complete as possible before launching.

Cole Sits Left Seat in a DC-9

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Who says you can't get into an airliner cockpit anymore? Returning from a recent vacation with the kids in a DC-9, we let everyone else off the plane first so we could take a little more time with the kids and our bags getting up the aisle to leave. When we got to the cockpit, the FO offered the kids a chance to see the cockpit up close. Pretty darned cool.

Cole got into the left seat. The FO offered Ella the right seat, but she was a little intimidated. I was on the verge of asking for the right seat myself, but thought better of it.

And the coolest part? Sitting there in the left seat, Cole looks the FO straight in the eye and says "Y'know, my dad's a pilot!"

Love that boy, I do . . .

Airspeed's First Officer In CFIT Incident

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Airspeed's first officer, Cole Tupper, was involved in an incident involving controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) on Thursday. Attempting a nonstandard search and rescue maneuver during a brief unsupervised moment that afternoon, he abruptly discovered that the apparatus he had fashioned to allow him to suspend himself from the railing at the top of the stairs was not up to the task and he and the ill-fated apparatus experienced a rapid altitude loss before meeting the foyer floor below.

Search and rescue forces were immediately on the scene and transported him to the ER 30 minutes later when it became apparent that the incident involved more than the standard boo-boo.

He fractured three metatarsals (bones in the foot) and will be a little heavy on the right rudder for the next month or so due to the cast. He happened to be wearing his orange astronaut launch and reentry suit at the time, much to the amusement of the emergency room staff.

A stern conversation with the Wilshire House FBO managers has elicited a commitment from Mr. Tupper to consult with management before attempting such activities again. Mr. Tupper promptly filed the appropriate NASA reporting service forms. He has not been contacted by the NTSB in connection with the incident and management is hopeful both that his immediate plans for flight operations will be able to continue unabated and that his renewed commitment to the FBO-suggested safety program will avoid similar incidents in the future.