Airspeed - Flight Training with John and Martha King

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This episode is the first in a series that will run through spring. No yet idea how many episodes will be in the series or exactly what the content will be, but we know this: Spring will be here soon and with it the best time of year in the Northern Hemisphere to learn to fly. And, for that matter, there's still a lot of good flying weather left for those listeners in the Southern Hemisphere.

If you've never been up in a general aviation airplane - or if you have, but haven't yet made the decision to start flight training in earnest, these episodes are for you. They're also for people who have started training on a certificate or rating but, for whatever reason, have stopped training.

I know exactly what I'm talking about here. I didn't start flight training until my mid thirties. I had a year-long hiatis in my training for the private pilot certificate when my son was born. And I always seem to have a hiatis toward the end of the year because my law practice tends to get very busy at that time of the year. Case in point, I'm probably four or five flights away from the instrument rating in a Part 141 program, but I'm almost embarassed to say how long it's been since I was last at the flight controls of anythng other than a Frasca 142 simulator - mainly because the weather hasn't been flyable, I'm slammed at work, and I have a couple of great kids that justifiably demand my attention.

But this is the year. I'm going to polish off the instrument rating. And if you have unfinished business at the airport - or have yet to start that business, the time is either now or very soon.

So we're doing a few episodes to give you the motivation and drive to get to the airport - or get back to the airport, as the case may be.

And what better way to start than to bring you John and Martha King.

John and Martha King are two of the best-known flight instructors and aviation advocates in the world. Starting in the early 1970s, they have built a business that has grown into an 18,000 square-foot complex in San Diego and reaches to every corner of the general aviation world through mail order, multimedia training, and personal appearances. Not to mention at least one podcast episode.

The Kings' bios would take at least 2o minutes to try to completely cover (I know - I tried), so we're just going to hit the highlights here. Each holds every single category and class of FAA pilot and instructor certificate. Each of them continues to be active in many categories, regularly flying everything from jet and piston airplanes and helicopters to weight-shift trikes and powered parachutes. They even serve as backup pilots for the Fujifilm blimp.

They lecture widely and make many public appearances. You may guess from some prior episodes that it was tough to get access to the people I've interviewed and you'd be right in some cases. Not so with the Kings. I was on the phone with then very quickly after requesting the interview. Lots of aviation icons talk a good game at the big events about being champions of general aviation and aerospace education, but the Kings put their day-to-day time and energy where their reputations are.

Lastly, I should tell you that I've been through the Cessna Pilot Center (or "CPC") series of CD-ROM training courses for both private and instrument pilot. Those programs featured the Kings heavily, in addition to Rod Machado and others. Even though I had already been through a private ground school in a Part 141 program before taking the CPC courses, I learned new things from the CPC courses and developed a better understanding of the things I already knew. I have not been through other multimedia courses except a but of the ASA instrument DVDs, and can say little one way or another about other courses, but I was already a pretty sophisticated consumer as private pilot training materials went, and found the Kings' materials very effective.

Anyway, on to the interview with John and Martha King.

[Interview audio.]

Thanks to John and Martha King for appearing on Airspeed. You can find more information about John and Martha and about King Schools at www.kingschools.com. There's a link in the show notes at www.airspeedonline.blogspot.com to the article that I mentioned: Battling the "Big Lie:" John King's Crusade to Change Aviation's Culture. It's definitely worth a read by every pilot and by every every pilot's family and friends who have questions about safety in general aviation.

One other thing. I make it a point of telling you guys when I have anything that comes close to a conflict of interest. Like the episode about ballistic recovery parachutes where I disclosed my small stock holding in BRS Parachutes. One could be forgiven for thinking that my enthusiasm about the Kings is motivated by some advertising deal. But I received no promotional consideration from King Schools or anyone connected in any way with the Kings for this episode. None asked and none offered. Their materials are just that good and their generosity with their time is just that . . . well, generous.

There might be better training materials out there - and you should avail yourself of whatever works for you - but I was really happy with my experience with the Kings' materials and you probably would be, too. It's all about what makes your flight training experience most productive and what gets people up in the air sooner, more safely, and so inspired after each lesson that they spend five minutes in the parking lot of the flight school trying to figure out which key unlocks the car. Yeah, it can be that way sometimes. And it can be that way soon if you get yourself to the airport and take the first - or the next - step.

Lastly - and I'll get to this more in depth in a future episode - the best first step in pursuing pilot training is to visit www.beapilot.com. You can obtain a certificate right then and there that's good for your first flight lesson for $99 or less at any of about 2,000 flight schools that participate in the program.

More about John and Martha: http://www.kingschools.com/MeetJohnAndMartha.asp

King Schools: www.kingschools.com

Battling the "Big Lie:" John King's Crusade to Change Aviation's Culture: http://www.kingschools.com/news/BigLie.htm

Cessna Pilot Centers: http://learntofly.com/howto/cpc.chtml

Airspeed Audience Hits 1,000

Airspeed just topped 1,000 subscribers! Thanks to all those listeners who have made the podcast such a success over the last year.

Note that the 27,000 impressions listed above is just since Labor Day, when I moved the show onto Libsyn. About 18,000 of these downloads are of the 30 or so old episodes that I posted to Libsyn on Labor Day - They've received an average of about 600 downloads each in the last six months. Not too shabby!

Thanks again, everyone! Keep on listening and I'll keep on bringing you the best content that I can!

Aircraft Icing and the Researchers of the Icing Branch at NASA Glenn Research Center

Subscribe to Airspeed through iTunes or your other favorite podcatcher using the feed http://airspeed.libsyn.com/rss or listen to audio at http://airspeed.libsyn.com.

It's the season for icing here in the midwest. As some instrument-rated and other pilots can tell you, few things have higher pucker factor than looking out at your wings while you're in the clouds and seeing ice begin to form. Most general aviation aircraft don't have de-icing equipment on board and even those that do often aren't certified for flight into known icing conditions.

For most GA pilots, that means avoiding icing in the first place - and that requires the development and use of the most effective anti-icing tool you have. Your noggin.

Few are more qualified to provide authoritative information about icing than the professionals on the Icing Team and in the Flight Operations team at NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. We had the opportunity recently to talk to NASA Glenn pilots Kurt Blankenship and Bill Rieke and researcher Dr. Judy Van Zante, a contractor with ASRC Aerospace.

Bill Rieke is chief of aircraft operations at the NASA Glenn. He began his flying career with the U. S. Navy in 1966 and flew with Fighter Squadron 74 aboard the USS Forrestal and later flew tactical aircraft with the U. S. Air Force (Air National Guard). He also flew as a captain for the Standard Oil Company before joining NASA. He has flown research and test missions for NASA since 1981.

During his time at NASA he has been the lead project pilot for numerous projects ranging from zero-gravity flight to advanced cockpit technology for the U. S. Air Force. He has also been deeply involved in airborne icing research since 1982.

Bill has an airline transport certificate, five type ratings and 12,000 hours of flight time. His military flight experience was almost exclusively in tactical jet aircraft.

Kurt Blankenship is an NASA Icing Research Tunnel Operator, NASA Glenn Research Center Pilot and the Center’s Aviation Safety Officer. He served in the United States Marine Corps as a CH-53 Helicopter Crew Chief from 1981 to 1985 and then worked for Continental Air Lines as a mechanic. He then attended Bowling Green State University and was a flight instructor and director of maintenance for the school’s flight department during that time. He was a corporate pilot and mechanic from 1990 to 1994 and has been with NASA Glenn since 1994. He holds commercial, flight instructor, and airline transport pilot certificates and, in addition to flying NASA Glenn’s icing research aircraft, he is type rated in Learjets and has over 1,000 hours of flight research time.

Judy Van Zante is a researcher and project lead for the pilot training aids at NASA Glenn and has also done flight test engineering. She holds a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering. She flew on the icing research aircraft and did substantial other research as part of the NASA/FAA Tailplane Icing Program.

NASA Glenn's icing research aircraft is a modified DeHavilland DHC-6 Twin Otter. It is powered by two 550 hp Pratt & Whitney PT6A-20A turbine engines that drive three-bladed Hartzel constant speed propellers. Its relatively large size makes this aircraft a versatile test bed for in-flight icing research reaching speeds of 150 knots with a range of 500 nautical miles with a maximum fuel load. The Twin Otter has been modified to carry a full complement of sophisticated instruments that measure and record important properties of icing clouds. A stereoscopic camera system documents ice accretion characteristics of the aircraft in flight.

Most test flights are conducted below 10,000 ft., but the Otter has an oxygen system onboard for flight up to 16,000 ft. Research flights are performed with two pilots and up to three research personnel on-board. The ice protection system on the Otter is a combination of pneumatic boots, electrothermal anti-icing, and electrothermal de-icing. NASA has added pneumatic de-icing boots to the vertical tail, wing struts, and main gear struts. The high level of ice protection allows safe flight into known icing conditions, as well as the ability to selectively de-ice aircraft surfaces. By selectively de-icing, it is possible to evaluate the performance, stability, and control effects of ice on various surfaces. The Twin Otter supports the Icing Research Tunnel research and new icing protection systems. It has two experimental sites, the overhead hatch and the wing cuff, that subject test models to the icing environment while the aircraft remains clear of ice through de-icing. This aircraft is currently being used to acquire extensive experimental data about icing effects on aircraft flight. The aircraft has been used for, and is adaptable to other flight research projects.

Those who aren't pilots or who haven't undertaken instrument training might be a little mystified by some of the terminology that you're about to hear, so here's a quick glossary.

MEA: Minimum Enroute Altitude ( or "MEA") is the recommended minimum altitude that an aircraft should fly on a segment of an airway in instrument meteorological conditions. Flying at or above the MEA ensures clearance from terrain and obstacles, ensures reception of signals from ground-based navigation aids and, in a radar environment, makes it so that relevant air traffic controlfacilities can see the aircraft on radar.

Pirep: A pilot report. It is a report of weather conditions given by a pilot of an aircraft that is aloft. Pireps for turbulence, icing, and visibility are considered particularly valuable pireps.

STC: A supplemental type certificate. Aircraft that have type certificates (such as most production airplanes) must conform to the specifications in their type certificates or be registered as experimental or not flown. You can't mess much with an aircraft without losing the type certificate. An STC issued by the FAA permits the owner of an aircraft to make the covered modifications while maintaining the aircraft's type certificate. Frequent subjects of STCs are engine modifications and de-icing systems. There are also several STCs that allow installation of ballistic recovery parachutes in various production aircraft.

So on to the interview with NASA Glenn pilots Kurt Blankenship and Bill Rieke and researcher Dr. Judy Van Zante.

[Interview audio.]

Thanks to Bill Rieke, Kurt Blankenship, and Judy Van Zante and thanks to NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio!

With all this talk of icing, it might be easy to forget that NASA Glenn does a lot more than icing research. Space exploration systems, microgravity science, bioscience, aeronautic propulsion, instrumentation, and turbomachinery all form a part of the program at NASA Glenn. For example, many shuttle and space station science missions have an experiment managed by Glenn. The Center also designs power and propulsion systems for space flight systems in support of NASA programs such as the International Space Station, Mars Pathfinder, and Deep Space 1. Glenn also leads NASA' Space Communications Program which included the operation of the ACTS satellite and systems for Cassini. The general public benefits from NASA's investment in the future through the knowledge gained, the inspiration provided and often technology dividends. NASA Glenn has won many awards including an Emmy, a Collier Trophy, and the 1996 Invention of the Year.

Thanks also to Dave Schwartz, an Otter pilot and one of the hosts of Skydive Radio for his contrinbution of background information about flying Otters. You can hear Dave, Stump, and Cory on Skydive Radio by subscribing through your favorite podcatcher or visiting Skydive Radio's website at www.skydiveradio.com.

More information about the Icing Branch of NASA Glenn Research Center: http://icebox-esn.grc.nasa.gov/

More information about Kurt Blankenship: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/ltc/special/ltp/kurt.html

More information about Judy Van Zante: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/people/bios/aero/vanzante.html

NASA print resources: http://aircrafticing.grc.nasa.gov/resources/reading.html

Information about the icing videos: http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/newsitems/2002/02-2-214x.html or http://aircrafticing.grc.nasa.gov/.

Information about the Otter: http://facilities.grc.nasa.gov/hangar/hangar_desc.html

Image address: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/images/content/156287main_C-89-7713.jpg.

Image used per NASA's policy entitled Using NASA Imagery and Linking to NASA Web Sites (October 13, 2005) located at http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html.

NASA's Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (Part 2) - Interview with SCA Pilot and Former Astronaut Gordon Fullerton

Subscribe to Airspeed through iTunes or your other favorite podcatcher using the feed http://airspeed.libsyn.com/rss or listen to audio at http://airspeed.libsyn.com.

Welcome to the second episode in our two-part series covering the modified Boeing 747s that NASA uses carry the space shuttle orbiters when they need to be repositioned between Edwards Air Force Base in California, Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and other locations.

We talked about the basics of the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, or "SCAs" in Part One, in which we also interviewed SCA crew chief Pete Seidl. If you missed that episode or if you're a recent subscriber, please be sure to download that episode as well.

Today we're going to talk to one of the pilots who flies NASA's SCAs.

To say that Gordon Fullerton is an SCA pilot would be true, but to stop there would be to fail to outline as rich an aviation and aerospace career as anyone could claim.

He's presently associate director of flight operations at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in Southern California. In addition to flying the SCAs, his assignments include a variety of flight research and support activities piloting a variety of multi-engine and high performance aircraft.

Fullerton entered the U.S. Air Force in 1958. After primary and basic flight school, he trained as an F-86 interceptor pilot and later became a B-47 bomber pilot. In 1964, he attended what is now be called Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base and was later assigned as a test pilot with the Bomber Operations Division at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.

While still in the Air Force, he went on to become a NASA astronaut and served on the support crews for the Apollo 14, 15, 16 and 17 lunar missions.

[Audio]

The voice there saying "Roger, you have good thrust" is Fullerton, who was the man at the CAPCOM station in Houston for Gene Cernan and Jack Schmidt's liftoff from the Taurus Littrow Valley as part of Apollo 17 - the last manned mission to the moon.

In 1977, Fullerton joined one of the two two-man flight crews that piloted the Space Shuttle prototype Enterprise during the Approach and Landing Test program, which involved flying the orbiter to altitude on an SCA, separating the orbiter from the SCA, and then gliding the orbiter to a landing to validate landing procedures.

Fullerton logged 382 hours in space during two space shuttle missions. He was the pilot for the eight-day STS-3 orbital flight test mission in 1982. STS-3 landed at Northrup Strip at White Sands, New Mexico because Rogers Dry Lake at Edwards Air Force Base was wet due to heavy seasonal rains. He was also the commander of the STS-51F Spacelab 2 mission in 1985, which landed at Edwards.

Fullerton has logged more than 16,000 hours of flying time and flown 114 different types of aircraft, including full qualification in the T-33, T-34, T-37, T-38, T-39, F-86, F-101, F-106, F-111, F-14, F/A-18, X-29, KC-135, C-140 and B-47.

Since joining Dryden as a research pilot, Fullerton has piloted nearly all the research and support aircraft flown at the facility and currently flies the center's Beech King Air 200 as well as the B-747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.

He was inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame in 2005, and the International Space Hall of Fame in 1982.

We started the research for this episode intending to focus on the SCAs themselves. We were delighted to have access to one of the pilots of these magnificent machines. But we had no idea when we submitted the initial inquiry that that we'd end up talking to a man whose career has been so intertwined with the space program and the national dream that has captured so many imaginations. With your indulgence, then, we couldn't help also asking Gordon for his thoughts about the space program - where it's been and where it's going.

We caught up with Gordon by phone at his office at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in Southern California.

[Interview audio.]

Image used per NASA's policy entitled Using NASA Imagery and Linking to NASA Web Sites (October 13, 2005) located at http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html. NASA does not endorse Airspeed or any commercial good or service associated with Airspeed.

See more pictures of the SCA at http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/STS-Ferry/index.html.

NASA's Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (Part 1) - Interview with SCA Crew Chief Pete Seidl

Subscribe to Airspeed through iTunes or your other favorite podcatcher using the feed http://airspeed.libsyn.com/rss or listen to audio at http://airspeed.libsyn.com.

Everyone knows that the orbiter of the Space Transportation System (or "STS," and more popularly called the "Space Shuttle) doesn't always land back at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral in Florida. Sometimes, it lands at Edwards Air Force Base and, if needed, it could land at White Sands or one of several other emergency landing sites around the world.

That's great, but it puts the orbiter several thousand miles away from its launching facility at the cape.

So how does the orbiter get around? Most of you know that the answer is that you mount it on the top of a specially-modified Boeing 747 called a Shuttle Carrier Aircraft or "SCA." But, if you're like me, you probably didn't know much about the SCAs. How are they different from a stock 747? How many are there? What's it like to maintain an aircraft like that? What's it like to fly it?

Well, if there's one thing you know about Airspeed, it's that we never pass up the opportunity to go right to the source to get real answers from the people closest to the aircraft. And that's just what we did for this special two-part series.

First, a bit about the SCAs. There are two of them. NASA 905 (tail number N905NA) is a Boeing 747-100 and the other, NASA 911 (tail number N911NA) is a short-range Boeing 747-100SR.

The two aircraft are very similar and have nearly identical operating characteristics. If you happen to be lucky enough to see one on the ramp but can't see the tail number, NASA 905 has two upper-deck windows on each side while NASA 911 has five.

The SCAs have a maximum gross taxi weight of 711,000 pounds. A stock 747-100 weighs about 380,000 pounds empty and an SCA weighs even more than that. Once you add 180,000 pounds or more for the orbiter, you have less than 140,000 pounds or so left for fuel and other stuff. And there's precious little other stuff because even using the entire remaining 140,000 or so pounds for fuel only gives you about a 1,000-mile range.

That's actually a little gratifying, because these are some of the same concerns that those of us who have flown ultralights, Cessna 152s, or light sport aircraft know a thing or two about. If you've ever left your flight bag, spare change, and shoelaces back at the FBO and still had to closely manage the amount of fuel in the plane to get two average-sized guys into a C-152 under max gross, you've had the same thing on your mind - at least at some scale - that our guest today deals with very frequently.

We start off the series on the SCA by talking to SCA crew chief Pete Seidl. Pete started working with the SCAs in 1979. He's an employee of Computer Sciences Corporation (or "CSC") under contract to NASA's Shuttle Support Operations Office at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in Southern California. He heads a team of five at NASA Dryden that does the regular maintenance on the two SCAs. Among other things, Pete was on the crew that took NASA 905 and the Enterprise orbiter to the Paris Airshow in 1983.

Before we get going, a couple of notes for non-space-junkies.

You'll hear us talk about hypergolic fuels. Hypergolic fuels ignite immediately when the two components of the fuel come together. They're very reliable, even if their components are sometimes highly toxic. Examples are hydrazine paired with nitric acid and monomethylhydrazine (MMH) paired with nitrogen tetroxide, the latter pair of which is used in the space shuttle's reaction control system. Early uses included a critical application for the Apollo program's lunar modules.

One other insider point. Moving orbiters is complex enough with a crack team, lots of support, and only one orbiter at a time to move. But, in early 2001, NASA came within 37 minutes of having a formation flight of the two SCAs, each with an orbiter aboard.

On February 20, 2001, Space Shuttle Atlantis unexpectedly had to land at Edwards. Atlantis needed to be received, processed, and ferried back to the Orbiter Processing Facility at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Space Shuttle Discovery was undergoing upgrades at Boeing's facility in nearby Palmdale and needed to be at the cape in preparation for launch by March 8. NASA 905 was already in Palmdale awaiting mating of Discovery for the ferry flight, but NASA 911 was at Evergreen Air Center in Marana, Arizona undergoing maintenance.

Two orbiters, two SCAs, an almost simultaneous deadline, and not much time to organize and carry out an amazingly complex set of operations. Pete and his team faced an unprecedented challenge. But, on March 1, 2001, the two SCAs, each with a national treasure mounted atop it, launched for Kennedy Space Center with NASA 905 and Columbia taking off at 11:00 a.m. local and NASA 911 with Atlantis taking off at 11:37. Although each encountered bad weather and other difficulties, each made it to Florida in time.

The aircraft took separate routes and a formation flight would have been impractical and beyond the mission risk profile, but at least I'm not the only one to have allowed the thought to enter my head and think that that would have been a deeply moving picture.

Anyway, on to the interview. We caught up with Pete Seidl at an office at NASA Dryden a mere 150 feet from the nose of NASA 905.

[Interview audio.]

Many thanks to Pete Seidl for taking some time out of his day to talk to us.

Tune in next time for the view from the cockpit of the NASA Shuttle Carrier Aircraft with SCA pilot, project pilot, former astronaut, Shuttle Approach and Landing Test pilot, STS-3 pilot, and STS 51-F commander Gordon Fullerton.

_________________________________________

A special note of thanks from the Airspeed crew goes out to a heroic listener who works for Apple. We redirected the feed for the podcast on Labor Day weekend over to Libsyn from a prior RSS provider. Apparently, whether due to a glitch in the RSS provider's system or iTunes, when we let the old forwarded feed go away, we winked out of existence on iTunes. Thanks to some fast footwork on the part of a listener and the willingness of the folks at iTunes to hustle the re-listing of the podcast through, we got back online quickly and lost little, if any, or our subscriber base that subscribes through iTunes.

Thanks to Apple and to that heroic listener for helping us keep Airspeed up and available.

_________________________________________

Image used per NASA's policy entitled Using NASA Imagery and Linking to NASA Web Sites (October 13, 2005) located at http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html.

See more pictures of the SCA at http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/STS-Ferry/index.html.

Air Traffic Control with Terminal Controller Mark Schad

Subscribe to Airspeed through iTunes or your favorite podcatcher using the feed http://airspeed.libsyn.com/rss or listen to the audio at http://airspeed.libsyn.com.

An air traffic controller gave me a number to copy the other day. And it was a good thing.

I spent a little time this week on the phone with Mark Schad, who is a terminal area controller for the area surrounding Lambert-St.Louis International Airport. 13 million passengers went through the airport in 2004. Besides being the airport featured in Planes, Trains & Automobiles and a Seinfeld episode, it has 25 separately-charted approaches, including simultaneous close parallels. And that doesn't include all the satellite airports for which St. Louis approach provides approach and departure control. More than enough for any controller or pilot to shake a stick at.

Mark is also a pilot with enough ratings to have to get a separate bag for his logbook, and his perspective as both a provider and a customer of the air traffic control system is invaluable.

I called Mark at the control facility this week and we spent some time demystifying the men and women at the scopes and talking about what it's like at a workstation, how best to interact with a controller, what happens in an emergency, and lots of other good pilot talk. So, if you've copied your ATIS (and, for the love of Pete, copy your ATIS when you're in Mark's airspace!), let's go to the interview.

Mike Agranoff and The Ballad of the Sandman

Subscribe to Airspeed through iTunes, use your favrite podcatcher with the feed http://airspeed.libsyn.com/rss, or listen at http://airspeed.libsyn.com.

Sometimes, it's good to stir things up a little.

This episode has nothing to do with aviation, aerospace, jet fuel, or tearing up the sky. If you're in the mood for an aviation-related episode and don't want to listen to anything else, please skip this episode and pick us back up in January. If you're tuning in ffor the first time, my apologies. This really is an aviation and aerospace show and you can check out prior episodes for your aviation fix until the first new episode of 2007 comes out.

But we're going to change things up this time. Airspeed is about to pay an homage that the podsphere owes to a very special medium and a very special time.

Airspeed is finishing out a great first year. A year in which we've met lots of new people, flown in a lot in different aircraft, and realized the dream of the podsphere - Ordinary people making the closest thing they can to art and reaching out to touch other ordinary people.

If you're older - over 40 or so - and you lived close enough to a metropolitan area - and you had an FM radio receiver in the mid to late 1960s - and if you were very lucky - you had a front-row seat for one of the most magical times in all of media before or since. When FM radio reached its critical mass and a backwater of the electromagnetic spectrum leaped up and captured imaginations and expanded horizons.

By the 1960's AM radio was a homogenious morass of largely mediocre programming. Relatively few people had FM receivers and FM radio stations were relatively few and far between, so you pretty much listened to what was on AM or you didn't listen at all.

Then, in the mid to late 1960s, guys like Jonathan Schwartz on WNEW FM in New York City started playing eclectic but carefully-chosen music and put out programming of a kind that you just can't get on the radio any more. It wasn't long before the iron heels of the program directors homogenized the airwaves and turned FM into the stereo version of AM that continues through to today. But, for a short time, there was a renaissance on the airwaves.

Podcasting brings back a little bit of what it was like during those pioneering years. It's as though your radio dial has grown by thousands of stations and, if you look, you can find places in the podsphere that are as eclectic, entertaining, and inspiring as the airwaves were in the late 1960s.

All of which is by way of introduction of what you're about to hear.

This, by very special permission, is The Ballad of the Sandman by Mike Agranoff. Mike is a folk musician from New Jersey who plays a mean fingerstyle guitar, concertina, banjo, and ragtime piano and sings. I have seen him live at a library, in a church basement, and in a community center and he is the consummate journeyman purveyor of melodies, spoken word, and traditions new and old.

I heard this piece for the first time in 1998 or so on public radio in Detroit. Mike has been kind enough to perform this at every show that I have attended. He does it entirely from memory and with a conviction that puts you in the darkened studio of the narrator.

The airing of this piece around the end of the year has become a tradition on WION in Ionia, Michigan, where this podcast also airs as a radio show. And it's always a part of my listening around the same time. I hope that you will adopt it as your own as well.

So, without further ado, let's let the podsphere pay tribute to the magic of the radio - Magic that once was and magic that can be again.

Here's Mike Agranoff with The Ballad of the Sandman.

[Audio]


The Ballad of the Sandman, (c) by Mike Agranoff. Used by permission. Thanks, Mike!

Mike's website: www.mikeagranoff.com

Mike's e-mail address: mike@mikeagranoff.com

Text of The Ballad of the Sandman: http://www.mikeagranoff.com/lyrics/Sandman.htm

Airspeed Temporarily Off iTunes

No idea what's going on here, but it appears that Airspeed is temporarily off iTunes. Some problem with WebPasties, my former RSS provider (who supposedly forwarded the feed over to Libsyn) when I requested it. Thought I had left these giys for good, but they apparently still have some hooks into my feed.

Anyway, it's completely gone from iTunes. Crap!

I resubmitted the podcast to iTunes a moment ago, but it will likelytake a few days to re-populate. In the meantime, please stay subscribed or re-subscribe. I'll try to get this fixed.

- Steve

Airspeed - Music (Part 2)

Subscribe to Airspeed using iTunes, visit us at http://airspeed.libsyn.com, or use the RSS feed http://airspeed.libsyn.com/rss.

Today we’re going to revisit one of the most important aspects of flying – And that’s the music you listen to while you do it!

Sure, there are more important things – like safety – but the fact remains that putting together the right soundtrack can make your flying even more inspiring. If you have an audio input to the intercom in the aircraft you fly or otherwise have a means of listening to music while you fly here's some music that you should consider adding to your playlist.

Bear in mind that safety comes first. If the music results in any chance of discraction or a miscommunication or failure to give or receive a communication necessary for the safety of the flight, leave your music player at home. But if you can manage the volume of the player, not have to fumble with it when your should be doing other things (playlists are helpful here), and satisfy yourself as pilot in command that you can hear and be heard in the cockpit and at the controller’s workstation (such as by using a squelch or cutout feature like I use), by all means add a soundtrack to your flight.

Here’s what has been in my iPod while I fly.

Eric Johnson has a way with the Fender Statocaster that is unlike that of any other player. He's melodic and heavily jazz-influenced. Music from his Ah Via Musicom and Venus Isle albums got lots of airplay in the 1990s and he has toured with the likes of Steve Vai and Joe Satriani and recently hit the road with Sammy Hagar. This is All About You from Venus Isle. Note the arpeggios and underlying drive. Really good for high airwork.

[Audio]

(Buy Eric Johnson albums, DVDs, and other stuff at http://theconnextion.com/ericjohnson_index.cfm?ArtistID=175.)

I'd be really surprised if composer and conductor John Williams isn't a pilot. I promised myself that I would use the word "evocative" only once in this episode, and this is it. I put this on one of the first flight mixes I ever made and it was one of the first tunes that jumped off the CD player and became a soundtrack for what I was doing at the time. It was on short final at Lapeer in southeast Michigan. Nothing quite like Williams to swell up when you're locked in to approach and have your attitude and airspeed nailed.

This is, of course, Flying from E.T., The Extraterrestrial. Those who fly aircraft with yokes instead of sticks will have an easier time imagining that they're holding on to bicycle handlebars, but both should avoid the temptation to strap a milk craft to the cowling for your little buddy to ride in.

This version comes from John Williams and the Boston Pops Orchestra's album, The Classis Spielberg Scores.

[Audio]

(Buy the album at http://www.amazon.com/Williams-Classic-Spielberg-Scores/dp/B000002C0F/sr=8-1/qid=1165705583/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-4775352-7547032?ie=UTF8&s=music).

No playlist is complete without some heavy metal. And there's none heavier than Iron Maiden. This is Aces High from 1984's Powerslave. Great driving metal groove and lyrics that tell a story of aerial combat in World War II.

[Audio]

(Buy the album at http://www.amazon.com/Powerslave-Iron-Maiden/dp/B000063DFN/sr=1-5/qid=1165706163/ref=sr_1_5/103-4775352-7547032?ie=UTF8&s=music).

Unless you count the diggery-doo, the English accordion, or the great highland bagpipes, there is probably no more technically ungainly instrument than the bassoon. It's four or five feet tall and has a double-reed that begs to sqwawk and evade the player's efforts to control it. There's an old joke that the definition of an optimist is a bassoon player with a pager.

Well, if there's one guy who can carry both a bassoon and a pager with confidence. He's Paul Hanson. Paul has taken the bassoon into jazz and other circles with amazing aplomb. He can out-sasxophone a saxophone and it all sounds completely organic. Ever run into one of those phases in your training when the controls seem to defy you, nothing goes the way it's supposed to, and you're constantly behind the aircraft? Usually right before you solo or right before get the hang of the landing flare or just before you start to nail your instrument approaches? This one is for you, my brothers and sisters.

Let Paul remind you of what can happen with even the most ungainly of hardware if you train hard and believe that the music will come. This is The Gold Coast from Voodoo Suite. It's in 7/4 and he's playing a bassoon and yet it sounds great. Yeah, your first full-procedure VOR approach is going to be ugly, but that's okay. Listen to how you'll feel on your 50th . . .

[Audio]

(Buy the album at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/hansonp.)

We started with one guitar god and we're going to end with another. When Sony went looking for a great song to use in its ads celebrading the 20th anniversary of the compact disc, it looked no further than Joe Satriani's Summer Song from his album, The Extremist. This is great music for whatever you want to do while listening to it. It has energized me in the wee hours studying for exams and it has caused more than a few oscillations over the speed limit out on the highway. Now I'm no A&P and this is largely unscientific, but I'll bet that, if you plug Summer Song into the intercom of your aircraft, you'll get two or three additional knots of airspeed. Airplanes love Joe Satriani! Sound crazy? Well, it's a lot cheaper than wheel fairings!

(Buy the album at http://www.amazon.com/Extremist-Joe-Satriani/dp/B000002BWH/sr=1-1/qid=1165711434/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-4775352-7547032?ie=UTF8&s=music.)

That's it for this installment of what should be cranking while you're turning and banking.

Got your own suggestions? E-mail us at steve@airspeedonline.com. Links to information about the artists and how to buy this music are on the blog at www.airspeedonline.blogspot.com. Although we might

As always, this is not flight instruction or a recommendation about how to operate an aircraft. Consult a qualified instructor, obey the regulations, and, above all, fly safely!
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[Illustrative musical snippets used as permitted by 17 USC § 107 (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000107----000-.html) for criticism and comment and as otherwise permitted by applicable law.]

Aerial Photography with Dave Higdon

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We all love those gorgeous air-to-air photos of aircraft that grace the covers and the insides of our favorite flight magazines. We even like the ones in the ads. Sometimes especially the ads. Ever wonder who shoots those pictures or how they do it?

Enter ace aviation photographer Dave Higdon.

Dave has been a working journalist for more than 25 years and currently freelances for a number of media outlets. His magazine work lands his images on several covers each year and on ever more advertising pages. He is an accomplished pilot with almost 5,000 hours flown in a variety of aircraft, including hang gliders, ultralights, and light-sport aircraft, as well as general aviation aircraft ranging from piston singles to light business jets.

He is the president and creative director of PhotoProse Productions in Withita, Kansas. He is also a regular part of the panel on Uncontrolled Airspace, a relatively new entry to the podsphere that just hit its sixth episode and is one of the best hangar-flying shows out there.

[Interview audio.]

Thanks to Dave Higdon for taking time to talk to us.

We’ve covered some ground here about techniques, planning, and other aspects of flight and about aerial photography. As ever, nothing you hear on Airspeed is flight instruction or any recommendation with regard to the operation of an aircraft. Consult a certified flight instructor and otherwise get the proper training from qualified personnel before you consider doing anything you hear about here on Airspeed. The Airspeed legal staff thanks you – and maybe now they’ll let me take my thumbs out of this vice.

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Dave's Website: http://www.davehigdon.com

Uncontrolled Airspace podcast: http://www.uncontrolledairspace.com

Avweb: www.avweb.com