EAA CHAPTER 251 NEWSLETTER AUGUST 2006

ALAMOGORDO, NEW MEXICO

President-Ken Henderson- kenhenderson@zianet.com

Vice-President- Richard Finch- finchbooks@tularosa.net

Secretary- Brad Bowen- vegas2224@aol.com

Treasurer- Will Stigers- tigerdin@tularosa.net

Newsletter Editor- Ken Henderson- kenhenderson@zianet.com

MEETING NOTICE- The monthly meeting of Chapter 251 will be held on August 8^th at 1800 hrs. in the main terminal building of the Alamogordo- White Sands Regional Airport. Featured speaker will be Cameron Baxter, a Young Eagle who was sponsored by Chapter 251 to attend EAA Air Academy last month in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Because of the large amount of guests expected and the length of the presentation our round-robin discussion of members projects progress and activities will be held after the presentation this month. As usual, refreshments will be served during the break before the presentation.

Item 1- Our last month's program featuring Secretary Brad Bowen's experiences as a team member with the USAF Thunderbirds was very interesting and informative. To be a member of this team requires special selection and the work doesn't stop from that point on. If you missed this program you really missed out! We are very fortunate to have a man of his talent and dedication as a member of our Chapter 251 Team!

Item 2- Member John Wareing reports that Richard Finch's presentation to the Alamogordo School Board concerning funding to partially reimburse YE pilots on their gasoline expenditures was well received with the outcome possibly paying up to 50% of gasoline costs. This is no small accomplishment and all affected are most grateful for their efforts. There is also a possibility that other organizations and persons may be willing to contribute to this cause. This is a win-win situation for the chapter and really helps us get the YE message out.

Item 3- Chapter 251 will host our next Young Eagle event on September 16^th at the Alamogordo-White Sands Regional Airport. The event will start at 0900 and end at 1200. Ground crew personnel and pilots are requested to be there by 0800 to set up and get organized. Members are encouraged to beat the brush and find us some kids to fly. As the turnout of 31 kids last time proves, they are out there, we just need to find them! All members please contact our YE Coordinator John McLaughlin at jpatm_6@hotmail.com or by calling 434-1564 or 430-6476 and let him know your availability ASAP. Lets make this one as successful as the last one! Note- John’s e-mail address has an underline between the m and the 6, which is being obliterated by the underlining of the entire address. Damn Microsoft programs!

Item 4- The Tire-Kicking held on July 22^nd at Hangar #15 at KALM was a rousing success. Viewed were Jim Holder's Wittman Tailwind/Nesmith Cougar project currently undergoing repairs from damage acquired in the rough landing mentioned last month and several rough landings he was unaware of in it’s past, Richard Finch's Grumman Traveler project, and George Mitchell's gyrocopter. In attendance were Ken Henderson, Richard Finch, Brad and Laura Bowen and daughter, Will Stigers, Kelsey, Thelma, and Maggie Scribner, Bob Hurd, and Maurice Morgan. A surprise birthday party was held for Kelsey's 50^th and he was treated to a birthday airplane ride by Maurice in his beautiful RV-6. Much hangar flying was done and many hours logged by all.

Item 5- Future Tire-Kicking Events will include a trip to John Wareing’s workshop on the 19^th of August to view his RV-8 project in the works. John's address is 18 Camino del Sur. To get there drive south on Highway 54 for about 2 miles then turn right (west) on Camino Ranchitos. Turn left (south) on Camino Bonita Vista and follow the curve to the right where the road becomes Camino del Sur. John is located about halfway down the street on the left surrounded by a silver pipe fence. He requests that all park along the street and be there by 0900. The directionally challenged may call him at 434-3682 for further info. Because we will be hosting a YE Day on September 16^th, there will be no Tire-Kicking event that month. October’s "Kicking" will be at Ken Henderson's  "Dog Canyon International Airstrip" at 170 Oliver Road to view his KR-2 project. Detailed directions and POC will be provided in a later newsletter.

Item 6- Because of the regularly scheduled Holloman Aero Club Safety Meeting, members Richard Finch (who will be doing a presentation on the Sport Pilot Program) and Ken Henderson (a member whose attendance is mandatory) will be unavoidably late for our scheduled YE Event. All members please turn to and help get the ball rolling. We will be there ASAP after the meeting. Thank You!

Item 7- Alamogordo Daily News reporter and photographer Elise Haley has agreed to cover our future EAA events. Welcome aboard Elise!

Item 8- It has been suggested that chapter members that have planes flying give rides on occasion to members who don't. As a planeless pilot-to-be, this is a policy I have been shamelessly advocating for some time. This could occur after YE Events or anytime at all. Flying members are asked to take pity on those of us less fortunate and invite us to go along when you have room. Personally, I am ready to go at a moments notice! And there could be benefits. Richard Finch received help washing and shining his Cherokee before he delivered it to its new owner. Man, there is a lot of surface area on those wings! HaHa!

Item 9- Don't forget the upcoming Second Annual Airport Appreciation Day on December 9^th. We have a YE Day, EAA Fly-In, open hangar visits, fly market swap meet, and pancake breakfast planned.

Item 10- Following are the monthly progress/regress reports. -Ken Henderson- Not much progress on the KR-2 as ground school and flight training are using up much available time and all available money. Just finished ground school and am preparing for the FAA written test and am getting very close to my first solo flight. Just need to find some Depends to fit me and I am ready! Still need a Grove main gear for a KR-2. -Richard Finch- Has reported getting some work riveting aluminum together done recently with Brad Bowen's help. -Jim Fairhurst- Has been seen recently wearing a ski mask and hanging out in the dark next to several Allsups stores hoping to obtain some late night financing to help pay for the ongoing rebuild of his RV-4. Just kidding Jim! Although he does report a substantial negative cash flow probably related to a large sucking sound emanating from the vicinity of the Carrizozo Airport. -Jim Holder- Jim has upgraded his Wittman/Nesmith main gear from the original inadequate tubular set up to a more robust aluminum spring gear set-up from Grove. With the help of master engineer and welder Richard Finch he should be up and flying again soon. -Bob Hurd- Bob is still awaiting his rebuilt, rebuilt, rebuilt, etc. engine for his RV-6. Bob recommends you not use the builder he did! -Wolfgang Meyn- My sources tell me that Wolfgang has received his Airworthiness Certificate for his F-1 Rocket and the test flight was performed in Texas by the designer of said Rocket. If my sources are correct, he is flying his 40 off now. -Maurice Morgan- Maurice reports life is dull as there is nothing to fix on his RV-6 and it just keeps on flying without any problems, except one. He has a pesky fuel pressure gauge that occasionally drops to the basement in flight, which has been causing momentary heart failure. However, the engine continues to run fine with no loss of power. This was the subject of much discussion at the tire kicking. Hopefully he will find the problem soon and it will be a small one so his life can go back to being dull. -John Schaefer- John reports from the wilds of Datil that for what he has had to spend for a well, septic system, and driveway he could have built his RV with no delay. He has no money left to build a house and he and wife Betty have been forced to take up residence under the RV wings. He wishes that he had ordered the fuselage kit now! -Kelsey Scribner- Kelsey has finished the fuselage on his airplane and needs to find a place to store it so he can start on covering the wings. I’m thinking we could hang it from the rafters in my barn like a big model. Anyone having room to store an airplane please contact him! -Will Stigers- Will was able to obtain a pressure-testing unit from Bob Hurd to check his home manufactured lines for his Harmon Rocket for leaks. He reports that they will withstand pressures about 10 times what they were designed for! Oh yeah, no leaks! –John Wareing- John should be done with his wings on his RV-8 by now and reported no leaks in the Pro-Sealed fuel tanks. Will be or already has ordered the fuselage kit and is making some great progress which we will be checking up on later this month.

Item 11- Richard Finch submitted several articles on using the AFSS Flight Services. The first is reprinted here. The second will be included in next month’s newsletter. Happy Flying!

 Hi Rose Marie,

     Thanks for writing those very beneficial articles for us pilots. I could surely use an article about how to best use AFSS and what services they afford us. For instance, I decide to fly from my home base at KALM to Angel Fire or Taos, NM. What is the best way to decide whom to talk to on my trip?

Richard Finch, EAA Chapter 251, AOPA , asmel, inst, com, cfi.

 Hi Richard,

Good questions, I will answer both parts in separate articles.  This month will be about the things an AFSS does, and next month we will cover how to determine what facility you should talk to.

Pilots pretty well know that the responsibilities of Center and Tower are to keep aircraft from hitting each other and anything else that could get in the way.  They have a plethora of procedures to accomplish this depending on their location. 

Flight Service responsibilities are more diverse, and so I can see it could be confusing.  Although there are variations, the average Flight Service facility divides its responsibilities as follows:

Preflight - Primarily responsible for filing flight plans and giving weather briefings.  They will also take information from pilots coming into the US to notify US Customs that the aircraft is on the way in.  This is NOT a flight plan, those must be filed with an AFSS in the country the aircraft is departing from.  The Preflight Briefer does this by telephone only.  Using the 1-800-WXBRIEF phone number will get you to a briefer.  Which briefer in which facility is not as predictable as it used to be.  The Lockheed Martin (LM) Flight Service operations center has the ability to direct the calls coming into that phone number to any Flight Service in the country in order to hopefully keep the pilot’s hold time to a minimum.  For instance, when Riverside AFSS is short staffed they may send 50% of the calls originating in that area over to Prescott AFSS. 

Since we all have access to the same or similar weather and NOTAM data, this works for the most part.  There are instances where a pilot has questions that relate to something that is well known only to the Flight Service in the area.  In this case the Briefer he is talking to may give him a toll-free phone number that only goes to that Flight Service.  An example of this would be a pilot wanting to know about the special flight rules in effect at the Grand Canyon.

The LM Operations Center tries to only route the pilot to Flight Services in or around the area of the country he will be departing from, but cell phones tend to screw that up.  If a pilot from Albuquerque is flying in Rhode Island and calls for a briefing, he will probably get Albuquerque Flight Service.  Although it’s nice to talk to a friendly southwestern accent, he may be better served by speaking to one of the flight services on the east coast that keep on top of changes to local prohibited areas and traffic management.

Another example is a Citation pilot who is in Taos and wants to know the best routes to fly over the Gulf of Mexico into southern Florida – obviously a flight service that files those routes daily will have a better idea as to what is and isn’t allowed.   

Inflight -which the pilots call "Radio", activates, cancels, and alters VFR flight plans.  They take position reports and changes of destination for both civilian and military aircraft.  They will relay IFR and SVFR clearances to aircraft on the ground in areas where the Center’s frequencies do not reach, but Radio’s do. 

At border stations, Radio also takes information from aircraft crossing into the U.S. and issues squawk codes to VFR aircraft, which identify them to Custom’s Radar.  They then pass that information to Flight Data, which we will discuss later.  They also take forest fire reports and pass them to Flight Data.

Inflight monitors VHF and UHF frequencies, VOR voices, and emergency frequencies – from 45 to 60 different frequencies per AFSS.  The VFR and IFR charts show which Radio handles which frequency, and this is an area that the pilots will need to keep an eye out for over the next couple of years as LM begins consolidating the flight service stations.  For instance, right now San Angelo Flight Service is scheduled to close in June of 2007.  When that happens their frequencies will be split up, most of them will go to Fort Worth, but some may be taken over by Albuquerque. 

Remember using Direction Finders (DF)? Comprehensive Center radar coverage has all but eliminated the need for DF equipment in the lower 48 states, though it is still used extensively in Alaska. Most Flight Service Stations still have a couple operational ones, and when they are used it is the Radio position that handles the procedure. 

Radio can take flight plans on the frequencies, but we do not recommend this unless it is a situation where someone flying VFR encounters low clouds and needs an IFR flight plan pronto.  Filing a flight plan for your next flight is considered a “preflight” function, and therefore is the lowest priority at Radio. 

During the day, Radio is not supposed to do weather updates or pilot reports, they usually ask those pilots to call Flight Watch, but if Flight Watch is busy and Radio is not, they can choose to provide that function.  They take over that function when Flight Watch closes at night. 

Enroute Flight Advisory Service (EFAS) or Flight Watch was designed to give pilots who are already airborne updates on weather during their current flight, and take pilot’s reports or PIREPS, which they enter into the computer for transmission to the National Weather Service.

The airspace that Flight Watch covers currently mirrors the center in which it is located.  Albuquerque Flight Watch includes the Texas Panhandle, southwest Texas, most of New Mexico and the eastern ¾ of Arizona.  This may change as the AFSS’s are consolidated. 

All aircraft below FL180 are supposed to contact 122.0 for Flight Watch and give their position on initial call up.  Aircraft flying at or above FL180 are assigned discrete frequencies to cut down on frequency congestion.

Flight Watch is open from 6am to 10pm local time – the local time is tied to the location of the Flight Watch station, so if the airspace straddles time zones, it could be a different local time.  For example, Albuquerque Flight Watch, which in the summer is on Mountain Daylight Time, also serves most of Arizona – which is always on Mountain Standard Time, and West Texas, which is on Central Daylight Time.

The Broadcast position at an AFSS is one of three that is not readily seen by the pilots.  Broadcast is responsible for cutting the recordings used in TIBS, TWEBs, and HIWAS.

 Likewise, the pilots do not normally contact the NOTAM position directly, though airport managers and other air traffic facilities will call into this position.  The NOTAM position at an AFSS issues the Distant (D) NOTAM’s and the Local (L) NOTAM’s for the airports and airspace under the responsibility of their AFSS.  For Albuquerque AFSS, this includes all of New Mexico plus the southwestern three counties in Texas.  D NOTAM’s go into a computer that transmits the data across the nation.  L NOTAM’s stay in the local AFSS computer only.

We do not issue FDC NOTAM’s or Temporary Flight Restrictions.  I will be discussing NOTAMS more thoroughly in an upcoming article.

Flight Data is a very busy position that is seldom seen by a pilot unless he is calling for an IFR Clearance over the phone.  The Clearance Delivery phone number at every AFSS goes directly to this position.  Flight Data is responsible for coordination with other Air Traffic facilities and AFSS’s, U.S Customs, the Fire Service, military Baseops, airport managers and just about everyone else.  In larger facilities there is a Coordinator position that sometimes backs Flight Data up.

Search and Rescue activities are initiated at Flight Data, and independent weather observers call their hourly reports into that position.  They catch and correct errors made in flight plans by other positions, and enter the flight plans that pilots record through the Fast File phone system.  Flight Data transmits accident/incident messages to those in FAA management who need them

Sometimes when staffing is short, one person may be assigned to handle two or more of the above positions simultaneously.  Frequently someone at radio will be asked to pick up a phone briefing if he is not busy on the frequencies, but his primary responsibility is radio, so if an airborne aircraft calls the specialist will put the preflight call on hold long enough to handle the radio call.  Airborne aircraft are always a higher priority for us than someone still on the ground planning a future flight.

The only other position in the operations portion of Flight Service is the Supervisor.  This is the guy who is tasked with monitoring how many calls are coming in and who is available to take them.  He fills out the accident/incident packages when a VFR aircraft in our area has an Oops, and he schedules personnel for shifts and position assignments.  His computer also monitors all the other equipment in-house so that if anything breaks down he can call the appropriate maintenance personnel ASAP. 

This is a general overview of the operational positions in any AFSS.  The specifics can be different in various facilities depending on the needs of the pilot in that area. 

Again, as LM begins consolidation next year, there will be changes that you, as the pilot should watch for, such as which Radio will be answering which frequencies.  LM will be putting a lot of information out for the pilots as this happens on their pilot website.  https://pilots.LmAFSS.com

Rose Marie Kern works at Lockheed Martin’s ABQ AFSS.  If you’d like to ask Rose a question concerning ATC and the Lockheed Martin AFSS’s, send her an email at solarranch@ispwest.com.