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July 2007
Next meeting: July 7, 2007
At the Clubhouse, Knutsford strip
Time: 10am.
This
site hosted by OCIS, On Call Internet Services.
376-3858
President's Letter
Hello everyone:
Well
I am still waiting for good weather and days off
to line up!! I am going to watch for Tonys'
prediction to come true. He figures that we don't
get any good flying weather until after the
middle of July. That means I should be able to go
flying soon!!
The
plans are being made to go down to Arlington now.
Looking at the list of exhibitors it looks like
it will be a busy time. Hope to see some of you
there.
Not
too many things on my wish list this year. I am hoping the weather will
co-operate for our weekend meetings for the
summer. There will be burgers on the bar-b and
refreshments as well, so come out for a visit.
The next meeting will be on Saturday, July 7th at
10:00 A.M. at the strip in Knutsford. If the
weather is good we should have some flying
activity happening.
Not
to much else to report for now,
Dick
Suttie.
New
Arrival
Paul
Villeneuve recently acquired a Cessna 150, from
Larry Dee. We can expect to see him often at
Blair Field, Knutsford. His work at Snap Lake in
the Territories will interfere with his flying,
but I am sure he will do his best with his time
off!
What
was that?!!!!!
The
tip of a propeller blade. What caused that
damage? (The black strip is the leading edge, and
you are looking at the back of the blade.)
On
July 2, about 8:20pm, I was trying a new 2-bladed
propeller on the Proton; I soon realized that I
would have to increase the pitch for better
performance. Before turning back to the strip I
went to the edge of the Campbell Creek Valley,
where I spent some time riding the slope updraft
at the north end of Shumway Lake. Then I turned
north with the intention of flying by Tony's
place before heading back to base; I had just
increased the speed to gain altitude, when there
was a loud THUNK!! and the engine vibrations
increased. So I throttled down to 5500RPM, and
the vibrations decreased to what seemed like a
safer level. I thought it had sounded like a
control cable breaking, so I checked, the rudder,
the ailerons and the elevator, all were working
fine.
I
turned towards the Knutford strip, now some 3.6
miles away, slowly losing altitude. I was afraid
to increase the speed for fear that the
vibrations would cause more damage, but I managed
to nurse the Proton back to a safe landing.
I
quickly found the damage to the propeller. I
checked all over the cabin area, there is not one
screw missing, all the nuts and bolts are there
too. I had the GPS on when the damage happened,
and I traced the location to N50°35'04"
W120°13'03"
Editor's
Soapbox
Membership
Fees: Have you payed yours? If not, it is high
time! See Jim Bottoms.
Lets
us not forget to thank Larry L'Heureux for
cutting the grass at the Knutsford strip, and
Bill Ross for using the Weed Eater around the
hangars....
I would love to get my hands
on one or two of these:
"40
hp (30kW) opoc™
engine under development for air vehicle
applications has a projected weight under 40lbs
and measures approximately 3.5in x 9.5in x
16.2in"
Can
you imagine 40hp and only 40 pounds? And look at
the size! I got in touch with the company,
Advanced Propulsion Technologies, and was
informed that, unfortunately, they are not in
production yet... But would they not be great for
our aircrafts?
You
can have a look at them at http://www.propulsiontech.com/opocfamily.html
Another
very interesting engine of the same type, opposed
pistons, can be found at http://www.iet.aau.dk/sec2/junkers.htm
where is is suggested it could be used on a light
aircraft, driving two propellers...
Here
are some drawing from that site by Niels
Abildgaard, Associate
Professor, Aalborg University, in Denmark.
Merritt
Airport Weather Station
While surfing the Net lately I
found out that the Merritt Flying Club has a Web
site showing readings from a weather station
located at the airport, and also the view from
three video cameras. Check it out at http://merrittflyingclub.ca/ It would be great to have a
similar setup at Knutsford....
On Friday, June 8, 2007, I was at
the airstrip by 8am. I was just opening the
hangar doors when Dan Berwin came in from Cache
Creek. Bill Huxley was getting his Challenger out
too. So we all flew to Larry Dee’s strip, no
problem landing, firm enough, nice grass maybe a
bit long. Paul came in a bit later. We had a look
at his 150, and Larry inspected our birds. Bill
flew straight back to Knutsford, while Dan and I
flew the valley bottom and a detour through
Harper Ranch.
All photos by Dan Berwin.
Bill and his Challenger
The Challenger by Buse Hill
Challenger and Proton
Proton over Dallas
METRIC CONVERSIONS
By Barry Meek
Three young boys, 11, 13 and 14 year olds, raced
their bicycles down the decommissioned runway,
burning off their energy. All day
excitement was building, fuelled by the events,
sounds and smells of the Winnipeg Sports Car
Clubs’ family day. By evening, things
were winding down, some people had already headed
for home. Still, many campers, trailers,
vehicles and people occupied the north end of the
6000 ft. runway at Gimli, Manitoba that pleasant
evening in July, 1983.
The
13 year old saw it first. “That
guy’s crazy”, he shouted to his
friends. They skidded their bikes to a stop
and stood staring in disbelief. A giant,
silver airplane was descending toward them,
silently, in an odd forward slip configuration,
dropping at over 2000 feet per minute, and
closing rapidly from the south. Not able to
fully comprehend the situation, but sensing the
pending disaster, the boys bolted back toward
their families. Pedalling a fast as their
legs would go, they screamed at their parents to
run. Others saw the jet, a Boeing 767,
barrelling toward them, now less than a mile
back. As people scattered in all
directions, the jet hit the runway 1000 feet from
the threshold. Two explosions as tires blew
out were the first sounds they heard. Then
one engine was dragging on the ground. As
the front of the aircraft settled, it’s nose
gear collapsed. Speeding down the runway at
almost 180 miles per hour, now a giant shower of
sparks blazed out behind as the gear leg tore a
huge trench into the concrete.
The
crippled airliner, over 130 tons, hurtled closer
and closer to the trailers and people, grinding
up the pavement with bent metal, trashed wheels,
shredded tires, spitting sparks and smoke.
Finally only 100 feet from the first line of
vehicles, it stopped. The Gimli
Glider had arrived. It was an Air
Canada flight that had run out of fuel.
PHOTO
COURTESY OF WINNIPEG FREE PRESS. JULY
1983. REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION.
Much
has been written, even a movie made about the
near disaster. Miraculously, no one was
killed. Part of the reason for the fuel
exhaustion was blamed on the conversion to the
metric system of weights and volumes Canada was
instituting. Following the failure of the
fuel measuring system in that aircraft, the
flight crew gave instructions for an amount they
had calculated using the imperial weights and
volumes. The result was only about half the
fuel required for their flight to Edmonton was
loaded. They carefully re-checked their
calculations, but were not trained to use the new
metric numbers.
The
Canadian government began the gradual conversion
to the metric system in the 1970’s. In
1975, rain and snowfall amounts were measured in
millimetres and centimetres. In ’77,
all new vehicles had speedometers showing
kilometres per hour. Road signs were posted
with metric measurements. Most of us recall
the confusion at the grocery store, buying meat
and corn by the kilogram, milk by the litre
and coffee by the gram. To it’s
credit, the government allowed merchants to
advertise the old measurements along with the new
ones so we could at least see that the prices
hadn’t really changed.
My
flying days were not yet underway at that point
in time. I was in the middle of a career in
broadcasting, hosting a morning show on AM radio.
This part of the story has nothing to do with
aviation, but it shows there was a lighter side
to the metric conversion exercise. April
1st, 1975, was the day we were obliged to begin
reporting temperatures in degrees Celsius. To
avoid such a big shock to our listeners who had
gone to bed the night before with 70 degrees now
waking up to only 20 (C), I reported the
temperature in BOTH measurements throughout the
morning. “Good morning, it’s 20
Celsius/70 Fahrenheit outside”. Most
people by then knew it was coming. The
government had some pretty expensive ad campaigns
going on ahead of time.
We
had decided only the night before to have some
fun with this whole metric system conversion.
Since it was April Fools day anyway, why not
institute our own CLOCK with METRIC time?! The
whole scheme was quickly put together. I
even fashioned a “metric clock” so that
I could keep track through the confusion we knew
it would create. Metric time was based on
two 10-hour halves in the day, 20 hours instead
of 24. Listeners were greeted with two time
readings every few minutes. “Good morning,
it’s 8:25 Standard time, 6:38 Metric
time”. And so on .... Combined
with the two temperature readings, it was a great
day indeed for sleepy listeners and commuters who
wondered what to wear and if they would get to
work on time.
There
was fallout, lots of it. A nursing
supervisor at our hospital was on the phone
demanding to know how to schedule her staff.
The payroll supervisor at a local mill had no
idea how he was going to change the hourly pay
rates for his workers. The school board
couldn’t believe they hadn’t been
notified. And everyone wanted to know where
to buy these new “metric clocks”.
A hardware store manager was angry with our sales
staff for not being informed. Seemed
he’d just received a shipment of the old
“standard time” clocks. What was
he going to do with them?!
I
didn’t lose my job. Life went on.
Some people laughed. Some were embarrassed.
But the government never contacted us for
information on how they could make the time
conversion a legitimate and workable procedure.
The scheme was so ridiculous I often wondered why
the bureaucrats passed up that one.
Somehow,
we still manage to fly our airplanes. Some
pilots measure fuel in litres, some in U.S.
gallons, some using Imperial gallons. It’s
all the same gas though. Degrees Celsius
seems to make sense to me now, a full 30 years
later. I suppose if we had actually
converted to a 10 hour clock, that would make
sense now too. But converting the entire
world to our time system isn’t going to
happen. Next time someone starts telling
you about changing clocks, check the calendar.
Barry
Meek bcflyer@propilots.net
New in the Buy&Sell
( http://www.ocis.net/tvsac/buyandsell.html
)
Looking
for used Lycoming 150HP, good shape and low
hours. Paul
at paul.villeneuve@amec.com
Newsletter
published by Camille
We
welcome your feedback. And we could also use some
help with the newsletter. Photo would be great!
And articles of any length will be gladly
accepted! If you would like to contribute with
photos, flying stories, or project updates,
contact:
President:
Dick Suttie, 1-250-374-6136 richard_suttie@telus.net
Vice-President: Dennis Seib 1-250-573-3714 dseib@mail.ocis.net
Newsletter Editor: Camille Villeneuve
1-250-374-4181 villeneuve@shaw.ca
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