CASCADE FLYER April 2009, Vol. 09, Issue 4 Website: http://co-opa.com/ President's Message: Our March program had to be our most comfortable one ever. Oregon Aero brought down their well oiled dog and pony show for our enjoyment and they are all about comfort. To prove it they showed up with samples of their padded seats, padded headsets, lumbar pads, booster seats, shoe inserts and much more. Then they explained how they engineer comfort into every product. Better yet they even raffled off many of their marvelous products to our membership. A lot of our members went home well rewarded for their attendance. Oregon Aero is a great Oregon success story and we learned how it all started with a wife complaining about the fit of her headset while flying with her husband. From there it just grew and grew. And they are still married. If you missed out on the event, or still want to learn more, you can see check out their web site at www.oregonaero.com and at aviation events throughout the northwest. Our new KBDN Airport Manager Gary Judd dropped by for our March meeting and this month will be our featured speaker. Gary has really hit the ground running. He has a lot to share with us on his previous aviation experience and the great things coming to our airport. Plan to arrive around 6pm for general gabbing. Then bring a dish to share during our potluck at 6:30pm and stay for the formal program at 7pm. Calendar: 16 April- Monthly Meeting 18 April- Monthly Flyout 21 May- Monthly Meeting 23 May- Monthly Flyout 6 June - Bend Airport Day 12-13 June - Hayward Air Rally 18 June - Monthly Meeting 20 June - Monthly Flyout 16 July - Monthly Meeting 18 July - Monthly Flyout 14-15 August - Palms To Pines 20 August - Monthly Meeting 22 August - Monthly Flyout Web doings: We are getting PDFs for several things, including the Palms To Pines, the Hayward Air Rally, and the Professional Air Spring Newsletter. Those are now posted on our web site. For the usual chapter news and other aviation goodies check out our chapter website: http://co-opa.com/ To access the members only areas the username is "BDN" and the password is "123.0". My Inbox: Sunriver Airport (S21) has announced that they will widen their runway from 70 feet to 75 feet this summer. That will, obviously, require some airport closures so be sure to watch those NOTAMs this summer. Any ideas what that extra 5 feet buys them? None of our members will use it. Random Thoughts: Every few years, for at least a decade, some of the stake holders in the Bend Airport have met in some sort of umbrella organization to plan for the betterment of the airport. There have been Master Plan committees and Airport Advisory committees. Each has completed their assigned tasks and disbanded, but the need for such a group has become obvious again. Luckily the city and the county see the need as well and have encouraged Eric Strobel, Business Development Manager at Economic Development for Central Oregon (EDCO) to head an airport business roundtable. EDCO's mission is to facilitate new job creation and capital investment, champion strategic projects and balance/diversify the region's industry mix. Amazingly enough the Bend Airport can help them with all those goals, so helping Bend Airport has now become important to them. So Eric has been organizing monthly meeting with many of the airport businesses, Gary Judd our Airport Manager, and a few other interested parties such as Dennis Douglas (EAA 1345) and myself. The focus is on business, but to that end a lot of airport improvement, airport operations and airport safety issues come up. So I have learned a lot by attending. Needless to say, the business news has not been happy. Most airport businesses are reporting 25% employment drops, and some, such as Cessna, are reporting much worse. The current business climate at the airport is lean, but not dire, and there are some good signs for the future. Work on the third year of the runway improvements continues. The new PAPI and REIL equipment has been ordered and is due to be installed before summer. Also this summer the AWOS will be moved and upgraded. The AWOS is only two years old and already needs to be moved due to faulty planning. It will finally have a data link that feeds data to the NWS. With the data link FSS briefers can access current local weather and thus allow KBDN to be a true IFR alternate to KRDM. When the NWS has three years of weather history they will start issuing TAFs for the airport. Funding for the East Side Taxiway is hopefully coming this year. If it does, then grading will happen for that this fall with paving to occur in 2010. Taxiway work should not require more than minimal airport closures. Gary Judd will also be applying for any federal stimulus money that he thinks he might get for other projects around the airport. As most of you know, the ramp space is oversold. To allow more parking some of the grassy areas at the northwest side of the runway will be bull dozed. A dirty parking space is better than none. With luck some funds will be found to pave it later. Even the business news is not all bad. Aero Facilities, www.aerofacilities.com, is moving ahead with their hanger projects just north of Epic on the east side. They recently obtained the building permits for the first four hangers and have poured the slabs. The steel pieces have been delivered so expect to see new hangers any day now. Bend Airport has been an odd duck. Owned, and mostly managed, by the city, but in the county. So property tax from the airport has gone to the county coffers and county zoning has applied. With money tight Bend has a new plan to annex the airport. The airport land touches the city sewer plant land just north west of the airport. That sewer land almost touches Bend city limits. With just a few adjustments to the current UGB the sewer plant and airport could be incorporated in the city without bringing in too much land. If it happens, that should streamline airport management. Those are just some of the things happening at the Bend Airport. With this new group cooperation with the city and county will hopefully improve and more good things will happen at the airport. Stay tuned. …. Gary Miller TSA NAMES GA LIAISON From: Avweb: The Transportation Security Administration has created a new position for a general aviation liaison, and named Juan Barnes to the post. Barnes will be available via e-mail to address the public's concerns about security measures that impact GA operations. AOPA says questions may be submitted to Barnes via e-mail address: TSAGeneralAviation@dhs.gov. "General aviation stakeholders are encouraged to submit inquiries regarding TSA programs, policies and security directives," wrote Barnes in a letter to GA stakeholders. "Your inquiry will be reviewed, and forwarded to the appropriate office and personnel within TSA to ensure a prompt and accurate response. Our goal is to provide responses to inquiries within two business days." The TSA also will address concerns in monthly teleconferences with stakeholders beginning this Friday, March 20, at 1 p.m. AOPA said it will participate in the teleconferences, during which TSA officials will answer questions submitted previously by e-mail. Runway Safety Tip When operating on an airport surface and unsure of your position or taxi route, always confirm with ATC. Ground control will provide "progressive" taxi instructions upon request for pilots who may be unfamiliar with the airport. Reports from pilots to the Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) show that errors commonly occur after the flight crew senses something is wrong, but presses on, thinking things will soon make sense - but a runway incursion is about to happen. Ask first! --- and once in the air you have to deal with this --- use your PDF magnifier to see this REAL airspace layout !! And now a hybrid airplane engine --- A standard Rotax 914 turbocharged engine is mated to a 40 hp electric motor and coupled to the propeller hub using a poly-V-belt drive. The basic Rotax, rated at 130 hp, together with the 40 hp electric motor, provide a combined 170 hp for takeoffs and climbs. This full power rating is available for a maximum 5-minute duration. In cruise, power comes entirely from running the gas engine, which fully recharges the electric motor power source, 55 pounds of lithium ion batteries, in twenty minutes. . Edge Of Space Defined For decades, the altitude where atmosphere ends and space begins has been pegged at a theoretical 100km, known as the Karman Line. Theodore von Karman picked that value as the point where any aircraft would have to be flying faster than orbital velocity to stay aloft, and it's become the generally accepted line. Well, a team of scientists from the University of Calgary says the theory isn't far from reality. The so-called edge of space is actually at 118 km. The scientists traded their slide rules for something called a Supra-Thermal Ion Imager, which was carried on a NASA rocket on Jan. 19, 2007. As everyone knows, the atmosphere doesn't really have a precise endpoint. It just gets thinner the higher you go. Instead, the device was able to detect where the ionosphere, which is driven by flows in space, and the atmosphere meet. Now that the dividing line is known, it will have a bearing on factors that are affected by the interaction between space and the earth environment ranging from the impact of sunspots to the effects of space weather on satellites and communications. -- Another step in the search for alternate fuel -- from AOPA OnLine Teledyne Continental Motors and Hawker Beechcraft have joined forces to move the search ahead for an alternative to 100LL by testing a 94-octane "no lead" aviation gasoline in flight. A Beechcraft G36 (Garmin G1000-equipped) Bonanza flew several flights, the longest to date lasting one hour, with 94 unleaded fuel that was specially blended for aviation purposes. However, it could take the industry most of this year to agree on accepting the fuel as a standard, and there is no word on whether 94 is the magic octane number for other engine manufacturers. If the industry did agree on the fuel tested by Continental, there could be problems getting the oil companies to manufacture a new fuel in addition to the current 100- octane low-lead fuel. Would 94-octane work for all general aviation aircraft? Questions remain about getting the manufacturers to sign off on the fuel as well. These include whether modifications to engines will be required and whether operating methods would have to be revised, such as using lower power settings or other special operating techniques. Any transition of the entire general aviation fleet could take a decade or more. -------------------------------------- Regrettably, another potential job loss ---- The last fighter pilot has already been born! Yeah ... Are Maverick, Goose, the Iceman AND YOU headed for the beach? US Navy's robot stealth carrier plane By Lewis Page US aerospace'n'killware goliath Northrop Grumman just took the wraps off one of the most advanced robot aircraft in the world, the X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS). The X-47B is intended to operate from the flight deck of US Navy aircraft carriers, carrying out entire missions including air-to-air refueling without pilot input. "The X-47B will demonstrate how unmanned combat aircraft can operate from aircraft carriers ... extending the carrier's reach and power projection from anywhere in the world," said Captain Martin Deppe, of the US Navy. The X-47B project will provide just two demonstrator aircraft, mainly intended to prove that unmanned planes can successfully take off from and land onto US carriers. Catapult launch - and even more so, arrested landings - have traditionally been considered one of the most difficult and stressful piloting feats. Apart from proving the concept of unmanned carrier aircraft, however, the X-47B will also be able to conduct air-to-air refueling - giving it almost unlimited endurance. The US Navy hasn't asked for more, but in fact the aircraft would have little difficulty carrying weapons and flying autonomous strike missions, as it is derived from a previous joint program between the navy and air force intended to produce a plane which could do just that. The X-47B, in fact, will be one of the first true killer robots, able to conduct a mission using live weapons without needing to communicate with pilots or even supervisors on its mother ship or back in the USA. Current roboplanes are typically handled in combat over satcomm channels from bases in America, and take off and land under the control of pilots in ground stations near the runway. Apart from its robot brain and controls, the X-47B also boasts much longer range than a normal carrier jet - and features Stealth technology. Some in the US Navy hope that it will allow carriers to stand much further off from threatening enemy coasts of the future, which might harbour dangerous ship-killing missiles able to punch through the fleet's defenses. Others are hostile, however. Pilots are one of the US navy's dominant subcultures, and they count themselves better than lowly airforce pukes because they do arrested landings - "traps". The Top Guns won't be looking forward to telling their children that there's no longer any way to win one's glorious wings of gold and the respect of the nation by jockeying a tailhook jet down to a wet deck on a stormy night far out at sea. According to Northrop, the X-47B, having now been completed, will now enter ground tests in preparation for a first runway flight next autumn. Carrier trials are to begin in 2011. I know this is the April issue, but UCAS is REAL ! ================================================= COOPA officer contact info: =========================== President Gary E. Miller 109 NW Wilmington Ave Bend, OR 97701 541-382-8588 gem@rellim.com Vice President --------OPEN---------- Secretary/Treasurer Don Wilfong 210 SE Cessna Dr Bend, OR 97702 541 389-1456 wilfong.d@gmail.com Temp Flyout Chair Don Wilfong 210 SE Cessna Dr Bend, OR 97702 541 389-1456 wilfong.d@gmail.com Program Chair Ed Endsley 63505 Bridle Ln Bend, OR 97701 541 382-6414 ed@edendsley.com And finally, send Newsletter inputs to Mike Bond 22052 Banff Drive Bend, OR 97702 541 317-8443 mvbond@spiritone.com