#3

Alisa looking like a bad-ass in my old Randolph Aviator sunglasses!



We changed airplanes for this one. Alisa is pretty used to flying the Cub, so I figured using a stick would be more intutitive to her and put her in our Symphony SA-160. She had her first unassisted takeoff, which is a far cry from the last couple of lessons. The cool part about it was that the takeoff was on runway 17 at Marlin, which scares a lot of my more experienced pre-private students.



It may be the powerlines on the departure end, or it may be the fact that Marlin apparently has more buzzards per capita than any other town in Texas. At any rate, it's a narrow-ish runway and she did a really nice job keeping the airplane straight and controlling her pitch during rotation and climbout.



She's come a long way. The first lesson was okay, the second lesson involved some tears and hand-wringing, and the third one saw her finally come into her own. The bug has bitten, and she's started to look forward to lessons. And, so far we're still married :).



On to slow flight, stalls, and landings!

Play every crowd like it's Carnegie

Almost ten years ago, I was at a party with some family friends out in Del Rio, Texas. It was early March, and one of those late-season northers had the daytime temperatures down in the 20s. That night, we stood in a barn heated by wood-burning chimneas and listened to this kid named Eric Hanke belt out original songs, one after another.

I was in college when the whole "Texas Music" movement was really taking off, and I'd been into Robert Earl Keen, Pat Green, and Cory Morrow for a while. But this guy was different. He wasn't doing cover songs, and he wasn't trying to write songs about Texas this, Texas that, Shiner Beer, or pickup trucks. He understood the poetry and imagery in the lyrics of guys like Keen, VanZandt, and Nelson much better than so many of these other college acts who claimed them as their influences and progenitors. I became a fan and he became a longtime friend.

Eric just released his second album, Factory Man. His first record, Autumn Blues, was critically well-received but didn't get the airplay that many of us felt it deserved. Eric is due some attention, and Factory Man is the real deal and ought to bring him just that. It has country, it has some funky blues, it has an understated story song, and it even has a piano-driven love song. And, to my ear, it has some radio hits.

Eric is patient, though. Even though he's made several appearances at Gruene Hall, he's also playing small venues, building true believers one listener at a time. Alisa and I saw him Friday at the Bugle Boy in La Grange, Texas (by the way, the Bugle Boy is a cool place if you care about actually hearing the music instead of the drunk, screaming college kids and getting to interact with the artists). The crowd was dissapointingly small, but he got up there and played his guts out. The playing and singing was spot-on, and the story telling between songs reminded me a lot of Robert Earl Keen.

It made me think about what I do, and how few people actually have the guts to go out and do what they know that they were put on this earth to do. Big crowds, small crowds...big airplanes, small airplanes. We lucky few do what we need to do regardless of who's listening, because we know the payoff will come. We play to every crowd like it's Carnegie. Is there any other way? If you don't feel this way about the way you're living your life, there is only one person who can change it.

"Don't you ever give up on your dreams; won't you come and fly away with me?"
-Been Knocked Down by Eric Hanke

For more information: http://www.erichanke.com/ and www.Facebook.com/pages/Eric-Hanke/17588993037

A Brief Photo Essay

I've been telling myself that I need to take more pictures at work; I know there will be a point in my career when I want to look back at this stage. So, I brought my camera to work today. These are a few select shots. This is mostly for me. If you're so inclined to peruse, I hope you'll enjoy.

Carswell Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth (Formerly Carswell AFB)

Hicks Airport, just northwest of Fort Worth. The runway is the surface at a slight angle to the highway. Look at all those hangars!

Somewhere in this picture, there is a red and black Cessna 140 about 1,000 feet below us. He was there when I took the shot, but for the life of my I can't find him now.

I spent the evening instructing in a 1962 Piper Cherokee 150. Second new-to-me aircraft type this month. I dig the old school yokes.

Base-to-final turn over lake Waco. If you're reading the altimeter, it looks like we're high. If you've ever flown a Cherokee, you know we're not. Best glide is +/- 85 mph. It glides like my Ford Explorer would.

What you can't see in this picture is the black widow infestation going on in this hangar. My risks don't always begin and end with the prospect of a sudden chance meeting with the ground ;).

Stand and Fight

The news just came out the the Democractic members of the Indiana House are fleeing the state in order to avoid a vote on a bill that they don't agree with. Really?

Look, I understand that they and their Wisconsin peers are in really unenviable position. There is a piece of legislation, with which you vehemently disagree, drafted by the majority party, on the floor. You know you don't have a chance. There's nothing you can do to stem the tide.

The Republicans in the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate felt the same way on Christmas Eve, 2009, and in March of 2010, respectively. Did they run? No. They argued passionately, with every fiber of their being, and they cast their votes.

Go ahead and flame me if you want to for what you see as a flawed analogy between state houses and the U.S. Congress, but they each level of government has a Constitutionally-binding fiduciary responsibility to its citizens. To turn and run is unseemly, un-American, an irresponsible.

If you don't agree with a bill, stand your ground. Fight it in the chamber where your citizens have given you a voice. Cast your vote, and stand by it. That, friends, is how democracy works.

The Family Business

Alisa has been my favorite passenger for almost 10 years now. Today, she officially became one of my students. I've been slipping some ground lessons in with her for a while now---they're actually a great way to pass the drives between Waco/Victoria and Waco/Houston. She's really sharp on her knowledge, and she did well today in the airplane. I'm working with her in our Cessna 150 (see previous blog). She sees it as an approachable airplane, and I see it as a great teacher. Win/win.

I don't think she realized how much she'd actually learned being a passenger. When you're in a small airplane enough, you learn without trying what "straight and level" should look like and what a normal bank angle for a turn looks like. The bridge to getting her to manipulate the controls to achieve those sight pictures was a pretty short one.

They say that if a marriage can survive wedding planning and building a house, it can survive just about anything. I haven't heard that saying applied to flight training, but this will surely be an interesting experiment in marital relations. I'm sure there will be quite a few blog entries dedicated to her progress.

Today, though, I'm proud of her. Alisa is the most accommodating, acquiescing, nicest person I know and I really want for her to have an environment where she'll really be in control. I can't wait to see her grow as a pilot. She's thinking about starting a blog about the experience, and I'll make sure and share the address here if she does.

Is it Good for the Company?

During the Industrial Revolution, working conditions were abhorrent. Seven-day work weeks, extremely low pay, pay in company scrip ("I owe my soul to the company store"), and non-existent child labor standards were the norm. Without a doubt, the organized labor movement changed conditions to the extent that these phenomena are rarely experienced in the United States. Those bumper stickers that say something like, "Unions, the folks that brought you weekends," are not really off-base.

However, we have to ask ourselves an honest question in 2011. Are labor unions still relevant?"

Take Detroit. What really caused the auto industry crash? Is it just that they're not responsible corporate citizens? Is it because they're just that inept at managing their books? Is it just about exeutive bonuses? Or, is there a less populist element to that story?

How about ever-increasing demands by organized labor and ever-increasing difficulty to discipline or terminate employees without union action? Wouldn't that lead to cost inefficiency? Wouldn't that breed a certain complacency in the workforce? It's not unreasonable to think that part of this whole Detroit mess is a tolerance for overpaid labor building an underpeforming product. Here, I'll be blunt about it. Overpaid, overcoddled employees building crappy products contributed to the implosion of their own industry.

Mad at me already? Think I'm way off-base? Toyota makes a high-quality vehicle which holds its value and has a huge worldwide following. It hasn't been easy for them, either, and they requested a bailout from the Japanese government in 2009 (around $3 billion---compared to GM's $52 billion). Despite their troubles, Toyota has managed to (during a worldwide recession) surpass GM as the world's largest automaker. How many of its plants are unionized? The answer: 0. The only union plant was closed in 2009. We don't see any tear-jerker "imported from San Antonio" commercials trying to sell Tacomas, do we?

While I'm thinking about it, listen up Chrysler. I'm not buying your products because I feel sorry for your employees. Let's talk quality, safety, and resale value, then I'll give a rat's.

My first job out of college was as an insurance adjuster. Workers compensation, to be specific. My team's biggest client was the now-closed Goodyear plant in Tyler, Texas. It was a union plant. Part of our process in setting up a new claim was to get wage information on the injured worker (we had to use this to figure out what number to base our temporary disability payout on).

There were literally PhD's working out there because of the wages. We're talking (with overtime) clearing $100K per year, two weeks off at Christmas, to bond rubber to tires. I'm all about a laborer being worthy of his wages, but there's also the concept of "market value." Are the services performed by a factory worker really worth $100,000 per year?

I'm even aware of situations were organized labor is responsible for de-incentivation. For a lot of Air Traffic Controllers, working "Oshkosh," the world's largest airshow, is a really big deal. Historically, any FAA controller was eligible. Now, the National Association of Air Traffic Controllers (NATCA) has an agreement with the FAA that only controllers from the Great Lakes region can work the show. Small example, maybe, but clearly an example of a union taking incentives away from its members. That doesn't seem like good stewardship.

That brings me to a central theme in the debate about unions. Are they still really about representing the worker, or are they seeking to maintain their own power? A basic fact about bureacracy that freshmen political science majors are taught, and normal people know from experience, is this: Once established, a bureacracy's primary objective is to further itself. Could it be that unions, fully cognizant that their social necessity is dwindling, make calculated moves to amass power and perpetuate themselves?

What's going on in Wisconsin isn't some kind of organic populist uprising. It's a union orchestration. If the union there is interested in actually helping its employees, having them walk off the job en masse isn't the most effective way of doing it. The union wants to demonstrate its power. It wants to perpetuate itself. It wants to stay alive. This is not about the teachers. It's about the union. I dont' know how it could be any more obvious.

It's interesting that the most venemous unions out there are the ones representing pubic sector employees. Whether you agree that it's fair to target them or not, you have to understand a few things. Public sector employees work in the wealth-spending world, not in the wealth-generation world. For a country to survive, it must generate wealth. Ask the Soviets.

When a big chuck of the public can't pay the bills, it seems a little less reasonable for public employees to continue to expect sweetheart benefits packages. In the case of Wisconsin, public employees are still being asked in the new measures to contribute less to their pensions and benefits than the average private sector employee does. Continuing to capitulate to union demands is a pretty stupid way for a state, or a country, to go even more broke.

To be sure, there are industries where unions do still hold some relevance. The Air Line Pilots Association just closed negotiations on a new salary contract to get pilots at several regional airlines closer to a reasonable level. (These are not the "rich" pilots---regional pilots make between $20 and $45k per year. They're responsible for 30-50 lives at a time, but they still have less benefits than my PhD running the tire machine for Goodyear). Did they walk off the job to accomplish this? Nope. They negotiated. (ALPA's demands are not always good for the companies, either...US airlines are not exactly a juggernaut of positive financial activity).

However, I think the Wisconsin governor realizes what we all need to realize. The era of Upton Sinclair and The Jungle is long over in the United States. We can't give organized labor carte blanche power or capitulate to their demands as a matter of policy. Cost-benefit analyses are more vital now than ever.

After all, once you milk your employer dry with your demands, it's going to suck a whole lot worse to not have a job than to not get everything you want. If you like cashing your paychecks, it turns out it may be a good idea to ask the question so ingeniusly lampooned in the movie Office Space: "Is it good for the company?" Ask Detroit.

With Friends Like This...

...Well, you know the rest of that old saying. Today's blog is sort of a continuation of yesterday's topic. If you recall, we were talking about a general lack of professionalism and competency in aviation which I believe can be traced in many instances back to initial training. Let's look at an oft-overlooked example of a high-profile screwup.

The "Ally"

Senator James Inhofe is back in the news because the FAA's "punishment" for a recent indiscretion has been made public. In case you're curious, he got slapped on the wrist.

Back in October, Senator Inhofe landed his twin engine Cessna, three passengers on board, on a closed runway in Port Isabel, Texas. There were construction vehicles and personnel on the runway, and it was marked as "closed" by large yellow X's as is customary.

The fact that the runway was closed was also available public through a NOTAM (notice to airmen). The Federal Aviation Regulation codified as 14 CFR 91.103 indicates that pilots must become familiar with applicable NOTAMS before flying. This would especially apply to an airport with which one is not familiar.

Senator Inhofe's reaction to all this was downright scary. "It's unfortunate, I'm sorry, but I'm not really concerned about it." And regarding checking NOTAMS, he said "people who fly a lot just don't do it."

The Policymaker

One has to wonder what shortcomings in his training may have made Inhofe think that this just wasn't much of a big deal. We also teach pilots to try and identify and correct hazardous attitudes in themselves; he certainly failed at this task. In doing so, he jeopardized the lives of his passengers and the construction personnel. He jeopardized even more, though.

As a Senator who is known to be very pro-aviation, he's given a black eye to the very field of endeavor which he fights so hard in the halls of Congress to protect and further. His attitude makes us all look like idiots and sours public opinion on pilots (if this U.S. Senator is such a cowboy, they must all be that way). When you defame a cause that you work for years to support, you're jeopardizing your own body of work. Does he not realize this?

Senator Inhofe is also a member of the very body that is considering (the Senate hasn't voted on the law yet) new regulations upon a class of professionals (airline pilots) in order to improve safety and professionalism. If he's against it, he's sure a posterchild for lack of pilot professionalism. And if he votes for it, I've got a kettle I'll introduce him to. Either way, the irony is ridiculously inescapable.

With Friends Like This...

With friends like this, who needs enemies? Keep your nose clean, Senator Inhofe. We need aviation voices in Congress who can be taken seriously.