Props to the folks that park the jets (marshalling to the active and to the apron).  They know how to keep the pilot's attention!

-- Walter Lounsbery, 12-31-2007

I have a bad habit of running Media Center on my workstation while doing research on the Internet.  I generally have news channels on.  Trouble is, the research often turns up videos that become my listening focus.  I need to mute Media Center while the short video plays.  One day I remembered that I saw a video on Microsoft's Channel 9 that described Vista's ability to control audio level on a per-application basis.  Instead of directly opening up the Volume Mixer control, I decided to see where I could learn about this handy feature of Vista.

I used Vista's "Help and Support" feature to search for help with the volume control.  Even if I used the correct search phrase "volume mixer", Help only told me how to change the speaker volume or how to change the system sounds, no mention of the mixer function!  Clearly, the people that wrote Vista Help are out of touch with the features of the system.  I did the right thing and entered a suggestion into the Help system (to the effect of "Please tell us about the mixer function!").

I checked out Google, where I links to several blogs (some hosted at blogs.msdn.com) which directly talked about the mixer function.  Windows Live Search, to be fair, presented some good links on the first page of results.  Both searches were on "Vista volume control".

The volume mixer is a great feature of Vista.  But it could use a bit more attention.  The speaker volume control (or the volume control remote for Media Center) adjusts the volume for all applications (as you would expect).  Tweak the volume for an application, and it is fixed where your mouse puts it (as you would expect).  But what happens when you try to sync that application with the speaker volume again?  My Vista workstation does something funky with the level display for that application (it overlays multiple graphic elements and gets very confused) and eventually syncs things back together if you fiddle with it for a while.  I suggest adding something to allow explicit syncing with the "master volume control."

And it would be worthwhile to sync Vista Help with Vista features, too.

-- Walter Lounsbery, 12-27-2007

I think the A-List bloggers get 12,000 views a day, a figure I achieved over a period of years.  But this milestone is OK by me. 

Lisa is far ahead of me on this statistic, with about 25,000 views.

I wonder about traffic etiquette when you create multiple blogs or move your blog to a different Website.  Do you get credit for the total traffic on all Websites?  Can you get credit for past traffic on a previous Website?  Or is it better to act professional and ignore the traffic figures?  The true sign of an A-List blogger appears to be a total lack of concern about Website traffic, except for that constant whining about finding sponsors to pay the bill for their incredible Internet traffic volume.

-- Walter Lounsbery, 12-25-2007

This past week our schedule and the weather allowed us to do a bit of flying in a Challenger II out of Oliver Springs Airport.  Yesterday Lisa got some great pictures from the aft seat of the airplane, which I've uploaded to my Spaces Photo Album.  I really didn't want to write about flying the airplane until I was comfortable taking Lisa up and we had some pictures. 

We've flown two short hops so far.  The first was short because Lisa discovered that the aft seat has a severe draft from the parachute mounting area.  The unit prevents a good seal on the top of the wing, and I guess the high pressure area in front of the parachute housing is forcing air down directly to the top of Lisa's head.  That's why she is wearing the hat in the pictures on our second flight!  The blowing air might be a good thing in the Summer, but it is really cold now.

Our second hop was cut short by the weather moving into our area.  You can see in the pictures that the clouds were clipping the tops of nearby mountains, and it looked like a light mist of rain approaching the area.  It turned into a non-event, but it is always better to judge that from the ground.

As you can see from the pictures, the Challenger provides a great view.  The front seat has good upwards visibility and all aboard can check out the ground below due to the bowed-out "doors".  The only drawback to the airplane is a total lack of space for larger people.  Lisa and I are still working on good techniques for getting in and out of the cockpit.  Even the panel is small.  I would like to add a GPS and some more instruments (like a variometer), but the installation will be tricky and I probably won't be able to put in all the things I would like.  Even the handheld radio is against my right knee, which constrains movement of the controls a bit.  Since the aircraft is certified Experimental, I can tinker with that.

I'll have more to say about performance of the aircraft once we have a GPS for accurate readings.  The handling qualities are good, especially in pitch.  I'm having a blast with the landings.  The Challenger II does have interesting yaw characteristics.  A lot of pilots have remarked that the airplane doesn't require much attention on rudder with the doors off, but when they are installed the airplane will exercise your rudder control capability.  I installed a yaw string to check that out.  Trouble is, a yaw string actually indicates twice the sideslip angle of the airplane (amplifies sideslip indication), and the ailerons can couple into yaw very noticeably.  I suffered from the control coupled yaw oscillations chasing the yaw string (sort of like PIO in pitch, it's in your head).  Now I'm settling into the groove with the rudder and ailerons.  I expect much lower workload when the doors come off in the Summer.

Just for the record, the Challenger has some design aspects that make it loose in sideslip.  These are:

• Large rudder compared to fin
• Small rudder and fin, and short tail moment arm
• Rudder and fin in propeller slipstream (improves rudder effectiveness, decreases fin effectiveness)
• Lots of fuselage side area ahead of cg, very little fuselage side area aft of cg (doors installed)

As a result, the rudder is effective enough that the plane can handle very high crosswinds, but it is tough for the pilot to avoid stimulating sideslip oscillations.  If the aircraft had a higher yaw moment of inertia, it might have a significant control problem in that axis.

In the pitch axis, the aircraft has a high thrust line, so you have to be aware of pitching with throttle.  There is enough lag with a heavy pilot like me that the pitch with throttle is quite controllable.  I wonder if it is a real issue with light pilots and aft CG.  Stalls have a clean break under the conditions I've tried so far, with minimal altitude loss.  The plane flies to a really slow stall (I want to verify the speed with GPS).

Roll authority is adequate.  I've flown in light choppy conditions without an issue.  The Challenger has an odd "flaperon" system with a flap deflection crank above the pilot's head.  This is mainly used for pitch trim, of all things.  I'd rather put a trim tab on the tail. 

If I were going to modify the design at all, I would do a new wing with enough area to meet the LSA stall requirement.  It would have a high lift airfoil and no flaps.  The wing would have "cutout" ailerons and a sharp trailing edge.  This would be attractive to find out if the Rotax 503 could be adequate to achieve, say, 120 mph in a simple two place aircraft.  There are reports that the new Quad City Challenger LSS version can cruise near 100 mph now.  This modification would require a new structural analysis of the entire airframe and probably significant modifications to the tail.  The great part of this experiment is that construction and modification would be relatively quick since the fuselage and powerplant won't be affected.  The bad part is that I'd rather design and build a plane with a much bigger cockpit and better efficiency and performance.  Modifying the Challenger would detract from the second plane.

-- Walter Lounsbery, 12-23-2007

I've been thinking about doing regular review posts on my blogs, but the non-review writing backlog keeps that from happening.  Today something happened that just totally impressed me beyond any expectations for service from any company.  So here is a super-strong recommendation for a company that truly excels: PrintingForLess.com.

The doorbell rang a few minutes ago.  I left my man cave in the basement, ran to the door, and as usual the Fedex guy had already made it back to his truck before I could open the front door.  At the door was a small package from PrintingForLess.com.  This was very puzzling, since I'd just gotten my print job from them last week.

I rushed downstairs and ripped open the box.  Inside was a very nice ceramic mug (with their logo printed on it, of course!) and a business card from the team that handled my print job.  This is simply extraordinary, given that my print job was the smallest order of business cards they provide.  I really didn't spend much on that at all.

If you're not impressed by the coffee cup, you would certainly be impressed by the their customer service.  After I submitted my order, I was consulted to approve the galley print by the team handling my order.  After approval, I was notified on every step of order fullfillment by email.  And the finished product looked great!  After seeing all manner of over-designed Web sites and fancy graphic pages, the PrintingForLess.com website seemed plain and functional. When I initially submitted my order, I expected the usual "fire and forget" ordering process I've gotten on so many other Websites.  Now I know that their emphasis is on customer satisfaction and quality products.

One more thing, I looked at several printing companies on the Web, PrintingForLess.com is one of the few that accepts Microsoft Publisher files.  That is a big plus for me.

Check them out, chances are you will really like working with them.

-- Walter Lounsbery, 12-21-2007

I have never been a fan of jargon.  I've worked in highly technical industries my entire life, which makes regular conversation difficult.  It also leads to headlines like you see for this post!  Now I have to explain this headline, which you might see in any newspaper.

The EAA is the Experimental Aircraft Association, which is mainly an association for people that build their own airplanes.  It has a worldwide membership in the hundreds of thousands with diverse interests in aviation, well beyond just homebuilt aircraft.  "Ultralight" class aircraft, by FAA regulation, are aircraft that weight 254 pounds or less and meet various other criteria.  Ultralights are basically exempt from pilot licensing and aircraft certification restrictions of other aircraft classes.  The Ultralight class has been around for about 25 years and has been very popular, including hang gliders (they look like large kites), convention powered aircraft, and other types.  The FAA also granted an exemption to similar, but heavier two-place aircraft to promote safe training of ultralight pilots.  The aircraft operating under this exemption are the so-called "fat ultralights."

In 2004, the aviation industry, EAA, other associations, and the FAA produced new regulations to promote aviation activity, creating a new pilot certification called "sport pilot" and a new aircraft category called "light sport aircraft" or LSA.  Sport pilot training, thanks to a combination of compressed training requirements and restrictions compared to traditional certified pilot, plus cheaper training aircraft, can be accomplished at nearly half the cost of a traditional pilot's license.  Light sport aircraft operating costs will probably end up about half the cost of the least expensive production non-LSA aircraft as well.  This allows pilots to exercise their privileges quicker, and more often, than those operating non-LSA aircraft.  This will enhance safety (builds experience) and allow pilots to afford higher ratings and certifications.

One of the side benefits of the LSA category, for the FAA, is elimination of the troubling fat ultralight exemption.  People can "convert" their fat ultralights to Experimental Light Sport Aircraft (ELSA) by registering the aircraft (getting the tail number or "N" number you see on certified aircraft) and passing an inspection for aircraft certification.  The FAA is eliminating the fat ultralight exemption with January 31, 2008 the deadline to convert a fat ultralight into ELSA.  This also means that pilots of these aircraft will need to be at least sport pilot students or licensed sport pilots.

It is now December 21, 2007 and the conversion deadline is a little over a month away.  As of November 30, 4,273 aircraft had been registered for ELSA (the tail number had been reserved) but the inspection has not been completed for legal operation as ELSA.  Considering that there are a handful of FAA inspectors or designated inspectors in each state, this tremendous backlog won't be cleared by the deadline.  I estimate perhaps one-fourth of those aircraft will be inspected by the end of January, with some percentage failing inspection the first time.  Keep in mind this backlog is more than all of the ELSA aircraft that have been certified since the rule was enacted (3,870).

The EAA is trying to help by submitting an exemption request to the FAA to allow people that started the conversion process before January 31, 2008 to complete their inspections later.  I wish them the best in this effort, as I have met a lot of fat ultralight owners that started conversion very late.  I think it is very appropriate to provide an open path for the thousands of people that want to get their aircraft certified, who have shown that by starting the process.

There has been a lot of talk about this one-time ELSA conversion.  It really hits a hot button for ultralight flyers that have enjoyed extremely light regulation for a quarter of a century.  And it puts them in a bind, despite the relative ease provided under the conversion.  The certification process for other experimental aircraft involves an extensive paper trail that includes proof of construction, inspection during construction, prior owners, airframe modifications, kit factory bill of sale, and similar things.  I understand that the paperwork for the ELSA conversion is minimal, and the inspection is very basic.  The bind is this: if they are ultralight pilots they won't be able to legally fly their aircraft after January 31.  Even if they are willing to get a Sport Pilot license, it may take months.  Since there aren't many Sport Pilot instructors or schools yet, it may not even be practical to get the license without significant travel, time away from a job, or other extraordinary expense.  It's no wonder so many ultralight pilot aircraft owners are in denial about the whole thing.

The FAA has repeatedly said that the conversion deadline won't be altered.  But I think if the FAA is going to be realistic, they should adopt the EAA exemption request.  And they should also consider allowing ultralight pilots to fly their ELSA through the Summer of 2008 to allow for their training and licensing.

-- Walter Lounsbery, 12-21-2007

This video post is dedicated to Alyssa and Emily.  Watch out, it's a jungle out there!

-- Walter Lounsbery, 12-19-2007

You, my small but dedicated audience, may have noticed an extreme lack of posts this month.  If you speculated that I must have left the country, well, you guessed correctly!  Go to the nearest vendor and pick out your winning lottery ticket before your clairvoyance wears out from more frivolous work.

The complete story is actually much more complex.  Things have been very busy and the travel just accentuates the pace when I'm at the house.  Of course, I intend to break up the chaos into bite-sized posts for this blog and your enjoyment.  Since Lisa and I are staying home for the holidays left this year, the next two weeks will be an opportune time to write those posts.  Thus the title of this post, "Less" posting is due to "More" travel, work, and non-blogging activities, while "Less" activities mean "More" posts.  That pretty much defines the Yin and Yang of posting.

This past weekend Lisa and I returned from a seven day cruise to three ports of call: Grand Cayman, Cozumel, and Key West.  We sailed aboard the Norwegian Cruise Lines Majesty, departing from Charleston, South Carolina.  It was a wonderful trip and I will post some pictures later.  Lisa and I had a blast diving off Grand Cayman's Seven Mile Beach.  There was a lot more coral and sea life than I remembered from diving the North Wall in 1993.  We were scheduled to dive the North Wall and Stingray City, but strong winds and currents on that side of the island diverted us to a more sheltered dive location.  Later we learned that Tropical Depression Olga missed us by a few miles and a day or so.  Overall, we really liked the NCL experience (called FreeStyle Cruising) and getting to meet so many new friends on a relatively small ship.  Lisa said that she will blog in detail about the cruise.

I started posting about flying again some months ago (maybe as early as September).  I needed to do more with my flying obsession for a lot of reasons (For one thing, I needed a solid distraction to get past a bit of software development writer's block.  Again, the yin and yang of work and play...).  I'm really happy that Lisa has caught flying fever, so we can do that together.  After doing the preparation for resuming flying with Light Sport Aircraft (passing the FAA Biannual Flight Review), we got use of a Challenger II just two days before taking the cruise.  I flew again this past Monday to get more familiar with the airplane.  Fair warning: expect to see lots more posts, pictures, and videos about flying as weather permits.  The plane really needs cabin heat (an easy update).

So there you have it, I'm back with a full queue of writing topics.  The cruise and flying material alone should keep me busy through the holidays!  There are also posts to do on software development, renovating the house (we got a new mail box!  and a hot tub!  and we're trimming out the rec room!), deer in the back yard, crazy cats in the house, fun with EAA Chapter 17, a new website design for the East Tennessee .NET User Group, and lots more.

-- Walter Lounsbery, 12-19-2007