Airbus 380 arrives in Montreal

While doing my runup at Cedars airport today I looked up and saw what I thought was a low flying airliner flying downwind ready to turn on to final approach on runway 6R in Montreal. I finally realized that it was the 380 doing a tour of Montreal. I qualifies being named an Aluminum Overcast. Being as big as it is it looked very slow - too slow to be lifting all that weight. Even from the ground one can tell that the fuselage is very big. I wondered how big the vortices were and for how long they would be sustained.

Bad news from Precision Carburetors

The following appeared on the web today. Insurance, its costs and the ability to obtain it is a constant influence on aviation to continue to exist.

"November 1, 2007
Precision Airmotive LLC has discontinued sales of all float carburetors and component parts as of November 1, 2007. This unfortunate situation is a result of our inability to obtain product liability insurance for the product line. Precision Airmotive LLC and its 43 employees currently manufacture and support the float carburetors used in nearly all carbureted general aviation aircraft flying today. Precision has been the manufacturers of these carburetors since 1990. These FAA-approved carburetors were designed as early as the 1930s and continue to fly over a million flight hours a year. After decades of service, the reliability of these carburetors speaks for itself. Nonetheless, Precision has seen its liability insurance premiums rise dramatically, to the point that the premium now exceeds the total sales dollars for this entire product line. In the past, we have absorbed that cost, with the hope that the aviation industry as a whole would be able to help address this issue faced by Precision Airmotive, as well as many other small aviation companies. Our efforts have been unsuccessful. This year, despite the decades of reliable service and despite the design approval by the Federal Aviation Administration, Precision Airmotive has been unable to obtain product liability insurance for the carburetor productl ine. While we firmly believe that the product is safe, as does the FAA,and well-supported by dedicated people both at Precision and at our independent product support centers, unfortunately the litigation costs for defending the carburetor in court are unsustainable for a small business such as Precision. Therefore, as of November 1, 2007, Precision Airmotive LLC has been leftwith no choice but to cease production and support of its float carburetor line.We are working with the engine manufacturers and others in the industry in an attempt to minimize the impact on general aviation and to provide future support for this product line. There is a substantial quantity of parts and carburetors stocked at our distributors, which should be sufficient to support the industry for a short time."

Spark Plug rotation

Owner maintenance rules permit owners to remove, clean and reinstall spark plugs. Plugs are expensive at $25+ each, and they need to be treated with care. They also should be rotated in their firing positions to prevent eroding the electrodes in an irregular fashion.
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You need to exchange the # 1 cylinder plug with the # 4 cylinder plug and the # 2 with the # 3 if you want to make sure of the change in polarity. It is also a good idea to exchange positions - top to bottom - to ensure that a minimum of lead fouling accumulates.

Also, idle at less than 1200 RPM tends to lower the plug's nose temperature below 900 F causing the fuel's lead scavenging agents to be ineffective in preventing lead fouling. Remember, idle mixtures are overly rich anyway, adding to the problem of lead-fouling.

What will VLJ's change?

Other than General Aviation aircraft appearing in terminal areas, airlines have not worried much about the airspace GA aircraft demand.

Now that VLJs are a growing reality, will airlines change the rules by which we have access to the airways? Will they demand that VLJs pay the same user fees as large airliners, using the argument that the same piece of sky has to be set aside for a VLJ as for a 737? Or will the service providers have a pay scale that only airlines can afford? Will VLJs be required to operate at inefficient altitudes? Will service providers change the "first call, first served" procedures for air traffic control where size will matter?

How will we know if the rules are going to be changed?

What is the future of VFR flying?

What has to happen for VFr flying as we have known it to no longer be possible?

Pressure by service providers to charge for airspace?
Regulators requiring increasingly complex equipment? Transponders, ADS-B, Radios
Increasing class A, B, C, airspace at the loss of E, F, G?
Increased training requirements?Is any of this happening currently?

English Language Proficiency - ICAO

ICAO today passed the Level 4 language standard to apply to all pilots wishing to fly internationally.
States have until 2011 to fully implement and document pilots.

Language proficiency

The ICAO 36th triennial Assembly is meeting this week. In today's technical commission IAOPA and FAI presented its joint paper to ask for lower language proficiency standards for VFR pilots.

That request was refused by a vote of 15 for and 23 against. Only 38 States voted out of a possible 192. Most of the countries voting against the proposal appeared to be countries which do not have any VFR General Aviation operations going on in the first place. Among the countries voting against the resolution were Sudan, Samoa, Viet Nam.

It turns out that in this case rules were made for about 1 million licence holders, decided by a majority of 8 States, many of whom may not even really know how VFR flights are conducted.

One has to wonder why 150 States did not bother to express their views on the matter.