Finally I see Dave's puple G-string he he he.

regards and merry x mas to all.

peaches

have a nice holiday.

peaches

Merry Xmas na lang diha.

peaches

The Philippines sounds good to me. Matter of fact, I'm seriously considering a move there permanently. Soon. Criselda and I, that is. I've just about had enough of pretending to be a normal citizen here. Need to go home. We'll see what happens.

Give me a call sometime, please, at your convienence.

Take Care my friend,
Jay

 Your Welcome. Glad you finaly got to see the pic. I want to wish you the very best on your up comming trip. China, huh? You got more of an adventerous spirit than me! Looking forward to the trip reports. Take LOTS of PICTURES. For Stephen, of course. LOL!

Really though, the best of luck. Your a good guy Windy, you deserve it.

All the best,
Jay

LMMFAOTIPINP!!! Last thing I need in the cockpit is a cat or dog. I'm worried someday a bee will be in there (which happens quite often). I think I would have to jump out, as Bee's are one of my biggest fears.;-)

I cut and pasted your article on an aviation board, mostly airline pilots there, and they loved it!

Here's an interesting thing about instrument flying, this is why it's so important to learn, even just to fly for fun;

"178 Seconds to Live"

How long can a pilot who has little or no instrument training expect to live after he flies into bad weather and loses visual contact?

Researchers at the University of Illinois did some tests and came up with some very interesting data. Twenty student "guinea pigs" flew into simulated instrument weather, and all went into graveyard spirals or roller coasters. The outcome differed in only one respect - the time required until control was lost. The interval ranged from 480 seconds to 20 seconds. The average time was 178 seconds -- two seconds short of three minutes.

Here's the fatal scenario...

The sky is overcast and the visibility is poor. That reported five mile visibility looks more like two, and you can't judge the height of the overcast. Your altimeter tells you that you are at 1500 feet but your map tells you that there's local terrain as high as 1200 feet. There might be a tower nearby because you're not sure how far off course you are. But you've flown into worse weather than this, so press on.

You find yourself unconsciously easing back just a bit on the controls to clear those towers. With no warning, you're in the soup. You peer so hard into the milky white mist that your eyes hurt. You fight the feeling in your stomach. You try to swallow, only to find your mouth dry. Now you realize you should have waited for better weather. The appointment was important, but not all that important. Somewhere a voice is saying, "You've had it -- it's all over!"

You now have 178 seconds to live...

Your aircraft feels on even keel but your compass turns slowly. You push a little rudder and add a little pressure on the controls to stop the turn but this feels unnatural and you return the controls to their original position. This feels better but now your compass is turning a little faster and your airspeed is increasing slightly. You scan your instruments for help but what you see looks somewhat unfamiliar. You're sure that this is just a bad spot. You'll break out in a few minutes. (But you don't have a few minutes left. . .)

You now have 100 seconds to live...

You glance at your altimeter and you are shocked to see it unwinding. You're already down to 1200 feet. Instinctively, you pull back on the controls but the altimeter still unwinds. The engine is into the red and the airspeed, nearly so.

You now have 45 seconds to live...

Now you're sweating and shaking. There must be something wrong with the controls; pulling back only moves the airspeed indicator further into the red. You can hear the wind tearing at the aircraft.

You are about to meet your Maker; you now have 10 seconds to live...

Suddenly you see the ground. The trees rush up at you. You can see the horizon if you turn your head far enough but it's at a weird angle -- you're almost inverted. You open your mouth to scream but. . .

...you just ran out of seconds.

Think about this before you press on into marginal weather.

Personaly I like instrument flying . I'm not too shabby at it either. :-)

JFK Jr. hit the water at 4,000 feet per minute. I doubt they even realized they were in a dive. Probably still having a conversation like nothing was happening. Only it was the darkness that killed him. No horizon. Same priciple as being in a cloud layer though. Spatial disorientation. He had 300 hours of instrument time as well. That's alot. He just made a bad decision that evening. It happens, even to 10,000+ hour pilots. He shouldn't have done that flight. That's part of being PIC (Pilot in Command). Knowing when to cancel if necessary, after studying the enroute weather, moon (if night), etc. That's why the FAA determined pilot error in JFK's case. I've canceled flights myself on a few occasions with no regrets.

Take Care,
Jay