Foggy mornings...

Pilots,

Nice flying once the fog lifts, but mornings have been tough around the ranch.

Some news items in the neighborhood:

San Bernardino Tower opens tomorrow morning! Some new frequencies for you to have on your cheat sheet are:

ATIS 124.17
Tower 119.45
Ground 121.8

We assume the class D airspace will be depicted on the new chart revisions when they arrive.

More info here: FAA Airport Diagram



Some maintenance challenges are manifesting themselves lately.

Cessna 1ES shot lightning at our poor maintenance crew all weekend as we tried to solve a mere starter issue. There will be a major rewiring that will need to be done. We have grounded her through Wednesday.

Cessna 68U was making odd engine noises at our friends Spenser and Javid today. They were quick to catch it on departure, and we are investigating. Excellent work on the quick catch, guys!

If we find anything we dislike with 68U, we may put her in for engine overhaul, which would mean 3-4 weeks of downtime. We had been planning to do this in February, but may accelerate these plans. More as we know it.

Cessna 25R has new nose gear door springs.

Cessna 17J will have another round of avionics troubleshooting to locate a weird "crackle" in the intercom. The first round did not take.

Cessna 04H had her nosebowl painted. The entire upper cowling will be repainted at next 100hr, to blend the cowling strengthening work which was done recently.

Piper 85Y is running nicely. Thanks 85Y.

Cessna 20U isn't bothering anybody. Thanks 20U

Cessna 630 has a new alternator.



That's it for the moment. Blue Skies!

- Mike

Happy Thanksgiving!

Pilots!

I hope that you all have a festive and restful holiday. Fly Corona will be closed tomorrow, Thursday, in observance of Thanksgiving. We will re-open Friday morning at 9am.

Flights scheduled will follow after-hours procedures as normal, please contact the office for additional information.



Cessna 1ES completed her extended Annual inspection yesterday.

Piper 85Y test flew successfully yesterday, and all systems are go. She has been returned to service, and there are some non-critical squawks we will be attending to at leisure.

We are caught up on our maintenance doldrums now, and are focusing on plane cosmetics, smaller squawks, and of course, cleaning up the hangar. :) Now is the time to sneak in a squawk or two to the office!

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Happy Flying!

- Mike

Runway closure @ KAJO

Pilots!

The runway will be re-striped this coming Saturday AM from 6am-9am. This means nobody will be taking off or landing during this time, to allow the paint to dry. We are re-painting the runway edge lines, numbers, and centerline.

We could use your help! If you are able to volunteer for painting duty, please contact us, and we will credit you $8/hr in flight time for your airport service!



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In other news,

Cessna 1ES is having an extended Annual Inspection. We expect her back this weekend.

Cessna 17J, 25R, and 04H are having their radios worked on today.



We have some foreign exchange pilots in town, and we have learned that many of them are stuck at the local hotel for lack of accomodation / crash pad. If any of you wish to lend a room to a foreign pilot, please contact the office with what you have to offer, when it is available, and rate you would like to receive, if any. We will try to pair up our pilots and save them some money.

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Nice weather abounds!

Blue Skies,

- Mike

Dino juice

Pilots!

I'm going to refrain from discussing the weather, as I am clearly full of jinxation for everyone. Yuck.



Fuel has fallen sufficiently, and our fuel surcharge goes with it -- we are now not one, but two notches down on the surcharge schedule, as Fuel has gone below $4/gal. Huzzah!

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We are experimenting with a tweak to our schedule which allows filtering of the columns you do not wish to see. If you wish to play along with us, we would love to hear both successes and bugs. You may view this at http://www.flycorona.com/signon4.asp The normal schedule will work in parallel with this.

Feel free to toy with it -- click on a column header to filter it out. An un-filtering option will display on the bottom of the schedule page.

We hope this will not be too confusing, and will help our schedule creep be more manageable.

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Not much else so far. More as I know it.

Blue Skies!

- Mike

Etiquette

Pilots!

It has been a little slow, news-wise, but now I have a bunch to share, to wit:

For those of you who are familiar with Newtonian Physics -- you may recall that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Ponder then, the amount of air that your propeller displaces in order to get a 2,000+ pound chunk of aluminum moving while taxiing -- quite a bit, eh?

Imagine if you were standing behind that propeller, which displaced that much air (and sand and rocks) -- oh no!



Apparently a few folks have started up their aircraft from the tiedown line, and launched a mini-tornado into the hangars behind, including our own maintenance hangars. Newton will tell us that the opposite force will be in the form of mechanics throwing wrenches and colorful language at you, about 400 ft-lbs worth.

In order to maintain the peace, and our wrenches and aircraft condition, please pull the aircraft out and turn it 90 degrees onto the taxiway before startup, and please be mindful of where you point your airplane's tail when you throttle up. We thank you.

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In other news,

Cessna 630 has a new alternator.

Cessna 68U completed her monster annual. Thank you for your patience.

Cessna 20U is humming right along.

Cessna 04H is having her nosebowl painted today and tomorrow. Also her Com1 will be peeked at for misbehaviour.

Cessna 1ES has completed her 100hr.

Cessna 17J is having a wiring "crackle" investigated in her wiring.

Cessna 25R will have her Com1 faceplate replaced.

Piper 85Y has had her complete fuel system rewired from scratch, to include new boost switches, tip tank switches, solenoid wiring, gauges, and fuel selector plumbing. We anticipate being out of these doldrums soon.



As you know, we do not like to bump anyone from flying -- however, there are some cases where it is unavoidable. If the aircraft has a maintenance issue, of course we will not dispatch the aircraft. There is one other situation where we will bump students, however, and that is for a scheduled checkride. Examiners are busy people, and so to facilitate a ride, we will move folks out of the way for a scheduled date. We apologize for any inconvenience, but rest assured, when you need it, we will be ready to do so for you as well.

We appreciate your understanding.

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The Corona Pilot's Association is hosting a Hangar-to-Hangar Poker Run, which benefits the CPA Scholarship fund. There are Prizes, games, and BBQ for everyone to enjoy next saturday, November 22nd.

My understanding is that you may visit aircraft hangars on the field and obtain a card, as well as meet some of your fellow aviators on the field -- construct a winning hand, and win a cool aviation prize! All proceeds will be used to sponsor young aviators in their pilot training, an excellent cause! The suggested donation is $5 per hand.

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We get asked periodically if folks want to share flights. We generally know who these people are, but rather than brokering everyone's information, we will be making a binder, whereby you may place your phone number or email, and advertise yourself as available to share flight time. This may be for time building, safety pilotage, or just looking to fly somewhere new. Please inquire with the office if you're interested in being on our list.



Now that our fleet has increased in size, it is a fairly regular occurrence that we are maintaining some sort of aircraft, be it routine like an oil change, 100-hour inspection, or annual inspection, or less than routine, such as anything 85Y dishes out. There is truly no better way to learn about aircraft systems than to participate in the teardown and inspection of one of our aircraft. We will even pay you $8/hr in flight time for helping us with the mundane chores. Please add your name to the list (same place as the flight-share list) if you're interested in helping out one day.

Typical maintenance schedules are:

Tuesday all day
Wednesday - Friday after 5pm
Saturday all day

Other times as needed.

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Strange winds and weather last weekend and last night. The forecast is looking excellent for the upcoming week or so. With fuel prices dropping (and ours are set to fall significantly this week!), it's a great time for some air therapy. Hope to see you there!

Blue Skies!

- Mike

Aviation Saturday...

Pilots!

Can't decide what to do next Saturday? There seem to be 3 aviation events of interest to vie for your time.

Consider the following:

Flabob Airport (KRIR) is having a free "Family Fun" event, featuring warbirds, vintage airplanes, cars, music, and, the thing that caught my eye -- a game where you can try to shoot down RC planes with a paintball gun. Who hasn't wanted to brandish a paintball gun in the pattern on certain days? This might be the next best thing.






More info available here

Further afield, and more in the news category, San Bernardino "International" Airport, KSBD, is getting a control tower! This means class D airspace soon, and they are offering a tour of the tower. Tower tours are very cool and worth doing, and it might be one of the last chances you'll get to do three landings in one pass, thus cinching your passenger currency requirements in one go. Soon it will be "San Bernardino Tower, Cessna 17J requests touch and go runway 24, taxiway charlie, and taxiway echo" "Cessna 17J, San Bernardino Tower, request denied, cleared for the option runway 24"

Just when you were getting good at sneaking through the airspace without talking to SoCal, too... I'm betting the new controllers won't enjoy being called "Berdoo Traffic" either. :)



More info available here


And of course, AOPA Expo is afoot in San Jose KSJC, from November 6-8. This is trying to be the west-coast "Osh", and will be showing off the debut of the Garmin 696 handheld GPS, along with more aviation knick-knacks than you can shake a wallet at. Should be fun if you can get to the bay area.




More info available here

A busy veterans day to be sure!

Blue Skies,

- Mike