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Wednesday 81 0% 72
Thursday 82 0% 75
Quality Is
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CoA Adding Airline Operations Center Michael Wildes Managing Editor
In The Details Zachary Wilkinson/The Avion Newspaper
Zack Wilkinson Editor-In-Chief When you purchase a product or service, you have a certain expectation of quality. You as the buyer know what to expect based on the reputation of the manufacturer, and the best
manufacturers are known for their quality products. The same is true in flight instruction. When you choose a flight instructor you are selecting a service, and you expect quality, just as you would any other product. Earlier this year the
Embry-Riddle flight-training department initiated a Quality Assurance Program (QAP) for training activities. Each team of instructors has a mentor, who observes one activity a day. The mentors are Senior Flight Instructors, and their task is to observe flight
training activities and provide feedback the instructor pilots based on the Fundamentals of Instruction. Bob Joyce, who comes from a 14-year career as a professional hockey player and as a flight instructor for the last 13 years... Continued on A2 >>
Gone Cubbing- “Why we fly” Zack Wilkinson Editor-In-Chief It was a typical summer Florida afternoon when my friend Mike Breshears sent me a text asking if I wanted to join him on another ride in the Piper J3, N88157, owned by Eagle Sport Aviation, a flying club in Deland. At that moment, what I had planned to do with my afternoon was pretty dry by comparison and this would be a much more exciting adventure. I accepted the offer and headed to Deland after my Aviation Safety class got out for the day. I of course brought my old clunky headset and a Canon 60D to capture a few photos. And guess what else, I could even wear shorts! We decided on a launch time of 1730 and planned
to fly from Deland to the Spruce Creek Fly-In. The Piper J3 doesn’t have a starter, and requires the pilot or his partner to hand prop it for start. I sat in the front seat with my feet on the brakes, just a little bit of throttle in, and the engine primed with fuel. With a call of “Contact!” I switch the mags to ‘both’ and Mike pulls down on the prop while swinging his weight away from the engine. With a cough, the 65 Hp engine fires to life and I pull the throttle back a little to settle the RPMS at around 700. With the engine started up Mike joins me in the cabin and we taxi for departure from Deland,As is common with a Cub, no flight really has to fly direct. The Cub is a fabric plane which was made to enjoy every nautical mile
in, and to feel the air. No one flying a Cub is ever in a hurry, as the craft can just barely make 80 kts. We moseyed along at a Cubcruise altitude, which rarely increases over 1000 ft AGL. The first thing I noticed was the comfortable feeling of being able to see what was going on below me in detail, I felt like more of a VFR pilot than ever. The Piper J3 Cub was designed in the 30’s when General Aviation was still very young. Thousands of them we’re used to train US pilots in the pre-WW2 Civil Pilot Training Program. By war’s end, an estimated 80 percent of US pilots received initial training in Cubs. The J3 Cub is a simple airplane, just a stick, throttle, trim knob, and rudder
pedals. The panel sports an altimeter, tachometer, Airspeed indicator(in mph), magnetic compass, oil pressure, and oil temperature. Fuel quantity is known in flight by the height of a wire float on the cowling in front of the pilot. The float will gradually get lower as the 12 gallon fuel tank empties. And the best thing: there’s no Garmin glass in sight! I had an opportunity to work on this particular cub while it was being restored last year. The Sport Aviation Club, a student club at ERAU, assisted Eagle Sport Aviation with recovering the wings and control surfaces. I learned just a little bit about how to do rib stitching and wet-sanding. It’s really neat to get to fly an airplane you had a small part in recovering. Continued on B3 >>
Zachary Wilkinson/The Avion Newspaper
Saturday 86 80% 77
It’s one thing to read about and affirm ideas or theories of good decision making skills as a process looks like in people; it’s another thing when you can develop those skills and affirm them in a tangible form in students. The Aeronautical Science capstone course, Operational Applications in Aeronautical Science, is primarily designed to do that for students enrolled in it. Essentially, capstone courses are designed to be the end of a cumulative learning experience for
students who have come to the end of their degree programs, and are about to venture out into the world with a head full of new material. They are like a grand summation of all the important facets from all the previous courses in a degree outline, and simply are to help students put all that they learned into context. The one quality that defines every pilot is good decision-making ability. The differences between the famous outcomes of US Airways Flight 1549 and Air Florida Flight 91 are the decisions the pilots made. Continued on A2 >>
The Avion meets Nicole Stott
Tatiana Ivanova Corrspondant
Each true space career dreamer knows by heart the online NASA requirements for astronauts and space scientists. That is not surprising - despite the growing commercial sector, NASA is still the most active astronaut employer in U.S. However, the information on NASA’s website is quite limited and doesn’t paint the full picture of how the selection process works. In March two STS mis-
sion participants: an Embry Riddle alumni and our NASA insider Nicole Stott, who personally took park in the final round of astronaut selection, agreed to share the details about this procedure. She also gave advice for completing the application form and described what kind of personality the NASA astronauts selection committee is looking for. Continued on A4 >>
Photo Courtesy: Wikipedia.org