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The Big Bend Flying Club meets on the first Wed of each month at various resturants around town. There are no membership dues and no real rules except to show up and enjoy some good presentations put on by other local pilots. If you are recieving this newsletter you are already on the list to be notified of club meetings and activities. Our next meeting will be Sept 3rd
6:30 at Western Sizzlin on N Monroe
St.
James
H. Gillis, Lt. Col., USAF JAGDR
(Retired)
Will be
talking about his experiences as an
Infantryman, Bombardier, Senior Navigator, JAG Officer, Citizen Soldier----Aviator The Big Bend
Aviation Safety Counsel is made up of several area pilots who invest
their time, motivation, and enthusiasm to share their aviation
expertise with other airmen. They work closely with the FSDO Safety
Program Managers to administer FSDO Safety Programs. They
periodically take part in some of the following activities:
conduct safety seminars, plan or support safety seminars,
counsel airmen, attend recurrent counselor training, and volunteer
as safety pilots.
NTSB Accident occurred Thursday, April
01, 1999 in TALLAHASSEE, FL
Probable Cause Approval Date: 1/18/01 Aircraft: Piper PA-34-200, registration: N15478 Injuries: 1 Fatal The pilot of another airplane, while taxiing for takeoff, observed the accident airplane during the initial climb out. The airplane was observed in a right 45-degree bank, the nose of the airplane was up about 30 degrees and the airplane appeared to have stalled. At approximately the same time, the pilot radioed and reported that he was having a problem and wanted to return; the pilot never stated the problem. The airplane suddenly started losing altitude and just before colliding with the ground, the airplane was last observed in a 20 to 30 degree right bank, and a 50 to 60 degree nose-down attitude. Seconds later, a fireball was observed in the vicinity where the airplane was last seen. The fuselage assembly received heavy fire damage. The center section of the airframe and the cockpit area was fire damaged. The subsequent examination of the engine and airframe assemblies failed to reveal a mechanical problem or component failure. The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause(s) of this accident as follows: The pilot's failure to maintain flying speed during initial climb which resulted in a stall and uncontrolled collision with terrain.
Recently the City of Tallahassee, Airports, replaced all
the lighting
systems for runway 9/27. The lighting system was in need of replacement because of corrosion in the old system requiring continuous maintenance and repair. In addition to the replacement of the lighting system, Tallahassee Tower now has a new lighting panel that is high-tech. The system has many automatic features such as setting the lighting values for given visibility values that meet the FAA light setting requirements. It is also a touch activated panel that makes it much easier for the controller to control the light settings. For you instrument rated pilots requesting practice approaches, please remember we now have a VOR-DME Runway 36 approach. This approach will help reduced the opposite direction approaches to Runway 36 that at times caused departure/arrival delays. If you do not have DME (that is required to execute the approach without radar) you may request the Tower controller to call the FAF (DACAR) for you that is fixed on the Towers radar map. The FAA is in the planning stages of adding stand-alone RNAV GPS approaches to all the runways at Tallahassee Regional with TAA's. Runway 9 currently has a stand-alone RNAV GPS approach. Bainbridge (BGE) is also scheduled to receive Runway 9/27 RNAV GPS approaches with TAA's. The Tower is losing one of it's
controllers at the end of August 2003. Ken Thompson has been a controller
at Tallahassee Tower for over 20 years and will be very much missed by all
that worked with him. He has been a friend of aviation for years and
enjoyed his career here at the facility controlling air traffic and being
responsible for the facilities computer system. The FAA requires all of
it's operational personnel to retire no later than the last day of the
month of their 56th birthday. Prior to becoming a controller he was
a Loadmaster in the U.S. Air Force on a C-130 and C-141. Ken's last day to
work traffic will be August 24th, 2003, so if you have an opportunity
please wish him well.........................
Tallahassee Tower remains in the "Orange" security level which means visits by pilots are still prohibited. We do miss the visits by our local pilots and hope at some point in the near future visits to the facility will be permitted. In the mean time, if you would like a representative from the facility to speak to your group, please give me a call at the facility and we will make the necessary arrangements. Good weather is just around the corner and that means an increase in air traffic at the Tallahassee Regional Airport. Please remember to check NOTAMs and be heads-up for the increase of military activity. We usually see the increase in air traffic begin early September. Safe Flying, Ron Fisher, Acting ATM TLH ATCT Office: (850) 942-9642 Cell: (850) 556-1294
If you have an interesting aviation related picture, please click here and attach it. We will pick one and feature it in next months newsletter. Include a short discription.
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