Bill “SLAB” Berryman's pictures, videos and presentation at our 3/22 PAC meet-ing almost made me wish that I had been in the military and had done what he had done. That was some serious flying. I say "almost," because I don't think that I would have had the acumen to get to that level. It was really neat to be at that meeting. Bill is a current HondaJet test pilot, and he spent a career in the Navy as an F-18 fighter pilot. While I can't be in the military or fly F-18's, I am looking forward to better weather in order to resume my passion for avia-tion. Here's to beautiful weather....

Eric Perdew

2018 PAC President

March 2018 Volume, 7 Issue 2

Piedmont Aero Club

Inside this issue:

Bill “SLAB” Berryman—F-18 Driver 6

Pilot ‘s Tip of the Week 8

New PAC Advertising Flyer 10

Attention Drone Pilots 11

From the President …….

Current Event Calendar 2

Family Bowling Night 3

AOPA Fly-ins 5

Piedmont Aero Club 2018 Current Event Calendar

Boldface events are sponsored by PAC (if applicable, free or subsidized ground transport & food)

Underlined dates are firm

DATE EVENT

March 03 Spare Time Bowling, 5—7pm March 18 Boy Scout Aviation merit badge coaching Air Harbor (W88) March 22 PAC Monthly meeting, Bill Berryman, Ex-Navy F-18 Driver April 19 PAC Monthly meeting, Rob Ransome - Flight Testing V / STOL Aircraft April 22 PAC Pilot Invitational Fly-in, Air Harbor (W88) Part Deux May 17 PAC Monthly meeting, guest speaker TBD June 02 Fly-in/Drive-in Smith Mountain— W91 June 21 PAC Monthly meting, speaker TBD TBD Piedmont Soaring Club TBD Joint event with Flying club in South Carolina

Piedmont Aero Club Page 2

If you have suggestions for fun events, please contact Al Lawless

(alawless@alawless.com

Family Bowling Night ……………… Al Lawless

St Patty’s Day found the club finally having its family night event. As was done some years

ago (when Eric Perdew was president), the club sponsored a night of food and bowling for

all members and their immediate family. Twenty three folks signed up and the Spare Time

bowling team took care of us well. They set us up with four lanes in the VIP area with

waitress Brittany who delivered all the soft drinks and dinner. We started bowling almost

right away at 5pm

Brittany had the food on the table within about a half hour and it seemed not a moment

too soon – quite a few ravenous people hit it hard. Fortunately, there was more than

enough on the table for everyone to get stuffed. We enjoyed Greek salad, slightly spicy

chicken parmesan, lasagna, bruschetta, rolls, and cookies & brownies.

Some bowlers actually broke 100 a

few times, but it’s safe to say none of us

will make the professional circuit.

Eddie however did demonstrate some

mighty masterful ball spinning by

keeping his thumb on the outside and

lettin’ it rip. Chris Malone had really

good form – too bad form doesn’t score

points!

Such form

Spare Time gave us a solid two hours bowling which was enough for 3 games (and dinner)

for the fast teams, and about a game and a half that for a certain family team (mine). When

it was all over, we took a group photo, handed out a large pile of leftovers, and had a little

post-bowling action. The laser tag didn’t work out due to other parties using the room, so

instead everyone got a $5 card for the arcade.

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Family Bowling ….. (cont)

President Perdew owning the Fourth Lane Chris Malone – Food Model

Stacks of takeaway food boxes for all!

Laura Lawless setting up the dragon Bob trying his hand at spinning the ball.

Piedmont Aero Club

Page 4

Piedmont Aero Club

AOPA Fly-ins

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Start your planning now for 2018…..if you haven’t been to an AOPA Fly-In, they are a lot of fun. Check out the locations for 2018 and put them on your “To Fly” list.

Missoula, MT – June 15-16, 2018Santa Fe, NM – Sept 14-15, 2018Carbondale, IL – Oct 5-6, 2018Gulf Shore, AL – Oct 26-27, 2018

Piedmont Aero Club

Bill “SLAB” Berryman, F-18 Driver ……. LeRoy Walker, Jr.

The March meeting was another fun and informative evening. We had sandwiches,

salad, and potato salad from McAllister’s. And, as usual, the

food was delicious.

Our guest speaker is ex-Navy, a relatively new employee of

Honda, and hopefully soon to be a new member of PAC. Bill

“SLAB” Berryman retired from the Navy after a 20 year ca-

reer. I asked why he left after twenty and he said that most

of the fun time was behind him. He said that retiring after

20, he has a good retirement benefit and looks forward to do-

ing more fun things. He still flies as a test pilot for Honda, so

I guess he’s right …… there is more fun ahead for him.

Bill spent ninety minutes with us. It seemed like a half hour.

He was informative and entertaining. For example, he talked about how pilots got

their call sign, and it wasn’t always a good thing. And if you someone tagged you

with a call sign and the fellow pilots discovered that the designee really hated it,

well ….. it was sure to stick. So Bill told us his version of how he got his call sign.

If you know Bill, he is slight in stature. But, as he tells the story, he apparently is a

bit feisty. He got into a bar fight, and he didn’t say who started it, but apparently,

he did rather well. So when his fellow pilots got wind of the event, and how it end-

ed, someone said “Man, that is one Short Little Angry Boy”-SLAB, his call sign. His

story reminded me of a YouTube documentary I saw about carrier life. It was the

first cruise and the first night landing for one of the pilots, who actually trapped on

his first attempt. But when he was back in the ready room, his hands were still

shaking. Someone asked how he thought he did. He said that all he remembered

was screaming like a girl. Well, from that conversation, he got his call sign …

SLAG. Such is life.

Bill spent time explaining the layout of the carrier deck and who/what is responsi-

ble for getting you off and back on the deck. He explained the pattern flown to get

back on the deck in in both VFR and IFR weather. He explained what Maverick

meant when he said “Maverick has the ball”. He explained that the LSO’s – Landing

Signal Officer - responsibility was to get the pilot safely over the end of the boat. Af-

ter that, it’s totally up to the pilot to get it on the deck. Bill talked about the four

trap wires and how a pilot is judged on which one he hits.

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Piedmont Aero Club

Bill “SLAB” Berryman ….. (cont)

He talked about the bolter – missing all the wires - why it can happen, and how you handle

it. He explained that trapping, stopping, un-hooking, and taxing out of the way takes place

in less than a minute because there is another aircraft right behind the one that just land-

ed. Bill talked about the fact that whenever aircraft are returning to the carrier, there is a

tanker in the air in case someone is running low on fuel.

SLAB showed several videos during the evening. Most were fun and informative, but one in

particular had an edge on it. He couldn’t land on the carrier because of equipment prob-

lems, so he had to be “topped off” and sent to a

land base. Upon landing he found out that in

addition to the other equipment problems, he

had no brakes. As his plane is slowing down, he

realizes that if it stops, it will not stop on the

runway. So on go the afterburners and he does

a go-around. He eventually had to do a trap

landing on the field because there was no way

that a regular landing would be able to stop on

the runway.

I think we’ll be able to bring Bill back again because there is so much more to discover

about a pilots life on a carrier.

Piedmont Aero Club Page 7

Piedmont Aero Club

Pilot's Tip of the Week (from Pilotworkshop.com)

Start Using Your Instrument Rating

Featuring Wally Moran

Subscriber question: "I recently got my instrument rating, but don't have the confidence to file and fly in the sys-tem. How do I go from an IFR rating to becoming a proficient IFR pilot?" - Marshall M.

Wally:

"The first step is to get out there and use that new rating as soon as possible after you get it. File IFR on every flight so you get better and better at working with the system.

Look for days when you can get some actual experience but within your personal mini-mums. You don't need to wait for that long cross country trip you hope to take someday. File to an airport 40 or 50 miles away, ask for the full approach and make a full stop land-ing, pick up a new clearance and return home. This way, you can get two full IFR cycles in about one hour's flying time. If you are not comfortable doing this the first time or two, get your CFI to go with you. If the weather is bad he or she is most likely available and happy to help.

Another option is to do this with another IFR pilot. That way two of you get the experience. If you do this, make sure you have a good pre-flight briefing so you both know what each of you will be doing.

Another thing you can do is take your handheld radio and drive to a large airport (or go to LiveATC.net online) and listen to the radio work. Try to read back the clearances and headings to yourself and see how you compare with the other pilots. This gives you a good opportunity to improve your radio work and get familiar with the procedures at the airport. Listen to clearance delivery and practice copying the clearances. Listen to both approach control and departure control. You will soon learn they say almost the same thing to every airplane. Next file IFR to that airport on a good day, when they try to give you a visual ap-proach, tell them you would like the full approach for training. Traffic permitting you will most likely get it. Now you are ready to go there when the weather is down.

Another option is the desktop simulators now available, which come with scenarios that help you work on your aeronautical decision making. While the simulators are good for

learning and practicing procedures they are not a substitute for actual IFR time in the sys-tem.

So the way to get confident and capable is to get the experience. Just because you have your rating does not mean that you have to stop flying with your instructor. Use him or her

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Piedmont Aero Club

Pilot's Tip of the Week (from Pilotworkshop.com)

Traffic Pattern Entry

Featuring Wally Moran

Subscriber question:

"Briefly, what are the pros and cons of pulling power to idle at the end of the downwind ver-sus carrying some power through the final leg?" - Diana H.

Wally:

"When we learned to fly, we were all taught by our instructor to enter the pattern on a 45-degree angle to the downwind leg. As we became so-called better pi-lots, we learned there were other ways to do it. I suspect what your question is really asking is, "Are these other ways OK?"

The Aeronautical Information Manual or AIM recommends entering the pattern on a 45-degree angle to the downwind leg. While the AIM is not regulatory, it does contain best practices and is most likely the reason our instructors taught us that procedure in the first place.

Let’s take a look at why this is considered the best practice. Ap-proaching downwind leg from a 45-degree angle in level flight gives

the arriving airplane the ability to merge easily with other traffic in the pattern. Sort of like merging onto the freeway. Doing it this way provides the best chance for other aircraft in the pattern to see you and for you to see and avoid them.

Given your example, the correct procedure is to fly over the field at least 500 feet above pat-tern altitude and proceed beyond the downwind area. Then descend to pattern altitude and maneuver to enter at a 45-degree angle to the downwind leg in level flight at pattern alti-tude.

Can you do a straight in approach? Or enter on crosswind or base leg? Sure you can, and lots of people do. Many will argue their procedure is better in one way or another but as far as I know none of them have been able to convince the authors of the AIM to publish their procedure.

Remember that the majority of mid-air collisions occur in or near the traffic pattern on clear days. Therefore, I believe it is worth the few extra minutes it might take to make a pat-tern entry that helps to reduce that risk as much as possible."

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Piedmont Aero Club Piedmont Aero Club Page 10

NEW PAC Flyer

Thanks to Al Lawless, PAC has a new flyer that we can use to advertise our existence

and activities to the nearby pilot world. I’m thinking that maybe we can notify pilots in a

50 mile radius of our regular activities, and a 75 mile radius for our Fly-in activities.

Take a look.

http://www.piedmontaeroclub.com/

Piedmont Aero Club-a social club with an aviation fix-

No initiation fee – low annual dues

Free meals for members at club events

Guests, visitors, potential members always welcome

3rd Thursday monthly dinner meetingsGuest speakers on all things aviation

Room 316, GTCC Aviation building, 5013 Old Stage Coach Trail, Greensboro (across from Honda)

Other ActivitiesBreakfast runsFly-insHangar partiesClub contests• spot landing• Formation flying• Dead stick landings

Other opportunities• aerobatic flights• float planes• sailplanes • tail draggers

Interested?Contact President Eric Perdew<centerfield84@hotmail.com>

Piedmont Aero Club

Piedmont Aero Club Page 11

I have my Part 107 (UAS) Drone License, I am good to go in North Carolina…….

……ah, not so fast. If you have and are planning to operate a drone for commercial activities in the State of North Carolina, you are not quite done with just having your FAA Certificate.

The State of North Carolina also requires to you obtain a “North Carolina UAS Permit”. Yes, you need to go on-line (www.ncdot.gov/aviation/uas) and also take the on-line course and apply and print your Permit.

ATTENTION DRONE PILOTS!!!!

Remember the rules for operating drones (Altitudes, areas around airports, and line of site)….. Drones and Airplanes don’t mix well in the sky!!!