Notes from the field?

Flight Training: VOR's and Calling 800-WXBRIEF...

Today was a great day to fly!  Probably my best takeoff yet - I felt a lot more in control of the aircraft, the climb out felt very natural.  We spent most of the day working on VOR technique using the Burbun VOR at Burlington Airport in Wisconsin.  It was a lot of fun - Lou is a great instructor.  Frankly it was just nice to get into the airplane again, it's been so long.  I haven't flow since I took my sister up on the air tour.  We practiced intercepting radials, and flying to and from the station.  Pretty simple stuff, but I can see it will take practice.  On the way back to PWK, we flew to the Northbrook VOR on the 150° radial - that seemed a lot easier because we were actually using it to navigate.

After the VOR flying, we did some more slow flight - I think I'm getting pretty good at that, it came pretty naturally.  We then did some steep turns, I really have to work on my sight picture here - I'm still loosing some altitude in the bank - this is another area where Lou says I'm doing well but I feel like I'm sucking.  Finally, there was the landing, not my best work, but we landed rubber side down - I guess without more practice, that's all that matters.

I wanted to take a moment to talk about Lockheed Martin Flight Services.  I really enjoy (sick I know) calling for a weather briefing.  Most of the time, I get a very nice briefer who gives me exactly what I'm looking for and is really polite and friendly on the phone - sometimes even chatty.  That was not the case today - I think I have spoken to this guy before.  He's one of those people who clearly has no patience for people who are learning, and generally probably doesn't like his job - which is not the place to be in this economy.  I normally would chock it up to having a bad day, but I'm pretty sure (based on his voice and absolute insistence that I give all my times in ZULU) that I have spoken to him a couple of times before.  Not only is he rude, but he's less than totally forthcoming with information.  It makes the whole experience bad when they're not understanding of students - which I typically identify myself as when I call so they understand why I have generally no idea what 'm talking about.  I know it's a tough job, and I'm not looking for "chatty Kathy" every time, just a friendly voice on the other end of the line.  For those of you at AFSS that are that way - Thanks, it means a lot when you're still learning.

Ubuntu on an MSI Wind U100...

I've been eying these little UMPC's for a while especially based on @jerrytaft's experience with them so far.  The big difference here is I wanted to start with Ubuntu and then add Mac OS X later.

The unit I selected was the MSI Wind U100.  I bought it at Micro Center for $474.06.  I wanted the model with the larger hard drive and better battery life.  I'm not sure why, I doubt I'll ever use this thing for anything serious - just thought it made more sense.

It's actually pretty feature rich computer as far as I'm concerned.  It includes (among other things):

• Webcam
• WiFi Card (this was a bit of a challenege in Ubuntu)
• External Monitor Port
• 3 USB Ports
• SD Card Reader

Those are jut the features that stood out for me.  It's also a pretty fast machine considering it's size.  It comes pre-installed with XP Home - which I was interested in playing with a little because I've been so steeped in Macs for so long, I've lost touch with Windows completely.  This means I wanted to be able to dual boot.

I immediately discovered this forum.  It's a great step by step how to for Ubuntu on an MSI Wind.  I decided to use Wubi because it meant I could maintain my Windows install.  Make sure you follow the steps exactly - I skipped one and had some minor issues.

The biggest problem I had was the WiFi card.

All of the instructions I could find were for the Realtek RTL8187SE card.  First thing to know: not all MSI Wind UMPC's use this card.  I got one that doesn't.  Mine uses a Ralink RT2700E.  I only reaized this after finding this forum page and following the debug instructions on the bottom of the page.

Once I discovered that I had the Ralink card the process got a lot easier.  I found this forum page that had drivers and directions for the RT2860 which work just fine with the RT2700E.  I've used it on a couple of different security protocols and had a lot of success.  The card itself behaves very well in Ubuntu - Windows on the other hand, it's very slow and appears to have an intermitent connectionn.  Full disclosure - I haven't really tried to solve the issue so it may be an easy fix.

Overall this was a really easy process - however - you need to be comfortable using the terminal.

As my friend Eric pointed out "If you fuck it up, and you will, you just start over again until you get it right."

IT Guy Rant: TBC Consoles...

I'm normally very understanding of supply chain issues and overhead.

Not this time.

Pixel Brothers is the proud owners of 8 full Smart Trac consoles from TBC Consoles. We have placed an order for an additional desk and are about to order one more.  These are not your normal consoles - they have motors that allow you to change the height of the desk on the fly.  Each full unit costs about $3000.00.  That's right, we've purchased a total of about $27,000 worth of furniture from this company.

They have possibly the worst customer service I have ever experienced from a company in this industry.  They keep NOTHING in stock.  It takes anywhere from 2-4 weeks to get a completed unit from them.  I asked them repeatedly to advance our order to get it shipped out sooner.  Thay have basically ignored those requests, so the desk I ordered in December will not arrive until next week towards the end of the week.

Anticipating the need for the final 10th desk unit, I asked our supplier to contact them and see if they could start working on the desk now.  Knowing full well that we have never not paid - and have a significant track record (8 other orders) - they declined.  No options - no express charge - just a flat out no.

This is the kind of inflexibility that will lose customers.  In fact they have.  My number one priority at NAB this year will be locating another console manufacturer.

Flight Training: My first Passenger!

"I'm happy to announce the on-time departure of flight number 1 of Murph Airlines.  Our route today will take us south along the lakefront.  We'll be turning around at the hotels near McCormick Place - flying back north along the lakefront to Waukeegan Airport.  Landing at Waukeegan once and returning to Chicago Executive Airport. Thanks for flying the friendly skies."

This was a great flight - my sister had a blast.  There was a little confusion during the passenger briefing, she couldn't understand why we were telling her what to do if we had an "off airport landing".  Once we worked that out, we were off.

I wanted to take a minute and thank the guys from Signature Flight Support again - they are awesome.  They are really some of the most professional line guys I have ever met - I may be a new pilot but I've been to my share of small airports.  These guys have it down.  Thanks.