I was recently turned on to a great product for flying families with youngsters: the “Little Pilot Logbook” by BabyNebula. It’s a logbook that you can get for your son or daughter (gender-neutral colors) and document when and where they fly with you.

The Little Pilot Logbook has all of the normal logbook entries, such as date, aircraft type and N-number, destination, and time. It also has a section where you can note special moments from the flight. Other features include places to enter your child’s favorite onboard snack, or onboard game. It even has several pages with aviation-themed frames to place photos.

The Little Pilot Logbook is available online at these stores:

• aviationgiftsbyruth.com
• aviationlogs.com
• joepilot.com
• pilotshopusa.com

Also, be sure to read my post on flying with your infant child.

I had my longest day of flying thus far in my career on Monday. Total tach time: 10.7 hours.

Departure time was 6:00 am CDT from 3DW and we were pretty close, taking off at 6:05. We arrived at our fuel stop in Bowling Green, KY (BWG) at 8:15. The folks at CO-MAR Aviation turned us around in about 20 minutes and we were on our way to Raleigh-Durham International (RDU). We touched down at Noon EDT, saw my three passengers off and then fueled, boarded the two returning passengers, and took off at 12:50 EDT.

Only about 20 minutes into the flight I changed our fuel stop from Bowling Green to Smyrna, Tennessee, a great airport just southeast of Nashville. Weather was moving in from the north and was over Bowling Green. We landed at 2:35 CDT and the folks at Corporate Flight Management also turned us around in about 20 minutes. Then the final leg saw a few deviations as small cells popped up all around the region (see image below). We touched down in Springfield at 5:30 CDT.

Surprisingly, I was not as fatigued as I thought I’d be. This coming Monday, I do a similar amount of flying: take three to Wisconsin, come back to Springfield and then take three to Raleigh-Durham. But before that, I take the two guys back to Raleight on Thursday and come back home Friday. The logbook is filling up fast!

It was announced today that Phil Boyer will retire at the end of this year after 18 years as president of AOPA (Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association). Boyer will be replaced by Craig Fuller, “an experienced Washington public affairs executive and political operative, and a passionate pilot and aircraft owner for 40 years.”

I have tremendous respect and gratitude for Phil Boyer. He has been a tremendous asset to the general aviation community over the years… from his tireless effort to stop user fees, to his taking to the airwaves to state the facts after a negative general aviation story is aired.

I emailed Boyer in 2003 after Mayor Daley bulldozed Meigs Field in Chicago. Like many other aviators who got their start on Microsoft Flight Simulator, I had always wanted to fly to Meigs because it was the default airport and looked like one of the coolest airports out there. I expressed my displeasure at what had occured, and thanked Boyer for his work as president of AOPA. Within a few hours he had returned my e-mail. After that, I knew that I could contact Boyer or AOPA with any concern I had and that it would be addressed.

AOPA has searched about a year for Phil Boyer’s replacement. Here’s more from AOPA’s website:

The AOPA Board of Trustees’ search committee began looking for AOPA’s new leader last year, hiring the national search firm Heidrick & Struggles to help identify final candidates from among 597,000 U.S. pilots.

“After hundreds of interviews and a painstaking review of 100 potential candidates, it was clear that Craig Fuller, a recognized leader in business, public affairs, and association management, would be ideally suited to carry on Phil’s tremendous legacy,” said Trimble. “Craig is a committed 40-year pilot, aircraft owner, and AOPA member. He is as comfortable with fellow pilots and ‘hangar talk’ as he is facing a congressional committee.”

“Being selected by the trustees as only the fourth president of AOPA in 70 years is a tremendous honor and a serious responsibility,” said Fuller. “I am fully dedicated to ensuring that the best days of general aviation remain ahead of us. And AOPA is ready with a strong organization bolstered over two challenging decades by an individual we all admire.”

You can read much more at AOPA Online.

The new company is keeping me busy, which I like. We’ve been to Raleigh, NC twice already and Waco, TX once. In the next two weeks, Fltplan.com shows 32.0 hours of flight time scheduled for the flight plans that I have entered so far. There may be one additional trip to Memphis added in there too. The bulk of the trips are Raleigh. On one day, I fly out to Raleigh and back the same day - for a total of 10.5 hours of flying for the day! That’s a long day, but nothing like notching 10.5 more hours in your logbook in one day.

I’m very impressed by the culture of the company and the folks at the newly acquired company in Raleigh. The company had its annual luncheon on Friday where they give awards to employees in categories like “Best Performer”, or “Best Team Player.” The lunch was no ordinary luncheon either, it was steaks and all the fixin’s. And my steak was the best steak I’d had in a long time!

So in the 3 or so weeks that I’ve now been with the company and flying for them, I’ve been nothing but impressed and am very excited about my future with them.

Well all the waiting has finally paid off, I now have a full time corporate flying job. I am flying a ‘95 Piper Saratoga II HP for a local company here in Springfield.

It’s a great company with great people and there should be a good amount of flying. I’ve flown two trips for them so far in the past week and a half, totaling about 20 hours. The company just acquired another company on the east coast, and there is already talk about possibly upgrading to something like a Socata TBM 700 in the near future.

So I’m very excited about this and I’ll be sharing experiences from the new job.

An AIr Combat report issued Thursday says that the crash of a B-2 Stealth bomber in Guam on February 23rd was caused by water in the aircraft’s sensors which wreaked havoc on the aircraft’s air data computers. AVweb has the details:

The crash on takeoff of a 509th Air Wing, Air Force B-2 Spirit bomber, February 23 operating at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, was caused by water in the aircraft’s sensors, according to an Air Combat report issued Thursday. Specifically, moisture in three port transducer units “distorted data introduced by a B-2 Spirit’s air data system” which led to flawed information entering the bomber’s flight control computers. The aircraft was reacting to inaccurate airspeed and a “perceived” negative angle of attack. This resulted in an “uncommanded 30 degree nose-high pitch-up on takeoff,” according to the Air Force.

Major Ryan Link and Captain Justin Grieve, the aircraft’s two pilots and the only two aboard were unable to regain control and safely ejected just as the aircraft stalled and mushed into the ground and its left wing impacted the ground. The $1.4 billion aircraft crashed just off the left side of the runway and exploded. It was the first-ever B-2 crash and followed 75,000 hours of loss-free service. Link and Grieve both suffered injuries during ejection, with Grieve suffering compression fractures to his spine.

The report points to the inaccurate readings as contributing factors, adding that ineffective communication of critical information about a technique used to remove moisture from the sensors also contributed. It’s possible that all the pilots had to do to avert the accident was turn on the pitot heat prior to performing air data calibrations. But the suggested technique was not part of checklist procedures.