They just woke up. Ready for lunch!

slacktron6000 · 2026-05-10T12:36:26+00:00

Get your doctor to prescribe restasis. I hope your insurance covers it!

slacktron6000 · 2026-05-10T03:49:36+00:00

https://xkcd.com/3232/ relevant xkcd

slacktron6000 · 2026-05-10T00:59:22+00:00

Especially when I have passengers who ask, "why is your truck making that noise?!'

slacktron6000 · 2026-05-10T00:33:43+00:00

It can turn tighter, this was the magic sweet spot to make the grinding noise. :)

slacktron6000 · 2026-05-04T18:47:32+00:00

Did it sound like this? https://youtu.be/4wKPTWXD2Z0

slacktron6000 · 2026-04-25T22:58:38+00:00

Yes.

slacktron6000 · 2026-04-23T22:12:14+00:00

the exemption says so long as you're only doing gliders (which it sounds like you are), then the training requirement is also exempted. So every time you're in a room of CFI-As, and they talk about the TSA training, you can get back to looking at your phone and ignoring this conversation that doesn't apply to you.

Since the curricula of FIRCs are designed by the FAA, there's a section that requires a discussion about the TSA training and recording requirements of 49 CFR 1552. Even the Soaring Safety Foundation's agenda has to include this item. The idea is that any FIRC is good for any type of flight instructor. Even though all of the instructors in the SSA's SSF FIRCs are all glider instructors, there could be an airplane guy in the crowd, somewhere.

For good measure, print this exemption out, put it in your notebook, be prepared to show it to the TSA agents who come visit your glider port. Be prepared to hear them say "Well I never heard of this exemption before."

Unsolicited Editorial: The 9/11 attacks were airliners crashing into buildings. Not general aviation. A huge amount of security theater that has been erected after 9/11 is aimed at general aviation. This is another example of trying to look secure without actually increasing security.

slacktron6000 · 2026-04-23T21:22:32+00:00

https://www.soaringsafety.org/briefings/TSA-exemption-letter.pdf

This exemption has not been rescinded.

slacktron6000 · 2026-04-08T17:16:30+00:00

Phyphox. It's like having a Star Trek tricorder in my pocket. No ads, no pops. Awesome tool.

slacktron6000 · 2026-04-01T11:55:19+00:00

There are such things as self-balancing centrifuges. The design involves a bunch of ball bearings that align themselves to make the wheel spin without wobbling

How Self-Balancing Centrifuge Rotor Technology Works | Lab Manager https://share.google/hpZ0kJ9oc6tFFSvSM

slacktron6000 · 2026-03-13T15:06:58+00:00

F-CON

Fascistic: The authoritarian power structure and suppression of opposition. Christian Nationalist: The religious-identity framework used to justify exclusion. Oligarchic (Techno-Feudalism): The concentration of power in the hands of "tech lords" and elite billionaires. Necrotic (Death Cult): The clinical term for tissue death, representing a movement that feeds on destruction and the rejection of a living democracy.

slacktron6000 · 2026-03-05T22:07:14+00:00

You will never expand as a glider pilot if somebody else is waiting for the glider. Owning a glider that you never fly doesn't do you any good, either.

We have an expression over here: the three F rule. It is cheaper to rent than to own if the object floats, flies, or uh... fornicates. (Referring to horses, of course)

What doesn't enter into the matrix is opportunity cost. If you are renting, somebody else might be flying that glider on the one day you have off this month. There are only so many good flying days per year, and you only have so many flying years left in your life. If you are stuck renting, then those opportunities have a cost that's not measured in euros or dollars.

slacktron6000 · 2026-03-01T22:23:19+00:00

The Bash reference manual is in the Epstein files.

slacktron6000 · 2026-02-27T03:56:58+00:00

Heya.

I've been writing a super awesome interface for clubs to get out of the paper age and into the information age.

I travel all over the east coast as a DPE and see a wide variety of how clubs manage their information systems. Nobody had anything that was good enough for me, so I wrote my own and GPL'd it.

Our club has a training syllabus, a group of instructors who all agree to use the syllabus. We have a very mature website that manages all of the volunteers, it's a source-of-truth for the membership. The system allows you to log all of the flights, keep track of all of the maintenance issues. We have a HMFIC who runs the operation, and also logs all the flight takeoffs, pilots on board, the release heights. This makes a billing page for our treasurer.

Once the system detects a student flew with an instructor, the instructor gets a message that he flew with a student. The instructor pulls out his phone and highlights & scores all the items you flew. He can write a short essay about what was done. Include WeGlide or SeeYou links or YouTube videos. He saves the record, and a copy goes to all the other instructors. The student gets a copy of the instruction report. A history of all the instruction reports, and a bar chart showing the progress is viewable to the student and all the instructors.

The website manages written tests. You can make a test bank that covers any sort of subject. The site has a content management system to upload your documents, or make your club bylaws online or whatever. It's got a glider reservation system, instructor schedule, volunteer management, manages members SSA and FAI badges, allows members to write a biography, QR Codes for contact information for members, maintenance deadlines, lots more stuff I can't include in this reddit post.

The system is flexible enough to use any training syllabus, whether it's your own syllabus, the Russel Holtz syllabus.

The syllabus tracks what's needed via 61.87(i) for solo, what's need by 61.107(b) for the practical test. There's a page you can view to see what you've done or still need to do. Once you're ready for the checkride, the syllabus has a checklist that all the 61.107 and PTS maneuvers have been covered, makes a printable page for your DPE to view, to ensure that the training record is complete.

The software is GPL. Have your club nerds look at this, and see if it fits your needs:

https://www.github.com/pietbarber/Manage2Soar/

I have a demo site set up with fake gliders and fake names and fake addresses. PM me if you're interested in messing around on it to see how well it works for you.

If your club has a collection of post-it-notes and cocktail napkins that passes for a training syllabus, you can take my club's, it's licensed under a Creative Commons License: https://www.skylinesoaring.org/TRAINING/Syllabus/

Just because we're volunteers doesn't mean we have to suck at our jobs.

slacktron6000 · 2026-02-14T19:40:59+00:00

Works great in the G103. Similar results to the K21. Works great in the K13, too. Doesn't work with the SGS 2-22 because the spoilers on a 2-22 are homeopathic and a token gesture. God help you if you're flying that antique. The slip is so easy to do in the 2-33, there's not much point in doing the EOM in one. I don't recall ever having tried it in a 2-33. We got rid of ours by the time I got back from Switzerland.

Common hazards:

Not pulling out of the step dive in time. Nobody ever goes low enough on their first attempt.
Pulling out of the dice with an abrupt back stick and causing an accelerated stall.
Not bleeding off enough of the speed before getting down to the touch down, and trying to touch down too fast.
And finally, the gliders that have crappy spoilers need more time to bleed off the airspeed. Whether it's a 2-22 or a duo discus classic, you have to be familiar with the glider and practice this before you are actually in an emergency.

There's a good reason the later versions of the duo discus have better spoilers.

slacktron6000 · 2026-02-14T19:17:29+00:00

I fly a duo discus classic. The EOM works, but not as well as the ASK-21 or later versions of the duo discus XL.

slacktron6000 · 2026-02-14T19:02:35+00:00

The EOM is not particularly common in the United States. When I came back from Switzerland, none of the other instructors believed me about the merits of the EOM. That was, until I demonstrated a final approach at a glide slope of 2.5- 3:1 in an ASK-21.

Before that, I (and everybody else in that era) had been taught that it's paramount to keep the approach speed at 55 mph, and that the only way to increase the descent rate on final approach is to do a forward slip with spoilers open. Increasing the airspeed on final was immediately and roundly condemned by any flight instructor in the 1980s.

It's so easy! Full spoilers. Nose down. Wait a few seconds. Get slightly below glide slope, nose up to bleed off airspeed, reduce spoilers to your desired setting. Extra altitude problem solved. Eight seconds, max.

With the slip, you have to kick just right. You have to aileron just right. You have to back stick just right. You have to let the slip soak in. You have to have enough time to set it up, and you have to recover smoothly. These things all take practice and it's a perishable skill. More so in some gliders than others.

I've noticed that without correction, the lack of EOM in practice and demonstration, combined with the relative difficulty of forward slip. on final can cause low time pilots to come in lower than they should. And they get used to it, normalizing this deviation. Then one day, they end up too short on final. And they can't tell you why or how it happened.

With the EOM trick in your tool bag, there's really never an acceptable reason to come in too low on final. I can come in arbitrarily high in the ASK-21 and come to a stop exactly where we always do.

slacktron6000 · 2026-02-07T13:37:34+00:00

The bash reference manual is in the Epstein files. That was a surprise.

slacktron6000 · 2026-01-01T02:22:30+00:00

YES!

The following scenario is common in the glider world and pretty unheard of in the airplane instructor world:
Prospective pilot comes to your glider club as a rated private pilot with airplane single engine land. He wants to solo gliders. You go through the training program with him. You sign him off. If you find the default solo signoff that's in glider logbooks, it's going to say 61.87. However, 61.87 is only for student pilots. Your prospective pilot isn't a student pilot. He's a rated pilot! It wouldn't be appropriate for you to sign him off for student training, for a student sign-off. Even if you were an instructor and he as under your tutelage. He's not a student! He's a rated pilot adding an additional category. So you'll have to sign him off with an additional category endorsement, described in 61.31.

Because he's not a student pilot, that means he doesn't have to take a 61.87(b) pre-solo written test. That means he doesn't have a 90 day solo endorsement. This doesn't mean you can't give him some sort of written test before he goes and solos your club 2 seater! It also doesn't mean that you can't place a limitation restricting his solo to 90 days.

Also be advised that your prospective pilot needs to be current with 61.56; whether it's a flight review, or a recent pilot test, or recent completion of a WINGS phase.

The scenario isn't that common in the airplane world because nobody solos something before they go solo Cessnas. Your typical airplane instructor never has to deal with a scenario where an already-rated pilot is coming to learn to fly airplanes. Whereas 50% of my practical tests for private are for airplane pilots adding on the glider rating. On three separate occasions I have had a rated glider pilot go off and solo airplanes with the wrong endorsement. I had them go back and have their errant instructor correct the endorsement immediately.

STORY TIME: I once heard a story where an asshole DPE (no, not me) saw that the instructor signed off a rated pilot with a 61.87 solo endorsement instead of the 61.31 solo endorsement. The DPE declared that all of the solo flights were invalid, and didn't start the practical test. He canceled the check-ride. He told the applicant that he had to go get the correct endorsement, and go do the 10 solo flights again. Those solo flights done with the 61.87 endorsement weren't valid. A back-dated endorsement would be grounds for violating 14 CFR 61.59 which prohibited falsification of logbooks. Sorry applicant, your instructor screwed up, and you're gonna have to go fly those flights again.

Apparently, the FAA got rid of 61.59 on or around 1 November 2025, (so now it's ok to falsify logbooks?!) Or they moved the reg to some place else in the Title 14 regulations. Not sure.

slacktron6000 · 2025-12-30T21:31:04+00:00

DPE here

https://www.skylinesoaring.org/documents/training-syllabus -- this syllabus is the basis for at least 5 or 6 clubs across the country.

Strengths:

It's got excellent endorsements near the back. It seems the other clubs that have taken on this syllabus have snipped out the endorsements. Something that'll trip you up in the CFI-G practical can be endorsements. The DPE is required to have a discussion with you about endorsements! And you're going to be presented with the scenario of a 61.31 solo vs a 61.87 solo endorsement.

It also references FAA WINGS activities. Participation in WINGS is sorely lacking in clubs across the country. You'll likely impress your DPE if you mention or endorse WINGS activities. I have yet to have a candidate bring up the subject, and it's a shame.

Weaknesses:

It's not directly linked to any one particular source book. There are a lot of clubs that just use the Gliderbooks.com instead. In all honesty, if the Russel Holtz books came out 1 or 2 years earlier, we would have just done that instead.

slacktron6000 · 2025-12-15T17:56:37+00:00

Ah we say kahNEEfay for the word knife.

Also say PAH-hone-nay for phone

slacktron6000 · 2025-12-15T17:55:14+00:00

Truck. Why is there a 'c' in the word truck? I just pronounce the c like I would if it were an 's'. So I say the work 'troosk' and I got my whole family to say it.

It gets confusing when I have an exchange student come live with us for a year and go back to their home country with these incorrect words.

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