REFLECTOR: Note on Glass Overcast

Chuck Jensen cjensen at dts9000.com
Mon Aug 1 07:26:52 CDT 2005


Quite an operations.  And, it was good to see those Velocities in there.
A little class and style benefits even a big gaggle of planes.

Chuck
Do Not Archive

-----Original Message-----
From: reflector-bounces at tvbf.org [mailto:reflector-bounces at tvbf.org] On
Behalf Of Ron Brown
Sent: Sunday, July 31, 2005 2:36 PM
To: reflector at tvbf.org
Subject: REFLECTOR: Note on Glass Overcast

Here's a note I copied off the Canard-Aviators list (Perhaps some of the

Velocity drivers could share your experiences too!!):

Message: 1
   Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2005 17:46:24 -0400
   From: "Frank Pullano Jr" <frank at remotearrow.com>
Subject: Glass Overcast AAR

The 2005 Glass Overcast was a fine success despite a number of issues
that
very nearly killed the event not only once, but perhaps a dozen times.
I
would first like to thank all of you who were able to attend, those of
you
who rooted us on, and those of you who tried but just couldn't get there
in
time.  My second thanks and by far the most important person in this
effort
goes to Eric Whyte.  Eric was the liaison to the EAA/FAA and did most of
the
leg work jumping through countless barriers of red tape.  There is
simply no
way in the world that any of this would have been possible without all
of
the countless hours of work and the incredible tenacity of Eric Whyte.
So
please join me in extending a heart felt congratulations to Eric!  If
you
have a moment, drop him a line and say thanks. ewhyte at wi.rr.com

Before I get into this very long after action report, I would like to
ask
each of you who participated or planned to but couldn't to please write
me
back and give me your own report.  What did we do right, how it felt for
you, and most important, WHAT WE DID WRONG.  My biggest mistake was NOT
planning a debrief session.  I would very much like to have your
thoughts
and please do be honest and direct.  I know that we can't make everyone
happy but we can try!

We began talking about making this happen in December but with a
conditional
green light from EAA we began (in earnest) planning the details in
March.
The goal was to SAFELY fly a large number of canard aircraft into
Oshkosh
during the Annual EAA Convention.  This type of effort comes with some
very
complex politics, exacting timing, solid pilot skills, and the ability
for
everyone involved to adapt when things change even as the lead plane
rolls
in the last few seconds.  By the way, things changed even up to the time
I
called Fond Du Lac Tower to request take off clearance for the group.  I
actually had to tell the Tower Controller what we were doing - I almost
blew
my brains out in dis-belief!  The odds of pulling it all off without a
major
hitch were not odds I' would bet on.  You guys truly did an excellent
job.
There was no one who actually thought a bunch of canard drivers would
fly
such a perfect profile.  I'll admit that I was dreading the event up
until
Harry Manvel Landed as the tail plane.  I didn't know many of you and
had
never flown with most of you so you might understand that I couldn't
predict
the performance of each pilot beyond the way each of you behaved in the
briefing.  There were no knuckle head questions and in a couple of
cases,
you caught errors that I had made in the hasty changes to the plan.
(excellent)

The primary obstacle was my feeling that many of the volunteers working
with
EAA have little or no communication lines with any other organization
within
the overall staff.  For example, Flight Ops doesn't talk much to
Homebuilt
Parking, and almost no one talks to the FAA controllers.  This was where
Eric knew who was who, and who needed to know what.    People make
decisions
and grant permission for things that are not always under their
jurisdiction
and they sometimes tend to do it without consulting those who are
actually
empowered in the first place.  If something was changed, the other folks
wouldn't know about it etc.  The sheer number of people required to sign
off
on anything would stagger your imagination!  So enough of all of the
nonsense stuff, I don't want to cast a negative aura on those people.
In
the end, they worked with us to make it a reality.

Up until a week prior to the event, we had a letter of agreement with
the
FAA on EXACTLY what we would be doing as a mass arrival of canards.  We
had
everything worked out with Madison ATC for a number of departures
depending
on winds and we had it all worked out with the tower chief at Oshkosh
for a
number of arrivals depending on winds.  Each one of these departures and
arrivals required very exacting plans and procedures in order to obtain
the
FAA LOA (Letter Of Agreement).  We had the entire flight plan and
briefing
on the way to the printer when everything started going  South - and
fast!
Ryzard made an excellent point when he told me, "A good plan survives in
tact until first contact with the enemy."

Folks at EAA moved our arrival slot from 3 PM to 12:30 PM.  This would
have
made the required briefings and lineups that would be required at
Madison
difficult to handle thus creating an unsafe environment.  In case you
weren't aware, we were supposed to stage out of Madison with Space Ship
One.
We never made that information public as staging with SS1 was to be a
surprise once you were there.  Scaled Composites didn't want any
distractions prior to their flight into Oshkosh and we were asked to
keep it
quiet.  The schedule for SS1 was moved up to a 2:45 PM arrival and we
could
not be in the airspace at the time of that arrival.  We received the
word
that they (EAA? FAA? Scaled?) wanted us on the ground at 12:30 PM.  Eric
and
I talked about it and agreed that making that happen would have required
moving up all the briefing times to a time that would be impossible for
OSH
based aircraft to be there in time.  Many of the canards were staged
overnight at OSH including myself. Eric and I had an engagement there
that
evening which prevented me from being in Madison and since they close
the
field (KOSH) after dark, that settled that.  I took a shot in the dark
and
placed a call to Mike Melvill at Scaled and talked it over with him.  At
first he wasn't supportive as his thought was that the Glass Overcast
was to
be a "formation flight".  I outlined the procedures to him and explained
that we had borrowed the basic plan from the Mooney Caravan People.
With
that he agreed that as long as we had all aircraft on the ground at OSH
prior to 2:30, he would not have a problem with what we were doing.
Well,
that wasn't to be and our arrival time was still set by EAA for 12:30
PM.
Even with Mike's endorsement, we couldn't make that slot happen so Eric
started burning up the phone lines in order to get the people at Fond Du
Lac
thinking about allowing us to stage our launch there.  By the way, at
this
time, I still had about two weeks of work to complete on the plane in
order
to fly out in the first place.  Brad really came through on pulling a
few
all nighters with me on those jobs.

The decision was made to move the entire show to Fond Du Lac.  We did
this
for a couple of reasons.  First, we would be flying the same arrival
with
the AirVenture Cup Race on Sunday Afternoon and we could use the exact
same
LOA and the same briefing.  We would have a practice under our belts and
would know what needed to be corrected for the Monday flight.  The
briefing
and staging times would require much less time since the flight plan was
so
simple to execute in comparison to the Madison Flight.  Those of you who
were there saw that even though we had a 9 AM show time at FLD we just
made
the launch time RIGHT ON TIME.  There were quite allot of details to be
worked with the Fond Du Lac Tower folks, with OSH flight ops, and with
you
all.  A number of Home Built Parking guys drove down from OSH to get
everything set up on the ground.  They did a fantastic job keeping the
airplanes separated by types.  Honestly, I hadn't thought of it.  I'll
say
this, I wouldn't change it.  It worked great. :)

The morning before I was scheduled to leave for my trip we found out
that
our arrival time was again moved up to 10:30 AM.  This would make the
arrival time at FLD around 7 AM to keep things on track.  Of course you
can't launch out of OSH prior to that time so, once again we were about
to
bag the flight.  Eric asked me to work with an un named person in order
to
beg for our 12:30 slot.  He asked me to use my "New Jersey Charm" and
once
again made a cold call and was lucky enough to push the right buttons
while
Eric was burning up phone lines pushing others' buttons.  Within the
hour,
Eric had worked out all the bugs and ground details at FLD and we had
the
Green Light from Flight Ops for the 12:30 arrival time.  ...whew - that
was
close ...  I'll tell you, my thoughts were that we were just such a
giant
pain in the ass, that they just said yes to shut us up and of course
they
didn't cherish the idea of us sending 90 canards to the Fisk Arrival at
noon. (grin)  To give you an idea of how often we were asked to change
things, the launch time was moved up 30 minutes between the time that I
left
OSH that morning to the time that I was up in the tower cab at FLD which
was
about an hour later on Monday.  If we waited any longer we would have
been
told to launch "yesterday".  In their defense, there really is a pile of
things that have to happen in order to allow a mass arrival to occur
during
the actual convention.  Arrivals and Departures have to be shut down at
Fisk
and Warbird Approach.  It could cause a lot of problems for a lot of
people.


So.. There I was....

Monday Morning, July 25th 2005.  Brad and I were up at the crack of dawn
and
made our way to the FAA weather briefing, then to the EAA Flight Ops
meeting
at 7:30 AM, a quick departure briefing, and then to good old N500EZ (the
plane).  We had isolated showers moving through the area but nothing
that
would prevent our flight.  On the other hand, Madison was getting
hammered
with rain all morning.  A number of other canards who had been staged
overnight at OSH were likewise preparing for launch to Fond Du Lac.  I
saw
Rich Lamb and Joe Conlon prepping their LongEZ but they didn't make it
due
to a fouled mag.  Howard Calk was making an attempt but I think he got
hung
up with the departure briefing.  Many other guys did make it down from
OSH
and most of them well before we did.  Our flight out of OSH was held up
for
about 15 minutes for a couple of F-16s who did a number of low
approaches.
If I didn't see that every day at work, I would have enjoyed it but
under
the circumstances, it was rather annoying!

We launched just in front of Race 24 (Rich Guerra / Velocity).  We flew
down
the Lake Shore to FLD in a smooth morning mist and light rain.  I
suppose
all the new paint and fill on my leading edges paid off since the plane
handled just fine in the moisture.  We landed on a wet runway and to my
surprise, Brad called out a number of EZs already staged in various
locations.  We parked in the VariEze corral and went to work.

I was so thrilled to meet so many of you face to face and alas
disappointed
to miss so many of you who couldn't be there.  There were at least a
dozen
guys that had called me the days before the Overcast letting me know
that
they weren't going to make it in time.  Either weather or mechanical
issues.
Thank you so much for keeping me posted; it showed me that people were
taking this seriously and despite the reason for those phone calls, it
did
make me feel better about some things.

We parked the plane and went right up to meet with the Tower Chief at
Fond
Du Lac to check in with him on our plan and to be sure that we were on
the
same page.  He hit me with a curve ball and informed me that our launch
time
was moved to 11:45 AM.  PAR FOR THE COURSE!  There was no changing it so
we
just put that in our pocket and pressed on with the 10 AM briefing.

We were lucky to have a hangar for the briefing even though there was a
last
minute VariEze which had a stuck valve pulled in for maintenance.  The
briefing began on time with each pilot signing in.  The flight leaders
were
pulled aside and given a given a synopsis on what would be expected of
them.
As things turned out, there were four VariEze flight leaders but only
one
VariEze flight.  I chose to use those men as deputies in line who would
be
prepared to take over if I was forced to abort.  Steve Sorenson was the
overall deputy Group Leader and I did let him know that my radio was
marginal.  He should expect to relay my calls to OSH Tower.

I began the briefing with a moment of silence or prayer to our recent
losses
in the canard community.  We had lost four planes and four pilots to
plane
crashes this season.  Jay Blum who was a very close friend of mine was
killed on July 10th, followed by Glenn Saunders only days before the
event.
Also Paul Connors and David Jones in recent months.  This was done for
two
reasons, I wanted to pay tribute to their memories and also to serve as
a
reminder that what we were doing was potentially dangerous and that the
safety of each and every flight crew was the paramount and primary goal
of
this flight.  I refused to compromise the safety of the flight on many
occasions and would have cancelled the entire gig before making any
compromise to safety.  I reminded everyone that "They are all trying to
kill
us".  It seems like an odd thing to say but from flying in air shows,
you
learn that everyone is trying to kill you in order to please the
audience
and to keep a schedule.  Next I reassured people that this was NOT a
"formation flight" but it was a "single flight of a large number of
aircraft".  I stated that the primary difference between the Glass
Overcast
and the Fisk Approach was that we would all be flying at the same
speeds,
same altitudes, and had an arrival slot.  It was hundreds of times more
comfortable to do this as opposed to being placed on a short final
behind a
Piper Cub. :)

After establishing that each pilot and co pilot was aware of the
difference
between his right and left, I laid out the basic plan and the "beer
rules".
I wanted to define the contract between each other, and to be sure that
no
pilot would have a "problem" with the flight profile.  After conferring
with
the flight leaders, we established a launch order and also the speeds to
be
flown.  We launched the VariEzes followed by Velocities, then Cozies,
LongEzs etc.  The one of a kind airplanes fell in with the types that
most
closely matched their climb and approach speeds.

The only people who would speak on the radio were the Lead Airplane and
the
Tail airplane.  The exception to this rule was that each flight leader
would
inform FLD Tower that they were "Long EZ Flight" for example and would
be
spacing 30 seconds for departure.  The other exceptions were that the
deputy
leader would relay my calls to OSH Tower, and of course if there was an
emergency, all bets were off and pilots were to do what ever they had to
do
to survive or assist in someone else's survival.

The beer rules were these..
If you spoke on the radio - you bought everyone a beer.
If you raised your gear - you bought everyone a beer.
If you landed on the numbers - you bought everyone a beer - AND THEN YOU
WERE SHOT!

The lineup was conducted very well.  We set up all the airplanes in
launch
order on the taxiway just prior to the run up area for 18.  I walked
back
down the line to make sure that no one was going to have a problem with
prop
wash when we started.  Some guys were turning their planes at too much
of an
angle and too close to others where it was possible for them to tangle
winglets.  One airplane actually dropped off the side of the taxiway and
broke his right wheel fairing.  He had some assistance in removing the
fairing for the flight to OSH.  I wish we had more time for that lineup
as
it is an excellent photo opportunity and it also allows people to get
the
feel for the picture.  They can see who they are behind, and who is next
to
them.  They can chat and ask the little questions that they were afraid
to
ask in the briefing.  It ended up being about 20 minutes down there
prior to
engine start.  We should have had an extra 20 minutes but that last
schedule
curve ball was the catalyst in the early engine start.    BOY DID I TAKE
MY
TIME on engine start and run up.  I wanted to have people thinking,
"What
the Hell is taking so long!"   Sorry gang, that was planned but not
briefed,
I wanted every one of you to have the time to triple check things and
not to
be worrying about getting airborne so quickly.  That very thing happened
the
day before in the Race Mass Arrival and people took off without
strapping
in.  I actually shut down on the taxiway because I just wasn't prepared
for
that kind of departure.  So, in case you were wondering, that's why I
sat
there for 10 minutes.  How many of you didn't have POBER loaded in your
GPS
for the route prior to engine start?  Ahh Ha! that's what I thought.
Once
ready and it looked like everyone down the line was running, I called
Tower
to inform them we were ready for departure.  The Tower controller
actually
asked me what exactly we what we were doing for departure.  I wish you
guys
could have seen my face.  I had that look like "WWWWHAAATTTT THE ...."?
I
just swallowed it and babbled something on the radio to inform him that
we
were using 5 second spacing with 30 seconds between flights.  In
reality, my
blood pressure was probably through the roof and I'm actually surprised
that
my helmet didn't exploded and my canopy didn't blow off the hinges.

We planned to depart as flights of aircraft by type. (VariEZs - LongEzs
etc)
We would line up on RWY 18 and treat the center line as a barrier.  The
contract was that the aircraft launching on the left side of 18 would
NEVER
cross that centerline.  The airplane on the right would likewise NEVER
cross
that centerline.  If you took off on the left side, you landed on 36L at
OSH.  If you took off on the right, you landed on 36R at OSH.  We had a
mission rule of a 15 kt cross wind or a 10 kt tail wind at OSH where we
would no longer use the North Runway.  When I called in at 3 miles, the
winds at OSH were 190 @ 10.  That was about as close as you can get.
The
flight leaders for each flight would launch from 18L at FLD and each
subsequent aircraft in the flight would alternate sides and count to 5
(One
One Thousand, Two One Thousand etc) and they would begin the roll.  The
next
flight of aircraft would space 30 seconds between flights to allow for
some
extra spacing on landing at OSH.  I think that paid off and we avoided a
bottle neck on final.

We briefed very specific climb and cruise speeds.  The climb would be
executed at 95 KIAS and 500 FPM up to 1800 MSL.  We would establish a
cruise
speed of 120 KIAS with the gear DOWN until POBER (5 mile final for 36)
where
each aircraft would begin the decent to the runway at the proper
approach
speed.  It was 110 KIAS for the VariEzes, 95 KIAS for the Velocities, 90
KIAS for the Longs and Cozies etc.  Each aircraft would land as long as
possible to enable as much room behind them for landing aircraft.  The
30
second spacing between flights would make up for delays on the runway.
There was at least one VariEze that blew out his brakes in order to
avoid a
conflict on the runway.  I was amazed that when I rolled to the end at
best
speed, there were still cones set up that didn't allow for a rapid taxi
off
the end.

We received take off clearance for the entire flight, I asked Brad to
remind
me to leave the gear down as I didn't have the cash on hand to pay for
all
that beer.  We began our climb and then a very slow turn to POBER.  I
called
out my numbers every few seconds just as a matter of course in order to
remind myself that I was flying exactly on profile.  I crossed back over
the
north side of Fond Du Lac airport and looked down to see everyone
departing.
I have to say that it was a wonderful sight to see all of those canards
doing their thing.  I switched to OSH Tower on 126.6 and made the call.
"Oshkosh Tower, Glass Overcast Lead"..  no reply..  I made the call a
few
more times with the same result.  I asked Steve to let them know we were
coming and without skipping a beat he made contact with them.  They
asked us
to report 3 miles.  I reported POBER inbound and 3 miles and I'm still
not
sure that they heard me but luck was in our favor and they cleared us to
land as a flight on 36L and 36R with that 10 kt tail wind.

I crossed the numbers at 110 KIAS and held the plane in the flare for a
few
thousand feet until it settled in.  I thought about my speed brake and
realized that it would act more like a sail than a drag device so I
retracted it until I was slowed down.  I slid to the left to allow for
someone to zoom by my right wing if they needed to do that and rolled as
fast as possible to the end of the runway to exit.  Those cones were in
the
way which was an obvious problem.  I dropped Brad off on the taxiway and
he
took some film of you guys as you taxied by.  You see we had swiped an
orange vest that morning and everyone thought he was part of the flag
crew.
(grin)

I taxied back and watched the landing while monitoring the radio.  I
didn't
hear or see any kind of problems.  It seemed to be going very well.  I
taxied up to the canard corral and parked in the grass.  A reporter from
Airventure Today was on me before the nose wheel was retracted but I
told
him if I needed to wait until the last plane was down before we could
chat.
Not that I cared if he was going to wait, I wasn't interested in the
press
right then.  A few minutes later, Harry touched down and made a safe and
orderly roll out to the end.  A funny side note is that Eric Whyte was
flying in Harry's Defiant as Race Tail.  When they came across the
numbers,
Eric told Harry that it was ok for the tail plane to land on the
numbers.
Harry just said back to Eric, "No way, I'm landing long, I believe that
Frank was serious about shooting people for landing short."  It's always
that plane that comes up with the best lines.  Actually, Harry had done
the
correct thing.  If someone had gone around, they might have been coming
up
close on his tail and he might not have known it.  Good Job Harry. :)

We didn't hear much feedback from the Tower Chief or the Flight Ops
folks at
Oshkosh or Fond Du Lac.  In this case, no news is good news.  The only
feedback that I have received from them is that the entire landing
sequence
took 9 minutes to complete.  That means that from the time I touched
down to
the time Harry touched down was 9 minutes.  That's 33 airplanes in a
pretty
short time.  Excellent job gang.  I know that there were a few beer
fouls
out there but I'm not out looking for them to pay up.  If I wanted to do
that, I would have had the beer fines payable to the parking crew and
you
bet they would have been looking very hard to find them.  So my thanks
goes
out to everyone who paid attention and asked questions in the briefing,
you
all did a fine job.  I have seen what can happen in a mass arrival and I
grantee that the race arrival that we flew not 24 hours earlier didn't
go
nearly as well for various reasons.  We should all feel pretty good
about
the outcome, we came in so smoothly that no one even noticed it was
happening, especially the announcers.  At the moment, I'm fine with that
fact.

Below is the list of pilots and plane types that actually participated
in
the 2005 Glass Overcast.  I'm confident that we could have flown all 90
with
similar results.  I hope to have the opportunity to do this again soon.
If
we can have a turn out of 40 or so it's certainly worth doing again next
year.  We won't bother messing around with Madison since FLD is so close
and
is a relative breeze to fly.

So, that's it from me for now.  If you have pictures, I would very much
appreciate copies.  I didn't have time to shoot anything!


-Frank Pullano Jr
 VariEze N500EZ
 Glass Overcast Lead






Pilot  -  Aircraft
LEAD PLANE - Pullano, Frank - VariEze
Beduhn, Mark - Cozy
Beert, Steven - LongEz
Boehm, Carl - LongEz
Bounds, Robert - VariEze
Clay, John - VariEze
Davies, Terry - Velocity
Fettig, Ralph - VariEze
Fisher, Paul - Quickie
Fritz, Kerry - LongEz
Guerra, Rich - Velocity
Haggard, David - LongEZ
Hollingsworth, Aaron - LongEZ
Lee, Paul - SQ2000
Mallia, Jeff - Cozy
Mishler, Ken - Velocity
Peck, Jerry - LongEZ
Rutter, Herb - LongEz
Sabourin, Michael - LongEz
Sanders, Burall - VariEze
Scarbro, Ron - VariEze
Sheehan, Jack - Velocity
Skovberg, Jay - Cozy
Smith, Thomas - LongEz
Sorenson, Steve - VariEze
Stedman, Lou - LongEz
Steichen, John - Defiant
Swift, Tim - LongEz
Wilson, Bob - LongEz
Wright, Steve - StaggerEZ
Wynne, Buddy - LongEZ
Zado, Rysard - VariEze
TAIL PLANE - Manvel, Harry - Defiant

LongEZ - 13
VariEze - 8
Velocity - 4
Cozy - 3
Defiant - 2
SQ2000 - 1
StaggerEZ - 1
Quickie - 1


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