REFLECTOR: Note on Glass Overcast

[Dave Dent]

Outstanding report.  I participated in the last Glass Overcast in my Long 
EZ.  It was a real blast. We practiced for a whole year of formation flying 
to even qualify for the flight.  My story is going to be a great tale to 
tell my grand kids someday when they would enjoy it.  A lot happen like 
yours and some great side bar stories along with the major event.  I'm sure 
yours had many as well.
Congratulations
Dave
N32XL
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ron Brown" <romott at adelphia.net>
To: <reflector at tvbf.org>
Sent: Sunday, July 31, 2005 11:36 AM
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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