Gateway Pilots 
September 2008 Newsletter
Wednesday, September 17th, 2008From the September Meeting
Our own Bob Linenweber brought a WINGS program accredited activity straight to our monthly meeting. Talk about an easy way to stay proficient. All we had to do was show up, enjoy the usual good meal and camradarie, and listen to a thoroughly entertaining and informative talk on the new WINGS program.
Here are the highlights which stuck with me:
Past performance is a very strong indicator of future performance. Bob had several stories (including photos of bent airplanes) about pilots who were involved in multiple similar accidents, such as the pilot who overloaded a Turbo Lance and crashed on an uphill take-off from a too-short runway. Guess what he did a few years later. Yup; he did it again. Except this time he was in an overloaded Malibu.
We can fly perfectly safely, or at least much closer to it than we usually get. Everyone knows what happened on September 11, 2001 but do you know what happened exactly one year later, on September 11, 2002? It was the only perfect day in FAA aviation history: no fatal accidents, no ATC deviations or errors, no near mid-air collisions, no pilot deviations, and no surface incidents. If we did it once, we can do it again. The secrets are mindfulness and recurrent training.
And speaking of recurrent training…
The new WINGS program is up and running at www.FAASafety.gov. Yes, it’s complicated. Yes, the computer is slow. And it is a vast improvement over the old WINGS program. The old program set a series of hoops which you were required to jump through. Once you had jumped, you were legal to fly, even if you were not safe to fly.
The new program is a Pilot Proficiency Program. When you achieve (and maintain) the WINGS BASIC Phase, you will have demonstrated your pilot abilities to the current Practical Test Standards. I.e., you will be a safer pilot. The web site lets you track both your knowledge credits (on-line courses and sessions such as this meeting) and your flight credits (e.g., a session of take-offs and landings with a CFI).
There is a wonderful on-line course on how to use the WINGS program at http://avtrain.net/wings. Run through it and you will find the www.FAASafety.gov site much easier to use.
October Meeting
The Wednesday, October 8, 2008 meeting will be at The Columns. Phone your dinner reservations to Jean Murry at (314)469-3541.
Upcoming Events
You can always find the latest list of upcoming MPA events on our web site at http://gatewaypilots.org/upcoming-events/.
This year, all meetings on are the third Wednesday of the month except in December. See the upcoming events page for weather minimums and times.
| May 14 | Chapter Meeting (Joe Dobronski) | The Columns |
| May 17 | Flyout | Marion IL (MWA) - Sergio's Restaurant |
| June ? | Picnic | Kilroys (KSET) |
| June 14 | Flyout | Litchfield IL (3LF) |
| July 19 | Flyout | Gastons AR (3MO) |
| July 22 | Chapter Meeting (Gary Liming, History of Beasly Aircraft) | The Columns |
| Aug. 12 | Chapter Meeting (Jeff Edwards, Aircraft Accident Investigation) | The Columns |
| Aug. 16 | Flyout | Casey IL (1H8) - Richard's Farm Restaurant |
| Aug. 29-30 | Smartt Field Open House | KSET |
| Sept. 6 | Flyout | Labor Day - Old Sttlers and Threshers Reunion - Mt. Pleasant IA |
| Sept. 9 | Chapter Meeting (Fred Schieszer, Warrensburg College) | The Columns |
| Sept. 20 | Flyout | Jefferson City (JEF) - Nick's Restaurant |
| Oct. 14 | Chapter Meeting (Libby Yunger, 100 years of women in aviation 1909-2009) | The Columns |
| Oct. 18 | Flyout | Lake Barkley KY (1M9) |
| Nov. 11 | Chapter Meeting (Bill Hopper, Learning To Fly Helicopters, The Challenges and Rewards) | The Columns |
| Nov. 15 | Flyout | Quincy IL (UIN) |
| Dec. 9 | Chapter Meeting / Christmas Party | The Columns |
| Dec. 12 | Flyout | St. Charles County (Smartt) (SET) - Kilroy's Restaurant |
Gateway Pilots Web Site
Did you know that there are good things on the web site that did not make it into the newsletter? Drop by www.GatewayPilots.org.