Hello Friends,

After a busy week of class and shop time at SMAT this week, we took Friday to visit the Great Lakes Region Aviation Convention close to Detroit. At SMAT we start class at 7am everyday so we are used to fairly early mornings. Since we wanted to make it to Detroit for the first maintenance lectures at 7:30am, we left Ionia at 5:30, and made a sleepy trip across the state in our 15-passenger van.

The Convention covered some very interesting topics and provided access to many industry members. We learned about landing gear failure, human factors in running a flight deck or maintenance shop, and next generation air traffic control in the form of ADS-B, as well as advanced-glass cockpits with new synthetic vision technology, Lycoming engines and repairing composite aircraft structures. Proving that it's a small world, I ran into a former classmate and CFI from Purdue at the convention. I also spent a lot of time at the Cessna and Cirrus displays learning about new additions to their fleet. Cessna's new Light Sport Aircraft looks very promising. Cirrus' full sized model of the SR22 Turbo seemed as close to perfection as anything I have ever seen in aircraft design. I got in trouble with two FAA members who had a small simulator that replicates what happens when a pilot suffers from vertigo and disorientation. I tried to test the limits of the simulator by stalling and spinning it, but the FAA guy made me stop before I crashed it.

The return trip in the evening was proceeding without any excitement. However, on the south side of Lansing we had a tire blow out on us while on the interstate. While this can be a dangerous scenario in any top-heavy 15 passenger van we were able to pull off the road and into a parking lot, where we proceeded to change the tire. We got a spare tire put on, but I could not feel my hands, face or feet for about half an hour due to the extreme cold. In retrospect, if I had to be in a disabled vehicle at least I was in one with 10 other automotive and airplane mechanics. Look for pictures from our field trip soon.

In other news, it is finally above freezing! For the first time in weeks, the mercury has risen above 32F to almost 40F. The ground is still completely snow-covered, though, and the temperature will fall significantly next week. So begins February.

JMG