Ones and Zeros

I haven’t thought about this for a while.  But a recent post and some comments I read brought this to memory.  Ok, this post is a little tongue-in-cheek, but not completely so.

Some people think that the term “y’all” is just bad English.  I suppose that depends if you’re into prescriptive or descriptive grammar.  After being raised in FL by a professor and a librarian, I think that “y’all” is an appropriate regionalism, yet has a correct and incorrect usage. (Yes, I can have my cake and eat it too!)

A friend of mine and I (hello WSM!) debated this some years ago.  Fortunately, we had several experts to consult when were deadlocked.  Specifically, we were debating both the correct use of “y’all” and off the related term “all y’all”.

I’ve forgotten some of the details by now, but the ultimate determination was that the two terms are separate and not synonyms.  Our experts, well, expressed varying opinions you might say.  We presented our cases to my wife (an English and French teacher), my mother (an English teacher and librarian), and his mother (a teacher as well).  The replies varied from laughter, to “you guys are nuts”.  By the most neatly worked reply was from WSM’s mother.  She nicely side-stepped the issue of correct usage of “y’all” and “all y’all” by saying with a smile, “One is as correct as the other.”

In standard English the term “you” is both singular and plural.  In southern regional English, “you” is singular, and “y’all” is plural.  This is clear and well understood (except by northerners and the occasional temporarily transplanted Canadian).

Unfortunately, some southerners will use “y’all” indiscriminately for either singular or plural.  This is simply wrong and just confuses everyone!  Don’t do it.  And if you’re not from the south and you do this, well, you just look silly.  Sorry!

That leaves, “all y’all”.  I refer to this as a collective plural, a term of my own invention to describe an emphatic plural that emphasizes the plurality.  So if you’re in room with a largish group of people and are giving directions you might say to one person, “You go do this first task.”  You’d say to several people standing near each other, “Y’all go do the second task together.” And to the rest of the group, “All y’all who aren’t doing anything, you come with me!”  The latter term emphasizes you’re talking to everyone and that you want everyone’s attention.  And then there’s the possessive: “y’all’s”.  As in “Is that y’all’s car stuck in the mud there?”

So, in southern regional English there is none of that confusing ambiguity in singular or plural terms about who, exactly, the speaker is talking to.  It’s clear and straightforward.

In fact, I think this should be in the Pilot-Controller Glossary in the AIM (Airmen’s Information Manual).  When ATC calls out a new altimeter setting, they should say, “All y’all, altimeter is 30.01.”

Instructor M called me yesterday and started talking about the weather. I was at work deep in code on a programming project and hadn’t yet checked the weather for our scheduled lesson today. I shook my mind clear of linked lists. It seems the weather forecast is for a no-fly day for VFR flights, but would be a good day for a beginner IFR student like me. Clouds, but not too much, some ground visibility, but not very much, and freezing conditions not likely.

We talked it over and he gave me some approaches to review for local airports and asked me to work out how we would use the GPS in my plane. We’re stepping outside the lesson in the curricula since this is a “teachable moment”. This was a two-part lesson. The first part was with Instructor R and was a pure ground lesson as the weather wasn’t flyable at all. This is the description of the second part with M though.

So today we filed IFR for the first time and took off into the clouds. It is almost a continuous layer. We could see the ground if we looked straight down, but could only see the ridges ahead sticking through the clouds. Later we had a short clearer section, but mostly it was a cloud layer beneath us. Today would end up with my first hour of actual IFR, albeit soft IFR.

I thought I might be a little edgy in the clouds. But, we were going to two nearby airports and doing approaches to them off a nearby VOR. I was busy enough that I mostly didn’t get a chance to look outside except for traffic. So, that may come later, or may not.

The plan is to depart the localizer backcourse, track that to a fix and intercept a course to the VOR. Then, to the circling approach for the first airport. Do the missed approach from that and realize in that process that a circling approach is, well, interesting. That circling is at low altitude, below pattern altitude, within just over a mile of the airport. This is opposite of what safe flying is: high and with speed.

Then back to the VOR and the non-precision approach to the second airport. Again this isn’t aligned with the runway, but is closer at least. Both times I’m not descending fast enough. I’m used to descents from further out and have to be more aggressive with these.

Once again a missed approach and back to the VOR, then to the localizer for our home airport. I don’t have a DME in my plane, so I’m using the VOR for the localizer and the GPS for a DME (distance measuring). I only have the one VOR. so cross radials are difficult.

This approach worked well enough, the airport came out of the haze about three miles out and we landed normally.

I checked my flight on FlightAware.com and wasn’t pleased to see how wavy my “straight” courses were. I need to work on that more. I know I can track well, I’m just not doing it. At one point instructor M was wondering if the VOR was broken, the needle hadn’t moved. Later, well, there was no question if it was working as the needle was very clearly moving.

I also need to have a clearer idea in my head of the descent needed for each approach and be ahead of my game for weather, briefing the approach and the missed.

We had a radio problem as well. Turns out though that it was a problem internal to the plane - I think the combination of volume settings in the intercom, radios, and headsets create distortion on the transmit sidetone. Thanks to a friend of M’s flying and recording a video (with the audio sound track from the radio) and posting it online, we were able to see that our transmissions were perfectly clear. One more thing to debug.

Next lesson is late in the week, another owner’s flying and I’ve got some business meetings to prepare for.

Back to the sim today. After the last lesson Instructor R and I start the sim to practice VOR and ADF holds and hold entries. Afterwards it is clearer to me. Also, using the sim is getting a little easier.

The sim, or more accurately, the PC flight training device, is more sensitive in the controls from the real airplane. I’m not sure why that’s so - all the behaviors can be modeling in physics after all. But I’d make an educated guess that there’s some computational short-cuts that have the side effect of making the controls more sensitive.

R and I talked through hold entries and worked out ways to enter the hold easily.  Also a co-worker who used to fly for a large airline laid out a simple way for me at work the other day. See this article for an explanation of this way under “DG as Crutch”. It works every time!  Between my conversations with my co-worker and with R things are becoming clearer.

Add that to Joe Campbell’s VOR technique reported by Viennatech commenting on my 3/14 post and I’m pulling things together. (Actually, it’s reported by Joe Campbell, but should be attributed to his CFII Charles.)  I’ve used this VOR interpretation method for a while and it is great.  No more “reverse sensing” nonsense.

My lessons have slowed down due to scheduling conflicts in my regular life and for the plane too. The annual is coming up soon too, this will unfortunately create more delays.

March 14 is officially National Pi Day now.  The US House voted to approve it as a recognized day.  It’s not a national holiday (yet), but is nice to have something really math-y and geeky recognized.

Of course, the actual Pi time is March 14, at nine minutes and 26 seconds after three pm.

Pi is important to me in several ways, so I’m happy that it is official now.  Especially since I missed the days for sqrt(2) and e.  And don’t forget Fibbonacci day on November 23, mark your calendars!