Out in the Aleutian Mountains, where the waters of Polly Creek flow from Redoubt Volcano into a bay, joined by the glacial meltwater off the Tuxedni Glacier, low tide pulls back a long way across tidal flats, revealing running ridges of sandbars. Once a month, by the pull of the moon on the earth, the tide is especially low. Astronomers call these "neap tides". Folks round here are much more practical; we call them clamming tides.
The red and white supercub ahead had picked a sandbar a mile out from shore and already landed as we came around - with the angle of the sun on wet sand, it looked like he'd gone in the water. But the tide book assured us he wasn't wrecked, as well as the presence of two small figures getting out. From further out in the bay, we saw two boats - commercial clammers - heading over quickly. Up here, lone folks get checked on to make sure they're not landing for engine trouble - when the tide comes in, it comes in at four feet an hour, and the cold water can and does kill. We set up for a nice long approach, taking every advantage of the nearly thousand feet of sandbar and lack of any obstacle nearby. As we came in, the boats peeled back out to the business of making money, satified that we were there intentionally, or at least the first guy was getting checked on.
The wet sand looked flat from altitude, but up close, it was covered in thousands of inch-high ridges, and landing on it was like landing on hard, rough concrete. As we went over a low spot, the tires flung muddy sand and glacial silt up with corrosive seawater onto the wings and struts, and I silently thanked the heavens that we were going straight to a place where we could hose down both aircraft well after this. Then we were stopped - on a sandbar this wide, no need to even turn around first - and getting out into the salt sea air, handing out buckets and shovels. Undeneath that sand (just don't dig where a tailwheel's going to drop in) there were thousands of razor clams, waiting to get into the buckets and become food.
Three hours later, as we were getting exhausted, and the buckets were nearly full, I frowned at the latest hole in hard-packed sand. "Water level's risen in these holes."
"It has?" My digger (my arms were too sore now to wield the shovel, so he dug and I pulled the clam out as it tried to escape) looked at me, then around at a sandbar that looked like it had been swarmed by giant gophers, for all the holes dug.
"Water's coming up behind J's plane, too." I added, kneeling on the sand because I was too tired to get up. About three hundred feet down out of the thousand feet of sandbar, a curving crescent of water was now shining in between the ridges of sand over half the runway.
J's father nodded, then, and called out to the other two. "All right! tide's coming back in! A dozen more, and we're out of here!" He looked back down where the weight and vibration from my body had disturbed the sand, and saw two dimples where clams had sensed me and tried to move away. "There's two right here."
A dozen might have been ambitious; the water comes back in at four feet an hour on a clamming tide, and the sandbar was at most six inches above the retreating sea. As the other plane had two guys in better shape than me, they got everything packed and away first, taking off quickly; we were slower, and threw up a little spray as we roared into the sky. I sat back beside a very cold bucket of clams, reached forward and shifted J's gun barrel so my left knee could rest against the seat, and curled my bare toes around the rudder pegs. Cabin heat, bless the man, flowed back to me, while the window was expertly cracked to keep him cool. All in all, a great day - even though hours of cleaning clams after thoroughly rinsing the aircraft lay ahead.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Sunday, June 29, 2008
It can Happen to you..
"Everybody knows" that planes are fabulously expensive things that you must have a heck of a salary to support, right?
Except I'm working retail, on the floor, and I just bought a plane. She's a project, which is akin to a "fixer-upper" in house parlance, as her wings were taken off and disassembled to be overhauled. All the parts are there, and there are even new parts to replace the old - but I bought a jigsaw puzzle, basically, that takes power tools and patience to put back together. Oh, and I don't have the picture (blue prints, or complted wing) to look at.
On the other hand, I just bought a plane. A plane!
She's a 1941 Taylorcraft BL12-65. When she was first turned out of the factory, she wasn't intended to last more than 5-10 years; as she's still around, like Ming vases and Papyrus Scrolls, she's become something to cherish and preserve, protect, and fully fly all I can out of her. She started life in Alliance, Ohio, when the Japanese were a distant threat over the horizon, months before Pearl Harbor, and Europe was in a war that we were refusing to enter, stating our oceans would keep the Natzi threat far way. She now lives in Alaska, a state where the Japanese landed and occupied in that same war.
The key to putting her back in the air is persistance - steadily working a little bit each night. So that's what I'm doing. Pictures may follow.
(After all, if I can do this, anyone can.)
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Flying around Denali National Park
If you've been flying, hiking, or climbing on and around Mount McKinley (Denali to the rest of us), or within the confines of the park, the Denali National Park & Preserve Aircraft Advisory Council is meeting Thursday, Feb. 7th, in the Best Western Lake Lucille Inn from 1pm-4pm.
"The council will identify and address the impacts from aircraft flight over Denali National Park & Preserve." For any non-resident treehuggers out there: before you get vapors, please remember that the federal government locked up six million acres of land, and only 14.8 miles of road are publicly accessible within it (aside from a 400-car road lottery that lets the lucky ones in once a year). This isn't Yosemite with traffic jams at the gate; most of the only way to see this state is by air. Even the climbers have to take air taxi to get to Denali (Mt. McKinley).
The aircraft overflight working group consists of scenic air tour operators, commercial operators, general aviation organizations, and other concerned parties.
In other words, flightseeing charters, airlines whose polar flight routes go over DNPP, airlines who ferry folks between Anchorage and our second-largest city, Fairbanks, those of us who want to fly out and see it ourselves, land on the backcountry strips, or just fly from Fairbanks to Anchorage and back to see a dentist and get some shopping in, the folks the government hasn't forced off the land yet when they declared it a national park, the climbers who want to get to denali, the wildlife folks who are torn between getting in by air to study wildlife and the concern that aircraft noise might impact wildlife...
This is democracy in action. If you have a stake in it, or you're just interested, the meeting's open to the public!
"The council will identify and address the impacts from aircraft flight over Denali National Park & Preserve." For any non-resident treehuggers out there: before you get vapors, please remember that the federal government locked up six million acres of land, and only 14.8 miles of road are publicly accessible within it (aside from a 400-car road lottery that lets the lucky ones in once a year). This isn't Yosemite with traffic jams at the gate; most of the only way to see this state is by air. Even the climbers have to take air taxi to get to Denali (Mt. McKinley).
The aircraft overflight working group consists of scenic air tour operators, commercial operators, general aviation organizations, and other concerned parties.
In other words, flightseeing charters, airlines whose polar flight routes go over DNPP, airlines who ferry folks between Anchorage and our second-largest city, Fairbanks, those of us who want to fly out and see it ourselves, land on the backcountry strips, or just fly from Fairbanks to Anchorage and back to see a dentist and get some shopping in, the folks the government hasn't forced off the land yet when they declared it a national park, the climbers who want to get to denali, the wildlife folks who are torn between getting in by air to study wildlife and the concern that aircraft noise might impact wildlife...
This is democracy in action. If you have a stake in it, or you're just interested, the meeting's open to the public!
Friday, February 1, 2008
Spruce Creek has no Spruces
Flew to Spruce Creek, Florida ( 7FL6 ), which is an airpark on a former base. It's large enough to support two real estate offices, a restaurant, an FBO, a helicopter service place and an airplane maintenance shop on field. Blatant plug: Check Spruce Creek Realty Out! They're very, very cool people - Pat and Lenny Ohlsson are great folks!
On the other hand, the radio died as we flew in. That was not nearly so cool. In fact, as Daytona Beach Approach became weak and scratchy, in that time in which we were in clouds and I could still hear them but they couldn't hear me, was not cool at all. It was a warm sort of mild "aaaaugh!" even after we broke out of the clouds.
The weather briefer was promptly contacted via cell phone on the ground, to let the poor controller know we were down, safe, at our intended destination, and ThankYouVeryMuch for her help!
Lenny Ohlsson still managed to get my American Yankee Association checkout in, which was very cool, and taught me a whole lot about the airframe's strengths and weak points, what to look for and what to utterly enjoy. It's always a delight to fly with good pilots, and he seemed to really enjoy being up in the AA-1B. In his hands, instead of worrying about no radio, I learned instead on how to fly NoRDO - a lot more emphasis on see and avoid, and on anticipating what other people are going to do, and on being visible and predictable.
He also loaded the dead radio onto his golf cart, and we went over to a radio repairman on field. I watched Lenny and my brother crowd in close as the faceplate came off and the cause of death determined - but I myself had my lap securely pinned down by a purring feline who looked quite determined that I should stay and scritch its ears.
We went very carefully VFR back, keeping well clear of restricted areas and Orlando's Disney's Don't Ruin The Experience "Temporary Flight Restriction" that's been in place since they got it politically leveraged in after 9/11/01.
I really, really like communicating - so no flying the plane til the radio is repaired, and reinstalled.
On the other hand, today I went up in Valdosta Flying Service's Cessna 172 SP model. After the supercub and the '73 Grumman, an '01 model Cessna is pure luxury, with an almost overwhelming amount of bells and whistles. With a friendly, helpful CFI, I shot the VOR, GPS, and ILS approaches into Valdosta, and put enough work on holding patterns and maneuvering under the foggles to be capable, if artless, at them. so, 2.3 hours of flying and another 2.2 of ground (and probably an extra hour of comparing "I've always wanted to fly in Alaska" with flying down here, and shooting down the tv-inspired theory that grizzly attacks are common and unpredictable.)
So now what? Well, with my own plane in "broken" status but freshly reviewed on all IFR flying, I'm going to be available for safety-pilot flying. People still working on getting their instrument rating need to have a pilot sitting next to them keeping an eye out for traffic, towers, and providing a situational awareness while they have blinders on to prevent from seeing outside. Another pilot who'll do it without charging is far better while practicing than paying a CFI for all that time, so I'm going to be up with a couple folks over the next week, helping them toward their ratings.
Really, no matter how freshly reviewed I am, tonight and tomorrow I get to spend plenty of time hitting the books. There's a vast difference between being able to slide through the system functionally and knowing the system thoroughly - and people in training will need real answers and explanations to questions. "You learn thoroughly by teaching" indeed!
On the other hand, the radio died as we flew in. That was not nearly so cool. In fact, as Daytona Beach Approach became weak and scratchy, in that time in which we were in clouds and I could still hear them but they couldn't hear me, was not cool at all. It was a warm sort of mild "aaaaugh!" even after we broke out of the clouds.
The weather briefer was promptly contacted via cell phone on the ground, to let the poor controller know we were down, safe, at our intended destination, and ThankYouVeryMuch for her help!
Lenny Ohlsson still managed to get my American Yankee Association checkout in, which was very cool, and taught me a whole lot about the airframe's strengths and weak points, what to look for and what to utterly enjoy. It's always a delight to fly with good pilots, and he seemed to really enjoy being up in the AA-1B. In his hands, instead of worrying about no radio, I learned instead on how to fly NoRDO - a lot more emphasis on see and avoid, and on anticipating what other people are going to do, and on being visible and predictable.
He also loaded the dead radio onto his golf cart, and we went over to a radio repairman on field. I watched Lenny and my brother crowd in close as the faceplate came off and the cause of death determined - but I myself had my lap securely pinned down by a purring feline who looked quite determined that I should stay and scritch its ears.
We went very carefully VFR back, keeping well clear of restricted areas and Orlando's Disney's Don't Ruin The Experience "Temporary Flight Restriction" that's been in place since they got it politically leveraged in after 9/11/01.
I really, really like communicating - so no flying the plane til the radio is repaired, and reinstalled.
On the other hand, today I went up in Valdosta Flying Service's Cessna 172 SP model. After the supercub and the '73 Grumman, an '01 model Cessna is pure luxury, with an almost overwhelming amount of bells and whistles. With a friendly, helpful CFI, I shot the VOR, GPS, and ILS approaches into Valdosta, and put enough work on holding patterns and maneuvering under the foggles to be capable, if artless, at them. so, 2.3 hours of flying and another 2.2 of ground (and probably an extra hour of comparing "I've always wanted to fly in Alaska" with flying down here, and shooting down the tv-inspired theory that grizzly attacks are common and unpredictable.)
So now what? Well, with my own plane in "broken" status but freshly reviewed on all IFR flying, I'm going to be available for safety-pilot flying. People still working on getting their instrument rating need to have a pilot sitting next to them keeping an eye out for traffic, towers, and providing a situational awareness while they have blinders on to prevent from seeing outside. Another pilot who'll do it without charging is far better while practicing than paying a CFI for all that time, so I'm going to be up with a couple folks over the next week, helping them toward their ratings.
Really, no matter how freshly reviewed I am, tonight and tomorrow I get to spend plenty of time hitting the books. There's a vast difference between being able to slide through the system functionally and knowing the system thoroughly - and people in training will need real answers and explanations to questions. "You learn thoroughly by teaching" indeed!
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Cedar Key has no Cedars
Sunday, despite Saturday's icky IFR overcast, was a clear, beautiful day. Weather systems move fast in the Southeastern Lower 48! And despite the cold the teething year-old niece of mine had given her 3-year-old sister being a very big cranky fussy deal for them, it wasn't that bad for an adult. So, after sleeping in to make up for crawling in at 2am, back out to the airport.
By the way, the 3 year old calls 21L "Henry" and insists that the airplane's a he. She is as possesive a minx as any woman could possibly be with a boyfriend - I've now racked up three temper tantrums and a seriously cheesed-off three year old because I'm going to go fly Henry and Not Taking Her. That's even worse in her world than the fact that I'm also taking Daddy time away from her. I'm not going to fly her, though, because I've already been warned by my brother, my father, and D the C130 pilot who also flies Henry that she loooooves making the airplane do power-on stalls. She can't reach the rudder pedals, but she sure can reach the yoke and haul back on the yoke with all her might. I hate power-on stalls (They're very hard for me to do, because of the damage to my shoulder, neck, and back), and have no intentions of getting in a wrestling match for the controls with a 3-year-old at altitude.
So, really, it was after a talk with Daddy about why she can't come, and a world-class pout and glare when the pout didn't work that we went to the airport.
Great VFR day here means 30 miles of visibility. While the air was nearly calm - 3 knots of variable wind at VLD's surface - it was ripping southward up top. Never wasting an opportunity for free speed and saving on the $5/gallon gas, we climbed to 7500 where it was roaring south at 30 knots. (34.5 mph) At 7500 feet, which is far, far higher than I usually fly, I could see more of the ground - and more of the clear blue sky above. The middle third of the world, though, looked like someone had taken a dirty eraser and swiped the horizon to smudgily reveal the whiteboard beneath.
My brother has an odd belief that VFR should be flown by landmarks on charts, not with VOR guidance backup. I don't happen to agree at all, but it was a decent training exercise (though I kept an eye on the GPS and the tuned-in VOR anyway. Why take chances?) Fortunately, Cedar Key airport, CDK, is pretty much 110 miles nearly straight south (178 degrees). As long as I held my heading, life was good.
It's easy to fly by landmarks in Alaska; there are mountains, oceans, rivers, lakes, and glaciers for convenient landmarks. It's hard to pick things out of a lower 48 sectional map, where you can go a hundred miles and only see one or two contour lines. So I got better at how to pick out towns, what a four-lane road looks like from the air, and matching river squiggles on the map to river bends on the ground. I also noticed, no matter how busy Jacksonville center seemed with commercial traffic, that the skies were awfully empty. For the entire trip down and back, I only saw a handful of other planes in the air.
Cedar Key was thankfully easy to find - it's on the biggest island of a bunch jutting out into the gulf of Mexico. Cedar Key airport was not - it's barely 2355 feet of faded light sand-colored asphalt half-hidden by trees on three sides. Of course, the island it's on isn't that big. I knew where it should be, and I set up on downwind well before I actually saw it. When I did see it, it looked very, very small. I also had a problem making my brain go through the normal landing flow - all of downwind, base, and final for runway 23 is over water. I don't like getting that close to the water - at home, hypothermia will kill you quickly if anything goes wrong. So the first pass, with a brain still adjusting, I saw the final straw - a twin on the runway. That's it, I went around. The second time I could see the runway, and with that guiding reference, everything else could be made okay.
We didn't get to spend any time at Cedar Key, because the phone call to the wife of we're here and safe produced a "please be back home in time for dinner." So we looked at the other airplanes parked there, watching out for cactus on the ground that's a disaster for airplane tires and three-year-olds (The niece has been to Cedar Key before). Then it was back - but the helpful tailwind was now and unhelpful headwind, we only climbed to 4500 feet, where it only slowed us by 20 knots.
That is, first we went along the shoreline at 600 feet, and I ogled at seeing palm trees in a native habitat. (They do grow wild! really!) Then we followed a river, and my brother used this as time to show off 21L's snappy roll rate by trying to track the river bends down the center at 110 mph. I'm not a great fan of this - it stretches my comfort boundaries, does not fall under "gentle handling", and the mild G's, akin to a roller coaster, puts acute pressure on the injured neck. My brother flies C130's at 50 feet with night vision goggles - he thinks this is a really fun game in bright daylight and a small plane. I played along, doggedly, a little sloppily, and much more gently.
Then we climbed to 4500 feet, and came home in time for dinner. I've decided that either I'm growing accustomed to hearing Southern English, or that VLD only has one controller who mumbles, because I can understand most everything I'm getting from approach, center, and towers. I'm still not responding quickly because I have to think about it - and this annoys my brother, who wants responses snapped out like lightning strikes. This, too, is a difference between a 200-hour VFR pilot like me, coming back after two years off for physical therapy, and a 2000-hour pilot who does this for a living with the military as much as a difference between our temperaments.
No matter; we made it down and safe, paid for the gas, and made it home in time for dinner.
By the way, the 3 year old calls 21L "Henry" and insists that the airplane's a he. She is as possesive a minx as any woman could possibly be with a boyfriend - I've now racked up three temper tantrums and a seriously cheesed-off three year old because I'm going to go fly Henry and Not Taking Her. That's even worse in her world than the fact that I'm also taking Daddy time away from her. I'm not going to fly her, though, because I've already been warned by my brother, my father, and D the C130 pilot who also flies Henry that she loooooves making the airplane do power-on stalls. She can't reach the rudder pedals, but she sure can reach the yoke and haul back on the yoke with all her might. I hate power-on stalls (They're very hard for me to do, because of the damage to my shoulder, neck, and back), and have no intentions of getting in a wrestling match for the controls with a 3-year-old at altitude.
So, really, it was after a talk with Daddy about why she can't come, and a world-class pout and glare when the pout didn't work that we went to the airport.
Great VFR day here means 30 miles of visibility. While the air was nearly calm - 3 knots of variable wind at VLD's surface - it was ripping southward up top. Never wasting an opportunity for free speed and saving on the $5/gallon gas, we climbed to 7500 where it was roaring south at 30 knots. (34.5 mph) At 7500 feet, which is far, far higher than I usually fly, I could see more of the ground - and more of the clear blue sky above. The middle third of the world, though, looked like someone had taken a dirty eraser and swiped the horizon to smudgily reveal the whiteboard beneath.
My brother has an odd belief that VFR should be flown by landmarks on charts, not with VOR guidance backup. I don't happen to agree at all, but it was a decent training exercise (though I kept an eye on the GPS and the tuned-in VOR anyway. Why take chances?) Fortunately, Cedar Key airport, CDK, is pretty much 110 miles nearly straight south (178 degrees). As long as I held my heading, life was good.
It's easy to fly by landmarks in Alaska; there are mountains, oceans, rivers, lakes, and glaciers for convenient landmarks. It's hard to pick things out of a lower 48 sectional map, where you can go a hundred miles and only see one or two contour lines. So I got better at how to pick out towns, what a four-lane road looks like from the air, and matching river squiggles on the map to river bends on the ground. I also noticed, no matter how busy Jacksonville center seemed with commercial traffic, that the skies were awfully empty. For the entire trip down and back, I only saw a handful of other planes in the air.
Cedar Key was thankfully easy to find - it's on the biggest island of a bunch jutting out into the gulf of Mexico. Cedar Key airport was not - it's barely 2355 feet of faded light sand-colored asphalt half-hidden by trees on three sides. Of course, the island it's on isn't that big. I knew where it should be, and I set up on downwind well before I actually saw it. When I did see it, it looked very, very small. I also had a problem making my brain go through the normal landing flow - all of downwind, base, and final for runway 23 is over water. I don't like getting that close to the water - at home, hypothermia will kill you quickly if anything goes wrong. So the first pass, with a brain still adjusting, I saw the final straw - a twin on the runway. That's it, I went around. The second time I could see the runway, and with that guiding reference, everything else could be made okay.
We didn't get to spend any time at Cedar Key, because the phone call to the wife of we're here and safe produced a "please be back home in time for dinner." So we looked at the other airplanes parked there, watching out for cactus on the ground that's a disaster for airplane tires and three-year-olds (The niece has been to Cedar Key before). Then it was back - but the helpful tailwind was now and unhelpful headwind, we only climbed to 4500 feet, where it only slowed us by 20 knots.
That is, first we went along the shoreline at 600 feet, and I ogled at seeing palm trees in a native habitat. (They do grow wild! really!) Then we followed a river, and my brother used this as time to show off 21L's snappy roll rate by trying to track the river bends down the center at 110 mph. I'm not a great fan of this - it stretches my comfort boundaries, does not fall under "gentle handling", and the mild G's, akin to a roller coaster, puts acute pressure on the injured neck. My brother flies C130's at 50 feet with night vision goggles - he thinks this is a really fun game in bright daylight and a small plane. I played along, doggedly, a little sloppily, and much more gently.
Then we climbed to 4500 feet, and came home in time for dinner. I've decided that either I'm growing accustomed to hearing Southern English, or that VLD only has one controller who mumbles, because I can understand most everything I'm getting from approach, center, and towers. I'm still not responding quickly because I have to think about it - and this annoys my brother, who wants responses snapped out like lightning strikes. This, too, is a difference between a 200-hour VFR pilot like me, coming back after two years off for physical therapy, and a 2000-hour pilot who does this for a living with the military as much as a difference between our temperaments.
No matter; we made it down and safe, paid for the gas, and made it home in time for dinner.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Goal progress
Out of four weeks for a flight across the country to fulfill all the requirements for my commercial checkride, I have 10 days left.
Tomorrow, weather permitting and nothing ELSE coming up, we'll be heading to 7FL6, Spruce Creek, an airpark just south of Daytona Beach to FINALLY get the AYA checkout for solo flight.
From there, I'm probably going to head for Houston as soon as I can pack my stuff and drop my brother off. If there's weather between me and Houston, I'll see if I can pack cross-countries around Florida in. Hopefully it won't be in the fifties like my last foray down there!
What do I need to do in ten days?
I need 34 hours, 22 of which must be cross-country. (that's ambitious but doable in ten days.)
2 hours of this must be a single night VFR cross-country.
One of the cross-countries must be solo, at least 250 nm from the point of origin, with 3 stops, and be at least 300 nm long. (Thus Houston, unless you want to suggest another destination 300 nm from Valdosta, GA.)
I also need 3 more hours of night on top of the night cross-country, with another 9 landings at fields at night where the tower is still open. (VLD and MCN have towers, but when you take off after dinner from PDK at 11pm, the towers go and close before you get to the fields! So that trip didn't count for landings.)
Tomorrow, weather permitting and nothing ELSE coming up, we'll be heading to 7FL6, Spruce Creek, an airpark just south of Daytona Beach to FINALLY get the AYA checkout for solo flight.
From there, I'm probably going to head for Houston as soon as I can pack my stuff and drop my brother off. If there's weather between me and Houston, I'll see if I can pack cross-countries around Florida in. Hopefully it won't be in the fifties like my last foray down there!
What do I need to do in ten days?
I need 34 hours, 22 of which must be cross-country. (that's ambitious but doable in ten days.)
2 hours of this must be a single night VFR cross-country.
One of the cross-countries must be solo, at least 250 nm from the point of origin, with 3 stops, and be at least 300 nm long. (Thus Houston, unless you want to suggest another destination 300 nm from Valdosta, GA.)
I also need 3 more hours of night on top of the night cross-country, with another 9 landings at fields at night where the tower is still open. (VLD and MCN have towers, but when you take off after dinner from PDK at 11pm, the towers go and close before you get to the fields! So that trip didn't count for landings.)
IFR doesn't mean I Follow Road?
Went flying Saturday, from VLD to PDK (Atlanta-area airport), met with friends from studentpilot.com. Had a great time putting faces to names, and names to net handles. Flight was very IFR; I was in the clouds from 600 feet after takeoff until coming down over Atlanta. GPS died - low battery - on the way there, but was moderately helpful. Cannot figure out an easy way to get intersections ino the flight plan, making it very annoying to use as an IFR backup. There's probably a way, and I just haven't figured it out yet.
Going into the clouds was disconcerting as always - got the leans, and had to fight between my body saying we were in a hard left climbing turn, and my brain knowing that the instruments reporting we were still climbing straight ahead were correct. It's very hard to ignore your inner ear!
Lateral stability on the AA-1B is an interesting thing; as there's no "both" option, it shifts as we burn fuel from left tank or right tank. Climbing off the ground with both tanks full, the airplane leaned to the right because my brother is bigger and heavier than me. As we burned gas off the right tank, at some point, it started leaning to the left.
Broke out in a layer between clouds, and the top layer became thin high cirrus as we went further north. It was beautiful. I could see where air currents were stronger, as the mostly smooth cloud top started to bunch, then ripple in waves of disturbance headed out to the eastern horizon. As dusk came, the western side of the world was lit in beautiful colors - but starting in the northeast, the peculiar gray of haze anddusk combined to leave the sensation of a completely blank section of the sky - a growing nothing that was eating the world.
PDK and dinner was very fun, and good times were had by all. Net friends are an odd mix - in so many ways I know people, but then had no ideas of their ages, faces, or mannerisms. Conversation was easy, though: we were all pilots or patient and wonderful spouses of pilots, so flying and planes was the topic of the night.
Going back was harder - the weather went down instead of up at Valdosta while we were gone, and it required careful thought and a commitment to staying overnight in a hotel before taking off. Atlanta at night is beautiful - and while I was flying, my brother was having plenty of fun sightseeing the congestion as the world's busiest passenger airport slid under our wings on climbout. We had barely gotten up when we started descending again to Macon for more fuel. We'd topped the tanks at PDK, but in order to run the weather around Valdosta, we wanted to start with full tanks at the last clear point on the way home.
Ever driven with your headlights off? It's easier on an airfield as there are lights to define the edges, but it's a lot more challenging when your taxi light burns out. Ahem. Not that I know personally; a friend told me so.
But anyway, we found the FBO, and got marshalled in - a surprise, since they were supposed to be closed at 10pm. The line guys came over after engine shutdown and directed us to the self-serve across the field, with apologies and promises that it was cheaper gas. They were there, it turns out, because a presidential candidate was going to be flying in later - this also explained all the cop cars around. So we started the engine, taxiied over, and fill up from the other side of the field.
Flying home was better - it strongly reminded me of driving. When I first started to drive, after I'd gotten my pilot's license, I hated driving with a passion. Everything always happened so fast, with people coming out of nowhere and screaming by you with less than two feet's clearance. Only when I got out on the highway and had time to relax behind the wheel did I start to feel safe or calm about it. Well, holding heading and altitude while tracking VOR radials in the sky for hours on end will get me accustomed to not being able to see a [self-censored] thing out the windows.
Landing, though, showed one of the biggest differences between IFR training and actual IFR flight - in training, you have a hood or goggles fashioned to be blinders on, and you're not allowed to look outside until the instructor deems you can. In the clouds, flying that fine-tuned localizer beacon one degree wide to track down to the runway, you do look out the window. And when the black world suddenly imparted a dimly glowing streak about halfway up my windshield and a little right, I didn't have to worry about small course changes, trying to fine-tune that needle on the proper dot - I steered for the runway lights that were glowing a welcome home.
We didn't so much break out of the clouds as go from nothing to fuzzy dime lights to bright lights blurred by mist and rain, but at a point (I wasn't looking at the altimeter, I was looking at the VASI, the glide slope lights directing me in at a safe angle), they became sharp and clear, and I was coming in fine, if a little fast, for landing. Down, down into the dark, trusting that the lights ringing the runway defined the edges and made a surface for me to land on. Then we were down, and taxiin to the ramp. It was 1:30am, and we just might get home before the promised "We'll be home by 2am, or we'll spend the night at a hotel and call you in the morning." to his wife.
Who, as it turned out, was up because the teething baby was sick and cranky. So our quietly slipping in the door was met with a big hug and a kiss for him. :-)
Going into the clouds was disconcerting as always - got the leans, and had to fight between my body saying we were in a hard left climbing turn, and my brain knowing that the instruments reporting we were still climbing straight ahead were correct. It's very hard to ignore your inner ear!
Lateral stability on the AA-1B is an interesting thing; as there's no "both" option, it shifts as we burn fuel from left tank or right tank. Climbing off the ground with both tanks full, the airplane leaned to the right because my brother is bigger and heavier than me. As we burned gas off the right tank, at some point, it started leaning to the left.
Broke out in a layer between clouds, and the top layer became thin high cirrus as we went further north. It was beautiful. I could see where air currents were stronger, as the mostly smooth cloud top started to bunch, then ripple in waves of disturbance headed out to the eastern horizon. As dusk came, the western side of the world was lit in beautiful colors - but starting in the northeast, the peculiar gray of haze anddusk combined to leave the sensation of a completely blank section of the sky - a growing nothing that was eating the world.
PDK and dinner was very fun, and good times were had by all. Net friends are an odd mix - in so many ways I know people, but then had no ideas of their ages, faces, or mannerisms. Conversation was easy, though: we were all pilots or patient and wonderful spouses of pilots, so flying and planes was the topic of the night.
Going back was harder - the weather went down instead of up at Valdosta while we were gone, and it required careful thought and a commitment to staying overnight in a hotel before taking off. Atlanta at night is beautiful - and while I was flying, my brother was having plenty of fun sightseeing the congestion as the world's busiest passenger airport slid under our wings on climbout. We had barely gotten up when we started descending again to Macon for more fuel. We'd topped the tanks at PDK, but in order to run the weather around Valdosta, we wanted to start with full tanks at the last clear point on the way home.
Ever driven with your headlights off? It's easier on an airfield as there are lights to define the edges, but it's a lot more challenging when your taxi light burns out. Ahem. Not that I know personally; a friend told me so.
But anyway, we found the FBO, and got marshalled in - a surprise, since they were supposed to be closed at 10pm. The line guys came over after engine shutdown and directed us to the self-serve across the field, with apologies and promises that it was cheaper gas. They were there, it turns out, because a presidential candidate was going to be flying in later - this also explained all the cop cars around. So we started the engine, taxiied over, and fill up from the other side of the field.
Flying home was better - it strongly reminded me of driving. When I first started to drive, after I'd gotten my pilot's license, I hated driving with a passion. Everything always happened so fast, with people coming out of nowhere and screaming by you with less than two feet's clearance. Only when I got out on the highway and had time to relax behind the wheel did I start to feel safe or calm about it. Well, holding heading and altitude while tracking VOR radials in the sky for hours on end will get me accustomed to not being able to see a [self-censored] thing out the windows.
Landing, though, showed one of the biggest differences between IFR training and actual IFR flight - in training, you have a hood or goggles fashioned to be blinders on, and you're not allowed to look outside until the instructor deems you can. In the clouds, flying that fine-tuned localizer beacon one degree wide to track down to the runway, you do look out the window. And when the black world suddenly imparted a dimly glowing streak about halfway up my windshield and a little right, I didn't have to worry about small course changes, trying to fine-tune that needle on the proper dot - I steered for the runway lights that were glowing a welcome home.
We didn't so much break out of the clouds as go from nothing to fuzzy dime lights to bright lights blurred by mist and rain, but at a point (I wasn't looking at the altimeter, I was looking at the VASI, the glide slope lights directing me in at a safe angle), they became sharp and clear, and I was coming in fine, if a little fast, for landing. Down, down into the dark, trusting that the lights ringing the runway defined the edges and made a surface for me to land on. Then we were down, and taxiin to the ramp. It was 1:30am, and we just might get home before the promised "We'll be home by 2am, or we'll spend the night at a hotel and call you in the morning." to his wife.
Who, as it turned out, was up because the teething baby was sick and cranky. So our quietly slipping in the door was met with a big hug and a kiss for him. :-)
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