Flying Man

Extra! Extra! Gull Loses Battle With Tiger! Tiger Wounded!

2009-11-23T08:47:00.009-04:00

One of my oldest friends came to visit us the weekend before Thanksgiving. I'd spoken to Mara over the last several years about flying, but we had never been able to go up. This time we had time in the weekend and the weather was good. We decided to go to Tangier Island, a little speck of an island out in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay.

I had heard that it was quaint and a fun place to visit. There had been an article in a recent publication highlighting the little island, and pilots from my flying club annually participated in the "Holly Run" to deliver evergreens to the island's inhabitants for the Christmas season.

It was a beautiful day, although a little windy and hazier than I would have liked for Mara. Still, our ride was smooth as we headed across the Chesapeake Bay. About an hour after leaving Gaithersburg, we approached the island from the eastern shore of the bay.

The island did look cute, and it was neat to see old hulls of ships and boats submerged around the island. It made me wonder how the original inhabitants happened to set up their village; were they shipwreck survivors?

There was a flock of seagulls in the grass to the left of the runway as we approached to land. I trusted them to fly away from us, i.e., further to our left, so I wasn't worried. I saw them scatter as we approached, then heard a loud bang. I knew what had happened, and I was mad. We were perhaps 10-20 above the runway and slowing through 70 knots, so I just continued our landing. Fly the airplane....

Our touchdown was uneventful, but there was definite damage to the left wing.

I needed time to sort out what to do. There is no FBO, no mechanic, not even a fuel pump on Tangier Island. It's just a runway. And I had no cell phone signal.

We set off to explore the island a bit and look for a land-line. That was when we realized that it was really the off-season and there was nothing open....

I finally found a spot where the cell phone signal made it across the bay to give me one "bar" on my iphone, so I called a couple people I knew. I'd like to highlight how happy I am that aviators are a community, and there were people I could call. The first couple of people didn't answer, but then I reached my flight instructor. I described the damage to him and he told me it would be fine to fly home. Then I called an airplane mechanic we know, who also said it would be safe for me to fly home.

They both agreed, however, with the sentiments of another pilot who had landed and provided his opinion as to what we should do. He told me that I should leave Mara on the ground, take off, fly around a little, and if everything was okay I should come back to land and pick her up. The corollary, which went unsaid, was that if everything was not okay, I would not come back to land and pick her up. This might seem a little dramatic: it's just a dent, after all. But airplanes fly because of the shape of their wings, and when you change the shape of one wing, funny things can happen.

Mara wanted to go with me. But here's the kicker -- she was four months pregnant. Even with the opinions of my flight instructor and mechanic that the airplane would fly safely, there was no way I was going to take off for a "test" flight with Mara on board.

I taxied down the runway, past my deceased assailant, turned around, and took off.

It was an anticlimax. The airplane flew perfectly, so I landed, picked up Mara, and we headed home.

Mara flew us most of the way home.

While she flew, I enjoyed the scenery. There was a beautiful sunset off our left wing, which kept drawing my eyes to the damage....

We landed uneventfully at Gaithersburg, tied the plane down, and went to meet Jodie for dinner. It was the beginning of a two-month, tedious saga to get the wing fixed, but a good end to an adventurous day. We were home safe and sound, and that's more than I can say for the gull....

Got My Cloudbusters Badge!

2009-11-05T07:57:00.018-04:00

On March 22, 2007, Mr. Robert Gawler, an FAA-designated examiner, wrote in my logbook: "Private Pilot Check Ride Satisfactory." I wrote about that here.

On the first Tuesday of November, he wrote: "Instrument Check Ride Satisfactory."

It took me a long time to accumulate the required hours of practice. That has been due to schedule, in part. Especially at the beginning, I had to coordinate my schedule with an instructor. In the latter half of my training, I could fly with a safety pilot, and my friends at the airport really stepped up to help.

It wasn't just schedule that made it take so long. In part, I just wanted to enjoy flying and looking out the windows. I wrote in March that, "[o]ne of the hardest parts of instrument training for me is that I miss the beauty of the world as seen from the air." It's so true, and that takes a lot of the fun away. For a recent example, on a recent flight I was looking at this:

My "hood" restricted my view to prevent me from looking outside. Meanwhile, my friend Gashaw, who was acting as my safety pilot, was looking at this:

Which would you prefer? Yeah, me too. So I dragged my feet. But then I flew with John, my instructor, and he endorsed me to take the checkride. The examiner was reported to be available Monday through Wednesday, so I emailed him to set a time.

The checkride was scheduled for 1 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon. I tried to take the whole day off, but I ended up working for a couple hours in the morning. Then I organized the airplane logs and tabbed pages that showed the required inspections. I tabbed pages of my 2009 volume of the FAA regulations (FAR/AIM). I tabbed pages of the current volume of the Airport/Facility Directory that show low-altitude preferred routes related to my assigned flight planning problem. I tabbed pages of my logbook to show my required training and endorsements.

When I had tabbed everything tabbable, I headed to the airport to meet Gashaw for lunch. He kept me company and talked about various topics that might come up during the oral exam. He assured me that I would do fine. (I wanted to believe him -- he spent over 7 hours in the plane as my safety pilot while I practiced under the hood.) While I was eating a sandwich, the FAA examiner came into the restaurant and joined our table. He spent a few minutes making me feel woefully unprepared (who knew that my 2009 regulations had been superseded with the release of revisions less than two weeks before?!?!), then suggested that I meet him in his office.

The oral exam went smoothly and was over before I knew it, even though it was well over an hour. I learned a few things, but for the most part it went just like the discussions I've been having with other IFR geeks. "What do you do if....?"

Then I almost didn't fly because the winds were so strong - stronger than forecast, and gusting heavily - but they were scheduled to lighten up. I went and drove around for a while, then went back to the airport. I sat in the car trying to decide whether to continue with the checkride. The winds on the ground were strong, but right down the runway. What worried me was that they were forecast to be over 30 knots at 3,000 feet. I was leaning toward postponing the checkride when John knocked on the car window. He encouraged me to go do the checkride and reminded me that I'd been practicing in worse conditions. That was just the vote of confidence I needed, so I went in to tell the examiner we would be flying after all.....

* * * * *

Now here's the part you'll want to skip unless you're (a) interested in the ins and out of instrument flying, and (b) familiar with the airspace around and to the north of Washington, DC. I'm recounting exactly what we did because I don't want to forget, but it will be boring to most people who might read this.

We took off on Runway 32. Immediately after take-off, the DE told me to put on the hood, then had me fly on a heading of north and climb to 3,000 feet. After a few minutes, ATC called and told us to squawk 1200 because we were outside the DC-area SFRA. Immediately, the DE took the controls and told me to put my head down. I felt him maneuver the airplane for an unusual attitude. "Your plane," he said. I looked up. The attitude indicator was covered with a suction cup. No problem -- I barely use it for anything anyway. I got the airplane flying straight and level again within a few seconds. "Again," he said. I looked down....

We did three recoveries from unusual attitudes, all with the attitude indicator covered. I finished each recovery back on altitude and heading, so may have also demonstrated my ability to do more than recover from unusual attitudes, because he didn't have me do any maneuvers. He removed the suction cup and gave me a clearance: "Tiger 244, you are cleared to Carroll County airport, expect the RNAV 16 approach. Proceed direct HYPER.

I programmed the GPS and headed to HYPER. Given our position and heading, I told him I would do a parallel entry to the holding pattern. He just said, "Okay." I'd been hoping for some affirmation, but I flew on. I entered the hold then started inbound. I had a strong tailwind, and was moving quickly across the ground, but I stayed on course and started the first descent.

"Tiger 244, I have an amended clearance for you. Advise when ready," the DE said. I was in the middle of the approach, dive-bombing to get down because of the tailwind, but I just said, "Ready to copy."

"After NISPL, turn to a heading of East and climb to 3,000 feet. Intercept the 360 radial of the Westminster VOR, then fly a 5 mile arc to the 293 radial outbound."

I read back the instruction, then got to work. This required me to switch from GPS navigation to VOR navigation, which meant getting the VOR configured and reconfiguring the HSI as I began my left turn and climb. It was a busy few moments, and there wasn't much time because of the tailwind, but I did it. A few minutes later and we were flying outbound on the EMI 293 radial.

The DE cleared me next for the ILS 23 into Frederick. Because of the strong winds from the Northwest, airplanes in the pattern at Frederick were using Runway 30. And the wind shear was a bit gnarly. It wasn't terribly bumpy, but there was a cross-wind for this approach that dropped about 20 knots in wind-speed in just 1,000 feet. The whole approach was one long exercise in cross-wind correction.

I was a bit worried about the traffic using the intersecting runway, so I was ready when the DE told me to level off at 1,200 feet (DH is 684) and fly the back-course outbound. Once we were clear of the traffic pattern for Runway 30, the DE told me to climb and begin the missed approach. As I was making the prescribed, climbing left turn, he told me to look up. The sun had set and there was a huge, golden moon sitting on the horizon. I paused for only a moment to enjoy it, then looked back down at the instruments.

I had climbed back into the strong winds. The missed approach procedure has you climb straight ahead to 1,300 feet, then a climbing left turn to intercept the 047-radial outbound. Usually, if you begin the missed approach right at the DH on the glideslope, you are east of the VOR by the time you complete the left-hand climbing turn, which makes it easier to intercept the 047 radial. Because we had flown west for a while to get out of the traffic pattern for Runway 30, I ended up right in the cone of confusion over the VOR. I was worried about the winds blowing me south, so I over-corrected, and ended up north of the VOR as I flew outbound on a heading of 047. When I finally exited the cone of confusion, I turned south, but it took me all the way to RICKE to get back on the radial. I was never that far off course, and I told the DE what I was doing to correct. He didn't say anything. I flew the hold at RICKE twice, then the DE had me turn to a heading of 210 and call ATC for re-entry into the SFRA.

ATC assigned me a code, but ordered me to stay clear of the SFRA. The DE had given me a southwest heading, so I suggested that I circle until we were cleared back into the SFRA. He agreed. I flew circles and maintained altitude while we waited.

When ATC finally told us we could enter the SFRA, I was southeast of the Frederick VOR and heading northeast. The DE said, "Tiger 244, you are cleared for the VOR 14 approach to Gaithersburg."

"Cleared for the approach" typically means that you have to fly the whole approach. The initial approach fix (IAF) for the approach was the Frederick VOR, back to the northwest, so I instinctively started to turn toward it. But ATC wouldn't like us heading away from the SFRA.... So I asked for clarification and the DE told me to intercept the 155 radial. THAT made more sense, and I turned southwest.

Once I was inbound on the approach, I asked the DE.... The sun had set and it was now dark. Winds had died down a bit, but they were still around 10 knots from the northwest. We were on approach to Runway 14, the only runway at GAI with instrument approaches. And the approach plates say that circling to 32 is not allowed at night. What did he want me to do? The DE asked me what I would do if it were a real situation, so I reasoned it out....

I could land with a tailwind. But I hadn't calculated how much runway I would need, and it was certainly NOT the time to fish for the POH to do the calculations while I was in IFR conditions (simulated) at night (not simulated). If I were in VFR conditions, I could cancel IFR and fly a normal pattern. Or I could ask to divert to a different airport. I told the DE that in real conditions, I would ask for a diversion. He agreed.

When we got close to the airport, the DE asked me what my normal traffic pattern airspeeds were, then gave me instructions. Heading, altitude, 90 knots.... Heading, altitude, 80 knots.... Then he told me to look up, and Runway 32 was right in front of me.

* * * * *

I landed and taxied off the runway. The DE hadn't ended the checkride early, so I was pretty sure I had passed, but I felt pretty well whipped. "What do you think?" he asked when I had exited the runway. "That was tough," I said. "Yes it was," he replied. "Don't screw it up between here and your parking spot." I grinned.

Instrument checkride satisfactory.

A Few Cool Photos....

2009-10-26T16:41:00.003-03:00

These are a few cool photos my friend Gashaw took last night during my instrument practice. I flew again tonight with another friend. Only 0.4 hours left, plus an instructor signoff. If I fly with my instructor and satisfy him, I'm ready to go.

Flying the Wings Off

2009-10-23T10:06:00.006-03:00

I'm very close to completing my instrument rating. My biggest challenge for this rating has been making/finding time to keep practicing. On Monday and Tuesday of this week I made a big push, though, and put in 6.7 hours of "hood time" in a 24-hour period with three different safety pilots. Total flying time was about 7.5 hours.

By the time I finished 4.5 hours of hood time on Tuesday evening, I was exhausted. It was about 8:30 or 9 p.m., I'd been flying since around 2:30, with only one break in the middle. I spent almost all of that time staring at the needles on the gauges, keeping the airplane on course, on altitude, and en route to the correct destination via the correct procedure. I was grateful that airplanes don't get tired, and was wishing that I didn't either.

I now need only 3.9 hours more to meet the minimum hour requirement, and my instructor needs to make the formal recommendation to the FAA for me to take the exam. I'll fly with him Saturday morning, use up some of the 3.9 hours I need and get a prognosis on when I should take the exam. In the meanwhile, I'm studying in every spare moment for the oral portion of the exam.

If all goes well, it could be as early as this next week....

Just the Way He Dreamed It

2009-09-30T19:23:00.004-03:00

Here's another of my favorite articles. I got thinking about it after re-reading the Star Wars article earlier, and spent forty minutes looking for it. I'm posting it here so I don't have to go looking for it again....

* * * * *

AOPA Pilot
June 2005 Volume 48 / Number 6

Just the Way He Dreamed It
Offering the flight of a lifetime
By ALAN COCKRELL

I'm not too thrilled about taking strangers up for joy rides. The liability thing worries me. Sure, I've got insurance but a million dollars isn't enough these days, and that's all I could get. I'm an airplane owner so I'm supposed to be rich, right? They'd sue me into the Stone Age. So why did I take him up?

In the first place, he looked a little seedy, and I didn't know quite what to think about that. He was wearing construction boots, heavily weathered jeans, and a blue work shirt that apparently had seen some pretty laborious duty. His shirt was partially unbuttoned, revealing a T-shirt with a pair of crossed red bars with white stars in them. His fingernails were caked with black grease, or whatever, all around the edges. A ball cap topped a thick crop of shaggy jet-black hair. His neck was as red as the clay in the cotton fields here in Alabama, and the lower part of his face was covered with week-old stubble. Not to say that the pilots on this private airfield deck out in Armani and Gucci, but it was clear that this lad was a fish out of water here (see "Welcome to Moontown," May Pilot). Anyway, as far as I was concerned, he was just another passer-by who stopped to watch the airplanes.

I was fueling my Yakovlev Yak-52, Stack Doll, when he parked his truck and got out. I noticed him over there, hands in pockets, eyes riveted on the Yak, but I didn't give him much thought. Local people came here all the time to watch the airplanes but few ventured beyond the parking lot — not that anyone would have objected. I guess it's the feeling of not belonging that made them keep their distance. But then the guy approached.

"Y'all mind if I look at it?" he asked delicately, almost reverently. His voice was deep, slow, and very backwoodsy. He looked to be 25 to 30 years old.

"No," I said. "Go ahead."

He walked slowly around the Yak while I went into the office and settled up the gas bill. When I came out he asked, "What kind of airplane is it?"

I explained that it was from Russia, although it was actually built during the Soviet era and was used to train military pilots. He looked at me with a blank expression that made me wonder if he knew the terms ascribed to our former Cold War adversaries. He asked if it was mine. "Half of it," I cracked, loudly enough for the pilots sitting on the FBO benches to hear. "I own the back half. George, over there, owns the front half — that's the half that has all the moving parts." A round of chuckles and counter wisecracks issued from the bench, but the young countryman didn't smile. I wondered if he had gotten the joke.

"You mind if my wife and kids look at it?" he asked.

I looked in the direction he pointed and saw a young woman and two small kids standing in front of the stilted pickup with fat mud tires and — sure enough — a gun rack. "Sure," I said. He beckoned them over. The woman's face broke into a toothy grin and she ushered the children onto the ramp. The guy picked up his son and drew close to the Yak, telling him, "There it is, Connor. Look. There it is!" The mother took the daughter by the hand, bent over, and whispered something similar to the gawking girl.

The man then moved back in my direction. He said, "We live over yonder." He pointed to a distant mountain, visible from the field. "We been watching y'all." I nodded, wondering if I was about to be lambasted about airplane noise. That area was a favorite site for our aerobatics. He put the boy down and looked squarely at me. "I sit on my front steps every Sar'd'y mornin'. I watch y'all up there doin' flips and tips and loop-ti-loops and chasin' each other around, and all."

"I hope we don't disturb you," I said.

"Naw!" he drawled. "No way! I love to watch you. I look fow'rd to it. I hope for clear sky every Sar'd'y, 'cause I know y'all gonna be up there." That made me feel pretty good, but after answering a few more questions I got uneasy with him. I was afraid he would ask for a ride. I strolled over toward the bench where my flying buddies were hanging out. I wasn't comfortable with it — the lawsuit thing, you know. What if something happened?

But I was by no means through flying for the day. That oh-so-perfect Saturday was yet young and I was waiting for my old ex-fighter pilot buddy, Gordy, to get his Yak out so we could fly some formation. I'm always irked over Gordy's propensity to sit around drinking coffee and telling flying stories too long before he gets up, goes to his hangar, and drags his Yak out. And it takes him forever to preflight it. It's like he enjoys preflighting it, or something; I don't know. He's one of those guys who just savors airport time, as though standing around talking or working on the airplanes was as good as flying them.

While listening to Gordy argue with George over some tidbit of aviation wisdom, I kept looking back over my shoulder at the family, who was still eyeing Stack Doll. The guy looked my way and stepped over.

"What, uh...." His voice trailed off. He scratched his head and looked away. I knew it was coming. "What would it take to...maybe...I mean...you know, can I ride it?" The conversation on the benches died out and heads swiveled toward me. They were all grinning. They wanted to see him take the ride. I knew I was trapped. I had to do it. There was no way I could turn this humble country boy down.

"Let's go," I said. His eyes widened into dinner plates. He looked at his wife and his lips moved but no sound came out. He must have been afraid I would rescind my offer if he was too loud about it. His finger pointed up. She cringed and covered her mouth with her hands. She pulled the kids away.

I climbed up and pulled a parachute out of the rear cockpit and handed it down to him, saying, "Try this on for size." He grabbed it and wanted to know what it was.

When I told him what it was he yelled out to the woman and then the son. "It's a parachute! I gotta wear a parachute! Hear that, Connor? I'm wearin' a parachute!" I helped him into the rig and up onto the wing and into the rear pit. I strapped him in and briefed him on the harness quick release, the chute, the intercom system, the canopy operation, and the sick sack. Then I got in the front pit, strapped in, and started the engine. Suddenly it occurred to me that I didn't even know the guy's name. I asked him over the intercom.

That made me think again about how foolish this was. The liability thing is enormously important. I don't mean to say that I never carry passengers, just that I don't like carrying strangers. Sure, a close friend could sue you just as easily as any stranger — and that close friend's family probably would, if you caused his incapacitation or death. But it's an issue of degree, as I had always explained to my flying buddies. Reducing your exposure — that was the name of the game. Yeah, taking this strange dude aloft was absurd, but I couldn't turn him down. He just had a hungry look — hungry for something. I didn't know what.

We took off. I gave him a max-performance climb — the Yak goes up like a rocket, although I don't like to do that every time. A loss of power while you're hanging on the prop could be too interesting. I leveled off and headed straight for the mountain and found his trailer in short order. I climbed over it to a safe altitude and did a nice 1-G roll. He didn't even depress the intercom button, but I could hear him yell above the rumble of the engine as the green Earth lazily rotated over the top of the canopy and slid back underneath us again. I turned back over the trailer, and did a slow roll, making him go light in the harness. Then I did a snap roll. After that I got a little more altitude, carefully keeping the trailer underneath us, and picked up some speed.

I pulled up and climbed straight into the sun and arched over into the inverted position. I released back-pressure at the top of the loop to get that exalted floating feeling, when you feel you're just suspended inverted at the top of the world. Then I let the nose fall through and eased into a 4-G pull. As we pulled through the bottom of the loop I let the nose come up and did a quick double aileron roll. After the Earth and the sun concluded a wild tail chase with each other around the airplane, I heard him press the intercom button and yell, "This is just the way I dreamed it would be! Just the way! Just the way!"

I must admit, I choked up. Right there in the front pit of the Yak my eyes started watering. I knew this flight was something special.

We did a few more maneuvers and then I took him down the runway for a flyby. I saw his wife and kids standing beside the grass strip. Some of the local pilots had escorted them out there. I pulled up into a soaring pop-up climb to the downwind and brought Stack Doll around for grassy plop-down. I taxied up and shut down the big radial and helped him down and out of the parachute.

He was at a loss for words. He looked at me but simply couldn't speak. His bottom lip was kind of wrinkled. Finally with some difficulty he spoke softly, repeating what he had said when we completed the loop and double roll. "It was everything I dreamed it would be."

He reached for his wallet and wanted to know how much he owed me. I would hear nothing of it. I would just as soon die a slow torturous death listening to Gordy's stories than take that lad's money. He thanked me generously and headed for his truck.

I watched them drive away. I would never see them again. I thought about all the flying I had done over the years. I had flown fighters and transports. I had been a forestry pilot and an airline captain. I had carried at least a million passengers and thousands of tons of cargo. But this had to have been one of the most gratifying flights I had ever made. To give a man his dream must be the next best thing to giving him his soul.

But I definitely didn't have enough liability coverage for the soul thing.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alan Cockrell of Owens Cross Roads, Alabama, owns and flies a Yak-52.

Star Wars

2009-09-30T18:35:00.004-03:00

I did not write this, but I love it and I don't want to lose it, so I'm posting it here for safe keeping....

* * * * *

Why Buy An Airplane?
...fwd'd to me by Paul 'Rosie' Rosales

For those needing a reason of some kind for buying an Aircraft

I have read many posts on the web site from members and on MMAIL who are thinking about owning their own aircraft and looking for ways to offset the cost of ownership. I have heard many reasons for and against ownership. Why buy an aircraft? It's cheaper to rent and you do not have all the hassle with maintenance, fuel and insurance. Well, here is a little story that I think explains it all as to why I own my own airplane.

It was a beautiful Saturday morning. No winds and the temperature was just right. So instead of mowing the lawn like my wife had planned for me, I decided to go to the airport and take the Sport out for a run. She yells back at me, "WELL IF YOU GO, TAKE YOUR SON WITH YOU." So I ask my son. Want to go flying with dad? In which he says Yea, Can I take my light saber?

You see, my 9 year son thinks he is a Jedi Knight and that our Sport is his personal X-Wing fighter. He is only 4'5 and has to sit on a pillow in order to see over the glare shield and he always carries his light saber just in case we land on a strange planet in which there might be trouble or civil un-rest. Always prepared this one is. So away we go.

THERE I WAS....

We were straight and level at around 6,000ft and I let him take the controls of the X-Wing to do some turns to the left and right. Joshua Approach called and said there was traffic at our 2 o'clock 2 miles opposite direction and my son said to me "Look over there dad, Tie fighter coming right at us." I told him to steer clear of the Tie Fighter because our lasers were out for repair and we were un-armed. No reason to provoke a fight.

So even though he is having a blast, I am starting to get a little bored and thought, "Let's go do a practice approach on the ILS." So I called Joshua Approach, requested the ILS 25 Approach to Palmdale Full Approach and off we went. I maneuvered the X-Wing to the VOR and started the turn outbound to the outer marker. Now my son is just really enjoying this. At the outer marker, the blue light started to flash and you could hear the BEEP in the headset. My Son jumps in and said "That Tie Fighter has locked on to us." I said "That's Right" and I started my evasive maneuver on the procedure turn.

My Son is listening to the exchange between me and the controller and wants to chime in on the conversion. I said to my son, "Just hang on; I will give you a chance." I never should have said that because now he is all excited to talk on the radio. As I start to turn inbound on the turn, the Approach control said "Contact tower when established on the localizer." So I told my young Padawan Learner "OK, when this needle gets here on the dial, push the radio button and tell the tower that 93 Romeo is inbound on the localizer."

Now imagine this, I am giving basic instrument instruction to a 9 year old, I cannot get adults to say this during training. So before I can give him something simpler to say he keys the mike and says "REBEL BASE, THIS IS RED 5. WE ARE STARTING OUR ATTACK RUN ON THE DEATH STAR."

Good God.

Now this is post-9/11 and before I can key my mike and say anything, the tower jumps on and says "RED 5, YOUR CLEARED FOR THE APPROACH TO THE DEATH STAR. REPORT HITS AWAY."

Now I am waiting for the tower to add "And tell your dad to call this number" But I hear nothing else. So we continue the approach. Now my son is in heaven. This is real life stuff to him and he is doing everything I tell him to do as far as tracking the needle. As we approach the outer marker inbound, the light starts to flash and there is that tone again. "Dad, the Death Star has a lock on us." Yes Son, you keep on the approach, I will worry about the guns.

Everything is going great and now we are approaching the middle marker. My son has noticed the GPS has a red line with an airplane on it and it ends at the Death Star. So he asks me "IS THAT A TARGETING COMPUTER DAD?" Well of course it is, and it shows us where we are to the target. So now he hears Obewan tell him to USE THE FORCE SCOTT and he turns the GPS OFF. Tells me he is OK and does not need the targeting computer because he is using the FORCE.

Now the middle marker light flashes and the tone comes on. I apply full power and the airplane,,,X-Wing,,, Starts a climb. I start the turn to the missed approach path when my son keys the mike and says "HITS AWAY." The tower answers back with "GOOD JOB RED 5, CONTACT REBEL APPROACH ON 126.1."

We go back to Mojave SPACEPORT, and I decide that the X-Wing needs a bath. So out comes all the cleaning stuff and we spend the rest of the day washing and waxing the turbo jets and laser pods.

So you see. This is why I own my own aircraft. You cannot beat this kind of quality time with your kids. And there is no way you can put a price on that.

New England Wedding

2009-09-20T21:30:00.011-03:00

My buddy Eric, an old friend of about 18 years, married the love of his life this last weekend in Matunuck, Rhode Island. Jodie and I booked a room at a Bed & Breakfast and made plans to fly the Tiger up to Quonset State Airport (KOQU).

The Tiger has been at the avionics shop in Hagerstown, Maryland, having its autopilot worked on. The autopilot has been removed from the airplane and shipped to Oklahoma for overhaul. Not having an autopilot is not a big deal -- to the contrary, I've only ever flown one airplane that had a working autopilot, and the autopilot in the Tiger hasn't worked since I bought the plane, so.... no big deal. Jodie and I just drove up to Hagerstown and took the airplane from there on Saturday morning.

It was the type of day that pilots refer to as "CAVU." That stands for "ceiling and visibility unrestricted." In the photos below, you might think it looks a bit hazy. In all of these photos that look toward a horizon, we could see more than sixty miles. It may not be "Rocky Mountain Clear," but for the mid-Atlantic, this was "visibility unrestricted." As we approached New York, I saw Sandy Hook off our right wing. The last time I saw Sandy Hook was when I went to Farmingdale.

There were a LOT of airplanes in the air, and the air traffic controllers were so busy there wasn't a break to get a word in edgewise. It was our intent to fly right over Manhattan, so I kept working the radios and flipping frequencies until I could get a controller to talk to me.

* * * * *

I've had several people remark that they are surprised we could fly over New York City, so here's a quick primer on airspace. (If you want to skip it, just scroll down to the next break.) The atmosphere over the earth is divided into 3-dimensional sections of "airspace." The boundaries of different types of airspace are invisible, but they are very real to pilots and air traffic controllers. Those divisions help keep everyone safe.

"Class B" airspace, or "Bravo" in pilot lingo, is airspace around the busiest airports, such as Newark, La Guardia, and JFK. It is generally shaped like an upside-down wedding cake. There are rules for flying through Class B airspace -- the most important rule being that you must have permission (a "clearance") from Air Traffic Control. Without a clearance to fly into it, you can still fly around it, under it, or over it.

The Class B airspace around New York is clearly marked on the maps that pilots use to navigate. Here's a piece of the New York "sectional" chart that shows the Class B airspace....

I added the red squares around what look like fractions. Those fractions tell pilots what the dimensions -- the top and bottom -- of the Class B airspace are at various places. In this case, the top of the Class B airspace is 7,000 feet above sea level. Thus, to fly across New York without going into the Class B airspace, we had to stay above 7,000 feet. Following other FAA regulations, that meant that we would fly at 7,500 feet when flying to Rhode Island, and at 8,500 feet when flying back home. At those altitudes, we did not need permission from ATC and, in fact, did not even need to talk to them on the radio.

But there is following rules, and there is being smart. I couldn't even guess how many airplanes are in the skies over NYC at any given moment on a Saturday morning. Suffice it to say that the air traffic controllers sounded like auctioneers on every frequency I listened to -- and there are a LOT of frequencies.

* * * * *

So as we were approaching New York on this Saturday, I was busy flipping radio frequencies and talking to ATC to make sure they knew we were coming across. Meanwhile, Jodie took photos of our vistas of New York geography, like this one of Long Beach and Brooklyn in the distance, with Staten Island in the foreground.

The New York air traffic controllers are notoriously short on patience for students or other pilots who do not know - or who do not sound like they know - what they are doing. I was doing my best to be short, convey all the information, and sound like I was on top of my game. It worked, and we got radar services as we crossed Newark International Airport. I grabbed the camera for a quick shot.

We could see exactly how New York was laid out. We could see dozens of miles up the Hudson River, past the George Washington and Tappan Zee bridges. We could see beyond Manhattan, and the way that Long Island paralleled the Connecticut coast line into the distance.

As we approached the city itself, individual buildings and streets stood out in sharp relief.

Ground Zero was a very obvious hole in the cityscape.

Looking at the East River, I tried to understand what Cory Lidle had been thinking.... It still escapes me.

The last time I was at Liberty Island was probably 1994 or so.... And 1982 before that. Time to go back?

Central Park....
It was a treat to see New York like this. We flew the same route on the way back, too, though our camera battery was dead so we didn't get any pictures. In the image below, the green line is our course on the way east; the red line is our course on the way home the next day.

After crossing the city, we flew the length of Long Island Sound. Because our course took us across the sound at a very slight angle, it was more than 100 miles that we were over water, although we were never more than 10 miles from a shoreline. We descended to 500 feet over the ocean as we flew past the beach house where our friends were preparing for the wedding, then skimmed the water to a landing at Quonset State Airport. A lineman motioned us to a parking spot while another lineman pulled our rental car up to the plane. Minutes later we drove off the airport toward the bed & breakfast.

The wedding was beautiful. It was a touching and very happy time, seeing a beloved friend marry someone he obviously loves dearly. And although I don't yet know her well, it was very satisfying to see such similar sentiments from his bride.

The wedding went late into the evening, but we woke in time for breakfast and a walk through the small town of Narragansett. I found a used bookstore where I picked up some old books on aviation and was tempted to purchase an autograph by Charles Lindbergh. Then we said goodbye to our friends and headed to the airport.

Quonset State Airport is an Air and Army National Guard base in addition to a general aviation airport. Shortly after we had arrived, a C-130 had taken off (after what looked like a 600-foot takeoff roll!). There was a whole line of Army Hueys behind our plane, and they were arriving and departing as we loaded the plane.

I also caught sight of this plane, which I can't identify....

We loaded up and took off over the water at 2:03 p.m., staying low for a few miles as we headed south and then southwest.

We passed the island where we would like to live in our next life....

Beyond Jamestown, Newport was visible off our left wing, with a cruise ship visible in the harbor.

Our camera battery went dead as we turned toward home over Long Island Sound. Jodie fell asleep as we climbed to 8,500 feet and I enjoyed the spectacular views alone. Alone, that is, except for the constant chatter of ATC and a thousand jets that were taking off from the New York airports. ATC called every few minutes, "Grumman 28244, traffic is at your 10 o'clock and 2 miles, an Airbus 319 climbing to 8,000 feet only." I watched many large jets passing by, perhaps a mile or two away. One in particular passed across our path ahead, 500 feet below our altitude. I listened as ATC called to the plane -- "Northwest 469, you are clear of the Grumman traffic, left turn to three four zero, climb to one zero thousand." I watched as the nose came up on the airplane and it banked away. I looked down to confirm we were still holding course and altitude. When I looked back up, Northwest 469 had disappeared into the vast, blue sky on its way to Minneapolis. (Out of curiosity, I looked up the flight later.)

Jodie woke as we flew over the Pennsylvania countryside. It was approaching four o'clock. There's a decent Italian restaurant at the airport in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, just a half hour short of our destination. We landed and had good pasta on the outside deck, then took off again for the short flight to Hagerstown and our car.

It was a beautiful trip. With the exception of the last ten minutes of our flight east, the air was smooth and free of clouds the whole trip. What would have been a 7- or 8-hour drive was two and a half hours of the most beautiful scenery. Good travels.

Soupy!

2009-09-07T21:39:00.006-03:00

My instrument rating is dragging on and on and on. There has been a lot going on, though, and I just haven't had time to log the hours I need. Last week my instrument instructor gave me a prod by email and voicemail, so we scheduled to do some flying Saturday. Since I hadn't been under a hood in two months, I called around and got my friend Gashaw to act as safety pilot for a quick practice jaunt on Friday evening.

It was a gorgeous evening. I skipped the first part of the beauty by putting on my hood right after takeoff. I flew us up to the Westminster VOR and then flew the VOR 34 instrument approach to the Carroll County Airport.

Flipping up my hood, I brought the Tiger in for a short-field landing, then raised the flaps, enrichened the fuel mixture, and shoved the throttle to the wall. After a short run down the runway, it felt like we were sitting on our backs in our Vx climb, and I circled around for another touch and go. The second landing was even better -- the wheels just lightly kissed the runway, and we heard the wheels rolling on the tarmac before we felt a touchdown. Flaps up, mixture in, full throttle, and we lifted off. I was grinning all over myself from the last landing, so Gashaw flew us home.

On Saturday morning, John and I took off. I put on the hood moments after liftoff, and we headed for Westminster. I flew a good hold entry for the VOR 34 into Carroll County, followed by a missed approach and hold, then the GPS 35 into York, Pennsylvania. We did the missed approach out of York, and then John gave me vectors and instructions back home. It was a good flight, and John said I did well.

It was Labor Day weekend, and I didn't need to work Monday morning. On Sunday afternoon, the forecast was for overcast weather with cloud ceilings at around 600-1,000 feet above the ground. Importantly, there were no thunderstorms in the forecast. I called John, who agreed to meet me Monday morning at 9 a.m., rain or shine.

The flight was a typical instrument training flight out of Gaithersburg: the VOR 34 approach into Carroll County, the ILS 23 into Frederick, then the GPS 14 back into Gaithersburg. What was new for me is that I never put on the hood.

A lot happened in the hour and a quarter that we were flying. Vectors for traffic, re-routes, altitude increases and decreases.... Even John wasn't sure why ATC was doing what they were doing at times. For me, I had four moments where.... Well, I never panic in an airplane. But if I was going to panic, there were four times when I would have done so.

First, when we ascended into the clouds. Imagine you're just a thousand feet above the ground, flying at 120 miles per hour. Then all of a sudden you can't see anything. And it's different than being under the hood, simply because of the knowledge that you can't just flip up the hood and see again. You are COMMITTED to flying the airplane just by looking at the little round gauges. You either do it or (forgetting the instructor in the right seat), you are likely to crash. That realization flashed through my head, I got the "when the going gets tough" mentality, and on we flew.

Shortly thereafter, ATC had us climb to an altitude where we were just dragging our landing gear in the tops of the clouds. Overwhelming sensation: BRIGHT. To go from dark and dreary overcast to bright sun was hard on the eyes. I need better sunglasses. My second "moment-when-I-felt-like-panicking," however, came when we were instructed to descend back into the clouds. It felt like rising water, and I caught myself straining my head up as the clouds enveloped the cockpit from the bottom up. I might even have held my breath as we went under....

I had my third "moment-when-I-would-have-panicked" as we neared Carroll County on the VOR 34 approach. We descended to the MDA -- minimum descent altitude -- and we were still in the clouds. No airport, just cloud. This should be no big deal, as we train for this all the time and practice "missed approaches" on every flight. Still, we're usually looking at the airport that is plainly visible and just pretending -- "Oh, well, no airport, guess we better do the missed approach!" In practice, it's an almost cheerful, make-believe event. In real life, it's different -- you can't land if you want to. You want to get on the ground? Well, that door is closed. Now what are you going to do?

My last moment-of-unsettlement came when we had been flying almost an hour. I had successfully flown the ILS approach to Frederick, had pretended we couldn't see the runway, and had ascended back into the clouds. Just as we were levelling off at our altitude, and turning to intercept a VOR radial, we got a clearance from air traffic control that required me to jot notes on the clearance, turn the plane, reduce power, reprogram the GPS, change altitude, and talk back on the radio. At the same time, John was talking to me about something. I was juggling it all when I cross-checked my instruments and saw we were in a steep bank and descending at 1,000 feet per minute. Right then is when I could have panicked if I were so inclined.

Keep in mind -- we're in the clouds. No autopilot. There are no visual or "seat of the pants" cues that we were not flying straight and level. A passenger would never have known anything. It was all happening very fast and we had lost less than 100 feet of altitude. I don't even know how it happened that the airplane got into that attitude so quickly.

But okay, no big deal. Rule Number One: FLY THE AIRPLANE. I stopped everything else to right the airplane. John hadn't noticed the unusual attitude -- or if he had, he wasn't letting on. He kept talking, telling me to do something -- change radio frequencies, finish programming the GPS, something. "John, let me fly the airplane, and I'll get to that in a second," I said. He fell silent. Five seconds later, everything was back to normal, I finished what needed to be done, and we successfully flew the approach to Gaithersburg.

We broke out of the clouds about 200 feet above the MDA and landed straight in. I was sweating, but I was absolutely exhilarated. I had flown an airplane. In the clouds. From one airport to another. Safely.

I spent the rest of the day pointing at the sky and saying to Jodie, "See those clouds? I flew IN them."

No B-17

2009-08-19T10:27:00.012-03:00

My dad is and always has been a fan of airplanes, big and small. For his 65th birthday in May, we bought him a ticket for a ride on Aluminum Overcast, the B-17 operated by the Experimental Aircraft Organization. The ride was to be given from Republic Airport in Farmingdale, New York, just east of JFK International Airport on Long Island. My dad drove down from Maine. I was determined to be there, so I took the Tiger and set out for Farmingdale to meet him.

The weather forecasts were not good, but his ride was scheduled for 9:15 a.m. Thunderstorms weren't forecast until after 2 p.m. I thought I could get up early, fly up, be there for his ride, catch a late breakfast, then leave for home well before two o'clock. I was completely wrong.

The first part of the flight was beautiful, with just the beginning of the haze that's typical for mid-Atlantic summer days.

Northeast past Atlantic City and Philadelphia, I flew over McGuire Air Force Base. Air traffic control called me: "Grumman 28244, your traffic will be a flight of two C-130s." I could see them about to take off on the hazy runway below.

I crossed the shoreline just south of Sandy Hook for the 25-mile flight across the water. There was little but gray ahead, but the clouds had a cool dappling effect near the shore.

Sandy Hook

As I flew toward the invisible shore, cargo ships and tankers appeared, ghost-like, out of the haze.

I landed, parked the plane, and walked over toward the very obvious B-17 sitting across the ramp.

Alas, it turned out that the B-17 was having problems with its landing gear. They thought it might fly in a couple hours, so my dad and I took a guided tour of the museum. I need to go back to this museum someday. It appears staffed largely by volunteers, including several men who flew the airplanes during WWII. They know the airplanes down to the rivet, and it was cool to hear stories about their experiences.

My dad and I had lunch, joined by my aunt and cousin who lived nearby. The B-17 was not going to fly, we learned, so I headed for home. It was blazing hot and very hazy. The weather report showed massive thunderstorms covering the route I had taken on my way up. The only way I could get home was to head west into Pennsylvania, then try to head south west of the storms.

Jones Beach Monument

I had thought of JFK Jr. as I had made the earlier flight across the water, but the conditions were even worse as I headed west. It was VFR weather -- not a cloud in the sky and more than 3 miles visibility -- but there was not a hint of a visible horizon. In the picture below, you can see the shore of Long Beach as it fades, right to left, into invisibility in the haze. There was a period of 8-10 minutes when there was no shore visible through the haze. But for the rippling of the waves I could make out on the water only 1,000 feet directly below me, the world was gray and completely indistinct from horizon to horizon. I was comfortable, but very grateful for my instrument training.

I crossed Sandy Point again and headed west toward Princeton, climbing up to 6,500 feet once I was clear of Newark's airspace. Above the haze, there were cumulous clouds all around, and massive thunderstorms in the distance.

The haze grew thicker as I headed south, and it felt like I was treading the surface of it.

I skirted one huge and dangerous-looking buildup and watched my GPS screen as a line of storms moved across my path ahead.

Peering into the haze ahead, I realized that visibility was getting poor enough that I couldn't be certain I wouldn't fly dangerously close to one of the storms in my path. I called air traffic control and told them I was going to divert and land at an airport just ahead because of the storms. "I was just going to talk to you about those storms," the controller said.

I spiralled down through the haze and entered downwind for Chester County Airport as a Citation jet took off. The wind on the ground was light, but the winds aloft were quite strong. I didn't like the way the shear affected my lineup on final, so I went around to try again, then landed as thunder rolled in the distance.

I spent an hour in the Flying Machine cafe, sipping cokes and eating wings, then checked the weather again. The line of storms that had earlier blocked my path was now over Baltimore and southeast of the route I needed to fly. More storms were to the west, but there was a nice opening along my route, so I took off to continue home.

My GPS (above) showed more storms moving toward my destination, and my StrikeFinder (below) showed lots of activity on both sides of my flight path, but both devices showed me to be in the clear as long as I flew direct.

I kept the power up and booked it for home, admiring the huge anvil clouds in the distance.

I landed about 5:00, three hours later than I had hoped. While I had been waiting at Chester County, I had written online that I had made it up to Long Island, but only halfway back. As I drove away from the airport, I got a response from another pilot: "At least you made it somewhere." True enough. The day was definitely one on which technology -- my GPS and StrikeFinder, in particular -- along with some conservative decision-making, triumphed over complex weather. And even though my dad didn't get the B-17 ride he'd been planning for, I got to see him for lunch, which isn't something that happens often since we live 500 miles apart. The trip was worthwhile for that alone.

Home Solo

2009-08-16T22:01:00.002-03:00

My brother and his family moved to Knoxville, Tennessee. I have to admit I'm a little bit jealous, as I love Knoxville. It also happens to be where my wife grew up, so it's become familiar over the last several years. It's a big change from Maine, and a long way, so my brother and his family needed a place to stay on their way down. Washington, DC, is about half way, so they came and stayed with us. My mom and dad came too, as they were helping with the move. In the end, after two nights at our (2 bedroom) condo, we all headed from Washington, DC, to Knoxville last Sunday. My brother and his family went in one car. My dad drove another car. My mom, Jodie, and I took the Tiger.

We had a beautiful flight down to the Knoxville Downtown Island Airport (KDKX). Both Jodie and my mom nodded off and slept while I climbed up to 10,500 feet to get above the clouds, haze, and heat. As we approached the Tri-Cities area, I spiraled down to get under the clouds and we flew the last 45 minutes down the valley.

The moving company didn't show up until four days later than promised, so we didn't get to help actually move stuff into the house my brother and his wife are renting. We did, though, get to spend good quality time with my nephews, paint and clean the house, relax with my family and Jodie's, and eat LOTS of watermelon.

Jodie flew home by airline on Tuesday night to be at work on Wednesday. I started looking for openings in the weather. While the weather in Knoxville and at home wasn't that bad, it was pretty awful weather in between. Finally it appeared that Thursday afternoon could work. A batch of thunderstorms was moving through Virginia. Worst case, it looked like I could head north into West Virginia, then cut east on the north side of the weather.

I took off in 95-degree heat on Thursday afternoon, with a wave to my brother and little nephews who had come to the airport to see me go. Heading northeast, towering cumulus clouds indicative of strong thunderstorms were ahead and to the right of my course. As it happened, though, I never had to deviate because of the clouds and just enjoyed the cloud-scape along my route.

One of the requirements to get a Commercial Pilot Certificate is to complete a solo cross-country flight of more than 300 nautical miles. The flight has to take you at least 250 nautical miles from your point of departure, and there have to be at least two landings along the way.

It is about 380 nautical miles from Knoxville to Gaithersburg. So for this flight to qualify, all I had to do was land at a couple airports along the way. In southern Virginia, I was passing by an airport that Jodie and I had landed at a year ago in on our first trip in the Tiger: Pulaski (KPSK). As I approached Pulaski from the south, I decided to descend and follow I-81 as it curved around the hills south of Pulaski. I called on the radio to tell them I would be landing, and a soft southern drawl answered that there were no airplanes ahead of me. "And welcome to Pulaski."

The man who refueled the airplane, and who had welcomed me over the radio, remembered me from my stop a year ago, and even remembered that Jodie and I had turned back and landed there because of bad weather ahead. After a nice chat and a cup of bad coffee, I took off and headed north for Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport (KSHD). A quick stop at the vending machine for a Zagnut bar, and I continued on, following the Shenandoah Valley north to the airport in Front Royal, Virginia (KFRR). The valley was gorgeous at that time of day, and I stayed low and slow and kept the canopy open to enjoy the cooling air of early evening.

In the end, I think I'll remember this trip for several reasons. It was most significant for its connection with my brother's family moving to Tennessee. It was also the first time my mom went on a cross-country trip with me, and only the second time she has been in a plane with me. It was my longest solo trip to date, and also fulfilled a requirement for the Commercial Pilot Certificate. Finally, it pushed me over the 300-hour mark. (Three hundred hours has no real significance except that it ends in two zeros.)

Wedding Bells & Fireworks

2009-07-08T17:59:00.009-03:00

Every so often, there will be a cluster of weddings, graduations, baby showers, etc., that will run you ragged. Jodie and I had a series of trips in June and early July where the disadvantage of living 500 miles from both families was palpable. It started with a graduation in Massachusetts, then a wedding in Maine, then another commitment in Tennessee, then another wedding in Maine. And, of course, we needed to work full weeks in between each trip.

We laid out a plan that let us use the Tiger for two trips, airline for one, and car for one. This was a nice balance. My brother's graduation was in Worcester, Massachusetts, on a Sunday afternoon. Jodie and I both needed to work Saturday and Monday. Private airplane was the only truly practical means of doing the trip. We flew up Sunday morning, attended the graduation and after-party, then flew home. Eighteen hours of driving was reduced to six hours of flying. Our route is the yellow line in the image below.

After two more trips where we went by airline and car, we took off on the morning of July 3rd to Rockland, Maine. We almost made it. There were cumulus clouds most of the way that had us dodging and weaving a bit, and we ducked under an overcast as we crossed into New Hampshire. We planned to cross the coastline south of Portland, Maine, cross Casco Bay, and land at Rockland (KRKD). We didn't want to go too far out to sea for two reasons. For one, there's an international border off the coast that we can't legally cross without prior arrangement. For another, there's a minor degree of added risk when flying over water in case of an engine failure.

As we approached the coastline, there was a huge, dense rainstorm moving west to east across our path. I looked at the weather radar on my GPS, which showed shades of red and purple. Could I go around it to the east? Could I do so without crossing the international boundary? I decided the safer bet was to land, so we banked a hard u-turn back to Sanford. Just 45 minutes later, by the time we grabbed a cup of coffee, it looked like the worst had passed so we took off and continued to Rockland. We flew over Portland, across the thousand islands of Casco Bay, and touched down in the rain just 45 minutes later.

There was a rental car idling by our parking spot as we taxied up to the ramp. We shut down the plane, tossed our bags into the car, and drove to our cabin for the weekend.

The wedding was beautiful -- a quintessential Maine wedding with gorgeous ocean views through the whole weekend. On Monday morning, though, the weather was coming from the west, so we headed to the airport. With time to spare, we headed north after takeoff and cruised along the coast. At 1,000 feet above the water and only 90 knots, we kept the canopy open and enjoyed the beautiful views.

The town of Camden was the first to pass off our left, just minutes after takeoff.

Then there was Lincolnville, with the ferry terminal to Islesboro.

Just after passing Lincolnville, we banked left to overfly the resort where we had stayed.

Continuing on up the coast, we passed Belfast, where my mom graduated from high school and where my grandparents have lived for forty years.

Just a few miles inland from Belfast, we crossed Swan Lake, where so many of my childhood summers were spent. The clouds were coming in and getting lower, so after one big loop we headed back south toward home.

Jodie fell asleep as we flew, and I climbed up high to get above the bumpy air and cumulus clouds. We cruised at 10,500 feet in smooth, cool air.

As we passsed from Maine into New Hampshire, I glimpsed an airport off our left wing. "That looks like Sanford," I thought to myself. I looked at my map and our coordinates --- it WAS Sanford. I mentally shouted hello to my parents as we continued on.

The clouds eventually became too high for us to fly above them without oxygen, so we spiraled down through an opening and continued on, landing at Barnes Municipal Airport (KBAF) for cheap fuel and free hamburgers. After an hour of eating, relaxing, and chatting with other pilots at Barnes, we continued south across Connecticut.

We veered west to go around some towering cumulus clouds north of New York City, but the rest of the flight was relatively clear sailing.

Travel is tiring regardless of how you get there. Some methods are better than others, though. Google Maps says that we saved a total of 26.5 hours of travel time by using the Tiger on these two trips instead of driving. I say that's pretty good.

Blessings - a Memorial Day to Remember

2009-05-26T15:09:00.017-03:00

Ryan and I have been friends for more than fifteen years, through all sorts of evolutions, of which my becoming a pilot is only one of the latest. We've both been through a lot and are quite different people now, living quite different lives, than when we first met in college. One thing that we've always shared, though, is an interest in anything motorized. When I had the opportunity to get a few tickets to the Indy 500 on Memorial Day weekend, I knew who to call.

"Man-cation." That's what Ryan called the plan we sketched together over the last six weeks. It was ambitious, but it worked out pretty much as planned, beginning with his arrival by airline into DC and a subway ride to the stop near our house on Thursday night. He helped pack and make final arrangements while I did some work on Friday morning, then we headed to the airport and took off toward the west.

In the week leading up to our trip, the forecast had been gloomy for the entire time we planned to be traveling. I warned Ryan that "no-go" decisions could be made for any leg of our trip, but the warning wasn't needed for the start of our trip. We had beautiful, smooth air as we headed across the mountains of Virginia and West Virginia.

We flew out from under the overcast layer as we crossed into Ohio. Flying low over a lake, we caught sight of the airport (I10) and circled for a landing to the southwest. We were higher than a normal traffic pattern because we hadn't seen the airport until late. If there's one thing I know how to do with the Tiger, though, it's how to make it come DOWN. Full flaps, power off, a hard slip, and we circled down for a smooth landing. There was no taxiway, but there were tie-downs in the grass alongside the runway. We taxied onto the grass, parked, and shut down the engine. There was only silence. The airport was unattended -- not even a trash can, as we would later learn. We unpacked the plane and set up our tent in time to enjoy the sunset.

We carried our cooking supplies through the woods and set up our camp kitchen by the water of the lake. We didn't let the "NO SWIMMING" sign ruin out mood ("Signs, signs, everywhere signs, [mess]ing up the scenery, breaking my mind....") and instead just cooked our steak kebabs, hot dogs, and beans on a camp stove next to a small fire. It was a great evening and a perfect opportunity for a couple of old friends to catch up on each other. The only fly in the ointment was that it was a 15-minute walk, round trip, back to the plane, and we had forgotten numerous small but essential items. My memory is fuzzy, but I may have walked that trip at least fifteen times for silverware, propane, a knife, etc., etc., etc.

We slept well, next to the plane, and in the morning prepared breakfast at our make-shift kitchen.

After our breakfast, heavy on protein, we packed up the plane and took off into a gentle morning sky. With the canopy open, we kept our airspeed slow and flew west only a thousand feet above the rolling hills of Ohio.

It was beautiful, so I said it: "Ohio's beautiful!" In unison, we both said, "Who knew?" Ohio might be one of the best kept secrets of our broad country.

This year's crops have started to come up, but the plants are only inches high, so the fields appear from the sky to be only dirt. Moisture in the soil creates a dappling effect in the sunshine. Ryan compared the visual effect to the coat of a hyena.

We landed at a small airport south of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and picked up an inexpensive rental car for a short drive to one of the must-see destinations for aviation buffs.
We had only a half day, but we did the best we could and saw hundreds of cool and/or historic airplanes. I had seen the Enola Gay, the airplane that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum Annex. I didn't even know the name of it's "sister" ship, Bockscar, that dropped a similar bomb on Nagasaki.

Aviation Overload? Impossible!

I'm Just Dying to Know the Story Behind This Name

Ryan's Favorite Airplane

The Twin Mustang

My Favorite Airplane

Puff the Magic Dragon

A B-36, the Plane Ryan's Grandfather Worked On

The Schnoz

The museum closed before we had our fill, which means we'll have to go back sometime. With several hours before dark, and time to kill, we headed to nearby sacred ground.

For a place so significant to the history of aviation, where the Wright brothers first perfected controlled flight, Huffman Prairie was a bit underwhelming. Everyone knows about Kitty Hawk, where they first achieved powered flight. It was at Huffman Prairie, however, that they figured out how to make an airplane controllable. I guess it can only be what it is -- a big field with nothing to crash into.

We stopped for groceries after Huffman Prairie and took off toward the settling sun for a short flight southwest. Passing west of Cincinnati, we followed the wide Ohio River downstream.

Banking right, over the boundary into Indiana, we circled a low ridge and landed at a grass strip known as Lee Bottom Airport.

We were greeted by Rich and Ginger Davidson, who own and operate Lee Bottom. Both avid pilots, they run the airport purely as a labor of love, with only a tip jar on the porch to help defray costs. Their website actually mentions that the airport takes half of their incomes to maintain.

The quality of the turf runway was top notch, and it was a beautiful place to camp.

With their uber-friendly cat assisting (or interfering, depending on your perspective), we pitched our tents and set up our camp stove on a picnic table.

Rich and Ginger came out and we talked of all things aviation until the small hours of the morning before going to bed. We awoke to a thick fog that screened nearby hills from view. We weren't in any rush to leave, which was a good thing because the visibility wasn't good enough to fly.

We made breakfast as the fog cleared, then packed the plane with our tent and equipment. After saying goodbye to Rich and Ginger, we taxied to the end of the runway, performed a runup check, and accelerated down the runway. We lifted off as I waved a final goodbye.

A short while later, we were given vectors by air traffic control to fly over the approach end of Runway 5 Right at Indianapolis International. A few miles later and we dodged banner-towing planes to enter the traffic pattern at Eagle Creek Airport in Indianapolis.

After two wonderful days of traveling, camping, and site-seeing, we had arrived in Indianapolis for our ultimate destination: the Indy 500!

A taxi dropped our bags at the hotel, then we made our way to the Brickyard to see the race.

The cars flew by our seats at over 220 mph, faster than my airplane! It must be frustrating to go that fast and not be able to get off the ground! Oh, the futility!

There was a fantastic crash right in front of our seats, but fortunately there were no serious injuries.

We wandered around the track after the race with my friend (and old flight instructor) Rich and his friend, Jake, then headed off to find dinner.

The next morning, Ryan left for an airline flight back to Boston -- a motorcycle track was waiting for him and his bike. Rich and I headed for the Tiger to fly back home. A large storm system was covering the southern half of the eastern United States, however, and thunderstorms were forming and dissipating all around Indianapolis. We waited, went for lunch, watched the weather. We considered departing IFR, but with embedded thunderstorms popping up all over, we preferred to be in control of our flight path. In the end, we decided to stay VFR and head for an airport 40 miles northwest of Indianapolis. That wasn't the direction we needed to go, but by hopping from airport to airport, we zig-zagged our way around rain showers until we were north of the storm system, then skirted the edge of it as we headed east. After landing in West Virginia for fuel, we ducked back under the overcast and crossed the mountains for an uneventful landing back in Gaithersburg.

This was one epic vacation, or man-cation, and I won't soon forget it. Hanging and reconnecting with Ryan was priceless, and the trip back with Rich was a successful effort at weather navigation.

Sometimes owning an airplane makes sense for a variety of different reasons. Other times, a little affirmation goes a long way. A few days after our trip, I got an email from Ryan that will carry me through at least another year. He wrote:

Not sure if I made this clear or not, but you blessed the ever living pants off me with that trip in your plane(!)... Holy crap. How cool was that! Hurray fer my buddy with the plane :)

This is just so you don't ever feel bad about owning it and enjoying it. Hurray fer being blessed!

Click on the Photo to Enlarge

Indeed!

250!

2009-04-09T20:26:00.003-03:00

Today I crossed the line -- I now have 250 hours which, along with other requirements, is the minimum required for a commercial pilot's certificate.

Veni, No Vidi....

2009-03-25T20:26:00.025-03:00

These days, my flying life is all about completing the training for my instrument rating. I've been flying here and there, but the focus is all about the rating. It's not that I'm not loving the airplane, and loving flying -- I am. But that's not what it's about right now. I never imagined I still would not have the rating two years after becoming a pilot. I need to finish.

As I've written before, one of my greatest pleasures is to fly someplace, argue in court, then get in my plane and fly away. I had the opportunity to do that again recently, in a court outside Detroit a couple weeks ago. A colleague, also a pilot, was also scheduled to argue, so she acted as safety pilot while I flew all the way to Detroit "under the hood."

In some ways, it was too bad that I spent three hours without looking outside, because to judge by the pictures, it was a gorgeous day. In the picture above, we were flying over Lake Erie.

Still, it was pretty neat even without enjoying the view. I asked air traffic control to authorize an instrument approach to the Detroit City airport (KDET), and they assigned me the "ILS" approach to Runway 15. You can see what that looks like by clicking here. A short while later, and approximately three hours after first putting on the "hood" in Maryland, I took off the hood and looked up to see the runway in Detroit. (Ignore the cemetery right at the end of the runway, please.)

That was pretty cool. I can't wait for my first flight in actual "IMC" (instrument meteorological conditions) where instead of removing the hood I'm descending through clouds to see the runway magically appear right in front of our nose!

I'm at a point in my instrument training where I don't need to fly with an instructor and can instead fly with a "safety pilot" in the right seat of the airplane, as I did on that trip to Detroit. Several friends have generously offered to fly with me, and I tried to take two of them up on their offers this past weekend. It was an ambitious plan -- six approaches on Saturday, and another six on Sunday. Unfortunately, it was too windy to fly on Saturday, so instead I sat around the airport cafe and was quizzed by my friend Gashaw, an instrument-rated pilot, on various things related to instrument flying. Sunday was beautiful, though, so another friend, Adam, and I took off for a long series of approaches into airports in three different states. Adam is an instrument-rated commercial pilot, working toward his instructor's certificate.

Our first "stop" was Hagerstown, Maryland, where I "shot" the VOR approach to Runway 9, followed by the ILS approach to Runway 9. (In actuality, we never landed until three hours after taking off -- each time we approached a runway, we pretended that we hadn't made it to the runway and did the "missed approach" procedure.) A short while later, we were descending over mountain ridges to the west on a VOR approach to Runway 29 in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia.

As we flew away from the Berkeley Springs airport, Adam covered some of the instruments with post-it notes to simulate a system failure, then instructed me to fly a holding pattern at an imaginary intersection in the sky. I nailed it. Halfway through the holding pattern, Adam was satisfied and removed the instrument covers. The next approach, into Cumberland, Maryland, required me to restart the approach, but ended with us right over the runway where we wanted to be. One more approach into Winchester, Virginia, and then back to Gaithersburg we went. Here are the approaches I flew:

VOR RWY 09 at Hagerstown, MD

ILS/LOC RWY 09 at Hagerstown, MD

VOR RWY 29 at Berkeley Springs, WV

LOC/DME RWY 23 at Cumberland, MD

GPS RWY 14 at Winchester, VA

RNAV (GPS) RWY 14 at Gaithersburg, MD

I have post-it notes on the walls of my office with mnemonics and acronyms for different procedures and checklists that I'm trying to memorize, and I'm reading different instrument flying manuals every night before bed (because it really puts me to sleep!). Mostly, though, I just need more hours of practice.

* * * * *

One of the hardest parts of instrument training for me is that I miss the beauty of the world as seen from the air. Amelia Earhart once wrote, after a particularly beautiful night flight, "I have often said that the lure of flying is the lure of beauty, and I need no other flights to convince me that the reason flyers fly, whether they know it or not, is the aesthetic appeal of flying." It is not beautiful under the hood, and I have missed it.

After landing with Adam, though, I took off in the Tiger again, by myself, to fly to Hagerstown, Maryland. I needed to deliver the Tiger to an avionics shop for some routine maintenance, and Adam was to follow in another plane to give me a ride back. Lightly loaded with fuel tanks only partly full and no passengers, the Tiger leapt from the runway and clawed up, quickly and with a roar, into the darkening blue sky. It was a beautiful, clear evening, and the red sun was setting behind silhouettes of mountains in the west as I climbed toward the north.

Music streamed through my headset as the Tiger and I crested a ridge of mountains northwest of Frederick, Maryland. I pushed the Tiger's nose down toward the winking lights of the airport in the already-dark valley below, and could feel the speed of the air in the controls as we accelerated. The airspeed indicator crept up into the yellow arc as we dove at 185 mph across the twinkling blackness. The sun was gone as we raced up to the airport, then slowed, breathless, for the final turn to the runway. I shut off the music as I pulled the power to idle, and we gently and silently descended between the rows of lights that marked our landing.

When I was a boy, my horse and I would go on long rides after school in the woods of Maine. As the sky would start to darken, miles from home, I would turn the horse's head toward home and let him go. He would race the few miles toward home at a gallop, me just a passenger, hanging on. We would pull up short in front of the barn, the horse breathing hard, and I flushed from the wild thrill of the ride. I would climb down and talk to him as I removed the saddle and let him into the barn and his stall. The Tiger is a machine, not a beast like my old horse. But as I shut it down and tied it down in the dark quiet of the airport, it felt like some things haven't changed.

Two

2009-03-22T23:54:00.000-03:00

I nearly let the date slip by once again. Then I got an email on Saturday night from a friend and fellow pilot: "Happy 2nd pilot anniversary!" It's really difficult for me to believe that a whole year has gone by since I catalogued my flying from my first full year as a pilot.

But it's true, I've been a licensed pilot for two years. I like taking inventory each year. It always feels like I can't fly enough, so it's helpful to look back and realize how much I have flown. So, in my second year of flying...

I flew 114.4 hours, compared to 61.8 last year.

78.2 of those hours were cross-country flights (with a landing more than 50NM from where I started), compared to 37.8 last year.

I made 112 landings, compared to 75 last year.

I carried 22 new passengers, most of whom had never been in a small airplane before. Two of them were children for whom flying is near-magic.

From Maine to Tennessee, and west to Wisconsin, I flew to 23 new (to me) airports, in 7 states.

Jodie flew with me almost a third of the time, 32.6 hours, compared to 14.3 last year.

I flew on 11 overnight trips, some for work, some for family events, and some for vacations.

I flew into Airventure for the first time, with my dad.

I logged my first actual instrument conditions.

I filed my first ASRS form (aka NASA form)

Perhaps most significantly, I flew 94.4 hours in the Grumman Tiger that Jodie and I bought and own. It's a great airplane -- it's quick, comfortable, it handles well, it has great visibility. All in all, it's been a wonderful experience to have it.

Regrets? None, although I never thought it would take me this long to complete my instrument rating. I'm working at it weekly now, though, and making good progress. Maybe this year....

Since Christmas....

2009-02-28T23:37:00.000-04:00

It has been nearly two months since we flew the Tiger to Maine for Christmas. We've been busy working and coordinating the completion of our kitchen renovation. In addition, our internet connection went down for a month -- we finally resolved the situation this morning by switching providers. The good news is that I've been steadily working on my instrument rating. I have one public goal, which is to complete the rating before Oshkosh in July. I also have another goal that I'll keep to myself for now.....

It was bitterly cold in the days before Christmas. On the evening of December 22nd, I left work early and went to the airport. It was 17 degrees (F), and the clear sky promised that it would get even colder. I managed to get the Tiger started, however, and taxied it over next to a hangar with electricity. The Tiger has a heating pad that heats the oil pan at the bottom of the engine. This helps keep the oil liquid, and makes it easier to start. I also pre-loaded a bunch of our luggage.

Jodie and I arrived at the airport early the next morning, finished loading the plane, and took off moments after sunrise, at about 7:30.

It was a perfect morning to fly. There was no snow in Maryland, but the ground grew whiter as we flew over Pennsylvania. By the time we crossed the Hudson River (at 7,500 feet), snow blanketed the ground, including the grounds of West Point, in the photo below.

We made great time. Jodie flew much of the way while I sipped coffee from a thermos. As we approached Worcester, Massachusetts, it was clear that we were going to arrive at our destination at least a half hour earlier than expected. We discussed a detour, then veered east.

We crossed the shoreline at Plum Island, then turned north and followed the coast. When we got to Wells, Maine, we banked inland and flew low over my nephew's house before landing at Sanford between tall snowbanks. We taxied to the FBO and climbed out. It was 10:15. Even with our detour, the trip had been less than three hours.

We had a wonderful Christmas with my family. The kind people at Southern Maine Aviation kept the Tiger cozy in a hangar while we celebrated for several days. There was, of course, a mild aviation theme to some of the gifts....

On Monday the 29th, too few days later, it was time to go. My dad drove us to the airport for a final breakfast at the airport cafe, then we loaded up and taxied to the end of Runway 32. As we accelerated down the runway and lifted off, I pushed forward on the yoke, holding the nose of the Tiger down and keeping us just 10 feet off the Runway. We accelerated to 120 miles per hour then, as we passed my dad's car still idling on the ramp, I let the nose of the Tiger come up and we zoomed steeply up. Jodie gasped, then slapped me. "NOW I'm awake," she exclaimed.

We flew slowly down the coast, enjoying the flight, then dove under the outer shelf of the Class B airspace around Boston. Taking a detour to fly over my college campus. . .

. . . we landed at Beverly, Massachusetts, just a half hour after leaving Sanford. Our friend, Rachael, met us and we spent Monday night and the next day visiting with her, my friend Ryan, and other friends in the area.

We planned to spend two nights in Beverly before flying sixty miles west to my brother's house for New Year's Eve. I was watching the weather closely, though, and a snowstorm was on its way. On Tuesday evening, I wavered and changed our plans. The snow was not forecast to arrive until mid-morning, but it seemed to me to be moving quickly and I did not trust the forecast timing. There was no hangar available at Beverly, so if I miscalculated, the Tiger would be buried under snow and we could be stuck. I decided we should go, so we scrambled to the airport for a late night flight west. The air was crystal clear, and the lights of Boston sparkled off our left wing as we lifted off. Only twenty-five minutes later, we touched down in Worcester.

It was very expensive to put the plane in a hangar at Worcester, over $100 per night. It only cost $10 to leave it outside. Since we planned to be there two nights, I arranged for it to be moved into a heated hangar the next day, to keep it out of the snowstorm and melt off any snow that might have fallen. When we awoke the next morning, New Year's Eve, at 7 a.m., there was already six inches of snow on the ground, and there would be more than ten inches before the storm was over. I was grateful we had flown out the night before.

We headed to the airport early on New Year's Day. The sky was so blue it almost hurt my eyes, but the wind was howling right down the runway, 20 knots gusting to 30 knots. The wind shook the plane as we taxied, and the fresh snow blew in whirlwinds. The tower cleared us for takeoff. Accelerating quickly, we took off into the bumpy air and headed south. As we climbed through 4,000 feet approaching Hartford, Connecticut, the air became silky smooth and we could see the sun reflecting on the Atlantic Ocean near New Haven.

We crossed the Hudson River just north of the Tappan Zee Bridge.

New York was a smudge in the distance, through the smog.

Two and a half hours after lifting off, we landed back at Gaithersburg.

Just out of curiosity, I added up the time we spent flying (takeoff to touchdown), then asked Google Maps how long it would take to drive the same distances. It turns out that we avoided more than THIRTEEN HOURS in the car. Many days (including today), I would kill for that extra time alone with Jodie. But generally speaking, not in the car, not in holiday traffic..... This was the perfect way to go.

Nicholas

2008-12-10T11:23:00.011-04:00

While we were in Knoxville for Thanksgiving, Jodie's cousin, Steven, met us at the airport with his wife, Melissa, and three year old son, Nicholas. I knew Steven was an airplane enthusiast -- although not (yet) a pilot, Steven recognized the Tiger as being similar to the type of airplane flown by a regular contributor to a flying magazine. That, and his unabashed confession, identified him as an aviation nut like myself. It turns out that his son, Nicholas, is also airplane crazy.

I was excited to show the airplane to both of them, and was pleased when Nicholas hardly hesitated when asked if he'd like to sit in the Tiger. We asked him if he'd like to go for a ride, and he said yes, but seemed confused when somebody mentioned that I was the pilot. As he was the only one in the plane, I am quite sure he was confident in his own abilities as Pilot In Command.

Knoxville is a beautiful place to fly, and it was a pretty evening, perfect for a young boy's first flight in a small plane. The downtown skyline is right off the end of Runway 26, visible in the picture above.

Jodie showed him all of the buttons and switches.....

Then I slid his seat all the way back (away from the controls) and buckled him in tightly....

Steven and Melissa climbed into the back, and the four of us taxied to the end of Runway 26. As I did the runup checks, Nicholas explained that we needed to pat our legs three times, "pat, pat, pat," and then say "blastoff!" We pulled onto the runway, I brought the engine to full power, we all patted our legs and said, "pat, pat, pat," and guess what......

We blasted off into silky smooth air and the airport grew smaller behind us. (This is a great photo of the Downtown Island Airport in Knoxville.)

It turned out that I needn't have worried about Nicholas wanting to grab the controls. He was enthralled from the moment of liftoff and hardly moved or looked away from the window, even when we tried to get his attention. His headset, too big for a little boy, slid off his head, but he hardly noticed.

We flew west, over the house of Jodie's parents, then circled north around the city. Melissa didn't have a headset, so couldn't easily communicate verbally, but she gave me a big smile and thumbs up as we cruised in the soft air. We flew down the Holston River and passed Holston Hills, where Steven's mother lives. Steven was on the wrong side of the airplane to see her house, so we circled around to fly past the house once more, then entered the crosswind leg of the airport traffic pattern.

We landed and I slid the canopy back so we could wave at Jodie as we taxied back to where she was standing. Nicholas was out of his reverie now that we were back on the ground and continued his excited waving all the way to the fuel pumps. I put fuel in the plane while Nicholas inquired about everything I was doing, then he climbed in for the short taxi to the tiedown spot.

I know that for me and many other adults, the experience of flying in an airplane results in hours or days of images and flying dreams. My mom, for example, wrote in my logbook two days after our first flight together that the experience "produced vivid sensations & images - all of them great - that continue to swirl through my mind." For children, the effect may be even more pronounced, and what a joy it is to contribute to that with the flying that I love so much myself! I look forward with curiosity to see what place, if any, flying might have in the lives of Nicholas, Emerson, and . . . Hey, are there any other three year olds that want go "pat, pat, pat" and blastoff?

"Deftly they opened the brain of a child,
and it was full of flying dreams."

~Stanley Kunitz

To Knoxville, Thankfully

2008-11-29T23:39:00.007-04:00

We have a lot to be thankful for. We are both healthy, we have been relatively successful in our careers, and we have good families who are also healthy. We also happen to have an airplane and the license to use it to visit family on holidays, which is what we wanted to do this Thanksgiving. Our tentative plan was to fly to Knoxville on Tuesday to be with Jodie's family and attend a fundraiser gala for the local children's hospital. The weather was horrible on Tuesday, though, so we postponed our trip to Wednesday and enjoyed Tuesday evening to ourselves.

DEPARTURE

The weather on Wednesday was better. There was a strong wind from the southwest that was blowing the bad weather away to the northeast. The first 150 miles, however, had pretty low clouds. We launched around 1 p.m., under overcast skies and headed west. Crossing the first mountain range, we headed south down the Shenandoah Valley.

The clouds were sitting atop the mountain ridges on either side of our route, so we stayed in the valley, just a couple thousand feet off the farm fields below.

There was an occasional bump of light turbulence, so we cinched our seatbelts tight and I kept our airspeed a bit slower than I normally would have. Then, southwest of Charlottesville, breaks in the clouds began to appear. It was really beautiful.

Jodie flew the plane for a while as the overcast layer split into patches of clouds and we climbed above the higher mountain ridges of southwestern Virginia.

As we passed southwest of Fredericksburg, Virginia, the clouds dissolved completely and we began climbing to 8,500 feet. There was an AIRMET for turbulence below 7,000 feet, and the winds aloft were forecast to be as strong as 50 knots. Wind that strong can create strong turbulence and, in some circumstances, mountain waves, so I wanted to be as high as possible above the higher mountain ridges that were ahead. As most of them did not exceed 4,500 feet, I judged that 8, 500 feet would be sufficient.

Although the headwind was slowing us by 20-30 knots, the air seemed to smooth out as we climbed through 4,500 feet. We began relaxing and enjoying the view as we cruise-climbed toward 8,500 feet. Then, without warning, as we passed through 7,000 feet, it felt like a huge hand came down on the plane. Apologies to Richard Bach: the image of the hand hitting the airplane is borrowed from his description of flying a biplane through turbulence in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in his book, Biplane. It is perfectly appropriate, though, and immediately came to mind when this happened. I hit my head on the ceiling despite my tight seatbelt, the stall warning horn wailed, the nose dropped, and the plane tipped onto its left wing. Kudos to my flight instructors -- my reactions were instant and instinctual, and the plane was level and flying again within a second. From there on out, the ride was silky smooth. And Jodie barely blinked an eye.

Jodie fell asleep as we passed over the snow-covered higher elevations of southwest Virginia. Our true airspeed was about 135 knots, but our groundspeed varied between 95 and 115 knots because of the headwind.

Then we began losing altitude. Although nothing had changed in the airplane's configuration, the plane began a descent of 500 to 1,000 feet per minute. I raised the nose, but we continued down. I put in full power and raised the nose some more, slowing the plane to "Vy," its best rate of climb airspeed. The rate of descent slowed to about 100 feet per minute, but that was the best it would do. I suspected a mountain wave, but I wasn't sure. The engine was showing 2,400 rpm. Was that normal? It seemed low for that altitude, but I had never paid close attention to the rpm during a climb. And we were high, so the engine could not make full power.... I didn't think it was unusually low, and all other gauges were normal.

I still suspected a mountain wave, but I was not certain. I enrichened the air/fuel mixture: no change, and we continued down. I leaned the mixture: no change, and down we went. Pulaski airport was about 22 miles away, and I adjusted our course toward the airport, debating with myself whether I should turn further east toward Roanoke. Roanoke was closer, only 15 miles, but there were mountain ridges to cross, whereas there was only valley between me and Pulaski. I was confident I could make it to Pulaski if we continued descending, but wasn't certain we could clear the ridges on the way to Roanoke. With the nose raised, trying to climb, our groundspeed was about 65 knots (75 mph), agonizingly slow.

We were now down to 7,000 feet. I still suspected a mountain wave. All indications were that the engine was fine. There was no ice, nothing that would provide a mechanical explanation for the airplane being unable to hold its altitude. The altitude held at 7,000 for a bit, then fell to 6,800 as we struggled toward Pulaski.

Then, just as suddenly as it had begun descending, the Tiger started climbing, slowly at first, then at 1,000 feet per minute, its normal Vy climb rate. A couple minutes later, we were again level at 8,500 feet and back to our usual speed. Mountain wave? I wondered. Then I heard a jet pilot talking to air traffic control. "I just went through a heck of a downdraft," he said with a southern drawl. I nodded knowingly. I waited to see if the mountain wave would repeat itself, but we never again had trouble maintaining our altitude.

Jodie woke up as we crossed into Tennessee and began picking out geographical features -- rivers, the Clinch Mountains. Then Cherokee Lake came into view and we followed the Holston River to the airport, with the Great Smoky Mountains off our left wing.

Overall, the plane worked out great for the trip to Knoxville. Other than our experience with the Giant Hand, the ride had been comfortable. Although our 10 minute ride on the mountain wave had got my attention, it had been smooth and both Jodie and Millie slept through it. And even with the strong headwind, the trip took only 3 hours, 35 minutes, far less than the 8-9 hours it takes to drive.

THE RETURN

We had a wonderful holiday with family and friends. Instead of shopping on Black Friday, Jodie and I spent the afternoon at the Downtown Island airport in Knoxville. I met someone who also owns a Tiger and who had, until now, been just a name on an email. As we talked, Jodie's cousin arrived with his wife and airplane-crazy boy, Nicholas. Before the day had ended, all three had been for a flight around Knoxville in the Tiger, but I'll write a bit about that separately.

As Friday drew to a close, it was time to plan our return. Saturday looked to be okay in the early morning, but heavy rains and wind were forecast to arrive from the south sometime before noon. Jodie and I decided to pack the plane and shoot for a 7 a.m. departure. We lifted off minutes after sunrise, at 7:38, into overcast skies and circled west over downtown Knoxville before turning northeast for home.

As we headed north, the cloud cover began breaking up. It was another beautiful flight.

I had been hoping for a tailwind to at least equal the headwind we had had on the way south, but the wind only gave us a 5- to 10-knot push. Jodie flew while I enjoyed the thermos of coffee that her father had prepared for us, then she leaned over and napped while I flew on through smooth and clearing skies.

By the time we crossed the relatively barren and isolated mountains of the Ramseys Draft Wilderness, there was not a cloud anywhere to be seen and the visibility was at least 50 miles. There was neither turbulence nor mountain wave activity, and it was a treat to look down on the folds of the mountains below.

It wasn't long before we were passing White's Ferry over the Potomac River and approaching the airport at Gaithersburg. Just under three hours after liftoff, our tires chirped as they contacted the runway.

We had lunch at the airport cafe, then unloaded the airplane and headed home, picking up our cat at the kennel on the way. Later in the afternoon, after a nap, I decided to look at the weather to see what we had missed. I guess we have one more thing to be thankful for....

Tiger's Back!

2008-11-22T19:15:00.002-04:00

I got almost no work done on Wednesday. In fact, I didn't even make it to the office. I intended to, but I had something to do. After several days of low clouds and rain, the weather on Wednesday was decent for flying, so I went to pick up the Tiger from its annual inspection. It was a long process. The flight up in a Cessna took an hour and a half due to a stiff headwind.

Then I spent an hour or so talking to the mechanics and inspecting the Tiger myself. It was bitterly cold and windy, but I wanted to closely inspect the plane since it had been worked on, to make sure nothing had been overlooked as it was put back together. Here's what Hortman did to the Tiger:

Complied with Airworthiness Directive ("AD") 79-22-04 regarding aileron system.
Complied with AD 99-24-10 regarding the standby vacuum system.
Complied with AD 81-24-03 regarding engine power loss prevention.
Inspected the Emergency Locator Transmitter ("ELT").
Inspected for conformity the installation of the JPI EDM-800 Engine Monitoring System I had installed after Oshkosh.
Checked engine compression: 74/80, 72/80, 74/80, 72/80.
Changed oil and filter.
Serviced all spark plugs.
Checked magneto timing.
Removed and replaced all engine related fluid bearing hoses (fuel and oil).
Installed Nosewheel Landing Gear Fairing.
Removed and replaced rudder springs.
Removed and replaced all rocker box cover gaskets.
Removed and replaced the windscreen and canopy seals.
Repaired co-pilots seat track as required.
Installed lower cowl air deflectors to improve engine cooling.
Serviced all wheel bearings as required.
Lubed all required airframe and engine points as required.
Removed and replaced vacuum regulator filter.
Serviced and charged battery as required.
Checked all interior and exterior lights.
Removed and replaced induction air filter.
Washed the engine as required.
Cleaned and vacuumed the cabin interior.
De-greased the aircraft belly.
Washed and waxed exterior of aircraft.
Cleaned windscreen and all cabin windows.
Replaced brake rotors and pads.
Inatalled vernier mixture cable.

The plane looked great. I looked carefully at the items Hortman had repaired, changed or installed, and their work looked great. I did a careful runup, called the tower, and took off into a wind that was 10 knots gusting to 20 knots, right down the runway. The Tiger climbed at 1,500 feet per minute for a bit, then settled into a 1,000 foot per minute rate as I headed west. I climbed to 4,500 feet as I came out from under the Philadelphia Class B airspace, and the air smoothed out a little. It was still bumpy, and I hit my head a few times in the turbulence, but the Tiger handles bumpy air better than any other plane I've flown. I pulled the throttle out and adjusted the mixture with the new vernier mixture control that had been installed. Just over an hour later, we touched down smoothly at Gaithersburg.

A few friends met me as I took my time putting the plane away until the next flight. As I walked to the car, I looked back and smiled. It's good to have the Tiger back where he belongs.

Don't Go Back to Morgantown

2008-11-10T22:19:00.007-04:00

My brother came to visit a few weeks ago. My work schedule and his new baby have made visits all too rare, and time together has become one of the most valuable commodities in life. He's three years younger, but we went to the same schools and overlapped a year or two in college. It seems we had unlimited time to hang out. I think back wistfully on the nights we'd take my pickup to a nearby lake and back it down the ramp into the water, then climb in back and hang out on the tailgate, skipping bottlecaps on the black water and talking. Time was abundant.

But no longer. So it was a treat for him to come visit for a weekend. Jodie had to work one of the days he was here, and David had never seen our Tiger, so we decided to go flying. But the Tiger was at an airport in Hagerstown, Maryland, having some work done on the avionics. Amy, a friend and fellow pilot, volunteered to go with us to Hagerstown so we could get the Tiger. I flew up in good old Three Five Romeo, with David in the back seat.

It was a beautiful day, but windy and gusty, and the fully-loaded Cessna made for interesting flying during the final approach into Hagerstown. To further complicate things, President Bush was at Camp David, so that protected airspace extended to within a mile or two of the Hagerstown airport.

We landed and taxied to where the Tiger was parked, then Amy took off for home in the Cessna while I showed David around the Tiger. We had no plans, so the next question was, "Where do you want to go?" David is applying for residency programs, and mentioned that he was considering a program in Morgantown, West Virginia, about 100 nautical miles west of Hagerstown. Eager to show him the versatility of general aviation, I said, "Let's go," and started programming the GPS.

It was a beautiful flight to Morgantown. We landed, then asked about a crew car or other means of transportation so we could see the "downtown." There was no transportation available at the airport, but we could call a taxi. After a 30 minute wait, a smelly cab arrived to drive us downtown. We walked around, got an ice cream, then took the PRT, Personal Rapid Transportation, Morgantown's pride and joy, up to the hospital. We called for a cab again, waited another 30 minutes, then headed back to the airport with the taste of coal dust on our tongues.

The flight home was the best part. The air was smooth, and the setting sun made for beautiful views. The foliage was red and orange in the mountains (though still green back in the Washington area), and we raced the sunset to Gaithersburg. It was 130 nautical miles from Morgantown to Gaithersburg, but we had a tailwind and saw speeds up to 166 knots across the ground.

The sun set as we descended over Martinsburg, West Virginia, and ducked under the Class B airspace around Dulles International Airport.

I clicked on the runway lights at Gaithersburg. With calm winds and no airplanes in the traffic pattern, we did a long, straight-in approach to Runway 14 and touched down smoothly. It was a great day of flying and, although Morgantown may no longer be on David's list of possible places to go for residency, I'll have fond memories of that trip for a long time.

And, when David gets through residency, gets a good job, and is well paid, perhaps he'll remember this ride, I mean flight, with me. Here's a video to help us both remember....

Annual Excursion

2008-11-07T12:06:00.002-04:00

Once a year, airplanes like the Tiger need to undergo a full inspection, an "annual," to confirm that they are airworthy and have no conditions that affect its safety. While the plane is "in for annual," many owners take advantage of the close inspection to have mechanics replace parts that are worn or old. The result is that many airplanes are virtually "renewed" once a year, and hence last many years beyond the useful life of cars or trucks.

The Tiger's last annual expired on October 31st, so I arranged with Hortman Aviation to have them conduct the annual inspection on the Tiger. When I was shopping for an airplane, I hired Hortman to inspect a potential purchase. Hortman found, among other problems, a small crack in the engine mount. To me, that was evidence that Hortman paid exceptionally close attention and knew these planes well. And they should -- Hortman was a major Tiger dealer when the airplanes were being manufactured, and still has several available for rent.

Hortman is located at the Northeast Philadelphia airport, which is - you guessed it - northeast of Philadelphia. A friend, Gashaw, volunteered to fly another plane up to bring me back, so we set off on the afternoon of October 31st to deliver the Tiger for its annual.

I have been billing in excess of 200 hours per month the last few months, and hadn't flown in a while. The flight of an hour and fifteen minutes was beautiful and just what I needed to decompress a little. It was a gorgeous day, with clear skies, only the lightest haze, and moderate winds. I chose to go east, through the corridor of airspace between Baltimore and Washington, northeast across the Chesapeake Bay and Delaware, and up the east side of Philadelphia.

The low sun softly lit the fields and marshes with a gentle orange glow, and I kicked myself for not having a camera. Then I remembered my new iPhone, which has a camera built in. I took the photo out the side window, above, then tried to catch a snapshot out the windscreen and over the nose of the plane. For some reason, the spinning propeller created horizontal lines in the picture....

The wind was from the southeast at around 10 knots, and the control tower cleared me to land on Runway 24. As I turned into the setting sun on final approach, I was struck by the beauty of the sunset illuminating the Philadelphia skyline. A minute from touchdown, keeping one eye on my airspeed and final approach path, I fumbled with my iPhone to catch my favorite photo of the flight. (Click on the photo to see an enlargement.)

I left the keys to the Tiger with the boy at the Hortman desk, and we took off into the darkening sky in the Skyhawk Gashaw had flown up in. It felt odd to leave the Tiger there, but that feeling was quickly overshadowed by the enjoyment of the night flight with Gashaw. It was crystal clear, and I looked down on the goings-on with interest. Gashaw had offered to let me fly the Cessna home, but I wanted to be a passenger. I watched house lights come on, and observed a play or two of a football game. The players were clearly visible in their stark white uniforms, the green field lit by floodlights.

As we climbed to out initial altitude of 3,000 feet, the city of Philadelphia was just off our left wing, and a rising crescent moon was directly off our nose. It was beautiful and serene, and reminded me how much I enjoy flying at night.

We landed around 8pm and I drove home. A lot of stress had bled off while flying, and I was happy and relaxed. The flying truly had, as St. Exupery wrote, freed my mind from the "tyranny of petty things."

Epilogue: A week later, the Tiger is still at Hortman. I decided early on that I would use the annual inspection as a time to replace anything that was nearing the end of its life. "No deferred maintenance for my plane," I said. So, the mechanics at Hortman are hard at work performing several tasks -- new brake pads and rotors, some gaskets, new fuel and oil hoses, rudder springs, and so on. It will likely be ready for pickup on Monday or Tuesday, and I'm hoping to retrieve it before leaving for another business trip to Michigan on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Birdwells Fly!

2008-10-15T22:25:00.010-03:00

Last weekend was a blast! Jodie's whole family came to stay with us. Yessir, in our 1,100 square foot Taj Mahal, Jodie's parents (Dave and Judy) and sister (Leslie) slept in comfort along with Jodie, me, Millie, and Oz. It was cozy and really, really fun.

But this is a flying blog, and yes, there was flying involved. Even before Jodie was ready to fly with me, her mom had asserted a strong vote of confidence in my ability and responsibility. Still, I was not quite sure if she or others in the family would ever really want to go into the air in our Tiger. They wondered about the safety and fun of it, and I didn't want to pressure them. I decided not to ask, but instead just to wait until they suggested it.

But when I arrived home from Detroit late on Thursday night, Leslie was there and I couldn't help it - I asked her if she wanted to go flying on Friday. After a few nervous glances at Jodie, she said yes.

So I spent Friday morning in the office while Jodie and Leslie frolicked in Frederick. Heading to the airport in the mid-afternoon, I blasted off for the 10-minute flight to the Frederick airport. I landed and cleaned the windows while waiting, then escorted Leslie to the plane while Jodie took off in the car to meet her arriving parents.

It was a beautiful day and perfect for a short intro flight. We flew southwest to intersect the Potomac River, then followed it northwest to Harper's Ferry. I played my "Flying" playlist through our headsets as we banked and turned to follow the bends in the river.

Passing Harper's Ferry, I circled north and back toward Frederick. We climbed to 3,500 feet and flew a steep circle while waiting for Air Traffic Control, then dove under the Class B airspace to return to Gaithersburg. I lucked out with a good landing, and we pushed the canopy back as we taxied in. It was a good flight.

The rest of the weekend was filled with sunshine, good food, and good company. Jodie went to a golf lesson while Leslie and their parents and I walked around Haines Point.

We got coffee from Starbucks and played bocce on the roof, just like any average workday at my firm.

Leslie flew home (by airline) on Sunday, then Jodie and her parents and I headed to the airport. "Chesapeake Bay or Blue Ridge Mountains," I asked. Judy answered that she'd love to see the water, so Dave, Judy, and I took off from Gaithersburg and headed east through the corridor. As we approached Annapolis, I veered north and flew over the Naval Academy, then paralleled the Bay Bridge across the water. Dave remembered that Jodie and I had almost gotten married at Kent Manor on Kent Island, so I angled our course south to overfly the Manor grounds. Continuing southeast, we circled and landed at Cambridge so Dave and Judy could switch seats, then we took off again to head home.

It was a perfect day for the flight, and there was hardly a bump during the whole trip. Judy took the controls for a bit on the flight back and kept us generally on course while I fiddled with the map. Back through the corridor from the bay, we entered the traffic pattern and turned final to land. A student pilot misjudged our distance and pulled onto the runway, requiring us to go around and driving my blood pressure up a little, but we just circled around and landed as Jodie ran to meet us.

It was a great weekend and a successful flying weekend, if only because I added three more names to my passenger list. It was a pleasure to share our plane and excitement with each of them, and I hope the memory brings a smile for a while.

What Do You See?

2008-09-20T22:19:00.000-03:00

I had my second instrument lesson with Meredith today. We did two localizer approaches to Frederick, a VOR approach into Carroll County, and a GPS approach back to Gaithersburg. Overall, it went pretty well. The big bummer was realizing that the glideslopes in the Tiger don't work. Yes, it has two, which is great for redundancy, unless neither one works, in which case the redundancy isn't really redundant. Right?

Anyway, our GPS track is below. And, since I had so much fun "interpreting" our track from last week, I took a shot at this one. What does it look like to you? To me, it looks like a dancer with a scarf, by Picasso . . . [roll over to see]

Back on the Gauges

2008-09-16T08:31:00.008-03:00

Yes, it's true. Inspired by my recent travels in conditions that were marginal for VFR travel, I have restarted training for my instrument rating. It's back to these old things.

Also, the partner at my firm who flies a Cirrus SR20, Jeff, has created a competition to help ensure that his associates are safe and well-qualified. The competition is between Amy, Calvin, and me. In order to win, Amy or I have to obtain our instrument ratings. Calvin, who is not a pilot yet, has to pass the patent bar examination. The really unfair thing about the whole thing is that because I've been a pilot longer, Jeff gave Amy a four-month handicap. Whoever wins, though, gets an expense-paid trip in Jeff's plane to the burger joint of their choosing.

One difference between last time and now is that this time it's my own plane and we're moving at 150 mph instead of 120. My instructor is Meredith Saini, and on our first lesson she really tested me. I expected to spend our first lesson just practicing flying the airplane, but that wasn't to be. Within a minute or two after taking off, she said something like, "Okay, Tiger 28244, I want you to proceed to the three three zero radial of the Westminster VOR and hold at ten DME, left turns." I kind of did it, although at 12 DME instead of 10. Then she said, "Tiger 28244, proceed to the zero three zero radial of the Westminster VOR and hold at ten DME, standard turns." I did this one even better. Then she told me to fly a "7 DME arc" counterclockwise to the 210 radial. She gave me a few tips as I headed for 7 DME, and then I did it!

Our GPS track looked like this.... Can you trace it with your mouse?

It was a really fun flight, and I can't wait for my next lesson this weekend.

Labor Day at Ease

2008-09-05T23:27:00.006-03:00

One of the trips I've dreamed about has been flying home to Maine, landing at the airport that's pretty much down the street from my parents, and being at their house within minutes thereafter. My brother's in-laws planned a large barbecue on the Sunday of the long Labor Day weekend, so Jodie and I decided to load the plane and head north.

We originally intended to leave work early on Friday and fly to Worcester, Massachusetts, to see my littlest nephew for the evening, then continue on to Maine the following morning. I worked at home on Friday and watched the weather all day. The weather was nice, beginning about 100 miles north of our airport. At our airport, though, cloud ceilings were only a couple hundred feet above the ground, far too low to take off. I wished (again) for my instrument rating, as we could have taken off and been above the clouds within minutes. While our neighbors labored on in the gray gloom, Jodie, Millie, and I would have been bathed in glorious sunlight above a layer of cottony clouds..... Instead, we spent Friday night at the movies, and arose early on Saturday, hoping for better weather.

By the time the weather cleared for us to head north, it was noon. Even then, the flight was only marginally clear. We climbed through a hole in the clouds northwest of Baltimore, and stayed high above them until we were near the Connecticut border. Gaps between clouds were shrinking, so I slowed the plane, chose one of the last remaining holes, and spiraled down through.

Dodging clouds the rest of the trip, we touched down to clearing skies at Sanford (KFSM) exactly three hours after takeoff. My dad saw us pull up to the FBO and came jogging across the ramp to give us both bear hugs. We loaded the luggage into his car, covered the plane, and were about to leave when my brother's Tahoe pulled up. This was a big occasion - my first flight to Maine - and my nephews were enthralled by the idea that we had arrived, literally, out of the blue. It was only a few minutes before the plane was uncovered again and I was taxiing around the airport with three year old Emerson on his mom's lap, hand on the yoke. Judging by the self-satisfied expression on his face, I am quite confident that he believed he was in control. Alas, I have no pictures!

A year or so ago, when I took my whole family flying, my sister-in-law, Brandie, had just given birth to Owen, my middle nephew, and didn't get to go for a flight. When asked if he wanted to go in the air, Emerson said no, so we left him with his dad while Brandie and I took a quick hop. We flew along Wells and Ogunquit beaches, then turned to see their house and my parents' house before returning to the airport. She loved it, and I had a great time finally taking her up.

After a great weekend, my entire family escorted us to the airport late Monday morning. It was gusty but extremely clear, and the cluster of family stood on the ramp and waved as we took off and turned downwind toward the ocean. We followed the coast south, staying off shore a mile or so. All the coastal cities of my youth passed off our right wing: Portsmouth, Salisbury, Newburyport, Plum Island....

We descended to just 1,500 feet as the coastline turned east and north around Cape Ann -- Ipswich, Great Neck and Little Neck, Essex, Rockport, Annisquam, Gloucester, Magnolia, Manchester-by-the-Sea.... Looking down on this area where I went to college, memories flooded back with a density and intensity I hadn't experienced in a long time. I picked out the steeple of my college chapel, remembering when it was erected, and flew over the campus on a base leg into Beverly Airport (KBVY).

We had a wonderful lunch with our old friends, Ryan and Rachael. We talked about going for a flight, but given the hour decided to wait until next time. We were delivered to the airport and took off toward the southwest. Boston lay just off our left wing, and we climbed slowly as we cleared its airspace. With Boston still clearly visible, we passed Worcester on our right and leveled off at 8,500 feet. The straight line home gave us the grand tour of northeast cities: Hartford, New Haven, New York, Newark, Philadelphia, Baltimore.... The visibility was unlimited and we clearly saw the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. Philadelphia was a smoggy smudge, but still visible.

We had a tailwind that decreased as we headed south, but for a while we were seeing groundspeeds of around 200 mph. Only two hours and twenty minutes after taking off from Beverly, we touched down at Gaithersburg. THAT was the first time, and only time, that I have truly enjoyed traveling on Labor Day.