Night Landings in an Arrow

The short version: I went out last night and did three takeoffs and landings to a full stop in the Arrow, renewing my night currency.

The details skipped by that version could fill a novel!  I won't write one here and now, but a few highlights:

• The power, beauty and grace of lifting off into the night sky
• Putting the gear up - I always feel like this is an indication of the beginning of a journey, even if that journey is just once around the pattern.
• The reflection of an almost-full moon off of an almost-perfectly-calm San Francisco Bay
• The rush of wind as the faulty door latch failed yet again, allowing the door to open a crack (sigh..old planes..)
• Turning crosswind, and thinking, "Maybe I should just keep going."
• Turning final and seeing one red light, one white light (and three very important green lights)
• Leveling, powering back and hearing "squeak, squeak" as the tires kiss the runway

Hopefully I can make it out of the pattern next time!

Grounded By Default

I've flown twice since finally getting my Commercial license.  Some commercial pilot I turned out to be, huh?  The first of these was legit, a solo flight to Auburn for lunch.  The second, not so much - stayed in the pattern at PAO and did 5 takeoffs and landings.  So, technically I'm "current" though that's not much of a comfort.

While this definitely, absolutely qualifies as a "first world problem," it is still a problem, in that once again I'm at an inflection point with my aviation career - quit (for now), or double down, with the factors being time, money and other interests.

Doubling down would likely entail becoming a member of a club at RHV, because I believe part of the problem is that I simply don't make it to PAO, ever.  RHV is close to home, so at least I could get there on a nice weekend day without adding an hour drive time (combined, there and back).  And, I think I could probably benefit from getting checked out by a different instructor, to break those bad habits that always develop.  Then, my wife and I would need to sit down and create a budget, that given our other expenses would probably look like 3-4 hours/month for maintenance, plus CFI training.

Quitting for now would be basically what I've been doing (i.e. not flying), except I'd cancel subscriptions for all my IFR stuff and the club membership, saving me some money every month, and probably setting some sort of target for when I will "get back into it."  Then, have to spend more to re-establish competency, etc, and with that barrier, maybe never actually get back into it.

Effort/expense now, vs. much greater effort/expense/risk (of falling out of it entirely) later?  I still think I  could do a really good job as a CFI, and would enjoy it.

Commercial Pilot!

I haven't written in here very much, mostly because I haven't felt I had anything interesting to say.  But sometimes things look a lot more interesting in retrospect than they feel at the time.  Three weeks ago, I passed my check ride for my Commercial Pilot License.  I can now, in very limited circumstances, accept payment for piloting services.

The road to this point was not smooth, at all. I started working on my CPL almost three years ago, by getting checked out in the 172RG and getting all my cross country requirements done.  In early August, 2010, I passed the written exam, which expires at the end of the calendar month two years from the date taken (the "calendar month" clause came in handy).  I was under the impression that the CPL was a pretty simple license to get - just show increased accuracy in maneuvers, a couple of new maneuvers, and the ability to handle a complex aircraft.

So, I flew the 172RG for a while, had a check ride actually scheduled in March 2011, but canceled it as weather leading up to the check ride prevented me from feeling confident on my maneuvers.  Then I had surgery, then got married, then got sucked into an insane job situation that ate all of my time and my will to live.  So, I wasn't flying much.

In early 2012, I wanted to get started again, but both of the 172RGs at Advantage Aviation were now off the line, and the only other one I could find in the area was too rickety for my tastes - what if it broke down midway through my training?  I'd have no way to continue, and would have to learn a new airplane at that point. So I started learning the Piper Arrow, at Advantage.

In April, my CFI and I decided that I was close to being ready for a check ride.  So we scheduled it for mid-June, and did a bunch of ground prep and a few flights to get ready.  Easy rating, right?  Nothing to worry about.  When the check ride rolled around, I did acceptably well on the ground portion (flight planning, airspace rules, some details about the aircraft), but the examiner's demeanor really had me on edge for some reason. He was perfectly nice; it's not his fault, but for some reason he reminded me of some snarky sysadmins I've had to deal with in the tech industry.  As we taxied out, he tried to set me at ease by chatting about jobs, personal stuff, etc.

Didn't work.

As we were on our climb-out for our faux cross country, the examiner said, "If you don't relax, this isn't going to go how you want it to."  That's...helpful.  But what I didn't (yet) realize was, I didn't have my flight plan out, I didn't have my charts out, I didn't do anything I should have done for a normal cross country flight, because as far as I was concerned, I was just going to go up and do a few maneuvers, just like my practice flights.  So, I had a lot to recover from - which I managed to do, getting my stuff all out and available, but it made me unbearably tense.  Ugh.

We did a few maneuvers, which I did very well, and then did a diversion, which was to an airport that I feel wholly uncomfortable with because it's sandwiched into a weird airspace corner, and there are all these rules, some written and some not.  So we went and I nailed a soft field landing, and when taxiing back, the examiner says, "How are you feeling?"  Well, by this time I felt physically awful.  My stomach was in a knot (and.. other issues), and I really just wanted to be on the ground.  "Do you think you'd fly better on a different day?" he asked.  I replied, "Yes, I'm not feeling well and I'd definitely do better on a different day."   So he asked:  "Are you feeling bad enough that you'd like to discontinue the exam?"  I should have said yes.  Instead I said, no, let's see what I can do.

Turns out, I couldn't do much.  Before, I felt terrible but was at least doing my maneuvers and landings properly, but the conversation set me even more on edge.  Without going into much detail, I found myself unable to make good decisions, and after one particularly bad one, I asked if discontinuation was still an option.  Mercifully, he said yes, and I flew us back home.  I was completely embarrassed by the whole episode, and as I looked back afterwards, I see that I was totally unprepared for the exam -- not for the skills I needed to demonstrate, but for the flow of the check ride itself.  I went home, and spent the rest of the day in bed, sleeping it off.

So I scheduled a continuation in early August.  I chose to use a different examiner, because frankly I was so embarrassed by my aforementioned bad decision making, that I decided I'd be more comfortable doing the exam with someone else entirely.  My command, my decision.  I prepped for this exam same as the last one, this time taking into account the cross country element much more.

I got to the exam, feeling prepped - I could tell you what kind of electrical system the plane had, all kinds of things about the landing gear system, etc, etc.  Then the examiner asked me a question: What's the maximum gross weight of this airplane?  I blanked.  I had a number, but I wasn't confident, and I didn't want to say the wrong number.  And I got the expected response:  "You're not impressing me."

Here's where I must go on a bit of a tangent.  It seems different people have different impressions of what the Commercial Pilot License is supposed to be.  On the one hand, based on the PTS and what I've heard from a few others, it really seems like it's just a Private Pilot License with tighter constraints, and some hours requirements; demonstrate you can fly within spec, and do a couple of maneuvers, and you're done.  No big deal, the easiest rating you'll ever get.  But examiner #2 took it very differently: You're a commercial pilot, which means you have to demonstrate that you are capable of being completely professional in all circumstances.  In this examiner's eyes, this license is more of an attitude check than anything else.  Do you use checklists? Do you make good decisions? Do you do all this with an air of authority?

I failed this check ride.  I was not prepared for it.  Ostensibly, my failure was one of emergency procedures, but the examiner was fed up with me long before that, due to my lack of proper attitude.

Now I had a decision to make:  Try a third time, or let it go?  And I only had a few weeks before the expiration of my written test, at the end of the month (thankfully!).  So, I took a few days to think about it, and decided that regardless of whether I passed the third time, I wanted to be really good at emergency maneuvers.  I called examiner #2, and scheduled a date for August 29.  No leeway, do or die, just like an engine out landing in a field, which I practiced repeatedly, along with a number of other procedures.  The examiner had suggested that I create my own checklists, as I'd be more likely to use them -- this ended up being a brilliant idea.  I got to know some intricate details about the airplane, including some things about the landing gear I didn't know before.

Come August 29, I wasn't even nervous - I was ready.  The examiner gave me a bit of a talk about how I was expected to be the pilot in command of the aircraft, and to convey that.  This is always difficult with an examiner, in part because the inclination is to do your standard passenger briefing and giggle at the parts that aren't applicable to an examiner with 10,000 hours of flight time.  But that's not the point - the point is to convey to this 10,000 hour examiner that you're in charge of this flight.

As we set out, I started my briefing with the door.  The door had popped open on me in one of my training flights, and one of my instructors also had a hard time with it, so I said: "Last time you indicated you'd like to manage closing the door prior to takeoff - this is fine, but it has been difficult to close lately, so I'd like you to close the door before I declare us ready for takeoff, so we have time to deal with it.  Also, I plan to depart to the right and climb to 2000' - is this adequate for your test?"  This impressed, and of course it did - it was genuine.

On the takeoff roll, the door (which looked latched - I had double checked it) popped open.  I aborted takeoff and exited the runway; the examiner had a few questions about how I decided to do that, and when I would've made a different decision (further along, closer to Vr), and then we agreed that if it popped open again the next time (which it did), we'd just do the test with the door ajar.

So we took off with more wind and noise than usual, I turned up the radio and cracked a joke about not needing the examiner to crack the door open as part of our emergency procedures.  We went out, did a simulated emergency landing, came back, did a go-around, and then a normal landing (unfortunately it was supposed to be a soft-field landing, but the examiner took pity on me).   On the way back, I even breezed through some questions about how the constant speed prop works.  And once I shut down, using my checklist, I was a commercial pilot.

In retrospect, I really underestimated this license, and I believe the root cause of that is that I listened to some bad (for me) advice.  I know that my levels of nervousness mean that I have to prepare more for things -- this is how I handle every day life, work, performing on stage, certainly flying in most other scenarios.  Why didn't I do it for this?  Or, maybe I did do it, but I didn't prepare the right things.  In any case, when I took my first incomplete check ride, I only had about 7 hours in the airplane.  7 hours!  Not enough for me to get to know the airplane to the level that was clearly expected of me; I have close to 20 now.  There are probably others who can get away with lower levels of preparation, but I know myself, and I need to trust in my own process.


Long story long - I am now a commercial pilot, and I feel like I have more to learn than ever.  What comes next?  I don't know, but instruction has always appealed to me, and is what drove me to complete this license through all the trials.  Different students need different styles, and I believe my style could be beneficial to a certain type of student.  So, that's a possibility.  For now, probably go out and regain my IFR currency, and then probably my IFR competence, and then we'll see how it goes!

My Post Quota for 2012

I haven't been flying much. A few weeks ago, I reset my IFR currency by doing six approaches with my CFI, Mark Erwin, who is awesome, and awesomely patient with me. My last six approaches were about six months before, and before that, it had been almost a year. Those approaches, 18 months ago, were in preparation for a trip I took with my wife to Orcas Island. It was on that trip that I proposed to her, and she said yes. Until yesterday, that was the last time she'd flown with me. So now, I'm (a) flying 172s around like before, just not as often, since I took a job that causes me to work much more for less money; (b) trying to get some time in a 182, but the club only has ONE 182 at this point; (c) learning to fly the Piper Arrow to get my Commercial license, because there are no decent 172RGs around any more. Last night, my wife and I flew down to San Luis Obispo to visit a friend. We had dinner, stayed overnight and came back in the morning. Uneventful trip, except that the G1000 panel crosstalk failed, which was irritating, and both approaches were a bit unconventional. Coming into SBP at night, never having been there before, was tough because there are hills off the approach end of runway 29, and at night, it's difficult to know how high those hills are. So I took kind of a teardrop approach to the airport, and used a slip to get down in time. Must've looked pretty silly from the ground. Coming into Palo Alto I came into a busy pattern too hot, and ended up having to do S-turns behind a Citabria that thankfully either didn't land or did a touch and go - if they'd done a full-stop, I'd have had to go around (which I thought I was going to have to do the whole time anyway, so it wouldn't have been an issue). Next up: another flight in the Arrow, next weekend, with the hope that I'll be checked out on it pretty soon.

Approaches

Any time I go on vacation for more than a couple of weeks without renting a car, I wonder if I'll still remember how to drive when I get home. Like I'm going to forget 21 years of driving experience after not driving for 15 days! Well, so far it's never been a problem; I get in the car to a sort of funny novelty of a "hey, this is familiar" feeling, start it up, put it in gear, and by this time I'm so completely running on muscle memory that I'm fully absorbed in whatever I'm listening to on the radio, which is usually the A's losing. Apparently, driving a car is like riding a bike, or, depending on traffic conditions, like falling off a log.

Yesterday I flew a few instrument approaches (VFR, with an instructor and JeppShades) after not having flown a single one in nearly a year (and, after not having flown much at all in the last 4 months). We took off on a right Dumbarton from PAO, and headed for the Land of Practice Approaches: Stockton. SCK is a great practice ground. They have an ILS, a GPS and a VOR with a couple of gotchas, and there are no major airports or mountains nearby, so we planned for the GPS 29R, the VOR 29R and the ILS 29R, in that order. At 3500 above Sunol Golf Course we called Norcal Approach and asked for flight following to SCK. By the time we changed controllers, we'd picked up ATIS and had the first approach request ready for SCK GPS 29R. I'm making this all sound very easy, but I found talking on the radio to be difficult, and I've picked up a bad habit of micromanaging via the trim wheel, so there were a couple of challenges here.

As we got close, things got busy. As we got close (and already on an assigned heading, vectors to final), I started with the checklists. First: 5 A's. ATIS (done), Altimeter (done), Avionics (frequencies set, loaded approach, activated the final approach leg), Approach briefing and Airspeed. I haven't done enough approaches to really have a set approach briefing, but I tend to review the waypoints and associated altitudes, and the missed approach procedure, along with any notes ("Notes That Kill," my CFII had called them). In retrospect, I should specifically review how I will identify the missed approach point - this is an area where the G1000 can make you lazy.

So I reviewed the approach, and decided when I would slow to approach speed (next vector assignment). We still had several minutes before being anywhere near the final approach course, thanks to the slowness of the 172. At this point, my CFI Mark said, "So there's something you could do here."

"Add ECA as a waypoint after the approach?" I asked, as I did it.
"Well, yes, but something else."
"Prelanding checklist!" I declared, and I started going through it.
"Yes, but that's not what I'm thinking of."
"Put my shades on?" I asked, realizing I still could see out the window!
"Uh, yes!" Mark said, laughing, "But something else."

What he had in mind was to zoom in the PFD for situational awareness, but it goes to show that even with all the lists, there are so many layers of preparation for an approach that are dependent on experience, fluidity and efficiency, and good decision making ability. I had checked off the "Avionics" item on my mental checklist, but there was a deeper level that I got to later.

So I flew the GPS 29R and the assigned missed approach. Mark had to prompt me as I passed one of the step-downs, so clearly I wasn't paying attention to the right thing. And when I tried to enter the hold at ECA, I did the calculation of what type of entry I'd need, and what heading to fly, but Mark suggested that if I load the VOR 29R approach into the G1000, it contains the hold as part of the approach, and the G1000 would guide me. Turns out I had the type of entry right, but the heading wrong (I subtracted 30 instead of adding -- need to review how that happened).

The VOR 29R went very well, and the ILS went pretty well though I was overcorrecting a bit, and thus far definitely doing far more needle chasing than is healthy. Then the ILS into Livermore went extremely well; we started it as a coupled approach, and then (since that ILS is not authorized for coupled approaches below 1700'), I took over, and at this point, found that I'd regained my scan and was flying the attitude indicator. Like falling off a log! After a missed approach, I removed the JeppShades and took us back to PAO with a nice crosswind landing.

I plan to go again on Monday and do 2-3 more approaches, to get me up to the 6 I need prior to Tuesday. I'm amazed at how much of these procedures came back, and how well I was able to execute the approaches and be relatively prepared. This is a credit to my CFII John Otte. That said, it's going to take a lot more for me to feel comfortable doing an approach in IMC. I was not nearly as ahead of the airplane as I want to be; I did not do some important "backup" tasks such as starting a timer at the FAF on the VOR (I think adding this to the briefing will help, and you may have noticed that I never mentioned Time, Turn, Twist, Throttle, Talk -- that's because I never used it, which is bad).

Another Year Flies By

The last year was awesome. I have been flying 182s and the 172RG, in preparation for my commercial checkride, which was actually scheduled sometime in February before we called it off due to a lack of cooperation by the weather, and a good level of underpreparation by me. Then I took a couple of months off, then took another couple of flights to remember how things work, then took another couple of months off.

Now here I am, with four days to go before it becomes a full year since the first of my last six instrument approaches. I have a flight scheduled today, in which we'll do at least three of those approaches -- let's see how I do. In my two flights in April, I couldn't even set up a VFR pattern consistently. I'm just eager to get back in the air!

In other news, there was an airplane crash in Palo Alto a couple of days ago. Thankfully everyone lived, and hopefully the aircraft does as well -- the plane sitting upside down in the marsh is N222MF, in which I completed my instrument checkride.

Orcas Island [ Part 3 ]

When we went to Friday Harbor on July 6, I had talked to the airport manager at Orcas Island about the weather, how clear it was, and when we were leaving. Bea told me, "You're going to have a clear trip home!" And from that point onward, I remained stressed out about the weather.

On Saturday the 10th, we were thinking about whether we should just head back toward the bay area and forfeit the last night of rent that we'd already paid for the place we were staying, or if we should do all of our flight back on Sunday. As we were considering this, the place we were staying called us, wondering why our stuff was still there -- apparently we had NOT paid for that final night! Well, that made our decision easy. We went back, packed up our stuff, did a couple of last minute errands, and made for the airport. It was pretty much clear, but looked like parts of Oregon might be cloudy.

I took off VFR, and picked up flight following from Whidbey Approach. We set a target of Roseburg, OR, for the day's trip. There was almost no wind -- what happened to the 30 knot winds? Why do we never get 30 knot tailwinds? Well, at least we weren't going into a headwind, so we flew along uneventfully, just curving a bit around a bank of clouds over the mountains west of Portland. We passed over Kelso and located the airport, which was fun. It took about 3 hours to get to Roseburg, and I thought about going farther, but to do so we'd either have to go to Medford (and by this time we'd developed an affinity for the small airports, rather than the big ones) or Grant's Pass (accommodations not as close by as with Roseburg, and more potential for cloudy weather in the morning), or try to get in somewhere at the coast, but it was already cloudy there and looked like it'd be socked in in the morning (I love satellite weather on the G1000).

So, we stuck with Plan A and went into Roseburg. It looked beautiful from above, with a river to the north and another to the south, and a nice wide/long runway. I made the appropriate calls for left traffic and landed (flaring a bit high), and filled up the fuel tanks while Kay went looking for....anyone at all. I pushed the plane into one of the hundreds of empty tie downs, and saw that a taxi had appeared, so I grabbed our stuff and went over there. But even with the rush, it did not escape my attention that absolutely no one was there at the airport. I guess, 6pm on a Saturday...but still, it was eerie.

The hotel (Windmill Inn) was great, and cheap! So we had dinner and went for what turned into kind of an eerie walk (through a neighborhood full of feral cats, past a series of abandoned baseball diamonds and onto a river trail, also mostly abandoned). Eventually we ended up in a VA hospital area that was an absolutely gorgeous campus setting. Crazy. There was a classic car event in town that weekend, so periodically we'd have some AWESOME car drive past us on the road. We went back to the restaurant's bar, had a drink, and went back to the hotel.

I was afraid that when we woke up the next morning, we'd be socked in, based on the forecasts I'd looked at the night before. Not sure why I worry about this so much; it's not that complicated -- either I can take off IFR, or we wait. No big. Anyway, when I woke up and looked out the window, I actually laughed out loud, because it was CAVU. Not a cloud in the sky. It was actually HOT, and by the time the hotel shuttle took us to the airport (for free) and dropped us off AT our airplane (sweet!), it was 28 degrees C on the tarmac. We took off ahead of someone on a 3-mile final, and made a very wide left downwind departure to avoid a hill that sits on left downwind (nice). Climb performance was predictably horrid, and I needed to get to 9000 if I wanted to get up over the mountains in the Shasta area. Well, the climb was going slowly, and it looked like there were clouds atop the mountains that to me suggested that it might be a turbulent ride. So I turned toward the coast, and weaved my way up to 9000 as I aimed for low points in mountains. We went over Grant's Pass and many other airports along the way, comforting sights in case of engine trouble over mountains.

After getting near the coast and finally getting to 9000, we followed the Eel River for quite a while. We got a great view of Clearlake, and then eventually we started getting into familiar territory -- Santa Rosa, Petaluma, and then suddenly into the bay area. I'd descended to 5000 by the time I requested the bayshore transition to Palo Alto, and they gave it to me at 3500 (there was a pretty good cloud layer over the city of SF). The rest was easy; we landed at Palo Alto, tied down, and we were HOME!

Orcas Island [ Part 2 ]

We awoke on the morning of July 3 to cloudy skies over Kelso, WA, in a quaint hotel that served a free breakfast and had free wi-fi. So Kay went for the breakfast, and I went for the wi-fi, to check the weather. Looked like ceilings were around 5000, and I needed 6000 to go IFR to Orcas, so I filed it.

As our taxi approached the airport, I thought about another first that was about to happen -- getting an IFR clearance from a non-towered airport. When we arrived, Denny was there in the terminal, so I asked him how people usually do it ("they call WXBRIEF?"). No, he informed me, and he gave me a frequency to use.

So after a preflight, I started my taxi and radioed for my clearance. They gave me a clearance with a void time of 8 minutes, which was generous, so I took off well before the void time and made with the departure procedure. This time, I did have to go into the hold...and in retrospect, I think I did it exactly backwards. Luckily I wasn't there very long before being cleared to 8000 and direct someplace. At 8000, we were above the clouds, and were treated to views of Mt. Rainier blasting up through the cloud layer.

The flight was smooth, and as we approached Puget Sound, the clouds broke up below us. We went all the way in to Orcas IFR, but we were VMC from that point forward. The islands were absolutely beautiful!! We flew up through the middle of the horseshoe of Orcas Island, at the center of which was the airport, and we circled to land on the opposite runway. Smooth landing, easy parking! We made it to our island paradise!

I had originally thought that, having an airplane at our disposal on an island, we'd be flying all over the place, using Orcas as a home base. But that was not what happened, at all. We pretty much just wanted to stay on Orcas, and hang out. Many reasons for that, none of which were aviation related (except to say that the thought of going to Boeing Field or Victoria seemed impossibly complex, compared to eating pie on an island). The only trip we took was to Friday Harbor, on Tuesday, July 6 -- that was fun, old school flying, none of the IFR preparation -- it was a bright, sunny day, so a quick preflight and a review of the noise abatement procedures, and off we went! We took an S-shaped path over to Friday, landed, parked and walked to town for lunch; came back, took off, reversed our pattern back to Orcas. 0.8 hours on the Hobbs.

That was it, until it came time for the return flight back to Palo Alto.

TO BE CONTINUED

Orcas Island [ Part 1 ]

Through school and through work, I've always found that learning comes in bursts, forcing one to drink from the firehose for a short time and absorb as much as possible, while trying to perform one's best, and then (in the best of circumstances) allowing one a little bit of time to try to digest and absorb all that may have been missed in the fury of the moment.

This flight, especially the journey outbound to Orcas Island, was a firehose moment.

We departed at 9:30am on Friday, July 2, with the plan to fly to somewhere in the middle of Oregon, probably Roseburg. Originally we'd thought Salem, but no, the winds were against us. Then Eugene, but no, the winds were pretty strong. So, I planned for Roseburg, filed IFR at 10,000 (the weather was overcast at around 4000' across the state of Oregon, it seemed), and departed once we had our clearance. It was CAVU (ceiling and visibility unlimited) as we left Palo Alto, and we climbed easily to 3000' and then 5000' as we climbed over Sunol and Livermore and headed toward Sacramento. Eventually we were given a clearance to 10,000', which, in a Cessna 172 (even the SP) is not a quick destination. We did eventually climb to 10,000, dropping down to a 300 foot per minute climb, then 200, then finally arriving at our assigned altitude.

We coasted across the bright, sunny state of California at what seemed like a snail's pace, in what was luckily an extremely comfortable 172. As we cruised north, we approached the Mount Shasta area, and were treated to an extraordinary view of Shasta, both the mountain and the lake.

Then we crossed into Oregon, and immediately, we were skimming just on top of a thick cloud layer. There were several uncomfortable elements of the trip at this point, one being the state of our bladders, another being the clouds, and another being the state of the right fuel tank, which was indicating .. all over the place, really. It actually looked like it was indicating full, most of the time, but the fuel valve was on "both" so theoretically it should've been emptying like the other tank. So the worry was, what if it's not able to draw from the right tank; when the left tank runs out, are we out of luck? So we eventually asked for and received 11,000, which I wasn't sure we could successfully climb to, but we made it without much trouble. And shortly thereafter, we were at about 3:30 flight time, and the left tank was indicating about 5 gallons to go, so I made the call to divert to Medford instead of going to Roseburg.

In retrospect, by the time I got vectored all over the damn place for the ILS at Medford, I probably could've shot an approach into Roseburg, or close. But, knowing what I knew at the time, this was absolutely the right call. We were in and out of the clouds through the approach, but everything went smoothly, and we circled to land and were presented with a choice of FBOs to dock with. I went with MillionAir, since I'd dealt with them before in Burbank and felt there was value in a sure thing, even though I'm pretty sure it was the most expensive option, because I was feeling a bit overwhelmed at that point. They were awesome; they filled up 30 gallons, and lent us a crew car to go get lunch.

After a tasty veggie burger, we came back to our fueled up plane, hopped in, turned the ignition, and ... nothing. Drat. I'd left the standby power switch on and the G1000 had drained the battery. So, the MillionAir folks came out and jumped us, and we were on our way. Destination: Kelso, Washington (KKLS)!

We departed IFR with a departure procedure, so we followed the procedure and luckily got high enough before the assigned holding pattern that we never had to enter it before proceeding direct RBG and onward. I tried asking for 6000, but got bumped up to 8000 (and 6000 was in the clouds anyway, as was 8000). I was feeling uncomfortable about being at 10,000 and above, especially so close to the clouds, because the plane didn't have much power to spare at that altitude, and what if I hit an updraft? But now, at 8000, the outside temperature was approaching freezing, and we had ourselves a quandary. We could potentially ask to go down to warmer air, but then we'd definitely be in the clouds and we'd have ourselves a bumpy 3 hours ahead. Or, we could go up to 10,000 and hope it put us above the clouds.

I opted for the latter. Interestingly, while trying to make this decision, I heard my friend Tim check in on the frequency! Small world. Anyway, so we climbed to 10,000, and only picked up a tiny chunk of ice on the right wing spar on the way up. That did indeed put us above the clouds, so we coasted along for the next two and a half hours, pretty much uneventfully.

As we neared Portland, approach asked whether we wanted to shoot the approach at Kelso, or get under the clouds and go in VFR. I opted for the latter; it sounded fun, and shorter. So shortly after we got handed off to the next controller, we were cleared for 7000. OK, here's a problem...the outside temp indicator read 30 degrees F. We should theoretically gain 2 degrees C per 1000 feet we descend, but it'll also be colder in the clouds (at least, that's what I'd noticed earlier on the trip). So I told Kay to keep an eye out for ice, and I descended at 500fpm. As soon as we entered the clouds, we started picking up ice. It collected in a thin sheet on the wing spars, and presumably the wings. I knew that I wasn't much below freezing, and that a couple of thousand feet would put me above freezing, so I dived for it. No idea what my descent rate was, but it was a decisive descent. As we got below 8500, we saw the ice start to melt off, and by 7000 it was gone, just like that.

The controller gave us 5000, then 4000, and asked if we were visual. Not yet. 3500, how about now? I was technically visual, but surrounded by clouds and there appeared to be hills below my present location, so....no, I'm staying IFR, thanks very much. OK, 3000, she said, but that's all I can give you. Suddenly I was out of the clouds and over a river! Before I could chime in, the controller, eager to get rid of this particular speck on her radar, asked me: How are you seeing? "We're visual, cancel IFR," I told her. We followed the river and found the airport, and made left traffic and landed.

At the Kelso Airport, Denny Wise greeted us, helped me fill the fuel, recommended a hotel and called a cab. It was an awesome stop, and we got a great night of sleep as I thought about all I'd learned on this day. Diverting while IFR, dealing with icing conditions, even self-fueling the aircraft, were all new experiences, aside from having a plane this far from home in the first place. And, tomorrow, we'd go even further.

TO BE CONTINUED

Another Day, Another Flight Into IMC

I really needed yesterday's flight/fright. For as frightened as I was, I flew pretty well, and if I can fly pretty well when I'm that freaked out, then my training is still effective.

Today, Mark and I took N824LB out and re-flew my flight from yesterday: SNS VOR 13, WVI LOC 02, in pretty much exactly the same weather. This time, I did better. No fear response (OK, perhaps a touch of anxiety dipping down into the clouds, but nothing major), and I was much more ahead of the airplane, even remembering to manually start the time at the FAF on the VOR approach. On the LOC, I misinterpreted the GPS and didn't realize I was past the FAF, so didn't descend until Mark prompted me. Then, for some reason, I had the hardest time getting the plane to stay in a 800fpm descent attitude, and my descent was more like 350 to 400 feet per minute. I got down to the minimums pretty much at the missed approach point, which is right at the beginning of the runway (being 700 feet above the runway at the beginning of the runway is not a great recipe for landing successfully). But, other than that, I handled it well.

I now feel ready for the trip on Friday. I'm so glad I did all that flying in the last week.

First solo IMC approaches to minimums. Scary.

It's been a long time. Flying has been understandably sporadic, and even though I'm theoretically working on my commercial license, the phase of that I'm on right now is to pass the written exam, which doesn't involve doing any actual flying. Besides, neither of the 172RGs with Advantage Aviation are available at the moment -- one's off the flight line entirely, and the other is seemingly constantly in maintenance.

In the mean time, my girlfriend's sister got an internship on Orcas Island, near Seattle (but closer to Victoria, BC, Canada), and we immediately planned a visit. And, my first thought was, why not fly there?

So I did some training in flying a Cessna 182, and we decided to take an older (a.k.a. cheaper) 182, N9870E, up to Washington. The plan was to take our bicycles in the plane and not rent a car, and just ride around Orcas Island. We did a test run of that plan a couple of weeks ago, renting out 9870E and bringing our bikes, and flying to Santa Rosa. It failed. We brought tarps to protect the plane's aging interior from the bikes, but we did not protect the bikes from each other. And besides, getting them in and out of the plane was a complete pain in the ass. Do not attempt this plan.

Also, N9870E had deteriorated a bit since the last time I'd flown it, most notably in that the magnetic compass was duct-taped in place. And, not very well, I might add -- it was actually hanging down. I guess the requirement is just that it's IN the plane, which it was, but no way was I about to fly into a potential IFR situation with a badly duct-taped-on compass. AND, also, the club put the plane in maintenance on the first day of our trip. This plan was not working out at all.

So, I managed to book a nice 172SP G1000, N16894, for the trip. The 172 will be slower, but the journey is part of the fun, right? I've spent the last week getting IFR current and night current, and basically getting my bearings about me when flying IFR. My instructor, Mark, and I went out to Half Moon Bay last Thursday, and flew a couple of approaches to minimums before breaking off for the missed approaches -- this was my first time actually HAVING to fly a missed!

Today was another first: I rented out N16894 and took it to Salinas, where the weather was reported as OVC070 (overcast at 700 feet). The VOR 13 approach has an MDA of 560 circling (which this would be, with 31 active), so it was right on the edge. As I planned my flight, filed IFR, pre-flighted the plane and readied myself for takeoff, I couldn't help but dwell on the fact that I had another first coming up -- I'd never flown an approach solo in actual IMC. In two years of being an instrument rated pilot, I'd never done that (weird, huh?).

So I was cleared KSNS via SNS direct, and eventually was given 7000 direct SNS. I was over the cloud cover, and cleared for the approach. The tower at Salinas had closed, so I was to make unattended airport style calls. I descended along the approach path, and just before I entered the clouds, I felt it: "So this is how, and when, I'm going to die." It was so strong, and I was so scared, I don't know how to describe it; all I knew was that I felt like this was it, like my time was done. Note that though I felt this way, I didn't actually *think* this way. My brain was busy telling me, "You know this, you can do this."

Well, I flew it pretty well. Actually I flew it pretty much perfectly -- in terms of technique, I was relying too much on the G1000 and not enough on my Time/Turn/Twist/Throttle/Talk technique, but I flew it really well. I made it down to my minimum, exactly on course, and couldn't see squat. I was shaking -- my arm was shaking holding the yoke. As I readied for the missed approach, though, I saw it -- Runway 13, right in front of me! I could've landed it! I executed the missed, and made my way to MARNA. As I climbed, my foot was shaking as it pressed the right rudder. I called NorCal Approach, and the act of communicating calmed me a bit; I think part of the stress of the approach was that I wasn't talking to anyone.

So I regrouped in the hold, and debated whether to do SNS GPS 13, or WVI LOC 02, eventually deciding on the latter (I kind of had to pee, so didn't want to go back to SNS, which was farther from home). After three rounds in the hold, I called Approach and made my request. He was friendly, which helped. I got vectors to the localizer course, and flew it perfectly (again, not TTTTTing enough, relying too much on the G1000, but flying it well) -- no shaking, no fear. I had some trouble holding the MDA, it was up and down, but as I crossed over the airport, I saw the runways. I think landing it would've been tough, if I'd wanted to, but it was interesting nonetheless. I executed the missed, a right turn back to SNS, and called Approach with my IFR request back to PAO.

I am SO glad that I did this flight. There is a pretty good chance I'll have to shoot an approach in actual IMC on our trip, and thank goodness I've now done it a couple of times on my own and have the confidence to do it. I'll do another flight tomorrow morning with Mark, but after tonight, I'm ready for the trip!

We're Going Commercial!

As is obvious from the sparsity of entries in this blog over the past year or so, I have not done much flying in 2009. In November 2008, I parlayed my recently-earned instrument rating into a really fun trip down to Santa Barbara, which yielded some sweet pictures and a great story. Since then, my memorable flights consist of an IFR currency flight in May, a trip to Petaluma somewhere in the middle there, a couple of bay tours in August, and a trip to Burbank in September to audition for the reality TV show "Wipe Out!" That's it.

Why the groundedness? Finances had certainly become an issue. I had other things going on, including an incredibly busy job, a marathon for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and a new (and thankfully very understanding) girlfriend. It's an equation that I imagine most pilots learn pretty early on in their careers: No Time + No Money = No Flying.

Well, while my earthboundedness may have made me a rusty and potentially dangerous pilot, it also allowed my bank account to recover, so I no longer feel so bad about assaulting it once more. I'm going for my commercial license.

A few weeks ago I had a training flight in a 172RG, where we did some slow flight, stalls, steep spirals and chandelles. I still need to learn eights-on-pylons and lazy eights, and then it's just practice, practice, practice. Oh, and I really need to learn how to do a short field landing. At the moment, I kind of suck at it.

Last week, I got a second training flight in the RG, where we combined the long daytime cross country requirement with a mountain checkout, and added the time to my total complex training time (now up to 7 hours!). That was awesome; we flew from PAO to BLU (that's Blue Canyon, a tiny single strip airport without even a bathroom) to TRK to TVL and back to PAO. Just to add to the fun, PAO was IMC when we left!

Now, I just need one more training flight for maneuvers in the RG, and a night cross country (plus the long solo cross country...where should I go that's 250NM from here?) and then it's just practice, and studying! Nothing to it.

After that, it's CFI time. Who wants to be my first student? :-D

Currency: That's what it's all about

Two goals of most pilots are to keep their currency, and to keep their currency. As pilots, we have to fly enough to stay current -- there's general currency, club currency, type currency, night currency, and IFR currency to worry about on a fairly regular basis. It's not really that many flights, and if a pilot is just barely staying current, as I had been, I'd expect his personal minima to adjust accordingly, as mine have.

Staying current is a piece of cake, though, if you fly frequently, and that, of course is where the other currency comes in. The more you fly, the more you spend! We've covered this before, so there's no point in going on about it again, but over the last few days, I took significant steps toward keeping both types of currency.

Saturday was a beautiful day, and as I'd just turned 35 two days prior, I really wanted to treat myself and go flying, preferably with a beautiful and sweet woman by my side. As it turned out, I found the woman to go with, so I had no choice! I had to take her flying! After a series of frustrating and tragic events (I'd booked the plane on the wrong day, we had to wait for it to come back, while we were waiting we heard that a plane had crashed at San Carlos, the fuel truck didn't show up until we taxied to the fuel island to fill up ourselves...), we took off, had a beautiful and uneventful flight to Petaluma, landed, got a cab downtown, bought some cheese, caught a cab outside the Taco Bell, and flew home in time to host the wine and cheese party we'd planned on. What a day! We took N9849L out of Palo Alto, a 1986 172P that is about 2/3 the cost of the newer 172SPs I've been flying, and with a very nice set of avionics. So, I found a plane I like to fly that costs much less than what I've been flying. Currency saved!

Then, tonight, my friend Tim came along as my safety pilot as I did six approaches in rapid succession: SCK VOR 29R, SCK GPS 29R, SCK ILS 29R, TCY GPS-A, LVK ILS 25R, and HWD LOC DME 28L. 2.7 hours, and almost all of it under the hood. I am tired! But I am also current.

I think I'm going to go eat some currants...

How To Keep Flying?

I've been struggling with my aviation "career" as it were for some time now. Not counting my excursion with Tim a couple of weeks ago, I've been taking about one flight every two months since my awesome trip to Santa Barbara. Those flights have been (a) a bay tour, (b) a VFR practice ride, and (c) last night, a VFR set of practice approaches, which was awesome and I will write about eventually (I meant to write about it today, but I guess that's not what was on my mind).

The struggle is based on time and money. I've posted about this before (with an environmental angle that basically ends up being implicit in the "money" part of my current struggle), and got some excellent suggestions: Get done with instruction. Find a cheaper way to fly (someone suggested an RV-3, and I've actually looked into it, but (a) don't want to build, (b) don't trust other builders, (c) want a real IFR capable airplane). Well, I've finished with my instrument rating (nearly a year ago!), and while I miss my instructor, it does make things financially easier. I also bought a house, and between the depreciation on the house and the collapse of all my investments (I know, me and the rest of the country), I'm even more worried about money (I know, me and the rest of the country).

So, I've started a budget. Turns out I can afford to fly a little bit. I need to be targeted in how I do it, because with the way I'm doing it now (renting 172SPs to do practice approaches), I feel simultaneously stagnant and rusty -- both bad things for a pilot. I want to get my commercial license, and continue the path toward becoming a CFI. But I need to do it in a way that's cost efficient, and that requires research and planning, and that requires time, which is at a premium right now.

I also think that if I do it right, owning my own airplane might actually hold down costs to some degree. Here's my thought: Get two-three other pilots (that might be the hardest part of this), buy an efficient airplane (current thought is a Mooney M20J). Over the time that I have it, the airplane itself is not likely to depreciate much. The hourly costs (fuel, engine/maint fund...) would be quite low, and while the ongoing (periodic/monthly/annual) costs, like tie-down, inspections, etc would be split between the owners. Insurance is a bigger question, but would be somewhat offset by not having to be a club member (currently costing me $100/mo for two clubs...gotta quit one or the other!).

Anyway, enough mulling for this morning, there's work to be done...at least last night I discovered I'm still not SO rusty, and the "holding pattern" I'm in can continue for a little longer (though I do need to make the practice more frequent), as long as I set my personal minimums appropriately.

Flying? Do we do that?

It's been a long time. I've been in the air only twice since my awesome trip to Santa Barbara last November, in large part because of financial constraints and worries about my job and the economy. I'm sure you've never heard that before; it may not be original, but it's true.

So I could not resist when my friend Tim asked me to be his safety pilot for a few approaches. I was especially thrilled when he asked me to take care of all the radio work!

Tim picked me up from PAO in N7UB, his Cessna Turbo Centurion. This is a nice airplane; I won't go into details because I'm tired, but it's about 10 steps up from the 172SPs that I generally fly. I hopped in, and we went over the plan: OAK ILS 27R, then a few at CCR, then LVK ILS 25R, then the VOR DME 31 at PAO. We took off on a right Dumbarton, and as we headed for Sunol, called Norcal to request the ILS at Oakland. We got it, and from that point forward, were basically too slow for everyone around us (good thing we weren't in a 172!). We were still full speed ahead, but I guess even a T210 is slow compared to commercial jets.

My radio work was awful. I was so rusty, lots of ums and uhs, not asking for everything at once, and missing some of the controller's instructions. But I hadn't flown in nearly two months, so, there you have it. We went over toward CCR and called up Travis Approach. This went more smoothly, and after the third approach, we headed over to Livermore.

The ILS 25R is a great approach, taking the pilot just over a ridge of hills on the approach. Tim flew it partially coupled, then we did a low pass and took off toward Palo Alto. As we made our way toward PAO, we noticed that a low cloud layer was forming. We called up Norcal and requested a VOR DME into PAO. It's an unusual request, so we weren't sure what to expect, but we got it.

Shortly thereafter, a different controller came on the air and asked us if we wanted to go all the way out to SAPID, or if we could take it just outside DOCAL. I responded that DOCAL was fine, and we got a favorable turn. But then we realized that these were GPS waypoints, which were not helpful in the VOR approach structure, so I informed Norcal that we were actually requesting the VOR DME. He seemed slightly miffed, and sent us out toward San Jose (I could see my house). But a couple of turns later, we were pointed back in, and Tim landed and dropped me off.

It was a great workout for me, and a good flight to get me motivated to get back into things!

AOPA Expo

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of volunteering at this year's AOPA Expo in San Jose, CA. The Expo ran from Thursday through Saturday, and as a volunteer, I was granted free admittance to the exhibition hall floor. My post, however, was at the Aircraft Display, which was at San Jose Mineta International Airport (the FAA wouldn't expand the current airport codes to give them KSJMIA, so they stuck with KSJC).

I arrived at 8:30am, and for four hours, handed out flyers to, well, flyers, and directed people to the port-a-potties and shuttle buses (hopefully I didn't mix that up at any point). At the end of my shift, I took off and wandered around the Aircraft Display for a little while.

My first stop was at Lafferty Aircraft Sales, because they had a bowl of candy, and I was starving. I picked up an inventory list, and am actually just looking at it now for the first time. The actual conversation was mostly about candy. Looking at their list, it seems they have quite a few Beechcraft singles and twins. No pictures = no drool.

My next stop was at the Civil Air Patrol table, where a woman sat with an unruly rescue dog. By "unruly" I mean that his guardian could not get him to stop going up to people and leaning his head against them to get petted. Away, foul beast!! I mean..aww, cute!! In any case, I want to learn more about CAP and think this'd be an ideal way for me to stay involved in aviation. Step 1 is apparently to learn how to fly a 182, which I want to do ASAP anyway.

Next was the Cessna tent. Kind of boring, actually, but I was also really hungry by now, so I went and got some fries.

I then came upon TJ Neff's refurbished 1995 Socata TB-20 Trinidad. Whew. His pitch: For $150K, you get 90% of what you get if you pay much, much more for a Cirrus. Hmm. Well, the plane was really nice, I'll grant you; in fact I've been dreaming of sitting in the cockpit again ever since then. I felt like I was sitting in a race car. It's beautiful; everything's amazingly within reach. The plane does about 155 knots at 12.5 GPH, which seems a bit high to me given other options -- heck, the Diamond DA40 does the same speed on 8-10 GPH and it's not even a retractable OR a constant speed prop (the CS model adds about 12 knots to that on the same fuel burn). Still....very nice airplane. West Valley Flying Club has a Trinidad; I'm going to request a training ride in it.

Then, on to the Diamond display. I've been admiring Diamonds from afar for so long that I had to go sit in one. So I had a seat in the DA40, and...well, it was comfortable...the company rep described it best when he said it's like "flying a La-Z-Boy." Yeah, that's kind of what it felt like. I suppose I actually have to fly it to judge, so maybe I'll try to arrange a test flight if I can find a club around here that has one (I know there's a place in San Carlos, so I could just go there).

So I drove downtown from there and hit the Exhibit Floor. I went from one corner to the other; I saw sunglasses (neat, but ugly), all kinds of avionics -- there's one, I forget what it's called, that replaces the attitude indicator and heading indicator with a tall, thin digital display akin to the attitude/heading displays on a Garmin G1000. Pretty nice engineering, if you ask me, since it can be fit onto an existing six-pack and replace just those two instruments pretty easily. [EDIT: Thanks to reader Colin for informing me that this was a unit made by Aspen Avionics] I talked to an AIG guy about insurance for a while; he looked bored. I talked to someone from a flight academy about whether it was possible to get a job with an airline as a 35 year old with my experience level (of course her answer was "of course!"). I got talked into buying a VFR FlightGuide; it's like the Pilot's Guide that I'd been subscribed to, but (a) covers something like 13 states instead of just CA, (b) is less expensive, and (c) most importantly, is small enough that I could actually carry it in my flight bag. They have a nice looking website service I could subscribe to, but didn't yesterday. Then I stopped by the West Valley display and chatted with the chief pilot Lucy for a bit, and then on my way out, I met and talked with John and Martha King of the infamous King Schools! That was actually really cool; they were really nice.

I feel like I got some interesting data on the "what to do next with this" front. Join an airline? A possibility, though letting go of my nice job (in every way) at this juncture is not on my list of favorable decisions. Buy my own aircraft? Maybe; it sure would be nice, and free me up to make more trips without worrying about reserving and all the other hassles of club aircraft. Let's face it -- I'd love to own an airplane. But it's expensive, and it's a big commitment. I'd also like a dog, which is also a big commitment, but at least a little bit less expensive. CAP seems like a great option no matter what; I will look into that as soon as practical.

I looked around the expo for only about three hours after my volunteer session, but I ended up having a great time! I can only take so much of those settings anyway, and I feel like I got everything I want to out of it.

Now, let's see when that West Valley Trinidad is available...

300 Hours!

I was just updating my logbook, and realized that on my way to Santa Barbara, I crossed the 300 hour mark! I'm also coming up on 100 hours of cross country (I'm at 96.5 right now). Still inside "The Killing Zone" but a nice milestone nonetheless.

First Real IFR Flight: Santa Barbara

I've written before that some experiences just make you feel "like a pilot." This weekend was one of those experiences, I think in part because of the large number of "firsts" and how well I handled them. This was the first time I:

• was pilot in command of a flight in real IMC, and real it was -- an hour in the clouds on the way down!
  
• used my new Lightspeed Mach 1 headset -- the fitted earpieces had just come in on Friday!
  
• spent two nights away
  
• flew somewhere I had a reason to be
  
• was cleared for and flew a "visual approach" (you'd think this was easy, but at an unfamiliar airport...)
  
• dealt with a rapidly changing weather forecast for the return trip, which at times included thunderstorms, and ended up having somewhat lower-than-expected freezing levels
  

And the heartening thing is that this might have been the best I've ever flown -- of course that involves some luck as well as all the preparation, but without the preparation you don't even give yourself a chance.

I took off on Friday a little after 1:00pm, after a rigorous preflight and obsessing about the weather all morning -- not that there was much to obsess about; it was cloudy, but unthreateningly so. Ceilings were around 5000 in the Bay Area, and supposedly around 7000 further south. I filed a flight plan via Salinas, Paso Robles and Morro Bay at 7000, and got set to go. Preflight was fine, I loaded up the plane with all my luggage (which was considerable, since I had to bring all my stuff not only for a half-marathon, but also for the Halloween party that night), and I got ATIS and contacted ground. Runway 12 was in use -- yesss! Whereas the departure procedure for Runway 30 is a bit intense (see my last entry), the departure procedure for Runway 12 is "fly runway heading." Perfect.

I was cleared for takeoff. I lined up, and took off. After switching to Norcal, I was instructed to make a left turn direct to Woodside (Woodside is on the right at that point, so I had to make a 270 degree turn). He kept me on my filed route, and I ended up in the clouds pretty quickly. And I stayed there for a while. My groundspeed was about 87 knots, and things were bumpy. I was in there for nearly a half hour, when the controller asked if my routing was for training, or if I'd like to go direct Gaviota, and whether I could handle 9000 feet as an altitude. Given that the plane was actually leaking water into the cabin, I eagerly told the controller that direct Gaviota would be great and I could do 9000. He cleared me direct Gaviota, and minutes later cleared me to 9000. I climbed, and broke out of the clouds at 8500.

The rest of the ride was much more pleasant. I was in and out of the clouds a little bit, once even for about 15 minutes, but it wasn't as thick or bumpy. My groundspeed was still achingly slow; I had a headwind of about 40 knots, putting me in the low 80s relative to the ground. I plugged my iPhone into my headset and started playing some music. At some point I missed a handoff to a new frequency, but that was really my only error.

As I got into the Santa Barbara area and began descending, things were decidedly VMC outside. It was a beautiful day! Eventually I got the call: "N35583, Santa Barbara Airport is at your 10 o'clock." I saw it, and told him so. "N35583, cleared visual approach runway 7." Interesting...how do I fly this? Since I couldn't see a visual glideslope aid (there may have been one, but I couldn't see it), I tuned the ILS and simply followed it down, executing a greaser of a landing at the end of a completely stable approach. Good stuff. I taxied to Signature, and parked!

Friday night was awesome, Saturday was fantastic, and today, it was time to fly home. I'd been a little concerned about the weather because at one point yesterday, they were forecasting thunderstorms in the bay area -- and if there was really going to be a lot of thunderstorm activity, I think that'd most likely mean an extra night in Santa Barbara for me. But that forecast went away, and in its place was a forecast that made it very difficult to predict how cloudy the journey would be, and freezing levels around 8000'. I fretted about the situation for a while, then decided I'd just file a route the same way back as I'd come, where the MEAs were such that I could file 6000' as my enroute altitude.

This worked for a little while...I called clearance delivery (first time!) and was given my clearance, called ground for taxi instructions, did my run-up, called the tower, and was given a takeoff clearance. My routing was ... tada! Runway Heading! I was sure that I'd get a departure procedure, but Runway Heading, vectors to Gaviota was all I got. Awesome! Things were fine until near Paso Robles, where the controller boosted me to 8000'. I complied without complaining, and a little while later the controller asked if I wanted my filed routing, or direct AMEBY (a GPS fix on the San Carlos GPS 30 approach). So...I thought I was supposed to file on airways, but am I not supposed to do that? Should I just file direct and see what happens? Of course, earlier in the week when we went to Salinas, I filed SNS direct, and they gave me OSI V25 SNS direct. So...who knows. Anyway, I accepted direct AMEBY, and told the controller I was concerned about ice at 8000 when approaching the bay area, and didn't know what the clouds looked like. He basically said I had no choice, because radar is sketchy at 6000 through the valley. Interesting. So I told him "let's give it a shot" and it ended up being immaterial when I was lowered to 6000 (and eventually 5000) before getting into the bay area anyway.

I got vectored around a little bit on my way back into San Carlos: Fly heading 270! Direct AMEBY! Fly heading 270! Fly heading 310! Direct AMEBY! Okay, okay! I eventually made it into the approach structure (way too high -- they really dropped me in rather suddenly; I was at 5000, and next thing it was "2 miles from AMEBY; cross AMEBY at or above 3200, cleared GPS 30." But I landed without incident, pulled the plane into its spot, and I was done!

I will update this entry with a photoset at some point, but it was an awesome flying experience. A lot of firsts, a lot of learning, not a lot of out-and-out slip-ups. I want to do this more, and I want a faster and more powerful plane!

UPDATE: Here's a photo set from the weekend -- mostly pix from the flight, but a few of my Halloween costume (that's supposed to be Michael Jackson) and of my Team In Training team with whom I ran the Santa Barbara Half Marathon. I have also linked the current flying blog from my pilot friend Russ (who I flew with last weekend) on the left.

Getting Ready For IMC

California, the San Francisco Bay Area in particular, is an interesting place to be an instrument pilot, in that there really isn't a whole lot of IMC for most of the year. Not that I'm complaining; the sunshine is beautiful, and zillions of people move here every 20 minutes. It's awesome, and all the more reason to be able to fly over the traffic jams and laugh!

So, I'm running a half-marathon this weekend with Team In Training, the fundraising and athletic training arm of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. That's two great causes: curing cancer, and making yet another futile attempt to increase my muscle mass. The race itself is in Santa Barbara, which is the perfect distance to fly instead of drive -- about a 2 hour flight instead of a 5 hour car ride. And, guess what the forecast is? That's right, rain in the Bay Area, and partly cloudy (whatever that means) in Santa Barbara. But that's OK, I'm an instrument pilot, right?

Well, not so fast. We still have to consider three things: Currency, Logistics and Readiness. My currency was on the edge of running out last weekend, as I'd only done four approaches in the last six months. There's just not a lot of IMC! And recruiting safety pilots who I'm compatible with has been slow going (Roland, you're awesome, but you were out of town!). So a reader of this blog, Russ (who has a blog of his own here though he really should write in it more!!), and I got together for a flight last weekend. It was great; we went down to Salinas and did the VOR and GPS 13 approaches, with a holding pattern (above actual clouds) at MARNA. Now, I've never been in real IMC without an instructor, and we were about a 1/2 mile from this being my first time! In any case, it all went well, except I attempted a circle-to-land off the GPS 13 to runway 26, and the sunfield and haze were so bad that we couldn't see the runway. An actual missed approach!

Currency: Done. Now, for Logistics. I managed to book a nice IFR plane for the weekend, a small miracle in itself. I won't go into that, but the plane is based at San Carlos, not Palo Alto, where I usually fly out of.

This brings us to Readiness -- since I've only flown IFR out of San Carlos once (that with my instructor), and I'd never flown this plane IFR, I decided to take a test flight today, again with my instructor John so I could get under the hood and do some more approaches.

I decided to replay the weekend's flight, but just do the VOR 13 at Salinas, not bother with a published missed approach but just head back to San Carlos. And obviously the start/end point are different, because we're starting in San Carlos instead of Palo Alto. So we talked it over, got in, started up, and it came time to copy my clearance.

"Skyhawk 35583 is cleared to the Salinas Airport via runway heading until past the diamond shaped waterway, right turn heading 120 within 2 miles of the airport, radar vectors Woodside, Victor 25, Salinas, Direct; climb and maintain 1100 until past the 165 radial of the Oakland VOR, climb maintain 2000, expect 5000 in 5 minutes. Frequency 131.25, squawk 4526."

Holy crap. And this came pretty rapid-fire. I struggled, John helped me. The standard clearance for Palo Alto is "right turn heading 060, radar vectors Salinas direct, climb maintain 3000, expect 5000 in 5 minutes, frequency 121.3, squawk 4526." This was much more complicated. So, score one for me going on this flight. Score two for me actually flying the clearance well enough that John complimented me on it.

Overall, the flight went pretty well. There were a few things that I slipped up on, the biggest of them being that after doing a touch and go at Salinas, I was supposed to execute a missed approach, but I forgot about that and started flying right back to San Carlos. Can't do that when you're on an IFR clearance. To my credit, I flew an unexpected circle-to-land perfectly, but it does no good if you fly into a mountain right afterwards. I didn't. Also, I did not correctly interpret an approach plate, which bugs me a little. Need to pay more attention. And, I needed to study the San Carlos approach plate prior to asking for a clearance to San Carlos...they sent me direct to one of the waypoints on the GPS approach, and I had no idea what they were talking about. Hate that.

But, those things aside, it was a good flight. I'm glad I did the bad missed approach on a training flight, and the other mistakes were recoverable. So, I'm now prepared for Friday. My biggest fear is now copying (and flying) the clearance when leaving Santa Barbara on Sunday! Let's hope for something easy!

IFR Currency

It's been four and a half months since I got my instrument rating, and I've not been flying nearly as much as I would've hoped. That means it's time to start worrying about currency, as the FARs require six instrument approaches within the last six months, with holding procedures. Right now, I easily meet that requirement, but only because of all the approaches I did in March and April. Since my checkride, I'd done only one instrument approach in simulated IMC, the ILS into Merced a couple of months ago. I'd done three practice approaches a bit before that, but by myself in VMC, and therefore no foggles.

So I enlisted my good friend Roland to come with me and act as my safety pilot, to go do three approaches yesterday. "The Milk Run," he calls it, of Stockton, Tracy and Livermore, which gives me a VOR, GPS and ILS approach. Now, there were several confounding variables on this trip; for one thing, it was my first time renting out of Advantage Aviation. I'm still a member of West Valley, but Advantage has just as many of the planes I want to fly, and they're a good $10-$15 cheaper per hour. And they're nicer (sorry, but it matters to me).

We picked up the plane's keys, and went out to preflight. The plane, N784SP, was in very nice condition, and the preflight went well, except that fuel was just a bit below the tabs. I decided that was enough for our 2-hour flight (the tabs would give us 3.5 hours conservatively, and it was just below), so we got in, and ... I realized the plane had no MFD. The MFD is the big moving-map GPS display that I'd used all through my training as quite the crutch for situational awareness. OK, this would be a bit of a challenge, but no worries; through my training I'd worried about becoming too dependent on the MFD anyway, so this would be a good drill.

Off we went, VFR with a right Dumbarton departure, and over Sunol I gave Norcal a call. Now, after some down time, the radio calls are the first thing to suffer, and this was no exception. I got the message across (flight following Stockton, practice VOR 29R) but forgot to tell him I had the ATIS, and neglected to tell him how I wanted to start the approach (pilot nav) or how the approach would terminate (published missed). Not pro, but the controller was really nice and just prompted me for the information. Also, the autopilot veered me hard to the right when I tried to engage it, so apparently it was even more useless than all the other K(r)AP 140s I've experienced. Great..no MFD, no AP. This will be a challenge indeed!

About 10 miles from ECA (the IAF), I was still at 5500' and worried about getting down -- obviously on an instrument flight plan, they tell you when to descend, but VFR, everything's a lot more variable. But for some reason, these days I'm a lot less afraid to sound like an idiot (which is a good thing) so I queried ATC: "4SP...can I begin a descent?" Immediately he said, "4SP, cross ECA at or above 2000, cleared approach." Perfect..so I slowed and immediately began a 1000 FPM descent, and got to 2000 about 45 seconds prior to reaching ECA.

Reaching ECA is a drill, because it means the following: OBS mode, Time, Turn to the outbound leg for a parallel entry into the holding pattern in lieu of procedure turn, twist the inbound course, check in the GPS that the course reads correctly, switch nav source, throttle to descend to 1600'. Whew. Amazingly, I did it -- it wasn't smooth, but luckily Roland was a good sport about it. A minute out, I turned inbound, got established and descended to 1300'. I'd overshot a little, but got back on course quickly. Suddenly I looked down and my CDI was fully deflected..what the...oh, I'm right over the station. I started my time, and used the GPS to verify that I was on course until the CDI kicked in. I descended to 460', the MDA, and flew right over the missed approach point.

In flying the missed approach I had a little confusion about the navigation; I got on VOR navigation pretty quickly, but I wanted GPS guidance for more accuracy. I'm not sure why, but it took me a couple of tries to get it right -- Direct to ORANG, OBS mode, 317 in the OBS. Anyway, I did it and climbed to 3000', called ATC, and entered the hold.

Here's where things got a little messy..I didn't start the time passing ORANG, so I had to take a guess as to when to turn back inbound (turns out it was an amazing guess; my inbound leg was exactly 1:00!). My calls to ATC were sounding more and more amateur as I set up for Tracy, stayed in the holding pattern with no AP, and generally struggled to get everything done. But I got it, and eventually asked for the approach and was directed to ECA. The GPS-A at Tracy went really well, and entering the hold at TRACY also went well -- a lot easier with the GPS than with VORs! I set up for LVK ILS 25R, and asked for it. Here I veered a bit off course on my inbound leg, which made things more confusing than they should've been (if I were on course, I'd just have to pass straight ahead over TRACY to be on the next leg of the ILS, once cleared), but I handled it, it just wasn't particularly pretty.

The ILS went beautifully. I was right on it pretty much the whole time, with only a few corrections. I was on the slow side (I had been on all the approaches; my standard power settings weren't working and I hadn't found ones that did work), but only by about 5 knots now (as opposed to about 10 knots earlier in the flight). I did a touch and go (best one in a while!), and made for Palo Alto. The flight back to Palo Alto was easy, and after a bit of instability as I got over the runway, recovered and made a nice landing.

It was a great refresher flight! I was not nearly as far ahead of the airplane as I'm accustomed to being, but I can attribute that to three factors: 1. Rust, obviously. 2. No autopilot. 3. No MFD. So, in addition to being rusty, my brain also had to handle constantly flying the plane, and constantly being aware of my situation. The latter was remarkably easy, but the former was a challenge at times.

Roland is a great safety pilot, by the way. He's really calm about everything, and he asks questions, almost like an instructor would..it's kind of uncanny, given he doesn't have an instrument rating, but he just has great judgment and is very aware of the situation. He forces me to tell him my plan, which is great -- he wanted to know, for example, when I would de-foggle myself on the ILS, so I told him "Pretty much at the DA." He asks, "What's the DA on this approach?" And I didn't have it at the forefront of my thoughts; I had to think about it for a sec and verify with the plate before answering, "650'." But it was great to have thought about it then, nice and early, before it got late. Plus, he took pictures, so I can see what I'd been missing!

Now, back to plan A: I want to take at least one trip a month with Roland (or another pilot) and do an approach on at least one end. If I do that, currency won't be an issue.