Taking chances, fulfilling dreams

A long time ago, I had some idealistic vision of what it would mean to be a pilot. I'd fly to gigs with my band, to client meetings for work, to visit friends who were far enough away to make driving a hassle. It was just about 10 years and 500 flight hours ago when I started taking lessons, and as I look back at the last few weeks, I feel closer to really living those dreams than I ever have before.

On the surface, it's not even that mind blowing: I flew to KSMO for a work meeting about 4 weeks ago, and I flew down to Carlsbad to visit family about 10 days later. As a part owner of a Turbo Centurion, these are the kind of trips I should be making frequently, and yet, the last trip was only my fifth trip to Southern California, with two of those prior to my purchase of my share of N6824R. 

I think what feels different about these trips is that I didn't feel like I was totally in my comfort zone. For the work trip, I was flying to somewhere I needed to be. I haven't done much of that, and it does change the equation. Granted, there was a lot of safety built into the plan - I had a Southwest ticket as a backup plan, and the flight to LA was the day before the meeting because the meeting was early in the morning. Worst case scenario on a late scratch, I could just drive till about 1:00 AM and still make it. Thankfully, it didn't come to that, and I nailed my estimate of when I'd arrive at KSMO.

On this trip, it's the longest trip by far that we've taken with the kid. We had a brilliant plan to time it so he'd fall asleep in the plane, but instead he fell asleep in the car on the way to the airport. Luckily we timed it better on the way home, and it worked beautifully - he slept for the first hour of the 2.3 hour flight! The problem is that when he's not sleeping, he's generally trying to remove his ear protection, which is not ideal.

I'd really love to be IFR current for my next trips. That would add a level of confidence and flexibility that would go a long way in planning.

Hot starts and hurried descents

Let's take a moment to review 2014, since I didn't post at all last year. I did fly some; generally a few shorter trips into the foothills, probably a couple of bay tours, a flight review, some maintenance flights, and some practice approaches.

My second to last flight was in October.  I went to Marina (KOAR), and was tons of fun. I flew down and landed, and went to refuel, but my engine died before I got to the fuel island. I couldn't get it started again, so there I sat on the thankfully-quiet taxiway.  I got out and got my towbar, and pulled the plane up to the fuel pump. A guy who had just refueled his Van's RV-7 (I think) asked if I needed help - by that time I'd already gotten the plane there, but he and I got to talking; he let me sit in his RV, which was awesome, and eventually, he helped me push my Centurion into a tie-down.  Then he and his (wife? girlfriend? I don't remember...) significant other drove me to the beach (in their Fiat 500E!), stopping for ice cream, hung out with me on the beach for a little bit, and drive me back to the airport!  Nicest people ever!  I eventually got the plane started (with difficulty) and flew home.  I don't have their contact information, and I've forgotten their names because my relatively-new-dad brain is a sieve.  If you're reading this, please get in touch with me!

My last flight was on January 3, 2015, and was incredibly frustrating. I flew to KCPU, Calaveras County airport, and read my flight plan wrong so didn't descend or slow down nearly in time.  So I dilly-dallied around the foothills for several minutes trying to bleed off some speed, before getting into the pattern and landing.  As I taxied back, I saw the fuel pumps and decided to go for it.  I filled up, and....couldn't get the plane started, again.  Now this time, the plane's battery was low as well, so while the initial trouble was probably that I flooded the engine, after a time, the battery was too low to start the plane anyway.  So I had to wander around and get help, which is always fun - luckily, more nice people here!  Not only did the guy I met give me a jump start, he also gave me a second jump start when my engine died because I'd left the fuel pump on (the jump start is done with the master switch off, so when I flipped the master on, the fuel pump came on and re-flooded the engine).

Since then, I've read a lot about Continental start procedures, and I think I know what to do next time:  1) Throttle open, mixture full lean, high fuel pump for 30s.  2) Throttle most of the way closed, mixture full rich, fuel pump OFF, crank the engine.

Today, however, I chose not to stop the engine.  I flew from SJC to LVK, and after bouncing through some turbulence, arrived way too fast and too high (sound familiar?).  After I broke off my pattern to go descend and lose some speed, I did a nice gusty crosswind landing.  I taxied back and took off toward SQL, and as I approached Coyote Hills (fast!), the tower frequency was nonstop. I found a gap and said quickly, "Centurion 6824R, Coyote Hills, 1500', landing, negative ATIS." I wasn't receiving ATIS for some reason; "negative ATIS" wasn't a great thing to say to a busy controller, but my options were limited. I got to the sunken ship, and still hadn't heard back, so given the madness of the airspaces around there (HWD and SQL below, OAK and SFO above), I got down to 1200' and started making a hard circle. But thankfully the controller acknowledged me and routed me inbound. I landed decently and taxied back.

The flight back to SJC was great. Right downwind off runway 30, handoff to PAO, handoff to NUQ, handoff to SJC, left traffic for 30L, and actually squeaked the wheels on landing.

As I look at the sequence of flights, going back to the one in January, I was clearly underestimating how fast the plane is, arriving at airports too high, too fast, not in front of the airplane enough.  Today, my arrival at LVK was crappy, but then at SQL was better (though still too fast initially) and at SJC was good.  Just another "rust" phenomenon to work through.  In any case, it was great to fly again!

I only write when I don't fly!

Since my last post, I've flown a good amount.  I did some IFR training, a couple of trips to San Luis Obispo, an intense IFR flight and approach (more below), and even a lesson in a powered hang glider (or, a "trike") in Hawaii!

I now have over 40 hours in the T210, and truth be told, I'm still not feeling altogether comfortable with it. I don't have a good enough handle on aircraft systems or emergency procedures. While the procedures to slow down and not shock-cool the engine are second nature, I still struggle to find the appropriate mixture. And now we have GAMI injectors, I should probably be trying to run lean of peak, but haven't had the brain space to take that on in the air.

Today, I was going to go try to get better at VOR tracking - in my last flight to JAQ and back, I realized how bad my technique had become, and with a little work, got quite a bit better in flight. I think two flights focusing on just that would be a most useful exercise, so I thought I could go do the SNS VOR 13 (it's bright VMC today, and I wouldn't have been foggled), fly a missed with a hold at MARNA, and then track my way over to PXN, and see if I could find KLSN by following a radial.

During preflight checks, I popped open the gear bay doors (which I do sometimes, but not always), and discovered a small amount of fluid collected by the hinge on the door.  Not sure what it was (probably either brake fluid or hydraulic fluid, given the location), but there wasn't that much of it - probably 2 tablespoons total.  Still, I canceled the flight.  If I couldn't figure out what the fluid was, I need to study systems more.  Given my current state of restedness (very good, considering the 8-week-old baby at home, but that's not saying much), could I manage slowing the airplane with only one brake?  How about a gear-up landing?

A couple of months ago, I made a set of decisions that were uncharacteristically bold for me.  My airplane partner and I decided to fly out to Modesto to have the GAMI injectors evaluated. There was a storm coming in, and I wouldn't have even gone, were I solo, but after we talked about it, we decided to go. All the forecasts had the ceilings at about 1600' and we could make it back from Modesto at 1000' if we went the long way around the south end of the hills.

By the time we were coming home, the storm had come in, but I decided that with a 1600' ceiling, I could shoot an approach. So we climbed up to 6000'.  It was challenging just to fly the plane, hold my heading, keep my altitude, but I did it. Then we were given the ILS, which to my memory I flew horribly (looking at the FlightAware track later, it looks much better than it felt).  Almost lost the intercept twice, was low on glideslope twice (my partner had to call it out; thank goodness he was there).  The weather was amended twice on the approach, but frankly I was so busy flying the approach that I have no idea what they said.

I probably should've listened, because we were descending on glideslope through 700, 600, 500 feet and still no runway.  As I glanced over to remind myself of the missed approach procedure (a moment of disbelief flitted through my mind, but I managed to dismiss it as quickly as it appeared), my partner called, "I see it" at 450'.  I shifted my focus, continuing on the descent, and at about 325' I saw it.  DA is 257'.  It was pouring rain, and I made a beautiful landing as I held the airplane off, off, off to not land on the apron.  As we taxied back through the downpour, avoiding the rats that were scurrying about on the taxiway, I felt that what I had just done was dangerous and reckless, and that I'd gotten away with one.

As I look back at the decision chain, I feel I have to cut myself a little bit of a break. I wouldn't have even gone on my own, but I knew I'd have an experienced pilot in the right seat. I certainly wouldn't have tried to come back if there were any indication at all of a 300' ceiling - there simply wasn't, until I was in it.  I'm sure one of those weather reports while on the approach had some indication of it, but by then I was already on the approach - what reason is there (as a non-commercial operator) to not fly the approach to its conclusion?  In my opinion that's actually safer than trying to call an early missed, because it's something standard, that we practice, vs. something off the cuff.

Judgment is a strange thing in aviation.  In recent years I've had to relax my standards just a little bit - otherwise I might never go at all. There seems to always be a reason to not go.  That said, there's a line, and this is why I believe people establish personal minimums.  I need to formalize mine, but today's decision to not go when there was a problem I couldn't fully characterize is a good start.

Deciding NOT To Fly

It's better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air, than vice versa.

That's what I've always heard, and it seems like obvious wisdom.  I promised to myself a long time ago that as a private pilot with lots on my mind other than aviation, I would always make the conservative decision as to whether to go flying on a particular day, and to always be able to do an honest assessment of my comfort level with various situations, and make the safe choice.

My plan this weekend was to fly to San Luis Obispo for a friend's graduation, stay over, then fly this morning to Oakland for the A's game, and back home afterwards.  This was one of those classic "why would I do this in a car when I can do it in an airplane?" moments!

As I watched, nay, obsessed over, the weather at SBP through Friday, I saw what I didn't want to see: OVC008 (overcast, with the clouds starting at 800' above the ground, for you non-pilots) until 10am.  It changed a few times over the course of the day, and by Saturday morning, the actual weather was OVC007, set to change to SCT010 (scattered clouds at 1000') at 10am.  We had to get there pretty much AT 10am, and it's not like cloud cover changes instantly, so I'd pretty much have to shoot an approach.

San Luis has an ILS. The IFR routing would be dirt-simple: SNS to PRB and into the ILS approach structure.  This might be the easiest ILS with actual that I would ever fly.  I honestly thought I could have flown it without a problem.

BUT.  My last approaches were just under six months ago, on a simulator. My last approaches in actual IMC (clouds, in an airplane) were in February, 2012!  Sure, I did an IFR flight in February of this year, but it was in clear conditions, I did a poor job staying on airways using only VOR guidance (N6824R has an enroute-certified GPS, but its database is not current), and I got disoriented on the approach because I'd twisted my NAV incorrectly.  Glad it was clear, but it was still scary, and I was by myself!  (it was also LA area, which was stressful)  Also, everything happens faster in a faster airplane - my only IMC experience is in a 172.

So we drove to SBP and back, and we'll be driving to Oakland this morning for the game (there's apparently a marine layer over Oakland today).  And, by the way, the weather in SBP was OVC012 even at noon! But, while I was driving, I took a peek up at the partly-cloudy weather, and remembered how much I love instrument flight.  I'm going to get back into it, the right way, with regular training, in this airplane, and once I'm ready, heading into IMC with an instructor a few times to gain some familiarity and confidence.

There Is An A In Airplane, And In Arizona!

Last weekend I took a little trip to the Phoenix, AZ, area to get a few days away, and to take in some spring training A's baseball. And by "little trip" I mean the farthest away from home I've flown solo, and the farthest without a G1000 (the trip to Orcas Island was much longer, and slower, but the G1000 is very nice for situational awareness).  So in the days preceding the trip, I created a VOR-based flight plan, made sure my charts on my iPad were up to date, and made sure everything was charged up.

I woke up at about 6:00 Sunday morning, and .. could barely stand.  For some reason I was really dizzy.  My plan was to take off around 8:00am so that I could get to the game that started at 1:00, but wow, IM NOT SAFE.  [Aside: IM SAFE is the acronym for evaluating aeromedical factors and fitness of flight from a mental health perspective: Illness, Medication, Stress, Alcohol, Fatigue, Emotion are all factors that could lead to a bad day in the air.]   As I contemplated canceling my trip, I drank some water, ate some food, took a shower, and quickly began to feel better.  By about 8:30, I felt totally normal - I tested myself several times, closing my eyes and shaking my head around, to make sure the dizziness was gone, and it was.

So I headed for the airport.  I had preflighted on Saturday, and gotten the fuel filled up, but there was still plenty to do. I still did a basic preflight, hooked up and tested the oxygen, towed the plane out, checked the fuel and oil one more time, went to the bathroom like 15 times (all that water, to hydrate myself, had to go somewhere).  By the time I took off, it was after 10:00am.

I had resolved to try to use the old Cessna 400 Nav-O-Matic autopilot on the way down to Glendale (KGEU). It was supposed to have a mode (two, actually) that could track VORs, and I had read the manual on how (theoretically) to accomplish this.  Unfortunately, every time I tried to follow the procedure, the plane turned sharply to the left.  Good thing I was VFR.  So I ended up just using the heading mode.  And the altitude hold was pretty much useless.

I once again was asked (both there and back) to "say on-course heading."  This time I had anticipated the question and had the answer ready.  I also got asked (both there and back) to say my route of flight, which I thought was interesting.  The hard part about that was translating the VOR names to English to read them (my flight plan just had the 3-letter abbreviations).

Just south of Avenal, ATC asked me: "Do you want to just fly direct to destination?"  I had routed myself around all the military areas and restricted areas, but on a Sunday afternoon, these were mostly inactive.  Sure, I said, and told my iPad (and the expired GPS in the airplane) direct KGEU. Nice!

For the next couple of hours I flew in a straight line at 13,500, getting nothing but the occasional frequency change from ATC.  Eventually I decided it would be a good time to descend, so I told ATC and started down.  Nothing too eventful, except when I was over Luke AFT at 4000, they told me "Flight services terminated, squawk VFR, frequency change approved."  Huh, no handoff to GEU tower, when I'm right next to his airspace? That's nice.  So I quickly called tower, told them where I was, made right traffic for Rwy 1, and landed OK and taxied to the FBO.  It was 1:20pm, and I got to the game around 2:00 in time for the 5th inning.

On Tuesday, for my return, I had planned to basically take it easy.  I had all day to get back.  But instead, I ended up spending 1 1/2 hours trying to figure out what weight of oil the airplane needed! Sigh.  Things one should know about one's own airplane.  The answer, by the way, is 15W50.  Eventually I filled the oil and got on my way.  This time I didn't have the luxury of flying through the restricted areas, and the controllers down there I think expected me to be a lot more assertive.  They'd give me a restriction, and then forget all about it so I'd query them later ("Center, 6824R - let me know when I can climb to cruise altitude, 14,500"  "6824R.....altitude your discretion (sounding confused)").

The scariest moment was climbing through 13,000, when I was startled by a loud POP!  Gauges looked OK, oil pressure still good, RPMs and MP still up...I'm still climbing...turned out a bag of chips (PopChips, actually) had exploded in my backpack!

I flew the way back with no autopilot, and it was easier than flying with the autopilot.  Maintaining altitude was not an issue. The only glitch was that my iPad's batteries ran very low, but by that time I was on SF sectionals, which I had on paper as well. After a quick stop at South County (E16) for fuel, I was back in San Jose!

KSJC <=> D83 (Boonville)

They say when you get married that what's yours is hers, and what's hers is also hers. Naturally, my wife wanted a ride in her new airplane, since it had been almost three weeks since the purchase and she hadn't been in it yet.  So I asked her where she wanted to go: San Luis Obispo? Santa Barbara? Monterey? Las Vegas?

No.

She wanted to go to Boonville, near Ukiah and in the middle of nowhere.

I kid, I kid.  I mean, she really did want to go to Boonville, but I never offered to go to Las Vegas.  And we'd been to Boonville before, in a 172, and really liked the fact that the airport was about a mile walk from the center of town, which featured some cool restaurants and stores, and the cutest little ice cream shoppe that made their own popsicles.

So I planned a flight to Boonville via the San Francisco class B transition so we could get a good view of the Golden Gate on what was an absolutely beautiful day.  I asked Clearance for a straight out departure and told them we were VFR to Boonville, via SFO Class B.  After runup, I was cleared to take off, so I followed the clearance - Runway Heading at or below 2000, and when requested, I switched to departure frequency.

And then I got the dreaded question: What is your on course heading?

I really need to get better at answering this question.  I just said "Standby" as I tried to figure out the correct heading toward SFO, but frankly, flying the plane was taking priority. The T210 is complex enough that there's a lot to clean up upon entering a low cruise. After a few moments, the controller asked: "Are you familiar with the Dumbarton Bridge?" Affirm. "Roger, N24R, fly to the east of the bridge, at or below 3000'."  So. He got sick of me and didn't want me in SFO airspace.  Fair enough, so I crossed the bay and headed toward Sunol.

As I was handed off to the next controller, he asked me: "Are you on course to your destination?" This time I was somewhat smarter: "Affirm, cancel original request for SFO Bravo transition, I'll follow 680 north."  Efficient, and I let him know, professionally, that I had made an adjustment for their traffic flow.

The rest of the flight to Boonville was smooth. We stayed at 4500' simply because there didn't seem to be a good opportunity to climb. A controller over the East Bay (with an Asian accent of some kind, which was a first for me) told me "altitude your discretion" but I was still under a 6000' shelf, so 4500' it was.

My wife spotted the airport before I did, but in my defense I was busy slowly lowering the power settings so as not to shock cool the engine. I overflew the airport, saw the windsock, quickly turned out to the right, and while protocol would've been left turns to enter a right pattern, there was no one there (and the airport is nestled in between a lot of hills) so I kept it tight and just turned downwind. Everything was happening very quickly, but I got 10 degrees of flaps in, slowed below 140mph, got the gear down, did my prelanding checklist, and by the time I turned final, I was configured and going about 90mph with 20 degrees of flaps.  I put in the rest of the flaps, and .. I was a bit high, but airspeed was fine at 80mph.  Given the relatively short runway, I probably would've been better served to come in slower, but I landed and stopped about halfway down the runway - not bad.

The airport is just a paved runway with a downward slope starting about halfway down, and no taxiways - you have to taxi back on the runway.  I did so, and pulled off into the transient parking area, and pushed the plane back against a fence that separated the airport from a horse ranch.  So tranquil!  Nobody was there - no planes, no people - I guess this is what they mean when they refer to an "unattended airport."  My wife remembered all this from our previous trip, but for some reason I didn't at all.

We walked into town and had lunch, and poked around in the shops and had homemade popsicles.  It was an amazing day up there, weather-wise, and we found we didn't need our sweatshirts at all.  Fun!

On the way back, I'd decided to stop at San Carlos for fuel, because it was more than $1.50/gal cheaper than at San Jose, and not as far out of the way as Livermore (which is cheaper still).  Plus, by requesting San Carlos as a destination, we would have to fly over the Golden Gate.  I climbed to 5500 and stayed there, for an alarmingly long time. As I approached Sausalito, I had already been pulling back power, anticipating a descent. At that point, Approach asked me: "Do you want to descend?" I'm thinking..uh, yeah, usually don't you guys tell me to descend? I answered, "Affirm, VFR descent." They told me: "Maintain at or above 2500, do not enter class Bravo, notify if unable."  Well...I was at 5500, class B was at 3000 and above and right in front of me, so I ended up making a couple of sharp turns, to the left and right, descending rapidly.  Again, luckily I had cooled the engine prior to all this.

We were cleared into San Francisco airspace, and headed for 101.  As we talked to SFO tower, they requested we "hold at Candlestick."  OK, that should be entertaining..so I flew over Candlestick and made left turns (even though right turns are standard, I didn't want to turn toward the SFO airport). I was at 1200 feet, and we were circling over San Francisco and Candlestick point.  It was awesome! Eventually we were cleared to progress, and we made our way in to San Carlos, parked and got fuel.

On takeoff from San Carlos, we did a "Bay Meadows Departure" - it had been a while, so I had to confirm what that was, but it was pretty simple; fly straight until abeam Bay Meadows (which is gone, but I knew where it used to be), then left turns to fly to the west of 101.  All went well until HOLY CRAP WHAT IS HAPPENING all we could hear was a loud, high-pitched squeal in the headsets! Finally I hit the "AUTO" button on the audio controller and it turned off.  It took me a good 20 seconds or so to realize, wait, I can't hear anything the controller is saying now.  So I turned down my wife's audio controls, and turned AUTO back on.  About 30 seconds after that, I got, "N24R, are you still on frequency?" "Affirm, 24R" as if to say, "of course, why do you ask?" It was busy, no time or need to explain.

We passed through Palo Alto and Moffett airspaces and as we were handed off to San Jose tower, the squeal happened again - my wife had turned up her controls again, so I turned them down again (sorry, dear, you can't hear what's going on) and the squeal went away.  I flew a clean pattern and landed nicely.

Apart from the audio troubles, this was a smooth, fun flight! And I think the audio problems were just because for some reason we had to turn up my wife's audio controls to the maximum, and I'm guessing that we were also accidentally turning up the rear passenger's controls (with nothing connected) which might have created feedback.  I'll have to experiment with that next time I fly.

KSJC <=> KHHR

Last Friday, I flew N6824R down to Hawthorne, next to LAX, for the Los Angeles A Cappella Festival. I decided on Hawthorne as it seemed easier to get to USC from there than from Santa Monica.

Despite the beautiful, sunny weather, I decided to file an IFR flight plan and fly it down, so that I wouldn't have to cope with the LAX airspace VFR, which has always seemed daunting.  But 24R has no certified GPS, so for the first time, I ended up flying IFR enroute using only VOR navigation. And I realized just how inaccurate VORs are - I was on course, as best as I could tell, less than one dot deflected, but when you're almost 40 miles away from a VOR, that's way off course!

I get the impression that with the prevalence of GPS, there's a higher expectation for being on course to a fix, even though ATC knew I was /A (without GPS).  Once I fired up my iPad, I saw what they were talking about, and proceeded to use the iPad and ForeFlight very heavily for situational awareness.

On the way in, I made one very critical error - for some reason, I inverted the approach course on the LOC approach into HHR before dialing it in.  In retrospect, this makes no sense. So my turn on course was very confused, and caused a moment of franticness - but I figured it out. Not in time that ATC didn't ask what I was doing and whether I need to be turned outbound for another vector, but in time that I could respond, "negative, moving to intercept the course now." Good thing it wasn't IMC - not that I would've attempted this in IMC at this point.

One win on the way down was that even though I meant to fly at 12,000, below required O2 levels, I had hooked up and preflighted the O2 system and had the cannula hanging at the ready in case I needed it.  I monitored my O2 levels with an oximeter, and all was fine, but they did send me up to 13,000 along the way, so it was great to just pull up the cannula and turn a knob.

The way back on Sunday was gorgeous. I came back VFR and flew the Mini Route over LAX (and I think I did it well).  There was a lot of confusion about the flight following; controllers kept terminating flight services instead of handing me off (though they'd give me the next frequency - "N24R, flight services terminated, squawk VFR, for flight following contact approach on xxx.x. Good day.").  So I cruised along at 8,500, and picked up flight following again once I was out of the busy section.

The approach into SJC was great - I found the Pruneyard, I slowed the plane down gradually, and landed it easily (it's a very easy plane to land).  All in all, this was an awesome first trip!

First Flight in MY Airplane

I flew an airplane that I can consider "mine" for the first time today. And what a thrill it was!  Such a thrill, in fact, that I forgot the airplane keys at home, and had to call one of the other partners to borrow his!  Hey, I've never had to worry about bringing airplane keys to an airport with me before..

I met our designated CFI at the airport, and while we waited for my partner to bring keys, we went over emergency procedures and high altitude operations.  One issue right now is that checklists are all over the place - for preflight, there's a preflight checklist but then you have to refer to the book for parts of it. For startup, there's a startup checklist in the manual, but it's not quite right so you have to refer to the separate checklist, but that checklist doesn't have lists for cruise and descent, so you have to look in the book...it's confusing.  One of the most instructive things I did with the Piper Arrow was to make my own checklist, and right after I finish writing this blog entry, I'm going to do the same for 24R.

As for the flight itself, it was awesome.  On the takeoff roll, it took me WAY too long to remember where the airspeed indicator was.  We took off on a "Livermore departure" from SJC, flew over the hills toward Livermore, and as I slalomed some clouds, I realized something: This airplane is not the truck I thought it was. It may look like one, but it handles beautifully, and is fun to fly! It does require more rudder input than I'm accustomed to.

We hung out and did some slow flight, stalls, steep turns - my worst steep turns in a very long time! But, new airplane and all that.  Then back to SJC for some normal landings - I greased 2 of 3, and the other was not bad - but I had a LOT of guidance from the CFI.  He basically handled the radio and the cowl flaps, which I really need to work into my flow.

As a nice bonus, I discovered today that the hourly cost is per tach hour, not per Hobbs hour - that will save me some money!

Another flight is scheduled with one of the partners, who is a CFI, for tomorrow evening. Hopefully I'll have a draft of my checklist done by then. I can't wait!

A New Adventure: Partial Ownership

I've spent a lot of time wondering how to make flying safer, easier, and cheaper; some on this blog, some otherwise. We've talked about experimentals and homebuilts, about joining different clubs, making my home base RHV instead of PAO, and getting my CFI rating.  I've talked about how much I love Mooneys (in the certified world) and Vans and others (in the experimental world) because of their speed and efficiency.

So as of Friday, I'm officially a part owner of N6824R, a 1967 Cessna Turbo 210G based at SJC.  While 24R does not fulfill all of my dreams, it is a very good airplane, has a very good partnership around it, and will make my flying safer, easier, and cheaper, in a way that works with my goals.

What are these goals?

1. Have a reliable IFR platform to plan and take trips around the west coast.  24R is a great machine for this - while it's not nearly as efficient as a Mooney or an experimental, it's got much greater capacity than a Mooney and is a much more stable IFR platform than many experimentals.

2. Buy into an established partnership, if I'm going to buy. 24R's 5-way partnership is very well established, and I have been able to buy in without having to think about all the logistics and legality of creating a business entity, recruiting co-owners, finding a home base for an aircraft, etc.

3. Home base closer to home. I simply don't go near PAO any more.  24R is based at SJC, which is easy to get to, and nicer (to me) than RHV.

4. Save money flying.  This depends on how you count it, and how much I fly.  The hourly costs on 24R, even with its significant fuel burn, are lower by about $20/hr than what I was paying for (albeit very nicely equipped) 172s at Advantage Aviation at PAO.  And that's assuming say 65% power for about 160 KTAS, vs. the 110 KTAS in the 172.  G1000s don't make your plane go faster.  So if I fly enough, it'll be enough to offset the monthly fees (which aren't that much) and the maintenance costs.  Generally, though, flying will still be expensive.

5. Fly safer.  Getting to know one airplane really, really well has its advantages.  Also, when that airplane has the ability to fly into the flight levels, that also has its advantages.  A few times, when I've taken a 172 out on a longer trip, I've felt like I'm not giving myself much margin - for example, flying over a cloud layer all the way over Oregon, tops at about 10,000, maintaining an altitude of 11,000, outside temps below freezing, service ceiling 12,500 and no O2 on board anyway.  What if the tops went up to 11,000, or 12,000?  Not much in the way of options - I don't remember the MEA on that particular route, but it would've had to have been below 8000 if I needed to descend below freezing level.  The T210 is an extremely capable aircraft.

6.  Learn. The T210 is a more complex aircraft than anything I've flown before, with greater pilot demands in terms of engine management in particular, but also with its increased speed, staying ahead of the airplane will be much harder (though I can always slow down).  Also, its avionics are dated.  So I will have to learn (again) to get good at tracking VOR radials, and hopefully also learn about avionics options so we can upgrade at some point.  I will also have the opportunity to learn how partnerships are run, from people who have run a good one for a while.

I'm very, very excited for this new adventure, and the adventures to come!

Pasadena and Back

As you know, I haven't been flying that much lately, for a variety of factors.  It really hit me when, on the day before Thanksgiving, we were on our way to San Diego, and got caught in nasty traffic on "the" 405 on the way down.  It was infuriating, but even more maddening to realize that this was exactly a time we should've been flying instead of driving.

So when we found ourselves with the opportunity to go to Pasadena to watch Stanford WIN the Rose Bowl, we jumped at it! And when the weather turned out to be sunny all the way, I rented the only thing I could get my hands on: an overly cushy (read: expensive) 172.

I'm now at the point where I would trade cushiness for flight performance any day.

The flight down was fine, but it took us a while to get up to 9,500.  The LA airspace was busy as expected, and I did a very good job of being on top of things.

The way back was worse; we took off after the parade, the game and a nice dinner on New Year's Day, about 9pm. Several mistakes: I didn't put my flight plan into my GPS before taking off (duh); I underestimated the terror of flying not that far over high mountains at night; I underestimated the difficulty of climbing to 10,500.  So...let's just say things weren't going smoothly.  But in the end, we ended up overflying I-5 on the way out (far more comfortable than the original plan), my awesome wife was on top of things with the charts enough that I sounded relatively competent with ATC, and we made it home safely.

Before midnight - in time to toast to 2013!

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.