The Inevitable

Once again, I have to bow to the inevitable: I can't sustain my flying life and keep all the other stuff in my life (you know, things like jobs :-)) going properly at the same time.

So, sadly, and for pretty much exactly the same reasons as I wrote about back then (a little over three years ago!), I'm giving up GA flying for the foreseeable future. And also, by extension, blogging about it here (I didn't even get the time to blog here about the last few flights I made, which is never a good sign).

And once again, I suspect I'll be back, but I currently have no idea when, or even where.

Boring Airport Photos

As all three of my regular readers probably already know, I spend a lot of time traveling on commercial airlines for work (I'm one of those techies who's actually trusted to go to my company's client sites and talk directly to these clients without a chaperone; I'm even trusted with a knife and fork in front of clients!).

So I spend a lot of time in airports… taking boring airport photos with my iPhone while waiting in (say) Burbank for a flight back to Oakland, or while stuck for six hours in the bursting-at-the-seams Southwest gate area at La Guardia for a long-delayed flight to Chicago Midway, or while waiting in Minneapolis airport for tornadoes to subside before flying to Phoenix (I'm sure that all sounds so glamourous).

All of which is to excuse the fact that I haven't been flying much lately (and won't be flying much for some time) except in the back of Airbuses and 737's, and to introduce to a wider world my Boring Airport Photos gallery. Yes, there is such a thing: see the writeup for an explanation if you want the usual wordy exegesis, otherwise go straight to the gallery….

Just another (confused, visual) look at the realities of flying for me, I guess.

Taking A break

I've basically had to make a decision in the last week or two that's been a long time coming: I really need to take a break from flying to be able to concentrate on the rest of my life for a while.

It's not that I won't fly as (say) safety pilot if asked, or that I'll let my medical or KOAK badge lapse, or not do my BFR when it's due, it's that I just can't afford the time and money for the foreseeable short term to fly semi-regularly the way I used to.

Basically, it's not really so much a money thing, it's a time thing. I have a new job that involves a lot more commuting, more travel, and much more extensive responsibilities than my previous job(s). It's no longer as easy to fly on weekday evenings as it used to be (I'm often still at work at 7pm, which would be when I'd want to start a flight, especially since I typically have to be up well before 7am the next day to get to work on time), and weekends are typically devoted to the other things and people in my life (or just recovering from the weekdays).

It's been a real struggle to find the time to stay current: not just instrument current, which has always been a bit of a chore, but club-current — which, at one PIC flight per 60 days, gives you some idea of how low the bar is set, and how I can't make even that bar. Given the vagaries of my life, it's turned out to be very difficult to book a plane ahead of time and not have that booking canceled because of weather or the need to stay late at work to sort out some emergency or other; sometimes I wish I could just turn up at the airport (KOAK, in my case) on a whim and just go fly the pattern on random evenings, but the current rental situation makes that basically impossible (for good reason).

And I'd say it's been even more of a struggle staying not just current, but proficient. That really does take significant time and effort, especially on the IFR side. No matter how ruthless I am about keeping my interactions with the G1000 on a "need to know" basis for single-pilot IFR, it's something that requires regular use to be comfortable with, and I just don't get that regular use at the moment.

Having said all that, money certainly plays a part: flying costs at least twice as much per hour now (for comparable planes) as when I started back in 1999, and more than three times as much for the type of plane I prefer flying single pilot IFR. Despite the apologists, GA flying really is expensive — many of my friends are (starving) artists and the like, and the amount of money I put into an hour or two's flying (for fun!) amazes a lot of these people.

Plus I do video and photography semi-professionally (as in I charge for it, but it's not my main source of income) and for more arty-farty reasons, and neither calling is exactly cheap (or at least not done the way I do it). A good piece of gear that I need for a specific type of shot or gig might cost the equivalent of a few hour's flying — and it's not hard to guess what choice I have to make for the long term in situations like that.

So it's unlikely that I'll be flying much (or even at all) in the next six months, maybe even the next year or two. We shall see….

Hayward Airport Open House

Last Sunday (the 12th) I dragged my two young nephews (3 and 5) along with me to the 2012 Hayward Airport (KHWD) Open House just down the road from Oakland, a sunny, good-natured event attended by a lot of locals, an event I enjoyed a lot.

Although they only lasted about an hour, Alex and Simon really enjoyed clambering over and around the Coast Guard helicopter, watching the B17 taxiing and flying around, "driving" the fire engine, playing around the Grumman Albatross, waving at the P51 as it did repeated flyby's, and just generally wandering around looking at the planes (long-term readers will know that the older one's already flown with me in a 172 out of Oakland). The two Tuskegee Airmen I talked to at the TA stall were great too — hope I'm that sharp and drily funny when I'm their age...

A few random snaps from the day:



Aluminum Overcast



Little Simon, Big Albatross




Little (Loud) Albatross: an Aero Vodochody L-39




Two Tuskegee Airmen

Apropos Of Nothing At All…

Just to fill in the space between real blog entries, here's a non-flying-related video I recently did around the Bakersfield and Westside (Central Valley) areas, posted basically as a response to the people who occasionally ask what I do besides flying…



I'm thinking of doing a Drive-by: Airport video soon….

The Knowledge

Regular YAFB readers (all three of you) will know that I'm based at Oakland (KOAK). Since Oakland's a busy airport with extensive airline, freight, and business GA operations as well as the whole light GA thing, I have to have a personalised security badge just to get out to the airplanes I fly. And that security badge comes with a serious background check, fingerprinting, TSA, FBI, OPD, and multiple other LEO TLA implications and obligations, and an in-person renewal every two years.

(Note that I'm not much bothered by the security requirements here: they seem fairly reasonable for a busy mixed-use airport where on a daily basis I might walk right by or cross paths with anything from beaten up old Piper Cubs through immaculate old P51 Mustangs to large Gulfstreams or commercial 737s to Justice Department MD-80's surrounded by gun-toting guards to late-model military planes and helicopters. I've made smalltalk with the OPD helicopter driver as his craft was being towed out of a hangar, I've chatted with the RNZAF crew whose plane was being refueled in front of the plane I was trying to refuel (size wins, ya know…), and been cheerfully shown around the interesting super-secret TLA-owned plane on the North Field whose purpose we're not supposed to talk about publicly — Oakland's that sort of airport…).

And this is renewal time… except that this year the process is different, as I discover when I visit the Oakland airport ID / badging page. You can't just walk up and get your badge renewed semi-automatically by brandishing the old badge and supporting ID any more, apparently. John's just been through the process himself, so I ask him what's in store: nothing onerous, just a more interactive process (and better documented) than before, involving booking a slot ahead of time, a useful checklist and supporting documents in PDF, and passing an hour-long interactive computer video training course on the basics. As long as I renew before the end of the 30 day window, I'm fine, so I wander in to Oakland Flyers (my badge is under their aegis), get the proper signoffs and authorisations (thanks Jim!), and book a slot from the Oakland Flyers PC, and wander off with the in-person bit set for a few days away.

* * *
So here I am, a few days later, outside the badging office up on the second floor of Terminal One, directly beneath the great old 1960's Jet Age control tower (within my memory there used to be a small restaurant and bar up just under the tower cab itself; the bar and restaurant were closed a decade or two ago for security reasons, but there's still an eighth floor button in the elevator for it — I didn't press it to see if it still worked…). You get a great view of the TSA security lines and procedures from outside the badging office, including direct views of the scanner monitors and what the operators are looking at, but I guess we're not supposed to talk about that.

What's immediately obvious as soon as I get there, though, is the surreal sound environment: over the usual clanging and clattering and loud voices from the security operations below, and the occasional noise of airplanes departing and arriving on the ramp outside, there's a loud thumping beat and cheerful dance music coming from one of the conference rooms next to the badging office. I can't help wandering over and seeing what's up — turns out it's the Oakland TSA Diversity Day, and TSA staff keep coming and going in small groups over the next hour. Looks like fun… but I'm here to do my rebadging, and after a few minutes I'm through with the first part, actually handing in the paperwork. The staff give me a sheet of paper with the computer training / testing login details and a minute or so later I'm sitting in the test room, with a handful of other testees sitting at booths around the room. I sit down, login, and start the process. Outside, it sounds like Karaoke mixed with security; inside, the effect is actually kinda cheering.

I go at the test and videos, and discover it's all a lot less irritating and hokey than I'd expected (especially based on the first time I did this, when the videos were like bad daytime TV with sinister-looking bad guys and ill-fitting uniforms and references to Pan Am and Eastern). I'm not allowed to talk about the contents of the video or training, but in general, it's pretty straightforward and the intent seems to be to help you learn and remember the rules and procedures, and there's nothing tricky about the tests (in fact, one of the dangers for me was the tendency to second-guess my own answers as though this was a typical FAA test where there might be a trick to the question, or even no right answer at all — this was quite straightforward by comparison). The videos were pleasingly localised — shots of real Oakland airport workers on the ramp or in the terminals, and obviously taken in the last year or two.

In the end, I press the final test button, and get 100%, which wasn't exactly difficult. You'd think most of this stuff was obvious or common sense, but from my own observation over the years at Oakland, common sense in these things isn't common, and a lot of people let their own attitudes get in the way of getting along or at least getting about. Which is why we're having to do the interactive testing regularly now, but never mind — despite a lot of grumbling, it's really a fairly reasonable and unonerous way to get The (secret!) Knowledge and to know how to use it.

An hour and a bit after getting to the office, I leave with my new badge. The world's a safer place as a result, I'm sure, but more importantly, I can keep accessing the planes I fly for another two years.

* * *

Downstairs, on my way back out of the terminal building I pass a limo driver waiting for an arriving passenger; he's holding up a sign saying "Brian Jones", which seems a little surreal to someone who once worked in the music biz and has a decent grasp of history.

On my way out of the parking lot, I brandish my validated parking slip and get waved through. Free airport parking — woohoo! Such a deal.

I've Got A Fluffy 737 — And You Haven't!

Yes, one of the side effects of having a couple of very young nephews (kids of some friends, really) who like flying and airplanes is you start finding all these sorts of things wherever you look (for several years one of the nephews' fave cuddly toys was a similarly-fluffy (but rather larger) space shuttle (tanks and all) that I picked up in NASA's space store at Orlando airport while there for a conference on Agile programming (yes, I'm such a nerd). I also have a fat pink knitted Dalek, but we're here to talk GA in CA, not Dr Who and TV icons, no?

Anyway, reading this blog lately you'd think I've given up flying, or at least given up blogging about it. Well, I haven't given up flying, but blogging's certainly been an issue. Basically, while I've flown several times since my last posting here, I've also spent most of May, June, and July away from home (overseas for work, mostly, and rarely in any exotic places, just places I'm from, like Australia or England), and August in a typical product release crunch (Agile? Right…). No complaints about all that from me, but it makes setting aside the time to blog about it all a bit difficult (I admire Aviatrix's continued discipline in blogging, but then she has a rather more interesting aviational life than I do, no?).

To make a long story short, in those months I've taken the four+ year old flying again, taken another English colleague on the Bay Tour (hi Sam! Thanks for not curling up and screaming "We're all going to die!!!!"), done a bunch of night landing practice, and other stuff I can't remember right now. Wish I had the time to blog it all in detail, but all I have is a bunch of photos I haven't had time to sort, and a vague hope that sometime in the next month I can get IFR current again and start writing about it all again.

We shall see…

The BFR, Part 1

I've flown more than I've let on in this blog in the past few months, but not much — bad weather, vacation, and the pressures of a real-world job have combined to keep me out of the cockpit for a lot longer than I'd like. So I look forward to today as a chance to do a bunch of things: first and foremost, ensure that I still remember what all those things on the displays on the front panel are trying to tell me (and what to do when they tell me something Interesting); to get club-current again; extend my landing currency (it's not expired yet, but it's getting close, and I could do with some serious landing practice); to get instrument current again (a few approaches and holds will probably do — I'm not really that un-current as far as IFR goes); and then (maybe) get the whole biennial flight review (BFR) thing rolling again. It's been a little under two years since my last one; I need to get it out of the way again before the end of February. I book a long session for this evening with John to try to get as much done as I can.

So, a lot on my plate. It's not helped by the Center Weather Advisory for severe turbulence issued for the Oakland area mid-afternoon a few hours before I'm due to fly, nor by the self-imposed deadline I had at work of getting a particular bit of tech stuff working properly by 17.00 today. Which I do, but when I get home to prepare for the flight, I realise I'm exhausted — I'd worked until very late last night and got up very early (for me, at least) this morning. I recheck the weather and NOTAMs, etc., with DUATS — the center advisory is still there — then grab some food. I'm still exhausted (what did I expect?). I wander out to the car and drive to the airport (Oakland, KOAK). On the way there I realize it's not going to magically get better — I probably shouldn't fly this evening. I certainly wouldn't fly with passengers or on my own; I could probably get away with it with an instructor on board, but I don't like doing that sort of thing. Maybe I can salvage something from it; we shall see. Mostly, I don't want to have wasted John's time by dragging him out to Oakland just to have me cancel on him (his drive to the airport's a lot longer than mine; I could easily walk there if I had to…).

John's already at Oakland Flyers when I get there, and I immediately tell him the situation — I think I'm too damn tired to fly properly this evening, especially with that center weather advisory still current (not that I actually believe it's as bad as reported, especially later in the day when the offshore winds have died down, but it's yet another factor in the decision making). He's good about it all, and suggests we do the non-flying bits of the BFR instead. I knew he was going to say this as soon as I walked through the door — and I know I haven't really studied for it or done the required reading in enough detail to be confident of getting through it. I've done a bit of preliminary reading, but digesting the whole FAR/AIM thing in an hour or two isn't my kind of thing, and I'm not particularly confident I won't make a fool of myself. I tell John all this, and he just suggests we do it anyway — it really isn't all that hard, and hell, if I really do screw up, I can do it again when I actually expected to do it.

So for the next ninety minutes or so we sit there in the club's luxurious space (ha!) while I try to answer a bunch of questions about charts, Part 91 legalities, airspaces and clearances, decision making, weather — all the stuff you're supposed to know. In the end I don't do too badly — I have to bluff a bit with some of the VFR chart stuff (I'm sadly more used to IFR charts nowadays, and ATC is usually responsible for my airspace usage or avoidance) and some of the answers to the more obscure stuff just seem to well up out of my subconscious — and I pass, or at least satisfy John that I'm good for another two years of flying, at least from the legal and knowledge point of view. Shame about the actual flying bits though — I guess I'll have to wait till next week or the week after that to get back in the air, get current, get at least half-way proficient, and (hopefully) complete the BFR. We shall see….