A short under-the-hood IFR-in-VFR flight to Santa Rosa (KSTS) and back with John, mostly just to get some tips from him on my IFR flying, to keep proficient as well as current, and to get better at managing the complexity that is the WAAS-enabled G1000 and associated process and tools, etc.
The highlight of the flight? Sitting there under the cone of stupidity watching the G1000 / KAP 140 combination fly us around the STS GPS RWY 14 course reversal hold at GETER intersection (including the proper teardrop entry) entirely on its own. No prompting or hints from me at all — it just aimed straight at GETER, entered the hold, and proceeded to fly the hold exactly the way I would, but smoother. Kewl! I love this stuff. As John said at the time, there really wasn't any need for me to be there at all. Actually, as we were approaching GETER I wasn't 100% certain whether the G1000 would push us around the hold or not (the older versions don't), but John just told me to wait and see. And what I saw was very slick and cool, as was the rest of the mostly-automated flight (I flew the ILS back into Oakland by hand for fun; the other approaches were all done coupled). The G1000 is IFR magic, no doubt, even if all you're doing is plain old ILSs or VOR-to-VOR victor airways routes. For VFR, it's nice, but basically just a very expensive way get too-easily distracted — I much prefer the older steam gauge SP's or whatever for just flying VFR around the Bay, etc.
A few other points from the flight: I'm still landing a little too flat for the 172 (it's the baleful influence of the Cirrus, or at least that's my excuse), and (at least on this flight) I was a little too lax about dialing in the underlying VORs for routes and approaches (I'm normally pretty good at that sort of thing, since what the hell else can you rely on when you're having a GPS Moment with the G1000 and you still have to do the hold or go missed or intercept a course that's also based on the underlying land-based navaids?). I'm also still a little too rough-and-ready with power / speed / altitude control trade-offs — the sort of precision John brings to this is still beyond me, unfortunately. But I did nothing terribly wrong, and the refresher was an interesting exercise (and for the short time I was allowed to look outside the cockpit, the view was typically gorgeous).
On the way back into Oakland (KOAK) I'd requested the ILS 27R practice approach, and after a bunch of vectors for traffic and a hand-off, I'd asked the new controller for an intercept outside GROVE intersection (a fairly common sort of request here, as it helps forestall NorCal's habit of instead dropping you closer in onto UPACI intersection, at least a thousand feet too high, meaning you have to drop like a rock to have a chance of intercepting the glideslope from below). The controller didn't quite understand what I was asking for, which wasn't as interesting as his response, which was to query whether I'd really be comfortable with intercepting at GROVE from my current position (a bit of a stretch, for sure). As John pointed out, while it was mildly irritating that he didn't "get" what I was getting at, the controller was definitely thinking the right way about the intercept, and given his understanding of what I wanted to do, was reacting in a really pretty helpful and thoughtful way. Top marks for that, I guess, and in the end I didn't have to drop out of the sky at 1,500 fpm to make the glideslope, and maybe the controller's got a better picture now of what I was really asking for. It's not all doom-and-gloom for GA pilots with NorCal….
Back at the fuel pumps in front of Kaiser, there's a big old Apache with a handful of twenty- and thirty-something hipsters milling around it taking a break. I chat with the pilot, a New Zealander who's lived around here, and it turns out they're just back from the Black Rock Desert (think "Burning Man", but a month or two before time). Seems the perfect way to get there and back (it's a hell of a drive), and I have to admit I've been attracted to the idea of flying there several times, but the alkaline dust and the dirt strip there make it a non-starter with club planes. (At first the New Zealander actually thought I had a New Zealand accent, which kinda amused me. His accent was obviously New Zealand, but, as he later admitted, my accent's a lot harder to pin down, having strong elements of my native British accent as well as a few thin insurgencies from my surroundings here).
July 04, 2007
June 26, 2007
WAAS, RNAV, LPV, and All That Stuff…
I learned to fly out of Oakland (KOAK), and really enjoy it as a base for GA flying. It's a large, busy airport with a tremendous variety of airline, commercial, business, and small GA traffic, and the sort of operational support (like 24-hour FBO's and fueling) that go with that; it's the centre of its own full-time Class C airspace (and it has two quite separate towers, but that's just a quirk…); it's close to where I live, an easy 15 minute drive (or 25 minute bicycle ride) on pleasant surface streets; and it's got a nice variety of IFR arrival, approach, and departure procedures (roughly thirty or so by my count).
So when I got the chance to get checked out in the new C172SP with a WAAS-enabled G1000 cockpit at Oakland Flyers with John, I jumped at the chance: not only do I get to fly out of Oakland again (for some of my flights, anyway — I'm definitely also staying with CalAir at Hayward (KHWD)) with a "new" club (OK, they're not exactly new to me — I've known of Oakland Flyers for years, and have always known people who fly with them or instruct there), I got to play with the new RNAV LPV approaches using the new WAAS stuff. And it turns out the 172 had exactly 77 hours on it when I started it up. Cool!
The plane itself really wasn't any different to fly than the G1000 172s I already fly with CalAir, and the actual checkout bits went fine, with the exception that, as John put it, I kept trying to land the thing like a Cirrus (i.e. flatter than usual for a 172). Guilty as charged, although the weird and rough windshear just above 27L's threshold made it difficult to land it smoothly at any damn attitude, 172, Cirrus, or whatever (I got my own back when John later tried an approach and landing and had the same "what the hell?!" reaction over the fence as I did :-)).
So what did I like about the new G1000 and the associated RNAV/LPV abilities? John will probably be posting some of his pix from the flight showing the G1000's chart and airport diagram features, all of which is good from a convenience point of view, and the safe taxi feature (or whatever it's called) was cool, even though I know Oakland's taxiways like the back of my hand. Some of the newer G1000 / GPS features like better turn prediction, more detailed fuel quantity resets, etc., were nice but not especially surprising. Some were mildly amusing, like the new vertical obstruction icons that looked like teepes or campground icons in gorgeous reds, yellows, and greens scattered around the hills in the area — I had to ask John what they were twice before I realised he wasn't kidding about them being tower markers, etc.
Of course it was the WAAS capabilities I was most interested in and that give this unit the most added value for me, and it didn't disappoint. There still aren't too many useful RNAV / LPV approaches in the neighbourhood, but luckily Oakland has a good one (RNAV RWY 27L), and we ambled three times around that approach, twice me flying, once with John doing it for light relief (all under the hood, of course). There's not a lot that's difficult conceptually or procedurally with the new RNAV approaches, so I won't spend much time discussing them here (John's had an occasional series of articles about them, e.g. here); in summary, they're basically GPS approaches with decent ILS-like glideslopes with vertical guidance, and, in some cases, very good minimums (but note: some of the LPV minimums are actually higher than conventional non-precision approaches at the same airport. Take a look at Napa (KAPC) for an example of this). The G1000 made things relatively easy to follow along with and fly; I don't think I'll ever miss the "dive and drive" approach to non-precision approaches if given a chance :-). Overall, rather cool, and definitely the way things should be, if a little unpolished on the interfaces.
As John's discussed elsewhere, the C172 G1000 doesn't coordinate particularly well for vertical guidance with the (otherwise rather nice) King autopilot that's standard with the G1000, which is a big shame — not only couldn't we get the LPV approach to couple in the vertical dimension (which is not too problematic — just dial in a suitable vertical sink rate on the AP), but the same old irritating inability to set things like vertical speed or target altitude with the G1000 (rather than separately on the KAP 140) remained. This is irritating on such an expensive and otherwise smooth and easy-to-use interface (OK, the G1000 interface isn't easy for beginners, but it grows on you. I find it easy to remember the basics, but I still can't remember all the MFD options off the top of my head).
* * *
Before we got to the approaches John threw me an ad hoc hold at SALAD intersection a few miles out from it. A couple of years ago I used to find this sort of thing quite a mental struggle, but this time it just seemed easy: John's handy-dandy way of using the HSI for working out the entry procedure combined with some sort of mental model built up with experience over the last year or two made it just happen. I could even answer the questions John kept asking me about it while I'm under the hood, which is a good sign (and yes, I've still yet to ever be assigned a hold in real IFR flying, but it'll happen one day, in the worst circumstances, for sure).
* * *
At one point the NorCal controller asks me — twice in a row, if I remember correctly — whether I want the RNAV 27L approach or the GPS 27L approach into Oakland. Argh! It's the RNAV (GPS) 27L approach, folks — get with the program! And at least twice NorCal tries to vector me to JOCPI (on Hayward's GPS 28L approach) rather than JUPAP (the intermediate fix or waypoint on the actual approach we were trying to fly); and the last clearance I get for the approach includes the instruction "cross JOCPI at or above 3,300". Hmmm. At least I knew what he meant, and it was VMC out there. Not as bad, perhaps, as one of my previous recent IFR experiences with NorCal when the controller instructed me to descend and maintain an altitude several thousand feet higher than I was already at while vectoring me for the wrong approach. Perhaps the views of the FAA's current staffing problems from The Main Bang and The FAA Follies aren't quite as extreme as some people seem to believe they are….
* * *
Back at Kaiser we see a couple of really expensive brand-new gold-painted G3 Cirrus SR-22s sitting in all their glory on the Kaiser ramp. Looks like some sort of demo day or tour. These things look absolutely tasteless and rather ridiculous in that livery, and both John and I can't help wondering out aloud whether we should go over and ask them whether the doors work properly on the new models or not (if you've flown a Cirrus, you'll probably know what I'm getting at…). I decide against it.
* * *
The new plane's hangared in a real hangar, which is a first for me — the weather 'round here makes outdoors tiedowns fairly benign and very common. It's one of those Port-A-Port things, with a rather creaky handcrank-driven main door; opening up felt like raising some sort of medieval portcullis. I can imagine enjoying pre-flighting this plane under cover — summer 'round here always seems to involve cold wind and cloud :-).
* * *
So after all that, I'm now a member of Oakland Flyers as well as CalAir, and can call Oakland home again when flying. Plus I get access to a 172SP with the new WAAS-enabled G1000. Not bad for a couple of hours' work, I guess.
So when I got the chance to get checked out in the new C172SP with a WAAS-enabled G1000 cockpit at Oakland Flyers with John, I jumped at the chance: not only do I get to fly out of Oakland again (for some of my flights, anyway — I'm definitely also staying with CalAir at Hayward (KHWD)) with a "new" club (OK, they're not exactly new to me — I've known of Oakland Flyers for years, and have always known people who fly with them or instruct there), I got to play with the new RNAV LPV approaches using the new WAAS stuff. And it turns out the 172 had exactly 77 hours on it when I started it up. Cool!
The plane itself really wasn't any different to fly than the G1000 172s I already fly with CalAir, and the actual checkout bits went fine, with the exception that, as John put it, I kept trying to land the thing like a Cirrus (i.e. flatter than usual for a 172). Guilty as charged, although the weird and rough windshear just above 27L's threshold made it difficult to land it smoothly at any damn attitude, 172, Cirrus, or whatever (I got my own back when John later tried an approach and landing and had the same "what the hell?!" reaction over the fence as I did :-)).
So what did I like about the new G1000 and the associated RNAV/LPV abilities? John will probably be posting some of his pix from the flight showing the G1000's chart and airport diagram features, all of which is good from a convenience point of view, and the safe taxi feature (or whatever it's called) was cool, even though I know Oakland's taxiways like the back of my hand. Some of the newer G1000 / GPS features like better turn prediction, more detailed fuel quantity resets, etc., were nice but not especially surprising. Some were mildly amusing, like the new vertical obstruction icons that looked like teepes or campground icons in gorgeous reds, yellows, and greens scattered around the hills in the area — I had to ask John what they were twice before I realised he wasn't kidding about them being tower markers, etc.
Of course it was the WAAS capabilities I was most interested in and that give this unit the most added value for me, and it didn't disappoint. There still aren't too many useful RNAV / LPV approaches in the neighbourhood, but luckily Oakland has a good one (RNAV RWY 27L), and we ambled three times around that approach, twice me flying, once with John doing it for light relief (all under the hood, of course). There's not a lot that's difficult conceptually or procedurally with the new RNAV approaches, so I won't spend much time discussing them here (John's had an occasional series of articles about them, e.g. here); in summary, they're basically GPS approaches with decent ILS-like glideslopes with vertical guidance, and, in some cases, very good minimums (but note: some of the LPV minimums are actually higher than conventional non-precision approaches at the same airport. Take a look at Napa (KAPC) for an example of this). The G1000 made things relatively easy to follow along with and fly; I don't think I'll ever miss the "dive and drive" approach to non-precision approaches if given a chance :-). Overall, rather cool, and definitely the way things should be, if a little unpolished on the interfaces.
As John's discussed elsewhere, the C172 G1000 doesn't coordinate particularly well for vertical guidance with the (otherwise rather nice) King autopilot that's standard with the G1000, which is a big shame — not only couldn't we get the LPV approach to couple in the vertical dimension (which is not too problematic — just dial in a suitable vertical sink rate on the AP), but the same old irritating inability to set things like vertical speed or target altitude with the G1000 (rather than separately on the KAP 140) remained. This is irritating on such an expensive and otherwise smooth and easy-to-use interface (OK, the G1000 interface isn't easy for beginners, but it grows on you. I find it easy to remember the basics, but I still can't remember all the MFD options off the top of my head).
* * *
Before we got to the approaches John threw me an ad hoc hold at SALAD intersection a few miles out from it. A couple of years ago I used to find this sort of thing quite a mental struggle, but this time it just seemed easy: John's handy-dandy way of using the HSI for working out the entry procedure combined with some sort of mental model built up with experience over the last year or two made it just happen. I could even answer the questions John kept asking me about it while I'm under the hood, which is a good sign (and yes, I've still yet to ever be assigned a hold in real IFR flying, but it'll happen one day, in the worst circumstances, for sure).
* * *
At one point the NorCal controller asks me — twice in a row, if I remember correctly — whether I want the RNAV 27L approach or the GPS 27L approach into Oakland. Argh! It's the RNAV (GPS) 27L approach, folks — get with the program! And at least twice NorCal tries to vector me to JOCPI (on Hayward's GPS 28L approach) rather than JUPAP (the intermediate fix or waypoint on the actual approach we were trying to fly); and the last clearance I get for the approach includes the instruction "cross JOCPI at or above 3,300". Hmmm. At least I knew what he meant, and it was VMC out there. Not as bad, perhaps, as one of my previous recent IFR experiences with NorCal when the controller instructed me to descend and maintain an altitude several thousand feet higher than I was already at while vectoring me for the wrong approach. Perhaps the views of the FAA's current staffing problems from The Main Bang and The FAA Follies aren't quite as extreme as some people seem to believe they are….
* * *
Back at Kaiser we see a couple of really expensive brand-new gold-painted G3 Cirrus SR-22s sitting in all their glory on the Kaiser ramp. Looks like some sort of demo day or tour. These things look absolutely tasteless and rather ridiculous in that livery, and both John and I can't help wondering out aloud whether we should go over and ask them whether the doors work properly on the new models or not (if you've flown a Cirrus, you'll probably know what I'm getting at…). I decide against it.
* * *
The new plane's hangared in a real hangar, which is a first for me — the weather 'round here makes outdoors tiedowns fairly benign and very common. It's one of those Port-A-Port things, with a rather creaky handcrank-driven main door; opening up felt like raising some sort of medieval portcullis. I can imagine enjoying pre-flighting this plane under cover — summer 'round here always seems to involve cold wind and cloud :-).
* * *
So after all that, I'm now a member of Oakland Flyers as well as CalAir, and can call Oakland home again when flying. Plus I get access to a 172SP with the new WAAS-enabled G1000. Not bad for a couple of hours' work, I guess.
May 31, 2007
One Of Those Flights…
We're climbing out of Stockton (KSCK) IFR on vectors for the return trip to Hawyard (KHWD). I'm under the Cone of Stupidity, getting some IFR practice. It's a nice warm hazy Central Valley evening, clear VMC, the air's fairly calm, and the Cirrus is climbing nicely towards our assigned altitude of 6,000'. At about 5,000' the oil annunciator flickers on for a second or two, then goes off. I look across at the oil gauges — the pressure's fine, but the temp's way up towards the red end. Hmmm, I think. The oil level was fine back at Hayward; the gauges were fine on takeoff at Stockton. It's really not that hot out there (at least not as hot as it usually is at this time of the year in inland California). The mixture is on full rich; the EGT looks a little higher than usual but not horribly so; fuel flow looks OK; we're not climbing too excessively or anything, at least not in my opinion…. But the temperature isn't going down, even as I throttle back, and the annunciator's now flickering intermittently and almost continuously. I look at Boyan (my safety pilot), and say this doesn't look good, does it? I pull the hood off, level off, and call NorCal Approach to tell the controller that we're cancelling IFR and heading straight to Tracy airport (which I can see about 4 or 5 miles away to my left) due to an oil temperature problem. Quick as a flash NorCal says Tracy's at your 9 o'clock, 4 miles, no traffic observed between you and the airport, do you need assistance?
I say we're fine at the moment, but that we'll head for Tracy and stay on frequency until we're closer. We can easily glide there from here if we have to, and there are any number of fields we could probably land in if we really have to. As soon as we level off the oil annunciator stops flashing, and less than a minute later the oil temperature's down to an acceptable level. I start a slow descent into Tracy, and — of course — the oil temperature is now normal. Everything's looking normal. I tell NorCal we seem to be over the problem, but we'll orbit here for a few minutes around Tracy to see what's happening — my guess is I just had the throttle setting too high for continuous climb (but I'd throttled back a little on leaving the pattern at Stockton, and a lot when I first saw the problem), and something in the back of my mind remembers reading an article by my long-time-ago aquaintance Phil Greenspun where he commented on how easy it was to get his Cirrus to redline on oil temperatures [later: see his article here — there's a comment about it under "Summer Flying")].
So we orbit slowly over Tracy for about five minutes, the oil temperature normal, and I make an Executive Decision (yes, I'm the decisionaliser in this plane): we'll head for Livermore at the current altitude (4,500') with flight following from NorCal, and then decide from there what to do and where to go. I call up NorCal, tell him we're OK and want flight following back to Hayward with the LOC/DME practice approach into Hayward if possible. And much to my relief, the rest of the flight's absolutely boringly normal, with a tiny bit of real IMC on the way back into Hayward on the localiser necessitating a full clearance from NorCal. On the ground I check the oil level — like everything else, it's boringly normal.
[Later: John calls and tells me he heard it all on-frequency (the man's everywhere! :-) ). We have a long discussion about the issue— I think I just need to climb a tad less agressively. Or even less agressively than I already do.]
* * *
Earlier, we'd paused in the runup area at Stockton before departing to give Boyan, my safety pilot, a chance to stretch his legs and for me to get my water bottle out of the back (never leave things like this buried in the bottom of a bag you accidentally put out of reach :-)). I tell tower we'll be off-air for five minutes, and shut the engine off, thinking it'll be nice to take a short break before plunging on again. We just wander around the runup area off 29R for a while, then get back in and start up. The first thing I see is the "low voltage" annunciator staring me in the face. And sure enough, the ammeter is indicating a battery discharge even though the engine (and presumably the alternator) is turning over smoothly. Argh! I check the breakers and a bunch of other obvious things — nothing wrong. On a hunch, I shut the engine down and start it back up again — and now, of course, it's doing what it's supposed to be doing. I keep an eagle eye on the ammeter the rest of the flight, and it's OK all the way back to Hayward, but (especially after the oil temperature issue) I can't help wondering if this is just One Of Those Flights…
I say we're fine at the moment, but that we'll head for Tracy and stay on frequency until we're closer. We can easily glide there from here if we have to, and there are any number of fields we could probably land in if we really have to. As soon as we level off the oil annunciator stops flashing, and less than a minute later the oil temperature's down to an acceptable level. I start a slow descent into Tracy, and — of course — the oil temperature is now normal. Everything's looking normal. I tell NorCal we seem to be over the problem, but we'll orbit here for a few minutes around Tracy to see what's happening — my guess is I just had the throttle setting too high for continuous climb (but I'd throttled back a little on leaving the pattern at Stockton, and a lot when I first saw the problem), and something in the back of my mind remembers reading an article by my long-time-ago aquaintance Phil Greenspun where he commented on how easy it was to get his Cirrus to redline on oil temperatures [later: see his article here — there's a comment about it under "Summer Flying")].
So we orbit slowly over Tracy for about five minutes, the oil temperature normal, and I make an Executive Decision (yes, I'm the decisionaliser in this plane): we'll head for Livermore at the current altitude (4,500') with flight following from NorCal, and then decide from there what to do and where to go. I call up NorCal, tell him we're OK and want flight following back to Hayward with the LOC/DME practice approach into Hayward if possible. And much to my relief, the rest of the flight's absolutely boringly normal, with a tiny bit of real IMC on the way back into Hayward on the localiser necessitating a full clearance from NorCal. On the ground I check the oil level — like everything else, it's boringly normal.
[Later: John calls and tells me he heard it all on-frequency (the man's everywhere! :-) ). We have a long discussion about the issue— I think I just need to climb a tad less agressively. Or even less agressively than I already do.]
* * *
Earlier, we'd paused in the runup area at Stockton before departing to give Boyan, my safety pilot, a chance to stretch his legs and for me to get my water bottle out of the back (never leave things like this buried in the bottom of a bag you accidentally put out of reach :-)). I tell tower we'll be off-air for five minutes, and shut the engine off, thinking it'll be nice to take a short break before plunging on again. We just wander around the runup area off 29R for a while, then get back in and start up. The first thing I see is the "low voltage" annunciator staring me in the face. And sure enough, the ammeter is indicating a battery discharge even though the engine (and presumably the alternator) is turning over smoothly. Argh! I check the breakers and a bunch of other obvious things — nothing wrong. On a hunch, I shut the engine down and start it back up again — and now, of course, it's doing what it's supposed to be doing. I keep an eagle eye on the ammeter the rest of the flight, and it's OK all the way back to Hayward, but (especially after the oil temperature issue) I can't help wondering if this is just One Of Those Flights…
May 28, 2007
Nine-Oh-Nine
My basic (VFR) flying skills always bug me nowadays — they seem to deteriorate way too quickly to the point where I make embarassing landings and laboured radio calls in front of an imagined audience of thousands, and my pattern work is often sloppy to the point of distraction. For all my supposed skills at flying an approach to minimums, the landing that follows is often the low point (sorry) of the approach (which is rarely particularly precise in the first place, but never mind), and being able to cope (more-or-less) with a complex new IFR clearance on-the-fly under the hood doesn't seem to prevent me from stumbling on first call-up to NorCal Approach or Hayward Tower during a simple VFR fly-about.
So I dedicate this morning to just … flying about, VFR. A landing here, a landing there, a call to the tower here, a call to the tower there. That sort of thing — and it's a glorious Bay Area day to do it on, too: cool, sunny, breezy, clear. And I end up with some valuable landing practice, a tighter grip on pattern work, a renewed sense of just what I like about VFR flying (the just-pottering-about, the make-it-up-as-you-go approach, the sightseeing…), and — quite accidentally — I get to share the pattern at Livermore (KLVK) with both a B-17 Flying Fortress and a B-25 Mitchell bomber.
What I didn't know when I popped over the hills to Livermore in one of the club's little 172 SPs was that the Collings Foundation's Wings Of Freedom 2007 tour was in Livermore for the Memorial Day weekend, and the B-25 and B-17 ("Nine-Oh-Nine") were both being flown around for paying donors in between display breaks on the ramp (the accompanying B-24 was on the ramp, but didn't fly while I was there). So I ended up doing my touch and goes with the immense distractions of the B-17 first approaching to land on 25R while I was on the left, and then watching both it and the B-25 take off and depart for another flight up the Diablo Valley. The sight of the B-17 lumbering slowly away, a few hundred feet above the ground, a few hundred metres away at my 2 o'clock as I took off on the parallel was worth the agony of all that around-and-around remedial landing practice, for sure; ditto with the smaller B-25.
It's tempting to say I wish I'd had a camera, but the truth is I did have a camera with me — but sometimes it's just better to watch… (I found someone else's photos from last year's events here).
So I dedicate this morning to just … flying about, VFR. A landing here, a landing there, a call to the tower here, a call to the tower there. That sort of thing — and it's a glorious Bay Area day to do it on, too: cool, sunny, breezy, clear. And I end up with some valuable landing practice, a tighter grip on pattern work, a renewed sense of just what I like about VFR flying (the just-pottering-about, the make-it-up-as-you-go approach, the sightseeing…), and — quite accidentally — I get to share the pattern at Livermore (KLVK) with both a B-17 Flying Fortress and a B-25 Mitchell bomber.
What I didn't know when I popped over the hills to Livermore in one of the club's little 172 SPs was that the Collings Foundation's Wings Of Freedom 2007 tour was in Livermore for the Memorial Day weekend, and the B-25 and B-17 ("Nine-Oh-Nine") were both being flown around for paying donors in between display breaks on the ramp (the accompanying B-24 was on the ramp, but didn't fly while I was there). So I ended up doing my touch and goes with the immense distractions of the B-17 first approaching to land on 25R while I was on the left, and then watching both it and the B-25 take off and depart for another flight up the Diablo Valley. The sight of the B-17 lumbering slowly away, a few hundred feet above the ground, a few hundred metres away at my 2 o'clock as I took off on the parallel was worth the agony of all that around-and-around remedial landing practice, for sure; ditto with the smaller B-25.It's tempting to say I wish I'd had a camera, but the truth is I did have a camera with me — but sometimes it's just better to watch… (I found someone else's photos from last year's events here).
May 14, 2007
Still Alive
Off to Oakland airport for my US third class medical exam. Despite my general decrepitude I guess I'm not too worried about passing (I don't think I've seen a doctor for anything other than a checkup or for flu or something like that for years and years), but there's always something in the back of my mind each time I do this that wonders whether I'll fail this time….
I've used the same AME (Airman's Medical Examiner) since I started flying, so I know what to expect. He's an, umm, character, a guy I rather like; locals probably know exactly who I'm talking about: his office has a hand-written note on the door warning that you're about to enter a "politically-incorrect office!!" (the extent of the un-PCness is really just his dislike of bureaucracy, the FAA in particular, judging by the other amusing hand-written notes around the walls), he knows a lot of the places I knew as a kid in Scotland (like Tighnabruaich and the little pitfalls in its pronunciation…), he's an experienced GA pilot, with an office decorated with snapshots of him, his family, and various people who've passed through his office all in planes or standing next to planes or in military garb in military cockpits, and he's quietly jubilant that his favourite team West Ham had just beaten Manchester United over the weekend at football (West Ham beats Man United?! One of the signs of the apocalypse if you ask me, but never mind).
There's really not much to say about a third class medical: the exam itself is pretty perfunctory, covering the absolute basics (heartbeat, urine sugar levels, hearing, eyesight, blood pressure, etc.); I suspect the hard parts are when you've had recent medical treatment you have to explain to the FAA (see Aviatrix's blog for a long and mostly depressing — but ultimately successful — story of one person's struggles against the Canadian version of the US's FAA).
So I fill in the form, identically to the last time as far as I can tell, and thirty minutes or so later I have a new medical, signed sealed and delivered for the next two years (yes, I'm old enough to be on the two year cycle). I guess it's nice to know that I'm officially Still Alive…
I've used the same AME (Airman's Medical Examiner) since I started flying, so I know what to expect. He's an, umm, character, a guy I rather like; locals probably know exactly who I'm talking about: his office has a hand-written note on the door warning that you're about to enter a "politically-incorrect office!!" (the extent of the un-PCness is really just his dislike of bureaucracy, the FAA in particular, judging by the other amusing hand-written notes around the walls), he knows a lot of the places I knew as a kid in Scotland (like Tighnabruaich and the little pitfalls in its pronunciation…), he's an experienced GA pilot, with an office decorated with snapshots of him, his family, and various people who've passed through his office all in planes or standing next to planes or in military garb in military cockpits, and he's quietly jubilant that his favourite team West Ham had just beaten Manchester United over the weekend at football (West Ham beats Man United?! One of the signs of the apocalypse if you ask me, but never mind).
There's really not much to say about a third class medical: the exam itself is pretty perfunctory, covering the absolute basics (heartbeat, urine sugar levels, hearing, eyesight, blood pressure, etc.); I suspect the hard parts are when you've had recent medical treatment you have to explain to the FAA (see Aviatrix's blog for a long and mostly depressing — but ultimately successful — story of one person's struggles against the Canadian version of the US's FAA).
So I fill in the form, identically to the last time as far as I can tell, and thirty minutes or so later I have a new medical, signed sealed and delivered for the next two years (yes, I'm old enough to be on the two year cycle). I guess it's nice to know that I'm officially Still Alive…
May 11, 2007
Three Years
I've just noticed that I've been continuously doing ("writing" seems too grand a word…) this blog for more than three years now, which is a long time in Blogland. My first attempt at periodically describing GA flying live, as-it-was-happening-to-me, was my original Learning To Fly — A Flight Diary, done during 1999 as I successfully got my US private pilot's license. It was really a blog avant la lettre, being written with basic HTML tools and a lot of string and tape behind the scenes (funnily enough, at the time, I was heavily involved in the whole Java and XML thing in which another current GA blogger, David Megginson (LAHSO), was — and still is — a leading light; we may even have met on one of those endless traveling "XML and Java" expert panels I used to occasionally be part of at the time, but I don't remember).
But I didn't keep it going beyond the point where I got my license, and apart from a few informal articles, I only really picked it back up again when I started doing my instrument rating with John, who's now of course got his own blog, Aviation Mentor (the successor to his older Freight Dog Tales). At the time, I expected to go on to do my commercial and CFI ratings, but life keeps getting in the way, and I know I'm really only a Sunday Flyer nowadays, which isn't so bad I guess (at least I've kept flying). I'd still like to get my Commercial and then the CFI, but that's maybe a few years away, if ever. We shall see, as I so often seem to say.
In the three years covered here so far, I've gone from flying exclusively VFR to mostly IFR, from flying exclusively with the Alameda Aero Club out of Oakland to mostly flying with California Airways out of Hayward (mostly due to the much larger choice of aircraft at Calair; the two airports are pretty similar in terms of traffic and convenience, at least from my point of view), from flying ratty little 1970's Cessna 172s with steam gauges to rather smarter little 2000-era glass cockpit 172's and Cirruses, and from mostly impromptu local flights to longer, more-planned flights semi-locally (I seem to have mostly given up on the aerobatics, due mostly to cost and the fact that my aerobatics instructor moved away). Not radical changes, really, just the evolution that goes with trying to juggle work and flying, and the inexorable rise in rental and fuel costs.
Frankly, if I had to give up GA flying for a year or two for financial reasons (always a possibility), it wouldn't kill me — but it sure would hurt. I'm surrounded by aviation (I live right near Oakland airport, and not too far from Hayward airport), I know a lot of people in the GA biz locally, and aviation in one form or another has been in my family for about as long as that's possible. It's a part of my identity I'd find very hard to give up permanently….
But I didn't keep it going beyond the point where I got my license, and apart from a few informal articles, I only really picked it back up again when I started doing my instrument rating with John, who's now of course got his own blog, Aviation Mentor (the successor to his older Freight Dog Tales). At the time, I expected to go on to do my commercial and CFI ratings, but life keeps getting in the way, and I know I'm really only a Sunday Flyer nowadays, which isn't so bad I guess (at least I've kept flying). I'd still like to get my Commercial and then the CFI, but that's maybe a few years away, if ever. We shall see, as I so often seem to say.
In the three years covered here so far, I've gone from flying exclusively VFR to mostly IFR, from flying exclusively with the Alameda Aero Club out of Oakland to mostly flying with California Airways out of Hayward (mostly due to the much larger choice of aircraft at Calair; the two airports are pretty similar in terms of traffic and convenience, at least from my point of view), from flying ratty little 1970's Cessna 172s with steam gauges to rather smarter little 2000-era glass cockpit 172's and Cirruses, and from mostly impromptu local flights to longer, more-planned flights semi-locally (I seem to have mostly given up on the aerobatics, due mostly to cost and the fact that my aerobatics instructor moved away). Not radical changes, really, just the evolution that goes with trying to juggle work and flying, and the inexorable rise in rental and fuel costs.
Frankly, if I had to give up GA flying for a year or two for financial reasons (always a possibility), it wouldn't kill me — but it sure would hurt. I'm surrounded by aviation (I live right near Oakland airport, and not too far from Hayward airport), I know a lot of people in the GA biz locally, and aviation in one form or another has been in my family for about as long as that's possible. It's a part of my identity I'd find very hard to give up permanently….
May 06, 2007
Rough and (Not Quite) Ready
I've set 04E's autopilot for 2,000', and as it's just leveling off after a short climb on an IFR-in-VMC departure from Hayward over the Bay, there's a series of annoying bumps from turbulence, then an enormous thump as I'm pushed down into my seat and we gain 300' in a second or two. Then just as suddenly we're pushed back down past 2,000'… with a major roll towards the left, then right back up to 2,300' banked in the other direction. A small hell breaks loose — simultaneously the autopilot disengages with a loud beep, a synthesized voice somewhere in the panel tells me there's a major trim problem, and NorCal tells me to watch my altitude — he's just had a return showing me well above 2,000'. I brace for more windshear, throttle back a bit, and push the nose over to get back to 2,000'. I don't have time to respond with more than a rushed acknowledgement to NorCal, and a quick look to see how everything's going. Fine, so far, and I'm back on track and altitude. The turbulence continues, but not as bad; a few seconds later I call NorCal and tell the controller there's some major windshear here over the Bay. Yeah, he says, sounding unconcerned, it's the offshore flow, and 04E, climb and maintain 5,000…. After a while, it's quiet again, I gingerly re-engage the autopilot — everything's working just fine — and start enjoying the view and the flying again. A few minutes later I'm over Woodside VOR on my way to Monterey in relatively calm air. It's a beautiful day out there, the sunshine, the Bay, the City up in the distance, the blue Pacific stretching towards Japan, the Coast Range below me….
* * *
I'm on what should really just be a pleasurable IFR-in-VMC flight to Monterey and back in the 04E, one of the club's G1000-equipped 172s. And for the most part it is a pleasurable flight, in beautiful weather over rugged and familiar landscapes. But two things stand out this time: the turbulence (it hit me once more on the way back in almost identical ways, but at a much higher altitude this time), and the mortifying realisation of just how quickly you lose a lot of the IFR "edge" skills when you don't fly IFR very often. I don't mean the basic keep-the-plane-upright or keep-a-decent-heading things (both of which I do roughly but robustly), I mean the sort of thing that happens when you look at the G1000 after twiddling a few knobs and sit there wondering "why the hell is it doing that…?" (without having the presence of mind to think "it doesn't bloody matter!"), or when you hesitate on the radio for a little too long. Nothing major, but it's good to do in-the-system IFR in VMC flights like this for precisely this reason: after a couple of hours doing it for real, but in good weather, the rust starts wearing off. By the time I'm back in Hayward I start feeling pretty good about my IFR flying again; I'll have to drag Boyan out for a decent workout under the Cone Of Stupidity sometime in the next few weeks if he's still around.
In any case, the offshore flow (a very mild version of SoCal's more famous Santa Ana wind) is a definite issue this flight, and not just because of the turbulence — there's a strong gusty crosswind on landing back at Hayward, prompting one of the better crosswind landings I've done in years (a nice one-point landing on the right main and a gentle let-down from that), and on the return leg from Monterey, the crab angle during cruise is very obvious (at one stage near BUSHY intersection the G1000 tells me I have a 40 knot crosswind at almost exactly 90 degrees from the right).
* * *
For the most part during this exercise, the NorCal controllers have been their normal rather pleasant and competent selves, so it's a bit of a shock when I'm given several bad vectors and instructions in a row on the final NorCal frequency — for example, I'm vectored for (and told to join) Hayward's localizer after having requested and been told to expect the GPS 28L approach, and I'm told to descend to an altitude that's several thousand feet higher than I'm already at. At least three times I hear a second controller's voice immediately come on and say something like "04E disregard the previous altitude; descend 4,000" or "04E disregard; direct JOTLI; I'll have the approach clearance for you in a minute…". Trainees, doncha just love 'em?! :-).
* * *
I'm on what should really just be a pleasurable IFR-in-VMC flight to Monterey and back in the 04E, one of the club's G1000-equipped 172s. And for the most part it is a pleasurable flight, in beautiful weather over rugged and familiar landscapes. But two things stand out this time: the turbulence (it hit me once more on the way back in almost identical ways, but at a much higher altitude this time), and the mortifying realisation of just how quickly you lose a lot of the IFR "edge" skills when you don't fly IFR very often. I don't mean the basic keep-the-plane-upright or keep-a-decent-heading things (both of which I do roughly but robustly), I mean the sort of thing that happens when you look at the G1000 after twiddling a few knobs and sit there wondering "why the hell is it doing that…?" (without having the presence of mind to think "it doesn't bloody matter!"), or when you hesitate on the radio for a little too long. Nothing major, but it's good to do in-the-system IFR in VMC flights like this for precisely this reason: after a couple of hours doing it for real, but in good weather, the rust starts wearing off. By the time I'm back in Hayward I start feeling pretty good about my IFR flying again; I'll have to drag Boyan out for a decent workout under the Cone Of Stupidity sometime in the next few weeks if he's still around.
In any case, the offshore flow (a very mild version of SoCal's more famous Santa Ana wind) is a definite issue this flight, and not just because of the turbulence — there's a strong gusty crosswind on landing back at Hayward, prompting one of the better crosswind landings I've done in years (a nice one-point landing on the right main and a gentle let-down from that), and on the return leg from Monterey, the crab angle during cruise is very obvious (at one stage near BUSHY intersection the G1000 tells me I have a 40 knot crosswind at almost exactly 90 degrees from the right).
* * *
For the most part during this exercise, the NorCal controllers have been their normal rather pleasant and competent selves, so it's a bit of a shock when I'm given several bad vectors and instructions in a row on the final NorCal frequency — for example, I'm vectored for (and told to join) Hayward's localizer after having requested and been told to expect the GPS 28L approach, and I'm told to descend to an altitude that's several thousand feet higher than I'm already at. At least three times I hear a second controller's voice immediately come on and say something like "04E disregard the previous altitude; descend 4,000" or "04E disregard; direct JOTLI; I'll have the approach clearance for you in a minute…". Trainees, doncha just love 'em?! :-).
April 24, 2007
Where's Hamish Now?
In the spirit of Sam's recent spree of postings about his mysterious (luxury!) whereabouts, here's a hint of where I am right now (well, I'm a bit down the road, really, but I did pass through here earlier):
(What to make of a town that has both a Clown Motel and a missile test firing range?)
Sadly, it's not as exotic as Sam's hideaway(s) in Thailand, but I did get buzzed twice by low-flying F/A-18's at Eureka Dunes. Cool! Wish I could do that when I grow up….
(What to make of a town that has both a Clown Motel and a missile test firing range?)
Sadly, it's not as exotic as Sam's hideaway(s) in Thailand, but I did get buzzed twice by low-flying F/A-18's at Eureka Dunes. Cool! Wish I could do that when I grow up….
April 15, 2007
Being Watched
I'm standing in a crowded rush hour BART train, idly reading newspapers and magazines over people's shoulders to pass the time on my way into the City. There's a guy in front of me reading some sort of golfing magazine, which I'd normally skip (my knowledge of — and interest in — golf is so poor that I still refer to the things golfers hit the ball with as "golf bats", which hardly surprises most people who know me…). Anyway, the thing that catches my eye in the golf mag is the shiny full-page ad for a fanatically-complicated (and very expensive-looking) watch, with ad copy in large point size promising that it's the watch "aviators" (and aviatrices?!) rely on (yes, the ad was so effective I still have no idea what brand the watch was…).
So what is it with fancy watches, "aviators", and gullible golfers? None of the pilots I know have fancy watches or rely on watches for much beyond ensuring they get to the damn gate or ramp on time (or not). My own flying watch is a simple Swatch — no funny knobs, sub-dials, little windows, or super-duper chronographic precision, just three boring analog hands that have worked flawlessly for years now. If I ever actually needed to-the-second timing, it'll do the job — but I've yet to ever need that in ways I can't get from my little yoke timer or one of the builtin timers on the panel or the GPSs. When I did my private pilot checkride all those years ago, I carefully put out my then-current simple Swatch next to my flight bag for the checkride, then realised with horror when I got into the plane that I'd actually (subconsciously?) brought along my Cat In The Hat watch instead. Oh dear — this is a watch that has a Cat In The Hat on the watch glass itself that obscures at least a third of the watch face, and has no detailed time markings on it. I thought with a sinking heart that I was going to fail, especially with the designated examiner (DE) being "Scary" Larry Peters, a very upright ex-military guy…. So when it came time to check groundspeed and do the time-to-next-checkpoint calculation in the air somewhere over the Diablo Valley, and Mr Peters catches sight of my Cat In The Hat watch, I think it's all over. But he looks on impassively as I do the calculations and timing for the next few minutes, interpolating around the Hat as needed, and somehow I get the right answers, and the sight of Mr Peters opening the door mid-air and jumping out in disgust is averted. Later, on the ground after (just) passing me, he makes a sharp comment about my choice of watch, but that was it (Mr Peters was actually a pretty reasonable DE, but much more inscrutable than Rich Bachelder, who was voluble and easy-to-read by comparison).
* * *
Anyway, yes, I have been flying, but no, I haven't had time to blog much in real life lately (it's one of the penalties of being the Chief Software Poobah for a certain San Francisco media firm…). So this entry's just a little collection of flying-related things from the past few months….
* * *
Yesterday I had to renew my USPS post office box in downtown Berkeley. I've had the same PO box for at least fifteen years now, but this is the first time in all that time I've actually had to come in and show some ID (I think it's really supposed to happen every few years, but you know Berkeley…). Two bits of government ID, in fact, so I give the USPS clerk my California driving license, and then — voila! — my shiny plastic new-style US pilot's license (OK, certificate). The clerk just glances at the CADL, notes the number down, then looks at the pilot's license. She looks up at me and asks me what it is. I say it's a US government-issued pilot license. She looks dubious. She asks who issued it. I say the FAA. She says she's never heard of the FAA, and she'll have to take it back to her supervisor. She asks the other clerks behind the counter whether the FAA is a government organisation, and for a minute or two a surreal conversation goes on behind the counter over whether or not the FAA exists and / or is a real government department authorised to issue IDs acceptable to the USPS. They all seem to think that pilot licenses are issued by the airlines. She goes back to speak to her supervisor, and returns a couple of minutes later with the news that the FAA is, indeed, a federal government organisation, and that, indeed, for the purposes of renewing my PO box, a US pilot's license is, indeed, an acceptable second form of government ID. Whew! At last my plastic pilot's license is useful for something…. (I want to stress that all the way through this the clerks were all both friendly and inquisitive in an interested and genial sort of way — no one was rude or obstructive, they'd just never really heard of the FAA nor ever seen a real pilot's license before…).
* * *
The other day I picked up "San Francisco Bay Area Aviation", a little book in Arcadia Publishing's excellent local history and images series. It's a treasure — pictures of everything from ancient string-and-wax biplanes at Emeryville airport (who knew Emeryville once had an airport of sorts? Well, I did, but that's because I'm an Emeryville kind of guy), through Connies at Oakland airport, to the massive blimp hangars at Moffett under construction. The really interesting thing, though, for me, was the way it confirms for a general readership what most of us who fly in the area already know, that San Francisco itself plays second string in this sort of story to the really important airports and air bases in the area, Oakland probably being by far the most important. OK, I know to the rest of the world that it's all "San Francisco", but to an Oaktowner like me, it's nice to know that someone out there knows the difference….
So what is it with fancy watches, "aviators", and gullible golfers? None of the pilots I know have fancy watches or rely on watches for much beyond ensuring they get to the damn gate or ramp on time (or not). My own flying watch is a simple Swatch — no funny knobs, sub-dials, little windows, or super-duper chronographic precision, just three boring analog hands that have worked flawlessly for years now. If I ever actually needed to-the-second timing, it'll do the job — but I've yet to ever need that in ways I can't get from my little yoke timer or one of the builtin timers on the panel or the GPSs. When I did my private pilot checkride all those years ago, I carefully put out my then-current simple Swatch next to my flight bag for the checkride, then realised with horror when I got into the plane that I'd actually (subconsciously?) brought along my Cat In The Hat watch instead. Oh dear — this is a watch that has a Cat In The Hat on the watch glass itself that obscures at least a third of the watch face, and has no detailed time markings on it. I thought with a sinking heart that I was going to fail, especially with the designated examiner (DE) being "Scary" Larry Peters, a very upright ex-military guy…. So when it came time to check groundspeed and do the time-to-next-checkpoint calculation in the air somewhere over the Diablo Valley, and Mr Peters catches sight of my Cat In The Hat watch, I think it's all over. But he looks on impassively as I do the calculations and timing for the next few minutes, interpolating around the Hat as needed, and somehow I get the right answers, and the sight of Mr Peters opening the door mid-air and jumping out in disgust is averted. Later, on the ground after (just) passing me, he makes a sharp comment about my choice of watch, but that was it (Mr Peters was actually a pretty reasonable DE, but much more inscrutable than Rich Bachelder, who was voluble and easy-to-read by comparison).
* * *
Anyway, yes, I have been flying, but no, I haven't had time to blog much in real life lately (it's one of the penalties of being the Chief Software Poobah for a certain San Francisco media firm…). So this entry's just a little collection of flying-related things from the past few months….
* * *
Yesterday I had to renew my USPS post office box in downtown Berkeley. I've had the same PO box for at least fifteen years now, but this is the first time in all that time I've actually had to come in and show some ID (I think it's really supposed to happen every few years, but you know Berkeley…). Two bits of government ID, in fact, so I give the USPS clerk my California driving license, and then — voila! — my shiny plastic new-style US pilot's license (OK, certificate). The clerk just glances at the CADL, notes the number down, then looks at the pilot's license. She looks up at me and asks me what it is. I say it's a US government-issued pilot license. She looks dubious. She asks who issued it. I say the FAA. She says she's never heard of the FAA, and she'll have to take it back to her supervisor. She asks the other clerks behind the counter whether the FAA is a government organisation, and for a minute or two a surreal conversation goes on behind the counter over whether or not the FAA exists and / or is a real government department authorised to issue IDs acceptable to the USPS. They all seem to think that pilot licenses are issued by the airlines. She goes back to speak to her supervisor, and returns a couple of minutes later with the news that the FAA is, indeed, a federal government organisation, and that, indeed, for the purposes of renewing my PO box, a US pilot's license is, indeed, an acceptable second form of government ID. Whew! At last my plastic pilot's license is useful for something…. (I want to stress that all the way through this the clerks were all both friendly and inquisitive in an interested and genial sort of way — no one was rude or obstructive, they'd just never really heard of the FAA nor ever seen a real pilot's license before…).
* * *
The other day I picked up "San Francisco Bay Area Aviation", a little book in Arcadia Publishing's excellent local history and images series. It's a treasure — pictures of everything from ancient string-and-wax biplanes at Emeryville airport (who knew Emeryville once had an airport of sorts? Well, I did, but that's because I'm an Emeryville kind of guy), through Connies at Oakland airport, to the massive blimp hangars at Moffett under construction. The really interesting thing, though, for me, was the way it confirms for a general readership what most of us who fly in the area already know, that San Francisco itself plays second string in this sort of story to the really important airports and air bases in the area, Oakland probably being by far the most important. OK, I know to the rest of the world that it's all "San Francisco", but to an Oaktowner like me, it's nice to know that someone out there knows the difference….
March 10, 2007
Number One With A Bullet
After the excursion to Maclellan Ex-AFB last month, I just had to see what was just across Sacramento at Mather Ex-AFB, if only to see what the infamous (sorry, unfamous) Mather Jet Center looked like up close and personal. So here I am sitting in the Cirrus 5,000' above Yet Another JABBAS — a beautiful layered red / orange / yellow sky reflected in the sloughs, channels, and rivers of the Delta below me — on an IFR-in-VMC flight to Mather. NorCal asks me to confirm I'm really on a 045 heading; I check and say sure, sounding a little suspicious; he says "must be quite a wind up there… let's try 035", which prompts me to do a quick-and-dirty crosswind calculation. A few minutes later when he says "75T, descend and maintain 4,000, heading 025", I repeat the instructions and then tell him I seem to have a fifty knot quartering headwind (I started to twig earlier — my groundspeed since about Rio Vista has slowly declined to about 115 KIAS while my airspeed stayed about about 140 KIAS). Curiously, reported ground wind speeds are all well below 10 knots, and DUATS didn't forecast any interesting winds aloft here. ATC responds with something like "OK, I'll keep that in mind for the following aircraft…". It still feels unlikely — what am I doing wrong? I never really resolve it, and on the ILS I have a huge crab angle all the way down to about 1,000' AGL, where it slowly reduces to nearly nothing by ground level. Weird. I'm still sure my calculations were off, but on the return journey half an hour later at 6,000' I had a nice groundspeed….
Anyway, as I discovered, there is no Mather Jet Center — or at least not as far as I could see. Which wasn't far — I was too easily distracted by the Army Medevac Blackhawks next to the taxiway and the various larger freight planes in various stages of loading or unloading all around. But hey, it's quite an airport — two long wide runways, lots of apron space, a nice (working) tower staffed by laid-back sounding controllers, and a bunch of interesting planes hanging around on the apron. It's a shame about the state of 22L a little up the runway from the threshhold — bumpy as hell, rutted, greasy and slippery from all the heavies hitting the surface at high speed — but otherwise, not a bad little big airport.
* * *
Earlier, while strolling over to Hayward's "green ramp" to pre-flight the Cirrus, I notice a bunch of people already hanging around the aircraft … students, being instructed on how to preflight it and a bunch of other club planes. The instructor beckons me over to the port wing and shows me a small but marked dent under the wing near the leading edge, ringed with a black circle and some sort of marker pen annotation. He says it's the result of a bullet, made sometime in the last week or two. I say it's just a rock, isn't it? Nah, he says, it's a bullet, and it's been reported. Probably so, I think, especially around here, but it still looks like a rock ding to me, but what would I know? There used to be a rifle range under 27L's left base at Oakland we used to joke about, and Hayward's not exactly the safest of cities, and there used to be all those stories about planes being shot at by the pot farmers in rural Humboldt and Mendocino counties…. I don't know. In any case he just cautions me to look at it after landing again to make sure nothing's got worse. I will, I will (and I do, of course — nothing to report…).
Anyway, as I discovered, there is no Mather Jet Center — or at least not as far as I could see. Which wasn't far — I was too easily distracted by the Army Medevac Blackhawks next to the taxiway and the various larger freight planes in various stages of loading or unloading all around. But hey, it's quite an airport — two long wide runways, lots of apron space, a nice (working) tower staffed by laid-back sounding controllers, and a bunch of interesting planes hanging around on the apron. It's a shame about the state of 22L a little up the runway from the threshhold — bumpy as hell, rutted, greasy and slippery from all the heavies hitting the surface at high speed — but otherwise, not a bad little big airport.
* * *
Earlier, while strolling over to Hayward's "green ramp" to pre-flight the Cirrus, I notice a bunch of people already hanging around the aircraft … students, being instructed on how to preflight it and a bunch of other club planes. The instructor beckons me over to the port wing and shows me a small but marked dent under the wing near the leading edge, ringed with a black circle and some sort of marker pen annotation. He says it's the result of a bullet, made sometime in the last week or two. I say it's just a rock, isn't it? Nah, he says, it's a bullet, and it's been reported. Probably so, I think, especially around here, but it still looks like a rock ding to me, but what would I know? There used to be a rifle range under 27L's left base at Oakland we used to joke about, and Hayward's not exactly the safest of cities, and there used to be all those stories about planes being shot at by the pot farmers in rural Humboldt and Mendocino counties…. I don't know. In any case he just cautions me to look at it after landing again to make sure nothing's got worse. I will, I will (and I do, of course — nothing to report…).
February 22, 2007
An AIM Too FAR
Off to John's place in Berkeley to do the (delayed) oral part of the BFR. If you've ever done a US BFR (biennial flight review) before, you'll know the drill: it's not really a test, just a review, but you don't want to be too unprepared or clueless or you may end up not getting a suitable endorsement in your logbook. I'm not actually due for a BFR until the end of March, but it seems smart to get it over and done with as soon as possible when it's actually convenient for me. And in any case I've already successfully got the flying bits out of the way along with the Cirrus checkout.
One of John's CFI candidates, a rather droll and amusing ex-Navy F14 pilot, sits in on the exercise and gets a good lesson in how to cope with smartass students like me; in return John and I get to hear a couple of choice stories of Navy flying around the remote bits of California and Nevada that I know well from the ground. Anyway, as soon as the review starts I realise I've concentrated on learning the wrong sections — I guess I expected to be grilled a lot on IFR regs and things like what happens to visibility minima when certain lighting components are out, but John's reviewing the more basic Part 91 and airspace stuff, which I've only skimmed earlier. OK, no big deal, and if I sometimes forget minimum cloud distances for things like Class G airspace or the procedure to be followed after an "incident" as opposed to an "accident" (and I can never remember off-hand the different definitions of either…), the rest of it is stuff that's either common sense or stuff you should have internalised a long time ago. In any case my own personal minimums are well above the legal versions for things like VFR visibilities and cloud clearance anyway, and you can always look up some of the more obscure and not-needed-on-the-fly regs up when needed.
So, after somewhere between an hour and 90 minutes (I sort of lost track, what with the sidetracks about Owens Valley, Saline Valley, Mt Ubehebe, Faultline Road, US 50 to Ely, etc.), I'm successfully signed off to fly for another two years. Well, something like that — there's all the other stuff that's more relevant, like the pursuit of IFR competence and proficiency, that the BFR just isn't really intended to help with. But it's a good start… and really a very easy way to stay at least minimally competent at flying and flying regs.
And you can blame John for the title :-).
One of John's CFI candidates, a rather droll and amusing ex-Navy F14 pilot, sits in on the exercise and gets a good lesson in how to cope with smartass students like me; in return John and I get to hear a couple of choice stories of Navy flying around the remote bits of California and Nevada that I know well from the ground. Anyway, as soon as the review starts I realise I've concentrated on learning the wrong sections — I guess I expected to be grilled a lot on IFR regs and things like what happens to visibility minima when certain lighting components are out, but John's reviewing the more basic Part 91 and airspace stuff, which I've only skimmed earlier. OK, no big deal, and if I sometimes forget minimum cloud distances for things like Class G airspace or the procedure to be followed after an "incident" as opposed to an "accident" (and I can never remember off-hand the different definitions of either…), the rest of it is stuff that's either common sense or stuff you should have internalised a long time ago. In any case my own personal minimums are well above the legal versions for things like VFR visibilities and cloud clearance anyway, and you can always look up some of the more obscure and not-needed-on-the-fly regs up when needed.
So, after somewhere between an hour and 90 minutes (I sort of lost track, what with the sidetracks about Owens Valley, Saline Valley, Mt Ubehebe, Faultline Road, US 50 to Ely, etc.), I'm successfully signed off to fly for another two years. Well, something like that — there's all the other stuff that's more relevant, like the pursuit of IFR competence and proficiency, that the BFR just isn't really intended to help with. But it's a good start… and really a very easy way to stay at least minimally competent at flying and flying regs.
And you can blame John for the title :-).
February 06, 2007
Mr. Hat
The Cirrus has one of those little hat switches on the sidestick for electric aileron and elevator trim (just like the yoke for my sim). It's nice that it has both types of trim, and that it's in a convenient place on the stick, but it's touchy, especially with aileron trim. It's taking me some time to get used to it, and I'm learning that you have to use a lot of slight nudges in one direction or another to slowly converge on the correct trim without causing a major upset. But getting trim correct on this plane is important — it's barely dynamically stable, and has a bunch of oscillatory modes that manifest themselves as altitude swings or subtle turns, and flying it manually with the sidestick can be tiring over longer distances, especially as the control stiffness can cause you to jerk the bloody stick too far to one side or another, with predictable results.So the trim hat switch has become something of an obsession for me: I find myself thinking of it as "Mr Hat", an alter ego at the end of my hand that seems to have something of a life of its own. Maybe I'll start talking to it with a Mr Garrisonesque accent. I dunno. But it's true that during this evening's hand-flown ILSs in the Cirrus I actually found it easier and more productive to keep Mr Hat at arms length (sorry), and only work on the finer points of trimming after almost everything else was taken care of. This does seem counterproductive, I admit, and it's something I need to work on more.
(And if you don't know who or what Mr Hat is, oh well, never mind).
* * *
Anyway, this little … wrinkle … aside, after another flight or two whose details I won't bore you with, I'm signed off for renting the club's Cirrus, I've maintained my instrument currency (but not necessarily my proficiency…), I'm 80% of the way through my BFR (just need to do the oral part), and I'm night current. Woohoo. Now if only the weather would improve….
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