also-known-as

El Capitan

2006-08-18T23:57:00.000-04:00

So, I had figured I might get a week off work after getting home. That turned into a three day weekend. Then, I had to be ready to do my upgrade training, to become a captain.

The first day of training, I found it difficult to get my mind on where each control is, beecause I had been flying a different model for a while. But the flight training was completed in 3 days. Then I spent almost a week trying to get my company checkride completed. Our first attempt, we departed the runway, and I got the pleasure of a simulated enegine failure 200 feet up. Then just after dealing with that, we experienced a real instrument failure, and had to return to the airport.

Finally on Thursday, I got to complete the ride. And just in time. From the moment we exited the plane, I was on standby for departing on my first captain assignment. A small delay kept us in town for one more day.

Today, we departed the area and headed to Chesapeake, VA, just an hour away from home. Today was a long day though. Up at 6:30am, and didn't get to the hotel tonight until 9:30pm. Included in there was almost 6 hours of flying. So it couldn't be too bad.

On my first flight as a captain, I got to deal with building cumulus clouds, some turbulence, a reasonable amount of actual instrument conditions, and an instrument approach. Not a bad start to it all.

Now, at midnight, I've finally gotten some dinner, made the plans for tomorrow, and finished the daily reports. Fortunately, we aren't launching too early tomorrow, so I should get at least 7 hours of sleep in the end.

The Long Flight Home

2006-08-02T12:23:00.000-04:00

Evening of my last day in Afghanistan. I'm sitting in my dark bedroom, illuminated only by the somewhat harsh glow of the laptop screen. My light fixture hasn't been working for the last few days. After tinkering with it, I decided it wasn't worth the hassle, so I resigned to dealing primarily with solar illumination for the last couple days of my time here.

The flight out tomorrow leaves me with the whole morning to finish packing, but it won't take that long. I never fully unpacked, and literally lived out of the suitcase.

The last two days have been purely relaxation. The new pilot has taken over, and my job was to rest. Both of the last two days I've walked to the military base nearby, for lunch. It is about 3/4 mile each way. It is a minor thing in some ways, but those have been the first times I've been out in the streets alone since being here. There is a little risk to it, but I've grown comfortable with the surroundings.

Today's walk home was interesting. Usually, the street children come up to you trying to sell anything they can, but mostly give up after a minute or so. Less, if you keep walking. Today, two of them walked the entire route home with me, continuing the sales pitch. I did end up giving them a little bit of money, largely just for the effort involved. I'd love to help all of them, but it is difficult to draw a reasonable line, knowing how poor many of them are.

Tomorrow, the long ordeal begins. I'd rather take 5 times longer and fly the plane home myself, than step onto an airline flight. I leave the house at noon, and sit in the Kabul airport for a couple hours for my supposed 2:10pm departure. I say supposed, because in my time here, I've never seen or heard of the flight actually leaving close to schedule. Usually it is about 2-3 hours behind. Which is fine this time, because it will save some of the frustration with my 7 hour layover in Delhi, India.

On the way over, I had a 16 hour layover in Delhi, and got to stay in a hotel rather than the international lounge. Much nicer. This time, no reprieve. Then, if that wasn't fun enough, the flight from there to Newark, NJ is scheduled to take 15 hours and 20 minutes. I only hope I can sleep through most of it. Then another few hours layover, another flight to Dulles, rental car, and a 2 1/2 hour drive back to the office. Return the rental, hope my car starts after nearly 6 weeks of sitting, and finally get home about 35 hours after starting. Then, possibly a quick turn around at home, and a 4 hour drive to NC.

7,000 statute miles, in 35 hours, for an average speed of 200 mph.

I want to be home, but I'd rather be here than be on that trip.

My, How Things Change

2006-06-30T07:35:00.000-04:00

So, a little update is in order. I had a little trouble dealing with this blog after the new job, because there is a limit to how much I can say about the specific jobs, or the equipment on board the plane. Some of our customers are competitors against each other, and much of the equipment is proprietary. So I couldn't do much about the blog.

In my first two assignments, I spent 5 weeks on the road, traveling to Canada twice, Florida, Illinois, Maryland and New York. Not a bad time at all. I was still starting to get used to the job, so there were small hurdles, but nothing major.

I have learned not to count on much of anything though. Every time they tell me what the plan will be for the upcoming asssignment, I can be sure the plan will change a couple times before we get to that point.

Case in point was after my first trip. After three weeks, I got home expecting two weeks off. Three hours after leaving the office, they called me. Three days after getting back, I was gone another two weeks.

I was told that the plan would be to upgrade to captain, then head out to another assignment in Michigan/Ohio. So I started to understand. That asssignment was probably the only thing that was definitely NOT going to happen.

And it didn't happen, but this time in a much more grandiose way. I did start the captain upgrade. We got through all of a half day of training, before that plan changed.

Now, of all places, I'm in Afghanistan, flying the 200 model King Air, pictured here. Actually, that is the exact plane I'm flying. I'm just about finished with my assignment now. I was brought over for 5 weeks, to cover an empty slot.

In retrospect, I think flying in the states will seem rather tame now. Last week, we flew a home-made, non-precision instrument approach down below our made-up minimums, in a dust-storm, in 1 mile visibility, to find a dirt runway surrounded by mile after mile of same-colored dirt. All while overflying an area with significant current Taliban activity, and a not-insignificant risk of being shot at with machine guns, or rocket-propelled grenades. And this is not terribly uncommon now.

Prior to this assignment, I had only had special VFR once, in almost 6 years of flying. In the month of July, I've flown special VFR 10 times. I know rather well, the sound of landmines, and machine gun fire. We had to re-route once last week, because of a car bomb on our drive to the airport. We've had to hold while airborne, because of a threat of rocket attack. Certain landing strips are always quick turn-arounds, in order to minimize risk. In some places, we have code words for our position on approach, just in case the wrong people are listening.

Walk around town, and there is some risk of being kidnapped and killed. Go downtown, and there is a higher risk of a car bomb. Go out of town, and you'll likely be killed by bandits. Take a hike in un-trodden areas, and you may well step on a landmine.

Funny though, despite all that, I've enjoyed my time here. I wouldn't mind staying longer. I've grown accustomed to the heat. New personal record: 117 degrees. (the other pilot claims it was 119, and we arent sure though). Maybe we will split the difference.

When I first got here, I was in a very foreign country, alone, and trying to find my contact. Now, it is sort've like home. A bit. Afghanis are now people in my mind, as opposed to just random foreigners. If you know what I mean. There are plenty of good ones, despite the bad press. Most of them just want to live their lives. Our driver is as upset with the Taliban as anyone I've met. Religiously, it seems to border on being a 3rd-world poverty-stricken version of the beginnings of a post-Christian society. Most still practice Islam, but many just seem to go through the motions.

The ones I've met seem genuinely glad we are here. They've spent far too many years being ruled. Soviet Union, Taliban, you name it. Now, as long as the US doesn't abuse the situation, we would have friends here.

I've seen some interesting things here. Some of it is classified, so I can't say too much. I've always wanted to be able to say that. Now I actually can. Cool.

So, I'm heading home in a couple days. Tomorrow is my last flight, then the next pilot replaces me. Then I get a couple days to relax before the long, long, long, long flight home.

Since I never did get to do that upgrade, now I get to look forward to upgrading in the 90's and the 200 models. At the same time. I better get to studying.

Summary

2006-05-22T18:42:00.000-04:00

Summary of the last month:

Toronto, Ontario (2 days). Panama City, FL (2 days). Sarasota, FL (5 days). back to Panama City (1 day). Back to Sarasota (5 days). Back to Toronto (2 days). Home for three days. Off to Bloomington, IL (5 days). Frederick, MD (2 days). Rochester, NY (one day so far).

I always liked to travel. I'm getting that wish in spades now. Four weeks since I took my first flight assignment, I've logged 122 flight hours. That's about as fast as I could have imagined.

Flying the plane in normal conditions is really no big deal now. It doesn't feel big anymore. Or fast. It is just a plane. The runways seem bigger lately.

I still feel behind on learning the systems. Partly, that is because they have upped my schedule. A week from today, they want me to begin the process of upgrading to Captain. That feels way too quick to me. Of course, I tend to think I need to know everything there could possibly be to know, before I start that. The truth is, thats what the training will be for. Still, I was originally told they hoped I could upgrade by July. Now we are talking about the end of May, just 5 weeks after I started flying.

I've settled into a nice groove. This is the second captain I've dealt with. They both have their differences, but both have been good. Willing to answer all the questions I come up with. Or willing to admit not knowing the answer sometimes (that can tend to be an exception to the rule).

The last two days we've dealt with the more tiring side of this job. Flying around northern Maryland, in gusty, turbulent winds. Strong enough that the autopilot couldn't keep a steady altitude. That meant we had to fly by hand the entire time. But all went well.

We made it to Rochester, NY this afternoon. Now, sitting in my hotel room, listening to the wind howling past my window, I suspect tomorrow will be more of the same.

2006-04-27T23:28:00.000-04:00

Sometimes you just have to find humor wherever it shows up.

Mike and I made it back home from Toronto late last night. I drove home and got about 6 hours of sleep before having to get back up and drive in. During the course of the morning I decided I was inescapably klutzy. I managed to slice open my thumb with a razor blade.

But with only minimal injuries, we managed to get the plane ready, and fly out in the early afternoon. Three and a half hours later, we were shutting down in Panama City, Florida.

That flight was a bit boring though. There's only just so much you can do, when the autopilot is doing its job, and air traffic controllers don't do anything to complicate the flight.

So I found myself staring out the windows, and got to thinking about a lesser-known Monty Python sketch. It isn't technically Python, but actually John Cleese's "How to Irritate People" video. It begins with two pilots sitting in the cockpit of an airliner, bored to tears. One of them starts the "I spy with my little eye..." game. Of course, up there, they don't have many options. Cloud. Sky. etc.

Anyway, I got to thinking that way myself. Not an amazingly humorous story. Sorry about that. But sometimes you have to take what you get. On the plus side, often the exciting flights are exciting for all the wrong reasons.

At the least, I'm sitting in a hotel room in Florida, and waiting until morning, when I get to fly offshore for several hours. And there is a possibility that on this segment of the trip, we may end up going to the Bahamas. Never been there before.

We met up with the two client reps who are staying in the same hotel (as will usually be the case). We all went out and found a good seafood dinner. Tomorrow we fly two offshore assignments, then we spend the night, and fly to another location the next morning.

It took me several hours after arriving to realize we were now on Central time. That gives me a precious extra hour to get a little sleep.

Keeping up with the Americanses

2006-04-26T13:11:00.000-04:00

After 34 years of life in the US, I've become accustomed to observing the effects of stupid laws. I've spent just enough time in other countries (10 others, at last count), that I know we aren't unique in that respect. And it appears that our friendly neighbors in the Great White North are working to keep up with us.

I've been to Canada somewhere between one and two dozen times. I lost count a long time ago. Usually I don't spend much time watching television. Not really a favorite pastime anyway. So far on this trip, we've spent a lot of time just waiting. This morning has been no exception. My main interest there is generally the weather, just so I know what to expect when planning to fly. But this morning while waiting, I found myself watching a news channel.

It seems that there's a new law up here, limiting the width of driveways to 5 feet wider than your garage door. The result is that people are going to be ticketed when they park in any non-compliant part of their own driveways.

Now, I wasn't paying enough attention to discover if this new law covers all of the Toronto area, or just one of the outlying towns, or what. But it is rather reassuring to know that our northern neighbors are working hard to keep up with us in stupid legislation.

Standby

2006-04-25T11:42:00.000-04:00

Hurry up and wait. That's been the plan since we got here. We hurried up to Toronto, and they didn't start working on installing the equipment. That was then planned for 9am. we got breakfast, and waited. Then it was to be 10am. Then "we'll call when we are ready." Almost noon now, and still waiting.

Sitting around the hotel room, I can't help but be amused, because I am getting paid for this. Still, I'd rather be out doing a test flight, than playing on the laptop and watching television. We expect to be here tonight at this rate. originally, we were thinking we might be halfway to Florida by now.

Unlike Mike, I actually remembered to bring a jacket. Good thing, as a cold front is coming through, and it will be freezing tonight. Then we are headed to south Florida, where the high's will be near 90. Quite a change.

Flight Levels, Car Rentals and Foreigners.

2006-04-24T21:27:00.000-04:00

Today was an adventure. Thanks to a car accident and twice being stuck behind school buses, my 35 minute drive to work turned into an hour and 10.

This was the big day, marked by the beginning of my first flight assignment. We saw more delays this morning, because a big metal plate installed in the modification needed to be recut slightly. I got to help with that, then run off and eat a quick lunch, then run back, jump in the plane, and start up.

We headed up to Markham, Ontario, where the full equipment is to be installed, before we fly down to south Florida. With strong winds slowing us down, it became a solid two hour trip, arriving near 4pm. That flight marked my first ever, into class A airspace. The flight levels. We settled into cruise flight at 20,000 feet and I played with the autopilot, handled radio calls, and called flight service to get an update on the weather at our destination. Skies were beginning to clear up a bit. At departure, our destination had a solid 800 foot ceiling, so I was expecting a decent possibility of having to shoot the GPS approach in. And from Pennsylvania on up, we cruised high over a solid layer of clouds. Over Lake Ontario, the skies cleared a little. As we descended down through a few clouds, we found ourselves looking at the water, downtown Toronto off to thte left, and a nice clear path to thte airport.

After landing, we secured a rental car and hotel. We rode back to the rental car office with a guy from Romania. Unusual guy, our driver. He kept talking about how good a life he had back home, all the nice cars he drives, etc. Mike- the captain- and I share a couple common traits: neither of us has a television at home, and neither of us cares in the least about cars. Truthfully, we humored the guy, but that was about it. I kept having to stifle a laugh, because every time the guy opened his mouth, he sounded exactly like Steve Martin and Dan Aykroyd, doing the "wild and crazy guys" skits from Saturday Night Live.

Everything we tried to do today seemed to get delayed. After what seemed like forever gettting the rental car contract, we headed out to a local restaurant that Mike knows (he's been up here a couple times before). Frankie Tomato's. Italian buffet restaurant. Nice decor, two whole rooms full of all kinds of very nice, quality food. It was really hard picking only what would actually fit into my stomach. So much more there I would have loved to try.

Finally, at 8:30 in the evening, we managed to check into the hotel. Tomorrow, the equipment installation may move quickly, in which case we get a quick tetst flight, then fly to Florida. If not, we will be back in the same hotel tomorrow night.

It was a long day, but we managed to accomplish something.

The Skies Are A Little Less Safe Now

2006-04-23T07:08:00.000-04:00

Of the many people who have recently become private pilots, there is at least one more now, who perhaps shouldn't have. I refer to Mrs. Confusion. A couple weeks ago she got it.

After my talk with her about what it would take, (hoping but doubting she would be smart about it), she determined to study hard. Not long ago, she had her checkride and passsed. One might say she earned it, but I have very little doubt that she was just a little lucky, and performed well that day, and managed to prep for the oral exam itself, without really learning all a pilot needs to know. The main thing I care about at this point- to be perfectly pragmatic- is that my signature is not on the endorsement.

Many people get a private license, who should not really be pilots, and she has joined their ranks. Some manage to eventually become safe, some eventually stop using the license, and some become charred airplane-shaped craters in the ground. The disturbing part is that plenty of the latter group take innocent people with them.

I congratulated her on passing the test when I saw her later that day. I know the examiner very well, and I know it isn't a softball of a test. But I also know that he abides by the practical test standards, and that he is sometimes forced to pass someone who he knows is not going to be safe. It happens all too often.

After flying with her for about half of the 150 hours it took her to get the license (that is about double the national average), I am confident that her anxiety about new situations is likely what will keep her safest. She isn't going to go into unfamiliar places alone.

However, I give it about an 80% chance that she will have some sort of incident or accident in the next year or so. Most likely either damaging the landing gear, or something relatively minor. Her husband is far more likely there, since he lacks her level of anxiety, but has no more clue than she does. One of them will either get lost and wander into the wrong airspace, or have a mid-air collision (neither knows how to communicate).

I wish them well, and hope I'm wrong. Either way, it is a reminder that there are unpredictable people up there.

Things Goin' On

2006-04-21T11:56:00.000-04:00

The last month has been truly crazy. I spent a decent bit of time looking for a job. The back story is a bit complex, but here is the abbreviated version: The flight schools were merging, and we had discussed my becoming the chief flight instructor. I was somewhat interested, but not convinced. For my part, I was not ready to commit, unless they wewre prepared to show me a commensurate pay. I never got an offer, which was fine with me, because they were low-balling it anyway, and I was becoming convinced that I needed to move on to something else.

All that led me to start looking for a new job, preferably one that would give me multi-engine turbine experience, and ideally one that would put me where I really want to be in the longer term. After an unusually short time sending out resumes, the good-old-boy network did its job.

I had previously met one of the managers at a company near here, and started the interview process, to become a pilot/ mechanic assistant in their fleet of King Air's. Oddly, at the same time, that manager became one of my flight students. He had plenty of experience in King Air's and C-130's, but had no single-engine license. So while I trained him, we were through the interview process.

My in-person interview came up, and if he had not already been convinced of hiring me, the simulator ride did the job. I aced that, and instead of having to wait a week to find out, they gave me a verbal job offer before the interview was over. A week later, just 4 days ago, I started work.

The job is officially part-time, because thtey only give full-time positions to people with mechanic licenses. However, part-time can easily become full-time hours, and pays well enough that it isn't even an issue. Case in point, in my first three days there, I got 36 hours of work done. Being part-time also gives me extreme flexibility. Thursday, two hours into the day, I had completed most of what I needed to do for the week, and merely had to wait until my first flight asssignment. So I simply told them I would take off, and be back in Friday afternoon to check on the flight status.

The job is ultimately about flexibility. I have to be extremely flexible with my availability, but I have flexibility for my time while not on specific assignment. The vast majority of asignments will take me away from the area, which means I will spend 75% of my time living in hotel rooms, and traveling around the country, and sometimes in other countries.

My first flight was truly a trial by fire. It was somewhat unexpected. Wednesday I showed up and performed whatever maintenance work I could get my hands on. I was still very much the deer-in-the-headlights, with all the new information my brain was trying to process. All of a sudden, I was told they would like me to fly as first officer, down to Alabama and back, and I would be leaving that afternoon, getting back later in the evening. I hand-flew, shunning the autopilot, in order to get a feeling for the plane. Along the way I had to skirt barely around level 5 thunderstorms, getting to the destination shortly after their hailstorms, and landing while enjoying the impressive show of lightning. We were largely convinced we would experience a lightning strike, but thankfully that didnt happen. The return trip, we still dealt with some storms on departure, but the rest was largely uneventful. Flying that plane is rather easy. The systems will be the hardest part, but I'm studying. Landings are interesting, partly because I'm finding them rather easy, but largely because the final approach speeds are suddenly almost double what I've been accustomed to. Instead of 60 knots, suddenly it is 120 knots.

Flexibility will be the key. The other pilots told me that the best thing would be simply to keep a packed travel bag in the car at all times, because you just never know. And I'm already learning that. Either today, tomorrow or Monday, I fly out on my first asssignment. But I won't know until shortly beforehand. We fly to Toronto, spend two days there, then off to Florida for a week, then up to the Chicago area for two weeks, then back home.

It sounds like a crazy job, but this is very much the type of job I want. I don't know what will happen in the long term, but I could see myself staying at least 5 years, if not a lot longer. So, my life is taking a significant turn. All of a sudden I am getting to fly nice, fast equipment, being paid to train toward the mechanic certificates, getting a world of flexibility built into my schedule, building important experience, and still have the opportunity to instruct on the side.

Life is good.

49 to go

2006-03-18T13:04:00.000-04:00

Landmark day yesterday. I had, thte previous day, flown out to Salisbury, Maryland to drop off the owner of the planes for a business meeting. Yesterday I went to pick him up, but had some time to spare, so I made it out to Accomack, VA (KMFV). That means that I have now landed at every paved, public airport in Virginia. One state down, 49 to go.

Finally, some pictures

2006-03-01T12:58:00.000-04:00

The photos from our trip have finally changed hands. I'll start posting the narrative as soon as I can. First things first though, I'm heading to thte Cayman Islands this weekend, leaving late tonight. Unfortunately, this will be aboard a commercial flight. I would rather fly the Symphony, and interestingly, I could get there just as fast or faster, if I did. But the cost is a little bit prohibitive that way.

So for now, I'll post just a few photos, and next week I'll start the story of our adventure.

The first photo here is from Crater Lake, Oregon. The second, on final approach at South Lake Tahoe, California. And the third is from Marble Canyon, Arizona.

With that, I'll sign off until next week, and be back after my little Caribbean vacation.

New Map

2006-02-20T11:36:00.000-04:00

Here is my new map, showing the states in which I've flown. We were hopeful to knock out Mississippi or Michigan on this trip, but it didn't work out. With any luck, this spring we will cover the remainder of the northeast.

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or check out ourCalifornia travel guide

Quick statistics, and the latest news

2006-02-20T11:06:00.000-04:00

I added up the distances flown finally. Straight-line distance between airports where we landed was 7,337 nautical miles (8,438 statute miles). We flew 101.9 hours. Add in some deviations, a couple airports where we overflew but didn't land, various non-straight-line routes for mountains and such, and I figure we covered just about 8,000 nautical miles (9,200 statute miles). Just a rough estimate though.

The 101.9 hours includes time spend taxiing, so adding all that up, gives an average groundspeed of 78.5 knots (90.3 miles per hour).

DC is going to get me a disk with our photos on it, so I can post those soon.

Most of my time this past week has been occupied by searching for work. I've generally needed time to evaluate situations, and our trip was good for that. No preoccupation with the actual details of instructing. That gave me the chance to really evaluate my situation. I do enjoy instructing, but I need to get away from it for now. At most, it should be only a part-time endeavor for me for a while.

So when I got back, I started sending out my resume. I don't want to be stuck in some airline job. I'm looking for charter work, or maybe some other operation that is at least a little bit different every day. I have no desire to fly to the same 5 airports every day, over and over, week after week. I need some variety.

In my mind, this week was the most critical, because I was focused on going through my local connections. Having a contact is much better than a cold-call resume, sent over email. The first job I was shooting for was flying parachute jumpers, and I had good contacts there, but I had to send my resume out during the trip west. By the time I got it done, thtey had already hired for the position. So at best, I am a backup, just in case that pilot leaves.

The other one that is most hopeful is nearby, at Bridgewater Airpark, just a few miles north of here. One of my former students knows the flight operations manager very well, and I met the guy a couple months ago. I got that resume in last week, but hadn't heard anything. I spoke to my student yesterday, and he said the guy had just been swamped, but is looking to hire for the position I mentioned in my email. Hopefully I will hear something from that. It won't pay very much, at least unless I move into a captain position. But it would be in a Beech King Air, probably the C90. And it seems to fit what I want. I would be gone across the country for three weeks at a time, and then have time here, to instruct on the side.

I sent out other resumes also, including one as far away as Grand Junction, Colorado. If nothing else, our trip west reminded me that maybe I should spend some time out west, and enjoy different scenery. I don't expect to get a reply from that one, or many others, without a contact at those companies. If this job comes through, then I can do better at selecting a future job, a year or two down the line.

Route Map

2006-02-15T12:27:00.000-04:00

Ok, this map is certainly nothing special in terms of appearance, but it will have to do for the moment. I'll put in a little more detail on another post.

Home Again

2006-02-14T13:42:00.000-04:00

Monday afternoon, we finally made it home. I never really had many chances to get online, except just long enough to check weather for the next leg. At the moment, I am just impressed, looking back at how much we did.

We took about 1,200 photos, so those will get added as soon as we sort through them. Today is just about relaxing, and getting back to real life. The updates will come as quickly as I can put them together.

This looks familiar

2006-02-04T12:38:00.000-04:00

So far on this trip, an amazing thing had been happening. No real issues with weather. That is just so strange to me. We had a half day off for high winds, but that had been it.

Yesterday that changed a little. From Boulder City, NV several days ago, we managed to fly up into Death Valley, and around the west side of the adjacent mountains, to arrive in Mojave, CA. That is where some of the flying history gets interesting. Dick Rutan is based there. From that area, so many advances come into aviation. As we sat in the restaurant eating lunch, we even saw a Long-EZ doing pattern work. I couldn't help but wonder who was in the cockpit.

After lunch that day, we cruised along south of Edwards AFB, and made landings at several airports there. We overflew Big Bear Lake, but were not about to go in. Elevation, terrain and high temperatures made that a difficult prospect, so we settled for an overflight. We ended the day in Palm Springs, CA, and had what I can only describe as the most luxury I've ever experienced in a day. Fancy hotel, fancy dinner. My dinner was only $100. Good thing I wasn't paying.

Next day brought hazy skies. We decided to head for the destination Rich and I tried for 3 years ago: Catalina Island. 26 miles across open ocean, just southwest of Los Angeles. Naturally, in a single-engine plane, about halfway across I got to thinking how the water there is as deep as 2,900 feet. But all went well. We had crossed at 8,500 feet, so we were only out of glide range of land for a few minutes. More on that later.

The end of the day was in Thermal, CA, not far southeast of Palm Springs. But what a change. Palm Springs is definitely the high-rent district of the area. They obviously spend money on watering the ground. Thermal seemed far more dusty than I expected for being only 20 miles from there. But it is also 140 feet below sea level, so that surely plays in.

We decided to get an oil change done on the plane, so we were in no big hurry there. The mechanic found what he thought to be a couple issues, and instead of heading north right away, we made a few phone calls and made the short hop 100 miles northwest to Cable Airport (KCCB), not far from Los Angeles proper.

There, was the base of a Symphony dealer, who was able to look at the plane himself. The mechanic in Thermal, as competent as he appeared to be, professed no knowledge of the Symphony, so we wanted to find someone who did.

We were given a car for the night, and a nice hotel room a few miles away in Rancho Cucomonga (?). Next morning, the dealer found a very minor issue- a broken throttle return spring- and not much else. So we were fixed and ready.

DC desperately wanted out of southern California. The prevailing attitudes there are not to his liking. We had to fly northwest, hugging the mountains as we climbed past Burbank and Van Nuys. We did finally see downtown LA in the process though. As soon as we had the altitude, we hopped over the mountains and headed north to Tehachapi. I just thought it would be an interesting view. We were only 2 miles away when we discovered that the runway was closed. So overflight was the only option. We had lunch in Bakersfield, CA. This is only a very short flight from LA, but a total reversal in attitudes. Much more to DC's liking. We ate in a small local restaurant called the Knotty Pine Cafe. Friendly atmosphere, more food than we could handle, and very much the western atmosphere.

Clouds were going to inhibit our movement north. Fresno was the next destination, but it was still covered in clouds. We started hopping around to a bunch of the little airports in the area, partly to kill time, mostly for the fun of it. 30 miles from Fresno, it was just barely visual conditions- 3 miles visibility, and 2,000 ceilings. We had to bail out from landing at one nearby airport for the clouds. Last landing was in Visalia, CA. I don't know much of anything about the place still. A whole lot of tree farms in the area. I would guess oranges, but Im not sure.

That killed off just enough more time, that Fresno was looking good. 7 miles, and no ceiling that we could climb to. But that would end the day. Everything north and west was closed off to us, and everything east required crossing 12,000 foot mountains.

This morning, I had a gut feeling we would be stuck with the weather. Turns out, the rain is farther north, and not going to be a problem. The problem is fog. Around 4am, it started cooling down enough to be an issue. By 7 I knew we were stuck a while. Now, at 9am, it is thicker, and probably staying until near lunch, if I am guessing right.

So it took us a long time to get a weather day. We were really lucky with that. I suspect the rest of the trip might not be as fortuitous, but who knows.

A few stats now: 50.7 hours flown. 51 airports visited. (48 of them new to me). 7 new states.

More to come later......

Pacific Time

2006-01-31T11:22:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was likely the most challenging airports I've visited all in one day. We flew up from Scottsdale, AZ toward Prescott, just to see the view, and then east to Sonoma, AZ (I think that was the name, but suddenly I am blanking). Could be the most beautiful place I've ever seen. We flew below the rims of the most amazing red rock canyons I've ever imagined. Made the landing there, and headed north. Tuba City, AZ was the next stop. It got the award for most deserted place we've been so far. But that award was rescinded a couple hours later.

We made a stop at Page, AZ for fuel and lunch, then flew down into Marble Canyon. Wow. More later on that. Then we ran along the Utah Border and stopped at St. George, UT for more fuel. Then the most challenging part of the whole deal: the small deserted airstrips between there and Boulder City, NV, where we ended the day. More on that when I get the chance.

This morning, it is windy with a few small rain showers. Our plan is to run northwest to Death Valley, CA.

A little more detail

2006-01-30T09:06:00.000-04:00

A little more information now, on our trip so far:

1/24: SHD-TRI-GCY-BNA, 6.0 flight hours.

1/25: BNA-PHT-CEY-M34-CIR-FAM-JEF-BUM-EMP-ICT, 7.9 flight hours.

1/26: ICT-DDC-GCK-MCK, 3.7 flight hours.

1/27: MCK-AKO-CYS-GXY-PUB, 5.2 flight hours.

1/28: PUB-AEG-GUP-INW-SDL, 8.2 flight hours.

TOTALS: 31.0 flight hours
20 new airports not previously visited
4 new states previously not flown into
highest elevation airport so far: GUP, 6,472 feet above sea level.

This morning, we set off, but we aren't yet sure where. The preferred route will take us from Scottsdale to Prescott. From there, we will go toward Sedona and Flagstaff, but will probably not land at either of those, for density altitude considerations. I think as it is, we are probably limited to less than 7,000 foot field elevations, and even those will require space around them to maneuver while climbing slowly.

From there, we may go north and get to Page Municipal, on Lake Powell in Glen Canyon. I would like to make a small side trip into Marble Canyon, only 12 miles from there. That is essentially the beginning of the Grand Canyon. Shouldn't be a major issue there.

Either we will spend the night there, or press on. Hopefully the next segment after that will take us into southern Utah, and around the canyon toward Las Vegas. After that, if all goes well, we are heading to Death Valley.

From there, who knows. More later.

Mountain Time Zone

2006-01-29T10:31:00.000-04:00

What an adventure so far. Not much time at the moment, so just a quick update:

We left Tuesday morning, and fought headwinds, making it only to Nashville, TN. Next day we set out very early, and ran by Kentucky Lake, where we ended up seeing the path of destruction of a small tornado, about a mile long, and a couple hundred feet wide.

After more fighting of the winds, we had to find a place to sleep, with a reasonable chance of a good hotel. We chose Wichita, Kansas. Not a bad place at all. Again, early morning departure. This time, we headed farther west, and got a landing at Dodge City. But we did only a touch & go, because we had to get out of Dodge. Rain was coming in, some of which we flew through. The wind was picking up quite a bit, and headwinds out there had reduced our groundspeed to the equivalent of highway speeds (about 60 knots). A quick stop at another airport northwest of there to get fuel, then turning north to get away from the rain, we leveled off and got a groundspeed of 170 knots. We made it to McCook, Nebraska. There, the wind finally caught up with us. Our 3 landings for the day were made in steady 16-18 knot winds, with gusts to 27-28. That was ok for me, but not for DC. By the time we finished lunch though, winds were gusting 35 knots, and I figured we ought to call it a day.

Next morning looked a lot better, so we ran out from there toward Akron, Colorado. There, we tested the performance of the plane a bit, to make sure we knew how the density altitude would affect us. At 4,700 feet above sea level, it wasn't terrible, but we were headed from there to Cheyenne, Wyoming, at over 6,000 feet, so we wanted to be sure. Turned out to be no problems at all.

After Cheyenne, we ran south to Greeley, CO for lunch. A couple of buffalo burgers later, we took off and flew around the west side of Denver to get a good view of the mountains. Ended the day in Pueblo, CO.

Yesterday, was our long day so far. From Pueblo, we ran south toward Santa Fe, New Mexico. We planned a landing there, but had to divert. The winds were a but turbulent, and clouds were still hanging around, which would have forced us to fly lower than I wanted, around a couple of those passes. We had already crossed one pass only a thousand feet above terrain to the sides, but adding clouds made it unpleasant. We ran farther south instead, until we could turn west and get to Albuquerque. Landed at my old nemesis, Double Eagle airport, just northwest of Albuquerque. There, three years ago, Rich and I discovered how badly a plane can do on takeoff. On the long runway (7,400 feet long), with what turned out to be a dog of a plane, with a dog-tired engine, we had barely cleared the ground on takeoff. I wanted another shot at it.

We ended up using the shorter runway because of the winds. 5,900 feet long, with a density altitude of 6,200 feet. Again, no issues. Then, running farther west, we had to climb quite a bit to get over the continental divide. We did make it up to 12,700 feet at one point, but felt we would do better the lower we could fly, from there on.

Another airport, on the border ot Arizona was our next landing (I forget the name right now). I just wanted a touch & go, for the sake of it. Also, that would be another one over 6,000 feet up. Not a big issue. Then we landed at Winslow, Arizona for fuel, and headed to our final destination for the day, Scottsdale, Arizona, just barely north and under the class B airspace of Phoenix.

We had a nice dinner last night, and restful sleep. Today is a rest day, then we head either to California, or up toward Utah. Who knows.

More updates later, possibly one later tonight.

The $10,000 Hamburger

2006-01-24T10:39:00.000-04:00

Pilots all know about the $100 hamburger. Five bucks for the burger, ninety-five for the transportation. Today, DC and I begin our quest for the $10,000 burger.

We were set to go to Memphis at first, but we decided instead on St. Louis. This morning we were greeted with heavy fog, and no real choices but to sit and wait. But the fog is lifting nicely, and the official flight test should be underway in just a few minutes. Assuming all goes well, the autopilot does its job, etc, then we should be off about 11AM.

Now, we are back to deciding on Memphis, to avoid the strongest headwinds. Headwinds no matter what, so we may only average about 80 knots across the ground. But the straight flight to St. Louis would be closer to 65-70 knots.

Anyway, the excitement builds. Anything significantly west of here by the end of the day would be fine with us.

More details to follow, when there is something to report. And so, the quest begins.

Almost ready to go

2006-01-21T15:17:00.000-04:00

Getting close to launch now. We expect to depart Monday morning, should all go well with the last bits of installation on the autopilot. Tenative plan is still Memphis on the first day, but weather will be the ultimate deciding factor there.

I've effectively eliminated working with any students for the last few days beforehand, to give me time to get all the little details worked out. My most recent student- Brad- has made good progress in the short time we've worked together, but I will not get to be the one to endorse him for the first solo. Two weeks with constant scheduling and weather issues, just wasn't enough time for that to get done.

I've started feeling that sense of relief, from having the burden of daily operations lifted, and a bit of cautious feeling, hoping I haven't forgotten anything, and a whole bunch of excitement. DC doesn't quite know what he's getting into. My last trip west, we spent plenty of that time dealing with weather delays. There are a few hot spots for weather right now, but no way to predict anything about the entire next month, so we will just have to make that a daily decision, figuring out where the weather is, and where to go to avoid it.

So, preparations continue.....

Taking it to the woodshed

2006-01-18T13:11:00.000-04:00

So I had that much-needed conversation with Mrs. Confusion today. Unfortunately, it had to be by phone. My intention here, was not to anger her, but to motivate her to either start working at this for real, or give up completely. I had wanted to get her in, and administer the very same pre-solo written test I gave her 8 months ago. I would bet good money she couldn't pass it. (I told her as much).

The gist of it all was, if she was willing to put forth some actual effort to gain and retain the knowledge, and show up with real effort and mental readiness to be flying, then I would help her in any way I can, once I get back from this trip. If not, then we are done flying. As much as I like the money, I am not willing to sit there and keep saying she's almost ready, when I know she isn't.

Not surprisingly, I got a call about 15 minutes later. It was the other instructor she deals with a little bit. She went crying to her husband, and he called this guy, to call me and get a little explanation. Now, I like this guy. We had a bit of falling out at points, and I can't agree with some of the things he both did and allowed to happen when he owned the flight school. But he is still likable. I explained the situation, and discussed it with him in detail, telling him that I'm headed west for a month or so. Then I wished him luck. I have no doubt that she will start flying exclusively with him, and would, regardless of whether or not I was leaving. I have at least some doubts that I will ever get paid for the last $300 or so that she owes me.

So I made it clear that I had to upset her a little, in order to get the point across. I've been really tactful about it for way too long, and she has never processed a single bit of that. So being nice just didn't work. I still suspect that she just doesn't have the capacity for actual proficiency. I'd love to believe I am wrong about that.

Either way, I had to be honest about it all. This other instructor may well get her through the license. I've doubted it before, and been wrong. He may well cut some corners to do it. I'm sure he has more patience for some of these things than I do, so perhaps he will manage. I have plenty of patience for lack of talent, but very little for lack of effort. Maybe she will actually learn something, maybe not, but that is his job now.

So I wished him luck. He's gonna be needing it.

Westward, how

2006-01-16T10:21:00.000-04:00

So, this has been a long time coming. One thing about DC's experience so far in aviation, is that the majority of it was spent in either training, or waiting for the retest. So far, he hasn't had much chance to just enjoy. Now, we are getting ready to do the enjoying, and do it in style.

We've been discussing a trip west for several months, and we kept that in mind while looking for a new plane to buy. We wanted to be able to do significant travel in this plane. Now, with the schools merging, and my finishing checking the instructors out in the Diamond aircraft, the opportunity has finally come. We have done plenty of day trips, and the occasional overnight. (Once, by accident- literally). Now the time has come to do something worthy of our intentions.

Both of us are capable of taking a huge chunk of time away, so we decided to spend 3-4 weeks just flying around. He wants to see the Rocky Mountains. We both want to see anything we haven't seen before. I desperately want to see Oregon, since that is the only state I've never visited. But most areas out there, I haven't seen since I was a child. So we are making a beeline west, planning to spend time flying around and having fun. If we get sick of each other quickly, then we come back earlier. If we are having fun, then we keep going, maybe extending it to two months.

Planned departure is tenatively set for sometime between Saturday this week, and Tuesday next week. First goal, is to get some distance from the places we already know so well. We figure with the climb prop on this plane, and trying to keep fuel burn under 6 gallons per hour, we will average about 100 knots. So day one's goal is either St. Louis or Memphis. If the weather cooperates. That's probably 7 hours of flying, figuring on a headwind. Add in some landings at various airports along the way, just for fun, and that will be maybe 9 hours.

Day 2, maybe bleeding into day 3, we head toward Denver. Thats where the fun begins. Plenty of airports around there that will be too short or too high an elevation for us to handle in this plane at max gross weight. Plus, plenty of rather forbidding terrain, especially in winter. So we have a bit of a plan, but no idea how feasible it will all be.

From past experience, I know there will be plenty of days that the weather will stop us cold. A single overnight can easily turn into 4-5 days. But we aren't in any hurry.

We won't be able to head directly west from Denver, since most of those airports are too high up for us. So the plan is to head south, toward Albuquerque, NM. I remember the Double Eagle airport (KAEG) just west of there, and the nice cafe they have, and I sure wouldn't mind visiting there again.

I'd like to turn back toward the north there, and track up along western Colorado, into Utah, and maybe back down near the Grand Canyon. I got cheated out of a good view of the canyon 3 years ago, and it would be nice to solve that. maybe we can manage an overflight, if I can figure out the rules on that.

Ideally, the next area I would like to see is Death Valley. There, we have the lowest terrain in the country, (282 feet below sea level), a scant 75 nautical miles from Mt. Whitney, the highest in the lower 48 states, at 14,491 feet. And I'm thinking that winter in Death Valley might prove more enjoyable than summer.

If all goes well, we will make our way to the coast, and fly the coastline up toward Seattle, but with plenty of side-trips inland, maybe to Lake Tahoe, or anywhere else that strikes our fancy. From there, who knows? So much to see, I hardly know where to begin. Yellowstone, the badlands, etc. One goal, though I don't know how feasible it is yet, would be to fly the Snake River Canyon. The river is, in places, more than 7,000 feet below the highest mountains on either side. Deeper than the Grand Canyon, and narrower, from what I hear.

So much to do, and plenty of time to do it. I plan to give updates on here some, and Rich may do a few, when I can't get to an internet connection. In the meantime, anyone with ideas on what to do, where to go, etc, please feel free to comment and give me ideas.

Confusion sets in a little deeper

2006-01-15T18:38:00.000-04:00

On to the next part of the update. Mrs. Confusion.

Let me preface this discussion: some people should not fly. She is one of them. So is her husband. Her husband already has a license, and thinks he will get an instrument rating before long. She thinks she will have a private license before long. Both are most likely wrong. I can't do anything about him, but my responsibilities require me to stop teaching her.

Recognize, that perfection is basically impossible, and most pilots understand that. But the majority of truly skilled pilots share a common trait: they refuse to accept anything less. They know the FAA requirements, and can consistently perform better than that, not because they are all highly gifted, but often simply for refusing to be average. People who accept mediocrity should not be pilots. Ever.

My evaluation of Mrs. Confusion may sound harsh, but bear in mind, that everything required to get a license has been presented to her more times than I care to recall. She currently has about double what most people need to complete a license (right now, nearing 150 flight hours).

We flew a few days ago, and I suspected this was a waste of time, but since we hadn't flown lately, I wanted to give her a last chance. At some point, I have to give up on her, but one more try seemed appropriate.

I started her training nearly two years ago now, and knew that she would be trouble, and she would be slow, but hoped she would put some actual effort into this. I told her then, that it would require real studying, and a concerted effort to perform correctly, or it would all be a waste. I flew a while with her before leaving the school. After a few months, she followed me over. My first talk with her then, was that she should be prepared for a harsh evaluation. I knew that the instructor she had bene using, was prone to taking short-cuts. Good guy, but not truly serious about turning a student into a proficient and safe pilot. Up front, I told her I would expect studying on a consistent basis. A few months ago I actually suspended all her flying for a while, until she showed me she actually was studying.

Apparently, the grey matter in between her ears does not operate in the recognized manner of normal sapient creatures. She just doesn't get it. At the beginning of the flight, I explained that since she is anxious to go to a checkride, I was going to be in examiner mode. Not teaching, just telling her which task to perform, and expecting her to do it. I've been saying for 8 months that I expect her to study and know the test standards. She knew from previous flights that when I say I am in that mode, I am not there to help her, and I won't help her. I'll either say she passed that portion, or I will say she failed it. We are much too far along for her to not know the answer before I say it though, or to not understand how to do things properly.

I knew going in that I was going to have to be harsh about it. She thinks she is almost ready, and that is so far from the truth. And from my own post-flight briefings, she has no basis for believing that. I've said many times that the onus is on her. She's been taught every single thing over and over, but she isn't going anywhere until she starts performing up to standards on a routine basis.

Here, I would describe the flight in more detail, but it would only make me irritated. Not a single thing on the flight was performed properly. Nothing. Very few portions were even up to the standards I expect of a student approaching a first solo flight. There were times I had to take the controls from her, for safety reasons. Being 200 feet over a cell tower, 4 miles from the airport is a really good example. Losing several hundred feet during a steep turn that wasnt actually steep, is another. She couldn't figure out where to go to practice the maneuvers, and asked me, even though I have a solid history of trying to force her to make safe decisions without my help. She couldn't grasp how to transition from slow flight with flaps, to slow flight without flaps. We've only done that one a few hundred times. Stalls, were worse than I expect of a 10-hour student pilot. She couldn't make a safe entry to the pattern. On crosswind, she had no idea if the last plane used the same runway she was planning on, or how long ago that was, or any of that, and hadn't asked for any advisory from unicom.

She usually tries to blame anything or anyone but herself. It is never her fault. If she didn't study at all in the last two weeks, it is because her business is busy. Sure, I understand that, but it is still on her to find that time. Not my fault. Occasionally, she will actually say "that was me" when something goes wrong. I've started responding by saying "I know it was you. There are no other options. I'm not touching the controls, and the plane doesn't fly itself, so everything that goes wrong here is your fault."

That may sound harsh, but I have to be honest. Making excuses will not turn her into a pilot. I have never expected skill from a student who hadn't been taught that skill numerous times. We've done hundreds upon hundreds of steep turns and stalls though, and I expect her to know these.

To cap off the flight, we ended by having her become lost 3 miles from the airport. Perfect visibility outside, not a cloud around, numerous geographic and man-made features staring up at us, all very obviously telling where the airport was. She's only lived 4 miles from that very spot for the last 5 years, and that spot is a significant highway intersection that she drives past every single day. And all the flying she has ever done, started and ended right at this very airport 3 miles away which I was curently staring at. With mountains spread the way they are around this valley, I have never visited a place that was easier to remain unlost in. The terrain makes it pathetically easy. I know not all people have a good sense of direction or scale, but I still can't fathom how after all this time, she can't have known how to look southeast from the interstate directly under us, to see the airport directly south of the road she drives to get to the airport every time.

So, I have officially given up on a student now. I've dealt with plenty that were never going to get their licenses, and recognized it themselves quickly. This is the first time I've ever had to give up completely on someone who is absolutely convinced she is capable.

Maybe she will get a license someday. But I know her too well now, to have my signature on her application. If she does get a license, I suspect it won't be more than a few months after, when she does something truly stupid, and if she is lucky, survives. And I hope nobody else gets caught in that. For my part, it is over. I was so irritated at the end of the last flight, all I did was get out of the plane and walk away, saying I would call her. The next conversation is to explain that the only way she can ever become a safe pilot, is to put a whole lot more effort into it than she is displaying. I understand flight skills getting rusty at times, but there is no excuse for lack of knowledge now. There is no excuse for her inability to tell me what causes a wing to stall. (yes, I asked her that, and no, she had no idea).

Barring an extreme effort on her part, (something I can't even imagine at this point), then my part in this is over. She can either quit, or find someone else to teach her.

I wish it was my place to also tell her husband that he really shouldn't be a pilot either. I trained him some too, and until flying with her, thought him to be the most difficult student I had ever seen. Unfortunately, after I left that equation, he found an instructor whose standards weren't very high, and then he had a lucky day on the test. I've flown with him since then, and found no improvement there. So that is just a matter of time.

Finally, a brand new entry!

2006-01-15T13:33:00.000-04:00

A week or two away from writing entries turned into months. Sorry about that. Life has been a bit crazy in general lately.

So, picking up from October, here's what has happened:

DC and I flew a lot in preparation for his retest. Practically every day. I could see the stress in his eyes, but it was not for his own sake. He was stressed knowing that he wanted me to look good, knowing that if he failed, then we would both look bad, and the crash would look just like two pilots performing poorly.

In late November he finally got his chance. We spoke with the local DPE (designated pilot examiner) who I use, and he came out to fly with DC the day before. He had personally taught the FAA inspector we were meeting the next day, so that couldn't hurt. Our DPE is a really good guy, and I have grown to respect him tremendously over the 5 years I have known him. He really helped calm DC's nerves that day.

When we showed up at Louisa County Airport (KLKU) the next day, we met with the inspector. After a slightly weak oral exam (not bad though), they went to fly. It still hung in the balance there. If the landings went well, that would be the whole test. If not, then the test would get longer.

I watched helplessly from the ramp as they taxied out. Then, I witnessed three of the most beautiful, spot-on, feather-soft landings I've ever seen from him. And then it was over. Just like that, the months-long frustration was over. The inspector was thoroughly impressed with his technique, and not a single fault was found on the flight.

You know the kind of stress that grips you when something major is coming up. Spend four months like that, and then suddenly the relief sets in. We took a short break from some of the flying there, and waited for DC's new plane to arrive.

He had ordered a Symphony SA-160, and we were just waiting to see if he would have to cancel that order. This time, we decided to buy a real airplane. DC had previously had me fly it with the dealer rep a couple of times, to make sure I was happy with it, before he was willing to move forward. What I found was a craft that handles beautifully. The stall is the most docile I have seen in a plane. The only fault I found was what felt like a lack of climb performance. Most of that came to two reasons: First, was the shape of the cowling, which for some reason made me constantly feel as if we were mushing toward the stall. That took me several flights to start really getting accustomed to it. Secondly, I think the manufacturer used a prop that would eke a few extra knots out on the top end, just to get a few extra sales.

I noticed that they also sold a climb propeller, and told him we would have to have that. Virginia isn't extremely mountainous, but here at the home base, density altitude can get to about 4,000 feet on a warm summer day. Within a short flight, we can be at Hot Springs, VA, the highest paved public airport in the east, at almost 3,800 feet up. In the summer there, the density altitude can easily be approaching 7,000 feet.

Plus, the biggest reason we needed the climb prop: planning a trip out west. The plane's service ceiling is 16,000 feet, but we were going to need a plane that could legitimately climb out from fields at 6,000 or more, even at maximum weight.

More on that trip planning in the next entry.

The other big news was that we decided to merge with the other flight school on the field. I had originally been looking for a buy-out, to snag their FAR part 141 status. The biggest factor to me was the manager/ chief flight instructor. Nice enough guy, but mainly because the man is a selling machine. But I know him well enough to know better. He had owned the school when I first we there as a student, 5 years ago. He sold it to one of the instructors, but stuck around. Then that owner sold it to the curent owners, but the first owner still stuck around. And he was the major problem.

Reputation is everything, and he has a bad one. Shortcuts on maintenance, cheating customers out of what they had paid for, breaking contracts, you name it. And philosophically, I knew that I would be unwilling to work with him, especially if he was giving the orders. So I made clear that regardless of how the merger went, if he remained there, I would not.

Thankfully, the owners were starting to see the same problems, and fired him. They verbally committed to doing things the right way, and to starting to rebuild a proper reputation, and working toward developing a school that could legitimately compete across the country for students. With that, I became willing to discuss it.

We don't yet know how it will all go. There is discussion of putting me in as the official chief flight instructor, but I am still a little bit shy of the required flight experience. And I recognize how much work that is. I really don't know if they are willing to pay what the job is worth. So that end of it remains open. I'm teaching more now, having access to more students, so the income is up a bit. But this isn't my long-term ambition. If the job goes to me and they pay properly, then I'll consider it. If not, then I'm looking elsewhere. I can pick up a job in charter easily enough, especially since I don't mind moving and being on the road a lot, so that may be the route I take.

That's all for this entry, for now. Later on, today or tomorrow, I'll tackle the Mrs. Confusion situation. That got more interesting. And I'll tell about the bigger news: the upcoming loooooooong cross-country flight.

Land, Repeat, Repeat, Repeat, Repeat, Repeat...

2005-10-12T16:24:00.000-04:00

DC and I flew today. The weather only allowed pattern work, but that was fine. Aside from a very hectic level of traffic, all went well. Instrument departures were being delayed up to 15 minutes, and there were often several waiting at one time. But we were listening to the approach controllers on the second radio, which helped us predict the IFR traffic.

Touch-and-go's can sure get done quick. We flew 2.4 hours, and logged 25 landings. The latest news on the retest is that it is now scheduled for the 18th, in Louisa, VA. That makes a world of difference for his comfort level, since we thought he would have to deal with Richmond International Airport instead.

His control has seen significant improvement in the last couple weeks, which has made me very happy.

Slightly humid

2005-10-11T10:10:00.000-04:00

Rain. And rain. And more rain. And a little more still. That's about all that has happened the last week. I've managed a little bit of flying at least. A few hours here and there. Thursday was supposed to be DC's ride with the FAA, but we haven't heard back (it was a tenative date, with no specific appointment), and it looks like rain anyway.

So, not much of anything to tell. Thus is the life of a flight instructor. If I had a steady instrument student right now, we could be out plowing through the clouds right now. But nearly everything I have to do right now is visual, that kills off the income rather quickly.

The Long & Winding Story

2005-10-07T09:06:00.000-04:00

Yes, believe it or not, I'm still here. I had enough other stuff going on lately, that I just didn't have much time to devote to this. Sometimes I feel, if I can't take the time to make a post really good, then I don't want to post at all.

I've also been contemplating several things that would impact my spare time. I may try to get a part-time job at the unicom desk in the early mornings. I know the head linesman suggested I do it a few months ago, and at the time that was not the best option for me, but now it would work. It would likely be only a couple hours a day, maybe 5-7 or 5-8 AM. But that would fit well with my schedule. I'm generally here in the office by 7 or 8, and my commute between jobs would only be about a 2 minute walk.

DC is getting ready for his 709 ride. We think. The whole situation is so messed up, I don't really know where to begin.

The basic history: after the crash, I made the initial report to the FAA, then DC and I both submitted written narratives. Both of our narratives said basically the same thing: in the flare with 40 degrees of flaps, adding power gave an uncommanded response, which he tried to fix by aborting the landing. When I recognized the situation, I tried to fix it myself, but to no avail. I had to make a quick decision, and I preferred to crash the plane in a way I knew would let us walk away, than to try saving it and most likely make the crash a whole lot worse.

Our initial post-crash problem came in the form of an FAA investigator. This guy quickly struck me as the wrong person to be investigating. I had to explain to him what a sport plane is. I had to explain several things that- as a supposed professional- are incumbent upon him to know.

However, I didn't let that bother me at the time. Two days later, he investigated and came to a completely different conclusion. He decided that we had a hard landing, blew the nose tire, and created a gash in the runway, leading to loss of control. At first, I was a bit confused. I had to process that information. Memory can be unreliable. But before long, I knew for certain that my head wasn't just playing tricks on me. I can prove my case too, if allowed to do so. Basic knowledge of physics proves him wrong. Basic investigative techniques would have shown him the facts. A gash that deep and that long, made by a plane that small, would have had the plane coming to a stop on the runway. We would never have had the kinetic energy necessary to get all the way to the hill 200 feet off the runway, much less with enough speed to crumple the gear and flip us over at 35 knots.

We recognized that he decided on his version of the story, and that was that. So we waited for the NTSB report. When that came back, it was essentially a rewording of what my report to them said. It listed the flight as instructional (not quite, but I won't argue that point), and that made me pilot in command. So I figured if anyone would get retested it would be me.

A couple weeks ago, DC got a letter stating that he was to be retested. I waited for mine, but it never happened. Normally the FAA would rather go after the bigger fish, than pick on the small one. The investigator decided to completely ignore the NTSB's report, and stick to his own story. We are actually thinking that the investigator knows I would pass the retest easily, so he is going for the more likely failure.

To boot, the required subjects to cover during the retest have absolutely nothing to do with the situation that caused the crash. Testing him with an emphasis on knowledge of systems, does nothing to prove he was not proficient at controlling the plane. I also found out at that time, that this investigator is not a pilot. At all. Which means he has no real basis for truly understanding what happened.

So I found myself basically off the hook completely, and DC was getting everything thrown at him. That's when I decided to involve myself a little more deeply. I called the Richmond FSDO, to schedule his retest, and to talk. I was hoping to talk to the local director, who already knew our situation, and already had concern about the design and engineering standards of sport planes on the market. He was sympathetic. And he was out of town.

I did speak with another guy though. This was the same one who had sat in to observe my private helicopter add-on license 2 1/2 years ago. So I at least knew him. He also knows the owners of the school very well, so we have an established history of sorts. Thankfully, he has a litlte bit of sense. He is willing to test DC based on what he believes are the relevant subjects, and somewhat ignore the directive coming from Nashville.

Now, on to the next little wrench in the system. A retest is supposed to be performed in the same basic type of aircraft which we had used during the crash. In this case, a sport plane (and preferably a CT-SW). Therein is a major problem. We don't have one. The only one we had before, is totaled. We don't want another one. We don't want to buy one, or rent one, or borrow for that matter. That was just the third CT-SW ever built. (DC had flown in the long-wing version once before buying this one, and the flight characteristics were significantly different). So by now, there may be as many as 5-10 others in the country. There isn't a rentable sport plane anywhere around here. So it simply isn't possible. The only other reasonable option is to use the Diamond, since that is the only other model of aircraft DC has ever flown, and the only one reasonably available.

The funny part is, the FAA inspectors in Richmond have not been checked out in Diamond aircraft. So they can't perform that test on him... unless. Unless they get checked out first. And there are't many options for getting checked out, except for a little flight school up in the Shenandoah Valley, which happens to be the same place where yours truly teaches.

So I may have to fly to Richmond and teach all the FAA inspectors the plane, right before one of them hops in and tests a student of my own, in that very same plane, which has flight characteristics not remotely similar to the plane we crashed. This is a funny situation.

Some of this is speculation right now. He is tenatively scheduled for "about the 13th", but we haven't heard back. They were going to call me to confirm the date and discuss my coming down there to teach them about the Diamond.

Now, since it is a week and a half since I was advised I would hear from them, I am starting to wonder. I figure it is a small chance, but I know that the two district offices would have spoken to each other. I know that the head guy in Richmond is a highly experienced pilot and flight instructor, and is sympathetic to our situation, and that his agenda is to show that some of these sport planes are not engineered or tested nearly enough. I know that the investigator in Nashville is not a pilot, and I've sensed that he is likely inexperienced even at this. His agenda seems to be to insure that he doesn't look bad by having his version of the story questioned, so he would like to see DC fail.

I am halfway wondering if perhaps the Richmond office is trying to get the Nashville office to drop the retest requirement. That would be most excellent.

There's another reason it would be beneficial for the FAA to drop the case. Like I said, we have solid proof that the investigator's version of the story is false. (Including photos showing the runway scar we supposedly made, but which extends from the runway all the way over to the hangars, 1,000 feet from where we ended up). DC is a powerful man- much moreso than I can even fathom. He knows the Virginia governor personally, and several US senators. He has huge amounts of money and power. He's already told me that if this is just a reasonable retest, he will be fine, but if it becomes a witchhunt and he gets torched, he will start pulling strings and make sure they are seen to be ignoring our concerns. We believe we have a legitimate gripe here, and if the FAA ignores it, perhaps the next person that crashes one of these will not be so fortunate.

On the positive side of things: During the training DC and I have been doing, he has made some sudden leaps of abilities. His big struggle was the short-field landings. The other instructor he had finished his private license with, was teaching a usable, but not technically correct method for that landing. I wanted to get him truly proficient. This week, after exhausting the standard teaching methods, I decided to pull out a slightly different trick. I had him set up several miles out on final, and showed him the sight picture he wanted, and gave him a couple minutes to tweak the power for the descent angle he needed.

Now, that method isn't entirely uncommon for me to use. I like letting the student get stabilized. I use similar methods teaching instrument approaches- a very long final approach gives you plenty of time. DC really took to it well. At 75 years old, he admits to being a little slow to learn. But I spent the next hour and a half in utter amazement. I only demonstrated once, then he went on to perform the next dozen of them almost flawlessly. When he asked me to do one, so he could just watch, I had to admit that I wasn't sure I could do any better. (I did manage to, but not by much). Some of his touchdowns were within 10 feet of the spot. I just managed to put it within about 5 feet. Given 200 feet from the standards, he has no trouble now.

The real test was to see if he remembered it the next day. Five consecutive perfect short-field landings. He also told me that, for the first time in his flying, he felt actually proficient, and was finally really having fun. Up to this point, all his training had been work. Now, he could really smile. We spent some time applying his new grasp of power management and angle of attack, toward the other types of landings and maneuvers, and found similar improvements.

Wednesday, just as we were geting out of the plane, I watched a plane crash. A little yellow home-built tailwheel biplane. I started running toward it, but I was a couple thousand feet away, and the rescue trucks were rolling within 15 seconds of the crash, so I recognized that my help was not needed. The guy totaled the plane, but his personal injury was only the ego. What made it far worse, was that he had just finished spending 13 years building the plane, and this was its first landing. It appeared that he started to porpoise, and got a little hamfooted on the brakes. When a plane begins to porpoise, the solution is to add power, but he removed it. That made each bounce worse than the last. Finally, it turned a little nose-left, and nosed over. Pivoting on the top right wing section, it then flipped upside down and planted firmly, right on the edge of the runway. If nothing else, we are all just happy he was not injured.

So, thats about all for me today. We have a lot of rain happening here, so no real flying going on. Tomorow, I fly out to Manassas, VA for the day. Assuming the weather doesn't completely sock us in. Even on instruments, there is a limit.

Latest Updates

2005-09-22T11:28:00.000-04:00

So, after taking a break, here are the standings:

Mr. Confusion is leading the race handily now. Mrs. Confusion started actually studying. We have done about 15 hours of ground instruction of late, and I'm starting to think she is getting a grasp of the material now. She's making a few final leaps of knowledge that are letting her figure things out. Still a couple struggles there, but significant progress. Amazing what a little bit of knowledge does.

Joe is starting to bring it together. His main issue has been tension. If he gets the least bit tense during the flight, he starts doing everything badly. When he relaxes, he looks good. So we have to overcome that, so that he won't be nervous on the day of the checkride.

The most nervous student I ever had, managed to impress me on the checkride. Frankly, I'm amazed that he remembered his own name to tell the examiner. He sure didn't remember much else. So that checkride lasted about 10 minutes, but the retest went better. As much as I hate having any student fail a checkride, I wasn't able to calm him enough to do that one right. But sometimes that happens. Now, it is ancient history.

DC and I had been waiting to hear about the results of the crash investigation. The NTSB decided it was an instructional flight (as I figured they would). It was sort've instruction, and sort've just a pleasure flight. So we told them in the report that the designation of pilot in command was on them.

After a discussion with the head of the FAA Flight standards district office in Richmond, we were encouraged, believing that perhaps nothing much would be made of it. I figured, at worst, I would be directed to perform a 709 ride, to test me and see if I am competent. That would be no terribly big deal to me.

On Monday, DC called. He received a letter, directing him to take a 709. I have yet to receive any letter. I figured that chances were high that I would get one, but so far, nothing. His letter was issued on Sept. 14th, so I ought to be getting one soon, if at all. I just can't figure why they would have chosen him. They usually prefer hooking the bigger fish.

Pending that, we still have to prep him for his ride. We started flying again on Tuesday, in preparation. He was a little weak on most areas. I made a little bit of an intuitive leap, and covered up the entire instrument panel, and made sure he flew only visually. That seems to have been the difference. Suddenly, his steep turns were impressive. His second try, after covering the panel, he performed one, only losing 20 feet. I'm not sure I could do that routinely. The stalls got much better also.

Today, we had to wait for VFR weather, so we did a litlte ground work on weather. He knows weather theory well enough, but the retrieval and parsing of reports is troublesome to him. By the time we finished that, it was good enough visibility to fly. Not enough to work on the maneuvers, so we stayed in the pattern. I started him on the soft-field takeoff and landing, and he finally discovered in himself, the ability to feel what the plane is doing, rather than have to interpret it. Most of those landings would have passed a commercial checkride. So I upped the ante, and started giving him simulated engine failures, with a spot landing at the end. This is a commercial maneuver, but one of the most useful ones that ever gets taught. To my amazement, he nailed it on the first try. I don't recall ever having a student do that well on the first attempt. Then he continued to get it right on the spot, 4 of the next 5 tries. I was a bit stunned. I think he just turned the corner, and will only improve with time now.

................

Off the Radar

2005-09-12T08:51:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the total lack of posting lately. Sometimes, you just want to stay low and just do what you need to do, so I skipped out on most anything non-mandatory all last week.

There also wasn't a lot to tell. I conducted ground instruction several days with Mrs. Lost & Confused. At first, I had a strong desire to impale myself, and be rid of such impressively near-total lack of comprehension. Along the way, I could tell she was finally studying, and a couple times, a light bulb came on inside her head.

We still have quite a bit of work to do there, but perhaps I see a ray of hope in it now. I think she is starting to see how much studying there is, and why it is important.

Mr. Confusion started back on lessons last night. We had not flown in three weeks. I figured it would be right back at the beginning, and was thankfully spared the frustration of that. Not that I wasn't frustrated, but at least he hasn't lost too much. I suspect it will still be a very long journey for him, and when he realizes that he's run out of his prepaid funds, he may start to evaluate why. I;ve been telling his this the whole time. We had a talk last flight, about why we will not be sight-seeing on every lesson. He always wants to go fly over his house, or take pictures of something, which always costs him 20 minutes in the process. So last night, he wanted to fly over his house. This, just after we had started in earnest on the maneuvers. It would have required descending, locating the house, flying around a couple times, and climbing back up. Not a major time expense, but I didn't let him. He's determined to waste the time, it seems, but I'm no longer going to let him.

His maneuvers were, as expected, very weak. I decided to start out on the simple stuff again- straight & level. This alone, took him 20 minutes to get some semblance of order to it. Steep turns, slow flight, power-on and power-off stalls. That's all we did for two hours.

By the end of it, I was still a little concerned that he wasn't getting it at all. Sometimes he managed to do them right, but I fear it was random chance more than any real grasp of the maneuvers.

His studying will be the biggest problem though. After our flight, I sat him down to discuss it. I had been giving him very specific reading assignments the whole time, but it appears he has only done about 10% of what I've given. I started digging, and found out he had gotten a hold of some King video tapes from 1992, and was viewing them. This isn't really a bad thing, but in the process, he has wasted a lot of time. He might get closer to finishing the written test, but in the process, he's skipping all the fundamentals that would let us progress on the flying.

Additionally, quite a few things have changed in the 13 years since those videos were produced. This could be part of his difficulties. What I don't understand, is why he would spend all his time devoted to studying things that I didn't mention, while ignoring what I specifically did tell him to study. I just can't seem to get through to the man.

Now, he is trying to make a deal. He wants to buy the new dvd's, and sell them to us, since I had mentioned we might do that, to rent them out to students. I'm all for this arrangement, except that he stated a price for us to buy it from him, higher than the regular purchase price. Meaning, we could buy it cheaper new. I really don't understand him. Whether his math is just that bad, or he really thinks he can pull a fast one on me though, is irrelevant. He isn't going to win that argument. Right from the beginning, it seemed he thought he could barter his way to getting everything for cheap.

Wait til I tell him about the rising gas prices, and how that will affect it all. We have managed to this point, to keep the prices down, but fuel has taken a big leap. Two weeks ago, fuel was $3.78 per gallon. Now it has jumped to $4.68. So thats an extra $4.50 in fuel every hour in that plane, which we are currently eating.

He also wants to have me fly him down to Calabash, NC (flying into Ocean Isle Airport), and make some kind of deal there. His first thought, was to have me pay for the 4-seat plane. I shot this down immediately. He has no sense of how little I earn. That would cost me nearly a full month's income to do that. Every time I shoot something down, he tries to find another way to get a couple bucks savings out of it all. I'm getting a little tired of it.

................

2005-09-06T12:15:00.000-04:00

So, this week I was supposed to be planning another business trip. Scott had needed to conduct some work in Biloxi, Mississippi. For obvious reasons, that trip is no longer in the plans. So it looks like I'm back to standard instructing now.

This weekend really gave me a much-needed break. Sometimes, a bit of solo time in the plane is the best thing. No teaching someone else how to do it, no cringing as the student struggles to perform a simple task. Just nice simple flying.

....

Bloomington Trip Summary

2005-09-05T13:42:00.000-04:00

The map above shows my routing. WP1, WP2 & WP3 are detours given on my instrument flight out to Bloomington. I figured they would happen. It isn't often that a large airport like Cincinnati allows you to cross through their airspace directly above, especially during peak times. But I figured, rather than filing a flight plan with something different, I would just let them decide where to send me. Much easier, and at least it leaves the possibility of a direct route.

That flight was about as easy as if could be. Instrument flight, but hardly a puff of cloud to be seen, and only a little over 3 hours, including warmup, taxi and shutdown. The folks at BMG Aviation made sure I had a very relaxing time. I can't report on the helpfulness of the other FBO on the field, but these guys were great. I would highly recommend them.

Within 3 minutes of walking in the door, I was in my rental car and driving off to the wedding. They made sure it was a good trip, and if I am ever back in that area flying, I would fly out of my way to stay there again.

Having blown a tire on takeoff yesterday, I drove to Bloomfield, and flew the Remos G3 from Shawnee Field, and spent a couple hours talking to the dealer there. That was only the second sport plane I've flown, but it handled much more like a sport plane should, compared to the CT. And I got to add another grass strip to my list.

I managed to get myself up at 6 this morning, to get ready for the flight home. Yet again, I was looking to have near perfect weather. Instead of filing IFR for a nonstop back home, I opted for a little bit of airport-hopping. It doesn't really add much time to the total trip, and sometimes it is a lot more fun than just sitting in cruise flight the whole time.

This time, my tires managed to remain inflated for the entire takeoff, and I headed southeast toward Grissom Municipal Airport in Bedford, IN. It was still a quiet Indiana morning when I did the touch & go there, and turned east. Next stop was Madison, IN, 46 nautical miles away.

Normally when I do a bit of airport-hopping, I will try to cover as many as I can in that distance, but I was interested in keeping a relatively straight path, and not delay anything too long, since DC was back at home, waiting for me to report how it went. In good weather, there isn't a whole lot of challenge in many of these airports. Flat terrain with only the occasional obstacle, makes them easy to handle. Since most of my flying has been in the mountains, I do sometimes get a kick out of how flat it is.

Next airport was Fleming-Mason, in Flemingsburg, Kentucky. Here, and at my next stop in Ashland, KY, the terrain became a little hillier, and more wooded, but West Virginia is where it can always get interesting.

My first stop in WV was near the town of Milton, at Ona Airpark- a little strip just off the side of Interstate 64, and 10 miles east of Huntington. This one got interesting. Entering the pattern, I noticed how close the hills are to the runway. I was landing on runway 7, and that meant that on takeoff, I would have to quickly get airborne and hang a right turn, or I might only clear the hill by a couple hundred feet. Loaded down on a hot summer day, that would prove even more interesting. I wanted to make sure I had plenty of room, so I came in just over the trees, executed a touch & go, then gained altitude as quickly as possible before the terrain in front of me.

I still had plenty of fuel, but I wanted a little bit of a break to stretch, so I made my way another 30 miles to Charleston, WV (Charlie West, to the locals). This is a class C airport, which I knew would have fuel services even on a holiday. Any time I go into a C or B, I know to expect a little delay, but this time I was happily surprised. I was able to shoot straight over to a 3 mile final on runway 15, and taxi in with no delay at all. I had been there before a couple years ago, but only shooting an instrument approach. We never landed. And I had never had the perspective from final on 15, which takes you over some rough terrain, then a steep dropoff down to the interstate, and back uphill to the airport.

Only one more airport left before heading home, and I had chosen Summersville, WV. This one was perhaps the most scenic of all the airports I visited this weekend. I couldn't quite understand what the FBO operator said about the winds, so I entered a downwind for runway 4, and took a look. Basically calm, so I continued for that runway. The Google map doesn't show the airport. It is roughly center, just north of the lake. The photo on the Airnav.com map doesn't quite do it justice. The lake was a bit low today, so the terrain around seemed that much higher. Almost like fjords. Approach was right over the lake.

From there, it was a little under 100 miles back home. Up to this point, I'd had clear skies and a total lack of turbulence for the whole trip, but that changed. The last segment was nonstop moderate turbulence, with clouds slowly dropping lower, the farther east I flew. This, of course, was as terrain was rising. In some places, I had to drop to within 1,000 feet of the peaks. Much lower than that, and I would have filed for instruments.

Returning home was uneventful. The whole trip took 7.3 hours. It should have been more like 6.5, but with headwinds flying both directions, everything was slowed. I never once saw a tailwind. Headwinds were expected going west, but by the time I was coming back, the area of high pressure had settled in, and I was flying the south side of that. With a faster plane, I might have deviated a little north to catch the other side of that system, but in this case, it would only have added to the flight time.

At any rate, the roundtrip drive time would have been closer to 20 hours,and I get to add another new type of airplane to my list, and 8 new airports. So I'm happy.

................

How Travel Ought To Be

2005-09-04T19:47:00.000-04:00

Saturday morning, I headed off into clear skies for Bloomington, Indiana. I was filed for instrument flight even though there was hardly a cloud anywhere to be seen. That makes for better travel anyway, since air traffic controllers are helping look for other traffic.

I had headwinds the whole way, so the flight was just over 3 hours. Still, relaxing overall. Having a glass panel and a good autopilot makes a world of difference there.

A friend of mine was getting married, and I made it just in time to socialize a little before the wedding started, and help "decorate" his getaway vehicle.

DC had sent me up here to test fly a Remos G3, and discuss the CT's history in Europe with a guy from the U.K. As a bonus, I got to attend the wedding. He had also set me up with a rental car and lodging.

Around 10PM, I finally finished with the wedding stuff, and was able to head back and get some sleep. The lodging was in a double-wide trailer, located right on the field. This is how travel should be. Staying in a really nice facility, with a full kitchen, all the amenities I could possibly need, and only 100 yards from where the plane is parked. The amenities impressed me. Two bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, nice living room, cable tv, computer with high-speed internet (which I am using right now to post), and food and toiletries available.

Having a stocked pantry and refrigerator to come back to after a long day, really makes it relaxing. It feels nothing like a hotel. This could be home (except in this case, home is not nearly as nice).

I think Bloomington has just become my favorite of all the airports I've ever visited. And I wonder why nobody else ever seems to do what they've done. Back home, we often have pilots staying overnight, sometimes unexpected, and sometimes without access to a rental car. Having lodging for them right by the field would be a big help. I wonder how many other airports could profit from that, and never thought about it.

I was supposed to head over to Shawnee- a 2,150 foot grass field 20 miles southwest of here, to fly the Remos. That was supposed to be first thing this morning, followed by a departure for home. Instead, a couple delays had me not leaving until 12:30. As I rolled on takeoff, passing through about 25 knots, my left main tire blew out, causing me to swerve a bit. I held it on the runway, and brought the plane to a stop about 8 feet shy of the left side of the pavement.

I called the tower to explain what happened, and they managed to get the FBO out to help me. After another 20 minutes, we had a temporary time on, and I taxied back. Good thing they have another runway to use. I would hate to hold up all the traffic for too long.

It would only be an hour or two until they could get my plane running again, but I figured I was already late, so I went back and drove to Bloomfield.

I met with a nice young instructor from the U.K. who showed me all about the plane. I am fond of the Remos. It handles as you would expect a 600-pound plane to handle. Quick response to every input, and really in need of a subtle touch. But then, it weighs only half what a Cessna 150 weighs.

My only experience with a sport plane was the CT, which never put me at ease, so I didn't quite know what to expect from this one. We went out and did some maneuvering, and several landings, and I found I couldn't be happier.

I'll explain more about the plane in a later posting though.

After driving back to Bloomington, it was already after 5pm. Being on central time now, it would be at least 10pm before I could get home, so I succumbed to the desire to spend another night in the on-field housing.

As I started relaxing here, picking a movie from the selection by the tv, I started thinking about all the hassles involved with flying, and how many of them I could have eliminated over my 5 years of flying, if only a few more airports had this sort of setup. All the rental cars and frustrations with taxis, eliminated. Or the borrowing of courtesy cars to get some dinner.

But rather than dwell on that, I think I'll go fix some dinner, and watch a movie. This is how travel should be.

Indiana-bound

2005-09-02T16:12:00.000-04:00

I feel like I just got back, but I'm heading out again. This time, I'm flying the DiamondStar to Bloomington, Indiana for a friend's wedding, then making the quick hop to Bloomfield about 20 minutes away, to test fly another airplane for DC.

Departure is first thing in the morning. Hopefully, a nice relaxing flight awaits.

Pitot-Static System

2005-09-02T11:22:00.000-04:00

Hi again- I hope you're not thinking "Oh no, not her again!" I've got a question. What would the instruments (airpeed, altimeter)read if the pitot tube was blocked? If the static vent was blocked? I've had conflicting answers from Ben one of the instructor's at the aero club and something I read on the "net.

Ruth

Good question. That's one that I've found a lot of people don't understand. And that's because the answer is: "it depends."

But I'll give you more than that. This is a good topic to address in the aviation glossary I'm working on, so I will post it there as soon as I can.

................

I Heard a Symphony...

2005-09-01T18:34:00.000-04:00

...It was a little difficult to hear though. Those things are rather quiet. I speak of the airplane, not the music. DC, in his continued search to find the right aircraft, had the dealer bring a plane here to let us get test flights. The dealership is located at Hagerstown Regional Airport, in Maryland.

First, DC wanted me to fly it, in order to give my opinion before he flew. Plus, I am a big guy, and if I can sit comfortably, then it means we have a reasonably roomy cockpit.

Having a good idea what DC wants in an airplane, I was able to put it through the paces in about an hour, and come away with a really good idea. I recommended it. This is an aircraft design that was well thought-out. Seating was very comfortable, handling was docile. The stalls are really a non-event.

DC and I were planning to fly to Indiana to check out another candidate plane this weekend, but we may decide to go with this one. Full review of the plane tomorrow.

................

Terminology

2005-09-01T07:10:00.000-04:00

That vacation was a much-needed break. Yesterday, I got my reintroduction to work by doing ground instruction with Mrs. Clueless. I knew it was going to be interesting.

Over the course of several instructors, she has been allowed to be lazy about the knowledge. Knowing that, I tried to push her to study before I really held her to any knowledge beyond what was necessary for whatever point we were at. Now, with no more flight requirements remaining, she's way behind. The former owner of the other school is still around, and doing some work with her, and he endorsed her cross-country flight last week.

I do want to see her finish, but not that way. There's so much left that she needs. My purpose yesterday was to go through most of the topics for the oral exam, and show her how much there is to study.

One thing that strikes me as similar between her and Mr. Confusion, is that despite my explaining the need, neither of them has placed much value on terminology. It sounds petty, but terminology forms the basis from which we can communicate.

And we are not talking the same language. We can't talk aerodynamics properly if she doesn't know what I mean when I say "angle of attack." Likewise, we can't talk about cross-country planning if she doesn't know about indicated, calibrated, true and ground speeds. We had been through all these things before, but she obviously didn't place any value on them.

So we have a long way to go. I don't know if I even see any value in flying with her at this point. No sense wasting time on the maneuvers if she doesn't have the basal knowledge needed.

............

Vacation

2005-08-29T11:06:00.000-04:00

I decided to take a couple days off, so now I'm sitting in North Carolina, relaxing at brewsmith's house. And finally updating the software on my laptop- it had only been a year since it was online.

Competition Heating Up

2005-08-26T12:37:00.000-04:00

The competition for the MCS title is back underway. (Most Confused Student)

Mrs. Clueless-Wonder just scheduled for next week. (Where's that "beating my head against a brick wall" smiley again?)

So in the course of a few minutes, I knew I would have to start preparing myself for the big "you have a lot of studying to do" speech again. She's heard that speech from me a couple times before. Doesn't seem to do any good. This time, the issue is two-fold:

She did her long solo cross-country yesterday. I didn't know anything about it, so obviously I didn't endorse it. She flies with another instructor sometimes too, so maybe she got the endorsement from him. I hope so, because if she flew without that at all, I will not be endorsing anything of hers again. Ever. She knows better.
She flew this trip with an antenna missing from the exterior of the plane. She flies her husband's plane, and he doesn't know any better either. Neither of them knows anything about placarding the panel with an "inoperative" sticker on that instrument. She doesn't have the first clue what that does to the airworthiness without a minimum equipment list. (or even what an MEL is).

We've been over all these things before. I don't really know where to even begin with this now. She thinks that having finished her requirements per 14 CFR 61, that she must be ready for a checkride. Her lack of knowledge is not due to, but rather despite my efforts. Anyone who ever trained under me, or knows my type of instruction, knows I am a relatively difficult instructor. I stress the knowledge above all. She's gotten much better at the maneuvers, but no amount of flying skill will save her from the lack of understanding at this juncture.

And I have to find a way to explain this to her, in a manner that will get her to actually try to learn something. I don't care how many cross-country flights she does. If she can't grasp how to determine airworthiness, or know the rules that apply to her, then she can never be a pilot.

I seriously doubt I can change her convoluted ideas of how much knowledge is enough. That means she will likely find a different instructor, who doesn't mind pushing her through, just to get paid for it. Me, I just envision other pilots up there, flying with only a few hundred feet of vertical separation, and flying patterns, and really want them to have a clue. So I won't compromise there.

............

A Photo to Drool Over

2005-08-25T16:02:00.000-04:00

This one

I'm a little torn inside. I love instructing, but there are other things I have been wanting to do, and I recognize that it would not be possible to do both long-term. At least not here.

I admit to a strong dose of wanderlust in my system. Add to it the abysmal income that usually accompanies instructing, and I find myself revisiting in my mind, a career that I had long ago put on hold. Aerial spraying. Flying an Air Tractor holds a good bit of fascination for me. The lifestyle is the other draw. Spend a few months working your tail off, and make enough money to not need to work the rest of the year if you don't want to.

But that job would open up oportunities to do other interesting jobs. I'm not too far from a commercial helicopter license, if I spend a little more money. A good season of spraying would leave me time and money to add on the helicopter licensing. Other aerial seasonal work could then be found in helicopters.

The other benefit is travel. Most people figure travel to be a hassle. I get tired of staying in the same place so much. I keep getting the feeling that I have spent too much time living in states that border the Atlantic Ocean.

Some of these thoughts arise when I spend too much time flying with students locally, and not enough on cross-country flights. But to an extent, the thought of getting to see other parts of the country while working, has a lot of appeal.

I first thought about that kind of work several years ago. I was still fresh off my instructor license, and I put it to the back of my mind, figuring that I needed experience before I worried about any of that. Then I suddenly woke up the other day and realized I have nearly 1,800 hours, a little bit of time in turbine aircraft, and a whole lot of practical experience.

It makes me wonder. As much as I enjoy instructing, I would be that close to having a huge jump in income, getting to travel around a lot more, flying much bigger and more powerful aircraft.

The big concern about it would be my committment to this company. I will not leave them in a lurch. Whatever I have to do there, I'll do. I guess Im a little puzzled. I've long had the goal of eventually becoming a designated pilot examiner as a job for many years down the road. Somehow I thought this would be the best route, but I don't know.

The process of transition would be:

Figure out how to transition from this business without hurting the owners or company.
Get in touch with one of my tailwheel instructor friends to get that endorsement, then find the cheapest way to build 50-100 hours in a tailwheel plane.
Contact a couple people who know the business, and dig for information.
Spend some money for an agricultural spraying course. That would be the biggest cost of the whole process.

This is all very tempting, and something that I should have examined more closely a couple years ago, rather than putting it on the back burner. Often in the past, I've amused myself with thoughts of other types of work, but most of that had been frustrations with the current income. This is a little different, and must be wholly considered. I do like instructing, but I flew today with one of my students, and asked myself in the process, how many chandelles I've performed over the years.

Any pilots out there who can give me good first-hand information, please let me know.

............

Crash Narrative

2005-08-25T09:40:00.000-04:00

I'd been checking the website for the National Transportation Safety Board, lately, looking for the report on our crash. I was beginning to wonder if it was ever going to show up. It finally did though. Read the quick summary, and the full narrative.

A couple interesting things stick out to me. They listed the accident as "factual" not "preliminary." I'm not an expert, but that seems to indicate to me that they are going with my narrative as the finalized version. That's good.

That probably means that the report that the original FAA inspector filed will be ignored. Another good thing. So when the district office in Richmond decides what to do about it, they will have my report to work from. My sense from talking to the head honcho in Richmond is that he would be amenable to the idea of just letting it all go with no administrative action. A very good thing. I'd have no qualms about taking a 709 ride, but it would just be a pain.

Of course, whenever the government gets involved in anything, you can't over-estimate how badly they can mess things up.

..........

Teaching a Brick Wall

2005-08-24T13:45:00.000-04:00

I slept in this morning. Til 8. I think that's my record for the last 7-8 weeks. I was wound up enough about last night's flight, that I wasn't really ready to get to bed until about 1am.

Things like that tend to bug me. On some level, I believe I can get through to 99% of people, and I only have to figure out how. The real struggle I have though, is that my brain tends to work from within a basic logic structure. So my inclination- which is often completely wrong- is to appeal to logic and reason in order to engender a desired response from someone.

Mr. C- as I keep calling him- seems to always be in a hurry. When he set out to learn flying, he wanted to do everything as fast as possible, which simply doesn't work all the time. From the moment he arrives until the moment he leaves, he wants to cram as much as possible into the flight. That's fine, but he bases his assessment of how much we accomplished on the amount of time we flew.

Anyway, I spent a couple hours late last night trying to decide how to create the desired change in his behavior and thinking process. Frankly, I'm still at a loss. I can't be any more clear about what I want from him than I am already.

So I am beginning to wonder if we can even bother to move forward. We are stuck in a rut of flying around the local area, and practicing the same maneuvers over and over. I can't take him to Charlottesville to work on operations in a control tower environment, because he still doesn't understand the basics. Everything I say to the tower would go right over his head. We can't spend any significant time on navigation and practice landings at other airports, because he hasn't mastered the concept of the normal landing. He wouldn't have to be amazingly good at them, but he would have to have a grasp of how to do a pattern. We've been to a couple other airports already, and the entire idea is still beyond him.

I almost gave up on a student once before. I had conducted his introductory flight, then someone else flew with him from then on, for a long time. Several months later, I remember doing a ground instruction lesson with him on instrument navigation concepts. That was the last thing I taught before leaving the area to go pursue a helicopter license. A year later, I returned to teaching fixed-wing, and the first lesson I gave was to the same guy, doing the very same ground lesson we'd done a year before. In that year, he had learned nothing.

The other instructors had mostly already given up, and those that would fly with him didn't really hold much hope. I still did, but knew it would be a long trip. He had a couple things working against him. The former owner of the school, who still hung around as an instructor, was always telling him he was ok. Sugar-coating everything, and generally telling him he was doing fine. This was absolutely not true, and was one of the worst things he could have done to the guy.

The man could not navigate. At all. I'd watched in amazement, as he would get lost in perfect visibility, five miles from the airport where he had done all his training. No idea where he was. No sense of direction or distance. I thought we could work to overcome it, and told him what I expected of him. I put huge amounts of effort into him. I saw it as a project. If I could turn him into a proficient pilot, then I knew I would be accomplishing something. The former owner would go behind my back and mess up everything I was trying to accomplish. I was not about to endorse the guy for a solo cross-country flight, having watched him get lost every time we had ever left the traffic pattern.

He did eventually get a private license. I had already left the school by then. I was told by several people that he'd had a lucky day on the checkride, and somehow managed through, but he had never improved. In the months since then, I've spoken to him a little, and I think he is slowly learning. I don't know for sure, but maybe there is hope for him to become truly proficient.

Mr C. struggles for entirely different reasons. It isn't for lack of evaluation or consistent instruction that he struggles. I have to wonder how much of this stuff actually gets into his head on each lesson. It is far too early to give up on him though. I just hope to find some way to get through.

..........

Smilies That Yahoo Doesn't Make

2005-08-23T22:22:00.000-04:00

As cheesy as they are, I have to admit I am somewhat fond of the smilies on Yahoo's Instant Messenger. There is a practical limit to the level of expressiveness one can provide in written text, without becoming overly verbose. Written text simply doesn't carry the connotations that accompany specific inflections of spoken word, or a simple gesticulation that is pregnant with meaning.

Though I like those smilies, I think whoever coded them forgot some of the more useful ones. For instance, the "projectile-vomiting" smiley. I find I occasionally need that one, when the green nauseated one just doesn't work. There's also the "get away from me before I have to smack you upside the head repeatedly" smiley. Or the "I'm going to go now, and beat my head against this brick wall" smiley.

Those last two are the ones I wish I could use right now. My favorite student flew again today. If you heard me speaking that last sentence, it would be while rolling my eyes and letting out a loud sigh. Since there is no "I can't express this level of frustration" smiley, you'll just have to infer the vocal inflection.

Mr. Confusion himself is back from vacation, and quickly working to make me need one. Anyone who flies knows how far downhill a student's flight skills can go after even just a week or two away. So I expected some seriously impressive actions from him, and he did not disappoint.

We had to do the entire post-flight debriefing on the subject of "why he should be listening when I make suggestions." First things first: footwear. Current and aspiring student pilots take note, footwear is important. Wearing cowboy boots because you like them, can hinder the learning. I told him this before our intro lesson. I told him during the second lesson. I told him again several lessons in. I had to say it again tonight, after it was obvious that he couldn't hold the toe-brakes, or properly set the parking brake at all. He can't feel the rudder pedals beneath the hard sole, which means he can't sense what the proper controls are, much less pick up on any of the subtleties. So startup and taxi were both an adventure. The intro student I flew with earlier in the afternoon controlled it much better on his first try.

Bringing a camera on every flight, and wanting to photograph or fly over various work sites of his, are not helping. It costs him at least 20 minutes of useful training every time. I'm entirely in favor of enjoying the scenery, and snapping a few shots. But that is not our purpose there, and shouldn't comprise a third of every lesson. He's a 14-hour student with the experience of a 5-hour student. Maybe.

Communications. It is of paramount importance to learn how to communicate. 14 hours into the training, I would expect him to remember the radio frequency that we use at this specific airport. Or at least recognize it when he sees it. Or maybe even know how to speak a simple phrase over the radio. It really is simple. A few simple phrases, push the button, and speak. Speaking should be second nature after 45 years of residing in a populated portion of the world.

Checklists. These exist for a reason. Use them. In the proper order. There is no sense following the pre-takeoff checklist if we haven't started the engine yet. It doesn't work. There is also no sense trying to turn the starter key if the battery has not been turned on. We need that electricity for a reason. We also have to introduce fuel to the engine before it will start. Checklists are meant to be done in order, without skipping entire sections.

I could go on for another ten paragraphs there, but I won't. What really amazes me is not that he manages to get messed up so badly, but that when he does focus, he flies very well. His takeoff today was incredibly smooth. His steep turns were among the best I've ever seen from a student with his experience. He was focused at those times. Everything else was just amazingly bad, and only getting worse until I fixed it. Losing 1,000 feet of altitude while trying to figure out how to stay level in slow flight. Not doing any of the actual procedures necessary for landing, resulting in zooming across the threshold 400 feet too high and 35 knots too fast.

I'm actually wondering if there is something mental, that is preventing him from keeping his focus. Often, a student can perform an action perfectly, only to mess up when given just one extra thing to do. But I've never seen that disorganization occur to nearly the extent he creates.

If I hadn't been beating my head enough for the day, I found out during the post-flight debriefing that he had been studying the wrong things entirely. I tend to spend a little time with students right from the beginning, exploring what their best method of learning book knowledge is. If they can study on their own, I give guidance and let them save some of the instructor time. My initial assessment was that he would be capable, and I would have only to direct the studying, and prod him to make sure he kept up with it. I gave him explicit directions on how and what to be studying. Yet he managed to completely ignore the basic knowledge he needs, and spent what little study time he had, focused on cross-country navigation and performance calculations. Chances are, at the current pace, it may be next spring before we actually get to that. Now, despite what I know will be loud protestations, I'm going to have to lead him by the hand through 95% of the book material.

It really has been a long day. I was here at 7:15 this morning, and 14 hours later, finished up. I suppose now, after another hour has passed, I am relaxed enough to get off the computer and head home.

Tomorrow morning, I need to email someone at Yahoo, and convince them to create a "tearing my hair out in excessive frustration" smiley. Then I'll come back and put about five of them right here at the end of this post.

..........

Another Intro

2005-08-23T17:17:00.000-04:00

I flew another introductory lesson today. I'm fond of those. This one developed in an unusual way. A couple months ago I received a call from a guy in California who had found our website. He had a brother who lives near here, and wanted to pay for an intro lesson for him. I took all the information, and waited for a call that never came in.

Finally, I got that call yesterday, and we scheduled the flight for today. After talking to him a bit, I found out that he had already been in the plane we were going to fly. He owns a paving company, and does a fair share of business with one of the owners here, who works for Carter Machinery. He had flown along, just for the enjoyment of it. I'm glad he told me that, because I would have been rather surprised if I hadn't known it before.

I have a relatively unique view on intro flights, which the owners of the airplanes thankfully share. Most schools I've known of, try to minimize the cost, providing about 20 minutes of time in the plane. Rush them in, rush them out, to save a few bucks. Our view is to take a small financial loss if necessary for a good prospect, because if that prospect becomes a customer, we will get that back, and then some. There's no good reason to skimp on the one thing that may bring the customer back to your door.

Sometimes, as a result, we will give a introductory flight for free. I always try to give something extra though. Usually that means just taking the time to ask a few questions and let their responses dictate the rest. Then, I will always give about 20-30 minutes of ground instruction for free, on the preflight inspection, and any other thing that comes up. I don't want the customer feeling like I am hurrying him through.

Anyway, this guy showed up, and we went through my normal type of intro. Except that he seemed to pick up on the concepts quickly. He managed to taxi without much help. He helped with the takeoff, then I didn't really need to do anything from there. I showed him the basics of how to control the plane, and just told him what to do. He handled it beautifully. I would have suspected he already had several lessons under his belt.

He also seemed genuinely interested in learning, so I may have a new student in the next week or two.

..........

Coffee, & a Good Forecast

2005-08-23T16:11:00.000-04:00

It was one of those mornings that requires coffee before the brain will start processing information. A few days recently, we've experienced very mild weather- a welcome and early respite from the mugginess of July. I think that is contributing to my continuing desire to sleep in. I don't have air conditioning where I'm living right now, so I keep a fan going. Last month, morning temperatures were up in the 70's, but all of a sudden we are getting low 60's. There is a critical point there for me, when the temperature drops below the mid 60's, that my body likes to go into hibernation mode while sleeping. I absolutely love that kind of sleep, but it does nothing for my ability to get up in the morning. All this contributed to my driving to the airport, still in a sleepy daze. I only had a few minutes before Joe was to arrive, but I wisely used it to slam down two cups of my preferred caffeinated beverage, which seemed to help.

Joe was ready to go by the time I returned from the FBO. I don't know how much of their coffee I have consumed over the years. But free coffee always tastes the best, so I keep drinking it.

We didn't really do a pre-flight briefing this morning, because we already knew what we had to do. Yesterday was a test, to see if he could get back to it in reasonable fashion. Today, we needed to see some progress. I was curious if my assessment of his difficulties would prove to be the defining key to getting him proficient. Sometimes you have to try several different approaches to find the one that works. I was confident I had him figured out, but only a flight would show the result.

First, I wanted to see a couple landings, and try to get him back to flaring at the right time. The psychological side of flying is more a factor than most people give credit for. I can tell when a student begins to tense up. Most right-handed students will tense the left side of their bodies. That usually ends up causing their left-hand traffic patterns to be flown too tight, as they unconsciously apply left aileron. Joe does a bit of that. He was nice and relaxed today for the most part though, and that proved to be a major help. During landings, the natural human instinct has to be fought. You see yourself approaching the ground at five hundred feet per minute, and want to arrest the fall before hitting.

The normal landing requires getting close to the ground before raising the nose. You don't want to stall ten or twenty feet up. Joe's problems there arose from the reaction of seeing the ground get close, so he would instinctively start raising the nose fifty feet up, fighting it all the way down, until he was forced to use power to soften the touchdown. So todays first task was to get him down within a foot of the ground before letting him get slow. After a couple tries, he reacquired the feel.

Then we headed out of the airport area to try what has always been the most difficult thing for him: simulated instrument flying. I had been ready to let him have an easy flight, just to keep him from getting stressed. But he wanted to charge ahead. He did better than usual. He knew what he needed to do, and did ok with it, except for one thing, which is often the student's biggest issue: the instant he looked away from the instruments to try to dial a radio frequency, he'd start into a soft bank or pitch, and get 20-30 degrees off heading, or 100-200 feet off the assigned altitude.

I could tell he had been armchair flying though. That is perhaps the most under-rated study activity there is. It is when you sit back in your comfy chair at home, in a nice quiet room with no distractions, and close your eyes, pretending to be flying. Going through the motions in that environment leads to a much faster than normal learning curve.

Still, I found it vexing that he kept losing track of the flight instruments. The key to remember is that the plane does not know you can't see outside. It keeps flying. If you have it trimmed properly, you can take your hands off the controls and it still flies. After reminding him of that, he got a little better.

The steep turns were the biggest improvement though. His last few had been absolutely wretched. Bad enough that I was beginning to wonder about him. But today he started flying them amazingly well. He finally got to experience flying through his own wake turbulence, after flying a perfect turn, with no altitude change and no sudden need for adjustments.. That gave him the confidence to continue improving.

Now, I am reassured that we are back on track, and ready to proceed. After these last two flights, he is ready to fly solo again. Then, a few more prep lessons, and he will hopefully get to take his checkride.

..........

Reading Between the Lines

2005-08-22T19:55:00.000-04:00

Flew with Joe again, finally. We were both concerned that he would have a repeat of his previous terrible flights. We had great visibility today, unlike the entire previous month. Around here, July is absolutely the worst month for haze. We chatted away during the preflight, as if there was no issue, but we both knew that today would signal whether or not he might be able to get his license anytime in the next couple months.

His struggles have been a little bit on the unusual side. Most student difficulties tend to fall into several neat little categories, which the FAA-required study material for CFI applicants tends to cover. But there are always the occasional troubles which standard instructor methodology doesn't really help. Sometimes you can't simply tell the student what to do, you have to read between the lines and figure out why he's making mistakes, when he knows perfectly well what he ought to be doing.

I've noticed something in him that I've seen before, but never really put to words: he tends to get off his assigned altitude and heading in between maneuvers. Not terribly uncommon there, but it always involved getting slow. I thought at first that perhaps he was compensating with the trim for a perceived difficulty holding altitude. But that theory went out the window today.

Then it occurred to me. His mistakes there were a result of having learned a certain lesson too well, and applied it in the wrong place. Slow flight is one of the more troublesome maneuvers for many students (and experienced pilots- but they'll never admit it). The thinking is perhaps a bit counter-intuitive. In the very beginning stages of flight training, while a student is trying to master straight and level flight both at the same time, the primary instrument for pitch information is the altimeter. Rather intuitive. If you are descending and don't want to be, pull back on the stick, and the descent will stop.

That method is fine for normal flight speeds, but in slow flight, when the wings are right on the edge of stall, pulling up won't help. This is one of the areas that I fear too many instructors don't understand as well as they ought to. An understanding of slow flight is critical for every level of flying a pilot will ever do. A pilot that doesn't truly understand it, doesn't know how to fly. He only thinks he does. Poor understanding of slow flight results in bad landings, inability to consistently do spot-landings, and many other minor flaws that may go unnoticed. Not to mention all the stall-spin accidents that happen year after year.

The important thing to remember about slow flight is that your control of the pitch affects airspeed, not altitude. Controlling altitude requires power. For that reason, books often refer to slow flight as a flight regime of "reversed command." The truth is, that is how airplanes fly. Always. The pilot's ability to cheat on control inputs during faster flight, is what tricks so many into believing otherwise. But factually, no matter what speed you fly, adding power is what makes you climb, and reducing it makes you descend. The elevator is only there to let you control the airspeed.

At this point, I would be remiss not to strongly recommend the old classic book Stick & Rudder. It is perhaps one of the poorest examples of writing I've ever seen, but the subject matter is indispensable.

Now, something to remember about the basic control in slow flight: while it may apply to all flight regimes, it is not always the easiest thing to do. Joe's steep turns have been a struggle, partly because he was using the wrong instruments to try to fix it when the attempts went wrong. In a bit of frustration with him today, I covered up the entire instrument panel for the maneuver, and he completed the steep turn well within the standards. He gained only 30 of an allowed 100 feet. Why? Because he was forced to rely on the more important things in that maneuver: the sensory, seat-of-your-pants assessment of angle of attack and bank. I didn't know at the time what exactly he was focusing on, but I knew it was the wrong thing. During the debriefing, he said he was using the artificial horizon for most of it, which I explained, distracts him from the more important parts.

Now, back to his post-maneuver tendency to climb. I've hammered into his head the basic control of slow flight, and got him taking it too far. Rolling out of a steep turn, he was climbing. At that point, he was relying on airspeed for pitch information, just like in slow flight. But airspeed is only an approximation of angle of attack, and it isn't accurate in banked flight. So right when he should have been pitching the nose down, he was distracted with the desire to keep his airspeed constant. By doing that, the excess power needed during the turn started us climbing. All he really needed to do- in lieu of quick, seat-of-the-pants evaluation, was to control the pitch with reference to the altimeter.

The solution: remember that sometimes, it is better to cheat.

Wait, maybe that didn't come out right. The right instrument to use is situationally-dependent. Joe knows all about slow flight, being an aerospace engineer. Sometimes that can be a hindrance to the learning process.

He has other struggles, as does everyone, but I think addressing this one will make the difference.

Tomorrow morning we get back to work on it in earnest. I'm really happy, because he has been one of my two most active students, and both of them were on vacation/business trip at the same time. It was making for some slow days. I know he is more comfortable now that we are not dealing with a heavy hazy every single day. Frankly, I'm glad for it too. Maybe we can overcome this particular struggle.

..........

On the Prevention of Regurgitation

2005-08-22T11:51:00.000-04:00

This afternoon, I get to see how much Joe has lost in the three weeks since flying. His mind has been on his struggles this whole time, and he is capable of self-evaluation. Those qualities lead me to believe he will be a little rusty, but generally fine.

My first flight today came as a surprise, sort've. I had written it down on the schedule for the wrong day. Lucky me, I am here basically all the time anyway. The guy is heading off to Thailand to train to be a missionary, and his mother was wanting to get him a present. He had always wanted to fly, so we had some fun. He loved the view. Near the end of the flight, after ensuring that he was not prone to aerial regurgitation, and assessing that he would enjoy it, I gave him a few maneuvers for fun, including a couple of zero-G pushovers, and things like that. Nothing aerobatic, but fun anyway.

I am always careful about what I do in a plane, when there are any non-pilot passengers. I once had a passenger show me what had been for lunch, and that is not a pleasant experience. She had been wanting to take aerial photos, and kept telling me to bank the plane harder to get a better view. She didn't sound the least bit concerned, and I failed to question it.

Then, right after finishing the photos, she suddenly said she didn't feel good. I was still processing what that meant, when her hands suddenly went up to her face in a panic. No time to open a window.

That was just about the fastest airspeed possible for a final approach in a Cessna 172. It was also one of the funkier final approaches I've ever done, coming in from a 45 degree angle, and only lining up with the runway about 50 feet up. I had my door open within two seconds of touchdown.

The tip I got was appreciated, but still nowhere near what would have been worth it for having to clean up the plane later.

Chalk it all up to experience. I quickly learned how to read the physiological signs of an impending reversal of... fortune. The facial expression, perspiration, loss of desire to converse, etc. So far, I haven't had a problem again. I came really close a few months ago though.

I was flying our four-seat Diamond Star for a television interview. We chose an unfortunate day that turbulence played a role. The interviewer was sitting in the front seats with me, looking backward toward the cameraman in the back seat. She had to do about 20 takes before getting a clip that didn't show any significant turbulence.

As soon as she returned to facing front, that's when the purge-urge hit. There are motivations a-plenty for me to avoid passenger meal-reflux, but I was also flying a very new and shiny $280,000 airplane, which I did not want to be forced to clean. This time, i had a little warning, since I had briefed her on the need to tell me about any nausea.

We managed to get to the ground without event though. I just bet it will happen again sometime, and I hope I'm ready.

....

How to Follow Rules Which Aren't Listed

2005-08-21T14:12:00.000-04:00

A couple things concern me about the events of yesterday. I spent a solid 9 hours dealing with the mess that had become my computer. I'm sure that information was sent out using my name, I just don't know what it was.

On browsing through some various searches, I discovered that my blog has been listed as spam in several places. That really concerns me. There are only two possible reasons for it: Either the plague on my computer caused that, or my playing with the tags for postings caused it.

If the former, then I really hope that won't affect my future postings, and being listed in websearches. If the latter, then I have to wonder why there is no stated limit to the number of tags permitted before the blog is considered a splog. (Mark Cuban coined that term, I believe, and writes a good article about it in that link).

I am not out to "toe the line" there, merely to set up tags with relevance. But how many tags is too many? 5? 10? I just have to hope that I don't cross that line, while trying to get my legitimate content noticed. I'm not a computer-savvy type of person. I don't just automatically know the rules. Anyone with better knowledge of this, feel free to give me suggestions.

Perhaps sploggers can also be targets of my vigilante-justice group. I guess their punishments wouldn't be as bad as those reserved for creators of viruses and spyware though.

Now I'm off to conduct some self-flagellation as punishment for having possibly, (but unintentionally), splogged.

This post closed with the following tags:
splog
commentary

Day of Confusion

2005-08-20T17:28:00.000-04:00

Everybody has certain gifts; talents that they possess, whether they use them or not. We also all have non-gifts. Areas that, when forced to deal with them, we become absolutely, unabashedly stupid. I was "blessed" with the "opportunity" to rediscover one of them today. That area is computers.

I am either the absolute stupidest of the computer-savvy people, or the most brilliant of the retards. Not really sure which. So this morning when the computer started behaving badly, I got worried. When it kept behaving badly, I called Brewsmith. As he told me the things to check, I came to the discovery of at least one virus on it. Not really a surprise, but irritating anyway.

I can do all the basic, normal things on a computer, and with a little effort, I can manage to put together a website on a basic level, or modify the coding on this blog. As soon as we pass from there into the realm of messing with internal settings, registry editing, determining which processes are legitimate and which are bad, I start to go bug-eyed.

About eight or nine years ago, I was teaching myself some things about programming, and thinking about picking up some community college classes. Then one day I came to an abrupt realization that I really didn't like it. Not a bit. From then on, computers were only as interesting to me as the tasks they would perform. I wanted nothing to do with figuring out how to make them perform those tasks.

I've always managed to have someone nearby who could help me when things go bad and I want to throw the cpu in front of a Mack truck. Brewsmith is one of those people. There's no telling how much I would owe him by now if he had charged me for this help.

So from 8:30 this morning, until about 5pm, we did everything we could think of to get the computer back up and running, lastly resorting to blindly deleting entries in the computer registry. Finally, I managed to get clear of viruses, according to the software. So I am back to writing, and contemplating starting a secret vigilante-justice organization that would hunt down the creators of these trojan horses and worms, and make sure they pay a hefty price for it. I'd sell tickets and broadcast the acts of justice over the web. I suppose our identities would have to be secret though. That means I just blew my cover.

The Economics and Psychology of Instructing

2005-08-19T17:59:00.000-04:00

I was worried a few weeks ago that Joe was going to quit flying, so close to the license. I've seen that look several times; the dejection and frustration of having worked hard and been so close, then taking what seems like a huge step backward. With a break of three weeks, right after a couple really difficult flights, that can be a huge burden on the mind, and there are distinct differences in how people handle that.

He called a few minutes ago, and we talked a bit about what he saw on his business trips. He is in aerospace engineering, and gets access to some really cool things. I could spend a long time picking his brain about what he knows. Cutting-edge research, not just the stuff you see on magazine covers.

I learn something from every student. Teaching is an interesting profession. A brand-new flight instructor really doesn't have any idea what he doesn't yet know. Psychology is much more a part of the whole mix than I ever really grasped, until I knew it from experience. Anyone who has done a fair bit of introspection knows how his own brain works, and how he learns best. But instructing forces an examination of how other people operate, which can be a whole different thing.

One of the areas of aviation that gives me concern is the training aspect. I don't know any statistics, but a large percentage of flight instructors are twenty-something year old guys, fresh out of flight school, only instructing because that is the fastest way to build hours and move on to the airlines, or some other higher-paying profession.

Economics plays a role too. Flight training is not cheap. Even the simple little two-seat Diamond I use for primary training, cost $150,000 new. Add $10,000 annually for insurance. Add $24 for fuel every hour flown. Add at least $500 for inspections every 100 hours flown. Don't forget the replacement tires, etc. Then tack on an annual inspection. By the end of all that, there isn't much margin for paying the instructor.

So flight instructors don't generally earn much. It becomes more of a transition job, required of the fresh commercial pilot, in order to move on to what he really wants to do. I decided to be a career instructor, and that was not a fiscally responsible decision. It came from a passion for teaching.

The result of all those factors, is that far too many instructors either aren't any good at instructing or don't really care about it. I suspect that is a major source for the relatively high numbers of students that never finish the certification they started. One of the introductory flights I gave this week, ended with an interesting observation from the student. Immediately after exiting the plane, he was still processing all he experienced, and commented that a student really ought to pick instructors carefully. If you have one that doesn't care, can't teach or that you don't truly trust, then learning is inhibited.

When Joe started telling me about the research going on, and what he saw on his trip to Albuquerque, I sensed in his voice that he was back on track. Then he scheduled for Monday, anxious to conquer the maneuvers, and get his license.

Fairgrounds & Not-So-Fair Skies

2005-08-19T13:18:00.000-04:00

Comments: somewhere in the hectic mess of the last few days, this post disappeared. Not sure why. I don't feel like recreating it, so there ya go.

2005-08-18T15:18:00.000-04:00

Looks as if I will have decent weather this evening. It is my turn to man the booth at the Rockingham County Fair. Campbell Aircraft Services- my company- has a booth there, so the owners, the lead helicopter instructor and I are splitting up the days.

Saturday, we are doing helicopter rides, and I may help load and unload passengers for that. Truth is, I'm a little sleepy today. But we've already taken in enough business to cover the cost of having the booth, so everything from here on is gravy.

I just hope it is busy enough to keep me awake. Just one of those days that would be perfect for a nap, but no chance to take one.

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Unusual Encounters

2005-08-18T10:11:00.000-04:00

Brewsmith and I were discussing programming code issues this morning. It turned into a frustrating conversation. Here's the basic rundown of how it went:

He gives me useful information. I am confused, and ask questions about it. Meanwhile, he is explaining something vital. I am busy trying to figure out something in the information he gave, which I need to know before my brain will move on to the other things he is telling me. I ask a bunch of questions. He is answering questions I am not asking, but should be. He is getting frustrated, because he's giving me everything I should need. I'm frustrated because he isn't answering the questions I'm asking, and I can't process what he's telling me until I get other questions answered. I have to repeat questions. I am busy totally confusing and frustrating him. I have a knack for that.

I desperately needed coffee at that point.

So I wandered over to the general aviation area, and drank coffee while commiserating with one of the women who attends the desk there.

As we were talking, a King Air pulls in and parks. Happens all the time. I was watching the men get out, when I noticed that one of them looks remarkably like my youngest sister's father-in-law. I thought it odd, but knew that he rides in a Cessna 421.

After he walked by, we recognized each other. Yes, that was him. He didn't know that I was based here, and I didn't know that he was coming up this way from Asheville, NC. He works in the propane industry, and his company is putting a facility in up here, so he will be visiting more often.

Nothing more to the story really. Just one of those odd encounters, where you see someone you know in a totally different context.

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NASA Presents.........

2005-08-17T20:48:00.000-04:00

A graphic simulation of air traffic over the U.S.

Thanks to www.boingboing.net for calling this to our attention.

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Spur of the Moment

2005-08-17T19:39:00.000-04:00

Sometimes, right when I get to settle in for what I expect to be a slow afternoon, it suddenly picks up.

After lunch, I started shuffling some paperwork around, and got a phone call for an air-ride. There are a few pilots around who have only a commercial license but no instructor certificate, so I try to give those flights to those guys, since they can't conveniently earn hours any other way. Got that set up, then a guy showed up in the office asking about lessons. He was referred by Phil, a former instructor here, who now flies for Colgan Airlines (contracted regional airline for US Air).

He wanted to know when we could set up an introductory flight, and was surprised when I said we could do it right then.

My philosophy concerning intro flights is different than many schools have. Many, I've noticed, tend to worry that they will lose money on the flight, so they cut corners. They all want to be in the BeAPilot.com listing, because it is free advertising. The catch is, they have to offer an intro for only $49, which makes it difficult to take any profit from that flight. Some schools cut the flight short just a little bit in the process, to save a few dollars.

I think that is the exact opposite of what they ought to do. The owners of the aircraft here are the only people I report to, and we all agree that the better way is to be willing to take a small loss on that flight, in order to make the customer happy, and more likely to return. If the customer walks away happy because he received good value for the money he spent, he is likely to come back. And you just never know how much that customer is worth in the end. At some times, we have offered free introductory flights.

We decided as a company, that we are willing to lose a few dollars for a customer that is potentially going to be giving us $30,000 in the future. That is a no-brainer, but one a lot of businesses miss.

This guy is a reasonable prospect, and very interested. For that type of customer, I am willing to spend the time to answer all the questions, and really discuss it.

So I didn't fly much today, but I think it was still profitable.

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2005-08-17T13:30:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the lack of postings today. Brewsmith had reminded me that my audience is not all familiar with aviation, and especially with some of the terminology.

I'm in the middle of creating a glossary blog of sorts, to help with that, and give me room to express my perspective on the subjects as a flight instructor. Hopefully that will be functional soon. If anyone has questions, please feel free to ask.

More of the same

2005-08-16T15:49:00.000-04:00

So, you see what we are going through here. That image doesn't paint an entirely accurate picture though. That was during one of the momentary breaks we had from the storms. It is back in full force now, and it looks like we will get hammered later on tonight too.

We seem to be doing better than some other areas though.

Weblog
Weather

Quick, I need to build a boat

2005-08-16T15:12:00.000-04:00

Around lunchtime, the skies cleared a little. Not that I mind the overcast skies, because they keep it from being 95 degrees here. Since I have no air conditioning in the house where I currently stay, that is a big help.

A few minutes ago though, it started raining again. Then it got harder. Then the thunder and lightning started, and then it got even harder. Now, I'm half tempted to either watch for a tornado or put floats on my car, to make the drive home.

Weblog

No flying today

2005-08-16T10:10:00.000-04:00

Doesn't look good for getting any flying in today. It was raining when I left the house at 6:45 this morning. Stopped for almost an hour, then started again, and hasn't let up for the last hour and a half. It is one of those long steady rains that seems to have no end in sight.

We've had plenty of rain the last few days, which I guess we need, but it sure puts a damper on my job.

DC had a good trip to Indiana. He drove, because I had conflicts on the schedule. He wants to fly back out there next week with me and take another look at the plane. So that is something to look forward to.

Weblog

I must learn how to count

2005-08-15T19:48:00.000-04:00

I was playing around at this site and discovered that somewhere along the way, I miscounted the number of states in which I've flown/landed a plane. I guess I get credit for D.C. on this site, but I'm still chagrined. This is how my map looks now:

create your own visited states map

Conspicuously absent, are Mississippi and Delaware, both of which I've flown over, but not to.

With just a few minor route changes, I could have added nine more states to it. I must get to work on this.

In other news, the Virginia Department of Aviation is now doing a little incentive program. You fly to airports, and get a stamp in a little book. To qualify for prizes, you have to attend at least one safety seminar in VA, and visit four aviation museums. Then, if you visit at least 25 airport in the state (min. one from each region), then you win a hat and lapel pin. Visit 50, and you get a flight bag. Leather jacket for all 67.

It appears that we've jumped the gun though, because the site doesn't even mention it. I'm told the program starts in the spring. So I almost get finished visiting all the airports in Virginia, only to have to start over soon.

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He's from the FAA, and he might be here to help me

2005-08-15T17:29:00.000-04:00

DC and I headed off to Richmond International, and visited the FSDO (building on the far left in this photo) this morning. The weather was good, so we flew. We met with the head honcho himself at that office, and after he photocopied all our logbooks, certificates, medicals, aircraft documents and such, we ended up having about a half-hour chat with him. He expressed the opinion that a lot of the sport planes on the market are just not safe. There isn't enough oversight to make sure they are manufactured properly, and so many of them come from overseas, where you could never sue them, if they made something defective.

So we left that conversation rather encouraged, since the head of the FAA office that will be dealing with this, seems to be agreeing with us. After that was over, he came out and took a look at the Diamond we flew in, and made some small talk.

At that point, it was only 11am, and we decided there was no rush to get home. What better than to get some lunch along the way? So we jumped in and made the quick 12 mile hop to Chesterfield, where they have a very nice buffet for only $6.30 (including drink and tax). Can't beat that.

For that leg, the taxi time was longer than the flight. It happens sometimes at bigger airports, if you hit them at the wrong time. After 15 minutes, we had made it all the way from parking to halfway to the correct end of runway 2. I suggested to the controller that we would be happy to take an intersection departure, and he seemed happy to give it to us. We took off with only 2,000 feet of runway in front of us, but it saved at least ten minutes.

The return home after lunch involved dodging a lot of clouds, but it was not a big deal, and we entered the pattern back home after about 45 minutes. We did several touch & go's, then called it a day.

DC is still struggling with relearning the original plane he got to know during his training. Some side effects of flying a plane so squirrely, included his tendency to be overly concerned about the rudder. (I'm of the opinion that rudder is the most important, and least understood part of flying, but that CT was a lot to handle there. More than should be the case). He has also developed the tendency to make the last 50 feet down too much like short-field technique, when it isn't necessary. Not generally a problem, except that it comes not from intent, but from unintentional slowing on short final, and a lack of feel of the flare. So we worked on that in the pattern here.

This afternoon, I got a call from the NTSB investigator assigned to us. He had sent me a report form last week, and I had not finished it yet, so he asked me to fax it. We got to talking, because he was still not aware of some of the details. Apparently, the FAA investigator in Nashville didn't give him anything to work with. No report, no pilot narrative, nothing.

So I gave him a brief synopsis of the crash, and explained how the initial investigator's report differs significantly from mine. This guy seemed prone to accepting that the FAA's initial report might be completely wrong, and mine right.

Again, more good signs.

Weblog

I have met the enemy.....

2005-08-15T07:05:00.000-04:00

OK, the FAA isn't exactly the enemy. And I'm going to meet with them this morning. DC and I have an appointment at the Richmond Flight Standards District Office, to present our logbooks, licenses and medicals, and the aircraft documents.

I have basically figured out what I expect to happen over the coming months. Whatever the NTSB finds, 99% of the time it comes down to two little words: "pilot error." That is the quick and easy explanation for most crashes. It saves having to explain any of a thousand reasons for the actual crash. In the end, I figure it is almost a certainty that I will get a 709 ride. So I go to Richmond at some point in the future, do a checkride with them while they berate my knowledge and flight skills, then they pass me, and I continue on with life.

I recall the first time I ever set foot in that building. I was testing for my initial flight instructor license, in the fall of 2001. I was really nervous. I still had a tendency toward nerves at that time. Worst dry-mouth I'd ever had. I ended up making it better simply by admitting I was nervous, and then demonstrated I knew more than the examiner. On the oral exam, I pulled out formulas for things that he knew nothing about, gave answers and explained them more than he was asking for. I took the offensive, and wore him down on the questioning. By the end, he knew there was nothing he would be tricking me on. It also became a very short oral exam.

Since I started instructing, my take on checkrides changed. I don't really get nervous. I know that I know far more than the examiner will ask. If I mess up on something in the flight, so be it, but I know going in that I am ready. My last checkride was in January, for the instrument rating in a helicopter. The examiner admitted at one point, that he had to dig to find some sort of question that I might miss. He did finally catch me on something, but it was minor, and nobody in the room but him (including another applicant, and my instructor) knew the answer. The flight was flawless. I never even came close to missing anything.

This checkride, assuming they make me take it, will be a little different. They know I have the ratings already, they are just looking for any kind of fault to pick up on and exploit, so they can mark a "fail" in the box. It isn't that they are all out for blood. Quite the contrary. But being a government organization changes the attitude there. They have to show cause for their existence. If they fail the applicant, they can appear to be doing their job better.

With the benefit of experience, my mindset has changed though. I no longer see these guys as ogres. I know several of them on a personal level. A couple of the inspectors there will drop by my office occasionally to chat. I also have more knowledge than the majority of them, in the areas that can be tested. There really isn't anything to be nervous about.

But today, none of that. Just present the logbooks to let them photocopy all of it for the records, and leave. I intend to do a little schmoozing though, to whatever extent I can. I have met this inspector before, but don't know him too well. Rather than look at him as the enemy, I can see him as a regular guy, just doing his job. Maybe he has enough leeway with the guidelines, that I will get out of the whole 709. Even if he doesn't, it will be good to start off having him like me.

Weblog

Not-So-Friendly Competition

2005-08-14T17:22:00.000-04:00

DA40 Glass Cockpit
The last few days, I have observed an interesting trend. I had been talking casually with one of the students at the other school on the field. He expressed interest in getting checked out in the Diamond, to rent them. I got him checked out two days ago. Then after that, he rented the plane, and took up one of the instructors from there. That instructor got checked out today, and is going to do the glass cockpit checkout too. Now, that first student is renting the plane again, to take up another student from there.

The only difficulty I have here, is that I don't currently have a multi-engine plane, or anything complex for the commercial requirements. I can use a Mooney owned by the charter company here, but I'm stuck for aircraft at the moment.

If this trend continues, I suspect I will hear complaining again from next door, as a rumor. About once every month or two, one of the owners here tells me about something that one of the owners next door is claiming about what I do. Most recently, I was accused of seeking out their students to try to drag them away.

I knew that would happen plenty, right from the start. The Diamond was a new aircraft on the field last summer, and when I started flying it, I still had several friends at the other school. They wanted to see it, and a couple other instructors there did too. I was accused of trying to steal instructors.

The owners know better than to believe the stories they hear, but it irritates me still, that the lies keep coming. I never once approached a student or instructor there, to convince them to come over here. I let them what whatever they do. That is their business.

Pleasant Surprise

2005-08-12T18:37:00.000-04:00

Flew with a guy this afternoon who called a couple days ago. He had trained for about 20 hours, eight years ago, and hadn't flown since. His main goal today was to see if he could get back quickly, or if he would have to spend a long time at it.

I was wondering how he would do. I've seen people go a month not flying, and become terrible quickly. I also conducted a biennial flight review with a guy who also hadn't flown in eight years, and I endorsed him in under two flight hours. So there's a wide range.

To complicate the matter, his wife wanted to ride along, meaning we were flying the more complicated four-seater. Add a constant-speed prop, and a full glass panel which doesn't even come close to resembling what he had flown before. To add another twist, we were flying in a rather deep haze, and there were thunderstorms building not too far away, giving us a bit of turbulence.

He understood the preflight inspection, and followed my start-up procedures very well. Quickly figured out how to taxi. I asked him to describe the takeoff procedure, if he could remember. Amazingly, he even recalled the exact airspeeds he used in the Cessna 150. Eight years removed, and he still knew the numbers.

His takeoff was not really pretty, but it was unassisted. We ran through the maneuvers, doing steep turns, slow flight, and several stalls. His understanding of slow flight was a little weak, but as I explained things, he started getting noticeably better.

I wish I could say he managed one of the two landings unassisted, but at least he was relatively close. I think he could solo in five hours.

Now, he is excited, and ready to start flying again. I love that feeling, helping another person get back to the fun of flying. And it appears that he will be an easy student.

Another Foggy Morning

2005-08-12T08:59:00.000-04:00

Fog again. Not that I mind it this time. I slept in anyway, and that felt really good.

Today I have an intro flight with a guy that took a few lessons eight years ago. He wants to see if he is still capable of learning it, or if he would have to start all over at the beginning.

It is likely to be a challenge for him, but hopefully he will want to keep up with it.

Hard-Selling in Georgia on my Mind

2005-08-11T18:54:00.000-04:00

That was a long day of flying, and well worth it. 7.7 hours logged. DC, and I brought along our mechanic friend, because he used to work at that facility several years ago, and knew everybody there. So we had an inside pass, sort've. But not the most trustworthy kind. The kind that is trying to sell it. I don't know if he gets a cut from the sale, but I bet he does, just by the way he was selling it.

The flight down to Eastman, GA was supposed to be just over 3 hours, but ended up taking more than 4. It was necessary to fly instruments, and instrument flight rules dictate 45 minutes of planned fuel reserve. We were going to need an alternate destination filed, and the closest alternate with known better weather was Augusta, GA. That meant we would have to fly very low power to get to the destination, shoot the approach, miss, and fly to the alternate, and still have 45 minutes left. So to save a little time, we made a stop at Spartanburg, SC. Good thing, because we were rerouted a little bit on the second leg, then had to shoot the GPS approach to 300 feet above minimums. At a time like that, you don't want to be on minimum fuel.

At Eastman, I was trying to maintain a removed perspective, and let DC come to his own conclusions. I'm not especially fond of the Alarus, except in the only role it seems suited for: flight training. For that, it may be the best small plane on the market. For personal flying, it doesn't really do well. Slow, a little uncomfortable, and nothing to look at.

The general manager of the place spent some time talking to us about it, and I immediately came to the conclusion that he was hard-selling us. Trying to say what we wanted to hear. I suspected he had already been briefed on what happened with the CT (I was right). Told us all about how these sport planes on the market are dangerous. How in Europe, they have lower weight limits than the US (that is true), and then he really confused me.

He seemed genuinely surprised that in the US, these same planes suddenly have a higher stall speed. I didn't say anything. I wanted to let him keep talking. He claimed to have an engineering background. He is deeply involved in aircraft. Therefore, it should be absolutely obvious and predictable to anyone, that higher weight means higher stall speed for a given plane. Any relatively experienced student pilot ought to know that. It is just basic aerodynamics, and frankly, I was suspicious of him from that point on. Either he is stupid, or he was feeding us a line. Take your pick.

He harped on and on about how the composite airplanes are untested and extremely difficult to repair if anything happens. A couple times he brought up the example of hitting the tail skid on a hard landing, and of clipping a wingtip. Both, he said, are extremely costly repairs that put the plane down for at least a couple weeks. He made a big deal about how they build the Alarus to far exceed certification requirements (true), but Diamond does not (extremely false).

The truth, which I never let on that I knew, is that DC and I once hit the tail skid hard in a DA20. Minor repair to the skid, no damage to the frame, and we were able to defer repair until convenient. It cost a few bucks for parts, and maybe an hour on labor. No big deal. As for striking wingtips, I have to seriously question the skill of instructors at any school that would routinely have that problem. It is simply too rare to worry about. And the Diamond (his favorite example), has a seperate piece on the wingtip. The repair would amount to maybe $1,000 or so. Diamond tests to aerobatic requirements (+9/ -6 g's), then derates them to utility category (+4.4/ -1.78). Their wing spars are tested out to 13 g's.

I decided I would remain observant, but quiet, despite knowing better than to believe what he was saying. DC knew better too, but he played along the same way.

DC did get to fly the plane, and found it easy. (I've flown them before, so I declined a flight).

We did get some useful information though. If you can manage to look past the hard-sell routine, you find a very easy to fly, sturdy airplane. So maybe he will buy one, maybe not. DC is on the way to Indiana tomorrow to look at another aircraft. I'd be flying him there Saturday, but I have other flights scheduled.

Our return flight was VFR. We didn't want to waste time leaving, and the weather looked like it would cooperate. To get above the clouds, and avoid being diverted around Charlotte, NC, we took the Diamond up to 11,500 feet and just cruised along. I set the power based on the fuel range ring on the G1000, giving us the required VFR reserve, plus 45 minutes to spare. The return was 3.6 hours, and very uneventful. I guess that is nice sometimes.

2005-08-11T06:05:00.000-04:00

Got up way too early in the morning today. 4:45am. But the plane is ready, I'm checking to see I have the charts I need, and then I'm about to file the flight plan. It looks as if we may hit some clouds down in Georgia. Nothing up here in Virginia but some fog.

Another Change of Plans

2005-08-10T13:14:00.000-04:00

And again, the plan changes. We are going to Georgia first thing in the morning tomorrow. I think I'm still just dropping them off, and returning on my own, but I'm not sure of that.

We have to change the plan for Indiana on Saturday, because I had forgotten about a couple flights I have that day. So Maybe next week.

Now, if I can only convince DC to want to go take a look at a plane located in Oregon...

Strange Workings Afoot

2005-08-10T07:42:00.000-04:00

Ever since returning from Florida, I've been a little confused. My car is a 1993 Honda Civic with 208,000 miles on it. It has problems. The specific problem here is that the left rear tire keeps going flat. I've been having to add air every two days. (I'm too cheap right now to bother getting a new tire just yet).

So I expected that after returning from a four-day trip, I would find the tire almost completely flat. Not so. It was full of air. I didn't need to add any. I thought that strange, but kept going about my business. Now, it has been another four days, and the tire is still full. So I'm a little bit puzzled as to why. Either the tire miraculously healed itself, or someone keeps adding air for me.

This morning would have been as I predicted: a takeoff in low IFR conditions, with fog. I had been looking forward to the trip. But the Indiana trip may get brought up to Friday, so that is close enough.

There's nothing so boring as continually flying the same planes in the same places. Most of us don't have access to very many different models of plane, so we have to find our enjoyment from the travel aspect. Flight instructors suffer from that at least as much as anyone else. Without instrument students, you just don't get much cross-country flying.

Lately, that part has worked well for me. So I can't complain.

Scratch Georgia

2005-08-09T17:58:00.000-04:00

I did manage to get a flight in today. This mornings constant rain suggested otherwise, but I finally got one. One of the students from next door wanted to get checked out in the Eclipse. Not really a big deal. He is a commercial pilot, working on the instructor rating, and was desperate for something different. I understand perfectly. It is easy to get bored from flying the same plane all the time. Especially if it is 40 years old, has equally old avionics, and flies way too slow.

DC came in, so I could help him with the NTSB report. We were both sent a bunch of pages of data to fill out. What a mess. He decided he doesn't want the Alarus, so there is no point flying to Georgia tomorrow. He has decided to go with my advice of flying half a dozen different types of planes, and then see what he likes. Scott gave him the option of purchasing one of the Diamond Eclipses from us, and leaving it with the school. That would give him access to the plane any time he wants, and defray some of the expenses. But DC doesn't care much about expenses.

When I was in Florida, I found the aircraft I really want. A Diamond motorglider. Of course, I can't afford it, and travel in that would be impractical at best. But whoever thinks general aviation is about practicality, soon learns better after getting involved. It is never about the cost. You just find what you want, and talk yourself into believing it is practical.

So Georgia is off tomorrow, but we are looking to go to Indiana this weekend, to check out a different manufacturer. Hopefully that one will work out.

Goodbye to Old Friends

2005-08-09T15:38:00.000-04:00

It is always sad saying goodbye.

This morning, I discovered, much to my chagrin, that the construction around the hangars had already started. Not good. I thought it would be a couple days. I was supposed to pull the DA40 out before that, or I would lose access to it for two weeks while they dug up and replaced the asphalt. I was really irritated, because that would mean missing out on seven hours of flying tomorrow (which has since been cancelled anyway).

After talking to one of the security guys, I managed to get help moving the plane. The surface had already been torn up, leaving the hangar on a ledge, with a 10 inch drop-off to the rough-surfaced mix of mud and torn-up asphalt beneath. So the first thing we had to do was build two small ramps to let the plane down easy. After that, we spent 15 minutes towing the plane through the muddy mess to a spot on the other pavement.

After that was all over, I was sweaty and dirty. And my shoes were all torn up. These shoes have served me well over the last few years. Just simple loafers- the $9 Walmart variety. Over the last few weeks though, the right shoe had become worn to the point that my foot was partly touching pavement when I walked. So I knew it was about time to replace them.

Halfway through moving the plane, the insole had worked itself through the open sole, and ripped the whole shoe open. It was just a shred of its former self, and no longer very useful for its normal purpose of keeping my feet protected from the ground.

So with an air of sadness, I placed them in the trash, and grabbed some spare shoes that I thankfully had in the trunk of my car. So, goodbye to old friends. I mean old shoes. I really got my nine dollars worth.

2005-08-09T08:38:00.000-04:00

Today, I was supposed to do a checkout with a student from the school next door, but rain and fog will likely push that back. He is bored from flying the same old planes all the time, and wants a change. Something new. I don't blame him. I spent 600 hours in Cessna 172's and I love them for what they are, but I can't get excited about flying one. They're slow and sluggish. Great trainer plane, but nothing special for traveling.

This guy, and several others are planning to come over here and get checked out on the glass cockpit also. I'm sure that will be exciting for them. I know I was excited about it when I first got in it, and I still get excited. The VFR checkout is usually only about 2 hours of ground instruction and 1.5 in the plane. IFR though, is a bit more extensive. That tends toward being 10 hours of ground instruction, and 5 in the plane. So if all of them are wanting IFR checkouts, that will keep me busy when they come over.

Tomorrow morning, just like all mornings around here this time of year, I stand a good chance of having to depart in near-zero visibility, in fog. I guess that only bothers me for a lack of options if I have some sort of trouble. The actual takeoff is not that big a deal, as long as you stay focused.

The lack of options is why I've actually practiced something unusual: a zero-visibility landing. If I set the plane up at 65 knots and come in on the ILS that way, then I stand a good chance of not even damaging the plane. I've never gotten the chance to do it under simulated instrument though, just by myself, and noticing what inputs are necessary. Essentially, I set it up for a short-field landing, and fly the approach that way. I hope I never have to use that on a real flight, but I like to know I have a chance.

I just found out yesterday that they raised the rates next door. Now, not only do we have much newer planes, but we have lower rates too. We have stayed at $89/hr for the planes, and they just went up to $95. Maybe we should raise the rates too.

Deja Vu. Deja Vu. Deja Vu.

2005-08-08T15:55:00.000-04:00

I just got back from a trip south, and now I'm getting ready to head that way again. As I mentioned before, DC is looking for another plane, so Wednesday morning I will be flying him down to Eastman, GA. Along for the ride is Todd, one of the mechanics we deal with. I will just be dropping them off, and returning home.

On the return, I will probably go airport-hopping again, and see some new places. I mapped it all out on the AOPA flight planner, and a return flight adding in 10 more airports only costs me about 20 miles. As long as the weather is good, I'll probably go with that plan.

Slow

2005-08-08T11:54:00.000-04:00

Very slow day today. Slow enough, I might just leave early for a change. I got some paperwork from the National Transportation Safety Board, regarding the accident. Now I have a bunch of pages to fill out. Fun.

I have unconfirmed information that an ultralight crashed yesterday near here. The pilot was drunk, apparently, and landed on top of a truck, or something like that. Never underestimate how stupid someone can be, if given half a chance.

I was hearing about some other crash not far from here too, but I have no information about it, other than just the location.

Cart, then horse.

2005-08-07T22:19:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure how to feel about that last flight. I'm wondering if I should be smiling or tearing my hair out. Mr. C and I were scheduled for 6pm this evening.

After a thorough preflight briefing, we headed up to Luray Caverns. Well, first we wandered all over, but not by design. The briefing had covered just about everything we could possibly cover that might be necessary for letting him accomplish the navigation without help. But the execution bore no resemblance to the original plan.

This is among the simplest navigational flights to make. Take off, then point the plane northeast. See that lone mountain sitting there directly in front of you, and all by itself? Point to it. Veer slightly right so it is off your left. Fly next to it for a few minutes, until getting next to the only road that actually crosses the mountain. Look down.

Here is a Google map aerial view. Home airport is near the bottom left of the screen. That isolated mountain that goes northeast is the one to find. Luray is right next to it. I don't claim to have been the best student ever, but I found it on my first try. I had no difficulty finding that one mountain. From there, everything is easy to find.

Instead of making it a really simple flight though, Mr. C. had to complicated everything. He couldn't decide what altitude to fly. He had forgotten to set his directional gyro to match the compass. He couldn't remember that we had needed to be right of the mountain, not left. Essentially, throw away the entire 30 minutes of preflight briefing, and we'd have done just as well, I think. All that talk about planning ahead for the next radio frequency, forgotten.

The first time I take a student there or New Market, I can usually expect some confusion, especially if the wind favors a runway that uses right turns instead of the standard left. Mr. C did not disappoint, in that respect. He got confused, forgot 90% of his checklist as he normally does, turned base way too early, and set us up to be about 600 feet too high. Naturally, that required a go-around. The second time, I had to talk him through it again, and tell him when to turn base. Then he managed to be right about where he needed to be. After stopping and taxiing back, we took off, and stayed in the pattern for another try. This time, still with my help remember how to descend and slow down, he managed the actual flare and touchdown unassisted. That was his first.

I always figured he would learn that part quickly enough. I knew from the outset that his trouble was going to come from always being in way too big a hurry. I had to reiterate that many times today. He wants to get everything done quickly, but he hasn't been bothered enough to actually learn which leg of the approach is which, or how to enter, or any of that.

It continues to be a struggle trying to teach him these things. Next lesson, we go back to the maneuvers and work on stalls and steep turns again. I think he has just enough control now to actually manage them, if he focuses.

2005-08-06T15:32:00.000-04:00

I forgot to add in the two airports we used as fuel stops and leg stretches on the journey. Southbound, we stopped at Augusta Regional in Augusta, GA. Really slow for a towered airport, but then, it wasn't early April, so I understand that.

On the return, we went to Columbia, SC.

Last one here, is home. And a wider view.

That's all for now.

What happens when I have extra time....

2005-08-06T15:10:00.000-04:00

I got to playing around with Google maps. That can be a bad thing, if I have anything else I am supposed to be doing. But since today that isn't a problem, I am presenting, primarily for my own amusement, the google maps of the airports I visited this week. If anyone else gets amused in the process, all the better.

Here is Perry-Foley Airport, just south of the urban sprawl of greater downtown metropolitan Perry, Florida.

Next on the list is Keystone, FL. This is where I met my friend Neil and spent an evening relaxing. You will begin to notice a trend. There are a bunch of small, practically abandoned airports all over Florida that used to be military airports. Thus, the multiple runways, some of which are never used any more.

The next day I did a touch & go at Gainesville, (I'm not a Gators fan, so I wanted to move quickly), then turned north to Lake City, FL. I had raced a storm in, gotten a little wet, and had a tough time getting a car or any other services. But I had it better than the guy who did a gear-up landing in his Bonanza. So I wasn't complaining. (The people at the FBO were very nice, it was just a small airport that didn't have much to offer. My timing was probably more at fault than anything else).

After catching a lift back to the airport, I had decided to stay somewhere with more service options, and maybe even dip my toes in the sand and surf. So I took off for Jacksonville. Nice service there, as expected. They have a huge advantage over smaller, less traveled airports though. Still, at a larger airport, you spend a lot of time taxiing. I landed on runway 13 (lower one in the picture, and traveling down toward the right. Then I had to taxi all the way around to the far right side of the picture to park the plane. And that wasn't bad at all by larger airport standards.

2005-08-06T14:19:00.000-04:00

That was a lot of sleep last night. I don't normally get more than 7 hours, 9 if I am really tired and can afford to sleep in. Last night it was 11 hours. Sure did feel good though. After that, I spent some time watching a movie and cleaning house. I had to move out of the basement I was living in, and went back to an uninhabited house belonging to my brother-in-law's father. Just about everything I own is in that house, and plenty of it is useless to me, so I've been trying to clear out my things, while generally making the place look nicer. The owners are staying there for a few days starting tonight, so I wanted it to look better than the last time they showed up.

I don't have any flying scheduled today, which doesn't really bother me any. I have to get all my logs in order, so I can take them to Richmond FSDO and present them for examination regarding the crash. Fun stuff. I don't have anything to hide, but occasionally when the FAA is looking at these things, they like to dig. If there are any mistakes in there, I will gladly own up to them.

Meanwhile, DC is getting all of his stuff in order. Wednesday, he is heading to Georgia to check out another possibility for a replacement airplane. I'm not actually sure if I will be flying him down there or not. That's the Alarus CH2000, which I suspect he will not buy. I'm sure he will decide it doesn't have enough legroom. He's only a couple inches shorter than me, and I was really crammed in when I flew one.

Thunderstorms in the morning

2005-08-05T13:13:00.000-04:00

I ended up staying in Jacksonville for the night. I had sort've kicked myself for getting a rental car earlier, figuring I would just lose the money on that. I spent another 4 hours sitting around the airport, helping myself to complimentary iced tea, coffee, and snacks, and and waiting for a hole in the weather. It had just become good enough on the radar that I thought I might be able to manage it, if I swung about 60 miles to the south. I'd already packed the plane when I called a briefer, who promptly talked me out of it. (I wasn't hard to convince though). Then Scott called, and told me he was staying the night. We planned to have me show up there by 7am today. That meant I would have to get up way too early, so I could actually be in the plane by dark-o-clock.

So, up a 4am, flight planning by 4:45, in the plane at 5:20. 5:35 departure. As I was climbing through a low scattered layer of clouds, I looked west toward my destination, and saw an impressive lightning show. From that vantage, I couldn't tell how far away all the activity was, but figured it to be about 100 miles. About the right distance to my destination. Before long, I was over a widespread layer of ground fog, and figured on the flight getting interesting. Just before setting up for the GPS approach, I knew the storms would be no factor, but the fog might. In the end, the line of fog was less than half a mile from the airport, but the airport was clear.

I had about 2 minutes to start fueling the plane before Scott showed up. The flight plans I had filed gave me a 7am departure from there, and we hit that right on. After climbing to our cruising altitude of 5,000 feet, we could make out a couple of nasty storms over toward the coast, including one that looked to be headed right toward Jacksonville. Good thing I left early.

Next stop was Columbia, SC for a quick fuel stop and leg stretch. We managed to get out of there only 10 minutes after my flight plan time. Another couple hours, and we were back home. The return was really uneventful, which is exactly what you want sometimes. The biggest event was 10 seconds worth of light rain over Georgia.

Overall, I flew 12.4 hours, visited seven new airports in two new states. Not bad. Scott has a trip coming up before too long to Mississippi, and that will add another. Now I need to find a way to get up to Maine.

Shoulda Gone to the Keys

2005-08-04T14:43:00.000-04:00

Retrospective. I should have gone ahead to the keys. I didn't want to spend all day flying around, just to have to fly another 4 to get home, so I stuck close. Yesterday, I was planning to end up in Tallahassee, but it was good that I didn't. They are just getting hammered with storms there. I flew from Keystone out for a touch & go at Gainesville, then headed north to Lake City. The idea was to decide there where to go, after looking at the weather. I had to race a storm in, so I knew I had no hurry once I got down. I could see the rain coming, and thankfully didn't suffer any delay. By the time I taxied into the FBO, the rain had started in earnest.

The airport there is somewhat unusual. They have a control tower, but the surface is in uncontrolled airspace. Class G. I'd heard of that setup before, but never seen it. The tower controller was unfamiliar with my aircraft type (as are many controllers, still). He asked if I could handle only 4,000 feet. I gladly accepted, and took the shorter runway. I had figured that meant they were busy, but I never heard any other traffic, so I was a little puzzled. As I taxied across the larger runway, I found out why: A Bonanza had done a gear-up landing there. Still on the runway. After talking to the manager at the FBO a little bit, I found out it had only happened a couple minutes before I showed up.

My choice of airport to end up at, was somewhat poor. I did manage getting a crew car to get some lunch. It was nearly dinner time by this point, but I hadn't had a bite all day. On recommendation from a local, I chose a local BBQ/steak joint, and was not disappointed.

That still left me with being unsure what to do from there. This was just a local municipal airport, so I was expecting to have some trouble with rental cars and hotels and such. When I made the decision to stay the night, I got a hotel reservation, and started calling for a rental car. Nothing. No rental cars to be had. In the middle of nowhere in Florida on a Wednesday afternoon. One of the ladies manning the FBO helped me out, by driving me to the hotel.

From there, I had to walk for my dinner. As I got up to the door at Arby's, thats when the sky fell out. Heavy rain, etc. I really wanted to get back to the room to eat my dinner in peace, so I bore out through the downpours. So far, not much was going my way, but I was relaxing indoors in privacy, so I couldn't complain.

This morning, I was hoping for a ride from the airport folks again, but no luck. So I called a cab. Except they didn't answer. The only cab company in town, (their ad said "24 hours"), but nothing. They were not answering. I guess they changed it to 23 hours. But one of the hotel people was kind enough to drive me there in his own truck. I always find that most people will go out of their way to help you, if you are simply friendly.

This morning left me with another choice to make. I knew I would have to wait until around noon for Scott to call and give me an idea when to be there to pick him up. His call last night suggested a strong possibility of having to spend another night and leave Friday morning, so I decided that at least I could relocate to an airport with more chance of services. I also wanted to see a beach, so I headed out to Jacksonville International. Just a quick 30 minute flight really, no big deal. But I knew i'd be able to get a car, and hotel, and any other services I might need. Within just a couple minutes of pulling into Signature- one of the fixed base operators on the field- I secured a car and headed down the road looking for beach and lunch. Found both.

I only spent 20 minutes or so walking along the surf before heading for lunch. I still didn't know what the departure time would be. During lunch, Scott called and wanted me there to pick him up by about 6pm. So instead of wandering around town and seeing the sights, I headed back to the airport. As soon as I got back and looked at the radar, I knew I'd have a tough decision to make. For the most part, the skies were a thin broken layer of cumulus, but a storm had planted itself right over my destination, and looked to be there to stay. Another 20 minutes of waiting, and storms were popping up all over.

Still, I decided that it might be just enough to make it, and sometimes you have to make tough flights. They can't all be fun when you're working. I had just put my bag back in the plane and headed to check the radar again, when Scott called. Big nasty storm right over the airport there. So it looks like I might be staying the night afterall.

Still, I can't complain. The FBO has internet access, and everything I could want. So I guess I get to wait it out, and realize that I could have been to Key West and back twice by now.

A Little Stress, a Lot of Fun.

2005-08-02T17:02:00.000-04:00

I called Rich a few minutes ago. Last time I called, it was to tell him about the crash. This time, just to say I had a good flight. Now I'm hanging out with a couple friends that I hadn't seen in a while. They live in Melrose, FL, about 15 minutes from where I chose to end the day.

It started out a little hectic this morning. I had to be up at 5:30 in order to make sure we could get airborne by about 8. Then Scott, one of his other employees and I piled in the equipment they were carrying, and we took off. The destination was about a 4 hour flight, so instead of cutting it too close on the fuel, we would have to make a stop. We chose Augusta, GA. I used to go down there a lot for the Master's golf tournament. Haven't been in a few years. Never had flown there though. That was an easy first leg, and came out very relaxing. After taking off in 2 miles visibility and climbing above, we had clear skies the whole way. The instrument clearance was about the best you could get: direct route. I love GPS. Saves a lot of hassle over having to mess with airways.

As soon as I glanced at the weather during the break, I knew the second leg would get interesting. Destination was Perry, FL, which is not really near anything. It is an old abandoned military base. Our plan for an alternate airport was Tallahassee, but the storms were not looking good. Current weather there was 300 overcast, and we needed at least 600 feet to legally use it for an alternate. So Gainesville was the new choice.

We really didn't know how likely we would be to even get a chance at shooting the approach, and it seemed likely that we would end up diverting. we had the flight filed for a direct route again, and were cleared that way at first, but luck was against us. Only a couple minutes into the flight, we were sent all the way out to Macon, GA before getting to turn south. Then we spent the rest of the flight popping in and out of turbulent cumulus clouds, and dodging thunderstorms.

But with 40 miles to go, we made it out in the clear, above a broken layer with no thunderstorms on the horizon. Approach mimimums for Perry were 660 feet, but the most recent report put the clouds at 500. We are allowed to attempt the approach, but we had no idea if we would make it in. Thankfully, we broke out early, and had no trouble.

Perry is in the middle of nowhere. I had contemplated just staying around there, rather than deal with storms. But there was no rental car to be had, and no sights to see, so I flew on to see Neil in Melrose. That required a quick 45 minute hop to Keystone Heights. Dodged a little bit of rain near the destination, but otherwise it was just a smooth, relaxing flight at 1,000 feet above the ground.

Now, Scott wants to get out late tomorrow, instead of early Thursday, so I suspect Key West is too much to shoot for. I don't want to spend 7 hours flying around, then have to fly another 4 back home all in the same day. So I may just find a few airports in this area and see what looks interesting. For now though, it is time to just relax.

Dwight Makes it to Florida Safe!!

2005-08-02T16:53:00.000-04:00

Quick afternoon post just to let all those dedicated Also-Known-As Blog readers that Dwights flight to Florida has successfully finished as planned in Florida, and this time without any "hard landings". He just called to let me know he has gotten there safely.

And now a blatent Plug for my blog. . . . HERE

Everyone have a great afternoon!!

Rich

Southbound

2005-08-02T07:31:00.000-04:00

I'm off to Florida here in a few minutes. Updates over the next couple days will come from Rich, as needed. I'm not sure yet what the weather will hold for those couple days, but hopefully it will let me head down to Key West in the process.

Say it ain't so, Joe

2005-08-01T19:06:00.000-04:00

Two consecutive flights, Joe has struggled with everything. I've seen that look before in other peoples eyes. It is the look of wondering if they should just give up. The thing that bugs me is that he is probably the most capable student I've ever dealt with who has given me that look. I've never gotten that look from someone who really wasn't cut out for flying. Those just go merrily along, believing they are just as good as anybody else.

I really don't want to see him quit at this point. He's just struggling with a few things, and it is largely from having been stuck not flying for most of a couple weeks. Now his muscles have forgotten to use rudder instead of aileron to hold heading in the stall. He looks out through the haze and can't find a horizon, and that starts to give him trouble. He's losing focus.

Some people shouldn't fly. But he's not one of them. Now, he has only a few days before two consecutive business trips. He sees no benefit in flying in that span, so it will be 2 1/2 weeks until the possibility arises again. Sometimes that's all it takes to get someone playing mind games, and end up never touching a plane again. I sure hope that isn't the case here.

Adding more airports

2005-08-01T16:07:00.000-04:00

I'm busy waiting for Joe to get here, and planning for my trip tomorrow. Flying down to Perry, Florida, to drop off Scott and one of his employees. Then I have a choice: I could fly back up to Virginia, and then wait a day before going right back down to get him. Or I could just sit tight there, or I could do a little tour of Florida. I'm thinking about trying to make it down to Key Wes t in the process. That is the most appealing plan right now.

Proficiency Check

2005-08-01T14:54:00.000-04:00

DC had been wanting, ever since the crash, to get back up in the Diamond, to make sure he could still fly. The CT really got him messed up. It made him nervous about landings, about moving the controls at all. So today we finally got the chance after the weather broke open. He came by and bought lunch, then we headed up. Some maneuvers, and eight landings later, he was a happy man. There remain a few vestigial habits from the way the CT flew that manifested on his controlling this plane, but nothing unsafe, and nothing he isn't able to work out easily enough.

The original plan for buying that plane was to delve into the possibility of acquiring an aircraft dealership. From the beginning, I was not so sure that a non-pilot could ever truly get competent enough in that plane after 20 hours to make a sport license worth pursuing, so it would be hard to justify having that aircraft. It was a little on the expensive side too. But we learned plenty about what to look for in an aircraft, and the manufacturer. He learned that the better plan is to fly one for a few hours and get a feel for it, before buying.

So now we are beginning to look at several other possibilities for his next aircraft. The first, which was ordered about 8 months ago, is a Remos G3. It looks similar to the CT, except with fold-back fabric wings. It appears to have a bit more rudder surface too. I think we will just have to try it out to know. The plan is to fly up to Indiana sometime soon and get a demo flight.

Other aircraft that may be in the running are the Alarus CH2000, and a Tiger. We aren't sure what else yet. I've flown the Alarus, which is not really my favorite. Being 6' 2" is a disadvantage in small planes, and this one forces me to jam my knees right into the dash. Not so comfortable. It feels a little sluggish from my perspective too. I haven't flown a Tiger yet, but I've spoken to the dealer in Martinsburg, WV, and can get a demo flight any time I need. The benefit of that one is having 4 seats, a little bit of cargo capacity, easy access to the engine area, and the big one for summertime: ability to fly with the canopy partway open.

Where I spend my nights

2005-08-01T08:46:00.000-04:00

Just finished removing the stitches. Did it myself, with my Leatherman Micra. Not the best tool for the job in this case. Sort've difficult what with the rounded edges on the scissors tips, but it didn't take too long. I think that scar will last. Probably not going to fade too much over time.

So after flying with Mr. C last night, I had a dilemma. I had needed to move from my residence- which was the basement in a house belonging to another pilot based here. They needed their basement back, and I had been living there since November. So everything I have was packed in the car to begin with. After flying, I had only one real place to go- a house about 30 miles from here, which houses most of the rest of my stuff, but doesn't have plumbing. (Think old, worn down. Think about using the bathroom at night. It requires shoes and a flashlight, if you know what I mean).

I had an early morning flight planned for today, so an hour spent in transit on the round trip was nothing to look forward to. So I did the next best thing. I slept on the floor of my office. Not so bad as I envisioned. A little hard, but I was up early and ready to go for the day, without much hassle (there's a shower down the hall).

I looked out the window to see if the airport beacon was on (usually in daylight, if the beacon is on, that means it is not visual flight conditions). I had trouble making out the beacon only a few hundred feet away, for all the fog. So yet again, the weather pattern holds, and flying has to wait.

Oops, he did it again

2005-08-01T06:54:00.000-04:00

See that lockbox? I have not changed the code since the last time, Mr. C. It is still not going to be identical to the tail number for whichever plane we are flying. And it didn't change simply because we are flying a different plane now. And we are not now, or anytime before the private license is done, going to be flying the plane that does match the code.

Fascinating, in an odd sort of way.

I was worried that our flight was going to continue the path of futility last night. But I was pleasantly surprised. After a slightly longer than average preflight briefing, we flew. Stayed in the pattern the whole time. Good improvements. He's got a habit of talking too much. I've explained this. In the middle of whatever we are doing, he wants to try to explain what he's doing, which is a waste of time. I know what he's doing: forgetting what he's supposed to be doing. I don't need him to give a dissertation on why the mixture needs to be rich for landing. I already know why. I just need him to actually make sure it is rich.

Overall though, good improvement. He struggles with getting things done in a timely manner, but that's normal at this point. The patterns aren't squared off very well. He drifts through turns instead of making crisp decisive turns. He loses track of things. But it is a start. He's almost got the round-out figured. The flare will take a bit more time.

I love these questions....

2005-07-30T21:30:00.000-04:00

Anyway- the lesson.. remember I had had no prior of flying or flight and did not know better about implications of things that might have happened. I think it was my 3rd or 4th lesson. We were doing the engine run-ups when the C152 (ZK-ELV, known as ELVis) ran very roughly on the left mag. We increased the rpms to see if that would clear it but it still ran rough. Idled for a few more seconds, increased the rpms and it seemed to clear. Continued thru the DVA's then taxiid for takeoff. It seemed to take a looong time for the plane to lift off and actually settled back down very briefly, so we would have used more runway than normal. Finally lifted off, then at about 200 ft the engine sounded real funny and the instructor said "I'll just take control for a bit" a couple of seconds later everything sounded fine and we continued on- doing stalls and he even did a spin to lose height on the way back down. When we landed and taxiid in, the other instructors at the aero club had heard the rough running of the engine (we were maybe at the far threshold of the runway at 200 ft by then)and ran out to have a look. I also found out we had taken off with a quartering tailwind, that was why it took so long to lift off. A couple of people I talked to after (remember I was totally ignorant of what quartering tailwinds would mean to performance etc)said that with the engine running rough at engine run-ups, it was foolish to take off with the tailwind, as had the engine continued to run roughly, we would not have been able to make a safe landing (houses etc in the way). Also, to continue on to do stalls etc was foolish too. Now, possibly if it was 1 mag sticking, we could have switched to the other mag and made it back OK to land - but I also know there are other reasons for engines to run rough. What are your thoughts on this? Is it a big deal or as my instructor said, it wasn't a problem? I think it was just the reactions of those other people (1 a high hour glider pilot and senior instructor and the other a high hour private pilot)who unsettled me on this.
Ruth

First of all, that is a great nickname for an airplane.

A couple thoughts on the questions. First, magnetos could run rough for several reasons. The one the instructor was checking for would have been fouling of the spark plugs. If a bit of fouling was the problem, then running the engine hotter could solve that by burning off deposits. If the mag check is clear after that, generally you have no further issues, and learn to lean the mixture control better, or get the mixture cable adjusted by a mechanic. Clearing the plugs may take a couple tries. If they sound clear after that, you generally don't have any problem continuing. If not, then stop the flight right there.

Departing with a tailwind can be a very bad idea. Or it can be no big deal. It sort've depends. The toughest part of learning to fly is acquiring the desicion-making skills. I forget the V speeds and performance numbers on the 152. It has been a very long time since I flew one. Whether or not to depart with a tailwind would come down to a couple factors though: 1) expected takeoff and obstacle clearance distances (which increase dramatically with a tailwind) versus what is available. 2) the "cost" of going to the headwind. (meaning, extra time spent, or whatever, though being in a hurry there is never a great idea). 3) potential for unexpected situation.

So to sum up, it is the margin of safety built into the situation, compared to whatever might be lost by the other option, plus the emergency you might be about to have, but don't know about yet. How much margin do you have, and how much are you willing to give up?

Think of it this way (I'll use round numbers to make it easy). Kinetic energy is the big factor. (energy coming from the velocity of the aircraft). with a 50 knot stall speed, and a 10 knot wind, the difference is this: requiring a groundspeed of either 40 knots or 60, depending on which runway you use. In that scenario, using the tailwind forces you to come up with 56% more energy than the other option, before you have a chance to leave the ground. A C152 is rather underpowered, and that would increase your runway needs dramatically. Unless you have huge amounts of extra runway, it is risky at best.

Eight days before my crash, I was forced to land the CT with a 10 knot tailwind component & gusty winds, or seriously risk being stuck in a severe thunderstorm, with no means of safely getting out. If I'd had time to get to the other runway, that would have been the best option, and I'd have done that under any normal scenario. My kinetic energy upon touchdown was almost three times as much as the other option. Seriousness of potential injury also goes up about that much. The only reason I did that, is because the other option was more dangerous.

In any case, landings are mandatory. Takeoffs are not. Unless you have far more runway than you need, with a plane that you don't suspect of any possible problems, and the tailwind component is very small, then the risk is generally not acceptable.

Settling back to the runway might be a couple things. Was it a soft-field takeoff? If so, the instructor might have simply tried to get too far from ground effect before getting enough airspeed. That one, everybody does at some point. But knowing the plane was taking too much runway, that would be a sign to abort. Always have an abort point in mind before getting on the runway in the first place. Always.

Sometimes, I've gotten a feeling in flight that some system wasn't quite right, and done some troubleshooting. When it seems ok, I continue the flight, always having at least a couple options for the emergency that can develop. If not, I return to the airport and prepare for the possibility of the problem getting worse. I mentally prepare for an emergency on every flight. Every flight. The few times something has gone wrong, I reacted the way I prepared myself to react. But you should always give yourself room to have at least one safe option. They say flying is 99% boredom and 1% sheer terror. You just never know when that 1% is going to happen.

Not having heard the sounds, or felt the sluggishness of the actual flight in question, I'm not sure I could be adamant about that instructor being unknowledgeable, lazy or negligent. (How much wind was it, how bad was the noise, did it really sound like fouling or something else, how much runway was there, etc....).

My guess would be, if multiple other more experienced pilots were concerned, then I wouldn't make light of it.

And the forecast is........

2005-07-30T10:38:00.000-04:00

.... fog. Until the thunderstorms start. That's about normal for the last two weeks. So this makes it 6 consecutive scheduled flights I've had to cancel.

After speaking to the FAA's investigator, it seems the retelling of their conclusion was slightly off. I was puzzling at how they could expect the plane to put that large and long a scar in the runway, go through 150 feet of grass, then crumple the nose gear, then still have enough remaining kinetic energy to flip over quickly. The scar on the pavement was deep enough to indicated to me that had we done that, the plane would only be going about 30 by the end of the pavement. The ground past it would have surely taken a good scar if the pavement was grooved from whatever caused that. My best guess is, their scenario with the airspeed I know we had at the time, would have left us hitting the hill at no more than 10 miles per hour. If we had gotten to the hill at all.

These things were a puzzle to me, and I had to wait a while before he returned my phone call. He decided that the plane must have been traveling significantly faster than I claim. This is simply not possible. The top permissible speed for that flap setting was 60 knots. Had we been there at any point, I would have forced DC to abort the approach and go around.

That has been one of my issues with the plane since the beginning. In a power-off glide, the plane needs at least 50 knots of indicated airspeed to have enough kinetic energy to flare without hitting hard. But exceeding 60 is too much. So only a ten knot airspeed range is acceptable, without using power to control the descent rate at the last minute. In my old Cessna 172, also with 40 degrees of flap, there was a 30 knot range, and more inertia to hold speed constant.

When the investigator returned my call, I asked a few questions, and gave him more details he was wanting. Since our versions didn't match, I wanted to know if he would like any sort of addendum filed. I also wanted to head off any concern about the aircraft documents. He was a little miffed, I was told, that the airworthiness and registration documents were not still aboard. DC had taken them out, not knowing he shouldn't, and I never saw him do that. Otherwise, I was trying to get some insight into his mindset, and make him aware that I wanted to cooperate in any way I could. Even when fault is assigned, they often only want the pilot to admit to making a mistake. Arguing with them is generally disadvantageous.

The four days since the crash have been helpful to me though. I've come up with many very specific questions in my own mind about what I would have to see on the scene to indicate one type of scenario or another. I know what could be found to prove me right. I also know what would be found if they were right.

A Second Opinion

2005-07-29T12:28:00.000-04:00

I spoke to our local designated pilot examiner a few minutes ago. He's a highly experienced 767 captain, and has time in many more makes of aircraft than I do. I've been sending students to him for years. I went to him for a couple of my checkrides as a student, as much as 4 1/2 years ago. We have very similar opinions of the proper way to do things, and I've come to greatly respect his opinions when I have any issue.

After setting up Joe's private license checkride for a week from today, I explained about the crash. All the details. I was happy to get confirmation from him that my emergency decision-making process and not worrying about saving the plane, saved our lives. I sought his thoughts, because he knows much better than I do how to proceed through this kind of situation, and what to say and not say.

So I have a game plan. He was in agreement about my assessment of what I ought to do from here, and even suggested getting depositions from anyone else who is familiar with the nature of that type of plane, simply to back up our side of the story. If the FAA's current adjudication regarding the events persists, then we will go happily along with it. That will only benefit us. We can't be charged responsible, for inability to control the plane after a sudden mechanical failure, during an inherently critical phase of flight. It will also be better with respect to insurance companies.

So I've left another message with the investigator. I don't want to roll over and let them go without my input being respected.

I've really started thinking about the ways this whole thing could have been different. Same situation, but a different location, or different terrain. If the ground had been flat, with no hill or obstacle, could it have been fixed? I don't know. In any case, we might have rolled to a stop with no damage.

On the other side though, if I had tried to climb out, there is no way it could have happened. The climb angle needed was impossibly steep. Not by much, but enough that I recognized it immediately. If we had cleared the hill, we'd have hit a house, and caused large amounts of damage, not to mention risking other lives. We would almost assuredly have been killed in that scenario. Or if all that had happened at one of the mountaintop airports we had just visited, where the terrain went down very steep. Not a likely survival scenario, and also not likely that anyone would have found us at all. At least not for a day or two.

Regardless, what I chose was the lowest-speed possibility at the time. And I know I did what was necessary in that situation to ensure walking away from it. And now I have a respected opinion that agrees.

The Grapevine

2005-07-29T10:26:00.000-04:00

Word of the crash has finally made it all around the airport here, and on to several other friends. One friend in Florida just called. Another friend, based here, told him. I hadn't talked to either of them since Tuesday, but word gets around the campfire pretty quickly at this airport. I suppose that is the case anywhere. Amazingly, the fourth-hand version of the story is remarkably similar to the original. Only a few minor details changed along the way.

My eyes are a little more swollen every day now. The bump I took on the left shin stays sore. Otherwise, it all feels ok. DC and I are looking to try to fly back down to that airport, for a couple reasons. I want to reinspect the scene, to see if I can decide what the difference is between our version and the FAA's. And we need to get the avionics out of the plane before the insurance company takes it. The avionics are worth about $40,000, and were not included in the insurance declarations. When it was insured, the plane didn't even have a radio. Just the necessary engine and flight instruments required by regulation. (14 CFR 91.205). So those are fair game, if I can convince the FAA investigator to let us remove them.

I've been trying to get back to flying here, ever since returning. Wednesday's flights had to be cancelled to let me get settled back. The weather would not have allowed it anyway. (A storm came through that produced 90-mph winds). Yesterday's flights had to be cancelled for weather. Today I was supposed to fly with the airport manager this morning, but fog prevented that. Still instrument conditions here, so the next two flights are looking to be rescheduled also.

Head Trauma, part three

2005-07-28T18:54:00.000-04:00

I'm sure the investigator knows how to do his job better than I do. I just wish I could be there to see it. I never looked to see if the pavement scrape was smooth, as you would expect from a high-speed scenario, or if it showed jagged lines, from slow scraping. I never looked at the tire carefully. I simply never gave any credence to a possibility beyond my recollection.

This conclusion is not bad, as far as the investigation is concerned. It means we suffered a sudden mechanical failure, causing loss of control. At least it is a cause they can clearly identify as something that could reasonably result in our crash. To an extent, that gets me slightly off the hook for failure to control it.

I suppose there isn't much to do, other than accept that memory is an unreliable witness. Even seconds after the fact. One thing bothers me more than anything else though: If we had touched down, why did both of us believe we were five feet up and needing power to soften the landing? After my first two or three landings in that plane, I was always completely aware of our height above ground, and almost always got a feather-soft landing from it. Even once, 8 days before this, when we were returning from Tangier Island. I had to make a landing with gusty crosswinds, and a ten knot tailwind component. The people watching congratulated me after, on having such a smooth landing in those conditions. It had been a total non-issue.

The other part of the puzzle to me is this: I'm always conscious of keeping the nose up during the first few seconds of landing. DC had taken his training very well, and was never touching down flat on all three tires. I broke him of that. All the events, if they transpired as the investigator believes, require me to have misjudged a couple things, and react incorrectly. To react in ways that I never do.

So I don't know what to make of it. Did I react incorrectly there, opposing the brain and muscle memory of several thousand past landings? Or is my memory so far removed from the actual events that I simply can't process it?

I think I need more coffee.

Head Trauma, part two

2005-07-28T18:42:00.000-04:00

I've spent the last two hours in a haze, trying to process their findings. There was a scar on the runway, which I remembered looking at. I had thought it was from pulling the plane out. The tire tracks I saw showed me a truck pulling the plane out, but the plane not touching down immediately.

I don't claim to be an investigator, and the empirical part of me knows that I was not at the scene investigating it, merely taking it in. Sensory closure, maybe. Had I observed more closely at the time, maybe I could get my brain to agree with their findings.

Their conclusion is that we suffered a sudden tire failure on touchdown, causing loss of directional control. From what I recall of the scene, I can understand how they decided that. I can also logically grasp that in the middle of a sudden emergency, the brain can do weird things to you. And hey, I did hit my head rather hard. So that should be as good an excuse as any, for bad memory.

All these things, I can grasp. Except I can't force the aural, visual and tactile memories from my brain to concur. I've been trying. My memories tell a completely different story. They recount a smooth feeling; of gliding somewhat softly off to the right. No pavement transition. I remember thinking I had to get the plane on the ground before hitting the hill. Then, just the whisping sound and feel of tires going through medium-tall grass for a moment, before the wall of terrain coming to meet my face.

I have real trouble latching onto the idea of having touched down at all on the pavement. No matter how smooth it might be, you feel the vibration, and hear the hum. If the nose tire had blown, it would have vibrated much more. I'd never had a blown tire in a plane, but I know the feeling well enough from a car. In the throes of an emergency, the mind can block out the noise easily enough. But the nose gear was directly linked to the rudder pedals. They would have been vibrating significantly. I only remember a smooth, almost peaceful transition to the grass.

One of the few pieces of concrete evidence that would possibly agree with me, I can't be certain of without re-examining the plane: the tire itself. After the fact, I did glance at the tire, which was flat. But I specifically recall not seeing any shredding of the tire. From the vantage afforded to me, it appeared merely flat. The last time I suffered an automotive flat tire, it was completely shredded, even having damaged the quarter panel in the process. But the few photos I took with my cellphone camera are just not sharp enough to shed any light. I really wish they hadn't moved the plane before I got back to the scene.

Head Trauma, part one

2005-07-28T18:02:00.000-04:00

How do you manage to convince yourself of something completely different than what your brain tells you? That's the dilemma I've been wrestling with for the last two hours. Invariably, coffee helps.

Today, the FAA inspector went to the crash site to start investigating. I should back up though.

When I viewed the scene myself, I had a number of thoughts. I was partly just trying to piece together what happened, to solidify it in my brain. Always a tough thing to do when you've hit your head. The elaboration of events, as I wrote them, was exactly the way my brain processed it, and just an expansion of the narrative I filed with the FAA. I was having trouble deciding exactly where the plane touched down though.

At one point, I thought we had glided a couple seconds, and touched just before the rut. But I had a vague memory of the feeling of brushing through the grass for a moment before we flipped over. So I was fine with the decision that we had rolled for 100 feet or so first.

The FAA came to an entirely different conclusion though.

2005-07-28T13:28:00.000-04:00

Looks like flying is a no-go today. Joe showed up just 5 minutes after the rain started. We had planned to do ground instruction in prep for the checkride, which we hope is in the next week or so. But the rains are hard and steady, and not going away any time soon here. My 6pm flight is off too, most likely.

DC and I are now having to get back down to Tennessee. The $40,000 worth of avionics in the plane were installed after insurance declarations, so they are not included. That means we have to remove all of it before the insurance rep gets there. We figure it will be marked as a total loss on the airplane. When they do that, if the avionics are not removed we lose them, and the insurance company walks away with an easy way to recoup some of their losses. We are going to try to fly down there in the next few days with our mechanic.
We found out more detail about the situation with the DiamondStar's forced return home yesterday. We had thought perhaps there was an icing event. The pilot went back to the plane late yesterday and looked more carefully. What he found was partial remains of a bird. Just one wing. He doesn't recall hitting one, so it may have been done prior. At least we can be reassured that there isn't a problem with the plane itself. Good, because that's what I will be using to fly back down there.

I managed a few photos of the plane from my cellphone camera. I was just showing them to Joe. Interesting to look back at them. As soon as I can figure out how to get them off my phone, I'll post them.

2005-07-28T09:15:00.000-04:00

I got a chance to sleep in this morning, and that did wonders. I'm noticing some decent swelling around my nose and under both eyes. I feel as if I'm squinting a little bit with both eyes. Otherwise, nothing new, just bruises starting to get a little more defined, and scabs starting the healing process. I noticed yesterday that the entire swollen area on my forehead was numb. That's starting to get better.

Fell off a Tractor, part VI

2005-07-27T20:50:00.000-04:00

After returning to look at the airplane, I was impressed with how much blood I had left in it. All the blood that DC had on him was mine also. After inspecting the plane, we knew it would certainly be considered "substantial damage" by the regulations, so we would have to report it. It was late in the day by then though, so the guys at the airport took us to Walmart to let us buy some clothes, then to the motel nearby.

I don't often draw significant attention to myself, at least intentionally. But walking into Walmart absolutely covered in blood is a good way to do that. If I had only been carrying an axe, I could have created terror in the store, no doubt. We bought some clothes, filled my antibiotic prescription, and checked into the motel.

The plan at that point was for one of our pilot friends back home to bring a plane and pick us up. He called to say he was leaving. An hour later, he called to say he was back at the starting point. He had climbed to 8,000 feet through some thick haze, and started experiencing partial loss of power. He made it back safely, and they later determined it was likely due to intake icing. They say bad things come in threes, so we started getting nervous.

A little later in the morning, they picked us up, and we went back to the airport. I wanted to inspect the scene myself. It is an odd feeling looking at your own crash site. But I came away with a good impression. I still don't believe I could have done any better under the circumstances. Still, it is odd picking up pieces of plexiglass with your own blood on them.

Our next option for a ride home was to have one of the helpful locals fly us. We waited for the fog to clear, then climbed aboard his Piper Arrow for the thankfully uneventful 2-hour flight home. Back at my home airport, I stayed largely out of sight, so I wouldn't be bothered by people asking about my new Frankenstein look. After getting our pilot on his way home, we sat down to hunt for the right phone numbers to call, and got started on the reporting process.

I've read many NTSB accident reports, and I know how they end up. You could argue for either one of us being the pilot in command. We were simply out on a pleasure flight, not an instructional one. However, since I had been instructing him previously and recently, and I was sitting in front of the controls, I will most likely take the heat for it. I don't really mind. DC wanted to take the blame; he was doing all of the flying. But I'm an experienced instructor, and he is a low-time private pilot. So I bet it will officially fall on me.

I faxed my narrative of the accident to the Nashville Flight Standards District Office, and the investigator will be inspecting the plane tomorrow. So we just wait and see. I believe that 40 degrees of flaps created an aerodynamic interference with the controls. Maybe the flaps were rigged slightly wrong in the first place. Eventually, I think that will be found to be the case. But I also think they will officially chalk it up to pilot failure to maintain control.

I am confident the plane is going to be totaled. There is just enough damage all over, that it would be a huge effort to repair, and likely not worth it. DC doesn't really mind. He can afford it, and he was never really comfortable in that plane from the start. He never found the confidence that usually comes from experience. So we will be flying in the next few days, back in the cockpit of the Diamond Eclipse, to see if he can still handle it. I think he will do fine.

Now, we get to sit and wait for the FAA to decide whether to pursue anything. We get to explain what happened to everybody at the airport. And we can reflect on the whole situation, thankful nothing worse happened. I won't get much of a break though. I cancelled today's flights, but I get right back into it tomorrow.

Fell off a Tractor in Tennessee, part V

2005-07-27T19:15:00.000-04:00

Riding to the hospital, I occupied myself with trying to avoid spilling too much blood in the truck. I wasn't feeling dizzy, but I was starting to notice a sense of dehydration. We had to ride for ten minutes or so, which became 15 from an inability to find the hospital. My driver had to stop at a jail to ask a sherriffs officer how to get there.

Arriving at a hospital, you might wonder how long it will take to get help. I did. But being soaked in blood which is gushing from your forehead is a great way to get noticed. They took me into a room, started asking the standard questions, and began to try cleaning up the blood. By now, my shirt and jeans were covered, both arms covered, and my hair was starting to sit straight up from all the blood coagulating in it.

One of the guys who was helping us, suggested waiting on reporting the accident. The regulations regarding those reports can be confusing at first glance. If the accident had involved serious injuries or "substantial damage" to the plane, then imediate notification was required. Injuries were minor, and the plane had appeared generally intact, so we didn't worry about it for the moment. We had more pressing issues anyway. As I sat, getting cleaned up, DC and our driver sat in the waiting room, and fielded questions concerning the cause of the accident. They were concerned that the FAA would get called too quickly- and possibly unnecessarily- so when asked the cause, they said I fell off a tractor.

Meanwhile, I was thinking that while a needless call to the FAA might be a pain, the doctors ought to know the deal, in order to properly look for other injuries I might not have recognized immediately. So I told them the truth. Well, I was prevaricating a bit, perhaps. I said I put my face through a window. They asked how. I said it was an airplane window. Again, they wanted more detail. You just can't please some people. I finally told them, that kind of thing can happen sometimes, when you crash an airplane. That seemed to be enough information for them at the moment.

The doctor came in after a few minutes, and we talked while the nurse was preparing all the fun stuff. (Hypodermic needles and stitches, and various implements of the trade) . Turned out, he was also a pilot. We discussed aviation for a few minutes, and before long, they were ready to sew me up. I took ten stitches in the forehead. Other than that, everything was really minor. Plenty of other small cuts all over my scalp, a gash on the bridge of my nose, a small chunk of flesh missing from below my left knee where a decent bruise was forming, a sore right ankle, and a nice welt and some cuts on my left arm.

From the nature of the cause of my injuries, they decided it would be best to do a CT scan on my head and x-ray my knee. Nothing turned up though. I figured as much, but you have to check.