'Nuff Said

One for Five

Damnit. I had 5 flights scheduled for this Memorial Day holiday. The one in the previous post is the only one I got in. Every other one was cancelled by weather. My last flight this weekend just got cancelled...

Pilot's Log : 31.3 - 32.3 Hours

Well, this was supposed to be a big week for flying. I had a total of 5 flights scheduled for the holiday weekend. However, some good rain moved in on Saturday morning, so both of those flights got cancelled.

However, this morning was clear over the airport. The original plan was to have me fly my first solo cross country. (cross country here is defined as landing at an airport at least 50 miles from where you begin)

But, of course, the place I was going to solo to had some weather. It was moving in steadily and I wouldn't have beat it. So, we changed the plans so I'd do my necessary 3 solo takeoffs and landings at a tower-controlled airport.

I've had a real fear of talking to towers. I don't know what to say and when to who. Depending on the size of the airport, I have to tune in up to 4 different frequencies and talk to 3 different people. Scared me to death. So last week, I bought some VFR communication training software. That really seemed to do the trick.

So, I wasn't too scared of this flight before takeoff. But during my first landing, a little crosswind gust came out of nowhere and I landed on 1 wheel and almost went off the runway. Scared the living crap out of me. It's been over 2.5 hours and I'm still on-edge.

Of course everything else went better than expected, and everyone has bad landings. No damage done. But, as I've read and almost experienced, it doesn't take much to scare a student pilot into quitting. Sometimes I get lulled into a false sense of security and forget that flying has a much smaller margin of tolerance than most of the rest of life.

Anyway, all is good. I'm just still freaking out a bit about that landing. I've got another flight at 3:00 and I know things will go better then.

Meanwhile, enjoy a couple more pictures. (larger versions plus another new flying picture is on Flickr)


Here's my mug right before takeoff.



Here's my airport from the air right before I entered the traffic pattern for landing.

Got Juice?

Well, I thought I'd share the joy of my every-8-week-juice-up.

Usually I get my infusions by myself in the room, but it's setup for 2 people so I get company one or twice a year. Today was one of those such days.



Poor guy. He's in his early 20's and hasn't been doing so well lately. He didn't have insurance for a while, so he had to go without his Remicade. That means he watched the Superbowl from his hospital bed.

Oh, and now I understand what an "overbearing mother" is. Wow. She was only in there with me for about 15 minutes before I wanted to punch her.

Pilot's Log : 30 - 31.3 Hours

It's been a couple of weeks since I've flown, so I'm a bit rusty.  No worries tho--good stuff today.  We just worked on my short- and soft-field takeoffs and landings.  That's just what it sounds like.  There are slightly different procedures for taking off and landing on short or soft runways.

On my first short-field landing, I had 3 or 4 different airplanes waiting to takeoff, so I had a bit of an audience and absolutely nailed it.  That was a good feeling.

BTW: I'm putting that new nifty little camera of mine to use and uploaded some pictures to Flickr.  Check them out and let me know what you think.

On my next solo, I'll take some pictures with the cockpit lit-up and up in the air.

BTW II: I added a couple more airports to my list of places I've landed.

Pilot's Log : Hours 26.8 - 30.0

Damn, still not much going on here. Changing CFI's, travel, conflicting schedules... I'm not getting as much done here as I want. My CFI wants me to take the written exam and I've barely started studying. That's probably what this next week will be dedicated to.

Well, this entry encompasses 3 flights: 2 solos and 1 more instruction.

The 2 solos were okay, but didn't feel "right". I think it was because I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be practicing. And on the last flight, I found a wasp in the cabin right before I took off. Good thing I did--I'd had to find him during flight...

The last instruction I had was fun, tho. We got to train on some fun stuff: simulated instrument failure and recovery from unusual attitudes. The first one is exactly what it sounds like. He put post-it notes on some of the instruments to simulate failure and taught me how to compensate with the others. Without an altitude indicator, I was able to fly and maneuver for about 5-10 minutes and only climbed ~200 feet. My CFI acted impressed.

The other training was even more fun. The idea is that you need to know how to recover the plane quickly from unusual attitudes. (i.e. get stuck upside-down in clouds and such)

He has me put on that hood that doesn't let me see outside the plane. Then I have to close my eyes. The CFI then twists, turns and flips the plane until my internal gyro doesn't know which way is up. Just then he says "the plane is yours" and within about 2 seconds I have to scan the instrument panel, figure out how the plane is oriented and start the procedure to correct to straight-and-level flight. Good times.

Seattle

Man, I miss travel.

Last week I got to go to Seattle. I can definately see why people want to live there. It was just a bit cool and sunny the entire week--perfect weather for folks like me who want to escape the Houston heat. Without exception, the people were very cool and relaxed.

From the moment I got out of the taxi at the hotel, I felt at-home. There were a lesbian couple crossing the street while holding hands. No uptight, holier-than-thou attitude like the south. Around here, people are nicer than anywhere else as long as you fit their definition of normal.

Anyway, since I was there for a Microsoft conference, I got to stay in a fairly swanky little hotel downtown. And yes, there were Starbucks everywhere. There were 3 within sight of the hotel lobby. (I'm serious)

And Microsoft knows how to throw a party. The last night we were there, they shut down the Experience Music Project. It's a really cool interactive music museum. They brought in a live band that rocked. (although the open bar might have skewed my idea of what good music is...)

And attached to the EMP was the Science Fiction Museum. The geek in me went nuts. I got to see a life-sized Alien queen. I saw the only complete model of the Death Star used in the movie. I saw the original handwritten version of a Neil Gaiman book. (sorry, don't remember which one)

There was stuff in there from "The Day the Earth Stood Still" to "Minority Report". And, refreshingly, they also had a lot of books in there as well. They didn't forget that sci-fi existed before movies and still exists on paper today.


Right next door was the Space Needle. One more US landmark down, several dozen to go. It was cool I guess, but regularly being twice that high in a little plane blunted the coolness. The scenery was much better than anything here in Texas, tho.

We even got to take a long lunch from the conference and walk down to the pier. We stopped by to see Pike Place Market. I'm sure you've heard of this place--it's where they throw the fish.

The crappiest thing about this trip is this: I didn't take a single picture. Not one. Yeah, I saw and did all the stuff above, but the pictures came from Flickr. This isn't the first time this has happened to me: I'm traveling and I don't want to carry the big camera with me because we are doing other things than sightseeing and I don't want to be that dork dragging a camera around.

So, as I'm learning, life is helped-along by having the right tools. Most everyone will say that's obvious, but sometimes the "right" part eludes me. To me, the right tool is a camera I don't mind taking everywhere.

So, I did a little research and bought a Nikon S50 yesterday. It's small enough that I can just slip it into my pocket. It's smaller and lighter than my phone, but it takes amazing pictures. And it's got a giant, 3" screen on the back that's beautiful.