Retro-posting STILL on hold for a bit

After an initial burst of enthusiasm , I've slowed down in moving my notes from Word to this blog. I have notes on many lessons and solo flights between first solo in late July 2000 and passing the check ride in May 2001. To be continued...

UPDATE: Apparently to be very slowly continued. My apologies to the handful of people who noticed this blog and commented or asked questions back in November or December 2006. I've been busy with other things and haven't even looked at this blog for a few months! If you still have a question or anything, please email me (bruceirvingmusic at pobox.com).

One general comment: If you're thinking about taking flying lessons, DO IT.

In the meantime, it's a snowy Saint Patrick's Day, and I was thinking about flying for some reason. I do miss flying and I hope I'll be able to get back to it this summer. Today I've added a few of my post-solo flight notes, from August to early September 2000, including my first (dual) cross country flight.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Now it's a rather nice day in May 2008 in Brussels where I am teaching a class this week. I added a post on my May 2001 check ride and may try to fill in a few more lesson notes in the weeks to come. The mostly regular writing is all in Music of the Spheres.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Now it's a rainy night in Tokyo in November 2009 and for some reason I decided to add a couple of posts to this sadly neglected historical blog. I added posts on a couple of interesting lessons in fall 2000 (and one non-lesson that would have been cool if it had happened, a P-51 flight).  It's also sad that I'm not flying any more these days (except for many hours on international commercial flights), but that's life. Maybe someday

Progress and Plan

I've started to enter my personal flight lesson journals as I discussed on October 20, and will enter more as I have time. I'm going more or less chronologically and have so far entered the few introductory flights and lessons I took in "phase 1" (1997-1998) and the few more lessons I took in 1999 when I started to make some progress in landings before other priorities (such as a new house) took over my time and budget (phase 2). Phase 3 started in June 2000 and ended in May 2001 when I passed my private pilot check ride.

I've also decided that since this is something of a flying blog, I will also eventually add some notes about flight sims (which I used quite a bit as a supplement to my lessons, VOR practice, cross country flight rehearsal, etc.) and maybe even some incidental materials on studying for the written test, buying and using equipment, interesting flight experiences, and perhaps a couple of posts on air shows.

So stay tuned... I know I will (probably).

• Phase 1 (1997-1998) - Done (intro flights and lessons 1-6)
• Phase 2 (1999) - Done (lessons 7-14 with Kern Buck)
• Phase 3 (2000-2001) - In work (lessons mostly at Worcester up to check ride)

So what's up with this?

On the off chance that someone other than me is reading this...

I took flight lessons (mostly in Massachusetts, a few in Los Angeles and Germany) on and off from 1997 to 2001 when I finally got my private pilot's license. During that time I kept detailed notes on my flight lessons and studies, in part to help me better understand and retain what I learned, and in part because I was interested in the learning process itself. I was forty-something, and although I had spent some time flying Piper Cubs as a teen in Civil Air Patrol, and had played with a lot of flight simulators in the mid-nineties, I had no recent experience flying airplanes, and I suspected from my flight sim experience that I was not going to be a "natural pilot." But I had wanted to be a pilot since I was nine years old and I wanted the challenge.

I have not flown very much since getting my license in 2001, sad to say. Life got in the way (business travel, kids, layoffs, the usual things). I keep thinking I will get back into it, and have tried several times, but something always comes up (and New England weather doesn't help much). These days I'm again playing with sims, mostly with Orbiter, a free space flight simulator that I often write about in my original blog Music of the Spheres. I'm hoping that putting this journal on line (gradually, with minor edits) will inspire me to really get back into real flying. We shall see.

I plan to apply my original flight journal dates to these posts, so they will start in 1997 - hence the title "Flight School Retrojournal." It's mostly for me, but if you're a student pilot or flight sim fan and you get some inspiration ("hey, at least I never did that") or tips from it, cool. Some of these notes have been on line for years in a somewhat different form at MiGMan's Flight Sim Museum (where for reasons that are hard to explain I go by the name "Chino"). My friend MiGMan's site is really cool if you are into flight sims or aviation history - check it out.

D-Day: Check Ride!

Today's the big day, my check ride down at North Central Airport in Lincoln, RI (SFZ). I got up around 0520 after a very restless night. I got to the Worcester airport (ORH) a little after 7 and waited for Mario (stopped for coffee). Checked the fuel in N4669L – it had flown 0.6 hours after me so Mario called for a top-off which took a long time. Preflight was good. Mario also checked my flight planning and scared the crap out of me when he told me that I had screwed up in planning a VOR-to-VOR flight, it was supposed to be direct, and he had told me this based on his talk with Ray! Oops. I figured I would fess up with Ray and offer to re-do it on the spot. This stuff delayed my takeoff, and by the time I landed on 33 at SFZ (OK, bit low in pattern), it was just about 0900 – no time for more practice landings.

I secured the plane (including chocks), grabbed all the stuff, and went in the FBO to meet Ray Collins. He’s a 50-something guy, gray hair, very airline-pilot-like (he flies MD-80’s for Continental). Serious but not stern or scary, nice guy. He had some standard “jokes” which were not all that funny (not jokes as much as “patter” I guess – putting me at ease?). He described the plan for the test, looked over my paperwork (no comment on my 98% written), and began the oral drill. He said he gives a very straightforward private exam, no silly stuff like leaving his seatbelt off and busting you if you don't notice. He had a few regulation things, what can you do as a private pilot (pro rata share, not for hire, etc.), and how high must you fly over congested areas (1000 feet above any obstacle within 2000 feet). He asked a bunch of chart questions (what’s this symbol, tell me what this symbol tells you about Keene airport, etc.). Some right-of-way diagrams, along with runway/taxiway diagrams for some incursion questions – landing here, departing here, ATIS says this, ground says “taxi to 24,” can you cross 15? Tricky, it is active despite ground instructions, so you can’t cross it – I was concerned but not perfect on the response (he said it would be a bad clearance but could happen if controller were rushed). He liked the questions to teach lessons, not just test you. Some airplane system questions. Overall, pretty easy, and he said I had no really weak areas – “OK, let’s fly.”

Oh yeah, somewhere in there he reviewed my cross-country planning and weight and balance calcs. He said he did NOT prohibit VOR/airway navigation – even GPS would be legal if it were in the panel. But he reserves the right to say that the VOR or GPS has failed in flight, so navigate without it. So my stuff was fine – VOR-based but with plenty of visual checkpoints.

He watched the preflight, more or less, then asked me a couple of questions like “what’s this?” (fuel vent) and “show me the static port.” There was one thing he asked that I didn’t know – “me either” (ha ha), but he did, it was an air vent for the avionics (behind the panel). We squeezed into the plane and I followed checklists to start the engine, get ASOS info, and taxi out to runway 05 (telling North Central traffic each major move – winds were shifting so it could have been 05 or 33). I was careful to stop short of 33 and look for traffic before crossing, and after my run-up, I spun the airplane around to visually check all parts of any patterns for the two (really four) legal runways.

Ray said “short field takeoff, pattern, soft field landing.” My wind correction was poor on both of these things – I did not hold the centerline very well, plus there were those damn sky divers floating down on the airport. Second climb-out was better but I was not accurate on holding 1440 MSL in the pattern – I was high and low by at least 100 feet. “Regular landing. Good cross wind procedure” was better, not mint, but OK (I blame it on the shifting, gusty winds – he later said I was tense on landings and advised me to “walk the rudder” back and forth on my next few landings to loosen up my feet). Then I was off to Lebanon, NH – I started my timer for the first leg (only 4 minutes away by my plan, plus 6 minutes allowed to depart the pattern, climb, and get on course). I think I made that one within one minute. I had also tuned and ID’d GDM (Gardner VOR) and intercepted the 341 degree radial I had planned. I spotted and pointed out #2 ahead (Whitinsville), and he broke it off. “Take me to Boston VOR,” and he gave me the frequency. I centered the needle with “TO” and turned to the indicated course. OK, he says "my airplane, put on foggles!" (actually it took me a few minutes to get stabilized at the altitude and heading he wanted before this, due to the bumpy air and perhaps some PIO since I was no doubt pretty tense). It looked like Ray was in a hurry to get back.

I was thankful for the 0.7 hours of IR practice with Mario the day before. It was bumpy and I used up most of my 200 feet on the maneuvers, but I kept it in pretty good control overall (didn’t lose it like I had done with Mario). He gave me one unusual attitude recovery, a nose-low left turn, pretty mild – I saw black and pulled power, leveled the wings, and recovered quickly with little altitude loss. Then he had me do some slow flight (50 knots) including a mild turn – I was not accurate on the altitude holding. Then it was a power-off stall and I forget what else – maybe nothing. Back to SFZ (inbound checklist). I think he HAD gotten a radio call (Unicomm) about meeting someone, so I think he really was in a hurry to get back.

So what did I miss? A lot – no ground reference maneuvers, no steep turn, no simulated engine-out emergency, no power-on stall. I could have done all these things though my recent steep turns have not been things of beauty, and my ground reference session with Mario was only fair. Ray talked me through the 45 degree entry for runway 33 (not needed, but OK), and he reminded me that I was getting low in the pattern before final – not holding TPA, a bad thing. I did an OK landing on 33, catching some drift at the last minute (he even said “you just caught that one”). I used the first turnoff and reported “clear of active” to North Central traffic. Ray said, well, I’ll tell you now, you passed, you’re a private pilot (very matter-of-fact), but I do want to discuss a few things with you. HUH? IS THAT IT? Yup, I guess so! After 26 years of doing this, I guess he knows that you're anxious for the verdict!

The things he wanted to discuss were holding altitude in the pattern (a problem I have seen only at SFZ – not at ORH or the quite tiny Southbridge – “a likely story”) and my landings. He said I seemed very tense on landings and didn’t use the rudder aggressively enough to stop drift (true). He suggested walking the rudders my next few landings. He said you can certainly fly the airplane, but pay attention to these things. He also said “it WAS bumpy up there, but if you wait for perfectly smooth days you won’t fly much” – I was OK with the bumps except for the worry that they would bust me on limits (but he cut me slack on this apparently).

Then in the FBO, I was shocked to see my brother Glen! He had been there the whole time (not in Pittsburgh as I thought) with digital camera in-hand. Cool to have those check-ride-day pictures. Ray completed the paperwork, I wrote him a $200 check, and he wrote me a temporary airmen’s certificate. He also gave me the customary congrats and hand shake. Glen says Ray rushed out while I was in the men’s room after the paperwork.

I hung out with Glen and busted his chops over his weight – not to be cruel, but for W&B for a possible “first victim” ride. But at 240 pounds, I still had too much fuel on board to be under max gross with Glen – sorry Bro, sometime soon in the Piper Warrior! Gotta call up Bernie and schedule a couple of lessons and really focus on getting the procedures and landings down cold for that plane so I can solo it soon. That's the next phase – after that, who knows? Maybe the instrument rating in a year or so?

Final numbers for the private include 88.1 total hours, of which 63.5 were dual, 24.6 solo (does not include 2.2 PIC hours for the check ride and ORH-SFZ flights). If I estimate the cost as $80/hour dual and $55/hour solo, this adds up to about $6500 for the private training (not including supplies, books, etc. which probably added another $1000 or so, not counting Betty's contribution for my transceiver and vitally important leather flight jacket!). I think I heard that the average for total hours for private is something like 70, so if you consider that my first three years were basically false starts (18 hours total time before June 2000), I'm right on the average (about 70 hours total June 2000 to May 2001).

Big Gap in the Fossil Record!

By way of explanation for the big gap in retro-posting from September 2000 to May 2001: too busy with other stuff and lost interest in this project. Then I got an email from a Central Massachusetts guy who is thinking about flight lessons. He found this blog and asked me about flight instructors and stuff. I sent him an email and promptly got all nostalgic about flying. Since I'm in Brussels on business and not likely to resume flying any time soon, I dug out my flight notes and decided to skip a lot of steps and post my check ride story.

The picture here is from 1/29/01 when I took a solo flight from ORH over to Westborough to have a look at my office building area and snap a few quick pix. Flying sure is fun. So is music. So is studying Japanese. Why don't I do any of those things these days? I guess I'm doing this instead. And my regular blog, Music of the Spheres.

I should at least fill in a few gaps here, just in case someone else finds it. If you do: ignore this crap and KEEP FLYING.

Mooney Zooming (in Germany)

This was an unusual lesson flown in a Mooney M231, Augsburg, Germany, with 1.0 hrs dual.

This worked out really nicely.  Friedrich Karl is a CFII/ATP pilot with 6000 hours fixed wing and 600 hours in helicopters.  He holds these ratings both in Germany and in the USA.  I contacted him through Julius Muschaweck, ORA’s new LightTools rep in Munich.  Mr. Karl first suggested moving thr flight to Saturday morning but had to fly to Frankfurt on business that morning, so it went back to Sunday afternoon.  The other change was that the C172 was down for service, so we flew a Mooney M231 instead – very cool!  The Mooney is a complex single – it has retractable gear, a 200 HP ingine, variable pitch prop, and even an auto-pilot!  So it was quite different from the C152 I normally fly, but I did OK and really liked it. 

The first strange thing (apart from the fact of flying in Germany at all) was that ATIS and ATC were essentially all in English!  Although I heard some German on the radio, it was mostly English.  I still had the CFI handle the comms since I had more than enough new things for one flight (airplane, airport, airspace, terrain, CFI all new for me!).  We also had no headsets so we used the speaker and hand mike for comms.  Preflight was fairly informal, and I handled taxi and run-up with some guidance from Fritz (let’s just call him Fritz here).  We had to wait for a lot of landing traffic before taxi into position and hold on runway 25.  Takeoff was OK (rotate at about 65 knots), though the control forces were more than I expected and it took me a few minutes to get used to the electric trim on the yoke, so I was really pulling hard on the yoke to try to get the nose up to a climb attitude for about 80 knots climb.

We then turned right to a northern heading, climbing to around 3000 feet and steering around a TV tower with airspace restrictions (I got to keep the 1997 sectional that we flew with), then looping around the airport to head south toward the Alps and the Ammarsee, a large lake close to Starnberg (where J and I later had a customer meeting).  Once out of restricted airspace for Munich and a couple of smaller airports (Dornier’s airport for new aircraft, plus a Luftwaffe base), I did a few maneuvers, mainly steep turns and a bit of slow flight.  I also had Fritz take the airplane a bit several times while I took some photos of the Alps, lakes, airports, towns, etc. (not sure on this – a bit of haze.  All the while he was entering GOTO points in the GPS (Garmin 100 I think) and setting the heading bug on the DG for me to steer too – not much navigation practice for me! 

Finally we headed back to EDMA and for this, Fritz gave me vectors to steer and had me follow steering cues and DME information until we intercepted the ILS glide slope.  Then I steered (small corrections!) to line up the glide slope and CDI indicators on the attitude indicator, looking outside very little (but no foggles).  Lined up with the runway, I did a simulated instrument approach and landing, which he logged as 0.3 hours of simulated instrument time – cool!  The flare was quite different and final approach speed was about 75 knots, bit of a hot landing, and my lineup with the centerline was only fair.  By mid flight and approach I had finally gotten the feel for the electric trim (I like it!) and was holding altitude pretty well.  Turn off and taxi to fuel pit for the next renter (with very few instrument rated pilots in Germany, a good weather weekend in November has every pilot at the airport). 

I liked the Mooney and the fact that it could cruise at 140 or 16o knots or more, but it really felt like driving a Cadillac or something, with similar good and bad points – nice to have the power and the bells and whistles, but it felt like I was isolated from the controls somehow, like power steering or something.  I could get used to this, but since I don’t anticipate a lot of long cross country or business travel trips, a slower airplane doesn’t seem so bad to me.  But who knows in the future?  I’m glad I got a chance to try a Mooney, and he only charged me the Cessna rate, so it was $150 for the whole flight ($30 for CFI, $110 for plane, $10 landing fee).

The cool thing is that Fritz might be able to help me finish my PPSEL – he flies several months a year in Texas and Oklahoma, next in February or March, and I could perhaps go there for a week or so and finish the license if I don’t get the time to do it before then with Mario at ORH.  This could require greater than a C152 – Fritz is a pretty big guy, and I’m sure we would be cramped and over gross weight in a C152!  We shall see [note from 2009: I did some planning for this, but it never worked out and I finished my lessons in New England, with a few done in Los Angeles, mainly some night lessons].

Peaceful Easy Feeling (Solo Practice)

I looked at the weather and decided I better fly sooner rather than later – took off at 1 pm and went to ORH for my first solo out of the pattern.  It was great!  I really enjoyed being up there on my own, and though I did try a few steep turns and a bit of slow flight, I mostly just flew around, looked at the scenery, and then flew back home.  This was my first taste of the “freedom of flight” and it was quite nice!  Flying solo in the pattern is work, as is flying with Mario – enjoyable work sometimes, useful work, but work nonetheless.  This solo was really fun!

I checked the ORH ATIS and also called the ASOS at Orange airport to get a reading on the Quabbin area where I planned to fly.  It was sky clear, visibility 10 miles, light winds.  Real VFR, though when I finally got up there, it was actually quite hazy (but certainly 10 SM or more).  Getting up there took a little work.  First I had to have the tanks topped off in 69L, and discuss the solo endorsement issue with Mario (turns out he didn’t change anything except the wind allowances on the previous solo endorsement, even though it specified traffic pattern!).  Then I pre-flighted the plane, got in, started it up, and as I went to change frequency for ATIS, the fractional frequency knob fell off!  So I had to shut down and ask Jim if he could fix it (he had been fixing it on Tuesday!).  But there’s a lesson here:

•    Carry some tools!  Something that could be used to turn a metal dial shaft if the knob came off in flight!  And get a flashlight back in there too.

Actually I had a small screwdriver tool with variable heads that I bought in a dollar store recently.  I found that one of the socket attachments would rotate the radio knob with some effort.  GET SOME SMALL PLIARS FOR THE FLIGHT BAG.  Now I see why flight bags get so heavy after a while!  This was quite an eye-opener for me, the idea that I could be in a no-radio situation due to something as stupid as a plastic knob!

Jim fixed the knob and I was off, right at about the same time Mario taxied out in 661 for its first flight test with the new engine (he got permission for a special request to orbit over the airport at 3000 feet for 30-45 minutes to break in the engine within glide range of ORH).  I requested a straight-out departure to the west, took off, spotted Spencer Airport off the right nose at 2500 feet (as usual).  I was more aware than usual of the need to look for emergency landing spots and to know what to do (the ABCDE thing) in case I lost my engine.  I got up to around 3500 feet and headed for the Quabbin, keeping a careful eye out for traffic, but once I got to level cruise, I also got out the GPS.  It was not tracking (it had been on inside my flight bag), so I finally cycled the power and punched in a GOTO for ORH, giving me a continuous readout of distance and bearing to the airport, though I didn’t really follow this (I did check the heading indicator against it – I mainly wanted to see that it worked on a flight away from the airport, and it did fine).

I got to the NE Quabbin area and did some clearing turns, followed by some steep turns, maybe 3 in each direction.  A couple were pretty good, the others gained or lost more than 100 feet.  Practice!  That’s the name of the game.  I also did a little slow flight, though I was careful not to stall – not that I can’t recover, but on the off-chance of a spin… well, let’s not go there!  I will practice stalls on future solo flights, and I will also do a little touring around to approach the airport from different directions.  This time I just looked at the chart and where I was w/r/t the Quabbin, estimating a course of 135 deg. back to ORH.  When I got part way there, I tuned in ATIS and got “kilo.”  When I had ORH in sight, I realized it was less than an hour, so I did a couple of 360 deg. turns just west of Spencer, then realized this may have been in ORH’s Class D already (4 NM radius), so maybe I shouldn’t have been doing maneuvers there (this was not a steep turn, maybe 30 deg.).  So I cruised over to Spencer (town) and made my call, “Worcester Tower, Cessna 4669L, over the town of Spencer, inbound for landing with information kilo.”  Tower told me to report left downwind entry.  I entered the downwind at 45 deg. as I have done several times, descending from 3000 feet to 2000 feet (TPA) along the way.  The pattern was good (OK, I got a bit slow on turn to base, DUH), but the flare was a bit late and I bounced pretty hard, but kept the nose up and kept good control.  Taxied back to Amity and secured the airplane – done!  Very cool to take an airplane out by myself like that!

Note: the picture here shows the town of Spencer but not on this day - this was fall 2004 when I was doing some Piper Cub lessons. More on that some other day!

Good Lesson!

Finally some good weather and a good lesson!  I took the morning off for this, and yesterday’s wonderful weather thankfully continued into today.  There was a little snag when I started preflighting 69L before Mario arrived – the mechanic (Jim) was fixing a knob on the radio and putting a placard on the pilot’s door, “no push” – need to open window and unlatch from the outside!  No biggy, but when I opened the door, I felt something drip on my head.  It was fuel from the wing tank, right near the drainage port.  I called Jim back to check it, and he said it was a real leak, and we couldn’t fly 69L!  The good news: since it was a weekday, 261 was available (and 661 is finally back on line with its new engine).  So we flew 261, even though it made a horrible grinding noise when the flaps were lowered to 30 degrees (we decided to fly and not use more than 20 degrees of flaps).

Takeoff and climbout were uneventful – I held the centerline quite well.  I decided to go out to the practice area and do some steep turns and other maneuvers visually, for review, then do some more under the foggles.  This worked out pretty well, though I lost over 100 feet on 2 of 3 steep turns.  Need to practice!  But now I can practice on my own, since Mario says I can solo to the practice area, in part because I did well today.  He did hear some “hangar talk” about my little ATC problem on the last solo lesson, but it was distorted – Bill told him that I said I had the traffic (on base) in sight, then flew right past them – this was not the case.  I told the tower 2 or 3 times that I had the landing traffic in sight and was looking for the turning traffic, understanding I was #3 for landing, but I never saw #2 – they ended up doing a 360 and letting me land ahead of them.  I think the tower should have handled the spacing better in this case, or I could have asked to do a right 360 myself for spacing.  I was maybe a little fast on downwind, but I didn’t do anything wrong.  Today we had close following traffic again, reporting mid-field left downwind at about the same time as me!  It was a Cessna 310 twin, very fast.  He must have slowed down or extended his downwind after I turned base – he landed after us.

Anyway, the maneuvers went pretty well, though my altitude control on the steep turns was mediocre, and I did much more than 90 degrees on my clearing turns.  I did much better under the foggles this time, keeping up a reasonable scan and not letting anything get too out of whack.  A couple of my climbing turns to headings were dead-nuts – this is where you climb 500 feet while turning to a specified heading, wanting to arrive at the heading and altitude simultaneously.  I ended up with 0.4 hours of IFR this time, and felt pretty good about it, though at the end I did start to have this mismatch between the attitude indicator showing a slight bank and my brain saying nope, this is level!  Have to remember that in case of engine failure above clouds, the non-vacuum turn and bank indicator is my friend, NOT that attitude indicator, which will tumble when you lose vacuum!  Partial panel!  Yikes!

Speaking of loss of power, Mario pulled this on me near the Quabbin, and I did very well, establishing best glide, picking out a nice farmer’s field, judging the wind, entering base, and turning for line-up and doing a forward slip to kill some altitude.  Only thing I forgot was my ABCDE emergency procedures list – airspeed, best place to land, checklist (for possible restart or errors), D I forget now (DISTRESS!), and E for exit preparations (turn off fuel and mags, but leave master switch on until flaps are out, and also unlatch doors).  I did this OK, and I also navigated back to ORH pretty well.

All in all, a nice lesson, with nice weather to boot!  Mario got laser eye surgery so he is now 20/15 uncorrected – cool!  $4000 for that!

No-Fly for P-51 at Chino!

This is a "supplemental" post about two non-lesson flights that didn't happen, alas. In 2000, I was a member of the Chino Air Museum ("Planes of Fame") in the Los Angeles area, mainly so I could qualify for some war bird flights (you still had to pay, but members got some priority or something - hard to remember as I write this in fall 2009). I was in LA on business, added some weekend time for flying as I sometimes did even for lessons, and booked demo flights in both an AT-6 and a P-51 Mustang! I was psyched! But unfortunately even Southern California can have crappy weather ...

This week I've been in Los Angeles on business, and we've had some of the ugliest non-winter weather I’ve ever seen in LA — I went to Chino and hung around for 4 hours (looking at airplanes, not so bad), but my P-51 and AT-6 flights were canceled because it never got beyond about 2000 foot ceiling and 4 miles visibility.  You don’t want to zoom around at 300 mph if you can’t see better than that.  Bummer!  At least I got to sit in the cockpits for some photos and talk to some of the pilots at Fighter Rebuilders.  These lucky guys fly these war birds all the time, and work on restoring them the rest of the time.  John Hinton was going to be my P-51 pilot, and Matt Nightingale the AT-6 pilot (he’s been working at FR since he was 12!).

I looked over their German Me-109 which is in their shop — Steve Hinton (John’s brother), the head honcho, had the Me-109 in England for a Battle of Britain commemoration, and he lost one of his brake lines on a landing — he ground looped it to avoid running off the end of the runway, damaging the wings pretty badly, but he was not hurt.  It’s so cool the airplanes they have just sitting there, almost all flyable.  On the ramp today were the P-51D, TBM Avenger, P-47B (razorback version), B-25, AT-6, L-5 Sentinel, and Japanese Zero!  In the active hangar just behind the ramp there were two Hellcats, two Wildcats, a Corsair, a Skyraider, another P-51D, P-40, and some I forgot.  Just awesome.  They sent a number of aircraft to Hawaii recently to fly in a new Disney film about Pearl Harbor.  They were shrink-wrapped in plastic and put on a “garbage scow” for a slow two week cruise to Honolulu.  I think the film will be out soon (so this must have been last year).

Sitting in the planes was actually a lot of fun, and I got a few good photos of myself in the planes (and other plane photos too, of course).  The AT-6 has original instruments, while the P-51 has been upgraded to a more modern panel.  I had to be careful climbing in and out of the Mustang not to catch my foot on the landing gear lever—that would have been embarassing to collapse the gear on the ramp—I don’t think I can put a P-51 on my American Express!  So I went zero for five on flights this week—these rides and three C152 lessons I had scheduled at EMT with Bryon.  Oh well—I’ll be in LA again in the next few months.

Tonight I’ve been hanging around the hotel (packing for early UAL flight tomorrow) and feeling sort of overwhelmed about the near future – trying to keep everything in balance with family, work, travel, and flying.  If I don’t make flying a priority, it just won’t happen – weather and travel and kid-scheduling just wipe out most of the chances to fly.  Sometimes it feels like such a rat-race, but a lot of the time it’s fun, and I just have to remember how lucky I am to have all that I do have and to be able to fly at all.

Dual: First Cross-Country (ORH-PSF-ORH)

This was my first official dual cross-country (greater than 50 nm from home). It was a good one, with a lot of points to remember, so I better write it down while it’s still fresh in my mind. The cross-country planning went pretty well – I got all the airport info (just PSF and ORH, 64 nm, no third leg this time), estimated based on 90 knots airspeed, and did approximate calculations with zero winds. When I called 1-800-WXBRIEF and got the standard weather briefing with winds aloft, the 3000’ and 6000’ winds were both 6 knots, and the interpolated direction for 4500’ was 25° -- so not much wind and a gorgeous day all the way around (I actually called for a briefing at 8:30 am and was told ORH-PSF was “VFR not recommended” due to low ceilings and fog, so I briefly considered flying to Concord, NH instead – but when Mario arrived, I called again, and PSF was clear, so we stayed with plan A – I should have called the Pittsfield ASOS weather phone line directly – when I did later, it was clear).

The first big problem was that the plane wouldn’t start (it was N47261 – plan was for 661, but it was in the shop for a new engine). The battery was dead – someone had flown a night flight with the alternator light on, apparently (you should look for this and cycle the alternator half of the master switch in this plane). We spent half an hour trying to hand-prop the plane, and it finally turned over (with help from Bob Karman and another CFI, Bill – Mario hates hand-propping but he was the one who finally did it after maybe 20 tries). So we were off at 10:30 a.m. Next challenge was getting to runway 11 – only two taxiways were open (construction), so back-taxi on runway was required, slowing everything down. We back-taxied only part way (tower said expedite, traffic on base!), then turned around and did a short-field take off (stay on brakes, 10° flaps, full power, release brakes). We flew left base and departed downwind to the west (magnetic compass heading 297° according to my nav log). My timer and yoke mount worked well, as did the knee board with my nav log and sectional chart. Mario had his GPS mounted but I could not see the screen – he cheated a couple of times, confirming or correcting my assumed positions (though it was really pilotage, holding a heading, timing, and VOR for 90% of the flight).

Once clear of ORH air space, climbing up to 4500’ cruise altitude (west-bound, even thousands plus 500) we called Bridgeport radio (122.2) to activate the flight plan I had filed on the phone (a first for me). Then we called up Bradley Approach (119.0) and requested flight following (yet another first for me – we were near Tanner-Hiller airport and reported this). Good thing I had recorded all those frequencies on my nav log! They gave us a squawk code and new frequency, which I wrote down and entered (only advantage of 261 is the dual-frequency radio, so you can queue up the next needed frequency). Flight following showed its value very soon, over the Quabbin Reservoir – they called out traffic at our altitude, crossing in front of us, 3 miles – we looked but Mario and I could not see the traffic (I missed my chance to say “no joy” on the radio!). Bradley said “if you don’t have a visual, suggest you expedite descent to 4000 feet” – Mario said “my airplane” and dived us down there pretty fast. We then looked up and saw a 172 passing left to right, just about where we had been, maybe ½ mile away. Close one! We had a good view of Westover ARB to our SW at this point.

I had easily spotted Spencer Airport and the Quabbin south dam, and my next check point was Amherst, Mass – but we also had to avoid Northampton airport, just 4 nm away, due to parachute activity (jumpers away at 8500 feet). I diverted a bit north of my planned track and flew right over the UMass campus – I spotted Becky’s dorm area and took a quick picture.

We had trouble spotting the airport, which is right at a bend in the (Connecticut?) river. I spotted what I thought was the airport, though it looked like a dirt strip (www.airnav.com says it’s asphalt, 14/32, 3500 x 50 feet, oh well).

On the outbound leg, I tended to gain altitude up to 4600 feet or so, but Mario reminded me that holding the planned 4500 and planned heading are especially important with flight following – you must report any altitude changes. Visibility was pretty good from 4500’ though there was a lot of low haze. Our next check point was Albert Airport, a small private strip in the Berkshires. I never saw it, but as a backup, I tuned in the Chester VOR and established that I was on the expected 022° radial. I also spotted a carrot-shaped lake with a dam at its S end about 10 nm SE of our position and noted this on the chart (distinctively shaped lakes or lakes with dams and radio towers seem to be the best landmarks).

Now we were only 17 nm from Pittsfield, and I spotted a large town just over a hill with a radio tower – the chart confirmed that this was Pittsfield, and I spotted the airport just to the SW of the town, but very faint. I think Bradley terminated our flight following at this point, and I tuned in the ASOS to get winds and altimeter setting for PSF. I then called up the CTAF (122.7) and gave our position, requesting the active runway. It was 26 with right traffic. As we got closer, we could see the reason for right traffic – two hefty mountains that would be right in the way of a left pattern for 26 and 32. I swung to the NW, passing over downtown Pittsfield and a high, wooded mountain ridge to enter the pattern on a 45° to the downwind (TPA 2200 feet). With reminders from Mario, I called my position on each leg to Pittsfield traffic (which was nil at that point). I lined up and made a rather long, sloppy touch-and-go, climbing up over the hills that seemed to pop up rather quickly off the west end of the runway. Climbed back to TPA, then turned right to take up my course.

At this point I tuned in and called Bridgeport Radio (Flight Service Stations are called “something Radio” in flight) to close my flight plan to Pittsfield. Two strange things – I got Burlington FSS, and there was a mix-up on whether I had filed out and back (I had not, though I thought I did when I told the weather briefer that I was coming right back, only a momentary stop at PSF – Burlington FSS closed my flight plan for me). So we flew back without a flight plan, but we contacted Bradley on the last-used frequency (good thing I wrote it down!) and resumed flight following.

I got the Bradley guy a little annoyed when I made several course changes over the next few minutes, trying again to swing a little north and avoid the parachuters around Northampton. He had to call me out several times to other planes because my course was changing. We also missed one or two calls for us – bad move – but we were busy and Mario was telling me stuff. We again flew over UMass and I tried to take another couple of pictures, but Mario got annoyed with this, because we also were trying (and failing) to spot an airplane that radar had told us was nearby (our 11 o’clock, climbing through 4500 – we were at 5500’ on the way home, as high as I have ever flown on my own).

Again I got my main checkpoints (Amherst, Quabbin dam) and we soon spotted ORH, a little patch of white just below the haze line to the east. We got Bradley’s OK to switch frequencies briefly to monitor ATIS, then we shortly asked to discontinue flight following so I could call up the tower. We requested a straight-in approach from around 10 miles out (since my return heading was 109 and runway 11 is 110), another first for me. We were told to report 3 mile final (Spencer airport is a good reference for this, it’s about 4 nm west of ORH). It was hard judging my descent from that far out, and I needed to keep my speed up because of following traffic. Tower said to land long (to avoid long taxi on runway) and turn left at taxiway Bravo, way down at the far end of 11, “no delay” due to following traffic (a 172 I think – the C152 is always the slowest thing in the pattern). I tend to land long anyway, so this was no problem!

All in all, a pretty good flight. I did most things right, kept track of my position, flew the airplane well (held 90 knots cruise and was right on 5500’ on the trip home). Now I’m ready for a three-leg cross-country next Sunday in Los Angeles (EMT-F70-CNO, El Monte, French Valley, Chino). Some things to keep in mind for future flights:
• For making minor course corrections when your hands are busy elsewhere (writing notes, tuning radio, etc.), the rudder pedals do a real nice job – smoother than yoke corrections! Of course you have to be trimmed well for this to work.
• It’s important to hold the planned course and altitude if you are on flight following – you want to be a predictable target.
• Call the local weather at the destination to get current conditions, don’t just rely on the weather briefer.
• If you want there-and-back flight plans, you have to tell the briefer this, it isn’t automatic, even if you tell them you are just doing a touch an go.
• Remember sunglasses, especially for the LA flight next weekend!

Time: 2.2 dual, 0.0 solo, TT TBD hrs, C152 at ORH