Posts by Berck

Sideways Coffee


by Berck

Brief Movie update.

Sideways: I give it an A-. It’s astounding that there’s still an occasional movie nominated for an academy award that’s worth watching. (Or that there’s anything at Blockbuster worth watching for that matter.) It gets points for dissing Merlot. More points for being different yet watchable at the same time. I’m starting to rather appreciate Paul Giamatti. I spent most of the movie unable to figure out why Thomas Haden Church looked familiar, and then Joanna said, “Did you know that this guy was on Wings?” Right. The mechanic. Overall, I didn’t think it was extraordinary, but I did think it was good and enjoyable. My only serious complaint is that I still have no idea why it’s called Sideways.

Coffee and Cigarettes: B. This film consists of a series of disconnected scenes, filmed in black and white, where the only common thread is coffee and cigarettes. It even has Tom Waits! It’s funny, in a strange sort of way, hardly unpleasant, and is most definitely different. I think that Ben would probably enjoy it.

I Heart Huckabees: B+. Loved both by existential wannabes (who take it seriously), and those of us who’ve had enough of existential wannabes, and laugh at it. Genuinely funny.

The Matchmaker: B-/C+. The DVD was so badly scratched that we couldn’t watch the ending, but I doubt it contained any surprises. Set in Ireland, so subtitles help. Hardly a wonderful premise, but it was at least well executed.

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April’s almost gone.


by Berck

And I’m still not a commercial pilot. A bit of a setback– while I passed the oral part of my stage check, missing only a handful of questions, the flight portion didn’t go as well. Mostly because I only had 9 hours in this type of aircraft, and I’d never flown the specific aircraft.

The first part consisted of cross-country testing. I’d planned a cross country, flew it long enough to prove that I can calculate groundspeed and give a time to next checkpoint estimate. Then I’m told to head somewhere else. In this case, my examiner picked a grass strip. While I flew right to it, I couldn’t spot it. I told him that I should be right over it, but couldn’t for the life of me point it out. We were indeed right over it. It looked more like a driveway than a runway. He was happy enough with that, and we arrived over the point within one minute of my estimate.

Then came the maneuvers, which ranged from excellent to mediocre. My lazy eights and stalls were excellent. Steep turns and steep spirals were passing, though not beautiful. I had some trouble maintaining altitude on the entry to slow flight. I didn’t get slow enough on my Chandelles.

Mostly I just felt rusty and uncomfortable. My Eights on Pylons were crap, mostly because I picked points too close together. I also had trouble keeping the plane coordinated, the rudder pedals were all sloppy which just made it hard.

I performed an adequate soft field landing, only I forgot set the prop full forward before landing. After forgetting the same thing during my botched attempt at a short field landing (I turned final too early, wound up too high. Not really sure why…), he decided enough was enough and to head back to Norman.

I feel like I’d probably do fine now that I’ve gotten some flight time. But now I have to wait around for another flight lesson, then another stage check, then a check ride again.

It’s looking like end of July at best before I’m done with everything.

At least it’s not hot here yet. We still haven’t had to turn on the air conditioner. It looks like we’ll have made it through April without it just fine. High today was 72. High tomorrow is 54.

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Signed off for a Commercial Check Ride.


by Berck

I flew 2.0 hours yesterday. It was actually smooth out, and I managed to perform all of my maneuvers within the Practical Test Standards without any problem. I had forgotten how much easier it is to fly when things are nice and smooth.

At one point, D. had me doing slow flight. He had me slow the plane down to 40 knots, the specified MCA (Minimum Controllable Airspeed) at full flaps. The plane will actually fly a bit slower that. “Slow down to 35 knots.” I did, flirting with a stall the whole time. With enough power and pitched up, the plane will bobble along just on the edge of a stall. 35 knots is the lowest indicated airspeed on the instrument. “Slow down to the ‘S’ in knots.” This, I was reasonably certain, would result in a stall. I slowly pulled a little power, fighting the stall, working the rudder pedals to keep us going straight. As I did this, D. asked, “What is the deffinition of Minimum Controllable Airspeed?”

“An air speed at which any increase in angle of attack or reduction of power will result in a–” EEEEEEEEEEENT “…stall,” I said as the noise dropped rather violently. I added full power, simultaneously noticing that I must have been flying seriously uncoordinated right at the stall, because I was left wing low, and the nose was starting to wrap around in an incipient spin. A little more than I’d bargained for. I almost wished we were a little higher because I’ve still never been in a spin, and I wanted to see what it was like. But 3,000 feet is not a good place to be playing with spins. I stood on the right rudder pedal. Reluctantly, the nose stopped it’s downward and leftward motion. As I started to build some airspeed, I pulled the flaps in to 10 degrees and slowly transitioned to a climb. After the flaps came “Nice recovery,” D. said without any trace of aprehension. He’s gotten quite a bit more relaxed than he was a year ago.

We spent the last hour working on my landings. For some strange reason, the wind was all but dead. Considering it was at 30 knots the last time I flew, I had a hard time adjusting. Not that my landings were bad, just that it’s really hard to judge power off accuracy landings with NO wind. Furthermore, short field landings are much more difficult without a decent wind to help me out. Even though the landings weren’t great, he signed me off anyway. He figures the skills are there, and I should be able to perform on a check ride. Especially since it’s unlikely the wind will be completely calm again until June, and I’m not going to fly if it’s ridiculously windy.

I’ve got a Stage Check then an actual Check Ride, so I have to do it TWICE. If I fail the stage check, it’s no big deal. If I fail the check ride, that’s not so good. I get a dreaded “pink slip” which stays with me, saying I once failed a check ride…

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