Cross-country flights that don’t.


by Berck

While I was dutifully studying for the private pilot written exam, my telephone rang. D. wanted me to plan a cross-country flight to Shawnee (SNL), then Paul’s Valley (PVJ) and then back to OUN. “Get the weather, plan it, and we’ll fly it.” I downloaded a standard weather briefing for the route from Duats, skimmed the OKC TAF, and a few local METARs which indicated that it would be getting a bit more cloudy, but the ceiling would stay pretty high. Winds were around 20 knots and were supposed to stay that way. I jotted down the winds aloft forecast and went to go plot the course. It’s about 25NM to Shawnee, 45NM to Paul’s valley and almost 30NM back to OUN. I got out my trusty flight computer, which once belonged to my Dad. It says “Copyright 1957,” and it’s probably that old. Flying hasn’t changed much in 50 years, really. Most of the planes I fly were built in the early 70’s, and some even earlier. I plotted the course, got the true course, computed wind correction, magnetic variation and filled out a navigation log with all the checkpoints I’d be using along the way. Things like, “River bend to the North.” “The town of Tribbey.” “Some East-West powerlines.” These things all sound promising or look okay on on the chart, but it’s all much more difficult in real life.

A few days ago, (after my checkride but before my last solo) D. had me fly by pilotage (looking at stuff on the ground) to Chickasha which is about 20NM away. This was rather embarrassing. I was fairly certain I was going in the right direction, but it’s so hard to be sure. If you’re staring at a chart which has an unidentified road intersecting another road with a bend that just might be the same kind of bend that you’re looking at, it must be the one you think it is, right? The trouble is, it’s hard to know for sure. You can be certain that one road is another road, and not find out for a very long time. “Am I sure this is the right road?” “Well, there’s a town up here, on the left side of the road, and there’s a town on my map on the left side of the road…” But how do you know you’re not at a completely different road, which also has a town on the left. Everything in OK looks pretty boring. Lots of fields and roads on a grid. Judging distances is easy. Roads exist pretty much at every mile mark. Sometimes there are roads on the half mile mark. And fields are generally quartered at .25mi x .25mi.

I didn’t see the airport until I was nearly flying over it. We did some touch and go’s there. Landing at a different runway is nice for a change. Then we flew to Purcell. This was easier because a road goes between Chickisha and Purcell. I had some difficulty being sure I was at Purcell, but there’s a river and stuff. Then I flew the river back to Norman, and I was able to find it because it had gotten dark enough the beacons were on. Beacons are good. And traffic is so much easier to spot on a clear night than it is on a clear day.

I’m not completely lost even though I have a hard time with landmarks. I can tune up a VOR or a couple of NDB’s using the nav radios and come up with a fairly accurate idea of where I am. And there’s a nice strong NDB sitting at OUN, which makes it easy to know which direction it’s in. But… I’m supposed to be able to fly completely without reference to instruments… You know, in case I lose them. Or I’m flying a plane without them. (Uhh… Handheld GPS?) D. insists it gets easier. He said he flew his entire commercial cross country to Little Rock, AK and back using nothing but pilotage. Course, I-40 will take you there pretty easily. That’s a really long trek for a Cessna 152. 6.5 hours of flying round trip.

Anyway, I dutifully plotted out the course. I had all wind correction, headings, speeds and so on figured out. Then I looked outside and noticed that it looked like the weather gods had gotten bored and decided to stir things up… “But I checked the weather!” Then I realized that I hadn’t yet read the SIGMETs, or even the summary, or the severe weather warnings…. Rather than sifting through them, I simply pulled up the National Weather Service’s, Norman’s weather for dummies page. The local radar looked particularly nasty. Then I went and read the text weather more closely:

******** Convective SIGMET ********
MKCC WST 242155
CONVECTIVE SIGMET 53C
VALID UNTIL 2355Z
TX OK
FROM 60W OKC-10E CDS
DVLPG LINE SEV TS 20 NM WIDE MOV FROM 24020KT. TOPS ABV FL450.
HAIL TO 2.5 IN…WIND GUSTS TO 60KT POSS.
OUTLOOK VALID 242355-250355
FROM BRD-GRB-30SSE TTH-30NE
MSL-BUM-SJT-MAF-ICT-PUB-CHE-BFF-OBH-BRD
REF WW 273 275 276 278 279.
WST ISSUANCES EXPD. REFER TO MOST RECENT ACUS01 KWNS FROM STORM
PREDICTION CENTER FOR SYNOPSIS AND METEOROLOGICAL DETAILS.
DNB

Oh. right. As if that wasn’t good enough:

DISCUSSION…DEEP MIXING ALONG DRYLINE IS EXPECTED TO RESULT IN
ISOLATED SEVERE STORMS DURING THE NEXT FEW HOURS. STRONG DEEP LAYER
VERTICAL SHEAR PROFILES AND VERY UNSTABLE AIRMASS INDICATE A RISK OF
SUPERCELLS CAPABLE OF LARGE HAIL AND DAMAGING WINDS.
AVIATION…A FEW SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS WITH HAIL SURFACE AND ALOFT
TO 2.5 INCHES. EXTREME TURBULENCE AND SURFACE WIND GUSTS TO 60
KNOTS. A FEW CUMULONIMBI WITH MAXIMUM TOPS TO 500. MEAN STORM
MOTION VECTOR 25030.

Oh, dear. I felt rather silly for missing it before. But, the problem with text weather is that there are pages and pages and pages of it, most of which has nothing to do with me. And, if I’m leaving the pattern, I usually actually talk to a weather briefer anyway before I leave, so it’s not like I wouldn’t have noticed. Still bothered me.

I called D.. “So, uhh, have you looked outside?” I asked. “Yeah, we’re securing all the airplanes as best we can right now… I’ll put you in the schedule for tomorrow.”

So all that planning for nothing. Now I get to do it again tomorrow. Actually, the weather might well be crap tomorrow too.

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Solo II


by Berck

Jonah’s been feeling bad all day, and has spent most of the day in bed with a headache. My phone battery died and I didn’t notice until about 6pm. When I replaced it, there was a message from my instructor, which he’d left at 4:30, saying “There’s no wind! Call me!” I called him even though it was now much later, and he told me to meet him at the airport so we could practice my landings.

The wind had picked up to about 15knots, and it was still ridiculously hot even though it was evening. After doing the engine run up, I called ground and asked for a closed pattern departure. She told me to taxi to Runway 17. Runway 17 requires over a mile of taxiing. Which isn’t the end of the world, but is really sort of a waste of time. Especially when I’m 50 feet from runway 21. Winds were 180 at 1t 13. I asked for Runway 21 instead, and the she agreed, provided I was willing to do my pattern work on 17. Crosswind takeoffs don’t bother me too much, even though it’s not obvious how much wind correction to use. At least not to me, yet. Supposedly, if the plane is shuddering down the runway trying to stay straight it’s not enough, and it’s too much if the plane is listing into the wind. As soon as I get the wheels off the ground though, the planes rolls around, yaws into the wind and establishes a comfortable crab angle all on it’s own. Then I feel at home again, and try to climb smoothly while tracking the runway outbound.

My landings were better today. My biggest problem with crosswind landings seems to be that I’ve got a hard time judging whether or not the plane is pointed straight down the runway. I’ve discovered that if I force myself to look out and down the length of the runway, toward the end, it’s much easier for me to judge if I’m going to land straight or not. Part of the reason crosswind landings are so difficult is because instead of coordinated turns, opposite rudder and aileron are necessary. The plane doesn’t like this, and complains. This is necessary to make the plane fly straight with regard the runway, but sideways wirth regard to the relative wind. What generally happens is that I land sideways, which is bad, and could be very bad if I were to land very sideways. I’m getting better.

I concentrated on trying to make coordinated turns in the pattern. I’m starting to be able to feel it! Almost not so much feel it as see it. This is good. Rudder. It’s all about rudder. Sure, the plane will turn without it, but it’s all so much better if I can stay coordinated. It’s easier in some of these planes than others. The one I tend to fly more often than not never really needs left rudder. It just needs greater or lesser amounts of right rudder. I’m doing the best I can to teach myself to do it without looking at the ball. Do what I think is right, then glance at it to see if I am, indeed coordinated. I’m getting better, I just need more time.

After about 5 touch and go’s, Mike had me ask for a full stop on runway 21 for several reasons. A full stop so he could get out and I could fly solo again. Runway 21 so that I could try a landing with significant amounts of crosswind, and so I wouldn’t have to taxi the aforementioned mile to let him out. He told me to do five touch and go’s, to use runway 17, keep my approaches steep, don’t drag it in, and various other bits of advice.

I wasn’t at all nervous this time. I called tower, who told me to Taxi to runway 17. I did, held short, went through my checklist, and called for takeoff. I was the only person in the pattern, and in fact, the only plane on the radio call during my five landings. That was nice. I found that I’m a lot more relaxed without an instructor, since I know I’m not going to get pounced on for anything. I looked around a bit. Tried to enjoy flying in between doing all the things I had to do. My first landing was pretty good. My second one was pretty bad. I probably should have just gone around after getting high and slow, but I recovered just fine, and didn’t think about going around until I already had it all under control. The next 2 landings were okay. I ballooned up a bit on the the second to last landing, but the actual touch down was completely straight and smooth, even if I was using the left half of the runway. Hey, it’s 100 ft wide. I’m in a very small plane. My last landing was great. The stall horn just before both mains squeaked in at the same time, the nose wheel touching shortly thereafter.

After I parked, I turned off the avionics, pulled the throttle to idle and the mixture all the way out. The plane sputtered. And sputtered. And sputtered, but wouldn’t die. I didn’t want it to keep running lean, since I know that’s pretty bad for an engine, but I wasn’t sure what to do. I advanced the throttle and it sputtered faster. I pulled it back out, it sputtered more slowly. I pushed the mixture control back in, then back out. It still wouldn’t die. So I turned the mags off. I told D. what happened, and he told me I should have turned the fuel off, not the mags. Right. Of course. Ooops. I probably should have been able to figure that out, but no one had ever mentioned what I should do if pulling the mixture doesn’t kill the engine. And the fact that I’ve got a fuel selector valve never entered my head– probably because I never touch it. I look down to make sure it’s on “Both” a lot. That’s about it. There’s not much use for it in normal flight.

Oh well. Now I’ve got an hour of PIC time now. Yay.

Joanna seems to be doing better, but I doubt she’ll sleep tonight after spending the day in bed.

We rented Kill Bill yesterday, and watched it on her computer. It’s not a bad way to watch movies. A 19″ monitor is a little small, but we can sit up close, and it’s much higher resolution than a TV.

Berck

Posted in Flying, Nonclassified Nonsense | 1 Comment

Old E-Mail


by Berck

Excerpts from email written in 1995 or 1996 by Joanna.

Benjamin wanted to write a secret message in white icing between two
of the layers, so I made him make some cream cheese icing.

Someone just rapped at my window. I pulled back the
partially closed curtain to reveal Nathan peering at me from the other side
of the glass. This might not seem odd, except that my room is on the second
floor. “You gonna elope with someone tonight?” he asked. I pulled back the
curtain further. He was standing on a ladder leaning against the side of the
house.

I was talking to Paul on Thursday about my anxieties about the future, etc. After going through the different possibilities, I said. “And then maybe I’ll just meet this really great guy, get married, and become a wife and mother.” He lifted an eyebrow and replied, “It would take an incredibly wonderful guy… to put up with someone like you.”

I’d also like to take the opportunity to (maybe, if it’s possible) embarass Ben. Here’s what’s probably his first webpage.

In other news, our once blue house got painted “taupe” today. It’s just
kinda tan really. Looks okay.

Joanna adds commentary. “Every house that we’ve ever moved into has been yellow, and Dad has painted it blue. Until we moved into a house that was already blue, and he painted it taupe. And every kitchen we’ve ever had has been green, and he’s wall-papered it blue. Until we moved into a kitchen that was blue, and he wall-papered it green.”

Afterward, mom and I were the only ones left in the living room. She
said, “So tell me about Berck. There aren’t very many people you’d get
up before 8 on a Saturday morning after 3 hours of sleep the night before
to drive an hour and a half to go see.” I nodded as my sun burned face
turned even redder. I told her about walking 7 miles and debating about
DNA and stars. “Does he have a crush on you?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Ah. What do you do about it?”
“Tell him to forget it.”
“Be sure to deal with him gently but firmly.”
I nodded.

Posted in Bloggishness | No Comments

Check Ride


by Berck

I passed my “stage check” yesterday. I was a bit frustrated when we first started because the guy giving me the check got all upset at me over the fact that I didn’t have a syllabus with me. The problem is, no one bothered to mention that I was supposed to carry it. No where in the syllabus does it mention that I’m supposed to carry it.

He vaguely quizzed me over a few things during my preflight and during the flight. He had me take off, track the river, slow down to 50 knots, do some turns at 50 knots, resume cruise. He had me simulate an approach to landing stall. He didn’t like my stall entry, but no one ever told me that an approach to landing stall was supposed to be only just barely nose up. He demonstrated what he was looking for, and I did that instead. After that, a power-on stall. Then he pulled my engine, and had me prepare for an emergency landing.

I didn’t like any of the fields. They all had trees in them. “I don’t like any of these fields,” I said rather hopelessly. “Then pick the best of what you don’t like.”

So I did. It was crosswind, and not a very good field. It didn’t look like I was going to make it after awhile. I went through my engine-out checklist a couple of times, and pronounced that now I would give up and secure the plane for an emergency landing. I still wasn’t sure if I was going to make my field or not. I kept pitching for best glide speed and left the flaps up. Then as I got down to about 600ft it looked like I would make it. At a little less than 500 ft, he pronounced, “Very good, I think we’ll live… Go ahead and recover.”

My landings were pretty bad, and I misunderstood tower, thinking they told me to taxi on Charlie when in fact what they said was exit at charlie and contact ground. Since they’d never, ever, told me anything other than “taxi to park and monitor ground,” I was caught off guard. But it wasn’t a big deal. He told me that he was happy with my performance, and I was doing just fine for this stage.

D. called today to say he didn’t think flying would be much worth it since it was so windy. I deferred to his judgement, especially since bicycling in that much wind is miserable.

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Blog-Things


by Berck

Now that I have blogging software installed, I have this fiendish urge to make nothing but bloggish posts. That is: things that no one else could possibly want to read. These take a couple of forms.

One of them mimics the Seinfeldish comic routine wherein the comedian says, “Have you ever noticed…” then points out some inanity of daily life which in and of itself has no comic value. But the comedian is certain this his particular blabbering about this observation will be funny.

Bloggers do this, but rather than anything remotely comic, there’s just a strange vacuum.

For example, here is a bloggish post I thought about posting. But (un)fortunately for you I (almost) had the ability not to post:

Have you ever thought about chocolate syrup bottles? Is there some reason they have TWO caps? Is the first one not good enough? And if not, then why is the second one worthless? It seems as though this entire system exists solely to create muck on the inside of the second cap. Which is good, right, because you get the muck on the cap and not your hands when you close the bottle. But no, then you have to open the bottle again, and get your fingers mucky in the process. Maybe the outside cap should just be thrown away. Surely someone can invent a much better way to dispense chocolate syrup. A method that won’t leave my neurotic tendencies eagerly awaiting a new bottle just so it will be clean even when the old one is still half full.

See. You really were better off not reading that. And not because it was spectacularily horrific. But because it leaves you in this stupendous vacuum that sucks. And keeps sucking you back for more, for some strange reason.

There’s also the sort of endless meta-posts about writing and other posts and such. This, in fact is a meta-meta-post about posts about– oh forget it.

(e.g. I should note that I’ve been using the words spectacularly and stupendously with spectacular frequency lately. I’m not sure why. It needs to stop.)

In any case, I’m sorry. I’m not sure what’s come over me. It’s probably just a phase I’m going through and you won’t have to live with it much longer. It does, at least, encourage me to write. Which I need to do. Because I suck. And I must get better. (And you, dear reader, must cope in the meantime.)

Posted in Bloggishness | 1 Comment