..when a big bird takes off on a small runway. And, by ‘big,’ I mean 4000 radial-engine horsepower pulling fifteen tons of 1940’s airplane.
aviation
Strut shots: airplane equivalent of selfies
Milestone
I have a little story to tell. It starts just like one my regular summertime days here in fairbanks–I get up around 8, eat a bowl of cereal, brush my teeth, go to the coffee shop to get coffee (surprise, right?), read the comics and get the weather report for my flight lesson, which is usually at 10. The weather looked good. I was excited to go fly–the previous day, I’d done well with my landings and I was eager to do it again. We did pattern work, and sure enough I was landing safely and correctly each time–Forest* didn’t even have to say anything, or touch any of the controls. It felt good. At the end of the lesson Forest says: why don’t you come back at 1:30? We’ll do another lesson. Cool, I thought! If I keep this up, I’ll be able to land really well every time in a week or two, then maybe I’ll be able to solo!
I come back at 1:30, and we do more pattern work. It went well, just like the morning lesson. I was close to getting my landing on target each time, and it felt good. At the end of the lesson, for some reason, Forest asked for plane right after we landed–which is funky, usually he lets me taxi and park. Funky, but ok, I’m sure there’s a good reason. I take my hands and feet off the controls and Forest takes the plane. He fast-taxis (like taxiing, but, well, fast. about 40mph) down the runway, turns on the taxiway, then immediately pulls off the taxiway into some random parking spot. Funky, but ok, I’m sure there’s some reason. Forest pulls out airplane logbook and logs the flight, puts it away, then pulls out my logbook from the behind-the-seat wall pocket and begins to log the flight lesson. Funky, but ok, I’m sure there’s some–oh. Uh. Now he has turned to the back of my logbook and is filling in the student solo-flight forms. Oh. Ohhh. At this point, I say something like “Ummm..Forest..you’ve got my gears turning here..I’m kinda wondering..” and he smirks for a moment, then finishes filling out the form.
“Just keep doing what you’ve been doing. You need three takeoffs and landings–come back and pick me up when you’re done. Don’t forget, you need to call ground to ask to taxi for takeoff. Oh and hang on a second, I need to get my coat. Ok, go have fun.”
And with that, Forest hopped out of the plane, closed the door, and lit a cigarette.
*”Forest,” i.e. Forest Kirst, CFII, is the flight instructor I’ve been learning from. He is outstanding.
What is the best way to spend a sunday afternoon?
Aviating, obviously!
Stop children, what’s that sound? That’s the sound of me not owning an airplane and not living within doable distance of a flight instructor. Don’t get me wrong, I love where I live. But every place has it’s upsides and downsides, and Diomede’s lack of aviation opportunities is a downside for me. Not a life and death sort of thing, doesn’t make me love it any less, but it is what it is.
So now back to the original question again. What is the best way to spend a sunday afternoon–if not flying?
Simple.
Pretending to fly!
I practiced calm takeoffs/landings, navigation by VOR, and crosswind (10 gusting to 15) takeoffs/landings. Next session: more crosswind practice + nighttime navigation by VOR. I had my reservations about spending money earmarked for flying real life airplanes for this simulator set up, but one afternoon of practice cleared out my apprehension. Flying a Cessna 172 with this setup is astonishingly life-like. I found myself making the same errors which I was working on scrubbing out at the end of my flight lessons last summer.
For the curious–that is a Saitek Proflight Cessna Yolk & Power Quadrant, Pedal Set & Trim Wheel, and the simulator is X-Plane 10. The thermos is a Stanley 1.1 quart filled with delicious black coffee.
Home sweet home
Two nights in Nome and four nights in Wales, waiting on the weather, wishing we could sleep on our own beds instead of other peoples floors and beds. And now we are here, home sweet home.
But that is not all.
Here is the stage: we are outside the school in Wales loading a big sled up with our coolers and luggage, to be towed with a snow machine over to the airport, which is about a mile away. Catherine jumps on the passenger seat on the snow machine and Willis and I look at each other–who’s mushing?
“Do you want to mush?”
“Hell yes I want to mush!”
So Willis jumped into the sled and I jumped on the back and we set off over the frozen tundra to the airport. Halfway there we here the chopper coming. The fellow driving gunned the gas and we took off. We zoomed up to the hanger and zoomed around the corner just as the Huey was setting down 30 feet away on the helipad. How did that feel? AWESOME.
But wait, there’s more. They generally do not let passengers ride left seat (copilot’s spot) because this particular helicopter does have standard controls, pilot’s and copilot’s. But today there was a HUGE amount of mail to haul so they packed that chopper to the gills and when it was time to board Simon, the flight mechanic (who usually rides copilot) looks at me and points at copilot.
And my face morphed completely into a giant stupid grin.
And THEN when we got back to the island and there was mail for us! So we unpack, then the four of us exchanged christmas gifts. So to recap. I got to ride musher-style on a sled and ZOOM up to meet a helicopter AS it lands. Then I got to ride co-pilot in a very, very awesome helicopter. And then it was Christmas gift time!
AND we are finally back home after a week of waiting.
Was today a good day? Yes.
Twenty years
Yeah, it’s been about twenty years because my first clear memory of wanting to fly helicopters was from when I was something like five. But somewhere in that growing and learning and forming infant brain of mine, I believe I knew. And so I have been waiting my whole life for this day.
:D
Milepost
Two things here, in order of importance:
1. Robert G. is a person awesome past words. Kinda like Darla G. Well, when I say ‘kinda,’ I mean ‘exactly.’
2. I did my first stall today, under Robert G’s perfect tutelage.
‘Stall’ is flying jargon for what happens when the plane’s wings stop generating lift. Stalling on purpose is a great training maneuver for tons of reasons, while an unintentional stall is a sign of either a poor pilot or equipment failure (really bad situation: both). So, when the wings stop generating lift, the magic of flying goes away really quickly, but not as quickly as the altitude needle spins around on its dial.
The wings stop generating lift when you don’t have enough airspeed, so to do a training stall you bring the 2000lb plane to a complete stop. Zero airspeed. How do you bring an airplane to a complete and perfect stop in the middle of the air? You pull up..the plane starts to climb, and you pull up a lot more, and next thing you know the plane is pointed straight up and right around when you realize you’re pointed straight up, the plane has run out of speed.
We stopped. In the air. Three thousand five hundred feet in the air. Over the Bering Sea. DEAD STILL..for a moment. This dead stillness lasts for an incredibly short moment*. Then that moment was gone, the plane wheeled over through the sky, the sky and the ocean have switched places and now we’re falling straight down out of the sky at 100mph. Spinning, too. No bad words nor good words nor any words passed though my head, as it was too full of mindblowing dumbfounding stupefying terrifying…umm..well, all those words added up then doubled up, that’s just about right.
Robert had told me to step on the rudder away from the spin direction to straighten the plane, so I mashed the rudder pedal, and we stopped spinning. Although there’s still the falling straight down thing going on, and we’re up to 150mph.
‘So, Dave, now what you do, sometime soon here you’ll want to pull up a bit, get ‘er back to level’ says Robert.
I pulled up a little bit, and Robert repeated himself with the addition of the word ‘more.’ I pull the yoke (airplane steering wheel), the plane levels out, I feel like my body was just squashed then turned upside down and inside out then back outside in then wrung out and plopped back into the seat, and then I realized I was grinning my face off like a one legged man who just won a butt kicking competition.
‘So, Dave, now what you do, is you do that again.’
So I did it again…
*calc buffs, here’s the idea: the moment lasts for about as long as d/dx(x^2) = 0