This year was my second time attending Airventure in Oshkosh, WI.  I took a bunch of pictures, and put them up over on Flickr.  There was a reason I picked opening day this year.  It was to see the mass arrival of DC-3′s.  It’s the largest formation flight of DC-3′s since D-Day:

My posts have been pretty one dimensional lately, so I thought I’d try something different.

I really like my lawn mower.  Or, I should say, I really like the time spent on my lawn mower.  I do all my best thinking there.  I think about how different this summer is from last.  I’m thankful that it’s almost August and the grass is still green.  I’m thankful for the green in my pocket that wasn’t there last year.  I think about all this crabgrass and wonder what the landscaper actually sprayed on my yard.  I think about the crisis my friend is going through and wonder how things will work out.  I think about – oh, missed a spot, I’ll have to get that on the next lap.  I think about all of life’s problems, and how I’d solve them all.  I’m pretty sure I solved world hunger once.

There’s just something so peaceful about the constant roar of Briggs & Stratton and whirling metal. I thought of most of this post while mowing tonight.  For some reason, it sounded better then than it does now.

Maybe it’s missing the background noise.

I am truly blessed to have some amazingly funny and talented friends.   The following original artwork and description were given to me as a gift:

“Ace” Cleghorn

Water Color on Paper

2010

The above watercolor on paper was composed by the famed artist Jamie Carter after witnessing Brad Cleghorn’s first solo on July 21, 2010.  Thee artist was so inspired to pick up his watercolo paintbrush, something he had not done in over 32 years and paint what can only be descried as the 482nd most memorable event in aviation history.

The piece’s fluid composition is of course due to the fact that it is a watercolor.  Forever etched in the prime central position is the central subject of the subject, the 1979 Cessna Skyhawk, masterfully detailed.  Note how the level attitude maintained by “Ace” denotes stability, courage, fearlessness, and discretionary income.  The diverse multi-color figures could depict a new age of tolerance and understanding so inspired by this event.  But in actuality, the artist wanted to use every color in his Dollar Store pallet.

So congratulations to “Ace” Cleghorn.  May all your landings be at the end of your flights.  And thank you for inspiring me to join the cheese and wine set.

Signed:  Jamie, Kendra, Caleb, & ????

I couldn’t sleep last night.  It was a very familiar feeling, yet this time it was different.  Unlike the sleepless nights of the not too distant past, this night was not filled with worry and stress.  Instead, I just laid there with a big grin on my face thinking of three little letters: “PIC”

What a difference a year makes.

Yesterday afternoon I was having a hard time concentrating on work.  Instead I was peeking out the skylights to the blue sky beyond.  A quick call to my flight instructor confirmed what I was thinking: it would be the night I soloed.  Some have said that this milestone in flight training is the most memorable, even more so than getting your license, and it was my turn to find out.

I bolted out of the office.  The excitement of the moment was starting to set in.  By the time I got home, I was pacing quite a bit.  Not nervous, just crazy excited.  After a quick wardrobe change and something to drink, I headed out.  My family and friends would follow shortly behind.  I used the few minutes in the car to transition into ‘flying mode’:  I called for a weather briefing (clear skies, hardly any wind) and kept visualizing the entire traffic pattern I would fly.  I was glad I drove separate from my family.  I needed to clear my head.

Just as I was finishing my preflight, the family was arriving.  I directed them to the best viewing spot, and then got in the plane.  After a normal taxi and run-up, it was time to go.  The audience was waiting.

The audience.  As much as I tried to put them out of my mind, I just couldn’t.  “Dear Lord, please don’t let me screw this up.”  Either God’s got a sense of humor, or He just wants to make sure I stay humble.  Either way, my very first take-off with an audience was going to be ugly.  Really ugly.  You see, I forgot to add one notch of flaps for the takeoff, which is our standard procedure for this field.  The result was not a big deal, but the plane wasn’t ready to fly when I was, so it took a bit longer to get in the air and it rattled me just a bit.  On climb-out Maggie pointed out the oversight and reminded me to go through my checklist each time.

Typically a student pilot will fly three takeoffs/landings with the instructor, and then three all alone.  After two, Maggie was ready to get out.  It was all me now.  Time for another quick prayer.

Dacy airport is a grass field with three intersecting runways.  This evening I was using runway 27, facing due west.  Right where 27 meets runway 36 (N-S), there’s a bump.  Usually I hit that bump right at the perfect rotate time, when my speed reaches 55 knots.  I don’t know why, but for every single one of my solo takeoffs, I hit that bump just a tad early, around 50 kts.  It likes to launch me into the air just slightly before I’m ready.  I was already thinking about what this was going to look like on video.

It’s said that the most noticeable thing about the instructor note being in the plane is how it handles.  For me, it was less about the feel, and more about the visual.  On my first left turn in the pattern, I noticed Maggie’s absence because she wasn’t there to block the setting sun.  Huh, that’s different, I can see out the right side of the plane!  I finally relaxed a moment on downwind and enjoyed it for all it’s worth.  I glanced at my audience below and then looked all around.  I can’t believe I’m doing this!  Okay, time to start landing.

I think that I tend to err on the side of High and Fast.  Altitude and airspeed is a pilot’s friend, I’m told, and I guess I’m conservative about giving them away.  I tend to pull power late and dive for the field.  My landings seem bouncy and ugly to me.  “But they’re safe, and I’m doing this”, I tell myself.  Maggie lets me go around four times.  A couple landings I’m really happy with, a couple not so much.  Funny thing is that when I looked at the video later, none of them seemed as bad on tape as they did from the cockpit.  We don’t do touch and goes, so each time is a landing and then a taxi back to the starting point.  This gives me a chance to open the window for much needed cool air, and a chance to wave to the family as I taxi past.  My girls seems pretty excited, and Mom doesn’t seem nervous at all.

After my four trips around the pattern, it was time for some ceremony and celebration.  My CFI doesn’t normally cut shirt tails, but I talked her into it.  It’s an old aviation tradition, and I’m a traditional kind of guy.  I wanted a keepsake for my Pilot and Passenger Lounge (formerly know as “The Loft”).  Even though my name is clearly printed on each check I give Maggie, for some reason she still forgets my name now and again.  She played this up a bit when she signed my shirt.  We took a bunch of pictures and talked a bit and then it was time to find some AC.  It was hot, and I was hungry.  It was an amazing evening, and I added another 1.1 hours to my logbook, including 0.6 hours solo and PIC.

Pilot In Command

I like the sound of that.  Here’s some photos, and there are a LOT more pictures over on Flickr.

Brownie points if you know what this post’s title refers to.

My wife and daughters are enjoying a vacation to the Upper Peninsula for a few days, and I’m missing them terribly.  From the looks of the grainy cell phone pictures that Becky gets out from time to time (cell coverage is almost non-existent up there), it seems they are having a blast.  Back at home, it’s just me and the cat, and I don’t think either of us are satisfied with the limited companionship choice.

Becky asked me before they left what I would be doing while they’re gone.  Flying, flying, and more flying, of course!  She said “You can’t solo when we are gone!!”  Bless her heart.  I didn’t even think that was a possibility until my lesson on Saturday.

I was scheduled to fly at 3:00, but I was a little bored, so I headed out to the airport early.  It seems that no matter how early I get there, I never beat my instructor.  There were isolated thunderstorms in the area, so getting there early did not pay off.  We had to delay for awhile anyway as a rumbling cell passed just to the north of the field.  We used this time to go over my pre-solo written exam.  The exam is a take-home test that covers general knowledge of the specific plane and airport I’m using and other FAA required questions.  Overall I did really well on the test.  There were a couple questions I was unsure of, and others where I seemed to exceed my instructor’s expectations.  The primary goal of the test is not the grade, but to spur conversation and follow-up to the topics discussed.  I think it’s also a way to establish expectations of what I can, or more importantly, cannot do once Maggie steps out of the plane.  It’s another required milestone that’s behind me.

After spending about an hour reviewing the test, the storms that had been in the area were no longer a factor, so we went flying.  Not a very long flight, but long enough for 3 landings and one go-around (that I probably could have landed, but decided against it).  Maggie is remaining pretty quiet through out most of my landings.  In fact on my last landing, she did not say a word through the whole pattern.  Once the plane was put away, she asked again when my family would be back.  She wants to make sure they’re around for the big day.

As much as I’d like to be flying as much as possible while I’m home alone, some things are conspiring against me.  First, all my aviation friends seem to be out of town this week.  Second, my training airplane is out of service for its 100 hour inspection, and third, I’m apparently so close to soloing that we’d just be killing time (and money) waiting for the big moment to happen.  So instead of flying, it’s just me and the cat home alone with a jar of peanut butter and old “Adam-12” episodes on Netflix.

Hurry home girls!!!

Becky emailed me this photo today.  This is the view from their vacation cabin in Cedar River, Mi.

I wish I were there.

After a long delay, we finally set out to do ground reference maneuvers for Lesson 9 on June 29th.  The whole point of these maneuvers is to learn how the wind affects you in the air and to compensate for it.  We had been delaying this because the winds just have not been that strong.  On this particular evening the winds were still very light, but we needed to do the ground reference stuff anyway.  Maggie said it was the only thing left she had to introduce me to before I solo.  Unlike my last lesson, I remembered my GPS

during my preflight.  This would be a good lesson to get some ground tracks on.  Unfortunately, the batteries were dead.  Drat!  Now that I think of it, I’m sure I read somewhere about keeping extra batteries in one’s flight bag (usually for flashlights, not necessarily technology).  I’ll need to remember to do that from now on.

It was a great evening to fly.  The sky was clear and smooth, and it was a nice break to get away from the pattern for a bit.  I flew all three maneuvers: rectangular course, S-turns, and turns around a point.  I wasn’t sure what to expect from the S-turns, other than what I’ve read or seen in videos, so I asked her to demo one for me.  After that, all the maneuvers (I’m going to learn how to spell that by the end of this posting) seemed pretty straight forward.  For some reason, my right turns around a point seemed better than the left turns.  I didn’t expect that.  We’ll try them all again on a day with more wind, I’m sure, but for now, I’m OK with getting off easy.

Coming back to the airfield, we did a couple landings and one go-around.  My landings are not very pretty, but I am getting more comfortable with the process over all.  Maggie is very pleased with my pattern work.  In fact, after putting the plane away she states that our focus will be more pattern work as I develop consistency in my landings.  She says I’m very close to solo.

Yikes.

1.3 hours closer.

It’s always interesting the songs people choose to whistle in the bathroom when they think they’re alone.  This morning, it was “Fly Me to the Moon”, which I thought was a humorous choice, considering the venue.  It was, however, not the most humorous one I’ve heard.

Several years ago I was in a bathroom at work when I heard a gentleman struggling with a deficiency of bran in his diet.  At a climatic moment, he started to whistle the theme to “The Sound of Music”:

The hills are alive with the sound of music….

You know, if that’s what the Alps sound like, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to go there.

With some help from Chris, the awesome guy behind Lot39 Design, I’ve launched my newly redesigned site.

Let me know what you think, and if there’s anything in particular you’d like to read about.

Thanks,

Brad

Lessons 7 and 8

Well, once again our objective was ground reference maneuvers, but because of very light wind, we stayed in the pattern.  2.3 hours and 14 landings later, I can still say that my landings need a lot of work.  I’m getting better at establishing my aim point, but again that transition down the runway is not where it needs to be yet.  Also the base to final elements such as when (or if) to add remaining flaps, and when to add/remove power are only happening at the prompting of my instructor.  I feel I’ve got a pretty good feel for the rest of the pattern, and in fact Maggie was quite complementary of my progress on takeoffs and downwind.  Radio calls are getting better too.  I think I know why pilots talk so fast on the radio: there’s just so much other stuff to be doing, you need to get your announcement out and then get back to the task of landing the airplane.

Last night we were dealing with a slight crosswind from the right, and after several laps around the track, I was establishing my crab and holding the extended centerline fairly well.  Earlier in the lesson Maggie told me that I just simply wasn’t using enough right rudder.  A refrain I think every student hears.  So, I started trying something different: on my takeoff roll, instead of using both feet to steer straight, I just used the right rudder.  If I started rolling to the right, I simply eased off a bit and waited for the plane to come back to the middle.  Doing this seemed to help a lot because the feedback I was getting from Maggie improved quite a bit.

Dealing with the crosswind is something I’m still developing the feel for.  I start my takeoff roll with full aileron into the wind, and I know that as my speed increases, the control surfaces become increasingly effective, and that I must gradually take the aileron out.  I know this is what I’m supposed to do, and I’m pretty sure I understand why.  I just don’t have the feel for it yet.  In fact on one takeoff there was some weird disconnect between my head and my hands and feet.  I was distracted with what I needed to be doing with my hands and forgot to focus on my feet.  As I started to drift left, I corrected opposite of how I should have (added more LEFT rudder instead of RIGHT), which made Maggie and the wind tee a little nervous.  I snapped out of it quickly, and I got the plane off the ground.

On a side note, I don’t have a groundtrack for last night’s lesson.  I realized as I was taxiing back from my first landing that I forgot to pull out my GPS.  That’s okay, though.  I’m pretty sure it would have looked a lot like my last one:

So, next lesson will be ground reference maneuvers wind or no wind.  Maggie said it’s really the only pre-solo objective we haven’t done yet, and we need to get it done.  Once I do that and show consistency in the pattern I’ll be ready for that first big milestone.  I’m in no hurry.