Walking on the Moon

I braved the crushing economic times today to go out and polish up my skills in the air. The plan was a trip out to French Valley (F70) for lunch and then a few take-offs and landings at Hemet-Ryan (HMT) to polish them up.

Interesting day to go out. The Santa Anas are coming and a couple airmets were valid in the area for moderate turbulence in the basin. One of the things pilots are always interested in when adverse conditions are forecast is whether the conditions are actually out there, so I was interested in PIREPs in my briefing. I was rewarded by the best one I’ve ever heard: “On the ground at Chino: Instructor reports the wind is rocking his van.” (It sounds funny, but that was helpful to know….)

When the Santa Anas are out, Santa Monica often winds up using runway 3, which they were today. I went straight out toward French Valley, and was asked to follow Interstate 10 past downtown. I often avoid this clearance and head further north, but today they sounded busy enough on the approach that I didn’t argue. The overhanging airspace is 2500′ for LAX, so I passed downtown LA at about 2000′. I hadn’t done that before, and I recommend it. Very spectacular. Sorry that I don’t have pictures, but I was piloting.

I need to plot a better path, though, because the path I took brought me pretty close to El Monte’s (EMT). Close enough, in fact, that El Monte tower asked SoCal to switch me over to them. The controller didn’t have the tower frequency handy, but I basically read it to him when he asked me to stand by for it. By the time I’d talked to EMT, I was over their airspace, and they switched me right back to SoCal. It sounded like a new controller.

The rest of the trip out to French Valley was uneventful, but French Valley always seems to be busy. No exception today, there were two or three folks in the pattern and one or two inbound. In fact, I had a Yak ask to turn initial on an overhead approach inside me for landing (which I was happy to let him do). There’s something satisfying to working in to a busy pattern smoothly, and it was fun to do.

I always enjoy eating at the restaurant at French Valley. That busy pattern is fun to watch while waiting and eating. They were busy enough that I read an entire Pacific Flyer while waiting, but the food was great.

After finishing up, I toddled over to Hemet and got a few touch-and-goes in. The wind was swirling around enough that I initially lined up on runway 23, then heard the wind had turned around and I left the pattern and came back for a touch-and-go on runway 5 (the same runway, other direcction). Then it spun around and I did two more on 23.

The trip back to SMO was beautiful (Santa Anas bring clear skies), but not terribly interesting. By the time I’d gotten back to SMO the wind had turned around and I landed on runway 21.

Yeah, yeah, I know they don’t have a blimp.

I was at SMO this evening trying to get a couple night landings in, though the clouds had other ideas.  Even though I didn’t get much flying in, I did get to see the Goodyear blimp doing low maneuvers over the airport. They aren’t quite touch and goes, but that’s what they look like from afar. Anyway, only one shot really came out. That’s Santa Monica’s tower in the blurry background.

A year or more ago, I discovered a crack in the skin of my left aileron, probably caused by someone being careless when washing the plane. I got the aileron re-skinned, but it’s been a hideous sea green color (from the chromate anti-oxidation coating) for some time. A week and a half ago or so I showed up to go fly and Ta-Da – white aileron!

It’s tough to overestimate how much better I think it makes the plane look. I know this is 95% psychological, but I’ve gone from thinking of having the plane repainted every time I fly to just basking it its beauty.

Enjoy these pictures of my aileron.

Last weekend, on the 5th, I picked up and flew out to Flabob Airport in Riverside. Flabob’s my favorite kind of airport – small and full of activity. There’s a good inexpensive cafe there, and flying in is a good way to sharpen up my uncontrolled field skills. It was very hazy in the basin, partially due to all the wildfires, and not a perfect day for sightseeing from the air. Still it’s always nice to get up and see the world.  I popped in for lunch and a couple turns around the pattern.

On the way home it sounded as if someone had wandered into an airspace they should not have been in. I heard an airliner get a landing clearance canceled. I heard a similar problem last time, which I hope is just bad luck, not an indication of a rise in pilot deviations.

I took a few pictures at Flabob:

I spent some time with my CFI, Andy, today under the hood.  Usually when I work with Andy I’m trying to log a couple approaches or holds to stay current, but today was just down and dirty IFR proficiency work.  Most of the day was not only under the hood, but partial panel under the hood.  That is flying the plane not only without being able to look out the window, but with a subset of the instruments as well.  We did some holding, some unusual attitudes and an approach.  We even got to bump through some turbulence as we did it, which was even better training.

There’s always stuff to work on, but basically things went well. I can still fly partial panel, even if it’s been a while since I’ve had to deal with all the weird things a compass does when you’re turning.  Overall a fun day, and it’s always fun to fly with Andy.

After some really crappy landings the last two times I was up, I decided to spend some quality time in the pattern tonight and polish back up.  I could have picked a better day for it.  It was 10 knots, gusting 15, about 50 degrees off the runway, making for some wind work.  Santa Monica’s up on a little plateau that makes for some funny up and down drafts on either end of the runway.

All things considered, I had a pretty good day.  The first landing or so was  a little bumpier than I would have likes, but after 2 or so, I got back in the saddle.  Much nicer touchdowns, and even pretty stable approaches, despite the bumps in the road.  I was much happier by the end.

I spent some time with my head in the clouds today, flying IFR from Santa Monica (SMO) to French Valley (F70) and back. There was a cloud layer at 5-6 thousand feed above the whole basin, but unlike the last couple days no reported or forecast ice in it. I could have gotten to F70 below it, but it was a good day to pick up some time in actual instrument conditions.

Flying out to French Valley was one reroute after another. I got the impression that the controllers were deciding what to do with me as they went along. That’s not too surprising. LA airspace is busy and French Valley is off the beaten path a bit. Eventually they wound up vectoring me south of Santiago Peak (and the old El Toro Marine Core Air Station). This was good practice in situational awareness – Santiago peak is plenty high, and I couldn’t see a thing. I was very careful to make sure that the assigned altitudes all made sense. After crossing the mountains, I was cleared for the approach, then had that cancelled, then was re-vectored for it, all in IMC. You can’t buy training like that.

On arrival at F70, I decided to break off my straight-in approach to join the traffic via the 45 on the downwind to simplify matters. F70’s pattern always seems to have people in it, and today was no exception, so this kept the flow predictable. Cool beans.

At the airport I had a good lunch at the cafe, filed back to SMO and climbed VFR to get the clearance. SoCal picked me up and it was back to the clouds. This leg was completely as advertised, straight down the filed route to SMO. I canceled as soon as I was back out of the clouds near SMO.

Fun day. Both my landings stunk up the joint, though, so I’m setting aside some time this week to work on them. And avgas is 5.21/gal self-serve.

I had breakfast at the Buckhorn today. For me this requires a flight to New Cuyama airport (L88), and that’s really why I go. New Cuyama isn’t near anything. It’s a small oil and ranching town that’s a place to gather if you’re working in the area or passing through. There’s a gas station, a motel (the Buckhorn) and a recently re-opened café. It’s a tiny, friendly town – the smallest nearby that’s easily airplane accessible.

Of course, a town of 800 people doesn’t have a big airport. I suspect that I have friends who wouldn’t consider L88 an airport at all. It looks like this:

That picture on the right is from my “lonely windsock” series. All these images link to larger versions.

To me this is a perfectly wonderful airport. Look – amenities:

Inside is a visitors log in which some wag had given his reason for visiting/destination as “hopelessly lost.” I always sign.

Boy did I make a crappy landing here today. I went around once and then landed fast in some turbulence (and a nice hot layer of ground effect). It wasn’t very pretty at all. I could tell you a story about how the narrow runway created an optical illusion and all that, but I should probably spend my time hitting a few more small fields.

Anyway, I tied down, watched an enormous rabbit saunter across the runway before I could get my camera working, and signed in. (Seriously, it wasn’t so much a rabbit as a jackalope.)

The Buckhorn was pretty busy. It’s a motel as well as a restaurant, and a couple families were checking in as well as a pretty full house of eating customers. I had a tri-tip sandwich at the counter and soaked up the considerable ambiance. Sadly the advertised “karaoke cook” didn’t seem to be in.

I finished up, had another short look around and saddled up to leave. Another pilot was inbound and I gave him a wind report and he let me leave first. The trip home was gorgeous, but uneventful.

Last weekend Brenda and I packed up and flew out to see the poppy bloom in Lancaster (WJF). There’s lots of other things to do there, so we rented a car and hit some of our favorite spots in the area. The flight was through clear skies, but with some turbulence coming over the ridges. Brenda got to hit her head on the ceiling for the first time and I made a pilot report of the turbulence.

First stop was Crazy Otto’s diner, a joint that makes great breakfasts and sandwiches.

After that, up to the Exotic Feline Breeding Center’s Feline Conservation Center – the cat house in Rosamond, CA. This is a fine set of large cats on display and we enjoy seeing them.

After that it was off to the to see the fireworks, but first Brenda spotted a flock of sheep we needed to check out.

The poppies were fantastic, and I’m sure Brenda will show off more of her photography of them. Here’s a quick shot to give you a feel for the range of colors.

And here I am looking at them, surrounded by some vibrant orange.

After we’d seen and photographed a bunch of poppy vistas, we sort of wandered about deciding when to go home. That was put off when Brenda spotted baseball! Lancaster has a minor league team (a Class A Red Sox farm club), the Jethawks, who had a game starting essentially right as we passed the stadium. We stopped by and watched a few innings and ate some ballpark food.

We left before the game was quite over in order to get up in the air and try to make it to back to SMO before the tower closed at nine. The turbulance had mostly passed, and we did just that. We landed with the controller who issued us taxi instructions and literally closed down the Class D behind us.

This was an awesome day.

Brenda and I left 32169 in El Paso on our holiday trip because of delays in getting a fuel cap to replace our leaky one. Today I brought her home.

I dwell too much on not making a trip (I’m working hard not to come right out and say failure), as all pilots do, so this holiday trip left a bad taste in my mouth. It’s easy to remember the few problems of the trip, rather than all the fun.

This morning I was at El Paso International bright and early to head home.

In my sad little head, I was thinking “limp home,” but really everything went fantastically well. The plane was raring to go – that new magneto really makes starts smooth – and the weather was great throughout the day. The only sad thing was my empty co-pilot seat.

The first leg to Phoenix Goodyear was marked primarily by stiff headwinds. I kept an eye on the progress with choices in mind in case we couldn’t make the full leg, but we continued to stay within my conservative estimates. It was still almost a 4 hour leg.

Along the way I found myself wanting to get a better idea of our average speed. The GPS provides an instantaneous ground speed sample and an estimated arrival time based on it, but there was enough fluctuation that I didn’t want to subconsciously plan for the best time I’d seen. There may well be a way to get the GNS 430 to use a longer time to calculate its ground spped for me directly, but I used my cardboard E6B. It was cool to see I could still do a time-distance problem given how much I lean on the electronics.

The stop at Goodyear was pretty short, but I did get to see this replica mustang:

and Goodyear has this mysterious boneyard of old transport aircraft:

They cheerfully popped some gas into the plane and off we went for home. The trip to Santa Monica (SMO) was really uneventful. Well, no flight is really uneventful; I saw a pair of F-16s in flight, was alternately eagle-eyed and blind in spotting traffic. Even the winds slowed down. And flying the last leg for home from a long way is always exciting.

Landing at SMO was hampered by low visibility caused by mist in the afternoon sun. Since SMO is my home field, that was more an annoyance than anything else. I’m pretty good at safely winding my way back there.

When’s the next trip?