I took a look at the logbook. Hmm… four flights in October, including a new-to-me airplane. Very nice. No flying at all in November. Uh-oh. One flight in December. And now it’s January. This is not a trend I’m particularly happy about. Trend analysis - not the sort involving lots of complicated math, just observation and common sense - is very important in aviation. You want to stop the bad trends before they get worse, and encourage the good trends to get better. You also need to fly fairly often to keep your skills up, both physical and mental.
Last couple of installments in this ever-lengthening saga, there had been plans to set me up with D to check on my progress at learning new skills. Ideally, I’d like to demonstrate my amazing piloting prowess at the peak of my abilities. Um… my abilities weren’t going to be peak with only one flight in the past three months. Hmphf. Granted, she would take that into account, but like everyone else I have a certain impulse to show off and impress people. Hard enough with someone who has the skills to literally fly circles around me, along any axis you care to name. Nevermind - I don’t have to be the best pilot in the world, just the best I can be at the moment and, more importantly, the safest I can be. Once upon a time D was where I am now. Given enough time (and money!) I can one day be where she is now, if I am so inclined to put the work in.
As the week went by the weather did not look promising. I was fully expecting low ceilings again, and the forecasts were calling for overcast, cold, preciptation (alternating between guesses at snow and rain), mist/fog, and basically what we have had for several weeks. I got up at 5 am on a Saturday, sat down at the computer even before I had breakfast and caffeine, and checked the weather.
Naw… that couldn’t be right! Clear skies! OK, OK, there was enough mist to cut visibility to 5 miles/8 km but … the winds were forecast to die down, no wet stuff falling out of the skies… No, we don’t get good weather in January! I ate and got dressed and after an hour came back for another check. Visibility up to 7 miles, clear skies, a few scattered clouds, winds coming down… I called Flight Service for an official weather briefing (and I still have very mixed feelings about the recent privitization of this service). Same reports, forecast to continue improving through the afternoon. Huh. I don’t remember making an appropriate sacrifice to the weather gods… but I’ll take what I can get.
Gosh darn, looks like it’s going to happen.
One last variable. I called D. Yep, she was coming out as well, and expressing the same amazement that everything was coming together. Woo-hoo! My husband crept around the corner about then and cautiously inquired as to whether or not flying of people (as opposed to small, breakable objects) would occur that morning. Upon receipt of a positive verdict there was much rejoicing (something about me having been cranky lately) and the usual “be careful out there”.
(Funny thing about my husband - he won’t fall asleep while I’m on the road, but as soon as I call him and tell him I’m at the airport he says “Good, I’m going back to bed” and does so, to sleep until I either call him again or come home. In other words, he’s far more concerned a Bad Thing will happen to me on the road as opposed to in an airplane, even a small, old airplane piloted by a daffy woman rapidly approaching middle age.)
I checked my gear. Temperature was 30F/-1C and projected to rise to around the 40F/5C range, not so cold as last time. Still wore the wool socks and long underwear, freezing is nothing to trifle with, but more comfortable than the prior flight. Headset, radio, logbook, checklist, all that other stuff… Good to go! Into the car, top off the tank, and away to Illinois.
Pulled up in the parking lot, got out of the car, and looked up. There had been just one plane coming in to land as I approached the airport (I had a sneaking suspicion it was J - I’m pretty sure I saw his car pulling out as I entered. Supposedly, he was away at his sister’s house all day, but he’s exactly the sort to sneak out very very early to get some air time in before an otherwise occupied day) but apparently that person was down and gone by the time I parked. The day was misty. You could see a fair distance, but the clouds were all fuzzy-edged and the rising sun wasn’t so much a disk as a very bright smear in the southeast. So the weather wasn’t totally fine, there would be visibility issues.
Bumped into C and her husband B - many exclamations about strangers meeting, there must be something wrong because the weather is good, the airplane repaired. C said that not only was the Citabria fixed, it had just had its annual inspection so it was better than fixed. I made a small evil laugh and said “Oh, I’ll be the judge of that!” as, of course, I would be during the pre-flight. C dared me to find something wrong.
Went to get the paperwork. As I did so, I noticed a bulletin posted on the wall of office, a notice from the FBI. Seems a man who had been “acting suspiciously” had been showing up in the Chicago area airports and pilots/airport personnel were being asked to keep an eye for the man, description included, actions included. Emphasized many times that there was no proof of any wrong-doing or evil purpose, the FBI just wanted to have a chat, just call agent such-and-such and let them handle it. Another reminder of the post-9/11 realities. A recent poll of a pilot’s organization regarding the breach of the no-fly zone over Washington, DC - two bungling US citizens, basically screw-ups - revealed that about 1 in 10 pilots felt they should have been shot down, or that shooting them down would have been justified. That’s in regard to fellow citizens making a mistake. A foreign national “acting suspiciously” around people who are action-oriented and not inclined to let fear stop them, in an environment with potentially deadly hazards… no wonder the emphasis on “no proof of wrong-doing”. There are about 700,000 licensed pilots in the US, we’re all still pretty cranked about that whole September 11 thing (just like the rest of the country), we’ve all been seriously inconvienced by the consequences, some of us out-and-out harassed, and not one of us wants to give up the skies. It is not out of the bounds of reason that some of us, maybe even most of us, given a chance will personally make sure something of that sort never happens again. There are worse fates than incarceration at Guantanomo Bay for a wannabe terrorist. He just might prefer the FBI or DHS to vigillante “justice” at the hands of mob. Yes, let’s have the FBI handle it. Let’s hope this is a false alarm.
What a downer. I went back to seeking the airplane paperwork. All the clipboards hanging there with new record sheets for the month … and not one flight on any of them. Which tells you that the weather has, indeed, been bad lately. I took down the pristine paperwork and inquired about the hangar key for the Citabria. C rummaged in her desk drawers for it, but mentioned I wouldn’t need it, as the airplane was sitting out on the flight line already, they had just dragged it out of the maintenance hangar.
Oh… wonderful. It’s freezing out there.
But at least there’s sunshine. Watered-down, misty sunshine but it’s the most daylight I’ve seen in about three weeks. And I’m dressed for the weather. So it’s off to the airplane, check the inside, check the tach (it’s like a car odometer, and you want the initial figure on the paperwork accurate because your resulting bill is based on those numbers), check the wings, inside the engine cowl, the prop, the wheels, climb up on the wheels to check the fuel levels… and get down on the ground to check underneath. Two reasons, really. One, there are a couple points underneath where you draw fuel samples to check for contamination (none, this time) and also because you need to look under the airplane. I’ve found holes big enough to put my fist through on occassion - bad because you then have to worry about structural problems, about critters crawling in and remodeling the interior, and on a fabric airplane a rip can because a tear which can, if neglected, result in the outer surface peeling away. This is more critical on the wings and tail where, without the outer covering, they sort of cease to exist in usable form but it’s also not a good thing to land with half as much fuselage as you left with. No damage this morning. In fact, it was looking a little cleaner than usual. They must have neatened up during the inspection. I didn’t admire the work long, though - lying full length on icy pavement is sure to suck the heat out of you no matter how much wool you wear. And yes, I do lay down because the belly of the tail of the airplane at rest is very close to the ground and my knees would scream if I tried to squat that low or kneeled down on a surface that cold.
Everything checked out OK - as I told C when I went back inside, I hadn’t been able to find anything wrong so far. By this time D had shown up and we were all griping about the bad weather and lack of flying recently. Then we started getting down to business. The plan was to take off and head west briefly to demonstrate a couple steep turns and a power-off stall, then come back for the landings. I suggested 2500 feet of altitude and she said fine, as long I was within regs for stall practice whatever I chose was OK with her. D and I went back out to the airplane, got in, got all the pre-starting prep done, checked to make sure no tourists were wandering around in the way of soon-to-be-moving parts, and I hit the starter.
We got about a half turn out of the prop.
Simultaneous groans. D said “Well, it had to be something today.” I mentioned that the airplane had been sitting awhile. It didn’t feel that cold when I had stuck my hand in the engine cowling, but… Probably the battery. They don’t work so well in the cold. Tried the starter again, got just a twitch. More simultaneous groaning. We got out. D went in search of a jumpstart.
She came out of the trailer almost bouncing. “We got a volunteer for handpropping!” Huh, guess I’m not the only one chicken around here. Being total pilot geeks, we started chattering about handpropping, whirling blades of death, how it was safe IF you followed procedure, and The Very Last Manicure You’ll Ever Need.
D got in the airplane. I got in the airplane because our volunteer told me to. The guy with his hands on the prop is in charge while hand starting an airplane. He asked if everything was off. I looked up at the switch box and confirmed that yes, both master and mags were off. He called for brakes on. I confirmed brakes were on. He grabbed a strut and gave a good, solid yank. The plane didn’t budge and that seemed to satisfy him. He asked me to prime the engine while he pulled it through. I asked him how much. He said three would be good and started pulling the blades around. I, of course, complied with the request. He paused, stepped back a fraction, and said “Make it hot.” I reached up, flipped on the switches, and exerted just a touch more pressure on the brakes. He grabbed a blade, pulled, stepped back. It turned about halfway and stopped. He did it again, and the engine caught. We waved our thanks as he walked off. Just another cold morning at the airport. End of first problem.
Got it warmed up, the radios turned on. D was there primarially as an observer and was not giving me any assistance. Which was perfectly alright, as this was in part a test to see how well I performed on my own, with someone I didn’t know. Put-putted over to the ramp area, getting a feel for the wind as we taxied. There was a brisk, 9-10 knot crosswind (about 16 km/hour) perpendicular to the field, which was about as much as I had handled before in the Citabria - and that was without the rust on my skills. Could be an interesting day. I pointed the nose into the wind for the run-up and everything checked out OK. Headed out to the runway.
With a direct crosswind it was a toss up which way to go on the pavement. Taking off to the south meant the sun would be in my eyes. On the other hand, the prior airplane had used 18 (that’s a launch to the south) and the windsock slightly favored that choice. So, into the sun it was. I hit the radio and announced my intentions to take off, then almost said “Griffith” for the airport instead of “Morris”. Geez, remember what airplane you’re in and where you are! Of course, that happens all the time - D also flies out of two airports, and she has to keep up with eight different models of airplane. Me, I don’t think I’ve ever tried to keep current in more than three at the same time. It’s nothing unusual to a sputtering “Airport X traffic - I mean Y! Airport Y!” over the radio first thing in the morning, we all do it from time to time. (I’ve also recently heard “frack” and “frelling”, too - real cussing is not permitted, but folks find ways to let you know what they really mean.)
I pulled out onto the runway, hearing move your feet in J’s voice even though it was D sitting silently behind me. Crosswind… crosswind… crosswind… as the tail came up the left-turning tendency and the wind both conspired to drive us off the centerline. Oo! Bad trend! Naughty trend! Fix! Fix! More right rudder! More! Fix!
We took off from the left side of the runway, but I did stay on the pavement until airborne, at least. Not my best take off but not the worst, either, and I got a grip on the situation without needing assistance. Even if I didn’t get us back on exactly center I had managed to get us going due south again.
We climbed up into the haze, everything all misty and half-obscured. While checking airspeed, climb, and engine I spared a glance to either side, checking for clarity of view. Yeah, it was legal for our type of flying, but while you could see about 7 miles/12 km it was a pretty fuzzy type of seeing, especially to the southeast with the sun glare. Bless the polarized, amber-colored glare-reducing sunglasses I had chosen from my collection this morning - but it was still nasty and yuck viewing into the distance. The only bright spot (ha!) was that this was clean, white winter humidity haze and not that ugly yellow-brown crud we get in summer.
D was going on about the weather having been imperfect lately and about how no one had been flying for nearly a month. After listening to her dance around the issue for about 500 vertical feet I said “Let’s be blunt here, D - the weather of late has sucked.” Which got a laugh out of her, probably because she’d been trying to be polite and professional and not resort to crude language but it was true - the weather had been utterly terrible for weeks. Not safe for anyone to fly in a small airplane. Just ignore all those tics and nervous twitches your local pilots have been developing. The wonder was that there weren’t more people up today, just us and the Mysterious Dawn Flyer I’d seen earlier.
I made a right turn to the west, still climbing, getting re-acquainted with the airplane. D said to let her know when we reached our target altitude and she’d give me my first assignment. I said, fine, but first I was going to turn back towards the airport. I wanted to stay oriented, and check the visibility. I did not want to get into a bad situation with this airplane as instrument flight is not an option in it. D mentioned the fly-south-to-the-Illinois-river-and-turn-left-at-the-watertower last-ditch find-your-way-home option as I checked things out. Yep, hazy, but I could see the airport with no problem despite the glare and sunlight. OK, I turned back towards the west still climbing.
And then there was that moment when, suddenly, we’re above the haze. The same effect as last time, with being able to see the ground below but a false surface illusion as you looked into the distance. D was happy - it was clear enough up here that she could fly aerobatics later in the day. I was having mixed feelings about it. Very pretty, yes, but doing steep turns could be more of a challenge with a false horizon.
D said whenever I was ready to go ahead. I elected to line up above road oriented due west so I’d have a definite start and stop reference, and also because heading upwind would minimize distance we traveled from the airport. “To the left” said D, and I used stick and rudder to turn.
In the Citabria, the turn-and-bank indicator quickly pegs out past the “standard rate” bank for turning, which is only about 15 degrees, if that much, so it’s a matter of estimating for a steep bank of 45 degrees or more. It’s all about how the cowling in front of you intersects the line of the horizon - which is why haze and a false horizon makes this more difficult. I cross-checked with the altimeter, vertical speed indicator, and airspeed to confirm all was stable and under control, but mostly took my cues from outside. As we swung around towards the west again I asked D if she wanted me to just go directly into a right turn and she said yes.
So, rather than level off, as we lined up again with my chosen road and just swung the plane from a 45 degree left bank into a 45 degree right bank. That’s not something I normally do with passengers, it scares the non-flyers and will induce queasy-stomach in quite a few actual pilots, but for me it’s a cheap thrill and I knew D wouldn’t have any problem at all with it. As usual, the right turn was a bit sloppier than the left, and frankly, while both were acceptable, neither was quite where I wanted them to be. Rust, again. But I can’t fly in bad weather and it’s just a fact of life that there will be interuptions
of that sort.
“No comment from the back seat.” I said “What does that mean?” Because I’m not as familar with D as with J, and I can’t see her reactions while in flight.
“Means I have nothing to criticize.” she said. “No comment.”
“It means acceptable? Satisfactory?”
“Yes.” D added once around was enough, but I elected to do it again for my own satisfaction at doing it better.
