Itching to fly

Happy Canada Day!!!

So much activity, so little time.

Work is busy - in addition to lots of North American travel, I've been 'across the pond" three time in the last three months for sales calls and business development. Since my job isn't directly in sales my own job (I am a Product Manager) continues, so when I get back home I have to do 4 weeks of work in three.

Aviatrix has a new job! Congratulations to her, I read her blog every day.

I haven't flown since October -and it bites to not be flying. A positive financial change is rumoured, so I'm taking the plunge and re-applying myself.

I have been reading constantly. PSTAR study is ongoing. I need to make-up three sessions from last winter's ground school. And I scored a solidly passing mark on my exit exam from ground school (despite missing a few sessions due to business travel), but it was too far from 100% to satisfy my personal safety standards -- so I have some remedial work to do in both making up the sessions, as well as the knowledge. The objective of the learning is not to pass the exam, it's safety - and it's my butt that up there.

I get emails from the glidng school mailing list, and they are building my desire - the weather has generally sucked in the last few weeks for gliding/soaring, but they are still getting up there and flying. Gliding is the most exquisite way of falling, and I am still lured.

The front hall still needs painting, the front sidewalk needs to be lifted and re-aligned, and the front lawn needs to be re-built. She Who Must Be Obeyed has a list.

My frustration is showing - I really want to go flying again. Based on past history, strong desire the first step in moving forward.

Women Fully Clothed

Last evening the wife of my dreams, myself, and six others went to the show: Women Fully Clothed. They perform about once per month, and from the show schedule it seems to be centred in Ontario (all the women have full-time entertainment jobs, presumably in Toronto).

This show will especially appeal to the middle-aged surburban woman (about 75% of the audience, by my estimate). But husbands of same certainly will appreciate the show. Having been through parenthood is an asset.

If they are performing anywhere in your area, make an effort to see them.

http://www.womenfullyclothed.com

Beware of Thunderstorms

An amazing story today from New South Wales, Australia, where two paragliders unsuccessfully tried to skirt a thunderstorm, got caught in an updraft, and soared to in excess of 30,000 feet.

One died.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/02/16/1171405421626.html?from=top5

35yo Ewa Wisnierska, reached a height of 9947 meters (about 32,600 feet), had no oxygen supply, survived -40C temperatures, encountered hailstones the size of baseballs, and lived to talk about it.

According to her GPS unit, maximum climb rate was just under 4,000 feet per minute.

Ewa, buy a lottery ticket.

Snow-stranded

Just got back from a business trip, which took me to Columbus Ohio for one day. Due to the winter storm which socked in the US midwest, I spent most of two days there.

We flew there&back in a Dash 8. Going there was low-altitude and in cloud, so I got to watch the wing leading edges ice up, and the infalatable boots blow them off.

KCMH de-ices and anti-ices planes wherever they happen to be. I shudder at all that glycol draining off to wherever - the airports around here have a specific de-icing pad with a catchment system in place.

I changed my flight back online on www.aircanada.ca, and three hours later the changes were not still in the United company. The check-in, which was incredibly inefficient, took forever, but she could not assign a seat. So I went to the gate to get my seat assignment, and I still was not shown as being on the flight, so we did it all again.

Stories from other passengers were "amusing". The weather truly sucked, precipitation was active, and there was rain, freezing rain, and snow, in below-zero temperatues. Streets were tough to go through, cars were parked in the ditch, and the passengers were complaining that they couldn't get where they wanted. An inconvenient combination of a death wish and ignorance of the technicalities of flying?

Airlines really need to work on their communications. One very irate [twit] was chewing out a gate agent (hah- just wait until you want to get a standby seat!) when she explained that a flight was delayed some number of hours, and all he heard was "cancelled".

Me? It flies when it flies. CMH has free wireless, so I got online, read blogs, wrote a report, processed email, and generally kept busy. And got home safe.

And I got to the mall in time to buy the Valentine's Day earrings for my wife.

Flying Bananas

An "artist" has become inspired to build and launch a flying banana over Texas. Approximately 300m in length, filled with helium, unmanned, high-altitude.

Being an artist, he's doing this with OPM (Other People's Money). Frankly, I could think of a few thousand things that would produce more lasting value than floating a yellow banana in the very high altitude over Texas, but woe to anyone who speaks out over funding the Arts.

I support funding "the Arts". Hopefully, someday, we may have the courage to recognize that not all proposed projects in "the Arts" are worthy, some are just tremendously stupid or nondescript ideas.

The banana irks me on two fronts.

First, it's funded by public money. I have no problem if somebody thinks this is a good idea and wants to put money into it. But taxpayer money is also being tossed in. There is also likely indirect tax money (my money) - I'll bet that the private and corporate donors are also writing this off as a donation or a marketing expense on their taxes, and so the oter taxpayers (you and me) are taking up the slack. Go ahead and float your ballon, but don't ask me to pay for it.

Secondly (and this is an aviation blog so there is - finally - an aviation relationship), it is a Really Dumb Idea, technically speaking. For example:

• Helium is a rare gas, really expensive, and finding 200,000 cubic metres of it for a 1 month lark is going to be a challenge.
• Helium atoms (molecules) are Really Small - so small they'll (slowly) pass right through even a dense substance such as glass. The plan is to have this thing hover over Texas for a month, and without really terrific materials and contruction the helium will seep out long before that time.
• Because the thing flies, there are standards to be met. Our artist figures to bypass all the rules by launching from Mexico (apparently he thinks Mexico has no airworthiness standards) and going so high the blimp will technically be in outer space, above the legislative reach of the FAA. Alas, the height required is so high that the banana won't visible from the ground - which rather defeats the original inspiring purpose.
• What goes up must come down, and this thing is supposed to suddenly magically and simultaenously self-destruct and then burn up on the way to the ground. Of course, what will really happen is that it will start to leak, be unable to maintain altitude, and come fluttering/drifting down in some random location.

Obviously, this guy is not an engineer. Though his website says the project is "in the final stages of engineering", perhaps that is a marketing statement.

If the objective of art is to get people talking and thinking, he has been successful. Hopefully, he'll stop here. It would be a lot cheaper and safer, too.

More paperwork done

Checked the mailbox today, and was pleased to see that another step towards solo flight has been accomplished... my medical certificate has arrived in the mail.

Category 3. And even though my left eye is 20/800 uncorrected (and virtually uncorrectable unless I have a coke bottle lens), my right eye is about 20/25 uncorrected, and 20/20 corrected. The only restriction on the certificate is that I must wear glasses when flying.

Woo hoo.

Radio operator certificate - done.
Medical certificate - done.

Next up - the PSTAR.

I guess I better get flying again. Though I have been travelling weekly on business travel, I've generally been in seat 2C, not the front left one. Dang.

Mid-Winter Celebration

One of the traditions at "my" gliding club is a mid-winter dinner, held just after the mid-point between the end of one gliding season, and the start of the next. The dinner is held in either very late January, or very early February, at a local country hotel. The food is hearty, the conversation vibrant.

Of course, everyone asked me where the blazes I was all last summer, having not shown up at the club once. I then confessed as having moved to the dark side, to power flight from gliding. One of the highlights (lowlights) of the conversation was around cost, where a power lesson approaches CA$250, and a glider rents for CA$21 per hour.

But it got me thinking about what to do for next summer, where I believe I will continue the power lessons to the point of license (or rec permit), and also do some gliding. I'll also get myself on track for flying the tow plane, so I can get hours and lots of circuits, but not have to pay to fly. So I guess I'll need to add a tail-dragger validation as well. All in due time.

Tower Tour

CYRP (my home airport) is just outside the Ottawa control zone, so we fly under the wedding cake north to the practice area, dipsy-doodle around for an hour, lose the appropriate altitude on the way home, circuit, land and we're done. No contact with ATC required.

So the school arranged a tower tour for this afternoon. Sunday is quiet, so having a bunch of wide-eyed students tromping about wasn't an incursion.

We started with a chat in the theatre with the shift supervisor where we got the real-world perspective of how things really work, then went up to the tower itself. We had a tour of the hardware, looked at the screens, enjoyed the view and chatted with the controllers on duty.

No more plastic strips being juggled and passed along like in the old movies... everything was computerized, aircraft existed on the computer screens only, and were passed along by using the touch screens.

One Eagle flight waiting for Philly had been sitting and parked for an hour - most of the eastern US seaboard was under weather. They were sent on their way while we were there, winging off to their destination and hour behind schedule before they even got wheels up.

The tour was an excellent idea. Thanks to this tour, entering a CZ is something I won't approach with apprehension.

The Paperwork Gauntlet

The last weeks have been spent on paperwork.

First was the PSTAR exam, for which I have been studying. The exam is 50 questions, selected from a pre-published list of 200 questions. Since the answers are readily available the passing mark is 90%. I tend to be a nut for rules, so I'm studying the guides and working the questions with an objective of learning, rather than just passing this exam. First pass through the questions was easy, but it has highlighted what I don't know (light signals from the tower being the prime example). I figure the knowledge will eventially be required for (a) the PPL exam, and (b) because it may one day save me from getting my butt in trouble, so I'm working the books.

I'm also working on the Category Three medical. Since my left eye is 20/800, I fall under the minimums and, if I pass my medical at all, I'll expect to get a monocular medical. If monocular, my 20/25 right eye has to reach the 20/20 standard, which means I need glasses. So I visited the optometrist before I went to the CAME, ordered the glasses, and am now waiting for them so I can complete that part of the test. And while we're at it, the CAME suggested I get some documentation from my optometrist so I can send the whole mass to the Transport Canada RAME, and have it all considered for approval at once. Oh yes, I also need an ECG.

I do have a backup plan: If there is a problem with the medical certificate then I'll get laser surgery on the left eye, which will bring it into the 20/20 to 20/30 range. I'll then have two eyes within standard, and the certificate is easy to get.

I already have the Restricted Radio Operator's Certificate (legacy of the glider school course).

This will probably all come together at once, with the medical and ground school getting completed at about the same time. The PSTAR I can complete at any time at the flying school.

Advice to new students: Start the process of getting the medical when you commit to taking the lessons. It takes time.

Groundhogging

I've been earthbound for 2 months, but not idle. And not doing much blogging either.

Work has gotten incredibly busy, with long hours per day, travel (1-3 trips per month), and some work on the weekend. Sounds like a crummy schedule for what is supposed to be an office job, but the work is transitional (it won't last forever), exciting (beats the snot out of boring), and even at my ripe old age I'm learning a lot.

Ground school started, and we have progressed to approximately the half done point. There is no doubt in my mind that starting to fly, before ground school, is an asset.

The Christmas season has come and gone, and it is always busy. This year my son came home for a week (he lives out west), and though I had dinner with him only 2 weeks earlier on a stopover through an airport, it was really great to have him home.

Home renovation continues to not get done. Well, it gets done slowly.. a coat of paint will get applied one evening,a nd then nothing happens for 3 weeks. My wife has the patience of a saint.

And my volunteer involvement in soccer peaks at this time of the year, as we're into the AGM and budget season. And I'm treasurer for a soccer club, on the Board for a recreational league and also first VP for the District. I was registrar for the same club, but I've ceased that activity (but am still the reference for the incoming registrar). It's a Good Thing I have reduced my soccer involvement from previous years.

With all this activity, something had to give. At my stage of learning, flying infrequently is not a good use of dollars. While it remains challenging and a fun learning experience, flying once every three or four weeks isn't going to quickly develop my flying capabilities (I'll spend most of a lesson re-learning muscle memory as I blast expensive tunnels in random parts of the sky). I decided to work on the rest of my life, continue my involvement in flying with groundschool, booklearning, PSTAR study, web-browsing, and save the bucks for flying one we get to the spring.

And maybe I'll finish painting the kitchen before 2008.