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Into the wild grey yonder...
Aug. 27th, 2010 11:31 amThe job interview at the airport only lasted half an hour ('til 10h30 or so), so it was back to drawing lines and angles on maps, filling in charts, calculating wind drift corrections, and pouring over aircraft performance charts and "winds aloft" supercomputer model predictions to determine estimated ground speeds and fuel consumption and estimated times to reach my chosen waypoints for my noon flight. Since I was doing a "cross country" trip (which is any flight more than about 25 nautical miles), I was booked into GQQV, an Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) rated aircraft with an integrated Garmin 430 GPS, dual VORs, DME, dual radios, and ADF... everything but an autopilot. When my friend arrived to come with me (GG for those who know her), it was about 10 minutes before the flight had been booked to start at noon, so I got ready to file my flight plan and... found out as I was asking for the keys that the other IFR certified aircraft that the club has was in for maintenance and because I was doing a Visual Flight Rules (VFR) flight, GQQV had been given to a pilot who was doing an actual IFR flight. Fair enough, right? I didn't need all that fancy stuff to get to where I was going. We were going to go in GMME, which I'd never flown. So... it had at least a VOR, right? Nope. No VORs. Oh. Well at least it had a ADF said the instructor who was standing nearby in an effort to mitigate my disappointment... and that was fine because I had planned some navigation by NDB... but another instructor called over their shoulder on their way to the can "Oh, the ADF on GMME went on the fritz, so, no, it doesn't have ADF". Oh, so no radio navigation at all. So what did it have? Well, it had a single VHF radio and a Mode C transponder (okay, so it was at least latter quarter of the 20th century ready) and what is affectionately known as "a six pack of steam gauges": vacuum driven gyros for the heading indicator and artificial horizon, an electrical gyro for the turn indicator, and air pressure driven indicators for altitude, airspeed, and the vertical speed indicator. Well, I said, could I have one of the portable GPS units then? The instructor, still trying be helpful said that since I was bumped from GQQV that they'd even lend it to me for free... until the dispatcher rolled her eyes and said that the lighter socket on GMME doesn't work and the battery was dead on the GPS. Lose x 3. Sigh.
So it was going to be steam gauges, maps, my trusty E6B rotary slide rule, and a wristwatch that were going to get us there. ( Read about the flight... ) But we had survived the worsening weather and the path into the Rockcliffe airport was clear and free of rain or low clouds. Since I was coming in from the north of the city (over the city of Gatineau), and runway 09 was active because of the wind direction (it's usually 27), we overflew the field at 1700 feet and did a descending 180° turn over the city and had great views of it as well as we were coming over, around, and then back. Radio calls all the way, of course, and another aircraft was coming in from the Ottawa airport, acknowledged that they saw us and tucked in at a respectable distance behind (we were first in line to land... Rockcliffe is another uncontrolled airport, so it's up to the pilots using it to sort out who's doing what, where, and when). Down to 1200 feet, fly over the field, make our radio call, join the mid left downwind leg, do the pre-landing checks, turn onto the base leg and announce our position, slow the aircraft further, put some flaps down, start losing altitude, make our call and turn onto the final leg, align with the runway, put more flaps in, pull the power all the way back to idle, forward slip to lose a little more altitude and things are looking perfect for touchdown... over the parkway, over the fence, set down on the main gear (bounce again... sigh, gotta work on that), settle all the way down (heh), and gently lower the nose gear down as we lose speed. Brake and exit on taxiway Bravo. Clear the field by 200 feet and call clear of the active runway. The plane behind us lands after we're clear. Taxi back to the pumps. Fill it up with fuel and then go inside to call and close the flight plan. I was one minute early on returning the plane before my booking was due to end. Win x 3.
There's no real way to convey the pure joy of being in the air in a small aircraft (versus tearing across the upper reaches of the troposphere in a commercial jet). I always think of that line from "Contact" where she says "Some celestial event. No — no words. No words to describe it. Poetry! They should've sent a poet. So beautiful. So beautiful... I had no idea." When my friend Blackbird was here visiting from Germany, I told her we were going to go flying. She wasn't feeling well the first day we had planned to go and I canceled, but I convinced her to come with me to the airport the Sunday morning she was leaving. She came along because I was insistent and she knew it was important to me, not because she was particularly interested in and of itself. Well, I had another underhanded trick up my sleeve too: at that point, I was not allowed to fly because I hadn't had my checkride, so I had booked an "Introductory Flying Lesson" for her with an instructor, and she was going to be flying the plane (it actually counts as formal flight training and can be logged as flying hours under dual instruction time). Well, as you can imagine, she was ready to punch my clock but good after pulling that sort of stunt, but she's an adventurous type and decided to roll with it and kill me once she was back ;). Well, when she landed about 40 minutes later, she was a changed person and she was saying "I finally understand" (because she's been reading my posts for years). The promised threat of bodily harm to me upon her return was forgotten, and she went on to say that it had never occurred to her that she could be a pilot if she chose to do so... and that there were so many more things she could do that she had never previously thought herself capable of (heck, the sky's the limit, right? lol). Well, that's the way I feel every time I fly. And each time, my heart breaks at the wonder and overwhelming beauty of it all, and it gives me whatever impetus I need to do what I need to do in everything else I do, just because I know that I live in such a glorious world. That Gillespie poem captures it so well, "I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings"...
FYI, I can take someone with me each time I fly, so if you're in Ottawa, or will be in Ottawa, let me know if you want to come some time (donations towards rental costs are welcome, but not necessary... it will all go, to the penny, to the "more minutes in the air for Da Friar fund").
P.S. We never did get dessert because by the time we were back and the plane was fueled and tied down, my friend had to head off for her job at the circus sideshow that evening at 6PM. :(
So it was going to be steam gauges, maps, my trusty E6B rotary slide rule, and a wristwatch that were going to get us there. ( Read about the flight... ) But we had survived the worsening weather and the path into the Rockcliffe airport was clear and free of rain or low clouds. Since I was coming in from the north of the city (over the city of Gatineau), and runway 09 was active because of the wind direction (it's usually 27), we overflew the field at 1700 feet and did a descending 180° turn over the city and had great views of it as well as we were coming over, around, and then back. Radio calls all the way, of course, and another aircraft was coming in from the Ottawa airport, acknowledged that they saw us and tucked in at a respectable distance behind (we were first in line to land... Rockcliffe is another uncontrolled airport, so it's up to the pilots using it to sort out who's doing what, where, and when). Down to 1200 feet, fly over the field, make our radio call, join the mid left downwind leg, do the pre-landing checks, turn onto the base leg and announce our position, slow the aircraft further, put some flaps down, start losing altitude, make our call and turn onto the final leg, align with the runway, put more flaps in, pull the power all the way back to idle, forward slip to lose a little more altitude and things are looking perfect for touchdown... over the parkway, over the fence, set down on the main gear (bounce again... sigh, gotta work on that), settle all the way down (heh), and gently lower the nose gear down as we lose speed. Brake and exit on taxiway Bravo. Clear the field by 200 feet and call clear of the active runway. The plane behind us lands after we're clear. Taxi back to the pumps. Fill it up with fuel and then go inside to call and close the flight plan. I was one minute early on returning the plane before my booking was due to end. Win x 3.
There's no real way to convey the pure joy of being in the air in a small aircraft (versus tearing across the upper reaches of the troposphere in a commercial jet). I always think of that line from "Contact" where she says "Some celestial event. No — no words. No words to describe it. Poetry! They should've sent a poet. So beautiful. So beautiful... I had no idea." When my friend Blackbird was here visiting from Germany, I told her we were going to go flying. She wasn't feeling well the first day we had planned to go and I canceled, but I convinced her to come with me to the airport the Sunday morning she was leaving. She came along because I was insistent and she knew it was important to me, not because she was particularly interested in and of itself. Well, I had another underhanded trick up my sleeve too: at that point, I was not allowed to fly because I hadn't had my checkride, so I had booked an "Introductory Flying Lesson" for her with an instructor, and she was going to be flying the plane (it actually counts as formal flight training and can be logged as flying hours under dual instruction time). Well, as you can imagine, she was ready to punch my clock but good after pulling that sort of stunt, but she's an adventurous type and decided to roll with it and kill me once she was back ;). Well, when she landed about 40 minutes later, she was a changed person and she was saying "I finally understand" (because she's been reading my posts for years). The promised threat of bodily harm to me upon her return was forgotten, and she went on to say that it had never occurred to her that she could be a pilot if she chose to do so... and that there were so many more things she could do that she had never previously thought herself capable of (heck, the sky's the limit, right? lol). Well, that's the way I feel every time I fly. And each time, my heart breaks at the wonder and overwhelming beauty of it all, and it gives me whatever impetus I need to do what I need to do in everything else I do, just because I know that I live in such a glorious world. That Gillespie poem captures it so well, "I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings"...
FYI, I can take someone with me each time I fly, so if you're in Ottawa, or will be in Ottawa, let me know if you want to come some time (donations towards rental costs are welcome, but not necessary... it will all go, to the penny, to the "more minutes in the air for Da Friar fund").
P.S. We never did get dessert because by the time we were back and the plane was fueled and tied down, my friend had to head off for her job at the circus sideshow that evening at 6PM. :(
