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Kids, and big kids...
Aug. 5th, 2013 09:33 pmIt's always sad when you have to come down on one of your kids for their behaviour... Beep had a friend over and they and Happy were watching music videos. I walked through the room a few times hoping that I wouldn't have to say anything, but eventually I couldn't take it anymore and had to tell Beep that if she was going to be playing music like that, that she would have to turn it the fuck up because it was playing far too quietly. Sheesh... some people's kids...
Oh, another very important thing that happened last week, that I forgot to mention in my previous omnibus post, was I went flying again last Tuesday. It had been quite a while since the last time I went up, but I had been insanely busy and couldn't find the time to prepare for it or the sleep to do well at it (a very sad statement indeed, but at least I'm ferociously conscientious). It really looked like I wasn't going to be able to fly that day though due to the weather. As I was driving to the airport, the clouds were looking lower and lower and meaner and meaner. A half hour before my flight was scheduled, the clouds were at 800 feet and continuing to drop and the weather report said it would clear up, but only after my flight was due to end. But... lo and behold, things started clearing up much faster than predicted, and by the time I had inspected the aircraft (pre-flight), the flight was definitely a go!
The clouds were broken (BKN) and their bases were around 2500 feet, so some of the upper air work I had expected to do was not going to happen (but we'd done a lot the previous time anyway, so it wasn't too big a deal). Instead, we went out to the practice area (the Breckenridge and Luskville area on the Quebec side of the river) and did forced landings. This involves the instructor randomly reaching out and pulling the throttle back to idle and stating "tut tut, you seem to have lost your engine, what do you intend to do now?" (the engine isn't actually stopped, it's idling, but the aircraft is pretty much a glider at that point). What to do? First and foremost: aviate... fly the plane! This involves establishing a glide that will give the least altitude drop for a given horizontal distance (keeps the plane in the air as long as possible), turn on the carburator heat (if the carburator was iced up, the engine heat will decrease quickly so doing that immediately might let the engine start again on its own if that was the problem), and trim the aircraft for the "best glide" speed mentioned above so you don't have to keep pulling on the control yoke (or stick) and can focus on everything else you need to do next. Next? Figure out where you're going to land on the presumption you aren't going to be able to restart the engine (this is a truly terrifying thing to contemplate while night flying... just sayin'), and then plan the approach you want to make to the chosen landing site (usually a farmer's field if there are any, or a road if there are no fields, or a lake if there are no roads, or a nice cushy mountainside if there are no lakes, errrrr... forget I said that). In this case, there were lots of farmer's fields, so I picked what looked like a good one and started to [the next step] navigate to it (remembering, it's a glider I'm suddenly flying). One of the big tricks is figuring out what the wind direction is... we were by the Ottawa river, so we could see that the wind was coming from the west because there were calm areas on the west side of bays and whatnot and the water got choppy past that. Once the field was picked and if there is enough time (usually a minute or two depending on the starting height and the distance to the field), troubleshooting the cause can then be performed: make sure the fuel is on and the tanks read that there is fuel in them, make sure the master switch for the magnetos is on [try the left then the right instead of having it on both to see if that makes any difference], make sure the fuel mixture is all the way "rich", and make sure the fuel primer hasn't rattled loose during the flight and flooded the engine with fuel. If the engine doesn't restart and there is still time, make a distress call (mayday) with as much information as you can give about the situation, the aircraft identification and type and markings, how many people are on board, and where you are going to try to land. Then... turn to your passenger (who has been calmly waiting for instructions, of course) and give them a final briefing: remove glasses and anything pointy and secure them somehow, push the seat all the way back, make sure the seatbelts are secure, and open up the door a crack in case the aircraft frame bends on landing so it doesn't jam the door shut (opening the doors on these kinds of aircraft don't affect how well they fly, it's more of a psychological thing). Finally, the aircraft should be shut down and secured to prevent electrical or fuel fires on landing (fuel off, mixture in "idle cutoff" position, magnetos off, and master switch off [but only after any changes to the flap settings are done because they use an electric motor to move them]). All of that in about 60 to 90 seconds usually... it's amazing what can be accomplished in such a short time (realizing, of course, that it's what the training is supposed to accomplish).
Again, I was just practicing, so about 300 feet above the field the instructor could determine whether or not we'd make the selected landing site and would call for an "overshoot" of the field (full power, carb heat cold, flaps up in stages) so we can head back up and do it again. We did three out in the practice area: two straight approaches and one 360° circling approach (it was used in the US, so I have done them before, but is newly approved in Canada therefore flight instructors want to make sure you know how to do them since many people were never trained in them when they got their license). After nailing all of them (actually, much to my surprise) we headed back to the airport and did some "touch and go" landings. The last time I went up... as I seem to remember writing, my landings were... well... sub-optimal shall we say. Not dangerous in any way, but lacking any appreciable level of finesse. This time, I was smoooooth and my landings were where I wanted them to be, and I was much, much happier :). On the final circuit, my instructor had one more trick up his sleeve for me... just as we were about halfway along the downwind leg of the circuit (at 1000 feet above the airport altitude of 200 feet above sea level)... back goes the throttle to idle... "oh... so sad... you seem to have lost your engine in the circuit... do you think you can make the runway from here?". Ummm, ayup, no problem... I got this shit! I do a call to let any traffic know the shenanigans we were engaging in (there was nobody else around, and it's an uncontrolled airport, but it's always about safety first). I start my turn to base a little past the runway threshold because I know there is a strong headwind (with a crosswind component), so I'm going to drop very quickly once I turn to the final approach heading and line up with the runway. I bring it around and call final ("final for runway two seven, simulated engine failure, full stop")... we're a bit high and the crosswind is definitely trying to push us sideways, so I sideslip into the wind (which increases the rate of descent and compensates for the crosswind at the same time while keeping the nose of the plane straight along the runway... the other technique is to "crab" into the wind where you turn the aircraft toward the wind so the flight path is straight along the runway but the plane is facing off to the side... then you turn the plane straight just as you touch down and can use the wheels for directional control). I also added some more flaps to allow me to decrease my speed and it makes the plane drop faster too. Oh, did I mention that the instructor challenged me to "meet commercial flight standards and land within 400 feet of the designated touchdown spot" as I did it? Didn't quite do it in the 400 feet, but I was about 450 feet down (I had a bit of a float before touching down, so I that set me down a bit further along). The key is that it was a beautiful landing and I actually had fun doing it.
And... the reason why I spent all that time writing this to share, is that once down, the instructor declared me ready and able to head out on my own again... yayayayay! As long as I fly about once a month going forward, I will not need to be checked out by an instructor again for quite some time (until I actually am thinking about preparing for my commercial flight test... which is now looking like maybe next year again, sigh... this time mostly for money reasons). The big thing I need to do is rack up many, many hours doing "cross-country" flights as pilot-in-command (it's the category of hours I'm short in to have completed the requirements for a commercial license, I am pretty sure I have everything else). Oh, and what is meant by "cross-country" in this context, just means flying to another airport more than 50 nautical miles away from where I start, and landing ("full stop") before heading back (preferably after having lunch or something there, heh). It doesn't mean "flying across Canada" ;). I'll be doing a couple of solo flights by myself (just to convince myself that I'm really ready to do some cross-countries with passengers), then I'll work through the list of people that have already expressed their interest in going with me, and then I'll broaden the list from there as appropriate. As an aside, money is going to be my real issue this coming year as it looks like I am not going to have a job come September (if I end up doing my honours project, the professor I've been working for gets me for free... and, as a matter of fact, I get to pay for the privilege of working for free... such is the life of a student). All that to say that if you can share in the cost of a flight, it will increase the number of flights I'll be able to do on the resources I have to dedicate to this pursuit this coming year. I can't charge for flights, but I can certainly accept gracious donations towards the cost of the flight from friends I take up (up to 100% if you're feeling all shooga towards me). As a starving student, every bit helps :). And... just to be really, really clear... because this came up the last time I mentioned sharing costs... if I'm able to fly and I invite you along, I do not need you to contributions to the cause... I would be flying anyway and if you want to come along, it's not going to increase the cost of the flight for me to do so. Chipping in just means I'll be able to go up again sooner, or maybe plan a longer flight and continue to advance toward a commercial license. FYI, my ultimate goal is to fly into the Toronto Island airport and spend a day or night in Toronto before flying back, but that's going to cost a lot of money to do, heh, so I am leaving that as a "nice to have some day" thing.
Okay... off to solve some physics equations and then try to get to bed at a tolerable time. I have a doctor's appointment (just a check up) at 11h30, and then will be in meetings all day to hear about the ATLAS detector work being done at Carleton over the next couple of years (ATLAS is one of the major experiments at the Large Hadron Collider site), and then will be in class from 18h00 to 21h00, and then will be going out to celebrate a friend's birthday, and then will fall into a drooling coma until Wednesday...
If you want to know more about all this ATLAS stuff and Large Hadron Collider stuff, here is what I consider to be the perfect, and accessible, introduction to it ("and the things it will discover will rock you in the head"):
Oh, another very important thing that happened last week, that I forgot to mention in my previous omnibus post, was I went flying again last Tuesday. It had been quite a while since the last time I went up, but I had been insanely busy and couldn't find the time to prepare for it or the sleep to do well at it (a very sad statement indeed, but at least I'm ferociously conscientious). It really looked like I wasn't going to be able to fly that day though due to the weather. As I was driving to the airport, the clouds were looking lower and lower and meaner and meaner. A half hour before my flight was scheduled, the clouds were at 800 feet and continuing to drop and the weather report said it would clear up, but only after my flight was due to end. But... lo and behold, things started clearing up much faster than predicted, and by the time I had inspected the aircraft (pre-flight), the flight was definitely a go!
The clouds were broken (BKN) and their bases were around 2500 feet, so some of the upper air work I had expected to do was not going to happen (but we'd done a lot the previous time anyway, so it wasn't too big a deal). Instead, we went out to the practice area (the Breckenridge and Luskville area on the Quebec side of the river) and did forced landings. This involves the instructor randomly reaching out and pulling the throttle back to idle and stating "tut tut, you seem to have lost your engine, what do you intend to do now?" (the engine isn't actually stopped, it's idling, but the aircraft is pretty much a glider at that point). What to do? First and foremost: aviate... fly the plane! This involves establishing a glide that will give the least altitude drop for a given horizontal distance (keeps the plane in the air as long as possible), turn on the carburator heat (if the carburator was iced up, the engine heat will decrease quickly so doing that immediately might let the engine start again on its own if that was the problem), and trim the aircraft for the "best glide" speed mentioned above so you don't have to keep pulling on the control yoke (or stick) and can focus on everything else you need to do next. Next? Figure out where you're going to land on the presumption you aren't going to be able to restart the engine (this is a truly terrifying thing to contemplate while night flying... just sayin'), and then plan the approach you want to make to the chosen landing site (usually a farmer's field if there are any, or a road if there are no fields, or a lake if there are no roads, or a nice cushy mountainside if there are no lakes, errrrr... forget I said that). In this case, there were lots of farmer's fields, so I picked what looked like a good one and started to [the next step] navigate to it (remembering, it's a glider I'm suddenly flying). One of the big tricks is figuring out what the wind direction is... we were by the Ottawa river, so we could see that the wind was coming from the west because there were calm areas on the west side of bays and whatnot and the water got choppy past that. Once the field was picked and if there is enough time (usually a minute or two depending on the starting height and the distance to the field), troubleshooting the cause can then be performed: make sure the fuel is on and the tanks read that there is fuel in them, make sure the master switch for the magnetos is on [try the left then the right instead of having it on both to see if that makes any difference], make sure the fuel mixture is all the way "rich", and make sure the fuel primer hasn't rattled loose during the flight and flooded the engine with fuel. If the engine doesn't restart and there is still time, make a distress call (mayday) with as much information as you can give about the situation, the aircraft identification and type and markings, how many people are on board, and where you are going to try to land. Then... turn to your passenger (who has been calmly waiting for instructions, of course) and give them a final briefing: remove glasses and anything pointy and secure them somehow, push the seat all the way back, make sure the seatbelts are secure, and open up the door a crack in case the aircraft frame bends on landing so it doesn't jam the door shut (opening the doors on these kinds of aircraft don't affect how well they fly, it's more of a psychological thing). Finally, the aircraft should be shut down and secured to prevent electrical or fuel fires on landing (fuel off, mixture in "idle cutoff" position, magnetos off, and master switch off [but only after any changes to the flap settings are done because they use an electric motor to move them]). All of that in about 60 to 90 seconds usually... it's amazing what can be accomplished in such a short time (realizing, of course, that it's what the training is supposed to accomplish).
Again, I was just practicing, so about 300 feet above the field the instructor could determine whether or not we'd make the selected landing site and would call for an "overshoot" of the field (full power, carb heat cold, flaps up in stages) so we can head back up and do it again. We did three out in the practice area: two straight approaches and one 360° circling approach (it was used in the US, so I have done them before, but is newly approved in Canada therefore flight instructors want to make sure you know how to do them since many people were never trained in them when they got their license). After nailing all of them (actually, much to my surprise) we headed back to the airport and did some "touch and go" landings. The last time I went up... as I seem to remember writing, my landings were... well... sub-optimal shall we say. Not dangerous in any way, but lacking any appreciable level of finesse. This time, I was smoooooth and my landings were where I wanted them to be, and I was much, much happier :). On the final circuit, my instructor had one more trick up his sleeve for me... just as we were about halfway along the downwind leg of the circuit (at 1000 feet above the airport altitude of 200 feet above sea level)... back goes the throttle to idle... "oh... so sad... you seem to have lost your engine in the circuit... do you think you can make the runway from here?". Ummm, ayup, no problem... I got this shit! I do a call to let any traffic know the shenanigans we were engaging in (there was nobody else around, and it's an uncontrolled airport, but it's always about safety first). I start my turn to base a little past the runway threshold because I know there is a strong headwind (with a crosswind component), so I'm going to drop very quickly once I turn to the final approach heading and line up with the runway. I bring it around and call final ("final for runway two seven, simulated engine failure, full stop")... we're a bit high and the crosswind is definitely trying to push us sideways, so I sideslip into the wind (which increases the rate of descent and compensates for the crosswind at the same time while keeping the nose of the plane straight along the runway... the other technique is to "crab" into the wind where you turn the aircraft toward the wind so the flight path is straight along the runway but the plane is facing off to the side... then you turn the plane straight just as you touch down and can use the wheels for directional control). I also added some more flaps to allow me to decrease my speed and it makes the plane drop faster too. Oh, did I mention that the instructor challenged me to "meet commercial flight standards and land within 400 feet of the designated touchdown spot" as I did it? Didn't quite do it in the 400 feet, but I was about 450 feet down (I had a bit of a float before touching down, so I that set me down a bit further along). The key is that it was a beautiful landing and I actually had fun doing it.
And... the reason why I spent all that time writing this to share, is that once down, the instructor declared me ready and able to head out on my own again... yayayayay! As long as I fly about once a month going forward, I will not need to be checked out by an instructor again for quite some time (until I actually am thinking about preparing for my commercial flight test... which is now looking like maybe next year again, sigh... this time mostly for money reasons). The big thing I need to do is rack up many, many hours doing "cross-country" flights as pilot-in-command (it's the category of hours I'm short in to have completed the requirements for a commercial license, I am pretty sure I have everything else). Oh, and what is meant by "cross-country" in this context, just means flying to another airport more than 50 nautical miles away from where I start, and landing ("full stop") before heading back (preferably after having lunch or something there, heh). It doesn't mean "flying across Canada" ;). I'll be doing a couple of solo flights by myself (just to convince myself that I'm really ready to do some cross-countries with passengers), then I'll work through the list of people that have already expressed their interest in going with me, and then I'll broaden the list from there as appropriate. As an aside, money is going to be my real issue this coming year as it looks like I am not going to have a job come September (if I end up doing my honours project, the professor I've been working for gets me for free... and, as a matter of fact, I get to pay for the privilege of working for free... such is the life of a student). All that to say that if you can share in the cost of a flight, it will increase the number of flights I'll be able to do on the resources I have to dedicate to this pursuit this coming year. I can't charge for flights, but I can certainly accept gracious donations towards the cost of the flight from friends I take up (up to 100% if you're feeling all shooga towards me). As a starving student, every bit helps :). And... just to be really, really clear... because this came up the last time I mentioned sharing costs... if I'm able to fly and I invite you along, I do not need you to contributions to the cause... I would be flying anyway and if you want to come along, it's not going to increase the cost of the flight for me to do so. Chipping in just means I'll be able to go up again sooner, or maybe plan a longer flight and continue to advance toward a commercial license. FYI, my ultimate goal is to fly into the Toronto Island airport and spend a day or night in Toronto before flying back, but that's going to cost a lot of money to do, heh, so I am leaving that as a "nice to have some day" thing.
Okay... off to solve some physics equations and then try to get to bed at a tolerable time. I have a doctor's appointment (just a check up) at 11h30, and then will be in meetings all day to hear about the ATLAS detector work being done at Carleton over the next couple of years (ATLAS is one of the major experiments at the Large Hadron Collider site), and then will be in class from 18h00 to 21h00, and then will be going out to celebrate a friend's birthday, and then will fall into a drooling coma until Wednesday...
If you want to know more about all this ATLAS stuff and Large Hadron Collider stuff, here is what I consider to be the perfect, and accessible, introduction to it ("and the things it will discover will rock you in the head"):
