Luke, you switched off your targeting computer. What's wrong?

One of the many days I have dreamed of and dreaded on my climb up my Everest: My first "legal" cross country. So many things to think about and so much to learn...plus actually fly the airplane...all at the same time! What a hot day too! It was literally 100 degrees when I landed, but at 3500 MSL it was 78 today...not bad at all...

When I first took off, the crazy GPS in the plane just wouldn't work, I messed with it for a bit and after some choice words, I decided to just turn it off. I had the two VOR's, my map and my trusty handheld $89 GPS "yellowjacket" that at least pointed me in the right direction and told me statute miles to my destination, so I used it to confirm my position along with the DME radio. Amazingly, and to my surprise, the VOR's pretty much worked perfectly, especially I was impressed with the triangulation along the route...not a hitch. I was also surprised that I actually flew right to the VOR and actually saw it both when I was coming in to KENL and when I was taking off back for KFES.

This was by far the best day I have had in the air so far and one that I will never forget. It was a also a great reward for fighting through a couple of really tough weeks in this climb.

How do airplanes fly?

According to Bournoulli's principal it has something to do with the shape of the wing and forcing air molecules to travel further over the longer top surface compared to the lower part of the wing. When the molecules have to travel over a further distance than their friends at the bottom of the wing they spread out, which causes lower pressure...the wing of course, finds it easier to go in the direction of the lower pressure, which is up, which in turn causes lift. There is a cliched joke in aviation that states "it is money that makes airplanes fly!" So beware of asking this question around any of the "geezers" or "airport bums" you may find here in small mid-west airports! Of course, flying isn't cheap...and this has been a stressful element of climbing my Mt. Everest. Today, however, I was proactive and followed one of my tenets of climbing an Everest...if you don't know something ask an expert. So, since my stress was money, I went to my bank...within a few minutes I had everything I needed! The interest rate on my old 2nd mortgage was much higher than the rate at which I could refinance. So, by adding a few years and lowering my interest rate, I found the money for my flying with just a barely noticeable increase in our monthly budget! What a relief and now I have a real chance of summiting again! Now, it is back to actual flying challenges...such as how do I turn on my VOR's? I am looking at this picture of my cockpit trying to figure out the difference between voice and ident...I guess voice is on? Ident I am guessing is just for the morse code identification to make navigation off of a VOR legal? Also, I am hoping it says voice, because you can talk over a VOR to Flight Service or ATC (not sure of the difference totally...maybe FSS is anywhere and ATC is airport specific? Beats me?) Of course, to talk over the VOR, I think I need to move down one of the those 8 silver little knobs to do it...but really I am not sure. Then there is the whole E6-B issue and that I don't know how to figure out what heading I should take on a chart or how to do a time or wind correction heading or whatever it is called...true course vs. mag course or something...and then correcting for magnetic ________....not even sure of the word, but there are these weird lines on charts and you can correct for something that is inherently wrong with compasses...so yeah, my hands are full! The scientific, engineering folks have it made on these particular items...even though I'm no Bournoulli I will get it eventually, but it is going to take a while...and I just need to get comfortable with that.

Navigation Blues

Been depressed all day trying to figure out the navigation/flight planning for my cross country (XC) this week. Now I know why we accidentally bombed Switzerland during WWII...it's a lot tougher and has turned out to be my most challenging technical part of my flight training so far. This truly is like climbing Mt. Everest for me personally. A lot of people claim to love flight training....I am definitely not one of them...I have enjoyed myself maybe twice for maybe 5 minutes....this is all about summiting the peak for me...I'll worry about enjoying it after I get my license if I have any money left. Some people ask "why I'm doing it?" But, it would take a team of psychologists and maybe even a few psychiatrists to answer that question. After I'm done maybe I'll know why. I know it has a lot to do with my Dad. It also has a lot to do with my son and not being able to put this dream of mine on him since he has special needs. A lot of has to do with starting it 5 times and not wanting to quit again. Some people will tell you that getting a pilot's license is easy or inexpensive...I guess if you are a rich engineer with plenty of time on your hands that could be true...it certainly isn't for me...this is the biggest challenge I've ever purposely put myself through since I taught myself German at age 24 and then became a German teacher. Maybe someday this will all look easy...that is hard to believe. Part of me would love to quit...be reasonable with my life and live within my budget...but then there is the other side...I don't want to be on my death bed thinking that I almost got my pilot's license once...man that sounds terrible...OK...enough crying, time to catch my breath, eat an energy bar, forget that the horses are all blind and load the wagon!

Airshow!

This morning Sue and Teddy came out to the airport and watched me do a couple of solo landings and takeoffs. Teddy considered it his own personal airshow! Above is my 2nd takeoff.

July is "Push Month"

I've declared July as "Push Month".

Flying:

• Schedule as many flying lessons as weather and schedules permit.


• I am going to work on the FAA written test every day.


• Take FAA written at the end of the month it at the end of the month.


• Mental flying everyday to practice skills.


• Spend more time on PoA working through any issues I will run into.

Fitness:

• Strictly limit to 2K calories a day for the month of July.


• Get more sleep.


• Vitamins.


• Taper my way down to one diet soda a day by July 31.


• Lift weights and workout daily.


• Add bike and extra walk everyday.

I won't bore the readers with other elements of the Push Month such as details on cleaning/organizing our house or getting ready for the next school year, but I do have a comprehensive plan. I want to see just how much progress I can squeeze out of a month. Of course, life doesn't stop just because I made a plan. I will spend the majority of my days with my son, but I will see how much he will cooperate with and get him involved everywhere that I can . As far as flying goes, I don't have any grand plans except to finish the license. I didn't get quite the raise this year that I was hoping for and last year I didn't get one at all, so as with many people, finances are tight and I considered quitting the flying altogether...but I am 33 hours in and my instructor said I am 10 -15 hours away from my checkride...so I feel I need to push on...accomplish this goal and at the very least get the headliner off of my bucket list! I don't want to be on my deathbed someday thinking about how I "almost" finished my pilot's license...So, time to get serious.

Aviate, Navigate, Communicate

I finally flew my first solo cross country Tuesday afternoon. It was hot, hazy, bumpy and windy...but, I knew I had to get it done. I learned a lot and I learned that there's even more that I still don't know. Luckily, the process of filing flight plans with FSS wasn't nearly as difficult as I feared. So, I have calmed down about that aspect of cross countries. Another positive, was that I handled the whole flight from start to finish for the first time by myself...first time I had done the runup for example. Everything went perfectly for a while. It was hazier than I thought it would be and it was hotter than hell, 96 degrees when I took off at 3:15. My instructor told me to call my inbound to Perryville at St. Genevieve, but I never saw the little town and the next thing I knew I saw the bridge over the Mississippi which alerted me that I was approaching K02. I was cruising at 3500 feet to find some cooler air, so I had to drop altitude fairly quickly...K02 sits at 372 MSL. I cruised around the south end of the runway, confirmed that the winds were still coming strong out of the south by looking at the windsock...the runway there is really long, 7,000 feet, so I had plenty of time to lose altitude on my downwind run...it was weird landing on a runway over 3x as long and 2x as wide as my home base! I felt like I was landing on the moon. After I landed it took me forever to taxi down to the little taxiway and turn around. After I pulled off the runway I took the pic you see above of myself. You can see the sweat soaking through my shirt on my chest and note that my window is open. I drained half of my big water bottle, took 2 more pics and back taxied back down runway 20. I called myself departing and took off for home. After I was in the air a bit, I wasn't sure looking at my radio, that I had ever really been communicating....so that was spooky to me. Then I never did figure out the VOR's I thought I had set up and I never was able to program the GPS! Finally, I was never able to tune in the AWOS wx frequency in Farmington either. So, I wasn't communicating (maybe), I wasn't really navigating (except by pilotage, which is easy thanks to the Mississippi River), but I was aviating pretty well....for now. As a student pilot you get the priorities pounded into your head: Aviate, Navigate, Communicate....so basically don't crash, if your not crashing, figure out where you are and if you know where you are and your not in a spin or close to it...communicate! It was hazier and hotter on my return trip...I only went up to about 2500 feet for the return. Coming back to KFES, it looked like I was trying to land on a carrier...the big runway at K02 had me all messed up and I came in too hot on my landing and had to do a go around due to too much floating in ground effect. My instructor coached me through it on the handheld and reminded to take the flaps off 10 degrees at a time so that I didn't "drop like a rock"...I looked down at the flap control, but I had already taken all 20 degrees off...but I didn't drop too much and went around the pattern again and this time landed smoothly...Paul got my confidence back up, announcing good go-around and good landing over the handheld. I called FSS, closed my flight plan and even though it was tough, I passed another milestone on my amazingly difficult climb up my Everest!

Hot and Windy

I flew again Sunday morning. Winds were about 20 kts, so wisely, Paul didn't clear me for my solo xc to Perryville. We practiced in the pattern instead. All of the turbulence made it harder to remember everything, but after 3 landings everything was coming together pretty well and I felt good about the lesson. The biggest problem today was the heat inside the airplane. I need to find or wear different sunglasses, these started steaming over after a while. Also, my hands were sweating so much it was hard to keep a good grip on the yoke. I'm really ready for some better weather. Next scheduled flight this coming Sunday again. I have been working on my written test material too. I did a 100 question practice test on chapters 1-8 (of 11 Gleim chapters) and got a 96%...so I am feeling pretty good about it. I just need to add another chapter. The chapter where I have to use the E-6B flight computer looks tricky...but I will manage somehow. Just amazed at all of the things I am trying to remember all the time.