Mildly terrified

This probably describes my state of mind at the moment with regards to my upcoming cross country flight.

I mood swing quite rapidly between thinking “it’s just flying in a straight line, WMAP you can certainly do that. Nothing to it.” To “OMG there is so much to think about that I’m bound to miss something, I hope it isn’t anything too critical. Ah hell I’m gonna mess up BIG time, aren’t I?”

I thought I had a reasonable handle on this. Bob and I spent an hour or so doing some ground briefing a week or so ago. At his request I had the basic route plotted on my chart and had started thinking about the actual route. Then we would attempt to attack the flight planning sheet together.

I went in with a reasonable degree of optimism. RTH has forced me to do some flight planning for him so I am at least familiar with the sheet-of-my-doom. Bob was already happy that I’d made a sensible choice about our routing. On the first leg I’d chosen a set heading point that was a little further out than you would usually pick but it seemed sensible to me for a number of reasons including: 1) it is outside the controlled airspace around CYTZ 2) it gives you a route on the first leg that means you skim the edge of a largish lake rather than flying over the middle of it and 3) it is a way point that I use on my way to the practice area so I’m almost 100% certain I will be able to ID it just fine.

I managed most of the planning OK, struggled to remember some formulas, recalled other information when needed. Despite having to use my E6b, Bob and I are still on speaking terms; I didn’t feel the urge to launch the damn thing into the air or anything!

So for our next planned flight Bob texted me to confirm we had a booking for Saturday first thing. After a brief back and forward whereby I asked him to clarify “first thing” as I had regularly been in the office for 5:30am the previous week. The conversation (from my point of view) started off great and slowly declined.

Bob: Let’s meet earlier to review some light planning

WMAP: OK, great!

Bob: try to include landing and take-off distances

WMAP: Sure.

Bob: Weight and balance too

WMAP: right

Bob: for takeoff and landing

WMAP <please stop texting me with things to do>

This stuff is never ending, surely the planning shouldn’t take longer than the flight?

 

From the archives: Letting go.

This has always been a character flaw of mine. I can’t let certain things go. I still remember things from years ago that annoyed me or scared me or that I screwed up.

I do the same with flying. I concentrate on all the wrong things. Last lesson saw me acquire near half an hour of solo time, probably the best flying I’ve done on my own. So what do I remember from this flight? Do I focus on the 20 minutes of reasonable flying? Do I hell, all I can focus on is the one circuit that went wrong.

I should be thinking about the fact that although it went wrong, I shrugged it off enough to land the plane and carry on with the flight. I should be pleased with the fact that I recognised a bad-landing-in-the-making and executed a flawless go around without missing a heartbeat. I should be happy that I recognised the start of a potential wake turbulence incident and my immediate reaction was to go around. I didn’t even break a sweat. I should be happy with the fact that it was busy up there and I was doing just fine generally.

Instead I am still agonising over the “why aren’t you where you should be?” incident with ATC. I still can’t tell you exactly what went wrong. I know I must have screwed up somewhere but even my video doesn’t show me enough for me to figure it out. It’s eating away at me a little bit to be honest. I think I can accept the fact that I messed up, but I really need to know how.

I’m devoting far too much mental energy to this, I should be ecstatic about the stuff that did go right. I should be overjoyed that my reaction to Bob telling me he was going to get out was “Yep, alright. Off you go then.” Seriously I think this is the lowest my heart rate has ever been during a solo flight.

Instead I’m beating myself up over this one little blip, again and again and again.

Even though I’m still not sure what went wrong, I think I may have a strategy for coping If ATC and I ever disagree over where I should be going, but I need to run it past Bob first. That and I just need to LET GO!

What’s the point?

It’s hardly news that so called security measures in airports now have reached epic levels of stupidity. The truth is though that if you want to fly, we all rollover and let the powers-that-be do whatever the hell they like because itsallinagoodcauseandifyoudon’tsupportthesecuritymeasuresthenyoumustbeaterrorist etc .etc. The irony that every week I pass through airside to my local airport while carrying a large number of items on the “prohibited” list, is not lost on me.

To be honest, I’m pretty much like everyone else. I make loud noises about what a pain it all is, but get in line meekly while mulling over my choices of being sexually molested in public or exposed to a potential carcinogenic dose of ionising radiation. I’m well-travelled enough that I have a handle on most of the procedures required. I have the heel-off-your-shoes-while pulling-out-your-laptop with the one hand  and grab a tray with the other move pretty much down pat.

Flying to DC is always amusing, the security procedures even more extreme. RTH and I have a running completion as to how many times your boarding pass and photo ID get checked. I think he’s wining at the moment with a count of 11. I think it would have been 12 but he got so hacked off at having his pass checked at both the bottom and top of an escalator that he point blanked refused the second guy, who was, incidentally just an airport security drone and had no legal authority really. A view shared by the RCMP officers who viewed the entire exchange with barely concealed amusement. I guess the professionals don’t appreciate the amateur stupidity either.

The latest bit of pointless security that got me this time was the security drone* who was checking your passport and boarding card before allowing you into the security area at Dulles. She took my passport and boarding card and proceeded to check various details, indicating that they matched by putting a check mark through them.  She started with my name, checking it industriously against my passport, twice. Then the date. I swear she actually looked against a calendar in front of her. And then; and this is the incomprehensible bit, she placed the boarding card flat on the table in front of her and checked off, the flight number, my frequent flier points number and seat allocation.

I wanted to ask “what are you checking them against? And what does it matter?” All you have in front of you is my passport and boarding card. You have no idea if that is actually my allocated seat or not. And what’s the significance anyway? Do terrorists tend to avoid seat 10A then? I guess they don't collect reward points either!

Really what’s the point?

*I’ve noticed a trend of airport personnel wearing name badges but without actually telling you which agency employs them. This is important, the TSA for example; holds the authority, legitimately, to inspect your belongings and prevent you from passing through a checkpoint. It does not have the authority to detain you, interrogate you or arrest you, despite what they may claim.

Differing definitions

Bob and I have very different definitions of some things. His one of “fun” for one thing. I wish to state categorically, for the record, any type of stall does not fall into this category despite what Bob tries to persuade me.

Despite forecasts to the contrary (gotta love those meterologists!) the cloud base was a lot lower than forecast. The ATIS claimed that the sky was clear below 10 000ft, which obviously explains why I had to level out of my initial climb at 1600ft to avoid some big white fluffy things that obviously couldn’t have been clouds.

We had to be really picky about where we did our initial airwork, the clouds being a lot lower southwest of Claremont than Northeast. I’ve never actually worked so far north. I was hesitant about actually doing anything to be honest, we kept flying through whispey stuff that Bob claimed wasn’t cloud at all. His logic being that we could see through it and maintain reference to the ground.

I remain unconvinced, if it is white, whispey and throws you around a little when you fly close to it, it is cloud!

Fear I’m fighting a losing battle when the METAR/TAF/ATIS and instructor all deny its existence!  

Mixing your movie metaphors.

I was internet trawling the other day (what else is there to do when it’s 5:30 in the morning and you are waiting for the bus company to call you back?) and I came across some inane ramblings I may have posted on the internet at one point.

I believe the topic being discussed was the tiresome nature of being a pilot and being compared to characters from Top Gun. This isn’t actually I problem I’ve had really but I was obviously bored and decided to join in. I mixed up my genres a little bit by adding some Battle Star Galactica into the mix;

I decided that I had :

·         The talent of Boomer (real diehard fans will recall how she ended up with that particular moniker!)

·         The height of Maverick (yep, I’m short)

·         The qualifications of Charlie (really do have that degree in Astrophysics)

·         The luck of Goose

·         And probably the charm and people skills of Iceman

Boredom does weird things to me

Firsts

LocalFlightEast got its first spam comment today.  Some anonymous advertising bot spamming a blog of some sorts.  Hopefully this isn’t going to open the floodgates for more to follow.

I’m loathe to do it but I may end up enabling CAPTCHA codes on the comments bit.

Priorities

Same conference as last year. Different hotel, looks slightly better. So the burning question, what’s in this year’s goody bag? Last year’s was a bit of a mixed batch to be honest.

We have

·         A copy of the schedule – useful but unlike many people I am capable of both reading and printing out relevant emails

·         A copy of the industry mag <mild yawn>

·         A vaguely relevant article clipped from wall street journal

·         Notebook – quality much inferior to last year’s offering which still sits in my flight bag. It was a very useful size.

·         A slightly too small to be of any use industry branded plastic carrier bag – huh?

·         The same evil candy as last time – bleurgh!

·         A pen

·         Oooh, nice! Caramel chocolates. Yummy!

·         A mystery pink box- upon opening a frosted chocolate cup cake is revealed. Nice!

So how does it compare to last year? On the whole I’d say better on the consumables, not so good on the non-edibles.

STOP PRESS!!! On further examination there appears to be a 2GB USB stick lurking in the bottom of the bag. One of the useful ones that folds in and can sit on your key fob. I think I’ll up the rating a little based on this.