Fear of Taxiing

April 23rd, 2009 • 1 comment

Over the last few months I’ve developed what I will call a fear of taxiing and it is interfering with my flying – you typically can’t fly if you can’t taxi to the runway! Here’s the problem (as I seem to see it). This (old) satellite image from Google shows the parking ramp at the FBO we use and the taxiway to 28L (and keep heading east to get to 28R); the pinkish line shows where the taxiway starts, everything south of that line is a non-movement area.

The parking area is busy, my club alone has 20+ planes in that area, and there is just the one way in and out. Planes typically have to yield but there’s very few places to “pull over” and, since its a non-movement area there’s no organisation to the chaos.

Recently I’ve been finding reasons to cancel flights – the parking ramp will be too busy, the plane I have booked is all the way at the end of the line, what if I meet someone coming down on my way out etc. All things that never used to bother me. So I cancel and then I haven’t flown for a month, now I’m worried that the crosswind might be too much since its been a month… so I cancel again and next time I wonder if I’m able to land in any condition so I cancel….

To combat this I’ve booked a couple of flights with my CFI, we’ll get my landing confidence back up, we’ll also re-check me out in the Archer (in preparation for the Arrow arriving in May), and we’ll talk about ways to mitigate my taxi fears. I don’t intend to let my licence go to waste but I need to get over this irrational fear.

NAF El Centro Air Show Videos Part 1

March 20th, 2009 • Comments Off

Some videos from the air show.

First, a walk around the static displays:

Next, the C-17 aerial demonstration

Finally for this post a combination clip of a B-1 Lancer bomber flyby and the F/A-18 show

I think there will be a couple more next week, including the Blue Angels show, and then I am done.

NAF El Centro Air Show

March 16th, 2009 • Comments Off

Last weekend was the 2009 Air Show at the NAF El Centro base in, guess where, El Centro, California. Weather was fantastic as usual and lots of interesting things to see. The main event is always the first Blue Angels exhibition of the year (they train in El Centro all winter) but I very much enjoyed the C-17 demo and the B-1 bomber flyover. Something new this year was the “inaugural” acrobatic air race that they plan to have at many more air shows this year: two Pitts planes flew side by side, the winner being the first one to complete all 9 acrobatic maneuvers. Quite exciting and a very close finish.

I hope to have some video from the event online during the week but until then you can see some pictures at my Flickr Air Show set.

Any Tips for Video in the Plane?

March 11th, 2009 • 5 comments

I’m finally ready to take some video from the cockpit when I fly but wondered if anyone had any tips for what makes an enjoyable video, and what makes a really dull one. I’m also curious about whether you prefer to see the view right over the prop, or maybe you prefer the camera looking to the side of the nose ?

I’m going to mount my Aiptek GVS HD camera on the passenger side front glass, shoot at 720p and feed the COM into the camera so we have ATC chatter. The camera is pretty no frills but has done a really good job so far in my on the ground tests. But once it’s attached to the window I don’t plan to move it so no panning of the sky, or close up of what a great job I’m doing on the localiser backcourse approach

Anyway, any and all comments appreciated.

Bad Weekend in San Diego

March 9th, 2009 • Comments Off

This past weekend saw two plane crashes involving Cessna 172s operating to or from my home base, Montgomery Field in San Diego.

The first one was on Friday when a plane en route from San Diego to French Valley (Temecula) was observed going down in the ocean about 30 miles west of Oceanside. After an extensive search, no body was found although plenty of debris from the plane was evident. Much has been made that the pilot was a “novice” and that he was not talking to any ATC facility once off the ground. This accident baffles me since if you look at a map of the area it should be impossible to wrongly navigate this trip.

First this is a trip that student pilots make a lot during training out of MYF so the routes to it should be very well known. But mostly, it is easy because you just follow the coast. Weather was VFR so no reason why he could not see the land. To be so far off the coast makes me wonder if there was something more going on for the pilot to be so distracted to be flying in the opposite direction with such obvious navigational clues. Sad for a life to be lost, and for the flying club that lost one of it’s rental fleet.

The second accident occurred Saturday night when another 172 crash-landed just off Interstate-5 near Camp Pendleton (just north of Ocenaside) on its way from Orange County airport to KMYF. The three people on board suffered a range of injuries, at least two of them are still in hospital. According to an eye witness report the pilot stated that the engine had quit and he had been unable to restart it. Faced with a choice of the freeway or the beach the pilot tried for the latter and hit an unseen ravine. Not knowing where the engine out happened but in daylight the pilot may well have been able to see many places around that would have made decent landing strips. Hopefully all the people will recover well.

How Can One Stay Proficient in All Things?

February 22nd, 2009 • 2 comments

I’ve got my eye on flying a 172SP in our club that has a groovy Garmin 530 and 2-axis autopilot. A little more pricey than the 172s I usually fly, $126 an hour, but would be a great weekend getaway plane. I wrote my CFI to ask if I needed to know anything and he said he’d like to show me how to start it for my first time: it’s apparently very easy to flood the engine in a fuel-injected plane? He sent me the procedure and it made my head hurt, which got me thinking about how does one stay proficient in all these little things that I am endorsed for:

1. flying high wings (my usual)
2. flying low wings (not very often)
3. using an HSI (the Archer has an HSI but I can never remember how to use it)
4. complex aircraft (not very often)
5. high performance (not in a couple of years)
6. fuel-injected engines (so far not ever)

Maybe the trick is to choose just one plane and forget the rest? But I want to fly the club’s DA-40, too. And one day maybe I can afford the G1000 ?? And all this while still trying to keep PIC, night PIC and IFR current. Ugh, I need a second and third job.

Strongest Winds

February 9th, 2009 • Comments Off

The winds are blowing throughout Southern California right now: I almost got blown out off the freeway coming over the mountains this morning! I tweeted something about the winds and got this reply:

Which reminded me of a trip to Laughlin (KIFP) a few years ago for my birthday, took a friend from San Diego for an overnight. Had a great trip over and a fun time in the casino but in the morning the winds were howling. We got to the 172 I opened the passenger door and the charts I had put on my seat instantly flew out of the plane. I ran after them (not knowing if it was one I needed or not) but it kept on going and going. At some point a guy from the FBO overtook me in a golf cart and got hold of the chart: it was not one I would need.

There is no ATIS or AWOS at Laughlin so I have no idea what the winds were (it’s possible the tower told me but I don’t remember) but it was tough to stand up so that meant pretty damned windy to me. My friend asked me if I had ever flown in winds this bad before – I said not. But seeing the look on his face I said that we’d taxi real careful and, since the wind was right down the runway, we would have no trouble taking off at all.

I taxied out doing my best to get the flight controls in the right places to overcome the wind, got our takeoff clearance, full power and we were off! I’ve never felt the plane lift off so quickly and so powerfully! It didn’t take long to get enough height to get over the wind and we had an uneventful flight back.

Anyone want to share their strong wind stories?

Btw, I highly recommend Laughlin as a fly-in destination. You can see some pictures and a trip report from an earlier flight in my trip report section.

Instrument Current and my First GPS Approach

January 28th, 2009 • Comments Off

Tonight I met my CFI at KSEE for some time on the Elite BATD-PI35 simulator for an introduction to GPS. A few of our planes have Garmin 430′s now and it seemed time to see what they are all about. I’d love to get checked out on the G1000 but that’s really cost prohibitive now, although we do have a 182 with a G1000 for just $150 an hour….

Anyway we spent some time with a Garmin simulator before moving on to the sim. We simulated a flight from KMYF to KOKB with a hold in the procedure turn, all using the 430 for navigation. After the missed at KOBK I was given vectors to the GPS Rwy 17 approach at KSEE and saw how to ‘replan on the fly’. Missed approach at KSEE and then on to the ILS at MYF which we used the 430 to get us to the IAF and then followed the ILS down to a landing. This was the old ILS, not the new “DME only” one.

In order to get more practice I am going to find and download the 430 simulator from Garmin. One problem I have is that I am a Mac only person so will either have to get Parallels on the macbook (actually I have it, but no Windows copy to run on it) or use it at work. Paul over at askacfi.com is working on a tutorial and I shall look forward to that.

So now I am PIC and instrument current. Night currency is next as well as just getting up and having some fun.

My new PUMPS check

January 18th, 2009 • 1 comment

Almost seven years after getting my Private certificate I still have trouble with the GUMPS check. ‘G’ always seems to be “Gear” rather than “Gas” so when I get to the ‘U’ I’m, like, um, oh yeah that’s “Undercarriage”. So, I hit on a fine idea – from now on I shall perform a PUMPS check: “Petrol, Undercarriage, Mixture, Props, Seatbelts”. I think I’ll get that right each time. I think.

Poor Radio Talk

January 15th, 2009 • Comments Off

In yesterday’s post I alluded to the fact that I was not on my a-game radio-wise during my simulated instrument flight. I thought I’d list my mistakes as a reminder for me for next time. If you have comments, feel free to add them.

1. My handoff to SoCal was fine but for my second controller handoff I said “N4922D on frequency”, thinking how smart I was not to say “with you”. The response was “say altitude and heading” – doh! Of course, I should check in with “N4922D, 3400 feet, direct OCN”.
2. A couple of times I was given a heading and told to maintain 3400 feet. Each time I repeated the heading and confirmed “thirty-four hundered feet”, and each time I was asked to verify “3400 feet”. I have no idea why each time I repeated it incorrectly. I think I’ve been listening to a lot of live ATC where I’ve heard that and it has sunk in. I will banish it.
3. After being transferred to the CTAF on the OKB approach I announced “N4922D, inbound on the VOR approach, Oceanside traffic”. A snarky voice came back “it would be helpful to us VFR pilots to know where you are and where you are going”. Attitude-aside, he had a good point. One can circle to land either side of the field and they didn’t know I was planning a missed approach. I’m surprised this hasn’t come up before but I definitely have it in my mind now.

Other than that, I think it went well. I like the radio work a lot, and I pride myself on usually being succinct and concise so it annoys me when I am not.