Month: May 2007

Sour grapes is turning me into a rules lawyer

I didn’t want to book any trips until I got IFR current because you never know when you’re going to need to fly in actual. So it was with some dismay a few weeks ago when I realized that one member of my flying club has managed to book the Lance on for the weekends of May 5, 11, 19, 26, June 9, and then solidly from June 17-29, and then somebody else has it solidly from June 30-July 8, and somebody else has it solidly from July 8 to July 22. Unfortunately Vicki has other committments on June 3rd, meaning that if I wanted to plan a weekend trip to Ottawa with a couple of friends, I’d have to wait until July 27th, or figure out how to squeeze four people plus baggage into the Dakota.

So I’ve been kicking myself for leaving it this late to book, and I’ve been a little annoyed at Jim for booking all those weekends. But last night Lenny mentioned that when he booked the Dakota to go to Colorado a few years ago, he was told that he’d have to get approval from the Board of Directors because he’s taking the plane away for more than 10 days. Well, those three block bookings that go straight from June 17th to July 22nd are all more than 10 days. So I’m not proud of myself, but I sent a letter to the Officers and Board of Directors asking if that policy is still in effect.

IPC Interrupted

I finally finished up my iPC this evening. The winds were favouring runways 4, 7 and 10, which meant that the only RNAV approach that had a LNAV/VNAV option was RNAV (GPS) 04. That’s unfortunate, because runway 4 is the one favoured by the big jets – when the wind is coming the other direction, the approach with LNAV/VNAV is RNAV (GPS) 28, and runway 28 is used by commuter jets and turboprops, which means that my 120 knot approach isn’t too far off their approach speed. And sure enough, on the first attempt at an LNAV/VNAV approach they gave me a 90 degree turn onto the approach just outside the FAF. I did a passable but not great job. I followed the needles down well below the Decision Altitude (1200 feet).

The second time was even worse. Just as I was expecting another 90 degree turn half a mile from the FAF, I heard squelch break twice and an inaudible whisper, and then a “23Y how do you hear me”. That was followed by two vectors through the course that took me past the FAF, and an intercept vector that wouldn’t actually intercept. I “fudged’ the assigned vector to one that would intercept. Starting off having to start my descent before I’d gotten squared away on the approach path meant I never really got settled down. Even using the “TRK” reading on the GPS to try to get the right heading didn’t really make it easy. I kept it within acceptable limits down to the DA. But there’s no way in hell I would have accepted such a lousy set of vectors in IMC.

On both approaches, I’d been chasing the needles in both directions, and didn’t get stabilized, although at the end of it the runway was pretty much straight in front of me.

For the last approach, I asked for the ILS 04. This time, we were obviously getting vectored further away – I don’t know if the controllers know how to vector ILSes better, or if things were slowing down so they could have us on the approach longer. Although he tried to vector a Citation in in front of us, but when it didn’t work out he vectored them through the approach course and a 270 degree turn back onto the course behind us. On the downwind, Lenny reminded me to get my pre-landing checklist done, pick a speed and altitude, get well stabilized, and try to maintain both speed and altitude. I picked 110 knots and 2000 feet. And it worked – I got a better turn onto the approach course about a mile outside the FAF, I kept my speed and pulled back the throttle to get a 550 foot per minute descent at the speed I’d trimmed for. A quick check to make sure my TRK was 043 degrees, and then followed the needles down. Everything was pretty amazingly stabilized in both axes until about 1200 feet, when both needles started to wander. Personally I thought there was a bit of a windshift, but Lenny says he thinks I just got fixated on something after switching to the tower frequency.

Afterwards, we did a bit of ground review. Discussed some interesting things, like why on the RNAV (GPS) 04 approach, the DA for the LNAV/VNAV approach is the same as the MDA for the LNAV approach, but the required visibility on the LNAV/VNAV one is way higher (1.25 miles instead of 2400 feet)? (Answer: because you reach the LNAV/VNAV DA 1.9 miles from the runway end, but the LNAV MAP is right at the runway end.) Couldn’t figure out why the DA is so high, however. The ILS DA is 765 feet, compared to the LNAV/VNAV DA is 1200 feet. Discussed the other IFR trivia, looked at some stuff on the charts like the new T-airways (there’s one up near Ottawa on the L24/L25 chart).

Anyway, it’s nice to be current again.

Whew!

I suddenly discovered I couldn’t reach my colo box. It wasn’t answering on any of the ports it’s supposed to be. But I didn’t get any indication that anything was going wrong before hand, and I couldn’t ping the IP one before mine, so I was was hoping it was a problem at Time Warner’s data center and not with my box. I called my colo provider, but didn’t get an answer. Ah good, I thought, ever the optimist, that means they’re working on the problem.

But the minutes turned into hours, and I still couldn’t get through to my box, nor was anybody answering the phone. But after nearly three hours of downtime, mail started flowing again! I could reach my web sites! And the IP one before mine became pingable. And it appears that they didn’t have to reboot my box to do it. My 65 day uptime survives. Yah!

And so it begins again

Once again into the breach, once again risking the severe depression that follows every previous attempt to do something about my pain. So it goes. The pain has gotten so severe that I really have no other choice. Just hope I can survive the let down when it doesn’t work.

So I have a new prescription for a new NSAID, and orders for x-rays of my knees and elbows, and a bunch of blood tests. And a promise that if nothing turns out, I’ll get a referral to a pain clinic.

First paddle of the season

Last year’s first paddle of the season was March 31st. This year’s was May 10th. Ok, granted the spring was much later this year, but I still see it as a sign of how disorganized I’ve been this spring.

The air temp was in the high 70s, and the water temp was cool to the touch. I just traded in the wet suit that I got for Christmas for one that goes around my huge gut, and so I was terribly over dressed in a wet suit and polar weave long sleeved shirt. I brought along my iPod shuffle but as I parked the car I could hear the sounds coming from the marsh and decided to leave it behind.

The water was smooth as glass, and I didn’t feel any current at all. I was paddling without a skeg – I always heard that using a skeg on smooth water was a crutch, but I wanted a boat that took some growing into and it took me a while to get to this point, so I was happy that I seem to have outgrown it.

The marsh is in full spring mode. The reeds have all been mashed down over the winter, leaving just a few cat tails sticking up. A lot of those cat tails had male red wing blackbirds singing out their territory and keeping a wary eye on the other males. I don’t think the females have arrived yet.

Down in the mashed down reeds, lots of geese were nesting, although I didn’t see any goslings. At one point there is a log in the middle of the stream, and on it there were two goose eggs on top of the log, and five or six other eggs down in a crook in the log. No goose anywhere near by, so I wonder if the goose got frustrated with its eggs rolling away and abandoned the nest.

I only saw one swan, not surprisingly in exact same place I’ve seen swans before, and many pairs of ducks. Up near the wier, I came across a Great Blue Heron. By keeping my paddles down so that they wouldn’t be sillohuetted against the sky (I normally have a high paddling style) I was able to ghost by without him flying away.

Other bird life included an American Goldfinch and another yellow bird about the same size, but without any black. I’m not sure, but I think I saw some red in it as well. I also could see a float plane doing take offs and landings on the bay – at first I thought it was Mike’s plane, but it appeared to have a huge tail that marked it as a Maule.

Near the weir, I also saw a small mustiled, somewhere in size between a chipmunk and a red squirrel but longer, swimming across the stream. As it climbed out on the bank, I could see it was black or very dark brown. I’m guessing it was a mink. It was definitely thinner than a muskrat.

As I reached the turn around point, I started reflecting on what a wonderful little oasis this is. The marsh is surrounded on both banks by lovely woods, what I still think of as “orienteering woods” – the sort of trees that you could really see yourself running through at good speed. Yeah, behind the sounds of the red wing blackbirds and other wildlife, you could hear traffic noise and the occassional siren, but you could shut that out and make believe you were in a real wilderness. It’s no Algonquin park, but it’s beautiful and it’s here.

According to Google Maps Pedometer, I paddled 3 miles today. Not a bad start to the season.