Author: Paul Tomblin

Rest of the weekend’s flying

Saturday, I flew back from Buttonville to Rochester, and then back to Buttonville.

For the flight back, I filed direct, but I was cleared “Buttonville One, vectors to V252 AIRCO V31”. Ok, that’s not too different than one I frequently got in the past coming back from Oshawa, so it was easy to program into the GPS. Taking off, Buttonville tower and then Toronto Approach keep you under 3000 ft until you’re a bit off-shore, and then they start you up to your filed altitude (9000 ft). But then it’s up to altitude and “direct BULGE” (BULGE is a waypoint on V252). And before you even get to BULGE, they clear you direct Rochester and switch you over to Buffalo approach.

It was a pretty uneventful flight – a few clouds around 7000 feet, bright sunshine, summer haze. After they switched me over to Rochester Approach, he was talking to two aircraft “DEMO 1” and “DEMO 2”. I had no idea what that was, although maybe I should have clued in as the controller asked one of the planes if it was a flight of two or not. But as I was finally getting a descent after being sent over the approach end of runway 22 at 5000 feet, I heard him clear “DEMO 2” for a overhead break. An overhead break is a military approach, and so I finally clued in that these guys were military.

As I turned final to 25, I saw “DEMO 2” doing his overhead break for runway 22. It was an F-15. Very cool. I timed my touch down so that I landed almost exactly the same time as him.

It was after I taxied to the customs shack that I discovered a disasterous mistake – in my haste to get to the airport, I’d forgotten to bring my green card and passport, which were sitting in my laptop bag back at my dad’s house. And worse luck, I got the same customs guy I got two weeks ago. Last year every time I came back from Canada, it was always the same guy, and after 2 or 3 trips he started recognizing me and just asking for my CF-178 (US Customs Arrival Report form) and then leaving. But this new guy seems like a real stickler for the rules, and gives me quite a thorough questioning each time. So this time, the fact that I’d forgotten my id, combined with the fact that I was using a CF-178 that I’d pre-filled and printed out a pile of them two years ago so it had my old address on them, and he was threatening to call the Border Patrol and have them haul me off in handcuffs. Eventually he relented and let me go.

I picked up Laura and flew back to Buttonville. I got the same route as I’d been given on Friday, so it was programmed into the GPS already. And once again, I was given direct to Buttonville long before I got to LINNG, although the controller suggested that I go direct to the NDB KZ instead of the airport CYKZ, because that would put me on downwind for the runway in use. That worked out pretty well, and this time I managed to get slowed down well in advance so I didn’t end up running up on the guy ahead of me and landed with no incidents. The tower called me out as traffic saying I was “over the cathedral” and sure enough there was a very odd looking cathedral-like building in the middle of no-where.

Customs was another pain in the ass – I’d tried calling CANPASS for my arrival from my cell phone, and the call kept getting dropped while I was on hold. So I went into the FBO to call, and Laura, because I had to get her to get out of the plane so that I could get out (stupid Pipers with their only door on the passenger side), followed me in. I wasn’t thinking, and I should have told her to wait by the plane, although since they send somebody out so rarely, I figured it didn’t matter. So I called CANPASS and got told that they were going to meet me. Oh oh – I told Laura to get back out to the plane. I followed her after establishing where the customs agents were and making sure they knew where I was.

The customs agents were annoyed at me for letting Laura leave the plane, and for not having my id, but they were still friendlier than the guy in Rochester.

We got on the road, and discovered that we’d have time to meet Vicki and the rest of the group to travel to the concert together.

Today was the return flight. Leaving the restaurant after breakfast, I noticed my pulse racing, and I started to worry that the waitress had given me regular coke instead of diet coke. But then I wasn’t sure if the racing pulse wasn’t because of worry that I’d gotten the wrong drink. But confirmation that I *had* gotten the sugar came when I suddenly got a massive headache. Well, good thing it’s a short flight.

I got the same route clearance as yesterday, and events unfolded much the same. We climbed up through some clouds on the way up, and then at the south shore of the lake we had to descend through a lot more – a scattered to broken layer of cumulus that went from 9000 all the way down to 5000. The turbulence in the clouds combined with my blistering headache gave me some motion sickness. Fortunately by that time I’d been cleared “direct Rochester” and we only had 10 minutes on the ETA on the GPS.

We made it home without me having to use a barf bag, much to my relief, and met the same customs guy as yesterday. And while we had all the documentation (and I’d remember to cross out the incorrect home address but forgotten that my pilots license number had changed too), he grilled us pretty heavily. I’m sure he was hoping to catch us out on some inconsistency in our stories. He also opened Laura and Vicki’s bags, but not mine. Eventually he cleared us, and Vicki and Laura went off to the Corn Hill Festival while I put the plane away.

It’s been 4 hours since I landed, and I still have the headache and queasy feeling. Man, that sucks. One of these days I’ll learn and only drink bottled soft drinks.

Tour de France Stage 7

The first individual time trial. And what a day! Full of personal ups and downs. I was out of town and really busy, so this will be a short one.

Heart ache for Bobby Julrich, the leader of CSC since Basso was suspended – he crashed on a corner and was taken to
hospital with a suspected broken wrist. His Tour is over. I guess CSC will have to rely on Sastre to carry their flag.

Disappointment for most of the “big men”, especially the big Americans, who did badly on the day – Levi Leipheimer way, way, way down, Zabriske not showing his normal TT prowess, Hincapie down about 25th or so.

The two stars of the day where Sergei Gonchar who blistered around the course and won by over a minute, and Floyd Landis who was the best of the rest finishing second on the day and making it look more and more certain that he’s going to be on the podium in Paris.

Landis was told by UCI to change the position of his aero bars just before the start. I’m not sure if that was a factor, but his handle bars broke soon after out on the course and he had to change bikes, losing a good 15-20 seconds. What a machine to have a distraction like that, have to ride in a different position than what you practiced, and still end up second on the day!

T-Mobile is defying everybody who thought that the loss of Ullrich would kill them – they’ve got several people up near the top of the GC now, including Kloden who has finished second overall before. If he’s recovered the form he was showing that year (and hasn’t shown since), he could be back on the podium this year.

Discovery seems to have forgotten how to TT without Lance there, with their 3 top men all 2+ minutes down.

Another sprinters day tomorrow. Boonen worked too hard today, TTing more like a yellow jersey owner than a green jersey hopeful, so I expect Robbie McEwan or Thor Hushovd to win tomorrow.

The best laid plans of mice and men…

As mentioned in an earlier post, this weekend Vicki and I were flying over to Oshawa.

However, it turns out that Oshawa doesn’t have customs service after 4:30 or something on Fridays, and none on the weekends. And while I’ve registered with Canpass, Vicki and Laura aren’t. So that means that we had to fly into Buttonville instead of Oshawa.

This was my first flight in the Dakota since we installed the GPS in it. That was cool. I tried filing direct, but they gave me V31 LINNG then direct. Ok, only one intermediate waypoint. And about 3/4 of the way to LINNG they told me to go direct. I guess they wanted us to clear one of the MOAs or the CYA on the direct route.

Man, what a difference in activity level at Buttonville as compared to Oshawa. When we were turned over to the tower, we were number 3 for landing. There was a Bonanza in front of us, and I never thought I’d have trouble slowing down to the speed of a Bonanza but this guy was in no hurry. We ended up crossing the threshold while he was still on the runway so I had to do a go-around. Next time around, and I was still #3, this time behind a Cessna. But I slowed the plane down slower than I normally go and hung out all the flaps, and he got off the runway nice and quickly, so this time we landed.

Customs cleared us over the phone (and why couldn’t they do that at Oshawa, I ask?) and away we went. The car rental place had big signs up warning of dire charges if we went on 407, so we struck off down to the 401 and got stuck in the Friday evening “rush”. It only took 50 minutes to fly to Buttonville, and 1:15 to drive from Buttonville to Oshawa. We probably should have just cleared customs at Buttonville and then flown on to Oshawa.

Tomorrow there is some big street festival in the middle of downtown, and also the Molson Grand Prix at the Exhibition. That’s going to make driving to Ontario Place utterly impossible, so I’ve had to move up all the schedules for flying back and picking up Laura. Vicki and everybody here are going to take the GO train from Pickering, and Laura and I will go from Buttonville to the nearest TTC subway stop and take the train in. According to the GO transit web site, there is going to be a special route they have to follow from the GO Exhibition stop to Ontario Place. Hopefully it won’t be too confusing.

Tour de France Stage 6

Another flat stage again today. There was a huge break-away, but since it was joined by Thor Hushovd and Tom Boonen, the other sprinter’s teams had to chase it down, and they did. Then three broke away, and were allowed some free reign until they were inevitably chased down and caught a few km from the finish.

Looked like Tom Boonen was finally getting a good lead-out this time, but Robbie McEwan did his usual trick of coming out of no-where and winning. He’s won three of the first six stages, a pretty amazing result. And his time bonuses put him second on GC, but of course that won’t last with tomorrow’s time trial. Boonen retains yellow for another day with a 3rd place finish.

About the most interesting news of the day was that one of the riders had been fined because on Wednesday, in the middle of the peleton, he’d hauled off and punched another rider in the face. I would have loved to know what they were talking about. Jens Voigt said in an interview on a German web site that everybody started yelling at them both because they were in danger of causing a crash, and the guy who got punched went and complained to the race commissionaire. Kind of a different definition of “attacking the field”.

Tomorrow’s individual time trial should be where we see if Hincapie or Landis have what it takes to win. Can’t wait.

Tour de France Stage 5

Another flat stage, another bunch sprint. The biggest surprise of the day for me was the news that Thor Hushovd had been “relegated” for improper actions in yesterday’s sprint. I’d watched it on TV and hadn’t seen anything irregular – he shifted sideways to avoid Dean’s crash, and squeezed somebody else against the barricades. Being “relegated” means that he didn’t receive any points at all for the day, which effectively puts him out of the running for the green jersey – the same thing happened to Robbie McEwan last year, although it was a lot more obvious why that one happened than this one, since McEwan was basically leaning on the other guy.

With Hushovd out of the race, his team didn’t really have any motivation to help the peleton catch back the break-away group, but they did step up near the end. I guess they were trying to get organized, but it appears that there is no dominant team the way Alessandro Petacchi’s team used to make the sprints so predictable in previous year’s Giros.

Out of the massive confusion at the finish, McEwan looked like he had a good lead-out but jumped too soon – he actually let up on the gas, and several people went past. Boonen was looking good, but Oscar Friere took a line up one side with no traffic in front of him, and sprinted for first place, with Boonen nearly a bike length behind. McEwen had to settle for 5th, and Hushovd for 7th.

No change in the GC, except Boonen’s time bonuses put him a few more seconds further ahead, and Freire’s put him tied for 3rd with Hincapie.

Boonen moves within one point of McEwan in the green jersey competition, but nothing is sure there. McEwan seems to have the form so far, but today was the first sign that Boonen still has the form he showed in the spring classics and the world championships.

Tomorrow’s stage is also flat and boring, but it’s the day before the first individual time trial, so the big GC teams will have no interest in chasing the break-aways preferring to rest up for Saturday. So we’ll have to see if the sprinters teams are strong enough to do all the work for driving the peleton or if a break-away succeeds.