Everything I used to bore people on newsgroups and mailing lists with, now in one inconvenient place.
I’m in Whitby at my Dad’s place today. Because of customs, we flew to Buttonville. But then when I told the FBO guy “oh we’re not staying – as soon as we clear customs we’re heading to Oshawa” he just laughed. Evidently I carefully flight planned the trip to Buttonville, but hadn’t even looked at NOTAMs for Oshawa.
Oshawa is closed for three weeks, because they’re repaving both runways. God only knows why they couldn’t stagger them. Hey, oshawapilot, why didn’t you mention this?
I just noticed that after today’s flight, I’m on the last page of my log book. Soon I’m going to have to file this one away and start a new one. I’m going to miss this old guy. It’s been with me since my first flight on 27 June 1995, in N38290. The club just sold N38290 – it left for its one-way trip to the new owner on Monday. That flight was 0.7 hours – I’ve now done 440.4 hours, and by the time the book is filled, will probably be up around 450-455 hours. What a long strange and wonderful trip it’s been.
In other news, I went to an “aviation garage sale” today. A member of the local EAA chapter is shutting down his aviation business because he needs the garage space to build his Rans S-9. (I have to confess that when he was talking about other people’s S-9 projects, at first I thought he was calling them “asinine”.) I came away with a warm flight jacket, two t-shirts (my third “Bad Attitude” shirt, since the previous two wore out, and a Snowbirds shirt), and a deHavilland Beaver wall clock, all for $53.
I’ve written before about my doing practice approaches with a safety pilot in order to be current for IFR operations. Well, there is another way to restore your currency, and that’s to perform an Instrument Proficiency Check with an instrument instructor (CFI-I). The main difference between doing 6 approaches with a safety pilot versus doing an IPC with a CFI-I is that you can only do the 6 approaches with a safety pilot if you’re still current (ie. you’ve done 6 approaches, holding and tracking courses in the last 6 months), and you can do the IPC up to 6 months after your currency expires. Also, the IPC has a list of tasks to be done, but doesn’t specify how many approaches you have to do, so if you’re sharp and complete your tasks quickly and without any bobbles, you can do it pretty quickly.
Our club’s Dakota got a new Garmin 530 GPS and a new engine this winter. Over the summer, the club arranged a ground school on how to use the GPS, instructed by a CFI-I who is a member of the other club on the field who put Garmin 530s in all their planes. He seemed like a very good and patient instructor, and knew the 530 pretty well, so when the engine break-in was finished on the Dakota I decided to kill two birds with one stone and have him give me some air instruction on the 530.
I was still within currency, so at first Jim said we’d just do the 6 approaches. But we went out and did a couple of GPS approaches – RNAV (GPS) RWY 28 and RNAV (GPS) RWY 25. One of them we did the full approach, including the missed approach hold. I can’t believe how easy it is to fly approaches with this thing. Even the hold was easy – it told me what hold entry to do, it showed me the hold legs on the map, it timed everything and showed me the distance. After the second approach, Jim said that as long as I didn’t blow the next approach, he’d be willing to sign me off for an IPC if I didn’t want to do a full 6 approaches. He called for an ILS to a full stop.
Then, before I got established on the localizer, he went and slapped covers over the DG (Directional Gyro) and AI (Atitude Indicator). Oh oh. It was hard trying to use the “TRK” reading on the 530 to stabilize on the course, but it wasn’t good. I went full deflection, but Jim let me continue because we were still outside the FAF (Final Approach Fix) in VMC. I brought it back, and soon settled the sword fight down to keep both needles within a dot or two of centered. I think for partial panel like that, it’s probably easier to use the HSI on my hand-held. But for normal approaches, I like the panel mount GPS.
Man, I wish they’d put one of those Garmin 530s in the Lance. The Lance’s carrying capacity and roominess make it my favourite plane, but I’ve got to say with its smooth peformance, beautiful paint job, and great panel, the Dakota is a very close second.
I went to the fly-in breakfast at PTW, Pottstown Limerick Airport Pottstown, Pennsylvania. It was surprisingly well attended – I thought it would be just a little sleepy airport and a few people and planes, but it was wall to wall. Evidently this is their 52nd annual fly-in breakfast!
I went down there because a bunch of people I know from a mailing list have been gathering at this gathering for a number of years. (Pictures from 2003 and 2004 and 2005.) This was my first time going. One of the list members I’ve actually met before, Randy, is based at PTW so his hangar is sort of the center of festivities.
Continue reading “PTW Fly-In”
I just got home. I’m exhausted.
Mark managed to convince Curt at Aviation.ca to get us accredited as media to the Wings and Wheels Niagara airshow. Wings and Wheels is a very small show, but the Snowbirds would be there, and I’m mad keen for the Snowbirds. I haven’t seen them in a few years, and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to make the Canadian National Exhibition airshow next week. Besides, small airshows have a charm all of their own.
The media pass came with some nice perks. Access to the performers and planes. Entry to the “Evening with the Snowbirds” dinner at the “Oh Canada Eh?” dinner theatre. Maybe more – it was all being worked out between the organizers and Aviation.ca even as we were heading to the show.
I took my film camera instead of my digital. The digital has a longer effective zoom, but I don’t trust it as much for being able to get exactly what I want. Unfortunately that means I’m going to spend a fortune in developing, and I won’t have any pictures for several days.
The “Oh Canada Eh?” theatre was quite entertaining. Surprisingly entertaining even – I thought the concept sounded pretty hokey, but it was well done and fun. That’s where I got to meet Petra, the public affairs officer for the Snowbirds. She turned out to be extremely helpful today. They put all the Snowbirds at different tables, so there was one at each table. We didn’t get a pilot, we got the guy, Dan, who drives their big truck. But he was friendly and had some nice road stories. And he says he’s thrilled to be working with the Snowbirds and really hoping they’ll pick him for next year as well.
Today we got some pretty good access to the flight line and I think I got some good pictures. Unfortunately there were a few little mixups and miscommunications as to where we were allowed to go and when. I’m not complaining – you’ve got several conflicting groups who want to balance exposure and publicity against safety for both the performers and planes and the crowd. For instance, at one time we talked to Petra and Airboss, and they both said we could go to the end of this taxiway to take pictures of the Snowbirds taxiing out, and then retreat to the corner of a hangar once they were in the air. We were assured that this location was outside of the “aerobatic box” protected area. They even sent a security volunteer out with us. I think I got some great pictures, as the Snowbird pilots waved and saluted as they rolled past. But then after they took off, the organizers sent out a couple of more security people to tell us to move back to where the paying crowd was kept, because the Snowbirds were refusing to start the show until we cleared out. That was too bad, and I sorry that I am at least partially responsible for holding up the show. I wish things had been made clearer what zones we were allowed in and when. I would like to suggest that the organizers consider having a briefing on the media day to make sure the different people with the different requirements, from the airboss to the public affairs people to the security volunteers to the pilots and media people are all on the same page.
There were several modifications to the show. The US military people didn’t show up because something came up. The Canadian Forces parachute team showed up in a very strangely painted CASA because their normal Buffalo was having problems, and were only able to get a couple of jumpers through some holes in the clouds. (There is nothing more disappointed looking than parachute jumpers getting out of a plane on the ground.) The Sukoi and Julie Clark did pretty much their usual shows. The CF-18 did its usual good job, with without the trademark afterburner climb up out of sight. Well, he did but he was out of sight at about 5,000 feet. And the Snowbirds did their “low show”.
The “low show” maybe is missing some of the cool maneuvers of their “high show”. But because the planes make lots of low passes, it’s easier to get some good photo shots. At least I hope so – I’ll let you know when I get the PhotoCDs back. Like I said before though, I haven’t seen the Snowbirds in a few years, and I’d never seen them do opposing “duos” with two planes in each direction. That was pretty cool.
The Snowbirds show got cut short by a few minutes when they reported that Snowbird 1 had hit more than one bird. Sometimes when one plane hits a bird or has a mechanical, the pilot comes back and takes Snowbird 10 or 11 (depending on whether he needs a left handed or right handed plane). But as he was doing a precautionary emergency landing, along comes Snowbird 5 doing the same. In the autograph line afterwards, Snowbird 1 said that 1 and 5 weren’t the only ones who hit birds – evidently the combination of a show near the lake shore and a low show puts both the birds and the Snowbirds in the same airspace.
Until I get my pictures back, I have to say my best souvenir of the show is my laptop. My laptop has a custom vinyl skin I created by getting a picture from the Snowbirds official site and sending it to a site that creates custom skins from submitted pictures. I had a thought last night that I could get it signed by them, and so I dragged it all over the field today. And it was worth it. I got not just the 9 pilots who fly the shows, but also Snowbird 10 and Snowbird 11 who provide the ground support, and Petra their public affairs officer (who I believe is the only non-pilot who gets to wear the Snowbirds red uniform). A lot of them thought it was a cool idea when they saw it, and asked me where I got it. I’ll try to get a picture of it up later.
So in closing I’d like to say a big thank you to Curt at Aviation.ca, to the organizers, to the Snowbirds and especially for Petra, to the Airboss and security for putting up with us, and to Mark for suggesting this.