Category: Rant

Well, that sucks

This morning I was sitting there enjoying my breakfast and the early morning quiet when a woman who was parked a few planes down (so she arrived the same time as me) came over to chew me out for nearly hitting her when I turned final on Saturday. I told her that while I don’t remember it exactly, I’m pretty sure my base had been called by the tower, so I really don’t know how that could have happened. Although in retrospect, I could have been focusing too hard on the Mooney I was told to follow, and not enough on looking around.

Now I’m all nervous about just how bad a job I did arriving here, and I’m even more sure that I shouldn’t do the VFR arrival without a second pair of eyes on board.

BTW: Wifi sucks here. It sometimes works at the shower stalls, but it cuts in and out when it does, and the wifi here at the bus shelter is more reliable but there isn’t any power here.

Found some wifi

Yesterday I found some power but no wifi. Today I found wifi but no power. So I was able to finally get the log file that my boss emailed me yesterday. I had been trying to find a way to read it on my cell phone, but for some stupid reason every “text reader” I managed to find for the Palm either required you to convert the text file to something else on your PC, or the program itself was only available as a zip file, and I have no way of unzipping files on the Palm. Why can’t they just make the bare .PRC file available?

Once I got the log file, it only took me a minute to find the fix, so I’ve emailed me off. Yesterday I started writing a long narrative of my Oshkosh so far, and I was going to put it all up when I got home, but now I have wifi I guess I could cut and paste that into blog posts.

I’m here!

I made it to Oshkosh. And I flew the Ripon-Fisk VFR arrival. Man, I have never been so close to so many aircraft in the air before in my life. As I was coming up to Ripon, a Bonanza passed about 20 feet off my left wing and crossed about 20 feet in front of me. I don’t know if he saw me or not. Then since we were over Ripon already, I just turned up the tracks, but I think I cut off a Mooney who was also coming up the tracks. I was told to follow another Mooney up to Runway 27.

The instructions say to turn up the road just north of the field as a downwind leg, but the Mooney went about a mile wider than that, and an RV snuck in between us. I’m not sure where he came from, but I think he might have gone around from his previous approach. They also extended the downwind way out over the lake. Tower told me to turn to base immediately, and that put me way too close to the Mooney (I lost sight of the RV again), and then he told the Mooney to go around, and I thought he said for me to go around, but then he expressed surprise when I did, so I guess that was my other mistake.

But we got slotted into the downwind again and landed safely, although I don’t think he ever cleared me to land.

It was a very strange experience, and I’m really glad I did it. But next time I’m going to make sure I get an IFR reservation.

And I’m alone again

The guy who wanted a ride from Muskegon to Oshkosh has changed his mind. Probably. He’s still looking for a ride home on Tuesday, possibly by bus, but unless he calls me sometime tonight or tomorrow while I’m on-route to Muskegon, I’m going to be alone.

Time to study that NOTAM one more time, I guess.

It just fucking figures!

I worked my ass off today trying to get these two bugs fixed before I left. I ended up coming out 12 hours after I got to work. I tried to put my key in the lock, and somebody had punched it out. A quick glance inside my car confirmed my worst fears: they’ve cleaned it out. Well, mostly. I suppose I should be thankful that they didn’t steal my PFD and kayak paddle. But the following items are gone:

  • Pioneer AirWave XM Radio
  • Garmin GPSMAP 296 (with car kit)
  • Sportys leather flight bag
  • Sportys SP-200 NAV/COMM Transceiver
  • Quiet Technologies Halo headset
  • Dave Clark DC10-13.4 with Headsets Inc ANR kit
  • Pilot Avionics PA11-40 Headset
  • 2 Flightcomm 4DLX Headsets
  • Foggles
  • Penguin LED flashlight
  • 2 flashlights
  • all my local charts
  • my log book

There’s probably a bunch more things that I haven’t remembered yet. I haven’t even looked at my trunk yet to see if they got into that.

On the plus side, I finished a log book not too long ago, and I keep a duplicate entry in a program on my PDA, so other than my most recent BFR and IPC endorsements, I haven’t lost much there. It doesn’t look like anything irreplaceable. And I will be going to Oshkosh, which is probably a pretty darn good place to go with a shopping list and the knowledge that an insurance claim will pay for some of it. I just need to make sure I have a headset for the trip out.

I feel bad about the leather flight bag – Vicki was so upset when it didn’t come for Christmas. I think it came about 6 months later. Evidently Sportys waits until they get an order, and then they inseminate a cow, and wait for the calf to be big enough.

Update
Just remembered a few more items:

  • Zulu knee board
  • ASA knee board
  • This “Flight Crew Checklists” binder thingy that I’ve been looking for another one forever
  • Checklists for Archer, Dakota and Lance

Update 2:
I just remembered something else that was in my car: my Duluth Trading messenger bag. I don’t remember everything that was in it, but I’m pretty sure my Canadian passport was. Good thing it’s expired. My British passport might have been in there as well, but it expired years and years ago.