Way, Way Behind The Airplane

I am way, way behind the airplane. Which, as all pilots know, or are sometime to learn, is NOT where you want to be.

Since last I wrote, there’s been a significant number of aviation adventures. And misadventures too……

First, there was the EAA Northwest Fly-In, or more commonly, the Arlington Airshow.

My company takes part as a major sponsor, and we brought a lot of airplanes up for the show. That of course means that somebody has to fly them up, and I’m pretty much the kind of a guy that will drop anything to go flying, particularly if I don’t have to pull my own Visa card out at the end of the flight.

It was the fourth of July, and we had been griping a bit in the days prior to that, because none of us really wanted to have to take time away from our all-important holiday to do something as mundane as ferry brand new sophisticated airplanes up to a grassy field where there was nothing but aircraft idiots by the dozens……

When we finally got our flight together, there were seven of us. For me this was a first. It wasn’t like the formation flying ride I had bummed last summer, with the Red Baron biplane team. This was ME flying the airplane in a very loose formation. So loose in fact that we had little if any visual contact, but still, we were all occupying the same airspace, and there was something special about firing up seven airplanes and taxiing to the runway for takeoff clearances…..

We’d agreed to monitor 123.45 (which yesterday I discovered is NOT intended for casual air-to-air conversations, but is instead a test frequency for avionics manufacturers…..who knew…?) so shortly after liftoff we were chatting back and forth….. a little bit of “where are ya?” and “didja see that….?” and so on. The high point was that it was, frankly, scud running, with a ceiling just barely legal, and conditions were somewhat less than my (previous) personal minimums. There was, of course, peer pressure, even though it was unstated……..and just as I was about to exercise my PIC right to turn around and run for the barn, a hole opened up over Lake Washington, and I could see that beyond the north end of the lake there was much improved conditions.

Now, we were flying two Diamond 20 C1 Eclipses, (VFR only, but with Garmin 430’s), three Diamond DA40’s with Garmin G1000 glass panels, a Diamond TwinStar (diesels, G1000, soon-to-be-certified for known icing, and a Columbia 400 (G1000 as well). So, there was a lot of avionics horsepower there, and it’s only a thirty minute flight from Boeing Field to Arlington….so there was little chance of anybody getting lost. Which is why when one of us said “hey K….., where ya at…?” and there was a long pause, then a “ummmmm, …….” we had to all bite our tongues to stop from laughing out loud, because if you can’t figure it out by looking out the window, you’ve got a half-million dollar computer screen in front of you with a little picture of an airplane over a moving map……

Anyway, we all got there safe and sound. And, set up our displays, and jumped back into the TwinStar and the Columbia to blast back to Boeing and get on with the fireworks and the partying later that night.

So, for the next five days, I had the distinct pleasure of being left seat in the Diamond TwinStar as we commuted to work at Arlington each day, from Boeing Field. And I now feel a good deal more comfortable in that particular airplane than I have a right to expect. What a sweet ride she is….

The weather was lousy for the first two days, so the crowds did not materialize, and the show was disappointing, but the TwinStar was the star, that was for sure. There was always a pile of toothless pilots gathered round, chucking their chins and tilting their heads to one side and finally sidling up and asking “Is that them there damn diesels……”

That particular group of pilots have been, disparagingly and impolitely, nicknamed by one of our previous co-workers as “whistling gophers….” because they walk up to a brand new airplane, scratch their chins and their receding hairlines, then ask “how much does that there damned airplane go fer….?” and when we tell them they purse their lips and go “Weeeeeoooooooohhhhhhh………”

On the third evening, heading home, four on board, me on the stick, the PIC (for I have no multi-engine endorsement) suggested that this takeoff we might just level out at 20’ or so, and retract the gear, and fly it down the runway in ground effect…….

Just as I was about to pull back on the stick, since the available runway was coming to an end, the airshow temporary tower controller, who had been VERY interested in the TwinStar, came on the radio and said something like “So, I see the TwinStar doesn’t climb very well with four on board…….” and that was the moment that the airspeed had reached a good deal more than was necessary, and I pulled the stick back into my crotch and as we screamed up into the sky the tower came back on the radio and all he say was “Oh…..!” and that felt pretty good.

Anyway, Arlington is a blast, and there was some serious aerobatic behavior going on each day. I spent some time with my camera pointed at the sky, but my long lens doesn’t have image stabilization, so I’m disappointed with the results, but still, it was fun.

On the last evening of the show we only had four pilots available to fly those wonderful airplanes back home, so we had to do two trips and commute back up one time. It seems that I’m developing a habit on the last evening of Arlington, which is that, even though I’ve flown AWO direct KBFI dozens of times, I seem to get lost heading home on the last flight of the weekend…..and I always find myself noodling around in the skies up above the Skagit Valley, which I what I consider to be a tiny bit of heaven. So, I celebrated another great Arlington by twisting a DiamondStar around the sky for a while, then headed home just at sundown and moonrise….for yes, it was very close to the full moon. A perfect weekend.

And since it’s bedtime, I’ll stop here, but there’s more coming, and it’s called…

It’s True, Blondes DO Have More Fun!

An Orcas Adventure

Had a lovely flight up to Orcas Island yesterday, with my friend Molly. We dropped into Decatur Shores to visit with Mark and Chris, but they had not yet arrived. Wandered up the path and introduced Molly to Ken and Diana. Diana was trapped in the treehouse, Ken using the ladder for work on the new deck, but Diana laid claim to the Rapunzel tactic......but she didn't actually let her hair down.

Orcas had a summer fair going on, and we were able to wander around there a bit. Had a camera with me, and noticed that I'd lost my lens cap. Backtracked looking for it, couldn't find it, cursed myself for losing it, and finally let go of it, figuring it was gone forever. It was of course at that moment that two young men wandered up to me holding the lens cap, making gestures to see if it fit.....when I asked them, they said they'd just found it a few minutes earlier, and had then been looking at all the people wandering around with cameras, looking for the missing cap. It was slightly miraculous. A lesson in letting go, as Molly pointed out.


There were some very interesting crafts going on at the fair, including some blacksmithing. It's quite the chore, that hammering on metal. No freaking wonder most of us like keeping our soft little hands on computer keyboards, or airplane controls.......

Had a lovely lunch, wandered around the drop-dead gorgeous Episcopal church on the point, and flew home. Got a text message from Mark just as I was flying overhead, over Decatur, inviting us down for tea, but we had to make it back to Boeing, more's the bad luck.

I'll be attending the Northwest EAA Fly-In at Arlington, WA, all next week, and should have piles of new photos and comments...can't wait.

What's So Special About This Guy?

Much as I hate to admit it, there's a certain panache about having your own 747 available, let alone swarms of police officers and security details, when you arrive at any airport. And, to hear the tower controllers on the radio say "Air Force One, cleared to land, the airport is yours......" is not something that I hear when I fly into Boeing Field.

So, there's been a visit to Seattle this morning, and here's some photos we took, from behind the windows of course, as there were MANY secret service types scowling at us as we shot these.....

But, what the heck, what else would we spend the tax dollars on? Education? Health Care? Nah....let's spend it on airplanes..... that's MUCH more fun......

Anacortes Fly-In Saturday

I’ve been thinking what a special privilege it is to be so familiar with the airports around the Seattle area.

Yesterday I went in to work, and unexpectedly the front desk customer service person asked me if I’d grab an airplane and fly one of our flight instructors up to the Skagit Valley, to pick up one of our aircraft which had been having a one hundred hour maintenance overhaul. So, ten minutes later I was ready to go, but the weather just crapped out, just as the briefer had said it would on the phone moments before. But, half an hour after that, again, just as the briefer had predicted, the line of thunderstorms had passed through, and I was airborne heading northbound out of Boeing Field.

It’s nice to fly with an instructor when you’re not actually paying for instruction, as he feels free to comment on your flying, but you don’t have to listen…..you’re wise however if you do. So, Keith, who’s done some significant development work for NASA, gave me an intensive lesson on leaning the engine mixture, for proper fuel consumption.

Half an hour later, I dropped him off at Bayview Skagit, which is Mount Vernon Washington, and had a nice chat with the maintenance manager at the business there. He’s trying to encourage my company to expand to his facility, so it was one of those meetings where he was putting on his best face and I was doing my best to be non-committal. But what struck me was how nice it was to know somebody at that airport, and how fortunate I am that that’s the case.

Had a nice flight back home, twiddling knobs on the panel practicing my IFR procedures, in the middle of which I find myself…..that is, I’m in the middle of my instrument rating, and I take every opportunity to fly as if I were inside the clouds. So, 1.3 hours on the company nickel, and I’m grateful for it.

Today, we flew three airplanes up to Anacortes Washington, which is the gateway to the San Juan Islands. They were having an airport fly-in, and one of the organizers had invited us to bring some planes up to display them. We anticipated a few dozen planes at most, and a barbeque, and maybe a smallish crowd….instead, it was about fifty or sixty planes of all descriptions, a few hundred people wandering around, and a beautiful sunshiney day.

You couldn’t have asked for more fun if you’re a pilot. There were taildraggers, weird birds from Eastern Bloc countries, amphibians, military helicopters, Cessnas, our three Diamonds, including the TwinStar which was the star of the show, and lots of other eye candy.

The organizer is the owner of the airplane I flew a few months ago which wound up on the cover of a flight training magazine, and he had been unaware of that, so it was fun to show him his airplane on a national magazine. There were women with diamonds the size of Manhattan Island wandering around. Anacortes has become a refuge for people from California, Oregon, and Washington, who love it for the access to the San Juans, and the fact that the sun shines significantly more often there than in Seattle or Bellingham to the north.

The burgers were free, the pilots were bullshitting each other, and the wives looked lovely, including those who were themselves accomplished pilots. And the kids were having a blast, playing airplanes and dogfighting.

I ran into an acquaintance late in the afternoon, who had dropped in looking for members of his Civil Air Patrol squadron, to pick him up at Arlington Airport, to the southeast, and give him a ride home to Seattle. I volunteered to do that, as his squadron had already packed up and left an hour earlier. So, I flew over to Arlington and there too ran into somebody I know who’s the main organizer of the Northwest EAA Fly-in and Airshow in July. We had a lovely chat, standing around her hangar, watching the various gliders being towed into the sky, to land on the grass a few minutes later.

Then it was a short hop home, arriving at Boeing just in time to hang out with the staff at the flight school, and give my new friend a ride on my motorcycle back to where he’d parked his car, at the northeast parking area. When we got there, my friend Ken was working on his Glastar, so we had a chat. Finally I tried to leave, but going out the airport gate there were two attractive young women walking towards a Piper Cub. One was my friend Mark’s wife Chris, who’s taking her private pilot checkride next week, and the other was Alison, who flies float planes for Kenmore Air out of Seattle. So we chatted for a while and finally I made my way off the airport.

Aviation has brought me so many new friends and such joy. I’m astonished at what a community it is, and how I’m beginning to be a part of that community.

It Takes Two To Tango Charlie

N180TC, or November One Eight Zero Tango Charlie, holds a special place in my heart. It's the aircraft in which I earned my tailwheel endorsement, and that makes me a "real" pilot in the eyes of many, perhaps even including myself.

She's a lovely bird, a Cessna 180 Skywagon, which is basically the pickup truck of the airports. There's more Skywagons flying around with great stories to tell than you can shake a stick at, though she doesn't need a stick shaker to tell you that she's about to stall....

My friend Tom is a CFI, (Certified Flight Instructor) and he decided one day that I was competent enough to fly his airplane, and that I was even competent enough for him to endorse my logbook saying so. But the real story is how I got to that day.

My good friend Mark is the person who got me flying. If you're interested, I've written a bit about him in a posting called "It All Started At A Forty Watt Radio Station in Saskatoon", but Mark is partners in a Skywagon with our friend Steve, and because of that, and because Mark and Steve are both my aviation mentors, I've spend tons of time in the right seat of their 180. Neither is a CFI, but the hundreds of hours I've spent haven't been wasted just looking out the window.

I've been so fortunate. There's Rob too, who owns a 140A, is a CFI, and learned how to teach by teaching me some great tailwheel training, at his expense, for hours and hours. Each pilot has shown me many things about their plane, so that the day that Tom agreed to help me get my endorsement, it was mostly just a matter of showing him that I knew where the rudders were located, that I could perform an emergency landing in a crosswind, and that I could do it with enough skill that we could re-use the plane each time.....

Without these friends, I'd still be sitting somewhere hoping and praying that some day I'd be a pilot. It's what this great community of aviation is all about, friends helping friends, sharing their joy at the privilege of flight. I promise to do my utmost to continue the tradition.

Gee One Thousand

There's a terrific new piece of avionics out dominating the market these days. Garmin has taken over the general aviation cockpit, and transformed it into a spaceliner flight deck.

There's only one hitch of course......it's complex and takes a good deal of time and energy to learn. But the rewards are fantastic, I'm told, though it's just now that I'm beginning to buckle/knuckle down and apply myself to the task of actually learning it instead of just talking about it.

The company I'm lucky enough to work for has developed a course to bring pilots at lightning speed into the twenty-first century, and today I attended the first day of a two day ground school. Given that I'm just a low-time VFR pilot, I'm intimidated, even though, of the class of five, there's three of us working on our instrument ratings and two high-time pilots who fly turbine powered heavy iron.

Tomorrow is the real test, where we put into place what we learned today, which was basically a familiarization tour of the two screens.....it was functionally just learning button-pushing. But tomorrow? It's all about real-world IFR experience, how to use the fabulous capabilities of this toy to actually get somewhere when the weather's a challenge.

Can't wait. It turns out that I'll be one of the first people at our flight school and even one of the first people in the nation to take a full instrument rating on the G1000. It's going to be an accomplishment to be proud of, ranking right there with my tailwheel endorsement and what I hope to have some day which would be an aerobatics capability....

More of course to follow, but now, to bed....

Lights, Camera, Satisfaction

It never ceases to amaze me the reactions people have to the world of aviation.

Today I shepherded a film crew around the flight line where I work. We were entertaining many guests from around the world at the same time. Or, should I say, one of the Seattle "names" was entertaining his guests, and they had all arrived by executive jets, many parked on our ramp.

The film crew was doing work for that "name" company, doing a spoof on the highly popular TV show "24", wherein our intrepid hero finds himself piloting a business jet, with the need to subsequently abandon ship to save the world........

Meanwhile, I was surrounded by terrifically attractive intense women with a great company name doing creative work, while I was acting the part of an officious and sanctimonious twit...a part which, by the way, comes naturally to me...but a safety briefing is a safety briefing, and the world's a dangerous place, and the more so around spinning propellers and jet blast..

These film people were extraordinarily generous, and attentive, doing everything they could to put to rest any fears I might have had about the privacy of our other customers....it was just a ton of fun to be working on a bright sunny day surrounded by other people as passionate about their own work as I have become about mine.

OH, and the government saw fit yesterday to grant me clearance to pursue advanced flight training. This, because I'm an alien, and need to jump through a large number of hoops to assure the citizens of this country of which I'm a resident and guest that I'm not a threat.....

So, another banner day around light planes and beautiful women.....dang, I'm sure that this too shall pass, but bring it on Lord, and thank you.

Follow Your Twin Stars

Was blessed twice in the past 24 hours.

Yesterday by appearing on the cover of a national flight training magazine, and today by having my first logbook entry flying a twin-engined aircraft.

For being on the cover of the magazine, I'd flown a Diamond 20 doing short field and soft field landings for a professional photographer doing the visuals for the article. It was on Wax Orchards, a private airstrip on Vashon, with flowering cherry trees lining the runway. A dream come true.

And today, I flew a Diamond TwinStar, the newest aircraft in our fleet. A total dream to fly...twin Mercedes diesel engines, Garmin G1000 glass panel avionics, and the sweetest ride you can imagine.

Had to ferry a Diamond 20 from Bremerton up to Arlington, and the aircraft salesperson allowed me left seat on the ride home in the TwinStar. We did advanced maneuvers, engine-out procedures, and I even greased it down on the runway at Boeing Field coming home. Got to descend at 80% power and 182 knots reporting Safeco Field on final approach, then drop out the gear and two notches of flaps and poof, I'm heading downhill at 88 knots and stable on short final......

Now, if that means nothing to you, I'm sorry, but it can, and if you'd like, I'll show you how.

Get in touch with your aviation soul!

New Years Eighteen Months Later

Here's the first blog posting I made, New Years Day, 2005. It's on another blog, will figure out how to repost that here, but for the moment......

Morning all, and thanks for stopping by here.

Here's the list. You know the one I mean. The Resolutions.
1. Fly an airplane at every possible opportunity.
2. Be sure that somebody else is paying for that.....
3. Find a marketing job in the aviation community
4. Let somebody else pay for my instrument rating....
5. Lose those sneaky ten pounds that you've regained since August
6. Stay away from the dating websites.....no more kid in the candy store....

And here's the update.....

1. Flying about once or twice a week
2. Mostly somebody else is paying for it....
3. Got the marketing job eight days into the New Year, and only now am coming up for air to update this blog....
4. And, two weeks ago, got the go-ahead to complete my instrument rating as a benefit to my company, making me a more valuable employee....
5. Gained all the weight back, and more, now back down to neutral, and working hard on that......
6. Found a new girlfriend, lost her, am back to neutral there too.......

Four out of six is acceptable but not great, right?