Thoughts on Things

SEKURITY!!!!!!!

I get this emails every couple of weeks, they crack me up.

Sometimes I get emails about space security, those are even better.

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The Frown Song - Ben Folds

Tread slowly from the car to the spa
Like a weary war-torn refugee
Crossing the border with your starving child
It’s a struggle just to get to shiatsu

Present the waitress with your allergy card
And tell her all your problems
And leave no tip at all
Down to the shoe store with your friends
Speculate who might be fucking the guru

Rock on, rock on, with your fashionable frown
Rock on, rock on, spread the love around
Rock on, rock on, with your fashionable frown
Spread the love around

Do you remember how we managed before
We could afford real nervous breakdowns
Or before the Anthropologie store
Was erected on Indian burial grounds

So really don’t you see a little of yourself
In the bathroom attendant that you just scowled at
Or the child who’s hiding inside
As you wipe the smile off the teenage barista

[Chorus]

All right

You’re gonna be all right, baby
You’re gonna be all right, baby

Floating back from the spa to the car
A state of bliss, and it wasn’t the steam room
Sometimes life’s not so bad
Now we know who’s been fucking the guru

[Chorus]

First Instrument Lesson

On October 28th I had my first instrument flying lesson with Kathy. An instrument rating is a much different than the private certificate. Getting your private certificate you spent most of your time learning how to fly, straight and level, climbs, descents, turns, landings, etc. These are considered primary skills. Just like dribbling and passing are to basketball, basic ‘stick and rudder’ skills are the back bone to the rest of your flying game. The private certificate only required a limited ability to do other, more precise, activities. Basic instrument flying is taught in the primary training. Basic means: if you aren’t paying attention and fly into a cloud, do this and you won’t spiral into the ground.

Flying on instruments, then, could also be considered a primary skill. During primary training, you learn to fly the airplane on reference to what you see outside. By referencing the angle between the wing and the horizon you can determine your pitch and roll of the airplane. By this method you learn to do all the previously mentioned ‘primary skills’. Instrument flying requires you to disregard the sights and sensations that you learned fly on and to rely on the mechanical gadgets that are in the cockpit. More than just disregard these sensations you must teach yourself to ignore them. The mind is incapable of sensing its orientation and motion without visual reference. Often you find yourself thinking you are in an orientation but the instruments tell you something different. Your body feels like its turning but, in fact, the instruments say otherwise. The first time this happens can be very disconcerting.

When flying on instruments, the outside world and your relation to it are summed up with the following picture.

From left to right we have:speed, orientation, altitude, rate of turn, heading, rate of climb.

The most important instrument of all of these is the attitude indicator (top middle). The attitude indicator has replaced the comforting view of the ground that was used when first learning how to fly. Done right, the attitude indicator is all that you need to keep the dirty side down and the pointy end forward. With the attitude indicator you would be able to tell how you were oriented in pitch and role but the it provides no indication of direction or heading. The heading indicator, directly below the attitude indicator, provides this.

Using these and the other 4 instruments an instrument rated pilot is capable of flying the airplane from point A to point Z with only seeing the airports at each end.

Yesterday I had my first lesson to become an instrument rated private pilot. A cold front had just moved through and a low pressure trough settled across the mid-Ohio region. This caused instability which lead to an overcast cloud layer at about 1000 feet above the ground. A terrible day for visual flying but excellent for an instrument flying lesson. Kathy filed a flight plan for us and actually handled most of the procedural things. When flying on instruments, you can no longer use the ‘see and avoid’ method of not running into other airplanes. The burden of providing separation then falls on the controller. The controller is responsible for keeping you and other aircraft from trying to fly through the same spot. Because flying on instruments requires this added layer of protection, a flight plan MUST be filed with specific intentions declared. The controller can then do what is necessary to provide separation.

Kathy handled copying our clearance from clearance delivery (a controller) and I handled calling ground and getting the airplane started, off the ramp, and into the sky. Once airborne we were given our usual turn north and handed off to the approach controllers from the tower. (The tower only controls who can land or not, the approach controllers actually handle the people in the sky.)

At some point in our climb out we flew some place I had never flown before: the inside of cloud. And for anyone interested, the inside of cloud looks something like this:

Very little to look at.

From here we continued to Appleton, a navigational beacon used for aviation. We practiced holding patterns for about an hour. Holding is basically flying around a point, waiting for further clearance.

Instrument flying is a very different ball game, much more cerebral and precise than what is required for visual flying. I am continuing with the instrument rating because:

1. I am a sucker for learning new things

2. It should serve to make me a better pilot

3. It gives me an excuse to go to the airport and fly

4. It is another rating that will never expire

So here I go again. The celebration of my new certificate has been pushed to the wayside as I dive into the books again and go from knowing an entire subject to being a neophyte. But this is the stuff that makes me tick.

( I will be writing a post shortly on my use of FSX as a training aid: the hardware, the software, and how I use it. )

Learning to Fly

Today I completed my private pilot training by passing the private pilot checkride. It has been one of the most fulfilling experiences I have ever had. I began my training this past summer. I decided I wanted to take lessons, this is going to sound really nerdy, after playing Microsoft Flight Simulator all winter and becoming slightly obsessed. Eventually, the rush of a playing a game about flying wore off and I sought more. I played around with the idea of taking lessons for a few weeks. I really wanted too but was afraid mostly for my safety. I mean, people die in these things all the time, right? I dug into some research, trying to justify to myself (mostly Sarah) that flying little airplanes was safe enough. After searching around and reading many peoples’ take on the question I came across a statistic that put me at ease. The chance of the average american dying of an accidental death is about 1 in 20. The chances of a lifetime pilot being killed by flying is 1 in 50, less than the normal accidental death rate. So, the chances of dying in an accidental death OR dying in a plane crash can be calculated by the sum of the two probabilities minus the product. This brings my chance of accidental death from 5% to 7.9%, I can live with that (just don’t tell my life insurance provider).

Once I’d convinced myself that I wasn’t putting myself in harm’s way, I set out to find a flight school. Turns out if you punch ‘columbus flight instruction’ into the googles the first thing that pops up is ‘Columbus Flight Instruction’. (Awesome SEO, right?) It intrigued me because Kathy, the owner and sole instructor, operated out of Port Columbus, an airport dominated by airline and corporate jet traffic. Rather than letting this scare me away I thought it would be a good learning environment. I thought: learn to fly with and talk like the big boys right away, and you won’t develop a phobia of large airports. Also, Port Columbus is the closest airport to my house, another very important criteria. Long, frequent drives can put a damper on your attitude.

I filled out Kathy’s online form and the next thing I knew she called me to schedule an introductory flight. This happened on June 26th. Kathy took me up, flew around downtown, went out of town a bit and turned around. After we landed, Kathy asked what I thought. At this point I knew it was something I was going to do. That day I bought a log book, a text book, plotter (for navigation), slide rule (for performance calculations), and some charts.

After this I scheduled as much time with Kathy as possible. Every day after work that was available I would snatch up. I wrote an iCal script to send an email automatically, two weeks in advance to schedule a lesson. (Kathy only schedules two weeks in advance.)

Everything went swimmingly until we started doing landings. Landings are hard, this is something you learn very quickly. It is hard to take a object moving at 60 MPH, that has 6 degrees of freedom, and put it on the centerline of a piece of pavement without hurting anyone or anything. After about 30 or so landings you start to get it. I would say it is about as hard as parallel parking a car. Really hard at first but is a skill that can be improved. And just like parking, sometimes you just don’t get it right and you have to try again (go around)

Eight lessons after the intro flight and 70 landings later, Kathy had me pull over to the ramp, got out of the airplane, and let me solo around the pattern. An exhilarating experience that is deeply etched in my memory. When you first lift off the ground you are filled with this sensation of ‘Oh my god. What have I gotten myself into?’ Then, after landing safely, you taxi back to the ramp and realize that your knuckles are white and your knees start to shake.

From here things moved into the ‘post solo/pre cross country’ phase. We learned many different things, not all pertaining to ‘stick and rudder’ skills. Things like, radio navigation, charts, uncontrolled airports, simulated instrument conditions, short and soft landings, emergency procedures, etc. In the mean time Kathy and I did two ‘dual’ cross countries in preparation of the solo cross countries required for the certificate. These were to Cincinnati and Holmes county. After completing these Kathy endorsed me for my solo cross countries. We ended up doing a short one to Sidney, Ohio on September 14th, and a long one to Findley and Mansfield on October 5th. The rest of our time consisted of reviewing for the flight test and doing ground preparation for the oral exam.

On October 18th, Kathy endorsed me to take my flight test and on October 25th I received my private pilot’s certificate.

It wasn’t cheap, but also wasn’t absurdly expensive. For anyone interested I am going to detail the total costs for me to receive my PPL, along with other metrics.

First Lesson: July 5th

Certificate Received: October 25th

Total Period: 112 days

Number of Lessons: 35 + 6 Ground Lessons

Total Hours: 62.9

Solo Hours: 11.5

Rental Costs: $94.25 per hour

Instructor Costs: $45 per hour.

Total Instruction Cost: $8,565

Materials (books, headset, charts, etc.): $500

Examiner’s Fee: $300

The costs are high. I have spent the majority of my income this summer on getting my license ( and aviation related iPhone apps), but I do not regret doing it. Being a pilot is something you never lose, as long as you have a biannual flight review by an instructor and can pass a medical exam every five years you will be a pilot for life. If you are considering it at all, just do it. Save the money up first, and do it. The more compressed the training the more you retain and the faster it will go, ultimately saving you money. Putting the time in on the ground will also save you a lot of time. Read aviation books, find some aviation related mailing lists or forums, listen to aviation podcasts (Uncontrolled Airspace is great, some very experienced and colorful hosts.), look at  airplanes that are for sale, join AOPA and/or EAA, watch One Six Right. Being immersed in the subject really accelerates the training process.

Hope some of you found this information interesting and maybe even useful. If you are thinking about it at all, drop me a line and I will try and convince you to just do it. Drop me a line even if you aren’t thinking about and just want to tell me how crazy I am.