New Flyers and Where to Take Them

It seems that more and more these days I'm approached by friends, some of whom might have previously been reluctant to fly in a small plane, who want to go up in the air. I usually take them to Friday Harbor for lunch, which is a fairly short flight, but sometimes people don't want to go for the typical $100 hamburger (well, in Friday Harbor it's usually seafood, but we'll call it "hamburger" to keep with the tradition). So I take these folks somewhere else. But where? I thought I'd share some of the itineraries, including the Friday Harbor one, on the blog. Maybe some of my readers (uh, hopefully I've got some readers...) will comment and post the stories of where they took first-time flyers... Ok, here we go:

1. Friday Harbor lunch. This is a 49nm flight which I usually do VFR, although there has been one instance where Paine Field was at 800' broken, so I had to depart IFR (the weather forecast said it would clear up for the flight home, which it did). We usually end up departing around noon, and we're back at Paine Field at 5pm or so. The total flight time is around 1.5 hours, including ground taxi time. This flight can be either strictly a "lunch only" flight, or we can do some flying around the San Juans (show Orcas Island, circle to the West of San Juan Island to see Victoria, BC from a distance). On the way back, I've flown down Puget Sound to show the Seattle skyline from a bird's eye view. This usually excites folks, and it provides a good opportunity to take pictures.
2. Around the Olympic Peninsula. Strictly speaking I haven't done this flight with first-time flyers, but I've done it myself a couple of times. On a sunny day, you can see the Pacific Ocean beaches along the Washington shoreline, and in the wintertime, you can admire snow-covered peaks of the Olympic mountains. This can also be combined with a stop at Hoquiam and a visit to Lana's Hangar Cafe. Total flying time in a Cessna 182 is around 2.5 hours.
3. Mount Rainier Tour. This is probably best done in the late evening, such that we arrive at Mount Rainier almost at sunset. On the way there, I fly under Class B airspace until around Redmond, at which time I hopefully will get a Class B clearance at 7,500 or 9,500 feet. After hanging around Mount Rainier, we head up to Tacoma Narrows (avoiding the restricted areas south of KGRF/KTCM) and proceed to see Downtown Seattle, where we arrive right after dark, such that all the buildings are nicely lit up. Sometimes, when the controllers are nice, you can really show off Seattle from an airplane! One thing: this time of year, you have to watch out for fire-related TFR's, so it may be wise to use your GPS and program a route which will keep you well clear of them (the flight plan I do is KPAE-TAGOR-2W3-KTIW-KPAE). Total flying time is around 1.6 hours.

Where do you take first time flyers? Post a comment and share your experience!

Commercial License: Not Meant To Be

My commercial license work seems to be delayed, again. I guess I'm starting to believe those American Flyers printed adverts that say "whoever said it was always something... must have been taking flight training." If I'm not sick, the instructor is sick, if we're both not sick, the plane is reserved for the whole weekend by someone, and if it's not that, then someone lands the plane without putting the gear down...

The Arrow was originally scheduled to be back on the flight line on September 1, but alas, there seems to be a problem with the engine mounts, and the latest word is "it probably won't be back on the line by 9/1." That's a double whammy. First, because I had the plane already reserved for 9/1 (we get the day off in the office for an office move!), as well as for some subsequent weekends. Second, I think September is probably my last chance to get the commercial done before the weather in the Northwest worsens for good -- and I can see it worsening almost every day as I look out the window... :-(

Fun Flight, Helpful Controllers

This evening, I took a couple of our interns from work on a sightseeing flight - over Lake Sammamish, down to the Mount Rainier area, over to Tacoma Narrows, and back up to Paine Field. I was surprised on this flight: the controllers were extremely friendly. I've never gotten such friendly approach controllers before. I was cleared through all the Class Bravo airspace I wanted, and on the way back, the controllers worked me around traffic to let me see the Seattle skyline closer, and even fly over the north portion of downtown at 2,500 feet -- even though SeaTac was landing on runways 16, and there was incoming jet traffic on final. Wow! We then proceeded northbound over Lake Union and Greenlake. The kids (eh, interns) loved it! This was by far the best sightseeing tour of Seattle that I have ever done.

1.6 hours in the airplane, and we got beautiful shots of Rainier, downtown Seattle, and we finished it off with runway 16R lights at high intensity, complete with the "rabbit". :-) Hopefully the photos will come out well!

Done With Night Requirements

I thought I had the solo night requirements for the commercial certificate met... But, there's a catch. It turns out that technically, flying at night, in VFR conditions, but under an IFR flight plan doesn't count towards the solo night requirements in "VFR conditions" for the commercial certificate. Why that is, I don't know, because most trips at night are navigated mostly by instruments, or at least strongly backed up by instruments anyway. So, technically I was missing 0.8 night hours, until tonight.

Clear skies, unlimited visibility - it probably won't be like that for much longer in the Northwest. So, I hopped into the airplane tonight, went up to Bellingham and back (what an easy cross country - just point the plane at Bellingham and go!) 4 landings (the controller at Bellingham didn't let me do a stop-and-go because of regional jet traffic behind me - and I found out about it after I touched down), and I've not only fulfilled the night commercial requirements, but I'm also current at night for another 90 days. That's going to come in handy as the days get shorter this time of year!

Owning?

Probably like all (most?) renters, I've been toying around with the idea of purchasing a plane of my own... Of course not a brand new one, because I can't afford that - but with a couple of people, I figure I could probably get a nice mid- to late-1970's Arrow. Certainly not the fastest plane out there, but it gets you from Point A to Point B in a reasonable amount of time, and it has good payload, too. And the maintenance on it supposedly won't break your pocketbook. But, I seem to be having trouble finding enough partners who are willing to take the plunge.

But then again, I'm confronted with those who are skeptical about owning because of maintenance... And looking back at it, I've had quite a number of problems with rental airplanes:

• Nosewheel steering bungee broken on a Cessna 177RG; had to get towed back to the ramp from the taxiway (too bad I didn't have a digital camera back then, because that was probably the only opportunity to get out of the airplane parked sideways on A4 taxiway right next to runway 16R-34L).
• An aborted takeoff due to a badly indicating tachometer.
• Attitude indicator not working correctly on my last trip to Hailey.
• Flight delays due to flat tires, leaking oleo struts, etc.
• A plane where the ADF needle never works quite right.
• COM2 going dead.

None of these problems were too serious, and all of them occurred at Paine Field where I'm based out of. Nonetheless, I'm thinking: what if these didn't occur at Paine? Milen was flying back from San Diego, and he had an alternator problem south of Medford, Oregon (can you say: "uh, exactly how long has that VOLTS light been on?") He made it to Medford, and he was delayed while waiting for a mechanic. But, it wasn't his plane, so all he had to do was call up the FBO, and they took care of the problem - even sending a mechanic down to fix it.

And, it's also good to mention that most of my flying is done outside of the normal Mon-Fri, 8am-5pm timeframe. Why does that matter? Try finding a mechanic on the field on Saturday or worse, Sunday.

Call me crazy, but even with all this, I still want to have an airplane of my own! :-)

Friday Harbor Again

Up to Friday Harbor again, this time with another first-time small plane flyer. Fortunately the air was quite smooth today with good visibility throughout the route, so they got to see some scenery around the San Juans. On the way back, we went up to Orcas Island and then turned West to fly around the western edge of San Juan Island. You could see Victoria quite well in the (short) distance. In fact, Victoria is probably 10 more minutes of flight time from Friday Harbor! I've got to go there at some point...

I can say that I learn as much about the scenery from passengers as I do by watching it myself. My friend pointed out that the ground around the San Juans is mostly yellow, meaning that there is not much greenery except for the trees. I've never paid attention to that, but I guess it's true: even with the copious rain we get here in the Northwest, it's still not enough to keep the grass shining green everywhere.

Not much in terms of eventfulness on this flight, except that it was exceptionally busy at KFHR today. I don't think I've ever seen it that busy - when we were walking back to the airport, planes were taking off one after another, kind of like jets do when they depart a busy hub!

Congratulations!

Congrats to Milen - the newest commercial pilot in the country. Milen passed his Airplane Multi-Engine Land commercial checkride today!! Hopefully the Arrow will get fixed soon, so I can start catching up in aviation achievements. :-)

What's with the Name?

No flying this weekend... :-( I spent too much money flying to Hailey and back. Hopefully next weekend I'll be able to get out for a short flight to the San Juans, since I've been neglecting some of my friends who want to go up for a ride to Friday Harbor.

So instead, I thought I'd take a post and explain what the name of this blog is, for those reading who are not familiar with air traffic control. "Climb and maintain" is an instruction issued to an aircraft by air traffic control to climb to and stay at a specific altitude. Typically, it would be something like "Cessna 123, climb and maintain 8,000", which in the IFR environment means commence a climb from your present altitude to 8,000 feet. It's assumed that you'll do it at your best climb rate, which should be at least 500 feet per minute. If you're unable to maintain 500 feet per minute, you should advise the controller.

So now, hopefully the origin of the name of this blog should be a bit more clear!

Heard on the Radio

Sometimes we hear funny things on the aircraft radio, and sometimes we hear things that mean very different things depending on the word order. Here is an example that I overheard while departing from Seattle on one of my recent flights:

Pilot: How's the ride on the arrival?
Controller: Occasional reports of light chop. Uh, let me rephrase that: reports of occasional light chop.

Radio conversations sometimes make you laugh, too. Aviatrix, over on Cockpit Conversation, has a link to this thread on AirlinePilotCentral: "What's the funniest thing you ever heard over the radio?" Check it out!