Totaling Numbers

I've read somewhere that those first few "hundreds" of hours can generate memories, and that sometimes pilots always remember when they got the 100th, 200th, etc. hour. But, I've never specifically computed that information from my logbook. So, today, while my car is getting all new tires at a local Discount Tire, I decided to pull my logbook out of the trunk and do some totaling. Here's what came out:

• 19.8 hours: 10/28/01, Cessna 172, N6353E, PAE, First Solo!
• 62.6 hours: 4/6/02, Cessna 172, N738SE, PAE, Private Certificate Issued!
• 100 hours: 2/21/04, Cessna 172, N738BU, PAE-BLI-PAE. This came during one of my instrument rating cross country training flights.
• 142.9 hours: 5/11/04, Cessna 172, N51380, PAE, Instrument Certificate Issued!
• 200 hours: 5/28/05, Cessna 172, N24529, OAK-OTH, cross country IFR flight. Not much to remember there, except that it was the furthest away I've been from my home base to date.
• 300 hours: 7/29/06, Cessna 172, N863CP, ALW-SUN, trip to Hailey, Idaho.
• 400 hours: uh, not there yet...

6353E was sold to someone in Alaska since I soloed in it. But all other aircraft are still flying out of Paine Field, and they have not changed ownership since I set my milestones in them.

I also thought I got my private license a bit sooner than 63 hours... Oh well, it's not like the skill of pilots is judged on that, anyway. And, all my milestones came in the good old 172. No 182's or the Arrow.

Hmm, I wonder what other things I can dig up by totaling up numbers in the logbook...

Home, Sweet Home

Sunday morning it was time to start heading home "for real" -- meaning no more looking for places to go. The weather for the trip home was absolutely beautiful, with clear skies over the entire Western US. The tailwinds that helped us on the way to South Lake Tahoe died down completely, so there was no headwind to contend with at altitude. We also confirmed that we missed Colorado by one day: had the good weather come in the day before, we would have been in Aspen on Sunday instead of Salt Lake. Oh well, next time. When travelling in a small airplane that is not approved for icing conditions, you have to be flexible in where you go and what time you get there.

For the flight home, we planned two legs: Salt Lake City to Boise and Boise to Paine. The takeoff and departure from Salt Lake City, a Class B airport, was quite uneventful. We got our IFR clearance and release to Boise much quicker than at North Las Vegas -- perhaps that's because the Vegas airspace is rather busy with folks arriving to gamble (it is, after all, Lost Wages, Nevada!) Enroute visibility was excellent with no haze whatsoever: even though we were quite a bit south of Hailey, Idaho, we spotted without difficulty the valley in which Sun Valley airport is located. And, from 12,000 feet, we saw the Boise airport from over 40 miles away. To lessen the time we put on the aircraft, we took a straight-in visual for runway 28L, even though the winds were favoring runway 10. I'm not saying I recommend landings with a tailwind -- but, if the winds are light and within airplane limitations (they were), and if the runway is sufficiently long (it was), and if you're up to the challenge, then it's certainly an option.

Our stopover at Boise was at the Turbo Air FBO. It's a first-rate facility, with excellent service, and they happily loaned us their crew car to grab lunch in town. Speaking of food in Boise: I highly recommend Buster's Bar and Grill: from the I-84 freeway, take the Broadway exit, and head north a couple of miles. Buster's will be on the east side of Broadway. Excellent food and atmosphere, and reasonable prices, too! For all you football fans, they've got several big screen TV's showing live games.

The flight back to Paine Field was direct VFR at 8,500 feet, with some dodging of restricted areas near Yakima. Not much to report there; we've done that route a number of times.

And so the "big trip" was complete. We logged 17.5 hours on the airplane, visited 6 airports, and talked to 5 air route traffic control centers (Seattle, Oakland, LA, Albuquerque, and Salt Lake). Tons of fun on every leg. Here are some cool links that illustrate where we've been:

• A video that Milen made of me approaching into Medford, OR.
• Another video (also by Milen) of me landing in Sedona, AZ. Sorry for the shaking on the two videos -- it was taken with my digital camera with no advanced "shake reduction" capability...
• Pictures from the trip.
• Tracks from FlightAware: PAE-MFR, MFR-TVL, VGT-SEZ, SEZ-SLC, and SLC-BOI. The flight from Tahoe to Vegas did not get recorded for some reason, and Boise to Paine was VFR. (You may have to be a FlightAware registered user to access these links.)

P.S. Overall, I lost $100 in Nevada... I was hoping to win some money to recoup the cost of the trip, but it wasn't so (this time). :-(

Class Bravo, Here We Come

This is a fourth post in the series of the longest trip I took in a small airplane to date. If you're just coming across this post, you should probably start your reading here to get the full context.

After our "detour" to Sedona, it was time to start heading home to Paine Field so we could be back on Sunday afternoon. The weather for going to Aspen was still not very good, so we decided to go to Salt Lake City. We figured that SLC was a good overnight stop, given that it was an airport that we haven't landed at before, and that it was a Class Bravo airport -- landing at a Class B primary airport would be the first for both Milen and I. So, after a quick lunch stop at the Sedona Airport Restaurant -- which, by the way, has an excellent view of the runway -- we were off to Utah.

By far, this leg provided probably the best aerial views of the entire trip. We again saw the Red Rocks near Sedona, and we flew directly over the Grand Canyon at 14,500 feet. Fortunately, the skies were clear over Northern Arizona, which greatly facilitated picture taking!

For a Class Bravo airport, SLC is extremely accommodating to GA. Much like Metro Oakland International, it's almost two airports in one. Airline operators use runways 34L and 34R, while general aviation uses runway 35. This is a very good arrangement, IMO: it saves GA pilots taxi time, since runway 35 is located next to the FBO's on the field, and it also reduces problems created by wake turbulence from large jet aircraft. Runway 35 is not a little runway - in fact, it's almost the same size as the other two. And, like 34L/R, it is served by an ILS approach. Salt Lake approach controllers seem to know GA as well: initially, we were asked to join the localizer for runway 34R, but the controller quickly offered us the localizer for runway 35 instead, which we gladly accepted. In short, landing at SLC was comparable to landing at a smaller Class C or D airport. And, SLC has no landing or ramp handling fees! Other large airports should definitely take note of this arrangement.

A useful note for those landing at Salt Lake: there are two FBO's on the field - Salt Lake jetCenter and Million Air. If you choose jetCenter (which we had to - Million Air does not offer portable oxygen services), make sure to taxi to the correct building. The northernmost building with a "jetCenter" sign on it is not actually the FBO... That is located a couple of buildings down. No wonder that no lineman met our aircraft to direct it to a parking spot -- we were at the wrong location. Fortunately, the mistake was easily corrected by the jetCenter staff; they came out to the aircraft with an airport vehicle, collected our luggage, and gave us a ride to the FBO! Overall, it was first-rate service. Although we were crewing a small piston single, they treated us as if we were corporate jet pilots.

Coming up next - the final two legs home.

Red Rock Country

The original plan for today was to go "skiing" in Colorado by visiting some ski resorts such as Aspen, Vail, and maybe stopping over in Denver. But, alas the weather system that carried us so quickly to South Lake Tahoe also brought bad weather to Colorado. Having looked at the weather, the icing potential (the skies over Colorado seemed like an ice machine on Saturday), we decided to skip Colorado this time and head down to Sedona, AZ instead.

Sedona, just a bit south of Flagstaff, AZ, is a spectacular town, surrounded by red rocks - hence the nickname Red Rock Country. The scenery is nothing short of breathtaking from the ground, and it's even more spectacular when flying in. The airport is situated on a 500-foot mesa over the city. At 4,800 feet, density altitude can be a problem for smaller aircraft, but the 182 had plenty of performance, and plus the temperatures were not the summertime Arizona highs that everyone talks about. However, you do have to watch out for downdrafts near the approach ends of either runway. Fortunately for us, the winds were pretty insignificant, and the approach was generally smooth and uneventful, at least as far as approaches in mountain terrain go.

It turns out the Sedona airport was quite busy that day; it was Airport Day with an airshow and a car show. We saw a V-22 Osprey perform some maneuvers over the airport - but alas part of the maneuvering was done while we were trying to find parking on the transient ramp... So unfortunately no pictures of that.

By the way, on departing out of North Las Vegas: for some reason, our clearance wasn't quite ready by the time we called up. No problem - I thought - I'll taxi over to the departure end of the runway (it's a rather big airport) while they get the clearance. We ended up getting an almost "as filed", but it was rather complicated since it involved the North Town One departure with some altitude and crossing restrictions. Again, no problem - Milen copied it during taxi. The big issue came at runway 30L. It turns out that our IFR release was not quite ready, and we ended up waiting almost 20 minutes for release. In the meantime, winds shifted, favoring runway 07 -- that made for an interesting takeoff with a quartering tailwind.

Alas, we didn't have that much time to spend in Sedona, since we had to hurry to our next destination. Where was that? Come back soon to find out! :-)

Almost in the Flight Levels

I must apologize; I'm a day behind in posting stories from the big trip. :-( But not to worry, details are still fresh in my mind.

After an overnight in Tahoe and the requisite breakfast at Starbucks (coffee + bagel), we went across the street to check on the Heavenly Ski Resort Gondola. You can actually get a much better view of Lake Tahoe from the airplane on approach into the South Lake Tahoe Airport, but we thought we'd go up for a ride anyway. Alas, it turned out that the gondola was "on hold" for high winds, with no ETA for a re-open time. So, alas, we did not get to go on the gondola ride. But that's OK. Maybe I'll come down to Tahoe once the ski season starts, and I'll take the gondola then.

Our next stop was going to be Las Vegas (er, Lost Wages), with a landing at the North Las Vegas Airport (we did not land at McCarran due to the broad daylight robbery on avgas - almost twice as expensive there than at North Las Vegas). The TAF's that day did not look great as far as surface winds were concerned: gusts up to 30 knots or so. And a 30 knot wind at 30 degrees produces a crosswind component of 15 knots - quite a lot. Normally, crosswinds wouldn't be that challenging if the wind would just keep blowing from one direction. But, that never happens in practice; you get something like "there was wind coming from the left, there was wind coming from the right..." So, we elected to stay in Tahoe a bit longer, and to arrive in Las Vegas at dusk, when the winds were forecast to calm down a bit. As a plus, we'd get to see Vegas all lit up.

What do you do in South Lake Tahoe for several hours? We rented a couple of bikes and biked around. The city is actually wonderful for biking - relatively flat, and there are a lot of scenic bike routes. Trouble is, these bike routes aren't always well marked, and the maps that depict them are not very detailed. Since this is an aviation-related blog, I'm going to say that it's kind of like flying around complex airspace with only a WAC chart. :-) Except that if you stray from your intended path when biking, nothing bad will happen -- unlike like flying when you go somewhere you're not supposed to. Speaking of going where you're not supposed to, check out Sam's post on a pilot who wandered around Southern California's airspace, and even flew into Mexico and attempted to land at Tijuana.

We left Tahoe around 5pm. Since South Lake Tahoe does not have an operating control tower (operating is the key word -- they have a tower building, beautifully blended into the landscape, but the tower is no longer operational), we left VFR and called up Oakland to get the clearance. Turns out that apparently Oakland Center did not have our flight plan on file... Hmm. Maybe it's because we refiled with an amended departure time (I tried to call FSS instead of refiling via DUATS, but alas I was on hold for over 4 minutes and just hung up - thank you Lockheed Martin). But in any case, that wasn't a problem, and we got the clearance after a couple of handoffs. :- We went up to 15,000 feet -- the tailwinds were not as spectacular as on our trip from Seattle to Tahoe, but they still yielded a respectable (for a straight-leg Cessna 182) 150 kts over the ground. That's only 3,000 below the flight levels, hence the title of this post.

That's not it, though - we had to climb to 16,000' to avoid some VFR traffic at 14,500'. The 182 managed to pull it off, and with density altitude factored in, we were almost at the service ceiling of the airplane.

Flying up high has the added "advantage" that you may be assigned a STAR for arrival, if one exists. And indeed, Los Angeles Center gave us one -- "after Beatty, cleared FUZZY SIX arrival into Las Vegas". This was actually the first time that either Milen or I flew a STAR procedure. They say that every flight should be a learning experience, and I learned a thing or two about Jeppesen plates on this flight. It turns out that for North Las Vegas, all STAR's are filed with McCarran's STAR's. We almost reported that we didn't have a plate for FUZZY SIX, but fortunately we thought of looking at the plates for McCarran before we embarrassed ourselves on frequency. I also learned about the G1000; when you put in a STAR, it apparently does not "fix up" the waypoints for you automatically. We had to delete some enroute fixes in order for the flight plan in the GPS to make sense.

Folks flying around Las Vegas may be familiar with the "Janet" callsign. There's a webpage on it here, and Wikipedia has an article on Janet Airlines as well. We got to hear "Janet 221" on Las Vegas Approach frequency - it sounded like he just took off from McCarran into a direction unknown. Speaking of this direction -- Groom Lake is prominently marked on the Las Vegas Sectional, and it lies inside restricted area R-4808-N; that's the approximate location of the Area 51 USAF installation. While flying between Coaldale and Beatty VOR's, we saw an airport-type circle with a "R" displayed on the moving map of the G1000 (photos coming soon); it looked like it was in the same place as Groom Lake. The identifier was KXTA, and the G1000 displayed it as a private airport - Homey, NV - with runways 12-30 and 14-32. Hmm... Looks awful lot like the Google-provided satellite photo of Area 51.

In any case... We arrived at North Las Vegas after about 2.5 hours of flying. I had a bit of trouble finding the airport initially - it's "swallowed" by the city lights nearby. Good thing I had that big MFD on board - that made finding the airport, and getting positioned for the visual approach, easier. :-)

Where did we go today? Well, I'll blog about it in my next entry!

Winds at Altitude

I said in an earlier post that Milen and I would be going somewhere to a "far away destination" this week. Perhaps I gave too much away by talking about oxygen systems in my last post, but I really tried not to. :-) And I'm still not going to give away where we're going next, although I am going to say where we went today. You'll just have to stay tuned to the blog and come back for more updates.

Today's leg took us to South Lake Tahoe (KTVL). We took off from Paine Field and filed via airways to Medford (KMFR) where we would switch seats, grab some food, and continue on to Tahoe (we flipped for legs the day before; I ended up getting Paine-Medford). Although I was slightly afraid of icing, we did not pick up any ice on ascent to our cruise altitude (9,000 feet), and in fact, the cloud tops were only at 8,000. We ended up making it to Medford in 2 hours, 20 minutes - not necessarily because we had a super-fast airplane (we took the G1000 Cessna 182), but because of very strong winds aloft. We consistently ended up with about a 35-40 knot tailwind!!

Medford had a 4,000 ceiling, so we had to get out of there IFR. And as far as getting to Tahoe from Medford, one can do it in a couple of ways. The first option is to go south towards the Fort Jones VOR, then south through Red Bluff and finally swing east at some point. The second option is to go east to Klamath Falls, and then go south towards Reno. The advantage of the first route is that it doesn't require oxygen at the MEA -- the second route, on the other hand, has a MEA of 14,000 feet.

Which brings us back to the oxygen post. There was a reason that I posted it... Milen and I realized that for maximum flexibility, we needed a portable oxygen system. Since we could not rent one, we called up MyPilotStore, and we had a nice 9 cubic-foot system shipped overnight ($68 extra, ouch). Using cannulas (approved for use up to 18,000 feet), this size system gives approximately 4 hours of endurance to 2 people. Of course, as we learned from the guy who filled the tank, you don't want to run the tank dry because tanks that have been run dry have to be purged by a specially qualified technician (who usually is not your typical line guy who does oxygen system fillups). So it's really perhaps 3 or 3.5 hours of endurance for two.

We got oxygen to get us more flexibility, and we needed it on this trip! It wasn't because we chose the Klamath Falls route on purpose. Rather, the winds aloft were extremely strong today. Recall that between Paine and Medford we got a constant 35-40 knot tailwind; between Medford and Reno, the winds were forecast to be in the 50 knot range. You certainly do not want to fly low over the mountains in such winds: turbulence and downdrafts often exceeding the climb capabilities of a small piston-driven airplane may be encountered. However, if you climb high above the terrain, the danger of downdrafts lowers. Therefore, we decided that 15,000 feet via Klamath Falls and Mustang VOR's was the best way to go. The terrain in that area is just over 8,000 feet or so for most of the route, so we would have an adequate safety margin. (Of course, the winds were stronger than forecast -- we've seen as high as 61 knots on the GPS display -- which also translated into more than 200 knots on the groundspeed; overall, that leg of the trip was a little under two hours).

Where are the pictures? There aren't that many yet - but, we've got a full video of an approach to Medford, and a video of landing at South Lake Tahoe. I'll be uploading those to YouTube as soon as I get back to Seattle! Of course, I'll post a link on the blog as well. :-)

Come back tomorrow for another installment from our trip! (Hopefully the net connection will work as well tomorrow as it did today!)

Portable Oxygen

Assuming an unpressurized aircraft, the FAA rules for oxygen use state that you must use supplemental oxygen from 12,500 to 14,000 feet if you're at those altitudes for more than 30 minutes. If you go above 14,000 feet, you must use oxygen continuously, and above 15,000 feet, oxygen must be made available to passengers (although you're not required to make sure they use it...) Our neighbor to the north has a bit more stringent rules: oxygen is required between 10,000 and 13,000 feet if you're there for more than 30 minutes, and it is required continuously above 13,000 feet. IMO, Canadian rules, although more stringent, make more practical sense. After flying at 11,000 feet for an hour or so, I was definitely able to "feel it".

So, it sounds like if you fly around (or over) the mountains, it would be good to have supplemental oxygen. For me, the main factor is the Cascade Mountain Range, just east of Seattle. It's very possible to cross the Cascades without oxygen, and I've done so several times. But, without oxygen, many IFR routes in Eastern Oregon are unavailable, with MEA's in the 12-14,000 foot range. While that's too high for a Cessna 172, it's doable in the 182 - the service ceiling is 18,100', and perf charts go up to 14,000' (why not higher??) And, if I ever decide to go up the BC coast IFR, I'd need oxygen there as well, since MEA's around Vancouver Island force a cruising altitude of 10,000' westbound and 11,000' eastbound.

So, what are the options? Obviously none of the aircraft I fly come with a built-in oxygen system, so besides oxygen altitudes, the only option is getting a portable oxygen system. SkyOx manufactures such systems, but they're priced in the neighborhood of $500-$600. Mountain High Oxygen also makes similar systems; they're slightly more expensive than SkyOx.

I figured maybe I could rent such a system... But, alas, calls to FBO's around the Seattle area did not yield anyone who would rent me an oxygen system. Moreover, nobody had any idea as to whether such systems are even available for rent. A call to SkyOx and Mountain High did not produce any more information, and neither did calls to a couple of FBO's in Colorado (I figured maybe in the high country, where oxygen use must be commonplace, they'd know more about renting portable oxygen systems). Everyone in Colorado had oxygen available for their own aircraft, but nobody offered oxygen bottles for rent.

So, the conclusion: it seems like the only option available if you want to fly on oxygen is to buy your own... :- Or, maybe if you have a friend who already owns a portable oxygen system, you could twist their arm into letting you use it for that occasional flight or two.

Systems Management

Some folks say that pilots flying modern glass cockpits are mere "button pushers". They engage the autopilot after takeoff, and they do not disengage it until it comes time to land. Or maybe the plane is equipped with an auto-land system, in which case they may not disengage the autopilot at all: the plane just lands itself -- and flares perfectly at the same time. There's nothing for them to do in cruise, right? Well, I think pilots aren't just button pushers - they're systems managers. There's a lot to do in cruise, including monitoring the aircraft systems and being alert/prepared to respond to any emergency that might come about.

Why am I writing about this? Because I went for some dual today in the G1000 Cessna 182. I haven't flown this plane in a while, and I wanted to make sure I was still competent in "button pushing" in IFR conditions - especially since Milen and I are planning a trip to a far-away destination next week (stay tuned to the blog to find out where we went!) At least to me, flying a glass cockpit is much more about managing the avionics to get them to do what you want them to do, rather than plain stick-and-rudder flying. After all, you don't want to be caught in hard IFR conditions wondering "uh, exactly how do I get it to do THAT".

To make sure this type of wondering doesn't happen, we went over to Port Angeles (KCLM), shot the ILS approach (and circled to land - my first time circling in a 182), and then went back to Paine Field to do the LOC 16R, GPS 16R, and VOR 16R approaches. I got a hold in there, too, so I'm now even more current "on the gauges." And, I've got the confidence that I can still push those buttons! (Surprisingly, I found that I pretty much remembered everything there was to flying the G1000!)

Update and a Little History

Wow, I haven't posted in a while... I haven't gone away - just not much flying has been happening lately. :-( So, for a bit of history, I'll blog about the first time I sat in the cockpit of an airplane.

Back in Poland, in third grade, our class took a field trip to the Warsaw Okecie Airport. We went through the airport's domestic terminal like a regular passenger would, complete with checkin, luggage check, and a tour of the gate areas. (Of course, back in those days, few people flew domestically within Poland, so that type of a field trip was actually possible.) But, the best part of the trip was yet to come: our entire class got to board a LOT Polish Airlines Antonov An-24 aircraft, where we sat down in the cabin and got a safety briefing. Then, in groups of three, we got to go into the cockpit where I sat in the first officer's seat. One of LOT's pilots was on hand to explain what was going on there, but unfortunately all that I remember was that it is really important for pilots to keep an accurate track of time, so that's why there were multiple clocks in the cockpit. Our group didn't have too many questions, so we didn't get to stay in the cockpit for that long -- I wish I had gone in with the teacher; that group seemed to stay in the cockpit forever, because apparently the teacher was asking all sorts of interesting questions!

So that's when I decided I someday wanted to be a pilot, too. I fulfilled that dream in April, 2002, when I got my Private Pilot Certificate!