fromtherightseat.com

Aside from just being a really fun, cool thing to do, flying airplanes allows me to maximize the time I spend with my family when I visit them in suburban New York. Peter graciously let me borrow his Cirrus SR22 this weekend, which at about 170 knots in cruise meant I could easily make it from Gaithersburg to White Plains in under two hours from start-up to shut-down.

I had a full day of student work on Thursday, ending at 4 p.m. By 5 p.m. I was in the Cirrus with the engine running, copying my IFR clearance to Westchester County Airport (HPN). I took off at 5:10 and had climbed to and leveled off at my cruising altitude of 7,000 feet about 15 minutes later. With the autopilot holding the course and everything under control, it was time for a snack break before checking in with Harrisburg Approach.

Somewhere north of Allentown, PA the Harrisburg controller gave me the usual re-routing through upstate New York. They like to keep us little guys and gals as far away from the New York “big three” airports as possible. But, from previous experience I knew that if I asked the next controller, who handles New York airspace, nicely I could get a clearance through the Class B airspace direct to White Plains if I agreed to proceed under VFR instead of IFR. On a “severe clear” day such as it was, there is no real difference in terms of flight safety or ease of navigation. But for some reason the controller this time said he was unable to grant my request because he didn’t handle that airspace. I think they must have shifted the positions around.

I really didn’t mind, though, because at the speed I was flying, the detour wouldn’t take very long and plus, the upper Hudson River valley is quite beautiful. The next New York controller issued me vectors to join the ILS approach to Runway 16, which began right about here, over the river, southeast of the Newburg-Beacon Bridge, near Stewart Airport:

As I turned inbound to join the final approach to Runway 16, the controller asked me if I could keep my speed up because there was a faster jet right behind me. Now that I’m very comfortable flying this plane, it was not a problem at all. I maintained 150 knots until a 5 mile final, at which point I reduced power, slowed to below 120, added flaps, slowed some more to 100, then 90, then added full flaps, slowed to 80 knots and landed smoothly.

Dad met me at the airport at 6:30 and we were home, enjoying an authentic New York pizza for dinner about an hour later. Perfect! If I had made the trip by car, I wouldn’t have made it home until at least 10 p.m. and would have been tired and worn out. This way, I arrived with plenty of energy to enjoy the evening with my parents. After dinner we took a walk through the local park before it got dark and then went out for ice cream.

The weekend was great. We enjoyed sunny weather and temperatures in the high 70s. I got to spend lots of time with my grandmother, who hasn’t been feeling so well lately. She, my mother and I cooked a spaghetti dinner on Saturday night and then Dad drove us all to the airport for my return flight. Nan has never been to the airport to see me prepare for a flight so she was really excited about the outing.

I had hoped to return on Sunday morning, but the forecast called for low ceilings and possible thunderstorms. If I’d waited until last night to make my decision, it would have been too late. As I write this at 9:30 a.m. on Sunday (right about the time I would have been landing at Gaithersburg if I’d departed White Plains at 8 a.m., per my original plan) it’s raining, sometimes hard, and I can hear thunder rolling by occasionally. Here’s a peek at this morning’s radar picture:

I’m glad I chose to fly home last night instead of this morning. The flight was beautiful, with smooth air, not much traffic and a gorgeous orange moon shining through a thin overcast cloud layer. Life is good.

(And thanks again, Peter, for the very sweet ride.)

So I know that I’ve been carrying on at great length for the last few months about my experience flying the Cirrus. But tonight I caught up with my old friend the Cessna Skyhawk, and it was as if we were dear old friends reunited, two kindred souls who instinctively complete each other’s sentences even though they haven’t seen each other in years.

My old friend 1DA has had a makeover since we last met. She got a brand new paint job (shiny fire engine red) and supple leather(ette?) seat covers to replace the sweat-caked, dingy faux sheepskin covers that she wore so ungracefully for years. Looks pretty good for 32. (What is that in people years? Is there a conversion factor like there is for dogs?)

We went for a short walk around the traffic pattern, three takeoffs and landings to a full stop at night, to make me current again. I love how she lets me fly her gently with the lightest touch of my thumb and index finger on her yoke, how her trim wheel rolls so smoothly up and down, how she settles into a new airspeed without any fuss, and calmly glides to the runway at idle.

I didn’t realize until tonight how much I missed my old friend.

Yesterday I celebrated my 36th birthday by doing what I love the most with the guy I love the most. It was a perfect spring morning, with just a little chill in the air and great visibility for a VFR cross country. Among the many special gifts I received to mark the occasion, Peter lent me the Cirrus for the day. So Sarat and I invited our friend Cathy to join us for a lunch run.

But where to go? Well, my first choice was Tangier Island, but apparently the restaurants there don’t open until the beginning of May. I definitely wanted to go somewhere new, to work toward my long-term goal of landing at every public use airport on the Washington Sectional. I’ve already been to most of the airports that are printed on the north side of the chart, so over dinner on Friday night Sarat and I flipped the map over and decided to head toward Virginia Beach. Since we were going to take the SR22, we needed at least 3,000 feet of nicely paved runway. Also, we needed to be back by mid-afternoon so that we could be home in time to rest and change before heading downtown for dinner, so the destination couldn’t be more than about an hour away. Given these criteria, we decided on the Williamsburg-Jamestown Airport (JGG).

Cat hadn’t flown in a small plane in more than 10 years, so I was really excited to show off the Cirrus. She, like most people who see this plane for the first time, was impressed with its comfort, style and safety. I often describe the SR22 to non-pilots as a BMW with wings. Cat, who like me appreciates the luxury and performance of a fine German automobile, agreed.

Going through the preflight briefing with Cat reminded me just how much I love being a flight instructor, and how much I truly missed having teaching at the center of my daily life over the last few months. She told me afterward that she thought I seemed incredibly relaxed and happy at the controls, and to me, that is just about the highest compliment anyone could give me.

There is nothing quite as satisfying as planning and executing a flight with passengers, and making sure that they have a great time and come away from the experience with a positive impression of general aviation. I told Cat that one of my greatest joys as a pilot is the feeling I get from being in complete control, of handling these incredible machines with ease and confidence. Yesterday’s flight was, in many ways, a rebirth for me as pilot. Over the last few months I’ve made some difficult choices that have put an uncomfortable distance between me and the sky. I’m glad to say that I’ve come home–hopefully, this time, to stay.

I’ve been so busy with work lately that I haven’t had time to post as regularly as I should, so I thought I’d tell you about the fun flight I had today with Peter and Sarat. We piled into Peter’s Cirrus this morning and flew to Cleveland’s Burke Lakefront Airport (BKL) and visited the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which is located just a few blocks down the road from the airport. The flight out there took about 2.5 hours (with a low approach at Johnstown, PA in the middle) and the flight home took about 2 hours (with a little tailwind and no stops).

There was a decent amount of frost on the wings when we arrived at the airport, but we managed to wipe it off easily with a little help from some TKS de-icing fluid that Peter had put into a small spray bottle. Once airborne we enjoyed clear blue sky, a smooth ride and good tunes on the XM radio. Sarat was in charge of the camera and the XM radio remote control, I did the CFII thing from the right seat and Peter guided the plane through a few practice approaches, including a GPS approach at Johnstown, an ILS into Cleveland and a VOR approach on the way back home to Gaithersburg.

The R&R Hall of Fame was cool except for the fact that they did not, as I expected, have a shrine (or perhaps even a wing) dedicated to the art of Bruce Springsteen. What sort of respectable musical memorabilia collection is devoid of any Springsteen stuff? That was a bit disappointing. The Rolling Stones section was sweet, though, as was Janis Joplin’s very colorful Porsche convertible. Oh yeah and Madonna’s pointy push-up bra and Michael Jackson’s glittery glove.

The lineman from the FBO kindly drove us to and from the museum, but unfortunately the guy who fueled our plane goofed and filled it to the brim instead of just to the tab. The result was, we ended up with 20 extra gallons, or about 120 pounds more of fuel than the plane’s operations manual said we could have for departure… so we had to ask them to pump the extra fuel back out before we left. Who knows what they did with it (we didn’t ask) but at least we were confident that we did the right thing.

by Peter

What sane person would go to upper Minnesota in the dead of winter for flight training? For that matter, what sane person would buy an airplane? Well, I’ll leave it to others to judge our sanity, but I recently purchased a new Cirrus SR22 G3 and took delivery, and scheduled factory transition training, at the Cirrus factory and headquarters in Duluth. My flight instructor Meredith–who is both a terrific instructor and good friend–tagged along not only for the experience, but also to get her Cirrus Flight Instructor rating (CSIP) so she could continue my instrument training on our return (and ultimately work with other Cirrus pilots.) We scheduled a week in Duluth at the end of January. What a week.

Meredith and I spent months planning and preparing for the trip. We each had to complete an extensive online training course, and we spent additional hours reading through the stack of manuals concerning the various systems on the plane, and also reading the POH. And, we made trips to REI and other stores to stock up on cold weather gear.

But nothing prepared us for the cold up there. We’re from the Washington, DC area. Whenever people here complain about the snow or cold, some transplant from upstate New York or Illinois or Minnesota will always talk about what wimps we are down here, how we can’t handle the snow, cold etc. Well here’s how cold it was up there: during our five weekdays in Duluth, those winter-hardened tough guys in Duluth closed school two days due to extreme cold temperatures.

I’m not making this up: one morning on the treadmill I was watching the local news and the weather lady said it was 25 degrees F below zero, with the wind chill making it feel like 40 below zero. That morning the car door locking mechanisms were so frozen that they locked up and even though we managed to pry the doors open, the doors would not shut, and we had to drive to Cirrus holding the doors closed as best we could with our hands. That day, Lake Superior was in the process of freezing, and the frigid waters–which, we learned, have claimed so many ships over the years–were actually warmer than the air, causing the following eerily beautiful scene of the Duluth lighthouse shot from our hotel:

It was so cold one day that the instructors declared that it was too cold for training, and they recommended that we fly south to Dubuque Iowa, of all places, for a couple days of training. (More on that later.) I’ve heard of flying south to Florida or Arizona to seek warmer weather. But Iowa?

Read the rest of this entry »