Pictures taken from 6500 feet in the Bonanza, on the way home from Paso Robles. I love sunsets from the air.
Happy New Year!
Monday, January 2, 2012
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Joy - 2011
Today is the last day of 2011. I celebrated the end of the year the best way possible... flying! I flew my husband on a Bay Tour up to one of our favorite places to fly in and eat - Santa Rosa Charles M Shultz Airport's Sky Lounge. The weather here has been in a basically stagnant pattern for a month.... cool hazy conditions with an occiasional wind blowing out the haze, then hazy conditions once again. Today was a clear day, light winds, minimum haze. A beautiful day for a trip around some of the Bay Area's iconic spots.
We flew up the peninsula past Stanford University, Crystal Springs Reservoir, San Fransisco Airport, directly over downtown San Francisco. Then we turned towards the ocean to fly in to the Bay over the Golden Gate Bridge (that's a view no one sees from the ground), we flew out to Angel Island and around it, then back towards downtown San Francisco over Alkatraz Island. Another turn towards the Marin Headlands and we were ready to go eat. We didn't take pictures, we took video of the whole flight.. once the video is done I'll post highlights to share.
We then flew up to Santa Rosa and I did my first approach and landing to a airport with a control tower that wasn't my home airport... it was amazingly easy. We parked and went into the terminal to eat. When were were done we hung out on the ramp to watch an Alaskan Airlines flight come in to the terminal and take pictures of a Grumman Albatross that was parked there.
That's when we got into a bit of trouble. The airport operations manager drove up in his truck and explained we should not be on the ramp except to go to and from our plane. We apologized and started to head for the plane. He told me to go ahead and take a last picture... he said "Hey, you're here, you got caught, you may as well take the picture!" We laughed, thanked him, took the picture and headed back to the plane.
But this little adventure isn't really what this post is about... or maybe it is exactly what this post is about. When I started training for my PPL, the term "joy" entered my vocabulary. I'd never used it to describe my life or my wishes for others before.. but now I know joy. My joy comes from flying... from all aspects of it. The little adventures, the risks, the rewards, the amazing views of the world from above, views that no ground bound person can see. The challenges of flight training, my frustrations, fears, every down has had an equal up. When I fly I feel so alive, the world is new and immediate and challenging and demanding and soft and friendly at the same time. I get to feel and experience first hand the air under my wings. I get to interact with the same air traffic control that the big jets that carry hundreds of passengers do. I've met new and interesting and awesome people. I've become a part of a community of a very small percentage of the population that can fly. I'm part of an even smaller percentage of that group that are women.
When I look back at 2011, my view is through the lens of the joy of flight. The joys and frustrations and triumphs of my year of training that resulted in my PPL in November and the fun flights I've had since then enjoying the freedom's I've earned. The other highlights of my year were being able to spend a week with all of my brothers and sisters for the first time in many, many years and meeting my new niece and nephew, running the St. George Marathon in spite of not training for it, many parties and celebrations with my friends, teaming up with some other former student pilots to kidnap our CFI for a beer to thank him for granting us the gift of flight, feeling closer to my husband than I ever have before. There were many disappointments this year too... sprained ankle, work continued to be a struggle and my running suffered due to my flying. However, overall, I will remember 2011 as a year of joy. A year where I earned my wings and now I can exercise that joy whenever the weather and scheduling gods allow.
This next year I hope to use my new wings to visit my family more often. I'd like to start and finish training for an Instrument Rating so I can fly safely in the clouds. I'd like to somehow gain more peace at work. I'd like to grow closer to my teenage daughter and continue to explore the world with my husband. I'd like to run more and spend more time with my close friends who sacrificed their time with me so I can gain my wings. I'd like to take them with me on flights so they can see first hand the joy of flight.
My wish for you, my friend, is that you find your joy in 2012, whatever that may be. When you find that joy, share it with the people around you. Maybe together, we can spread joy in the world and there will be more joy, peace and love for all. Wouldn't that be wonderful?
- AB
We flew up the peninsula past Stanford University, Crystal Springs Reservoir, San Fransisco Airport, directly over downtown San Francisco. Then we turned towards the ocean to fly in to the Bay over the Golden Gate Bridge (that's a view no one sees from the ground), we flew out to Angel Island and around it, then back towards downtown San Francisco over Alkatraz Island. Another turn towards the Marin Headlands and we were ready to go eat. We didn't take pictures, we took video of the whole flight.. once the video is done I'll post highlights to share.
That's when we got into a bit of trouble. The airport operations manager drove up in his truck and explained we should not be on the ramp except to go to and from our plane. We apologized and started to head for the plane. He told me to go ahead and take a last picture... he said "Hey, you're here, you got caught, you may as well take the picture!" We laughed, thanked him, took the picture and headed back to the plane.
But this little adventure isn't really what this post is about... or maybe it is exactly what this post is about. When I started training for my PPL, the term "joy" entered my vocabulary. I'd never used it to describe my life or my wishes for others before.. but now I know joy. My joy comes from flying... from all aspects of it. The little adventures, the risks, the rewards, the amazing views of the world from above, views that no ground bound person can see. The challenges of flight training, my frustrations, fears, every down has had an equal up. When I fly I feel so alive, the world is new and immediate and challenging and demanding and soft and friendly at the same time. I get to feel and experience first hand the air under my wings. I get to interact with the same air traffic control that the big jets that carry hundreds of passengers do. I've met new and interesting and awesome people. I've become a part of a community of a very small percentage of the population that can fly. I'm part of an even smaller percentage of that group that are women.
When I look back at 2011, my view is through the lens of the joy of flight. The joys and frustrations and triumphs of my year of training that resulted in my PPL in November and the fun flights I've had since then enjoying the freedom's I've earned. The other highlights of my year were being able to spend a week with all of my brothers and sisters for the first time in many, many years and meeting my new niece and nephew, running the St. George Marathon in spite of not training for it, many parties and celebrations with my friends, teaming up with some other former student pilots to kidnap our CFI for a beer to thank him for granting us the gift of flight, feeling closer to my husband than I ever have before. There were many disappointments this year too... sprained ankle, work continued to be a struggle and my running suffered due to my flying. However, overall, I will remember 2011 as a year of joy. A year where I earned my wings and now I can exercise that joy whenever the weather and scheduling gods allow.
This next year I hope to use my new wings to visit my family more often. I'd like to start and finish training for an Instrument Rating so I can fly safely in the clouds. I'd like to somehow gain more peace at work. I'd like to grow closer to my teenage daughter and continue to explore the world with my husband. I'd like to run more and spend more time with my close friends who sacrificed their time with me so I can gain my wings. I'd like to take them with me on flights so they can see first hand the joy of flight.
My wish for you, my friend, is that you find your joy in 2012, whatever that may be. When you find that joy, share it with the people around you. Maybe together, we can spread joy in the world and there will be more joy, peace and love for all. Wouldn't that be wonderful?
- AB
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Willows Finally!
I finally flew to Willows today. It was a day of a couple firsts... my first flight to Willows (WLW) as PIC. My first cross country in a 172SP. My first aborted takeoff requested by a tower. My first non-training night cross country return. Today was my last chance to get in a cross country flight before the Christmas break and a trip to Houston to visit family. I was anxious to be able to complete a flight before the time away.
About the trip.. I got to exercise the new skill I learned last week, the aborted take off. This time because the tower cancelled my take off clearance after I started my takeoff roll. A Citabria landed on the parallel runway and didn't read back the hold instructions the tower gave them not to cross my runway. So the tower had me abort to be sure of no crash. I was ready for that to happen because I heard the lack of response from the Citabria. I was ready to abort myself if the other pilot didn't stop. In any case, I brought the plane to a very nice stop and exited on Delta.. then taxied back to try again.
The flight to Willows was mostly uneventful. We got flight following of course and had a lot of traffic pointed out to us on the way. The air was rather hazy in the valley but the flight was smooth and it was a very familiar route.. part of why we picked that destination. I was flying a plane I wasn't familiar with so I wanted to reduce the number of unfamiliar variables I had to deal with (that and I've been wanting to fly to Willows myself for months, literally!). We had a headwind on the way there but we took off with full fuel so that would not be a problem at all.
As usual I had no problem with radio work, or the cruise portion of the flight. My pattern needs help though. I keep forgetting to pick a target point when I turn base and I find I am rusty on power off landings still. In any case I got us on the ground with a smooth landing and we enjoyed the food at Nancy's Airport Cafe and watched the Broncos play on TV for a while. We ordered a slice of pie for our daughter and then headed back out to the plane for the trip home.
For the return trip I opted to take off on runway 16 since that pointed us the direction we'd be going. I announced our intentions over CTAF and was in the runup for 16 when a blue taildragger took off on the same runway in the opposite direction. Welcome to the world of the non-towered airport. People aren't required to use radios at these airports. That plane was a good reminder of why we have to keep our eyes peeled for people who aren't listening or talking about where they are going.
On the way back it got dark.. as scheduled. I found this plane is a pleasure to fly at night. It has a very well lit instrument panel. Strobes and separate landing and taxi lights in addition to the required navigation lights and beacon. I felt a bit safer with those stobes going as we approached the busy Livermore to Calaveras corridor where planes approach from all over the central valley to transition into the bay area proper. I wanted to fly into the bay area over the Sunol grade, but I spotted a cloud bank that I would have to fly around if I took that route. So I switched to come in over Calaveras reservoir.
I got to do my first night landing in that plane too .. I almost forgot to turn on the landing lights, but I did on short final. Because of that momentary distraction I let the airspeed go down below the normal approach speed. As a result I ended up landing a short field landing. I was wondering how to do a short field landing in a plane with only 30 degrees of flaps. Turns out the answer is easy, fly slower.
I definitely need to practice more on many of my flying skills.. power off landings and learning this particular plane are two of them. At the end of the day I'm just happy about the flight, about being able to fly and spend time with my husband in the plane. I finally made it to Willows as PIC and got to log more cross country and night cross country time too. I hope for many many more days like this one.
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| Our rented SP at WLW. Ready to go home. |
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| 128kts ground speed for 115 kts IAS. Not bad :) |
As usual I had no problem with radio work, or the cruise portion of the flight. My pattern needs help though. I keep forgetting to pick a target point when I turn base and I find I am rusty on power off landings still. In any case I got us on the ground with a smooth landing and we enjoyed the food at Nancy's Airport Cafe and watched the Broncos play on TV for a while. We ordered a slice of pie for our daughter and then headed back out to the plane for the trip home.
For the return trip I opted to take off on runway 16 since that pointed us the direction we'd be going. I announced our intentions over CTAF and was in the runup for 16 when a blue taildragger took off on the same runway in the opposite direction. Welcome to the world of the non-towered airport. People aren't required to use radios at these airports. That plane was a good reminder of why we have to keep our eyes peeled for people who aren't listening or talking about where they are going.
 |
| This plane has a very well lit panel. |
I got to do my first night landing in that plane too .. I almost forgot to turn on the landing lights, but I did on short final. Because of that momentary distraction I let the airspeed go down below the normal approach speed. As a result I ended up landing a short field landing. I was wondering how to do a short field landing in a plane with only 30 degrees of flaps. Turns out the answer is easy, fly slower.
I definitely need to practice more on many of my flying skills.. power off landings and learning this particular plane are two of them. At the end of the day I'm just happy about the flight, about being able to fly and spend time with my husband in the plane. I finally made it to Willows as PIC and got to log more cross country and night cross country time too. I hope for many many more days like this one.
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