|
|
|
Jerry's 63rd Lesson: All signed off and raring to go
Having given everyone a two-week rest from my ramblings, I am now ready to bore you again... Last week's big local airport round-robin fell through because I didn't get any sleep. And this weekend's cross-country didn't happen because of the weather. "Time to spare, go by Air." On the plus side, I did manage a few unsupervised solo pattern excursions at SJC. Not being signed off to fly anywhere else, I went round and round in the pattern. Well, I'm easily amused :-). Didn't write any journals about those - nothing notable happened, unless you want me to document each circuit: "Now the intrepid aviator noticed that he was a bit high, and reduced power a hundred". Puh-leeze! Today that big round-robin lesson finally came together. I got enough sleep, my instructor got enough sleep, and the weather cooperated. "Temperature two-four, dew point zero-seven". The plan was to take off around 1730 local time, fly to four airports, and come back at night. I had a cheat sheet all ready ( typed up! ) with all the frequencies we'd need, all the runway designators, and all the TPAs, all in order, tucked into one of the transparent sheet protectors in my kneeboard. Got to work bright and early, resigned myself to concentrating on software development until the evening lesson. Then I got a phone call: "Hey Jerry, would it be OK if we did the lesson at lunch instead of in the evening?" Are you kidding?! I raced down to the airport a half-hour early. He drove up while I was preflighting the plane. I showed him the frequency cheat sheet, and the sectional that I'd decorated with a 25-NM circle around SJC. We discussed where we would go, and to whom we would talk. This last was an impressive list. Not only would we visit four airports, we were going to deal with the SJC class C. It was time to get the show on the road. I got the SJC ATIS, called Clearance. Their instructions were simple: "fly VFR to freeway 101, turn and follow it". Not even a squawk code. Which suited me just fine, there'd be plenty of transponder action later. Then calling SJC ground, I forgot to give them the ATIS letter. Oops. But then they forgot to ask for it, so I guess we were even :-). On climbout, they directed us over Moffett Federal Airfield ( formerly Moffett Naval Air Station, now a victim of base closures ) "at or above 1500 feet". We climbed mightily in the hot air to attain those 1500 feet before entering Moffett's airspace. Made it! Talked to Moffett on the radio, admired the truly enormous hangars from above. These were built early in the century for dirigibles. It's said that they get *weather* inside the largest one. Another Moffett factoid: it's where you send those nice ASRS forms.... Palo Alto gave us a straight-in approach. Here a weakness in my training became obvious: judging straight-in approaches from afar. I managed it with some coaching, and plopped us right in, with just a bit of undignified weaving. One full stop and taxi-back later, I was asking for a right Dumbarton departure to get us to Hayward. One down, three to go! The trip from PAO to Hayward was just like dozens I'd done before with the old instructor. Could have done it in my sleep. Even asked PAO tower for an early frequency change so as to pick up the Hayward ATIS at my leisure. Way cool :-). Coming back to Hayward, I was struck anew by the size of 28L: a hundred-fifty-feet wide by over five thousand feet long. Teased the tiny plane down onto it, weaved WAY too much, rolled along looking for a taxiway: "There's gotta be one around here somewhere". They should have 1/4mile exit signs like on the freeway! Taxied back, asked for a downwind departure to Reid-Hillview. Got my clearance, blasted off. I told him I'd make for 1200 MSL, that was OK with him. I figured 1200 would keep us out of everybody's airspace, and be legal to fly over the densely populated East Bay. Right around now, my right leg started to ache, I suppose it was from the constant pressure on the right rudder. I wonder: can you can tell the pilots by their well-developed right legs and left arms? We went south hugging the foothills so as not to encroach on the class C. And I kept a weather eye out for other people doing the same thing. In the hot sun, the foothills were a bumpy place - apparently there was plenty of heat energy available to mix the air around. Reid-Hillview appeared in the distance. I called in, and landed without incident. Takeoff was a little messy, though. I still need to work on those. As you may remember, my old teacher insisted on me keeping the tailwheel on the ground until rotation. Whereas the new guy teaches ungluing it as soon as possible, and taxiing to rotation with the tail in the air. I still really don't have the hang of this, and the airplane tends to wander here and there in the runway, the nose bobbing up and down, until rotation. Then I'd give the yoke a half-hearted pull, and we'd sort of hop down the runway....Look at me, I'm a wabbit. Grrr! Really, I wanted to let the airplane fly itself off the runway, but what with the full load, and the heat, _it_ didn't want to. Whatever, we continued our voyage south. To San Martin, the day's fourth airport. An uncontrolled field that I'd been to once before. Luckily, somebody was already there self-announcing, and I didn't have to do the overfly-the-windsock thing. Speaking of the windsock, that particular item stood at stiff attention, pointing right down the runway. I landed the airplane, turned off the runway, parked the plane in the runup area and fell out of it. The pain in my leg quickly went away as I strolled around the tarmac. We stood around talking, and the wind kept blowing. Then the airplane started moving. Whoa! Don't fly away without us! OK, it was time to go home. We got back in the plane, I started going through the engine start checklist. Got to the place where it says to close the windows and doors... and the airplane bit me! Ow! Took a chunk right out of my hand! See, there's this folding latch on the door window. I pushed on the middle of the hinge, it snapped shut and took a piece of my skin with it. We took off ( bouncie-bouncie-wabbit-wabbit ) and made for home. After we cleared the San Martin pattern area, he had me do a 360 to gain some altitude so as to become visible to Bay Approach radar and report in. Bay welcomed us back into the Bay Area, we came back to San Jose, and I landed the plane, subjecting my poor CFI to the worst landing of the afternoon. Just your basic student-flared-too-high :-(. Well, at least all the other landings were good. We taxied back to parking, he endorsed me for solo flight to all four airports. All right! I drove back to work, feeling like a wrung out sponge. - Jerry "83.5 Hours, 511 Landings" Kaidor |