Flying Brothers

Here are two happy fellows headed into the sunset after a very nice trip to Las Vegas. I went to Long Beach and flew a DA-40 up to Colin at SMO.  The landing was perfectly acceptable considering it was my first attempt at getting a DA40 on the ground since my fifth week of training.  Colin jumped in and we headed for North Las Vegas.  Colin let the GPS fly the plane along a preset route. It was interesting to just sit there and let the plane fly, but I still enjoy the hand flying thing.  After several adventures we took off from North Las Vegas to Boulder City.  What a nice little airport that is.  There are thee Grumman Albatrosses.  Great big seaplanes that make me want to jump in and start across the Pacific.

Albatross

We were met at the airport by Colin’s site foreman for the castle.  Bob whipped us over and I got to see the job site for the first time.  It is absolutely stunning.  The sheer size of the place is daunting, but as I wandered from room to room I was blown away by the details.  The juxtaposition of walls against mountains, the sight line as you walk towards the guest rooms, and the majesty of the ‘ballroom’ view were just outrageous.  I can’t imagine it springing from my head and I am completely knocked out that not only did it spring from Colin’s head but that he still has a good deal of it up there.  How does it fit?

We got back in the plane and headed back to Long Beach straight into the sun.  There are times when a little piece of black plastic would be very nice in an airplane. This is one of them.  The flight back involved a ton of hand flying since I had pretty well wrung out the Garmin 1000′s and was ready to do some stick work.  There was a bit of turbulence, and just as in the Cessna 172 it is a smoother ride with a hand on the stick than an autopilot.  Even a good one like the KAP 140.

Colin landed at Long Beach after dark, a nice smooth drop in that seemed unaffected by the night.   We could not go back to SMO so I drove Colin home.  What a nice flight.

Well, it is long past bedtime but I am still flying around in my mind so I will jot down a few quick thoughts on the recent trip to Catalina with Colin. I rented a 172 at South Bay Aviation. Turns out they should not have rented it to me but that is another story. I flew the mini-route to Santa Monica and was on the ground with the engine shut down twenty-four minutes after spooling up. Coming out of the mini-route at twenty-five hundred feet I needed to shed eleven hundred feet in about a mile and a half to hit the pattern right. I tried something new for me, I put the plane in a wicked sideslip and dropped all the altitude long before I needed to. It was fun to try to stabilize heading and airspeed with the plane cocked thirty degrees into the wind.

Colin, Dexter and I went to Avalon for a burger. Colin got to try takeoffs and landings in a high wing for the first time since he got his ticket. I was happy he pronounced the plane a worth while beast in spite of the aluminum shell and older avionics. The KAP140 two axis autopilot is a really neat piece of equipment and we had a great time flying the heading bug and altitude settings. We saw no buffalo though, which was a sad surprise.

No more flying budget until after the new year. I dearly wish I had a little Cessna 152 with instruments tied down at Torrance. The freedom would be wonderful. To putt along throught the air at a stately ninety miles per hour in an aiplane that could not hold me, a large friend and a full tank of gas sounds like paradise to me tonight. Maybe someday soon. Leaseback is a tempting concept.

Yosemite was rainy, which was a surprise. That is, it wasn’t predicted. That made me a little nervous about what might be happening down in Fresno. We stayed an extra night up in Fish Camp because it was so beautiful in the woods on the edge of the park, and then drove our rental car back to the Fixed Base Operator (FBO) where we had parked the plane. I called about the weather before we left the hotel.

Pilots use a free service. 800-WX-BRIEF. The first they ask for is a tail number, so if you want a weather briefing and you aren’t a pilot, grab the tail number off the next plane you see. I told the briefer N2902S and that I was flying from FAT to SMO via VNY. He said there was a SigMet along my route of flight. That’s significant meteorological activity, worthy of a special report. I looked up into clear blue skies. “Really? What is it?” High winds, thirty-five to forty knots, over rough terrain was causing moderate turbulence with occasional severe turbulence from twelve thousand feet down to the surface. All the way from San Luis Obispo down to Palm Springs. Damn. It looked like it would start to fade around four o’clock. Click to continue »

El Capitan

Nell’s sister Claire decided to have Thanksgiving up in Yosemite at a big lodge. We were thrilled when she said we could tag along. We had considered going to the Grand Canyon with Adam and Sharalyn, but it seemed like a lot of flying for a family that had only done one flight of less than an hour so far.

But we decided it would be a good test for the boys to fly up to Fresno, cutting the drive time from six hours to just one hour. We would spend an hour and a half in the plane instead. Click to continue »