I flew Saturday morning, with the intent of practicing what I had learned from Liz. It was still very foggy and cloudy when I woke up, but I held feeble hope that the weather would be good enough to solo by the time I had gotten to the airport. Things were indeed good enough to solo, but only marginally so, as I would soon see.
After I had lifted off into the air, climbing up a few hundred feet, it became immediately apparent that the poor weather would hinder my opportunities this flight. I had gotten my clearance to San Pablo Bay, but it was flanked by an imposing wall of clouds about 2,000 feet high. Had I a private pilot's license, I could simply fly above them, but alas, as a student pilot, I must stay below clouds at all times.
Indeed, the whole of the Bay was covered in clouds, with the exception of Oakland Airport. It was as if a single hole in the sky had been punched allowing me to take off, but leaving me with nowhere to go. Beneath the clouds it was hazy, and I could barely make out things more than 10 miles away.
The area behind Mt. Diablo looked more promising, so I asked NorCal if I could amend my clearance and go to Mt. Diablo instead. They approved my request but noted that numerous aircraft were also doing airwork there. Apparently others had had the same line of thought as I.
When I was over the practice area I began practicing my power-on and power-off stalls, as Liz had asked me to. NorCal chimed in now and then to keep me updated on a number of airplanes moving through the area. All in all, this made me feel very crowded, like I didn't have enough space to spread out and practice comfortably. I made frequent clearing turns and kept a wary eye out for all this traffic.
Practicing stalls alone feels unstructured, because you have no one to slap your wrists when you get lazy. I felt as if I hadn't broken the process down into discrete steps as the examiner would want, that I was just sort of mushing through it trying to get it all done. Liz would later suggest I try "armchair flying," where I simply sit in my chair at home and pretend I'm flying, thinking through and miming all the steps of a stall, one by one. It's sure a hell of a lot cheaper than flying, I'll give her that.
Eventually, as NorCal restricted me further and further, I got frustrated and decided to leave the area and head for Byron and practice an engine-failure-over-an-airfield the way Liz had asked me to. I punched Byron into 9UL's GPS and had it direct me to the field. NorCal saw I was leaving and let me go, and I changed frequencies. Judging by the amount of chatter on the Unicom, Byron wasn't exactly sleeping either.
I announced my intentions and positioned myself above the field at 3,000 feet. I cut the power and descended in circles over the 45-entry point. There was a glider circling the field as well, I saw him make long, slow circles near the smaller runway. I guess you could say there were two gliders that day. As I descended further, I saw a Pitts biplane working the pattern just below me. Realizing that, by forcing myself not to use power, I was creating a hazard for other aircraft, I decided to abort the descent. I pushed in power, climbed back to 3,000 feet, and moved a little further out.
The glider was now setting up to land on 23, while the Pitts was doing his touch-and-goes on 30. I cut power again and began descending turns over the reservoir. As I descended, I saw a pair of menacing black jets taxiing together parallel to 30. As they set up to take off, I heard their radio call.
"Experimental 59L, taking off, runway 30, pair of L-39's, formation departure, straight-out."
True to their word, the two black jets took the runway and blasted off in unison, accelerating quickly over the plains north of the airport. Oh, to own one of those... What sucks about flying in a 1969 Cessna 172 is that you're basically the bottom of the barrel. Every plane you see, whether it be a low-and-slow bush-flying STOL like the Scout, an aerobatic like the SF.260, or a high-speed thrill ride like these L-39's, is a plane you'd rather be in. It's such a long road to fly one of those jets, too ... you'd need a private pilot license with an airplane rating, high-performance endorsement, complex endorsement, a type-rating for an L-39, pressurized endorsement, and probably an instrument rating. You'd probably have to get well over 500 hours before even sitting in one of those things. Times like this make me feel like the road is so long.
As another aircraft joined the Pitts with his patternwork, I felt that even Byron was too busy for me to be doing simulated emergencies. Furthermore, it had dawned on me that I couldn't land at Byron as a student solo pilot anyway. That tears it ... I pushed the power back in and headed home. This wouldn't be the most productive practice session.
As I passed westward over the field, the glider was touching slowly down on 23. A small tow truck, barely a dot to me, was driving into position to haul it back to the tarmac. It was all interesting to watch. Gliders aren't really my thing -- I prefer the freedom of flying wherever I want to the challenge of staying aloft -- but I can see why they would be fun.
With the haze and the clouds threatening to ruin future flying opportunities, I've started viewing my instrument rating another way. What used to be an optional endeavor has now basically turned into a requirement, so much so that the glory of getting my pilot's license has been tempered. Upon receiving it, I'll still feel as if I'm only halfway done, that until I earn my instrument rating, I won't truly have my wings. After all, what good is a pilot when six months out of the year he can't fly because of clouds and rain?
Fortunately, the haze wasn't so bad that I couldn't find Oakland with the help of 9UL's trusty GPS. Tower told me to stay at or above 2,500 feet for some departing jet that I couldn't see. I ended up getting pretty close to the airport while staying up at 2,500 feet, long after I would have descended normally. In fact, by the time that jet passed me, I was not 3 miles from the field, way up high at 2,500 feet. Tower cleared me to land and told me to "descend at your discretion." Yeah.
I didn't really know what the "right" way to deal with this situation is, so I sort of made very steep S-turns on my base leg while dropping like a stone out of the sky, bleeding off all this useless altitude. My last S-turn put me right on target and set me up for a perfect final, so even though I wasn't really intending it to look good, it ended up looking basically perfect, like I knew exactly what to do. I brought the plane down for a gentle landing.
At Kaiser they had coned off one of the fuel pumps, leaving only one other. N612SP, Stephen's personal aircraft, was sucking up gas at the available pump, although Stephen wasn't at the controls. It was the other guy he rents the plane to. Not wanting to waste gas and engine time, I shut off my plane and hauled out the towbar, preparing to haul the plane to the pump myself.
When 2SP was filled up, her pilot procured her towbar (which looks a hell of a lot nicer than mine) and began hauling 2SP out of the way by hand. All the while a very fancy-looking business jet had taxied right next to Kaiser to pick up some very rich fellows. They had stepped out of the Kaiser terminal, a husband and wife, dressed in brand-name suits and carrying brand-name luggage. They watched me and the other pilot with a sort of wonder, as we both struggled to pull our planes along together, each laborious step inching a 4,000-pound aircraft a little closer. All this while an attendant collected their fancy bags and loaded them into their fancy jet's luggage compartment. I'm never one to be bitter about those who have more money than me (after all, it's capitalism at work), but the whole picture was noteworthy, to say the least.
After getting the plane positioned, I filled her up and then went into Kaiser to pick up an A/FD. I'll need it for the checkride. I ended up buying the wrong one (Northwest refers to Oregon and above; California is in Southwest), so now I have two. Well, I suppose it will be useful if sometime I fly way (way) off-course and end up in Idaho...
On my way in I had noticed an F/A-18 Hornet, a beautiful Naval fighter jet, parked at the jet center. (Is today "Everyone show off the paramilitary jets you own" day?) I vowed to take a photo of it for me and you guys. However, a tiny gnat of an aircraft, a low-wing half the size of my plane, had taxiied behind me and was waiting for gas. Weighing my options, I ultimately decided to push my airplane backwards to where the closed fuel pump was, out of the way of other planes, then rush and snap that photo:
The pilot and his buddy of the gnat were pulling it into position. With gas prices so high, everyone uses towbars nowadays. I hopped into my airplane to start her up. As I did, the pilot of the gnat approached me. I was worried he was going to lecture me about where I had pushed my plane; I was new to this situation so I just had to guess where to put my plane. In fact, he asked me, "d'ya want me to remove your towbar before you taxi?"
Huh. "Yes please." That would have been bad.
He removed the towbar from the nosewheel and handed it to me. I thanked him, shut the door, and started the plane. I brought her to the Old T's, shut her down, and headed back to the clubhouse where Liz was instructing one of her students on slips-to-land. She and I had a good talk on my performance, and she was pleased that I was taking what she had said to heart. She wished me luck on my checkride (along with her quiet, shy poindexter of a student) as I left the airport.
Cost so far: $9,678.47
Time so far: 169 days
Hours so far: 57.5
Flights so far: 38
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