VLD - Adventures of a Weekend Pilot

Lost & Found

2011-01-27T10:54:00.014-05:00

I normally do not need a reason or destination to jump in the airplane and go flying. I am happy flying nowhere on a local flight and just enjoying the fact that I am above ground looking down at the scenery passing under my wings.

But for this winter, I actually had both the reasons and destinations, plural. I wanted to a) get to know my new local area better, and b) get myself familiar with the typical glider x-country routes so that when I actually fly them in the glider, I do not feel lost.

So on my next flight I was planing to fly over Milton, detour over Glen Eden ski hill and then head for the training area for this school, which happens to be right over my glider club. This would be the "get to know your area" type of flight.

The flight was booked for 4pm, but it took a while to get the plane ready and I did not take off till 4:30pm. As I circled over my subdivision in Milton and headed west, the sun was low on a horizon and shining straight into my eyes.

I was flying south of 401 in the direction that should have taken me somewhat near my glider field. One of the most easily identifiable landmarks that is used both by the flight school and my club is "the tanks" - a collection of while tanks that really stand out from the darker background and thus are visible from a great distance. Except in the winter when everything around the tanks is also white!

I did bring my GPS on that flight but it was sitting in my bag as i did not think i could possibly get lost so near my gliding club. And I was not really lost as I could see both Hamilton and Cambridge, so I knew my approximate location, but where I was exactly I could not tell. I decided to get my GPS to find out for sure. As i settled the unit on the panel, it told me I was right over Rockton.

I looked and sure enough, right under my left wing was the glider airfield! Having seen the familiar landmark, all the other landscape features fell into place in my brain as if by magic and I did a few circles over the field finding all the other landmarks that only a few minutes ago Iwas not seeing. I even saw the tanks. Funny how that happens.

I flew for a bit heading west of the field until weather started closing in with ceilings dropping North and West of me. I was also getting quite cold as the plane was quite drafty and temp outside was -15C. So I turned around and headed for Milton. I was pretty sure I knew where the field was, but dialed it on a GPS just in case. I was almost on top of the field when I finally saw it. My circuit and landing were uneventful. Next weekend it was -25C and I did not want to get out of the house...

The Quiet Day

2011-01-27T10:35:00.006-05:00

After passing my rental check flight, my next task was to fly some circuits. As I was watching weather and available time slots, I discovered the downside of Burlington (compared to Buttonville). Having only one paved runway and with Wx being rather unstable, there was always strong x-wind on the days i could fly. While I would think nothing about x-wind while flying the glider, I was not yet confident enough to try it in the Cessna. All I needed was a quiet day to get my confidence back.

Waiting for such day, I cancelled two bookings and was optimistic for the 3rd one, but having arrived at the airport, I discovered the wind sock pointing straight across the runway. Since I took a day off from work hoping to fly, I decided to fly anyways - with an instructor. The next hour was a wild ride as we did circuit after circuit in x-wind that came close to capabilities of our aircraft. I am not sure that flight did anything to improve the finesse of my landing, but it certainly did miracles for my confidence.

Couple of weeks later, it was January 2011 when I finally got my quiet day and did an hour of circuits. My landings were alright according to an instructor that was watching. That day I drove home with a huge smile on my face.

One page, 3 years

2011-01-27T09:29:00.014-05:00

2010 was a year of too much unwelcome stress, too many changes and not enough flying. But some changes were good. As much hassle as it was moving from one suburb north of Toronto to another suburb west of it, several months after being in the new house, I discovered it was 10 mins drive from Burlington airpark. How that fact escaped my attention prior to moving to Milton I would not know, but I was ecstatic to make that discovery.

Burlington airpark is the best of both worlds: it is small enough to still have the nice relaxed feel of my previous little airport on the hill (Holland Landing), but it has a large and active flight school with the fleet of rental Cessna's.

Living that close to an airport with Cessnas available for rent, I wanted to resurrect my power flying for the winter season. Once glider season wound down and the glider was packed for the winter, I made a checkout booking for Dec 4.

Before the checkout, I spent a day reviewing Cessna manual, my old training notes and relevant checklists. My power flying logbook had 3 years worth of entries on one page - I expected to be rusty and was fully prepared to have to come back for another checkout flight as I did not think I'd be flying good enough after such a long break.

The school impressed me to no end with the details of their ground knowledge check and detailed checklist explained to me by instructor. It was more full some than any check flights I have experienced before. Looking at the checklist for the in-flight portion, I had no expectations of doing them all satisfactory as it was almost 2 years since my last flight in a Cessna. One part of the checklist was flight into controlled airport and communications with controllers there - THAT I knew I would do well. Having trained at the controlled airport, radio work is natural to me and all the procedures come back instantly. The landing part I was not so sure about..

To my complete and utter surprise, I did very well on most of the items in the test, including landing at Hamilton (my first ever visit there) and satisfactory enough on the remaining few (lfull load check) that my instructor signed me off for full rental privileges. He did suggest that I fly some circuits by myself to polish off my landings before flying with passengers again, so my next task was to fly some circuits.

I was driving home after that flight feeling very happy but I did resolve to try my best to never ever have 3 yrs worth of flying on one page in my logbook...

The Ridge

2010-10-28T20:12:00.021-05:00

Since the early days of joining the glider club, I kept hearing about this magical experience called "ridge soaring". The description of flying long distances over Allegheny Mountains without needing to thermal seemed so different from the type of flying i was used to, i knew I would have to experience it one day.

The day came this fall and a lot more days came after that as I got addicted to the experience but, more importantly, was fascinated by people that I met there. It was an incredible cast of real characters with years of flying experiences and i am very lucky to have made acquaintance with them.

The place we went to is called Ridge Soaring Glideport and it even has its own Wiki page. It is a 6 hour drive that is so beautiful in the fall, it is breathtaking. My pictures from the car do not do it justice.

The owners of the Glideport, Tom and Doris, run a smooth operation with an emphasis on safety. They also do ridge checkout in their twin Astir, which was of great benefit for ridge newbie like me. As part of the checkout, they explain and show the difference between taking off and landing at the ridge Vs your typical flatland gliding airfield.

The differences were not trivial. The one that is immediately obvious on takeoff takes a while to get used to: while at my home field, we take off and fly into a great blue (or grey) yonder, at the Ridge you takeoff and head straight for the solid mass of trees... i.e. the ridge itself. The feeling that you are going to fly straight into the trees is overwhelming for the first few flights.

Eventually, you begin to accept that the trees are a lot farther away that they seem and tows are getting a lot less stressful. But just as you begin to feel comfortable, you get to take off on a day the ridge is working and have to deal with an incredible turbulence.

And then you get to reverse this experience for the landing. You start your circuit below the trees and then get beat up by the turbulence on the base and final. High base and high speed circuits are the norm, which suited me just fine as those were very similar to circuits I got used to do for acro flights.

What you get between takeoff and landing is flying magic. When the wind hits the ridge at 90 degree angle (+/- 30 degrees) at the speed above 15 knots, it produces lift that allows experienced pilots to fly long distances (1,ooo km +) at low altitudes and without the need to thermal. When the ridge is "working", in addition to the ridge lift, there are also strong thermals and, occasionally, the wave. In the other words, it is nothing short of soaring paradise. And, if that was not enough, the best ridge times are in early spring and late fall which extends our flying season that otherwise would be woefully short.

When the ridge is working, the day starts early (as soon as the fog lifts that is). This allows for two people sharing glider to both have good flights.

Milestones

2010-08-04T08:32:00.004-05:00

Wx been really bad this summer and I had not yet managed a catch a good and easy soaring day with puffy clouds. All my soaring flights this far were in the muggy blue skies scratching around the club.

Soaring being almost non-existent, my aerobatics flying fared a lot better. I am at the point now where I am trying to fly sequences of figures, which are a lot of fun.

Last weekend, I had two firsts: I flew a perfect tailslide in my glider, which is hard to do as you have to hit a perfect vertical in order to slide backwards. Only a handful of glider models are approved for this and mine happens to be one of them.

My second first was of a funny negative kind - I had a soaring flight that was shorter than most of my acro flights. I did couple of acro flights in the morning and wanted to do some soaring in the afternoon. As I was taking a break to lunch and rest, the stable lake air moved in from the east and I had a sleigh ride down. Some of the other gliders managed to stay up though so I knew there was lift.

I went up again a few mins later and had another flight in the muggy blue scratching around the field. Only a few spots were producing usable lift and it I could not go anywhere far from those. I did it for a while and then decided I had enough and came down.

Later that evening, I put the flights in my logbook, added the times up and realized I had another first - I passed 100 hrs in the gliders!

Angry Skies

2010-06-11T20:28:00.031-05:00

The weekend weather forecasts are starting to sound like a broken record. A bad broken record. We had low ceilings, rain, thunderstorms, winds and whatever else Mother Nature could throw the way of hapless glider pilot.

The weekend of June 5-6 was not supposed to be an exception. The front was supposed to come through and the forecast showed no chance of flying at all. But miraculously the skies cleared up some by about 10am and completely by mid-day on Saturday. This was a real blessing as that was the date of my club’s first open house in many years.

Seeing the weather improve rapidly on Saturday, I considered getting my own glider out of the hangar and practicing some short field landings, but decided against it as the lineup was very busy with intro flights for the open house. Instead, I decided to play with my newly acquired 18-200mm zoom lens and take pictures for the club’s and my own websites. I took pictures of people, tow planes, gliders in motion and of course the skies.

The afternoon sky had deep iridescent blue color that often accompanies weather changes and the occasional clouds had very interesting shapes that only unsettled sky can produce. At some point, there was a rainbow amidst the clouds, a sign of the warm front approaching.

As the day wound up, I had an urge to go up and look at that unsettled sky from above. But I did not want to fly myself; I wanted to be a spectator with the camera. In the luck of perfect timing, the moment I realized I wanted to go up, I was picking up a glider that just landed and pulling it back to flight line. And it was not the ordinary glider, it was privately owned LK-10, a WW2 vintage glider that has an open cockpit for the passenger. I asked the owner if he would take me up and he agreed.

By the time we were on a line waiting to take off, the approaching front line was visible from the ground. The take off with the open cockpit was noisy and exciting at the same time. Things got quieter after the release and the sensation of flight and moving through the air was beyond words. We did not expect to fund any lift that time of the day with a front approaching, but surprisingly we flew into rising air and circled in there for a while. We were joined in the thermal by a bird and another glider.

As we circled, I had a real good look at the skies. The skies to the east and north of us were blue with some feather clouds that created amazing patterns.

The upcoming front was now closer and the skies to the west and south of us were ominous with dark clouds pregnant with rain or thunder.

The settling sun was almost completely covered by clouds but a few remaining rays added some color to the spectacle that left me speechless and lost in time and space.

Eventually we ran out of lift and came down to earth. As I climbed out of the glider, I looked up and noticed that the clouds overhead formed into impressive mammatus formation. Very vague thought at the back of my mind briefly surfaced to remind me that mammatus clouds are often associated with very fierce storms, but in the routine hassles of stacking the gliders I completely forgot about it until the next morning when I read that the front we were watching resulted in tornado hitting a town southwest of us…

A bit of Soaring

2010-06-08T20:31:00.006-05:00

After several weekends of rain, I had officially opened my soaring season couple of weeks ago with a really interesting flight. It was a blue day, which means there was lift, but there were no clouds that usually mark the lift.

I had two acro flights that morning, then took my time to put the wingtips on my split personality glider, thus turning it into a capable cross country machine.

Last year, on a blue day, I would have just happily flew in circles around the club, however, I found that flying in circles was becoming a bit boring and I wanted to set some kind of a goal. Being first soaring flight of the season and a blue day, trying to fly somewhere and back was out of question, so I decided to fly what I called a “local cross-country”.

Looking at the map, I picked the landmarks that were within 10-15 miles away from the club at the North, East, South and West. I decided to fly between these landmarks turning back to the club each time I reached the minimum safe gliding distance.

Tow pilot dropped me in the lift and I worked that lift diligently gaining about a 1,000 ft. I then flew around the club for a bit trying to establish the strength of thermals and where the lift started and stopped in terms of height. Having a somewhat rough idea where the lift was, I set up towards my first landmark.

I flew through a whole lot of sink but as I approached my landmark I also found a ton of lift and realized the we have installed the overly sensitive altimeter in the glider that made finding the thermals on a blue day somewhat challenging. Eventually, I resolved not to look at the altimeter but instead pulling up and cranking into a turn as soon as I felt a surge of rising air. That worked a lot better.

I made it to my initial point North of the club and started making my way to the point East of the club. Flying between those two points, I had not encountered lift once, but there was a lot of sink so that when I reached my eastern turnpoint, I had about 100 ft of altitude left before reaching my “turn back” altitude. Miraculously, I found some lift and started climbing up again. Turning towards my western turnpoint, I tried to reach it twice, but got caught in too much sink and forced to turn back to club both times, so instead, I went back north.

By the time I completed that simple circle, I started to feel tired. The sun was bright and relentless and there were no clouds to hide under, so I was feeling too hot and earlier acro flights that i flew that day made me more tired to start with. There was still lots of lift left, but I decided to call it a day.

I was at 4’000 ft above ground and I decided to glide all the way back to club to see how much height I would lose. This was a way of testing my minimum safe gliding distance. I was over the club 1,200 ft of altitude later, so my 3,000 ft minimum altitude was quite conservative and I liked it this way.

Now I need to practice some short field landings in the cross country configuration and then I could try the real cross country.

Not enough hours in a day.

2010-06-08T20:18:00.004-05:00

I often feel I need to retire just to finally have time for everything I want to do. But being a 30-something with expensive hobbies and desire to expand my aircraft collection, retirement is something that I will not be able to afford for quite some time. And since there are truly not enough hours in a day to do everything, sometimes something has to give. Through the spring, this something was my blog writing, so I have got a lot of catching up to do.

My gliding club’s aerobatic program was opened for the season in early May and so far I have flown quite a few flights, most of them in my own glider. I was curious to see how much of the skills would come back after a long winder break and relieved when I caught up right where I left last fall in a few short weeks.

My stomach had a bit more catching up to do, building G-tolerance yet again. I had one day when I did three acro flights in the morning and tried to soar on flight #3, but could not even complete a single circle before my stomach interrupted and indicated that straight and level was in order or glider clean up would be in our immediate future.

On my last acro flight the previous week, I flew the acro sequence for the first time in a glider. My instructor drew a simple program for me to try and talked me through the linking of elements. The sequence was competition spin, followed by a loop, followed by a hammerhead, followed by a roll. Flying a sequence was quite a bit different from working on single element at a time as I needed to constantly stay ahead of the glider, ensuring that the energy was not wasted and my exit speeds were matched with my entry speeds. It was also a lot of fun and I can’t wait to do it again.

Happy Times Again

2010-04-24T19:18:00.011-05:00

Last year was a mixed one for me. I have acquired a new glider and had a few happy moments flying it, but the amount of those moments was reduced greatly by my dad's illness and his passing and the stress impact that it had on my own health. With all that, i was REALLY looking forward to 2010.

The year started well with the New Year flight. Things got worse in February when my Mom found out she had cancer as well, which caused me to spend most of my spring away from home, arranging her surgery and staying with her till she recovered well enough to function independently. With all that plus work, i did not make it to club till April.

On a gloomy overcast day, I came to club just before 9am and was pleasantly surprised to be the second one there, first person being our chief tow pilot. That meant i had priority on any of the gliders and luckily the glider that i wanted, the only one that was capable of what i had in mind, was sitting front and center, so the two of us got it out in the sun so that i can do my daily inspection.

Things were going my way that far, but to fully implement my plan, i also needed a special instructor, one of the acro instructors. Normally, every club member needs to do a so-called "spring check out" in the beginning of the season before flying solo as well as spin check out that needs to be done once a year. I wanted to take it a step further and do an advanced spin flight to ensure that my learnt responses were still intact before getting in my own aerobatic glider later this spring. Luckily, an instructor was available as well and it did not take us long to get to the flight line and set up the glider in a position for takeoff.

My take off was not my best, i could not seem to keep the glider in position and used a lot of control inputs. I was thinking that i must have got very rusty to be flying so horrible when we flew out of the turbulence into a smooth air and i finally realized that it was not my flying, it was the turbulent layers of air lower to the ground. I made a mental note to add some speed to approach to compensate and went on with the tow.

We briefed about what i wanted to do on a way up, so as we released from tow, i started with a simple stall, then got to one turn spins to ensure i got the recovery inputs right. When we were on to some fun stuff, like multi-turn accelerated spins. I had not have that much fun in a long time and was really enjoying it. Alas, the minimum safe altitude came up too fast, so after a few steep turns we had to join downwind for a landing. Puchacz (the glider that we were flying) is an extremely responsive glider, with tons of elevator and rudder controls and huge spoilers and it is an absolute joy to fly. So much joy in fact that i decided to take my solo fly in it instead of single seater.

I got my turn again couple of hours later. Flying the take off i concentrated on just riding the bumps in the air and not over controlling. Tow to 4,000 took a bit and i had time to look around and notice the haze that seemed to be hanging over Hamilton - it certainly was not a stellar visibility day. It did not mater at all though, the feeling of being up in the air again was beyond words. I planned on doing more spinning, but having done a couple, i wanted to stretch time aloft, so i set the speed for minimum sink and for a few blissful minutes flew around the field while looking at the world below me and living in the moment.

I am looking forward to more of these moments... And in case you wondering, the flowers and blooms are from around my glider trailer.

2010-02-01T20:48:00.010-05:00

By the end of January, there were quite a few club members suffering from withdrawal to mount a flying operation in the cold. We were helped by the rains that washed out most of the snow and subsequent deep freeze that made the runways rock solid.

It was -20C in the thermometer in the morning, but it was bright and sunny all day and temperatures climbed steadily, so it was not unbearably cold. I got to the flightline just in time to capture the Citabria landing from tow. We used one runway to land and the other to takeoff and utilized human power to put the glider in position for next launch.

Winter flight all carry two people to maximize the enjoyment and minimize the frostbite potential. I flew the take off and then relinquished controls to my partner and occupied myself by taking pictures and looking around. There was a bit of zero sink area and all flights that day caught a bit of that resulting in average time aloft just under 25 mins.

I had an opportunity to go for another flight shortly thereafter but my flozen toes suggested that instead of flying in the cold glider I get in the back of the warm tow plane and take some pictures of the glider after we release it. We briefed the glider pilots that we would follow then at the safe distance after release and I got some great pictures, although I wish I had my professional camera on me with better zoom lenses.

Happy New Year!

2010-01-19T09:45:00.003-05:00

My gliding club has a New Year's tradition of gathering at the clubhouse on Jan 1, 2010, sharing food brought by members, trading flying stories and trying to fly if weather cooperates. January 1, 2010 started with low ceilings and blowing snow and did not look too promising for flying. But miracles do happen and by noon the ceiling lifted enough to allow some circuits. With windchill close to -20C, circuit flying was all we wanted to do anyways.

By the time I got to clubhouse on Jan 1, it was full of people and food. I counted two kinds of chili, three flavors of meatballs, five soups and numerous cookies and cakes. Talking to friends I have not seen for a while, I noticed the glider being towed to the take off position and decided to go to flight line. Thinking about bone chilling cold outside and possibility of standing on a Rwy for a while waiting for my turn, I put on my full downhill ski outfit.

Walking to the flight line, I heard the sound of the engine, then noticed the towplane heading towards me with the white tail of propwash behind it. Looking at the snow whirl generated by propwash, I was surprised to see a red tip sticking out to the side."Hmm, I think there is a glider in there" I thought to myself just as glider emerged in the clear above the propwash. I heard about the first tow on a fresh snow, but never saw it before until then. It looked really neat, but I was glad I was not the first one up.

My turn to go up came in about half an hour. Ceilings started to drop, so we had a nice albeit short flight, but I had some time to snap pictures of the snow covered runways and facilities. Then it was back to clubhouse for some hot food and more talking - a good start of New Year!

Frosty Morning

2010-01-17T17:39:00.000-05:00

Aerobatic training flights early in the morning on Thanksgiving weekend.

Belated Thanksgiving

2010-01-17T17:28:00.002-05:00

I did not fly much this fall. Between being sick and mourning the loss of my father to cancer, I did not have energy or desire to write or work on pictures either. But interspersed with the periods of dark and gloom, were a few memorable moments that got stored in my memory and on my camera and were waiting for me to recover and write about them. Thanksgiving had couple of those moments.

Unlike the warm Thanksgiving weekend of 2008, the 2009 was cold to the point of frost. However it did warm up during the morning creating thick fog. Given the fog, the flights did not get started until later leaving the runway available for dogs as well as RC fliers.

October 11 started with the fog but the sun eventually rose higher and burned it out. I was going to fly acro in the FLBY that morning, but by the time we got it ready it was closer to noon and the reports started rolling in reporting good lift conditions. Listening to those reports, I was mulling my choices: to go up in the acro configuration as originally planned or go back to the trailer and put the long tips on and have a longer soaring flight.

The desire to fly upside down proved irresistible and soon i was rolling down the runway attached to the towplane. I released at cloud base height of 4,000 AGL and started my acro sequence. 59 has an amazing roll rate compared to any other glider in the club's fleet and I was mostly doing rolls and inverted flight that morning fully enjoying myself. Alas, inverted flying is a sure way to loose altitude in a hurry and soon i was as 2000 ft AGL, the minimum height for aerobatics. Normally, I would then spend the next 500 ft down doing wingovers and steep turns and start preparing for landing, but from my tow, I knew that the thermals were strong, so i decided to see if i could climb up in the acro configuration (acro configuration means short wings relative to glider weight, so it would only climb in the really strong thermals).

It did not take me long to find a strong core that catapulted me back up to the cloud base. As i was thermalling up, i decided to try and do one acro figure couple of times and then climb back up. Thermals were widely spaced and well marked by the clouds, so after climbing, i would fly out on a side in the quieter air, do a lookout then my desired figure and go right back to the same thermal. I did a few hammerheads that way, then half snap rolls, then a few full snap rolls and then I noticed something that was not there before.

The wind afloat was strong and clouds started forming the cloud streets. I needed a break from aerobatics, so I decided to follow a cloud street and see if I could gain height while flying straight and level. I followed that street for a while until I had to turn back to club to make sure I stayed within gliding distance. On a way back, flying under the same street, i rolled inverted and flew under the cloud street upside down. I did not climb in that configuration, but i did not loose much height either, so i repeated that for a while - climb away from club following the cloud street right side up turn around, roll upside down and go back towards the club.

I did this for a while and then took a note of total elapsed time - over 2 hrs! I was glad it was the end of the season as my aerobatic stamina was at its seasonal highest level. Even then, i was starting to feel queasy and hungry as it was way past my usual lunch time. I followed the cloud streets right side up to a bit more to figure out if lift was on one side or the middle and then reluctantly made my way down. I rolled to a stop on a side of the runway thinking that i just had the best flight on my life.

FLBY

2009-08-26T20:56:00.030-05:00

My eyes got tired and watery as I searched the endless four letter combinations on Transport Canada database. Suddenly, the letters FLBY came up. Fly-by seemed to be such a fitting name for an aerobatic glider that I reserved it on a spot and just like that my future glider acquired its Canadian registration.

The glider I was buying (with my 50% partner) is called SZD 59 ACRO. What attracted me to it was the fact that it had two personalities. With the short wings (13.5m wingspan) it is capable of very serious aerobatics and with the wing extensions it is a capable cross country machine.

Winter and spring were spent waiting for our new glider to be built in Poland and dealing with some preliminary paperwork. The glider showed up on a field during Canadian Nationals, but paperwork to make it airworthy too another long six weeks. When it was finally ready for its maiden flight in August, the weather almost prevented us from going up.

It was the end of the Sunday and it rained on and off for most of the day, so there were very few people on the field. We stayed put waiting for a break in the weather. It finally came very late in the day and we rigged and towed the glider to the flight line.

My partner being more experienced than me was to do the first flight. He elected to go with the long wings configuration so we put the wingtips on. One of our aerobatic instructors was on a field and did the wing running, so that I could take pictures of the occasion. When my partner took off, the ceilings were still low, so he only got to 3,000 ft. He had a good flight and a picture perfect landing. And then it was my turn.

I decided to fly in the aerobatic configuration. As I got in the glider, I really did not know what to expect, but take off was not bad and ceiling got high enough that I managed to get to 5,000 ft. I released from tow and gingerly took the glider to the stall, spin and then did a few up and down lines to get the feeling for G-forces. It flew like nothing that I flew before, in a good way. I had a good landing and then my partner went off in again in the acro configuration.

And that was is for the day, although I did a lot more acro flights in it since. More on that later.

Ottawa trip

2009-08-26T20:31:00.019-05:00

I recently had a chance to fly from Buttonville to Ottawa and back in a twin engine Piper Aztec with a bunch of friends. Out of 5 of us in that airplane, 4 were pilots, so I found myself in a back seat where I had slightly better photo opportunities compared to middle seat.

Departing from my "home" airport as a passenger free to shoot pictures was a very neat experience. As were were waiting in the holding bay, my namesake airplane (VLD) was landing -I took it as a good sign.

Not needing to worry about look outs or communications allowed me to capture this YKZ shot with Toronto in the background.

Having two engines allowed us to fly a more direct route over some very unlandable terrain interspersed with some occasional signs of human presence.

We were heading to Rockliffe airport and took a scenic route there over Ottawa river. This was my first ever time in Ottawa, and I most definitely appreciated the aerial tour.

Rockliffe is located right beside the Ottawa River so the views from the circuit were superb. Rockliffe is home to a very good aviation museum.

An Experience to Remember

2009-08-13T20:19:00.008-05:00

“Four knots thermal, we do not need to take it, we know there are better ones ahead so we keep flying straight”. The pilot in command kept talking, explaining his strategy, while I was preoccupied with two thoughts: “wow, he makes this cross country stuff look so easy“ and “I can’t believe we just ignored the four knot thermal”!

The place was southern Ontario (where 4 kt thermal would be considered above average) and the time was July 9, the second last day of the Canadian National Soaring competition. I was a passenger in the back seat of DG 505, our club’s high-end two-seater that was flying in the contest. The pilot in command of the 505 was an experienced club member who decided to introduce the less experienced club pilots to cross county flying by taking us with him as passengers, a different person each day.

As we made fast progress towards our first turn point, the pilot in command calculated our speed and claimed that he was having one of the best soaring days in his multi-decade soaring career! In the back seat, I was starting to clue in that what I was experiencing was not your typical soaring day in the southern Ontario. In the other words, it looked so easy because the conditions were exceptionally good. Good for a time being, as it turned out.

Being so fast over the first turn point, we calculated that we’d be well under time to complete the task, so we went deeper into the 20 miles turn circle and then proceeded towards second turn point. The thermals were still plentiful and flying was easy and we were making good progress, but as we approached the second turn point, the pilot in command pointed out to the blue spreading out to our left (east). We would have to fly due east to our third turn point (and towards our home field as well). At first I was not worried about the blue thinking that it was just a different (drier) air mass and there would be some lift in it. But as we turned towards the last turn point and flew into the blue, the we realized what it was. An easterly wind brought stable lake air from over Lake Ontario. There was not a lot of sink, but there was no lift anywhere either. And we still had close to 40 km to go so the day suddenly became a lot harder.

Flying on wisps of dying clouds we made it a bit closer to the last turn point only to find ourselves low over the ground in the middle of the blue air with headwind towards our destination and no airport within gliding distance. Or at least no airport that could accommodate the size of our wingspan as 505 has a rather large wingspan. For a bit, we were circling in zero sink over the small farmers grass strip, but as tempting as it was to land there, it did not look wide enough to accommodate the 505.

Once we realized we were not going anywhere, our attention switched to looking for good landing fields which were scarce in that area. Luckily, at that point we were almost right over the field that looked acceptable. The pilot in command started the landing circuit as I was looking for last minute obstacles. We were in the circuit when we heard some other planes in our class announcing that they were landing at the 3rd turn point (which was the airport).

The actual landing was uneventful and we were soon joined by the farmer. One tractor, three broken ropes and four aching arms later we pulled the heavy 505 to the edge of the field with road access, so the trailer could come right in. Our support crew showed up in a short period of time. Getting 505 in a trailer took a few hours and more aching arms and backs, but eventually she was all packed in and we all enjoyed a well deserved (and much needed) dinner.

We drove to the club under the moonlight. Back at the club, we were told that the lake air got almost everyone and only one glider in our class made it back and only four gliders came back in FAI class.

The 505 was put together in the morning and ready to fly again, but the bad weather returned and the last day was officially cancelled. Out of 10 contest days total, there were five flying days and 505 landed out only one day. As luck (or Mr. Murphy) had it, that was the day I was flying as a passenger. And what an experience that turned out to be!

My first cross country

2009-07-17T12:58:00.018-05:00

I took time off work during Canadian Nationals Soaring Championship to watch the competition, listen to morning lectures and evening battle tales and do a bit of personal flying. My goal for that week was to do my first ever cross country flight, which had to be at least 50 km away from home field to qualify for a Silver Badge.

Naturally, weather gods were paying attention and the first four days of competition were a complete washout, so I did not even bother trying to get in a glider, let alone go somewhere. Then came the day that promised lots of Cu clouds and good lift with decent ceilings. With such perfect conditions, there had to be a catch and the catch was the wind. Very strong wind aloft from North/ North West was predicted for the duration of the day. North wind pretty much eliminated my original destination in the north and left me with just one option – Thillsonburg airport, 66 km away from my home field.

As I was mulling the “go - no go” decision, the wind on the ground did not seem to be bad at all and the Cu were not looking to be broken by the wind, so I decided to try. I prepped the glider, my maps, water, snacks and at the last minute threw in additional weight in the glider thinking that I might need it to fly better against the wind.

I launched right after the contest pilots, tow pilot dropped me at 2,000 ft over the field and I immediately climbed to 5,000 ft. It was a good beginning, but as I climbed, I noted that I was drifting downwind and that the wind was very strong higher up. I needed to go west, but with the very strong wind from the northwest, I had to point the nose of the glider to the north-northwest to avoid being blown southeast.

I spent the next half hour near the club trying to figure out the combination of speed and the nose direction that would result in some progress towards the goal. My movement relative to ground references was painstakingly slow but still noticeable after 30 mins, so I decided to try to go all the way.

Given I only had my maps and no GPS, I split my route in 2 legs. One was to Brantford airport which I could see and which was about half way. Another leg would be from Brantford to Thillsonburg. If I got low around half way point, I could land at Brantford.

The lift was good earlier in the day, so I never got low, but the wind at some point got so bad that I spent an hour imitating a helicopter over St George having Brantford airport right in front of me but not being able to get any closer. I finally decided on more forward speed which resulted in loosing more height, but at least I started moving again.

As I passed over Brantford, I picked up my landmark (abandoned railway) that would lead me almost all the way to Thillsonburg. My progress had been slow and for a while I could not see the airport, although I was pretty sure I could see the town of Thillsonburg. I double checked my position against my other landmarks and was confident that I was heading in the right direction, but I still could not see the triangular runways that were depicted in Flight Supplement.

Getting closer, I could see a single grey/white runway and then looked at my notes and noticed that I wrote asphalt against one of the runways. I guessed that the other two runways would be grass.

My original plan was to fly right over the airport and then turn back and fly to the club. With winds being favorable on the way back, it was easily doable and would have been an extremely short flight. Alas, as I got closer to the airport, I noticed that the high cirrus clouds moved overhead cutting off lift. Lift died completely soon thereafter but by then I was close enough to the airport and still had height to over fly the field, decide on into the wind grass runway and make an announcement on Unicom frequency.

I then set up a nice circuit, lined up with my chosen runway and had my best landing on the year. Too bad Murphy’s law was in full action as the airport was empty and no one was watching me land. I got out of the glider and called my crew asking to be aerotowed back to the home field. Two of the club members were flying around in their Decathlon and landed at Thillsonburg to lend a hand and take some pictures of my departure:

The aerotow was an adventure in itself but I got home safely and did not need to disassemble the glider.

The day was a lot of work, but I still liked the cross country flying and can’t wait to do it again in better conditions.

Contest Finishes

2009-07-17T12:53:00.017-05:00

I took time off work to be on the field during Canadian National Soaring Championship and took a few finish shots as the competitors flew right over my trailer. The weather was really unsettled that day and half of the field was covered by dark and gloomy clouds while the other half was basking in the bright sun with blue skies. Most of the competitors approached from the dark side and then flew into the blue.

This one was not in the competition, but he was landing at the same time and I liked the background clouds.

Fun Flying

2009-07-17T12:49:00.010-05:00

In between flights targeted to achieving my Silver Badge, I did some lazy afternoon flying. Sometimes I had the skies to myself as everyone else went elsewhere and sometimes I shared the skies with other fellow pilots.

It was nice to be up in a simple single seater with no goal in mind other then to wonder around in space and look above and around me and smile at the tought of being so priviledged to experience complete freedom like that.

Clouds and rainbows

2009-07-17T12:47:00.020-05:00

The weather was really unsettled in early July and not in a good way producing only marginal soaring conditions on average days. But unsettled weather brought some awesome displays of various kinds of clouds and rainbows over the field.

One morning I woke up early and saw this awesome display outside of the trailer:

And these were the skies over the next few days, layers and layers of various clouds.

Flying in the Decathlon

2009-06-18T21:15:00.010-05:00

Trying to do both aerobatics and soaring did not leave me with any time to resume by power flying, so I was very grateful when invited to tag along in the Decathlon. I even got to fly it, albeit from the back seat.

We needed to break in the new jugs (or something like that) so we had to fly for 2 hours keeping certain RPMs. Direction was up to me, so I choose to check out my potential cross country routes and we flew to York Soaring, then over Embro to Woodstock. I never flew over that area of Southern Ontario, so it was nice to do the initial check from the back seat of a power plane. We then paid a visit to Brantford airport, flew over the escarpment in the Milton area and returned back to club taking some neat shots in the process.

Brantford Airport

Over Escarpment

Hangar View and a Visiting Tiger Moth

Solo Hammers

2009-06-18T20:22:00.017-05:00

The day before my 5 hour flight I was cleared to do solo hammerheads in the Puchacz. I rehearsed them mentally on a ground and amazingly, my first one was textbook perfect. I figured that they only had one direction to go after that. Right, they got worse. But a had a few that approached the quality of the first one, so I was happy.

Another member of the program flew solo loops and he did several sequences when he linked the loops one after another. It was fun to watch. He also was nice enough to take some shots of me landing after my solo hammers flight.

Almost Six Hours!

2009-06-18T20:05:00.015-05:00

The progression past the glider pilot license is more or less up to the pilot with the recognition of milestones achieved via so-called badges. C barge is 1 hour flight; Bronze Badge is administered by club and serves as a preparation to a first cross country flight. Silver badge is administered by FAI http://www.fai.org/ and is recognized worldwide. There are three requirements to complete the badge: 5 hour duration local flight; a 1000 meters height gain and a 50 km cross country flight. I decided to start with 5 hours.

On the morning of my 5hr attempt the high cirrus clouds decided to park right over the club and it did not seem like the day would go anywhere. By 11am there was still no sigh on Cumulous clouds, but there were lots and lots of private gliders rigged and set aside on the flight line. I figured all those experienced x-country guys must have been onto something, so had an early lunch, prepared my water, snacks and relief system and made my way to the flight line. It was past noon and there were tiny Cu way too far away from the club, but moving in the right direction. Apparently, there was also lift in the blue and the “house thermal” was working, so after talking to some experienced guys, I decided to launch, find a good blue thermal and stick to it until Cu moved in. With some last minute encouragement, I took off into the blue.

I found lift right after takeoff, but also discovered than my audio vario was under reading by so much, it was useless and I had to shut it off and rely on mechanical. That meant I had to have my eyes in the cockpit more than usual initially, and as time went on, I actually just flew by feel more than the vario.

Fighting with the audio vario I lost the lift core and could not find it again. Then I decided to move to another thermal seeing a glider in it move up rapidly. I lost quite a bit of height getting there and got low, so had to work diligently on centering and getting my altimeter up. By the time I got to the decent height and could relax for the first time since release, it felt like an hour had passed. Imagine my surprise when the watch told me it was under 25 mins! I was really doubting that I would have endurance to do 5 hours flight that day.

Having spent some time topping up the thermal I was in, I made it back to the Safari thermal and either the lift got better or I found a core, but I was at 7,000 ft in no time. By that time, Cu that was previously too far appeared to be within reach on the downwind side. The winds were very light, so I figured being downwind was not that much of an issue and at 7,000 ft height I could afford to at least go in the direction of the Cu to see how far I get.

I picked a textbook perfect looking cloud and headed straight for it. I encountered more lift on a way and thermalled in it a bit, so by the time I got to Cu, I was still reasonably high. And that Cu was working and rather well. And there were a lot more clouds drifting in so flying got a lot easier and became a lot more fun from that point on.

At some point, I headed for a really solid looking cloud only to find it top heavy and completely dead by the time I got there. Other times I found massive lift in the blue. As I was circling in that lift I looked up saw a haze dome and realized I was under the young growing cloud. Eventually I got too far downwind for my comfort and decided to make my way upwind.

Jumping from cloud to cloud, I moved upwind. Ceilings got higher as the day went on, so at over 8,000 ft, I could go a long way and still stay within gliding distance. For a while, I was very tempted to go beyond the gliding distance and try a cross country flight, but I did not have my maps, my cell phone or rigged trailer, so I resisted that temptation and eventually turned back towards the club.

Looking back towards the club, I was rather unpleasantly surprised at the picture in front of me. The sun and Cu that were now behind me were replaced by a massive overdevelopment with some occasional rain showers falling down to the ground. Moreover, that dark and nasty stuff appeared to move towards me and I could not quite get away from it and still stay within gliding distance.

At that point, I checked my watch for the first time in a long time and was surprised that it showed I was up for over 4 hours. With less than an hour to go I was really motivated to stay up the whole 5 and that meant I had to find lift under the clouds.

I saw a sunny break half way towards the club and headed for it, going through some rain in the process. Being rained on in the glider was a very interesting experience – the rain was so extremely loud that at some point I thought it was hail.

I made it to the sunny break and gained as much height as I could. With less than 30 mins to go, the clouds drifted over and the sunny break closed. Curiously, the weak to zero lift continued even with no sun so I kept circling in it until I knew I made my five hours. With the goal achieved, I decided to head for another distant sunny break to warm up (I was quite cold as I spend the previous 30 mins under the clouds). On a way to the sun, I passed though another rain shower and discovered 4 kts lift in the rain!

As I flew into the sun again, I looked back at the club and saw shower columns heading to the field. I did not want to fly through yet another rain shower, so I decided to stay on a sunny side and play around some more. I had quite a bit of height to lose so I took some pictures of clouds and the rain, did some turns and had a grand time not looking at my vario or altimeter. Getting lower, I overflew the field to check the windsocks. Just as I was getting in the landing mode, I flew through a massive thermal that I just could not pass. Centering it quickly, I saw my altimeter go through from 3,000 ft to 5,000 ft and suddenly felt very tired. I opened full spoilers but was still going up until I flew out of the lift. I kept flying with open spoilers until I was at the circuit altitude and then did a circuit and had an uneventful landing. The total time for that flight was 5 hrs and 50 mins.

Packing my glider in the hangar, I knew two things that I did not know before that flight: first, I had endurance to do long flights and second, the next time I am having a 5 hour flight, I better be going somewhere. I can’t wait for my first cross country!

Late Day Soaring

2009-06-18T19:59:00.016-05:00

Murphy's Law never fails to ensure that the best soaring weather falls on a weekday for those of us who have to work to support the flying obsession. That Friday was not an exception with nice firm Cu clouds drifting by the office window. Thinking I might get a bit of flying in, I left work early, but after two hours of being stuck in traffic and arriving to the field well after 6pm, my hopes were slim. But there was still Cu in the sky, club's ASK-21 sat unused, so me and my partner got in and went flying.

We asked the tow pilot to drop us at the somewhat distant Cu and we relieved that it had lift under it. As we circled under the clouds, i felt my stress from busy work and hellish commute melting away.

We heard some of other club gliders reporting lift over town of Cambridge and headed there. The clouds looked promising, but most that we found was zero lift. No wonder, it was almost 7:30pm. So, we circled for a bit in zero lift and slowly made our way back the the field. A great way to end the work week!

Back to Aerobatics

2009-06-11T20:14:00.017-05:00

May long weekend was the official start of club’s aerobatic program and it was a busy start. Having been rained out Saturday, on Sunday, May 17th we had four participants, four instructors with two gliders and a vertigo mile to top it all.

Given the late start on Sundays (9am), on the 17th we each had time for one flight which was just fine for most of us as we rediscovered the effects of G’s on the stomach and realize that we would need to build up our G-tolerances yet again. We continued flying on Victoria Day when most of us got two flights each. There had been aerobatic flights every weekend since then.

Here’s our instructor team relaxing after a hard morning at work on the 17th.

The program starts at 7am on Saturdays and 8am on Sundays. We assemble by the hangar, pull out gliders (505 and Puchacz) and do daily inspection so that we can be on the flight line and ready to take off at 8am on Saturdays and 9am on Sundays.

Depending on the number of the participants on a given day, each gets one to two flights, although on non-soaring days when there is not much other activity, we can keep flying acro longer and people can have as many flights as they can tolerate.

Having flown almost every weekend since opening of the program, three of us reached the stage when we were cut loose to do individual figures solo, under watchful eyes of our instructors and the experience was exhilarating.

All of us experienced something similar – a bit of tension before the start of the first figure, then as you start pulling the G (first figure is loop) the tension melts away, the vision suddenly expands to pick up things we have not previously noticed and by the end of the figure we are on top of the world, alive, happy and having a lot of fun. No wonder aerobatics are addictive!

In between our flights, we watch our fellow participants flying the figures like loops and hammerheads and see how the figures look like from the ground. Or, we can also watch free air show quality acro performances by our own instructors.

The Blue Day

2009-06-04T20:22:00.009-05:00

Following my longest flight, I had many chances to do short tows and work on my landings. Which is a nicer way to say that the weekend weather sucked for few weekends after that flight and soaring was out of question. I did experience the “torture by Cumulus” watching nice thick puffy clouds drift by my office windows quite regularly during the weekdays though.

Finally, a day with strong lift arrived, the glider was available and I had an approval for overtime as I was going for a two hour flight (normally only one hour allowed in club’s gliders).

There was only one complication – there were no clouds in the sky. It was the so-called blue day. Blue days happen when there is a temperature inversion in the air mass that prevents cumulus cloud from forming. Or something like that. Bottom line, on a blue day, there is lift, but you generally have no clue where it is.

The tow pilot dropped me right in the good thermal and very shortly I was at 6,000 ft adjusting to the environment. Getting in and out of my “house thermal”, I have established where its boundaries were at different altitudes. As I was circling in it, I also had time to look around and notice where the other gliders were circling.

With those basics down, I went exploring. I briefly ventured north towards Cambridge, but having encountered nothing but sink, I hastily made retreat to the house thermal and re-grouped. As I was re-grouping, I noticed a glider a few miles away over what seemed like a forested area. I did not think that area would produce any lift but I watched the glider shoot up as he centered a thermal and wanted to go there and try it myself.

I made my way to that area and started searching for that bump the usually signals a thermal but initially found nothing but massive sink. Thinking to myself that where there is massive sink, there should be lift, I did a wider circle in that area and finally was rewarded with a surge and my little glider shooting upwards. That thermal was even stronger than the one I was in before and for a little while I used that one as my base to venture further out and explore what else was out there.

Trying to find thermals on a blue day and watching the passing gliders kept me occupied so that two hours few by very fast and I eventually had to come back to the ground. This was another first – soaring on a blue day!

The Longest Flight

2009-06-03T19:12:00.003-05:00

After a long winter of not flying I wanted to work on my short field landings in the glider. As I drove over to the field the night before and looked at the shimmering lakes in the middle of runways, I was not very optimistic that the field would be flyable the next day.

But the next morning brought a few hard core soaring pilots, Cu was building up and after through investigation a small piece of runway was deemed to be dry enough to take off and land, but not both at the same time. After the experienced guys were off I asked if I could fly the single seater. “Only if you do not come back right away” was the answer. It was just what I needed.

I dug the Junior out of the hangar, did a pre-flight inspection and asked for a 3,000ft tow. My flight almost ended up right there as I ended up in some serious sink and could not find any lift as I drifted back towards the field. Getting low enough to start the circuit, I turned to where I thought I felt a bump on the tow and instantly hit a good thermal. So good, I gained 3,000 ft in a really short time.

The day got immensely better after that. It seemed that I hit massive thermals anywhere I went. The highest altitude in MSL that I got to was 8,500 ft. As I looked out and down from that height, everything looked different. Depending on where I was at the time, I could see Hamilton, Brantford or Kitchener airports and they seemed deceptively close. I caught myself thinking that I probably never flew the power planes at that height and to be able to get there in a glider was a wonderful sensation.

With the ability to get very high, I ventured further away from the club than I’d normally do, but I stayed upwind and within gliding distance as I realized that the fields would be extremely wet and landing out was not a good option.

Going out and back and out in the other directions again, I lost the track of time for quite a while. But after 3 hrs, the effects on sitting on bare fiberglass with a thin layer of fabric made an impact on my posterior as it became more and more uncomfortable. At that time, I turned back to the club with the intention to land, but hit another good thermal on my way back and got delayed for another 30 mins. Eventually, the discomfort exceeded the joy of flying and I had to land. It was not the world’s smoothest landing, but it was short and right where it had to be. And I got to practice a lot of landings in the next few weekends as the weather was not soarable.

The total flight for that time was 3 hrs 30 mins.

Gliders and Warplanes

2009-05-20T13:34:00.005-05:00

My gliding club (SOSA) recently participated in the Canadian Aviation Expo held at the Hamilton Warplane Museum. We exibited one of our club single seaters, talked to visiting public and encouraged them to visit the field and try a glider flight.

As the show ended, we were putting the glider back into trailer, right next to the wartime airplanes that were parked outside. The contrast was too much to resist so i took a few shots of our club's trailer with the DC3 in the background.

Clouds

2009-05-20T10:52:00.007-05:00

Being a glider pilot, I now pay more attention to clouds. I saw some interesting formations on a recent Calgary trip. Wonder if there was lift underneath those.

Catching Up

2009-05-19T20:10:00.014-05:00

Between March and now, I have accumulated over 30 hrs flying time... as a passenger on commercial airliners. In between hopping on and off large airliners I also re-started my gliding season and already had some memorable flights, but more on those in the next posts and for now, some window shots taken during my April flight from Kitchener (YKF) to Calgary (YYC).

Kitchener is a small airport and the little Cessna's from local flight schools share runways with the WestJet's 737's. The little red structure in the first picture was a version of a windsock.

As the plane flew due West, early April's bare land in Southern Ontario gave way to frozen lakes and rivers over Minnesota and other frozen states in Northern US. Getting closer to Calgary, the snow disappeared again.

It was sunset time by the time of approach to YYC airport and the mountains on a horizon were tinted in pink and orange hues. The sun disappeared below horizon as the plane rolled to the gate.

The departure from Calgary was in the bright daylight and great visibility giving me a good view of the YYC airport.

Another Sunset Flight in pictures

2009-03-01T10:07:00.009-05:00

Plane inspection.

Buttonville at sunset.

Holland River and Cooks Bay

Alien patterns on Holland Marsh

Downtown at Sunset

2009-02-08T22:50:00.025-05:00

Few days ago, going home on an early train, I looked out of the window towards downtown skyscrapers and gasped in amazement. The low setting sun put all the glass buildings on fire creating an unforgettable image. As I was watching the sunset from the ground, I noted the time (5:25pm) and decided that I’d try to get downtown at sunset again, but this time in the plane.

I had a booking for 4pm on Sunday, but knowing my Wx and airplane luck, I was not really counting on everything to fall into place, but, surprisingly, it did. The Wx was as perfect as early Feb can be, -5 and sunny. Wind was 10 gusting 15 at 40 degree to Rwy heading, but that was not an issue after my previous practice flight with twice that x-wind angle. The airplane was available, it had flown before, was de-iced and all the mandatory light were working – I was ready to go.

I wanted to get downtown at about 5pm, so I had lots of time, so I went and did three circuits. Rwy 33 was in use and the control zone was busy, so all three circuits, I was asked to extend downwind and ended up almost half way downtown anyways.

Back at the Rwy after my 3rd circuit and with circuit traffic not getting any lighter, I decided that I may as well go fly circles around downtown instead of Buttonville and requested departure for the “downtown tour”. As customary, I was assigned the special transponder code and cleared left turn off south. Crossing 401, I called City Tower, got clearance into the zone, was assigned 2,000 ft as my altitude (the lowest they usually give) and was told to remain north of the City Centre (or Toronto Island) airport.

As I was settling into my first circle around the downtown core, I realized that the zone was busy: there was one other plane circling (but they called after me and got assigned 2,500 ft), then there were a few planes practicing circuits at Toronto Island and a few more were arriving and departing.

I flew my circles wide – crossing the downtown core north of Bloor St heading west, then turning south heading towards Exhibition Place and then another turn to bring me along the shoreline, north of the airport, but south and right next to the CN Tower. For about half of each circle, the interference from all the transmitters and receivers on CN Tower made a deafening noise in my headphones that only disappeared when someone on the frequency was talking, so I was grateful for the fact that frequency was quite busy.

The sun was getting lower as I flew, with the skyscrapers and the CN Tower basking in the warm yellow to reddish glow making them really stand up against the bleak surroundings. On one pass, I took a picture of all the bank buildings, thinking it would look great on my office wall in one of those buildings!

As I flew around, another airplane in the area asked for permission to go south of the airport and was allowed. I figured I may as well ask too and was allowed, but had to climb to 2,500 ft. It was really strange to fly over water of Lake Ontario and the view of downtown was incredible.

Eventually, it was time to head home to Buttonville, so I informed the City Tower that I was heading North and was told to switch to Buttonville Tower. As I followed the DVP on the way to the airport, there was a sunset to my left and a moon to my right.

Tower routed me straight in for Rwy 33. As I was on a short final, the sun was disappearing below the horizon coloring the skies around me deep red. I landed uneventfully and tied down my airplane just as sun was putting the clouds above the airport on fire. What a flight!

And then there was x-wind

2009-02-01T19:45:00.004-05:00

The weather forecast for the 6 hr period that had my two hour booking showed 25015G25, so I drove to the airport knowing it would be windy. The wind was also from that strange direction that had been persistent all winter, 240 to 260. I drove in thinking that while the prevailing winds usually favored Rwy 33 at Buttonville, my four previous flights were on Rwy's 21, 03, 15 and 21 again, and based on the forecast and METARs, it would appeared 21 would be in use again.

As I was getting closer to the airport, i saw planes take off from 33 for a circuit. The ATIS confirmed that Rwy 33 was indeed in use despite the winds coming from 240 to 270 and wind strength of 10 to 15 kts with gusts up to 25. The combination of Rwy in use and the actual winds made me very uncomfortable.

As I was standing in front of the counter, one of the guys at dispatch desk asked me if i was comfortable going out in that wind and on that Rwy. I had to admit to myself that if i was quesitoning my abilities, I was not comfortable, so I asked if there was an instructor available to fly couple circuits with me to make sure i got it. There was.

He actually made me do weights and balances, detailed documents check, etc. which was a good review to make sure i had not forgotten anything and then we went out to the airplane. The winds kept changing so much that Tower was adding wind speed and direction with every instruction including taxi! Even ATIS had note of turbulence on approach, but that was nothing compared to turbulence on take off. Felt like we hid a brick wall.

I flew the first circuit (had to crab hugely on downwind) and had an OK landing. We then reviewed what i could do better and kept flying. The wind shifted from 270 to 260 and finally to 240, which made it almost 90 degree x-wind, and Tower offered us Rwy 21, but i said we'd stick with 33 since i wanted to practice as much as i could with the instructor on board. My 3rd landing, we did not notice when the wheel touched - it was amazing. By then, the instructor told me about 6 months review that Buttonville had implemented to allow their renters to fly with an instructor for an hour for free - so we turned this into a 6 months review and kept flying. When we were done, i was smiling ear to ear and i had my landing confidence fully back.

Winter Flying

2009-01-25T22:31:00.005-05:00

I almost did not fly today because wind was 10 kts gusting 17 and at quite an angle (270 Vs 210 Rwy heading). As I was still not completely happy with my normal landings, I was not sure I was ready for x-wind and rwy 21 was a shorter Rwy, so there would be less room for error.

While I was waiting for a plane, I saw couple landings that could only be defined as “hair-raising”. And strangely enough, seeing those landings, gave me my confidence back as the only thought I had seeing those was “I can do better than that”. I also remembered that x-wind landings were always easier for me to do than the normal ones.

I got the plane that just flew and was warm, de-iced, so I did not have to bother with anything to start it. I took my time getting ready, got my clearance, flew a nice circuit and surprised myself with a really nice landing. Right down the centerline, no drift, touch down on one wheel first then the other, then the nose. Delighted, I did two more. Second circuit I was behind another Cessna that did a wider circuit and they were also doing a full stop, so I ended up flying long downwind and starting final from very far back and had to play with the power to get the approach right. I got it stable over the Rwy and touched down as 1-2-3 again.

With confidence fully back, it was time to go away from the circuit. I decided to go north and take a few pics of the Lake Simcoe, practice slips and steep turns. Alas, I did not get very far north. Just as I flew over the end of 404, the visibility dropped dramatically and so did the ceilings. Earlier, as I was driving to the airport, the radio was saying there were snow squalls in Barrie, Orillia area. I guessed that those snow squalls actually drifted south of where they were supposed to be and wanted no part of those, so I turned back and flew to Buttonville.

As I was getting my taxi instructions to the tie downs, I was told to hold short of Rwy 15/33. I repeated the hold short portion and, as I was getting closer to the hold short line, I heard the controller issuing landing clearance for 33 and she then reminded me to hold short. I figured it had to be something bigger and more important than single engine piston and it was – Falcon jet with 3 engines. Watching it land in x-wind was very neat.

They rolled to the end of Rwy and I was cleared to tie-downs. As I tied my airplane, I took a picture of it and the Falcon.

Keeping Current

2009-01-10T22:11:00.003-05:00

Having finally regained my currency at the same time with completing my night rating, I managed one flight before I almost lost it again.

That previous flight was on Dec 17. I practiced some circuits which started somewhat less than square but got better as I started to get ahead of the plane and opposed to trying to catch up. After about 5 circuits, I had enough and decided to celebrate my night rating with the downtown Toronto tour, informed the Tower, got my transponder code and took off in the direction of the glinting lights in the distance.

Crossing the 401, I switched to City Tower frequency and they told me I had the space to myself and I was free to do whatever I wanted as long as I stayed north of the airport (I later heard Porter flights coming in to land). It was as exciting as it was the first time, all the changing lights and silhouettes of the darkened buildings. But there was also the new sight that I did not see there earlier in the fall - the brilliant white spots with the black specks on them. The outdoor hockey rinks. I did not realize there were a few in the downtown Toronto. I flew around looking at people playing hockey, looked down at the buildings big and small, brightly lit Christmas decorations, cars crawling on the streets. I tried to imagine what people inside the houses and cars were doing and was so happy to be above it all in the little airplane. That flight extended my currency to Jan 16 (it is on a 30 day basis for licensed pilots).

The week after that I went away for Xmas and New years coming back on Sunday Jan 4, which only left me one weekend to try to fly before my currency expired. I could also fly at night, but I really wanted to do a daytime flight.

Trying to beat the weather I booked flights on both Sat and Sunday mornings. On Saturday, I woke up to blue skies and no wind, checked the weather at the airport that showed pretty much the same thing with the air temp of -18C. I called the desk and asked about min temperature requirements and it was -20C, so I was good to go. Not quite believing my good luck (getting a winter booking on a first try), I drove to the airport an hour later. As I was driving south, the blue skies around my house changed into a very low thin overcast layer. Very low. My optimistic estimate was 500 above ground, definitely non-flyable. I kept driving hoping for a hole right around airport. Alas, no holes were in the vicinity and I was greeted at the Dispatch by a red “No Flying” sign with a lot of idle instructors sitting around and cursing that unexpected weather development. I was told that the thin layer was supposed to be blown away but not for a few hours. There was a time slot at 3pm for the same plane, so I decided to re-book it and come back instead of waiting till Sunday, for the weather was simply too unpredictable.

At 2pm, the airport weather was just about perfect for middle of January – unlimited vis, high ceilings, almost no wind and milder temperatures of -11C. I threw my flight bag in the car and started driving. The weather held almost right to the airport this time. Turning off the highway, I was greeted by some flurries that definitely reduced visibility. My heart sunk and the worst suspicions came true when I was greeted by the same dreaded red sign.

I did notice some activity on the apron though and asked if they were letting anyone fly circuits. The person in charge checked the weather and it did meet the circuit minima with a good margin of safety, so he agreed to let me fly. The rest of it was easy. The airplane just flown before me, so it was warm, started with no effort. Everything checked well and off I was to do circuits. I decided to do full stop landings as opposed to touch-and-goes as I believed it would have been a better practice for me.

There was only one other plane in the circuit and they were also doing full stops, so the spacing worked out great. I worked on things that needed improvement, which were mostly in the approach, flare and landing phase, so I had time to look around while on the downwind.

We were using Rwy 03, so my downwind was facing south, i.e. downtown Toronto. As I flew the downwind after downwind, I could not help but notice the ugly dark grey clouds covering a big chunk of the city with what appeared to be heavy snow pouring out of them. And just a few miles to the north, I was flying under relatively high ceilings, with good visibility and no snow. I thought to myself “better there than here” and kept flying. And with that flight, my currency was extended into February.

A Lucky Night.

2008-12-11T22:03:00.003-05:00

“Hmm… there used to be a CN Tower there”. The weather on the morning of my scheduled night cross-country flight did not look promising as low ceilings and some kind of precipitation blanketed downtown Toronto. The aviation forecast however indicated that the low front would pass, skies would clear and the surface winds would die down by the evening. And, amazingly, they did.

Not quite believing my luck, I drove to the airport for my 6pm booking. My luck almost ran out then as the major highway between my house and the airport was closed till 9pm. Luckily, the closure was in the other direction, so by the time I pulled into the airport parking lot, I was hoping I would be flying as there was no way I would be getting home any time soon if flying was cancelled.

Walking to the dispatch desk, I noticed red “No Flying” sign on the information board and asked about it. Apparently, the few inches of snow up north and a few inches of rain downtown came as an inch or two of sheer ice on the field, covering everything, including the rental planes, which are all parked outside. My hopes sinking, I barely caught on to what the person was saying – there was ONE airplane in flyable condition, and my instructor reserved it for MY FLIGHT!

The instructor showed up and we started to look at the weather which was still somewhat unstable. I initially planned a run for Kingston, right along the shoreline of Lake Ontario. Seeing that the front was passing West to East, I also planned the route in the other direction – from Buttonville to London, via Newmarket and Orangeville to get me out of Toronto Pearson airspace and allow me to climb higher. Couple of destinations on a way to Kingston reported low ceilings, so that route was out and we shifted focus to London route, which appeared to be in the clear. I checked the upper winds at 6,000 ft (270 at 21 knots), recalculated headings based on wind corrections and the estimated times and filed the flight plan with 7:20pm departure time (giving me 30 mins to do pre-flight and walk around), went out to the field… and almost fell flat on my face.

The apron and field in front of the terminal building were a cross between a skating rink and an Ice Kingdom. I was walking on ice, the taxiways were all ice and ice covered everything in sight, including the airplanes. Walking very carefully, I made way to ‘my’ airplane, the only one on the field not covered in ice… and discovered it was covered by frost instead. Frost on critical surfaces is almost as bad as ice and is a definite no-go in my books. Luckily, the fuel truck stopped by to top up the tanks and I asked if they had a de-ice on a field. They did and he told me where to go. I was starting to worry how long my luck was going to hold.

I finished the pre-flight, we climbed into the airplane and taxied it to de-icing location. Amazingly, the taxiing was not too hard (I guess it would have been much trickier in a tail dragger). Deicing completed, we climbed back in… and then climbed back out and went searching for paper towels to clean the windows. It was 5 mins to 8pm when we finally took off.

Once in the air, following familiar route north to Newmarket, I finally realized that my luck held, relaxed, marked my times and started looking around. It was insanely beautiful night. There were some scattered clouds over Toronto and they were on fire, reflecting the bright lights of the downtown. The visibility along the route was unlimited and all the separate towns shone up brightly surrounded by relative darkness. Flying at 2500 ASL (under 2,000 AGL), I could see Christmas decorations in front of the houses I flew over.

Upon reaching Newmarket, I turned to the closest bright spot in the West – that would have been Orangeville. We also got Flight Following from Toronto Terminal and were allowed to climb to 6,000 – just underneath the arrival path for Pearson airport.

Climbing to 6,000, I marveled how easy it was to navigate by maps at night in the winter. All the towns and settlements were bright spots, all the roads and rail roads were clearly visible against the snow-covered fields. This was my first time ever flying that route and I felt very comfortable, knowing where I was at all times. From Orangeville, I headed straight for London, navigating by Kitchener as my route marker. My instructor had his iPhone on board and he checked conditions at London and reported that it was under an overcast layer. But it was high enough to allow us to come in underneath.

Getting closer to London, we descended underneath the cloud layer and I started looking for the airport. I would have had difficulties finding it, but the ILS approach lighting system and the running blinking lights that it produces, cued me to where the airport was. I got in my clearance from the Tower and landed uneventfully. We parked right in front of the Katana café to stamp my logbook. I expected another $100 hamburger place, but this was different. I was very impressed by the settings and the menu – I will definitely want to come back there for lunch or dinner.

Climbing into the airplane for a return trip, I experienced another first – an intersection departure. The Rwy in London was over 8,000 ft long and intersection departure meant 4,000 ft Rwy left – still longer then the Rwy in Buttonville.

Getting out of London zone, we got Flight Following again and asked for a route direct to Buttonville. This would have take us right over Pearson, so we were denied that, but they routed us pretty closely just around Pearson. I did not plant that route, so had to navigate by maps and it worked well. As I was navigating I kept stealing glances towards downtown Toronto and all the towers thinking I’d like to get back there…

Closer to Buttonville, we switched to Tower frequency and got cleared to land almost right away as we were the only plane in that airspace. I came in too close and too high, so had to slip aggressively and discovered that Cessna does not slip as well as Citabria, but got back on a good glide path and had a very nice landing. Back to the Ice Kingdom we went searching for a place to tie the plane down.

And with that flight over, I finally had met all the requirements for the night rating. It was almost exactly two year after I started the night rating with the flight that started this blog…

Night Rating Continued.

2008-12-07T22:53:00.004-05:00

Few days following my amazing late season glider flight, Mother Nature took pity, scheduling gods smiled at me and I finally got to fly a Cessna again. At night. After a six months break. It was, to sum it up in one word “interesting”.

In preparation for the flight, I read the POH (pilot operating handbook), reviewed the speeds I was supposed to know by memory and emergency procedures. I then spent some time reading the takeoff, circuit and landing sequences that I wrote down long time ago when I was still learning. From past experiences, I knew that going through the circuit sequence while sitting in the armchair improved my actual “in plane” performance materially, so I do this routine every time I am learning something new. Or remembering something I have not done in a while.

Still, no amount of preparation or armchair flying can compensate for a six-month break, and I expected to be rusty. The length of my absence was further highlighted when my new instructor asked if I had current charts. I was pretty sure mine were not current, but the fact that I was 3 editions behind was a bit of a shock. In fairness, it’s been a long time since I flew cross country as ever since I started flying Citabria, all my flight were local. Luckily, the pilot shop was still opened, so I quickly fixed that issue by acquiring current charts and a CFS, both of which would be required for my night cross country.

I then got the keys to the plane and went out into the elements. I took my time doing the walk-around and pre-flight and then got to my seat and went over every instrument to memorize the location so that I would not be searching for them when I need them. By that time, my instructor climbed in and we were ready to go.

Once I’ve completed the run up and got my ATIS information, I tuned up to the Ground frequency and was surprised to hear how busy it was at that time. It appeared that the Seneca students were doing a training night and there were more planes doing circuits than I have ever seen. Finally there was a break in the rapid-fire clearances and I managed to squeeze in and get our ground clearance. We taxied to the Runway threshold and tuned in to the Tower frequency which was equally busy. Looking at the traffic around us and hearing approaching traffic, it seemed to me that there was a good chance for us to be able to take off and as soon as I reported being at the threshold, we were cleared to line up and almost immediately to take off. Take off was uneventful and soon were we climbing away.

I struggled a bit with the sight picture to get me the 78 knots that I wanted and very rough air did not help. It was a bit frustrating but at the same time, I was pleasantly surprised that I had not forgotten any of the radio work. One advantage of training in the controlled environment from the start – radio work becomes one of the primary skills.

As we turned towards the north and were cleared on route, away from crazy busy circuit, out came the hood and I was on instruments. I was a bit concerned about the bumpiness while on instruments but the GFA indicated that turbulence would stop at 3,000 ft, so as soon as we were clear from Pearson Airport’s inverted wedding cake control zone, we climbed to 3,000 and into the smooth air.

I flew under the hood for a while, doing mostly OK on keeping the wings level and speed and altitude unchanged. We then tried some timed turns which I managed to do fine. Since we still needed to use some time (I was short 0.9 hrs of my instruments requirements), on came the VOR instruments and soon we were navigating towards and away from Simcoe VOR. With the added VOR workload, I dropped a wing a few times, but picked it up before it turned into anything serious. Eventually, we reached the required time and could get rid of the hood and fly us back to the airport with the renewed resolution that I would not want to be in the weather that could turn into Instrument Metrological Conditions under any circumstances.

The winds afloat were fierce and our ground speed was very slow. Which suited me just fine as I was once again looking fully lit downtown Toronto and enjoying every moment of it.

As I tuned into the Tower frequency, I discovered that it got even busier. I inserted my call sign in the small pause and got my clearance into the zone and reporting point. Concentrating on finding the reporting point and then the airport, I did not count the number of the planes on the frequency, but my instructor later said it was 7!

We were coming from the North and landing on Rwy 21, so I expected the right base clearance and got exactly that, in second position behind traffic on left base. I still was not seeing the Rwy, but I saw the traffic and followed his path in the air and finally saw the Rwy lights. I was on a right glide path and speed, but flared too high and too much and landing was ugly. My instructor then suggested that we’d call it a night as trying to do full stop circuits with 6 other airplanes would have been counterproductive and a waste of money. I agreed and we taxied back.

So, at this time, I have all requirements for night rating except x-country. But, because we did not do circuits, I am still non-current. Hopefully, it’ll all come together when the stars align again and the x-country does happen…

Late Season Surprise.

2008-12-02T20:42:00.002-05:00

Through November it looked like the gliding was finished and my sunset flight was the last one of the season. So, I dusted off my power license and decided to re-start the night rating. Three weather related cancellations later, I still had not flown, so when the message popped out on my gliding club’s board that there could be flying on the weekend, I cancelled all plans and decided to drive there.

I spent the morning flying dual circuits in a Citabria. The field was covered in melting snow and there was stiff cross wind, so landings were challenging, but I was finally flying, so nothing else really mattered.

Except, there was something that did matter. Flying the last few circuits in the Citabria, I felt some bumps. Could there be thermals on November 29? Skies soon provided the answer in the form of nicely looking Cumulus. By 1pm, the clouds started forming into the streets and a few gliders that did take off, stayed up for a while.

A friend that I flew the sunset flight with told me he’d be on a field around that time. He showed just as the two seat fiberglass glider landed, so we claimed the glider and were soon up in the air flying trough some definite bumps. I released at 3,000 ft and it did not take us long to find a thermal. And another one, and one more. They were not very well defined or strong, but they were definitely working.

Having gotten closer to the cloud base, we decided to fly under the cloud street. It was working, so we flew straight for a while and were holding altitude. The wind afloat was very strong slowing our progress and breaking up the streets and the thermals, so at some point, the cloud street ended and we turned back towards the field. As I tried to locate the field, I was looking for white runways, but then realized that in the matter of hours the color changed to green as the snow melted. At least I knew where the thermals were coming from.

We got a little low around that time and started looking for more thermals to get back up. Luckily, just as I was getting afraid that we would not find anything good and would have to land, the flock of seagulls decided to show us where the thermal was, so, having done some abrupt course changes, we joined in the thermal underneath them and were soon climbing back to 4,000+ ft. Having gotten under the cloud base, we then decided to follow another street in a different direction.

The other street was working as well and we were making progress flying east, but that also meant that we were flying downwind. My friend eventually decided that we have flown far enough away from club and we turned back and tried to make our way back under the same cloud street. As we flew towards the club, I looked out to the side and for a second felt like I was in a helicopter – our altitude remained unchanged, but so did our position relative to the ground – we were just hovering in space. That was a very neat experience.

Alas, we had to make headway towards the club, so down came the nose to pick up speed and altimeter started unwinding. We were making progress, but it did not seem to be enough and the street became weaker. Just as I started to think I may do my first ever out landing, we flew through the thermal and turned to pick up some height. It took a while, but we eventually got high enough to glide to the field. It was perfect timing as just as we turned towards the field, the clouds started to dissipate.

We arrived at the field with the height to spare and the landing was uneventful. As we rolled to a stop, I stayed in a glider for a while, trying to savor the experience. Eventually, I remembered that my feet were quite cold and we stacked the glider and made our way to clubhouse where I parked myself in front of the fireplace for much needed de-frosting accompanied by couple of beverages and some nice company.

Our flight lasted 2 hours 3 mins…

Flight of Passage - book review

2008-11-30T16:12:00.002-05:00

I knew I would enjoy this book when I read the description that called it a “Huckleberry Finn meets The Spirit of St. Louis”. Having turned the last page, I realized I loved it.

This book was a memoir, a coming of age story, a father-sons relationship story and an aviation adventure of pure kind. It is about two teenagers flying across America in a Piper Cub with 85hp engine and no radio in 1966. One of the teenagers grew up to be a successful writer and the language of the book and descriptions of the scenery and people was borderline poetic.

It was the book about simplicity and freedom of flying a very simple machine across the continent, relying on a compass, maps and dead reckoning. The trip had the moments of sheer terror, disappointment, pure joy and a side-splitting laughter. I felt like I was right there with them, living the adventure instead of reading about it.

It was also the book about good old days gone by as I do not believe the flight like this would be possible today with all the rules, restrictions and regulations. This book made me realize why I liked flying the Citabria and gliders that much – because it lets me recapture that very simplicity and freedom and a joy of living in the moment.

http://www.amazon.com/Flight-Passage-Memoir-Rinker-Buck/dp/0786883154/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1228079763&sr=1-1

Window views from 36,000 ft

2008-11-24T22:13:00.025-05:00

These were taken on YYZ - YEG - YYC - YYZ trip.

Taking off from Toronto Pearson (YYZ), i could see the lake effect snow that resulted in quite a bit of snow on the ground where I live. The lake effect and otherwise clear skies gave way to stratified cloud formations coming close to Edmonton.

Descending to Edmonton, I enjoyed the clouds, light and rainbows show.

Take off from Calgary to Toronto was during sunrise and I lucked out to be on the mountain side of the airplane to get a little bit of pink mountains in the background.

Visibility over Toronto was unlimited and we once again were landing on Rwy 24 with final approach right over downtown and i was once again on a proper side to get the pictures.

A Sunset Flight in Pictures

2008-11-11T14:37:00.012-05:00

Speyer Technik Museum and Airfield.

2008-11-03T18:51:00.008-05:00

The day after the Wasserkuppe visit, I picked up my parents at FRA airport and drove them to Heidelberg where my Dad’s clinic is located. Later that afternoon, my mom wanted to show me the little town nearby with nice pedestrian area that they discovered on a previous visit, so we left my dad to rest in the apartment and took off.

We were driving towards the town of Speyer when I noticed lot of little airplanes doing circuits over where we were going. As we were turning off the highway onto the road leading downtown, I noticed airplanes on the left – lots and lots of airplanes. Crossing three lanes of the road and making sharp turn towards the airplanes I discovered it was a place called Speyer Technik Museum. Before my mother had a chance to speak, I announced that we were going there and turned into the parking lot.

We got out of the car and immediately saw the little single engine airplane on a very low final approach going straight overhead. Figuring that the destination runway should be very close, I grabbed my cameras and went towards the field, jumping a few fences and crossing a road, followed by my mother who was starting to wonder if we’d get downtown at all that day.

We discovered a nice little GA airport with the café on site and free access to the side of the field that I could shoot from. It was the answer to the problem the bugged me about my Wasserkuppe visit – the only thing I did not do there was to shoot any flying – it just was not the best day for it. That little GA field with lot of activity was the perfect for shooting. Planes ranged from a conventional Cessna to some unfamiliar motogliders to strange looking ultra light contraptions. They offered 30 mins flights too, but converting 130 Euros into dollars per hour, I realized I did not quite want to go flying that badly.

I shot for a while, but eventually remembered I still had the whole open sky museum to see and so we made our way back. Getting closer to the airplanes on display, I realized there was a lot more to it than I initially thought and that I would have to practically run to see it all. My mother very smartly decided to sit on a bench and enjoy the sunny warm weather while I bought the ticket and started running from plane to plane, literally, as there were over a 100 of them. And then there were ships, automobiles, trains, u-boat and even a space ship.

Many years ago, visiting USAF museum in Dayton I was impressed by the numerous airplanes there, but there were lots of military airplanes that I did not know about and no GA or commercial airplanes. The Speyer museum had what I called an “idiot’s guide to airplanes” collection – it had famous airplanes, planes that everyone interested in aviation had heard of. It was aviation enthusiast and photographer's paradise as most of the collection was out in the open with the very good light (although some airplanes, including Royal Canadian AF Sabre jet, were in the hangar).

Walking through the museum, I could not help but wonder how in the world did they manage to put the Boeing 747 and Antonov 22 (largest airplane on Earth at the time) hundred feet about the ground. All larger planes had ladders leading to the inside, but I was too tired to even think of climbing and decided to save the insides for the next time.

The creators of the museum placed two Antonov airplanes right against each other – giant AN-22 with four propellers and much smaller single engine AN-2 bi-plane that was a workhorse of so many fleets in small regional airlines in Russia. That was an interesting contrast.

Another exhibition that I could really relate too was the fighter jets from many different countries, including those involved in aerobatic displays.

The final highlight was the real space shuttle – the Russian Buran. I saw one of the American shuttles on display at the Cape Canaveral museum, but this was the first time I saw the one from my homeland. Thinking about homeland, I looked at my watch, realized that my mom was sitting on a bench for over 3 hrs and it was getting dark, so I reluctantly made my way back to the entrance.

We never made it to downtown Speyer that day …

Wasserkuppe Glider Museum

2008-11-01T21:27:00.009-05:00

Many years ago, before I was a pilot, I spent the whole day in the US Air Force museum in Dayton, Ohio and enjoyed every second of it. I thought that being a glider pilot, and knowing what I was looking at would make the visit to a glider museum much more special.

I was at Wasserkuppe on Friday on a very cold and foggy day. People must have decided to stay away as not only I had the whole monument to myself, but a glider museum to myself for the most time. The museum was right across the road from the glider flight school and contained both full size gliders and scale models.

The side walls of the museum contained the history of gliding, all of it in German, but surprisingly with some illustrations, some animations, lots of numbers and the knowledge of 3 other languages, I could understand most of it. The was also information about different lift patterns (thermal, wave, hills) and where in the world the different patterns were. But the gliders were definitely the stars of that show.

Middle of the two halls of the museum contained actual gliders, which ranged from basic 10:1 wood and fabric machines to the high performance composite gliders.

It was nice to spend few hours walking though the history of gliding and seeing how the materials and designs changed with time starting with designs resembling bird wings and finishing with the delta wing. Interestingly, the shape of fuselage appeared to have been settled long ago, but the shape, angle and size of the wing changed quite dramatically with passage of time.

Wasserkuppe

2008-10-31T20:14:00.024-05:00

My return to Germany to spend time with my parents was planned in advance, but unexpected scheduling issue resulted in me arriving a day ahead. As I considered what to do, the answer just came to me – I was going to visit a birthplace of gliding, the Wasserkuppe. I realized it was October and gliding season would likely be over, so I was not expecting to get up, but wanted to see the monument to fallen pilots as well as the glider museum.

As I was driving on the autobahns changing into motorways changing into very small roads leading to Wasserkuppe, I was looking at the freshly frosted fields around me. Getting closer to Wasserkuppe, I realized that frozen land and warmer temperatures resulted in a very thick fog that blanketed the whole area. The picture above was taken from the parking lot – there is a runway behind the little structure but none could be seen. Looking up, I could see patches of blue sky, so I figured out the fog would burn off in a few mins and decided to make my way to the monument.

I had a hand drawn map showing where the monument was, I studied Google Earth, I followed signs and I could not see a thing as I approached the top of the hill. Normally, the monument is very obvious (it is slightly below the top). That morning, I was lucky when I could see 3 meters in front of me. Luckily, there was a little map with “you are here” sign on the top, so I oriented myself and went in a general direction of a monument. I literally stumbled upon it, but as soon as I pulled the camera out, the strong wind blew away some of the fog allowing me to take a few shots.

Because of the fog, I also had the monument completely to myself which was an unexpected bonus. I had a time to play with the composition, reflect on my flying addiction and simply stand still and enjoy the moment. Eventually, few other people braved the fog and showed up and I slowly made my way back the flying field.

Along the way, I passed by the hangar of the glider flight school and noticed some activity there, so I went in and asked it anyone spoke English – turned out most of them did. I asked what were the chances of going up in a glider and they said they were not going to pull gliders out in that fog but suggested that motoglider would be a possibility when the fog lifted. Dimona, the motoglider made by Diamond (same company that makes Diamond Katana), looked interesting and I figured it would be an opportunity to decide if I want to go that route was when I eventually accumulate enough money to buy something with the wings. Dimona (on the left picture), is also occasionally used as a tow plane, but most of the time they use the one on the right.

As we were talking I kept peeking inside the hangar and noticed ASK-21, and two Duo Discus’s, so I asked if I could take a closer look and take some pictures. “Yes, of course” was the answer. I was enjoying my day already.

My club is getting ASK-21, soon replacing the Blaniks as dual trainers, so ASK-21 was of particular interest. I noticed the seating arrangements, much more comfortable than Blaniks and the much modern look of it. It also seemed much larger than Puchacz, another non-metal dual seat trainer than Club has.

While I was taking pictures, the guys were moving gliders around pulling out a single seater. Once she was in the clear, one of the instructors asked me if I had a chance to disassemble the glider yet. Thinking about my bronze badge clinic, I said “once”. “Good” was the answer, “this will be your second time then”. So, I helped out with that. It seemed very fast and easy, but I had a feeling those guys have done it enough times in the past.

When the disassembly was finished and pieces placed into the workshop, we looked outside and saw that fog had finally lifted and here was blue sky around airfield. Seeing that, an instructor and I got into the motoglider, taxied her to the gas pumps and then took off very shortly after that. I had my pilot license with me and told the instructor that I was a power pilot, so I did all of the taxing and most of the flying.

Take off was uneventful, although having a stick in the left hand was somewhat strange (it was side by side seating with throttle in the middle). We flew straight and level for a bit and I realized that I probably would not want to own a motoglider. As least not like the one we were flying as the glide ratio of Dimona was poor and flying straight and level with the engine was boring. I then thought I would never be rich enough to buy a high end glider with an engine either, so that left a pure glider… or aerobatic airplane…or aerobatic glider…

Suddenly, my mental shopping was interrupted by some excitement on a radio. At that time we were flying 3,000 ft above ground level and over the occasional clouds. That was the picture looking away from the airport. As my instructor hurriedly directed me to turn 180 degrees towards the airport, I saw a different picture – there was solid layer of clouds underneath us with things sticking out of it (tops of the towers). Apparently, as we departed, the clouds and fog moved in and started covering the field. After some more exciting talking, my instructor used the spoilers to descend right into the last hole in the clouds towards the airport and from there we could see the runway that I flew us towards.

As we were coming to one end of Runway, the fog was creeping from the other end, so the timing was perfect for whoever did the radio call that turned us back. I did a bouncy landing and soon we were taxiing back to the holding bay. Few mins later the fog covered the rest of the field. I paid for the flight and went to grab a bite and visit a museum. More on that in the next post.

Return to Power.

2008-10-07T21:15:00.003-05:00

Fresh with excitement of having just passed the glider test, I was looking forward to getting into a single seat glider again and trying some soaring as conditions looked to be good (judging by the amount of bumps I flew through during the flight test). But then a different opportunity presented itself when my examiner (who also happens to be a check out tow pilot) asked if I wanted to get some dual time in a Citabria. Considering that flying the club’s Citabria was one of the main reasons that got me into gliding in the first place, I said “Yes” rather quickly.

We talked about towing procedures, rules and emergencies as we were waiting for a glider line up to diminish as we were planning to do couple of non-towing circuits first. But the conditions were good, private owners were rigging their gliders the line was getting busier not quieter, so my first flight in a Citabria in over a year was an actual tow.

I did not fly the take off of course, but I got to fly the tow when we were at a safe height and I flew the rest of the tow up to release, the letdown, the circuit and the landing. It was initially overwhelming to try to fly with the glider attached as I was still getting used to where all the instruments were. Having flaps and carb heat added some issues as the Citabria that I flew in previous life had neither and I had to be reminded to deal with those.

But it was with the landing that I experienced the most difficulties. I would have not thought so, but take off with the glider in tow was not all as difficult as the landings w/o the glider. I thought I used to fly tight circuits at my previous field, but compared to them the circuit in the tow plane was much higher and shorter, I felt rushed, uncoordinated, was coming in too high and too fast and landing well long.

During initial briefing, my instructor pointed out that there was water in the second half of the runway and that I better land either short or long. Thus forewarned, on my first landing I splashed right in the middle of the biggest puddle sending fountains of water and grass few feet in to the air and drenching the plane. I then tried to repeat that same performance two more times but my instructor had a better foresight and took controls earlier flying us over the puddle.

As I kept trying to improve my landings, I kept thinking “I’ve already been there” reminiscing about my taildragger training and my first landing attempts. At least this time I knew they would get better. Landings aside, I was able to do the rest of flying with less and less prompting, so I felt like I was making progress.

Flying the power plane again felt very different compared to flying the glider. It was interesting to be at the other end of the rope for a change. It was challenging too as flying the tow plane with all other planes and gliders in the circuit required much higher level of skills and concentration that I ever needed flying my little Citabria out of the quiet airport on a hill. But despite the challenges and differences, I loved all of it and can't wait to do it again.

“Congratulations, you are now a glider pilot”.

2008-10-07T20:11:00.013-05:00

By the end of September, I was making enough progress in my solo flying that I started thinking about the flight test. I had accumulated 17 of the 20 required solo flights, and as a licensed power pilot, I was spared the need to pass a written exam, so the only 4 things that stood between me and the glider license were 3 more solo flights and an actual flight test.

Oct 4 started with two solo flights in the two seat all-metal Blanik glider that I would be using for the flight test. Dual followed with the instructor who then recommended me for a flight test, which I had arranged to do the next day, Oct 5.

I then switched back to Junior for my solo #20, had a nice flight, landed and wanted to head home, but decided to be helpful and put the glider in the hangar if no one wanted it. Instead, people on the line told me to fly it to the hangar. Solo #21 went fine all the way till I stopped in the middle of Rwy a short distance away from hangars and had to be rescued. We then discovered someone else wanted the glider and back to the line we went.

Having done 5 flights that day, I was starting to get tired and attempted to go home again but one of the members offered to take me up in club’s DG505 – the glider that I did my aerobatic intro back in May. That offer I could not refuse and soon we were up in the air. It was nice to have someone else flying and just be up, have a nice conversation and stare at the world passing by. It would have been even nicer to have lift, but alas, one can't have everything. After that flight was over, I did go home as I still had to do the last minute preparations for the flight test.

Oct 5 came and I was on the field bright and early pulling out the glider to be used during the test, making sure everything checked out and all the documents were in order. The test consisted of the ground knowledge test and two flights. We got the ground portion out of the way quickly and soon were getting ready to take off.

As examiner was briefing me on the sequence of events in the test, I kept looking at the windsock wondering why it was showing that we would be taking off with the slight tail wind and the cross wind. The answer soon came when the field manager indicated we would be taking off from Rwy 36 but landing on 21 – just what one needs on a flight test!

Climbing up to 4,000 ft height for flight #1, I had another challenge as we were making tighter than usual turns trying to pick our way up around the clouds, so the tow was more exciting than usual. Despite the challenges, I was actually enjoying the experience. We did all the required sequences, I joined the circuit for the Rwy 21, flew it well, did a nice cross wind landings and then turned off the wrong way, realized it, recognized it was too late to correct and ended up sitting in the middle of Rwy. D'oh!

Second flight was to a lower height and the only two major exercises were steep turns and spiral dive plus I was supposed to do a short field landing. Having done the exercises I joined the circuit and concentrated on doing a nice landing AND turning off the right way. I flared just ahead of the touchdown point, touched down shortly thereafter and turned off well before the stop point – a good landing. “Congratulations, you are now a glider pilot” - came from the back seat.

This was flight #46 and exactly 2 months since August long weekend when I had my first dual lesson. And now the journey begins: cross country, aerobatics, towing - so much more to learn...

“Do not believe the public forecast”.

2008-09-29T18:25:00.012-05:00

Looking out the window through drizzle and fog so thick I could not see the trees in my front yard, I thought that Saturday’s weather tracked the forecast very accurately – no visibility and ceilings touching the ground, just as the forecast promised. With Saturday being a flying write-off, I got on the internet and pulled the aviation forecasts for Sunday.

Meteorology was one of my favorite subjects in the pilot ground school. I like the challenge of reading the charts, interpreting them and then comparing my conclusions to the public weather forecasts. From the charts and area forecasts, it looked as if the weather was supposed to improve in the afternoon on Sunday to the point where it would be flyable. I then looked at public forecast and it looked bad with clouds and 40% chance of rain.

Not sure what to expect, I decided to check the club’s Yahoo group to see if anyone posted anything about Sunday and started laughing when I discovered the message titled “Sunday Weather - do not believe the public forecast” from our president. He then explained pretty much what I figured out from aviation weather websites, but he also added that there might be good soaring conditions. Having finished laughing at the timing of all that, I started to pack my bag for Sunday.

I was supposed to be on duty, but figured that if it was quiet and I would try to do one or two short circuits in the Junior to practice better landings as my last one prior to that date could only be described as “arrival”.

More than a few members must have read the “do not believe the public forecast” message as it was not quiet at all, but the Field Manager allowed me do short circuits anyways as there were other people who could help out. I managed three short tows and my landings were starting to improve again. I then put my name on a list again thinking of doing a soaring flight and finished the duty just as the field got very busy as conditions improved from “just flyable” to “good soaring”.

While I was waiting for my turn, another club member flew his first solo and yet another member flew his first Junior flight later that day.

And then it was my turn to go up. I initially made a ticket for 3,000 ft, but the instructor releasing me told me to change it to 2,000 ft as he was confident I was going to find lift right away. He was right, the tow pilot dropped me right in the lift and I climbed to 3,400 ft (from 2,850 ft) in no time.

I then spent an hour flying from cloud to cloud, looking at their forms, the shapes of the tops and bottoms, wind direction and sun position and tried to predict where the lift would be relative to all that. Most of the time though I still found lift by flying through it, not by looking at the clouds, so I have a lot yet to learn. The best thermal of the day was over 6 kts on my variometer and I stumbled into it by chance, but once I got it centered, it felt like riding an express elevator – I was laughing all the way up.

As I was circling near the field, I saw the glider heading to cross country do a few circles above the field and take off somewhere distant with a good speed. I felt envious as I wondered what it felt like to go away from the field relying just on your skill and a bit of weather luck.

I then looked at my watch and could not believe my eyes as it said I was up for an hour. It did not seem that long at all and I could have easily stayed up more. Setting up the circuit and preparing for landing, I kept thinking of how fast time must fly when one is flying cross country. I think I’d like to do that someday.

What a day!

2008-09-18T20:25:00.003-05:00

Sitting at my office desk on Monday reading the weather forecast that called for sunny skies for the next 5 days, I was thinking of how unfair it was to have two bad weather weekends in a row only to come back to work and discover sun and puffy clouds outside of the office windows. Turns out I was not the only one thinking along those lines as the message popped up on our club’s message board informing members that there would be a full day of flying the next day and inviting everyone who could to come out.

I usually keep at least one vacation day per year in reserve for some unforeseen emergencies. It did not take me long to decide that desperate desire to fly did in fact constitute an emergency and that’s how I found myself on the field, instead of my office, on Tuesday morning.

At that point in the morning, there were more people than gliders and I claimed the same single seat glider that I flew solo two weekends prior and arranged a check out flight in the club’s two-seat Puchacz as it’s been more than a week since my last flight. Figuring it was a bonus day, I set no goals other than go up, try to stay up and enjoy every minute of it.

I had to wait a bit before an instructor was available to fly with me. As I was waiting, the nice puffy clouds seemed to aggregate into the solid cloud mass right over the field and people who have recently launched came back to the field reporting no lift. For a while it appeared that the “stay up” part of my goal was not going to happen that day. Fortunately, the clouds started to part, and by the time we launched in the Puchacz there was lift, so we had a 40 mins flight that I really enjoyed. I learned a few things, made a mental note to work on my coordination in that specific glider and was OK’ed to fly the Junior.

The thermaling conditions looked great as I climbed into Junior. At 2,500 ft where I released and went searching for lift. I soon stumbled onto a decent thermal climbing to 4,000 ft. Figuring I was fat on altitude, I did not look for thermals for a while but instead practiced some turns and just enjoyed flying around, circling occasionally when flying through a strong bump. I was so happy just to be up and flying instead of sitting in my cubicle that I failed to work on “staying up” and 40 mins later found myself at 3,000 ft and in a high sink area as altimeter kept unwinding. It seemed that I somehow was in the blue with all clouds too far to reach, so instead of flying straight for the clouds, I started flying in circles looking for some lift where there was none. At 2,000 ft, I realized I blew it and set up for a circuit to land and try again. Total time afloat was 48 mins.

Once on a ground, I thought about the previous flight and what changes to make (i.e. do not waste altitude and do not fly in circles in high sink areas) and decided to try again. The tow pilot dropped me in the lift yet again and I started circling and gaining altitude. As I circled, I kept flying out of lift on one side, so I kept making little corrections while looking around me for other gliders and above me to see where I was relative to cloud.

I got so completely engrossed in the intricate dance with the clouds that I forgot about time or anything else not important at the moment. As I got to almost 5,000 ft and close to the cloud base, I stopped circling and it occurred to me to look down at the ground and see how far I was from the airport. Hmm, where was the airport? Knowing that green runways surrounded by green grass and green forests would be hard to see from above, I searched for the distinct shape of the African safari (it is adjacent to the airport), but could not see that either.

Oh well, I was high enough that I could use the other main landmark – lots of water. I circled until I found Lake Ontario and realized that I was much close to is than when I started. I looked at the clouds again and realized that they were moving southeast at a decent rate while I stayed under the same cloud for a while, so I drifted away from the airport. I reversed direction, pointed the nose at where I though the airport would be and decided to pick up a bit of speed as I was going against the wind. For a while it seemed I was not moving forward as my altimeter unwound, but soon I could make up the shape of the safari up ahead. Getting closer to the airport, I remembered the soaring textbook talking about planning the local flights upwind. I realized I just learned how that recommendation came about.

I finally arrived close to the safari, picked up another thermal and started to make my way upwind. I flew through another area of sink and by the time I on the upwind side, I was almost at the circuit height. I looked at my watch that showed I was up for over an hour, another first! I was mentally getting ready to start the circuit when suddenly I flew through another bump and turned trying to centre it. It either got stronger or I got lucky at centering, but soon I was back up at 4,000 ft right over the airport. That was complete bonus time and I was smiling ear to ear looking around and at the activity at the runways and the fields below me. Couple of other gliders “stopped by” and I waived at the pilots. They eventually went somewhere and I was alone in the skies and realizing that I was getting tired and it was time to land, which I did, uneventfully. Time afloat was 1 hr 35 mins.

As I climbed out of the glider, my legs hurt from being in the cockpit for 3 hrs and my face hurt from smiling too much. What a day!

Two Firsts and a Solo.

2008-09-09T19:53:00.014-05:00

The giant blobs of rain made a lot of noise colliding with my windshield. The wipers were working in overtime, but I could barely see in front of me. I stole a brief glance at the watch – I was in this wet mess for over and hour and there seemed to be no end of it. I was beginning to question the forecasts I read before leaving home and my own eyesight that made me believe the wet frontal passage should end before reaching the club, when suddenly the rain stopped, the darkness lifted and me and my car popped out in the clear, few miles west of the club.

As I pulled to the club’s parking lot, I was relieved that it was no longer raining, but was starting to question how many other people would drive through that mess and not turn back. As I got to hangar, I saw few people and more showed up soon thereafter. There were only 3 students, but lots of instructors and tow pilots, so each student got to do a daily inspection of a glider and pretty much had a pick of what to fly, with whom and how much.

Appraising the situation, I realized that I might actually get to a point where I’d be approved to fly a Junior. Juniors were club’s single seaters available to post solo students who had 5 solo flights and a check out flight or two in two seat Puchacz. As of that morning, I had 4 solos and 7 of my first dual flights were in the Puchacz, so I figured I’d make my fifth solo in the Blanik and see what happens. Here are one of club's Juniors and Puchacz:

I was the first one to take off and had an uneventful flight. Upon returning the glider to the start, I chatted with an instructor who mentioned that there would be good soaring conditions later and offered to show me how it’s done. I asked if we could do that in the Puchacz, so that he could sign me off for a Junior as well and the answer was ‘yes’. Things were falling into place, but I had to wait for a while for better conditions to develop, which was no problem as there were other interesting things going on that I wanted to be part of.

A fellow club member was going for her first solo. Watching the preparations, I finally got a prospective of how things looked from outside the cockpit when there is a 1st solo in progress. Everything was triple checked, back seat all tied up, tow pilot briefed, wing runner is extra careful to release the wing straight and level, instructor who signed off on a solo was standing by the radio just in case – I think all of us got to re-live the experience following her progress in the sky. She did a good circuit and landing and was promptly drenched with water upon returning to the start line.

Soon after the solo, my instructor deemed conditions soar-able. Figuring it would be a good time to finally take some glider aerial shots, I grabbed my little camera. I flew the tow and then my instructor took control to do some initial soaring to get us higher. He found the thermals everywhere and made soaring look easy. He periodically transferred control back to me and then took it back when I flew us out of the thermal ;-).

I read about soaring techniques prior to that flight, but came to conclusion that soaring was one of those experiences can only be learned by doing it. I learned a lot on that flight. At one point, we were sharing the thermal with another glider, weaving an intricate dance in the skies and I realized I was enjoying it as much as aerobatics. Circling under the clouds, looking at the land, buildings and roads passing under our nose, I felt free, alive and wishing for the experience to never end. Alas, we soon reached 1 hour and had to come in and land. It was my first ever hour afloat without and engine.

At the end of that flight, the instructor announced that I was ready for a Junior. He then had to leave, so by the time I got a Junior, read the manual and was generally ready, none of my original instructors were left on the field. Thermals on the other hand were getting stronger and stronger. I got a detailed briefing from another instructor very familiar with that glider and was soon rolling behind the tow plane. My takeoff was uneventful as was the tow to 3,000 and soon I released and was on my own.

I was supposed to test a number of flight conditions high above so that I knew how the glider responded. While playing with spoilers and doing slow flight, slips and stalls, I kept flying into strong thermals that seemed to be everywhere. I was not supposed to be soaring on my first flight, but I did not even have to try – most of the time I was flying as minimum sink and there were times I was flying up going straight (I was right under the cloud street). I then tried some turns right as variometer (that measures the sink or lift) went crazy and all of a sudden I gained a few hundred ft in just a few circles. It was incredible and I laughed with joy – this was the first time I managed to go up on my own.

Time flew and I had to come back to field as I was not supposed to stay up long on the first flight. With really effective spoilers at my disposal, landing was easy and controllable. Flight line then asked if I wanted to go up again, but the excitement of the day started to catch up with me and I realized I was tired, so I decided to call it a day and put the glider in a hangar.

So there I was, a first soaring hour, witness to a first solo and a first flight on type. Good thing I did not turn back in the rain…

Solo for the Third Time

2008-09-04T19:38:00.004-05:00

Unlike some of the first solo stories, my first ever solo flight in C172 was not frightening, terrifying or nerve-racking (well, it probably was…. for my instructor…. as I was his first solo student ;-). I was ready for a while and the solo kept getting postponed on account of weather, so when my instructor got out of the plane and told me to go for a circuit, the only thought I had was “Finally”!

I do not remember taxiing and taking off, but I do remember the moment on the downwind when I looked at the downtown Toronto and the vast expanse beyond it and it finally sunk in that I was flying the plane by myself and the incredible sense of freedom it gave me.

By the time of solo #2, in the Citabria, I had a lot more hours in my logbook and a lot more appreciation of what it takes to fly and, more importantly, land a taildragger in a somewhat controlled fashion on a narrow upsloping runway. So solo #2 was everything solo #1 was not: frightening, terrifying and nerve-racking as tried to keep the Citabria away from the bushes on take off and landing. I managed just fine but it took me a while longer to get comfortable with that plane.

My solo #3 or first ever glider solo was a perfect blend of the first two. I was a little anxious (this time worrying about doing a proper take off), but comfortable with my skills and abilities to fly and land the glider. Having Citabria instead of higher powered Pawnee as a tow plane added a bit to the anxiety as it meant a longer take off roll and longer tow. Anxiety was replaced by concentration once we started rolling as I worked on keeping wings level. I even remembered to call “300 ft” to myself as we passed that point.

Once we were off the field and climbing, I finally relaxed, remembered to breathe and concentrated on doing a good tow. Soon enough we were 2,000 ft above ground and I stabilized, looked to the right, released the rope and turned to right. The day was not lift producing (not at my skill level in any case), so I just had enough time to practice some turns and had to join the downwind. Did my downwind checks, all while saying “airspeed” once in a while to remind myself to keep my airspeed up, turned base, final and had an uneventful landing.

As I sat in the glider waiting for a cart to pick me up, I suddenly realized how high I was on a first solo adrenaline. It took a while to wear off but being drenched by some cold water helped ;-).

Airplanes and Mother Nature

2008-08-10T12:31:00.021-05:00

The weather in Southern Ontario this summer was more reminiscent of South Florida sans the extreme heat. I think we have had thunder showers almost every day since the beginning of summer.

The glider field was being drenched thoroughly on a rather regular basis and was very wet in spots. A week ago, we were towing the glider to the starting position. I was running the tow cart trying to avoid the wettest spots when I noticed the giant white stones ahead. I initially thought they were edge markers, although I was not sure why they would use stones. Then I noticed that more stones right in the middle of the runway, set up in concentric circles. Just as my brain was about to explode trying to guess what they were for, we came close to one. It was a giant white mushroom and the beginning of runway was full of them. As soon as we put the glider into position, I grabbed my camera and snapped a few pictures.

A week later, we were flying in the morning when the very active weather was moving all around us. I got up twice and every time there was a wall of dark clouds and rain somewhere close to the airport. But somehow, the T-cells kept missing the field completely. I only meant to stay for the morning, but there were not a lot of people flying and instructor was available, so I signed up for another 2-flight (each instructional sign up = two flights as long as each is under 30 mins). As I was waiting, the skies around the field changed from blue to ominous black.

My turn came and soon instructor and I were fully strapped in a ready to go when the call came from a pilot above the field that one of the big cells was turning our way and we should be putting everything into the hangar ASAP.

As we got out of the glider and hooked it up to the tow cart, the rain intensified, and by the time we got to the hangar, I was completely wet. We put the gliders and tow planes in a hangar in a record time. As soon as the doors were closed (talk about good timing), the skies opened up and emptied right above us. The noise inside the aluminum-roofed hangar was deafening. Outside, there was a wall of water and hail, interrupted by an occasional lightning. Since we had to wait it out inside, and the noise made talking all but impossible, we had nothing to do but take pictures.

After a while, there was a break in the weather and some members made a run for the clubhouse and I made a run for my car, having to wade through ankle-deep puddles to get to the driver door. I got inside, put the heater on and drove home via the nearest coffee place and through the endless waves of showers, interrupted by occasional dry spells and some postcard scenery.

Gliding - the beginnings.

2008-08-10T12:19:00.010-05:00

Last weekend, I finally made it to the glider field that I visited in May for the glider acro ride to start my lessons.

After few flights, I am slowly getting more comfortable with every phase of the flight. I now know I can plan the circuit and land. It may not be the worlds' smoothest landing, but it’ll be safe. My flying once off the tow could be better in terms of speed control and coordination, but I am working on that. I think it’ll come once I get used to sight picture and stop subconsciously pulling on a stick. I had exact same problem when switching between Cessna and Citabria as one flew in a much more nose down fashion than the other.

And after my last 2 flights, I was finally getting comfortable with the takeoff and towing. I’ll need couple more flights to feel fully comfortable, but I felt like I made a big progress compared to my earlier flights.

But flying is only part of the fun. The big difference between the glider operations and flying the airplanes out of a busy airport is the camaraderie and the grassroots nature on the gliding field. Everyone pitches in the get the glides and the tow planes out of the hangar in the morning, get them into positions, hook them up, run the wings, and put them back into hangar at the end of the day. I liked helping to hook up, running the wing and glider retrievals as much as flying. And the best part was, i could get close to the towplanes to take decent enough pictures even with my little travel camera.

Switzerland from the air

2008-07-29T19:58:00.023-05:00

I was in Switzerland recently where I spent a few days on a advanced diving course and then de-toured into Germany to see my parents.

The return trip from Zurich was in the morning and I was at the airport very early, so I decided to check out their observation deck that I read about on airport's website. I thought it would be some high structure away from all action. 2 Swiss Franks got me admission and having gone through security check, I was soon walking towards the deck. And walking… and walking some more, seeing some funny contraptions along the way.

After about a mile (on the top of one of the levels, so on a roof essentially), I came to the deck – which was almost right next to one of the runways. With the mountains in the background! I really missed my semi-professional camera and long lenses, but alas, with 3 overweight bags full of scuba gear, all I could pack was my little travel camera, Canon G9. The runway adjacent to the deck was used for landings and it was neat to see different names on the airplanes, compared to the familiar North American ones. They also had the radio transmitting the talk from the tower, so for a while I was back in aviation photography nirvana listening to conversations and shooting airplanes. Too soon it was time to leave least I’d be shooting my own airplane departing without me.

The weather was nice with little puffy clouds and as we climbed and turned, i could see the airport from my window.

We then flew over Zurich and Lake Zurich and headed towards the mountains. Soon afterwards, the sun was too bright to shoot anything.

Coming near Toronto, i was puzzled to see a dusty red layer immediately below the clouds. As soon as we went into that layer on descent, i realized, it must have been smog as the visibility below clouds was terrible. But it did not matter - i was home. This time for longer than a few days.

Frankfurt - Toronto from the air

2008-07-29T19:26:00.018-05:00

Life never turns out the way you planned it, but I guess making the best of what’s thrown at you is part of the fun. I had all kinds of plans to start my glider training and finish my night rating, but life and family matters interfered causing me to be away more than home for the past three months.

"Away" meant Europe where i have travelled twice recently. This meant flying big airplanes, including 777 (as a passenger of course). On a recent trip back from Frankfurt (to see my Dad who is in cancer treatment in Germany), an approach pass went right over downtown Toronto and of course I had my camera ready.

Leaving Frankfurt:

Somewhere over Germany in rainy weather:

Breaking through clouds on descent to TO:

Flying over Yonge Street with downtown in background and another plane headed for parallell Rwy:

Downsview Airport:

Aerobatics Squared. Part 2, The Noise Returns

2008-05-19T22:01:00.017-05:00

At some during my glider aerobatics adventure, my instructor mentioned that he and another 2 people own the Decathlon. “That Decathlon”- he said, pointing towards the yellow and blue plane that I initially thought to be another Citabria. Having almost jumped out of my skin at the thought of seeing my dream plane face to face, I asked if I could go look at it later. Instead, he extended me an offer to fly in it.

Just then I felt like I was at the gates of flying heavens: I got a chance to fly a glider, do acro in a glider and i was about to fly my dream airplane and may be even do some acro in it. My stomach tried to insert a meek “but you just did 20 mins and may not have it in you” in the endless stream of happy thoughts, but I told it to stuff it, we were going to fly that airplane even if it was straight and level.

It was not of course. Moving the glider back to starting position, finding parachutes (the ones we used in the glider stayed with the glider), visiting facilities, fuelling the plane, pre-flighting the plane all took time and my stomach settled enough that I knew I could do at least one acro figure and I wanted it to be the one that I have not flown before, but desperately wanted to experience with a qualified instructor on board.

Inverted spin.

It was incredible and not scary at all. To me, the rotations looked different than an upright spin, but that was probably because I knew we were inverted starting it. Had I not known, I’d probably not be able to differentiate inverted from upright. I would have loved to try one more, but I was concerned that it would leave little stomach tolerance for anything else, so we did other things instead.

I managed to fly a decent enough loop to hit my own wake, several somewhat ugly hammerheads (i never got truly vertical and forgot about aileron inputs in a turn) and some rolls. I mentioned to the instructor that I could never fly Citabria inverted for long enough due to extremely high stick force required to keep the nose up and next thing I know I was flying inverted in the Decathlon.

The Biggest difference between the Decathlon and Citabria is symmetrical airfoil in a Decathlon, making inverted flight MUCH EASIER. Keeping the nose above horizon was so easy that I decided to try turning (I never got to turning in a Citabria as I just was not able to keep the nose up long enough). Turning was funny as the plane turned opposite direction from upright for a given aileron input, but the rudder inputs were still the same as in upright, so while my brain knew all that, making it work inverted took some doing. Eventually, I rolled upright. Few moments later my stomach interrupted the flying Nirvana and asked to be delivered to the ground, pronto. We complied.

I got a little confused in the circuit with the power settings (it had a variable pitch prop that I never flown before), and had to slip almost all the way to landing, but managed an almost nice 3-pointer.Almost, because I pulled the stick back too fast and ballooned a bit. Saved by instructor, as usual.

And that was the end of the flying for that day, but I stayed on the field for couple more hours taking few pictures of the other people flying the Decathlon (used above); some unusual gliders and a lot of pictures of the tow planes. I was a perfect way to unwind after my double aerobatics.

Tow plane (Pawnee) coming to land:

Pawnee landing:

Glider tow:

Unusual (powered) glider:

I am definitely coming back there. Soon.

Aerobatics Squared. Part 1, The Silent Flight

2008-05-19T21:46:00.012-05:00

I have been looking into glider flying since before I got the power license. There was something very appealing about the silent flight and the terror that must ensue on every landing (at least from the power pilot’s view). Another attraction for me were the tow planes – as far as I know, they were all tail draggers. In theory, this meant that, by joining a gliding club, I could do both power and silent flying. And it gets better than that as I discovered during the weekend in early May.

Few days prior to the weekend, while looking for something else, I Googled “glider aerobatics”. One of the sites on the very first page led me to a gliding club right here in Ontario, about 90 mins drive from where I live. I inquired about an introductory acro flight and they responded right away that they could do it on a Saturday that was coming.

I woke up on Saturday tingling with anticipation and made my way to the field by 9am. It was still early and only a few people were there. I met the Chief Instructor, who would be my dual instructor and the guide for the morning, as well as the rest of the acro instruction team.

The club had a “vertical mile” ride which was endless acro, but all performed by the pilot. Given my tiny bit of acro experience and my 150+ power hours, the instructor suggested that he’d modify the program so that I could do a lot more flying. I screamed YES! before he even had a chance to finish the sentence.

Getting to a glider sitting in a grass, I noticed the parachutes on the seats. They had up to date re-pack notes in them and detailed egress briefing that followed gave me “warm and fuzzy” feeling that those guys and gals really took their safety seriously. I liked that.

I brought my camera to the field, but obviously could not take it with me. Luckily, one of the instructors agreed to take some pictures for me. I did not realize it, but he kept shooting after we took off, so I have neat pictures of the tow pilot AND my first ever glider landing!

Settling in a glider, few things struck me as very different from power planes – the seating position had quite a bit of a recline to it, so it felt like I was in a very comfy (albeit slim) reclining chair; and endless visibility through the bubble canopy. The other differences had to do with the absence of the noisy engine and all the things that go with it like headphones and fuel and engine gauges.

The instructor explained that he’d do the first bit of the tow until we hit a 2,000 ft and then he’ll let me try. Until then, I have no clue that the tow part was difficult – after all, how hard could it be to fly the glider that is attached to the plane by rope? I found it out, as soon as he gave me the controls, that it was a quite a handful, but with a little bit of guidance (and two “I have control” rescues) I was able to fly it the rest of the tow uneventfully. Key there was not overreacting and not overcorrecting.

As we reached 5,000 ft, I released the tow rope and the fun started. We discussed what we’d fly and agreed that we should fly the basic acro figures that I was familiar with, such as loop, rolls, Hammerheads. The procedure was for instructor to fly the figure first with me following up on the controls and then for me to try.

We did our first loop with the instructor doing the flying and me following him on the controls, while desperately trying to remember what key positions were there, where I was supposed to look at what time and thinking why on earth did I not at least review my acro notes from last summer?

And then the loop was over and it was my turn to fly one. I tried and immediately discovered that pitch control on a glider was WAY MORE SENSITIVE than the one on a Citabria. Instead of pulling with all my might, it just took a little pull to whip skywards. Likewise, relaxing the stick coming to the top was supposed to be a slight movement which mine was not, so we had a bit of negative G on the top. Surprisingly, even though I could not think of the sequence, my body remembered what to pull and where to look, so the next few loops were a bit cleaner (but I think I was still pulling a bit more abruptly that necessary). Funny, I had the opposite problem in a Citabria – I was not aggressive enough with the stick.

Then we did a few rolls, which were fun (although I completely forgot all the rudder works aside from initial input) and instructor demonstrated hammerhead, which I was not allowed to fly myself as it requires a kick at precise speed to avoid the tailslide. As we were flying into it, he mentioned to watch for the silence as the glider turned – I was not sure how much more silent could it get, but compared to the dead silence that ensued in a vertical turn, the wind noise as glider flied through the air seemed thunderous.

After about 20 mins, my stomach politely enquired about how much longer the torture would continue. I hoped I’d last a bit longer, but decided not to push it and informed the instructor that we were done with the upside-down part. We were still quite high, so I got a chance to fly for a while, doing turns, stalls and even gaining some altitude in a thermal! Unfortunately gaining altitude involved a continuous turn and my stomach did not like that either, so away from thermal and towards the Rwy we went.

Circuit and landing were much easier compared to the towing part. Main idea there was arriving at the key points at certain altitude and flying a stabilized approach from there using speed brakes to shorten or extend the glide path as necessary. I did not think I’d have any difficulties with the landing phase after a few flights, but take offs will take a while to feel in control.

And that was not the end of the fun that day, but more on that in the next post.

Tower Visit

2008-04-19T21:35:00.002-05:00

It was a rare quiet night at Buttonville airport. Only two planes doing the circuits, but the two pilots kept thing interesting with one making a position report with a different call sign (me) and the other overshooting the landings (we later found out she was practicing night overshoots). As I tried to remember how to land the Cessna (“are you going to put in flaps?” “Oops, forgot about those”), my instructor chatted with the controller. One thing after another led to the invite to visit the tower to the crews of both planes. We accepted the invite, finished circuits, tied down the planes, piled into my instructor’s car and soon were driving the labyrinth of back roads that apparently let to the tower as we were soon walking up the stairs.

I never got a chance to visit the old tower that was in the same building as the flight school, so had nothing to compare it to, but the new state-of-the-art modular tower was impressive. State of the art, because it is very recent. Modular, because it can be disassembled and shipped elsewhere in case Buttonville ever closes up. It sits in a better position compared to the old tower as controllers have unobstructed views of both runways and most of the taxiways and apron.
The tower had several floors. Second floor housed what could be defined as a typical apartment. It had a rest room (with a couch for sleeping), a rec room with some machines, washroom and shower, computer station and a complete kitchen. The purpose of all that was to make sure controllers could relax when they had an ‘off’ time during their shift. I did not write down the details, so won’t quote exact numbers but in a typical shift, the controllers would have several on and off periods and, having the facilities on site, meant they do not have to leave the facility. Sometimes the controllers get to work a shift that ends late at night and the next shift starts early in the morning, so they can just stay and sleep right there.

But the main attraction of the tower was of course the command post. It occupied the top floor, had a circular layout and wraparound windows so that controllers could see everyone over and around the field.

One controller was at work monitoring both ground and tower frequencies while the other showed us around. The lighting in the tower was at minimum intensity to make sure that occupants preserved their night vision. All the instruments (and there were quite a few) were dimmed as well.

The off-duty controller showed us the radar data on the computer and how it worked. Using radar computer at the other end of the room (away from working controller), we were shown how to turn on the different layers (altitude slices) and how much traffic that adds. I was very impressed with how much information could be on a radar. Given YKZ’s proximity to YYZ (Toronto Pearson), radar showed a lot of Air Canada traffic, their call signs, altitudes and destinations. We later turned all extra layers off and saw the visual take off of a small plane from our field and then his appearance on a radar.

We then went away from the high tech and looked at the brilliant low tech solution designed to track all the airplanes in the circuit and coming in. That solution involved rectangular metal plates were sliding up and down inside the box with the name of the plane written on then in erasable markers. Once the plane first contacts the ground, it gets its own rectangle that gets into one of two boxes depending on whether or not plane was intending to do circuits or go away from the zone. More over, all the airplanes in the circuits would be stacked inside the box in the order in which they are cleared to land. Very neat!

Afterwards, we spent what seemed like a few minutes chatting about controllers' pet peeves (misreporting a reporting point, stepping in the middle of others’ conversations, ignoring busy frequency and talking too much were among the “favorites”) and listening to stories.

Time flew by and soon I discovered we’ve been in the tower for over an hour and it was time to go home, which I did, reluctantly. It was a very worthwhile visit for me. I now understand much better “how it works” and hopefully won’t be annoying controllers too much in the future.

Ice Capades

2008-04-14T15:37:00.016-05:00

(Simcoe ice shots at the end of the post)

“Flight line, this is OYR”…I released the button and waited for answer. It did not come. I thought may be my handheld radio was not working and powered up the plane radios. “Flight line, this is OYR” yet again was met with nothing but silence. My buddy and I looked at each other in complete disbelief, frustration written all over our faces.

It was a few months of not flying or flying at night, and a few months of not flying, period, for my pilot friend. The weather was supposed to be miserable for 5 days straight, but as my booking time came up, the skies miraculously parted, winds died and plane was available and had nothing broken in it. There was just one little problem. There was an icy rain the night before and the airplane was covered in ice blobs of various size and we could not raise maintenance over the radio to ask for the de-ice. With ice covering the critical surfaces such as wings and tail, we could not fly.

The sun was starting to shine and melted some, but not enough for me to deem it flyable. We thought of turning the plane so that sun would reach all the surfaces, but thought better of it as winds were starting to pick up and natural melting would take time that we did not have.

Running out of ideas and time, I remembered something: “Do you have an old credit card?”. My buddy looked at me funny, until I mentioned that I read about people cleaning the ice of the planes with the credit cards. Naturally, in that story, the protagonist was stuck in the middle of nowhere in Africa, while we were standing on the apron of one of the biggest flight schools in Canada with sizeable maintenance department, but at that moment we could as well have been in Africa, as if that plane did not get clean in the next 30 mins, we were not flying anywhere.

Desperation and desire to be in the air made for an incredible teamwork and, with a little help of the sun, loosening some of the ice, we scraped the plane clean in 15 mins and soon were strapping in for a local flight.

I was happy to have my pilot buddy along as I really enjoyed our night flight a few months ago. Plus I wanted to take some shots of the ice status of the usual diving spots, so having a second pilot in the cockpit would allow me to concentrate on a camera instead of trying to fly and shoot at the same time.

We had a bit of the wind up our nose and our progress towards the Lake Simcoe was slow, but I knew we’d pick up the time coming back, so was not worried. We chatted about training and renting successes and frustrations and daydreamed about plane ownership – the usual thing pilots do.

Soon, we arrived at the Lake and I passed controls to my buddy, and pulled my camera. For a next little while we flew towards the diving spots and then my buddy was executing various turns as I tried to get a good angle. The lake was still completely iced over, but the ice was very thin in a lot of places and I predicted it would start cracking and disappearing within a week.

Eventually, the time was up, I took the controls back, flew us back home and even managed a fairy decent landing. A happy end. And the pictured turned out OK too.

Cooks Bay and our left wing

Kemperfield Bay - still very frozen, but very thin ice.

Go Trains at Barrie terminal. I take the Barrie Go trains to work, so was neat to see where they parked them over the weekend (the service is Monday to Friday).

Centennial Beach

Big Bay Point Dock, 2 angles

The point

Current Again

2008-04-04T14:41:00.002-05:00

Realizing that the longer days were coming fast and I better re-start my night rating soon, I booked a flight with the same instructor that started my night rating and got me hooked on it by flying over downtown Toronto.

The Wx was crappy in the days coming to my booking, but cleared few hours before we were to take off. The plane was available and even had all the lights working and I surprised myself by remembering all the radio procedures, so we were off to a good start. As we took off and climbed, I only had a brief chance to admire the brightly lit outline of the downtown Toronto as my instructor took control and handed me the hood as I still needed over an hour of simulated instrument time.

For the next hour we flew to and from the Simcoe VOR as I was trying to keep the plane straight and level while chasing the needle on the instrument. It mostly worked. During that hour, I had flown a few 280 to full 360 degree turns and noticed the leans a few times when, as I returned the airplane into straight and level, it felt like I was initiating the turn instead. First time caught me by surprise and I started to correct a perceived turn that my brain was telling me I was in, only to look at perfectly straight airplane on the panel. Next time I watched for the effect and, fully knowing I was straight and level, was still surprised that my body was telling me I was turning. Here’s the FAA document with pictures that explains the effect known as a subset of Spatial Disorientation.

http://www.faa.gov/pilots/safety/pilotsafetybrochures/media/SpatialD.pdf

Eventually, it was time to go back to the airport and I got to enjoy the view a bit as hood came off as soon as we got into the zone. As we got closer, we listened to the tower radio and determined that it was a relatively quiet night with only one other airplane in the circuit and one controller working both tower and ground frequencies.

My radio calls up to that point were all without a hitch, so no one was more surprised than myself when I keyed my mike to report OYR (the plane we were in) passing a reporting point and called ourselves VLD instead. There was a pause on the other end of the radio and then controller cleared us into the right downwind “assuming we were an OYR”. He then proceeded to tell the other plane to taxi Echo instead of Bravo, at which point everyone had a good laugh and the crews of the two planes were invited to visit the tower when we were done our circuits.

More on that in the next post.

Grand Canyon from the Air, The Sunset Part

2008-03-10T22:01:00.036-05:00

Coming on to the edge of the Canyon, I was very happy to be in a helicopter as we were very close to the ground. Much closer than that the airplane would be. Soon, we came over the northern ridge and saw the canyon and the river in their full grandeur. Sun was stating to set and the colors were very warm although the contrast between shadow and light was still quite dramatic.

Following the river, we descended into the canyon and landed on a plateau about 2/3 of the way up. It was a snack stop and while everyone else was snacking and drinking champagne, we were running around with the cameras trying to get as many pictures as possible.

Time flew by and soon we were piling back into the helicopter for a return flight back with a tour of a night Vegas. The pilot suggested that the couple that was sitting up front swap places with the two skinniest people from the back seat (that included me and another lady). The couple upfront gracefully accepted and soon I was strapping into the prime real estate in the heli – right front seat (the heli seats 3 upfront, pilot on the left and then 2 pax).

The flight back was even better as the canyon was basking in the low reddish light of the setting sun and the colors of the desert repeating all hues on the color wheel.

Sun was setting quickly and soon we were approaching the night-time Vegas.

This blog got its start after my first night flight over downtown Toronto that just blew me away. In a way, flying over night-time Las Vegas, I came full circle. That expedience was unreal. Exciting, exhilarating, with a complete visual sensory overload! Trying to hold the camera steady in the shaking helicopter was challenging, but I managed to get a few shots. They of course pale in comparison with how it felt being there, but at least give a hint of what a magic experience that was. And of course the only thought I had as we hovered to a landing spot was “ I got to finish that night rating!!!!”.

Grand Canyon from the Air

2008-03-06T16:24:00.031-05:00

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when someone mentions Las Vegas? Well, gaming of course. The whole place is purposely built in such way that casinos are unavoidable. Unfortunately, they still allow smoking in the casinos which makes them off limits for me. Looking at what else was there to do in Vegas, I discovered so many options that we would have to stop sleeping for the duration of our four day trip to do them all. Shows, restaurants, shopping, spas, golf and all the day trips to Hoover Dam and Lake Mead.

I was browsing the site offering various day tours when I saw something that made me sit up and pay attention: there were words “Grand Canyon” and “by air” in one sentence. Blame it on my Russian-taught American geography, but somehow, I did not realize that Grand Canyon was within easy reach from Vegas by airplane or helicopter. Having finished jumping up and down screaming: “we are going to see the Grand Canyon” to the great surprise of my office colleagues, I set upon deciding on how exactly to accomplish that goal.

Flying by myself was out of question. I never flew in the mountains or high density altitudes and was very out of currency to even attempt a checkout. I then considered taking an airplane tour until I realized that, well, it was a CANYON, meaning that commercial tours would have to stay high above it and probably would be too fast. I then looked under ‘helicopters’ and the “sunset tour with a landing inside the Canyon” captured my imagination right then and there and I booked it in the spot.

As the day of tour drew closer, I got a bit antsy remembering my past helicopter experiences in Russia. I used to work for a small charter company and flew on my fair share of old and incredibly noisy helicopters, so I was not sure what to expect. As we got out of the limo that picked us up at the hotel and walked into the helicopter company office, I was instantly put at ease by the atmosphere which reminded me of my flight school, except instead of student flights, there were tourist flights and instead of Cessnas and Pipers there were nice looking helicopters.

Depending on the configuration, the sitting capacity in the helicopters varied from 4 to 6 pax. We were in the larger one. As photographers, we were hoping to get a front seat, but unfortunately, due to Weight and Balance concerns, the combined weight of me, my boyfriend and our camera bag delegated us to a backseat. Luckily, side windows were rather large as well.

As we hovered off and started moving in the direction of the Grand Canyon, I congratulated myself on a right choice. Helicopter moved slower than the airplane and we were flying very close to the ground, much closer than any airplane would allowing for some neat pictures of Vegas suburbs, golf courses and Lake Mead. The views were incredible and they were only going to get better!

Last time I visited Vegas, 8 years ago, I visited the Hoover Dam by bus. This time, we had a chance to see it from air and what a sight that was! It was massive even from the air. What was also very obvious form the air were very low water levels in the Lake.

Leaving Hoover Dam, we headed towards the Grand Canyon. I was looking at the multicolored mountain ridges, blue water of the Lake Mead and the desert that was in between when suddenly I saw something that made me sit up straight bumping my headset off. Grabbing a headset and aiming the camera at what appeared to be a mountain dirt strip, I managed to snap the shot that showed about half of it.

I later asked the pilot was it was and he said it was Pearce Ferry airstrip (L25). It was a back up CAA landing strip in the in the 1930’s but was deserted later. There is no operator on that field, but the one of the Runways is still open. I found a better picture of it here:

http://www.airphotona.com/image.asp?imageid=3752&catnum=0&catname=All%20Categories&keyword=&country=&state=&pagenum=148

As we flew towards the Canyon, the amount of helicopter traffic around us was astounding, even for someone like me, used to busy training airspaces back home. There were at least 7 or so helicopters in our group and there were a few all around us. I figured there must be special rules for flying in that area as well as transit corridors like we have around Niagara Falls and true enough, there were – found this presentation when I get back home. http://grandcanyonairspace.iat.gov/generalportion.swf Very interesting read even for those who never going to fly there by themselves.

Grand Canyon and more in the next post…

Las Vegas and the Airplanes

2008-03-06T16:18:00.017-05:00

The waiting lounge of Las Vegas McCarran International Airport faces the hotels on the strip with one of the runways in between the lounge and the hotels. We were getting out of our airplane, having just landed at Vegas, when i noticed that the in between Rwy was in use and provided some unreal shooting opportunities.

So, instead of getting our of the airport and getting to our hotel, we instead spent the next hour glued to the windows with cameras in our hands. Mandalay Bay and Luxor pyramid hotels provided a shooting background that has to be one of the best in the world.

Life after Citabria

2008-03-06T15:45:00.004-05:00

The title says it all. By late September, it was confirmed that my favorite taildragger in the world was damaged and, combined with the engine coming to its TBO limit, she was not economical to repair, so my aerobatic activities ground to a halt. As did my personal flying. But I did fly a lot on commercial airliners between then and now, visiting Heathrow, Cancun, Las Vegas and Calgary.

In early October I flew to UK to spend 5 days in the freezing quarry to get trained on a new diving equipment. In flying terms, it was like making transition from twin engine propeller plane to a modern jet. Following that training, i needed to spent a lot of time in the water practicing, which i did through out October and November and then flew to Mexico for a week of fun diving.

I did a half-hearted attempt to resume my night rating in December-January and even got it to a point when i only need a dual night x-country and 1.5 hrs more solo night time to finish, but then my instructor left, Wx quirks stripped me of both day and night currencies and I moved in to a new house on Feb 1 (anyone who moved would know that a few weeks after can be chaotic) and then went on a back to back trips to, respectively, Las Vegas (for fun) and Calgary (business).

So my life after Citabria was exciting, colorful and crazy busy, but a big part of it was missing -personal flying. My recent helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon (post coming soon), made me realize how much i missed flying, even if it has to be straight and level for a time being until i find another taildragger to rent or recover from the house purchase and buy my own. I even know which one I want.

Highs and lows.

2007-09-23T20:57:00.001-05:00

It was one of those rare early fall days that are so perfect, they seem unreal. The sky was bright blue and visibility unlimited. The leaves that just started to change colors hardly moved in a light breeze. The air was light and crisp and the temperature just right, not too hot, not too cold.

I drove to the airport anticipating my flight. With storms, low ceilings, high winds and everything in between, it had been a while and I was due for a nice flight. I was going through all figures in my mind imagining flying through that crisp blue air and looking at the sea of colors underneath.

The plane is tied in a grass, so I normally check gas and oil (she needed both) and then taxi to the pumps and do my walk around there. Trying to screw the fuel cap on the right wing, I realized that it felt differently – it seemed to have sunk into the wing and the fabric edge was sitting higher than usual, mixing up with the thread. At that point, I knew that something was not quite right, so I decided to do the walk around right there.

The rest of walk around went fine until I got to the tail assembly and discovered a long gash in a fabric on the vertical fin with the part of the structural frame sticking out. Staring at the tear that was close to 10 inches long I knew that I was not flying that day and probably that week and possibly that month and I still could not believe it. It was a perfect day and everyone was flying. Everyone, except me. I was talking to my instructor and snagging the plane. I hope what ever it was is easily fixable and my little Citabria comes back soon.

And going from low to high, couple of days ago, I did a night flight in a Piper Warrior piloted by a friend of mine whom I met in the ground school for my PPL. My first ever time in the low wing plane (well, aside from commercial airliners) and my buddy’s first non-family passenger. We started and received our PPL tickets within weeks of each other, but I dropped the night training in April while he persisted and finished.

Even though my buddy did all communications, I surprised myself by remembering all the frequencies at Buttonville and most of the communication procedures. My friend did the take off and landings (and did a great job at both) and I got to fly the airplane straight and level. It felt very heavy and stable, quite a difference from the Citabria.

The skies were clear and we could see the stars and Toronto Pearson planes in a distance. We decided to fly north instead of downtown tour and ended up flying circles over Newmarket where I spend my weekends and my buddy lives full time. Time flew by. I enjoyed that flight so much that I decided to re-start my night licence training next week. And now, with Citabria off-line, I it might be the only flying I’d do for the next couple weeks.

Surrounded by the Clouds

2007-08-25T15:33:00.001-05:00

The night before my scheduled Saturday morning flight, we had a massive front pass through the area with lots of thunder and lightning and very heavy rain, so I was not very optimistic about my flying prospects.

I did not get to fly the previous week and I knew I would be away for the next two weekends, so I needed at least a few circuits to make sure my skills did not deteriorate. Actually, I needed circuit practice regardless as I spent too much time enjoying acro flying and not enough time doing circuits.

Ready to leave for my 5 min drive to the airport, I checked the METARS for airports north and south of my field and all of the airports reported very low ceilings, embedded TCUs and rain, some heavy. It was also started to rain a bit outside my house.

My hopes very low, I decided to drive to the field anyways, thinking that I’d take a look. Arriving at the field, I saw that one of my school’s Cessna’s was in the air and raised them on my handheld radio to ask about the ceilings. They reported that right over the field it was over 3,000 ft but looked low all the way around it. That was all the info I needed – I decided to go up and just do circuits for 0.5 hr.

As it happened, I also had my own personal photographer with me, who took lots of pictures of me prepping the plane and practicing.

The plane is tied up in a grass field during the summer, so I normally check fuel and oil and, in case more fuel is needed, I them start it up, do a quick mag check and then taxi to the fuel pump. We had some magneto troubles lately, so I usually also do a quick mag check while on the grass so that if it drops too much, then I do not even need to move the plane.

This time, the check went fine and soon we were off to get some fuels. I did my walk-around as plane was being re-fuelled. Conscious of the heavy rain the night before, I made sure I checked all the fuel drains for water. Everything was fine and soon I was in the run up area.

As I did my run up, the Cessna in the circuit announced final, so I waited for them to land and take off and then backtracked. Wind was 5-10 kts, almost down the Rwy. The Cessna I was sharing the circuits with flew much larger circuits that I normally do, so I had to play with some power/ pitch settings that would get me on a nice stable approach at the speed that I wanted. My first approach ended up a bit low and I had to drag it in with power, but I figured it out and second approach was much more stable. At that point the Cessna was done for the day and I had the circuit to myself.

Turning from x-wind into downwind and not having to keep my eyes on a Cessna in front of me, I finally had a chance to look around and was surprised to see that I seemed to be flying in the middle in inverted hole. All around my airstrip were low hanging clouds, but they seemed to have parted right over my field leaving my circuit completely open with very decent ceilings. It was amazing.

I worked on my landings trying to make sure I do a nice 3-pointers with no bounces and also tried to stay right in the middle of Rwy. This mostly worked. The Rwy 26 that I was using is upsloping with a couple of bumps in the end that seemed to have gotten bigger over time. I would typically land and roll early enough to be airborne before the bumps, although one time, I was not airborne, but was above the flying speed, so that when I bounced off the bump, I just stayed in the air. I believe we also got that on camera.

I had the circuit for myself for a couple more approaches and then a helicopter announced his downwind as I was in the crosswind. My field is owned by a helicopter company, so we have more helicopters than planes. I quickly scanned the sky, located the heli and told him that I was behind him x-wind turning downwind. He flew a fast circuit and I did not have to extend mine at all.

On my last circuit, I got rained on while in the downwind and figured it was time to do a full stop. I got off the Rwy, taxied through the grass and tied Citabria down for the day as no one else booked it after me.

Summer Acro

2007-08-12T11:30:00.000-05:00

Summer, especially the dry and hot one, is the prime season for my other passions, such as scuba diving and riding my bike. Some scuba trips take me away from home for the whole weekend, so scheduling flying had become challenging and 2 weeks intervals not uncommon.

Realizing that maintaining my currency and, more importantly, proficiency on 2 different types would be near impossible, I made a decision earlier this summer to lose my currency on a Cessna until fall as it would appear that remembering how to fly in controlled airspace with two working radios, gyros, etc. is much easier that remembering how to land Citabria. So, this had been a summer of Citabria. And what a summer it had been!

I was staying close to home this weekend and the Wx forecast was perfect for Saturday, zero wind, severe clear and unlimited viz. Still a bit too hot, but manageable. I scheduled a long overdue dual acro flight to go over some figures with my instructor and learn some new ones.

It was really nice to fly acro with the defined horizon instead of hazy transition between the earth and the sky that persisted all summer long. I warmed up with a couple of hummerheads, managing the near perfect one on a 2nd try. Then a loop and we were ready to try some slow rolls.

I have been practicing them for a few sessions, but they were falling apart on me. Soon, it was obvious why - i was trying to fly them too fast, too abrupt and some controls inputs were too little, too late. My instructor done one, i followed him on a controls and then few a few semi-decent ones myself with the mental notes on what and how to practice later.

Then we tried a few half loops and immelmans (still need to work on those) and finished by working on reverse Cuban 8's, which proved an almost impossible figure to fly for me. Finally, on try #6 i almost got it. By that time, were were in the air for over an hour and my stomach went into unsettled mode w/o any warning. I seriously thought i was going to lose it this time, but as we got closer to the field and i got preoccupied with spotting the sock, etc., it then settled.

As we flew over the field, we looked at where the sock was supposed to be and could not see it. Took us a few seconds to realize that the reason we could not see it was that it was completely limp, hanging straight down in the still air. That gave us a choice of either Runway and naturally, we wanted the upsloping usual one, so i had to loose a lot of height as we joined the downwind and descended to circuit height at the same time. I was a bit high on final and had to slip a bit, but stabilized over the threshold and had a beautiful landing.

That was yesterday. Today, i was going to practice some of the same elements solo. As i came to the field, i noticed my friends that were flew to Tobermory yesterday and were not supposed to be back until later today were already back, with the plane tied down. Taking to the guys on the field, there was a moving storm line North of us, but the effects were already spilling into our local area with ceilings dropping down and wind picking up. The rain and thunder were not supposed to arrive for a few hours, and the wind was straight down the Rwy so i thought i'd go up for a very short flight.

It was a very short flight indeed. 0.6 hrs. Ceilings were low and getting lower, so i was limited to 3,000 to 4,300 ft space, which really was 3,500 to 4,300 as i do not start anything below 3,500 and do not do any loops or HH at that height. Horizon was not there anymore replaced by obscure transition between cloudy skies and hazy land. I fount a bit of a hole in the clouds that allowed me to climb a bit higher and do some loops. half loops and immelmans and then spent the rest of the flight working on slow rolls at around 4,000 ft. As i worked, the wind afloat was getting stronger and cloud bases darker and finally i decided that it just was not worth it and made a beeline for the field. Wind was strong and gusting, but still relatively down the Rwy, so i had another nice landing.

Window views

2007-07-18T09:56:00.000-05:00

I recently bought a coffee table book that had photographs of views from the airplane windows. It was very nice to realize that i am not the only crazy person glued to the window while clicking my shutter. I had some luck on this recent trip with few pictured of Cyprus mountains as well as bird's eye view of downtown London.

London on approach path

Downtown London, Thames, London eye, Tower Bridge

Some mountain lake on a way from Lanaca to Heathrow and leaving the mainland towards UK

Cyprus from air. Throdos mountains. Note the grey cloud of smoke from most recent wildfires.

LHR airplanes

2007-07-18T09:50:00.000-05:00

Had a few hours to kill at LHR waiting for connection. Amasing how time flies when you have a camera to play with! I love the rainy landings as the moisture on the wings can add some surreal effects.

On a way back, we sat on the tarmac for a while waiting for a T-storm to pass over. I turned back and snapped a long wet line up behind us and the plane right after us for take off.

Airplanes at YYZ

2007-07-18T09:34:00.000-05:00

I took my cameras with me on a recent commercial flight on YYZ-LHR-LCA and back route. My first ever time flying on a one of AirCanada's newest Boeing 777's. That airplane is absolutely huge. Note two entrance sleeves - closest one is for business class pax.

While waiting to board the airplane, i occupied myself with shooting the landings of various airplanes.

My window seat at the back of the airplane was in Row 52 and there were still a number of rows behind me. I occupied myselt with the views our of the window for a while - although i must note that i liked the view of downtown Toronto from a small Cessna so much better. I have to re-start my night rating one of these days.

Tolerance

2007-07-16T18:33:00.000-05:00

I have read a lot about building tolerance to G's while doing acro, but did not think it would apply at my (very beginner) level. Turns out i was wrong.

Recently, I had an acro session after a 3 weeks break from my previous acro flight. During this break i flew a lot on commercial airliners, but that's a subject of a next post.

I was very eager to fly after such a long break and planned to basically repeat the program i did 3 weeks before. Hammerheads (still the easiest one for me to do), loops, aileron rolls, inverted flight and may be try a slow roll or too. Change directions with HH or 1.5 turn spins. I did about an hour of these items last time around and enjoyed it immensely.

I normally fly in the mornings and either bike or scuba dive in the afternoon, so i planned the ride for the afternoon as well.

The Wx was VFR, but with intermittent showers in the area. The cloud bases were very high and the air was surprisingly smooth, so i was all set for a nice acro day. Except i could not.

20 mins into the flight, after a few HH, loops and rolls, my stomach just could not take it anymore and wanted straight and level. I was trying to fly through some light showers, so i took a break and picked my way to the clear weather again. Thinking the stomach should have settled, i tried a few more aileron rolls and then inverted flight again - not a very good idea. It was only 40 mins into the flight, so i thought if i do a bit more straight and level, i can try a few spins. During the first spin, i knew i had to go land fast as my stomach just could not take it anymore and i was getting very tired.

The wind picked up while i was gone and were gusting 15 kts directly across the Rwy, so i had to crab at a 45 degree angle. I figured i will try to land and if i am still blown sideways I'd go around and land on a grass directly into the wind. As i was transitioning from crab into slip and flaring, the wind stopped (it is blocked by the buildings at touchdown point), resulting in me over-correcting and drifting into the wind. I corrected back while adding a bit of power. The resulting landing was not one of my most graceful ones, but me and my stomach were safely on a ground.

I did not do anything else that day as i was feeling completely wiped out. I then remembered that that was a bit similar to how i felt after my first ever spins lesson and realized how much tolerance i must have built without even realizing it and how easy it was to loose it, especially with a bit of remaining jet-lag from a previous week's vacation.

I am back!

2007-06-19T21:42:00.000-05:00

Well, it’s now or never… I dived to 140 mph and then pulled on a stick to start the loop. And then pushed on a stick to stop the loop a few seconds later as tunnel vision made its presence known again. Plane hovered in zero G for a second, then started flying again. As the plane flew straight and level, I contemplated what to do next.

It was a few weeks after my blackout episode. I had a very successful dual session a week prior, doing loops, rolls, hammerheads and immelmans. Consequently, I knew there was nothing physically wrong with me. Whatever it was this time was entirely in my head. The blackout episode scared me quite a bit and that fear was preventing me from doing easy things I have done dozen of times before.

As I flew around I thought that the fear seemd to be associated with the upside down part of the loop since that was where the blackout happened. I then decided to try a hammerhead. I am sure that was probably the clumsiest hammerhead I have ever done, but it worked. Encouraged, I tried again, and then again and again – they all worked and I had no fear or tunnel vision.

Few hammerheads later, it was time for a loop again, except this time it went perfectly fine. I screamed “I am back” in relief as I was pulling out of the loop as I knew that I just overcame a huge barrier in my head. The relief and joy I was experiencing was immeasurable. The session got better and better afterwards.

I flew along the east-west roads, using hammerheads and 1.5 turn spins to change directions. I practiced more loops, rolls, some combinations of the above and inverted flight until my stomach nearly gave up and ordered straight and level flight with an open window. I was at about 3,500 ft and close to home field, so decided to call it a day and headed for the barn, i.e. airport.

Hobbs meter registered 1.0 hrs of flying time. One of the most meaningful hours of my short flying career. And i am already looking forward to the next session - will be practicing cuban 8's.

Hazy Flying

2007-06-06T17:02:00.001-05:00

Having enjoyed my previous x-country flight in a Citabria so much, I decided to try a longer flight to a place with a restaurant for breakfast. My passenger was all for it, the plane was available all day, so I had the luxury of time.

We had some other plans for later in the day, so I decided to fly Collingwood airport that was 40 miles away from my home base, had a good restaurant and, most importantly, was located next to a big lake that would be a hard thing to miss in case I got completely lost.

All planning done the night before, I woke up on Sat morning to find the sun obscured by the same haze that was hanging over all southern Ontario for the previous week. Driving to the airport, and looking at the buildings on the sides of the highway, it appeared that haze was even worse that I expected, especially looking into the sun. Arriving on the field, I called Flight Services and discovered that the viz was 3-4 miles in haze, just above legal VFR, and, to top it off, they were expecting thunderstorms later than day. Strangely enough, it did not look bad on a ground.

I decided that the combination of barely VFR visibility and no navigational instruments in a Citabria was not suitable for a x-country flight to a place I have never been to, even if it was next to the big lake. Instead, we decided to bring coffee and sandwiches with us and fly to Greenbank again or, failing that, Simcoe Regional and have a picnic there. Both were a short hop away from home base.

I discussed my plans and itineraries with my instructor and told him that I will make a decision once I take off and see how bad visibility was looking east (the direction of Greenbank).

The wind was absolutely calm and takeoff uneventful. As soon as we turned to face East, I knew I was not flying to Greenbank that morning as trying to see anything through the haze while looking into the sun would have been very-very tiring and potentially not safe. I called my instructor on a radio and informed him that we were heading to Simcoe Regional and turned north to follow the shoreline of Lake Simcoe.

Flying through the haze was an interesting experience. It was surprising to look up and see the bright blue sky while everything around us and below us was dull and grey. It was tempting to climb out of that thick layer of haze, but I could not as I would lose the details on the ground above 2,000-2,500 ft.

Despite the haze, I found the airport with its 5,000 long runway with little problems, did my calls, checked the sock (limp) and soon I was coming in for a landing. By the time we landed and parked the plane near terminal, it was also very-very hot, so I had to sit in the shade under the wing to record my times.

With sun’s thermostat set at “full hot”, picnic on a grass no longer looked that appealing, so we took our sandwiches and coffee into the cool air-conditioned environment of the FBO and spent time talking to people inside and looking at the “planes for sale” section of latest issue of COPA newspaper and generally enjoying ourselves.

On a way back, we detoured a bit to see the another grass strip that we were encouraged to visit that was easy to find as it sits next door to a giant Honda plant, but it looked a bit too rough and sky was getting darker in the west, so we decided to head home where I had my best landing yet in a Citabria – we did not even notice the point at which we stopped flying and started rolling!