blown out

Baseball games get rained out. Cricket games can get rained on, but that just means all the players get to stop for tea. But what happens when the wind leaps up and prohibits you from doing something? Does that mean you were blown out? (Here I go with my bad puns again, sorry.) Tuesday morning I got up at 6:30 (translation: I woke up at 6:30, punched buttons on my wristwatch until the tinny alarm stopped ringing, and rolled over). I was frothing with anticipation for my flight lesson. We were going to fly to another airport. I've never done that before. I've never ventured farther than 10 miles from any airport I've taken off from. This was going to be quite the adventure, with charts, and navaids, and flight computers, and maybe even some airspace clearance if we decided to get really wild. I couldn't wait. Unfortunately, the wind had other ideas. The Santa Ana winds had packed up and shipped out for the year, so naturally I thought we were done with big blows. That was dumb. I looked out the window Tuesday morning and noticed that, paradoxically, a strange thick fog seemed to be coinciding with ferocious gusts of wind out of the southeast. The entire town of Apple Valley was obscured. North of Lucerne Valley, the mountains were hidden by odd, low cloud cover. I began to wonder if I'd be flying today. The fog was dust. Low atmospheric pressure had developed overnight, and a vast wodge of air was busily moving itself into the space the previous vast wodge of air had vacated. This happens on a near-daily basis out in the Mojave Desert, but winds this high were rare. They were clipping along at 35-40 miles an hour, gusting to 60. I remembered Harold (my flight instructor) saying something to me about how he usually didn't fly if the winds were going faster than 30 knots, or nautical miles, per hour. But nevertheless, I assembled my gear, got into the Jeep, and drove down to the airport. I began to suspect that I wouldn't be flying that day when I pulled up to the intersection of Dale Evans Parkway and Corwin Road and was unable to see Bell Mountain for the dust. Bell Mountain sits, like, I don't know, 300 yards away from that intersection. Visibility was a little low. Sure enough, when Harold pulled into the tiny airport parking lot and climbed out of the truck cab clutching his camouflage baseball cap (which, I noticed, had the Wyoming state logo on it, a cowboy on the back of a bucking bronco), my suspicions were confirmed. The first words out of Harold's mouth were "Yeah, I don't think we're flying today." The evidence was on his side. Visibility had only worsened. I could barely see runway 18, barely a hundred yards east—even though, by this time, the sun had risen above the dust clouds and was shining with subdued but definite force. Not to be denied, Harold and I went inside anyway and did some ground school while the wind howled outside. This was good, because I've pretty much forgotten what most of those myriad little lines, dots, symbols, letters, numbers and stuff on aeronautical charts mean. (I had done a little review session the previous night, but I was tired, and a little light-headed from the cigar I'd smoked earlier.) Harold and I pulled out a sectional chart of the area and reviewed for a while. Bit by bit, I got my groove back. I remembered that isogonic lines represent the amount of correction for the curvature of the Earth which you have to subtract from your true magnetic heading, for example. Around here there's about 13 degrees and 30 minutes of correction for any course you fly. We went over the different classes of airspace, too. There are six of them: A, B, C, D, E, and G. I don't have to worry about Class A airspace right now, and neither do most general aviation pilots. It only exists above 18,000 feet, where the big boys like 747s and corporate jets fly. All flying up there is done by instruments (because you're too far above the ground to navigate using landmarks). Class B stands for "busy"—that's the airspace that typically surrounds massive airports like LAX, McCarran, O'Hare, and all of those other nightmarishly congested places. It's shaped like an upside-down wedding cake hovering over the runways, extending 30 miles in all directions. Perhaps the bottom (or in this case, top) layer will have a ceiling of 9000 feet above ground level, and a floor of 8000; the next layer in will have a ceiling of 9000 feet and a floor of 5000; the next layer down will have a ceiling of 9000 and a floor of 2000; and so on. Class B airspace is strict. You need a radio, a working transponder, and clearance to even enter it. Even then, if you're not landing, you'll need to stick to a tight corridor when passing through it. Stray outside of that corridor, and incurring the wrath of the air traffic controllers will be the least of your worries. You might get run over by a jumbo jet. Class C is a bit better. This is also controlled airspace (meaning that everything you do is monitored by air traffic controllers on radar, and you need clearance to taxi, land, and take off), but it's far less anal retentive stringent than Class B. You still need radios and transponders, but needn't clear the runway so fast, nor be on the lookout for massive airliners that might mow you down in mid-air. Traffic isn't nearly as heavy; regional airlines may operate out of Class C airspace, but usually not major carriers. Class C airspace is shaped like an old-fashioned keyhole: it's circular, but there's a rectangle of territory extending beyond the circle (usually in the same direction as the major runway) for instrument approaches. Class D airspace is just like Class C, but minus the radar. There's no radar service. Airports under Class D airspace might have control towers, but then again, they might not. If they do, pilots follow standard procedure, establishing and maintaining two-way radio contact with air traffic control when entering or conducting operations within that airspace. However...control towers might not be open 24/7. If they aren't, then suddenly the airspace isn't Class D anymore. It changes to Class E or Class G, or some combination thereof. Class D airports are good ones to learn to fly at: usually quite calm, out-of-the-way, and not congested or clogged or busy. Cheyenne Regional Airport in Wyoming (where I began learning to fly) sits in its own personal bubble of Class D airspace, extending from the surface up to 2600 feet above ground level. When the radar is in operation, however, a swathe of Class C airspace extends an additional five miles beyond the airport. Class E airspace is pretty much everything in between airports. It's still technically controlled, but you don't need to get clearance from towers or controllers or anything to fly in it. Be that as it may, if you're going to fly anything but visual flight rules (VFR) in Class E, then you need to file a flight plan, be certified to fly on instruments, and get clearance from air traffic control. Class G airspace is (yippee!) uncontrolled. You don't need clearance to fly in it, and you don't have to ask anybody for permission to do whatever you want to do in there. Class G extends from the floor of Class E airspace, usually about 700 feet above ground level (AGL) to the ground. (That can change depending on time of day or night, and the weather.) As long as you're not doing something reckless (like buzzing people's sheep or getting tangled in power lines) or annoying (like mowing people's lawns with your propellers or jolting them out of their beds with engine noise) you can pretty much do what you like. Harold and I also had a look at some of the airports in the area and determined, just from the little numbers and symbols printed near them, which ones offered fuel and services, had beacons, maintained runway lighting...even what size they were and what radio frequency to contact them on. We also talked about a few things I'd never even heard about before, like "tire tracks"—the lumpy zigzag lines that denote higher-than-usual floors of Class E airspace, for example. There are quite a few military airbases around here, so we discussed restricted areas and MOAs (military operations areas). Restricted areas can be flown through, but not often: you have to get special permission from the airbase in question, and you need a darn good reason to do so successfully. It's also unwise to be flying around in restricted areas because that's where the military tests all of their goodies: fighters, bombs, missiles and so forth. It's kind of like taking a stroll through a gun range. There's a cruise missile corridor just south of here that goes from Vandenberg all the way into Twentynine Palms, or something. You couldn't pay me to fly through there. Well, you could, but it'd cost you. You can fly through MOAs without asking permission, but you have to keep your eyes peeled for military aircraft if you do. The perpetual dust/wind storm continued unabated for the rest of the day. I couldn't figure out why the dust was such a strange color (gray instead of brown) until I heard on the news that the wind had picked up all of the leftover ash from the Station Fire and was blowing it all over creation. What lousy timing! And I was so looking forward to flying somewhere new...[impassioned sob]...but I had a proactive day regardless. After ground school concluded, I came back home, grabbed a USB drive, ran into town and got my novel manuscript printed up at Mojave Copy & Printing. (I like them. The printing was quick and inexpensive; the woman in charge let me run down to the bank to get cash without making me stump up collateral; and, after I expressed concerns, this same lady frankly assured me that neither she nor anyone else would try to steal my story or keep any record or copy of the printing.Yes, I was worried.) I ran a few other errands and then came back home and got to editing as the wind whistled and the dust blew outside my window. Later on that evening, Mom started a fire in the old wood stove. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. So what if I got blown out? It's warm in here and there's work to be done...