the fastest man alive

Hats off to "Fearless" Felix!

Felix Baumgartner, the intrepid Austrian skydiver and daredevil, has departed a bare patch of weathered asphalt at an airport in Roswell, New Mexico. He is sitting in a tiny capsule attached to a gossamer balloon 700 feet high. He is clad in what resembles a full-blown spacesuit. Readouts and checklists surround him. A vast crew of people, including Baumgartner's friends and family, watch from the ground. In about an hour and forty-five minutes, he will reach an altitude of 120,000 feet. He is attempting to break the record for the fastest speed attained by a human being in free-fall: 690 miles an hour, or Mach 1. That's right...the speed of sound. In so doing, he will break three other records: the highest skydive, the longest free-fall, and the highest manned flight in a balloon.

Watch it live, here. Godspeed, Mr. Baumgartner.

cram it

A saphead I am, and a saphead I shall remain. I actually thought, as I walked to the car one frigid December night in North Dakota in 2007, having successfully skidded my way through three and a half years of college, that I was done with studying forever. I wish the Knight-Who-Hits-People-With-A-Chicken from Monty Python's Flying Circus had come clanking across the parking lot and hit me with a chicken right then. Boy, was I barking up the wrong tree. Why did I ever think I was finished with studying? I mean, I knew I was going to try and get a pilot's license and all. And I knew as soon as I stepped into the ground school classroom back in February of '08 that I was in for a trial. Private pilots have to know Bernoulli's theorem, basic principles of electrical circuits, meteorology, the Federal Aviation Requirements (dozens of them), airspace and safety rules...I could go on and on. We also have to know what the word "camber" means, what the angle of incidence is, what to do if your engine dies or you lose your electronic instruments, how far you have to stay below clouds in VFR conditions in Class B airspace, and hundreds more factoids of that ilk. I've been trying to review all this for the past two weeks (in anticipation of taking my pilot's exams and checkride before February's out). But let me tell you, trying to cram when you haven't so much as peeked at the material for nigh on two years is...something of a challenge. But it gets even worse. On top of this, I'm trying to simultaneously get through bartender's school. It's a lot easier, sure—just memorizing drink recipes and various mixing tricks—but therein lies the problem. My memory, never the best, is being frayed thin by it all. At any given time I might have the ingredients of a gin and tonic or a Freddy Fudpucker bouncing around in my head, ricocheting off Bernoulli's theorem and principles of aerodynamics and stall recovery. (I'm also still trying to edit my novel, but I'm beginning to view that more and more as a leisure activity.) It's maddening. I don't know how I'm going to get through it all. This is worse than anything I ever faced at college. There, I could just roll out of bed, eat a bowl of Cheerios, glance over my notes, skim the textbook, slope off to class, sit for the exam, go play campus golf with the fellas, and execrate my bad-but-passing grade later. I can't do that now. If I don't pass bartender's school I'll have no income. If I flunk my pilot's exams I'll be delayed in my pursuit of happiness—and be out of $500. And if things are this bad now, what are they going to be like later? I'm not going to stop at just your ordinary average everyday garden-variety pilot's license, you realize. I'm shooting for a commercial pilot's license. That takes time and money. How much time and money? Well, I'm glad you asked. I'll list the requirements for a commercial pilot's license right here and now. This is what I'm going to have to go through in order to achieve my pie-in-the-sky dream of having an international air service. FAR 61.129 [Aeronautical Experience] [Excerpt] For an airplane multi engine rating:

If you are applying for a commercial pilot certificate with an airplane category and multi engine class rating, you must log at least 250 hours of flight time as a pilot (of which 50 hours, or in accordance with FAA Part 142, a maximum of 100 hours may have been accomplished in an approved flight simulator or approved flight training device that represents a multi engine airplane) that consists of at least:

1. 100 hours in powered aircraft, of which 50 hours must be in airplanes.
2. 100 hours of pilot in command flight time, which includes at least 50 hours in airplanes, and 50 hours in cross-country flight in airplanes.
3. 20 hours of training on the areas of operation as listed for this rating, that includes at least 10 hours of instrument training of which at least 5 hours must be in a multi engine airplane, 10 hours of training in a multi engine airplane that has a retractable landing gear, flaps, and controllable pitch propellers, or is turbine-powered, one cross-country flight of at least 2 hours in a multi engine airplane in day VFR conditions, consisting of a total straight-line distance of more than 100 nautical miles from the original point of departure, one cross-country flight of at least 2 hours in a multi engine airplane in night VFR conditions, consisting of a total straight-line distance of more than 100 nautical miles from the original point of departure.
4. 10 hours of flight time performing the duties of a pilot in command in a multi engine airplane with an authorized instructor on the areas of operation as listed for this rating, which includes at least one cross-country flight of not less than 300 nautical miles total distance and as specified, and 5 hours in night VFR conditions with 10 takeoffs and 10 landings (with each landing involving a flight in the traffic pattern) at an airport with an operating control tower.

Permitted credit for use of advanced flight training equipment:

Except when fewer hours are approved by the Administrator (FAA), an applicant for a commercial pilot certificate with an airplane, helicopter, or a powered-lift rating who has satisfactorily completed an approved commercial pilot course conducted by a training center certificated under FAA Part 142 of this chapter need only have a total of 190 hours for an airplane or powered-lift rating and total of 150 hours for a helicopter rating to meet the aeronautical experience requirements of this section. FAR 61.129 really freaks me out. In order to get a commercial pilot's license for a multi-engine rating, I need 250 hours of flight-time. To put that in some perspective, you only need 40 hours to get a private pilot's license. A mere 40 hours. And those 40 hours still depleted the savings I'd socked away in Korea, several thousand dollars. Who knows what this is going to cost, or how much time it'll take, or how hard the final exam is going to be? I've made a vow to be done with both bartender's school and my private pilot's license by the end of this month. I'm taking my last review lesson with Harold on Wednesday the 17th, and I'm going to knock off the last two time-trials at bartender's school in the next two Mondays, and take the final on Saturday the 27th. [Gulp] Wish me luck. Goodness knows if my poor abused brain will be able to take the punishment, and retain all the information necessary to pass a written, oral, and practical flight exam, plus a comprehensive six-minute time-trial covering roughly 100 drinks. Let's hope Dad's luck kicks in again.

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...