Phase B1 complete

I've passed the written test for my private pilot's license.

fasten your safety belts

Hot air rises. This is the reason that blimps and zeppelins stay up, that eagles and vultures can climb to ridiculous heights without flapping their wings the whole bleeding time, and that certain politicians are elected to high office. Due to the increased energy of its heated molecules, air becomes less dense as it gets warmer, thereby rising above the cooler, denser air down below. Trust me, this information will come in handy later.

Hello there! And a Happy (Early) Mother's Day to you. This post shall chiefly concern the latest work-related buzz, and recent (helpful) revelations about novel-publishing. You probably won't find any links to related websites in here, though. I'm feeling rather independent today.

Where shall I start? How to explain the myriad little things that happen every day on the job which would delight and entertain you no end? The many interesting people flitting to and fro in our little airport here in Apple Valley (to say nothing of the airplanes)? The incidents, the dialogue, the parade of human condition that marches past on a daily basis? It's impossible to document it all. Especially since I keep forgetting to bring my darn camera to work. I'll just give you the highlights.

We had a Cessna Citation visit our humble airport on Thursday, the second one this year. If you don't know what a Cessna Citation is, I'll delineate for you: it's one of those airplanes that was designed to cause civil unrest. Take a look for yourself. As if that wasn't orgasmic enough, a couple of Stearman biplanes sneaked in while we were out on our morning mission. You know, the planes that killed King Kong?
Then a Wheeler Express 90 wheeled in from Tehachapi. And a Bellanca Cruisemaster right after that.

I think I drooled on myself.

Furthermore, I pulled off my first (perfect) landing in the Mooney the other day. It was our new Mooney, nicknamed "X-Ray." It's a heck of a lot easier to fly. Admittedly, this was the morning flight, when the air was smooth as butter. Still, I could've done a lot worse. Maybe I didn't pull back quite far enough on the yoke when it came time to round out and touch down. But I really greased 'er in. As Mr. Mooney said, "you just kissed 'er down." He was full of praise, which made me feel pretty dang good, seeing as how he's a former Air Force pilot and has done more flying in more godawful weather than I can imagine.

Of course, I ruined it. It was later that same day, during the afternoon flight. Things were admittedly a little bumpy, and there were more people in the landing pattern with me. But still—my approach was perfect—straight-on to the runway, good glide slope, ideal speed, everything. I just flared too high, that's all. I was 50 feet off the ground when I started leveling off. Even I could not tell you why I did this. I know perfectly well that 50 feet in the air is no place to start rounding out. When you raise the nose, you get slow, and you do NOT want to getting slow 50 feet off the ground on a landing approach. You're already so slow that the plane might quit flying and fall out of the air. I've just got this hang-up about Mooneys. You really have to point them down at the ground in order to descend. And the M20E's approach speed is 80 miles per hour. So there I am, nose-down, heading for the ground at freeway speed. That freaks me out. Like I said before, I'm used to flying slab-sided Cessnas, which float on down at a leisurely 65. I like to go down slow, I guess. And the thing with Mooneys is, they're finicky. I was ten miles too fast on my final approach, doing 90. In any other airplane, ten extra miles ain't gonna matter. In a Mooney, of course, it does. If you try to flare at 90 you'll start climbing again. You have to have your speed right, or else.

This is where most newbie Mooney pilots get into trouble, on landings. Flare too high (like I did) and they bang the tail on the ground or crack the gear on a hard landing. Go too fast (like I was) and they flare, climb up suddenly, panic, point the nose back down hard, overcompensate, and hit the propeller on the ground, or go off the runway.
"This is why I like Mooneys," Mr. Mooney told me, after we'd parked (and he'd finished explaining to me what I'd done wrong). "They land like fighters."
Oh, great, I thought. In addition to my landing problems, the weather seems to have arrayed itself against me. Now that the spring winds seem to have gone (whew), summer is fast approaching. And being in a wide, flat desert with plentiful sun and lots of open ground (a good mix of sand, rock, and asphalt), we get these things called "thermals."

You probably have some pretty innocuous ideas about thermals. Right now you're thinking, "Oh, right, thermals! Those are those lovely warm currents of air that rise up from the ground, sending eagles to soar and gliders to kiss the azure sky!" That's what you're thinking, right? I must admit, I once belonged to this school of thought. Then I went out flying in a small plane for a couple of days. The sun was shining and the thermals

(convectioncurrentscausedbyunevenheatingoftheplanet'ssurfacebysolarradiation)

were in full swing. If you want to get an idea about what thermals are like from a pilot's perspective, picture an invisible fist, dozens of yards across, rocketing skyward and slamming into the belly and wings of your airplane. Got that? Okay, good. Now picture hundreds of invisible fists, shooting up from the desert floor like a barrage of anti-aircraft missiles, each one a mile high, whooshing through the air all around you, buffeting your plane up, back, forward and sideways. That's what thermals are like.

We're getting into a pattern here in the desert. It's the usual for the summer months. Calm and cool in the mornings, and then in the afternoon, when the sun has heated the air, the breeze kicks up. As long as the sun's shining here, you know there'll be thermals and crosswinds galore below 5,000 feet AGL, especially with all the mountains. (The mountains, in fact, amplify the thermals and winds, like a skateboard ramp.)

So I'm beginning to realize that I'm in for an interesting time during the afternoon flight. Thermals and turbulence are at their worst when you're low and slow. So I'll be climbing out of the airport, only a thousand feet or so off the ground, and those crosswinds and invisible fists will start hammering at me. The nose of the plane will be swerving back and forth like a car on ice. First one wing will be pushed up, then the other. Sometimes the tail gets caught, too, and our attitude suddenly goes from nose-up to level flight! Things haven't gotten really bad yet. But I can only imagine what'll happen if the thermals get any stronger. You all know how strong turbulence can be in a big jetliner. Imagine how it'll be for me, sitting there in my little Mooney. There'll be little else to do but tighten my seat belt, clench my buttocks, and try to keep the plane pointed straight ahead. It won't be the catbird seat, that's for dang sure. The weather is making it warm for me. Literally.

But that's just what I need: a challenge. Think of how much better a flyer this is making me. Between landings, handling a complex airplane, crosswinds, and mile-high geysers of hot air, I'm getting a crash-course in what Mr. Mooney jokingly refers to as "the survival gene."

And now, an addendum about novel-writing: It's continued to be a tremendous relief, taking it easy, not badgering myself to get published. Sitting back, taking a deep breath, and having a think about all of this has made me realize a couple of things.
First, I sent the manuscript out to my readers too soon.
There were a lot more edits I should've made before I did that. It was just too soon to send it out. Through phone calls, I've discovered that my readers having a lot of trouble, even just a few chapters in. They're not getting the most out of the story, and as a result, I'm not getting the most out of their feedback. I should've slowed down, taken it easy, paid attention to what I was doing when revising, and made sure I had a manuscript that was as tight as I could make it before I gave it to readers, to get the maximum profit out of their effort. And perhaps to ease that effort, too.
Second, I've been neglecting the blueprints I laid out in my character bios.
I don't know why I've been writing (let alone revising) without my notes and outline open in front of me, but I have! And a few days ago when I went back into the character bios that I'd written, I rediscovered some data that made it clear why I'd been having such difficulty. The reason for the intangible hardship I've been experiencing in writing/revising became clear on the instant. Now I knew why I thought my first three chapters were so shallow. Why character development in the second novel was stagnating. (All three of these things have put me on the verge of pulling out my hair, no joke.)

There's some things I've left out: my main character's tragic past, for one. The secondary main character's estrangement from his father. Both men's life histories, basically. The reason I've been disliking them so much, the reason I can't seem to have fun making these two guys think and talk and walk and battle, is because I don't know them very well. Reading the outline I'd painstakingly hammered out months ago (to prevent these frustrations from blossoming in the first place, ironically) made me understand what was missing in my work. There were some gaping holes in my manuscript, some vacant opportunities for characterization and plot development that I could now exploit. Armed with this new (or rather, old) information, I can turn my rickety, half-baked, puerile manuscript into a damn good novel.

It was a revelation, to be sure. Boy, I'm glad I decided to sit on this thing for a while! Mind you, I haven't been entirely bone-idle. I'm going to cast an eye over the novel again this weekend, just superficially, you know, in passing. Maybe jot down a few notes, using my character bios and my outline: things I need to change, or add in, or embellish. A few days ago I sat down at the computer and did some real work: character interviews. Recognizing that I didn't know my characters very well, I decided to call 'em into the office and have a chat. I gathered my notes, looked up some good questions on the Internet, and went at it. (I had several questions of my own, of course; like "Well, let's just get the toughie out of the way: what motivates you, MC?") And lo and behold! I didn't believe it, but it worked. I found the words—both my own and my characters'. They flowed off my fingers like wine past a Greek hero's lips. I saw my MCs—both men in their mid-twenties, idealists of a sort, one cooperative and friendly, the other surly and profane, sitting across from me as I peppered them with awkward questions.
How well do you get along with your father, MC #2?
What made you decide to come to Washington, MC #1?
What do you hope to do with your life, you guys? How did you meet each other, anyway? High school, wasn't it?
I finished up with a sense of supreme satisfaction. The plot was rounding itself out. With the info in my character bios, I was setting up some terrific foreshadowing for character development down the road. Most importantly, I felt a great deal more familiar with my characters. Up until this point, I had been talking to them on the phone, reading about them in the newspaper. Now I've met them face to face, and like 'em a little more for it.

Watch yourselves, writers. It's easy for novelists (especially first-time sapheads like me) to get too involved in the story and overlook the characters. Every decent writer I've run across insists that an author must know his-or-her characters like the back of his-or-her hand, the door of his-or-her refrigerator. If you don't know your characters, talk to 'em and have them tell you who they are. It'll make writing about them a lot easier. If I hadn't quit on publishing for the moment—thereby giving myself a much-needed breather—I never would've figured any of this out, probably. None of the all-important revelations would've come to light, none of the important research would have been done. (Oh, research! How could I forget that? Booting the publishing fever has given me ever so much more time for research. I've got five library books on my nightstand and another on the way.) Even if I had somehow realized something with the printing press bearing down on me, I likely would've despaired of ever fixing the novel. Incorporating all of the new (um, old?) information would've seemed an impossible task.

Now, it seems anything but. Fasten your safety belts. There's a whale of a tale coming, Mr.World.

how to land a Mooney

One of the advantages of flying twice a day, four days a week is...well, you fly a lot. And when you fly a lot, you learn a lot—especially if your flight instructor spent 20 years in the Navy doing crazy things like landing on aircraft carriers and riding around with suicidal low-flying Germans and thumping Russian bombers.

Don't even act like you don't know what "thumping" is. Trade secret. Nonstandard navy fighter procedure during the Cold War. The trick is to come up beneath a Russian airplane—bomber, preferably—pile on some thrust, and rocket straight up, right in front of him. This has the twofold benefit of (a) scaring the living daylights out of the Commie bastard and (b) forcing him to fly through your shock wave. (Hence the "thump" part.) It's a ticklish business. You've got to leave enough space between yourself (going relatively slow, climbing straight up) and the oncoming Russian bomber (still flying at 450 knots)...or else, WHAM. You can't leave too much space, either, or the "thump" will be more of a "kerpuff."

Spud wasn't the first instructor I landed a Mooney with (that was actually Mr. Mooney); but it was with Spud that I truly refined my technique. All last week he taught me the finer points of landing, and I think I've finally got it down. Let's get the mechanics out of the way. You'll want to be at 100 miles per hour on the downwind leg of the pattern, and on base—

Aw, crap. I haven't explained landing patterns yet, have I? Here:

As I've mentioned before, you'll want to land into the wind. Therefore, when you're flying past the runway (before you make that 180 degree turn to land), you're going downwind, and are therefore on the appropriately-named downwind leg of the pattern. After the downwind, you turn base: 90 degrees to the left (or right, depending). Then you turn final, and land. From the time you're on downwind, abeam of the numbers on the end of the runway, you should be descending steadily.

Got that? Good. Now where was I?

Oh yes. So, in a Mooney, you want to be going 100 miles per hour on downwind; 90 on base; and 80 on final. You'll touch down at about 65. Gear speed (the point at which it's safe to lower the landing gear) is 120 miles or less. Flap speed (the point at which it's safe to lower the—well, you know) is 100 miles or less. Pattern altitude at Apple Valley Airport is 4,000 feet (because the airport itself is at 3,000 feet; pattern altitude is 1,000 feet AGL in this case). It's left traffic for Runway 18 (which means all the turns you make in the pattern will be left turns).

You might want to write some of this down. It'll come in handy later.

You can lower the gear whenever the heck you want. Mooney pilots know a neat little trick that greatly aids them during landings: the Mooney's landing gear can be used as an air brake. Having those big clunky wheels sticking out into the slipstream slows you down something righteous. This is how it's supposed to go: enter the pattern on the downwind leg at 4,000 feet, preferably at 100 miles per hour; lower the gear to help slow yourself down and lose altitude; once you pass the numbers, pump in some flaps (which slow you down more, and also help you stay aloft at slow speeds).

When you reach 3,800 feet MSL, turn your base leg. Keep the speed at 90. Look around carefully to make sure there aren't any fiery airplanes streaking in from the north to land on the runway you're trying to land on. Then turn final. Pump in full flaps. Keep speed at 80. Pull the throttle all the way out. This is so the plane will actually come down to the ground instead of floating forever 100 feet off the deck. If you've judged the distance and altitude right, the plane will just drift on down to the runway (with you keeping an assiduous eye on the airspeed indicator, keeping the plane at 80). When you get to the ground, flare. (That means raise the nose so (a) the plane slows down; (b) the plane touches down on the runway; and (c) the plane touches down on its two main wheels and not the poor little nose wheel.)

I had a dickens of a time getting all this down. For one thing, the airplane I took most of my flight lessons in didn't have retractable landing gear. The gear was always down; I didn't need to worry about it when I was coming in to land. In my complex Mooney, I've got about three more gauges to watch and a few more steps to take. Not to mention that I have to really yank on that Johnson bar to get the gear down. This Johnson, apparently, is even more stiff than the one in Mr. Mooney's plane...

Gradually I nailed it, though. One of my landings with Spud was so good that he said he wanted to patent it. I just sort of floated down, hardly had to flare at all, and touched down so smoothly that you couldn't tell we were on the ground. That's right. Me. The Postman. I landed a Mooney smoothly. Don't you forget it.

Today, during my landing with Mr. Mooney, I did everything right except pulling out all the power. The flaps were down, the gear was down, the speed was perfect...we were just floating forever 50 feet in the air. It was another gentle landing, though, let me tell you. Grandma could've been sitting in the backseat buttering toast, and never would've spilled a crumb.

Now, if I could only figure out how to trim the dang thing properly, I'd be on Cloud 9. Literally.

wires, awards, and complex airplanes

This epistle shall leap all over the place, I'm afraid. It's an amalgamation of several different posts, some of which have been in the pipeline for a while, and others that have just cropped up. First, I'm going to tell you a story. Second, I'm going to accept an award. (I spoke too soon yesterday.) Third, I'm going to update you on how the job's going, and the work in progress ("the Novel," with a capital N).

And so, the story: When I go on my afternoon constitutional, I usually head north down Corto Road, then cut east on Ocotillo Way. After about seven-tenths of a mile, Ocotillo peters out at Pioneer Road, which parallels the railroad tracks north by west until it intersects La Mesa. Each of these dirt roads is rougher than the last. There isn't a house within two miles of La Mesa. It runs north to south, from Highway 18 (miles away in the valley below) up into the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains. Beyond La Mesa, my walking path is a mere dirt bike track, winding sinuously through the empty desert further east.

The Pioneer/La Mesa crossroads is a peculiar one. The four dusty trails are joined by the railroad tracks alongside Pioneer, which run for miles to the southeast until they reach the limestone mines. There are also power lines. A row of high-tension towers accompanies La Mesa along its northern stretch, eventually breaking off and curving away north across the valley after bisecting the railroad tracks.

Originally, I was ambivalent about these pylons. Easily a hundred feet tall, they rear their porous gray gantries against the eternal blue and sullen gray of the desert sky. Their black insulators, ribbed like huge accordions, hang from their stout arms like missiles slung beneath the wings of a fighter jet. I used to despise power lines; they mucked up the panorama. I still harbor a bit of resentment toward the structures in general. Not these power lines, though. Somehow I don't mind them. Though man-made, they seem to add something to the stark desert landscape, rather than detract from it. Standing in the midst of empty desert as they do, they seem almost like sentinels, guarding the vulnerable houses to the west against the threatening shades of night. Their angular outline seems to fit the hard, unforgiving terrain, while simultaneously estranging them from it.

These impressions aren't always supported by visual stimuli, either. Last fall, I was heading east down Pioneer on a golden, sunny afternoon. The omnipresent Mojave wind (what Pete down at M—— Aviation jokingly calls "the desert breeze") was blowing energetically. I looked ahead and saw the towers looming. I strode along. The only sounds were wind buffeting my ears and the crunch of boots in the gritty dust. As I approached the towers, I became aware of a thin, roaring scream creeping into auditory range. It was almost undetectable at first, so high-pitched and wispy was it. I paused for a moment, and listened. The sound was still indistinct, so I resumed my walk.

The nearer I got to the towers, the more apparent it became that the sound originated from them. At their very feet, I stopped short and listened once more. An involuntary chill ran up my spine. The thin scream assaulted my ears, louder than ever. It's impossible to describe exactly what it was like. It was as if a hundred thousand hoarse banshees were yowling all at once, or the Devil himself was whistling between his teeth. Memories sprang unbidden to mind: the dusty street of a ghost town in a black-and-white Western—and the timeless, tuneless whisper of the wind, blowing through chinks in the dilapidated buildings, howling across the dusty ground between outlaw and lawman. It was the wind. That desert breeze, coming out of the southwest, was slipping through the towers' pylons and creating that spine-chilling sound.

Goosebumps broke out on the back of my neck. My neck craned upward. My eyes gazed in naked wonder. I couldn't move. I was spellbound by the music. Imagine my delight (and amplified chills) when I returned to the towers in late winter, when the winds were blowing with all February's fury. Whispers became screams. Whistles became shrieks. Howls became a hellish chorus. The towers yammered and whined and moaned like living beings under the onslaught of air.

On that day, and many days after, I stood beneath them and listened to their haunting, ceaseless cries. I soon learned to judge the sounds as a critic would judge a sonata. The wind, passing through the towers, created at once a thin voiceless shriek and a deep, atonal thrumming. Hearing it, I could almost imagine that I stood on the blasted surface of some alien planet, listening to some nameless tribal ritual echoing from the dark and unknown distance. The power lines danced as though legions of invisible acrobats tripped giddily across their expanse. And the wind never faltered or held back. It blew as if it had always blown, ever since the blasphemous days, the very Dawn of Time itself. And I wondered: if humanity should someday vanish, and its trammels fall to ruin, what might extraterrestrial explorers think of these skeletal metal towers? To see them standing there, far from civilization's edge, slowly bleaching in the desert sun, surrounded by a jumbled mass of truncated rubber and copper tentacles? Would they guess their moot purpose, the reason behind these eldritch structures? Or would they misinterpret the find, hold these odd pillars to be cultural icons, rumors of a long-lost and barbaric religion? To what would they attribute the unending scream of high-tension towers in the wind?

A compelling query, in my opinion. Now onto the award ceremony thingy!
Muchas gracias to Christi from A Torch in the Tempest for her generosity. I could be wrong (I've been wrong about several other things on her blog, trust me), but I don't believe this accolade comes with any conditions. You just pass it on to five bloggers. Based on the title, however, I will send it to recipients who exude an optimistic demeanor in their writings, or whose posts retain an intangible, uplifting quality—however subtle or covert.

• The Pollinatrix - The Whole Blooming World
• Jerry - Gently Said
• Jane Jones - Jane Jones
• Mashlip - Bullshit
• Laura - Through Laura's Eyes

Thank you for your dramatic tales, prose uplifting in its eloquence, and silvery consideration, friends. Your posts never cease to make me smile, think, or sit back in wonder.

This is my first full week of flying. The previous three we've been canceled by winds and weather, only working two days. This week I'm with Mr. Mooney again. We're getting a lot done, both in the air and on the ground. I was going to give you a full blow-by-blow, but I think I'll save that for another time. I will say this: I now know how to take off in a Mooney, have negated that accomplishment by botching five landings in a row, and even aided in Sierra Hotel's 25-hour inspection. I took off the cowlings, and—

Well, that's for later. I'm also getting a lot done during down-time. The Novel's second edit is almost complete. Once that gets finished I'll send it off to my alpha readers, and let them rip it to pieces. Once I implement their vitriolic revisions, I'll start down the long, long road to publication. Rejection slips, here I come!

Stay tuned...

Wednesday solo and Thursday triumph

On Wednesday our cross-country flight was canceled, again on account of the wind. Sometimes this desert really gets on my nerves. So instead Harold had me solo to Barstow and back. Golly, it was a beautiful, calm day, and I got to fly over the horrendously gorgeous Granite Mountains. I did a few touch-and-gos at Barstow-Daggett Airport, practiced my short field and soft field landings, flew back (stopping over the barrens to try some steep turns), and then came home and landed. The next day was Thanksgiving, a real mother of a blowout. Man, it was good to have turkey and sweet potato soufflé and green bean casserole with Ma and Pa after five years of Thanksgivings away from home. I didn't fly Monday or Tuesday this week due to...that embarrassing thing that happened to me which I can't tell you about. But I managed to schedule a lesson for Thursday, December 3. And on that Thursday, the winds were finally calm enough for us to fly to 29 Palms. Was it ever a grand flight. 'Twas odd to finally be able to see over the San Bernardino Mountains behind my house without actually driving up Highway 18 to Big Bear Lake. They were all dusted with snow, too, and mottled with blue shadows in the low-lying winter sun. That was our southward view. To the north there lay the whole expanse of the Mojave Desert, with its stark mountains, rocky hills, dry lakes, and vast wastes of Joshua trees and tumbleweeds. It was a religious sight. After 20 minutes in the air, heading eastbound, we spotted an enormous gout of dust rising from the flats a few miles ahead. The 29 Palms area is well known for the rather large Marine base nearby; Harold peered at the dust and reckoned it was probably a tank platoon out practicing. If one more awesome thing happens on this flight, my subconscious mind whispered to itself, I'm gonna fire off and explode. The nearly 100 miles between Apple Valley and 29 Palms disappeared almost too quickly. We almost didn't find the airport. Even with the purple line on the GPS pointing right at it, the thing was darn hard to see. We were practically set up to land on a dirt strip before we spotted the actual, paved airport at one o'clock, off our nose. After that it was a piece of cake. We made a slight deviation to the south to avoid flying into the restricted airspace above the Marine base. Neither of us felt like being intercepted by jet fighters. We got back on track, flew over the town of Yucca Valley (it was so weird to see it from the air having been there so many times by car), set up for landing, did a touch-and-go, and were off again. It's a nice little airport they've got there. Small, dinky, and out-of-the-way, but that's how I like my airports. They've got an incredible view, too. The scenery's to die for. Kind of like this picture here, but quite a bit more panoramic (as viewed from higher up). The flight back was just about the same as the flight out, only in reverse. This time, however, since we were flying west, and I was in the left (and southernmost) seat, I got a better view of the mountains. That "something else cool" happened, too. I learned about Flight Watch. Flight Watch is a nationwide flight service, available on the 122.00 frequency, that gives pilots weather reports and advisories whenever they want 'em. Flight Watch can also help you if you're having trouble, or have gotten lost or something. Is that cool or what? It's like an omniscient aviation god, benevolently watching over its bio-mechanical supplicants. Harold called Flight Watch up on the radio. We contacted the Los Angeles branch; we were less than 100 miles away as the crow flies. Harold gave the responder a "pilot report": an up-to-date, eyewitness weather report, from altitude. He reported our position (over Yucca Valley again), the visibility ("unrestricted," better than 10 miles), the outside air temperature (40 degrees Fahrenheit), and the winds ("smooth ride"; no turbulence whatsoever). "It's just a nice day up here," Harold concluded. Harold also concluded, later, that the fellow we talked to at Flight Watch must've been lonely and bored. He didn't want to get off the line with us. He asked us if there was anything else we needed, and reminded us of some turbulence warnings that were slated to take effect later in the day (Zulu time). He finally thanked us for our report and signed off. Harold and I had been looking at each other and grinning all through the conversation, just from the inherent coolness of it all. Now we sat back and chuckled. The plane drew closer to home. Hold it! I'm almost done. I've got one more neat thing to discuss and then I'll let you go. If you've hung on this long uninterrupted (bathroom breaks and sandwiches notwithstanding), congratulations. Glance away from the screen for 20 seconds to rest your peepers. Finished? Okay. I finally got to fly over my house. It's true! I live on the way to 29 Palms from Apple Valley (though obviously closer to Apple Valley). On our return trip, we overflew my house, snuggled up in the San Bernardino foothills. I casually mentioned this to Harold, and he said this: "You want to circle it?" My mind screamed, "HECK YES!" My mouth said, "Can we?" Harold said, "Sure! Let's pull the power back here..." As we got closer, I asked Harold to note the time (so I could tell Mom the exact hour when I'd flown over, so she'd know it was me). Harold held up his cell phone instead. "You know, you can call her," he suggested. "ALRIGHT!" my mind hollered. "Okay, I'll do that," my mouth said. Harold took the controls while I fumbled in my flight bag for my own phone. I took off my headset (exposing my ears to the thunderous roar of wind and 150 horses) and dialed Mom. "Hello?" "Hey Ma, it's me!" "Hi!" "Guess where I am right now." "Are you over the house?!" (She heard the engine noise and knew I was still in the plane.) "Yep! We're coming in from the east, we should be overhead in a few minutes." "Fine! I'll come out." And there she was, just a tiny pinprick against the grayish-white swath of the gravel driveway, bouncing up and down and waving her arms for all she was worth. "Rock your wings," Harold said. I did, and the whole plane waved back. We finished the circle and flew back to Apple Valley Airport. Mom was thrilled. She'd been waiting every day to hear me fly over, but always my flights had been rescheduled or canceled. Finally we got our chance. Nice to know somebody on the ground knows you're in the air, and wants to wave at you. Thanks, Ma. Anyway, that was how we got to 29 Palms (or, as pilots often refer to it, "29 Stumps"). Whoo-ee. That was an ordeal, wasn't it? My life lately seems to consist of nothing but these frustrating-but-somehow-still-fun-cum-enlightening ordeals. Next, I should be soloing out there, and thus add another 1.8 hours of pilot-in-command time to my logbook. After that, Harold says, we just have to work on night flying (yippee, I can't wait!) and a little instrument work, and then I should be... ...finished. Wish us luck, lads.

SF/SFO

Flying's going well, if you're still interested. Today Harold and I practiced SF/SFO, or what everybody else calls Short Field and Soft Field Operations. This is just what it sounds like: landing and taking off on a short runway or a patch of soft ground. See, as shocking as it sounds, you will not always be landing on a nice, long, paved runway. Sometimes you may be landing on a short dirt strip. Or a grass field. Or a sandy beach. (Bush pilots have to deal with these conditions all the time, so I'd better get good at it.) There's a certain special trick to pulling off these sorts of unusual landings and takeoffs. Normally, on a paved runway, all you have to do is let down some flaps, and— I've been told I should really itemize things if I want to explain flying more clearly. So here goes a very basic explanation of what you need to do to land on a PAVED runway:

• reduce throttle
• lower flaps incrementally
• use pitch to control speed, and throttle to control altitude
• flare about ten feet from the ground
• touch down smoothly, apply brakes

To clarify, flaps are those big flat things that stick out from the trailing edges of the wings, which are lowered right before the airplane lands. They're different from the ailerons, the control surfaces which dictate the airplane's rate of roll. The flaps act like air brakes. They slow you down as you come in to land. They also increase the surface area of the wing, enabling a plane to stay aloft even at very slow speeds—just the ticket for a slow descent onto a runway. Generally, you lower them in increments: a little bit when you're on the downwind leg of the landing pattern; a little bit more when you turn your base leg; a little bit more when you turn to make your final approach. "Flaring" is what you do just a second before landing. It's something that airplanes borrowed from birds. You see it on National Geographic TV commercials all the time: some big lolloping bird comes in for a landing, and right before it hits the water or ground or tree branch or whatever, it sort of turns its body up on end and tilts its wings back to slow itself down. Flaring in an airplane is the same kettle of fish. Just a few feet above the runway, you pull back on the controls to tilt the nose of the plane up. This slows you down even more, just enough to land. That's why you want to make sure not to do it too high, like I do, because you'll bounce down onto the tarmac very hard. Now, with short field operations, you do the same thing, except you have to be a lot more precise. If your field is only a few hundred feet long, you don't have much room for error, so you have to pretty much touch down RIGHT at the VERY END of the runway to ensure that you have plenty of room to roll to a stop. To practice this, Harold told me to pick a point on our nice big paved runway at Apple Valley Airport. Once I did, he told me to land there, or within 200 feet of it. (Two hundred feet may sound like a lot, but in terms of airplanes coming to a halt, it really isn't; our runway is about 6,000 feet long, and ours is a small airport.) Once I'd done that, he said, I was to immediately put the flaps up and apply the brakes, to stop as soon as practically possible. And guess what, sports fans? I got it on my first try. Nailed it. Touched down right where I'd wanted to, snapped the flaps back up, jammed on the brakes (not too hard), and came right to a dead stop. Bingo. ...which meant that we now got to practice a short field takeoff. This would be just like a regular takeoff, except instead of mundanely powering up and rolling down the runway, I would keep the brakes on while I poured on full throttle, suddenly release them, and go. And that's exactly how it happened. I stood on those brakes for all I was worth as the little plane roared and bellowed and shook, straining forward like an attack dog on a chain. Then, at Harold's command, I let go the brakes. I was promptly knocked back into my seat as we jumped down the runway and leaped into the air. Yeah, I reckon we'd have made it A-OK if the field had been short. Soft field landings are a good deal trickier. To land, you have to keep a little power on until the last second, then touch down only on the back wheels. See, the landing gear on a Cessna 172 is set up like a tricycle. You have the two rear (or "main") wheels, and the nose wheel. During a soft field landing, you want to touch down ONLY on those two main wheels. This is because, when you touch down in a Cessna 172, you're still going rather fast by human standards: about 50 miles per hour or so. If you do a three-point landing and the nose wheel gets bogged down in the sand or wet grass or gravel or whatever, you run the risk of flipping the plane over. So the solution is to do a wheelie. Yes, I'm serious. You touch down only on the back wheels, holding the control yoke back (but not too far back; you don't want to bang the tail on the ground). You hold the plane in that configuration for as long as you can. In a few seconds, the plane will slow down enough on its own (and lose enough lift from under those upturned wings) that the nose wheel will gently... ...come... ...down... ...by itself. Bang, you're on the ground, right-side up. Soft field takeoffs are even trickier. Remember how I said that flaps are normally used for landings? Well, you actually use flaps for soft field takeoffs, too. Just a little, though. What you do is lower the flaps about ten degrees, start your takeoff roll, then raise the nose as soon as you can. (Same reason as before: you don't want to get that dang nose wheel stuck or bogged down when you're going that fast.) So you're doing a wheelie down the runway. At 60 miles per hour, the plane will start to lift off, but you don't want to climb yet. You want to keep the plane low, just over the runway. When the plane reaches 80 miles per hour (the best speed for climbing), THEN you can start climbing. If you start climbing before the plane reaches 80, you'll leave ground effect and the plane could settle back down onto the ground. ("Ground effect" is what happens when you fly an airplane really close to Mother Earth, like right after takeoff. The plane isn't actually flying, per se, even though it's off the ground: the air getting pushed down by the wings is bouncing off the ground and hitting the plane again, pushing it up. Only when the plane reaches a certain speed is the necessary pressure differential created between the top and the bottom of the wings; that is what actually keeps the plane in the air without ground effect.) If you're on a paved runway, lifting off at 60 and climbing out is no problem. If you lose ground effect (which usually doesn't happen) then you'll just bounce back down onto the nice hard runway. However, on a soft field...well, we've already discussed this. This is why you use flaps (for the extra lift) and hug the ground until your airspeed is 80 (so you know you can stay up). In case my lengthy explanation hasn't made it clear, soft field takeoffs are flippin' hard. You have to really hold that yoke back to keep the nose wheel off the ground. (Good thing I've been doing all those lateral pull-downs on the weight machine, eh?) Then, after you take off, instead of keeping the nose pointed at the sky (like you do with every other type of takeoff), you actually sort of level out, pitching the plane back down again, riding ground effect until you reach 80, then climb. It's very, very counterintuitive. Needless to say, Harold had to help me with it the first couple of times until I could get a feel for it. My job was made harder (ironically) by how smooth the air was today. There was no wind at all. We didn't have a headwind to land into and slow us down (and make it easier to do wheelies). But I did my best. I was grinning inside as we pulled up to the gate, shut down, and climbed out. I had just gotten a little taste of what I could expect out of a bush piloting career. Moreover, those kind of landings are just plain cool. They demand all of your attention and a great deal of manual dexterity (not to mention some biceps). And come on, I mean, wheelies? In an airplane?! Hot diggity!

first solo

I spent an uneasy evening yesterday judiciously reviewing the checklists for the Cessna 172M (particularly those regarding emergency procedures). During this, I somehow managed to avoid the temptation to listen to Europe's "The Final Countdown" on YouTube. Following this, I got up at my usual 6:30 this morning and drove down to the airport for my (gulp!) first solo. Perhaps I should provide some explanation here for any visitors who might be unfamiliar with the process of learning to fly. After a certain amount of dual instruction—where your flight instructor is sitting right next to you in the plane—you start to do "solo flights," which, as the name suggests, you do entirely by yourself, alone in the airplane. Sounded a bit spooky to me when I first heard of it. But I was ultimately surprised by how not-nervous I was when the big day finally rolled around. I got up this morning, had an onion bagel with cream cheese, and got my flight gear around like it was just another day of practice flights in the pattern. I attribute that to Harold, who, as I mentioned before, is a superb instructor, and makes me feel very relaxed and cool and groovy about this whole flying gig. The only difference in my preparation between this day and any other, in fact, was that I had to fill out a "rental agreement" for the plane I'd be flying...seeing as how I'd be flying it by myself and all. I wasn't even nervous that my mom and dad were going to be there. Mom and Dad, always supportive as all get-out, both made special trips to the airport to see me fly (Mom in the truck with me, Dad from work). Mom shook Harold's hand, then she adjourned to the picnic tables outside of the airport building. Harold and I went right out onto the tarmac to good ol' N42126 and did a quick preflight. Then we saddled up and took off. We did a couple of touch-and-gos together to practice first. Harold said they were really nice. It was a beautiful morning: calm as you please, with hardly anybody else out there. Mary Lou was out somewhere to the south in her Piper Warrior, and during the second pattern entry a helicopter flew by us heading north, but that was it. As we flew, Harold briefed me on what we'd do. He said he'd have his hand-held radio with him on the ground as I flew, but that he wouldn't talk to me on it unless he needed to advise me of traffic or runway problems. He also said that the minimum for a first solo was three touch-and-gos, but that if I wanted, I could do more. If I felt like it, he said, I could also leave the pattern after the last touch-and-go and fly south over town for a bit. Then he added, "If you don't want to solo today, that's fine. I like to give people the option, just in case they feel they need to practice more." I mulled that over for only a moment. The stars seemed to align. I'd been pumping myself up for this all weekend. I'd studied, I'd practiced, it was a beautiful day, and I figured I was about ready to give it a shot. I said as much, too. And then I landed, taxied to the ramp, and shut off the engine. Mom and Dad were now standing on just the other side of the chain-link fence. I said hi to them quickly, then prepared to take off again—alone. Harold signed my logbook, endorsing it with his signature, signing me off to solo. Then he said he was going to go get his hand-held radio so he could listen to me calling out my pattern movements ("Apple Valley, 42126 turning left downwind, runway 18" for example). Then...it was time. Climbing back into that left seat, I felt rather like a fighter pilot going out to combat a veteran enemy ace one-on-one. The cockpit seemed awful big without a second body inside of it. I clapped my headset back on, ran through the start-up checklist, pumped the primer once (since the engine was already hot), and cranked her up. The 150-horsepower Lycoming engine flared to life immediately, with a few burps and a boom. I adjusted the throttle to 1000 RPM, snapped on the GPS and radios, made sure the frequencies were correct and that the transponder was on standby mode, made a radio call to announce my taxiing to the run-up area at 18, and then... ...and then... ...I began to taxi. By myself. It was about here that the theme from the movie Clash of the Titans started playing in my head. Taxiing went fine, just as if Harold was sitting next to me. It was silent in the cockpit; all I could hear was the near inaudible hiss of my operating headset, and the dulled roar of the engine outside. I taxied all the way down to the end of runway 18, turned into the run-up area, and got out the checklists again. I made sure my seat belt was secure; checked the flight controls; adjusted the instruments and the mixture controls; ran the engine up to 1700 RPM and tested the magnetos and carburetor heating system; checked oil temperature, vacuum and ammeter; ran the power back down, set the transponder to squawk 1200 (visual flight frequency)...and then inched myself up to the runway. I stopped at the hold-short line (a series of solid and dotted yellow lines painted on runway entrances, indicating where to stop for incoming traffic), looked right, looked left (squinting against the golden morning sun), and then called out on the radio, "Apple Valley, 42126 departure one-eight, stay in the pattern." That was it. I was cleared for takeoff. I took a deep breath. The trumpets and drums playing in my head kicked up a notch. Then I pulled onto the runway, punched the throttle all the way in, and started rolling down runway 18. Those testimonials I had read online last night weren't kidding: without 200 extra pounds of human in it, the Cessna climbed like a homesick angel. I jumped off that runway at 65 miles per hour and was zooming past the airport building (and my folks) before I knew it. I was proud of my takeoff: I'd managed to keep the nose wheel stuck fast to the center dotted line. Now I was climbing out at 80 miles an hour, just like Harold and I'd practiced. At 3500 feet mean sea level (about 400 feet above the ground) I turned left and entered my crosswind leg, calling it out on the radio, keeping my right foot planted squarely on the right rudder pedal to keep the ball on my slip/skid indicator centered. I stuck to 80 mph, too—just like we'd practiced. There were a few moments when I let it slip by accident, and we got up to 100 mph, but not many. A few seconds later I turned left again (making another radio call: "Apple Valley, 42126 turning left downwind, one-eight"), and was headed back parallel to the runway. At 4,000 feet MSL I leveled off and throttled down to 2,000 RPM. The weather was beyond perfect. The sun was shining, the Cessna was handling like a swallow (where it had handled like an albatross), there wasn't a breath of wind aloft, and I began to think to myself, Hey, this isn't so bad. And still that bombastic orchestra kept thundering away between my ears. Abeam the runway numbers, I pulled the throttle back, lowered the flaps a little, turned on the carburetor heat, and began to descend. I stuck to what Harold had gently drilled into me: descend at 500 feet per minute. At 3800 feet MSL, turn left base (the second-to-last turn before the final approach), adding more flaps. Don't forget to call out on the radio that you're turning left base. After turning left base, lower airspeed to about 70 mph, continuing to descend at 500 feet per minute. Then turn onto your final approach, adding a last bit of flap, making a radio announcement, and then... ...well, land. I did all of this, if you don't mind my saying, pretty near flawlessly. I turned left base at 3800; pulled the throttle out some more to descend properly; watched my airspeed; made the appropriate radio calls; and lowered the flaps further, all pretty much simultaneously. When the time came a few seconds later, I turned final, added more flaps, made the last radio call, and started my approach. I kept my eyes on three things as I came in for that first touch-and-go landing. First, I watched my airspeed. Final approach speed is 65 miles per hour, the lower bound of the green (safe) arc. Too fast and you'll bounce when you hit the runway. Too slow and you won't even reach the runway. To help make sure I was doing okay and would reach the runway right when the airplane reached the ground, I kept my eyes on the VASI lights on the left side of the runway. I forget what the acronym stands for, but VASI lights are a brace of bright beacons that inform pilots if they're too high, too low, or just peachy to land. Too high and both lights appear white. Too low and they both glow red. If you're at just the right height, however, the left-hand light turns red, and the right-hand light shines white. There's a nifty mnemonic device my previous instructor Mike taught me (which most instructors inculcate their pupils with) that helped me remember what the VASI lights' colors mean. "Red over red, you're dead." "White over white, you're outta sight." "Red over white, just right." Every time I looked, I was red over white. Perfect. I also kept my eyes on the runway itself. What with all the landing practice Harold and I have been getting in, I've gotten pretty good at eyeballing how far I am from the runway, and how high I am away from it. Because of this, I know just when to pull a little power (to decrease altitude) or add in some more (to increase altitude) when I need to. See, that's the weird thing about landings. Normally, your pitch (how far up or down the nose of your plane is pointing) determines your altitude, and the throttle controls speed. When landing, this is reversed. With the flaps down, you use the pitch to control your speed (pointing the nose down to speed up, and up to slow down) and the throttle to control your altitude. Lucky for me that I have such a good instructor in Harold, and that he and I hit landings so hard the past few lessons. It was a piece of cake to get myself lined up with the runway (even if I did turn a bit early for my final approach), keep myself at the right altitude and airspeed, and just come right on in. I flared a few feet above the runway, floated a little while (the Cessna was remarkably light, after all), and touched down in a decently smooth fashion. Yes! I straightened myself out, popped the carb heat off and the flaps back up, pushed the throttle back in, and took off again. And that was all there was to it. I did that twice more, and the sunniest of grins began to spread over my mind (if not my face, which was still set in concentration). Hey, I thought again, this is nothing. This is actually pretty easy. This is GREAT! I came in for the fourth and final time for a full-stop landing, having successfully kept my eye on the Stinson that was taking off, and Mary Lou, who was on the ground fueling up her Warrior for most of my touch-and-gos, but who took off again right before I finished. I landed, popped the flaps up, adjusted the throttle to 1000 RPM (taxi power), taxied right off the runway, shut off the carb heat and set the transponder to "standby" once again, made one last radio call ("Apple Valley, 42126 is clear of runway one-eight, taxiing to the ramp") and taxied to the ramp. Mom was smiling and bobbing up and down and flashing me an enthusiastic thumbs-up when I came wheeling in and pulled to a stop right by the gate in the chain-link fence. Dad walked through the gate and stood just off the high wing of the Cessna (well clear of the whirling propeller) as I shut off the avionics, pulled the mixture control all the way out (idling the engine to shutoff), switched off the ignition, and shut off the master switch. And that was the end. I took off my headset, laid it on the dashboard, leaned back, and took a breath. The symphony in my head drew to a soft and satisfying close. Later, there would be congratulations, and hugs, and handshakes, and pictures taken next to N42126, and logbook signings, and more congratulations (from Debbie, Apple Valley Aviation's receptionist, who'd come out to watch me), and a congratulatory second breakfast of burgers and burritos at Skidmarks Cafe just inside the airport, but at that moment, as I stepped out of the plane back onto solid ground and breathed in some of that cool desert air, I was on Cloud 9. And I haven't come back down since.

flying after 17 months

Observe the following, please: Spot any similarities between the two? Both of them have wheels, yes, I know that already. Both are mostly aluminum. And both are operated mostly by feel. Yes, that's right. Despite my fears, my angst, my worries, my endless hours of mental hand-wringing, I remembered how to fly a plane after being out of the cockpit for nearly a year and a half. They told me it was just like riding a bike, but I didn't believe 'em. I was worried, you see. I'd be going off to Korea for a year without flying so much as a kite. My old flight instructor, Mike, assured me that I had nothing to worry about. He told me I'd pick it right back up again. He said he'd taken years off in the middle of getting his pilot's license, and when he'd come back to it again he'd remembered everything. Even though Mike had approximately 3,000 times more flying experience than I did, I still doubted him. Nonetheless I signed the papers and took off to the Orient for 377 days. Then, on Monday morning, I drove down to Apple Valley Airport (AVA) to the offices of Apple Valley Aviation (uh, AVA part two). I'd gotten my medical certificate, I'd touched bases with the flight school, and now I was coming in to find an instructor and set up a lesson. I hadn't flown in 17 months, and it was high time to get back in the air and start moving toward my airborne dreams once again. There were three people in the office when I walked through the glass doors: the receptionist and a couple of guys sitting in the waiting-chairs and talking. I addressed the receptionist lady and told her the reason for my visit. I reported that I'd obtained about 12 flight-hours thus far in a Cessna 172 and would like to resume. She said, "Well, Harold does the 172 training, and he's sitting right over there." She pointed to her left, to one of the men sitting in the chairs and laughing, a short fellow in a short-sleeved, plaid button-down. He had a kindly face, a salt-and-pepper mustache, and a baseball cap. He stood up, and extended his hand. "How are you doing?" he asked. "I'm Harold. I do private pilot and multi-engine training." And there you had it. I signed up for a lesson the very next day with Harold and N42126, Apple Valley Aviation's trusty old 1974 Cessna 172M. I could've flown right then and there if I'd wanted, but I backed off. I claimed that I had some stuff to do in town that day and that I'd forgotten my flight gear (none of which would've been much of an impediment, but I was nervous about flying again and wanted time to mentally prepare). Tuesday morning I rose bright and early, collected my Dave Collins headset, my Jeppesen logbook, and some sunglasses, and drove down to the airport. I was a bit keyed up. Flying made me a little stiff. There was so much to remember, so much to be doing every second in the air, so much that could go wrong. So much that I could do wrong. I had no doubts about safety (Harold had several thousand hours of flying and instructing under his belt) but still, learning anything new and complex and screw-uppable gets me apprehensive. Mainly it's a trust issue. I don't trust myself to do big and scary things like fly airplanes. Well, that's how it used to be. Not so the moment I got into the cockpit with Harold (who also reassured me that I'd pick flying right back up again). After an extraordinarily quick and easy preflight check, we clambered into the narrow cockpit of the Cessna, fired her up and began to taxi. I immediately noticed a difference in Harold's training compared with Mike's. Mike was a good man, certainly. He was a competent instructor. But I realized then, as I was sitting in the cabin with Harold, that I'd never been comfortable around Mike. He was businesslike, straightforward, not inclined to joke or relax. He wasn't strict or harsh, but he wasn't outgoing. Harold was great. As we taxied to the run-up area of runway 18, he made little jokes and friendly conversation, a big grin hanging under his mustache. I was immediately calmed. My nervousness evaporated. Hey, I thought, I can do this. It's just flying a plane. This Harold guy's alright! That feeling only increased once the wheels lifted off the blacktop and we were airborne. Stars seemed to be aligning. It was going better than I'd dared to hope, far better. Not only was I remembering the feel of the Cessna 172, and not only was Harold a friendly and relaxing instructor, but it was a beautiful day outside, the golden sun was splashing off the jagged peaks of the Granite Mountains to the east, and moreover, N42126 was a dream to fly. It was an older model, a 1974, much different from the 2001 I'd been flying in Wyoming, N5158J. I could feel the difference. N42126 just seemed friendlier than 58 Juliet. It was easier to handle, more forgiving to fly, and it stayed at the correct altitude and airspeed with hardly any guidance from yours truly. That plane seemed to know that I was a beginner, and did its best to help me out. I began to feel supremely good about flying again. The lesson just got better from there. We flew out over the Mojave River (dry as a bone) and practiced some basic maneuvers: just, as Harold said, "to get me back in the seat again." We did S-turns, and turns about a point, and some square pattern-flying. Then we headed back in, and though I bounced on the landing, I felt exhilarated. Harold was encouraging and open, but not controlling or dictator-like. He didn't keep his hands on the controls, nor constantly pepper me with advice or admonishments. He just sat back and let me do my own thing, keeping a trained but casual eye on the instruments and my performance. I can't express to you just what that meant to me. Harold's teaching style told (and still tells) me that he trusts me. He has confidence in me. He wants to see what I can do, and he won't step in unless he absolutely has to. He never criticizes or admonishes, just offers advice and tips in his amiable voice, often cracking a joke to boot. He is the antithesis of harsh, demanding. Under such a teaching style, I remembered how to fly a plane. Movements which I hadn't practiced or even visualized in over a year returned to the fore with inconceivable alacrity. It was just like a riding a bike. More than that, and far more priceless, I began to actually feel comfortable flying a plane. I began to feel that it wasn't as big a deal as I'd made out (nothing ever is, but I always forget). For the first time since I'd taken that introductory ride back in spring of 2008, flying began to be more fun than scary. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is truly what aviation's all about. That's what Harold said, too. Both lessons since then have fitted the same mold. On Thursday, we practiced landings. We did 13 touch-and-gos (where you come in like you're going to land, touch down, then accelerate and take off again), and one full-stop landing. Or perhaps I should say that I did 13 touch-and-gos. Unlike Mike, who was inclined to help me out on landings and only let me do one or two by myself, Harold only helped me out on the first one or two, then sat back and let me do it. I kept coming in too slow (60 miles per hour instead of the Cessna 172's regulation 65), and I always flared a little high (and bounced her down hard as a result), but apart from that, Harold said I was doing fine. We did landings again this morning, and my first two, Harold said, were "perfect." (I didn't think they were so bad myself; I really greased her in.) Then we practiced emergency procedures; how to land without any power from the engine, and so on. And it was all a kick in the pants, not a jolt to the heart. What a difference moving 900 miles and flying out of a new airport in a new plane with a new instructor has made. After landing, Harold declared that, with a little more practice, I was almost ready to solo. That was both a confidence-booster and a shot of adrenaline—the good kind. With Harold, it looks like it's always going to be the good kind. On Tuesday, the day of our next lesson, Harold says we'll be flying to a different airport and practicing landings there. I've never flown to a different airport before. There was a time when the thought would've scared the life out of me. Now, I can't wait.