Phase B1 complete

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

riding the beam

There are several ways you can navigate while flying an airplane. The first and simplest is called pilotage. That's how things used to be done in the olden days. Pilots made their way by picking out familiar landmarks on the ground, visually. That was one method I used when I flew my first cross-country to General Fox Airport in Lancaster. I took off and turned west; spotted Southern California Logistics Airport in Victorville, ten miles away; flew over that; espied the dry lake at El Mirage a few miles farther on; overflew that; descried the water tank on the hillside a few miles beyond that; and once I'd passed it, General Fox was in sight. The second way, and the most modern, is by GPS. "GPS," as even the most technologically dumbfounded of you should know, stands for "Global Positioning System." They're basically devices which gather data from orbiting satellites and use it to triangulate your position on the Earth's surface. The nice thing about the aviation GPS system is that the manufacturers have thoughtfully included all relevant data on the virtual map that you might need to know: airspace boundaries, obstacles, prohibited areas, whatever. Moreover, navigation is absurdly simple with a GPS. You can enter an airport or a waypoint and a purple line will appear on the screen, going straight from your airplane to that destination. You need merely follow that purple line and you'll get there. Fast going out of style, but far more reliable than pilotage (and essential for instrument work), is the VOR. "VOR" stands for "VHF Omnidirectional Range." VORs take the form of white, pointy buildings. Harold says they look like upside-down ice cream cones. They are located at airports and out in the middle of nowhere, and emit a constant signal in the VHF range. Special antennae on the tail of an airplane pick up this signal, and an indicator in the cockpit tells the pilot where the signal's coming from. (If you're equipped with DME, or distance-measuring equipment, your indicator also computes the straight-line distance to the VOR station). VORs shoot these signals in all directions, through all 360 degrees of the compass. That means, if you're within range of the signal (generally 50 miles or less, depending on how high you are) you can tune your instruments to that particular VOR's frequency. Then you can do whatever the heck you want with it: verify your distance away from it, use it to triangulate your exact position, or even navigate by it. The latter is known as "riding the beam." Thursday, Harold and I took off from Apple Valley Airport with the express idea of getting a little VOR navigation practice in. We were in luck. There are VORs scattered throughout the lower 48 states, but this being Southern California, there are VORs all over the friggin' place. There was one at Southern California Logistics Airport in Victorville, ten miles west; another one at Palmdale, about 50 miles west or so; and a third at Barstow-Daggett, about 26 miles or so northeast. So, we flew up to 6,000 feet MSL (about four thousand feet off the ground, the highest I've ever flown) and began fiddling with dials and knobs. This is the instrument that we used, the VOR indicator: This isn't quite what the VOR indicator in the cockpit of our 1974 Cessna looks like, but it'll do. It's got all the basic elements. The rotating course card (A) is set up with compass points: north, south, east, west, and everything in between. In terms of VOR navigation, these are called radials. North (360 degrees) is a radial; south (180°) is a radial, as is west (270°), east (090°), and all the other points. You rotate the course card with (B) the omni-bearing selector. The to-from indicator (C) indicates whether the radial you're on (as indicated by the little arrow at the top of the indicator) is the heading TO the VOR installation, or FROM the VOR installation. And of course, the all-important course deviation indicator (D), or CDI, tells you whether you're actually on course or not. If you are, the needle is centered. If you're not, it swerves to the left or right. Each one of those little dots in the middle of the VOR indicator means a course deviation or two degrees. If you're following a radial directly to the VOR station (flying the same path as the signal), and the CDI is two dots to the left of center, that means you're four degrees off course and should bear left. If you're feeling confused by this, don't be alarmed. You're in the same boat with 100% of the human race. NOBODY understands VOR navigation when they first hear about it. VORs are depicted on aerial charts like this: The Avenal VORTAC ("TAC" being short for "TACAN" a military-grade navigation system sometimes paired with a VOR) is right in the middle of that big circle with all the compass points on it. Its frequency is 117.1 (says so in that little rectangular box near the center). Let's say you're within range of the VORTAC and want to make use of it. First, you tune your navigation equipment to 117.1. Also tune your communications equipment in, and listen for the identification code. You do this to make sure that the VOR is working and transmitting properly, and that you're actually tuning into the right one. Once you've verified the VOR's identity, then you can rotate your rotating course card using the OBS knob until your CDI homes in on the signal and centers itself. Once it's done that, take a close look at your VOR indicator. If it says "TO" and the number up at the top is 345 degrees (as indicated in the picture above) then, if you were to turn to a heading of 345°, then you'd be heading straight toward the VOR. You are picking up the station's outgoing 165° radial. (You see, 345 minus 180 is 165. You have to keep a heading of 345° to go to the station; and the signal from the station is following a heading of 165° to go in the opposite direction, to reach you.) I'm going to stop explaining here because I have a feeling that you're as confused as an ostrich in a diamond mine. I will merely add that VOR indicators tell you what direction a VOR signal is coming from—not what heading you're on. Therefore, you want to be very careful not to confuse the heading TO the VOR with the heading AWAY from it, or else you'll try to correct your course and inadvertently get further off it (known as "reverse sensing"). Quick recap:

• WHAT - VOR, or VHF omnidirectional range, a station that emits a constant VHF signal to all points of the compass.
• WHERE - All over the continental United States.
• WHY - They are handy, if slightly outdated, navigational tools.
• WHO - Pilots use them when they get tired of GPS systems or can't see the ground.
• HOW - Find out the frequency of a particular VOR you want to use. Tune your navigation equipment in the cockpit to that frequency. Twiddle the knob until the needle on the indicator centers itself. Then read the heading on the course card at the top of the indicator window. If the to-from indicator says "TO," then you would follow that heading to get to the VOR. If the indicator says "FROM" then you are going the same direction as the outbound VHF signal; the heading back to the VOR is the reciprocal of that heading (the heading number minus 180 degrees).
• REMEMBER - The VOR indicator (when the needle is centered) does not tell you what course you're on. It tells you which direction the beam from the VOR station is coming from/going to.

Needless to say, it took a while for me to get all this down. The concept is still a mite fuzzy in my mind. I've likely made a few glaring mistakes in explaining it. If I have, I crave your indulgence. I'm still learning, after all. Anyway, Harold and I wandered about the sky, picking up various VOR signals, intercepting them in mid-air, and following them for short distances. We even rode on a "Victor airway," a sort of highway in the sky formed by VOR signals between airports. It ran from Palmdale to Palm Springs, about a hundred miles away. Harold and I detected the signal, moved the airplane onto an intercept course, and then N42126 smoothly merged onto the airway as though on an invisible on-ramp. Cool. To me, this is one of the neatest things about flying. The military may have its radar and high-tech wizardry, but general aviation pilots have VORs. Sure, they're antediluvian. Yeah, they make you think in order to use them properly. But to me, those are both pluses. I like old stuff, as you probably know by now. (Vintage warplanes and Hanna-Barbera cartoons spring to mind.) I don't like fancy electronics. I hate camera phones and Blackberries, iPhones and intuitive user interfaces. I like it when a device doesn't do all the work for you. I like it when the thinking is ultimately left up to the operator. The VHF omnidirectional range is just such a device. It'll give you information, but deciphering and using that information is your job. If you mess up, it's your own fault. The human race has forgotten that. GA pilots haven't. As a boy, I loved visiting museums where they had old airplane control panels set up for me to fiddle with. Pulling levers, pushing buttons, flipping switches...I couldn't get enough. I'd pretend I was warming the old bird up for launch, activating each system one by one, rattling off imaginary jargon to my invisible copilot. Using VOR equipment brings out that kid in me once again. Today, during a solo practice session, I switched on the nav equipment, punched a few buttons, then started twiddling the OBS knob until I homed in on the Barstow-Daggett VOR. I centered the needle, then turned until I was following a heading of 40 degrees, paralleling the station's outgoing 220° radial. I was riding the beam.

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...