Wanna hear something depressing? This is what you have to do to get paid to fly:
If you are applying for a commercial pilot certificate with an airplane category and single 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 single engine airplane) that consists of at least:
100 hours in powered aircraft, of which 50 hours must be in airplanes.
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.
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 single engine airplane, 10 hours of training in an airplane that has a retractable landing gear, flaps, and a controllable pitch propeller, or is turbine-powered, one cross-country flight of at least 2 hours in a single 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 single 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.
10 hours of solo flight in a single engine airplane, including 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. (Source: http://www.gg-pilot.com/commercialpilot.htm.)
I've got some good news for you folks in the audience who have been anxiously following my every pilot-related move: I have surpassed 250 flight-hours.
Thanks to my private pilot's license, I've also got most of the rest of this rigmarole done. I've done two-hour cross-countries of 100 nautical miles; I've got ten hours of instrument time, and five hours of night-flight; even the requisite ten takeoffs and ten landings. (Actually, scratch that; I didn't do them at an airport with an operating control tower, so I'm going to have to fly over to Victorville some evening and get that done.)
In fact, I think all I have left is that long cross-country flight of 300 nautical miles. Zowie. I've never flown that far before. That'll get me from here to Las Vegas, easy. Some people even fly to Arizona (from here) for their long cross-countries. It'll be a bit scary (not to mention expensive) but fun.
This is big, people. I'm this close ("this" being equal to the distance between my forefinger and thumb, held very close together) to being a commercial pilot. All I need is moolah. I must save up for a three-hour flight. Plus JM-1 needs to teach me the commercial maneuvers and give me my official checkride prep. I estimate all this will cost me about $500-$600 dollars. I don't really have that right now, seeing as I just dropped $325 on new transmission lines for my Jeep because I was going 45 on a dirt road and didn't really see that huge bump until it was too late. Darn.
You get the idea. It'll be a while. But it won't be long. I'm almost there. I can't express to you how excited I am. A few more hoops to hurdle and I'll be a card-carrying single-engine commercial pilot.
Commercial aviation really is evil. You know why? It's conditioned me to be unconcerned about relieving myself before taking to the air. This is, obviously, a luxury not afforded by the Cessna 172 I'm training in.
Are you wondering why I brought this up? You shouldn't be.
Today was my two-hour, 100-mile solo flight between 29 Palms, Victorville, and Apple Valley.
And guess what I forgot to do before I took off?
So there I was, at 7,500 feet above sea level (fortunately, there was no sea in sight, or things might've gotten really bad).
Warning signals start flying back and forth between my bladder and my brain.
Ah, the heck with it, I thought to myself. I'm halfway to 29 Stumps already. I'll be back in no time.I could afford to be that cavalier because my bladder has an excellent track record. If I'm doing something important, my bladder generally has enough sense to shut up and leave me be until I'm in a position to empty it in a dignified, sanitary manner. Except for a few (cough) black marks in the ledger, my childhood was free of embarrassing accidents in the car or in public. In the bar with friends, everyone is excusing themselves after the second drink; I'm good until the fifth round. Even after a long day in town doing errands, I usually don't even feel an urge to go until about 30 seconds after I walk in my front door.
Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is a thing of beauty.
Step up and buy your very own self-sealing, travel-safe bladder, the E-Z Pinch! Stays comfortably full for hours! Alarm won't go off until you're home and dry! Five easy payments of $19.99! Buy now and save on underwear!
Well, during this flight, I had one piece of viscera down there about to go on strike.
It really hit me after I'd gotten to 29 Palms, done the requisite touch-and-go, and was over Yucca Valley once again, headed west.
DINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDING!
In roared a message from the engineering level, in manic Scottish brogue:
"Red alert! Red alert! Pressure rapidly approaching critical levels, Captain! I don't think I can hold her! Evacuate immediately! Evacuate immediately! Mayday! Mayday!"
The dam was about to burst, people.
Well, okay, it wasn't that bad. I've had it bad before. The running-into-the-bathroom-gotta-get-there-yesterday-'cause-Old-Faithful's-a-comin' kind of bad. This wasn't as bad as that. But it was getting there fast.
I applied a little more right rudder to center the ball, and trimmed and trimmed and trimmed trying to get the danged plane to level completely and fly straight. That way I'd pick up a little more airspeed.
Who knew what kind of difference it might make down the line?
(Oh, this is just too, too ironic. I looked out of my window just now as I was typing and the plumber was driving by.)
Right as I was about to fly over my house, about 25 miles or so from Southern California Logistics Airport in Victorville (my second and second-to-last stop), things started to get critical.
So I resorted to an old trick I'd taught myself when out on one of my six-mile walks.
I manually released a bit of adrenaline into my system.
You can do this if you train for it. You just sort of tense up your midsection in a manner that I can't properly explain in prose, and there you go. Clenching your jaw and shoulders helps, too. It doesn't hurt to think of something alarming, either. I usually put myself in the shoes of one of my favorite comic book heroes at one of their most desperate hours. Say, Monkey D. Luffy fighting Rob Lucci right when the Buster Call hits, or Hellboy going up against the frost-giants in the north of Sweden.
Anyway, aside from increasing your heart rate and decreasing your reaction time, adrenaline also puts calls of nature on hold. It does for me, anyway. It mystified me at first, but later on, when I thought about it logically, I discovered that it makes evolutionary sense. If you're slouching through the Pleistocene and a saber-tooth jumps out at you, you're going to do what any self-respecting Neanderthal would do: run like the dickens. You don't have time to be worrying about doing your business.
That little shot of panic-juice helped, but it didn't do the trick. Things started to get bad about five minutes later, when I was directly over Apple Valley. The airport was shimmering tantalizingly just four miles to the north; but I resisted the temptation to hang a hard right and land there. This was my long solo. I had to land at Victorville first before I came home, otherwise the total mileage wouldn't add up. If I completed the solo that day, I'd have only an hour of instrument work and three hours of night flight left (and a checkride) before I was completely, utterly, abjectly done with my private pilot's license.
The stakes were too high to stop for a piddle.
So on I flew.
Fortunately, SoCal Logistics is a towered airport. I never fly into towered airports. My nervousness at having to speak to a real person—to actually have to ask permission to do stuff—set the adrenaline flowing again.
Whew! Crisis averted. The alarms died away down south and I was able to concentrate on making my radio calls.
"Victorville Tower, Skyhawk 42126."
"Skyhawk 26, Victorville Tower, go ahead."
"Skyhawk 42126 is 10 miles east of the airport, requesting permission to enter your airspace and do a touch-and-go."
"Skyhawk 26, enter left base for runway 2-1. Winds calm, altimeter 30.1. Report left base."
"Victorville Tower, copy approved entrance to left base, will report left base, runway 2...1, Skyhawk 42126."
Okay, that was done. I could come inside. Now I just had to tell the dude when I entered my base leg and get cleared for landing. Then I'd let him know I wanted out after that, and get the heck home.
A few minutes later...
"Victorville Tower, Skyhawk 42126 entering left base, runway 2-1."
"Skyhawk 26, not in sight, clear for the option, runway 2-1."
"Victorville Tower, clear for the option 2-1, Skyhawk 42126."
He hadn't seen me yet (there was a big cloud of steam in the way, from the factory at the end of the runway), but there was no one else around. I was okay to land.
I did, and just after I'd gotten back off the ground...
"Skyhawk 26, state your intentions."
"Victorville Tower, say again?" (I didn't hear him too well.)
"Skyhawk 26, state your intentions."
"I'd like to depart the pattern to the west."
Oh damn. I meant east.
"Skyhawk 26, right turn-out approved."
"Victorville Tower, I'm sorry, I meant east. My bad."
"Skyhawk 26, left turn-out approved."
"Left turn approved, copy. Skyhawk 26."
Just before I exited Victorville's airspace, the controller came back on the radio to let me know he was letting me go:
"Skyhawk 26, frequency change approved, have a good day."
"Victorville Tower, frequency change approved, copy. Thanks very much."
The leftover butterflies held out until I'd landed at Apple Valley (just ten miles away, thank goodness), taxied, secured the plane, and settled up with the flight school inside. I almost walked out of the door, in fact, before I remembered that I had an appointment with the porcelain throne.
I haven't had a pee that satisfying in a long time.
Do you have any idea how tricky it is to find 29 Palms Airport from the air (even with help from that little purple line on the GPS)?
Jeez, they hid that sucker. We were only five miles away from the place when we spotted it, but we did find it, and landed on it. And thus, after three days of cancellations and postponements, Harold and I finally managed to make it to 29 Palms. This marked the second dual cross-country we've done together, and the longest: nearly 100 miles round-trip. I now have barely seven hours of requisite flight-training left, and then I'm through with my private pilot's license.
I wanted to spend all four days of Thanksgiving weekend with the fam-bam, so I scheduled my three weekly flying lessons on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of Thanksgiving week. Yep, I'd be flying three days in a row: quite a cram session. That didn't bother me. There was some exciting stuff in the offing. On Monday I'd be soloing, but I'd have the reins to myself: nobody would be in the office, even. The book with the key and the required documentation would be left in the plane for me, and I'd simply walk straight through the airport building, climb inside N42126, and go.
How cool is that?
Tuesday and Wednesday would be given over to cross-country. On Tuesday, Harold and I planned to fly to 29 Palms, a town of some size and scenery west of here (near an also-sizable Marine base). On Wednesday, I'd solo to 29 Palms and back.
It didn't fall out like that, though.
Heck, no.
Let's start with Monday.
I got to the airport, duly bypassed the flight school office, and sauntered right out to the plane. I leisurely performed my preflight inspection, a self-satisfied grin on my face as I planned the takeoffs and landings I'd practice and the maneuvers I'd pull over Bear Valley Road. I climbed in and started the plane, not without some difficulty. It's been getting down below freezing at night lately and when it's cold, the engine gets cranky (no pun intended). So I primed the bejesus out of it and finally fired 'er up.
Everything was proceeding normally until I taxied down to the run-up area for runway one-eight. As soon as I tried to throttle the oldLycoming engine up to 1700 RPM for my run-up, something weird happened.
Dumbo swooped down out of the sky, opened the door of the plane, and handed me a complimentary in-flight bag of peanuts.
No, no, I'm just kidding. That would've been really cool, though.
What actually happened was this: the RPMs started fluctuating rather severely. Instead of smoothly accelerating up to 1700 (from 1000) the tachometer needle jumped and jerked and stopped and started. The engine's smooth roar suddenly tripped and staggered. I powered down quickly, then cautiously powered up again. The same thing happened. The third time, the power succeeded in reaching 1700 RPM, but it wouldn't stay there. The needle wobbled back and forth, as did the pitch of the engine noise.
Not good.
Well, I didn't want to muck with it if there was something screwy preventing the pistons from revving smoothly. I didn't want to be caught in mid-air with my pants down. Not in an airplane, anyway.
So I taxied back to the ramp and, lo and behold, there was Harold. He'd just dropped in to the airport for a few minutes with his eldest son before driving all the way down to Oceanside to pick up (heh heh, didn't I think this was appropriate under the circumstances) a new engine for N42126.
"You just heading out?" Harold asked as I got out of the plane.
"No, just coming back, actually," I answered as I unfolded myself. I proceeded to explain the trouble. Harold, puzzled, got in and (with me standing over the right seat, with the door open), proceeded to fire up the engine.
Before I tell you how that went, let me share a few choice words about what it's like to be standing anywhere near a propeller aircraft when it's going full blast.
You know how when you're riding in a car you're completely oblivious to the amount of air that's moving past just inches away from you? That invisible element, howling along at ridiculous speeds, casually and undetectably deflected by the windshield?
Well, now picture yourself standing under the wing of a Cessna 172, only your head and shoulders inside, the door open, directly behind the propeller whirring at full speed, the engine roaring, the wind screaming past you.
I felt like I was going to get caught with my pants down after all, because the wind was about to tear 'em off.
There was absolutely nothing wrong that Harold could detect. It seems that in between the run-up area and the ramp the mysterious engine ailment had melted away. Perhaps literally: Harold figured Imight've had a little ice in the carburetor. The run-up had probably melted it (or me turning on the carb heat halfway down the taxiway and therefore negating the reason for returning to the ramp in the first place).
Harold believed me, and I know he didn't hold it against me or think me silly or overcautious. He's a good man and a good instructor. Plus he knows that, in the world of flying machines, there's really no such thing as overcautious. (My old flight instructor Mike used to tell me, "There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots.")
But I felt pretty stupid regardless. Anybody's bound to feel frustrated when they perceive a problem (say, a hideous monster lurking just outside the window) and then when everybody turns to look, the problem has vanished. Makes you doubt yourself.
Anyway, not to be thwarted by some minor technical difficulties, I jumped back in the plane and taxied back to the run-up area for the second attempt.
No soap. This time it wasn't the RPMs, it was the right magneto. During run-ups, it's customary to check the magnetos and make sure they're both working properly by turning them off one at a time and seeing if the other still runs. You do this by flipping the key in the ignition switch to "L" (leaving the left magneto on, and turning the right off), then back to "BOTH"; then flipping it to "R" (leaving the right on, and turning the left off) and back to "BOTH." As you do this, you observe the tachometer and make sure that the RPMs don't drop by more than, say, 250 (when one of the magnetos is off).
Well, darn. That morning, whenever I turned the key to "L," the tachometer needle would fall like an egg from a tall chicken. I had to flip that switch back to "BOTH" but quick; the RPMs were falling off so fast I was afraid the engine would just die right there.
I repeated the test three more times, with the same result each time. The hell with it, I finally decided. Flying like this wouldn't be advisable, or safe, or sane. Normally I'm the first guy to try something inadvisable, unsafe, or nuckin' futs, but I didn't feel like it this morning. Particularly not in a rented airplane. So I taxied back to the ramp (Harold had departed in the meantime), shut down, secured the plane, and stomped back to my car. I left a note in the cockpit explaining the trouble, and drove back home.
That was Monday's flight lesson.
I went to two places on Tuesday that I've never been before in my life: General Fox Airport, 50 miles west of Apple Valley; and southern Riverside, within spitting distance of Corona, where the nearest scion of the National Bartenders School is located.
Let's begin at the beginning. Now that I've completed two solo flights (consisting of three touch-and-gos while staying in the landing pattern), it's time for me to step things up a notch. Now I need to start actually flying to different places. I have to complete, I believe, five hours of cross-country flight, including a flight of at least 100 nautical miles. Harold and I knocked off an hour and a half of dual cross-country on Tuesday. We traveled 52 miles from Apple Valley Airport west to General Fox Airport, which, if you've never heard of it (nobody has, including me) lies about halfway between Palmdale Airport and Edwards Air Force Base, near Lancaster.
Everybody should be familiar with Edwards Air Force Base, at least. Formerly known as Muroc, it's where a lot of groundbreaking aviation research has taken place. Or perhaps I should say "soundbreaking." It's the airfield where Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in his orange Bell X-1, "Glamorous Glennis." The X-15 tests were conducted there, too, as well as bunch of other stuff. There's oodles of history out there. My father used to work there, too (commuting over two hours round trip every day). The base sits at the end of truly massive dry lake. It's flat, wide and dusty: perfect for landings if the engines on your persnickety test plane suddenly decide to go out.
Anyway, the only difference between that day's flight and any other was that, before taking off, Harold and spread a chart on the vertical stabilizer of good ol' N42126 and plotted our course. It was pretty much due west. We'd overfly Victorville Airport, a rather uptight installation sitting in a bubble of Class D airspace extending up to 5,400 feet. That would be our first checkpoint. Then we'd pass another dry lake bed at El Mirage, roughly marking the halfway point. Finally, there'd be a big water tank on the last hill on the left before General Fox. That'd be our third marker. Then I'd call the air traffic controllers up on the radio and arrange a landing. Before the flight, Harold thoughtfully pointed out the ATIS, VOR, and radio frequencies I'd need. He also kept his flight guide (like a Triple-A guide book for private pilots) handy in the cockpit.
Oh, I'm sorry. Don't know what ATIS and VOR stand for? Welcome to my world. Piloting is sometimes just a load of alphabet soup. "ATIS" stands for "Automated Terminal Information Service." It's this nifty little report you get from the airport tower by tuning your radio to a certain frequency. They're updated often, sometimes ridiculously often if the weather's dodgy. They give you things like current wind speed, visibility, barometric pressure (so you can adjust your altimeter accordingly), and any special information you need to know. You tune into the ATIS, usually, before you take off from an airport and before you land at one, just to know what to expect.
The VOR is a navigational aid. We've come a long way from the good old days when airmail pilots used to navigate using roads and power lines. Now there are these handy-dandy VORs set up all over the States at regular intervals. "VOR" stands for "VHF Omidirectional Range." "VHF," as any dunderhead should know, means "Very High Frequency." They could've called 'em VHFORs, but that takes too long to say, and it sounds too Russian. Anyway, VORs put out a constant signal in the VHF range. By looking at a sectional chart of the area you'll be flying in, you can find out the frequencies for nearby VORs. Then, while in flight, you can tune your equipment to any particular VOR's frequency and use it to navigate. When you get out of range of one VOR, you can tune in to the next, and leapfrog your way across the countryside that way.
It's advisable to memorize all these frequencies (plus the airport radio frequencies) before you go anywhere—or at least write 'em down. That's going to be a tricky for me, so I'm putting a kneeboard on my Christmas list. A kneeboard is a vital piece of cross-country flying equipment. It's a clipboard that straps to your leg, onto which you can jot notes, attach charts and airport guides, write down instructions from the tower, whatever. I'm going to need that when I go out on my big 100-mile cross-country to 29 Palms...
Okay, anyway, back to the flight itself. Harold and I piled into the Cessna and off we went. I banked right once we'd reached pattern altitude. We skirted the mountains, and before we knew it we were almost over Interstate 15, which marked the boundaries of Victorville Airport's Class D airspace. That meant we had to give them a call and ask them if we could go through. Harold coached me on what to say beforehand.
"Victorville Tower, Skyhawk 42126."
Short pause.
"Skyhawk 42126, Victorville Tower, go ahead."
"We're about eight miles east of the airport at 4,500 feet, we'd like to transition your airspace to the west." (Oops! I forgot to give him my tail number again!)
"Skyhawk 26, clear to transition airspace to the west."
"Skyhawk 42126, roger." (Yes, I know 'Roger' is Army lingo and not Air Force, but sometimes I just get so excited. I had to forcibly restrain myself from saying 'over' after every transmission, too.)
This was per Harold's instructions. He said it was best to just call out to the tower and give them your identification (which normally consists of the make and model of your plane and the tail number). Then they'd call back to you and tell you to keep talking. That way you didn't just start talking only to find out later that the man in the tower was on the phone or something and didn't hear you. I asked for permission to "transition the airspace," meaning pass through that Class D bubble without entering the pattern or landing or anything. Permission was granted, so we flew on. When we got clear of the airport's airspace a few miles later, I called them and thanked them, and on we went.
We could already see El Mirage off our nose at about one o'clock. Don't know much about the place, myself. I think Chuck Yeager made a few emergency landings there when Rogers Dry Lake by Edwards wasn't an option. There were some long, low buildings off to the west of the dusty, suntanned lake bed. Harold informed me that his son-in-law lives there and is in charge of the organization that formerly administers speed trials for the race cars and speedsters which come to the lake bed to...well, conduct speed trials.
That was pretty neat.
Harold also told me to keep my eyes open, as a lot of gliders and RC airplane hobbyists operated from El Mirage, too. Nobody was out today, except for a lone streetcar sitting down in the middle of the lake with a few human figures next to it.
Our flight continued uneventfully. Well, as uneventfully as any flight can be. Flights aren't really uneventful. It's hard to count the coolest thing any human being could ever do in his or her life as being "uneventful." The view was amazing. I could see all of the San Gabriel Mountains off to the south; the vast Mojave Desert spread out beneath us to the north, west and east; and nothing but acres and acres of blue skies overhead, shot through with cirrus clouds and contrails. Somebody down on the ground was burning weeds or something, too, because two gigantic plumes of smoke were climbing slowly into the air beneath us and then spreading out into a flat gray sheet across the countryside. From above, the effect was rather like looking at a lily pad from the shore of a pond. You could see the stem coming up from the bottom, and meeting the pad itself, and then the pad stretching over the surface of the lake. Only these "smoke pads" were big, stretching over a wide layer of invisible air. It was really quite something.
The next time I solo, dang it, I am bringing my camera.
After a little hunting about, we located the water tank on the hill. And then, by leaning forward at a 45-degree angle and squinting a lot, we were able to make out General Fox. We could barely see the airport buildings and the dark streak in front of them. Harold informed me that the streak was a park right next to the airport, over which we'd fly as we descended toward the runway.
It was right about here, ten miles out, that Harold warned me to "keep my eyes peeled." There was occasional jet traffic between Palmdale and Edwards, he said. We'd be trundling right across the proverbial highway in the sky in our slow little Cessna, and we didn't want to get run over if we could help it.
Fortunately, no jets made their appearance. I swung out to the northwest a little (taking care to avoid the restricted area that surrounded Edwards AFB, a double green line on the GPS) and set up for my landing approach. About ten miles away, we tuned in to Fox's ATIS broadcast. It was "Information Alpha" (ATIS broadcasts are labeled phonetically by letter, Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, etc.).
About eight miles away, I called air traffic control.
"Fox Tower, Skyhawk 42126."
Another short pause.
"Skyhawk 42126, Fox Tower, go ahead."
"Skyhawk 42126 is eight miles east of the airport with Information Alpha, we'd like to make an approach." (Ha! I remembered my tail number that time!)
"Skyhawk 26, cleared for a two-mile final to runway 2-4, report the freeway."
I hadn't been cleared to land, but I hadn't asked to be, either. The tower's transmission meant that I was okay to set up my landing approach (a long, two-mile descent, straight in). Of course, I had to let them know when I was over the highway. Highway 395 (or maybe it was 14) ran just two miles east of the airport. The tower used it as a sort of rangefinder for incoming traffic.
I set up my landing and called the tower when I was over the freeway.
"Skyhawk 42126, cleared for landing 2-4," they replied.
When an air traffic controller in a tower tells you something, it's customary for you to repeat it back to him (or her), just to let them know that you (a) heard, and (b) understood. Nobody in tower wants to tell a plane to stay in the pattern only to see them coming in to land on top of another plane a few minutes later. Harold cautioned me to repeat the tower's instructions back to them verbatim at this point.
"They tape record these conversations, you know," he said. "You want to repeat it back to 'em just like they gave it to you, so just in case something happens, you can say 'You cleared me to land!' and the tape will back you up."
So I was very judicious about repeating my landing instructions back.
"Skyhawk 42126, cleared to land 2-4," I said, heart thumping.
They've got a big ol' runway there at General Fox, wider and longer than Apple Valley. It had more VASI lights, too. I was a bit high to start out with, and got a little low, but in the end I evened 'er out. The two leftmost lights were white, and the two rightmost were red. I touched down pretty smoothly (even despite the bumpy breeze down near the ground), braked, and exited the runway.
Ah, but it still wasn't over yet. Fox is a towered airport, remember? You can't even move on the ground without asking permission. As soon as I got off the runway, shut off the carburetor heat, put the flaps up and set the transponder to "standby," I called up the tower and told them I was off the runway and ready to taxi. They told me to taxi to the parking area, and I repeated it back to them dutifully. Then we went. It was easy as pie. Harold had been here before and knew right where to go. We passed a handsome twin-engine Cessna, pulled up next to a brown-and-white 172, stopped, and shut down.
And that was it. We were there. (WOOT!)
Harold and I stepped inside the airport cafe (considerably larger and better appointed than Skidmarks at Apple Valley) and had a little breakfast. He had toast and I had two eggs. Harold let me have a piece, though. He's a chum. We ate, talked a bit, and watched the airfield outside (not much traffic today, thank goodness). I was amazed to see, in the distance, the giant white windmills at Tehachapi appear as minuscule white sticks on the slopes of the mountains. It took two hours to reach them from my house by car. I was dumbfounded that they were this close by air.
I picked up the tab (might as well go the whole hog; I was paying for Harold's time and the airplane). Then we got back outside, snapped on the master switch, listened to the ATIS once again (things hadn't changed much), fired up the Cessna, got taxi clearance, taxied to the run-up area for runway 24, ran the engine up, got permission to take off and depart the pattern on the downwind leg (making a U-turn after taking off), took off, and departed the pattern on the downwind leg.
Peachy-keen!
The return trip was pretty much the outbound one in reverse, except the "smoke pads" had gotten wider. And that car I'd seen on the dry lake bed at El Mirage was now ripping around and kicking up dust. And I didn't have to ask permission of Victorville Tower to transition their airspace this time, because we flew back at 5,500 feet instead of 4,500, which meant that we were above that bubble of Class D airspace (yippee!).
I made, if I may say, a pretty darn good landing back at Apple Valley. We parked, shut down, and that was it.
I now have 1.5 hours of cross-country time in my logbook.
I jumped in the Jeep and headed right back to Highway 18, thence to I-15, and headed south for Riverside. I was a man on a mission. Determined not to spend the winter flipping burgers to earn a little flying money (and my parents' rent), I've resolved to go to bartender's school. If I'm on the ball, I could get at least one flying lesson's worth in tips per night. Also, I'd have yet another occupational notch in my belt for my next overseas adventure. I could work as barkeep in Australia, for example (in case they're at a lack for journalism jobs too). Plus it'd be just plain fun to work in a bar, I think, even if it was busy...as long as I was well-trained.
To that end, I sought out a bartender's school nearby. The closest one I came up with was a scion of the National Bartenders School, headquartered in L.A. This branch was in Riverside, a somewhat dilapidated, scummy urban area near San Bernardino. The drive was about fifty to sixty miles, lasting an hour to an hour and a half (on bad traffic days, which are depressingly common down there).
That's a hell of a commute for bartender's school, I know. But my only other alternative was Palm Springs, and though that's certainly a better neighborhood, it's a lot farther away.
The school's address was 12702 Magnolia Avenue, Riverside. Now, Google Maps gave the directions as follows:
Merge onto I-15 South. 49.7 miles
Merge onto Ca-91 East toward Riverside. 1.9 miles
Take the McKinley Street exit. 0.01 miles
Turn right on McKinley Street. 0.03 miles
Turn left on Magnolia Avenue. 0.00 miles
12702 Magnolia Avenue will be on the right.
Simple, right? Drastically more simple than most other Basin-based directions, I can tell you that much. Content in my navigational prowess (I'd just flown to an airport I'd never been to before, you know) I hummed and whistled as I drove down through Cajon Pass, past the San Andreas Fault, and finally came upon the junction of I-15 and the 215.
Now, the 215 goes directly to Riverside. There is, in fact, a big green sign hanging over it that says "RIVERSIDE" on it. So, of course, even though my directions said "Merge onto the I-15 toward Riverside" and said absolutely nothing at all about getting on the 215, I got on the 215.
I began to realize my mistake when, after reaching the 91 (considerably later than I would've reached it had I not diverted down the 215), I ran into a traffic jam.
I got off the highway at Mission Inn Avenue, pulled into the near-empty parking lot of the Amtrak station, called up my dad at his office, and asked him, all contrite-like, if he could kindly find me a way from Point A in Riverside to Point B in Riverside.
Turned out I was more screwed than I thought. I could either pull back out onto the freeway and brave the traffic jam (McKinley Street was just another couple of exits farther along) or I could drive further down Mission Inn Avenue until I hit Market Avenue, which eventually (after four or five miles) became Magnolia. That would be, as my dad called it, "stoplight hell," however.
I heaved a sigh, thanked Dad, glanced toward the highway, and pulled back out of the parking lot and back onto California 91. I had at least enough sense left, after the last hour of terminal silliness, to notice that I was going west. I would be approaching the McKinley Street exit from the opposite direction indicated in my directions, so I would therefore need to turn LEFT on McKinley after exiting.
I was so busy noticing this that I failed to notice the turn signal go green. The FedEx truck behind me had to remind me with his horn.
When I got to the McKinley Street exit, I accordingly exited. The exit was one of those 180-degree turns that dumps you out at street level in the opposite direction you were heading when you exited. So, therefore, I actually DIDN'T have to turn left on McKinley after all. I still had to turn RIGHT.
So, anyway, I was on McKinley, after failing to notice that turn signal go green as well, necessitating a honk from the youth group van on my six.
You know, there's a multitude of reasons why flying is better than driving, and the utter lack of honking horns is one of them.
I turned left on Magnolia, drove past 18800 Magnolia Avenue, didn't see another address number for a quarter mile, and then ran across 12402 or something.
DANG! I'd missed it.
Did I mention that Magnolia Avenue is a one-way street?
I crossed the railroad tracks, finally managed to find a left-turn lane, whipped a U-ey, and came roaring back down Magnolia. I reached the intersection of Magnolia and McKinley after a few minutes, whipped another U-ey, and then went north back up Magnolia, this time more deliberately.
You'd better believe I took the first available right turn after 18800. It was a strip mall. I drove down the row, peering at signs and banners, not seeing anything about bartender school. Frustrated, I pulled out of the parking lot, prepared to go further down Magnolia and take the next available right. As I was sitting at the light, waiting to turn, I glanced over at the strip mall's master billboard (the one where all the shops and stuff were listed). It was then that I noticed the address number stenciled upon it.
12702 Magnolia Avenue.
Turns out the bartender's school was on the OTHER side of the building, where it was absolutely impossible to see from the street, thanks to the proximity of the building next to it and the narrowness of the parking lot in between. I found this out after whipping two quick rights: one onto Magnolia and one off, through the car wash, and back across the side street into the strip mall's parking lot once again.
I got inside the school just as the day's free demonstration was beginning. Tasha, the head teacher, greeted me as I walked in, slapped a loaner textbook into my hand, bade me sit anywhere I pleased, and began a 45-minute lecture on highballs. We covered everything from Scotch-and-water to Freddy Fudpucker. The class, though extremely informal, was professional. Tasha was swearing up a blue streak and telling us off-color stories about her bachelorette party, but during that short lesson I learned a lot about serving drinks in a busy bar. This school is thorough, if I didn't mention that before. Most schools would just teach you how to make drinks. This one teaches you to mix drinks fast, to memorize a drink's ingredients mnemonically, to operate a POS system, and even the finer points of public-house conversation.
After the lesson concluded I got the chance to talk to Tasha in her office. She told me that, for the school's flat fee of $595, I could sign up and take as long as I needed to to learn how to be a bartender. The classes ran on two separate schedules, weeks and weekends. I could attend whenever I pleased, however long I required. They had two sessions per day, one in the afternoon and one in the evening. All in all, that was more flexible than I'd dared to hope. They had speed trials at the end of every class, twelve drinks in six minutes. If you could keep up that pace, you could serve drinks in any bar during happy hour, Tasha claimed. I now had the skinny: scheduling, fees, lessons, teaching style...the works. All that remained was to say yea or nay. I thanked Tasha, grabbed a copy of the schedule, and walked out.
I deliberated for a time. Was that godawful commute really worth it? Would I get my money's worth out of this? Should I wait until later? But ultimately I decided to go for it, for the reasons I've listed before. It just seemed too reasonable, too convenient, too cost-effective, and too...exciting. I never used to think of myself as a guy who actively sought out and took on challenges, but it's beginning to look that way, kind of. I want to see if I can learn to memorize a hundred drink recipes, and mix twelve drinks in six minutes. I want to be a bartender.
I managed to find my way back out of Riverside the way I should've come in, without incident. Good thing, too. I had a headache when I finally got back to the house, and was just generally wiped out. Flying cross-country and navigating the congested Basin highways in the same day will do that to you.
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.
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.
