Living, Working, Flying

It has been a few weeks since I updated this and to tell you the truth I have not had much to update about. I have flown a few time with my instructor to a few airports (Newton (EWK), Jabarra (AAO), ElDorado (EQA), and Stearman (1K1) field). During this fight we have used ATC to get radar service (essentially just them telling us if there is any traffic to be aware of). I am slowly getting better at talking to ATC so that is a plus. I am also now checked off to go on solo flight between our home base of Augusta (3AU) and ElDorado. Last Monday we also worked on short and soft field takeoffs and landings. Soft field takeoffs are designed to get you off of the ground as quickly and smoothly as possible, from there you hold it in ground effect until you are at your normal climbing speed. Soft field landings are done with some power to help smooth landing and allow you to "feel" the runway for a good spot to put it down. Short field takeoff's are similar to soft field except you climb quickly to get over a certain size (say 50 foot high) obstacle near the end of the runway or if you just have a short runway, however these two usually go together. To do this you lift off as soon as possible and climb at your best angle until you clear the object before resume best rate of climb. Short field landings use full flaps just like soft field landings but you again are trying to get down as quickly as possible and you may have to clear an object. Once you clear the object you nose down and cut power. Since these procedures is done so low and slow proper execution is key since you will have little time and altitude to recover. I think doing this has also helped me improve my landings and landing where I am aiming instead of just floating until I get down. I was hoping to do a fair amount of flying this past weekend but well airplanes are mechanical and they break. On Friday I went out to fly and my aunt had just gotten down and the carburetor heat handle thing came completely out of the panel and then the vacuum pump went out. Thankfully it didn't take long to fix and I was able to fly for an hour this morning. This morning was truly the reason why you fly especially in the morning. It was 80 on the ground but a couple thousand feet up was right about 70 and smooth as can be. I worked on steep turns which I have not done in awhile and was a little rusty...certainly something to keep working on. Hopefully the wind will cooperate a few nights this week and I will be able to get up a few nights. College football also starts later this week and will be going strong next weekend...I cannot contain my exCYtment (see what I did there). Leave some comments and I will be sure to respond. GO CYCLONES!!! BEAT THE PANTHERS!!!

Cross Country

This past Tuesday night I was able to do my first cross country flight. The FAA defines a cross country flight as any flight that the arrival is somewhere other than the departure airport. I made a flight plan to leave our home field of Augusta, Kansas (3AU) down to Ponca City, Oklahoma (PNC) where we did a touch and go and back to Augusta. In my opinion this was a good first cross country because it is 1. almost straight south of Augusta 2. only 57 miles and 3. there are numerous towns, airports and other landmarks along the way to help you keep track of where you are and adjust your flight path accordingly. After going through my flight plan (this entails figuring out what your heading will be mainly adjusting for wind correction and magnetic variation and checking the weather we talked through who we would talk to on ATC (although this is not required I believe it should be taken advantage of and is valuable experience). We were able to take off on runway 18 (heading 180 degrees or straight south) and were on our heading to Ponca City immediately. Our cruising altitude for the trip down was 5,500 feet above sea level (ASL). For visual flight rule (VFR) flights if your heading is between 0 and 179 (straight north to one degree west of straight south) you have to fly an odd number altitude plus 500 feet (3,500 5,500 7,500 etc.). Between 180 and 359 you have to fly an even number altitude plus 500 feet (2,500 4,500 6,500 etc.). Remember these are all altitudes above sea level. We contacted Wichita approach for flight following and after they got done dealing people that were bigger, faster, and actually in their airspace we were able to get a squawk code (a four digit number you put into your transponder so they can identify you on their radar scope). The hand off to Kansas City Center went smooth (mostly because my instructor handled the radio communications for the way down) and I felt I did a good job of identifying the towns and landmarks along the way. It was a blessing in disguise that there was haze that limited our visibility to 8-10 miles because it forced me to pick out more places to cross check our path, on a clear day I am told you can almost see Ponca City from a few thousand feet right after take off. The arrival at Ponca City went very well as I crossed over midfield and entered a right downwind for runway 17. The runway at PNC is almost twice as long and much wider than 3AU. These differences if you are not careful can be dangerous as they change your perception of your attitude. The touch-n-go went well and we headed back to 3AU. I handled the radio communications on the way back, I was not good at all but it was my first time right? The haze also caused it to get darker a little earlier and we got back to 3AU at what was essentially sundown at that point. While approaching 3AU we had a small issue with a plane taking off on runway 36 while we were entering the pattern for 18 (same runway just different ends going opposing directions...not good). Even though I had made several radio calls he did not say a thing until he pulled onto the runway and went to take off. Thankfully I had enough time to adjust and make a quick base turn to land on runway 36 (overshot final but was able to recover and land pretty well!). I was hoping to do some more flying today since it is my bi-weekly three day weekend but the weather is not cooperating. Hopefully the wind calms down the ceiling goes up and it stops raining sometime soon! Let me know if you have any questions about aviation!

AIRVENTURE

Well I have had a busy few weeks of flying, work and well life. My flying is going pretty well in the last week I have logged about 2 hours of solo time in which I have done about 20 landings. Everything is going great and I am looking forward to expanding what I can do as well as checking off more requirements. The real reason why I wanted to update this is because this is the week that Oshkosh, Wisconsin becomes the center of the aviation world. Airventure is the annual air show, celebration and trade show held by the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA). There are many things that Airventure such a great event. You can do everything from look at all the newest and greatest general aviation aircraft from every manufacturer, to seeing some of the oldest and rarest aircraft in the world in the warbird and vintage areas. You can literally find every type of airplane single engine piston (SEP), turbine, jet, home built, and rotorcraft. There is almost something for everyone Kidventure does a great job of educating and giving kids something interesting to do. You need something for your plane or are looking for a plane you can find it. Looking for a job in aviation? For the first time Airventure had a career fair this year. My favorite parts are the cool new planes, the old vintage planes and what is arguably the best air show in the world. Airventure features the best civilian performers in the world. The usual headliners are Mike Goulian, Matt Younkin, Sean D. Tucker, Gene Soucy and my personal favorite the Aeroshell team! For those of you up in Iowa the presenting sponsor for the daily air show is Rockwell Collins. On Monday night after the air show there is always a concert which featured Chicago this year. There are also forums and "lectures" lectures covering any topic in aviation. This is no small get together either. The show normally has over 50,000 attendees during the week and thousands of airplanes fly-in to Oshkosh and camp on the grounds. During this week it becomes the busies airport in the world. On Thursday of this week the air traffic controllers (ATC) at Oshkosh handled 2,805 flights in 10 hours, Chicago's O'Hare International Airport averages 2,750 in 24 hours. The thing to remember is these are all general aviation aircraft coming and going, not one bit is commercial. Due to this amount of traffic there are special flight rules for this week which allow them to handle this many planes. It can get so busy that as a pilot you are instructed not to verbally respond to instructions from ATC, instead you simply rock your wings. You are also told to land in big painted dots on the runway to allow for multiple planes to land on the same runway at the same time (not to mention the makeshift runway right next to you that has multiple planes landing or taking off on it as well). This is also just the traffic at Oshkosh, nearby airports in Fon Du Lac, Appleton and Greenbay also act as reliever airports if you don't want to or can't get into Oshkosh. I encourage you to check out Airventure.org to check it out. They have videos, pictures and live cams from areas around the field as well as showing the daily air show from 2-6pm daily and from 8-10 on Wednesday and Saturday nights. Sadly we couldn't make it since someone has to stay back in the air capital and keep the industry going. If you want to go let me know and you can join my wife and I next year as we again plan to make the yearly pilgrimage.