For Better or Worse

The vows you make when you acquire an airplane are very similar to those you make when you get married, with the notable exception of the promise of faithfulness and monogamy. You can still fly other airplanes without having a detrimental effect on your relationship, although there are still issues that may arise with the Finance Dept. if you incur flying costs in addition to the expense of those already associated with your own airplane. But that monogamy thing aside, the vow that really cuts to the heart of the relationship with your airplane is the whole ‘for better or worse’ thing.

You see, the vows are not the only similarities between marriage and airplane ownership. Many of the challenges that go with marriage are also present in your relationship with your airplane. The biggest of those challenges is Winter. Every Winter, your airplane becomes cold and distant. The good times of the previous flying season are easily forgotten as you find yourself spending less and less quality time together. At times you wonder why you even bother any more. The expenses are always there, there is always work that needs to be done, and that work is often done in cold and uncomfortable conditions. You try to deal with all of that, but it seems that all you receive in return are brief and relatively rare conjugal visits on those rare occasions when the winter weather allows a fleeting (rather than the more common sleeting) opportunity to engage in the intimacy of flight that comes so easily in the better months of the year.

Just as you start to think it is well and truly over, that your differences are irreconcilable, that there is no love left in the relationship at all, Spring arrives. With Spring comes the better weather, the revitalization of the passion that formed the basis of your relationship in the first place. With Spring comes the realization that you two were made for each other, and that better times are right around the corner. With the arrival of Spring, the tribulations of the Winter are instantly forgotten. The ‘Better’ part has finally, at long last, arrived.

Spring arrived on Friday.

Well, to be honest, Spring actually arrived on Thursday, but I had mowing to do and the airplane had to wait. Just one more day, just one more day, just one more day…

For Friday, I had arranged for one of my favorite things to do with Papa: we were going to give a ride to a guest. Lynda, the founder of Girls With Wings and a Citation X pilot at one of my previous employers, was in town for training and we had arranged for her to have an RV ride. I love giving rides to everyone that expresses an interest, but there are a few categories of rider that I especially enjoy: kids, people that have never flown before, and professional pilots.

The first two of those are enjoyable for obvious reasons, but the last might not be quite as easily understood. The thing is, I’ve found that a lot of professional pilots have either forgotten or never really new the freedom of unencumbered flying in a sporty airplane. Often times their aviation background is in military flying or the very regimented training flying of a college aviation program. They have never experienced the combined joys of a responsive and eager airplane being flown without regard to destination, time, or demanding passengers/instructors.

Certainly a military fighter pilot knows the merits of a nimble aircraft quite well, but seldom are they offered the chance to just jump in and fly simply for the joy that’s in it. Commercial pilots may periodically be released from the tight constraints of time and passenger demands while making ferry flights, but they are still strapped into a relatively sedate machine that is primarily operated via interaction with an autopilot and is still beholden to the restrictions and demands of Air Traffic Control. As such, their introduction to the RV grin can be every bit as gratifying to me as the one on the face of a person that has never experienced the awe of flight at all.

In Lynda’s case, it seems that she became a pilot almost by accident. Rather than having had the burning passion to fly from a very young age that I had, she was introduced to flying when she was recruited into applying for an Army helicopter slot when she was in ROTC during her college years. That led to 400-some hours flying the venerable Huey helicopter, followed by a transition into the fixed-wing King Air. From there she progressed through various flying jobs, leading to her current position at NetJets. Her only experience in single-engine piston airplanes was 40 or so hours in Cessna 182s. An RV-6 is so foreign to any of those airplanes that to an appreciable degree, our flight would be like something she had never experienced before.

As much as I enjoy flights like these, they bring a different kind of tension to me. After all, these people usually have thousands of flight hours, making my 700+ look pretty low by comparison. They operate aircraft having the complexity of the space shuttle. They fly at altitudes and in weather that are inconceivable to those of us that ply the skies in nice weather and seldom over 10,000′. In Lynda’s case, she also flies at .92 mach, making her one of the fastest non-military pilots in the world. It’s simply the case that an amateur recreational pilot like would like to make a good impression on a professional, and failing that, at least not make a horribly negative impression. Don’t get me wrong; I have never found a professional pilot that has flown with me to be judgmental in any way, shape, or form. It’s just a subtle undercurrent of stress that I (needlessly and possibly unnecessarily) impose on myself for some reason. Call it foolish pride, if you must. It more than likely is exactly that. Which changes nothing: it is what it is.

As has always been the case, there was no reason at all to have had even the slightest worry about her not enjoying the flight. Papa showed off in his usual way by starting up with no reluctance whatsoever, the skies were crystal clear and the winds were simply non-existent. Basically, we had perfect conditions for a smooth, fun flight. I made the take off and climbed to about 3,000 feet before handing her the stick (metaphorically, of course, as there was already a stick over there on her side) and letting her fly for awhile. She adapted quickly to the light touch that is required for an RV, probably because her experience with helicopters had ingrained the need for small, precise inputs rather than larger, more abrupt movements. Having never flown a Huey, I’m just guessing about this, but it seems plausible.

Lynda described herself as a “timid” pilot but was willing (and trusting enough) to allow me to demonstrate some of the more advanced air work possible in an RV. I described and then performed a couple of maneuvers, which were then followed by a couple more at her request. During the second set she committed herself to actually keeping her eyes open, but I was unable to verify that she actually did. When we had finished those, I could tell that it was time to head back to base by the way she was adjusting the air vent to get more cool air blowing on her. That’s nearly always a sign that there might be a little queasiness coming on, and that it might be best to head back to the airport as smoothly and as expeditiously as possible. Fortunately, the skies were very calm and provided us with a comfortable ride back.

And all of a sudden, there it was: the test that all pilots judge each other by. I’m speaking, of course, of the landing. As I’ve oft mentioned here before, if I am ever going to grease a landing, I want it to be with a witness aboard. And if I could grease one with a 5000+ hour professional pilot bearing witness? Well, all the better, right? Conditions were perfect, too. Very little wind and calm skies are the necessary ingredients for the type of landing that makes a passenger ask if we’ve touched down yet, and that’s exactly what we had. Sadly enough, though, while the actual landing was just fine, it narrowly missed the perfection that I had been hoping for. Ah well, lost opportunity there, but by no means even the slightest blight on what had been a wonderful flight.

That cold, brutal, emotionally unsatisfying Winter? Immediately forgotten. My love for my airplane had blossomed again like Spring tulips. And as perfect as that was, it was even more perfect that I had had the chance to share it with someone else.

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My recently developed hatred of high school biology

Having had the great fortune (or misfortune – opinions will vary) of never having had a single class in Biology during my entire scholastic career, it is with a cringing feeling of trepidation that I respond to the periodic “Egg has a biology project due.” It invariably means that 1) she needs my help, and 2) the deadline is looming just over the horizon. Sure, I should welcome the opportunity to share in these projects with my beloved child, and I suppose I would if it were the case that I knew even the most rudimentary aspects of the science in question. But I don’t. When faced with Biology projects, I endure the same sense of humiliating ignorance and befuddlement that poor Sir Hogarth suffers when I tax his limited mental acumen with such arcane commandments as “Don’t eat the cat food!” and “Quit licking yourself.”

So, as I’m sure you have already discerned, another project made its way over the threshold and was ungraciously plopped onto my shoulders a few days ago. I believe that it was Tuesday, a day that I still remember as having been not all that great to begin with, that I was unceremoniously informed that Egg and I would be availing ourselves of the mutual and unexpected opportunity to build a model of a double helix DNA strand. If you just thought (or said out loud) “A what??”, you are in good company. That was my exact response. My second response, following only a second after the first, has been ingrained into my very being: “When is it due?”

Friday. Good. We have a couple of days to work on it. That was the good news. The bad news was that this looked to be far more difficult than the model of a cell that we had constructed just a few months ago. As always, my first response to these types of disasters is to see what the all-knowing Google can tell me:

The DNA-Helix

The sugar-phosphate backbone is on the outside and the four different bases are on the inside of the DNA molecule.

The two strands of the double helix are anti-parallel, which means that they run in opposite directions.

The sugar-phosphate backbone is on the outside of the helix, and the bases are on the inside. The backbone can be thought of as the sides of a ladder, whereas the bases in the middle form the rungs of the ladder.

Each rung is composed of two base pairs. Either an adenine-thymine pair that form a two-hydrogen bond together, or a cytosine-guanine pair that form a three-hydrogen bond. The base pairing is thus restricted.

Yeah, right. And to think that that is a simplified explanation. The unsimplified article on Wikipedia might has well have been written on Cyrillic Latin. In fact, I’m not convinced that it wasn’t. Well, pictures being worth 1000 words and all, I hoped that graphic imagery would come to my aid. Huh, you be the judge:

Yeah. Not so much. Well, if I learned nothing at all from the cell project (and to be brutally honest, I didn’t) I learned that I don’t really have to understand the science to assist in building the model. The secret is that Google also has an Image search. All I needed to do was determine how other Dad’s had mastered this crisis. Here’s how that turned out:

No.

No.

No.

No.

Yes! Good news: easily made out of on-hand supplies from the pantry. Bad news: it was delicious!

Having failed with our attempt at having Google allow us to benefit from the labors of others, there was nothing left to do but go to Plan B: walk the aisles of Hobby Lobby looking for inspiration and the accompanying raw materials. I had a pretty good idea that the helix frame could be constructed out of dowel sticks, with a thick stick being drilling through around its circumference and smaller dowels being pushed through the holes to model those pesky base pairs. (What do you mean, “What are base pairs?” You did read the science stuff that I provided, right? You didn’t just skim past that, did you?) What had be flummoxed was the question of how exactly we would model the sugar-phosphate backbone. (Oh, for crying out loud. Just go back and read it, why don’t ya?) I was very concerned about how (and from what) we would cut out a helix and how it would be attached to the ends of the little dowels. That’s some pretty tricky work!

Well, Egg solved that part of the problem. Her suggestion (and it was pure genius!) was to use pipe cleaners. The dowel sticks were easily found, the pipe cleaners took a little longer but were eventually located, and we found nice, cheap paint and brushes to use to differentiate the various pieces/parts of the DNA. Unlike the cell project, this one came in pretty cheap. I think it was slightly less than $8. I think the cell ended up costing more like $28.

From there it was all pretty easy. Egg did the measuring and cutting of the thin dowels, I did the cutting and drilling for the big dowel, and she took over from there. All in all, I think it turned out very well. She even made the painting part look pretty fun:

Now that is the definitive face of concentration, isn’t it?

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Flying with the daughter

Not me, this time. This is a tale of a trip undertaken by a recently retired F-18 pilot and his daughter, banging around California in a rented Cessna 172.

Here’s just a taste:

Beat the weather with a good half hour to spare. Filed for our old hometown at Hanford, but ended up stopping for gas at Bakersfield Meadows, having tried and failed to land at the muni airport on the south side of town after working the fuel/distance math and realizing we could make the last leg home undramatic. Winds 130 at 17 gusting to 30 at the muni, and not quite sure we wouldn’t crash on the first attempt. Discretion being the better part of valor with precious cargo, we retraced our steps and found the runway at Meadows more nearly into the wind. It’s alarming how much a light aircraft can get beat around.

Courtesy car for lunch, a quick turn on the ramp and we were on our way.

It turns out that the Sierras stab straight through the direct course from Fresno to Los Angeles. Which is something I’d never quite noticed before, from 27,000 feet. Climbed all the way to 9500 feet (!) before finding that we couldn’t stay up there until we’d burned some fuel down. Took a hard look at the hard terrain in every direction. Got the hell beat out of us crossing the mountains, what with all that high pressure air rushing to fill the low pressure boundary to the north. Told my daughter to cinch up her seat belts, it was about to get rough. She did, and promptly fell asleep.

That’s trust. Or innocence, maybe.

Read the whole thing:

Part 1
Part 2

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EggCam&trade

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Know when (not) to go

The Weather-out-the-Window™ yesterday looked pretty good and, in fact, it was. My RV friend Ted had mentioned on Friday that he and his wife would be flying up to Put-in-Bay for a visit, and I generously invited myself and Co-pilot Egg to join them. I warned him that any commitments along those lines on my end were tentative at best because it is hard to predict how any number of critical decision-making elements will turn out:

– will she still want to go?
– will she get out of bed before noon?
– will the weather be calm enough? Note that I have much tighter weather criteria when flying EOB (Egg On Board) than usual.

As it transpired, two out of the three elements were met, and the third (the weather) was OK in the local area, but it looked like it would be cold and breezy on the island. Both of those things matter: the island is inhospitably cold when the temps are in the mid 30s, and the small runway is as threatening as a Doberman with a painful hang nail when it’s windy. I made the decision to stay home, and after reading about the results of the trip on Ted’s blog, I think I made the right decision:

The headwind was strong at 27 kts. We stayed at 5,500′ to get above turbulence and less headwind. When we arrived at Put in Bay, I tuned to Port Clinton AWOS. It reported wind 300 at 14 gust 19, both runways 3 and 21 gets 90 degree cross wind. I decided to circle all islands in a clockwise pattern, that brings me to right downwind runway 3. Air was bumpy at this time. By the time I was on short final I noticed that I had to fight very hard to keep my airplane lined up with the runway center line and on the glide slope. My landing was the worst I ever had in my RV. After my left main touched down it bounced a little and wobbled down the runway. Fortunately, I got positive control of the airplane and exited the runway at around 1,500′. The lady worked at the counter told me that the pilot of a commuter flight that morning complained about the wind too. The wind was different than the one reported at Port Clinton. Landing on runway 3 I had shifting tail wind gust to 23 kts. She said that if I could land today I could land any day there.

And, like I said, that runway is never a particularly easy target in the best of weather:

Photo courtesy (Presumably. I didn’t actually ask!) of Ted Chang

Having decided not to fly, we managed to still get outside and enjoy the weather by taking a family walk and nearby Prairie Oaks Metro Park:

The Co-Pilot, Co-Owner, and Brave Sir Hogarth

I had hoped to get any flying that I wanted to do done on Saturday under the threat of really nasty weather on Sunday. As these things often work out, the Weather-out-the-Window&trade on Sunday morning was every bit as nice as the preceding day’s had been, albeit with the promise of somewhat stronger winds in the afternoon. Feeling that I still owed Egg a flying lesson, we started casting about for a destination.

Back when I was just getting started in flying, the big deal was to fly to Bluffton (5G7) for Denny’s. The Denny’s was in an adjoining parking lot, so it was a simple matter to land and walk on over. That Denny’s went out of business years ago, but every now and then someone will buy the place and try again. Google showed that the most recent was a place called the Eagle’s Nest, but we all know that one of the less positive traits of Google is that it never forgets anything. In other words, just because Google remembers a restaurant being there does not mean that a restaurant is still there. Still, it was a nice distance for a flight and since Egg had covered her bases by eating some Eggo’s prior to departure, it was a safe enough bet.

We took off from Bolton with a nice crosswind from the right. The wind from the right was at just the right strength to counteract the normal left turning tendency on takeoff, so the only rudder required was to adjust for the varying speeds. It wasn’t a steady wind, you see. It was something along the lines of 8 gusting 12. One over achiever of a gust hit us just as the tail lifted which necessitated an enthusiastic correction with the rudder, but that was not unexpected and was handled with aplomb by my caffeine-enhanced foot reactions.

I climbed us up to 3,500 and pointed us in the general direction of Bluffton before handing the reins over to Co-pilot Egg. I gave her some quick reminders concerning how to keep the GPS aligned and to make sure to keep an active scan of instruments/GPS/airspace going. The air was smooth, albeit with some mild bumps and up/down drafts, so after just a few minutes I was able to fly us along the course while I diddled with maps and the camcorder. We had a quartering tail wind, so we were making 152 knots across the ground at 2,300 rpm. She has a suitably light touch on the stick and has gotten over her initial desire to get back to our altitude with a big yank or shove on the stick. I’m pretty sure we never drifted any more than 150′ high or low during her entire time at the controls. Very good! And I think she enjoyed it, too:

When we were a few miles out from the destination, I took over and made the descent into the landing pattern. The winds were favoring runway 5, so we crossed over the airport to enter the standard left downwind. From our perch just above the airport, I could see that the restaurant was deserted. While we still held the advantage of the high ground, we searched for alternatives and found a bevy of fast food places just across the highway. With that observation, I elected to continue the landing. It was a 10 gusting 13 crosswind from the right, which is just strong enough to be considered good practice. The touchdown was smooth, with just one little bounce resulting from the extra 5 mph that I carried into the flare.

After we had parked by the FBO and were walking in, a nice young lady came out to inquire as to our needs. Feigning a complete lack of knowledge about, and desire to use, a crew car, I adopted my Bambi-face and asked how difficult the walk across the highway bridge would be. She replied, “Well, would you like to use our crew van? I can walk over and get it for you.” It’s slightly possible that I over-played the thinking-about-it pause before answering in the affirmative, but I think the chances are good that I got it just right. See, if you accept too fast, it becomes really, really obvious that the whole ‘walking’ question was really just an un-subtle beg for use of the car. There’s an art to these things, after all.

The crew van turned out to be a very nice example of that type of car. You may remember, for example, the car we borrowed down in Ashland that was so nasty that it called into question just how much ‘courtesy’ there really is in the term ‘courtesy car’ sometimes. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. It’s just more of an observation on the wide spectrum of the loaner cars various airports make available to visiting pilots.

It was less than a mile from the airport to the row of restaurants, and I let Egg choose our destination from a list of restaurants including a McDonalds, Arbys, Burger King, Subway, and Taco Bell. She decided on Subway, where we split a footlong BMT and a bag of chips.

On the way out, I had her ask for change for a $10 bill so I’d have a fiver to tip the airport girl with. I taxied over to the pumps and she came out and pumped the gas for me. I didn’t really need any, but at $3.42/gallon I figured that I’d go ahead and fill up. As she was running the Visa card through back in the office, I slipped the five under the crew van keys on the desk. Sometimes they get all “Oh, you don’t need to do that!” on me, so I just avoid the argument and put it someplace that they’re sure to find it.

Egg’s current career plans involve nursing. Granted, her interest is currently in neo-natal, but I haven’t given up on trying to get her interested in Life Flight. The local Life Flight operation is based at Bluffton, so we snuck over to their ramp to sneak a picture:

There were cars in their parking lot that indicated that there might be people on-duty, but the skies were clouding up with the precursors of tomorrow’s bad weather and the winds were starting to pick up, so I decided that rather then pestering them, we would just head home. It was bumpier heading back, and even at 2,500 rpm we were only making 140 knots across the ground. As we approached Bolton from the north, we reported in over Darby Dan and were requested to report entering mid-field left downwind to runway four.

Just a minute or so later, a Skyhawk reported in over Lilly Chapel, which is eight miles west. We were descending down to pattern altitude and I still had most of the throttle in, so I figured that the resulting 170 mph on the speedometer would get us to the runway far quicker than the Cessna. The tower wasn’t quite as sure, but that’s simply because he has no way of knowing how fast I’m going. He thought it might be a good idea to figure out who was going to get there first, so he queried our position, which was three miles north. The Cessna responded to his query as “still more than five miles out.” RV-6, for the win!

The winds were a bit stronger by that time, but Bolton has a nice, wide runway and it’s pretty easy to find a spot to land in it under just about any conditions. It was a nice enough landing, considering. I taxied back to the hangar and started going through the steps of bedding down Papa. At one point, it struck me that I wasn’t getting much help from the co-pilot. Well, as it turns out, this piloting business is tiring work:

Still, she’s enjoying flying with her old man these days every bit as much as she did years and years ago when she wrote this:

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Finally, I eat at Mansfield!

I’ve taken to calling it “The Mansfield Curse.” For a few years now, it seems that every attempt to land at Mansfield-Lahm (KMFD) for breakfast has been stymied by weather, the restaurant being closed, or some other untoward event. This weekend looked as if it would be no different. The late week forecast predicted Sunday to be the day to fly, so I planned accordingly. Lo and behold, the forecast I looked at on Saturday night had a completed contrary opinion: low clouds scattered, slightly less low clouds overcast. Figuring that I’d have to eat anyway, I called Co-pilot Rick to see if he’d be interested in a ground transportation-based trip for morning victuals.

Forecasts are worth exactly what you pay for them, as it turns out. The morning dawned clear and blue. The updated forecast confirmed it: it was to be a good flying day. Having already arranged for a breakfast rendezvous, it was a simple matter to re-format the day to include a fly-out meal. Mansfield was back on the menu, so to speak.

We met at 0915 and I handed Rick his brief sheets. I had decided to give him the first leg, rather than the normal return leg. Papa was ready to go in just a few moments and I had Rick call the tower for taxi clearance. I usually do the taxiing, but I got to thinking that there’s no real reason not to let him give it a try. It takes awhile to get used to the difference between taxiing a nosewheel plane and a tailwheel plane, but since we would be making the long trek out to runway 4, he had plenty of time to get the hang of it. There were no other planes flying yet, so I made a quick takeoff and handed the reins back to Rick for the rest of the flight.

Mansfield is a big airport, and we had it in sight 22 miles out. The ATIS reported that they were landing on runway 5, which set us up for a straight in approach. We were cruising at 5,500′, so I had Rick start a descent down to 3,500 while we were still fairly far out. It was good that I did since the tower cleared us to land at a stunning 12 miles out from the airport! Long straight in approaches are normally tricky for me, but this one was even trickier because of the immense size of the runway. I ended up slowed to 100 mph while we were still 6 or 7 miles out, flying into a 10 knot head wind. It felt like we were going to be out there all flipping day, so I boosted us back up to a more efficacious 140 mph.

It was still no big deal to get slowed back down to 100 mph and gets the flaps hung out, and I nailed the landing on the big, huge number 5. We were able to easily make the first turn off, which of course was nearly a mile from the restaurant. Normally I would have simply landed further down the runway, but I wanted to pass by the C-130s parked on the ramp in order to snap a couple of pictures.

The ramp in front of the restaurant was deserted, so I was immediately concerned that we had yet again arrived only to find a closed restaurant. Such was not the case, though, and we were seated and perusing menus just minutes after landing. Story of my life, though: I ordered the #2: Center-cut ham, two eggs, and toast. Naturally they were out of that. It’s amazing how often that happens to me. I went with my second choice, which was two pancakes and sausage. The menu selections and the food itself was just average, but having finally slain the Mansfield Curse made it special. And, in addition to the normal “outside looking in” picture, I was finally able to get an “inside looking out” picture.

After an uneventful return to Bolton, I made an appearance at home just long enough to change into “rolling around on the hangar floor” clothes and headed back to the airport to begin the process of the annual condition inspection. This entails removing the engine cowls, the inspection panels that allow access to some of the moving parts down inside the airplane, and the prop spinner. Everything went fine, at least for the first three hours.

Removing the prop spinner is the job that I usually save for last because it’s pretty easy, but this time it turned out to be atypically irksome. At the point when I was two screws from being done, I ran into a rounded screw that I just could not get to budge. Thus began a comedy of tortuous events that included a dysfunctional air drill and other ignominious technical failures, but I eventually got the bad screw removed.

I had my scanner turned on to listen to the tower as he was working the four or five touch & go renters, and the occasional arrival or departure. There was one particular touch & go that was in the pattern for what must have been an hour and a half. Finally, long after all of the others had landed or returned to their home base, he was on his last landing. The radio traffic went something like this:

Tower: “Cessna 123, you outlasted them all!”

Cessna 123: “Yeah. Hey, good work on your part today.”

Tower: “You know, we keep some forms down in the terminal at the base of the tower to gather feedback. You could fill one of those out for me. We could use the help; we had a guy fill one out last week that just raked us over the coals. He didn’t know what he was doing and had a lot of problems following directions.”

Cessna 123: “Yeah, I filled that one out. You were much better today.”

Tower: ” [dead, uncomfortable silence] “

Cessna 123: “I’ll fill a nice one out today.”

Me: “LOL!!”

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Another article to submit

I’m going to send this one to AOPA Pilot:

One of the challenges that all of us who are passionate about flying face is finding ways to share the experience with our loved ones that possibly are not quite as enamored with the experience. In my case, it is my wife that does not share my love of flying simply for the sake of flying. She does, however, recognize that the airplane provides an efficient means of squeezing interesting trips that would take an entire weekend to accomplish with a car into a single day. With that in mind, I am always on the lookout for destinations that fulfill the following criteria:

• Close enough to an airport to allow for easy transportation to and from the destination without incurring the additional expense of renting a car or paying for a taxi;
• Interesting to visit for those that do not consider an aviation museum, fly-in, or $100 hamburger sufficient justification for a trip;
• Within an hour or so of flying time from home.

Additionally, I require a solid forecast for pleasant flying conditions for the entire day. Too much heat and/or turbulence causes nausea, diversions around threatening looking weather cause anxiety, and strong winds bring stressful takeoffs and landings in our tailwheel RV-6. As you can imagine, the occasions when I have a suitable destination, prefect flying weather, and a lucky symmetry of our time availability are relatively rare.

We recently had just such an occasion, though, and it is this most recent experience that I wish to share with you. I had heard through various sources that a trip to French Lick, Indiana might be just the kind of destination that I look for. The rumor mill had it that easy transportation to and from the airport was provided (gratis!) by the Hotel/Casino in town. A brief internet search confirmed that rumor as fact, and also provided enough of a description of the area to entice me to make the trip at the first opportunity.

The Weather-out-the-Window_tm forecast on the morning of our proposed departure looked eminently flyable, and an ensuing consultation with a higher authority (DUATS) confirmed that the conditions were not only prime for the trip out, but also that they would remain that way for the balance of the day. Looking at the winds and distances involved showed a travel time of 1+15 in the RV-6. While that estimate was right on the border of acceptability, it appeared quite favorable when compared to the 4+20 it would take to go by car. I have learned through 17 years of marriage that when justifying the cost of a plane trip, the wise pilot always stresses the amazing time savings inherent in travel by air.

The wise pilot also remembers to caution his passenger about the risk of drinking too much morning tea prior to departure in a small airplane, and in that task I failed completely. One could argue that the incumbent discomfort she felt during the latter half of the flight presented the perfect opportunity to argue in favor of a faster airplane, but discretion being the better part of valor, I decided against it. Fortunately all turned out well, but I do not plan on making it a habit to arrive in the airport pattern at a blistering 160 knots as I did on that fateful day.

The FBO was kind enough to phone the French Lick Resort to ask that we be picked up at the airport, and just a few minutes later we were loaded up and on the way to town in their plush Buick minivan. The driver of the van was quite cheerful and we enjoyed his descriptions of the local area on the 10 minute drive to the hotel. We also took the opportunity to ask what is probably the most asked question he receives: what in the world does French Lick mean? While I could share the answer with you, I think I will leave it unanswered as an enticement for you to make the trip yourself to find out.

As it turns out, there are two hotels that comprise the Resort: the West Baden Springs Hotel and the French Lick Springs Hotel. After inquiring as to what it is we wished to do while in town, the driver advised that since we weren’t interested in going to the casino, we should start with a visit to the West Baden Hotel. Listed as a National Historic Landmark, the West Baden Springs Hotel was rebuilt in 1902 after a fire destroyed the original facility in 1901. It is a very unique structure with its huge, 200’ diameter domed atrium.

While it had fallen into disrepair over the years, it is now in extremely good condition after a full renovation that was completed in May, 2007. After walking around the atrium enjoying the beautiful architecture, we went outside to stroll around the grounds. The weather was perfect for a long walk in the European-style gardens and a few minutes spent sitting by the large garden fountain relaxing to the sound of the water.

After lunch at Sinclair’s, the West Baden’s fine restaurant (named after Lee W. Sinclair who was the man credited with creating the hotel into a world-class property after the 1901 fire), we boarded the shuttle bus for a trip over to the French Lick Springs Hotel. The French Lick has an equally storied history and has weather many of the same challenges and restorations as its sister hotel. It was originally built in 1845 as a place to lodge travelers that were coming to French Lick to partake in the natural sulphur springs and famous Pluto mineral water.

As with the West Baden Hotel, the French Lick Hotel also succumbed to a fire in 1897. It was rebuilt through the efforts of U.S. Senator Thomas Taggert who went on to bring casino gambling to the resort, despite the fact that gambling was illegal at the time. As such, the hotel became the go-to place for gamblers, politicians, gangsters, and entertainers. In that way, the French Lick Casino of the 1920’s was the precursor to cities like Las Vegas and Atlantic City. Regular daily train service from Chicago made it a simple matter to travel to French Lick.

While there is a good-sized casino there, gambling is no longer the only reason to travel to French Lick. There is now a Pete Dye designed golf course that will open this year and will host the PGA Championship event in 2010 to accompany the original Don Ross course that first opened in 1917. The Don Ross course hosted the PGA Championship, won by the legendary Walter Hagan, in 1924. Spa, specialty shops, a pool complex, and 443 rooms/suites round out the offerings.

There are also plenty of restaurant opportunities to be enjoyed at the French Lick Hotel. While we were nowhere near ready for another meal, we did walk around to see the various options for future reference. There is a buffet that looks like an attractive option for a return trip if we would like to try a weekend brunch, and there is a small pub called the Power Plant Lounge that looked like a good place to while away an evening should we ever make on overnight trip of it. The lounge inhabits the space that formerly served as the control room to manage the old power plant that used to provide heat and electricity for the entire hotel complex. One full wall is still covered in the switches, levers, and gauges that the operators used to keep things running.

It was getting late, so we decided that we had better start heading back towards the airport for our flight home. It can take a little longer to get back to the airport in the afternoons as a lot more of the resort patrons are up and about, and many of them are shuttling back and forth between the two hotels. The driver was eventually able to find a large enough gap in the traffic flow to make the trek out to the airport. I mentioned that there is no charge for the shuttle service, but we were so pleased with the pleasant, informative drivers that we left generous tips after each ride.

The weather had help up every bit as well as the forecast had indicated that it would, and had even gone so far as to provide a generous tailwind for our return trip. Having learned a valuable lesson regarding the issues surrounding over exuberant beverage drinking and travel by small plane, we didn’t have a recurrence of the discomfort endured by the co-owner on the outward bound leg of the trip no the return leg. The ride was smooth at 7,500’ and the few clouds that we saw were non-threatening. We landed at just about eight hours after we had left, or put another way, in less time than it would have taken to drive to and from French Lick non-stop.

I think she was impressed.

 

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On very rare occasions…

It is a rare occasion indeed for me to see a trailer for a movie that I simply must see. This is one of those occasions:

Unfortunately, it is a German film and has not been released (and may never be) in the US.

Just. My. Luck!

H/T AirPigz.com

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Since I can’t afford an autopilot….

We had some nice looking but still somewhat brisk weather this afternoon, as evidenced by the morally uplifting Weather-out-the-Windshield&trade forecast available during my afternoon commute across town combined with the rapidity with which Brave Sir Hogarth completed his afternoon duties outside. I can’t complain too much about the cold considering that the sun was more than willing to provide heat if you were to find yourself encased in a clear, transparent bubble like, say, an RV-6 canopy. It still gets dark fairly early, but there was certainly enough time for a quick jaunt around the local area.

Co-pilot Egg was available and interested in riding along, so we took the opportunity to embark on her first flying “lesson.” I have to put ‘lesson’ in quotes since I’m not a certified flight instructor and as such cannot give her official lessons towards a pilot’s license, but I can still teach her how to help with the preflight, navigation, and enroute portions of the flying. You know, two-thirds of the things an autopilot would do for me. Being able to participate in the actual flying will also have the benefit of making the actual flying part of trips much more fun for her.

It was chilly enough today that we didn’t spend any more time than necessary on the preflight; she shivered in the hangar while I did the poking and prodding required to ensure that Papa was up to the task. I also performed the engine start and tower communications without any explanation at all as to what I was doing. We’ll circle back on concentrate more fully on that stuff later.

The winds were reported as “calm” by the tower, and I had no occasion to doubt the veracity of that report. We were soon off the runway and climbing towards the southwest on a straight out departure. I usually opt for a departure to the west, but an Ercoupe had departed just in front of us and was heading out west. Those things are so slow that I feared we’d run into him if we were to lose sight of him flying directly into the setting sun. Since we weren’t headed anywhere in particular, it was “six of a dozen, half of one another” to me and southwest was just as good as west.

During the climb we reviewed basics like how to read the altimeter, what the vertical velocity gauge was showing her, and how to tell what direction we were going. At 3,500′ I let her take the stick and we practiced straight and level flight. The sun was glaring in her eyes while we were heading southwest, so we practiced a turn to the east. I wanted to give Rickenbacker a wide berth, so we only flew on the easterly course for a few minutes before I had her head turn to the south. We’re going to have to spend some time talking about compass directions before we fly again, though, as she struggles to figure out things like “if we’re headed east and want to go south, which way do we turn?” Other than that, she did great at straight and level, and showed tremendous patience in her turns. She’s very gentle on the stick in turns, but somewhat abrupt in pitch corrections. I also had to coach her to avoid fixating on the instruments, but I think that is very, very common in student just beginning their training.

I showed her how to select destinations out of the favorites list on the Garmin, how to turn onto course, and how to keep the CDI centered. We working our way out to the west until we were over Lilly Chapel, the west-side reporting point for an arrival back into Bolton. I took over from there since the Ercoupe had reported in as “over Lilly Chapel” just as we arrived. Fortunately for my ulcers, he included a report of his altitude too. I love it when other pilots do that! He was down at 2,500′ and we were still at 3,500′, so it was a far less stressful few seconds than it would have been had he not told the tower where he was.

I reported in right after him, and the tower spent a handful of transmissions getting the situation clear in his head. I think he was a new guy and didn’t know that I have an RV-6 (I call in as “Experimental”) because he seemed to be working out a way to put me behind the Ercoupe. Ercoupes do about 80mph straight down, and we were cooking along at 150 knots, so I didn’t really want to get put in line behind him. It all became clear to him when we reported our respective GPS distances from the airport and he could see that I had already put the Ercoupe a mile behind us.

The landing was an absolute greaser, for which I give great thanks to the gods that control these things. Egg’s analysis was that it was “pretty good,” which is high praise indeed. She can’t yet see over the engine while we’re taxiing, so I drove us back to the hangar. That’s another aspect of the flying that will probably have to wait awhile. All in all, I was very happy with Egg’s flying and hope that we get a chance for another “lesson” soon. I want to sit her down with a sectional chart next time and plan out a short flight somewhere, teach her how to plug a destination into the GPS, and fly us there.

Oh, and here’s a picture of the intrepid birdgirl:

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AF Museum (road) trip

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