Numerous broadcasts over the last two days refer to September 11, 2001 as the day that "everything changed." This is not true.

Four flights were hijacked Tuesday of the many thousands that proceeded, or would have proceeded, normally. The perpetrators of the crimes used those four incidents to cause unimaginable damage. Thousands of families have felt the tremendous loss of one or more loved ones.

For all of those directly affected it can be argued that, indeed, everything has changed. But I propose that in fact, nothing has changed.

We live in a dangerous world, full of 4 billion people. Some have ideas vastly different from those that many Americans hold dear. For most of us, the risk of untimely death at the hands of others is small, much smaller than in much of the world. And we enjoy liberties that are the envy of many.

We must stand strong and united to preserve our liberties, and the benefits of a free society, to make it clear to forces of terror that their threats and actions cannot sway us from our beliefs in personal freedoms as they exist in the United States.

To restrict our own liberties as a consequence of these recent actions is to concede that, for now at least, the terrorists have won.

"Those who would give up essential Liberty to purchase a little temporary
Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759

 
No flying today. Say a prayer. Give blood. Hug your kids.

 
My Month as a Student

---

Week1
Monday	Rain
Tuesday	Rain
Wednesday	No rain; no visibility either.
Thursday	Take instructor to lunch. Discover I don't know enough to take instructor to lunch.
Friday	FLY! Do first stall and second stall during same maneuver, cover instructor with lunch.
Week 2
Monday	Learned not to scrape frost off Plexiglas with ice-scraper. Used big scratches on windshield as marker to set pitch.
Tuesday	Instructor wants me to stop calling throttle, "THAT BIG KNOB THING." Also, hates it when I call instruments 'GADGETS'.
Wednesday	Radios won't pick up radio stations, so I turn them off. Instructor seems to think I missed something during the introductory flight.
Thursday	Learned 10-degree bank is not a steep turn. Did stall again today. Lost 2000 feet. Instructor said that was some kind of record. -My first compliment.
Friday	Did steep turn. Instructor said I was not ready for inverted flight, yet.
Week 3
Monday	Instructor called in sick. New instructor told me to stop calling her "BABE". Did steep turns. She said I have to have permission for inverted flight.
Tuesday	Instructor back. He told me to stop calling him "BABE", too. He got mad when I pulled power back on takeoff because the engine was too loud.
Wednesday	Instructor said after the first 20 hours, most students have established a learning curve. He said it seemed there was only a slight bend in mine. Ah-ha!...progress!
Thursday	Did stalls. Clean recovery. Instructor said I did good job. Also did turns around a point. Instructor warned me never to pick ex-fiancée's house as point again.
Friday	Did pattern work. Instructor said that if downwind, base, and final formed a triangle, I would be perfect. More praise!
Week 4
Monday	First landing at controlled field. Did fine until I told the captain in the 747 ahead of us on taxiway to move his bird. Instructor says we'll have ground school all this week on radio procedures.
Tuesday	Asked instructor if everyone in his family had turned gray at such an early age. He smiled. We did takeoff stalls. He says I did just fine but to wait until we reach altitude next time. C-150 will be out of shop in three days when the new nose-strut and tire arrive. Instructor says his back bothers him only a little.
Wednesday	Flew through clouds. I thought those radio towers were a lot lower. I'm sure my instructor is going gray.
Thursday	Left flaps down for entire flight. Instructor asked why. I told him I wanted the extra lift as a safety margin. More ground school.
Friday	Asked instructor when I could solo. He laughed till he cried. What was so funny?

 
"You are brave. Not brave because you are going to be facing any physical dangers; you are not really going to. I mean brave in another, deeper sense. By being on this flight you have shown that you are willing to explore your own identity to discover what might lie within you. Your human clay has not hardened, and you are also willing to explore your own perceptions of the universe, knowing that you may be forced to set aside many comfortable and cherished assumptions. The idea that you must approach honestly and directly is that flying very dramatically makes the pilot solely responsible for his own life."

— Harry Bauer, 'The Flying Mystique: Exploring Reality and Self in the Sky,' 1980

 
Today was better.

Used Coulter Field because all the planes at Easterwood were tied up. Take off on runway 14 with slight crosswind from the south. I still am not to good at cross-wind taxi and take-off, in particular managing wind across the wings, but am working on it. I think an hour of FlightSim would help.

Did 4 approaches today, including 1 touch and go and a full landing. One of the problems that is clear to me now is that the landing (or touch) has always been in my hands and I didn't know it! I kept thinking we're doing approaches with no touch and I think Andy wants it all the way down, so I keep waiting for the "go around" and he keep waiting for me to finish the job. Consequently, the last ten feet have always been too tense for me and I think aggravating for him.

The touch-and-go today was OK, but I lost it down the runway and he had to take it. Shit. Runway taxiing on two wheels is still a little shaky, and three wheels at 30 mph gave me big-time shimmy in the front wheel (we were in a little 150, something...QD, not the usual 49785). But, I'll get better.

Stabilized approaches are getting more routine. One key has been taking "hands off" late in the downwind leg to show that the trim is right. 65 KIAS, 1700 RPM (carb heat on), nose high (2 1/2 turns in the 152, a little less in the 150) and 10 degree flaps. At that point, I can handle power to control descent rate.

John R did a simulated power off landing straight from late downwind successfully today. He's really kicking some badass when it comes to doing these maneuvers. We've pretty much switched attitudes lately. He looks to be soloing any time now, and I feel like I've got tons left to practice. The good news is that it's only Sept 8 and I may have another 10 hours of flying (double my current total) this month to get it right.

What I like about Coulter: informal, club atmosphere except the club "owns" the airfield. Nice plane. Narrow runway makes me concentrate more.
What I don't like: I need to practice radio and there is virtually none used there. Narrow runway makes me miss more.

We may have more times there in the future, and I need the practice, and planes are available.

Today: 0.8 hours. Total: 10.7

 
Have you ever wanted something so badly that the "wanting" gets in the way of the "having" and the entire situation becomes nothing more than an exercise in frustration?

Maybe that's what happened today. In rough order of mind-farts, here is how my flying (and I use that description of what I did advisedly) went today:

• Keys to 785 were missing
  
• Preflighted 15Mike. Ordered gas.
  
• Keys to 785 located. Scratch 15Mike. Wait for keys to arrive for 785.
  
• Gas up 785. Tie down 15Mike. Untie 785.
  
• Announce to GC: "Easterwood Ground Cessna 4-niner-785." and then decide to shut up while my brain decides not to communicate with my mouth. GC responds with "proceed to one-six and bravo" as though reading my mind, which at this point is blank.
  
• Taxi through winds gusting to 19 kts while trying to configure ailerons and elevators like this:
  
  
• "Easterwood Tower Cessna 4-niner-785 ready for takeoff" (Hey, I did something right! that's one.)
  
• Takeoff OK, except for forgetting which way the tower instructed me to turn once in the air
  
• Assume heading of 315 to Hearne Airport for practicing approaches. Kept 2300 AGL and around 100 KIAS there, with the wind (which made GS about 15kt faster)
  
• Let's see...among other things I couldn't seem to reach stabilized approach on 2 of 3 approaches, I banged the runway on the first one, was too slow on the throttle during the abort of the second one, and felt like I was coming up short (I wasn't, said Andy later) so prematurely throttled the third. Beautiful. Oh yeah. I overshot the final approach twice out of three. Lost track of my altitude twice. Made crummy crabs into the wind and sloppy turns to final and base seems like every time.
  
• Lost my headset for what seemed like half the time we were at Hearne.
  
• Back to Easterwood, to once again make mincemeat of my communications with tower, who relayed back to us that our signal was "weak"?
  

Other than that it went fine...

Performed three mile final approach to 16 and it actually went pretty well. (!)

Oh, and I landed relatively unassisted at Easterwood. whoopie.

Now, I'm going home to hug my kids, kiss the wife, maybe get a Hastings movie and enjoy an evening away from planes. There's only one sentiment to express after such a f$%#@$#-up day in the air today.

I can't wait to get back up tomorrow.

 
Well, today defined frustration. On and off, the rains came and went over B/CS...finally, late in the day it became clear that the skies would brighten and I would be flyin'.

Got to the airport ten minutes early to preflight the plane and it (N49785) was still out! To a solo student prepping for his check ride. He landed fifteen minutes late, and I hustled out to preflight. The reason I'm in a hurry is that I promised Diane I'd take Chris to his karate goldbelt test tonight at 6:30, so I HAVE to be back by then. Got prepped and waited for Andy to return from his current lesson...nearly 5:30 by the time they returned and it was apparent that I wasn't going to be able to both fly and get home in time.

John R was there to take the time, and I went home to Chris. Made the right decision...Chris and I practiced for a half hour before his test and he went in with confidence and a smile. I hope he made it! I sure love that kid!

I love to fly, but tonight I made the right decision.

 
Thunderstorms this morning...will we fly today?

 
Today, for something completely different...a note from a young passenger to an aircraft pilot.

 
Today brought something new: ground reference maneuvers.

Weather was good: at 1730 CDT partly cloudy and warm (35 C) winds at 7 out of 130...as it turns out, winds aloft were more southerly and stronger (as per ATIS on 126.85 , 'Yankee'). We took off from 16. I did the radio (128.70): "Easterwood Ground Cessna 49785 at the Flying Club with Yankee" (then something I don't remember right now like "requesting south departure"). Ground responded with "Use one-six and Bravo" which is where we went for pre-takeoff checks. (I forgot the beacon. damn...how did I miss it on the checklist?)

After pre-takeoff, I switch freq to 118.50 and say"Easterwood Tower Cessna 49785 at one six and bravo ready for takeoff." Tower says something like "Roger 785 clear for takeoff on one six" and I say something like "Takeoff on one six. 785" And here we go!

We took off to the south and headed for some fields to the southwest that were fairly large and rectangular. Andy showed me a couple of ways to see which way the wind was blowing: dust from a vehicle on a dirt road, ripples in a pond. That's important because all maneuvers are to be started downwind. Altitude must be between 600 and 1000 feet AGL. I started at about 800' AGL and held it there pretty steady throughout the excercises.

The first was a large rectangle.Downwind to base requires a 45 degree bank, base to upwind about a 30 degree, upwind to across about 20, then back to downwind starts steep than flares out. I had to crab the crosswind legs because the wind kept blowing me to the north.

Next was a series of S's perpendicular to a road. Again, it tested the ability to hold altitude and precisely turn with, against and across the wind. Finally was a circle, which was not too hard when I centered the circle with the wingtip.

After these were done, I felt great! None were as hard as I thought...they were actually pretty fun. Using VOR navigation, we went down to Navasota and landed on what seemed like a 50' wide airstrip. I did an approach, then did a go-around, then did a second approach but Andy did the landing. Just as well...the cross wind might have blown me off the runway.

We then did a flaps-down short field cross-wind take off from Navasota runway 17, turned, set the NAV to 113.30 and kicked ass back to Easterwood (something like "Easterwood tower Cessna 49785 8 miles south approaching for a landing"), entered a left pattern downwind at midfield ("Easterwood tower Cessna 785 at midfield") and did a landing. Again, Andy set it down but I felt pretty good entering the pattern, turning to base and to final. Landed, as we had started, on 16.

I'm still pushing myself to complete a solo this month. Hope the weather cooperates...1.3 more hours brings the total to 8.6. Next flight: Wednesday.

 
Yay! Today, finally we flew again!

Took off on runway 16 into partly cloudy skies. Winds 3 kt, and (first time) all radios were on 118.5. Climbing turn left after takeoff to a NE heading, then north and flew through a hole in the cumulus to beautiful, open blue skies at 5300 ASL. Went into slow flight mode at headings between 300 and 060, with various slow turns and a couple of stalls, one with flaps and one without.

Andy did some turns with my eyes closed to give me a feel for how the plane was behaving...it helped with my understanding of rudder.

Worked hard on controlling altitude at low speed with throttle. Nailed quite a few combinations, going from fast and level to slow and level (note: 2000 RPM = 60 KIA at 5500 ASL) Every 10 degrees of flap = an extra 1000 RPM to maintain altitude at 60 kt.

Dove down through a hole and found ourselves 25 mi N of Easterwood. Flew at 110 kt, 2300 ASL along radial 180 back to sight of Easterwood. Tower had changed runway to 34, so we entered pattern on downwind leg at 1300 ASL. Started descent while entering base...cut RPM and one flaps, then two flaps to start a nose-level (or downward) glide. Airspeed stayed around 65 KIA and I aimed at '34'. Touched down with only a little help, then kept nose up and flew down the runway on 2 wheels. Finally touched down and taxiied home.

1.3 hours today, I felt best yet. Tomorrow, we go again at 5 pm.

 
Doggoneit! Screwed by the weather again! I'm getting pretty sick of FlightSim!

 
Rained out again!! This sucks! Oh, well...perhaps a review.

When I started, I wanted to solo before the end of September and be certified by the end of the year. Here's where I stand w/r/t soloing:

1. Flight preparation procedures check


2. Taxiing + surface ops


3. Takeoffs check and landings not yet


4. Straight and level flight, turns in both directions check


5. Climbs and climbing turns check


6. Airport traffic patterns, including entry and departure procedures need practice


7. Collision avoidance and wake turbulence avoidence check


8. Descents, with and without turns, high and low drag need work


9. Flight at various airspeeds check


10. Stall entries from various attitudes and power settings check


11. Emergency procedures no


12. Ground reference maneuvers no


13. Approaches to landing area with simulated engine malfunctions no


14. Slips to a landing no


15. Go arounds no

So the bottom line is, I still need to cover a bunch more stuff, and practice, practice practice! With luck, I'll be able to catch Andy M-W-F each week for the next few (maybe from 5 to 7), 'cause I think I've got at least 8-10 hours before I'm confident and ready.

 
John Gillespie Magee, killed in action at the age of 19
was serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force,
some days before his death wrote:

---

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

— John Gillespie Magee, Jr

---

 
August 22
* * * * *
.8 hours today...great time! Took off from runway 16 and headed east, over south CS, then north over Coulter Field. Practiced precise turns. Nearly landed (within 20 feet or so) but did the base leg and final with Andy's guidance.

August 27
* * * * *
No flying today...rained in. We talked about weather and spent an hour or more trying to get MS FS2000 to work in the clubhouse. Installing the controls on that POS is ridiculous.