Commercial Pilot Training

Today was a spectacular early fall day. A great day for some flight training, so I met Mark at Atlantic Airways at 10 a.m. We reviewed flight maneuvers for about 45 minutes, and then headed out to the hanger. Our departure into gusty north winds was a soft field takeoff on RWY 35. I need to practice that more: got to hold the nose off the ground, without touching the tail to the runway, while increasing airspeed down the runway to rotation speed.

Once up in the air over the Shenandoah Valley near Winchester I did a near perfect steep turn, some steep spirals, a steep spiral to landing, a balked landing, two power off simulated emergency landings, and several chandelles. The flight ended with a direct return to Leesburg for a short field landing. Proud to say that I nailed it, right on the big white touchdown marks, and while we didn't want to burn out the brakes, we clearly could have stopped in under a 1000 feet.

It's a dog's life...

Nikki seemed under the weather Wednesday, but was pretty perky Thursday. However, when Marcia took her for her "long" walk (usually about a half mile total), she sat down twice and then laid down twice to rest -- and she seemed tired/out of breath on the way home.

Marcia took her to the vet. Unfortunately, he found a large mass in her belly. We spent much of Saturday at the internist having a sonogram to show more than x-rays could tell. The tumor is large and on the liver. Odds are it's malignant.

The decision is to do exploratory surgery on Tuesday, and the prognosis is guarded. There's a chance it will be a benign tumor and surgery will resolve the problem. Chances are, however, that it will be be more serious, we hope surgery (getting rid of the mass) will make her more comfortable.

The good news is that Nikki doesn't know she is sick -- she is her usual happy self most of the time...just with less energy and stamina.

The other consequence is cancellation of our planned departure to Geneva, Riga, and Burgundy. We were to have departed Thursday. We just can't leave the nice young lady (who normally stays here in the house with Nikki) alone to deal with her post-operative recovery. Suppose decisions have to be made? Maybe she will need care during the day while the dog-sitter is at work.

So, we've canceled the trip, the party in Latvia, and the wine harvest tour in France. Marcia has called our friends in Latvia to apologize for upsetting their plans, and she is trying to recover what we can of the air fare and hotel reservations. I am getting in touch with the former President's office and the embassy to un-do those plans.

If there is a silver lining, it is that the money we don't spend on the trip can be applied to paying for Nikki's medical bills!

On the sunny, bright Sunday of Labor Day weekend, we flew downfrom Leesburg to West Point, Virginia. There we picked up friends Sue and Ron. After a pass or two over their nearby house in Barhamsville for aerial views, we headed to Tangier Island for lunch.

Tangier Island is, on a summer Sunday, an idyllic spot in the center of the Chesapeake Bay with just 600 inhabitants. It is accessible by only boat or airplane, and reminds some people of Shelter Cove in California.

We flew due east from West Point to a fix called JAMIE (in honor of Jamestowne?) and then due north about ten miles to land RWY 2 at KTGI. This rectangular pattern enabled us to skirt restricted area R-6609, a bombing practice area for the Patuxent Naval Air Station.

Upon landing we paid a ten dollar parking fee, which I did not resent because this little island has few ways to bring in any civic revenues. After all, there are no parking meters or police speed traps.

Houses and commercial buildings on the island vary in their condition. It is a fishing community and there are remains of boats and crab pots everywhere. In the harbor, fishing boats rocked on the waters alongside pleasure craft.

Many houses were freshly painted, some with shutters in contrasting gay colors, and trimmed lawns. Flowers bloomed in window boxes, and there seemed to be lots of childrens’ toys strewn about. A large Methodist church stands at one end of town, and it appeared there was a Baptist chapel at the other end. At the least, there was a parson’s lodge.

There are at least three or four restaurants in business (and about an equal number no longer in business), all of them doing a brisk midday trade in crab sandwiches and other regional dishes. There were long lines at the first restaurant we tried, but the second had a table for four in about five minutes. Just lucky timing, I guess.

There were offers of “island tours” by golf cart (another local industry on summer weekend days) but we chose to walk around a bit before returning to the plane. We saw the island’s clinic, served by a doctor who comes weekly, flying his own helicopter over from the mainland, as reported recently in an NPR story.

Tangier Island is pleasant enough in summer, but I bet it can be a cold and lonely place on a January weekday when the winds are blowing.

Still, I think we’ll come back some time again. The crab sandwiches make it worth the trip.

Life is a Cirrus, or "Spring Break for Pilots"

Got a chance to go to Sun N' Fun, the big airshow in Lakeland, Florida this week. It's a heck of an event -- airplanes everywhere, vendors selling things for pilots, an airshow over the runway in the afternoons featuring the Air Force Thunderbirds, and lots of seminars, forums, and stuff to look at.

While chatting with the Cirrus people today, I got invited to a little reception/dinner after the airshow at the main airport building. The featured guest was to be Dale Klapmeier, founder and Chairman of Cirrus. This guy is a legend in aviation, having basically built an new airplane company from nothing in the 1990's. The Cirrus SR-20 and SR-22 are both known for being entirely new composite designs that go fast, have modern comforts, and take advantage of every possible technological advance.

Klapmeier gave a talk in which he described the philosophy behind the highly successful Cirrus airplane. He said that, when he and his brother started out in the 1990's, they had four or five airplanes between them and his wife didn't want to go anywhere in any of them. Said he discovered that if your wife does not like or trust the airplane, you'll be driving a lot.

So, what did he and his brother learn from this? That they had better design an airplane with the primary goal in mind being to make the passenger, often a non-pilot spouse, happy and content. If the passenger is content, it is easy to please the pilot.

For example, the avionics in a regular airplane don't answer the questions his wife always had: where are we? when are we going to get there? do we have enough fuel? He said that as soon as they lifted off from the airport, with the airport still in full view behind the plane, his wife was already asking, "Where are we?"

So the entire design of a Cirrus was predicated on the need to answer those three questions in a way that is immediately obvious, as well as reassuring. When you look at the moving map screen in a Cirrus, even a non-pilot can see immediately where you are, and there is an indication of when you will reach your destination. And the fuel consumption and remaining amount is easily visible too.

Now, after developing the Cirrus, Klapmeier does not drive anywhere anymore. His wife wants to fly everywhere.

Must be the leather seats. And, the parachute. But that's a story for another day.

Cheers from KLAK,

Looping the Loop -- Around the Washington Beltway in 2.5 Hours

A guy from the running club had expressed interest in going for a flight. The weather was looking very good -- clear and sunny. So, Wednesday, we met at Leesburg airport about 9 a.m. and took off eastbound, departing over the northern Potomac River, going over Gaithersburg, and then following a VFR slot at 2000 feet through the space between BWI (Baltimore) and DCA (Reagan National) airports.

We came out over Annapolis, getting nice bright morning views of the City Dock and the Naval Academy, not to mention all the boat docks and big houses on the rivers. Then we crossed the Chesapeake Bay up by the Bay Bridge and then turned down over St. Michaels. We also had to do a turn or two right over Dick Cheney's place along the way, while admiring all the big houses. We flew on down over the Choptank River to Cambridge and landed there, but it turned out that the airport restaurant is closed on Wednesdays. So much for getting coffee there. (See picture of Brian and plane at Cambridge.)

So, we took off again and continued around the south side of DC, passing by Patuxent Naval Air Station, over the Potomac at its widest point, and eventually coming up over Fredricksburg. There I picked up an IFR clearance back to Leesburg from Potomac Air Traffic Control. Since 9/11 pilots have to have some kind of clearance to enter the Special Flight Rules Area (SFRA) around Washington, and an IFR clearance is as good as any to do it.

Now usually, they would send me way out to the west of Dulles, out by Winchester and then turn me east in to Leesburg, thus causing me to avoid the big airplanes coming in to IAD. The big iron lands from the north or the south into Dulles runways 01 and 19, mostly.

This time, however -- and I think it was because it was noon and a relatively quiet time for Dulles operations -- the controller sent us up the east side of Dulles Airport at 3000 feet! (See attached picture from the plane over Route 50 with Dulles in the distance).

This meant that we came straight up over Reston and indeed right over our house and Lake Audubon. I could the Reston Town Center clearly, and all the other landmarks. Except for the fact that I had to be flying the plane with some precision, I could have been taking pictures!

Then she (the controller) turned us west over Route 7 and we flew right out to Leesburg, over the quarries, by the outlet mall, and into the airport. A smooth landing on runway 17 finished the flight in just under three hours.

This was a lot of fun, and I think I've got to try to do it again -- with a camera. If it had been a little less hazy, we would have had good views of DC landmarks while crossing north and south of the city. As for getting cleared to fly over Reston, clearly part of the secret is being at the right time of day, sounding like you know what you're doing, and making it easy for the controller to send you up the east side of Dulles.

East of Dubai, Gulf of Oman -- continued

The signs along the roads are worth a mention too. This "camel crossing" sign caught our eye, and not just because it was bracketed by the frequent "humps ahead" sign, seen here in the distance.

All roads are decorated with speed bumps, or humps in local parlance, that are intended to slow the traffic before round-abouts or U-turn opportunities.

There are very few legal left turns on UAE roads. Instead, you drive past your intended street and find the first opportunity to make a 180 and go back for a right turn. In heavy traffic, this leads to incredible jams of cars turning around at any break in the median, often two abreast.

This picture shows the view of the mountains as we drove on highway 88 toward Dibba. It was Friday morning, the Sabbath so to speak, so there was not much traffic at all.

For all the traffic in the cities of Dubai and Abu Dhabi -- which can jam up like K Street in Washington at the drop of a hat -- there are also wide open spaces. Dubai already has a beltway road, six lanes in each direction, and it's "heavy traffic" if you see another car on it. As we drove out on Friday morning, there were only the large power line pylons marching alongside the road.


Motorways in the Emirates are well marked with speed limits, merging traffic signs, information about forthcoming intersections, and direction to major towns. Important tourist sites identified on brown signs with white letters, just like in the U.S.

Smaller two lane roads wind through towns and villages, with many small shops and services lining the highway with their colorful, brightly lit signs. There are lots of grocers, telephone salesmen, air conditioning sellers, rug merchants, and fabric sellers. Given the number of fabric shops, I conclude that people buy fabrics and take them to tailors who make the clothes. There are few shops that specialize in women's or men's ready-made clothing. And, while you don't see many hair salons for women, but almost every block has a barbershop, and inside is a man getting a shave. This seems to be true at almost any hour of the day or evening.

To the East of Dubai -- Gulf of Oman

Leaving Dubai in the early morning, the sun was shining nicely on the Burj Kalifa, so we stopped and took a couple of photographs. It really is a graceful building and deceptive about its height.

We drove east to the Gulf of Oman, through the town called Friday's Market, and up by Dibba, doing some bird watching and countryside looking along the way. Peter wanted to find certain birds, and we did spot one. He has an incredible eye for this, spotting and identifying birds that I barely notice.

We saw wild camels wandering around in the desert (well, they probably belonged to someone), and triangular "camel crossing" signs along the road.

The country become very mountainous as you proceed out there to the east, and then you drop down to the sea. We stopped at a little beach resort, called Sunny Beach, which is just even with a big rock formation called "Snoopy" that is about two hundred yards off shore. We bought a day entry, rented flippers and a mask (Peter hired scuba gear), and we went snorkeling and scuba diving.

Actually the 10 o'clock scuba trip was taken over by a class, so we went snorkeling around the island called Snoopy. It looks like Snoopy in profile laying down on his back.

We could not go out on the boat until 1 p.m. So we had lunch on the patio overlooking the water, and it was quite pleasant sitting in the sunshine with a gentle breeze off the water. Eventually large bus loads of corpulent Russians and Germans began arriving.

But, before they began to block our view of the sea, we set off in a dive boat with four Norwegians and a young American couple. It takes a long time to put on all the equipment for scuba diving, and the mask and fins for snorkeling were comparatively quick. We did dives on two different spots. Saw lots of coral reef fish with bright colors of blue and yellow, but I cannot identify them even when I have a reference book later.

It was about five o'clock by the time we got back to shore and cleaned the salt water off, took a few pictures, and got back in the car. We drove down through Badiya where there is a really old mosque right beside the road. It was built in about 1493 or so, out of mud, and said to be the oldest mosque in UAE. Its amazing anything lasts that long!

Then we continued down to Khor Fakkan, Fujairah and turned back toward Dubai. The coast is very pretty and green, and it is relatively unspoiled by development until now, at least as compared to Dubai. It is obvious why UAE residents like to drive out here for the day to swim, picnic, and enjoy the cooler atmosphere.

On the way back to Dubai, we noticed lots of cars and SUV's pulled off on the side of the road or even out in the desert. (Going off road into the desert is not something you do with the average SUV; most standard street SUV's would quickly get stuck in the sand.) Often, a few hundred yards away from the highway, there was a campfire, and in many cases a tent had been erected. Many times we noticed the boys driving ATV's through the dunes. In other cases you saw groups of men circling the campfire. No women were anywhere to be seen.

The Emiratis, remembering their heritage as nomadic tribesmen, still like to go out to the desert and go camping. In America, fathers take their sons camping; in Arabia, fathers take their sons camping. It is just the difference between being the woods and being out in the desert, under the stars.

Auto mad United Arab Emirates

Tomorrow I've got to return from Abu Dhabi to Dubai, the other emirate.

Well, there are seven emirates but the only two anyone has heard of are Abu Dhabi (the one with oil) and Dubai (the one with finance, hotels, business, and tourism, not to mention the artificial islands and the world's tallest building).

The trip is about 90 miles by car on the highway, so it takes about an hour and a half to drive between the two cities. It's not a pretty road.

Most of the way there is about as much to see as when you drive down I-95 -- it's just 10-lane interstate highway about five kilometers inland from the water. The speed limit is about 65 mph and there is enough enforcement to make you pay attention if you are a foreigner. Emirate citizens do not seem to heed the speed limit or be subject to police action. Oh, yes, gasoline is about a dollar a gallon.

Interesting fact: this country has more Maseratis, Lamborghinis and Ferraris per capita than any other country in the world -- driven by teenagers.

The cars here seem to have only two speeds -- full out acceleration or full hard braking. Every driver we have been with has seemingly had the accelerator nailed to the floor or was standing hard on the brakes. Curves are taken at a breathtaking pace. I assume tires get replaced frequently. Road rage is a major issue.

It is a car mad country. The S-class AMG Mercedes serve as taxis, and the 750Li BMW's are pretty popular with the younger set. You see a share of Audi RS-models in the flood of well equipped Land Cruisers, Range Rovers, Lexus SUVs and Escalades from Cadillac. I've seen plenty of Hummers as well as Corvettes!

Among the wealthy Emirati men, a white Land Cruiser seems to be a badge of honor. The other day the weekly camel races were shown on television. As the camels raced around a track, the enthusiastic owners also raced around the track in their white Land Cruisers, leaning out the windows and urging their favorite steeds on to victory.

Modern and traditional transport vehicles, side by side.

Valentine's Day in the Middle East

So here is a little entertainment stand on the Burj Dubai side with lots of hearts for Valentine's Day. This is one of those carnival games where you throw a ball in the hole and win a stuffed animal for your sweetheart. In this case, you will win a stuffed Valentine.

For reasons I don't quite understand, the idea of Valentine's Day is abhorrent to Muslims. I understand that it is quite scandalous that here in UAE, it is permitted to advertise and sell Valentine's Day items. There is not a lot of advertising and Valentines paraphernalia around, but there is some.

In some countries, Islamic religious leaders believe the celebration of Valentine’s Day encourages “promiscuous activity.” In Brunei, the censorship board ordered cinemas to remove from distribution the film that co-stars Julia Roberts, according to the Brunei Times report. In other places, shops have been burned for selling Valentines Day items.

Anyway, it looks like Valentines Day will be celebrated tomorrow here in UAE, but with moderation and very little fanfare.

Downtown Dubai

A two and a half hour flight from Sana'a, and you land in a different world. Dubai's Terminal 3, devoted to Emirates flights only, is wonderfully impressive -- the four stories high roof held up by enormous columns, lots of space and light, a calming blue and white theme to the colors, and more than 20 baggage belts. This was built with an eye to the future.

Yesterday was a good day for some touring around, so I took the Big Bus tour, a hop-on, hop-off arrangements with recorded guide description of what we were seeing. Without realizing it, I got on the "beaches tour" and therefore got an idea of the city layout.

One thing you notice right away is the irrigation. Everything green plant or bit of grass is watered. The tour guide said that Dubai consumes an incredible amount of water daily, and most of it comes from desalination plants. The grass usually looks like the short bladed grass that we see on golf courses in warm climates. The green color is wonderfully soothing to the eye.

Among the sights to be seen along the beach is the self-declared "world's only seven-star hotel" -- the Burj Al-Arab. The shape of the building is like that of an Arab ship's sail, and it is said that some Middle East royalty keep a suite here at all times, just in case they decide to come by on short notice. Of course, it stands on its own man-made island. I understand you have to make a reservation about three days in advance just to visit for a coffee or lunch. If you wonder why I am not staying here, the smallest suite is about 1,820 sq ft and the per night cost begins at $2,000. The larger suites go up to 8400 sq ft and cost $28,000 per night. Not within my allowance.

This Burj Al-Arab hotel has a helicopter landing pad on the flat dish-like protrusion up near the top (just above the lamp in the photo) and we saw a helicopter landing while we drove by. The beach where it is located is called Chicago Beach, apparently because an American company from Illinois used to have a facility here.

The most amazing experience however was the Palm Jumeirah -- a man-made island that is five kilometers (three miles) wide and tall and is filled with houses, condos, hotels and a major resort called Atlantis (see photo below) at the top of the palm tree.

Knowing the entire thing is built on sand that was brought in and put there, well, it is just mind bending. You look around at homes with cars in the driveways, basketball hoops on the front of the garage, and these six or eight lane wide avenues, and you wonder where all the people come from who want to pay for houses here?

It looks a lot like a gated community in Florida, and there are guards sitting at little desks at many of entry roads to the communities.

One of the over the top features was when they imported 24 bottle-nosed dolphins from the South Pacific and placed them in a theme park called Dolphin Bay where guests can swim with them.

It is all kind of amazing. I kept wondering where all the money comes from? Where do all the customers come from? Who can be buying all this property and land? Yes, I know that there is money in the Middle East and in South Asia where prosperity is growing quickly. But, this much?

Whose idea was it?

Saturday, February 13 -- Whose idea was it to declare Washington open for business on Friday?

Did the people who decide these things know, in advance, that only one lane of the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge from VA to DC would be open? They they realize that both I-66 and the George Washington Parkway would still be virtual parking lots at noon time on Friday. Did they as Metro about the fact that half the DC metro stations would have no service? And did they ask about the open stations that would have one train every 30 minutes? And that was before the derailment on the Red Line.

The Washington Post has a pretty good account of the horrors of commuting on February 12 in the Washington area.

It is in fact pretty clear that John Berry, the man at OPM who decides these things,figured it would be better to avoid the critical news stories about how much taxpayer money gets "wasted" every day the government is closed, and instead to let the employees suffer instead. He said, "I knew it would be an ugly commute."

The Sun Sets on Sana'a

One of the merchants in the "souk" in the marketplace in Sana'a with his many bags of grains and spices on display.

I've gotten kind of fond of this place. While there is plenty of poverty and perhaps there are even some violent people, it seems on the whole friendly. The men at least smile at you, even if they are not trying to sell something. Last night a man, his grandfather and his small son all stopped quite generously in the middle of the souk to let me take their picture.

There are beggars, especially at the intersections, but they don't persist and you do not get the feeling you are about to be overwhelmed by a crowd of them. (Although I've been told that if you give to one, you may suddenly find yourself surrounded by a crowd.) The women glide by in their burkas, making no sounds and only sometimes making eye contact. There are even women beggars (all in black) at some of the intersections -- they come up to the window of the car and ask for money, knocking gently with their knuckles on the glass.

The sun rises promptly at six o'clock in the morning and sets promptly at six o'clock in the evening, and the weather seems to be sunny and pleasant every day. People do stare at you if you are a Westerner, but for all I know they stare at each other, and maybe it's simple curiosity. The government seems to be paranoid about foreigners wandering around the country, and that makes it very hard to develop a tourism industry. There certainly is some spectacular countryside around Sana'a.

So, I will leave Sana'a with a sympathetic feeling. Sure, Al Qaeda is here and they are dangerous to us all. But I think I agree with those observers who find that lots of Yemeni people don't like the extremists and don't want anything to do with them. Tom Friedman was here last week, and he seems also to have come away with a certain sympathy for the place. There is no shortage of problems in Yemen, but there is a an air of mystery and excitement about it that is alluring.

Afternoon in Old Sana'a

February 9, 2010 -- an afternoon visit to the old city of Sana'a, just as the sun was going down over the mountains in the distant southwest. Those mountains must form the escarpment that falls sharply to the Red Sea.

The views in the afternoon sunlight, with contrails of jets in the blue sky overhead, were of the warm brown buildings with their white "icing" of plaster decorating windows, doors and rooflines. One can almost be surprised that a country as poor and challenged as this can manage to impose building regulations that require that any new construction in the old city follow the traditional styles.

Well, it works.

February 8 -- Chewing qat in Yemen

While wandering in old Sana’a, we happened into what was called a hotel. Literally it was an ancient five-story building, very dark inside because it had no artificial lighting.

It had a center “lobby” or “atrium” that rose to the ceiling five stories up and the floors were built around that space. The owner, pictured here, explained that in the old days (and only God knows when that was!), the livestock stayed in the center space and the travelers took rooms on the floors above where they could sleep in the little cave-like rooms on each level. The top floor or roof is actually a space where Yemenis entertain on top of the city rooftops, as it were, and with a spectacular view of the mountains that surround it.

Our guide to the hotel was chewing qat, the ubiquitous woody branches of a plant that all Yemeni men chew each afternoon. The leaves and branches give off a drug that is both calming and slightly addictive. The chewers tend to drink lots of liquids and engage in what are at first lively, but later increasingly somnolent conversations. At the end of the afternoon, they slouch off to sleep it off.
And they return the next day to do it again.

It is said that 70 percent of all Yemeni men engage in qat chewing, which really means that they get nothing accomplished in the afternoon and evening. Then there is the cost – about 500 to 2000 riyals a day, which is about 1 to 10 dollars. That’s a lot of money in a country as poor as this. There is one entire souk or market in the old city devoted only to qat, and from what I saw, the bargaining is pretty fierce.
And then, there is what qat does to the economy. The chewing of qat is so popular that its production on farms has displaced virtually all food production in Yemen, a country that once supplied fruits, flowers and vegetables to the entire Gulf region. Moreover, qat growing requires enormous amounts of water. It is said to consume 40 percent of the available water in the Sana’a basin, and there are predictions that the Sana’a valley will run out of water enough for the growing population in about 15 years unless a solution is found. There is no solution in sight.

So, buy some qat leaves and start chewing.

Yes, it looks like you’ve got a mouthful of azalea branches and leaves.

In case you were wondering, no, I have not tried qat. One good reason is that it is classified as a class one drug in the U.S.

An American in Old Sana'a

Another vignette from Old Sana'a...I arrived at the Bab Al-Yaman gate and entered the old city, just have many others before me. The stones are worn smooth by the soles of many feet.

At the entrance, there was a young man dressed in traditional Yemen clothing and wearing a prominent "jambirra" or dagger in his ceremonial belt.

I indicated I wanted to take his picture, and he nodded. After I snapped it, he asked in perfect American English where I was from. "Washington," I replied. "And you?"

"New York," he said simply.

There are thousands of Yemeni-Americans -- maybe as many as 70,000 -- in Yemen today. No small number are people who were in prison in American and converted to Islam. After they were released or paroled, they came to Yemen to further their religious studies.

Obviously the concern is that some may have come under the influence of radical clerics or other recruiters.

The encounter, brief as it was, left me wondering...

More of old Sana'a:

It was simply fascinating, like stepping back into a medieval city -- all small shops, crowded and twisty streets, little light but the sunlight, and all kinds of work and trade going on.

One of the best was the camel walking in an endless 15-foot circle to make a sesame seed mill grind the seed. The camel had blinkers on, despite the fact that it was pretty dark in the cave-like room where he was working. When asked, the owner said, through a translator, that the camel had to be blindfolded, otherwise he would "go crazy."

"You see," he said, "the camel thinks he is on a journey. If we take the blinders off and he sees where he is, what he is doing, he will die!"

That could be applied to a lot of us, I thought...

February 4, 2010 -- Today I made a trip to the UNESCO-protected city of Old Sana’a. We entered through the Bab al-Yaman gate, amid a crowd of men with daggers in their belts, goods under their arms, and suit jackets over “skirts” of fabric wrapped around their waist. The sights, the smells, the architecture with brown mud bricks and white icing (actually mortar), and the constant sounds of bargaining and prayer calls – it’s a magical experience – walking around in some of the oldest, most artful streets, passing by a mosque built 1,400 years ago and still in use today…
Each shop is tiny, just big enough for one or two people to sit inside the doorway and work on some craft or sell some product. The Souk al-Milh is really a collection of souks or markets, each featuring one or another product line, like silver, or jambiras (daggers), or shoes, or spices, or windows, or door locks, or donkeys…well, you get the idea. It has to be the closest thing you can do to re-create the experience of walking though a city anywhere in the world a thousand years ago. Small, tight, crowded, often dark, sometimes lit by the sunlight, dusty but basically clean, cats scurrying here and there (no dogs seen!), and the most wonderful smells, especially in the spice market.
There are lots of men and boys, both as shoppers and as shopkeepers. As the morning wore on, we saw more women. Mostly they were in the entirely black abaya from head to foot, not even a shoe showing. All you see is the eyes, through a slit. Sometimes you notice wrinkles around the eyes, and sometimes the eyes look very young, but mostly you can’t tell much of anything about who is under the black abaya. In contrast to the men, who shout and gesture as the meet friends and negotiate deals, the women seem to be wordless. In fact, of course, they do speak to the merchants, although softly. So, often you sense a movement beside you, a soundless one, and a black shape floats by. I began to think of them as black ghosts, making no sound, but glancing about observantly.
We spent almost four hours there, and I could have stayed all day. For one thing, the views from the roof of some of the four and five story buildings is a spectacular view over the city, minarets rising over the mosques, wash hanging on some lines on building roof decks, and views down into the narrow streets below.

I did take my camera on the ride from Sheraton this morning and grabbed a couple of photographs through the thick windows of the van. It’s just a snapshot of an old guy standing on the side of the road, but you can see his “jambira” or dagger – every Yemeni man wears one. The streets are kind of dusty, and there is a lot of broken concrete along the side of the street – might have been sidewalks at one time, but not so much now. The streets up here in the northeast part of the city are pretty wide, and there is not too much traffic. There is not, however, a lot of lane discipline. And, it is not unheard of for cars and trucks to drive in the wrong direction down the divided streets. People walk in every direction, and they cross the streets in quick movements with due caution. Clearly, you should look both ways. Women and men are both out and about. It is still a little off-putting to see a woman dressed entirely in black flowing robes with only a little slit over the very alive eyes. Some of my friends claim the call to prayer is waking them up at night, but I never hear anything more than some dog barking.

I’m writing this while flying from Addis Adaba to Sana’a, about an hour and a half flight. The Lufthansa flight is now quite empty, having off-loaded a whole bunch of people in Addis where there is an Organization of African Union meeting this weekend. My seatmate on the way from Frankfurt was one of the U.N representatives, and he must have been pretty senior because several staff kept coming over with documents for him to look at and solicitously checking about his passport and landing card. Some one said that the U.N Secretary General was in first class.

Maybe so, because when we landed in Addis, the plane pulled up to a red carpet and let all the dignitaries out. Then the pilot restarted the engines and pulled over to the terminal to disembark the normal passengers.

Speaking of first class, I got upgraded on the way from Dulles to Frankfurt. The food was about the same as in business, but the seat made into a perfectly flat bed which was quite comfortable. The service was very polite and helpful, but I question if it’s really worth the difference between first and business classes for the amount of money involved?

The flying business is getting to be less and less fun. At Dulles, the United business class check in was hopelessly overwhelmed. You do your own e-ticket check in of course, but then you need an agent to put the baggage tag on your suitcase and hand you your boarding card. There were about three clerks handling at least six podiums. When a clerk finally turned to my machine, there must have been six or seven baggage tags hanging out of the printer. Fortunately, mine was the second.
Security at Dulles, despite the new facilities, was not much better. You look around at all the perfectly normal people who fly all the time, and you wonder whether we could do this better if we passed them through faster and spent the effort on the doubtful ones. Meanwhile, we waste a lot of time of children, the elderly, and people who pose no threat whatsoever.

Frankfurt was cold and snowy, especially because we did not get a jetway. So much for not needing a coat! United must have been saving money because we off-loaded out on the tarmac and were put on a bus to the terminal. Same in reverse when we left on Lufthansa. We noticed the rows of yellow snowplows, wondering what they were for? Inside, reading the paper in the lounge, we learned they had a big storm in Frankfurt Thursday, with 90 delayed flights and runway closures. But, by the time we arrived Friday morning it was all cleaned up.

On our flight from Frankfurt to Addis Ababa, we crossed over the Red Sea and Egypt. I did not look in time to see the pyramids. The day was perfectly clear however and I could see the desert 35,000 feet below – sand dunes, wadis, and other formations. Now, as we jet toward Sana’a, it is dark and we can’t see any lights below.

Instrument Rating Study

I just learned that my Cessna CD-ROM disks and a textbook on instrument flight rules sold on eBay tonight. For a long time there were no bids, so I'm relieved.

We just now packed it up for shipping tomorrow morning. I put in a couple of extras, on the assumption that a pleasantly surprised buyer is always a happy buyer.

I got about what I paid for it a year ago. But, the guy got a good deal too. The course is the same one that King Schools sells for about $350 new, and the material is unchanged.

As I mentioned in my advertising copy, I used these materials to get a 96 on the FAA knowledge test and to pass my IFR checkride with the designated examiner.

Mapmaking

For the longest time I've admired and wanted to make my own map of where I've piloted an airplane. My hope would be that, as time goes on, I can fill in more and more states with color to indicate I've piloted an airplane within the State borders there.

Finally I asked a guy on the Uncontrolled Airspace forum how he did his, and he gave me the secret formula:

You can create your map here: http://www.epgsoft.com/VisitedStatesMap/

Then, you just save as a .jpg file and upload to a photo-sharing site, then you link to it in your signature using the [ img ] [ /img ] tags (no spaces) around the picture URL.

And, of course, it works nicely. Think I'll put the image on Flickr. My deepest thanks to PJ who also goes by Toronado on the UCAP forums.

Flying to Lawrenceville

January 17, 2010 -- Yesterday was a good enough day for a flight south. I met a friend at Leesburg and we were off by about 10:20 am in calm air. Potomac sent us up to STILL as usual, but soon we were turned south to Casanova and then, after we cleared the SFRA, on to Lawrenceville.

Imagine my surprise when I find that no matter what, I can't seem to tune in LVL on the nav radio. It shows up fine on my DME, which according to the GPS is reading
correctly, but there was no signal on the nav. Well, I had it on the GPS and on my VFR chart, so there was no chance of not flying to LVL. Besides, Potomac gave me vectors to go around the MOA in any case.

Once I got home, I looked carefully at the remarks section of the AirNav.com
listing, which says, "VOR PORTION UNUSBL R-090 BYD 20 NM ALL ALTS, R-090 ALL
DSTCS BLO 7000 FT, 091-105 ALL DSTCS & ALTS, R-106 BYD 27 NM ALL ALTS, R-106 ALL
DSTCS BLO 7500 FT, 107-170 ALL DSTCS & ALTS, 171-180 ALL DSDTCS BLO 6000 FT,
201-325 BYD 17 NM BLO 9000 FT, 326-089 ALL DSTCS & ALTS." Okay now I understand
why I got no signal.

But, I guess I'm just wondering why any FAA-maintained navaid is so limited in
its usefulness? This VORTAC is situated in pretty flat terrain, so it's not like there are mountains blocking the reception.

We broke off IFR near LVL and continued VFR to my friend's land. He has two plots and we circled over them at about 2000 feet several times so that he could take pictures. Then we landed at KAVC (Mecklenburg airport) to refuel and use the restrooms.

We flew home VFR, taking this picture of the James River and Mainden's Bridge from about 2000 feet. We tracked up to MANGE, then Flat Rock VOR, then Casanova, then to Linden and JASEN to re-enter the SFRA and land at Leesburg.