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.