Marc's Public Blog - Flying

Current Music: AvB - ASOT 206
Current Mood: All right

Tuesday and Thursday and Friday, I went to Palo Alto airport, hoping to go practise somewhere before going to work, but this week we've just had the morning haze, with a ceiling at 1000ft or so, preventing me from going anywhere away from the airport.
Not to worry, Saturday I went later and I flew to Monterrey with my instructor, and we practiced a class Charlie transition, talking to ATC along the way, and transitioning through the Moffett military airport, and San Jose international airspace.
I got a nice view of Santa Cruz on the way back.


Then, since it was my Birthday, they just happened to have acrobatic flight demos, I signed up for one. Since I was a student pilot with now more than 60 hours of seat time, I got to fly in front of the planes and the instructor was behind me (just two seats). It was my first tailwheel airplane, as well as the first plane I took that could fly upside down, or pull 5 positive Gs or 3 negative ones without sweating.
Of course, to put you in the mood, this starts with strapping on a parachute, and a quick introduction on how to use the said parachute should the need ever arise (my guess would be the plane snapping in the air due to over-stressing after some manoeuvre)
The plane was disconcerting to fly since it looked like was more than 50 years old, and all the "new" stuff like radio and intercom had been added in non intuitive places. Also, since the plane was designed for inverted flight and acrobatics, it was a lot more twitchy.
All that said, it was interesting to fly, and have the instructor demo acrobatics to me from the back (including full loops and hammerheads), and have me try to duplicate the manoeuvre.
To everyone who asked me if I was sick or puked, no I was fine, but thanks for asking :) (I did however not pull on the stick nearly as hard as my instructor on loops since 5Gs crushing you in your seat is indeed a bit disconcerting, and you tend to let the controls go a bit to lessen the impact)




Sunday, I did another cross country with lost procedure and find the airport while in flight (actually my bastard instructor made me fly with the hood on, i.e. without being able to see outside, made me descend to 1000ft, told me that I could look outside, and right as I did, cut out the engine to simulate an engine failure and emergency landing), and when we were back from that, I had to triangulate my position from radios with a map, and find my way to an airport of his choosing.
It actually went all right. More next week.

More pictures are here