Aviation Terms I Hate

I love aviation, but there are several terms or phrases that drive me nuts. Many of these phrases are used regularly by pilots and even some have official FAA definitions. I will rant about several of these during this BLOG Post.

My favorite term is "Near Miss". This phrase is used by pilots when 2 airplanes nearly have a midair collision. It might be uttered in this context. "I was flying along when all of a sudden another airplane flew right in front of me. It was a 'near miss'." Well that is not a near miss. A midair collision is a "near miss". In other words, you nearly missed, but did not, and are about to make an unscheduled end to your flight. Anyway, when 2 airplanes collide, it is a "near miss". Better luck next time.

Another great phrase is "Uncontrolled Airport". I can think of nothing worse to say to a non-pilot than, "We are about to land at an uncontrolled airport for lunch". It sounds like anarchy in the air. Maybe they let the local state hospital folks roam around the airport for the day, or Stephen King beings are wandering the runway. No matter how you cut it, uttering those words to non-aviation folks may strike significant fear. Maybe Pilot-Controlled is better and possibly more accurate.

Here's another term that is not accurate of the situation and also would cause concern to non-aviation folks, "Dead Stick Landing". For starters, the stick was never alive, so calling it dead is at most, disingenuous. We, pilots, use this phrase when an engine quits and we must glide to land. Here's my point, and rave. The stick was never alive, and now it is not dead. In fact, the stick continues to work just as well as it did before the engine quit. The main difference is that when you pull back on the stick, the plane does not climb (without the engine). But it is still performing all of its functions flawlessly. Now if you continue to pull back on a stick in this situation, then you might stall, spin, and die. At any rate, the stick is not dead.

Here's another term that must have been invented by a bunch of FAA guys on their ninth beer, a "Complex Airplane". To be fair, the only thing complex in my life are relationships. But airplanes don't even come close. Airplanes are predictable and do mostly the same thing in the same situations. Exceed critical AOA, and you will stall. Cross control and exceed AOA and you will spin. Do this at low altitude and you will die. Airplanes are even cool under pressure. In most pilot-induced situations, if the pilot takes his/her hands and feet off the controls, the plane will fix itself. Try doing that in a relationship. Anyway, I ramble on. The FAA defines a complex airplane as an airplane with a constant speed propeller and retractable gear. What's complex about that. The prop spins at the same RPM against different throttle positions. And your gear retracts and un-retracts. Sounds pretty simple. Complex would be that the prop changes its RPM for no reason, and/or the gear retracts/extends based on phases of the moon and atmospheric pressure. Nothing complex about it, except how the FAA came to that conclusion. They should have called it "Faster Airplanes".

Lastly, for now, my last term is "Mooney". After all, most people think of a "cult" when they think of Mooneys. Well, I guess they are right about this one. Cancel my rant on this term. We are a cult. We love airplanes and constantly feel the need for speed. We even lie about how fast our Mooneys fly and on how little fuel we consume. We do love our Mooneys too much, by half.

Friends don't let friends fly Slow Airplanes

I recently met another cool Mooney pilot, Dave Morris, who flys a Mooney M20A. My Mooney is an M20C. Dave's has wood wings, and mine doesn't. He loves his wood wing and the smooth speed and performance of Mooneys. His card has the quote of the subject of this blog entry. It made me laugh when I first saw it. Dave has that effect on people. This entry isn't about Dave, though, it's about Mooney pilots.

We love to fly fast. Some airplanes are about landing in remote mountain grass strips or along the banks of a river, or in a field. Mooneys are about speed. I feel the need for speed. Everything about them is fast. All we talk about is how we have modified our planes for speed. Some have added a new windshield that is sleeker. Or the engine cowling I put on got me 6 extra knots of speed. Those flap gap seals sure improved my cruising speed. It goes on forever and forever, and it makes us love our Mooneys more. Let's face it, Mooneys even look fast just sitting on the ramp.

We measure our mods in "knots". That mod I did on my Mooney got me 3 extra knots of speed. The truth is two-fold. Some mods don't give us any speed advantage, but just look cool. Other mods give us a speed improvement, but I think you need to multiply all pilot estimates of speed improvements by 50% to get the actual improvement. It's kind of like the big fish that got away to a fisherman.

The truth is that what we love most about our Mooneys is intangible. It feels so good when you taxi onto the runway and add takeoff power. The Mooney accelerates so quickly and wants to takeoff, sometimes before she should. But there are two truths about a Mooney. It will not takeoff before it has the right airspeed and won't land until it doesn't. Those skinny laminar flow wings and slippery fuselage demand that the pilot land at the right airspeed. If you try to land going too fast, even by a few knots, then you may end up landing in the next county. It just wants to keep flying, like most of her pilots.

The other thing Mooney pilots like to brag about is how fast they fly on so little fuel. And to be honest, Mooneys are one of the most efficient aircraft ever built regarding speed and fuel economy. But just like speed, we tend to exaggerate the fuel economy. You will often hear, "I flew here on 8.3 gallons per hour (GPH). The next pilot says, "I got here on 7.9 gph. If you keep going, some Mooney pilot will land with more fuel than he/she took off with. It's just the lore of Mooneys and their pilots.

So when you go to a fly-in, you will often hear a pilot claim, I got here in 2 hours, but if I were flying a Cessna, I would have had to leave yesterday. I guess you just have to love those magnificent pilots and their flying Mooney machines.

What Causes Airplane Accidents!

In a word, "pilots" cause most accidents. Most people think that airplane accidents are mostly caused by mechanical issues. This is just an old wives tale (OWT). More than 75% of all accidents point back to the pilot. Here's something that will surprise many non-pilots. A portion of pilot-induced accidents start before the pilot leaves the ground.

Here's an example, the weather is questionable, maybe fog or thunderstorms, for instance. The pilot decides that the weather will improve. It might, but if it doesn't, then there's the beginning of an accident. Most VFR pilots (visual flight rules) who fly into "instrument" conditions will crash within minutes. Usually they get disoriented and end up in a stall/spin which is usually fatal. Other endings could result in what pilots call CFIT (controlled flight into terrain). That's when you fly into what I call a cumulo-granite cloud (or a mountain hidden in a cloud).

Another great example of pilot-induced accidents is caused by "get home-itis". This accident type also begins on the ground. It's always better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air, than being in the air wishing you were on the ground. Get Home-itis inflicts a pilot who needs to return home and will do so against his/her own better judgement. It could be bad weather, or a tired pilot, or a slightly sick pilot who just must get home. Live to fly another day and wait til whatever isn't acceptable becomes acceptable.

Then there's accidents that happen after the pilot is in the air. The most disappointing accident is the one where the last words from the pilot were "watch this". It usually means he/she is going to do a maneuver, possibly at low altitude, where the pilot might become distracted from flying the plane, and augers in. This is easily avoidable, as are the examples above.

Here's an example of pilot-induced accidents, that will shock and awe most non-pilots. I refer to this accident as "fuel challenged" accidents. These are caused by the pilot running out of fuel while inflight. Nothing is more useless than fuel not in an airplane. This is an absolutely avoidable accident, don't you think! Sometimes pilots just don't pay attention, and other times they encounter headwinds which extends their flying time, and oops, I'm out of fuel.

Here's another pilot-induced accident that most of the time is fatal. In running out of gas, you may be lucky enough to glide to an airport, a road, or a field. But this type of accident has no wiggle room. It is a stall/spin at low altitude. These usually happen during takeoff or landing. On takeoff, the pilot does not maintain adequate airspeed, and stalls, sometimes ending in a spin which at low altitude is usually fatal. The same thing happens on landings as well. If you stall/spin at low altitude, it's usually fatal. But on landing we are making turns to base and turns to final. Sometimes a pilot may overshoot one of those turns and steepen his/her turn to stay on track. This can also result in a stall/spin since you are already going slow (to land) and fatal because you are at low altitude.

So there are many more types of accidents that include mechanical problems with the engine or a flight control, but they are a minority of the causes. Airplanes don't generally cause accidents, pilots do. So the best remedy is for the pilot to be continually learning about safety in aviation. Like a variation of a Dylan song, "if you aren't continually learning about flying, you're busy dying".

Flying to Oshkosh & Back

We decided to take our Mooney to Oshkosh this year. Since I was a little boy, I had wanted to go to Oshkosh. So we departed Paso Robles, CA on what turned out to be our greatest flying adventure in our lives. But before we left we made our most important decision. We would make this a 2 week journey out and back with Oshkosh sandwiched in the middle. Our first stop was only an hour away in Tehachapi, CA to get cheap gas and meet up with Mitch and Jolie who flew a Mooney as well and are great friends. Our first stop together would be Cedar City, UT and a visit to Cedar Breaks and Bryce Canyon. It was clear to us that inviting Mitch & Jolie would be a highlight of this trip. We flew in loose formation and talked on the radio the whole way. The best exchange was when Mitch asked "I wonder what the poor folks are doing today?" and Linda replied, "Driving". We rode horses in Bryce Canyon and had a lot of laughs. After a few days it was onto Yellowstone with a fuel stop in Alpine WY. This has to be the most picturesque airport in the west. We got "cheap" gas and got our 3rd high density altitude departure in as many departures. We climbed over the lake and everything was smooth, but we had to turn right and climb over a huge range. Just as we were climbing over it, we got hit with a huge air pocket which rearranged all of our baggage and internal organs. Then it was smooth again. Two days of fun at Yellowstone, lots of hiking, and visits to the Grand Tetons and Jackson Hole. These are some of the most beautiful areas in the USA. Mitch & Jolie had to leave to see family in Indiana, so Linda and I went on alone. We stopped in at Custer Country, SD for fuel. Ralph, the airport manager, changed that into an overnight by arranging a car and a hotel. We toured Custer State Park, the Black Hills, Rushmore, and Crazy Horse. What a great unplanned adventure, thanks to Ralph. Then onto Algona, IA. Why Algona, you might ask? Well, the picture of the airport looked like a "Field of Dreams" surrounded in every direction by corn fields. Linda wanted to land at this place, so we did. Such wonderful criteria for our next stop. Well we got there and had no car or hotel, but in Iowa that's not a problem. The airport hooked us up with a free courtesy car and a hotel down the street as well as restaurant recommendations. I would return the car at "0-dark-thirty am" the next day and asked the airport manager where to hide the keys. He said, "Phil, you are in Iowa. Just leave the car unlocked with the keys in the ignition." Well Linda says, "I guess we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto!". Then onto Oshkosh, skirting a row of thunderstorms with our trusty new Garmin 496 GPS equipped with XM Weather to guide us through safely. We hooked up with dozens of friends at Oshkosh and explored the whole place. It is a wonderland for pilots!

After 4 days, we departed west, but planned to go south and west to explore more of this great country of ours. We flew on top of low clouds most of the way to York, NE. You guessed it, they had low fuel prices from AIRNAV.COM. In landing at York, we had to find a hole in the clouds to descend. Linda found a nice long and narrow hole and we descended gracefully. Turns out Nebraska folks are just as friendly as Iowa folks and gave us a car and a restaurant, and off we went. After fueling up, we departed for Mooreland, OK (yup, cheapest fuel west of the Mississippi). And Linda was racking up new states she had never visited (she would get 10 new states before we got home). Well, we thought there was nothing in Mooreland, but we were wrong again. Darrel, the airport manager, met us with a wave as we landed and taxied up to the pumps. Darrel has to be the greatest airport manager we have ever met. He was single-handedly bringing the airport back to life. He drove us all over Mooreland looking for a hotel room, but there were no rooms in Mooreland that day, so he drove us 20 miles back to the airport, fueled us up, and we departed for Amarillo, TX. We figured a city that size had to have rooms.

Amarillo had rooms and a shuttle to the hotel. Good Mexican food, and a half hour in the hot spa and our weary flying bones were ready for bed-time. In the morning we departed for Santa Fe, NM. What a beautiful flight over the high country of New Mexico. Mitch & Jolie have a slightly faster airplane than ours and Jolie did a 360-degree turn and ended up behind us. She never caught up with us after that, so we had a few more laughs. Santa Fe is fantastic. Mitch & Jolie went to Bandelier (native ruins), and we spent the day shopping and drinking in Santa Fe. We met up for dinner, and finished another great day, one of our few planned days.

It was exciting and sad to get up for the final time at 0-dark-thirty the next morning. We were headed home. We had to get up at such an early time to avoid the hot desert which causes lots of turbulence and uncomfortable flying. We got none. The high country and desert is always beautiful from low altitudes and this day was no exception. We had an overcast for part of the way which kept us cool. We flew over Meteor Crater in Arizona which is magnificent from the air, and then followed the interstate almost all the way to Lake Havasu. It was still early in the morning and already 102-degrees there. We were greeted by name by Jeff at D2 Aero who remembered us from a year previous when we had a fly-in there. We felt like family. But we had to go since we had a few hundred more miles of Mojave Desert to cover and it was already hot hot hot. Despite the heat, we had a smooth flight to Paso Robles. As we were landing, we lost our alternator. What a great place to have something break on such a long journey. It turned out to be a broken ground terminal on the alternator and was fixed in 10 minutes.

What a great adventure we had. The best part was the new friends we met and old friends that shared our adventure with us. And yeah, the scenery was wonderful and the flying great, but it's the people that made it special for us. Thanks to Mitch & Jolie, Ralph, Darrel, and Jeff, and too many other people we met on the way to/from Oshkosh.

Remembering Flying with My Daughter

So I have 3 daughters, but in this post, I am going to share a little story of flying with my youngest daughter Erin. It is particularly interesting timing since she is now grown up and will be flying to Baghdad in 3 days.

I started bringing Erin flying when she was a baby. Of all my kids, Erin seemed to like flying the most, so she got to sit in the right sit whenever she flew. She wanted to not just fly in the airplane, but she wanted to "fly" the airplane. So over time, I would teach her the various elements of flying. Quickly she learned how to fly straight and level, and to follow a course. Well, it was almost flying a course! I would tell her to fly to that big mountain, and she would fly to that big mountain. As we got closer, I would give her another visual point to fly towards, such as that odd shaped lake. This was actually quite a feat if you realize that she was 5 years old at the time.

But the story doesn't end here. When others would fly with us, they noticed that Erin would periodically lower the nose of the airplane into a short descent and then recover the lost altitude. I just thought this was 5 year old flying technique. My passengers thought a 5 year old should not be flying and never enjoyed this technique. I asked Erin why she did this one day, and she answered "Because I'm too short to see over the instrument panel, and I lower the nose so I can see the place you asked me to fly to." I thought this was quite ingenious of a 5 year old pilot and I had not taught her to do that, which I thought was way cool. Several years later, I wonder how she solved this problem in a car?

Anyway, after lots of complaints from passengers, Erin developed a new technique (by now she was 6 years old), and instead of putting the plane into a shallow dive, she kicked the rudder pedals which made the airplane yaw to the left so she could look out her window to see the big mountain or odd shaped lake that she was flying towards. More innovative techniques, but still grumbling passengers over a 6 year old flying them to Nantucket that day.

Go fly little girl!

A proud Dad

I.F.R. Flying

Well, I bet you thought this post was going to be about IFR, Instrument Flying Rules, as opposed to VFR, Visual Flying Rules. Actually both types of flying "rule", although I do all of my flying VFR. I do that for one reason. I fly to enjoy the view and to get to somewhere fun.

Anyway, this story is about I.F.R. which I did with my Dad early in my flying life. I.F.R. stands for I Follow Roads (or Rivers). On this day, my Dad wanted to know what it would be like if we turned all of our navigational aids off and just followed the roads to our destination. We departed Manchester NH, climbed to 3500' and got on Route 3 heading south. My Dad thought it was fun to be going south in the northbound lane, so we did that all the way into Massachusetts. We turned right onto I-495 and just enjoyed the ride. We were enroute to Bradley field near Hartford CT. I planned to fly I-495 to the Mass Turnpike, turn west (in the eastbound lanes of course). Well, we are flying down the Mass Pike as the locals call it, fat dumb and happy. What a great day to fly.

About this time, I feel like we are aboiut 15 miles out from Bradley, so I call the tower. They tell me to expect a straight in for runway 27. Everything is A-OK. Life is good. We continue flying but the airport does not come into sight as expected. Then the radio calls become a little crackly. I switch radios, but it's still crackly. Finally, we see the airport and call the tower. He says that he does not have us in sight, on the crackly radio. I continue and see the runway is 24, not 27 as I thought, so I call and tell the tower, 3 miles out for 24. He comes back and says, what color is the runway? Thinking that is an odd question, I respond, "black". He says, our runway is white (concrete), and it's runway 27, not 24.

Well it seems that Dad and I mistakenly exited the Mass Pike on I-84 and found our way to an airport somewhere in Connecticutt, but that was certainly not Bradley Field. We decided to land since we were hungry, and decided that we would not go to Bradley that day since we didn't want to get teased by the controllers. Since this field was uncontrolled, we felt like nobody would know our mistake. Well as we pulled up to the little terminal, an older guy comes out and welcomes us to "the new Bradley airport", and then started laughing at us.

We flew home with our navigation aids turned on.

Smokey Flying

So I live in California where there are 343 phenomenal flying days per year. The other 22 are rainy or foggy. But this summer is different. It's nasty flying everyday, due to the 1500+ wildfires. It's really quite frustrating since I can see that the day is perfect with blue sky, and if it weren't for the smoke, unlimited visibility, or as we pilots refer to it as "Severe Clear".

Suffering from a withdrawl of flying, due to the smoke, I grabbed my trusty co-pilot and wife, and pulled 22Q out of the hangar. It was a wonderful day with no clouds and a light wind. But I knew the smoke was thick. But addiction being what it is, and knowing that it was safe to fly, we strapped on the airplane, and started our taxi. As we started to climb, we could see and smell smoke. The visibility was 5-6 miles but everything was in a Stephen King haze. We had no horizon to fly against, so I had to rely on my instruments to keep the wings level. It's odd that our inner ear misleads us while flying. If we relied solely on our sense of balance in a no-horizon situation, we would crash. It's simply not accurate, but on this day, our instruments were reliable and we flew onto Santa Paula, near the coast of Central/Southern California. This disorientation, by the way, is probably what did John Kennedy in at Nantucket, but that is another story.

Flying in smoke is not as much fun as not flying in smoke. You can't see very far, and sometimes you can only see a small area downwards. On this day the visibility was definitely deteriorating due to our proximity to fires and by now it was down to about 4 miles. There are TFRs for fires, which means Temporary Flight Restrictions. These are setup by the FAA for a number of reasons, one of which is fires, in order to give the aerial fire fighters a safe area to combat fires. On this day, we witnessed fires in their early stages, maybe before the authorities even knew about them. We avoided them nonetheless for safety reasons and also because breathing smoke is less fun than flying in smoke.

Usually flying to the destination is as much, or more, fun than actually being at your destination. On this smokey day, it was nice to land safely at Santa Paula and to visit our best friends who also flew to Santa Paula to have lunch with us. The reward of flying today was in flying in crappy weather in a safe manner. It is taxing, but very rewarding. I must be vigilant of everything around me, including other airplanes, but also rely on my instruments if there is no horizon. Without a horizon, I also have to navigate much more closely. I cannot see for miles and identify landmarks to mark my progress, but need to identify landmarks in a much smaller radius. Thank goodness for GPS which guides you to your destination, but like any electronics, they are a tool and cannot always be relied upon.

Anyway, flying in California is always wonderful, except during wildfire season.

On Soloing

I had taken 7 hours of pilot training, not much by anyone's standards. I actually had a few light bouts of nausea during this time, and almost questioned my ability to become a pilot. I perservered as most people do for something that they want. Learning to takeoff was easy, flying enroute was pretty straightforward, although I remember that the plane seemed like a leaf in the wind at times. The sensation of turning the plane with gentle left airleron and left rudder, or vice versa, was beyond words. Pulling back on the yoke resulted in an increase in altitude and a decrease in airspeed. All of the sensations were phenomenal and at times overwhelming. When it came to landing, that took all of my hand/eye/brain coordination. Landing involves flying an airplane in relatively slow flight. All of the controls become mushy and the pilot must be alert not to stall (aerodynamically) the airplane. This is accomplished by increasing the angle of attack too much. Anyway, after 7 hours of instruction, I didn't think that I had actually landed the aircraft myself. I was so focused that I thought my instructor was assisting me during each landing. I remember getting my knuckles whacked by a clip board because I had a "death grip" on the yoke. My instructor kept telling me to have light fingertip control during landing which would result in nice light changes to the attitude of the plane during the final landing approach. This was easier said than done, to a new student pilot.

So on this sunny day in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, Perley Carmichael, my instructor indicated that I should taxi the airplane back to the terminal. We had only flown for about half the time of a typical lesson, so I was disappointed. I thought it was because I was flying poorly. As I shut the engine down and started to get out, Perley said, "Only one of us is leaving this airplane, and the other will make 3 takeoffs and landings and return here afterwards". Those were his exact words. I could not believe it.

I taxied out to the runway, not really sure I was fully prepared. At least one of us thought so. The airport was uncontrolled, so I made my radio call on Unicom and took off. Taking off is easy. Then I turned downwind and realized I didn't think that I had ever made a landing myself, without assistance. Oh my God!!! So I was about to get a baptism of fire, as another airplane went in front of me, and I had to extend my downwind for proper spacing. Which only gave me more time to be anxious about my landing. Then I lined up and realized I had a crosswind. Ouch, for my first solo landing. But that gave me more focus and I landed perfectly with a crab on short final, while in the flare, I kicked opposite rudder, while holding in the airleron and landing on the upwind wheel and then bringing down the other gear.

So I taxied to the other runway which had more favorable winds (ie, less crosswind) and did my second takeoff and landing. This runway, although certainly long enough, was shorter than my first runway. So, I tried to do a short field landing, which for the most part, means paying real close attention to airspeeds, and touching down right at the beginning of the runway. I did another good landing.

I was supposed to do 3, but was pretty proud of myself, and just called it a day, having batted 2 for 2. There is simply no better feeling than soloing an airplane for the first time. I think it was actually more exhilerating than actually getting my Pilot Certificate. I can still see the actual solo in my mind in great details, now almost 30 years later.

My Co-Pilot

Flying, in and of itself, is one of the most rewarding things a person can do. In the world, there are committees, task groups, group thinking, etc. But in an airplane, it is you, the airplane, and the forces of nature. When things go right, it is because of you. When things go wrong, only you can fix them. It's pilot and airplane, that simple! Only ATC (air traffic control) tells you what to do, and even then, it's usually instructions that keep you from hitting another airplane or terra firma.

But flying is also a social thing for me. I love to fly somewhere and meet with friends or at a fly-in with lots of other friends, or friends-to-be-made.

But this blog is about my co-pilot, my wife, best friend, and yes, copilot of N5722Q. Lots of spouses have issues with motorcycles and airplanes. They don't like them, and don't want their spouses to kill themselves. Well, my co-pilot, who is not a pilot is the best co-pilot a pilot could want. Linda plans flights and destinations, calls friends with Mooneys to join us at some beautiful airport for breakfast or lunch. Plans long trips and short trips. Simply put, she loves flying. During a pre-flight check of the airplane, she is as vigilant as I am to ensure that 22Q is safe and sound for the flight. She is always looking out for traffic and pointing it out to me. Her eyes are way too good and she sees planes miles away that are no factor. I have a tendency to only look for planes within a few mile radius, but not Linda. She sees planes miles away and thousands of feet different in altitude. She's better than a traffic collision avoidance system, and much prettier and pleasant. On landing, she always double checks that I have extended the landing gear, so as to avoid a gear-up landing. This is very useful. It is said there there are 2 types of pilots, those that have done a gear-up landing, and those that will. Linda is working to make us the exception. That is also very useful.

But the best part of her co-pilot-ness is that she is like a kid when we are flying. Her nose is glued to the window watching earthbound people and features and marveling at them all. We have seldom flown a straight line to our destination. She'll see something and ask me to turn and descend towards it for a better look. Often it is a mountain lake, or a wine vineyard, apple orchard, water treatment pool (yes, they look beautiful from the air with the fountains and patterns in the water), and too many others to mention. Everything is beautiful from the air.

And so is my beautiful co-pilot!

Father & Son

Well, my Dad could never fulfill his desire to pilot his own aircraft since he was unable to pass a medical. It was a major disappointment to him, in his life, although that generation never showed it. He had instilled the desire to fly in me, though, and I got my license when I was 26. We flew a lot together and as luck would have it, we bonded over flying. Nothing else brought us together like flying. You know how it can be with Fathers and Sons. Over a few years, I had taught him to fly and he was very good at it. So on most of our flights, I'd pretty much let him be sole manipulator of the controls (and Yes Virginia, we had a simple "I"ve got it" agreement and he would let go of everything and I would be sole manipulator of the controls). He was like a kid at Christmas time flying, a dream come true. I remember one day that I would like to share. We were flying from Manchester NH to Cape Cod. Over Cape Cod Bay, we saw what looked like a barge with holes in it. My Dad claimed it was target practice for the Air National Guard, which was stationed nearby. He got on the intercom and said to me "Boston Center, we have spotted an enemy aircraft carrier in Cape Cod Bay. We request permission to strafe the carrier." What my Dad didn't realize is that he accidently pushed the "transmit" button. Well, I thought air traffic control would take my license since we were on a frequency with all the airline traffic into Logan Airport. But he came back on the radio and said "Cessna, you are cleared to strafe the carrier, be careful and good luck. Report back on frequency". Well he dove the plane and we strafed that enemy carrier successfully, climbed back to altitude and started to head home. Well, my Dad was not through so he called back air traffic control, "Mission Accomplished, enemy carrier was sunk". And all we got back on the radio from air traffic control and a couple of airlines was "Bravo!".

So What is the Vintage Mooney Group

So I've already said that Flying all by itself is most rewarding. But when I sit down and count my blessings, the Vintage Mooney Group is definitely one of those blessings! If it's not great enough to be a pilot, to be able to fly, to own and fly a Mooney, well the top of that heap is to be a part of the Vintage Mooney Group. Some people say that he/she who dies with the most toys wins. Well, I will die with the most and best friends a person could ever dream of. There are wonderful people everywhere, but once a month, some of the finest fly to a common destination in their Vintage Mooneys and spend the day or the weekend together. You can see a summary of these fly-ins at http://www.vintagemooneygroup.com/. But you need to join a fly-in to see what I mean. It's one of those things in life where the journey and the ends. What could be better than to soar up into the sky, dodging clouds, over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, over the Mojave Desert, landing at a beautiful airport in the great southwestern USA, and then spending the day with some of the greatest vintage mooney pilots in the world. To be sure, people with common interests tend to get along. But the spirit in the Vintage Mooney Group transcends that. It starts with a critique of landings (rated 0-10). Somebody is always helping you to park. Then no handshakes will do, only a smile and hugs, followed by tall Mooney tales, lunch, hiking, eating, and more hangar stories. So when I die, let everyone know that I was a Vintage Mooney dude, and that will be enough.

Angel Flight

Flying is already one of the most wonderful and rewarding things I do in my life. There are few things in life that you rely on yourself so much. While flying, when things go right, it's you. When things don't go right, it's you. It's that simple. One of the things I've done recently is to fly Angel Flights. If you haven't heard about this, it's the greatest thing to do if you are a pilot. Essentially you volunteer to fly people with medical needs from Point A to Point B. On my first Angel Flight, I picked up my passenger at San Luis Obispo on the beautiful central coast of California and flew her to Oakland. Flying from the rural coast of California to the San Francisco Class B airspace (essentially designated an extremely busy airspace) into Oakland was quite a journey. My passenger was a wonderful passenger who enjoyed flying and we diverted left and right during the flight to get a better glimpse at something interesting on the ground. It was fun to call air traffic control and say, this is Angel Flight 22Q. Even air traffic control gets into Angel Flights. I did my best to help my passenger enjoy her flight and tried to make it a temporary escape from whatever medical issues are concerning her. I think it worked. In that short 1 hour flight, we literally became friends, and she also helped me to forget all the things on my mind for 1 brief shining hour. Flying is already a wonderful thing to do, but flying Angel Flights, well the reward is beyond words! Even the descent into Oakland was not stressful with all of the airline traffic from San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. Somehow I knew an "angel" was looking over us on this day, and I was right. The angel was my passenger.

Landing

Landing an airplane is one of my biggest thrills. Truthfully, almost anyone can takeoff, but landing requires skill and coordination. First of all, you are coming from the clear blue skies (hopefully) into an area where planes tend to congregate. Some pilots fly the pattern with good communication on the radio, and some airplanes have no operating radio and/or no operating pilot (ie, rules are for everyone else). Most often you have been descending into the airport traffic pattern (usually 1000 AGL, or Above Ground Level). The feel of the descent is akin to gliding a bicycle downhill when you were a kid. It feels wonderful. Everything on the ground gets bigger and bigger. On downwind (parallel to the runway at pattern altitude), I can easily check for planes departing, or others in the pattern to land. I slowly bring the power back further and then lower the gear. On our airplane, I lower the gear manually with a big lever called a Johnson Bar. I love this since it feels like real flying and the only way it'll fail is if I don't keep my right arm in shape. No electrical motors or fuses to fail. The plane slows down with the gear lowered which helps me to lose more altitude. As I continue to slow, I start to lose altitude and check my descent. I'm a little high today so I'll crank in a few pumps of flaps. My plane has a manual hydraulic lever to deploy the flaps. I love the feel it gives me. I feel even more one with the airplane. So I turn my base leg which is perpendicular to the runway and check for planes again. If I need more flaps, I'll add it now. The plane is trimmed, which I adjusted on downwind so that the plane will hold the airspeed that I chose to approach at. In my Mooney, that is usually 85mph. Now I'm about to turn Final and line up with the runway. One more check on my airspeed and altitude. And my wife calls out and confirms that the gear is down (that would ruin an otherwise wonderful flight). We're over the numbers now (pilot talk for over the beginning of the runway). As I continue to descend I start a rollout which reduces my descent rate. The Mooney does not want to land (it loves flying). If you are going even a few mph too fast, it will float down the runway and refuse to land. Mooneys will not land until they are ready to do so and also will not takeoff until they are ready to do so. Today I am right on the airspeed and she starts to settle gracefully to the runway. Unlike most other airplanes that need a fair amount of nose up to land on the main gear, the Mooney wants just a little nose up (almost a flat attitude), and settles to the runway. Today I did a greaser (which is a nice accomplishment since Mooneys have no give in their gear). We slow down and turn off at taxiway Charlie. Another beautiful flight.

Clouds

Clouds look beautiful from the ground, especially those big cumulus clouds that billow upward, sometimes seemingly forever, as they reach to the heavens. But clouds are even more majestic when flying above them, or through canyons of clouds. They seem alive as they get blown by the wind, and raised by the warm air beneath them. Constantly changing shapes but remaining bright white. I see a canyon of clouds and aim for it. But this is not ordinary canyon. It is constantly changing and could close on me with little notice, but today it does not. In fact, it seems to twist and turn but always provide me with a path through it, kind of saying to me, "I can envelop you when I please young grasshopper, but today I provide passage for you". We fly through the canyon with beautiful formations at each gentle turn. I talk to Oakland Center to make sure that nobody is near me since my visibility is limited here in the clouds. On the flight out beneath the clouds, it was choppy and sometimes turbulent (pilots call it continuous Light Chop with occasional moderate turbulence, but my wife calls it uncomfortable). Above the clouds on the return flight, it was smooth as silk. Because we could not see the ground beneath us, the return flight was unearthly. The ride was smooth and even our Mooney airplane seemed to be enjoying it. At times like this, I think our airplane is a woman, enjoying the finer things in life and letting everyone know when she's happy. N5722Q was happy this sunny cloudy afternoon. As we approached Paso Robles we had climbed to more than 10,000 feet and only had 20 miles before landing. Oakland Center called to ensure that we intended to land at Paso Robles, since we were so high. I told her that we were staying above the cloud layer, enjoying our flight, and would begin our descent shortly. She knew our situation, and simply said, "22Q, Enjoy, and maintain VFR". VFR is Visual Flight Rules and that means stay out of the clouds. We did, of course, mostly because clouds are much more beautiful when seen from above, and less beautiful once you enter them. After we landed, we looked up to see the cloud layer getting blown over the airport. We had not heard or seen any other small planes flying that afternoon over the mountains over the clouds. We were lucky to have this journey all to ourselves this day.

Flying is Life

My friend doesn't like golf because he says it's too much like life with its ups-and-downs, good days and bad, but you keep coming back. Well flying is even more like life. No matter how much you plan (and you need to do so when flying), things just always tend to work out differently than when you planned it. The weather may change your plans, or your plane may change your plans (something that's just not right, or just doesn't feel right). But whenever I finish a flight, my heart leaps. I am sure that it is partly due to "cheating death once more", and it is always nice to have the the number of landings match the number of takeoffs, but it is much much more than that. Lifting off from a runway and leaving the surly bonds of earth sets your soul into high gear. There's really nothing that feels better than making a climbing turn to head on course. Retracting the flaps and then retracting the gear, and feeling that slight extra boost of climbing power. The earth seems to become even more beautiful as you climb. Have you ever noticed how beautiful a freshly plowed field looks from the sky? Or vineyard in bloom? Or an apple orchard in winter with those shadows? Even ugly things on the ground are magnificent from the air. We flew over aeration ponds from a local town water treatment plant, and my gosh, it was beautiful with the pattern of fountains and ripples on the water. I don't know why everything looks beautiful from the air, but it does. At lower altitudes, nothing is boring. Even a desert casts colorful shadows, and dry riverbeds create mosaics in the desert sand. Occasionally we glimpse a fault link in the earth's crust. Most recently we flew over the Carrizo Plain about 50 miles southeast of Paso Robles, and we could see the San Andreas fault. There were mountains to the east with the ridgeline parallel to the fault line. We could clearly see the fault. But the amazing site was that of creek beds running down from the mountains, and when they reached the fault line, they were shifted 90-degrees north, and then 90-degrees back on course as the earth had moved in a line and taken the creeks with it. We hit a bump in the air and it reminded us that we are flying and not simply enjoying the view. Flying is life. Life is what happens while you are making other plans. Flying is the same. It is demanding and rewarding, and unforgiving at times.