Now: TFR City. Later: meat.
This weekend in Chicago it is the NATO Summit, which will be attended by many world leaders and even our own President Obama.
Naturally, when the President comes to town, it is a gigantic circus. There have been helicopters loitering and circling, fighter jets, police cordons and patrols and plans, restrictions on travel, and so on and so on ad nauseum.
Of interest to us pilot types: the TFRs. Any time the President comes he brings his 30-mile Radius of Protection, which frankly seems a little ridiculous to me; I’d be more worried about some lunatic on the ground than about the generally mentally stable people who operate airplanes, especially small GA airplanes.
I digress! The point is, there are TFRs everywhere this weekend. I understand that there are 4 basic TFRs, two 30-mile rings with VFR/IFR entry/exit on a flight plan only and two “core” TFRs that are absolute no-fly zones. That, of course, is subject to change at the whim of the government, so if you are going to fly around here this weekend, do so at your own peril. There’s a little caveat in the NOTAM about deadly force authorized blah blah blah. Don’t take the chance.
After all of this NATO hoopla is over with, I plan to get some more flying in. If the weather next week is still good, I might fly to Madison and get a burger at The Jet Room. I hear the restaurant at JVL is good, but I already flew there and neglected to eat, so that will have to wait until another time as I have the itch to explore an unfamiliar airport.
Where else in Northern Illinois/Southern Wisconsin/NW Indiana can a pilot get a good $100 hamburger? Any suggestions?
Flying and Philosophy
Flying tends to inspire a philosophical side in some people. Richard Bach writes very poetically about the more metaphysical side of aviation, and countless other aviators have a philosophical reason to fly, even if they would never admit to it. There’s something about aviation that seems to gnaw at the core of the pilot’s soul.
Imagine my delight when I had a chance to wax poetic about the joy of flying for my intro to philosophy class. I will now kill two birds with one stone by ripping my essay off and posting it here as filler. Enjoy!
My Aviation Bucket List
Ever since rekindling my passion for flight a couple of years ago, I have been fostering an ever-growing list of things I want to do in the sky. While its fun to drill holes in the clouds with my rental airplane, or to fly from A to B for a delicious hamburger, there is so much more to aviation than flight seeing and point-to-point travel. There are experiences to be had and enjoyed, things to be learned and principles to understand more deeply.
And since I am only human, there is a finite time in which to do these things. Every pilot has a last flight (whether they know it in advance or not) and I would like to experience as much of aviation as I can before I flip the master switch off for good.
Here, in no special order, is a starter for my own, personal Aviation Bucket List. Some of these could be combined into one mega-aviation geek event…for instance if I got to fly an open-cockpit airplane into Airventure and camp with it. There are only twenty items on the list for now, but I feel confident that it will grow.
1. Get my IFR ticket.
2. Learn to pilot a glider.
3. Take up hot-air ballooning.
4. Learn to fly a helicopter.
5. Take aerobatic training.
6. Get my A&P Certificate.
7. Build an airplane.
8. Take a ride in a warbird…L-39 anyone?
9. Fly in an open-cockpit airplane.
10. Fly a weight-shift control airplane, like a trike
11. Get my seaplane rating
12. Fly a SeaBee
13. Fly in all 50 US States (4 so far!)
14. Camp with my plane.
15. Fly into Airventure
16. Fly a volunteer mission (humanitarian relief, angel flight, USCG Auxiliary, etc.)
17. Skydive
18. Skydive from a balloon (friend of mine did this and said it was amazing)
19. Experience a flight in a Heavy from the cockpit.
The last one…number 20…might seem exotic or even unattainable. However, with the advances made in private spaceflight lately and the pace of technological development, I like to be an optimist and think that maybe before I hang up my wings I will be able to experience space flight. Sure, it’s exorbitantly expensive now, but air travel was exorbitantly expensive for a long time before it became a mode of travel for the masses. If I ever get the chance to experience space, even for a few moments, I will take it…to see the Earth from outside the atmosphere, outside that relatively thin bubble of gas that keeps us alive, would be sublime…almost a religious experience for me. And with that in mind, I submit to you number 20 on my Aviation Bucket List…that I want to experience space before my toe connects with the aluminum pail and my bucket is kicked.
What’s on your aviation bucket list? Have any of you done any of these things? I’d love to hear about it and learn from your experiences. Tell me what you think.
Flight Review: 06C to KDKB
Having only recently been able to get airborne again, I decided it would be prudent to practice landing. However, the Schaumburg airport doesn’t allow touch-and-go landings because (1) the runway is only about 3000 feet long, and (2) it’s “noise sensitive.”
Looking at my local options, there are a plethora of towered fields to practice at, and a smattering of small, uncontrolled fields. The uncontrolled fields close to my home airport tend to have short runways, and while I don’t mind flying at a controlled field, I like being able to go with the flow at an uncontrolled airport. A brief scan of the aeronautical chart led me to select KDKB, Dekalb-Taylor, as my landing practice destination of choice. With two runways, I could practice into the wind or into a crosswind; and being more remote, I didn’t have to worry about huge jets in the Class B airspace or worry about traffic in and out of close-by fields. Remote yet close to home, DeKalb was a perfect fit for what I was looking for.
The wind on the day I went flying was almost a direct crosswind to the runway at 06C. The runway in use was 29, opposite of where I’d flown before, but an easier departure, with no DP and less concern about getting close to the limits of KORD’s airspace. I followed a Bonanza out, and motored across the Illinois countryside, enjoying the view while I tracked to KDKB. I flew over a private farm strip, did a circle or two around a large field on fire, and saw DeKalb ahead.
Tuning to the CTAF I heard a busy day. There was a Cherokee doing pattern work, a Cessna departing, and a Cirrus overflying at the same altitude but in the opposite direction as me–a situation which was rectified by asking them for their altitude and then descending 500 feet.
I made a few calls, overflow the field and maneuvered to enter a 45-degree angle to the downwind. The plane caught a nice tailwind on the downwind leg, and I found myself needing minimal power to cruise without climbing. A few quick reconfigurations, the standard base and final turns, and I squeaked out a decent landing about 500 feet down the runway. Flaps up, power in, and I was off to repeat my little circle to my hearts content.
My fourth landing in, in an effort to keep it tight, I carried a little extra energy into my final approach. That extra few knots, plus ground effect, plus a headwind, floated me down the runway maybe 2000 feet. Not pretty. I had 7000 feet of runway to use, but I was not “positive” about how much I had in front of me, so I killed my touch-and-go and exited the runway to taxi back. Better to be a little careful than to overrun the runway and break the plane.
My next couple of patterns were far better, and I took off and headed back East towards the city.
Returning to Schaumburg, I had never landed on 29 before. I consulted my charts and A/FD just to be sure about pattern altitude and directions, and then entered the downwind. A stiff crosswind was blowing, and I found myself moving faster than I wanted to. I pulled back power, added some flaps, and turned base but was still getting a good push; I turned final and crossed the threshold fast, floating up a little in the flare. The plane floated about 1/3 down the runway, the tires bounced, and I aborted the landing, pushing power to the firewall and announcing a go-around on the CTAF.
The neighbors might not like touch-and-gos, but I don’t want to try and salvage a bad landing and wind up making it worse…better to go around and be a little sheepish than to try to be a cowboy and break something.
The next circuit went a little more smoothly. I s-turned slightly on final to bleed some speed, corrected for the crosswind, and gently came back to earth…a slow taxi back with crosswind corrections carefully accounted for, and I shut down the engine on the ramp and mentally debriefed.
On the whole, my flight went well: patterns at DeKalb were solid, cross-country portion went well, altitude control was solid. But my tendency to carry too much speed on final is something that is alarming. I suppose it’s better to be too fast than it is to be too slow and stall/spin into a burning hole in the ground, but I would rather be right on airspeed than be fast or slow.
I think I’ll plan some more practice for my next flight, and if I am still carrying myself too fast, I’ll book a CFI and have a professional evaluate my landings. A good pilot is always learning….no shame in that.
Flight Review: 06C to KLOT
After successfully getting checked out at the local FBO, I wanted to take the plane up for a practice flight. Originally, I had intended to fly directly to Lewis University and do some touch-and-go’s; but when I got into the air, it felt so good to fly that I decided to just go flightseeing.
Before flying, I checked the weather. A DUAT weather briefing showed no issues…good news… but the FAA’s TFR map showed a little red circle in Chicago. Further investigation revealed that Vice President Biden was in town. Unfortunate news for my flying plans, but the Biden TFR was smaller than the usual Presidential TFR, and a call to the weather briefer confirmed that the Schaumburg airport was well outside the Biden TFR. I’d have five miles from the end of the runway to the point where the fighter jets come say hello, and that’s more than enough room, especially in a rented single-engine prop plane…
I got to the FBO early and took my time with the preflight. No sense in rushing things on the ground only to get aloft and realize you forgot something important. The engine fired up nicely after a little liquid love from the primer, the avionics came online smooth, and the runup was uneventful. I closed the windows, locked the doors, taxied to the hold-short, and double-checked my checklists. Everything being good to go, I pulled onto the runway, lined her up, and put the throttle to the firewall.
There was a little left crosswind, so I kept the aileron in as I rolled down the runway. Once the plane left the ground, a little footwork on the rudders kept me on a nice extended centerline until I left the airport boundary. Schaumburg’s noise-abatement departure procedure calls for departing planes to follow a set of railroad tracks East, then turn North over a warehouse complex and follow the highway West to avoid directly overflying some residential areas. The Warrior climbed beautifully in the cool spring air, and I was at pattern altitude before I knew it. A few turns and I was pointed Northwest, away from O’Hare and the TFRs and the big jets and toward the endless cornfields of the Illinois countryside.
I made for 3CK, Lake in the Hills, and did a few orbits over the Fox River to see the sights from above. During one of my turns I saw a massive four-engine A340 lumbering through the sky a few miles away…a reminder that there are good reasons for all this complicated airspace around Chicago. I kept an eye on my altimeter and flew South, following the river’s winding path through the countryside.
Beautiful as the countryside was, I couldn’t resist heading for Lewis University anyway, just to see my school from the air. I climbed to 3,000 feet once I was clear of the Class B airspace, and overflew the field. There were a half dozen or so people in the pattern at Lewis, but most of them were flight students returning for the day…and since I was there, the opportunity to score a landing at my school was too tempting to pass up. I flew Southeast, descended, turned back to the field, and followed a Cherokee in on the pattern. The pattern went by quickly, and before I knew it I was gliding over the runway end. A gust caught me by surprise and I landed a little less “smoothly” than I would have liked…not beautiful, but not the worst landing ever. I reconfigured, took off again, and left the pattern to the North.
Looking East, over my right wing, the city skyline loomed. I could see all the suburbs and the endless expanse of the lake beyond them. Looking West, the sun was slowly setting behind a thin layer of clouds over the prairie. I enjoyed the view and the smooth air as I cruised back to 06C.
Setting up to approach, I had two choices: fly a midfield pattern entry, or circle around and make a straight-in approach. I opted for the straight-in; skirting DuPage’s airspace, I lined up on a three-mile final and let the plane settle in on a slow descent. Partial flaps and extra power on final because of the ever-present Schaumburg crosswind, and I made a nice, gentle touchdown on the runway. Some dancing with the rudder pedals and a gentle lowering of the nosewheel, and I was clear of the runway, taxiing back, aglow with the joy of a fresh flight in my logbook. Another 1.0 in the pages, a thoroughly enjoyable flight, and some decent photos to boot. Can’t wait to fly again.
View over the Rockies, from the Pilatus
This is a story about planes. Private planes, small planes.
I’m not a pilot. I’m not planning on becoming a pilot. At my core, I’m engineer and a science fangirl, and I love to constantly learn new things. I like to learn new things that are difficult, but I need to be interested in them.
The Saga Continues
I have a week off from school, and I had high hopes that I would be able to fly for my spring break. The last time I flew was in August and my subsequent attempts at checking out an airplane here in Chicago have been consistently thwarted by bad weather, a bad schedule, or a bad sinus infection. This week looked like it might be different: forecasts called for mild temperatures and decent skies. Much to my dismay, they also called for high winds. Rather than call and book a plane only to have to cancel – again – I decided to wait it out and see.
When I woke up this morning, it looked like a beautiful day. Blue skies, not a cloud in sight, rays of sunlight streaming down from the heavens. I opened the patio door and stepped outside to feel a gentle breeze blowing across my face, and for a moment…just a moment…I had a glimmer of hope that maybe today would break my dry spell. I looked out at the field across from my apartment and my heart sank as I saw the cattails bending almost parallel to the ground in a heavy wind. Looking up, I saw a flock of geese flying over; they were crabbed at almost 45 degrees relative to their ground track. And they were moving fast.
Damn.
I turned on LiveATC and heard airliners reporting winds at 60+ knots at 3,000 feet. My iPhone’s aeroweather app showed the wind at my local airports in the 20′s gusting to 30. Some GA pilots might be ok in those winds, but I’m not comfortable with that. Being rusty and getting a checkout in an aging Piper Warrior, I figured that I’d be better off with my feet firmly planted on terra firma. Again. Maybe tomorrow will bring sunshine, blue skies, and a skosh less wind…we’ll see. Hope springs eternal I guess.
T-28 on the ramp at Sun n Fun 2011. This is what it feels like I'm flying when I'm in the Warrior. A good imagination never hurts.
