Me and Harper Lee

No flying news to speak of. The weather on this side of the Mississippi has been a little anti-plane lately.  Luckily for all involved, I have a back-up blog post plan. It involves me talking about all the current events in my life and possibly ranting about … well, something I’m sure. So if you read this purely for airplane updates, move on. If you read this for my witticisms and fascinating life, which I just know you do, please continue.

Oh, speaking of people who read this. I know there are quite a few of you, trust me… I know. (Aside from my startling psychic abilities, I have some seriously special “skills” that allow me to peer into the deepest parts of your soul.)  To those people: you should comment sometimes.  I mean, Heaven knows I won’t hold it against you if you don’t comment. I read people’s blogs all the time and never say a word. But I have social anxiety issues and fear of commitment. What’s your excuse? (Tell me about it in a comment.)  Besides,  it would give Elena some company. I feel bad that so many people read this and nobody ever chats with Elena who consistently is not only an amazing blog writer (check her out by clicking her link which you will find in any of my comment sections), but also is an amazing commenter. I don’t even mind if I don’t know you- I promise I won’t think it’s weird that you’re responding to somebody’s blog you’ve never met. And as a bonus, I promise if you ask a question or say something that seems to require a response, I will totally respond to you. I’m nice like that.

Now, it could absolutely be my fault that nobody comments, I mean, I don’t ask questions. I’m very self-centered and focus almost entirely on all the fun things I do, hardly ever inviting reciprocation. But that’s something you could tell me too. Maybe there’s a way I could improve communication. Or maybe you’ve always wanted to know something, possibly totally unrelated to flying, like how to build an Empire. I’m not entirely sure how to, but if you asked, I would certainly do a little research for you and get back to you.

In any case, I just wanted to throw that out there. I really don’t mind if you never say anything. Perhaps you get a vicarious little thrill out of reading somebody else’s life and them not knowing about it, I get that. It’s totally okay. But it’s also okay to say something once in a while, you know, if you want. So I thought I would invite you to do so if you’re feeling outgoing today.

That said, I vaguely promised a recap of recent activities. As some of you know, I have been apartment hunting. Apartments are not difficult to find surrouding my current home, but nice apartments under 700 dollars are hard to find. As a recent college graduate I should perhaps move to a city that is less expensive and does provide clean housing for under  700 dollars, but now where is the fun in that? Aren’t your early 20s all about not being able to pay your rent and working at a minimum wage job you hate with the hopes of becoming something Bigger, Bolder, and Better(er). My dream of course is something resembling the next Great American Novel. I would, obviously, just take a sweet book deal that garners me millions and lets me travel the talk show circuit- regardless of whether it’s the Great American Novel or not. After all, I’m 22, I have plenty of time for something so sought after. It also gives me something to strive for later in life. I wouldn’t want to be another Harper Lee. One book and I’m done. Though honestly, if you’re only going to write one book, To Kill A Mockingbird does you justice.

Anyway, point is, I found an apartment. I will post pictures (just like as soon as the weather clears I will post pictures of the valley from the air. I haven’t forgotten.) but to give you a brief insight, the apartment isn’t really your ordinary place because I’m far from ordinary of course. It’s also a bit on the expensive side, but again with the struggling artist motif. It’s close to the highschool I attended oh so many years ago, a few blocks away really, and it’s painted this deep purple color. My Dad, the contractor, hates the color, but everybody else seems to like it. It fits the area, we’re a little goofy in the valley, we like purple houses. To elaborate, this woman who just turned 40 owns this large Victorian style purple house and on her property are three little apartments, one story. There is a duplex and then one behind her main house. There is a shared courtyard/garden and an Asian style gazebo. It’s all very zen, and very pretty. The apartment is the one closest to the road, and is part of the duplex, but only one shared wall. It has tile floors, new counters, cabinets, and so forth. It has a galley kitchen, a narrow-ish living room, medium sized bathroom, small but not tiny bedroom and a small walk in closet. It’s pretty impressive as far as apartments go and clean, clean, clean. Which I personally think is a plus since I’m a little neurotic.  I am the youngest future member of the “commune”, as I affectionately call it, but the next youngest is 28. We’re all females as of now.  There are 5 women total I believe.

So that about sums up my future, or at least my near future. It’s a month-to-month rental agreement so if rent becomes to extravagant or I find I’m not quite ready for my hippie commune lifestyle, being not much of a hippie myself, then I can sail away to better lands. However, I think it will be a nice place to live while writing my G.A.N. and working part-time to pay my overly priced rent. I move in February 3rd.

That boys and girls, sums up my current life. Well, not all of it, but enough for today. With any luck, the weather loses a bet with the rain and is forced to be sunny for a while so I can get a little flying in, post pictures, and share some more (hopefully not death-impending) stories. Until then, toodles.

Planes with Personalities

Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.  I know its been an  entire week (longer?) since I blogged, and I really am sorry.  I can’t exactly feign busyness but I did actually do some things that involved getting off my couch  this week and I was entertaining myself in ways that didn’t evolve writing for the general public which seemed more important at the time.  But then I caught up on all the blogs I read and they were so inspiring that they made me realize that I should write more. If you don’t write after all, people forget you’re around.

So, the good news, the fabulous news, totally related to flying actually, is that I finally got up in the 172 again. So after breaking it, which is detailed in the previous entry, and after going through a rigorous screening process involving some koolaid, magenta crayons, a ding dong, and a few “favors” they allowed me back in the plane.

I wanted to do some solo work as I had mentioned, takeoffs and landings mostly. And since it ended up being a beautiful day outside, I went to the training grounds and did some turns, trying to get accustomed to the plane. What I do like about AJ (that’s what we call the plane, it’s the last two digits of the N number) is that he really wants to fly. I mean, this plane just jumps off the ground and doesn’t want to come back down.  I think this is actually something you’d have to personally experience in order to understand but I will see if I can explain.

Any pilot will tell you that planes have personalities. I didn’t really recognize this consciously until I flew more than one plane, as you might imagine. The 152 I flew originally, way back in the day, was an upbeat plane. You knew it wanted to fly and keep you safe and it was like the Little Engine That Could. It really wanted to hang out and do right, it reminded me strongly of an intelligent dog.

The Cherokee was more like a Little Warrior. It wanted to please, but it also wanted you to put some effort into it. It was totally willing to put up with a lot, like an old cat, but you had to put in your fair share or it was going to tell you to fend for yourself until you apologized. It would die trying though, it was the kind of plane that would jump in front of you during battle to save you from getting hit by a bullet.

The 172 isn’t something I can quite describe yet. AJ is ecstatic about flying, I think he wants to keep you safe and wants to stay up in the air. As a result, as soon as you pull back on the yolk, AJ is up like gangbusters. But farther than that personality-wise, I’m not sure.

Aside from all that, the fabulous comes in because I took my Dad up in the plane with me! I had never taken a parent, and in fact, he was only the third person I’ve taken up period that isn’t a flight instructor. So Big News there.  I had actually just finished flying for the day. It was getting a little bumpy up there, and night was sloooowwwwly coming in by 4pm so I landed the plane for the last time and shut it down. Right as I was getting in my car I noticed I had a message on my phone. My Dad had called and so I listened, and it ended up being him wondering if I was flying today because he had just seen a plane takeoff. I called him back to let him know that he had seen the plane that was flying the pattern with me, but not me specifically. That plane was still flying. He happened to be in town, just a few minutes down the road so he came over and I gave him a tour of the plane/airport but all excited with the idea of flying somebody I know in Ashland, I checked to make sure the plane was still available and I took him up for a quick trip around the valley.

All we did was fly over to the training grounds again which takes you straight over the hills and you can see all valley below you plus any major city within 50 miles that isn’t cut off by mountains. We flew around and headed back, no more than half an hour since darkness was approaching and I had no desire to land a semi-foreign plane on a tiny runway in the dark.

So hurrah! Finally got one of two parents up. Next stop: Mom.

Breaking Planes

So, I broke the plane. Seriously, it won’t be fixed until Tuesday.

Now, before anybody thinks I damaged the landing gear, started an engine fire, or blew up the plane… let me just say that it was a minor break and  not really my fault. I just happened to be on hand when it broke and feel an unecessary guilt about something I couldn’t control. But it sounds more impressive for a blog entry if I say I personally managed to break something that expensive.

Let me give you the DL: I was preflighting the airplane and everything was going according to plan. My goal was to work on my take offs and landings so that I could eventually take people up. I wanted to be more secure in my ability to get back on the ground in a plane I’ve only flown once in the last four years. Just call me caring. So I had checked oil and fuel and made sure no parts were missing like every good pilot does, and I crawled into the cockpit and got all cozy. I was running through my list: master switch on, mixture full rich, carb heat off, prime 2-6 times, throttle set at 1/8 of an inch, turn key to start engine. So I do, turn the key I mean, and it makes that noise that cars make when they’ve been sitting a long time, or you left the light on all night, or it stalled at an intersection and a semi is barreling down on you… a wum wum wum wum noise.

Okay, says I, perhaps it needs to be primed more, after all, according to the log it hasn’t been flown in two days. I prime it twice more, wum wum wum wum wum. The propeller spins but half-heartedly.

Well, once more for kicks and giggles and if it still won’t work, I think, I will go embarrass myself by asking for help. Wum wum wum wum wum. I look bleakly at the instruments and run through the checklist again. Everything is accounted for. I don’t want to prime it again, because it could flood the engine and having never had an airplane not start for me, I was unsure what to do. I look at the airport.

Fine. I shut everything down, crawl out of the cockpit and go into the building, sidling up to the front desk. It’s lunch time and the only person available with airplane knowledge is the owner of the entire airport. Yes, the owner. Because let me just state, when I embarrass myself I try to do it to the best of my abilities.

I quietly ask for help, trying to adopt the “I’m cute and adorable and new and a girl, so please help me big strong owner man” routine.  It seems to go over well and I casually mention that I thought it would be better to look stupid than to break something on a plane I’ve hardly flown. That seems to make sense to him, and he very nicely comes out to help me. He goes through the same routine I did: power, mixture, carb heat, throttle, turn key. Wum wum wum wum wum.

Well, at least it’s not just me. He tries again. Wum wum wum wum wum.

He messes with the mixture, throttle and primer. Wum wum wum wum wum.

Once more he pushes the mixture in and out. Turns key. Wum wum CCCCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAANNNNKKKKKKKKKKKKK.

Okay, that was SO not me.

Turn key: CREEEANK CREEANK CREEANK CREEANK

Turn key: CREEEANK CREEANK CREEANK CREEANK

Oh. My. God. STOP TURNING THE KEY! STOP TURNING THE KEY!

At which point he looks at me and says “well, that doesn’t sound good.”

So to sum up, I broke the plane. He broke the plane? We broke the plane, together. He thinks it had something to do with the mixture not providing enough fuel/air as it is suppose to do, and then cranking it broke something in the starter. If that’s true, I don’t know. I just was told it wouldn’t be fixed until Tuesday.

Young Pilots

I was online today checking out aviation jackets for women, like the cool leather bomber jackets. They’re exceedingly difficult to find for women, and not exceedingly difficult to find for men. Which I guess makes sense in some twisted way. I read today that approximately only 6% of pilots are women; so why bother marketing to such a small market?  I don’t know if that number is the absolute truth, it was surprisingly difficult to find in the first place, but I suspect it’s fairly close. My flight instructor in Michigan had gotten 145 people their licenses, only 18 of which were women, including me.

I’ve been lucky in the last 6 years to meet quite a few female pilots, but yes, many more male pilots. It never bothered me. I’m not one of those women who do things to show up men. I don’t climb trees because the boys down the street did it, I do it because I always enjoyed climbing up trees. I’m unabashedly feminine. Aside from a serious lack of makeup, I keep up a steady diet of chick flicks and teen dramas. So it always surprised me whenever I met a female pilot who seemed like she had something to prove and would congratulate me on being one of the few “just like her” that managed to break into a male-dominated sport. They always make it seem like the men are keeping us out or something, standing at the door with their rifles yelling “We Don’t Want Your Kind Here!” and throwing fruit with all of Society to back them up, clawing at the windows with pitchforks. This is hardly the case, as you might imagine.

Sure, our parents don’t tend to raise us with the idea of us growing up to be pilots, but most people’s parents don’t raise them with that idea in mind- male or female.  Private Pilots are few and far between, as far as I can tell, we’re lucky to even have people flying us commercially. So of course I always feel a certain kind of kinship with the female pilots who come through the airports I’m at. But I feel that with any pilot. Almost every pilot I’ve met has been friendly, welcoming, and just excited that there’s somebody else who shares their enthusiasm for such an odd hobby. Nobody has once questioned my sex, age or inexperience.

All this didn’t actually have a point, other than as a social commentary that might make you think, but what it lead to while I was researching, was a realization that I couldn’t find a single site devoted to young pilots. I didn’t exactly score the internet, but I did quite a few searches and came up with one MySpace page that had 30 people and a poor amount of conversation concerning the topic.  There’s this group called Young Eagles that tries to get children and teens interested in flying. A lot of times they’ll do free flights, etc. but I couldn’t find anything specifically for like students/pilots under the age of 30. I was thinking that somewhere out there, there might be like one site devoted to the 16 to 29 year olds of the world who have too much money on their hands or a dream in their heart or whatever, but there was nothin’.

Does anybody here know of something I’m missing? I typed in things like young pilots, young adult pilots, teen pilots, young private pilots, etc. into Google and came up with some news articles and apparel for children.

The thought then came to me that if there isn’t anything, maybe I should figure out how to do something. But I don’t know a lot of young pilots, because in reality the number is probably smaller than that 6% of female pilots out there. How do you generate interest in something so specific? Any ideas? I just feel like there should be a site out there where younger students can go and read articles, look at pictures, share stories, complain about balancing school and flying, talk about their dreams whether they’re planning to fly for UPS or just for fun, and maybe make some connections with people in their area or future $100 hamburger trips. I just wish I knew how to start something like that and actually get enough people involved that it would really help somebody if they came across it.

Freaking Libras

Officially, Happy New Year Everybody! If your baby didn’t go missing it was just because I ran out of time.

This one:

http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/01/loyola-early-new-years-baby.html

This one:

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/01/01/2009-01-01_city_welcomes_new_years_first_new_arriva.html

and This one:

http://www.bakersfield.com/hourly_news/story/652441.html

are all mine. You should have watched them more carefully.

In other more pertinent news, I finally got checked out in the 172.  As you may well remember, I was sentenced to getting checked out in the plane on New Year’s Day but due to some technical weather difficulties I had to wait it out until yesterday. I think God likes to mess with me, because it’s not fair to make me wait several days to do something I don’t want to do. I know life’s not fair and all but nobody needs this much stress in their life and I’ve been really good lately so karmically I’m not sure what’s going on. Maybe it was that rabbit I ate a few weeks back. You shouldn’t eat bunnies.

In any case, I arrived at the airport and was sent out to preflight which calmed me down a little, because it’s hard to mess up a preflight, you haven’t even left the ground yet. It also gave me a chance to try and remember everything I could about how the plane I hadn’t flown in 4 years was set up and reminded how difficult it is to check fuel in a highwing plane. It requires like climbing and ladders and ridiculous feats incapable of man.  So after the preglight I crawled into the plane and checked out the instrument panel, trying valiantly to use my undeveloped photographic memory to memorize the placement of any necessary items and after a brief discussion on quirks of the airplane and how their particular radio worked, we were off.

We traveled to the training area they use to practice all their maneuvers and did some slow flight, stalls and steep turns. I managed to do all those fairly well and next time I’m out there I will try to remember to take pictures. It was actually a really gorgeous day, there were some clouds but they were hanging around the mountain and hill tops while the rest of the sky was a clear blue. After proving that I could still fly an airplane, we headed back to my Local Airport and did some takeoffs and landings, including a go-around (when you pretend like there’s some reason you can’t land and have to keep circling the airport, like a deer jumped out in front of you, or there’s a tribe of circus performers who decided to take over the runway while you were out flying and refuse to stop their tricks) and emergency landings. My instructor then signed me off and said to go at it, so I did a few more to/landings and called it a day.

So, it was of course not really something I needed to worry so much about, and I actually knew that but telling yourself that and convincing yourself of that are two separate things. But the good news is I’m officially checked out in it and I never have to do it again, other than the biennials I discussed once. But that’s not for another two years.  I’m going to do a little more solo work because some of my landings were a little iffy. Mostly just because I was coming in too high. The mountains in the valley throw me off and I always feel like I’m lower than I am. And I know I can land planes well. I’m not 100% confident all the time, but I did know that I could land that Cherokee well. So I’m trying to get my flying skills in the 172 up to the same standards with which I flew the Cherokee. The problem with the highwing planes is that they’re a lot like Libras. They get within 3 feet of the ground and then think “you know, maybe I shouldn’t land. Maybe it would be a better idea to float down the runway for the next 400 feet without ever touching the earth. I mean, the ground isn’t such a great place to be, I’d rather be flying- after all, I’m an airplane. But you know, on the other side… the ground is kind nice, it’s hard and safe. Gravity is sort of fun… but I do kind of like this whole floating in air thing… what should I do? Pilot, what would you do?”

And then you as a pilot are like “DEAR GOD MAKE UP YOUR MIND” as you head towards the trees at the end of the runway.

All this happens because of ground effect, which as I mentioned in a previous entry, is interference with lift from the ground. So you can be within like a wingspan of the runway and just never settle to the earth. I loved the Cherokee because it was a lowing plane and when you landed it, it landed. It didn’t do this wishy-washy-maybe-I-will-maybe-I-won’t land thing that Cessna’s are prone towards. Freaking Libras.

Baby Stealin’

Yesterday I had the great experience of going to my Local Airport and giving them all the information they need so that I can start renting their plane.  It’s this arduous process because they not only want to make sure you’re  not some crazy terrorist hiding out in Southern Oregon who is planning on taking over the world via small plane domination, but also that you can actually fly. Who knew they would care.  So after providing the very nice secretary with a passport and my logbook endorsements and my pilot’s license and proof of insurance and every other piece of paper I had with me, they finally scheduled me to get checked out in their Cessna 172.

The insurance thing was a bear too because being a post-college graduate and having spent my hard earned monies on learning how to fly again, I’m running low on funds as you might imagine.  My mother however, the nicest woman in the entire world, who has far more money in the bank than I do for once, paid for my Renter’s Insurance. The airport I was flying in while in Michigan did not require it, but my Local Airport does- so I am now the proud owner of the cheapest insurance I could manage which covers me, my passengers, any property I hopefully don’t damage and up to not much of the plane. So the plan is not to crash and it won’t matter that I have the cheap insurance.

The exciting news however is not just my newly acquired insurance and plans to fly again in my little valley, but that while I was at the airport I ran into my old flight instructor! She is the woman who had to struggle through my 16 year old self learning how to fly and then had to watch me drag it out for 6 years.  So needless to say, it was pretty fantabulous. Since I hadn’t seen nor heard from her in about three years, and when I had stopped flying originally she had cut back drastically on her hours, I was afraid that she had moved or some other such nonsense. But to my amazement, she was alive and well and hanging out at my own lovely airport getting ready to fly a new student. I was extremely proud to tell her I’d finally managed to push through to the very end (not one of my stronger abilities) and the best part is that she’s going to be the pilot who checks me out in the 172!

Have I explained the idea of being checked out? Because I don’t know if I have. Basically it’s an airport’s way of making sure they’re not renting their plane to some insane weasel who has either never flown a plane or learned through some hack school in Imarriedmycousin, Kentucky: population 3.  So they stick you in the plane with somebody who as far as they know isn’t an insane weasel and let you go at it. In this case, Kammi. And also Kammi’s mom. Apparently she also is a pilot and though Kammi told me the details as to why she wants to fly along during my check-out, I’m ashamed to say that I occasionally think only of myself and at the moment of her telling me, that’s what I was doing so I missed it entirely. I did agree to it however, so as long as she isn’t planning on holding me hostage or jumping naked from the plane, I think we’re okay.

In any case, all that happens tomorrow. Once that is done (and hopefully done well, I realized earlier that I can’t remember anything) I will be able to take passengers up through the valley. Mom and I have plans to fly up to Albany which has this small airport right next to a pretty decent Chinese Food Restuarant. Basically you park your plane and hop the fence. It’s pretty spectacular. I’ve mentioned it before, but in the biz (yes, the biz)  it’s called the $100 Hamburger. I guess Chinese food makes it more like the $100 Eggroll, but it’s the same basic principle. We all know it’s just way cooler to fly to your restaurant than to drive. Besides the Chinese food isn’t good enough to drive all the way to Albany for, Albany is like a billion miles away.

Aside from all that, I just wanted to wish everybody a wonderful 2009.  Drink some champagne, eat lots of cake, watch the sparkly ball drop and enjoy it with friends. You might see me tonight- I’ll be the one stealing all the babies from your new year.