Hayward Airport Open House

Last Sunday (the 12th) I dragged my two young nephews (3 and 5) along with me to the 2012 Hayward Airport (KHWD) Open House just down the road from Oakland, a sunny, good-natured event attended by a lot of locals, an event I enjoyed a lot.

Although they only lasted about an hour, Alex and Simon really enjoyed clambering over and around the Coast Guard helicopter, watching the B17 taxiing and flying around, "driving" the fire engine, playing around the Grumman Albatross, waving at the P51 as it did repeated flyby's, and just generally wandering around looking at the planes (long-term readers will know that the older one's already flown with me in a 172 out of Oakland). The two Tuskegee Airmen I talked to at the TA stall were great too — hope I'm that sharp and drily funny when I'm their age...

A few random snaps from the day:



Aluminum Overcast



Little Simon, Big Albatross




Little (Loud) Albatross: an Aero Vodochody L-39




Two Tuskegee Airmen

Just Another Boring Bay Area Sunset... (Part 37)

 
I know I joke about it a lot, but here it is again — Just Another Boring Bay Area Sunset, except this time it's a little different: instead of being under the hood training or trying to keep IFR proficient, I'm looking outside, and M., a local friend of mine, is sitting in the right seat taking photos and just generally taking it all in. And she's not even screaming "WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!" :-). Sometimes it's hard for me not to get a little jaded about the weather, the sights (Those Bridges! That City! The Hills! The Bay! The Pacific!), and the fun of just flying around doing nothing much at all… but it's M's first time over the Bay in a little Cessna like this, so I don't feel so blasé. I give her the controls as we head off past Alcatraz towards the Golden Gate. She gets to fly for a while — the first time ever, apparently. She gives me back the controls after a few miles so she can take pix and just look out.



 
We circle the Golden Gate, watching the container ship head out towards China or wherever, then wander back slowly past San Quentin towards San Pablo Bay, where I do a bunch of steep turns and lazy eights because… well, because I can, and because M. enjoys it. She flies some more, but mostly I get to fly while she looks out and watches the world go by in the twilight over the Diablo Valley and the East Bay hills. We get to do some creative work on final for Oakland (KOAK) in response to vectors from Tower for a Falcon jet coming in quickly behind us for runway 27R, a pleasant detour over and around bits of Oakland I guess most people don't see (or particularly want to see). Not sure why we didn't get the quick sidestep to 27L, but never mind. By the time we're back on track, it's dark, and the video game effect comes into play on final (airports at night are definitely one of my fave places). Luckily I can't see those seagulls lurking below me….



 
A really pleasant relaxing flight, despite the official forecast for at least moderate turbulence all day. Earlier, in the clubhouse, we'd run into John and the forecast was one of the things that came up (with a bunch of people chipping in…), but in the end we didn't get a bump the entire trip. Not bad, not bad.

Who Knew?

 The Bay Bridge Under Construction (from 2,500' MSL).

On the ramp at Oakland (KOAK) it's a classic California winter's day — sunny, cloudless, windless, 19C (no, I don't know what that is in Nineteenth Century measurements — look it up!) Yes, it means yet another drought's on its way, but it's pleasant outside right now, and that's all that matters, right? Standing in front of 051's hangar I junk my original plan for a disciplined IFR run down to Monterey (KMRY) and back, and instead prepare for a leisurely VFR trip down over the Golden Gate and past Devil's Slide, Maverick's, Half Moon Bay, Pigeon Point, Santa Cruz, Watsonville, Moss Landing, and other assorted local Pacific Coast landmarks to, well, Monterey. Why Monterey? Why not? I used to do this trip a lot, and this morning I just feel like flying down the coast and back up the inland route after a snack and coffee at one of my fave California airports. The hundred dollar coffee, I guess.




 


So thirty minutes or so later I'm climbing over the Golden Gate and San Francisco on an ad hoc clearance into the San Francisco Class Bravo at 3,500' along the coastline. It's beautiful — I can see for miles and miles — and even being vectored well out of my way for a United 747 departing KSFO right into my original path is fun (especially since the vectors take me just behind and over the 747 close in to KSFO itself; knowing a few tech crews myself (mostly Qantas and BA), I imagine the cockpit crew rolling their eyes as they hear that they're being altitude-limited so that my mighty Cessna 172 can roll on by on a glorified sightseeing trip). I resist making the obvious joke on-air about "caution wake turbulence from the Cessna crossing above you". I head slowly back to the coastline and potter on southwards, climbing to 5,500' to help keep me visible to ATC — radar coverage is patchy to non-existent for a stretch of the coast there below about 5,000' due to the Coast Range. From 5,500' the view's amazing — I can even see the Sierras some 150NM off to my left in the distance; ahead, I can see at least as far as Point Sur.

Closer to Monterey I'm handed off to NorCal's Monterey sector and slowly notice that there seems to be a bit more traffic than normal on air. This is usually a pretty sleepy sort of sector, but the controller seems to be handling a bunch of business jets and private planes heading mostly to or from Monterey. More intriguingly, I can see what looks like a blimp (or maybe it's the local Zeppelin) way off over the ocean abeam Monterey. What the hell's it doing there, I wonder — a sightseeing excursion for paying customers? A naval exercise? The ghost of the USS Macon?

The View Outside From The KMRY RNAV 28L Approach…

I put it out of my mind as I request the practice RNAV Y 28L approach with full pilot nav including the course reversal (just for fun — it's not loggable, but it sure helps with procedural currency) and head across the coast towards HIXIE, an initial fix for the approach. I've commented before on this and the similar localiser 28L approach, so I'll just repeat what I always say about it: this is a scarier approach in VMC than in IMC. When you can actually see outside the cockpit, you can't help noticing that after the course reversal you turn onto an approach segment heading straight at a range that rises abruptly out of the Salinas Valley in a set of peaks and ridges that are noticeably higher than you (and that rise close abeam you as you start the descent), and that the ground below you slopes off towards the airport at the same angle as the glideslope for a while, seemingly just below you much of the way (as I descend on the approach I can easily see individual people in the back yard of one of the isolated houses on the ridge below me). Luckily, Monterey tends to use the ILS 10R approach when the weather's really bad — at least with that you only have to deal with the ocean, not the rolling peaks and low-level turbulence in the other direction.





 


After landing I taxi to Del Monte Aviation, a place that over the years has become one of my favourite corporate jet GA FBO's (and no, I'm not being paid to say this — they don't even know I exist). The first thing I notice is that the guy waving me in to Del Monte's parking area has to step through several business jets to do it, and I gingerly edge my way through the gaps between the tens of millions of dollars worth of shiny gear all around me to park (I have this special admiration for the ramp guys — standing in front of even a small Cessna with its prop whirling dangerously a few metres away from you as you signal to some unknown guy in dark glasses lurching straight at you in it takes a lot of guts). The ramp guys chock me and get my fuel order and I wander in to the reception area, looking kinda scruffy in my usual black jeans, t-shirt (it's winter in California, remember), earrings, and bad shoes. Outside on the ramp right next to the reception there's a shiny new Embraer Phenom 100, looking gorgeous in the sun; inside it's busy. There's a four-stripe pilot at the desk trying to second guess his passengers with a catering menu, there's a bunch of suited guys in the corner watching some sort of golf game on the big screen TV, there are uniformed pilots and support staff purposefully walking around here and there, and behind the desk the staff is handling a bunch of phone calls and requests. What the hell?! Usually I'm either the only pilot in reception or there's only one or two other people hanging around. Once I get my fuel order in with the desk staff there I wander off and find some coffee and some rather nice chocolate chip cookies. Not bad, I think, and I find an empty chair in the main lounge, feeling smug about being the only person not in uniform or a suit, and still getting treated with friendliness, efficiency, and, above all, humour by the Del Monte staff. In the background the TV golf thing seems to be grabbing the attention of more people, but what would I know about golf? (What would I care about golf?) I'm semi-famous amongst friends for unwittingly referring to golf clubs as "golf bats", and the planes out on the ramp are much more interesting.





 


Over on the other side of the ramp there are several rows of neatly parked Gulfstreams and the like. As I'm sitting there with the coffee and cookies, several business jets arrive either for Del Monte or the other corporate business jet center up the ramp. There's a Pilatus PC12 that arrives while I'm watching and is parked right next to my little Cessna. Two helicopters land, one of them some sort of media thing. My plane gets refueled in between some other fuel requests. Something's up, but what? I would have asked the staff but they're kinda busy with catering and ground transport requests. Instead I somehow manage to get drawn into a funny animated discussion about Twilight going on behind the desk (can I be the only person in America who hasn't seen it?)

I sign the fuel receipts and wander out to the plane again. I start up and talk to Clearance for the VFR departure towards Hollister (KCHV); while I'm sitting there idling away on the ramp it occurs to me that the Del Monte folks might not like me blowing crud all over their besuited customers walking to and from the reception, but never mind — no one complains, and in a few minutes I'm way up taxiway alpha doing the runup.

On departure I can see a banner tow out over the point near the blimp — what is going on, I wonder? Monterey mid-week isn't exactly banner tow or blimp territory. A helicopter departs behind me for Carmel. Finally, I hear the magic words "Pebble Beach" from the banner tow as he requests a transition from tower. D'Oh! It's the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, apparently. I'm just not the sharpest tool in the toolshed, am I? It's in all the media, now that I look — there's a lot of expensive golf bats being wielded professionally down there today apparently. Who knew?! Everybody but me, I guess.



* * *


On final back into Oakland's 27R, tower calls out a primary target at 12 o'clock, unknown altitude, less than a mile, "probably birds". I keep a sharp look out and, sure enough, a few seconds later there are two large eagles or hawks soaring up at me straight ahead; I swerve a little and then immediately after that there's a bunch of (I think) seagulls wheeling around between me and the threshold. I take evasive action, but there's not much you can really do except avoid the obvious targets and hope that you don't get hit. Down below me there are literally hundreds of seagulls congregated in some sort of small lake or pond in the golf course. This can't bode well….

Back on the ground, compared to Monterey, Oakland seems even sleepier than usual. But then our golf courses can't quite boast the views (or greens fees) of Pebble Beach, I guess.

Apropos Of Nothing At All…

Just to fill in the space between real blog entries, here's a non-flying-related video I recently did around the Bakersfield and Westside (Central Valley) areas, posted basically as a response to the people who occasionally ask what I do besides flying…



I'm thinking of doing a Drive-by: Airport video soon….

Two For One

Or Two For Four — I'm not really sure…. Anyway, my sister and her three teenage kids visited me over the new years holiday from Australia (their first ever visit to the US and California), and (of course) we had to go flying. That probably makes it sound like a chore, but it definitely wasn't: two really enjoyable 1.5 hour flights through beautiful clear blue skies over the Bay on the Bay Tour out of Oakland (KOAK, my home base), with stops at Napa (KAPC) and Livermore (KLVK). Everyone got to fly for at least a few minutes, and the more adventurous ended up doing a lot more than just flying straight and level; everyone seemed to enjoy it a lot. The G1000 screens probably helped — as one of my earlier passengers noted, it adds to the video game effect on final in the dark, and at least one of my passengers was happily mesmerized by the experience.

Uncharacteristically, I don't have any photos of the event — we certainly took a bunch, but they've accidentally gone with my sister and the kids to Mexico for vacation; maybe when they get back (or just within wifi range) I'll retrieve the images and have something to show for the day….

What Could Possiblie Go Wrong? (Rust Never Sleeps, Part 2)

Things are going quite well for me under the cone of stupidity on Yet Another Quest For Currency (the aviation sort, not the hard stuff I can use to get boutique bagels and exotic coffees down at the neighbourhood local). John's in the right seat, watching carefully. We've left Stockton (KSCK) behind after having successfully completed several approaches and landings in the still darkness of a Central Valley autumn night.

John's given me his iPad to play with on the next approach, the ILS into Livermore (KLVK), and it's working nicely with my new Dual XGPS150 GPS unit sitting up there on the dash. I've also got my little iPhone in my hand as I watch how well it works without coupling to the Dual (it'll only couple to one Bluetooth device at a time). Well, it does quite well, actually, and I feel pretty impressed with all the technology surrounding me (but it's really me doing all the real work, telling the G1000 what to do and such — well, that's what I like to tell myself). Suddenly I can't help it: "Siri! Set up a practice ILS 25R approach into Livermore from our current position, please!" Siri does nothing — either she's not listening, or she's as confused by my accent as everyone else is, and I revert to doing it all myself again. Oh well; I'm guessing we'll have to wait a few years before that'll work (and if you don't know who Siri is, this blog's probably not for you :-)).

Anyway, that's not the "what" that could possiblie go wrong in the title (diehard Simpsons fans will probably get the reference). What went wrong was the string of mostly weather-related cancellations and postponements that lead up to this flight — all sparked off (I'm absolutely certain) by my ending an earlier email to John with the words "what could possibly go wrong?". I'm just not the sharpest tool in the tool shed: one day I'll learn not to tempt fate like that. So what did go wrong? An example: we had to cancel our previous attempt when a howling gale caused by an unusually-strong high pressure system sitting somewhere over Utah was driving high-speed rivers of wind down over the Sierras and the coastal ranges towards the Pacific. As locals will know, this makes for unpleasant turbulence pretty much anywhere within sight of a mountain range or even hills (and there are ranges everywhere in California…). I looked up the winds on DUATS: 65 knots at 6,000 — a nice tailwind if you can get it, but we'd be going straight into it for at least half the flight, and that's a fierce source of rotors and bumps even over the Valley or in the lee of the Berkeley Hills (especially in the lee of the Berkeley Hills).

I might have been up for it even given all that, but my knee's still a bit iffy and I thought the better of it. So here we are, several non-existent flights later (I'll spare you the details of the other delays and cancellations).

The ILS into Livermore goes reasonably well — I'm getting better with practice — and we do the low approach past the tower over 25R when I come out from under the hood. Woohoo! (I always feel like doing a victory roll on low approaches — a hangover from my aerobatics days — but I know better, honestly). And now it's off to Oakland for the ILS 27R approach back home….

This goes fairly well as well, but we get the slam onto the localiser from somewhere between GROVE and UPACI intersections, and I can barely bring myself to program in the required 1,100 fpm descent to capture the glideslope from below. We just don't get low enough, and in the end I take over and hand fly the last few minutes (which kinda negated the point of this approach — it was supposed to be about managing the G1000. Oh well). The landing on 27R goes well (they've all gone well tonight, which was pleasing after all the time off from flying) and we taxi back to the Port-A-Ports.

* * *

Yes, I'm current again — but still a bit rusty. There's a touch of the old death grip creeping back to haunt my control of the plane, and my radio work definitely needs some polishing, but overall, this flight went basically as planned, despite all the preceding hiccups. We started it by taking off from Oakland's runway 9L, a bit of a treat for me: the winds nearly always favour one of the 27's, and I hadn't taken off from 9L for literally years, and we ended it an hour or two later with me feeling fairly OK about my flying, especially the landings and the big-picture procedural issues on the approaches. My hand flying on one of the approaches was definitely a little agricultural, but hey, I can't do everything.

* * *

Earlier, while prepping the flight I do due diligence with DUATS and notice the following NOTAM:

!FDC 1/1954 SCK FI/T IAP STOCKTON METROPOLITAN, STOCKTON, CA.
   ILS OR LOC RWY 29R, AMDT 19...
     S-LOC 29R MINIMUMS NA.
     CIRCLING MINIMUMS NA.
     JOTLY LOM HOLDING NA.
     TERMINAL ROUTES ORANG TO JOTLY LOM, LIN VORTAC TO JOTLY LOM,
     WRAPS TO JOTLY LOM, ECA VOR/DME TO JOTLY LOM NA.
     MSA WITHIN 25 NM OF ECA VOR/DME, 070-160 3000, 160-250 5300,
     250-340 3400, 340-070 4200.
     JOTLY LOM DECOMMISSIONED.

Hmmm, I think — what the hell does that mean? It basically seems to mean there's simply no way to do my fave ILS for currency at the moment. But why make the approach unavailable that way? Why not just NOTAM the entire approach N/A? I ask John — he's not entirely sure what the FAA's thinking with this either, so I decree that we'll just do the RNAV 29R approach out there instead. It's all flying to me….

Comments, We Have Comments… Somewhere

Yes, several readers sent in comments over the past few months and somehow I missed or mishandled a lot of them, meaning they either just got published a few minutes ago, or they just got deleted a few weeks ago. Argh! I'm sorry about that — I'm supposedly both blog- and computer-literate.

I can't even handle blog comments correctly but they let me fly an ILS to minimums with passengers?! Hmmm.

Rust Never Sleeps

On the LOC RWY 36L missed approach out of Napa (KAPC) I go back under the Cone Of Stupidity, tell tower we've gone missed, then get back to Oakland Center to tell them what we're planning, all while twiddling the relevant knobs on the G1000 to get me to the hold as published at Scaggs Island VOR (SGD) and setting up the autopilot for the climb and hold. I start feeling a bit better about what has so far been a rusty flight, with shaky radio work and somewhat iffy flying. Worse than either of those, though, was that I'd been distracted at a crucial time while prepping the approach and forgot to set the altimeter according to Napa's ATIS, leaving it on Oakland's setting, a really basic error, but one that in this case wouldn't mean much in reality — especially given how close Napa and Oakland are. But still — these things can have serious consequences in less benign circumstances….

We do a leisurely turn around the hold, I tell Oakland we're departing back towards Oakland VFR from the hold, then punch in KOAK direct. No problems — everything feels smooth and under control, and the plane's going well, it's a nice night out there, and I'm starting to get back into the groove, thinking ahead about setting up a practice approach back into Oakland. I don't actually have any preferences for this, so John suggests the RNAV Y 27L, an approach I've done only marginally fewer times than I've done the ILS back into Oakland (or so it feels — sometimes I pine for the old NDB RWY 27R approach with its hair-raising tendency to throw you at the wrong side of the airport up close and personal to a 777 landing on runway 29, or something smaller coming straight at you in the pattern for 27L. A bit of variety goes a long way, you know).

Anyway, we get handed off to NorCal approach and I ask for the practice approach. The controller acknowledges this, gives me a vector, clears me into the class bravo, and tells me to expect the approach down the line. So far so good. I anticipate we'll very soon be sent direct JUPAP (a useful intermediate fix (IF) on the approach), and reach over to set up the approach on the G1000. And, surprise surprise, the usual keystrokes aren't producing the usual response — and I have absolutely no idea what it's telling me. I sit there for a few seconds. John suggests I try it on his side (on the MFD); the same thing happens. I sit there for a few more seconds, quite unsure what to do. The menu options are simply not what I expect for the sequence of button pushes I've just done. What the hell is happening?

I don't panic, but it takes a few seconds — and some prompting from John — to get myself out of the mess (which is a classic G1000 Thing I won't go into here, but that I should have recognised easily). In the meantime, of course, I've lost the plot a bit, and it takes time to return to normal and set the approach up. A few seconds later we're heading direct for JUPAP, and all's (relatively) well again, but I'm back feeling rusty — very rusty.

But fairly quickly I realise that the real rustiness here is in the way I handled the unexpected, not in flying or planning or understanding the procedures themselves — after all, apart from the faux pas with the Napa altitude setting, I didn't really do anything wrong, I just did things sloppily (especially with the radio, when I reverted to long-winded plain English requests for what should have been terse by-the-book transmissions). My rustiness is mostly in forgetting to concentrate on getting around the problem (by any means necessary…) rather than on working out why something happened, at least in the short term. Don't get sidetracked! I take the little lesson to heart, and we plod on, waiting for further vectors or "direct JUPAP" (which never comes, but never mind — it's vectors all the way, as usual).

There's enough actual IMC on the way back in to Oakland that we end up needing a real clearance, and I take the hood off as we skim over and then through the light stratus layer — this part's as enjoyable as ever. I hand fly the approach (with LPV guidance) back in to Oakland feeling much better, and nail it to ATP standards (on a night like tonight, that's not hard, but still…). On the ground the ramp seems quite dead, and we taxi back to the Port-A-Ports and wait for the fuel truck. Outside the plane it's actually quite cold for this time of year in Northern California, quite a lot colder than I'd expected, and I rue the fact that my winter jacket is sitting in the back of my car somewhere on the other side of the security fence. Oh well, I'll survive.

* * *

This should have been an extensive IFR workout with John to regain both currency and competency (I wanted to do at least four approaches and a couple of holds as well as en-route stuff this evening), but I've injured my right knee sometime in the past month. I don't remember any specific incident, but whatever it was I made it much worse last Friday night when I spent six hours continuously standing, walking, running, climbing, crouching, etc., without a break with a heavy ENG video camera attached to my shoulder at the annual Beats 4 Boobs breast cancer fund raiser (I do the videography for the event — check out Beats 4 Boobs SF 2010 for a taste of my work…). By the start of the flight this evening, it's obvious I'm going to have trouble doing more than a relatively gentle workout, and I warn John we might have to cut it short (and that I might have to have him take the controls while I push my seat back to stretch my leg). And so it goes — by the time we do the stop and go at Napa, my leg's quite painful, and after the hold at Scaggs Island, it's clear that I'm not even going to be able to do the series of night stop and goes I'd wanted to do to regain night currency back in Oakland. It's disappointing, but I'm not dumb enough to push it too hard (except when it involves a San Francisco fashion event…); maybe next time. By the time I'm back home, I'm in quite a lot of pain, and starting to think maybe I should see a doctor. We shall see… (I come from a medical family, most of whose members would probably rather eat broken glass than see a doctor).

The Knowledge

Regular YAFB readers (all three of you) will know that I'm based at Oakland (KOAK). Since Oakland's a busy airport with extensive airline, freight, and business GA operations as well as the whole light GA thing, I have to have a personalised security badge just to get out to the airplanes I fly. And that security badge comes with a serious background check, fingerprinting, TSA, FBI, OPD, and multiple other LEO TLA implications and obligations, and an in-person renewal every two years.

(Note that I'm not much bothered by the security requirements here: they seem fairly reasonable for a busy mixed-use airport where on a daily basis I might walk right by or cross paths with anything from beaten up old Piper Cubs through immaculate old P51 Mustangs to large Gulfstreams or commercial 737s to Justice Department MD-80's surrounded by gun-toting guards to late-model military planes and helicopters. I've made smalltalk with the OPD helicopter driver as his craft was being towed out of a hangar, I've chatted with the RNZAF crew whose plane was being refueled in front of the plane I was trying to refuel (size wins, ya know…), and been cheerfully shown around the interesting super-secret TLA-owned plane on the North Field whose purpose we're not supposed to talk about publicly — Oakland's that sort of airport…).

And this is renewal time… except that this year the process is different, as I discover when I visit the Oakland airport ID / badging page. You can't just walk up and get your badge renewed semi-automatically by brandishing the old badge and supporting ID any more, apparently. John's just been through the process himself, so I ask him what's in store: nothing onerous, just a more interactive process (and better documented) than before, involving booking a slot ahead of time, a useful checklist and supporting documents in PDF, and passing an hour-long interactive computer video training course on the basics. As long as I renew before the end of the 30 day window, I'm fine, so I wander in to Oakland Flyers (my badge is under their aegis), get the proper signoffs and authorisations (thanks Jim!), and book a slot from the Oakland Flyers PC, and wander off with the in-person bit set for a few days away.

* * *
So here I am, a few days later, outside the badging office up on the second floor of Terminal One, directly beneath the great old 1960's Jet Age control tower (within my memory there used to be a small restaurant and bar up just under the tower cab itself; the bar and restaurant were closed a decade or two ago for security reasons, but there's still an eighth floor button in the elevator for it — I didn't press it to see if it still worked…). You get a great view of the TSA security lines and procedures from outside the badging office, including direct views of the scanner monitors and what the operators are looking at, but I guess we're not supposed to talk about that.

What's immediately obvious as soon as I get there, though, is the surreal sound environment: over the usual clanging and clattering and loud voices from the security operations below, and the occasional noise of airplanes departing and arriving on the ramp outside, there's a loud thumping beat and cheerful dance music coming from one of the conference rooms next to the badging office. I can't help wandering over and seeing what's up — turns out it's the Oakland TSA Diversity Day, and TSA staff keep coming and going in small groups over the next hour. Looks like fun… but I'm here to do my rebadging, and after a few minutes I'm through with the first part, actually handing in the paperwork. The staff give me a sheet of paper with the computer training / testing login details and a minute or so later I'm sitting in the test room, with a handful of other testees sitting at booths around the room. I sit down, login, and start the process. Outside, it sounds like Karaoke mixed with security; inside, the effect is actually kinda cheering.

I go at the test and videos, and discover it's all a lot less irritating and hokey than I'd expected (especially based on the first time I did this, when the videos were like bad daytime TV with sinister-looking bad guys and ill-fitting uniforms and references to Pan Am and Eastern). I'm not allowed to talk about the contents of the video or training, but in general, it's pretty straightforward and the intent seems to be to help you learn and remember the rules and procedures, and there's nothing tricky about the tests (in fact, one of the dangers for me was the tendency to second-guess my own answers as though this was a typical FAA test where there might be a trick to the question, or even no right answer at all — this was quite straightforward by comparison). The videos were pleasingly localised — shots of real Oakland airport workers on the ramp or in the terminals, and obviously taken in the last year or two.

In the end, I press the final test button, and get 100%, which wasn't exactly difficult. You'd think most of this stuff was obvious or common sense, but from my own observation over the years at Oakland, common sense in these things isn't common, and a lot of people let their own attitudes get in the way of getting along or at least getting about. Which is why we're having to do the interactive testing regularly now, but never mind — despite a lot of grumbling, it's really a fairly reasonable and unonerous way to get The (secret!) Knowledge and to know how to use it.

An hour and a bit after getting to the office, I leave with my new badge. The world's a safer place as a result, I'm sure, but more importantly, I can keep accessing the planes I fly for another two years.

* * *

Downstairs, on my way back out of the terminal building I pass a limo driver waiting for an arriving passenger; he's holding up a sign saying "Brian Jones", which seems a little surreal to someone who once worked in the music biz and has a decent grasp of history.

On my way out of the parking lot, I brandish my validated parking slip and get waved through. Free airport parking — woohoo! Such a deal.

I've Got A Fluffy 737 — And You Haven't!

Yes, one of the side effects of having a couple of very young nephews (kids of some friends, really) who like flying and airplanes is you start finding all these sorts of things wherever you look (for several years one of the nephews' fave cuddly toys was a similarly-fluffy (but rather larger) space shuttle (tanks and all) that I picked up in NASA's space store at Orlando airport while there for a conference on Agile programming (yes, I'm such a nerd). I also have a fat pink knitted Dalek, but we're here to talk GA in CA, not Dr Who and TV icons, no?

Anyway, reading this blog lately you'd think I've given up flying, or at least given up blogging about it. Well, I haven't given up flying, but blogging's certainly been an issue. Basically, while I've flown several times since my last posting here, I've also spent most of May, June, and July away from home (overseas for work, mostly, and rarely in any exotic places, just places I'm from, like Australia or England), and August in a typical product release crunch (Agile? Right…). No complaints about all that from me, but it makes setting aside the time to blog about it all a bit difficult (I admire Aviatrix's continued discipline in blogging, but then she has a rather more interesting aviational life than I do, no?).

To make a long story short, in those months I've taken the four+ year old flying again, taken another English colleague on the Bay Tour (hi Sam! Thanks for not curling up and screaming "We're all going to die!!!!"), done a bunch of night landing practice, and other stuff I can't remember right now. Wish I had the time to blog it all in detail, but all I have is a bunch of photos I haven't had time to sort, and a vague hope that sometime in the next month I can get IFR current again and start writing about it all again.

We shall see…

May Showers

I live in a part of the world — Northern California — where you can confidently make plans for late May and know it won't rain. There might be a bit of coastal stratus or fog, and it might be a lot cooler (or hotter) than you'd hoped for, but it won't rain. It just doesn't rain around here — at all — from late April to early November in a typical year (and when it does, it's literally front page news, with breathless live reports on the evening TV news shows). So a few weeks ago when I booked a flight for this evening, I didn't give it much thought: a nice VFR run down to Monterey (KMRY) or up to Santa Rosa (KSTS), with a passenger or two who'd enjoy the view.

But when I check the forecast a day or two ahead, it's for rain. I've lived here long enough to not really take that forecast seriously — the weather guys get it wrong, a lot, when they forecast rain at this time of the year. But we've had a record year for rain (and snow up in the Sierras), and earlier today it's obvious: this isn't going to be a VFR sight-seeing flight, if it happens at all. I tell my passengers that the flight's off, but I keep the reservation, thinking I might get some nice IFR in (actual) IMC experience if things turn out OK — it's relatively warm, the airmass is fairly stable and predictable (at least on the large scale), and if I don't stray too far from home, I might safely spend a significant proportion of the flight peering out into that bright white or grey enveloping the windshield. Not the sort of thing a typical passenger would probably enjoy, but definitely my kind of fun.

And so it goes: by the time I'm at Oakland (KOAK) in the early evening, it's raining, and the field's IFR — the ceiling's low (but not too low to get back in safely if something goes wrong on departure), and the visibility's down to maybe 1.5 miles (officially; unofficially I'd have said it wasn't more than a mile in some directions). I've filed a couple of suitable IFR flight plans, and I've checked and checked (and rechecked) DUATS and Foreflight, so I'm cautiously optimistic that I'll be able to fly. The weather at my chosen destination (Napa, KAPC) is better than at Oakland (but still pretty mixed), and the en route freezing levels are fairly high (a few thousand feet higher than the highest altitude I'm likely to get assigned going there or getting back). Nexrad shows nothing serious, and there are no reported thunderstorms or anything especially worrisome in the area. And it's a short flight, combining a fair IFR procedural and communications workout with several outs in case of problems. So what am I waiting for?!

Not much, really, and after a careful pre-flight, I'm sitting at the run up area off 27R with rain streaming down around me, programming my clearance to Napa (basically vectors for SABLO intersection, Scaggs Island VOR (SGD), direct, a route I've been given many times, IMC or not). From experience I predict it'll actually be flown with a couple of initial vectors, then REBAS intersection direct, then straight onto the localiser for runway 36L. Which is basically exactly what happens — after being cleared for departure I enter the clouds at maybe 1,000', and spend the next fifteen or so minutes in and out of (mostly in) IMC as a rather benign set of stratus and cumulus passes around me at 4,000'. I monitor the outside air temperature (OAT) every few minutes; it doesn't go below about 4C the entire time; each time I break out I look around for thunderheads or anything malicious, but really, it's all looking rather nice; it's not even turbulent except for some very minor stuff here and there. There's not much traffic on-frequency, and I don't (quite) get the usual Napa slam on to the localiser — this time I'm basically left to my own devices from fairly early on and can get down early rather than attempting a 1500 fpm descent in actual.

On the localiser into Napa I break out very early, then realise that, while Napa airport itself is actually VFR, I'm about to follow the localiser back into some extensive cloud — the localiser seems to be boring its way through the only large cloud formation in the area. If I were VFR at the moment, I'd just go a mile or two left or right (it wouldn't matter much which), and I'd be safely and legally VFR all the way to the runway. But I head on regardless, straight down the localiser, straight back into the clouds, and break out again well inside LYLLY (the IAF) at maybe 1,000' — and a mile or two to either side the ceiling's at least 5,000'. Yes, the clouds seem to have deliberately formed a long tunnel around the localiser, which makes me smile as I break out. Following Napa tower's instructions, I circle south for runway 24, and land on a wet runway in what seems to be a very dead time for KAPC; the place sounds and feels deserted (all those Northern Californians afraid of the unseasonal rain, I suspect). I taxi back to runway 24's runup area and wait for my next clearance, which comes after a minute or two's delay. The clearance is exactly what I expect, and after another minute or two of programming and double-checking, I'm cleared for departure.

A minute or so later, I'm back in IMC, heading for Scaggs Island VOR (SGD), then REBAS intersection. Just past SGD I'm given "Oakland direct, expect the ILS 27R", and that's what happens, with the inevitable stream of vectors for the ILS and traffic closer in to Oakland. The cloud bottoms and tops are all over the place now, and I'm in IMC pretty much continuously until I break out on the ILS back into Oakland. Every now and then I break out between clouds or layers; at one point I see the Southwest 737 I've been hearing on the radio paralleling me 1,000' higher and off to my 2 o'clock as we both break into one of those cloud canyons; then it's gone again (I can see it on the G1000's traffic display, as well; remarkably, it doesn't seem to be going much quicker than me, which can't be true). A few minutes later ATC calls traffic at my one o'clock, heading north, type and altitude unknown; I respond that I'm in IMC but I'll keep a look out if I get clear of the clouds. A few seconds later I break out into another cloud canyon, and there a few thousand feet below me, very (very) close to the ground flying up a valley in the hills, scud running below a broken layer, is a yellow Husky or Cub (or similar — it's a bit difficult to tell from this distance). He disappears below the layer as I tell the controller what I'm seeing and tell him if that's the traffic, I have it in sight — or not, as by then I'm already back in IMC.

I get vectored onto the ILS back into Oakland, and break out at about 900'. Landing's pretty routine, and I taxi to Kaiser for fuel. It starts raining again just as I start refueling (of course!); but it's definitely clearing on the larger scale, if a little raggedly. Just as I finish refueling, I slip badly and manage to scratch the paint on the leading edge of the wing — a small scratch, maybe 3cm long, and not really visible unless you're looking for it, at least in the semi-light during refueling and hangaring — but things like this always end up costing an arm and a leg, and later I squawk the scratch with a small mea culpa. We shall see what this ends up costing me….

Back in the hangar, the evening sun breaks out weakly as I'm closing up, and the Port-A-Ports where I am become a lovely mess of puddles, sunshine, structure, and the odd sodden business jet. Hence the photos above and below, taken from the hangar. Not quite what this Anglo-Australian Californian expected to see at this time of year, but never mind.

A good flight — quite a lot of benign actual IMC, and, as always with a short IFR flight to Napa, quite a navigational and procedural workout. It's a shame about the paint scratch (and the pulled shoulder from the same slip), but it's all flying — in some way or another….

Taking A Four-Year-Old Flying

Well, he's actually not quite four, but he's been slightly mad about airplanes since I took him and his mother with me to Oakland airport's Old-Ts tiedowns to sort out a flying club issue a couple of years ago (we were actually on our way to the Berkeley kite festival, but never mind), and he got to sit in the front seat of a Cessna 172 while a long-suffering student pre-flighted it (we disabled all the dangerous bits while he enthusiastically played with the yoke and all the switches), then watched one of the local banner tow planes do the low fast swooping pickup right in front of us…

So here we are couple of years later at the run-up area off Oakland's runway 27R, and he's strapped into a child's car seat in the back of another 172 at Oakland. This time we're going flying. I've spent much of the past year or so wondering about the logistics of taking a small child flying (I flew a seven-year-old around a few years ago, but he was big enough to look after himself), and I've done my research; but the really worrying thing for me is whether he's going to enjoy it or not, and whether his mother (who's been flying with me before, but turns green at anything other than a slow turn) will cope with sitting here with us.

I needn't have worried, of course…








(Formation flying after the flight, on the ramp in front of Kaiser Air…).