Flying the Bumps

Some of you know I have been learning to fly an airplane. Heck, I have been trying to get my private pilot license for years and there is always something keeping me from finishing. First, I bought a house. Then it was teenagers. Yes, teenagers. No matter what you do a house or teenagers, sometimes both, will cost you all of your available money. But that is another story. (Hey, a topic!)

I experienced some of the worst turbulence in an airplane that I have ever experienced when I did my first cross-country solo flight a couple of months ago. I have flown in a small airplane with bouncy weather before but this was the worst I had ever experienced. But I am a student pilot and this was my first cross country. I wanted everything to go well. Ok, I was stubborn.

About 20 minutes into a one hour flight the turbulence started. Ok, I have been bounced around before so I checked my speed to make sure I was below maneuvering speed (maximum speed for an aircraft in turbulent weather) and even slowed down a little more which I hoped might slow the bumps. The bumps continued. I was flying at 3,500 feet so I decided to move up to 5,500 feet and maybe get above this bounce.

I started to climb and thought, “What are the procedures to climb to a new altitude on a Victor Airway? Victor Airways, for those that don’t know, are highways in the sky. You stay at certain altitudes heading different directions between two given points. My next safe altitude for my direction was 5,500 feet. I didn’t know what those procedures were and I did not remember any procedures from my ground school so I decided to moved right of the Victor Airways a mile or so, climbed up, and returned to the highway in the sky. While I did this maneuver I kept my eyes out for any other aircraft. I later found out that this was the right procedure to do as I climbed to my new flight altitude. Or, I could have done some S-turns to check for traffic as I climbed.

I got up to 5,500 feet and no change in the bounce. After several minutes I even experienced some severe bounce, some of which tilted the airplane more that 20 degrees to a side and sometimes nose up or down 10-15 degrees. Boy this was getting bad.

After a while I had to decide whether to turn around, return to my starting point and abort this cross country attempt or continue on. Would the bounce get worse? Since I was more that halfway to my destination I decided to continue.

I arrived at my destination, Burlington, IA, about 10 minutes later than planned. I landed, parked the plane, closed my flight plan and walked into the terminal. I sat down and had a soda and contemplated my trip. It was bumpy. I thought about the trip and decided that I had endured the flight, managed the airplane properly and successfully navigated to a strange airport. Now for the return trip home.

My return trip was just as bumpy but I was prepared for it. I learned that if I slowed down even more the bounce was not that bad. I realized that I had worked the problem (handling the turbulence), came to a solution, and worked the solution. I slowed the plane and change altitude to find smoother air.

Coming home I felt rather proud of myself. I handled the trip. I flew from one airport to a strange airport more that 100 miles away, landed and safely flew back. My flight was at least 10 minutes longer on each direction due to my slower that normal flight because of the bumps but other than that the trip was a success.

So, look out world. I almost have my private pilot’s license.

Where Are The New Blog Entries?

A friend of mine commented the other day that I do not update my blog very often. Well, this is true. But, in my defense I never stated that I will be updating my blog on a regular basis. I even went back and re-read all of my postings and checked to see if I had made a statement on how often I would update my blog. Nope, there is no reference from me stating that I would be updating this blog on a regular basis.

But a blog by its nature should be updated on a regular basis. Many of the more popular blogs are upgrades on a regular basis, some daily. I don’t write enough every day nor do I have enough available time to post a new entry every day. Besides having a full time job and my other activities, I rarely get time to sit at the computer and write.

Deciding on topics to discuss on this blog can be difficult. After thinking about this topic long and hard, I came to a conclusion. This blog was and is written for my enjoyment. Hopefully my few friends that read this blog, and the strangers who stumble upon it, will enjoy my writings. But mostly, this is written for me, by me and for my enjoyment.

So now we go back to the question of the day. What can I write about? Someone suggested that I write about my interests and hobbies. Ok, I will start thinking about writing something. How about Geocaching, a new hobby of mine. Or my many years of flying radio controlled airplanes. How about HAM Radio? Scuba Diving? Or, since I am just about done with training towards a private pilot license I could write about some of those adventures. Now I could write about many things on each of those topics but the point is, “what’s the point?” Is there something in those areas, or others area not listed, that would be of interest to me to read or to readers to enjoy? I don’t want to write just to write. I want to write something that has a point, that has a conclusion or sends a message.

Now I want to stay away from two topics. First I will stay away from the office. Not only that there could be legal repercussions if I make the wrong statement but some of the thing I might want to take about could be embarrassing to some co-workers and leave me unemployed.

The second topic to stay away from is my current relationship, at least at this point. All I will say is that it needs to end and it is not ending quickly enough. Maybe I will touch on this in the future after some hurdles along the way have been crossed.

So, what do I write to fill these pages on a regular basis? I don’t know but I will give it some serious thought. I will try to make it a personal goal to place an entry at least every month, hopefully more often. There, I made a commitment. If I do this, that is post something at least monthly, at least the several people who view this blog periodically would have something to read.

So, I’m off to thinking. Wish me luck ...