A Boring Monday

This past Monday was one of the most beautiful days I've seen around Indianapolis.  The forecast called for "abundant sunshine" and the meteorologists were correct.  I started my Rolls-Royce AE 3007 Line Maintenance course on Monday (I am the technical point of contact between Rolls-Royce and Cessna for the Cessna Citation X, which utilizes this engine).  This fact is only important because we get released from training at about 3:30 in the afternoon and that the customer training center is right next to KIND.  I got to see all of the Southwest B737s take off and land all day.  Of course there was a healthy representation from AA, UAL and DL.  And the inevitable Airtran...  Anyway, this inspired me to find somewhere to fly.  I texted my friend Beef, actually his name is Jeremy, but he got that nickname back in college at Rose-Hulman.  He said he would be waiting for me at the airport upon my arrival.  Beef lived in South Bend, so I got to fly to a new destination, KSNB.

The start of the flight was uneventful.  I flew up there via the OKK VOR and the GSH VOR.  The 172 doesn't have a GPS, but I did have a little handheld one I used for Hiking and Geo-Trecking back in the day.  I bring it along and program my route as a second source of information outside of my directional equipment.  It's a nice piece of equipment to have along.  I flew right by Grissom AFB and I got to see some of the neat planes they have on the ramp and at the museum from 7500'.  I called in to KSNB when I was about 23 miles out.  The vectored me in for a straight in to runway 36.  I made a great landing, and I remembered to enrich the mixture before my decent.

I stopped at Atlantic to find out that I didn't write down the unicom frequency and I had just pitched the Green Book in the back.  I idled out front for about 20 second and then decided to call the tower to ask.  Just as I did that the line guy hopped out from around the corner and parked me.  I had a nice experience at SBN, except that the "facility fee" was $40.  Ouch... Too bad it is the only FBO.

Beef picked me up and we went to the Heston Supper Club for dinner.  I saw something here I have never seen before.  There was a section of "combinations" that you could get for dinner.  The were the usual "surf and turf" type things.  But, under that item, it didn't list what the surf was.  Instead it was in the heading for the section.  It said "All combinations are served with choice of potato or vegetable, a soup or salad and an 8 ounce prime rib".  Now wait a second, are you telling me that this comes with a SIDE of Prime Rib?  I'm in.   I got the barnyard, which is a half slab of ribs, a 8 ounce prime rib and steak fries.  It was delicious, as you can see here:

Beef dropped me back at the airport and I preflighted, called Clearance Delivery and told them I was at the FBO, departing South Bend and heading toward Indianapolis via OKK.  I didn't bother going through GSH because it was only about 7 miles from KSBN. CD gave me a squawk code.  Just as I had they had finished the sentence, I was ready to roll, but remembered I hadn't removed the chalks.  I shut down the engine, hopped out, grabbed the chalks and then got back in and started her back up again.

I got my taxi clearance from tower and headed to runway 8R.  I took off without any issue but at about 500' agl, I looked at my transponder to make sure it was in ALT mode.  It was, but but it was also displaying 1200, which is NOT the squawk code assigned to me.  I called tower to ask what my code was again and then apologized for me being amateur.  He said something like "it happens to all of us".  I didn't really laugh because he just agreed I was being an idiot.

I flew on to OKK and watched  some large carrier type airplane to a couple of laps in the pattern at Grissom AFB.  It was really cool to see.  Granted, I could only see the lights and the call sign was non-descriptive.  But it was still neat to see.  When I was about 4 miles due east of KGUS, the carrier asked for a departure to Shelbyville, about 70 miles south.  I saw the carrier take off, turn north (presumably for the departure procedure) and then about 5 minutes later, I saw the same plane in front of me heading south.  I guess he was faster than my little C172.

I was soon passed off to Indianapolis Approach, and the following transfer took place:
Me - Indy Approach, Skyhawk 146K level at 6500'
ATC - November 146K, turn to heading 210, and uh... expect runway 14
(at this point in time, I became very confused but quickly realized what happened)
Me - Indy Approach,  my destination is Eagle Creek, I must not have been clear enough when talking to CD in South Bend
ATC - No problem, continue on current heading, altitude your discretion, maintain VFR
Me - blah blah blah.

This had not happened to me before, but it serves me right for not being clear to Clearance Delivery.  I was used to the controllers at Evansville (EVV) who just want to know what the direction of flight is because they don't offer flight following very far out.  It was a great trip, and I wish I had the funding to do that more often.  My next trip might be to fly down to the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs.  It will be me, Annie and Coby.  I'm excited.

My Girlfriend and My Dog

I went for a really great flight yesterday. Probably the best one I had in a long time. Probably the best one since I flew at night for the first time. While the actual flight was uneventful, the experience was fantastic. Annie, Bo (the dog) and I went up to Muncie (MIE) from Eagle Creek (EYE). Bo and Annie were both kind of nervous at first but the both settled in. Bo took a nap after looking out the windows for a while. He wasn't happy to stay in the plane when Annie and I ate dinner at Kacy J's on the field at Muncie, but he was rewarded with a slice of pizza when we got back to the plane.

The flight back was at night, and Annie was loving it. She took a little nap on the way there like Bo, but played on the iPhone on the way back. It was good for her to be a little bit more relaxed. We landed without any issue, fueled up and taxied back to the hanger. A good flight, 1.5 on the hobbs and a good meal in the stomach.

Now, despite what you may think, this is not what I wanted to post about here. I want to discuss a great organization called Pilots-n-Paws. Any pilots, even just volunteers, can go to their website and sign up on the forums. I've done two rescue flights for PilotsNPaws. One was a rescue flight of 9 little puppies. The photos are at the following link:
http://picasaweb.google.com/pilotsnpaws.lauer.magadanz/101109FirstPilotsNPawsMission

The second rescue was basset hound named Bo. Not the same Bo that I have, that's pictured above and is half Shar-Pei and half Yellow Lab, but another Bo. This Bo was huge. About 85 lbs. He had yeast infections in his ears and smelly smelly farts. None the less, he was being rescued. I flew him from Eagle Creek to Hopkinsville, KY. His new owner/best friend was there to meet us. He was an older guy clearly looking for a good friend. I knew immediately it was a good match.

I really want to do some more rescues this summer, and I'm sure I will. Until them, I urge every reader to check out the website and sign up for the forums. You won't regret it!

The Next Step in My Training - Complete

I made a big step in my learning yesterday. I completed my checkout in the two Cessna 182's my flying club owns. The first is N182SV, A 2000 Cessna 182S. It has traditional steam gauges, but a GPS and KAP140 Autopilot. Autopilots and GPSs are new to be in the aircraft. The first planes I trained with at Mt. Comfort had them, but once I joined Sky-Vu, I only had the standard 6 pack gauges and then 2 VORs and an ADF. Luckily I had a handheld GPS as a back up. Pilotage is fun and all, but terribly inefficient.

The flight in Sierra Victor was about a month ago now, due to weather being terrible. Most of the required 5 hours of flight were done in our other C182, N721ZA. This is a 2004 Cessna 182T with G1000 avionics. Because of the avionics suite, I flew about 3.5 hours in this plane, and only around 2 in Sierra Victor.

So, here is what my 5 hours of required time looked like:
First flight was in SV. We departed from UMP and headed over to Mount Comfort (MQJ) and Shelbyville (GEZ). These are all on the east side of town, and the goal was just to get used to constant speed propeller operations as well as dealing with the different power settings and V speeds. I think I picked it up pretty quickly, and with direction from my instructor, all was well. I ballooned a little on a couple landings, and I bounced one pretty good, but we made it home safe. I ended up putting on 1.8 hours.

The next flight was a couple of weeks later in Zulu Alpha. We did mostly pattern work, but went from Eagle Creek over to Crawfordsville. I did a few turns on the pattern at Crawfordsville and then headed back to EYE. I had a 7 mile run that afternoon, so I didn't get as much time as I wanted to. We ended up with 1.3 on the Hobbs and decided we'd do it again to finish up the time.

Yesterday afternoon we completed that effort. I left work a little bit early and met my instructor at Eagle Creek around 3 pm. We did quite a round about flight and I landed at some airports I've never been to. First we headed off to Frankfurt (FKR) then Kokomo (OKK) then Wabash (IWH) and finally Huntington (HHG). They are all between 15 and 20 nautical miles apart, so we had some time to get settled in the air before entering the pattern at the next airport. I had some really good landings, and on the way back home we punched through a hole in the clouds and flew back at 6500' msl. Total on the Hobbs was 2.6 and after my instructor finished off the paper work, I had my checkout complete.

I think the next thing I going to try to work on is my check out in our C172RG and combine that with some instrument training. I'm not sure who I am going to have instruct, but I'm probably going to do my 10 hours of the RG and then go back and finish out in 146K...if we still have that plane. I wish my pockets were as deep as my dreams are grand...

October Wrap Up and November Plans

Guess who hasn’t updated in a while? ME!

I got the physical license about 5 weeks ago. Yeah, it had my last name printed incorrectly. Horray. I called the FAA and they sent me a new one in about a week. Efficient for Government work!

I haven’t been flying a lot, here is the list of flights I’ve made in the last month:
- I flew over to Muncie to pick up Erika Haskins and we went up to Rochester, IN for dinner at a Mexican restaurant. That was a fun flight. The way back was almost all at night and it was beautiful.
- I did the pilotnpaws flight mentioned below and saved 9 cute little puppies.
- I flew from EYE to SKY (Sandusky, OH) with 3 passengers to go to Cedar Point. Jonathan, Christine, Ann and I went up for a day riding roller coasters. It was really fun. On the way back we kept turning on the lights of airports with the pilot controlled lighting. Ahhh…tax payer dollars at work. In all reality, it is really nice to be able to do that and confirm where you are.
- After the Cedar Point trip on the 19th, I have only flown one other time. That was to take Kevin McCluskey and Jim Grady up for a ride. We flew over to Mt. Comfort, had them switch seats and then fly back. It was a good time. It was only about .7 hours on the Tach, but they both got a big kick out of it.

I have a couple of big flights planned for this month too. On Annie’s birthday I think I am going to fly up to the Muncie airport for dinner. There is a nice restaurant on the field there so it should be fun.

I’m flying down to Evansville during Thanksgiving week in order to hang out with my grandparents and take my grandpa up flying over his land and such. I think he will love it. At least, I hope he loves it. He was my main motivation for getting in to flying again. I wanted to be able to fly down for thanksgiving and go up with them. Maybe we will fly over to Henderson, KY or something. We’ll see…