Falling Behind the Aircraft, A Ninja Dies

It is difficult to imagine how many things pilots of even the smallest planes have to do and keep track of. It is hard to describe to people who don't fly, but I'll try. Imagine if, before going anywhere with your car, you had to walk around it twice--actually three times total--which includes opening the fuel tank and verifying that the amount of gas in it matches the fuel gauges. You also look the body all over because if its not smooth, the car won't be able to move...right. Then you start the engine, which is a complex procedure involving 10 steps. Oh and by the way you normally push the car out of your garage manually, because starting it up too close to other cars could cause thousands of dollars of damage. Then you start it, and then you have to radio someone before you drive from the top of your driveway to the road. Then you have to race the engine and screw with it, just to make sure its working right. Then you have to radio someone else to get permission to pull onto the road, and you have to go as soon as you have the clearance, or else your instructor gets all cranky. And when you're radioing these people, you have to use this special clipped format, and their reply, which contains specific, vital information that you need, sounds like the final round of a speed-talking competition. Then, if you can imagine flying without seeing the road or knowing precisely where you are, but needing to stay within precise bounds to avoid death or losing your license, well thats what its like to take off from Boeing Field. Oh and all of that was the easy part; getting home again is another story....

They call it falling behind the aircraft: then the pilot isn't prepared with everything he is supposed to do, and becomes saturated with critical tasks, etc. I'm behind the aircraft--far, far behind the aircraft--for the entire flight. My mind tends to go blank every time my instructor asks me a question. My favorite was when I was trying to cruise without accidentally climbing or descending, and my instructor started grilling me on our ceiling (out high we can be without flying into SeaTac's airspace uninvited and getting in a ton of trouble). My new instructor has a different teaching style than my old one. My old one, Don, basically took care of everything and let me concentrate on one or two tasks that I was trying to learn. My new one just makes me responsible for everything, and then scolds me for whatever he has to pick up. Carrot versus the stick, I guess.

There were a couple times during my last lesson when I decided, for a split second, that I was done with this flying stuff. I didn't have much time to think about it though. I thought about it later, though, and decided to continue. I have a friend who flies F16s off aircraft carriers, and I've heard he had to deal with instructors literally screaming at him, all the while not dying in an airplane so powerful it can fly straight up. Literally. Maybe you haven't noticed, Cessnas can't do that. We can point up, mostly up, sure. But the Cessna actually starts to go down when you do that. So I think I just need to man up and get used to it. I'm considering this chance to get thick skin and be less shy of criticism. Plus, I've already spend hundreds of dollars on a membership at this flying place, etc.

I'm basically going to have to just take more initiative in my training. My instructor doesn't think talking to the control tower is difficult at all. I do. You can judge for yourself here. It's this awesome website I found that lets you listen to air traffic control. I'll be listening to it all week, trying to get a better handle on the radio. If you type in kbfi you will get the airport I fly out of. If you listen long enough, you'll hear a shaky voice stumble through the call slow enough to actually hear what they're saying. Thats a student pilot. If you happen to be listening on a Sunday night, you might even hear me. Listening to this stuff is already helping; I'm feeling more comfortable about the radio already. I'm still going to have to do more research though. I'm also planning to print out a wall sized mural of the airport, and label all of the intersections so I don't get lost. I'm having trouble telling the difference between a runway and a taxi way, which...well thats really bad. Planes in the wrong spot is probably the leading cause of deaths on runways.

Is all this going to be worth it? I hope so. My original motivation was the simple fact that I like flying. There were also plans to take girls up--that kind of date beats even rock climbing. Then there was the awesomeness of looking out the window at the tiny buildings three thousand feet below. I also had dreams of being a sky diving pilot, partly as a way to meet crazy girls and partly as a way to fly for free. Unfortunately that requires a commercial license, which means I have to fly planes with retractable landing gear (guess what happens when you forget to put the tires down again?) and planes with fixed pitch propellers. For the uninformed, "fixed pitch" means f------ complicated. So it will be a few years until I can get paid to fly. Since moving out here I've had this crazy notion of just flying myself back to Philly, whenever I want. Unfortunately, in a Cessna, thats really just the air version of a road trip. Cessna's, I believe, go a bit slower than a Subaru WRX STI. More on that later. So I don't have any motivation for this, except for some wild dreams, which are all turning out to be slightly more difficult than in my imagination.

Katie's Last Ride

I found out last week that my sportbike isn't worth fixing. The news made me sad. I still remember the day I first road the bike. It belonged to Cassandra, who named her Katie the Kawisaki. I went over to Cassandra with a vague idea of buying something on two wheels and as soon as I saw Katie's slim, sport-like fairing I knew she was exactly what I wanted. I spend the next few weeks surreptitiously draining every monetary resource I had, trying to amass enough wealth. An unexpected tax refund filled the final gap, except for the taxes on the bike, which was another fun problem.

Cassandra taught me to ride in a nearly-empty parking lot, where I nearly dropped the bike, and then I rode it home. My first ride home was one of the most exciting, and scary, things I've done in my life. It didn't have to be that way, as I'll get to later. Anyway, Cassandra told me to avoid the highways, because they were scary, so I took route 30. This is important because I wasn't good at shifting yet. Not with my hands. And not with Katie's ridiculously sensitive sport clutch. Sport clutch probably isn't a real word, the real one was something about a double disk in hydraulic fluid. Anyway.

Casandra told me Katie had "four or five" gears, she couldn't remember which, as she just shifted all the way up and all the way down. This being my first ride, I was considerably nervous, so I counted the gears to know which one I was in. And I always seemed to miscount. And I had an absolutely terrible time shifting. And I was super nervous, and at one point accidentally cut off a car. I finally make it to Kevin's house, and, well, long story short my parents found out about the bike and I found out that Ninja 250s have six gears. This little story would later earn me the nickname "sixspeed" when I signed up to be a rider coach for the motorcycle safety program.

I would love to recount all of the adventures I've had, like when I almost died on Lincoln Drive and impressed myself with an amazing race-like turn that I've never done since, or the time I almost crashed into my Dad on Bethel Church Road in Bucktown. Oh, and the girl in walmart...whatever. Maybe I'll write about all that on a note on facebook, and hope lots of girls that I'm facebook friends with read it. Anyway, Katie was basically awesome. I wasn't good at taking care of her; my first oil change lasted 4-5 hours and consumed about 5 or 6 pints of oil (Katie needs 2), and the guys at Philly Cycle Center probably thought I was an idiot the fourth time they saw Katie come in on a truck (I've blown 3 tires for reasons they warn you about in the manual), but I did love that bike. I went through a rough patch in like my junior year and took the bike out every night for two weeks. The fastest I've ever gone was about 105, which is probably not true because I've heard motorcycle spedos read to high, a problem caused indirectly by the American Government.

Suffice to say I don't want to get rid of Katie. I considered telling the shop to fix her, even though the labor would cost more than the bike was worth. However, I have been long overdue for an upgrade to a bigger bike. According to wikipedia, Katie isn't exactly a sportbike, and I was a bit cramped. I need a bike that I can lean forward on, and I need to be able to get a burst of speed when I'm already going 90. So Katie made it three thousand miles across the country with me, and now I have to sell her for parts, or give her to someone that likes taking motorcycles apart.

"...a quarter mile at a time."

The same day I was strapping Katie into a uhaul trailer, again, Luke took me to some Subaru dealers to buy a car. I have given up on my quest to live on public transportation out here. It sucks. And it doesnt go to the airfield. I mean, it does, sometimes. I only have to walk a mile from the bus stop. After owning boring hatchbacks for far too long in my life, I wanted to drive a sports car for a while. I don't know much about cars, and I hate looking at them, so for random reasons, including a family affinity for Subarus, my choice came down to getting a 1980's style Trans Am and getting a WRX. I wanted a trans am because I think they are awesome: I sat in one at a dealership once at the guy told me to turn it on. When I heard that engine roar to life I was in love. My Dad didn't let me get it. I didn't get it this time, either. Those trans ams are rear wheel drive, and thats not going to get me to the mountains to go skiing.

So I had it narrowed down to a WRX. Luke has a WRX STI, and was quite encouraging regarding this decision. Specifically, a 2006/2007 model, because I wanted the kind with an air scoop and a park bench spoiler, not the new models which, ironically, are hatchbacks. We finally found, and test drove, three, at this dealership. One was a ugly-silver colored WRX with a stage 2 engine (meaning it was modded) and a spoiler that was too small. Another was a blue WRX whose previous owner had quickly jammed stock parts back into the engine before selling it to the dealer. The last was a black WRX STI, with an air scoop and big spoiler just like I wanted. Driving it was akin to being inside a rocket, a similar feeling to riding Katie. It looked perfect, and was everything I wanted, except that it had way more power than I required, and it was about $10 MORE than than I wanted to spend on a car. I bought it. Actually it was $12 more than I wanted, but I got $2k knocked off the price in a painful ten second negotiation.

I figured it was a good choice because we didn't know any other dealerships with 2006/07 WRX's, and this one looked like it wasn't modded, and it already looked perfect, so I didn't have to get it painted or have a spoiler added. It was also driven less than average for a car its age. Luke later found out via a Subaru forum that its previous owner was a female who couldn't make the payments.

I can't really describe how ridiculously fast this car goes. I don't think I've ever driven a car that fast. Maybe Evan's WRX, but I was afraid to really use the turbo because it was someone elses car. If you've ever watched Star Trek, pressing the gas pedal in mine feels like the Enterprise jumping into warp/faster than light during the opening credits. A problem of its own, actually. Driving a car this powerful on a road with a "speed limit" of 60mph, that you have to actually obey because cops here are ridiculous, well, its painful. Driving on the highway feels like I'm coasting down the driveway. I'm not driving. The wheels are moving, sure, but we're going so slow I'm really just kind of hanging out in the driver's seat, watching the world crawl by.