"Your world is as big as you make it"

Rain hit the windshield, introducing the first unexpected condition to my trip. I was halfway between Seattle and a town on the coast called Hoqiuam, at 4,500 feet and in the middle of trying to end a conversation over the radio with a flight watch specialist who kept giving me bits of information I didn't want after calling them to ask about the cloud ceilings. The weather was good, but the clouds that were supposed to be at six thousand and higher seemed a bit low. And then the rain struck. Rain is yet another thing that is hazardous to pilots. When the air is cold enough, it accumulates as one of two or three different kinds of ice that I haven't memorized yet. This makes the wing unable to produce as much lift, which usually results in a depressing accident report.

The funny thing was, I couldn't see the rain except for what was slamming into the windshield. It sounded like I was getting shot with little pellets. I looked at the thermometer for the outside temp and started reducing my altitude. The air temperature was 2 degrees celsius, which is right above freezing. It was beginning to look like I would need to divert. Ostensibly, diverting means what you would think it means: landing somewhere you didn't plan to. To a student pilot, diverting means running through a tedious checklist and doing a lot of basic math involving time, distance, and fuel that makes your head hurt, even though, for safety reasons, your airplane usually has enough fuel to do your trip twice without refueling. In theory, all of this busywork will save your lafe later when you actually need to do it.

Diversion
I had a few options, including changing my altitude, deviating to the south to try to circumnavigate the rain, and just going back home ("diverting"). I was still unable to see the rain anywhere, and I was too inexperienced to really understand those options. The only absolutely safe answer I had was to go back to Boeing Field. During all of my quizes on the ground, I quickly deduced that "cancel the flight" and "divert" and "go back home" are usually the right answers anytime you are asked about clouds and weather and what should you do.

Going back home is exactly what I did. I found out later that I could have just lowered my altitude or gone around the rain and it would have been fine. Nonetheless, I arrived back at my flight school, Wings Aloft, around 4pm, having nearly wasted an entire day. I had originally planned to go all the way to Astoria, a process which actually started Friday night and continued Saturday morning. By 12:30 or 1pm, I was finally done my ridiculously tedious plan, just in time for my flight instructor to [figuratively] tear it apart, criticizing me for not making the plan tedious enough. Then I was on my way. Almost.

Saturday: Hoqium
I got in the aircraft I had planned to fly and started the engine. There were a problem with the alternator, and something called a suction gauge, which were just bad enough that I knew there was no way I could fly the plane. I ran through my emergency checklist for the problem, and then, already at least a half hour past my indended depature time, I towed the Cessna back into its spot and tied it down and walked back to the operations building for a different aircraft. The fact that I thought the one I had was broken turned out to be an issue, because that made the club short one plane the next day. I didn't my best to describe the problem to the mechanic, who I interrupted from a lively conversation with his friends.

The flight school has a bunch of rules--extra rules that go beyond the minimum Federal regulations for student pilots that make it extra difficult to successfully get your license. The only benefit to the student is that a student under these extra rules can, in theory, receive a pilots license after only 35 hours in the air, as opposed to 40. Those numbers could be wrong; its been a while since I studied that chapter. Anyway, one of these rules is that I had to get back by sunset. This one I am ok with, since I tend to have trouble finding Boeing Field in the dark. Unfortunately, that meant that since I was so late I would not be able to fly all the way to Astoria that day. I "ammended" my flight plan and set off for Hoqium, which, on my route, was on the way to Astoria anyway.

As I got in my alternate airplane and started going through my preflight checklists, I saw the mechanic inthe one that I thought was broken, playing with the engine and the lights. He later told me he couldn't find anything wrong with it. This further hurt my credibility for reporting problems with airplanes, because my instructor likes to report every little problem with the airplanes that we fly and he does it in my name. One time a mechanic actually called me for an explanation on why I thought the airspeed indicator was broken. But I digress.

After my rained out flight I went home and vegged out in front of the tv for a while. Then one of my friends texted me; I had blown off an outing involving corn mazes, pumpkins and campfires because I was flying. Apparently I could still meet up with them for a campfire at some park I'd never heard of. Just before I left, my flight instructor called me suggesting I do my Astoria flight the next day. I had promised myself that if I didn't quit flight training, I would at least have a life while doing it. So I went out to the park anyway. Then I came home, and planned my flight as fast as I could. My time was a mixture of planning, sleep, and preflighting, and then I was off to Astoria, for real this time.

Sunday: Astoria
My flight to Astoria was required to be at least a 4 hour ordeal, according to the curriculum, which seems to have been designed to force me to refuel at a different airport, which is something that I had been avoding. A few days prior my instructor took me to Bremerton and showed me how to use the self serfice fuel station, which looked humorously similar to a car gas station. I took a picture of it with my cell phone. I'd love to share it with you, but when I connect my phone to my [windows] computer, a subset of my phone numbers randomly disappear.

The flight went well. I requested flight following from Air Traffic Control, and they dropped me halfway through the flight because I went below their radar, which I was ecstatic about because I hate talking to them. You're not allowed to change frequencies when you're receiving "flight following," which means that, in order to announce your passage to airports along the way (so people don't run into you), you have to do this funky thing with your radio where you listen on two frequencies at once but only transmit on one. If you make a mistake with the radio switches, a number of bad things might occur. The two worst ones are: 1) your radio will not transmit or receive anything or 2) you will make an extremely long broadcast on an extremely busy air traffic control channel, disrupt time critical communications that the controller needs to make, and basically announce to everyone within ten to a hundred square miles that you are an idiot. Oh, and even if you manage to do the radio thing right, the controllers voice will probably be blaring in your ear while you try to talk, and you can't completely tune him or her out because if she says your callsign then you have to undo your crazy radio setup and respond. Yes, I am exaggerating the difficulty. A little.

Long story short, I was supper happy when the controller tossed me away like my last girlfriend did and I heard the words "frequency change approved" on the radio. It still stung a little, though, as if, being a simple non-instrument pilot I was the least interesting guest at a party. On the way back from Astoria, I...forgot to call ATC for flight following. And then I remembered, and made myself too busy by snapping a few pictures. The phrase "yeah I did request flight following but they dropped me so I didn't bother on the way back" usually appeases my instructor.

The coast was absolutely beautiful, including the mountains I trouble getting around because they looked a lot smaller on the chart. I landed at Astoria, and even got to hear someone with a British/Australian accent on the radio, which is like my favorite thing ever. Well, maybe not my favorite thing, but you could introduce an English accent to that also.

Pictures
This is what my table looks like when I am "flight planning." Flight planning involves things like basic math and mechanical computers, which work by the same principles as the mechanical computers from some ancient civilization on the History Channel. There are also paper charts, and pencils. I am not accustomed to ever drawing lines piece of paper that I may need to move or adjust at a future time; that's what computers are for. My way of dealing with this has been to buy a new sectional chart for almost every "cross country" flight I plan. They expire in a manner of months, forcing one to buy new ones. Someone in this century saw fit to put the charts on the internet, however for legal reasons we are forced to use the paper ones. That, and Cessnas don't get internet, and also the chart could significantly drain the color cartridges of most personal inkjets.

If you have trouble falling asleep, or you are a cute girl that wants to hook up with me and feels the need to feign interest in something, I would be happy to explain what all of those pieces of paper are. Like the AFD. That expires also.

This next pic has little to do with flying; it is just some fog in Seattle. I think it is advection fog, but I could be wrong. I should be studying for my three exams tomorrow, instead of writing this.


This is a picture of my flying club / flight school at Boeing Field. The building in the picture is actually just a hanger, but it does have the name on it. Behind it is where the Cessna's are kept, and beyond them, the runways, which are difficult to see from this angle seeing as how they are so flat.


This is the plane I flew in, shown on the ground at Astoria. The views of the flat lands, mountain ranges, hills and especially the coastline were absolutely gorgeous, but I was too busy navigating and adding up numbers on a piece of paper to remember about my camera.


This is Astoria, at an angle looking away from the Ocean. I don't think you could actually see the Ocean from the airport, but you could see the bay. Well, it was behind some trees.


That building in the distance is a Fixed Base Operator. I forget what an FBO is exactly, but they usually have planes, fuel, bathrooms and snack machines.



That thing with the big tanks in the middle is of this next pic is the self fueling station. There are people that will fuel your aircraft for you, but apparently the one fuel guy, Greg, wasn't around. The girl manning the desk at the Fixed Base Operator, who could not give me change when I later wanted to buy some candy, gave me two gate codes to use it: one for the pedestrian gate, and one for the vehicle gate. As you can see here, there are no gates, fences, or even walls surrounding the self-fuel station. I looked about for somewhere to enter the codes, but after a frustrating and obviously pointless search, I gave up and pumped my own gas.

The dirtbag politicians of states like New Jersey and Oregon ostensibly believe that I am not capable of putting gas in my car. Somehow, though, I managed to manually tow my aircraft up to the fuel station (engine can't be one when you approach), verify that I had the right kind of fuel (because adding jet fuel can make you crash just after takeoff), ground my aircraft to the station (because with planes the danger of exploding is actually not imaginary), pull the giant hose out and fuel both tanks without a ladder (that I didn't know was there until it was used by the guy filling up after me), all the while keeping the tip of the nozzle against the fuel tank collar (another grounding measure to prevent static electricity from blowing you up). Ironically, with planes I prefer to not self fuel. Maybe its something about the danger being real. Even more ironically, I am more likely to fly, than drive, to anywhere in Oregon, because if I drive, the minimum wage worker manning the pump might accidently put the wrong kind of gas in my car engine, which will break it.

On the way back, I again forgot to take any pictures of the coast, not even when I landed at Hoqium. To make up for it, when I was halfway back home from Hoqium, I snapped this pic looking back at the coast. I'm pretty sure if that if I sent you the original copy from the camera, and you zoomed in, you'd be able to see the coast.


Here is a shot of the olympic mountains.





I thought this picture would be really funny when I took it.



This is one of my navigation instruments. It's called a "V-O-R." Well, actually its probably called a VOR Receiver, but I call it a VOR. It I had been on the correct course, that yellow needle would have been in the middle.



Monday
After my successful flight to Astoria, I was exhausted. However, a storm was rolling in, and I was required to make one more flight to an airport at least 50 nautical miles away, by myself. Unfortunately I've already used more personal/vacation time than I had at work, so I didn't an entire flight plan to Skagit Regional (which is North of Seattle) that night. I finished at or around midnight, and then went to sleep, had a dream about making a space station level for an old game called Duke3d, and got up at 6 am to drive to the Flight Service Station, because my flight plan must be signed off my an instructor, and my instructor works at the Flight Service Station on weekdays. Flight Service are the people you call up to get briefed on the weather conditions, and open and close flight plans, which in this case are different than everything I've been complaining about so far. They are basically estimates of arrival that you file with the government. If you don't reach your destination and call them, they will begin search and rescue operations, which will cost you a lot of money if you simply forgot to call them at the end of your trip.

So I got a personal briefing from a flight service specialist. It was pretty awesome. It is actually what pilots used to do before the internet, or phones. I also got a tour of the place from his supervisor.

My flight plan wasn't quite tedious enough, but it was good enough for my instructor to endorse it, and off I went. This time I was somewhat forced to call Air Traffic Control, because Skagit was near a busy airfield (bigger than Boeing, smaller than SeaTac) called Whidbey, and anyone flying within twenty miles of these airfields are supposed to call ATC for flight following.

I had to call ATC immediately after departing as well, but I called Flight Service to close my flight plan first, so I wouldn't have to do that gay thing with the radios. Then I got handed off from controller to controller. It turned out to be pretty exciting. Some of the transmissions I heard were from planes so far away that their voices were garbled like they are in the TV show Battlestar, which I found exciting.

I returned to boeing, flew around the airport making 5 landings to satisfy curriculum requirements, and then I was done. And almost late for work.

Then just as I was recording the flight in my log book, a girl other than the girl I had a crush on from my apartment office called me tell me that the incredibly expensive winter tires I had ordered for my car had arrived. I raced back to my apartment to lug them up to my apartment, and then to the office, to start my work day.

Then...I was "on call" for work that night. I was woken from my slumber at 6 am for a problem that my team did not cause. I then elected to sleep in and "work from home" today, at which point I started feeling sick. Probably from stress, lack of sleep, dry air, and the fact that room had been getting super cold at night because I forgot to turn the heat on. According to my logbook I've been flying four days in a row.

Smaller World
Flying does an interesting thing to your perception. Imagine if you were in a football stadium, standing halfway up the bleachers in the end zone. In a Cessna, I've noticed that the area between the Cascades and Seattle has a similar scale in my mind. It is a little bigger, for lack of a better analogy. Kind of interesting though. Parking lots full of cars look like toys.


In Other News
I'm attempting to recreate the duke level from my dream. What took about one hour in my sleep is taking more then ten in real life.

The slimy bastards at the duck boat insurance company, it turns out, are refusing to pay my claim as well. Fortunately for me, I filed the claim with my own insurance company, so they are handling the fight. This is not the case for the girl who's car was also mauled by one of those boats. I can't really write more about it, because thinking about the incident channels a normally untapped torrent of rage, suffice to say that if you, the reader, gain knowledge of any legal measure or act I can take to secure the demise of that company, please bring it to my immediate attention, no matter the risk or cost. I believe in settling disputes with people without undue delay, or letting sleeping dogs lie. Grudges against businesses, however, can be held forever.