Fall flying

Oh man. I've been doing a ton of flying lately in order to cram in as much on floats as I can before the weather gets too cold- I just haven't had time to write about it.

And oh man, it's been great flying too. The weather has been pretty soggy but so long as we've got a 500' ceiling or so we're up in the air. We've been doing a lot of river landings to get them hammered down. Yesterday was a blast; Y would have me land on the little S-shaped creek leading into the Macintyre Pond, keep the power up and stay on the step and make a hard left to enter the pond and follow it out again along the creek, and then exit stage left after a sharp C-shaped corner, power full to take off. So cool.

And it's duck hunting season now too so marsh landings to pick up missing ducks or low passes to check out who's at what cabin are becoming the norm. Awesome.

And a neat trick I learned a few weeks ago: do a normal crosswind landing on the inboard float, then add juuust enough power to stop the plane from settling down and fly along on the step on that one float. OH, IS THAT EVER FUN.

I'm Disrespectful to Dirt. Can you see that I am serious?

(Original post written 09/18/06)

Long time no write! It's been busy.

With lots of flying, at least. I was out and up pretty much all weekend, which was great. But oh, Saturday. Have you ever had so many things go wrong in one day that it actually stops being frustration and becomes funny instead? That was my Saturday in a nutshell.

It started with fog. A lot of fog. Y and I were planning on flying north at nine-thirtyish but the dense fog put the kibosh on that notion pretty quickly. I didn't mind waiting it out, though; I fussed around the plane down at the dock while Y went to clear brush around the duck blind. It was a nice warm morning otherwise, very calm and peaceful. For an hour or so I did the walk around, pumped floats, cleaned all of the windows, inside and out. I got back on my hands and knees and scrubbed the floats again. The end of summer algae on the lake is getting pretty gross, and there was a black line of gunk on the floats that I rather took umbrage to. BY CRICKEY CRACK COCAINE, THOU SHALT BE BANISHED TO THE LAND OF WIND AND GHOSTS.

Soon the fog began to lift... everywhere but at the lake. An eerie solid white blanket hung over the water. I kept scrubbing. When I looked up again the fog was gone. Just gone, snap, like that. And beautifully on cue, a Lancaster bomber thundered overhead, so low I could read the registration and gape. What a surreal moment.

Y arrived shortly after and we gabbed about the Lancaster for a while, then hopped into the plane and pushed off the dock. Y began to get the engine started while I fought with the headsets. The next thing I notice he's turned to face me with an 'uh oh' look on his face. The master switch is on. And likely has been left on since the last time we were flying, which was a couple days again. The prop doesn't budge an inch when we try the ignition. Ohhh crap.

We paddle back to the dock and tie up, then fetch the charger from the garage and hook it up. It's gonna take an hour to get enough of a charge in the battery to get the prop turning enough to catch. I crawl off to the farmhouse to die of embarrassment. Y ribs the heck out of me and then heads out to cut more brush.

An hour later we troop back to the plane to see how she's charging. The ammeter needle on the charger is still depressingly low; we had it set to trickle rather than boost. As I sit on the float and take a firm hold on the thing, Y warns me he's going to handbomb the prop to see if that will get it started. I'm about three feet behind the prop at this point, so I hug the charger and use it as a shield. As if!

He only has to swing it once before it roars into life. Sucked into the slipstream, a startled bee whips back against my arm and clings there. Evidently irritated by this inadvertant yet epic manoeuvre, it gives me a good sharp sting to express its displeasure and dies honourably on the spot. I yelp. I used to be mildly allergic to bees when I was a kid. But I don't seem to be swelling up or dying now, so I shake it off and turn back to the plane.

Y has to fly some sightseers this afternoon and would like to have the battery at least partially charged before then; no way does he want to have to hand prop the plane at their cottage. We give each other crafty sidelong looks. Time to go flying up north? You know, to charge up the battery and all. Hells, yes.

Y handbombs the prop while standing on the right float, which gives me the willies from the left seat. The day is beautifully calm and smooth as we climb out. I'm just turning to head towards Hastings and the Trent River when I hear Y give a yelp this time. He's looking back down at the farm. Christ, one of the field gates are open and his cattle are loose!

I make a hasty circuit and begin to come back in to land. But wait, at the last minute he ask me to do a low pass along the shore instead. I do so, because I love making low passes. Y spots his wife heading out towards the field to round up the cows in the fourwheeler. She waves as we go overhead. Saved by Mrs Y!

By this point the cloud and visibility had both gone up enough that we could head out for a little northern exposure. After first following the Trent River a ways past Hastings we turned towards Crowe Lake and began hitting every lake we could find, landing on some two or three times in different places if they were large enough. And this being Ontario and thus about seventy percent water to begin with, there were plenty of those around.

It was an awesome two hours. The weather even turned a little brighter, which is to say the overcast thinned a bit and made things smooth, calm and light. It was a great flight. Nothing beats simply cruising about the Kawarthas at 500' or less, watching Canada's gorgeous Shield countryside whip past. A couple highlights included:

- one powerboat that put up a pretty good race while I was taking off of Round Lake. I had just settled the plane two wingspans over the water and was pulling up the flaps at about 60mph when I heard Y remark that a boat was trying to follow us. Sure enough, when I looked to the left there he was, racing alongside. He kept up with us neck and neck as I was climbing out at 77-80mph and then broke off when we were close to the shoreline, waving goodbye as he turned back. I waved the wings back at him.

- thundering past the Chippewa II, giant old fashioned double-decker steamboat based on Stony Lake. I had just done a touch and go and while climbing out I veered gently to the right to avoid this thing. It was a really magnificent looking boat, with all sorts of dining tables and potted red flowers on the upper levels, all filled with people. I could see them watching the plane as we went overhead. Lots of them waved too.

- landing on Chemong Lake. I've been using that lake as a reliable landmark since day one, so it was kind of a funny, nice sort of feeling to finally drop in on it. Sort of a 'there, made it,' kind of feeling. Now, Pigeon Lake, I'm looking in YOUR direction!

Back at the farm we landed for a quick break to charge up the battery a little more (this time on boost rather than trickle), and for a drink and some baloney sandwiches (which I hated as a kid but enjoy now, go figure). A half hour later we jump back into the plane to head off across the lake to get in Y's sightseers. I fly us there, land and taxi up to the dock of the cottage; a whole bunch of happy looking people are waiting for us, not to mention a number of curious onlookers who have walked out onto neighbouring docks to check out the plane. I pop out, the hosts grab me and whisk me off to the barbeque taking place in the back yard, Y pops into the plane with the first two sightseers and off everyone goes.

I'm dropped into a muskoka chair and plied with food and drinks, most of which I'm successful at politely fending off (except the dip, it was excellent.) Everyone wants to wants to know what it's like being a pilot, so we chat airplanes and cottages for a while. It turns out one of the women there absolutely loves flying and wants to get her licence herself. I'm highly enthusiastic about that idea. Their three dogs prowl around me suspiciously for a while, but after I accidentally drop a few nacho chips on the grass they're happy to welcome me on board. Everything smells like hamburgers and smoke.

When Y is finished flying flightseers I pile back into the left seat and off we go again. From the sounds of things the people were absolutely thrilled with the flying and want him to come back again, so he's happy. I'm completely stuffed with free food at this point, so I'm happy. And the prop is now turning over easily with none of the previous sluggishness, so it's happy too. Everybody's happy.

Except my dog when I get home, who has been outside all day and is clearly a bit pissed about it. He skulks around under the bed for a while but cheers up quickly enough when I dump his dinner into his bowl. Good boy.

Sunday's flying was excellent too, another two hours or so. Windy as hell, but good for practice on the river.

Thwarted by Love

Wiiiindy night for flying last night, which was actually kind of a bonus... I think I've been getting spoiled by all of the calm and lovely nights we've been enjoying lately.

Couldn't fly all weekend thanks to a wedding up on North Bay. Monkey cry!

On the plus side, we're trying to get up on a big all-day trip north this Saturday, just for the experience of getting to land on as many different lakes as possible. Hopefully the weather will pull through like a trooper.

I have... nothing more to say XD. Actually, I'm just in a rush as I type this. Gotta run!

No more peaches

Last night was, yet again, another nice night for flying. I'm going to miss evenings like these when it gets too dark to fly. Thanks to work the latest I can get out is 6:30pm during weekdays. That sucks. I'm really going to miss flying during the week. I hate being restricted to weekends. What a depressing thought to contemplate. I have a feeling that over the winter months I'll get a lot of use out of the night rating, at least until my contract at the studio is up and I'm cut loose again.

Freedom! LOL, unemployment.

But anyway. There are still a few weekday evenings left that I can cram flying into before I start really cramming on weekends, so I'll take advantage of them while I can. Last night was beautiful. It was also fairly uneventful, other than the fact that my landings were all pretty nice. It was bound to happen sooner or later, hur hur.

And while we were taxiing out onto the lake we spotted another plane passing overhead. It circled and made a second low pass in front of us and we both recognised it as another 170 owned by a friend- in fact, for those who may be reading this that remember the story I gave a while back about the 170 on wheels that flew side by side while I was on final- it was that dude! He's a really nice guy. His plane is gorgeous too, holy cow.

The season's almost finished for peaches too, I noticed :(.

But we just want to party!

The remnants of Ernesto had been forecasted to trudge all over the east coast days in advance of the Labour Day long weekend, so no one was really surprised when they did exactly that. What a damp, cold, gloomy weekend; the solid overcast hung at treetop level for two days straight and dumped a steady rain the whole time. On the plus side we didn't get hit with the 80km/h winds that forecasters were ominously warning of. Even the rain didn't get very heavy. It just didn't stop.

Saturday and Sunday I spent at the airport, alternately in the restaurant chowing down on homefries and soup and other people's onion rings and in the hangers watching them work on their airplanes. Observing the installation of the inverted fuel/oil system for the Pitts was especially fun. Its new Ellison throttle body injector is pretty sexy. This weekend it had the linkage for its throttle manufactured and installed. I discovered that I really enjoy metalwork and welding, or at least watching the process.

Nine to five at the airport... jeez, I wish I could do this during the work week.

At least Monday was marginally better. The clouds crept up to a spectacular 1000', then 1200', then 1700'... and the rain finally stopped. Amazing! Back at the airport, a group of us trooped out to the field to watch another fellow fast taxi his (wheel) pantless RV6 up and down bravo to test the nose wheel for shimmy. The nose wheel didn't budge, but boy, the mains were having a good go at it. The pilot didn't feel it at all from the cockpit, and evidently in this airplane the mains are known to naturally oscillate like that. Okay!

Twenty minutes later I was getting squashed back in the right seat as it took off for a circuit and a local flight north. Between the 180hp up front and the constant speed prop I got squashed pretty good. Boy, that plane can accelerate. It was fun to fly too, as the pilot was kind enough to turn control over to me shortly after leaving the circuit for a trip up north along Chemong and Clear Lake. I get to fly more airplanes that way! Back at the restaurant over lunch they joked I must have ridden in most of the planes on the field. I think that's actually not too far off the mark.

I really need an airplane of my own. Demmit.

But that afternoon I got up flying myself at the lake. Floats and the left seat, AHHHHH. No better combination! Thanks to the moody overcast and offshore wind I did a boatload of crosswind takeoffs and landings. Good practice. Speaking of boats, we spotted the OPP cruiser trolling up and down the lake and eagerly followed it a while to see if it would pull over any boaters, but it passed by the local traffic and continued on its boring way down the lake. We gave up and flew elsewhere. The OPP, takin' a cruise, bein' cool on the Labour Day weekend. Solid.

Y had a sightseeing flight to do at four o'clock, so at three-thirty we paused and I flew him to the resort. A Maule was taxiing in just as I landed, right on top of a boat wake, argh. With the 170 tied to the dock Y got the Cub ready for the sightseers, a wife and her young son, who were there early and lingering to look at all of the planes. The Maule was getting refuelled so I ambled over to take a look at it for a while myself, then ambled on back to the 170 to check one of the float compartments while the Cub scooted off across the lake. One of the left compartments had a lot of water in it when I pumped it earlier, and I wanted to check if it had leaked at all again during our flight or if it had simply been filled thanks to a loose plug and the steady weekend rain.

Thankfully it was dry. While I had the float pump out the husband of the sightseeing wife and another older son wandered over to check out the 170 and chat. They liked the all-metal look of the Cessna and its four seats and wondered if they could get a ride in it. With marvelously polite humour and tact I said no.

We chatted airplanes for a while. He wanted to know what it was like being a pilot and flying on floats and, seeing as that is one of my favourite subjects, I was happy to give an overview as best I could. He enthusiastically told me about his desire to buy a Mosquito ultralight helicopter and fly it himself. Cool. I've never even heard of an ultralight helicopter before. He had the ultralight permit or was going to get one, then? Oh, no. Apparently in the US you can fly this thing without one, or without any required training at that. Eeeek.

No pilots license or certificate of airworthiness is required, but Innovator will still give $2000 of the price of the helicopter for the buyer who shows proof of 10 hours of dual training. We Strongly recommend continuing through to a student permit (solo) at a minimum.

That's 'Strongly', with a capital 'S'. I wonder if this thing is available in Canada yet. I can almost hear the screams from Transport Canada now. Not my cup of tea, but I tried not to look too alarmed as the fellow enthusiastically went on to describe it. I'm saved when Y and the Cub arrives shortly after and everyone wanders back over to see how the flightseeing had gone. The son looks happy and the wife is laughing. Later on as I taxiied out in the 170 Y explained how they had caught the OPP boat pulling doughnuts in the middle of the lake, evidently for the hell of it. They had started circling overhead in the Cub as well, the cops had spotted them and quickly stopped and slunk off. I laughed my head off to hear it. Come on, the Coast Guard are covering the tunes!

The rest of the flight was fab. Enough good takeoffs and landings to keep me happy. Then Y informed me that, by the way, there's a giant snake loose on the lake. WHAAAT THE HELL.

Oh crap, I ran over Kehaar

Excellent flying last night! Another smooth, calm night with nice winds, perfect for low flying and river landings. We did a number of them over on the Otonabee and they all went really well, much to my surprise. It was one of those fun evenings where we took advantage of the mild weather to land on some really narrow little channels and practice the art of turning on the step from crosswind to straight into the wind in order to lift the outboard float first. It's rather like rocking the plane out of the water on takeoff one float at a time and feel very cool when it's done successfully.

While I was on final for one landing I spotted another small airplane turning sharply away from us a short distance away; my first thought was, hang on, was that dude just following me? My second thought was, what the heck is that, some sort of ultralight? It really did look very small and dainty. I landed on the river and took off immediately again. As I was climbing out I told Y about the small plane I had spotted tailing us during final. He pointed back out the window at the little airstrip a club of RC fliers use for their model airplanes. Well. That would certainly explain the smallness!

The rest of the flight was fab. It was just one of those evenings where I was finally on the ball for everything, and where every landing and takeoff was good and solid. We both had a great time. I did take out a seagull on one landing though. Ouch.

I was landing in a little bay on glassy water, so I kept near a weed bed in order to have some sense of where the surface of the lake was. I could see the stupid bird bobbing amidst the weeds while I was coming in on final, but assumed it would either hear or spot us coming a long ways away and flap off on its own initiative. Well, no. When I flared with power to keep the nose high for the glassy approach and began the shallow decent I lost sight of the bird straight ahead. The next thing I knew the plane was gliding onto the water- and then shortly thereafter heard a gentle 'thu-thump' against the right float. Aw crap.

Y had me take off and make a tight circle at the end of the bay so that we could go back and see if I'd actually hit the bird or not. At 200' or so we flew over the scene of the crime, the two of us peering down into the water. I couldn't see anything but weeds and briefly entertained the hope that we'd only thumped into a small wave and that Kehaar had flown off safely. But then we both spotted the white corpse bobbing in the lake below. Whoops.

But there was no damage at all to the float or the prop or to the airplane in general, so no worries there. Well, except for the seagull. But hey, peaches and ice cream afterwards!

Spooky

Boy, was last night beautiful for flying- a nice sunset and wow, talk about smooth air! We did some rate one turns and steep turns just to take advantage of it... well, also, they're just fun to do as well. I was happy to see I can still do steep turns without loosing altitude. Whew!

Lots of crosswind takeoffs and landings, a handful of river landings - including one on the Indian River that was really fun given how narrow and windy the Indian is - and plenty of glassy water landings to boot. One glassy landing on the river really beautifully illustrated just how eerie and difficult glassy water can be; it was like landing into a black hole. And that was even with the banks of the river nearby! Very spooky.

What a great night. With vanilla ice cream, peaches and maple syrup on top. Mmmm.