Julie R. Neidlinger: Lone Prairie Flying

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The four heat settings of the airplane.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

This did not actually happen, verbatim, but came about in a sort of collection of occurrences.

First, there was the chilling experience of a recent cross-country flight.

Then, in talking to dad about it on the phone, he commented that a funny cartoon could emerge from the experience.

Then, on the most recent flying lesson in which I learned that yes, I did indeed wrongly manipulate the heat knob which I found out after saying not 30 seconds into the airplane before even getting the radios set that I was cold could we turn on some heat. I had barely pulled the knob from being flush from the surface. My instructor later turned the heat down commenting that it seemed to come out all on his side and that meant when I was comfortable he was baking.

Hence, the realization that heat in mechanized vehicles always ends up to be the same: variable, with a chance for disagreement.

Sort of like riding in the Suburban with dad, who has all the temperature controls (of which there seems to be an excessive amount, both for the front and back half of the vehicle) set like a finely tuned orchestration. I'm sure it annoys him when I reach over and roughly twist a knob for more heat or air depending on my current status.

In the airplane, there are none of those complex heat adjustments and automatic settings. There are, in fact, only four heat settings, which I have illustrated here for your convenience.

Labels: cartoons, dad, humor

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Peculiar music.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

Dad likes Mustangs.

Not the horse -- good grief, no. He's had it with his daughters and their horses, believe you me.

No, I'm talking the Mustang with wings, the P-51.

He likes them so much that he found a small painting of one in some advertisement material and instructed me to scan it in, digitally remove the logo stuff that was blocking the wing, and make it his computer desktop. I did as he asked, and even set the computer so that various things would make P-51 sounds. For example, when he opened a new program, the sound of a Mustang roaring over head would commence. New mail, I think, brought a kind of dive-bombing sound.

On today's Daily Dad Call, I mentioned that there was a guy flying a Mustang around when I got back to the airport from flying.

"It was pretty cool," I said. "You would have enjoyed watching the guy buzz around."

We talked about it a little bit more, and somehow got on to how it sounded flying overhead.

"That's like music to my ears," he said. "That probably doesn't make sense to anyone else."

Music to my ears is Chopin and Rachmaninoff and Philip Glass, but I guess I can appreciate what other sounds might mean to a person. I need to come up with some P-51 "music" for the new computer dad is using at home. Perhaps I could mix it with a little of Aaron Copeland's "Fanfare for the Common Man"¹ or Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" and make a dramatic masterpiece.

¹ If Copeland is good enough for Dylan...

Labels: dad, flying stuff

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Solo wasn't the plan.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 1 comments link this post

Tomorrow, unless the weather doesn't cooperate, I will be doing another cross-country solo flight. This one will be longer than the last one, with me biting my fingernails from Bismarck to Minot to Dickinson and back to Bismarck. I'm working on my nav logs and checkpoints now, and not feeling positive excitement about it.

I know it should all be fun.

But I'm sitting here wondering what to do with my original plan, which was to be able to fly with my dad in his plane. That'll be challenging, considering that I'm going to stay here in Bismarck, where neither he, nor the plane, are. We've talked about it briefly on the phone. Keep the plane down here some of the time? Expensive, but possible. I guess I could fly it myself. But really, solo wasn't the plan.

I've been doing everything by myself for years, so that's not a big deal, I suppose. On the other hand, I've been doing everything by myself for years. It's be a shame to spend all this time, money, and energy on another solo pastime. I have plenty of those kinds of pastimes, and most were much cheaper to acquire. It's just more fun to have people around.

I enjoy flying with dad. He only has the one headset, so communicating, because of the loud noise inside the cockpit, was basically pointing or dipping the wing so that he could give me a view of something down below that he thought was interesting. Really, besides the landings, I always felt pretty relaxed up there in the plane with him.

The plane was never really about getting from point A to point B. I'm not sure how to re-interpret that with where I am now. For example, he and mom have flown over areas of North Dakota that had historical interest, like looking for where my great-grandma Lucy Gorecki, at age 26, homesteaded out by Bowbells¹. Or he would use it to check out his fields. Or that wonderful day of the impromptu threshing bee when I raced home from work and hitched a ride with him in the plane so we could take photos of the local farmers helping out another farmer a few weeks before he passed away. Or the day where he asked if I wanted to go for a ride and it ended up being almost like sky exploration.

That was fun.

I want to be done with the lessons while at the same time feeling like I'm not ready for the necessary completion steps and unsure what to do once I am done; at least now, there's a set plan and series of steps. When I'm done...? I'm tremendously stressed about too many things, wondering about how things worked out in comparison to what my plan had been, and trying to keep my focus on what needs to be done now.

(And of course, I'm convinced I won't pass the upcoming checkride. But I'll spare you that song and dance.)

Mildly unfun.

But really, for a masochist like myself, fun has never been a useful barometer. So really, in that vein of thinking, I'm having the time of my life.

Whatever the case, tomorrow, at least, is solo, no matter what plan dad and I come up with for later. I will try not to let my sectional get the best of me, though it be like a paper Japanese puzzle box when I'm up there in the plane.

¹ Read about her here, left column, paragraph three.

Labels: dad, personal

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A real Lemmon of a trip.

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On tonight's Daily Dad Call, I told him about the night cross-country trip.

"Do you have any more dual cross-country trips?" he asked.

"No," I said. "I have one long solo one, and that's it, I think."

"Too bad you couldn't go on a dual trip down to Sturgis. That would be a good exprience. I took a guy down there once. After Lemmon, South Dakota, there's not much to go by. It's pretty desolate, with a few creek beds and a ranch here and there."

I was sitting with my laptop in front of me, so I quickly got on Google for a map. I could hear paper rustling on dad's end of the line.

"I have my sectional here in front of me," he said. As he paused, I brought up the map to see the western portion of South Dakota. There was, indeed, not much between Lemmon and Sturgis. There were a few roads and towns, but it seemed even more sparse than western North Dakota as far as landmarks to use.

"I got to wondering, after a while, if it was possible that I missed the Black Hills. All I had was the compass..." He paused. "Hmm. I guess there is a road I could have followed..."

"Dad, what happened to your IFR flying?" I joked. "There was a road!"

Labels: cross country, dad

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Preparing for the written test.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 4 comments link this post

I opened today's Daily Dad Call with an FAA question.

He said "hello" and I started in.

"Dad. On a cross-country flight, point A is crossed at 1500 hours and the plan is to reach point B at 1530 hours. Use the following information to determine the indicated airspeed required to reach point B on schedule. Distance between A and B is 70 nautical miles. The forecast wind is 310 degrees at 15 knots. The pressure altitude is 8,000 feet. The ambient temperature is -10 degrees Celcius, and the true course is 270 degrees. What's the answer?"

"I don't know."

"OK. Any news there at home?"

I've basically had Mini-Oreo's and a couple of bottles of water today. This is standard "don't bother me -- and I'm talking to you, Julie! -- I'm studying" fare.

The only other test I've been this nervous for was a biology test in college. I'd transferred from a small, private college, but Moorhead State wouldn't take my biology credit. So that's how I found myself stuck in a lecture-only class of about 300. The instructor, a sort of Janet Reno look-alike with the monotone voice of Ben Stein from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, handed out the syllabus, said she went by it exactly and that there was only one test (the final) and if you couldn't make it you might as well drop the class now. I didn't drop the class -- it was required -- but I never came back. Except for the final test day. I figured I'd take her at her word and just show up for the test. It was the night before, when I realized the cramming I'd have to do for a semester's worth of biology, that I wondered at my choice.

I think the food was pizza and a liter of Diet Coke then.

So here I sit, studying, while Oreo crumbs manifest themselves all over my papers and calculator and plotter.

"I think I'm going to flunk the test," I told my instructor.

"You're not going to flunk the test."

"But what if I do? I think I might flunk the test."

Mainly, I'll be out $100. And the last shreds of personal pride that I've somehow hung onto.

Labels: dad, lessons, tests

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A real IFR machine.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

Tonight, while on a modified version of the Daily Dad Call, we got to talking about his plane.

It's "vintage."

A 1964 Cessna 172. Dad joked that we had to be careful when we walked by it, lest we get a paint chip in our eye.

When I brought photos to show my instructor (because I'd like to fly in it a bit before being completely done here and I wanted him to know what he -- or whoever it would be -- was getting into), he eagerly looked through the images.

"It's...different than what I'm using now," I said hesitantly.

"Oh, I've seen much worse!" my instructor said, still going through the photos.

I snickered.

I know he what he was trying to say, but it sounded bad, the way he put it.

Anyway, dad and I were talking about the plane and the possibility of getting it down here, and the fact that I really wanted to do my checkride in the plane I was using now.

Dad's plane is "stripped down."

I guess it doesn't even have the standard "six-pack" of instruments.

I also lack a six-pack, but I'll put that on one of my other blogs.

"Yes, that's a true IFR machine," dad said wistfully. "I follow roads, rivers and railroad tracks."

It does have a VOR gauge, with the tuner thingy (you can see I'm in trouble here) right on the face of it. Dad informed me last week that there was nothing wrong with the device except that, on occasion, it wouldn't turn to various frequencies.

Has anyone fed the little hamster that runs around on the wire wheel that powers the engine, or do we need to look into that? I pondered. Because I was starting to wonder.

Dad flew with a friend down to Texas once; I'm not sure if that's when he had the VOR stuff put in, or not. But, you know, Texas is pretty big and hard to miss

My instructor tactfully mentioned to me that maybe, when I was all done, I'd want to look into getting a handheld GPS device. I have mixed feelings about that. Mainly, it's going to take me several Pracs studies to pay for such a thing, and also, I've had such glorious experiences with GPS devices in the past¹...

On the other hand..."vintage."

¹ Mainly, it was a long road trip with a vehicle full of many generations, one road map, two older fellows who both brought a GPS device of differing brands, and not a single agreement on the route to take rose from that collection.And oh. Me driving. And eventually swearing aloud somewhere in the middle of Knoxville, TN.

Labels: dad, flying stuff

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Have radio, will decipher.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

Dad brought down his handheld air band transceiver last week, when everyone came to Bismarck for my niece's wedding. It looks kind of like this, though his is a different model, the JD-200.

"You can listen to the air traffic control on this," he said, noting I could also broadcast and should avoid doing that. This was because of a discussion we had when I showed him the web site that let you listen to ATC on the internet, and a comment I made about sometimes having a hard time understanding them.

So, this morning, I listened to a few self-announcing transmissions from Mandan, and then, using FlightAware so I could see what airplanes were going to depart, I listened to Bismarck ground and tower.

This morning I'm heading over to the library to study again, but I'll probably listen to the radio again tonight. I've been away from flying for a week and a half and I feel pretty darn rusty in just about everything related to it. I can, however, play Canon in D (from all the July weddings) in my sleep, just about, which is not really the trade-off I'd like right now.

So, back at it.

Links:

Labels: dad, flying stuff, links

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Land, ho.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 2 comments link this post

When I left home yesterday for Bismarck, dad tucked the summer 2008 North Dakota Aviation Quarterly in my stuff.

"Have you read this one yet?" he asked. "There are some good articles."

I said I hadn't, that I had the spring 2008 edition at my room in Bismarck, but that's it.

So, I found myself sitting on my bed (my "office", complete with lap desk "desk"), reading a column called "Good Landings" by Bob Simmers.

I read that about five times. I'm pretty sure that's the "good articles" dad was hoping I'd read.

I then checked my email and found the August ePilot Training Tips issue waiting. It talked about wheelbarrowing, which I had no idea of and will now add to my list of things to fret and be obsessively paranoid about.

However, it then led me on a happy and convicting link trail to earlier articles, including one on bounces and porpoises, an article entitled "Tackling Touchdown Travails" (travails is a very polite word), and finally, a PDF file on approaches and landings.

I get the hint.

I also find my choice of title for this post hilarious, though my original intent was for less hilarity and more just trying to find a phrase that had reference to "land" in it.

Labels: dad, landings, links

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60 hours.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

Out of compassion for his perfectionist, tightly-wound, comparative-living daughter, dad told me it took him about 60 hours flying time before he did his checkride.

I'll work with that comparison instead of the "soloed in six hours" guy.

Whew.

For now.

Until I hit hour 59.

Then I'll spontaneously combust.

Labels: dad, flying stuff

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Stalled admiration.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 1 comments link this post

Stalls freak me out.

"Have you done stalls yet?" a friend who has a lapsed private pilot's license asked.

"Yes," I reply.

Yes, I remember the day well.

"We're going to do something called the 'falling leaf stall'," my instructor told me.

Falling leaves, I noted to myself, eventually hit the ground where they are either pulverized, raked, thrown, or burned.

"Sure."

Sometimes I try to play a word game when I'm upset or nervous about something. Most words have two meanings.

Stall: A little box that imprisons horses.

Not really useful.

The stall warning horn is hard to hear in the plane I'm learning in, though in dad's plane, it's pretty loud. I always wondered what that annoying buzzer was that would go off once in a while when we were landing.

I was always terribly nervous when I'd ride with dad and we'd land; nothing else bothered me, no turbulence or steep turns or how high we got, but landing... It seemed so close to crashing. I would always tense up and grab the handle by the door, what my friend Sarah once told me (in reference to the same kind of handle in a car) was called the "oh jesus" handle.

Now, though, I understand how darn good dad can fly. He'd land that old plane with its few sparse instruments and manual flaps on the crude, grassy strip of field out behind our house, just past a slough, stopping short of the trees -- wow. Gravel roads, the whole bit. He probably landed on more non-runway surfaces than runways. He's always extremely careful and methodical and, as a neighbor told mom, he'd do a go-around if there was the slightest bit of off-wobble just to be safe.

Michael was right: Dad, you're a pretty good pilot.

Labels: dad, lessons, personal

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I think I might throw up.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

Just because a person leaves Nicaragua doesn't mean Nicaragua leaves that person. That's the preface to saying that that was how I found myself, last week, dying.

I probably wasn't dying, but I wished I were. I'm not going to go into detail, since those details are the kind my friend Molly specializes in. I'm not generally a sickly person. I never get sick. This was a new experience for me.

So, after imagining all the ways I could end my misery, my family arrived in town.

(Possibly some kind of connection there.)

I had mentioned to my dad that I would be flying that evening (this was before I knew my internal organs were going to go to war with each other). I gave him directions to the location of where he could meet me after flying, and meet my instructor. I figured he could catch one of my meteor-like landings, shake his head, and use it as ammunition the next time I was annoying him while he was trying to watch the History Channel.

"But don't bring the whole family there," I had said in an email. I didn't want my sister and her family, and my brother and his family, and my mom (who is delightfully inquisitive and never goes anywhere without a camera) there. This was not to be unkind to them, but merely a matter of self-preservation. I have a quota on how many people I allow to see me perform dastardly deeds.

I mentioned to my instructor that my dad might be there when we got back.

"Maybe your dad would like to go up with you when we are done," he said.

Um...

I certainly wouldn't have gone flying had I known internal things would take such a down turn, for I thought I had beat the monster earlier in the day. As it was, at this point, I'm performing internal triage on my "Nicaragua won't let you go!" churnings, and trying to find a place for the "dad is going to see you implode!" churnings. There's only so much room inside for all that activity.

"Um, I don't know about that," I said. I mean, my landings suck. Books could be written about them, and they would be heavy on adjectives such as bone-crunching, bouncing, and horrifying.

"I'll let you think about it," he said.

Sure. I'll add that to the list of things I'm already thinking about, like trying to remember that throttle in makes things go faster and throttle out does the opposite, or nose down trim up and vice versa.

So, after some "fabulous" landings and go-arounds at the Mandan airport, which probably permanently emotionally scarred any young birds who were watching and will keep them on the ground indefinitely, we get back to the building and I see my kindly mother waving from the window having just shot off her camera.

That's just swell.

Kind of like what my stomach was doing.

Dear God in heaven, have some compassion.

The plane is stopped and turned off, and I decide to take dad up. "But just one traffic pattern. Please don't let me look bad," I say to my instructor as we walk away from the airplane toward the building.

It is not easy to keep me from looking bad, in any setting. I'm probably not paying enough for that kind of image control.

Inside we go, me leaving my booster seat* out in the plane.

"Hey, where's your booster seat?!" my brother Jerry, who is quite tall, hollers out two feet inside the door. Yes, my brother and his family and both my parents were there. It was a really special time.

I won't bore you with all the internal squalls, both mental and stomach-related, but I will say that I was very appreciative of how my instructor conversed with my dad while I white-knuckled my way through the pattern and landing; my instructor very subtly suggested things on the controls without verbalizing them into the headset so that my father never realized he was sitting in the back of an airplane piloted by the human equivalent of a smoked ham.

When we got back, dad inquired as to whether I landed the airplane, or whether my instructor did. I can understand his curiosity, seeing as how we didn't break apart at the end of the runway. Frankly, I was pretty curious myself. I don't remember it.

As I staggered back into the building and everyone was congenial and normal, I muttered something stellar to my instructor like "I think I about threw up" and "I need a drink of water."

Afterwards, since mom wanted to see where I lived, probably to take a photo of my badly made bed as proof of failure of due diligence, she rode with me down the road while the rest went back to their hotel. I didn't get past two stoplights before I pulled off and made her drive.

It takes a lot for me to turn the wheel over to my mother, who is known for square corners and rolling the very Jeep I now drive into the ditch not 20 yards from the driveway, but I was seriously sick.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?! Strike me with lightning! I thought. Pure agony, not to mention still being a nervous wreck with the shakes from having my excellent-pilot father ride with me. "Drive faster!" I hollered at my mom.

Yes, that's right, I hollered at my mom. That's the kind of daughter I am.

In the end, I was OK. (Pun intended.)

Dad and I talked airplane stuff later that evening at their hotel, and that was actually pretty cool. It was totally worth it, despite finding myself curled up on in my rented room on my bed later, my feet and leg muscles cramping up from severe dehydration, slurping down Pedialyte.

Oh, the personal glories in life.

* Because I am so short, I had a problem seeing over the dash and reaching the rudder pedals. So, I bought an "elevator cushion" which, despite the kind terminology, is really like a high chair for short people. The extra padding comes in handy for when I attempt to land, however.

Labels: dad, humor, lessons, stupidity