PropBlast

John over at Aviation Mentor Blog blogged today that "All in all, a great day to be a pilot." He went on with a few examples of humorous exchanges with ATC that he overheard while flying a Caravan from California to Oregon and back.

While my flights today were nowhere near as long, I had the pleasure of overhearing one of those exchanges that just made us all laugh...

Today was my first IFR cross-country flight with my instructor and when we were returning from CRQ, ATC informed us that they were going to vector us from V23 across the approach course to the ILS of 19R at SNA for right hand entry to the approach. This is not too uncommon given that there are mountains to the east of the approach course that would make vectors to final from the south with a left-hand entry dangerous (as seen graphically in this approach chart).

Anyway, back to the subject at hand. Shortly after crossing the approach course we overheard a conversation between ATC and a pilot for whom, English was not their primary language. Every time that ATC would tell the pilot that she could descend at her own discretion, she would reply

Cessna 1234 at 4 thousand 5 hundred."

The controller rephrased this close to a dozen times before she started to clue in and said something to the effect of

what altitude do you want me at?"

to which he replied

I don't really care where you put your plane"

to which she replied that she was going to stay at 4,500 feet.

The radio was dead silent as I'm sure all pilots in hearing distance were either laughing in their cockpits or shaking there heads when the controller came back on to anyone who was listening that he

want(ed) to see how she's going to land her plane at 4,500 feet."

Perhaps it was something that you had to be there to fully get. Perhaps it is time for me to start recording audio on my flights for later playback 'cause this exchange was priceless.

In case you are wondering how the flight went, my performance on the ILS at SNA was MUCH better than I did at CRQ. I don't know why but I think I was too tense at CRQ and just seemed to be too ham-handed in my corrections, and slow to boot.

I was spotting and correcting trends on the localizer and the glide slope much better at SNA. About the only excitement came as we were coming down the ILS 19R. Tower wanted us to move over to 19L and Ron asked if we could take it down to minimums before sidestepping and tower replied they were OK with that.

We got down to about 300 feet when Ron decided I should go ahead and come out from under the hood rather than waiting to hit minimums since as we were coming down, tower was positioning an airliner onto 19R. You can imagine them begining the turn from taxiway Lima to 19R watching this Cirrus continue down the glideslope right at them.

Making that sidestep means transitioning from a 5701x150 foot runway to a 2887x75 foot runway that is over a football field to the left of primary runway (as seen in this airport diagram from FAA)!

While this is not a dangerous manuever by any means, it does make for a rather quick transition to VFR flying. I ballooned a bit on the landing as I felt I was flaring too low and ended up overcompensating. I suppose most piplots are never as happy with their own landings. All in all though, any day you get to fly makes it a great day! 

Imagine a world, not too far removed from our own, where the race is on to create a new animal that can act as a host to grow organs for human transplants. Sounds like a headline in the paper today? We'll, let's hope not.

This world imagined by gore-master Scott Sigler, of Earthcore, Infection and Rookie podcast fame, gifts us all with this tale of science for the good of mankind going horribly bad.

What is even better yet is that  he is offering the PDF version of his book free to download in the hopes that people will like it enough to go buy his book on Amazon.

In fact, he hopes that people will be moved enough to make their purchase at 9 am PDT or 12 noon EDT on April 1, 2007 to see if he can't force himself onto the Amazon charts.

Well, having been a junky (an affectionate term used to describe those of us addicted to his stories, looking forward to each episode/podcast like a junky looking for a fix) since his first podcast Earthcore, I'm compelled to share this with my friends.

So, if you are looking for sci-horror that takes Crichton-style storyline and injects it with action and lots, and lots of gore, you owe it to yourself to check this book out.

I know I'll be getting my copy on April 1st; and that ain't no joke.

I'm sure everyone going through IFR training has one or two things that caused them to smack themselves in the forehead and say "Doh!"
I had one of those today and thankfully it wasn't something dangerous. I'll just chalk it up to a blonde moment (and no, I'm not blonde.)
We had just flown the first missed approach that I've done in a plane (as opposed to a sim where all the approaches go missed) at Hawthorne (HHR). the approach was actually quite good considering it was almost two weeks since I'd gone up. no the problem is when we flew to the hold. once established in the hold, I figured "Gee. why don't slow down to approach speed of 100 knots so I'd have more time to get set up for the next approach.
Some of you may already have spotted the error in my logic but for the benefit of the rest of the class, I will continue on.
Ron, my instructor, asked me "I've never seen flaps in a hold before. What is your thinking here?"
"I figured I'd slow things up so I'd have more time on each leg of the hold to get set up."
"How do you measure the legs of a hold?" asked Ron with I'm guessing a smile or bemused look on his face. I couldn't tell as I was still under the hood at the time.
"Uh... each leg is one minute so... Crap" or I'm sure I added something less civi once I realized the error of my ways. You see, slowing down would only shortened the length of the legs, not the amount of time on each leg!
On the positive side, I did my first coupled approach back into SNA and it went quite well. I think once I shook some of the rust off, it was a pretty good lesson.

Ok, so I've fallen behind again...Shoot me.
Friday was the second flight in a real plane (my beloved 4CM) since we started working on real approaches. This was even more fun than the last flight; which was over 2 weeks ago due to business travel and other issues getting in the way.
The plan was to fly the same route as before: SNA to ILS 24R at TOA with a full stop, then on to the VOR A approach to FUL with full stop after circling to land and off for a quck jaunt back to SNA and the ILS 19R to call it a day.
flying IFR in the SoCal basin to closely located airports could just be one of the most challenging tasks in flying.
As I drove to the airport, I was excited at the possibility of doing the localizer backcourse 1L at SNA since traffic was flowing north as only happens when Santa Ana winds are blowing. Unfortunately the winds shifted and traffic was again flowing normal direction (19L/R) by the time we called clearance.
"John Wayne clearance, Cirrus 334 charlie mike"
"Cirrus 4 charlie mike. go ahead"
"Cirrus 4 charlie mike is an SR22 slant gulf with November at Dove Street. We'd like tower enroute to Torrance."
"Cirrus 4 charlie mike is cleared to Torrance airport, after departure, turn right to 220 degrees, radar vectors SLI direct. maintain 2000 feet, expect 3000 feet 10 minutes after departure. Departure frequency 124.65 squawk 4024)"
I read the clearance back correctly and began getting things set up.
Load up flight plan in GPS1: KSNA, SLI, KTOA then add the approach ILS 24R for KTOA. Copy the flight plan to storage so it doesn't get lost when turning off avionics to start plane. Oops, no open slots for storage so I'll delete #1 and then go back and copy again. Set up radios: tune in SNA ground (east side) to the active in Com2 with east tower in standby, set assigned SoCal frequency in active on Com1, tune in ITOA in Nav1 with LAX in standby (since missed approach requires flying an LAX radial), tune in SLI into Nav2 since I'll use the bearing pointer on the HSI to assist in orienting myself while getting vectored around, set both altimeters to correct barometeric readings gotten from ATIS, input assigned xponder code, set initial heading bug to 220 and altimeter to 2000.
Time to shut down avionics and get ready for engine start: Power and mixture controls full forward, 3 seconds of prime pump then flip fuel pump over to boost, pull power lever back to within an inch or so of idle position, Ron yells out "clear" for me and it is time to engage the starter.
The engine roars to life and I ensure that engine is running at 1000 RPM, flip on both alternator switches and then the avionics master. While the engine warms up a little, I check the opening screens on the dual Garmins against the indications on the PFD to make sure the are communicating correctly. A soon as the engine seems to be "in a good place", I lean it in preparation for taxi. I load and activate the flight plan I had previously saved.
We start rolling forward with a slight addition of power and I ask Ron to check his brakes. I do the same and we taxi to the end of the ramp (not far since our tiedown is at the end of the row closest to runways.)