End of the long cross country?

With gas prices rising, and with it the cost of plane rentals, I wonder if the long cross country trip will soon be (is already?) out of the reach of most hobbiest pilots.

For this July 4 weekend, Teri and I were thinking about a trip to Pine Top, AZ. which would mean a flight to Show Low Regional. AOPA’s flight planner estimates about 5.5 hrs for the roundtrip from San Diego in a 172 RG. The field is as 6500 feet and density altitudes are in the 8k+ range so I’d want the extra power of the RG.

In reality, the flight would be San Diego to the home base of Brawley, and then on to Show Low, same on return so we’re probably talking more like 7 hrs total time on the Hobbs. The RG I like rents at $125 an hour so that makes a cost of $850-900.

No one has ever said flying was inexpensive but Show Low is only 500 miles or so away and a trip up near a $1000 to get to such a place is just too much for my pocket, and I’m sure many others. I’ve always wanted to take a flight across multiple states but there’s no way I can ever justify spending the kind of money that would take.

And as gas keeps rising, I wonder how many of us will soon be able to do much more than fly over the city once a month?

New Taxi Instructions

The new FAA instruction to give full and complete taxi instructions was in full effect this evening at Montgomery Field;

Taxi to 28L via Juliet, Hotel and Bravo

instead of the usual

Taxi to 28L

In 6 years of flying I’m not sure I’d ever noticed that the tiny taxiway to 28L was called Bravo. A little more chatter on the radio but I am sure the safety implications are worth it.

Pondering Some Training

I’ve been thinking recently about whether to finish my Commercial rating or not. I have a year left on my written test so I have time to make up my mind but it feels like I should either get it done now, or abandon it for good. Ultimately the COM rating is pointless, I don’t plan on becoming a paid-to-fly pilot, part-time CFI would be nice but I doubt very much I’d ever get around to it. Now, chicks possibly dig it, but my wife wouldn’t like that much. So I wonder if it’s worth the money?

Perhaps the money would be better spent on a checkout in one of the club’s G1000-equipped 172s? The future of aviation is all-glass, we’ll increasingly see more of these kind of planes in the club so this would be something I’d probably use. Except that the rentals are crazy – $143 for the G1000 C172 compared to say $100 for the steam gauge version. Since I don’t have unlimited dollars for flying I’d rather fly 3 hs for my $300 than just 2, but do so in style. So maybe this would be a worthless checkout, too, if I would never fly the G1000. And, I bet you have to work hard to stay current in it, too.

Another option would be to go do a sea plane rating. Totally pointless but probably a lot of fun for a weekend.

Or I could just save my money for a decent cross country trip or, a tank of gas for my car?

Instrument Current Again

My 6 months lapsed at the end of April but a trip home to England got in the way of regaining my currency before today. I met my CFI at the Frasca 142 and 1.9 hours of ground trainer time later, I am current again for another 6 months.

  • MYF to the Oceanside VOR, a few turns around the hold before executing the VOR approach. Went pretty well except that simulator would not give us the Julian VOR for identifying one of the intersections en route.
  • Missed approach to Vista intersection, followed by the ILS at Carlsbad.
  • Missed approach and around to the localiser at Gillespie Field. Unfortunately we need Julian VOR to identify the timing point for the missed approach so to get around that my CFI worked out a radial from Poggy that kinda worked for us.
  • Missed approach, VOR approach into Brown Field. Not sure what went wrong but although the CFI said I was close to intercepting the radial the needle never came in and so we did an early missed approach and he brought me back around for another try. This one went much better.
  • Missed approach, LOC into Montgomery Field. It’s a fun one with many step downs and of course, they occur just as you get the plane back into level flight, makes for a lot of work.
  • Another missed approach and back around for the ILS to the usual awful landing (I don’t know why he always makes me land the thing).

So, current again until December 1st 2008.

One Advantage of Being a Private Pilot

Is that you don’t have to fly when you don’t want to.

Today I had plans for a ‘first flight’ with a friend at work. He’s scared of heights and a little uneasy about the idea of being in a small plane but wants to try it. Southern California has been having a bit of a heatwave and with that comes the afternoon winds, and sometimes turbulence. So a good feel for the weather was going to be important.

But it was obvious early in the day that the flight would probably not go ahead: two of the three runways at Montgomery Field were closed, as was the localizer. I doubted we’d care much for the approach being out of service but only one runway being available, and with one very small run-up area, the airport would be a circus on the ground.

So I decided to postpone for a day when conditions would be as good as they could be for a perfect first flight.

Welcome to leftturnwhenable

Welcome to leftturnwhenable.us, my personal blog for flying and flying-related activity. Mostly I anticipate it being trip reports, hopefully some trip videos, interesting articles on flying, anything I want, really.

The site started out as a sub-domain of my personal blogging website and the old posts can still be found at flying.guapacha.com. Over time I will move the old trip diaries and training diaries to this site. I was going to move the old posts but have decided to leave them there.

I can’t say there will always be something interesting here but I hope on occasion there will be something you find of interest. Comments are always appreciated!

Thanks. Paul.

Back In The Air!

Well, it’s been 5 months almost to the day but my logbook finally has some new ink in it. Some MRSA infections, colds, flu and other (mostly mental) factors have kept me on the ground but last night I finally kicked myself in the ass and got back behind a yoke. It helps that I found a new club plane that I wanted to fly, it’s only a C172 but has a great interior, nice looking panel and just a good feel to it. Also, it’s available to take to Mexico so I might get myself checked out for that.

I had no fixed agenda for the flight other than to head down the coast and back around, see how it was feeling and then to decide. It all felt good so I decided to head on east to Imperial and then to Brawley where I hoped to surprise my wife with a visit. Unfortunately she wasn’t home so after 20 minutes I turned around and flew back, mostly in night conditions, to San Diego.

I want to make some videos of the flights and although I have a decent camera I decided to try out the Flip for last evening’s flight. The mount I had bought was too big for the dashboard so the only way to take footage was to hold it in my hand: this meant no takeoff or landing clips! Yeah, I know, those are usually the best parts to watch. Next time I will try a different mounting idea, and the better camera which I can plug the radio into so you hear all the SoCal controller goodness.

Total time was 3.0 dead on, 3 day landings and 1 night landing, not to mention a good chunk of night flying. I plan to fly again on Thursday and restore the night currency as well.

Looking Forward to 2008

I’m not even going to bother reviewing 2007 as it sucked more than 2006 did. I was doing ok until some medical issues had me pretty much grounded from August onwards. Instead, I’ll do the usual ‘here are my aviation goals for next year’ and who knows, maybe I will achieve some of them this time?

  • Stay current on everything all year long
  • Make one cross country trip to Northern CA or out of state (and not Vegas)
  • Finish my Commercial certificate; I just need to iron some things out for a checkride
  • Win the AOPA Cardinal (and sell it for something I can afford to pay the tax on)

There, doesn’t that seem doable?? Anyway, wishing you all a Happy New Year and a safe 2008 in the skies.

Becoming a US Citizen This Friday

Not much to say flying-wise, I am still suffering from health issues that make it difficult for me to sit in a plane so the Commercial rating is for next year. However, the big news is that I am swearing the Oath of Allegiance this Friday the 14th and will become a US citizen. Apart from many benefits work-wise, I am excited that it will make additional ratings like the multi-engine easier to take. Not that I am sure I want to, but having to go through all the TSA hoops meant that I would never even consider it otherwise.

Still Grounded

The fires are out but I am still on the ground. A week ago a nasty boil appeared on my leg making it very painful to sit down or lay on my side, got it lanced this weekend but now it’s painful to sit down while that heals. Hopefully, I can get back up in the air next week but all my plans for a big return are continually being foiled.