Great Moments In Aviation

One of the greatest ironies currently starring in my life involves the coffee maker in the pilot's lounge. Now, I am not a coffee drinker and probably never will be. (I heard it stunts growth and I still harbor dreams of playing in the NBA) But the peculiarity of policy surrounding the making of coffee simply cannot be ignored any longer. Our flight school trusts us enough to fly $500,000 brand new aircraft all across the United States, completely unsupervised, to airports we've never been to, yet does not think we are capable enough to follow simple instructions from Mr. Coffee. What's unclear is the horrendous chain of events that may have led to this implementation-did an unsuspecting student perform incorrect methodology of brewing? Or maybe there is somehow lawsuit potential if a student scalds himself while making it? Who knows. What I do know is that I'd much rather have the flying privileges sans coffee making responsibility than the inverse of that.


I've just returned from an eleven day cross-country flying tour that was nothing short of incredible. The final numbers: fifty-one hours of piloting time, ten different states, 5,817 miles logged, and a multitude of stories to share. It was, by a long shot, the most enjoyable phase of my training so far. Having taken over 200 photos from the air, I spent an hour or so this afternoon sifting through in search of keepers. If you're interested, click here to view them. For those thirsting for a more detailed description of my adventures, let's go to the envelopes:

The Amelia Earhart Memorial 'Crap, I Think We're Screwed' Award
Easily the most traumatic experience in my young aviation career occurred on the third day, in Jacksonville, FL. One of the most confusing things about aviation is trying to discern appropriate taxiway systems at unfamiliar airports. Even though we were equipped with a folding map diagram of the airport, sometimes things don't always make sense-especially in the heat of the moment. For this particular airport, it was unclear to both myself and the other pilot where the best area to perform a pre-takeoff check would be. Since it was my leg to fly, my partner radioed up to the tower for guidance, but the best the controller had to offer was a muffled response to 'keep going', and we'd 'see one up ahead'. Being perfectly ambiguous, yet still fulfilling his obligations, we really learned nothing from that exchange. As I moved the airplane forward to where I thought I was in the clear, a transmission came over our headsets: 'Turn back and to the right, you've past the run-up area.' As I made efforts to whip the plane back around, my left engine suddenly began to sputter and gradually gave way to nothingness. Just like that, my first engine failure. Now we were in trouble. Frantically, I attempted to restart the engine, but got no response. I took over the radios and told tower we'd need to head back to the ramp due to a blown engine. Unfortunately, I'd never taxied before on one engine, so my rudder pedal skills were pretty shaky. Before I knew it, I'd maneuvered our plane out onto an inactive runway and couldn't get it turned around. With the sweat poring over my face and cascading down the control yoke, I told the tower we might need to come get a tow, as we were quickly running out of wiggle room. Finally, I gave the engine a final chance, and miraculously it started. Pulling a quick 180, I taxied the questionable plane back to maintenance and requested a different aircraft. After a quick phone call to the dispatch attempting to explain my incompetence, we pre-flighted a new aircraft and were on our way-but not before an apologetic phone call was placed to the tower. Despite the inconvenience, I found myself thankful the engine malfunctioned when it did-any later would have constituted a real emergency.

The Octave Chanute 'Man, This Is Way Better Than A Cubicle' Award
This one goes to the leg flown from Jacksonville, FL, to Raleigh, NC. With ample time to plan, my flying partner and I created a route specifically designed to maximize our time spent directly over the coastline. As we soared past prominent cities along the route, snapping pictures at seemingly thirty second intervals, I was reminded of one reason why I am striving so hard to make this pilot thing happen: flying an airplane provides incredible scenery. The photographs probably won't due it justice, but this leg was one great picture after another. At one point, I checked the GPS to estimate how far from shoreline we were. While it was only 10 miles, the feeling over being completely over the ocean is one I won't forget.

The Neil Armstrong 'Hey Buzz, The Field's In Sight, Put It Down' Award
You probably won't believe this, but I was not a crewmember aboard Apollo 11 that landed on the moon. After a night flight with ceilings hovering around 800' at our destination, I can imagine the relief the astronauts must have felt when they finally landed. Coming back from Miami/Ft. Lauderdale last week, we encountered some questionable weather about twenty minutes out: poor visibility, fog, and light rain. Nothing terrible or flight threatening, but enough for us to select a precision ILS approach. In a precision approach, there is a listed decision altitude (DA) listed on the approach plate. Basically, this is a height that you cannot descend below unless certain specific criteria our met. In this case, DA was 1300'. Unfortunately, I was not the pilot flying this particular leg, meaning I was communicating with Air Traffic Control and doing the navigating. As I briefed the approach for my partner, I verbally confirmed with him that our DA was 1300' feet. He responded back, 'OK, 1300' feet, got it.' As the clouds enveloped our aircraft, I glanced at our altimeter, which showed us to be steady at 2000'. No airport in sight yet. We continued to descend, and I watched as we blew through 1600', then 1500', all the way down to 700' feet! My partner had just blown through our minimum altitude, and the airport was not in sight. Now, I've been lucky a few times in my life. The time my buddy Eric and I careened my car off an icy road, did a 720', skidded across the oncoming traffic lane, and buried it in a 4 foot snowbank only inches from the face of a jagged boulder certainly comes to mind. But this was different: I was watching as this unfolded. Calmly, yet forcefully, I announced that we needed to climb, and fast. Thankfully, the plate showed no towers or obstructions in the immediate vicinity. We were only 700' feet above the ground in an unfamiliar area. Just as my partner threw in the power to begin a climb, the airport lights appeared, and he made the decision to continue the approach and land. I've never been so excited to be on the ground as I was after that flight.

The Bessie Coleman 'Hey, These Chili Dogs Are Pretty Good' Award
It's always nice to get free food, in any context, but especially after a three hour flight in cramped quarters on an empty stomach. My vote for best airport goes to Meridian, Mississippi (KMEI), not just because of the massive array of military jets lining the tarmac, but because of the spectacular display of free junk food available to starving pilots like myself. Chili dogs, nacho cheese, an ice cream machine, and mountains of popcorn can cure even the sharpest of hunger pains. Well done, Mississippi, I enjoyed my time there.

The John Glenn 'We're Still Alive' Award
Selfishly, I'm giving myself and my flying partner for the past two weeks an award for surviving and thriving this far into the program. The XC phase was enjoyable, but now I'm ready for the next challenge. With one more rating to attain before the focus shifts to earning my Certified Flight Instructor license, you can bet I'll be putting in extra long hours until the very end. The next thirty days will be an insane sprint to the finish line, starting with commercial training tomorrow, followed by a trip back to Jacksonville for Instructor school. It does seem odd to me that something I've only just begun to do proficiently now enables me to teach other. While it might be a cheesy cliche, I really do feel like I just set foot in Texas last week. In many ways, I still have an inordinate amount of stuff to learn before I can call myself a good pilot. But at the very least, the last two weeks have reinforced my belief in myself, enough to the point that confidence is no longer a problem.

One more note: in our first week of training, way back in July, my instructor recommended a website to serve as a backup to our regular logbook. While it didn't seem like much at the time, I admit now it serves as a fascinating side hobby during my aviation training. One of the best features is a Google map option which shows, by way of red dots, every airport I've landed at. Because you are so keenly interested in this blog, I've posted it here for your enjoyment.

PB&J Sandwiches Consumed (to date): 122