In a movie, the trip would have been a total surprise, with me taking off her blindfold at the airport, not telling her where we were flying, etc. In real life, that would have been a horrible idea, since she was still very nervous about flying. Instead, I introduced the idea a few of weeks before, and made sure she was comfortable and had time to prepare. My brother and sister-in-law very kindly took in the kids, who were too young to stay home on their own back then.

I’d flown into the NYC area only once before, landing in Caldwell, which is a long way from Manhattan; this time, I decided to try Republic, which is just as far the other direction, but would let us take the LIRR almost door-to-door from the airport to our Midtown hotel (hint to everyone: use Teterboro). We were MVFR to Massena to clear customs, then IFR for the rest of the trip: she experienced her first ILS approach in actual IMC without panicking, breaking out around 600 ft, and we had a wonderful romantic weekend in Manhattan. The trip back was all IFR but in the clear on top, with strong headwinds but smooth air, and she sat in the back reading and relaxed the whole long trip. We flew directly over a break in the clouds a few thousand feet over Manhattan, and could clearly see Central Park, the Statue of Liberty, etc.

After this, while it wasn’t always easy, the whole family was game to fly, and we had several years of amazing family trips to Toronto, Waterloo, Vermont, North Bay/Sault Ste. Marie, Cape Breton/Halifax, Gaspé, and (every March Break) NYC. We don’t all fly together much now, because my kids are getting older and have their own lives, but I’m hoping to squeeze in one or two more some day. In the meantime, I’m so grateful that we had those shared years with all four of us (and sometimes the dog) bouncing around in a little Cherokee, and it all started with a romantic trip to New York City.

Today I went to the airport with a huge fear of failing again. The last three times, something was wrong, and the plane wouldn’t/couldn’t fly. I arrived hoping that the mechanic had put in the new, fully-charged battery I’d asked for, that the engine heater was working, and that the plane would actually start. I saw the old battery sitting in the baggage area, so I knew Red had put in a new one, and I put the old one in my trunk. The engine was warm to the touch from the heater, so I knew it was good. I uncovered, preflighted, pushed the starter, and — just like last time — the prop turned only a few degrees and stopped.

The battery was flat again, or else the starter was shot. If a second battery was flat, that would mean that something (a short?) was draining it even when the master was off, so yet another round of troubleshooting and maintenance. I plugged in my battery charger (in case it might help), drove back across the field to the shop, walked into Red’s office, and asked him if the battery was fully charged when he put it in the plane. He said yes. Then he added something:

“It was late in the day, so I didn’t install the new battery. I put it in the back of your plane, and meant to leave a note.”

So the old battery was still in the plane, while the new battery was in my trunk. That meant there was still hope I might actually fly. I borrowed a pair of pliers, drove back to the plane, swapped batteries, took the cowl cover back off (I’d put it back on to keep in the heat), and fired the starter.

The prop spun.

The engine fired and kept running.

I did a long, detailed runup and a high-speed taxi first, to make sure that all the controls were functioning properly after maintenance (a “high-speed taxi” involves almost talking off — going fast enough down the runway to take most of the weight off the wheels or climb a few inches, but not high enough that there would be a problem if a control cable snapped, etc.). No problem. I taxied back around and took off, flying four left-handed circuits.

Back in September, my landings were sucking a lot, but after everything I’d been through fortune was smiling on me. I flew four nearly-perfect circuits, with four textbook-smooth landings. I parked the plane, then realized I should top the tanks, so I started it again — the new battery spun it up fast — and taxied over for fuel. Then I started up the engine a third time to taxi back to my parking spot. It probably sounds silly to go on about starting a plane, but I’ve had so many problems since the new year that I was probably more excited about the starts than the actual flying.

So I’m back in the air. I’d like to get up every week or so, even in the winter, to get my chops back — I have no illusions that four successful day VFR circuits in smooth, calm air are enough to prove that my skills haven’t rusted since September.

When I arrived at the airport last Saturday, the shop hadn’t plugged the heater back in, so I plugged it in for 90 minutes to warm up the engine and watched a bit of Hot Shots! (!) that was playing in the club lounge. Once the cylinders were warm to the touch, I fired the starter, but it wouldn’t turn the prop — the battery was flat. I plugged in the battery charger, then walked over to find my mechanic (who was working on building a new hangar) and asked him if he’d had to recharge the battery before starting my plane a few days earlier.

“Yep.”

OK, dead battery. To be fair, it was an old loaner from the shop a couple of years ago supposed to tide me over for a few weeks, and it never should have lasted this long. After 45 minutes still not enough charge to spin the prop, and the VRTUcar was due back soon, so I had to give up.

I’m getting a new battery this week, then hopefully everything will line up and I’ll be back in the air for the first time since mid September.

If your plane was OK, you’d get to spend an hour convincing ice-encrusted covers to separate from the wings without ripping, bumping 1/2″ of ice off the fuselage, etc. Your car would get stuck in the snow near your tiedown spot as well, and you’d have to hack a path out with a borrowed ice chipper. In the end, you’d try to knock some of the ice off the covers, put them back on the plane, make a note to book maintenance, and sit for a few minutes watching other people land and take off.

Fortunately (for me, not for them), Microsoft has fired the whole MSFS team, so there’s no risk of anyone reading and implementing this suggestion. Instead of changing MSFS, I want to change real life. I want to arrive at the airport and climb straight into a fueled, shoveled off, uncovered, warmed, preflighted plane idling on the threshold of the active runway. When I finish, I’d like to just taxi clear of the runway, shut down, and toss someone the keys.

I guess I could make this happen, but I’ll have to figure out a way to get rich enough to hire a ground crew first. Suggestions? In the meantime, I’m scheduling time to get a new ELT antenna installed and the Bendix unstuck and lubed, and ordering new wing covers. With luck, I’ll be flying again before the end of the month.

I’m hoping especially that this will work with the iPhone (version 3 or better), since it’s supposed to support the W3C Geolocation API now. If this is successful, I can add new capabilities, such as an automatically scrolling map, without too much work.

If you own an iPhone, please try out the sites, and let me know what happens. They’re working fine with Firefox 3.5 in Linux, except that Firefox tells OurAirports that I’m in downtown Ottawa, about 4 km away from where I actually am (probably guessing from my IP subnet).

BUT IT IS ART, AS ANY OLD CAT OR DOG CAN SEA.

Does anyone have any better ones?

(This would be more fun with fixes and airport idents as well. Maybe in a future posting …)

Here’s sample pilot information for Bahrain International Airport.

Note that it’s not currently possible to edit frequency or runway information. I’ll be adding that ability soon, as well as data for more airports (right now, only larger airports have runway and comm information).

Update: if an airport doesn’t have its own METAR and/or TAF, OurAirports will display the closest ones available. This works in both the main and mobile versions. Look at pilot info for Rivière-du-Loup Airport for an example (mobile pilot info for Rivière-du-Loup Airport).

ourairports.mobi

(I developed the mobile site over two calendar days and about one person day. Thanks to my very rushed beta testers, Paul, Blake, and Douglas.)

The bookmarklet

To speed things up, I’ve written my first bookmarklet, a tiny bit of code that runs in a browser bookmark.

Find airports

Click on this link, hold the mouse down, and drag it to your bookmark bar (updated so that a new page doesn’t open when you select “cancel”):

The bookmark bar is usually just above the main part of the browser window. You can highlight any text on the web page you’re reading (such as a placename or address), then click the “Find airports” bookmark to open a new window/tab showing the closest airports. If you don’t select any text with the mouse, a dialog box will pop up prompting you for a search string.

Examples

(In each example, the text to select is in italics.)

Airport codes work very well. Select LAX or EGLL with your mouse, then click the “Find airports” link to jump straight to the airport page on OurAirports.

If you’re thinking of visiting the Prime Minister of Canada, highlight 24 Sussex Drive, Ottawa with your mouse then click on your “Find airports” bookmarklet.

I like to fly my family to Manhattan. Teterboro is almost as close as LaGuardia, and a lot less expensive.

I hear that Ayers Rock is very dramatic down under.

Thinking of helping mankind? Perhaps you’d like to fly aid supplies into Darfur or Zimbabwe, assuming the governments would allow you in.