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.

The retest

With Jean’s letter in hand, I did my complete IFR retest on 29 June. Without a rating, I had to scud-run my plane in marginal VFR the 7 miles from Rockcliffe to Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier under a low ceiling to meet the examiner. We zipped through the ground portion: sadly, the simulated emergencies were things I’ve actually experienced in IMC, like a failed ASI, and trying to get ATC’s attention when I have ice accumulating on the airframe, so I didn’t have to think long about the answers.

We took off into actual IMC for the flight portion of the test, which lasted an hour including taxiing, clearances, etc. This time I did the radio work, since we were on an IFR flight plan (many thanks to the Ottawa terminal and tower controllers for reserving me a slot at noon on a busy IFR day!). I was a lot more comfortable talking directly with the controllers, rather than doing simulated radio work with the examiner in VMC conditions. I won’t bore you with a play-by-play, because this was my fifth time flying the IFR flight test, but everything went great (including a shuttle descent in the hold), and I have the IFR endorsement back on my license.

Filing IFR again

I’ve accumulated several hours of actual IMC in the week and a half since that exam, including a flight from Ottawa to Waterloo last Saturday (the return on Sunday was VFR), a flight from Ottawa to Rivière-du-Loup through a low-pressure system on Tuesday, and the return flight to Ottawa through the same low-pressure system yesterday.

I canceled a baseball flight to Toronto City Centre on Canada Day because I don’t like embedded thunderstorms that I can’t see coming (that’s the same reason I waited overnight in Rivière-du-Loup), though I could have flown it with my StormScope and ATC advisories, and have done that before — it’s just that it’s not fun. Without my instrument rating, though, all three trips would have been canceled — it really does make a huge difference in the ability to travel, and I’m feeling much more confident hand-flying in the clouds after a couple of hours of review training. I started on my instrument rating right after I finished my PPL, and have never regretted the choice.

It was my delinquent year — I was almost two years younger than the other kids, starting the school year in 1975 still aged 10, and as hormones pulled my slightly-older friends in new directions, I found a different outlet, testing how many rules I could break without getting caught. Despite my failure, I joined the grade 8 French class the next year, paid attention, didn’t cheat, and ended up second in the class with 89% (my hormones had kicked in, and girls became more interesting than acting up).

In spring 2009, I failed my biennial IFR flight test.

In Canada, unlike the U.S., we have to redo the complete IFR flight test every two years to maintain our ratings. I passed in 2003, 2005, and 2007, but failed yesterday due to altitude deviations. I now need to be signed off by an instructor, then take the full flight test again. That may put an end to any hope of family trips or Hope Air flights this summer: without an instrument rating, it’s not really practical to fly on long trips around northeastern North America, unless you’re willing to wait 2 or 3 days for weather to clear at each stop.

Because of work, I haven’t flown much in the last year and a half. The hood/foggles don’t bother me, and I’m still good with the radio work, IFR procedures, heading control, and needle tracking, but I need to get back up and regain my altitude control. The Transport Canada test standard is +100 feet/-0 feet for IFR, and I dipped 50 feet below four times in my two approaches. Next time, I’ll remember to target 50 feet above minimum altitude as well, to give myself some wiggle room.

Aftermath

Obviously, as a 700-hour pilot with nearly 100 hours actual IMC, I was shocked and disappointed at the result, but I also recognize that it is my responsibility to fix the problem rather than looking for excuses. It’s important not to fall into bad habits, no matter how long you’ve flown, and it’s probably time for some recurrent training anyway. When I arrived back at my home airport, I went straight in and booked a two-hour lesson for next Tuesday with an IFR instructor. I’ll have him evaluate my flying, then we’ll put together a plan to get my altitude control back to test standards (as well as anything else that might have slipped).

The examiner (a very nice man, and a talented, 20,000+ hour pilot) felt terrible about failing me — he said I obviously know what I’m doing, had 4/4 on much of the test, probably just needed to go up once to get a sign off from an instructor so that I could redo the exam. I’m prepared, though, to work at this all summer if I need to.

Failing once in a while is good for the soul — if you never fail at anything, then you’re not really trying in life — but I don’t want to fail this particular test again, and with my confidence badly shaken, I’m afraid of messing things up next time that I took for granted this time (like holds and NDB approaches) even if I do fix my altitude control. I need not only to brush up my skills, but to get my confidence back.

A good day, all the same

Despite all this, it was a good day yesterday. First, I realized that I really do still care about flying — my first reaction wasn’t to give up, but to book some lessons and get back on the horse. Second, the Red Sox came back from a 1-3 deficit at the bottom of the 8th to beat the Yankees again, for 8 straight this season. And most importantly, I celebrated 21 years married to my best friend, and that easily trumps any flight test results.