To the point though… one of their advertising ploys is showcasing the fact that every passenger has an individual outlet at their seat.  This is amazing!  I love it… it’d be great for my laptop.  When I’m sitting in an airport, typically I’m on my MacBook, but I am always careful about how much I use my laptop pre-flight so I have enough juice to last me through.  Most of the time this isn’t an issue, but with flying Virgin America… this would never be an issue.

But today, I was browsing some touristy sites finding some events and locations to visit when my parents are in town next weekend, and I saw this image:

Yes it gets the point across… but let me say one thing that I am sure every person in the world would agree with me on.  If I am sitting on a plane, it doesn’t matter whether isle, middle, or window seat, I sure as anything do not want the person sitting next to me, in front of me, behind me, or really anywhere within ear shot, blow-drying their hair during the flight.  First off, why would anyone need to blow-dry their hair during a flight?  I’m pretty sure there aren’t showers on Virgin America flights.  Hearing a blow-dryer while packed close to other people would be one annoyance, but if the hot air got anywhere near me, I’m pretty sure I would flip.

That’s really all I have to say about that.  I saw that image and just _had_ to go on a 5 minute rant.  Nonetheless, I can’t wait to fly Virgin America sometime and keep my laptop charged!

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My favorite planes to watch were the old military prop planes. P-51 Mustang is always one of my favorites to watch. I also really loved the aerobatics. I think that would be huge amounts of fun to learn someday. I know there’s an air field a little North of Mason at home where they offer lessons in a tail-dragger, and also aerobatics, two things that would be lots of fun.

By the time the air show was done, I was so cold that I decided just to leave instead of really sticking around to look at the static displays. There’s a few air shows I have planned this summer, so hopefully I didn’t miss all too much.

With my new camera, I took over 500 pictures just playing around with different options and such. But I put together 30 of my favorite into an album on my site. You can view them here:

http://www.pawlak.ws/My_Albums/Pages/Watsonville_Fly-in_and_Air_show.html

Later

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Long awaited code name ‘Project Melon’ is now being released to the world. I teamed up with my little brother, Tyler, and we have created a site I am rather proud of. Tyler is a whiz at the graphics, so he took on the challenge of creating the flash animation that is the homepage, and I took care of the business related/advertising/finances areas along with creating and maintenance of our databases through the HTML pages. (asp is my friend)

We have released advertisements for our page in hopes that we will bring in traffic that would, in fact, like to advertise with us. Our target audience is the online business that has some advertising money to play with and sponsor a new endeavor (at least for now). I think our adventure has potential of great success, we just have to get the name out there, and that’s where I would like your help.

I am very excited about FlyingPage.com and would love for it to grow. If you know anyone that would be interested in helping us begin our business endeavor, I would be much appreciated if you could send them in the direction of the page. Also, they are more than welcome to email me at jason@flyingpage.com.

Hopefully this site will help take a little stress out of the flying lessons fund, and maybe bring in a little extra play cash as well!

Wish Tyler and myself the best! Thanks in advance to those that give us a helping hand!!!

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During preflight we were checking lights and noticed that the landing light was out of commission. Kind of against regs to fly without the landing light… but, we’ll survive. We still have our strobes and nav lights. Taxiing to 21L my eyes become fully adjusted to the unusual lighting.

Take off was normal, just a little dark, especially with no landing light. We got into our climb, turned crosswind, turned downwind and departed on our heading of 086 for KUNI over in Athens (the Ohio University Airport)

Soon after we were up in the air ATC calls asking about our transponder. We were showing up as a target with no altitude… after smacking it around a little bit we got the OK from ATC. In the meantime our right strobe light stopped working as well. Occasionally it would give a little blink, but not enough to be comforting. The left strobe light then gave out as well… good thing for Nav lights, eh? The strobe on the left wing did come on about 3 minutes later though.

We’re chuggin’ through the skies above Clermont Country, reviewing normal night flight procedures along with nighttime navigation. I was a little uneasy (especially with things not working) but most was fine. Not long after departure, Gary asks me, so do you think we should turn around? He’s always asking me these loaded questions, and I can never tell what he’s going for. I answered with that if I was by myself I’d be turned around and back on the ground as quick as I could… but since he was up, I had full confidence that we could handle ourselves. He shrugged an OK and we continued.

After getting about 45 miles to the east of Lunken, near Hillsboro, the lights on the instruments started a methodic dimming process along with the amps meter. This was going on when we had the alternator on… and the alternator off… no good. I think it had something to do with only having one strobe light on, and the capacitors were discharging unevenly. I also then noticed, with rising tension… that the plane was only feeding fuel through its left wing tank…

… well crap

So we’re 45 miles out, with 1/4 of one tank of fuel, no landing light and half of our strobe lights, a transponder that is on the fritz… and its bloody dark outside!

**Note: In all this craziness, I do have to make note that I have never seen so many stars in Cincinnati as what I saw up away from the lights. It was amazing, absolutely gorgeous. I had to keep my mind on flying the plane and not on staring at all the pretty stars

Gary makes the executive decision and I pull a 180 heading directly west, back towards Lunken. I’m nervously watching our fuel and making calculations to see if we have enough to get back… 29 gallons full, and burning 6 per hour. 1/4 of 29 is about 7.25 gallons, plus a 10 knot direct headwind… we should be fine to get back, we had only been flying for about 25 minutes. See my error (that I just now realized)… we had 1/4 fuel on one wing, not total. The right wing fuel wasn’t even feeding. 1/4 of 15 gallons is just under 4 gallons, 2/3′s hour, 40 minutes? Scary eh? These calculations, however, do not match what I saw from the cockpit. You can never really tell how much fuel you have from those gauges, but we were just under 1/4 tank when we were landed.

On the way back to Lunken, we kept going over nighttime navigation and what to be looking for. I noticed how many more planes you see flying at night. Gary chuckled and said its funny because there’s like five-times as many flying during the day, and we don’t see them!

Lunken was about 3 miles in front of us and we were descending from just under 2000. Gary asks, can we make it with power off? NO WAY my mind said… “No, I don’t think we can…” Gary thought for a second and reached over and pulled the throttle all the way back. This guy is a freakin’ loony! is all that went through my mind. We’re coasting / dropping over darkness… which knowing the Lunken area can only mean that trees were soon to be our passengers. I was doing my best to keep 70 knots and aim straight for the threshold of the runway, but we just kept dropping. We were going down at about 700 feet per minute and at a level that appeared to me to be just skimming the tops of trees… when Gary said… guess you’re right, and pushed the throttle to max. I breathed a sigh of relief and we continued…

We landed at Lunken just a few minutes after 11, and the tower closes at 11, so we just missed them taking care of us. A little bit of traffic was in the area, but we had no problems getting in and off the runway. I kept wanting to flare well too early during the landing. The combination of not being able to see the runway due to being nighttime and along with no landing lights was keeping the darkness below me a little scary.

We did survive though. We hung around the office until 12:15ish talking about the flight and all the different aspects of night flight. I think I’m really going to enjoy flying at night as long as the plane is in working condition… I’ll have to reschedule the cross country, this time with 3729D instead of 37147… hah… crazy planes…

Have a great weekend!!!!

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Not only were we changing locations of our cross country, but we were going to be flying a four-seater Piper Cherokee with a passenger in back. I was very excited to fly the slightly bigger plane.

The Cherokee felt much heavier than the Skippers, probably because it is, and in addition we had an extra passenger in the back.

We took off from Lunken at exactly 16:00 and went out east towards KUNI where Ohio University is in Athens. We landed, with a touch and go at 17:00 and then turned north to go to Newark, which is just east of Columbus. That leg took about a half hour.

The reason for the passenger was that he had heard about a building that was shaped like a hand basket. And he thought it would be very neat to see it from the air. Well we found that basket, and it was that… a giant building with handles, very funny. I took a few pictures with Gary’s phone, so hopefully he’ll send those my way and I can post them. We landed and stopped for fuel at Newark. The uncontrolled airport was very quiet and laid back. They had cookies, which of course I sampled a few of

Taking off from Newark, we headed back towards Cincinnati on the longest leg of our flight. Nothing of too much excitement happened. I did fly over a hot air balloon, as well as seeing a jet airliner fly above us (probably heading into Columbus). But total flight time for the cross country was 3.4 hours….. took quite the hit on the wallet.

I really enjoyed learning about and flying the Cherokee, it was exciting to try something new. Next on the flying agenda is night flight this week, followed by a night cross country. We’re going to do the Lunken -> Athens -> Portsmouth -> Lunken for the night cross country. Then after that I’m going to repeat the cross country, just solo. I think I’ve broken the 20 hour threshold, so that is pretty exciting for me.

After my lesson I went over to the bar at Wings with Dave, Sharon, and Gary to have a beer and chat. It was a good time. These folks have been in Cincinnati a very long time and know a lot of the history. It is very enjoyable listening to them.

That’s all for now, hope your weekend is going well!

Later!

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If you normally follow my flight lessons, you have probably noticed an absence in blogs. Yesterday I went up for the first time in about two weeks. Between iffy weather last week and being sick, I just never got the chance to fly.

There was a little bit of wind whipping around on the ground so I expected to be tossed around a little bit up in the air, but it was surprisingly smooth. And was it ever clear! On my way back west to Lunken after practicing maneuvers I got one of the most beautiful sights of downtown Cincinnati ever!

I flew Skipper 37147 yesterday, which unfortunately has no window vents… but it has two radios, which I really love. After flying I gave my credit card to Sharon and she remarked, “wow, this card is warm…” I kinda felt like saying… “well… duhhh” She’s lots of fun.

Up in the air, I just flew around mostly practicing steep turns. Nice smooth motions with attention to attitude are my needs. When leveling off after the steep turn you have much more vertical lift, so I kept popping up 50ish feet, until I finally got it right by pushing in the throttle more than you would think you’d need.

I flew over to East Fork Lake and watched a few boats going around. There were also a very large number of boats on the Ohio River. When coming back to Lunken to do touch and go’s I did my landings on 3L, which is not fun. Since Sunken Lunken… is indeed sunken, there is no easy way to approach without buzzing the tops of houses. I survived though

All in all an uneventful day of flying, nevertheless so much fun. I love going up and just cruising around. I decided to be a little more demanding with the plane and go into turns quicker, or ascend/descend quicker. It was fun… like a jet pilot… just at 80 knots… hah.

Fireworks tonight up in Mason!

Later!

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During the steep turns I was able to do it perfectly only twice. If you keep constant bank and keep your altitude within +/- 50 feet you feel a burble from the prop wash when you’ve made your complete turn. Its a satisfying feeling.

Yesterday, Thursday, we didn’t fly, but I went in to the airport to work on flight plans more. I think I’m finally getting the hang of it. Gary and I chilled in the back room for about 3 hours just shootin’ the breeze and working on the flight plan. I brought in a 6-pack of Sam Adams Boston Lager for us, and we each had one over our lengthy chat.

I’ll be heading up solo a few times now, practicing maneuvers and such, then I’ll be going on my cross country after Dan and Katie’s wedding the weekend after this one.

Later!

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While trying to organize a group of friends to go somewhere I find out that one person already has plans with an old high school friend. I know this person, we were friends growing up, went to the same church, in some of the same classes, worked at Kings Island together… so I suggest, well why don’t he come along as well?
No, he doesn’t like you.
Huh?
Says you’re too churchy…
Heh… well how bout that.

I’ve never really been told that someone doesn’t like me… and it really shouldn’t bother me… I haven’t seen or heard from this kid in years, but I’m a people pleaser and makes me wonder where I went wrong.

I know I know… if the only reason he doesn’t like me is that I’m too churchy… then well that’s pretty stupid and why do I even care? I am finally at a place in my life where I know what I’m doing, I have a sense of security in both my professional, personal, and religious life and I am genuinely happy.

[note: I'm trying to make this as non-high school-drama as possible ]

Eh… onto more important matters of business…

Last night I went home for dinner and my Dad turns to me and says… we heard something in the sermon this past week that made us worry about your flying. He then starts talking about JFK Jr. and his fatal flight to Massachusetts (I believe). He starts talking about the different illusions that Pilots get when they aren’t in VFR (visual flight rule) conditions and I interrupt him.

Wait Dad… let me give you a few more details… you’re talking about the flight that was piloted into Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) conditions when the pilot only had VFR rating, you’re also talking about a man who was flying the plane with one foot in a cast (my opinion is that it would be rather difficult to coordinate the rudder with a foot in a cast).

Needless to say, I think I calmed my parent’s nerves when they realized I already knew many of the details of that fated flight.

I have to make a flight plan real soon. Almost time for a long cross-country with Gary. Apparently there is a nice restaurant at the airport in Morgantown, West Virginia, I think we’re going to visit there.

Later all!

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Great News! This Saturday at 2pm I am meeting with the folks at Flamingo Air Academy to talk about my potential flight lessons. I am so unbelievably excited about this. I have for as long as I can remember wanted to do this. And now, thanks to Kroger, my dream will become a reality, so excited… seriously. It is bedtime though, past actually. Happy 21st Joe (yesterday) good to have another legal one among us. Night!

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