Scenic flight over Lake Powell and more, December 28th, 2008

So the day finally came. Uncle Errol met us at the hotel early (before the sun was up) and we ate breakfast at their buffet. We sat and chatted for a while since it was still dark out and I was waiting for the temperature to warm up a bit. Eventually we headed out to the airport as the sun came up and we could see how clear the sky was. The weather was perfect on our entire route except for some turbulence up north, but we decided we wouldn't be flying that far anyways. The lineman brought my airplane out of the heated hanger as I called in to get my weather briefing and file my flight plan.

It was pretty frigid outside as I preflighted the airplane, but everything was in good shape. They REALLY topped off the tanks since fuel flowed out of the top of the tanks when I took the caps off to check the quantity. I quickly put the caps back on and wrote down "full" in the record book. I moved headsets around since Michelle would be in the back for this flight and explained everything I was doing for my Uncle. After the preflight I primed it really good and gave it a try. It started right up, but was a bit rough due to the cold weather. I let it warm up and just a bit faster than idle until for a few minutes, then let it truly warm up at 1200 RPM for another few minutes; I was able to get the cylinder head and oil temperatures into the green before takeoff.

We circled a few times over the airport to gain altitude before heading east near Cedar Breaks National Park, which was at about 10,000 ft. Once we cleared the high terrain, we descended down a bit for better sightseeing. We couldn't go down too far since Lake Powell is a National Recreation Area and I have to stay at least 2,000 ft above the rim of the canyon, which was around 5,000 ft. Still a ways out, we could see the smoke stacks from the power plant near Page. Errol said the environmentalists were very upset that they allowed the smoke stacks to be located there and I can see why. The smoke created a thin haze that extended quite a ways up the lake.

We turned south to overfly the dam and a little bit of Marble Canyon before turning back north over the dam again. I made sure to fly past the dam before turning back so I wouldn't be considered "loitering in the vicinity" of the dam, which is prohibited by the FAA. Then we continued north over the lake, then turned east and flew around the south side of Navajo Mountain. We kept flying east and while we were trying to find Monument Valley on the map (since it wasn't in my GPS) we eventually could see the features in the distance and just flew right towards them. Errol pointed out some of the different features including the mittens as we circled around them. It was very cool to see shadows rotate around the features as we flew, of course they weren't physically moving, but it appeared that way since we were moving past them.

Eventually we ended up on a northerly heading and I put the GPS waypoint I created for Natural Bridges National Monument straight ahead. On the way, we flew over the San Juan river that feed Lake Powell and we got to see it twist and turn as it made its way. As we approached Bridges, we could see the outline of the park on the map and compared the roads to what we saw in front of us and we could define the park. The hunt was on to see if we could actually find any bridges from the air. My uncle was keen to point out that whenever the road made a hook towards the edge, there was a lookout for a nearby bridge, so that's where we looked. Sure enough we eventually found a few bridges and I circled around so we could all see them and get good pictures.

After we were finished with Bridges, we headed to Bullfrog further north on Lake Powell. We flew over Halls Crossing and Bullfrog Basin airports since nobody was crossing their legs yet and headed south to the Rincon, which was formed when some of the walls collapsed cutting off the river forcing it to follow another path. Next we headed west towards the Escalante River. We flew west over the river and Errol was able to guide us to 2 more bridges. This area of the lake had several interesting features such as shear walls, large islands, canyons feeding the river, etc.

On our way back from the Escalante River, Errol showed us hole-in-the-rock, which is where the LDS blasted a ramp down to the Colorado River for their wagons to use. It is impossible to imagine a wagon going down such a steep trail and I guess it's more unbelievable when you're standing right there. Next we headed south-east back across the lake towards Navajo Mountain to see Rainbow Bridge. I circled back around to get another view at the natural bridge and for a better opportunity for pictures by putting it off the right side for Errol and Michelle.

After Rainbow Bridge we started heading for Page, but since everybody said they could keep holding their bladders, we turned west and started heading back instead. We flew right over Bryce Canyon, which seemed impressive, but not as much as what we had just seen. We were told it is better to see it from ground level. I can believe that since I know Zion itself is much more majestic from inside the slot canyons than it is from flying over. We also flew over Panguitch and Errol was able to find his house before we crossed the final pass and were headed back down to Cedar City. It was easy to see that it must have been warmer than freezing temperatures because the ice and snow still on the runway was beginning to melt and clear off. After almost exactly 4 hours of flying, I shutdown the airplane and the lineman put it back into the heated hanger for the night.

We were all hungry at this point so we headed to Denny's for lunch then back to the hotel. This was a good time for us to take a dip in the pool and relax for awhile after being up so early. We went to Applebee's for dinner and watched part of the San Diego Charger's game before heading to bed for the night. I'm still excited about how well the flight went, how much we were able to see, and how smooth the air was.

Flight to Cedar City via Zion, December 27, 2008

I already posted about our flight to UT here, but now I've got a video to add.

You'll have to wait

Michelle and I made it home from our Utah trip and very exciting scenic tour of so many things.  I've been downloading movies and pictures to the computer for over an hour so you'll have to wait before I get anything organized and posted.

The scenic trip I had planned would be a bladder stretcher and would have taken us as far north as Moab and Arches, but would have missed Monument Valley.  The weather was forecasting turbulence to the north and my uncle had additional ideas of places to visit so we narrowed our trip.  We flew over Paria Canyon, Page, the dam, Lake Powell, Navajo mountain, Monument Valley, Bridges (yes we saw some from the air), San Juan river, Escalante river, hole-in-the-wall, Rainbow bridge, Bryce Canyon, and Panguitch.

On the flight back to CA we flew back to page and over the dam and also saw Marble Canyon, the Grand Canyon, the skywalk (U shaped walk that hangs over the edge of the canyon), Lake Mead, Hoover dam, and Las Vegas.

All of the flights were incredibly smooth and enjoyable, definitely brings out the reason I love to fly.

We made it to UT!

Michelle and I have been anticipating our trip to UT for a while now and we finally made it. We had to cancel last week due to weather and we almost had to cancel this week, but we shifted the trip a day instead to be Sat, Sun, Mon instead of Fri, Sat, Sun.

The air temperature at Inyokern was about 28 degrees so I really would have liked a preheat, but we don't have those services available. I've been trying to get into a hanger since I got the airplane, but the manager still hasn't worked anything out for me. I'm not sure if it helps at all, but the morning sun was shining under the shade hanger and directly on the nose of the airplane, I'll never know if this lessened the crime. I backed the airplane out to get some sun on the tail to get rid of the trace frost on the elevator, which was gone quickly.

The flight was absolutely wonderful, this is what flying is all about!!! The heater worked just fine to keep us comfortable, but the cool air made for an extremely smooth flight. The snow covering the landscape made it even more scenic. I was cleared through China Lake and Echo restricted airspaces and we headed right for Vegas. Unfortunately, we didn't get to directly overfly Vegas and Lake Mead since we'd interfere with the Las Vegas airline traffic.

The scenery got incredibly better the further we got into Utah. We overflew Zion and circled around getting some pretty good video. It was difficult to find slot canyons that Zion is such famously known for. After flying around Zion, we descended and headed towards Cedar City. The winds were calm so we entered a right downwind for right traffic for runway 20, the calm wind runway. As we were flying parallel to the runway, I called and asked for the conditions of the runway, which were reported as pretty clear and dry. The runway looked pretty patchy with snow and ice, but the landing was uneventful and I rolled without using brakes until I slowed down and wouldn't have to worry about skidding or sliding.

The local FBO had some space available and I was able to put it into their heated hanger. This will eliminate the need for a preheat and prevent frost from forming on the airframe. My Uncle Errol met us at the airport and took us to check into our hotel room. We got some quick lunch then went back to go over the plan for tomorrow where we're going to do a scenic overflight of Lake Powell and several surrounding National Parks. Errol's daughter Kimberly invited us over to dinner and we enjoyed an excellent spaghetti dinner where we met her daughter Tarren (sp?).

Here's a picture of the four of us at Kimberly's house. I'll post again once I have the videos downloaded.

3D Ultrasound

Michelle and I decided to get a 3D ultrasound done because it seems very interesting. Our friends just had one done for their twins and it was really neat. The other lady in our class also had one done for their first child and shared it with us during the class. Michelle looked into them and there are a few in our area (within 3 hours driving time). She decided on Glendale since they have the best deal. This is not a medically significant ultrasound and it seems more obvious when they offer xmas deals! I don't remember real medical procedures having holiday specials... In fact, our insurance will not cover the exam since it is optional and not medically significant, but the "deal" is for only $100 so we decided to do it and we'll pay out of pocket. Depending on when we get home tomorrow night, I'll either post the video and pictures tomorrow or xmas day.

On the way down there, we also plan on doing to shopping since we don't get many opportunities. We are planning on stopping by Linens N Things to use our gift card before they go out of business. We also will stop by some furniture stores to look for rocker/recliners for Michelle. The trip also gives us an opportunity to eat at a good (normal for those who aren't deprived) restaurant. We've never eaten at a Claim Jumpers and we now have one in Palmdale so we might try that, but they also have Famous Daves and since we won't be in Brookfield this xmas I will be missing my opportunity there. Unfortunately, the weather and recliner will mean we will have to drive instead of fly, and we'll have to leave the dogs outside in the cold all day, but we're excited to see our little girl's face!

N951CC flight to Mojave, December 20th 2008

Since we didn't get to fly to Tehachapi last week for the anniversary of our engagement, we decided to try again. This time instead of the winter storm preventing us from getting there, there were some clouds in the valley, but worse there were notices to airmen for ice and 6 inches of snow on the airport. We decided to Rosemond instead, we went there a while ago and they had a great buffet.

Rosemond doesn't have any wind information so I got my wind information from the nearby Mojave airport light out of the east (070@4). Since Rosemond prefers runway 25 in light winds to avoid overflying the nearby houses, I decided to land runway 25 (with the wind). After turning to final I noticed that even though my airspeed was right at my normal approach speed I was significantly faster over the ground than expected. I was able to compensate, but it wasn't the prettiest landing, I should probably intentially practice these. They are not standard landings and are rarely done, but sometimes a downwind landing is safer due to terrain (such as Kernville).

Unfortunately the restaurant wasn't open, they changed their hours to open at 4pm instead of 11am except for Sundays. Great now the last two restaurants we've gone to have been closed, next time I should check! We decided to fly back to Mojave since we've been there more recently and it's a very short flight on the way home. Mojave was open, but they were extremely slow since Scaled composites (Burt Rutan's company) had brought a large party in (we didn't see Burt or Dick). There was only 1 waitress and she was very overworked. The food was excellent as usually and I filled up with cheap gas before we took back off for home.

On the way home, I decided to try to find Kelso valley. Our neighbor lent me a book about flying around here in the olden days. It's a very intersting book to read. A woman wrote the book about her and flying adventures with her husband who flew into all sorts of crazy places; mostly dried lakes and old dirt roads. One of the locations they flew into was Kelso valley and I think I knew where it was. I looked on Google Earth and I think I could see a desert scar from a runway decades ago.

The air was extremely smooth so we flew low over the mountains and I believe I found the right valley. It was easily wide enough to descend down into and land. There were a few homesteads scattered around, but I didn't see the runway. I think it was buried in the snow. After flying over this valley, we cut back over to the Owen's valley and flew back to Inyokern.

Maverick and Emmett playing in the snow December 16th, 2008

This past week we've been having winter stormy weather, but unfortunately we haven't gotten any snow in the city.  Since we wanted to go to the snow and let the dogs play, we got home from work a little early on Tuesday and drove up to Walker's Pass.  It's about a half hour drive from our house and there is a little camping area there where you can pull off the road and let the dogs play.  Here is a video from the trip.

Flying to Mammoth, CA

Michelle and I had planned to fly to San Diego on December 13th and to Tehachapi on the 14th, but the weather ruined both of those flights. We were hit with a major winter storm system on the 13th and couldn't fly anywhere and the system lingered in the mountains preventing us from flying to Tehachapi on the 14th. Instead, we decided to fly up the valley to Mammoth where I could get some more high altitude practice taking offs and landings.

Flying to Mammoth also was a good opportunity to test my new configuration for recording the flight. I ordered a ground loop isolator which is just a special cord that was supposed to get rid of the alternator noise in the audio, I modified the camcorder mount, and I bought a digital voice recorder so I could have independent audio of the intercom and the cockpit. I also bought a SPOT messenger to track our flights as safety equipment and this was it's first flight as well.

It was a very scenic flight on the way up with the mountains covered with snow, although there was continuous light turbulence, which just got annoying. I didn't leave the video on the entire flight this time, but instead turned it on once and a while to get different scenery and angles. I really liked how some of the side shots turned out.

Unfortunately, even though I got slightly less dash in the view, there was still more than I had hoped for and the angle was low such that I was usually recording below the horizon. The intercom audio still has alternator noise on it, the cabin noise was worse than expected, and I still have the propeller flying off the screen even though I played with the different frame rates. I still have some work to do when editing it to see if I can improve it at all.

Back to the flight itself, the pattern at Mammoth is pretty interesting. There are tall mountains to the south and a smaller ridge to the north. The winds were 10 gusting to 15 knots from the south-west so I flew the right hand pattern around the smaller ridge to runway 27. I thought that I would always maintain sight of the airport, but I soon found out that as I started my descent on downwind, I quickly lost sight of the airport. It's not until your turning final until you see the runway appear from behind the ridge. This caused me some trouble, but I didn't have my approach fully stabilized since i didn't know where the runway was and I couldn't use my standard power settings because of the higher altitude. I ended up being high and fast on the first approach and floated a long ways down the runway. The second time around, I ended up being short and needed significant power to get back on the glide slope by the time I saw the runway. Long story short, I wouldn't feel bad about doing a straight in approach to the uncontrolled airport in the future.

After two time around the pattern, we decided we better head back to Bishop for lunch since we were both getting hungry. After my 3rd not so wonderful landing of the day, we walked into the lobby of the Bishop airport to find that the restaurant was out of business! The airport is also too far from town for us to walk. Fortunately they had a snackbar there and I was rummaging through that until a lady came in looking for the fuel attendant (who was out to lunch at the time). She was very nice and offered us a ride into town and back for lunch since she would have to come back to see the fuel guy after his lunch. She dropped us off at a very good Mexican restaurant named something Amigos and we were able to catch the bus back to the airport (she had thought it wasn't running).

After lunch we headed back to Inyokern where I made one of the nicest landings in several months. Once I finish editing the video from this flight, I'll post the link here. The SPOT messenger worked pretty good, but I'm still not sure what to think about it. On the way there, there was a 100 mile gap in the tracking from Owen's Lake all the way up to Mammoth, although it did have very good tracking the whole way back. It's absolutely better than nothing, but I really wish it didn't have those gaps. I guess more time is needed to tell how reliable it really is.

SPOT tracking

I just created a link so that anybody can track our progress with the SPOT messenger. This will usually be us flying around, but could be hiking, driving, or just exploring. People can use this to see when we're getting close to arriving if we're stopping by to visit, to track our adventures, or to see that we got home safely. The link is a new gadget to the left of this page, just click on the link and it should take you to a new page to track our progress.

Bad weather and the birthing classes

So for the past few weeks I've wanted to fly down to San Diego. I wanted to wait until this past weekend since I did not have the detailed map of the area until last week. Saturday we drove down to Ojai to take back Lisa's bed to free up room in the kids room, so the plan was to fly down on Sunday. Of course nothing goes as planned. First, Michelle got way behind on her masters project and didn't have the time to go then the weather went to crap and it started raining on us, long story short, we didn't fly. Next weekend I was planning on flying to Tehachapi since it will be a sort of anniversary of our engagement 3 years ago. So now I want to fly down to San Diego this Saturday and to Tehachpi this Sunday.

I guess it is the only way to do the anniversary any justice. I had to drag Michelle on two flights in a row before the engagement. The day before we got engaged, we flew down to California City for a Toys for Tots event with airplanes, cars, motorcycles, and food. She didn't want to go flying again on Sunday so I had to drag her along since I didn't it to ruin my plans. Good thing she went because who knows how long I would have sat on it before replanning the trip all over. So it only makes sense to drag her to San Diego, then back to Tehachapi the next day! I might fly up to Mammoth for some practice takeoff and landings at a higher mountain airport too before we head to UT in a few weeks.

On our way down to Ojai, we stopped in Northridge at REI for a SPOT messenger and Office Depot for a laptop. To give a short background on the SPOT messenger, my airplane is equipped with an ELT (Emergency Locator Transmitter). If I were to crash, the ELT would transmit a distress signal. Search and rescue satellites would pick up this signal and emergency crews would come out looking for us. They can fly in a search pattern and home in on the signal until they find us. In the next few months, the satellites will no longer be listening for these emergency signals and they want us to upgrade to new ELTs.

The problem is that the new ones aren't ready yet and the few that are out are way too expensive. Since Michelle and I fly in very desolate areas and are planning our trip to UT in a few weeks, we wanted some extra safety. This is where the SPOT messenger comes in. This little devices is essentially a satellite phone that can only send emails and text messages (can't talk on it) that has GPS capabilities. This means it can send emails with GPS coordinates tracking where you are. We plan on turning this on when we fly around so people know where we are. It also has an emergency button on it that if we crash we can hit the button and emergency crews have our exact GPS location. We used some of our REI gift cards from our wedding to buy this.

The laptop was bought as a method to edit the HD video our new camcorder produces. I was going to have to spend $120 to buy the software, but instead this $400 laptop comes with the software included. The laptop is also nice since our office is so small that we wouldn't be able to fit the kid in their when working on bills and stuff. Now I can do this from the living room while watching the kid.

Tonight we have our 4th Bradley childbirth class. The first class was an intro, the second was nutrition, and I don't remember what the 3rd was, maybe home birth. I haven't had a chance to do my reading assignments for tonight yet, but she said it was ok as long as I do it eventually. We did 'The business of being born' by Ricki Lake that we were supposed to watch a few weeks ago. The movie is available on Netflix so we used one of our rentals to get it.

I guess the movie was ok, but I think it was more graphic than what I need to see. I also believe that it overly blames the hospitals for not supporting natural childbirth. I don't completely believe this, but I'm no expert. I really think the health industry is a scam and they are the worst industry (yes worse than oil) as far as ripping off customers, but I won't get into that now. I think the problem is lawsuits and that is caused by Congress and the laws that are passed. Hospitals need to consider lawsuits as a higher priority than healthcare due to ridiculous malpractice lawsuits, but you can't blame them. Michelle and I are hoping we don't have any of the issues we've been hearing about and so far our doctor has been supportive.

Not much to say

I figured I'd put up a new post of what we're up to even though there isn't much to say. We went to Kevin and Sarah Ford's house for Thanksgiving and had a great meal there, but other than that spent most of the holiday weekend working and cleaning around the house.

The attic is now almost finished, I added several additional flooring sections and built up a frame around a recessed light and put a floor over that and the old attic access hole as well. I just need to finish with the putty, paint, and a few other things. I've been putting a bunch of stuff up there cleaning out our closets. I was able to get all of my model airplane, brewing, airplane records, and ski stuff up there. The dogs were very interested in seeing what was up the ladder and kept whining, so I also brought both of the dogs up to take a look; that was not as easy as it sounds.

I took apart the bed we had in the kid's room and that is in our living room now and will go back to Lisa on Saturday. Michelle taped off and started painting the border in the kid room. She also did the artistic sketches of the different walls. Next step is to paint the backdrops and send out the animal drawing requests.

The last thing I was able to finish was cleaning the office. This has been a mess forever since not everything even had a spot to go since we switched rooms after the house makeover. Now everything has a spot and is clean! I forgot that I also repaired the roof to the shed. For some reason, there is a huge hole where the roof cracked apart. Of course, I didn't notice it until after the two days we got rain...

Saturday, we are heading down to drop off the bed at Lisa's and take a look at the pictures of her trip to India. Sunday, I hope to fly down to San Diego for lunch. We've never been west of Cajon pass and I'd like to get some experience flying down in that area. Originally I was thinking about eating at a place called CrazeeBurgers that we saw featured on TV that had all sorts of neat burgers, but instead I think we'll just play it down and eat at the airport. Maybe next time... I'm not sure if Michelle will be able to go since she is frantically trying to finish her masters project.

We also have a trip planned to Tehachapi on the 13th, this is when and where we got engaged back in 2005. After that we have our trip planned out to Utah to see my Uncle Errol and fly over all sorts of scenery, look for a nice post after that trip.

Test flight with our new camcorder

For the past few years I've been watching videos on YouTube of people flying into different areas and capturing their adventures. I've been jealous and wanted to buy a camcorder to tape my own flights, but haven't been willing to spend the money. Michelle and I decided long ago that we would wait until we start our family before we buy a camcorder.

Here is a link to another pilot who posts his flights. This is his flight into Kernville, I figured I'd link this one since this it compares to the flight we just made.

Now that we have a girl on the way, we made the purchase. Granted she's not due until the end of February, but that's just too long to wait. It kind of goes along the lines of getting the new TV in time for the football season and the new camera in time for a long anticipated trip. The anticipated trip is to Panguitch, UT to visit my Uncle Errol and to fly over Lake Powell, the Grand Canyon, Lake Mead, Hoover Dam, and Las Vegas.

We decided that since we have a fancy new HD TV, we wanted to get a nice HD camcorder. We also want it to be digital since we will be posting both flights and videos of our daughter on the web for friends and family to see. The hassle of DV tapes eliminated that category, and since hard drives don't operate at altitude, those versions wouldn't work either. Hard drives rely on airflow between the disks so that the head "flies" between the platters. When the altitude goes up, the pressure goes down, and the head crashes and the disk fails.

This left us looking for a solid state HD camcorder. I also had 2 requirements for flying, an image stabilizer and a microphone input. All the HD camcorders come with image stabilization so that wasn't a problem, but finding one with external audio in was. Canon is really the only manufacturer supporting external audio anymore these days and we ended up with a Canon Vixia HF100.

My airplane just got out of maintenance so I was anxious to get back up and flying so a flight for lunch in Kernville to test the new camcorder setup was perfect. We also decided to take the dogs with us. They've each flown before, but this was the first time they both flew together and Michelle wasn't in back to calm them down.

The dogs did ok, but they both ended up being nervous at some point. Emmett was much worse off, but I think he'll get used to it. He's always not been a fan of bouncing around. When we drive up to trailheads to go hiking, he always lays down in the back of the Jeep, but he's never gotten sick.

The video turned out pretty good, but there are a few things I found that I want to change. I made a little stand the camcorder attaches to that has a sponge between as a shock absorber. I noticed that the sponge allowed the camera to shake more than if it was just attached firmly. The angle also didn't turn out too good, it was looking down too much and the dash takes almost 1/2 of the screen. This also causes issues since it tries to focus on the dash instead of outside. I also want to work on the audio a little. I have it tied into the co-pilot audio jack, but there seems to be a lot of noise in the audio.

I used a trial version of CyberLink PowerDirector to edit the video, but I think in the future, I'm going to try to use Microsoft Movie Maker so I don't have to pay for the software. I decided to shoot the trip in HD since I had more space on the card than the battery would last. The video was incredible when it was focusing on the terrain. After editing and down converting to HQ, the file was about 10 minutes and 652 Mb. Good thing YouTube just started allowing up to 1Gb uploads... It took about 1 hour to render the video on my PC and the clip is still trying to upload after almost an hour.

Tomorrow I'll be working on the attic since I spent all day playing...

Flight to the elusive Big Bear, L35

Michelle and I have been trying to fly to Big Bear forever. Once I bought my Skylane, I felt more comfortable flying into high altitude airports. We tried flying down several times with N951CC, but didn't make it until today. Previous attempts were foiled by weather of course, fuel pumps inop at IYK, Michelle started feeling sick half way there, some others I don't remember, then I cancelled a trip with some friends to go there on Saturday due to an airmet for turbulence.

I want to fly into Big Bear for 2 reasons. The first reason is just to go there since it seems like a really neat place. The second reason is to tackle a high altitude airport. The airport is at 6,752 feet and has a single runway that is 5,850 feet long. Density altitudes can go above 10,000 feet in the summer, but shouldn't be too bad today. I want to go and visit my Uncle in Utah, but he lives in the high terrain so this will give me the confidence in my and the airplanes ability to land at high altitude airports. I also want to become more comfortable in higher terrain since I want to take a route through Colorado some year flying back to WI. This airport is a good practice airport and today I finally get my chance.

Today the winds were calm here, across the desert, and at Big Bear and forcasted to stay that way. There were very few clouds even visible in the sky but they were 20k or higher and hundreds of miles away. There were no airmets, sigmets, TFRs, or adverse conditions. There was only 1 notam and that was for the unmanned vehicle west of Victorville that has been there for the last year and a half. Long story short, it couldn't have been a nicer day. I had plenty of gas to get to Big Bear, but assuming their gas would be expensive way up there, I added some fuel (15 gallons) so I could make the round trip without more gas.

The air was cool and the flight was smooth as glass; I really love flying in the winter. As we passed over Hesparia I was looking at the map and the GPS and trying to compare to the mountain ridges I was seeing in front of me. I couldn't tell if I was supposed to fly around the near set of ridges or right over them. I decided to peek around them and found that I should have gone right over. Not a big deal, we just added 2 minutes to the flight time, but we did get a better view of the ski area.

Mugshot

Lake Arrowhead

Ski runs

The winds were light out of the east and the traffic was using runway 8, which is right traffic. I flew east to the south of the airport and descended to the pattern altitude of 8,000 feet. It didn't take long to descend only 1,500 feet from cruising altitude to pattern altitude! I swung around and entered a 45 degree right downwind for runway 8 once conflicting traffic had me in sight and gave me the right away. The were further behind and slower so I was able to cut ahead of them with no problem.

45 to enter right downwind

I knew that I would need higher power settings for flying the pattern and landing, but I didn't know how much more. I usually use 2000 RPM in the pattern and 1500 RPM on the descent to land (with low power settings and the RPM at the high-speed stops, it's just like a fixed pitch prop and I use power to control the RPM). I found myself using more and more power to maintain level flight and 80 kts. I ended up around 2300 RPM. I extended the downwind a bit so I'd have more time to play with my descent on final. I set the RPM to 1800 and started down. I soon realized this was way more than I needed and I was very high on the approach. No problem, I put in full flaps and that put me on a perfect path to landing. The landing was just fine, but I did drift just a little.

A little high, but under control

As Michelle and I were walking towards the pilot lounge and restaurant, I noticed they had fuel at $3.50 per gallon!!!!! I just paid $5.19 at IYK expecting it to be more here, stupid me for adding gas before the flight. After we ate, I pulled the airplane over to the pumps and filled it to the brim with 35.9 more gallons, this saved me $60.67 over buying that gas at IYK.

It was pretty cool up at 6,750 feet, but I was comfortable in a sweatshirt. Regardless, the restaurant had indoor seating with big glass panel windows to see the ramp and the airplane traffic. I thought the food was very good, I had a bacon cheeseburger and a side salad. Michelle thought hers was only OK, she had strawberry crepes, but she thought they were too drenched in sauce. She was expecting them to be too drenched and wanted to order the apple cinnamon ones instead, but they were all out. I guess we'll have to go back for the apple cinnamon ones someday! They even gave us a coupon to come back.

On the flight back, we continued east instead of returning to the west and the high terrain quickly fell off. The approach to Big Bear is definitely easier from the east, but not too difficult from the west. It took us a few miles before I could establish communications with Riverside Radio to open my flight plan and LA Center for flight following. I lost contact with LA center before they handed me off and other traffic had to relay the hand-off. We were approved through Edwards restricted airspace above 6.000 feet on the way back and were home quickly.

Michelle had a very weird episode just as we were landing back at IYK. Just as I was turning to a 45 to enter downwind, she started screaming in pain. I didn't know if it was a pressurization thing and I should climb back up or if she needed to get down right away. I couldn't tell what was going on and she was just shaking her head so I kept on and flew a normal landing pattern. She was fine after we landed and she described it as if her tooth was about to explode. This weird though since I've heard of air pockets in teeth causing problems as you climb, but never as you land; weird. I logged 2.1 hours and finally our flight to Big Bear and back. Now I'm confident in our ability to take on the next high altitude airport, Panguitch, UT to visit my Uncle Errol. The Panguitch airport (U55) is almost exactly the same elevation and runway length as Big Bear so that should be no more difficult than today.

More pictures from this flight can be seen here.

WI baby shower

While we were back for Brian and Angie's wedding, Michelle's family decided to throw her a baby shower. It's pretty early for a shower since she isn't due until February 23rd, but this will be our last visit to WI before then, so it was good timing.

Chris and Vân were able to drive down from Minneapolis Saturday night so we were able to catch up with them that night. Sunday morning started off early with a breakfast. Guests were over early since they were still in town from Brian and Angie's wedding. Mark made biscuits and gravy and Michelle and Carley's moms cooked frittatas. My mom brought over fruit, cookies, and cupcakes.

Someone set up some games such as melted candy bars in diapers. I didn't even want to look so I didn't play; Laura took first place! It was so nice to be able to see everybody again since we don't get back too often and when we do it's usually limited to immediate family. My Uncle David and Aunt Gerry were able to make it as well as our friends Chris and Vân.

There were all sorts of gifts from everybody, too many for me to list here. We are so thankful to everybody just for being able to come and visit, that alone is really such a great gift since we don't get back to WI very often. Here's a picture that shows everything that we got all together.

Brian and Angie's Wedding

Michelle and I drove down to LAX Friday October 31st for our flight back to WI for Brian and Angie's wedding. We met up with Michelle's sister Lisa who was on the same flight, but unfortunately the airplane was booked and we couldn't get seats together. Michelle and I weren't even sitting next to each other although we were across from each other. The guy that was supposed to sit in the middle next to me switch with Michelle so she could sit next to me and he could get an aisle seat.

The flight was uneventful and I was actually able to sleep a little bit of the way (we left around 4:30am so I was tired). Michelle's dad Jack picked us up from the Milwaukee airport and drove us home. We weren't there long before heading over to Mark and Carley's so we could see the kids trick or treating. Tierney was a midnight fairy, Norah was batgirl, and Declan was Aaron Rogers. I took the lamp out of the baggage and set it up to make sure it was still intact; it was but I had to bend it back in to shape a little. We decided to pack the lamp with us since they were gouging us pretty badly to have it shipped.

Saturday morning was lazy, the rest of the family was helping Brian set up for the wedding, but they didn't need our help so we got up slowly. Mark had Ironman so we watched that, it was actually pretty good. We left for the wedding early since we were planning on helping them set up and since Carley needed some time to set up the cake that she made for them. The cake was incredible and Michelle and I worked on melting chocolate for the chocolate fountain. Right about now is when we figured out that we forgot to bring the lamp to the wedding!

The theme of the wedding was Halloween / fall with colored leaves for decoration and a candy bar. I was very impressed with how well the place looked considering they had such short time to set all of this up. The wedding itself was very short and straight to the point, exactly how they wanted it. I thought it was great, I like these kinds of weddings.

They had all sorts of options for the lunch including chicken, vegetarian, beef, veggies, cheese and crackers, etc. and it was delicious. Angie's mom catered the wedding herself (with her crew) and did a fantastic job. Again I was so impressed with how well it turned out so quickly. After dinner they moved some tables and had some dancing, although I don't remember them doing any of the formal dances. I love the dancing pictures, but figured I probably shouldn't post any of them.

Monday evening, Brian and Angie held their gift opening. It was just a few people that went over there, but it was fun seeing what they got and what kind of taste they have.

Congratulations Brian and Angie, now comes the pressure for grand kids!

Furnace Creek Inn Brunch

Today Michelle and I flew to the Furnace Creek Inn for brunch. We flew south of the China Lake restricted airspace from Inyokern towards Trona and turned north over Trona between the China Lake R-2505 and Echo Range R-2524 restricted airspaces. Once we were north of the Echo range, we turned back east to cross the Panamint mountains into Death Valley. We turned north and flew up Death Valley over Badwater as we approached to land at the Furnace Airport L06. The was no wind and we landed runway 15 since the Mooney ahead of us had used that runway. There were cables to attach tie-downs to, but no tie-downs. I didn't have my tie-downs with me since I removed them for weight when we flew up to San Jose. I pulled the parking break, put the plugs and control lock in and called it good; we'd only be gone an hour and there was zero wind.

Obligatory mugshot

Telescope peak, I've climbed this 2 or 3 times.

Badwater

Furnace Creek Inn resort

Furnace Creek airport L09

The Mooney pilot already had called for the shuttle to the Inn so it arrived just as I finished securing the airplane. The Mooney folks were staying the week at the Furnace Creek ranch so the driver dropped them off first and then drove us up to the Inn, it was probably less than 5 minutes, but I'm glad we didn't walk it. There's only a gravel shoulder and it's uphill for about a mile. There was no wait for the brunch, which I guess is unusual, but the staff said this was because this is the first weekend they are open for the season and not everybody knows they are open again yet. The driver said they usually get between 12 to 40 pilots a weekend, today I was number 3.

The food was excellent and came with eggs to order, an entree on the menu, and the buffet. Michelle and I got omelettes that were way bigger than they needed to be, but they were very good. I ordered the french toast/pancakes/crepes (they were all mini) and Michelle ordered the Pasta Primavera. We also had fruit and too much desert from the buffet. Definitely a top notch brunch although it was a bit pricey at $21.95 per person. After brunch we walked around the resort a little before taking the shuttle back to the airport.

She really loved that dessert buffet

The airplane was still there safe and sound and there was still no wind. Michelle decided she wanted to head up the valley to take a look at Scotty's castle and the Ubehebe crater. We took off and headed north at 2500 feet to maintain 2000 ft over the national park. I called up Riverside Radio and asked if they were familiar with the Ubehebe crater or Scotty's castle for waypoints and they said they were not. She wanted to file me from Furnace Creek back to Inyokern, but I thought that would be dumb since we were flying 45 miles north of that route. I told her my route would be Furnace Creek L06, Stovepipe Wells L09, then up to Bishop BIH before heading south to Inyokern IYK. We weren't going to fly even close to that far north, but that put a line across where we would be flying in case something were to happen. That we at least they'd be looking in the right area. We circled around the sand dunes and airport at Stovepipe Wells and then continued north. We climbed up to 4500 ft as the valley floor started to climb to the north.

My altimeter is below zero!

Sand dunes near Stovepipe Wells

We circled around the crater once, which was very easy to find from the air then headed back east to fly over Scotty's castle. I climbed a bit more since they were nestled in the mountains a bit. After we left Scotty's, we climbed up to 10,500 ft and headed east through a pass and flew over Saline Valley on our way to Owen's Lake. I couldn't reach Joshua approach until we reached Owen's Valley even though we were pretty high. They responded near Lone Pine and I got flight following back to IYK. On our way down the valley, we could clearly see Mt. Whitney, Olancha peak, Owen's Lake, the cinder cone, and Fossil Falls.

Ubehebe Crater. Michelle and I visited here with my parents a few years ago.

Scotty's Castle, we also visited here with my parents.

Mt. Whitney, it's the one below the space between "visited here" in the title of the above picture. Kevin and I climbed this a few months ago.

Lava flow and Fossil Falls.

More Lava flow

I started a nice slow descent towards Inyokern, but we never felt any bumps. The wind was out of the south, which is not too common and we landed straight in runway 15 to avoid the tow-plane operation on runway 2-20. I recorded the tach time at 2.1 hours and the timer at 2.4 hours. Fuel burn was a bit high at 13.8 gph, but we did do a bunch of low level flying, which does take more fuel. I love flying this time of year because the air is smooth and cool, the flight was perfect. This is the first flight I'll enter into my new logbook (I just filled my original logbook).

The link to the photo album for this flight can be found here.

It's a Girl!

So Michelle and I went to the doctor today for her sonogram. The baby looks perfectly healthy, all of the measure were proportional and no defects were found. The doctor was also able to get a good picture this time and said it is a girl! Here is a link to the ultrasounds if you'd like to see them.

http://picasaweb.google.com/jayson.brouchoud/Baby?authkey=RVDuy5S0VIQ#slideshow

Now that we know the sex we can start thinking about names. We didn't start thinking about names yet since it would be twice as hard if you have to think of both boys and girls names.

Breakfast in Hesperia

This morning Michelle and I flew down to Hesperia for breakfast and to fuel up the airplane (their gas is 64 cents cheaper than at Inyokern). The flight down there was very smooth and we were cleared through Edwards restricted airspace above 5000 ft; we flew at 7500 ft. We flew around the unmanned vehicle airspace west of Victorville by overflying the Victorville airport. Hesperia's airport L26 was very difficult to spot as we were approaching, another reason the GPS is so helpful. As you can see from the picture, the airport is not much more than another road in a congested area. We did hit a gust just before touchdown, but I actually made a fairly nice landing.

Here is a picture of the solar panels near Kramer Junction.

Here is a picture of the airplanes at the graveyard at the Victorville airport.

Here is a picture of the High Desert Mavericks stadium near Adelanto, CA.

Final approach into Hesperia, L26.

The fuel price was $4.55 as advertised, but my Citi card was being denied again. They keep turning it off when I buy gas as an fraud early warning flag. I called them again telling them I'm a pilot and I have to use a credit card to buy fuel and when the keep shutting my card off, I'm going to get stuck since I won't be able to refuel. Breakfast was very good with portions twice the size of what I should have eaten.

On the way back to the airplane, I saw gas dripping from my right fuel vent. This is normal when fuel expands, but it was quite a bit of leaking. I didn't notice it earlier, but now I did notice the very slight angle I was parked on. The gas was flowing from my left tank to the right tank then leaking through the vent. This is a common problem with airplanes and is usually only fixed by not completely filling the tanks or parking perfectly level. I don't know exactly how much fuel leaked, but I think it was enough to offset the fuel savings gained by the cheap price.

The flight back to Inyokern was just a little bumpy, but nothing to complain about. It took awhile to get flight following since the controller was pretty busy. I managed to make a nearly perfect landing in Inyokern and that was a good feeling because I feel that even though I keep trying, my landings typically seem to be in the safe, but not great category.

Round trip I put 1.7 hours in my logbook and filled my last entry in my logbook. This was still my original logbook, which started back on January 23rd, 2000 and ends today with 422.2 hours total time, 615 landings, and 85 instrument approaches.

1st Anniversary

Michelle and I have survived our first year in married life; so far life has been great! For our wedding gift, Michelle's brothers and sisters bought us a weekend at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas to celebrate our 1st anniversary. This weekend we cashed in their gift and had a great anniversary. We were set up in a spa suite that had a spa right in our bathroom.

We were planning on flying into North Las Vegas instead of driving all the way there, but the terrible winds that finally passed through Ridgecrest were still howling in Vegas. At noon on Saturday, the winds were still strong and they were forecasting turbulence. The weather as forested to improve throughout the weekend so we would have been fine coming back. We could have flown to Vegas, but it would have not been the best flight, so we decided to drive. This also gave us some flexibility while we were there since we would have a car and not have to take a taxi everywhere.

We risked taking the I-15 through Barstow on a holiday weekend since we were leaving pretty late in the day. The traffic was pretty busy, but never slowed down and were were there in 3.5 hours. We checked in and took a tour around the MGM and decided to eat at Diego's for dinner. This was a fancy Mexican restaurant, the food was great. On the way back from dinner we found an arcade and I got to fly an airliner (I just sat there, I didn't actually play it).





Sunday, we decided that we would take advantage of being in a big city and go start our baby registries. I know I know, why were we doing baby registry stuff on our anniversary. Here's the thing, it's a 2 hour drive each way for us to do it another weekend and would have taken an entire day after doing the registries and eating. First we went to Baby's R Us (couldn't figure out how to type a backwards R), this took FOREVER since you have to go through the ENTIRE store and I have no idea what half of the stuff is. I'm sure I'll figure it out when I have to, but for now, I really don't know the difference between one bath thing or the other.

After Baby's R Us, we went to BW3 (Buffalo Wild Wings) for lunch and to watch the Packers! They put the Packers on the big screen and we were able to stay and watch the whole game. I can't believe how much food we ate there, but man was it good. After lunch we headed to Target to finish our registry there. This one was much quicker since you only have to worry about the baby section, not the whole store. While Michelle was looking at some toys, the dogs started acting up. They are pretty upset that we are having a kid and managed to convince me that the least I could do was to put some stuff on the baby registry for them...

After Target, we headed to the Rio to pick up our Penn & Teller tickets since the required that you pick them up at least an hour in advance. We got there around 6:30 and the show started at 9:00, but you had to be there 30 minutes early for seating so we decided to just stay at the Rio instead of going to the MGM and coming back. Not a big deal, but it would have been nice to sit down and relax for a bit, and we could have got our camera. To waste the time, we went to a restaurant for drinks and desert since we were still full from lunch. We got an Apple Streusel with ice cream that was incredible and I got to have an Alaskan Amber. Yes I just listed the beer I drank because it is a big deal; we just don't get good beer in Ridgecrest.

After desert we decided to gamble a little bit. All of the blackjack tables were $25 minimum so we skipped that. The roulette tables were $2 minimum so that was better, until we realized that it really wasn't $2 minimum as we thought. It was $10 minimum per spin, but you could have down to $2 per spot on the numbers as long as you had at least $10 total. That was more than we wanted to spend so we chipped out without playing at all. We headed over to the big wheel that Michelle talks about a lot. It's just like roulette, but it only has 1s, 2s, 5s, 10s, 20s, and 40s. If you pick 1 and it lands on 1, then you get paid 1:1, if you pick a 10 and it lands on a 10, you get paid 10:1, etc. This was fun for awhile, Michelle lost $10 and I was even with $20. As we were going to cash out we passed the roulette table again and Michelle said what the heck give it a shot. As I was down to the last $5, I hit where I was playing 4 numbers so I got paid out 8:1. Long story short we won in Vegas again even if it was only $5.00! On the gambling topic, I've got no poker stories since I didn't want to ditch Michelle on our anniversary although she did bring a bunch of grading to do in the hotel and said I could go play.

The Penn & Teller show was great. I'm really glad we saw them since they were very funny in addition to their magic. The thing I thought was the most funny was how they would redo tricks while explaining them and you would still be fooled! Of course some of the audience stunts, you wonder if they planted people, but some of them didn't matter. They had one where an audience guy transformed into Teller, didn't matter if he was planted or not. The show did seem a little short at just over an hour, but I had more than my money's worth of entertainment and was very happy about our choice for our first Vegas show.

Monday morning we went to the Rainforest Cafe for breakfast and then headed to the MGM Lion Habitat. This was pretty cool and you got to walk right under the lions. There was only 2 lions on display today and some of their lions are direct descendants of the original MGM lion. The trainers walk around in the habitat right next to the lions since they are so domesticated. It was cool to watch the lions nuzzle their trainers. The gift shop had all sorts of neat safari stuff and we bought a few things that we will use to decorate the kids room including a giraffe picture frame and a monkey. No we didn't get any lion stuff from the lion habitat because the only cool lion they had was really expensive.

After seeing the lions, we checked out and headed for home. Knowing the 15 would be terrible today, we headed north and headed through death valley via Beatty. We were home in just over 4 hours, but we stopped to get cheap gas in Beatty. If we didn't stop, I think we would have made it in 4 hours, which is pretty quick for the death valley route.

Lisa and Matt's visit 4-5 October, 2008

Lisa and Matt stopped by on Saturday to visit. After talking for a bit and watching the Brewers win, we went out to eat at Mon Reve, a fancy French restaurant. I remember the food being very good, but expensive, but this time it was very good, but with normal prices. We hadn't gone there in years because we thought the prices were still high, but we'll probably start heading there more often now. On the way home, we stopped by Stator Bros for some beer and wine, in the parking lot we noticed an incredible spare tire cover of Jesus and the Lamb of God, you have to see this picture.


After dinner we watched the presidential and vice presidential debates. It was pretty civil considering how politically different we are. I think its good to hear opposing ideas and rationale.

Monday morning we recorded the Packers game and watched the Brewers game while Michelle cooked waffles. Matt wanted to go see the airplane and go flying so we headed out to the airport. I wasn't sure if Lisa would want to go to the airport since she's already seen the airplane, but I offered her to come anyways and offered to come flying, but knew she wouldn't. As we were getting ready to head to the airport, Matt noticed the growler we have from Laura and Steve from the Kern River Brewing Company and that was enough for Matt to want to fly to Kernville to go to the brewery for lunch. Matt also pointed out that this was the weekend of our 1 year anniversary so it would be fitting to go to Kernville.

Once we got to the airport, I let them check out the airplane while I pre-flighted it. Lisa decided that she would actually try flying! I showed them a little bit of what I was doing as I did the pre-flight. I feel that new passengers are more comfortable when you explain what you are doing. After we added some gas, we started up, did the run-up, and we were headed for Kernville. The winds were calm and the air was relatively smooth meaning a few bumps, but not too bad for Inyokern. There were a few more bumps along the way as we climbed and flew through Walker's pass, but everybody did fine. I tried to keep explaining things as we flew such as "you'll hear the engine rev down as a increase the prop pitch for cruise."


After we cleared Walker's pass I let Matt fly for just a bit. I didn't let him fly too much because I didn't want to have any sudden movements that would cause extra nervousness. The wind was a bit stronger coming into Kernville, but it wasn't a big deal. After tying down the airplane, I got a rental car from the restaurant. They gave us the "White Chevy." I absolutely love courtesy cars (although this one requires a very minimal fee to cover insurance), so I'm not complaining, just telling the story.



The car started up fine, but as soon as I put it into gear, the belts started squealing and I noticed that the rear view mirror was broken off and laying on the dash. The head liner was hanging down and the ladies had to hold it up in the back so it wasn't down to their heads. I decided to roll down my window, which only added to the adventure. As I tried to roll it back up when we got to the brewery, it came out of the tracks and fell back down into the door, you just have to see the picture for this one. For the rest of the trip, the window would slide back and forth.



Lunch at the brewery was excellent as usual, I had the Kern Burger with no pickle onion or mayonnaise and Michelle had the Olympic Pita with no olives and provolone instead of feta cheese. Michelle didn't have any beer because of her condition and I didn't because I had to fly back; no alcohol from bottle to throttle... After the brewery we drove by Ewings a.k.a. the Broken Oar and Odd Fellows where we had our reception. Then we headed back to the airport since I was warning that the turbulence gets worse as the day goes on.



The flight back was just fine as well and I kept it pretty slow. This way the turbulence would wobble the airplane more the bang it around. The wobbles tend to get more people sick, but the banging around tends to scare more people. Nobody seemed to have any motion sickness problems so slow and wobbly was the way to go. The winds were still calm in Inyokern and we were all back safe and sound.

I'm so glad that I was able to take Matt up and go flying and that Lisa came up for the ride. I know this was way out of her comfort zone, but she thanked me for getting her out of her box. I hope that she was able to get comfortable enough to really enjoy the flight, I know it's difficult for nervous first time passengers. I'm very happy that the weather for the most part was cooperative since more turbulence would had ruined the experience for sure. No the pictures are not edited, she actually flew!