A Case of the "Blues"

The Blue Angels were in town this week for their annual appearance at Sea Fair and there are various TFRs in place to cover the official show and practice sessions. I had a colleague in town who had just earned his private pilot certificate a few weeks prior and we had been planning to take a flight at some point during the week, but with the hot temperatures that Seattle was experiencing, it wouldn't have been fun being in an airplane when its 90+ degrees. The temps started to cool by the end of the week so we decided on a flight Friday morning. As luck would have it, the temps got low enough overnight to allow a marine layer to roll in and this forced us to cancel our early morning flight due to low ceilings. As the morning passed on, the clouds began to lift but with the TFRs kicking in later in the day, we'd only have a small window to get airborne and return before the airspace closed. I diligently checked the TFRs on DUATS and called FSS just to make sure there were no surprises.

We got to the airport about 11:30 and were airborne shortly after. We made a quick loop around the Puget Sound area and then landed back at Boeing Field with 30 minutes to spare before the airspace closure. We tied the plane down and hung around until the start of the Blue's practice session.

A Busy Week

This week was quite busy with aviation related activities. I had another CFII ground session and we worked through teaching an instrument procedure to a new instrument student. Secondly, I had two training flights as a CFI with a student and finished off the week with flying at the Challenge Air event. I think I logged about 7 hours this week and it sort of felt like I was really flying for a living. In reality the hours I logged isn't even close to what a full time CFI or pilot for hire would log in a week, but I am starting to get a glimpse of what it would be like to be a full time pilot.

Challenge Air

Today I participated in one of the Challenge Air events in Everett, WA. (KPAE). Challenge air holds these events around the US, and they are held to give kids with special needs an opportunity to fly in an airplane. Along with 20+ other pilots, we were tasked to fly a child and family members on a short 15-20 minute flight. This was the third annual event and was held at the Castle and Cook hangar. There were 135 kids signed up for flights along with 100's of volunteers helping things go smoothly. The challenge Air folks setup all kinds of activities for the children as well as assigning each child to an airplane. The kids got to take a short ground school and then were given a boarding pass and after pilot/ground crew introductions, they and their family got to walk out on the tarmac via a red carpet and through a cheering crowd to their assigned airplane. At the completion of each flight, I got to sign a certificate commemorating their flight and pin a set of wings on each "pilot".

I flew 5 flights for the day and all of my passengers were flying for the first time. I let each one operate the controls at various points of the flight and the looks on their faces were priceless. It was interesting seeing each child's personality come out when they operated the flight controls, where control inputs ranged from hesitant (shy/timid) to almost full control deflection (kids with lots of energy). All of the families were so gracious and appreciative of everyone involved and I could tell that these flights meant so much to them and their children.

I think that just for a short time while the children and parents are flying above the Earth looking at the world go by from 2500', that these flights give the parents and the kids a brief diversion from all of the issues that come along with caring for a special needs child.

Altitude Bust?

I was recently on a United Airlines flight from KSEA to KDEN and discovered that channel 9 of the in flight audio has the cockpit communications between the crew and ATC. The in flight magazine says that the channel will be broadcast at the discretion of the captain. So, I dialed in and started listening prior to push back. After takeoff the flight was handed off to departure and the controller assigned the flight an altitude of 9000' feet. The pilot manning the radio acknowledged 9000'. After a few minutes I felt a sudden nose down motion and that rolling stomach feeling that you get when you suddenly stop climbing and apply heavy nose down pressure. I thought to myself, either there was a traffic conflict or the pilot just blew through his assigned altitude. Sure enough, one of the pilots called ATC and said something like "Approach, United xxx confirm altitude". The controller came back with "United xxx, descend and maintain 9000' ". I'm not going to pass judgement on the pilots seeing that I wasn't in the cockpit, but it's nice to know that even the pros make a mistake occasionally.

Pancake Fly-in at Desert Aire

Flew over this morning for the annual pancake breakfast hosted by the folks at Desert Aire (M94, near Mattawa, WA.). Desert Aire is a retirement/fly-in community with their own golf course and bordered by Priest Rapids Lake. Seattle was cool and overcast with 50 degrees while the temps over in Eastern Washington were a balmy 80 and nothing but sun. The flight over was spectacular and once climbing on top of the overcast layer, all of the Washington (and some Oregon) peaks were visible. It was interesting how the cloud layer just ended about 50 miles East of Seattle. The second photo shows the border of the cloud deck as I was heading West back to Seattle at 8000'.

Breakfast for Dinner

I was just itching to go fly the 182 from the left seat, since the last two flights were from the right as a CFI. The ceilings finally lifted around 3:00 pm so we loaded up the car seats (and the kids) and headed North to Harvey Field (S43). The Buzz-Inn is located on the field and there are several Buzz's located around the Seattle area. The menu is quite extensive and they serve breakfast all day long. Usually when we fly someplace for breakfast we arrive after breakfast is no longer served, so it was a treat to see that the breakfast menu at the Buzz was fair game. We both ordered the Denny's equivilent of a Grand Slam and got mac-n-cheese for the kids.

While doing the pre-flight for the return one of the jump planes from the skydive operation at Harvey departed, and soon after there were three canopies descending for the airport. The ceilings were around 3500', and these jumpers looked like they knew what they were doing, so my guess is that it was the staff getting in a last jump of the day.

Angel Flight Mission #6

I had another opportunity to use the airplane for charitable giving by flying some coolers of blood from Lopez Island (S31) to Boeing Field (KBFI). Once again I forgot my camera, so for the second Angel Flight in a row, I don't have any photos to document the trip.