The Black Hole

I don't know if I've ever met a pilot who didn't believe they were above average. If any one who is reading this is a pilot - you know what I mean - you're probably thinking it too. I know I am. I can't say that I would even consider myself less than an above average pilot. I can admit my instructing skills can still use much improvement - but that's easy to admit, I'm new to it. But when it comes down to the skills of flying, I really do think I'm good. I'm being honest too. I know inside that it is entirely possible that I'm wrong and I'm not above average, maybe I'm just average (I don't think I can bring myself to consider below average...). Even in everyday situations in life - we feel that given a situation we can handle it. We can handle it better than most. Until you experience a situation that was said to be tough first hand you don't think it's as tough as it's made out to be.

Have you ever heard of a black hole? I'm not talking about those holes out in space that scientists say we get sucked into and I'm not talking about internet black holes that drop clients (I really don't know what I'm talking about there...), but I'm talking about the black hole in aviation terms. The black hole you were warned about by your flight instructor or your ground school instructors (if you went to one). The ones you encounter when flying into an airport that has little surrounding features to help guide you to touchdown. For those who have no experience flying - it's basically featureless terrain. If an airport is surrounded by fields, and those fields are snowed over, there's nothing to use to judge distance and height. Same thing can happen at night. Take a look at the following short video.



The video was a landing I did at Georgetown airport in the Sierra Nevada mountain range at night after one of our famous trips to Willows airport for greasy food and chocolate pie. There were absolutely no visual references to judge where I was at on my approach. Lucky for me, I had been there earlier in the day and knew where the obstacles were (by that I mean pine trees!) - so the whole way down I at least knew I wasn't going to hit anything. I was being so cautious that on the first approach I ended up coming in way too high. I was past the half way point and still floating (3000' runway). At that point, I thought, well, I'll just go around and do it again (probably a bad decision). I added full power and began slowly retracting the flaps. I lifted the gear handle to bring the gear up. The gear wasn't coming up.

My 1972 Piper Arrow had an old gear switch that didn't allow the gear to come up below a certain airspeed as what was considered a "safety precaution" (I wasn't so happy with it at this point). You could chose to change that manually whenever you wanted (located just by the flap handle) - but it was hard to tell sometimes which way you had it set up. Apparently mine was activated! Fun time to find out. From earlier that day, I knew there were trees off the end of the runway, this time on the departure end, and I was worried. With my little Arrow fully loaded (all 4 seats filled), it wasn't climbing out as fast as I wanted it to. I was nervous. For the first time, I was thinking, "what if we didn't make it". With a little bit of light from the moon I could see the outline of the trees on nearby hillsides, but in the pitch black I had no idea where I was in relationship to the ones below me. To this day, I don't know how close I came - maybe I cleared it by a lot, maybe just barely. I nursed the airplane to traffic pattern altitude (maybe not the proper way to say it since it was my pride that was hurt and not the plane) and waited for the airspeed to increase until I could bring the gear up (in the darkness I hadn't been able to find the override switch and defaulted to just flying the airplane).

When I finally landed the second time around, I was close to shaking, and my friends had surprisingly landed ahead of us (that's another long but funny story I may have to tell later). I had always been warned about the ominous "black hole", but I had always wondered why anyone made a big deal about it. After all, could it really be a problem for such a great pilot as myself? Don't let that happen to you, you may not be as lucky as I was. The factors sure set me up for disaster - night time, in mountainous terrain, no lights, a full airplane, and an incomplete knowledge of my airplane's configuration. Don't be caught by surprise. Sometimes, situations are tougher than you think, and I'm still learning that!

Fly safe,
Up in the Air

Dreaming of the day...

Who has ever dreamed of flying? I used to have dreams when I was little about flying just above the town where I lived. I'd dream of waking up, going outside, and leaping into the air from my house. I'd go off on a sight-seeing tour of everything around where I lived. Funny thing is I could never really control where I went, it was always like one of those dreams where you try to run, but you can't no matter what you do. I felt like I was along for the ride - with myself of course. But I always enjoyed those dreams. Sometimes I remember those dreams when I'm flying, and it's hard to believe that it's real life - I wouldn't except for the fact that I really can control where I go!

One of the first sites I ever saw when I began flying was the Foresthill Bridge in Auburn, California.

It is considered the tallest bridge in the state and is featured in the movie "xXx" in which Vin Diesel drives a stolen red Chevrolet Corvette off it. Do I like the movie? Not really, but I love that scene mostly because of all the memories I have from the bridge. I grew up in Auburn, and I thought it was so fun to cross - little did I know I would soon circle around it in an airplane!


Not too far off, I constantly enjoyed the view of the Sutter Buttes (also known as "Sutter Butts" to myself and my flying friends), the world's smallest mountain range. They are located in the central valley of California, and from where I flew out of, they were on a direct flight path to Willows airport - an airport about an hour away that serves the greasiest food - but oh is it good!

Look closely at this one, San Francisco Bay is in the distance, with fog blanketing the city.




















I'd love to say I've been from sea to shining sea in an airplane, but I haven't quite yet. I did get to see one of my favorite little towns on the northern coast of California, Mendocino. The first try was a failed attempt - it was fogged in, with no way of getting in. But my friends and I were finally successful!


It's barely been 5 years since the first time I started flight lessons, but I have had some of the most amazing experiences thanks to some great friends and a supportive family. These are just a glimpse of some of the wonderful places I've seen - there will be more to come soon. In the meantime, I patiently await my medical (well perhaps not so patiently).

In honor of a friend,
Smiles,
Up in the Air

What are you doing?

It's funny what people will do when they are scared out of their mind or when they have no idea what they should do. I had a student once who was both scared out of his mind and didn't know what to do. He was my very first student (maybe the fact that we were both scared out of our minds had something to do with it?...Just saying...). I could tell from the start that he was scared - scared of this one maneuver - stalls. That's basically when the wings aren't producing lift anymore - that's not as bad as it sounds, at least when you're five thousand feet above the ground in a controlled environment. When practicing all you need to do to recover is lower the nose, sometimes all it takes is releasing a little bit of back pressure, and wait until you gain airspeed to return to normal flight. I can't remember anymore exactly which type of stall we were practicing, whether we had power-on or off, but I do remember his reaction. The first few stalls we did were a little nerve-wrecking for him, and I was ready to call it quits to give him a breather, but he insisted on doing a couple more.

We set the airplane up for a stall, slowly raising the nose, letting the airspeed drop off. All of a sudden, as if he had lost patience, he yanked the nose back quickly - which caused an immediate stall. He was so abrupt he shocked himself. As the nose quickly fell down through the horizon, he let go of everything and gave out a little bit of a shriek. Before I knew it we were pointed nearly vertical towards the ground.

I was never far away from taking control - but I also wasn't expecting him to let go of everything. Always watch closely when someone is scared or apprehensive about doing something. You really don't know how they will react. I couldn't expect my brand new student to recover from a situation he put himself in when he doesn't know what to do. If he doesn't know how he got there, he definitely won't know how to get back. That's the same for everyone in life.You can't fix something that you don't know how to fix, and you won't fix it until you know how to. Sometimes the best course of action to take is letting go, let go and let the person you trust handle the situation, or whatever it is that needs letting go. My student trusted in me, trusted that I could help him when he had no idea how to help himself . Sometimes we all need to do that. If we pay attention, we can eventually learn how to handle even the toughest situation.

Back to my student. Will my student need to learn how to recover from a situation such as the one he put us in? Of course. I don't want anyone whom I've taught get a pilot's license if I don't know how they'll react in a tough situation. Did my stomach twist a little when all of a sudden the nose of the airplane was pointed towards the ground? Yes, I was a little shaky until the end of the flight, but I didn't let go of the controls. At some point in my flying career, I'm sure I would have done the exact same thing - but that point is in the past, at a time when I wouldn't have known how to recover either.

To clear skies,
Up in the Air

Welcome!

I hope to write this blog for you, perhaps the aviation enthusiast, maybe the person who is simply clicking through blogs trying to find someone to follow. Maybe you're a person who simply wants to follow someone, or maybe one who wants to learn more about flying. Whoever you are, I hope you find this interesting, funny, emotional at times, and hopefully, not a complete waste of your time. I will try my best to be brutally honest about my life as a flight instructor - and in doing so I plan to tell the stories as they happen - whether it makes me look like an idiot, my student, my friends, or maybe even you (well maybe not that...)! I also hope to look back someday and realize how little I knew (come to think of it I probably won't know much then either).

For the time being, relax and enjoy! Suggestions are welcome, because I hope to make this a learning experience for me as well!

Thanks for reading!

Cheers,
Up in the Air