MRI of a watermelon (click for more)

category: science pubDate: Fri, 16 Jul 2010 20:48:02 GMT

Did my solo cross-country trip!

I didn't have time to be anxious about my initial solo. You kind of know it's coming, but then one day the instructor just gets out of the airplane and tells you to fly around the pattern a few times, doing touch-and-goes.

But I had plenty of time to think about my solo cross-country, and, I have to admit, my brain was spending all of its spare cycles over the weekend thinking about the flight. I woke up Friday night realizing that my subconscious was executing cross-wind landings in my slumber. Last night I dreamed I was flying--without an airplane! The cross-country solo seemed like a much bigger deal: going to a strange air port, talking to people on the radio, out of contact with my instructor.

By the way, so that there's no misunderstanding, "cross-country" flying is kind of like cross-country running. It's not literally across the country, but just long distance. In the case of flight training the FAA considers flights to points more than 50 nautical miles distant to be cross-country.

My flight was to Gulfport MS, a distance of 70 nautical miles each way.

Everything really went swimmingly. Once I was in the airplane going through the familiar routine, everything came naturally. Just go down the checklists. Everyone on the radio seemed to be in a good mood and the radio ops went fine. My checkpoints appeared out the window right on schedule: St. Tammany airport, Picayune airport, Stennis international airport.

Gulfport tower cleared me "for the option" (landing or touch-and-go, etc) on Runway 18 so I sort of made up what seemed like a reasonable pattern, flying to the beach and then making a left turn to fly along the coast. There was a significant cross-wind, so I turned final early and let the airplane drift into alignment with the runway. I was happy to feel the cushion of ground effect soften the descent as I levelled off for touchdown.

For some reason the FAA requires landings "to a full stop" during cross-country training (as opposed to simply doing touch-and-goes). The runway was not enormously long and I had used some fraction of it so I requested to taxi back to the threshold. It was evidently not a busy time of day at Gulfport, as Tower instructed me to simply do a 180 and back-taxi on the runway. Took off again and turned out to the West, feeling that the hard parts were mostly behind me.

I was amused to hear my instructor with another student in another plane on the radio flying into Gulfport as I departed to the West.

I think my landing back at Hammond was the smoothest I've ever done. The guy at the flight service station seemed unusually enthusiastic and congratulatory as I closed my flight plan over the telephone, as if he knew it was my first solo x/c. (Of course, he couldn't have known—the FSS guys are all in a bunker somewhere in Texas.)

+2.0 hours solo x/c
total: 32.9 hours

category: flying pubDate: Mon, 12 Jul 2010 23:44:51 GMT

Fig 1. Shrimp and grits, with lemonade+iced tea and biscuit on periphery


Fig 2. Pain perdue - "french toast stuffed with brie and pecans, topped with warm blueberry sauce"

category: food category: new orleans category: pictures pubDate: Sun, 11 Jul 2010 02:48:52 GMT

Baton Rouge was socked in this morning, but the weather was better in Hammond and looking brighter to the East. So we nixed our plans to fly to BTR in favor of a flight to New Orleans lakefront airport (KNEW) instead.

The main point of this trip was to get more practice with radio communications, so New Orleans would probably be better anyway, since getting there requires a trip through New Orleans' busy "Bravo" airspace. Flying around the countryside you don't have to talk to anyone, but flight through Bravo requires contact with air traffic control.

New Orleans Lakefront airport is not the main Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, but an older field from the Huey Long era, now catering mainly to business charter flights and general aviation.

After quickly redoing the flight plan calculations, we were off!

Flying over lake Pontchartrain was amazingly smooth, just like flying at night. Curiously, too, there was a huge 'hole' in the weather above the lake with no clouds at all. Over the north shore of the lake I enjoyed looking down on everyone's fish camps in the bayou, houses accessible only by boat. I think it would be so much fun to spend a weekend out there!

Air Traffic Control called us up to warn of "slow moving traffic" below us and a few miles ahead. There in the distance we saw the small silver capsule of a blimp, floating along like some kind of air whale or manatee of the sky.

Instead of just doing a touch-and-go at Lakefront, we taxied to the Odyssey FBO, which was my first interaction with the ground control at an airport. It felt like quite a welcome to be directed in by the guys with the orange flashlight things to a parking spot right next to an undeniably bad-ass helicopter. On the adjacent taxiway a huge corporate jet taxied by. Inside Odyssey, I felt downright under-dressed. The atmosphere was of an upscale business hotel, complete with refreshments, a room full of comfy couches and a TV, and a flight planning room with computer terminals.



Outside, the classy old art deco terminal building is currently serving as a movie set. The Times-Picayune reports: "Officials with the film office wouldn't confirm the name of the movie forcing the closure, but safe money is on The Green Lantern, the big-budget action-adventure inspired by the DC Comics series about a test pilot with a magic ring that transforms him into the titular superhero."



Total: 30.9 hours

Next flight: solo cross-country to Gulfport!

category: flying pubDate: Fri, 09 Jul 2010 03:23:58 GMT

a year ago: http://nibot.livejournal.com/789501.html

now: http://blogs.tampabay.com/photo/2010/06/gulf-oil-disaster-pensacola-beach.html

I did my night cross-country flight tonight, from Hammond (HDC) to False River (HZR) to Baton Rouge (BTR) and then back to Hammond, a circuit of 114 nautical miles (map).

On the way out we also got in a half-hour of simulated instrument flight, so while Ryan was gloating about the amazingly clear night, my vision was restricted to the dim red glow of the instruments. It's kind of like driving through a long tunnel, where you have to very intentionally move your vision from place to place to avoid `highway hypnosis'. I was happy to remove the hood for visual approach to False River.

Approach to False River was over the murky blackness of the Mississippi river. It's amazing how much hotter it gets as you descend down through 1000 feet. Up at our 4500 ft cruising altitude the air is cool and refreshing, but below 1000 ft it's the stifling Louisiana summer again.

Visiting BTR felt like a big deal since that's the airport I fly into and out of commercially. Despite being served by United/Continental/Delta/etc, it's not a particularly busy airport and is only Class C airspace, which is less busy/restricted than the Class B around New Orleans. At 10pm the only other airplane in the viscinity was another student pilot. The controller was friendly and communications were not rushed.

The circuitous meanders of the Amite river shown silver under the moonlight as we flew back towards Hammond. It was easy to pick out the alternating white and green flashes of the rotating beacon at Hammond airport from as far away as Denham Springs.

Next week, a day-time cross country back to BTR. Then a solo cross-country trip once Ryan thinks I'm up for it. (It would certainly be more convenient if the flight school were at BTR, which is only a 10 minute drive from my house! Instead it's an hour drive to Hammond only to fly right back to BTR...)

+2.0 hours night dual cross-country

One of the long-standing peculiar traditions of aviation is that they cut off the back of your shirt immediately after your first solo flight.

I look so goofy!

On a bike ride today I found this loquat tree (identified after-the-fact via wikipedia) near the public library. There's a big park there with soccer fields and some gardens. I saw that this tree had attracted a lot of interest from a hispanic family, so I wandered over. They were picking the fruit and eating it, and offered me one of them. It was good: sweet and a bit tart.

EDIT: Now I am noticing these trees all over town!

I started the day with a trip to the airport to fly an airplane. This was awesome. A perfect Spring day, it was a joy to spend the pre-noon maneuvering at an everything-looks-like-a-model-train-set altitude, S-turns over interstate 55, turns around a point (a stand of trees), rectangular courses, and touch-and-goes (the field shared with a maneuvering blackhawk helicopter, callsign: mojo).

total: 9.4 hours dual

The neighborhood has exploded with these flowers lately:







Anyone know what they're called?

I neglected to tell you about the Everglades Hostel where I stayed back in December. This place is kind of amazing. The hostel rooms are rather ordinary, but the place has a spectacular common garden area that I think you might like.

There is a garden gazebo common room, full of pillows and even an assortment of didgeridoos:



They have a policy of never turning anyone away for lack of space. If you'd like you can set up your tent in a designated part of the garden:



Apparently the hostel owners know someone with a farm. Bowls of miniature bananas, grape fruits (full size), and huge florida avacadoes are there for the taking. The hostel has the best common kitchen I've ever seen at a hostel.



In the evening, gather round the bonfire:



On a hot summer (or winter!) afternoon, go for a dip in the amazing fountain, fed with springwater which lies in the huge south florida limestone aquifer, just a few feet below ground:

It's been cold and stormy for much of the last two weeks, and I took the good weather last weekend to go on a swamp tour with my parents near Lafayette. This weekend, however, turned out sunny and warm, perfect for flying. As promised we practiced emergency procedures, including landing at a grass field north of the Hammond airport. This grass field you would hardly ever mistake for an airport! It's just some grass beside what looks like a farmhouse, surrounded by plowed fields, some cattle. We're cruising along at 3000 feet and the instructor pulls the throttle to idle, and we circle to lose altitude, sideslip to lose some more. Pretty soon we're floating on in over some bemused cows.

total: 8.0 hours dual instruction

My new work computer, a ThinkPad T410, finally arrived at LSU! I went to pick it up this morning with the complete entourage of parents and the little dog.

It's running Windows 7. I plan to blow this away in favor of Ubuntu, but for now I'm giving Windows a little test-drive. It seems not too bad, in the sense that it generally stays out of the way.

I installed Google Chrome and Mozilla Thunderbird immediately. Unfortunately I can't do any actual work on it until I get Matlab installed--tomorrow night hopefully. Looking forward to getting down to business!

It doesn't have nearly the battery life of the tiny X-series, but I'm happy to have a powerful machine, as I've been doing some very CPU-intensive simulations lately.

The ceiling at George's restaurant, located under Interstate 10 just around the corner from my house in Baton Rouge, is covered in dollar bills. Most are heavily tar-stained from the not-so-distant past before the restaurant smoking ban.



It seemed like the time had come to add my own. I borrowed the house Sharpie and mooched a dollar (actually, two!) off my friends to make this birthday contribution to George's ceiling. You'll be amused to know that in the first attempt I misspelled my own name!

>>The best idea seemed to come from Martin's own mother. She used her $100 to buy 400 quarters and scatter them on a grammar school playground. Recess that day was unlike other recesses.<<

via sfgate.com

It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day at the airport and it seemed like everyone wanted to fly. Usually I have the Hammond airport all to myself, but today there were three, four aircraft in the traffic pattern and the usually quiet common traffic radio frequency was alive with pilots coordinating with each other. Must sound hilarious to someone flying out of a busy airport, but for Hammond/Northshore (KHDC) this was a busy day! Adding to the day's novelty, the wind was blowing opposite its usual direction, so we took off (er, departed) on Runway 13 instead of 31. Which of course is the same runway, just used in the opposite direction. Waiting for departure, a bright yellow Steerman bi-plane (looked just like this one) landed right in front of us. Next week we're going to practice emergency procedures, including landing on a grass field somewhere north of the airport(!).

Up to 6.9 hrs dual instruction.

H&R block has decided to start charging for access to past years' tax returns:

"Our H&R Block Free Edition customers don't get free storage. But you can still access your prior-year return.

2008 return Only $9.95"

Jerks.