A Taste Of Pho

Just got back from a tasty lunch at Pho Lucky in Southfield.

Pho is a tasty broth soup with noodles and a variety of other yummy things like slices of beef, meatballs, beef tripe and other yummy stuff.

You can then customize your soup to taste with lime, bean sprouts, mint and jalapeno peppers.

To say it was awesome would be an understatement.

Two of these heaping bowls fed the entire family and we're not hungry afterwards.

We also got some spring rolls.

Great service, the food was awesome, and lunch for the whole family plus another order of spring rolls to go for under $30. Highly recommended.

The only change that could possibly be asked for would be the name.

Were I to open a Vietnamese noodle restaurant, I'd name it:

All The Pho King Hue.

Jett's Bath Day

Jett, after playing with Rocky today got a wee bit of a surprise.

Tash had been noting that he was starting to smell rather doggy, so I was ordered to administer a bath.

I had him come into the bathroom and hop in the tub on top of some towels I had placed on the tub bottom to give him some solid footing.  Then Leah and I washed him down, kept him in the tub until he was clean, and dried him off afterwards.

He was not amused.

Now dry and smelling more like himself, he's still not amused.

"Come into the bathroom" they said. "It'll be nice" they said.  "You people gotta sleep sometime", I say.

Flying Lesson #37 - A Good Flight To Bad Axe

So today I came to the airport all prepared for my first VFR dual 50 miler each way cross-country.

I had planned as requested a flight to KADG, Leenawee County Airport.

It was not to be as KADG was showing marginal VFR, and low clouds between us and them which could become problematic.

That's ok, I had a flight planned to Lansing.

Nope, it's showing MVFR as well.

Ok, I was sent off to quickly yet carefully plan a flight to KBAX, Bad Axe Airport. 50 miles to the north of Pontiac.

So I dutifully calculated course, wind correction angle, fuel burn and picked out appropriate waypoints with estimated time of arrival at each.

Sean pronounced the plan good and off we went.

I did the preflight and got clearance for Runway 9L and permission to depart to the north and I began a climb up to 5,500 feet and leaned the engine once I got to cruise altitude.

Sean then introduced me to flight following by contacting Flint Approach, who after a bit transferred us to Cleveland Approach.

Flight following is kinda nifty, you get your own transponder code and they act as an extra set of eyes watching the airspace around you. You're still very much responsible for you and for traffic avoidance, but their radar will see lots of stuff you don't. We did get a few useful traffic warnings for aircraft we would not have seen otherwise, particularly 1 aircraft overtaking us from a thousand feet below and to our right.

So I started naviguessing to my first checkpoint. This was all via map and dead reckoning only as Sean didn't let me use Foreflight nor the plane's built-in GPS. Might as well learn how to do it the hard way first, right? So I headed to my first checkpoint, Oxford and found it without too much trouble. My next checkpoint was Lapeer airfield and I found that one and then Marlette airfield and subsequent checkpoints. No serious drift off course and I did pretty good.

Then we had Bad Axe in sight and I cancelled flight following and after the appropriate radio calls I then setup to land on Runway 4. All of Bad Axe's runways still had some snow on them so Sean said very clearly that I should not touch my brakes after landing. So I made a nice smooth approach, a nice landing and no problems. Then we taxied back to the runway and headed off and climbed to 4,500 for the return flight.

Then it was basically the course in reverse, about 210 degrees and we picked up flight following again and I found my checkpoints and made it back to KPTK. I was first told to enter the downwind and started to setup for that, and as soon as I was just perfectly setup for entry they had me instead enter the base leg. So I then came in on base, got everything ready for landing and did a decent but slightly flat landing and then had to hurry off the runway as there were quite a few planes doing pattern work. I taxied back and shut down and secured the plane.

Sean said my first VFR cross-country was quite good and it went a lot better than for many of the students he's taught and I did a good job navigating back and forth. Yay!

That was a very fun flight and it was cool to plan to go somewhere and then go forth and do it.

That's 1.9 hours, 2 landings and the first dual VFR cross country of 50 miles each way done.

Well, He Would Know......

Kerry says governmental corruption fuels extremism

From the Detroit News.

That he said it with a straight face shows a rather decided lack of self-awareness, not to mention awareness of the administration of which he is a member. Reading his entire statement at the article is even more guffaw-inducing.

Bureaucrats Naturally Waste Money 'Cause It Isn't Theirs

Typically if money isn't yours and you have control of it, you don't care all that much about using it wisely or preventing it from going to waste. When the money comes from a theoretically inexhaustible supply of taxpayer money, it's even easier, at least until that supply runs out.

The Detroit Free Press: Tab for Guardian Building scaffolding keeps growing

Wayne County has spent close to an estimated $100,000 to rent scaffolding outside the Guardian Building even though the related work happened more than two years ago.

The scaffolding is still there as some work still needs to be done, but Wayne County officials then sat on the second phase that would complete the work and simply kept paying the rent on the scaffolding. For TWO YEARS.

This is after the County bought the building for 14.5 million, knowing it needed 13 million dollars of repairs but actually spending at least twice that so far. One would hope the Free Press will dig deeper to see who paid what to whom, and for what quid pro quo in this mess.

Waste on top of waste, which helps explain the predicament Wayne County is in.

But what the heck, it's just taxpayers' money and the potential for a state bailout later when it all falls apart, right?

MichiGuns And Employer Parking Lots

A story was recently relayed to me that is quite a cautionary tale.

The subject of our story, while non-union, works (or should I say worked) in a non-union environment.

Apparently a union member he was having a bit of a dispute with made a false claim that he was seen by the union guy carrying a gun openly in the parking lot and entering the workplace.

Security stopped him in the workplace and he did not have a firearm on him at all nor in the office anywhere.

However, he did have NRA and other pro-gun stickers on his car, and did have a handgun in the glove compartment which he can do as he has a CPL.

The employer has a clear and written no firearms on the premises policy which covers company owned parking lots.

You know where this one went right?

Michigan is an at-will employment state and lacks any protection for firearms owners leaving their firearms in their cars on company property. The subject of the story, after he admitted he had a gun in the car, got fired tout suite and has no recourse against his employer, even after working there for almost two decades with no negative incidents and even as the originating report for the incident was false.

Working in a non-permissive environment, especially with a clear prohibition on firearms on property, an employee can be put in a difficult position of having a gun in the car but then being fired for it, or not having the gun in the car at all which can leave the employee vulnerable on their journey to and from work, and his workplace was in a not very nice area.

If you're in one of those environments, I'd strongly recommend not having any advertising on your vehicle that there might be a firearm inside and not talking about firearms in the workplace.

It's stuff like this that makes me a proponent of the "allow employees to have guns locked in employee vehicles in company parking lots" laws.

Flying Lesson #36 - Going Places, Landing Soft, Landing Short, And Both Short And Soft Field Takeoffs

Today the weather was finally decent enough for flying. Winds were generally from 290-300 degrees and around 10-15 knots so we were using runway 27R.

Before we started, Sean let me know that today's flight would be a tour of the dimensions of the practice area, and we would have a diversion on the way to the first waypoint of the practice area, Lapeer airfield. He went over the methods for doing a diversion including quickly estimating distance, time and fuel on the fly from quickly using the paper map. Then Sean went over short field takeoffs and landings and soft field field takeoffs and landings.

Then I went out and pre-flighted N73455 and got ready to takeoff, got taxi clearance and then had clearance to takeoff for a flight to the northeast.

Sean announced this would be a short field takeoff, so I started from the edge of the runway, stood on the breaks and applied full power then took off and trimmed at Vx, best angle of climb speed. Then once I had cleared the "obstacle" I re-trimmed for best cruise climb and then turned to the northeast.

I then navigated via the map towards Lapeer, flying at 3,500 feet and leaning the mixture for better fuel economy, following the roads and looking for terrain features to confirm where I was. I found the airport, which was a little hard to pick out, and then announced my location on the CTAF (the common radio frequency for that field) and then descended to pattern altitude and entered the downwind leg of the pattern. Then I turned base and final and Sean announced the runway was not "suitable" for landing so we had to divert.

He then told me to fly to Romeo, and to give him the estimated course, distance and time it would take to get there. I then gave him some estimates that he was happy with and we headed on that course to Romeo.

We arrived over Romeo and again I headed to pattern altitude and then did a short field landing. Then I taxied back to the start of the runway and did a soft field takeoff.

Soft field takeoffs are fun - you keep moving without slowing from the taxiway to the runway, adding 10 degrees of flaps while having the yoke all the way back to get the nose wheel off the ground and the airplane flying as soon as possible. At 45 knots the plane takes off, which is too slow for it to fly, so you need to keep it about 10 feet off the ground so it stays in ground effect and builds up speed until you can leave ground effect and fly the plane. Once you get up to speed you can retract the flaps.

That was a lot of fun - With the yoke back, as the plane accelerated down the runway I did a wheelie down the field until I took off and then I leveled it out in ground effect and watched the airspeed rise and then was able to get it flying out of ground effect. Tons of fun.

Then we headed back to KPTK.

On closing to 11 miles from the airfield, I radioed the tower and got instructions to enter a right base at two miles. I figured out what that meant in terms of my relative position to the field, and it actually made sense, which was cool.

Then I did a soft field landing which was a lot of fun to do - again you want to keep the nose wheel off the ground as long as possible.

My landings were darn nice as were my takeoffs, and it was a great and fun lesson where pretty much everything worked nicely and it felt great. Now I'm allowed to roam around the practice area solo and Sean is going to endorse me to land at Romeo so I have an uncontrolled field to practice on. This should be fun.

Then I dropped Sean off at the FBO as he needed to get his car there after doing some aircraft ferrying, taxied back to the flight school on my own and shut the plane down and secured it.

That was 2 landings and 1.3 hours of a very enjoyable lesson indeed.

If the weather holds and conditions are good, the next lesson will be a dual cross country that I need to plan and then fly.

An Amber Alert Generated Excessively Early Wake Up

So there I was, happily asleep and then my phone, which I use as an alarm clock nuicely set to get me up for the morning, gives a very long and vociferous buzzing (I had it on vibrate), enough to wake me up.

At 2:00 am.

Was someone trying to text me at that time? Did they have a death wish perhaps?

Nope it was an Amber Alert.

For Coloma, Michigan.

Please note that Coloma, Michigan is on the very opposite side of the state. You can't get any more opposite without ending up in Lake Michigan.

It then went off again at 2:30 with the same alert. At which point I could not get back to sleep.

The alert was later cancelled (without an additional text) and the subjects of the alert, two girls, were found and retrieved safely in Colorado. Apparently it was a bad one with the father being suspected of killing the mother and another person Thursday night and taking the two girls, and apparently getting to Colorado rather quickly.

The news noted that "An Amber Alert was issued just before 2 a.m. Friday; many people woke up to the text alerts that were sent out."

Alex Perez was then taken into custody on a felony warrant, apparently after a bit of a struggle.

I expect it is too much to hope for that during the struggle the scumbag received one hit for every person woken up by the 2am and 2:30 am Amber Alerts.

Glocks Replacing Some Venerable Firearms

Expect much wailing and gnashing of teeth from various internet forum aficionados as the Glock replaces some fan favorites in the holsters of military forces.

It was recently announced that Navy Special Warfare will replace the Sig 226 with the Glock 19. Already the comments on various forums are rather vociferous about the switch.

MARSOC also is moving to replace it's 1911s with Glock 19s.

On top of that, The British Ministry of Defense has announced it is replacing the venerable GP35 Hi-Power that served the British for years with distinction with the Glock 17. More than 25,000 Glock 17 Gen4s are being purchased for use by all of Her Majesty's Armed Forces.

Unfortunately, given the Obama administrations rules on firearms, the SIG 226s and 1911s will most likely be destroyed rather than released on the civilian market as surplus once they filter out of usage. Let's hope the Brits surplus out the GP35 to the open market rather than destroying these pieces of history.

Some Grey Days

There used to be a yellow ball in the sky. Haven't seen it at all this week.

I can certainly understand how people can get seasonal affective disorder. This basically sucks - grey and then the dark of night, rinse and repeat with the addition of blowing snow and some cold temperatures the past couple days. Basically yuck combined with getting up in the dark and leaving work in the dark makes people a little cranky.

Low cloud cover also means it has been solid IFR every time I've been scheduled to fly, so no lessons recently.

On the upside, the snowblower has done yeoman service, clearing the 1-2 inches of snow per day/night that have been falling every day this week with aplomb. Since it's not packing snow this machine eats it up and clears the Driveway of Doom™ quite nicely. I'm liking this little coal and nuclear powered beastie.

The downside is that without the sun to heat things up and low temperatures, the driveway is not as clean as I'd like it to be as ice patches will not melt away, but it will do. The driveway looks better than our street, which is basically snow-covered with some tire tracks through the snow.

I'm sure the sun will come back on its own at some point and flying weather will return so I can keep learning.

Winter Snow Blowing Blues

Now that winter is upon us, with an official National Weather Service Winter Weather Warning today with high winds and blowing snow of 2-3 inches I got to test out my latest implement to help make the Driveway of Doom™ passable. A NWS Winter weather warning basically means: "Hey guys, guess what? It's winter - deal with it!".

So with 3 inches of packing snow on the driveway, after walking the dog, I took this out for a spin:

A rechargeable battery-powered snow blower!

Meet iON's big brother- iON PRO, an amped up, deluxe size version of the original battery powered snow blower. The iON PRO 21-Inch unit is ideal for clearing large driveways and walkways without the hassle of gas, oil, tune-ups, frustrating pull cords, or tangled extension cords. And, with an upgraded interchangeable and rechargeable 40V 5.0Ah EcoSharp PRO lithium-ion battery iON PRO delivers up to 65 minutes of whisper quiet run time on a single charge. You can get larger snow jobs done without waking the neighbors or polluting the air with toxic emissions. This cordless dynamo is also engineered with a powerful 600W brushless motor for increased battery efficiency, optimal motor performance and extended motor life to keep iON PRO blowing strong season after season. iON PRO starts instantly with a simple push pf a button and its adjustable handle maximizes user comfort during use. Equipped with a steel auger and 2 heavy duty rubber blades. iON PRO moves up to 660-Pound of snow per minute, clearing a path 21-Inch wide by 8-inch deep with each pass. Plus the scraper bar at the base of the unit lets you clear right to the ground without any surface damage. Featuring a 180 degree auto-rotate chute that rotates instantly with the push of a switch, iON PRO directs the snow stream up to 20 feet away. Compared to heavier and more cumbersome gas machines, iON PRO weighs only 36-Pound, so you can easily maneuver it around your property. For nighttime snow removal, iON PRO features an integrated LED headlight that quickly switches on to increase visibility. GET EQUIPPED this winter with the Snow Joe iON PRO-the easy, convenient and cordless solution to get snow out of your way on your snow day.

So does it deliver what it promises?

The Pros: It's very quiet, no need to worry about disturbing the neighbors whatever time it is when you need to clear your driveway. It starts up immediately and it's much lighter than a gas snowblower. It's very quiet and you don't need to mess with a choke or gas/oil mixture or a pull-start- just insert the battery, and you're ready to start. Starting it is the easiest thing ever - hold the safety button and then pull up the dead man switch to the handle and you're good to go. One battery charge suffices to do the entire driveway, which is rather impressive. You don't need to mess with a choke or gas/oil mixture or a pull-start. Just insert the battery, press the start button while holding down the lever and off it goes. The chute has an electric switch so you can rotate it around without stopping. It also has a mounted LED light for night-time snow clearing. When you're done, remove the battery and put it on the charger and that's it. With a couple of inches of snow it was pretty smooth sailing for the most part and it did a very good job cleaning the driveway all the way down to the asphalt. Even after completing the driveway and walkway to the front door, there was still charge remaining on the battery, which is a good thing.

The Cons: It's rather under-powered, which is surprising considering it's touted as a "Pro" model and an electric motor should have sufficient torque and power to handle the snow. I can't see a "Pro" using this except for very light jobs. With packing snow, once the snow gets above 3 inches and oftentimes less, including from getting blown in the way from snow being blown from the rest of the driveway, it tends to jam up and stop with a perfectly formed snow block inside it that you need to pull out and then restart and try again. 2-3 inches of packing snow seems to be the max before you're stopping and starting. This slows things down quite a bit, but it eventually will get through in short bursts. Don't expect it to handle monster snow falls, unless you want to be out using it to clear it in 2 inch increments at a time as it's coming down. It claims it can handle up to 8 inches at a time, but that's certainly not wet snow.

In short, it beats a shovel hands down for speed and less aches and pains, but it won't replace a gas powered snow blower when there's a lot of wet snow about, which we get a lot of in winter here. If you just have light powdery snowfall in your area or up to a couple inches of wet, this will do. If you regularly get a heavier and wetter snowfall, it likely makes sense to stick with a gas blower or plan to do the driveway multiple times as the snow is coming down so the blower can keep up.

Overall I think it will do ok, but not as great as I had hoped.

Update: It snowed about a half inch of non-packing snow overnight. This morning I got up and the snowblower performed admirably. Nice and quick and quiet and I had a driveway I could safely egress and then get to work.

Flying Lesson #35 - Alone Again

Today I went up to do pattern work completely on my own.

Winds were light and coming from 100 degrees at 8-9 knots so I was using runway 9L.

I called for a weather brief for the first time, and it confirmed the conditions I already knew from reading the METAR for KPTK - VFR, good visibility, winds as forecast, and a broken cloud layer at 6,000 feet. So, I was good to go,

I did the pre-flight on my own as usual, and called ground and got clearance after waiting for a fuel truck to pass.

Then I did the run-up and got clearance to depart runway 9L and to do a left pattern.

A good takeoff and I was up. Flying solo again!

This was neat and a little bit nervous-making but I had it under control, carefully checking everything at every stage of the pattern. One fun thing I found was the flaps indicator needle was stuck at 0 on the dial, so I had to do the flap settings by time and eyeball (basically for 10 degrees you count 1...2...3 while holding down the lever, and another 3 count for 20 degrees etc). The flaps worked fine though, and I wrote up the squawk sheet on it after I landed.

I did the pattern and it went pretty well. The first time around I did a decent enough landing but it wasn't nearly as great as the landings I did on my first solo, so I went around and did it again six more times with varying degrees of decent landings with one being quite nice indeed. At that point I decided to call it a flight.

All the landings were decent overall, one had a bit of bounce from flaring too early, and I slapped my own wrist for doing so since there was no instructor beside me to do it for me. I still have to watch that.

That's .8 hours as solo pilot-in-command and 7 landings.

Good To See Things Are Nice And Contained

The Detroit News: Man shot dead in France wore fake explosives vest

Yes kids, waving a knife around, yelling "Allahu Akbar" and wearing what looks like an explosive vest is a good way to get shot dead, even in La Belle France.

And, yet another example of flawless refugee screening: The Detroit News: Terrorism-related arrests made in California, Texas

Authorities said Thursday that two people have been arrested on terrorism-related charges in California and Texas, including a refugee from Iraq who is charged with lying to federal investigators about his travels to Syria.

Not A Flying Lesson - Oh, Taxi!

So I get to the airport today all set and ready to go.

Conditions could not be better - sunny, warmish, winds calm, cloud layer up at 9,000 feet, it does not get any better than this. I'm pretty psyched and ready to have a great time and learn lots.

So I pre-flight 73455 - and immediately I can tell there is a problem. The right tire is flatter than flat. So flat that it makes a dead parrot look lively. That kind of flat. Other than that, the plane is in great shape, but that's a no-go for flying.

So Sean finds an air canister and refills the tire but it is still leaking air. All the other planes were booked so I was SOL for flying today, but I still got to do something aviation related.

Sean had me taxi it solo to the FBO for repairs, which was kinda fun as the FBO is across and over the airport from the Flight School.

First I had to wrestle to get the plane to start, and it took a lot of tries to get the engine to go and keep going, but I got it done.

Then I got permission to taxi - From Delta, all the way down runway 18, to Bravo taxiway and from there to the FBO. It felt pretty funny to be taxiing along a runway. Got to the FBO and parked the plane.

Sean had driven over to the FBO and we sat a chatted while waiting to see if they could get the plane fixed in time for my lesson.

Unfortunately they could not, but we had a good talk about aviation and my further and future development as a student pilot. Not a waste of time by any means and it was very enjoyable and I learned some things, which is always good.

They got it finally fixed - the tube in the tire had a perforation and had to be replaced, so I got to taxi it back to the flight school and that was that for today.

Still, it is technically .4 of pilot in command time and an interesting look at navigating around an airport on the ground.

Hopefully the good weather will stick and a flyable plane will be around for the next hop.

Much Sound and Fury and Tears, Signifying Pretty Much Nothing

Obama's grand pronouncements of executive Orders on gun control have resulted in a solid "Meh", while his supporters are giddy that he "did something". As Édouard Daladier once said of others celebrating in such circumstances "Ah, the fools! Why are they cheering?"

Why indeed? All the promises of swift and terrible executive action and we get platitudes and orders that practically just restate existing law.

His "dealer" executive order doesn't change the law much if at all from what it is now, except to possibly expose private sellers to some more jeopardy when to go to sell their firearms should someone consider them to be "in business" at the time. All the rest of the sturm und drang, and all of his beating his chest about doing something regarding that executive order is for stuff that is already the law. Dealers whether at a gun show or otherwise still must do a background check and its been that way long before Obama. That he and his staffers didn't know that speaks volumes. That he counts on his base not to know that and to fete him accordingly speaks volumes about them (Rochelle Riley in the Free Press for example - she clearly doesn't know what the law currently is, but is cheering Obama raucously over his "doing something").

The Executive Order on 41P gets rid of CLEO sign-off for NFA items, which is a definite plus, while burdening Trusts, corporations, partnerships and other corporate entities with having the "responsible person" for that entity undergo fingerprinting and photos for a background check.

Note that 41P is a measure dealing with a rather complete non-issue. There's been a rather complete lack of any actual crimes committed by legal NFA owners with NFA items, including no crimes with NFA items owned by trusts. This "solution" for a non-existent problem will result in, the

ATF estimates a total additional cost of $29.4 million annually for trusts and legal entities to gather, procure, and submit such information to ATF and for ATF to process the information and conduct background checks on responsible persons.

So, there will be at least $29.4 million wasted for a measure for something that has not even been demonstrated to be an actual problem. This is not good, but we saw 41P one coming for awhile and the lack of CLEO sign off is a net plus.

All in all, Obama phoned this one in with a few false tears and his base ate it up, while it did very little indeed to change the status quo. I was expecting something far more overbearing and drastic and instead we got this.

Flying Lesson #34 - Today I Was Like Han

Today I was like Han.

I flew Solo!

4 Takeoffs and Landings each to a full stop, by myself. Solo. I did it!

The morning started out as usual, but pre-flighting the bird I found the battery for the plane was dead so we got the battery cart and started her up. Everything else was good though.

Then I did the pattern and did three touch-and-go landings - all patterns and landings were damn nice if I say so myself, and Sean said let's taxi back to the school as he had to do some paperwork.

He endorsed my logbook and student pilot certificate, said the plane will feel lighter and float more now that he's out, and out he went.

I then taxied back to the runway, did the run-up and requested a departure for pattern work as a student pilot, solo, with full stop landings.

After being told to line up and wait I was then given clearance to takeoff - the plane took off a lot quicker with just me in it, and I did the pattern and brought it in for a really beautiful landing. First Solo Takeoff and Landing! Yahoo!

Next the tower had me taxi back to 27R but then quickly cross 27R to immediately takeoff on 27L and then fall in behind a Cessna doing right traffic that had just taken off of 27R. Then I followed him in a did another nice landing. Second Solo Takeoff and Landing!

Then stop and taxi back to 27R, takeoff but this time the tower had me continue downwind until he called my base. It felt like I was flying into the next county when he finally cleared me to turn base. I had a very long and calm final and again brought it in nicely. Third Solo Takeoff and Landing!

Then for the fourth takeoff it was a nice normal pattern and I brought it in as the wind dropped by 5 knots on final, but I had it and landed ok. Fourth Solo Takeoff and Landing!

Then I taxied back to the flight school, shut the plane down and headed in to fill out my log book.

That's .7 and 3 landings dual.

That's .7 and 4 landings Solo!

Happy New Year!

To all my friends and readers, Happy New Year!

May 2016 be an even better year for you than 2015, full of health, happiness, and hope that you achieve whatever you set out to accomplish in 2016.

We've finished our traditional feast and now at the stroke of midnight the kids get to open their New Year presents.

Welcome to 2016.

Smoked Trout - An Appetizer for New Year's Eve

Today Natasha requested that I make something different for New Year's and I smoke something different than usual. How could I say no?

Today's ingredient - Whole Rainbow Trout

Begin with a brine of water, salt, sugar, lemon juice, chili pepper and garlic powder, cover and brine overnight.

Get home and fire up the smoker with charcoal, cherry and apple wood, watch it take a lot longer to get up to temperature in this cold.

Place fish on the smoker grills, close it up and walk away (coming back to check on it occasionally).

Wait and voila:

Remove the skin and either eat the goodness right then and there (it's hard not to), or turn it into a salad, a smoked fish spread, or nice pieces ready for the table.

Not a bad special creation for the New Year's table.

Flying Lesson #33 - Ice Isn't Nice

Flying Lesson #33 was quite short.

Good pre-flight of N7355PR, fuel tanks freshly filled and ready to go.

I was flying with Will today.

Good taxi, good run up, good seeing the helicopter on short final and requesting clearance from the tower for departure.

Good takeoff, get up to pattern altitude and turn crosswind we get this:

A nice solid mist, that quickly started to ice up the windshield and the rest of the plane. Visibility was bad in the mist and got worse immediately as the windshield iced over.

At that point it was time to call it, so I continued the pattern and let the tower know this landing would be to termination.

Will's view looked something like this on landing:

He asked me if I wanted him to take the landing and I said I could do it.

I had a very small portion of the windscreen to look out of as the rest was covered in ice but I had enough to see.

I then did the best landing I've ever done to date - perfectly lined up, perfect flare, touchdown as the stall horn went off and landed as smooth as a baby's butt.

Will was very impressed.

Not sure if that means I'm finally getting landings, or lack of visibility gives me a better landing and I really need to skip the Private Pilot rating and go straight to the instrument rating. Really excellent landings in crappy visibility are becoming a solid trend for me.

We told the tower about the icing and visibility conditions on landing, and the other flying lessons scheduled, including one in N757MK in the run-up area pretty quickly and wisely cancelled.

Getting out of the plane, it became readily apparent that the ice wasn't just on the windscreen but a very thin layer was all over the plane including the wings and prop.

That's the last flight of this year for me with .3 and one excellent landing, and my first experience with icing conditions.

You Would Think People Were Smart Enough That This Could Remain Unsaid

But apparently not: Revelers must know ‘celebratory’ gunfire can be deadly (From: The Detroit News)

It's a continuing saga and Sisyphean task to convince Detroiters and other idiots that no, you do not shoot live ammunition up into the air on New Year's Eve.

This really should not be difficult to understand, but apparently for far to many it is akin to rocket science.

Quite simply, what comes up must come down, and bullets falling down from the sky can still injure or kill the innocent.

Yet another reason to sadly avoid Detroit.

So, Want to Buy An Armory?

So, are you running out of storage space for your arsenal, need more parking, and want to buy your own armory? Now you can:

The Detroit News: National Guard seeking new owner for Manistee Armory

If they throw in the two tanks sitting out front as part of the deal, $350,000 would not be a bad price at all.

Manistee is also a darn nice place to be in western Michigan.

No, You Can't Start Fires In A Crowded Theater

The Detroit Free Press: Man charged with starting fires in theater

Our stupid criminal of the day, Nicholas Glenn Chelar, managed to get himself charged with two well-deserved felonies for yes, setting fires in a crowded theater. The Freep fails to state what the movie was but in any case, the Stupid is extremely strong with that one.

You should also note that this is one of the few times that you can shout "Fire" in a crowded theater without any penalty.

Winter Hath Come

Some things really aren't better late than never.

Probably shouldn't complain too much as we had one heckuva pleasant December but today royally sucked.

Leaving the office to go to court early this afternoon I found the car encased in a layer of ice. Freezing rain continued throughout the 35 minute drive to the court, turning it into a 50 minute drive. Filing done, and heading back to the office and then the fun really began.

Between people driving too slow for conditions and those driving way too fast for conditions it was a mess.

Got caught in a nice bumper to bumper traffic jam that had a 8 lane road down to one lane in each direction due to a really impressive accident.

The salt truck was stuck behind the accident so finally getting past led to still more slow-to-no moving traffic.

It's still coming down in a mix of snow and freezing rain so it's gonna be a neat trick to get down the Driveway of Doom™ tomorrow.

Ah well, it's been a good run, but winter is now well and truly here.

Sunday Funday

Murphy's Law and his nephew the Spud met up with me and Abby and Leah at Zap Zone for some Laser Tag. ML has a good description of the events up as well, including his mauling at the hands of the Spud in Game 3.

Laser tag was a ton of fun.

For Game 1, it was the five of us versus eight other players and they beat us by two points, but for one reason only - Leah's Laser stopped working within one minute of the game starting so the score ended 60,602 for us to 60,604 for them. Leah ran through the game as a human meat shield that game. The staff noted they had never had a closer game, ever. On the upside, the guy gave Leah a ticket to a free Laser Tag game or go cart as compensation for her gun not working.

Game 2, as Murphy describes, he started signing Men of Harlech just before the game began and I almost fell down laughing.
Luckily no one on the other team caught the reference. We didn't do too badly considering we were outnumbered 13 to 5 on that round. We certainly held our own.

Game 3, it was a free-for-all and I ended up in first place - yay me. Even though it was supposedly a free-for-all I had to promise an alliance with Abby and Leah and the three of us swept the floors with the opposition. ML got pasted by us and the Spud, with the Spud doing the most shots on him. Good times and the kids had a blast.

Then Leah got her free go-cart ride. Did I mention Leah had not driven a go-cart completely by herself before?

So she happily got in, started taking the course and then went a bit fast and this happened:

That was one heckuva bang and she ran right into the wall as she was going too fast to make the turn. It was good she was wearing the seat-belt in that go-cart. They apparently didn't tell her that the brakes aren't quite immediately able to slow a go cart.

Impressively enough, after that crash she didn't quit nor cry. Instead, she kept right on going around a few more times until the ride was done but with no more crashes. She did again take that turn at a good clip on her final run, successfully clearing it that time.

After leaving the ride she complained of an ache at that spot by her shoulder where the seatbelt held her in place, and she had quite a mark from the seatbelt. At home she got some ice, some ibuprofen and some heat applied and she's fine. I'm quite proud that she stuck through it even, after the minor heart attack that she gave me from my watching her hit the wall.

The kids all had a great time with ML and his family, as we always do, and they want to do it again.

Detroit Gets Its Own BLM Moment

In a moment that the usual suspects in Detroit have long been waiting for, they've now manufactured a BLM moment out of a criminals assault on a cop. Based on the facts so far, it will be a heckuva reach to get to a "hands up don't shoot" myth, but they're going to try. Their last attempt fizzled after a black cop shot a black man coming at him with a hammer during an attempt to arrest him for a armed robbery, but now they've got a white cop shooting a black man and they mean to work it, and the facts of the situation are irrelevant to the narrative they are building.

The Detroit News: Dearborn cop fatally shoots unarmed suspect in Detroit

Unarmed is a relative term, considering he was shot after struggling with the officer and attempting to take the officer's firearm.

Of course his name is Dindu Nuffin:

The Detroit News: Family of man shot by cop: He was harmless

Looking into the matter, not only was he a paranoid schizophrenic with an outstanding warrant and being sought for a prior larceny that very day, but after first running from police and having an admitted history of running from police, and then struggling with the officer and trying to disarm him he was harmless. This makes the definition of harmless highly relative.

The Detroit News: Craig: Witness saw officer struggling with man he shot

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, with a promise of protests over the death of what was a violent criminal. It will be hard for the community organizer grievance gang to make a hero out of him and bend the facts to fit the narrative, but like in Ferguson and other places, it looks like they're going to try.

Flying Lesson #32 Decent Landings

After the mess of Lesson #31 today was much better.

I had Will as my instructor today and was flying N757Mk as 73455 was in the shop for its 100 hour inspection.

I did the preflight and the plane was covered in a light layer of frost, which I scraped off the windshield and leading edge of the wings.

It's funny how planes of the same type and model handle differently. Among other things N757MK has a very pronounced break when you reduce the throttle to 1500, unlike 73455.

So with the wind coming from 070 we were using runway 9L today, with a left pattern for a nice change of pace.

We also got diverted on a pattern to Runway 9R, the nice huge runway, when another plane seemed to be having radio issues and the tower wanted us out of the way in case he tried to land without clearance. Then we got to head back to 9L, and the controller had the occasional instruction to us for modification of the pattern for other traffics, so it was good and kept things interesting.

Overall the landings were markedly better than my last lesson, so I'm either being more assertive, getting better at this, or something.

The flares were good this time, but on occasion I still pulled up a little early for some float, but no major bounces. Overall the touchdowns were pretty darn nice complete with stall horn on landing.

I got some good feedback from Will on some ideas to fix my latest error of having too low an approach.  It seems I'm diving down too much on turning downwind to base, probably from misunderstanding something Sean had said, so with that fixed its much better now but more back pressure in the turn. He also gave me some very good things to look for and some indicators to help with the landings that I had not known about before so that was very good. Ended up doing some nice stable approaches and good landings.

Either I'm getting better or being really inconsistent. Let's hope for the former over the latter. 

That's 1.3 more hours and 11 more landings.

Today, A Glorious Walk In The Woods

Today was a beautiful day in Southeastern Michgian. Sunny, mostly clear skies and temps in the high 40s.

So we went for a good long walk on the local rails-to-trails for a couple hours to enjoy the rare late December warm weather.

Jett enjoyed the privilege of being off leash when no one else was about and he minded well the whole time and thoroughly enjoyed himself.

He was always happy to return when called back, even if he sometimes sat and then yawned as if to say "Hurry up guys, daylight's a-wasting!"

Just a nice relaxing day today, and hope all of you had a great one as well.

Somehow I expect this beautiful weather is not going to last for much longer, so might as well enjoy every moment of it.

A Very Merry Christmas To All My Christian Friends

In a few short hours, I and the family will be joining with Murphy's Law's family and partaking of a fine Christmas eve gathering. This tradition has been going on for years and we wouldn't miss it.

And to all of you who observe and celebrate, I echo the same sentiment from the excellent Dry Bones:

May all of you have a very Merry Christmas indeed.

It's Just Like A Real M&P Pistol, Only Smaller

The gun I brought to the range is the new (to me) M&P Compact 22.

It looks like an M&P, but it is smaller and lighter in every way. This will be important for its intended purpose.

It comes in a cardboard box, not quite as nice a presentation as their center-fire caliber pistols with their plastic carry cases.

Nicely small and lightweight, it's quite an ideal kit gun and in my case, kids' gun.

The kids can easily get a grip around the thin grip and it's smaller and much lighter than the Ruger MKII bull barrel I have. Soon I shall take the kids to the range with it and see what we can see.

It comes with two magazines, both of which are markedly easier to load than the Ruger MK II's magazines, which again makes it attractive for the kids.

I put 50 rounds through it after first cleaning and lubricating it as it arrived bone-gratingly dry in the box. The bore had a bit of gunk in it which I got out with a patch and am glad I did so before firing it.

All 50 rounds of Remington Golden Bullet fired through it flawlessly, recoil is nil, and keeping it on target is a cinch.

I expect this will be a real kid-pleaser at the range, once I scrounge up some more 22 LR that is and take them to shoot it.

Range Trip!

Murphy's Law is in town so I met up him and his sister after I finished up some work at the office and then we headed to the range.

ML's sister is still a novice shooter, complete with a new M&P Shield 9mm. We went over safety and handling procedures and then went on to loading and firing.

With a bit of instruction from me and ML, after a few runs she started settling down and knocking down some steel plates with aplomb.

She did quite well with the Shield, using both FMJ ammo as practice and some Speer Gold Dot which will be her carry ammo. You can say the pistol is now well and truly broken in and should serve her well.

I took the opportunity to put another 150 rounds through the P30, making it 950 rounds so far with no cleaning and no issues of any kind.

I shot the M&P 40c as well, putting another 100 rounds through it with no issues, including some Winchester Ranger ammunition, and the TRUGLO TFX Sights sights are dead on and ridiculously easy to pickup quickly. I really like these sights.

I then brought out my Glock 17 which I haven't shot for awhile. The grip angle on it was distinctly different from that of the P30 and M&Pc and took a bit of getting used to, but after shooting the M&P40c, the by contrast low-to-no perceived recoil of the 17 made it very easy to shoot quickly and accurately. I had also brought along another gun which will be the subject of my next post.

ML had brought along quite a few nice handguns, including his Walther PPK.

On drawing it, you could hear him say: "My name is Law, Murphy's Law".

I can guarantee that he's a better shot than Daniel Craig.

It was a darn good range trip.

Good Thing The JV Team Is Contained, Right?

Apparently the word "contained" is open to multiple alternative definitions.

NBC: ISIS Takes to Airwaves, Transmits Fatwas in Jalalabad, Afghanistan and Beheadings, Video Raise Specter of ISIS on March in Afghanistan

ISIS - so contained by Obama that they're spreading into Afghanistan.

Obama in the face of such containment is continuing to withdraw US Forces from Afghanistan: U.S. Troops to Leave Afghanistan by End of 2016.

However "containment" will likely be the best we'll get while this President is in office, as read via Instapundit: Obama Promises Not To Defeat ISIS Before Leaving Office.

Remember the good ol' days when we had Presidents that believed in America, and wanted America to defeat it's enemies, and to win?

Flying Lesson #31 - SSLDD

Flying Lesson 31 had a low cloud base providing a marginal VFR kinda day with the wind blowing 9-12 knots typically shifting somewhere from 250 - 300 degrees. On the upside it was warm and rather pleasant so more pattern work it was.

Can't say I did too good today. One landing of 13 was right on and the rest were again with not enough flare and landing pretty flat as usual. Approaches were a little low and not as stable as I or Sean would like.

Apparently I need to be more assertive and constantly show that I'm flying the airplane and it's not flying me. I happen to think I'm already doing that but I need to be more extroverted about it I guess. Yelling "Banzai" on landing is back on the table as an option. FMFL.

That's 1.4 more hours and 13 more landings.

The Force Awakens: Non-Spoiler Review

It did not suck, instead it was great and worthy successor to the original three and well worth seeing in theater.

Harrison Ford made the movie (Yes, you knew he would).

The Empire is 0-3 for gigantic super-weapons with fatal and readily attack-able flaws (Yes, you knew that would happen).

There are no Ewoks nor Jar-Jar Binks (You may breathe a sigh of relief accordingly).

Go forth and see it. Suspend your disbelief. Prepare to be entertained and . . . . .

May the Force Be With You.

Awoken And Now Off To See The Force

Heading out to a theater not so far away for a morning matinee showing of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

I hope it's as good as it strikes out to be, and that I return with a positive report.

Flying Lesson #30 - Stable Landings In Unstable Winds

Today we had winds gusting from 20-30 knots from 250 to 310 degrees. There was also a wind shear warning with a report of a 10 knot drop on final for runway 27.

So it was gonna be a very fun pattern flying kind of day.

Sean had thought we might take a break from patterns and do some unusual attitudes and other stuff, but there was reports of icing at regular flying altitudes and a lowish ceiling, so pattern work it was.

Right as we got clearance to take off we got a wind shear warning via the tower from another aircraft that had just landed and he had noted the wind had just dropped out 10 knots on short final.

The first time around it was kinda fun with a decent crosswind and a real fast downwind. I had a good pattern and kept the airspeed up 5 knots higher than usual on final to account for the potential 10 knot drop.

Sure enough, there it was, but I still landed ok.

Next time around I had a fun time with the wind really whipping us around, but I still got it on a stabilized approach and landed fine with an aileron into the wind and the rudder keeping the nose on the runway as I adjusted the throttle for the wind that was coming and going.

I said to Sean "That one was kinda sporty wasn't it?" He said "Yeah, but you handled it well."

Ah, now that was happy-making, At this point he's not touching the controls much if at all and only occasionally advising me to add or take out some power, and I progressed to figure out pretty much all of those adjustments on my own out on this hop today.

So we continued to do patterns and the wind shear started to ease up, but the shifting winds did not, and I kept on going.

I had one particularly crappy pattern but then made an excellent landing even so and then the subsequent patterns were pretty much on.

There were a few more planes coming by and in the pattern but traffic was pretty light for a Saturday morning. I guess the snow and icing from last night kept most people away.

Of the 10 landings, 2 were great, 6 were really good, one was good, and one was with a main wheel bounce. I still need to flare a bit more on average but it's really getting there.

That's 10 more landings, and one more hour in flight. It's also now me with a heckuva lot more confidence that I can really land, do a stable approach, and handle the plane even in some variable wind conditions.

Don't Bring A Knife To A Gunfight

In what may likely be determined to be a "Suicide-by-Cop" scenario, a fellow decided to pull a large knife and charge a court security guard at the Dearborn Heights District Court.

As a result, he was quite properly shot multiple times.

The Detroit News: Security officer fatally shoots man armed with knife

The Detroit Free Press: Police ID man killed at Dearborn Heights courthouse

Pulling a knife and charging at an armed individual is not going to end well. Happily, the guard was not injured nor were any innocents harmed.

Flying Lesson #29 - I Can Actually Consistently Land This Thing

I seem to be getting better at this.

Going up in trusty N73455 it was pattern work day.

A light wind, oftentimes blowing straight down the pipe, at other times giving a little crosswind, and a little thin layer of mist at pattern altitude made it only slightly less than perfect flying conditions. Nothing to complain about there.

Good patterns, most were excellent patterns with everything going just right, and I flew nice stable approaches on final.

Of 13 landings, 3 were really great with very nice flares, 9 were decent with sufficient round-out and flare but could have used a bit more, and one was a bit sucky from rounding out a touch too high resulting in a little bounce but no nose wheel bounce.

It was a very busy day today with multiple jets and twins coming and going and multiple planes flying the pattern. It got so busy they opened up the second tower frequency and moved all of us using 27R to it on the fly. It was kinda fun as everyone switched over and then checked in in series - "N757MK on base", "N73455 on downwind", XXXX on crosswind".

In short, it was a darn good lesson and I may just be coming along nicely with this whole landing thing.

That's 1.5 more hours and 13 more landings.

F-15s - Mighty Eagles With Power To Spare

This post is for Juvat.

Juvat, for those of you who don't know, is one of those awesome pilots that got to fly one of the hottest and best jets in the world - the F-15.

If you're not regularly reading him and the other contributors at Chant Du Depart, you darn well should,

So, how good is the F-15 as an aircraft?

So good that it doesn't even need both wings to fly and safely land, seriously:

On that day there was a combination of an awesome aircraft and an awesome pilot. Hopefully Juvat never got close to having to replicate that particular scenario.

Stupid Criminal Of The Day Asks Police For Directions While Driving Drunk

It really does make law enforcement officers' lives easier when impaired individuals decide to approach them for directions.

The Detroit Free Press: Intoxicated W. Bloomfield man arrested at Selfridge gate

In addition to being drunk while operating a vehicle to the point of blowing .15, Marcus Eugene Russell-Taylor was also found to have methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana in his possession after he stopped at Selfridge ANGB and asked the Security Police manning the gate for directions.

Unsurprisingly, he's a slow learner, with a prior DUI conviction.

Stopping to ask police for directions while drunk and in possession of no less than three illegal substances at the same time earns him today's Stupid Criminal award.

Flying Lesson #28 - Getting There Slowly And Hopefully Surely

Lesson 28 had some overcast and light rain with about 10-14 knots coming shifting from 280-300 degrees but it was clear enough for some pattern work.

Patterns weren't quite perfect today but it's coming along and getting more stable overall, but with a bit of more adjustments on final than I and especially my instructor would like.

Overall, I'm getting better in the landings, not quite as good as the two from the last lesson but one was very nice and and a couple were good and the rest were average. Still had some float and a couple bounces in some of them, but no nose wheel bonking this time which is a good improvement so it is coming along. I'm certainly feeling better about it.

That's 1 hour and 10 more landings.

Flying Lesson #27 - With Your Head In The Clouds

Today was a really good flying day for many reasons.

I arrived at the field this morning and the tower's beacon was on and it was IFR conditions

So I did the preflight and Sean told me he was filing an IFR flight plan for us to Lansing and we'd be doing actual IFR conditions. This also promised to be a break from pattern work, got me all the required IFR training hours for the Private Pilot requirements, and would be my first official dual cross country. Lots of boxes were getting checked off with this one flight.

So we got clearance to taxi, and I taxi'ed all the way down to Runway 9L, did the run up and held short and awaited IFR and departure clearance.

Then I did the takeoff after getting instructions to fly the runway heading and climb to 3,000 feet.

Immediately after takeoff we were in the clouds, and it was fun as all get out.

We were then instructed to contact Detroit Approach and they had us immediately climb to 4,000 and they gave us a direct heading to Lansing.

So I climbed through the soup to 4,000, then leaned the engine and kept it level and on course by instruments alone.

This was lots of fun. It then got better as we approached Lansing and got an ASR approach with no gyro.

Basically if you're a VFR pilot and you get stuck in IMC conditions and you can't get out, it's best to communicate and declare an emergency if need be, and you'll get an ASR approach to an airport. So this was to simulate such a situation.

Lansing control was very cool with it. Basically with an ASR approach they initially give you course and speed to follow and as you get closer to the field then they just tell you not to acknowledge and they give you instructions like "Turn left.", "Stop", Turn right", "Stop", Turn right", "Stop" and such.

The controller did pretty good getting us there, but had us break out of the clouds a fair bit off to the right of the runway and practically on top of it.

Sean got us lined up and then said "You've got the landing!"

I then did the absolutely smoothest landing I've done up to that point. Go figure, maybe I just had to get all the crappy landings out of my system yesterday, or I can land better in IFR than VFR.

We then immediately took off back to KPTK and we climbed to 5,000 feet for the return trip.

Detroit had us do it as an ILS approach which is beyond my ken. I got to fly it up past waypoint Spartan and to do the initial descent at waypoint WAKL and then Sean took over.

Again we popped out of the clouds and Sean had us lined up and then he said again "You've got the landing!"

And I proceeded to do an even better landing than before. It was so nice you could barely feel us touching down on the runway.

Go figure. Yesterday my landings were so consistently bad I figured I was never gonna get them and it was time to start reconsidering this whole flying thing. I was pretty much fed up. I had even received inquiries after that flight from both the Imperial Japanese Navy and some Arabic-sounding guy who were both excitedly looking to recruit pilots that could fly but for whom landings were optional.

Then today I make two of the best landings ever.

Let's hope it means I'm finally past that slump and back on an upswing. Either that or I need to skip the Private Pilot cert and go straight to an instrument rating.

That's 1.6 more hours, 2 landings, 1.6 hours of actual instrument time and 1.6 hours of dual cross country time, and a completed log book page.

That was also some of the most fun I've had flying so far.

Flying Lesson #26 - Bouncy, Bouncy, Bouncy

So today we had a nice wind of 16-20 knots gusting. Luckily it was typically from 260 to 290 degrees and with Runway 27 being in use it wasn't all that bad, but it was there.

Of course I had been continually asking for a clear day with 4 miles minimum visibility, ceilings over 2000 and winds clam. Not asking for much, really, but I certainly didn't get all that I'd asked for.

So, pattern work and landings again.

They were doing some training in the tower so they had us cross runways 36 and 25R and then hold short of 27L. This was fun as I'd never received those taxi instructions before, normally they put small planes on 27R.

Then I got to line up and wait and then at takeoff was instructed to do a right pattern and setup for landing on 27R.

With the wind gusting 20 knots, I had a darn short takeoff run before we were airborne.

I was trying to change my sight picture and really try to see the runway expand at landing and then do the round-out. Didn't work.

I'm still having trouble with the round-out and flare. First I was rounding out to early. Then I wasn't rounding out enough. Then I was rounding out too much and did the floaty thing complete with a nice flat bounce. Can't win for losing. On top of that, I'm not flaring enough and not keeping it off the runway long enough, but when I try to flare or keep it off then it's too much and we frickin' bounce again.

All the fargin' while he's going "keep holding it off, don't let it touch", and of course it then touches or goes up too high and then bounces down.

I had all of one decent landing with a good flare. Yipee you-know-what. At least my approaches and pattern is getting more stable, except for a little too much climb and airspeed on the downwind this time, but there had to be just enough of a crosswind pushing me to make me have to fight it as well as land. Did I mention I had requested a calm day?

That's 11 more landings, 10 (1 good and 9 bouncy sucky ones) by me, and 1.2 more hours.

Takeoff, Eh?

Outside Air Temperature and altitude of the airfield above sea level combine to create density altitude, and density altitude can have drastic effects on the performance of aircraft.

It can also have drastic effects on your written test scores if you don't know how to calculate it -- sadly my written test didn't have a single density altitude question even though I studied it intensively. I was almost going to complain and demand some density altitude questions from the exam proctor....well, almost. But I digress.

Density altitude basically mean that you're on the ground but the aircraft acts like it's already at high altitude with all the decrease in performance that entails. With light aircraft at airports located at certain levels above sea level such as in mountainous terrain with high outside temperatures, you likely will not be able to safely takeoff.

This Russian pilot demonstrates the fun involved with density altitude with a heavily-laden IL-76 jet on a hot day in Australia, complete with some very Australian color commentary.

Well, since he's paying for the use of the runway, he might as well use all of it, right?

An Experiment In Trust Bombs

Trust has a definite expiry date:

The Daily Express: Muslim convert who held up 'hug trust' sign now faces jail over MP bomb threat

Flying Lesson #25 - Romeo, Romeo, Oh! There Thou Art Romeo!

Today finally the weather was decent enough to get airborne.

Today the task was to fly and navigate to Romeo airfield (D98) and do some uncontrolled pattern work.

I had just for practice previously written out a navigation checkpoint list for Romeo and it came in handy. I had the course already laid out, all the checkpoints identified and had already drawn a diagram of the airfield from the online airfield directory,so it was all close to hand.

This made it very easy to navigate there, and I hit my checkpoints pretty nicely, getting a little off by the shape of a couple lakes, which are some of the main checkpoints in the area but it was ok. Not the best naviguessing and pilotage in the world, as I didn't know exactly where I was all the time, but I knew where I was going and was quite sure I knew where I was not and I got there.

So I got to Romeo, announced on the CTAF that I was there, overflew the field and setup to a left pattern downwind for runway 18. Pattern entry is something I need to work on, but I'm figuring it out.

Romeo's runway is 4,000 feet long but only 75 feet wide so it seems kinda small when you come up on it. This results in you thinking you're higher than you actually are on approach.

So I did the first landing which was not great, and then we went to a full stop and taxied back to do it again.

Overall my approached are getting much more stabilized but my roundout and flare still suck - I either pull back too early and float up and then have a nice bounce, or I don't do enough and do not pull back long and hard enough and we come in rather flat. No frickin' clue how to fix it as I've been trying and it all just seems to suck either way with no in between. I'll just keep at it I guess.

Overall, the uncontrolled field was kinda fun - we were the only ones around for most of it, with all of one other aircraft entering the airspace only to fly on by after announcing he was overflying the field. There was no PAPI so getting the height right on the approach was all eyeball and I did ok.

Then we flew back to KPTK and while I sucked navigating back especially due to some haze that had rolled in, once I found the airport I had to setup for a right base entry as directed by the tower which was a bit of a head-scratcher until I diagrammed it out. In short, I then came in way too fast, didn't get the picture early enough to do a good setup for a landing so I didn't bleed off nearly enough speed or get setup right. As a result, I announced to Sean I was doing a go around as it wasn't feeling good at all. He said ok, I told the tower I was going around and then went around. Apparently my decision to do a go-around was an exercise in good judgment, so yay me.

Then I settled into the pattern, went around and got it landed flatish yet again, and again not enough roundout and holding it off, but I was landed - so there. Then I taxied on back following a large turboprop and that was the end of lesson 25.

Also this lesson I experimented with Foreflight - It's a preflight planner and moving map/navigation tool for your iPad/iPhone what have you. To say that it is all that and a bag of chips would be an understatement.

Not only will it give you a course and heading and a moving map to show your position as you fly, it adjusts your suggested course for wind effect on the fly, and calculates your groundspeed. It even warns you when you're approaching a runway to prevent runway incursions when you're on the ground. Awesome that it knows where you are that precisely. It worked perfectly with my Ipad Air 2 and its onboard GPS.

I deliberately didn't look at it during the navigation excercises to and from Romeo until after I already had a fix using just the paper map and visual cues outside the plane, but wow is it awesome! Given that the plane has a built in Garmin GPS and I'd have Foreflight along, getting lost would be next to impossible - so of course you can't use them and still have to know how to use ye olde paper map and outside references. I understand and appreciate that, but the GPS tools are so much easier and safer to use it's not even funny.

That's 2 more hours and 6 more landings. Some fun, some frustration, and Lesson 25 was done.

Feminism Has Lost Out To Islamism In The UK, And It Wasn't Even Close.

The Express: Police forces deemed NOT prepared to deal with 'honour-based violence' in damning report

It's a pity the British no longer have the fortitude to say: You may kill a woman according to the dictates of your culture, but we will then hang you according to the dictates of our culture. You may follow your custom and we will follow ours.

Instead of that, in today's Britain we get Rotherham.

If Obama and Today's Democrats Were Running Things In 1944...

After Massacre At Malmedy, Democrats Gather At Virginia Bund Hall

Declaring not all Nazis are responsible for the massacre at Malmedy, Democrats gathered at a local Bund hall in Virginia to express support.

Democrat AG Lynch promises to take swift action against anyone uttering anti-Nazi rhetoric.

Continuing to claim the act was most likely just an act of "battlefield violence", the President continued his demand for unilateral disarmament and an immediate withdrawal of all American forces from Europe.

"These types of massacres don't happen in other countries." said the President, speaking from Katyn, Poland.

The Implications From The San Bernardino Terrorist Attack Are Rather Worrisome

The really frightening implication from the San Bernardino terrorist attack isn’t so much that they chose to leave their 6 month-old baby behind and give up what seemed to be a rather nice American lifestyle with good secure government jobs and instead go forth and get themselves killed in the name of jihad.

Instead, the far more disturbing implication is that this guy described as a "devout Muslim but not outwardly radical" just up and mowed down co-workers that he had happily worked beside and known for years without warning and with happy abandon for the simple reason that they were not of his religion and ideology.

The last bunch we got serious about dealing with that went around killing with abandon their neighbors who had religions differing from them, we had to intern lots of those that lived here, bomb their cities to rubble, outlaw their ideology, and occupy them for about 70 years. Haven't had serious trouble from them since.

It also shows the absolute fallacy that strict gun control laws, gun free zones and unarmed security guards are going to keep anyone safe, but we already knew that.

Oh and Democrats - Prayers are not enough at a time like this, right?

Well, It's Not Exactly "Workplace Violence" Now Is It?

The Detroit News: Wife in shooting pledged allegiance to IS

Of course, the Obama administration even after learning this latest tidbit is still going on the "sudden workplace rage" theory:

At the same time, law enforcement officials from local police to Attorney General Loretta Lynch cautioned it could have been work-related rage. Or a twisted hybrid of religion and personal vendetta.

The narrative blaming white males and the NRA sure fell apart quickly and quite conveniently only after it was caterwauled from every proggy news outlet, now didn't it?

Not Flying Again

This has been a week of absolutely no joy for flying lessons.

I had scheduled 4 different time slots this week, figuring the weather might bag one but that I'd get some serious time in to fix my landings and get them competent. It was not to be. First, the weather was bad Tuesday with LIFR visibility at the airport so it was a scrub, then the plane was down on Wednesday, then yesterday the weather was a total bust yesterday, with LIFR at the airport. LIFR, Low IFR conditions that even IFR pilots avoid, are conditions that are certainly not to be messed with by a student VFR pilot and I rightly wouldn't get a take-off clearance anyhow.

Now tomorrow, when I'm scheduled to go and the weather looks reasonable, it's not happening. It's for a good reason and a good cause, but it's still not happening because per the FAA, Operation Good Cheer is shutting down all morning flight school ops at KPTK.

Delivering presents via aircraft to those kids in need for the holidays throughout the state is a very good thing indeed and a noble effort, so I have no issues with that.

I can feel those skills that I've acquired, limited as they are, fading away already.

An Interesting Juxtaposition Regarding Police Armored Vehicles

On the one hand, in the wake of the Sudden Jihad Syndrome attack yesterday in San Bernardino we have images of Police armored vehicles being used to protect both police and citizens in the aftermath.

Now this today in the Detroit Free Press: Michigan cops fume over loss of U.S. military vehicles

The Obama administration may want to rethink that generalized recall of such vehicles that was an attempt to show they were "doing something" after Ferguson. After all, the vehicles may indeed be needed for their intended lawful and proper purpose.

Not Flying? - Then It's Time For Learning Cross-Country Planning

This was supposed to be a day for a flying lesson. I had 757MK all reserved and everything.

I arrived and it was not to be. N757MK had just had an engine failure on takeoff with the previous student and instructor for no known reason. Not carb icing, Not the mixture or fuel tank or throttle setting or other readily apparent issues, and it was not reproducible. The plane started up again just fine, but out of a very sensible burst of caution, it was taken into the mechanics for a thorough check-over.

Since I would have been the next to fly it, I heartily approved that decision. Practicing engine failures is one thing, rolling the dice with a known problem with an unknown cause is quite another.

So we went over my pre-solo written test. I did very well with my answers and passed with flying colors - yay me!.

Then I got an intro to cross-country planning today instead.

While planning is much easier today with products like Foreflight and other internet-based resources, we started old school. A sectional, a Plotter and an E6B Flight "Computer" was what I was allowed to use to plan the flight.

The mission: Plan a trip from KPTK to KLAN.

Yes, I'm going to get to play in Class C airspace once this is all planned out.

We'll see if I get to fly the planned cross-country soon.

A Turkish Court Asks The Important Questions

Ah, when you think of Turkish justice, you think of quality Turkish prison.

Now the Turkish justice system, instead of worrying about little details like questions of free speech, is asking the important questions: Turkish court asks: Is Gollum good or bad?

A Turk has allegedly committed the offense of majestas, insulting the image of the head of state, with a potential two-year sentence in the aforementioned Turkish prison, by daring to juxtapose Turkish Prime Minister Ergodan to Gollum in a Facebook posting.

Since free speech is not a defense to the crime, his attorney has been stuck arguing that Gollum isn't bad so it should not be an offense to make such a comparative image.

So the court is actually going to have a hearing as to whether Gollum is a bad or good figure.

Whatever you do, don't suggest to the court that Gollum is Jewish, ok?

King Hezekiah 's Seal Stamp Impression Found In Jerusalem Dig

An interesting historical find indeed has turned up in a dig near the Old City of Jerusalem.

The item, a 3,000 year-old seal impression, used to seal a papyrus scroll, bears the name of King Hezekiah.

The Times of Israel: Seal bearing name of Judean king found in Jerusalem

An amazing find of an historically valuable artifact from 3,000 years ago.

George Lucas And The Rewriting Of Star Wars History

George Lucas is unrepentant in his editing of the original Star Wars to make Han not fire the first shot.

The Detroit Free Press: George Lucas explains why Han Solo did NOT shoot first

Of course Han shot first and we all darn well saw it in the original. It wasn't until Lucas re-edited the film that the controversy arose, and the reason for the editing is rather laughable as can be seen in the article.

As to why Han Shot first, this explains it in terms even Lucas can understand:

Now That's A Police Chief Who Gets It!

Detroit's Police Chief is not afraid to counter conventional "wisdom" when it clashes with reality: The Detroit News: Police Chief Craig: Armed Detroiters cut terror risk

Yes, the Chief actually pointed out that having armed civilians instead of helpless innocents can help thwart terrorist attacks.

There's the usual PSH hand-waving and pearl clutching from Josh Horowitz, director of Washington, D.C.-based Coalition to Stop Gun Violence with the usual canard that merely having a gun puts you in danger.

Impressively, aside form that aside, the article was favorable to the Chief's comments and included quotes from other experts supporting such a statement.

Certainly Detroit has undergone a sea-change in attitude towards lawful firearms since Chief Craig has come to town, and we're all the better for it.