Singapore Air Force Museum - Part 1

Taking a long bus ride, John and I arrived at the Singapore Air Force Museum, located beside the Paya Lebar Air Base.

the first thing you'll see outside the building is the E2C:

The USN BU No is still on the aircraft:

Then after looking around the E2C, there were multiple aircraft from Singapore's Air Force's History mounted on pylons outside, or hanging from the building.

Singapore A4S Skyhawk:

Hawker Hunter: A 1950's jet arriving in Singapore in the early 70s.

A SIAI-Marchetti SF.260 Prop trainer:

SIAI-Marchetti S.211 jet trainer:

And two helicopters:

Without having entered the museum you already get a flavor of the Singapore Air Force's history from its beginnings in 1968.

Then we headed inside.

Flying - First Cross Country As A Private Pilot

Today's weather was just beautiful flying weather - winds calm to light, few clouds at 4,500 otherwise clear until way up there, no TFRs, no significant weather of any kind.

So I had arranged to meet with Eaton Rapids Joe of the eponymous Eaton Rapids Joe Blog and Scott of Providentia Blog at KFPK airport in Charlotte.

As KFPK is 62 nautical miles away from Pontiac it counts as cross-country flight and a mission to meet friends and find my first $100 hamburger (the cost of the flight gets it to $100 fast). I did indeed do a paper chart and navigation log and got a weather briefing before heading off. While I did use both the Garmin GPS 430 and Foreflight on my iPad in the plane, I still checked the map and nav chart for checkpoints as well.

I had booked an Archer for the flight, and had put in time for meeting, but apparently the Archer had a mechanical issue so they put me in a Piper Warrior, N2885B. First time in a Warrior but its basically a slightly smaller and lower-powered Archer with pretty much the same setup so it was an easy transition, even as it has a little less oomph on takeoff that was kinda noticeable, but no matter.

The light 4-knot crosswind favored the 9 side of the field, so I did a long taxi, did the run up and held short of the runway.

Then before taking off from Runway 9L I had to wait for a hovering helicopter to get off the runway. He did a very stylish sideways maneuver and then lifted off once the tower asked him to git, and then it was my turn.

Then I did a nice takeoff and I was instructed to do a downwind departure. I did so and then Tower wanted me to stick to my heading of 270 as there was a Citation Jet incoming for the parallel runway and staying out of his flight path was in everyone's best interest.

After he passed, I adjusted my course and headed to KFPK.

I overflew Livingston County Airport, site of some of my prior flights, and I listened to the traffic in the pattern as I flew serenely over it at 4,500 feet.

Then I made it to KPFK, and there was another aircraft in the pattern.

I then did two nice low passes and go-arounds over the runway. The Runway at 3510 x 75 ft was thinner than I was used to and slightly smaller, so it took a bit to get the setup right as I was coming in too high and fast on final on both occasions, probably due to turning too early on base, and because I had two bloggers watching my landings.

Rather than being dumb and forcing it in, I did go-rounds and then followed the other plane, a Diamond DA-20 as he did a B-52 type pattern around the airport. This gave me plenty of room to setup a perfect approach and the landing was smooth as can be. I then pulled up to the airport building and had two bloggers waving to me. I parked and let them into the building using the entry code and signed into the visitor register.

Then we headed to town and at Charlotte Brewing Co., I was hungry enough to eat a Moose, and one was indeed there.

Instead of Moose, I had my first fabled $100 hamburger.

A darn good burger and it hit the spot.

Over the meal, I had some excellent conversation with Scott:

And with Eaton Rapids Joe, Mid-Michigan's Man of Mystery:

Great discussion was had, delicious burgers were eaten, and it was a perfect time indeed. Darn good folks, the two of them.

Then we went back to the airport and I showed them the plane and did the pre-flight and run up, and headed back to Pontiac. I flew back at 5,500 feet and there was a bit of haze and a few thin clouds on the way, but it was a nice easy flight.

At 12 miles from Pontiac I called the tower and they had me do a 5 mile straight in final as I was already lined up on Runway 9L.

Basically for a straight in approach you decrease altitude until you're at pattern height at 2 nm away, and then imagine the pattern is now a straight line and you do each procedure where you'd do it in the pattern. This works well when you really know the landmarks and I had this approach just perfect.

I did a fantastic smooth landing even as the wind kicked up a bit of a crosswind, because of course, no bloggers nor probably anyone else were watching. I then taxied back to DCT and parked the plane.

1.9 Hours, 2 landings and first $100 hamburger eaten and mission accomplished. That flight just felt great, and using the plane as it was intended -- to go places and meet people -- which was the whole point of getting the license in the first place, was really excellent indeed. Thanks for the great meet-up gents.

Jett And The Skunk Part 2

Well the smell is receding a fair bit.

Jett has indicated he really doesn't like skunks. he's off to be groomed today so we'll see how much of him comes back.

Jett called on his Airedale heritage and he's asked to wear this on his next walk to be ready for chemical warfare, just in case:

Update: Picked up from the groomer, he's a bit more shaved then I would like but apparently the odor is not bad now. But instead of the Airedoodle cut he got a poodle-type cut.

Still cute, and he still wants a gas mask.

Jett's First Encounter With Chemical Warfare

Last night Jett and Rocky were playing in Rocky's yard after quite awhile of not playing together due to summer travels and various scheduling differences.

They played and then ran around to the back of Rocky's house -- and then suddenly all was silent.

We called them back and there was a rather indescribable pungent odor accompanying them.

Jett had gotten skunked - right in the face.

The smell was unlike what you would have expected, more like a concentrated foul burned fuel/chemical smell than the skunky smell normally associated with skunks. But it was bad indeed, real bad.

So we whipped out the baking soda, peroxide and dishwasher soap and tried to decontaminate Jett right there. Unfortunately in our haste we didn't wear gloves so my hands needed a thorough decon as well. Jett did not enjoy the process of being repeatedly washed down with the mixture and washed off with a hose, and then he spent the night in our garage which now smells pretty darn bad.

He's fine but has a lingering foul smell associated with him, especially if you're downwind.

It's always something with these dogs.

Drinks With A Progressive Anti-Gun Democrat

So we have a group of friends, our kids are in school together, that gets together for weekend lunches/dinners on a somewhat regular basis.

Saturday afternoon was the end of summer before school starts blow out. It was held at the home and association beach lot of one of the couples, who are very nice, well educated, and progressive types to the core. I pretty much never discuss politics at these gatherings.

But, after the gathering at the beach lot had ended, I drove the man of the house back to his house and we chatted, our wives and kids had gone off and left the house to do some things with the kids, so we were sitting around chatting about dogs and such and he then produced a 1.5 liter bottle of Eagle Rare bourbon and asked if I wanted a drink. An offer of Eagle Rare cannot be turned down. He decided he liked the taste of it himself and one glass led to another and ooops, we started discussing politics. Ruh Roh.

Turns out he is very progressive and almost on the Bernie side of the spectrum, but, there is some common ground in terms of some basic things such as a dislike of corruption, ridiculous debt and the situation the country is in, but that's about it, and the proposed solutions we had for such were rather divergent. He still couldn't believe Trump won, had voted for Hillary even though he knew she was a terrible candidate. We at least kept this civil.

Then the talk turned to guns.

Oh boy. Not only did he think the NRA was a bunch of maniacs against gun safety, but it turns out Josh Sugarman and the Violence Policy Center's deliberate lies on the assault weapon issue did indeed work.

Assault weapons — just like armor-piercing bullets, machine guns, and plastic firearms – are a new topic. The weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons – anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun – can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons. In addition, few people can envision a practical use for these weapons.

Yep, my friend gleefully conflated "assault weapons", semi-automatic rifles, automatic rifles and everything else in a gleeful burst of anti-gun ignorance.

He stated that while he didn't want to ban guns he did want to ban assault weapons and stated everyone should just have a double-barrelled sawed-off shotgun for self defense - shades of Joe Biden, that. He eventually stated handguns and hunting rifles were ok but not these evil assault weapons that can shot through schools. Oy.

I respectfully pointed out that he was conflating so many things and I certainly would not agree with him, and that having an unregistered sawed-off shotgun is a 10 year felony and not exactly the best choise for home defense, and explained a bit of the differences and how he had conflated all these things and nicely pointed out he had no idea what he was talking about. I explained that had I told him with his knowledge of his profession to do x in a situation as I'd seen it on TV he'd think it was ridiculous as I had no idea what I was talking about, and it dawned on him that he had no real idea about firearms, only what the media and Democrat party line had given him. This caused some food for thought and it was an overall friendly conversation, but it was interesting to come across someone who had been fed and could regurgitate the party line so well and is otherwise a very bright guy indeed.

It ended up with my offering to take him to the range and he accepted so we'll be going sometime soon.

It also ended with over three quarters of the bottle gone in a few hours, rather tasty stuff, that, and with Tash texting asking what the heck I was doing. It also ended that I was in no shape to drive home -- at all, but impressively my spelling while texting was pretty much impeccable.

So Tash came and picked me up and we had dinner at home with one of their kids over for dinner with us, and so when the lady of the house came she took Tash with her so she could pickup my car. A good example for the kids of drinking and then not driving responsibly.

It turns out progressives have bigger hangovers than conservatives, and least in this sample, as when I took Abby over there to play with their daughter this afternoon after the Kayak experience, he was still the worse for wear. Heh.

Well, soon it will be "Take an anti to the range day". I plan to just take him out to have an enjoyable experience and keep the politics to an absolute minimum. Wish me luck.

A Labor Day Quiet Kayak Course

This morning the family drove up to Heavner Canoe Rental inside the Proud Lake State Recreation area.

We had booked a couple of tandem Kayaks and after filling out the ubiquitous waiver were equipped with paddles, life jackets and two decent Kayaks and we headed down the Huron river. Quite a few other people had the same idea but Heavner had everyone pretty well spaced out so it felt like we were often the only ones on the river which made for a peaceful, quite and scenic journey, interrupted in spurts by the kids (each of them in the bow of our respective Kayaks) demanding to race each other.

We did a leisurely paddle that was supposed to take 1.5 hours in one hour, arriving at our stop in Central Park in downtown Milford. It was a nice relaxing morning on the river - we saw deer, swans, storks, and tons of turtles as we paddled our way along. Next time I'll have to bring a camera along on the trip, suitably protected from the water.

Once in Milford, we stopped for some lunch and then were picked up and brought back to the starting point.

Everyone enjoyed the activity and we plan to do it again during the fall season, and perhaps do a moonlight paddle as well. Heavner runs a very nice operation indeed.

A nice relaxing way to spend a Labor Day morning before the hectic pace of the school year kicks off again tomorrow.

Flying - First Flight As A Private Pilot

For my first flight as a licensed pilot, I decided to do a scenic local area flight.

It was a beautiful day and both my own weather checking and then the weather briefer confirmed it and I was good to go.

I pre-flighted Archer N8570F, my first time flying this plane. N1689H is for flight students and training only, not for renters, an interesting change in status.

Winds were 5-10 knots from 60-110 degrees so I did a very long taxi to runway 9L and did my preflight and got clearance to takeoff and head south.

Yep, it was fly over your neighborhood as a private pilot time.

The plane handled fine, and does have a bit more oomph with only the pilot on board.

I flew over Orchard and Cass Lakes, flying over Orchard Lake St. Mary's Campus.

Then on over north into Pontiac and I flew over the decaying Pontiac Silverdome, complete with its parking lots filled with Volkswagens from the diesel emissions scandal.

Seems like a terrible waste of good cars to me, sitting in parking lots wasting away. I'd take one, slightly higher emissions and all.

Then I overflew Oakland University.

And on up to Romeo and the proving grounds.

I flew around a bit more and headed back to Pontiac, where I did a really beautiful landing on 9L with winds at 10 knots out of 110, so barely any crosswind correction was needed at all and it was nice and smooth. I then parked the plane and was amazed to see all of that was only 1 Hobbs hour (Ok, I was quite aware of time aloft all the way through, but it was neat to see how short a time it was).

1.0 and 1 landing. Next time I think a relatively short cross-country to maybe Lansing, Bay City, or Charlotte is in order.

Singapore Day 2 - The Maritime Museum And The Steamboat

The next day, we got up at a jet-lagged reasonable time and had breakfast and then John came by to meet me and he and I headed out for a adventure while the girls decided to do girly things closer to where we were staying.

We first went to the Singapore Maritime Museum.

With over 100,000 ships visiting every year, it's the busiest port on the world and Singapore's fortune depends upon its maritime trade.

The Maritime Museum is very focused on introducing Singaporeans to maritime jobs and many flyers, books, and pamphlets, free to all, were in prominent display and talked of opportunities in the shipping industry.

Cargo containers are indeed a big deal.

Begun by the British who acquired it from its former Malaysian rulers and set it up as a free port city, its continued to grow in size and influence. As a free trade port with no duty the British had to make their money to operate the colony somewhere so they made it up with opium.

Yep, the drug trade isn't a bad thing when the government is in charge of it.

Lot of interesting storyboards and videos detailed the changes in Singapore's ports.

The highlight of the museum is a ship's bridge simulator where you can handle maneuvering a ship in various conditions.

Happy to report there were no collisions even in a very crowded shipping channel.

Then we had a Tex-Mex lunch on a paddle-wheel steamboat that had been turned into a floating restaurant.

Yes, a Singaporean had acquired a US paddleboat, brought her over here and rhen turned it into a Tex-Mex restaurant.

The food wasn't bad but it was really surreal to be having a Tex-Mex-style burger and fries on a riverboat in Singapore harbor delivered by hospitable Indian waiters. It seemed rather out of place.

Then it was on to our next stop, the Singapore Air Force Museum.

Last Weekend In Ithaca

Lack of blogging was due to my being out of town with the family for an event.

One of Abby's friends from camp, who had attended her Bat Mitzvah here in Michigan, was having a Bat Mitzvah and Abby had been invited. The Bat Mitzvah was very nice and she did a good job with the reading.

Both of the girl's parents are professors at Cornell and are seriously geniuses with a capital G, and nice people to boot.

They also happened to be a couple of the few politically-conservative leaning profs at the University along with a few others, one of whom I had hoped I might meet at the event.

So we piled in the car and drove to Ithaca, New York. On the way there we went through Ohio and Pennsylvania and finally arrived.

We stayed with some friends of the girl's family there, who were very, very, nice and welcoming indeed, and we had some great conversations with them during our stay. The man of the house is a famous artist and a serious golf aficionado and it was a treat to chat with him and see some of his work. The wives got along great, and my kids absolutely adored their daughter who is a college student. Really great people who went out of their way for us.

At the Conservative (movement rather than political, it was highly lefty to say the least) synagogue, when talking to people I managed to meet another conservative-politically speaking fellow and we had a nice chat indeed. He then introduced me to none other than William Jacobson of Legal Insurrection, who I knew was a good friend of the Bat Mitzvah girl's parents and I had been hoping to meet there as I've enjoyed reading his blog quite a lot.

It was nice to briefly chat with Mr. Jacobson, and if you're not reading his blog on a regular basis, you really should be doing so.

Ithaca in northern New York is really in some very scenic country and is a nice University town, it looks a lot like northern Ontario - lots of lakes, very green, and sparsley populated outside of the town.

Then we drove home through Ontario, crossing at the Rainbow bridge by Niagara Falls. Stopping for lunch in Toronto in the later afternoon we made it home late Sunday.

Flying Lesson #146 - Victory is Mine! At Long Last The Nightmare Ends.

Well, it finally happened.

Last night it was not looking very promising at all weather-wise - rain, thunderstorms and the like and the Outlook briefer was saying it was going to be IFR conditions.

This morning the standard briefing was more promising with light winds, decent cloud ceilings and rain.

Rain I can deal with.

So I went to the airport early ahead of my appointed and the examiner was running a bit late finishing up a Commercial Pilot Exam and said he'd give me a pirep of the conditions but thought they would be ok for flying.

He came back and said we could go ahead if I wanted to do so, and I said I did.

So I went, and I did it.

I am now a licensed Private Pilot.

To say i'm on top of the world right now would be an understatement.

Singapore Day 1 - Paging Doctor Fish, And Meeting An Old Friend

After lunch, we wandered around the Flyer complex which had a selection of shops and activities.

We came across one particular location that had Abby's interest. She had read about it before, and had to try it and dared us to come along, so we all did so, especially as our Flyer tickets gave us a discount.

Yes, it's not a spa for fish, in Singapore, it's a place where the fish spa you.

We went to get fish pedicures. Abby stated we would all do it and double dared us, and since it was a dare, I could hardly shirk my fatherly image of being unafraid of the strange and unusual as this certainly was both strange and unusual.

The Doctor fish eats dead skin off your feet leaving them smooth and uncalloused.

So we went in, paid, and after taking off our shoes and washing our feet sat down on a comfy wooden platform and put our feet into a pool swarming with Doctor Fish.

Since I never have had a pedicure in my entire life, when the fish saw my feet they went:

"Holy Carp! We got a live one here! Everybody to the Buffet!"

Yep, I got mobbed by Doctor Fish.

This was extremely ticklish and was rather weird to realize there were fish eating my feet, you could feel them attach and nibble but it didn't hurt at all as they only ate the dead skin, but none of us could stop laughing due to the constant tickling. Certainly not something you experience everyday, that's for sure.

After feeding the fish and with now smoother feet, we headed back to our Singapore home and after the obligatory change of clothes due to the heat, a friend of mine who has been living in Singapore for the past 17 years dropped by to visit. I last had seen John when we were at University together so it was great to meet up with him again.

We had a great time catching up and he's now an accomplished journalist in Singapore. After socializing a bit he took us on a mini-tour of the Little India area of Singapore and we had a nice Mediterranean dinner at a restaurant he liked, and then we went to Mustafa Center - a huge supermarket in Little India. The Center offers pretty decent budget prices on foodstuffs and necessities and it was full of workers doing their shopping.

Not just full, it was packed to the gills with people doing their shopping and combined with narrow aisles led to the need to literally push through the crowd to get anywhere.

Yes, personal space was at a premium and measured in microns and people were puzzled when we said "excuse me" or "pardon me" as we pushed past - the etiquette is simply to push your way through to where you want to go without so much as a by-your-leave, and try to not get separated in the crush of the crowd.

We purchased some necessities and then waited in line for a cashier, who closed before we could get to the till. We went to another line and the process repeated itself. Finally, we got to a cashier that stayed open long enough to check us out and interestingly zip-tied each plastic bag shut - a rather interesting comment on both the center's customer service and how it viewed the honesty of its customers.

After that, the jet lag and excitement of the day really started to take hold so we called it a night and made arrangements to meet up with John later.

That was a very long, exciting and full day indeed.

Remember That Whole Good Weather Request?

And of course instead of good flying weather today it is rainy, winds 15-25 with wind shear, and a nice potential convective sigmet (think thunderstorms), and an airmet tango for turbulence, and the weather briefer said the magic words: "VFR flight not recommended". So, no checkride for me today. No openings in his schedule for the rest of this week either, especially as the one opening he had I can't do as have depositions to do all day tomorrow.

Just cannot catch a break.

Eclipse 2017

An eclipse broke out in between clouds today, giving us much to ooh and aw about after darting out of work for a late lunch with the family to view the event.

Thanks to a solar filter from Thousand Oaks Optical, ordered quite awhile back for the occasion, my camera was ready to capture the moment.

While not at a location to see the totality, and with clouds blocking the eclipse from sight at times, I did get some decent pictures all the same.

Singapore Day 1 - Ride The Wheel

The first attraction we did was one we saw on the way from the airport to the city.

Singapore's Flyer at 541 feet is the tallest Ferris Wheel in the world.

Each Gondola is rather spacious and we had 10 people in ours, be nches are there for sitting on and you can move about the cabin quite freely during the ride.

It takes half an hour for the Flyer to make a complete rotation and it's a nice gentle ride around the wheel.

The views are spectacular (click on any to embiggen as they say).

Looking like a Cylon Raider, the National Stadium is a very prominent landmark.

A close-up of the roof of the Marina Bay Sands Casino, Hotel, and very upscale shopping mall:

Gardens By The Bay:

We also got to see bands preparing for the National Day Parade - more on that later.

From the Flyer, we also had a great view of Singapore Bay - one of the busiest ports in the world, over 100,000 ships dock in Singapore every year.

It was a great overview of the city and showed many of the attractions we were to visit over the coming days.

Then we headed off to a lunch and then pretty much the weirdest thing we did in Singapore.