Ticking the Boxes

It was a calm Friday night, the sun creeping across the horizon to its rest. The sky was a vivid display of oranges and pinks, and cotton ball clouds drifted aimlessly. I drove out to the airport after work, hoping that this would be the day i finally got to finish my night rating! I had begun new record of cancelled flights, for eight days straight i'd had a booking at 17:00 to squeeze in my last 0.6 of solo circuits. Our seaside city had been experiencing one of the longest periods of heavy fog in years, no doubt due to an inversion. The cool, stable air mass had been trapped beneath the warm air mass for days, and even my non- aviation type friends were actually discussing the unusual weather over beers or at the climbing gym. The classifications of fog have always sort of befuddled me. It may be that unlike some types of meteorological phenonmenia, i find fog kind of boring. There is nothing dynamic, mysterious, or exciting about a low lying, stable cloud deck. From what i can understand, the ingredients to the bland, grey, tasteless soup called fog are a relative humidity near 100%, and some type of condensation nuclei (molecules of crap floating in the air for condensation to cling to, such as air pollution, dust, sea salt). Trap these thrilling ingredients together close to the ground (such as underneath a warm air mass) and take away motion of air from areas of lower pressure to those of high(wind)and you get...spectacular fog!

Fog can form suddenly, and can dissipate just as rapidly, depending what side of the dew point the temperature is on. This phenomenon is known as flash fog. (i use the word phenomenon very loosely here... i would sooner refer to "how the egyptians built the pyramids!" "why do i always wait to sit down in the bathroom and do my business before i realise i have run out of toilet paper!" and "How is Bradley Cooper single again!" as phenomenons.) A surprise attack of flash fog eight days earlier had cut short what was supposed to be my last hour of solo circuits, forcing me to land, and frankly scaring the shit out of me. Come this friday, however, the conditions finally seemed favorable again!

I had booked one of the club's fanciest planes, leather seats, Garmin 430, not 30 years old, the whole works! Only problem was, this was one of the was fuel injected 172 S models, which the last time i flew, i managed to flood it on startup. This was totally embarassing and caused me to run back into the club and grab a shop guy to help me get it going again. This most likely happened because i left the boost pump on for too long, when in reality i should have attemoted a hot start because someone had already flown the aircraft earlier in the day. Within the first 20 to 30 minutes after shutdown of the previous flight, the fuel manifold is adequately primed and the empty injector nozzle lines will fill before the engine dies. However, after approximately 30 minutes, the vaporized fuel in the manifold will have nearly dissipated and some slight “priming” could be required to refill the nozzle lines and keep the engine running after the initial start. Starting a hot engine is facilitated by advancing the mixture control promptly to 1/3 open when the engine starts, and then smoothly to full rich as power develps. This is like a weird little panicky dance in which i'm trying to simultaniously crank the magnetos and slide the mixture to full rich, and i'm always freaked out that i'm not doing both actions in equal proportion to teh other. If i'm cranking for too long, i feel like i'm going to hurt the poor thing, but if i scoot the mixture to rich too fast, i feel like i'm going to drown it. Needless to say, allthough i love actually flying this plane because it handles like a dream, the process of getting it started in the first place is so daunting that i rarely actually rent it.

But on friday, everything fell into place! I started her up, taxied out as the sun was setting, and took off as the only plane in the feild and had 3 pretty much uneventful circuits to finish off my night rating! I had one funny encounter with the controller, who was clearly suffering from a case of friday night boredom, where he had me and an a dash 8 set up to land on intersecting runways, in a sequence which clearly wasn't going to work. On about a half mile final, i was just about to mention something when he quickly blurted "uhhhhhh Sierra Delta Zulu! return to your downwind leg, i'll call your base." riiiiiight. I dutifully applied full power and turned back for my base leg, ending up doing an awkward kind of orbit, as he was ready for me by the time i finally reached my downwind leg again. Not the best controlling i have ever seen!

On my next ciruit, i only had .1 to go until i was finished my hours needed for the rating, and the tower noticed fog creeping in around the terminal, as the dewpoint and temperature became equal. i called a full stop, not wanting to be stuck in it again. As i rolled into my parking spot on the apron, i could see my instructor sprinting out to me, worried that the fog had yet again thwarted my efforts to finish the rating. But luckily i had rolled in just in time, nailing my solo time to the decimal point!

So ends my night rating adventures! I am so thrilled to be yet another step closer to my goal. During my first couple hours the task had seemed impossible, my fears far overriding my desires to finish. I remember sitting next to my instructor on the downwind, after yet another shaky night landing, thinking that i would probably never finish. I wondered how all my other pilot friends had gotten through this. I figured that the accident had hurt me too deeply, shaken my resolve, my power, and my confidence too close to the core to be salvaged. That would be the end of my flying career, not out with a bang, but with a whimper. Fear getting the best of me again. But i was wrong. So wrong. I honestly feel more than ever, that absolutely nothing is going to stop me from doing this. The night rating pushed me to the edge of my comfort zone in a good way, so that i feel i have new skills, and overcome new challenges. I actually have cravings to go flying again! Ticking yet another rating off the list of things i need to do on my way to my forever career feels amazing, and gives me even more momentum for my next endeavor...my Multi Engine endorsement.

stay tuned... ;)