Float Flying! They say that it's the most fun you can have with your clothes on. Eating cotton candy and Snowboarding aside, i could not agree more. I actually feel like a superhero in a float plane. What other type of transportation can go on land, air and sea!? Absolutely unreal.
I first met Pedro* (The dude's name isn't actually Pedro, FYI, i just try and be anonymous, and i just noticed that in books and magazines with names which have been changed for protection, no one is ever renamed Pedro. so i have decided to start a trend.) in October before i went travelling in South America for three weeks. My ex-but not-ex-because-we-were-never-officially-a-couple-it's-complicated,the airline pilot, had done his float training with Pedro years ago. Ex-But-Not-Ex had referred to Pedro as "quirky. you'll see why." Again, i couldn;'t agree more, but in an awesome way.
You see, Pedro was the person who convinced me to go to South America in the first place. Allthough it seems odd to have to convince someone to go somewhere as awesome as Peru, i had a bad case of "My progress should be Moving Faster" guilt, and i thought that going away would lose me three weeks of valuable flying time. True as it may be, going away also gained me a lifetime of confidence which could be applied to flying, or to anything else, for that matter! After the accident and my expereinces over the past year, i was reassembling my life slowly. South America shocked me alive again, instilling bravery, confidence, sass, creativity, freedom, a sense of being loose and malleable to experiences which i had lost when i had coccooned myself in fear and doubt. I took one float lesson with Pedro on October 26th, and it set me free to travel to South America and discover all thsi once again.
As the fall leaves turned over Cowichan bay, Pedro asked me that great old question.
"So, are there any pilots in your family? Is that why you want to be a pilot"
again, i pondered how i would formulate my answer.
"No, life circumstances lead me to flying, and when i tried it, i was totally hooked."
"Oh, so it was about a guy?"
Sigh. Funny but true. Yes, Pedro, it was about a guy. But as he could see by my enthusiasm over months of emails and phone calls which lead to our meeting, and my shining eyes as we cruised around islands and over mountains to reach our destination, it was now about so much more. I loved his blunteness and his sense of humour, and the encouragement he gave me. When i told him i was thinking of going to South America with my friends but was unsure, he seemed shocked.
"How could you NOT go! You're young! You have years to build your hours and you'll have other times to fly! Go experience things! Have fun! You will come back refreshed."
There are few gifts in life someone can give you as valuable as their own truth. That's what i love about Pedro. He is very willing to give it you, and you can rest assured that it has not been filtered, and is probably accurate.
Almost three months later, after my colorful, whirlwind voyage to peru and the completion on my Night rating, i was back in the airplane with the same enigmatic and quirky man.
Our first flight together, we had a less than desireable day. It was broken 1200 and the ceiling dropped fast once we had made it out past the islands to begin our circuits. However, we made the most of it, and i finally got to feel what that good ole "stick n' rudder" felt like!
On our first circuit, he explained to me that he was going to have a number of power settings for the cirdcuit, which would generate the exact same results for each leg of the circuit if performed correctly. No more flying by "why feels or sounds about right." We were going to be sticky and very exact.
On the water, he had me gently apply full power, counting to five as i did so. Once the surf broke around the floats we pitched back at an alarming attitude, and i felt as though i was going to slide into the back seat, as we gained speed he had me slowly release my aft position on the control column to a nice flare just at the horizon. The next sensation was a great one, i could almost feel the floats peeeeeeeling themselves off the water and 3-2-1, we were up! I relaxed my position in the flare and gently reached down to go to flap 10. He had me adjust power to 23 inches and 2450 and climb to 450 feet. At 450 i reduced to 17 and 23 and made my crosswind turn. The downwind leg with pedro was an interesting one. First he had me relax for a moment, because "if you're stressing all the time doing things you're going to wear yourself out! Look at th ewind direction on the water! Are some whales leaping downt there? Did you do the laundry yesterday?" Of course he wouldn't have me get distracted to the point of losing awareness, but i liked his technique of easing a learner into a series of new and complicated steps slowly and gently.
Preparing for the base leg, he had me reduce to 15 and add 20 of flap, and exectute a base turn. then i was to ask myself, "am i high or am i low?" and adjust with power. "Am i fast or am i slow" and adjust with pitch. Then he had me do "The final check to go." which consisted of pushing the prop to full fine. Form here on out, my only job was to land the thing on the water.
The first thing to know about landing a float plane, is after spending the entire rest of my 140 odd hours avoiding the ocean, it feels really damn weird to fly right AT IT. However, i tried my best to relax and invision a magical water runway, where flipping fish were glinting centreline lights, and little waves in the water were blades of grass wiggling in the breeze. At first, to make sure that i was landing in a safely nose-high configuration, he counted me in for when i was supposed to roll level, at about 20 feet above the water. As we progressed, however, i can now judge that myself. He then had me wait for the "sink" feeling, and begin my flare not above the horizon. the important thing in this flare, was to be ever so patientas i held a consistant flare angle, and not to pitch back to make it happen quicker. Then magically, i felt my first little "thud!" and we were down. i pulled the power to idle and pulled aft as we decelerated, and i did an internal happy dance for my first water landing!
Of course, this was only the beginning. Much more fun was to be had. It was the end of day two, and i had done 9 or 10 circuits. As i rotated at full power, i reached down to adjust from 20 to 10 of flap. As i depressed the manual flap lever, my grip slackened, and i let it go all the way from 20 degrees to nothing in one awkward "flop". reacting quickly but certainly not wisely, i reached down, above the water by only 75 feet or so, to grab the lever to put my flap back on. bad move.
"UH UHH!" blurted Pedro, as he took control as the plane lurched downwards along with my gaze and downstretched arm, pushing the control column down.
"If you try to take off flap and it all goes, leave it. Gain a bit more altitude, and then put it back on. Not while you're so low off the water."
Then came a classic piece of advice:
"Do you know when you're driving, and you're putting on lipstick, and it falls on the floor?
(First, OMG! DO I EVER KNOW! Second, how does HE know!?)
"Well, you don't look down from driving and grab it, do you? You wait until the stop sign! It's jut slike that with flap!"
Seeing my look of amused bewliderment, he finished.
"Honey, i have four sisters."
Aha, msytery solved :)
My second and even more epic tale came when we were finsihed on day three and on the way back to the dock. The water aerodrome is right underneath of the approach for runway 09 at the international airport. As we were skimming in at around 300 feet, the tower advised us of RJ traffic on approach for 09. Seeing them, Pedro annouced that we were going to keep the speed up and stay low to avoid his wing tip vortices. We descended to 150 feet and were absolutely ripping along over the ocean at 110 knots. I peekd out my window and up-, and it looked like we were in a vertical race with the RJ! Suddenly on the frequency came a gravelly, low voice with a heavy Southern Twang
"Uhhhhh, that's a pretty impressive little 180 you've got down there!"
Pedro and i both burst out laughing! Amazing. the two pilots high up above, power and prestige at thier disposal, were impressed by us ripping playfully along below.
Even the tower laughed. "ah, don't worry about him!" joked the controller. "He's just a floater!"
Four and a half hours and god knows how many circuits later, i am on the eve of my solo flight. If all goes well tomorrow and if the weather is our friend, i will get to become one with the impressive little 180 and take her out on a date solo to complete my float rating. It has been a playful, raw, and thrilling experience that i will surely miss once it is over. Allthough i have my usual case of performance nerves and anxiety about tomorrow. An email from Pedro tonight eased my racing mind. " I know you're concerned about the solo portion of your flight test...don't worry. I'll only let you go in the right weather and once you're feeling good about it. You should be, you're flying well!"
i am so happy that my enjoyment is showing in my progress, and so blessed to have the experience to leap and play like a little flying fish on the gorgeous west coast as the spring blossums. Flying Floats is an adventure i will never forget, and one that i would recommend to any lover of the skies!
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