Dichroic Reflections

a little bumpy

I don't think I even want to talk about New Orleans, except to say that turning down aid or, worse, blocking it from getting to the people who need it, just leaves me sputtering wordlessly. Also, I don't like lying at the best of times; telling desparate people, day after day, that aid is coming 'real soon now' is despicable.

OK. Now to not talk about New Orleans. Sorry, it's very hard not to, but I have nothing to say that hasn't been said.

Anyway, obviously, we're home now. I suppose it was a good weekend all in all, but the flight up was worse than I expected due to turnulence from Vegas on to Reno and then into Oregon. I'm a total chickenshit about turbulence, at least when I'm flying the airplane, so it was white knuckles all the way. (The first leg, up to Vegas, was actually quite nice.) It was too rough for the autopilot to maintain altitude, so I had to fly it by hand, and by the time we got there my right thigh and bicep were threatening to cramp up. I had t reasonably well trimmed, so that would be more due to tension in me than any undue control force required. It was all clear-air turbulence, heat rising over the desert, so no issue at all to a seasoned pilot. I'm just not seasoned. It took me a long time - years - to get over being nervous driving in heavy freeway traffic, so this isn't a surprise.

The way home wasn't bad except for some clouds that were threatening enough to worry me - the clouds were built up just a little, but the layer was broad enough that I was afraid there could be some embedded small storms, and there was some rain, though not much. Apparently they didn't worry Rudder, but I didn't find that out until afterward. He was flying calmly, but then that's what a pilot would be trying to do anyway.

I flew five of the six legs: Chandler to Jean (outside Las Vegas), Jean to Stead (on the north side of Reno), Stead to Lakeview OR, then on the way home Lakeview to Stead and Stead to Jean. Rudder flew the last leg home, because I was tired and also annoyed that ; coming into Jean he thought I was going too slowly in a landing and pushed the throttle in, not something you want your passenger to do without telling you even if he is a pilot. Other than that, he was a model copilot. He did apologize afterward. (I really was going too slow, but I maintain I'd have salvaged the landing or gone around in time.)

Rudder's parents met us at his grandparents'. So, unexpectedly, did an aunt, an uncle, a cousin and the cousin's girlfriend. It was nice to see them all, but having that many people around may have been a bit much for Rudder's grandmother, who's still recuperating from a couple of heart attackes and attacks of pneumonia this spring. It also meant the visit was quite as relaxing as I'd hoped for between flights, but Lakeview is so much slower-paced that we did get to rest a least a bit. And now I have all my required cross-country time, and just need to refresh my basic instrument maneuvers, figure out instrument approaches on autopilot, and bone up on all the questions for the oral. That's all scheduled to be about three flights and one ground lesson from now, but we'll see.

Posted by dichroic at September 6, 2005 07:18 PM