From: peted@microsoft.com (Peter Duniho)
Subject: First Solo Cross Country!
Date: 29 Jul 92 19:03:20 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corp.
Keywords: FUN!

Hi everybody!  Guess what I did yesterday!  (I would've
written about it earlier, but I didn't have time).  I did
my first solo cross country; how did you guess?  :)

Anyway, just to fill the net in on how things have been
progressing since my first solo, things have been going
very well!  Last week, I could only fly one day because of
the poor weather we've been having here in the Puget Sound
area, but things had been clear before then, and they have
been clear since last friday, so I only missed a few days
of actual flying time.

Since that first solo, I've gone up a few more times on
my own: the first time, to do touch & gos at Boeing (BFI)
and Tacoma Narrows (TIW); then to practice a bunch of airwork
and ground reference maneuvers (yes, I really did work on
that stuff!), and of course the obligatory sightseeing
afterwards; and another flight to work out the wrinkles
that I discovered in my turns about a point on the previous
one, as well as some more T&Gs at TIW.

Unfortunately for entertainment value, but certainly better
for my personal health, nothing really noteworthy happened
during any of my solo flights.  Well, unless you count those
two Japanese mock-up prop fighters that flew in formation
about 500 feet below, and to my left, as they headed over to
Paine Field (PAE) for the big Everett Airshow they had last
weekend.  That was pretty cool...they didn't get close enough
to be a flight hazard, but I still got a pretty good plan view
of them as they flew by.  That same day, the one other thing
that happened was I had my "wake-up" call, with respect to
how fast is 110 knots exactly.  I was cruising along, west to
east past the north side of Seattle (yes, I was outside of
all the relevant airspace), when I noticed some traffic in
front of and to the left of my, just a little bit below me.
It was very uniform in color, red, and seemed to be quite
distant.  At the same time, it seemed to be moving very fast,
on a parallel heading to mine, to my left.  I turned to make
sure that we would stay apart, and kept my eye on it, making
sure that each time I came back to that side while I looked
for traffic, that I knew exactly where it was.

Well, as it turned out, despite the fact that it seemed far
away, the position angle from me was changing rapidly,
indicating a fast approach.  The funny thing was that it
still looked pretty small!  My first thought was "Gee...
can remote controlled aircraft fly this high?"  Well, as
it turns out, the answer to that question is still unknown
to me, but I found the answer to "Gee...can helium filled
balloons fly this high?" was answered, as this "traffic"
went _screaming_ by, probably doing about 110 knots!  As
I thought about some more, I realized that the balloon was
in fact stationary (relative to the air I was flying in),
and that it was I that had gone _screaming_ by the balloon
doing about 110 knots!  Funny thoughts: "How could a balloon
travel that fast?"  "If someone were in the balloon, what
would they think about me flying by so fast?"  (Keep in mind
that this was just your basic party balloon, with string).
"So _that's_ what happens to balloons when someone lets go
of the string!"  Probably other odd things popped into my
head as well, but those are the ones that I remember.

So, anyway, the solo work's been going well.  In addition,
my flights with my instructor have been preparation for
cross-country flights, including stuff like radio nav aids,
simulated instrument flying, flight planning, mag compass
vs. DG, etc.  My first cross-country dual flight was
actually sort of an "accident."  By that, I simply mean
that all my instructor had really intended to work on
was the use of flight instruments for navigation, instrument
conditions, etc. (this included NDB and VORs stuff as well
as hood work), but by the time we had done all the stuff he
wanted to do, we had gotten within 15 miles or so of Hoquiam (HQM),
near the Pacific coast of Washington, and so he told me to
go ahead and do a T&G there.  Cool!  Everything went smoothly
(well, there was this Bonanza that we couldn't find for awhile),
and I got into the traffic pattern just fine, landed (a little
hard, but not too bad actually), and pushed in the power to
take off again.  That's where the excitement began.  Just
at liftoff, a flock of birds decided to try to cross the
runway.  According to Steve (my instructor), my initial instinct
to just keep flying the plane and let the birds get out of
my way was the right one, as he told me when we got back to
BFI.  Anyway, that's what I did.

Well, one bird just couldn't buy a clue.  The entire flock
had gotten out of the way, except for that one bird!  There
he (she?  I dunno...didn't do the autopsy) was, zig-zagging
not being able to decide whether to go off the right side of
the runway or the left.  Finally, in a split-second move that
was over before I realized just how dumb this bird really was
(and I emphasize the "was"), it did a 180, and flew straight
towards the plane!  This entire manuever didn't take long,
as it tried to dive to miss the plane and apparently didn't
know about the prop (not that I blame it for _that_ particular
lack of information (on the other hand, I suppose the FAA
would have said that this particular bird had not obtained
all of the information necessary and/or relevant to its flight)),
and got snagged.

Amazingly enough, by the time we got back to BFI (oh, by the way,
there had been no effect on the plane's flying ability,
so all of us agreed that it was a shame, and we continued the
flight) I had forgotten all about the bird, and was amazed
to learn from my instructor later that the bird had indeed
been hit by the prop tip, and the prop had thrown the bird
up against the cowling, which it bounced off of, and finally
became plastered against the leading edge of the wing.  I'm
amazed, because I can't believe that I totally missed seeing
the aftermath when I parked the plane at the end of the flight.
I'm also amazed that flying around with a bird on the wing didn't
seem to affect the handling of the plane at all.  But, that's
how it was!

So, now, how about that first solo cross-country?  Hah!  Gotcha!
I was just kidding about that!  Well, okay, not really.  But,
this post is so long, I'm going to just finish it up and post
another, more brief, post about my actual solo cross-country
(again, it was pretty uneventful...which I was happy about).

Until the next post...
-- 
Pete Duniho                "There are two kinds of men in this world:
Excel Development             those with loaded guns, and those who dig."
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