Learning to fly

[Chairboy]

Just trying to apply problem solving skills to the issue.  

[Dnil]

Learn the adf, US isnt the only country that uses them.  Some areas of the world thats all they have.  Think ahead.

[Chairboy]

I'll definately learn how to use it.  Hells bells, if my plane had Loran, I'd learn to use it too, just so I can maximize the number of tools I can utilize to get out of trouble.  

If ADF is good enough for the Japanese to use to home in on Pearl Harbor from X hundred miles away, then its good enough for me to find my way to an airport.

[eagl]

When I hear about a country (or region) that is giving up their ILS systems in favor of new GPS approaches, I laugh.  Hehehe.  Hahaha.  Hohoho.  

Then I hope the FAA doesn't follow suit.

Think about it...  If you were the chief aviation administrator in any country, would you trust your aviation to a navigation system owned and operated by the US government?  I sure as heck wouldn't.  All it takes is one terrorist with a gps jammer or hacked differential gps device to run a few airlines into buildings or the ground, or one case of a home-grown gps guided flying bomb (poor man's cruise missile) before the US govt takes down or turns off the whole system entirely.

The old LORAN system went bye bye with the advent of GPS because it was too darn expensive and the worst case in the event of a nav failure on a boat isn't usually as instantly fatal as a nav failure in an airplane, but it's the same idea.  If you remove your ground based home-field owned/operated/certified navaids and precision guidance assists, then you're at the mercy of whoever owns the navaids you use.  MLS is too expensive for GA and didn't catch on like GPS has, but it seems like everyone is ditching ILS and even considering phasing out VOR and TACAN navaids.  What a stupid shortsighted and risky thing to do...

[Chairboy]

This morning, I got up around 7:30 and showered up.  The plan for today: Long Distance Solo Cross Country.  The idea behind this is you need to fly a 3-leg long distance flight, and it has to be of a certain length.  My instructor mentioned that most of his students go to Baker then come back through Van Nuys and finally land again at Santa Monica.

"No problem, I'll whip that out in no time!"  I wandered over to the CoCo's near the field and pulled out all my charts and began planning.  And planning.  I stopped briefly to eat some Eggs Benedict, then got back to planning.  I probably got to the CoCos at a quarter to 9, and spent a couple hours working on my basic flight path, courses, distances, etc.  When it came time to plug in the current info regarding weather, my crummy cell phone wouldn't dial out, so I headed off to the field to use the Pilot's lounge.  

There, I called 800-WX-BRIEF and gave them my flight plan.  With the data in hand, I started doing the numbers, and I realized that Baker was something like 150-200 miles away.  "Wow," I thought to myself, "my instructor really wants this flight to test my mettle!"

By the time noon rolled around, I was frantically entering the last numbers and staring at my fuel consumption.  Not only was it a super long flight, but it was going to leave me with 20% fuel at when I landed at Santa Monica.  Not too far out of the normal safety margins!  Kinda worried now, I head off to show my plan to my instructor.

He takes the plan and starts walking through my checkpoints.  As he is, he starts to frown a little.  Finally, he looks at one checkpoint, and asks me accusingly "Torrance?  Let me see your chart."

Nervously, I show him the chart.  "I was going to do a climbing 270 to the LAX Special Flight Rules corridor, then fly down and turn inland near Torrance airport."

He starts to repeat back part of what I say, then stops, looks again.  "Wait, Ben, WHERE are you going?"

Nonplussed: "Why, Baker of course.  Like you said."  I pointed it out on the map.  His eyes instantly skyrocketed.

"BakersFIELD.  Most of my students fly to BakersFIELD, not Baker!"  He points out the (much closer) Bakersfield, and suddenly, the use of Van Nuys as an en-route airport makes sudden, chilling sense.

"Uhhh...."  I start, intelligibly, then start laughing.  Pretty soon, he's laughing too, and after a minute, we go back to the plan.  

"Ok," he asks reasonably, "what are the winds like up there?"  I tell him, and as I do, I realize that it's an almost direct cross-wind to the runway, a crosswind component of over 10 knots.  He doesn't want me doing more then 8 knot crosswind landings while I solo.  Finally, he suggests that I land at Barstow.  Daggett Airfield is one of my checkpoints for the flight to Baker, and it has a couple runways, one of which would allow a landing into the wind.

This also cuts my flight by like an hour plus, so I'm feeling quite a bit better, if a little stupid.

He signs off my log book, and I jump into the plane.

(continued)

[Chairboy]

I take off, climb over LAX, then get on course for the Paradise VOR.  It's a bit choppy, but nothing crazy.  Each of my checkpoints come up like clockwork, and I mean it, they're all within one minute of my predicted times.  This dead reckoning stuff really works, and I'm apparently doing the flight planning correctly!  Well, at least when I plan for the right airport...

Out near Riverside, I turn north towards the pass.  At this point, I'm following the 15 and I've climbed to 7500 to avoid some class C airspace, not to mention get some more speed.

In the desert, I follow my chart headings and cross reference airports as I go to figure out where I am.  Most of the airports really stand out, but for some reason I just can't see Hesperia.  I vow to find it on the way back, I have enough redundant airports in sight to know exactly where I am.

After flying over Apple Valley airport, I cross into a desolate...  desert.  Nothing but sand and dirt and the occasional road.  From this vantage point, I can see some things that I never noticed while on the ground.  For example, at the peak of one mountain, there appears to be a little colony of mobile homes.  It's prime looking real estate, and I'm sure it has an incredible view, and there are four to five junky Airstreams clustered around a collection of working and non-working pickup trucks.

As I pass a plant/factory of some sort north of Apple Valley that I used as a last minute 'top of descent' checkpoint for my hastily re-written flight plan, I begin my descent.  I've got the UNICOM channel tuned in, and I hear people talking about the airport, but I'm in the middle of nowhere, and I can't see the airport.  

Visibility is practically unlimited, so it's very disconcerting to be descending already without seeing the airport, seemingly into a mountain.  I hold off on my descent a little longer, then, remembering how well my other checkpoints worked, began my descent.  As I passed 6500 and then 6000, I realized that my path would not actually hit the mountain in front of me.  I'd pass maybe 700 feet over it, no problem.

I continued my descent, radioing at one point that I was 10 miles southwest of the field, pretty much on faith.  I passed over a hill, and just as I was about to start climbing to look for landmarks, Daggett Field came into sight from behind a mountain peak, and I was on a perfectly lined up descent into the runway I wanted.

"Daggett traffic, Piper Cherokee 8258 Sierra, five miles out, landing direct on runway 4, Daggett traffic."  As I descended, I called out various checkpoints to keep everyone in the loop, then came in for a serviceable landing.

After stopping off the runway, a call came in on the UNICOM asking what I was going to do.  "I'd like to park and stretch my legs a little."  "Well, come on over here to the south side of the field, by the Chevron sign.  We've got parking."

I taxied over, parked, and got out of the plane.  The place was absolutely deserted, except for a Cessna that was hanging out at the gas pump.  I nodded to the pilot who was cleaning the window and went into the office of the FBO to buy some water.  I took some pictures (I'll post 'em on my website as soon as I find the cable), make some conversation with the guy running the shop, then go out and jump in the plane.  A quick taxi, runup, then takeoff, and I'm heading back the way I came.

On the way back, I peer left and right, looking for Hesperia airport, but I never see it.  No worries, I've got a pass ahead of me that's pretty distinct.  I fly through the pass, then turn right to follow the 210 along the foothills past Ontario International airport.  I'm high enough that I'm out of their airspace, which is great, because that way I can navigate myself.  I fly along, watching airports and marking them off as I go.  Beckett, Cable, check.  At El Monte, I call SoCal approach ("SOCAL Approach, Cherokee 8258 Sierra, two miles north of El Monte at six thousand five hundred, landing at Van Nuys, request transition of Burbank airspace") so I can get a vector through Burbank's class charlie.  He gives me a squawk code and tells me to follow the freeway off my nose and descend to 4500.  I'm glad he has me descend, El Monte was roughly my TOD anyways.

After a minute, he calls me.  "Ah, Cherokee five eight sierra, wrong freeway, stay south of the freeway to your left now."  Crikey!  A minute later, all is well, and I follow it in and past Burbank.  There, the controller hands me off to Van Nuys airport.  Since I'm coming in with a custom squawk, I tune in the tower and just say "Van Nuys Tower, Cherokee eight two five eight sierra with you".  This tower vectors me around some other planes ("58 Sierra, turn right 10 degrees please and increase rate of descent." followed by "58 Sierra, now turn left 15 degrees" etc).  There's a lot of traffic, so he asks me to make a short approach and clears me for 34R.  As I come in short final, he thanks me for the help with all the swerving around.  The sky is full of airplanes!

I land (a much better landing then at Barstow) and taxi off the runway.  Ground has me taxi back to the beginning, stopping along the way for a big honking jet to cross in front of me.  I see him coming just as tower asks me to hold.  You bet, buddy!  This jet looks like it could eat me, so no problem whatsoever holding.  My actual call goes a little more like "Roger holding, 58 sierrra", but that's what I'm thinking.

As I taxi into position next to a Cessna at another hold short line, the Cessna calls (on ground) for right-closed traffic.  The ground controller tells him he's on the wrong frequency and tells him to switch.  This is just as I switch to tower.  I make my call there and get clearance to position and hold.  Then the controller tells the Cessna to, if he's listening, get off the ground frequency and join him there on Tower where he belongs.  I get cleared to take off, and as I take off, the tower talks to this other cessna a couple more times, saying things like "If you're listening here, you need to transmit AND listen on this frequency!"  I'm guessing that the guy has his volume turned down and doesn't understand why nobody is talking to him.  Makes me wonder how he got to the runway in the first place.

I take off, get clearance to pass the other planes in the pattern at 1800, then cleared for 2500 as I go over the Sepulveda pass.  I've still got my custom squawk, and the controllers all seem to like it because they never have me squawk VFR, instead they call ahead and hand me off to Santa Monica (who also has me keep it) which makes my whole approach super easy.  I come in around 110 knots until I turn final because I'm a couple minutes late getting the plane back, and re-intercept the glide slope just as I pass the outer marker and land perfectly.  Now, when I say perfectly, I mean "I didn't believe I was on the ground until I stopped off the active" smooth.  Best landing ever, and of course there's nobody on board to see it.

It was an amazing flight, and very, very rewarding!  This whole dead reckoning thing really works!  And this whole pilotage thing REALLY WORKS!  Holy crap, everything I've been taught _really freaking works_, and I'm feeling great about it!

Tomorrow morning, I'm going to get a sign-off from my instructor, then fly myself to Mojave.  I hope to get some pictures of the boneyard (there are hundreds of planes, including jet liners, just parked out in the desert) as well as take a gander at some history.  My official reason for the trip is to review and practice cross-country skills, as well as I scheduled it before I was sure I would have enough XC time after today's flight, but the real reason:  I'm moving to Oregon next week (I hope), and I really want a chance to be able to say that I've landed at the Mojave SPACEPORT.  It was classified as a spaceport after the SpaceShipOne made its first X-Prize worthy flight.  Also, MHV is the worlds only (or best known, I forget which) civilian test pilot airport, so there's guaranteed to be some interesting planes there.

Anyhow, signing off after a (unusually long) writeup.

Did I mention that I LOVE FLYING?!

[Golfer]

Chairboy, I wish I had as good an experience working on my private certificate as you are seeming to have.  Congrats and just think...you're almost there

[cpxxx]

Great stuff chairboy, yes dead reckoning really works. Sometimes it's hard to believe your numbers but it does work. Recently I did a short triangle for practice and found out I really needed the practice! Found myself over a village at the right ETA but realised it was the wrong village! Confusion reigned for a minute until I realised I had left instead of right at a checkpoint. More practice need I think. But it's all great fun.

The story about the Cessna on the wrong frequency is interesting. That kind of thing even happens to the pros. My friend who's a planespotter and likes to sit at airports with his airband radio saw an incident with a Learjet. Told to line up and hold. It failed to move despite repeated calls from the tower. Finally the tower told them to hold position for a landing Airbus only to see the Lear taxy out onto the runway. The result was a go around for the airliner and I suspect an incident report from ATC and a smack on the wrist for the Learjet crew. Another time I was jumpseating on a cargo 727 of my company at the time. There were five of us there on the flight deck in cruise over England. I think they were talking about golf when I heard an ATC call for us. Nobody reacted. A second call was missed. I wasn't on a headset so tried to get the crew's attention. Only to hear ATC call 'Callsign XXX, Hello Hello, is there anybody there??'
That got their attention.  Nowdays that kind of thing will get you up close and personal with a couple of fighters.

[Holden McGroin]

I've been meaning to ask you Chairboy... have you fallen in love with your flight instructor yet?

[cpxxx]

I don't know about chairboy, but I fell in love with a couple of my instructors.  Women instructors I should emphasise. F**** and R***. R*** was the best instructor I ever had......sorry rephrase that, flew with. Sadly I only one of many students she had.........flew with. Anyway she was living with the Chief Instructor so I was outranked. sigh

[Habu]

Great narrative Chairboy.

I got out flying yesterday for the first time in about a month and a half. The weather in Toronto was perfect, sunny and clear, temperature was minus 5 C.

I got to my plane and decided to do a very careful check as it had not flown for so long. But it was in perfect shape. I topped off the fuel (man is it getting expensive now) and started it up first crank.

If you plane has sat for a while and it is cold here is a technique that seems to work. Shoot 2 shots of prime into the engine and then hand turn the prop about 12 blades. Then give it one more shot of prime and turn on the mags and crank it.

I decided to fly to Sault Saint Marie from Toronto and back again. I have to go there next Friday for a Masters swim meet and have never been there so I wanted to try a practice flight first. It is 275 nm away so it is a good distance.

My flight planning was a bit different from yours I assume. I got out a road map at home and a ruler and measured the distance from my home airport to Sudbury (a long trip I do often as we have a cottage near there). On the ruler it was 60 cm's. Then I swung the ruler to Sault Saint Marie and saw it was 90 cm's. I know it usually takes about 1.5 hours to fly to Sudbury so I added 1/3 more to that time and got 2 hours and 15 minutes. My Cessna 182 has a range of 4 hours with some reserve so I expected to burn about half the fuel.

I took off and steered a course of around 315 degrees. After clearing the Buttonville zone and getting released from the tower ATC I called up Toronto ATC.

When in the Toronto area you have to fly below the YYZ (Pearson International) airspace. At Buttonville it is 2500' and just north of there it goes to 3500'.

"Toronto Kilo Juliet Whiskey" Toronto replied instantly and I continued "Kilo Juliet Whiskey is a Cessna 182 last departed Buttonville on route to Sault Saint Marie. We are at 2.5 request 8.5."

Toronto replied "Kilo Juliet Whiskey squawk 4375 and climb to 5. I can't clear you to 8.5 but when you get there perhaps I will be able to then"

I started a 500 fpm climb and sure enough at 5k he cleared me to 8.5 and passed me off to another frequency. The whole trip to Sault Saint Marie I had flight following and although I did not need it for traffic outside of the busy Toronto area it was nice to know that if I had a problem someone was listening and monitoring where I was.

I landed at the Sault airport exactly 2 hours 15 minutes after take off. My gauges showed half full tanks. I have not calculated exactly how many gallons I took on (plane holds 65 American gallons but fuel is sold in liters) but will later.

GPS was used the whole way but as I was flying over major landmarks like islands and distinctive coast I did not even really need a chart to know where I was.

Oh and by the way. To drive to Sault Saint Marie from Toronto takes just over 9 hours. This is one trip where it really does pay to fly.

[Maverick]

Habu,

Priming an engine and then hand propping it is an invitation to an accident. Turning the blades several times after priming just moves the fuel to the muffler after it washed down the cylinders. After doing checks on multiple magnetos and mag switches I have no real confidence in the engine NOT firing while propping.

If you hand prop without priming you will at least insure the engine is not frozen and move the parts "gently". Hand prop with the fuel off and the mixture at idle cutoff and you are still risking a cylinder firing.

PLEASE be careful, it only takes once to ruin your entire day.

[Habu]

I was careful. Key was off and I always do a mag check on shut down to make sure I don't have a live mag.

I don't think fuel in the cylinder can get out when you hand turn the prop. The valve is on the top and and the fuel is liquid. Some will evaporate maybe but it certainly can not run out into the muffler.

I had a ***** of a time starting the engine last time but it was a bit colder. A guy I fly with (old timer with 13,000 plus hours mostly on single engine planes) showed this technique to me and it worked great.

I hate turning the prop by had and I always turn it like I expect it to fire. Slow to TDC then quickly past that while pulling my hands back from it.

In a related note a guy at the airport has a big Russian radial engined plane and he has to hand prop it every time to make sure there is no oil in the lower cylinders. Again you have to turn it 15 or so blades before trying to start it. They do it every time and it is standard for all big radial engines to have to do that.

[Chairboy]

This morning, I grabbed a bite to eat, then headed off to the Santa Monica airport Pilots Lounge.  It's a nice room with a computer (for showing weather), some big charts, and a desk for doing paperwork.  Also there are some couches and comfy chairs for people to hang out and just chat.

I worked out my plan for getting to Mojave, then painstakingly worked out all the headings, altitudes, fuel consumptions, wind speeds, etc.  For two trips (there and then back) it took about 1.5 hours for me to do all the math and figuring.  I'm sure I'll get a lot faster as I get more practice, or find some computer program to help with the scut work.  One thing I'm NOT slow with anymore is my E6B flight computer.  I really like spinning that thing around and figuring out numbers.  Very satisfying, I can see why some people enjoy slide rules so much.

When I was done, I headed out to show it to my instructor.  He asked 'WHICH airport are you going to?' with a grin, referring to the Baker vs. Bakersfield situation the day before.  He went over my plan, asked a couple questions about airspace and weather, then signed me off for every airport along the way.=

I went out to the plane, preflighted, and took off (after the usual runup, etc).  I turned right at the shoreline and climbed to 3,500 as I passed over Topanga, then called up on the radio.

"SOCAL approach, Piper Cherokee November 8258 Sierra over Topanga and three thousand five hundred, I'd like flight following to Mojave via the I5/I14 interchange."

"Cherokee 8258 Sierra, what's your planned altitude en route?"

"SOCAL approach, climbing to seven thousand five hundred as soon as I'm out from under bravo (referring to the Class B LAX airspace that was 500 feet above me), five eight sierra."

"Roger that, standby for code."  After a few seconds, "Five eight Sierra, squawk 0462 and ident."  He confirmed my altitude, then let me do my navigation.  It was great, he'd occasionally call me to tell me things like "Five eight sierra, traffic at your eleven o'clock, two miles at six thousand five hundred" or "Five eight sierra, traffic climbing rapidly past seven thousand five hundred at three o'clock, two miles.  It's a 737 and he's not a factor, but caution for wake-turbulence."  Flight following was like having an airplane with all the modern radar equipment I could want, and an engineer to run it.  Except...  it was on the ground, and the engineer running it wasn't weighing my airplane down.

At the I-5/I-14 interchange, I turned towards Palmdale and followed the freeway as it wound through the mountains.  I had a checkpoint halfway (the Agua Dulce airport) and I was very surprised to arrive at it something like two minutes ahead of schedule.  I started to wonder if I had made some math error, but it looked right on paper, so I called on the radio.

"SOCAL Approach, cherokee 8258 Sierra, can I get a ground speed please?"

My airspeed can tell me how fast air is moving past my airplane, but there's almost no connection with actual ground speed unless the winds are perfectly calm and I'm down low.  His radar has no such limitations.

"Ah, I'm reading your ground speed at one hundred thirty knots, 58 Sierra."

Holy schnikey!  I was flying at 103 indicated, so I had an almost 30 knot tailwind.  I got a little worried because my weather briefing this morning didn't say anything about winds at alt today, and I didn't look forward to fighting a big headwind on my way back.  As soon as I got out of the valley, however, I started hitting my checkpoints on schedule again, so it must have been the air being funneled between mountains that created a temporary 'push' from behind.

I flew out to Mojave, snapping some pictures along the way.  I swear, I'll post 'em on my website soon.  Still looking for the cable.  I got a picture of the Willow Springs race track that my friend John goes to all the time, I'm sure he'll like that.

I descend to the traffic pattern altitude.  It's higher then usual, because, well, the airport is higher then usual too.  I'm usually flying to sea-level runways, but since Mojave is in the high desert...  2,800 feet.  I had read ahead, and the airport is usually uncontrolled during the weekends, so I listened in a little while to figure out the lay of the land, then made my call.  "Mojave traffic, Piper Cherokee 8258 Sierra, eight miles southwest, landing, Mojave traffic."  Someone else asked for the winds, and some helpful fellow on the ground told him, so I looked at my Flight Guide, checked out the three runways, and picked one that was almost directly into the wind.

"Mojave traffic, 8258 Sierra entering crosswind for runway two two, right traffic.  Mojave traffic."  When calling to an uncontrolled airport, my instructor taught me to say the name at the beginning and end of my transmission so that if anyone only caught the last little bit, and realized it might pertain to them, they'd know to call out for a repeat.  These UNICOM frequencies seem to cover lots of little airports up in the California desert, so I can see a real use in using the name twice.

As I came in to land, I snapped a picture or two of the boneyard.  Mojave is a really interesting place.  It's up in the desert where there's essentially no humidity, and land is cheap and there's a long runway.  As a result, it's turned into an airplane storage yard/junkyard for...  everyone.  There are 737s, Airbus, military, even Jumbo jets parked out in the dirt at the airport.  Whenever there are too many planes in the fleet and they retire the old ones, and maybe can't find a customer, they fly them out to 'store' them in the desert.  Any time an airline goes defunct and the creditors don't turn the planes into capital right away, there's a good chance it'll end up at Mojave.  Even some military planes end up here, whether as surplus or other, I can't tell.  There were also some things out in the desert a half a mile from the airport that I realized were rocket test stands, most likely built for XCOR.

I parked the plane and walked inside.  The restaurant was closed (there was a sign saying 'Closing early, happy easter!'  I guess if I was really hungry, I might not be THAT happy....) but I found a guy at an admin desk and asked for the tour.  He took me to his Van and we drove out onto the field.  He took me past some interesting things.  First, we stopped at a 737 that had been purchased by some new airline in Nigeria that had a bunch of people re-upholstering.  They had a big sewing machine for carpet and were getting it done pretty fast.  I hope they have more then an e-mail to work on for payment....  "DEAR SIR, I AM THE PRIME MINISTER OF NIGERIA, AND I HAVE A PROPOSITION FOR YOU", etc.

We drove out to where the Rotary Rocket test vehicle was sitting outside.  The building had just been sold, and the ATV (pictured here: http://www.rotors.org/images/1frontpic_2.jpg) had been evicted to sit outside just a week ago.  It still looked like new, but I'm sure the desert weather will take care of that soon.  I got a picture of it.  It was funny to think that, just five years ago, I was about to quit my job and apply to work for Rotary Rocket.  I think I could have gotten a job too, as I was willing to work for pennies and had qualifications they needed...  but I chickened out.  Seeing as how the company ran out of money and folded a couple years later, I guess I lucked out.

We drove out into the boneyard itself, and I got some snapshots of passenger jets in various states of dis-assembly (in some cases, 'dis-assembly' should be translated to 'stuff torn out, as if with a crane), including some spectacular views of 737s behind held up on wooden crates because the landing gear had been (apparently) removed and (likely) sold.

I also saw a pair of C-133s, which had been used to carry atomic bombs to Europe back in the 50s.  All the while, the guy giving the tour (Tim) and I discussed economic theory, a subject I didn't know I was interested in, but it turned out we had a number of matching views.

[Chairboy]

Afterwards, I thanked him and, after a quick pre-flight, started up the plane and taxied out to runway 22 behind the other visitor, a Cherokee 140, who was also leaving.  I took off right after him, and it was funny to see the difference in performance between his smaller engined PA-28-140 and my beefier PA-28-161.  I out climbed him pretty quickly and pretty soon we were miles apart.

As soon as I got into the air, I realized that I had forgotten to clean the windshields again.  It was covered with dead bugs, and I had meant to clean it earlier, but now I was stuck in the air with these blotches all over my field of view.  I'm sure they show up in the photos.

I got flight following again and had an uneventful trip back through the pass.  I got handed off from Joshua Approach to SOCAL approach, then SOCAL handed me off to different frequencies no less then FIVE times in the span of like 10 minutes.  I must have been flying through some little intersection of their coverage zones, because I was spending more time dialing in numbers then I was flying, practically.

I descended to 3,500 through the valley, staying clear of Van Nuys airspace to keep the approach guys from having to do any extra work, then contacted the Santa Monica tower as I came over the hill.  

I landed, nothing noteworthy, and parked the plane.  I called to order gas so the next renter wouldn't have to, then cleaned the windshield.  I read another student's story about how their instructor (who didn't own the plane) skidded 20 feet to catch an early taxiway off the runway, leaving a black mark on the pavement.  I'd hate for someone to do that to my plane, so I figured I'd treat 58S the way I'd treat my own.  Windows cleaned, I headed out for the day.

2.2 hours flying, and a much superior method for getting to the Mojave airport.   Er, Spaceport.  

This week, I have practice with my instructor.  My check ride is going to be on Saturday out of Van Nuys airport, so we'll do some practice flights in and out of there so I know the area and airspace real good.  I wish I was getting my exam out of Santa Monica...  but alas.