So about a year ago Brenda bought me an “introductory lesson package” gift certificate from the soaring school at Boulder Municipal Airport. I finally got a chance to get on the schedule.

I have flown gliders exactly one other time before, back on the east coast. A friend of a friend offered me a chance to fly a Schewitzer 2-33 from Van Sant airport in Pennsylvania, and I had a ball despite the overcast day which meant no thermals, which meant we went up, and basically came right back down. Since moving to Boulder, I have pretty much stopped flying airplanes save for a few checkout flights, due to cost and time constraints. But apparently Boulder Colorado, in addition to being a veritable Mecca for cycling, rock climbing, hiking and trail running, is also somewhat of a worldwide destination for soaring. Boulder’s location, tucked up against the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, makes it a great spot to launch from. The summertime Colorado sun generates plenty of thermals and the wintertime wave action over the mountains creates conditions ripe for skilled pilots to take a motorless aircraft to altitudes above 20,000 feet. Naturally, I was intrigued. I guess Brenda got tired of hearing me say “I really need to go over there and try the gliders”, because she got me this really great Christmas present last year that I finally got to cash in on this past Saturday.

Unfortunately, the weather was rapidly deteriorating (a huge front swept in Saturday night and dumped a bunch of snow on us, and it’s 1 degree outside right now), so I only got to do one tow. My instructor was originally from Hawaii, and with me from New Jersey, we met in Boulder, towed to 2,000’ AGL and proceeded to get the shit knocked out of us.

But what a view!

This is us approaching our release altitude, with Valmont Reservior to the left and the Flatirons filling the windscreen. The turbulence was fairly severe, and several times there was an uncomfortable amount of slack in the tow rope as towplane and glider each got smacked around in their own little shitstorms of air. After we released, we were able to easily hover in place if we pointed the ship directly into the prevailing west wind, which was fun, but my instructor sensed it was only going to get worse and so we cut the lesson short and headed back to the airport.

I still have two tows coming to me and hopefully I’ll get those in sometime soon. I am in the enviable position of working a mere mile and a half from the airport these days, so a lunch hour launch is not out of the question.

Getting the glider pilot’s license is merely an add-on rating for me, since I already possess a private pilot’s certificate. Rental rates are cheaper, and since the gliders don’t burn any gas, after the tow, it’s a pretty sustainable activity. So, I’m certainly interested in pursuing the rating, but it’s still an expensive hobby. We’ll see. At the very least I can look forward to a couple more flights, and I’ll be sure to document the fun right here.

Boulder Municipal Airport (KBDU) had an open house today. Not an airshow per se, but there were a couple of cool airplanes parked on the ramp (including a very rare two-seat Supermarine Spitfire trainer) for inspection. I took Hooper to the airport for our very first “father-son” type outing. It was great. At one point, a flight of three AT-6 “Texan” aircraft flew overhead, and my friend Michael got a shot of Hooper and I enjoying the show.

A few moments later, they all landed and taxied up to where we were, and Hoop didn’t even flinch. So, he likes airplanes, even the big, loud, radial-engined ones. I was so proud.

About a week or so ago, I received a flyer in the mail announcing the coming of the Liberty Belle — a restored, airworthy, Boeing B-17 bomber dating from World War II. She was going to be at nearby Rocky Mountain Metro Airport (formerly known as Jefferson County Airport), right down the road. Rides would be available.

There are a handful of these flying specimens touring the country at any given time and they serve to remind people of the sacrifices made by the so-called Greatest Generation and to preserve the legend of these magnificent aircraft. The usual deal is you make a reservation to fly in the thing, pay your money (in this case, $450 for a 30-minute flight), and enjoy a very unique aviation experience. The money goes toward offsetting the enormous operating costs associated with flying a four engine heavy bomber manufactured over sixty years ago — when the word “hybrid” was never applied to an automobile — while you get to launch into the wild blue yonder in a piece of friggin’ history. Not a bad deal, considering. The typical passenger profile ranges from curious thrillseeker, to aging veteran, to child of some crewmember who never made it back from those very dangerous skies over Europe in the early 1940’s, when the B-17 — A.K.A. the “Flying Fortress” — was plying her trade. I’ve seen video interviews of passengers filmed during and after these flights, and their testimonies are always enlightening, but the ones from the kids of these crewmembers will always, always make you a little misty.

Now, $450 for a half-hour ride is a little rich for my blood, especially for a flight wherein I don’t get to actually fly the damned thing. So I immediately opted out, but I stuffed the date in the back of my head. After all, I had already mentally mapped out the ideal flight plan for a 30-minute sightseeing flight from Jeffco, and it would have taken the flight northwest, directly toward Boulder, then along the Front Range toward Longmont, and then, with a nice sweeping turn back to the southeast, back toward the point of origin.

And that’s exactly what the Liberty Belle did, all day today.

This morning, around 9:30 AM, I was sitting in my living room sipping coffee and reading email when I heard a sound that I never hear around here. It was the rhythmic, synchronized, throaty thrum of four Wright Cyclone air-cooled, piston-powered aircraft engines. I immediately recalled the flyer I had received, realized today was the day, and ran to the window. And there she was:

The Liberty Belle, now showing in Boulder, Colorado! I grabbed my camera and ran from my deck to the front porch like a maniac every time the plane came by on another run. Seeing the object of one of my many infatuations flying past the mountains that have become my latest love was nothing short of breathtaking. I took a few shots, that will appear to most as pictures of mountains with a speck in the sky. But I know what that speck is, and now so do you.

Here’s the photo album: B-17 Over Boulder

I went for a bike ride shortly after the third run, but the ‘Belle continued to fly, and I annoyed my riding companions every time she flew by, imploring them all to look up and watch this magnificent assemblage lumber past. If you’re in the area and are so inclined, the ‘Belle flies again tomorrow. I’m hoping for better sky conditions and the chance for a few more pictures, myself.

Wow. (Another) Yankee goes and gets himself killed flying, and now the criminal (yes, criminal, just like his asshole father) Chicago Mayor Daley and Hillary Clinton are yapping about how dangerous these small planes are. CNN’s shitty website ran a poll recently asking the good citizens of the websurfing world if small planes should be “allowed” to fly over densely populated cities, and the majority answered no.

Chill out, people.

I have never Monday-morning-quarterbacked a plane crash before, but moments after hearing about the Lidle crash I already had a good idea what had happened; after watching the video and seeing the smoke streaming west I had all the info I needed. Cory and his instructor flew up a dead end canyon of airspace and tried an already tight turnaround, downwind, in a stiff and gusty wind. This strong wind took them over Manhattan and they were apparently caught unawares and before they knew their mistake and could plan an exit they flew into a building. They were idiots, pure and simple. And now asshole politicians are using this tragic act of stupidity to twist it into moronic legislation and more fear mongering. This is retarded bullshit and it pisses me off. Some kid hopped up on Accutane flew a stolen Cessna into a Florida office building a couple years ago and all he managed to do was break a window and stain a carpet. Cory Lidle and his brilliant instructor did a little more damage, owing to some fuel burning, but the bottom line is the plane pancaked into the building and fell to the ground. Terrorism shouldn’t even enter into the discussion, but it does, even with the democrats. I’m so sick of these moronic politicians attaching themselves to “causes” that don’t need attention, scaring people, hamstringing pilots and restricting freedoms to further their political careers because the masses are uneducated about general aviation.

Fuck you, Hillary, drop dead, Daley. Lautenberg, you can kiss my ass too.

I learned to fly in the New York City area and I never thought to fly up the East River Corridor for the very reason that it required a tight 180-degree turn to get back out. It’s really only meant for helicopters, or good pilots on a good weather day. Cory made a mistake, but his accident affected a lot of people, and that’s unfortunate. But this post-9/11 climate has allowed People like Daley and Clinton to seize on this event for their own political gain. They can all go to hell.

If you doubt my assessment of the crash, here’s a screenshot of Cory’s view of his last few seconds. My friend loaded up a flight model of a Cirrus SR-22 (the plane he was flying) into Microsoft Flight Simulator, placed the plane at the last point (lat/long and altitude) he was tracked northbound on radar, set the wind speed and direction exactly as it was at the time of the crash, and began a 60-degree (very steep) turn to get turned around and head south out of the East River Corridor. Here’s what he saw:

The wind took them over the island of Manhattan (into controlled airspace) and they simply didn’t recover or form a Plan B in time. I’ll eat crow if I’m wrong (turns out I wasn’t, but I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts that that’s what happened, pure and simple. It’s a damned shame, but we don’t need to be grounding pilots because of it. Plenty more people get killed every day by assholes who can’t drive.

Today, I got something I’ve been wanting ever since I left a dear old friend behind in New Jersey 18 months ago. Actually, I’ve wanted this thing ever since I acquired “niner three foxtrot”, my old beloved airplane. I wanted an air-to-air shot of the old bird, and today I got one.

Jake — 93F’s new proud owner (and also recent proud owner of his very own private pilot certificate) — sent me a pic of my old plane in its natural habitat: loitering a thousand or two feet above the lush, green western New Jersey farmland:

Rob W. took the shot, from the open door of his Piper Cub, another plane I flew way back when, when I was connected to a very cool little group of pilots who gave me access to all kinds of cool planes.

Do I miss having my own plane? Yes and no. Do I miss flying? Yes, absolutely. But aircraft ownership is expensive, and I did it the cheapest way possible. My old Cessna 150 cost less than my car, and my good friend John maintained it for free, basically. But for the amount I flew the thing, it still made more sense to rent (sadly, I now live within walking distance of a local airport and theoretically would have flown my plane far more out here, but little, underpowered niner-three-foxtrot would not have fared well out here in Colorado’s high country, so it really made sense to sell her back east).

The cost of flying — already pretty high, as hobbies go — has only increased with the rising fuel costs, and $115/hr to rent a Cessna 172, the going rate at my now-local airport, is just too rich for my blood these days. Besides, I can see the same views by walking to the top of Bear Peak. So, for now, my aviation hobby is on hold. I’ve even sold my aviation GPS.

But the allure of aviation will course through my veins forever, just as it did before I ever took a lesson. I will fly again, and hopefully someday will once again own an aircraft of my own. For now, I have plenty of activities that supplement the thrill of flying, but none will ever replace the unique feeling of taking a heavier-than-air machine into the air and controlling your own destiny for a couple hours. Jake’s picture reminded me of a great time in my personal history, a time when I owned and flew my own airplane, and I will never forget that time of my life or the person (hi John!) responsible for making that dream a reality.

I can head over to Boulder Municipal Airport anytime I want and go fly, and I’m checked out in a couple of their aircraft. But I want to be good, and being good requires practice — expensive practice. So for now I’m on an aviation sabbatical. Jake’s picture just reminded me of the beauty of aviation and the joy of flying, particularly the unique joy of flying your own airplane.

Congrats on passing the ride, Jake! Glad to see old 93F is spending lots of time in the air, where it belongs.

Today Brenda & I hiked to the top of Mount Elbert, the tallest mountain in the state of Colorado. At 14,433’ above sea level, it’s second only to California’s Mount Whitney (by about sixty feet) for tallest mountain in the lower 48 states. Today, we stood on the top of Colorado, and it was a hell of a feeling. Our first “fourteener”. Yeah!

Now, Elbert is considered an “easy” fourteener. And it is, I guess. The thing is massive, so the approach ends up being fairly shallow the whole way. But you’re still walking six miles across and 4,000’ up, and then get to reverse and repeat the process to get back to the car. We were quite pleased with our performance, regardless of the “easy” rep Elbert enjoys. We passed several people on our way to the summit, and got the whole ordeal completed in 7.5 hours, including spending 40 minutes up there just looking around.

At the summit I had to chuckle, as I looked across the valley at Leadville, CO. Just a couple miles south of town is Lake County Airport, the highest public airport in the lower 48. And here we were, looking down on it! Pretty amazing. A few planes flew by while were were near and on the summit, and it was kinda cool to be looking directly at them, or looking down on them. In the photo below, you can make out the town of Leadville in the center and the long runway at the airport just to the south of town.

The clouds started building and we decided to get the hell outta Dodge a little before 11AM. The general idea is to be off the mountain by early afternoon, lest you get roasted by a nice bolt of Colorado mountain lightning. Below treeline, there were loads of charred trees and pulverized stumps to serve as reminders of what happens up there when the afternoon thunderstorms unleash their energy. After heading back to the (really nice) B&B we stayed at for a quick shower, we headed home. As we drove along RT24 we watched Mount Elbert get quite a soaking from an afternoon rainstorm, but thankfully no lightning; we knew full well that there were still a bunch of people on that hill, as we had passed them on their way up just hours ago.

All in all, it was a great weekend and a great hike, and I think we’re as ready as we can be for our attempt on Long’s Peak. Stay tuned.

Peter Tomarken, the host of the 80’s TV game show “Press Your Luck”, got himself and his wife killed in a plane crash the other day. The ultimate whammy.

From the eyewitness reports and the wreckage, it appears that he had a problem with the plane shortly after takeoff, apparently lost the engine, and was trying to glide back to the airport, and it just wasn’t in the cards. The sad thing is, they were out over water as they were turning around, and at some point it was probably better to ditch in the water rather than trying to “stretch the glide” to land. Instead of a controlled crash into shallow water, it looks like the pilot stalled the plane and caused the plane to nose over and descend very rapidly into the water; if they weren’t killed on impact they were likely incapacitated and drowned in shallow water.

Additional sadness: the Tomarkens were on an Angel Flight, enroute to pick up a patient in need of air transportation to a distant hospital for treatment. Angel Flight is an organization that organizes volunteer private pilots who fly these flights entirely for free.

Trying to stretch the glide is akin to pressing your luck.

When Garmin’s G1000 “glass cockpit” instrumentation system came out last year, I sort-of did a “whatever”. At the time, I still owned niner-three-fox, my beloved little 1966 Cessna 150 with basic cockpit instrumentation (and my handheld Garmin 196 which was impressive enough). The G1000 is something on the order of a $60K option on new aircraft, and I figured I’d never fly behind one of those. Hence my blase attitude about how cool they may be.

Boy was I wrong.

On Saturday, I got checked out in another aircraft available for rent over at Aviation Services, the local airport FBO. Sure, it’s just a 172, but sitting behind a G1000, wrapped in a shiny new panel with that aircraft grey paint (on a leather seat that still smells like new), I felt like a jet captain.

The G1000 incorporates just about all of the old traditional flight instruments, navigation and communications radios, GPS with moving map, terrain and traffic awareness, and rolls them into two large, bright displays and a central control panel. What’s more is that the traditional “six pack” of primary flight instruments (airspeed indicator, attitude indicator, altimeter, turn coordinator, heading indicator and rate-of-climb indicator) has been distilled into one cohesive display that shows those six pieces of information — and a whole lot more — in a single presentation right in front of the pilot. If you get lost, run out of fuel or fly into something with all this info, you suck.

Weather and schedules meshed once again and I booked 914DB for an hour so “fam flight”, or familiarization flight. I’d downloaded the manual for the G1000 installed in Cessna Aircraft (called the “NavIII package”, which is marketing-speak for sixty thousand friggin’ bucks), and read about 200 pages of knob twiddling factoids, realized I had half a manual to go, and went to bed.

Saturday dawned sporting an uncharacteristically overcast sky, and I initially thought I may not get to fly. But the Boulder Airport AWOS was reporting a 1500’ ceiling over the airport — just high enough to legally launch — and the weather to the north at Greely was already burning off. So, off we went.

It’s still a 172, the same type of plane I did all my primary training in, but there are a few differences. The extra 20 horsepower in the SP model is welcome, the ten extra fuel drains (the result of some bullshit court ruling and too many lawyers in general) are not welcome. But the big difference on the preflight checklist is all the extra steps directly related to the G1000. There is a battery backup system that can power the unit in the event of a total electrical failure — this is nice, since everything is on that damned G1000. So, we test that. And we make sure that the avionics bay cooling fans are working; you have to shut off BusA just to hear the BusB fan in the rear of the plane; this stuff gets hot. But all in all, it’s not too much more to worry about and it’s damned fun working with brand-new equipment — 914DB has 340 hours on the hobbs meter since new. Most planes I fly have thousands of hours on them.

After a little button pushing and knob twiddling to make sure I knew how to accomplish the basics, my instructor and I launched into the grey. The temptation to gaze at that panel is strong, but I managed to fly like I was taught by looking out the damned window, stealing occasional glances at the panel to confirm all was well, but also to just marvel at how inteligently the display is designed. After a few miles or so a hole in the overcast revealed itself, so we climbed up through it and were bathed in sunshine and smooth air, with a fabulous view of the mountains. (Once again, I have nothing but shitty pictures to document my aerial explorations. I will get better. I promise.)

Some maneuvers, stalls and steep turns, and a few touch and goes at Longmont later, and it was back home to Boulder. Another plane at my disposal now. Next up, mountain flying instruction!

P.S. The altimeter reads =~ 7,800’; Brenda & I topped that today — under our own power, no less — when we climbed to the top of Green Mountain, 8,144’ above sea level! Even saw some hawks doing their thing in the canyon as we started down.

Well, at long last, I have finally flown around in sunny Colorado. In July of last year, I sold my beloved Cessna 150, knowing full well that the little 100HP plane would not be terribly useful in the high country of Colorado. I also sorta put all aviation on hold, as there was a bit of financial uncertainty involved with moving 2/3 of the way across the country and buying a new house. Besides, I was getting my cycling fix. But ever since arriving in Boulder, I have thought about flying. The local airport is only three miles from my house, and the glider towplanes fly over my office every day. The scenery of Colorado’s front range is breathtaking, and I’ve been thinking about what it must be like to view it from the air.

After a false start last week, where I had a plane and instructor booked but had to sit on the ground and watch the windsock point straight out, I woke up this morning to calm winds and incredible visibility. It was time to get back in the air.

I met my instructor and after a preflight we hopped in and fired up. After the run-up, I got an intro to leaning for performance at altitude, something I never had to worry about down at sea level. After that, it was time to fly. The goal was to fly around, get familiar with the local area, and get acquainted with flying at altitude, where some things work a little differently.

We climbed out to the east, and I demonstrated some maneuvers such as slow flight, steep turns and stalls, all the while making our way to Platte Valley airpark for a touch & go. My first landing at altitude was… pretty straightforward. Your groundspeed is higher than it is down at sea level, but it actually feels more comfortable for some reason. But the runway sure does fly by, and planning and airspeed control is definitely more important than ever up here.

After Platte Valley, we headed oer to nearby Erie Municipal for another couple of landings. From there, it was up to Longmont’s Vance Brand Airport, and them back to Boulder Muni for what was supposed to be a full stop landing but ended up being a go-around following a too-high approach.

All in all, I flew OK, and the instructor felt the flying was solid enough to wrap up my biennial flight review and sign me off to take the plane out solo from now on! So after a six month dry spell, I am once again kicked from the roost and am looking forward to soaring above Boulder. The challenges of the mountains are the next task.

Enough of this Boulder business, I’m goin’ to Oshkosh!

That’s right, it’s late July and that means it’s time for EAA Airventure, the biggest general aviation airshow in the world, and I’m going again. I had originally thought I would be riding with my friends in the Aztec again, but I seem to have moved far away from them. So, I’ll be flying commercial to Green Bay and meeting up with John, Rob, Damian & Jill, Bill & son, and Jake tomorrow, and we’ll all be driving down to Appleton. From there, we will plan our assault on Oshkosh’s Whittman Field while consuming beers.

EAA Airventure — generally known as “Oshkosh” to pilots — is quite simply the greatest aviation spectacle on earth. If you dig planes, you gotta go. And once you go, you want to go to every one. I attended it for the first time in 2003, and last year I really missed the high of attending. It’s a big celebration of things with wings, and the people who fly them, invent them, build them, restore them and love them. So you see, I gotta go.

Hopefully the cold front that is draped across the entire middle of the country will not mess me up too bad, and I’ll rendezvous in a timely fashion, and by this time tomorrow I’ll be sipping beers with my pilot pals

Thursday, I’ll hit the warbird flightline and melt into the dizzying array of assembled aircraft, marveling at the scope of the show, the enthusiasm of the participants and the wonder of aviation.