January 2004

It's not like shaver
didn't warn me or anything. It's just that I can't resist
sometimes.

Last Sunday I had my first instrument flight that included
actually flying in a real live airplane. There was an airmet
for turbulence and I have to say the aviation weather service
didn't disappoint. It was pretty bumpy and poor shona would have
been terrified if she had come along for the ride.

We flew the VOR RWY 23 approach into bedford and I did quite well
on that one, all things considered. I was having problems
maintaining a constant altitude, some of which was due to the
turbulence but had more to do with my apparently inability to use
the trim wheel on that particular day. From there, I was vectored
around via ATC and got set up for the ILS RWY 29 approach also
into bedford. That also went relatively well, except that I had
trouble following the glide path down for similar trim reasons.
At about 400 feet above the ground (200 feet lower than the MDA)
my instructor had me remove the hood and I was right on target.
It was quite nice to be able to see that. I'm just looking
forward to the day when we can do that in real clouds. However,
given the current weather, that's going to be quice some time from
now. From there, a nice landing and we were done for the day.

Major stumbling points included: occasional fixation and ommision.
Managing the workload while maintaining a scan (changing to the
approach plate from VOR 23 to ILS 29 took about 30 seconds, which
is an eternity.) Thinking about my descent rate on the ILS
approach and translating that into what was happening on the glide
slope and how it should have told me something about my actual
ground speed. Failed to use my 5 Ts a lot of places.

Positive points: I handled the 40 knot winds that were basically
off my wing on the VOR approach quite well. Managed to stay
basically on target most of the way down. Tracked each of the
altitude changes as required as well as keeping awareness of my
MDA and where I was in relation to it. Also managed to keep ahead
of the plane in the sense that I remembered to tune in the right
radio frequencies ahead of time.

Did I mention it was cold that day? I mean, really cold.
I took my glove off during the preflight and it was almost numb in
about 15 seconds. But I managed to get some flying in, and that
was good.

Everyone should stop and take the time to read this
article, even the non-geeks.

Does this
look familar to anyone else?

An
excellent little article on framing. I tend to think about
these things in most conversations I have and especially when I'm
dealing with anything coming out of the media. Many times it's
not the answer that's important, it's the question. People who
take polls have known this for years, and can change the results
based on the language that is used when taking the poll. People
generally don't know when you've changed the context of a
conversation but there are people out there who are completely
immune to the entire practice. For example:

<blizzard> %ifarch i386
<blizzard> CC=gcc296 CXX=g++296
<blizzard> %endif
<blizzard> BUILD_OFFICIAL=1 MOZILLA_OFFICIAL=1 \
<blizzard> this is me crying
<boc> WARNING: PARENTAL DISCRETION IS ADVISED

Right now I'm trying to backport galeon 1.2.7 to Mozilla 1.6.
Don't ask why. It's not that much fun as there have been some
signifigant changes to the charset manager interface as well as
some other small changes. Apparently, a lot of galeon still uses
nsXPComFactory.h and its associated interfaces. So I'm having fun
chewing up some old code.

Had another instrument lesson last night and it went much
better than the last one. My scan was in pretty good shape.
Jumped right in and did an hour in the sim. I did my first VOR
RNAV approach, which is probably the easiest approach I've had to
do yet. The hardest part of the approach turned out to be
programming the RNAV to know about the waypoints. Once that's
done, it's just a question of following the needle and watching
for the TO/FROM indicator to flip. The missed approach point is
just another waypoint. No timing required. Fly right to the
waypoint that is the hold for the missed, and you're done. (I
suspect that this is what flying a GPS approach is like, except
that the GPS already knows about the waypoints.) We also did a
DME arc, which I suspect that I might never use in my entire life
since there are very few approaches that actually still use one,
but you're supposed to know it. So it's something that I need to
practice.

Hopefully next time we'll be in a real plane for a change.

I had another instrument lesson on Saturday. It went OK, but not
great. My scan kept breaking down in the simulator so the one
approach I did was messy, at best. In an embarrassing moment I
discovered that the simulator does, in fact, have a stall warning.
And it's loud. If you get behind the power curve in this
particular machine you need to really step up the power to counter
the stability issues. I know that now, and no one died
discovering that knowledge.

I also had to work on my VOR tracking. It's like everything I
learned dribbled out of my brain and onto the sidewalk. What's up
with that?

This
is kind of neat probably because it crosses my two geek streams.

Had two back-to-back instrument lessons over this weekend with my
instructor, using a sim when appropriate. Did my first ILS
approach yesterday and another one today. I'm reasonably
comfortable doing VOR and NDB approaches at this point as well. I
also feel like I have a pretty good handle on intercepting and
tracking both NDB bearings and VOR radials. My instrument scan
seems to be pretty good. It still breaks down from time to time;
I fixate or I omit, especially when I have to tune a radio or
touch the OBS.

But all things considered, it's coming along. For our next lesson
we're going to actually get in a plane and do some flying,
depending on the weather. I'm really looking forward to it.

I have to admit, I haven't been impressed with the look of a car
in quite some time but the new
Mustang makes my heart jump a bit. I think they did a really
good job with echoing the style of the old mustang while adding a
nice modern touch. 300 horsepower under the hood doesn't hurt,
either.

This image needs a new title. Discuss.

Back from a whirlwind tour of the northeastern united states and
canada. Spent new year's with Mike in toronto which was a lot of
fun. Having a GPS for these trips means you can build interesting
statistics. For example:

Syracuse -> Toronto via Watertown (northern route):

276 miles total trip
0:33:00 time stopped
3:54:00 time moving
4:27:00 time total trip
71 mph moving average

Toronto -> Syracuse via Buffalo (western route)

238 miles total trip
0:20:00 time stopped
3:26:00 time moving
3:47:00 time total trip
69 mph moving average

So it looks like doing the toronto -> syracuse trip is actually
faster if you go around the western side of the lake. Not
counting traffic, of course.