Walking on the Moon

Warren Ellis sees things. Things that remind us that the world is cool. Things like this copy of Stonehenge made from refrigerators. And now you can see it too.

It’s always nice when you confirm another fact from your POH. This weekend I confirmed that you can safely fly an Archer with people in all four seats. It helps a great deal if one is a kid and you don’t take a lot of gas or luggage. We were at about gross weight and I could tell, but overall 32169 performed like a champ. The pilot seemed to do OK, too, but I’ll admit a strong desire to just jerk the little bugger off that 2600 foot runway at San Carlos (SQL).

The occasion was the Make magazine-sponsored Maker Faire in San Mateo. Aaron Falk talked me into taking him and his daughter up (fly to the Bay Area? not a hard sell), and when she saw the program Brenda was interested, too.

We got a good early start out of SMO (well, as early as the weekend curfew allows – 8:00 AM) and stopped in San Luis Obispo (SBP) for gas. There was a solid undercast most of the trip, but we spent most of the trip on top at 8000. It was cold enough for ice, but no clouds. We got to shoot an approach into SPB, but broke out at the FAF, so not so exciting. I did get an automated altitude check alert from the tower, but wasn’t ever below a charted altitude. I think it was one of those trend-based alarms that didn’t like my steep decent to each step down. At any rate a nice flight.

From there IFR to SQL. Another fun, mostly on-top flight. Only really in IMC while getting vectored for the approach. The controller pretty much put me into the clouds just in time to get busy, vector me around, and then I popped out at the FAF again. SQL is in a busy corner of the woods.

Coming out of SQL on Sunday, I got a fairly complex VFR/IFR departure clearance but the rest of the flight was pretty straightforward. Aaron would make a fine flight instructor with the number of questions he asks during departure, but that was actually good practice dealing with the distraction. And he was happy to take “I’ll tell you in a minute” as an answer. I actually got some IMC this flight as the cloud deck slowly rose up to meet us outside SBP (another gas stop). Overall a pretty smooth flight.

The last leg was equally pleasant. Departing full from a 5300′ runway is much easier on the nerves than a 2600 footer. We flew through one cloud on departure and descended through a layer over the LA basin and were in at SMO. Between there we cruised above layers and Brenda taught Aaron’s daughter to knit.

We did get to see a one of a kind phenomenon. Up above the clouds in an airplane you often get a circular rainbow centered around the shadow of the plane, called a glory. As we turned east from San Marcos, we were flying right out of the sun, and as it set it arranged itself directly behind us both laterally and vertically. Everything was perfectly aligned so that as we entered a cloud bank on descent we met a very clear glory-haloed silhouette of the Archer perfectly nose to nose. It was a 120 knot collision with the fantastic that you can only see from the front seat, and well worth the trip.
The faire deserves a post to itself, and it’ll get one.

I’m delighted to see that Washingtonian Magazine has discovered Jeff Hollingsworth‘s super-geeky lifetime project in home automation and written a feature article about it.  If possible they manage to make Jeff sound cooler than he is, which is difficult.

How have we lasted as long as we have without a taser knife?  OK, it’s not a functional taser knife but it’s a clear proof of concept.  Can taser swords be far behind??  I certainly hope not.
As with many irresponsible and wonderful things, Warren Ellis saw it before I did.

I’m leaving work (and it was light again!), and taking the elevator down 11 stories when the phone in the elevator starts talking to me. There’s a brain-damaged phone in there in case the one guy other than me in LA without a cell phone manages to get himself or herself stuck. It’s a one-button, programmed-to-dial-the-elevator-company, speaker phone. Apparently it will also take calls.
Now, here’s the thing: the company that called the elevator phone (the voice I was hearing was obviously taped) was selling mortages. I spent the 45 seconds I was heading downstairs listening to some company’s mortage pitch. Note that “hang up” is not an obvious choice of actions this phone can take. Nor should it be. If I’m delivering someone’s baby in a stuck elevator, I don’t want to bump the thing and disconnect myself.
So this is either some diabolical company who knows that people are going to stay in the elevator and can’t hang up, so calling the speaker phone at the end of normal business hours gives them free advertising, or it’s some bozo who isn’t being very careful with their wardialer (don’t they have to have elevator phones on a do-not-call list?).

I suppose there’s also the possibility that this is one of the mortage company’s competitors trying to discredit them by placing false heinous ads in their name. I think that unlikely, because I can’t have any worse opinion of mortage companies involved in any kind of direct mailings, but I could be wrong.

I do want all of you to sue these bastards blind if their intrusive advertising gets me so upset that I have a heart attack and can’t call out of my elevator because they’re selling me a mortage on the emergency phone.

My sweet baby points out this impressive bit of hackery for identifying fonts.

Andy Hoover points out this radio-controlled Airbus 380.  I haven’t been able to see the video yet, but the pics are very cool.

The brouhaha over Nature‘s claims of Wikipedia‘s fidelity heats up.  This is the official Nature response.  It includes a link to Britannica’s statement.

A beautiful radio exchange from AVWEB‘s Short Final.

I’ve been able to get up in the air twice this week, once purely for training and once for a little training and a little fun.

Training first: my primary CFI, Andy Hoover, took me up Thursday (30 Mar) and beat up my IFR skills. One of the sad facts of life of flying in SoCal is that we really don’t get a lot of hard IFR days to keep current and safe without going up and getting under the hood. Even though Andy’s spending most of his time flying for American Eagle, he’s good enough to come round every couple months and work me out as well. He really had a sadistic streak going this time; we did an ILS at the top of the green arc to a hold, then a partial panel ILS into Bob Hope – featuring some patented SoCal vectors in lieu of a hold, so it was basically a partial panel hold. We finished off with a different failed instrument instrument for the VOR-A into SMO. Nothing the way it usually works, and all of it went pretty well. After a couple years of this I seem to have a little of it down.

Today, I worked off my PDT disorientation by taking an early afternoon jaunt out to the inland empire. First stop was San Bernardino (SBD) to work some engine out landings. It’s an old military base with a 10000 ft runway, which makes it a great spot to practice things you need a big margin for. Unfortunately, SBD was pretty crowded. There were 3 or 4 of us in the pattern most of the time I was there, with a few more at the peaks. I hung around for a while shooting touch-and-goes and practicing uncontrolled field radio technique, and working landings in up and downdrafts. Good fun. Spotting someone out in their warbird doing a quick aileron roll for the fun of it en route only improved my mood.
After I got tired of that, I went next door to Flabob AIrport (RIR) for some lunch. Flabob is a great little GA airport. It’s a cool little field, but it’s really odd going from the 10000’x200′ runway at SBD to RIR’s 3200’x50′ strip. From wide, long strip illusions right to short, narrow strip ones. Whee!

There are many, many interesting little planes tied down at Flabob and an active pilot community that seems to have good relations with the surrounding community. It’s the site of EAA chapter 1 – where that very cool organization was founded. It’s always an interesting place to drop in to. I walked around, took some pictures and had a practically free chicken-fried steak sandwich. Hard to imagine better.

The trip back to SMO was uneventful – well as uneventful as getting into SMO ever is.