A real piloting story

Some would say a story about flying an Aircoupe is not a story about
real piloting. But surely it's closer than a lot of the off-topic
vituperation lately on r.a.p.

Yesterday was classic early spring weather for Northern California.
Sunny, chilly, a bit of moisture in the air to lower visibilities all
the way down to 30 or 40 miles. The valley and hills were California
green, not almost day-glo green like the Midwest but good enough for
here.

But I didn't go flying in the morning. Still working on my flakey
computer and then some yard chores, like mowing the grass (first time
since November) and spraying the weeks with Roundup. Too bad, because
a friend I helped a year ago fly a newly-purchased Aircoupe back from
Texas called from the airport. He and another Aircoupe owner were
going to do a fly-by of a giant-scale R/C meet just north of town,
then continue north and putz around. Could I join them? Damn! the
time it would take change out of my PJs and drive to the airport would
be too much time. Reluctantly I declined and got to work on the
chores.

After a late lunch I headed out to the airport around 2:30. I
took along the aircraft battery I had removed during the week and
recharged using Deltran's Battery Tender Plus, recommend by Aviation
Consumer and especially suited for gel batteries.

Arriving at the airport, my Aircoupe buddy and another pilot were
talking so I joined them. The other guy had just flown his C-150
earlier in the day for the first time in 8 or 9 months, after a long
series of one-thing-leads-to-another repair sessions starting with a
weak cylinder. Don't know that I would have had the nerve to fly solo
after that long a layoff but like he said, "hey, I did my BFR in
December so I was good." My buddy the Aircoupe driver could only
exclaim about how great Mount Shasta--a 14,000 foot mountain about 120
nm north--looked with fresh snow on it. "All the way down to the
ground", which you don't see in the summer.

That was all the incentive I needed to get my battery back in my
Coupe, preflight, and head north myself. And did that recharge help!
It's never cranked so good, and it didn't take long to taxi out,
runup, take off south and depart on the downwind.

Yeah! now we're flying, and this first long flight of spring feels
great. It's not the flight itself so much, but the release of
bottled-up desire for action during the lousy months before. There's
something special about the chilled air, haze on the horizon, and the
tickling thought that in this fresh flying season everything is new
again. Want to fly to some distant place never seen before? You
can. Want to renew acquaintance with favorite fly-in restaurants and
hangout spots? You will. Want to join your buddies for good times on
a Sunday fly-out? Call them and it will be, all to happen in the
coming months.

With no particular place to go, I continued north, dodging the
Sacramento International and Beale Air Force Class C airspace, and
flew over the Sutter Buttes
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutter_Buttes), a curious little
mountain range in the middle of the Sacramento Valley. On a whim I
headed for my hometown in the foothills and circled over the old
homestead. Haven't been back for a couple of years and from the air I
could see some major construction on my street. The canyons on either
side of town, so spectacular from the ground, are mere ditches from
fifty-five hundred feet. The higher terrain lies north and east,
unexplored by me from either land or air. Rugged stuff and not for
the casual or unprepared.

It was time to head back, this time along the foothills, east of
Oroville dam and reservoir, over some private airports. Snowy
mountains to the east, beckoning and threatening, and the great
Sacramento Valley west, impossible to see clearly with the setting sun
and haze. On the return I fly east of the Beale Class C, and right at
the easternmost point on its circle there is a large, odd-looking
construction of semi-circle rows and a stylish central building. I
mistake it for a moment for an outdoor theater, but no--it's a
vineyard placed in the foothills. The Sierra foothills for a couple
of hundred miles are trying to find some of the Napa and Sonoma
Valleys' success with wine grapes. When I was a kid Dad started 3
vineyards of table grapes--Concords--but he was not a good businessman
and the whole venture collapsed. Too far ahead of his time perhaps.

I need to turn westward, and with my last experience flying into the
sun late afternoon (http://tinyurl.com/2h7wht) I'm inclined to use
NorCal approach for flight following. They don't give me direct to
University Airport, but almost as good--direct McClellan, direct
University, which they prefer because I'll cross Sacramento
International at more of a right angle. McClellan is one of two Air
Force Bases closed during the base consolidation in the 1990s. It's
amusing to land on the enormous runways in my little Aircoupe. But
not now and not today, I wanna get home.

A few minutes before arrival at KEDU (we changed the ICAO code from
the confusing 0O5 just months before) Approach cuts me loose and my
GPS screen switches to a black background, signalling sunset. The
third and latest Aircoupe owner at University is there too, just
arrived a few minutes earlier. We chat a bit, watching the moonrise
over the city Davis. He is newly relocated from Alaska and asks if
the weather--calm, cool, and quiet--will last through the summer. I
get a chuckle, and we agree to enjoy this while we can. Summer will
be here soon enough with heat, Delta breeze, and its own season
pleasures and opportunities.

--
If you go to a party, and you want to be the popular one at the
party, do this: Wait until no one is looking, then kick a burning
log out of the fireplace onto the carpet. Then jump on top of it
with your body and yell, "Log o' fire! Log o' fire!" I've never
done this, but I think it'd work.
- Jack Handey