Eagle traffic

So, last Sunday I decided I would go flying to practice and keep my skills current. It was about 20 degrees out, and I hadn't flown the Gobosh in cold weather, so I was looking to see how well the heater worked.

Pretty much started right up, but it took a long time to warm up the engine. Then I went to take off, and it just jumped off the runway and climbed really fast. The dense cold air really makes the propeller more efficient. I take off, head east across the St. Croix river into Wisconsin, and decide to practice some steep turns. I'm at about 2500 feet altitude, and while looking out for other planes, I see an eagle. And then another, and two in a row, and another that comes really close to the plane - maybe 200 feet away. I figure that's just some group of eagles flying south down the river. So I set up for my steep turns, and do a couple of shallow clearing turns to make sure there are no other planes around. And there is another eagle, and it's at my altitude, and I turn a little because it's really close. I do my steep turns and afterwards I see 3 more eagles, all around my altitude.

It's starting to get a little scary, because a bird that big could do some serious damage to the plane, and it would be really sad to hit one. I wonder if they would just naturally avoid the plane? Maybe they're so much more maneuverable than I am, and there isn't any real danger. But big jetliners are sometimes brought down by birds. So I decide to go back to the airport and practice some crosswind landings and takeoffs.

The part of the St. Croix river near the airport is wide and slow, and freezes over in the winter. If you follow the river south, it flows into the Mississippi, and Lake Pepin. Where Lake Pepin ends, there's some fast water that doesn't freeze, and it's a well-known spot for eagles to hang out and fish. Maybe these eagles were moving down the river to find open water. I guess the St. Croix / Mississippi is a migratory flyway, and so if the weather is turning colder, maybe the eagles are just migrating south.

I wish I had taken out my camera and taken a picture, but the one at the top of the post will have to work. Kinda busy flying the plane - I should get a passenger to take pictures sometime.

Oh solo me-o

I know, corny title. Well, after a long time and many twists and turns, I finally got to fly an airplane solo last summer. It just so happened that my 86 year old mom from Prospect Harbor Maine was here in Minnesota visiting the kids, and she does some commentary on the video. The other voice, and recorder, is Jackie of Valters Aviation, my long suffering flight instructor. I'm wearing a yucky old tee shirt, because the "tradition" is that the back of your shirt gets cut off when you first solo, kind of a right of passage for flying students.

The plane I was flying is called a Gobosh 700s. Gobosh is a pretentious title that stands for "go big or stay home. But, the plane is equipped in a way that works really well for me - old fashioned gauges instead of fancy electronics. Works for my old engineering brain, and my less-than-perfect eyesight.

The typical solo flight comes after you've fulfilled the training requirements. Then, on 'solo day', you fly around the traffic pattern with your instructor until she thinks your takeoffs and landings are OK. Then you taxi back to the flight school, the instructor gets out of the plane, and you do 3 takeoffs and landings on your own.

While I was waiting to take off on my first solo takeoff, I'm watching the traffic, and it turns out that two planes were trying to land at about the same time on different runways. The runways cross, so this is clearly a bad thing. So I get on the radio and say "We have two planes landing on runways 22 and 32 at the same time." And the pilot landing on runway 32 aborts and goes around. I was glad I was able to pay attention even while nervous over my first solo.

To ride or not...

This is probably the last good day we're going to get this year for riding. November 21st and it's sunny, and the temp will get above 50!! Tomorrow it may snow. The RC is calling for an "informal" ride.

I've got a scratchy throat - probably coming down with what the kids had last week, bless 'em.

Switching from riding to guitar for the winter.

My bike's electrical system developed some kind of short right as I put it away after the last ride. I think I can fix it, if nothing got seriously damaged. The wiring under the front fairing was smoking, but it didn't start until I was rooting around in the spare battery box for my garage door opener. I bet I took some of the old police accessory wires and crossed them or something.

Oh, what the heck, put on the long underwear, put electrical tape on the wires, and go for it!

My Bke #4, Yamaha Venture Royale

I was happy with my dinner mint green Virago xv750. I had put a lot of miles on it, and it was my first "big bike", and I identified with it. But I was always looking at bikes, and one day when I was getting parts at the local Yamaha dealer, strolling through the used bikes, and I saw a pretty, black and white, low mileage, Virago xv1100. Well, I was thinking, my bike had 33,000 miles, this one had 8,000 miles, it was a little more powerful, maybe I should think about upgrading.

But next to the Virago 1100 was a maroon, 1988 Yamaha Venture Royale. It looked in great shape, had only 30,000 miles (low for a touring bike). This is the bike that our road captain and our tailrider ride. I'm not sure if it was wanting to be one of the crowd, or wanting a bike that I could ride hundreds of miles in comfort, but it really appealed to me. I could trade the old 535 for it, and it was so old that I wouldn't be paying too much for it.

So I decided to call Don the Road Captain and have him take a look at it. He felt it was in pretty good shape, but maybe had more than the 30,000 miles indicated due to wear on the footpegs. He also thought it was overpriced, and bargained with the salesman for me. Anyway, I traded in the xv535, and I was the owner of a 1988 Venture Royale. Riding it home was an adventure, as I'd never been on anything nearly that big before. It's a full dress tourer - Yamaha's answer to the Gold Wing, with a lot of storage space. The 1300 cc motor was a adapted from the V-max, and as a result this bike had serious acceleration.

It turned out the bike needed some work. A strange whine on deceleration ended up being an indication he rear end was shot - I had the dealer's shop fix it, but I had to find the part and pay for that - a serious expense. I had Al, our club mechanic, put progressive shocks in the front. After that, the bike was rideable. I enjoyed it for half a season, with amazing acceleration, wind fully blocked, and surprisingly good performance in turns, once the new shocks were installed. The biggest problem with it is it was really heavy, and really top heavy. I dropped in the parking lot, in the driveway, turning on a narrow road on a steep hill. It was just a monster, and once it started to go it was going to go.

Eventually I sold it to George, our 70+ year old tailrider, who loved it. I replaced it with a 2000 BMW R1100RTP, a former california highway patrol bike with 80,000 miles on it.

Life as a TCMC officer #1: Two wheel pedestrian

One day I got an e-mail from Don the RC, Road captain of the Twin Cities Motorcycle Club, asking if I wanted to be what they call a Corner Guard / Blocker. Basically, this means that if the group comes to an intersection that we might not be able to cross all together, I'm supposed to block (that's the blocker part) the traffic along with the other corner guard / blockers. The corner guarding part is for if the group gets split on a ride, and someone from the front group needs to mark the corner for the following group. But mostly, you do whatever the ride leader needs.

It's cool that this group has girl officers, and that I got to be one of them. And I'm going to blog about this from time to time. It's serious, responsible work, mostly. But sometimes it can be funny. For example:

I was riding in the front of the group, and we were stopped at a stoplight. It wasn't changing, maybe because we weren't big enough to trigger the sensor that changes the light. So Don says to me:

"How quick can you get on and off your bike?"

"Why?"

"Maybe you can push the walk button at the cross walk."

Well, I was riding my latest bike, a BMW R1100RTP (former California Highway Patrol bike) and if I put down the sidestand, the engine will stop. So I turn towards the crosswalk, and ride up the little ramp at the cutout of the curb, alongside the traffic light stand, and push the walk button.

Immediately the light starts to change, and I coast backwards back down into the street. The whole line of bikes is starting to move, and I have to hustle to get back up to the front.

It wasn't in the club primer, but it worked.

How the Mighty Fall

Here's a link to a video showing Brad Pitt dropping his bike while trying to lane-split. (I got this from Keith Ciffus on our club website).

Low speed maneuvering is really tricky. But take heart, all ye newbies who drop your bike occasionally; it's highly unlikely anyone has it on video.

Where did I go? First Flight

After being gone for almost a year, I'm back posting again. Lots has happened - I learned to fly an airplane and added and subtracted new motorcycles to my fleet. I'll get caught up on the bikes, the club, and being an officer later, but right now I feel like flying - well, talking about flying at least.



Here's how it started, and I'm blaming my son. I was looking for something non-warlike for him to play on the computer, and came across Microsoft Flight Simulator. And when he was with my ex for Turkey day, I thought I'd try it myself. Kinda fun, a little challenging, and it appeals to both my engineer brain and what some friends think is an addiction to danger. No danger flying the simulator, other than a stiff back, carpal tunnel, and a bruised ego. When he gets back, my son sees it, and he's all over it. Not just the Cessna 172 in the intro, but first day he's flying the 737.



Ok, job well done, fun for both of us and I can talk to him about it because I've tried it too. But then, my ex takes my son to the local tiny airport, and he gets to go on a 'Young Eagle" flight. Gee sounds like fun, maybe I should go to the airport and try an introductory lesson.



I had been interested in airplanes and flying since I was a kid. One of the neighbors when I was growing up was a B-24 pilot during WWII. He gave me some books on flying, including an "Airplane Mechanic's Handbook", which was illustrated with cool hand drawings. It never went further than that, because, well, I was going to be an engineer. I never thought flying was even an option unless you were in the military. Not like motorcycles, where I thought it was possible but my parents wouldn't let me near one, just something other people did.



So I call up Valters Aviation in Lake Elmo, Minnesota, and ask if I can schedule an introductory flight. Nate and the Piper Warrior are available Sunday afternoon. So, I trundle on out to the airport, drive down the dirt road to the flight school, and there's Nate. Hi, how are you, what got you interested in flying, etc., and we walk over to a 1972 Piper Warrior - a low wing plane that is, shall we say, "experienced."



Nate shows me how to preflight the plane. I walk around it, crawl under it, look under the hood, and although it's old, Nate assures me everything is Ok. So in we climb - he has me go in first, with the only door on the passenger side, and holy crap I'm in the pilot's seat. There's a worn & tattered binder with a plastic sleeve that has a checklist in it. You look at things, set knobs, turn the "yoke" and push on the foot pedals to see if all the controls work. The closest thing I could think of was the time I drove a friend's 1964 VW beetle - things worked but it sure seemed flimsy.



Nate says it's time to start the engine. I put in the key. There's a little primer handle that pumps a little fuel into the carburetor (geeze, more primitive than the Suzuki GZ250.) Open the throttle a little, and right before I turn the key Nate sticks his head out the window and yells, "Clear Prop". I turn the key, the propeller starts to spin, and the engine sounds like the first time I start my bike after winter - chug, chug, chug, puff. Prime another stroke - chug chug chug, puffffff vrooom! and the plane shakes, the propeller spins, and I can't hear anything over the noise. It's not ba-da-dump, ba-da-dump like a Harley, but more like someone took the muffler off a Ford Pinto.



That's where the big green earmuffs come in. They're actually headsets, and you plug them in with something that looks like an electric guitar cord. Nate and I put them on, and while the noise is still around, it's bearable.


Nate takes over, and gets the plane away from the gas pumps and the other planes, and then wants me to drive down the taxiway to the runway. The first thing that confuses me is that you steer the plane with your feet, not the steering wheel (called the "yoke"). And then there is the challenge of keeping the plane going down the little yellow line in the middle of the taxi-way - kind of like driving down the center of a two lane road with an oversize truck. I didn't hit anything, but I weaved down the taxiway like a drunken 70 year old biker.



Flying is very safety oriented - you check and re-check everything. So, before we could take off, we had to do a run up. This involves pointing the plane into the wind in a remote part of the airport and revving up the engine, to make sure it is working the way it should. So we did, holding the brakes while the little plane bucked and the engine roared. Check both ignition systems, check the oil pressure, then check it at idle. All good.

Moment of truth - time to take off. Nate turned the plane back towards the taxiway, and I moved up the the dashed line right before the runway. There's a checklist to follow, and while I did that Nate said some very official incomprehensible stuff on the radio. Taxi on to the runway, get pointed straight, and push the throttle lever forwards.

Faster, faster, faster down the runway, I can feel the rudder pedals moved gently by the insturctor helping me keep centered. We're rushing along at almost 60 knots and Nate suggests "You might want to take off before the end of the runway". I pull the yoke back slightly and we're airborne. What is an ungainly duck on the ground is really pretty nifty in the air - we're climbing at 400 feet per minute, the dial says. Nate asks " Where do you want to go?", and I reply that I'd like to travel south down the St. Croix River. I can see it easily, and so I turn the wheel (in the air that works) and down the river we go.

It looked like a clear day on the ground, but it's a little hazy from the plane. I'm trying to ask relevant questions, like how to trim the plane, in the voice I use when I want to be seen as a competent engineer, kind of trying to convince myself and the instructor that I'm relaxed and calm. NOT!

After about 15 minutes, we turn around, and Nate asks me to find the airport. Not that easy, it turns out, and I'm thinking "Great, my first flight and I get lost less than 5 miles from home. Fortunately, I see the Bayport power plant, look to my left, and there's an open area with a lot of barns w/o silos, and it turns out that's the airport. From flight simulator, I know that I'm supposed to enter the traffic pattern, and on each leg adjust flaps and flight speed. Nate just sits back and lets me do that, and after asking about speeds (90 knots downwind, 80 knots base, 70 knots final) I fly the pattern and sure enough the plane is headed towards the numbers at the front of the runway. Then Nate asks, "Do you want to land it?"

Then the panic hits - "Nope, no way, you take it you take it!". I think I surprised him because I was so outwardly calm before. Anyway, he touches down, a little hard because I think he really thought I was going to do the touchdown. I taxi back, and we get out of the plane, and there it is, my first plane flight and a new, exciting, expensive, and sometimes frustrating hobby.