What I Learned Today

On May 27, I flew with friends up to the Aurora State Airport (KUAO) for a safety seminar. It’s about a 30-minute flight each way. I’ve never actually visited the town of Aurora on the ground, but I’ve flown to the airport many times. Willamette Aviation does a wonderful job of bringing in great speakers and also serving treats like ice cream and pie – and for this event, a full BBQ!

By default, we planned to fly there VFR (visually). But when we gathered at the airport, the cloud ceiling was only 1500′ above the surface. No worries, perfect chance to exercise that instrument rating! We had five people going in two planes, with one instrument-rated pilot per plane. I filed KCVO DUBMY KUAO to set myself up for the RNAV 35 approach to KUAO, but ATC came back with KCVO CVO V495 UBG KUAO at 6000′, a longer route that would take us north before coming back south to make a northward landing. I hoped they might give us a shortcut along the way.

I was flying the slower of our two planes, so the faster one departed first and then we “held for release” until they were clear of the airspace and Cascade Departure cleared us to take off. The clouds were now at 1900′ above the ground. We climbed up via the SHEDD4 departure, punched through the clouds (which were only a few hundred feet thick) and then were on our way north. The clouds below us got thinner and I had this beautiful view:

Our lead plane was vectored off of V495 with the hoped-for shortcut to the RNAV 35 approach to KUAO. We were left tracking V495 much longer, but our vector finally came and we got to head over to execute the same approach. After joining the final approach course, we punched down through a thicker cloud layer, then executed a nice landing.

The seminar was about “continuation bias” and how it can lead to many bad outcomes, including CFIT (controlled flight into terrain). Here’s a nice summary of the high points along with great tips.

Afterwards we enjoyed the BBQ and then prepared for the return flight, which was also IFR. We had a lot of sunshine, and the clouds were higher (around 3500′), but we still got to plunge into and out of them. There is really nothing like that feeling – it is a thrill every single time!

One of the great things about flying this day were my companions! I had a great co-pilot who is working on his instrument rating and handled our ATC communications for practice (with me monitoring of course, since I’m responsible for the flight in this setting). I really enjoy flying as a team! We also had a passenger in the back taking his very first flight in a small plane. He took a lot of pictures and seemed to enjoy the thrill of ducking in and out of clouds too!

Looking forward as we returned southbound, above the clouds at 5000′:

Looking out to the side:

We returned to KCVO via the ILS 17 approach from SKIVE (a new waypoint for which apparently some folks say “skive” and others say “skeevy”). Once down through the clouds, we canceled IFR and crossed over midfield to land on runway 28.

One of the challenges of this flight was that with three people in the plane, it was near max gross weight. I did extra-careful fuel calculations and we were able to go with half-full tanks, but even so the plane’s performance in terms of climb rate and cruise speed was definitely lower than usual. However, it was a great flight, and I just love getting to sail through the clouds and maintain proficiency with instrument flight. Looking forward to next time already!

I signed up for the CW Academy online course with the goal of learning Morse code. You can learn this via self-study – there are many apps (e.g., Morse Mania) – but it seemed like more fun to have some synchronous time with other learners and to get to try to communicate live. I was inspired by my friend WT8P, who has taught this class in the past (sadly, not while I’m taking it!).

There are some great online tools available for Morse code learning and practice that anyone can use:

• Morse code trainer: Listen to learn in progressive “sessions” that introduce a few new letters and numbers at a time
• Morse code keyer: Practice keying your own Morse code using the `z’ and `x’ keys on your keyboard

We were instructed to set the “character speed” to 25 words per minute (wpm) and Farnsworth speed (spacing between letters/symbols) to 4 wpm. The goal is to hear the symbol patterns as a unit, rather than counting dits and dahs. 25 wpm is pretty fast, and it definitely takes practice to be able to discriminate similar patterns!

But apparently the real way to practice is to get a physical “paddle” that sends dits and dahs. I ended up getting this cute little paddle, which is “iambic”: you press one side for a dit and the other for a dah; holding one down gives you a stream of dit-dit-dit or dah-dah-dah; holding both gives you dit-dah-dit-dah…

On receipt, I discovered that it needed a keyer, which is what actually generates the signals (and “sidetone” sound so you can practice without sending your fumbles out on the radio). My teacher was kind enough to loan me a keyer until I can get something myself! I can now make dits and dahs to my heart’s content :)

So far I have learned (E, T, A, N), (O, I, S, 1, 4), (R, D, L, 2, 5), and (C, U) (they come in batches). My favorite letters are O and C, and my biggest challenges to send are L and R. My D and U also need some work. Letters are introduced in (roughly) order of complexity which also corresponds (inversely) to frequency. Here’s a great visualization of the alphabet and numbers 0-9.

Interestingly, Morse code wasn’t actually developed by Samuel Morse. Although he had the original idea to encode content in a similar fashion for transmission via telegraph, his encoding was quite different.

Class meets twice a week for an hour, during which our teacher drills us by transmitting Morse code words until we indicate we got (“copied”) them, and then we get a chance to try to send our own words, with varying success. After an hour of this, my brain DEFINITELY feels full. But in general, I look forward to learning, and practicing, more!

Our American Sign Language class continues to build vocabulary and learn new things.

One of my favorite parts of the class is at the beginning when Dr. Eleweke asks us “HOW YOUR WEEKEND?” We don’t have enough ASL vocabulary to answer, so we type our answers in the chat and he teaches us the relevant signs on the spot. So at the start of our last class, I got to learn how to sign “ME PILOT” and “FLYING CLUB WASH PLANES”.

The sign for PILOT that we learned is FLY+PERSON (like teacher is TEACH+PERSON and student is LEARN+PERSON). The hand sign for FLY/PLANE is, charmingly, like the sign for “I love you” but held horizontally (and you get to zip it around to show the plane flying :) ). The PERSON (-ER) ending is a downward gesture with both hands held like blades in front of you. I also see that some people sign it as FLY/PLANE+DRIVER.

We learned a couple of signs for WASH, which allows you to distinguish between washing your hands (rubbing them against each other) versus washing a large wall or window (or airplane) (scrubbing an invisible large surface in front of you). For “FLYING CLUB” we had FLY plus C-shape hands making a circle in front of us, I think denoting a group of people.

Then in the lesson itself, we learned the numbers from 1-99.
Me: “What about 100?”
Dr. Eleweke: “We’ll do 100 next time. You are overlearning, ha ha!”

Double-digit numbers (22, 33, …) are signed with the same digit bounced to the left and right. Numbers that have two different digits from the range 6-9 (e.g., 67, 86, 98) are “rocking” numbers where you rock your hand from side to side so these digits are easier to distinguish. Curiously, you don’t do left-right for the first-second digit but instead “higher” for the larger digit and “lower” for the smaller digit. So for me, signing with my right hand, it’s 6-low/right + 7-high/left for 67 and 9-high/left + 6-low/right for 96. A little mind-bending!

Learning 1-99 seemed like the perfect opportunity to learn and practice things like “how old are you?” and generate personal answers, but this didn’t happen. Trying to think of ways to practice numbers, I did manage to interject “ME HAVE 7 NIECES, NEPHEWS” and I was thrilled that he understood me!

Next we learned several adjectives so we can answer HOW-YOU? and HOW YOU FEEL? These words include FINE, GOOD, HUNGRY, TIRED, HAPPY, ANGRY, EXCITED, PASSIONATE, SAD, CRANKY, ANXIOUS, SCARED, SICK, STRESSED, CONFUSED, CALM, HEALTHY, PATIENT, BUSY, FEEL STRONG, WEAK. Lots to practice before next time!

Our local community college, Linn-Benton Community College, is offering a beginning sign language (ASL) class, which is taught by Zoom. I’ve been hoping to take a class on this subject for some time now, so this is my chance! At first I was a little disappointed that it was being taught by Zoom, but now that we’ve had our first class meeting, I discovered some interesting advantages of that format.

The instructor is Dr. Jonah Eleweke, who holds two Ph.D.s (!) and is a vibrant, energetic, friendly, and fun instructor. (I admire how he keeps the energy level high even via Zoom – I know how hard that can be!) So far, there are just three students, including me, which gives the class a chatty, intimate feeling. Dr. Eleweke plunged us right in, signing repeatedly, “GOOD EVENING!” as we joined the session, smiling and grinning in welcome.

Here’s where the Zoom format came in handy. Dr. Eleweke alternated between typing into the chat window and signing, so we could make the connection. It felt like being immediately immersed, although it wasn’t technically a full immersion since we were able to read translations and make connections that way. But it was an interesting experience, to have _everyone_ on the Zoom call muted, and this continual silence, with avid attention on visual cues and smiles and nods. I wondered, indeed, how he would have taught the same content in person – maybe hand-writing on the chalkboard? Undoubtedly this was easier.

We covered the manual alphabet, then moved on to signs for greeting, asking people’s names, and some basic vocabulary. Dr. Eleweke had slides to both introduce content and to provide practice sentences for us to sign. We’d follow along slowly as he signed it first, then sign (simultaneously) while he somehow watched us all make our attempts. The slides were another useful aspect because he could just move his red arrow around to different words or sentences to prompt us about what to sign.

One downside was that it we couldn’t really get individual feedback or corrections. In person, you can face an individual and direct comments to them, but on Zoom we’re all flattened and you can’t see where someone’s gaze is directed. I wished we had had a chance to practice signing either individually (to Dr. Eleweke) or to each other. We had a 15-minute break in the middle of class, and right before class resumed, another student and I practiced the greeting dialogue with each other, which was fun :)

A: HELLO. MY NAME ____. YOUR NAME, WHAT?
B: MY NAME ____. NICE MEET YOU.
A: NICE MEET YOU.
B: BYE-BYE. SEE YOU LATER!
A: SAME-SAME.

We also covered some interesting grammatical points. When signing a dialogue yourself (like doing both A and B above), you shift your body left and right to indicate who is communicating. Also, nouns are (often? usually?) signed “twice” in that, for example, “NAME” has you tap your hands together twice. It seems that this is a method for distinguishing related verbs (sign once) from nouns (sign twice). (Btw, I love this example sentence from that page: English: “I like to fly small planes.” Sign: SMALL-PLANES FLY LIKE ME)

Overall it was a very fun class. Dr. Eleweke was constantly positive, joking, encouraging, and patient. I’m looking forward to learning more!

On March 22, I went up for some practice instrument flying with a fellow instrument-rated pilot. We headed up to McMinnville (KMMV), about a 30-minute flight. There were a few puffy clouds scattered around, but (somewhat disappointingly) nothing directly in our path, so Ryan put on his foggles and I served as the safety pilot. I watched for traffic, kept an eye on the scattered clouds, and enjoyed the view, while Ryan had to stare at the instruments and miss all the scenery.

Here’s my view of some puffy clouds away to the west (Ryan flies from the right seat):

As we flew further north, I spotted this less friendly looking cloud with vertical development and active rain. I kept an eye on it, but we were flying well to the east so it wasn’t an immediate concern.

We reached McMinnville (which was clear) and Ryan flew two approaches under the hood while I continued spotting other planes and monitoring clouds to the south and west of the airport. Originally we were going to switch so I could also fly an approach, but it seemed to me that the weather was closing in a bit so we decided to head back to Corvallis. As we returned, Ryan got to fly us into this little cloud (isn’t it stunning?) and then we were clear again.

I took the controls (and the comm), lowered my foggles, and we were cleared back to Corvallis. Now Ryan was scouting for traffic and clouds. At one point he said we’d gotten back in some clouds, so I got to flip up my foggles and enjoy seeing clouds in front of the plane’s nose (I bet that sight never gets old!). Then I was back to staring at the instruments. This was the first time I’d used this plane’s autopilot, and it was a good chance to get familiar with its operation.

After a bit, ATC notified us that there was an “area of severe precipitation ahead, 10 miles wide, say intentions.” That didn’t sound good, and when we tuned in to Corvallis’s weather reporting, we heard “wind 290 at 13 gusting 20, thunderstorms”. We looked at the NEXRAD display and saw that the thunderstorm was sitting just east of our destination (here, south is up and the storm is the yellow/orange blob) – right where we wanted to go to land on the runway most favored by the winds (RW 28).

We may fly into clouds, but we do not fly into thunderstorms. I’ve rescheduled a return flight before to avoid them. I’ve never had to deal with them in flight, though. After some discussion of options, I asked for a hold at DERAY, which is a waypoint on the RNAV 35 approach and looked to be far enough south to keep us well clear of the storm. The lines on the screen aren’t our track – they’re the approach, which would take us uncomfortably close to the storm. The hope was that if we circled in the hold at DERAY for a bit, the storm would move on or dissipate, clearing the way for our approach. We had plenty of fuel for this. And indeed, after 10-15 minutes in the hold, the storm had faded and I proceeded in and down towards runway 35. It wasn’t my best approach (I was too high, but better than being too low I guess! I’ll do better next time), but I successfully crabbed into the crosswind and then circled to land on 28 (winds were from 290 at 19 gusting 23, whee). That was my 75th instrument approach!

While everything worked out fine, I was a little perplexed that this thunderstorm came as a surprise. I’d gotten a weather briefing, and there were no thunderstorm warnings (otherwise I would not have flown that day). The only clues were an area of “general convective activity” over most of western Oregon, with no supporting details, and “rain showers” forecast (but rain showers do not always, or even usually, turn into thunderstorms).

After the flight, I looked up the hourly weather reports from Corvallis that had been ticking by while we were out at McMinnville. When we left at 2:30 p.m., winds were from 140 at 7 knots, clear skies. At 3 p.m. it was reporting “LTG DSNT N” (distant lightning to the north). Later reports show the thunderstorm beginning at 3:45 p.m. and ending at 4:41 p.m. We landed at 4:51 p.m.

I also considered what I would do differently if this came up again. I would have asked ATC for vectors to keep us further west of the storm on our way to DERAY. I didn’t notice any turbulence from it, but the standard advice is to stay 20 NM away, and we were closer than that. And if the storm didn’t move or dissipate, we could have diverted to Eugene, which was experiencing clear weather and is quite close.

Overall, this was another reminder that no matter when and where you fly, there’s always something new to learn. Flying is never boring, and I love the continual challenge of it!