Back To Normal

Well, I'm feeling much better than I was this time last week. Seems like the medicine is working. I haven't done any flying since getting back from Great Falls on Sunday; doctor says wait 7-10 days before going up again to give my ears a chance to heal up. I'm itching to get back into the air though. I worked this week at Hillsboro, and then fixed some problems on our Servant Wings fleet, and went to Praise team practice last night. Life doesn't seem to slow down a whole lot even when you want a break.

Well, here's one from the archives! Yep, that's me, providing quality entertainment! This was one of several "shows" I played guitar in at Moody Chicago. When I could find the spare time, I loved playing guitar and hanging out with some incredible friends.

Before & After

How to say "I love you" before and after marriage:

Before:

1) Buy her flowers
2) Take her on a date (anywhere will do)
3) Say "I love you"
4) Take a spontaneous "road trip"



After:

1) Plant flowers
2) Create-a-date, taking into consideration the smallest details
3) Do the laundry (without being told)
4) Fix the car
5) Clean the house (without being told)

Traveling with Chills

This past weekend was spent in Great Falls, Montana, where I attended the Montana Aviation Conference. The real reason I went was because our President for Servant Wings needed to attend the conference, and offered for me to fly him over and back in our 206. I gladly accepted, needing the flight time. We flew over both the Cascade Range and the Rockies. This shot is a little west of the Continental Divide (around the Idaho/Montana border) at 9,500 feet. We ended up climbing even higher to 11,500 feet because it was very turbulent over the Rockies. Along the way, we got to stop in Spokane and visit Moody. We didn't have a lot of time to stick around, but I got to chat with a lot of my old instructors and a few of the students who are interested in joining Servant Wings after they graduate. It only took us four hours to make the trip all the way out to Great Falls. It would have taken over 11 hours to drive from Vancouver. The weather was pretty decent over the entire route, making it a fairly easy and uneventful trip. We were also breaking land speed records in the 206. While we were flying over the rockies, we hit greater than 200 knots (almost 240 mph) on our groundspeed. If you look in the lower right corner of the GPS screen, it says 202. That was our groundspeed for more than half an hour, which means that we had more than a 70 knot tailwind. No wonder we got there so fast!

While attending the conference, I helped Perry man the MAF booth, and went to a couple seminars on accident prevention and Continental engines (our 206 has a Continental engine). On Saturday I wasn't feeling too well, and ended up taking a nap in the afternoon to try and kick whatever I had. But, on Sunday morning I woke up with some chills, a fever, and a lot of congestion. Despite all that, I really missed my wife, so I decided that we could leave that morning instead of Monday. Big mistake. Just out of Great Falls we hit a wall of snow in the mountains with very low visibility and high clouds. After attempting to fly some of the valleys and having to turn back several times, we finally decided to try and get on top of the clouds where it was sunny and clear. Reaching 12,500 feet we finally got over most of the clouds and were able to get on our way back home. 12,500 feet is the highest altitude I could fly at without using supplemental oxygen. The airplanes I fly (unlike the airlines) aren't pressurized, so the higher I go, the less oxygen my lungs can extract out of the air, creating a potentially hazardous situation if I go too high without oxygen. And even at that high altitude we still had to go around some of the clouds. And you can imagine being that high, how cold it can be (-30 to be exact), and with a very small heater and chills with a fever, it wasn't very comfortable. But that's only the beginning. We stopped in Lewiston, Idaho, for a stretch and a potty break, and on the descent my ears started to clog up. I reduced my rate of descent to be very minimal, but it didn't really help much, and by the time we landed, both my ears were so clogged up that I couldn't even hear out of them. And it was quite painful. I thought they would open up again when we climbed out of Lewiston on our way to Vancouver, but they never did. And in fact, it just made things worse. By the time I got home, I found out that I had a 103.2 temperature. So Joy took me to the doctors where we waited for over 2 hours to be seen and I found out that I not only had a fever but a pretty bad ear infection too. So what did I learn on this trip? Don't fly when you're sick. My ears are still clogged up today, and it is really painful every time they pop. I'm on a pretty hefty dose of amoxicillin, so hopefully that will kick this thing once and for all. The good thing is that I have 387.6 flight hours now so I only need about 12 more to make my goal.

Rackin' Up the Time!

I'm happy to announce that I have accumulated 372.5 hours of total flight time. Only 27.5 to go! It's looking like I'm going to have my 400 hours before evaluation in April.

In The Spotlight

When I was down in Creswell for the 206 annual inspection, the local newspaper came and interviewed me, David, and another missionary pilot, and then featured our stories on the front page. And although none of us really like being in the spotlight, it was great to be able to tell our stories and share the passion we have for serving God and other people. The man on the left is Jim, he is a missionary pilot with New Tribes mission, serving in Senegal. He has been there for eight years flying a Piper Aztec, and is home on furlough until this summer, when he plans to return to Senegal and continue the work there. I am in the middle, with both hands deep in the engine compartment, fixing a leaking component. Aircraft engines are notorious for packing a lot of stuff in a little tiny space, making it sometimes difficult and interesting to fix things. David is pictured on the far right, re-installing the interior of our 206 after it was removed for inspection. David is another mission aviation candidate in the Servant Wings program, and is planning to join MAF this winter. Because of this article, and being on the front page, I got a call from a local Eugene CBS news station, requesting an interview, which I gladly accepted! So, yesterday, I flew the 206 back down to Creswell again for the interview. The story was on TV last night for the 6:30pm news. Here's the link, for anyone who might be interested:

http://www.kval.com/news/15723352.html?video=YHI&t=a

Up, Up, and Away

The week has been a BUSY one, but it's the kind of busy I like. It's been full of flying, and very well rounded experience at that! In the past week, I've been able to get some cross-country time, unimproved airstrip evaluation/operation, takeoffs and landings, and night flying. I've also been able to work on my instrument flying skills a little bit too. It helps when the weather is nice and clear. On Saturday Joy, her mom, and I went to a small grass airstrip right along the Oregon coast, 100 yards from the beach. Having never been to the strip before, I was able to evaluate the runway from the air the way MAF often does at the airstrips they fly into. They use the acronym wind, LASSO, which means that before landing at each airstrip, the pilot will evaluate the wind conditions, the length of the airstrip, it's altitude, surface conditions, slope, and any obstructions during the approach and departure phases. This was good practice for me since I will be doing it for a long time. As I flew over the strip, I noted the wind direction and velocity, several obstructions on either end, and a soft/wet surface with a length of 2000 feet. Weighing all these factors helps the pilot to determine the safe outcome of the flight and whether or not it can be accomplished with the proper margins for safety. I determined that the landing (and subsequent takeoff) was within my limits as a pilot, and the aircraft limits, so we landed. We then proceeded to eat a picnic lunch on the beach. It was still about 50 degrees, and of course, it's always windy at the beach. But, for the middle of February, it was a much needed break from the endless drizzle here in the Pacific Northwest. After leaving our little picnic spot, we went for a short sightseeing tour of the Oregon coastline. Even though it was clear in many places, there were several spots where it was quite cloudy. Being in uncontrolled airspace, I could fly as close to the clouds as I wanted (without going in them, of course). Sunshine above the clouds provided a nice background for a few shots like this.

Success

I finally got to fly down to Creswell today and finish up a few odds and ends on the 206, and after a bath and a drink (it's a thirsty bugger), I flew it back to Pearson. On the way down, I flew the 172 with one of our instructor members from Servant Wings, who was helpful in pointing out a few areas of improvement, and he's got thousands of flight hours instructing pilots for the airlines, so naturally I listened to what he had to say. Here are a few shots I snapped from the 206 on the way back.

As I got back over the Portland area, the sun was beginning to set...the ending of a beautiful day!