After securing the airplane we walked towards the tower and entered the seemingly empty terminal building. A dude with a long pony tail greeted us and asked how he could help. I told him we were looking for food and potentially interested in visiting the air museum that is on site. He told us there was no food on site but offered us the keys to the crew car and directions to town. We accepted He pulled a white van up front and with the keys in the ignition told us where to find food. Rad.

Our first $100 hamburger was at the Merced McDonald’s. We finished things off with a coffee at Starbucks and then drove back to the airport. We didn’t have a whole lot of time to kill because we only had the airplane reserved for a small block of time and we decided to save the museum tour for another flight out there. On the ramp I did a quick preflight and another airplane that was parked in transient parking started his engine. We weren’t the only people out there after all.

We taxied to the end of the runway, did a quick runup and then got our takeoff clearance. Not even halfway down the 12,000′ runway and no more than 100′ off the ground the controller, anxious to get rid of us apparently, handed us off to a norcal controller. The return flight home was mostly uneventful except as we approached Tracy airport at 4,500′. Norcal called out “traffic, 12 o’ clock, may be doing aerobatics.” Sure enough, straight ahead was an aerobatic plane pointed straight into the sky and climbing fast toward our altitude. Not wanting to get in his way we side stepped around the airport and made the rest of our trip back to San Carlos.

All in all it was fantastic to get out of the busy SFO airspace and actually go somewhere with the wife in the airplane. Couldn’t ask for a finer trip. Just a lot more of them

During my last flight we spent a bit of time reviewing climbs, descents and turns and then went “under the hood” for 30 minutes. The hood is like a gigantic visor that you wear so that you can’t see outside the window. It simulates what’s known as instrument flight where you’re unable to see the ground. Since you can’t see the ground you have to fly solely be reference to instruments. This is definitely tough and it’s pretty easy to get disoriented. While under the hood we did climbs, descents and turns and we even did some climbing turns and descending turns.

At the end of that lesson we spent a few minutes introducing what we’re going to be doing in today’s lesson: slow flight. This is where you slow the plane down to about the same airspeed you’d use for landing and then fly around. You practice getting into and out of slow flight and maintaining a heading and altitude, of course. I think we’re also going to start practicing stalls today. Weee.

Yesterday was my second lesson and the instructor, Steve, surprised me by having me controlling the airplane for takeoff. You steer an airplane in the air with the control wheel. You steer an airplane on the ground with your feet. During the takeoff roll you use your feet . I knew this, however, it took me a few hundred feet to really remember it and at that point anyone watching us takeoff knew for sure that there was a first-timer at the helm.

The takeoff climb was overwhelming. Trying to get the plane into a stable climb was difficult and before I knew it we were way off course, veering towards 101 instead of paralleling it. Steve took the controls and got us stable before handing me back the airplane.

The rest of the session was spent practicing climbs, descents and turns (independently). To climb, raise the nose until the plane slows to ~85kts then bring on the throttle and maintain that attitude. As you approach your desired altitude lower the nose, regain speed, trim and bring down the throttle.

To descend just reduce power and the nose will lower and you’ll lose altitude. As you approach your desired altitude increase power back to cruise, raise the nose and trim.

To turn, bank the airplane and maintain back pressure to maintain altitude. When you bank you have to apply some rudder pressure to keep the nose of the airplane heading where its supposed to. This is called a coordinated turn.

All of this sounds easy but its amazingly overwhelming at this point.

Towards the end of the session my shallow and medium turns were pretty smooth and I was able to hold altitude within +- 75 feet.

My climbs felt good but I had trouble leveling off. I would nose down and regain cruise speed and then trim forward for level flight. Inevitably I would end up going too fast or not trim enough and I’d be gaining altitude. Rinse and repeat to get back to level and flight and suddenly I’m ~100′ above my target altitude.

Today we’re heading up in the air again and the plan is to practice climbing turns and descending turns. Crazy.

Our final leg of the trip was in Japan. We visited Kyoto, Osaka, Nara and Kobe, however, somehow I didn’t manage to take a single picture in Kobe. On with the pictures.

The hotel is pretty darn nice. We’re right on the beach and there are good size waves breaking just off the shore. The water is a pretty light blue and well, it feels a bit like Florida. Except that it’s kinda cold (it is winter) and not humid.