Karma and the FAA

Since passing my Private Pilot checkride back in April, I have anxiously awaited the arrival of my "real" certificate. It may just be a piece of plastic, but it is solid piece of material that says I'm a pilot. On Thursday, a large envelope was waiting in my mailbox. Was this it? Unfortunately, no. It was a survey from CAMI asking me to fill in a bunch of bubbles about how my training and checkride went.

"To better serve aviation safety, the FAA is conducting a national survey on the overall quality of flight training and testing experiences to see if they meet the FAA's current standards. The enclosed questionnaire is voluntary and anonymous, so please be open and candid."

Great. Just like the FAA to produce even more paperwork, and send me the paperwork before they even send me my certificate! In order to protect my karma with the Feds, I went ahead and filled it out and had the Chief Photographer drop it in the mail on her way to work. Amazingly enough, it worked. When I got home from work on Friday, there was a nice little envelope with my certificate in it! Yeah!

Since work is going to be busy over the next few weeks, this weekend was my last opportunity to fly until the beginning of July. I really wanted to get a few hours on the new certificate before I had to start the slave grind. It didn't look like the weather gods were going to allow that. The past few days have been "June Gloom" here in San Diego, low ceilings 24/7 with haze and fog, and today was forecast to be more of the same. On our way back from a photo shoot (unlike yours truly, the Chief Photographer does make real money with her hobby), I looked up and the skies were clearing. Hallelujah!

My plan for the afternoon had been to drive the Chief Photographer to the mini-camp for the San Diego Chargers so she could shoot pictures. As I am not an NFL fan, preferring college sports, this would have been about as exciting as cleaning my toe jam. Since the Chargers training facility is right underneath final for 28R at KMYF, I would have spent the entire time watching the IFR guys fly in while I sat on the ground. In fact, the photo at the top was taken from the camp (not me in the plane).



Very quickly, the Chief Photographer (my long suffering wife) and I reached a compromise. She dropped me off at KMYF so I could get a hop in while she took pictures around the corner, then she would come back and pick me up. I was able to get a Piper, so I got a quick brief from DUATS and off I went.

In my quest to pick up XC PIC time towards my Instrument prerequisites, I had planned to scoot up to HMT and back. However, HMT was closed by NOTAM for a parachute demo. Time for Plan B. I left MYF, flew south to SDM for a touch and go, then north to F70 for a touch and go (the distance from SDM to F70 making it a legal XC), then back to MYF.

This was my first time flying this particular plane, and definitely my last. Since all Cherokee names are related to Indian terms, I have decided to dub this particular airframe "The Crooked Indian." Preflight was fine, but when I started her up there was a problem with the radio. I could hear myself on I/C fine, but I couldn't hear anything on the frequency. I figured maybe ground was just quiet for a minute, so I called ground for a radio check, no joy. Toggled the COM1/COM2 switch, tried COM 2, no joy. I finally resorted to shutting off and restarting the radio and IC stack, then got good comms. I also got a chewing from ground control for stepping on other people while I was trying to get positive comms. I then apologized to ground, explaining I had had radio problems. After my apology, some nameless, helpful soul (not ground) got on the air and said "Listen first, then talk." Gee thanks, buddy. If I could have listened, I would have. Karma again, he'll get his one day.

After I was airborne, I had this weird sensation during part of the flight that the plane was flying crooked. I was flying visually, but cross checking my instruments. When I held the "straight and level" picture, the airplane would turn. When I held the instruments solid (AI vertical and on the line, DG steady, Turn Coordinator level, ball centered, altimeter steady), the visual picture looked as if I was in a slightly nose down left bank. Weird. Hence the name "Crooked Indian."

Flight was fine, if a little bumpy. Due to the sudden change in the forecast, from crap to good, there were few planes in the air, so it wasn't crowded. The warming of the rocks did lead to a good bit of light chop, but nothing scary. 1.8 hrs of XC PIC in the log.

Once back at MYF, I put the Crooked Indian to bed and went in to pay the tab. As I was signing the credit card receipt, I noticed someone else's credit card on the table, with no one else around. Several weeks ago, I had left my checkbook in an airplane and the good soul who found it had left it with the counter staff at the FBO (instead of stealing it) and had called me to let me know where it was. In consideration of this favor, I decided to pay it forward to the owner of the credit card. I looked up the owner of the card on our club roster, turned the card in at the counter, then stepped outside to call the owner. When a female voice answered, I asked for the male name of the card owner. The student pilot at the next table over said "That's me!" His card got returned, his CFI thanked me for my honesty, and I made an exit. Doing the right thing may sometimes be a tad inconvenient, but it isn't that hard and will always come back to you. Good karma.

The Chief Photographer swung by and picked me up, then it was back to the hacienda for the traditional family Saturday night hamburgers. On the way home, I told her that if I ever told her we were going to fly The Crooked Indian, she was to hit me over the head until I changed my mind.

Will probably be a few weeks until my next post. Until then, keep the shiny side up and fly safe.

Big Country