There wasn’t much flying weather recently but that does not mean I haven’t been at the airport nor that I did not have fun. Recently I got new endorsement from our CFI. Snow plow endorsement stating that I received training and proofed to be qualify to plow our runway 
Despite all fun I had doing so I can tell you – it’s a piece of work to plow the entire runway area!
As I’ve mentioned Saturday wasn’t the best day for flying. But we spent three hours at the airport shooting pictures of our Cherokee and Citabria. Some of them came out really nice. Or so I think. You may check them out yourself here.
That’s all I can tell after I finally tried my new DIY in ear headset. You see the only thing I wholeheartedly hate in aviation are those bulky pilot headsets. They clam my head so hard that after an hour or so of flight I start having migraines. The problem is that they have to clamp you so hard to seal ear cup to prevent it from leaking noise. There are some nice high tech active noise canceling headsets out there but they cost so much that I simply can only dream about them.
Browsing trough the internet I found that there is an alternative for guys like me – in ear headsets. They look and work very similar to earphones you got with your iPod or Walkman. With one small difference – they use special foam or silicon seals to fill your ear canal so no sound can get to your ear other than your radio’s. Many pilots claim that they reduce noise as well or better than those fancy ANR headsets. But again – the price for those is still beyond my rich.
So I build my own. Using cheapest pilot headset from Aircraft Spruce (below $70) as a microphone and cable donor and a pair of Comply NR-10 headphones I rolled my own in ear headset:
I made the frame from 3/16″ steel rod, taped everything together and took it today for first flight. They are simply awesome. I can’t really say how much better they seal the noise (the green ear plugs are rated 33dB NRR while my old headset was rated just 24dB) but they are a lot. Plus the sound is delivered directly to your ear so it has no chance to mix with residual noise that went through ear cup. The result – today was the very first day when I really had to dial down volume on the intercom because it was simply to loud, and I still had zero problems with sound clarity). No more sweaty ears, clamped head and migraines.
It’s been three weeks since I flew last time and I was feeling that I have to take the Cherokee up even if it’d be just a circle around the pattern. Iza wanted to go take some nice pictures of our club’s airplanes. We went to the airport and took Cherokee for a short spin. It turned out that it was really short hop. Originally we wanted to go to Iowa City but there was a TFR in place for Hawkeyes’ game so I decided to try and go to Washington. Unfortunately in the middle of the flight weather started to deteriorate quickly and it looked like that we may be grounded in Washington even if we get there. After checking weather reports I simply turned around and went back to Green Castle. As a nice finishing touch I did one of my nicest landings. Looks like I consistently land very well when Iza is on board . Anyway, it was one of the shortest flights I’ve ever made but I still feel nicely recharged – even if it was just 0.5h I was up there flying.
0.5h/0.0h inst : 1 to/ldg logged
67.7h/3.1h inst : 327 to/ldg total
I know what I’m going to do next. I considered all my options and it turned out that the best thing I can do is ‘informally’ start process of getting instrument rated. I’m saying informally because as a foreigner I can’t really start formal training without TSA authorization. The thing is that this authorization is valid only for 12 months. So if I got one I have only year to finish. And there is no way I could pull this off right now. But there is plenty of things I can do on my own, at home in my own peace. I can study the theory, I can try flying my X-Plane simulator, and (probably the most important) I can work on filling out the requirement of 50h PIC cross country time as a regular private pilot. There is no difference how I made them. This way I can fly ‘for the cause’ no matter if it’s vacation trip or just a _not_so_short_ hop for a lunch. As it happened today.
The original plan was to fly on Saturday but due to weather conditions including very gusty winds and reported turbulence we switched to Sunday. Today winds were way lower and the weather was generally nicer. We took off around 12 and headed for Pella. The beginning of our trip was simply awful. Location and configuration of the Green Castle Airports makes take offs very challenging when the wind is blowing from the headings between 160 and 210 degrees. As you already figured out it was 180 degrees today. Flying is still a stressing experience for Iza so I tried to make it as smooth as I could. Yet today it was still very turbulent. I tried to escape it climbing up as soon as possible and in fact just after passing 3000 ft. MSL air became very smooth. One can’t get everything so for a bit of smooth air we had to pay the price in 30 knots headwind. Well it was worth it. The rest of the flight was very uneventful and even the descending through turbulent air below and landing were quite nice.
Pella which is also called as small Holland in the middle of Iowa is a small town with a climate. It’s best known for it’s Tulip Time festival that happens every May. Fortunately it’s climate stays in the town even when tulips are gone.
The brick building on this photo is the airport terminal. Inside is even better:
It more resembles home than airport terminal. Friendly guy at the counter loaned us their courtesy car and we headed downtown to find something to eat. It turned out that here we had to pay another price of switching days. As it happens in many small town in rural Iowa almost all businesses are closed on Sunday. We managed to find one open local restaurant. There were some other chain places open, but we didn’t fly so far to eat in place we have around the corner, did we?
After lunch and small walk during which Iza shot one of the best HDR pictures I’ve seen lately:
we headed back to the airport. Short preflight with a bit of posing time:
and we headed back home. The air was just a bit nicer to us in lower layers, and the wind was now blowing from the back so our short hop home became even shorter 28 minutes. For comparison Google Maps says that it would take us 1h56m if we went by car. WOW!
On a very positive note Iza is slowly getting used to flying and we already have some nice places lined out within her current time aloft limit of 45 minutes one way. And I can get needed XC time for my instrument rating.
1.7h/0.0h inst : 2 to/ldg logged
67.2h/3.1h inst : 326 to/ldg total
