Yankee Alpha Foxtrot Bravo

No big bumps today, but for a while before the flight I wonder what things are going to be like Up There, given that Down Here there's what feels like a minor gale blowing leaves and dust and small animals all over the place…. A couple of hours later, I'm sitting in the left seat of Cessna 051, the club's G1000-equipped Cessna 172, watching Just Another Boring Bay Area Sunset again over Alcatraz, Angel Island, and the Golden Gate on the Bay Tour. The air's mildly bumpy, but it's nothing that's going to spoil the flight. Which is a good thing: a friend of mine, A., is sitting in the right seat, enjoying her first GA flight, and a lot of bumps and roughness would have really spoiled this.

In any event, there's not a lot to say about this flight beyond the fact that A. appears to enjoy it a lot, and although the flight was short (less than an hour total Hobbs time), it's really refreshing just to potter around VFR over the Bay with flight following from NorCal Approach. So much of my flying is IFR nowadays, I tend to forget that I can just point the damn plane anywhere (within reason) locally and just … fly. It's fun. And with today's clear VFR weather, it's also scenic, and deeply relaxing. Perfect!

At one point while we're circling the Golden Gate, NorCal calls traffic at about 1 o'clock, distance 2 miles, "type and altitude unknown, appears to be maneuvering". I can't see any planes anywhere within about five miles of us in that general direction at any altitude, and reply with the usual "negative contact". But suspiciously enough, there's a small bulker heading briskly towards the bridge from the Pacific side with a pilot boat next to it, at my 1 o'clock and two miles away (and at sea level, surprisingly enough). A few moments later NorCal calls "traffic no factor" and we circle on. It wouldn't be the first time I've had ships on the Bay or on the approaches called as traffic….

* * *

051's been moved. It's still in one of the Port-A-Ports, but it's now a row closer to Hangar 7, and this Port-A-Port has a decidedly different way to open and close the hangar door (bits of old rope and springs rather than the thumb-crunching portcullis), and of getting the plane in and out. Just opening the main door almost proves beyond me: in the fading light I can see where the door is supposed to latch on each side when fully open, but nothing I do seems to be able to get the latches to actually latch. I'm not dragging an expensive plane out of the hangar with unlatched doors, that's for sure, especially not in the still rather blustery wind blowing around the apron. But after a bunch of attempts (and a lot of swearing), a combination of a long broom handle and help from A. gets it done. The whole thing feels like an intelligence test I fail — I can loop and roll and fly an airplane upside down, I can hand-fly an ILS to minimums in IMC, but I can't get a simple hangar door open. Humph. And in front of a GA novice, too :-).

* * *

My old nemesis, the combination lock on the paperwork lockbox outside the club, proves to be the one irritating blot on the evening. It opens first go on the way in to the apron, but when I have to return the book and fill out the paperwork, nothing I do over a ten minute span opens the damn thing again. Since A.'s sitting there getting cold in the wind (and she's cut her finger on the plane door earlier), I decide I'll just have to leave it and come back early tomorrow morning. So I drive off with A. and drop her off at her place, intending to go home and get up early next day to drop the books off. But on the spur of the moment I decide to go straight back out to the airport (it's very close to where I live), and try again. This time, of course, the bloody thing opens first try. Oh well.

We're cruising steadily at 5,000' in Cessna 051 (the club's G1000-equipped C172), on an IFR flight plan to Stockton (KSCK) for some IFR practice. The forecast has some scattered but benign IMC patches along our route. I've set up the G1000 and the autopilot to get us direct as cleared to JOTLI, a convenient IAF for Stockton's GPS 29R approach. The plan is to do that approach full pilot nav with the autopilot and G1000 coupled, as tonight's flight is supposed to be mostly about IFR systems flying rather than just a raw IFR workout (any excuse to watch the G1000 get us around the course reversal hold automatically again :-)). After the initial approach we'll try to get one or two more approaches in before returning to Oakland (KOAK), where we'll probably need a real clearance to get back in anyway, given the approaching cloud bank (I have one pre-filed just in case). I'm under the hood; E., one of John's instrument students, is doing safety pilot duties in the right seat. It's about 19.30 (7:30 pm for all y'all Americans), so it's dark(ish) outside, but it's easy enough to see the stratus a short distance ahead of us at our altitude. It's not particularly thick, extending maybe a few thousand feet (from about 4,500'), and doesn't extend more than a few miles along our route (at least according to the forecast).

We enter the clouds and I take off the hood. I turn off the strobes and the landing lights. Everything looks good to me: on course, at altitude, the approach has been set up, we've got the ATIS for Stockton. The cloud layer feels benign; the outside air temperature (OAT) is well above freezing. There's some very minor turbulence, but nothing very interesting.

Suddenly there's a few small bumps, then an almighty series of crashing thumps as we're battered around by what I'd characterise as severe turbulence. The autopilot disengages automatically, but only milliseconds before I hit the disengage switch myself. My head hits the cockpit ceiling several times (we're wearing those bloody "smart" Cessna seat belts with the airbags); I lose my headset down the back of my neck. Over the next few seconds we gain and lose several hundred feet in each direction and get into some pretty unpleasant pitch and roll excursions. I grab the yoke with both hands and try to regain control, throttling back to about 2300 RPM (I do this by feel and instinct, since I can't actually see the engine instruments on the MFD at this point). It's clearly not going to get better quickly, and while I'm not having too much trouble keeping us more-or-less upright, we're in all sorts of trouble with the altitude excursions, and we're not going to be able to continue like this for long without a great deal of continuous effort on my part (and a lot of discomfort and the possibility of losing control in IMC). I decide we need to get below the clouds now: I know the area, there's nothing below us, and my guess is that even 1000' below us it's smoother. But I'm wondering how the hell I'm going to get the headset back on while keeping both hands on the yoke. At any rate we have little or no control over our altitude at this stage, so I start doing what I can to descend. It's getting slightly smoother, so I risk reaching back and sitting the headset back on my head, albeit a little off-kilter (understatement). It'll do for now. Both hands back on the yoke, I manage to blurt out something like "NorCal, 051's in heavy turbulence in IMC, any chance of 3,000 now?". We're at 4,500 by now anyway, and it's already smoothing out. "051, I can only give you 4,000. Descend and maintain 4,000". "051, We'll take it. Descend maintain 4,000. Thanks…". I level off in relatively smooth air, clear of the clouds, at 4,000, and start to look over the systems and controls. Everything looks fine, but I'm not going to trust it all immediately. The way ahead looks clear of clouds. My thinking at this stage is basically that even if it's not smoother down here, at least it's VMC, and losing control is a lot less likely. I'll hand fly for a while without the hood on just to see what happens. At least we're still probably on course (I'll check in a minute).

I look over to see if E. is still here. Thankfully, she is, but she's still holding onto the side of the cockpit, just in case. I ask if she's OK; she says she's fine. I'm not sure I believe her, but in any case there's not much we can do at the moment except recover the plane and then work out whether to continue on or do something else. It sure looks and feels benign under the clouds and all around us now. I spend a few seconds giving a mini-PIREP and explanation to NorCal, basically just saying we'd hit unforecast moderate-to-severe turbulence in IMC just back there, and it's a lot smoother at 4,000'. I probably sound a bit shaken on the radio at this point; the controller sounds a little concerned, and I'm actually gratified that he's taking it seriously.

E. and I discuss things for a short while as I recover the course (and my approach plates, which are now on the floor), and decide to press on to Stockton as planned. I mention the possibility of hitting the same thing on the way back, but since the return leg is a fair way to the south of where we are now, and somewhat higher, I decide to play that bit by ear (literally in some ways: I'll have my ear (figuratively) glued to the frequency for reports of any turbulence on the way back). There's no shortage of places to land below us on either leg, and it's basically a nice VMC evening below the clouds. I hope E. hasn't been scared off instrument flying (or flying right seat with me) for ever. She sounds O.K., but you never know, so I stress that I'd really be just as happy if we abandoned the flight as if we continue. But she's up for it. We press on.

* * *

The whole episode probably didn't last more than about ten seconds, and in reality the turbulence wasn't quite the worst I've ever experienced in a light plane. I think I'd characterise it as on the low end of "severe" by the FAA's definition (I had little or no control over altitude, and maintaining pitch and roll control was quite a struggle), but I'm also guessing it was fairly localised and would probably have petered out fairly quickly. It was in many ways a more sudden and prolonged IMC version of the encounter with turbulence I blogged about last year. My first thought after we'd leveled off at 4,000' was "wake turbulence!", but it continued on too long for that and there wasn't any likely culprit in the area (on-frequency, at least).

And it was unforecast, and happened in IMC, which always adds another dimension to things. At the time it just didn't seem too hard to right the plane, keep it under some sort of control, and keep flying with my eyes glued to the G1000. But I'd hate to have done it all with the crappy old mechanical AIs in an older 172 — the potential for losing control in that situation, or in partial panel with no PFD or MFD, is sobering. In any case, it's definitely not something to be complacent about, and, according to E., it was the worst turbulence she's experienced so far [and a few days later I still have a bruise on the top of my head from the experience].

* * *

Luckily, the rest of the flight feels pleasantly anticlimactic, and apart from some mild turbulence in actual IMC on the ILS back into Oakland, things go fairly smoothly and as-planned. E.'s a good safety pilot and keeps me on my toes; it's good having an instrument-savvy co-pilot, and apart from a few minor lapses on my part (below), things go about as well as you'd reasonably expect for someone (me) who really doesn't get to fly enough to be in perfect practice all the time.

The G1000 gets a good workout during the flight. Or, rather, I get a good workout in G1000 usage, and — as always with the G1000 — I'm reminded of what I dislike as well as what I really like about it. There's a lot to like, but when — as happened a couple of times during this flight — you get into an incomprehensible situation where no matter what you seem to be doing the G1000 just sits there presenting an unexpected menu or menu item, or won't let you do what you think you've always been able to do before, well, I think I'm slowly becoming an expert in G1000 workarounds.

For example, on the way out to Stockton (before The Bumps), I ask for and get direct JOTLI for the full pilot nav version of the GPS 29R approach. So I reach over and hit "proc" to load and activate the approach with JOTLI as the IAF, which should send us direct JOTLI. But no matter what I do it only gives me approaches back at Oakland. This ignites a few "WTF?" moments and responses from me, and both E. and myself notice that there's actually an extraneous KOAK at the end of the entered flight plan as well as at the beginning. How the hell did that get there? I think. But it doesn't matter, does it? What matters is how to get direct to JOTLI right now; so let's just scroll up to KSCK, hit "direct", then select the approach; this does the job (especially since at this range direct KSCK is roughly the same heading as "direct JOTLI"). Yes, a simple thing, but a few years ago I might have spent way too long sitting there dumbly wondering about the extraneous KOAK and how to clear the flight plan or how to dial in direct JOTLI while debugging the situation. By any means necessary, as I've learned over the years.

Later, on departing Stockton, no matter what I do, I'm absolutely unable to delete the current flight plan from the inset flight plan window so I can input the new one back to Oakland. Luckily, when we'd picked up the departure clearance midway through the previous approach I'd pre-set the VOR 2 receiver and OBS to give me the VOR version of the initial (30 nautical mile) leg along V195 from Manteca VOR, and when it quickly becomes obvious that the G1000 isn't going to cooperate, I just let the autopilot fly us to and then along the relevant VOR 2 radial. At my own leisure I then simply do a "direct KOAK" with the GPS, then get SUNOL (the end point of V195) from loading the KOAK ILS 27R (our intended approach, of which SUNOL is the IAF for arrivals from our direction). When actually on V195 (according to VOR 2), a simple "activate approach" gets the GPS in sync and in control once again. OK, standard instrument stuff, but (as John will confirm), quite a few instrument pilots seem to get complacent with the better GPS units and forget to setup a fall-back based on VORs or whatever. Again, a few years ago I'd probably have spent several increasingly tense minutes debugging the G1000, with only the initial ATC heading setup properly, and with only a hazy idea of where V195 actually was in relation to my current situation. I'd probably have blundered into the correct course eventually and without incident (but with a great deal of silent swearing :-)), but it's pleasing that I can actually keep cool enough (and think far enough ahead) nowadays that the whole Grace Under Pressure thing seems to be on the verge of happening (all this expensive instrument flying must count for something :-)).

About the only other thing of note was a PIREP to NorCal from a light GA plane of carburettor icing somewhere near Sacramento Exec (KSAC) at roughly our altitude. When I hear this I guess I'm not surprised — the OAT's fairly high, the air's moist, and conditions for carb icing seem just about perfect. What is (pleasantly) surprising is that the pilot reported it at all, and that NorCal also took the report seriously. No, I haven't flown a carburetted plane for several years now, but hearing that someone else is experiencing it might help save a few tense moments (or worse) for someone out there.

* * *

Later, back in the impending drizzle at the Oakland Flyers parking lot, I ask E. (again) whether she was OK with the whole experience. She still insists that she enjoyed it and learned a lot; I hope so. I'm guessing that it was definitely a learning experience for both of us.

I sit there in the mid-evening darkness in the runup area just off Oakland's 27R thinking it's good to be back in the left seat again. As John points out, the Bay Area weather has been pretty dreadful for flying lately, IFR or VFR, and although I've been scheduled to fly since early January, this evening's the first time everything's come together well enough that I could actually fly without encountering ice or major winds or snow or whatever. In fact it's a perfect clear VMC California winter evening, meaning almost unlimited visibility, relative warmth (10C), an essentially cloudless sky, and no real wind.

The plan's simple: a short night IFR hop up to Napa (KAPC) and a few approaches and holds there to maintain currency, then a short VFR skip back for light relief. I've dragged my usual safety pilot Boyan along with me, and he's sitting in the right seat idly watching a Pilatus PC12 being towed across the ramp a hundred metres to our right. Tower clears me to depart on 27R and I start moving forward up to the flashing hold short line. Simultaneously as I look to my left I see the dark shape of (what I immediately recognise as) a Justice Department MD-80 bearing down on us as it crosses 27R inbound from runway 29, exiting at our location, and I hear tower's rushed "051! hold short of 27R!" (or something similar — I don't remember the actual words). I stop dead where I am just short of the hold-short line (if I remember correctly) and off to one side (the taxiway / runway interaction here is a little complicated), and the MD-80, now stopped on the threshold of 27R, has all its lights blazing away at us, and it's going to be a close thing. At this point I'm also worried about being blown back across Airport Drive if the MD-80 turns onto taxiway Charlie just in front of us. I don't (of course) hear the MD-80's side of the whole saga, but I call tower and tell him that the MD-80 can get around us — just — if he's careful as we're somewhat off to the side of the main runway entrance. My call isn't acknowledged. I don't move, because at this point any movement by us will bring us closer to the now-stopped MD-80, and might just confuse things. A few moments later the MD-80 gingerly lumbers past us, its wingtips only a few metres from us, and turns onto Charlie. We get rocked a little by the jet blast as it slowly taxis away from us, but basically nothing much else happens, and a short while later we're cleared (again) to depart 27R. This time it's all uneventful, and a few seconds later we're airborne and being vectored by NorCal towards Napa's LOC 36L approach. In all this time, there's been no apology, no real acknowledgment (to us, at least), nothing from tower at all. Just another night in Oakland, I guess. At least I didn't get shot (sorry, Oakland in-joke).

A few observations and Wednesday-morning quarterbacking from the next day:

• I'd switched from ground only a short time earlier, but I hadn't heard any exchange with the MD-80 before switching, so I wasn't aware of its existence at all. I pride myself on positional awareness through listening on-frequency, but this time either I completely missed a crucial exchange on-frequency (or at least half on-frequency), or any exchange happened solely on South Field ground. I don't know, but I suspect it all had something to do with the next point…
  
• North Field tower (the usual tower for these runways in Oakland's split-field / two-tower setup) was temporarily closed, and there was a confusing set of frequencies and associated instructions in use. I was first on combined clearance, then North Field ground, and then South Field tower frequencies; I suspect the MD-80 was on South Field ground as a convenience to either the controller or the MD-80's crew.
  
• When North Field tower's closed, South Field tower takes over, but it can't see parts of the North Field, and if I remember correctly, it's precisely the North Field runup area off 27R that it can't see. That's no excuse for losing situational awareness, of course.
  
• I suspect the MD-80 was taxiing without its main lights on, presumably (and ironically) because the MD-80 crew saw us in the runup area from some distance away and didn't want to blind us with its main lights. Throughout this incident I'd guess that the MD-80 crew were at least as surprised as we were, and I'd also guess it was a call from the MD-80 that alerted the South Field controller to the situation (a call that we wouldn't have heard, of course).
  
• Ironically, one of the reasons I didn't notice the MD-80 earlier was the brightness of the flashing hold short lights embedded in the taxiway just in front of us, which combined with the usual crappy Cessna windshield optics and the busy visual environment of that part of the airport (runways, taxiways, hangars, off-airport lighting, etc.), can make it difficult to see aircraft on the runways or the connecting taxiway Bravo.
  
• A few minutes earlier ground had instructed us to taxi to 27R normally, but had omitted to mention that it would be immediately behind an Airborne Express 767 freighter that had just crossed in front of us (ground didn't call out that traffic at all; it's very unusual for Oakland ground controllers not to caution you about other taxiing traffic or to at least mention other aircraft in the area). Not a real safety issue in that I could easily see it, but just a foretaste of what was to come, I guess.
  
• Yes, I should have done a much better job of looking before I started moving, but, again, while I glanced that way, I didn't see anything I didn't expect to see, and while it's no excuse, the visual environment at that point at that time of day can be rather confusing. And this is my home-town airport we're talking about, an environment and place I learned to fly in, and that's as familiar to me as large parts of the rest of my neighbourhood….
  

Of such things are NASA reports made, I guess.

* * *

Other than that little incident? A very pleasant and productive flight: alternating hand-flown with automated (G1000-driven) approaches is a lot of fun (I'm still amazed by just how well the new G1000 software drives the autopilot around holds, course reversals, etc.); the Oakland center controller's laid back, competent, and anticipatory ways work nicely with me on the Napa approaches; and the VFR flight back over San Pablo Bay and down along the line of the hills over Berkeley and Oakland back home is the usual wonderland of light and landscape.

All in all, an Interesting flight, at least in parts.

* * *

[Postscript (later the same day): prompted by John I called Oakland tower and spoke to a quality assurance guy there and gave him my side of what happened (and a small piece of my mind). He called back later after listening to the tapes, and while his version is a little different from mine (and he seemed to treat it a little less seriously with a sort of "shit happens" attitude by my reading), and his understanding of the relevant transmissions is slightly different), the agreed-to bottom line is that while no actual incursion occurred, I was wrongly cleared onto a runway that was already occupied, and that the relevant controller will be, ummm, re-educated. He noted that if I hadn't called they wouldn't have known any such incident had happened. He stated that North Tower was closed due to a leaking roof and associated problems, and that (sort of off the record…), yes, staffing issues were probably a contributory factor, especially given the South Tower blind spot. He didn't seem to take my wild complaints about the flashing hold short lights terribly seriously, but hell, I don't expect anyone to really (unless they have a lot of experience with crappy Cessna windshields :-)). I'm not really pleased with the outcome — the situation's inherently unsafe there — but I'm hoping that at least the NASA ASRS report will add some weight to any internal enquiry. Or not. I dunno…].

There's something a little creepy about the silence tonight — it's a clear, still, cool Friday evening, perfect VFR flying weather, but … well, where is everyone? Even my passenger, Artist 1, notices it. We're the only active GA traffic at 7pm on a Friday evening at Oakland (KOAK), and we clearly wake up the poor tower controller at Napa (KAPC) when we call her over San Pablo Bay to tell her we're inbound for landing twenty minutes later (it's so clear I can easily see Napa's runway 18R from over Berkeley). What's up with everyone? It's Friday evening just before Christmas — this should be prime flying time, one way or another.

Oh well. I don't know what's going on, but for Artist 1 and me, it's all a pleasant surprise, a beautiful night VFR Bay Tour with a landing at Napa, and Artist 1 gets to fly again before going south to the OC with Artist 2 to visit the rels (what fun). It's so quiet (and the air so still) that when Napa tower asks me where we're parking after landing on runway 6, and I reply that I'd like to taxi back and do a downwind departure back to Oakland, she tells me that, well, I can have any runway I like (except 18L which isn't lighted) and any departure I want; my choice. I elect to keep pottering slowly down runway 6 in the dark and do a 180 at the end, with the straight out on 24 back towards the Bay. Which is exactly what we do (waking up the controller again after the 180 for the takeoff clearance). The entire time from first call to Oakland ground to some time after contacting NorCal Approach on the way back into Oakland some forty minutes later there's not another GA soul around (or at least on-air). I start to wonder about the likelihood of some sort of GA-specific neutron bomb or something.

And then things perk up, at least a little: just as we're over the shoreline heading for the Temple at 2,500', NorCal says she'll have to vector us and climb us a while for a mercy flight incoming from the east. Sounds good to me, and soon we're way up in the Class B on vectors while somewhere in front of us a helicopter heads low and fast towards Oakland Children's Hospital (I always get a terrible feeling of foreboding or sadness when I hear or see a medical helicopter heading in a hurry towards Children's Hospital). From the on-air calls, the pilot sounds unfamiliar with the landing spot; I've seen the landing pad many times from the ground, but I can imagine it's pretty difficult to spot from the air, surrounded by typical built-up urban density and confusing lights. We finally see the helicopter itself, crossing in front of and below us, and call traffic. NorCal sounds relieved, tells us to keep visual separation, to head for Oakland, own nav, and switch to tower. This leaves us crossing the Temple at 4,000', which locals will recognise as presenting an interesting altitude, airspeed, and energy management problem, but hell, it's a clear night, and once again we seem to be the only light GA traffic on (or above) Earth. I briefly wonder what'll happen if I request the Oakland trifecta (27L, 27R, and 33, all in one fun series of sidesteps and a single extended clearance) but think the better of it with a passenger. And that's about the extent of the excitement this evening, I'm afraid. Not much to write home about, but it's a very pleasant and relaxing flight overall: night VFR over the Bay and / or the City has to be one of my most enjoyable short just-do-it flights.

Back on the ramp in front of Kaiser, right where the old 737 was parked last time, and right next to the (now-working) fuel pumps, there's another 737, this one (I think) a New Zealand registered but otherwise anonymous new-gen plane that had been taxiing in from runway 29 when we departed. It looks like it's being prepped for departure as we park at the pumps — its APU is running, and there are two pilots (or pilot-like entities :-)) in the cockpit — so I don't wander over and take photos (and it'd be just like my luck to discover it belonged to the NZ equivalent of the CIA or something). A nice-looking plane; Artist 1 says it's probably one of Google's slumming it at Oakland, and they just haven't had time to change the registration. This seems as good an explanation as any; or maybe there just isn't enough room over the Bay at Moffett for all Google's owners' aircraft anymore.

Or so I'm told. A month or two ago a freelancer connected with the Wall Street Journal emailed me, mentioning that he was going to write about Yankee Alpha Foxtrot Bravo (the blog you're reading now, for those not following along closely) in the WSJ's blogwatch section, and asked a few questions about me and the blog. Or something like that — while flattered by the attention, I was a little too preoccupied with the rest of my life at the time to do more than respond with a few quick answers, and I promptly forgot the whole thing.

Until, that is, a few days ago, when John called me and mentioned that one of his ex-students (and a mutual acquaintance — hello Andy!) had called him and told him "Hamish's blog was in the WSJ". Well, maybe it is, but since I don't subscribe the the WSJ, and no one else has mentioned it, and "Hamish's blog" could refer to at least four blogs under my own name or a pseudonym, I don't actually know when and where it appeared, let alone what was written about it (and googling "YAFB WSJ" or obvious permutations doesn't hit much, except self-referentially it'll soon probably start serving up this entry…). Anyone got any details? Or was it all a cruel hoax?! :-)

As with my fifteen minutes on BBC Radio a decade ago in connection with one of my other sites, this fame hasn't exactly rocked my world (or even made a spike in my readership as far as I can tell), but I'll try not to let it go to my head. Not yet, anyway….

It's been a while, that's for sure. I sit there in the darkness between the rows of Port-A-Port hangars on the ramp at Oakland, looking at the 172's G1000 glowing there in the cockpit in front of me, thinking "this sure looks familiar". Well, it had better, hadn't it? I'm about to trust my life — and that of Evan H., my safety pilot — to it in a night IFR practice flight in what looks like a bit of night IMC and the usual crowded airspace. The plan's simple: a pre-filed IFR flight plan out to Stockton (KSCK), a handful of practice approaches there, then another clearance back to Oakland for the RNAV approach with LPV minimums through the coastal stratus. Nothing too difficult, but I sure feel rusty, and while I'm not anywhere near getting out of instrument currency, I do get a little worried about proficiency now and then. I don't want to make too much of a fool of myself on the radio or on the approaches with Evan — who's not far from getting his instrument rating with John — sitting there eagle-eyed in the right seat.

The engine starts first go, which is always a good sign; I taxi out past the Port-A-Ports and stop before I get to the movement area. Time to call Deliverance for my clearance; at Oakland this can sometimes be a bit like joining a poetry slam mid-show since the controller's also doing South Field ground as well as giving both North Field (GA) and South Field (the airlines and the Big Boys) clearances (and you can't hear the responses to South Field ground, making it way too easy to step on someone). I like slams but sometimes I've had to struggle to get a word in edgewise, and once waited several minutes to read back my clearance, all the while thinking "they've forgotten me, they've forgotten me…". This time it's a snap — just one other plane, a Southwest 737, is on clearance frequency — and after copying down the clearance I start to feel better about things. Until I call ground, that is, and give our position as "the New T's", which is totally wrong (at least I didn't say "the Old T's", which would be even more wrong, but a lot more forgivable after all the years I spent based there). After a verbal nudge from Evan I amend it to "the Port-A-Ports", which is close enough for government work. We saunter out onto taxiway bravo.

Since Evan's the IFR student and co-pilot, I pull rank and ask him if he'll program the G1000 for the clearance (hey, I can program the damn thing in my sleep nowadays, and I can always rationalise making him do it as "real world IFR training" or some such guff :-)). In any case, at this stage in his training he ought to be better at this than I am; he starts programming a plausible flight plan as we taxi off towards the 27R runup area. Almost immediately we hit taxiway delta ground asks us to cut over to 27R on golf and back-taxi down 27R to the runup area for traffic. We potter slowly down 27R and watch a Justice Department MD-80 and a FedEx Caravan cross 27R's threshold a few hundred metres in front of us, all flashing lights and movement in the darkness, both of them making a quick left onto the taxiway we've just vacated. This is entertaining, especially watching the little Caravan scurry along close behind the MD-80. And you don't get to back-taxi down 27R here that often, given the traffic (the last time I did it, I think, was when there was a plane sitting temporarily disabled on taxiway delta just next to 27R).

We get to the runup area and do the runup — all systems go! I look over Evan's G1000 program and apart from a minor disagreement about how to program the first leg of the clearance, it's identical to what I'd do; and this being NorCal Approach territory, we won't fly much of the programmed plan anyway, so the disagreement's pretty moot. Just pulling rank, you know…. We edge up to the hold short line, and I look around again. There's some coastal stratus around Oakland (which is currently IFR), but it doesn't extend very far inland, and it's pretty shallow. I start feeling pretty good about things — no real mistakes so far. This could actually be fun…

* * *

And so it is. There's just enough real IMC to make things visually interesting, and frankly, things under the Cone Of Stupidity (a.k.a. "the hood") felt comfortable the entire flight (well, at least Evan doesn't start screaming "we're all going to die!!!" at any point, or try to depart the plane on the ground at Stockton). I put the G1000 / autopilot combination through its paces for a couple of approaches, and hand-flew the others. No real problems to report with anything, but my hand flying isn't as sharp as it should be after the time off (but not outside PTS standards, which I count as reasonable). As happened the first time I flew the new version of the G1000 software, watching the G1000 command the autopilot around the full pilot nav version of the Stockton GPS 29R approach from Manteca VOR (ECA), including a full course reversal teardrop entry hold over the IAF (OXJEF), is, well, it's just magic. I don't think I'll ever be nostalgic for steam gauges, even though they were at the heart of my basic instrument training.

On the way back, after the somnolent-sounding NorCal sector over Stockton, NorCal's 125.35 sector over the Diablo Valley and into Oakland's a bit of a shock, a non-stop circus of requests, vectors, commands, and errors, and we hardly get noticed. But we're on a real IFR clearance, and even with the half-jammed frequency we get competent (if terse) vectors for the RNAV 27L (with LPV minimums) back into Oakland. At one stage the controller clears me "direct BAM[something]" (sounded a bit like "BAMPY"), which threw me — I know pretty much all the relevant intersections and waypoints for Oakland and Hayward approaches and associated airways, and I've never heard of this one. I fumble around uselessly with my charts and reply with "was that direct 'BAMPY'?". After a slight pause she returns with "051 never mind — cleared direct JUPAP", which makes a lot more sense [later: I still can't find any intersection or waypoint with a name like that in the area; at first I suspected she was clearing us for one of the runway 29 approaches, but none of them have fixes named something like that either]. A few minutes later she gives us a vector for the segment just outside JUPAP and clears us for the approach.

Then it's my turn to screw up: for some reason I reactivate the approach on the G1000 as we're getting close to JUPAP (the intermediate fix that's commonly used for vectoring). This has the predictable result of suddenly trying to send me to SUNOL, the IAF, an almost complete course reversal. I sit there for a few seconds wondering "what the hell?! Why's the needle suddenly swung around?" before it sunk in (with a little prompting from Evan). A few years ago I might have panicked or sat there a lot longer trying to intellectualise what was happening, but this time I don't spend much time thinking: I just put the autopilot into heading mode with the old heading (which was bugged, of course; and we hadn't deviated more than a few degrees at that point), then hit the flight plan window, scrolled to the SUNOL JUPAP leg, then hit "join the leg" (or whatever it's called). Voila! Back in business (well, that's the simplified form, anyway). Nothing dramatic, nothing special, nothing requiring any special airmanship or anything, but I think it does reflect how much a few years' experience flying IFR can make in recognising, debugging, and correcting mistakes like this in the real world.

Back on the ground there's an old privately-owned 737 sitting near the fuel pumps at Kaiser. We park right in front of it and wander off to wake up the fuel truck guys (the pumps are broken, apparently). I stroll up to the 737 in the dark and take a few pictures — it's a nice looking plane, and it has the old early-series low-bypass narrow engines — then go back to the fuel truck to watch $6-a-gallon being transferred swiftly from (my) wallet to fuel tank. Urgh. I sometimes wonder how much more flying I can really afford nowadays….

No flying for a while — I'm on vacation in one of my hometowns. I'm sure you all recognize these things; I know I'm enough of a nerd that I can name the function of each of them (hint: not aeronautical). Yes, such a nerd. Back sometime November….

Cessna 051 Being Pre-Flighted In The Hangar

I feel like a complete idiot. I'm standing in the fading light and early Autumn cold outside Oakland Flyers, trying to get the external lockbox open so I can retrieve the paperwork for my evening flight in Cessna 051, the G1000 / WAAS equipped 172 I've booked for a short VFR trip to Livermore (KLVK) and back. I know the combination for the lock. I've opened it before. But nothing I do will get the bloody thing open, and I can't fly until I get the paperwork out (it's one of those shocking and little-known insider secrets that planes don't fly without the correct paperwork).

In desperation I call John to see if someone's changed the combo or something. John turns out to be on the way to this very spot for a flight with Evan H., one of his students, in another of the club's 172s, so I wait a few minutes until he turns up. He can't get it open either; neither of us can no matter what song and dance or imprecations we make. Evan turns up a few moments later, and the combination of the three of us trying subtle and not-so-subtle variations on the usual theme doesn't work either. Just as someone makes the inevitable joke, Evan manages to get the bloody thing open (with exactly the same combo and sequence of twists and turns we've all been using for the past fifteen minutes). And of course, inside the lockbox is… nothing. The powers that be at Oakland Flyers have forgotten to leave 051's paperwork out for me.

Luckily, John's got a key to the (locked up, gone-home-for-the-day) office, and we eventually find the folder and paperwork inside. While doing this I ask what the others were planning — an IFR practice flight to Mather (KMHR) and back, apparently, as part of Evan's training to get his IFR rating. They're taking one of the crappy old non-GPS non-glass 172s, the only thing they could get on the day. I suggest we could swap planes, since I'm really only flying for VFR landing and circuit practice today, but it turns out I'm not technically checked out in the other plane (it has a few quirks to do with the fuel system that require a separate but minor checkout). So I suggest I'd be happy to share 051 and back seat for at least half the trip, as long as I get some flying and an approach and landing in, and the costs are shared appropriately.

And so that's what happens….



FedEx caravan Bearing Down on 051 Next to 27R, KOAK

IFR training's a lot easier when done from the back seat. I watch and listen as John and Evan go through the paces, a simulated SALAD 1 departure from Oakland and a simulated clearance along a plausible route to Mather, interrupted by an ad hoc hold John threw at Evan somewhere out towards OAKEY intersection. Evan handles it all pretty well, and the (night, VFR) practice approaches into Sacramento Executive (KSAC) and Livermore (KLVK) are basically smooth and well-flown. I kinda enjoy passively following along and monitoring things, and predicting or guessing what John's about to say in response to Evan's actions or some interesting indication on the panel. Evan's basic IFR skills seem to be very sound, but he's not so familiar with the glass panel or the autopilot, and there are some typically head-exploding moments over the Delta. But he copes better than I did at the same stage in my training….



Leaving The Sunset...

We do a full stop in the dark at Livermore to refuel the plane (it's a good 80 cents a gallon cheaper here than in Oakland, where it's above $5 a gallon now), and to let me take the left seat for the quick flight over the hills back into Oakland. I plan on a VFR departure under the cone of stupidity and a quick stab at the RNAV (GPS) 27L approach with LPV minimums, if ATC and the G1000 will cooperate. The ATIS for Oakland mentions a broken layer at 1,100 feet (the usual Bay Area summer evening coastal stratus), so we'll need a popup clearance in any case, and I'd like to get more familiar with the G1000 LPV setup. The whole thing shouldn't take more than twenty-five minutes, max. What could go wrong?

Not much, really, in the sense of any sort of emergency or incident, but we hadn't planned on the absolute mess that was NorCal Approach's 125.35 sector that evening, with all sort of overheard botched radio calls, vectors for spacing, misunderstood instructions, etc. (none of it by us, of course :-)). Not knowing what's coming, we depart into the night and I go under the hood, and John plays ATC and vectors me until we're high enough for radar contact and to not have to climb for the approach. We call NorCal, and after a couple of attempts get through with our request for the approach and clearance. The controller sounds irritated and overloaded, and estimates at least a ten minute delay before he can slot me in. In the meantime, he wants us to maintain VFR and loiter roughly where we are until he can fit us in (not quite his words, but more-or-less his intent).

John vectors me a bit more, then throws me an ad hoc hold that throws me: as transcribed from my kneepad, "hold northeast of a point 4 miles from JUPAP waypoint on the 025 bearing, left turns, 3,700 feet…". Now it's my turn to have the head-exploding moment, and I scramble to visualise what the hell it all means (if I remember correctly I had the presence of mind to ask "nautical or statute miles?!" at some point as a diversionary time-waster). Just as I work out what he's asking me to do (as we're rapidly approaching the holding fix, something I only woke up to at the very last second), NorCal barks a vector at me for joining the ILS. I try to query this, but the controller's got other things on his mind, and so I follow the vector, hoping he heard my request for clarification on the RNAV vs. ILS 27R thing. In the meantime we can hear a bunch of misunderstandings and missed calls on-frequency, and things start mentally heating up. We're definitely not the only traffic being held in the area, and it sounds like there's a whole series of spacing, ummm, "issues" being worked out with varying degrees of patience by controller and pilots. Not an ideal flying situation, but this sort of thing is great real-world practice, and a good occasion for snarky remarks from John, Evan, and myself. And I can't help noticing that there seems to be more than the normal helping of British accents out here tonight, earlier as well as now. It's not just me with the funny accent….

Eventually the controller gets back to me and gives me a quick vector to JUPAP (the RNAV approach IF) without mentioning the approach. We lumber towards JUPAP with me wondering what's next. Should I turn at JUPAP for the approach? What's on the controller's mind here? The frequency is a continuous traffic jam of requests and commands, and I'm just not going to be able to ask. I decide to turn, as, as John says, it's going to keep me out of the ILS for Oakland's runway 29 a bit further across from us, which has to be a plus from ATC's point of view. Just before JUPAP I unexpectedly get instructed to do a 360 for spacing. Just one, I wonder? As we complete the first I manage to ask whether he wants more and he just basically grunts "051 keep circling". I feel a little exposed, sitting there at 3,700' right off the main ILS and RNAV approach centrelines, but there's not a lot we can do: we can't go VFR because of the stratus, and at least we're in the system.

After a couple of orbits we're hurriedly vectored for, and cleared for, the RNAV approach. Immediately I join the approach the controller asks me for best possible forward speed (he's sandwiched us between a couple of jets, as he reminds us several times), and asks what speed we can do. The "120 knots" I give him isn't really enough, as he'll keep implying over the next few minutes, but hell, it's all we can safely do, really, and it's all I'll give him. The actual approach flying bits go fine (this is a very straightforward approach), but there's no vertical glideslope coupling yet with the G1000 and the autopilot; however, since the LPV glideslope's pretty easy to get right by dialing in a suitable vertical speed on the AP, the rest of it's easy. I'm told the G1000 / AP combination will properly couple "in the next release". Yeah, I've heard that before.

After being switched to Oakland tower I'm immediately cleared for landing … on the wrong runway (it must be catching). But the controller's good-humoured and rather laid-back, and after clearing this up I hand-fly the last part of the approach under the hood to about 150', with John watching like a hawk. It's always nice to be able to hand-fly an approach to below the minimums without any major deviations…. Nearly forty minutes after departing Livermore we're back on the ground at Oakland; Livermore airport is roughly eighteen nautical miles from Oakland airport.

Back at Oakland Flyers I file my paperwork and discuss the flight with John and Evan. A lot of fun, really. I should do this sort of thing more….

* * *

I know I've said this before, but 051 is the only airplane I've ever rented that's actually kept in a hangar. The climate around here is benign enough that outdoor tie-downs are just fine for most small planes, and the cost of a rented hangar here is high (and, more importantly, the waiting list for one is years, if not decades, long). The hangar itself is a pretty standard Port-A-Port thing, but the whole opening and closing the door thing is quite a process, and always reminds me of an old drawbridge / portcullis in Heath Robinsonesque (Rube Goldbergesque) style, with a lot of clanking and bits of wood and iron that don't seem to fit together quite right (when I was a kid in Britain I remember something like this in real life in Cornwall or Devon somewhere, I think). No matter what I do, I end up injuring one of my fingers or jamming the door or getting something wrong each time I use the thing; this time, not only do I manage to get grease all over my hands while cranking the door closed in the darkness after the flight, but I ding my thumb with the latch release mechanism. Hmmm. There's got to be a better way… (but it's nice that there's a hangar for this plane).

I'm based at a busy high-security airport (Oakland, CA — KOAK). This means that to access even the non-airline ramps at the airport I have to have an official ramp pass or badge; this in turn means I have to be background-checked, finger-printed, indoctrinated in the finer points of airport security, and renew my badge every two years (this is probably the long-term future of GA in the US, at least for busier airports, even if they don't have quite the mixture of aircraft light and heavy, commercial and private, on the ramp that Oakland has).

And today it's my turn to go back in to the Port of Oakland's airport security badge office deep in the airport's main terminal buildings and claim my new badge after another two years. Nothing too onerous, and I've done it at least four times in the past, but there's always something that comes up…. In this case, the Port's belatedly discovered that they don't have my fingerprints on file, despite my having done the whole fingerprinting thing for them some time ago (I don't remember when — I've had them done so many times for various immigration and security agencies in the last two decades, that the individual experiences just blur into one). But in this context it's not such a big deal; all it really means is an added thirty minutes of hanging around and the chance to see the new fingerprinting systems in action (quite cool, really), and I'll survive. Yes, the ambiance is a bit like a cross between a second-rate university and a really noisy train station, and if you go in with the wrong mindset it can be a relentlessly depressing and demoralising experience, but the staff are unfailingly cheerful and helpful, and in the end I just sit or stand around watching the TSA folks do their job in the crowded concourse below me or catch a glimpse of the orange NorCal approach radar head going around and around out past the 737's, 757's, and Airbuses on the apron in front of Terminal One. Life goes on all around me, and if it weren't for the irritating sound environment — a never-ending confusion of canned security announcements, the clash and clang of the rollers and machines in the security checkpoints downstairs, barked orders, kids screaming, shouting cell phone and radio users, PA announcements — I could probably have kept sitting there for hours, reading or thinking about nothing in particular, getting up occasionally to have my mug shot taken or to put my prints (again) on the glass and watch them develop on the screen in front of me.

But I was getting hungry, and hadn't had any food or coffee yet, and I'd told everyone I'd be at work by 10am, so I was relieved when the clerk called my name again, gave me my new badge, and validated my parking (as the badge clerk says to me somewhat sardonically, "hey, you pay us $58 and give us an hour or two of your life, and we give you validated parking!"). Cool. Hourly parking here on the airline side of the airport isn't exactly cheap….

And just like the last time, after two hours of almost pure waiting (and five or ten minutes of fingerprints and form-filling) I leave with a new badge, and the world (or at least Metropolitan Oakland International Airport) is just that little bit safer because of it all, I'm sure.

John calls me early this afternoon and asks whether I want to come along while he continues the left engine break-in on the Oakland Flyers Duchess. Well duh! I drop the work I'm supposed to be doing on a website for a friend (one of the Artists — sorry, Scott) and rush to Oakland's (KOAK) Old T's, where John's preflighting Duchess 15Q (above) in the tundra in front of Oakland Aircraft Maintenance (the shop that's helping with the break-in).

I've actually flown in Duchesses before, most memorably during my initial PP-ASEL training, with Edd ("short for 'Eddy'") P., a colleague of mine at the time who let me "fly" large parts of a relaxing flight along the coast and Peninsula, San Carlos (KSQL) to Salinas (KSNS) and back again while he maintained currency. I couldn't log that flight, of course, but I did learn the basics of how to keep the Duchess stable, upright, and on course, all at the right altitudes (there's a punchline in there somewhere).

This time the agenda is for a quick VFR flight down to King City (KKIC) and back, with some strict limitations due to the engine break-in: keep below 4,000'; keep both engines 24"/2500 RPM or lower except on take-off; throttle back to 18"/2300 RPM periodically for a few minutes; and don't lean the left engine (the refurbed one) at all. Nothing too onerous (I probably missed a few), but given the history with this particular rebuild (don't ask), it's crucial that we get this right. Sounds good to me, and I load my everything-plus-the-kitchen-sink flight bag into the plane and get into the right seat (John will fly left seat for this one, not his usual seat at all, of course). About the only potential fly in the ointment is the fact that NorCal's Oakland radar head is out for repairs (or whatever), and Oakland's normal Class C services are NOTAM'd inop today, meaning things like flight following and instrument approaches are iffy at best. In the end, this isn't a factor at all, but combined with unusual local parachute jumping NOTAMS and the aerobatics typically done out of King City (think "Sean Tucker", for whom Ben, my old (young) aerobatics instructor now flies…), it'll pay to keep our eyes especially well-peeled (or some such metaphor).

The plane looks and feels well-maintained and looked-after, and from the right seat the cockpit looks familiar, similar to the Duchess I flew all those years ago, except for the nice Garmin 530 / 430 panel on the right. Unlike the first time, this time pretty much everything on the panel and all the controls, etc., are familiar and make sense to me, and I feel well at home.

So after a careful startup we taxi towards 27R, and I program the 530 (VPCBT, KRHV, SNS, KKIC) while John does a careful runup. And then we're on our way…. Apart from a lot of bumps between Oakland and San Jose in both directions, the flight's uneventful, and I end up flying from the right seat enough to log a couple of hours dual, including a bunch of fun steep turns somewhere between Salinas and King City. This is a nice plane to fly, but as John notes, there's quite a difference between the roll and pitch sensitivities: you could roll this plane 30 degrees easily with a flick of the wrist, but in the pitch axis it's really quite a lot less responsive. Even so, the pitch trim (manual and electric) seems overly twitchy. But the ailerons feel a lot more natural than the Cirrus's, which may just be a reflection of that particular Cirrus (or it may reflect the spring-loaded system in the Cirrus that I'm really not sure I like all that much). A prominent missing feature that it'd be nice to have in this plane is an autopilot: I've become somewhat convinced that for single pilot IFR flying in serious sustained IMC, a good basic autopilot is essential (it doesn't have to be able to do much more than keep a heading or even just keep the wings level, if you ask me). Other than that, this plane is an instant hit with me — the steep turns are easy (I lose altitude and steepen the turn a little too much a couple of times mostly because being in the right seat I concentrate more on the horizon and flying by the seat of my pants than on the instruments I can't quite see over on the other side of the panel. "Welcome to my world…" as John says), the Garmins make casual IFR flying a lot more pleasant, the forward view from the cockpit is easily the best I've seen in a low-wing plane, and it basically just felt like a straightforward and safe aircraft.

We turn back a little before King City (we don't need to land, just do about two hours' tach time in the air), and shoot the ILS 27R back into Oakland, with John flying (no cone of stupidity for this, as I can't act as safety pilot on a twin).

Back on the ground at Oakland we do a magneto test again before refueling, and the results aren't promising — although the engines have been smooth and well-behaved in the air, back on the ground the left engine's running rough during the runup on single mags, and since we can't do the standard lean-it-and-rev-like-hell plug clearing on the new engine, it'll have to go back to Oakland Aircraft Maintenance for plug-pulling or worse.

I help refuel (to 40 gallons each side) and get a lesson in why, although this plane rents for "only" (ha!) about $120 per hour dry, it's never going to be my choice for pleasantly pottering about the Bay or Valley: we end up putting in about $200 worth of fuel, and that was nowhere near topping the plane off. In this case, at least, Oakland Flyers will reimburse John the expense (we hope), but it's still a shocker. And yet, and yet… learning to fly this thing and getting a multi rating would be a really enjoyable experience, and probably not too hard. But keeping current, especially to club rules, would be prohibitively expensive, and I'd probably want to get the multi add-on for IFR, and then there's the increased renter's insurance… and all this is yet another slippery financial slope I could really do without. We shall see.

Back in front of Oakland Aircraft Maintenance, Eric and his crew wander out and look the plane over. Apart from the rough-sounding left, there's a slight oil leak on the right cowl from the prop, and John and Eric agree it should be looked into. Eric's pessimistic about the left engine — he thinks it's probably one of the magnetos rather than the plugs, and he'll work on it on Monday. The good news is that the left engine barely used any oil during the two hours of use, and the actual break-in appears to be relatively successful. With (maybe) a new mag (or just a plug cleaning) and (probably) a new seal for the right prop, the Duchess should be in good condition to return online sometime next week.


* * *




Earlier, as I'm walking across the ramp at the Old T's, I see Lou Fields's Thunderchicken in front of a hangar, and wander over to see if Lou himself is there as well. I haven't seen Lou for a while now, but he's still the same — he seems happy to see me; I'm definitely happy to see him, and we talk a while about the Thunderchicken (Lou's jokey name for his '46 Aeronca Champ, above, with Lou in front) and Oakland gossip. The champ's got radio problems, apparently; I say I'm surprised it's got any radios at all, but as it's based in Oakland, I guess it has to. He has a portable GPS in the cockpit — he wouldn't fly the thing without it, as he's said several times, but there's a panel-mounted radio in there too, somewhere.

It's always pleasant talking with Lou — as I've written elsewhere, over the years he's watched me get my private license, then let me rent his Arrow to get my complex endorsement (and later just to fly around for fun), he had some usefully-pithy advice when I was having trouble learning to do good wheel landings in the taildragger, he had similar things to say about my aerobatics training (until a few years ago he still taught aerobatics, and he got on well with Ben, my then-aerobatics instructor), and, until some health problems cropped up, he was slated to be my DE for the instrument rating a couple of years ago. He's been a constant background presence in my life at Oakland's Old T's, and I've always been grateful for his help and his sense of humour. Lou flew off carriers in the Pacific during WW2 and for many years after that, including Korea, and is something of an institution around here.

I saw it in the distance as I drove past it out in the Californian outback a dozen times in the decade before I learned to fly; even then I knew what a VOR was and how it worked (just not how to use one when it mattered). Such a nerd. I went out of my way to take a couple of photos of it back then, it seemed so unreal in context. It's still there, of course, and this image is from the same trip earlier this year that included the mystery town with both a Clown Motel and a Missile Test Firing Range (cool — my sort of town!)

A year's free YAFB subscription to the first reader in email or here who can identify which VOR it is, preferably because they've also seen it from the ground (or air) and / or can recognise the landscape (this should be easy…).

A short IFR workout with a bit of real IMC and a lot of the sort of landscapes and seascapes the Bay Area's known for: KOAK (Oakland) SABLO SGD KAPC (Napa), KAPC SGD REBAS KOAK (with suitable allowances for the approaches at both ends and the fact that in true NorCal style, I didn't fly more than a small percentage of the clearance as given), in the new G1000 C172 with Oakland Flyers. A workout designed to keep it brief and keep things happening one after the other, which is the way things happened. No trouble keeping on top of things, which was gratifying, even if it was mostly VMC.

About the only gripe about today is a relatively old one, one I think I've noted before: once again on the ILS with the G1000 properly programmed and set up, I sit there confused for a few seconds looking for the glideslope indicator bugs on the G1000's HSI display, wondering what the hell was wrong with the ILS...? And once again (after a few seconds), I wonder why on earth Garmin made the decision to put the glideslope indicator only on the altitude tape. I can understand it being there in addition to on the HSI because of the relationship to altitude, etc., but not being only there. There's always been something deeply satisfying to me about the human factors usability of the all-in-one HSI + glideslope combination. If only Garmin would put the bugs on the HSI as well as the tape…. Oh well; I just can't really believe I fell for this again, I guess.