Oil Change

At some point I mentioned that I am ridiculously out of shape.  This is a pertinent topic with aerobatics because it is a highly physical sport, even though you stay seated the whole time.  Sustaining high G-forces can wipe you out quick unless you are in tip-top shape.  If you want to see what I’m talking about watch the in-cockpit video of Hubie Tolson flying his gold medal four-minute freestyle.  (Fast forward to 2:05 to get to the good stuff)

 

The big problem with this is that I absolutely HATE going to the gym.  I don’t enjoy it, I don’t have fun, and I’m simply not good at it.  I show up there and do a little of this, a little of that but with no real structure.  The last time I tried to play an organized sport was last year and I ended up sidelined with a broken elbow.  So the gym is out, and soccer is out.  I wanted to do something that was thorough and aggressive.  I started doing some research.  The ads for P90X caught my eye and I started reading up on it.  I was skeptical.  No matter how many success stories I read I was still questioning it.

One day my I noticed on Facebook that my dad (yes, he is on Facebook and will be reading this.  Hi.) became a fan of P90X.  Say wha?  I gave him a call and he revealed that he’s had P90X for a year or so.  A word about my dad:  he is a stubborn marathon runner that knows how to work out, even battling back from almost having his leg amputated a few years ago and running several marathons since.  If he says a workout regiment is good, its good.  No questions asked.  He went one step further and sent me a brand spankin’ new copy of P90X.  My dad.  Official sponsor since 1981. 

I am now through the first week of workouts and so far, I feel great.  The workouts are not easy.  It’s an hour a day at least.  Each day is different with one day working one muscle group at a time with an hour of cardio put in between the strength workouts.  There is also an ab routine, 15 minutes long that you do after each strength workout.  The whole thing is intense.  I feel tight in my back, legs, arms, chest and am loving every second of it. I think I just love being active and doing something.

I had to go one step further and completely revamp my diet.  I am notorious for being a horrible eater.  I don’t eat a lot but when I do eat it’s usually crap.  I’ve subsisted on artificial processed junk for way too long and I think my health has really suffered from it.  And so with that I just got back from the grocery store with a supply of foods that I bought according to the P90X nutrition guide (Nutrition guide mind you.  NOT a diet plan.)  This is going to be harder than the workouts.  I picked out foods that I will enjoy though so I should be able to stick with it. There are lots of options and even allowances for Subway (a staple at the flight school).

The airplane gets all the attention.  You constantly monitor the engine; change the oil, check the bellcranks, cables, fabric, tires, prop, etc.  The airplane is really only a small part of all this.  The airplane will only fly as well as the pilot commands it to.  

Winter winter go away, come again...never.

The year is 1/6^th over.  Taking stock of what I’ve gotten done so far…meh…not so great right off the bat.  Again, patience is not a virtue that I have. 

Flying has been slow so far.  I haven’t practiced so much on the acro side of things.  I’m conserving my pennies so that when I get closer to contest season I can really pack in the flying.  I’m staying active still though, giving lessons in the Decathlon on the weekends.  Spins from the back seat are insanely fun to do.  I’ve had a few students that are either working on their CFI licenses and need a spin endorsement or just want to go explore the world beyond the normal stall recovery.  They say you don’t really learn anything until you start teach it.  I’ve gone back and re-read everything I can on the aerodynamics and teaching techniques.  I guess I’m feeling pretty good about the flying side of things after all. 

The other day I spent about a half hour talking to Greg Koontz down in Alabama (www.gkairshows.com).  Greg has been flying airshows since 1974 and has thousands upon thousands of hours of dual given (lessons that he has given) in taildraggers and acro mounts. His favorite plane to fly:  the Super Decathlon.  He has also published a series of articles in Sport Aerobatics all about how to instruct…prime cut stuff.  I wanted to talk to pick his brain on getting to the airshow circuit and things to work on.  Turns out he is the new Chairman of the A.C.E committee…the Aerobatic Competency Evaluator committee…the people that grant airshow waivers.  Serendipitous?  Maybe.  I’m hoping to head down to ‘Bama sometime after contest season is through to do some flying with him and learn from a modern day acro Jedi master.  

I also recently obtained a copy of the syllabus provided to airshow hopefuls that provides the background knowledge and considerations in all this crazy stuff.  With the weather for the next week showing 100% chance of rain almost every day I'm planning on getting through as much of it as possible…at least make a first pass on everything. 

I’ve got about four months left until the first contest.  Four full months that is.  With the weather improving and the winter winds starting to wither my practices should be coming more frequently.

Sing a Little Ditty ‘bout the Nitty and the Gritty

In my last post I commented about how much I hate sitting around feeling like I am wasting an opportunity if I don't fly.  Over the last 3 years I’ve had a crash course (no pun intended) in professionalism, responsibility and the fine art of decision-making.  One of the tenets of decision-making that I’ve picked up is faith in the truth that numbers can reveal.  With that in mind I took a hard look at my finances and the goals that I have for the upcoming season.  I had to come up with a solid budget.  With the numbers known, I can relax a bit in some ways. 

My goals for this competition season are easy:  compete and place well in two contests.  I took that goal and backed out everything from that.  The first contest is the New England Championship in Vermont; July 9^th.  The second contest is the Kathy Jaffe Challenge in Lumberton, NJ; August 6^th.  I figure that each contest could run around $1,500 each.  I’ll need lodging for 3 days, the cost of the contest registration fee, food for three days, and the biggest expense of all, the airplane to and from the contest and the actual contest flying.  I figure that my actual expenses are going to be less than what I’ve budgeted for but I would rather be surprised in the “hey I’ve got money leftover” way than the “crap, can someone lend me some money for some ramen noodles” way. 

This all means that by the beginning of July, I need to have $3,000 set aside for the competitions.  After all if I can’t afford to compete then the plan is moot anyway.  I’ve taken whatever money I would be putting towards rent and living expenses and instead I’m putting that towards flying.  I'm also allocating money that I had remaining from my original pilot training.  (While I want to be as open as possible with all of my information there are a few items I am going to withhold out of respect for my employer and yes, my own privacy.  Our Decathlon retails for $169 per hour.)  I added up 7 months worth of my savings and then deducted the cost of the contests, $3,000.  I then took the amount remaining and divided it by the amount I pay per hour to fly the Decathlon.  This new number represented the total amount of time I could spend training towards the contests: 42 hours.  Hot DAMN!  42 hours is two hours a week!  That is some serious training for me.  I could blow the doors off the competition with that. 

But of course nothing is ever so simple.  There are some costs that I have to incur between now and the first contest that are going to dig into my fund.  I have to get my chute repacked, have to pay for the new website to get built, and possibly get a new camera so that I can start documenting my practices and show it to all of you.  Now I’m down to 34.4 hours worth of practice.  Still good but getting closer to the once a week type of flight training schedule.  That is assuming that I am going to fly each week.  I may come up with an alternate plan for this.  

There are some other things that may dig severely into my budget that I am still mulling over.  When I figure out what I’m going to do I’ll update the blog about my plan.

My new task is to figure out what I am going to do with my time.  I have to come up with a syllabus for myself to get ready for the competition.  I have to make the best use of those 34.4 hours that I possibly can.  I cant waste an hour...a tenth of hour!  All this is going to do is force me to be smart.

Waiting in a Winter Wonderland

I’ve got a problem.  I haven’t flown in two weeks. 

I am currently only able to fly on the weekends.  The reasoning is pretty simple enough; I work and we are in the middle of a New England winter.  By the time 5pm rolls around I’ve got about 20 minutes of daylight left which isn’t enough time for me to takeoff and get out to my practice area. 

Two weeks ago I was all set and ready to head to the field.  As I was walking to the plane my boss was pulling it into the hangar announcing that the manifold pressure gauge stopped working and the plane was grounded.  As frustrated as I was, as bad as I wanted to say “who cares?!?!  It never works right anyway!” he was right.  Saying “it’ll probably be ok” is never good enough with flying.  The plane was grounded for the rest of the weekend and through most of the week until a phone call to American Champion helped our mechanic solve the problem easily and affordably. 

This past weekend was full of 30 knot winds and a cloud ceiling hanging down around 2,000 feet.  Obviously I was not keen to be flying in those conditions.  It would have been a waste of time and a waste of money. 

And that is my rationalization.  I have a budget that I set up to give me so many flight hours per month.  This is not exactly a HUGE budget but enough to give me a handful of hours per month.  Since I have this limited budget I want to make the most out of the money that I have.  Going up on a day like we had this weekend would have been horrible.  I am not waiting around for perfect days but I need at least 3000 foot ceilings to do anything. 

In a few weeks time I’ll have an hour worth of daylight after work to get my flights in.  Waiting for the weekend to roll around is brutal.  I am in constant conversation with myself asking myself if I can be doing more; whether or not I am just making excuses for myself, and whether or not my rationalizations are valid.  There is no substitute for experience and every day that I don’t fly I feel like I am wasting an opportunity.    

I do not have the time or the resources to do everything that I want to do.  If I could not work and have a plane and afford to fly the plane and go to contests and pay my car bill and my student loan bill then I would, as I’m sure you would too.  Truth is I can’t and you probably can’t either (if you can though please send a check payable to Chris Porter.  Thanks).  What I do know is that I have a clear path to getting to exactly where I want to be.  Unfortunately I have always been an incredibly impatient person and am being forced to be patient.  I have to mix working hard with working smart.    

The Long and Lomcevaking Road

(I'll expand on each of these items with future entries.  Each one could be a novel on its own.  I wanted to at least give a broad overview of what I am working towards.) 

To be an airshow pilot you need to have a slew of experience, credentials, and dedication.  I am currently working on all three.

The experience is usually gained through competing in contests sanctioned by the International Aerobatic Club (www.iac.org).  There are different levels of competition ranging from basic routines in the primary category to the unlimited category which can induce a headache just looking at it on paper.  Moving up through the categories is something that many airshow performers spend several years doing and is exactly where I am.

The credentials needed to fly the airshows are given by the airshow industry itself.  The International Council of Airshows (www.airshows.aero) developed a program with the FAA by which it determines a performers ability to fly aerobatics in front of crowds safely.  ICAS will grant low level waivers which allow a performer to do acro below the normal legal limit of 1,500 feet above the ground.  It is a graduated process in that the first waiver you get moves you down a certain increment, the next goes lower and so on.  In all, it will take me an absolute minimum four years to go from the first waiver to the last “unlimited low level waiver.”  That is if I even want to go that low.  We’ll see.  Once you are at this level there is a whole new world of sponsorships, marketing, branding and "we'll find outs" to consider.  For now, I am just focusing on getting to the point where a waiver is obtainable.  

The last item is dedication.  To be honest this is my favorite topic to research and the toughest one to nail down.  You will never have everything you want.  You always have to give up something in order to get something.  Is it worth it?  How much am I willing to give up in order to get to the airshows?  I could let loose with an anectodal tidal wave of inspirational quotes and passages I’ve found…but I wont (you’re welcome.)  Instead I’ll just say that I’m always redefining what that word means.  Just when I think I understand it someone comes along and shows me that no, you can push yourself harder.