Anatomy of a Failure

Preflight Planning
I had been asked to plan a flight from Pine Mountain Lake (E45) to Santa Barbara. This was rather straightforward. I planned it using both the online AOPA Flight Planner, and also by hand, using a pre-printed Nav Log. Both used the same routing, so the differences were mainly in how I calculated wind corrections, leg lengths, etc. One thing I caught was that there is no real departure procedure out of Pine Mountain Lake, but if you dig a bit to the alternate Takeoff Minimums in the Procedures book you'll see that from either Rwy 9 or 27 you are instructed to turn to the North and fly direct to Linden VOR (LIN). From there it was easy to pick up airways down to Santa Barbara. I fumbled a little because AOPA will not calculate the winds and leg times for you unless you're in a few hours window of the departure. I printed the Nav Log out at home, but it was absent the final calculations. I didn't want to be in the examiner's office spinning the whiz-wheel, so I added this to the list of things I needed to do in the morning. It made for a busy morning. It meant I need to drive down to the airport, stop at the ATM, go to the pilot shop to get a 4-ring binder for the NACO approach plates I'd bought for Southern California, then to the flying club to print out the nav log with the winds, grab the logbooks for the plane and go through them to verify and tab all of the required bits, get in the plane and fly the hour to E45. In the end, I left the club just about 11am, and was due to start the exam at noon. This was clearly not going to happen. By the time I'd pre-flighted the plane, got ATIS, taxied out, did my runup and called for my departure, it was more like 11:30. I was going to be late. It didn't make me feel good, and wasn't how I needed to start my day.

The flight there was totally uneventful. I did a practice RNAV (GPS) RWY 9 approach to E45, because I knew she was going to ask me to do it for the exam. She'd told me as much in an email exchange previously in the week. The only trouble was the approach plates were in the back of the plane, not in my lap. So, while the GPS knew the waypoints, I didn't have the altitudes for the stepdowns, or any of the other information. It made pre-flying the approach sort of useless. I was mad at myself for not having thought ahead to have the plates in my hand.

Oral Exam
After showing up late, the oral exam went pretty well. The examiner is the same one I'd use for my PPL several years earlier. She's very nice, very fair, but you need to demonstrate you know what you're doing. We started with the "paperwork" of IACRA, then got into the flight I'd planned to Santa Barbara. She was happy to see I'd caught the departure procedure out of E45, and we talked about some of the airspace along the way. Where Echo started, what the MOAs in the Central Valley were for, etc. There is a little note on the chart just south of MOD VOR that R-147 is unusable, which I'd caught in doing my flight planning. She seemed happy that I pointed it out, and related that that was for GPS only, and oddly was for 3000 feet to the GPS MEA which is, wait for it, 3000ft. Weird. I guess at exactly 3000 ft you cannot use your GPS to fly R-147. Whatever. There were only one or two questions where I wasn't sure of the answer, and I dove for the FAR/AIM to find it pretty readily. One was if you descend to the MDA or DA and have the runway environment in sight, how much lower can you descend before you have the actual runway in sight. I really didn't know. It was pretty easy to dig through the FARs to get it, and find that you're allowed to go down to 100ft above the touchdown zone elevation (TDZE). We had a little back and forth on if the language was descend 100 feet from the MDA or DA, or if it was TDZE +100. I eventually drew a picture of the latter and we both agreed that was what the FAR meant. I sort of like when you learn something on the exam. We finished with a review of the logs for the plane, and having tabbed all of the requirements made this pass very quickly. She was satisfied, and we packed up to go flying.

E45 to Linden VOR
After pre-flighting the plane again, we packed up, she gave me some rules of the test, and we were ready to launch. The departure out of E45 was straightforward. I climbed out of the pattern, we passed control of the plane to her, I donned my goggles, and I took control back. I pulled up Linden in the Nav 1, identified the station, spun the OBS to take me direct to Linden, and that was it. She "cleared" me to Linden at 4500, so that's what I did. After about 2 minutes of flying toward Linden at 4500, she told me to break it off and fly direct ZELAT.

Direct to ZELAT
This was trivial as well. I punched in ZELAT in the GPS, hit direct to, swapped the Nav source to GPS, flipped the autopilot into heading, followed by Nav mode, and we were off to ZELAT at 4500. Here I think was my first mistake, though it didn't matter much. I knew she was taking me to the Modesto ILS. I'd have been better off punching in Modesto into the flight plan in the GPS, adding the procedure for ILS 28R, and putting ZELAT as the IAF. That would have loaded much more than just ZELAT. It would have gotten me the whole GPS overlay of the approach. I didn't need it, but it is one of those things that makes your life a little easier when it all goes to hell. The NorCal controller asked me a funny question after I called in and asked for the Modesto ILS 28R with ZELAT as the IAF. He gave me a beacon code, asked for an ident, and after I did so, he called and asked me what altitude I was flying. This took me for a second, and even prompted me to ask the examiner why he'd do that. She, of course, was quiet as a mouse. In retrospect, I think when I called my position originally, I must have missed my altitude. No matter, but it was one more thing for my soon to be overloaded brain to rattle around. I busied myself with identifying the MOD VOR and dropping it into NAV 2 for the missed, and identifying the localizer and dropping it into Nav 1. I couldn't swing the OBS for the inbound course since the GPS was driving the HSI and I was using that to get to ZELAT. So, that was all I could do, so I sat back and waited. He dropped me from 4500 to something more like 2500 as I got closer in.

MOD ILS 28 or LOC/DME RWY 28R
Right around the time I was crossing ZELAT the NorCal controller called back to tell me that despite having asked for the full approach and the published miss, he'd like a "left turn and fly heading 160" for the missed. I think he had a lot of traffic going into Modesto, and the missed is basically a U turn that puts you right over the MOD VOR and ties up the approach for other planes. His request was easy enough, but I blew it when he asked for it, I accepted it, and then wrote it down wrong. All I wrote on my kneeboard was "R160" which is so very NOT fly heading 160. That was about to get me in a minute, right after something else did.

Just as all this was happening, the GPS tells me I'm crossing ZELAT, and the fun begins! I crossed ZELAT on a heading of about 220. That puts me into a direct entry to the procedure turn at ZELAT. I put the plane into a nice 2 minute turn to the left, leveled the wings, hit the timer, dropped the plane to 1800 feet because I was now on a part of the established procedure, flew the outbound heading, swapped the nav source for the HSI to NAV1, twist the heading bug then the OBS to the inbound course, hit the one minute mark, swung it around to the left and lined it up dead nuts on the inbound course. Man, I sure looked like I knew what I was doing. It was one minute back to ZELAT, configure the plane for landing, intercept the glideslope and head in. It was all looking great, and with some power and pitch corrections I was doing a really nice job of keeping the needle centered and on the glideslope. The PTS requirement is nothing more than 3/4 deflection. I was more like 1/4 deflection or less. I was actually proud of myself. That sense of pride was about to be smacked down and spit on.

The examiner said if she didn't say anything when I hit the MAP, then I was to go missed. I called the altitudes, and at DA +100 feet I called it as "That meets PTS for the DA" she says nothing, and I cram the throttle and go missed. Just as I do, Modesto Tower calls and says "Right Turn, Contact Norcal." My brain never even processed it. I followed the Missed procedure, continued straight out for a second, and started to roll the plane to the right. Just as I was doing so, the examiner says "Where are you going?" and my little pea-brain couldn't figure out what the hell was going on. I froze, and swapped the Com to NorCal and called missed. As I did, I realized what happened. He'd given me a left turn to 160, and the tower controller was oblivious and gave me directions to the published missed. Now, I think I could have flown the published miss and blamed the tower controller, but at this point my brain was leaking out my ear. I rolled left hard, and in my now idiot state, swapped the Nav 1 source to the MOD VOR, spun the OBS to 160 and started heading for R160. This was a giant error on top of another error. She again said, in what I realize now was a fairly calm voice, "Where are you going?" And now my brain was leaking out both ears. It took me a long time to realize, after checking my incorrectly written note on my kneeboard, that I was to fly heading 160, not R160, which, while parallel, are different by about a mile or so. I was putting the plane right back where the NorCal controller didn't want me.

I literally hung my head in defeat. I realized what I'd done.I brought the plane back around to the right to a heading of 160, leveled off at 3000, which is what NorCal had given me, and couldn't believe what I'd done. My pride in flying the ILS down was now gone, replaced by the shame of blowing the missed because the tower controller told me to turn the wrong direction, and when I got it corrected, I flew to the radial, not a heading. NorCal called and asked what I wanted next. I gave him the "standby" and waited to see if she'd just take me back to E45, or if there was to be more beating about the head. She tells me to request the VOR A into Oakdale. I call NorCal and ask for, and get the VOR A into Oakdale.

Oakdale VOR A
By now my brain had melted out of both ears, I was in doubt as to whether I could even pass this checkride having blown the missed as badly as I had, but I still had a job to do. So, I flipped the approach plates to Oakdale, Norcal swings me around back direct to MOD to start the next approach, and we're on our way. She reaches up and sticks a rubber sticky over the attitude indicator and tells me I've lost vacuum. I'm glad we talked before we got in the plane about how the plane has an HSI, so it is electric, not vacuum. I get to keep my DG. I already have MOD on NAV 1, so I spin the OBS to take me direct to MOD. I pull up the Manteca VOR for the cross radials and the missed. I already have Linden from before, and I'll need that for the missed as well. But of course, at this point my brain is no longer working, and I don't have Linden in Nav 2 to identify when I need to turn to get to the MAP. I have it in the flip-flop for Nav 1, which is where I need it after I get to the MAP. This was about to screw me, but not before I get hosed two more times.

Just as I am setting this all up, I get the wise idea that I need to put WRAPS in the GPS because that is going to make my life way easier when I go missed. I reach for the GPS and it goes black, and pops up a message that basically says "Cycle power to use updated database." It might as well have said "You are so screwed it doesn't matter what I do, but just to make matters a little worse for you today, suck on this!"
Out loud I say "It is going to take me a minute to fix that." Now I'm seriously in trouble. I didn't need the GPS for this, but with my state of mind blowing the missed from the last approach, it sure would have helped. I press on. I hit the cross radials, start my timer for the MAP, and step down. I'm again calling my altitudes out loud. "1200 for 860. 1000 for 860. 900 for 860". I get to about 900, still descending and realize my mistake with the Nav radios. I reach up to straighten the situation out just as I look at the altimeter and see it settle on 800. I could have thrown up right there. I knew what I had just done, and despite pulling back pretty abruptly, she did too. "And there goes your MDA." she said. It was synonymous with "And, we'll meet again soon and you can try this again."

Now I really was hanging my head. I knew I'd failed right then and there. The missed I could partly blame the tower controller. Blowing an MDA by 60 feet, there was no one to blame but me.

I pressed on. I look at my timer, hit the MAP, initiate the climb, and try to start resolving the radio issue. I get the right cross radial to identify the MAP from Manteca. I put in the right radial for Nav 1, and keep flying to watch the needle move to tell em I'd intercepted the radial from Linden. I keep flying, the needle just sits there. I fly, it sits. I look up and realize I still have Modesto in Nav 1. I literally say, out loud "I give up." She says "And what does that mean?" I decide not to answer, and instead fix the mess I'm in. I punch in Linden, hit the flip flop, and just as I do the needle swings and centers! I didn't blow past the radial! I bank the plane left, fly the course, verify I have the right cross radial AND the right VOR tuned, and soon enough I hit the missed hold point at 3000 feet, just like I am supposed to.

The hold is a parallel entry, so as I hit the cross radial, I reset the timer, fly the 1 minute outbound, swing the heading bug around to the left 270 degrees, then back it off 10, and put us into a nice 2 minute turn to the left until I hit the bug, then bring it back around to the inbound course, 80 degrees to the right. Just as I sort that all out, I hit the cross radial to identify WRAPS again. By now I've also go the GPS back online and WRAPS as the nearest intersection. I thought I was a genius for being able to remember I could do that. It worked great. I hit WRAPS, and she says good enough.

DME Arc, Unusual Attitudes
She asks me to fly outbound from Linden to fly a 20NM DME arc to the right. I set up the GPS to show me the distance to Linden, fly the outbound R124 from the VOR, and at 19.5, execute the 2 minute turn to the right. I hit it just shy at 19.9NM, spun the OBS around to show me advancing on R134, and as soon as the GPS says 20.0NM I make a 10 degree cut. That was it, she says good enough. I had practiced 5NM DME arcs the previous week. The 20 was nothing. She wanted to see me enter the arc, set it up, and see me within a mile and we were good. After this, she says "My controls." I give up the controls, she tells me to look at my knee board, and pitches up and turns. She says "Your controls." I look up, push the yoke and throttle almost simultaneously, and as the nose its the horizon, I level the wings. She repeats the game, this time nose down. I look up, pull power, level the wings, and pull the nose to the horizon. Satisfied with that, she says take us back to Pine Mountain Lake using the GPS Y to runway 9, circle to land runway 27.

E45 RNAV (GPS) RWY 9 Circle to Land RWY 27
Now, I may have blown the missed, I totally blew the MDA, nearly blew the second missed, and have brain leaking out my ears and on the floor. But, I am not stupid. I put E45 in the GPS, add the procedure for GPY RWY 9, turn the autopilot on to heading, then nav, and have it fly us back. I think some FAA book would call that "cockpit resource management" After some of the dumb things I'd just finished doing, I'd say that was about the smartest things I'd done all day. All I had to do was hit the altitudes, which is cake because there is only one step down. I flew it until she says "Look up" I pulled off my glasses, and there was the runway. I stepped to the left, circled to the right, kept the altitude until we were mid-field, dropped the flaps and put us on 27 with a pretty good landing, considering.

Beer beer the beer beer

We have beer! The 14ish bottles finished up yesterday, so I chucked them in the fridge. We had one last night, and I have to say, it didn't turn out half bad. It is fairly amber in color, as you can see from the bottling pictures. It has a light taste, not overly hoppy, but we're not talking Tecate here. Maybe closest comparison color and taste wise is Gordon Biersch Amber? Very smooth, and well carbonated. For our freshman effort, I'd say it was a success. Big up to J & R for helping us with our first batch. We've decided to call it Anarchy Slum Town After Birth Ale, given that halfway through the process JP gave birth to our daughter, A. We'll be distributing the bottles out to all of the wonderful folks that have been helping us with food for the past three weeks. Thanks everyone!

Ever Wonder how the Crest Neat Squeeze Works?

Are you one of those people that squeezes out toothpaste onto your toothbrush, brushes your teeth, and gets on with your day? Yeah? Ok, you're done, read no further.

Are you one of those people that squeezes out toothpaste onto your toothbrush, starts brushing your teeth, and two minutes in you say "Wait a second...." Yeah? Cool, this one's for you.

Toothpaste tubes are pretty pedestrian things, and if you manage to get most of the toothpaste out of the tube, most people would call that a success. But countless times we've all used the edges of our toothbrush, or the counter, or something to get the last bit of toothpaste out. Well, seems there is finally a solution. Crest has this cool little dispenser they call a "Neat Squeeze." It stands up in the medicine cabinet (another bonus), but it also squeezes out nearly ever dollop of toothpaste without all of that annoying flattening, rolling, or otherwise. How's it work?

Notice in the bottom there are three little holes in a circular pattern. This is the inlet of an air check valve.

If you cut open the bottom you'll find a very thin film of plastic heat (or ultra-sonically) staked down over it. Since the tube is otherwise sealed, when you squeeze the tube, the check valve is closed, and when the tube is released it draws air in through the air check valve.

Now, chop through the top of the container and you find a similar check valve, this time for the toothpaste. It consists of two plastic parts, a flapper and a face seal. These two parts make sure that when you squeeze the tube the toothpaste comes out, and when you release it the valve closes, and air is pulled into the tube. The toothpaste itself is contained in a metalized foil bag.

So, there you have it, a pair of check valves and you squeezing the tube will eventually empty the toothpaste, without ever flattening or rolling it.

Bottled Beer

I just finished bottling the first batch. Specific gravity was 1.010 to 1.012, giving a final alcohol of at least (1.060-1.012)/1.060 = 4.5%. I chose to follow R's advice and the Brewcraft directions, and go straight from the secondary fermenter to the bottles. I made up a dextrose solution with 2 cups of hot water and the pre-measured dextrose from Brewcraft. I poured that in to the carboy, trying to get it to cascade down the side. Then I used the auto-siphon to gently stir the beer, doing my best to not stir up the sediment on the bottom. After a few minutes of that, I primed the auto-siphon, which was a bit of a trick. The bottle filler has a push valve on the bottom, so you have to simultaneously hold down the tip of the filler while pumping the auto siphon. Easy if there were two people, but for one it is a little bit of a trick.

I was able to fill just about 14 of the 32oz bottles from IKEA, or roughly 3.5 gallons of beer. I did sample what was left in the auto-siphon tube when I was done, and it tasted like beer, though slightly sweet from the dextrose solution. In a couple weeks we'll have beer.

Nice Rack!

So, last night we racked the first batch of beer. A few observations and things to remember for next time:

First, microwaving vinyl tubing to sterilize it is a great idea. Leaving it in the microwave unattended while you do something else is a horrible idea. It was a smoking, charred puddle of ooze in the microwave. The vapor given off was so horrible it stung my eyes, irritated my throat, and make me cough instantly. JP, M & J had to vacate Headquarters. So, don't do that again.

After JP and M got back from the store for more tubing, we did the transfer to the glass carboy. It went well. First, the sample we took for specific gravity came out at 1.014. With the initial at 1.060, that gives % Alcohol = (1.060-1.014)/1.060 = 4.3%. Not bad for the first week of fermenting. I expect the specific gravity will continue dropping a bit over the next two weeks, so we'll probably end up at around 5% alcohol.

We were really worried, as the bubbler hadn't moved in the whole week. I looked in about day 3, and it was tan frothy stuff that smelled like beer, not festering goo, so I figured it must be OK. When we finally took the top off the bucket I could see what had happened. The original bucket lid we had was broken. We were really lucky and J & R had brought another with them. It was a really nice one, with an o-ring seal and everything. It appeared to fit really well. The problem is appearances can be deceiving. It was a touch too small, so it looked great, snapped on fine, but in four spots around the lid away from the tabs it clearly did not seal. Luckily it looks like it was tight enough to keep stuff out, but confused us all week with the non-functioning bubbler.

The auto-siphon worked fine, but the 8 feet of replacement tubing JP got, cut in half, really was not enough. Next time we go 6 feet for the transfer. It worked pretty well at not transferring muck, as it sits up above the bottom by 3/8" or so. There was definitely some, but if I lifted it a bit, or kept it in one place, it didn't do so bad. We closed off the carboy with a stopper and the same bubbler (wiped with alcohol on the outside stem) and put it on the shelf. Clean-up of the bucket was easy, just natural soap and water.

This morning we visited, and the sediment we transferred had settled out nicely, and the bubbler had lots of pressure behind it, so it looks like everything is ok. In a couple weeks we'll bottle it and should have our first beer.

Beer Batch #1

Well, last night JP, J & R and I brewed our first batch of beer. It went well, I thought, but certainly some things to keep in mind for next time. We followed the directions from Beercraft, with a couple changes that J & R suggested.

First, the water from the hose down at Headquarters definitely had some particulates in it, and maybe was a little off in color. We got water from the tap instead, but that was a pain because it was a long walk, and the sink doesn't allow you to fill the gallon pitcher. So, we did it by quart, filling the gallon, then walked the gallon to the kettle. Tedious. So, for next time I think making an attachment for the hose that allows a 0.2 micron filter would be great. This would assure particulate and micro-free water. This would also solve the second problem, which was we did not have a way to create sterile water to add to the fermenter to bring it up to 5 gallons.

Second, the directions were not clear, but J & R helped with the temperatures and whatnot. Basically add the grain bag at room temperature, bring it up to the specified temperature (154F in this case) then turn off the burner and let it cool over the time listed.

Speaking of the grain bag, next time we either need to move it a bit, or we have to have a way to keep it off the bottom of the kettle. It burned through, made a hole, and some grain leaked out. We scooped it out with a big scooping spoon that J & R provided, so I don't think it will completely screw up the batch, but it would be nice to not have that happen again.

Next time a spatula or something to get all of the malt extract out of the bucket would be nice too.

Cooling the kettle after we were done with the 60 minutes of boiling was a challenge. The large kettle did not fit down into the keg bucket we had filled with ice. Putting it into the 5 gallon plastic primary fermenter bucket didn't help either. The plastic was a great insulator. We finally gave up since it was 1 in the morning. The solution was to put plastic wrap over the stopper to completely seal it, and we added the yeast in the morning after it had cooled down to room temperature.

So, the 5 gallon fermenter is on the shelf down at Headquarters. In 6 days we'll move it to a 5 gallon glass carboy as the second fermenter. I think the seond batch we'll do the Kolsch to see if we can address some of the issues we had. If that works, the later batches will be 10 gallons. The kettle can handle it, other than plastic buckets, we have all the equipment, and it really is not twice the work to get twice the beer.

Beer Brewing: Inventory of Equipment and Ingredients

JP decided a while back she wanted to brew some beer. She'd acquired most of the equipment over the past months, and for her birthday I got her all of the ingredients from Brewcraft to make two 5-gallon batches of beer. Since we don't know what we're doing, we're going to try to follow Brewcraft's instructions as closely as possible, and have our friends J & R come over and give us a hand. The equipment we have on hand down at Headquarters:

A 50L Stainless steel container, with a spherical bottom. No spigot, but other than that, I think this will work for the boil. The price was right.

Two five gallon glass carboys, with stoppers. We'll use only one per batch, so some day when we have two batches going at once we'll be set.
An auto-siphon. Not absolutely required, but after siphoning gas enough times and getting a mouthful of unleaded, I think this might be a better idea.A bubbler, a stopper with a hole to fit the bubbler, a floating thermometer, a hygrometer, and a clip-on thermometer.
We're going to have to clean all of this stuff, and this no-rinse sanitizer seemed like a good bet. We'll clean everything with water first at home, then do this as the final step down at Headquarters.
So, following the Brewcraft recipe and instructions, next we have the cheesecloth bags and the grains.
Two 6# tubs of malt extract.

Yeast for "Lawnmower" on the left, Kolsch on the right.
Hops, again for "Lawnmower" on the left, Kolsch on the right.
Dextrose for bottling
We found some 34oz bottles with Grolsch-style caps at IKEA for about $2 a piece. We'll try some of those, plus some recycled 1-gallon and half-gallon glass juice jugs.