No flying today

Because of the 50 mph wind gusts, my instructor decided today would be a good day to refrain from being thrown around the sky and we opted for some ground school instruction instead.

We spent some time talking about the various classes of air space and what each means to the private pilot. Basically, air space is categorized by the density of air traffic within it.

• Class A airspace is above 18,000 feet. All flight in class A is instrument, not visual.
• Class B airspace is high density airports like Chicago, New York and Boston.
• Class C airspace is smaller airports like Bradley, Albany and Providence
• Class D airspace are small, tower-controlled airports like Westover and Westfield.
• Class E airspace are small airports that are uncontrolled (no tower) and airspace between 1,200' and 18,000' outside of the boundaries defined by class B, C or D.
• Class G airspace is any airspace below 1,200' outside of any class B,C,D or E airspace.

All of my training so far has been from a class E airport (Northampton) within class E airspace above Deerfield.

We also talked about the various nuances of airspeed, pitch, flaps, etc... and their impact on controlling the aircraft. He emphasized that we would be doing a lot of practice on stalls, landings, turns and climbing.

He said anyone can fly straight and level in calm winds but to be a pilot, you need to learn to fly in New England where we never have calm winds and nothing is straight or level.

I wish we had flown but the talk was good and it cleared some things up for me.

As I was leaving the airport, I was treated to this little parade of turkeys.

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Try these links:

• Key statement in this story: "So you cannot even call them or something?"



• Only in Pennsylvania.



• Attention drug dealers: If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times - if you are going to drive around with a few pounds of smack jammed up your butt, don't go breaking any traffic laws.



• Only in Florida. (She "noticed" something changed?!?!)



• (Expletive) Yea! alcohol was involved.



• It seems like a good idea until you start to sweat uncontrollably.

Finally some good flying weather.

I managed to get an hour+ of flying today and it was great. A little bumpy with the wind but not terrible.

Today was stall recovery at 3,000', which is both fun and terrifying. After that, I did some ground reference tracking which is where I pick an object on the ground & circle it for a while and finally practicing 'S' curves over a straight line. In our case, the straight line was Interstate 91 near the Yankee Candle Factory in Deerfield. I'm betting that made a lot of the drivers on I-91 think we were the State Police running a aerial speed trap.

This was my aircraft today.

I would like you to notice that I managed to park it right on the "T".

I love this and I'm a little pissed that I waited this long to do it. I should have done this 40 years ago.

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My resume' is almost ready. I'm not sure how it's going to be received but it's my best shot at representing myself to potential employers.

It's been 30 years since I set out to find a job and, to be honest with you, I'm not sure what I want to do for the rest of my working life.

I spent 30 years in a cubicle-filled corporate environment and I'm not really looking forward to getting back into that. The problem is, it's really the only thing I know. Prior to this, I was working as a campus police officer.

My current plan is to post the resume online and send it off to some head-hunters to see what comes of it. In the meantime, I'm going to meet with some folks whose opinions I respect and get some advice from them.

I'm not looking for a "life-coach", just a little guidance on some ideas I have about what I might want to accomplish over the next 10 years or so.

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Here are a few links:

• You gotta love dogs.



• Key phrase in this story: "...the teen would not reveal any details about the motive..."



• So what crime was actually committed here?



• Best reader comment: "I-20 -- a major human and soft pillow trafficking corridor"

More paperwork...

I gotta tell you, I'm getting a little sick and tired of filling out paperwork.

Hopefully I'm close to being done.

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I was going to thatch and mow my front & side yards today but the wind would have made that a ridiculous move.

There would have been thatch, leaves and dust all over the place, including in my lungs.

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I have a movie recommendation for you:  You should find a way to see the movie Self/less.

It was very well done.

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Here are some links:

• This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?



• She's not an unattractive woman. I'm betting there are a lot of guys that would have let her do it while they were conscious.



• If this happened in America, it would be protected by The First Amendment - The right to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.



• Only in Florida.

Darn it all to heck.

My flight lesson got cancelled again today due to the rain.

I find this disappointing and I'm really hoping the weather cooperates for my next scheduled appointment.

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You might enjoy these links:

• How hard did she have to work to do this?



• Key entry from our favorite police log: "12:12 p.m. The woman driving the busted up Kia was probably intoxicated."



• Presenting the this episodes Parent of the Week.

Merry Easter

I hope all of you had an enjoyable day!

As for me, I ate a lot of food, watched a little baseball and took a nap.

That's what I consider an enjoyable day.

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I was looking at the usage statistics for this little webpage and I have discovered that none of you are using a Microsoft browser:

Pageviews by Browsers

Entry	Pageviews
Firefox	97 (66%)
Chrome	41 (28%)
Safari	6 (4%)
Opera	1 (<1%)

Good for you because Internet Explorer 11 sucked huge. Then, when they rolled out Windows 10, they stopped all support for IE and introduced a monstrosity called Edge.

Edge sucks more than IE11.

Personally, I use Chrome but I might be going back to Firefox now that Google has stopped supporting PAPI.

And by the way, the above statistics are for one week and don't include my views of The DailyNews^© because I don't track my views.

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Here are some links:

• Happy Easter...



• Things that make me go, "Hmmmm".



• Stubborn Beaver would be a fantastic name for a 1980s soft porn movie.



• I'm moving to New Zealand...