Third Time’s a Charm

Getting N4352G ready for another memorable flight.

Since last August, I’ve had the good fortune of treating my girlfriend, Kaitlyn, to a couple of surprise flights – one to Napa for an afternoon and the other to Sacramento for a surprise trip to one of her favorite wineries. Since our trip to Sacramento in early October, I really hadn’t flown too much. Outside of a flight in the Monterey Bay area with Bradley, my roommate, and some practice flights at the end of the year (after practically a month of bad weather), I hadn’t had much chance to enjoy the friendly skies. However, this past Monday, after returning from a weekend trip to Arizona, I took advantage of an off day from work and a couple of hours of clear skies to treat her to something she’s never had the chance to experience.

Since I’ve received my pilot’s license in 2008, I’ve always tried to do something flying or traveling related during MLK weekend. I feel like it’s one of the ways I can give thanks to all those who came before me and have given me the chance to enjoy the freedoms of which they dreamt. The first year after receiving my license, I took a brief flight to Half Moon Bay on MLK Day. Last year, 2010, I took my first trip to Mexico City and had a great time expanding my spanish skills. This year, I spent part of the weekend in Arizona honoring my friend (and aviation buddy), Christine, during a dinner organized by her friend Francois. I returned Sunday night so that I could enjoy MLK Day flying in the bay.

The weather was apparently gorgeous in the Bay while I was in Arizona but as soon as I returned to the Bay, the fog returned. It hung around pretty much all morning and early afternoon, but luckily it burned off by 3pm. After enjoying a coffee at Peet’s a couple of miles from the airport while we watched the sky clear up, Kaitlyn and I arrived at Palo Alto Airport (PAO) shortly after 3:15pm. We were on somewhat of a short timeline for the flight since the sun officially set at 5:15pm and I wanted to make sure she was able to see the sunset from the sky and then return to the airport with enough time for her to drive to work by 6:30pm. So in many ways, I was as much a time manager as I was a pilot that day.

Hello…Hello…Hello?!
The preflight went as well as could be expected yet by the time we reached the runup, a familar issue emerged. Once I completed the runup, I preformed the passengar briefing and radioed Tower for departure – yet I didn’t receive a response. So I tried again and again nothing. I figured, well I don’t want to interfere with Tower if they could hear me, so I switched to Ground and performed probably 5-7 radio checks to no avail. I was operating on COM2 and remembered having a similar problem the time I flew with Bradley in November in this same aircraft (N4352G).

I checked the circuit breakers and reset the alternator, and again nothing. At this point, it also occured to me that even though my radio showed it was tramsmitting, I wasn’t hearing anything on the radios and there was alot of traffic around me. I almost thought about switchig my transponder squawk code to 7600 to indiciate to Tower that I was having radio problems since I was in an aircraft movement area. Finally, I switched from COM2 to COM1 and called Ground. “Palo Alto Ground, N4352G, radio check.” Then immediately, loud, and clearly, Ground responded “N4352G, loud and clear.”

I asked Ground if they had heard any of my previous calls and they said, no. At least I wasn’t interferring with communications on the Ground or Tower frequencies during my repeated radio checks. At this point, I thought twice about taking off but figured since I’d be staying in the local area that I was okay to take a shot.

“What’s Your Departure Clearance?”
Even before I began taxiing to the runup area I called PAO Ground for my taxi and departure clearance, and had a minor hiccup. Normally, I fly Bay Tour sunset flights which last about 45-50 minutes, but today I didn’t have enough time for the full flight. So when I called for my clearance I stated that I was “just going to hang around in the bay.” That can mean a lot of different things to controllers and doesn’t clearly indicate where you’re going, even though I would not be in Class B airspace but most likely dancing around in the airspace right below Class B and in between several Class D airspaces. So Ground requested that I “clarify [my] intentions.” Given the time, by this point it was near 4:15pm, I just blurted out, “Uh, N4352G going towards Hayward, San Carlos, and back to Palo Alto.” This was a quick triangle route of about 20 nm and I figured at a minimum I could do that in the time alloted. Unfortunately, after my radio problems during the runup, I didn’t even have enough time for that.

I love shots like these...almost appears like peering from the window of a jetliner. Instead it's from my little Piper Warrior.

Sunsets & Full Moons
Instead, we took off and headed north to San Carlos (SQL) at 1,200ft. At SQL, the sun was just starting to slide behind the foothills and so I made a tight 30-35 degree turn 180 degrees so that Kaitlyn could enjoy the view off our right wing. As flew back towards Palo Alto, she was able to experience something that she’d first heard about during my flight back from Sacramento in late August after my friend Patrick’s Baby BBQ shower. That evening, I flew down the Sacramento Valley enjoying a gorgeous Bay Area summer sunset off my right wing, while also enjoying a brightly-lit full moon rise off the left wing. It was a spectacular occurence that I’d promised her I would show her one day.

Another beautiful Bay Area sunset...I never tire of these.

So as we flew back from SQL to the PAO/Stanford area, she enjoyed her first beautiful bay area sunset/full moon experience. I did a couple of turns over the Stanford campus and then noticed the time was approaching 5:00pm. So I headed back into PAO and lined up for a nice smooth approach into runway 31 as the sunset said goodbye for the night.

It’s always amazing how each flight teaches us something new and it’s great when on each flight we can provide someone else with a new experience. I truly do love being a pilot and, in honor of the efforts of MLK and those by his side, thank you for the opportunity to live this dream.