May 31, June 2 & 3, 2009

May 31, 2009
　
Today was sunny and hot, as it has been here for a few days already. Summer has arrived !
　
This morning we gave Bo a haircut. Gee, his hair grows fast ! We cut about four inches of hair off him every six months.
　
This afternoon was Riverside RV Park Resort's first monthly ( during the summer season ) "Ice Cream Social", proposed by Joanne and me, and consequently organized and hosted by Joanne and me. It went very well, but as expected, not as well attended as I would have liked it to have been. The residents of this park are sorely lacking in community social spirit.
　
After the ice cream social we and some other neighbours were invited by neighbours Dave and Betty to an impromptu barbecue. We enjoyed burgers and an afternoon of chatting with neighbours. Bo enjoyed romping and playing with Spencer, Dave's and Betty's dog.
　
June 2, 2009
　
This morning the phone rang at 7:20 A.M.. Normally I would be pretty pissed off at somebody phoning that early. But in this case ... it was a job offer for Joanne. Congratulations, my dear. She's been hired to work full time for about 4 months at a local fruit stand. Joanne getting a full time job for the summer allows me to stop looking for work. And ... ( whispering ) ... I wasn't looking very hard anyways ! If a job comes my way as a result of the job search efforts I've already made ... fine. If not ... even better ! I have more than enough work projects to keep me pretty occupied for the summer. Especially the repair / rebuilding / replacement of the trailer's lower fiberglass skirt that was destroyed by a tire blow out in Mexico.
　
Around 9:30 this morning I heard a strange "pop" sound, and looked outside. On the vacant lot beside us was a pickup truck parked, pulled off the road diagonally ... with some hillbilly leaning out the driver's window with a rifle ... shooting at marmots ! Well ... I flipped ! ! ! ! !
　
I stomped over there, hollering at the guy, demanding to know who the hell was he and what the hell was he doing ? ? ? ! ! ! ? ? ? To make a long story short, he was the local “contractor” hired by our park to “exterminate” our marmots ... by live trapping them and relocating them. He had taken it upon himself to deal with the matter in a manner that he thought was a bit more effective. Shooting them with a rifle ! I loudly and angrily and unceremoniously ejected him and his rifle from the park before stomping over to our clubhouse to see our park manager or administrator. The park manager wasn’t in, so I loudly and clearly expressed my dissatisfaction to the park administrator about having this hillbilly shooting at a rock wall right beside my property, putting us at risk from ricocheting bullets ! A short time later the President of the Board of Directors of our park came over to discuss the incident with me, giving me yet another opportunity to holler and scream at somebody !
　
And ... despite how angry I am at feeling like we’re living in a “shooting gallery”, I’m just as upset with our park management’s decision to proceed with the “extermination” of marmots in the park, perceived by some ( but not us ) as a problem, now ... when the females have all just given birth to their young. As I told our Board President ... “anybody with half an eye and an asshole knows you don’t “exterminate” females when they’re nursing their young.”
　
What a bunch of ... ! ! !
　
June 3, 2009 ; Penticton
　
This morning I prepared pancakes as a late morning brunch before we left for Penticton. While we don't often eat pancakes, Joanne loooooves my pancakes. I learned to make wonderful pancakes watching my Aunt Lena when I used to spend my summers as a teenager working on her farm. Thanks, Aunt Lena !
　
At Penticton Joanne dropped me off at Southern Skies Aviation at the airport, then she went off to run errands all day while I flew my sixth and final Mountain Performance Course flight, a "show me" flight. My flight instructor Stuart and I took off in Cessna 172 Golf X-ray Tango November and headed south towards Oliver. Just past McIntyre Bluff I found Covert Farm where there is a private grass airstrip. I exhibited my ability to conduct a precautionary approach to this unknown ( to me ) grass strip by flying a circuit at a thousand feet and another at 500 feet to check the condition and suitability of the strip for landing. There was farm irrigation equipment on the private airstrip so I didn't land, just did a final approach to the flare, about fifteen feet above the field, then aborted and pulled up. As I did that I got a radio call on the Oliver frequency.
　
"Aircraft flying over Covert Farm, this is Mrs. Covert, who are you and what are you doing ?"
　
Flying around here in the bush and mountains is certainly a different experience than my previous flying, even the radio work. I'm more accustomed to hearing ;
　
"Cessna one seventy two Golf Charlie Victor Oscar, Toronto Centre, squawk ( transponder code ) zero four five six and ident, you are radar identified, turn now to heading three zero zero to ( Lake Ontario ) shoreline, maintain seven point five ( thousand feet ) along shoreline until over Pickering ( Nuclear Power Plant ) stacks, then descend at your discretion to not below two point five, contact Toronto Island Tower on one one eight point two, caution, aircraft at your eleven o'clock is a heavy inbound to Pearson descending through nine for four, maintain visual at all times, break, Air Canada four thirty one, aircraft at your two o'clock five miles is a Cessna at seven point five inbound VFR to Toronto Island."
　
I responded to Mrs. Covert, explaining that we were just an aircraft from Southern Skies using her field for a training exercise. We chatted briefly ! Nice lady ! I've never had a "personal" conversation on an aircraft radio before ! HA HA HA !
　
We proceeded to fly into Vaseaux Canyon. Stuart imposed an imaginary ceiling of solid overcast clouds at 6000 feet, forcing me to stay at a maximum of 5500 feet through a canyon with walls above 7000 feet, simulating that the canyon walls and mountain tops were shrouded in cloud. I had to find my way to Highway 33 by "contour crawling", winding and twisting at low altitude through interconnecting valleys, always trying to keep heading east. One valley turned out to be a dead end "box canyon", so I had to exhibit my ability to execute a minimum radius turn to get out before I smacked into the mountain. The point of all this was to exhibit my ability to fly in conditions and situations in the bush and the mountains that have resulted in the death of a lot of pilots.
　
Once I found Highway 33 we followed it north to the little town of Beaverdell where there is an abandoned airstrip. I did another precautionary approach procedure at a thousand feet and 500 feet to check out the strip, then again flew a final approach to the flare, about fifteen feet off the runway. Landing at the abandoned Beaverdell strip is no longer permitted. The huge evergreen trees surrounding the Beaverdell airstrip have not been cut back in a long time, so the strip is simply a 75 foot wide swath between tall evergreen trees. Taking it down to the flare at about 15 feet above ground required me to drop a 38 foot wide aircraft into a 75 foot wide swath through the trees, and flying along over the strip with trees about 20 feet off each wingtip. WHEW ! ! ! Not quite the same as landing on Ottawa’s 200 foot wide, 11,000 foot long Runway 07 which I could clearly see from 50 miles out !
　
From Beaverdell I had to fly through a valley along Crowse Creek to find the abandoned airstrip at the village of Crowse Creek. This time Stuart imposed an imaginary ceiling of 4000 feet, requiring me to fly at a maximum of 3500 feet along a valley whose floor continually rose until I was flying closer and closer to the ground, and the closing in valley walls. On this leg I was able to exhibit that, while not exactly comfortable doing so, I was capable of flying within 50 feet of the sides of the mountains, an objective stated at the beginning of the course when getting within 200 feet of a mountain side caused me to break out in sweat.
　
We did another precautionary approach at Crowse Creek, aborting the landing again at the flare point. The landing strip at Crowse Creek has been closed for about 11 years, since the last plane that "landed" there was a fatal landing accident in a Cherokee. Transport Canada was fed up with the high incidence of accidents at this dangerous airstrip and closed it permanently.
　
Climbing out from Crowse Creek, heading back to Beaverdell, then Penticton, Stuart "jammed" the ailerons, preventing the aircraft from banking and turning. I had to fly the rest of the trip without ailerons, flying "by my feet", using only the rudder pedals to twist the aircraft around by yawing it with rudder. The next day ( now today ) I am having difficulty walking because the balls of my feet are bruised from all the rudder work. We climbed slowly to 9200 feet on our way back to Penticton. When I crossed over the last mountain ridge, and came out over Okanagan Lake about 15 miles north of Penticton, Stuart decided that since I was formerly an IFR pilot that I should exhibit my ability to "shoot" a localizer approach into Penticton. Okay ! Except I haven't flown a "blind" instrument approach in over ten years. But ... okay ! As I began to twist XTN around with only rudder, to intercept the localizer, Stuart pulled the throttle back to idle, simulating an engine failure.
　
Okay ! So now I'm 15 miles out from Penticton, at 9000 feet with no engine, and jammed ailerons, and in simulated "visually blind outside the aircraft" instrument conditions. Well ... with no engine power and no ailerons and shooting an instrument approach I got it "home" and down onto the runway, although I used a lot of runway to do so. Stuart's only critical comment of the entire flight, and it was a very tiny criticism, was that I used up a lot of runway on that "engine failure" landing. Hey ... my attitude is that with an "engine failure" it's better to come in a little "high and hot", and even overrun the end of the runway while braking on the landing roll out, if necessary, than to come in short and end up a smoking hole just before the runway ! He couldn't disagree with that, so he shook my hand and congratulated me for completing the Mountain Performance Flight Course. Congratulations, Daniel, you are now a Mountain Performance certified pilot ! WOO-HOO ! ! !
　
Joanne picked me up at Southern Skies and we drove over to the South Okanagan Events Centre to pick up our tickets at the Box Office for tonight's Blue Rodeo performance before we went out for dinner to a Chinese buffet restaurant. We had a leisurely dinner stuffing our faces with copious amounts of Chinese food before heading back to SOEC. The South Okanagan Events Centre is Penticton's recently completed new arena. Tonight's Blue Rodeo concert was the first "big name" event at SOEC. Blue Rodeo is a well known Canadian country / blues / rock band. We quite enjoyed the concert. The SOEC is a nice, medium sized arena seating about 6000, with good acoustics. It's been many years since we've attended a "rock concert". We didn't get home until almost midnight.

DSK