Saturday, February 09, 2008
Forgot to mention (in my rime post): I listened to our new scanner for the first time, in the hangar! It's really cool; you can play the normal radio (my station of choice: 102.9 DRC-FM) and when someone talks on one of the aviation frequencies (Dean programmed in Ground and Tower) it automatically overrides it. It's fun spying on the tower while hanging around!
Posted at 2:18:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Last night John, Tango's friend, was alone in the tower, and sounded all bored and sighful on the ATIS recording (poor him! we were LOL) but he perked up when he heard his old pal 7AT calling, ready to taxi. "Is that you John?" "Is that you Dean?" "Sure is." "It's me." Then he asked if Dean's a CPA, and Dean cracked up. (He was hoping to find someone to help him with his taxes.)
Friday, February 08, 2008
Posted at 2:29:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Rime! n. 1. A coating of ice, as on grass and trees, formed when extremely cold water droplets freeze almost instantly on a cold surface.
Rime is cool.
Great flight tonight. It was solid IMC most of the way, and dark. Inside clouds, no stars, no moon, nothing but black beyond the wings; the wings themselves partially obscured in the deep gray mist. Light turbulence, like waves on an ocean. I said to Dean, "I bet most people would find this really scary." I loved it. Dean had to trust his instruments (because there was nothing to see outside the plane, and no other way to tell which way was up) and I had to trust the pilot--which I did, completely. I helped out by setting the radios and reading the approach charts and looking up stuff on Dean's Treo, so he could keep his eyes on the instrument panel. The airwaves were very quiet; at one point Dean checked in with New York Approach Control to make sure we were still in contact, and Approach told us the reason there was no one else on the radio was that it was only us and him. Dean said something like, "Wow, I feel special!" :-) When we broke out of the clouds over Long Island, it was beautiful, all the lights shining bright in the clear dark night.
After we came out of the clouds into the light, I spotted some ice on the leading edge of the wing. There was about ½" of clear ice with ¼" of jaggedy frost on top, like the stuff in an old-fashioned freezer, but more interesting in form, not consistent. I watched it out the window; it was still there when we descended, but it went away by the time we began to land. I could hear a few pieces breaking off in the warmer air. The only piece that remained was on the little foot step you step on to climb up onto the wing. It fell off when I climbed out, and I picked it up and showed Dean. He was surprised, because he hadn't seen the ice himself (he was watching the instruments) and it hadn't impacted Tango's performance at all.
We borrowed a crew car from Atlantic and had dinner at Chipotle (it was GOOD!) and coffee at Starbucks. The Amityville Starbucks was really full, but buzzing with atmosphere. There was even a table playing Monopoly! They also make really good foam, although they don't understand the Starbucks term "for here" and/or don't have For Here cups! Both times we've gone, I've asked for my cappuccino "for here" (just like I always do) and was told sure, no problem, but then was given a normal paper cup. Odd! It seemed like she thought I just wanted to drink it there. It was still good regardless.
On the way back, we flew above the cloud layer; there were so many bright stars up there, shielded by the clouds from the light pollution below. Then it was back inside the clouds, and we picked up more ice. I shined my little flashlight out the window to see. This time it was all rime, a beautifully formed layer of tall crystals, shaped like some of the chambers of my sponge. This rime layer was much more consistent, not wild and uneven. I kept looking at the rivets on the wing, trying to memorize how thick the layer of ice looked compared to the distance between the edge of the rivets and the line dividing the two panels. The rime looked about ¾" thick, and when we measured it back on the ground, that's what it was. The entire front window was also entirely iced over... we didn't notice until I shined my light on it, because it was all black and there was nothing to see out it anyway. After a while I asked, "Should I turn on the defrost?" and Dean said, "Good idea!"
It worked, and the ice on the window was gone enough to see through/around by the time we landed, although the ice on the body of the plane didn't melt/fall off this time, and it was still there when we landed (Tango still handled just fine). It stayed clinging on Tango until after he was back in his hangar. Then it fell off gradually, in strips that crashed loudly to the concrete floor. We kept gushing over all the rime. It was everywhere! Not just on the leading edge of the wing, but also on the tail and the stabilator, coating the tops of all the antennas, lining Tango's "nostrils," covering the tips of his propeller spinner and his fairings, clinging to his fuel drains and stall alarm tab thingy. I picked up a broken-off section and told Dean, "I'm going to eat a piece of cloud!" He said, "I want to eat a piece of cloud!" And we both did.
Rime photos: 1) Dean's hand on the tip of the rimey wing, 2) Dean's hand on the rimey wing root, 3) one of Tango's rime-coated antennas (notice how the ice is tons thicker than the antenna itself is!), 4) cool rime crystals on the fuel drain! (bottom of wing), 5) rime on the leading edge of Tango's tail.
Monday, February 04, 2008
Reactions to Rhubarb Soda:
Posted at 10:06:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
smell: "Weird! It smells like an actual stalk of rhubarb."
taste: "Hmmm. I think they need to add a little more rhubarb."
It's not tart enough. It's not rhubarb-y enough. It's not anything enough! It's awfully subtle. Why call something rhubarb if you're not going to make it actually resemble rhubarb? Such an opportunity, and missed completely. Sigh.
Flashback Monday. On what day of the week did I used to always go to West Hartford? It wasn't Monday. Maybe it was Tuesday. It's so odd doing something that you used to do all the time, but haven't in a long while; it feels like you've time-travelled back five years (with the snow flurries and the white sky and the splendid speedy roads), only not quite because of all the little differences. Like the fact that NEWSFLASH::: Wild Oats is Whole Foods now!!! I asked the cashier and he said it turned into one about a week ago. So weird, driving up to that familiar Oats parking lot only to find giant letters reading WHOLE FOODS hung across the top of the building where the absent WILD OATS letters still show underneath as unfaded spots on the brick. Pretty silly also, diving up to Whole Foods a few minutes after I'd just left the other Whole Foods not too far across town. Only, it was fortuitous!! Very, very fortuitous, because I went in anyway, to see how it had changed (answer: it was sort of a fish-with-legs partway between the two brands, but more Whole than Oats), and I ended up GASPING OUT LOUD (mouth dropping open and everything) (no exaggeration) not once, but twice.
Posted at 5:07:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
First: Dry RHUBARB SODA!!!!! Second: Sudz ROUGH SEAS soap!! The R.S. wasn't quite as much of a gasp as the R.S. (er, that is, Rough Seas not as gaspy as Rhubarb Soda) but they were both bowler-overers to see unexpectedly on a shelf. Especially the Rhubarb Soda. Good God. When did I mention massively wanting to try it? (Just checked... it was two years ago, in February.) And even weirder is that Jan brought it up at Christmas and I rhapsodized about how fantastic it would be to imbibe, and we both alased about it not being available on the East Coast. Well, I guess it is, now.
Random pilot at Minute Man yesterday, staring at Tango: What year is your Archer?
Dean: '78.
Pilot: It looks brand new!
Dean: It's a brand new paint job.
It's so funny how people always call Tango an Archer and a Lance and stuff like that, when actually he's a Warrior. It's like they think he's too cool to be a Warrior, so they just assume he's got to be some other fancier kind of Cherokee. Heh. (But thinking he looks brand new! Wow.)
