Charitable Flying

One of the things I've wanted to ever since I got my license (probably actually before) was to do something meaningful with it.  Ever since I first heard about Angel Flight it has been something I've wanted to do.  I don't own my own plane, but I really like the idea of flying folks who need to go a distance for medical reasons or to help fly supplies after a natural disaster.  (Okay, if I'm the winner of tomorrow evening's $207M MegaMillions drawing, one of things I'm going to do after paying off the credit cards, the house, and the kids school loans, is buy myself a plane, probably a Diamond DA40XLS, but I digress).  The interesting thing about the various charitable flying organizations is that they all have different requirements of the pilots.  To fly for Angel Flight Central (that covers most of the upper midwest), you have to have 500 hours including 250 hours of pilot-in-command (PIC) time or a commercial license, instrument rating desired, but not required.  For Angel Flight East (AFE), which includes OH, you need 300 hours total time and an instrument rating (although you can fly as co-pilot without an instrument rating).  For Volunteer Pilots (VPA), you need 200 hours PIC time for VFR ops or 250 hours PIC time and an instrument rating to fly IFR for them.  All of them have some requirement for time in type of aircraft to be used for the operation.  As you can see from the little block to the right, I don't currently qualify to fly for any of them.  I have 196.1 hours total, 139.3 hours PIC.  So, I'm a minimum of 60.7 hours from being able to do this, but it is something that I feel is important and I want to take advantage of the opportunity I have been given by giving something back.  Unfortunately, 60 hours is an awful long time given the rate that I've been racking them up the last few years.  I got lots of hours in right after I got my license, but for the last few years, I've had to cut back mostly because of $$$$$.  With 2 kids in college, it is kind of difficult to justify spending the money to fly, but I will get there.  As soon as I get to that magic 200 hours PIC, the application is going in to Volunteer Pilots.  I may also look into volunteering in some capacity other than actually flying with either (or both) of AFE or VPA.  This is something I feel like I'm supposed to be doing, I just have to figure out how to do it.  By the way, any pilots out there know this, but any non-pilots reading this may not, did you know that you can fly people for money with fewer hours than you can fly people for a charitable contribution?  You can get a commercial license with 250 hours, but you must have (since the new regulations went into effect last year) 500 hours to make a flight in which the passenger donates money to a charity in return for the flight.  Strange, but true.

Flight Log 2009-08-17

I went flying today.  I wasn't able to visit the friend I was hoping to see this month, so I just stayed in the practice area.  I talked to my favorite CFII and I'll probably try to get an IPC in next week.  So, for today, I went over Buckeye Lake and practiced some slow flight and power on stalls.  The first take off was a simulated soft field, I realized I hadn't done one of those in quite a while (a year, maybe 2, I need to start working it back into my list of things to accomplish when I fly).  Then, as I said, slow flight and power on stalls.  It was very, very hazy for being "clear", visibility was 8 miles.  Well, it was a decent 0.7 hrs and there should be another 1.5 or so next week.

Working out

When I said yesteray, I planned on posting more, I didn't really mean I'd do it daily, but I wanted to get this written down.  I mentioned a couple of months ago, I've lost a fair amount of weight in the last year.  I've sort of stagnated here the last 3+ months.  First of all, we got a new scale because Sherry said she thought the old one was reading too light.  She weighed herself here and then at the Dr's office and the difference was more than could be accounted for by additional clothing.  So, I bought a new one and sure enough the old one was reading about 3-4 lbs lighter than the new one.  So, when I hit that 195, it was probably actually a 198 (I've actually hit 196.8 on the new scale, so I've been even lower than what the old reading of 195 would have meant) and the 232 when I started (this time) was likely more like 235.  Anyway, since early May I've been sitting at 200±2 lbs.  There isn't really a problem with that, I actually am feeling pretty good at this weight, I'm wearing jeans that are 4" smaller in the waist than I was a year ago (and I'm noticing that they are actually a little on the loose side).  Also, hopefully tomorrow the jeweler will call and I'll get my wedding ring back (it is being resized smaller).  Several times this summer, I've nearly lost it in the pool and when I nearly lost it in the shower last week, that was the final straw, I took it to the jeweler 5 days ago.  Now, I lost the first 15-20 lbs strictly by watching what I ate, cutting the caloric intake to 1500-1800 calories a day, but then I plateaued for a while.  In Jan-Feb, I started adding in some resistance/weight training (starting with the resistance bands 3 times per week and later switching to the actual free weights occasionally for some variation) and more weight came off, another 15-20 bringing me to a total of about 35 where I am now.  For the last two months, however, I've gotten out of the workout habit.  It started around the time of SANSFIRE (maybe just before) and with all of my travels in July, it kept on.  I worked out once while I was at my parent's place and was very, very sore the day I had lunch with the college friend (I hope she didn't notice I was moving like an 80-year-old).  Then not again until Monday.  I finally put the old DVD in and went at it.  Obviously, I had to lighten the weight (or reduce reps) from where I was when I was doing it regularly and I was a little sore yesterday and this morning, but I hit it again today and I expect I'll feel better tomorrow.  Perhaps a little more will come off if I get back in the routine.

To continue where I left off...

I still haven't made the flight to visit my friend, if all goes well, that should happen next week.  In the last week or so, however, I have gotten some good news, that I'd like to share.  I mentioned in the last post that there had been some bad news.  I was informed that my aunt had breast cancer.  About the same time, one of my wife's coworkers got bad news about possible cancer in her abdomen.  Finally, the father of a good friend discovered he required 5 heart bypasses.  Well, the good news is that after the lumpectomies, the tests suggest that my aunt's cancer was caught early enough and appears not to have spread.  Followup radiation should be brief and no chemo required.  My wife's coworker had surgery last week and they removed 17 lbs (yes, you read that right, 17 lbs) worth of tumor from her ovaries.  Now, she isn't a large girl by any stretch of the imagination, so I'm stunned at the size, but they don't believe the cancer has spread to any other organs (though they are still waiting for some test results).  Finally, my friend's father seems to have come through the quintuple bypass well, so it has been good news all the way around.  I am going to endeavor from here on to post something here at least once or twice a week.  I have a number of thoughts that I need to develop into a more complete form, but we shall see.

Home for a while

Well, my car has travelled 5,118 miles in the last 30 days.  It has been a busy month and I have one more little visit (though I intend to fly that one rather than drive) to make sometime this month, but otherwise I think I'll be a homebody for a while.  The week after the holiday, I visited my youngest sister for a couple of days and got to see my nephew play some baseball, then went on to NJ to get in some face-time with the boss and team.  While there, I also got to visit with some good friends from back when I lived out that way.  Then it was back to my sister's for another day and on home.  After a week at home, it was down to NC to spend time with Mom and Dad and celebrate Dad's 75th birthday.  While there, I set up wireless networking so I can use the laptop down there.  I also was able to have lunch with a very dear friend from college that I hadn't seen in over 25 years.  Then I came home, but my car went on another road trip with Matt.  He went to Memphis to visit a friend from basic training (I think) then to visit with George (his old boss, the one who took him to Japan a few years back).  After he brought my car back, I traveled back over to my sister's for my nephew's belated graduation party.  Lots of miles on the car, but lots of good visits with friends and family.  There has also been some bad news in the extended family, but I don't really want to talk about that right now.  It looks like the weather probably won't allow the flying I was hoping to do.  I really need to find some time to get instrument current again.