Straight Flush

corey    Books, Military, News    

How much money have I lost so far? Letsee: $60 on craps, $20 on blackjack, $30 on slots/video poker, $60 on crappy fast food, $30 on __amazing__ internet access.. a lot. (I did get a Straight Flush on one of the video poker games, but since I was only playing with nickel bets that comes out to around 75 cents winnings).

My luck just isn’t here, for some reason. It was fine the first night but ever since then the craps table has been cold. I played a little today and got maybe $15 on top so I pocketed the $20 I started with and played until that $15 was gone. I suppose if you come out even in the end you aren’t a “loser”. I think the whole problem with gambling is this: You play until you don’t have any money left to bet. So even if you win some you end up playing all you won and the money you started with as well. (Obviously, that’s what the casino’s are betting on). I’m certainly glad I’m on the night shift as I don’t feel like playing any games during the day. If I had all night with nothing to do I’d probably have spent more than I have!

We went to the “Hoover Dam”:http://www.usbr.gov/lc/hooverdam/ earlier this week, which was pretty cool. While it was really really hot, inside it was nice and cool, especially 8 floors down into the generator room. That place uses tons and tons and tons of concrete! The guide said they could easily make a sidewalk all the way around the world, on the equator, with all of the concrete they used on the dam. We had passed a place that did helicopter rides over the dam, something we might check out later.

Due to boredom during the day, I have been able to read a lot. I finally finished “Red Mars”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0553560735/qid=1125188317/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102-6203825-4293742?v=glance&s=books which is a great book, though a little slow in spots. I think it’s great because there’s tons of politics (Earth’s corporations vs “Martians” vs government vs everyone else) and lots of interesting facts on Mars itself. I’ll be picking up the second book when I return home. I just finished my first Neil Gaiman book, “Neverwhere”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0380789019/qid=1125188252/sr=8-2/ref=pd_bbs_2/102-6203825-4293742?v=glance&s=books&n=507846, last night: it was awesome. It’s nice to read a “fantasy” book that isn’t the normal unicorn, sorcerer, and warrior mix. The book is very gritty and a little dark, though a light, easy read. The only other book I brought with me is Isaac Asimov’s “Prelude to Foundation”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0553278398/ref=pd_sim_b_4/102-6203825-4293742?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance. I’m resisting starting it because I don’t like jumping between series of books. I’d like to either a) finish the Red Mars series first, or b) read all of the Foundation books before starting the next Red Mars book. I’m going to try to go to the bookstore and pickup another Neil Gaiman book (probably “American Gods”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0380789035/ref=pd_bxgy_text_1/102-6203825-4293742?v=glance&s=books&n=507846).

Well, I’ve been here for 7 days so far and I’m tired of it. Some of us are planning on going to The Strip this evening to catch what free shows we can and get dinner (so hopefully I won’t be bored tonight), but I’m really really tired of the smoke and slot machine noises and fast food. Next Saturday won’t come fast enough!

There’s a lot of activity at Nellis AFB, even during our evening shift (6pm to 2am). Nellis is very large and has a lot of fighter squadrons with F-16s, F-15s, E-6s (A-6s doing counter measures), B-52s, and assorted cargo aircraft. Last night while we were waiting at EOR(End of Runway) two F-16s and two F-15s did go-arounds, which means they abort their landing and go around to land again. When they go-around they put in full afterburner and stay low to pickup speed before returning to pattern altitude. This put them about 200 ft above us – which put them about 300ft away (good ol’ trigonometry). It was very cool to see and feel them fly by that close. (Thank God we had our double hearing protection on).

Since there are 5-6 other squadrons here (from out of state) participating in Red Flag, EOR can get very hectic. There are usually 8-16 jets there waiting to be armed or de-armed, which can cause problems for us when one of our jets can’t find a place to park except are the far end.. makes us run around a lot. Among other excitement at EOR: one of the F-16s (from another squadron) had hot breaks after a fast approach. Due to high speeds they can easily overheat the breaks after landing and even cause them to explode. Thankfully that didn’t happen, but they did catch on fire. The ground crew was able to quickly put the fire out and preventing the tire from exploding but it still caused quite a ruckus. I think there were 5 fire trucks there in a matter of minutes waiting to see if anything else exciting happened.

I did see some F-22s from Edwards AFB fly around and takeoff. I was hoping to find some on the ramp but haven’t run into any yet. I really want to catch them cycling their bay doors so I can see how the missiles and bombs attach to them and get tucked away.

So it’s not been a terrible trip, I’m just bored crazy when I’m not working!

Lights, Casino, Action!

corey    Military, News    

So I’m in my hotel room (paying $10 a day for internet access – this internet has yet to go get me Starbucks or give me a massage so I have no idea why it’s so expensive), here on this balmy Sunday evening. Though by the time I finish typing it’ll probably be early early Monday morning.

Las Vegas, Nevada.

I’m here for two weeks for a military exercise called Red Flag. This is an exercise for our pilots so that they can practice tactics against aggressors. The aggressors are pilots who fly in that squadron (I forget which one) and it is their job to do these exercises which they do all year long for various different units. Apparently there are 4-5 other units here also participating in this Red Flag. Two of which are our good buddies: the New Mexico and the Montana Air National Guard. These are the guys that shared the stint in Iraq with us.

It looks like I’ll be on the late shift this week (swapping for the day shift next week) which means I’ll be working from 6pm to about 2am. Not terrible hours. Hopefully we’ll be able to head home early when the jets are down for the night, but our NCOs typically like to make us sit around for a couple hours. So we’ll see.

We’re staying in a hotel off the strip, in a not so great neighborhood so we won’t be doing any excursions on foot directly from here. We do have rental cars, so the plan is to make use of those to go see the sights on the Strip at somepoint along the line. The hotel we are in is also a casino (go figure), which is ok in that we don’t have to go anywhere when we are bored and want to blow 20-40 bucks. But it really really sucks because people are constantly smoking in the casino proper and your clothes smell like it. Even just passing through to get to the elevators to the rooms is enough to give me a headache.

Bestest new betting game: craps. I really like playing Blackjack but I seem to be in a slump. If I can’t get the dealer to bust with hands that *should* bust 6 times in a row I get annoyed and go somewhere else. After watching some of the other guys play craps for 30 minutes I was able to step in and have a lot of fun. After 3 hours, playing on just $20, I had won somewhere around $55. It really is a fun game but there is tons of stuff going on and tons of different kinds of bets and placing odds on bets and yadda yadda yadda. I’m just barely scratching the surface but at least that part is pretty fun.

Much like playing Texas Hold’em, it’s nice to be able to play for awhile on a small amount of money as opposed to Blackjack which (in my mind) requires at least 80-100 to play and you could easily lose all of that in 10-15 mins.

I hope to make it out to Treasure Island and Caesar’s Palace this coming weekend, so I’ll try to post an update on Monday and let you all know how it went. Have fun!

Building An Airplane

corey    Flying, RV Project    

[this was moved from the already long Oshkosh 2005, Part 2 post into it's own post. - ed]

Onto a new topic (sort of), I mentioned my interest in a Lancair Legacy FG kit, with which you can build your own airplane for mere pennies. Actually, it’s pretty expensive, but if you compare the performance you get out of it with a somewhat new airplane (10 years old or less) you won’t find anything for sale that doesn’t cost twice as much. Couple of things have made me shy away from the Lancair kit: 1) I hear it’s a very complex kit to build, and 2) it might be more “high performance” (once it’s completed) than a low time pilot like myself should probably be dealing with. That said, I’m on a couple of Lancair mailing lists and they are all very nice people and the whole process of building an airplane is very cool and interesting. I think I will eventually want to build one (maybe a 4-place ES model), but I feel I would be stepping in over my head very quickly.

So, I “stumbled” upon the RV kits. Van’s Aircraft has been around quite a long time (some 4,000+ kits of theirs have been built and are flying today!) so I certainly knew of them but never actually checked out what they have to offer. After much reading and browsing the Van’s AirForce forums I’ve come to the conclusion that I will build an RV. Either the RV-7 or the RV-9. Both of these kits are sheet metal and rivet aircraft, which a lot of people think are less complex and “easier” to build than the composite aircraft. The RV community is also huge, with tons of resources out there for the newbie builder. The local EAA Chapter also has dedicated members who assist builders with their projects, and they even have a tool library that you can borrow from!

I did finally find the Van’s Aircraft tent at Oshkosh, but I only briefly hung around (remember, I was still into the Lancair at the time – the lady at their display was very nice too) and was actually on my way out to head home. Now I wish I had stayed and asked to sit in their models.

The kits come in different stages: empennage (the tail), the wings, the fuselage, and the finishing kit. Van’s has a Cost Estimator which is helpful, showing me that all told (with a used & rebuilt engine, professional paint job, and avionics) it’s going to cost me around $65k to build. Could add another $10k to that for the Quick Build versions, which would probably cut my build time by 40% (from ~1500 hours to ~900 hours). I’m very strongly considering at least getting the wing kit as a quick build because they put the fuel tanks in and test them for you – which I hear can be a big pain to do on your own.

Only two hurdles (ok, 3 if you count saving up the money):

1) do I get a -7 or a -9? The 9 has a larger wing and is more docile (apparently it stalls slower than most trainers) but can only accept a 160hp engine – I think I want at least 180hp here in Denver with out high altitude. It also cruises slower but seems like a more forgiving design (which would be a plus for a low time pilot like myself). However, I’m leaning towards the -7 which is aerobatic (the -9 is not, and that could be fun) and can take up to a 200hp engine.

2) Tailwheel or not. Right now I’m leaning towards the tricycle gear (no tailwheel, has a nose wheel like Cessna’s) mostly because of insurance reasons (tailwheel aircraft cost more to insure, probably only because there’s a required tailwheel endorsement (ie: training) required to fly one). I did hear that the tricycle gear version (the -7A) actually has part of the gear jutting into the cockpit which can be annoying for some people. I’m going to try to find a -7A to sit in (either locally or at the next Oshkosh) before I make the tailwheel/tricycle gear decision.

Current plan: save up enough money to buy the tools required (almost $2000!) for the kit, and then order the empennage kit (which is only $1700). This should get me started, and I don’t have to make the landing gear choice until I order the fuselage kit. However, I do need to decide between the RV-7 and the RV-9 before I order that kit!

Hopefully in the next few month I’ll have made my decision and started collecting all the tools (hello, Ebay!).

(Oh wait, I forgot another hurdle: do I wait for us to rebuild the garage (2+1/2) or start in our current one-car garage?)

Oshkosh 2005, Part 2

corey    Flying    

The trip to Oshkosh was a lot of fun (though it would be more fun / less boring driving with someone else along). I headed out early Saturday evening and drove all the way into Iowa before taking a nap at a rest stop. At about 5am I headed out again and drove the rest of the way to Oshkosh, taking I-80 to I-35 to I-90 and finally onto local HWY 21.

I joined the EAA specifically so that I could camp on their members-only camp grounds, which is right next to the airport. At $18 a night it’s hard to beat.. especially since I couldn’t find a vacant hotel room within 50 miles of the place!

Once I arrived everyone had to wait in line to register their vehicles and get passes into show ($20 a day), it was crazy hot! Very high humidity and temperatures in the 90′s. After being in an air conditioned car for the last 20+ hours it was a huge slap in the face.

But that high temp and high humidity went away after a thunderstorm broke out that night. I swear, if I had looked outside my tent I bet there would have been a tornado not 100ft from me.. at least, it felt like it! Lots of people had their tents wrecked or filled with rain due to the very fierce rain we got that night. Lucky for me, the small end of my (really, Cheryl’s) tent was facing into the storm otherwise I think I might have gotten blown across the field like a tumbleweed!

Opening morning was a little dull until I realized that nothing opened or started until 9am. I guess 7am was a little too early to expect much excitement (but what else am I going to do when I wake up at 6am?). I was able to go to a few forums/classes that day, one of which included a class on how to drill, dimple, and rivet sheet metal. (At this point, I was 99% set on getting a Lancair Legacy FG kit which is all fiberglass, so I only took it for the fun and knowledge). Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get to the welding classes either day, but I hope to go next year.

The air show was great! It’s probably the highlight of the show, if only because you can sit down (and stop walking!) and just enjoy the show for a couple of hours. I really liked walking around and seeing the booths and airplanes but it gets tiring. The place is huge.

Before I left for home on Tuesday I had the opportunity to go through EAA’s museum there at the airport (free entry for Air Venture attendees and all EAA members). It’s pretty cool with lots of displays and lots of aircraft with their associated history. Close by was the small grass strip where they were doing helicopter rides, so for $30 I was able to do a quick jaunt (5 mins) that gave me a good view the show. Like I said: it’s huge. Tons and tons of planes, lots of warbirds (my favorite). Next time I need to go down the ‘for sale’ aisle in the warbird section – I didn’t realize it existed until I got back home.

Sadly, I was only able to stay until Tuesday afternoon, and then I had to head home. I did finally arrive home – late, late Tuesday night (4am, I think). Whew, that’s a long drive. Good thing I bought an XM Radio before I left! The Comedy channels kept me awake why driving through Nebraska and NE Colorado.

I took a couple of “movies” with my digital camera (which completely drained my battery – bad move, since I didn’t bring my charger!) so I shall share them here (right-click, save as):

Video 1
Video 2

Both of these show the T-28′s taxing in to their parking spot after flying in formation for the beginning of the airshow on Monday. (You can see pictures of the formations in the Gallery).