Highlights: Taxes, 123x with Capt Marino
Flying at night puts our crew-day back… meaning we’re not allowed to be in squadron spaces until 10 hours before our planned landing time, so we won’t be flying tired.
That gave me some time in the morning to visit the tax center at Miramar. I organized every tax-deductible receipt in a Microsoft excel spread-sheet to keep things organized. It took about an hour for the tax center Marines to get all the forms filled in, but by the time we finished, I was looking at a $12,000 return! Wow! The Lieutenant (a recent law school grad), audited my return to make sure everything was right. Sweet! I was expecting a return, but didn’t know it would be so substantial. This might be the key to the pool resurfacing project… getting that started sooner rather than later.
I flew an instrument flight with my longtime friend Capt Jenn Marino today. The last time we flew together, we were both finishing training at this squadron 6 years ago. (= small world. Now she’s the instructor pilot and I’m the refresher student.
Instrument flying is all about using the equipment in the aircraft to navigate from point A to point B via prescribed routes in the sky, and fly a safe & predictable “approach” into an airport in conditions which might not allow you to see the ground until a few hundred feet above the runway. I.e. flying in clouds, heavy rain, or flying at night. Weather changes quickly sometimes, and it’s easy to take off when things are clear all around,, only to find bad weather sneak in behind you before it’s time to come home from a mission. So you always have to be ready to fly in less than ideal weather,,, and that’s what today’s flight was about. Practice.
For my 123x, I planned a route up north to Los Alamitos Army airfield, in the southern parts of Los Angeles. We flew a couple practice approaches into the airfield, and then flew back along the coast. We do a lot of talking over the radios with air traffic controllers,,, who are concerned about keeping a buffer zone of separation between aircraft in their airspace, talking us through precision approaches, and giving recommended altitudes through non-precision approaches. On the approach into Los Al today, the controllers vectored us over Disneyland (= I should have brought my camera for you guys. Ha ha.
Flying home along the coast was beautiful. We dropped down to 500’ above the water, flew under John Wayne’s airspace along the coast, and made our way back to Camp Pendleton. There are quite a few impressive homes along the southern California coast.
The second half of the flight was the unaided night fam. Coming back to the airfield just after sunset, we worked the landing pattern around the airfield, flying multiple approaches to landing as the night time sky got darker & darker. The purpose is to practice flying the aircraft at night, without the use of NVGs (night vision goggles). Procedures are the same, it’s just darker out- so everything has to be done with more care. The ground becomes harder to see when you come in to land,, so your eyes have to scan & work harder to find ground references, so you eliminate sideward drift, and you can tell how fast you’re moving over the ground until your wheels are safely on the deck.
Flying at night puts our crew-day back… meaning we’re not allowed to be in squadron spaces until 10 hours before our planned landing time, so we won’t be flying tired.
That gave me some time in the morning to visit the tax center at Miramar. I organized every tax-deductible receipt in a Microsoft excel spread-sheet to keep things organized. It took about an hour for the tax center Marines to get all the forms filled in, but by the time we finished, I was looking at a $12,000 return! Wow! The Lieutenant (a recent law school grad), audited my return to make sure everything was right. Sweet! I was expecting a return, but didn’t know it would be so substantial. This might be the key to the pool resurfacing project… getting that started sooner rather than later.
I flew an instrument flight with my longtime friend Capt Jenn Marino today. The last time we flew together, we were both finishing training at this squadron 6 years ago. (= small world. Now she’s the instructor pilot and I’m the refresher student.
Instrument flying is all about using the equipment in the aircraft to navigate from point A to point B via prescribed routes in the sky, and fly a safe & predictable “approach” into an airport in conditions which might not allow you to see the ground until a few hundred feet above the runway. I.e. flying in clouds, heavy rain, or flying at night. Weather changes quickly sometimes, and it’s easy to take off when things are clear all around,, only to find bad weather sneak in behind you before it’s time to come home from a mission. So you always have to be ready to fly in less than ideal weather,,, and that’s what today’s flight was about. Practice.
For my 123x, I planned a route up north to Los Alamitos Army airfield, in the southern parts of Los Angeles. We flew a couple practice approaches into the airfield, and then flew back along the coast. We do a lot of talking over the radios with air traffic controllers,,, who are concerned about keeping a buffer zone of separation between aircraft in their airspace, talking us through precision approaches, and giving recommended altitudes through non-precision approaches. On the approach into Los Al today, the controllers vectored us over Disneyland (= I should have brought my camera for you guys. Ha ha.
Flying home along the coast was beautiful. We dropped down to 500’ above the water, flew under John Wayne’s airspace along the coast, and made our way back to Camp Pendleton. There are quite a few impressive homes along the southern California coast.
The second half of the flight was the unaided night fam. Coming back to the airfield just after sunset, we worked the landing pattern around the airfield, flying multiple approaches to landing as the night time sky got darker & darker. The purpose is to practice flying the aircraft at night, without the use of NVGs (night vision goggles). Procedures are the same, it’s just darker out- so everything has to be done with more care. The ground becomes harder to see when you come in to land,, so your eyes have to scan & work harder to find ground references, so you eliminate sideward drift, and you can tell how fast you’re moving over the ground until your wheels are safely on the deck.
posted by jonathan adventures at 11:56 PM
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