FIFA

Flying weather has been brutal out here. In fact it is SNOWING here right now. This has caused many planned flights to be scrapped. Such is the life. On the other hand the days are long enough now to fly in the evenings.

After a week or so of thinking about the solo cross country flight I realized that while the experience of the cross country was excellent - the experience I had with the instructor (not my usual) was anything but excellent. It was really a discussion I had with my friend Keith that helped me understand this, and it was validated by I5 the next time we flew.

I've been working on the instrument portion of the syllabus - partly due to the weather and also partly due to the requirement of flying every 14 days or I lose my solo currency. So If I'm flying with my instructor it may as well take care of the instrument AND my currency. So far it has gone very well. X-Plane has turned out to be very good for simulating some of the failures and practice in standard rate turns. On Mr. Smith's suggestion I will in fact be taking a flight in one of our IFR rated aircraft the next time we have a booking that is canceled due to IMC - so that I can experience it for real.

The other day we planned on some instrument work but it was far too windy and bumpy. We also wanted to stay close to the field due to TCUs in bound. We planned on flying the pattern but when we called ground up were told they already had too many planes in the circuit. A quick phone call to Calgary Terminal and we were issued a squawk code for a city tour.

This was monumental for me because I had always wanted to fly over the city but had never had the chance. It was well worth the wait. When we checked in with the approach controller he gave me "maintain 5000, oh you said you were at 5500 umm you can have 5 or 5500 if you want, if it is a problem I'll let you know". I took advantage by responding with "OK, we'll take a block between five and fifty five hundred". I5 loved that.

We were essentially able to do whatever we wanted as long as we stayed west and south of the international airport (which is conveniently in the NE corner of the city. I followed the rivers - identified shopping centers, major streets, our reservoir, interchanges, the LRT, major parks, even stores like IKEA were easily spotted from the air. Circling back I did the old "fly over your house" thing but didn't do any buzzing of course. It was a bit weird because there are two communications towers near my home and I was quite concerned with them.

Following this I flew to my brother in laws house. Under average traffic conditions this drive would normally take 40-45 minutes. I think I made it there in about 5. The final fun as flying over downtown. It was super cool and something I really want to do again.

I left the airport at about 510pm that day. It was pretty busy in the club when I came in and when I left. There were a number of guys who had their solo cross country's canceled and were trying to get signed out to fly in the circuit. The next morning while taking out the garbage my neighbor came running over and said "thank god you are all right". The look on my face apparently said "What the heck are you talking about?". She told me about a crash at the airport the following evening and she knew I had been flying.

I ran inside and googled to find out that a student pilot flying solo had crashed just off the runway. Apparently they were doing stop and go's in a diamond and on one of the go's lost control, clipped a wing, went inverted and crashed in a field a few hundred feet west of the runway. The last report I had said the pilot was in critical condition but improving. It felt weird to hear that an accident had happened when I was there - hey it could have even been me in there.

When I learned it was a diamond, I found a photo of the wreckage and could easily make out the callsign "C-FIFA" on the tail of the aircraft. I stopped to think about how much of a connection I felt with the aircraft themselves. I knew small things about each of them that made them unique. Then things got a bit weirder....

Later in the day I googled "Springbank accident" and found a thread at AVCanada discussing the incident. At first they didn't know much then as details emerged they were posting. Soon they discovered that the callsign was C-FIFA and the aircraft was a DA20C1 purchased from Diamond 3 years earlier. A few posts down someone said that they had visited CYBW in September and took a few photos of C-FIFA. I actually felt some joy in my heart as I looked at the photo of FIFA taxiing along. Then I did a double take. OMFG! That is ME IN THE COCKPIT.

Total weirdness. To make a long story short I sent an email to the author asking if he would provide digital proofs of the photo so I could hang it on my wall with my others (first flight, first solo, cross country, and a few others). I mentioned this to a friend of mine (BP) and we pondered if it was weird to hang a photo of myself in an aircraft that no longer existed and he came up with a gem about "remembering the lesson to be learned every time I see it". This was good advice - providing we learn what the issue was.

EDIT: The pilot made a full recovery and plans to fly again once he gets medical clearance. The photographer sent me original digital copies of the photo and it now hangs proudly on the wall of my office.