The Snake

Sometimes it is just the slant of the light, or a certain tone of color, or in this case, the curve of the yellow oil boom.  Down by the old power plant, there is an oil terminal.  Huge barges are brought to the terminal by big tug boats, and then the oil is offloaded and the barge and tug go back where they came from.  There is also a huge tank farm across the road from the terminal with giant white tanks storing different grades of gasoline, diesel fuel, heating and heating oil.  Just in case there is a small accident while unloading they put these oil booms in the water and if there is a small spill it can be contained by the boom.  I just liked the curve of the boom and its resemblance to a water snake.

 

Ground School

Pilots need to have something called a "Flight Review" every two years in order to be a "pilot in command" which means you can fly an airplane by yourself.  Every pilot has to under go a flight review.  So you sit down with a flight instructor and he asks questions and you give answers, and if you don't remember the correct answer, then the two of you discuss it.  It is a learning process.  So I spent three hours today with Michael, a flight instructor and we discussed all kinds of things, like FAA rules and regulations, and aircraft performance and reading charts and types of airspace, among other subjects.  I haven't been a pilot in command for at least 15 years.  I have flown with other pilots but that's not the same as flying as pilot in command, solo.  So it was a really rich day, and fun to discuss aviation, something I am so passionate about, for three hours.  I will go back for perhaps two more hours of this.  Then the second part of the flight review, happens in an airplane, and that's the next step.  when I was flying regularly, a flight review might take an hour on the ground and perhaps two hours in the air, so that the instructor can see you are a competent pilot and that you haven't developed any bad habits.  This is a brilliant FAA program that was started after I first started flying and it adds a great deal to aircraft safety to have everyone have to take this time and to "get reviewed."

Just in case you wondered how I approach the Flight Review, this the dining room table where I have been studying all the materials I need to know!  I know, it's a mess, but Kathy is away, and it will all be cleaned up by the time she arrives home tomorrow night!  And, you should know that I have actually been studying for the past year, taking an online course with videos,  reviewing all the topics and reading books like "The Airman's Information Manual"  and "The Private Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge, and the "Pilot's Operating Handbook" for the Cessna 172 R the aircraft I will be flying.  I am really serious about really knowing all the subjects well.  It is exhausting, and, it is absolutely wonderful at the same time!

An Inhospitable Landscape

I was grinding my way up our hill on my bike, almost home, and as I passed a neighbor's house I happened to glance down and see these Snow drops (thank you, Ginger!) coming out between the rocks next to her driveway.   It just seemed like an impossible place for them to grow, completely surrounded by these rocks of all sizes.  In fact, the small area of soil is probably perfect for them, but they just look as if they are such a predicament, living where they are planted.  So I had to keep moving up the hill, but then I grabbed my Sony a7 III and the 50mm Macro lens, which allows me to get really close, and I made the shot!

 

My Life in the Sky

                                      

This is my first pilot logbook which I bought in June of 1965 when I began my flight training.  I was on active duty with the U.S. Air Force at Niagara Falls International Airport.  After I graduated from RIT,  I worked at the Rochester Times Union for 6 months and then took time off to do 6 months active duty with the Air Force. I had always wanted to learn to fly since I was a kid and finally I had the means to do that.  A pilot's logbook is kind of like a Bible where you, or your instructor, enter every flight you make, describe the training and maneuvers, record the number of landings, and record the time you flew in hours and tenths of hours.  Every pilot needs this because you need a certain number of hours minimum for each type of license, and a certain number of hours to be "current" meaning you can carry passengers, or you can fly on instruments in bad weather.  I haven't looked at this logbook in years, although I always know where it is.  It was finally filled, and I bought a new one to continue recording my flying experience.  It is so cool to really look at it and see how dusty it is, and that the binding is worn.  What a beautiful thing this is, showing its age!

                                      

So this is what you see when its open.  Please click on the photo to see it in more detail.  On the left I can see the places I lived, and on the right the numbers of the two Student Pilot Certificates, and then my Private Pilot License. 

              

Starting at the top of the page, on the upper left you can see the year, 1965, and my very first lesson was on June 15.  The aircraft registration is N4221M, and I would never forget that airplane.  It was a tailwheel airplane made of steel tubing and covered in fabric, and painted with dope.  You can see the flight was from Niagara Falls, and to the right, the maneuvers I was taught.  Reading  these words brings back that first flight as if it were yesterday!  I was in an Air Force flying club, so the costs were reduced, but I believe the airplane cost me $20 an hour to rent, including fuel, and the instructor, Phil Musiccio received $15 per hour.  I flew with Phil for 9 hours and 30 minutes and then I made my first solo flight! We flew together one more time for 45 minutes and that's the last entry by him in my logbook.  My time was up in July and I returned to Rochester and began training with another instructor in another airplane.  Then I flew with my first woman flight instructor, Ninita E. F Bogue.  She was a wonderful teacher and so thorough, making sure I understood everything she was teaching me.  I won't forget her.  I just decided to do a Google search and discovered that she died in June of 2020, in Amherst, NY.  That has to be her!

         

And this is the last page in this logbook.  The date of my last flight in this book is a memorable one.  I flew up to Capt Cod to meet my friend Malcolm Wells, an architect who did earth sheltered buildings.  I had photographed him for an assignment, and we became friends.  That flight was October 11, 1989 and the round trip was 4:00 hours exactly.  My total number of hours shown in this logbook at the time was 548.8 hours.  By that time I had also earned my Seaplane rating, and, as a really big deal, I had earned my Instrument Rating which meant I could fly in bad weather, which I did and which I loved.  Reading random entries in this logbook was such a powerful experience - I could re-live the flights because of some of the details in the comments section of each entry.    A vivid trip back into the experiences I had as part of my life in the sky.  What a powerful document this wonderful book turned out to be!

Mirror Image

On my walk the other day there was no wind at all, which turned Scudder's Pond into a perfect mirror.  I was standing around looking for a photograph, while holding the camera horizontal.  For some reason I turned it vertical, and then it had the tops of the trees in it, both in the sky and in the water, and it was then I realized I might have a photo.  I intentionally kept it dark, so the photograph didn't just look ordinary.  I wanted some tone in the sky, not a brilliant white sky.  I guess it doesn't hurt that this is a bit spooky looking with the white cottages nearly hidden in the woods around the pond. In all my years of looking at, and photographing Scudder's pond, I never saw this photograph before!

 

The Magnificent Japanese Maple, Again...

I already mentioned taking the garbage can down to the curb when it was snowing the other night.  In addition to the long photograph of the driveway and car and house, I took the time to do this one.  From the exact spot where I always photograph it from.  The tree is pink because the scene is illuminated by the mercury vapor street light and those gas filled lights give off pink light.  I just had to photograph the tree again because it was coated with a frosting of snow, and it was too pretty to ignore, don't you think?

 

Skyscape

I have never heard the term "skyscape" before, I am pretty sure.  I wonder if it is really a word.  I have a wonderful editor friend and she will let us know if I am brilliant or stupid.  Well, actually she, and we, all know the answer to that, but I meant in terms of making up a word!   :-)  I went by the beach this afternoon and the sky had all kinds of things going on with the clouds.  They were changing rapidly and so the first thing I saw was gone once I got close to the water, but I just watched and waited.  I loved the shapes of things in the sky here and I also wonder what is going on.  Believe it or not this is a composite of three photographs all connected together by software, one posted above the other.  So it is a really wide-angle image.