Slowly Onwards

Posted in Aviation on January 29, 2016.

My second lesson started with a supervised preflight inspection on N9831G.  We did the usual procedures and then I did the radio calls to ground and tower.  After take off we did a few ascending/descending turns and then moved on to slow flight in the clean configuration.  He slowly worked me down to 50 knots a little at a time to get a feel for it.  I then tried to do some turns and made a mess of them.  He demonstrated how to quickly get from cruise to slow flight and back again.  After a few tries I got it.  It is very challenging to keep the heading and altitude while the attitude is way nose-up and the controls are like mush.  Next time we add flaps....

My rudder work is generally terrible, but at least my taxiing is improving.  I keep forgetting to clear my turns and I'm definitely still staring at the instruments too much.

I could tell he was trying to get me to apply what I had just learned in slow flight to the landing, but I was pretty burned-out by then.  The take offs and landings have been a blur, but they are getting less so each time.  I want to mount a camera in the cabin so that I can review my flights later.

Lesson One

Posted in Aviation on January 28, 2016.

I started flight training today with a CFI from Boraam Aviation at KPWK.  Since I've only flown once before for any length of time, there are a lot of new experiences happening all at once.  Learning basic maneuvers while still getting a feel for flying in the first place makes it easy to forget things and difficult to relax.  Relaxing is important to get that feel in the first place.

He showed me the pre-flight process (which I will have to do next time).  Then I did the start-up, taxi, and run-up.  Taxiing is a real struggle.  Managed to do the take-off, but I was all over the place.  Did some basic level flight, turns to a heading, climbing and descending turns, and (with a lot of instruction) the landing.  I was pretty burned-out by the end.  Next time it's slow flight.

The 152 is down for maintenance, so I flew in N9831G today.  It's also a 1979 Cessna 172N like the one I did my discovery flight in.  Neither airplane is pretty, but they seem to be well maintained.  They do the job.

First Step!

Posted in Aviation on January 05, 2016.

Took a discovery flight with the CFI that I think I will be using.  He's professional and laid-back.  The flight school is Boraam Aviation at Chicago Executive Airport (KPWK).  They are down-to-business, no-frills school which works for me.  This flight was in one of their two 1979 Cessna 172N airplanes, though I would probably use their 152 for training.

CFRs are not FAR from being the AIM

Posted in Aviation on October 06, 2015.

The Federal Aviation Regulations ("FARs" in aviation circles) are actually parts of the Code of Federal Regulations (aka, "CFRs").  The two seem to get used interchangeably, though they mean the same thing.  The FARs are often bundled into the same publication with the Aeronautical Information Manual as the so-called "FAR/AIM".

This book is the nitty-gritty.  If the Airplane Flying Handbook and the Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge are the Java and C of aviation knowledge, the FAR/AIM is written in assembly.

The FAR is not really "readable" per se.  It's more of a reference as it is written as a list of rules.  The AIM is more what you'd expect from a manual, though it is very dry and reads like stereo instructions.

There is a suggested study list at the beginning of the FAR/AIM that helps narrow the focus when seeking a particular license.  However, I found that the private pilot list tended to skip things that are important enough to be covered in other materials I have seen.  I used it as a rough guide to make sure that things were OK to skip, rather than as a definitive study list.  As you can see, I used those Post-It tabs to mark those sections plus others that I deemed important.

Decisions, Decisions

Posted in Aviation on October 02, 2015.

I've been interviewing CFIs at some flight schools near me.  I'm fortunate to have a few airports nearby.  These come from 06C and PWK, respectively.

Cinnamon Workspace Switcher Labels

Posted in Computing on September 16, 2015.

I've been using Linux Mint for years now.  Like a lot of people, I switched around the time that GNOME and Ubuntu set out to gaslight the world about how everything about their workflows have been wrong for all this time.  I tried GNOME Shell, but with each passing release they stripped more and more useful functionality from it.  Linux Mint kept the GNOME 2 torch lit and eventually offered both MATE (a GNOME 2 fork) and their own Cinnamon (GNOME 3 based) desktop variants.  I liked what Cinnamon had to offer, but it was a bit buggy and I so stuck with MATE instead.

Cinnamon continued to improve and at some point I decided to switch over to it.  I was able to recreate most of my workflows, but one thorn in my side was that at some point they replaced the workspace names in the switcher with these useless numbers.  It was either that or a tiny thumbnail of the desktop.  I use workspaces in a very specific way that helps me keep my trains of thought in order and the naming convention is a big part of that.  Thinking this was just temporary, I modified the JavaScript to bring back the names instead of numbers and kept reapplying the patch every time Cinnamon got upgraded.

Here we are years later and the silly thing is still broken! I sent the patch to dev that made the original change, but they didn't take it because it has a one major flaw: the width of the buttons is hard-coded.  I suspect this is the real reason behind why the simple view only shows the number.  It's tricky to know how to set the width, as it depends on the font being used, DPI, etc.  I assumed there was some "proper" way to do this, but I guess not?

Anyway, I'm posting the patch here in case anyone wants it.  If you want wider/narrower buttons, just change the constant at the top.

• workspace-switcher@cinnamon.org.patch

New Host (again)

Posted in Computing on August 12, 2015.

Things changed with our previous data center such that it is no longer a viable option.  Thanks again to iMav for hosting me previously.  It was great while it lasted.

I've moved everything again to my own virtual private server over at 1&1.  I'm done with shared virtual web hosting, as the database performance is horrid and the setup limitations are annoying (I need to host several sites).  So far, it has been working great....

Another Handbook

Posted in Aviation on July 27, 2015.

Not as fast of a read as the Airplane Flying Handbook.  There is some overlap in the content, but this book goes into much more detail and hits the main topics needed in order to take the written exam.

It is also downloadable from the FAA's website.