Tough - Touch - n - Gos

Recently I decided it would be a good idea to get in a little take-off and landing practice. I am a member of more FBOs (fixed base operator) than any other pilot I know. I belong to 2 in the Bay Area and 2 in Stockton. I like to hedge my bets if I want to fly at the last minute and all of the planes are taken at one I can go to plan b... or c or d.

Since I was only planning on droning around the traffic pattern at KPAO I decided I would drive in to Palo Alto and fly one of the older Cessna 172s at Shoreline Flying Club. It is pretty inexpensive compared to the other clubs - I mean FBOs. I didn't need anymore horsepower, fancy GPS, leather seats.... or carpeting as it turned out. I decided I would take my wife, Kristina, and spend a little quality time on a Sunday afternoon. As we are driving in to Palo Alto Kristina mentions she is hungry and directs me to the next McDonalds for some greasy little treats. This is before getting in an unnaturally small piece of aluminum going up and down and around in circles.... I did give fair warning.

I get out to the ramp, log in, grab the keys and go preflight while KK finishes the Mickey D's special. The plane is an old bird circa early 70's, white, with lime green stripes and seems to be in pretty good shape - even has a moving map GPS. When I pop open the door though I notice a very odd smell, faint but present none - the - less. Soon it dawns on what the odor is - it is cat piss! Thus the removal of the carpeting on the floorboard(??) How, why, who the hell had a cat loose in a small aircraft?!? Well, whatever, we could open a window if need be. The first opportunity I should have taken to call the whole thing OFF.

I usually have to spend some crucial Hobbs time (engine running) figuring out the avionics, radio stack in particular on these older planes because things have been modified many times and this plane was no different. None of these old planes have the same stack! I figure it out and call up ground and cleared to runway 31. Run-up goes well and just as I am about to call up tower to depart 3 - 4 planes come on line to depart at the same time with me at the end of the line. I saw it coming and couldn't rush my run-up to beat it. As I waited I was trying not to be impatient and I was trying not to get irritated... none of which was really working however. I was annoyed. My second time to have called the whole thing off.

Finally I get cleared to begin making a series of take-offs, right turns and landings - as many as I can within the 40 minutes I had left to fly. I only had an hour and a half to begin with. So we take off and all of the sudden a flock of geese (I think) launch off in the marsh just Northwest of the runway. I am staring down a flock of giant white birds suddenly disoriented by another giant, white, airborne 'goose' going muuuch faster than they expect it should be going and 'why isn't it going South'? Geese are much better at flying than I am by the way and somehow gracefully dodge my vain attempt to weave my way upwind like a drunk duck.

The plane feels tinny and flimsy and I never let it freak me out too much but a nagging thought in the back of my head is, 'I hope this plane, over 25 years old, makes it around the pattern just one more time'. I get on downwind and tower clears me to land and I look over and my wife is turning as green as those stripes on the fuselage I mentioned... yikes.... I ask her if she feels ok and she responds with a singe question: 'how many times are we going to do this'? The Mickey D's, the geese, the cat pee smell, it is all becoming too much. Let me say Kristina is a great passenger and copilot. Whenever we have flown in the past however it has been a trip going from point A to point B. Not some sort of demented merry - go - round that has become detached from its moorings. I ask her if we should stop which in retrospect was a dumb thing to ask because what I really should have done was land, park and go home - third strike! Instead I ask her if we can go around one more time. She says yes and I make a really crappy landing and flaps up, power up and off we go again, sans geese. The second time around the wind picks up a little so we are doing a little jig as we get settled on downwind and she is now pretty certain she cannot maintain and I g-e-t the message and we come around and again I make another bad, bouncy slightly uncoordinated landing. I really pride myself on making good landings and at that point the day has gone from fun to F-this!.

We taxi to parking space R18 and I shut down. KK gets out and tells me she needs to go to the car, uh - oh. She normally sticks around and helps put away the plane. I get out the tow bar and put the cat box, I mean plane, back in its space and tie down. I log out on the Shoreline computer with the Hobbs / Tach time having spent way too much on what was to have ostensibly been a value oriented outing in a great old trainer. KK is milling around the car when I return and I didn't ask nor did she volunteer but I get the feeling she may have sent back her value meal - so to speak.

Note to self: Pay the extra money for the nicer equipment, it's w-o-r-t-h it! Oh and uhhh... skip the gut busters before flying.