New Pilot Member of our Trip

We are very glad to sucker..., I mean, convince a friend of ours to join us on our trip (not that he needed much convincing):  Jim Chapman.  Jim and his wife Barbara live in Redding, California.  I'll get more of a Bio from him later, but I do know he is also a pilot.  I believe he flew a F86s about the time of the Korean War or just a little after.  If I remember right, he also owned a Navion for a while.  Great guy and some good experience to have a long on the trip.  

As Jim put it, "This is a trip of a lifetime."   It was good for me to hear this as I have been so involved with trying to make it happen that I have forgotten how great of a trip this will be.  Good to get refocused!  

Visa Update

We'll, I didn't hear anything from the Tourist Department in Russia regarding my request.  I spoke with Brian Staurseth at the Alaska FAA (Brian lead up the charge to get the VFR Route established into Russia over the past months  and is an exceptionally helpful person) and let him know I struck out.  I asked him for any words of wisdom, ideas, thoughts, etc.

He suggested I try Circumpolar Expeditions out of Anchorage, specifically Tandy Wallack, who has been coordinating trips into Russia for the past 10 plus years.  I spoke with Tandy.  She said she usually needs 30 days minimum so we are kind of tight, but thought she could pull it off.  We are faxing our passport information this weekend and she will get started.

Interestingly enough, Tandy said she might have trouble with my visa as I have been the one contacting Russia.  She said if the Russians get too many requests coming from different places, they sometimes default to "niet."  Thankfully, I only submitted information regarding myself and not Earl or Jim.  Worse case, none of us get visas.  A little better case will be if Earl and Jim get them and I don't.  Of course, we are hoping all of us get them.

We'll see how this all pans out...certainly worth a try!

Brushed off the IFR Rating

This past week, I finally got requalifed for my IFR rating.  Been dreading it in one respect (who wants to admit they have lost some skills and need to find them again!), but looking forward to it in another.  I flew my last approach about two years ago.

Hardest part is finding time and an instructor to do it.  After a lot of calling around, I ended up back at my home field (La Verne, Brackett in the LA Basis).  We have a flight school called "Runway 3/7" on the north side of the field.  I met with Erv and he put me at ease right away.  We spent a lot of time on the ground talking things over, then headed to the plane for some air work.  After three sessions, he signed me off this week.   

I plan to spend some more time with Erv.  Erv is 72 and was Army Air Corp/Air Force trained and flew F-104 Starfighters.  He later flew commercial jets.  Anyway, he has challenged a lot of my thinking and is forcing me to prove that a technique or procedure works rather than just accept it because a past instructor told me to do it that way.  Good stuff.