The Great Gig In The Sky: A Quick California Trip

The first part of this post is about our trip to see Roger Waters in LA. For the aviation portion of the post, scroll down.

Roger Waters
Well, we did the 30 hour turnaround to LA to see Roger Waters. We made great time on the drive. Excluding a stop for lunch and a little shopping in Cabazon, we made it to I-10 and downtown Los Angeles in just under 5 hours. Unfortunately, there was a protest march Downtown which clogged traffic so much that the final 2 miles to our hotel took more than an hour. We got checked in to the hotel with 20 minutes to spare before leaving for the show.

The drive to the Hollywood Bowl was easy. About 20 minutes and we were there. Coronary number one took place when the parking lot vendor asked me for $18. Is this valet parking? NO. Well then, it must include a wash. NO. Just park the damn car said the look on her face. OK, we're going to see Roger Waters at The Hollywood Bowl. Get over it.

We met the person with our tickets and found our seats. We were amazed by the scale. Although seating capacity is about 18,000, the place seems immense. The show was amazing. Other than a little too much political rambling, we enjoyed every minute. Why rock stars have to be political commentators is beyond me. Whether you agree or disagree with them, what's the point? Just shut up and play the music.

Stage

They played two sets. The first was a collection of Pink Floyd songs from every Roger Waters Pink Floyd album except for Dark Side Of The Moon. The second set was The Dark Side Of The Moon in its entirety, and Nick Mason the original drummer for Pink Floyd made a rare appearance and played for the entire second half and the encore. They used quadrophonic sound and this show was probably the most technically accurate and highest quality sounding concert I've ever seen...and I've been to well over 400 concerts.

Prism above the stage. Very cool.

Since this blog is about flying and not Roger Waters, I have to work some angle related to flying. During the song "Sheep" before the intermission, they brought out the Pink Floyd Pig. It was tethered and lead through the audience like a Macy's aerial float. At the end of the song, they let it go. This has been done at all of the other outdoor shows and wasn't unexpected, but all I could think about was the airports near the Hollywood Bowl. Of course I had been watching air traffic all night...planes from Burbank and Van Nuys to the north as well has multiple helicopters going every which way. I wondered if a light aircraft might hit the pig. All was well, but I still wonder what could happen.

Here piggy piggy

Heart attack number two came after the concert ended, again parking related. We hurried our way to the lot and found that the lot was "stacked". My car was buried and we had to wait a half and hour to get out. All this for just $18! That's what I call "value added"

---

I finally started multi-engine training Saturday. The first four lessons are in the schools level 6 Piper Seneca FTD. It's more advanced than the AST/Hawk FTD, but still a benign and utterly joyless thing to use. The lessons are really to familiarize pilots with the Seneca layout and procedures without burning up Hobbs time. Needless to say, it was unremarkable and dull. One last quick FTD lesson for VMC demo Wednesday and then I get to actually fly the real thing .

The school's Senecas are series I. No turbo and anything not essential for flight is either removed or INOP. Even the electric trim is disabled. The Seneca is a pretty heavy plane and not as well suited for training as a Seminole. I'll report Wednesday on first multi-engine thoughts.

---

I finally got checked out in the G1000 equipped 172. The more time I spend behind the controls of the G1000, the more I become enamored with it. For every counter-intuitive button or process, there are 3 features that I like a lot. Since I had several hours in the G1000 and had suffered through the King G1000 video already, the check ride was short and uneventful.

After the checkout, I took the plane to Wickenburg.

The G1000 planes at Angel Air also have a nice feature, HID taxi and landing lights. Both of my cars have HID/Xenon headlights and the difference in light output from halogen is substantial. They also make a huge difference in aircraft. HID lights are like having your own little bit of sunshine. If only people would stop putting fake blue halogen headlights in their cars. Those are the lights that give real xenons a bad rap.

I am discovering several weaknesses the G1000 brings out in me. Looking at the pretty lights makes fixation and over-emphasis a problem that I need to be very aware of. The digital tach makes me obsess over exact RPM instead of just flying the plane. Remembering to set the backup altimeter when making changes during flight is challenging me. For the most part, the G1000 enhances every aspect of flight, as long as I remember to fly the plane and not play the video game.