been studying for faa instrument written test

i haven't posted in a while because i'm spending a lot of time studying for my instrument written test. some of it i have down pretty well and then other parts not so much. i did 5 weeks of instrument ground school for 2 nights a week at 4 hours each night in prep for it. i've been spending a lot of time reviewing material and doing various practice exercises. i have not started the flying (sim training initially) yet. hopefully, i'll be ready for the faa written soon.

lucky enough to go on a washing center (ZDC) tour

i was lucky enough to go on a washing center (ZDC) tour last night. i was able to sit with a controller (more than 20 years experience) and watch/listen for about 30-minutes. it was a fascinating close up view of air traffic control. the amount of experience and coordination going on between controllers and pilots is very impressive. one thing that i did hear more than once though is the significant number of controllers coming up for retirement and the amount of hiring going on. i was also interested in how many controllers in that facility that had been there more than 20-years. there are not many companies that can make that claim nowadays. i was at my first job for 19-years before heading off to the dot com boom in 1998 (too late). that job had a pension which i would now be at 30-years for had i stayed.
when pres reagan fired the controllers (they went on strike in 1981) many were replaced by military controllers which are now retiring. it will be interesting to see how new hires will be trained and fit into the system.

KJYO faa safety presentation sat, 19-jul-2008 "No Stalling Around, Please' - Honing your Flying Skills"

for anyone in the KJYO area (leesburg, va), dave pearce is doing an faa safety thing this sat, 19-jul-2008.

"'No Stalling Around, Please' - Honing your Flying Skills"
Saturday, July 19, 2008, starting at 9:00 am

details at:
http://www.faasafety.gov/SPANS/event_details.aspx?eid=20333

weather (visibility really)

a couple of us planned a longish (for us) flight to KVBW (bridgewater, va) and KBCB (blacksburg, va) yesterday. we've been in instr ground school so we picked those specifically because we thought that we could try a little VOR practice and a localizer landing at an airport that is probably not busy. the day looked good but there was some concern about visibility to the south. we went ahead and took off from KJYO (leesburg, va). we had the GPS setup but we were planning on using the VORs to fly the route and ident intersections (all setup and ready to go). unfortunately, shortly after takeoff it was apparent that the ceiling was just low enough to be a concern for 6,500 at KBCB and maybe even 4,500 feet en route to KVBW. by the time we got to HOAGE intersection we were just under (and beside every now and then) the clouds. it was clear that it might not be the best trip to make on that day so we headed back (bummer).
we are both looking forward to an instr rating because yesterday would have been excellent for lowish visibility but no real weather impacting the flight.