Two days of flying!

I've spent the last couple days down at the airfield trying to get ready for my certification. I've been told that I'll be taking my test and my check ride the week I get back from Santa Cruz, around the 14th - 18th. I did 36 landings on Wed and another 9 on Thurs. No-airbrake landings, cross-wind landings, and some aerial manuvers. It was really fun to just go 'up' and 'down'. I'd hit 90 then pull up hard, climb 300 feet till I hit maybe 50ish, then try to hold zero-g in a downward arc till I was going 90 again. Good times. Makes your stomach feel a little funny. I did some big 360 turns too... They're on the test. I also did my first landing at Kalaeloa, the airfield down in the south-west corner of the island. Intense radio work. I also took my first solo flight cross-country. I climbed up to 2500ft on the ridge then flew over to Waimea and Pupukea. What a sense of freedom...




Older shots showing my new apartment in Pupukea. Billy's place is the angled top and I'm in the one 'above' it.
Pupukea, up above the cliff.


Looking back on Pupukea with Ke Iki beach in the foreground, Sharks Cove as the rocks in the middle coastline and Waimea bay as the beach behind.

Haleakala Crater Overlooks

On the drive down from the summit, Amir and I stopped at the three crater overlooks - summit, kalahaku and leleiwi. Each is pretty unique. It was a super pretty day too....

Flying from Chicago to Honolulu

Here's some shots out the window as we crossed the Rocky Mtns, Basin-n-Range and Sierra Nevada. The north shore of Molokai in the NIR is pretty damn cool...

Some IR Shots...

From Flag Rock and Canadia.....



Looking along the St. Lawrence seaway towards the bad bay... at high tide.

Data Everywhere...

The weather has been cooperating beautifully. I've been able to test the image rotator, do a whole bunch of polarization calibrations and polarized twilight measurements. This is going to be plenty to keep me busy while the scope goes down for a 6-month recoating operation.

What a blur...

I spent a long time on planes basically working on data reduction and a big talk. I spent about 18 hours away from the airport on O'ahu before heading over to Maui. I didn't get to go home... I didn't actually want to go home. I enjoyed some sleep instead of driving. Anyways, Maui was fun - it was the Akamai Symposium on Tuesday - the final presentations for the summer interns. Amazing that they're done already. Then, Wednesday I gave the "Maikalani Public Lecture" at the IfA for about 20-30 people. It was pretty cool actually. IfA Maui does these monthly talks that get a fairly diverse crowd. It was actually filmed by Akaku for public TV. That ended around 8 and I drove up to start the midnight shift on AEOS. I'll be observing every night, finishing Sunday am..... Tired already....

Moths!

Wavelengths & Order Geometries....

In the last few days, I've spent many hours (by the pool with little to medium sized kids harassing me) working on the next version of my data reduction package. Multiple orders with tilted & curved coordinate systems. Good times. At least I've finally got a reason to map this stuff out....