whiskytango

We were at LHR waiting for a flight to ATL when this went down. Our flight was delayed just enough to ensure that our connecting flight from ATL was missed. It could have been a lot worse. We heard that a flight from Liverpool to Belfast, just a short hop across the Irish Sea, was delayed 12 hours.

Several years ago a buddy who flies a Cirrus SR22 managed to decapitate a deer with one of the main gear during a night landing. Because it was a Cirrus, the factory had to custom-design a repair to the damaged composite components, and he was out of commission for months. Of course the deer was permanently out of commission. After that we always made it a point to ask him if he had murdered any more of Bambi's relatives lately.

You are correct. The builder of the VariEze changed the original design and put the fuel selector valve behind the pilot. It was reported that Denver thought if he engaged the autopilot he could turn around in the front seat and reach the fuel selector valve with Vice-Grips on it, as @Hank mentioned. Also the fuel gages were not visible to the pilot, and Denver had tried to use a mirror to look at the gages. The FAA pulled pulled his medical before the accident as a result of multiple DUI convictions.

Trivia fact: Major Henry J. Deutschendorf, pilot of the first B-58 1,000 km closed course speed record flight, had a son named Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr. His son changed his name to John Denver and went into the entertainment field. Sadly, John Denver died after losing control of a Rutan VariEze he had recently purchased. When Denver died, Mary Travers of Peter Paul and Mary, who recorded "Leaving on a Jet Plane", written by Denver, called him "the Jimmy Stewart of folk music."

I used a C model for my twice-weekly 600 nm commute for several years, and it was a great ride. This was on the East coast so there were no concerns about high terrain. Plan on getting your Instrument Rating as soon as possible to get the most utility from your C model. The budget range you mentioned may be on the low side in the current market.

Remembering the days when you spoke to a human being to get a Wx briefing, there was an excellent briefer that I often got shortly after getting my IR. I don't know if he was a pilot, but one of the most helpful parts of his briefing was that he always would say "your escape route will be ... " without ever being asked. It was reassuring to a freshly minted Instrument pilot to know that someone with a lot of Wx smarts thought there was a safe Plan B if Plan A went south. It would be nice if AI-based briefings would incorporate that kind of thinking.

I learned to fly my first Mooney, an M20E, at W00, which is 2420' x 40'. It worked out well, and I was based there for several years. I think the fact that there was an MSC there, and my transition instructor had a lot of Mooney instruction time really helped. I was told that some of the owners of long body Mooneys refused to fly into that airport for maintenance, and hired CFIs at the airport to do aircraft deliveries.

Message you do not want to receive in your AI - enabled aircraft: "Just a moment. Just a moment. I've just picked up a fault in the AE-35 unit. It's going to go 100-percent failure within 72 hours."

The public has become used to riding in shuttle trains with no human being onboard. Of course the failure modes for a shuttle train are limited compared to an aircraft, and if there is a malfunction, the train can just shut down in its current position. It would be interesting to know how the public would react to flying on an airliner with no human pilot onboard.

This ^^^^. I once lost the ability to transmit, due to rain water leaking into the radio stack, but was able to receive ATC. After squawking 7600, ATC came back with "N231PG squawking 7600, advise if you can hear me by squawking IDENT". ATC confirmed that they received my IDENT, and we were able to "communicate" the full IFR flight with handoffs and altitude assignments, etc. to destination. After landing I phoned the local TRACON to thank them for the fantastic job they and the other sectors did keeping me safe!

^^^^^^ This. On my first K model, it was on the ramp at a MSC waiting for an annual when a hail storm rolled through before they could get it in a hangar. The shop that did the hail damage repair (not a MSC, and not one of the companies that specialize in wet wing reseals) convinced the insurance company that the hail may have damaged the seals on the wet wing tanks, and they should be stripped and resealed. To make a long story short, it took MONTHS of Whack-a-Mole repair technique by this shop to get the newly sealed tanks to stop leaking. I just had my current K model tanks stripped and sealed by Wetwingologists East, and the job was perfect.

I haven't had Orange Icing but I have had Mud Dauber Icing. It doesn't go away when it warms up or when you remove the pitot cover

@rbp is the Garmin troubleshooting procedure available to any Mooney owner experiencing pitch oscillation in their new GFC500 installation?

Great video Chris! It shows the importance of staying flexible in your plans. That JAX controller definitely had a full plate!

Some folks might not believe it, but there was a time when you talked to a human being to get your Wx briefing. I can remember a flight made shortly after obtaining my IR. The Wx was going to get progressively worse in the direction of the destination, and as a recently minted instrument pilot I was not sure I wanted to make the flight. The briefer made it a point to tell me "Your escape route is..." Having that information was very helpful in making the decision to proceed. As @GeeBee said, you must always have an out. How many NTSB reports have we read where it is clear that there was no out, but the pilot really needed one?

This makes sense. Personally I do not engage the autopilot until I am stable in climb and heading, and on top of any layers. That way if it does any Crazy Ivans on engagement it is not a major distraction to shut it off and manually re-trim with the trim wheel.

I am wondering if, at the last moment before impact, the pilot saw the transmission lines, pulled back on the yoke, dissipating airspeed / kinetic energy, so that the impact was relatively low energy? That could make the deceleration a lot more survivable.

Thinking of Ron and his family and friends at this difficult time.

At the other end of the spectrum are the Blue Angels. After every performance they have a debrief, and each pilot admits to even the smallest mistakes they made. Each admission ends with "I will fix it, Boss, and I am just glad to be here". These guys are the best.

Don, Really sorry to hear about this. I hope the fix is relatively simple. You mentioned that your G5s were off (by choice) at the time of the incident. Do you know if the G5s will transition from bus power to internal battery power after a bus power loss so that the data is "seamless" i.e., there are no brief lags or freezing etc. on the display? I am thinking in terms of a failure that occurs on takeoff, in IMC at low altitude. A loss of data integrity during G5 transition from bus power to battery power at that point, even for a short time, could result in a loss of control.

@201er nails it. When I was doing my twice-weekly 600 NM commute, having the Monroy tanks meant that I never had to sweat finding an alternate with VFR weather.

Also, make sure it is not a polyisocyanurate insulation foam. While it does not readily ignite, when it does ignite one of the combustion products is hydrogen cyanide, which is toxic.

My first airplane was a '64 straight tail C-150 with 40 degrees of manual flaps available. My home 'drome had a 7000 foot runway and got a lot of bizjet traffic. Tower would tell us slow guys in the pattern to make a "short approach" when they had a bizjet on final. The drill was to turn base when you got to the approach end of the runway, pull off the power, drop all 40 degrees of flaps, dive for the runway and slip as much as you dared. Right before turning final you took out the slip. The airframe was so draggy with 40 degrees of flaps out, floating was not a problem, and you could turn off at the first taxiway. I don't remember what the airspeed was during that maneuver, but I assumed I was going too fast to stall.

Maybe it's just me, but ever since Hertz came out of Chapter 11 I have had nothing but problems getting a Hertz rental, particularly if they are supposed to have a car for me at an FBO. I have been a Presidents Circle member for years, but in most of my rentals they claim they have no record of my reservation, and no car gets delivered (even though I have a Reservation Record Number). I think the secret is to make the reservation through the FBO, not the Hertz website.

You raise an interesting point. I have often wondered if in VMC conditions would ATC rather have me in the system as VFR with flight following vs IFR? In central FL I have heard ATC basically tell everyone seeking VFR flight following to go away, they were too busy. What if I start out VFR and then need to get a popup IFR clearance? It would seem that the ATC workload would be lower if they didn't have to handle a large number of popup IFR clearances in areas of deteriorating weather. Maybe some ATC people on MS can give us some guidance as to their preferences.