Samurai Husky

I am anxious to see what all the fuss is about A plane can look awesome on paper, but like anything else, i think it has to fit the pilot. I just really hope that after all this time of bugging you people that i dont fly one and say... This doesn't work for me For the XC, Im having fun planning it out, I haven't decided which way to go yet in my loop and i keep checking the weather for winds... Though in the central valley its supposed to be HOT. 105 at KLSN and 104 at KSAC. No AC or blower on this plane so i am trying to plan to fly higher, like 7500ft there and 8500ft. Never been up that high so it will be good practice. So far the winds in the forecast look good.

nope; I was in Chicago most of the week; Then came back and did my XC. Today i had to work. I have to go back out there the end of next week, wont know until Tuesday when. Summer is busy for me, which is why i wanted to be done by now

Funny you should say that! I put a bid on a 'J' and they stopped talking to me... I probably need to come back with a better offer, but i have been telling people that I really dont want to commit until after PPL. I haven't really put much effort into it other than the 1 plane, mostly because i dont know if i can afford flight lessons AND a plane payment. I am trying to stay very disciplined, which is why some times i come off as frustrated or overly anxious to get stuff done. Its more or less because i want to start shopping seriously but put that limit on my self. It really depends on where you are. Since i am in the bay area, I am ground 0 for people with a lot of money and plenty of airports. A lot of it is student traffic because we have a lot of foreigners that come in here to learn. We also have 3 international airports within 10km of each other. Once you leave the bay area. IE north of SF, South of E16; Over the hills/mountains to the west or over the ALTAM ie KTCY, then traffic drops off significantly. On the last XC once i was over KTCY i think i had 1 Barron the past me on my left and that was it until i got to KMCE. There it was just 1 helicopter landing and 1 plane that landed about 5 mins after i did.... The entire central valley is farms, so there is little traffic; So maybe 35nm from my airport to get to clear air? This compares to my airport where its not uncommon to have 3 people in the pattern at all times. Yesterday i was sequenced #8 to land, had to do 2 left 360's and extend my down wind to Moffet Field (which makes it a 5nm final); Even at 730PM there were 2 at the run up and 2 in the pattern. I gave up on staying in the area on the weekends or any type of flight training. I would say that if you come into the bay area, then avoid the livermore area. Everyone uses the Sonol pass to get in and out, The Bravo is at 4000ft the top of the pass is at 2200, and its not very wide. In the bravo you have massive commercial traffic as its basically the root the use to get into SFO and OAK. SJC comes up from the south but it usually a non factor. So i would say come up along the V485 to where ever you want to land.

Getting a little embarrassing at this point, but 64.2 Hobbs total. To be fair, probably 10 of those hours if not more is me sitting on the ground waiting to take off or taxiing. It is what it is, luckily there isnt a maximum for the PPL The only thing weather wise to look out for this time of year is wind. I have a 20kph max with 7 XWC limitation. I agree with that limitation, wind is my biggest issue. Not so much staying on the center line, but just transitioning from crab to slip, or if in the slip then keeping the wing down through flare; or flaring late because a gust of wind came down the runway and knocked me down. When the plane was in the shop for 2 weeks, i can say that my landings regressed a lot. I think going out before my XC yesterday helped a little, but the habit i had of releasing pressure on the stick on touchdown came back, which results in porpoise'ing . Luckily someone on this forum told me about his experience and have burned that into my head; so if im on the air on the 2nd hop, then its a automatic go around. Im slowly working that habit back out, but it just goes to show how important regular training are. So whats next? I convinced my instructor to give me sign off for another airport (KTCY) which is outside the clubs 25nm range; I asked for this because now i am outside all of the bay area's club training areas and can go practice with little interference. Also its more farm land out there and its flat, so i think it will help with doing 45's; Yes its more time to get out there, but probably only 10 mins or less. I think i waste that or more every time i abort a maneuver in the training grounds because someone isnt paying attention and comes into my 'personal' space. So Monday i will see what the weather is like and either do more XW landings or go out there to practice maneuvers. Tuesday I have the Big XC. I already have my airport assignments, I took the afternoon off of work. I was asked if there was any where i wanted to go... I said Tahoe... He laughed, I laughed, and got a no..... So i asked for a place were i can get a good burger. So I guess i am going to KPAO > KSAC > KLSN then back to KPAO via the 101 corridor so that i can transition through KSJC's airspace or over the airport, not sure which way they will want me to go; But i requested that as practice. Its amazing how many people will skirt around major airports instead of just calling. After this all of my requirements will be met for the check ride per the FAA. The the club is another matter, for me to get scheduled, i have to do a Club Check ride with another instructor, in order to get that, i need sign off from my instructor. So there will still be a few more lessons of going out on 'mock' tests.

Yep; I really like the lean assist on the avadyne system. It makes leaning really easy; You cant see it well, but in the picture of the dash on the map screen you can see the CHT's and EGT followed by a 'leaning' title a little higher up. I was always told to lean for best power, but i think there is also a lean for best economy. Either way i think it takes about 2 minutes to do. Once its set just monitor the engine page to make sure that things dont change and you go out of range. I was getting about 11.2gal/h at 4500ft with 135TAS, but there was also a 21knt wind that was helping me along. -for the nearest airport; You cant see it, but its listed on the top Garman 430 along with distance to next check point. The bottom one has skywatch with 2km>6km; Though it will also put traffic up on the MFD. I normally have the engine page up, but i put that map on for 'effect' i went back to the engine page after the picture; During the entire flight i kept thinking to myself what do i do next, what am i missing, redo check lists; etc (which was good because i forgot to switch tanks at some point and was 7gal less on one side) . It wasnt until i landed and pushed back into my tie down that it actually dawned on me... This is real flying In that, I actually went somewhere far away, on my own. No pattern flying 15 times in a row, no maneuvers.. just Point A to Point B. IDK, it wasnt until later that i felt a great sense of accomplishment.

LOL. only when taking pictures and selfies Its funny, at some point i was over a bunch of farm fields, had everything trimmed out, was in a very quiet area for nor cal and i thought to myself.... Now what? Im so used to being busy every second of the flight that i didnt know what to do once i had nothing left to do

Been a while since an update, had a bunch of delays; so here's one. 1. Had to go away for work... Like a kid i went up into the cockpit and had a nice discussion with the co-pilot before the captain kicked me out 2. Came back and scheduled my first XC; Only.... PotUS was in town TFR over the entire bay area for 2 days. 3. Met with my CFI to go over the flight plan, only to have it cancelled because the XW was higher than my sign off. The unfortunate thing was he left for the weekend a day early. Though we worked it out so that if i called him with the winds and emailed him the updated flight plane calculations then he would give me the go no go for today. today... At 2PM the winds were 35012kt 1kph over my XC sign off I called my CFI but he didnt pick up. I sat in the plane for about 30 mins and the wind changed to 33015; Which was just enough for me to do pattern work. So i sent my CFI a txt message asking for him to respond and in the mean time did landing practice with the wind just to make sure i wouldn't get in over my head. After about a hour i decided to call it quits. It seemed like everyone in the airport was skipping town and after 6 landings and 2 go arounds i thought i should just call it quits before the wind got to bad. It was now at 33018. So i get the plan back to the tie down and 'just' push it into place when my phone rang. Guess who? My CFI applogized and said he forgot and took a nap. :/ Anyway he asked if i already left, i said no. He asked what the winds were, do i looked at the new Metar and they said 32015. He said he was sorry and that i should schedule it again.... I was like wait dude, its only 4:30... He said, well if you are going to go you better get moving. I was hot, thirsty and had to pee, so instead of just running off i went back to the club house and 'chilled' for about 30 mins. Long story longer; First Solo XC is in the books! KPAO> KMCE with flight following. Approach only vectored me twice and changed my Altitude 2 times But i am glad they were there, they started moving some planes out of my way too; Obligatory pictures: BTW, Samurai Husky is starting to get a little Husky

It was a treat, normally we are over livermore which right now is brown hills. I have to admit though, that is a reallllly nice picture. I wish i brought my camera instead of using my phone. The other pictures didnt come out as nicely, which is a shame, i thought this S7 was supposed to have a really good camera, but it doenst look better than my iphone6. Also flying through the bravo wasnt as much work as i thought.... Just call up norcal, request clearance, They give you an altitude and say 'stay west of the 101' and that was it. The next time they talked to us was when we left the bravo when they said 'clear of the bravo, stay out'.

Final XC dual today; Next time i will be going on my own. Unfortunitly it seems all of this is orchastrated, meaning i cant just go out on my own flight plan. They choose the airports, i have to go over the flight plan with the CFI before the flight, etc, etc. Anyway; For the final supervised XC we got to take out the SR22 and come back through the bravo of SFO; Picture perfect day... In fact....

Yep, read through that, there doesn't seem to any real big changes in terms of what maneuvers or how to perform them. From what i understand it gives the Evaluator a little more wiggle room in how they evaluate if a person is doing the maneuver safely and within spec's given the conditions. Steep turns and their specific requirements are still in there

BTW; there was a 2nd crash the day after this one... This time it was a student and instructor doing touch and go's.... Same apparent stall into a spin at neat TPA....Student died, the instructor was taken to the hospital it major injuries but survived. http://www.wsiltv.com/story/32197786/1-dead-1-hurt-in-marion-plane-crash Same plane i fly.... On a happier note; there was a 3rd crash in Germany on the same day; But this time the guy activated the parashoot. http://hessenschau.de/panorama/handy-video-zeigt-kleinflugzeug-bei-fallschirm-notlandung,flugzeug-notlandung-hungen-100.html uhhhh. you have to know german to read the site, but the video of the guy coming down is neat.

I think he beats me to PPL; There are just so many hurdles to go through at my club that its getting to the point of hilarity. I haven't flown in about 2 weeks now because the plane has been down for maintenance again and the other one was booked out a month in advanced. Unless work starts letting me fly during the day (which they wont); Then i will have many more days of sitting around looking up at the blue sky from my window. It seems you have the same problem i have with right steep turns. I haven't figured it out yet either so i cant really give any advice. As for landing. Just keep the plane on the center line and it really dosen't madder how big the runway is. From my point of view, I am sitting on the center line. Not the plane but my butt is on the center line. Because of the angle it just works out that the plane is on the center line from that view out the window. It helped a lot with crabbing and landing etc because if you are on the center line throughout approach you have time to keep speed and pitch right. If you are constantly fighting the center line, then you start missing out on your angle, when you add power or when to remove power etc and you end up fast or slow or low or high etc.

Sorry, they were typos; i meant Vy. Its what i get when i type to fast with out re-reading things. I dont know why i had vx stuck in my head. If you cant tell, still a student only been in aviation for 2 months, so sometime those get mixed up; I know speeds; Rotate 65, flaps up 85, climb 96; short field obstacle climb at 81. In general i can remember which is which but some times i forget.... Sorry i caused you so much stress over this. I never said i was an expert, i just said i had experience in a SR20 and there are some things i can see happening for one reason or another. I'll leave the topic alone now.

Yea, so im wrong; I just looked at the pictures and the flaps are clearly up.. so unless they were raised while entering into the spin, then they were most likely up. My thinking was drag. If you are pitched for climb as if your flaps were up, then your angle of attack would be to high and you would loose speed and stall. Thats all. Copa thinks it was a standard turn into a spin. ATC requested that she 'keep it tight' and you can see the bank angle was high and the altitude low. With 3 people in the plane, it was probably heavy and she started the turn early (before accelerating to VX) in order to keep it tight. Add in a tailwind of about 5knts gusting and that probably stalled her out. Thats what they are saying at least.

I think i know what happened. She probably left her flaps down after aborting her landing on 35. So once she entered the left climbing turn for the 35 down wind, she stalled and was uncoordinated causing the spin. Its easy to stall with a full flaps turn. I was told never to exceed 10* of bank when doing slow flight. If she went into a 30* turn with full flaps, then that would explain all of this. Now the SR20 can climb with full flaps, but its a VERY shallow climb. If she was pitched for Vx to get back to TPA, then there is no way she would have made it;

I cant find the one i originally saw.... Now i found the full video and feel sick; http://abc13.com/news/video-deadly-plane-crash-near-hobby-airport/1380393/ The second video is the full one;

Sorry, yes demonstrated limit, not maximum. I was in a 24knt, as you pointed out demonstrated is 21knt for the G2, 20knt for the G3. However, I have been in those conditions, If the wind is steady then you can handle it; But gusting will cause your plane to weather vain considerably. At least that has been my experience with the Cirrus. Its much easier to crab in those conditions with the Cirrus. It is also what Cirrus recommends be the standard technique when landing in cross wind. While its true the plane doesnt know its in XW, improper XW technique could cause the plane to get slow and stall. For the fuel Imbalance: Section 2 of the SR20 POH under 'FUEL LIMITS'. "The maximum allowable fuel imbalance is 7.5 US gallons (1/4 tank)" This may or may not be a contributing factor. Just something i would suggest. With the newest video; Maybe its just the FPS of the camera, but it looks like the throttle is idle or they were out of fuel. You can see the prop spinning very slowly in the shadow of the plane as its coming down. Slow enough to make out the individual blades in the shadow and follow them turning. God that was hard to watch, im glad they stopped the video where they did.

Condolences to the family; I cant imagine how the father feels to be battling cancer and then to lose his entire family. The SR20 has a 7.5gal fuel imbalance limit. If she stayed on the same tank the whole time (4 go arounds) and then attempted a steep turn while being slow then that will aid in causing the plane to be uncoordinated and spin. I can easily see this happening with all of the distractions of crosswind, busy airport, stress etc. Also the SR20 has a 24kt XW component limit; I have experienced this IRL, its almost impossible to land the damn thing in that sort of conditions. Though i was on a 75ft wide runway, so would be unsure of how much easier it would be with 150ftx5000ft runway. Entering a 45* turn with 26kt XC is death waiting to happen; I didnt want to make a 20* turn let alone a 30* turn when it as at 24kts. 18-30kntw down the runway is difficult, but not impossible. I also am not sure i agree with ATC that she was too high on approach. Unless she was at TPA at the numbers, A SR20 with full flaps at idle power with a 30kt headwind is going to fall out of the sky like a brick. With 5000ft of runway, i think she could have easily re-lined up and landed with out needing to go around. The only reason i can think of as to why he told her to go around, was that he sequenced a jet behind her too close and was expecting that she would touch down at the numbers and get off the runway with out using the whole length. IDK, i dont like exceptionally large airports; They are crowded, you have to worry about wake and normally the transient tie downs are expensive. I would have just paid the extra $20 in uber fees and landed at pearland. You probably would have saved that much money in fuel costs just by the amount of taxiing you have to do at hobby (FYI, just going off of the maps here, i have no experience with hobby other than commercial); When i plan my flight to PHX, im not landing at KPHX, im going to KFFZ, yea, its about 10 mile farther away for someone to get me, but at least i dont have to worry about a southwest jet eating me up. IDK, thats just me. I feel thankful that i am learning in such a challenging area. Between the sr20, short runway, constant winds, crowded airspace etc. I feel that i am better prepared then a lot of people, which make me a safer pilot.

yea, thats what we did; He took me somewhere under the hood and got me lost. Basically dropped me into a valley at 1000ft and said 'get me to this airport'. Luckily the airport was on the coast. So i just climbed found the ocean, found one of the coastal markers (a giant power plant) and the airport from there was just off to the right 6nm; Honestly i thought it would be A LOT harder.

First solo XC probably next weekend, he wants me to break it up into 2. I have to do 1 more with the CFI even though i passed the XC check ride with the club. I will schedule that for next week sometime, I still have to draw up the plan and do all of the calculations. Plane went out for its 100 hr and was out all week. I've done all my XC so far with out glass. More or less because people keep giving me a hard time about it. You should see what my map looks like.....If anything i am always prepared.

i;ve been looking for it to pop up

Actually my problem with crosswind is in the flare; As soon as i pull power the thing wants to windmill to the left and i am always slow on letting up on the rudder as we always have a right crosswind.

Oh dont get me wrong, i wasnt on the numbers at all. Actually i was too high and was burning off altitude, which was giving me the speed, i had the power back to 15%; Though I was coming down from 5500ft, then 3500 when i crossed over the hills (4k is the bravo); so i was going pretty fast approaching the airport, but at that point i had a lot of time to slow down and enter on the 45 normally. I just feel i was sequenced wrong, that's all. At 15% power once i hit my TPA i would have slowed down considerably; But when i sequenced behind the diamond, i had to slow up then and there or run him over. So i was still high and still fast at that point in the approach. Once i was below 120kts i put in the first notch of flaps, even through we were still about 3.5 miles out. Then just flew with 1 notch until they sequenced me behind a cessna, which then i did the 2nd notch and flew the rest of the pattern at 80knts until final. So yea, not a typical entry, it was my first time Today was short/soft TO/L; I suck at soft take off, once the SR20 leaves the ground it wants to climb and holding that level flight at 10ft off the ground was almost impossible. Though i did have a 10knt crosswind component and 15knt winds. So it wasnt the best of days to be learning a new technique. All the other stuff was ok; Short field take off was easy, short field landing i need to work on a little more, just because the plane dropped sooner then i wanted it to and came up short. Soft field landings were pretty easy if it werent for the crosswind. So now that's done. I need to go on 1 more XC with the CFI and then do my solo XC and then its all PPL practice. Everything else is signed off on.

i hadnt joined the pattern at that point; I was still 4 miles out and descending. The diamond was 4 miles out to my left and at level 1200 (pattern is 800); I think i was around 2400. By the time i got into the pattern i was at 100knt. Just so that you know i wasnt recklessly speeding in the pattern.

The capstone product weighs 800lbs, which is fine for a bus, not so great for a plane. The Wrightspeed looks interesting, 80kw @250lb though is still a bit much than what the volt is already using. Also the problem with turbines is that since they spin at exceptionally high rates (100k rpm in this case) things can go south very fast. They need to be inspected more often and repaired more often than a standard ICE. You would probably also want 2 in serial pointing in opposite directions in order to counter the turning forces.