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Garryowen

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    : KLNS
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    Looking for a Mooney or Twin Commanche partnership at KLNS Lancaster, PA

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  1. Not the best photo but it’s the most recent one I have. It’s really a postage stamp of an airport and sometimes the ceiling and vis gets pretty low. I’ve had more than one occasion of an LPV to minimums that have resulted in a missed approach. You can see the approach to 10 and what the clearway looks like now. If I remember right it took about 9 months for the X-ray to come out after the Y was shutdown for encroachment issues. Not surprisingly the trees were cut shortly thereafter as the politicians sought other ways to reduce traffic. One clever tactic the local pols used was to withhold funds to fix runway and taxiway lights. Needless to say the feds got involved in that one. Something about federal money to a public use airport and safety of flight trumped local politics.
  2. The 4.2deg glides slope is the big difference. A while back the township refused to cut the trees for the clear way on the approach to 10 and the Zulu was notam'd out. They came up with the steeper X-ray so you could still get in. Even visual approaches at night were not allowed because of the trees and the vgsi being set for around 3.3deg. Lots of politics for a "small town" airport.
  3. The audio in the video is eerie. You can hear the rocket fire and see the chute deploy. The dogs are barking and kids are playing. Didn’t hear any signs of an engine running. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t though. Sorry to hear he didn’t make it
  4. If it’s radio silence and you don’t get a reply, drive on. I’ve had it happen a few times over the years approaching the field VFR. After trying on both radios I knew it was not on my end. I self announced on tower freq as if the tower was closed and entered the pattern and landed normally. All while looking for light gun signals of course. The surprise landing usually gets their attention up in the tower. IFR - I’ll swap back over to approach and they usually straighten it out. It sounds like it worked out for you in the end. Sorry you had to deal with the weather.
  5. Another great video by Paul. Helicopters are truly a niche within aviation and he breaks it down very well.
  6. SAS on the S-76 is one component of a complex Automatic Flight Control System that easily rivals advanced systems on high flying jets. The AFCS is a combination of SAS, autopilot/yaw damper and flight director functions that completely couple to all 4-axis (pitch, roll, yaw and collective). Hand-flying in IMC is a non event. The SAS smooths the ride by automatically providing up to 10% control authority with out any input from the pilot. It basically dampens out any external inputs. Hand flying I set the collective and forget it. Feet on the floor because yaw is controlled by turn coordination and once the cyclic is trimmed out all that is required is pressure/counter-pressure to maintain any desired attitude. With the flight director coupled, 100% control authority is given to the AFCS via the autopilot, flight control computers and trim motors attached to the various flight controls. The pilot tells the flight director what vertical and lateral path to take and with the fourth axis (collective/power) also directs the speed to fly. As an example, pressing one button on the collective will automatically roll wings level with pitch and climb set to a pre-computed attitude and power setting which guarantees recovery and climb out....”go around mode.” Long way around to say that the S76 is one of the safest and pilot friendly IFR machines around. Nothing unsafe about helicopter IFR/IMC with the right training. Having a nice helicopter to do it in is even better. Just like everything in aviation, helicopter IFR is just a tool to use when it’s the safer or faster way to do the trip. Holding outside controlled airspace waiting to pick up a SVFR is a waste of everyone’s time and money considering I’m in a machine that is capable of almost every single approach available at any particular airport. And I have lower IFR landing minimums because I’m in a helicopter!!! (CAT 1 lower mins only) Here’s a cockpit shot of a fully coupled ILS into JFK’s 4L. Appch told me to keep the speed up because I was ahead of an a380. Then had to tell me to slow down because I had 25 kts on an a320 in front of me. I broke out at minimums and used a decel function on the flight director that slows me to 70kts and an automatic level off at 50ft right down the centerline. On this flight I ended up air taxiing over to parking and was inside eating a sheltair cookie before the a320 was even to the gate.
  7. Absolutely possible to do it with semi rigid designs. The only limitation is you have to maintain positive G. Unloading a rotor of that design has flapping and feathering issues that may cause a portion of the system to contact the mast (aka mast bumping). Fully articulated rotor heads on the other hand are fully aerobatic and will even take negative G. That is the system used on all S-76 series of helicopters.
  8. The accident model helicopter has a normal cruise speed of 140-155kias at the altitude it was flying at. With 150kias in level forward flight I can pitch up 30° and achieve a near 4000 ft./min. rate of climb. Airspeed will bleed off but the resulting altitude change is dramatic. Pitching the nose up 30° in ‘wings-level’ flight in any helicopter at any forward indicated airspeed will result in a positive rate of climb until the indicated airspeed is zero. Upon reaching zero indicated airspeed and with no change in the nose up pitch the helicopter will then begin to accelerate in the opposite direction now trading altitude for airspeed - in a negative direction of course. All things being equal (same power setting and same 30° nose up ) the helicopter will return to the speed and altitude as when the nose up maneuver began - albeit with a vector 180° opposite. Think of it as if you’re rolling a marble up a giant skateboard ramp at 50 kts. Once the marble runs out of kinetic energy it will roll right back down. Same thing happens in a helicopter - all things being equal. Just like everything aerodynamic helicopters like to fly pointy end forwards. But I can fly this helicopter backwards and sideways at 35kts relative airspeed all day long (normal operating limitation). Pardon the crude drawing.
  9. +4 on sheppard air. Plan on studying Sunday through Thursday and taking your test on Friday. The first four nights are going through the modules and the fifth night is taking the practice test/s. You’ll be plenty ready by Friday. Follow their instructions and you can’t go wrong. Money back guarantee if you don’t get a 90%. 70 is passing if I remember right.
  10. Who did you end up going with, Terry @N6758N? I’m in the Philly area but can travel.
  11. Pretty good mountain wave going on today around the Appalachian’s. Winds at 9000 from the west-northwest at 50kts. The ridge waves show up pretty good on the satellite imagery on my ForeFlight. Couldn’t see it at the time but sure could feel it. A little bumpy in the front range today.
  12. Sounds like STC group is looking for a few volunteers to install a trio autopilot in their plane. He wants owners to reach out to him via email - not through the forum. But I’m a product of the Louisiana education system so my comprehension of his post may be completely wrong.
  13. Sounds like getting in ahead of the weather and leaving after it is a solid plan. Should be a great trip for you guys. Of course any day we get to fly is always good. Best of luck to your buddy in his plane search.
  14. 1000’ msl/agl works great for that VFR route. No one else is usually at that altitude. Head northwest out of FOK and navigate generally along a route VPJAY-ZABKI-DECKR-COL. That will take you right by glen cove, south of westchester’s delta and north of LGA’s surface area. Just don’t forget 123.05 for the river CTAF when you’re over the Hudson. Once you get to the Colts Neck VOR give Mcguire approach a call on 124.15. The frequency is manned by Air Force controllers (read: lots of training goin’ on). They are always eager to help out in picking up an IFR. If you’re like me and like to listen rather than get flight followIng you can tune 120.05 out of FOK and then switch to 120.8 once you get to the outer ring of the Bravo. When the frequency’s are busy it’s a lot of fun hearing the professional rhythm of both the pilots and the controllers. (Disclaimer: I generally get flight following but in the NYC area, unless I am going to require VFR access to their airspace, I just monitor). One more thing - Keep current on the TFRs for the area. Yankee and Shea stadium are two regular ones as well as the permanent one on the south side of Central Park. Yankees TFR blocks the Hudson around the GW bridge. There are others coming up too but my rule when TFRs are up is to get flight following. The controllers will steer you in the right direction ;) Do you have a timeframe for your trip yet?
  15. My wife just recently talked me into letting go of my king vhs tapes. It was a sad day. I have always done procedure turns on the depicted side and still do. It wasn’t until flying with these advanced GPS’ that I looked into, “why is it taking me into the non-protected side?” that I discovered what ‘protected’ really meant and how it was derived. More important for all of these modern systems is understanding not only how they work but the ‘why’ behind what they are doing. This is a good example. In every case the gps navigator is doing exactly what it is supposed to do or what you’ve asked it to do. Sometimes I come across a gotcha and I’ll revert back to King primacy and hand fly the way I was taught. If only we had the vhs player still...
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