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Nick Pilotte

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Everything posted by Nick Pilotte

  1. Lots of options for airports. If nothing else, KLAF is about 60 minutes north on I-65. Call around and see what’s available. Indy has a pretty nice outer loop to help with traffic and I find it not bad (I live in a Chicago burb). Last time I was at IMS was the week before Tony George left. I called in a favor and a small group of us got a tour of the basement and a lap around the track in our own cars. It was a blast. Try and get a reservation at St Elmo’s downtown by the circle for a great steak. They may be booked solid for that weekend.
  2. Tom, I actually have been thinking about you’d as I sit at work shaking my head at a certain transmission supplier (rhymes with Schmeaton) that I handle now. And I was thinking, I wonder if Tom is experiencing the same pain as our dealers, and how you have been since I’ve been vacant from MS as well. Anyways, congrats, it’s a fine beast, and I hope you continue enjoying flying.
  3. In the case of the airport my friend is at, since it’s within a few miles of ORD, you climb to 1400, then immediate turn East. Depending on the approach you get vectors out over the lake or back to OBK VOR. Another pilot I know who experienced the loss of GPS into PWK before it was notam’d immediately loaded the ILS approach and continued on to break out 300’ AGL.
  4. 1) Appearances can be deceiving (I imagined Anthony looking like an old wise man, he looks like a Mooney driver) 2) cheesesteak and BBQ can add a few pounds the camera hides 3) Mooney’s are fast, even sitting still 4) Jealous because I need a good cheesesteak(they don’t exist in Illinois) PP thoughts only, just a lurker, not an owner
  5. My friend has seen this on a GPS approach into his home airport on his G1000 too. The airport now has a NOTAM stating that approach is not in service and the ILS is to be used. It appears there is something surface based 5 miles and 2 miles out that is disrupting the signals. Because it’s an approach and under a Bravo shelf, I don’t know other implications.
  6. I fly using VORs (not IFR and my CFI wouldnt let me use GPS in my training). In fact my night XC was planned using VOR radials for the turn points. I like it. Now I’m getting used to GPS…….
  7. Photoshopped. Mooney drivers would never spring for an Audi. They’d get the VW.
  8. Actually....That’s part of the reason. Demand for consumer electronics skyrocketed in the last 16 months because a high volume were working from home/e-learning/not traveling, and automotive demands dropped due to less consumers buying/repairing vehicles because they were staying home more. So consumer electronics companies had to go into high gear and their component needs were addressed due to the dwindling automotive industry. Unfortunately the trickledown effect was that more raw materials shortages occurred due to production and staffing impacts. This will take a while to correct itself. edited to add: just in time manufacturing means that parts aren’t allowed/scheduled to arrive until they are needed. So if automotive manufacturers forecast a drop in production needs, they cancel orders for components. Who swooped in and took their place? You guessed it.
  9. Actually, manufactures can’t sell vehicles they can’t get parts for. So it’s a double edged sword. Just in time assembly doesn’t allow for disruptions, especially those that last months. So rental agencies need cars, manufactures need to build cars but can’t get parts because their globally sourced suppliers can’t get parts. As for Dan, I’m wondering if this fuel cost is trickledown effect from the pipeline issue recently or not.
  10. Aside from rental car fees (which are asinine now) Rampfee.me lists Millionair as the FBO at GPT. That site indicates that others have had waived handling fees with $60 in fuel and at least the first night of parking waived. I’m guessing that’s inaccurate now due to Covid shutdowns. Did you by chance call in advance? Just an FYI, the fees shown on Rampfee.me matched what we paid at KIAD on when I flew there with my friend in his VLJ, though we didn’t overnight. So if that’s somewhat accurate, GPT is about the same as IAD. I’ll be honest in saying that I’m a CSOB when it comes to finding travel deals (doesn’t mean I always go with the cheapest though) and I tend to shop multiple rental agencies and weigh cost of a little time if I need to have someone get me to an off airport rental or if they will pick me up. It’s saved me a ton in my travels but sometimes you are pretty stuck with whatever (I do go to some rather rural locations). I know Hertz is known among FBO locations, did anyone know many car dealers offer rental options too? Audi has a very reasonable rental service at a handful of cities too.
  11. That happened to me too. I now have 250 Feather razor blades. And a beard.
  12. I don’t know if she’d let you STC this.... but I’ve seen these too. You could almost do something counter height like that as well
  13. Early in my training, I had a sectional and checklist handy under my leg, and a pad of paper in the pocket by the door (Cessna). It didn’t take long for me to lose the notepad and end up learning unusual attitude recovery that lesson. Then, I learned “engine failure in cruise” when I dropped my sectional and my CFI took advantage of the situation. Emergency procedure became immediate memory items shortly after that. Now, I use just a cheap aluminum kneeboard with a couple sheets of paper and a checklist connected via ring clips through holes I drilled in it. My iPad serves as my map but I do keep a sectional in the back seat just in case. I’d like a Lift or a Flyboys for a place to easily put a pen but I typically wear collared shirts too so that’s just a nice to have for the odd time I have a polo on. My Citation friend has a non-slip pad on his glare shield with a small clipboard and a couple sheets of paper, and his cheap Bic click pens fit in his control lock when it’s not in use. Maybe I just need a Citation.....
  14. Don, why about mounting something like an under-counter mixer stand mechanism upside down? That sounds almost perfect for what you need.
  15. Is it to be manually operated or motorized. Sounds like you need to study a windshield wiper transmission assembly. That has an over enter type mechanism and a return to park position.
  16. I answered slightly in jest. I married his sister so I deserve the service I get. Actually, I can blame him because 20+ years ago, he told me to call her. And I did.
  17. Didn’t some early Bonanzas have a flare tube or something like it? I think some of the 37mm smoke or flare shells would be “pretty awesome”.
  18. I guess it was in reference to what we saw when traveling. I’ll agree there is such a disparity across the country as to levels of “normalcy”. I guess I was just surprised at the volume of closed businesses and lack of workforce. I understand that this is a different dynamic but I’m still surprised. And it pretty much is back to normal here in northern IL too.
  19. Back to travel, I was in Junkman’s back yard a month ago (KGKT) and we found the trip depressing. Unfortunately the area was basically open but everything including the simplest places were so understaffed that the wait times were insane for everything. Even picking up online orders from Dunkin for coffee were an hour ordeal. We gave up on sit down restaurants because the waits were 3 hours and they closed at 8pm. Even the two grocery stores were insane wait times to check out. I spoke to someone that owned a business and they couldn’t get anyone to even apply and he was offering starting pay of $15. For sitting in a gift shop ringing up souvenirs. I can see businesses shuttering because they can’t get staffing to meet the customer base.
  20. Yes @M20Doc, do tell your story please! Inquiring minds want to know.
  21. This will be quite a post. I basically grew up on a grass strip and everybody I knew from when I was age 3-10 had airplanes. My dad had a C150 when I was born, and bought a Cherokee 180 not long after my sister was born when I was 3. Dads good friends were crop dusters, retired Navy pilots, and (flying) farmers. My dad farmed ground around the airport in Monon, IN and so that’s where he kept the 150. The Cherokee was purchased from a neighbor 1 mile away who had an 1800’ grass strip at his house and we kept it there. We flew that plane all over and it was particularly awesome when he’d come home from the field and say, “I think I need to check the crops.” That was code for “We’re going flying”. We lived under a training route for Grissom AFB too so I got to watch F4s fly over at low level (we could see the pilots when they banked for the turn). I was 6 when Top Gun came out so I learned about carrier ops from a crop duster named Steve who flew EA-6s around Vietnam. About 7 I attached a hook to the back of my bike to simulate a trap by tying a rope low between two tree trunks. I learned about Newton’s first law that day when I didn’t bolter. I’d been in planes my entire life but I did Young Eagles when I was about 8 with another crop duster, Joe, but in his Funk. Later, I used to bomb around the countryside with his son who was 2 years younger than me in their Cub during the summer. He had a grass strip at his house and we’d fly there too, even though it was 30 miles away straight shot on a state highway. My 3rd grade book report was on Chuck Yeager’s autobiography, and my teacher (who was old enough that she taught my mom in 3rd grade) had to call and ask what “buying the farm” meant in the flying world. I had my first glider ride with the same CFI that taught my dad and signed his logbook, both the PPL and the IR. I was hooked. When I was 17, I met my wife who had lost her father in a plane crash the year before. I remember the day he crashed because nobody knew who the crop duster was that went down until all the others returned home that night. I talked about flying with her but I never pushed the subject. After we got married, kids came, careers bloomed, and things got in the way. It took until I turned 40 to start lessons myself. my wife signed me up after discussions with her boss who is a pilot too and flies his own Citation. I never felt like I was going to fly and when she handed me the Cessna kit, I figured it was just a bag for my son to use. It’s a slow trip, our careers and kids allow me to fly on Saturday mornings so I do that. If I can master my short field landings without pretending to be grabbing the third wire, I’d be ready for my practical. I love it, even when I’m having the occasional off day and I basically pay for my 23yo instructor to yell at me, I know she knows I am better than the “off day” but it’s a challenge I love. Listening to my earlier liveATC recordings I can tell I’ve grown and I can hang with many of you now on the radio. This is the day she surprised me with my lessons. Also the day My son and I got our first ride in a Citation too.
  22. Congrats Chocks! Enjoy this plane for many miles and smiles.
  23. What sound does a 747 make when it bounces a landing? Boeing, Boeing, Boeing
  24. I said that in jest, I should have said Mercury capsules instead. Just have to make sure Weepnomore is able to reseal them.
  25. You and your 8 cylinders!!!! It’s not a Firebird. Just kidding. My wife’s late father flew a Brave 400. He flew it fast and low. if you were to fit a 720 in the O, you’d need to add STC’d Charlie weights made out of iridium or osmium. Safer than lead, but heavier for the same volume.
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