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Ned Gravel

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Everything posted by Ned Gravel

  1. Ned Gravel
    Lance: The North 40 has improved over the years with more amenities, but until 2015, it was the VAC that had more restaurants, showers and power points for recharge. It is also closer to the airshow "chair line" along 18-36. You have a 66 (one year newer than ours) and it meets the Vintage definition so you can do either. These days the North 40 is better, but the camping will stretch all the way past the two hotels along the northern edge of 09-27. If we are lucky, the Caravan will end up at the 09 end of 09-27 (almost at the very end of the field). If you do end up in the North 40 (GAC), you are one 8 minute bus ride to the Mooney Caravan Tent, and you will find lots of Mooney friends there (even some you don't really need??) If you end up in VAC, it will be significantly more complicated to get to the Caravan Tent (ask Clarence). I have sketched out what I mean in the attached diagram from this year's set of online maps. If you have any more questions, just ask. We were all there once........
  2. Ned Gravel
    I do them. I create and maintain the muscle memory of what is needed in a go-round and it is very close to a touch-and-go. For me, the most significant difference between a go-round and a touch-and-go is the DH/DA. Rejecting an instrument approach after the FAF because DH/DA is reached and the runway environment has not been acquired visually, or for some other reason, is one scenario. Putting it down on the runway to stable roll out and then immediately configuring to T/O because the aircraft is already rolling is the other scenario. There are lots of ways to make a touch-and-go safe. Set T/O flaps (as in an instrument approach) or no flaps for the approach. Either condition does not require touching the flap switch until after reaching 1000' AGL (or not at all in the case of a no-flap landing). [We practice no flap take offs and landings for the Mooney Caravan.]. 3 GUMPS checks before crossing the threshold. Know the "must be airborne by" point on that runway. Do not attempt them on unfamiliar runways. Do not attempt them on runways less than twice your minimum comfortable landing (and T/O) length criteria. For me that is 2500' (normally) unless something has allowed me to become familiar with a runway less than that. So, for me, twice 2500' is 5000'. My home drome is 3300' and I will do that one very, very rarely. Too much traffic and too many students in the circuit ("pattern" for y'all). The one I normally use is 6000' long and 5 nm away (Gatineau Executive Airport - CYND). When I get home from an overseas deployment, the second back-in-the-saddle training includes three non-precision and one precision approach. That involves a possible total of five runways (2 at 4000', one at 5000', one at 8000' and one at 10,000') and I have done touch-and-goes on all of them. I can complete two such sets of approaches in a day fairly easily and get my 6-6-6 in for IFR currency. However, the first flying I do after I get back home is 6 or 7 touch-and-goes at Gatineau. Confirms the cockpit flows and re-animates the muscle memory that will save my life in a bad situation. Wax on, wax off. My personal criteria and more than 800 hours on my own Mooney makes them both manageable and safe. Doing them is a safety issue.
  3. Ned Gravel
    Ah yes..... The MAPA PPP.... Or. "How to stall your Mooney 25 different ways in just two days" There is the departure stall, the climbing turn stall, the base-to-final stall, the collision avoidance stall, the "hold-my-coffee-and-watch-this" stall and the ........ Never scared myself so many times in two days since that time in.... Well I was in the Army then. Best course for a Mooney Driver. Great instructors. You learn to get over your fears and get over yourself. Trust your instincts. Trust your Mooney.
  4. Ned Gravel
    Yay. Ute was asking me about her the other day. Good stuff.
  5. Ned Gravel
    Exactly how many do you have for delivery this year?
  6. Ned Gravel
    I'd like to have a Narco 810 for sale, but Clarence took the CNX 80 for his airplane..............
  7. Ned Gravel
    Cool. Go Pinky!!! Here is today's forecast for Yangon. Cirrus at or above 10,000' here in Bangkok and they are clearing. So landing in Bangkok is going to be less of a problem than getting out of Yangon.
  8. Ned Gravel
    A Mooney Formation Pilot should be able to get anything they want, but I don't believe that is what you are asking. What you may be asking is whether the Council of Elders of the Mooney Caravan will deign to modify Brian's callsign after it was originally assigned. (I did not know Brian flew with the Mooney Caravan, but there is a lot that I do not know.) Your question (if it is what I think it is) is a much more political question and involves lobbyists, scotch, and perhaps the invocations called forth by more than one lawyer (that may be pilots - that may be Mooney pilots - that may also be Caravan pilots - that may serve the Council of Elders - that may even be ON the Council of Elders....). In the ceremony designed to humiliate all Caravan pilots and bestow a callsign on them (ask Buttercup about this), I would vote for one of your suggestions for a new callsign for him. But then, my vote does not really count. I am in Bangkok and today was the day he was scheduled to arrive here. He made it to Yangon today at about 1:30 pm local time I believe. He will not be be flying here today. There are CBs galore between us. Good luck Brian - fly safe!!
  9. Ned Gravel
    Correct as regards cheap national time and frequency standards. I have seen the rubidium ones used in South Asia. Pretty neat. The boxes we used were about 3 inches thick and about 12 inches square - both connected to GPS signals.
  10. Ned Gravel
    Sitting in Bangkok, just in from Yangon and waiting for Brian to show up at the airport on Sunday. Meetings are tomorrow (Friday) and all next week. Then I get to go home for two months, try out the new eyes with the plastic lense implants after cataract surgery and then fly the living Beegees out of my Mooney for as many days as possible. Gooooooo Brian!!!!!
  11. Ned Gravel
    In a city where a hero of the most bloody civil war in history was taken down by the Mahdi and the end of an empire in Africa was signalled. "Some chicken - some neck."
  12. Ned Gravel
    When I read back a PD clearance I include the concept that the manoeuvre (most commonly a descent) will be done at Pilot's Discretion. That way none of them are confused if I start the descent in 2 or 5 or 10 miles. Normally I will wish to stay high because going lower (normally close to or within terminal airspace) will subject me and mine to unnatural toing, froing, upping, and downing from mechanical turbulence (at or below 4000') when staying at or above 6000' allows the continuation of a smoother ride for a bit longer.
  13. Ned Gravel
    Just checked the tracking site. Still on the ground in Brazil. Looks like he would be battling 20-25 kt headwinds to the African coastline.
  14. Ned Gravel
    +1 for Clarence, but I am biased. He saved me a #$^%$ load of money when he did my PPI 13 years ago.
  15. Ned Gravel
    The process at my home drome, until recently, was to fill and note on a piece of paper, but the finish reading of the last person before and your start reading had to match. As did the reading of your finishing and the start reading of the next person. Sort of a backwards way of auditing, but it worked. Today all that is gone. Ministry of the Environment gave the club two years to get new (above ground) tanks to prevent "lead filled petroleum hydrocarbons" from dripping into the ground and pollute the local water table. Now we have one really big tank and a PIN code machine to inextricably tie a person to the gas they pump. Visitors require a line boy.
  16. Ned Gravel
    Three replies to that - and it would only come from the long time happily married gang: 1. Sheepish grin with downturned eyes: "Someone has to do it..." 2. Old sage look, completely inscrutable reciting old Chinese proverb: "Happy wife, Happy life." 3. Wicked grin: "Consideration has its own set of rewards...." And now back to our regularly scheduled discussion about those fearless young men in their flying machines........
  17. Ned Gravel
    Well done Bob.
  18. Ned Gravel
    Flying is best a shared experience. Yah, I know how it feels to launch into the wild blue yonder like that cowboy riding off into the sunset. The loner. The most independent and self reliant person on the globe. Comes with the mystique that defines an "aviator." Mitigates risk he can, accepts risk he cannot mitigate. Runs to the fur ball and not away from it, cause it is what is needed. But you look once at that kid's face when you tell him he/she can do the flying and it is never the same again. And when your girl is with you parked on that little piece of cloud with the miles and miles of "over there" stretched out below you........ life is really good.
  19. Ned Gravel
    I am in Yangon now and sent Brian a note that, depending on how it goes, I could meet up with him here on the day of his "planned" arrival. I leave for Bangkok that evening, one day before he does that leg. Good Luck Brian!!!
  20. Ned Gravel
    I got the AUKEY Car Charger, ULTRA COMPACT Dual Port 4.8A Output for iPhone iPad as well. Got two of them. One for the car and one for the Mooney. Charges an iPad and my Stratus 2 just fine.
  21. Ned Gravel
    Keep up the good work guys. After 22 years sleeping in swamps, and taking Ute in the wild beyond for weeks at a time, we have reached a point where I need a shorter walk to the heads for the two extra trips I make at night now. And not over wet grass where I need to put on shoes to walk. For the last two years, we eschewed our camping background and stayed in a concrete tent near the runway. Not this year. Those folks want a week's worth of money from everyone booking - so we are staying at the University with its shuttle. Transportation may be an issue, but I think we can sort that out. Our tent is being borrowed by a younger couple flying the FISK arrival in an Arrow.
  22. Ned Gravel
    Thanks Tigers. Not really a beer drinker, but I appreciate the offer. PM sent. Same as for everyone else that has demonstrated interest.
  23. Ned Gravel
    That is OK, but for me, it was easier to stop the thing from happening altogether (unlatching of belts) than to keep fixing the thing when it happened (S in GUMPS = relatch the now-unlatched belt).
  24. Ned Gravel
    I used to do the same thing before I got the new push button belts.
  25. Ned Gravel
    I have had a number of types of travel chocks. Cheap hollow triangular sections in plastic that folded like a cheap suit and the skinny ones I got at Oshkosh one year. One of my attempts at cheap failed me when we were parking on the North 40 a couple of years ago and nearly ran into my lead's Mooney. Then I went to the Mooney PPP in Manchester last year and bought a set of solid rubber ones from the FBO. Six inches long and about 3 inches per side of the triangle. All up they weigh maybe 4 pounds, but they are worth it. Good and solid.
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