Jerry 5TJ

I have been to SnF a couple of times. I go to Bartow, park the plane on the pavement there, and rent a car from the lobby desks.

Two person professional crew, always IFR, Part 121 and thorough operations manuals. Quite a different culture. Perhaps a more useful example for us is Part 135 operations, some flying single pilot in the same class of aircraft we fly.

If you have a Garmin GTN750 or 650 — You can fly the visual approach to (just about) any runway and get vertical guidance from 3 miles out. Here is a Garmin blog on Terminal Environment Safety: Visual Approach Guidance

ForeFlight suggests routes that have been cleared by ATC and the altitudes assigned. Select the Aeronautical Map to show a plan view and the MEA is displayed if you touch any segment of your route. The route profile will graphically show MOCA. And the profile view can show forecast icing in a vertical display.

I have two flight students who took a pause last March due to CoVid. One is an ER physician & the other a surgeon, both frequently are around patients with the virus. Back then it seemed prudent to keep our distance. I am scheduled to get my second Pfizer injection in a week and they are now both fully vaccinated. So we plan to resume training next month. We still will be wearing our masks in the cockpit.

The KN62 and KN64 are panel mount DME units with no RNAV capability. They are capable of stand-alone operation or can be tuned by connecting to a compatible VOR radio.

Hey, the KNS80 design is 40+ years old. Those old boxes are doing ok for their age. The OP wanted a non-GPS means of navigation. The KNS80 is one. Of course we could design a better replacement today. For a few thousand AMUs we could even get it certified for you.

I forgot to turn on the green font.

The KNS81 requires an external KN63 remote mount DME and the KDI572 panel display. The all-in-one-box KNS80 is much more common.

How about LORAN C? Oh, wait, the Coast Guard shut down the system a decade ago.

Easy enough to plug a SDR (software defined radio) USB dongle into a Pi. Not hard to decode VOR signals. A few lines of code... DME involves transmitting a pulsed signal and listening for the ground station reply, that’s outside the capability of simple SDR sets. The accuracy would be nothing like a GPS derived systems. But it works. Easier to buy a used KNS80 for a few bucks and install that venerable box.

I suspect that intentional jammers are covering all the main GPS, Galileo, GLONASS and BeiDou frequencies.

You need to see "Magenta inside the approach" on the Flight Plan page -- If for example your Flight plan page looks like this JUGMO KMTN RNAV GPS 33 Approach JUGMO CINDI RWY33 and you are headed to the first JUGMO intersection in that list, no, the approach won't activate or sequence (at least not until after first proceeding to KMTN, then back to JUGMO). If instead your flight plan page looks like this JUGMO KMTN RNAV GPS 33 Approach JUGMO CINDI RWY33 where the active next waypoint is the second JUGMO ("inside the approach") then yes, the GTN750 will sequence to the RNAV approach. {Unless of course you fly east of the cone of confusion on an odd-numbered day, in which case the back course localizer will be active}

Not a course, but a training tool https://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=3531 is useful for learning the menu procedures and 530 operations.

Pull the King Attitude Indicator’s circuit breaker and you’ll find out.

2021 Hopes Finish up the few students I’ve been working with during CoVid. Fly my own plane around the country to visit people and places as we did pre-pandemic. Get a SES rating in a Republic SeaBee this summer — for no reason other than fun.

Wow. I hope you’re wrong about that being widely believed, but it’s possible, alas. I’ve read that in the 1920 -30s pilots trapped on top would sometimes deliberately spin down through the clouds as they knew a stable spin could be maintained with no attitude instruments. Me, I’d rather fly a coupled LPV approach.

Accident was around 2045 Zulu. Weather wasn’t terrible at that time, based on nearby METARS, but the VOR approach into Y47 was clearly not going to work. Too bad he didn’t divert to PTK a dozen miles NE where an ILS and LPV are available.

A long flight, PIREPs for icing and turbulence, a low freezing level, a non-precision approach with reported ceiling below MDA, a fairly short and narrow runway, and no instrument rating. What could possibly go wrong?

I divide the issue into two — one: entry/exit ease. The Mooney is about like most small low wing planes in this area. Piper, Cirrus, etc will be similar, except the vintage Mooney has just one door. two: comfort in the seat for several hours. Once in, can you get and stay comfortable? You’re not going anywhere until you land. New seat foam and fabric can help.

I also carried a backup bottle. When above 18,000 and a second person is on board I have them use the portable bottle for redundancy.

A clean-burning LNG powered Mooney. I like it! Of course even after you get the vacuum insulated fuel tanks FAA certified (...) the LNG inside is still boiling away at a stable -130C at 100 psi. (Just to pick a point on the LNG phase state diagram). Even with fabulous insulation the wing skins are likely to be very cold. Encounter rain and the wing will be iced over instantly. Self-induced SLD, so to speak. Maybe a set of TKS panels can be modified to seep natural gas vapor past combo VG/igniters and spread flames over the wing skins to deice them. And augment thrust. High temperature paint will be needed. Should be spectacular at night and you won’t need position lights. When parked on the ramp the vented gaseous methane can be used for engine preheat or to run a BBQ grill for real $100 burgers.

FlightAware does indeed use FAA flight plan data as well as several other sources including a network of over 25,000 receiver sites. FlightAware Data Sources

Although you do not have to take the knowledge test again you could use the Sheppardair CFI and CFII software to review. The software is good at identifying areas you need to review or learn. And they are not expensive.

I like to dream about the next great thing as much as the next guy. Maybe more. But like you I didn’t wait for the $2K autopilot or a 300 knot new Mooney chimera to materialize. I’m happy to have flown with successively more capable Garmin panels for over a decade. Looking forward to new aviation innovations, but not just waiting for them.