WardHolbrook

For you guys with electric gear I would suggest that, the next time your airplane is up on jacks for a gear swing, you avail yourself of the opportunity to extend the gear using the emergency extension procedure. I've done it with several different makes and models of airplanes and with a couple of them, it was a real eye-opener - nothing at all like what we had been lead to believe that it would be like.

I guess before you can be old and wise you have to be young and foolish. Sigh. I don't remember how much money I was given, but back then 100 octane cost 45 cents a gallon so an hour's worth of fuel was about $5. I think the the full-blown rental price on that 1967 Mooney Ranger was $45 - way too rich for my blood at the time. (I was a checker at Albertson's making $1.50 an hour) It was a different time back then - most guys soloed at around 8 hours. The 7AC Champ I learned to fly in cost me $4 an hour wet. After I received my Private license in 1967 I could rent a Cessna 170 for $7 an hour wet. I had to rent something with more than basic VFR instrumentation for my PPL checkride so I paid $60 for a 10 hour block (wet) on a new Cessna 150. I think my private cost me a little over $500 all in. Oh well, enough of that. I miss the good old days.

I've never owned a Mooney, but over the years I've logged several hundred hours in them. My first Mooney experience was back in January of 1968, in a brand, spanking new 1967 Mooney M20C. I had my private license and right around 80 hours - all of it in Aeronca Champs, Cessna 150s, and Cessna 170s. Mooney had a special promotion going, for $16 - your friendly local Mooney dealer would put you in the left seat and give you a demo flight that would last 30 minutes or so. It sounded like a good deal to me so that's what I did. If I recall correctly I made a couple of passible landings. Back then, there were no endorsement requirements and that brief encounter was all of the Mooney specific training I ever got. Six months later, a business associate of my father flew his Mooney M20E into town to meet with my father and to have some work done on the airplane. After the work was performed, there was some disagreement as to whether or not the bill had been paid (it had) and the friendly folks at the maintenance shop paddle locked the tiedown chains. An attorney was consulted and the owner was advised to cut the chains and get the airplane "out of Dodge." The owner called me at home, I was a junior in high school, and asked me if I had ever flown a Mooney. I told him yes, but that it had been a few months. He told me to hurry and meet him at the airport. When I got there, he gave me a bunch of gas money & expense money and the keys and told me to go have some fun. I was asked to keep moving around the country for a few days and I wasn't supposed to tell him where I was at or where I was going so he wouldn't be lying if anyone asked if he knew where the airplane was - he could honestly say that he didn't know. I jumped in the airplane, pulled the handbook out of the glove box and got the fuel injected Lycoming started. I remember getting out to the runup pad and quickly reading the manual to get the various speeds and power settings and away I went. I flew to a nearby town and shot a few landings to get comfortable with it then I called a couple of my flying buddies and off we went for 3 days of flying fun. It was definitely one of the dumbest tricks I ever pulled, but it was legal back then.

My experience in dealing with convective weather wasn’t all gained in jets by any means. However, my technique doesn't vary with the type of equipment I happen to be flying. As I have said previously, personally I use the Stormscope to determine if the area is safe to transit (NO Discharges showing on the display) and then some sort of weather radar to circumnavigate the area. The reason being is that while it's good at detecting areas of convective turbulence, a Stormscope lacks the close-in resolution to be able to pick your way safely through it. When it comes to tackling weather like this, whether you’re IFR in a jet or VFR in a light single you DO have to be able to see it - however, you can see it using on board avionics just as well as you can see it with your own two eyes. That is where the Stormscope / Radar combination comes into play. You need to remember this about weather radar (airborne and ground based) - essentially all it can show you is dirt and water. If all you're seeing is dirt then you've got the tilt set too low. As for water, the assumption is made that where there's atmospheric water (rain) that's being displayed it is accompanied by turbulence. In other words, if you've got precipitation you've got turbulence and that's not always true. The spherics detectors (Stormscopes) detect electrical discharges in the atmosphere generated by turbulence - a much more reliable way to detect it. Some of the ground based dopler radars that we can receive in the cockpit are very capable at detecting turbulence, the only problem there is that by the time you actually get the updated information into the cockpit it can become "stale". Refresh rates are problematic. Bottom line for me is this... 1. Any time you screw around with convective turbulence you've got to be visual. However, you can see it with your avionics just as well as you can see it with your own two eyes. The operative words are SEE and AVOID. 2. Red/magenta returns whether or not associated with turbulence (as indicated by the stormscope) are always too much. Anything less, when accompanied with a "clear" Stormscope display is a just free airplane power wash. Precipitation on the radar and no "dots" on the stormscope = smooth, but wet ride. No precipitation on the radar and dots on the stormscope = bumps, you don't want to be there. Precipitation on the radar and dots on the stormscope = big bumps and you really don't want to be there. 3. I'll take a stormscope and on board wx radar as my first choice any day. If on board wx radar isn't an option then XM radar can be a workable substitute, BUT you have to know and respect its limitations. 4. XM weather by itself is not a substitute for the stormscope / radar combination, but it's better than nothing.

I absolutely agree. The problems arise when guys try to use XM weather as if it were airborne weather radar. It seems that every year we get to read NTSB accident reports about folks who make that mistake.

I'm a new comer to the Fltplan.com party. Up until a year or so ago, when they closed down, I had been a 20+ year Flitesoft user. Circumstances forced me into looking for something else. I miss Flitesoft, it's capabilities and accuracy, once you got everything dialed in, were simply amazing. I turned to FP.com because that's what everybody else seemed to be using. It took me a couple of months to adjust my personal SOPs and get comfortable with everything, but now I completely understand why it's so popular among the IFR pros out there. I don't use all of the features. We use a program called Ultra-Nav for W&B and takeoff/landing performance calculations and old fashioned paper checklists (together with flows) for our normal procedures. All in all, it's pretty much what you are used to, but if it takes you an hour to plan a two hour cross country flight you could probably find a better way to do it.

It's not enough to have weather radar on board, you've got to know how to interpret what you're looking at. Attenuation can kill you.

I think it's basically just a matter of your personal SOP. I like the fact that I can go to the website and very quickly and easily come up with routing for the city pairs that we typically go too, down load all of the applicable winds, weather, notams, TFRs etc, notify the FBO(s) of our ETA and needs and finally send our passengers trip info sheets. I appreciate the computerized flight planning that is easy to "dial in" for your particular airplane(s). I don't care what you're flying, from a light single to the largest bizjet, the times and fuel burns are bang on. The accuracy and completeness of the information is great as well as the speed and ease at which you can put together a flight plan. I figure no more than 10 minutes per leg - regardless of the distance. I do a lot of non-stop, coast to coast flying and it seldom takes more than 10 minutes to put together, file and print everything out. Easy peasy and it's free. And then there are the checklists, W&B charts, IFR expected route. departure and arrival notifications, and several other neat and helpful tools. Over the years, I've used just about every way to gather info and flight plan. The easiest is, of course, using services like Universal and the other $$$ flight planning services. For domestic US / Canada flight planning Fltplan.com is as good as any of the paid programs. You have to put up with some annoyances but then you're not having to shell out $$$ per flight plan either. But you're right, it's a bit clunky but they do periodically make improvements. Overall, it just a matter of spending some time playing around with it until it becomes part of your personal SOP. I'd better stop while I'm ahead, I'm starting to sound like a Fltplan.com ad.

What you say about the UI is true, but its overall utility has made it the defacto standard for bizjet flight planning. It's all there, everything you would need, in one location. The "clunkyness" goes away with just a little experience using it.

Why not use the one in "Tools" at Fltplan.com? If you guys aren't using fltplan.com for your flight planning you are missing out on probably the best deal in aviation. It's probably the single most useful aviation website out there and it's free.

It's tragic whenever anything like this happens, but it's especially tough when it happens to family members or friends. I'm praying for all involved. Hopefully, there will be some way to extract something good from all of this.

I am too. I don't want to sound like I'm picking on Dave - from his posts, he seems like a very conscientious pilot - but I honestly feel that you need use your "daily driver" for your BFR. Granted, there may be legitimate reasons not to such as when you get an additional rating or "killing two birds with one stone" by using specialized training such as a tail wheel endorsement or basic aerobatic training in conjunction with the BFR. In that case, the pluses of the additional special training more than make up for the minuses of not taking your BFR in type. But the bottom line is this - If you own a complex, high-performance single or twin it's utter foolishness to take your BFR in a simple, basic ASEL, even though it might be completely legal, it's not smart. A smart pilot would get regular refresher training in every type aircraft that s/he flies on a regular basis. As a general rule, we need more training not less and a basic BFR every two years is not enough.

Very well said. Now I've got a question for you... You own a Mooney, why did you take your BFR in a Cherokee?

I believe that the single biggest lesson that I've learned in 15,000 hours is that whenever I find myself in a hurry or rushing, I need to slow down and proceed at a very measured and deliberate pace. You do not save any meaningful amount of time by rushing through things and the risk of missing something significant increases significantly - a lesson that, unfortunately, I've learned on more than one occasion.

Talking about cooperative ATC... This past Friday, I had planned a non-stop flight from BED to SNA via a routing (KBED HYLND SYR HEC.KAYOH5 KSNA) that I have used dozens of times in the past. The was some convective weather along the route, but the routing would have taken us comfortably north of it along the great-circle route. Just as we were crossing over into New York, ATC came up and gave us the mother of all reroutes - basically they wanted us to turn about 90 degress and go direct SAX, then keep going south along the southern US border into southern California. We plugged the route into the FMS and checked our fuel status. The reroute was going to add 2+ hours to our flight time and require 30 minutes more fuel than we had on board. We mentioned that to the controller and he said he would check to see if they could offer us a better routing. I told him if they couldn't we would end up having to land somewhere for additional fuel. The controller came back a few minutes later and said that we would have to remain on the revised routing. We immediately asked for a climb to FL380 and slowed to long-range cruise to "start making some fuel" (Jets are good like that.) A little while later we asked for FL400. Once we were handed off off to a new controller we started "working" them for "direct somewhere down the line" routings. They told us they didn't understand why we'd been given what we'd been given, but they were very cooperative and it wasn't too long before we were finally cleared direct TNP (Twentynine Palms) and then it was game on. We stayed at FL400 and were able to let our speed come back up to .84 mach. This little reroute only ended up costing us 25 minutes additional time. My point in all of this? Everything is subject to negotiation. Granted, sometimes you won't get very far, but that shouldn't keep you from trying. In our case, whatever had been driving their decision for our specific reroute had gone away fairly quickly and we were able to get cleared back on to a much more cost effective routing. As it was, we were able to land at SNA to drop off our company people and then continue on to SBA without having to refuel as as per our original plan.

I've been asked to hold off for a short while due to conflicting traffic, but I've never been refused. The problem that you run into when diverting is that everyone tends to go for the same hole in the line. It's interesting to watch on the TCAS.

That was my first thought as well. Brothers to the Rescue is a worthy group in a great cause and they use Skymasters. Their approach is very professional so it will be interesting to find out "the rest of the story" on this one. Or it could be some guys out screwing around in an old clapped out C337 and simply ran the thing out of gas.

You guys have got it figured out. The bottom line is that it's all about avoidance and that has to be done visually, either with the old-fashioned eyeball or with the various "electronic eyeballs" that you need to use when you're IMC. Please be VERY careful when you're betting the farm with XM weather. "Most" of the time, it's just fine, but there are days and situations when it's way too slow to be of any practical help tactically. Yesterday I flew from SNA to BED and had to fly through 2 lines of very significant weather. Our Falcon 900 is well equipped for this - we have weather radar, dual LSS (spherics detector) and XM weather. We were at FL410 and could "eyeball" most of the weather. The tops were growing at an incredible rate and XM was next to useless for anything other than basic awareness that "yes, there is some bad stuff over in that direction." It just couldn't keep up with all of the action. So as far as the use of "electronic eyeballs" go, you've got to completely understand the equipment you're using, including its strengths, weaknesses and limitations. You've got to make sure that you never ever out fly your "eyes". Something that's all too easy with XM weather. That's like out-driving your low-beams at night - not too smart. When it comes to flying at night, you've just got to accept the fact that there will be those cells that you can't see that you're going to fly through. With experience you get pretty good at figuring out where they are, but you're still going to fly through them on occasion.

I hear what you guys are saying about avoidance and I could not possibly agree more. The entire point of airborne wx radar, spherics detectors, XM weather and all of the other tools we have to choose from is for avoidance, not to aid in penetration. Here's a question, for you guys who fly at night - how do you keep out of those small cells that we are talking about, many of which are too small ti be painting on the radar or throwing sparks for the spherics detectors? What keeps you guys who fly IFR at night out of these?

You wouldn't think so, but the Mexicans aren't as agreeable to stuff like that. (As the Turbo Commander pilot discovered) Unlike Canada, they don't like it when you overfly the Mexican border and enter their airspace, for whatever reason. That's one example of having to take matters into your own hands.

http://avwxworkshops.com/index_guest.php

FYI, Weather Flying is now up to the 5th edition. It's most recent edition was released last year. Caption Buck passed away a few years back, but his son, retired TWA Capt Robert O Buck, has included how to use the internet and other modern sources of weather info. The book remains one of the best sources of up-to-date weather training our there.

One of the things a new instrument pilot needs to learn is that ATC clearances need to be treated as "suggestions" (albeit VERY strong suggestions) and that occasionally, they will "suggest" you fly a route, heading or altitude that either isn't feasible or will put you at risk. That's when you have the obligation to say "unable". In the early 1980's I saw a Turbo Commander sitting in a hangar at a factory service center that had bent a wing spar during an inadvertent T-Storm penetration. (The airplane was totaled - the wings were bent upward and one of the engines was loose in the mounts! The pilot was able to keep the airplane in the air and make a safe emergency landing. Those things were built like bricks - GREAT airplanes!) It was a scenario where ATC wasn't willing to give the pilot a clearance to deviate the way the pilot wanted, it would have resulted in the airplane flying into Mexican airspace. The pilot's mistake was not insisting and simply telling ATC what he had to do to ensure the safety of his airplane and passengers. Guys, I've made this suggestion before and I'll make it again - go on Amazon and get two books, Weather Flying by Robert Buck and Instrument Flying by Richard Taylor. Read those books through cover-to-cover a few times. Take notes. Weather Flying will help you understand how to fly weather and Instrument Flying will help you to understand how to work "the system". You can learn this stuff the hard way, by getting a few hundred hours of actual under your belt, or you can learn it the easy way by doing some reading. Your choice.

Let's not forget that the OP said it had been 25 years since the engine's LAST overhaul. Twenty five years and 1200 hours on a first run (new) engine is one thing, 25 years and 200 hours since an overhaul is something completely different or at least very well could be. Which overhaul - the first? The second? The answer to that question is going to have a huge impact on the financial risk and overhaul costs the next time around. In my humble opinion, he has absolutely no other prudent choice but to assume that engine is run out and make his offer to the seller accordingly. Now I realize that will probably PO the seller, after all, it's his "baby" and of course, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that engine. (That's what they all say.) That's all well and good, but it is what it is. Let someone else be the one who over pays for the airplane, then finds that he's way upside down in it after he finally gets all of the engine issues resolved. In other words, keep moving folks, there's nothing to see here.

No it's not.