jkenney

Love to hear a PIREP on the IFD-540 once its up and running!

One of the earlier posters mentioned a slam dunk approach into KSNA. Same thing happens to me every time I fly into Torrance(KTOA) from the northwest. ATC keeps me at 8000 feet until clear of LAX traffic then descends me rapidly to join the KTOA ILS. They also give you very tight turns to (1) keep away from heavy practice area traffic south of Long Beach and (2) keep well clear of airliner traffic descending into either Long Beach or John Wayne. Without speedbrakes it would be a much more significant challenge to descend and keep my speed under control. In my case they are needed and much appreciated.

Time is coming up for my Ovation's annual. I have taken my plane to Top Gun in Stockton the past two years and have had good experience but I am thinking about someplace closer to my homebase (Torrance). Feel free to PM me if you don't want to comment on an open forum. Thanks in advance!

Thanks for the replies. Definitely was TEC, sounded like TAC to my unfamiliar ears. I have flown from KCRQ to KTOA numerous times and they always gave me the full route clearance. Same with Gillespie.

Hi all, I flew from Montgomery Field (San Diego) to Torrance, CA today. I filed Direct MZB V23 SLI Direct KTOA, a pretty simple flight plan by Southern California airspace standards. The clearance I was given was a left turn to 270, radar vectors Oceanside, then "N-3 TAC Routing San Diego" Direct KTOA. I told the controller I was unfamiliar with this terminology so he read me the full clearance, which was the same as what I filed originally Anyone here familiar with this clearance and if so, where do I find the description of what this terminology means? Thanks in advance!

I have an Ovation Based out of Zamperini Field in Torrance (KTOA). Getting out of the LA basin IFR usually means MEA's in the 10-12K range. The highest I have taken my Ovation was 13k, when I flew it from Texas to Phoenix. I would echo some of the comments people have made about getting up into the 15k range, which really means a turbo. The main reason I would prefer the extra altitude is because I get a decent amount of turbulence over the mountains and deserts at the 10-12k altitude and based on my conversations with other pilots who fly around the Socal area and deserts, a lot of that goes away when you are a few thousand feet higher.

I have done about 8 PnP trips since signing up last summer. They are great fun and seeing the joy in the new owners eyes when you show up with the dog makes it all worth it. Seeing so many requests that I cannot help on really hurts though.

Thanks both for the great info. I am going to be in the downtown area and will come in IFR, so based on what you both have mentioned I am leaning towards Falcon. The reviews I read on the Deer Valley FBO are outstanding, but having never been to any of these fields I am a bit wary of trying to find the field while simultaneously dodging significant pattern traffic at DVT.

I am flying to Scottsdale for the holiday weekend. Looking for any advice on airports to fly into. Deer Valley and Falcon Field look roughtly equidistant from Scottsdale. Scottsdale Muni is clearly the closest, but I have read that it's more oriented toward the jet crowd. Any advice regarding ease of flying into or out of those three fields and the quality of your experiences would be greatly appreciated! Jim Kenney N9154X, based at KTOA

Hawthorne is definitely closest to your destination. Next closest is either Santa Monica or Torrance. I have not flown into either Hawthorne or Santa Monica, but I am based at Torrance and I can attest that it is a great GA airport. If you are flying IFR into Torrance they are likely to bring you in via V459 from Visalia then usually give you a vector once you are south of the LAX flightpath. Be prepared for a slam dunk approach if you do the ILS 29 into Torrance. You can check out my flights into Torrance on flightaware (N9154X). They are not that bad in VMC conditions, especially if you have speedbrakes. I do not have a traffic system in my a/c so I almost always fly IFR in and out of the basin.

Congratulations Steve! When you have a little more time if you could post us on what happened and how you responded I would love to have the opportunity to learn from your experience.

Great story, Depressing to hear how you were treated by customs. There once was a time when the US welcomed visitors

I know it has been mentioned here before but it looks like Avidyne has officially announced a drop in replacement for the GNS 430. http://www.aopa.org/aircraft/articles/2012/120705avidyne-ifd440.html Having been very impressed with the IFD 540 I am keeping my fingers crossed that Avidyne does as nice a job with this one.

The preliminary report from the NTSB is out. This site has the text and it appears to confirm that the plane encountered severe convective activity http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?do=main.textpost&id=066c7dfd-eab1-4f94-938b-ef10278a01bc To me the most chilling part is the timeline. He gets a warning from the controller at 12:32 and barely four minutes later the entire family is dead.

I am getting an oil change done on my Ovation and the mechanic doing the work is recommending this oil filter. http://www.challengeraviation.com/newproducts.html It's pricey at $295 but supposedly allows for an increased interval between oil changes, better cooling, etc. He says he has them on his own aircraft and will share 7 years of oil analysis with me. Curious if anyone in the community has one of these on thier Mooney and what their experience has been. Thanks in advance Jim

Thanks for all the thoughtful replies. I was expecting the visual approach and had I planned it better I could have slowed up and configured for the approach before the descent. Because I was relying on the speedbrakes instead of good planning to get me to where I needed to be, I was immediately behind the a/c once I got the unexpected instruction about the class B airspace. Stuff like this is what makes flying so enjoyable, you are always confronting new challenges and, hopefully, learning from them.

I had an interesting experience this past weekend and wanted to get some input from all of the IFR guru's out there. I was flying into North Las Vegas Airport (KVGT) from the Los Angeles area on an IFR flight plan. I have done this twice in VMC and both times ATC has brought me up the west side of the Las Vegas Class B at 9000ft, which basically keeps me out of the Class B airspace. About 10 miles away and nearly abeam the airport I was cleared for a visual approach to runway 30. This required me to drop 6000 feet in short order to get down to pattern altitude. Boy I was grateful for the speedbrakes on the Ovation. A few miles closer to the airport the approach controller switches me over to tower who instucts me to enter a left base for runway 30. Given my high descent rate (about 1500ft per minute at this point) I make a slight turn to the right to make sure that my base leg is not too tight and that I have time to slow down and configure for landing. At this point the tower tells me "turn left 15 degrees to avoid Class B airspace". I complied with the instruction, which made my base considerably tighter than I was comfortable with, I was able to line up with the runway, but my airspeed was higher than I would have liked. I got things under control by using speedbrakes on final, something I almost never do. Obviously there are a number of things I could have done to get to a much more stable approach profile, such as a descending 360 or badgering ATC for a vector that would have allowed me to descend earlier (they kept me at 9k for terrain clearance). None of this would have been an issue if I had been allowed to fly the wider base leg that I was setting up for orginally. So my question to the group is about a visual approach on an IFR flight plan. My understanding is that it is an "instrument approach procedure", which on an IFR flight plan should have meant that I had clearance into the Class B airspace, is that correct? Does the tower instruction to avoid the Class B now supercede my earlier approach clearance? Given that the instruction caused me to fly a more difficult approach profile should I have said I could not comply and flown into the Class B? I am very interested to hear what the community thinks, or how others would have responded.

This weekend took a cross country from my homebase of KTOA to KSQL. Decided to do a GPS Z approach into SQL for proficiency, even though weather was VMC. About 15 miles out got a call from ATC: "Mooney 9154x, slow approach speed 20 knots to avoid overtaking a Skylane on 7 mile final" I said to my wife "That is why I bought a Mooney!"

I hope the FAA goes easy on her. Hate to see people get in trouble because they dont follow the President's schedule closely enough

Looks like we lost another plane & pilot today. RIP http://www.thekathrynreport.com/2011/07/mooney-m20k-n777cv-pilot-dies-in-small.html

The Skyradar definitely looks like an interesting option as well. The great thing is that we seem to be moving rapidly towards fairly integrated applications at steadily lowering costs, which of course will be absorbed by the ever increasing cost of Avgas.

In case you Foreflight users had not seen it, Foreflight is now offering georeferenced approach and taxi plates. I had been holding off on buying a Bad Elf because I have a Garmin Aera + 430W and the GPS on the Ipad did not do much for me incrementally. But if the Ipad + Bad Elf + georeferenced plates works well it seems like a game changer. Hopefully it will lead to some price competition among various providers of data for our various GPS devices.