Becca

Byron and I did this a few Christmas's ago. We went to the Staniel Cay Yacht Club and loved it. My tripadvisor review is here: http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g147432-d151501-r148032073-Staniel_Cay_Yacht_Club-Staniel_Cay_Out_Islands_Bahamas.html#REVIEWS If we go again, Cats and Long Island, and Green Turtle are all on my list. Hopefully we will go again next year. This is a must-do trip! If you go over a holiday book WAY ahead. I personally had a really bad experience with attempting to book the highly-rated Shanna's Cove, so I would not put up with that if I were you, but to each their own. A few pieces of advice: 1. Get some lifetime on your engine before you fly there. We, cough cough, may have lost a brand new mag in north florida that almost delayed our trip. Would have HATE to have that happen before the Bahamas. 2. Don't worry about altitude. The Bahamas are best seen by LOW altitude, not high. What's high altitude going to give you? More time to land in the great big Ocean? The water is warm, blue, shallow, and there was endless boat traffic. There is radar coverage the whole way. You will be seen and rescued. What we did do is plan our route for the shortest water crossing, then we overflew the islands to our end destination. This was scenic and put land below us, though the best emergency landing spot was the water on the lee side of the islands. 3. Beechtalk is an excellent resource for Bahamas flying. We used it quite a bit (they have a more active "trips" thread than we do). I wrote the trip report that's in this thread, scroll down: http://www.beechtalk.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=73270 (I think I did cross post it on Mooneyspace but I can't find it here). The thread over there has pictures, but here are my lessons learned: 4. Most of the islands (the small ones worth visiting) are VFR only. This trip can totally be done as a VFR pilot. 5. The most annoying "customs" part was coming back to the US because you need an appt and some places are only open weekdays 9-5. But I think Fort Lauderdale does have extended hours. My lessons learned Some lessons learned for pilots flying there: 1. We opted for the non-all-inclusive in part because we weren't going to use the boat every day, but also because the 20% "pilot discount" applied only to the non-all inclusive, and if you do the math, even with renting the boat every day, it was worth getting this discount (it cancels out the resort tax). 2. The Bahamas offers a $300 fuel credit if you stay 4 nights at a participating resort. When we booked our reservations, there was a blackout date that began on Dec 21, so it wasn't going to be useful for us. But when we got there, we found out the black out date got moved to Dec 26! However, not even the hotel knew this (though it was clear on the web site, the internet was of course down when we checked out), though they said contact them when we get back to the US. However, when we got back to claim the discount they said they needed a copy of our C7A (cruising permit), which we have, our pilots licenses (which we obviously have) and our immigrations cards - uh, huge problem since they take those from you on departure. They are speaking with the Bahamian tourist board to see if there's some other paperwork we could provide instead, because that's an awesome deal. 3. The internet is super sketchy there - get everything filed that you can file (eapis, IFR/DVFR flight plan, etc.) on file before you leave. The internet was down at least 50% of our stay. 4. Bring tie downs and chocks for all three wheels with you. There was only frayed rope and one or two sets of broken chocks. 5. We had heard that you could pay your departure tax on arrival to save a trip to a customs airport on departure. We tried, they would not allow this or take our money at arrival. Speaking to some other pilots, it sounds like people do leave without clearing customs on the way out. We are kind of rule-abiding types, so we stopped at San Andros to clear customs and pay our departure tax on the way out, it was also fast and efficient. 6. Overall the runways were good quality, a little rough, but nothing to worry about. All fields expect the big ones use 122.8 and it was fun listening to people coming and going up the island chains. 7. Rick Ott + everyone else here, gave us oodles of awesome advice. The only place he steered us wrong was on the marshmellows for the pigs - we brought them four bags of the sweet yummy marshmellows, but they much preferred the bread leftover from the kitchen at the yacht club. I suspect there's a lot of uneaten marshmellows floating around the beaches about now. Also, on the pigs, don't get so close to shore that they can board your boat, because they can, and will.

Hm, an idea... All it takes is a chick to call around to mechanics to learn their true nature. Could do a whole review site just based on that. A not to be named so-called Mooney expert (not the subject of this particular thread) had this conversation with me right after we bought our airplane: Me: "How many hours of labor would you estimate to put on the new alternator (that you didn't catch was broken when you did the pre-purchase inspection)?" Him: "Well, honey, how many stars are there in the sky?" Me: "Well, sir, presuming you've been working on Mooney's for decades, I am going to guess you have at least an approximate answer." Him: "That's just not the way I do business honey. We'll see when we see, all Mooneys are different, and the plane ain't flying without an alternator and I'm the only mechanic on this here field." (The answer turned out to be 6 hrs labor charge to do the job wrong. So about 10 hrs later it fried. We put on the next alternator ourselves, it took us amatuers about 2-3 hrs.)

This particular post aside - this thread is an example of why there is not good airplane mechanic review site. Just no way to do it. Which is unfortunate, because I think it's something our community could use. Personally I have had both positive and negative experiences with various so-called "upstanding" members of the mooney community. Takes all kinds.

A sociology student would understand the difference between cause and effect and correlation. Piloting, as you may all be aware, has a huge demographics problem --- e.g. it is disproportionally white male, and because of the expense, white male in a certain income class. Its a hobby, unfortunately, pursued by a very limited demographic of the American public. Something I'd hope you would all like to see change - and bring more people into the hobby, like women and minorities. 50% of the population is completely uninterested in flying (women), and they have increased spending power every year and far more control over family finances than they ever have in history, and you will find other threads here beoaning the decline of general aviation, such smart guys like you could probaby make the connection on where you could grow this hobby. Note this demographic tends to vote Democrat a lot more than you do and is pretty smart too. But just because the demographic of the flying population is effectively the same as the demographic of the Republican party does not mean "the smarts to be a pilot means you have the smarts to be a Republican". It just means you are a statistic. You are a middle or upper class probably middle aged white man that votes for policies that will help you, you can afford to live in a good school district for your kids, you think guns are cool because you didn't have 3 neighbors and a cousin growing up die from gun violence, you could always afford health insurance - or even if you had periods when you couldn't you were in good health, so you don't get what the big deal is, but you hate paying taxes becase it means less money to fly - so you vote Republican, which makes sense based on who you are, not because of how smart you are or because that smartness makes you a better pilot. As for liberals jumping into the fray, general our comments are wholly unwelcome in the pilot population. Which could equate to the demographics that are also sometimes treated as unwelcome in the pilot population. Think about what this thread right here is doing to the Mooney brand. A young black woman, maybe in her first year of college, stumbles here because she thinks she might want to learn to fly maybe after seeing a Mooney at an airshow, reads this thread first, the most popular on this forum - do you think this is a community she is going to want to join or be welcomed in, no matter how fascinating flying seems? Maybe y'all shouldn't be as worried about why Little Timmy doesn't want to learn to fly and start worrying about Little Sally...

Grammar matters, the sentence completes with the clause "contrary to the restrictions established by the Administrator and published in a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM)." Read the NOTAM associated with the TFR. Texas was a frequent victim during the Bush years, usually there was a small completely forbidden radius and then a larger radius you could fly in as long as on a unique squawk code.

Interesting follow up.. As we departed yesterday they were out of 100LL on a beautiful vfr Saturday morning with a full ramp of gas guzzlers stranded there.. Thankfully we had it enough to make it back over the border and weren't trapped. I am going to drop a line to the Kingston chamber of commerce.

Flying from Kingston, ON to outside of Philadelphia this weekend. Any suggestions on a Customs and Border Airport of Entry that's open on the weekend to use?

Yves, definitely send him our way always love to meet fellow Mooney people when we travel. We have a family cottage near Kingston and will be back. Car isn't an issue because dad spends the summer, he can always pick us up. We did notice there were two Canadian Mooneys parked at the FBO... Anyway I'm thankful the flying club took care of us, the whole thing was a weird experience compared to a US FBO who would at least try to help... Usually it the Canadians who are the nice ones and we Yankees are the "rude" ones..

It was Central Airways at Kingston, ON (CYGK). The entire experience was just weird. Its a fairly large airport in a reasonable sized city. Central Airways is the only FBO on the field and we've parked there before (though it was a few years ago). Anyway, we pulled up in front, and the two line guys (only people attending the airport) were fueling a Cessna. We sat their with the engine running waiting for some indication of where to park. Nothing. Then we tried the UNICOM. Nothing. Finally Byron hopped out of the airplane and asked what to do and got a "shrug, we were all full". At that point we hopped out of the plane and went to talk to the guy. He said "all" (about 5) of his tie downs were full. He directed us all the way across the apron (which was no small distance - think hundreds of yards) into the taxiway (where commercial airliners taxi past) and suggested we just leave the plane there and that other planes do it when they are full. There were no tie downs, but he said "just chalk it" (and did offer to loan us his chalks). He also made it clear that was NOT part of his FBO and they would take no responsibility for if it was over there. I was like "we're here 10 days, I'm not leaving my plane out in the middle of the apron with just chalks." This is where the unhelpful part of the experience was.. So we asked "where do transients park on this field?" Response, "shrug, I dunno, I guess we're the only place." Then we asked "well, those other planes you have filling up your facility, when do they leave?" Response: They are permanently based here, they don't leave. Question: Well, so you have no transient parking at all? Response: I guess not. Question: Is there any one we can call to get help? Maybe we could put our own tie downs (which we carry with us) in the grass? Response; Well, you can't put them in our grass. I guess you could call the city airport authority they might be able to help you. Question: What is their phone number? Response: I don't have it and they all go home at 4 pm anyway (it was 6 pm). Question: Well what should we do? Response: Not really my problem ma'am, but you can't park here. Question: You charge $14 a day to park on that apron that's not yours? Response: I don't charge you anything, the FBO does (now we've entered into the realm of sarcasm). Question: Well, we're going to try to tie down the field by the flying club, could you help tow our airplane? Response: No, we charge for that. Question: We'll pay. Response: We don't tow Mooneys, too much liability with your nose gear, we never tow them, it costs $2000 if we break them (sounds like they once towed Mooneys and did it wrong). Anyway we finally taxiied down to the incredibly friendly and sympathetic flying club on the airport (I could say a million great things about them! Talked to a few folks who were just arriving from Oshkosh, just like we were) and parked at their facility. They said they didn't actually own the tie downs in front of the club that they belonged to the airport authority, but they took our name and contact info and they staff an office in front of the tie downs and said they'd happily make sure to communicate our precense to anyone if required. They were actually only the tension wires on the ground, but we used our own ropes and feel good that the plane is secure. They also made note that we were very smart not to leave the plane on the apron like we were being directed, with the airport sitting on the shores of Lake Ontario wind storms are kind of common and no one wants to come back after a vacation and find their planes flipped upside down. Basically the whole thing was borderline crazy. I've never been at an airport where the response at the one FBO was basically the message: "you're on your own, maybe you should just fly to some other airport if you want to tie down." But I wanted to alert other pilots to be alert to the lack of transient parking issue.

Is there a web site like airnav.com for Canadian airports? I'd like to leave a review of an FBO somewhere to alert other pilots of my experience...

So where's this mooney girls blog? So excited to read the thoughts of FOUR other female Mooney pilots at Osh! Will we see you all at WomenVenture? My google-fu isn't having any luck finding it. Can't wait to meet everyone at BBQ tomorrow. We are parked with the other air racers in home built, the mooney is out of place but its close to the festivities so come visit. My air race time was 197 mph.. Getting closer to the elusive 201 mph!

Do you know if we need to buy a ticket to the Tuesday BBQ and how we do that?

The current plan is to do the Airventure Cup from Mitchell (working on that elusive 201 mph air race speed here's to hoping a eastbound race tailwinds will help!) - which finishes at osh on Sunday. We are planning on being there the better part of the week. The air racers get air show center parking (I know right!) but you can't camp there so they are still working out where we will park - likely we will be back to the N40, but there is actually a chance they will put us with the other race support folks in home built. With the way our plane looks right now with the changes we have made pre- paint shop, it almost qualifies This is all pending weather of course...

Hopefully we'll get to meet some folks there!

A 1998 overhaul with 200 hrs since... I would assume the engine is suspect, even if it has a good prebuy with good compressions and a good inspection, price the plane as if its a run out or lose to run out engine, and if you are willing to accept you need an overhaul at any time, and you are happy with the rest of the plane after that, press ahead.

Mooney air racing technique: Let your wife fly. Nag her endlessly about making perfect turns for all 47 minutes when you are supposed to be navigating and making radio calls. Take to the Internet and tell everyone about your victory. Another fun race! Seriously guys bring out some 201 competition for us!

Rumor has it similar thefts occured at LVJ a couple of years ago and no one was caught. Given the proximity, one wonders if its the same culprit.

Big talk, but its not Byron's name on the SARL trophies. Just sayin' who the fast pilot in the family is.

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Happy Bottom Riding Club - a biography of Poncho Barnes http://www.amazon.com/The-Happy-Bottom-Riding-Club/dp/0812992520 If you're looking for a space book, try Riding Rockets, its pretty interesting, not all together flattering picture of the author, but I enjoyed the read. http://www.amazon.com/Riding-Rockets-Mike-Mullane-ebook/dp/B000GCFD2W/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1383789732&sr=1-1&keywords=riding+rockets ++ on The Dog Stars, which someone else recommended. I haven't read Aloft, but I've heard its good: http://www.amazon.com/Aloft-Chang-rae-Lee/dp/1594480702/ref=cm_lmf_tit_1

Ditto. Or Alpine or anywhere in that region. There's a star party a couple times a year near Fort Davis at the observatory - also a good time to camp and explore west Texas.

I get nervous every time we land on grass but every time it turns out to be no big deal. Eventually I won't be nervous . What does worry me about this place is all the other air traffic, but that's why it's nice to have two pilots in the plane. You can always land near by and come over if you don't like what you see - wed love to see you there! Unfortunately keeping Byron out of trouble is an impossible task, he is not very directable..

We've never been to Reklaw, but its called the "redneck oshkosh". They attract about 400-700 airplanes on a little grass strip in the middle of nowhere Texas. Arrivals, I Have been told, can be a bit crazy, so keep your head on a swivel (lots of people drive in or fly to a near by airport and drive over too). Looks like a lot of airplanes, lots of low passes, some BBQ and good times. Right now our plan is to go either tomorrow evening or Saturday morning and stay through Sunday morning. It would be great to see some other Mooneys there... http://www.reklawflyin.com/ T

Anyone going this weekend? I have convinced Byron to spend the night in a tent. Apparently he'll do this uncivilized thing to be near airplanes...

What a great way to burn $1 avgas than an air race at WOT? Come try to unrest the records from my hand, I am a little rusty, now is the time... http://www.clevelandairracerevival.blogspot.com/?m=1