Today's flight for 2017

[bonal]

LVK today for a birthday celebration with my wife and family love flying in the cooler weather was wanting to get there so pushed Snoopy a little bit more than usual just a couple inches more mp and 100 rpm and picked up about 15 knots seeing 186 mph ground with almost no wind. Had to end our day sooner than expected due to forecast weather moving in. Made the landing with the overcast closing in on our home field just as we were. Been 3 weeks since last flight but felt was one very satisfactory performance as it goes. Spotted some of the devastation from the Napa fires but was too Far East to see the Sonoma. In truth I have seen far too much of it in recent years.

 

[Skates97]

Made a couple pilots and paws flights and also visited family in Arizona. I will write them up and post them this week but wanted to put up a quick picture. On the way back from Phoenix today I passed 200 hours, pretty good considering my first flight lesson was May 28, 2016.

[Hank]

8 minutes ago, Skates97 said:

Made a couple pilots and paws flights and also visited family in Arizona. I will write them up and post them this week but wanted to put up a quick picture. On the way back from Phoenix today I passed 200 hours, pretty good considering my first flight lesson was May 28, 2016.

Congratulations! Took me almost two years to reach that mark.

Which shade is on your side window? That would come in handy down here May-Oct. Looks like our 80° weather is finally going away this week, unless it comes back over the weekend . . .

[Skates97]

1 hour ago, Hank said:

Congratulations! Took me almost two years to reach that mark.

Which shade is on your side window? That would come in handy down here May-Oct. Looks like our 80° weather is finally going away this week, unless it comes back over the weekend . . .

They are just some of those ones that pop open and are held on with a suction cup that people use in their cars. They help if the sun is beating down on you, easy to put on and take off. You can probably get them and any auto parts place. I just got them from the pro-shop of one of our dealerships. Here's some on Amazon that are kind of like them.

https://www.amazon.com/Shade-Window-Windows-Maximum-Protector/dp/B071LQDTFT/ref=sr_1_24?ie=UTF8&qid=1509945572&sr=8-24&keywords=auto+sun+shades+for+side+windows

[Bryan]

Pretty cool day at my home base today (KCXW) and thru this weekend. EAA's B-17G is in town!  Not very often can you park next to such history.

[ragedracer1977]

Flew up to KCNY with my son yesterday.  Spent the day hiking Arches National Park.  Beautiful place!  We flew up over the Grand Canyon, then over Lake Powell, and up over the Canyonlands National Park.  Had a monster tailwind - 162-168kt groundspeed for most of the flight.  In descent I saw over 200kts.  Of course, that tailwind became a headwind on the way home and we were cruising at a Model "C" like 108kt GS.  

 

[TonyK]

Pretty tough to beat the two previous posts but I took my son out to burn some fuel.  I just got it back from a six week annual last night and I couldn't wait to fly it.  My son is also working on his ppl and I enjoyed having a reduced workload with him in the right seat.  He enjoyed some Mooney time which is something of an upgrade from our 172 he is learning in.

[aviatoreb]

25 minutes ago, TonyK said:

Pretty tough to beat the two previous posts but I took my son out to burn some fuel.  I just got it back from a six week annual last night and I couldn't wait to fly it.  My son is also working on his ppl and I enjoyed having a reduced workload with him in the right seat.  He enjoyed some Mooney time which is something of an upgrade from our 172 he is learning in.

As good as it gets!

[bradp]

Flight is about a week old but had a fun one to share.  Flew from TTA to LYH last Sunday.  The region to the east of the blue ridge sometimes gets that bowl effect where the foothills further to the east trap a layer of moisture and that was the local microclimate for the day (the larger picture was stationary front to the NW and a temperature inversion that kept the low layer low) but it ended up being one of those 300-400 ft ceilings with 10 SM below the deck kind of days.  I filed for RDU as my alternate, although stations to the west were all reporting 500-1000ft ovc or better.  

Flight up was uneventful.  Did an ILS to just above mins.  New avionics performed as advertised.  I was expecting the ceilings to lift a little- but this didn’t happen.  Temp dew point spread never really budged for the day. 

I delivered my cargo wanting to depart before sunset, I filed for the next leg ILM.  The weather was forecast to start deteriorating further after sunset and I didn’t want to be lingering if I didn’t need to.  So the decision was to Go for the next leg.  Departure was great - kept the localizer frequency dialed in and had three sources of terrain avoidance up and running for an IMC and briefed exactly when I wanted to be on instruments so there were no surprises. Topped out at about 3000ft. There was a beautiful sunset and great remainder of a night flight to Wilmington.  Things they don’t tell you in the NOTAMs - just to the north of the ILM Airport fence was a county fair type thing.  I haven’t seen one in about 30-years so the brightness of the insane LED inferno was quite offputting and made the runway hard to find.  Fortunately had the ILS tuned in before I was cleated for a visual approach.  But the lights and Ferris wheel were so bright that it was distracting on final and did make the runway kind of hard to find.  

The line guys at Wilmington were super helpful and ran me back out to my plane (I park far away on the ramp as I prefer to not be towed) as a jar of homemade soup my in laws gave me on the stop-over was summarily forgotten.   Hopped in a rental car and headed to a good seafood dinner at a local oyster bar.  

Till next time -B

Video disclaimer : not very good.  iPhone ignored in the corner as I had more pressing things to attend to... 

 

 

[Skates97]

Pilots-n-Paws flights from a couple weeks ago.

Thomas – PilotsnPaws – Stockton CA to Phoenix AZ

[aaronk25]

Yesterdays night landing (returning home) to KRST ILS 13 approach down to 100’ and 2400rvr. Never had it where I could t see the tower after landing.




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[Browncbr1]

Yesterday, I went on my commercial check ride.   Nothing really went to plan.  ATC was busy and they kept vectoring us to kind of an unreasonable distance and over rough terrain before letting us maneuver.   Anyway, it worked out and I passed, but this is what a commercial checkride looks like.

[TonyK]

Congrats on the check ride!

 

[Browncbr1]

5 minutes ago, TonyK said:

Congrats on the check ride!

 

Thanks!

[Skates97]

Congratulations! I find it fun to look back at the track after I have been out doing maneuvers or just messing around.

[Browncbr1]

22 minutes ago, Skates97 said:

Congratulations! I find it fun to look back at the track after I have been out doing maneuvers or just messing around.

Thanks, Yea, I have screen shot all my check rides.   I show them to other students who may be preparing to go for the same rating and it seems to help them know what to expect.  But, it's false... As I mentioned earlier, I expected we were going to do the ride at another airport that is uncontrolled... I had not planned any of it, but just rolled with it.   

I nearly blew it on my forced landing.  I had practiced many many times on various smaller 3-5k foot fields in the area, but I had never practiced it at my home base before (2 mile charlie airfield).  I always knew the big runways will trick you into thinking you are closer than you really are and this time it did.   I realized pretty quickly that I wasn't going to make it, so I told him that the size of the runway environment had tricked me and I had not practiced it there before and that I would like to make this landing my short field spot landing and he said ok...   I'm glad he let me go on that...  The following forced landing attempt, ATC kept wanting to vector us on a five mile pattern.  I was about to key ATC and ask to fly a tighter pattern for the simulated forced landing, but before I did, the examiner told me to just fly over there.. At the time, I didn't compute that when ATC instructs to turn down wind, it is not a heading assignment.  Now it makes sense, but anyway, we got closer and did the forced landing successfully.   For the commercial ride, you have to touch down within 200 feet of the intended landing spot.  Again, I didn't know this until the oral an hour before flying.  It would have been nice if I had clearly understood that ahead of time, but I was able to get my steed in ground effect and float to within 200ft of touchdown.  Again, at this airport, I usually touch down just after the numbers, but on short final, I realized he was expecting me to land on the aim point runway marking, which is another 1000ft or so.. I floated as far as I could and made it inside the allowable limit and the examiner gave a little cheer..     Other than that, it was piece of cake!

[Yooper Rocketman]

Did a mercy flight today, picking up an elderly woman in Rochester MN, flying her to Sawyer (Marquette).  A/P heading mode went T.U., sending the plane the opposite way every time during vectors to 3 different ILS Approaches.  My hand flying skills got a work out today.   I've been on a intense 2 month push getting final bodywork done on the Lancair so only a couple Mooney flights in that time. I kept trying to call the Bonanza either a Lancair or a Mooney.  Anyone listening had to have been laughing.  

Saw some really interesting clouds on the way to Sawyer.  They had different twists to them, almost looking like fiber.

Tom

[Bryan]

Taking my commercial written next week. I just checked all the boxes for the flying portion so will start those maneuvers next.

congrats!

[bradp]

Had another special delivery yesterday.  Momma and daddas work schedules get a bit crazy around the holidays so our little one is spending some quality time with her favorite aunt. Beautiful VFR Day (visibility was over 100 miles) for a trip from Raleigh Exec (TTA) to FYJ in Virginia with my favorite co-pilot.  

Blue ridge mtns visible 100 nm off the left wing - got the smoke stack next to the field at 60nm and the field at 40 nm!!

The best part was that my little one kept trying to tell me something and I have her plugged in to the rear headphone jack so that radio transmissions from ATC will mute her.  The frequency was quite busy - so much so that she was muted for probably 3 or 4 minutes but she kept trying to ask something over and over.  

What she was asking was - “daddy can I steer the airplane”. Like music to my ears.  Not only could she steer, but she maintained altitude and could go left or right.   She couldn’t see out the front at all, but kept on looking at the AI and told me it said which wing was tipping over.  I’m sensing an instrument rating by 16 and a half.    She even got a little cheeky with her commemorative photo.

Now you know why I got a little teary-eyed when I watched that UPS video.  

 

Till next time

-B 

 

[Browncbr1]

Yea, yesterday coming back from Nashville, I could see clingmans dome and calculated that I was 150nm from it.   Whaaah!

[Steve W]

Had a meeting this morning at the Eugene airport, so I decided to fly. The 20 minute flight took 1.3 hours since when I got there the promised improvement in the weather hadn't materialized yet and it was still RVR 800. So I waited, and waited, and waited a bit more. Finally reached minimums so I shot the approach and landed with 0.1 Actual Instrument logged(Tops 1100, bases 600). Then when I came home it took 0.6 hours VFR, so at least I got to go Mooney speed for part of the day.

[bonal]

Perfect flying weather for a hop to WLW been having some problems with our com 1 Narco 12d on the transmission being very garbled seems intermittent will have to look into it. Otherwise a very nice flight with not a single bump. Return with 100 pounds of groceries full fuel and 3 on board giving us 700fpm at 120mph. 

[carusoam]

Fascinating color on that photo, Bonal!

Best regards,

-a-

[MyNameIsNobody]

On 11/18/2017 at 7:37 AM, bradp said:

Had another special delivery yesterday.  Momma and daddas work schedules get a bit crazy around the holidays so our little one is spending some quality time with her favorite aunt. Beautiful VFR Day (visibility was over 100 miles) for a trip from Raleigh Exec (TTA) to FYJ in Virginia with my favorite co-pilot.  

Blue ridge mtns visible 100 nm off the left wing - got the smoke stack next to the field at 60nm and the field at 40 nm!!

The best part was that my little one kept trying to tell me something and I have her plugged in to the rear headphone jack so that radio transmissions from ATC will mute her.  The frequency was quite busy - so much so that she was muted for probably 3 or 4 minutes but she kept trying to ask something over and over.  

What she was asking was - “daddy can I steer the airplane”. Like music to my ears.  Not only could she steer, but she maintained altitude and could go left or right.   She couldn’t see out the front at all, but kept on looking at the AI and told me it said which wing was tipping over.  I’m sensing an instrument rating by 16 and a half.    She even got a little cheeky with her commemorative photo.

Now you know why I got a little teary-eyed when I watched that UPS video.  

 

Till next time

-B 

 

I got a little tears eyed seeing the photo and reading it.  Awesome!

[xcrmckenna]

After three weeks of no flying due to weather and back breaking honey does to get ready for winter.

Two full weekends of cutting fire wood and hand splitting it made me feel my age. But six loads in we should be warm for the winter

Saturday we got to go for a real flight to Troutdale to see family. I heard Mooney 06W on frequency and had a fighter jet fly under me on his way to McCord. While we were at KTTD an A5 came in and got to talk to the pilot and get up close to it. It’s pretty cool looking. But she said it takes two fuel stops to get to Seattle from northern Cali I stick with the Mooney.






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