Today's flight in 2019

[bdash]

Yesterday I clocked my 100th hour in my M20J since I bought it in July last year!

My parents are visiting from New Zealand, so I decided to take them up for some sightseeing and lunch. We left Lakeport and flew down the Marin coastline, past the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco's Ocean Beach, and into San Carlos for a late lunch at the airport restaurant, Sky Kitchen. We parked in transient alongside a very pretty Canadian-registered Bravo, C-GNMM.

After lunch we departed over Oakland, and flew a brief tour along the north side of the Bay Bridge, around Alcatraz, along the San Francisco shoreline, before getting a great view of the Golden Gate Bridge from 2,000ft.

We then headed back up to Lakeport and did a lap around Clear Lake, taking in the scope of the damage that the Mendocino Complex Fires brought to Lake County last summer, before landing not long before the sun dropped behind the hills.

[bonal]

You landed 1o2 just a few minutes after we came home from a family visit returning from Livermore.  Saw this Albatross on the ramp at LVK near where we parked 

[bradp]

I’ve become progressively cold intolerant :-)

 

 

 later I’ll post one of my worst landings that my wife happened to video :-). It definitely counted as two in the logbook. 

[aviatoreb]

On 2/23/2019 at 3:02 PM, bdash said:

Yesterday I clocked my 100th hour in my M20J since I bought it in July last year!

My parents are visiting from New Zealand, so I decided to take them up for some sightseeing and lunch. We left Lakeport and flew down the Marin coastline, past the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco's Ocean Beach, and into San Carlos for a late lunch at the airport restaurant, Sky Kitchen. We parked in transient alongside a very pretty Canadian-registered Bravo, C-GNMM.

After lunch we departed over Oakland, and flew a brief tour along the north side of the Bay Bridge, around Alcatraz, along the San Francisco shoreline, before getting a great view of the Golden Gate Bridge from 2,000ft.

We then headed back up to Lakeport and did a lap around Clear Lake, taking in the scope of the damage that the Mendocino Complex Fires brought to Lake County last summer, before landing not long before the sun dropped behind the hills.

I know that plane - and the fine gentleman you bought it from!

you have one very fine m20j sir - congratulations and enjoy!!!

[bill98]

Logged my 82 hour since March 9th 2018. Prior to that, I had been stuck at 226.7 since 2011. 50 in the Mooney since July 26 2018.

TOTAL TIME NOW 308.7. 

Got an oil change at SWTA. Saw a familiar looking Mooney there too. 

[Oldguy]

Okay, I know it's not my Mooney, but my ride to work today was pretty cool. 

From Cartagena along the northern coast of Colombia to our port at Santa Marta. Not often I get the front seat.

[Marauder]

On 2/24/2019 at 5:38 PM, bradp said:

I’ve become progressively cold intolerant :-)

 

later I’ll post one of my worst landings that my wife happened to video :-). It definitely counted as two in the logbook. 

Isn't it amazing when you think you have mastered landing a Mooney only to be humbled once again. Even after 28 years, I will sometimes get surprised.

[rbridges]

On 2/23/2019 at 3:02 PM, bdash said:

Yesterday I clocked my 100th hour in my M20J since I bought it in July last year!

My parents are visiting from New Zealand, so I decided to take them up for some sightseeing and lunch. We left Lakeport and flew down the Marin coastline, past the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco's Ocean Beach, and into San Carlos for a late lunch at the airport restaurant, Sky Kitchen. We parked in transient alongside a very pretty Canadian-registered Bravo, C-GNMM.

After lunch we departed over Oakland, and flew a brief tour along the north side of the Bay Bridge, around Alcatraz, along the San Francisco shoreline, before getting a great view of the Golden Gate Bridge from 2,000ft.

We then headed back up to Lakeport and did a lap around Clear Lake, taking in the scope of the damage that the Mendocino Complex Fires brought to Lake County last summer, before landing not long before the sun dropped behind the hills.

I like the pic of Alcatraz. Is the SF area difficult to fly?

[bdash]

I like the pic of Alcatraz. Is the SF area difficult to fly?

It can be intimidating the first couple of times. The airspace boundaries are complex, there’s terrain to contend with under some of the Bravo shelves, and there’s a large volume of GA traffic mostly confined to the areas under the Bravo. Geo-referenced charts are a great confidence booster with respect to being sure you’re clear of the Bravo and other airspace.

Flight following, and keeping your head on a swivel, are a must due to the amount of traffic. The NorCal controllers are professional and very accommodating. The SFO Terminal Area Chart contains some transition routes and flyways that are commonly used to get through or around the Bravo. Since they were only recently introduced, they’re not often requested by name, but the general routes are useful for guidance of where transitions will be approved.

I’ve found that it’s important to be aware of local landmarks, which can be challenging if you’ve not spent time in the area. Beyond the visual reporting points that are prevalent on the TAC, NorCal likes to give instructions in terms of freeways. They sometimes even refer to them only by names which aren’t ever mentioned on the chart (101 is the Bayshore Freeway, and I880 is the Nimitz Freeway, for instance). The Bay Area GA airports are even worse about this, using names for landmarks that can’t be identified without existing knowledge. Thankfully I’ve found that both NorCal and the tower controllers have been very accommodating when I’ve stated I’m unfamiliar with whatever landmark they’ve chosen to reference.

[Andy95W]

On 2/27/2019 at 10:57 PM, Marauder said:

Isn't it amazing when you think you have mastered landing a Mooney only to be humbled once again. Even after 28 years, I will sometimes get surprised.

You’re a better pilot than me, Chris. I bought my first Mooney 27 years ago, but most of my landings still surprise me. 

[bradp]

OK here are my interesting / crappy landings.  Have to give credit to the airports on the Bahamas - they deserve respect.  Took on some extra energy for gusty conditions.  Stall horn chirping at over 100 mph is always sporting.  The winds in the second landing were fun.  From the air there's an indication of a west to east prevailing wind pushing smoke from a farm.  However, once you got low, the wind was east to west with little rotor pockets all the way down. Also lesson learned:  I got distracted as I changed runway configs and turned my boost pump off an didn't turn in back on... not that it matters a whole bunch but my error and learning about distractions.  Distraction or change -> back to do the checklist again. 

Here's landing in MYAM:

Here's the flight from MYAM (Marsh Harbour) to MYAT (Treasure Cay):

 

 

 

 

Here's my second, third and maybe fourth landing of the day. 

 

 

And tossing some fish bits to sharks and rays is always fun...

 

 

[DonMuncy]

On 3/4/2019 at 6:24 PM, Andy95W said:

You’re a better pilot than me, Chris. I bought my first Mooney 27 years ago, but most of my landings still surprise me. 

You both talk about being surprised at some on your landings. I have been flying only since 1993. Some of my landings are pretty bad, but unfortunately, they don't surprise me. I do too many of them.

[David Lloyd]

I remember a particularly hard landing in a C many years ago that actually caused my wife to scream.  Don't ever recall her doing that before or since.

[bradp]

Absolutely nothing like in and out of clouds from the front bubble of a helicopter.  Feels like magic. 

Oh another thing. Here’s a screen shot of the return leg from my trip. One thing that was helpful was a combination of nexrad, stormscope, ATC with weather radar capability and mark 1 eyeballs keeping away from the foreboding looking clouds. Notice that the clump of precip wasn’t showing lightning strikes, but soon became a sigmet for embedded TS.  Precipitation was building and dissipating on the warm side of the stationary front so animation on FISB was kind of falsely reassuring in terms of trending the returns in addition to the time delay  

/rant/ I encountered two opposite direction airplanes two 500 ft above wrong VFR altitude flying just off shore  in what was a zero percent chance of being in VMC.  Both not talking to ATC. Both probably thinking they were fine with whatever onboard traffic over the ocean flying VFishR.  It’s really infuriating. Now at least we know about it with all this ADSB stuff. It wasn’t N340EP- he was IFR at 10k /end rant/.  

[KLRDMD]

On 2/20/2019 at 5:41 PM, KLRDMD said:

I think I need that painting !

And here it is on the wall of my living room.

[KLRDMD]

Doing a flight review today for a guy in a Mooney 231 and saw this big boy on the ramp.

[CDO]

This was from last night on the way back to S37

[bonal]

Yesterdays flight was another short hop to VCB dead calm at home but once underway we hit some pretty bumpy air. VCB was 21 gusting to 33 on arrival at about 30 degrees to 02 making for a pretty challenging landing. Heading into the wind going home slowed us down a bit and home was still dead calm. Surprisingly different winds at two locations so close together. Photo shows severe clear sky with snow on our local hills Mt Konocti has new vineyards going in which I don't object to since they make excellent fire breaks.

 

 

[rbridges]

Nowhere fancy, but I bribed Mooneymite to give me a ride back home from the avionics shop in Griffin, GA.  Turned a 75 minute car ride into a 20 minute Mooney trip.  I ended up having to buy him lunch at Popeye's.  

[Skates97]

Flew to Big Bear on Saturday for some lunch. Met up with another Mooney owner who I don't think is on here. Was hoping to meet up with @xcrmckenna but he was polishing up for his upcoming, and successful, IFR check-ride on Monday. It was a beautiful day, under a broken layer, up through a hole in the clouds to come in over the lake.

Big Bear, Clouds, and Poppies

Last night after an oil change I took it for a trip around the patch. Flying to Phoenix this afternoon to visit family.

[xcrmckenna]

Flew to Big Bear on Saturday for some lunch. Met up with another Mooney owner who I don't think is on here. Was hoping to meet up with [mention=12769]xcrmckenna[/mention] but he was polishing up for his upcoming, and successful, IFR check-ride on Monday. It was a beautiful day, under a broken layer, up through a hole in the clouds to come in over the lake.
Big Bear, Clouds, and Poppies


Last night after an oil change I took it for a trip around the patch. Flying to Phoenix this afternoon to visit family.

Looks like great times! Wish I could have been there but worth the polishing:) We’ll have to wait till next time.


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[xcrmckenna]

Today I flew home from Vegas. It was my first IFR flight on my new IR ticket.... the weather was clear and clear so didn’t get it wet. But I got about 5 reroutes so I got to work the brain in someway. The flight was just over five hours. The day started out pretty cool, when I got to the airport there was a can’t miss famous airplane tied up at the transient parking! And let me say it’s even cooler in person! And I got to fly formation with N201PH:)




The instrument ticket was well worth the journey!!!!


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[rbridges]

5 minutes ago, xcrmckenna said:

Today I flew home from Vegas. It was my first IFR flight on my new IR ticket.... the weather was clear and clear so didn’t get it wet. But I got about 5 reroutes so I got to work the brain in someway. The flight was just over five hours. The day started out pretty cool, when I got to the airport there was a can’t miss famous airplane tied up at the transient parking! And let me say it’s even cooler in person! And I got to fly formation with N201PH:)


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Cool pics. Flying out of Las Vegas must have been awesome on a clear day. 

[xcrmckenna]

Cool pics. Flying out of Las Vegas must have been awesome on a clear day. 

Even better at night. This was coming back after my Ir cross country.


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[rbridges]

39 minutes ago, xcrmckenna said:

Even better at night. This was coming back after my Ir cross country.


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Btw, congrats on the instrument rating!