Anyone we know?

[MooneyMitch]

11 minutes ago, cliffy said:

How close do you think that pattern was? 

Certainly not over Van Nuys Blvd...... 

Maybe over 405, but not for long. 

[cliffy]

6 minutes ago, MooneyMitch said:

Certainly not over Van Nuys Blvd...... 

Maybe over 405, but not for long. 

YUP!!!!   :-)   And right along the railroad tracks on base! :-)

[MooneyMitch]

My old stomping grounds.  

Great memories 

Thread drift...... one of my very favorite movies.... 16 Right.

[N201MKTurbo]

55 minutes ago, flyboy0681 said:

Such nice comments from readers of the article.

We try to keep our selves busy with airplane stuff so we don't start spouting off about politics. It doesn't always work...

[bradp]

On 5/19/2021 at 7:08 AM, Rusty Pilot said:

It looks like it was a Grumman Tiger

Seems would have been more appropriate for it to have been intercepted by an f-14. 

[A64Pilot]

On 5/19/2021 at 8:28 PM, Nick Pilotte said:

Didn’t some early Bonanzas have a flare tube or something like it?  I think some of the 37mm smoke or flare shells would be “pretty awesome”.  

My 46 C-140 had the flare dispenser, they were pretty common.

The purpose was to drop flares to light up the airfield for landing.

‘The attached photo is of the operators manual, there is no POH for the C-140, it predates the POH, so later the operators manual was printed and we carry one to show the feds rather than try to explain that there is no POH. 

Anyway, back in the day in order to fly a C-140 for hire at night beyond 3 miles from the airport, both a landing light and flares were required.

Check out the required instruments for IFR, pretty ballsy huh?

Edited May 21, 2021 by A64Pilot

[whiskytango]

24 minutes ago, A64Pilot said:

My 46 C-140 had the flare dispenser, they were pretty common.

The purpose was to drop flares to light up the airfield for landing.

‘The attached photo is of the operators manual, there is no POH for the C-140, it predates the POH, so later the operators manual was printed and we carry one to show the feds rather than try to explain that there is no POH. 

Anyway, back in the day in order to fly a C-140 for hire at night beyond 3 miles from the airport, both a landing light and flares were required.

Check out the required instruments for IFR, pretty ballsy huh?

Instrument Clearance Route: Radar vectors to GCA?   

[cliffy]

13 minutes ago, whiskytango said:

Instrument Clearance Route: Radar vectors to GCA?   

A lot of IFR was done needle ball and airspeed before gyro instruments were the norm

BTW How many have ever done a "contact" approach?  Or even know what it is?   :-)

Are many aware that IFR is perfectly legal with just one WAAS GPS and no other nav radio capability installed in the airplane (no ILS, VOR, ADF)?

Just rambling thoughts

[carusoam]

Back in the day...

The government didn’t care so much if you died....

Somebody noticed that you might hit something or someone on the ground...

Things changed a bit after that...

Best regards,

-a-

[N201MKTurbo]

I would have to check my logbook, but I’ve done about 10 GCA approaches. Most were to Williams AFB before it closed. I have done a couple to Yuma. The last one was about 15 years ago. I was commuting to Tucson and the controllers knew me. When I departed, departure asked if I could do a GCA to DM, they were breaking in a new guy. So I did, they are fun. That one I did VFR, I didn’t have a safety pilot. The others were done under the hood. 

[cliffy]

12 minutes ago, N201MKTurbo said:

I would have to check my logbook, but I’ve done about 10 GCA approaches. Most were to Williams AFB before it closed. I have done a couple to Yuma. The last one was about 15 years ago. I was commuting to Tucson and the controllers knew me. When I departed, departure asked if I could do a GCA to DM, they were breaking in a new guy. So I did, they are fun. That one I did VFR, I didn’t have a safety pilot. The others were done under the hood. 

Are you confusing GCAs with a "Contact" approach? The two are different. 

I did 1 GCA at LAX many many years ago.  Early 60s

[whiskytango]

Reading the Operations Authorized again, I note that a compass isn't even required for IFR.  Maybe that is not specified since it is provided with the base aircraft, but what if it is INOP?.

[kortopates]

I've never asked for a contact approach. Really can't imagine ever doing so either. Sure, I could imagine someone asking for one if they had a marine layer but personally at only 1 sm visibility I am going to stick with a instrument approach even if there is a delay as long as I am not short on fuel.

I take my instrument students  up to SLI to experience PAR approaches (with and without GS) all the time - i think every instrument student should be exposed to them - but SLI only offers them to us Tues-Thursdays. But Miramar just started doing them on Sunday afternoon's (but I don't teach on Sundays)

[kortopates]

6 minutes ago, whiskytango said:

Reading the Operations Authorized again, I note that a compass isn't even required for IFR.  Maybe that is not specified since it is provided with the base aircraft, but what if it is INOP?.

A compass/magnetic direction finder is required for basic VFR let alone IFR per 91.205 b) (the minimum  equipment list for VFR). Its also listed as required in the Day VFR KOEL for modern Mooney's in the limitations section of the POH - no flight without it!

Edited May 21, 2021 by kortopates

[carusoam]

PARs are spread out around the country...

Precision Approach Radar.

We had a PPP weekend in Atlantic City, where they arranged to have the PAR available...

Something to be aware of when your only ILS display has gone MIA/TU....

Best regards,

-a-

[A64Pilot]

14 minutes ago, whiskytango said:

Reading the Operations Authorized again, I note that a compass isn't even required for IFR.  Maybe that is not specified since it is provided with the base aircraft, but what if it is INOP?.

Real sure those were instruments above and behind those required for basic VFR like fuel gauges, oil pressure etc.

The mail guys in the 1920’s sort of invented dead reckoning, they would fly over the top of a solid layer and if they didn’t breakout when they timed out, they would enter a spin and recover once they broke out under the layer.

‘I know that’s hard to believe, but it was really done.

I don’t think there was GCA’s until well after WWiI, my 140 was built the year after WWII ended.

With 15 years in the Army, I have shot a many a GCA, one version is known as a no gyro GCA, where you only turn at half standard rate, and the controller only says start turn and stop turn, they don’t give a heading. The controller is continually talking to you and you have a missed approach instruction thst says if you don’t hear form them in maybe 15 sec, execute missed approach.

A GCA can and is sometimes shot down to the ground, last thing you’ll hear from the controller if you don’t break out is, “reduce power and land”

But to be honest the HIRL will burn though anything so while you may not see the ground, you will see the lights.

By the way as an Army aviator my VFR weather minimums were 300+1/2 day, 500+1 night, and we flew VFR at those min with only an ADF too.

 

In 1929 Doolittle made the first totally blind takeoff, flight and landing solely on instruments.

Sperry invented and flew the first real autopilot in 1912 I believe.

Edited May 21, 2021 by A64Pilot

[N201MKTurbo]

6 minutes ago, A64Pilot said:

Real sure those were instruments above and behind those required for basic VFR like fuel gauges, oil pressure etc.

The mail guys in the 1920’s sort of invented dead reckoning, they would fly over the top of a solid layer and if they didn’t breakout when they timed out, they would enter a spin and recover once they broke out under the layer.

‘I know that’s hard to believe, but it was really done.

I don’t think there was GCA’s until well after WWiI, my 140 was built the year after WWII ended.

The first PAR was flown in 1942.

[A64Pilot]

3 minutes ago, N201MKTurbo said:

The first PAR was flown in 1942.

I believe that was a development / test flight, and a military only. maybe even classified?, not a fielded unit, I don’t know when actual PAR’s / GCA’s became available to the public.

‘But yes, instrument flight with gyro’s etc goes way back further then most realize, but Joe civilian wasn’t flying instruments until I don’t know when.

Edited May 21, 2021 by A64Pilot

[N201MKTurbo]

4 minutes ago, A64Pilot said:

I believe that was a development / test flight, and a military only. maybe even classified?, not a fielded unit, I don’t know when actual PAR’s / GCA’s became available to the public.

‘But yes, instrument flight with gyro’s etc goes way back further then most realize, but Joe civilian wasn’t flying instruments until I don’t know when.

1946, three surplus MPN- 1 were given to the Civil Aeronautics Board and placed at Washington-National Airport, LaGuardia Airport, and Chicago-Midway

[A64Pilot]

Very often what we think of as Modern technology isn’t nearly as modern as we think.

‘In 2001 I bought what I believe was the cutting edge of modern Diesel engine technology with a Duramax Diesel, which was a joint venture with Isuzu and GM.

‘It was an aluminum Diesel, and had dual overhead cams and believe it or not but four valve heads. Suoer Modern, it was advertised as the first Diesel with Aluminum heads and many thought it wouldn’t hold up.

‘Well later on while doing some studying on Armored vehicles, I hit on an old CIA document about the Russian T-34 tank.

Would you believe that the engine was designed in 1931, it was. Diesel, with dual overhead cams, it was an aluminum engine and had four valve heads?

So almost 70 years before the Duramax the Russians who we thought were technological primitives designed that engine when the US was just beginning to put pressurized oil systems in automotive designs?

Edited May 21, 2021 by A64Pilot

[cliffy]

Hump pilots in WWII had to use time/distance for their calculations That's why so many wound up in the side of the Himalayas.

With practice ILS approaches to 50' hand flown are actually easy once you are used to them

200/ 1/2 is almost like VFR  No sweat at all. 

Did an occasional contact approach to PRB 4 decades ago when all they had was a VOR approach I went there so much I knew every fence post and ditch on the approach and the old AVQ-46 monochrome RADAR highlighted the prison fence across the street from the runway so I could see almost exactly where the runway threshold was on it.

Airliners carried passengers IFR long before being equipped with a gyro horizon  It was all needle/ball/airspeed then

5 TV screens? 5 TV screens?  We don't need no stinkin' TV screens!   hahahahah 

[EricJ]

I did a GCA into Ramstein AFB in a C-150 in the early '70s after they mistook my call inbound for an emergency declaration.   We used to go there once in a while to visit the USAF flying club there, and were actually going this time to talk to the AF recruiter (I was a teenager).  Our flying club got the military field "supplement" that had all the field information from our field Army ops when they got their new one, so ours was always a month old.   For this reason we did not know that the new supplement indicated that Ramstein had closed to civilian traffic.  D'oh.

And AFOD (Army Flight Operations Department) delayed the flight plan that I'd filed with them, so the Ramstein tower wasn't expecting us.

A C-150 is pretty slow on approach, so the approach took a fair amount of time, and when we got close enough to the field to see anything there was a C-5 Galaxy holding short that had apparently been waiting for a while for us to do the approach.   Double d'oh.

Once we got on a taxiway a different controller came on and asked if we'd declared an emergency.   I told them we had not, and apparently that started some urgent discussions that went up through ops command, and when we parked we were told that we were wanted in a meeting.  D'oh.

They couldn't let us go because the field was actually IFR, and the weather guy and the ops people had never heard of special vfr, which we used all the time because southern Germany weather.   After several hours of trying to figure out what to do with us they suddenly told us essentially, "Leave now, don't come back."   So we beat feet out of there.    Never did see the recruiter, which was probably just as well.   

I think that was the only time I ever flew a GCA.   It was kinda fun, as I recall.

[A64Pilot]

If you really want to do some interesting reading on navigation / instrument flying etc, read up on how the Pan Am clipper navigators and pilots did it prior to WWII and crossing oceans, even the Pacific at that. Some of the biggest thunderstorms on Earth are in the Pacific and you know they deviated around them and still found their destination

Edited May 21, 2021 by A64Pilot

[jaylw314]

4 hours ago, kortopates said:

I've never asked for a contact approach. Really can't imagine ever doing so either. Sure, I could imagine someone asking for one if they had a marine layer but personally at only 1 sm visibility I am going to stick with a instrument approach even if there is a delay as long as I am not short on fuel.

I take my instrument students  up to SLI to experience PAR approaches (with and without GS) all the time - i think every instrument student should be exposed to them - but SLI only offers them to us Tues-Thursdays. But Miramar just started doing them on Sunday afternoon's (but I don't teach on Sundays)

I've gotten a contact approach once, I was flying into Renton on an absolutely clear day IFR, but I was unfamiliar with the area and had the sun blasting me in the eyes so I couldn't find the airport and couldn't technically get a visual approach.  I didn't want to cancel IFR yet, so I asked for vectors and a contact approach

Probably not what contact approaches were really intended for, but it helped that time

[aviatoreb]

Ocean City, MD!

I had my own run in with the law in Ocean City once....I grew up in MD and we went to Ocean City for "beach week" the week immediately after high school graduation.  I drove the car.  I got a speeding ticket going 95mph out of town just over the border into Delaware.  Aack!  

Luckily it was the Delaware police and we had just crossed the border.  Luckily because at the time, they were not trading points between states so no points went onto my MD license so after paying off the hefty fine I was in the clear.

Don't tell my mom...she still doesn't know.