Flew the real thing

Lance F

Lance F

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Lance F
After our exhausting initial ground and simulator training for the Falcon 20, Bill and I were anxious to fly the real thing. Yesterday the owner said to go take it for a spin.

After very thorough prefilight and cockpit checks, Bill took off from our home base at Athens, GA and made the short 76 nm flight to Augusta (8,000' runway). Yes, we were both a tad apprehensive, since there are some cockpit and equipment differences between our plane and the sim. However, everything went ok. Bill made a couple landings and intentional misses (the tower at KAGS was very cooperative) and gave me the airplane. I made 3 take-offs and landings that were really pretty good :D:D. As those with experience know, the real plane flys better than the sim; plus we had no engine failures, no hydraulic failures, no electrical failures, no bad weather, no fires, etc, etc, etc. It just flew nice.

We flew back to Athens VFR at 4,500', put about 2 1/2 hours in my logbook and burned about 500 gallons of Jet A. We're ready to take the owner somewhere, anywhere now.

It was a fun day.
 
awesome lance!! you continue to make us more and more jealous, keep it up!
 
Congrats Lance, you still suck :D:D:D.

So on a serious note, does the Falcon have the legs to make it to europe comfortably?
 
For the 76 nm 'tween Augusta and Athens what is the fuel burn for going to say, FL240 versus staying at 4,500 the entire trip?

A guy I knew used to take his Falcon 10 to that alt for the 99 nm trip to Monterey, CA. Not only did he save time but he may save on fuel, depending upon the weather.

And yes, Lance, good for you for sliding into the Falcon.
 
tonycondon said:
PoA trip to the Wasserkuppe??
Click to expand...
So you want to go to Mecca, huh? (Actually I would bet Marfa or Minden or a lot of other US sites are better.) I am afraid that in the FA20 we would have to stop in Gander to make it to Europe :frown3:.
 
Richard said:
For the 76 nm 'tween Augusta and Athens what is the fuel burn for going to say, FL240 versus staying at 4,500 the entire trip?
Click to expand...
For a 17 minute trip I'm not sure we could get up to FL240. We went over at 11,000' and were only at that altitude for a couple of minutes before ATC started our descent. Our 4,500' return was lower than optimum perhaps, but we did that to stay VFR (routing by ATC uses fuel too). Besides in our first flight in the plane fuel burn was not a high priority :rolleyes:.
 
Very cool, Lance! Glad to hear that you finally got to fly the real thing.

I just always think of the concept of a jet flying along at VFR altitudes, especially like 4500 ft, as being humorous.

"Center, Falcon xxxx heading from here to there, request flight following." "State altitude?" "4500" "And type?" "Falcon 20" "Wait, what?" :D

I'm sure it's nothing to them, it still seems funny to me since I always think of those planes as belonging in the flight levels. :)
 
Ted DuPuis said:
I'm sure it's nothing to them, it still seems funny to me since I always think of those planes as belonging in the flight levels. :)
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Yes, very Cool! :yesnod:

I posted here last fall about the Falcon that was making all sorts of weird position calls (e.g. "On downwind" when still 5 miles from the airport on the upwind side, etc) I think in his case all the time in the Flight levels and flying RNAVS down the slot made VFR pattern work confusing!
 
tonycondon said:
PoA trip to the Wasserkuppe??
Click to expand...

Lance F said:
So you want to go to Mecca, huh? (Actually I would bet Marfa or Minden or a lot of other US sites are better.) I am afraid that in the FA20 we would have to stop in Gander to make it to Europe :frown3:.
Click to expand...

tonycondon said:
probably lance, but mecca is mecca.
Click to expand...

Hmmm I like your thinking! Any chance you could convince your boss that you Have to visit far west texas in about a week and a half? :D
 
Awesome, Lance! Yeah, 4500 VFR in a jet... cool! Talk about keeping your head on a swivel for VFR traffic! I wonder if that actually reduces your chances of a midair, versus the same altitude in a Piper or Cessna recip, as you spend less time in any given parcel of the atmosphere. ;-)

So did you guys do any FMS or Approaches? I think you said this plane has different avionics than the sim did... will you want experience with that before a long trip IFR?
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Very cool, Lance! Glad to hear that you finally got to fly the real thing.

I just always think of the concept of a jet flying along at VFR altitudes, especially like 4500 ft, as being humorous.

"Center, Falcon xxxx heading from here to there, request flight following." "State altitude?" "4500" "And type?" "Falcon 20" "Wait, what?" :D

I'm sure it's nothing to them, it still seems funny to me since I always think of those planes as belonging in the flight levels. :)
Click to expand...

I've ferried B727's with inop pressurization several times. Ferried one from Cincinnati to Orlando one night at 9,000 ft. The controllers along the way kept asking if we wanted a higher altitude.
 
It's always cool to fly the real airplane for the first time and you're right, the airplane always flies better than the sim. What's interesting though, is the things they can't teach you in sim, such as actually opening and closing the door, and the operation of things like the oven, coffeepot (ours is not that straightforward), lav, sink, cabin lights etc.

Some of the airplanes I've flown have have been configured very much like the sim, and some have not. The latest one (CE-680) was almost identical, probably because the model has only been around a few years and this was a brand new airplane with no aftermarket mods. I was glad that my first couple flights were with the Cessna test pilot on the conformity flights. He gave me a lot of pointers and I got to see and do some things that we ordinarily wouldn't do, like free fall the gear.
 
dmccormack said:
I posted here last fall about the Falcon that was making all sorts of weird position calls (e.g. "On downwind" when still 5 miles from the airport on the upwind side, etc) I think in his case all the time in the Flight levels and flying RNAVS down the slot made VFR pattern work confusing!
Click to expand...

About a month and a half ago I was talking to some NetJets pilots who were waiting for their passenger at Williamsport. When the subject of my Aztec came up, the one pilot said he'd probably kill himself if he tried to fly it - that the jets really a different world. In his case, that's all he flies anymore. I can see where someone who only flies the jets might have a few issues transitioning back to the world of small piston aircraft.

That said, when you're going as fast as they go, I'd suspect that would influence the location of position calls.
 
Rotor&Wing said:
I've ferried B727's with inop pressurization several times. Ferried one from Cincinnati to Orlando one night at 9,000 ft. The controllers along the way kept asking if we wanted a higher altitude.
Click to expand...

Yeah, obviously there are reasons why one would (and would have to) do it, it's just not what one who's used to the world of jets being up high and pistons being down low expects. From what you said, it sounds like the controllers didn't expect it, either.

Of of curiosity, are there limitations on the B727 with inop pressurization that limited you to 9,000 as opposed to 11,000? Just thinking of the speed restriction below 10,000 MSL.
 
TangoWhiskey said:
Awesome, Lance! Yeah, 4500 VFR in a jet... cool! Talk about keeping your head on a swivel for VFR traffic! I wonder if that actually reduces your chances of a midair, versus the same altitude in a Piper or Cessna recip, as you spend less time in any given parcel of the atmosphere. ;-)

So did you guys do any FMS or Approaches? I think you said this plane has different avionics than the sim did... will you want experience with that before a long trip IFR?
Click to expand...
I was being very alert for other traffic but didn't see any. We also have TCAS, which was also quiet.
We were just doing visual approaches with a NAV radio tuned to get the localizer and GS raw data. Used the FMS to get to and from Augusta. I'm not too worried about programming the FMS as I've spent some time with the manual and the unit on in the hanger. That said, there is still a LOT of the electronic stuff that we're not 100% proficient with yet.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Very cool, Lance! Glad to hear that you finally got to fly the real thing.

I just always think of the concept of a jet flying along at VFR altitudes, especially like 4500 ft, as being humorous.

"Center, Falcon xxxx heading from here to there, request flight following." "State altitude?" "4500" "And type?" "Falcon 20" "Wait, what?" :D

I'm sure it's nothing to them, it still seems funny to me since I always think of those planes as belonging in the flight levels. :)
Click to expand...
A couple years ago I followed a CE-550 from Los Angeles basin to KPHX. He flew most of the leg no higher than 8,000 with brief ascents to 11,000. Almost nape of the earth in that area. He was a 2 crew Pt 91 deadhead.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Yeah, obviously there are reasons why one would (and would have to) do it, it's just not what one who's used to the world of jets being up high and pistons being down low expects. From what you said, it sounds like the controllers didn't expect it, either.

Of of curiosity, are there limitations on the B727 with inop pressurization that limited you to 9,000 as opposed to 11,000? Just thinking of the speed restriction below 10,000 MSL.
Click to expand...

With no pressurization the Cabin Altitude Alarm goes off at 10,000ft.
 
Next time you fly, walk back and look at the aft lav bulkhead and say "Thanks Pat!"

He probably designed it for you guys :D
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Of of curiosity, are there limitations on the B727 with inop pressurization that limited you to 9,000 as opposed to 11,000? Just thinking of the speed restriction below 10,000 MSL.
Click to expand...

I'm wondering what the IAS would be on a 727 at cruise power settings would be at 9,000 feet. I recently saw a cockpit video of a 747 that was only indicating about 300 knots in cruise. Jets don't do so well down in the thick air, and I don't think the 727 is known as a speed demon to begin with.

FWIW, I was once on an airline flight that cruised at 8,000 feet in an MD-8x. KCVG to KLEX, 61nm. Looking at FlightAware, it seems that the RJ's that fly that route fly in the 9K-10K zone.
 
Ghery said:
When do the oxygen masks drop? :D
Click to expand...

On India airlines 737's out of Bombay they drop when the aircraft rotates.:rofl: Well, at least some of them did...
 
Lance F said:
After our exhausting initial ground and simulator training for the Falcon 20, Bill and I were anxious to fly the real thing. Yesterday the owner said to go take it for a spin.

After very thorough prefilight and cockpit checks, Bill took off from our home base at Athens, GA and made the short 76 nm flight to Augusta (8,000' runway). Yes, we were both a tad apprehensive, since there are some cockpit and equipment differences between our plane and the sim. However, everything went ok. Bill made a couple landings and intentional misses (the tower at KAGS was very cooperative) and gave me the airplane. I made 3 take-offs and landings that were really pretty good :D:D. As those with experience know, the real plane flys better than the sim; plus we had no engine failures, no hydraulic failures, no electrical failures, no bad weather, no fires, etc, etc, etc. It just flew nice.

We flew back to Athens VFR at 4,500', put about 2 1/2 hours in my logbook and burned about 500 gallons of Jet A. We're ready to take the owner somewhere, anywhere now.

It was a fun day.
Click to expand...

Lance,

Congratulations on your flight! We have a second home in Athens since my husband was transferred there several years ago. I have flown in and out of Athens several times in my Luscombe with Keely, our daughter. The controllers are so nice there. It's been a while, so I have to ask, is the controller, who did the Elvis impersonation, still there? I loved him!

"Thank you verrry muccchh"
Deb
 
flyingcheesehead said:
I'm wondering what the IAS would be on a 727 at cruise power settings would be at 9,000 feet. I recently saw a cockpit video of a 747 that was only indicating about 300 knots in cruise. Jets don't do so well down in the thick air, and I don't think the 727 is known as a speed demon to begin with.

FWIW, I was once on an airline flight that cruised at 8,000 feet in an MD-8x. KCVG to KLEX, 61nm. Looking at FlightAware, it seems that the RJ's that fly that route fly in the 9K-10K zone.
Click to expand...

Well, at 9,000 ft in the US you are restricted to 250Kts IAS. But, if you wanted to you could push it up to barber poll which at 9K would be about 350Kts IAS. At 9,000 ft and 250kts indicated fuel flow is around 8,000 pph.

At altitude (for example) FL330 the 727 will indicate about 300Kts, but true airspeed will be about 480 Knots with a Mach .80. If you didn't pull the throttles back to cruise it would continue to accelerate to the barber poll.
 
Hi Deb, I haven't heard an Elvis impersonation out of Athens tower yet, but they are the nicest, most accomodating tower folks you could ask for.
 
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