Gastons' departure - they're headed home!

[TangoWhiskey]

Can't wait to hear all the stories, and start planning to be there myself next year.

 

[gibbons]

Can't wait to hear all the stories, and start planning to be there myself next year.

Ahhh, but what happens at Gaston's stays at Gaston's.

Lots of photos and stories to come I'm sure. Thanks for the screen shots Troy.

 

[Rudy]

That is cool to see, it was a blast i hope everyone who couldn't make it will next year!!

 

[gismo]

Y'all that didn't come missed a great event. Rudy and Grandpop/CFI/DE came today (along with Rudy's GF) and "Rudy's Grampa" couldn't stop talking about Rudy's "Perfect 10" landing score (he's justifiably quite proud of Rudy).

Diana and Tom let me use their spare room so I didn't even have to sleep on the couch in Scott's cabin. Also I was pleasantly surprised to find that the "cabin's" were air-conditioned and provided a good albeit short night's sleep.

Several of us (me included) got a ride in Greg's beautiful Cessna although the thick haze made these hard work for Greg.

Toby gave me (and several others) a signed copy of one of her books.

Ron Levy and wife (and dog) was there and entertained us with tales of his college student days but had to leave Sunday AM before brunch. I met so many webboarders I can't even name them all and to a one, they were all pleasant and interesting. I even met my evil twin, Lance Flynn (J/K Lance). I took about five pictures before I realized someone had taken the memory card out of my camera (shoot), but I think Scott got lots of good pictures.

Steve MC'd an awards presentation (I won the "biggest airplane" category hehe). With something for almost everyone who attended (even some who left early).

I do wonder how Ed G. and Lance F. faired with the weather as they seemed to be heading into the thick of it. Our flight home was quite uneventful weather wise.

All in all it was a great time. Thank's again Diana, Greg Toby, and all the rest.

 

[Toby]

It was great to meet you, too, Lance. I am so tired I can't get my thoughts together to post anything but gobbledegook yet.

The best part was having so many people from POA sitting together in one room or under the judges' tent, and knowing we had come from so many states to be together in this one place for a weekend.

I loved seeing all those airplanes parked together.

Never missed my computer.

There were so many high points, like judging the new arrivals. When I've had some rest I will have to do a whole post on judging. It was a blast. We had Steve's scoring paddles to help us be fair and objective (hehe).

I have never experienced such boiling hot weather in my life. Remind me never to move there! Prop blast helped.

So many kinds of beer, very nice in the evening.

I liked meeting with the awards committee. It was kind of like being on jury duty when you have a really interesting case.

Thank you, Diana and Tom, for pulling this all together and for creating Party Central! And I want to hear all the jokes I missed on Saturday night while I was slaving away with the awards committee.

 

[Ken Ibold]

And I want to hear all the jokes I missed on Saturday night while I was slaving away with the awards committee.

Quote of the day:

"Every time I have an autopilot failure I think to myself 'I'm glad I'm not in the baggage compartment.' "

Yes, there is a story to go with it.

 

[EHITCH]

Troy, can you give a step-by-step tutorial on where/how you got "flight following" information? Is this something we can do to share info with friends/family in other places?

Thanks,
Elizabeth

 

[wsuffa]

Great to meet everybody that I hadn't met before. Thanks to all for making it.

Special thanks to Diana and Tom for setting it up.

 

[TangoWhiskey]

How to do the Radar stuff (for Elizabeth)

Troy, can you give a step-by-step tutorial on where/how you got "flight following" information? Is this something we can do to share info with friends/family in other places?

Thanks,
Elizabeth

Yes, that's exactly why I have it, Elizabeth--so my wife can see where I am on Angel Flights.

There are two services that I know of that provide this information in a way that includes General Aviation aircraft.

1) FlightExplorer ( http://www.FlightExplorer.com )

This is what I was using. You can get it for $8.95/month (discounted) as an AOPA member benefit: http://www.aopa.org/info/certified/flightexplorer.html

Read the billing procedure carefully... you get 10 hours of online time every month for that fee, and are billed extra for usage beyond that. It's billed in 1 minute increments with a 10 minute minimum per session... if you are online for 5 minutes, you get billed for 10; if you're online for 12 minutes, you get billed for 12.

2) AirNav Systems ( http://www.airnavsystems.com/ANLV/index.htm )

These guys have great software, I'm considering switching to them. They are more expensive on a monthly subscription basis ($14.95/month), but they have a "pay every 6 months" Platinum option that ends up being cheaper than the $8.95/month from AOPA's Flight Explorer.

They were offering a 50% discount with promo code PAYHALF6, but I think it expired yesterday.

Both of these pieces of software let you set up multiple "views"... think of it as filtered fleets, with the N numbers you want to watch, various geography settings, colors, etc. You can filter by a specific N number or set of N numbers, show all aircraft inbound or outbound from a specific airport, only those below or above a certain altitude, etc.

Lots of fun! Especially when you're listening on your scanner to local approach control...

 

[SkyHog]

Re: How to do the Radar stuff (for Elizabeth)

Yes, that's exactly why I have it, Elizabeth--so my wife can see where I am on Angel Flights.

There are two services that I know of that provide this information in a way that includes General Aviation aircraft.

1) FlightExplorer ( http://www.FlightExplorer.com )

This is what I was using. You can get it for $8.95/month (discounted) as an AOPA member benefit: http://www.aopa.org/info/certified/flightexplorer.html

Read the billing procedure carefully... you get 10 hours of online time every month for that fee, and are billed extra for usage beyond that. It's billed in 1 minute increments with a 10 minute minimum per session... if you are online for 5 minutes, you get billed for 10; if you're online for 12 minutes, you get billed for 12.

2) AirNav Systems ( http://www.airnavsystems.com/ANLV/index.htm )

These guys have great software, I'm considering switching to them. They are more expensive on a monthly subscription basis ($14.95/month), but they have a "pay every 6 months" Platinum option that ends up being cheaper than the $8.95/month from AOPA's Flight Explorer.

They were offering a 50% discount with promo code PAYHALF6, but I think it expired yesterday.

Both of these pieces of software let you set up multiple "views"... think of it as filtered fleets, with the N numbers you want to watch, various geography settings, colors, etc. You can filter by a specific N number or set of N numbers, show all aircraft inbound or outbound from a specific airport, only those below or above a certain altitude, etc.

Lots of fun! Especially when you're listening on your scanner to local approach control...

Troy - I use Airnav Systems. It works great. Gives 60 hours for 14.95 a month. The only bad thing is that if you hit 60 hours, you cannot get more time. Not per hour, not in a block, nothing until the next month starts.

I never use that much time, but some might.

 

[Lance F]

I do wonder how Ed G. and Lance F. faired with the weather as they seemed to be heading into the thick of it. Our flight home was quite uneventful weather wise.
.

Lance,
Basically it took about 30% longer to get home than the outbound flight. I've never had to deviate so far before. I was headed ESE til almost the Mississippi River. I had climbed to 13,000, but at that point there was no (safe) way through the TSs. I flew about 65mn NE into Kentucky until I had a reasonable gap where I could get back on course. ATC was great and gave me whatever I wanted without question.

This flight could not have been a better test for my MX20 with NEXRAD radar. The buildups weren't moving much at all so I had a perfect picture of what was going on and what to expect ahead. Most of the time I could compare it visually. This is great technology. Garmin can use me for a reference anytime!

Great to meet you and hear a little about the technology you work with.

 

[Ed Guthrie]

I do wonder how Ed G. and Lance F. faired with the weather as they seemed to be heading into the thick of it. Our flight home was quite uneventful weather wise.

The data block tells the last chapter of our weather story. From Gaston's, Dave Gaisky and I took a short hop to Willow Springs, MO (1H5) in order to top the Mooney with $2.40/gallon 100LL pumped by the local city police patrol lady (photo attached). On the flight from Gaston's to Willow Springs the skies were seriously hazy with just the slightest hint of any clouds taking form. In the 30+ minutes it took to fuel and stretch our legs, the skies had gone to broken/overcast just to the ENE of Willow Springs (our flight direction). We climbed out over Willow Springs and found on top at 11,500' so off we went direct course to Capital City, PA (CXY). The plan worked well until ~50 nm WSW of Farmington VOR when it got obvious that 11,500' wasn't going to keep us in VMC, and the Stormscope was starting to show very distant activity pretty much from our 12 o'clock position right on around to our 5:30 position. I air filed IFR to CXY showing H88 as the proposed departure airport and then picked up the clearance with Kansas City Center. As we flew east at 11,000' we kept watching a monster storm more than 100 nm out on our right and another monster storm more than 100 nm out ahead and just south of the nose. At one point we passed through one building "wannabe" that only reached maybe 13-15k. The "wannabe" erupted about 30 minutes after we passed through. Just east of Evansville, IN we finally caught the major monster we'd been watching ahead, but by that point the storm had slid just far enough south that we passed the north edge remnants (well clear on the Stormscope) with only one very brief bout of some serious up & down drafts.

All in all, luck was on our side as we didn't have to deviate at all for WX. However, we did push a ~25 knot head wind all the way home (notice the abysmal ground speed on the radar) which made for a long trip home.