Operation Butt Freeze

BrianNC said:
Any actual going home?
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Nah. This was as close as it got...

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The other eerie part was plowing straight into the Bravo without those magic words. And having the controller ask if I was direct APA...

"Uh, no sir, we're /A so we filed Victor 148 to Falcon then via the transition route to the ILS 35..."

DEN TRACON Guy deserves a beer. I could've just cancelled IFR to be helpful and would have if I weren't determined to have the Tower close my darn flight plan for the first time ever. ;)

"Cessna 79M Ah ok, I don't have your paperwork. Turn left 20 degrees for Denver Arrivals."

Heh. Poor guy. Vectoring a Primary only target and has no strip giving him my route of flight.
 
Congratulations. That smile looks like a combination of happy and relieved. I remember the feeling well from last September. You've worked long and hard and it sounds like you did well on the flight. Have fun!
 
Fantastic write up! Congratulations!
 
Jesse was right. The transponder gave its all. :(

New thread starting. Transponder recommendations... :)
 
Thanks all. It's weird to say that this thread is basically, closed. :) Took a while, but very worth it!!!
 
So you're done training? No commercial/multi engine?!
 
denverpilot said:
(Not super-enthused about renting a retract...)
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I've been complaining for months about this!

My advice is to go and get the ticket wet asap. The longer you wait, the more anxious you will be flying in the clouds by yourself.
 
dell30rb said:
I've been complaining for months about this!

My advice is to go and get the ticket wet asap. The longer you wait, the more anxious you will be flying in the clouds by yourself.
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Yup. Working on it.

Gotta get avionics happy again first. See "Transponder recommendations" thread. Transponder working now but DME failed. LOL!
 
Green card, gringo.

A new green card with Orville and Wilbur stopped in for a visit.

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Which one is your pic? Guy on the right? :D j/k ... congrats again!
 
Awesome finale to this amazing thread! :popcorn:

I stayed up quite late one night/morning glued to every single update in here. Thanks for taking the time to document it!
 
Rigged4Flight said:
Awesome finale to this amazing thread! :popcorn:

I stayed up quite late one night/morning glued to every single update in here. Thanks for taking the time to document it!
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Same here. I'm getting a really strong desire to do the IR in the near future.
 
Do it. I rarely see flyable IMC here at home, but it kicks everything up a notch. Flight planning, weather briefings, accuracy of airmanship, knowledge of the U.S. Airspace system... there's just nothing that you don't have to do just a little bit better.

Plus, Lincoln's a nice town. SilverHawk is a really good FBO. And Jesse can get ya done, too. If you go that route.
 
denverpilot said:
Do it. I rarely see flyable IMC here at home, but it kicks everything up a notch. Flight planning, weather briefings, accuracy of airmanship, knowledge of the U.S. Airspace system... there's just nothing that you don't have to do just a little bit better.

Plus, Lincoln's a nice town. SilverHawk is a really good FBO. And Jesse can get ya done, too. If you go that route.
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My flights are usually to Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, or Block Island which are all 45-70 NM from my home base. In the 2.5 months I've had my ticket I've already cancelled multiple flights due to the the islands having a thin OVC layer 600-800 up, and everywhere else being CAVU. I'd love to be able to shoot an ILS and punch through the layer instead of having to cancel.

Besides, I loved the hood work part of my primary training. I'm also fascinated by the idea of popping out the bottom of the clouds with the runway right there, lined up. Just gotta work out the finances.
 
MassPilot said:
My flights are usually to Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, or Block Island which are all 45-70 NM from my home base. In the 2.5 months I've had my ticket I've already cancelled multiple flights due to the the islands having a thin OVC layer 600-800 up, and everywhere else being CAVU. I'd love to be able to shoot an ILS and punch through the layer instead of having to cancel.

Besides, I loved the hood work part of my primary training. I'm also fascinated by the idea of popping out the bottom of the clouds with the runway right there, lined up. Just gotta work out the finances.
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I can't ever hear the words "Martha's Vineyard" without thinking about Kennedy's fatal flight.
 
Rigged4Flight said:
I can't ever hear the words "Martha's Vineyard" without thinking about Kennedy's fatal flight.
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It seems like whenever I talk to someone about flying who's not a pilot, they always mention the Kennedy accident. What I always come back with is, "Well, he didn't have a GPS, and he was flying at night over water with lots of mist. He wasn't an instrument rated pilot, meaning he wasn't rated to fly in bad visibility. Not a good situation to be in, and not a situation I think I'll ever get myself into." I then describe how I went up with a CFI and replicated what happened to Kennedy. We let go of all the controls, and unless your airplane is perfectly rigged and trimmed, it'll enter a slow turn that gets steeper. You'll start descending, and if you aren't looking for it, you could easily miss it. Now I'm looking for it, so I won't miss it.
 
jpower said:
"Well, he didn't have a GPS,
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While I agree with you that getting situation specific training is a good idea so you know why to avoid VFR into IMC, I do have a question for you about why you might mention that "he didn't have a GPS." A GPS won't keep an airplane upright so why would you reference a GPS when describing a crash caused by a pilot's inability to maintain aircraft control?
 
jpower said:
It seems like whenever I talk to someone about flying who's not a pilot, they always mention the Kennedy accident. What I always come back with is, "Well, he didn't have a GPS, and he was flying at night over water with lots of mist. He wasn't an instrument rated pilot, meaning he wasn't rated to fly in bad visibility. Not a good situation to be in, and not a situation I think I'll ever get myself into." I then describe how I went up with a CFI and replicated what happened to Kennedy. We let go of all the controls, and unless your airplane is perfectly rigged and trimmed, it'll enter a slow turn that gets steeper. You'll start descending, and if you aren't looking for it, you could easily miss it. Now I'm looking for it, so I won't miss it.
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I wasn't making a judgment call on his abilities, ratings or equipment - just that all the nonstop news about the incident has permanently glued "Martha's Vineyard" and "Kennedy" together in my mind. :dunno:
 
Clark1961 said:
While I agree with you that getting situation specific training is a good idea so you know why to avoid VFR into IMC, I do have a question for you about why you might mention that "he didn't have a GPS." A GPS won't keep an airplane upright so why would you reference a GPS when describing a crash caused by a pilot's inability to maintain aircraft control?
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The NTSB says that the accident was caused by "the pilot's failure to maintain control of his airplane during a descent over water at night, which was a result of spatial disorientation." So basically Kennedy got lost, entered the slow downward spiral that is bound to happen eventually, and wasn't able to recover before it was too late. Having a GPS would have prevented him from initially getting lost (or at least made it much, much more difficult), thus preventing (or making much, much less likely) the accident.

Rigged4Flight said:
I wasn't making a judgment call on his abilities, ratings or equipment - just that all the nonstop news about the incident has permanently glued "Martha's Vineyard" and "Kennedy" together in my mind. :dunno:
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I'm just commenting about the question I get all the time and how I answer it, because the Kennedy incident is so burned into non-pilots minds. Along the lines of, "Oh, you fly? Geesh, that's dangerous! You know about the Kennedy incident, I'm sure. Blah blah blah." I didn't mean to say that Kennedy's judgement was wrong, just that I would have made a different decision had I been in his shoes.
 
jpower said:
The NTSB says that the accident was caused by "the pilot's failure to maintain control of his airplane during a descent over water at night, which was a result of spatial disorientation." So basically Kennedy got lost, entered the slow downward spiral that is bound to happen eventually, and wasn't able to recover before it was too late. Having a GPS would have prevented him from initially getting lost (or at least made it much, much more difficult), thus preventing (or making much, much less likely) the accident..
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I believe that you are saying a GPS will prevent spatial disorientation. Is that what you mean when you say the GPS would have prevented him from getting lost?
 
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jpower said:
The NTSB says that the accident was caused by "the pilot's failure to maintain control of his airplane during a descent over water at night, which was a result of spatial disorientation." So basically Kennedy got lost, entered the slow downward spiral that is bound to happen eventually, and wasn't able to recover before it was too late. Having a GPS would have prevented him from initially getting lost (or at least made it much, much more difficult), thus preventing (or making much, much less likely) the accident.



I'm just commenting about the question I get all the time and how I answer it, because the Kennedy incident is so burned into non-pilots minds. Along the lines of, "Oh, you fly? Geesh, that's dangerous! You know about the Kennedy incident, I'm sure. Blah blah blah." I didn't mean to say that Kennedy's judgement was wrong, just that I would have made a different decision had I been in his shoes.
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Hopefully your decision would be to avoid VFR flight over water in marginal conditions and/or at night. That is what got Kennedy, not the lack of a GPS. I can't quite see how you make the leap from "the pilot's failure to maintain control of his airplane during a descent over water at night, which was a result of spatial disorientation." to getting lost nor can I see how a GPS would have made one whit of a difference in that accident. Please expand on your thoughts a bit.
 
gismo said:
Hopefully your decision would be to avoid VFR flight over water in marginal conditions and/or at night.
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Or even better: get some training in how to recognize conditions like that and operate in them safely from a qualified instructor. The thing is that Kennedy had a good deal of instrument training. A number of people have suggested that he should have had the skill to keep control of the airplane using his instruments with the training he had, but that he might not have recognized that he was in instrument conditions. It can be insidious if you're over water or a remote area, as dusk settles or it gets hazier and you gradually lose visual cues.
 
azure said:
Or even better: get some training in how to recognize conditions like that and operate in them safely from a qualified instructor. The thing is that Kennedy had a good deal of instrument training. A number of people have suggested that he should have had the skill to keep control of the airplane using his instruments with the training he had, but that he might not have recognized that he was in instrument conditions. It can be insidious if you're over water or a remote area, as dusk settles or it gets hazier and you gradually lose visual cues.
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:yeahthat:
 
gismo said:
Hopefully your decision would be to avoid VFR flight over water in marginal conditions and/or at night. That is what got Kennedy, not the lack of a GPS. I can't quite see how you make the leap from "the pilot's failure to maintain control of his airplane during a descent over water at night, which was a result of spatial disorientation." to getting lost nor can I see how a GPS would have made one whit of a difference in that accident. Please expand on your thoughts a bit.
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You're saying it better than I did. I trust "rigged" will think about things a bit more. Then again, this is the internet...
 
Clark1961 said:
You're saying it better than I did. I trust "rigged" will think about things a bit more. Then again, this is the internet...
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You're reading much more into my post than was ever intended.

What, exactly, should I think about next time? The only point I made was that "Martha's Vineyard" and "Kennedy" are forever linked in my mind, due to all of the hyped up news surrounding his death.

It was a very simple point with zero further connotations other than exactly what I said. Others jumped on that simple point and built an entirely different subject out of it.
 
Clark1961 said:
I believe that you are saying a GPS will prevent spatial disorientation. Is that what you mean when you say the GPS would have prevented him from getting lost?
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Indirectly. I haven't read the whole report, but my instructor told me that it suggests that he got lost, which resulted in his not paying attention to his instruments because he was trying to figure out where he was, which resulted in spatial disorientation. He could be wrong, in which case scratch the GPS comment.

gismo said:
Hopefully your decision would be to avoid VFR flight over water in marginal conditions and/or at night. That is what got Kennedy, not the lack of a GPS. I can't quite see how you make the leap from "the pilot's failure to maintain control of his airplane during a descent over water at night, which was a result of spatial disorientation." to getting lost nor can I see how a GPS would have made one whit of a difference in that accident. Please expand on your thoughts a bit.
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azure said:
Or even better: get some training in how to recognize conditions like that and operate in them safely from a qualified instructor. The thing is that Kennedy had a good deal of instrument training. A number of people have suggested that he should have had the skill to keep control of the airplane using his instruments with the training he had, but that he might not have recognized that he was in instrument conditions. It can be insidious if you're over water or a remote area, as dusk settles or it gets hazier and you gradually lose visual cues.
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Absolutely to both. On my first night flight, my instructor took me over to Ocean City, MD. Taking off on Runway 14 is straight into inky blackness over the ocean, and if nothing else will give you reason not to fly in marginal conditions at night under VFR, that sure will. It was a pretty amazing experience.
 
Rigged4Flight said:
You're reading much more into my post than was ever intended.

What, exactly, should I think about next time? The only point I made was that "Martha's Vineyard" and "Kennedy" are forever linked in my mind, due to all of the hyped up news surrounding his death.

It was a very simple point with zero further connotations other than exactly what I said. Others jumped on that simple point and built an entirely different subject out of it.
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Sorry, my mistake. Substitute "jpower" for "rigged" and carry on...
 
Clark1961 said:
Sorry, my mistake. Substitute "jpower" for "rigged" and carry on...
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See below! I'm not about to launch under VFR at night over water, even if I do have a GPS and more instrument training.

jpower said:
Absolutely to both. On my first night flight, my instructor took me over to Ocean City, MD. Taking off on Runway 14 is straight into inky blackness over the ocean, and if nothing else will give you reason not to fly in marginal conditions at night under VFR, that sure will. It was a pretty amazing experience.
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jpower said:
See below! I'm not about to launch under VFR at night over water, even if I do have a GPS and more instrument training.
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James - People were flying aircraft in IMC long before GPS was available...maybe keep that in mind when thinking about aviating.
 
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