Where did you fly today?

[kevin47881]

This weekend I logged 14.0 hours for the trip to the FlyBQ.

The flight Friday night was the scariest and most nerve racking I've ever encountered. In fact, my wits were so unraveled I had to ask my co-pilot to land. That was a first. I'm not proud of that fact but at least I had the sense to hand over the controls to prevent something bad from happening.

The flight back Sunday was realtively uneventful except for the turbulence over the mountains and the lowering ceilings over Maryland.

 

[Bill]

The flight Friday night was the scariest and most nerve racking I've ever encountered. In fact, my wits were so unraveled I had to ask my co-pilot to land.

Can you elaborate on what caused the nerves?

 

[kevin47881]

Can you elaborate on what caused the nerves?

Let's just say lowering ceilings and mountains in and around Blacksburg, VA.

 

[gprellwitz]

Our trip back from Wings was tiring, but not anywhere near as tiring as I expect Kent's was. We were battling CU from shortly off of LOM through central PA. At that point we were able to get above them until our fuel stop near Cleveland. I took the rest of the flight, and we started a diversion north, planning to cross the lake at 12K pased on info from Flight Watch. Partway through that diversion, Chicago Center said that the storms had moved south and dissapated, so we were able to route back south around Lake Michigan. Added a few miles onto the trip!

 

[flyingcheesehead]

I learned that one should think very carefully about trying to cross the Appalachian mountains on a windy day. I got pretty beat up for about an hour as I crossed at 4500. I remember at one point looking down at my chart, feeling my ears pop, looking back up and seeing that I had lost 300 feet.

Where'd ya cross? We were IFR and along our route the MIA was 5400 feet. It was bumpy enough there, I'd imagine 4500 sucked!

After that hour or so, It just got long. I think I was in the air on that leg for 4+ hours. Ground speed probably averaged around 72kts.

Wow, how much fuel does your bird carry?

Our groundspeed never cracked 90 knots for PA and a good chunk of Ohio. Kate pulled out the E6B and calculated a 49-knot direct headwind.

It's hard to believe that it can be raining and still >6 visibility.

Yep. I've been in snow with ~8 miles vis. Trick is, don't fly into the rain unless you can see to the other side... Or at least several miles through.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Yesterday I flew what I believe to be my longest series of flights in a single day (6 flights in all). The purpose of the trip was to take a look at some disassembled helicopters that were for sale in western Idaho.

Lance,

Ya gonna try to buy a chopper?

 

[judypilot]

Yesterday I flew what I believe to be my longest series of flights in a single day (6 flights in all). The purpose of the trip was to take a look at some disassembled helicopters that were for sale in western Idaho. The trip stated and ended with a short hop from my home base KFCM to nearby KHCD to pick up a mechanic friend. Then on to Lewiston ID (KLWS) with a fuel stop at Laurel Montana (6S8) near Billings. The return involved the same stops in reverse order and the total distance was very close to 2000 nm. Other than a few areas of turbulence the weather on the outbound legs was pretty benign, but we had plenty of interesting wx on the return. There were lots of TRW and rainshowers in the mountains, but we didn't need too much detouring there. There was one stretch near the last significant ridge heading east where it wasn't raining but the air was quite turbulent under what must have been a developing cell or two. But the biggest ws issue was a line of storms runing from Colorado to Canada. I had originally filed a route that aimed at a 30 mile gap about 80 nm south of the direct route but another, smaller gap showed up that looked passable that would have allowed a more direct shot. Unfortunately as we got closer it started to close so we switched back to plan A, even though it required a more significant deviation from that point. There was also a long line of active TRW south of our route from SD to WI that was migrating north slowly but I made it home before it arrived there. In total it was about 6 hours on the way out and a little less on the return plus four to five hours in Lewiston which made for a long day. I had gotten up at 6am and made it back in bed around 1 am.

You flew to Lewiston and YOU DIDN"T CALL ME???? I'm only a half hour away by ground and 10 minutes by air. Darn!!!

Judy

 

[judypilot]

Yesterday I flew what I believe to be my longest series of flights in a single day (6 flights in all). The purpose of the trip was to take a look at some disassembled helicopters that were for sale in western Idaho. The trip stated and ended with a short hop from my home base KFCM to nearby KHCD to pick up a mechanic friend. Then on to Lewiston ID (KLWS) with a fuel stop at Laurel Montana (6S8) near Billings. The return involved the same stops in reverse order and the total distance was very close to 2000 nm. Other than a few areas of turbulence the weather on the outbound legs was pretty benign, but we had plenty of interesting wx on the return. There were lots of TRW and rainshowers in the mountains, but we didn't need too much detouring there. There was one stretch near the last significant ridge heading east where it wasn't raining but the air was quite turbulent under what must have been a developing cell or two. But the biggest ws issue was a line of storms runing from Colorado to Canada. I had originally filed a route that aimed at a 30 mile gap about 80 nm south of the direct route but another, smaller gap showed up that looked passable that would have allowed a more direct shot. Unfortunately as we got closer it started to close so we switched back to plan A, even though it required a more significant deviation from that point. There was also a long line of active TRW south of our route from SD to WI that was migrating north slowly but I made it home before it arrived there. In total it was about 6 hours on the way out and a little less on the return plus four to five hours in Lewiston which made for a long day. I had gotten up at 6am and made it back in bed around 1 am.

You flew to Lewiston and YOU DIDN"T CALL ME???? I'm only a half hour away by ground and 10 minutes by air. Darn!!! Of course, if you had to do it in one day, you didn't have time.

Judy

 

[judypilot]

Well, I only just found this thread, and I didn't fly today, but Saturday I flew down to Boise and back for the Idaho Aviation Association annual meeting. It was very fun. I am SO glad to have my airplane back.

In case you missed the picture of her in her new duds, here it is again:

 

[HPNFlyGirl]

Brook did you get any approaches?

Hi Scott....No approaches this trip. However we did fly back in IMC for a little while. Fun stuff.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Our trip back from Wings was tiring, but not anywhere near as tiring as I expect Kent's was.

Aah, it wasn't that bad. Late, yes, but it turned out that our lateness helped with the weather situation. In the first leg to UNV of 1.6 hours, I got 0.8 actual. The second leg was about 3 hours with 0.1 actual, the third leg was 2.7 and no actual, and we got to take a nice little shortcut.

Pics and the full story later tonight, hopefully. (My brother has a bunch of the pics on his camera.)

 

[alaskaflyer]

Haven't flown in weeks

But Tom Downey is up visiting this week and I'm sure I'll make time to go flying with him

 

[gismo]

You flew to Lewiston and YOU DIDN"T CALL ME???? I'm only a half hour away by ground and 10 minutes by air. Darn!!! Of course, if you had to do it in one day, you didn't have time.

Judy

There was very little time available although had I thought to let you know we could have at least had lunch with you. Another issue is I only decided to make the trip Friday night around 10 PM because my cable TV/internet was down before that.

-lance

 

[gismo]

Lance,

Ya gonna try to buy a chopper?

Apparently not. I have been thinking of getting a helicopter rating, perhaps this summer but didn't really have plans to acquire another aircraft. But this potentially fabulous deal came up that turned out to be not so fabulous. My mechanic said that he would assemble a good 300B for me if I bought the load of parts the guy in ID was selling which was supposed to include enough stuff to make two good helicopters plus lots of spare parts. This would have provided me with a helicopter worth $80-90K for about $50K. But the condition of the MR blades was shall we say, "sub-optimal" and according to my mechanic, not repairable. That kinda terminated my interest.

 

[alaskaflyer]

Wasn't able to fly with Tom but after almost a month without flying due to craziness at work I flew down to Talkeetna for the weekend yesterday. Beautiful as usual, it's finally green around here. Tomorrow Jenni and I are headed to Anchorage to catch a play and do some shopping, considering flying to Merrill instead of driving.

 

[Bill]

Had a really nice weekend, flew over to HXD Friday night, went from the airport directly to the Crazy Crab for a cold one and dinner. Saturday on the beach, dinner at Charleys Crab. Sunday, spent the day dragging aound our 4 year old in a bike trailer, riding all the bike paths, eating lots of ice cream, and visiting all of the usual spots in Sea Pines. She got her very first pony ride at the stables, and we stood at the fence for over an hour while she pet and fed the horses. A good dinner at the Old Oyster Factory Sunday night. Yesterday morning, a nice full diner breakfast, and a noon departure back for home.

Strange flights, being in the SW quadrant of the big H system off the coast: headwind flying SE, a tailwind flying home to the NW.

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N4147T/history/20070525/2119Z/KCHA/KHXD
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N4147T/history/20070528/1610Z/KHXD/KCHA

 

[alaskaflyer]

Watched moose walk around our cabin all day Saturday. If you look very closely below you will note a sly predator, who is considering biting off way more than she can chew.

On Sunday Jenni and I flew from Talkeetna to Merrill Field in Anchorage to see a play and have dinner. Nice flight, light rain showers kept a lot of other planes out of the usually frenetic Anchorage bowl skies.

This is just a sample of the Anchorage airspace from the pilot's eye perspective, approaching from the north:

Then back home this morning, lots of scattered layers from 500 agl up to 10K but nothing dangerous.