Short field practice - for real

Took some time to practice my short field techniques today. After a few practice short field takeoffs and landings at my home airport (with a 4000' x 75') I headed over to Butler Farm Show (3G9) to try it out for real, so to speak, on their 2580 x 38' monster runway. I have to admit, my first attempt to land on 18 ended with a go-around, just too much speed on final. Attempt number two was a little better, landed just beyond the numbers with minimal airspeed. Even so I had a little bounce and the numbers 36 (upside down) were rapidly coming into view. Still, managed to stop no problem, but the heart rate was up. Taxied back to 18 and took off again. Third time was a charm; minimal float, no bounce, full stall landing and minimal braking. Luckily there was no crosswind, which I sure with that 38' to play with would make this landing much more interesting. It was actually the first time I had landed on a short runway solo, so there was definitely a little pucker factor involved. At any rate, definitely recommend doing real short fields now and then after practicing at a longer one. There seems to be no substitute for the real McCoy.
(photo on right from AirNav)

Virginia's 4th Birthday Flight

VA wanted to take a trip up in the plane the see our house from above for her birthday, so of course I had to oblige her. We set off in the 152, it was a somewhat bumpy day, but then again it seems like the calmest days can be bumpy in the 152. We actually got drizzled on a little bit which made the flight a bit more interesting. Virginia did great this time with the turbulence however. I let her handle the controls a bit and showed her how to go up and down and she did a few turns as well. I think letting her fly helped her deal with the bumps as well. I'm pretty sure however that the best part of flying for her is that she gets to chew gum...

Finding the house was easy, we just tracked the radial from EWC that passed right over our house and looked for the Fox Chapel football field. We did a few turns and then flew over the Allegheny river doing a left 180 to make a pass by Grandma and Grampa's house. We then made a bee line back to Zeli, followed by an uneventful landing putting 0.9 on the Hobbs for the trip. Great way to spend time with the daughter, best $58 I've spent in a while!

First Family Flight

This weekend was a milestone for our family as we had everyone up in the 172 together. "Co-pilot" Virginia chatted away in the right seat with her new Pilot Cadet headset (with the pink earcups of course). Mom and Charlie were in the backseat with Charlie content to sit on her lap for the most part. We had a beautiful sunny August afternoon, just a little bit of wind. The only small hiccup was having to shutdown on the taxiway right before the runup to kill an errant bee in the luggage compartment. Bee killed, engine instruments set, take off,... Everyone did great. We were a little worried about Charlie ( now just turned two years about a month ago) as he has been a little nervous around airplanes, or "ah-pains" as he calls them, but he was pretty happy for the most part. A little tip for pilots who may want to fly their small children. We purchased these junior ear muffs for Charlie. They were only $20 and he was actually totally fine with wearing them. I could not deny Virginia (about to turn four) the ability to talk, which she loves so much, so she lucked out with a boom mic...

Charlie pulling the airplane out

Charlie and Mommy are ready to go

Condor Annual Picnic 2008

I took my two year old son Charlie up to Zeli to check out our club's annual corn roast/picnic shindig. I wasn't sure what to expect since I had taken him to the airport for a "warm up" about a month ago so he could just look at the airplanes, maybe sit in one, he ended up not even wanting to come within 30 feet of an airplane. So, this being his second trip to the airport, I was just hoping for the best.

I has also invited a good friend, Chris, who I'm hoping will get the aviation bug to come up the picnic and see what Condor had to offer. The picnic was in full swing when Charlie and I arrived with spot landing and flour drops galore. Charlie was immediately noticing all of the airplanes buzzing around and he was very excited about it. It could have been because they were taxing, flying low, and generally very visible.

I saw my AOPA mentor, Todd, and chatted with him about the trials of airplane ownership and then got a chance to talk for a bit with my fellow formed "classmate" Rod with his family (congrats on the new private pilot ticket Rod!). Also, a shout out to Ben, great to meet you in person today!

Chris showed up about 45 minutes later and he got a chance to take a look at some of the club's airplane, talk with Todd and Rod, as well as Mike. He also got the wonderful opportunity to help me chase Charlie, who at this point was running pretty much unchecked around the tarmac. I wanted to get Chris up in the air, and with the generous help of Rod et al to watch Charlie for 20 minutes (OK, 1/2 hour) I was able to take Chris up for a short flight over the lake in 549.

After landing, when I pulled up 549 to the fuel pumps, I could see Charlie charging across the grass, calling "Daddy", and pushing Rod's two year old in his stroller... The highlight of the day for me was when I was just putting the fuel hose back and Charlie said to me "I ride apane". I couldn't believe he actually wanted to get into the airplane, but Chris and I got back in, I put Charlie on my lap and fired it up. Amazingly, he was totally fine and "drove" us back to the hanger with a huge smile on his face. Simply awesome.

"Fly" Fishing

For my father's 61st birthday, I have him for his gift a flight to some of the best flyfishing in PA: Fisherman's Paradise on Spring Creek near State College. Of course, I was excited about getting a chance to fly to State College anyhow, so it was a two for one as far as presents go, one for him and one for me. We decided to give it a shot August 1st, a Friday morning. I had been fervently checking the weather the previous days and it looked like it was a go, however they were calling for isolated thunderstorms for the evening flight back.

I woke up around 6AM, looked outside and my heart sank as there was thick fog as far as the eye could see, or well, could not see. My Dad showed up in the truck, on time as usual, at 7AM and upon discussing the fog we decided to drive close to Zeli, and if the fog did not let up, we would fish somewhere close by. We were lucky however as we drove on the Turkpike and climbed up out of the Allegheny River valley, the fog began to dissapate. I had called WX-BRIEF on the drive and the briefer said correctly that most of the fog was around Pittsburgh and up north the AWOSes we saying there was none to be concerned with.

Arriving at PJC, we loaded the fishing gear into 573, preflighted, and departed runway 35. I recieved flight following from PIT approach, and they flipped me over to Cleveland Center after about 10 minutes. Looking to the south as we headed east we could see much of the ground and the city of Pittsburgh blanketed in fog (which was really cool to look at), and for much of the flight we were right on the edge of the fog bank. I was just hoping that the fog had burned off at University Park airport (UNV). The TAF has forecasted any mist at UNV to be dissapated by 9AM which was pretty close to our estimated arrival time. Luckily, as we crossed over the last mountain ridge and had UNV in sight, we could see there was nothing to worry about.

After a rather hard landing (not used to landing on runway's that wide), we taxied up to the beautiful UNV GA terminal. UNV is interesting in that there are four major airlines that have regular service there, however there is no control tower (the lineman said they are getting a tower next year, so I'm assuming UNV will be a class D airport in a year or so). There is a seperate GA terminal however and it is incredibly nice. In addition, the rental car agency over at the commercial terminal brought our car over so it was right outside the door in the parking lot. Great service.

After not even a 3 mile drive, we were on the water at Fisherman's Paradise. What would be about a 3 1/2 hour drive turned into a 40 minute drive and 50 minute flight to be in the water, fly rods in hand. Pretty cool.

We fished all day, but my eyes were on the sky, scanning for those projected t-storm clouds, of which I began to see some scary looking ones around 11AM. I knew we would be getting new TAFs at 2PM though, I figured I would wait for those and make a decision. After fishing in the morning we ran into Bellefonte and had a awesome lunch at the High Street Pub. After lunch we went back to the stream and I pulled up the new TAFs on my cellphone. As luck would have it the forecasted weather at Zeli greatly improved and they were now calling for the T-storms to hit around 10PM. With that relief I started to really enjoy the fishing more.

We called it a day around 6PM and headed back to the airport. The lineman did a great job topping of 573 and we basically just loaded up the plane again and headed west. After flying about 10 minutes to get back in the Cleveland Center's sector (look for the delinations on your IFR Low Level charts), I called up Center and received flight following for the trip back. It was incredibly hazy and I could see how one could lose a horizon even in what is technically VFR. No problems on the return however and I was able to impress my Dad with a greaser landing at Zeli. The day turned out perfect and it was fantastic to see how useful and fun GA can be.

IFR Lesson #1

Last Tuesday I began the road down to what will hopefully culminate in an IFR ticket. I'm teaming back up again with the 1-2 combination of Mike Woods and "my" trusty 152, N89549. Arriving at the airport, Mike already had the plane on the taxiway pretty much ready to go. Mike is basically living at the airport when he isn't doing his other job. After a quick brief of the flight and a taxi/run-up we were ready to roll. Mike immediately had me don the foggles for a zero zero takoff and then forgot I had them on during the takeoff roll and then started "wondering" out loud why I wandering off the runway... Ok, so the zero zero takeoff needs work.


Our plan was to do the VOR RWY 3 approach at Franklin (FKL). We decided we would fly direct to the V30 airway, proceed East to the PEREA intersection and turn left inbound on the 190 radial of the Franklin VOR. After that, follow the approach chart and land the sucker. On the way there we practiced climbs, both constant airspeed and vertical speed, turns to headings, and straight and level flight. Well of course I got busy and missed PEREA. So Mike showed me how to properly turn around and then we proceed inbound after a RIGHT turn from PEREA. On the approach now we decended through the FAF at FARGE and a bit further, Mike let me take the foggles off and I could see I was about 1/4 mile the right of the runway. Better luck next time.

On the way back to Zeli we did the GPS approach to runway 17. It was interesting to take off the foggles, it now being night time, even with the runway right in front of you, it makes for a challenging landing. Well, I can say I'm hooked on IFR, unfortunately, so that means more money and more time. But, hey, it keeps me off the streets...

Flying in Turkey

I recently took a vacation to visit with relatives in Istanbul, Turkey. Wouldn't you know it, my wonderful wife set me up with an opportunity to fly with my her cousin's son, Emre, who is training to become an airline pilot in Turkey. Of course, I'm never one to pass up a chance to get into a light airplane (after the plane ride to Turkey, I was keen to avoid the commercial ones however). Emre trains with an outfit near Istanbul call Ayjet. Through a bit of negotiating and skid-greasing with higher-ups, Emre mananged to convince his instructors that it was kosher to take me up with him on a couple of his training runs.

I caught a boat at 7AM to go across the amazingBosphorus and Emre picked me up at the ferry station. After experiencing some of Emre's high speed driving skills blasting to the airport on some country roads outside of Istanbul we reached his home base of Hezarfen. Besides pilot training, Hezarfen is home to an acrobatics pilot, a motocross track, a RC plane strip and a RC car race track. I could spend a week there...

Interesting things about flying in Turkey, all of the airports are towered, and there are far fewer airports than in the US, even comparitively depending on the metric used. It appears that even flying VFR requires a flight plan to be filed (not sure on that). Also, night flying in a single engine aircraft is not allowed as is overflying the city of Istanbul in a single-engine. They do use many of the same conventions that we use in the US, including altitudes and runways measured in feet, knots and nautical miles for speed and distance, similar looking VFR sectionals, etc, so it was not very hard to transition.

We perfomed a walk around and pre-flight prep and then saddled into one of the school's Diamond DA20's, TC-AYC. After running the cockpit checklist we closed the canopy and got ready to take-off. There was a nice 15 kt wind, however it was right down the runway and we were off with no issues. Our plan was to intercept the ILS at Corlu which was an airport about a 20 minute flight away. Emre did most of the communication with the Hezarfen in english so I could understand, but Corlu is a military airport so he had to communicate with them in Turkish. Emre did a fine job flying the glidepath and we landed at Corlu for a touch and go. The runway was 10,000' long and seemed about half as wide so we were a tiny speck in the middle of the runway in our DA20. We joked that we could easily take off and land a few times on this runway.

Back at Hezarfen, after an uneventful flight back and landing, we went out to grab lunch and get ready for our afternoon jaunt. About 3PM the school's Diamond DA42 landed from a day trip to Izmir and I got a chance to see up close and sit in one of the most beautiful light aircraft out there, in my humble opinion. The DA42 is an excellent trainer being a docile and easy to use advanced twin engine aircraft. Even more interesting the DA42 will cruise at about 150 KIAS burning a total of 8 gallons per hour! According to Wikipedia, it was also the first diesel powered aircraft to cross the North Atlantic. I must say, it seems to be a very comfortable and manageable cockpit. At 8 gallons per hour I would be interested in at least renting one someday, if not owning (although footing the bill for TWO engine overhauls would be scary).

Enough dreaming. Anyhow after drooling over the DA42 we were off again in our DA20. This time we just did some practice maneuvers in their practice area. After a couple of steep turns, fun with negative G's and a camera case, and some lazy eights, Emre turned over the controls. After a few minutes of getting used to the stick vs the yoke I was in love. The center stick is a much more natural feeling way to control an aircraft than a yoke for me. Also, I forgot to mention earlier, I was very impressed with how quiet the DA20 is, and Emre tells me the DA42 is even quieter. After our fun in the practice area, we flew down the coast of the Marmara sea for a bit, which was beautiful and then headed back to the airport. This time Emre had a nice gusty x-wind to handle, and the DA20's relatively large wings had us bouncing around quite a bit, but hey, he's going to be landing 767s someday...

I can't thank Emre enough for taking me flying, and Emel enough for arranging it! Can't wait till next time, perhaps it will be in a jet... Emre?