Aerial photo time

I took my Dad up for the first time in quite a while this Saturday morning.

We rented a C172 and flew to his friend's house to get some photos of a pond he has had installed. Then it was on to the house at Lake Wateree we recently bought.

After that we dodged some clouds to go to our pond which is being worked on. They have lowered the water level 3 feet by digging a big trench in the dam. Beavers have been plugging the "leak" within a few hours of it being cleared out, so we thought we'd see if they had plugged it yet again. They had. :)

Lake Wateree house

The pond - covered in green plants with the dam on the right side

Me standing on the dam the next day, by the drain trench, after Dad cleared it again

I got Dad to shoot a pseudo-approach using KUZA's ILS 02 procedure - or at least what I remembered of it from memory. He did a great job, even with me monekying with the throttle too much. I took over at ~300 AGL and made an OK landing. Dad taxiied us back to parking and tied down the plane after shutdown. I ended up making 2 extra trips back to the airplane after forgetting both the books and the hobbs/tach times. I must not be renting enough - shouldn't have forgetten those obvious things. :)

We saw a posting for a 1/2 share in a Cirrus (one without the PFD, but a six-pack instead). Made me wish I was in a position to buy into another airplane - though not at the 1/2 level, more like 1/3 or 1/4.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Updating data on the Garmin Perspective system

Image
After changing from the Avidyne system to the Cirrus Perspective (G1000) system, I had to relearn an important part of owning an airplane: how to update all the data the systems use. There's even more data in the Perspective, including AOPA directory data and more charts. In this walkthrough, I make use of the Jeppesen app for Apple OS X: JDM .  It has worked well for me, though I did need to call Jeppesen when I first set this up to get my subscriptions fixed up.  They gave great customer support when I did. The process starts (optionally) by hooking up a ground power unit (GPU).  In the case of the Cirrus, you can certainly do this without it, but I tend to hook it up just to be sure.  The systems draw about 8-10amps while updating, but you won't generally have the power on for long.  One tip I've read: power up the GPU before plugging it into the plane, at least for the one I bought.  That saves the plane from seeing any power spikes that might have occurred when t
Read more

G1000 transistion training - emergencies - final flight

Image
For the final flight in my G1000 transition course we focused on failure scenarios. Not the "engine goes POOF" kind but the avionics kind. Normal situation This picture shows what the 2 Garmin screens show in a normal (non failure) situation. You can see we have 2 screens - the left PFD focusing on flight performance (airspeed, heading, attitude, altitude) and the right screen (MFD) focusing on engine data, mapping, checklists, and everything else. Failed PFD screen In this scenario the screen that is right in front of you (the PFD) has failed. This basically means the screen has gone dark. We simulate that by dimming the screen down to 0% brightness. After darkening the PFD we shot a GPS approach into Rock Hill. When this failure has occured you shift the G1000 into Reversionary mode. That means the info that is normally split across 2 screens is now merged into 1. It actually duplicates the same data on both screens, but since the PFD screen is no longer functioning
Read more

A-10C Standby Compass - Sun Shade

Image
 One of the final items to add to this instrument build (besides the text covers for the lower LEDs) was the sun shade for the AR LED box.  I made this out of thin aluminum sheets , cutting it from a template using some metal sheers .    My template was created by tracing some of the actual artwork from the DCS sim, and then scaling it to the proper size. It turned out ok, not perfect but pretty good.  Primed and painted it and then installed it using 2 of the 4 holes that were already on the LED box 3D print.  I used some heat inserts in those holes to give the screws something to bite, but the holes are really too big for my inserts so had to use some glue to help out.  
Read more