Vectors To Final

This morning I snuck out to the airport nice and early to avoid the persistently windy conditions we have had recently. The goal was one last flight solo in the beautiful Cirrus SR22 Turbo I have been blessed to fly so often these last few months. I took my time with the preflight. If anyone had asked me why I would have told them it was because I hadn't flown her in a month, but the real reason was that I was simply soaking in the privilege. I kept her in the hangar to stay out of the 25 degree temps so I wouldn't feel rushed. Just as she has been since she was first built, she was in near perfect condition. I opened the hangar door all the way up and watched the sun's rays slide up the cowling. I grabbed the tow bar and leaned back to put some weight in the direction I wanted her to roll. Out on the ramp I ran to drop the hangar door and get back to the cockpit before the cold sank in. I threw my winter coat in the back seat, closed the cockpit door, and grabbed my...

I tagged along with John as he gave a newly-wed couple quite a wedding present - a quick ride in the Cirrus down to Kitty Hawk to kick start their honeymoon! I rode backseat for the trip down and then took the reigns for the trip back home. On the way down we flew out over the coast and past Kitty Hawk down to loop around Cape Hatteras. They recently moved the lighthouse 1/2 a mile from the shore as erosion was to the point where waves would hit the lighthouse at times.

This weekend marked our last family trip in a Cirrus, at least for a while. :) That's because we are moving in a few weeks, down to Rock Hill, SC. We took the opportunity to head back down to KUZA for a little time with my family. K, Ev, and I packed up into the turbo and pointed the nose SW. The weekend was great, and both the flight down and back were as enjoyable as ever. As we neared Rock Hill, we were at about 4000' and turned a bit more South to dodge some of the CLT airspace. Being on an IFR flight plan we were listening to the CLT controllers when we heard an urgent traffic alert call for another aircraft. The other aircraft didn't respond immediately so the controller repeated the alert. After a few long seconds the aircraft finally responded that he'd had a close encounter - after he caught his breath he thanked the controller for the warning. It sounded like an eye-opening event. On the way home we sped away from the setting sun and, after breaking th...

After jabbering on and on to a co-worker at the recent Christmas party about how great the Cirrus aircraft are, it came time to put my money where my mouth was - a demo flight was in order. And I was more than happy to do it! Gene, a professor from William & Mary, kindly met me this morning for a little hop around the local area. His daughter was invited to join us but didn't feel up to it. So we hopped into the turbo SR22 with co-owner John in the front right. We dropped him off at RIC to pickup the older Cirrus and Gene swapped out for the front seat. After taxiing the short distance to the runway and waiting on a few commercial jets to do their thing, we took off. We mostly flew my standard pattern around the peninsula, but altered it with a close fly-by of the Langley (where F-22s are based) and Norfolk international. Gene flew the majority of the trip and did a truly top notch job. I told him I found it hard to believe he had only been in a small plane once or twice ...

Today the weather was too nice to resist a quick trip around the patch. Ryan, a new employee at the office, was "forced" to join me on the trip - his first in a general aviation plane. :) I flew around the north side of the KRIC airspace to overfly his house on the other side. We then asked for a landing at Richmond, which we got after a bit of vectoring around. I must have picked a busy time to come in - had I known I might have not bothered with that stop. We spent a decent amount of time on the ground as well - getting a lengthly takeoff clearance and then being given the option to just turn right back around to depart opposite the runway we came in. We taxied into position quickly but had to wait on a few other bigger airplanes landing on another runway before blasting off. On the way back to JGG Ryan took the controls for some straight and level flight. After I showed him a few steep turns he was back in control to enter the landing pattern. We landed on 31 and p...

I had the pleasure of accompanying two friends on a trip down south in the Turbo Cirrus this weekend. We left at 7:30 Sunday morning after filling up the TKS anti-ice fluid tank. Cirrus thoughtfully redesigned that tank for the G3 airplanes – which is nice because the G2 and earlier have a less-than-ideal design. The only way we know to find that the TKS tanks are full is to try to put fluid in and watch it overflow all over the place. The G3 has the filling port on the wing, instead of on the fuselage. I assume you can also look in to see the fluid level. We filed IFR and picked it up from Norfolk Approach in the air. We climbed up to 8000 feet and broke out on top about 200 feet above an overcast cloud layer. It is so much fun to be barely over the clouds like that – it gives you a true sense of speed since you are passing the clouds so close by. Feels like what I imagine low level mountain flying might be like – but way way safer. Skimming the tops of clouds at 180 knots i...

After returning solo from the thanksgiving holidays I got to fly back down to UZA this weekend to pick up my better half and our young son Evan. I was able to take the Turbo down for this trip and loved every second of it. Charlotte was kind enough to give me slightly better vectors than normal, saving me a minute or so of flight time. Being by myself I had some fun making use of the good roll rate of the Cirrus when I was entering the pattern. I kept all the banks under 30 degrees, but brought them in and out fairly sharply - lots of fun, but not something I would do with non-pilots on board. After 1.5 hours of near total straight and level flight banking felt good. I had some lunch with the family and then we were back to the airport for the return trip. I tried to get the airport folks to fill up the oxygen tank but they require a maintenance person do that task. It being Saturday no one was there to do that for me. Here's a video from the return trip which starts at take...