Vectors To Final

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 t...

This morning we started out bright and early. I didn't sleep too well because I had too much ForeFlight code bouncing around in my brain. But a quick gulp of an energy drink and a shower had me awake by 6:30AM. We were off for a trip from VA (KJGG) to Hickory, NC (KHKY) and Greenville, SC (KGYH). John let me do the flying so I could gain more time in the Turbo Cirrus. The trip was great - we dropped off John's step mother in Hickory (cool airport that used to be a hub for Piedmont airlines - back when commercial air travel was a good thing) and then went over to Greenville for John to spend a few minutes with a client of his. I grabbed some small snacks at each stop, just enough to cover me for the next leg. In Greenville I got a good chance to chat with Charlie (who works at KJGG) to get the most recent gossip about the goings-on at the airport. From there we went straight back to Williamsburg. I filed IFR for 11,000' direct to go back. That would have had us going r...

A week ago John flew down in the SR22 with a neighbor/friend Mike and Mike's son, Adam, to give me a lift up to Williamsburg. I did a quick preflight while the guys had some lunch and then, once we were all aboard, I cranked up the engine. I had a tough time cranking it, mainly due to not enough priming, but before too long we were heading east at 3000' to avoid CLT airspace. After letting Adam fly for a few minutes I called up CLT to get an IFR clearance. Once we flew around the CLT airspace we were finally allowed to point directly to Williamsburg and climb up into the cooler air at 7000'. Eventually we went up to 9000' to avoid a cloud layer and try to cool off a little more. After descending through the clouds near Williamsburg, I handed the reigns off to Adam who flew us through a little rain and then down to the traffic pattern. He did a great job and handed me the airplane just in time to add some flaps before turning to a right base leg. We all told Adam he was ...

A week ago John flew down in the SR22 with a neighbor/friend Mike and Mike's son, Adam, to give me a lift up to Williamsburg. I did a quick preflight while the guys had some lunch and then, once we were all aboard, I cranked up the engine. I had a tough time cranking it, mainly due to not enough priming, but before too long we were heading east at 3000' to avoid CLT airspace. After letting Adam fly for a few minutes I called up CLT to get an IFR clearance. Once we flew around the CLT airspace we were finally allowed to point directly to Williamsburg and climb up into the cooler air at 7000'. Eventually we went up to 9000' to avoid a cloud layer and try to cool off a little more. After descending through the clouds near Williamsburg, I handed the reigns off to Adam who flew us through a little rain and then down to the traffic pattern. He did a great job and handed me the airplane just in time to add some flaps before turning to a right base leg. We all told Adam he ...

This post is the second in a series co-written with PlasticPilot, the editor of http://www.plasticpilot.net/ . This series compares flying light aircraft in Europe (his point of view) and in US (my point of view). This particular post focuses on taxes and fees. It starts with the European view, the US way is in the second half. A non-negligible part of the flying costs in Europe are the approach and landing fees, sometimes complemented by handling or passengers, or customs fees. There are also en-route taxes for IFR flights, but only if the plane is heavier that 2'000 kilograms. The landing fees at small, un-towered airfields can range from approximately 10 to 50 US$. An ILS approach and landing in Bern (LSZB) costs 60 US$. Some airports even charge for lighting when flying at night. When I trained towards my instruments flying rating, I made a rather complex cost tracking tool, with separated columns for plane rental cost, instructor, fuel and fees. In the end, the fuel represente...

This post is the first in a series co-written with PlasticPilot, the editor of http://www.plasticpilot.net/ . This series compares flying light aircraft in Europe (his point of view) and in US (my point of view). This particular post focuses on filing flight plans, and getting an IFR clearance. It starts with the European view, the US way is in the second half. In Europe, there are four reasons to file flight plans: international flights (VFR or IFR) IFR flights require a flight plan Some commercially used airports require a flight plan Flight plan implies alerting service, which can be good when flying over hostile areas The content of the flight plan is always the same, according to the ICAO standard, but the way to file it varies from country to country. This can range from handing the form to someone at the airport to filing it for free over the internet. However, the “manual” way becomes an oddity. Most airports have free on-line systems, several countries have pay-sys...

Today I was flipping through the newest blog entries in my Google Reader and came across a few posts about the new Cirrus Perspective - a G1000 in the Cirrus ! I was fairly surprised by it, not because it was totally unexpected, but because I expected them to put out a full FADEC engine setup first. The ability to do a simple push button start to crank the engine and never having to make a mixture setting change seems right up Cirrus' alley. I have read about the Cirrus being used as a test bed for FADEC and expected them to announce it going into production before too long [ 1 ] [ 2 ]. Messing with the engine systems is probably a time consuming change though, as you don't want to screw that up. So what does this new Perspective package offer, beyond the $50,000 price premium? First off - the Garmin G1000. An incredibility capable glass panel setup that now includes virtual terrain graphics ( is that pointless? ) and HITS (highway in the sky) tech. Plus that terrific Garm...