Vectors To Final

I had the great chance to fly a bit with my buddy John this weekend. I acted as safety pilot as he shot 6 rapid-fire approaches. My Dad even got to ride in the backseat to take in the sights around the Williamsburg area. Lots of fun! John ended the flight with a super soft landing and we taxied back to parking. I also got the chance to chat briefly with my old IFR instructor Charles as well as some of the other folks at the airport. It was great to be back there!

Today and tomorrow I'm at the AOPA Summit in Florida. Walking around the exhibit hall today offered me the chance to fly a Fresca simulator setup for a Cirrus SR22. This thing has a wraparound screen that probably covers 180 degrees of your forward view (so nearly total side-to-side coverage) and maybe 40 degrees up-and-down (so plenty). I kept my flight short, but just after takeoff I rolled over into a steep bank and felt a little disoriented. It was kind of cool, but something that I'd have to get used to as getting all that visual input with no seat-of-the-pants input was a touch strange. The graphics looked like MS Flight Sim, so I assume that is what was driving the view, and the avionics were near-real-life mockups mounted in a cockpit setup not too different from the real SR22. Very very cool. To end the flight I did something unique. I slowed down, reached up, and pulled the chute. The sim seemed to do a decent job simulating the event, and it was a bit of an e...

This morning I made a quick flight before the fog had a chance to lift off of the local lakes and rivers. I managed to capture a bit of it with my iPhone. That factory in the video is near Lancaster, SC - from there I flew NW out to Crowder's mountain to see the leaves turning yellow along the ridge-line as the sun had risen just enough to skim down the slope through the trees. Amazing. That was one of those sites that only your mental camera can capture, unfortunately.

My last few flights have included a bit of time flying behind a "six-pack" of "steam" gauges again. After having spent so much time with the G1000 over the last few months I figured I'd have some trouble re-adjusting to the older indicators. I actually found that I automatically adjusted and didn't really notice the fact that I was getting my flight info in a different manner. No doubt the fact that I have hundreds of hours on steam gauges was the reason, but it still surprised me how automatically my brain adjusted. If I was flying hard IFR for an extended period I would certainly prefer to be watching a PFD for attitude info (with the major bonus of its automatic cross-checking) but for 95% of my flying there's little difference. I've been looking more closely into owning part of an airplane again and will post more about that once progress is made. So far it seems to be going quite well though. Regardless of what type of airplane I eventually...

This evening I got the chance to fly with a family I met recently. Their son was out of town so we filled the C172 up with the Dad, Mom, and daughter. The daughter flew right seat and got a bit of time at the wheel. She did a terrific job and seemed to have fun doing it! She was my 19th first-time-in-a-small plane passenger! I truly enjoy being a GA (general aviation) ambassador. It's just too much fun not to share. :) The weather was very cooperative for the flight - I was expecting a few bumps from thermals but we actually found very few.

This morning's flight was meant to get me up and down before the winds started picking up. I've not been thrilled with my last few landings (tending to float) so I wanted to give myself no excuse today - no winds means it's all the pilot's fault. I've gone through phases in the past where my landing consistently seem to fall short (not literally, thankfully). But today I did a good job with my one landing - hopefully ending this most recent streak. As usual, I think my problem has been bad airspeed management (flying a bit too fast). I can give myself a pass on that type of mistake when the winds are playing around, but not when they are just a few knots. Before takeoff today I pulled out my new iPhone 3GS (for ForeFlight testing of course!) and took this quick video. I uploaded it to Vimeo since they seem to provide better quality viewing. The video is nothing special but did show me that the 3GS takes great video, especially if you can keep from shaking your ...

I've flown a couple of times since my last post - both solo and both just local flights. The first was to check out the infestation of duckweed on the pond we have down in Fairfield county. We had plans to get down there for the weekend and I wanted to learn how much duckweed we'd have to treat. I found it about 60% covered which wasn't great. After talking to my Dad about it, we decided to buy some Talapia fish to stock the pond. The hope is that after putting 1000+ small Talapia in the pond they will start to eat the duckweed and make a dent in it. We've been spraying chemicals for years with only minimal benefit. Hopefully the au -naturale method will work. Either that, or the bass will get lots of fish food. This morning I went out early to visit an old haunt - KFQD in N.C. It is just south of the mountain foothills so there's some very nice scenery to take in. The flight went great, especially my landing at FQD . Unfortunately my landing was less ...