Vectors To Final

I went through the SimCom training, which was a ton of fun, and reached the mentor hours required by my insurance, so it was SOLO time!  I did a quick lap in the local area and captured parts of it on video.

Today I took delivery of a TBM 900. It's slightly used, with 280 hours of time on it, but by all appearances looks brand new.  It's billed as the fastest single engine turbo-prop and with a typical cruise speed in the area of 325kts, I believe it. A few things drew me to this particular model. I was able to get a demo ride in a similar one late last year, a 930 model, and found I liked it much more than I expected to.  It's powered by the well-proven PT6 turboprop engine that offers huge amounts of horsepower (850 in this install) coupled to relatively quiet and very reliable operation. Coming from a Cirrus SR22, this airplane is basically 2x in all respects - twice the speed, twice the altitude, twice the load carrying capability, and darn near twice the range on full tanks.  The costs involved are more than 2x, but that is life in aviation. Since moving to Texas, our family of four has had a desire to fly back to SC and GA more easily, and more quickly. ...

A few articles about my Grandad, Harry Miller Sr.  He was a Navy pilot that flew in WWII. ---- Springstein Plant  ENSIGN HARRY MILLER WRITES OF RESCUING AIRPLANE CREW AT SEA  Likely ~Early 1943 We've mentioned Springstein's red-haired hero, Ensign Harry Miller, several time in The Springs Bulletin and a recent letter of his relates a very interesting experience:  "We left Ascension on the way to South America and had been out about an hour and a half when we picked up a faint SOS. We knew what it was — A-20 was lost the day before and was ditched when it ran out of gas. They didn't know where to look for the crew though. Anyway, we took a bearing on the radio and headed on the course; in about 20 minutes we saw a white balloon and there they were — two men in a rubber life raft. There is a little radio in those boats and you fasten an antenna to a little white balloon filled with gas and it holds the wire up. The radio will transmit for two h...

I recently purchase a Bose A20 headset, the newer model with bluetooth audio support.  This was after seeing it advertised many times over on FlightChops and  steveo1kinevo (adverts work, people!). I've been using a Lightspeed Zulu 2 for the last couple of years, so I was curious to compare it to the Bose.  I like the Bose much better.  Both have nice bluetooth audio setups, with volume controls on the headset cable and a mute vs mix mode for radio and music combinations.  The Bose was trivial to pair to my phone, as it booted up in pairing mode right away. The music quality was at least 10x better with the Bose.  It has actual bass, and much more dynamic range.  The zulu 2 always made music sound kind of distant to my ears. I also think the Bose is better at noise canceling by a small, but noticeable amount. The other win for the Bose is in comfort.  The clamping force is less on your skull and the ear cups are less bulky, meani...

Well, it's been a year since I posted an update here. Since then I have moved to TX and added maybe 80 hours of flight time to my (ForeFlight) logbook in the Cirrus. Not taking many long trips now that I live closer to fellow ForeFlight folks, but I have had a few good trips back and forth to Houston and my total flight hours is nearing 1,000. Our company has grown considerably over these last 12 months (we're around 80 people now) and being able to chat in person with more folks has been helpful. I got the chance to fly a PC-12 a few months ago and enjoyed it. That plane is especially enjoyable in the back cabin, as there is loads of room. It is a nice balance of speed, comfort, and endurance. I spent a fair bit of time in a Piper Meridian too, and enjoyed it.  It's not the fastest or roomiest Jet-A powered plane, but is quite nice for the price. Last week however, I got the chance to fly a Citation Mustang on two flights, start to finish. While I have an hour or...

It's been a long time since I updated my blog, but we've been quite busy. We recently moved to Austin and have been settled here for about a month. Getting out here was interesting as it was the first time we've moved such a distance.  We ended up splitting it across a three day period, after having moved out of the old house (a feat in and of itself). Our family of 4 piled into the SUV, hooked up a trailer, and headed west. We stopped after ~6 hours of driving each day to sleep in a hotel. It worked out pretty well, but we were really happy to have that behind us once we were finally in the new house.  To get the Cirrus out here I enlisted the help of one of my instructors. He spent a morning getting it out to KGTU in Georgetown and I met him there to give him a lift to the commercial airport. I managed to find a community hangar to put the plane in so that it could stay out of the weather.

Just had a long weekend down in FL with the family, capped with great flights to and from.  Here's a brief moment on the way home: