Update, Version 2.0

I recently relocated from the Seattle area to another region of the Pacific Northwest (near Portland, OR.) for a new job and new adventures. Along with moving, getting settled in a new area and Winter weather a day finally opened up for a day of flying. I had joined a local flying club back in September, but my schedule and nice weather days never seemed to line up. I managed to get airplane checkout flights in the club planes out of the way but today was my first time to be able to take a plane out and explore some new territory.

The morning started out foggy but the forecast called for clearing and warming by Noon and the coastal areas were forecast to be clear all day. After getting a weather briefing for the area, I opted to head West and do some sightseeing and get in a couple of landings at KONP and S45. The main goal of the flight was to get familiar with a different cockpit layout than what I was used to and to learn some of the landmarks around my new home airport. I also wanted to take in any nuances of the KSLE tower controllers and how they did things relative to other towers that I've been to. Obviously, phraseology is consistent with all things FAA, but every ATC has it's own "personality".

Glass to the Max

After a thorough pre-flight, I departed KSLE and headed West toward KONP. The C172 that I was flying is equipped with a full Garmin glass panel, not just a simple upgrade but full-on glass PFD/MFD and dual GTN's. But, I wasn't distracted by the eye-candy and kept to the task at hand and navigated by what I saw out the windows. Soon enough KONP was in site and after getting the automated weather decided the best runway was 02. After a landing and taxi-back, I headed North and pointed the nose up the coast for Siletz Bay. The airport was easy to find and after a flyover checking the windsock, I entered the pattern and landed on 17. I understand that there is a nice eatery across the highway from the airport called the Side Door Cafe, so I'll make a trip back over to S45 and take in a meal. And besides, I don't have any favorite spots yet for Oregon so will write about this destination in a future blog entry. 

Arriving S45

After snapping a few photos on the ground at S45, I launched East and headed for KSLE. This time though, the sky had turned quite hazy and there were pockets of fog that made identifying ground landmarks difficult. So, I punched in my route on the GTN and tracked the CDI until I could at least make out the Salem area. From there it was easy to identify Independence and then the KSLE terminal area. After contacting the tower I requested some touch and goes and made a few before calling it a day. Overall, put 2.1 hours on the hobbs and am ready to get flying again on a regular basis.

So Long Niner Zero Seven

Today, after 377.9 hours as PIC of N52907, I waved goodbye to the the blue and white bird as the new owner flew her to Texas. 

Nearly eight years ago I inquired about an add in the Seattle Times for a 1/5 share of a 1974 182P.  At the time I had reached the point in many a pilots' journey that it was time to own or share the cost of ownership of an airplane. Renting was fine for day trips or short hops, but wasn't flexible for overnights or last minute getaways. So, after a few calls with the owners and a breakfast meet and greet, I bought a share of the airplane. I remember how "fast" the 182 seemed at the time compared to 172's that I'd been flying and dealing with the extra blue knob took some getting used to. But after a 10 hour insurance checkout, I was good to go. This airplane has taken me all over the Pacific Northwest, Canada and as far East as Montana. There have been failed alternators, broken valve guides, and other things that are par-for-the-course with a 40-year old airplane. The destinations and adventures in 907 are too numerous to mention (many are documented in this blog), but it was good run in this airplane and am looking forward to the next ownership opportunity that comes along.

Logbook Entry From 2006 Demo Flight In N52907

Cirrus Checkout

The flight school where I teach recently acquired an SR20. In order to be able to instruct in this airplane, one has to complete the Cirrus certified training syllabus. This checkout involves VFR and IFR operations. For VFR, along with showing maneuver proficiency, an emphasis is put on knowing the procedure for deploying the ballistic parachute. Also as part of the CFI checkout is learning which circuit breakers to pull when sitting in the right seat for simulating various failures for students in the left seat. The IFR flights involve all kinds of approaches full/partial panel. Since I wasn't planning on teaching in the SR20 initially I completed the "transition" training so that I could rent and fly the SR20 for fun. I was surprised how roomy the SR20 was inside and how easy it was to adapt to the side stick. The challenge for me was the amount of time the airplane required to slow down from 160 kts for pattern entry. In a C-172, the airplane slows nicely when 10 degrees of flaps are added along with a power reduction abeam the numbers in the downwind. The Cirrus on the other hand requires arrival planning several miles out to get slowed before entering the pattern. Once the SR20 is slowed for the pattern, the speeds are quite higher than other single engine GA airplanes. For example the final approach speed in the SR20 is 80 kts. On the IFR side, the faster speeds take some getting used to. I'm used to C-182 approaches which start at 135 kts, but in the SR20, things happen a lot faster when commencing at 160 kts. It took me several tries to get used to the higher approach speeds.

One other piece of equipment that takes some getting used to is the keypad interface to the G1000. The typical Garmin buttons are still available on the PFD/MFD, but in addition to those, the Cirrus has a keypad that allows full programming of the G1000. My muscle memory still wanted to use the PFD/MFD buttons, but after re-training myself, using the keypad is much more efficient.

G1000 w/keypad

All in all the Cirrus is a fun airplane to fly and am looking forward to taking advantage of the faster cruise speeds for some long distance flights.

Lake Tour

I recently had a chance to branch out and do some takeoff and landings at some area lakes other than Lake Washington and Lake Sammamish. Thanks to Austin Watson (http://austingwatson.com/aviation) for taking a few hours this afternoon to show me some really cool lakes West of Seattle. One of the highlights was landing at Spencer Lake and being able to dock and walk to the Spencer Lake Bar and Grille.

Route:

From	To	Heading	Totals			Leg
W36	LAKELONG	249°M	15nm	1.9g	0h10m	15nm	1.9g	0h10m
LAKELONG	LAKECUSHMAN	253°M	42nm	5.3g	0h29m	27nm	3.4g	0h19m
LAKECUSHMAN	LAKENAHWATZEL	177°M	57nm	7.2g	0h39m	15nm	1.9g	0h10m
LAKENAHWATZEL	LAKEMASON	57°M	73nm	9.1g	0h49m	16nm	1.8g	9m59s
LAKEMASON	LAKESPENCER	161°M	76nm	9.5g	0h52m	4nm	0.5g	2m33s
LAKESPENCER	LAKETAPS	80°M	108nm	13.3g	1h13m	32nm	3.8g	0h21m
LAKETAPS	W36	335°M	126nm	15.4g	1h24m	17nm	2.1g	0h11m

Fore Flight Map 

Approaching Lake Cushman

On the Ramp at Spencer Lake

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182 Trip to Bozeman, Mt.

This trip is going to take some time to chronicle, but finally had the opportunity to fly our 182 over to KBZN. More to come...

Flightaware Tracking KRNT-KBZN

Snapshot of Weather Between Missoula and Butte One Hour After Landing BZN.  

Butte, MT

Missoula, MT

Near Mulan Pass, ID

Arrival Back in Seattle 2700' OVC

Pancakes at Desert Aire

I've been flying over to the Desert Air Flyin for several years now and its become one of those annual treks that I look forward to. This year as it turned out, one of my friends (who is also a pilot and used to live in the Pacific NW) was in town. And as is customary, one tries to take a visiting pilot for a fun flight in your neck of the woods. (It's not really customary, but any excuse to fly if you know what I mean). Instead of me journaling the events of the day, David describes it in his own words here.

    

ASES

The floatplane add-on had been on my to-do list and I had been contemplating going to one of the seaplane specialty flight schools and knocking out the rating over a long weekend. As it turned out, the flight school where I have teaching privileges acquired an American Champ Scout (8GCBC). The plane had been on wheels for the winter but as Spring came around the floats were re-installed. The next question, would I be able to instruct on floats after obtaining the add-on? Some of the insurance requirements that I'd heard about required 50, 100 or more hours in type. In this case however, the only insurance requirement was that a designated examiner that was approved by this particular insurance company, sign off with a logbook entry that I was capable and competent to fly with students in the Scout.

N186AC 

In early May I started training in the Scout.The flying part wasn't too bad, but learning not to flare like in a land airplane took some getting used to and all the non-flying logistics like operating the float truck, docking, and moving the plane around the dock were the most challenging. Learning how to read the wind is another art to master and I now find myself noticing all kinds of different wind direction indicators around water. An airplane on floats is a big weather vane and seems to have a mind of its own once the wind starts pushing it around. Lots of forethought into which way to launch, takeoff, land, ramp and dock based on wind conditions are all part of a float pilots repertoire.

So, with 9.2 hours under my belt I scheduled the check ride for the commercial ASES add-on and concurrently would get the instructor sign-off to begin teaching in the Scout. Check ride day started out with wind in the low teens, so the DE and I elected to defer our meeting time a couple of hours as the winds were forecast to drop a bit. The oral part of the check ride started just like all the rest and ends up being more of a discussion than a quiz. The examiner asked me about techniques for docking/beaching and gave me a scenario about docking on a river with some prevailing wind. Our discussion lead to determining what the wind/water current ratio was so that you could decide which one would push the airplane more. The take away was that there is a 5:1 ratio of wind speed to water speed. In other words one knot of water current is equal to 4 knots of wind speed. We then talked about weight and balance of the Scout and based on my calculations the examiner (220 lbs) and me (180 lbs) were just within the envelope on the aft CG side. This lead to a question about stability and he asked, if we have an aft CG, what does that do to stall speed? I hadn't really thought about this subject in a while and like most check rides there's always a discussion question that leads down a path that you aren't prepared for. After drawing a picture of a balancing airplane (CFI candidates will remember doing this) I eventually got to the correct answer.

After the oral, we headed out to the dock and I put the plane in the water while the examiner tied off the plane to the dock. Before cast-off we discussed the various flavors of the W36 Washington One East Channel and West Channel departures. In W36's case it sits at the end of KRNT's runway 16/34 and most of the time take off's are West of the runway 16 center line. But in certain wind conditions, it may be necessary to fly down the runway and join the cross wind departure leg or cross the center line of 16/34 when departing North. We spent some time discussing this and making sure that my intentions (and future student's) are clear to Renton Tower. We then had another discussion about prop safety and he told a story about how a pilot had been killed by a prop strike while docking. In a normal docking scenario, the mixture is set to cutoff as the airplane approaches the dock and then the pilot gets out, hops up on the dock and ties the plane off. In this case the pilot went too far forward on the floats and got hit by the propeller as it wound down. The DE's point was to make sure that you stay clear of the prop while its stopping and the airplane is coasting up to the dock.

The flight was uneventful and I made a series of take offs and landings in mostly rough water conditions. The only surprise was on the last landing when the left window blew open and I thought is was one of those DE induced distractions. Turned out that one of the window latches had vibrated loose, so I secured it and landed normally. The last thing to do was ramp the airplane, load it back on the float truck, and complete the IACRA paper work to issue my temporary pilot certificate with commercial single engine land and sea privileges.

On the Water at Lake Sammamish