The Flying Thread

[duc_fan]

Anything and everything related to flight!  Airplanes, fling-wings, gyros, powered parachutes, gliders, balloons...

Not sure about skydiving though.  That whole "jumping out of a perfectly good airplane" thing... 


To kick off, I've been working on my Sport Pilot certificate.  In a 1946 Piper J-3 Cub.  I'll try to get some pics posted from home (photobucket is blocked at work, and fiddling with it on my phone is kind of a joke).

This past weekend had to leave the Cub behind, because I needed to practice VFR cross-country flying.  Flew from The Dalles down to Redmond, OR.  Passed a DC-7 going the other way outta RDM.  Very cool.  Man, the Cessna trike is SOOOOO much easier to taxi and land.  It's like cheating.  In the Cub, your feet have to be hyper-active on the rudder pedals, and you gotta plan farther ahead, because the brakes... well, what brakes?

On the return flight, we got up to altitude and were able to tune in the DLS AWOS... and it wasn't VFR anymore.  3000 ft solid OVC, and with the terrain around there, it's not possible to come in from the south and stay under 3000 MSL.  So my instructor filed an IFR flight plan and up into the clouds we went.  My first foray into IMC!  It was surreal.  Looking out the windows, up, down, all around... completely monochromatic grey.  I can see how spatial disorientation can become such a problem.  If you can't tune out your body's internal sensors and completely trust that artificial horizon, you are seriously screwed.  Even if I don't pursue a PP with IFR rating, I want to get some hood time or actual IMC time with an instructor again.  Not that I ever plan on doing VFR into IMC.  AOPA's ASI and the FAA are doing a good job scaring me out of that.

Anyway... about 10-15 miles out of DLS we were able to see the city lights and the airport through a break in the overcast.  Not sure why the AWOS was reporting solid OVC... it wasn't solid at all below 070.  Since we had the airport lights in sight, instructor called up Seattle Center and cancelled the IFR plan, and let me fly the rest of it VFR.

One important thing I learned: "legal" VFR minimums are not necessarily prudent to fly in.  Honestly, with those cloud formations, in the Cub, without artificial reference instruments, we'd have scrubbed the flight.  It was actually well above the legal minimums for VFR and even Sport Pilot ops, but I would not have been comfortable flying that without proper IFR instruments and an instrument-rated instructor with me.

So anyway... feel free to share aviation-related pics and stories!  A cool airplane you saw, a flight you'll never forget, trip(s) to Oshkosh, scary situations you'll never repeat, et cetera.

[Grampa]

ok.....so if I havea treadmill....

[Skybarney]

After 23 years or so I have a few pics.....

[WarrenJ]

Oshkosh is 25 minutes away.  Always interesting things flying around here.  Mustangs and B-24's are pretty common.  Even if you are not an aviation nut, EAA is still a spectacle to behold.  I try to take it in every few years.  Probably have a spare bunk for any interested parties.

[duc_fan]

Oshkosh is 25 minutes away.  Always interesting things flying around here.  Mustangs and B-24's are pretty common.  Even if you are not an aviation nut, EAA is still a spectacle to behold.  I try to take it in every few years.  Probably have a spare bunk for any interested parties.

Will have to keep that in mind.    I went for the first time in 2011.  Want to go back... and now pursuing the Sport Pilot cert, I've added the goal of flying in to OSH to my bucket list.

[MendoDave]

I told you it wasn't VFR this weekend.

[Doe-Foe]

I'm now 45 minutes away from Oshkosh. I think 1971 was the first time I went with my family. I'll have to add stories when I'm at a regular keyboard...

[MendoDave]

I gots only about 20 Hours behind the yoke of a C 152. 8 or 10 of those are solo hours. we had a flying club at my base and i would have continued if I wasn't just an E3 at the time.

Anyway I went into the aircrew program and accumulated 980 some hours in the C130 went lots of places and generally had a good time doing it. Now I hardly fly at all.

[Bick]

Sept. 30, 1975...

The AH-64 took flew for the 1st time.

[MendoDave]

AC 350 flew lots of places in this one.

[MendoDave]

Sept. 30, 1975...

The AH-64 took flew for the 1st time.

Are you saying this was your first flight when you were 4? besides my not understanding its a nice picture.

[Bick]

Are you saying this was your first flight when you were 4? besides my not understanding its a nice picture.

Today is the Apache's birthday.

I didn't start flying for a few more years.

[MendoDave]

Today is the Apache's birthday.

I didn't start flying for a few more years.

Got it. 

[sno_duc]

Private pilot SEL, ~ 110 hours, PIC time in C152, C172, C182, M20J also have time in C310 and a Decathlon (inverted fuel and oil systems, great fun)

Never ever ride in back of a C310 with 3 flying instructors. After a lesson, instructor says innocently asks if I'm doing anything for the next couple of hours. "No real plans" "Wanna ride along?"
Start with a short field take off, if you lock the brakes, wind-up the engines, and then dump the brakes the rate of acceration is most satisfying. 
You probably didn't know that older C310s with tip tanks are prone to a self re-enforcing oscillation due to lack of baffles in tanks and the fuel sloshing for and aft. I didn't, so they showed me.
Then they did some stalls including power on in 45* banked turn and another power on stall with one engine out.
The highlight was shooting an instrument approach at night with one engine S/D and feathered. The image of the prop blades slowly revolving while being back lit by the strobes as trees whiz by at the edge of the runway is permanently etched in my memories.

[Cody]

I keep watching Airplane Repo on the Discovery Channel and it makes me really want to get my pilots license.

I'd love to own a Cessna 125 Float Plane.