|
Post by Tom Goodrick on Apr 3, 2009 19:12:28 GMT -5
Ahhh. Such is Midwestern Politics!
|
|
|
Post by Allen Peterson on Apr 11, 2009 12:37:35 GMT -5
Having gotten to Cheyenne, I decided to continue on the tour from here. That way, I'll end up back at KOLM and fly home from there. The next leg of the flight is from Cheyenne to Cedar Rapids, KCID, and that took 4 hours and 39 minutes, mostly at 55% because of the distance. I had almost 4 gallons left on arrival. I did diverge slightly north of the GPS track to fly by my home town airport, Antelope County, 4V9. I think I've got the RV-6A flying pretty good, keeping in mind the questionable specs from the manufacturer. The next leg is to Columbus, KLUK, a mere 2.5 hour flight. Setting up the flight plan is sort of a geography lesson, trying to find the airport ID amid the map clutter. I find a good road atlas helps to narrow down the search area. I did notice one thing on the flight to Cedar Rapids, most of IA was covered with snow on April 8, 2009 (in Fair Weather). So I will fly the next leg on May 9. If you are going to fly the tour on real dates you may want to fly the southern legs first.
|
|
|
Post by Tom Goodrick on Apr 11, 2009 20:14:24 GMT -5
I don't quite understand your remark about the "geography lesson." To set a flight plan up, don't you just enter the code of the starting airport and the code of the destination airport and go from there? The only reason to look at a map is to check for Restricted Zones and pick waypoints if needed.
The path on the map takes you right to the airport.
In mountain country I find it helps to select low-altitude VOR routing instead of GPS Direct. This will avoid most of the tall rocks. (I still fly the route using GPS-guided autopilot rather than VOR as VOR reception is poor and unreliable in mountains.)
Playing golf in the snow is fun. That's what the bright orange golf balls are for! But I admit putting on ice is tough. My kid and I did that in Massachusetts once. There were big patches of melting snow on the fairways and ice on most of the greens.
|
|
Dave Evans bgak015
Member
"there are old pilots and there are bold pilots but there are few old and bold pilots"
Posts: 57
|
Post by Dave Evans bgak015 on Apr 11, 2009 20:38:37 GMT -5
Played golf one march in northern Michigan, the snow was almost gone,but the ponds were still frozen over,shot a nice score ,got a lot better roll off the ponds then I did in the summer! Flameing hotsauce,I had the same 150mph aircoupe ,fun for awhile but not what my Dads flew like,went to aircraft configuration dropped engine Hp to 95 and prop to fixed pitch 20.5 this gave me a cruise of 93-95 knots at 2200rpm,and if you go to 21 or 21.5 it takes longer to get off the ground an climb and a better cruise of around 100 - 105 at 2200. Dad tried both and liked the better short field preformance since we flew out of a small sod field.
|
|
|
Post by flaminghotsauce on Apr 11, 2009 22:50:00 GMT -5
Ah, thanks! I haven't had a chance to check that yet. 95 knots sounds about right.
I got distracted last night and was flying around Shanghai. I wanted to see if MS modeled that roundabout by the bridge. Nampo, Nanpo, I forgot the name. Oh, they did model it.
|
|
|
Post by Allen Peterson on Apr 13, 2009 0:51:19 GMT -5
Tom, I usually make a flight plan that covers 4-5 airports that I want to land at, and like you say, I put in the stating airport ID and the destination airport ID. Then I have to find the airports along the way and move the flight path to include them. That works OK out here, but not so good in the east where the airports are much closer together. I'll have to try a low altitude VOR route out here sometime.
|
|
|
Post by Tom Goodrick on Apr 14, 2009 19:25:02 GMT -5
I flew the leg from KSOP to KOXB today in 86 minutes at 3500 ft using the Mooney Ovation. That baby cruises at 195 KTAS at 3500 ft. I saw a wind of 1 knot using Fair Weather. In previous flights at high altitudes I have seen winds of 15 knots. Low altitude may be best, at least when the westerly wind is against us.
|
|
|
Post by Tom Goodrick on Apr 17, 2009 19:26:34 GMT -5
While at KOXB, I did some practice circuits. I worked out the bugs in my approach with th Ovation. On the third try I did not need the speed brakes. Then I tried a Baron 58P with the same two-golfer load. It was too simple. Then I tried the Beech Duke. It has a bigger payload and was able to handle four golfers with bags and clubs while carrying 60% fuel. I think that's enough for this circuit.
Today I flew the Duke from KOSB to KLWB. It worked fine except for a couple of excursions - one to stay south of trouble in the DC area and another when I forgot to end that excursion. I stayed at 4500 ft for a half the trip where I made 194 knots with only a 7 knot headwind. Then I climbed to 8500 ft for the rest of the trip to stay above the mountains nd some light clouds with a 20 knot headwind making 179 knots. Cruise was at about 75%. Fuel used was 69.8 gal. Time was 91.45 minutes.
Next stop is KHSV. Sounds familiar.
|
|
|
Post by Tom Goodrick on Apr 19, 2009 10:01:06 GMT -5
So I flew home - temporarily. From KLWB to KHSV took 116.25 min at 194 knots at 16,500 ft with a wind of 23 knots from 285 degrees. My course was generally 220 degrees. I flew "VFR on top" after climbing arond the puffy clouds of "Fair Weather". The Duke used 48 gal or half its fuel. I decided to just cruise high even though there was a wind. The wind was quartering to the right. It took may 12 knots off the ground speed.
The course at HSV is my favorite of the courses around here although I have enjoyed using the course old on Redstone which has both more steep hills and more shade - an important consideration here in the summer. But here I golf in the fall, winter and spring. The average high here in January and February is 50 degrees. That's fine for golf with little or no wind. We get snow cover only very briefly once in every 5 years. This year we had none. The course at HSV has just a little slope here and there and a little water - by the water tower that looks like a big golf ball on a tee. But there is plenty of flight activity to watch as guys from Delta, the Navy, the Air Force and Fedex practice landings and takeoffs with touch and goes and go-arounds.
As a student pilot I found go-arounds to be the most challenging. My instructor would wait until I had all the flaps out on the Cessna 150 and was settling to the runway from a few feet up and then yell "Don't Touch! FLY! FLY! FLY!" so there you are on the verge of stall trying to get airspeed with full flaps and milk the flaps up gradually while flying level 4-10 ft above the runway.
It's fun to see jet pilots doing that.
|
|
|
Post by Tom Goodrick on Apr 25, 2009 9:36:45 GMT -5
We've had visitors the last few days (in-laws) so I had little chance to fly. However, the brother-in-law is a former pilot and airplane owner so he enjoyed seeing Flight Simulator. I showed him a short flight with my Cessna 340 that I keep parked here at KHSV. He was amazed at the detail and the modern glass panel. Unfortunately with some backseat driving by my sister-in-law (who also took several flying lessons), I managed to screw up and forgot to put down flaps. I landed smoothly at 95 knots!
But while they were on a daytrip to a shopping place with my wife and son, I decided to fly two legs of the Golf Fling. I flew from Huntsville to Dallas and then to El Paso. But since time was limited and the runways were long, I used the learjet 35A. That gets the job done well - 1000 nm in 3 hours.
I loaded up the plane with four 200 lb golfers with 35lb golf bags and 25lb clothing bags. The standard professional crew of two is included. The flight to DFW took 95 minutes and used 258 gallons. I used runway 31R, thinking it would probably be near the golf course. The flight to ELP took 92 minutes and 251 gallons. In each case I left the ground at MLW so I could legally land anywhere after a short flight. To do that I simply left the center tank empty.
It's a nice way to travel. These 500 nm legs are about the shortest legs that make sense in a jet. You spend 20-25 minutes going up and down at each end with a 45 minute period of cruise in between. i cruised at 38k and 40k ft and Mach 0.80. The headwind of 25 knots was barely noticed.
|
|
|
Post by Tom Goodrick on Apr 27, 2009 10:14:40 GMT -5
I used the Rockwell Shrike to fly four golfers (including myself) from KELP to E67. That is not a pressurized or super charged aircraft. I used the low altitude air routes. The FS Flight Planner specified 10,000 ft as min altitude. The route was KELP-CUS-SSO-Dephe-E67 where CUS and SSO are VOR's and Dephe is an intersection. It took 99 minutes and used 44.7 gallons. Cruise at 10,000 ft was at full throttle giving 61.4% power at 20 inches mp and 2500 rpm. Ground speed was 177 knots with a wind of 9 knots from 23 degrees. Mixture was leaned for max power.
The closest brush with mountains was after takeoff where I had to get close to Mexico to get around them. Along the route there were many peaks in the distance that climbed above the horizon but the route was very clear of trouble. It could be flown IFR although the approach to E67 should be VFR.
The aircraft handled the load easily. The airport is neat and a little challenging. You fly down-slope for each direction to the 3400 ft runway. I chose to land toward the west.
That golf course ought to be interesting!
|
|
|
Post by Tom Goodrick on Apr 28, 2009 19:14:24 GMT -5
Today I did two short legs ending up in Prescott. E67-P01 would have been simple and boring except for two things. While flying from E67 toward Ajo (P01) I checked the situation at Ajo and found they do not sell fuel. So I checked the chart and found a convenient place for fuel near the route - Casa Grande (KCGZ). I was navigating by eyeball on the moving map anyway so I stopped there for fuel. That worked well. Then we flew toward the edge of a nasty blue area and flew around it to get to Ajo which is surrounded by very nasty blue areas where live shooting is done by fast jets. With all that it took 1 hour to get to Ajo in the Shrike with our foursome.
The reason that was all eyeball navigation using the moving map ws that there were no waypoints available to plot a course to Ajo outside the blue areas.
Then it looked like we'd have to backtrack and go far out of our way to get to Prescott (KPRC). But I checked a Sectional chart and found they have left a narrow corridor from Ajo to Gila Bend for small aircraft traffic. You fly between 4000 ft and 5500 ft directly on line to the GBN VOR and they wont shoot you! There are more hazards around Phoenix so my complete route was Ajo, GBN, BSK, E25, AZ71, PRC. The last part is on a low altitude route. That is safe at 9000 ft. Use care descending to KPRC because the land slopes gradually. Note that KPRC is at 5000 ft so plan your descent accordingly.
That flight also took just about an hour. We did those two flights and played a round of golf at Ajo in time for supper at the motel in Prescott. Tomorrow we'll play an early round at this high-elevation course and then fly to Oceanside.
|
|
|
Post by Allan_Lowson on May 16, 2009 11:08:39 GMT -5
Well, I finally got going before the winter snows set in at the Florida start-point... First leg was flown in a twin comanche and took 2.63 hours and used 54usg of fuel so that makes for an average speed of 179 knots, fuel consumption of 20.5 gph or 8.7 nmpusg. Our currency may be in free fall but our gallons are still bigger Leg two I switched to a Beechcraft A36 and took 1.7 hrs and 25.67usg, so that made for a speed of 162 knots and a fuel burn of 15gph or 10.8nmpusg Leg 3 the A36 managed in 1.68 hrs and 24.5usg, for a speed of 149 knots and a fuel burn of 15gph or 9.9mpg. Leg 4 (been here before - seem to remember rattling some windows with four RR Conways) I switched back into the Twin Comanche and that took 1.8hrs and 42.8usg, for a speed of 202knots and a fuel burn of 23.8 gph or 8.5mpg. These legs have been fun, a couple of years ago I flew down the East coast to Atlanta and we got a perfect view of the Appalachians all the way down and it is interesting to cover the same ground in fs at lower levels and speeds. I will potter on - may make the West Coast by Christmas, although I am currently chugging around Finnmark in Tante Ju with her seaboots on, can't imagine why.
|
|