bouncing

I "Flew" the sim today as well as my usual ride 94X. Today was the hottest day of the year so far in Tallahassee and I thought it would be a good idea to fly around at 3000ft shooting full procedure RNAV approaches. Boy was I wrong. I could have been flying around in a glider today the thermals were so strong over Tally.

Besides the not so nice weather I did get in some good practice and got to share the airspace with a pair of F22's. Never thought the first time I saw one I would be up in the air less than a mile away. They flew directly overhead shooting the ILS 36 while I was slowly making my procedure turn inbound from the FESUX IAF a thousand feet below.

Thats it for now, its late... Going up Friday evening with Hale. Gonna be droping him off in Destin and then head back for a nice night flight. Its been a while, so I'll be sure to do a few stop and go's to get legal again.

Keep the blue side up.

The Beau

The weather across the south east has been less than desirable the past two weeks. It was only last weekend that the sky cleared up allowing for some VFR time building to occur. Last Sunday my buddy Matt and I hopped in the redneck killer and blasted off to Gulfport (Biloxi) Mississippi. We are both in IFR training and are trying to build up both our simulated instrument and x-country PIC time. The trip to Mississippi was a solid 5.8 hours. With that we both can log the whole flight as PIC x-country and half of it as simulated instrument time. (one of us has to be under the hood) It was a great day and a great flight. The weather was perfect... well, the 20 knot headwind on the way home kind of sucked but hey, we're building time right!

So the trip west was great. I was flying the first leg down the coast. First we shot over to KPFN, then to KDTS to stay in the VFR corridor near Eglin AFB. From Destin we flew to KNPA which is the Pensacola Naval Air Station, home of the Blue Angels. We stayed above their airspace at 7500 ft. and continued on to KGPT our final destination.

Shot of Pensalcola Naval Air Station from 8,500 ft.

Here's a zoomed in shot of the ramp. If you look closely you can see 3 of the Blue Angels A/C including the famous Fat Albert C-130.

After shutting down we walked into the FBO and we're given the keys to the crew car. Sure beats paying for a cab! We drove down the coast to the Beau Rivage Hotel & Casino to have lunch and maybe get lucky at the tables. I opted not to indulge (after all, I am already in dept thanks to this flight training stuff) but Matt threw $300 on black at the roulette tables and won!

Here's the big winner! Always bet on black!

So after our little gambling excursion, Matt treated me to lunch at the Beau's rather lavish lunch Buffet with his winnings. It was excellent! Next time I'm gonna win big and lunch will be on me.

All in all we spent about an hour and a half maybe two hours over in Mississippi before we got airborne again. The Flight home was Matt's and unfortunately we were seeing ground speeds of around 88 kts. Miserable! But like I said before, we are both trying to build our time up so we shrugged it off and kept on trucking.

The flying was pretty uneventful minus a oil pressure gauge that was malfunctioning. The oil pressure sat at the bottom of the green arc on the gauge the whole trip. Not too big a deal as long as its in the green, but it kept us on our toes. We touched back down in good ole' Tallahassee around 4:30pm EST and had been gone almost 8 hours. It was a great trip I will not soon forget.

The Matt's

Some photos

Here are some pictures I have taken lately. They didn't quite fit into a specific post so I'll put them here.

Happy flying.

Nice Tallahassee Sunset

Playing with the clouds over Panama City

The Apalachicola River

A big cloud somewhere in the greater Orlando region

Miles and miles of little puffy fair weather cumulus clouds

Beating the weather

I flew home this weekend with a buddy of mine in one of my schools 172's. It was just supposed to be a short stay as I wanted to spend some time with the folks and see the Steve Miller Band play down at sunfest. We left the ground about 9:15am local time and flew from Tallahassee to Lantana via Cross City then victor 7 through Lakeland and La Belle. From there we flew east to Pahokee and finally into Lantana. It was a great flight! We cruised at 9500 ft. the whole way. This kept us above the broken cloud layer and it was smooth as glass with only a slight headwind.

Unfortunately we were only able to stay one night as there was a weather system that was moving east dumping rain and strong winds throughout the country. It was the same system that brought down the Dallas Cowboy's practice facility and I did not want to mess with that. So we left West Palm Beach (KLNA) around noon on Monday. This was alot earlier than I wanted to leave and didn't even get to spend 24 hours at home. Oh well, I'll go back down next month and spend some more time with the rents.

All the reports showed that we would beat the weather if we could get to TLH by 4-4:30 so off we went. I had been watching the weather like a hawk for days up to the flight and kind of knew this might happen. First, we made a quick stop in KOBE (Okeechobee) for cheap fuel and after fighting the plane to start (172RK does not like the hot start) we were off direct to LAL then up to CTY on V7 turning west abeam the navaid to get us home to good ole' Tallahassee.

This was the plan anyway...

After climbing up to 10,500 departing KOBE the clouds started to grow. We cruised around them for a little while but I knew that the weather conditions ahead would not permit us to get underneath. The major storm that's now pounding the east coast was having its way with us... and at this altitude our little Cessna doesn't like to climb much more, so down we went. I spotted a whole just past Lakeland and I hit the deck. We got underneath while staying VFR eventually leveling out at 4500 ft. Here comes the fun stuff. We were getting bounced around so much that I tried a little lower at 3500 ft to no avail. With no working auto pilot, I was getting a work out keeping the plane on my desired orientation. The whole time in the back of my mind I was thinking about the weather back at base. Would I be able to make it in VFR??? I wonder what the weather is doing up in the panhandle? Where could we land that has a few hotel options if we do get stuck? DIVERT!

At this time we were about 65 miles directly south of Gainsville heading to Cross City. There is nothing in Cross City, and I had been to Gainsville's airport a few times before and knew they had adequate resources available to determine the weather situation along with many Hotel options. (not to mention the free cookies at the FBO) Now I am a Seminole and hate to say anything good about gator town, but their FBO is nice and everyone is friendly. Even to those pilots who are sporting Seminole flight club t-shirts! So after checking the weather for 15 minutes I decided we could make it VFR if we hurried. We jumped back in the plane (more hot start issues) and blasted out of G-ville as fast as our little Cessna would take us.

The could deck was solid at 3000 in g-ville keeping us at 2000ft. It was much smoother for this last leg thank god, but the ceiling was dropping and the visibility was around 6 miles and dropping as well. This is no problem for the IFR student, but I was starting to worry about the legality of the flight continuing VFR. Luckily we got to stay at 1500 and I could see the field about 5 miles out. Approach got us in around other IFR traffic and we made a butter smooth landing on runway 18 with rain hitting the windshield during the approach. We made it by about 15 minutes. I drove home in the rain.

This was my longest trip by myself yet and I loved it. Even with the crappy weather on the way back. The legs were about 343 miles a piece and I logged 7.5 hours of x-country flight time. I can wait to do the trip again.

For now though, I gotta get ready for work... Happy Cinco de Mayo baby.

building time

So as of now I am about a quarter of the way done with the flying portion of the instrument rating. My instructor and I have been doing nothing but x-country flights (50nm straight line distance) under the hood. The simulated instrument time is building and I am slowly getting to where I need to be. The ground portion however is going even faster. For school I must finish by next week. I am doing this all on my own this time around and it has turned out to be OK, but I am still a little nervous about what I am going to get on the written.

The flying has been great! Well that is minus being under the hood all the time. I have been getting lots of practice with VOR/DME approaches, intercepting and tracking airways, navigating via the ADF, VOR, and GPS, getting all the new radio lingo down, flying in different types of weather, and well... flying only by reference to instruments. It has been pretty fun over all. I am flying a ton! Ultimately building time towards the magical 250 hours. I have been flying with much stronger winds than I did with my private. My confidence is growing and routinely seem to be flying in winds upwards of 20kts. Crosswind landings seem to be a regular occurrence, and I actually logged a minuscule amount of actual IMC yesterday flying around in the clouds and rain. It was a good day as the wind was right down the runway at 14kts gusting to 19kts. It was my first really nice landing in a week or two. Kissed the numbers with the stall horn itching to blow, and off the runway onto taxiway bravo which is around 1500 ft from the threshold. I thought it was nice anyway. Certainly better than Florida senator Richard Steinberg's landing which I watched from the hold short line. We counted 7 bounces (a few pretty hard) as he tried to land our schools glass cockpit 182. I felt bad for the plane.... it wasn't pretty.

That's it for now. I have tons of work to do for the written and I got to get crackin' on that asap. Keep the blue side up.

finally

Well, its happened. I have finally secured some financing to continue my training. I have started on my IFR ticket and am building time and blowing through money again! Poor nasty mike is not IFR approved since it only has one set of working comm and nav radios. So I am tackling this next rating in our 172S and a 172SP. They are much nicer but also carry a $20 per/hour extra charge. Not much I can do I suppose... I do not fit into our 152 that's IFR equipped (too tall) and my instructor and I with full fuel are over weight anyhow. (The FAA needs to realize that not too many people weigh the standard 170lbs anymore. Especially when they are 6'3''.)

Anyway, my new instructor and I have been pushing through the beginning fazes of the IFR rating. Practicing holds and basic vor to vor navigation. the simulator comes in handy here. I can log up to 10 hours of "simulated" instrument time in my flight schools FAA approved simulator. I will take full advantage of this since it is only a $40p/h charge.

The real challenge will be completing the ground portion of the IFR rating before April 23'rd. I must submit my 3 stage exams and a copy of my completed FAA written on this date in order to pass my class. The only way I could get a loan at an acceptable interest rate was to actually go back to school. Therefor, I am attending Utah Valley University attempting a BS degree in Aviation Science. I'm taking 6 credits a semester and those are all "pilot based" classes. Meaning, they coincide with whatever rating or license I am pursuing at my flight school here in good 'ole Tallahassee. Right now I am taking an IFR ground and IFR flight class for a total of 6 credit hours. All I have to do in order to pass the class is take the 3 Jeppesen stage tests found in the IFR/Commercial kit and fax over a copy of both my FAA written exam score and a copy of my temporary airman certificate when I take my checkride. Not too bad eh? Seemed worth it to me. I get a decent interest rate, (saving money) I can train at my local fbo, (saving money) and never have to leave town.

So for now I am back in the saddle working towards that elusive 250 hour mark, hopefully picking up my IFR, Commercial and CFI ratings/licenses along the way.

For now I'm off to the flight school to hang out with John and Martha King. Lots more to come if I don't kill myself listening to all of Martha's one liners.

good things are coming...

I only hope it will be sooner rather than later.