Catching up on posting flight videos

I've really been getting behind on editing videos; I have hundreds of videos of Katie I still have to go through. I put together some of our recent flights and posted them below. Enjoy.

Flight to Watsonville, CA to visit Aunts and Uncles in Santa Cruz. This was the first time Katie met them.

Flight to Tehachapi, CA for the EAA Pancake Breakfast. If you listen, you can hear the controller tell me to switch over to advisory frequency since an airplane ran off the runway and spilt fuel. The airplane actually didn't run off the runway, but instead lost control in ground affect and crashed into the airport boundary fence. The pilot was not injured, but the airplane is probably totaled.

Flight to San Diego. We tried flying down there many times, but it seems to be too foggy every time. The real issue is that it gets windy and turbulent in the afternoon desert so we need to head to San Diego late enough for the fog to burn off, but early enough to get back before the wind picks up. We flew into Montgomery field and at breakfast at Casa Machado. The food and service was excellent and the view of the ramp/runway was great.

N951CC flies to Flabob (Riverside)

I've got so many videos to catch up on; we've been too busy doing things and not catching up on posting them. Here is a flight that we took to Flabob (KRIR) near Riverside CA. The weather was excellent, visibility forever and smooth winds out of the north.

I've heard many people talk about the turbulence in Cajon Pass, but I was naive thinking it would be fine since the air was so smooth. Since Flabob is just south of the pass, I started my descent early and flew down into the pass so I wouldn't have to circle to lose altitude over the airport. That is when it hit. I immediately slowed the airplane down since I like my wings intact and we were climbing 1500 - 2000 ft/min at the min cruise power setting and 10 degrees of flap. Michelle says this was about the worse turbulence she has ever flown in, but wasn't as bad since it was real short (only 5-10 minutes until we cleared the pass) and it was plenty cool. The heat is what really makes the turbulence bad.

We flew well over the Ontario class C airspace and I circled to descend just east of the airport. After I finally made it down to pattern altitude, I entered flying an upwind entry to westbound runway. It became interesting when we turned downwind to notice that there was a mountain right in the way for my base turn. It decided we'd cut inside the mountain for a short base/final instead of flying all the long way around. Surprisingly, I made the approach just fine, there were plenty of opportunities to instigate a go-around; I would have gone around the mountain the second time.

The airport is really small and seems like a throw back in time. There are airplanes tied down that look like they are waiting to disintegrate in place. Michelle thought it looked like a "honke airport you'd see in the Midwest." The restaurant had a great atmosphere with historic photos of the airport all over the walls and models hanging from the ceiling. The food was good and it seemed like most people's service was really good, but it seemed like the waitress kept forgetting about our table in the corner.

On the way back, we had a stiff crosswind for takeoff and I climbed above the pass before crossing the mountains and the turbulence wasn't nearly as bad.

American Engineering

Listening to people complain over and over about poor American Engineering and how Americans cannot compete with foreign engineering in context of the auto industry is really annoying, especially being an engineer myself (although I'm not in the auto industry). I'm not going to get into cars now since that debate will never end. It did get me wondering how many miles my American Cessna skylane has on it. Considering American airplane companies dominate the aircraft market, that at least says something positive about American engineers.

My airplane has over 14,000 hours on it, the engine has over 2,000 hours on it, and it cruises at 133 kts true airspeed. The rough estimates say that my engine has about 350,000 miles on it and the airplane has flown well over 2 million miles! I know that comparing cars and airplanes is a poor example since much more maintenance is put into an airplane over it's lifetime, but I thought that 2 million miles was pretty impressive.

I do have all the original logbooks and the previous owners did log the segments for each flight so there is a possibility that I might actually be able to calculate a much more accurate estimate (I'll never know how many miles were travelled in holding patterns or out of the way sight seeing). I doubt I'll go through that effort since there are 60 or 70 logbooks of flights and that entering each flight would take forever.

Now I better get back to work before someone says American engineers don't work very hard...

Feed Reader Issues

So Google reader hasn't been receiving updates from my blog for awhile. I've dealt with this several times before so I didn't bother fixing it. I figured I'd make a post since others have been having with their reader as well. To fix the problem, I changed the feed to this blog to be http://n951cc.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

I think Google bought out feedburner or something and screwed up this feed. Hopefully this works for you, let me know if it doesn't.

N951CC finally flies to Catalina

Last weekend we finally flew to Catalina. Originally we were just going to fly there over the summer for some camping, but that fell apart due to a lack of reservation. Since then the anticipation has grown more and more due to cancelling the trip several times. Then I found some cheap inflatable life preservers on Ebay so I picked those up for me and Michelle, but then felt bad that we had life vests and Katie didn't so I had to buy her one.

The smoke from the LA fires was terrible on Saturday, there were no airmets for reduced visibility, but there were 2 fire fighting TFRs to avoid. By the time we got to Mojave, it was getting to be IMC conditions and getting worse quickly. I asked the controller to verify visibility ahead of me and they stated that it was 0 visibility by Palmdale only a few minutes ahead, but clear above 10,500 ft. I started my climb and saw a little blue to the west when I reached 10,500, but I was still in some pretty thick smoke so I climbed to 12,500 and were were above it. You could see the thick smoke billowing up like a volcanic eruption. Since I was now too high for the Shoreline Route through the LAX airspace, I diverted west towards Pt. Mugu so I could fly around the class B airspace and descend down to Catalina Island. If LA approach wouldn't have cleared me to descend through the class B, then I would have had to circle for ever to lose 10,000 ft of altitude before landing.

Catalina is an interesting place to land, I didn't find it very difficult, but I did perceive the "illusions". The airport is on the top of of a mountain on a mountain. It is sloped the whole, but it is less sloped on the south-west end of the runway so that you cannot see the end of the runway when you are on the ground. It's like a big crown in the runway. When the runway ends, it really ends with a huge drop-off on the back side. I found it difficult to pick out the runway until I was only a few miles out. I used the altimeter as my primary altitude reference (vs looking at the ground) since the runway is 1600 feet above the surrounding ocean. When on right base to 22, I swear I was flying the flattest approach of my life, but then by the time I got to final it looked as if I was way too high. I just added my last notch of flaps and had a nice approach.

I can easily see how students could easily over work the approach due to the illusions and get themselves into trouble. You land uphill and can't see the drop-off at the end of the runway, but you know it's there so you always feel that the runway is only as far as you can see. I just didn't worry since I know I didn't land long and don't have a long roll out that I wouldn't go off the end. We took off runway 22 uphill and watched the ground fall away from us then circled a little of the island before turning northbound.

Lunch was ok, but not what it has been raved up to be by other pilots. The buffalo burger was good, but not that big and the fries were ok. It was more of a "bus stop cafeteria" than an "island airport restaurant".

After lunch, we flew over to Camarillo and met up with Michelle's sister Lisa. We spent the day at the beach (it was hot out) then headed back to Ojai and had dinner at Papa Lennon's. The had great pizza and gelato.

Sunday we packed up, ate breakfast, then headed to breakfast. We were running a little slow and I was getting concerned since the winds pick up in Inyokern in the afternoon and there was already an airmet out for moderate turbulence. We needed to pick up some gas at the self serve since the FBO waived our tie-down with a fuel purchase, but the pump was broke. That took another half hour or so and I don't think were were airborne until noon. I flew up north towards Bakersfield to avoid the smoke and flew the ILS 30R approach to verify the VOR, ILS, and Marker beacon receivers in them airplane. The VOR antennas had been removed during maintenance and I've never used the ILS or marker beacons since I bought the airplane - all worked just fine.

From Bakersfield we headed eastward back home, but started to hit the bumps over the Sierras on the way. We really started picking up moderate chop on our descent through Walker's Pass and the AWOS was reporting winds variable 25 gusting to 30 knots. This would be a good chance for cross wind practice. I set up for runway 28 since the winds were ~250 degrees, but I couldn't line the airplane up on approach and the sock had switched to favor 20, so I did a go around. A left 270 put me on right downwind for 20 and I was able to land uneventfully.

I was nervous about the hanger door since it is extremely weak and is a huge sail in the wind. The latches that lock it open also don't work that great. I managed to get the door open and the wind caught it and slammed it up into the locks. I managed to get the airplane back in the hanger with no damage (twice in a row is a record!) and close the door without too much issue. Check out the video below of the trip. As long as I can start feeling a little better (feels like I've got a cold), we'll be heading to Watsonville next weekend to visit Michelle's aunt's and uncle's in Santa Cruz.

Lame video to break the silence

Here is a video of me testing an inflatable life vest. Michelle and I plan on flying out over the Pacific, such as to Catalina Island, and although we'll usually be within gliding distance of land, the vests were cheap off ebay. I don't have to have the vests officially inspected since I don't fly for hire, but I wanted to test them before relying on them so I fired them off then replaced the CO2 containers. I know this video is lame, but that is part of the fun :)

Home to WI to visit the Brouchoud family

Michelle and I took Katie back to WI so she could see the family (meet most of them for the first time). We drove to Vegas and valeted our car at the Tropicana since we'd be staying a night there on our way back. Katie was pretty good most of the 3.5 hour flight, but did get fussy for about 45 minutes and cried for about 10 minutes. There was just too much going on and too many people checking her out for her to fall asleep. Overall, the flight was good. Michelle's parents picked us up from the airport and we went home to visit. The next morning, we drove up to Kiel to visit my brother Joe, his wife Amber, and meet my new niece Leila. Jon, Kandy, and Juliana met us there as well as my parents. We had a good time and enjoyed some really good grilled chicken and played some disc golf. Jon managed to loose one of Joe's discs, but we weren't able to get it out after hoisting Joe up in the tree.

Sunday, we played some more disc golf and I managed to loose one of Joe's discs, then my parents hosted a party and had all sorts of people over to visit and meet Katie. It was a good chance to catch up with people I haven't seen in a long time. Jon, my dad, and I went out on a hike to Todd's pond and I picked up a few birds on my lifer list. Monday we went to Sheboygan for lunch at the airport since it was rated best of the best for airport restaurants. It was pretty fancy with great food at a good price, but it was located at the end of the runway instead of centrally located near the intersection of the runways. Being at the end of the runway did have it's advantage as we watched the formation takeoff of some WWII planes heading to Oshkosh, there must have been near 40 of them. Tuesday, we went back out to Woodland Dunes and Michelle and I picked up some more lifers. With my dad's help, I was able to definitively identify them using the bird book, but I wouldn't have been able to on my own.

Wednesday we met Joe for breakfast and went to see my mom's property and Cedar Lake. Thursday, we went to visit my brother Jeff and took a tour of his company, this was Michelle's first time there. We continued on and stayed the night at Jon's after dinner at Famous Dave's. Friday, I headed for Oshkosh while my parents drove Michelle to Milwaukee to visit her family. I took a tour of the A380 that was ok I guess, but took an hour and a half of my day and I ran out of time at the end. I didn't have time to wander through the airplanes, talk to the Cessnas to Oshkosh crowd, find the CAP or Angel Flight, but I did manage to check out some engine monitors and some portable oxygen setups. I ended up buying an Aerox system that gave me a pretty good show special. Now we'll be able to fly up higher where the airplane is more efficient, the air is smoother and cooler, and I can get stronger tailwinds. It'll also give me more margin when we're flying through/over the mountains. Michelle gets a kick out of the cannula she'll wear that looks like a moustache. I'm thinking about going with the Insight G3 engine monitor although they still aren't on the market and have been 'almost there' for a few years now.

After Oshkosh I headed to meet Michelle and Katie in Milwaukee to begin our visit with her family. That'll have to be a separate post since I'm getting tired and I don't have that video compiled yet.