Furnace Creek Brunch 2010

Sunday we had the opportunity to meet Seth and Sue Dallob at Furnace Creek Inn for brunch. Seth writes a blog that follows his flights similar to my blog. The flight there and back was nice and smooth. Death Valley had a bunch of water from the recent rain and snow in the area. Hopefully they will have great flowers again this year, we'll have to fly back this spring for camping.

Furnace Creek Brunch 2009

On November 15th, after our first family pictures, we flew to Furnace Creek Inn for Sunday Brunch. They have a 5 star hotel there with an excellent brunch and they offer free transportation to and from the Inn from the hotel. The brunch was excellent as usual and we ate way more than we should have. Here is the video of the flight.

N951CC flies to Phoenix for the Packer game

This year Michelle and I didn't order DirecTV's NFL Sunday Ticket to watch the Packers and decided to actually go to our first game. We went to the last game of the season against the Phoenix Cardinals.

This was our first time both of us were away from Katie except for daycare. The weather looked good so we dropped Katie off with some friends and headed for the airport. It would have taken 8 hours to drive there not to mention stopping for meals and stretching our legs, but the flight took only 2.5 hours. It would have been shorter, but I've been wanting to see how high I can get my airplane to fly.

We are going to be flying ourselves home to WI again this summer and I'm hoping to fly through Colorado and the Rockies. The other 3 times I've made the trip, I either went well north through Washington or well south through Texas. So we spent a lot of extra time climbing on the trip to Phoenix, but I was able to get up to 17,500 feet. Although I wasn't at max gross weight, I wasn't light either. Climbing to 13,500 was no problem, 14.5 was getting slower and I was thinking I was going to barely make it to 16.5 and have to descend back to 15.5 (you are supposed to cruise at odd altitudes + 500 going east). The airplane kept climbing, although not very fast, but I was able to get all the way up to 17,500 feet. This will be great for flying home this summer, the only issue may be getting Katie to wear her oxygen mask - she doesn't like it so far.

The flight was nice and smooth and everything was well until we were switched to the Deer Valley tower. I didn't have too many problems with them, but I have NEVER heard controllers YELLING at pilots like this guy was. The controller wasn't very happy when I couldn't identify which airplane to follow. I could see 3 in front of me, but they were landing on parallel runways and I was 90 degrees to the runway so I couldn't figure out which one was landing on which runway. He vectored me and I had no other issues, but he really ripped into other pilots who were mostly students.

We had an unbelievable rate from Hertz, but we had to be there before noon to pick up the car. We scheduled our flight to get there just before they closed, but I forgot about the time zone change, so we were 50 minutes late and the guy was closing up. I begged for a bit and eventually the guy gave us a car, I gave him a fat tip and thanked him a lot. After getting the car, we ate lunch at the airport restaurant. It was good, but I'm not sure I'd fly there for a burger because I'd rather not deal with the tower. By the way, they had landing traffic land on the north runway and touch and go's landing on the south runway and parking and everything is on the south side, so they had a line of airplanes trying to cross the south runway. I think it took 10-15 minutes after landing to park, then on top of that, ground control directed me to the wrong parking spot.

Since we flew in, we got to our hotel around 2:30 instead of late at night so we went to the hot tub and then to go see Avatar in 3D and Cold Stone for dessert. I thought it was a good movie and had excellent visual effects. We had the worst night sleep in the past few years because of noisy neighbors. The people above us were having a wrestling match and were yelling and swearing all night. We called the manager several times, but that didn't help much.

In the morning we headed to the grocery store to pick up some brats and beer for tailgating. When we showed up at the public parking, there were signs everywhere prohibiting tailgating. You have to pay for premium parking if you want to tailgate! So we found someone selling parking spots and fired up the grill. I gave the left over brats to the Packer fans next to us and we headed in for the game. We walked around the stadium a bit then headed up to our seats. We had the first and second seats of the first row of the 2nd deck. I thought these were going to be great seats, but they ended up being right behind the stairwell. I would stand when they were playing along the 50 yard line since the stairs blocked my view and a bunch of people were harassing me. After a bit of an exchange and a visit by security, I told them to deal with it and go home if they wanted to watch the game sitting on their couch. I didn't have any more problems after that. It was a great game and the Pack game away with a W.

We switched rooms at the hotel because of the night before and the second night was fine, they were loud until 10 and started up at 7, but at least they were quiet through the night.

On the way home we decided to make a detour and head to Sedona for lunch. It was only 45 minutes or so out of the way so why not. The flight from Phoenix to Sedona was short and uneventful and the descent into Sedona was spectacular. The scenery was beautiful and inspiring and the approach to the "carrier" airport was pretty cool. The airport sits on a mesa high above the rest of the area. Thankfully, neither Michelle or I felt a vortex while landing and the arrival was safe and smooth. The food there was pretty good despite a few bad reviews. I'd definitely stop there again if we were in the area.

After lunch, we were on our way back home. Cruising at 14,500 feet, we made it home after a total flight time (including Phoenix to Sedona) of 3.8 hours. Now we're just waiting to see the 2010 Packer schedule so we can figure out what game we'll go to next year!

Here is the video of our mini-vacation.

I need more practice...

So after many weeks of crappy weather, I was finally able to get out flying today. Apple Valley got a new restaurant on the field; their other one closed a while ago. I read from a bunch of other pilots that they have really good BBQ so that was enough reason for the trip. The flight was smooth and the food was great.

To try to knock the rust of my instrument flying skills, I decided to shoot some approaches on the way there and back. I did the ILS into Victorville on the way there and the ILS into Palmdale and the VOR into Watsonville on the way back. I did a poor job on all of the approaches and really need to keep practicing so I can mentally get ahead of the airplane. Not too surprising though, I did say I had rust on my IFR skills...

Space Shuttle Discovery Landing

We had another opportunity to watch a space shuttle landing! This time it was the Discovery at Edwards AFB on September 11th, 2009. Kevin and Sarah Ford were heading down their with their girls to watch the landing so I was going to go down there with Katie as well since I was watching her while Michelle went out with the "ladies from school" for her birthday.

Michelle decided to come down and watch the landing thinking she'd be back in time to go out, but she ended up being too late so they cancelled. We went to the Golden Catina restaurant at Rosamond airport after the landing, this was the first time the Ford's were there. The food was good as usual, but there was a ton of people and a huge wait (why Michelle was late), but all places were packed from everybody coming off Edwards from the landing. It was pretty late and we needed to eat before heading back home.

Here is the video of the landing.

Visualizing IFR approaches

I haven't been IFR legal for 3 years now, but I want to start getting back into the swing of things. On the way back from getting the pitot-static and transponder check, I decided to do some VFR practice approaches. I didn't have a safety pilot so I was unable to go "under the hood" and log the approaches and I had to keep an eye out for traffic, so I didn't get any simulated practice, but it is a great way to start knocking the rust of the procedures part of flying IFR.

I found a great website with instructions on how to overlay GPS tracks and maps and import them into Google Earth. I scanned the approach plates of the approaches I flew and calibrated them per the instructions so I can overlay my GPS track and the intended approach. Here is the site with the instructions. http://lets-go-fly.com/GPS-training-aid.pdf

Here are some pictures I captured. I only spent a little time adjusting the opacity of the maps so that you can see the Google Earth satellite view underneath so the map is pretty faded, but I think you can see all the pertinent information.

Here is the 2D VOR-B approach into Fox Field near Lancaster, CA (KWJF). I like this view because you can easily see the effect of the wind on my hold entries and holding pattern. I actually wasn't going to practice any holding, but the controller got busy and issued a hold so I got some practice anyways. I'd like to think I would have done a better job of compensating for the wind on successive holds had I done them.

Here is the 3D approach for VOR-B at WJF.

Here is the 2D ILS-25 approach into Palmdale, CA (KPMD) just south-east of WJF. I received vectors to the final approach course and was limited to a 3000 ft DH by the tower instead of the published 2703 ft.

Here is the 3D ILS-25 approach at PMD. My DH was limited on this approach, that's why it doesn't look like I get very low to the ground.

After the ILS, I had enough fun for the day so I decided to head back home to Inyokern. Now I just have to do some more reviewing, finish my checklists, and then start flying with a safety pilot on my way back to regaining my IFR currency.

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.