Flying Again!

After a grueling 5 month wait...I'm flying again! My flying buddy Ron sold his Cherokee 140 just after I completed my IFR cross country flight (that was back on July 29, 2009) and bought a Comanche 250. The Comanche needed a lot of work to get it back in flying shape as it had been sitting for 12 years.

The airplane has been repainted, had a new leather interior installed, the panel retooled, new fuel cells installed, and much more. I will be presenting N7720P as soon as I shoot some beauty shots of her.

My first flight was just the other day and it was with my CFII Steven Wilson to begin the familiarization process and get signed off to fly a Complex and High Performance airplane. That should take somewhere between 5 and 10 hours...but Ron's insurance company wants me to get 10 hours of instruction logged before they will let me fly the airplane anyway so we're going to have some fun and do some learning at the same time.

After the Complex and High Performance instruction is complete I will get back into the IFR training and finish that up as soon as possible.

2009 Miramar Air Show

I attended my first-ever MCAS air show at Miramar in San Diego, California on Friday, October 2. The show ran from the 2nd to the 4th. Billed as the "World's Largest Military Air Show" but also considered one of the top 10 best airshows by those in the know, the amazing display of aviation hardware and flying skills is the kind of thing that everyone should attend at least once.

The Miramar flight line was filled with static displays ranging from current and historical military equipment to plenty of good food and refreshments...plus souvenirs galore. The U.S. Navy's legendary Blue Angels joined the Canadian Snowbirds (appearing for the first time at Miramar) as the highlight of the precision aerobatic demonstration.

Other performers, including civilians like Bill Leffin in his T-6, showed off the range and agility of their airplanes too. The static displays included the humongous C-5 Galaxy transport plane and even tiny Cessna airplanes that were used for training "back in the day".

Marine Corp Air Station Miramar strives to be a good neighbor in San Diego and participates in numerous community relations activities both on and off the installation. MCAS is open for tours through the Consolidated Public Affairs Office.

More miramar Photos

more Miramar photos

More Miramar Pics

Cherokee 140 sold

yep, the deal is done, and Ron sold the Piper Cherokee 140. got $33,000 for her (was asking $35,000). New airplane deal is in the works, more to follow.

Long Cross Country For IFR requirement before Checkride

Had a great time on the long cross country IFR trip today. Went north because the CFII wanted to make sure we got out of the TEC area (for whatever that's worth, decided to stop over-thinking it).

We took off at 9:00 am bound for Santa Barbara. Went well, minus the one time when I got all frustrated trying to figure out where I was (ATC took us off the eastbound EMT departure procedure and vectored us back westbound toward V186)...just a brain fart that was multiplied by my frustration. Funny how you can have 4 out of 5 things going right and you start focusing on that one thing that's not right and pretty soon you've got 4 things screwed up.

Anyway, I recovered from that and had a nice flight. A good portion of it was over a thick cloud bank. Did the ILS to runway 7 and had actual. Broke out about 400 feet above the minimums (actual, just what the Double Eye was hoping for).

We went to Atlantic to bring the fuel back to the tabs (we're both fatties so we can't fill 'er all the way up, so took off from EMT with fuel to the tabs) and, while they were exceptionally nice and the Otis Spunkmeyer cookies were delish, they were really busy and it took about 30 minutes from the time we pulled in till we pulled back out.

Next stop was Santa Maria. Was originally going to go to San Luis Obispo but realized they only had a VOR approach for me (can't do RNAV, no DME for the Back Course) so Santa Maria graciously offered her Localizer approach to runway 12. Nice, little flight there, interesting approach. Had lunch at Pepper Garcias. I've read both good and bad about the place on the Red Board, but we enjoyed it.

Took awhile to find someone to let us back onto the airport though as no one with a key could be found. Someone in operations pulled the short stick and had to come let us in. The longest leg of the trip was SMX to EMT and it was really nice to get that much time under the hood with time to think and plan. I could get 2 or 3 steps ahead and be ready to identify intersections, nail my altitude for giant stretches, hold my headings accurately...well, I'm exaggerating about the headings...the CFII told me I was busted once when I was blissfully tooling along 15 degrees off the heading (I argued that I was on the radial, was merely finishing up my course correcting, etc., etc....he didn't buy it).

Somewhere before Van Nuys we were vectored in a big 360 to make room for an Eclipse that was bearing down on us.

The VOR-A approach into El Monte was about as dead-nuts as I've ever done it. Right on course, timer went off at exactly the right place, I held my altitude and airspeed nearly perfectly the whole way...even joking with the CFII (when he mangled a sentence and used a wrong term I set him straight and said, "Don't worry, I'll get you through this.").

Total flight time 4.7 hours. Won't be flying for a couple of weeks as I'm heading out to Hawaii for vacation, but when we get back we'll be doing our Check Ride prep...I think I'm getting close to being ready....