I had the rare privilege last Tues of riding along with Flight Check
as they inspected the new LDA (Localizer Directional Array) approaches
at CLE (Cleveland, OH)

Typically, we see a King Air from Detroit for periodic checks, where
they just need to fly a few approaches.

For this new installation of 2 new offset ILS's (LDA's), they sent a
Challenger 601 from OKC.

Of course I brought my own headset

My original intent was to ride in the back and see exactly how the
techs 'check' the approaches. But once I got in the jump seat behind
the pilots I forgot about that!

One of my co-workers warned me they would be doing a lot of "fast",
"low" flying...Well...

Lots of flying at ~ 1000 AGL at ~ 220 knots.
A couple of times the pilots checked to make sure I was OK with it.
Not even a concern for me...hey, I fly at 1000 AGL all the time!

....and 220 knots feels like slow flight in a big plane @ 45000+
Gross...that's about the weight of 18 172's...

3 hours in the jumpseat...and I felt it

I had a blast...even made a notation in my logbook-zero hours of
course...although I did learn a bit! I do think I was smoother on
the controls later that day in the 172-after watching them fly.

Definitely up there on my "pilot geek cool meter"
just below getting my instrument rating (Friday), and just above
riding along on a KC-135 refueling flight ~1988


--Don
Having a good week



Don Byrer
Electronics Technician/Friendly but Sarcastic Pilot
FAA Airways Facilites/Tech Ops, RADAR/Data/Comm @ CLE
Amateur Radio KJ5KB
Instrument Pilot Commercial Student
PP-ASEL 30 Jan 2005 "-IA" 25 Mar 2005