On Nov 15, 11:36*am, Denny wrote:
Well, decided to blow off the rust this morning as it has been 3 whole
days since I flew, I took my buddy Ed and we saddled up Fat Albert The
Apache... Wind was from roughly 345 at 12-15 gusting to 18 and
swinging 20+ degrees both ways, spitting rain at 5C... And while I
usually use the ILS runway for this (9-27) I opted for runway 5......
Take off was nominal, with full left aileron at the start of the roll
and feathering as the controls came alive... Nice cool air and we
jumped off the pavement at 75 mph in a swinging gust *with the
elevator still at neutral - so I added 5 degrees of pitch up and let
the fat boy climb out... *It only took a couple of seconds for the
speedo to go past Vmc... *I had a ready hand on the throttles in case
one of the engines decided to dump before I had enough velocity....
The old Apache is docile but can bite if you get careless...

During the climbout a BeechJet announced he was 4 miles out on the
GPS-9 approach... *Ed commented that he was landing with a tailwind...
I suggested the pro pilot was shooting the GPS approach and would
circle to land on 27 (at least I would)... *So, I opted to make a slow
downwind for 05 and watch a pro at work... Well, needless to say, Ed
is sharper than he looks most of the time... *The Beech came screaming
across the threshold to 09 and landed... Good thing he had 5000 feet
to play with... I then announced downwind for 05 and landed... As we
rolled we looked over at the Beech on the taxiway and the brakes were
steaming as it splashed through the puddles..

Shot a couple more crosswind landings, got a real greaser and decided
to finish on a high note...
All in all, not a bad morning...

denny

Wouldn't you rather rotate at Vmc +5? That's the way I was taught,
anyway..