Jay Honeck wrote:


In all honesty, though, I must question the wisdom of a sub-100 hour pilot
flying into a fly-in like this. The airspace around these things can be a
real zoo, and your arrival experience is not atypical. I personally am
glad that I didn't fly into anything like this until I had a few years of
experience under my belt.

Well... couple things.. He's a good stick.. intelligent.. responsible...
and I thought he'd be up for the task.. thats why I invited him to fly
with me. But the downside is I expected him to be able to "throw the
brakes" on without a problem.. and be able to slow to 90 kts from 105
kts without a problem. 105 is what we were getting for a top speed in
the underpowered Tampico. If we'd been in a Mooney or Tiger, he likely
would have been PNF and I would have asked to be on the stick going in
(like I did for Osh with a very low time pilot). Every other flight with
him up to this point reinforced that he was up to the task. 100 hours
means something different to me, I guess, than others. I was hot and
heavy into instrument training at 100 hrs.. had my PPL at about 48
hours.. and had quite a bit of real PIC at that point... No, I didn't
then nor now claim to know it all.. but I would have felt ready for
something like that. My buddy hadn't given me any bad vibes that led me
to believe this would be a problem.

He is a creature of habit, though.. when I told him about how the OSH
arrival works (over dinner a while back) without having to say a word
over the radio, he coulnt believe it, and thought it'd be much safer "if
the planes were talking to each other". Well, he just got his first
exposure to frequency congestion at a critical moment. I hope it made my
point from a few weeks back, that being on speed, on altitude, in trail
and QUIETLY following instructions works best for that sort of event.

Honestly, I think I created more of a problem with my "overtaking" call
than if we had simply busted out and came back around (we weren't to the
IP on the arrival yet..). The ATC guys, being probably unfamiliar with
the Tampico and its performance, probably thought we literally were
running over the Glastar trying to keep it down to 90 kts.. Thats what I
get for trying to salvage something.. fix one problem and create two
more. I was thinking if we salvaged the situation before we got to the
IP, we could just pull away from the Glastar and everything would work
out fine. In hindsight, we should have broke out and come around, and
done it right. That would have reinforced that the procedure was there
for a reason and would have removed some of the uncertainty.

Dave