Common instruments on small aircraft

"RK Henry" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 22 Oct 2006 14:40:35 GMT, Judah wrote:

Mxsmanic wrote in
m:

RK Henry writes:

Which parts? Why not?

Beach, mountains, movies, museum, etc. Most of these places don't
have a runway out in front, so they require a car rather than a plane.


Actually, you are incorrect. MANY airports have museums either on the
field
or within walking distance. There are also airports within mountain
terrain
(and of course, you don't actually have to land on a mountain to
appreciate
it from the sky). And there are even several airports with Beaches on the
field or within easy reach of the airport by walking, taxi, or public
transportation.

Since I always say, "Name 3" here are 3 examples:

KTEB - Aviation Hall of Fame
26N - Walk to Ocean City Beach and Boardwalk
KACY - Short cab ride to Atlantic City Casinos (AIY is closer (walkable to
Casinos), but I believe they closed it recently)


GKT- The Tennessee Air Museum, Sevierville, TN. The museum is on the
airport. (www.tnairmuseum.com) Of course other local destinations
include Pigeon Forge, Gatlinburg, and The Great Smoky Mountain
National Park, but you'll need ground transportation for those. I live
close enough that driving is feasible, but flying is a nicer way to
get to the museum and I don't have to buck highway traffic.

CRE- Crescent Beach, North Myrtle Beach, SC. The beach is a couple of
blocks from the airport. About a mile. Of course MYR is 13 NM
southwest at Myrtle Beach, but I haven't actually been there. The last
time I was in Myrtle Beach, MYR was a military base. MYR is also close
to the shore. (Current pireps on CRE & MYR please.)

W45- Luray, VA. Luray Caverns. (www.luraycaverns.com) Free courtesy
transportation to the caverns. After the tour of the caverns, which
includes a recital of the Great Stalacpipe Organ, there's an antique
auto museum with several interesting cars I'd never seen before.

FFA- First Flight at Kill Devil Hills, NC. The Wright Brothers museum
is said to be within walking distance. This destination is still on my
to-do list. (Current pireps on this one too please.) www.nps.gov/wrbr

CGX - Meigs Field. Oh no! It's gone! Destroyed in a midnight terrorist
attack by Osama bin Daley. And it was on my to-do list if I ever
visited Chicago and its museums. Right next to downtown. Well, scratch
that one. I guess scratch Chicago too, since any city that would
destroy such an asset can't be worth bothering with. Just goes to show
what happens when you let opportunities slip by.

RK Henry

a few West coast ones... :-)

S16 - Copalis State. Land right on the beach... :-) It is a kind of
popular place in Washington state. I have yet to do this, and my instructor
hasn't done it yet either. I don't know of many beaches that you are
acutally allowed to land on. :-)

MMV - McMinneville, Or. They have a pretty cool air museum here, and is the
current home of the Spruce Goose.

BFI - Boeing Field, Seattle, WA - Museum of Flight (www.museumofflight.org)
, one of the best aviation museums on the west coast. Can walk through a
Concorde, and the first jet Air Force One.
(http://www.museumofflight.org/Collec...9-1087DA0DD65B)

PWT - Bremerton National. Airport Diner, some of the best fish and chips in
Puget Sound, taxi right up to the restaurant.

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
RK Henry writes:
General aviation can be used very effectively for both business and
leisure transportation. Unless one lives in a place with almost
perpetually bad weather, VFR weather prevails so much of the time that
the airplane can be a very effective transportation tool. The ability
to go IFR, which is commonplace for many GA pilots and for the GA
fleet, adds a bit more to utility, making an airplane usable under an
even wider range of conditions.

I've consistently heard that if you plan to take trips on a schedule
and with any significant length, you'll need to plan on flying IFR,
which not everyone can do. There are few areas where the weather is
consistently clear and perfect over long distances. Deserts are one
such type of place, but they have disadvantages of their own
(desolation and extreme heat, for example).

Plus you need to be able to handle potential icing issues, just in
case.

If you don't have an IFR rating and the ability to deal with icing,
plus (preferably) an ability to fly at fairly high altitudes over
weather, your prospects for real travel on a schedule are limited.
You cannot say, for example, "let's fly to Portland on Saturday,"
because you don't know if weather will permit it, and your guest
passenger may not be too happy if you cancel things due to weather at
the last minute.

Yes, a current IFR rating could be helpful, but a VFR pilot should be very
concious of what the weather is and what the weather will do, doesn't leave
without a "back up" plan, should the weather not do what is expected. Also
things like Fligh****ch are very useful tools for the VFR pilot to find out
what the weather is doing up ahead of him. Also, a good pilot will keep his
passengers informed of what is going on with the weather. I had a coworker
who wanted to go have lunch at PWT (Bremerton National) on a Saturday
morning. We planned this flight several weeks ahead of time. The day
before the weather forecast showed that it could be questionable weather,
but still looked flyable. I let him know that it is questionable, but won't
really know for sure in the morning. The next morning the ceilings at PWT
dropped to 600', and we couldn't go. Tried again the next Saturday morning,
with basically the same results. After this I suggested a dinner flight,
and we went on the next Friday. I am up front with my passengers when they
fly with me, and say that the flight is very dependent on the weather, and
will keep them in the loop as far as what is going on with the weather, and
if they want will explain the things that went into my decision, especially
for a "no-go" decision.

You make it sound that a Private Pilot is on the same level as an Airline
Transport Pilot and is flying regular routes, which is not the case. You
also make it sound like a Private Pilot is taking passengers that are paying
for transportation, which if that was the case, you wouldn't be a Private
Pilot for very long as the FAA would quickly take your certificate. By
telling my passengers up front that the flight is very dependent on weather,
and there is always a possibility that we may not be able to go, it makes
making the "no-go" decision a whole lot easier and less stressfull, and they
are typically less disappointed. I have yet to come across a passenger that
was upset with because I made a "no-go" decision at the last minute, they
have always been understanding, especially when you explain to them why you
can't go.

The president of the flying club I belong to, is an ATP rated pilot and is
currently a 747 captain for a notable airline, and has been flying for this
airline for more than 20 years (started in 727s and moved up). He was
planning on a trip to Sun Valley from Seattle, in the club's 182, which does
have the Garmin gns430 GPS, and the Garmin Mode S transponder. Weather in
Seattle wasn't that great, and I figured he would go IFR, but he canceled
the flight. I saw him the next weekend, and asked why... he simply stated
"Weather...", so an Instrument Rating doesn't always get you where you want
to go.

The same time periods might abruptly put you back into bad weather.
And if the flight lasts three hours and covers a substantial distance,
a lot can happen.

Again, a VFR pilot should always be aware of the weather, and have a
suitable backup plan before leaving. This is where things like Fligh****ch
(EFAS - Enroute Flight Advisory Service) is most helpful for keeping track
of what the the weather is doing ahead of you.


Lately, every time I try to fly around KSEA (in a sim--but the sim
picks up real-world weather in real time), it's IFR. Yesterday it was
so bad that I couldn't see the runway even from 100 feet away; that
flight ended tragically.


What time of the day are you flying around Seattle. Seattle is notorious
for "morning clouds and afternoon sun". Last week and the weekend before,
the weather was pretty crappy. I was in Hawaii the last 4 days, but looking
at the NOAA observations, and there wasn't anything really horrible the last
couple days in Seattle. Today is the typical "morning clouds and afternoon
sun"

It also sounds like SEA might have been below IFR minimums, but I know what
the IFR minimums for SEA are, as I know it probably depends on the avionics
in the plane as well (remember hopping a comercial flight from GTF to SEA,
and it was the first day in about a week that they could land at SEA as
their planes didn't have an adequate avionics package to land in very low
visibility.

While airlines are very well equipped with the latest technology,
there are some kinds of weather that even they won't attempt. There's
really no such thing as an "All-Weather" aircraft.


Certainly, but airliners are so well equipped that there are few
situations that truly ground them or require diversions. Sometimes
they get overconfident.

Thunderstorms??? Turbulence??? In my trip to Hawaii, the captain informed
us the they were dodging a couple areas of weather, and as we went into
Honolulu we went around the north shore of Oahu to avoid some weather. They
aren't going to flying through stuff just becasue they can.

In rec.aviation.piloting Wade Hasbrouck wrote:

a few West coast ones... :-)

S16 - Copalis State. Land right on the beach... :-) It is a kind of
popular place in Washington state. I have yet to do this, and my instructor
hasn't done it yet either. I don't know of many beaches that you are
acutally allowed to land on. :-)

MMV - McMinneville, Or. They have a pretty cool air museum here, and is the
current home of the Spruce Goose.

BFI - Boeing Field, Seattle, WA - Museum of Flight (www.museumofflight.org)
, one of the best aviation museums on the west coast. Can walk through a
Concorde, and the first jet Air Force One.
(http://www.museumofflight.org/Collec...9-1087DA0DD65B)

I wish you could walk through the Concorde. Instead you can step aboard
and peer down the isle through a plexiglass panel. Even moth-balled, it's
still too special for the hoi-polloi...

PWT - Bremerton National. Airport Diner, some of the best fish and chips in
Puget Sound, taxi right up to the restaurant.


--
Don Poitras

"Don Poitras" wrote in message
...
In rec.aviation.piloting Wade Hasbrouck
wrote:

a few West coast ones... :-)

S16 - Copalis State. Land right on the beach... :-) It is a kind of
popular place in Washington state. I have yet to do this, and my
instructor
hasn't done it yet either. I don't know of many beaches that you are
acutally allowed to land on. :-)

MMV - McMinneville, Or. They have a pretty cool air museum here, and is
the
current home of the Spruce Goose.

BFI - Boeing Field, Seattle, WA - Museum of Flight
(www.museumofflight.org)
, one of the best aviation museums on the west coast. Can walk through a
Concorde, and the first jet Air Force One.
(http://www.museumofflight.org/Collec...9-1087DA0DD65B)

I wish you could walk through the Concorde. Instead you can step aboard
and peer down the isle through a plexiglass panel. Even moth-balled, it's
still too special for the hoi-polloi...

It is still pretty cool. At least the Museum of Flight lets you inside of
it... The one that is at the Smithsonian hangar at Dulles, all you get to
do is walk around it and look at it from the outside. There are a lot of
cool planes (mostly historically significant) at the Smithsonian hangar at
Dulles. SR-71 Blackbird, Enola Gay, Enterprise, and the Concorde. The
Museum of Flight at Boeing Field does have a Blackbird, but wasn't
designated as an SR-71, it was the model that had the drone on top somthing
like "YF-12A". They also have a Blackbird cockpit that you can sit, which I
am sure the Air Force went through and made there wasn't anything classified
in it.

Judah writes:

Doesn't count in what way? A claim that flying is a useful method of
transportation?

Yes.

Then I could say the same thing about your example. Driving to the Louvre
doesn't count, because you have to walk past the front lawn and up the
stairs to get to the ticket counter.

I walk to the Louvre.

The walk to the Louvre from the museum's parking lot is extremely
short. The walk from the nearest airport is about 20 miles.

In my experience, there is a "sweet spot" where GA will be more cost
effective than commercial flying. It varies by the type of plane flown, the
cost, and the location where you live, and my sweet spot has gotten bigger
as I've grown into faster planes at better rates. In my case, I will
frequently save time and money flying GA to airports that are from 150 -
600 miles from my home.

That does seem to be a useful range for GA. Of course, it doesn't
come remotely close to justifying GA for transportation, but if one
already has a license and an aircraft, why not?

But when you make a claim with anti-GA undercurrents that is
based on opinions that have been founded in something other than
fact, you can expect me to respond harshly, and I would consider
that quite on topic.

Looking at general aviation objectively, it's extremely difficult to
see any real transportation value to it, except for certain specific
circumstances (heavy, short-range business travel, and some other
purposes).

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Wade Hasbrouck writes:

Yes, a current IFR rating could be helpful, but a VFR pilot should be very
concious of what the weather is and what the weather will do, doesn't leave
without a "back up" plan, should the weather not do what is expected.

Sure, but if you want to get from point A to point B, and the weather
doesn't cooperate, you are simply out of luck. This means that you
cannot rely on GA for scheduled (meaning planned in advance) travel if
you can only fly VFR.

The longer the trip you plan, the more likely it is that an inability
to fly IFR will prevent you from completing it (or even starting it).

Also things like Fligh****ch are very useful tools for the VFR pilot to find out
what the weather is doing up ahead of him. Also, a good pilot will keep his
passengers informed of what is going on with the weather.

Unless I were flying over desert in the severest clear weather, I'd
fly IFR with passengers. You never know when clouds or fog might
appear ahead. Being equipped to handle icing would be handy, too,
although avoidance would be the key policy for that.

I had a coworker
who wanted to go have lunch at PWT (Bremerton National) on a Saturday
morning. We planned this flight several weeks ahead of time. The day
before the weather forecast showed that it could be questionable weather,
but still looked flyable. I let him know that it is questionable, but won't
really know for sure in the morning. The next morning the ceilings at PWT
dropped to 600', and we couldn't go. Tried again the next Saturday morning,
with basically the same results.

The Seattle area seems to be IFR heaven. Very often when I load
real-world weather into my sim for a flight, it's all IFR, and I have
to file a flight plan to go anywhere (fortunately, I'm building up a
nice little library of common IFR flight plans).

I am up front with my passengers when they
fly with me, and say that the flight is very dependent on the weather, and
will keep them in the loop as far as what is going on with the weather, and
if they want will explain the things that went into my decision, especially
for a "no-go" decision.

If you have understanding passengers, fine. If they are going to a
wedding or job interview, though, this is a serious problem.

You make it sound that a Private Pilot is on the same level as an Airline
Transport Pilot and is flying regular routes, which is not the case.

If you seriously want to use GA for transportation, the private pilot
IS on the same level. Without an IFR rating and an appropriate
aircraft, a private pilot is fairly useless for real transportation,
unless he happens to live in a place like Death Valley.

You also make it sound like a Private Pilot is taking passengers that are paying
for transportation, which if that was the case, you wouldn't be a Private
Pilot for very long as the FAA would quickly take your certificate.

Not at all. You could have commitments to friends or relatives to
transport them here or there, with no money involved.

The president of the flying club I belong to, is an ATP rated pilot and is
currently a 747 captain for a notable airline, and has been flying for this
airline for more than 20 years (started in 727s and moved up). He was
planning on a trip to Sun Valley from Seattle, in the club's 182, which does
have the Garmin gns430 GPS, and the Garmin Mode S transponder. Weather in
Seattle wasn't that great, and I figured he would go IFR, but he canceled
the flight. I saw him the next weekend, and asked why... he simply stated
"Weather...", so an Instrument Rating doesn't always get you where you want
to go.

He could have gone if he had really wanted to, with the proper rating
and aircraft. Maybe IFR irritates him; I can understand that, as it's
mostly instruments and radio, rather than admiring the countryside
outside the window. He already does that at work, so it would be a
sort of busman's holiday.

A 747 captain who doesn't have a plane of his own?

Again, a VFR pilot should always be aware of the weather, and have a
suitable backup plan before leaving.

Often the only backup plan is not to go, which is unacceptable if you
really need to get somewhere (the underlying presumption if you are
flying for transportation).

What time of the day are you flying around Seattle. Seattle is notorious
for "morning clouds and afternoon sun".

The bad weather has indeed been early in the day. I fly late in the
day here in Paris, but since I use real time and weather in many
cases, it's early morning with 1/4 mile of visibility when I try to
fly. It's good IFR practice, though. And it seems to be mostly low
visiblity, not windy or icy.

Last week and the weekend before, the weather was pretty crappy.

Yes, I was there ... so to speak. My practice flights from KPAE to
KTIW were all IFR, but it was good practice. No rain and seemingly
very little wind, but practically zero visibility. I had one tragic
accident at KTIW when I couldn't see the runway until I was only about
100 feet off the threshold (and heading directly for a tall tree).
Thank goodness a new Baron 58 was waiting for me only seconds later!

It also sounds like SEA might have been below IFR minimums, but I know what
the IFR minimums for SEA are, as I know it probably depends on the avionics
in the plane as well (remember hopping a comercial flight from GTF to SEA,
and it was the first day in about a week that they could land at SEA as
their planes didn't have an adequate avionics package to land in very low
visibility.

I'm flying a simulated Baron 58. The 737-800 I have will autoland
under any conditions (if I don't misprogram the FMC and A/P, that is).

Thunderstorms??? Turbulence???

Like I said, sometimes airliners get overconfident. It's unfortunate
that PICs are under more pressure than they should be to complete
flights in some cases.

In my trip to Hawaii, the captain informed
us the they were dodging a couple areas of weather, and as we went into
Honolulu we went around the north shore of Oahu to avoid some weather. They
aren't going to flying through stuff just becasue they can.

Maybe. But there have been many cases in which they've tried to do
so, and sometimes it doesn't work out. Pilots are under pressure, as
I've said; it's one of the drawbacks to flying for one's job. I'm
pretty sure a smart pilot with no pressure would back away from just
about any unpleasant weather, just to be safe.

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Judah writes:

It's a simple cost benefit factor. I believe for a certain period of time
in the 70s, most Piper trainer aircraft came stock with only one radio. It
was adequate. In fact, it was an improvement over the light beacons of the
early flying days. But believe it or not, people were able to navigate
successfully by air even before there were Radio Navaids... And if they
made a wrong turn, much as in a car, they turned around and found their
way, or stopped at an airport and asked for directions.

Them's the good old days. Technically it's still perfectly possible
today, but it's a lot more difficult procedurally. After all, you
used to be able to fly without a license, too. Today you can still
fly without a license in theory, but it won't be legal.

The very first link offerred by a google of "free Sectionals" produces a
link that will satisfy your need. Took me all of about 2 minutes to find.

I get "AHS Roundup: Three teams line up MIAA Tourney spots" as the
first link, and nothing on the page that references aviation.

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Judah writes:

Probably wherever you last showed up on their radar, especially if you have a
transponder, were receiving flight following, and/or called for help on the
emergency frequency.

Yup. But that could be a long way from where you actually went down.

From a safety standpoint, the more visible you are to others,
including ATC, the better off you are if something goes wrong.

That's interesting. Do you use VATSim?

I'm considering VATSIM, yes. Currently I just use the in-game
features, which are not fancy or ideal, but enough to introduce me to
the concepts.

For example, yesterday I "filed" a VFR flight plan from Montgomery
Field (San Diego) to Palm Springs. I didn't like the default routing,
which took me over high mountains that would require a climb to over
11,000', so I added new waypoints that would take me through the
valley that leads to the city, not much higher than 8000'. I went
through some Class B along the way but I didn't bother to worry about
that on this flight (actually, the sim never proposed a Class B
transition to me, so I might never have actually entered Class B--the
sim doesn't provide clear information on the minima for the outer
parts of the airspace, although it marks their boundaries).

What is the purpose of a flight plan in a simulation?

What is the purpose of anything in a simulation? To emulate real
life, of course.

They will certainly know where to look if you crash.

If I crash, the game is over.

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Judah writes:

Not compared to the speed of light, either.

The speed of light isn't an aircraft; a jet airliner is.

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Jim Stewart writes:

The A&P would love that if it ran the Hobbs
meter at 32x as well.

Interestingly enough, the add-on aircraft in my sim have Hobbs meters,
and they definitely increment. I don't know if the sim provides a way
to reset them. The EHSI also keeps track of lamp hours; I don't know
what happens to the lamp as it ages.

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