NW_Pilot's Trans-Atlantic Flight -- All the scary details...

In a previous article, Jose said:
Day 5: Shut down in Iceland with 55 knot headwinds. I make the call
"No Go"!!!

NW-Pilot, would you have gone with 55 knot tailwinds?

Why not? 55 knot headwinds cut into your fuel reserve, 55 knot tail winds
help it. I've flown with a 70 knot tail wind, it was great. Except when
I had to descend to land, then it was bumpy as hell.

At one point my GPS was showing a 210 knot ground speed, and I felt like
asking Buffalo Approach what they were showing as my ground speed, just to
brag at what a Cherokee can do. But then I remembered the story about
people doing that just as an SR-71 checked in on the frequency.

--
Paul Tomblin http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
Windows, another fine product from the folks who gave us edlin.

On Sun, 1 Oct 2006 16:20:18 +0000 (UTC),
(Paul Tomblin) wrote in :

NW-Pilot, would you have gone with 55 knot tailwinds?

Why not? 55 knot headwinds cut into your fuel reserve, 55 knot tail winds
help it. I've flown with a 70 knot tail wind

Have you ever attempted to taxi a high-wing aircraft in 55 knot winds?

In a previous article, Larry Dighera said:
On Sun, 1 Oct 2006 16:20:18 +0000 (UTC),
(Paul Tomblin) wrote in :
NW-Pilot, would you have gone with 55 knot tailwinds?

Why not? 55 knot headwinds cut into your fuel reserve, 55 knot tail winds
help it. I've flown with a 70 knot tail wind

Have you ever attempted to taxi a high-wing aircraft in 55 knot winds?

I thougth we were talking about winds-aloft, not surface winds?


--
Paul Tomblin http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
"If something's expensive to develop, and somebody's not going to get paid, it
won't get developed. So you decide: Do you want software to be written, or
not?" - Bill Gates doesn't foresee the FSF or Linux, 1980.

On 2006-10-01, Larry Dighera wrote:
On Sun, 1 Oct 2006 16:20:18 +0000 (UTC),
(Paul Tomblin) wrote in :

NW-Pilot, would you have gone with 55 knot tailwinds?

Why not? 55 knot headwinds cut into your fuel reserve, 55 knot tail winds
help it. I've flown with a 70 knot tail wind

Have you ever attempted to taxi a high-wing aircraft in 55 knot winds?

I flew a long trip in a Bonanza in 55 knot tail winds (it cut out one
refuelling stop, too). The SURFACE winds were under 15 knots. The wind
at 9000 feet can be much stronger than at near sea level.

--
Yes, the Reply-To email address is valid.
Oolite-Linux: an Elite tribute: http://oolite-linux.berlios.de

On Tue, 03 Oct 2006 11:34:44 -0000, Dylan Smith
wrote in
:

The wind at 9000 feet can be much stronger than at near sea level.

I have a feeling, that in the arid, treeless wastes above the Arctic
Circle the wind gradient is not so steep.

"Jose" wrote in message
et...
From NW_Pilot's adventu
Apparently the added pressure in the fuel
tanks pushed the floats in the fuel tank
up, which got the Garmin confused, causing
an error that made it reboot.

Steam gauges don't get confused like that. While they do sometimes go bad
or give an incorrect indication, the fault is isolated to that one gauge;
it doesn't cause the entire airplane to have an apoplectic fit. That is
left to the pilot. One of the real dangers of glass is that it usurps the
pilot's perogative to panic (or not) by doing so itself.

If there's ever an argument against glass (or "advanced integrated flight
instrumentations and controls"), this is it!

ibid:
Day 5: Shut down in Iceland with 55 knot headwinds. I make the call "No
Go"!!!

NW-Pilot, would you have gone with 55 knot tailwinds?

ibid: (spelling note, day 11)
After everything else that has happened, this makes me not want to every
own a newer model Cessna, or anything with a G1000.

...not want to ever own...
(public service, not nitpicking)

(same day)
Everything else was uneventful, as I went direct KAD and had a small
dialogue with the tower about my permission to land.

Anything interesting in that "dialog"?

Just dialiaog about my permissions on landing.


Anyway, that's quite an adventure! Would you do it again?

Hell, Yeah!!! You Bet !!

Jose
--
"Never trust anything that can think for itself, if you can't see where it
keeps its brain." (chapter 10 of book 3 - Harry Potter).
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

x-archive-no: yes

NW_Pilot wrote:
"Jose" wrote in message

Anyway, that's quite an adventure! Would you do it again?

Hell, Yeah!!! You Bet !!


Steven,

Adventure like this was made for adrenaline junkie like you ;-)
Congratulations for an exceedingly well done job. Actions speak louder
than words, it takes both a cool head and good piloting skill to handle
this scary event. I don't think that you can ever silent net armchair
critics, Monday morning quarterbacks etc but I hope that you have
erased some doubts in the mind of some of your 'frequent' critics.

Hai Longworth

("Longworth" wrote)
Adventure like this was made for adrenaline junkie like you ;-)
Congratulations for an exceedingly well done job. Actions speak louder
than words, it takes both a cool head and good piloting skill to handle
this scary event. I don't think that you can ever silent net armchair
critics, Monday morning quarterbacks etc but I hope that you have erased
some doubts in the mind of some of your 'frequent' critics.


Agreed.

Congratulations! Well done.


Montblack

Montblack wrote:
("Longworth" wrote)
Adventure like this was made for adrenaline junkie like you ;-)
Congratulations for an exceedingly well done job. Actions speak louder
than words, it takes both a cool head and good piloting skill to handle
this scary event. I don't think that you can ever silent net armchair
critics, Monday morning quarterbacks etc but I hope that you have erased
some doubts in the mind of some of your 'frequent' critics.


Agreed.

Congratulations! Well done.


Montblack

Also agreed. Great story Steven. Good job.

-R

On Sun, 01 Oct 2006 15:23:43 GMT, Jose
wrote in :

If there's ever an argument against glass (or "advanced integrated
flight instrumentations and controls"), this is it!

The possibility of loosing all navigation, engine, and systems
information and autopilot simultaneously while single-pilot IFR over
the Atlantic Ocean between Greenland and Iceland is not an acceptable
risk in my estimation.

Even the auto pilot became inoperative, because it is dependent on the
Garmin equipment, so the pilot was forced to fly partial panel
(airspeed, AI, altimeter, and compass)for 200 miles back to land.
Here's a photo of the Cessna panel:
http://skyhawksp.cessna.com/avionics.chtml
He lost fuel gages critical for decision making about whether to
continue on or turn back.

The Garmin product should be redesigned in a modular way, so that
failed modules can be isolated, and permit the operational part of the
system to function. And the modules should be designed, so that they
are able to provide functionality, even if it is reduced, when other
modules are inoperative. There will always be some single points of
failure, like the display or power supply, but the likelihood of
catastrophic system failure would be reduced. To compromise safety
for the sake of gee-wizz glass is just plane stupid.

The systems Garmin replaced were specifically designed to provide
redundancy and several isolated power sources, so that the probability
of such a catastrophic failure was unlikely. A rational pilot would
not knowingly sacrifice that redundant and independent system design,
no matter how cool a glass cockpit is.

Consider what is between you and an approaching automobile on the
highway, a white stripe, and consider what is between you and such a
catastrophic lose at a most inopportune time, a few microns of
silicon. Would cosmic particles affect electronic equipment near the
Earth's poles?