Flight to Florida -- The Cure for Winter

Jay Maynard wrote in
:

On 2008-03-31, Jay Honeck wrote:
That's funny. I just flew my family transcontinentally 2500 miles in
a single-piston-engine spam-can, all VFR, over a six day period,
during the most weather-variable time of year, using the best
technology available -- and you're saying that using this technology
makes me a "crayola-viator"?

You're not a curmudgeon -- you're a Luddite.

What's that line about "all available information"?

Fine. I use all sorts of gadgerts too, but I can fly without any of them if
I have to, and I only use them sparingly in any case. The biggest problem
is ending up a slave to the machines.


Bertie

Jay Honeck wrote:
I would NEVER have attempted that flight "pre-XM", simply because I'd be
trying to paint a picture of weather in my head from a radio briefing
(IF
you could even get ahold of Flight Service), and you'd have no idea
of the
"big picture" that live XM paints so wonderfully for you.

Wait -- are you serious?

Completely. XM weather gives you a weather picture that is absolutely
unparalleled in GA aircraft. Before we had it, we would have stayed in
Pensacola. After we had it, the flight from Pensacola to St. Pete was
completely routine.

Jay, you need some remedial weather analysis and flight planning
training. I've never had XM weather (OK, one flight with a friend with
a 496) and get along fine without it. I'm not saying I wouldn't like to
have it, but it isn't worth the cost to me. It gives a little more
convenience, but I can get the same and even more information from
several sources (DUAT, intellicast, weather channel, ADDS, etc., when it
comes to preflight. Enroute I do fine with my eyes, ASOS/AWOS,
listening to ATC and FSS. I see XM as a much more convenient tool for
inflight than for preflight and can't imagine making go/no-go decisions
simply because I have XM weather.


Matt

Jay Honeck wrote:
The XM -- as GPS -- should simply confirm what you already know.

I have re-read this absurd line a dozen times, and can find absolutely
no merit in any part of it. In fact, it illustrates such an ignorance
of VFR cross-country flying that I find it hard that a real pilot would
post such a thing.

Weather is a dynamic, ever-changing thing. If you're flying anywhere
near a front, as we were on this flight, over a five-hour duration (at
spam-can speeds of 170 mph), you cannot "already know" the weather
without XM.

You can actually keep a fairly accurate picture in mind with a
combination of listening to other airplanes and ATC, checking ASOS, AWOS
and ATIS along and to the side of your route and an occasional call to
FSS, although I find the latter only occasionally necessary when in IMC.

Matt

On Mar 30, 10:40 pm, "Jay Honeck" wrote:

That's funny. I just flew my family transcontinentally 2500 miles in a
single-piston-engine spam-can, all VFR, over a six day period, during the
most weather-variable time of year, using the best technology available --
and you're saying that using this technology makes me a "crayola-viator"?

You certainly are a Crayola-viator if you simply followed the magenta
line and avoided the yellow and the red.

Do those colors *mean* anything to you?

Dude -- I *design* new technologies for the US Navy in my current
engineering job.

BUT -- and please read carefully -- VFR or IFR pilots who cannot
already "know" in their heads what the XM is displaying are poor
pilots who lack the understanding of weather required to fly cross
country.

And yeah -- I've flown XC VFR and IFR.

In VFR flight, the XM display should be used like the GPS display --
a confirmation of what you already know.

VFR is easy -- before you take off you did a full weather brief and
know where the VFR wx is and where it isn't. You know the movements of
the fronts, the dewpoints, and the topography and how it will change
what is observed now to what it will be when you get there.

Then you launch and you look out the damn windscreen and decide where
you can and can't fly.

The single most critical data XM provides to IFR flight is location
and direction of embedded cells at update rates faster than what
Center gets.

I'll repeat this to be more clear -- GPS and XM are tools that should
support/confirm/ and sometimes -- in minor ways -- correct what you --
as the pilot -- already know.

If that's not the case you are placing undue dependence on the
technology and shirking your responsibilities and legal requirements
as PIC.


Dan Mc

You're not a curmudgeon -- you're a Luddite.

Why thank you.

On Mar 30, 10:44 pm, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:

You're not a curmudgeon -- you're a Luddite.

No, he's an aviator, and you are an idiot.

Bertie

Why thank you. That means something coming from you!

:-)

Dan Mc

Dan wrote in news:440d6b5a-c9e2-42dd-83b5-
:

On Mar 30, 10:44 pm, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:

You're not a curmudgeon -- you're a Luddite.

No, he's an aviator, and you are an idiot.

Bertie

Why thank you. That means something coming from you!


Hey lots of aviators aren't all that bright!


Bertie giveth and Bertie taketh away.

Bertie

On Mar 31, 8:56 am, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:

Why thank you. That means something coming from you!

Hey lots of aviators aren't all that bright!


Bright is as bright does and says.

That brings up an interesting phenomenon -- there seems to be a bias
towards intelligence -- but not too much.

We all know the "natural stick" who "get's it" quickly but never goes
past the physical skill.

Then there are the really smart ones tend to over-analyze and get
brain cramps.

Then there are the really, really dumb ones -- we should call them
"maxwells"

Flying VFR into marginal weather without the ability to climb into the
murk and call the nice folks on the dark room is really, really,
gambling with your life and those who are with you...
I have pushed Jay and others several times to get the IR...
XM will not bail someone out if the air suddenly turns opaque all
around you - and it can do that in just minutes...

A case in point: on a Sunday night we were flying West along Lake Erie
from Northern NY state with my wife, daughter and her husband and the
weather was snotty and getting worse... I had suggested we call it a
day and continue on Monday, but Luan and Mike were determined to get
home that night and kept whining... I let myself get pushed beyond my
good judgement... So there we were, 15-20 miles West of Cleveland-
Hopkins and 5 miles offshore, pitch black night, solid overcast, dead
smooth ride as promised by FSS, you could see lights sparkling along
the shore... I looked down at my Howie Keefe and shuffled pages around
so I had the proper IFR low level enroute and the approach plate for a
planned landing at Port Clinton about 40 miles ahead... This probably
took 30-45 seconds of fiddling... I looked up and saw - nothing -
nada, zilch, zippo... It was impenetrable purple in every direction...
And while I sat there with a stupid look on my face for maybe 10
seconds (I had automatically started instrument scan so no one else in
the plane noticed anything had changed) I knew the brown stuff had hit
the fan...
Long story short, FSS was apologetic when I called them later as they
had not predicted the lake to go ballistic which didn't help me a bit
at the time.. The FSS specialist said he had many years in the Great
Lakes and had never seen the lake just explode like it did that
night...
I already had Cleveland ATC dialed on the second radio with the volume
down old habits... Turned up the volume and told the nice man in the
dark room that I was wading in brown stuff... He had me climb into
the murk and gave me a vector towards the IAF for the ILS to 24L and
as I climbed and turned to that direction it only took a moment to get
the approach plate on top and dial up the ILS and the DME... As it
turned out we popped out of some scud at 7 miles from the airport and
there was a 777 off to our right shooting the ILS he looked like a
christmas tree he had so many lights on so I just made a curving
right and followed him down until I picked up the rabbit...

Now, could ATC have vectored me in if I were a VFR pilot? Maybe...
Maybe not... By the time they vectored a confused and scared VFR pilot
the CB that pounded across the field ten minutes after we landed might
have been a real problem...

denny

Dan wrote in
:

On Mar 30, 10:40 pm, "Jay Honeck" wrote:

That's funny. I just flew my family transcontinentally 2500 miles in
a single-piston-engine spam-can, all VFR, over a six day period,
during the most weather-variable time of year, using the best
technology available -- and you're saying that using this technology
makes me a "crayola-viator"?

You certainly are a Crayola-viator if you simply followed the magenta
line and avoided the yellow and the red.

Do those colors *mean* anything to you?

Dude -- I *design* new technologies for the US Navy in my current
engineering job.

BUT -- and please read carefully -- VFR or IFR pilots who cannot
already "know" in their heads what the XM is displaying are poor
pilots who lack the understanding of weather required to fly cross
country.



Exactly. All those toys are tools to be used to expand that picture, not
replace it. We're seeing more and more tits like this in the profession
and it scares me. When they're with me its fine, since I can smack then
when they're doing something I don't like, but a lot of them are left
seat now and the guy in the right subscribes to the same sort of thing.
The nav side is even more scary, IMO. I can clearly see situational
awareness decreasing as the pink string takes over completely. Guys are
starting to slavishly feed the boxes to make the pink string do what
they want without any real idea of where it is taking them in real
terms. This is basically what caused the Cali accident.

Bertie

Matt Whiting wrote in
:

Jay Honeck wrote:
I would NEVER have attempted that flight "pre-XM", simply because
I'd be trying to paint a picture of weather in my head from a radio
briefing (IF
you could even get ahold of Flight Service), and you'd have no idea
of the
"big picture" that live XM paints so wonderfully for you.

Wait -- are you serious?

Completely. XM weather gives you a weather picture that is
absolutely unparalleled in GA aircraft. Before we had it, we would
have stayed in Pensacola. After we had it, the flight from Pensacola
to St. Pete was completely routine.

Jay, you need some remedial weather analysis and flight planning
training.

Guess that means getting back into his go kart come MSFS sim and a
couple of views of "Captains of the Clouds" before he gets to go flying
again...

Bertie