Passenger Service

Like many Americans, I had Labor Day off, which happily coincided with a visit from my Dad who lives in Colorado. So when I mentioned that I'd be flying that day, four of my family members in all asked for a ride:

Joe, my younger brother and veteran of many of my flights;
Susan, my baby sister (who happens to be an archaeologist);
Julie, my other baby sister, who expressed both a desire to fly with me and serious reservations against, and
Dad, who has flown quite a bit as a passenger in small airplanes, mostly while I was in diapers.

Four adults would be a full load and an unnecessary risk, as well as leaving someone behind anyway, so I decided to fly two "sorties".

Sortie Alpha

My first flight was with my two little sisters, neither of which had flown in a small airplane before. Julie, the older of the two, was the most nervous, so I made a point of explaining in detail the emergency procedures in case of engine failure, flight into IMC, electrical fire, and inflight structural failure.


The wind was almost nonexistant, so the takeoff was smooth as silk and straight as an arrow. We climbed out to 2500 msl and I did my usual tour of the countryside, lakes, and my house. The visibility was about 8 miles or so with ground haze but no clouds to speak of.


Julie was sitting up front and I offered her the controls. She put her hands on it, clearly afraid she was going to crash the plane. I said I wouldn't allow that, and did she want to make a gentle right turn to follow the highway? Nope, she didn't want to, but I had her keep her hands on the yoke so she could see what the control input for a turn felt like. She seemed relieved to take her hands off the controls.


Soon we turned back towards Flying Cloud, I dialed up the weather (hadn't changed) and made a nice straight in approach for landing, and even greased it a bit. I taxied back to the FBO and shut down the engine. After disembarking my passengers, I embarked the second set - my Dad and my youngest brother Joe.


Sortie Bravo

With my second load of passengers loaded, I performed a hot start procedure on the Warrior, which started without any trouble (I'm told some engines can be fussy about hot starts). We launched into the hazy blue sky and cruised over Lake Minnetonka and watched a sailboat regatta, and did some lazy flying around the countryside again.


My Dad took the controls for awhile and I decided to head for my house. Just as we were getting near, my brother, who was in the back seat, said "Traffic, behind and to the left". I immediately spotted the plane and noticed it wasn't moving in relation to my plane which meant we were going to get closer to each other than I was comfortable with, so I lost some altitude and watched the other plane cruise over me without so much as a sign that he'd seen me. I bought my brother lunch that day - his experience as a passenger and traffic spotter kept the other plane out of my safety zone.

We headed back again to the familiar runways of Flying Cloud, which was difficult to see with the sun illuminating the haze. I was about 4 miles out when I could finally see the runways. I greased up the landing and wheeled onto the ramp, having successfully completed Sortie Bravo.










Logbook: Logshare
Google Earth Track - Sortie Alpha
Google Earth Track - Sortie Bravo

VIDEO - Takeoffs and Landings

Crosswind Practice

So, I got an email from an old high school buddy ("Rob") who reads my blog, and he asked if I'd take him flying. So I scheduled a plane and we met at the local aerodrome.

It was a bit breezy, but not gusty, and the wind was pretty much aligned with the runway, so I felt pretty confident that we'd have a nice smooth flight.

Rob walked through the preflight with me and after I was satisfied that the airplane was airworthy, we saddled up and got in the air.

However, the air was fairly bumpy, but both pilot and co-pilot were holding lunch down well, so we pressed on. Rob snapped some pictures (finding out along the way how hard it is to take good photos from a plane) and then I gave him the airplane. He made the same mistakes, at first, that everyone makes the first time they get the controls of an airplane. After awhile, he got the hang of straight and level flight, and even some turns. I had him continue with my IFR flight plan (I Follow Roads) and we flew back to Flying Cloud along Highway 212.

I got a little surprise with the ATIS weather report...winds at 16 gusting to 24. Now, this isn't a dangerous situation, as I have plenty of crosswind landing experience and the Warrior is very stable in crosswind situations. But it means I would have to work a little harder to get in a good landing.

So, I made a decent pattern and set up for a crabbed crosswind landing. A couple of times, the gusts blew the plane almost 45° to the runway (briefly), but I kept the plane on the glide path, kicked the tail over as we crossed the threshold. I felt plane float just a bit, then the tires kissed the pavement for a brief moment, then we were up a few inches, floating along again. The tires yelped a bit and we were down. Rob thought it was a good landing, so we'll go with his assessment.

Here are some pictures for your amusement. The batteries for the GPS tracker were dead so no track for you!

Next flight I'd like to take the bravo up again so I don't forget how to fly that little go kart with wings.


Rob is more or less in control of the aircraft.

A view of the beautiful Minnesota countryside.

Coney Island on Lake Waconia. Once a resort paradise...

Oh yeah, the plane is still airworthy, yessir!

Pictured here: Rob

Go Kart With Wings

"Wow this thing looks like a go-kart with wings!"

That's what my brother said when he saw the Tecnam Bravo that I was preflighting on Sunday the 5th.

I decided to ask my brother to grab his fancy new digital SLR camera and come to the airport for some awesome flying photography action, as the weather was just about as perfect as a guy could ask for. 80°F, low humidity, good visibility and just a few scattered clouds meant that I couldn't in good conscience do yard work while the Bravo sat idle at the FBO.

Now, I just got checked out in the Bravo last week and I wanted to fly it on my own to get more comfortable with it, and with the winds a little calmer than the gales that I had for the checkout, it seemed like a good opportunity.

So, we launched and took some pics of my house, my in-laws house, the local church, and a popular lake. I also wanted to get a landing in at a nearby airport (KGYL) instead of just working from my home base (KFCM).

It was gorgeous up there with good visibility, smooth air, and not too much traffic, though for the first time a passenger of mine spotted traffic before me (a plane flying near my home airport but not in the pattern).

All in all, it was a great flight. I had a lot of fun flying this nimble little go-kart with wings and my brother snapped a ton of pictures, some of which are included here. If you get the chance, fly one of these cool little buggers, they are way too much fun.

Tecnam P2004 Bravo

Flooded Gravel Pit

My House


A Church

Lake Waconia

GPS Track: Google Earth

Logbook: Logshare

New Airplane

Many months ago they took away the Cessna 152s I was training in. So, they finally replaced them with a Tecnam P2004 Bravo airplane, a neat little 2 seat Light Sport airplane. I've wanted to get checked out in the airplane for awhile (meaning, trained on the specific airplane to satisfy the rental facility's insurance demands) so finally I went in and did it. Well, it's a neat little airplane and I'm going to have a lot of fun flying it.

First, it's a nimble little airplane with plenty of zip. It doesn't hurt that the plane is brand new - 32 hours total. It still smells new inside. Also, it is a stick instead of a yoke, which at first I thought would be hard to get used to but it's not at all. It feels very natural and more "free" than a yoke at times.

First thing we did was takeoff and do some turns around a point. Amazingly I can still pull that off, so then we climbed to 4000 feet and did power-on and power-off stalls (these simulate stalls in takeoff and landing configurations). I recovered from them easily, but I noticed it stalls more like the 152 than the Warrior - it tends to drop off the cliff after the stall, whereas the Warrior kind of vibrates and mushes along until you push the nose down.

After the stalls, we did steeps turns which I messed up at first. Here, the stick vs. yoke was throwing me off because of the way I am used to holding my steep turn in the Warrior. It's easier to hold the yoke perfectly still than a stick - but after a couple of tries I was getting it. The other thing that was throwing me off was that the attitude indicator is in the glass panel display...and with the bright sun it was difficult to see the tiny hash marks for the bank angle.

So after steep turns we headed back to the airport, and Jim showed me the GPS system where you can lock onto your airport and it draws a line right to it. From the practice area I could probably find my way to the airport on pure instruments (hope I never have to!) but it was nice seeing how it worked.

The first landing was ugly due to me overcontrolling. The Warrior has a robust control system that requires a bit of effort to manipulate, but the Bravo has smooth as silk movement in the full range of motion. I did land the plane without breaking anything and my second landing was very smooth. I forgot, though, how much a crosswind throws these little planes around, so the Bravo is not for flying in gale force / hurricane force winds.

All in all, it was a lot of fun to fly and it's nice having another option if I'm just going up with 1 other person. It doesn't hurt that it's a new airplane with glass panel and GPS displays, either.

Rusty but trusty

I'm sad to admit that I let my currency for carrying passengers lapse. Regulations (FAR 61.57 to be precise) says that I have to have 3 full stop take offs and landings in the preceding 90 days to be able to carry passengers with me. As of June 9, I only had 2 T.O.s and landings. When my wife starts to hound me about staying current, I know I'm overdue for some stick time.

So I toddled on out to the airport and flew in the pattern for an hour. Here are the results of my landing attempts:

1. Too high, too fast - REJECT REJECT REJECT
2. Trying to remember how to fly the pattern. Landing was smooth as silk.
3. Figuring out how to fly the pattern. Landing was good but not perfect.
4. ATC threw me a bunch curve balls. First, they had me extend upwind (takeoff heading). Next, they had me extend my downwind (opposite takeoff heading) for an incoming medical helicopter. But my training and experience finally started to drizzle back into my head and I adjusted my pattern nicely for a greaser landing.

There were a few planes flying around but it was congested due to one runway being out of service to be extended from 3900' to 5000'.

The weather was partly cloudy, no wind to speak of, 75°F. I'm now current to carry passengers again. Woohoo!

Flight Status: **ACTIVE**

I went up for a half an hour today with my brother Joe, to see if I remembered how to fly. Turns out I do!

It was cool finally seeing green things from the air, instead of white and brown. There was a little turbulence aloft but nothing too bad. All I can say is thank goodness for checklists. Going through them really jogged my memory on procedures.

My GPS tracker decided to work today so I'll post the flight log tonight when I get home from work.

Google Earth: Flight Track

Logbook: Logshare

I haven't given up flying.

Seriously. But Minnesota springs are not known for good flying weather. It looks like there is some good weather in the next week or two so I can go out and see if I still remember how to fly.

On a related note, I got my "plastic" pilot certificate in the mail a few days back. It's a welcome addition to my wallet.