After spending a couple of hours over a couple of flight flying a C-177RG  is circles (they call it…The Pattern…) and making the wheel upie-downie things go up and down sever times. I have been given my Complex Aircraft Endorsement. Which, in combination with my High performance (wink win…never mind) endorsement means that I’m mostly ready, from an FAA stand point, to fly a Cessna 210 for 3000 miles round trip.

I bring this up now because it turns out that the aircraft I and my compatriot Scott are likely taking to The Big Show just happens to be a complex aircraft. Which means that I must again head for that glorious place known far and wide as my local FBO, and once there con some poor unsuspecting CFI into getting into an airplane with me. It should be a blast, what with the leg thingies going all up and down like. All I need now is decent weather.

“But Wait!” I hear you say. “What about the other endorsement? The one all the girls like?”

Ah yes, the OTHER endorsement.

We are of course discussing the High Performance (Wink wink, nudge nudge) endorsement. This is the note in my log book which says I’m competent to pilot an aircraft with an engine power in excess of 200hp. Note I’m speaking in the tense that implies that this already exists in my logbook. That is because it does exist in my logbook, and not just for pretends. I received my High Performance (Wink wink, nudge nudge) endorsement a couple of weeks ago and didn’t tell you all about it because I was busy doing something or other that was very important.

Or something.

Here, let me distract you with a picture

Back?

As I was saying, I received my High Performance (Wink wink, nudge nudge) endorsement a couple of weeks ago after totally failing to crash a C-182/G1000 on several occasions. As a matter of fact, I failed to crash so well that the instructor at Northway Aviation said he was happy to keep flying with me for as long as I was willing to keep throwing money at him. With this endorsement, the future Complex endorsement and a future tail wheel endorsement I’ll be just a hair’s breadth away from being a real pilot.

Then maybe I’ll get some respect around here…

Imagine, if you will, that you are in an airplane ten thousand feet in the sky, the wind whistling against the airframe, the engine droning its song of thrust while the prop pulls you through the air. Now imagine running out of gas, the prop stops puling, and the engine goes silent, leaving you with nothing but the wind. Well, the wind and gravity, and also the ground which, thanks to Mistress Gravity, seems to be getting closer and will become a pressing concern shortly.

The one mistake I told myself I would never make in an airplane is fuel starvation. At no time would I ever take off or continue a flight if I thought I was cutting it close on fuel. Not only does it result in a dangerous situation, it makes you look very un-cool. And if you can’t look cool being a pilot, what’s the point?

There are a lot of considerations to take into account when planning a flight, but to me, none are so important as to set aside Rule One. When planning my legs to Airventure, there are many factors to take into consideration. How much Gas I have in the tank is one consideration, how much money is it going to take to fill up the tank is another. But the overriding consideration is Rule One. Is my destination within the range and more importantly, is there an alternate destination within 30 minutes of my primary landing airport, and does this alternate sell gas? It’s somewhat surprising to note the number of airports that don’t sell gas, and therefore have to be taken out of consideration as alternate landing runways. In the interest of Rule One, and possibly to the detriment of efficiency, I have planned all my legs with one hour of reserve, rather than the standard 30 Minutes. I like safety, it keeps me safe.

Naturally, the ever changing fuel prices can also put a cramp in your fuel/flight planning. Fortunately there are some great tools for pilots nowadays. www.airnav.com lets FBOs list there fuel prices, www.100ll.com is a website dedicated to just reporting fuel prices, AOPA members have access to the AOPA database that also lists fuel prices. With all of this, I have been able to plan all of my legs with reasonable fuel prices, and reasonable safety.

The calander:

 I should be able to make a lot of these but there are some conflicts, mostly with  FHC Fly days.

It’s been two years since I’ve been Pilot in Command of an aircraft and while I don’t think the FARs have changed that much in the intervening time, I’m certain that my memory of them has certainly degraded. Not to mention the almost certain decline of much neglected skills like chart reading, flight planning and navigation. With all that, I feel like I need to start all over in ground school before I call up the local FBO and schedule a Bi-annual Flight Review. To that end I’ve purchased the ASA test prep book and a new FAR/AIM, which I hope will get me going for my next aircraft checkout. I plan on taking a couple of hours of instruction prior to getting my BFR, so hopefully everything be smooth sailing, or rather, smooth flying.

I’m also planning on doing my flight planning the old fashioned way, with a sectional, a plotter and an E6-B. Oh sure, I could just go buy a fancy computer flight planner, but where is the fun in that? And just in case you are wondering, no, I’m not planning on navigating to Oshkosh on nothing but a compass and a stopwatch.

I’ve been to Airventure a couple times when I was working for the man, but this will be the first time I’ve been as just a participant, not to mention that it will be the first time I’ve not flown commercial. It will be extra special this time because the poor sod I’ve convinced to fly with me has never been to the show, so he doesn’t know about the hordes of rampaging wildebeests or the ritual cat dancing…Just seeing if you were paying attention.

Anyway, it should be a busy couple of months as I re-learn and reapply all that pilot type stuff.

Can I borrow your airplane?

In Other news, I’m happy to announce the launch of Why Fly; an on-line multimedia journal developed by my friends,  Hal, Mike, Michelle, and Glenn. Are all fantastic people that are passionate about aviation and passionate about brining a new view of aviation to all you propeller heads out there. Plus they let me show my stuff, so I have to say that they show excellent taste. With photo’s, videos and some great articles, you should defiantly keep Why Fly in your Favorites. 

Without further ado, here are some of my best shots for 2009.

Air to air with a Piper cub for Silverwings Flying Company:

Boeing’s 747-400 (modified) Dreamlifter:

The Flying Heritage Collection:

Bud and Ross Granley:

Air to Air, For private owner:

Air to Air, For private owner:

Super Cub at Concrete Fly-in:

Swift and crowd at the Concrete Fly-in:

Stinson at the Concrete Fly-in:

Bud Granley at the Arlington Fly-in:

Heritage Flight P-51 at Paine Field:

This is by no means an extensive list, and I left out a lot of good or better pix. I guess you’ll have to go look at Flicker to see them all.

Swift GC-1B, N3783K, owned by Nate Andrews is a fantastic example of the type. Nate is an A&P and restored his aircraft himself. The care and precision that he took really shows in the aircraft. It has a great paint job the skin is very straight. The seats and cockpit are immaculate. It was love at first sight.

Nate’s swift sports a 200hp engine, which really pushes you back into your seat on take off. Flying out of Harvey, we flew west bound. The swift was a very stable flyer. After getting it trimmed up you could go hands off and it would fly right where you pointed it.

I had the opportunity to take the controls and found out that it’s not the typical C-172 that I am used to. All the controls were a lot more sensitive than what I was familiar with. I just tapped the rudders and started the tail swinging. The same happened on the ailerons and elevator. Any light control movement and the aircraft jumped to respond. Naturally one starts to wonder what is possible with all that responsiveness.

As Nate told me. “The Swift likes to roll.” And indeed it does.

Nate also demonstrated a power off stall for me. It was a very positive break with a nice and pronounced shudder right before the stall. Either Nate is a better pilot than I am (likely) or the aircraft likes to maintain a level attitude in the stall, because there was no wing drop at all.

After we landed back at Harvey, I thanked Nate for the experience and grinned all the way home. Thanks again Nate!

Speaking of which:

As always, the complete set can bee seen on Flickr.

P.S.  That first shot is a flight of four Swifts, my favorite airplane. Aint they beautiful! you can learn all about the Swift at the Globe/Temco Swift Home Page