PropBlast

or so it would appear...

Aero-News Network reports that this Piper and Stinson most likely missunderstood who was going to be yield to the other. Turns out the pilots, who are neighbors, had communicated while the Piper Warrior II was on short final and both pilots apparently thought the other was going to yield.

Thankfully no one was injured in the accident since, as you can see from the photograph provided by Doug Reeves at VansAirForce.Net that the pipe came down to the side, protecting the pilot in the vintage Stinson 108-3 from the spinning propeller blade.

In the immortal words of Phil Esterhaus: "Hey, let's be careful out there!"

They call it an Anatomy of a Mid-Air and talk about being in the right place at the right time! Aero-News.net has secured photos taken of a landing collision between a low wing Piper Cherokee and a high wing Glastar taildragger at Napa airport on New Year's Day.

The pictures clearly show the classic confrontation that we were all warned about in basic training. A low wing plane coming down on top of a high wing plane; each one in the other's blind spot.

Seeing this really gives one pause. How do you prevent this type of thing from happening TO YOU? Given that this was at a non-towered airport (dare I say "uncontrolled"?) and having a tower directing traffic would have gone a long way towards preventing this from happening.

I think the key to this is to be extra vigilant in the pattern. If either pilot was aware of what was going on in the pattern around them (listening and making radio position reports) and keeping a mental picture (as the controllers call it "getting the flick") of where everyone else is in relation to yourself.

However, at non-towered airports, one needs to be extra vigilant as not everyone flying the pattern will have a radio or be making position reports if they do have one. 

I know as I came close to this once at French Valley airport. I was making position reports all the way around and then someone comes on while I'm on short final and reports that HE was on short final. I called out my altitude and wildly looked about trying to find him. I didn't spot him until he popped out ahead and below me over the threshold and I was in a high wing aircraft. I can't imagine if I would have ever seen him in the Cirrus. What I should have done was immediately radioed that I was breaking out of the pattern if I didn't immediately identify the target's location visually.

Needless to say this ended in a low pass over the airport and once again around the patch before landing. Never found the guy either...

The Aviation Mentor blog (what, you mean you don't have this fantastic blog set up in your mandatory reading list?) had a great post on VTF or WTF? He was bemoaning the fact that many pilots when they hear the controller tell them "Fly heading 180, vectors for the ILS 19R," they will automatically load the approach and select Vectors To Final when being presented with the approaches transition options.

The biggest problem with this that as soon as you do so, the approach controller will invariably tell you something like "three miles to SNAKE, cross SNAKE at or above 4000 feet, cleared ILS 16R" and then you're stuck trying to change the procedure at the last minute which can be stressful and take attention away from what you are doing.   

I had this happen a few times in training and I since learned to load a full-approach but this method of extending the centerline of the final approach course is quick and easy. Since I fly behind a pair of GNS430s, the G1000 section at the top of his post wasn't of as much interest to me as the following:

To get the intermediate fixes to display the Garmin 530 or 430, the sequence is a bit different. For this example, let's consider the Salt Lake City ILS RWY 16R, which has three intermediate fixes outside the FAF.

Load the approach with OGD or FANDS as the transition: It doesn't really matter which one you choose.

Activate the approach and you'll be dumped into the flight plan view. Press the small knob to enter cursor mode, scroll with the big knob and highlight BNKER (the FAF), then press MENU.

The Activate Leg option is highlighted by default, so press ENT twice.

This view gives you pretty much what you need, but if you want to see the magenta line extended out farther, there are a couple more steps.

First, make sure your OBS or HSI is set to the localizer front course.

Next, press the OBS button and you'll see the magenta line extended outward. Small problem, the intermediate fixes have disappeared.

Press the OBS button again and like magician David Copperfield, you've reversed the disappearing act and the IFs are shown again.

John over at Aviation Mentor Blog blogged today that "All in all, a great day to be a pilot." He went on with a few examples of humorous exchanges with ATC that he overheard while flying a Caravan from California to Oregon and back.

While my flights today were nowhere near as long, I had the pleasure of overhearing one of those exchanges that just made us all laugh...

Today was my first IFR cross-country flight with my instructor and when we were returning from CRQ, ATC informed us that they were going to vector us from V23 across the approach course to the ILS of 19R at SNA for right hand entry to the approach. This is not too uncommon given that there are mountains to the east of the approach course that would make vectors to final from the south with a left-hand entry dangerous (as seen graphically in this approach chart).

Anyway, back to the subject at hand. Shortly after crossing the approach course we overheard a conversation between ATC and a pilot for whom, English was not their primary language. Every time that ATC would tell the pilot that she could descend at her own discretion, she would reply

Cessna 1234 at 4 thousand 5 hundred."

The controller rephrased this close to a dozen times before she started to clue in and said something to the effect of

what altitude do you want me at?"

to which he replied

I don't really care where you put your plane"

to which she replied that she was going to stay at 4,500 feet.

The radio was dead silent as I'm sure all pilots in hearing distance were either laughing in their cockpits or shaking there heads when the controller came back on to anyone who was listening that he

want(ed) to see how she's going to land her plane at 4,500 feet."

Perhaps it was something that you had to be there to fully get. Perhaps it is time for me to start recording audio on my flights for later playback 'cause this exchange was priceless.

In case you are wondering how the flight went, my performance on the ILS at SNA was MUCH better than I did at CRQ. I don't know why but I think I was too tense at CRQ and just seemed to be too ham-handed in my corrections, and slow to boot.

I was spotting and correcting trends on the localizer and the glide slope much better at SNA. About the only excitement came as we were coming down the ILS 19R. Tower wanted us to move over to 19L and Ron asked if we could take it down to minimums before sidestepping and tower replied they were OK with that.

We got down to about 300 feet when Ron decided I should go ahead and come out from under the hood rather than waiting to hit minimums since as we were coming down, tower was positioning an airliner onto 19R. You can imagine them begining the turn from taxiway Lima to 19R watching this Cirrus continue down the glideslope right at them.

Making that sidestep means transitioning from a 5701x150 foot runway to a 2887x75 foot runway that is over a football field to the left of primary runway (as seen in this airport diagram from FAA)!

While this is not a dangerous manuever by any means, it does make for a rather quick transition to VFR flying. I ballooned a bit on the landing as I felt I was flaring too low and ended up overcompensating. I suppose most piplots are never as happy with their own landings. All in all though, any day you get to fly makes it a great day! 

I guess I've kind of fallen behind in my blogging about personal flying. I've actually, with the kinds support of my wife, gotten back on my instrument training.

I had stopped after the first third of the training about two and a half years ago to concentrate on transitioning into the Cirrus. And like many others, it has been a challenge to get back to this point due to work, family and just life in general.

I've been flying with Ron from Sunrise and he's great. Lots of experience in SR22s as well as many other types of airplanes. We went up Monday night for some practice and after doing a number of maneuvers, we moved on to try a few holds using the autopilot.

It actually was much simpler than I thought it would be. Of course, we were holding over a VOR so it was much simpler than it would be at an intersection but here's the drill.

Once you've copied and acknowledged your hold, you tune in the VOR and identify that you have the right one. I set the "Pri Nav" on the PFD to VLOC1 (where I've tuned the VOR to hold over) and I also set the "Sec Nav" to point at VLOC1 as well to give me a bearing pointer to the station for reference purposes.

I would then turn the "Crs Set" knob on the PFD to indicate the inbound course for the hold. Looking at the CDI indication (Pri Nav) as well as the bearing pointer (Sec Nav) on the HSI I can easily determine a suggested heading to fly and enter the hold. While flying to the hold fix (remember, it is just a VOR this time) I will climb/descend to the altitude assigned by ATC. I'm guessing the best way to do this is with the autopilot (since that is what we are working on) so we'll assume that I'll just flying Heading and using the Bug to set our course.

During the time spent flying to the fix, I would get set up and do my calculations and diagrams. Draw the fix, determine the entry and then determine the inbound course to set up in Pri Nav. For example, if told to hold west of El Toro on the 270 radial with left turns (the default being right), I'll set the Pri Nav course to 090 degrees.

As I cross the fix, I'll spin the bug to my desired outbound heading for the entry (assuming teardrop or parallel) for one minute. This, of course, is the beginning of my six Ts. Time (start), Turn to correct heading for entry, Twist Crs for inbound (which I've already done), Throttle back (already slowed to 120 while approaching hold), Tune com (as needed) and finally Talk to ATC and advise of entry into the hold.

At the end of one minute, I begin the turn to the inbound course. If all is going well, this can be accomplished by leading the turn with the Heading bug and then once the turn is started hitting HDG NAV on the autopilot for the system to pick up the course on Pri Nav. While flying inbound, I can take the time that "Otto" is flying to spend more attention setting things up for the next step. Initially this will be determining the outbound course (in the example given, 270 degrees) keeping in mind any anticipated wind correction needed.

This is another great thing about the Avidyne PFD is right there next to the HSI is a wind indicator that shows you the wind's direction and strength which makes guessing at an outbound course so much easier.

So, with the bug now set to my outbound course (unless it is the reciprocal of our current heading in which case I would subtract it by 10 or 15 degrees to keep the autopilot from accidentally turning the wrong way to pick up the heading) I continue flying toward the station. Once I've passed the station and the flag flips to From instead of To, I'll press the HDG button on the auto pilot so that it will turn in the appropriate direction to acquire the heading indicated by the Heading bug. Once the turn is initiated, I'll place the bug where it needs to be in case I had to set it short of the outbound course.

Once I've passed the station again going outbound, I'll begin timing and off we go. From this point on, it is just a matter of refining the outbound course and the length of the outbound legs to ensure that we can get a good solid 1 minute inbound leg.

This seems like a pretty long way to describe what is going on, but it actually was quite simple. Anyone else out there have a differing technique they'd like to share? If so, please leave me a comment.

I'm hopeful that by documenting these procedures after I fly them, it will help reinforce them. Can't wait to see what kind of fun stuff we'll be doing on Friday morning!

Ok, so this posting is a little old... Sue me!

Over the Memorial Day weekend, N334CD was not being rented so I figured that I would take my son Bobby up for a flight to get steaks at Harris Ranch in Coalinga [3O8]. Not only would it be good eats, but the strip looks like a good challenge (being significantly narrower than the wingspan on the Cirrus SR22) and it is only about an hour and a half away.

When it came time to head off to the airport he begged out saying he wasn't feel well enough and didn't want to hurl in the plane; an admission I was glad to hear 'cause I didn't want that either. So, plan B was to ask my father-in-law as he has also expressed interest in taking a flight in the plane.

He was agreeable and after picking him up, we stopped in the offices at Sunrise Aviation to pick up the keys and were about ready to head out when inspiration hit... Why not go to Vegas? Not only is is closer by about 30 minutes, but Fritz loves to gamble! So the decision was made to head off to North Las Vegas [VGT]. This was a route that I fly often enough that I could do the routing in my head normally but the flight plan was still loaded up in the Garmin from the last time we flew out.

Read the rest of the story here: [http://propblast.org/articles/Vegas_with_FritzAgain.aspx]

In the interest of keeping to a regular schedule of tracking my flights on this blog here's a few quick lines about this weekend's airtime.

To read more about our flight into Sedona this weekend, please check out the following link: [http://propblast.org/articles/Carrier_Landing_at_USS_Sedona.aspx]

tags: flying,

but want to feel like you where there? You can always use the archive feature at LiveATC.Net to listen to ATC at KOSH (or any airport for that matter) for any 30 minute block over the last seven days.

In fact, if this would be a great way to check your radio techniques if your local airport, or one that you've visited lately, is available on their list of feeds.