instrument conditions and a Gaithersburg, MD chute deployment

My previous blog post had to do with weather conditions and an elective flight that might have been. I recently read about an accident (no loss of life though) at the Gaithersburg, MD airport where a low time pilot deployed the parachute on his Cirrus. When I first read the report I remember thinking that he took a big risk flying in those conditions. Aviation Mentor (always an informative source) posted a writeup on his thoughts on that situation at:

http://aviationmentor.blogspot.com/2009/03/chute-first.html

If I had had any doubt I would definitely have not flown. One of my instructors once told me "it's better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air than to be in the air wishing you were on the ground".

if i had that instrument rating

If I had that instrument rating I could fly my wife from Leesburg, Va (KJYO) today to her meeting in Doylestown, Pa (KDYL, current ceiling 300 feet) tomorrow. Someday I will be able to do that. The difference? More than 3 hours driving or 1 hour and 6 minutes by "Air Doug".

xc in a Citabria

I need to accumulate some xc (cross country, meaning flying to an airport at least 50 miles from your start point) time so I decided to combine a tailwheel lesson with a little xc yesterday. We flew from KVKX (Potomac Friendly airport, Maryland) to KXSA (Tappannock Essex, Virginia). This flight was a little more challenging for me because I was flying by pilotage (flying to visual references and timing each leg instead of using GPS and/or VOR navigation). If you're not familiar with the area (I wasn't) it can be a little more challenging to pick landmarks that you can definitely identify. I used the wrong bend in a river on the way out and was a pretty good ways right of course for a while. I'm also still not used to flying by compass rather than a heading indicator. I've gotten lazy with a HI in that you can see the entire compass and not have to do any mental math to determine course angles. With a plain old whiskey compass all you see is the number in front and it lazes around some at times too. The flight went ok (I could have done a number of things better) and was very entertaining. I also got the opportunity to get a picture of the plane after I got back when another student took it out. This plane (and the tailwheel endorsement in general) is a lot of fun and I definitely recommend anyone interested to give it a try.

a really short tailwheel lesson due to weather

I had a lesson last weekend in the Citabria (for a tailwheel endorsement) that was cut short because of weather so I thought that I'd post something about an excellent podcast that I picked up from itunes. It is by Stephen Force and the podcast is called "airspeed". I picked up 2 episodes on his tailwheel training and the Citabria. His website is called airspeedonline. I found the podcast on itunes but I don't see a link to it from his website. His descriptions are exactly what I've experienced so far so I recommend listening if you're interested in the subject. The dates of the particular episodes are: 22-Jan-2009 and 7-Sep-2008.

And now some pictures

I've enjoyed my Citabria flights so much that I needed to take some pictures so here you go.

tailwheel landings lesson today

I'm working on a tailwheel endorsement and I had another Citabria lesson today. It focused on 3 point (all 3 wheels) and wheel (just the 2 main gear) landings at 2W5. There was a little cross wind just above the tree line so I also got the opportunity to see how well that big rudder (for me anyway) works. I did reasonably well (nobody cried that I know of) and enjoyed it immensely. My instructor also likes to take students to various airports in the area so I'm looking forward to the upcoming lessons.

Another 7KCAB lesson tomorrow

I've got another 7KCAB lesson tomorrow and am working W&B and performance calculations to get ready for it. It's pretty cool to be in the "Normal and Acrobatic Category" in the flight envelope.