Prince Valiant
08-06-2008, 05:38 PM
Just recently did my first "plane cruise" with my brother...
Much like some car cruises, this seemed at first, to be far more complicated than need be...but when you consider how vastly different planes are, cruising altitudes, speeds, what they'll do flying into an uncontrolled airfield, etc...you quickly figure out that this is nothing like a car cruise, lol.
My brother has been a VFR (visual flight rating) private pilot since ~ 1997...and his goal since then was to buy an airplane. Just two months ago, he did...a 1979 Beechcraft Skipper (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft_Skipper)
Here's his actual plane:
http://brewcitymuscle.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=5490&stc=1&d=1218061236
He calls it "The Margarita Express" as the color green really does resemble the drink. It's kind of funny to think my younger brother, has a plane...but for 27,000 dollars, it's not so bad...most used single engine planes he rated to fly currently run in the 60-100G even used :wow
What a blast though...despite being the slowest of all the planes (we were cruising in the 90's land speed wise out there into the wind, and 110 with the wind at our tail on the way in) we had a blast.
First off, talk about a hairy take-off. For some reason (not being a pilot or air-traffic controller, I don't know why) they had us take off with a slight tail/cross wind. Let me tell you, small airplane, low power, 450lbs of passenger with said winds and a 2800 ft DA made for an interesting take-off. VERY disconcerting.
The conditions required us to fly at a minimum of 4500 ft, and we had a small VFR window to climb it in...so this required us flying in ascending circles till we hit an acceptable altitude.
Once up there, Matt let me fly the plane...talk about hard. I've flown larger Cessena's (172's) before that fly like caddilacs compared to this thing. Two things I found challenging was a)doing too much flying (I was always working the controls, when I shouldn't have been) and b) Keeping my bearing above the clouds...with a cloud cover above and below, it could get confusing...I wasn't used to navigating using basically only a compass and altimeter before, lol. Before, I could always fly to landmarks...here, I had to keep a heading; seems like a small distinction, but it's HUGE.
We took off first, but were mid-pack in arriving. It took us ~ 55 minutes to get to Ho-chunk casino, whereas it'd probably be nearly a 2 hour car ride from my house...
But flew into Baraboo, to Ho-chunk for lunch, and back...Both landings my brother did great (any in which I can type in front of my CPU afterward qualifies as great, lol).
I seem to recall BCM having at least one other pilots...anyone else?
But good times, good times :thumbsup
Much like some car cruises, this seemed at first, to be far more complicated than need be...but when you consider how vastly different planes are, cruising altitudes, speeds, what they'll do flying into an uncontrolled airfield, etc...you quickly figure out that this is nothing like a car cruise, lol.
My brother has been a VFR (visual flight rating) private pilot since ~ 1997...and his goal since then was to buy an airplane. Just two months ago, he did...a 1979 Beechcraft Skipper (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft_Skipper)
Here's his actual plane:
http://brewcitymuscle.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=5490&stc=1&d=1218061236
He calls it "The Margarita Express" as the color green really does resemble the drink. It's kind of funny to think my younger brother, has a plane...but for 27,000 dollars, it's not so bad...most used single engine planes he rated to fly currently run in the 60-100G even used :wow
What a blast though...despite being the slowest of all the planes (we were cruising in the 90's land speed wise out there into the wind, and 110 with the wind at our tail on the way in) we had a blast.
First off, talk about a hairy take-off. For some reason (not being a pilot or air-traffic controller, I don't know why) they had us take off with a slight tail/cross wind. Let me tell you, small airplane, low power, 450lbs of passenger with said winds and a 2800 ft DA made for an interesting take-off. VERY disconcerting.
The conditions required us to fly at a minimum of 4500 ft, and we had a small VFR window to climb it in...so this required us flying in ascending circles till we hit an acceptable altitude.
Once up there, Matt let me fly the plane...talk about hard. I've flown larger Cessena's (172's) before that fly like caddilacs compared to this thing. Two things I found challenging was a)doing too much flying (I was always working the controls, when I shouldn't have been) and b) Keeping my bearing above the clouds...with a cloud cover above and below, it could get confusing...I wasn't used to navigating using basically only a compass and altimeter before, lol. Before, I could always fly to landmarks...here, I had to keep a heading; seems like a small distinction, but it's HUGE.
We took off first, but were mid-pack in arriving. It took us ~ 55 minutes to get to Ho-chunk casino, whereas it'd probably be nearly a 2 hour car ride from my house...
But flew into Baraboo, to Ho-chunk for lunch, and back...Both landings my brother did great (any in which I can type in front of my CPU afterward qualifies as great, lol).
I seem to recall BCM having at least one other pilots...anyone else?
But good times, good times :thumbsup