Category: Flying

Posts related to aviation, other than aircraft construction.

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Brunch

Brunch Today

Dolly and I flew down to Sebring this morning and had brunch on the restaurant porch with the Old Farts Flying Club.  The club is an informal organization run by Roger Brown who maintains an Email list and chooses an airport restaurant for lunch each winter season Thursday.  He follows up with a newsletter including photos of participants and their planes.

Today’s weather – strong crosswinds – reduced the attendance.  Before Covid I’ve seen fifty to seventy planes fly in.  Today we social distanced and masked.  Dolly and I arrived early and picked an upwind table.  The food, omelet and pancakes was delicious.

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No more lost pencils?

Pilots flying under instrument flight rules (IFR) make a practice of recording instructions from air traffic control (ATC), usually with pencil and paper.  Pity the poor pilot who lost their pencil to the cabin floor and can’t retrieve it because the seat belt and shoulder harness are tight and the plane is flying through turbulence while ATC is issuing an amended route clearance.

With a 3D printer and idled hands I made a solution for Van’s RV aircraft. 

The blue double ended thingy sturdily clips onto both the plane control stick and standard sized pencils.

I’ve started giving them to other fumble fingered pilots.

You know who you are.  Just ask the next time we see each other.

For RV deprived pilot friends, I also have a version that clips onto standard aviation chromalloy 3/4″ tubeing.

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200 Knot Club

In the world of Van’s RV Homebuilt Aircraft there is an event known as “joining the 200 knot club”.  It’s for aircraft that have surpassed 200kts (230mph) groundspeed in level cruise flight.  By far the majority of Van’s RVs have a top speed in level cruise around 175 kts or 200 mph.  So a pretty good tailwind is required.

Thursday 4/7 on a flight retrieving N50KB from Michigan to Florida we (I and the plane) joined the club.  Click on the photos to see the detail.  What a ride!

There was a 72 kt tailwind component at 14,500 ft msl. That plus the 143 kt full throttle (59% power) true airspeed pushed and pulled us at 215 kts over the ground.

215 kts

9.9 gallons per hour.  24.9 miles per gallon. Hooah!!!