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cookwithgas
Joined: 06 Nov 2007
Posts: 159
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 Posted: Sun Jun 21, 2009 7:12 pm Post subject: Fantastic Flying on Father's Day |
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I had just about the best father's day ever today. Last week I was out of town and my wife sent my kids off to Baton Rouge, Louisiana to spend a few weeks with my sister and her husband and their kids. They have lots of animals and a few dogs and when I returned from out of town, I found out they even took our dog so it was just me and my wonderful wife at home. She asked me "Why don't we fly somewhere?"
We talked about different places to go and settled on Baton Rouge for Father's Day. My sister lives about 10 minutes from KBTR but I would have to fly into a Class C airport and land. Being a new Sport Pilot, that seemed a little daunting since it has been a while since I received my Class C endorsement.
On the way from DFW I stopped by my hangar and gassed up the airplane and washed all the dust off of the wings and readied it for a Saturday morning adventure. Early on Saturday we flew to Nacogdoches, Texas. We used the airport courtesy car to get breakfast, I topped off the tanks then I prepared myself for a class C encounter and landing.
The Baton Rouge approach guy was nice enough and I verified for the first time that my transponder AND encoder actually works. I recently had it certified but the technician just put a little radio on the ground, turned on my transponder and said I was "good-to-go." I paid him $75 and he gave me a sticker for my log book and he went on his way. Not very comforting.
After being handed off to Baton Rouge tower, I received some rapid fire instructions - something about Runway 22R and a citation departing and something about a right base and downwind. I was completely baffled and didn't have a clear picture of exactly where runway 22 right was anyway, all the time getting closer to the field. Then I saw the jet lifting off the runway in the distance and I figured I would be landing in the same direction. I still wasn't clear on what to do so I asked the tower to repeat the landing instructions. He seemed a little miffed with me and emphasized DOWNWIND for 22 right. I had zoomed my GPS all the way in and I noticed for the first time that it actually labels the runways on the screen and there they were right on front of me. Downwind - OK I got it. I turned left and flew along 22R, then entered a right base. During this process my wife wiped my forehead which had a large amount of sweat forming. Then I said with my outside voice (should have kept it inside) "I don't do these right patterns very well." My wife told me not to say things like that when we are landing and I realized it made her very nervous too. She was cool as a cucumber prior to this statement.
I turned right for final and nailed the landing on the widest, longest runway I could ever imagine and slowed way before the first taxiway - Taxiway Foxtrot. I got handed over to ground control and asked if I could just go the the first place with 100LL and he gave me progressive taxi instructions after figuring out I was not very savvy in this environment.
We parked at Executive aviation next to some HUGE private jet and called it a day. The best part was that I have not heard my sister laugh with a completely honest-to-goodness, laugh so hard you are about to cry laugh in a long time. After they picked us up in the lobby of the Executive Aviation lounge, they had not seen my airplane yet. We jumped in the car and drove around to the road where you could see the airplane parking and she was looking at all the not-so-small airplanes in the parking lot, then saw mine and just lost it! She had tears in her eyes saying she didn't realize my airplane was so small. In her defense, it did look ridiculously small parked between Citations and King-airs.
We had a great afternoon with the kids and their cousins that they don't see often enough and stayed up late visiting. This morning they gave us a ride out to the airport and walked out on the ramp with us and watched us start up, taxi, then take off. Conversations with ground and tower went much better but I still asked the ground guy to stay with me to make sure I didn't make a wrong turn. He was glad to do it and completely courteous.
Overall it was a perfect weekend as the flight back was faster with a little tail wind. Gas in Nacogdoches again, then an hour and a half back to Grand Prairie and we were home. My wife slept most of the last leg which is a testimony on how smooth the airplane can be. She is a very light sleeper. I reached over to the intercom and selected "ISO" so the radio wouldn't wake her and she didn't move for about an hour.
Father's days don't get any better than that at least for me.
Happy building,
Scott Laughlin
601XL/Corvair
148 hours now!
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pdn8r(at)yahoo.com
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| Posted: Mon Jun 22, 2009 6:09 am Post subject: Fantastic Flying on Father's Day |
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Great post Scott!! Keep sending me/us the inspiration to keep working. 90 degrees plus in my shop today with heat index at over 100 but I'm spending the day there now.
Bill Pagan EAA Tech Counselor #4395
601XL QBK/Corvair/N565BW (RES)
--- On Sun, 6/21/09, cookwithgas <cookwithgas(at)HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:
| Quote: |
From: cookwithgas <cookwithgas(at)HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: Fantastic Flying on Father's Day
To: zenith-list(at)matronics.com
Date: Sunday, June 21, 2009, 11:12 PM
--> Zenith-List message posted by: "cookwithgas" <cookwithgas(at)hotmail.com (cookwithgas(at)hotmail.com)>
I had just about the best father's day ever today. Last week I was out of town and my wife sent my kids off to Baton Rouge, Louisiana to spend a few weeks with my sister and her husband and their kids. They have lots of animals and a few dogs and when I returned from out of town, I found out they even took our dog so it was just me and my wonderful wife at home. She asked me "Why don't we fly somewhere?"
We talked about different places to go and settled on Baton Rouge for Father's Day. My sister lives about 10 minutes from KBTR but I would have to fly into a Class C airport and land. Being a new Sport Pilot, that seemed a little daunting since it has been a while since I received my Class C endorsement.
On the way from DFW I stopped by my hangar and gassed up the airplane and washed all the dust off of the wings and readied it for a Saturday morning adventure. Early on Saturday we flew to Nacogdoches, Texas. We used the airport courtesy car to get breakfast, I topped off the tanks then I prepared myself for a class C encounter and landing.
The Baton Rouge approach guy was nice enough and I verified for the first time that my transponder AND encoder actually works. I recently had it certified but the technician just put a little radio on the ground, turned on my transponder and said I was "good-to-go." I paid him $75 and he gave me a sticker for my log book and he went on his way. Not very comforting.
After being handed off to Baton Rouge tower, I received some rapid fire instructions - something about Runway 22R and a citation departing and something about a right base and downwind. I was completely baffled and didn't have a clear picture of exactly where runway 22 right was anyway, all the time getting closer to the field. Then I saw the jet lifting off the runway in the distance and I figured I would be landing in the same direction. I still wasn't clear on what to do so I asked the tower to repeat the landing instructions. He seemed a little miffed with me and emphasized DOWNWIND for 22 right. I had zoomed my GPS all the way in and I noticed for the first time that it actually labels the runways on the screen and there they were right on front of me. Downwind - OK I got it. I turned left and flew along 22R, then entered a right base. During this process my wife wiped my forehead which had a large amount of sweat forming. Then I said with my outside voice (sho!
uld have kept it inside) "I don't do these right patterns very well." My wife told me not to say things like that when we are landing and I realized it made her very nervous too. She was cool as a cucumber prior to this statement.
I turned right for final and nailed the landing on the widest, longest runway I could ever imagine and slowed way before the first taxiway - Taxiway Foxtrot. I got handed over to ground control and asked if I could just go the the first place with 100LL and he gave me progressive taxi instructions after figuring out I was not very savvy in this environment.
We parked at Executive aviation next to some HUGE private jet and called it a day. The best part was that I have not heard my sister laugh with a completely honest-to-goodness, laugh so hard you are about to cry laugh in a long time. After they picked us up in the lobby of the Executive Aviation lounge, they had not seen my airplane yet. We jumped in the car and drove around to the road where you could see the airplane parking and she was looking at all the not-so-small airplanes in the parking lot, then saw mine and just lost it! She had tears in her eyes saying she didn't realize my airplane was so small. In her defense, it did look ridiculously small parked between Citations and King-airs.
We had a great afternoon with the kids and their cousins that they don't see often enough and stayed up late visiting. This morning they gave us a ride out to the airport and walked out on the ramp with us and watched us start up, taxi, then take off. Conversations with ground and tower went much better but I still asked the ground guy to stay with me to make sure I didn't make a wrong turn. He was glad to do it and completely courteous.
Overall it was a perfect weekend as the flight back was faster with a little tail wind. Gas in Nacogdoches again, then an hour and a half back to Grand Prairie and we were home. My wife slept most of the last leg which is a testimony on how smooth the airplane can be. She is a very light sleeper. I reached over to the intercom and selected "ISO" so the radio wouldn't wake her and she didn't move for about an hour.
Father's days don't get any better than that at least for me.
Happy building,
Scott Laughlin
601XL/Corvair
148 hours now!
Read this topic online here:
http://forums.matronics.com/viewtopic.php?p=249452#249452
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kkinney
Joined: 11 Jan 2006
Posts: 42
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| Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2009 6:23 am Post subject: Re: Fantastic Flying on Father's Day |
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A fathers day without your children? Wow. I'm going to have to mention this to the wife!
Regards,
kk
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cookwithgas
Joined: 06 Nov 2007
Posts: 159
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| Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2009 10:18 am Post subject: Re: Fantastic Flying on Father's Day |
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601XL Builders:
Here is what it looks like after you finish your airplane and take a long flight with your wife on a nice day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e56Wkcv6oOA
Scott Laughlin
601XL/Corvair
148+ hours
Going flying this afternoon.
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