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2/27/2007 The $100 Hamburger book
This morning while reading the latest issue of AOPA Pilot, I saw a quick blurb regarding a book that lists all of the fly-in Restaurants in the country. Since I was introduced to the $100 Hamburger phenomenon yesterday, I thought it was rather coincidental that I find that article. If you visit the website, you can pay a fee to get access to an online version of the book, that is said to be updated hourly. Military pilots get complementary access - a nice benefit for our bravest men & women. Amazon has the book currently listed at $16.47 USD, 34% off retail. 2/26/2007 My first flight in N64SG"What a great day for flying." Those were the words I heard through my cell when Sherry called me first thing this morning. She has been trying to get down to Greenwood and take me flying in her Columbia 350 for quite some time, and just had not been able to get things to work out, whether it be a family illness, schedule conflict, or just plain lousy weather (which was the case last Friday). Anyway, things just clicked for us both today, and down she came! After arrival, Sherry had the tanks topped off, then mentioned that it would be nice to fly VFR up to Rutherford County airport. She said that they "have a pretty good reputation for food," and it was getting close to lunch, so I happily agreed to landing there. Once we were all strapped in, Sherry began the procedure for a hot-start, and 4SG cranked with a few turns of the propeller. Those G1000 units lit up after a few moments. I was amazed at the incredible abundance of information to behold. Though she is still getting used to operation of the G1000, she seemed like a pro from my vantage point. The aircraft has a castering nosewheel, so as we began to taxi, she would "bump" the brakes a bit in the direction she wanted the plane to head. Not her favorite aspect of the ground handling. We aligned with runway 27, pushed the throttle forward, and we were soon lifting off the strip at 75 kts, and continued to gain both airspeed and altitude at an impressive 1300 ft./min. We acheived cruise altitude in no time at that rate. The heading was almost directly north to KFQD, so we flew toward Laurens, then over Spartanburg, and then started our decent into Rutherfordton. The flight took a little over 30 minutes, and I would have not expected any less with such a fast plane. On our arrival, Sherry used the speed brakes to dirty up the airflow over the wings just enough to get a good decent rate without causing too much shock cooling to the engine. The landing was a little on the bumpy side, and Sherry was embarrased about doing that, but I told her not to worry about it, as I have experienced much worse in the past. We taxied to the ramp and hopped out, heading to the FBO to speak to the people inside. Then we walked over to 57 Alpha Cafe to eat. We were greeted by the resident cook, who just so happened to own the joint. The house specialty is his Mexican food, but he has the traditional stuff too. Sherry took him up on the Mexican and ordered Nachos, but I decided to have a genuine $100 hamburger. During lunch, the FBO owner, Greg Turner, and his father sat next to us and we enjoyed good aviation conversation. After lunch, we climbed back into 4SG for the trip back to Greenwood. As we were taxiing, we were greeted by a very nice red Pitts Special who took position #1 for departure. After waiting for a Piper Warrior to arrive, the Pitts took to the air, and we were next up. We left Rutherfordton with a high performance climb, and were at cruise altitude moments later. The Appalachian mountains were too our west, and looked fantastic! The flight back took a bit longer due to a slight headwind, but still seemed to only take a matter of minutes. We did a precision GPS approach into runway 27, but the G1000s are not WAAS-enabled just yet, so we didn't have a glideslope to follow. Visibilty was not a problem, so it was no problem flying in by hand once we had the field in sight. Sherry set her down on the runway, and taxied over to the FBO so that I could get out and bid her adieu. She then took to the skies once again to return home to Asheville. What a great day for flying - it certainly was, Sherry! Thank you! 2/25/2007 MVP Global Summit countdown!
One of the great opportunities presented to Microsoft MVPs is the invitation to attend the (nearly)annual Global Summit. This year's summit is set to kick-off March 12th - 16th, just two weeks to go! From what I understand, this will the biggest ever, with some +1,700 in attendance from all over the world - talk about a technological melting pot for a week! One of the highlights of the event this year is having a Keynote address done by Bill Gates. How cool is that? I'm due to arrive there mid-day Monday, flying out of Charlotte Douglas International Airport, and leave early that following Friday. 2/22/2007 Crunch! Screeetch!Ouch! This is a video showing what it is like to land a Cessna 182RG accidentally with the gear up. From videographer Paul Wingo: "There was a snow storm approaching in about an hour and we were doing a check ride. Because of possible ice, we had been flying with the gear down the entire time. We started doing touch and goes after a while. Habit when you take off is to raise the gear. This is what happened. So, when we come around, they were conversing and what not and simply forgot the gear was up. The prop got bent up pretty bad along with the belly of the plane." Now, every time Roy and I have been up in his Twin Comanche, he has always recited GUMPS as we're approaching the airport for landing. Being a non-pilot, I asked what GUMPS stood for, and he said: Gas - Main fuel tanks selected Undercarriage - Landing gear down and locked Mixture - Full Rich mixture Propellers - Full RPM settings Switches - Landing lights, fuel pumps, magnetos, etc. GUMPS sure would have saved this guy's plane from this fate. I'd hate to see that repair bill! Yikees! 2/19/2007 FSX Mission Spotlight: San Juan Island Run In my previous post, I mentioned the "San Juan Island Run" FSX Mission, so I decided to give this mission a closer look. This mission is based on a real-world example of a typical flight for a Kenmore Air pilot.Kenmore is not your run-of-the-mill airline. Kenmore Air is the largest seaplane-based airline in the world, offering flights from Seattle, WA, to a variety of locations in the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia, CA. Kenmore Air offers scheduled flights, charter service, and packaged excursions. The company's fleet of aircraft, most of which are de Havilland Beavers and de Havilland Otters, carry more than 60,000 passengers annually. Kenmore Air also makes a substantial amount of its annual sales from repairing and restoring seaplanes. The company specializes in restoring and modifying de Havilland Beavers, stripping the aircraft down to the bare frame before restoring the seaplane and modifying it by increasing the aircraft's carrying capacity, climb rate, and cruising speed. In the aviation industry, these modified de Havilland Beavers are known as "Kenmore Beavers." All restoration is done at their headquarters, the Lake Washington facility.
2/16/2007 New photos in the album I was sorting through some photos that I had stored on my HDD today, and I thought that a few of them were nice enough to throw into a gallery for all to see.The WIS NewsHawk Back on November 7th, 2003, WIS-TV held a 50th anniversary celebration at their studios in downtown Columbia, and had the NewsHawk Bell 206B on static display. For them to have it there, the pilot had to land on Gervais Street, right in front of their studios. It was a treat watching him glide down At the time, my brother Avery was the camera operator for NewsHawk (you can see him sitting in the rear), and invited my parents and I to the event. Roy's Piper Cub Roy Wilbanks is part owner of a vintage Piper J-3 Cub, and took me flying in her one afternoon. The visibility sitting in that cockpit with the windows folded open is incredible! If you get the chance to fly in one, don't forget to bring cotton to stuff into your ears (it is very loud)! The Kenmore Air Tour In October of 2005, I flew out to Seattle to see my good friend Justin Lamb, who was living near Boeing Field at the time. He is great friends with the folks at Kenmore Air, so he took along a few other friends of his (who also happen to be FS developers) and myself for a round-robin tour of their terminals in the Seattle area. On the topic of Kenmore Air, there is a mission within FSX entitled "San Juan Island Run" where you pilot a de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver from Kenmore's main base at Lake Union, to their Lake Washington base, and then up to the San Juan Islands. I highly recommend it!! AOPA Open House In June of last year, Roy invited me along on a trip up to the AOPA Open House at their headquarters in Frederick, MD. We headed up early in the morning, and I caught some great shots out of the window along the way. Phil Boyer put his recently refurbished WACO on display, so I had to grab some photos of it. Sherry's Plane This is just another photo of Sherry's new Columbia 350 taken when she flew down the other day. Hopefully I'll have more shots to add soon from a different perspective. ;) 2/13/2007 Gathering of Mustangs & Legends
My dad and I absolutely love the P-51 Mustang. Ever since he introduced me to the roar of that Merlin engine at local airshows, I was hooked. One of my favorite movie moments is during the liberation of the Chinese POW camp in Empire of the Sun, where P-51Ds swoop in and attack the airfield next to the camp. From that movie, Jim (played by Christian Bale) stated the P-51 as being the "Cadillac of the sky." I agree. I learned of the GML during a dinner conversation at Oshkosh last year, when Jim Campbell from Aero-News mentioned the event. Supposedly, this will be the last mass gathering of remaining flying P-51s, and the respective Legends who piloted these crafts during WWII. Boy, I sure would love to be able to attend, but that probably won't happen. Dad and I were lucky enough to attend Oshkosh in 2002 and saw 50 or so Mustangs. It was awesome seeing them all lined up the taxiway, puffing smoke as they all spun up to start. Here is what it sounded like when they were taxiing by. If you get to attend GML this September, I would love to hear about it! The Buzz
It's time to start making plans for this year's plethora of airshows around the country, and what better place to gather and discuss these events than at Airshowbuzz.com? The site focuses on it's community discussion boards, and also features every airshow event across the world, exclusive photos and videos.ICAS used to run public message boards, but closed them last year. Airshowbuzz picks up right where ICAS left off, and in grand fashion! If you have a particular team you want to discuss, odds are you'll find a topic there. Have an interest in airshow photography or videography? You'll find that there as well. 2/12/2007 FlightAware fun
Thanks to a head's up in the ClubColumbia forums, I found this interesting history of a Gulfstream (presumably a GV) flying out of Outagamie County Regional, Appleton, Wisconsin. I'm curious to know exactly what was being "tested" during this flight (an 8.5 hour one at that), but it sure took some fancy flight planning to get it worked out as it did! Speaking of FlightAware, it is certainly one of my favorite sites to visit since it's inception in March of '05. I often listen to traffic flying overhead on my scanner from Atlanta Center, and I enjoy looking up the flights to see what type aircraft is being flown, where it originated, and where it is going. I encourage you to have a look! 2/6/2007 Excellent FS video: The world of the sim2/3/2007 South Carolina Breakfast Club 2007 schedule
Here is the full SCBC schedule for 2007: January 14th - Lancaster County Airport (KLKR) January 28th - Greenwood County Airport (KGRD) February 11th - Sumter Municipal Airport (KSMS) February 25th - Eagle Aviation, Columbia Metro Airport (KCAE) March 11th - Georgetown County Airport (KGGE) March 25th - Do-Little Field, St. Matthews, SC (SC90) Turf April 8th - Easter April 22nd - Broxton Bridge, Ehrhardt, SC (SC55) Turf May 6th - Green Sea, SC (S79) Turf May 20th - White Plains Plantation, Lexington, SC (SC99) June 3rd - Anderson Regional Airport (KAND) June 17th - Cheraw Municipal Airport (KCQW) July 1st - Rowan County Airport, Salisbury, NC (KRUQ) July 4th - (Special) Twin Lakes, Graniteville, SC (SC17) July 15th - Fairfield County Airport, Winnsboro, SC (KFDW) July 29th - Allendale County Airport (88J) August 12th - Aiken Municipal Airport (KAIK) August 26th - Berkeley County Airport (50J) September 9th - Columbia Owens Downtown Airport (KCUB) September 23rd - Laurens County Airport (34A) October 7th - Woodward Field Airport, Camden, SC (KCDN) October 21st - Barnwell Regional Airport (KBNL) November 4th - Orangeburg Municipal Airport (KOGB) November 18th - Mt. Pleasant Regional Airport (KLRO) December 2nd - Donaldson Jet Center (KGYH) December 16th - Rudy Branham Field, Darlington, SC (6J7) Turf December 30th - Twin Lakes, Graniteville, SC (SC17) Arrival: 7:30 - 9:00 AM Breakfast: Between 9:00 & 9:30 - 11:00 AM Departure: 11:30 AM 2/1/2007 Hal9000 enlightens us a bit on the SP1 for FSX
SCBC Schedule for February & March
I was asked how to obtain the SCBC schedule on a thread over at ClubColumbia, so I contacted the club's secretary, and she is sending me a hard copy of the schedule via snail mail. While on the phone, I was able to get February and March's dates so I thought I would share that info here. I'll be sure to post the rest of the year once I get the full schedule. February 11th - Sumter Municipal Airport (KSMS) February 25th - Eagle Aviation, Columbia Metro Airport (KCAE) March 11th - Georgetown County Airport (KGGE) March 25th - Do-Little Field, St. Matthews, SC (SC90) ACES featured Dev: Dave DenhartThe writers over at FSInsider have started a new article series highlighting developers of Flight Simulator within ACES Studios. Dave Denhart is the first, and interesting enough, Dave has been a developer for Flight Simulator dating back to the days of Bruce Artwick and SubLOGIC. Head over to FSinsider, and find out a bit about Dave. |
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