Any Other Pilots Here?

[KG7AMV]

I am a Commercial pilot I Ferry Single Engine and Light Twin Aircraft Mainly USA over the Big Pond to Australia & Asia!

This Bird was Delivered to Gold Coast and is Flying Around Australia!


Total 263 Gallons of Additional Fuel!

[steve30]

I'm not, but I was on the phone to a friend who is a pilot yesterday.

An aeroplane would make for an interesting Teardown Tuesday.

[tggzzz]

Only of sleek sexy aircraft. BTW, how do you manage to stay awake during those oh-so-boring straight and level bits?

[tautech]

My daughter pilots regional domestic for Air NZ, Q300's 50 seater, twin turbo-prop.

Plane like the OP will at least have an auto pilot, maybe a FMS too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_management_system

[KG7AMV]

Red Bull or Monster keeps me awake!

[george graves]

I'm not a pilot - but have several friends that do the whole "rent a plane for a day/weekend" kind of thing.  Single engine, and do a hop or two to a vacation spot.  It's so fun.  Man, those rental planes are scary.  The last one I was in, I was sitting in the passenger seat, and the door didn't lock/click close(would open if you pressed on it), and the seat belt wouldn't stay clasped (found that out 1/2 way there).  Oh well.  Not much you can do. 

At one point I looked into being an ATC, but the cost of school vs salary was way out of whack.  Seems like interesting work - but not for the peanuts they pay.

[EEVblog]

I am a Commercial pilot I Ferry Single Engine and Light Twin Aircraft Mainly USA over the Big Pond to Australia & Asia!

Umm, silly question, but how do you get one of those piddy things across the Pacific pond?

[george graves]

Islands.

[Psi]

I am a Commercial pilot I Ferry Single Engine and Light Twin Aircraft Mainly USA over the Big Pond to Australia & Asia!

Umm, silly question, but how do you get one of those piddy things across the Pacific pond?

Ya should watch the movie dramatization "Mercy mission - The rescue of flight 771"
Two guys set out to fly two Cessna 188 cropdusters from California to Sydney and get so lost a AirNZ passenger jet goes looking for them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessna_188_Pacific_rescue

[EEVblog]

I'm not a pilot - but have several friends that do the whole "rent a plane for a day/weekend" kind of thing.  Single engine, and do a hop or two to a vacation spot.  It's so fun.  Man, those rental planes are scary.  The last one I was in, I was sitting in the passenger seat, and the door didn't lock/click close(would open if you pressed on it), and the seat belt wouldn't stay clasped (found that out 1/2 way there).  Oh well.  Not much you can do. 

I woke up one day and thought I'd fly a plane, so went to the local airport and hired a Cessna 152 (two seat box with wings) and a pilot and flew down to Wollongong airport and back. Flying back along the coast next to the cliffs we were a few hundred feet of the water and my door flew open! (those "locks" are a simple catch). The paper maps we had started flying out the door, and I just managed to catch one in time whilst the pilot took control back from me and tried to stabalise as I tried to close the door. But no good, main map lost,and I was then informed that it was the first time he had ever flown in Sydney after coming from Melbourne. I then had to proceed to navigate our way back assuring him that we were flying over Bondi beach and he should probably chuck a left.
Flew through controlled space at Sydney airport and got a hounding on the radio.
Controller at Bankstown was not impressed either that he had no clue about landing protocol or frequencies there.
Fun trip.
But once I realised how much work and commitment it was to get a license, it just wasn't worth it.

[Psi]

Any Other Pilots Here

Do FPV pilots count?   

[EEVblog]

Islands.

That's what I though, but figured they wouldn't have the fuel for some legs of that either. But just saw the extra tanks in the photo above, that explains it.

[Jeroen3]

Why would you fly such "small" plane across the pond?
To transport the plane itself?

[EEVblog]

Why would you fly such "small" plane across the pond?
To transport the plane itself?

Likely cheaper to do that than hire an Antonov transport and ship in pieces if it doesn't fit.

[tggzzz]

Red Bull or Monster keeps me awake!

For a while

Ah, the joys of entering a spin at 1000ft AGL. Deliberately.

Or watching sheep as they whizz past at the same altitude.

Or having deep meaningful mutual glances with birds of prey.

Or being irked because a plane has just landed where you were going to land, or realising that the sky wants nothing to do with you ATM.

Or the sensation of climbing at 10kts while in a +2.5G turn - with another plane 300ft away at the same altitude.

Or being able to say to a friend just about to get up and go, "hope you have pleasant surprises".

[Skimask]

Private Pilot (SEL) here, just a basic pilot, take off, burn holes in the sky, land.  Wash, lather, rinse, repeat.
As well as a maintainer.
I've often wondered how much custom avionics I could build for myself if I ever bought a plane.

[Howardlong]

I am a Commercial pilot I Ferry Single Engine and Light Twin Aircraft Mainly USA over the Big Pond to Australia & Asia!

Umm, silly question, but how do you get one of those piddy things across the Pacific pond?

Rip out the pax seating and replace them with ferry tanks.

[Howardlong]

I have a PPL and have a PA28 nearly as old as me based at Fairoaks (EGTF) a few miles south west of London. Mostly just pootling about, and I try to get up once a week to maintain currency. The weather here in Blighty is hardly conducive for planning much in advance, but as I work for myself from home if it's a sunny day and I'm in the mood I'll go up for a spin.

The airspace around here is pretty full on, I am based within the Heathrow CTR Control zone so your radio has to be pretty good if you want to transit north, and when you do you're scarily close to the big boys above you on final.

[IO390]

How do you even squeeze past the tank? PA46 cabin is small enough already.

I know a chap who owns a Jetprop and he ferried it from AZ-Thailand. He's just completed his second trip visiting home in it, 5 days and 30 hrs flying time from Thailand, really impressive plane.

I fly a lot with my dad (doing my PPL) who has has a TB20 GT. Fun hobby

Again regarding the Matrix, I've never really seen much point in it compared to the Malibu/Mirage. The pressurisation doesn't exactly cost much in terms of maintenance, probably nothing compared to the cost of replacing all those cracked cylinders.

[MarkL]

I have a SEL PPL but I haven't been up for at least ten years.  I spent most of my time in low-wing Piper Archers (PA28).

I've always been amazed at the age of the avionics technology in these small planes.

I got interested in flying when I was visiting Alaska.  A plane is a common way to get around there because there are essentially no roads outside of the few cities (towns?).  The hotel concierge convinced me not to pay for a "flight-seeing" tour, but go to the local airfield and take a 2-hour flight lesson.  I was hooked!

Got my PPL in 6 months after I got back.

[LabSpokane]

I'm a private pilot, but not current and really have no plans to take it back up.  My father was a professional pilot for his entire life.  When he passed, I sold off my plane, then his.  I basically grew up at the airport hanging out with dad.  I like flying, but I probably won't be taking it back up (unless I suddenly can afford a Carbon Cub).

[LabSpokane]

I am a Commercial pilot I Ferry Single Engine and Light Twin Aircraft Mainly USA over the Big Pond to Australia & Asia!

Umm, silly question, but how do you get one of those piddy things across the Pacific pond?

Good navigation skills, travel tanks, and big balls.  Because if you do it long enough, you will be ferrying a glider. 

[Howardlong]

Private Pilot (SEL) here, just a basic pilot, take off, burn holes in the sky, land.  Wash, lather, rinse, repeat.
As well as a maintainer.
I've often wondered how much custom avionics I could build for myself if I ever bought a plane.

There's a limit to what you're allowed to do here in the Old Dart on avionics unless you're trained up and appropriately CAA licensed. Certainly anything for IFR is off limits. You can have your work checked out by a certified tech.

When I bought my PA28, the radios needed some attention, that was easy enough, both COMs were off frequency, needed a couple of trimmers twiddled. (I do a lot of non-avionic RF so have plenty of kit). One of the radios has a very mechanical frequency input with rotary switches that also needed a lot of attention. The NAVs also needed work, they were a little off bearing. For that I wrote a VOR/LOC/ILS baseband simulator to a soundcard and hooked it up to an RF signal generator modulation input. Worked a treat. I also fixed the ADF receiver, that was just oxidised contacts on the wafer switches for frequency input.

I had less luck with the DME which consists of a head unit for display and a box that sits at the back. For DME you need a bit more than basic RF test equipment. It operates up around 1GHz and generates around 100W of RF in pulses. The age of it means that the final is a valve/tube (I can't remember now but the pre-driver might be a valve too). This is mixed in with some RTL logic to run a PLL which shows its age! I bought a replacement box in the end which promptly broke too a couple of weeks later.

The problem is that refitting my old bird with new avionics would cost about the same as buying a new second hand plane, so I figure it's better value to sell this one and buy another with newer avionics.

[SeanB]

Taking them apart is no fun, but putting that collection of shelves ( around 40m of shelving , 5 racks high, and with a skeleton in the middle of the floor that might be an airframe) back into a working aircraft is fun, especially as my job was instrumentation, and all my wiring was just plastic bags over connectors and zip tied broomsticks holding it off the frame for the fitters to work. My job started after the windows were half in, as I needed 2 out to get the panel back in. At least then I had most of a floor to stand on. I broke pipes that had not been undone since the manufacturer put them in, as i wanted to paint the back of that panel, it had some nasty corrosion on it.

BTW, if you are offered a test flight in a helicopter, go for it. Perhaps not an Alouette, as there you are a good part of the test load, and the autorotation test will make any roller coaster look tame afterwards. Just remember to sign the insurance forms.....

Super Frelon was different, sitting in the door with the feet dangling outside, holding on the strap while the pilots got over their frustration at sitting at full power with zero collective for an hour doing a compass swing, with me in the middle relaying the intercom readings ( magnetic headphone is bad) then finally doing the standby compass while the tractor is playing round and round with the chopper and the cooking guy in the middle with the theodolite and compass. Interesting looking down at the sky and up at the sea, with the shore off to the one side while they were doing aerobatics in a 16 ton chopper.

[JackP]

Starting my PPL at 14 here in the Old Dart - got ten hours logged thus far on a few 152s, flying out of Cranfield (nice 6000+Ft runway with full ATC coverage). On circuits at the moment, trying to nail the landings, but winds get a bit high here! I understand about the trainer/hire planes condition though - on my trial flight out of somewhere else, my door came open mid-flight and the engine promptly stopped on touch down (its only now I realise the instructor was a bit harsh with the mixture. You should try doing stalls with a stall warner operating at 5kt below stall speed! Got two years to kill until my first solo unfortunately, but hopefully I can nail landings, complete PFDs and steep turns and start nav before my 16th! It always amazes me that they send up solo-ers without any idea about practised forced landings!

Dad works at Gulfstream (used to work at Monarch) so I have been interested in aviation from a young age, and would love to get a job working as a hangar boy!