NavMonster - Flight Planning, Aviation Weather and Approach Plates for Pilots

Flight planning information via the internet is plentyful these days, but every once in a while I run across web sites that sets itself apart in simplicity and usefulness. The below site is one of these. Easy layout and quick navigation to get a very quick overview of the mission.
NavMonster - Flight Planning, Aviation Weather and Approach Plates for Pilots

Garmin G1000

Ok, so I finally got sick of every aticle in AOPA magazine or Flying spewing with compliments about Gamin's G1000 glass clockpit. Enough already, I get it, it's cool and it does just about everything short of fixing a cup of coffee. So I kept hoping that maybe just one of those articles would start diving into some meat. Give me just one thing, but in detail. Don't sell me something, teach me something. It wasn't to be. Since I live in the Bay Area I was fortunate to be able to attend a G1000 seminar at my home airport taught by the guy that wrote the book (literally). I attended Max's class about a year ago. It was interesting, but I'm the kind of learner that has to take knowledge in chunks, let it simmer, stew, read a bit and then think about it some more. In the end I found that once I learn that way I retain it for just about ever. A seminar doesn't do that for me. Max Trestcott was nominated 2008 flight instructor of the year, which was good enough for me to invest the $34.95 to buy his book. The book is well structured, with ample pictures and illustrations. I'm a visual kind of guy. You give me just text and you might as well be writing chinese. Why buy the book? Well, you figure that every hour with a flight instructor is about $45 now and the plane is around $120. If I fly, I want to maximize my enjoyment. If I fly to learn, I want to maximize that too and learn the finer points rather than the basics. It's for that reason that I found buying Max's book just made plane sense (no pun intended....well maybe).
I'm about 1/3 into the book now and it's working reasonably well for me. If I can find one fault with it, then it would be that it is focused exclusively on each individual operation. It does a fabulous job at that to where I can close my eyes and literally follow along, but it doesn't teach the logic behind it. I find myself trying to figure out what logic Garmin applied in putting the system together. I'm still trying to boil it down to the dozen or so systematic steps that will let me perform 90% of the operations. Why? Well, I realize that there is no way I'll ever remember every single thing that's been written in a 250 page 8x10 book. If however, I could decode the logic that's been applied by Garmin to guide the menu navigation, data entry and value selection I could just look at what's available on the screen and with prior knowledge of the system's capabilities let it guide me there. Less junk to clutter my brain and better intuitive use in flight.
Here is how I'm remembering it.

• The FMS knob is to scroll through a menu or list and select things
• The enter button is to select things and get to additional detail screens for whatever has been selected
• Range knob to zoom and shift the Inset Map
• Every knob you can push to perform a function is labeled as such although I find the labeling sometimes in the wrong place (the triangular course knob on the right side of the PFD bezel has the label below which at least in my mind associates it with the range joy stick).
• I'll add other revelations as I read the book here

Since Garmin GNS 530 functions very similar I downloaded the free simulator from the Garmin web site.

Garmin also has all the manuals and quick reference guides for download. Make sure you get the right model.

A nice checklist for the Cessna 172SP G1000 is posted on the Dauntless web site.

Salinas IFR Ride Along

These are some pictures from a flight with my friend Michael who owns this lovely Skylane 182. Michael is working on his IFR license and on Tuesday evening he allowed me to share a ride on a typical IFR lesson. The plan was for a flight from RHV to SNS with a few practice approaches on the VOR 13 approach and a couple of MARNA holds. After that, a ride over to shoot the Localizer 02 approach into Watsonville. I have had my license for 2 years now, but even as a passenger I had never flown in actual IFR conditions in a GA airplane. As luck would have it, the low clouds moved in and we had a solid layer over the Salinas airport. Only about 800 feet thick, but a fantastic experience. Fantastic as in scary, weird and yet serene. The realization that reliance on what the equipment in front of you tells you is truly the only thing that tells you where you are (provided you can interpret it) and where you're going and how you're getting there (hopefully not inverted). First approach was on a partial panel and we got way off course, declared the missed and headed out to MARNA, second approach with a full panel much better, but as we headed into the clouds I could feel the plane turn right... right... right. We exited the clouds still turning heavy right. It was a fantastic learning experience just watching my friend and getting a feeling for the incredible challenge of managing navigation with zero visibility while keeping wings level, maintaining a heading and managing the descend. If anybody thinks that foggles provide a good simulation of flying in actual IMC...think again. A few hours flying under the hood, no comparison...ever notice that occasionally you get some light or glimse something outside the airplane. Not so in real IFR. It's just dull white like everything outside the plane got erased. Now I've flown through this stuff many times on an airliner, looked outside and thought...I know I wouldn't do it, but I probably could. It finally hit me what the difference was. I didn't have instruments in front of me. This flight had a profound experience on me. Observing from the back it was easy to see how anybody behind the airplane could become disoriented and put the plane upside down even in less than 1000 feet of cloud cover.

The second most valuable experience was learning to understand the clearances and radio communications that come along with flying in the clouds.Turns out that I had been far too intimidated about what might be required. Instructions are very straight forward. request the desired approach from Norcal including whether you just plan to fly the missed approach or to a full stop, Norcal comes back and provides vectors to fly a heading, maintain assigned altitude until established and switch frequencies to tower or CTAF. Establish radio contact on the missed and advise intentions.

All in all a very enlightening experience and encouragement to start my own IFR ticket. I probably wouldn't use it much except in thin layers that were high enough above ground, but just for safety sake it's the way to go. For those of you reading this that have your license, but have never been in IFR other than on commercial flights I can only encourage you to ask around, share a ride (with an IFR training flight, student at the controls, because an instructor makes it look simple) and prepare for a most thrilling experience.

Monterey

Took the family down to Monterey (KMRY). Just a short hop, but a ton of fun. Last weekend we had spectacular weather. Approach advised 28R and handed me off to tower. I didn't call ahead and asked for taxi instructions to the restaurant. On that side of the field are two FBOs. Million Air and Jet Center. Parking was $30, but gets waved if you buy gas. At Jet Center they also have tickets to the Aquarium and can rent you a car. We didn't need either because we were to meet grandpa for ice cream. The FBO crew gave us a ride over to the restaurant. There is free GA parking on the other side of the field, but I was told no services are available, so arrange for a pickup if you go that route.

Jeppesen Weather Help

Great resource to quickly review all the different symbols on avaition weather charts.
Jeppesen Weather Help

Bi-Annual Flight Review (BFR)

I can hardly believe that it's been two years since I first got my license. Looking back I am confident that I kept learning and that my skills are pretty sharp, but it was time for my BFR and so I hooked up with Tom Navin at Tradewinds a few weeks ago to knock off any rust that might have been building. Last Saturday we again took to the skies on a georgeous afternoon. The weather in San Jose had been crappy and so traffic at Reid Hillview was busy as everyone took to the skies all at once.

Learning (1): How to hotstart a fuel injected engine with vapor lock. Full power, mixture lean, as she starts, immediately pull power back and and enrich mixture in one fluid motion of the two levers.

Tom and I did our upper air maneuvers and then headed towards the central valley and diverted to New Jerusalem 1Q4. Basically a strip of asphalt in the middle of nowhere. The real bonus being that NOBODY is there. The runway is 3,500 ft. 12/30. Tom gave me some great coaching on short field takeoff and landing. We practiced a near touchdown slow flight down the entire length of the runway to get a feel for slow flight close to the ground. Then we set up for the actual shortfield and I finally got the picture of a nose high attitude and power control of descend to put her down right on the numbers. Another reason 1Q4 is such a great little strip is that it doesn't have a VASI and the approach is over fields with no obstructions. Thus, the FAA rule of no flight below VASI glideslope doesn't apply and you can actually play around some with altitude to get the right feel for it. We then practiced power failure during takeoff. If your instructor hasn't yet played a trick like that on you, do ask. Highly valuable to experience engine loss at 50 feet or so and to land her on the remaining runway. From what I had read before I always got the impression that it required a heavy push on the joke to bring the nose down and pick up speed. Not so in my experience. At 50 feet you're quickly back in ground effect and I experience it as just a slight relaxing of the controls to keep the speed above stall, followed almost immediately by a transition to a roundout. With precious little runway left you don't want to build up excessive speed, so Tom showed me how to ease her back down with the nose up higher than I thought. All in all a great BFR and as always some learning experiences from a truly gifted teacher.

What does a stall & spin look like

I always wondered what the view out the window would look like in an inadvertent stall spin. After all, enter a stall during uncoordinated flight and you'll soon find out. The weather is crappy today so I'm doing a little armchair flying and ran across some great video clips on YouTube. Somehow it was important for me to actually see how fast the plane appears to point at the ground.

Cessna stall spin
...and another one
........and another one
...and just because it's so much fun

spinning in a Citabria
and spinning in a Decathlon
and in a Vans RV-12 where you can actually see the aileron inputs nicely. This one also has a great demonstration of airflow separation during the stall.

Stall horn testing - Preflight

Ok, so I finally got tired of not testing my stall horn during pre-flight. On tab-actuated stall horns such as the one I encountered when I was flying the Piper Archer it sure was an easy task. Turn on master, lift the tab, and hear the horn. Try being thorough though on a Cessna 172 and it's an entirely different story. Theoretically, you're supposed to suck on the opening of a dirty airplane with the wing a head or two higher than you. Sure, that's going to happen...NOT. So as a result it seems to be an accepted practice to just visually inspect the opening for any obstructions. After all, you're not going to fall out of the sky just because the stall horn doesn't work. Or will you. Last week we went out and practiced slow flight. Sure was easy with the stall horn buzzing. Oooops...what if it hadn't worked. It was at this point that it occurred to me that maybe I ought to find a way to check that stall horn on the next pre-flight. A few months earlier I had seen another pilot on my field pull out a strange little home made device. One of the instructors had created it for some of his students, so I decided to have a go at it. Quick run to the hardware store for some flexible plastic tubing (mine is a little too rigid, so select one that is flexible enough). I also picked up a little piece of thick and compact foam that's flexible enough to mold to a surface. I squeezed the tubing into the foam twisting it and cut out a nice little hole with the tubing. A little super glue to attach the foam to the tubing and about 90 cents later you have the perfect stall horn tester. Press the foam to the aircraft leading edge right over the stall horn opening and suck on the tube. Voila! Sure I could have picked up a little pump that the aviation catalogs are selling, but I'm certain those wear out eventually and I, like most pilots, just like things that can't break. No more excuses for not testing the stall horn.