NY Approach

Welcome to NY Approach

We are three friends – Dan, Liz and Pete – who are aviation enthusiasts.  As of the publishing of this blog (August 2006), Dan is a pilot with 664 total hours, and the following ratings: IFR, CGI (Advanced and Instrument) and Single-Engine Commercial.  Pete is about to leave for Denver to begin training for his license, and Liz (until she gets a new shoulder) is a permanent student pilot with a whopping 13 hours logged. 

 

We’d like to use this forum to share useful and entertaining information about aviation in general and flying in particular. We can be contacted at [email protected], [email protected], or [email protected], respectively. For general questions, use [email protected].

Update: As of 27 July 2020, Dan is a Certified Flight Instructor (Instrument) with 2371 total flight hours and 559 hours of instruction. Pete is IFR certified with 900 total flight hours. Both are proud airplane owners; Dan has a Bonanza named Gigi and Pete has a Cessna R182 named Gwaihir. And Liz seems to be a ground-pounder.

Fall 2022 Flying Recap

(Again, I’m posting this in March 2024 as I seek to catch up a bit, so please forgive the tardiness!  More adventures to write up, as the flying and fun has not abated, and in fact, I’m starting on a new flying adventure and will update about that in a more timely fashion!)(And please forgive the lack of videos and some photos—Typepad is very tempermental seemingly!)

For Labor Day weekend, Michiko and I decided to do an impromptu day trip to Martha’s Vineyard.  With gorgeous weather, we had a beautiful flight up to the Katama Airpark (1B2) in Edgarton, MA and its well maintained grass runways.  After checking in at the “desk”, we taxied down to the southern grass parking area and buttoned up the plane.  It was a simple walk with our stuff across the street to the beach and we spent a good chunk of the day just kicking back in a shade tent and relaxing.  A couple of seals popped their heads up in the water just in front of us, and a couple times, the beach patrol came racing by and pulling people out of the water because of shark warnings to either side of us.  Throughout the day, one of the biplanes stationed at Katama kept making the rounds, so that was entertaining as well!

Steelers game

For my birthday present, Michiko got us tickets to the Pittsburgh Steelers home game in mid-September.  We’d never been to a football game, so we made a little adventure weekend out of it, flying out to Allegheny Couty Airport (KAGC in West Mifflin, PA, just south/southeast of Pittsburgh.  The flight out was fantastic, not too much headwind (unlike our earlier trip out to Jimmy Stewart), albeit a bit hazy with summer-like heat.  We were given a straight-in approach almost 15 miles out from the airport and the very efficient line crew at Corporate Air had us fueled and sorted quickly.  We Ubered into town to our hotel and spent the rest of Friday and most of Saturday wandering parts of downtown, including the Senator John Heinz History Center where we enjoyed exhibits about the local glass industry, pickles, Mr. Rogers Neighborhood and the Underground Railroad in western PA.

It turned out that the Steelers team spent the night before the game in our hotel—the wide variety of nice cars and pickup trucks in the secure parking area on the east side of the hotel should have given us a clue!  Saturday morning, we had a wonderful breakfast at a place around the corner that Michiko had found, The Speckled Hen.  (It was so good, we went back Sunday morning before the game!)

It was a pretty easy walk from our hotel out to Acrisure Stadium (along with seemingly half of the population of Pittsburgh), for the Steelers v. Patriots game.  We ultimately lost the game, but Michiko and I had a lot of fun at our first NFL game, including wearing our new Steelers attire and waving our Terrible Towels!  

After walking back to the hotel, we collected our bags and grabbed a quick Uber out to the airport, where the line crew had us ready to go.  After pre-flighting and picking up our instrument flight plan home, we were soon into the hazy skies again, with a slight tailwind to help us along.

In mid-October, I got to combine two of my passions, raptors and flying, when a Pilots N Paws rescue mission came up to take an osprey from a wildlife rescue in northeastern CT down to a wildlife rehabilitator down in Wilmington, NC.  I launched at dawn from Bridgeport and headed up to Danielson Airport (KLZD) in Killingly, CT to meet up with Pamela of Sweet Binks Rescue and pick up “Fishface the Osprey.”  It was a beautiful morning flight, watching the sun start to color the horizon and the valleys filled with fog, including the Connecticut River.  Luckily, Danielson is located towards the top of a hill and was fog-free—only a few miles southwest of the field was Windham Airport and it was covered with low ground fog—I couldn’t even spot it as I flew over!

Pamela and a few of her friends helped transfer the osprey in it’s cage into the airplane, covered with a quilt to try to keep it as quiet and comfortable and stress-free as possible during the journey.  Then I fired up and headed back the way I had come and continued on, straight over the top of JFK Airport, with big jets departing and arriving underneath me.  Soon I was joining the pattern at Old Bridge (3N6) and landing on Runway 24. I taxiied over to parking and sidled up next to Dan’s Bonanza.  (One of Pamela’s friends got a nice video clip of me taking off from Danielson.)

We transferred the bird to Dan’s plane and then settled in for the next leg, down to Wilmington, NC to meet up with Amelia from Skywatch Bird Rescue.  Our flight south took us over Patuxent Naval Air Station (nothing moving though) right about the same time a small twin overtook us about 100’ below and popped out in front of us.  A little later on, we flew over the top of the Hampton Roads/Norfolk area and Langley Air Force Base, and we spotted an aircraft carrier docked.

Once on the ground at Wilmington, we met up with Amelia from Skywatch and made the handoff of the osprey.  We then took an Uber into town to grab some lunch and walked around the neighborhood a little bit before enjoying a delicious lunch.  Dan’s daughter enjoyed a “big-ass pretzel” as her lunch, which had us in stitches!

People and plane fueled, we headed up to Norfolk Airport (KORF) to pick up a Yorkie puppy rescue (originally there were supposed to have been two pups, but one apparently got adopted before our arrival).  Dan’s daughter, on seeing the puppy, immediately took full control and snuggled the pup throughout the flight up to its drop-off at Delaware Coastal Airport/Sussex County Airport (KGED) in Georgetown, DE. Then it was a fairly quick hop back up New Jersey to Old Bridge where I picked up Gwaihir and made the last leg home in the dark with NYC laid out below me.

For Michiko’s birthday in November, we flew (commercial, sadly) out to Los Angeles for a few days (behind-the-scenes movie studio tours x 2; museums, tourist sites, afternoon tea, and relaxing on the balcony overlooking the marina at our hotel) before driving up to San Francisco for more tourist activities: Fisherman’s Wharf, a fun Warriors basketball game, dim sum in Chinatown, 

There were a few interesting aviation related tidbits during the trip.  At the Museum of Motion Pictures, we saw the Oscar statuette for the first film to ever win Best Picture—appropriately enough, an aviation flick from 1927 called Wings!  On the drive up to SF, we passed Naval Air Station Point Mugu, so I turned around to check out the small public park at the edge of the base with examples of missles tested at the range there.  As we walked around, two Hawker Hunter jets (British fighter plane) landed at Point Mugu.  From what I could find later, they’re owned by a private military contractor and serve as agressor aircraft, including electronic warfare.  

Up in San Franciso, we visited the Pacific Air Museum out at the Charles Schulz/Sonoma County Airport (KSTS) for a quick walk through their amazing collection.  Unfortunately, we had a bit of a time crunch as I has booked a Cessna 172 and instructor so that I could do a little flying out in California (and check off the map for landing in that state).   Michiko came along in the back seat and we did a nice wander south to the Golden Gate Bridge and back up the coast including Point Bonita, Stinson Beach, Point Reyes, Bodega Bay and then followed the Russian River back over the hills to the airport.  I didn’t make a great landing, but salvaged it at the last second, so didn’t embarrass myself too badly.  We then hit the Charles Schulz Museum itself, with all the appropriate Snoopy flying his Sopwith Camel doghouse, etc.

Closer to Thanksgiving, I got to meet up with Paul, the attorney I’d met out at the Lawyer Pilots Bar Association summer event who has a Cessna 182Q based out of Bridgeport.  Paul had recently gotten his plane back from a very nice glass panel overhaul and he wanted a safety pilot with him to shoot some approaches while he practiced with the new glass, particularly with the missed approaches.  I suggested heading out to Chester (KSNC) since they were usually pretty quiet there and typically you can practice the GPS35 and GPS17 with all the procedure turns and holds without much issue, regardless of which runway is active.  

 

Sure enough, Chester was quiet on a Wednesday afternoon and Paul was able to work through three approaches with procedure turns, missed approaches and holds.  Afterwards, I shot a couple approaches, a GPS35 with the procedure turn, flown manually and then a GPS17 with a procedure turn, flown as a coupled approach with the autopilot.  Done with flying, we tucked the plane away in his hangar and grabbed a beer at a restaurant called The Landing at Five Twenty, while we debriefed.  (Funny enough, when I flew with Milton a couple days later to shoot some more approaches, I heard Paul out flying and also practicing some approaches out at Chester!)

 

Summer 2022 Flying Recap

(Again, as I post this in March 2024, please forgive the tardiness! Life has been busy (and Typepad annoying), but the flying and the fun continue!  In fact, besides a number of adventures I’ll cover in the next few posts (including OSHKOSH 2023!), I’m starting a new flying adventure that I’ll update soon, and in a more timely fashion!)

In June, I decided to change things up a bit regaring Gwaihir’s annual maintenance inspection.  With the regular mechanics backed up on projects and me needing the plane ready for a fun trip in July (read on), I was fortunate enough to get a time slot with Dan’s mechanic in Old Bridge, NJ.  So in late June, I flew an instrument trip through the NYC Class B airspace with a significant layer of haze down to Old Bridge to drop the plane off and meet up with Dan.

Because the timing of the annual didn’t allow much room for surprises, Dan graciously offered that I could borrow Gigi for my trip to Michigan, if needed.  Since I fly Gigi so infrequently, we did a bit of a refresher flight, including some slow flight, stalls, and shooting the GPS24 instrument approach with a procedure turn into Sky Manor Airport (N40) for a cheap fuel stop.  We then did a straight flight up to Bridgeport at sunset, with fireworks going off nearby as we landed.  I got a great video clip of Dan at dusk, taxing out from Bridgeport with the fireworks behind him (that Typepad won’t let me post!)

Luckily, there were no surprises for the annual inspection and on July 5th, I was able to take the Metro-North train down to NYC and then a bus from the Port Authority out to near Old Bridge.  After a bit of a wait, an Uber picked me up and we did the last couple miles to the airport where I was able to meet up with the mechanic and talk through the annual.  After a very slow and methodical pre-flight inspection, and very careful run-up, I did a shakeout flight at Old Bridge, staying within gliding distance of the airport while I made sure that all systems were working well, including the engine, gear retraction, autopilot, and the COMS and NAV radios. Once satisfied that everything was in order, I made the hop back to Bridgeport and tucked Gwaihir in for the night.

The next morning, I headed out to the Bridgeport Airport again and packed up the airplane for a long weekend.  For the first time since becoming a member, I was headed to my first Lawyer-Pilots Bar Association (www.lpba.org) summer conference, this time in Traverse City, MI (KTVC) (essentially the crook between the thumb and finger/mitten side of Michigan and the Cherry Capital of the US)(In fact, the airport is called Cherry Capital Airport—I was diverted there once on a commercial flight to Chicago because of thunderstorms and got to enjoy some really delicious cherry pie in the terminal while we waited.  Additionally, it’s very close to where Michiko went to music summer camp two summers at Interlochen.)

The flight up was pretty uneventful, though on the first leg, into Genessee County Airport (KGVQ) in Batavia, NY, I ended up shooting the GPS28 approach down to 1400’ (about 200’ above Decision Altitude minimums) through the mist to a perfect landing.  After a quick leg stretch and refuel, I was on my way again, over the top of clouds until it was time to start descending through clouds to Traverse City, with helpful vectoring by air traffic controllers to put me in behind a small airliner coming in to land.  

The LPBA summer conference was a lot of fun and I met a number of terrific people, mostly lawyers from a variety of practice areas, including aviation law, business, corporate, judicial, real estate, accident, etc.  As an investigator, I was one of the very few non-lawyers who practice adjacent to the legal profession.  One of great guys I met was Paul, who runs a decent size aviation law firm in Stratford, CT and flew up that day from Bridgeport Airport with one of his co-workers in a Cirrus SR22, but who owns a Cessna 182 at Bridgeport!  Talk about a small world that we had to meet up in Michigan!

While each day of the conference had a number of seminars on various topics, the afternoons were free to enjoy other activities or free time.  On one afternon, we went out to Traverse City Airport and had a fantastic tour of the Coast Guard Air Station and their Sikorsky MH-60T Jayhawk rescue helicopters.  We got to clamber all through a couple of the helos and talk with a couple of pilots and pararescue swimmers about their experiences. On another afternoon, we had a spot-landing competition at a rural airport northeast of the city, Lakes of the North Airport (4Y4) in Gaylord, MI.  After the spot landing portion, I gave a couple of rides to local community folks who graciously hosted us and came to watch before heading back to Traverse City for the closing dinner of the conference (and picking up some cherry pie to bring home to Michiko!)

The return flight was pretty easy as well, with my first waypoint after departing Traverse City as TPGUN (!).  I did a fuel stop and leg stretch at Penn Yan Airport (KPEO) in Penn Yan, NY before a long straight flight back home into Bridgeport.  

In mid-August, we did our annual pilgrimage up to Red’s Eats to indulge in our lobster rolls and deep fried mushrooms…..ahh heaven!  The flights up and back were uneventful, with a little bit of actual instrument conditions (a few clouds) in both directions.

Towards the end of August, we had a fun adventure, made possible by flying!  On a Friday, we flew down to Annapolis (KANP) to meet up with Drew college friens Nancy and James.  We drove out to Wolf Trap national Park for the Performing Arts in Vienna, VA for a live taping of our favorite NPR show, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, with the US Surgeon General, Vice Admiral Vivek Murthy as the special guest. As always, the WWDTM team didn’t disappoint and the venue was fantastic!

The next morning, the four of us got into Gwaihir at KANP and we flew up to Monmouth Executive Airport (KBLM) in Belmar, NJ for a delightful afternoon of fun hanging out with other Drew friends Stephen, Ming and Ken in Asbury Park, including relaxing on Stephen’s beautiful patio and walking on the beach boardwalk.  Too soon, we had to head back to the airport for an evening flight back to Annapolis.  As we pulled up to Monmouth Executive, multiple police cars were waiting, but apparently they were there for an arriving guest, not us.  After filing an IFR flight plan and preflighting, we started our taxi out right as Kid Rock and his personal jet flew in with his distinctive tail insignia.

We were soon in the air heading south, in and out of clouds left over from some afternoon thunderstorms that had passed by.  By the time we got down to Annapolis, it was full night and even set up on the GPS-A approach, it was very tough to spot the airport lights in all the light clutter of strip malls along Route 2–eventually I could pick out the dark spot behind the stores and the runway lights.  I confess it was not a great landing—I seriously ker-thunked the airplane onto the runway.  In my defense, it’s a relatively short field and I don’t have a lot of experience with four adults in the plane.  (That’s my excuse and I’m sticking with it!)

After saying our goodbyes, I picked up my instrument clearance home to Bridgeport and we took off at 9:23pm, with Nancy shooting a cool (and narrated) video of our takeoff.  The flight was uneventful for the majority of the flight, in and out of a few clouds, but nothing problematic.  As we approached Bridgeport, however, ATC dropped us down over Long Island sound to 1,500 feet with VERY low clouds out over the water within a couple miles of the airport.  I was having some pucker moments wondering if we were going to make back into Bridgeport, but then we broke through the last of the clouds about a mile from the airport, with perfect visibiility and I was able to make a near perfect visual landing.

D

2022 First Half Flying Recap

(Again, as I post this in March 2024, please forgive the tardiness!  Life has been busy (and Typepad annoying), but rest assured the flying and the fun hasn’t abated!  In fact, besides a number of adventures I’ll cover in the next few posts (including OSHKOSH 2023), I’m starting a new flying adventure that I’ll update soon, and in a more timely fashion!)

With the weather not cooperating much in January of the new year, the only flying related time was a few hours in the AATD flight simulator at Three Wing, shooting multiple approaches in some of the worst weather conditions I could throw into the machine—thunderstorms with lightning, pouring rain, gusty variable winds, 200’ minimums for clouds—oh, and all at night!  It was good practice despite the fact that I am way to cautious to be caught in almost ANY of those conditions!

In early February, I had a fun flight to help Dan celebrate his 10th anniversary of becoming a flight instructor!  I picked up Milton at Brookhaven and then we flew the southern shore of Long Island westward to meet up with 4 other planes in NYC Harbor, south of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge (a waypoint called TICKL).  Once we’d all arrived and flew a couple of counter-clockwise circles to space out, we started north and flew the VFR (visual) flight corridor up the Hudson River before then breaking off to have a fun brunch together at Lincoln Park Airport (N07) in New Jersey.  Liz even drove out from the city to join us and had apparently taken some photos of all of us as we passed up the river.

I landed a new job in February, and with a start date at the end of March, Michiko and I wanted to have a fun day out ahead of time, so in mid-March, we flew out to Jimmy Stewart Airport (KIDI) in Indiana, PA.  Unfortunately, we had horrible headwinds on the way out AND the electric trim on the autopilot decided to fail as we reached our cruise altitude, so I had to handfly the 2.8 hours instrument flight westbound.  It’s a good thing I stay in practice with my simulator flying and hand-flying some of my approaches!  (I will say though that the tailwind we had coming home kept us over 170kts the whole way!)

We had a fantastic time at the airport (really nice folks who lent us the crew car to run into the town itself to visit the Jimmy Stewart Museum) where there are a number of Jimmy Stewart exhibits and memorabilia and a mural.  In addition, one of his old Cessna 310s has been refurbished and sits on a pedestal outside the airport—it rotates in the wind and the strobe and navigation lights light up as well! (www.jimmy.org/jimmys-personal-airplane/

The Museum in town is amazing!!  Located on the third floor of the Indiana Free Library, the museum has rooms/exhibits dedicated to his hometown/childhood life (including his boyhood bedroom), his military service and flying career, his Hollywood career, and a recreation of his Los Angeles home office.  The various tidbits and artifacts, movie costumes, props, posters, etc. are terrific.  There’s also a movie theater showing a daily matinee that changes weekly—we unfortunately couldn’t stay for that, but we’ll definitely be back!  (www.jimmy.org)

Between the new job and weather, the spring was a tough month to fly.  One piece of evidence was in mid-May when I went out to pre-flight and ended up spending a couple hours removing the tail cone of the airplane to dig out a bird’s next and then carefully re-attach the cone.  It’s really just a lot of screws, but there are a LOT of screws!!!

In early May, I had to head out to Illinois to see Bruce for my medical certification exam.  Michiko decided to come with me, so we made a short trip out of it for us, allowing me to also go into the Chicago office to visit.  On the way out (and back), our fuel stop was Carroll County Airport (KTSO) in Carrollton, OH (eastern OH not too far from the PA border) where we found cheap fuel and delicious pie—each day, they have something like 15+ varieties of pie available!  Out in IL, our destination was actually Gary, Indiana (KGYY) again and as usual, we had fantastic service—they were kind enough to load our bags quickly into an SUV and drop us off at the whistle-stop train stop just south of the field with a couple minutes to spare for a Chicago-bound train.  Similarly, when we came back out from the city a couple days later, they graciously picked us up for the hop back to the airport.

2021 Second Half Flying Recap

(Again, as I post this in March 2024, lease forgive the tardiness!  Life has been busy (and Typepad is being annoying in how much I can post at once or how many photos), but rest assured the flying and the fun haven’t ceased!  In fact, besides a number of adventures I’ll cover off in the next few posts (including OSHKOSH 2023!), I’m starting a new flying adventure and will update on that as well—in a more timely fashion!)

Unfortunately, my medical expired at the end of June, so July had no flying while waiting for the FAA Aeromedical folks to work through their horrendous backlog and re-issue.

Taking pity on me, Milton drove up to Bridgeport on August 1 and acted as legal pilot in command (he’s got enough hours in Gwaihir) so that we could go out and fly approaches and head to Block Island for breakfast.  We heard an ELT when we got back to Bridgeport and helped the Three Wing line crew track it down to a maintenance bench—they thought they’d been looking for an ELT in one of the ramp airplanes.

In mid-August, the new medical finally arrived and I went out that afternoon to do some circuits in the pattern and celebrate the privilege of flying!  I did the same thing a few days later, when some low clouds throughout the area kept me to just hanging around in the pattern, including doing some good crosswind landing practice as the winds were shifting a bit—four landings on Runway 6 and then 2 landings on Runway 11–always good to keep brushing up on skill sets!

I also knocked out my night currency again as well, just staying in the pattern to do a number of full-stop landings and takeoffs

At the end of the month, Michiko and I did our annual pilgrimage to Wiscasset, Maine (KIWI) and Red’s Eats lobster rolls.  With a few clouds here and there along the way, I had filed an instrument plan and Portland Approach left us way too high at 9,000’ for wayyyy too long, necessitating a bit of a dive for the airport as we approached.  The lobster rolls, as always, were phenomenal—I can’t sing the praises of Red’s Eats enough—so fresh, simple and perfect, every single time we go up there!  They’re always worth the wait on line!!

On the way back, we had a terrific climbout from the airport (that new three-bladed prop!) to 8,000’ and Michiko got some pictures of very tiny Blue Angels and their C-130 Fat Albert down below at Brunswick airport, ahead of the Great State of Maine Airshow.  It was a smooth ride at our cruise altitude.

For Labor Day weekend, we did a day trip down to Annapolis (KANP) to see Nancy & James.  We went straight over the top of JFK on both legs, with jets taking off and landing below us—that NEVER gets to be a tired sight!  The one hiccup of the trip was some moron drag racing down the runway just before I was about to taxi out for our leg home.  Apparently, some of the local brainless think it’s cool to race up and down the runway, in broad daylight….I don’t think that he particularly liked that I took a photo of his car. 

One of the true thrills for me is introducing people to flying, especially younger folks.  Fellow train commuters that I’ve gotten to know over the years introduced me to their son Justin who had just done a discovery flight and was considering becoming an airline pilot.  After chatting with him, I put him in touch with a couple of line pilots I know, including Philippe who could offer better insights on the process and lifestyle.  

On a mid-September morning, Justin joined me for an easy flight down the CT shoreline on a beautiful day. I had him do some of the flying as well as demonstrated some maneuvering flight to him, which he thoroughly enjoyed!  To top it off, somewhere around the Rhode Island border, I hit the 1000 hour mark as pilot in command, so a very nice way to celebrate that milesone! (PHOTOS)

In late September, tired of the crazy traffic at Republic Farmingdale Airport everytime I picked up Milton and our long waits for takeoff, I picked up Milton for the first time at Brookhaven Airport (KHWV) near the south shore of Long Island.  Even though it’s an untowered airport and has both skydiving and student activity, it’s still so much saner than KFRG.  

We decided to just tool around a bit out along the shoreline of Long Island, to Block Island, then to Point Judith and back.  Out over Block Island Sound, we spotted a US Navy submarine on the surface, leaving the sub base at Groton, CT.  We circled a bit (probably much to the chagrin of the watch officer who we could see keeping an eye on us with large binoculars) and got some cool photos.

After that excitement, we headed back to Brookhaven and enjoyed a great breakfast at the Wings Cafe, the diner on the field at Brookhaven.  While we ate, we got to watch skydivers jumping above us and hear the rush of wind in their suits as they fell and then the snap of the parachute canopies opening.

In October, besides a leaf-peeping flight up to the CT Northwest hills (with not much color present except at the edges of dying swamps), the only major flight was a last minute trip up to visit Red’s Eats before they closed for the season.  After some confusion over the rental car, my Even Steven worked out and we found a very nice muscle car waiting for us in the parking lot!  Red’s did not disappoint and was delicious as usual.  The flights were a bit chilly and bumpy, with a significant headwind on the northbound leg (and even some on the southbound leg) with a little bit of cloud flying through the New Hampshire leg.

To finish out the year, I had a discrete animal rescue flight with Dan and Aidan that made for a very fun day of comraderie as well as doing good.  I also spent a morning doing instrument approach practice with Milton.

2021 First Half Flying Recap

(Again, as I post this in March 2024, please forgive me for the tardiness.  Life has been busy, though the flying and fun haven’t ceased.  In fact, besides a number of adventures I’ll cover off in the next few posts (including OSHKOSH 2023!), i’m starting a new flying adventure and will update on that as well!)

The first part of 2021 was virtually all local hops around the neighborhood—either along the shoreline or up to the NW hills of CT.  One exception was when Milton hopped over to Bridgeport in the light sport Bristel plane he’s been flying from a club in Brookhaven out on Long Island. It’s a pretty airplane, small and simple, with a tiny Rotax engine that doesn’t quite roar above a purr but has enough power to do the job of flying a couple adults around while super-economically sipping gas. We did a quick little hop in the local area, just long enough to start to get a feel for how easily she flew and relatively nimble as well. 

In May, I did an IFR flight down to see Dan at Central Jersey Regional Airport to do my biennial flight review with him.  Besides the hour of oral quizzing and discussion about changes in regulations and areas of safety focus, we had some good practice flying around the local area.  One of the skills Dan wanted to practice with me was concerning turns back to the airport after takeoff but with an engine loss.  With a few different iterations, we found that for my airplane, 600’ is probably for that lowest possible altitude—but that it CAN be done, obviously depending on your reaction time and realization of what’s going on.  There’s a reason it’s been called the Impossible Turn and a reason why most guidelines indicate 1,000’ is probably the safest altitude to attempt a turn back to the runway you just departed.  Nevertheless, it was a great workout and a great time learning about what Gwaihir and I can do.

Later in May the airplane went in for its annual maintenance inspection and it turned into a nightmare.  A Service Bulletin (SB) issued by Cessna a year or so earlier had turned into an Airworthiness Directive (AD) that becomes mandatory.  This one, AD2020-18-01-39-21222 had to do with inspection for cracks where the wing structure attaches to the fuselage.  The inspection of Gwaihir showed cracks, so we had to do an extensive maintenance procedure to uncover the flooring in the cabin, sever the attachment bolts that were never intended to be removed and insert the new repair kits, on both struts.  Unfortunately, when a repair kit for an SB goes to a repair kit for an AD, guess what? The price jumps exponentially!  Luckily we found PMA (alternate certified manufacturer) kits for half the price Cessna wanted to charge!

(NOTE TO SELF FOR SIDE HUSTLE:  Pay attention to Service Bulletins as the come out and if it looks like it will become an Airworthiness Directive, acquire a bunch of the repair kits before the changeover and then reap the profits of increased demand)

The other big expense on this annual was the need for a new propeller.  The inspection found some corrosion at the hub and the blades themselves were at the limits of what knicks (caused by little pebbles or other debris on runways/taxiways (called FOD or foreign object debris)) could be dressed (filed) smooth within legal limits.

So I quickly did some research and found that a new 3-bladed prop was only slightly more expensive than replacing my 2-bladed prop and the 3-blades would be quieter and more efficient for climbs.  Essentially, the new blade would create three smaller noise pulses rather than two larger noise pulses—not only does this mean that the prop is quieter inside the airplane as well as outside, but it also reduces vibration which in turn reduces wear and tear on the engine, the airframe, the avionics and, obviously, the pilot and passengers.  

Ownership of a plane is not cheap nor for the weak—but I am truly blessed that I’ve been fortunate to scrape and save over the years to be able to afford this habit that provides so much joy (usually! :))

After an agonizing wait for all the repairs and maintenance wrap-up, Milton and I went out to fly a slew of instrument approaches for our currency.  It felt great just to be back up in the air and to have everything working properly.

 

 

Summer/Fall 2020 Flying

I do apologize for falling so far behind on the blog—so many plates spinning in the air at once, this sort of fell by the wayside for too long. Let’s go back to a time called….Covid!

Summer 2020

After my fun trip out to IL to see Dr. Bruce, I enjoyed a summer of flying, both solo and, carefully with appropriate Covid precautions, with friends.  In mid-July, Len had to ferry his Cessna Cardinal up to Hartford for some maintenance on the engine.  The flight was a short hop up there, and then we headed back to Bridgeport.  

Coming in to the airport, I could hear an ELT (emergency location transmitter) going off on 121.5 (I regularly keep radio #2 tuned to that emergency frequency while in flight).  After 30 years or so of chasing ELTs with Civil Air Patrol, I could quickly tell it was coming from somewhere on the airport as the signal was strong.  I offered the Tower my assistance if they needed help finding the offending beacon and they graciously accepted.  

Not long after I had tied up Gwaihir, the Ops truck rolled up and I got my handheld radio out and we started driving along the hangars on the southwest side before crossing over to the hangars on the northwest side of the field, where the signal grew increasingly stronger, even when I stepped the radio off the frequency. (As you get closer to a beacon, you can step off the 121.5 to 121.550 and up—eventually, when you’re right on top of the thing, you can be at 123.0 or more and still hear the signal—it was how we would “home in” on the beacon, particularly on an airport or marina with dozens of vessels.). Sure enough, within a couple minutes we pinned down a hangar and found the owner and some friends working on his plane, a beautiful French military/civilian trainer jet (Morane-Saulnier MS.760 Paris) that I’ve mentioned before on the blog.  (4/14/2020 and 2/2016 link).  

I had a quick chat with the owner and he was quickly able to disable the ELT.  It turns out he also owns the beautiful Grumman Mallard that’s often on the northwest ramp. 

Later that month, I got to do some more instrument practice with Milton and also dropped off a power tool to my brother at Meriden Markham.

At the end of the month, Michiko and I made our summer pilgrimage to Red’s Eats in Wiscasset, Maine—though this time we flew into Brunswick where we had a bit of an easier time getting a rental car.  

In August, I “enjoyed” my longest pre-flight ever. With all the birds building nests in airplanes because of the Covid lull in flying, I had rigged, with the help of a couple of the line crew, foam blocks to put into various openings on the plane to prevent the birds from doing their damage.  Unfortunately, one got stuck in the tailcone and I spent at least 40 minutes wrangling it out!  Then, to add misery, I found that someone on the line crew had done such a horrible tiedown knot on the tail ring that we literally had to get a knife out and cut the rope off.

Also in August, Michiko and I did our first social gathering in the midst of Covid—an absolutely wonderful socially distanced picnic with Dan, Gloria and the kids out at Andover Aeroflex.  It’s a beautiful little airport in NJ with a pretty short 2,000’ paved runway and parallel grass strip.  The runway is situated such that 21 brings you in for a landing over New Wawayanda Lake—and taking off from 21, you climb out over Gardners Pond.  Because of the short runway and the turf option, the airport is home to a lot of smaller tailwheel airplanes, such as Piper Cubs, a Dehavilland Chipmunk and a Stearman biplane.  I got some decent video of the Stearman in action.  It was so refreshing to get to actually see and hang out with dear friends, especially in the midst of all the Covid fear and lockdowns—it brought hope that there would be a return to some sort of normality once we were passed Covid.

Michiko and I snuck in a second trip to Red’s Eats for my birthday in September and I did some CT/MA/VT leaf peeping flights over the next few weeks, as well as one trip with Michiko at about peak foliage.

In November, I flew my night currency flight and ticked over 1,000 hour total time flying in single engine airplanes.  

On a balmy night in December, news reports indicated that a large solar flare had the possibility of generating the Northern Lights with viewing much further south than normal, so I hopped in the plane and flew up as far as central MA hoping for a glimpse.  Unfortunately, I didn’t see anything and some high cloud cover further north didn’t help as well.

I ended the year with a big day of IFR instrument approach practice with Milton, knocking out 6 approaches.

Summer Flying - Highlights

Over the summer, I did a number of solo flights, practicing social distancing from 5,000’!  Most were just meanderings down the CT Shoreline, or up the CT River a bit or up to NW CT, just enjoying the thrill and peace of being up in the air and not having to worry about earthly stresses for a little while!

There were a few other flights that were highlights for the summer though:

Len had had an issue with his engine and birds nesting, so in July, he ferried it up to Hartford to have an engine specialist do some repair work.  I played ferry pilot to bring Len back to Bridgeport.  As I was taxiing to leave Bridgeport to follow Len, I heard an ELT going off somewhere on the field.  It seemed to grow stronger as I approached the intersections of Runways 29 and 24.  I mentioned it to the tower and they said it had been going off for a while, so I offered to give them a quick hand finding it once I returned from Hartford.  The flight up was a quick quiet one and I was shortly on the way back with Len, touching down back at Bridgeport, still with the ELT going off.

I reiterated my offer to the tower and they send one of the Operations guys over in a truck after I finished tying down.  Grabbing my handheld radio, I tuned in 121.5 and then bumped it up to 121.6. As we started driving to the north side of the field, the signal got stronger and within just a couple of minutes, we had it pinned down to one of the hangars there.  It turned out to be one of the old French jets I have written about previously, having seen two different ones on the same day at different airports!  https://www.fordstreet.net/nyapproach/2016/02/nose-gear-issue.html

I got a chance to meet the owner, who finally found the ELT switch and shut it down.  

https://www.pilotweb.aero/features/flying-adventure-florida-and-new-york-1-4954934 

 

 

Adventure to Bolingbrook, IL

With Covid-19 shutting down swaths of the country in March/April/May, the FAA issued a Special Federal Aviation Regulation (SFAR) extending some training time deadlines and the non-enforcement of flying medicals for a period of time.  Since my medical was due to expire at the end of May, the extension definitely helped, but I also needed to plan getting all my required doctor visits, labs, cardiac stress test, etc. done and a visit out to Bolingbrook, IL to see my Aviation Medical Examiner (AME), Dr. Bruce.  

(Of particular note was that the language of the SFAR didn’t call the changing of the medical certificate expirations an “extension” but rather noted that the FAA would “not enforce” an expired medical certificate.  So essentially, if you got into an accident, while the FAA might find other issues to cite you on, they wouldn’t cite you on a violation of flying with an expired medical.  However, the language also required me to clarify and get the okay from my insurance company that they were honoring the FAA’s intent of extension and that I wouldn’t be violating my insurance covenants flying with an expired medical.)

All of my ducks lined up and paperwork out to Dr. Bruce, I scheduled an appointment with him in late June.  My plan was to fly out in one day and then the following morning, do my medical exam and fly home, thereby minimizing my contact/exposure with people as much as possible.  Since it was a solo trip and I wasn’t going to spend time visiting anywhere, I plotted a somewhat boring two leg trip out and just a reverse of the same legs for coming home.  My fuel stop would be Venango Regional in Franklin, PA (KFKL), just a it east of the PA/OH border. The second leg would take me to Bolingbrook’s Clow International Airport in IL, just southwest of Chicago.

The weather the first day was mostly decent, with a threat of thunderstorms across the midwest that I would have to keep an eye out for.  Knowing there was some weather ahead, I filed an Instrument Flight Rules plan.  After a thorough pre-flight (I had flown a couple days before to ensure all the maintenance work on the battery connector had been done correctly), I fired up the engine and copied down my clearance from the tower, which was a fairly straightforward westward flight, first to the Carmel VOR on the Westchester border with CT, then a couple little dog-legs on a Victor Airway to Wilkes-Barre and then as filed the rest of the way to Venango Regional.

After takeoff, the tower switched me over to NY Departure and they sent me direct to the Carmel VOR.  Upon reaching cruising altitude of 8,000’, I trimmed out the airplane and leaned out the engine (to burn the air/gas mixture at it’s most efficient point) and settled back for a quiet flight, listening to some music in the background.  After the first couple of dog-legs, as I approached the TALLI intersection in the Poconos of eastern PA, ATC cleared me direct to Venango.  (It’s not often, especially on the East Coast, that you get cleared direct to your destinatio from that far away, but, with the dearth of airplanes in the air during the Covid crisis, especially early on, there was a lot less traffic for the controllers to have to deal with!)

As I worked my way closer to Venango however, I could see on the weather radar on my multi-function display (MFD) in the panel, which displays XM Satellite weather AND on the weather radar on my iPad via ForeFlight and ADSB weather that there were numerous thunderstorm cells starting to pop up along the route.  With the controller, I figured out a turn towards the north that threaded me between two cells and then a curve back down around to the left/south to skirt another set of growing cells and start setting up for landing in Venango.  By this time, I was in the clouds, so ATC set me up for the ILS 21 approach at Venango.  The instrument approach turned out beautifully and I touched down and then figured out taxiing around some ramp construction going on and found a parking spot next to a shiny silver Cirrus on the newly re-paved ramp.

Donning my mask, I went into the FBO, unpleasantly surprised to see that no one was wearing a mask, including the 4 guys headed out to a twin engine King Air.  So I placed my fuel order, did a quick bathroom break and then ate my snack/lunch tucked in a corner of the spacious pilot lounge.  As soon as the plane was topped off, I was out the door and headed to the airplane, joined by a couple of guys heading to the Cirrus and wearing masks and heading back to Boston.

I picked up my clearance from Youngstown Clearance (they conveniently have a radio placed at Venango) and was soon back in the air, heading west.  I had to do a little bit of dodge to the north to get around a bigger thunderstorm cell forming northeast of Youngstown, but then it was fairly smooth sailing the rest of the flight.

 

My route took me right over the top of Cleveland International, with the Lake Erie shoreline and the Cleveland cityscape off to my right, and then westward, south of Toledo.  As I approached South Bend, IN, ATC, anticipating some traffic flows into Chicago, gave me a little bit of a re-routeing, sending me a little bit to the southwest to come in over Joliet and the approach into the pretty little airport at Bolingbrook.  I tied down, put in a fuel request, and then got an Uber to the hotel.  Dinner was sadly just takeout from a restaurant across the parking lot, eaten in my room, but, better safe than sorry!

The next morning, after a quick walk to Starbucks for breakfast, I took an Uber back to the airport and had my appointment with Dr. Bruce.  As always, it was great to see him and catch up a bit, and as always, he was meticulous and thorough in his exam and the almighty paperwork for the FAA.

Luckily, we didn’t linger too long, because thunderstorms were building to the west and north and headed in our direction.  I did a quick check of weather and filed my flight plan, then headed to the airplane and pre-flighted as ominous and darkening clouds were forming northwest of the field.  In the airplane, I quickly got started and then called Chicago Approach on the telephone for my clearance (luckily I can do via the bluetooth in my headset) and got my clearance back to Venango Regional.  I heard a couple rumbles of thunder as a I taxied out but I didn’t see any lightning as yet, and my route to the south east was pure clear daylight.  With no one else flying in the area, I was quickly on the runway and pushed the throttle in as the skies opened and a hard rain started to fall.

As I cleared the ground and started to climb, turning southeast and away from the ugly clouds, I literally outran the rain and broke into crystal clear air. Chicago Approach quickly cleared me up to my assigned altitude of 5,000’ and on course. I snapped an image on my iPad of the Foreflight radar image that showed how nasty some of the weather behind me was getting.

As I worked my way east, I had a smooth flight, somewhat hazy, but nothing too bad.  At South Bend, ATC cleared me direct to a VOR just west of Cleveland and then it was just a matter of again sitting back and enjoying the view.  It was an effortless flight, essentially parallelling I-80 the entire time, off on my left side.  Once more, over the top of Cleveland and on to Youngstown where they started my descent back to Venango.  I closed my flight plan with Youngstown Approach while in the air, just a few miles from Venango, with the runway in sight.  About 1 mile from the airport, I hit a HUGE air bubble out of nowhere and everything on the passenger seat went up in the air and dropped back down again.  For the nearly 2.9 hours leg, not a burble and then I had to end with that.  I had a smooth landing though on Runway 12 and then it was back into the FBO with my mask to request a top-off.  

The last leg of the trip was uneventful as well, just cruising along PA.  As I approached Wilkes-Barre, though, ATC decided to give me a re-route back into Bridgeport, so they sent me northeast to Sullivan County, NY, across to Newburgh, NY, over to Kingston, NY and then back down towards Danbury, CT to arrive at Bridgeport from the north.  There may have been a Trump visit to his golf resort in NJ that was planned, but it shouldn’t have required a re-route that far north!

During Covid, it was a nice trip to get out, even for a night, but very much socially distanced.  Overall, I added about 12 hours flying over the two days and, in my book, I’ll always take that kind of happiness!