Flying in Stealth Mode

Jay Honeck

Jay Honeck

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Jun 6, 2008
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Ingleside, TX
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Jay Honeck
On our flight up to OSH, our voltage regulator failed. The battery was fully charged, so I simply dumped flight following and shut down all nonessential electrical devices, and flew on.

What a joy! No chatter, no knob twisting, no hassle. We were amazed at how relaxing a 3-hour flight can be.

After OSH, with a perfectly functional charging system (thanks to my new Zefftronics regulator), I opted to fly all the way home to Texas with the radio in the "off" position.

Again, what a joy! I climbed to 12,500', fired up our new, OSH-purchased O2 system, cranked up the tunes, and flew all the way to Texas in "stealth mode". (Well, okay, I left the transponder on.) We arrived refreshed, thanks to O2 and NOT listening to non-stop, low-fidelity AM radio chatter.

Funny how it's taken me 20 years to discover what most of y'all probably already know. I've always used Flight Following on trips of any duration, but I doubt I will be using them again anytime soon.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
 
Its the most relaxing flying around!! I'd say welcome to the club, but your 'club' travels a bit faster than mine! lol
 
Love to run silent,you can always choose to listen if you care to.
 
It sounds like this type of "suspicious" activity is grounds for being stopped and searched nowadays. But the feds say that flying west to east is part of the suspicious behavior so your north to south flight might be OK.

Oh, brother.


-Paul
 
I monitor the guard channel pursuant to the FARs, but try and put the other radio on something inoffensive like Flight watch (though it had lots of chatter coming back from Oshkosh).

Given the thousands of dollars I've paid for the dang things I have the world's hardest time just turning them off. But I do like minimal chatter, I'd rather listen to the tunes on my iPod.
 
Flown airplanes cross country that have no electrical system or portable radio and others with the complete radio stack.

Prefer the latter for traffic advisories with Flight Following and in the vicinity of the airport but no big deal since the Mark 1 Eyeball is prime. ;)

Cheers
 
On the way back from OSH I was thinking...this radio is getting annoying. Flight following for 6 hrs coming home was half of the work. Once I get a good traffic watch/alert like the ZAON I'll probably use flight following less.

Nice meeting you sunday AM. I'll make the HOPS party next year.

Mike
 
After I clear controlled space I turn the radio off, NOT DOWN, if I turn it down I may forget to turn it back up again. :redface:
 
X3 Skier said:
Flown airplanes cross country that have no electrical system or portable radio and others with the complete radio stack.

Prefer the latter for traffic advisories with Flight Following and in the vicinity of the airport but no big deal since the Mark 1 Eyeball is prime. ;)

Cheers
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With ADS-B traffic and weather on our Nexus 7 tablet, we have pretty much everything we need.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
 
If I'm not IFR, I typically just monitor. Very rarely do I bother with flight following.

When my transponder failed I discovered that I truly was flying in stealth mode. No one could see me despite my providing position reports and being as high as 10k MSL and thousands of feet AGL well above MVA.
 
Try 121.5 if you want a break from ATC (especially around certain areas where TFRs and other SUA activity are a possibility).
 
I'm one of those "pretty much always gets flight following" people. Mainly because I like having the extra set of eyes and enjoy the chatter for my (often solo) flights. Plus, most of my flying is IFR, anyway.

The thing that I worry about these days is pop-up TFRs more than traffic (even though I've had several close calls, mostly with people flying around with no transponder). Talking to someone is nice for that.
 
When flying in new, busy, and/or complex airspace I'll usually opt for IFR. But when flying routes I do frequently I often opt for the tranquility of "stealth" mode coupled with good tunes. Those are often at 500-1,500' AGL, as well.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
I'm one of those "pretty much always gets flight following" people. Mainly because I like having the extra set of eyes and enjoy the chatter for my (often solo) flights. Plus, most of my flying is IFR, anyway.

The thing that I worry about these days is pop-up TFRs more than traffic (even though I've had several close calls, mostly with people flying around with no transponder). Talking to someone is nice for that.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I have been in this camp in my three years of flying (well, except for the IFR part, as I am not yet instrument rated). But I do wonder sometimes how much difference it really makes. Coming back from Iowa/Oshkosh a couple weeks ago, other than the airspace south of Chicago, where there was a fair amount of traffic, and I received vectors to avoid skydiving activity, I can't say I really got any useful information. And, probably 75% of the traffic callouts, I can never find anyway. In what I would consider my three "close calls" with traffic, two were in or just outside the traffic pattern at a towered field, and one was over a VOR, when I wasn't receiving flight following.

I hear guys talking about the pleasure of flying in "stealth" mode, and one of the planes I fly has a 696 with XM radio, which makes for some nice enroute listening, and I do think about turning off the radios sometimes.

But then again, while flying over rural Iowa last month, I get a traffic call, "...3 miles, 1000 feet below you and climbing." He is in IMC, I am VFR on top, so of course I can't see him. Then I get from ATC, "...(yawn) targets appear likely to merge," which got my attention. So still not seeing him at one mile, I request vectors, and get, "...(yawn)...oh, I recommend you turn 20 degrees right and climb." So yeah, I was doing that before he un-keyed the mike. So I guess I have a hard time not using a service that could save my arse, and which I'm paying for, one way or the other.
 
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