MAKG1
Touchdown! Greaser!
- Joined
- Jun 19, 2012
- Messages
- 13,411
- Location
- California central coast
- Display Name
Display name:
MAKG
It's CAP scanner training time.
Local weather was unlimited visibility, few to scattered clouds at 4000 over mountains almost as high, fair weather cumulus, 20 knot westerlies at altitude, AIRMET TANGO for moderate turbulence.
My task was to fly scanner trainees at 1000 feet over terrain contours, in mountainous terrain, and in that weather. I flew four 1.5 hour sorties in various areas around the southern Bay Area. The scanners were being trained to look at the ground systematically and exhaustively, recognize what's important, and report results. Due to a shortage of observers (right seat), we flew an unusual crew of a pilot and two scanners.
I trained two scanners completely, and four more partially. No one threw up, but one guy got a little green (he said in a later flight that he thought his blood sugar crashed, and he did much better the second time, in worse turbulence).
And I got a hell of a workout staying exactly 1000 AGL over mountain contours, at moderate airspeeds. No autopilot yesterday. It works a lot better that way. I tried it Saturday with the autopilot, and it caused way too many airspeed excursions, requiring overrides.
And the last scanner was impressed about how much detail he could see. Flying contours, you can see terrain at eye level, 1000 feet away. He said he could see cow's tails swishing (for some reason, they collected in the open, on ridgetops). Pretty impressive from an airplane IMO. As the pilot, I was only looking at the ground to stay away from it.
Actual turbulence was occasional to frequent light, with occasional moderate. Kinda normal for AIRMET TANGOs around here, except being that close to the mountains made it worse.
Local weather was unlimited visibility, few to scattered clouds at 4000 over mountains almost as high, fair weather cumulus, 20 knot westerlies at altitude, AIRMET TANGO for moderate turbulence.
My task was to fly scanner trainees at 1000 feet over terrain contours, in mountainous terrain, and in that weather. I flew four 1.5 hour sorties in various areas around the southern Bay Area. The scanners were being trained to look at the ground systematically and exhaustively, recognize what's important, and report results. Due to a shortage of observers (right seat), we flew an unusual crew of a pilot and two scanners.
I trained two scanners completely, and four more partially. No one threw up, but one guy got a little green (he said in a later flight that he thought his blood sugar crashed, and he did much better the second time, in worse turbulence).
And I got a hell of a workout staying exactly 1000 AGL over mountain contours, at moderate airspeeds. No autopilot yesterday. It works a lot better that way. I tried it Saturday with the autopilot, and it caused way too many airspeed excursions, requiring overrides.
And the last scanner was impressed about how much detail he could see. Flying contours, you can see terrain at eye level, 1000 feet away. He said he could see cow's tails swishing (for some reason, they collected in the open, on ridgetops). Pretty impressive from an airplane IMO. As the pilot, I was only looking at the ground to stay away from it.
Actual turbulence was occasional to frequent light, with occasional moderate. Kinda normal for AIRMET TANGOs around here, except being that close to the mountains made it worse.
)
