Some other trivial stuff... Or more PIREP I guess.
Departing KAPA the built in Density Altitude gadgets at the runway said 8800'. My calculations showed it slightly higher. Those things round to the nearest hundred I think. I don't totally trust them, but they've saved a lot of out of towners some grief over the years. 33C at departure.
Quiznos... Mmm Mmm Toasty.
Wind was 330 at 3 with gusts reported to 10. The gusts were very few and far between. It was hot and muggy.
I had run the numbers and full fuel and me was 2593 lbs. Significantly below gross. Decided I'd request runway 10 for departure. Get outta Dodge.
(They're going to repair and repave 10/28 soon. Going to miss it for a while. They're also moving the threshold for 10 so they can accept arrivals without hitting the tails of the bizjets taxiing on Alpha. Heh.)
Departing 10 saves about a million hours of taxi time from our hangar in area Hotel.
The slight tailwind would make the roll a bit longer and the climb shallower but wasn't at gross and knew the STOL Skylane could do it.
Windsock was limp as I rolled onto 10.
Came off the ground at roughly the usual spot. Windsock must have stayed limp. About 50' AGL a little sinker caused a level off, there's that tailwind puff. No biggie.
Putz out under the Bravo and request Flight Following. Get asked to Ident after having the code in for a while... Hmmm... Transponder goofing up again? Get a handoff with "He will have radar identification for you there." Yeah, hmm... Ok we'll see.
Call up the next guy. "Cessna 79M radar contact." Maybe it's not messing up after all. Oh well. Exchange the usual pleasantries and request 9500 as a final cruise. Can't get clearance up through the Bravo, so will just wait a few miles until the shelf lifts.
Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. 7500 it is.
Play with autopilot for a while. It's basically a wing leveler attached to the turn and bank. The turn and bank is a little wobbly, always has been, so the AP is also.
It does a reasonable job today of keeping the wings level and aimed at the next checkpoint, so I start playing with Foreflight since I haven't flown much since some of the new features were added.
Frankly they're all very cool. Don't know what else to say about that. Like the stuff they've done. I even found myself using track-up and enjoying it. I'll be darned.
Love the ability to punch the button and reorient it north-up and then flip back. That's probably why I like it. Not like some systems where you go digging in a darn menu.
No issues at all with temperatures on the ol' O-470. No engine monitor but nothing on the old instruments out of the norm, CHTs reasonable, oil temp same spot it always sits. Pressure same spot as always. Thought I might need to play the cowl-flaps-partially-open game today, but nope. All good.
Up at 9500 OAT is down to just above 60F and nice. Little bumps from the building t-storm line to the West. Not convective enough to go super severe, and almost stationary, just flew along in the haze and watched a few lucky farmers get some much ended rain in isolated showers to the West. Best thatbthe O-470 can be flogged is 19" and 2450 RPM today, so she's WOT at 19" and top of the green on RPM and we continue chugging along.
Note: Ever notice those wimpy air molecules hurt your engine power but create less drag? Read across the 2450 line from a really cold day to a really hot day what the KTAS is... if you've never noticed it before...
And note fuel burn. Heh. Wanna safe a little gas? Fly on a brutally hot day. Haha. Kidding...
Tank sticks did show 11.67 GPH for the round trip, by the way.
Haven't flown any approaches in quite a while, and no safety pilot on board, but just to keep habits up, I set up for the VOR 13 at KSNY after getting the winds. Plus I wanted to play with the Foreflight IFR chart overlay feature in VMC anyway.
Wow... Is that cool or what? Like. Like. Like. Flew it by the panel instruments, but holy situational awareness, Batman. Add the little distance rings to the aircraft and "Remain within 10 nm" on the VOR outbound is never in jeopardy, either.
That's just damn cool. Ed asks if I'm going to Cabelas, so he can call the van, and I ask, is that you Ed? No Cabelas today, just a quick break. He jokes, "Last I checked it was me...!"
Anyway, fly the procedure turn and marvel at the Foreflight gadgetry. That's just impressive. Come down to the final altitude, as the VOR needle centers up.
Also flew the whole thing at 110 knots with that 10 Flap setting the DPE mentioned... I'll be damned, it really does just fly better at that speed and holds it nicely when trimmed. Airplane feels rock solid in that config.
What's still bugging me to this day since the checkride... How did he KNOW that?! Haha. Flew another Robby 182 in his past? Anyway, It really does fly nicely at 110.
Gives me a chance to pretend I broke out somewhere about a mile out and need to slow the beast up from 110... Been practicing that. Without climbing.
Getting pretty used to it.
Also get to see if the power settings I worked out for that seem right... Yep. Sure is a lot more power than bombing around at 90 knots... But it's consistent. And maybe a side-benefit, it's into the green arc where carb heat shouldn't be required until you pull it off to land. Noted.
Anyway, decent landing in SNY. Liked that one, even... Tire chirper. Let the nose down with a chirp too. Cool.
Taxi in, talk to Ed for a while, silly cell phone rings with three different calls, one of which is someone asking me if they think their mother in law's machine needs malware scanning ... Long story...
More chat with Ed, ask if he will smile for a photo... Want to send it to someone he knows... Not for me... And time to fire up and head home.
T-storm line has slowly worked across the reverse route of flight and is now East of it. It's sprinkling rain in SNY and there is one isolated cell producing light rain West. Going to be at the airport in about ten minutes.
Departure out of SNY is non-eventful but I do love the higher horsepower at lower altitudes. Climb on up and call Denver Center for FF after opening VFR flight plan...
A little ways along, "79M recycle transponder." Crap. I do. A few minutes later, "Did you recycle it?" Yeah. I did. I decide a little "percussive maintenance" might be in order at is point. Can't hurt. Maybe it's wiggled a little out of its tray. Hard to find a good spot to whomp it with my heel of my right hand without breaking buttons off, but it gets a glancing blow.
I think briefly about taking it to the shooting range and aerating it for heat dissipation with some high speed lead, and continue on. Eventually radar contact again... Ok whatever.
Flight back is otherwise normal other than that line of storms to my East has some interesting lightning going on way over there and that's always fun to watch. They're also crashing out and not building anymore and surprise me with a nifty side/tailwind at 8500. Shouldn't have that here. It's coming from the storms falling out. Neat. I'll take a 154 knot groundspeed and tiny light bumps!
Winds back at KAPA are out of the north now. 350 10G18. I decide not to be a pansy and get some crosswind practice in. Request 28. Ha.
All looks pretty down final but I'm almost out of rudder a couple of times... Ok... Prepped for a go-around... And I fixate a touch on what a lovely job I'm doing of holding the centerline, and how busy my feet are .... and flare about 3 feet high.
Plop. Hrumph. That sucked.
Oh well, it's planted and the airplane is still usable. No side load, so yeah, I had the stupid crosswind nailed... Just finished flying too soon. LOL. Damn. Sometimes you just want to kick yourself. Oh well. Would have been nice to put the upwind wheel down first, dummy.
Off by C-4 anyway and into the ramp to the hangar. Nice day. Especially up where it was cooler.
Kinda miss listening to the baseball game on the ADF on a day like today... Sure was good to see Ed.
Killed a crap-ton of bugs. Scrubbed for 30 minutes. Not just wing leading edges, they're everywhere. Must have hit a squadron somewhere. Ha. (Had a thought while scrubbing that Disney made fun of Dusty getting dirty from his low level flying, but they didn't have him kill entire squadrons of bugs. LOL!)
Here's after the bugs were gone. Also noted one of our sets of chocks died. Split one of them. Bummer. Time to make some new ones.
And always like to see light grey on the stack. Means I got the leaning right on a day when she was only producing 60% BHP anyway. At least at home base.
Writeup. Complete.
