The Flying Weekend Has Begun!

"TheRealBicycleBuck" (therealbicyclebuck) 03/28/2019 at 22:15 • Filed to: None

10

25

I started a bit early this week. That wasn’t the plan, but here we are. I have two long solo flights scheduled for the weekend, but there’s weather moving in Saturday afternoon, so I wanted to get out early and get it done. One problem. The plane I always fly is booked for Saturday morning. No problem, I’ll just take one of the other planes! Oppo, meet N9040K, a Piper PA-28-161.

It has a slightly larger engine than the Minion (the Piper PA-28-140 which I normally fly) and at 160 hp, it adds a little extra performance. It also has a slightly longer, tapered wing. The Minion has the classic “Hershey bar” wing which, as you can probably guess, is a rectangular wing.

The 161 wing is a couple of feet longer and it’s tapered over the out halves of the wing.

All together, this makes for a slightly faster, better climbing, more responsive airplane . Where the Minion flies like an old truck, I discovered today that the 161 is a lot more sensitive to control inputs.

Today? Yes! Today!

I had to do a check flight in the 161 with an instructor before the school would allow me to fly it solo. This is where I was reminded that different planes fly, well, differently . We flew out to the practice area and the instructor ran me through the wringer - stalls, steep turns, emergency landings, etc. The best one was an emergency descent. That’s where you point the nose down and let the plane come hurtling toward the ground. I hit a personal record on that one - 143 mph!

I found that the 161 flight performance means I have to be less heavy-handed with the controls. It was easy to over-control it and I had to pay a lot more attention to throttle inputs to maintain the target altitude. Where the Minion gets there eventually, the 161 gets there sooner and by the time I got back around to checking, it was too late and I was too high. It also took a lot longer to slow down and descend if I overshot my target.

Then, just to mess with me, my instructor shut off the GPS and told me to find my way back to the airport. No problem! From the ground references I had in sight, I knew the general direction, so I pointed the nose south and flew until I could see the airport. If I hadn’t known where we were, I could have pulled out my phone or my tablet or the paper chart I keep in my bag. While things look unfamiliar when you’re flying over them, it’s really easy to either find your own way or call for assistance if you need it.

Overall, it was a fun plane to fly, but I have a lot of work to do if I continue flying this plane after my cross-country. I certainly won’t be using it for my FAA check ride!

Today was a great day in the air for me, but wasn’t such a great day for a fellow (student?) pilot.

This is a Cessna 172 owned by one of the other schools at the airport. The pilot was taxiing to the active runway (from right to left in this picture) and for some reason, hooked a left into the ditch. I took this picture from the pad in front of my school, Texas Flight. One of the staff members was in the hangar when this happened and she heard it, but didn’t see it. She heard the engine rev up just before hearing it crash.

The right landing gear is folded up by the right wing strut. This is a fixed-gear plane, so that gear shouldn’t be there. Fortunately, it stopped before it hit the poles, but there’s a good chance there’s structural damage in the fuselage and tail. Everyone around said that it will probably be totaled.

This all happened before I arrived for my flight. By the time I got back from my flight, they had already offloaded all of the fuel, jacked up the plane with a giant air bag, and were working on a temporary repair so they could roll the plane back to a hangar.

Depending on how it happened , it may or may not ini tiate an NTSB investigation . If there was a control failure like a braking problem, then a report would be required. If it was just pilot error, then a report might not be required. I’m sure I’ll get the scuttlebutt this weekend.

Until then, Happy Early Weekend, Oppo!

CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever > TheRealBicycleBuck 03/28/2019 at 22:26

0

oh shit! NTSB investigation is not a good thing.  How do you think they did that?

TheRealBicycleBuck > CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever 03/28/2019 at 22:31

1

I don’t know. I’m not even sure if it was a student going solo, a private pilot going solo, or a student and an instructor. With the way the lady described it, perhaps the pilot pushed the throttle in while taxiing (giving it more gas) , then panicked and reverted to car mode, stomping on the left pedal to slow down. That would turn the front wheel and rudder left while also activating the left brake. End result would be a hard left into the ditch.

smobgirl > TheRealBicycleBuck 03/28/2019 at 23:13

3

I laughed about the GPS thing. I’ve spent way too much time studying aerial photos for work and one of my favorite games when sitting in commercial planes now is to take a photo of a town  and try to guess what it is before going back to Google Earth and checking.

Flynorcal: pilot, offshore sailor, car racer and panty thief > TheRealBicycleBuck 03/28/2019 at 23:13

2

The emergency descents work quite a lot better at a 60 degree bank. Add in a little adverse rudder and you can really get the thing to just fall out of the sky.

It’s also exactly how to performs a snap roll into a spin and does so without any warning as one wing stalls so maybe don't try all of that on your next solo :)

ttyymmnn > TheRealBicycleBuck 03/28/2019 at 23:29

2

Then, just to mess with me, my instructor shut off the GPS and told me to find my way back to the airport. No problem!

They need to go back to painting the name of the airport on the roof. Easy to find!

TheRealBicycleBuck > Flynorcal: pilot, offshore sailor, car racer and panty thief 03/28/2019 at 23:30

0

I was shooting to keep it a few knots below the yellow arc. I do need to practice all of the maneuvers, but I’ll be sure to take it easy on emergency descents!

I’m having the most trouble turning around a ground reference  point, especially when the wind is blowing. Today it was 14 , gusting to 18. My turns were awful.

TheRealBicycleBuck > smobgirl 03/29/2019 at 00:45

2

I’m always looking for unusual objects. Here are a few of my favorites:

The Leucke family property, logged so the family can find it if they’re ever lost in space.

A Texas Coastal Prairie pothole . It’s a relatively small area that acts like a sink, collecting water from the surrounding land. It’s ephemeral in nature, but the soils are still hydric and the vegetation reflects this. Developers don’t know anything about them, but they are an important part of flood prevention . I first learned about them when comparing aerials from 1945 to aerials from 1994. They were ubiquitous in ‘45, rare in ‘94. Most of them disappeared under houses. I’m betting those folks are having a hell of a time with their foundation and their yards.

Old sand boils where the sand is liquefied during an earthquake and erupts from the ground like a miniature volcano. I first learned about liquefaction boils while reviewing aerial photos in Arkansas. The ones I saw were very round, like large ant hills. I tried to find the photos, but I’m not sure where I have them archived.

An ammunition dump in Louisiana.

Oil/natural gas pads in Louisiana.

A boat with too deep of a draft running in too shallow water. You can see where the prop wash is tearing up the bottom.

The confluence of the Red River and Mississippi River. The Black River joins the Red River just north of here. This is a special spot because it’s where the Red River becomes the Atchafalaya River and it’s where the Mississippi River is at greatest risk of jumping basins. The only thing holding it back is a couple of large gates. About 20 miles south of here is where the pressure on the Mississippi can be relieved by letting floodwater through the Morganza spillway to cross overland to the Atchafalaya in a more controlled manner. There’s less opportunity for the Mississippi to jump basins by doing it this way.

I could sit here all night adding more, but I guess I should call it quits. A guy’s gotta sleep sometime!

TheRealBicycleBuck > ttyymmnn 03/29/2019 at 00:47

1

That’s nice. Unless you’re 10 miles away.

Future Heap Owner > TheRealBicycleBuck 03/29/2019 at 02:17

0

My Dad just flew a wing- under-fuselage plane for the first time last week, after flying Cessnas for years. He had a really good time in it.

TheRealBicycleBuck > Future Heap Owner 03/29/2019 at 07:52

0

That’s great! The flight characteristics of a low-wing plane are a little different from a high-wing plane. For someone with little experience, the biggest difference is the view. A high-wing plane gives a better view of the ground when flying straight and level, but the wing blocks the view when the plane is turning. I prefer to keep my eye on the runway when I’m making the base and final turns for landing, so I prefer a low-wing plane which provides a better view. The down side is that the low wing blocks the ground view when flying straight and level.

HoustonRunner > TheRealBicycleBuck 03/29/2019 at 09:49

0

Interesting comments. Do you work in a field related to flood prevention?  I started to be interested in the topic when I moved to Meyerland in 2010....

TheRealBicycleBuck > HoustonRunner 03/29/2019 at 10:18

0

I do a lot of disaster prevention and recovery work. I get to do everything from environmental assessments to future conditions analysis. I also get to dabble in software development and project management. Basically, I have my fingers in everybody’s pie.

I’m currently working in Houston assisting with Harvey recovery efforts.

smobgirl > TheRealBicycleBuck 03/29/2019 at 10:31

1

Your ammo dump actually looks really familiar. I guess they’re all designed like that but I remember one of my east coast employees sending me an aerial with the “what is THIS?” h eadline!

One of my favorites was a property in PA. Historic aerials showed a weird cloud concentrated over the (then undeveloped) site for a decade - I googled up some news articles and they’d actually had a mine fire in a tunnel beneath where an assisted living facility now sits. S peaking of foundation issues...

HoustonRunner > TheRealBicycleBuck 03/29/2019 at 10:35

0

Neat. Again, I got real interested when Meyerland flooded in 2015 (Memorial Day flood) , 2016 (Tax Day flood) , and 2017 (H arvey). I’m lucky that my houses have all been raised so never any damage to the house, but lost 5 cars in about two years.

If you haven’t noticed in the time you have been in Houston, Meyerland is where all of the news trucks go first when there is a heavy rain.  Not my favorite move by them for property values, but can’t blame them either.

TheRealBicycleBuck > smobgirl 03/29/2019 at 11:10

0

Have you had the joy of working with LiDAR yet? It’s some AMAZING technology, but it has a whole host of “gotchas” that you have to watch out for. My favorite incident was being able to tell a surveyor that his crew screwed up because I could see the disparity between his measurements and the   LiDAR data we had captured in the same area. His crew accidentally swapped their poles and didn’t double-check their heights, so one guy captured data that was several inches too high and the other was several inches too low. I told him to set all of their poles at the same height, set that height in their data collectors, then teach his guys how to adjust the position of the data collector mount to accommodate the height of the user instead of changing the height of the pole.

All of that happened after he made the standard surveyor joke: “Do you know what GIS stands for? Get It Surveyed! Har, har, har....”  

TheRealBicycleBuck > HoustonRunner 03/29/2019 at 11:30

0

I think I would seriously consider investing in a floating dock as a temporary platform to save my car.

This guy used a temporary dry dock developed for boats to save his Porsche:

I saw a fellow who used big foam blocks to lift his mobile home out of the water during the 2011 flood in Baton Rouge. It was comical, but it worked!

smobgirl > TheRealBicycleBuck 03/29/2019 at 11:48

0

No, I’d really like to explore a lot more of this. I’ve worked in the same small corner of environmental assessments for going on 1 2 years and finally have some time to look into grad school or certificate programs or such. I’m thinking maybe a GIS program? Your work sounds interesting...and much more diverse.

smobgirl > TheRealBicycleBuck 03/29/2019 at 11:49

0

That’s brilliant. 

HoustonRunner > TheRealBicycleBuck 03/29/2019 at 11:51

1

I told myself in the new house (we moved in fall 2016) I would put in a lift for “my” car. Haven’t done that yet, but honestly my cars right now are more a commodity (minivan just used to shuttle kids, Pathfinder my wife drives, and my 2015 Suburban) . Saving them wouldn’t change my insurance, and I can replace them readily enough. I have USAA, and they have been great every time.

I’m keeping my eye out for an E28 project car though, and if / when that happens I’ll get the lift - not only to save the car but work on it as well.

TheRealBicycleBuck > smobgirl 03/29/2019 at 12:30

0

I have lots that I can share if you’re interested. For starters, it’s good that you are coming from a place of experience and expertise. I was at a flooding conference a number of years ago and they had a forum where the topic of debate was, “Is it better to hire a GIS expert and teach him about water, or is it better to hire a water expert and teach him GIS?” I argued both sides of the debate, but leaned more heavily toward hiring the GIS expert because a person properly trained in GIS understands what the software can and cannot do, but an expert understands the limitations and the statistical errors that inappropriate analysis can lead to. It’s not just a black box. Doing distribution estimates or predicting phenomenon (like habitat or oil production) has real science behind it. Understanding the science is the hydrologist’ s or planner’s job. Understanding the tools is the GIS expert’s job. Getting both in one person is by far the best option.

I have a lot of GIS expertise, but NOBODY is an expert on everything it can do. I can help a hydrologist understand how to use it for watershed analysis or a planner to use it to predict urban growth. I’ve used GIS for predicting the location of food sources for grizzly bears and for estimating timber production from managed forests. Right now I’m using it to analyze potential disaster recovery projects given known physical, social, economic, and political constraints. We have to know the limitations before we apply for federal funding for the projects.

Jeez, I’m rambling. Post up a list of questions or shoot me a PM if you prefer. Just remove “thereal” from my username and add on the gmail suffix to get something into my inbox.

WilliamsSW > TheRealBicycleBuck 03/29/2019 at 14:48

0

Totaling an airplane while taxiing? That’s... impressive? I’d love to know what happened there - and it’s weird that the engine was revving right before the accident. Was it windy? Wondering if it was weathervaning into the wind a bit and the student panicked somehow.

Sounds like the Warrior was a bit more fun than the Cherokee? Enjoy the flying this weekend - hope the weather holds for you!

TheRealBicycleBuck > WilliamsSW 03/29/2019 at 18:22

1

I’m trying to get the details now. The Warrior was different but just as fun. I kinda like flying a truck. Thanks for the positive vibes! 

WilliamsSW > TheRealBicycleBuck 03/29/2019 at 18:27

0

Have you flown a Cessna yet? Those really have a different feel from the Pipers, especially at the edge of the performance envelope. You’ll need to try one after you get your Private.

Enjoy the weekend! 

TheRealBicycleBuck > WilliamsSW 03/29/2019 at 20:32

1

Thanks! I will!

I’ve flown a Cessna before, but it’s been a very long time. I plan to get checked out in several planes so I have rental options while I decide on what to buy.

CaptDale - is secretly British > TheRealBicycleBuck 04/01/2019 at 19:07

1

That 161 sounds like fun