Archive for the ‘$100 Hamburger flights’ Category

Flight log 8/21/2010

I had originally planned to take a trip to Martha’s Vineyard this weekend but when I started receiving emails from the FAA regarding upcoming TFRs for President Obama’s planned vacation I figured I should make other plans.

Earlier in the week Gary from the Northeast Flyers had invited me to his lunch run at Georgetown DE. As always it would give me one more chance to meet some fellow pilots and explore a new airport so I made the call to go for it. All I had to do now was figure out who I was going to take. My wife isn’t much of a flyer, so unless we were going on a real trip I wasn’t even going to try. Her friend expressed interest but at the time I was still waiting on responses from some of my fellow pilot friends. As I got the answers back it started to look more and more like this trip was going to be with my son. After all Steven loves to fly with his daddy so all in all not a bad deal. Read the rest of this entry »

Yet another chance to meet-up with my fellow pilot friend Gary http://gmflightlog.blogspot.com of the Northeast Flyers and also get some more IFR experience along the way. I had originally planned to fly our Cessna 182RG since I had just earned my complex / high performance endorsements and logged the required 10 hours in the aircraft, but due to a failure of the gear warning system the aircraft was grounded so we took our trusty friend N159SP. Read the rest of this entry »

On Monday 6/7 my friend and fellow flying club member Stephen asked if I would like to fly to Hamilton NY for dinner on Friday night. As I am always looking for a chance to fly under the hood and check out new places I agreed.

The original plan was to leave work and head directly to the airport but since I left my camera and change of clothes at home I stopped by the house on the way. As soon as I got in I saw my son. I was hoping to avoid running into him since he always makes me feel bad about flying without him. What can I say, he loves spending time with his daddy and his daddy loves spending time with him. Sure enough, after checking with Stephen to make sure it would be ok to take my son I quickly got him ready and ran to the car just in time for rush hour traffic!

On our way to the airport I called Stephen and asked him to get the airplane ready. I wanted to fly IFR on the first leg since there was an overcast layer at about 4000 feet. As I pulled into the airport Stephen informed me that he was still waiting on fuel and on top of that my overcast layer was quickly breaking up. Read the rest of this entry »

(UPDATE 5/15/2010) During the days leading up to this trip I had been working on my planned flight to London Ontario Canada for the Diamond Aircraft Factory tour with the Republic Flyers. I had even canceled this flight at one point so I could stay an additional day in Toronto.  Unfortunately due to a strong low to our north witch was bringing with it 40+ knot headwinds, low IFR conditions and embedded thunderstorms I had to scrap that flight (see flight to Canada not to be for more information).

The night before, a cold front came through which cleared the air of the thunderstorms but also brought with it stronger surface winds. As the flight neared it became obvious that I would have to contend with some wicked winds at least during our return trip, so the day before I called Ed and asked his comfort level with flying with his niece on a windy day. He assured me that she was a veteran flyer and bumps have never been an issue. I also knew that my son responds well to bumpy air (he falls asleep) hopefully he breaks this little habit before becoming a pilot himself.

Read the rest of this entry »

While in route to Martha’s Vineyard my friend and fellow flying club member Stephen and I experienced an alternator controller failure (basically a voltage regulator). It wasn’t a big deal since we were in day visual conditions and the engine does not require electrical power to operate. I have learned a few things from watching the video.. Read the rest of this entry »

Ocean City MD
One of the most common questions I am asked as a pilot is “what is the furthest place you have flown to?” If you are a pilot you know what I mean and after being a pilot for 9 years you would think I would have some really cool answer but actually I didn’t. During the years I had made a few flights to locations such as Nashua NH, Manassas VA, and Providence RI with other pilots but since they did the flight planning and most of the flying I considered myself more of a passenger than a crew member. Read the rest of this entry »

I haven’t flown an airplane since being laid off from my job of 9 years in early May. So I finally decided to get back up in the air. Maybe flying would dispel my “I don’t have a job” funk.

The plan was to depart from Morristown KMMU and make the short trip to Alexandra Field N85 for some landings and then play it by ear. The weather in the northeast has been a bit unsettled to say the least, so when I woke up Sunday morning to rain I wasn’t surprised. Hoping that the weather would improve I moved my reservation to later in the afternoon. Read the rest of this entry »

After hearing about Bolck Island from my flying buddy’s for the longest time I decided to check it out; so on Thursday 9/18/2008 we flew our Cessna 172N N3054E to Block Island Rhode Island.

A little about Block Island: (Block Island Tourism Council)

Block Island has long been a haven for residents and visitors who have found here a quality of life that recalls the pleasures of a life that is simpler, slower, and somehow, more carefree. It’s no wonder that the Nature Conservancy has designated Block Island “One of the 12 last great places in the Western Hemisphere.” Read the rest of this entry »