Category Archives: Scenic Flights

Practice Flight Over Rhode Island

Posted on by

Another exciting week of Covid-19 life (NOT)!  This week was far from exciting.  In fact, between working from home and only leaving the house for the occasional grocery run, it was quite boring.

As a result, I was eager to escape to the skies.  Unfortunately, the rest of the country is still on lockdown.  So there is really no place to go.  But it is a perfect time to practice a bunch of flight maneuvers that I don’t normally do.  For me, most of my trips are cross-country flying IFR, using autopilot and as much automation as is available in the Cirrus.  So on this day, I decided to fly to Rhode Island.  But do it entirely VFR and without autopilot and practice some old fashioned stick and rudder flying.

You can see some of the flight in this video:

Hopefully, we will get back to normal soon.  I can’t wait to do a good, old fashioned $100 hamburger run 🙂

Cheers,
== T.J.==

Can You Fly During Covid-19?

Posted on by

Can you fly during Covid-19?  For me, the answer is YES.  But with a few precautions…

First, I realize that I am extremely lucky to even have the ability to make a judgement call on this.  Some of my friends in Germany, don’t even have the option.  But for me, I was more concerned about ensuring what I did was legal, safe, and moral during these challenging times.

So here is my rationale:

  1. My plane is a solo use plane.  What I mean is that nobody other than me flies it or even has access to the hangar where it is parked.
  2. I can get from my home to the hangar without interacting with a single human being.  (That is social distancing at it’s finest.)
  3. As far as fuel, I am resorting to self service fuel @ a near by airport (Sky Acres-44N) … Or if I do get full service fuel at KPOU, I ensure that I am more than 6 Feet away from the line guy.  I don’t even touch the gas cap after he is done.  Instead, I simply watch him closely to ensure that he closes the fuel cap properly.
  4. For the time being, I am not taking any passengers (other than my wife).
  5. Since there is nowhere that is truly safe to travel to right now, all of my flights are local flights.  So I am practicing stick and rudder skills, instrument approaches and of course fine tuning my aerial photography skills!

In my humble opinion, these precautions make it sufficiently safe for me (and society).

So this weekend, I flew down the Hudson Corridor around New York City and had the idea to try a touch and go @ JFK.  It didn’t quite work out the way I wanted…

You can see what happened in the video below:

Cheers,
== T.J.==

Flying a Lap Over Long Island

Posted on by

With all of the Covid-19 madness, Lisa and I have been working from home and literally staying in the house completely. Well… Except walking the dog and occasional grocery runs, while wearing gloves.

But we found a responsible way to go flying while adhering to the social. distancing guidelines. Since our plane is not flown by anyone else and also because it is parked in a private solo hangar, I feel this makes it safe for me to fly. As long I take a few basic precautions:
1. No passengers (other than Lisa and Lily)
2. No stops on the way to/from the airport so that we make no contact with other people
3. Maintain 6 FT distance from the line crew that fuels the airplane.
4. Use disposable, sterile gloves when touching any exterior surface that a line crew may touch, such as the fuel caps.

With these basic precautions, I feel totally safe to fly.

So today I want to share is a recap of my “Lap of Long Island” flight. Yes we flew a lap around Long Island. The entire flight was planned out in ForeFlight with more than a dozen different user defined waypoints. Then this flight plan was sent via bluetooth to the Garmin Perspective Plus avionics. The flight was mostly flown by autopilot plus a little manual intervention now and then ;-). Check out the Youtube video below to see for yourself.

Cheers,
== T.J.==

Flying The Hudson River Corridor

Posted on by

This weekend, I took a friend (Claire) on her first flight.  The weather was perfect and I decided to take her on one my favorite sightseeing destinations, which is NYC Skyline as seen from the Hudson River.

The best way I have found to do this is the following the rules laid out by the FAA for the Hudson River Special Flight Rules Area (SFRA).
You can download a cool kneeboard cheat sheet that shows all of the frequencies and procedures from the FAA site here

You can see the video recap of the flight here:

Cheers,
== T.J.==

NYC and Long Island

Posted on by

This weekend, the weather was just perfect for flying.  Not too hot, not too cold… and just a few clouds to keep it interesting.

I wanted to test out some iPad Apps and test out some new camera equipment.  So I asked my buddy Ryan to join me. Since he has not been in a small plane much, I thought he would enjoy the view and be good assistant cameraman 😉

We got an early start on Sunday and I think I may have burst Ryan’s bubble at the hanger when I put him to work pulling the Cirrus out of the hanger and helping with the preflight.

I have the Best Cirrus tug in the world on order… But it hasn’t arrived yet … So we did it the old fashioned way… (Some brute force and a wimpy little tow bar.)

After the plane was prepped and ready to go, so were we:
Once preflight was complete and the cameras were setup, we were ready to go… Ryan had flown in a Cessna before… But this was his first flight in.a Cirrus.  After I briefed him on the parachute and the avionics deck, he was blown away as you can see below:

As soon as we took off, I realized what a crazy, windy day it was.  While there was no rain and the clouds were high enough not to be relevant, the winds were crazy! We had 30-40 knot winds @ 1500 Ft of altitude.  Luckily Ryan was OK with a few bumps and we pressed on.  He looks pretty calm here doesn’t he??
The first stop today was going to be some simple VFR flying in the Hudson River Corridor.  Even though I have now flown this route many times, I never get tired of the views of Manhattan and doing 360s over the Stature of Liberty!

With the sightseeing portion done, now it was time to dodge some airspace and head out to Long Island.  We stayed low just offshore and out of the way of JFK traffic.  We saw the Jones Beach Monument and Amphitheatre up close @ ~ 1300FT then climbed up to 7500 FT to get on top of the clouds before approaching Farmingdale’s airspace.
After that, I realized that going to Montauk would be waste because the clouds would not make it viable to see.  So instead, I took this opportunity to play with some apps.  The Garmin Pilot and Foreflight apps are both amazing and work really well with the panel mounted avionics in this Cirrus.
In fact, this plane has soo much gadgetry in it, that I felt more like a programmer that was testing code and then making code tweaks when the system did something unexpected.  …. I have high hopes of mastering this Perspective Plus the way I mastered the Avidyne R9 flight deck.  So far, I can tell this is way more powerful but also a bit more complex of a user interface.  (In fact, I think the Garmin engineers could learn a thing or two about elegant design from Avidyne)
Then it was time to go home… I wanted to fly an approach however, the winds had other plans.  While heading back to POU, the METAR was showing 320 @ 15 gusting to 20 Knots! Unfortunately, there are no approaches to runway 33 and the notams even said the VASI lights were out.  So we had to do an old fashioned visual approach and landing.  While every pilot certainly knows how to do this, I am actually more comfortable flying instrument approaches… So this was fun!
We captured the landing on multiple video cameras but I haven’t had a chance to edit the video yet.  I hope to start posting landing videos soon on my Youtube channel… So stay tuned.
Cheeers,
== T.J.==

Staying Current

Posted on by

Being in Singapore has really changed my flying dynamics. While the variety of flight environments and aircraft that I am experiencing has increased, the spontaneous possibilities are very limited. In fact, every flight is an international flight and requires paperwork and planning several days in advance. In addition, the cost of flying in Asia is quite steep ( ~ triple the cost in the US). This really has made me appreciate the US flying environment more than ever!

So I have been using my fairly frequent trips to the US to ensure I maintain my currency and proficiency.

Recently, I was in the US and was able to take advantage of the freedom and the spontaneity of the US skies

I started in Atlanta where my plane was in Trip’s cozy hanger, which you can see below:

Since I am not very familiar with the Atlanta airspace, I filed an IFR flight plan to FL.
After clearing all the MOAs on my nearly direct route, I cancelled the flight plan and started to play.. Oops I mean practice… First a few warm up steep 360s, then some slow flight and stalls.  Usually these maneuvers are practiced at much lower altitudes. But I happened to be @ 11,500 FT and the wind was tame so I just did it at altitude.  It felt strange to do power off stalls and air work at that altitude.  but the good part was that there was no other other traffic in the way!
Next I descended near Ocala and practiced a few approaches.  The first couple I did with the R9 and the autopilot.  then just to convince myself that I remembered how , I also flew a couple by hand.  Then it was on to my former home base @Tampa Executive, where I had to fight howling 20 kt crosswinds!
This kind of random spontaneous flight is simply not possible in many other countries.  So I was really having a ball!
After a requisite stop in Tampa, I went on flightseeing joyride around Tampa Bay and got some great pix, which you can see below:

Then it was on to visit a flight school on the east coast, where I am planning to pursue a commercial rating later this month.
Finally, I did a leisurely journey back to Trip’s hanger @ LZU.  When I tallied the logbook, I was pleasantly surprised to see 12 hours, 15 approaches and over 100 pictures!
After all the spartan cockpits I have been in lately, it felt great to be back in the cirrus cockpit, where everything just felt smooth and effortless and it also felt good to shake off the rust!

Cheers,
== T.J.==

First Four Legged Passenger

Posted on by

Until today, all of my passengers were people.  But today was a long overdue flight… I loaded up my first four legged passenger (Tristan) in preparation for takeoff.

The route was rather simple (Ft Lauderdale to Tampa).  However, there were a bunch of clouds surrounding Ft Lauderdale around departure time.
I filed a quick IFR flight plan with the full intention of canceling it as soon as I was above the clouds.
I was a little nervous about how Tristan would react to the noise of the engine powering up on takeoff.  But he did totally fine.  In fact, shortly after takeoff, he and his little purple bunny were fascinated by the clouds:
Tristan was a very helpful co-pilot and even pointed out a very photo worthy cloud formation that looked like a heart.

Heart shaped cloud formation
After all the excitement of the flight, both Tristan and his purple bunny were exhausted and fell right asleep!
Cheers,
== T.J.==

Weekend in Grand Cayman

Posted on by
With great weather predicted for south FL and the Caribbean, this past weekend was the perfect opportunity to make a dent in the bucket list.  I decided to fly to Grand Cayman.
The flight was a straightforward IFR route mostly over water and directly over Cuba:
I was a little nervous about the international flying protocol.  While I have done some international flying, this flight would require a  Cuba overflight, which involves getting an explicit permit and some special procedures.

I probably could have done it entirely on my own.  But for added convenience and “peace of mind”, I enlisted the help of the concierge service of Air Journey.  This service is like having a private airline dispatch crew at your disposal.

They provided me an amazing briefing packet prior to the flight, which included everything I needed.  Not only did it include the stuff you would expect, such as charts, flight plan, and International permits, it also included photos of the destination buildings, FBO, customs etc.  With their help, I felt totally prepared.  In addition, it also felt nice to have the “safety blanket” of a knowledgable person to call in the event I encountered something unusual during the journey.
The journey itself was rather simple and very much like flying any IFR flight plan in the US.  However, the ATC radio calls were a bit interesting.  Somehow, the Havana Center controllers seem to know which planes to speak to in English and which ones to speak to in Spanish.  There were also several nuances to international flight that I learned along way.  For example, altimeter usage, Class A airspace boundaries, and reporting points over water in areas with minimal radar coverage.
You can hear some of the ATC audio in the Youtube clip below:

But the views were the most amazing part of the trip.  The color of the water, especially just south of Cuba, was brilliant:
Of course, after a couple of hours over the water, land was certainly a very welcome sight!

Notice the runway edge is right on the water!
Once I landed the immigration/customs process extremely simple and took no more than 5 minutes for the authorities to check my passport and look over the plane.
Within 30 minutes after landing, I was sipping a cool beverage in this hammock on Seven Mile beach!
Cheers,
== T.J.==

Island Hopping in Hawaii (Part 2)

Posted on by

After an exciting intro to island flying, the next couple of days provided more amazing scenery and even more challenging flight conditions.

The first stop, which was the island of Kauai, was the longest flight segment over water.  So we filed a flight plan (and actually used the autopilot a bit).  As we approached the Lihue airport, we decided to fly the ILS 35 by hand just for some practice.  The gusty crosswinds continued to give me quite a workout.  When I was about 200 FT AGL, the winds, which were favoring runway 3, seemed to be getting even stronger (gusting to 35 kts).  The tower noticed this and asked if “I really wanted runway 35?”. I said ” at this point I would prefer 3″.  He agreed and I quickly broke off the approach and circled to the left to land on runway 3.  With a strong headwind lined up straight to the runway I ended up having fairly easy landing.
The next stop was the island of Oahu, which is the most urbanized of the Hawaiian islands. With Laurence’s coaching, I asked ATC for a routing that provided some great photo opps of the Arizona Memorial, Honolulu downtown and Diamond Head.

Honolulu downtown

Diamond Head

I felt very comfortable flying in the Honolulu Class B airspace because there was lots of airline traffic on the radios and it felt just like the East Coast.  But that comfort was quickly replaced by shock as I approached the traffic pattern.  The tower cleared me for a left downwind entry to a visual approach for runway 4L, which they refer to as the  “little” 7000 FT runway.  That sounded easy enough.  But as i got closer I heard the tower clear an airliner for takeoff on runway 08R.
Yikes! This meant my traffic pattern would be just a couple hundred FT directly over an airliner!!
I tried to stay focused… But I really  wanted a picture of this … So I asked Laurence to grab the camera and try to get some photo evidence.  Here’s what he got:

Honolulu airport on approach.

The next day we had a very specific objective, which was to land on the last of the Hawaiian islands to complete my mission and hopefully fly over the active volcano (Kilauea).
There were no significant aviation challenges on this day.  So I was just enjoying the scenery and taking countless pix.  The Big Island actually had a snow covered mountain peak, which took me by surprise.  But the real highlight was seeing the lava flows and overflying Kilauea, which you can see below:

Kilauea volcano

Overall, my Hawaii excursion totally exceeded my expectation and definitely made it onto my Top 10 list!!

Now I am starting to think of the next challenge … Several readers have already sent me suggestions, which I appreciate…

The leading contenders are the Canadian provinces, which might work out nicely this summer, or every country in the Caribbean (except of course Cuba).

Would welcome other creative suggestions!

 
Cheers,
== T.J.==

Island Hopping in Hawaii (Part 1)

Posted on by
As many of you know, I have been trying to personally land in all 50 states…
After 2 years of flying to every nook and cranny of the continental US and Alaska, this weekend I finally managed to check Hawaii off my list!
The first 49 states were all done in my Cirrus.  However, it just wasn’t practical to fly my plane to Hawaii.    So a few months ago, I started to plan this trip.  I was fully expecting to rent a plane there.  However, I was struggling to find a suitable plane that I would be comfortable enough in for this mission.  Then around December, as a direct result of this blog, I met a fellow Cirrus pilot that had a nearly identical plane to mine based on Maui!  Problem solved!!
The owner was not only a Cirrus pilot, but was also a Cirrus Instructor (CSIP), which really came in handy for this excursion.  (You will understand why shortly)…
When I arrived in Maui, I felt a huge sense of comfort and familiarity when I saw his plane:

N779LB is a 2007 SR22 G3 GTS, that is very similar to my plane.  So the flying part was familiar.  However, this plane was equipped with different avionics.  Since my mission was more about the flying and landing, I let Laurence handle the radios/avionics and I simply did all of the flying by hand.  Absolutely no autopilot… Just old fashioned stick and rudder flying.
But this was a lot more challenging than I expected.  The weather in Hawaii is VFR ~360 days a year.  However, EVERY day seems to involve dodging clouds, rain, terrain and some very unpredictable winds!
On the first day, we took off from Kahalui airport on Maui and went to the neighboring island of Lanai.  The views were spectacular (but somewhat distracting).  This is what I saw out the window while flying on the “right base”:

Then when I was on final ~ 75 FT AGL, the wind shifted from a tame 5 KT headwind to ~ 15 KT crosswind!  While it caught me by surprise, Laurence calmly stated “Happens here all the time – You get used to it…”
I thought that was intense… But that was just a warm up for the next island, which was Molokai.  Here we landed on a tiny strip of pavement, called Kalaupapa, that had the Pacific Ocean just 20 FT off of the departure end of the runway.  The airport had no PAPI lights, no precision glideslope, and none of the normal “crutches” that help me land.  Instead, I had to look out the window and “feel my way” to the runway while fighting a 40KT headwind.  In addition, the runway had ocean waves very close to the edge of the runway.  Being from Florida, I am comfortable flying around water.  But seeing waves like this on approach was a totally new experience!
After a quick photo stop, and an “elegant hot start” by Laurence, we were off to return to home base @ Maui, where we landed in winds of 15, gusting to 24!
Overall, day 1 was only 1.5 on Hobbs… But with the monster winds and using NO autopilot, it felt like quite a workout!
As you can imagine, I also got a ton of amazing pictures… Just haven’t had time time to download and sort through them yet.  That’s why this is only “part 1”
Cheers,
== T.J.==