Just like accident investigations that take place the next day, in bright sunny and clear conditions. We had the same thing today, only there was no accident. Our ‘Sho Up’ cab came right on time and whisked us off to the airport some 12 miles out of town. Darlington is an old WWII airport with a triangle of runways, where two of the runways are now closed. Typical design with typical outcome. the remaining runway is in great shape, and there are new hangars aplenty. If I lived down here, I’d love to operate from this airport. We untied our airplane that we’d already fueled. We reloaded our lu ..read more

Beverly and I sat patiently for 3 hours or so in the FBO Lobby in Easton, MD (KESN). We ate our packed lunch, talk with a nice couple who was touring the area by car, and waited for the weather to improve. Just after noon I felt that the temperature had increased enough, and that the cloud cover had broken somewhat. It actually looked like it was clearing to the west of us, just as the Airmet Zulu was at the end of it’s forecast period. We made a rest room stop, packed up our gear, and lifted off for Punta Gorda once again. Our flight plan was to include a stop at KCKI, Williamsburg, SC (Kings ..read more

Heading to Florida for a few days of warmth with friends My wife and I were invited by our good friends, Bernadette and John, to visit them while they vacationed near Punta Gorda, FL. Our plan was to fly our Twin Comanche down on Saturday, February 24th and to fly back home on Tuesday morning, February 27th. We’d make one stop to break the trip up in 3 hour legs. Deciding to Start the Flight Long range forecasting showed a storm system going through in the days prior, with a front clearing that was supposed to clear by the time of our departure. I admit that there was an Airmet Zulu in effect ..read more

Good morning, In my opinion, we recently lost some kid because she was popular on YouTube and did not understand a few things that are so damn obvious to me now. I hope that by writing a few more thoughts about her accident, some pilot will think about how to manage similar failures ahead of time. Juan Brown analyzed this accident very well and we can begin to understand the links in this chain. I recommend listening to his professional analysis. This one strikes a chord with me because I recently had an upset in my airplane due to an autopilot failure. I recovered quickly because I have dee ..read more

Over the summer I’d been having issues with getting ADSB weather on my IFD550. As I learned more about it, it became apparent that my GTX345 was getting the weather and traffic, and I could link my iPad directly to it to display weather there. Working with Avidyne technical support, as well as experimenting on my own, I learned that the innocuous error messages I’d been getting about a UTC Mismatch were part of the problem. I was getting them at every flight. The error message led me to find that my UTC time was routinely displaying local time, not actual UTC time from the satellites. Having ..read more

I missed flying to Jekyll Island, GA recently. Bev & I had to drive down for the planned 4 day getaway. We had a great time, but driving each way for 12 hours lowered the fun index just a little. I dropped the airplane off at the end of April, so now I’m just hoping that it will get started very soon. There is one other twin comanche ahead of me in this small shop, so I must wait. Our next trip is less than a month away now, and I truly hope we don’t have to drive 10 hours for that one too. Fly Safe ..read more

I really wasn’t flying much in September, other than on a few solo practice flights I did to exercise the oil and prepare for an upcoming Flight Review I’ve been wanting to do. As I was prepping the airplane for one such mission, I ran into Kevin at the airport. I had promised Kevin a flight on the PA30, and the stars happened to align on September 29th. I still owe Mr William Smith a nice flight, and I’ll make an effort to align the stars again. Kevin and I departed Wilmington and decided to do some local flying that included a stop at Easton for lunch. As it turns out, the restaurant there ..read more

The last update blog I developed was back in August, so I’m going back to capture some of what has happened in the ensuing months. There was a bit of drama in late September, and you’ll get the details with that blog. Overall I’ve accumulated another 40 hours on the airplane into November, so there is a bunch we can talk about. In late August I flew my grandson Nathan, or rather, he flew me. Nathan is a senior in high school and thought he might want to be a pilot as a career. The first thing he noticed is that his 6′ plus frame had some challenges fitting into the PA30 business office. I did ..read more

Lancaster Aero: I’ve been vying for a position at the paint shop to address wear spots on the PA30. The image at left is a typical example, but there were also a few dings from maintenance and general usage. The plan was worked out with Kendall at Lancaster Aero, and included calling in August to find a random opening. The airplane would have to be painted outside, the weather would have to be perfect, and an opening would have to randomly appear. I wanted these guys doing the work, so I took a shot. I called on Monday the 8th and it was arranged I’d drop the airplane off that weekend. I did ..read more

If you read my previous post just a few days ago, you’d know that I was just out to Pittsburgh for a jet trip that ended up canceled. I got home in time to see the July 1st fire works display in Chesapeake City, and prepared for the next opportunity to use my airplane to do jet trips on Monday. I’m using my airplane quite a bit, and even have another vacation flight planned for Florida when I get back from this next mission. N833DF was ready to go again, or so I thought as I launched out to Pittsburgh Monday around 2pm. The plan was to do a flight Tuesday; go see the Flight 93 Memorial on Wedn ..read more