Yesterday some things at work got finished earlier than expected and other things canceled. The weather was great, but it promises not to be this weekend. It was a perfect excuse to fly.
As I started my preflight I was thinking about several excellent posts or threads I had read on the MemberÂ’s Discussion board in the last week.
The thread entitled “Power/Economy Setting Question” had caused me to go back and re-read some LOP posts and John Deakin’s “Where Should I Run My Engine?” columns on AvWeb. During start, taxi and run up I experimented with some things I recalled from Deakin’s Pelican’s Perch #63.
With the recent discussion about turning back to the airport and Fast Eddie’s “180º turn back to airport (data point)” post, I decided to try to replicate his results. (I did, but I admit I had a fine cross wind to turn into at 4,500 feet.)
The discussions following the tragic crash in Florida had CAPs on my brain. I decided to make up some “what ifs” and tried Mike Radomsky’s “BANG-HEAD-HANDLE” muscle memory game. I still had altitude, so I pulled the power back and practiced best glide speed and played a round of “can you make that airport?” (I could not, but it was real close. Unlike horseshoes, hand grenades and nuclear war, I guess “real close” does not cut it.)
The Cirrus v. Lancair brouhaha made me think of Scott D., which made me think about stalls, so I practiced some power on and power off stalls.
Having recently read and responded to the “TKS Maintenance Issues” post, I remembered that I needed to turn on my TKS. I found one section of the right wing took forever to get wet, and then it did not get as wet as the other parts. I will have that looked at tomorrow.
Neil Singer’s response to the “HSI and Autopilot Question” post made me curious about the automatic sequence of events when flying a coupled ILS. I did not have a safety pilot, but I flew a coupled ILS and sat back and watched. It all went automatically and according to the book. Should I become one of those that manually switch to VLOC? I will have to think about that some more.
The recent thread “PFD mystery & other techniques” made me realize I may not utilize the “Bearing” and “Aux” features of the PFD enough. I entered a flight plan, started flying it, and experimented how I could use those sources for better situational awareness.
Cirrus makes a fine airplane, but I think it is not a good airplane to stay away from for very long. I need to do more than just go out and do touch and goes. I need to exercise all its parts and systems as often as I can. That is where the value of reading the COPA MembersÂ’ forum comes in for me. (Same for CPPP.)
(Oh yeah, after all that I turned off the autopilot, turned on the XM and just flew around with eyes focused (mostly) outside.)
Todd Carroll KRMG SR22 #959
