Learning Experiences

Several years ago, on a beautiful clear and crisp Missouri morning, an opportunity arose for me to fulfill my seven-year-old sons desire to go flying with me. I was hoping to share with him my passion for flying. Instead, what I got was a horrifying experience, partnered with a brief mystery.

Those of us using a moving map with datalinked weather depiction-especially Nexrad radar-should be careful of relying on it too heavily. There are numerous stories of Nexrad not matching what the Mk. I, Mod. 1 eyeball displays. Heres mine. Last summer, my wife and I flew our 1976 Piper Arrow over to Great Harbor Cay Bahamas from Miami, Fla.s Tamiami Airport. We typically leave late morning to avoid afternoon thunderstorms. With our briefing, DVFR flightplan and Eapis paperwork taken care of, all we had to do was fly the route. Everything looked good from the weather standpoint, but in the summer things can and do change rapidly.

It was a cold December morning as my roommate Tony and I drove toward the jump center. The Cessna 180 I had a job flying to feed my skydiving addiction was just touching down on the frost-covered grass. It was the jump center manager, returning from flying the days first load. “Ive got it all warmed up for you,” he said. After a quick preflight, I climbed into the battered plane and ran the pre-start checklist. My roommate crawled in the back, along with two other shivering jumpers. Soon, we were taxiing to the end of the field; I performed a run-up on the go. We bounced down the grass and lifted off well before the end of the 1800-foot strip.

I had flown my experimental airplane from California to Kansas to attend a plane-builders reunion. I departed early in the morning, after drinking a lot of coffee. Soon, it needed relief. I tried everything to ease the pressure but after two hours, I had to land pronto. I used the NRST button on the Garmin and found my way to Pratt, Kan. The landing was uneventful.

It certainly wont come as a surprise to an owner to see someone write that aircraft maintenance is fraught with surprises. One of mine came on the first flight after an extensive inspect-and-repair-as-necessary effort involving my mid-1960s Bonanza. Since the interior was out of the plane for other work, my IA and I decided to install new gear-motor brushes, which are expensive little beggars, even for a Beechcraft. Soon, we had everything back, buttoned up and were ready for a test flight. As he is fearless, and I wanted the company, my IA came along for the ride from my towered home airport.

Being a pilot offers many opportunities to bring joy to non-pilot friends. Many ask for a ride to experience the world GA pilots take for granted. But caution needs to be taken when offering a dream ride. Especially during the preflight. It was a beautiful day to take my 1942 L-5 up to bore holes over southeast New Mexico. A buddy, who was big in one of those on-line aerial warfare games, always wanted to go up in a WWII aircraft. Well, the L-5 was the best I could offer-there definitely would not be any dogfights. So as I started my preflight, and while trying to answer a multitude of questions, it came time to check the oil.

In a recent ferry flight, I encountered a sudden and very irrational electrical and avionics failure as I entered IMC conditions. I was in a Cirrus SR22 with an Avidyne MFD, an Aspen PFD and a full set of steam gauges to boot. Within about one minute of entering the clouds for a descent, instruments began to fail and then come back on. They often came back with confusing data. The twin Garmin 430s also failed and came back-and then failed again-and so it went for what seemed like hours.

It was a beautiful fall morning, with clear skies. My five-year-old son and I wanted to get back in the air after annualing my Bellanca Super Viking a few weeks prior. We were feeling good about the airplane. Our adventure that morning: a simple sightseeing flight. As we established a positive climb rate, I cleaned up the airplane and adjusted power. But when I slid the gear lever to the “up” position, nothing happened.

My wife and I have enjoyed using our Skyhawk to make trips to visit family and friends, including several trips from our home airport in Frederick, Md. (KFDK), to Lake City, Fla. (KLCQ), where my mother-in-law resides. On one of these trips, I was reminded how important it is to properly preflight the airplane, not rush the process, nor skip any items. A trip from KFDK to KLCQ requires at least one stop, and depending on winds, weather and comfort, we have made the trip with two legs. This trip, the first leg took us nearly halfway; we got fuel, and had lunch. I seldom miss an opportunity to top off the tanks-having been schooled that fuel on the ground is of little use once airborne-and I look for opportunities to frequent FBOs at general aviation airports. After lunch, I left my wife to go preflight the airplane, thoroughly. And we departed for our next leg.

It was a trip in its conceptual stages from the time I began taking flight lessons: Winchester, Va., to the lowlands of Lawrenceville, Va., where my grandparents reside. Almost four months after obtaining my private pilot certificate-upgrading from a recreational-I had the chance to make the journey. My wife and I, plus our two children, would fly down the upcoming Saturday for the weekend