Scudrunners

[quote]To start with, I just wish people would do that much. I think the average is somewhere under 30 hrs a year for a PPL. [/quote]

Feel free to weigh in with advice, I'm listening.

The four bars will strut around and tell you than an hour
is an hour, but as usual, they are wrong.

If you can only fly 30 hours per year ...

You could log 0.6 hours every week.

Or, what I would do, is fly 7 hours a weekend,
four times a year.  Fly 3.5 hours on each of Sat
and Sun.  An orgy of flying, at the end of which
you will be really comfortable in the airplane.

Hours can be deceiving.  I have met entirely
too many people with 10,000TT that have 500TT
20x over.

A short x/c to a different airport (say 30nm away)
has value, as soon as you are up to speed on the
airplane, which consists of:

- systems review on the ground (gph?  Min oil?)
- slow flight in practice area
- circuits (start with 1000 then 500' downwind)

Looking at Wx, NOTAM and joining the circuit at
an unfamiliar airport is good practice, but I will
admit that Garmin Pilot on the phone takes most
of the challenge out of it.

The KHAF accident on Nov 18th 11:18am is a north direction 317T (rwy 30) when winds were South 10G14kts at 11:15am and 15 minutes later 10G17kts ... (edited: similarly tailwind was increasing for the Harvard's landing direction if "perfect" is true ... actually the student then lands/down faster from float to touchdown [i]in the decreasing relative wind [b]despite higher groundspeed [/b].[/i].. which for the opposing plane equalled  increasing headwind / shorter roll [i]in slower groundspeed  [/i]for its miracle/successfull pull-up steepness in the positive/increasing relative wind esp with height, and likely not at mtow either ... just a guess).


Half Moon is obviously a tailwind landing attempt where same wind direction was actually lighter / steady at about 8kts an hour earlier. Perhaps an error in landing direction for some reason ?


In that type of component/takeoff description a normal skyhawk climbout climb-angle might suddenly be way to steep, just ask my brother.

[quote]Perhaps an error in landing direction[/quote]

That's the local consensus.  I have seen this many
times - when the windsock is exactly opposite what
you are expecting, frequently pilots read it backwards,
especially when they glance at it in the air from overhead -
they see what they are expecting.  Almost.

Not long ago, I saw an experienced pilot taxi and take
off from an uncontrolled airport - perfectly downwind.
Again, the windsock was perfectly reversed from what
it usually is.  He had to taxi right by two different
windsocks, but he saw what he was expecting to see.
Fortunately the runway was so long, it really didn't
make any difference - he got away with his mistake,
as is the usual case.

I have told this story many times before ... my father
soloed in a Harvard in 1951 at Trenton.  No radios,
just a wind direction indicator.  Took off, and while
he was gone, the wind perfectly reversed.  He landed
downwind, and what took off in the opposite direction
and just cleared the top of his Harvard was an enraged
C R Slemon in a twin which pulled up frantically to avoid
a head-on collision.

Not everyone tries to kill the next Chief of Air Staff.

[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Slemon]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Slemon[/url]

Not sure anyone remembers him any more.  Eccentric,
shall we say.

Which day in 1951 ..

[quote author=Colonel Sanders link=topic=4912.msg12762#msg12762 date=1480175728]

I have told this story many times before ... my father
soloed in a Harvard in 1951 at Trenton.  No radios,
just a wind direction indicator.  Took off, and while
he was gone, the wind perfectly reversed.  He landed
downwind, and what took off in the opposite direction
and just cleared the top of his Harvard was an enraged
C R Slemon in a twin which pulled up frantically to avoid
a head-on collision.

Not everyone tries to kill the next Chief of Air Staff.

[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Slemon]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Slemon[/url]

Not sure anyone remembers him any more.  Eccentric,
shall we say.
[/quote]


And thus began the long history of dislike between the aviation powers that be and the Sanders family ;D