Mongo fly airplane!'s blog

Jooka lo nee SOLO cawa Wookie

I finally had the weather and the instructor to try the stinking fam checkride today. I flew with the squadron XO, who I had briefed with on one of my previous attempts. Since he'd already been pretty thorough and he knew I'd done about 20 of these things, we pretty much just hit conduct of flight. Frankly, I was flying like crap. I didn't have much of any feel for the jet during aerobatics, I lost a lot of altitude in the stalls, and my basic airwork for keeping altitude and airspeed really was not so solid.

We were using runway 17, which I had never done before. My approach turn was pretty crappy. I had to make a lot of corrections, but I was getting to a start with a ball on the lens most of the time. My landings were safe, and one or two were even Fair. My PA's weren't as good as usual. I floated it past the wire both times.

So, with my flying not seeming all that great to me (although understandable considering this was my second time in the airplane in three weeks), I worriedly asked the XO how I did.

"Oh yeah, you passed. I mean, unless you'd like some more ET's before you solo..."

No sir, appreciate the offer, but I'll just take it out on my own. :-)

I soloed this afternoon. I'd love to tell you how amazing and moving it was to finally have the jet on my own, but I was kind of tired, didn't really go nuts pulling g out in the area, and truthfully, it was exactly like all the other fam flights I've had. Well, not exactly. The aircraft was 200 lb lighter and that loud, annoying autopilot in the back seemed to be inoperative. Good thing, too. My landings were safe, but probably nothing to write home about. I had to wave myself off twice. Oh well. Done is done, and apparently even on a bad day after being out of the loop for quite awhile, I can safely operate this airplane. That's a good feeling.

QotD: See You Later, Decorator

What is your home decorating style, and how has it changed over time? Do you have plans to redecorate? 
Submitted by enSue.

1.  Messy.
2.  Slightly less messy.
3.  Muss it up a bit more again.

Fams in the airplane == t3h win

Today, I was reminded why I'm actually doing all this crap. It was my first flight in the airplane from the front seat. We went out to the operating area, did the high work, then came back for the pattern. The simulator simply cannot do justice to the landings. It sounds something like "sssshkaklunk!" and it feels like someone dropped thirty pounds onto your shoulders. Then it's just MRT (aka max thrust) boards in (speedbrakes retract) pop the nose up and go again.

I also got a precautionary approach demonstrated to me. These are similar to the PEL's I did back in primary. That was probably my favorite thing today. We get up to 500 feet going down the runway, clean up the aircraft, then pitch up 20 degrees, 45 degrees angle of bank shooting to get back abeam the runway at three thousand feet doing 200 knots. Understand at that point for a regular landing you are 600 feet above the ground. Three thousand is high. So, what you do is get your gear down, flaps half, speed brakes out, and dive pell-mell at the runway. You scoop the nose out coming through the bottom and flare out your landing. Now, when an airliner or general aviation aircraft is doing a flare for a normal landing, they start pretty close to the ground, maybe ten, twenty feet. It was the same in the T-34. For this, you're bleeding off so much energy you start your flare at 300 feet. It's a lot of fun getting to be aggressive to get the airplane on deck.

So, I've officially landed the airplane safely and brought it to a full stop. There's a lot more to do, but that really feels like something.

QotD: My Dream Room

In your ultimate dream house, what does your favorite room look like?

Simply put, a hangar/garage.  It would have a built-in lift, welding gear, an air setup, bandsaw, lathe, and whatever else I can think of for working metal and wood.  It might even have a vacuum bagging table for dealing with those fiberglass layups.  Naturally, there would be a beverage fridge, and it would be wired up for music.  It would also be great to get a grease-resistant computer station nearby so I could use Nasioc tutorials more effectively.  Ooh!  Also, a tire mounting machine and computer wheel balancer.  Much better than paying 80 bucks every time I want to re-shod my autocross wheels.

QotD: Just Skimming

When skimming a magazine (or book or newspaper) do you flip through the pages from front to back or back to front?
Submitted by enSue.

I am a consistent periodical reader.  (Ponder that for a second).  I do pick up books, but the vast majority of my pleasure reading comes in convenient monthly format and has lots of pretty pictures.  If it's something I bought, I start at the front and work my way back.  This will usually be something like a Grassroots Motorsports or a Kitplane  (shocker!)  If I'm at the bookstore and checking out a title I don't normally get, I go straight to whatever article caught my eye in the first place.  If it looks good, I'll buy the magazine, even knowing I may have already finished the most compelling story in there.

QotD: Luck O' The Irish

You've found the fabled pot o' gold.  How will you spend it?
Submitted by Red Pen.

Oh man, this QotD opens a Pandora's box of possibilities.  Naturally, there's plenty of mundane stuff to take care of, such as buying and furnishing a home.  After that, there are a number of experiences I would like to have as a car guy.  I want to know what it's like to build up an extremely fast sedan-type racecar, what it takes to do an engine swap and live with one.  I want to know what it's like to own and live with an exotic car.   I also want to know what it's like to campaign some sort of prototype racer.

A nice 2.5 RS

For the time trial car, I'm already a Subaru kind of guy.  I'm already competing in autocross with my WRX, but there are budget and rule restraints that keep me from doing certain things.  I'd love the chance to make the ultimate Impreza track slut.  I actually wouldn't start with my current vehicle.  The previous generation Impreza is lighter and has a certain look that has not quite been matched in subsequent years.   But, it has half the horsepower of the current STI.  Subarus are like Legos, though, and swapping in the new engine into the old chassis is relatively easy, as far as such things go.  So, I'd put in a complete STI drivetrain, including the bulletproof 6 speed transmission, beefier R180 rear differential, helical front LSD, and the driver controlled center diff.  This also nets me much tougher wheel bearings and Brembo brakes.  If we're talking about a monster pot of gold, I might even switch to a twin scroll turbo, providing boost from damn near idle to redline.  That 2.5 liter with the stock VF39 snail, exhaust, and tuning could get me a plenty healthy 300 whp just on its own.

I'm already a huge suspension nerd, so a lot of money would go there as well.  Doing something like this, adapting something that is not a sports car for track work, often means finding fixes to a suspension system that are not ideal.  The Impreza uses a MacPherson strut setup in the front that gives up negative camber as it compresses in a turn.  This reduces grip up front in a nose-heavy car.  The predictable result is understeer.  Since I'm spending the leprechaun's money, I'd go ahead and spring for ZZYZX coilovers, which are just about optimally designed to get the most out of the Subaru suspension geometry, with the ability to get lots of negative camber and positive caster.  They're built around double-adjustable Koni dampers and come with a choice of spring rates, so I'd get to learn how to maximize a pretty adjustable suspension setup.  Other fixes include thicker swaybars and beefy endlinks to reduce roll, trailing arms, lateral links, strut braces, etc.  There are some great products that because I autocross in a relatively tame class I can't use on my current WRX.  I want to see what difference  balljoint extenders (used to adjust the roll center and minimize camber loss), anti-lift kits (removes the anti-lift and dive characteristics from the car, increasing grip), and fender braces make on an Impreza.  

There would be other items, such as a roll bar, race buckets, five point harnesses, and a stripped interior, plus 17x9 or wider wheels, but those are all the big items.  Sub 3000 lb, 300 awhp, adjustable suspension with three trick differentials would make for one stupid-fast, stupid-fun car that I built with my own hands.

But...  it will always be an Impreza.  It will never quite have the cachet or the feel of something exotic.  My three dream cars, in order of ascending cost, are the Lotus Exige, Porsche 911 GT3, and Ferrari F430.

Porsche-911-GT3-002-L

07-Lotus-Exige-1_600

   

      

Ferrari_F430_F1_New_Or_Used_

All beautiful, all fast, and all somewhat pricy.  The Exige starts around $50,000 and is powered by a 4 cylinder 1.8 liter Toyota engine, so it should not be expensive to maintain.  The rest will absolutely crush the wallet, with about $100k for the Porsche and $250k for the Ferrari.  But man, what fun.



Hokay, prototype sports car...  now, if we talk American Le Mans, P1 or P2 class, it's millions of dollars.  Those are truly beautiful machines that I would love to try out, but I could happily get my kicks at nearly a reasonable price.  SCCA has a couple road racing classes for small displacement prototypes, C Sports Racer, or CSR, and DSR.  The car to have of late is manufactured by Stohr Racing.  $60k-ish.
 

Stohr-LS2

Damn near a full on Le Mans Prototype with plenty of carbon fiber, adjustable suspension, highly tuned superbike engine, and ground effect downforce.  Just too awesome.

That's all the car guy stuff I've got, but there's more.

QotD: Famous Last Words

What will be your famous last words?
Submitted by ngocaroo.

"Wow, after all the stupid sh$# I got away with in an airplane, this is just embarassing."

Vox Hunt: Dancing Machine

Video: Show us some great dancing.

Tree top RV4 Flying

This guy tearing some sh*@ up in his homebuilt Vans RV-4, a great little kitplane, predecessor to the RV-8, my current kitplane obsession.  Yeah, he's not busting a move, but that is some amazing dancing down on the deck.

QotD: But It Tastes Good!

What are your favorite weird food combinations?
Submitted by Dulce.

Well, it's not really all that weird.  It goes back to the Aztecs, kind of.  My wife and I found this great way to make brownies from a box a little more personalized.  We use coffee instead of water and add chipotle spice.  It comes out with a normal chocolate front and a spicy kick at the end.  It is awesome. 

Our not-so-weird variation on that is coffee and Kahlua... some of which even goes into the brownies.