Ironflight

Ironflight

VAF Moderator / Line Boy
Mentor
Seventy-two degrees, no wind, scattered cumulous at 4500??.and nothing on my calendar between 11:00 and 13:30! ?I?m going flying? I told my secretary on the way out the door, ?I?ll be back at One!? As I have said before, it?s good to work for an aviation-oriented organization?.and to be the Flight Safety Officer! Currency, you understand?

This was the kind of long lunch that just called out for some acro among the scattered cumulous, so I zipped over to my favorite haunt on the other side of Galveston Bay and got a block clearance from 4,000 to 8,000. With the puffies sitting between 4.5 and 6.5, that allowed me to do some strafing runs at the tops, and loops around the bottoms. I?ll never qualify for a low-altitude aerobatics waiver (and don?t think I?d want one), but I can get the same effect without the danger of hitting something solid by playing with the clouds?

There is something so liberating about a lunch hour spent like this. No regimentation ? just drive to the airport, open the hangar, and go?.it takes me 6 minutes to start up and taxi to the far departure end of our runway, then just 3 minutes to climb to 5,000?. How can it get any better than that? Even the guys that fly the jets around here are envious of the freedom I have with the Valkyrie!

Maybe we need to add another phrase to Van?s slogan book?.how about ?Total Enjoyment!? :D

Paul
 
The times they are a changing

Noontime Delight---------------I seem to remember a bit different definition.

Mike
 
Yeah, I think "Total Enjoyment" is the term. Like Paul, I couldn't pass up a beautiful flying day for staying inside at work, so I made an excuse and left work for the day at noon.
Drove straight to the hangar, changed clothes, fuel up, and then off to Waycross (100 miles). Being warm and midday, the air was bumpy until 7500 then it was smooth and cool. Land at Waycross and show off Catalina to the locals, then off to lunch with Cleve and Clyde (9A builders).
An interesting benefit to RV ownership is - if you fly in to visit another RVer, you never have to pay for lunch! Thanks guys - and how 'bout our waitress ;)
We then checked out the progress on their 9A, and soon after that I was in the air surfin the XM sound waves and enjoying the ride.
I was back at the hangar by 1630 so I could pick up my daughter at school and now here I sit at home wishing I was back at the hangar cleaning the bugs off my baby! Well, there is always tomorrow.
 
Question, Paul.

Hi Paul,
Did you request the block clearance over the phone or after airborne?

Thanks,
Pierre
 
pierre smith said:
Hi Paul,
Did you request the block clearance over the phone or after airborne?
Click to expand...

Airborne - too hard to know in advance if that's what I am goign to want to do, or what their traffic might be like.
 
Must Fly

Paul is a man after my own heart. Flying when the mood sets in. Someday. We just can't get these built fast enough now can we?
Someday.


Pat Garboden
Ozark, MO
 
I hadn't though of this

So A block clearance, so you did this under IFR correct?

If so then I guess playing close to clouds is actually legal...What a novel idea!

Well its novel to me cus I've never done it.

Frank...7a IFR checkride Thursday....!
 
frankh said:
So A block clearance, so you did this under IFR correct?
If so then I guess playing close to clouds is actually legal...What a novel idea!
Click to expand...

Yes, this makes it legal. It's kind of like having your own little temporary MOA - which doesn't ASSURE that there is no other traffic, but the odds are very good that ATC will warn you of any traffic (squawking or skin tracks) in the area.
 
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