F

Flyrod

Well Known Member
Another business trip with the RV8 brings home once again what great cross country machines these planes make. As some of my fellow workers complained about their all day commercial flight line ups, I just had to smile.:rolleyes:

http://picasaweb.google.com/Flyrod01/MobileALTrip#

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Very nice panel....I have panel envy now.

You leave me no choice but to out-panel you! :D
 
Airguy,

When you finish your plane, it will most likely be very easy to do and for a lot less money! Avionics will follow the path of computers with newer and greater stuff coming out each year. The high margin guys like Chelton and maybe even Garmin may leave the market as leaner more nimble guys like Aspen, Dynon, MGL polish their offerings and grab large market share.
 
Nice trip!

Looks like you were contending with the same front I was last week - had to go to the Cape for a meeting, and had planned to take the Valkyrie, but Monday dawned with that front to the east of Houston, and icing forecast from the surface to FL200 most of the way to Orlando. We took the Southwest Blue/Orange option, and sure enough, it was a bit ugly in Florida when we got there. It was really nice when we took the early flight back on Wednesday, but there are days when it just doesn't pay to launch a single into IFR when you have to be some place....

Paul
 
Business Travel

Business travel requires a different set of preparations than pleasure flight. When I lived in Laguna Hills, California I flew to work every day from the Orange County (SNA) airport to El Monte for work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for 15 years. I also flew to Fox Field in Lancaster, CA for work at the Philips Lab on Edwards Air Force Base on the MSTI Project, Santa Barbara, CA for work at AEC Able on the 60 meter mast for the SRTM Project and San Jose, CA for the work at Stanford University on the CHeX Project.

All of the flights were time sensitive and many "Go to Work" flights require takeoff before the airport towers are open so no local weather information is available. You have to have some fly or no-fly and VFR or IFR minimums established based on specific airport weather forcasts or weather at other locations that bracket your intended destination.

You have to make real time decisions based on what you see during instrument approaches to go around when the the missed approach points and minimum descent altitudes are reached. If a missed approach is executed you have to evaluate what you just experienced and make a quick and realistic descision about whether another approach should be attempted based on how you flew and the changing weather. Once you have proceeded this far the preasure is great to try again but there are some days you know right away the situation is hopeless and you need to proceed to the alternate.

You have to have reliable air and ground transportation with a backup if anything fails. If there are many flights over a long period of time both the ground and air transportation systems will fail. You have to think these out ahead of time as much as possible and have plans for dealing with them.

Some organizations prohibit the use of a private plane for transportation on organization business. JPL is one of those organizations. I pursued a waiver through the legal organization but it was denied. I decided to fly anyway and in such a situation you have to recognize the financial security and disciplinary risks to you and your family. To me it was worth the risk but the risk is very real and each person has to evaluate that.

When you go into this operational mode there is a transition into a different realm of flight. For me, it was one of the most satisfying aspects of my working life.

Bob Axsom
 
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Good thoughts, Bob. Any idea about you "mission completion reliability" over time? How often did you weather out?
 
That's an interesting question

I could go through my log books and work notebooks and nail it down exactly. I never made a bad call on the long flights if it looked like the weather was going to be marginal I would drive or fly commercial. I made several multiple approach safe arrivals to EMT using the VOR-A approach but less than a handful of return to SNA after being unable to get into EMT. Most approaches were completed in routine fashion. Most flights were VFR but on three of those I got trapped and those were safely terminated with some very scary and/or illegal flight. I submitted one NASA form to avoid FAA action. I had one vacuum pump failure and two total electrical failures. Landed at SNA twice with light gun signals. Two brake failures as I recall but the plane had nosegear steering. The were a few Attitude Indicator failures and a few Directional Gyro failures. There were some comm radio (BX2000) failures overcome with a STS AV7600 handheld, some glideslope receiver failures and transponder failures.

Bob Axsom
 
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question about Cheltons

First off, my congratulations on a beautiful panel. I too have Cheltons and I am having a very annoying problem. It seems that when ever I am in a turn or change of altitude I get either an airdata or attitude warning. I would say that about every 5th warning my PFD goes blank and I get a red "X". I did send back the GADAHARS and it tested fine. Unfortunately Chelton has not been very helpful. I would appreciate any ideas that you may have. Regards,
 
Great Shots

I love your pictures. I can put myself in your cockpit during a flight like that above the clouds just surfing along with a big smile on your face.

What a blast and what a great panel.
Thanks.
 
A strange one.....

bweiss said:
First off, my congratulations on a beautiful panel. I too have Cheltons and I am having a very annoying problem. It seems that when ever I am in a turn or change of altitude I get either an airdata or attitude warning. I would say that about every 5th warning my PFD goes blank and I get a red "X". I did send back the GADAHARS and it tested fine. Unfortunately Chelton has not been very helpful. I would appreciate any ideas that you may have. Regards,
Click to expand...


Bweiss,

Sorry to hear you are having problems. If the AHARS is indeed good, then I would suspect a wiring problem. I would make sure you sign up at CheltonEFISUser.com as there is a large Chelton knowledge base there. I have not read of anybody having this type problem on the site which makes me believe your problem is installation specific or a unique hardware failure. You will find help there that could get you on the right track in the trouble shooting process. There are two or three Chelton gurus that monitor the site.
 
A strange one.....

bweiss said:
First off, my congratulations on a beautiful panel. I too have Cheltons and I am having a very annoying problem. It seems that when ever I am in a turn or change of altitude I get either an airdata or attitude warning. I would say that about every 5th warning my PFD goes blank and I get a red "X". I did send back the GADAHARS and it tested fine. Unfortunately Chelton has not been very helpful. I would appreciate any ideas that you may have. Regards,
Click to expand...


Bweiss,

Sorry to hear you are having problems. If the AHARS is indeed good, then I would suspect a wiring problem. I would make sure you sign up at CheltonEFISUser.com as there is a large Chelton knowledge base there. I have not read of anybody having this type problem on the site which makes me believe your problem is installation specific or a unique hardware failure. You will find help there that could get you on the right track in the trouble shooting process. There are two or three Chelton gurus that monitor the site.
 
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