Alphabet Challenge Leg 20 KTSP - KUDD

[Talan2000]

Pilots,

I'm writing this one up, out of sequence, because the "sting" is fresh in my mind. It was an UDD-erly unbelievable flight. Moo. http://peaware.pilotedge.net/flight.cfm?id=87389

So, If you look at that flight track you will likely note that it appears more like a spider web than your typical flight plan...

KUDDerly unbelievable.JPG (68.68 KiB) Viewed 2740 times

Lessons Learned:
Don't Disconnect from PE too soon: Yep, apparently I disconnected a second or two (or three who knows) too soon! I think Keith told me you have to be on the ground for a minute...I landed, exited the runway, turned onto the taxiway and parked. Then shut down. But to my horror the PE Aware track had me ENROUTE. At 89 knots. 1 nm from KUDD...I refreshed and refreshed hoping against hope but no luck. So, resolved to "play by the rules" and thinking of the poor guys who have to divert and re-fly (if that gets set in stone) I said, ok, baby let's do this flight again.

To be different, I took the northerly route this time. I think the southerly one is a little prettier but you do get uncomfortably close to some tall mountains on the airway even at 13.5. If I were in a C172 I'd absolutely fly the northerly route.

VOR-C Practice Approach: I flew BOTH legs of this, er, leg, VFR and Got flight following. On the first flight I flew the VOR-C "practice" approach. Coming into PSP I was quite high as required by the mountains from 13500 to 9500 and I thought it would be fun to spiral down in hold all the way from 13,500 to 2900. Alas a Weather change suddenly popped some severe haze into the valley so I descended down to about 5500 to maintain VFR as instructed and then did the hold. Coming in on the 310R TRM gave me the dealer's choice of Parallel or Teardrop,er Offset (An aside: why did they axe Teardrop as an entry name?) entry. In mourning for the lost teardrop, I decided to do a parallel entry. Fun times, easily dropped to 2900 in the course of a single lap.

KUDD VOR-C.JPG (129.17 KiB) Viewed 2740 times

Visual 10 - On the second flight I wasn't messing around and needed to get in quickly. My copilot was getting fussy for one thing...So I came in high at 13500 then 11500, then cancelled flight following, and enjoyed dropping my gear at 160 KIAS at 11500 and descending, slowing to 140 KIAS and dropping approach flaps, and then down at 120KIAS with approach flaps out. This provides a nice rate of descent and a slow airspeed helpful for getting down in the 10 or so miles you have from PSP to KUDD.

KUDD S.JPG (98.44 KiB) Viewed 2740 times

This was a more interesting approach actually as I descended to 2500 at held there. I would have liked to go a bit further north of the field for a 45 degree downwind entry to 10 Left Traffic. (The gold standard entry but not the ONLY entry). Anyhow, I was constrained by the mountains to the north as well as a bird sanctuary (supposed to be at 2000 AGL above these) - so I kept it at 2500 - figuring this would also keep me at least 1000 above the TPA if there were somebody in the pattern on a wide downwind for 10. I entered Left downwind 10 and landed without incident after creating a nice S pattern. The only thing was I made my initial calls to Bermuda Dunes Traffic stating I was going to set up for a Left downwind on 28. Sigh. I corrected this when I entered the actual Downwind entry. Oh well, one "Aww, @#@" wipes out a 100 (self-awarded) attaboys".

You can be sure that I took my own sweet time disconnecting from PE after this one.

Finally - I must again praise Keith's service. I really enjoy the data that you capture -from the audio tapes to the PE flight tracking it's just superb. some oddities: 1) I've tried to file Flight Plans Before being logged into the PE system - which is supposed to work for up to two hours I believe - but they don't seem to come through - at least not in 5-10 mins so I just log in and then file. A glitch? 2) I refiled a new flight plan for the second leg, including different routing but same DEP and ARR of course, and after at least 10-15 mins had passed after the first flight, but PEAWARE amalgamated the two plans into one flight event -- hence the spiderweb track. I know ATC got the new one as I included some UDDERLY hilarious comments in it (which he noted) but which don't show in the comment field of this consolidated PEAWARE track. Odd. Is this a glitch too?

Hopefully it is another Talan2000 one off.

Todd
N3298S

[Tim Krajcar]

I've tried to file Flight Plans Before being logged into the PE system - which is supposed to work for up to two hours I believe - but they don't seem to come through - at least not in 5-10 mins so I just log in and then file. A glitch?

Usual culprit here is not matching the callsign exactly.

I refiled a new flight plan for the second leg, including different routing but same DEP and ARR of course, and after at least 10-15 mins had passed after the first flight, but PEAWARE amalgamated the two plans into one flight event -- hence the spiderweb track.

This is as intended, the original thought for this feature is for pilots that experience a sim crash, network outage, etc and wish to resume the flight. If the departure, arrival, callsign, pilot ID, and aircraft type are all identical to a non-landed flight, it's considered a resumption of the flight. New FP remarks are not updated.

[flyingdrill]

An easy flight in the Malibu. Just did a straight-in as the wind favored 10. I was going to do the VOR C, but the weather was great, and I was a bit short of RW time, so I opted for the quicker landing!