Task-Saturated Penguin FBO open at Torrey Pines (CA84)

[Keith Smith]

First up, the name. It was either ReeceH or ChrisS who first mentioned task-saturated penguins during a live stream. I think ChrisS was flying and was getting busy, then either he or Reece brought it up.

Second, building this place in a hurry was a challenge. The nearest place with building material was Miramar (KNKX), so that was handy. I didn't have a lot of time, so hauling 12,000KG of building material in a Bell 407 wasn't an option. Instead, I liberated a Beech 1900 from Navy North Island (KNZY), hopped over to Miramar and loaded up. This was somewhat exciting because I don't own a Beech 1900 model for x-plane. I do have a rather lovely B-200, though. So, I loaded the B-1900 to max gross in FSEconomy and off I went.

I had the presence of mind to do a quick weight and balance check with the BE-20, figuring it would be "over gross by a little bit". Well, I was half right....it was "over gross", by around 2500lbs. Well, Torrey Pines is 1500ft long, that should be ample. *cough*

So off we go. The poor bird lumbers off the runway using 2/3 of Miramar's massive runway to get off the ground. Once we're airborne, though, she still climbs like a champ. In minutes I'm lined up with what I can only assume is a taxiway at Torrey Pines....where's the runway?

Oh.

With beta mode and rental braking at the ready, I touch down lovingly on the numbers at Torrey Pines, shove the pedals almost through the drywall in my basement, engage beta and moved the throttles to full with considerable gusto. I came to rest with about 100ft of runway remaining. Now...where to find the plane? Nah, it was fine. I shut down the engines, engaged the parking brake and delivered the first 2500kg of building material to Torrey Pines.

Thankfully, I knew I'd be virtually empty getting out of there and sure enough, the takeoff was no problem as I blasted back over to KNKX. Being a Registered Badass(tm), I figured I'd get the gear down and cut both engines for a dead stick into KNKX to save time on the shutdown. Landed just past the numbers.......and promptly rolled down 50% of the runway since I had no brakes as a result of the hydraulics being toast. I handed in my RB credentials add sulkily accepted admission into the Registered Idiot(tm) club. So now I'm in a pickle, the plane is smack in the middle of the runway. I load up the next haul, fast taxi to the end, turn around and blast back over to Torrey Pines.

Repeat a few more times (without the deadstick), and that's how Task Saturated Penguin was born at Torrey Pines. Come and visit....there's plenty of room!

Kidding aside, doing quick turns like that, landing heavy (like, really heavy) and then landing light made for some great practice. It's the first time in a long time that I've practiced something in the sim that feels a little bit like landing my plane with full tanks at my home airport. Got much love for X-Plane and the handling characteristics!

[Keith Smith]

Now, as a note, Lee Williams is currently shuffling some building material for me from NKX to nearby Blackinton (2CA4). It's 2200ft long, so naturally he's using a fully-loaded Falcon 7X.

I _pray_ that Lee replies to this with some stories of that trip

I was lucky enough to spend about 90 minutes in a Falcon 7X Level D sim at Flight Safety in Teterboro, flew from TEB to JFK, shot an approach to 13L, then took off and did 2 laps of the pattern with 2 engines out. That plane is pretty amazing.

[Keith Smith]

In other news, there will soon be 4 other FBO's in the San Diego area, all pointing jobs at each other. The fields are good for small fixed wing, helicopters, overloaded King Airs, and suitably equipped Falcon 7X's

[Pieces]

Given that an FBO is now named for the analogy, I should probably explain it. Note that this is not my analogy, I heard it at a presentation at the Indianapolis AOPA fly-in. The presenter was talking about unusual attitude training and learning to fly a new aircraft. The presenter made a reference to running out of penguins on your iceburg and everyone looked at him blankly so he explained something like this:

You have an iceburg with a certain amount of room and a certain number of penguins on it. At any given time, your penguins are devoted to various tasks. When flying, those tasks are things like flying the plane, navigating, dealing with your passengers, talking with ATC. While learning to fly, nearly all your penguins are dedicated to flying the plane. You can't think about anything else because you're just trying to master to basics. As you become more familiar with the plane, fewer penguins are required to actually fly and more can be dedicated to other tasks.

When an unexpected or new situation happens, you have to suddenly dedicate a bunch of your penguins to solving the situation. You can only add so many penguins before they start falling off the iceburg, and you start dropping other tasks (like maybe flying the plane). The whole point of the analogy was that through training you can minimize the number of penguins needed to actually fly the plane, communicate, navigate, or whatever so the maximum number of penguins are available for anything else that may come up.

There you have it, task saturated penguins.

[Marcus Becker]

Let me in on your ICAO codes and I'll add it to my lonely Fallbrook (L18) FBO job list.

[Peter Grey]

I"m also working on establishing an eastern CA FBO network. Right now the only one is at P20 (Golden Eagle Aviation). It will create jobs only to airports covered by PE.

We just got out first fuel shipment so you can even fill up there.

[Keith Smith]

Let me in on your ICAO codes and I'll add it to my lonely Fallbrook (L18) FBO job list.

As soon as they're operational, I would love to bring you into the fold

[Keith Smith]

2CA4 is up as well. I'll get the rest up and running during the week and will announce them all at once

[Keith Smith]

Marcus, CA84, 25CA and 2CA4 are all running and are pointing at you (and each other). Feel free to point to those! I have 2 more to go.

[Marcus Becker]

Done! Thanks.