Anybody else flying?

[Ron Spiker]

Are any of you flying very much? We'd like to hear about some of your trips and experiences.

I flew 6.3 hours this weekend. Landed at 11 different airports and passed by many others. We finally have some decent weather up here in Pennsylvania. I'm up to 49.5 hours in the last 3 months.

[Ron Spiker]

Great day flying today. Was out for about 3 hours. Visibility was up around 50 miles. A little windy but crisp and nice
puffy clouds around. I wanted to see how high they were so my son and I flew up to the base of the clouds. 6,400' MSL.
This first picture is when we're just about to the base.


Now this one we're part way back down, but it was still a pretty shot.


This was a few evenings ago. Absolutely georgous sunset. Probably the prettiest that I've seen while flying. The pictures
don't really do it justice, but they give you an idea of what it was like.


All the valleys had filled in with fog, and whisps of clouds were floating around. Pretty cool flight.

[Steve Chenoweth]

Ron,

Great pictures! Weather here in North Texas has been hazy, so not the greatest picture taking conditions. As the fall weather moves in, should have some clear blue skys.

I have started taking more little cross countries, but can't hold a candle to your excursions! My longest one-day tirp so far is about 4 hours, with 2 fuel stops. I like to fly around the local lakes, but need to watch out for the big water birds (egrets, blue heron), so I don't typically fly that low near water.

My favorite trip so far was a flight along the Trinity River into downtown Dallas where I landed at the Central Business District Heliport on top of the convention center. This required clearance into Class B airspace and a handoff to the Love Field control tower. The problem was that when I wanted to take off again from the Heliport, I could not reach the tower on the radio because of all the downtown buildings, so I had to call clearance delivery on my cell phone. Even after taking off, I still had trouble communicating with the tower, so I probably won't do this again too soon.

My son and I had planned a trip to the Ballpark where the Texas Rangers play. We were going to land at the heliport next to the ballpark (must land 1 hour before start and cannot take off until 1 hour after game finishes per FARs). Weather did not cooperate, so we will try this again in the spring.

Steve

[Ron Spiker]

The building and ballpark heliports sounds interesting, and fun! I haven't done any of them, yet.

[RDRickster]

Great pictures, indeed! Flylow, if I go to the heliport in Philadelphia in the future, I'll try to give you advance notice. Steve, the ballpark excursion would be cool. My son is only 3, but I intend to get him actively involved in aviation as soon as I can. I think I need to wait until he is at least 5 years old. (He hasn't been up with me, yet).

[Ron Spiker]

RD,

I'm north of Pittsburgh, not Philly... other side of the state.

Your son's not too young (IMHO). My sons are 10, 8, and 6. They've each been flying with me for 3.5 years. One of them goes with me on almost every flight, unless there's another passenger. The previous helicopter had a PTT intercom, so I'd just have to ask them yes/no questions so they could nod their heads during the flight. At less than 5 or so they couldn't reach the cyclic to push the button. Then when they could reach it, they knew to just use 1 finger and push the button and not to grab the stick! Now I have a voice activated intercom, so they can chat anytime that I'm not talking/listening on the radio.

[Ron Spiker]

I added about 40 more pictures of the Pennsylvania area and some local helicopters to my web site. Got another 5 hours in this weekend and 7 new airports. I had a goal of flying in to 50 different airports this year. Today I passed it and am at 54. I'm up to about 83 hours on the Brantly, with 70+ of that in the last 4 1/2 months. See the latest pictures here.