Duluth convention trip stats

[Brad Brady]

Bruce,
Of course my last post was tongue in cheek....I wouldn't expect you to change course just to stop by. I talked to Paul yesterday and your right he uses both....He says that he gets his metars and tafs from weather underground. I then asked "is the SDS still active?".....He's young enough he didn't quite know what I was talking about. He then gets airport info from AOPA. He thinks the I-phone updates faster than the 496 for radar.....Go figure!!....Brad

[170C]

There are several reasons not to fly my plane on business trips. #1, the company states flying in a non scheduled airplane (ie: commercial carriers) is forbidden---grounds for termination. Of course it OK for our home office officers to fly the corporate jet (go figure). #2, Its cheaper to fly commercial airlines than to fly my plane. # 3, I don't want to wear out my plane (or personal vehicle) for the benefit of my employer.

[Bruce Fenstermacher]

All I know Brad is next time I'm out your way you better be ready,

Radar sweeps are available every 5 minutes or so(from my DTN account). The 496 picks them up about every 12 minutes or about every other that might be available. This is through XM weather and is the only service available for the 496.

The IPhone is probably not using XM weather but some other service that is probably suppling the most up to date radar picture and maybe twice as many of them.

In addition I wouldn't doubt the IPhone being newer technology is probably 100 times faster. Think how old the 496 is and you will realize how slow it probably is. The IPhone is only yesterdays technology the 496 is what 6 years old.

[jrenwick]

....Radar sweeps are available every 5 minutes or so(from my DTN account). The 496 picks them up about every 12 minutes or about every other that might be available. This is through XM weather and is the only service available for the 496....

According to the XM web site (http://www.xmwxweather.com/xmwx-data/da ... ion-nexrad) the NEXRAD image updates every 5 minutes. I think I've observed this on my 496. Of course, if you miss an update, then it's ten minutes or longer.

NEXRAD users should always bear in mind that it takes about ten minutes worth of sweeps to build the NEXRAD image, so what you're looking at could be fifteen minutes old. It's very unwise to use the picture on a 496 to try to skirt close to a rapidly developing or fast-moving cell, or squeeze between two of them. The only thing you can be sure of is that they're not exactly where the 496 says they are, and the intensities are only approximate.

[Bruce Fenstermacher]

John I've noticed over a long period of use that I only get every other one or about every twelve minutes and so that is what I thought it was and what I expect.

There are lots of gotchas about using XM onboard weather. You mentioned the radar and I can attest as an EMS pilot skirting close to the weather or in it. It is never what or where you expect. Yes in my job I sometimes have to choose between the lighter green and the darker green hoping to avoid the yellows and of course the red. It is better than no weather which is how we run half the time.

Another is the METARS don't always update. You have to know what time it is were you are, in zulu no less, and make sure your looking at a recent METAR. Oh and when your crossing time zones don't forget that. Coming home from Duluth as I approached the back of a front with rain I had two METARS critical to my flight path that didn't update for one and a half hours and then when they did the METAR was an hour old. Totaly useless.

[Brad Brady]

All I know Brad is next time I'm out your way you better be ready,

Bruce,
You and any of our 170 friends are always welcome out here at Aero Acres.....(Caution don't let small children out of the aircraft).....Macky may lick them to death)....Brad

[jrenwick]

....Another is the METARS don't always update. You have to know what time it is were you are, in zulu no less, and make sure your looking at a recent METAR. Oh and when your crossing time zones don't forget that. Coming home from Duluth as I approached the back of a front with rain I had two METARS critical to my flight path that didn't update for one and a half hours and then when they did the METAR was an hour old. Totaly useless.

When I was trying to get to Duluth on Monday when it was fogged in -- but forecast to be VFR at the time I took off -- I was also looking at a METAR that was 1/2-hour old or more. Still, that's better than having to ask Flight Watch for it. But thank goodness for a slow airplane, because 1/2 hour out of Duluth I could hear its ATIS. I determined that the wx hadn't improved as forecast, while I still had time to backtrack and use alternative transportation.

We're fortunate in the US, in that we have a wealth of resources to call upon in the air. Other countries, not so much sometimes.

John

[GAHorn]

There are several reasons not to fly my plane on business trips. #1, the company states flying in a non scheduled airplane (ie: commercial carriers) is forbidden---grounds for termination. Of course it OK for our home office officers to fly the corporate jet (go figure). #2, Its cheaper to fly commercial airlines than to fly my plane. # 3, I don't want to wear out my plane (or personal vehicle) for the benefit of my employer.

1- Being in the "insurance business", I'm sure you understand the company's reluctance to allow an employee to utilize a personal airplane on company business.... But to help others understand,... many corporations have the same policy because there have been cases where a private plane has caused public deaths and the liability in court transferred to the company because the purpose of the flight was company-business. (The lawyers went for the deep pockets.)

Corporate jets (and non-jets) are considered a different/lower-risk because the crews are professional crews and are trained to the same or similar standards as airline crews and the airplane is maintained to similar standards....and the company has direct, operational control of the resource.

2- We all knew you were cheap.

3- Yep. Completely understandable. Of course, you realize you suffer higher personal-risk out there with all the hi-way-knuts on the road. I wonder if the company realized that, and the fact that you incurred higher overnight expenses which would have off-set the higher costs of a small plane. (Even the state of TX understood personal airplane-use. They'd refund a state-employee 55-cents a mile for airplane use, based upon automobile distances. They'd pay 85-cents for a twin. They would not pay for "travel-time" in a personal aircraft, however. The presumption was that since a personal airplane was used, the travel was personal, even tho' the expense was incurred for official business. So a trip to ELP would pretty-well cover the airplane costs, but the employee would not gain the benefit of the extra-day's pay (or compensated time) for the overnight he'd get if he travelled by car. Result?: State employees would travel by airline ....the day BEFORE....AND stay twp overnights in a hotel, travelling back home on the third day. Taxpayers pick up the tab.)

Another example of how General Aviation can benefit the public without their ever-knowing it. We should help Harrison Ford get the word out.

Bruce,
You and any of our 170 friends are always welcome out here at Aero Acres.....(Caution don't let small children out of the aircraft).....Macky may lick them to death)....Brad

How 'bout a picture of "Macky"?

[Brad Brady]

George,
Makinsy is camera shy....Actualy I have tried several things all day long to load a pic. of her.....From the original, to a copy on desktop....Can't get any thing to come through.......Brad

[Brad Brady]

Another try....woo-hooo...It worked..Really Mac is camera shy.....Had I walked out of the shop with a shotgun in my hand she would have run up to me ....dancing around like saying "are we going hunting?...can I flush? retrieve? can I do both? Huh....Huh...Huh" But I walked out with a camera.....she put her tail between her legs and started to walk the other way...But I know her weakness......I hollered "Mac where is your toy" (rope bone)....She stopped....her eyes glassed over and she ran around the shop......Well she had apparently misplaced her toy....so she showed up with the next best thing Any thing that fits in her mouth, and I can through is good for a toy.....Brad

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[170C]

Neat photo Brad. Sounds like you have a soulmate there.

[GAHorn]

I KNEW it! Black Lab! Best dog God ever made!

(Is your camera a digital? Does it perhaps make an ultrasonic noise when it "ranges" for focus? I'll bet Macky hears that and doesn't like it. My Roulette! does not care for the camera either.)

I love all dogs, but Labs are my personal favorite. I think I'll start a thread just about dog pics.

[Brad Brady]

George,
I agree, Labs are the best dogs God put on the face of the Earth....But she isn't a pure Lab.....She's a sooner Hound (sooner crap on the carpet than go outside)....She's not the sharpest tool in the shed, but every day she gets a little smarter.....At least she knows to sit at the edge of the shed, and Waite for the prop to stop before she attacks an aircraft, looking for a goood pet. She isn't a curled tail mutt, but she is a mutt just the same. She is about half size of a real Lab. This is the second Lab mix I have had.....and I love them.....Brad

[flyguy]

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I KNEW it! Black Lab! Best dog God ever made! I love all dogs, but Labs are my personal favorite. I think I'll start a thread just about dog pics.

The next time you are here Bandit will have something to say to you! ! ! Her "wolf" part will surface and she might chew your short pants off . .! !

[GAHorn]

...The next time you are here Bandit will have something to say to you! ! ! Her "wolf" part will surface and she might chew your short pants off . .! !

I noticed that the last time I spent the night at your house....Bandit chose to sleep with ME!