Aviator90 Episode 40

Speaker: [0:31] Welcome to another episode of Aviator 90 from Angle of
Attack. So, I’m afraid to say but this is the end of the road for
the cross-country flights. On this episode we will be doing our
final cross-country flight, our tenth cross-country flight.
[0:51] This one is pretty special for me because it goes back to
what we’ve been talking about as being aviators. I think you guys
will really enjoy this episode. There is nothing really too complex
about it, and I can explain everything once we jump in the cockpit
here. So, let’s just get to it and get up in the air.

[1:08] Today we are starting out in an airport called Whiskey Alpha
1-2, Whiskey Alpha 12, and it’s just a little grass strip in
northern Washington. And we will be going to Darrington which is
one sierra two. We’ve been there before. So you guys will recognize
it once we get there. It’s some nice little add-on scenery from
Orbitz. So today we’re just going to wind our way through a canyon
down to Darrington, as you can see here on the map. It’s pretty
simple, and that’s what we’ll be doing. Nothing to it, really.

[1:41] So, let’s get to the switches here and then we will start up
the aircraft. So, I’m going to turn on the lights here on the left.
That’ll turn on some lights since it’s dawn out here. Let’s see.
Let’s do the alternator and battery as always, and the nav light’s
already on for some reason. We’ll turn the beacon on, so both of
those are now on.

[2:03] We’ll turn the mag needles to both. Then, we’ll go over here
and check the power mixture. We just want to crack the power again
and then full mixture because we’re basically at sea level, and
that should do that. So, everything’s set there. And now we can
start the aircraft. So, here we go.

[2:40] Actually, let me do the primer first. I almost forgot about
that. It’s one of those moments where I forgot something. So, here
we go, good start, cool. Now, I will turn the avionics on, and then
we will set the common traffic advisory but actually are not going
to use this today. And I will explain why in a few minutes here.

[3:14] So, I’ll set this to 122.8, and that does it for the radio
setup. We don’t have any navigational aids today, no VORs. I’ll
just put the transponder to standby, and we actually will be doing
the run-up here. So, I just the engine up to 1700 RPM. Then, what
we’ll do is we’ll check the mag needles. I like it better from this
view because then I don’t have to witch back and forth. So, left
you see a drop in the RPM. Back to both you see a rise again. Do
the right one and you see a drop, a slight drop and then back to
both.

[3:58] Now, we’ll cycle the prop. Make sure that’s all good to go,
the same stuff you’ve been learning all along. So, nothing too new.
It should be becoming a habit by now which is always good. Then,
let’s see. I have the engine revved up. I’m checking the
instruments. Everything looks good there. We’ve got our fuel as
well. We’ll pull that power up, and that pretty much does it.

[4:34] So, let’s turn on the landing light and taxi light and let’s
see. We will start to taxi out here on the runway, and we’re going
to be taking off south. So, because we’re headed basically east
right now, as you can see on the heading indicator, we need to turn
left so that we can go down the rest of the runway.

[4:59] Today’s episode is different. Today you’re going to do the
true aviator thing. You are going to basically just enjoy this
flight, enjoy the scenery and have fun flying around. So, I think
it will be a lot of fun, and you’ll see how we kind of perform
that. Just feel the controls. I don’t even want you guys to look at
the air speed indicator or anything. You’ll just end up looking
right at the dash basically the whole flight and just enjoy it.

[5:36] Dawn flights or sunrise flights are some of the most
beautiful times to fly. Just enjoy it. Let’s do some high power
point turn here, and just get all lined up on this little grass
strip. All righty. So, here we go. Let’s make sure everything’s set
one last time, quick panic check. And here we go, full power and
we’re rolling. Flap forward pressure to get that tail wheel off.
Once you’re ready, just pull up. This is all by feel guys, 100
percent by feel.

[6:37] I just want you guys to kind of get a feel for what the
aircraft is like without relying on the instruments. I know that
sounds silly, but the Wright Brothers didn’t have instruments. They
just did it all by feel. I’m not saying that those aircraft are
particularly advanced or anything, but there’s certainly something
to learn by just feeling the aircraft and getting a feel for when
it’s time to take off or when it’s a safe approach speed.

[7:14] Then, what we’ll do is and I’ve already done it. I’ve
reduced the power in the RPM to 2500 and brought the power below
the red line, and that will allow the engine to get within a safe
operating range right after takeoff. Then I just set the heading
bug because we’re going to be heading this direction to where we
intersect the valley that kind of wraps around back down into
Darrington.

[7:39] So, we’re initially going to climb to 3, 500 but after that
we aren’t going to worry about it. We are just going to kind of
puddle along and enjoy the scenery. We’ll do that in a minute here.
I’ll turn the landing light off since our takeoff departure is
done, and we’ll just continue to climb. We’ve got great performance
this morning. It’s pretty much as easy as that.

[8:11] Seattle is just down here to the right, through that valley
and then over to the left is kind of where we’re going toward the
sunrise. So, passing through 3, 000 now. We’re almost there, almost
there.Then, we are going to level off at 3, 500 and I will let the
aircraft accelerate and I will also trim the aircraft, as always.
Same old stuff.

[8:58] It should be a habit by now to get up to your altitude, know
when it’s coming, and then pull out the power a little bit and get
to that cruise phase of the flight. You should be getting pretty
comfortable with that procedure by now.

[9:29] So, we will get all set up. I’m just continually the
adjusting. The aircraft is also pulling to the right a little bit
for me, so I’m having to counteract that.

[9:51] All right. So, here we are in this view. I like to have this
view so I can taxi and so I can look side to side when checking
final view like that.

[10:07] Now, on this flight I’m going to stay in this view. I’m not
going to look at the altimeter, I’m not going to look at the air
speed, I’m not going to look at anything else. I may glance at the
flaps or something at some point, but for the most part, I am going
to stay up here. I’m right at the power setting I need to be at.

[10:34] And, I am just going to enjoy the scenery this morning. I
am going to just look around and enjoy actually flying and being
connected with what’s going on outside rather than being so
concerned about what’s going on inside.

[10:48] So, today we aren’t worrying about anything else. We’re
just enjoying the fact that we’re flying. I think that is very
important for becoming an aviator and just enjoying the sheer
beauty of flight every now and again. I think sometimes we get way
to caught up in doing all the procedures correctly and doing the
perfect air speed and doing the perfect landing and we lose focus
on the fact that this is just totally awesome. It’s something that
we definitely are all passionate about.

[11:33] I feel safe saying that because you’re actually here
watching this and you’ve made it this far for me to say this. So,
we are all passionate about this flying and we can just look around
and enjoy it. And, I think this is very important for the aviator’s
sole every once in a while, the aviator’s spirit to just get up and
enjoy that fact that we’re flying around.

[12:01] And, if you really want to get into it, you can put the
simulator on mute and play some classical music or something, if
you’d like. That might be going a bit too far, but, you know, this
truly is really cool. It’s cool what we get to do. It’s cool that
we have even the freedom and the blessings in order to do something
as cool as flight simulator because not a lot of people even get to
dream about doing stuff like this. It’s just not within their
reach.

[12:35] So, I guess what I’m saying is just have fun with what’s
here, enjoy it for what it is, enjoy the beauty of this little
sunrise flight.

[12:49] So, I guess that’s all I’ll say about that.Now, we can just
kind of go around and look at stuff on the way, and that’s pretty
much it. These types of flights for me seem to go much faster than
the ones where I’m dialing in VORs and tracking navigation and
checking frequencies and making radio calls.

[13:21] Although sometimes that busy stuff makes the flights go by
fast, I find that I get much more enveloped than just the feel of
everything if I’m doing something like this, and in flight
simulator we have the luxury of doing that. This is obviously
something I wouldn’t do in real life just because I have to be on
my toes and make sure the people flying around are safe. So, that’s
a completely different story, but even then there are times in real
life where these moments are just incredible.

[13:54] You feel the crisp morning air. You take off in the dark,
and halfway through the flight the sun starts to peak over the
mountains. It’s just an incredible feeling, and it’s those moments
that I feel truly blessed for what I’ve got to do, not only with
actually flying but also the wonderful and great opportunity with
Angle of Attack. It’s truly something that I take a lot of pride in
and something that I truly love doing.

[14:26] The most important part for me isn’t doing videos like
this. The most important part for me, the thing I enjoy the most,
is my interaction with you guys on, like, the comments, even
emails. Just any chance I get I like to make sure you guys know
that I truly do care, and even if there are other people in our
company that come in contact with you, that’s going to be something
that you’ll always notice about Angle of Attack.

[14:58] It’s that we truly pride ourselves on having awesome
customers. There’s a relationship there. Not everybody likes to
play nice. In the flight simulator you’ve seen that before, and we
don’t necessarily have time for those people. But I feel like we
have a lot of positive energy around what we do, but that’s just
because, I believe, that’s who we are. Our fans like you attach
that, and we have a great time doing it, don’t we?

[15:33] This Aviator 90 series has been a lot of fun. We aren’t
quite done. We have five more episodes after this, but this does it
for the cross-country flights which was my favorite part. Although
I haven’t finished the rest, I can’t imagine it would be better
than this part. This is what I looked forward to, showing you guys
what it’s like to fly from point A to point B and truly aviating,
using different navigation types, different aircraft and just
getting in. And going and having fun and enjoying the scenery.

[16:09] I believe that’s what flying is all about. It’s been a joy
to teach you guys this type of flying because I think a lot of
people get stuck. I mentioned it before, things like traffic
patterns and doing the perfect stall recoveries and the perfect
landings and the perfect flairs and all that stuff. That stuff will
come naturally, but this type of decision making in situation
awareness and aviating really makes a true aviator.

[16:46] It’s not all the little details. It’s the stuff that keeps
you safe and allows you to channel that passion, that energy feel
for the miracle of flight into something you do very well because
you love it. And I think that’s a very powerful message that a lot
of us can take, not only in our flight simulator stuff that we do,
but also in what we do in our real aviating.

[17:24] From what I’ve notice over the years,there’s areas within
flight simulator…just looking down at that lake, it’s pretty cool
down there. Just really quick, that airport down there is called
Concrete Municipal. You may see that on the map, kind of cool.

[17:46] All right. I was saying that I’ve seen over the years that
there’s often a lot of bickering and fighting and ranting going on
within the flight simulation community. Even behind the scenes,
there’s several developers that just don’t get along with anybody,
and we can all do our part to change that. I’m not saying that is
how the majority of this community is. I’m certainly not saying
that. I think for the most part everyone is good people.

[18:21] I’ve had an extremely good experience with Angle of Attack.
I have upset customers at times, but I’ve done my best to help them
out and be real and admit my mistakes and move on. But at the same
time the moral of what I’m saying is that I think we can all be
better to each other and share in our passion rather than share in
our critiques and our mistakes and things like that.

[18:57] For the most part, we have an awesome community. Even if it
didn’t change at all, it’ll still be a lot of fun, and there are
plenty of awesome people out there. You can just see it in the
comments on these blog posts, these Aviator 90 blog posts. There’s
a lot of other aviators out there, just like you, that just love
this stuff. So treat them well and have fun and be good to each
other. I think that’s a very simple lesson that sometimes we forget
in our day to day hustle and bustle.

[19:35] Now, we are just kind of wrapping down along this river.
This is an absolutely beautiful area in Pacific Northwest, and it’s
cool to see that sun peek over the mountain peaks there. It’s quite
incredible. It’s not every day you get to see that in-flight
simulator, even though you can technically load it up to look like
that. Just, I don’t know, there’s something about that moment, I
guess, that’s probably getting even better.

[20:18] We are coming along here. It’s been a fun ride, guys. I’ve
really enjoyed this Aviator 90 series. I feel like we’ve touched on
a lot of great, great points about what it takes to be an aviator.
And you guys definitely have a grasp on your future in flight
simulation and being an aviator even in the real world. And
possibly getting in touch with that means for you and how you’d
like to take your training in the future and what you’d like to do
with that aspect.

[20:56] We certainly have more in store for you guys. Aviator 90
definitely isn’t the end. In fact, I believe it’s just a start
because with Aviator 90 we started kind of a new era at Angle of
Attack.

[21:10] Wow, look at that view, the winding rivers and that
sunrise, totally incredible.

[21:18] Aviator 90 is just the start. We plan on moving on next to
Aviator Pro where we are really going to drill down to some
advanced stuff that you guys can learn. It’s going to take a lot of
study on your part, but I guarantee that I’ll make it fun. And I
will make it easy to understand because as you’ve seen throughout
the series, that is the kind of pilot I am.

[21:44] I don’t like complex explanations of everything, and things
just get overly complicated sometimes. So, I like to keep things
simple. So even the more advanced aspects, I’m sure that we can all
learn from each other and learn those things in a way that fits
kind of the way we learn.

[22:10] I plan on doing more stuff, like interactive type flying
where, say, on this flight if I gave you an installer where you
could install the flight and basically start up at the same time,
same place I did with the same aircraft type of thing. And then,
you guys can follow along with what I do. That would make it
extremely useful and just give you more depth to what we do here
because for me I really enjoy video training even with the computer
programs and stuff that I have to learn for editing videos and
things like that.

[22:48] In flight training they were the best for me. I wasn’t that
great at reading books and manuals. I got through it because I had
to, but at the same time I learned really well through video. So
video is a great way to do that. We already do that, but I think
there’s a higher level we can get to with our training we do here
at Angle of Attack.

[23:14] So Aviator Pro is next. Get excited about that, and you can
go to the Aviator Pro page and basically put your email in there
and you’ll be on a list that I will send out to you guys once it’s
all ready and what the details of that training will be.

[23:34] All right. So, the weather, it’s kind of loading here. You
can see the sky is twitching a bit. I have a feeling it’s going to
be like the last episode where the clouds suddenly appeared. I’m
going to be ready to handle that, so let’s see what happens here.

[23:53] Darrington is just straight ahead. It’s just on the right
side of the river down there. You can see that’s right where the
town of Darrington starts, right by that ridge. So, we are not far
away. In just a few minutes here we will be there. So, the
weather’s still loading. All right. Rain out of nowhere,
interesting. That is quite scary, actually. All right. So, there’s
the clouds. Huh.

[24:27] So I see the ground. I’m going to pull power and just dive
this thing. Now, you don’t want to dive it beyond red line. This
thing can get down pretty quick without power, so let’s get it
below that cloud layer and just follow this river into Darrington.
And, again, we’re doing this all by feel. I don’t want you guys to
look at the instruments or anything, just have a feel for what the
aircraft can and can’t do.

[24:56] Often, you can hear what the air is like outside the
aircraft, and that’s one sensation you don’t get very well within
the flight simulator. But as an aircraft goes faster, the air
rushes past the aircraft faster and, therefore, you get the higher
noise. So, try and lift the carb heat here. I don’t see it there
unless I’m just blind. I don’t see it down there. That’s the
parking brake. I don’t need that. All right.

[25:36] We find we’re higher power now so that should be OK. So, we
will just plug along. As I was saying, as you go fast the air
rushes past the aircraft faster. You can hear that, and often you
can get a feel for basically what the air sounds like at a certain
air speed, and that is a sensation that you-or not a sensation but
more of a sense you get as you fly a particular aircraft more and
more.

[26:12] Another one is smell, in fact, with flying. Often, if you,
say, forget to pull back your power in a flight and the engine is
operating at a higher temperature than it’s usually used to, you
start to smell something really hot. It’s generally the fire wall
which is between the engine and the cabin.

[26:41] Basically, that area starts heating up quite a bit and you
smell something It’s not someone in the back that decided to pass
gas, definitely not that, which can also be a near air disaster
when you’re clamoring for the air vent. It’s almost not necessarily
a burning smell, but it just smells hot. It’s kind of interesting.
So, that’s another sense.

[27:10] And then, there’s the kinetic sense. You get to what your
inner ear does for you where you feel like you’re turning or you
feel like you’re climbing or descending. That is something as an
instrument pilot you actually do not trust, but as a visual pilot
you can trust it a little bit. You can feel that seat of the pants
kind of push with the Gs and stuff like that. Those are great
things within real life that kind of help.

[27:40] Let’s look for the airport here. All right. I can see it.
It’s just beyond the lumber yard. You can see the lumber there kind
of in the trees just this side of town, and then the airport’s just
beyond that. So, we’re almost there. We’ll just make a right base
for 1-2, I believe it is. Actually, no, that’d be 2-8, wouldn’t it?
Yeah, 2-8. So, the westerly runway.

[28:09] I am doing this all by feel. Don’t forget your flaps. I’m
just going to bring this down in onto the town, not the town but
the runway here in Darrington. Very beautiful scenery here,
absolutely incredible, very, very cool.

[28:37] If you want to do stuff like this often, it just gives you
a feel for the aircraft, a true feel. And you’re not letting the
instruments interrupt what your feel is. So this is kind of a cool,
little way to do things. I’m not going to say this is the true
aviator way because an aviator relies on everything within his or
her disposal, but this is certainly a very under taught kind of way
of flying that you can definitely start to teach yourself those
characteristics of an airplane.

[29:21] You can really focus and pay attention to how it acts in
different situations, rather than having to rely on the instruments
to tell you exactly what that is. That becomes a whole different
story once you get into instrument flying, but for now we’re
looking outside. We’re at a good power setting. We’re coming into
the airport. Granted in real life, you would want to be concerned
about air speed, but again even that is something that you can get
a feel for.

[29:50] We’re doing good. We’re going to come down here. We’re
probably a little high right now so don’t have a lot of power.
We’ll turn on our landing light. Again today we’re just aviating
today. We’re not worrying about communication or weather or
anything else. We’re just going.

[30:15] So, let’s bring it down here. We’re still kind of high.
Now, I’m at full flaps,idle power. I think I’ll be able to bring it
in. It shouldn’t be an issue. I’ve got to evaluate what the winds
are doing here as we get closer, and they seem to be quite strong.
I can see that as I turn it’s really starting to push us to the
side, quite a heavy wind.

[30:46] All right. This is going to be difficult, so I’m going to
come down here, kind of “skywompus” if that’s even a word. Keep on
coming on down. Keep on coming on down. All right. Yeah. That’s a
stiff wind, that’s for sure. So I’ll have to do a cross-wind
technique here and get lined up with the runway. Once I’m almost
ready to touch down, I’ll kick the rudder to line up with the
runway so I don’t side load the landing gear.

[31:13] So, here we go, kick the rudder and there we go. We’re
down, not exactly pretty but a lot of my landings have, honestly,
not been that pretty within this series. They could be a lot
better, but I don’t know. It is what it is. I guess I’m too used to
landing in real life. So, we were going a little too fast for that
first taxiway exit. We are just going to continue down here to the
end of the runway, and then we will take the long route back to the
ramp.

[31:53] Let’s go nice and easy here, no rush, no one around. The
sky and the airport is ours.

[32:09] All right. Well, I definitely didn’t need a stop, so let’s
get off the runway here. Chris, let’s go. All righty. Cool. Oh,
man, that was one awesome flight, I’ll tell you what, very, very
pretty. I just love this Pacific Northwest scenery, cool aircraft.
Don’t want to turn off the beacon. Turn off the landing light, and
flaps are coming up as well. We shall taxi. So very cool scenery. I
love it. Just gives me that sense of realism that I love.

[33:04] At airports like this, this is an add-on. On top of the
already awesome Pacific Northwest this is an even better airport
but just incredible. It just has such character, like a real
airport. I’m not going fast at all. Let’s get stopped here or, at
least, slow down so we can pull onto the ramp. I have something
less than 50 knots. It’s easy to lose track when you’re yakking. I
should just keep my mouth shut and fly sometimes.

[33:40] So, we line up on the tee and you can view it as an
airplane shape, the wings are forward. And then we just line up at
that center line with our nose wheel or our tail wheel, but you can
imagine the nose wheel up there with the spinner, and then we line
the wing up with that white line. So, there we go. That’s go
enough. I will pull the mixture, and that will get us all stopped.

[34:10] And then, we’ll do our usual shutdown. Let’s turn off the
beacon, nav light. Mag needle is no longer needed, and I see
everything else is good, actually, the avionics. There we go.
That’s a relief. And now, we can do alternator and battery.

[34:38] That is it. That does it, guys. That is the last cross-
country in Aviator 90. I hope you enjoyed all these cross-
countries. I think it was the best part of this series. So, I am
done, and we will move on to some abnormal procedures.

[34:57] Until next time, throttle on.

Transcription by CastingWords