I’d
stepped into the pilot’s lounge at the virtual airport after finishing up with
my last student of the day. I didn’t think anyone was still in the building and
I wanted to make sure the coffee maker was off—it has a tendency to create
enough smoke to fog the room by morning if left unattended. There’s supposed to
be an automatic shutoff but I can’t help but suspect that it has developed a
personality and gets upset at being ignored and retaliates when people leave of
an evening.
Good article. The FISK arrival scares the living Beegees out of me. Did it only once. Sky filled with little aircraft, generally going in the same direction (although not all) and none of them with complete situational awareness of where everyone is (just too much information). Luckily for me, my Mooney was able to do the faster 135 knot, 2300’ procedure and avoid 98% of those I saw. Still did two go-rounds (tower ordered) on 27 because of shenanigans on the runway.
This year will be the seventh time I will arrive into Airventure using the Diamond Lane. See https://blog.aopa.org/aopa/2016/08/08/flying-the-diamond-lanemass-arrivals-at-osh-bring-connection-and-camaraderie/ and http://www.mooneycaravan.com/home. This year I have volunteered, trained, and qualified, to be responsible for the arrival of three of our aircraft in one of the Caravan elements - I will be an Element Lead. This is the absolute safest way to go to Airventure, in my opinion. We train together, we practice together, we have sound (US FFI) procedures (developed by a former Bone test pilot) and it takes just under 6 minutes to put our 60+ aircraft down on runways 36L and 36R from first to last. Safely and in style.
Bonanzas, Cherokees and Cessnas all have equivalent efforts, although I only know how ours works. Looking forward to this year’s evolution at the end of next week (20 July).