Philthy's phlying phenanagans
 

I've been rather busy these last 3.5 years being sober now and all. I've come to realize a long term dream of mine that enables me to make money at my passion - flying - and what's even better about that is most of my flights involve transporting surgical teams for organ donor transplants.

My new office is now a fleet of two Hawker 800A's. They are truly great aircraft that are in the mid-sized jet category with a mtow (maximum take-off weight) of 28,000lbs and a max landing weight of 23,500 lbs.

I just started taking my gopro along on trips and here is the first one I put together from the return flight from the Grand Cayman Islands Owen Roberts International where I was the pilot flying. There will be plenty more, but like I mentioned, this is the first of what I hope to be many that I will post here. (this flight was the 1 out of 10 that was a normal charter and not a medical team)

take-off Grand Cayman, cuts to flying over Clear Lake in Houston, then final approach to rwy 4 at Houston Hobby. Note the sun is setting behind us and the shadow make the vid, I think.

link

I guess joy rides. and impress the chick rides, are kept to a minimum. ;)

it's not cheap, lol!!

About 2 or 3 weeks ago, we had a flight to Tulsa and the weather was very IFR (instrument conditions).
The following pics are on the return flight to Houston flying through the clouds and one thing about a Hawker is the wires in the heated windshield tend to be a catalyst for St. Elmo's Fire - or static buildup and discharge across the windscreen which, at first, can be kind of freaky and actually scare the shit out of you if you don't know what it is. I grabbed my phone and started videoing them one by one and then screen shot them to stills. enjoy!

last one

Is that right on the glass or back off it an inch, 2 inches, or more?

it appeared to be right on it and stemming from the bolts/rivets on the center post

Whoa, that's cool. Welcome back P.

thank ya sir! :thumb:

Try bolting a block of wood to the windshield.

Lotta flaps.

Holy shit! That's amazing.

Thanks for that Philthy.

Great choice in Floyd for the music, btw.

Any particular reason ya took that right turn, instead of a left, from Owen Roberts, other than that's what they told ya to do?

We know ya got a life and all, but, we've missed you.:)

Those photos of St Elmo's fire are awesome!

super cool, i'll try that! :thumbsup: :shocking: :lol:

Floyd seemed appropriate, glad you liked it!

We were instructed to intercept the 215 radial off the vor, to do this it required a right turn. I hand flew it up to about 15,000 then let George (autopilot) take over until we got back to Houston then I hand flew it from base leg on to touchdown.

These last three and a half years have been busy busy busy. Between my alcohol recovery, flying, and engineering - I hardly have had time to sleep! Now though, I've only my pinky toe in engineering and am all but out of it completely which actually frees up some time. I've missed y'all as well!

yep, 45 degrees, then upon landing we extend the air brakes and put them into "lift dump" which extends the flaps from 45 degrees to 75 degrees and hyper-extends the air-brake spoilers on the wings which is very efficient

I freakin' love it!! Only thing I don't care for with it is we do run the risk of loosing our radios. Great to see you Sarge!

Flew to Dallas Love on Saturday to pick up passengers and take them to Las Vegas for the super bowl, here's a vid clip of the trip

You made good time, under 9 minutes. ;)

it's those Garrett engines :D:D:D

Well done, Capt. Philthy!

A few questions:

What (plane) were ya flying there? What kind of takeoff/cruise speeds are we talking? What is your personal favorite part of a trip like that? How fast can ya get that particular plane off the ground, y'know, if screaming passengers didn't bother ya?

I like these little clips like this, thanks for putting them up.

Were your passengers disappointed to discover the game was in Atlanta?

They do their betting in Vegas watching the game from Atlanta.;)

Paying big bucks to fly from Dallas to Las Vegas to bet on a game in Atlanta.
I wish I had thought of that.

You wish you could afford that. :lol:

Meh, what's a few thousand bucks out the airplane window?

Unless ya won, of course!

I fly 2 Hawker 800A's that are in our fleet, the video above is in triple 7 and both have the same t/o speeds which we get depending on weight, temperature, and altitude.

If I remember right, for this trip, we were roughly at 25,000 lbs and the temperature was hovering around 10 degrees C (maybe a little cooler) and close enough to sea level to use the associated chart (or "tab data" to get our takeoff speeds. In this case with flaps 15 degrees: V1/Vr = 129, V2 = 132, Vfto = 164, and Venr = 176
(V1 = decision speed, Vr = Rotate, V2 = single engine takeoff speed, Vfto = single engine gradient climb speed , Venr = single engine en-route climb speed.

Favorite part of the trip(s)? All of them :D seriously, take off is a rush advancing the throttles and feeling the acceleration but also is a great approach to landing too - so I'd say it's a tie between both take off and landing.

Take off distance depends on the same variables as with the above V speeds. On our "tab data" chart is also runway length required, which in the example above, we require 5000 feet to safely take off. Do we use 5000? No, not quite, but we will use a good portion of it. I've taken triple seven off of a 5000 ft runway in the Bahamas and we used probably on the better side of 75% of that runway.

Glad you like the vids! It's a total hoot "working" this job, I never thought I'd be paid to do my passion! Sorry it takes me so long to get back but my schedule is freakin' crazy! Juggling flying, teaching, engineering and one other task that takes up a ton of time - I don't have any left hardly, :D but that's ok, it beats the alternative to what I was doing 4 years ago - I'll take it any day!

:cool::thumb:

Ooh, that black one is sexaaay.

Thanks for replying to the Q's, man. We know ya got a life, dude, just keep on keeping on.

And keep the vids coming, when ya can.

^^^WHS^^^

I flew two trips today, here is a vid I put together of the second one. Departed from Port Isabel, Tx. and flew to Houston Hobby. On this flight I used my comm interface cable with my gopro - only downside is you can't hear any of the ambient noise (ie. engines and airflow).

Port Isabel is an uncontrolled field so we had to call up clearance delivery on the ground frequency to get our clearance into controlled airspace which is what the first part is all about. Later on, when landing at Hobby, you can hear the GPWS (pronounced gyp whiz), screaming at me about the glide slope. I purposefully went below the glide slope, as a lot of pilots will do in visual conditions, to make the most out of the usable runway as when the 3 degree slope is followed it puts you down in the touchdown zone which is five hundred to a thousand feet past "the numbers" or the beginning of the runway.

Thanks for your video, plthi. :thumb:

I know that the days of two VORs and an ADF are pretty much gone, but I was wondering what NAV fit you have.
Presumably a glass cockpit display with waypoints and all the other info needed in one place?
Do you still use paper charts of any description?

Hope you don't mind my asking!

Radio link was prety cool. Reminds me of the days I was really into radio scanners. I'd hear pilot/tower comms and try to figure out just what in the hell those guys were saying. I could understand them just fine, but they may as well have been speaking a different language til I sort of assimilated the patois.

Not at all, ask away!

VOR's are becoming a thing of the past but they are still in use and will be for some time to come probably. They have decommissioned some around the US already, though.

The navigation setup that we have on the Hawkers is GPS, VOR, and NDB via our FMS (flight navigation system). It incorporates almost all fixes, be them VOR, NDB, or GPS HOWEVER not all of them are capable of certain navigational functions such as the newer LPV approach. This requires an upgrade to the system. An LPV is a newer approach that makes the older non-precision GPS approach which only has horizontal guidance to the runway and makes it like an ILS approach in which WAAS (wide area augmentation system - it's ground based and works with the satellites for pin point accuracy) is utilized and enables the system to give both horizontal AND vertical guidance to the runway.

The two Hawkers I fly both have the Collins systems installed on them but they are not identical by any means and this is because of the two different models of the FMS's. They both do the same thing, but they have different ways of going about doing them, kind of like a Samsung phone vs. an LG. It's annoying.

As you can see in the pics, I fly a mostly analog panel with some "glass". The flight instruments are glass while all the engine and fuel monitoring, environmental are older analog (or steam gauges). It's an older system, but it works fine and gets the job done.

Many thanks, sir!

Your comments about VORs being withdrawn came as something of a surprise I must admit but I am somewhat out of touch.
I know that in the UK there is a program of withdrawal of NDBs but I now find that VORs are about to follow suit.
From a total of forty-four there'll be nineteen left by 2020. Times change...

Thanks also for the cockpit pics which have shed some light on the subject, so to speak.

All the best,

Carruthers.

NATS VOR article.

yes, they are being phased out but a lot of them are still being kept to aid in navigation in the event of gps outages.

from an article in the May 2018 AOPA magazine:
As of April, the FAA had discontinued 23 of the more than 300 ground-based navaids it plans to shut down by 2025 as more aircraft equip to fly performance-based navigation routings enabled by GPS. Selecting navaids for removal involves evaluating whether a navaid should be kept in service as part of the minimum operational network, which will serve as a backup system designed to ensure that an aircraft can navigate to an airport within 100 nautical miles of the navaid and shoot a VOR or ILS approach there in the event of a GPS service interruption.

here is another vid from the two flights yesterday. This one is the take off from Lafayette La. back to Houston to pick up the pax for the second trip that afternoon.