The Space Shuttle was scheduled to go up today at 4:40 pm. I can get out of work at 4, maybe a little earlier so I'm thinking why not fly over there and see it from the air... So I rush over to the airport and preflight, get the HD camcorder and my ham radio (they broadcast the shuttle stuff). I got to stay out of Orlando, out of R2910 restricted and out of the Shuttle TFR which keeps me in a real narrow corridor and about 30 NMI from the launch site. I get off from the local airport and head NE. The clouds are fairly thick and the viability in haze about 10 miles. The local ADIZ is saying something about some weather stuff and IFR... I'm kind of concerned that I get to the other side of FL and can't make it back, plus the Vis is so bad... I only got 1/3 of the way and figured I was not going to see much so I started climbing. I got over the haze and clouds at 7000 feet and continued to climb to 9500. Now they are saying they are on hold for something so I'm starting to wonder if they will go at all. I decide to stay near the west coast of FL and am showing 90 NMI from the launch pad, but the air is clear blue, perfect. Then I hear that they got a 1 minute window to get off hold... They release the hold and start a 5 minute countdown, the stabilizing arm on the shuttle has been removed... They are going to go! I get the camcorder ready 3 2 1 and a few seconds later the shuttle pops out of the Haze and cloud layer. Got to watch it for about 30 seconds as the red fire out the backside makes a thick white trail across the blue sky. Very nice. Well worth firing up the plane to check it out. Bummer, the video stunk. Maybe with lots of zoom and tripod, oh scratch that I'm in a moving plane... Get your Q done!
Mike Q200 N3QP

Good news!

I got a quotation from the EAA Aircraft Insurance Plan.

Joseph Snow
Q2xx, N240JS
www.corvairq.info
Euclid, Ohio

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Good news!

I got a quotation from the EAA Aircraft Insurance Plan.

Joseph Snow
Q2xx, N240JS
www.corvairq.info
Euclid, Ohio

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

The Space Shuttle was scheduled to go up today at 4:40 pm. I can get out of work at 4, maybe a little earlier so I'm thinking why not fly over there and see it from the air... So I rush over to the airport and preflight, get the HD camcorder and my ham radio (they broadcast the shuttle stuff). I got to stay out of Orlando, out of R2910 restricted and out of the Shuttle TFR which keeps me in a real narrow corridor and about 30 NMI from the launch site. I get off from the local airport and head NE. The clouds are fairly thick and the viability in haze about 10 miles. The local ADIZ is saying something about some weather stuff and IFR... I'm kind of concerned that I get to the other side of FL and can't make it back, plus the Vis is so bad... I only got 1/3 of the way and figured I was not going to see much so I started climbing. I got over the haze and clouds at 7000 feet and continued to climb to 9500. Now they are saying they are on hold for something so I'm starting to wonder if they will go at all. I decide to stay near the west coast of FL and am showing 90 NMI from the launch pad, but the air is clear blue, perfect. Then I hear that they got a 1 minute window to get off hold... They release the hold and start a 5 minute countdown, the stabilizing arm on the shuttle has been removed... They are going to go! I get the camcorder ready 3 2 1 and a few seconds later the shuttle pops out of the Haze and cloud layer. Got to watch it for about 30 seconds as the red fire out the backside makes a thick white trail across the blue sky. Very nice. Well worth firing up the plane to check it out. Bummer, the video stunk. Maybe with lots of zoom and tripod, oh scratch that I'm in a moving plane... Get your Q done!
Mike Q200 N3QP


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

The Space Shuttle was scheduled to go up today at 4:40 pm. I can get out of work at 4, maybe a little earlier so I'm thinking why not fly over there and see it from the air... So I rush over to the airport and preflight, get the HD camcorder and my ham radio (they broadcast the shuttle stuff). I got to stay out of Orlando, out of R2910 restricted and out of the Shuttle TFR which keeps me in a real narrow corridor and about 30 NMI from the launch site. I get off from the local airport and head NE. The clouds are fairly thick and the viability in haze about 10 miles. The local ADIZ is saying something about some weather stuff and IFR... I'm kind of concerned that I get to the other side of FL and can't make it back, plus the Vis is so bad... I only got 1/3 of the way and figured I was not going to see much so I started climbing. I got over the haze and clouds at 7000 feet and continued to climb to 9500. Now they are saying they are on hold for something so I'm starting to wonder if they will go at all. I decide to stay near the west coast of FL and am showing 90 NMI from the launch pad, but the air is clear blue, perfect. Then I hear that they got a 1 minute window to get off hold... They release the hold and start a 5 minute countdown, the stabilizing arm on the shuttle has been removed... They are going to go! I get the camcorder ready 3 2 1 and a few seconds later the shuttle pops out of the Haze and cloud layer. Got to watch it for about 30 seconds as the red fire out the backside makes a thick white trail across the blue sky. Very nice. Well worth firing up the plane to check it out. Bummer, the video stunk. Maybe with lots of zoom and tripod, oh scratch that I'm in a moving plane... Get your Q done!
Mike Q200 N3QP


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Note 1: I love my Q.
The mission today was for the wife and I to meet two other airplanes in
Ocala FL for Lunch. That's about 45 min as the Q flies from home base. The
wind showed 10 knots on my nose, no problem. As we were taxing out I see my
buddy coming back in his Lightning..(http://www.flylightning.net/). I
found out later that his carb heat control wire broke and the knob came out
in his hand... never a good sign. Oh well now there is still one friend to
meet there. He's flying from ZPH in his RV6a. Off from PIE we stayed low
going North, like 400 feet over Tampa bay and up the canal to Lake Tarpon
where we started a climb to our cruising altitude of 3000 feet +-500 feet +-
20 degrees of heading, hey no reason to work hard at holding a heading.
Turned on some Jos Stone from the MP3 player and we droned on. Ocala has
always had lots of private jets and it's only recently got a control tower.
They had me report a 3 mile base for 36 with two other airplanes inbound
somewhere... I followed the Cessna on 2 mile final and made an ok landing,
not a squeaker but didn't bounce back up in the air. A 1940 Howard pulled in
and parked next to us. Nice guy. He said it goes 170 mph. I said wow, I'm
doing 170 at 5 GPH, he looked like he almost had a stroke cause he uses more
like 36 GPH! See note 1 above.

It was getting toward 1 pm and my RV6a buddy hadn't shown yet. He's always
late anyway. This time I told him 11:30 knowing we'd be there at 12:00. So
we had lunch and made it back out to the plane. We taxied to the end of 36
in Ocala and there's my buddy #2 for the airport. At least he made it a
little after 1pm. The tower had me take off before him as a small blimp was
slowly flying over the airport. Really wanted to ask permission to buzz the
blimp but I doubted they have my sense of humor so I refrained...

Next week is the George Read Memorial flyin at Twelve Oaks, a 2600' grass
strip. Years ago I made it in there with George in the right seat, somewhat
scary. George test flew the Q200 that I built. He passed away a few years
ago. Now the trees on the end are taller and the runway has several sand
pits. Not Q capable. I buzzed the field and my friend Gary came out waving
his arms wildly to say Hi. He knew I wasn't landing, just saying Hi.

As we climbed back to the crazy high altitude of 3000 feet the smoke and
haze was pretty bad. We Floridians get spoiled with the normal 20 mile+ vis
but today at times was pretty bad. Put the Jos Stone back on and we droned
into the haze. Will all my new fangled EFIS and moving map a little haze is
no problem. Back in the old days I remember a trip to the Keys when the the
sky, water, everything was the same gray haze, no horizon what so ever...
and I turned back. Now I'm much more capable with all this electronics as
long as it keeps working!

Back in the Tampa area the tower tells me to do a left downwind for 36R.
I'm close in downwind ready to turn base when a Coast Guard C130 calls ready
for take off. The tower tells him to hold short for landing traffic (me).
He's burning all that JetA and I'm paying for it so I keep it in close, real
close. No final at all, just a swooping left turn right over the numbers...
If the C130 was looking out their window they were probably jealous that I
could do that... no in after thought they probably like being able to get
up, stretch their legs, and get a cup of coffee while flying...

Another ok, not a squeaker landing and we taxi back to the hangar, one more
successful mission. Probably put 1.5 hours on the clock, don't really care
cause I'm not paying $160 an hour. See Note 1 above.

Mike Q200 N3QP KPIE


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