Flight Check ride-along

[[email protected]]

I had the rare privilege last Tues of riding along with Flight Check
as they inspected the new LDA (Localizer Directional Array) approaches
at CLE (Cleveland, OH)

Typically, we see a King Air from Detroit for periodic checks, where
they just need to fly a few approaches.

For this new installation of 2 new offset ILS's (LDA's), they sent a
Challenger 601 from OKC.

Of course I brought my own headset :)

My original intent was to ride in the back and see exactly how the
techs 'check' the approaches. But once I got in the jump seat behind
the pilots I forgot about that!

One of my co-workers warned me they would be doing a lot of "fast",
"low" flying...Well...

Lots of flying at ~ 1000 AGL at ~ 220 knots.
A couple of times the pilots checked to make sure I was OK with it.
Not even a concern for me...hey, I fly at 1000 AGL all the time!

....and 220 knots feels like slow flight in a big plane @ 45000+
Gross...that's about the weight of 18 172's...

3 hours in the jumpseat...and I felt it :)

I had a blast...even made a notation in my logbook-zero hours of
course...although I did learn a bit! I do think I was smoother on
the controls later that day in the 172-after watching them fly.

Definitely up there on my "pilot geek cool meter"
just below getting my instrument rating (Friday), and just above
riding along on a KC-135 refueling flight ~1988


--Don
Having a good week



Don Byrer
Electronics Technician/Friendly but Sarcastic Pilot
FAA Airways Facilites/Tech Ops, RADAR/Data/Comm @ CLE
Amateur Radio KJ5KB
Instrument Pilot Commercial Student
PP-ASEL 30 Jan 2005 "-IA" 25 Mar 2005

[Gene Whitt]

Y'All,
Not too manyyears ago I was privileged to do the ILS installation flight at
Salinas, CA. Spent the better part of the day on the jump seat of a DC-3
with a break for lunch. Most of the flight was at 110 mph below 1500 feet.

Week later I learned that the entire flight had to be flown over to correct
some possible errors. Great experience. Reminded me
of my C-47 time in India during WWII.
Gene Whitt

[[email protected]]

On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 03:34:59 GMT, "Gene Whitt" >
wrote:

>Y'All,
>Not too manyyears ago I was privileged to do the ILS installation flight at
>Salinas, CA. Spent the better part of the day on the jump seat of a DC-3
>with a break for lunch. Most of the flight was at 110 mph below 1500 feet.
>
FYI, I was told they still have a flying DC-3...for exhibition only.
Would be interesting to know where it's going to be next...

N87 (the Challanger 601) was still at CLE today...maybe I can bum a
second ride later this week...??

--Don
Don Byrer
Electronics Technician/Friendly but Sarcastic Pilot
FAA Airways Facilites/Tech Ops, RADAR/Data/Comm @ CLE
Amateur Radio KJ5KB
Instrument Pilot Commercial Student
PP-ASEL 30 Jan 2005 "-IA" 25 Mar 2005