Short Hop for Breakfast

[gmascelli]

​​It was a quickly put together fly-in breakfast meet through Facebook. We had four planes and five people attending. Chris and his bride made the hop in their V-tail Bonanza, Les arrived in his Sundowner, Bob in his 172, and me in our Commander.

It has been 25 days since I last flew and it showed on the flight from OCMD to Cambridge. The return trip was normal, checklist items flowing and no feeling of what did I miss.

I was above the cloud layer at three thousand and had to find a hole to descend through to make my way towards the pattern for runway one-six. The pattern was an absolute beehive of activity, crazy busy, planes everywhere.
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[TD]Approaching Cambridge MD KCGE[/TD]
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I had to go around due to a Cessna still on the runway when I was just coming over the numbers. I side stepped right and climbed out. The rust was showing. The muscle reflex of Cram, Climb, Clean, Cool, Communicate wasn't there. Oh I went full power, left the gear extended, and slowly retracted the flaps. I didn't touch the cowl flaps. Somehow I did manage to communicate. The DA was around eleven hundred and 3 Tango Charlie was dragging around the pattern. Ughh...not my best display of piloting skills. [TABLE="align: center, cellpadding: 0, cellspacing: 0"]
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[TD]Going around[/TD]
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Four of us waited for a good amount of time due to limited seating, a full ramp of planes, and some locals. When we were finally seated it took some time to take our order, which worked out perfect for Bob, who had a late start due to fog.


Bob landed just before they took our order and he walked by the restaurant windows just after we went around the table. I told the waitress he had to run out to his plane and was coming right back. She quickly asked did he leave his order and I gave the deer in the headlights look then said he did not. Busted!

The conversations were fun, with multiple bucket list destinations discussed for each of us. I think we were all in agreement we want to do the Bahamas.

We finished up and headed back out to the ramp, still busy with planes. I climbed aboard and got the fan turning, despite a bit of a long crank. With a short sputter and added fuel pump 3 Tango Charlie caught and came to life.

It was a conga line getting out, I think I was third. I rolled on to runway three-four and made a longer then usual take off roll but was soon climbing out. I actually think there was a slight tail wind but I followed the line out anyway. I departed the area on the downwind and pointed for Ocean City. [TABLE="align: center, cellpadding: 0, cellspacing: 0"]
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[TD]It was still busy, even on departure[/TD]
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I skirted around Salisbury to the north wanting to remain below the cloud layer. I didn't want to climb above for the last twelve minutes of flight time to OXB
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[TD]missing the Delta Space[/TD]
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I made a nice landing at Ocean City and tucked 3 Tango Charlie back in the hangar. It felt good getting back in the plane and I hope to build more time as weather permits.

 

[Jaybird]

Awesome video Gary! Yes my glareshield gets hot enough to fry an egg on too.
BTW, do you fly WOT? And what fuel flow and EGT/CHT do you lean your 112A to in cruise???

 

[gmascelli]

Awesome video Gary! Yes my glareshield gets hot enough to fry an egg on too.
BTW, do you fly WOT? And what fuel flow and EGT/CHT do you lean your 112A to in cruise???

Jay,

Thank you.

On the short hops down low I dial it back to 22/24. Temps are 1430/330 depending where lean to. Fuel burn around 10 gal/hr.

On a ‘travel’ flight I’ll stay higher and run 24 squared or better depending on altitude. I just added oxygen so I am going to try higher and note performance.

 

[Jaybird]

I run WOT nearly everywhere so altitude dictates my manifold pressure. I have been to 13,000 ft and MP showed like 18” if I recall. There is no red box at this low of power so you can lean to peak or beyond.

 

[milojevicp]

Dude! What a fantastic cockpit photo! Well done Gary!
Best regards,
Pete

 

[CenAir]

Gary nice video but looks like from your video on the go around you did a no standard missed, and turned back into the landing traffic short final area?

 

[gmascelli]

Gary nice video but looks like from your video on the go around you did a no standard missed, and turned back into the landing traffic short final area?

Paul,

I'm not sure I understand what you are asking or stating.

With the cessna still rolling out after landing I went around, stepping to the right to keep the runway and aircraft in view. I then turned (left) crosswind, downwind, base, and final in the standard pattern. I kept my head on a swivel, flowing with traffic, and making my second attempt for landing to a full stop. I wasn't sure why the cessna needed the full length of the runway to roll out but it was his/hers to use and I needed to adjust accordingly. I should have extended my initial down wind and slowed down a bit more. It's always fun getting into and out of Cambridge on a busy day.

 

[plight]

Hey Gary,

Excellent video. What kind of camera and how/where did you mount it? I like the view between the pilot/copilot.

 

[gmascelli]

Hey Gary,

Excellent video. What kind of camera and how/where did you mount it? I like the view between the pilot/copilot.

Phil,

Thank you!

Here is my blog post for the video set up in my Commander. https://gmflightlog.blogspot.com/201...eo-set-up.html

I use two Garmin VIRB XE's for the main viewing. One mounted on the pilot or coilot side and the other main view between the seats looking forward (with a prop filter). My tail camera is an Activeon Gold with a mount from MyPilotPro. The other Activeon Gold is mounted for the Aspen view or up on the dash pad to see my ugly mug. So pretty much on the aspen or Garmin 480. It's best not to scare people with my mug.

 

[plight]

Hi Gary,

Thanks for the link. Great idea, mounting the camera onto the pilot chair's headrest. Just brilliant! You might want to look at the mounts from Flight Flix (.net). They have aluminum amounts and cases for a variety of action cameras. I'm told that the Lexan cases over time, will break (UV light is not their friend) and bye-bye camera.