Well, maybe not a rant. More of a tip for future and low time pilots out there.
I was looking at the flight track for a turbo-prop just to check out the performance and because I was bored. The airplane climbed to FL 290, but I noticed it took 7 minutes to climb the last 2000 ft., and 4 minutes the last 1000. Unless there was some overriding reason to climb straight to 290 they just wasted time and fuel.
As a loose rule of thumb, when you get a high performance airplane down to 500 fpm it’s time to level off, let it accelerate and get the power back to cruise settings. Later on after burning of some fuel you can continue the climb. Remember climb ends and cruise begins when you not only level off, but have accelerated to cruise speed and set cruise power. If you can’t do all three in a reasonable amount of time you’ve gone to high.
Anyway, I’m off on vacation in a couple of days, you guys can follow us bringing the airplane to VNY for maintenance on Friday. Reg: HZHA1, planning to depart EGSS (London Stansted) around 1030Z with a couple of stops yet to be finalized.
Must be a gumint operation, the Chief Pilot just called and the waiver has just come through. So much for waiting a week.
Looks like we’re back on for Friday, VACATION starts Saturday (following a cold one Friday night) After not getting out of Saudi for the last month I’m not sure which one I’m looking forward to most.
Do you mind sharing more info about your flight? I don’t know what HZHA1 means or type of aircraft, etc… Sounds fun, something I look forward to doing some day. Thanks!
Sure, as much as I can without getting fired!
HZHA1 is the registration, HZ is Saudi. It’s a GLF2 aka Gulfstream 2 with tip tanks. not many of those around any more.
We leave Jeddah on Thursday stopping in Nice then going to London for the night.
Then we will leave Stansted around 1030Z on Friday stopping in Gander then Duluth for customs before heading to VNY for scheduled maintenance. and VACATION!!
Cool, I hadn’t seen the one in Frankfurt before. We were there several times during the world cup. At least until the Saudi team left!
There are a couple of us on that same trip to Geneva that are better but they don’t seem to be on that site.
The trip to Bern was for our EGPWS certification flight, we got to drive at a mountain, missing it by 300 feet! Needless to say we did that in clear weather and in daylight.
Don’t know who that is, the phone numbers are right. He’s probably the last guy to sign for a shipment of machinery. This company does lots of things, not just food.
Thanks to all for the good wishes, I hope you all had a good 4th. The power was out here for about 4 hours in the afternoon. Lots of fun. 8)
Well, so much for a great plan. We just checked into the hotel in VNY. Thought I’d check out what our flights looked like and they are not there.
At KDLH we both landed and took off right behind CFZQP.
We saw this airplane in Gander: flightaware.com/live/flight/MXJ710 (5 July flight)
Anyway it’s been a long day.
Range with tip tanks is about 20 minutes more than the straight wing and about the same as putting the winglets on, 2700NM or so.
Oh and the ugly paint job was before my time.
