Transcription
Foreign. [Music] ERS in Middle Tennessee are unpredictable is an understatement. The last time we flew was in November. We had an awesome time flying formation and flying into this perfect sunset. But since then, a lot has changed. For starters, the airplane went through an extensive 100-hour, giving it TLC and correcting a lot of things that have been kind of degrading over the year of 2019, where we put almost 700 hours on the airplane.
I had four long cross-country trips planned. Had to cancel all of them due to inclement weather. I traveled to the Atlanta Aviation Social put on by the Traffic Pattern podcast, and I argued with a guy who actually had the balls to reach over me and close my window shade. So to wake up on a Sunday morning and see the sun shining made it absolutely irresistible to go flying. So it's like the first sunny day in history out here right now, and I'm really debating on going flying. Um, it's kind of a dilemma just because the winds are a little out of my comfort zone, and I'll go in a minute. I'm a little rusty. It's been, uh, it's been three months since the last time I was in the airplane, so still sitting on the ground watching things. But, uh, I may just run with scissors and go for it.
I finally got my new elevator installed. I mean, new, new to me. Um, I had a problem with the old one, this, uh, where it actually mounts was cracking the mount itself. So the easiest way to fix that was replace the whole thing, so that's what I did. This day started out with winds being within 10 degrees of runway heading at 10 to 15 knots, which is totally manageable. However, within the next couple hours, it was 17 to 25 knots, quartering to direct crosswind. Forgive me, this was outside of his comfort zone in his Cessna 150. That's why he opted to ride with me. This is also beneficial because now I had somebody to help manage the workload of the airplane, and my primary focus could be on aviating and not necessarily all the other components of managing the aircraft.
Takeoff light. Remember one, two. Number four. Nice. We'll tell you ready to go. Another four is ready. Number one, two, nine, four. Only two zero. Center line. Point. Line up. A weight. Two zero. Center. Nine. Number four. All right, yeah. Still on bows. Make sure it's full rich. Carb heat's in. Lights are on. Things. Nashville Tower, Roger. Service terminated. For exchange approves. I think we can make that takeoff. All right, left one one zero and clear for takeoff. Two zero center. One two nine up. One. All right. [Music] I have a working CHT, EGT gauge again for the first time ever. Congratulations. There's 60. [Music] Or not 65 to rotate. Yeah, I usually write it. 60 is V1. We'll climb out at 80. Are you nuts over there? Are you, uh, that's actually miles per hour. Yeah. Oh, just like my 150. Yeah.
So let's talk about the phrase personal minimums. What exactly does it mean to you as a pilot? When you're considering your minimums, you also want to consider your maximums. Here's a list of examples of things that I consider before every flight. Much of this list already has regulatory minimum standards, but it's your job as a pilot to determine if you're willing to meet or exceed what's required by regulatory requirements and your aircraft. Another thing to consider is to start building in your own personal risk management into every flight that you're about to make. A good place to start is the IMSAFE checklist. Taking a few minutes and going through each one of these bullet points before every flight is a critical step in determining if you need to amend your minimums and ultimately if you should make the no-go decision.
Pittsburgh Tower, 12904 with you. Five miles on the left. 299. You did not just say with you. I did. Whatever. And November, uh, one adult tequilo. Runway one nine. Clear for takeoff. Left turnout. [Music] We went off to do a little sightseeing after we completed doing some landings at Smyrna and had a good little chance to debrief our flight and really kind of talk about what we learned in this experience. For starters, I thought back to a lot of my Private Pilot days, really in my flight training, and this is the kind of a day where it looked appealing, but I most likely would not have gone just due to the winds. To be candid, this may not have even been a day that I would have gone solo, just because of how bumpy it was, and there's not really much point to me in going out to be uncomfortable. But collectively, the two of us in the airplane, this is a very good learning experience to really kind of go out and see what our minimums were and how we felt being exposed to them. Equating this to a situation where you may fly to an airport where the winds are not what were forecasted, and you don't really have much choice but to land, it's always good to be armed with the abilities and the practice to be able to manage those kind of situations. [Music]
This would put us right at the numbers. Yeah, we're going this way, and we're downwind and coming back for the look of that. Thank you for that. Yeah, I think you're going for two left. We're going two zero left, correct? Thank you for catching that. That would have been embarrassing. We'd had a face full of Southwest in a hurry if we did that. And a phone number. And a phone number. Yeah. Zero four zero right. Zero four zero. Nine four. The best advice I can give when it comes to personal minimums is nobody can tell you what yours are. It's really up to you as a pilot to kind of determine what that is and what your standards and what your go-no-go criteria are going to be. Once you have that, never be afraid to amend that with changing conditions, and it's not a bad idea to go out and test it. But I would strongly recommend getting somebody to trust to help you do it, just like I did. This channel is all about the adventure of aviation, but at the forefront of that has to be safety. So I really hope you'll consider subscribing and following along with us.