Monday, November 19, 2012

Passing Through 50hrs PiC

Last week I passed through 50 hours Pilot in Command (PiC) time. Wow, what an amazing 50 hours. I can't believe how much I have done.

Seems that I have been taking someone new flying for the first time every week. So far, no one has not enjoyed themselves. Last week was no exception. 
A work colleague wanted to visit the Pima Air and Space Museum down in Tucson. Seemed a perfect time to take him flying for the first time. I rented a C172 on Friday morning and we flew down to KTUS before spending time touring the Museum and the attached military aircraft boneyard (309th AMARG Boneyard).

This was probably my fourth of fifth visit to Tucson International Airport. I always relish flying to this airport. It offers a real mix of traffic. You have anything from GA aircraft through to civil airliners and fast military jets. 

It's an interesting place to visit from a Air Traffic Control perspective. KTUS lies within Class Charlie airspace. With the mix of traffic, one can always expect some pretty fast paced instructions from ATC. My arrival was no exception. I counted at least four radar vectors due to landing military and civil airliner traffic. For a brief moment, I imagined myself immersed in the cloud getting vectors for an IFR approach to minima!

Arrival Video - GoPro YouTube Video

Departure Video - GoPro YouTube Video

Key Takeaways - Need to work on eliminating my flat landings! Shorten some of my replies to ATC, ref: my initial call to Clearance Delivery.

Enjoy these sample photos from my trip. Here's to another amazing 50 hours PiC!


Air Force One - Kennedy era

Boneyard Photo

Phantoms

Never been as close as this to one of these

F-16 and MD-80 at KTUS

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